I would like to share this with my mom. This describes her stance and how she struggles to bend and sway and is so rigid in her rightness.
Yesterday afternoon she called. I answered in a dorky, long “Hellooooo…” in an attempt to start things off on a lighter note. She laughed, and then cut to the chase, “What’s with Korb’s job anyway? Does he not work anymore?”
[That fucking bitch.]
I bit back. “What is the real question you are asking?”
“Well, he was gone for soooo long on Haida Gwaii at Christmas. If I had a job, they wouldn’t let me do that.”
[PS my friends – he was back home for ten days and stayed by his mom. I’ve learned the hard way to stay out of it and let his dad and mom sort through the stuff.]
Plus, he lives by us eleven months out of the year. Ten fucking days of watching TV isn’t going to undo all of the hard work we’ve done and turn him into some lazy, good-for-nothin hooligan.
Anyway – I don’t want to get too into this call (which lasted almost an hour), but I will say this – I stood my ground, called her on her bullshit, and maintained a relatively healthy heart rate preventing my forehead veins from showing up to the party.
She always has an ulterior motive with her line of questioning – guilty until proven innocent.
Anyway – this poem hits because it has a wonderful picturesque way of quickly and elegantly shedding light on the bullshit and rigidity of rightness.
As my kid would say when asking about his career planning class,
“I don’t even know what I’m going to do when we get home”.
where rivers are born 