I am faced with the unenviable decision to leave accommodations i very much like; and because of that there is internal dissonance which i must also face. Such as, “if you so very much like it, why go¿” I like women, and remain single; i like alcohol, but call a halt - enough so as to enjoy the next day. There is no black and white standard, but we are prompted to apply either or thinking daily. It would be easy if i could attribute my desire to leave to others, then i could absolve myself and say “it was because of them that i did not stay.” However my experience has determined that to be a bullshit reason to do pretty much anything, much less something as important as staying. My mother changed the locks to the house i grew up in when i was 15 - i was an unruly child, in a family of unruly people. They were so unruly that i was not given a new key. It was the kindest thing ma ever did for me; over the years she has done many kind things, not always helpful, but often oddly kind. My sense is that contrary to outward appearance, for she is a truly beautiful woman, her wounds and affronts affected her more deeply than her beauty aided her. In our struggle to reach mutual understanding, i believe her wounds informed her compassion about how to raise a loud, cross-eyed, intellectually precocious, and socially awkward human being in a family of pretty people. So when she said “you are not welcome here unless you obey,” by changing the locks, i had to choose which version of ma i was to obey - the vain, petty, selfish woman who abandoned her marriage because it wasn’t lucrative enough, or the shrewd, hardheaded desert urchin willing to sacrifice all she had, including her family, for the sake of a better station in life? For far too long, i believed myself to be wronged, yet her decision gave me something i believe she may have deprived my siblings - self-respect. This is not to say she has ever abandoned her dreams of perfecting me to the degree she has improved my siblings, but then that is why i respect her.
She isn’t convinced. One day, not all that long ago i drove from past Bakersfield to Seal Beach; picked her up and drove from Seal Beach to the Getty Museum so that she could see Vermeer’s “Blue Lady.” As we entered the afternoon 405 South traffic and i was transitioning into the carpool line, a 3/4 ton pickup decided i wasn’t accelerating quickly enough in the carpool line, just as the sea of brakelights to my immediate right was coming to a screeching halt; the truck was tailgating me at 60+ mph, ma took this opportunity in our journey to turn full face to me in her seat and exclaim in her best umbrage, “YOU DON’T RESPECT ME.” This and other formative events have helped me to respect and admire her all the more, if only for being something of an emotional idiot savant in a world full of acolytes to the Church of Internet. One might think my extravagant gesture in squiring ma to a magnificent painting demonstrates filial respect, but her keen sense of her own misery was more correct - it was a very patronizing thing for me to do, not much different than dragging a person who has just had their stomach stapled into an all-the-steak-and-potatoes-you-can-eat-buffet. Once she and i had returned to Seal Beach, i did not stay the night. Rather i drove the 3 hours home. I covered more than 400 miles for the day, only to learn ma knows more about respect than i do, but then i’ve always been an unruly child. If you think this retelling is some twisted rendition of a yuppified “Stockholm Syndrome,” you might be right - i have had just enough sense beaten into me to not be sure - ergo, i essay - do i stay, do i go¿ “Be content with what you have and the whole world belongs to you” - Lao Tzu. I do not have another mother, and the one i do have has now taken up residence in an assisted living facility. It is not practical for me to be at her side. She needed protection from me declaring to my eldest brother one particularly morbid evening i committed “elder abuse” because i would not concur with a statement she had made - another long drive home late at night. My being at her side while she faces her end, would likely only enflame her, or him, or possible worse confirm for the other two her death was a direct result of my deep-seated matricidal tendencies, after all she is only 90.
I have decided my responsibility is to seek peace for myself which doesn’t include being where i am not welcomed. I don’t know how my siblings acclimated to our mother’s unique schema of the world, but i now know it doesn’t include updates from them to me on her wellbeing. Nor is that a complaint, i pity them their inability to see quite how much that behavior mimics ICE and its racist adherents. And just like the nazis of wwii, these are nice people i’m talking about. But one thing my brethren did not take away in their adaptive strategies was the sense of independence that is the hallmark of our Mater. I don’t know that they ever gave themselves permission to decide whether they would obey or not; if they did, they may have seen the cost to me for disobedience, and so chose a more stealthy resistance. It is here where our tale of family harmony turns on its ear. Each sibling has chosen distance as an adaptive strategy, with two living as close to the U.S. borders away from ma as is physically possible, and one, the eldest, yoked to the shackles of abundance which his fealty has cost him. That is a harsh judgment, and may simply be sour grapes on my part, or it may be hurt i feel. I’m leaning towards hurt, for i don’t put much stock in avarice. I don’t like to cause pain, so when one who i looked up to as a hero fails to understand my militant pacifism, i move away: physically, emotionally, but not spiritually. For like the injustice i have endured at the hands of a well-meaning but not very self-aware parent - it is not realistic to declare of a family member “you are a nonperson”, much less unworthy of my love - one of the aspects of self agency i prize. While it is not always a kindly thing to remove oneself from an unpleasant circumstance; is it any more kind to remain when one’s presence is not inservice of a greater harmony? I don’t know - clearly i don’t know. But what if we take that a step further and ask about living a lie, knowing that someone thinks less of you than you yourself do, or worst, vice versa. Self esteem is a miracle when done with panache, and impenetrable armor where it only serves the possessor. For all i might be conflicted about with regards ma, i perceive her as wearing her self esteem with panache, while her prolific complaint a mere pitfall in her complex perception.
