Domestic Psychology

Wislawa Szymborska

Children of Our Era
by Wislawa Szymborska
translated by Joanna Trzeciak

We are children of our era;
our era is political.

All affairs, day and night,
yours, ours, theirs,
are political affairs.

Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political cast,
your eyes a political aspect.

What you say has a resonance;
what you are silent about is telling.
Either way, it’s political.

Even when you head for the hills
you’re taking political steps
on political ground.

Even apolitical poems are political,
and above us shines the moon,
by now no longer lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Question? What question? Dear, here’s a suggestion:
a political question.

You don’t even have to be a human being
to gain political significance.
Crude oil will do,
or concentrated feed, or any raw material.

Or even a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months:
should we negotiate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile people were dying,
animals perishing,
houses burning,
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote
and less political.

Food Brain

Several months ago, someone used my credit card to do some online shopping. I wanted to figure out how it happened so that I wouldn’t repeat whatever allowed the theft to occur. I found it extremely frustrating that neither the bank nor the online retailer would tell me the address of the recipient of the things I didn’t order. Apparently thieves’ right to privacy supersedes my desire to learn from my mistakes.

While she was home for winter break, someone in New York was shopping with sparkly NY vampire teen’s bank account. I thought she would be worried about how it happened. I expected some drama about the loss of her small savings for living expenses in NY. Instead, she reacted with confusion at the thief’s spending choices. “They bought a bunch of new clothes and then they ate at McDonald’s. Why would they go to McDonald’s when there are so many great places to eat in NY?”

Upon returning to NY last week, sparkly NY vampire teen was horrified to learn that during the break, housekeeping threw away all the food in the college students’ rooms. “All my food is gone! Pop-tarts don’t go bad. Who wastes canned food? I was gonna eat that corn!”

I’m starting to suspect that sparkly NY vampire teen is perpetually hungry.

Tennessee to Texas

In the past year, we’ve observed a steady stream of people moving from TN to Texas. Why Texas? Is TN too liberal for them?

not gay

Can everyone please stop accusing every homophobe of being in the closet? It isn’t funny. The homophobes are not misguided about their own sexuality. They are not going to have a sudden personal revelation and apologize. They are not cute, sweet, or pitiful. They are just plain unpleasant. Stop calling them gay.

Disinformation is dangerous

When a scripted reality show brought in an anti-vaxer as the special celebrity guest for a family whose youngest child had tetanus, I complained. I didn’t complain about the show. I complained about the inclusion of someone who spreads disinformation. Instead of addressing my concerns, the local PR firm pulled the equivalent of Godwin’s Law. “Some people don’t believe in evolution either.” They should have used that line on the celebrity and found someone else for their show.

When an elected TN official states false information about public health, they are a hazard to their constituents. When that same official uses their religious beliefs as a bragging point, it should not have to be said that the teens in that official’s religious sect have made it clear that they consider unprotected sex less of a sin than sex with a condom. Spreading disinformation that implies, no, declares heterosexual sex is not an HIV risk, is dangerous. That kind of disinformation being spread by an elected official who is popular with already poorly informed teens is beyond dangerous. It is life threatening. Destructive.

The guy down the street with disinfowars stickers on everything doesn’t endanger others. His paranoid conspiracy theories only make his life bleak. Celebrities and politicians have fans and followers who make choices based on the words of their heroes. Discouraging immunizations and spreading false information about the spread of HIV hurts other people.

But they were nice

Despite my obviously high expectations about what clean-up should include, I do not have any complaints about the workers that the contractor tasked with repairing our house. They sang and danced to cheesy 80′s tunes. They joked with me. They played ball with the dogs. They were extremely interested in my 18-y-o daughter.

