Father and Daughter Time

This is my dear daughter Jessica Aldridge nee Wise, who’s visiting us over spring break, and today is one of the moments we’ll leave the experiences Caroline, Jessica, and I have been exploring together to take a journey a deux into the absurd out on the road. My daughter, a troubled soul, in her attempts to find a direction, is throwing the proverbial monkey poo at the wall, trying to see what sticks, but so far is simply all over the place. Considering that she has an inordinate amount of time for herself, we’ve been encouraging her to consider delving deeper into her creative abilities. To that end, we lead by example, hoping Jessica might discover some level of fun in one of the many things we share with her, but nothing seems to stick. Sure, she’s started enjoying photography and has taken to writing but the hit-and-miss nature of paying attention to it is limiting a rapid evolution and growth.

Roadside in Arizona

So, on a spur of the moment, the two of us jumped into the car for a road trip east with no plan or idea of what might actually come out of our jaunt down the highway. Whatever it was going to be, it was likely to end up in a book we were putting together as a keepsake of her time in Arizona with Caroline and me.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

I almost forgot to share with the reader that I’m rather tardy with posting this sequence, as in a dozen years late. I posted a few bits and pieces back in 2011, but I was too busy showing Jessica other creative endeavors, and then we were also overwhelmed trying to knock out the hardcover book that was evolving day by day. We’d even recruited the help of my son-in-law Caleb to make a contribution from afar so when he sees the book; he can feel like he was a part of the adventure with his wife.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

I suppose my desire to lend influence to my daughter has a lot to do with not having the most active role in her childhood because her mother and I divorced. Twenty-two years ago, I followed a love that was never really present between her mom and me. That obviously meant there would be a delta between us, especially after she moved back to the United States some years before I eventually did, too. By the time I was landing in Arizona, she was over in Texas, and her mom had remarried. To be frank, and Jessica will be the first to admit the same, my ex-wife married a half-wit, and on more than one occasion, in conversation with Sheila, my ex, she as much as said so but felt economically trapped. The anti-intellectual stance of Jessica’s stepfather, with a propensity for psychological torture, conspired against everyone in their household (there were six in total) to accept mediocrity reinforced by deep poverty.

Roadside in Arizona

Jessica knew she wanted out of Texas and even asked seriously if we’d bring her permanently to Arizona so she could escape the psycho named Barry, her stepfather. We denied her for both selfish reasons and in deference to her mom, who invested as much as she could to give my daughter the best life she could, and it was Jessica who helped offer Sheila a semblance of refuge, most times. After a time, it started to appear that Sheila was sacrificing her own sense of self as she obliged her husband and his increasingly peculiar behavior. Well, it turned out that on top of everything else, Barry had early-onset dementia.

Roadside in Arizona

By the time Jessica was turning 17 she decided that she was going to try joining the Navy. Initially, I wanted to talk her out of serving in the military as I didn’t see a good fit, but she convinced me with the argument that she wanted out of Florence, Texas, before she was pregnant or on meth. It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic when those are the options for many in small-town America. Military life proved to be a constraint she wasn’t ready for, and fairly early on in her soon-to-be-over naval career, she went AWOL. Sheila contacted me about the situation, but I had no more information than she or the Navy had. Jessica hadn’t contacted me while hiding out. To be honest, my initial impression was that there was some likelihood that my not-very-angelic daughter might have turned to a life of ill repute.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

Luckily for all of us, my daughter wasn’t taking starring roles in porn and developing that meth habit she feared in Texas. She was simply hiding and playing video games while her then-boyfriend covered for her. Somehow, the Navy let her go without her spending a single day in jail; how that worked out is beyond my imagination. So, here we are today, and Jessica is about 25; I’m not good at remembering what year she was born, as I was distracted at the time by my own dramas. I suppose I’d like to save her from distraction, but I also understand that we all have to fall to earth on our own terms.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

Help me, Dad, I’m asking for a hand to drag me out of the desert of the woman I don’t know yet! Sorry, daughter, but you will have to struggle, likely for some time, as learning who we are is a traitorous, unmarked trail through ambiguity and hurt. My apologies for not having this knowledge myself when I was younger, so I might have better been able to convey to you something valuable about how to negotiate one’s self, but the good stuff arrives with age if one is able to cultivate such things.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

Go forward and nosh on the bitter experiences as they present themselves as you are cursed with a curiosity that might get you in trouble, but unless you are willing to roll over and accept an existence you resented your mother for taking on, you might walk in an old pair of my shoes and just have to try everything because why not?

