Blame it on the weather. This winter has been cold, gray and filled with rain. Sleet storms have replaced the October, early blizzards.( I got two de-icer key/lock hand-held devices in my stocking, for Christmas.) I have ended, ass up, under Tortuga, my trusty Subaru, twice. Unlike Dad, who totters but stays upright, in his crampons, as he heads towards the garage, I rush out in smooth-soled Uggs, or worse, Converse hi-tops, and flip onto my back. My butt gets soaked, my large muscle groups scream in pain, and I doubt I even want to get to Dad's 86 milestone, myself. All of these details, plus the employment situation, add up to a severe case of melancholia. Even taking Vitamin D, under a sunlamp, hasn't helped.
Today, I decided to put aside gray thoughts and do something "fun". I would search Facebook for old friends--really old friends. I would upgrade my profile and get rid of any extraneous "stuff". Social Network housecleaning: Mistake Number One.
My profile photo has been, since the beginning, a print of a self-portrait, painted a while back. I like the painting and think it accurately captures the "deer in the headlights" expression I had for my last eighteen months in Los Angeles--after the "crash". (I imagine a lot of abstract expressionists felt the same, around the time of the Stockmarket debacle in the U.S.) So, updating to my more "hope filled" existence, in New England, seemed in order.
Trying for a self-portrait while everyone else is not at home can be both liberating AND annoying. The digital camera didn't want to work. My cell phone camera is terrible. My computer camera looked like a Saturday Night Live sketch still. I ended up taking the most honest shot--and then proceeded to photo-shop it...avoiding the "insta-thin" app...Couldn't remove a big white speck on the middle of my huge chin, nor the elaborate flash "shine" on my Irish nose and forehead. At least the black hoodie gave me some street cred--or it makes me look like I'm a schmatta- wearing grandmother from Eastern Europe (no insults implied). I can't decide. Reducing the photo to black and white only increased the jail-house ambiance. So, I used the first shot and figured, that's "it", Folks. Truly.
Next mistake: looking up old "flames" to see if they are even around anymore. My "m-o" used to be dating people about two decades older than me--which is fine, until you hit your mid-fifties. Then, it gets dicey. Not that I'm an ageist, these days. Far from it. However, finding a kayaking seventy-six year old single isn't as easy as it sounds. Further, what does it say about me that all of my "exes" choose not to be using their birth-names and critical identifiers on Facebook? Are they dead? Evading the law? Hiding out from enemies? Family? Creditors? Or--gulp--are they afraid I might someday come calling? (This sudden realization shut me down for the day.)
I started to think about my late exploits--how I might feel if any of those folks just "bumped into me", on-line. Hmmm. Would I consider a re-union, even if it was only virtual? Would finding out how far their lives progressed (while mine seems to be a terminal cartoon--at least according to my family) be something I am even interested in discovering? Would the demise of some early connections be too much to bear--as the demise of so many friends was and continues to be, in the wake of AIDS, war and cancerdays in America?
Or, would finding out that everybody is married, except for Moi, cause my braincells to simply explode?
What might it be like to have everyone you have ever loved, intimately, gather together, in the same room, and meet? Would you want to be hosting the event, or merely observe, behind a strong wall? Would you choose to be a ghost? Would you rather avoid the conflagration, altogether? (I warned you--January is the most self-involving month of the year, at least in northern climes. There's a reason schools take a break...)
I once had a dream--maybe my best dream--that I died, and after a long serious walk through an old forest, came to a cottage in a clearing. It was a lovely day. There were birds singing, bees buzzing and butterflies flitting. As I came closer to the house, the front door was flung open. Virginia Woolf stood there, in her early glory, squinting and holding her hand to the bright sun. Suddenly, she broke into a radiant smile. Her thin arms opened and she beckoned me inside.
As she took my elbow and greeted me, we moved, together, into a large book-filled room, filled with every female author and artist I had ever loved or longed to know. A fire crackled in the stone fireplace. The scent of wood-smoke and whiskey and cigarettes and expensive perfume mingled around us, making me high and happy. Best of all, each woman greeted me,saying, "Minns, welcome. We've been waiting for you..."
Then I awoke--tears on my face, wanting to go back and to stay. (I never had a re-run of the dream.)
