Stalwart Thwart

I hate being thwarted.

I take it as a personal affront.

And I attempt to respond accordingly.

I am a bulldozer by nature. And by culture. Being Penna Dutch can be downright inconvenient at times; we grew up feeling like a minority, but are of northern white Eurpean extraction. Normal passing, till we open our mouths, and watch the floodgates of racism open up and try to drown you with “jokes” about your own life. Maddening.

It's a delicate balance. On one hand, my culture was almost wiped out by institutional learning. My grandmother was beaten for speaking Penna Dutch in the schoolroom. My mom can speak and understand the language, but Dad can only understand it. Me? My grandparents used to use it as a secret language for the things the littles shouldn't hear, but I was picking it up anyway. Then the moron “I've got more money than thou” local Caddy driver ran me over, and all my languages got locked away behind a wall of injury.

So the language dies between my parents' and my generation. And with the loss of communication of ideas, what will follow?

What else will we lose?

I don't mention this to start a Woes Is Me party. I mention this to say to others, who may be in my same position: when it comes to decisions of culture, think very, very, VERY carefully about what to keep and what to discard. Those decisions will affect the next generations, and in this brave new world of global communication, things that don't adjust and adapt can easily be discarded – including yourself, for good or bad reasons. Make sure you have good reasons for making your choices, and can communicate those reasons to anyone who asks.

I wish my culture had kept the language, and discarded the racism and misogyny...

Why does all this introspection come up today?

Because I was Thwarted, with a capital T, and I'm quite annoyed about it.

“Enraged” is closer. “Livid,” as well. Bleeping furious.

I'm a bulldozer type person. If you've got smarts, but also happen to be born with mammary glands, you turn into one. At least in my culture. In some generations, it was survival of the orneriest.

Small wonder my family only breeds three types of women: the goats, the cows, and the dogs.

I'm a dog. I want to be loyal, but if you abuse my generosity, I'm gone. Mom is one too. But my grandmother was a cow, and I don't mean that in a bad sense. She just wanted the world to love her, and eat her food. She loved you with food. Most of her sad stories from childhood were of food deprivation, and it showed. The more she liked you, the more she fed you.

Remnants of those poor times are still embedded in our culture today. If we like you, we feed you. If we don't... well, depends on the situation. You may get less, or be asked to bring your own (Music Man vibes, anyone?), or fed but not sent home with leftovers. Or, we'll feed you all the good, rich, fatty, choice parts, in a literal Kill You With Kindness situation. Aw, did the nasty person have a heart attack? Hunh, who would have thought?

Nothing like weaponizing microaggressions, the dark side of some cultures. Want a t-shirt? I quilted it myself.

Right, where was I? Cows. Nothing wrong with being a cow in our culture, those are the nurturers. But the goats? Usually the dogs that got broken by the nastiness that a family can dish out. Or cows that were embittered by the nastiness that life can fling at you. And some were born that way, just oozing their vitriol onto anything that had the temerity to be happy. Looking right at you, great-grandmother on mom's dad's side. You may not have caused your husband's last ailment, but you certainly hastened his demise. (She lived by the mantra “If you don't work, you don't eat.” So when great-grandfather took to bed, saying he hurt too much to work the fields, she fed him a slice of milk bread a day. That's the amount of milk one slice of bread can soak up, a proper food if you have a cold that you'll recover from. But he couldn't get his strength back, and wasted away under her “tender minstrations.” When it was her turn, my grandparents took her in, and treated her like a human being. How did she repay them? Wailing every single day, all day long, about how useless she was, and she should just die and get it over with, before they kicked her out into the cold. They didn't, but they had to put up with the wailing. The cows in our family would put up with that nonsense. The dogs? Well, I'd've fed her, but perhaps only milk bread. And I certainly would have employed rather large amounts of duct tape to muffle the wailing. Luckily this is just a thought exercise, and that miserable woman was gone long before I came into the picture.)

Growing up with these family stories, perhaps it was inevitable that I would get double doses of ornery and stubborn-headedness.

So when I encounter obstacles, I tend to blow through them. I respect the “no,” don't get me wrong. But if, say, my husband loses track of time and we're late for something, you'd better believe I get sharp-tongued about getting his butt in gear before we hit critical leaving times. Or, perhaps, like the times I came up with a creative solution to science experiments. Someday I'll tell those stories.

All of them started with Thwarting. The process being incorrect, someone being a witting or unwitting obstacle, pewter casting at the wrong time of day and not accounting for the effect of temperature or pressure or humidity on a project that's due at, oh, eight AM the next morning.

Some days, I know it's for my own good.

