I myself
am made up of flaws
and
stitched together
with
good intentions
Friday, October 21, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Putting a Fork in it
The best way to never be disappointed? Don't expect anything from anyone.
This is what I keep repeating when I'm trying to convince myself that I have every right to be disappointed.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
Expectations are a dangerous thing. They lead you down this road full-speed ahead and it's so hard to stop. It's this road where everything is as it should be in your head. A road filled with people who behave in the ways you'd want them to behave and who say the things you'd want them to say.
It's a road that has the people around you falling at your feet trying to do whatever it takes to please you.
This is the road that will tell you to eat the Nutella and that, no, it won't end up on your hips.
For the most part, this road has blockades on it with DO NOT ENTER ROAD NOT IN USE signs littering the entrance. But, somewhere along the way there must also be a sign that says:
That road sucks.
Luckily for me, while it's still (barely) in use for certain people, it's become a very short road.
This is what I keep repeating when I'm trying to convince myself that I have every right to be disappointed.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
Expectations are a dangerous thing. They lead you down this road full-speed ahead and it's so hard to stop. It's this road where everything is as it should be in your head. A road filled with people who behave in the ways you'd want them to behave and who say the things you'd want them to say.
It's a road that has the people around you falling at your feet trying to do whatever it takes to please you.
This is the road that will tell you to eat the Nutella and that, no, it won't end up on your hips.
For the most part, this road has blockades on it with DO NOT ENTER ROAD NOT IN USE signs littering the entrance. But, somewhere along the way there must also be a sign that says:
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
Because sometimes, there I am. Back on the road. Looking in my review mirror and wondering how I managed to bypass all the warning signs. Yet again.
That road sucks.
Luckily for me, while it's still (barely) in use for certain people, it's become a very short road.
You Did This
Every so often I get a glimpse of you.
Sometimes that's enough to help me realize what I don't want in life. Sometimes that's enough to make me realize what I'm missing.
Sometimes that's enough to make me wonder why it feels like I found you in a dream.
I guess memories are funny like that. Once someone is gone from your life, it's hard to remember a time where they felt real. Even the memories are crowded with dream-like wispy clouds to make you wonder if it was all just in your imagination. All the feelings and all the experiences that came with the feelings.
Even though it doesn't seem real, it had to have been because I know for a tangible fact that I am forever affected by it.
By you.
Sometimes that's enough to help me realize what I don't want in life. Sometimes that's enough to make me realize what I'm missing.
Sometimes that's enough to make me wonder why it feels like I found you in a dream.
I guess memories are funny like that. Once someone is gone from your life, it's hard to remember a time where they felt real. Even the memories are crowded with dream-like wispy clouds to make you wonder if it was all just in your imagination. All the feelings and all the experiences that came with the feelings.
Even though it doesn't seem real, it had to have been because I know for a tangible fact that I am forever affected by it.
By you.
Monday, October 10, 2011
She says Living Well....
". . . is the best revenge," or so my grandmother's maxim went, one of many sayings she loved to incite. The point wasn't so much the literal meaning of the words - I never could figure out who exactly I was supposed to be getting revenge against, for example - but rather, what I took from them was the joy and complete conviction in her voice as she spoke.
Memaw who was very much a mother in all the meaningful ways to me, maintained that she was 29 and holding up until the day of my Pawpaw's passing. So 86 is an educated guess, but it's telling about both her marvelously stubborn nature and adherence to appearances.
And yet she was not just full of pithy sayings and respect for formal traditions. Without complaint, she marched me to theater productions, special museum exhibits, and lunch at Woolworth's where I first learned to appreciate outrageously scrumptious Monkey Bread with strawberry butter. She bought me my first set of engraved Good Paper & demanded/taught me to write the "bread and butter" note. She was a great cook and seamstress and was on every board in the county. She was always busy but she ensured that my brother's and sister's and I had a top-quality education, and made many, many personal sacrifices to ensure that it happened. No library trip or book was denied, nor any other learning or cultural opportunity. Through her obvious eccentricities - and there were many, the lurid blue eyeshadow being just the frosting on the Estee Lauder caked foundation - and flaws and private demons, I always knew that she prioritized family in her funny, odd way above all else - and isn't that all that we can ask of a parent, really?
