I like hamburgers. I've come to realize recently that hamburgers might be my favorite food in the world. I love other things too. I love sushi, and pad thai, and chicken tikka masala, and yeah, you get the drift...I'm international like that, because thats how I do cool. Nah, not really...I just love food, and I don't care where it comes from. Golden Corral is, after all one of my go to choices when it comes time to eat.
But back to hamburgers. Loose crown and all, wrapping my maw around a gloppy mix of charred beef, lettuce, tomato, cheese, pesto, mayo, and bread just makes me so damn happy. I could get all hyperbolic and write about heaven, and nirvana, and state of bliss and that, but the truth is simpler. It just makes me happy. Happy is just fine. I don't need to make it bigger.
Add this though. The face of Maura, across the table, scrunched up and laughing while we tell stories about Idaho, and the horrible barnyard animals. Like the turkeys that chased us. And the psychotic little banty rooster named Lavoris who used to explode out of the bushes like a feathered cannonball, and rake our calves with his horrible spurs when all we were trying to do was walk to the pond. Ah, how she laughed. And Liam and Aidan too.
We all did. Mom and Dad, telling their own stories about the malevolent geese in the orchard who weaved back and forth like Nagaina, before lowering their serpent necks and streaking across the grass to grasp bits of human flesh in their beaks and twist. For no reason apparently, other than pure sadism.
More laughter. More hamburgers.
In my family, despite all the love in the world, we don't always...well, play well together, you know? Particularly in large groups. We are all still recouping, licking wounds, setting aside resentments, picking up where we left off, etc... after a week together at Folly Beach, in a grand sprawling house on the sand, which despite its long arms and expansive heart was still not big enough to hide us from each other. And enough said about that, the point is not what we aren't, but what we are.
The point is not, what we could be, but what we are. The point is not what we cannot do, but what we can. The point is not how we come up short, but how we succeed.
Like hamburgers. Simpler fare, and satisfying in ways that surprise me, because so much of what is simpler, hangs about like curtains, always there but never seen.
Yeah, you know...we might never get to that place where we can all share space in perfect love and harmony. Yes, indeed, I'm joking. We won't. Thats cool. So, whats left?
More than enough. And that makes me happy.Happy like pizza. And pie.
-_DC
Lor, that is the amazing Donna next to your bio. Don't know how you got so lucky. Donna meet Lor, Lor meet Donna...Lor and I are the same person. You are apparently the same person too.
On that note, I'm grateful for this site. Donna, Steve, Lor...I'm loving what I'm reading. A huge deal for me.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
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I like what Lor has to say....so maybe we leave my picture next to hers? Just kidding. How did it get there anyway? And I'm sorry, I've no idea how to move me back to me. Is that a metaphor for something deeper?
ReplyDeleteDan your notes about family gatherings crack me up. I just came from mine back East and my older brother told me he had to double up on AA meetings just to prepare for the reunion!
Wow, you smart and eloquent people! I'm liking this writing place.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, are we interchangeable? Maybe in our imaginations to some extent. But I like Donna being Donna and not be LOR or LAF or whoever that is. Is it an alter ego of Dan's? This universe does like to obfuscate for fun and boggling. So many opportunities for "Gotcha!"
Really enjoyed your entry, Dan. You took it so many places. I could comment on so many lines and parts.
Your dad did do a good job of providing you with a provocative environment to relate to growing up. A very generous and novel (to modernity) offering that I certainly didn't get growing up, what with our mellow Southern California upbringing. Nothing like "a banty rooster exploding out of the bushes like a feathered cannonball" to make for indelible memories (and scars).
And yes, the intriguing imperfect love in family reunions. Maybe if we all treated each other like special needs people, we could all beam our silly grins without feeling too devastatingly self conscious!
I don't know, though. Cringing does have recurring attraction. And there is so much to cringe about between us goofy creatures. I'm not sure how the universe thunk us all up. And when I'm not agog at the outrageousness so incessantly prevalent, I do find it somewhat endearing and funny and quirky and even happiness-inducing how goofy we all are. :-)
I tried to move my picture back to me but I got nothing for my efforts. Help!
ReplyDeleteAnd who wrote the above blog. Steve I think? I guess we need to sign them at the bottom because I love knowing.
Today I am going to weed. And think about what junk I have clinging to my psyche's soul that I can pull out once and for all. Sometimes it feels like the weeds go right down a dark, bottomless abyss. My shadow side, Jung would say, making it sound a nicer--a spot of shade under a cottonwood on a hot summer day. And yet, I'd be glad to get rid of insecurity, the need to be a perenial polyanna, and my controlling ways.
I forgot to take my own advice and sign my name. So that is me above, Donna Wise Coombs, whose picture is next to Lor Fogel and who is going to go put on weeding clothes now and have at them.
ReplyDeleteDonna
Yes, that was me, Steve, above Donna, beginning with the wow about smart and eloquent people. I meant to sign my name. Now where was my head when I needed it? I suppose we can be happy we track as well as we do. So much floods in to captivate and distract and pull us miles out to other seas.
ReplyDeleteToday, I noticed how life is like looking through a, what were they called, viewmasters? with the circular slide holders you could insert of Disney characters and other visual attractions? So, there's what's right in front of me to pay attention to, or any manner of slides that come in and saturate my imagination with a memory or question or projection. And those can feel more real or present than what's right in front of me.
And like what Donna said, the roots can go down dark and bottomless abysses, and all interconnected to other stuff you could never follow to their ends. I don't know how you pull something like that up for complete removal. Seems like I sit behind all the slides that come up. I sit like I'm the viewmaster, somewhat able to choose the slides I like looking at, and other times feeling completely at the effect of ones too powerful to ignore or get past. Eventually, if nothing really furthers their aims, the overowering ones subside, leaving me more freedom to focus elsewhere. It's amazing though, what all seems to want to capture my attention.
I heard recently that humanity's at a stage of integrating its shadow. Maybe that's not so much about weeding out the stuff you don't like as it is about seeing it for what it is, accepting its ways, and moving beyond its restrictive focus. Like after I saw the movie, "The Corporation" I saw how much I'm like a corporation, watching out for its bottom line, wanting to maximize its gains and minimize its risks and accountability. I doubt I can weed this out. But by seeing it very clearly, I can see the limits of those motives and move beyond them. Maybe not absolutely, but so that its more drastic, savage ways aren't running the show so much as making suggestions and allowing more time to enjoy that shady spot under the cottonwood on a hot summer day.
Steve
Steve