Making Lemonade
Pamela Grundy, Senior Editor | Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 8:00PM 
I’m not really what you’d call a naturally sunny person.
Whenever I see one of those schmaltzy gratitude journals that Oprah is forever pushing on her women viewers I think to myself, “Wow, I’m grateful I don’t have to write in one of those.”
I love thunderstorms, snowstorms, and major catastrophes so long as no one dies, and I’m good at identifying the precise type of dark cloud trying to choke the living piss out of any given silver lining at any given moment. (It’s a gift.)
I think people are basically evil and annoying but accept that we have to try to love each other anyway, (which can be a pain in the ass), and lately I’ve been floating the private theory that hell exists right here on earth and no one entirely escapes a visit at the very least.
My BF calls me Cassandra.
So, chirpy I’m not.
Even so, the unrelenting crush of disaster after disaster in the news these days—especially the never ending financial doom and gloom and the disastrous job market—has finally taken me way past the point where I care to pay any more attention to this various and sundry crap, (at least for today).
I need a break.
When life hands you lemons, as the saying goes, make lemonade.
(And when you don’t have any money for sugar, spike your homemade lemonade with plenty of Ex-Lax and then give some away to all your creditors for free. Share the love!)
Honestly, at some point, you do have to throw up your hands and simply surrender, and it’s weird how much the smallest bit of giving up can help. Life goes on, you know. Money disappears, friends come and go, lovers leave and then beg to be taken back, thieves crawl in and out the windows, but life goes on anyway, ready or not.
Since I’m all out of sugar and damn short on good ideas, here are a few things I’m grateful for today that I’d like share just to sweeten the moment:
I’m grateful for the intact midwest prairie where my dog and I go walking almost every morning.
Every week this prairie changes just a little bit. Last week monarda, black-eyed susan, Joe Pye weed, Queen Anne’s lace, chickory, wild aster, clover, butterfly weed, and more all burst into full riotous bloom. This week the flowers are starting to fade and the tall grass is bolting, morphing into feathery purple seedheeds taller than a person.
By fall the grass will ripen to into gold, rust, red, brown, wheat, and mauve, and dance with the slightest breeze as if intoxicated. Snow will smother all complaints come early November, while goldfinches pick the seeds out of broken memories of warmer walks.
Early this week we arrived at 6:00 AM to find a soft white cloud lying on the prairie ground as if it was not yet quite awake, as if it slept there nightly, just waiting for sun to gently nudge it skyward as the stars retreated back into mystery.
Once I saw what looked like a small ship bobbing up and down atop the tall grass at some distance, only to realize very gradually that I was looking at the antlers and shoulders of a massive male deer and the head of his slender female companion walking not too far ahead. They did not chat, but glided silent and strong through that grazing ocean as sure as any compass-wielding frigate.
I’m grateful for deer too, by the way. They appear suddenly just blocks from the local suburban strip where the mall is now slowly emptying out and storefronts are boarding up and SUVs and minivans fail to choke the four lanes where they used to blare their horns and tempers daily.
Driving home from the pet food store yesterday a doe darted in front of me and paused in the thicket bordering a suburban back yard to watch me watching her. Our eyes met in quiet recognition. No hellos were necessary, no explanations, no regrets.
It was a weird longish moment and one I’ve experienced before—A strange wild moment, somehow soothing and unsettling all at once. I remember myself in these unexpected encounters, these fleeting alien intimacies.
I am not a consumer, I remember this now. I am a creature, part of earth and sky and the cold clear water.
It’s just that sometimes, I fall asleep.
I’m grateful for a man and children and a dog and a cat who love me (although the cat has issues, I’m not kidding) even though I scarcely deserve it.
I complain incessantly, my belly sags, I have ‘crinkles’ (my grandson’s term) around my eyes, and I’m a terrible typost with a hundred neurotic insecurities. I don’t keep a very clean house and I’m a rotten, irritable employee and a worse boss. I make a bad slave but I haven’t cured cancer yet either or painted a Mona Lisa or a Starry Starry Night. Sometimes the greatest joy in life is to simply be a person among persons, nothing special, flawed and sentient and useless and transitory.
Last night I sat beside the woodland in our back lot alone and watched the tops of trees sway in winds that pushed thunderheads across the sky as fast as freight cars.
I realized I might well never find another job or become famous or even pay my bills on time ever again.
I might have to let all that go.
Seriously. Who gives a shit?
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Reader Comments (11)
Bingo. "A person." Not a worker or a consumer....
And I've also got to say, that I personally am probably naturally one of the tougher (lol) 'bitches' out there that you'll ever meet...and this is one of the secrets to my positivism. Haha. I was just actually relating that I like it that my life has been hard: I like it that I ride a bike around everywhere since my ex took off with the car (turning a liability into a strength, and a pulse rate that is now 56 beats per minute) because literally (oh, did you know I have never had a license? Yeah, the parents never saw to it the daughters could drive) it has pushed me further geographically and mentally than ever I would have gone if I did have a car... And also I find because of it, I rail against stupid people more, and that is beneficial for my thinking, :).
And I could go on....through almost every aspect of my life. I guess you could call me somewhat driven...although I wager I don't see myself as driven enough.
