assortment

Is it any wonder why we all leave home?
People say, "I knew you when you were six years old"
And you say, "But I've changed, I've changed, I've changed, I've changed."

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On the side of a train passing me in Eugene while I waited next to the tracks three or four years ago I saw graffiti-ed: "Everyone I know who I love is dead or loves someone else." And I tried to identify. Probably I was silly enough and lonely enough to think I could connect myself to such a sad, silent sentence. What I want to write next is: "That I know better now." Well, maybe.

T. told me on the phone last Saturday about a friend he has who will deny all sadness, telling himself (when he is sad) that someone out there has it worse. Therefore, this friend concludes, his sadness is invalid, something to be thrown out. T. hates when people do things like this. "Own your own pain," he said, before adding (for the shock value), "It's okay to feel like it's the worst thing since the Holocaust."

One thing covering the courts beat has taught me is that you shouldn't own other people's sadness, although there is a time to be sympathetic and, for me, a time to absorb it into my own body so I can write about it and ask the right questions. But, bottom line, if you start stealing sadness you'll run the risk of being really obnoxious and/or going crazy. Also, it's not yours.

It almost feels like aging is about figuring out what is yours and what is not yours. I stack what is mine into piles I can decipher and I am more tribalistic than some people I know, relying heavily on the group for interpretation, raised as I was in a village sort of church.

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It's too cold in this old apartment and the bread won't rise. So I've put the dough in loaf pans and tucked the pans into my electric blanket. See what comes with the morning. Hope for giant breads.

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PS. After I posted this entry, Blogger shot up an ad on my page that read: "Is Despair Your Daily Bread?" Which proves just how creepy the internet is.