Like the day my hubby and I were supposed to go to a Ren faire one state over. There was travel involved, but if we left at a particular time, we'd get there right before opening. No problem, right? Well, besides the beltway around our glorious Capitol (Ack! Pbbbt!). We're up gawd awful early, into garb, hustle dawdling hubby out the door (“But, but, I have to set up my drinks for the day, even though I know you told me to do them last night, I figured you'd let me do them at very last minute like you always do what do you mean you're not putting up with that crap any more but my driiiiinks!), all the stuff we need for the road in the car (minus a few drinks because I did mention I'm not putting up with that crap), back up into the alley...

I slam on the brakes.

Hubby plasters against the window, squawking. No, dear, this was not revenge.

I back up.

There's a bunny in the middle of the alleyway. A baby bunny.

And the little thing ain't moving.

Hunh. Unusual in this area, there are plenty of predators that would dearly love to take advantage of this situation. Luckily for this cute bun-bun, I just ate, and hasenpfeffer, while delicious, isn't on my menu today.

We stare. He stares.

I put the car in park.

More staring.

I turn off the car.

Now, this is the weird dilemma of Thwarting: sometimes it's for your own benefit. There are days when I am in the middle of a thumping good Thwarting, and I know sure as sunshine, that I needed to be delayed. I don't know why, just that I do.

Grumph. At least I don't have to like it, or take it with good grace. That's two bridges too far over alligator-infested rivers. I also have a bad tendency to get over-effluvient with my metaphors. Sarcastic side effect of a thumping Thwarting. Darn good pun, though, did you catch it?

Anyways.

So, we sat.

It only took a minute, maybe forty-five seconds, when the feeling of vague danger passed. I asked my hubby to gently shoo the bun-bun off the driveway, so we could get on the road. And it still took hubs some time, because that little bun did not want to give up the road. Finally, when a booted foot shuffle-landed about eight inches away from bun rump, he took off in a bounding zig-zag.

We got on the road.

Now, usually, when Thwartings like this happen, you never know exactly why you were Thwarted. The universe swirls on, and the oblivion does not care one whit whether or not you find out possible consequences.

Except, when we crossed the border into Maryland, we learned real fast.

Those of you familiar with the area will recall the gentle bumps in the road. You can't see over the bumps, but if you stay at the speed limit, you're fine.

Of course, I'm not the only one who feels rushed, right? And this leads to acceleration of tons of metal and dinosaur bits and the organics strapped into such conveyances.

We topped one of the rises, and I started pumping the brakes and swerving.

Sixteen cars, give or take. All over the southbound roads, into the verge, one even facing the very wrong direction in the northbound lanes. Bits and pieces of cars all over, but no longer spinning and moving. The dust hadn't even settled, some were still sitting shocked in their cars, people were just getting out and assessing and calling for assistance.

Estimated time of the beginning of the chain reaction?

About a minute.

So even this dog can learn. When I hit obstacles, I push. Some move, some move with resistance. Some take a bit of time, and need the creative application of social dynamite.

But sometimes the universe says NO, and ya'd better well bleeping listen.

I had one of those two months ago. A bunch of medium-sized obstacles, but I was coming up with solutions... till two more obstacles came thumping down, and I listened. Grumph.

Today, the obstacles were bleeping huge, bleeping immutable, and formed an impenetrable wall of JUST NO. I'm glad none of you, gentle readers, were nearby, because the cursing I did has left blue streaks hovering in midair. I may pluck them down later and turn them into a set of wind chimes or something. And I had to keep my volume down, because I have monarch caterpillars two rooms away, and they don't need to learn such nasty language from me.

So. Ffffffffine. I have adjusted my plans, and cancelled a few things, and will sulk until this problem is solved. We started the process of fixing it, but now we wait. Blaugh.

But again, I can feel the universe Thwarting me, for my own good.

I hate it. But, whatever, fffffffffine.

Hubby and I can wring some good out of this. (makes strangling motions with hands to make sure it's wrung out good and proper-like)

I know this is where some religions would like to insert themselves and make it all sunshine and roses. I happen to have a deep faith, but I can tell you that this isn't about “letting go and letting God” or whatever trite phrase other religions collect over time. This is about “Well, this is crappy, own the part that put you in this position, feel your feels, and since you can't fix it on your time frame, make the adjustments to another time frame. It'll work out, just not on your schedule. It'll work out, it's just a harder route.”

And accepting it or not.

Grumph. But I had Planz! I even slapped a trademark on them! Planz(tm)!

It's hard not to take these things more than a little bit personally.

Even when I accepted the NOPE, and we started working on a fix the slow way, there were still obstacles. Lesser ones, but quite obvious in their obnoxious obstacle-ness. Those, at least, we could work around. Slowly.

So now, I wait. Impatiently.

Grumph.

And type up my lesson learned, so that others can gain wisdom from my griping.

Or schadenfreude. Whatever lesson sticks, I guess.

I'll take my sulk to bed. Tomorrow's another day, with hopefully less Thwarting.