I read Sylvia Plath’s journals to ease my troubled mind. I get the woman. She left milk and cookies for her children before she stuck her head in the oven, and I think, see? that’s thoughtful crazy parenting to learn by. I would leave Clif Bars duct-taped to their doors. We’d be out of milk.
No, my kids deserve better than Clif Bars and duct tape and Ma and her bright face in the oven.
They’re just going to get me instead, for the long haul, the kids. I don’t know how the oven works anyway.
Nature? Nurture? I worry. Today I worried (and I mean I really dug my teeth into these topics and shook ‘em hard) about aging gracefully and whether or not a few Botox injections can fit under that umbrella, ‘aging gracefully’. I worried about the floor collapsing under the tub and sending me through the ceiling of the kitchen in me birthday suit. I worried that the dog had died, like I do each time I look at him these days. I worried about the missing Polly Pocket shoes and handbags and worried about how many infants have choked to death on them. I worried all day, as I usually do, that my children will have choked to death before I get home. I worry that there is only this NOW, and it is a speakeasy with a little slot that opens and I don’t have the password to get in to NOW and BE HERE and BE PRESENT and all the other cool places I keep hearing about. Instead I get free Skeeball tickets, enough to stay where I am, which is in a jutting box overlooking the field of the PAST, where SHOULD HAVE and COULD HAVE are knocking each other senseless. Or I’m in another box overlooking the FUTURE, and YOU’LL MESS IT UP and GET REAL are tearing each other some, well, a new consonant look.
If Kevin Bacon would dance his Footloose routine for me right now I would feel so much better. Kev and Sylvia Plath. They got what it takes.
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It’s okay. I had a day like this about a few weeks ago, and even blogged about it, although instead of Sylvia, I invoked Olivia de Haviland in “The Snake Pit” and lovely mad Blanche, too. It was such a dark little post, even though I was trying to be funny too. So — really…it’s okay. And yes, Polly Pocket for the 4 year old, with the very oral 23-month old running about. Lord. Polly is evil. And don’t even get me started on those sticky rubber clothes.
Yesterday you asked if I would take you to see the Chippendales. When I went home and told Neal, he said he would be happy to dance for you, just bring on the money. So…..if that’s not enough to make YOUR day! E wwwwwwwwwwwwww
I actually prefer Kevin in the Hanes commercials with Michael Jordan, because then I get two for one yumminess. But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about. I don’t know because I’m. Just. Not. That. Deep.
I am the parking lot puddle of bloggers, sadly.
Sounds like typical motherhood, sadly enough. My kids have been on their own for some 4 years and I worry… only now I worry about my aging parents as well… and my aging in-laws… and my crazy sister who is raising her grandchild… Oh, the list is endless.
Here’s what works for me:
1. Take a hot bath and exfoliate with good smelling sugar scrub
2. Have a glass of wine.. or twelve
3. Take the Scarlet O’Hara approach and “think about it tomorrow.”
4. Go visit a friend whose life is so whacked out that your life takes on a newfound perspective.
Too bad Ted Hughes burned SP’s last journals–he thought the kids shouldn’t have to read them. Hm… They were probably pretty scintillating. She was living in Yeats’ house in the coldest winter in a century, she had a lingering cold, couldn’t get help, and meanwhile all those amazing poems were pouring out. She was probably miserable while doing the most amazing work of her life. She did know the poems were good, though.
Did you know TH’s SECOND wife took gas, too? He must’ve been pretty sexy.
I find that when I am struggling with NOW conflicts and strain to look past my past and not too far into the future a good buddhist thought of the day always helps:
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth — not going all the way, and not starting. – Buddha (http://www.amidabuddha.org/news/20Nov2006.html)
Actually I find that I usually just lower my head in abject defeat and find myself staring at my feet. In the end, what is more now than feet?
Sounds like you need a box fort. Nothing can get you when you’re in a box fort.
This reminds me of Crimes of the Heart when Sissy Spacek is trying to kill herself. She puts her head in the oven and, as she is waiting for the gas to kill her, she keeps eating the popcorn off the top of the stove.
Hang in there and eat some popcorn.
I’m right there with Contrary in the parking lot puddle, busy splashing my little heart out but not creating any waves.
“Instead I get free Skeeball tickets, enough to stay where I am, which is in a jutting box overlooking the field of the PAST, where SHOULD HAVE and COULD HAVE are knocking each other senseless.”
I honestly, could not have said it any better myself. I feel like I’ve been getting a lot of Skeeball tickets lately.
Sylvia and Poe. Depressingly genius.
Yes. I had the penetrating thought a few days back, “But I can’t kill myself. Our life insurance isn’t paid up.” Crazy parenting to live by, indeed.
As for aging gracefully – I tried an anti-aging cream this week and it caused me to break out in awful junior-high acne. Not quite the anti-aging effect I was looking for. Or maybe it was some Calvinist lesson on vanity.
I’m with you–I wonder if the colder weather and waning light has anything to do with it? I don’t even get any good writing out of feeling like crap.
Spot the Wonder Dog: I totally read that as “boxed fart.” I took it as a milder alternative to the head in the oven. And then I wondered why on earth anyone would suggest that.
And then I learned how to read.
No, you’re thinking of a regrettable situation that periodically occurs in minivans on winter days when it’s too cold to roll down the window.
NOW is over reated. Well, maybe not so much as then was, when it was NOW. Or is that then? You need a thrilling onion.
Happy Thanksgiving!
You need a break, sis, a nice relaxing date with the hubs or a run or a walk with a good girlfriend…
Sylvia was a tortured but gifted soul (as was Anne Sexton)… What’s with all the gifted mom poets who committed suicide?
I know what you mean about wanting to stick your head in the oven, but it’s not over my girls, it’s my mother. Oh for one like Mater, kudos dear mom and Babs. It is hard to think about the future when the present has us so bogged down, and the past haunts us, but I try to think of things I can do with my girls now, that in 10 yrs, we will still be talking about them. Be brave fellow mom, and do partake of some wine, it is great for your health, mental and otherwise.
Put the Plath down…..step away from the Plath….
Ya know, when I think of all the parenting role models out there, Sylvia Plath just doesn’t spring to mind. But you’re all creative-like, that way.
Hang in there, dear Jenn! One day soon I know you’ll have the energy to slip that damned Skeeball ticket pusher a wicked dose of polonium 210. In the meantime, you go easy on your beautiful self, ya hear?