... and to the porn sites which account for 90% of my traffic. It has been 3 months and change since I last posted. I stopped blogging for practical reasons: my life was organized around the care of a dying friend. I had no desire to write about "it" then, and I am reluctant to write about it now. The irony is that many of us (in my generation) sculpted ourselves into fiction writers by confessing, mining the travails of our own lives and convincing ourselves that it represented the anxieties of the age. Had I that need still there would be plenty of entries here, but I don't so there aren't.
It's spring. Like many in the northeast I had my doubts that it would ever arrive. I've been awarded for my patience with a front yard that is filling out with strawberries, echinacea, hydrangeas, day lilies, ferns, daisies, oxalis, clover, mint, sage and more than a few spectacular flowering weeds. During the winter I would sit in my dining room willing the plants into existence, wondering if last year's volunteer squash would take over by late summer, imagining what color the hydrangea blossoms would be. Now I happily bury the stools of the feral cats that use our yard as their litter box, pull and slice the roots off of weeds so that they can be composted. And think.
I've been dreaming lately. A few nights ago I had one where I was practically stalking the Math department's advisor to figure out what my next class should be. (You don't have to go to far back into last fall's entries the discern the magnitude of my bitchin' and moanin' about how hard my coursework is.) Nobody in my family believes that I will or should return to school. (I didn't enroll the spring semester.) That, too, is an old story. But, I have spent a lot of time with people who have been delimited by physical illness, mental illness, addiction, and poverty. One of the enduring effects of any of those conditions is the the lowering of expectations. Of being defined by what one can't do as opposed to what one can. And once you've bought that definition of yourself, you've taken over the maintenance of your oppression. Then it's game, set, match for the oppressor. Math is my instrument; public school students and adult learners are my audience. To have the math to work with them I have to do more coursework. It's as simple as that.
And last night I dreamed that I was in prison, but mysteriously released on furlough. I spent it at a bar with a friend talking and drinking coffee, surrounded by totebags of paperwork and clothing. I knew that I had to return to prison. My friend, who had been imprisoned but was now paroled left to catch the subway. I packed my bags, and then at the last minute decided I wasn't going back. Fuck it, I said to myself, I'm an old lady. Whadda they going to do to me?
Which is the attitude I've been taking now that I'm bike riding again, occasionally without a helmet after a (clears throat) 40 year interregnum. Cuthbert and even strangers counsel me to do otherwise. Of course they're right. I know all too well what can happen and godknows this city has more than its share of reckless and unlicensed drivers. But, oh freedom, and all of that. It feels so good to fly down the street and split the air.
Perhaps these latest dreams about about the poles of Freedom and Obligation. And the dance between the two as I enter my 60th year. Don't know; may never know. The sun's up; weeds await me.
It's spring. Like many in the northeast I had my doubts that it would ever arrive. I've been awarded for my patience with a front yard that is filling out with strawberries, echinacea, hydrangeas, day lilies, ferns, daisies, oxalis, clover, mint, sage and more than a few spectacular flowering weeds. During the winter I would sit in my dining room willing the plants into existence, wondering if last year's volunteer squash would take over by late summer, imagining what color the hydrangea blossoms would be. Now I happily bury the stools of the feral cats that use our yard as their litter box, pull and slice the roots off of weeds so that they can be composted. And think.
I've been dreaming lately. A few nights ago I had one where I was practically stalking the Math department's advisor to figure out what my next class should be. (You don't have to go to far back into last fall's entries the discern the magnitude of my bitchin' and moanin' about how hard my coursework is.) Nobody in my family believes that I will or should return to school. (I didn't enroll the spring semester.) That, too, is an old story. But, I have spent a lot of time with people who have been delimited by physical illness, mental illness, addiction, and poverty. One of the enduring effects of any of those conditions is the the lowering of expectations. Of being defined by what one can't do as opposed to what one can. And once you've bought that definition of yourself, you've taken over the maintenance of your oppression. Then it's game, set, match for the oppressor. Math is my instrument; public school students and adult learners are my audience. To have the math to work with them I have to do more coursework. It's as simple as that.
And last night I dreamed that I was in prison, but mysteriously released on furlough. I spent it at a bar with a friend talking and drinking coffee, surrounded by totebags of paperwork and clothing. I knew that I had to return to prison. My friend, who had been imprisoned but was now paroled left to catch the subway. I packed my bags, and then at the last minute decided I wasn't going back. Fuck it, I said to myself, I'm an old lady. Whadda they going to do to me?
Which is the attitude I've been taking now that I'm bike riding again, occasionally without a helmet after a (clears throat) 40 year interregnum. Cuthbert and even strangers counsel me to do otherwise. Of course they're right. I know all too well what can happen and godknows this city has more than its share of reckless and unlicensed drivers. But, oh freedom, and all of that. It feels so good to fly down the street and split the air.
Perhaps these latest dreams about about the poles of Freedom and Obligation. And the dance between the two as I enter my 60th year. Don't know; may never know. The sun's up; weeds await me.
