Let's hear it for . . .

Minwax Stainable Wood Filler!!!

Woo hoo!


Why is everyone looking at me funny?

Sippy cup lid, anyone?

This was a necessary evil -- emptying out all the kitchen drawers April 1 in order for Bob to remove the Formica counter and for the Corian counter template to be made. I dumped stuff in boxes and grabbed only the things I needed out of them in the week between the template and the install. This afternoon I started to put stuff back again. Last time I did this was 1992. I found a lot of shit stuff of great sentimental value in the process, including not only sippy cup lids (my child is now 16 1/2) but juice bottle straws (she was constantly losing them, so I just ordered a bunch from the company that made them. Libby?). Threw out a lot of shit  stuff, and washed out drawer trays from the drawers that hold glue, batteries, and other nonedibles -- they showed evidence of mouse droppings. Ick.

Fancy? Stella? I will dock you your wages.

I was going to make flounder fillets tonight, but it is very late and I do want to go to church tomorrow, even if Unitarian Universalists do not believe in the traditional understanding of the resurrection. When I was growing up UU, Easter was always a tricky subject for the minister -- still is. It became a holiday about spring and the rebirth of nature, daffodils, the Song of Solomon (For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, and the voice of the turtle tree frog is heard in the land....)

And so I will make a Boboli pizza instead of flounder. Green pepper, mushrooms, cheese. Half cheese, as cheese is almost the only kind my kid will consume. I've been writing this as the oven preheats. I wonder if I have any lettuce still good enough to make a salad?

Oven light is off. Time to cook. Happy Easter, Happy Passover now in progress, dear friends.

Happy birthday, Mama, wherever you are

My mother would have been 83 today.

I have indulged in a fair amount of mom-bashing, if not here, then in my friends' journals. Many of us have what appear to be/have been mothers with Narcissistic Histrionic Disorder.

I want to separate the incarnate abusive parent with the eternal spirit.

Here is reposted an exchange with the wonderful Saizai (one of the Empaths moderators) about my mom. If you don't want to read the dreck, go down to the large PINK text, since that is the point I want to make.

(From November 2005, picking up an exchange)

I would never suggest my mother was evil incarnate -- I don't think anyone is. I tried so hard to see the good in her growing up, in fact, that I blamed myself for seeing any bad. Since it was dangerous to object to or criticize her in any way, this tendency on my part was of course reinforced.

Later, when my father's dying became the catalyst for getting me to see her differently, I realized that I loved her, but didn't like her much -- and it was easier to love her from a distance. Being in her physical presence for more than four hours at a time was painful.

But even so, I could always recognize that she had an outrageous sense of humor, passionately fought injustice, and had other admirable qualities (why everyone kept saying she was such "a wonderful woman!!"). I also recognized that she had been deeply hurt in life -- she felt "cheated" by life in many ways. This fueled her narcissistic sense of entitlement.

She fought back with cunning and courage. I knew her life was coming to an end when she told me, "I don't have the strength to be combative anymore." Combativeness defined her.

About her hurts -- she was raped in her own home when I was four. Look at photos of her before and after, and you (or at least I) can see a change -- a hardening. I don't usually see auras, or at least not the way others seem to, but in her case, it was as if it clamped down on her like a hard candy shell.

 Moments before her death, she appeared to me (I'll write more about that someday) and it was as if a frothy wave expanded suddenly from her like a tsunami and I was caught up and rocked in it -- only instead of being scary, it felt bubbly, warm and wonderful. I didn't know what to make of it, and could only write on a notepad immediately afterward, "Communion with [her name]." Later, I wondered if it was her aura that softened and whooshed out, expanding. As I said, we were at peace.

I have also come to know her better since then, in going through her belongings. (She died Sept. 2004, so I am still going through them...) I discovered that despite her endless criticism, she did want to love me -- it's just, as a wise friend noted, "she didn't know *how.*" 

(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

Re: Seeing through lies
saizai
2005-11-22 02:15 pm (local) (link)
*wry smile* I'm not sure one *can* "know how"; it's too slippery a thing.

I'm glad you've managed to turn this to the good, though. It's a bit too dangerous - tempting, easy - a trap to do otherwise; even empaths tend to fall into it, sadly. One reason has to do with what you mentioned, the childish idealization: it can be easy to want to lash back against *that* in an extreme that also is not justified, to avoid feeling taken advantage of / deceived / etc in the same way.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

slippery love
ar_wahan
2005-11-22 05:07 pm (local) (link)
When I was writing what my friend said, I *wanted* to write that she said, "She [my mother] did love you, she didn't know how to show it." Which, of course, is something else again! But that was not what she actually said.

I think, though, that in fact that is really what was going on -- she did love me, but did not know how to show it.

When I was at a leadership training a few years ago, the speaker announced that the topic of this session was, "What do you do when people rub you the wrong way?" I misheard him in the noisy environment, and wrote instead in my notebook:

"What do you do when people love you the wrong way?"

I think our two titles -- his version, and my misheard one -- say a lot together.


(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

Re: slippery love
saizai
2005-11-22 05:30 pm (local) (link)
*laugh* I agree.