Page 30 - WTP Vol. IX #2

Oprah Will Die (continued from preceding page)
can only be described as merry. Your dear Aunt Patsy will die. And then what? Your Aunt Patsy, the sanest member sitting at the table, the Aunt who always ignores tense situations and sagely remains quiet
or tells just the right amusing story—about meeting really the nicest man from of all places County Kerry in the parking lot of Sears who it turns out is related to great cousin Margaret—with such delight that everyone forgets, at least for the moment, exactly what well deserved old ax they were grinding. Your sister, for instance, who last Thanksgiving refused to help set the table on the grounds that you are always manipulating her into doing things for you. You were indeed guilty of this when you were 11, and she was eight and you got her to go on the death coaster three times despite her protests, screams and even tears. You quite sincerely told her that you would not love her anymore unless she accompanied you on the death coaster. But that was 20 odd years ago, and your sister, you think, needs to let go of it already. Unfortunately, the idea that your sister too will die intrudes on your self-righteousness. But find that your mind begins to engage in a strange calculus: Guestimate the time of all the potential deaths at the table and conclude that your sister’s, given her age and attachment to Tai-Bo exercise videos, seems one of the least likely. Decide to take the deaths one at a time, focusing again for now on the most likely next candidate: Aunt Patsy. She edges out your Uncle Pete because she’s had diabetes and heart trouble for at least 10 more years than him.
Your baby cousin Patrick, who has his father’s star- tlingly light blond hair, asks you to pass the stuffing. He smiles at you and laughs. And for a moment, Thanksgiving is just about food and family again, instead of impending death. But only for a moment. Your mind quickly returns to its morbid watch. Your Aunt Patsy will die. Aunt Patsy who puts even your father on his best behavior, making him talk about the movie Toy Story rather than focusing on your lack of employment, or worse in his book, your
lack of ambition. A long-time, unspoken accusation made ever clearer to you on your 35th birthday just weeks ago when, without the presence of Aunt Patsy or other mercifully distracting extended fam- ily members, your father gave you a book written, he explained, by a prominent psychologist and called Think Big.
You were left speechless by his gift, and then indig- nant, yelling, “That’s insulting.”
“No, it’s not,” your father said. “I heard him speak. He was interesting. I thought you’d find him interesting.
Don’t be stubborn now and miss out on important advice.”
To which you could only reply, “It’s insulting.” Your inability to speak, making you feel like a sputtering engine: full of energy but unable to fully function.
Now wonder if you were stubborn, if you should read the book. But really, in the end, believe that you have indeed thought big, perhaps, too big, been too ambi- tious, thinking you could switch from career path
to career path with ease until you found the perfect fit—not truly understanding that time really does pass so very quickly.
So yes, it’s true you joined the Peace Corps in hopes of becoming an international aide worker but only stayed a month. And yes, while taking time off from the career grind, you were a white- water rafting guide or well, really the assistant to the white-water rafting guides because the roll- ing rapids made you nauseous even then. And yes, you have done a lot of camp counseling, and there have been stretches of temping and waitressing. But now you are in your third semester of gradu- ate school in urban planning, which is longer than the last time you went to graduate school at 29 for education and failed out, but you didn’t want to teach anyway so it was really, as your inner arm- chair psychologist says, your subconscious that failed. Or the time before that for archaeology but you were only 23 then and confused, well more confused than you are now.
Remind yourself that this time you are doing the right thing, especially with the internship. Saving the land and trees calls out to you in a way that nothing you have tried before does.
You have thought ‘big,’ many a time, and the book was insulting. Look down the table at your father, a big burly man who even in the year 2006 at a holiday dinner wears a white undershirt under his formal blue shirt and tie and who is putting a generous amount of salt on almost everything on his plate.
You love this man who does not understand you,
and he will die. Then you will wish more than any- thing that he were alive to give you a Think Big book. This happened with Linnea; you couldn’t stand her unsolicited advice on your hair, (Elizabeth, she’d say, you wear make-up and that isn’t at all natural so why not dye your hair blond? With those blue-eyes, you’d be stunning—not that you aren’t very attractive but ...) and the men in your life (you take them way too seriously, she said, you need to think of them more
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