Today Easter Saturday we blessed our eggs in church which is a Polish Catholic tradition. My sweet mother becomes very religious twice a year: Christmas and Easter. In between these two holidays, life is religiously uneventful and even contradictory to the teachings of her Christ.
This day my sister and I have to accompany her to get blessed along with a basket full of eggs. The ceremony only takes about 10 min. and it is cute to see, young, old, men, women and children, even super trendy teenagers carrying little decorated baskets full of food - every person trying to outdo their friends and neighbours in design, quality and colour. The priest says a few words and then splashes holy water on the baskets, people and “basket cases”.
My cute little mother wants to start a blog. A blog to God (remember she is religious today).
I can well imagine her posts:
“Dear God, thank you for giving me two such wonderful, beautiful and talented daughters. They are truely amazing; I only wish that they would be happier, maybe if they became doctors or lawyers? Or if they found a nice rich husband? Not an artistic bohemian man – even though they too have their positive sides, sexually, I mean – no what I think would be good for them would be a “nerd”, a quiet man who would do anything for them… Please God, help my daughters fulfill my wishes of finding the perfect man!”
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I went to a Catholic primary school in France. Some of the teachers were nuns. I think it made me even more secular than I otherwise would have been. I have a vivid memory of a catechism lesson when I was seven or eight, when we had to draw the parting of the Red Sea. The teacher explained that it could be two waves that collided, so that the exode people could walk between them; my drawing looked somethin like this:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨)(
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨)¨¨(¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨<= Waves colliding
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨)¨¨¨¨(
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨)¨¨¨¨¨¨(
¨¨¨¨¨¨)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(
¨¨¨¨¨)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(
¨¨¨¨)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(
¨¨¨)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨o¨¨¨¨¨¨(
¨¨)¨¨¨¨¨¨¨-|-¨¨¨¨¨¨(
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨/\
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨o¨¨¨¨¨¨o
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨-|-¨¨¨-|-
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨/\¨¨¨¨/\¨¨¨¨¨¨¨<= Jews
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨o
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨-|-
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨/\
She went to great lengths to explain it was not some kind of magic, but that God's power worked through natural means (much later I understood she meant some kind of standing wave, and even later that it could be a soliton phenomenon), and that he just saw to that natural thing happened at the right time at the right place.
My little brain went "does not compute". If it was some kind of natural phenomenon, how did it proved God's existence? It made him superfluous. And since Magic Doesn't Exist, which they went to great to lenghts prove and propagate, less it Tainted the Church with Satanic Superstition and Sorcery, how could he exist?
So there was no god; quod errat demonstratum. Ah, the simplicity of childhood...
You can fill them like baskets, but sometimes the kids have a hole at the bottom, like a basket-ball basket where stuff can fall through... He dribbles... He jumps... Slam dunk for Satan!! The crowd goes wild!!
She wasn't a nun, so maybe that's why the devil could distort her Gospel of the Catholic and Orthodox Good Word in my little ears. Or maybe that's because I ain't baptised and predestinated to hell.
And maybe that's why I'm destined to live in either solitonic solitude or unfullfilling relations that always feel like some unreal miraculous mirage afterwards, as long as I don't accept the Institution of Holy Matrinony.
A year or two ago ago, when I wished for that "till death do us part" bit more than ever, regardless and in disregard of any vows, my familiy wanted me to go to France to some birthday party of some friend of my cousin's, and there was quite some hinting that there was to be a 'nice girl' there too.
This autumn wile in Grenoble I was shown a picture of her, and she looked good. Very good. And she was obviously bright. What ifs started clanking and whirring in mah skull. Maybe my relatives weren't as naïvely misguided as I had thought? And even if I have that opinion of my family in general, I definitely don't think so of this cousin of mine, for which i feel a strong affinity in character and personality (he's the one that made me read The Myth of Sisyphus after all. Tho he's reached much farther and earlier than me on the righteous path). He must have known what he was doing with this whole thing.
So did I miss yet another opportunity? Could she have been the one? Ack, that lingering in the waiting room of Dr. Death....
Otoh, if I had gone, I would probably have been in a zombieshly mode, doing this stuff out of respect for my kin's kind concern, but I wouldn't have been really there. And beeing there, in flesh and spirit, is as everybody knows, the sine qua non for things of love to happen.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't, isn't that the very definition of predestination?
Maybe your mom would use a blog as a confessional, beside prayers for her angelic spawn.
They're not inadequate for that, wouldn't you say so? Like having a myriad potential priests noding at your woes and sins. There's a bit more trivial post on that at Ewa's blog.
Now I've done it twice this night; what is it with you Polish girls? Are you angels, or succubi?
ok im going to low school
love u c
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