I had two moments, over the weekend, when I felt like I was perfectly accomplishing my job - whatever that means. But I often don't get much out of praise, and these were kind of rare moments when I felt proud and good, and I wanted to write them down observationally, as data points.
The first was with my grandmother. Last month, one of the first communications we got at our seance last month was from Great-Grandmother Annabelle, which isn't surprising considering that she's the strongest psychic we've had in the family, our minister and medium. She said that she was speaking for all the grandmothers when she told us to BE KIND, and said that white feathers would be her manifestation for us. After that I started wearing the sets of feather earrings that I'd accumulated, liking the aesthetic, but not worn out of vague antihipsterism and worried feelings about native appropriation (a concern that my father's family decidedly does not share; they're respectful and educated, but they still fetishize native culture & objects in a way that makes me uncomfortable). I've got a set of actual feathers with coppery bits, and a set of cheap pressed silver ones that are sort of awesomely long and dramatic, and when I went to visit grandmother on my way out of town I was wearing the silver ones. Not only did she notice them right off and ask me about them, she kept delightedly returning to the subject throughout my visit. She was pleased as pie when I told her I'd been wearing real feathers more often; she said that great-grandmother would like to see it, too.
The second affirmation I got indirectly through mama, but it comes from dad. I'd gone up even though I was pretty worn out Friday to support him; he's in a burn-it-all-down temper, frustrated by grandmother being a doofy brat about things of late, but at the same time he loves his people, heart despite will. Talking to mama on the phone, said that I hoped my presence had given him more ability to go & take breaks when he'd needed to - he split out pretty early Sunday afternoon, five or so hours before he'd meant to, I think it all got to be too much. & mama said that I'd helped more than that, that he'd said to her that it was a balm to him to watch my interest and delight in the weird old stuff that his life had been made of, that I was far enough distant from it that I didn't have to be insistently aware of how miserable and screwed-up parts of that hippie bohemian scene had actually been & so could remind him of how authentically excellent other parts were.
(They really were wild, those people. The more I go poking around in their history the more - amazed? - I am. Amazed that any of the kids survived to adulthood, lol, and that they didn't all burn their brains out with hallucinogens, spirit channelling, and Brechtianism. Not that some of them didn't; I turned up a story this time around about the girl who slid into schizophrenia via a ouija board - occasioned by us finding the board that grandfather used to use to predict the Kentucky Derby - and a passel of intensely manic and nonlinear letters sent by another schizophrenic acquaintance. Daddy would say that his mother was ones of the ones lost to booze tho she's living yet; I've been starting to see that for him his family fell apart & ended a long time ago, around when they moved to that grand old house, when the second round of kids was born and they partying started to get hardcore. He told me over the phone last week that he wished I could have met his mama back before that, the way she used to be. I think he's been missing that lost mother for kind of a long time. Would explain his impatience and sometime-animosity toward her now; I think her existential laziness at present both drives him up a wall and breaks his heart.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}