the mermaids

I’ve left the title and the photographic bait, Even though they have nothing to do with what you are about to read ( assuming you keep reading. You may only be here for the sideboob.) They were to be put with a story which had arisen over a couple of my mother’s chemo sessions. There is a stretch of time to fill as the life extending poison is carefully eased into the cancer cells and incidentally, everything else ( causing delayed volcanic diarrhea and fatigue, among other effects). It must be that the caustic substance coursing into my mother’s system as I sat nearby, scribbling into my notebook, had some influence. I had written what was meant to be a funny yet sharp clawed take on a group of mermaids who also happened to be, well, sort of awful. These fat tailed beings inhabited a backwater swamp, twitching and shrieking a lot, exhibitively shallow and dismissive of anyone who wasn’t them; merciless carnivores. Except the protagonist, of course, the calm impartial observer. I just looked it over. It’s unreadable.

       In fact, I don’t have the ability to read over any of my previous writings. At least I have not in some time. You’ll notice, this is an actual blog which I created in order To Write. And write I did, pretty much putting it all out for perusement. I’ve tossed out personal facts as a temporarily insane lover might toss the personal effects of an errant tenant (or lover) out of a window,  leaving a detritus strewn lawn for all to see. Any passersby could peek or not peek at the underwear and other private things, or turn away, keep walking. Such is my verbiage. And it is exactly like that. It’s like busking.  Do I find this off-putting? Scary?Needlessly Expository? Not really. Or, rather: Yes, really. My emotionally risky behaviour has taken a toll. It doesn’t pay off. It doesn’t pay anything. But my
cost/benefit analysis states that I must write. Good, bad, or ugly; my written language usage, I
employ it in order to assert, convey meaning, to define and understand myself and the world around
me. I find this as natural as gum chewing. It is my writing style I fear to re-experience, not the naked honesty. To discover that a chasm gapes between what was in my head, and what I was able to
communicate, perhaps an inability to produce the verbal sophistication needed in order to transmit nuance, direction, even a smidge of underdog relatability. Perhaps as of yet, I have not accomplished  these things. I can’t read it over to find this out. I envision an inventive dance with the truth,  an ability to dart and weave a linguistic canopy, purposeful as a swallow diving for gnats. The reality is that upon reviewing, my p.o.v may read as an extended victim statement, turning my viewership into the verdict of an impartial judge. I wrote too much about losing, and in such an unoriginal way. I may have erased the uniqueness of my own story. Such seemingly gleefully indulgant self-victimization needs to be written with delicacy, instead of a blunt machete swing through the twisted jungle of emotion. I am no genius. But there’s time. I am, however, a consummate genius apreciator. This is why I attempted to imitate the geniuses I admire, who can flex the world they create as Neo does inside the Matrix. I cannot download Kung Fu into my software, yet, but I’m on track with those who can. The feat of personal story telling is a delicate one, and perhaps to be mastered along with my own personal  timeline of recovery, discovery, and levity.

        It depends on who you are, as you are reading this. You may ascribe to a certain philosophical outlook regionally endemic to certain portions of the Western Hemisphere: the notion that we are all self-made, that everything that happens to us is our responsibility, in some fashion. Others attribute our circumstances to luck; that given a set of factors, i.e; genetics, heritage, chance encounters, even our very character is not something we can take entire credit for, that we are the sum of a plethora of causally effective encounters that are outside of our control. Why do you think famous actors and
athletes are so superstitious? They know how damn lucky they are. When you achieve such a rarified
existence, you may start to believe that luck is something to court, that one can ‘manifest destiny’.
One of my college professors is clear to state that some of his fortune in life is due to luck. He has a
good job and a career in philosophy, yet some of his colleagues and peers who he feels are exceedingly qualified,  cannot find meaningful (well paid) work. Not everyone gets to have a
successful career in philosophy. It is an extraordinarily hard thing to do. I have looked up my profs’
credentials and they are considerable. He is smart enough not to cite his ‘greatness’ as the sole reason he has succeeded. He knows better. In another instance, my mother feels she married well, and as a
result,  had a good life. She didn’t know him ( my father) too well or for too long before she married him. She had a considerable bargaining tool; a fine set of breasts and moviestar looks, and she wanted to start making children. My father was handsome, and had a PhD in Anthropology. She considers it lucky that things turned out as well as they did. Her peers often did not end up with good partners, as before her, her mother’s peers sometimes were abused, bullied, or serially cheated on. My grandmother married my grandfather, who is my most favourite person. So she was lucky. He also was lucky. I, on the other hand, did not marry well. Nor did my partner. ( Yet I have an inkling he had more innate knowledge of why he chose me more than I him. ) I knew how much he seemed to genuinely like me. I had no knowledge of what a clueless, helplessly dependent person I was and would remain for more than a decade. I suspect he did.

  I unknowingly backed a loser. And the loser was us. I think we both had the raw materials in place, to be winners, but we both lacked initiative to properly extract our gifts. Where we differentiated was in our hopes, our expectations, or expectations of any kind. He had none, beyond a bong, a couch, some waves. Although, in the beginning, he cleverly parroted mine. I had had so many. Unicorn dreams of selling bread and art by the sea, with no practical knowledge or actual self esteem. Our first joint venture was to be a little business; I had discovered a proclivity for collage and art projects; he was skilled at making surfboards. We spent time building inventory, he found this odd little building on the highway for very low rent ( it didn’t have a bathroom) in the tourist-driven village we occupied.

   On the day we were set to pay our first rent, and to seal the deal with the owner ( who would only
deal with my husband, for some reason) he managed to back his car into a neighbors fender ( he had never done such a thing before, he was always the most cautious driver, as had been my father, which
was another reason I trusted him. )  That became the sole focus of that day, dealing with that dramatic
occurrence, the insurance, and all of a sudden the rent for the little building which was to be our venture disappeared, and his entrepreneurial mindset along with it. It was dropped and never
discussed again, as if it had been an embarrassing dream. In this way I started to sink, before I could
even rise.
   Whereas in the earlier days he pretended enthuisiasm, eventually he made no move to do even this.
Nothing would ever work out, we were bottom echelon people and would remain so, the butt of jokes and people’s pointed comments. But what should we care? We dine by the sea and swam under the stars.  I, meanwhile, had cleaned out the ‘store’ and decorated/readied it, and somehow was not permitted to retrieve my art. I let that go without protest.