Today Susan and I were walking along, while Clover relaxed in eir stroller, singing to the sky. At five months and some change, e seems to be adapting fairly well to this hard, cold thing we call reality.
Susan mused that Clover wouldn’t likely remember anything that is happening right now, and yet it would shape eir life. That crashed down on me.
My immediate response was, “Yeah, and what a fucking shame. We spend our entire lives trying to figure out what is wrong with the world, without ever realizing that our patterns, the things that trigger our peptides and reactions, are constantly sabotaging us. We never understand that we were screwed up in a life that we don’t remember.”
Un/fortunately, I still feel that way.
It occurs to me that at some point, my parents were kind to me. I even know that to be true, I can glimpse first-person scenes of childhood happiness, through a haze of rage and insecurities. My earliest memory is happy. However, I know that my post-accountable self colors my childhood is hues of abuse and trauma, a series of events that must be assessed, sometimes re-lived as only a brain that can’t grasp time does, and hopefully diminished in the light of epiphany, a genuine reconciliation of pain and anger.
And then there is Clover.
To say that e throws a wrench in my self-misery/-enlightenment is an understatement. When I look in the mirror while I am holding em, I see Clover and maiki, maiki and mommy. I had my child over a decade later in my life, than when my mother did. From the few scraps I know about my other, pre-life, I know that I saved my mother from despair, after having lost many of the things that she would have been attached to, babby maiki gave her what is such a true cliché: meaning.
When I look at Clover, I don’t derive meaning. Rather, it is a cocktail of opportunity and reflection. And I see the kindness that my mother most certainly showed me. It draws out this nostalgia that I am not accustomed to, and quite frankly is highly disruptive to my mind’s barriers. My brain is no doubt looking very delicious to tentacled beings from beyond space and time.
And so…
Clover, I know that one day you will read this. I hope I didn’t fuck you up too much because I was human. I really love you. So much it hurts. I hope that it doesn’t hurt when you love.
