Spit Take: Things We Do Like Our Fathers, But Don’t Know We Do Until We Do Them

And he was talking ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew, he’d say, ‘I’m gonna be like you, dad. You know I’m gonna be like you’.

Harry Chapin

I happen to live near the ocean, on the Eastern End of Long Island, and once the water is warm enough so that my toes don’t curl up at the touch, I try to take a dip each day.  Perhaps more like a plop, given my body shape and density.  But I’m dedicated to the pursuit, seeing my plunges as physically therapeutic, with the bracing saltwater serving to reduce inflammation and swelling not caused by pizza and wings.  It also feels emotionally cleansing, like a baptism, a rebirth, sans the screaming in tongues.

That said, despite it now being mid-October, the ocean is still relatively warm.  As such, the other afternoon, after working up a sweat from mowing the lawn, I jumped on my bike, pedaled the half-mile to the beach, and did my ritual.  When I emerged and wobbled back to shore, I turned my head to the side and spat.  At that moment, I realized, with a start, that was what my father always did after a dunk in the ocean.  (He also pulled up baggy bathing trunks that usually fell below his knees upon the first wave, but I’ll need more psychoanalysis before I take on that article).

So, in the throes of middle age, after many a swim in the ocean, I realized, while dripping wet and toweling off,  that I spit like my father.  It was not a revelation that made me fall to my knees and shout or sob.  If anything, it was funny to learn we shared this behavior.  And that more than more than likely, I copied it from seeing him do it all those times.

I just couldn’t believe it took me this long to make this saliva connection with my father.  Probably because it didn’t matter much before.  But it does now.  With my father being deceased for four years and counting, it’s starting to feel normal he’s no longer here.  The sharp and lengthy psychological pain I experienced after his death is gone, replaced with a warming nostalgia, and usually some amusement when a memory of him arrives into my consciousness.  To me, these encounters are like a surprise visit from a best friend you haven’t seen in a while.

I told Jason Kurtz, a frequent column contributor, and an acclaimed psychoanalyst working in New York City, about my “spit take” regarding my father, and asked his thoughts on these types of memory moments.  He opines:

“The connection children have to their parents cannot be overstated.  They are our first role models for how to be a person in the world.  Even if we consciously dislike our parents, a deep part of our psyche wants to be like them.  The meaning of the similarities between our adults selves and the parents we grew up with depends on our relationship with our parents.  If we despise them, then we may spend a lot of effort ensuring that we don’t behave as they did.  If we feel close to them, then the similarities probably feel endearing.  And if we’ve lost them and they were dear to us, then these similarities can be something that keeps us connected, something that reminds us that even though they are not here, they still live on in us.”

I’m grateful I loved my father, and more that I liked him.  He was a good guy, a funny guy, a family man, and a person you could count on – including to turn his head and spit whenever he stepped out of the ocean.  I’m looking forward to our next encounter, hopefully soon, and seeing for myself, what part of myself, is actually him.

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