the wishing well is dry. closed.
for the last... well... ever, i've made the people i love the priority in my life.
it has meant a great deal to me to give them everything they need, insofar as it was in my ability to give.
the upshot is always the same.
they get a boost of confidence, energy, or whatever it is they needed, and they go off to enjoy it or spend it on someone else.
don't get me wrong, i want the people in my world to have everything. it would just be nice if it were me they wanted to share it with. but there's no way to make people feel what they don't.
since this is one of those times when everyone else has wandered off and have only the odd few minutes here and there to spend on me, i won't be missed not being around for a while.
posted by arryana at 8:48 PM
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the fog is so thick there's no way to tell what the road looks like.
i can't even tell where the edge is, anymore.
things just keep going on without resolution, or with delayed ones.
doubtless there's a way to find a direction out of the confusion, but all i can think of to do is sit still and shut my eyes so that i can set the internal white-out apart from the external one.
one thing there's no shortage of is silence.
posted by arryana at 8:09 PM
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the wheel continues to be in spin.
it has taken so long for issues to resolve that i've begun forcing resolutions in the places where i can. that's rarely a good idea, but at this point, it really doesn't matter.
there are times that it matters more just to speak up.
nobody's going to act on my behalf, nobody's going to consider the situations from where i sit. oddly, when other people are in that position, it seems perfectly acceptable for them to go off, but when it's me i'm supposed to take it in the teeth quietly.
i don't think i'll ever understand that double-standard.
i can say that i'm pretty much done taking it.
having said all that, i had a chance to talk to a very old friend about it all for a few minutes. there are people who are just marvelously comforting company, and she's one of them. it isn't sympathy, or philosophical leanings, or religious mouthings, she's just decent and honest and loving and fair. she put several things in perspective for me, which is always helpful. more than that, her love for me is never any more of a burden to her than my love for her is to me. it's an inexpressibly wonderful thing to have such a thing. no matter how many people turn out to be a disappointment, there's always someone in my life who won't.
the nature of love is becoming both foggier and clearer for me...
posted by arryana at 4:04 PM
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ouch.
posted by arryana at 7:10 PM
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mom and i went to garage sales.
in some places, they're a great deal of fun. here they're fantastic, and much on par with what her mother called "junk shops" in new york. for those who haven't been to the city, they're storefronts literally stuffed with... stuff. there's no organization, except that if an item will fit a place, that's where it is. its possible to get lost in such places for hours, or to bounce in and glance around to see if anything remarkable grabs the eye. since most items are pennies or dollars, it was a great way to kill time and come away with some little memento when we were kids.
so... garage sales. and even better, estate sales. those are entire-content-of-the-house sales, and they're just fascinating. instead of all of the little items being disconnected from their past, they're very evidently things that were loved, or found singular, or part of a set of other similar things. they have a reference point, a sense of having belonged.
looking around these places, mom looks first at furniture. i always end up having to shoot her down, as none of us have room to store such things. she then goes for games (and found a marvelous ancient parcheesi set for $2) and such. my tactics are different, i do the scan of the room for objects that stand out to me. i have a marked preference for wooden boxes and knickknacks. it's a tactile thing, discovering what objects have a visceral appeal. there they sit, paintings and figurines, everything just wanting to be loved. in a way its rather like speed dating for trinkets.
there's the whole school of thought on minimalism and not owning things, but...
there are a lot of ways of living with things, and not all of them require owning or being owned by them. the soul is a bizarre and complicated creature, and there are things about the body that feed it (like the contemplation of the heft and lines of a tiny-but-astonishingly-heavy cast horse) and takes us places we wouldn't necessarily get to without such props. i don't see that the world is a smaller place to imbue them with affection for their role as memory anchor, or just for sheer aesthetics. things just want to be toys, or tools, or links. everything is only as useful as the purpose to which it is put. us included.
i cant help but to see it as a metaphor for the larger wandering through life looking around to see what sticks, and what doesn't. its astonishing how an item may no longer be treasured by one person just so that it can land a place as a welcome addition and musing-post for someone else...
posted by arryana at 1:40 PM
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the wheel is in spin.
not just one wheel this time, either.
five separate pivotal issues stand in flux, and godfrey looks somber.
now it just comes to waiting until his expression lightens or resolutions appear.
i wish i felt better about this, but the chances of all the situations coming up with good result are some really long odds.
this is where people of faith take refuge in bowing to the will of their higher power.
for me, all i can feel is the certainty that i will have to live with the outcomes regardless of what they are.
its very much like walking a stretch of road out of a valley, and coming to the bit right near the top, where you realize you have no idea what's on the other side, or what the landscape you're now committed to (at least until the next fork in the road) looks like in any way. the next stretch could be nearly anything, validation and security or a return to poverty, with or without several of the people who have been extremely important to me.
as the granddaughter of a gambler, all i can say is that these aren't betting odds.
however, there's no way to know from the valley floor what any given road will lead out onto when it crosses the divide. this near the edge, second-guessing is pointless anyway. we all like to believe that the way we walked the road will earn us some reward or benefit (i'm avoiding the overused term of karma deliberately) but there's never any guarantee we get what we deserve, or even what we earn.
the voice of truth inside says that there will be endings and there will be beginnings.
all i can hope for is a balance of those in my favor.
posted by arryana at 11:53 AM
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okay, i have to gush about the penguins a bit.
anyone who knows me well is aware that i have samsonite penguin luggage. this started as a more reasonable endeavor than it would first appear. i'm not quite 5'2, and when traveling realized that even the smaller sizes of pull-luggage had a rather unfortunate balance point for short people (if the handle rides too low, the weight is on it). so i googled samsonite light luggage, and found this three piece kids set of penguins that was just too entertaining to resist.
when it arrived, i was extremely pleased at the lack of weight, the excellent details and the fantastic workmanship. the first three were the upright pull-along, the small-backpack-with-one-pocket and the slightly-larger-backpack-with-two-pockets. they have taken a ridiculous beating, and are still exactly as they were. this led me to pick up the "gym bag" one (also only one compartment), which fit my laptop and all its cables and accessories. the next to come on board was the "bookbag" (smallish sized and with just a couple of compartments), and the "baby changing bag" which had a great number of pouches, pockets, and accessories but did not have backpack straps. however, it does have luggage-snaps, so it easily clips to the rolling-penguin and is the largest of the non-rollers in terms of storage.
that leads me to the new arrivals. i'll tackle the tiny one first. he's an itty bitty penguin purse, exactly like all the others (except that his beak doesn't squeak) and through some amazing magic he manages to hold all my id, shopping cards, cash, both phones, a pocketknife, and a tube of lip goo. considering i can balance him on my palm, that's extraordinary. the other new arrival... he's breathtaking. he's a touring penguin, an armageddon penguin. he's a backpack with innumerable compartments (seriously, i'm still finding more), big enough to be both laptop bag and camera case with room for three days worth of supplies. he's got padded straps and is as marvelously lightweight as the rest. as a bonus, he also has luggage snaps, so he will also fit on the rolly-penguin in an airport setting.
they've come a really long way to be here, and it is extremely satisfying to have a complete collection of a thing that gets a great deal of use and daily notice. they're very welcome here, and much appreciated. and here they are, in their penguinny splendor...
posted by arryana at 5:19 PM
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