*sigh* More of this
Sunday, 19 June 2016 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59I Don't Necessarily Agree With Everything I Say.*
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I feel like I should be writing about the stuff with my mother, but there just isn't anything to say. When I visited her today, she prayed for a while. I could tell this by her folded hands and her cadence. When I told her I was leaving, she kissed me, then she looked at my earrings, and then she pointed at my face the way you do when you're using your finger to count something. I have no idea what that meant.
I was talking to Diane today and I told her how the weirdest thing was the way words are interspersed with the unintelligible sounds, and it hit me why that's the thing that throws me so. It's the title of a James Thurber story, What do you mean it was Brillig? That emphasis on the was always cracked me up: the implication that the question isn't what the hell does brillig mean? but isn't it still brillig? is funny. And two sets of nonsense syllables connected by a real word is also funny. You can dismiss something that's nothing but nonsense, but if there's a little sense thrown in, your brain wants to parse it. At least, my brain does. We're pattern-seeking creatures.
I don't know what she wants. She practices writing her name, and she's doing very well. She's told me more than once that she's ready to go, but I've known for a while she's not who she thinks she is.
Probably nobody is. I work very hard at being who I think I am, but I probably fail a lot. My mother would say things like she didn't want people at the hospital with her, but that wasn't true. (She once needed an early morning ride to the hospital. I assumed I'd just be dropping her off. Two hours later—after she was settled in her room in her bed—I was home, with Pat asking me what had taken so long. But if you asked my mother, she would have told you I just dropped her off. I, on the other hand, really don't want anyone there when I go to the doctor or hospital. Dropped off at the curb works great for me.)
It's all so frustrating. I have to make decisions not knowing what she wants, not even knowing for sure who she is. Some days I'm not even sure who I am. And all I want to do is stay home and watch TV.
*Marshall McLuhan
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I feel like I should be writing about the stuff with my mother, but there just isn't anything to say. When I visited her today, she prayed for a while. I could tell this by her folded hands and her cadence. When I told her I was leaving, she kissed me, then she looked at my earrings, and then she pointed at my face the way you do when you're using your finger to count something. I have no idea what that meant.
I was talking to Diane today and I told her how the weirdest thing was the way words are interspersed with the unintelligible sounds, and it hit me why that's the thing that throws me so. It's the title of a James Thurber story, What do you mean it was Brillig? That emphasis on the was always cracked me up: the implication that the question isn't what the hell does brillig mean? but isn't it still brillig? is funny. And two sets of nonsense syllables connected by a real word is also funny. You can dismiss something that's nothing but nonsense, but if there's a little sense thrown in, your brain wants to parse it. At least, my brain does. We're pattern-seeking creatures.
I don't know what she wants. She practices writing her name, and she's doing very well. She's told me more than once that she's ready to go, but I've known for a while she's not who she thinks she is.
Probably nobody is. I work very hard at being who I think I am, but I probably fail a lot. My mother would say things like she didn't want people at the hospital with her, but that wasn't true. (She once needed an early morning ride to the hospital. I assumed I'd just be dropping her off. Two hours later—after she was settled in her room in her bed—I was home, with Pat asking me what had taken so long. But if you asked my mother, she would have told you I just dropped her off. I, on the other hand, really don't want anyone there when I go to the doctor or hospital. Dropped off at the curb works great for me.)
It's all so frustrating. I have to make decisions not knowing what she wants, not even knowing for sure who she is. Some days I'm not even sure who I am. And all I want to do is stay home and watch TV.
*Marshall McLuhan