Muttered Musings at Midnight

I’ve had way too much loss – way too much, how much more? – my life has disintegrated, imploded, exploded, collapsed, vanished, washed away – right out to sea, it’s been mutated and mutilated… migrated and agitated… like an alchemist trying to turn a base metal into gold… I’ve been abandoned and replaced, used and debased… torn into tiny bits and put back together in a disheveled mess, pieces missing leaving gapping holes, left hopeless and hapless and all alone, head buried in a tear stained pillow to muffle the sleep inducing cry… sobs in the shower to cleanse the soul as well as the body – step out of the tub clean and plaster on a smile… I’ve been naïve, believing in words and deeds… believing in love and trust, wonder and lust, mystery and faith, honor and space, believing Believing BELIEVING in so many lines… thinking surely Surely SURELY it all can’t be lies, realizing Realizing REALIZING it is and finally Finally FINALLY accepting the truth… it’s all one big ruse … it’s a club… a secret club – an exclusive club, one for which I am not deemed worthy of admittance… I lack the breeding, the sophistication, the talent, the beauty, the education, the papers, the pedigree… my invitation just didn’t come… someone else had higher priority than me… so I stand alone in this fight, it’s what I’m supposed to do – right? Isn’t that what they say – to rely on yourself, be whole in yourself, comfortable and content all the way? When I’m whole and fixed it is then I can share that whole me with another – all will fall right into place – advice that comes from broken others sharing broken selves with broken lovers, why not me? Ahhhh well they say… you don’t “fit” – too old, too far, timing is a bitch… be there for me they say without words… and I’ll be there for you but… but… but… don’t call me I’ll call you… friends? With benefits? No silly… friends with complications – unspoken wants and desires, ignored, locked away, possible love saved for another day – golly gee, is it me? Is it all just another way to be let down - a romantic play, a play on words, a song with a haunting melody echoing to me…? “Somewhere…” I’m tired, I’m drowning… the salty sea engulfs me… waves crash and knock me off balance, laughing as I sputter for air… laughing as I flounder and flail… conspiring to hit me again when I am unaware… as I expend all my strength to recover from the first onslaught they huddle and whisper and smile and cut their eyes, watching for the most (in)opportune time… what if I’m the little girl crying wolf and this is nothing compared to what’s coming… three wishes and they are all used up… who’s gonna help you now hmmmmm? Save them, save them for a rainy day… so many more days to go… the flood will come, you’ll be glad you know… I’m not accustomed to reaching out – he’s right… I’m not… it doesn’t turn out… all for naught it seems… she can handle it they say… pish… this is nothin’ she’s strong and of hardy stock, she’s resourceful and bright and she’ll come out on top… and even if someone should want to help – well she’s got that independent streak you know… it would be an awfully hard sell… so… so… so… we’ll just leave her alone to fend for herself – a character builder if nothing else… I saw an old couple today, standouts among the young… weather beaten, life beaten, faces full of stories – countless untold stories – written there for all to see in a language not commonly understood… a language I suspect only spoken and understood by them… a language unique and beautiful… they were clasping hands… I smiled. – they smiled, going our separate ways taking with them the secret and leaving me an ache, an envy, an appreciation… I want a hand to hold - a strong hand, a comforting hand, one to dwarf my own … even if only through a spoken word for now…

Hey Y'all...

... Belle's goin' to the beach! I'll be gone a week but will have a laptop in tow... perhaps something beautiful and profound will strike me while I am there and I can blog about it - but then again perhaps not. I guess we shall see!

Parenting 210

The son is 21 - an adult, officially in every way, yeah well except that he's still in college and I still pay for it... but that should end in May when he graduates. He's changed his direction in regard to school - he was going for two degrees and has decided after summer school the second degree wasn't what he wanted to do after all. He was worried I would be disappointed - worried I would react badly. He apologized for "wasting" the money for summer school and I explained to him that I didn't see it as a waste - that he had to try it to see if it was what really interested him. After all this is his life... he has to live it... it's not mine. I've got enough on my plate just living my life, let alone trying to live his - HA! I'm just proud he's done well, done his best, kept pushing through. He's a smart boy - intuitive, inquisitive, introspective.... compassionate, caring, courageous... fearless, funny, fair... loyal, logical, lusory... he's my boy and I love him.

