children are the undoing of us
So it is November 9th, 2016, in America.
I will be on news hiatus for a while. Possibly a long while. I will read, and continue to eke out my sentence a day, working on The Death of Dreams which seems a prophetic title for this time in my life, my children's life, my husband's life, my country's life.
I started reading The Fifth Season today, a quote from which used I used as the title of this post. Well early this morning while still in bed but not sleeping, I first finished Cakewalk with its optimism and message of the importance and centrality of recognizing love in all its forms. Then I started this new book which began:
"Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things."
And so it goes. Or begins. Or ends.
Some of the rhetoric online, in my favorite liberal forums, had a familiar ring--let them all hang! Jettison the south (and the industrial midwest, and an appalling number of other places) But now I live in the South and I have to live here in order to support myself and my family. A very base part of me was thinking 'Well, now you are all in the same boat with me! Good luck to us!' Then I shut off the political internet and came away.
Should I warn my son to keep his disappointment and fear silent in the face of the rejoicing around us? He has already been exposed to enough casual racism to make my skin crawl. And yet he takes a class in Civil Rights, learning more than I ever did about the basis of our great divide. One of our great divides. We are still working on the sexism he imbibes from the gaming internet. He is old enough to stand up for himself but young enough that my influence still counts for something.
In other news my personal life continues to lurch on and mostly downward, with only momentary glimpses of far-off peaks. I have a discussion planned for this afternoon with my husband, if my weak-ass phone and cellphone company's piss-poor signal cooperate. It could go many ways, most of them dreary in their repetition of old grievances. But there is new and dark information because my pragmatic side is taking hold. I am determined to strike off on my own now, but I know that a living cord will remain even as I hack away at the confining strands that bind us.
I only do this because he is beginning to feel more like an anchor than a rock. I hate this change. Hate it.
Protecting my future, and my children's future, may mean letting him go. How can I do that? Will they ever understand?
Our children are our future, they say, but Jemisin may have it right. They may also be our undoing.
This entry was originally posted at http://vjs2259.dreamwidth.org/405384.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I will be on news hiatus for a while. Possibly a long while. I will read, and continue to eke out my sentence a day, working on The Death of Dreams which seems a prophetic title for this time in my life, my children's life, my husband's life, my country's life.
I started reading The Fifth Season today, a quote from which used I used as the title of this post. Well early this morning while still in bed but not sleeping, I first finished Cakewalk with its optimism and message of the importance and centrality of recognizing love in all its forms. Then I started this new book which began:
"Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things."
And so it goes. Or begins. Or ends.
Some of the rhetoric online, in my favorite liberal forums, had a familiar ring--let them all hang! Jettison the south (and the industrial midwest, and an appalling number of other places) But now I live in the South and I have to live here in order to support myself and my family. A very base part of me was thinking 'Well, now you are all in the same boat with me! Good luck to us!' Then I shut off the political internet and came away.
Should I warn my son to keep his disappointment and fear silent in the face of the rejoicing around us? He has already been exposed to enough casual racism to make my skin crawl. And yet he takes a class in Civil Rights, learning more than I ever did about the basis of our great divide. One of our great divides. We are still working on the sexism he imbibes from the gaming internet. He is old enough to stand up for himself but young enough that my influence still counts for something.
In other news my personal life continues to lurch on and mostly downward, with only momentary glimpses of far-off peaks. I have a discussion planned for this afternoon with my husband, if my weak-ass phone and cellphone company's piss-poor signal cooperate. It could go many ways, most of them dreary in their repetition of old grievances. But there is new and dark information because my pragmatic side is taking hold. I am determined to strike off on my own now, but I know that a living cord will remain even as I hack away at the confining strands that bind us.
I only do this because he is beginning to feel more like an anchor than a rock. I hate this change. Hate it.
Protecting my future, and my children's future, may mean letting him go. How can I do that? Will they ever understand?
Our children are our future, they say, but Jemisin may have it right. They may also be our undoing.
This entry was originally posted at http://vjs2259.dreamwidth.org/405384.html. Please comment there using OpenID.