Solitude
How can one spend most of one's day doing laundry? Why does one spend most of one's day doing laundry? I find myself disgusted that I have clothes enough to make this possible. I find myself obsessed with making them all clean. And I think about the woman I watched, in India, slapping her clothes upon a rock--to remove the water, to remove the dirt. Hanging her clothes to dry in Indian sun. Clothes embracing smell of fish, smell of sun.
I bow down to my washing machine and dryer at least once a week, worshipping their abilities--to ease my burden. Why is it then, that I feel cheated?
Have been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. 260 pages in. Like this passage about Ursula and her refusal to let the dark cloud of blindness consume her.
pg. 251
"No one knew exactly when she began to lose her sight. Even in her later years, when she could no longer get out of bed, it seemed that she was simply defeated by decrepitude, but no one discovered that she was blind. She had noticed it before the birth of Jose Arcadio. At first she thought it was a matter of passing debility and she secretly took marrow syrup and put honey on her eyes, but quite soon she began to realize that she was irrevocably sinking into the darkness, to a point where she never had a clear notion of the invention of the electric light, for when they put in the first bulbs she was only able to perceive the glow. She did not tell anyone about it because it would have been a public recognition of her uselessness. She concentrated on a silent schooling in the distances of things and people's voices, so that she would still be able to see with her memory what the shadows of her cataracts no longer allowed her to. Later on she was to discover the unforeseen help of odors, which were defined in the shadows with a strength that was much more convincing than that of bulk and color, and which saved her finally from the shame of admitting defeat. In the darkness of a room she was able to thread a needle and sew a buttonhole and she knew when the milk was about to boil. She knew with so much certainty the location of everything that she herself forgot that she was blind at times. On one occasion Fernanda had the whole house upset because she had lost her wedding ring, and Ursula found it on a shelf in the children's bedroom. Quite simply, while the others were going carelessly about, she watched them with her four senses so that they never took her by surprise, and after some time she discovered that every member of the family, without realizing it, repeated the same path every day, the same actions, and almost repeated the same words at the same hour. Only when they deviated from meticulous routine did they run the risk of losing something. So when she heard Fernanda all upset because she had lost her ring, Ursula remembered that the only thing different that she had done that day was to put the mattresses out in the sun because Meme had found a bedbug the night before. Since the children had been present at the fumigation, Ursula figured that Fernanda had put the ring in the only place where they could not reach it: the shelf. Fernanda, on the other hand, looked for it in vain along the paths of her everyday itinerary without knowing that the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits and that is why it is so difficult to find them."
Did not want to figure out a way to include fewer words. Good thing I learned how to type. Is useful sometimes.
The Friday mother in me respects Ursula--woman who manages a household, daily life. I like that she doesn't want to feel useless. I like that she isn't useless--in old age, and in blindness.
Marquez captures the beauty in daily living in this passage, and elsewhere. Which leads me to ask the question: Is there beauty in daily living?
I know that beautiful moments exist...but beautiful days--one after the other? My daily living: there is dust. my children: they are always beautiful, but do not always behave in beautiful ways. Somtimes I wait for milk to boil.
It is interesting to me, the part about daily routines and lost items. Will think of Ursula next time I lose something.
And finally, Ursula, the matriarch, makes me think about what kind of a matriarch I am. What kind of a matriarch (def. 2: a feisty older woman with a big bosom (as drawn in cartoons)) I will be.
I bow down to my washing machine and dryer at least once a week, worshipping their abilities--to ease my burden. Why is it then, that I feel cheated?
Have been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. 260 pages in. Like this passage about Ursula and her refusal to let the dark cloud of blindness consume her.
pg. 251
"No one knew exactly when she began to lose her sight. Even in her later years, when she could no longer get out of bed, it seemed that she was simply defeated by decrepitude, but no one discovered that she was blind. She had noticed it before the birth of Jose Arcadio. At first she thought it was a matter of passing debility and she secretly took marrow syrup and put honey on her eyes, but quite soon she began to realize that she was irrevocably sinking into the darkness, to a point where she never had a clear notion of the invention of the electric light, for when they put in the first bulbs she was only able to perceive the glow. She did not tell anyone about it because it would have been a public recognition of her uselessness. She concentrated on a silent schooling in the distances of things and people's voices, so that she would still be able to see with her memory what the shadows of her cataracts no longer allowed her to. Later on she was to discover the unforeseen help of odors, which were defined in the shadows with a strength that was much more convincing than that of bulk and color, and which saved her finally from the shame of admitting defeat. In the darkness of a room she was able to thread a needle and sew a buttonhole and she knew when the milk was about to boil. She knew with so much certainty the location of everything that she herself forgot that she was blind at times. On one occasion Fernanda had the whole house upset because she had lost her wedding ring, and Ursula found it on a shelf in the children's bedroom. Quite simply, while the others were going carelessly about, she watched them with her four senses so that they never took her by surprise, and after some time she discovered that every member of the family, without realizing it, repeated the same path every day, the same actions, and almost repeated the same words at the same hour. Only when they deviated from meticulous routine did they run the risk of losing something. So when she heard Fernanda all upset because she had lost her ring, Ursula remembered that the only thing different that she had done that day was to put the mattresses out in the sun because Meme had found a bedbug the night before. Since the children had been present at the fumigation, Ursula figured that Fernanda had put the ring in the only place where they could not reach it: the shelf. Fernanda, on the other hand, looked for it in vain along the paths of her everyday itinerary without knowing that the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits and that is why it is so difficult to find them."
Did not want to figure out a way to include fewer words. Good thing I learned how to type. Is useful sometimes.
The Friday mother in me respects Ursula--woman who manages a household, daily life. I like that she doesn't want to feel useless. I like that she isn't useless--in old age, and in blindness.
Marquez captures the beauty in daily living in this passage, and elsewhere. Which leads me to ask the question: Is there beauty in daily living?
I know that beautiful moments exist...but beautiful days--one after the other? My daily living: there is dust. my children: they are always beautiful, but do not always behave in beautiful ways. Somtimes I wait for milk to boil.
It is interesting to me, the part about daily routines and lost items. Will think of Ursula next time I lose something.
And finally, Ursula, the matriarch, makes me think about what kind of a matriarch I am. What kind of a matriarch (def. 2: a feisty older woman with a big bosom (as drawn in cartoons)) I will be.
posted by Jane | 5:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home