I'm not the one having a birthday Saturday, but I am having a wedding anniversary Monday and an association of guilt with both occasions, as well as a third tier of even older memories associated with the same date-frame.*
Besides, it is the season of storms in this region; the day after we got married a number of tornadoes spurred my eastern guests back home. Perhaps our first in-house spring — it is now only our third — was when we lost roof parts and learned our inspector (and our savvy) were corrupted, and so I have reason to fear the merry, merry month of May. Is it not also Mary's month, in the Church? Flowers, insects, the coming of heat.
My mom is the one, for better or worse, who instilled in me a sense of overwrought awe at the power of nature. It is a good trait and has kept me from skydiving, mountain-climbing (not much, anyway, and counting fire-escape-climbing, not since I was under 23), deep-sea diving, driving recklessly, swimming in the ocean overall (though not dangerous rivers under irrational yet not quite illegal intoxication levels … again, not for a while now) — you get the point.
The one time I was actually only several blocks from a tornado that struck east campus in … you can do your own approximate math, yes? — I was living in a flimsy, foundation-less stick-made shingleville with thin metal door frames I could practically kick in. Yet, all was well. You can't count on much, at least in terms of predicting outcomes.
That brings me to my titled point. It is a starting place, actually; "Oh, great," you're thinking, "I just endured a half-dozen paragraphs and she's not even making a point yet." I always was more interested in introductions than completions, in 6-hour relationships than most that end up having to suffer the effects of distance, while time itself is not proportionately altered so as to keep old memories relevant, to keep memories from interfering with what is actually before one, with the events of merely and only the now.
Ah, she's been spending too much time reading choice-meat spinnings as Jean Baudrillard's no-it's-not-about-baby-formula simulations, representations, misrepresentations and simulacra.
It's windy out, and that troubles me. I'm sure you find it windy in here, too. No, but I mean that it is all relevant; Chang Rae Lee spoke about it, or at least was led to speak of it nearby the host at the library, of the faith in seeing written things, which are not always planned out to the letter by every writer, but which do come to their proper and full end. He mentioned that he thought everything one read or wrote became actually a memory itself, and it is impossible to unplant a seed (anyone's words).
So, earlier life seemed like a series of unlimited options.
The "or" of not being married is no longer my choice. The or of becoming some sort of scientist is also not within my realm; I have tested it. As for the former, it is a done-deal, neutral, for better or worse, and it's suiting me just fine. I mentioned to my friend recently that I despised being in love; I hated the illness, the gleeful anxiety that blocks all worries but of the other, blocks hunger and often, interferes with sleep. I used to get sick.
*the rest of you, perhaps are all innocent bystanders. remember when Jackie Childs, the Kosmo Kramer's lawyer, kept repeating that phrase at the New York-friends' trial … one of our topics about 24 hours ago during our last Art Now class was how 7-year-olds can't tell the difference between video games and reality … I swear, at least half of my classmates had children, and during the course, our teacher learned she was pregnant (second child); children-ness makes for an interesting slant during class discussions … so does racial mix — a fun classmate who reminds me of Diane K. in some ways declared, "So am I (Jewish), but we have to have our bacon," in response to another, one of the tallest men in the class, also-married and father of a 4-year-old, who was digging on the fried-pork sprinkles on the cream-cheese icing on the red velvet mini-cupcakes she had brought to class to share on last-class-not-really-learning-day and who felt compelled to announce "I'm Jewish."
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