Flowers of

I’d really like to write something positive and productive. But, given recent events big and small I keep thinking about the nature of good and evil, of the difference between “bad” and “evil” behavior, of my own flaws, what manifests. And seriously, right now, though I feel fairly peaceful, and there is no lack of love in the core of things, when it comes to positive, I’m not sure I’ve got it in me.

The push to positivity is not the same thing as hopefulness. Really, I’m not even sure I could define “positivity” right now. It’s taken on the unhealthy gloss of a faux-wood veneer. Are you a positive person? What does that mean? For me, it sounds as unpleasant as “upbeat” or “peppy.” It’s what’s underneath that I’m interested in. And at present I certainly don’t feel upbeat. What I am feeling is much deeper than anything that could express itself as a bounce. But before you start going all dualistic on me, I am not saying there is anything negative in this mindstate. It’s not dark or gothy or scary in any way. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit of a satisfied glow right now. It’s just not a glow that wants to tolerate idiocy or lying or back biting or cruelty, and, having seen more of these in the last several weeks -- correction, that last year and two months or so -- than I would have liked, maybe I’m a tad suspicious of anything that rings, however softly, of pretense.

Even in myself.

Out of the Metal Ox corral for more than a month now, I find myself craving the warm light of truth the way I craved red meat when I found myself pregnant after five years of vegetarianism. I had attempted to close down my brain’s truth clock in order to not go insane while I was with him, and now I’m enjoying letting it tick away in its naturally thoughtful, happy way. And I do mean attempted, for anyone who knows the history of Earth Pig and Metal Ox knows that the alarm would go off from time to time, no matter how many pillows and blankets I buried it in. Let’s just keep in mind that I’m the one who buried it. He kept trying to put his hands over my ears, it’s true. But still.

So, having read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road while I was sitting with Scorpio 2 in the hospital (interesting juxtaposition in itself), and having in the same stretch had the arisings that led to the letter of the earlier post, I emerge from all of that feeling angry at the laziness of lying and heartlessness and selfishness and cruelty. And wondering where the line is between simple badness and actual evil. And wondering about the mundane evil of lazy tortures of the mind fuck kind Metal Ox constantly undertook on me (and I say lazy because I think his veiling through lies of who he really is was simply easier for him than telling the truth and becoming, though the work the truth demands, his best self), wondering if those might be in the same group of evils that allow people to practice physical torture with as little thought as MOx gave to what he practiced on my mind with his violations of the truth (imagine how much more work diplomacy is than torture, how much slower the "result"). I just wonder where the line is. So, right now, I'm angry at the weakness of the lazy.

Add to this the more obvious evils/lazinesses: war, trafficking, violence against women and children. I don't know. What is the human race? Really? Really?

Once I saw on one of those home decorating shows that if you paint your swimming pool a certain color of grey, the water appears as the most luminescent color of blue. There is this action of color interacting with the water and the light. It's a set of phenomena more complicated than one might at first consider, having pool water in just the right color. And I see it pretty clearly, right now, the difference between light (strength/effort) and dark (weakness/laziness), and I know which pool I want to swim in. And it’s not all that much to do with what one sees on the surface. It’s more like what color is the stone that lines the pool. What creates the color you see when light hits it? then the dark. You can’t see only what you expect to see to pick up on this.

And it makes me really sad that sometimes evil doesn’t even know it’s evil, and he who may want to be a good person doesn’t even know how to start. And that giving love doesn’t cure the darkness in someone, nor the delusion. And that I am still learning this after all these years. And I am ready for the only-real, and am waiting here, and will not stop thinking or feeling and the clock is on the headboard again and all of this is positive enough, but wouldn’t exist without the negative, and so there we are with The Balance again, Girls.

Write a poem. Be real. Remember that I love you.

Letter Written to Metal Ox While in Hospital With Scorpio Two

Dear Sir,

It’s sad, going through all this without you. At times I wish I could pick up the phone and tell you all about it, the image of my little girl here in this cold white room, the IV in her arm, the pale skin of her, my weepy heart. There is so much that can be done. Maybe you could go get me a tooth brush (three days without one). Or something to eat. Or hold my hand. Maybe you could tell a joke to cheer her and me up a little. Maybe you could check on my other offspring, at home and still recovering from surgery.

Then I remember, you wouldn’t do any of that. You wouldn’t be here, anyway. You wouldn’t drive out of your way to help any of us. If we were together, you would never stoop to coming to my side in such an instance as this. I know. It’s been tested. You didn’t.

OK, once you did. With the breast scare, you were very good, though you made it clear that it would be inconvenient to miss the wrestling match should I need to go to the emergency room. But at least you tried, and I am grateful.

But then, well, next was my dad’s memorial, at which you’d said you’d support me -- then you backed out. So, one time there? Compared to the many times not? Reliable? No. Evidence of learning? Not.

And so then I’m glad, because here, in these hospital rooms, in that apartment back home where the work and stress of two hospitalized children in a month is all overcoming me, there is no vacuum in the shape of you, no empty space where you should be. If we were still together, that Phantom You whom I lived with for five years, He Who Appeared By Disappearing in Every Crisis, would be right over there in the chair, next to my darling girl’s sick bed; He’d be visible only to me, a place with the air sucked out of it, the molecules revolving backward, dark matter shooting from His outline like wooden darts shaved to a needle's stick, the very vibe of Him smirking at me, saying: “See how little regard I have for you? I could give a damn how you feel. You will never count as high as all the other things in my life. Those are so much more attractive than you. Sucker. Idiot. It’s not my fault if you can’t read the writing on the wall.”

And so I sit here, alone, peacefully. No empty form, no screeching voice, no sucker punch. Just the knowing that without someone invisible to need, my heart is safe and clean.

Yours,
M

Enough, Already, Huh?

Ya, first Scorpio One ripped apart the major tendon in his right pectoralis, and that required surgery. Now he can't drive until the sling is off, at least four more weeks. Then last week Scorpio Two got sick and was in the hospital for three days. Two days after that I spent at Their Dad's house, taking care of her. The whole time, including while she was in the hospital, Their Dad was at my house, driving S One to work and physical therapy. Needless to say, we are all beat. But you know, it's nice to get to take care of one's offspring. Especially so with S Two, since I don't get to see her nearly enough, and constantly long to nurture her. In truth, sitting there in the hospital with her, hard and painful as it was to see her ill, in some ways a joy. In a selfish way. She needed me. At her age, of course, her whole manner of being is to not need me, and to give her my love and care feels like a privilege. S One, of course, in older and male and the definition of "taking care of" is different. It's all practical stuff. But that's ok. He's launching, at his pace. It's still all the stuff of motherhood, which is the most joyous of burdens.

Even if one does use up all of one's vacation days caring it.