(no subject)
so i'm in portland! i always, always forget what it's like to arrive back here. i was trying to explain it to my father: that even the overpasses are familiar, that the the angles and colors of the roads and the trunks of the trees, the windows of buildings, the depth of the sky, it's all so piercingly exactly right, even if i don't belong here anymore. this place is lodged somewhere in my optic nerves, as shadows, and it's jarring when everything lines up.
i was talking to my mother this morning about being a child. she was saying that she wished she'd've sent me to private school when i asked to be, so many times. that she didn't realize how important it would be. this is significant to me because i've spent a lot of time thinking about it; how bored i was, how much i feel like a lot of time was wasted. she was saying that she just didn't realize how important it was. i was thinking, "but i told you!" but i was a kid. i wish i'd have had the words to tell her that it would be necessary, that i'd do whatever i needed to do, but i didn't have the breadth of experience to know that i could insist on something like that. she said that she projected herself onto my childhood, thinking that perhaps she had wished to have things like that but ultimately it wasn't that important to her, she grew out of it, so i'd grow out of it. it's hard, looking at the past like that. i suppose that i'm really happy where i got to, so ultimately there's no reason that i'd want anything from before to be different. but still. it's there, that "if."
anyway. it's off to portland with me. hopefully i will see people soon.
i was talking to my mother this morning about being a child. she was saying that she wished she'd've sent me to private school when i asked to be, so many times. that she didn't realize how important it would be. this is significant to me because i've spent a lot of time thinking about it; how bored i was, how much i feel like a lot of time was wasted. she was saying that she just didn't realize how important it was. i was thinking, "but i told you!" but i was a kid. i wish i'd have had the words to tell her that it would be necessary, that i'd do whatever i needed to do, but i didn't have the breadth of experience to know that i could insist on something like that. she said that she projected herself onto my childhood, thinking that perhaps she had wished to have things like that but ultimately it wasn't that important to her, she grew out of it, so i'd grow out of it. it's hard, looking at the past like that. i suppose that i'm really happy where i got to, so ultimately there's no reason that i'd want anything from before to be different. but still. it's there, that "if."
anyway. it's off to portland with me. hopefully i will see people soon.