Ruthie's Daughter

This was not what I figured I would write today; in fact, I was so tied up in the meeting I had and the meeting I missed and the fending off of one problem and another all day, I figured I wouldn't write at all. 

But then the petty middle-schoolish anger I hold onto (can't let go of) (another story, another day) ruined most of the end of the hours, and it was enough of an anger that I wanted to write about THAT, and then thought better of it after talking to Susie, and so decided not to, then decided TO do, and then bed time happened. 

There is nothing liking tucking in three kids to suck the venom out. 

So I thought I would write about R's MRI this weekend and how her painless riding in was my utter torture. I am not good at math, but I counted each breath she made in the tube because I was sure she might stroke out, or I would, and so, someone should be -- at least -- counting. 

I thought I might write about the soccer game and the cheating by the Big Bad Dad but I'd already decided that was 1) boring and 2) a boat load of potential real life problems for me. 

So basically, if you eliminate the anger and the kid shit and the trashing -- for me, for today, for any day: there was nothing I could write about. 

THEN, then, like a beacon of inspiration, my mother, Ruthie's daughter, sent this:

"And the line of strong, insightful sometimes querky (sp) women continues. You made me feel the love, smell the salt water and reminded me of how distressed she would have been. But Ruthie would have pragmatically moved on and would have dwelled on the incredible, beautiful progeny, the next sunset and the next amazing storm."

That was it: three sentences from my mother. Three sentences that took the whole entire crap day by the neck and whipped it right the fuck around, then slammed it to the floor, stood upon it's neck, with a steel toe, like a thug of knowingness, like a thug that has history on its side, and said, listen -- missus -- listen:

Do you see it? Do you feel it? The next sunset -- it will come; it will mean a new day. You can't stop it! Move onward. Brace yourself. Storms come, they pass. DEAL.

Ruthie's daughter should be proud.

***

Memory marches with life, but not hand in hand: as life moves on, memory moves in another direction. But it creates its own territory, its own living, breathing space in life: it swallows parts and leaves others to rest. It is, however, not life; it is, however, not you.