The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Last Day of Winter

It's been sunny for the last four days, and for this I am grateful. It's been dark and cold for too long. I am not someone who enjoys cold weather sports. I don't like heavy coats or clumsy boots. I like hot soup only occasionally.

I'm not anywhere special at the moment. There have been no abrupt changes, nothing positive to gush about. I am still working away at becoming gainfully employed, still chipping away at my attempts at poetry. I've been reading a bit of Mary Oliver this week. I have to say she's up my alley. What I have done is submit a couple pieces to some lesser known magazines in the hope that they might find reason to print them, but I don't expect anything to come of it. If you leave expectation out of it, you are able to ward off disappointment, is my thinking.

On St. Patrick's day, I thought it might be fun to play a little trick on my wee one. While she waved her father off at the door as he went out for his man-hour, I quickly dyed her milk green. It was done in a flash, and I was very covert in my operation. She came back to her table, chattering about this and that, and then she just stopped. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. What happened to my milk?, she asked loudly. Oh, wow, I said, putting my best drama on, I guess we've got leprechauns in the house. Now, you'd think that she would have been delighted, but my child is a sensitive kind of girl and she abruptly burst into terrified tears, wailing with horror and looking around the kitchen as though it were infested with tiny, green, shamrocked men. Even when I attempted to calm her by telling her that it had been me who had turned the milk green, she didn't believe me. Finally, I had to show her the food colouring and explain, in detail, how one goes about duping their small children into believing in mystical creatures. Serves me right. Then, she ripped her own drawing of a shamrock dressed in leprechaun garb from the side of the refrigerator and demanded I throw it in the garbage. I have no use for this anymore!, she yelled defiantly. If you ask me, leprechauns get a bad rap. Am I the only one who has seen Darby O'Gill and the Little People? The leprechaun was the least of anyone's problems in that film. What about the banshee? The Cóiste Bodhar with the Dullahan(death coach with the headless driver)? The púca (fairy shapeshifter)? Leprechauns just want to have a little fun, dress like dandies and keep their riches hidden. No harm in that, but try telling this to a four-year-old.

I am basically just living by swinging from day to day. This limbo I'm in is not for everyone, and I can honestly say that it has me down. I know others have it far worse, but try as I might to push it away, I am fixated on what I'm feeling. Instead of being content with what I do have, I am ruminating about what's missing, and I know this is the loser way of thinking but I feel powerless to it. I'm hoping for inspiration. I'm looking for clarity in the mud outside. M. has been moaning about wanting to 'go somewhere', to take a trip which would have us go anywhere but here. He even mentioned wanting to go to my parent's house, but when I mentioned it to my father, he was skittish about the subject, telling me he'd get back to me. No, I've not spoken to my mother since our argument, but then I don't really feel like it matters, anyway. We could just pretend it never happened as we have my entire life, with her saying insensitive, mean-spirited things and me accepting it and moving on. Sometimes, I don't know what I feel about her, though. Like I said to M., I'm not even sure if I love her, in the way a child is meant to love their parent. He seemed surprised by this admission and told me that one day, she'd not be here anymore. Look, I said, if I have to hear that weak, insipid justification for tolerating her behaviour again, I'll scream! Just because she's going to die one day, as we all do, does not mean she has the right to be a self-absorbed and selfish now. Bad people die, just like the good ones do, and their death will not erase their living deeds. I blame a lot of my self-esteem issues on her, and I've yet to feel like a complete person as a result. Forgive her because one day she'll be no more? Not likely. Forgive her if she asks for my forgiveness and appears to be sincere as she does so? Perhaps. In the mean time, though, it would be nice if someone told me if we were actually welcome in their house. At the end of the day, the wee one has nothing to do with the madness, and I've no desire to distance her from her only living grandparents.

Then, there's M. and his sudden realization that his relatives in France don't think about him much. He has yet to receive a message of condolence of his mother's death from any of them, including Patric, who is the wee one's unofficial godfather. Have I mentioned that one of the main reasons he claims he has not proposed to me yet is because I haven't met his family over there? When we had our fight last fall, the one which proceeded the disastrous dinner where his friends wanted to know why we weren't married, yet, I remember screeching that I could not believe he cared what they thought of me when they never seem to bother with him at all. I still don't care if I ever meet them, to be frank, and if he chooses to not marry me because of this then that's his problem. He's met my family, and if what they thought of him in the beginning were any sort of issue, I wouldn't be with him now. I suppose this speaks to my character, as well as his. When he mentioned the other day that he suddenly realized that they hadn't attempted to express their sympathies to him, I said nothing. I've said it all before, and I am beginning to understand that most people don't believe something unless they think of it themselves. We're just thick that way.

I hadn't intended to write another entry unless I had something wonderful to report, but I got tired of waiting.

Of course, tomorrow is spring. I'm all for that.