Then it hit me this morning... I had been looking at our wedding album yesterday... and of course seeing all the pictures of mom must have triggered my grief nausea. (I still have it most mornings, but not in the evenings.)
And then I pictured myself telling her. Except, inexplicably, the words that popped into my head were the ones that Estha uses in The God of Small Things (in the scene that never fails to bring me to tears): "Ammu, feeling vomitty..." he says as the train pulls away from the station. So there I was in the middle of Meijer, crying... Big A holding me to him while I was telling him NOT to look at me.
Pic: A series of her walking hand-in-hand with my stepmom-in-law whom she'd met for the VERY FIRST TIME that weekend. This is so her.
On our way home, Nu and Big A decided to stay outside while I picked up some stuff at the grocery. But suddenly Big A was at my elbow asking me if I needed help to carry stuff out. I did not, but A did not like the guy who'd let me cut the line and was talking to me. Nu and A think I talk to too many "greasy dudes in Greece." I just talk to everyone is all.
Pic: My judgy crew. #Greece
UDL teaching workshop this morning--I was learning a lot, and contributing a lot. After watching the short documentary clip about kids with ADHD, I told a story about my babyhood that made the classroom go "aw" and chuckle. Except that after everyone had returned to the work at hand, I kept seeing my mom as an earnest new parent and I just... shut down and had to leave the meeting early.
(The story goes that I was not a good sleeper as an infant. I was hyperactive--and from six months onwards--very talkative. When my parents brought it up to the pediatrician, they said that it was probably because I was very brainy and constantly at work. That was so smart of the pediatrician, because it immediately mollified my parents and they never complained about my weird nocturnality again.)
Pic: Long walk-and-talk with JG in the afternoon. I inscribed two books (the Trans book and the poetry anthology) for her. I updated the annual report last night and was struck by how my scholarship, mentorship, and service for this one year would be a decent tenure-deserving record in most places. And the reason I'm having uncharacteristically braggy and uncharitable thoughts like these is because I'm so disappointed at work right now.
I find myself thinking of Aaron Bushnell, Tommie Raskin, and Aaron Schwarz, randomly, And I looked it up and they all kind of fall under the umbrella of altruistic suicides. Long ago, when I told bestie KB about my teenage habit of anorexia brought on by world famines, she told me about Simone Weil (KB has a religious studies background). I know what the undertow is for me here.
Norman Morrison (Vietnam objector), Bobby Sands (IRA activist), several Tibetan nuns and monks, and the Tunisian street vendor who set himself ablaze and set off Arab Spring* are some of the others mentioned in the Wiki article.
Anyway, my idea was to start a collage of "suicide saints" for my altar and Big A found the idea repugnant. He actually shuddered.
Of course Sylvia Plath and Kurt Cobain are in my thoughts a lot too. They're probably in an artist category with Van Gogh...
*My dad loves that line from the Tamil poet and freedom fighter Bharathi, a blazingly idealistic visionary, who says, ""Thani Oru Manithanukku Unavu Illai/ Enil Intha Jagathinai Azhithiduvom” (if a single person doesn't have food, let's burn down this world).
Pic: "Funambulist-Wire Walker" by John VanAlstine. Sculpture on MSU campus.
I knew I was in a different phase of my life when songs became about other people in my life. Once upon a time, I would have been the "little girl" in a Depeche Mode song. But when toddler Nu was in a timeout, this part in "Enjoy the Silence" seemed so much about them: "Oh, my little girl/All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms/Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm.
More recently when my amazing student KS did a thesis on The Power of Protest Music and Cosmopolitan Themes in Hozier Songs, I kept imagining meet-cutes for them and Hozier.
And this is so weird, but the Ariana Grande song whose second verse begins "And I know, and I know, and I know she gives you everything/ But, boy, I couldn't give it to you" has a chorus that reminds me of Scout and brings me to tears since the time I first heard it on the radio and paid attention... "So one last time/ I need to be the one who takes you home/ One more time/ I promise after that, I'll let you go." What I wouldn't give for one more time with Scout!
Pic: The Red Cedar.
Gratiot County CASA Awards Luncheon in the afternoon, where they very kindly gave me another award... I'm both moved by the acknowledgement, and self-conscious--I'm just doing my little bit! In the last two years, I've received three awards for CASA work. For someone like me, it's a lot to hear people say stuff about me, make an acceptance speech, etc. The real heroes are the children, IMO.
And in the evening, we were guests of CD and JD at the Refugee Development Center gala for a tour of the new facilities and the ribbon cutting. Big A could see my immediate impulse was to give up everything and devote all my time to teaching refugees English language skills, and began counseling prudence. I'm going to volunteer over the summer, at any rate. The testimonies from the kids brought me to HAPPY tears over and over again. Among the awardees for good citizenship were a pair of third graders--one giggly, one serious, a ninth grader from Chad who dressed up for the occasion in a suit, and a high-schooler who shouted out all the suffering countries including Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon.
Pic: The actual ribbon cutting. It was so fun to see people from different spheres of my life up there--church friends, legislators, our family physician's spouse, colleagues, etc.
I lie here I don't count the days anymore than I count trees they're here and although real also possess speechlessness as if a ca...
