Photo by Bekky Lonsdale
Never before have i ever had such a disaster with a finalise pen. I think changes in the air pressure must force all of the ink out through the nib - creating an incredible mess across these pages (this blog is written up out of my hand written journal).
But oh yes, why the change in air pressure, i hear you all desperately asking? You just simply need to know.
Well, turns out that i am writing this whilst sat on an aeroplane with the lovely Bekky Lonsdale. We are currently 34,031 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, travelling at 547 mph and approximately three hours and fourteen minutes away from landing in the United States of America. It's yet to hit me, it seems all too sudden and surreal. The day so far has consisted of waking up on the living room sofa, just about maintaining consciousness on the tube and then plunging into sleep on the plane.
I guess i should recap on some of my thought of the past few days. I began to seriously consider the ethics of embarking on this project, whether it is fair to stir such memories and emotions within my Mum & Gran. There have been a few moments where i have been worried that i have been pushing too far. As i have spoken about before, it is much easier for me to tackle this story than it is them as i never met Joey. I'm distanced, they're not.
It is also a very different experience for my Mum than it is for my Gran. Since my Mum didn't know Joey as well as she would have liked, she can get wrapped up in the excitement of asking questions that she has wondered about for all of her life, to hopefully have them answered by my research. However, it also saddens her to read through his old letters to both herself and my Gran. They're hard letters to read as well, letters from a lonely man - a man full of regret. My Mum often tells me that she blames herself, that she neglected her Father because she had a lot going on in her life at the time. She shouldn't blame herself though, it couldn't be further from her fault. She also raised a concern that really struck me, stunted me for a large period of time. The worry was about how public this project is, concerned that if Joey knew about this, would he be happy for me to be describing his flaws for the world to see? Probably not. This really threw me. In my past entries i have talked of how he cheated on my Gran, became dependent on alcohol, hung out with the wrong people and how i personally disagree with his love of guns. I now feel guilty for this as without more context, this appears like an attack on his character, which i don't think is what i had intended. I hope it wasn't. Yes, i had been quite disappointed in the fading of the Joseph O'Donnell that i thought i knew, but only i am to blame for this.
I appreciate that this is just as hard - if not harder, for my Gran to recall it all. From the way she talks about Joey, excusing his actions due to his youth, i don't think she ever fell out of love with him. Although, i believe that he hurt her too much to gain her forgiveness. There are huge portions of the story that i think Grace honestly managed to forget. On a few occasions we have discovered something that she must have known at one time, only to find out that she has no recollection of it. I don't like to push my Gran for the answers, i can see that the wounds still hurt.
This fear of exploitation, attack & defamation of character put me in an awkward place.
Could i carry on? Would it be fair to do so?
It was only when i visited Bekky's Auntie's a few days later that i had a small realisation. Jonte, a family friend, had come around to say hi. This was the first time i had met him - he was a tall, skinny guy with lengthy, messy hair. He was in his forties and bursting with energy, enthused about mine and Bekky's trip. I explained what we were doing there and why, mentioning nothing about my current dilemma. The conversation moved on, chatting away for thirty minutes more or so. As Jonte picked himself up to go, heading towards the door he turned over his shoulder - 'Make him look good!' 'Make him look good?' i thought. Such a simple sentence that when applied to this story, had such a complexity to it. 'Make him look good' i thought again. I kept playing it over in my head. I didn't want to portray Joey as a 2d, amazing man and dismiss the bedsides of his story and his personality. To do so would be offensive in itself and would pacify my need for some truth. To do so would be to give up and give in to my childhood fantasy. Then it dawned on me, i don't need to ignore the bad times to make him look good. Instead, i just need to show sincere compassion and understanding for Joey - for himself and for his life. I need to celebrate his successes, not just dwell on the failings. I want to celebrate the character traits that i identify myself with. After all, he is still my American hero - my connection to the nation. It just so happens that he was not an archetype, but a real human being.
Oh, and here is one other thing that i need to let go of. No longer am i going to use him as a metaphor for my cultural understanding of America. Previously, i had thought my fictional/factual stories could act as a metaphor for the fantastical vs the real. Thinking this through though, to do so would be to make him a symbol - forcing him to represent ideas, facts & everything else that he may or may not have had anything to do with. To do this would be to reduce him to less than a person, to remove all personality and human complexities in order to make him fit my argument. This is similar to a lecture we had at LCC. We analysed a picture by W Eugene Smith of a woman holding a disabled child in a bath. The image suggests ideas of the Christian Madonna and Child, signifying motherhood and religion whilst becoming a symbol for an issue. In becoming a symbol, the image is no longer about the specific problems of the individuals in the photograph, but about the connotations that we place on it - often leading to the viewer caring less about the individuals. This process is incredibly reductive. So, instead of Joey acting as a symbol of my America, i plan to negotiate my identity independently from him.
Photo by W Eugene Smith, Tomoko Uemura in her bath.
One hour and fifty minutes to go. Time to put on a crappy film and have snooze.