Weblog 216
March 28, 2010~ 12:00am
Strange mood tonight. It happens sometimes that a pall will suddenly fall over things for reasons not readily apparent, but are there, just as surely as shadows are produced from light.
I've been thinking about childhoods- everyone's -and how defenseless we are in doing anything about how we're shaped: how malleable the mind, how indelible the imprints. I realize this is because of the film I just watched, and I'll say more about that in a bit, but first--- I babysat today. The 'King Arthur' day. lol
Amazing, how golden my recollections of those myths, and how much joy they've given me over the years, and how anxious I was to hand it over to the grandkids. I toted my books along and Bill was beside himself to show me his knight drawings, and I ooo'd and ah'd over each one- the dogs wagged themselves, but poor Kay was having a down day due to a cold and cough, so she mostly lolled on the couch feeling under the weather. Bill's fingers flew through the books and poof!- interest gone. Cartoons had claimed him on the big screen TV. So much for Camelot. LOL!!!
Today he was more interested in his wrestler figures, and staged many bouts on the hardwood floor, "POW! SLAM! OUCH!"
Our time flew, and before I knew it, I was headed home having watched reruns of Sesame Street, with Bill pronouncing with each film clip of children doing children stuff, "That's from the 70's. You can tell by the color. Kind of grayish? Those are old pictures. Those kids are all grown up now." It was true. It reminded me of the reckless passage of time. We start out with WORLDS of our own making inside us.
A place where imagination trumps reality- where we control the outcome, and the sky is the limit.
Once that bedroom door is closed, it's truly a kingdom apart, and imagination becomes the director and producer of every homemade adventure. Those years are short- but what fabulous stories we're able to create! Childhood is a vista of dreams that is not in the least constrained by practicality. If we can think it... it is.
In stable homes, that's the way it works. But what about children of very different sorts of upbringing? Perhaps distant or self-obsessed parents? Or parents who are either too demanding or too distant- or just not present they way they should be -what happens to those young people? Tonight I watched a 1975 documentary I'd never seen before, and I was entirely surprised by my reaction to it. I saw "Grey Gardens"- the story of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, a mother and daughter of once fabulous wealth- relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who went quite mad (some would say 'colorfully eccentric') living together in their crumbling East Hampton estate, surrounded by cats and invading raccoons, old 78 records, family portraits --and a relationship as inbred and unhealthy as anything one could possibly imagine.
The mother nagged the daughter mercilessly, the daughter blamed the mother for her own 'husbandless' predicament, her lack of a life -- the two of them living in an overgrown, crumbling seaside 28-room house, and instead of being fascinated, I was appalled. Saddened and appalled.
Reading between the lines, I think the mother had been a bit 'round-heeled' while Edie was growing up. She was carrying on with her 'accompaniest' at their summer home, Grey Gardens, while Mr. Beale stayed in New York City working. Her wealthy husband must have been aware, but chose to ignore it...among a certain social strata such things are not talked about. I think many things were not talked about in that household. They were, afterall, part of a privileged social set where decorum is everything, despite circumstances.
All Big Edie Bouvier Beale wanted was a great singing career. Her piano player became more important than her husband, her marriage, her children. I don't think Little Edie was unaware of what was going on, nor did she hold her mother blameless when her father divorced his wife and remarried. (The father had affairs as well, and my goodness...what a mess.)
Her own happy period of being an ingenue and living in the city ended when she returned to look after her mother. That stay extended into more than 30 years of two very bright, very bitter women oddly attached, but rabidly resentful of one another. Their world shrunken to just the two of them, slicing at one another verbally, dawn to dusk. It's a story of decay, and the whole thing was horribly depressing to me.
Sometimes I look around this big house of mine and catch just a whiff of the same sort of rot....of not going forward. I see a documentary like that and wonder about degrees of madness...how my own eccentricities might very well be in the same vein, just not as far down the path to utter craziness. Even Wayne's comment- "We're really not much different than they are, Kay"- half-joking, but meaning that he, in his own place surrounded by the past, and me in this one, falling to ruin bit by bit, well, it's all a question of degree, I suppose... but depressing? Oh yes.
The biggest difference between the Beales and myself is that I blame no one else. Perhaps that small bit of honesty makes all the difference.
We all have worlds inside that are very different than the outside. We all hear music...we're all cows with whole orchestras in our bellies
and only we hear what they're playing, but most of us- unlike those two, are wise enough to keep them inside. The Beales allowed it to spill over, hopelessly tangling two lives in vying, discordant sounds.
