Tuesday, December 2, 2014

A French Or Maybe Italian Movie

Moi, 16 months old and dead serious


About 6:15 tonight, after I'd dragged in a couple of bags of stuff from Target and a giant box of diaper wipes, after I'd realized that the cashier had not packed the red mat for the porch and that I'd have to go back to Target to pick it up tomorrow, after The Husband (yes, there's still The Husband) had put the food down on the table and The Brothers and The Husband began arguing about baseball statistics, not noticing the stink emanating from The Daughter whom I promptly took back to her room to change, and after I noticed that everyone was eating and no chair had been pulled up to the table for me -- well, just at that very moment after, The Angry and Very Resentful Woman took over my body. She hissed some very dispiriting words, something to the order of being sick and tired of this, just so sick and tired of this, and the Arguing Men and Boy looked dopey and confused and said What? but The Angry and Very Resentful Woman had enough sense to just walk away and out of the house into the rain  (the house was so damn hot! why is the house so damn hot?), and she lifted her face to the rain, the cool drops a cliche (like a French movie! or maybe Italian!), if she'd been sugar, she would have dissolved right there into a puddle, also a cliche, but she wasn't sweet, she was angry and resentful. There are reasons to be angry and resentful, and then there are reasons and more reasons, but reason never got angry and resentful anywhere. The Angry and Very Resentful Woman who had taken over my body walked back into the house and changed her wet shirt, lay down on her back and closed her eyes. It would take hours to quell it, and what's the good of subjugation (a remnant of the partriarchy, the mansplaining! she'd listened to it all day! the justifications for violence! the guns! that ugly little man named Paul or Rand or Ayn who married that tiny little girl who did poetry in motion in college when you knew her!)? What's the good of subjugating anger and resentment?

Better to lay your peasant body down alone, to unwrap your arms from the embrace that keeps them in, the anger and resentment, to spread your arms and embrace the space around your body, instead, to melt, to melt, the sweetness a puddle right there on your bed.

12 comments:

  1. I believe I know what you're saying here. Yes, pretty sure. Did you think to take a selfie out in the rain? With the steam coming off your body?

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  2. I am so thankful I'm never angry or resentful. I never judge or criticize, nor do I ever swear or raise my voice. I'm always calm and level headed.

    Thud.

    Sorry, that was me laughing my head off.

    Once when there was a family argument at suppertime, I got in the car and started driving. I never wanted to go back, ever. I finally turned around after about an hour.

    Sending hugs woman.

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  3. "She took to her bed." I've always been drawn to that idea. I wish I lived near you. We would run away together in the rain and only when we were laughing maniacally at the whole damn circus would we even consider retracing our steps.

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  4. We had a very similar scene around here recently. The scene also included the heat being turned way up. That seems to be the final straw for me.

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  5. Sometimes the fuel is piled high, the match is lit, there...the flame must gulp air and rise.
    This is a magnificent post, by the way, and any woman who does not recognize herself in it is not a woman I care to know.

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  6. I do not mean to make light of your reaction, because God knows I have been angry and resentful at far less -- but baseball statistics alone would make me go ballistic any day.

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  7. Los Angeles needs to shrink its fucking self or install a bullet train from my house to yours cuz we could have had our own sauna in the rain last night with all that steam.
    xo

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  8. I am feeling angry and resentful now. How dare they be oblivious!! I want to come down and kick their butts! Like you need this? Really.

    As a newlywed, I know I'm not supposed to feel anything but adoring love for my husband. However, your feelings described here are familiar to me already...4 months in. Sometimes it is most difficult to live amongst other human beings. (I VANT TO BE A-LONE!)

    xo

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  9. Your writing, about even the hardest things, is luminous. Your honesty breathes freedom - the freeing joy of not being alone with our feelings - to all who read your words. "Give sorrow words, the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er fraught heart and bids it break." - William Shakespeare
    Love to you, dear Elizabeth

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  10. Lol. I was kind of wondering about The Husband. I thought he might have disappeared like some soap opera character or Richie Cunnigham's older brother on Happy Days. In any event. I could never say it as well but I agree with Karen in all that she said

    Your anonymous commenter.

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  11. I read and then I sighed, a deep and satisfied sigh. Thanks you, as always, for sharing.

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  12. I will put my face up into the rain next time. And it does take hours to quell it. Once again you have put words to feelings I know so well.

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