the changing from daylight-savings-time back to standard plays havoc with my being. I get caught up twixt time and tide and phases of the moon and I'm lost for a time, at least until inner and outer synchronize again, and I return to "phase." Silly? Maybe, but I don't believe so. There is something so basic in the concept of time, the dimension is so fundamental to existence ... I'm just never quite ready, whether spring or fall. It's the change that's the problem. Makes me wonder if I'm alone in this, or if others notice?
I'm just a little tentative in everything; not quite able to make firm decisions. Miss appointments and have a feeling of suspension that makes planning difficult at best. It will all settle down in time, but meanwhile, I've learned to not expect too much of myself, and to spend more time on the balls of my feet -- ready to pivot in whatever direction is called for by circumstances. Disquieting.
Some of the tension can probably be traced to the recent Recall election that unseated the governor. There are so many unknowns, and the sense that the entire rational underpinnings of governance -- at all levels -- is disintegrating. Wonder how much of that can be attributed to the downside of aging?
There's something to be said for what it does to the psyche when all of the judges, the physicians, the governors, those who rule the world, are younger by far than you are. It's a little like realizing at a very young age that you are out-thinking your parents, and how frightening that can be ... Who will protect you, then? The world becomes a pretty fearful place.
I couldn't have been more than six when I learned that there were many things that my parents could not help me to understand. I can't recall my mother ever mentioning school. It's quite possible that she never attended, but was taught at home by young aunts and uncles. She was born when her mother was only 14. Her mother died when she was but 7 months old. She grew up in St. James Parish, raised by a grandmother in a home shared by several families.
I can't say that she didn't love me. She quite obviously did, but loving and understanding are very different concepts, and she was probably as lost to deal with me as I was to understand her. This may explain my closeness to Papa George, and the loneliness I remember in those early years.
Mother's need for love and attention was insatiable, and in her last years (she died at 101), our roles had become reversed. Maybe they always had been, at least from a lot earlier in life than either of us realized.