If the theory is correct, all that is needed for me to live a happy fulfilled existence anywhere in the world is a little panache with my self-esteem, however, my self esteem is the ruggedized variety, more wash-and-wear than the Rodeo Drive variety all the rage today. In the bullpens of the engineering discipline i have spent much time in, we’d describe the empty suits periodically wandering the halls with noses of their sycophants close behind as “all show and no go.” I’m not particularly comfortable with people who need to impress, and again this may be entirely my own projection. The flip side would be my reluctance to be anywhere i cannot be myself - as much as i have discovered who that is. That’s a pretty tall order in an increasingly orthodox and regimented world, and not. I have shared in this essay as honestly as i know how, shared things i am not allowed to share with my family. The gist of this whole discussion boils down to “allowed by whom.” In my family, ma is the arbiter of good taste - but she is 90, and though i have protected her long life with a talisman bought and prayed for in the Taoist Temple of Bejing there is only so much “fake it ’til you make it” left to a nonagenerian. My hope for ma is that she retains enough of the gumption that guided her to separate from my father to satisfy for herself whether her conflict with abundance vs deprivation proved useful. if not for that reason, then perhaps affirming the oh so well framed statement by A. Nonymous - “life is like a shit sandwich, the more bread you got, the less shit you have to eat.” Mostly i wish for her to the end is self-agency. Let her passing be a choice she makes not as a regret she must struggles to defy. After watching ma experience a life of opulence, i cannot say that it protected her from her early childhood poverty, any more than my brother, armed with her fantasies about my character, has protected her from self-inflicted suffering. What i do know is that she now more resembles the kaleidoscope of pharmaceuticals she takes to stay alive than the powerhouse of personality that inculcated respect and admiration in this unruly child.
If i have cancer, i choose to die from it rather than accept the strategies of a medical establishment whose priorities are clearly conflicted between a client’s welfare and great personal wealth. While i’m alive, i look to be well, and this includes peace where i live, including and most especially within my own skin. I don’t ask for much from others, and look to share how i can what i have. Given my eclectic perspective, this sharing does not always include material gifts, and like all good mysteries in the universe involves a conundrum. All i have of any real value is myself and my time, time i have bought and paid for at great personal expense. Oh mother of god! will the irony never cease¿ I have yet to meet that tribe which takes great joy in my presence over extended periods of time “guests and fish are alike in that they both stink after 3 days” - old Chinese proverb. What is left to me is to be at peace within my skin. As the external voices of what i should have; could have; would have been; recede into former times and places, what i occupy myself with is what i do which is: write, draw, cook, eat, drink, shit, piss, sleep, exercise, tai chi, meditate - rinse and repeat. If there becomes too much interference with that program i move on. What i strive for is helping others do what they want to do in the belief that karmically that will eventually comeback to, if not me, than somebody who could make good use of it. I am not anxious to travel, nor am i afraid to settle down - whatever that means. What i don’t want to do is cling to the pain of being evicted from my home when young by devising some perfect circumstance that is fool-proof, ironclad and will endure through the ages into eternity; that is a fiction. I cannot protect my mother from herself, anymore than i can correct my brother for his misunderstanding of who i am. All i can do is make any effort available to me to better understand who i am, why i do what i do, and share that knowledge with anyone who is curious. “My three greatest treasures, simplicity, patience and compassion” - Lao Tzu; may you all become stinking rich by that standard. May you r . i . p . ma.
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go - the sonnet
“Go” she said. “Where he cried?”-"you can't stay here”
she replied scornfully, though not cruelly.
“shit” he thought, not yet knowing of his tear.
“you’ll be sorry” he groaned so piteously,
What he really wanted was to give love,
and to be loved. Was that so much to ask¿
Off he went to where life fit like a glove,
yet without ruby slippers - what a task.
The yellow brick road was now a tollway
allowing no pedestrians - only cars.
“With gas,” he thought, “it might get me part way.”
He didn’t know where - just not behind bars.
what a surprise when he got to the end-
where he began unwilling to defend.
jts 09/10/2018
http://stoneartist.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved e
∞
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