Family Time
November 23, 2008
Whenever, I get sad, I suppose I melodramatically put my hand to my head, or maybe I get a little quiet, and I am rarely quiet. It is interesting, I suppose to notice what everyone does when they are feeling a little bit melancholy. Amy is known to lie on her bed, in what I call the puritanical death pose which consists of her lying flat on her back, arms crossed over her chest, staring straight at the ceiling, telling me to just pile her pillows on her so she can actually feel the metaphorical weight on her chest, as we laugh at the morbidity of the idea. "The pillows will work," she says, until I buy her that lead blanket she wants for Christmas.
One of my favorite songs, "When the Stars Go Blue" includes the question, "Where do you go when you're lonely?" Most of us have a bunker, we use to try to protect our fragile hearts. Some of us have bunkers lined with barbed wire, land mines, AK-47's and perhaps some even look a little like NORAD (I refuse to do research on weaponry to make a good military analogy here), but some of us are very used to solving our loneliness alone allowing very few people into the trenches of our hearts, figuring things out and drinking coffee with you later. I am not much of a bunker girl, myself, but the people I love most in the world, often ask me to step away from their hearts, in order to give them time to figure it out. Which is often frustrating, especially, when I come in peace and wear a blue helmet.
But, I suppose bunker or not, there are times when we all feel lonely or need to be alone. When the people we love are a little too far away, and as hard as we try, they can't be replaced. You can even feel lonely in the strangest places, living in Smithville Flats, on Cincinnatus Lake with my parents and the dirt road and the sunrises that come over the hill just late enough in the winter to easily catch a glimpse on your morning walk. Or in Italy, where you have friends that sing Christmas carols on metro lines. Even though loneliness only hits once in awhile, when it does, I suppose the distance feels intense and the safety net feels a little far away.
So, I guess I just want to thank Robert and Mary for being my parents' kitchen table on a night when I longed for my bunker, and I don't think I really want to be a bunker girl. So, instead I fell to the safety net and allowed the warmth of the atmosphere, food and friends engulf me. It is truly amazing what one dinner can do for a soul.
Whenever, I get sad, I suppose I melodramatically put my hand to my head, or maybe I get a little quiet, and I am rarely quiet. It is interesting, I suppose to notice what everyone does when they are feeling a little bit melancholy. Amy is known to lie on her bed, in what I call the puritanical death pose which consists of her lying flat on her back, arms crossed over her chest, staring straight at the ceiling, telling me to just pile her pillows on her so she can actually feel the metaphorical weight on her chest, as we laugh at the morbidity of the idea. "The pillows will work," she says, until I buy her that lead blanket she wants for Christmas.
One of my favorite songs, "When the Stars Go Blue" includes the question, "Where do you go when you're lonely?" Most of us have a bunker, we use to try to protect our fragile hearts. Some of us have bunkers lined with barbed wire, land mines, AK-47's and perhaps some even look a little like NORAD (I refuse to do research on weaponry to make a good military analogy here), but some of us are very used to solving our loneliness alone allowing very few people into the trenches of our hearts, figuring things out and drinking coffee with you later. I am not much of a bunker girl, myself, but the people I love most in the world, often ask me to step away from their hearts, in order to give them time to figure it out. Which is often frustrating, especially, when I come in peace and wear a blue helmet.
But, I suppose bunker or not, there are times when we all feel lonely or need to be alone. When the people we love are a little too far away, and as hard as we try, they can't be replaced. You can even feel lonely in the strangest places, living in Smithville Flats, on Cincinnatus Lake with my parents and the dirt road and the sunrises that come over the hill just late enough in the winter to easily catch a glimpse on your morning walk. Or in Italy, where you have friends that sing Christmas carols on metro lines. Even though loneliness only hits once in awhile, when it does, I suppose the distance feels intense and the safety net feels a little far away.
So, I guess I just want to thank Robert and Mary for being my parents' kitchen table on a night when I longed for my bunker, and I don't think I really want to be a bunker girl. So, instead I fell to the safety net and allowed the warmth of the atmosphere, food and friends engulf me. It is truly amazing what one dinner can do for a soul.
Comments