Somewhere over my rainbow
Years ago when I started asking my mother to keep a journal at certain times and I too started writing down our conversations, I realized I saw beauty in the absurd, the incongruent. It has stayed with me, this fascination for how life seems so black and white to a lot of people and how much it is technicolor to me. If you live in the black and white, you are many spectrums short of a rainbow is my motto. Take for instance that on Fat Tuesday, we left the house as a lion, a scarecrow and the Tin Man in search of Dorothy and Toto but instead we found rolling down Royal Street the Wizard of Oz complete with a curtain on his scooter. Wonders never cease.
But more importantly let’s be for real, take the absurdity of a conversation I had recently that I am still digesting, in it I learned so many things, and some of them absurd. In this conversation I learned my sibling phoned my family to spread the word of my blog (which I say great, welcome to my world) but it was to show others how “horrible” I am. But here is the absurd thing, the hoopla is all over that old chestnut of being accused of something I never did but was tried and convicted for without so much as a deposition, and in the end I learned – this is incredible – the reason why these people believed me capable of doing what I was accused of doing is because my sibling had done this so many times in the past – WTF? Absurdity #1
Absurdity #2 – I have written about being victimized by a numbskull who was in turn believed by family members who (should) know me and then was ostracized and then how I moved on and filled the space they had vacated with people who love and support me and thereby found my new family. So for those who come to my blog for the first time, they will find a happy person, and yes there is still residual hurt and anger over a four and a half year stand off and the unfair treatment but I learned that suddenly after being victimized that others feel that I am victimizing them by telling my side of the story (let’s not forget I was never allowed a voice in this at any point). Stand by your aunt – not.
Absurdity #3 – As a complete aside I learned I was wrong about my saying that being a lesbian had anything to do with anything because everyone accepts everyone else here in this family but just “don’t do it in front of the kids.” What? As a friendly family member said this morning – must.protect.the.kids – are you serious?
So I conclude this absurd lesson with the Tao I read this morning – #20
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!
Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.
Other people have what they need,
I alone possess nothing,
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.
Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.
I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts.