Alack!
Saturday - Saturn - blue - lead - conifer -Uriel - onyx - spleen - corn - 56-63yrs.
I wrote a lot today, aside from a couple of blog-length replies to Steemians, but I've ended up censoring my intended post here entirely.
It first and foremost has to be a Saturn/Chronos-mood. Father Time devouring his miscreants. The rubbish disposal black hole of the past sucks up the debris; the lead that holds back the balloon. Swimming lessons around the lilo bobbing on the sereen seas inbetween the Pitcairn and the Cook Islands. I create a blissful zone-out zone for my mother to leave her be.
Maybe it's something Deborah Levy writes in "The Cost of Living", about her mother and Freud and unknowing in order to float off, to be elsewhere. Perhaps, we must be gracious in letting such people go. Like the little balloon they've always wanted to be. Maybe, even before they were born.... Is that not a tragedy?
Otherwise it's the final scene in Anon(2018), which is all about being an open file to anyone; you don't even need a phone. Next-level Google Glass. The writing is in the thin air around you. Your privacy is government owned. To be anonymous a crime; even on the street your data is up for grabs for any passer-by - nothing too futuristic about that film, at all.
The Anonymous one didn't so much want to protect any infomation about herself, since she had no secret to guard; but that was exactly the point, aswell. She didn't have anything she wanted to share, wanted you to see; not necessarily because it was all compromising or unflattering, but what is there to share if you have lost or never found your own identity. This is the case for many people, especially women who have sacrificed their life to care for the wellbeing of others (homemakers).
It is more subtle than not feeling you are someone important. It is a programme that places no value on who you are, which you run through your life till it is who you are: worthless and insignificant. What could be more unflattering, embarassing even, than not being worth anybody's while to know you? It pretty much spells out "loser", defining your memory in advance; with the l for lonely, the o for obsolete, s for sterile, e for empty, and r for replaceable. Can't think of sadder words.
Looking closely at who we are is to make more room for truth. But what if the truth is not good enough? Not loved enough? It turns us into needy children and liars, denying the truth of what already is. Next we instill taboos, invented to distract us from the fact the only winning streak is to love, love, love. But try finding someone who is open to that! Willing to invest in that. (Not needy, just open.)
Only they who love create the kind of living memories worth holding onto. Only those supporting the Human Plight in loving actively. (Not promoting your self, but showing you care, sharing your life, respecting yourself.)
Of course, it is fundamental to being your pure self to have privacy, to dream introspectively, and to create intimate bonds with few; but to claim every private thought as private property which may not be trespassed upon, or it will be held against you, is also a lot to do with the greatest fear of all: that one is wrong which is the same as bad or unloveable
As a writer I look and listen closely. I pay attention to the world, which Brontë and Levy reaffirmas necessary basic interest (the bridge between I and you). It is what my mother doesn't like having built between her and another. It brings people too close for comfort. She is one of those women who trusts that when you take off your glasses the world also fades out and goes to sleep a bit.
If I ask few people few questions it is not my own lack of interest, but my training to never "pry" too overtly into my mother's inner world. I used to wonder about all the things I could then never know about her. But now I am beginning to see her life is played out on but a small board. It is a tiny little bit of grass infront of her (mental) caravan. The hospital tray with dinner on her bed, delicious because she didn't have to cook it herself. The memories made from many presumptions (made by one who asks only to confirm their judgement.)
If I talk too much about me, it is me trying to be polite and filling you up with decontaminated, harmless hot air to reassure you I won't be taking anything away from you. Or maybe, to prevent you from handing me a pack of lies, half-truths or meaningless chit-chat.
There are many ways we come to that point of wanting to be left alone. It is the crisis of our time that too many accept it as the end-station instead of a wrong turn. It is the other side of the same coin, oh so ironically, of those who cannot bear to be alone for one second. It is all a lack - of love - alack!
