Sunday, March 23, 2014

On Medusa

I have a policy of writing wherever I am on a given day.  Today, I caught myself wandering the internet reading about Medusa.  So that is the topic of today's writing.

About six months ago,  I was out shopping with my mom at J-Beth loading her down with books in hopes that her AD mind would latch on to one and read it.  But I had yet to fully realize where she was in her disease and how no amount of book buying would reverse that.  On these forays I often try to make her laugh by doing silly things.  So, when I saw the display of hats near the children's section it was on.  A good hatting almost always makes her laugh, but on this day not so much.  She didn't find joy in the tall princess hat with its drifting down veil when I put it on her.  She didn't laugh when I put on the Yoda hat.  She pretty much had no reaction at all, something I now see as environmental overload.  Too much stimulation coming at her too fast.

Among the various headgear was a foil green cap adorned with snakes.  Medusa.  I tried it on.  Loved it.  But when it failed to elicit a reaction I put it back and walked away.  But only part of me made that walk.  The rest of me was back there loving up on that hat.  Eventually I walked back and picked it up. I had no idea where I might wear it.  I only knew that it spoke to me.  It belonged with me.  Standing in line Mom could not get why I wanted something so ugly.  She pointed out the numerous areas where the snakey bits were popped at the seams.  In other words, she tried to talk me out of it.  But I held fast. The clerk looked to see if there was another in stock.  And when he found there wasn't, he offered me a pretty good discount.  I took it knowing the seams would be an easy repair.  The hat is amazing.  I walked away grinning.  Mom walked away shaking her head.  That is our relationship in a nutshell, what makes me happy confuses her and vice versa.  It has always been so.

Recently I accepted an offer from my younger brother to travel with them to Disney for a week.  I asked about attending the Halloween After Hours Party while we were there.  I have been mulling a costume idea.  Then I remembered the hat and knew that I could just use some face paint and do a great Medusa.  (Sorry girls - no Dory).  So there is a use for the hat which would make my mom more content if she still remembered or cared about it, which she doesn't.  I love the hat even if I had never found a 'proper use' for it.  When I put it on I feel powerful, as if I could really turn people to stone.  And it makes me remember a day not so long ago that I spent with my mom before she sank so deeply into her AD that outings stopped all together.  That alone makes the hat a prize.

I had forgotten all of that stuff, the fancy green cap, the trip to Disney, hatting at J-Beth, even my mom when I stopped myself mid google and wondered why the fuck was I looking at mythology instead of working on the novel or some other 'worthy' topic.  Let me interject that all topics are worthy in my world.  The critic has a narrower and more jaundiced view of things.  I have learned not to listen too closely to it anymore.  Anyway, there I am on the Googles looking at Medusa info, feeling a bit sad, more than a tad envious (I mean c'mon who hasn't wanted to turn someone to stone with a glance), and in intellectual gotta-know-it mode.  There's usually a reason for these things.  Even when it seems completely out in left field.  I have learned to just go with it.  Maybe it will make sense later today, maybe it will take six months or six years.  Maybe it never will.  I just trust that I was lead to look at this.

I do wonder why though?  How exactly will the magic of Medusa find a place in my life?   Pleaseohplease let it be turning her to stone.


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