ribbons of rain

“The Mad Mother cannot talk with her daughters on a feeling level. She dominates her daughters through her particular form of behavior, whether she is an Ice Queen with frozen feelings, a Dragon Lady with so much emotion that genuine feelings and their nuances are burnt up in her volcanic explosions, a Sick Mother who controls everyone around her with the threat of her frailty, or a Saint Mother who, needing to be “good,” maintains a superficial and martyred personality, expecting her children to follow suit. A daughter’s emotions and psychology are subjugated by the Mad Mother, and she needs to learn to separate from the Mad Mother’s enforced behaviors in order to recognize her own feelings and inner self. Otherwise, she may repeat her mother’s patterns.”

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence…”

Ugly girls are only seen by other ugly girls. Here they are, dragging their heavy luggage up a flight of stairs as a sea of men pass by, without even thinking to stop and help. Here they are, sitting in bars trying to hide their despair behind their book. Their ugliness can be an objective beauty, flashing eyes and strong noses and swanny necks. But if it’s not subjective, if the desired gender doesn’t respond, if the parents don’t respond to it, if it’s complicated and grown-into, if it doesn’t attract, then it settles on the girl like ugliness. Christine Chubbuck was striking. But I can’t tell if I can see that only because I’m a fellow ugly girl, of the long untouched variety, the men will call me their kindred souls and then marry someone prettier and softer variety. Because in her posture and manner is the weight of the undesired.