There are times when being a parent just makes you want to shake a fist at the skies (even if you are an agnostic-atheist-unbelieving rationalist-world-view type like myself) and chant like a hard lad picking a fight.
Do anything you like to me, take from me anything and everything I hold dear, kill me, cripple me, maim me, strike me dumb, have me betrayed, ridiculed, humiliated - but lay off my fucking children, alright?!
...How little there is that can be done to protect them, how little I can do to protect mine.
"I do not will him to be exceptional.
It is the exception that interests the devil.
It is the exception that climbs the sorrowful hill
Or sits in the desert and hurts his mother's heart.
I will him to be common,
To love me as I love him,
And to marry what he wants and where he will."
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Come on then if you think you're hard enough
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25 comments:
Hei Anna,
Hopefully you won't have to be hurt to protect your children.
I like the line to marry what we wants and where he will
thats giving freedom.
x.
Anna,
I'm beginning to wonder what may have been coming my way before my father shook his fist at the skies to curse the god he doesn't believe in. (He is a pain-riddled, occasional-medical-distaster-area, runt-of-the-litter cripple whom I love very much.) I find myself amazingly angry and frustrated whenever he has another setback, and rather pissed off with the unfairness of it all (and occasionally berating that being I don't believe in). Knowing that life's unfairness is a statistically likely consequence of the godless universe is cold comfort. How much harder it must be when it's your child you want to protect.
Tri Miksi xx
Incidentally, this is rather a coincidence. I have just had a run-in with my non-existent almighty one myself...
Always liked the old fashioned way of talking about some stuff like this.
Used to be "BEING-WITH" child.
Today it is HAVING child.
My 4 sprogs are great and they are hard enough to handle the likes of me.
I'm lucky perhaps.
I become absolutely caveman like when it comes to Inigo. Rabid gorrilla when something or someone messes with him.
I understand.
Kahless fy ffrind, shwmae. Getting hurt is, honestly, not a problem, it is the helplessness in the face of life that is awfully hard to take.
The line you like is a good one - I have always cared for
"I do not will him to be exceptional.
It is the exception that interests the devil."
To me, it seems to speak miles of how one would like to hide one's children from the cruelty of life, into ordinariness, mundanity, the humdrum existence without peaks or - pitfalls.
Never mind freedom, Kahless, I just want them to outlive me and be reasonably happy...
x
Hei Tri Miksi? - sorry to hear of your dear father's ill health. Stomaching the fact that one can do so little to alleviate the sufferings if those one loves is pretty dire, always, whoever the loved ones are - but yes, my children's sufferings do make me wish fervently for a god (or several) to blame for it all.
Regarding the coincidence - this seems to be something that happens in blog life. I am taking my revenge on the universe governed by a rational world view for allowing pain and suffering, by starting to believe in synchronicity. Ha. That'll teach the statistically-oriented cold-fact place to behave itself.
Take care, Ms Mutta. Hope your run-in has you on the winning side.
x
Well yes, Zola a Lucky Thing - my sprogs are great too (particularly in small doses), but at least one of them is too bloody soft and gentle to handle the world, let alone the likes of me.
It's just the way it is, even if I wish it wasn't.
x
Hola and aloha, Alejandro - it's good to see you. The most painful thing is, of course, when any amount of gorillaing, no matter how huge, is of no use. And guess what, it's true what they say - "little children, little worries". Just to make you feel better about the future, amigo, you know what I'm saying.
Will nip over to yours soon. Good to see you, as I said. Love to you and the family.
xxx one for each
Anna,
Helplessness and powerlessness are truely crap states to be in, aren't they? There's not much to be done for the better in either, except note down the experience for future reference, hope that it doesn't last forever, and hope that the period of time between now and the next occurrence of the crapness is infinitely long. And then wait and see...
On the other matter, I did indeed win in my passing encounter with the fleeting thoughts of theism, though not as quickly as I would have liked. Still, a victory nonetheless.
Mutta xx
'Helplessness and powerlessness are truely crap states to be in, aren't they? '
My mother is really sore.
My sister wants to buy her a new kitchen.
My mother is really sore.
My other sister bought her a new chair, from IKEA.
She can't even sit in it.
My sister wins the prize for the best cake at the Fete.
My mother is still sore.
My sister, who is a Doctor, wins the prize for singing at the local Festival.
Now, she wants to buy new windows for my mum.
My mum is really sore and can't even get out her bed.
I have to clean the shite bucket and the stench is palpable in the house.
My sisters want to throw money in the direction.
Wonderful.
They rarely visit, but when they do they bring Croissants and Rocket and New Age Goodies.
I wish they would care a little.
My mother is still sore.
Very sore.
Boldscot !
You KNOW the answer to this.
Get it Done.
Hei Anna
I love your feelings..........
As a quick aside..this country is Shit.
Social Services,Doctors etc all want throwing against a wall to get them moving...sori about this,I feel very strongly about it.
Kick ass boldscot !
It's a bright new day and everything is better now.
Anna, These are lovely lines you have written, says it all. I too love the last line.
Boldscot, You have written movingly too, I've said before you have poetry in you.