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

You’ve already learned that doing what others demand of you tastes like shit, but the balancing act between self-exploration and the need for survival takes a lot of work. You are finding indulgence at too young an age and are simultaneously lucky and unlucky that you are able to wander so far and wide.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

You desire to fashion yourself into a kind of Thinker; you love reading, traveling, and new experiences. You don’t shy away from discomfort but only on your own terms. Be careful, as this is a means to finding yourself stewing in a heap of nothing very meaningful. Discomfort and struggle make the wins so much sweeter.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

Today, though, we’ll go out and catch up with the play we lost when your father, for all intents and purposes, turned away from you. Love and happiness are evolving things, just like adding a new book and another trip to your repertoire of tools you pull from to shape how you see the world. We learn to find in others those attributes we’d like to see in ourselves and hope that they might love similar things within us. Those aspects of becoming human should find entanglement in ways that make your soul sing, but this can be elusive, and if and when it shows up, will it really be the right time?

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

It’s all fun and games when we don’t yet understand the things we aren’t yet ready to know.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

The enthusiasm of my daughter to find what she hasn’t seen or places she’s not been is great, if only she could attach that to some extended learning about skills that can catapult her further down the proverbial road. Then again, maybe Caleb and this half-crazed girl in a woman’s body who appears to be pushing against the idea of growing up will find the symbiosis to explore the world together.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

The story behind these photos, if it could really be called a story, is found in the book we put together, but as I looked at it with the idea of transferring it to this entry, it just wasn’t going to work out. That idea is dead, like the body below my left wheel.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

After all my lecturing and criticism, my daughter jumped into a vehicle in Duncan, Arizona, with the idea of escaping her father; little did she recognize that the abandoned truck wasn’t going anywhere and hadn’t in many years.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

So she took off on foot, determined to get back to Florida rather than suffer another moment with Mr. Critical.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

There’s so much we wish for our offspring but at the end of the day, if they are happy, we should be on their side for finding some of that. I think that, for the most part, Jessica is excited about her prospects and lacks any fear about jumping into new adventures. All the same, I do worry about her financial future as she meanders through life.

Jessica Aldridge nee Wise in Arizona

Yes, this was her reaction to the idea that I’d had enough of her and that she needed to return to her husband; spring break was over.

Eat It!

Jessica Aldridge learning that you are never too old to be disciplined

My daughter will never be too old to be disciplined or me too immature to seek revenge. After helping to change her diapers for almost two years after she was born, I felt it was high time to give her a lesson on what it’s like to deal with those poopy things. While out on a road trip in the middle of the desert, she had a choice to make. She could find her way to wherever she thought she might stumble while in a desolate corner of the stinking hot desert or she would have to chow down on this dirty diaper someone cast off out of their car window. I’ll spare you the gory details I photographed of her chewing through the plastic liner to get to the creamy inner yumminess – ewe, I gag a little just thinking about it again. Anyway, she finished her snack. I feel that revenge was had, and she is once again safe at home – in Florida.

Fibery Day

Jessica Aldridge and Caroline Wise on our balcony where Caroline was teaching Jessica how to dye roving that Jessica would later spin into yarn

Today would be dedicated to Jessica and Caroline spending time together. It started out on our balcony where Caroline taught Jessica how to dye roving using acid dyes that she would later learn how to spin into yarn. Jess had the opportunity to spin on a drop spindle and also on Caroline’s wheel. The next lesson was how to knit. With those two busy in their world of fiber, I was free to make one of Jessica’s favorite meals she was first introduced to on a previous visit, I made Pani-Puri. This Indian snack popular on the beaches of Mumbai (Bombay) makes for a great dinner – if you have a full day to prepare everything.

