M.J. Payne's Blog
October 21, 2015
Coat Hanger Abortions, Canary Diamonds
COAT HANGER ABORTIONS AND CANARY DIAMONDS
I can never get comfortable with the issue of abortion. Part of me screams it is genocide. Silent genocide with so many babies aborted and some at such late term. Then I remember that my own great grandmother aborted her fourth child because her husband was out of work and they were barely making it. He had been working despite a strike in force by the workers on his job and suffered much abuse for doing that. But he had mouths to feed. She did it with the old coat hanger. She was also the type of woman who suffered broken ribs in a fall, then got up and went to get her husband from work. She had a bunch of canary colored diamonds and had to pawn them. The diamonds are gone and so is the baby. I often wonder how different my life would have been if that child had been born. But I also understand her desperation.
I can never get comfortable with the issue of abortion. Part of me screams it is genocide. Silent genocide with so many babies aborted and some at such late term. Then I remember that my own great grandmother aborted her fourth child because her husband was out of work and they were barely making it. He had been working despite a strike in force by the workers on his job and suffered much abuse for doing that. But he had mouths to feed. She did it with the old coat hanger. She was also the type of woman who suffered broken ribs in a fall, then got up and went to get her husband from work. She had a bunch of canary colored diamonds and had to pawn them. The diamonds are gone and so is the baby. I often wonder how different my life would have been if that child had been born. But I also understand her desperation.
Net of Red Strings
I once drew a picture of a woman in red. She was a ballerina on pointe. Her body was criss crossed with a web of red strings that bound her entirely. She did not really need the strings because she was all tied up inside. The external red twines were a reflection of her inner world and the red lines bound as if her very sinus and veins were a filament of bonds and limitations as indeed they were. The red thread showed what was under her skin.
Pressure and restraint change the structure of things. Think braces that hold broken arms and surgically fused bones together while they heal. Even schedules structure discipline into lives Life is filled with laws, limitations, .and restraints of various types of activities that could impinge on the rights of others.
The Universe itself functions within the laws of physics. The body can live only within a certain range of temperatures, blood pressures, amounts of food, air, etc. Animals do not mate across species and if they do it is considered bestiality or a quirk and there is no offspring. The sun rises and sets predictably and the moon goes smoothly through phases we anticipate.
If we do not remain within the boundaries of rules in our social behavior we suffer. Love itself is the ultimate restriction. We are imprisoned by our affection and further obligated by the need to provide for the product of that, our children. Self-control, and failing that, external control, is a rope that runs through life. Perhaps we all wear a net of red string in some form.
Dress of Red String
Pressure and restraint change the structure of things. Think braces that hold broken arms and surgically fused bones together while they heal. Even schedules structure discipline into lives Life is filled with laws, limitations, .and restraints of various types of activities that could impinge on the rights of others.
The Universe itself functions within the laws of physics. The body can live only within a certain range of temperatures, blood pressures, amounts of food, air, etc. Animals do not mate across species and if they do it is considered bestiality or a quirk and there is no offspring. The sun rises and sets predictably and the moon goes smoothly through phases we anticipate.
If we do not remain within the boundaries of rules in our social behavior we suffer. Love itself is the ultimate restriction. We are imprisoned by our affection and further obligated by the need to provide for the product of that, our children. Self-control, and failing that, external control, is a rope that runs through life. Perhaps we all wear a net of red string in some form.
Dress of Red String
