Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Can Idiot Girl come to Seattle

My heart won over my head this weekend. I went to Utah, in large part to spend a weekend with my Idiot Girl. I visited friends. It was a perfect weekend for Bevin. We ate out twice on Friday. Three times on Saturday, with an additional picnic. That means this is how the days went: eat, drive, eat, drive, eat drive. What is more perfect for Bevin. Her topic desires: eat, ride, walk (and the fourth is cuddle). That is at least what I do with my Idiot Girl.

A grand weekend. On Sunday, we ate, drove. And then I took her back to her group home. A very good place. 15 girls or so. But they care, are responsible, do their best. It isn't a scary place. Not in the world of places where a young woman (she's 26) like my dear Idiot Girl, my Bevin, can live on her own.

I stopped at the home. And she was just plane mad at me. On the roam as I took her back. Now this is where it is difficult with Bevin. She get's over it. I knew that she'd settle down. Her grand ability is this: she's happy, she lives in the present. But it was so striking for me. She was angry, she expressed her feelings. She seemed to care, if only for the briefest slice of time.

But it broke my heart. I drove away, but I couldn't leave. So I brought my Idiot Girl home with me. Definitely heart over head. I have a job. My daughter has a family of small children. Bevin, for all her charm, can be very difficult. And as I called around today to begin the assault on the officialsom of this state. It's not easy. It's a catch 22.

So what do I do. I have made so many compromises in my life around my children. They know I love them. And the other two have done fine. Truth to be told. Bevin is doing fine too. But am I? I want to take care of her. Touch her. Love her. I just can't let this go on. My easy life. My Idiot Girl isn't in Seattle. She's hundreds of miles away.

And that is what I must fix. For my heart.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

I think I'm safe

So I've had this blog for several years. And as near as I can tell, no one has visited it. So I think I'm safe. Maybe I could try writing something just a wee bit public. Push these lazy fingers. Lay myself out there a bit.

We'll see

What I distrust

I haven't been writing. Because I don't think? Because I'm private? But who is reading this? So I'll proceed and see if I can write.

I just saw a clip of Ronald Reagan and his famous "tear down that wall." I suppose I've come to believe that Ronald Reagan was a good man. And listening to an abridged version (I hesitate to admit) of his biography, I'm also willing to think that he was more accomplished than I gave him credit for. Particularly in being able to articulate his own vision.

But I still can't respond to someone like Ronald Reagan. Even if in the end it turned out better than I might have thought. And certainly, given what I distrust, things have gotten more troubling, not less. (Now I'm thinking about George Bush.) So what do I distrust. A person who trusts an idea, a belief, without submitting that idea, that belief, even a "gut feeling" if that's what it is, to inquiry, thought, investigation, skepticism. I just can't trust belief. And it's not that I trust reason or thought either. But human animals do have the ability to reason. The ability to discover a view of where we are standing, a sense that it's one of many places we might stand. That's what the ability to reason can help to glimpse. Another way things might be. A sense of this place, this context, a horizon. And a horizon, a view, that might just be different. That is what I value. What I try to find. Another way to think about this. Then I have a way of choosing, valuing, my view. Otherwise it's blind. So what I continue to question, to distrust is the true belief, the only belief, the obvious, the one true way. One.

And one that has an easy enemy, an easy other. My husband always tells me this leaves me in a murky, muddled place. But I have worked very hard to get to this murky, muddled place. And I value those things I can still value so much more, living in this place. So I continue to distrust the Ronald Reagans of the world. True believers. Even if kind and benign. I can sometimes admire. I can wish. But I just can't trust. I can't trust trust.