Okay, EXCEPT for the interest in my teenager, the workers were great. They didn’t even get upset with me when the contractor scolded them for leaving the house without a single exterior light. That wasn’t their fault. The house has no porch lights, flood lights, doorbell, or house numbers because I took forever to choose the new lighting and hardware. There are sooo many different options to choose from and I struggled with finding a balance between my desire for whimsy and not wanting an accidental homage to Prince Mongo.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I am very thankful and slightly apologetic to the workers who are responsible for making our home sturdier, safer, and infinitely more attractive.

clean up, clean up

Lacking experience with professionals working on the house, I don’t know what I should reasonably expect from various home repair specialists when it comes to cleaning up the mess after repairs are completed. I understand the billions of bits of broken glass in the yard. I am less understanding of the broken glass on the street in front of the house. I expected the neatly gathered pile of old light fixtures, doorbell, and other discards. I did not expect light bulbs shoved under bushes. Occasional stray nails in the yard are accidents. An entire box of spilled nails that has been lightly hidden under a pile of mulch is deliberate.

If we are ever again fortunate enough to hire help with the house, I am going to add a detailed clean-up page to the contract before we sign it.

Hot spot

I don’t run a fever. Ever. I think it’s because my feet act as a refrigerator. Well, they’re normally a fridge, but in the winter, my feet are ice cubes. Frozen feet make getting comfortable enough to sleep next to impossible. Your spouse may promise to love, honor and warm your feet, but that last part is quickly forgotten and replaced by, “Get those frosty toes away from me!”

So, I sleep with a heating pad under my feet. It’s more relaxing than warm milk. As the temperature in my feet rises, I fall deep asleep. Deep, drooling sleep that is only disrupted by the temperature in my feet dropping back to miserably cold. Cold caused by theft of my spot on the heating pad. The first night my hot spot was stolen, I thought it was an accident. The second night, I realized that I was being targeted for gradual and deliberate foot abuse.

We have two large German Shepherds. They are the very best of friends despite the fact that one does all the thinking for the both of them. It’s not that the other dog is stupid as much as she is lacking any awareness of past or future. In her world, there is only this moment. She can walk in the house, notice the front door, and decide she needs to see what’s on the other side of the door even though she just walked in that door. Life is perpetually new and exciting to this dog.

So, when the short bus dog stretched, rolled, and readjusted herself repeatedly until I had been nudged off the heating pad and she was snoring on it, I initially thought it was a coincidence. When she repeated her carefully planned sneak attack on the hot spot, I recognized that we have discovered this dog’s special talent. Our dog is a genius at making herself comfortable.

Unless there are dog safe heating pads, I think we need to invest in an electric blanket. My power struggles with the comfort dog are not amusing the husband OR the other dog.

Little things

Every time we learn a new tidbit of information about my father’s adoption, there is an emotional process that unplugs the present. It feels like a giant box of archived files has been spilled into your mental inbox. Forgotten and fuzzy memories have to be replayed with the new information added, like a newly discovered color that makes the picture both clear and vivid.

Seeing pictures of my father’s birth mother was hard. My father is the victim I know and understand. Now, the other victim has a face. A face that we all stare at and question what we think we see in it. Not a case number or emotionless forms, but a real person.

I knew how much effort went into my father’s efforts to get clearance to work with certain agencies. I remember my father’s phone calls, letters, and constant interactions with government officials. My parents talked about Lamar Alexander as though he was a friend, but I never realized why until now. It took my father reminding me that he would not have gotten the passport and clearance he needed for work if Lamar had not personally intervened multiple times. Georgia Tann’s paperwork declaring my father dead effectively replaced my father’s official records with a mishmash of half-truths, lies, and facts. Lamar Alexander went above and beyond to help my father.

I have often heard my father lament the fact that while everyone around him was drafted, he was not. Anyone who has heard him talk about it knows that every word is saturated with guilt. He sincerely feels like he cheated his friends. I never understood his inability to stop blaming himself.

When he talked about it again this week, I finally understood his pain. He was never included in the pool of eligible men for the draft. He did not clearly exist in government records, but he didn’t understand that until Lamar explained it to him. My father didn’t deliberately cheat, but he was cheated out of any responsibility. He can’t let go of that. The stories and memories are clearer, but instead of being long ago accepted, they are fresh emotions that are too raw to be willing to be returned to the archives.

Little things, like a picture, open wormholes that make the past part of the present.

Pictures that made me cry