As any good daughter / granddaughter is prone to do, I spent my adolescence fighting all of this, my melodramatic exit from sixth grade being the first of my many Crimes Against Feminine Tradition. Because no sixth grader, particularly a painfully awkward one entirely afraid of actual boys, should be forced to learn the Virginia Reel but that's a subject for a different post. In any event, I struggled mightily against her teaching until I hit age 21 or so, when the feminine graces started to sneak in somehow.
It was then that I realized that I really did, and do, love Good Paper, and taking a stab at being nice to other people even when every fiber of my being doesn't feel like it (most of the time, that is), and appreciating the arts and incredible writing and all the other things that make each day a little more beautiful. I began the path to redemption in her eyes by becoming a teacher. I plan to greatly advance my cause back into grace by marrying the Grandmother-endorsed Doctor / Laywer/ and-or Respectable Businessman (any of the above being equally desirable), but I've come to suspect this lady business is a bit of a lifelong learning process.
So in Grandmother's honor, I raise my symbolic flute of Veuve - a love of champagne being a family tradition and all - and share with you my formal china and sterling silver patterns. Yes, my china and silver patterns. While this might strike some of you as odd or irreverent, it is the very highest form of tribute I can conceive of for this very special, independent lady. Because second to my becoming a well-educated, well-rounded woman of substance, or at least effectuating the appearance of same, the subjects most discussed over our NM or Four Seasons brunches since I've reached the age of majority were - formal china and silver patterns.
She is the best dancer, seamstress, make-up artist I know! She gave me the Farm but what I really want are her dancing shoes from Lord and Taylor! And I'm so thrilled to be going to Macy's for my first fur coat that you swear I need!
Memaw, you are incredible. There isn't enough Good Paper to tell you how much you mean to me.
Memaw who was very much a mother in all the meaningful ways to me, maintained that she was 29 and holding up until the day of my Pawpaw's passing. So 86 is an educated guess, but it's telling about both her marvelously stubborn nature and adherence to appearances.
And yet she was not just full of pithy sayings and respect for formal traditions. Without complaint, she marched me to theater productions, special museum exhibits, and lunch at Woolworth's where I first learned to appreciate outrageously scrumptious Monkey Bread with strawberry butter. She bought me my first set of engraved Good Paper & demanded/taught me to write the "bread and butter" note. She was a great cook and seamstress and was on every board in the county. She was always busy but she ensured that my brother's and sister's and I had a top-quality education, and made many, many personal sacrifices to ensure that it happened. No library trip or book was denied, nor any other learning or cultural opportunity. Through her obvious eccentricities - and there were many, the lurid blue eyeshadow being just the frosting on the Estee Lauder caked foundation - and flaws and private demons, I always knew that she prioritized family in her funny, odd way above all else - and isn't that all that we can ask of a parent, really?
As any good daughter / granddaughter is prone to do, I spent my adolescence fighting all of this, my melodramatic exit from sixth grade being the first of my many Crimes Against Feminine Tradition. Because no sixth grader, particularly a painfully awkward one entirely afraid of actual boys, should be forced to learn the Virginia Reel but that's a subject for a different post. In any event, I struggled mightily against her teaching until I hit age 21 or so, when the feminine graces started to sneak in somehow.
It was then that I realized that I really did, and do, love Good Paper, and taking a stab at being nice to other people even when every fiber of my being doesn't feel like it (most of the time, that is), and appreciating the arts and incredible writing and all the other things that make each day a little more beautiful. I began the path to redemption in her eyes by becoming a teacher. I plan to greatly advance my cause back into grace by marrying the Grandmother-endorsed Doctor / Laywer/ and-or Respectable Businessman (any of the above being equally desirable), but I've come to suspect this lady business is a bit of a lifelong learning process.
So in Grandmother's honor, I raise my symbolic flute of Veuve - a love of champagne being a family tradition and all - and share with you my formal china and sterling silver patterns. Yes, my china and silver patterns. While this might strike some of you as odd or irreverent, it is the very highest form of tribute I can conceive of for this very special, independent lady. Because second to my becoming a well-educated, well-rounded woman of substance, or at least effectuating the appearance of same, the subjects most discussed over our NM or Four Seasons brunches since I've reached the age of majority were - formal china and silver patterns.
She is the best dancer, seamstress, make-up artist I know! She gave me the Farm but what I really want are her dancing shoes from Lord and Taylor! And I'm so thrilled to be going to Macy's for my first fur coat that you swear I need!
Memaw, you are incredible. There isn't enough Good Paper to tell you how much you mean to me.
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