I wish they all could be. . .

I have a ton of beautiful photos from my grandkids' vacation in California (in which they did seven theme parks in seven days!), but I haven't had time to sort through all of them. Meantime here's one of California girl Caitlin, looking particularly radiant, the sun bringing out the hint of red in her hair. Caitlin, the eldest grandchild, whom I watched get born, will soon turn ten. I remember ten. . . The Beatles had their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, my tenth birthday. A couple of months earlier came the Kennedy assassination (a post in itself, I think, because my memories of it are both distinct and very bizarre.) And Grade 5, now there's a topic: I was involved in one of those infamous educational experiments of the '60s in which there was no curriculum and children were supposed to learn everything at their own pace, according to their own inclinations and interests. Needless to say, no one learned anything all year.

The world this California chestnut-haired girl is growing up in is so radically different. Better and worse at the same time. There's a lot I can't help her with because I don't know what the hell it means. I often feel I'm falling farther and farther behind, but behind what? A bullshit system I want no part of. Sometimes I think that if it weren't for the grandkids, I'd turn into a sour old crank.

Not much has turned out the way I thought. Dreams have come true in fragments, fractions (and I was never very good at those). Most haven't come true at all. And I'm not even sure what I did wrong.

Against the odds, in spite of a rotten and sometimes horrific childhood full of every conceivable kind of (completely denied) abuse, I have co-created a wonderful family that now spans into the next generation. This isn't supposed to happen. It's yet another one of those homilies I hate, beliefs or sayings people swallow whole without thinking about them: "You can't give away what you never received."

Horse pucky! You can so, and I am living proof. I'm the best grandma in the world, and I was a pretty good mother considering I had virtually no mothering myself, nil experience, had never held a baby, and disliked children. 

I have however had that hideous experience of "friends" somehow replicating the most soul-destroying aspects of my upbringing, in full knowledge of  how devastating their behaviour is. Then acting as if they don't know what you're talking about.

So this is my life? I guess so. God, that rain out there is hard.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

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The little mermaid (and her little brother)

 

 

 

Do you know the way to San Jose? Actually, this might be San Francisco (I wasn't there). Caitlin the mermaid has learned how to dive, without even being taught, but Ryan isn't so sure he's ready for his closeup.

 

They grow up, right out from under me. 

Turtle race!

The First Annual Puerta Vallarta Christmas Turtle Race: flappy little, flippy little baby turtles set loose by Caitlin and Ryan! Caitlin embraced the process (she loves sea turtles), while Ryan had an "ick" look on his face through most of it.

This is the first time I've uploaded home video, so I hope it works.



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Down in Mexico

"And I'm thinking of you, down in Mexico
Feeling free as the air
Here I am, stuck in the city
Still goin' nowhere."

Oh, yeah! But I'm glad Caitlin and Ryan are having such a good time. Oh, those braids! Oh, that towel-turkey (or turkey-towel)!


http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Is this my new diary?

So anyways, I'm back from holidays on a pitiless, brutal dripping Monday, Vancouver at its worst. It won't let up for a couple of days, by the looks of it. I realize with a shock that I never write in my journal any more. It just doesn't occur to me. I've been keeping a journal since I was eight. I have let go of so much in my life that used to be meaningful, so much so that I don't dare tot it all up.

So I'm left with projects that might strike others as pretty weird. I'm always wanting to make something, from Wonder Knitter dolls (no pattern for these, as usual: they evolve in my hands) to unusual installations. I had these ice-like rocks, plastic actually, used for accents or decorations, and I wanted to display them. I put them in a glass bowl and thought, ho-hum. It just didn't work for me. So what sort of container could I come up with that would be completely original?

At the same time, we were cleaning out closets and turfing out things (fall cleaning, I guess) that we didn't need or use. We found what seemed like hundreds of old cassette tapes that we never played, or couldn't play due to oxidation and age. So we had to get rid of them, but I began to look at the clear plastic cases and think, hmmmmm. . .

So I came up with these. I've since used crystal hearts in various colors, and will experiment with other things. But what's the point? I don't sell them. I'm not much of an entrepreneur (or however you spell that - it's Monday). Maybe that's why I can't sell my novel(s) and book(s) of poems. I can make the "product", but can't distribute it.

These might be seen as too odd, but the effect I'm after is: what are these things? They look familiar, and yet. . . Or, maybe people would just look at them and say, cassette tapes. How lame. I don't know. The voice of my older sister, forever undermining my creative spirit with caustic, withering remarks, still echoes in my ears: "You're weird, Margaret." "You're crazy!" (said in a shrugging, completely dismissive way. Jesus, how did I get on to this? Just how much damage did she

do?)

One reason I got turned off with my diary is that it had devolved into one big rant. The dissatisfactions in my life were being amplified, I think. I started tearing up the rants, but nothing much was left.

I have love in my life, and that's supposed to be all you need. I still feel creative. But when I presented my five-year-old granddaughter with the little 3" handmade doll I crafted, with the tiny knitted dress and beaded belt and braids, she threw it back at me. I'm not supposed to be upset, am I?

I look in the mirror, and I swear I can't see the kick-me sign. Is it invisible, but only to me?

Holiday/Holy Day

Since this won't align in the centre (er!), I'll just write from the centre too.

The origin of holiday was Holy Day.

Nothing much holy about it any more,

unless you decide to go to the Holy Land,

a trip I've never understood

because it always seems to be undertaken by churchy retirees

who then inflict their pictures ad nauseam, complete with

running commentary:
"Look, there's the head of Jesus!"

Nothing is questioned,

not even seventeen femur bones of Lazarus

or somebody.

I once saw a mummified Pope, but I forget

where it was, maybe

Venice. I loved

Venice

in spite of its stinking waters

and guys in striped shirts with barge poles,

but Florence (Firenze!) blew me away

with its San Marco, its

gold-lined cathedral.

If God lived anywhere,

it was here.

David, a must-see

was extremely tall

with a huge head

and (in spite of all the fuss)

a very small penis

he was out of proportion

because everyone was looking "up"

This year it's a driving trip to Alberta

a place we lived a long time ago

and didn't see:

Moses mountains

bighorn sheep all over the road

moose and elk and the occasional shy white

mountain goat

and even, once,

a wolf bounding out in front of our car

on the highway at night,

its feral eyes lit up like incandescent disks.

I want to get away from it all,

the whining I've done lately, which makes me ashamed,

for surely the only direction is forward.

They say

and maybe "they" are right

that a vacation

(origin: vacate or vacant or evacuate or vacuum cleaner - heh-heh, sorry, I made that one up)

that a vacation, no matter how modest

is a way of hitting the reset button of the mind

Letting a fresh breeze blow through all those sizzling neurons

Eating things you're not spozed to

and not caring.

And that brings me to another subject: in a memoir I read not long ago,

by never-mind-who or you'd

wonder if he really wrote it,

which he did,

the subject said he was mastering the art of "caring

while not caring"

I liked it

though could only get it

with that part of my brain or liver

that gets things

not careless, per se

but perhaps carefree

and isn't that the ideal state

in which to go on vacation?