The Pineapple Diet
We bought this air & hotel package to Honolulu months ago, when we thought we'd have money by now, but it's all right to be broke in Honolulu. We eat pineapple. At the $2.99 all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast, the waiter colludes with us--lets the three of us eat from one plate, turns his head as we stuff pancakes into our beach bags.
Later we heat them on the coffee maker in our room.
My bio-dad lived in this city for 20 years--not five blocks from where we're staying. It's sad to be here without him. Maia doesn't remember the time we visited here with her bio-dad when she was a baby. For one strange week, we both had fathers.
All-you-can-eat pancakes and fathers.
Six months ago my father sold his apartment here and moved to southeast Asia. Two months ago Maia's father died and we traveled to England for his funeral. I showed her the squat we'd lived in on All Saint's Road before I got pregnant. We met his family, met her family.
It's been a long season of death and grief and time-warp and disorientation.
I've spent my evenings finishing up the edit on my book, The Traveling Death & Resurrection Show. I wrote it last summer in Italy, before this wave of death in real life began. I wonder now if I was trying to prepare myself, trying to train my soul-brain to remember that death needn't have the last word, that is wasn't such a big deal.
Who knows?
I don't know much about death, but I know the way it makes some fights seem shockingly petty and absurd, and the way it makes other fights seem even more righteously important. And I know the way it doesn't always clarify which one is which.
These last two deaths have had almost nothing in common in terms of the way they've hit me, but they've had one random-weird thing in common: Both have inspired people I hardly know to rip me new assholes about what an insensitive piece of shit I am. By e-mail or phone or long-suffering, hand-written, snail-mail missive. When far-flung people tell you the same thing about yourself, the instinct is to take it pretty seriously. Maybe it's just a part of grief, lashing out at near-strangers' impurities, but I was born under the sign of cancer and I want to be good--not a saint, but not an asshole, either--so I'm trying to listen, trying to understand what it's all about. Not just the rants, but all the death, too.
What's it all about?
Keep in mind that I've just been eating pineapple for a few days, so you might have to explain it really slowly.
Later we heat them on the coffee maker in our room.
My bio-dad lived in this city for 20 years--not five blocks from where we're staying. It's sad to be here without him. Maia doesn't remember the time we visited here with her bio-dad when she was a baby. For one strange week, we both had fathers.
All-you-can-eat pancakes and fathers.
Six months ago my father sold his apartment here and moved to southeast Asia. Two months ago Maia's father died and we traveled to England for his funeral. I showed her the squat we'd lived in on All Saint's Road before I got pregnant. We met his family, met her family.
It's been a long season of death and grief and time-warp and disorientation.
I've spent my evenings finishing up the edit on my book, The Traveling Death & Resurrection Show. I wrote it last summer in Italy, before this wave of death in real life began. I wonder now if I was trying to prepare myself, trying to train my soul-brain to remember that death needn't have the last word, that is wasn't such a big deal.
Who knows?
I don't know much about death, but I know the way it makes some fights seem shockingly petty and absurd, and the way it makes other fights seem even more righteously important. And I know the way it doesn't always clarify which one is which.
These last two deaths have had almost nothing in common in terms of the way they've hit me, but they've had one random-weird thing in common: Both have inspired people I hardly know to rip me new assholes about what an insensitive piece of shit I am. By e-mail or phone or long-suffering, hand-written, snail-mail missive. When far-flung people tell you the same thing about yourself, the instinct is to take it pretty seriously. Maybe it's just a part of grief, lashing out at near-strangers' impurities, but I was born under the sign of cancer and I want to be good--not a saint, but not an asshole, either--so I'm trying to listen, trying to understand what it's all about. Not just the rants, but all the death, too.
What's it all about?
Keep in mind that I've just been eating pineapple for a few days, so you might have to explain it really slowly.
posted by Contact... at 10:15 PM
5 Comments:
"insensitive peice of shit?"
Of all the things you may be, insensitive peice of shit is not one of them.
I hope you are not really taking them seriously.
You were sensitive enough to try to make unconventional mothers feel a little better about themselves.
Sensitive enough to be an activist and a revolutionary.
You have made quite a difference for many of us.
Wow. That really sucks that people have felt motivated to rip you new ones in the wake of recent deaths. I just heard the other day someone say something about how funerals can bring out the worst in people. I guess there's some truth to that.
Death is a tricky one. Maybe it's because the one who is the most directly affected by death is the one who dies, but the ones who are most deeply affected are us stragglers left behind. This reality is perhaps why sometimes grievers get pissed off at the dead person for getting off easy. (You're dead. It's over for you, no more worrying, no more suffering. Whatever comes next, your're there, but I'm still here and it hurts and I'm scared and I miss you and I don't know how to go on without you here.)
All this makes it easier somehow to lash out at each other, because in the face of death, our lives, our powers seem futile. I can see how this might make people freak out and blame one another. (Although personally, I think we might be better off if we used death as an opportunity to resolve some things without ripping anyone any new orifaces. I know this is too much to ask of everyone at all times, but a girl can dream.)
I have no idea what you did to make someone (more than one!!) infer that you are insensitive. Probably should chalk that up to all of the above. My thought is, how fucking insensitive can you really be to someone you don't really know? But how much offense can a person take to another person when no genuine commitment, no deep feelings, exist between them. Who cares if an acquaintance is insensitive to me? I care a lot more if my husband is, because he knows me. A slight from him feels much more calculated.
Sure, if you spouted hate and crap in your work, maybe people would be justified saying, "that Ariel is a really hateful, offensive bitch. What a jerk, I'm writing a letter."
But you aren't like that.
I think you became a convenient outlet for someone else's pain over unresolved feelings. Death can really fuck people up that way. For those of us left behind by death, it feels pretty permanent. If you forgot to tell your sister you love her the last time you saw her, you pretty much lost your chance to do it face to face in this lifetime. Part of dealing with death is finding a way to be okay with that and looking for new ways to remind yourself (and your sister, wherever she is) that you love her now just like you did when she was alive.
Someone is pissed off, hurt, frightened and reaching out for anything to blame it all on because without someone to blame, none of it makes any sense. Someone needs to figure out that it's never going to make any sense, but life goes on anyway.
Try not to make too much of this in your own mind. With the recent events, the trip to HI, and the book, you are definitely riding a wave of synchronicity. That's cool. Enjoy it. Don't get caught up with someone else's baggage while you're on your own trip.
You are not insensitive. You are not a piece of shit. You have no idea how much you have done for people who hardly know you. Just this last week, I was wishing I actually knew you so I could e-mail you and vent about my financial instability because I just knew that YOU would understand and make me feel better and less worried about the future. How weird is that? You have responded to a couple of my e-mail questions and I subscribe (though I'm probably expired) to your zine, but we really don't know each other at all. And yet, having read your books and articles, I feel like I know you and like you are someone we all can count on. NOT many people inspire that in strangers! Only very insensitive, insightful, NICE people can!
Also, I am so sorry about Maia's dad. I didn't know. Even though he'd not been a good presence in your life, I know that must have been hard and strange. Take care.
I am in shock that someone whould call you insensitive, of all things in the world! I can only "here!here!" the previous comments on this topic (including condolences). Ariel, your words and actions have been so very valuable for me for a long time. I appreciate you!
Nice site. We are in Hawaii right now eating pinapple. I did a search on pinapple and somehow your site popped up.
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