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My Mother, the 3-D Hologram
Jun. 2nd, 2019 07:25 amPainted my nails an unappealing shade of deep violet flecked with silver, which is most unfortunate because it kinda looks like I dipped my fingers in grave mold. I swear! The polish did not look like that in the bottle!
I’m also kinda obsessing about two upcoming Major Expenses, which I will have to put on plastic and what that will do to my credit rating.
But mostly I’m thinking about the relationship between Patty (mother) and Joey (son) in Freedom, which enough minor characters in the book describe as “emotional incest” to make me think the author shares that viewpoint, too.
As far as I can tell, all the poor mother tried to do was talk to the son about her life, try to get the kid to see that she was not some kind of psychic Loch Ness Monster, dripping primal and therefore doomed to be perpetually unresolved emotion from tooth and fang, but a real human being with hopes and fears and dreams.
Why is that so wrong?
###
Some offspring actually love and revere their parents.
Some of those offspring are actually close personal friends of mine!
I’m fairly sure my two kids love me although there is always some degree of forbearance—particularly in the flesh. I don’t exasperate Max over the phone, but I do in the flesh—which is odd because he’s close to Celeste, Nathan’s mother; she does not embarrass him, and she is a helluva lot nuttier and flakier than I am.
I definitely embarrass Robin! As recently as my last T-burg visit, he was squirming when I tried to photograph him when we were out in public—“My friends might see me!”
So fucking what?
Your friends don’t have mothers who love them and want to make memories?
But I’m the one he texts late at night when he’s in deep emotional turmoil.
I can only theorize that offspring are so embarrassed by their parents because they identify with their parents so deeply on some basic level, like their parents are some 3-D hologram of all the most humiliating parts of their personalities.
Anyway…
I am off to the City for my (gulp) 50th high school reunion.
Roxy has that great line in Chicago: I’m older than I ever intended to be.
I’m also kinda obsessing about two upcoming Major Expenses, which I will have to put on plastic and what that will do to my credit rating.
But mostly I’m thinking about the relationship between Patty (mother) and Joey (son) in Freedom, which enough minor characters in the book describe as “emotional incest” to make me think the author shares that viewpoint, too.
As far as I can tell, all the poor mother tried to do was talk to the son about her life, try to get the kid to see that she was not some kind of psychic Loch Ness Monster, dripping primal and therefore doomed to be perpetually unresolved emotion from tooth and fang, but a real human being with hopes and fears and dreams.
Why is that so wrong?
###
Some offspring actually love and revere their parents.
Some of those offspring are actually close personal friends of mine!
I’m fairly sure my two kids love me although there is always some degree of forbearance—particularly in the flesh. I don’t exasperate Max over the phone, but I do in the flesh—which is odd because he’s close to Celeste, Nathan’s mother; she does not embarrass him, and she is a helluva lot nuttier and flakier than I am.
I definitely embarrass Robin! As recently as my last T-burg visit, he was squirming when I tried to photograph him when we were out in public—“My friends might see me!”
So fucking what?
Your friends don’t have mothers who love them and want to make memories?
But I’m the one he texts late at night when he’s in deep emotional turmoil.
I can only theorize that offspring are so embarrassed by their parents because they identify with their parents so deeply on some basic level, like their parents are some 3-D hologram of all the most humiliating parts of their personalities.
Anyway…
I am off to the City for my (gulp) 50th high school reunion.
Roxy has that great line in Chicago: I’m older than I ever intended to be.
