Inspiration?

[LSPoorEeyorick]

(The Amigo, continued)

I found her among racks of knitted dogs and bells and angels, fondling the texture of a plus-sized Christmas sweater vest. Clearly I’d inherited her tactility but not her style.

“Isn’t this cute?” she asked, examining a shiny button in the shape of a candy cane.

“It certainly makes its point.”

“Don’t grinch. It’s cheerful.”

“Hey, if teddy bears in scarves do it for you, go for it.”

She grimaced and held the sweater up to her rounded shoulders. “I don’t fit clothes here anyway.”

I straightened my own rounded shoulders. “I thought…”

“I did. How are you supposed to maintain weight if you can’t move?” She sighed, and plunked the sweater into my cart.

“Oh… I don’t really think that it’ll look good on me.”

“It’s not for you. It’d look nice on your aunt. Maybe we can find some warm sweatpants to give her on the caroling trip, too. Are you still coming?”

I usually did end up accompanying my parents on their annual Christmas trip to Gladwin, the tiny, depression-era farming town where they grew up. We’d bundle ourselves in our warmest coats and brave the black ice on the poorly-paved roads between the homes of my mother’s less-fortunate siblings. I could always expect that while we warmed our hands on the wood-burning stove in his bungalow, my beer-bellied uncle would point out the couple new pounds I’d gained that year and make his pet bird do tricks. But we’d sing our harmony to “The First Noel” and play Santa, and somehow, I always ended up with less Scrooge and more Tim Cratchett. I nodded and suggested we buy some toys for Billybird.

After locating the right bird-treats, and treats for the rest of the people on our caroling stops, she was determined to find some presents to send back with me. She always made sure her kids in college had something to look forward to each day… a carved snowman to remind us to get outside and play… a CD to keep us in the Christmas spirit despite our piles of undone work… powdered cider so we could inhale the musky sweetness and imagine we had just stepped inside their warm house, seconds from their embrace and the real cider mulling on the stove.

We were in the middle of a kerfuffle about Toblerone (she was convinced she could find one for me, I was certain the store hadn’t found a way to sweatshop Swiss chocolate, and even if they had I wasn‘t willing to waste her last bit of fading energy in search of honey nougat) when I felt the sensation of being gawked at.

A pillar of a woman stood in the aisle across from ours, staring at us with an indignant pout on her lips. I stared right back and sneered at her knockoff designer bag. Mom smiled at her, with a look of slight confusion on her face that we’d usually identify with her search for a missing word or name since the steroids started bleeding her memories together. “Do we know you?” she asked.

The woman pointed a bejeweled finger as she walked towards us. “You should have left that machine for someone who really needs it.”

“Pardon me?”

“There are people who deserve to use those wheelchairs. You shouldn’t have taken it.”

Mom shrugged. “These are available for anyone who needs them, that’s what the greeter said.”

The woman put her hands on her hips--or lack thereof-- and took a step closer to us. “Anyone who needs them. Not you. If you just stood up and walked, you could lose some of that weight.”

A tingling of bile grew to a burning fireball constricting my throat, and fifteen different insults evaporated before I could open my mouth . I looked helplessly to my mother, who was taking a deep breath. She smiled weakly and shook her head. “You don’t always know the whole story.” The woman narrowed her eyes and wheeled around, and clicked away in her tacky pumps. I stared in disbelief until she turned a corner, and then looked down at my mother. Her eyes were welling up and she was staring at the scuffed linoleum floor.

I kicked the nearest shelf. “What a ****ing bitch.”

“She didn’t know. She didn’t know I was sick.”

“Doesn’t excuse her behavior.”

Her tears had begun to reveal her blood-bruised cheeks. I dug in my pockets for a Kleenex.

“No,” mom said, shrugging her shoulders. “But someday she’ll know how I feel.”

“She’ll never understand.”

“Not until she gets sick someday. We all do.”

“Well, I hope the bitch suffers.”

Mom looked me straight in the eyes for a moment. The she put the wheelchair in gear and rolled away. “I wouldn’t wish this suffering on anyone.”

