In somewhat of a response to Carrie's posting of the lyrics to "Pressure" a few weeks ago, I'm going to post some lyrics by Ani DiFranco that sum up a lot of what I have been feeling about the world lately. The tone of the song is playful, but serious, although not nearly as destructive as the lyrics might appear when typed out.
"Fuel"
Music and Lyrics by Ani DiFranco
Little Plastic Castle 1998
They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan,
And they discovered a slave cemetery there.
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon.
We've moved on to the electric chair!
And I wonder, who's gonna be President?
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who's gonna have the blockbuster box office this summer?
How 'bout we put up a wall between the houses and the highway,
And then you can go your way, and I can go my way?
Except all the radios agree with all the TVs,
And the magazines agree with all the radios.
And I keep hearing that SAME DAMN SONG everywhere I go!
Ha ha ha!
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head,
And a marshmallow in each ear,
And stumble around for another dumb, numb week
For another humdrum hit song to appear.
People used to make records,
As in a record
Of an event.
The event of people playing music in a room.
Now everything is cross-marketing,
It's about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs.
You choose.
We got it re-hashed.
We got it half-assed.
We're digging up all the graves and we're spitting on the past.
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipsticks on the whores
Because we know the difference
Between the
Font of 20% MORE
And the
Font of teriyaki.
You tell me, how does it make you feel?
You tell me, what's real?
Am I headed for the same brick wall?
Is there anything I can do about anything at all?
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan,
And dig deeper, dig deeper this time.
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones, beneath the bedrock of the mystery,
Beneath the sewage system and the PATH train,
Beneath the cobblestones and the water mane,
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals,
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels,
Beneath everything I can think of to think about!
Beneath it all, beneath all get-out!
Beneath the good
And the kind
And the stupid
And the cruel
There's a fire that's just waiting for fuel...
There's a fire just waiting for fuel
There's a fire just waiting, waiting...
Okay, so I left out a few lines about being an alcoholic because that doesn't really apply to me here, but I really wish that I and everyone else could "dig deeper." Try to value life and art and the environment, try to remember how we got in the mess we're in now, try to be productive instead of destructive. To quote someone else, "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!" ("La Vie Boheme", Rent, Jonathan Larson, 1996)
Just my take on a week of gorgeous weather here in NYC! Hee hee! No, it just seems like every time we make a few strides forward, some idiots come along and push us all back again. Most of the news recently about the economy, and the war, and the environment, and almost everything has been bad. It's hard, but I have to hope we'll eventually start to make progress again. Hopefully, after the Presidential election this year!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Update
Just to let you guys know, my grandmother passed away on Sunday while we were all with her. I've never been in the room with someone when they died before, so I wasn't sure how it would be. It was very peaceful, and she actually slipped away at a moment when we were all laughing at something silly my grandfather was saying. We had all been very silent, just watching her and sort of crying, and then we started to talk and laugh a little, and she let go. Maybe she needed to just hear her family, know we would go on and be okay. Anyway, the funeral was on Tuesday, and a lot of family and friends made the trip, so it was very nice. Mentally exhausting, to have to be kind of sociable to people when you just want to go home and absorb things, but very nice. And people also brought over a lot of food, so that is always appreciated!
Thank you guys for your words of encouragement last week. We aren't ready yet to sell the house or anything, but we did take some photos and my aunt let me pick out a few pieces of jewelry. I took two things that I had given her.
My Grandpa is going to be going down to Florida with my Mom, at least until school lets out. Then I think she and Louie will be bringing him back up to Georgia for the summer, and also they might take him to Washington, DC, so he can go to the World War II Memorial. It's going to be a big adjustment for him, and for my Mom and Louie! He took this whole thing very hard, as would be expected. I just hope it doesn't make him want to give up. But I think the change of scenery, and being around my Mom and Louie will be helpful.
Thank you guys for your words of encouragement last week. We aren't ready yet to sell the house or anything, but we did take some photos and my aunt let me pick out a few pieces of jewelry. I took two things that I had given her.
My Grandpa is going to be going down to Florida with my Mom, at least until school lets out. Then I think she and Louie will be bringing him back up to Georgia for the summer, and also they might take him to Washington, DC, so he can go to the World War II Memorial. It's going to be a big adjustment for him, and for my Mom and Louie! He took this whole thing very hard, as would be expected. I just hope it doesn't make him want to give up. But I think the change of scenery, and being around my Mom and Louie will be helpful.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Life, Death, Family, Blah
Yesterday I received the news that my grandmother has terminal cancer. She hasn't seen an oncologist yet, so we are not sure how long she has left. My guess would be a few months, maybe a year? She has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks now because she couldn't keep any food down and was having stomach pain. They found some tumors in her colon, removed them, and did a biopsy, which showed them to be cancerous. Afterwards, they tested her lymph nodes and found that the cancer had spread to them. Apparently, there is no surgical option at this point. I don't know about any chemotherapy or radiation, but the woman is 87 years old, so I don't think they will very highly recommend those, either. My mother says they are going to let her recover from the surgery she just had, then send her home and start the hospice nursing process.
