Self Subversion

My uncle has come to stay with us for a while to further recover from a head injury he suffered several weeks ago after a fall. He's been in a rehab facility in the deep dark valley, and yesterday I went to pick him up. I'd like to say that it all went smoothly, that the medical system worked well, that all family members participated, that I never once lost my cool or spoke in the tone of voice I have acquired, somehow, despite myself, that lies somewhere between Stepford Caregiver cheerful and a dripping condescension. I'd like to say that getting lost in the facility and finding myself for a few minutes wandering through several rooms filled with disabled adults who milled about muttering or sat staring and nodding was at the very least, familiar.  Except that the medical system did not work well, all family members have not participated, I lost my cool a couple of times, and my tone of voice didn't just drip but splattered with irritation. And my wander through the halls of adult institutionalization resulted in a bout of sadness about nine hours later that I told Carl was something that just happens, sometimes, this wave of emotion that is best dealt with by assuming a kind of dead man's float, the better to not be drowned. The morning light brought so much relief it felt nearly funny, and I made blueberry muffins that I ate with the three men (one old, one in the middle and one young), along with pancetta that I scrambled with eggs. I cut up two blood oranges, and we ripped the flesh from the rind.

As the hours tick by and the caregiving continues, I think of self-regard, of self-care, of the illusion of the self.


Question: What do you have to look out for? 
Answer: Resentment. 


Resentment. If I could give it a shape, it'd be the infinity symbol or something impossible. If I could give it a color,  I think of something burnt red. Like the gray of embers with bursts of light. The word implacable. Women. Keeping our mouths shut. Resentment is not to be mistaken for anger which is the open mouth or red lips drawn into a smile.

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.

I'm working on it.