i've been a fool and i've been blind
Feb. 13th, 2012 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nkyinkyinEarlier today I decided I was going to stop putting off setting my ancestors' table back up. This was not easy. See, the six of us (plus a little bitchy spoiled dog) are crammed into a tiny 2.5 bedroom ranch house. There is next to no real privacy, even with closed doors. And one of the things about ancestor spaces is that you don't go about putting them in the same room that you'll be fucking your spouse in because that's kinda... obnoxious, really. Do I actually have to explain how that is a problem? But there wasn't anywhere else in the house I could put them that'd be safe. Nothing in this house is safe. Ever. If you absolutely don't want someone to touch something, you pack it up in a box and put in storage.*
It's probably needless to say that there is a lot of potential for screaming frustration in my life right now; I take pains to avoid adding more. So any sort of ancestral anything had to go in our bedroom, but it had to be something I could put up during the day and take down again later, once a day, every day. It had to be simple enough that I would be able and willing to do that even during particularly bad brain/body days. It had to be discrete, because I am not openly practicing any-damned-thing.
Immediately, my brain insisted that I had to clean first. I mean, I can't re-invite ancestors back into an untidy space! Well, guess what, I have books stacked on the floor, the place needs dusting and vacuuming and countless other little things, but I know how that works--a million small things would wind up taking me all day and then some other shit would come up, and bang, my day would be over, and this wouldn't be done. So guess what? It's time for another round of: Shut up and do it anyway.
I have an altar space. Perhaps I should stop flailing about and USE it. But what if The Gentlemen get--they WON'T. They totally understand and if for some strange reason they don't, I'll be thrilled to explain. Shut up and do it anyway.
So I pulled everything off the table that doubled as the altar for The Gentlemen. It already has a white cloth on it, excellent. And I think: But their photos! Their stuff! It's all packed away still! No, no, it's okay, I had the doll. The doll can hold the tiny hymnal and the thimble and their Catholic medals and that's enough. But! IT'S ENOUGH. Shut up and do it anyway.
Oh look, all new Concern: What candle-holder can I use? The only ones left have owners, and that one is part of a set that is--oh hey, how about the antique oil lamp I finished restoring? But that doesn't have any fuel in it yet! SO? YOU'LL GET IT EVENTUALLY. Shut up and do it anyway.
My brain is a total Concern Troll. My Ego is a fucktarded diva that insists everything has to be awesome. Both are about this close to being banned from this forum.
So there is the white tablecloth (made of a curtain) and the unlit, unfueled oil lamp, and the doll, and their water in a tiny china teacup and matching saucer that isn't one of theirs, it's something I picked up at the Goodwill on sale for a $1.25, but it's trimmed with gold and has pretty pink roses on it, and it's ...hey, this set up's kinda nice, actually. Very simple. Very sweet.
...The music. It's on the other harddrive. I could feel my brain clenching. NO. I turned on the old blues station on iTunes. What song is this? Who cares? I'm sure they've heard them all at some point. Shut up and talk to them anyway. So I dragged up my chair and sat, and stared blankly into a total uncomfortable silence. And I breathed. And I thought about all my dead. And it's been so long, I didn't know what to say.
"What took you so long?"
I wordlessly gestured at [everything], the whole world gone small and crunched around me, the lack of space, no room to breathe. I'm getting too old to be starting over again. And again. And again. All the frustrations, all the anger. And I stopped again, because I didn't mean to come at them with an attitude like that.
What do I do when I can't communicate? And I remembered and grabbed my talkin' rocks, in their little black silk and lace mourning reticule.
"What do you want me to know?" I asked them.
And I drew out the moon.
Patience they said, kindly. And I stopped and thought about that. They are made of patience, endlessly patient, because they're already dead, and have all the time in the world. But for me, patience is an action--every time I choose patience instead of snapping, it is an act of hope and faith and love all tangled up together. Be patient, they said, echoing everyone before, Mine, and also Leopard, the one day I'd called and he'd answered. Be patient. Wait. Watch.
The bluesman on the radio sang a song about it: don't kick and scream, don't make no fuss, it won't do you no good anyhow, and I laughed and sang along with the chorus for a bit.
I drew the little Adinkra sign on the back of my hand, along with its name, so we can get to know each other better, close up and in context. We'll find more things to talk about, I'm sure, but for now, this is a good start.
