July 29, 1999 |
Leonard would like me to visit him in Mississauga up over near Toronto. I would like to spend some time with him, but I don't think I'll be going. My reasons? The courses I need to plan. My agony in airports and planes. Crossing national borders. All the little details of getting there and back. The damn cat. These mark me as a complete stay-at-home stick-in-the-mud wussy guy. I guess that's who I am. People who jump on planes eagerly and regularly for any reason cannot understand the enormity of it all for me. I do not like those things. I am cat-like in my disapproval of them. Why do I feel bad about thinking
I will not be going? What is the nature of this guilt? ("True
guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself.
False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people
feel one ought to be or assume that one is." Well, Leonard is a good friend. And friends are supposed to get together. I know this; I've said as much in previous entries. And yet....I hate travelling. This could be a genetic condition. My maternal grandmother did not travel; her husband hit the road in a big way after her death. My paternal grandmother was an infamous Joliet home-girl; her husband had been something of an adventurer in his day. Wanderlust, in me, would seem to be the recessive gene. I have brothers and sisters who love travel. These family patterns should not be so obvious or so determinative; but the more I see, the more "pre-fabricated" we appear to be. On another front: for dinner this evening little bits of cow meat were sprinkled throughout the taco salad. I had to eat and did. I needed to prove (to myself) my flexibility in these matters. It was not as off-putting as the tiny purple octopi that showed up in my pasta at a restaurant last week. (I gobbled a couple with the bravado of a Klingon, but my heart and stomach just weren't in it.) I'm bothered by people who complain about food. I don't care to become one of them. Most of us are spoiled children when it comes to eating. We want what we want (and lots of it) when want it. Within celibate communities, food (for some) seems to be a (conscious or unconscious?) substitute for sex - almost an entitlement. "I've given up all physical intimacies; the least you can do is grill that t-bone correctly." I would like to be wise and responsible in matters of the table. I would not be so self-involved. Food is not just about my individual tastes, preferences, requirements. or desires; it always has something to do with others. That was part of my green pea lesson many many years ago. I had to sit and sit and sit at table for a thousand hours until I ate my green peas. Most people can recall their own food traumas just as clearly. The odd thing is that I didn't then, and I don't now, hate green peas. My father and I were locked in a miserable and angry struggle - the balance of power needed refurbishing. So I sat. I don't remember the outcome. I don't remember feeling victorious. |