Yesterday I deleted a blog post for the first time. And, arguably, it might be wise to desist now. But, you know, I don’t understand things if I don’t look at them. Write their pieces. She didn’t ask me to delete the blog. In fact, she told me I had every right to post it. But a yellow light is not a green light.
And when she asked me what my point was, why I felt the need to post it after 5 months of quietly entertaining myself with its absurdity, I said I had every right to laugh at monsters. (Why were we both talking about rights?) Meanwhile, I kept hearing my grandmother’s voice scold, Smart aleck. Laugh at your own monster.
How clever do you have to be, after all, to start trouble?
All day I’ve been thinking about the assembly where my father was seated next to the Post Commander. At some point, the General leaned over and said, “Chaplain, are those little green alligators on your socks?”
“Why, yes, General, they are.”
“That’s not regulation, Chaplain.”
“No sir, it isn’t.”
I read the one you deleted….and I thought, “i don’t get it…I don’t get what she’s trying to say”. I think i get it now….and it really was about the monsters wasn’t it…the ones that tell you things that feel so true and shameful. I think you’re brave Jill Malone.
I think it’s one thing to keep yourself at a remove. To determine, ultimately, that the actions or prejudices of other people aren’t going to get to you. And it’s another to satirize them. To laugh at the dark. It’s not the dark that changes. It’s you.
Thanks, Becca. I like this boundary thing.