**********
*The worst part about that is that the kids are the good ones in this scenario. They actually understand that when I say "don't touch" something, I damn well mean it. My kids are very well trained. Everyone else, including guests (especially guests) should retake kindergarten classes, where we learn to touch with our eyes, not with our hands, and we don't give help without asking first.
This has been a
production.
It's probably needless to say that there is a lot of potential for screaming frustration in my life right now; I take pains to avoid adding more. So any sort of ancestral anything had to go in our bedroom, but it had to be something I could put up during the day and take down again later, once a day, every day. It had to be simple enough that I would be able and willing to do that even during particularly bad brain/body days. It had to be discrete, because I am not openly practicing any-damned-thing.
Immediately, my brain insisted that I had to clean first. I mean, I can't re-invite ancestors back into an untidy space! Well, guess what, I have books stacked on the floor, the place needs dusting and vacuuming and countless other little things, but I know how that works--a million small things would wind up taking me all day and then some other shit would come up, and bang, my day would be over, and this wouldn't be done. So guess what? It's time for another round of: Shut up and do it anyway.
I have an altar space. Perhaps I should stop flailing about and USE it. But what if The Gentlemen get--they WON'T. They totally understand and if for some strange reason they don't, I'll be thrilled to explain. Shut up and do it anyway.
So I pulled everything off the table that doubled as the altar for The Gentlemen. It already has a white cloth on it, excellent. And I think: But their photos! Their stuff! It's all packed away still! No, no, it's okay, I had the doll. The doll can hold the tiny hymnal and the thimble and their Catholic medals and that's enough. But! IT'S ENOUGH. Shut up and do it anyway.
Oh look, all new Concern: What candle-holder can I use? The only ones left have owners, and that one is part of a set that is--oh hey, how about the antique oil lamp I finished restoring? But that doesn't have any fuel in it yet! SO? YOU'LL GET IT EVENTUALLY. Shut up and do it anyway.
My brain is a total Concern Troll. My Ego is a fucktarded diva that insists everything has to be awesome. Both are about this close to being banned from this forum.
So there is the white tablecloth (made of a curtain) and the unlit, unfueled oil lamp, and the doll, and their water in a tiny china teacup and matching saucer that isn't one of theirs, it's something I picked up at the Goodwill on sale for a $1.25, but it's trimmed with gold and has pretty pink roses on it, and it's ...hey, this set up's kinda nice, actually. Very simple. Very sweet.
...The music. It's on the other harddrive. I could feel my brain clenching. NO. I turned on the old blues station on iTunes. What song is this? Who cares? I'm sure they've heard them all at some point. Shut up and talk to them anyway. So I dragged up my chair and sat, and stared blankly into a total uncomfortable silence. And I breathed. And I thought about all my dead. And it's been so long, I didn't know what to say.
"What took you so long?"
I wordlessly gestured at [everything], the whole world gone small and crunched around me, the lack of space, no room to breathe. I'm getting too old to be starting over again. And again. And again. All the frustrations, all the anger. And I stopped again, because I didn't mean to come at them with an attitude like that.
What do I do when I can't communicate? And I remembered and grabbed my talkin' rocks, in their little black silk and lace mourning reticule.
"What do you want me to know?" I asked them.
And I drew out the moon.
Patience they said, kindly. And I stopped and thought about that. They are made of patience, endlessly patient, because they're already dead, and have all the time in the world. But for me, patience is an action--every time I choose patience instead of snapping, it is an act of hope and faith and love all tangled up together. Be patient, they said, echoing everyone before, Mine, and also Leopard, the one day I'd called and he'd answered. Be patient. Wait. Watch.
The bluesman on the radio sang a song about it: don't kick and scream, don't make no fuss, it won't do you no good anyhow, and I laughed and sang along with the chorus for a bit.
I drew the little Adinkra sign on the back of my hand, along with its name, so we can get to know each other better, close up and in context. We'll find more things to talk about, I'm sure, but for now, this is a good start.
**********
*The worst part about that is that the kids are the good ones in this scenario. They actually understand that when I say "don't touch" something, I damn well mean it. My kids are very well trained. Everyone else, including guests (especially guests) should retake kindergarten classes, where we learn to touch with our eyes, not with our hands, and we don't give help without asking first.
This has been a
production.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 10:36 pm (UTC)I decided that as long as my space is never as bad as Aunt R's used to be when she was a kid, all of my dead have seen worse. >.> Still good to clean up if possible, but not so much important as to forgo the invite in favour of the tidying.
