Sunday, December 9, 2007

Sourdough

When I was a kid my mother had a large Tupperware of sourdough starter in the fridge. She made rolls and cookies from it--never bread, but I'm worn out on that stuff here and don't mind that she didn't do the bread--and I loved the smell of it and the stuff that came from it.

Literarily speaking, let's imagine for a moment starting out with one article, as though it were starter, and mixing in other ingredients.

I am about to go back to F, L and C.

******

Did I disappoint you? Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?

Going back to the beginning of the discussion, I look at Robin's cost/benefit analysis. I have two friends right now who are all the time absent, and I'm taking it harder than I should...I gave up my renewed love of solitude to grow to want them. Now they walk away. Continuously. I read Robin's article and try to find benefits as to why to accept their demands.

Then I read an article in the latest issue of Oprah about knowing when to quit. Then I find an article in the New Yorker on the faults of introspection in writing. It's like an impact on windshield glass. It just spreads and spreads.

I know that I should no longer expect friendships where the other party is present. Our society does not encourage this. So I ask one of the friends (the other one has walked away, I'm dead sure of it, but I have to have an answer in case she resurfaces yet again) for time away from his phone calls (our last tie) so that I can figure out how to deal with his lack of interest. (She has walked away in silence, with no explanation, by the way, and he has walked away because he apparently has to solve fights in his family, which I don't see as doing any good, since they are still fighting.) I can't be casual on friendships, but apparently there is no one else on the planet who can be devoted. So cost/benefited gets to be applied. Do either one of these people support me or lend anything to my life?

Damn, that's a hard question.

The last person who asked me if there is anything that I need was my aunt as she drove me to the airport in February of 2002 to go back to Missouri. Before and since the standard practice in helping me was to seize what was thought to be a need on Jo's part and just do what the helping party thought was best. In many cases of rushing in the thing that would have helped me stand up again was just sit with me and be still. But I can't get anyone to sit with me, let alone be still.

What I want to benefit from I cannot even ask for. I have asked both of these friends for time. But they can't grant that. My thought is to compromise, since I know that they will both be back...I will still be friends with them, but I won't invest what I had hoped to. Secondary grades of friendship. I could keep them this way hoping that someday they can give me what I need.

Is that wrong? Am I right to be a hard-ass, or more right to compromise myself to half-hope? Is now the time to quit, or to observe the humanity of them, regardless of how superficial they are?

There's always a walk-through, that's certain. If I give them both up, I have to get used to being alone again. But I'm alone now, anyway.

One.

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