Regressing

[poliphilo]

My parents were gardeners. I'm not. They made me not be a gardener by coercing me into weeding flowerbeds when I'd much rather have been reading books. What a futile waste of a weekend, I thought, fighting a war against Nature you're never going to win- and my sense of injury produced a kind of sentimental identification with the weeds I was uprooting.  (In the same spirit I once ripped a mole trap out of my grandparents lawn and chucked it in the shrubbery.)  My mother went out yesterday with her walker and started pulling weeds and I felt shamed into joining in. It made me angry with both of us.  Also she spotted the rabbit hole near the house that I've been keeping from her and wished a fox on it. Why? What harm do the rabbits do? Nibble a few leaves that's all. She's just down on them for being wild and out of order. Same thing with the hawthorn by the front gate she wants Matthew to chop down- a proposal that makes my heart ache. Weeds, rabbits, hawthorns- they're what I love about being here.

I mostly manage to hide it, but living like this in my mother's house, I keep turning back into a furious child.

Comments

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I have the cutest little dragon tattoo that sits on my forearm and wraps his tail around my wrist. I got it for my 36th birthday. One of the women that I used to work with loved it so much that she got a similar one tattooed on one of her breasts. She wasn't brave enough to have it somewhere that really showed, but she really loved it.

Several years later, she had to go to the opposite side of the country to take care of her aging mom. Within about 4 hours, my friend... then in her 40s, regressed to a petulant 5 year old and suddenly lifted up her shirt and yelled "Oh yeah? Well, look what I DID!"

She and I laughed and laughed about it, but it is amazing what a mother can do to us.

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I have not been keeping up with LJ. You're living in your mother's house?

[athenais.livejournal.com]

What a shame about the hawthorne. I can see why living with your mother would throw you right back to early days.

[sovay]

Weeds, rabbits, hawthorns- they're what I love about being here.

Can I ask you for a poem about them?

but living like this in my mother's house, I keep turning back into a furious child.

It's very difficult not to. You are doing very well if you're not just screaming at her by now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Undignified isn't it! :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

She needs looking after. Having us do it is the best (and cheapest) option. Sometimes the strain tells.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have a thing about hawthorns. I've just planted one in my own front yard.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can write about bunnies without it being twee.

I'm trying very, very hard not to scream.

[sovay]

I'm not sure I can write about bunnies without it being twee.

I've never seen you do twee yet.

I'm trying very, very hard not to scream.

When can you get back to your own space soonest?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"I've never seen you do twee yet."

That's because I've always avoided the subject of bunnies.

We're going back home next week- but only for a few days. That's going to be the pattern for the foreseeable future.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Obviously, my sympathies are with the rabbits. They do everything to be as entirely unintrusive as possible, yet still, some would bear malice toward them. Me, I'd be tossing out occasional handfuls of raisins along their pathways. ^_^

I suppose it's a fundamental characteristic of the psyche - some must have everything strictly under control and by their design, whilst others are comfortable with being part of a grander whole, letting their sphere of influence be interwoven with what else exists.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Please get her to spare the hawthorn, after the starving spring, the birds will really need the berries.

I think one of the worst things about the way the world works/ed is that the only thing some women have or had control over was their children (and domestic interiors and gardens).

The older I get, the worse a thing I believe the nuclear family to be; some sort of transparent, communal raising of children would be so much better.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good point. My mother- who drove minor celebs around during the war- gave up work as soon as she married my father and never really did anything outside the family circle until- in late middle age- she started buying race horses.