We had a nice supper last night – baked cod, brown sugar/butter glazed carrots, salad, scratch-baked sour cream chocolate cake with homemade icing. Emme and I baked the cake the day before, an experiment to please Grandpa Ron, who said he’s been trying to find a recipe for that cake since the 1950’s.
I can cook, garden, keep a nice home, balance a checkbook, do minor repairs and other home improvement projects. My tomatoes have come in sweet. I am a good friend, neighbor and grandmother. I can code.
That is all well and good, but I’ve not taken a good photograph in decades, and few and far between before that. I’m not small, dark, Asian, Jewish or Italian.
Like Rose Cohen, Ron isn’t able to answer the one question that has been the elephant in the room for over forty years: why was I not good enough for you? And if the answer is anything other than looks, that old bugaboo, it hasn’t yet been offered.
After we broke up, Ron dated one woman and lived with another before moving to Berkeley in late 1969. There were more lovers in California, a marriage, and commitments of anywhere from 3 to 23 years.
I yearn to be Descartes, who refused to allow his person to be defined by his body and in fact, doubted its existence. I see myself in photographs, and the real world intrudes with spiked boots. Who could blame me for reacting with rage, horror, sorrow, disappointment?
Today, I will make cuplit and a list of to-do’s. I told Mr. Fluffles that everything will be back to normal tomorrow.