Queen For A Day

Jessica Aldridge, Caroline Wise, and John Wise at the Renaissance Festival outside of Phoenix, Arizona

We know who wears the pants in our household – my wife the King, that’s who. I’m just a lowly queen flittering about with my flowers and tiara dreaming of the days I was a mere princess. Better a queen than that idiot on the left. Who aspires to be a jester? Oh, the pain that I must admit that this is in fact, my daughter. Lucky for us that during our time at the Renaissance Festival, we were allowed to walk around incognito sporting casual everyday folk garments allowing us to blend in. The trials and tribulations of being royalty.

You’ve Been Hacked

Jessica Aldridge arriving in Arizona

Jessica Aldridge here. This site is now mine, it’s been hacked. My father, the old fool he is, left his blogging software open allowing me to take over his blog, change his password, and lock him out. It’s mine, all mine. Look for more of my silly face as I explore posting the most absurd faces you could imagine. Over the coming days, I will embarrass my father allowing the world to see the poor genetics he has put into the world, or maybe I won’t and tomorrow I’ll post some photos of our trip to the Ren Fest. Huzzah!

Happy

This is John Wise in the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River in November 2010

My best friend is Happiness. Unbounded, wild, romantic, and adventurous Happiness. I am hopelessly in love with the idea, the reality, the possibilities offered from my relationship with Happy. It has taken many a year and much struggle before allowing myself to warm up to Happy. From those early days when I was first introduced to Happy’s cousin, Kinda Happy, I have matured and grown fond of the Happy family to the point where we married and are now Mr. and Mrs. Perfectly Happy.

Prior to finding Happiness, I, like many others, swirled around the drain of despair. My acquaintances were a seedy lot: Jack Loneliness, Buddy Fear, Kathy Uncertainty, and Stan Inferiority. This group of idiots had personalities so strong that mine took the back seat. I tried to stand up to their coercive badgering but it wouldn’t be until I properly learned to abuse alcohol followed by enrolling in the College of Drug Abuse that my sordid friends became family.

Then, like in all good stories that are just starting to find real drama, when on the verge of moral darkness another Greek tragedy is about to play out and our lead character appears ready to stumble into the abyss, in a flash he is run over by the truck of enlightenment. Like kryptonite working on Superman, my hero – me, wearing the cape of emotional dissolution, wilts under the power of knowledge.

My nemesis appears as a saboteur of the mind posing as an Iranian bookseller who thrusts Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil into my hands. Argh, I’m being taken over by the light side. Clouds begin to part, smiles emerge, I can see the faint glimmer of Happiness on the distant horizon but still far enough away to not appear threatening. I return to the TV to lay witness to depravity, murder, rape, carjackings, home invasions, child abduction, terrorism, plane crashes, plunder, Washington lobbyists, and various other guards that protect us from premature Happiness.

Yet sadly, the hooks of conformity were being weakened by my exposure to the very idea of thinking. The more I learned of our potential the fewer drugs and alcohol were able to help maintain the friendships that were slipping away. Sometimes I think I still miss Buddy and Stan in some small way but I have made new friends. As these bonds were disintegrating I saw that qualities like self-loathing were giving way to tingly feelings of emergent amazement.

It was dawning on me that the only thing standing between me and my long walk into the horizon where Happiness stood was the twenty-five years of baggage I had voluntarily agreed to lug around. In a rush of deliberate action, I tossed that load off my shoulders, got in the car, and ran that crap over – squashing it dead.

Now if life were truly easy and perfect, I would have driven off into the sunset, picked up Happiness, and never looked back. But life is often like the movies, something evil was left behind. Must have been a toiletry bag from my youth, hidden in my neck underneath that ponytail I wore at the time because every once in a while some invisible force has unzipped the bag, letting out a cadre of uncertainties. Over time, though, that old bag has become well worn and its contents are being lost and are now mostly gone.

As for Happiness, we know how to hang out, resolve our problems, and put on the party hats. Our relationship is heading into its twenty-third anniversary and is growing stronger. Along the way, I met my other wife who has been able to exponentiate my relationship to Happiness. Together the three of us have flirted with Ecstasy, we have danced in the vaulted heights of Delirium, and we work hard to maintain the distance between the old black hole of what was and the event horizon that is a constant source of optimistic potential.