HAPPY END OF THE WORLD

The family went to Maine for two days. We left Tuesday night, to break up the drive. Dad occasionally switched off the headlights and dashboard light. for kicks I suppose. He said he liked driving into the darkness. It was story-telling time, he told us about his travels with Mom in Europe. Stuff they did then couldn't possibly be done now, totally different world. We got to Haverhill around midnight and headed to Portland the next morning. The drive was mostly scenic, it was quite nice. The people there seem to live relatively easy lives. I kept seeing the same people over and over again (there are only so many places one can go) and I was reminded of Swat. We visited the Portland Museum of Art, saw an exhibition called Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late 19th century France. James Tissot, Louise Abbema, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec are some names worth mentioning. Their modern art collection was decent, I liked one piece by Jean Arp, a German-French sculptur who was a founding member of Dada in Zurich, called Star, it was meant to be some abstraction manifested.

The next day we went to Cape Elizabeth to see a lighthouse and Peaks Island to bike around. Things got pretty tense towards the end of the day. Dad was being ridiculous, unreasonable, agravating. Sometimes I can enjoy his eccentricities, but most of the time he just confuses me. Most of the time I don't know what to expect of him. I wouldn't be surprised if he got so angry he left us in Maine. I used to struggle with that, the possibility of being abandoned by him, or betrayed or something like that. I almost expect it now.