Hah!

30 NON CONSECUTIVE Days of Truth: Evasion Edition

OK, so something I have to forgive myself for.

OH MY GOD EVERYTHING.

People died. I wasn't there. I was there but not enough. I did not raise them from the dead.

You name something bad, I blame myself for it.

But for sure, the most horrible thing always involves my daughter. Every time I yelled at her in anger (not THAT many times). Any time I was not a complete adult in her presence. 

Half the time I don't know what to do. There's a lot of psychological brilliance required to raise one's kid well and my kid is especially challenging in this vein.

But just to cover all my bases, I have to forgive myself for being imperfect, petty, judgmental, lazy, unkind, selfish. I can be all these things.

Imperfect. What does one do? Such imperfection I embody in every way!

I'd rather not get into details.

Love Is

I'm doing Palinode's 30 Days of Truth

I'm supposed to write about something I love about myself. Here's a picture:

 Now this reminds me of my aunt. She had these 'Love is...' books. I read them voraciously. Like all books I read at the time, I thought they must have secret messages about how the world worked that I would decode slowly, as I became an adult. 

If I were a better writer, I could explain this. The 70s, I a rather neglected child with a teenage aunt. Someone that paid attention to me, at last. I remember losing my toy and being distressed and having her help me find it. Somehow this amazed me--her calm, her concern, her willingness to stop and search.

Everything about her fascinated me. From the mentholated isopropyl alcohol she put on her pimples to the yellow plastic round AM radio she carried around with her. She listened to AM radio--things like Seals 'n Crofts 'Summer Breeze' to Steve Miller Band. 

I secretly love Steve Miller Band to this day.

Since it was my family there were crises. The time she ran away with her crazy boyfriend and my family was afraid they were going to commit double suicide. Things are so murky when you are a kid. You overhear things and don't quite know what's going on.

I almost never see her now.

My grandmother lived in the country. The house she and my aunt lived in was about as chaotic and messy as my house. I must have gotten that from her. She had one of those old green wine jugs in the fridge for water. I think if I ever drank that well water from that jug I'd be transported in time just like Proust was by the madeline. But the jug is long gone, it's all long gone.

Maybe that is what I love about myself--my memories. Do I have a quality about myself I love? Probably not. But I cherish my past sometimes, at least bits of it. It's so full of sorrow. Every bit of it is interwoven with some sadness, some lack, some loss, some betrayal and absence. I love it like you love an ugly dog. I had two of these. Small ugly strays, never housebroken.

I love memories like sad weary little 7 year old me, trudging home from school alone, locked out of the house for some reason, sitting in the carport and finding these tiny spider webs in between the bricks of the house. When you pushed on them, a little spider would run out. In the miniscule cracks of everything lies a world we can't see. 

So maybe that's something I can love about myself: I'm always looking for that world, that secret, hidden world, that one elusive truth. Waiting for some sense to be made out of everything.

 

 

I Post in my Head, You Know

I post a lot to you in my head. 

Just so you know.

So here's a conversation.

My little girl and best friend (boy) go to the circus. Ringling Bros. I've never taken her to Ringling Bros. but parents of the boy wanted to go.

So many magic tricks. They were the best. She loves magic.

They had a picnic in the living room today. It was very sweet. Butter sandwiches that they made themselves--using all available bread--and chocolate chips and cider. Our best plates. I eavesdropped.

Boy: Magic isn't real, you know.

Girl: But love is real. And love is like magic.

She comes up with these sorts of things all the time. I want to follow her around with a camera and make a movie that is required viewing for all nihilists and those on the point of utter despair.

Of course, that describes me most of the time.

Her chuckle alone refutes Schopenhauer. 

Her sweetness kills. It is like wasabi in my nose. So overwhelming in its power I think my heart might explode. (That analogy is not original to me. I stole it from Matthew Baldwin of Defective Yeti.)

I am back to my grumbly self. It is October and I'm back to morose with a side of despair and an aoli of anxiety.

Once I went to dinner with someone who is fluent in French and I complained about the word aoli and the word 'plat' for plate. I sort of horrified him, I think. He was just visiting the US and wasn't familiar with our anti-intellectual stubbornly monolingual ways.

As far as the posting in my head goes: I am doing so many things in my head. I have relationships with people in my head and don't bother speaking to them some of the time. It's like texting but even more convenient.