After he graduated high school he started working for a masonry company (his grandfather is second in command there) doing work on site during the summer and between college semesters. He makes good money for a summer job but not a whole lot to support himself or anyone else. The work is really just grunt work... he does manual labor - in the heat. He gets dirty, he stays sweaty. It doesn't take a lot of thought, this work, he just does what he's told - the brawn as opposed to the brain... in short - it's not fun. The first day he did this work he came home covered in dirt and sweat and said, "I don't want to do this for the rest of my life." And I said, "Good - you learned the lesson." He jokingly, rhetorically really, asked if he had to go back - and then he smiled - he knew the answer. His site boss loves him - he's a hard worker... he does his job well and when he's done he asks what else he can do - he doesn't disappear to avoid new work... he obviously has a good work ethic.

The first summer he did this his dad wasn't too keen on the idea. He, himself, had tried it once - he didn't like it, quit after just a few days. He said something along the lines he didn't want his son doing such work - it was too hard, too uncomfortable, too menial... in short it was "beneath him." He also felt the people he would be working with wouldn't be acceptable. They were minorities, they were lower income, they were less educated. I was taken aback - shocked really... my opinion was so different. I felt like it would be a good experience for him. It never hurt anyone to work hard, to be dirty and sweaty, to be exhausted at the end of the day through physical exertion. I wanted him to judge how hard he worked against what he earned... to decide if the end result (the paycheck) was worth the effort (his labor). I wanted him to be around people unlike him... I wanted him to see there were all kinds of people - people with different ideas, and different ways of doing things... people who, while they looked differently or spoke differently or carried themselves differently, still had thought provoking things to say... in short I wanted him to see THE WORLD... not just a tiny portion of it.

As a parent it seems to me we spend a lot of time teaching our children theory - theory about life and love and work and people. We tell them the coulds, the shoulds and the how comes... we tell them to look beyond the visible... to not judge a book by its cover - to practice kindness and patience and tolerance. We give them theory about hard work and loyalty... theory about character and reputation, about what we do says more about us than what we say. Theory about overcoming adversity and how "when the going gets tough...." We teach them theory. And often times, more often than not it seems, we discourage the practice of the theory. We shield them from adversity, from pain, from discomfort. We keep them from hard work and disappointment. We indulge and excuse. We sell the theory and then don't buy it ourselves. Does this duplicitousness do them any good - can they hear one thing, see another... can they build a foundation on this?

I am hoping I am right. I am hoping my approach to this has been the right one - I'm hoping the adversity they've had to overcome and the discomfort they've had to feel will make them better people... more confident, more secure, more kind, more understanding - that the theory does work in practice - that their foundation is strong and secure... and that no matter what happens, no matter what life brings - good or bad - that they can face it with a steadfast courage and a humbled heart.

Propaganda

I few years ago I discovered Wicked. I'm not really sure how... or when... or what lead up to it. It might have been a song I heard or I might have seen the cast singing during the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade... I'm not really sure how it happened. But I saw or heard a portion of it somewhere and I was fascinated. I bought the soundtrack and listened to all the music - it's really clever stuff... the play on words, the juxtaposition of good against evil... the preconceived and misguided notions of what each means. I read about the plot of the play and discovered it was based on a book... so me being me, I bought the book - because after all one interesting thing tends to lead me to another interesting thing and so on and so on ad nauseum.

The book is more involved then the play and much darker in a lot of ways. It delves more into the loneliness and isolation that the Wicked Witch felt... and being a book, the author, Gregory Maguire, could develop a much more intricate plot. The whole premise really does become a question of what can we really know, how well can we really comprehend a situation, when we don't know all the angles. After all perception is reality, correct? It may not be everyone's reality but it certainly is ours. In the book and the play Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) isn't evil at all, she's merely a child of accident, circumstance, and propaganda. She doesn't conform to societal standards of beauty - she's green for goodness sake... and she's seen as easy to manipulate. The Powers That Be use her insecurity and desire for acceptance against her. In the end she attempts to fight the system, she attempts to do what's right and good and honest and it backfires.

I loved The Wizard of Oz when I was little - I still do... but I see it though different eyes now... grown up eyes maybe? Dorothy just wanted to go home - home to a place she was loved and accepted, a place where she was content and valued. She had to lose it to see what it all really meant - to see what she really held within her heart - to truly find and understand how she fit into the grand scheme. And when she did realize it, when it finally made sense, the loss was only a dream... a jarring glimpse into the vacuum. But for The Wicked Witch - for Elphaba - she lived the vacuum... it was her reality. She was ostracized, criticized, demonized - mentally beaten, emotionally whipped, spiritually deprived. Dorothy is handed love and acceptance on a silver platter and she rejects it, at least until she discovers its value, and she seeks it out again. So easy for someone who's always known it to cast it aside - to capriciously wonder what else exists. For Elphaba it doesn't come that easily. She is rejected and neglected by even those who are supposed to accept her. When she does find true friendship and true love its because of who she is down deep on the inside - people had to be willing to look beyond the uncomfortable, beyond the exterior and take the time to find the beauty that existed. In the play she finds it, temporarily, and she's content with the temporary because after all she never believed it could be hers in the first place... a "better to have loved and lost" approach, until at the end she rediscovers it, finds it didn't really disappear after all, it had only taken on a new appearance.