I was only too happy to put that little DVD disc back into its pouch to send if off, but I still hear them: I believe I shall for some time to come.
I'll be nervously checking for 'Bealism' in my own life....LOL!!! Crazy knows crazy. My prayer from now on shall be: "Lord, keep me from going as mad as the Edie's... either one. Amen."
March 29, 2010~ 7:00am
Miracles EVERYWHERE!
You just need to keep your eyes open....WOW! Click on the picture to see HUGELY magnified views of bugs bubbled up in morning dew. Simply stunning!
March 30, 2010~ 4:45pm
Home at last. This was a tough day to get through because I'm either being hit with the first hint of seasonal allergies.....or.....I picked up Kay's cold. LOL!!! I'm groggy, froggy and congested. I called mum from work to let her know I wouldn't be stopping over- don't wanna give it to her, so I'm off to bed here in a minute. Gonna curl up with the comforter, breathe some Vics Vapo-Rub, relax with a good book.....ah....sleeeeeeeeeep. Nothin' better for what ails me.
I did want to spread a little Easter cheer, though -(and oh yes, I know I've said on here in the past that Easter is my least favorite holiday) but this year I'm enjoying its approach. Maybe it's because winter was so BEASTLY this year, but thoughts of those pastel colors and sweets to eat sound pretty good to me! And here's the BUNNY MAN himself
to wish you a good sunny time of it- supposed to be in the high 70's for Easter Sunday, so the eggs will roll on the lawns even though the holiday is a bit early this year.)
SO LET THE GIRLIEST HOLIDAY BEGIN! ...(it is you know: pink... purple..... baby-chick yellow with LOTS of lace and ruffles...poofs everywhere!)
The religious part of it bypasses me completely...that's always so sad in the ramp up to the chocolate rewards and the rolled stone. (Maybe that's why I'm enjoying it more. LOL!!!) Secular and sassy. That's my holiday this year- and lots of kids high on sugar! And cute little bunnies everywhere
that part of Easter I can handle- (certainly not those packed Catholic churches, everyone crowding in to make an appearance once a year so they don't go to hell. SUPERSTITION SUPERSTITION.... AND FEAR, not faith.)
Nope. I think my secular joy is a lot purer than that. HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Strange mood tonight. It happens sometimes that a pall will suddenly fall over things for reasons not readily apparent, but are there, just as surely as shadows are produced from light.
I've been thinking about childhoods- everyone's -and how defenseless we are in doing anything about how we're shaped: how malleable the mind, how indelible the imprints. I realize this is because of the film I just watched, and I'll say more about that in a bit, but first--- I babysat today. The 'King Arthur' day. lol
Amazing, how golden my recollections of those myths, and how much joy they've given me over the years, and how anxious I was to hand it over to the grandkids. I toted my books along and Bill was beside himself to show me his knight drawings, and I ooo'd and ah'd over each one- the dogs wagged themselves, but poor Kay was having a down day due to a cold and cough, so she mostly lolled on the couch feeling under the weather. Bill's fingers flew through the books and poof!- interest gone. Cartoons had claimed him on the big screen TV. So much for Camelot. LOL!!!
Today he was more interested in his wrestler figures, and staged many bouts on the hardwood floor, "POW! SLAM! OUCH!"
Our time flew, and before I knew it, I was headed home having watched reruns of Sesame Street, with Bill pronouncing with each film clip of children doing children stuff, "That's from the 70's. You can tell by the color. Kind of grayish? Those are old pictures. Those kids are all grown up now." It was true. It reminded me of the reckless passage of time. We start out with WORLDS of our own making inside us.
A place where imagination trumps reality- where we control the outcome, and the sky is the limit.
Once that bedroom door is closed, it's truly a kingdom apart, and imagination becomes the director and producer of every homemade adventure. Those years are short- but what fabulous stories we're able to create! Childhood is a vista of dreams that is not in the least constrained by practicality. If we can think it... it is.
In stable homes, that's the way it works. But what about children of very different sorts of upbringing? Perhaps distant or self-obsessed parents? Or parents who are either too demanding or too distant- or just not present they way they should be -what happens to those young people? Tonight I watched a 1975 documentary I'd never seen before, and I was entirely surprised by my reaction to it. I saw "Grey Gardens"- the story of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, a mother and daughter of once fabulous wealth- relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who went quite mad (some would say 'colorfully eccentric') living together in their crumbling East Hampton estate, surrounded by cats and invading raccoons, old 78 records, family portraits --and a relationship as inbred and unhealthy as anything one could possibly imagine.
