today's lesson explained
Well, the day before yesterday's, actually.
A couple of people asked me to give a little more detail on a previous post, today's lesson. I think the explanation might well end up being longer than the original post. And, of course, drawing back the curtain to reveal the little man working the levers does tend to ruin whatever mystique there is. But here goes.
I didn't describe my response for a couple of reasons. One being that I think writing makes more of an impact on the reader if she has to put at least some effort into understanding it. It's like the cheap plastic toy buried at the bottom of the cereal box -- it somehow seems more valuable if you have to work to find it. Similarly, though my former therapist said lots of stupid things, he made the valid point that experience in and of itself doesn't have any meaning. It's what we bring to events, the narrative we fit them into, that matters. The Lady or the Tiger is a story. The door opens and the tiger leaps is not. By presenting a series of events, labelling them "today's lesson," but not offering any interpretation, I was inviting the reader to do the same thing with the episode that she does with her life, to shape the raw material of fact into fiction.
So that's that. Now, how did this actually make me feel?
First and foremost, I felt like an idiot. I was so caught up in my complicated rationalizations that I managed to completely ignore the evidence that was right in front of my eyes. As soon as I saw that it was the little girl, not the mother, who was pushing the stroller, I should have realized that two babies or even one baby would have been far too heavy for her. Also, it was all wrong psychologically. A seven or eight-year-old on a walk with her younger siblings would be much more likely to be demanding attention or ignoring the babies, not quietly helping her mother to take care of them.
Second, I felt sandbagged in a kind of here-we-go-again way. I thought I had prepared myself for all possible outcomes so that nothing could surprise or hurt me. Wrong again, honey. I could hear Fate snickering in the background. So, how'd you like that curveball, Niobe? Pretty good, huh? Betcha didn't see that one coming. And just wait til you see what I've got planned for you next.
Finally, I couldn't help seeing the empty stroller as an omen. And, in case you were wondering, not a good one.
11 comments:
Thanks Niobe for captivating my imagination with your writing. I was going to comment on that post that I felt you must have viewed it as an omen but held back. I didn't want to be the one to "go there" yet you were "there" already. Perhaps I should not feel like I am walking in a mine field.
Those reactions all make sense to me. Not that they need to make sense...
I was inviting the reader to do the same thing with the episode that she does with her life, to shape the raw material of fact into fiction.
Ah, but Niobe you gave us much more than raw material! So yeah, your reaction was there already in the description. Had I been describing the episode, it would have been either 1) comical, or 2) a semi-complaint about gendered fantasies.
i have to say that the original post really stood on its own very well. it was almost haunting.
*nods*
Both the original post, and then this one.
hmm. I thought the first post explained everything quite well.
But at the end of the story, I saw that not only can you NOT predict even something that looks predictable, but that also sometimes our reality can be so distorted that we expect the worse and yet, there may be a few small graces left.
i asked precisely because the first piece was so elegantly written, so evocative, so koan-like and invitational...and elusive. it served beautifully as literature, or an art piece. it intentionally seemed to disconnect, though, from any understanding we might gain of you...which is entirely your prerogative, but made me curious. especially since you've wondered, lately, whether your experience of grief has commonalities with those of the rest of us out here...i wondered if you were in a sense asking the same question, but by parable?
for what it's worth, the sandbagged part of your reaction, in particular, made perfect sense to me. resonated at the gut. i eventually got angry about that snickering of Fate, but it took a long time. just in case that's of any possible use to you as information, given that you were wondering about the anger phase of grief and your apparent absence of it not so long ago.
thank you. for the rest of the story.
bon: I wish I could claim that I had thought of the parable idea.
Well, I suppose I could claim that, but it wouldn't be true. Not that that ever stopped me before. But anyway, that's a brilliant way of looking at it.
I don't think I'm intentionally removing myself from my writing. Which is not to say I'm not doing it. Just that I'm not doing it intentionally. But someone else (S, I think) made a similar point and if enough people tell you you're drunk, it's probably time to lie down in the gutter.
It's interesting...I didn't think that the lesson needed further explanation, although it's interesting to have it. I also saw it two ways, the first being the "ha, ha - wrong, after all" and the second, not necessarily as omen, but as fact, painful and brutal.
I read the post quite differently from everyone else, I think. Without working it through consciously, I interpreted the word "lesson" in the title as more reader-directed - "here's a lesson for you."
It reminded me of a post I wrote awhile back about the mental work of motherhood - keeping track of where the kids are at all times, keeping half an eye on all sources of danger while outwardly carrying on as usual. That invisible mental work is habitual but also draining.
So I read your post as a snapshot of the invisible mental work that accompanies your daily life - scanning the environment for sources of emotional danger, defending yourself against them. I actually didn't pay much attention to the empty stroller at the end (pivotal point that I pretty much overlooked) because I was focused on the glimpse the rest of the post provided into what it's like to be you.
bubandpie: Interesting. It did occur to me that the intended recipient of the lesson was a little ambiguous, but I was trying to have the emptiness of the stroller hit the reader with something of the same force that I felt when I saw it. I guess it goes to show that you can't either completely anticipate or control what someone takes away from your words.
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