She was waiting for me at the front, where Jodie with the frizzy hair was helping her park alongside an electrical outlet. Another worker had pulled out mom’s own wheelchair and we helped her back into it. The workers smiled warmly at her, and she smiled warmly back while I stared numbly and pushed her back through the tides of shoppers into the parking lot and a pouring rain. Barely the energy to stand, she slumped from the wheelchair to the car and laid her head back to rest.

I glared at the wheelchair. **** you, ****ing wheelchair.

I popped the trunk and tried to pick it up. Dripping wet, it slipped. Pinched again.

I slammed it up and over the bumper. The wheels stuck.

I shoved it harder. And harder. ****ing wheelchair. **** you. Be that way. We don’t want you.

I screamed.

And then I felt a hand on my back. I spun around.

It was the greeter, rain-drenched, looking at me with concerned eyes. “Are you OK?”

“No.”

He re-angled the wheelchair and slid it in gently. “I told you it wasn’t a good day for shopping.”

Mom’s voice, worn but warm, drifted from the passenger seat. “It’s always a good day for shopping.”

He closed the trunk and patted me on the shoulder, and walked away with a train of shopping carts in tow. I stood still, suddenly aware of how wet I was, not really caring. I squashed back into the driver’s seat and reached out for mom’s hand. “Do you want anything?”

“I’m OK.”

“Do you want me to key that awful woman’s car?”

“Maybe a little.”

“How about some chili fries?”

“Chili fries… would be nice.”

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Wow, LSPE. My entry seems rather pathetic in comparison, but here it is.


Mother's Day

Those damned cards. The holiday really wouldn't be all that bad if weren't for the damn stupid cards.

First there are the "Mother" cards. Almost never have I bought a "Mother" card. She's Mom, always has been. "Mother" is what my stuck-up aunt calls my grandmother. “Mother, what a lovely dinner!” “Mother will come along, won’t you?” She speaks with the cadence of some aristocracy far from our own family. The very association with my aunt has always soured me on the word “Mother”.

If you can't buy a “Mother” card, your choices have been chopped in half, at least.

Now if the card talks about being patient, or having a gentle way, or listening well, or bringing harmony to the family, or having grace....it's just so not my mom that I can't bring myself to purchase it.

My mom is a tough lady that works her ass off. She yelled at us all the time. We deserved it because we never helped her. She and I were enemies for years.

If the card talks about pampering herself or taking the day off, she laughs grimly. My mom doesn't take many breaks. She does nearly every chore in the house. Perhaps she’ll pamper herself when all the kids are gone. Only a couple of years left. Her joys are cigarettes, taped soap operas watched alone, and keeping her flower garden tidy. My mom doesn't have friends, doesn’t do much for fun.

I know I could write my own card. I have, many times before. But it's become very hard for me to articulate my oddly conflicting feelings for my mother. I've seen too much, and I'm too honest to pretend I haven't. She screwed me up in a lot of ways. But I know that she really is loving and generous and cares very deeply about all of us…in some ways. And as an adult I’ve come to see her with a love generated by sadness about her choices that led to her current status. Yeah, it’s pity, but it has to do with shared experiences – I prefer the word “empathy”.

So there I stand, looking at card after card, trying to filter out one that doesn’t lie. One that won’t seem ridiculous. I usually end up with “we appreciate all you’ve done for us.” That is accurate, at least, and heartfelt.

The upshot is that as I’m reading all of the rejected cards, I realize that there really are moms out there that “always know just what to say” or “that I can come to with any problem” or are “filled with joy and laughter”. I have to admit, after many years of enduring the card aisle, I get a bit jealous.

[blueerica]

CP -- I love it when I read someone's thoughts on things like this... feelings i thought I was isolated with, only to realize that it's not all that uncommon to feel jaded about card shopping when things aren't as peachy keen. I probably read too much into what's being said in the card, but for a while there, I couldn't buy a card that said how much my mom did for me, especially when I was the one raising my sisters. Bitterness doesn't make for good card shopping.

I love that you love your mom and respect the choices she made, even though you may not have made you happy. Sometimes moms don't bake cookies for when you come home after school, and sometimes they don't shop or lunch with you. Sometimes you don't talk to them on the phone every day, or every-other day, at 6:45.

