CRANKY OLD LADY
First I left all my high school peers by going to college. Then I left all my college peers by teaching on the rez and partnering with an old sculptor. Next I left the rez for Portland and Multnomah County Animal Control. Then seminary at the U of Chicago Div School. (Meadville/Lombard doesn’t count.) Left UUA. Left the City of Portland. Here I am in Valier, back to the high prairie.
My birth family left me — they were shocked. “Friends” from every situation failed to come along. I cut off all chat. I had made sure not to have children. I have stopped trying to publish, if I ever did try. I don’t know how much time is left. In twenty years this village had changed. It is no longer safe — not because of malevolent invaders so much as abiding suspicion, ignorance, and division.
Go the other way. By every measure I’ve always come out at the bottom of the top of whatever the category might be. Included but not a leader. If the boundary changed, pushed out or just departed. A border person.
A pesky but irrelevant problem is how to feel about those from the past. If I make contact, they think they should welcome me back. If I ignore them, they assume I’m Christian (because of the MA in Religious Studies which they think is bible study). Do I sneer at their ignorance?
Not looking for a new group where I belong. I wouldn’t join any group that would have me. They are probably not on the internet. I can’t think of any previously admired category that hasn’t been reduced to quip-twittering including scholars, political leaders, lawyers, MD’s. and myself. The women, of course, go to being “cute” with photos of their deformed dogs (pugs et al).
What a pugnacious feckless old woman who can’t even keep her yard under control. Much less ten cats. Much less the bookshelves.
Maybe whiskey would help.
(If you can’t describe the depths, how will you ever learn how to describe the heights?)
And screw the siloes. I’d rather have a haymow, unbaled. (Shut up, Spellcheck. I’m not talking about balls, except lack of.)
