16 May 2003 (Friday)
and unto this world
The biggest challenge that lies ahead of me, in this (thus far) charmed existence, is probably parenthood. Sometimes I think I have no business becoming a mother, seeing as I have so much growing up of my own left to do. Also, being in the midst of a rather self-absorbed period of my life, it's hard to fathom the notion of focusing so much energy on another human being. It seems I can hardly keep my current daily itinerary under control; how am I going to manage another's?
I ask my own mother about this once, and she shrugged. "You learn. When new sources of stress come along, you struggle with it, and then you adapt. And eventually it all becomes no more stressful than your life was in the beginning. You used to cry over a two-page book report, remember?"
I do remember, and I recall something else: work always seems to expand to fill the time allotted. When I have all day to do laundry, it takes all day. When I have two hours, it takes two hours. Maybe things will just get supercompressed when I add spoon feedings and Little League practices to the mix. Maybe certain things will drop off the list, as they always do, and I will learn to shrug, as Mom has.
Strange, too, realizing that such possibilities are so much more immediate than they once were. A handful of years, at most. Not so long ago they seemed as distant as retirement.
posted by enjelani @ 10:43 PM PST [ link ]
15 May 2003 (Thursday)
which pigeonhole?
I love confusing Amazon.com's recommendation engine.
"The Source"
Ali Farka Toure;Audio CD; @ $14.99 each
"Rumours"
Fleetwood Mac;Audio CD; @ $13.49 each
"Hounds of Love"
Kate Bush;Audio CD; @ $11.98 each
"Odelay"
Beck;Audio CD; @ $13.99 each
"Best of the Blue Note Years"
Thelonious Monk;Audio CD; @ $14.99 each
"Brahms: Piano Quartets"
Johannes Brahms;Audio CD; @ $10.98 each
"Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
Wilco;Audio CD; @ $13.49 each
"The Eminem Show"
Eminem;Audio CD; @ $14.99 each
"A Rush of Blood to the Head"
Coldplay;Audio CD; @ $13.49 each
"( )"
Sigur Rós;Audio CD; @ $13.49 each
"What's Going on"
Marvin Gaye;Audio CD; @ $11.98 each
"Dark Side of the Moon"
Pink Floyd;Audio CD; @ $13.49 each
posted by enjelani @ 01:08 PM PST [ link ]
12 May 2003 (Monday)
black and white
My goodness, I had no idea I had a devoted following. One flippant sentence, five comments.
I will try to be a more deserving blogger. Thanks for reading.
My brain is hard-wired to think in metaphors: I can understand things so long as there's a symbol to represent it, an allegory or analogy to draw. Recently I have come to understand this: at some point in my childhood, in an elaborate and slightly scary ceremony, my father presented me with a demon. He motioned for me to hold out my hands and to cup them, like so, and into my waiting palms he deposited the tiny black winged creature, hissing and fluttering. I lifted it up to my face and it crawled up my nose and into my head, and it lives there to this day. My father has no recollection of performing this ceremony and neither do I, but it happened.
I find my neuroses much easier to tame, in light of this story. I don't blame Dad. Given personality, cultural history, environment and circumstance, this is how it had to happen. He would never, never consciously give me such a creature to haunt me; he loves me too well, wishes me too much happiness for that. But I know where the little black beast comes from: it's a family heirloom. He had to bequeath it to somebody. And though I can try to teach it manners, coax it to take up knitting or yoga or some such, one day I'll bestow some incarnation of it on my own children.
Spent yesterday afternoon with my mom and her mom, hanging out in a mall cafe, laughing at my grandmother's coffee-drinking habits (lots of cream and twelve packets of sugar: "are you sure it's coffee you're having?"). Later Liz and I thumbed through photo albums of our parents' wedding. Mom was 23, and so beautiful.
posted by enjelani @ 12:21 PM PST [ link ]
11 May 2003 (Sunday)
Thank God for thumbs.
posted by enjelani @ 10:59 AM PST [ link ]