The mother nagged the daughter mercilessly, the daughter blamed the mother for her own 'husbandless' predicament, her lack of a life -- the two of them living in an overgrown, crumbling seaside 28-room house, and instead of being fascinated, I was appalled. Saddened and appalled.
Reading between the lines, I think the mother had been a bit 'round-heeled' while Edie was growing up. She was carrying on with her 'accompaniest' at their summer home, Grey Gardens, while Mr. Beale stayed in New York City working. Her wealthy husband must have been aware, but chose to ignore it...among a certain social strata such things are not talked about. I think many things were not talked about in that household. They were, afterall, part of a privileged social set where decorum is everything, despite circumstances.
All Big Edie Bouvier Beale wanted was a great singing career. Her piano player became more important than her husband, her marriage, her children. I don't think Little Edie was unaware of what was going on, nor did she hold her mother blameless when her father divorced his wife and remarried. (The father had affairs as well, and my goodness...what a mess.)
Her own happy period of being an ingenue and living in the city ended when she returned to look after her mother. That stay extended into more than 30 years of two very bright, very bitter women oddly attached, but rabidly resentful of one another. Their world shrunken to just the two of them, slicing at one another verbally, dawn to dusk. It's a story of decay, and the whole thing was horribly depressing to me.
Sometimes I look around this big house of mine and catch just a whiff of the same sort of rot....of not going forward. I see a documentary like that and wonder about degrees of madness...how my own eccentricities might very well be in the same vein, just not as far down the path to utter craziness. Even Wayne's comment- "We're really not much different than they are, Kay"- half-joking, but meaning that he, in his own place surrounded by the past, and me in this one, falling to ruin bit by bit, well, it's all a question of degree, I suppose... but depressing? Oh yes.
The biggest difference between the Beales and myself is that I blame no one else. Perhaps that small bit of honesty makes all the difference.
We all have worlds inside that are very different than the outside. We all hear music...we're all cows with whole orchestras in our bellies
and only we hear what they're playing, but most of us- unlike those two, are wise enough to keep them inside. The Beales allowed it to spill over, hopelessly tangling two lives in vying, discordant sounds.
I was only too happy to put that little DVD disc back into its pouch to send if off, but I still hear them: I believe I shall for some time to come.
I'll be nervously checking for 'Bealism' in my own life....LOL!!! Crazy knows crazy. My prayer from now on shall be: "Lord, keep me from going as mad as the Edie's... either one. Amen."
March 29, 2010~ 7:00am
Miracles EVERYWHERE!
You just need to keep your eyes open....WOW! Click on the picture to see HUGELY magnified views of bugs bubbled up in morning dew. Simply stunning!
March 30, 2010~ 4:45pm
Home at last. This was a tough day to get through because I'm either being hit with the first hint of seasonal allergies.....or.....I picked up Kay's cold. LOL!!! I'm groggy, froggy and congested. I called mum from work to let her know I wouldn't be stopping over- don't wanna give it to her, so I'm off to bed here in a minute. Gonna curl up with the comforter, breathe some Vics Vapo-Rub, relax with a good book.....ah....sleeeeeeeeeep. Nothin' better for what ails me.
I did want to spread a little Easter cheer, though -(and oh yes, I know I've said on here in the past that Easter is my least favorite holiday) but this year I'm enjoying its approach. Maybe it's because winter was so BEASTLY this year, but thoughts of those pastel colors and sweets to eat sound pretty good to me! And here's the BUNNY MAN himself
to wish you a good sunny time of it- supposed to be in the high 70's for Easter Sunday, so the eggs will roll on the lawns even though the holiday is a bit early this year.)
SO LET THE GIRLIEST HOLIDAY BEGIN! ...(it is you know: pink... purple..... baby-chick yellow with LOTS of lace and ruffles...poofs everywhere!)
The religious part of it bypasses me completely...that's always so sad in the ramp up to the chocolate rewards and the rolled stone. (Maybe that's why I'm enjoying it more. LOL!!!) Secular and sassy. That's my holiday this year- and lots of kids high on sugar! And cute little bunnies everywhere
that part of Easter I can handle- (certainly not those packed Catholic churches, everyone crowding in to make an appearance once a year so they don't go to hell. SUPERSTITION SUPERSTITION.... AND FEAR, not faith.)
Nope. I think my secular joy is a lot purer than that. HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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