Lucky, Lucky Star

Is it REALLY Thursday already??

Time flies when you're globetrotting.
(in your mind).
I can't believe I am going so long between posts these days.
It's a pretty strange feeling.
I did write yesterday, but TRUST ME, you did not want to read that post.
The post was a rant of the most scathing, self-loathing kind...
It felt good to say some of those things,
and to attempt to puzzle through what led me to feel that way and stuff.
I guess what's hard for me is that this blog (or BHW, really) was all about honesty.
The cold, hard truth of my little imperfect soul laid out before whoever happened to stumble past.
And I liked it.
It felt like every day was a catharsis.
But I have lost that touch, and so my posts have dwindled to one or two a week, and they are fairly dry.
I guess it's easy to be honest when you don't hate yourself.
But that's a step...
admitting that I hate myself.
I just would rather not name one of the causes of that hate.
On second thought, I would rather not name either of the causes.
There are two.
But if anyone can hack into my account and read the last post I saved to draft, that lucky person will see the black and rotting flesh around my heart.
Maybe the only way for me to feel free to fully express myself again is to start over.
And to at least attempt some anonymity this time.
Just knowing there are people out there who know me and are reading this--at least occasionally--nauseates me.

Daaaaaaaaamn.
Sorry for the downer.
And sorry for thinking out loud, without making much sense.

Today is a beautiful, blue-sky day.
It'll be warm and sunshiney and that's just based on my social calendar.
Having the man with the magic hands give my boys some GOOD haircuts today,
then meeting dear D. for lunch.

AND.
Hubby got home last night and filled me with...
yes, that, but also loooovve.
And life is really pretty damn good all around.
But.
Sometimes it hits me that I ate my way past Hot somewhere in the fuzzy, recent past and it sucks the joy right out of me.
And in moments like that I wrestle with wondering why it's important to me at all, and how I came to care so much--when I would like to claim that I don't care at all--about my appearance.
This is my great weakness, and I offer it to you on this great alter under the thousand suns of the world's widest webs.
So there.
That's one of the reasons I hate myself.
I hate myself for being fat, and even more for caring that I am.
That's reason 1a and 1b, just for the record.
Reason 2 is completely separate.
Although...I suppose everything about me is intertwined somehow.
Whatev.

I get to go to Maine in June and that's really all I need to know.
And on that note, a palate cleanser:

Lucia Beach Road 1975-1983


I remember running through the marshy field, next to the creek, scared to death of stepping in our version of quick sand, “honey pots.”

I remember the smooth, sand-like dirt road leading to my house and the lake-sized pot holes which were such fun to maneuver on a bicycle.

I remember my cousin giving me a ride on her mini motorbike. We skidded to a tumbling stop, pinning her there, while I stood filling with guilt that I had somehow caused her broken leg.

I remember lying on the bottom bunk and thinking I should cry upon the news of my much older cousin’s death; instead I pictured him washing ashore, and the boat he had slipped from in the dark of night.

I remember building our tree house, and the way I held my breath each time I reached for the next wobbly foothold as I followed the older girls up the first time.

I remember cutting a hole in my favorite green corduroys and as I heard my mother walking down the hall, hastily asking my cousin whether I should say, “I did it on purpose,” or, “I did it by accident.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she answered me.

I remember the endless procession of beautiful summer days on which we, her 4 youngest granddaughters, would burst through her screen door and recite our favorite line, “Grammie, whadda you have to eat?”

I remember that it was always Kool Aid and something from Hostess.

I remember the pattern on her countertop, the cool clean feeling of her orderly house, bursting with knick knacks.

I remember the two attic bedrooms in that house, and the hours and hours of playing “college” up there.

I remember learning to spell “Afghanistan” in one of those deeply eaved rooms, and marveling over the number of afghans in my grandmother’s closet.

I remember the way the word “cousin” felt more like “sister”, and the slow dawning of realization that it didn’t mean the same to other people, that we were lucky.

I remember learning to ice skate, and the way the cold air sliced through my heavy layers and came out the other side, leaving me wondering why all the fuss.

I remember the Crab Girls, who picked out meat in the bleach-drenched fluorescent lit room in our basement.

I remember their loud and misplaced laughter, and the wall of cooking crab that met my nose when I walked from that room to the one with the enormous black cooker.

I remember sorting crabs, and getting pinched; the big claws on a dark brown disc with tiny eyes; my mother’s kind reminder that you must pick them up by the smallest leg.

I remember my fearless and gentle mother turning into a terrified and angry monster when that boy cousin ran toward her with snakes draping off him like streamers on a float.

I remember that harmless big grey house at the end of its long, straight driveway, perched in the middle of a field; and how fearfully we avoided it on Halloween and Girl Scout Cookie sales calls, somehow driven by a need for mystery in our quiet neighborhood.

I remember lying on our bellies, behind the short row of hedges and peering through binoculars, into the window of the neighbors across the street. I remember my confusion over the older kids’ excitement at what we saw, and looked again for the pot while wondering why they didn’t just call it a pan.

I remember the quietness of that narrow, winding street, and how it was shattered by a plane crash once, a car crash twice.

I remember riding our bikes to the tiny airport because it had vending machines (and was much closer than any store), with our plan for evading kidnappers firmly in place.

I remember wishing I could live in a place with sidewalks and neighbors, like the kids on TV.

I remember sitting on the school bus, and singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” into the fogged up window, as we rounded the corner to cross the river, and thinking I might know something about Love at 6 years old.

I remember falling asleep on the top bunk, wearing a silver ring with a puppy on it, securely on my finger and how I ached for it for weeks afterward when I woke to find it missing.

I remember the woods behind my school; a little alcove-like clearing, the delicate pink lady slipper growing in the shade of a mossy rock, and the tingly reverence I felt for that forbidden flower.

I remember the day they finished building our house, and the many days that followed, packing all our things for the move. Two miles—and a world—away.

********

Happy Thursday kiddos.

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posted by Bored Housewife at 9:09 AM