Judy A my wonderful friend took me out yesterday. We went first to the library book sale an effort to raise a little cash before the books are trashed then she took me out for Thai food in El Sobrante. the restaurant is California Thai and has I think perhaps 8 tables including booths. the food is simple and elegant and we shared a dessert of bananas fried in a rice flour mix tempura style and coconut ice cream with honey swirled over-heaven. We talked and talked about our children, politics, California, people we know in common from work. Judy is 76 now and looks better than ever her skin is pink and soft and she loves this part of life almost as if she were born to be an old woman. I know exactly what she means every year older I feel better I love being free of other people's opinions I can still be hurt by harsh judgements but I can just walk away now and return to myself.
That returning to myself is what i did through the reading of the Jung biography by Bearn. I had never been conscious of the wealth he inherited by marrying Emma and how completely he was protected he was from consequences in the material world. I grew up and let go-not for me that type of extreme self-centeredness. I am a working woman lower middle class i have obligations he never had and I would never try to convince Steve to accept another man in my life. I continue to admire him but his was of life is not mine.
Kimn never wrote back so I do accept now that she chooses to be estranged. Sad for me but there it is. She blessed me in passing by saying that she admires me for how far I came in life from welfare mother to matriarch but she won't share any of her life and I must accept that.
I must say that I don't share the prejudice against welfare. We are so much better off supporting those who can't support themselves and their children having free education as far as ones talent and skills can go. The hatefulness and evil roaming the streets of Berkeley, oakland, San Francisco the cities I know comes from ignorance, frustration and plain old hunger and unemployment, I find it staggering that we pay freely for weapons but not for welfare. What does that say about us? people don't want to see that and they just say that we live in a dangerous world never realizing that we amde the world dangerous.