Sometimes, writing is all we have.
Sorry to be bleak.
x
Dear all - sorry about delays in reply services, caused by factors utterly out of my control. I am with NMJ (hello, honey, and a blushing thank you for your praise) - "Sometimes, writing is all we have."
Here, although nobody asked, I am compelled to point out that what is in quotes in the post does not originate from my pen, keyboard, or brain, but is indeed, a quote, from Three Voices by one S. Plath. Just so that her fans (who can be a vindictive bunch) don't come and hack off my name from either my tombstone or my blog profile.
Mutta-tohtori, I did read about your near-miss with theism. I am proud of you emerging so victorious. Hope that there indeed is a looooooooong wait between now and your next crap state (and indeed, everybody else's, here on this page (and elsewhere, why not, let's go the whole altruist hog), and, very importantly, MINE).
Boldscot - doing the right thing, as you are, is not a thankful task (as you'd know). But at least it's right. Keep on keeping on. And playing the blues.
LavenderBlue (is this the correct way of upper-case-use for your name? Been meaning to ask for ages) - thank you for the support, girl. The public health etc is going to the dogs in this country too. It's because (and let's open up a nice can of worms) we need to be competitive, you know, in true European Union style. And Finland's never been more prosperous. Yeah right.... (zola? Comment?)
xxxx one each
I think you do plenty by being so strong and wise, Anna MR.
Some people would not even recognise the words in that poem, let alone feel them so deeply.
x
Hei Ms Dark, how nice to see you again. But stop it already girl, "strong and wise" is a case of vast overpraise. Worse, a double case. Just a helpless and angry little woman wishing that she would have done everything better and hoping that she could save her offspring from pain, you know...not a great deal of strength or wisdom demanded in either.
Hoping all is well in the Mellifluous world, though.
x
Helpless? You are not that, Anna.
Some parents do not feel the automatic guilt that comes with conceiving a child. How can you have a child and ever think you have got it all right, or done all you should?
I don't have children but I see the way my family and friends love their offspring, and I see how my parents were (are), too, with me.
You are excellent – I'm as sure as I can be by dint of what you post.
x
This, for one reason and another, including the fact that kids sometimes look in at mine, is one of the things I don't really blog about. But - oh yes. And it don't get easier. Sorry. And me a believer, but not that kind of believer, and anyway, being god's son or daughter was never any guarantee of a life with no pain.
xx
(and mwah).
Oh, Ms MD - you are too kind. Guilt, yes, that we have aplenty. But do you know, the most painful aspect of having children is the fact that in some ways, you really are helpless to protect them. For me this realisation hit very badly almost straightaway after my older son was born - that my life was never going to be mine again, that it was going to be worthless and unlivable if this wee writhing scrap of humanity didn't outlive me, and that there was (is) nothing - nothing, Ms Dark - that I could (can) do to guarantee that he does. Of course, it only gets worse when you have a second child - there are now two people who have to somehow survive longer than you. These are my only two, but I am certain the trend continues the more kids you have. And don't even mention grandchildren.
Don't believe the hype, Ms Dark. It's awful being a parent...
x
Dearest Signs - how good it is to have you back in bloggery blogdom. Mwahs are heading your way as we speak. And yes - I had, at some point, entertained the thought that once we've survived the volatile teen years, things might get easier and less dangerous, but have simultaneously started to learn enough about parenting (=life) to know that this will never be the case (see the gloomy replies I gave to Ms Dark, and Alejandro, who is a friend from Hawai'i and the father of a very gorgeous 7-year-oldish lad. Ah, how easy and safe it all was then, eh, Signs?).
So yes. I cannot really thank you for "these words of comfort", can I now? But I can certainly thank you for your bloggy friendship, which, in itself, is comforting. It is truly grand to have you back.
mwah and mwah again
xx
Any time, soldier, any time - a pleasure. Ya want some real comfort? In the words of my grandma Emmy:
"Be heppy! Things can only get vorse!"
(but strictly between you and me, they usually turn out ok)
Har!
x
Har indeedly, Pirate Signs. Is this the grandma whose son was in Buchenwald? Because she would surely know about things getting vorse, if that was the case... Be that as it may, I have already entertained a colleague today with grandma Emmy's vords (complete vith accent - I am quite good at them, and hers is easy to pick out from your translitteration). Grandma Emmy and her wisdom are, in other words, continuing their life over here in the far-flung northeast.
(Regarding them (things) usually turning out (shhh...) ok - Between you and me, dear heart, I tend to believe that way too, but I have to keep it so quiet even I don't hear myself believing it (over and over again, what a dork), for fear of jinxing it, you see.)
mwah-mwah and welcome back once more, fellow Princeling
Anna MR
Soldier of Life
And oi - what the hell is that wee ticked box there in my comment, and where did it come from, how did it get there, and most importantly - what does it signify, placed just there?!
Siiiiiiiiigns - read this for me, but read it benevolently. I cannot bear any ominous readings just now....
x
what ticked box? where? 'twasn't me. ticks is good though - not the little crawly things, but the signs that you is doin' ok, thumbs up.
x
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