FOR YOUR BENEFIT

hat and feet

A few days ago I was told rather straight forwardly that I don't appreciate what the white middle class suburbanites are bringing to the mountains. What? Country clubs? Big ugly houses? I was told conversationally in one statement with much concern for my benefit. Like I'm missing out on something, not being fair to myself that her agenda is not mine. I oughta, needta, gotta, should. There is so much I'm missing because I don't pay enough attention to the people of the culture I left screaming like Munch's The Scream, finding it a black hole to nowhere. It's like my fundamentalist mother telling me I'm not afraid enough of satan's power. People of the middle class have more money than I have. All the more reason for me to suck up to them. The only thing I could think: I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

old-time fiddle

I've known white suburban middle class people, a lot of them in friendly ways. Some of my best friends are in the white middle class. Cocktail parties at the Club? Is that what I'm missing? Something else I'm missing is everything happening in New York, everything happening in Paris, everything happening in Tokyo, everything happening in Istanbul. I'm actually missing almost everything that is happening on earth. So what if I miss a white middle class cocktail party? So what if I don't meet somebody whose ass I'm expected to kiss? I'd rather watch almost any movie. And I'm not interested in taking orders on how I'm to conform to this and conform to that, talk right, leave off that hillbilly twang in your accent, it sounds dumb, and the meaningless phrases you use. Talk natural. Of course, this was somebody who pays zero attention to mountain working class culture. Eew! They're not politically correct and care so little for appearance.

mountain lake

 

The more that bitchy statement she'd been holding for the right chance to slip it in stays with me, the more irritated I get. What she was telling me is what people in certain circles are saying about me. I was swelling up inside to say something like, You've just told me you're a gossipy uno-what who will jump to other people's biddings to tell somebody what you mistakenly think they need to hear. I assessed her not worth an effort to explain my reasonings or my heart. Or anything. I've known several like her, men too. I'd liked her and found her rather a bright light. I prefer to be around somebody who is not a meddler in other people's business. I'd been wondering about her. She has a sincerity that I have not been able to distinguish real or fake. Yesterday I found it fake. She's not the bright light I gave her credit for. I don't ever have any shit like this with my mountain friends. Maybe because they're my friends and she's not. All she knows about me is the gossip she's heard. By now, I expect she has reported to the gossip fold my absence of interest in what she had to say. She came to tell me about myself and told me without knowing it the gossip she's hearing and where she's hearing it. She wants to fix my outsider status. I couldn't waste time telling her I came to the mountains to get away from people like her and her gossip set, not to go to cocktail parties and wine tastings with them.

big-eyed cat

I suspect the reason I'm so irritated is that I'd thought better of her. I'm disappointed. I am here in the mountains for my own reasons that have nothing to do with her or her gossip set. I don't care about gossip. It's what we humans do. I accept it as that and don't care what they're saying about me, don't want to know, because they are not the reason I'm here. I have my own life, my own reason for being, and don't give the remotest shit for what gossipers are saying about me. I don't want to know. I don't want to be pulled into their gossip drama being told what they're saying. I had a friendly disposition toward her gossip set until yesterday. I won't be unfriendly, but I know now not to be open with any of them, about anything.

charlotte 600

I thank her for putting me through a mind review of the reasons for coming to the mountains and staying in the mountains that I have maintained all along and will go on maintaining. Like writing this blog, the only purpose is to write something every day that might be worth reading. It's purpose is to discipline myself to write something every day. That is my only agenda. As for conforming to the checklist of correctness required to rub elbows with the white middle class, it's not something I think about and don't like it brought to my attention as something I oughta, needta, gotta, better do for my own benefit. Like she knows what my benefit is. I've found along the way that people who are interested in my own good are really interested in their own good. And I thank you, dear reader, for putting up with my rant. It helps throw it out of my mind. It put a little knot in my heart I'll have to untie over the next few days. Maybe I'll listen to a lot of old-time music, the music that opens my heart. A couple days ago I heard on the radio Hazel Dickens singing West Virginia My Home. That song fills me with so much love I want to be in West Virginia. It pulls me through thinking about how much I love these mountains and their people. Tears of joy ran down my cheeks.

vada

 

 

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