Until a few minutes ago my Mom & I were hunched over the 1500 piece puzzle. We were down to the last few pieces and we just couldn’t move until we got them all in. I want to burn the monster and put the ashes in the creek.
Yesterday Mom & I did something kinda cool. She has pictures of her family going back to my great, great grandfather We hung them up in the hall. It looks cool. I like old photos. My mother, grandmother and great grandmother look pretty round. My great, great grandmother’s picture is just of her head and shoulders, so I can’t say if she was round. They’re all very cute. And very white and very protestant. I know none of them drank until my Mom and she doesn’t really drink. Not regularly. We had brandy in eggnog and wine with a dinner, but nothing big. I’m the one who drank two glasses of wine. Well. Two and a half.
I keep looking at my ancestors and wondering how I can take the good parts of who they were and feel proud.
There is a stature of Lincoln that was always on the mantel at my Grandmother’s house. It’s on the mantle of the not real fireplace here. My family was Republican. The party of Lincoln. I keep trying to focus on the sentiment.
We’re a white collar working class family. It’s hard to talk to my Mother about White privilege when she sees herself as someone who worked for everything she got. And she did. When my parents were divorced she moved in with her parents and got a job. She did what was best for me. She just can’t wrap her mind around the idea that as hard, as it was for her, it would have been so much harder if she’d been a woman of color in 1953.
I’ll complain about my mother until the day I leave and then I’ll cry and cry.
Ken likes to listen to Wings. It’s one long commercial for the military. At first I liked some of the history. But they have this show about the Gulf War that must have aired six times yesterday. It implies that Vietnam was lost because the military wasn’t able to go for it and in the Gulf War they were. So it’s a commercial for the war machine. Ken falls asleep on and off al day so he may not realize that it’s playing over and over. But I do.
Today we’re watching football.
Sigh.
I don’t really hate football. I just wish that there was as much money spent on teachers and schools and museums as there is spent on stadiums and coaches and players. We were watching some college game the other evening. Well. OK. I don’t actually watch. I read while they watch. I’m getting better at concentrating on what I’m reading no matter what’s on. When I watch I marvel at how hard it must be on their bodies. So, why is there so much concern for the health of my fat body and no one seems worried about them? I knew an ex football player in college. He and I would talk about our achy knees together.
I got really depressed for a few days. Before I left people kept telling me to take care of myself. But it’s like trying to take of yourself in oncoming traffic.