I'm currently sitting on a blue blanket in my garden writing this entry on stupid notebook paper because my laptop is eleven sorts of dead. I'm not in a very good mood because of a lot of reasons: the slow failure of my computer and my child-like inability to fix it, the slippy unpracticed annoyance of pencil on paper, the prickle and damp creeping up through the blanket from last night's rain, the fact that I should be--but am not--writing lesson plans for a job I quit but still need to attend for the next two weeks. It is almost impossible to start caring about something again once you have truly lost a taste for it, and perhaps more so when that something promises a 16 hour workday during a week that would be better spent making a good first impression. Still, I think a lot of my residual mood is leftover from this weekend's visit to South Boston.
I'll jumpcut, since this is some long stuff.
I have a lot of good memories from South Boston and many of my favorite people were raised there. I feel some instinctive familiarity in the place, as if to the parent of an old friend. On the other hand, I'm really only a stranger there. Lately, in the no-man's-land between these two feelings, good and bad, memories sweet and bitter, the place has come to epitomize this feeling of helplessness for me, and this is certainly what this visit emphasized to me.
I feel sort of silly talking about this. My mother is of the school of thought that you shouldn't hold too tightly onto things or people or places--if you don't clutch, then things cannot be snatched away from you. I have never been very good at this. An example: I recently lost a place--a farm--that wasn't even mine to begin with. Still, I almost feel like I'm mourning it. Is there any bigger fool than someone who falls in love with a piece of land?
We walked behind Aunt Lillian's property and it is amazing how alike such regional places can look. There were big old trees: fine, sweet hickory, strangely-straight, pink-hearted Virginia cedar. The height and fortitude of these in particular reminded me of the field behind my childhood home, where the largest and most impressive cedar that I've ever seen or could hope to see grew. A great big owl lived in it, and when my brother was very, very little, he once found a morel at its base. I remember uncharacteristic jealousy at his dumb luck, and then years later, pure adolescent rage at watching that same tree get torn out when they cleared the forest to make another cu-de-sac behind ours.
Many people in my family have terrible tempers. Everyone always remarked on how the characteristic rage seemed to skip me, but sometimes I think I have something worse, something subcutaneous. I remember my best friend in high school drawing a little profile for me about my role in our friend group. I can remember the line she wrote about me exactly to this day: "...the nice one, but she does have a temper, a big one." I'm not sure I would call it a temper.
I dreamed about her this weekend. In the dream, I was at an Easter Sunday service with my wonderful cousin Chels--who has always been something as close and dear as a sister to me. We were sitting beside each other, but she had to use the restroom, and while she was gone, my old friend tapped me on the shoulder. We haven't spoken in years in real or dreamlife, so I was startled, and she asked if the seat beside me was taken, which I thought uncharacteristic. I told her it was, and she took it anyway, which was quite characteristic. Anyway, we started talking about our friendship; she wanted to start over, which my dreambrain thought suspicious, but couldn't seem to let go of wanting. But the strange part was that while we were talking, Chels came back, and I felt very guilty, like I'd been caught at something bad. Chels was furious at me, and then I realized suddenly it wasn't Chels at all I'd been sitting next to, but my present-day self. All the while I'd been playing the part of young, stupid me: dark blonde hair, scared and complicit.
That was only one of three strange vivid dreams I had about my friends this weekend, and though I won't tell you about the first, I'll briefly mention the last if only to end this rambling on an amusing note. It was one of those half-awake dreams--I'd set my alarm to get up and go running on the farm, but I hadn't slept well and hit the snooze. The dream consisted simply of another runner friend of mine appearing out of the ether to give me a hard time about my slacking, my own perception of our friendly competition. Come on already, Jessica.
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