Benign Curses
I have been highly productive at normal living this week, compared to previous weeks. However, I needed to laugh about something and writing was making me seriously morose. Since reading is about all I do besides that, I read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. Self-deprecating and not mean, exactly my kind of humor.
One prevalent reason to stop the cycle of endless observations about how damaged my brain is, how awesome I am to do that and this, how difficult this or that is, blah, blah, blah! - I always go back to this observation- "Stephen Hawking never wrote about ALS"! So get over it already! There are worse things in life, and if I keep insisting I had it tough, let me just wait until it gets worse. So, let me not!
I try to be a tolerably good parent. In spite of me, I have two wonderful children. No thanks to me, but they are perfect - even though she'd say "Mama, the Universe doesn't allow Perfection". It is a problem keeping them that way and not damage the already splendid evolution.
My daughter requires something to keep her away from the television. Gifted and genius in many ways, in front of a screen, she calcifies into a brainless, sight-only black box. No processing between her ears then. Drives me crazy to see live-action brain damage. So we try to read together every night and this week, it was a Junior Encyclopedia of the Universe! So, in trying not to actively bring up a little atheist, I try to tell her about what other people believe and what God is. Unfortunately for my magnanimous intentions, I cannot stop myself from saying things like nobody has seen God, but scientists always have proof. I am not very good at being open-minded, I suppose. But, hey, I am brain-damaged! Perfect excuse in handling parenting mishaps!
This was the part of the book that turned into a 45 minute reading session last night!
Who was Marie Curie, why did she get cancer, what is cancer, she must have been very interesting, will you get cancer, who gets cancer, why get cancer, why do we die, will you die, i don't want to die, kids don't usually die, I want to get many Nobel prizes for stopping global warming, i want to teach kids about global warming...
All that and more from 5 lines about Marie Curie. It bears emphasizing here that I hate talking. Intelligent conversation is tolerable, which is how I survived for 45 mins. However...
The next page was this guy- tailor so confident of his jacket that he flies to his death! So, let's have some comical relief after feeling sad for a good scientist, eh? So, this guy gets 5 paragraphs to describe his stunt. Encyclopedia writers seriously need to get their priorities straight. I had to try not to smile when I described how he fell to his death and her questions turned philosophical. I am not very sympathetic of idiots, especially costly ones, but do try not to say it out aloud to the kids. But the questions from the little reader didn't reflect any levity.
Where did grandpa go after dying, what is organ donation-> led to a discussion about his eyes, my other relatives who donated their eyes, how I hope to donate everything possible when I die, how I won't die soon if given a choice, how none of us really know or have a choice, how dying is nothing to worry about, how if we ate well, had good habits and just did what we do well, we won't have time to worry about dying etc.,
I'm waiting for the little mouth to shut up now and it shows no intention of ever taking a breather. And now the next question was about why Germans put their family into boxes and write their names on the ground and why that will not help the ecosystem, and how she was going to tell her friends not to put their grandpas in boxes and now I lose it. I am in Hulk mode and there by ends the discussion.
I came blessed - "May you have a child just like you!"
It's sad, cute and funny at the same time !!
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