They haven't told her yet, either, because they're afraid she'll just give up immediately and we'll never get her home. She is on some heavy pain medication right now, too, and doing a lot of moaning and groaning. I am going down to Georgia on Friday and will be spending the weekend there, coming back on Monday night. It's strange to think it could be the last time I see her before she passes away. I hope that isn't the case.
Most people know that she isn't my biological grandmother. But she is the only grandmother I have ever known on that side of the family. My feelings for her are very complicated because of the way she treated my mother when she was growing up. My real grandmother died in 1956, when my Mom was three. My grandfather re-married to Minner (as we call her, her real name is Mildred) five years later. She was a widow with two children who were older, and I guess she didn't really want to raise some other woman's daughter. I'm sure she did her best, but my Mom always felt the difference. Other kids would have their school art projects hung up on the fridge, she never did. When she asked for help in her Home Ec. class, she was told she had to learn it herself. She had to do a lot of chores that her stepbrother never did, meanwhile, he was drinking and flunking out of school--she was an A student. On the day of my Mom's marriage to my Dad, Minner cried and admitted she had never done right by her. How sad that she couldn't reach out to a little girl who was yearning terribly for a mother.
Anyway, she was always good to me when I was growing up. She always made a chocolate cake for me when I visited, always bought me nice gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I won't lie and say it was the same way my real grandmother on my Dad's side made me feel. There just wasn't the same sort of connection. But I can't in good conscience say that no effort was made when it came to me. So, as I said, it's complicated.
It's probably not a good idea to revisit the bad feelings when she is about to die, but it can't really be avoided. I feel the worst for my Grandpa, who how has to go through the death of a second wife. He is blind, so after she is gone, he will probably have to move down to Florida and live with my parents, or perhaps in one of those assisted living communities. He might enjoy that, he has always been active and sociable. Who knows?
It's very sad how quickly life really does go by. Eighty-seven years sounds like a long time, and I'm sure at points it feels like a long time. But it isn't really. When I think of how fast thirty years seems to have gone, and the fact that after my grandparents have gone, it will be my parents who are next in line (theoretically), it does seem quite small and fleeting.
As for me, I kind of hope I die very quickly around age 75. I have considered just killing myself if I reach 80, because, while you might be robbing yourself of something, what are you really robbing from the rest of the world? Not that life isn't valuable, but the progress of society requires death. Is it more selfish to cling to something you know will end soon, or is it more selfish to end things before it gets too troublesome? I don't know.
They haven't told her yet, either, because they're afraid she'll just give up immediately and we'll never get her home. She is on some heavy pain medication right now, too, and doing a lot of moaning and groaning. I am going down to Georgia on Friday and will be spending the weekend there, coming back on Monday night. It's strange to think it could be the last time I see her before she passes away. I hope that isn't the case.
Most people know that she isn't my biological grandmother. But she is the only grandmother I have ever known on that side of the family. My feelings for her are very complicated because of the way she treated my mother when she was growing up. My real grandmother died in 1956, when my Mom was three. My grandfather re-married to Minner (as we call her, her real name is Mildred) five years later. She was a widow with two children who were older, and I guess she didn't really want to raise some other woman's daughter. I'm sure she did her best, but my Mom always felt the difference. Other kids would have their school art projects hung up on the fridge, she never did. When she asked for help in her Home Ec. class, she was told she had to learn it herself. She had to do a lot of chores that her stepbrother never did, meanwhile, he was drinking and flunking out of school--she was an A student. On the day of my Mom's marriage to my Dad, Minner cried and admitted she had never done right by her. How sad that she couldn't reach out to a little girl who was yearning terribly for a mother.
Anyway, she was always good to me when I was growing up. She always made a chocolate cake for me when I visited, always bought me nice gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I won't lie and say it was the same way my real grandmother on my Dad's side made me feel. There just wasn't the same sort of connection. But I can't in good conscience say that no effort was made when it came to me. So, as I said, it's complicated.
It's probably not a good idea to revisit the bad feelings when she is about to die, but it can't really be avoided. I feel the worst for my Grandpa, who how has to go through the death of a second wife. He is blind, so after she is gone, he will probably have to move down to Florida and live with my parents, or perhaps in one of those assisted living communities. He might enjoy that, he has always been active and sociable. Who knows?
It's very sad how quickly life really does go by. Eighty-seven years sounds like a long time, and I'm sure at points it feels like a long time. But it isn't really. When I think of how fast thirty years seems to have gone, and the fact that after my grandparents have gone, it will be my parents who are next in line (theoretically), it does seem quite small and fleeting.
As for me, I kind of hope I die very quickly around age 75. I have considered just killing myself if I reach 80, because, while you might be robbing yourself of something, what are you really robbing from the rest of the world? Not that life isn't valuable, but the progress of society requires death. Is it more selfish to cling to something you know will end soon, or is it more selfish to end things before it gets too troublesome? I don't know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)