a funnel, the tinsel, sifting, forgetting, remembering
February 13, 2023 5:36 PM Subscribe
Here, have 2 heartwrenching short speculative fiction stories where parents, trying their best, say or do terrible yet ordinary things; their children eventually find imperfect ways to cope or heal. "Coming Through in Waves" by Samantha Murray -- content notes at the top -- "[My mother's] sentences all sound … reasonable on the surface. She’s pulling any immediate clues from the environment, from my expression, from words that knit well together, to cover the gaping wound which is her mind.". Summary of "Sand" by Jasmin Kirkbride: When Suzy was born, her parents filled her mouth with sand. But this is normal and natural and the way things are always done. And if she finds it uncomfortable to keep it there, to eat with it there, to talk with it there, she’s just going to have to learn to live with it.
Sand creeped me out. Loved it by creepy.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:50 PM on February 13, 2023
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:50 PM on February 13, 2023
I was just thinking the other day about how much I enjoyed your previous fiction posts, so very excited to see this.
posted by Well I never at 5:28 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Well I never at 5:28 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
As I'm very intentionally caring for my youngest of three as she becomes "aware" I'm thinking a lot about these things. She's gonna turn 2 this year.
We are all very lucky. We are both in therapeutic professions. We have really excellent words to describe the "bad things" inside of us that we are fighting to prevent taking residence in our kids.
We don't have to mince words or dance around trauma with one another.
And (thank God) there is very little defensiveness between us.
We can talk about the bad things openly and I know that's a lucky break - many folks end up in life-long relationships, raising children, with humans who get defensive or angry or fragile when it's time to talk about the bad things. Or worse - who lack the kind of self-differentiation to even acknowledge that bad things are lurking.
They're bad. And it's hard. Today, my family of origin is very close at hand. We are enmeshed. I don't have a "secret past" - it's all there every time we gather around the hearthfire. Sometimes we can talk about the bad things in the larger family... but usually only in passing. Or when the blood-alcohol is precisely dialed in.
Otherwise the moment shatters and the elders say, "there were never any bad things" or "you are giving the bad things new life," or even, "why would you talk about something so depressing?"
"You can be right, or you can be in relationship." It's still helpful, on balance, to be in relationship with the elders. But I'd lose my mind if I didn't have *someone* to talk about this stuff with. Thank God for my therapists. Thank God for a partner who wants to talk about this and do the work and help me fight against the bad things to keep them out of the kids' lives.
We'll tell them when they're older, we say. Maybe when they're old enough to ask. Maybe when they're 26. Each year that passes, every time the world spins and we get through without a bad thing taking root, it's like a breath of clean air.
"She's seven years old and no adult has ever physically struck her in anger."
This child, she would be as close to a space alien in my home of origin as anything else. "They just don't hit each other."
But as I turn 40 this year I keep suspecting that if the only thing (the *only* thing) I'm able to do is keep a few of the bad things from taking root in my kids I will have succeeded in life beyond the wildest dreams of my ancestors.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:40 AM on February 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
We are all very lucky. We are both in therapeutic professions. We have really excellent words to describe the "bad things" inside of us that we are fighting to prevent taking residence in our kids.
We don't have to mince words or dance around trauma with one another.
And (thank God) there is very little defensiveness between us.
We can talk about the bad things openly and I know that's a lucky break - many folks end up in life-long relationships, raising children, with humans who get defensive or angry or fragile when it's time to talk about the bad things. Or worse - who lack the kind of self-differentiation to even acknowledge that bad things are lurking.
They're bad. And it's hard. Today, my family of origin is very close at hand. We are enmeshed. I don't have a "secret past" - it's all there every time we gather around the hearthfire. Sometimes we can talk about the bad things in the larger family... but usually only in passing. Or when the blood-alcohol is precisely dialed in.
Otherwise the moment shatters and the elders say, "there were never any bad things" or "you are giving the bad things new life," or even, "why would you talk about something so depressing?"
"You can be right, or you can be in relationship." It's still helpful, on balance, to be in relationship with the elders. But I'd lose my mind if I didn't have *someone* to talk about this stuff with. Thank God for my therapists. Thank God for a partner who wants to talk about this and do the work and help me fight against the bad things to keep them out of the kids' lives.
We'll tell them when they're older, we say. Maybe when they're old enough to ask. Maybe when they're 26. Each year that passes, every time the world spins and we get through without a bad thing taking root, it's like a breath of clean air.
"She's seven years old and no adult has ever physically struck her in anger."
This child, she would be as close to a space alien in my home of origin as anything else. "They just don't hit each other."
But as I turn 40 this year I keep suspecting that if the only thing (the *only* thing) I'm able to do is keep a few of the bad things from taking root in my kids I will have succeeded in life beyond the wildest dreams of my ancestors.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:40 AM on February 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
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posted by panhopticon at 7:32 PM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]