I should be giving my dog a bath right now, but instead I’m going to sit down and right/write? something intensely personal to me that may make some people say ah, I get this or maybe that I’m psychotic. I’m not really sure there’s an in between, so I guess proceed at your own risk.
I’m not kidding about the bath part- Bree took herself out and made herself a different color, and all that dirt is getting all over my favorite purple snuggly blanket that my auntie got me this minute. (Yes, I know it’s weird that I have favorite colors of snuggly blankets- but that’s because I get and have a lot of snuggly blankets.)
I knew this week was going to be hard, because fuckin holidays, man. I don’t know who the fuck came up with this concept that we all have to come together and share food and blah blah fuckin blah. Well, that’s not precisely true- I do know this is a good and right concept and a good and right thing to do, but I also know it’s the time of covid, and circumstances are such that I don’t really have anyone to ask to come and share even if I did feel up to cooking up a storm anyway. As it happens, I am having people to come and share on a different day this week, and I’m planning on outsourcing at least 50% of the effort to fucking Panera Bread, who is currently (and I feel solely) responsible for an unacceptable amount of the fat on my body with their fucking cinnamon rolls.
So, because I knew this was going to be hard, I took the week off. Didn’t want to inconvenience people with my feelings or what I do or don’t feel like getting engaged in. Plus I have a book that is about 2/3rds of the way done that I want to be done, so, no day job this week. And Rick took off two days too, but not the whole time and I thought that was a good thing. Two days to be alone with my book and my feelings and wrangle them into some kind of fucking control. Because bursting into tears while watching Deadpool and playing Magic is not fucking okay in my book, and I can’t be trusted to not do that right now.
(Quick aside- my stepdad fucking LOVED Deadpool. We could (and did) watch it together a thousand times, and always laugh when Deadpool flings his busted ass hands out there and says All the other dinosaurs feared the TRex. And I’m not saying a slight snicker or giggle- we would fucking laugh like loons, like it was the first time we’d seen it. Only now, while I’m laughing, I may also start crying, it’s just the way shit is.)
Two days to wrangle that shit to an acceptable level isn’t a whole lot of time. Which means I needed help… more help than what Panera cinnamon rolls (you fucking delicious bastards) could ever provide. So yesterday, I wrote my two thousand words (why thank you, yes, yes that is quite a lot of words, I shall take my bow here), put dye on my hair that first outraged then bemused my mother, and turned on Daniel Sloss.
(Quick aside- yes, I fucking know we’re never going to get through this if I can’t stop with the asides, but that’s really more my problem than yours. Read on if it entertains you, fuck off and close the browser if it doesn’t, alright? When my stepdad and mom moved to Albuquerque and they started to understand the things I do to my hair when I’m feeling puckish, my mom would have commentary, but my step dad would also just smile and tell me how great whatever mishmash of wild colorology not found in nature for human hair looked with utter sincerity. I love my stepdad.
My stepdad was colorblind. And I never called him on it. In fact, half the time I didn’t even remember that fact until I was out the door, and then I’d laugh myself hoarse.)
If you haven’t seen Mr. Sloss (and I strongly suggest you do, he’s on Netflix), his central point is that sadness, for him, requires laughter to move on. That happiness and laughter are not always equal- so laughing at the sad or terrible or painful things that happen in your life doesn’t mean you’re happy about those things, it’s a part of processing.
So I watched him and I thought about the parts I can laugh at from what has happened to my little family over the past year or so. And there ain’t so much there that isn’t awful in some way, too. I have a habit of examining the situations and people in my life from all the angles I can see or conceive of. Yes, this does make me fucking exhausting to live with, I am sure, and yes, Rick IS a fucking saint. But the more and more I saw of my mother over this past year, the more and more I had to see and admit and understand things that I never could as a child and never should have to as an adult. And I realized that what I hurt most from is that not I’ve lost my family, it’s that I’ve lost the ability to think the good parts were truly good.
