Sunday Reflections on a Monday (Part 1, maybe)

The Fate of Snowy; the Mark of Cain

Considering just how I was received last week, I'm tempted to think of Snowy as, well, dead. I know, I'm shocked and I'm shaking my head over a stuffed toy. I normally think that gifts, once given, are generally no longer the giver's concern. But it does tell: the way gifts are treated are sometimes an indication of just what the giver means to the recipient.

I'm drawing sick parallels (I'm very good at that) between sacrificing an innocent to appease an angry or indifferent deity and what I did in the last two weeks of May. If Snowy is dead or has been given away what do I do?

Should I do a Cain and metaphorically murder another innocent? I've a brother in the office where God works and I don't want to kill him just because She accepts his little sacrifices. I do not want to be a Lurker, waiting in the shadows; from Her silence I can only conclude that God still sees me this way.

Windows name names

It's a line from a Neruda love poem: I like it and it's apt for today's little entry. There was a time when I alluded to events and people out of some respect for things like privacy. Putting something in writing for everyone to look at is making a very public statement: people's reputations could be negatively affected if I wrote about them in a fit of pique.

After years of writing around a problem or person, after going through a crapload of contortions and inventing code words for all the people who significantly appear in the story of my life, I am two things. Tired and dissatisfied.

I cannot write around a person for fear of possible legal wrinkles forever. One cannot write something and not intend to have it read by an audience in any way. My writing already feels cumbersome at times, and the extra restrictions I place on myself when I write make my writing unintelligible to the audience I want to keep.

Windows name names the way I do these days. 'Cause I'm just too tired to write around people, that is, to not point directly to the people who vex, the people who give joy, the people who matter. I am still dedicated, in my way, to doing this with grace.

The people who vex vex only at the time of writing. The people who give joy , the people who matter, are assumed to do these things forever.

It's biased, but I think everyone will find it agreeable.


Weekends

I used to hate Mondays so badly that I would try to set it up so I wouldn't have to work on them. The rationale was that you spent Saturday recovering from Friday (or you wound up spending Saturday at work) and you spent Sunday on the obligatory --and often dreaded-- chat or outing with the family. By the time Monday came rolling in you still weren't up to working.

These days I am uncomfortable with Fridays; Saturdays and Sundays have been unfairly maligned too. If they didn't take so much out of the soul-- teaching and prepping for your students' needs-- I'd probably be working at the office on weekends, even on Sundays.

I don't want to have to leave the office at the end of my shift and walk that short stretch of road to the bus stop alone. I'm being woman-y, being sparse with context, expecting you all to read my mind and my raised eyebrow (got that from my granddaughter), and I'm sorry about that. But there are nights--too often-- after work when I feel terribly alone.