Also I am making horrified face at your guests.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 10:58 pm (UTC)I'd have a lot more to say if they were my guests in my house; W's friends know better, and kid-guests I have no problem giving guided tours--most of the bone-spirits enjoy attention. But MiL and her folks are divided equally between those that are very polite, to the ones that talk too much and fucking touch fucking EVERYTHING, because obviously if it's in sight, then it's meant to be used or played with. And then we have SiL!Gil who is in her own special category of no no self-restraint whatsoever.
In the end, if I think it's something that's going to cause harm or break if someone else touches it, I put it away so I don't have to babysit. A lot of Mine's stuff is still packed; I mean, imagine if someone broke his tea set?
no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 12:46 am (UTC)o.O
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Date: 2012-02-14 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 11:39 pm (UTC)That's okay, The backyard has been captured, and I will be growing an even bigger leafy army in it. *determined*
no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 05:50 pm (UTC)Do you know why your house is antagonistic? I found mine was hiding stuff from me because he didn't want me to leave.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 04:22 pm (UTC)This corner of the pines + salt marsh already has a certain unpleasant vibe about it, and its influence is reflected in a lot of the lives here (many of our neighbors are kind, but there is a disproportionate amount of misfortune). I can't say where it started, but it seems to be a vicious circle. When I got a long distance reading from Baba Sabu, he picked it up as well--the first thing he said after his (thankfully good-humored) remarks about how it was a bad idea to drop in on my guardians unannounced was that I appeared to be "surrounded by darkness/negative forces" and my spouse and I needed to stick together.
This house was occupied by my husband's father (who also died here). He was a sunuvabitch. When my husband was still a child, he tried to beat him to death with a shovel, for "standing in his light." This is not the worst or only horrible thing he'd done. He alternately charmed and terrorized his way through life. The place is just oozing with malice and bad memories. We've been fixing the place up, despite it's determination to rot and collapse around our ears. I tried to make a friends, it didn't work (House promptly dropped a board on my head. I cussed up a storm and brought myself some sage and kosher salt and a few other goodies, and systematically smudged it from attic space to crawl space and it backed off for a bit). But I wouldn't try properly exorcising it with 2 out of 3 adult residents being part of the problem, and now I'm basically at the point of thinking that fire and sowing the ground with salt would not be a bad plan. We were not thrilled to come back here. =\
OTOH, it'll be interesting to see what tricks we can pull off the day we get out of here and start operations without the weight of this place on our heads.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 04:33 pm (UTC)That is a rough scene, kudos to you for sticking it out.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 06:22 pm (UTC)I should post the process I used the first time; it was very effective, and gave us that new house feeling too. Admittedly it is also a very grueling number of hours for me, and I haven't done a full round since. I just have to suck it up and do it again. I'll add that to the list of Shut Up And Do It.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 09:40 pm (UTC)LOOK OUT 2012! WE ARE IN YOU.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 11:45 pm (UTC)Oh, lawdz. You just summed up my adulthood.
I am in similar straits, weirdly enough. I have zero space for an altar so I'm cramming books into a shelf in my room so I can use the little shelf on my desk. You'd think that being 50% of the home owners here, I'd have space, but no.
I'm glad you got it done. <3 It's good for you. (If you can't go out the front door, go out the back door? :) )
no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 01:36 am (UTC)Space is a valuable-as-hell resource, yes indeedy. I'd like more shelves myself. And at some point I need to go through the books and make piles of keep/stash/resell (I mean, I need space for more books!) And a neater, still accessible, but still out-of-the-line-of-sight place for my grimoires.
It feels like another foundation piece has slipped back into place. The castle is being rebuilt/restored. (Yes yes yes. =D )
no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 11:52 pm (UTC)Also - why does your house hate you?!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 02:03 am (UTC)To be fair, this house hates everyone and everything. It's a nasty rotten canker sore trapped in the middle of a salt marsh between the pines and the bay. I just tend to take the malaise a bit personally. As to why this corner of the swamp's become a hellish soul-sucking place to live in, that's a long story full of ugly that I don't really want to get into here. My spouse and SiLs, who were raised here, are of the opinion that the place is best burned to the ground and done with, and I agree with 'em. I'd actually help, but we kinda need a new place to live first. ;)