However, after today's little experiment in "cleaning up the past", perhaps if I had stayed on in the dreamplace, I would have found that they were all waiting for me to tell me the truth--that I've been deluding myself since I was a child; grow up; buck up; accept that I would never make it as a writer or an artist of any note...find a stable partner, get a reputable position, make a few sound investments, marry and be done with it. (Brrrrrr!)
In January, it seems, everything's a crapshoot, and we are all players.
Today, I decided to put aside gray thoughts and do something "fun". I would search Facebook for old friends--really old friends. I would upgrade my profile and get rid of any extraneous "stuff". Social Network housecleaning: Mistake Number One.
My profile photo has been, since the beginning, a print of a self-portrait, painted a while back. I like the painting and think it accurately captures the "deer in the headlights" expression I had for my last eighteen months in Los Angeles--after the "crash". (I imagine a lot of abstract expressionists felt the same, around the time of the Stockmarket debacle in the U.S.) So, updating to my more "hope filled" existence, in New England, seemed in order.
Trying for a self-portrait while everyone else is not at home can be both liberating AND annoying. The digital camera didn't want to work. My cell phone camera is terrible. My computer camera looked like a Saturday Night Live sketch still. I ended up taking the most honest shot--and then proceeded to photo-shop it...avoiding the "insta-thin" app...Couldn't remove a big white speck on the middle of my huge chin, nor the elaborate flash "shine" on my Irish nose and forehead. At least the black hoodie gave me some street cred--or it makes me look like I'm a schmatta- wearing grandmother from Eastern Europe (no insults implied). I can't decide. Reducing the photo to black and white only increased the jail-house ambiance. So, I used the first shot and figured, that's "it", Folks. Truly.
Next mistake: looking up old "flames" to see if they are even around anymore. My "m-o" used to be dating people about two decades older than me--which is fine, until you hit your mid-fifties. Then, it gets dicey. Not that I'm an ageist, these days. Far from it. However, finding a kayaking seventy-six year old single isn't as easy as it sounds. Further, what does it say about me that all of my "exes" choose not to be using their birth-names and critical identifiers on Facebook? Are they dead? Evading the law? Hiding out from enemies? Family? Creditors? Or--gulp--are they afraid I might someday come calling? (This sudden realization shut me down for the day.)
I started to think about my late exploits--how I might feel if any of those folks just "bumped into me", on-line. Hmmm. Would I consider a re-union, even if it was only virtual? Would finding out how far their lives progressed (while mine seems to be a terminal cartoon--at least according to my family) be something I am even interested in discovering? Would the demise of some early connections be too much to bear--as the demise of so many friends was and continues to be, in the wake of AIDS, war and cancerdays in America?
Or, would finding out that everybody is married, except for Moi, cause my braincells to simply explode?
What might it be like to have everyone you have ever loved, intimately, gather together, in the same room, and meet? Would you want to be hosting the event, or merely observe, behind a strong wall? Would you choose to be a ghost? Would you rather avoid the conflagration, altogether? (I warned you--January is the most self-involving month of the year, at least in northern climes. There's a reason schools take a break...)
I once had a dream--maybe my best dream--that I died, and after a long serious walk through an old forest, came to a cottage in a clearing. It was a lovely day. There were birds singing, bees buzzing and butterflies flitting. As I came closer to the house, the front door was flung open. Virginia Woolf stood there, in her early glory, squinting and holding her hand to the bright sun. Suddenly, she broke into a radiant smile. Her thin arms opened and she beckoned me inside.
As she took my elbow and greeted me, we moved, together, into a large book-filled room, filled with every female author and artist I had ever loved or longed to know. A fire crackled in the stone fireplace. The scent of wood-smoke and whiskey and cigarettes and expensive perfume mingled around us, making me high and happy. Best of all, each woman greeted me,saying, "Minns, welcome. We've been waiting for you..."
Then I awoke--tears on my face, wanting to go back and to stay. (I never had a re-run of the dream.)
However, after today's little experiment in "cleaning up the past", perhaps if I had stayed on in the dreamplace, I would have found that they were all waiting for me to tell me the truth--that I've been deluding myself since I was a child; grow up; buck up; accept that I would never make it as a writer or an artist of any note...find a stable partner, get a reputable position, make a few sound investments, marry and be done with it. (Brrrrrr!)
In January, it seems, everything's a crapshoot, and we are all players.
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