I have long been a James M. Cain fan. Given that I love Kate Winslet, too, you can imagine I am looking forward to the HBO adaptation of Mildred Pierce this weekend. Hilton Als in The New Yorker wrote an insightful article about Cain and Mildred Pierce.
I few days I ago, I began to write of my "struggles" with Romanticism. I think Als nailed my affliction and behavior here:
"Mrs. Pierce is the quintessence of American New Deal ingenuity, hard work, and fighting spirit. She is also a romantic, doomed to keep reinventing herself, because, like most romantics, she is repeatedly disappointed in her hopes both for herself and for others..."
The end of the article is also damned great:
"Discussing Mildred Pierce," Cain explained, "This books simply says that perhaps a dream come true may be the worst possible thing that can happen."
I was just on the horn with my dear friend Pammie talking about expectations, particularly our expectations of people. We act in a particular way and EXPECT to be responded to, treated in the way that we treat people. Often those expectations are not met. We respond by getting hurt, angry, and disappointed. It ends up being as predictable as the laundry: wear them, wash them, wear them, wash them ... I think laundry is the true cycle of life.
And we also expect things to be unpleasant or negative, like taking the time to straighten up the kitchen before bed. My expectations were multi-layered there.
I expected to be impatient to get out of the kitchen;
I expected to be annoyed at the amount of time it took to clean up;
I expected to be okay with the messy kitchen in the morning;
I expected that I couldn't change my expectations (or habits).
Turns out I was wrong. I still do start to dash off, but I almost always slow down, stay in the moment (and the kitchen), do some clean up, and change my habit. Now, on the occasions when I don't have most of the room looking spiffy, I am disappointed that I didn't take the time the night before.
Perhaps this is rambling. I didn't expect to write so much tonight. I'll circle back to expectations and romanticism later.
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So funny Sally - I was just finishing the dishes and thinking about why I am such a freak about making sure my kitchen is SPOTLESS before I go to bed. Well, I hate waking up to a bunch of dishes in the sink, but mostly, I can remember my mom saying the very same thing years and years ago. I am still trying to please my mother and she has been deceased for 32 years!!! Is that really what it all boils down to???
ReplyDeleteLoved talking to you!!!!
I don't like waking to a dirty kitchen, so I always do dishes before bed (though my mom didn't, and doesn't). I try hard not to think of the chore until I've actually plunged in doing it, so I avoid expectations of annoyance at the dirty dishes in the sink. I've found that with laundry I can avoid the "wash them, wear them, wash them, wear them" cycle sometimes by hanging them up to air instead of washing. Doesn't always work, but has the possibility of changing the expected cycle (of life?).
ReplyDeleteOMG! Are we all clones of each other? This is amazing. So funny and so true. I have a dishwasher and can't leave a dirty dish in the sink without feeling guilty that it hasn't been transported to the into the washer. So I have to empty the entire dishwasher -- just for that one dish to be placed inside and out of sight. Maybe this is an adaptive gene from our mothers? Mom never left a dish in the sink either -- even when she advanced to the dishwasher later in life.
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