family

Tonight Halle had a meltdown. She burst into tears at the table and disappeared outside. I would say it was unwarranted and inexplicable, but when I put myself in her troubled fourteen year old shoes, as much as I feel sometimes like I can't relate to her spock-like antics and severe tomboy streak, I can't imagine the emotional stress that she feels and can't even nail down in thought, much less verbalize. She has been here one week. Her whole world is turned over and upside down. She started high school in a new town with new people. Her mother is a raving lunatic who comes in the door at night, drenched to the bone, filthy and tired, ranting at her about what she is doing wrong, what she isn't doing right, and how the fate of the cosmos is about to come crashing down because she won't stop fighting with her ten year old sister about who was watching whom dress after their shower. Then you throw 14 year old hormones on top of all that, a dad who lives in Timbuktu and nothing here that smacks of comfort and nostalgia and stability, and it's a pretty raw deal. I let her be, wherever she was, taking an occasional worried glance out the window for her, until the sun went down, then I began searching in earnest. The little booger sneaked back into the house while I was down the driveway looking for her (I remember that trick - "What? I was here the whole time!") and was busily eating her cold dinner by the time I got back. I bit back the next rant about me having enough to worry about without her adding to my burdens, and luckily I think she read the silence as some form of manipulation, as she went about reassuring me that she wasn't mad at me and she had just talked to her dad about stuff.

Erica C was telling me about a fight she was having with her little sister, apparently there is some sort of drama, and Erica had told Carrie that she had broken trust and was ruining the family. I caught her quickly and told her that nobody has that much power. Families should be stronger than that. I told her that people who think that god wants them to judge each other will try to manipulate other people, pushing that sort of guilt on them, but really, is there anything any of us could do to ruin our families if we were all truly dedicated to loving unconditionally and demonstrating more of god's grace and forgiveness and less of his judgement. I suppose some of my family would argue that I am ruining my family, but I guess it is subjective. In the eye of the beholder. If my "transgressions" were enough to ruin the family I would guess that the family wasn't very stable to begin with. It was a good little talk, and I know that MacKenzie was tuned in, as I heard her chime in from the upstairs that she could certainly be a family ruiner, and was then shushed by my mini-sermon. Judgement and condemnation and manipulation can ruin families, not sinners, which we all are.

We surveyed in the rain today. It was mostly an experiment to see how much water one can absorb off of manzanita plants in a pair of jeans. I think I soaked up at least a couple gallons. I spend a lot of my survey time thinking. Thinking about how lovely it would be to have a husband to support me so I wouldn't HAVE to trudge through the damp woods unless I felt like it. And how nice it would be to have someone to sit on the couch with at night and compare crappy days.

I forgot, in my SpaW narrative, to tell about my paraffin foot waxing experience. After I dressed up in the awkwardly large robe, the massage therapist took me to her little room, on the way asking me if I needed to use the ladies room. I felt pretty secure that I could make it through 60 minutes, so I declined. Then she asked if I would like the complimentary paraffin foot treatment. All I heard was complimentary, so naturally I was quite eager to have any such treatment. She dumped the hot wax into a little baggy and the stuck my foot in it. So, the whole thing about warm water and potty training? Well, suddenly, I wondered if I actually could make it 60 whole minutes. But she waxed up my other foot, and wrapped some little booties around them, and told me to take my robe off and get onto the massage table, and not to worry if the booties fell off. If I could have on 30 second clip of humiliating video of someone I hated, I would plant a camera in this little room and treat my enemy to a paraffin foot waxing and massage. When the therapist left the room I jumped off the table, and landed in the hot squishy bags of wax, experiencing a sensation that was identical in almost every way to stepping in a hot. fresh pile of puppy poop on carpet. the only thing missing was smell. And if you want to know how I can compare, well, I couldn't tell you without throwing up. so I squished my way awkwardly to the door, took off the awkwardly big robe, and there I stood, in the middle of the room, buck naked except for big booties full of squishy hot wax. I stared at the massage table across the room and pondered my best approach. In the end I decided to go for the hurried lunge, feeling certain that one of my mortal enemies was filming the whole endeavor from some secret corner. Nothing could have been less graceful than that single, naked room crossing, half leap, half shuffle, under the blankets and shoving the booties out of sight along with the rest of my silly looking body. Nothing sexy about this routine. But it was worth it. When she peeled the wax off it felt almost as good as taking off my fire boots and dirty socks after a three day spike camp in the wilderness. It was almost as if my feet could breathe the free air again. I would totally risk the video leak to have it done again. But maybe I would get on the table first then try to throw the robe onto the hook, rather than squishing around in the booties. Not sure on that one.

Now I have to see how much homework I am avoiding.