I'm just pissed.

I don't know why this bothers me so dang much. Maybe someone can give me some perspective on it.

So... Mom has this screen door that is set up kinda like a window. There is a fixed piece of glass on at the top, a moveable (up and down) piece of glass in the middle--with a screen for when the "window" is open, and a sheet of metal at the bottom. Y'know how you catch the door with your hip when your hands are full? The screen part is at the exact height to be stressed by your hip when you do that, so the screen was needing to be repaired fairly regularly. A couple of times a year, for as long as she has owned, it needs to be stretched and tucked back into its side frame, from which it has been worked loose by hip action.

Last spring, not long after open-door weather has set in, Mom comes to me with her high pitched I-am-irritated-but-I'm-trying-to-be-nice voice and says, "Carlson has torn the screen." I look at it and it is indeed torn--horizontally along the bottom adjacent to the usual vertical hip-tug looseness. I ask Carlson about it. He does not know. He really does not seem to know what has happened. I don't either. And while he is a pretty rambunctious guy (and, I admit, has been allowed by his mother to grow up a somewhat wild child), and does sometimes break and tear things, he usually knows he has done it, and usually admits to it. But not always. So I tell Mom, "Carlson does not think he tore the screen. How do you think it happened?" She smirks and says she does not know, but who else would do that? I say I don't know.

The next day, the tear is worse, and has obviously been deliberately pulled. I take Carlson aside, and ask him what is going on with the screen. He does not know. No one else knows. And the next day, it is worse. I get angry. "Look, guys, whatever is happening with this screen is not an accident! Someone is DOING this, and you need to STOP!" Blank stares all around.

The next evening, I am sitting on the couch in the living room, and am startled by the cat jumping though the screen door to get into the house! a-HA! Mystery solved! So I go to my mother and say, " I figured out what is happening with the screen door. The cat is using it to come and go. She just jumped through and scared the heck outta me." I am surprised by her response. She smirks again and says, "The cat did NOT tear that screen. She may be using it to come and go, but Carlson tore it in the first place." I really do not know what to say, so I just shrug and walk away. Why would she rather believe that her Grandson tore the screen--with no apparent motivation--and lied about it, than that the cat saw the little verticle hip-hole as an opening and jumped through?

The cat continues to use the hole in the screen to come and go. Someday, when it makes it to the financial priority list--hopefully before next spring--I intend to replace the screen door with one of those sturdy, yet air-flowy, pierced metal "screen" doors.

Fast forward to today. The brother in law is here, and as he is leaving he says, "Do y'all have a dog? The screen looks like a dog's been tearing at it. I reply, "It's the cat. She uses it to come and go." And Mom smirks and pipes in, "She didn't tear it originally, though!" For some reason I can not resist the bait. "Yeah. She did." "Oh! No! She didn't!" she says, wagging her head. I continue what I am doing without response.

What the hell?

The Lady

I saw her by the old porch swing
when first we chanced to meet.
I only caught a glimpse of her
for she was in retreat.
I turned on heel and did the same
with quickened heart and feet.

I wondered where I'd see her next
but hoped I never would.
I opened wide my closet door
and gasped for there she stood
with evil smile on her face.
I knew she was no good.

From head to toe in basic black
tradition's mourning dress.
But, murderous heart! the truth is told
so none who sees need guess
a red bow tie all turned askew
She sports upon her breast.

And lately, by the garden gate
I've felt a presence--her!
And I believe she lies in wait
to make my husband widower.

(c) Ellen Rae 1985

I wrote the poem many years ago. (A fellow student in my poetry class at the time insisted that it was not about a spider, but about the fact that my (then) husband's ex-wife had turned back up in town and was making overtures. She was right, but that's another blog.) But my phobia of spiders still directly correlates to how closely they resemble a Black Widow.

I found a Black Widow in the dumpster yesterday and killed it. This was a big victory for me because heretofore I would never have been able to actually connect myself to a Black Widow, even with a five-foot stick (or broom as the case may be).

When I took trash out this morning, she was there again, alive as ever. So I killed her again. With the same broom. Which was handy because I had left it outside near the dumpster. (It is now the outside broom and will never be allowed in the house again.)

This time I killed her twice. Once with the broom, and once....(wait for it....) With. My. Foot!

Well, really, with my shoe. Which was on my foot. I actually stepped on a dead Black Widow. I am woman!

Memory: Midland, 1981; Two Bolts and Two Screws

Terry picks me up for work in his new car. It's a dark green miniature station wagon. On the drive out to the airport, where we work cleaning airplanes for Continental, I notice a small plastic rectangle on the floor near my feet. I have previously noticed a hole in the console that appears to be the same size. So I pick up the piece of plastic and slip it into the hole. It snaps neatly into place.

Terry stops mid-sentence in whatever he was talking about and says, "Two bolts and two screws."

I look at him. "Pardon?"

He repeats, "Two bolts and two screws. Oh, and about 20 minutes on my back with my head wedged against the accelerator."

When I simply stare at him blankly, he goes on, "That's what it took for me to remove it, so I can install the radio."

I took it down, again. My post on Elder Packer's talk, that is. It's very late (for me; I'm an early bird, and I am exhausted, both physically and emotionally, so I'm not going to try to explain why. It just feels like the right thing to do for the time being.

Next morning: Here's why: I am having all sorts of conflicting feelings about my blog post. I realized that I was seeking only to be understood, not to understand, and that my job at this moment is not to be understood, but to hold the gay community close and let them have their feelings, and feel my compassion. My compassion was totally eclipsed by my desire to be understood. There is a time for my truth, and this is not it.

I just finished reading about compassionate listening in the book Anger, by Thich Nhat Hahn, and I totally blipped it! I had a very enlightening talk with the friend who started it all (with her question) in the first place. She graciously accepted my intentions as honorable, while holding me accountable for the pain it caused her. If you read it, I apologize to you, as well. I am guilty of the same insensitivity I pointed out in Elder Packer. I have taken it down again, for the time being.