My mother looks like she got smaller somehow. She talks way to much about everyone's past, drives us all a little nuts, but to her the past is a much longer shelf to choose from and now it's relentless. Omfg. To her, everyone is dead but us.
She's killin me. She is killing her :/
As always, my sister and I try to make everything funny. If we are going down memory lane, let's list all the ways our parents tried to kill us. Not psychologically, in that regard we were always treated like people. (I bet not once did my parents babble at me - I can see it in how my ma treats the baby, asking her philosophical questions about how she feels being the only thing that consoles everyone she currently knows. They look at each other like 😳👀. "Consuela," I whisper at the non-verbal baby.)
My sister fell out of the van on highway 12, 45-50 mph ish, me sitting in the one passenger seat, her standing in the wheel well, then woop out she went, end over end, my jumping out after her. This is one of our fave mutual memories. My mom picked gravel out of her and we continued the journey (to the then-cottage). This happened TWICE. Like, she at 4 yrs old shoulda learned to close that door tightly! Not to mention me!!
There was also that time Sis took a header off the picnic table, nowhere else to sit but on it and nobody to catch her. She still has the dent in her forehead. "You looked like a unicorn," my mother adds, with some pride. I mean, she was a mere toddler then became a mythical beast - seems a good trade off.
I dehydrated a lot, once in the badlands when my dad luckily said 'she seems kinda limp' and I wound up in a s. dakota hospital for A WEEK (deaths door), it took that long before I could actually drink water not sucked from a half-dry rag. I still vividly remember the hallucinations of almost dying by my brain becoming a raisin.
Etc.
My sister, always the better spreadsheeter, has at least a dozen near-death anecdotes at the ready and we howl laughing at the outrageous acts of neglect. But apparently this is a GenX *thing*, routinely a dinner party subject, 'parented by crapshoot' it's a wonder any of us physically lived. Across the board, we all have near-death stories. The 'remember when mom let us drive dad's sport car when we were 10 cz she was pissed' type stories.
Like the f2f sex thing, I did not know this fact and my Gen-A"pocalypse" friends don't share this reality. Their parents were up their asses while emotionally withholding, and they hid out in the internet getting "political" in response to that environment.
Early childhood memory of "politics" at a family gathering: my mom picked up 'a giant black guy with one leg' (Sis's succinct portrait) (named Sam btw, of whom my mother made a bust, like of his head, I remember it, white plaster) off the side of the road, it was 8 degrees out, he was hopping down the highway and she knew the next exit was 2+ miles. So she brought him to my aunt's house, the one where we got to eat White Castle for every family gathering. Everyone of course thought 'what the actual fuck' but my mom had discovered a cruelty that I am all too familiar with now: university students without family resources have nowhere to live during American holidays that don't line up with any family time they might have in their own traditions. Many college students are serially homeless for myriad social-economic (political) reasons. And we are contractually no longer allowed to home/help them ourselves in any way (liability). Wanna talk about that? Let me apply for a grant? Nope.
"How's work?", asks Sis. It is just work, which is better than no work. I don't gotta sleep with dudes I don't like anymore 👍 But. I mean. Nobody would give a shit about a freezing to death student nowadays except as a "problem".
I do need help imagining Better Than This. My sister wants to prioritize my new house projects (spreadsheet) in the order that will make me happiest. But I don't want to make any decisions much until I feel less crappy. I cannot, actually, pick a kitchen floor at this very moment. I tried. But I am still stuck mostly in the "no"/ "not THIS" phase. A chicken/egg problem - can't make-pretty a house, which would be fun, because I am too sad for it / moving sucks. At least I thought it was a only a phase until my mother, listening to us, says "don't worry, in the end you will only remember the good things."
My sister and I wait a beat. Sis says, "Let's dehydrate her, I mean skin and bones already so we could probably get her to deaths door remembering only good shit by the end of the weekend." And we crack up again. I say "mouthfeel" and put a finger gun on my tongue, spreading the current fave fam joke wider, my sister laughing her ass off.
Tomorrow, a million uncles and cousins will arrive. My mother's side of the family (sense of humor side) because it is more intact, although mostly medicated for insanity, will arrive in groups led by those still allowed to drive (no thorazine [sp]). My father's side, welp there are those left who have not committed suicide, but in every family there has been at least one suicide, so that side arrives in pieces pre-grieving. About 60 folks total, says my sister, making enough food for 300. It soothes her.
My brother-in-law hired a bartender. I can't imagine alcohol doing anything but making all my relatives their worst selves. But, this is WI 🤷🏻♀️
I promised no praying for favors for the rest of the year, or I would say God Help Me 🙏
I don't think there is a joint for that. More likely I will be smoking Lucky Strikes with my non-alcoholic wine like an oxyMoron. The only thing I can think of to talk about is music. There was always music. Always. My father's vinyl collecting is probably how this blog exists in the first place. All the covers I have posted, so so so many a queering of an original, in TJ's dos I put them, unknowing.
The End - The Doors "I'll never look into your eyes again lalalaa"
"Music is a mediator between spiritual and sensual life."
 |
| building the shed in Lewiston, probably listening to Led Zepplin 😪 |