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September 26th, 2004
01:18 pm
Suddenly, after all the weeks of anticipation, school is upon me with what feels like little warning. As if I'd forgotten about it for the last couple weeks, just so I could feel unprepared or something. Hah!
I've certainly been binging on Letter Linker enough that I ought to be able to withdraw. Hah! No, that never works. I mean, binging on something I'm addicted to in order to "get it out of my system."
Friday Jane and I walked through Ravenna Park. It was, of course, delightful. We each had a guidebook and each quickly decided to put them away and just look and walk and talk. I took plenty of pictures but was so disappointed by them that I haven't looked again. The things I usually like photographing (rusted junk, light, whatevr) have little or no depth of field. Nature, though, or the things I like looking at in parks, is extremely deep; what catches my eye in a park will be the deep patterns of branches on a shrub or tree. When I try to take a picture, it all flattens out. Sometimes I think of the specs I'd like for a new camera: great macro, great telephoto, single lens viewfinder, greater virtual film speed (don't like flash for the most part), etc. Walking through Ravenna Park, I decided I wanted the camera that would take the picture my eyes saw. Might as well get a transcriber to print out the story my mind tells, too.
Friday night ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) juliebata and I had our special Friday Night Phone Date. Victor WINOLJ and janeehawkins watched All Quiet on the Western Front (which I got during my WWI reading phase a couple weeks ago).
It already feels like nothing happened yesterday even though it was just yesterday. Well, we baby sat R---- O'R-----. That's not his real name. Um. We baby sat Jack and Anita's grandson while they headed off to Sky Captain. It was great fun, believe it or else. I basically followed him around, saying encouraging things, and when I got tired and cranky, Jane took over (that's a joke). Jane was always close enough to provide assistance or advice if I needed it. R---- O'R----- only got cranky once, briefly, and then he was still active enough to distract easily.
For a while, we walked through the side yard next door, which has lots and lots of fallen apples in it. About the first time we walked through, R---- O'R----- stepped on an apple and did that butt-o-centric sit down that toddlers do. But that was the only time it happened: every other time we walked through the yard, if we came to an apple, he pushed it aside with his feet. As far as I could tell, he wasn't consciously thinking about it, either; it was more like his body was aware of the apple and knew to brush it aside. Me, I had to watch my step. Hah!
I didn't hear my father at all, either in my head or my voice. And I only heard my mother once in my head, and for all of that, should have listened to it. Hah! ("Don't break it!" she said.) A couple of Jane's younger kid friends bring out my father in me, and it took a couple interactions to realize it wasn't the kids at all, it was my father in me that was the problem. I hear my mother as an internal voice, but I feel my father in my body and hear him in my speaking voice. I don't think much of my father; I remember him as gruff, authoritarian, and passive about life (he died when I was 16). I think of him as waiting for the phone call from the president that would snap him immediately into action; until then, sleeping on the living room floor with the TV on was good enough for him.
As I said, it was great fun hanging out with R---- O'R-----. He's at the age where everything is a wonder and worthy of exploration, but he doesn't yet have the editors that can be so crippling. I mean, it's a part of raising children to instill editors, for their safety as well as the parents' sanity. But most of my effort at becoming has been molting out of the editors instilled (or even installed) by my parents into new editors that fit who I am better; hopefully, I'll be able to molt out of them when the time comes.
Also yesterday: I actually got two loads of laundry into process. Hah! Today: more laundry, clean the rat café, get stuff ready for school tomorrow. Also: putter in office a bit more, plan out next couple weeks (through my return from Oak Park, IL for the christening).
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Comments:
This was a good read, Luke. So much of you here, between the lines. Hope school goes well!
Thank you, Lisa! I'm looking forward to it.
it's a part of raising children to instill editors, for their safety as well as the parents' sanity. But most of my effort at becoming has been molting out of the editors instilled (or even installed) by my parents into new editors that fit who I am better
Could not have defined growing up better myself, really. And boy, what a lot of learning I've done this year! Go you!
Thanks! Part of that comes from Robert Bly's " A Little Book on the Human Shadow", which is actually a pretty good book. I don't think I realized before typing this up this morning that it's not so much getting rid of editors but changing them, adapting them and making them more flexible.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/3631135/794809) | | From: | juliebata |
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| Date: | September 26th, 2004 07:17 pm (UTC) |
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| | Date Night! | (Link) |
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I sure like our underwater phone dates! In two Fridays, we get to do it in person! Yay!
What you said about hearing your parents was interesting. It makes me wonder how mine will sound to me when they're gone.
I know if I want to actually SEE my mother, all I have to do is look in the mirror. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be disconcerting at times..
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/32684525/505603) | | From: | holyoutlaw |
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| Date: | September 26th, 2004 07:33 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: Date Night! | (Link) |
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I think my phone got a little too underwater. ;>
The internalized voices of my parents sound the same to me now as those voices did when my parents were alive. Um, if that makes sense. In other words, how they sound to you now is likely how they'll sound when they're gone, too. |
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