The Thanksgiving Blog... or how to make today seem funny instead of alienating and sad.

To be completely accurate I woke up this morning at 1:30. I went back to bed at 3:30, but since I (when left to my own devices take many small nap instead of sleeping 8 hrs.) I count !:30 as the beginning of my day. Well, I had a research proposal that was over due I had to write anyway, and I had slept all day Wednesday, so it all seemed logical at the time.
No firewood in the house meant I had to go into the woods and pull down more trees and drag them up to the house. I feel fortunate to have the woods behind my house that I do. I feel like pulling down the dead trees and burning them in my fire place has a double benefit: not only do I get heating fuel, but I clean the woods up a bit at the same time.
unfortunately I lost track of time.
I emerged from the woods at 1:00 (and I needed to be at Arrowhead Golf Course at 2:00) Still I somehow could not make myself rush. Passive aggressive behavior has been a specialty all my life.
I don't know when I got to the golf course, but no one mentioned I was late. I wandered around the parking lot until someone called me into the proshop. This is where my Step-mother's family where having their Thanksgiving.
My step-mother's family are all nice friendly people, but my dad was so quiet. It was a battle to get him to say even a word.  The quiet grim Finn. He just carries his burdenwithout letting anyone know how to help him. I suppose if he is anything like me, he has no faith anyone would. He thinks it's better to not ask for any help, than to ask and not receive any.
My step-mother has a lump in her breast. There has been blood on her bed sheets. This makes me wish I had been more generous about Ed when Mom passed. If I had maybe Dad would know how I want to be there for him if the same thing happens now.

Book Review: "I'm Down" by Mishna Wolff

“I’m Down” is a memoir by Mishna Wolff. Her story is about growing up in a poor neighborhood with a father who identified himself as black. On the whole it was an entertaining read, but I saw some problems with her narrative.

The writing style contained a balanced proportion of description and dialog. The story moved along without any jarring distractions. If you paid close attention you could see seams where Wolff made decisions about what was important to leave in and what should be left out. We hear that she has gone to France, but there was never any mention of it until it was spoken of in the past tense. This does not mar the story. I would assume that the most interesting aspect of Mishna’s trip to France was her step-mother’s reaction to it. It is interesting to notice this story tailoring by the author.

Wolff creates a black persona for herself that I only really broke from if I happened to glance at the author photo at the back of the book. Certainly, as I was reading, I pictured her as black, but the things that made her black in the authorial eye were not things exclusive to a black experience. Her poverty was the main tool she used to identify herself as black to the reader. An aggressive demeanor also played a role in her description as herself as black. These at least were the things that set her aside from the white peers in her stories. I was left wondering how much weight these things carry in the African American national community. Certainly poverty and violence are problems in that community, but is it how these would define themselves?

In a sense perhaps this book is a reflection of her father’s flawed perceptions about being black, perhaps that is what pricks me about this narrative. Wolff would not be the first author to trick their readers into identifying with the wrong character to make the point double deep when it is revealed. At no time was I tempted to side with Mishna’s father; I did, however, initially take his word on what it meant to be black.
It is ironic that Mishna's father only encourages her to pursue higher education when it is a form of reward in athletics. It is like Mishna's father gets all his ideas about being black from stereotypes. Even though sports is often seen as a way to escape the ghetto Mishna's father takes this to the extreme. He does not encourage Mishna in anything but what might gain him bragging rights in his neighborhood. "You don't know everything," Dad said. "You think you're all head, but you got my athleticism." (pg 179)

I think it is ironic that Wolff chose to end the story by painting all her white school friends with negative vignettes about their personal lives. I wonder why she did that. It makes me think it is a last ditch effort to convince her father that she is the girl he wanted her to be. Logically, if she had spent the whole book thinking her school friends where better than her or wishing she had their families then it would make sense to end this story like that, but from reading I didn’t get that she was dying to be one of them. Sure she wanted the nice things money could buy, but Mishna longing for a white upper middle class family was not depicted in this book. What was depicted in this book was Mishna wanting her father to love her, appreciate her and to be family. In a sense there is an answer to that wish in her realization that she could not live with her father, but this takes place too early in the story to be a conclusion.

