anyone with a sense of adventure

Two days ago when I was reading, considering, and typing, here, excerpts from Darcey Steinke's novel, Sister Golden Hair -- it almost made me cry...the way the little kids fantasize about somehow solving their mother's unhappiness-problem for her -- children do that, for sure.
 
(Unlike an adult observer, a child doesn't yet have the ability and mature judgment to recognize when problems are not solvable.  And love and devotion to the parent makes the child want to fix it.)


"I'd had the same fantasy for a while, that I'd grow up, get rich, and buy her a house....But I was getting tired....wherever we lived wasn't good enough."


And then, in the reading, just when you are afraid you might cry, you have to laugh because of the description of how the mom is so organized in her depressive neurosis:  when they move to a new town, she picks a local "rich family" (raising rabbits and taking French lessons...) to compare everything to, & when they're moving between towns, then the mom starts in on the Kennedys!  LOL.  I mean, you can't laugh, it's so sad, but it's ironic/funny because she has her craziness so organized.  Like flipping a switch.


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When I read that, I was reminded of several things I've thought of, before.


One is, how comparing oneself, or one's own life, to other people's, is futile, and time and energy spent on that is time and energy subtracted from enjoyment of life.  (lifestylesoftherichandfamousyada)


How badly does anyone want
Delft tile
rabbits
or French lessons?


And plus it isn't expensive to learn a language!  It isn't cost-prohibitive; people in all income brackets can learn languages if they want to.


Que tenga un buen fin de semana!
Tee-na kemmoo - shay!
Say-lah-vee!
Be grateful and happy.


And another thing it made me think of was, it appears to me, though I might be wrong, that in relationships, people can really only be as happy as the most unhappy person in the relationship.  Bummer.


Another thing:  if one person nags another one unremittingly, relentlessly, I think it could feel about as bad as being beaten up, to the person being consistently nagged.  However, our society has not evolved to the point where we address relentless nagging or belittling.


Some of us are old enough to remember when society tolerated spouse abuse (domestic violence) -- even "blamed the victim."  Now we've grown out of those attitudes and the law treats it differently.  However, it's difficult to picture a husband calling up -- "Hello, Nine-One-One?  My -- uhm -- my wife is nagging me!"


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("Okay--how long as she been nagging you?"


"Thirty-two years, man!")


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And there's a sort of "meta" - overlap aspect, of this author using "the Kennedys" and their alleged Hyannis-Port-pony in this narrative:  the reason I had ever heard of this author in the first place is that Steinke's editor on her first novel, 30 years ago at Doubleday, was -- Jackie Onassis,





who said in a 1978 interview, "Before I was married I worked on a newspaper.  Being a journalist seemed the ideal way of both having a job and experiencing the world, especially for anyone with a sense of adventure.


  I wouldn't choose it as a profession now.  Journalism has variety but doesn't allow you to enter different worlds in depth, as book publishing does..."











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