It fascinates me... this idea... this thought that people can have it all - all the love and support and acceptance - and yet totally misunderstand what it means. The proverbial grass does look greener so they go searching for it... longing to find something better - longing for the freedom and excitement just somewhere over that rainbow. They are quick to set aside what they have for what they think they don't - they believe chance after chance after chance exists. Sometimes they see the truth and sometimes they don't... they leave destruction and heartache in their wake - they are careless people. And then there can be people who never experienced it, have no idea what it feels like, yet they can value it above all else... they know exactly what it entails, exactly its worth... they realize it's something that is rare and percious - to be nurtured and tended and when they do find it, when they do finally experience it, they respect it - treasure it above all else.

So many people who have seen the play respond to the characters - especially that of Elphaba and I've wondered about that, wondered why. Is everyone finding the same thing or does it touch them all in different ways? Is that character somehow a representation of so many people's reality? Does everyone see the same things ? Do we all feel rejected? Are we all just hoping someone will look beyond the obvious to see the beauty within?

Each of the songs in the play conveys a different emotion, a different reality, a different perspective... and depending on my mood I have favorites. Lately it's "I'm Not That Girl" so cue the pity party please....

Romanticism

I grew up in a household firmly grounded in reality... actually more cemented into a bucket of reality - and I never truly felt like I fit, sorta the black sheep of the family. My parents are children of the Depression... My mother one of three and my father one of twelve - education was a luxury they weren't afforded and they really didn't understand why it was important to me. Most of the things I found pleasure in were considered silly, or frivolous, or wasteful - living on a dairy farm there was no real down time - no time for exploration and I can remember staring out the window and dreaming.

So I have lived my life battling those two extremes: reality and romanticism. On the outside I am very stoic... very no nonsense ... very aware of the reality of it all. Inside of me though I struggle with this romantic heart. But the romantic heart seems to remain unfulfilled. I want my fairy tale ending I suppose. Don't get me wrong - I am well aware that fairy tales don't come true, they don't exist. I don't think it's that I truly want someone to come and save me and rescue me from some wicked entity that has oppressed me and caused me pain... that's not the fairy tale I long for... that's not the fairy tale I desire. I guess, for me, what I consider to be a fairy tale is what others just consider normality.

I want to wake up in the morning with someone - the one... the person who has vowed to be with me through it all. I want to know that whatever the day brings, whether good or bad or some sort of mixture of the two, that I don't face it all alone... that should a moment come when life feels a tiny (or huge) bit difficult I could just look at another person and see a smile - a reassurance of sorts. I don't need someone to fix it or handle it or make it go away... I just need someone to smile at me. But it's not just the sad stuff, the difficult stuff that I want to share... it would be so wonderful to share happiness and gratitude and love - moments where you feel your heart will burst from sheer joy, moments where all is right with the world and peace and contentment reign... it would be nice at those moments to look at someone else and see a smile... a shared acknowledgement of a blessing... of many blessings.

I would like to spend my day knowing that I had a partner in crime... well maybe not crime but a partner in life... someone to manage the day with... lunches to fix, shopping to be done, one child needs to be here, one child needs to be there... we have a game at 7 and homework before that, and who can coordinate dinner tonight... and through it all a smile. And at night, after all are safely tucked in bed... after all are fed and loved and listened to... after I've washed my face and put on my pajamas, as I am brushing my teeth, I'd like to feel strong, loving hands on my hips... a whisper in my ear. I want my smile to meet his smile in the mirror and I want to walk to bed knowing someone is waiting for me, waiting to envelope me with warmth and love... someone waiting for me to envelope him with warmth and love... a mutual respect, a mutual desire, a mutual love.

Oh don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't think there wouldn't be frowns and tears and a few "fuck yous" thrown in for good measure... but that would be the beauty - that would be the testament. Frowns and tears and fuck yous wouldn't be a portent of coming destruction - it would mean honesty and trust: honesty in feeling and trust in love. The belief that one misspoken idea or thought doesn't mean a mark in the con column... that a difference of opinion doesn't mean doom and gloom. It can be acknowledged and discussed and decided - compromised and then let go. Each disagreement doesn't have to be another brick in a wall of resentment.

So that's it... that's my fairy tale... my pie in the sky idea of love and marriage... my happy ending. Does it exist? I don't know in truth, I don't know. I'd love to find out though....