Ideas Among the Missing

Ok, I've had about 8 things I've wanted to blog about in the last month but can I remember any of them when I actually sit down to write? No, of course not. Because that would be the hallmark of a practical, organized person with a calm and rational brain. Which, of course, would not be me. So I'll just babble for a while. You might as well tune out now!

Got taken to see the Goodspeed Opera House production of Camelot last Saturday and to dinner too! It was wonderful but sad - a dichotomy of an evening. The company I was in was superlative. Dinner was absolutely marvelous - mussels, clams, and shrimp over homemade wide noodle pasta with light bacon alfredo sauce. Absolutely spectacular. The production was, as Goodspeed productions typically are, excellent. Gorgeous sets, beautiful costuming, wonderful cast. It's, at its heart, though, a sad story. Lerner and Lowe did a wonderful job, as did the cast, of really portraying how heartbreaking the triangle is for each of the three. Love is a funny thing and catches us each in many ways. Humanity, also, at its heart, is a funny thing. The inevitable war that results from a king's attempt to maintain the civilized society they all so strived for is tragic.

The sense of dichotomy is heightened, for me, as the reason I got to go was that their traditional 4th for the dinner'n'show evening was direly ill and in the hospital and, indeed, 2 of my 3 hosts left at intermission to be with her. So, as thrilled as I was to be there, I couldn't help feeling somewhat guilty that my good fortune came only at the cost of another's misfortune.

~~~

I told my mother off two weekends ago. I just couldn't take constantly not being good enough. I find it very interesting that she told me it was all in my head and that no one else feels that way when I know, for a fact, that each of my siblings has had the same conversation with her.

My sister thinks my father is trying to eat himself to death. Of course, if I lived with my mother, I'd probably try too... or fall into the "candy's dandy but liquor's quicker" trap.

It's another dichotomy. She's my mother and I love her. I do my best to see her personal demons behind the vitriol and let things go. Still, one can't help but feel those barbs strike home.

~~~

Perhaps my life itself is simply a dichotomy. I don't feel like a boring person (to me) yet, when I examine what others must think... it's pretty obvious that I am. My mother termed me once, as I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before, her ornamental child. I am still torn as to whether it was said fondly or as a veiled slap.

Does it just come down to whether or not being ornamental does any good in the world? Maybe so. Do I, despite my protestations to the contrary, really believe underneath it that being the ornamental child is useless? Have I bought into the Puritan Work Ethic so sternly that I dismiss my own worth if indeed there is any? Yet, I struggle to make it through the "worthwhile" parts of my day - living for those times when I can create, whether art, music, words. And, if that is such a struggle for me and the other such a joy, where does that leave me in terms of worth? How can I truly be a useful, worthwhile sort of person when all I really want to do is be creative, when every scheme to make a little side money revolves not around a second (well, third... no, fourth) job but around music or art? Is it courage to keep slogging through my "worthwhile" tasks or cowardice... or both?

I simply don't know.
And,
because I don't,
I'll shut up
now.
Probably to your
eternal
gratitude.