5:30 PM Fri Nov 26 -82
Dad announces he will give me $6000 of my stock but I can print his kid’s book out of that money! Never mind that it’s not really going to be $6000 – never mind that I am going to have to pay for his book – this is a substantial help to us right now and there really is no other way to GET the money since he is “trustee”. (Which he hated when HE had a trustee! He disguised Mom’s college bills as “dental expenses” to get HIS trustee to disburse! ) I can get a printing press for $700! Current problem: how to live like a poor person in the lap of rich people. 8 pm – Determined to end this struggle with T. He is such a beloved. All this anxiety about entertaining & money – I am just going to drop out of it. Marriage seems to be a cage in which one is “trapped” into giving an endless supply of “love” – milked like a cow. Clearly nonsensical! We have to say yes each time – if we can break the ice bond. My dissatisfaction treated as treason. Yet I certainly have a say in how we live! Simplify, simplify. T says there’s a press in the barn with type case – we are going to look at it to see what can be salvaged. Reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I like the right brain sense of endlessness – timelessness. When I get to the part about the childhood of an artist I feel myself come alive. Makes me want to take out books on children’s art. My parents saw me as a scary ocean of need of rechannelling. Not to make the same mistakes with S. 1 Dec 82– An exquisite day. Many phone calls about binding systems. T. wants to do it in the barn with wire & glue & rocks – I prefer a more modern method. The key is to be able to produce volumes instantly to match demand. T’s reaction is interesting – if I can step back from it. If I can’t I’m looking at cardiac arrest. No one in his family has any concept of how to be supportive It’s always competing ideas – even if its as pathetic as “I haven’t done any research yet because I’m too busy but if I did I’m sure I’d find a better idea than that!” It REALLY makes me want to withdraw MY support from HIS crazy ideas!!! He’d better learn how because I’m not going to stand by while he attacks & humiliates S – if he has to “learn” on me that’s OK. But I demand progress. At dinner I reminded T that my last batch of Corning paid off his margin call. He had “forgotten”. We’re down to our last $600 now. Let him worry about it says Granma. T. said he is utterly committed to my health, happiness & welfare. I had to point out that his actions say different. When I was so depressed I was borderline suicidal he did nothing and now that I’m happy & excited all he wants to apply is brakes. He wants to make me dependent on him – overworked as he is – to “come up” with a binding system. No thanks. I’ll do it. Shane is glorious, peaceful, sweet – brain expanding visibly like a sponge in water. Fri 3 Dec 82 – I hate to report – bad day. T and I fought on the way to Trenton – he got out of the car so angry he didn’t kiss me goodbye. I cried. But I always feel better after I share my feelings even if he doesn’t want to share them. Maybe I should struggle on alone. It’s what he seems to want. I explain no parties, entertaining for awhile – I am going into hibernation. T. takes an adversary position on everything – then denies we even had the conversation. Am I crazy or is he? Guess what? It’s him. He keeps dragging in entirely mythical beings – “the neighbors” - “girls I might have married” – “other men might say” . How about what WE think & feel & are trying to achieve? He ADORES tending S an hour a day – then he’s done! He thinks what I do is no biggie. Toss stayed home yesterday – the day I was going to work on my novel – using my typewriter, having me do things for him and complaining all the while that he doesn’t have a legal secretary to “show him the ropes.” If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the male/female differential you ain’t listening. Noon – 30 Nov 82 Most interesting AM watching salesman’s ThermaBind presentation. I am passionately in love with this system because it has the flexibility I require. Feel like I am setting out on a great odyssey here – learning how to be a flexible independent dependent… T’s atmosphere = crisis and frenzy (one day to file his amended complaint.) I must have serenity. I want harmony between us. Overwhelming similarities between T & M & D – not an accident…Pity he screams with wrath over every one of my ideas. I would rather work alone. He asked me what I want for my birthday. I said for him to do the dishes occasionally. The more fool me. 5 pm – Wrote a sobbing shrieking letter to T; a long catalogue of masculine idiocies & betrayals. I was upset by the religious fanatic who spanked his 2 yr old to death last week. The sins of the fathers are ENDLESS all from “being right.” Won’t send it. I was stopped by Mom’s story about Granny who always said she had “earned” their love. Mom said no one “earns” love! Instead I wrote the poem: “In photographs the ladies scream or laugh”. Confrontation In photographs The ladies scream or laugh It’s hard to tell Heads back they bare their grief In ecstasies of joy or Agonized relief It’s hard to tell. All that remains of them These withered icons growing ever dim. In that first winter When we thought the world was dead Cold crystal splintered up the sky In shafts; dogs barked We heard the devils laugh But stars came out The soil sprouts grain We saw the statues Move and speak again. The fountains of our fear Leap high at first, like dancers Frozen at first burst Of freedom Paralyzed abreast the arc We can’t see what These abstruse sign were meant to be. Somewhere a fetus twists and jerks Assemblage of dynastic quirks Waiting out this cycle’s spiral Pull to kingdom come. For nothing vain this world is born To bleed again. Lost in deep, deep prayer. So excited to find a copy of A Grief Observedat The Lamplighter. Read it while the baby sleeps.
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Alysse Aallyn
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