Monday, April 18, 2016

I wish I could think blog posts directly onto the page. I sort of used to do that - think in posts, get to the computer, try and let them flow out, horribly unedited, onto your feed.

Now the energy to do that is gone and it's also just as well. There's not much use in blurting, especially when the .... whatever... subsides after a while.

I wrote about this before, but once I went to a student art show with my parents, and on exhibit was a little house, each room graffitied, or showing a video, a monument to the artists' grief at losing her mother to cancer.

My mother was disgusted at such public indulgence. The craven indignity of it, I suppose. I think this blog was that for many years... would she disapprove? I wanted to write tonight about a book I know she would have loved, it hurts to think that she never got to read it.

Whatever my cautious, uncertain optimism about the possibility of an afterlife might be, they don't stretch to any belief that my mother is reading my blog. So she will neither find out about the book she missed, or be embarrassed that her daughter built a house of grief too.

I wish there was an emotion dump, where you can get it out and then leave it behind. I can't leave anything behind, it all piles up. In films, that works. There's catharsis. Is there in other people's lives too, or does everyone carry it all around in their soft tissue like I do? I suspect most do more than they accept.

I've just made an Italian family's worth of tomato sauce to make into lasagnas. I want to do all vegetarian (Quorn Mince) to make my life easier, and people don't really notice the difference, but I feel like I'll be cheating people - it's not a good protein source, really, it's processed and basically made from fungus... it tastes good though). Still... I'll get gross mince as well. In Aldi. Where their organic costs more or less the same as not, which is quite impressive. Though I'm probably reading amounts wrong.

I'd love to say I enjoy this cooking - but I'm desperately weary, my back hurts, my feel hurt, I think I sprained my wrist yesterday, a little - chopping onions was a bit painful. I am not mindful. I an whineful. I have no stamina or stoicism. I'm a whingey little bitch, basically. My own head annoys me as much as my back pain and tired eyes do. Thinking about angsting to you about the tomato sauce made me remember I hadn't put wine in it though - I did feel something was missing. Tipping a quarter bottle of wine into a vat a of bubbling tomato sauce is a nice thing to do. Satisfying. I can pretend these ham arms of mine are the result of years of pasta rolling and kneading.

Anyway. I'm going to bed. This sauce will have to sit and marinate in itself without any more heat, until tomorrow.


6 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

I wish that you could quit being so damn hard on yourself, dear Jo. My god. You deserve happiness and respect and friendship and love as much as anyone does.
Do you know that? I hope you do.
Because it's true.

Anonymous said...

I think you are lovely. I also think you should get some kind of a food processor. It will change your cooking life, chopping and slicing in seconds.

My mother is one of those types too. I think it's because of all the hardship and unacknowledged trauma they endured in their lives. Emote away! Let it all out! There is no shame in it. We will receive it and carefully box it up and put it away for you. My mother always said to me, "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." All due respect, she was full of shit and that was invalidating in it's purest form.

It's 2016, do you baby.

-invisigal

Jennifer said...

Listen to Ms Moon! She's absolutely right!

Jo said...

Oh, guys, I do have a lovely food processor that was actually bought for me as a leaving present from a previous job, which made me feel so appreciated.

Or it was a voucher, I guess, but still.

SO anyway, it stopped working abruptly a few years ago, I've meant to get it fixed each Chrsitmas and never got round to it. But the other day I did take it down to the little man in his little repair shop, and hopefully he'll fix it. Though he may not be able to (he didn't inspire me with much confidence, I have to admit), which means I'll have to get another one and borrow a blender for the party.

So, yes. A blender is good.

As to the other... I don't know. Hard on myself? Because of this post? My feelings seem to mainifest themselves in ways that put people off me, maybe that's why. It's cumbersome, all of it, I suppose and I'm not a do-er. No action follows. Makes it difficult to be continuously sympathetic, I guess.

Anonymous said...

After meeting my Irish relations I feel it is easier to express the full range of emotion here in "America"(though Canada, really) than it is there in Ireland. Their sense of wonder when they came out here seemed to confirm that. Here you can let it all hang out and be viewed as quirky but cute, whereas there seemingly some kind of standard must be upheld. I could be wrong, maybe it's just my relations. I guarantee you, your emotional manifestations don't put me off, or I am sure, any of us reading here. And I am not much of a do-er either, except in short manic bursts that seem a long time ago right now. Got a few things done this week though while my mister is out of town. Sometimes I feel like I need some time alone, down time, before I can get back on track. When trying to get out of a funk of inertia, I start with tasks focused on me. Like my hair, my nails, buying things I need. Then I move onto cleaning up my purse, my closet, doing my mending. Then I feel empowered, full and fulfilled enough to go on with all the multitude of tasks for others that consume most of my life
. I think the inertia is a symptom and result of self-neglect. For me anyway.

-invisigal

Jo said...

Nice idea, ivisigal, I like that.