Also, no matter what shit job I ever had (and Pam, I have had multitudes of jobs...maybe more than 50 all combined total), I've always held myself as myself...though sometimes it has taken me a while to recover from things. But, sigh. I've had lots of practice. Used to make me cry, some of the abuse (and I never see myself as a victim...I abhor the thought...though I used to be almost as sensitive as Julia), but now, within the last few years really, I throw everything back at people in some way (its really the only thing abusers understand), and stand my ground. It has helped.
I also believe in the real decency of some people. I just do... And I could go on, and I have political theories, philosophy and dialectical analysis to plop out, :), but I won't put you through that... I've got to say that one of my biggest happinesses has always been having a pretty keen brain. It can always be counted on to create or entertain or interest or discover. I believe that is SO much.
Btw, some of the prose in this, when you do chose to take the positive, :), is really beautiful.
So...hope you are not upset or anything. Sandra R. made some sort of remark about pink elephants in regards to Robin Crandall's new, well, they are manifestos... Probably sounds like it hit the mark to pointedly...as he 'unfriended' me and left a sort of huffy note calling me a gossip and a drone, I guess because I don't go all manifesto.
I just (?) I mean, it is just my personal page.
Oh no! Well, the web seems to go that way, doesn't it? It's like holidays in original family--somebody is always stomping off. I'm not upset at all. I was just thinking yesterday over that whole conversation that I need a break from both the web AND the news. I understand your perspective even when I don't share all parts of it, and you always articulate it respectfully and clearly.
I have come to a place in my life where I'm just tired of justifying myself. Who do I look like this or that? Why do I think what what I think, do what I do, eat what I eat, move like I move, writer what I write? Why don't I make more money? Why don't I believe this and such? God, when can a person just 'be', you know? But none of that is directed at you in any way, just at the general noise level of modern life. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Just thinking a bit about the victim thing--I think I understand why people are repulsed by victimhood. I mean, wallowing is never attractive. On the other hand, I do feel that part of that disgust comes from how invested we are in individualism and accomplishment and success. I mean, the plain fact is that people ARE victimized every day in the sense that stuff happens to people that is damaging to them and that is beyond their control. So, to my mind, obscuring that plain fact makes no sense. Better to sort and face these things as I understand them, understanding that my understanding itself will change over time--as in, OK, that one isn't my fault, this one sort of is, this one totally is... like that. And that ultimately 'fault' isn't even the only or the best measuring stick for living a full life.
I realize I'm not in the mainstream on that though. One of the reasons there is this contempt right now for the unemployed is that no one knows what to do about them. There isn't anything to do. And lots of folks can't look at situations where human will cannot provide instant answers. It's a projection of one's own feelings of inadequacy onto another person. That's how I see it. Some things in life just suck and it doesn't make you cowardly or bad to just acknowledge that, to acknowledge you can't fix everything.
Even a grouch like me can appreciate life now and then. With our without lemonade :)
Hi Robert! Yes, we grouches do see the sun once in awhile!
:) Yes, Pam. I completely understand about the' victim' ideas. I use my anger a lot to galvanize me into action. Of course there are ideas in society that people are victims when they are not, as well. This kind of 'pity' is also a defensive device on the part of the 'giver.' I loathe that, and that is the more common form. Receiving it is also a chore one must deal with that gets more than tiresome.
As in, especially in this one horse, severely uneducated town (I haven't gotten into the 1/2 of it): Oh, look, that poooooor creature/hot chick/woo, woo/hey baby/whatever your pleasure on a bike. Let's help her! We have big Land Rovers. I've even had derelict people scream at me to get a job, when I probably have one of few professional and viable jobs in this area! Just an example.
So it is all about image and perception and many people are not that bright. Unfortunately, I've found that to be a fact. So that I have found it is not a good idea to advertise any weakness. Hard to explain what I mean by this. But pull it together and be professional?
There are few people who I let know my real, complete thoguhts, in other words. I don't think most can handle it. I don't think that is being dishonest, just a realistic assessment...intellectual intimacy is a rare thing and I believe must necessarily be the provence of equals.
No, I totally hear you on this. I see it in other areas, especially in the realm of 'sexual abuse', where even thoughtful progressive people still kind of believe that rape victims or people who were molested as children are irreparably damaged, and focus all their anger at people doing the raping and abusing, as if that helps. I mean, the way I see it, there's something fairly pathetic and repulsive about (mostly) men who rape or molest--they seem more pitiful to me than powerful or evil--and at the same time I know tons of people, male and female, who bounce back from the worst things fairly intact. So yeah, I know what you mean. It's one thing to let yourself feel vulnerable. It's another to show it, because somebody is likely as not to take a punch or eat you or whatever, or at the very least, maybe you don't want to deal with other people's dumb reactions. I get that.
BTW I feel the same way about some obscenely rich people. I don't see them as powerful so much as childlike and self-absorbed. Waiting on the very rich when I worked in the landscape business, it often seemed to me like, whoa. How would you be if you ever faced a REAL problem? I don't understand the current worship of the wealthy, as if they know any more about what's up than the rest of us.
So much of what our culture sees as powerful is just bad judgment, narcissism, addiction, or silliness.
Your writing in this is so beautiful. This piece really meant a lot to me. I could relate in so many ways. Glad you wrote this piece.
Thank you Michelle! :)