Today I got frozen out of Facebook for taking a picture of bails of pine needles I had to spread, and posting it, tongue firmly held in cheek, with the Nazi motto, in German, about freedom and work; a phrase I am afraid of posting again lest I get kicked out of the entire internet. The following thoughts came to me after seeing a friend before I "arbeiten" spreading pine needles in the yard while getting “frei” on a glorious day. I always taught art from a very personal point of view, so maybe this is a teaching moment; though it’s probably just more contemporary exhibitionism from my uncensored mind.
What prompted this reverie is a phrase you never really want to hear from a friend whom you haven’t seen in decades, and whose parents were best friends with yours, while she introduces you to her son. She said, "When my parents met Katya’s parents, they visited and spent all day at their place; when they came home they said they had an orgy." Or words to that effect.😆 ….Ahhh the swinging 70’s… Though for my parents it was the swinging 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. No wonder I was never home while growing up. As a child, I think I was aware of it, but blocked it. I was aware of something, I just didn't look into it very closely - so very unlike me...
I’ll hand it to my sex-crazed parents; their fun never happened when I was home. Were my parents actually sex-crazed? Looking back on it, as I often do these days on my sixth decade on this planet, maybe. Sex certainly defined their relationship; and my mom defined her entire being in terms of her sexuality, something that seriously messed her up. And I am not saying this because I am a prude, I don’t even know how I feel about it; but I saw her mind break down at times, for long periods, due to her lack of having any other center; and then I saw her die a miserable and lonely death because of it.
I kept thinking of this while spreading my pine
needles. And I kept thinking about my parents' miserable relationship at the end of their lives when sex was no longer
possible, while my dad, 15 years my mom's senior, battled prostate cancer. And while doing yard work towards freedom, I
kept thinking, as I am prone to do lately, about how all this marked my life.
My mother… Another thing I often hear from people about her
is how they loved her. And my mom could actually be wonderful; and often I
loved her too, but like an abused dog who always goes back to its owner because the
owner is not always abusive. People who say
they loved her did not have to live with her; I did not have that privilege. On her 3 last miserable years on this planet, after a lifetime of her bamboozling male psychiatrists into diagnosing her with depression, she was finally diagnosed, by a great woman psychiatrist, with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And that explained EVERYTHING I always
knew, but never had words to explain. …And no, I have not forgotten my beloved
father in this story. Him I really did love
unconditionally; but he was complicit, he enabled her. He should have walked away from her long before
he realized, also without words, what the family dynamic was; which with Narcissists is that they actually call all the shots. He could have maybe
saved himself a lot of pain (like the Republican party could have, had they not enabled, to the bitter end, the one who shall not be named).
It has been 3 years since my mom died, and I still don’t
know how I feel about her. I want to love her; often, I miss her.
Teach your children well.
