Friday, February 07, 2020

Thoughts and AUs

I think some of my distress yesterday was that this whole traveller's cheque thing - back in 2004 or thereabouts, my parents went to England. They had leftover traveller's cheques (which no one uses any more). They were....quite a lot of money. They hung on to them for a while, I think my dad's thought back in the early 2000s was that they might go back....then they got forgotten. Then my mom found them after my dad died. Difficulty level: only his signature was on them.

There is a way to cash them in, but they had to be sent back to the UK with extensive documentation. They finally received them, but e-mailed me (I am the intermediary in all this because I have e-mail access) that "the signatures don't match enough."

Well, yes: the document my mother sent as proof of my dad's signature was one he signed in 2018, when his eyes were much worse than in 2004, and he MAY have been in very early stages of Parkinson's. (My mom says in retrospect, based on some symptoms he displayed the last year and a half or so of his life, that he might have been developing it. I did notice he had a tremor in his hands but thought little of it; when I overtax my arm muscles sometimes one of my hands shakes in certain orientations, and I knew it was hard for him using the walker).

But anyway. I e-mailed them back explaining I was 1000 km from my mother (I estimated miles - it's about 700 - and roughly converted. See how diligent I am?)

Anyway. The upshot is that she found more documentation (I called her to tell her) and she is going to make copies and mail it to them. It will take a while to do, but she's not hurting for money. Hopefully this ends it but this is the thing that makes me so sad: nothing ever really ends, nothing every is really finished, there is always more paperwork you must do. And of course it's like a hard slap in the face again with the fact that he's gone every time she or I must deal with this.

***
 This morning's UCC daily devotional spoke to me, but also made me a little sad. The idea of lights in the darkness - yes, it is wonderful to be able to be a light for other people. But also, we all need lights. And that's the sad part for me - in the past few years I've lost a few of the people I thought of as lights, either because I literally lost them (as I did my father) or they have moved away and moved on and I have lost contact...and yes, I could have maintained contact but I also feel like "they're busy, and maybe don't want me bothering them" and...

But yes. I often feel like my life is kind of asymmetrical, in that I am often called on to be a "light" or similar, but I look around and don't seem to find people willing to do that for me, and I'm not going to push someone who seems unwilling.


***

I also think one of my periodic frustrations it that one of the...you might call it an error of logic...that I make is to assume that people who are very vocal and very opinionated on certain things MUST know more than I do (because I don't hold a strong opinion on some things) and that conviction means "maybe they're right."

And I do that to myself all the time. My usual default way of thinking about my own opinions is "I could be wrong, but..." and when I run up against someone who has very strong and unshakable convictions but that run counter to what I think is right...and I experience considerable cognitive dissonance. Like, my "even if you dislike someone you should not wish ill on them" conviction, I'm seeing an awful lot of people out there who seem to think that's stupid and maybe even cowardly and I don't even know any more. When you were raised to be someone who believed in extending grace and forgiveness, even to people you dislike, even to people you find cruel, and then you hear other people saying NO THAT'S HOW YOU LET THOSE PEOPLE WIN AND YOU ARE WORSE THAN A CHUMP IF YOU DO THAT and it makes me want to just....go live on the side of a mountain and raise goats and never interact with another human.

***
Anyway.  I was thinking - given the state of the world and the horrible behaviors of some people that are hard to avoid - of alternative universes that are nicer than the current one; places I'd like to live or at least visit. And I confess? These days, one of my "get myself to sleep" or "get myself BACK to sleep" is imagining one of these universes and my place in it. And I added a few in my mind today:

- The universe Tasha Tudor created (and also sort of inhabited: even though I love indoor plumbing and climate control I also kind of feel like having chickens and goats and a big garden and devoting most of my work THERE would be...nicer? perhaps? than trucking off to my office five or six days a week)

- Or Heidi's life up on the mountain with the "Alp Uncle" and chasing after goats with Peter

- The animal world that Beatrix Potter wrote about: to be someone like Mrs. Tiggywinkle, with my own little job and my own nice burrow and a fairly SIMPLE life compared to the one I lead.

- Or a world like the world of Wind in the Willows. Again, rather simple, somewhat rural, talking animals, low-tech lives, seems like most inhabitants have more free time for messing about in boats and the like. 

- My Little Pony AU, especially the slice-of-life sort of episodes. Where you're just a pegasus or something walking around Ponyville, leading your life. That world seemed simpler and nicer (less racism, for example: oh, some of the unicorns were probably stuck up, but ponies of all colors seemed to get along well)

- Hogwarts, though more the very earliest books when it was more worldbuilding/simple fun and less when it was "we must defeat Wizard Hitler"

- Similarly, Narnia, but in the  pre-Last Battle era, at a time when things were relatively peaceful. To be a Talking Animal or something like a dryad would be different and nice.

- Or the Shire, again in peaceful times. Some kind of artisan-hobbit, with my own little house and a career making things, where I had enough for food and clothing and books but didn't need a whole lot more. And again, probably more close-by friends to hang out with.

- DuckTales AU, especially if I could be Webby. Adventure, but never more (apparently) than mild peril, close friends, a big house to run around in...

- Even Bob's Burgers AU, provided I got to be Louise. Maybe not for long, because that universe seems not really any nicer than ours, but it would be a relief to have different problems and concerns for a while.

And I don't know. Yes, I know, I am thinking again of Louise Dickinson Rich's "We Took to the Woods" and her comment about discontent and longing:


"It amounts to this. "Is it worth-while to live like this?" is a question I never ask myself under fair conditions. I ask it only when exasperation or discomfort or exhaustion pre-determine No as an answer...Happy people aren't given to soul-searching, I find. Revolt and reform, whether private or general, are always bred in misery and discontent..."

And yes, that's true. But there has been enough that discontents me about what's happened in my life of late that I do daydream about  a simpler, less technologial, rural life. Oh, I'd probably not like it any better than this one, and I'd get worried about being able to raise or hunt or fish enough food for myself, and I'd hate having to be cold all winter long (if I had to rely on wood heat in a Northern climate). But when you're feeling discontented with the world, it is very easy to imagine many places better than the one you currently occupy.

No comments: