(no subject)

[asakiyume]

Sometimes I save up things to post, and then by the time I get to doing it, they either seem stale or inconsequential, and I think, Is this really worth posting? ... But tonight I'm going to go ahead and post a couple anyway.

A black crow

The first is from an author interview I heard. It was with a former governor of Vermont, a woman named Madeleine Kunin (I'm not up on my former governors of Vermont). She's written a memoir which--I just checked Google; I didn't remember this from the interview--is called Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties, by which she means decade in her own life (she's 85 now), not the 1980s.

She said something at some point that prompted the interviewer to ask her if she thought about death much, and she laughed and said, well, she was getting up in years and that the thought was "like a black crow sitting on your shoulder--when he flies away, you know he's still in the neighborhood."

And I thought Wow. I know exactly what she means. About certain sorts of thoughts--not necessarily about death. But yeah, also about death--though I doubt that crow sits on my shoulder quite as frequently as it sits on hers. She's got a few decades on me.

An electrician

At some point in our first year in this house--almost 20 years ago--something was wrong with something electric in the bathroom. The only electric things in the bathroom are the lights and the fan, so one of those two. An electrician came over, a journeyman electrician. I don't remember how we got connected with him--was he someone's friend? Or a recommendation from a parent of some classmate of one of our kids? Anyway, he came. He had an unusual name of a mysterious-to-me ethnicity, and pale eyes. He pointed out a simple fix to whatever our electrical problem was, and I seem to recall he didn't even charge us.

Sometime later I saw he had gotten his own truck. Sometime later still (like a few years later), he was in the police blotter for a domestic assault charge. Well that's too bad, I remember thinking. But I continued to see the truck around, and the other day I saw it again in the library parking lot.

Every time I see it, I'll have these twin memories, so opposite--the personal kindness received, and the charge of violence.

. . .

For a change of pace, how about this:



It's flattened eggs for Dunkin Donuts--now to be known just as "Dunkin"--breakfast sandwiches. Strange and kind of charming. That plastic container is filled with them.

Comments

[sovay]

But tonight I'm going to go ahead and post a couple anyway.

Good!

the thought was "like a black crow sitting on your shoulder--when he flies away, you know he's still in the neighborhood."

That is very good. Like a cousin of the black dog, though the crow feels less personalized.

Every time I see it, I'll have these twin memories, so opposite--the personal kindness received, and the charge of violence.

It's strange to know those kinds of irreconcilable things about someone. The instinct is to make one or the other false and the hard part is that people are both.

[asakiyume]

People are both. I find myself thinking about punishment and judgment and forgiveness. I feel like there ought to be some statute of limitations on my remembering these things, like the guy shouldn't have my heavy eyes on him, **musing**. (Though on the other hand, given that statistically speaking, people who are violent once are violent again, maybe he does? But he's not a statistic, he's an actual person, and--well, I'm sure you know how it goes.)

For an opposite-vantage-point story, I was once pissy to a car mechanic in town who refused to look at my car on a busy Saturday. I was ashamed of myself afterward and never forgot. I always told myself He probably doesn't remember, but maybe he does! Maybe every time he sees me he thinks, There's that woman who was so rude and entitled that one day.

[sovay]

I always told myself He probably doesn't remember, but maybe he does! Maybe every time he sees me he thinks, There's that woman who was so rude and entitled that one day.

I felt bad for fifteen years about hitting another kid with a thermos when I was in sixth grade. (He'd been teasing me and I got teased a lot in elementary school, but it was still not an appropriate response.) When I finally saw him again, I apologized. He was nonplussed; he hadn't remembered it at all. So I have no idea whether the things I've done that haunt me are things that haunt other people. I just worry about it. And tend to feel that apologizing does not hurt, no matter what.

[asakiyume]

You're right, apologizing never hurts. Next time I see him, I can apologize--that makes actual amends rather than just stewing in the memory.

[cmcmck]

'Charming' is not a word I'd use of eggs, but then........ :o)

[asakiyume]

Not even those funny blank flattened yellow eyes staring up at you? ... Okay, yeah, maybe charming is a strange adjective.

[cmcmck]

It's the egg allergy that does it!

[asakiyume]

I promise not to feed them to you ;-)

[queenoftheskies]

I love the flattened eggs.

[asakiyume]

They're wonderful in a slightly eerie way.

[kore]

I'm glad you posted too (omg those flattened eggs though).

[asakiyume]

Thanks, and yeah, those eggs are auditioning for roles in nightmares, I think. That or sidekicks for the minions in the Minions movies.

[sartorias]

Those eggs look funky.

Those encounters with the electrician is so very much like life--that whipsaw of experience between kindness and cruelty, mercy and fear, generosity and greed that is so very much a part of the human experience.

[asakiyume]

You know how people who are neurotic and sensitive (like, um, most of us here on LJ/DW) always have to be reassured that really people aren't paying that much attention to us and aren't judging us? But here's a case where I feel like I'm paying attention and... not exactly judging, but remembering! The guy deserves to be let off the hook of my memory! ... But maybe it does **me** good to remember that this is how we are, with both instincts for generosity and instincts for violence...

[osprey_archer]

When I first started working in food service I definitely had some moments of, like, "OMG, those books that say people aren't really judging us all the time totally lied to me, food service employees (I use myself as a prime example; have definitely gotten secretly annoyed at people for asking for a new fork after they dropped their first one) are DEFINITELY as judgy as I always feared."

But it also made it clear to me that a lot of that judginess is not exactly personal; it arises from the situation where you spend all day doing things for other people and you have to keep smiling. So actually discovering that I had been totally right about the judginess of food service employees made me less afraid of that judgment.

[asakiyume]

Yes! I know exactly what you mean! I felt that way about going to Japan and knowing that people would be making assumptions and judging me--but they were going to attribute everything to my American-ness, rather than my inherent weirdness. It was like I, personally, was off the hook. (I mean, **I** knew my weird quirks weren't generalizable to all Americans, but they didn't.) I feel like that's similar to realizing that a food service employee's judginess isn't about unique-you and your foibles but the foibles of customers, generally.

[minoanmiss]

I always love it when you post, and I found the eggs charming.

More importantly... people do contain multitudes, don't we? I guess it was useful for my parents to teach me about that duality --in the Sunday school that my dad ran and my mom taught at, every kid wanted my parents to adopt them, and meanwhile I was covered with bruises under my nice dresses. People can be so kind and so cruel, so brusque and so helpful, so this and that.

[asakiyume]

Yeah: you were exposed to that duality so early--or as you say, not even just duality: multitudes.

[wayfaringwordhack]

I know exactly what you mean about saving up blogging topics and then not getting around to it. It is the story of my online journaling life, but more so of these last few years. I dare say you've noticed. :P

But I, for one, always love your entries like this.

[asakiyume]

Thank you my dear--I like writing them ... when I actually manage to do it.