The morning after my fifty-third birthday, we were on the S-bahn coming in to the Zurich Hauptbahnhof when some graffiti caught my eye. It said, Hello Toxic Crone. I was happy the greeting was so positive. It could have read, Shut up Toxic Crone. Now I'm not usually one for waiting for synchronicitous bits of information from the universe to come along and make me veer from a calamitous rut of habit. I don't take random billboards viewed along the the side of the road stating, "Whoa! You've passed Pine Beach Road!" as clarion calls to action. I'll decide for myself, thank you. But it did get me thinking. I don't want to be toxic to anyone, and yet all around me I am faced with what my son calls "bad stares." Comments I have made just to get a laugh, or with a faint hint of sarcasm, have been taken at face value as direct and harsh criticism. And even when I follow with, "I'm kidding. I'm kidding!" it doesn't help. If you have to explain the joke, it's no longer funny, is it? They feel misunderstood and I feel misunderstood and no one's happy. I fail to remember they have no sense of humor and they fail to remember that everything I say must be taken with a handful of fleur de sel.
They don't get self-deprecating. Perhaps they feel such a poverty of self-esteem that they can't do anything else but peptalk to themselves? I don't know. I don't feel that. My feeling is that absurdities abound, and everywhere deserve comment and reaction, lest we fall prey to them. Lest we hunger for hamburgers when we see them on TV, for example. Lest we believe there is only one way to understand our actions, our words: the way they were meant. Unfortunately, it's not that simple.
Happy Birthday to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment