paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- oh stupid youth The cookout was completely different than Quinn and I anticipated. That is the trouble with expectations. They can really taint an evening for me, or at minimum, get in the way of what is really happening. Quinn and I arrived, only 5 minutes late. Full of nerves. The sprinkler was on in the front, drowning the walk. Telling us to stay away. It is not a friendly greeting, a bunch of water and an immediate thought of sitting around in damp jeans that stick my legs and my rear end. But I once lived there. And I knew how to cut over from the neighbor�s drive. This meant that we arrived by stealth. We liked that, a lot, being almost on time and arriving from an unexpected direction. Mother answered the door and I thought I had the wrong house. Her hair was a mess and she had on a headband. Her shirt, untucked, open, with a white t-shirt underneath. On her outershirt, a stain of some sort on the bottom right side. Crumpled jeans. This was not my mother when she is fully, socially engaged. This is my mother who has been cleaning out the cupboards � she spends a fair amount of time cleaning out the cupboards and reorganizing the kitchen. Or maybe this was my mother who had been in the attic, digging through the cedar closet, discouraged by evidence of moths in the cedar closet. �They are outside. I have everything laid out in here. We can make them come in here.� Stress, thicker than the humidity outside, making the walls seem spongy, the floor uncertain. Her dear friends�dear enough that Quinn and I could not be friends with them outside her control (reference the second cow in the road)�are huddled outside on the patio with no insect protection of any kind. Sitting on patio furniture without the cushions. Huddled. I could see them through the window. They saw us, jumped up, started for the door. Quinn and I let go of our desire not to sit in the heat to get away from the drenching stress. We exchanged hugs, awkwardly, on the little stoop. No one fell. That was the first miracle of the evening. The stoop is small for one person and a door. But four people and eight hugs�. We went outside. After the hello KW whispered to me �Your mother has pictures up of you all over the house. She is really proud of you. She has been saying nice things about you.� SH added �she is so proud of your new job, but she doesn�t know what you do.� And so the four of us began the evening. Talking absolutely about nothing. In a very funny way. Being socially clever and witty. Laughing great big laughs. And Mother and Major faded into the background as would a big bunch of grass cloth wallpaper in a great room. They barely spoke. It was weird, but somehow it was fitting. KW asked about how our neighborhood is doing�we are undergoing great heaps of redevelopment�and Quinn and I are excited about the changes. Major Sensible kept trying to point out all things negative, no matter how remote, to publicly suggest we could end up holding the stupid stick. A couple months ago, I was in the middle of doing something really difficult at work and was rationalizing out loud to Mother and Major why I knew I could handle it, even though it was tough. Major said �so you think you are smart, do you, well I have news for you.� Well, lets see, my IQ is 165, I think that makes me quantifiably intelligent. At least. And even if it doesn�t or even if I am not always smart, the thing is that I would hope that it would not be up to my parents to prove to me that I am not. But it is a nice relief to have evidence that the new job could bring about a new dynamic. I have suspected that I needed to reach a certain level of job before it would all seem worth the hassle of raising me. We have a bit of a culture of success going, and by nature, I am rebelious. Even though I have been an adult for over a decade, sometimes, because I am not married or because I do not have a big deal job, I have to resist the suction into the their world. When I had a lot of teen angst, I called it the death machine. As an adult I know I greatly exaggerated. It is a nice life for many, many people. Their goals are admirable. They want to have everything come out as planned. And to somehow be the root of the perfection that blossoms from their small, well-controlled world. It took me many, many years to feel comfortable with the fact that roots are messy, if they are roots at all, and they grow towards the nutrients, in random patterns, not in brocade or toil. It is hard to have opposite worldviews, when one wants to dominate the other out of a sense of duty. And I struggle with a need to be in a different town, sometimes. Then I have the realization that the awayness would trigger a need for announcements. And announcements are not �my family.� Mother and Major prefer for things to be givens. To enter their realm objectively so that they can scoot them into near-perfect arrangements, and then reorder them seasonally. When I lived in Boston, I had to make announcements. Now I just put my cows in the road and let them become obvious. My announcements got me no where. This in-town method hasn�t done much for me either, but confrontation is kept at a minimum and it just seeps out in calculating statements, now and then, and I become encouraged to refill my glass of wine. The cookout did not come out as planned. The four of us just chatted and chatted. Not about anything juicy, which we would have if we were alone. But we talked enough for Quinn and I remember why were so saddened that our friendship, mysteriously, did not work out. Rather suddenly, when things were off to a good start, KW mentioned to my mother that Quinn and I were going to their house for dinner (back when they lived in town) because she was afraid they would see Quinn�s car parked in front of their house. And that was the end of our friendship not convened by Mother and Major. Instead, we met, chaperoned, if you will, by heterosexuals. This is strange. But Quinn and I really care about KW and SH. So we go, risk jealousy because we mysteriously are not friends. But we have so much fun that we need not be jealous. Although sometimes we get a bit sad, because friendship chemistry, which is present in high doses, gets all fired up. And then we part. Without closure. Until another time. Back to the cows. I am glad that we have those cows out there. KW�s old car came up in conversation, brought up by SH, and we looked at each other, I surrvived. Oh stupid youth. No one wants it back, but it is fun to know that all those things are back there. 9:57 p.m. - 2002-06-30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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