Look, we all have those shiny memories you keep on a high, high shelf, where they can’t be harmed by anything flying crazily around below. You look up at them from the far distances, and they are still shiny and so pretty, even though they are getting farther away, but it’s okay because you can still see them. Me, because I’m me, I’m wading in the muck below and it’s casting new light on that shelf. And me, because I’m me and maybe not always terribly bright, I plucked those shiny memories off that shelf and turned them over in my hands. And I found every one of them is a tarnished mess. They weren’t shiny at all except by my own flawed perception. I know, yikes, right?
And let me be 1000% clear to anyone still soldiering on here- it wasn’t that these people died that caused this. It’s their own actions, and the actions of others in being who they are that caused this. Don’t feel like you have to defend them or try to make up for something you think you or someone else did wrong. It isn’t going to change the way I feel or how I see things, and that’s okay. Yeah, it’s fucking rough where I’m standing right now, but in a lot of ways, it’s an impetus to how I want the rest of my life to go, so those shiny things I keep on my shelf from now on are real, okay? So please don’t patronize me about it, just be you and Imma be over here being me. We’re cool.
So, today is my last day to kinda groove on my own without bringing down the rest of the world (ie Rick) and I’m still not quite where I need to be.
I turned on Alice Fraser’s Savage (it’s on Prime, you should totally watch it), about this gloriously beautiful, funny woman who lost her mother that she dearly loved after 33 years of illness. Sprinkled throughout the show, there’s recordings of her speaking with her mother, in which her mother tells her what it’s like, looking back on her life.
OK, so not a completely parallel experience, but some insights remain.
What turned on the waterworks this time was Alice’s mother telling her how clever and lovely she was, and how she trusted Alice to represent who she had been well. And Alice did do an utterly fantastic job at blending the transcendent with the mundane. It’s really a beautiful experience to watch this… even better when you don’t cry all the way through it, I’m sure. I mean, I watched it before and enjoyed it immensely before all this got started.
Now- here’s my point and I think what I need to let go of before it fucking poisons me.
I was with my mom when she died. I’m sure that sounds all beautiful and like there was hand holding and last words and a Hallmark moment of perfect understanding before her soul whisked away from the frail shell.
It wasn’t like that. I walked in and sat down, and my mother wasn’t there. She was staring right at me, struggling to take each breath, but she looked right through me. I hadn’t seen her in months, because she didn’t want me to see her, and that hurt.. all that wasted time. Right then, I felt it most keenly, that she felt all this vanity or whatever, and all I saw was my mom who didn’t want to be with me. I half expected her to focus on me then tell me to leave at any moment, but I sat down anyway.
Have I mentioned that I’m really stubborn sometimes? I’m sure you may have noticed that on your own, though.
I sat down and I tried to pray. When I couldn’t do that, I tried to talk to her, and give her the words that are what I think the only ones that matter when you’re at that point. I said I was here and it was okay.
And that was it.
Which takes me back to Alice Fraser… her point was that only the unfinished can contain the infinite. And that’s what I need to remember and hang on to. Not the regret that my mother was who she was that cost what it’s costing. Not what I did or didn’t say or what I did or didn’t do- the infinite is still there and always will be. Yes, there could have been joy and healing and acceptance. And there could have been spite and damage and harm. I’m never going to know that, and I feel guilty to admit to being relieved.
It just is. What a Zen concept, no?
I was really lucky in getting the time with my stepdad that I did, to hear all that he had to say and to say all the things he needed to hear. And even as we walked away, I felt a strong sense that it wasn’t final, that we’d see each other again somehow, somewhere, somewhen. And I was glad.
I didn’t and don’t have that feeling about my mom, and I need to let go of the guilt for being at peace with that. Because only the unfinished can contain the infinite.
So, if you came along with me this far, don’t worry, I’m okayish. I knew this was going to be a hard week, and the folks that have reached out, I appreciate you. If folks read this and decide they should reach out, that’s fine, I appreciate it, but don’t be surprised if I’m not feeling all that chatty. It’s a lot of feels.
Curiouser and Curiouser 