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Sunday, July 17, 2011

fairy tales

I remember those public service videos in grade school. They were black and white and usually frighteningly futuristic. Designed to scare us into learning some valuable moral lesson that somehow our parents had sadly neglected to teach us. There was the one about the robots, robots cleaning our house, robots working in the yard, robot teachers, robot janitors. It ended with some ridiculous propaganda about running out of water that made absolutely no sense and left me thinking about robots in space with the whole world's water supply. There was the one called Lottery, where the world's population had become so overwhelming that resources were used up and there was not enough food to go around. People were living in some sort of dark age with dirt floors. Filthy children wandered the streets begging and looking generally frightened and feral. It ended in a gruesome scene where the lottery was drawn and the winners were stoned in the streets to conserve resources.
Another one was a planet that was sick, the air was toxic and there was no food or water. People had built communities underground and had forgotten what the sun looked like..... rather grim.

The one that affected me most was the one about the crazy old lady next door, everyone was afraid of her and called her witch. The meaner the neighborhood kids got the crankier the lady became. One day a little girl lost her ball in the yard and after finally getting the courage to go into the yard and get it found out that the lady was wonderful, sad and sweet. Her children and husband were all dead and she was only mean because the children teased her. The little girl started finding reasons to visit the old lady and did random chores just to hear her amazing stories about her past. The little girl's mother was proud and praised her for having such a caring spirit and spending time with the old woman. Eventually word got out to the little girl's friends that she was spending time with the neighborhood witch and they began to tease her. For the old woman's birthday, the two of them had planned a wonderful dinner party for just the two of them. The woman joyfully cooked all day, decorated and cleaned her house for the first time in years. Meanwhile the girl's friends teased her about her strange relationship with the old woman.... she began to feel bad and then decided to skip the party even though she was as excited as the old woman. The thing I remember most about these stories is there was no happy ending. The movie ended with the girl feeling like an ass and the old woman sobbing over her hard work lost. I remember making a happy ending in my mind just to cope with the sadness that was usually hidden from children's eyes and minds. I began to grasp that sometimes life was like that. Not everyone gets their happy ending... sometimes we end the story alone and sobbing over a cold meal that no one will eat. Sometimes the dog is euthanized in the pound, sometimes Maude doesn't wake from the coma. I still see the old woman.... I see her loneliness and her desperation for human touch.
I am easy on my children . I try to protect them from hurt. I replace things that are broken from carelessness sometimes. I try to stall the realization that the fairy tale may never happen to them.... I stall it and listen to them laugh for just a little longer.

Yes folks... I am still here

Although decidedly less outspoken. Once again it is summertime and while last year I was overwhelmed with the things I had to do and the huge amount of work left to me by the other... this year I feel I have a hold on at least half of it. I am loving this summer and now with a million less people living here I am feeling like it is finally not too much for one person to handle. Last year I was ambivalent. There seemed to be a huge outcry from the house and the yard and the kids and the job. Everyone wanted my attention all at once. I was attempting the dating scene... and hating it. It was just another thing crying for my attention. I let the lawn die and the weeds grow. When questioned about it I simply stated... I want my house to be seen from space. A big white spot on the satellite view of Idaho. AND also sometimes I said SUCK IT!
I have come to grips with the fact that I am to be perpetually single. I like it that way, I like doing things in my own time, when I want and how I want. I like to use both dressers in my room and I like the kids in my bed in the evenings watching ghost whisperer. I like the chickens in the backyard and I like working in the garden at 9pm.

All in all... this life is good.

All my babies

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