Climbing on the Words

"You have to clean both sides." Well, yes of course you do.

There is a huge patio door in my living room made of all glass. It is filthy and probably hasn't been cleaned since I moved in. So I windexed it. It amazes me how looking through it now is so much clearer. The trees are greener and life is altogether sunnier. Sometimes our one-sided view distorts the image. Sometimes you just have to view things fresh from both sides.

My Mom and I have been arguing over choice. She says that I choose what I will be each day. Will I be happy, will I be melancholy, or will I be angry? I feel like I should sing Doris Day's version of "Que sera, sera" right here. Oh well, I suppose I felt like a passive passenger floating along the river of life. I haven't been choosing my currents. I just let them take me where they wanted. She had a completely different view of my life, from the outside in.

My life is very good. How easily I forget this. She, looking in at me, reminded me of this and just how fortunate I really am. I have a apartment to live in, clothes to wear, and people that love me. My cup runneth over and I seem to be able to complain about it spilling. Is it my American sense of entitlement or just pure selfishness that causes me to doubt the goodness of this life? Probably, a little bit of both.

So I look from both sides and thank God for my life. A very, very good life. I see that perspective really is everything. People wait their whole lives to move to our country to live this life that I call "mediocre". The American dream.

Windex should hire me as their spokeswoman. I could make window cleaning philosophical....

Posted by Jess at 9:13 AM | 2 comments  

According to Jean-Paul Sartre. If you asked around I think there would be many who agree. Sartre spent much of his time alone, pondering his own existence, and tormenting Simone de Beauvoir. He seemed perplexed by humanity and from his writings obviously injured by their very presence. He writes of his solitude...

I live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing… When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell something: the plausible disappears at the same time as the fiends. You let events flow past; suddenly you see people pop up who speak and who go away, you plunge into stories without beginning or end: you make a terrible witness. But in compensation, one misses nothing, no improbability or, story too tall to be believed in cafes.

I wonder how much his isolation shaped his inability to relate to others? I have spent most of my life alone. I am the only child, grandchild, niece, and the last of my family line. I have never minded being alone. I am a writer and you need some silence to
translate all the demons on paper. In recent weeks as I recess deeper and deeper into my hermit-hood, I wonder...."Have I discounted community?"

I like ole Sartre, but I think he got a little looney toward those last years. I mean we get it you exist, so does everybody else Jean-Paul!

I thought in the past all the great artists, writers, and composers were certifiable. So my anti-social tendencies were all for the sake of my art (I know such the matyr, right?). But, maybe crazy doesn't have to live with creativity. I guess I can stop the terrific Amy Winehouse impression and try to pull the nails out of the front door....Hmmmm......On second thought..........

Nah.........

Posted by Jess at 12:52 PM | 3 comments