Chicory Days
Jun. 26th, 2016 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraSo, I watched all four episodes of the Roots remake last night. Cried like a baby when Kizzy got sold. Never was a big fan of Kunte Kinte; always preferred Kizzy and her morally ambiguous son, Chicken George. Well. “Preferred” is possibly too strong a word. But Kunte Kinte came from slave owners himself: Good slave owners, we are told, but we have to take the producers’ word for it. So, however heroic Kunte Kinte may be, there is that lingering sense of What goes around, comes around.
Roots made me cry and cry and cry, but crying did not have its usual cathartic effect.
I’m still feeling shitty today.
###
For an intelligent person who’s actually fairly perceptive about other people’s psychological states, I have remarkably little insight into my own psychological states. Yeah, yeah, yeah – depression is a biochemical reaction in the brain, but the brain is a supple organ with a multitude of feedback loops, and I think depression is all about repressed anger.
People in my cultural/educational bracket are deeply ashamed when they feel anger, and no doubt it’s better for the body politic to have us all walking around fantasizing about killing ourselves than walking around fantasizing about killing other people.
A week of feeling profoundly disjointed and sad and out of it, barely able to tolerate other people, peaked yesterday. So I finally had to ask myself: What the hell is up with this?
And realized: It’s about Robin. It’s about paying for Robin’s driving lessons.
I said I’d do it, so I have to do it.
But I don’t want to do it.
It’s not as though he will appreciate that I’m doing it.
And it represents a sacrifice because if I am churning out 5,000 words a day for the Scut Factory, I hit a wall. I can’t instantly regroup, and do my own writing. And my own writing, as inconsequential as it may be in fact, is the only thing that gives me any feeling of value on this planet. I mean, let’s face it: I’m a failure, right? I lost a business, a home, a husband. I have absolutely no worth.
If Robin had managed to get his ass in gear and graduate, my basic expenses would have gone down by 25%, and I wouldn’t have to put in quite so much time at the Scut Factory.
So there it is in black and white. The reason why I’m angry.
And, of course, I’m ashamed of myself for feeling this way.
He’s my kid, I love him. I should be happy to do anything for him. Is that a bus, belching smoke, careening out of control, veering toward the curb on which he and I are standing? Great! Let me throw myself in front of him and shield him from the impact!
That’s how I’m supposed to feel, right?
Except I don’t.
###
Walking home from Ed and Pat’s the other day, I was just seized with the thought that every single fucking thing in my life was just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Stop whinging! I remanded myself sternly.
“Whinging” is my new favorite word! It reinforces my feelings of solidarity with the pro-Brexit voters! (Yeah, yeah. Probably not a good decision to leave the EU. On the other hand, the EU amounts to a bloated bureaucratic government that nobody has actually voted for, an oligarchy in other words, plus leaving the EU really pisses off Millennials who are upset because the price of Ibiza vacations may rise, and my new battle cry is Fuck the Millennials! )
Your life is better than the lives of 90% of the other people living on this planet! I lectured myself.
Didn’t matter.
When I got home, I cried and cried and cried as though my heart had broken.
Then I stopped crying, gathered up the shards of my heart, and thought, Hmmm… These would make great knives.
In other news, the great progression of vernal flowers – forsythia -> crocus -> daffodil -> lilac -> peony -> rhododendron – has come to an end, and chicory has begun popping up on the roadsides where it will dominate till the first frost. Though I did happen upon these this morning when I was out running, trying to beat the oppressive heat:
Roots made me cry and cry and cry, but crying did not have its usual cathartic effect.
I’m still feeling shitty today.
###
For an intelligent person who’s actually fairly perceptive about other people’s psychological states, I have remarkably little insight into my own psychological states. Yeah, yeah, yeah – depression is a biochemical reaction in the brain, but the brain is a supple organ with a multitude of feedback loops, and I think depression is all about repressed anger.
People in my cultural/educational bracket are deeply ashamed when they feel anger, and no doubt it’s better for the body politic to have us all walking around fantasizing about killing ourselves than walking around fantasizing about killing other people.
A week of feeling profoundly disjointed and sad and out of it, barely able to tolerate other people, peaked yesterday. So I finally had to ask myself: What the hell is up with this?
And realized: It’s about Robin. It’s about paying for Robin’s driving lessons.
I said I’d do it, so I have to do it.
But I don’t want to do it.
It’s not as though he will appreciate that I’m doing it.
And it represents a sacrifice because if I am churning out 5,000 words a day for the Scut Factory, I hit a wall. I can’t instantly regroup, and do my own writing. And my own writing, as inconsequential as it may be in fact, is the only thing that gives me any feeling of value on this planet. I mean, let’s face it: I’m a failure, right? I lost a business, a home, a husband. I have absolutely no worth.
If Robin had managed to get his ass in gear and graduate, my basic expenses would have gone down by 25%, and I wouldn’t have to put in quite so much time at the Scut Factory.
So there it is in black and white. The reason why I’m angry.
And, of course, I’m ashamed of myself for feeling this way.
He’s my kid, I love him. I should be happy to do anything for him. Is that a bus, belching smoke, careening out of control, veering toward the curb on which he and I are standing? Great! Let me throw myself in front of him and shield him from the impact!
That’s how I’m supposed to feel, right?
Except I don’t.
###
Walking home from Ed and Pat’s the other day, I was just seized with the thought that every single fucking thing in my life was just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Stop whinging! I remanded myself sternly.
“Whinging” is my new favorite word! It reinforces my feelings of solidarity with the pro-Brexit voters! (Yeah, yeah. Probably not a good decision to leave the EU. On the other hand, the EU amounts to a bloated bureaucratic government that nobody has actually voted for, an oligarchy in other words, plus leaving the EU really pisses off Millennials who are upset because the price of Ibiza vacations may rise, and my new battle cry is Fuck the Millennials! )
Your life is better than the lives of 90% of the other people living on this planet! I lectured myself.
Didn’t matter.
When I got home, I cried and cried and cried as though my heart had broken.
Then I stopped crying, gathered up the shards of my heart, and thought, Hmmm… These would make great knives.
In other news, the great progression of vernal flowers – forsythia -> crocus -> daffodil -> lilac -> peony -> rhododendron – has come to an end, and chicory has begun popping up on the roadsides where it will dominate till the first frost. Though I did happen upon these this morning when I was out running, trying to beat the oppressive heat:
