Wobble

As a child, I wore this locket. It's actually a bit strange - having these photos of my brothers inside. I did idolize them, true enough, but the photos in the locket were not my idea, but my mother's. My prayers for them, maternally encouraged nightly ritual, blowing a kiss in their general direction, took on a sense of praying to them. Fantasies of them rescuing me, then simply coming to visit, eventually reaching out to me even, atrophied - didn't die, not quite dead. Until the father died, and they made no functional effort to contact me. So many reasons why not, none I would have excused myself with in the same situation. Not that I mind, it tells me what I need to know. Aha. Truth, I can handle that, it makes sense.



Still, it nestles among other no-longer-worn trinkets and single earrings, not because I've carefully kept it, but out of simple inertia. I held it today, as I packed the deep storage, nothing wanted for a month, or a year, and felt a momentary urge to cry, then started to laugh. Really laugh, satisfied joy. This overwhelming image I had of them, long forgotten, is now actively let to float away. The charm will stay, it takes up no room, and who knows what insights might be gleaned next year, next decade.


My mother often used the word grudge. She railed against those who held grudges for years, her sister, other relatives. I had to agree that holding a grudge was a bad thing, but I often thought that the word was loaded, and often wrong. Sometimes people just don't like each other. Sometimes we see a fault we cannot endure, a malice, a bigotry, or a long pattern of a shameful weakness or willful ignorance, and separate ourselves from the poison, made more difficult if there are family obligations. Anyone genuinely holding a petty grudge is probably the kind of person to use the word on someone else. Those who accuse everyone else of rudeness or lying, are often the ones most guilty of being rude and lying. Not always, but it is a word that judges, admits no kindness or compassion, no understanding, dismissive.

I sit tight with my still young sense of kindness & serenity. This has shaken it, I admit, but not badly, not fundamentally. Testing it, and it's holding. Wobbling, but not sliding.





I have no idea. I assume it's a "cat thing" and I wouldn't understand.