I think what this story does best is to highlight the problems with constructing personal identity. We all have a consciousness about who we are. There are things we would like to see ourselves as, and things we think we know we are, and there are things we wish we weren’t. Deciding and striving to be something is dangerous, because understanding if you take on the benefits and problems of an identity that is not your own it is impossible to be sure you understand what you are getting into.

If “I’m Down” is not a perfect narrative, then it is at least a truthful journey into the mind of a girl trying to find her place in the world. In reading this story, I believe, a little truth about the human condition can be gleaned.

Getcher Torches Boys! (revision)

Fear. Will that be the motivating emotion in my life?

When I was young I treasured Aurora Monster models. I was also afraid of them. The versions I had were glow in the dark and I always felt there was something creepy about that glow-in-the-dark plastic. It was something about the combination of the smell, and the unnaturalness of a creature (even a monster) being glow-in-the-dark colored. In the early 70’s (when I had these models) the only color that glowed in the dark was a kind of sicky green. Imagine little hunchback glued onto a painted wall all sicky green. His cloths were sicky green; his hair was sicky green, his face, that same sicky green. It’s odd, but I feel like the color must have been somehow humiliating for them. I can’t explain why, but I pitied them and it disturbed me. I used to watch the fading glow of the monsters lined up on my bookcase: Frankenstein, Dracula, and the little Hunchback. I used to wonder what they did when the glow faded and I could no longer see them anymore.

I know I was afraid of them, but I don’t so clearly understand why I loved them. The day I made Mom move them into the living room was soaked with bittersweet ambivalence. I loved them, but I couldn’t sleep with them in the room.  They were little fears that could be conquered by moving them to the living room, how long has it been since my fears were that simple?

At that time I guess I had more complicated things to be afraid of. It was always scary when mom and dad fought. I would stand at their feet and stare up. Their faces disappear through perspective, lost in the clouds from my point of view.  They would holler. I would stand at their knees hugging one leg from each in my arms. I would say (doubtless) cute things and they would stop fighting. I thought I could solve all their problems. Their fighting was scary, but I had no idea what to really be afraid of.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb little lamb

It followed her to school one day

Which was against the rules

He drove a white sedan (sort of boxy in style) and he leaned across the bench seat and pushed the passenger side door open.

“Get in, Libby,” he would say. “Your parents Don, and Ellen sent me to get you. It’s starting to rain and they don’t want you to get wet.”

Sometimes he had candy, and he offered it in an outstretched hand. Margaret took some. Margaret always led a charmed life.

It was the doughnut shop lady who told at the school, so that the police were waiting at home when I got there. I must have been picked up at school, but I don’t remember it. It only makes sense though: who would let a little girl walk home when a strange man was trying to get her to get into his car.

I don’t think fear is the right word to describe the emotion that that man evoked in me. He seemed like a big blank space. He existed in a void, or a vacuum where there was no possible way to interact with him. He was like that place on the map that said here there be dragons. I was never tempted to say even a single word to him. If he had wanted me, he needed to run me down, but he never got out of his car.

The police came, and I can guarantee I was more afraid of them. My mother asked me, “what kept you from getting into the car with him?” She obviously felt the breeze of a close call, and wanted to pass on the wisdom to my sisters. All I could tell her was, “You told me not to talk to strangers.” But that’s not why I didn’t get in the car. He was wrong. I can’t explain it better than that; I didn’t get in the car because the man was just wrong.

I only experienced “the fear” of that man in later years, when I thought about how close I had come to destruction.  I’ve experienced lots of fear since then.

Adult fears are boring and mundane and one thousand times more terrifying that any boogie man in the closet, or horror movie.

·         How will I pay for school?

·         Do I have cancer?

·         How will I pay my mortgage?

·         Is the gas off or is the water heater just broken.

·         Will the pipes freeze before I get the furnace fixed?

·         Will I ever get another chance?

·         Is he cheating on me?

·         Will I be alone forever?

I have to admit that going to see a scary movie is a clear escape from these more frightening thoughts. For however long the movie is I don’t worry about anything on the list above. I let myself go and submerge into the movie. The movie fear is engaging, and for 120 minutes I don’t think about it.

I think I’ve lived so much of my life dealing with fear, that after a while I just tried to appear more frightening than the monsters so they would leave me alone. In a sense I think the reason I loved those aurora monster model was that I identified with them in some way. For as alienated as a monster can feel, they are the monsters, and they do not fear. They are feared.