For those aforementioned "rough years," I often went for the funny card, because it hurt to much to sift through the mushy ones. I'm just so thankful that my relationship with my mom has grown, and grown stronger...

Thanks for writing that!

[wendybeth]

When it was mentioned that we might use other sources of 'inspiration', I immediately thought of posting this , mainly because reading it would only be slightly less exhausting than recounting highlights from my chilhood. There was a difference, though- mine wasn't a movie star. So, I agree that shopping for Mother's day cards can be a challenge. We get along fine now- she had a breakdown a few years back and is much nicer, but I still keep at arms length.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Fantastic stuff, everyone, as usual.

New topic.

Logic vs Emotion

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Fantastic stuff, everyone, as usual.

New topic.

Logic vs Emotion

Oooh, this is going to be good....I'l write about PMS.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

A Very Brief Play in One Act

Scene: An alley below a roadway bridge. It is a illuminated by the bridge’s street lamps, and a dim light above the door of an abandoned building. The wall of the abandoned building frames one side of the alley, and the girders of the bridge frame the other side. Aside from the structures, the alley is completely empty. Two characters enter, one from stage left, and one from stage right, meeting in the middle.

Phineus: So, Frances, we meet again.

Frances: Yes, Phineus, we do indeed meet again.

Phineus: Fortuitous.

Frances: Not at all. I’ve had this planned all along, or have you forgotten what a schemer I am?

Phineus: I have not forgotten. But to plan to meet me here, at this very moment in time, at this very spot?

Frances: Why, yes! Only fools leave things to chance. I’ve had designs on this moment in time, and on this very spot, for years.

Phineus: Why, of all places, did you pick this dump hole beneath a little roadway bridge that’s just inches away from an abandoned building, when there’s an elegantly refurbished mall just across the street? Highly illogical, Frances, and this is – after all – our time to be logical. We were very, very emotional in our last life, if you recall. Although, I am also feeling a bit wistful at the moment. I bet the food court has an ice cream parlor. Oh, how I love ice cream! Do you remember when we were playing in the sandbox last time, and you threw sand in my eyes? I cried like the babe I was and my mother did not come running, but yours did. She chastised you and made you apologize.”

Frances: I refused, but she told me I couldn’t have ice cream unless I apologized, and so finally I did. She taught me to be very fond of bribes.

Phineus: You were a very angry child.

Frances: And why shouldn’t I have been? It got me ice cream, after all. Oh, I do like this place. I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn't feel so sentimental during these transitional periods from one body to the next. But it really does get dreadfully dull not feeling anything. I’m very wealthy. I pick impeccable investments. I drive impeccable cars. I never make the wrong decision. My logic is flawless, as is yours, and others of our ilk. But I really do get tired of always being right, of always intuiting the correct answer. There is no chance. No adventure.

Phineus: We’re not supposed to feel this way. We’re not supposed to regret or desire. We’re simply here to observe and calculate and bask in the wellspring of our own intellectual thumb twirling. I hate when you bring me down to nostalgia’s level. It’s lowering us both to the murky depths of human de-evolution. We are forced to endure an emotional body for one full life cycle whilst our logical minds recline and recuperate. You are being very annoying.

Frances: Back when I was a woman – my last life, mind, and not that disastrous one before, I had a crush on a homeless man who used to sleep right over there. I used to walk over this bridge to work from my parent’s house and see him down below reading. I thought he must be a man of the world, a true walkabout. My scholarly wanderer who needed no home, no comfort, no love but the world’s whole offering. I adored him from afar. Would have been highly impractical to adore him up close, where I might notice sores or whiskey breath, or the fact that his reading material might very well be old discarded Readers Digests. No, I did not want to taint the vision I had of his entire life. Oh, Phineus, what an odd, wistful girl I was! I had a yearning, all the time. Was always stumbling over my own choices. I loved what I wanted and not what I had. I ran around in circles chasing a tail that had evolved away centuries before. I was silly all the time. Broke all the time. Yet my heart pumped firmly in favor of novelty and imagination. There was love coursing through me with no real outlet, and so I let it pour out in rivulets that encircled ideas and concepts more than the real that surrounded me from all sides.

Phineus’ impatience visibly grows as Frances regresses more and more into emotional reminiscence.

