Tuesday, November 06, 2012

the ravelled sleave of care

I pack away my summer clothes; I fold them up, I pile them onto a chair. There the energy leaves me, and there they remain, let's see whether it is until they can be worn again. My winter clothes made it into a suitcase in May or June; there, the energy left me, and the suitcase has waited, in vain, in the corner of my room, to make its way down into the cellar, it all made unnecessary, now, by the passage of time. 


I fail to move with the time(s), I am unable to change with the season(s), I wade in the dust of all our yesterdays and won't move, won't give (things) up, I refuse to live so there will be no death; but can't help but notice that the end of life can be so slow, so devastating, so grotesque and humiliating that 

perhaps it eats away, with each added humiliation and previously-unimagined grotesquity, at what ever was good before: everything. When you were a child, your plaited hair, apron and dress, and your smile your eagerness for life, you as a young girl, as a woman, as a young mother, you in the days of possibility, and perhaps, 

in the end, the balance tips over to the negative, and no matter what ever went before, it may be it might be it may well be that it would have been best for one (for you. For me. For man) never to have been, so to have avoided this suffering, this humiliating devastation, this slow, slow dying of your living self 
before you are allowed to go, at last, for good.

10 comments:

Reading the Signs said...

I remember having winter and summer clothes as a child. It now seems very grownup and elegant to pack away clothes seasonally.

As to the rest, no comment because rather close (as it were) to the bone.

But I can't help being glad we're here - incarnated, I mean, dust and all, whatever.

Anna MR said...

Summer and winter clothes, as you as a childhood German Mädchen would know, are a necessity in a climate that can have 50°C differences in temperature between summer and winter. Fierce stuff. A winter coat just doesn't cover it. And then there's the fact that you simply don't have enough closet/wardrobe space to keep everything there all year round; hence, you have to take up chair space for summer clothes and in-the-corner-suitcase space for winter clothes. You know it makes sense.

Yes – I am glad we are incarnated, most of the time. There are times, though, when the fear strikes me that this gladness can be subtracted, credit point by credit point, if and when the end proves very long, very hideous.

Today, however, is a new day (Acthung! The Cliche Police are about to storm the building!), Barack Obama has been re-elected, we have a strange natural phenomenon evident in the Helsinki area (daylight - as in sunshine) and, well, other things seem a wee bit brighter, too. So, you know, just watch it. Because, as we both know, it is only by the constant neurotic worry-action of thee and me that this world keeps on a-turning.

x

Reading the Signs said...

Believe me, my dear, I am doing my bit on the worry-action front! It's a thankless task, as you know. Re the subtraction and credit points, I am pulling the rainbow-coloured wool over my eyes and going la la la.

Anna MR said...

Well I for one thank you from the bottom of my heart (although natch I know just what you mean by the thanklessness of it all). Sometimes, you see, I fear I forget to put enough energy into my worry-action. Like today, for instance; I have been positively bright (by comparison to what I have been and should be, ye ken).

Rainbow-coloured wool is particularly good for warding off evil sights, and this has been established and verified by various universities of the world. Fact.

x

Reading the Signs said...

And another Fact that has been established and verified by the most prestigious universities of the world is the extraordinary power of chocolate (the real dark kind, we are not talking Cadbury's Milk etc.) to not only ward off the evil but actually replace any resident evil with good. This is particularly so when said chocolate is sent from another (preferably northern) country and arrives through the letterbox. I don't know why it should have more potency than the chocolate one might buy for oneself, but the Fact is that it does - there has been quite a famous (in academic circles) thesis written about it.

So just Mwah! really. And Mwah! xxxxxx

Anna MR said...

Ah yes, it is the symbolist interactionist take on the consumption of [dark] chocolate, I remember reading about that somewhere. One lives not of chocolate alone, but of the symbolic acts of care and nurture that doth lie therein and behind.

And, you know, if ever there were a person deserving of [dark] chocolate in the letterbox, 'twere you. So just watch it.

x

Reading the Signs said...

Dude, you haven't posted for over a week. Just saying. *drums fingers on laptop*
(and Cakelady has been talking to you).

Anna MR said...

Dude – you're right. How did that ever happen? I mean the not posting, although I am delighted (if surprised) that the Cakelady has been speaking to me (is she E in RL? You need to tell me so I can gauge my response).

I am in a place where I just cannot seem to write. Were too glum last time – a hard act to follow, I am, when I gets glum, don't you know. You gently shoving me along with your drummy fingers are greatly appreciated, mind. I promise faithfully I shall try …

… in the meantime

x

Reading the Signs said...

Yes, that's her - she of the scones and cream (versatile, you see).

As I see it, there are two ways of dealing with the glums. You can either go right into the bog, as it were, until you become grendel-like with spectacular howling, or you can do a pretend thing where you just make as though you are something quite else. A cafe-crawling hipster with attitude, for example. There is that other difficult way, of course, which involves moving slowly through it with kindness and respect to self - those last a good thing always, if one can do it.

Shut up me?

Anna MR said...

Never. No shutting up around these parts, dear heart. Don't you dare.

As you can see, I waffle around quite merrily over here – and other places, it's fair to say, methinks – it's just the Posting of New Things that seems to have become an issue (yet a-bloody-gain. Jesus, what a bore. Me, right).

The bogs and dealings are what they are, as you know and I know and I know that you know and you know that I know and we both know that we both know. I would like to do something that were funny, for a change. I don't like it when glumsters start acting like their glumness is somehow being a finer person. You know what I mean? And I live in mortal fear of appearing like one – or worse still, actually becoming one. You have my absolute authorisation to kick me sharply in the shins at the first sign of that, Signreader.

Okay. No, honestly, really and truly, I will write something soon. And that's a promise,

x