Kafka Land, Gaslight, and the Logic-free Land of Children
When I was 20, I spent the summer in Berkeley, learning Greek. My cousin and I sublet an apartment on the border of Berkeley and Oakland. He was learning Chinese. We both studied like demented ants, snarfing our Ramen noodle or cold cereal dinners, while learning flash cards or completing grammar exercises.
The neighborhood we lived in, as I said, was on the border of Berkeley and Oakland. It was part students like us, part long-time Bay Area denizens, and part crazy homeless people. By the end of the summer, we were a little freaked out.
Our sublet was a tiny one-bedroom built in the 40's and remodeled in the 60's. Yum. It also smelled mildew-y in the kitchen. We took everything out of the cupboard under the sink, trying to eliminate whatever it was that was stinking. We looked with a flashlight to see if the pipes were loose and to try to locate a drip.
After a particularly long sojourn struggling with our stinky sink, my cousin marched into the living room, where I was translating Greek sentences and announced, "There's nothing wrong! When you start violating the laws of cause and effect, everything goes to shit! We're living in Kafka Land!"
Have you ever read or seen the play Gaslight? It's about a woman whose husband is slowly driving her crazy, making their gas lamps flicker and denying that he sees the flicker. I can't remember why he's doing it. There's a great film adaptation of the play with Ingrid Bergman as the female lead.
This is what it being a mother feels like to me at the moment. The laws of cause and effect have been suspended, and I'm going slowly mad.
The neighborhood we lived in, as I said, was on the border of Berkeley and Oakland. It was part students like us, part long-time Bay Area denizens, and part crazy homeless people. By the end of the summer, we were a little freaked out.
Our sublet was a tiny one-bedroom built in the 40's and remodeled in the 60's. Yum. It also smelled mildew-y in the kitchen. We took everything out of the cupboard under the sink, trying to eliminate whatever it was that was stinking. We looked with a flashlight to see if the pipes were loose and to try to locate a drip.
After a particularly long sojourn struggling with our stinky sink, my cousin marched into the living room, where I was translating Greek sentences and announced, "There's nothing wrong! When you start violating the laws of cause and effect, everything goes to shit! We're living in Kafka Land!"
Have you ever read or seen the play Gaslight? It's about a woman whose husband is slowly driving her crazy, making their gas lamps flicker and denying that he sees the flicker. I can't remember why he's doing it. There's a great film adaptation of the play with Ingrid Bergman as the female lead.
This is what it being a mother feels like to me at the moment. The laws of cause and effect have been suspended, and I'm going slowly mad.
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