Phineus: Illogical of you to chose sentimentality over practicality. We cannot even buy a beer here. I really would have much preferred a bar for our meeting, Phineus. You know I never get as misty over the last life we lived as you do. You’re always chasing after fairy dreams. This place is dull and horrible. Underneath a bridge, right by the L.A. River – the majestic sewer. I mean, really! You do this nonsense every time you turn 30, no matter how many times you turn 30! Every other life we wind up in places like this. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the Mexican discotheque. Or the Paris Opera in 1918!”

Frances: I have not forgotten, either. But you might as well indulge me. We’ve known each other for thousands of years, Phineus, and I really only get this way every other cycle. And then, only if I’ve been drinking.”

Phineus: You’ve been drinking? What have you been drinking?

Frances: Milk, what else?

Phinueus shakes his head in consternation. He knows what kind of effect milk has on his friend.

Phineus: Why don’t we do some Calculus together? Why not focus on a way to heal democracy? Or, I know, let’s go to my place and watch Star Trek’s <i>The Best of the Vulcans from Star Trek: The Original Series to Star Trek: Oh Dear God, Where Are We NOW?!”

Frances (who has started to cry): I really thought I was in love with that homeless man, Phineus. But he was just a twig in a stream, another flight of fancy. I get things so wrong sometimes.

Phineus: As do I, Frances. But only every other time, remember? The rest of the time it’s smooth sailing from Date of Birth to Date of Death. Every other time we lived charmed, rational lives. This is just a hiccup. You feel it very time you turn 30 and realize you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do, and to perfection. You feel a little bit of guilt over letting things become such a mess during our regenerative cycles. You’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Frances (sniffling now): I know you’re right, Phineus. It’s just, I rather like the mess, you know? All this order, it’s just so….

Phineus: Universal. Infinite. Miraculous. Divine. Comforting. Easy.

Frances: And boring. I was a male prostitute once, and it was degrading and awful, often painful and literally sickening. But it was a visceral life, full of emotion. I do prefer emotion, I think, to this ridiculous monotony.

Phineus: And I prefer this ridiculous monotony to throwing myself off of a bridge because my wife dumped me.

Frances: Thousands of lives and one suicide. You’ll never let me live it down!

Phineus: Come, let’s leave this place. We can find a nice bar and recite the periodic elements table in a sing-song. Doesn't that sound like good, clean scientific fun?

Frances: No, but it does sound universally, infinitely and miraculously boring. And such is my life, except for the days when I turn 30, or have been reborn again a new and emotional being, to live and muck up my life in ways most unpleasant but beautiful. I can hardly wait, Phineus. Next time I plan to muck up the works with flourish; a real royal affair!

Phineus: And I, as always, look forward to not enjoing watching you do it.

The two friends wrap their arms around each other, and exit sage left.

End Scene

[Boss Radio]

Fantastic.

I loved what I wanted and not what I had. I ran around in circles chasing a tail that had evolved away centuries before. I was silly all the time. Broke all the time. Yet my heart pumped firmly in favor of novelty and imagination. There was love coursing through me with no real outlet, and so I let it pour out in rivulets that encircled ideas and concepts more than the real that surrounded me from all sides.

Sheer poetry.

[€uroMeinke]

Perhaps it’s true that love is just
Hormones and the desire for sex
And pleasure

Perhaps it’s true that anger is just
That dump of adrenaline that makes you fight
Or run.

Perhaps it’s true that sadness is just
Withdrawal from those very substances
That make us feel good

Perhaps every choice we make
Is predetermined by our biochemical circumstances
A mere illusion of control

But as reasonable as all that is
I think it reasonable to presume
Otherwise.

I think it reasonable to assume
That we should be responsible
For the decisions we make

I think it reasonable to assume
That our sorrow sometimes shows our respect
of things and people missed

I think it reasonable to assume
That our anger sometimes shows our disgust
For great wrongs

I think it reasonable to assume
That our love sometimes betrays
Our very frailty and humanness.

Perhaps it's true and reasonable to assume
That sometimes logic exists
To prove our emotions true

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

What a lovely response, Chris.

"Perhaps it's true and reasonable to assume
That sometime slogic exists
To prove our emotions true"

Hear, hear!