Bad Times
March 2, 2009
Today is a beautiful, mild day in Fort Collins; the kind of day that might make you happy to be alive. I hope ‘Bekah is cheered up a bit by this delicious weather, but I’m afraid she’ll find the horizon cluttered with storm clouds regardless. It looks like her parents’ marriage is ending: papers have been filed.
Once again, I am on the edge of a situation here that is complex, fragile, and woven entirely from that elusive stuff which spins out like spider silk from each point of contact in a long, intimate relationship – in this case one that began before I was born. I am hardly qualified to comment, but feel that I must offer some means of access for the people who read this blog to find out what is going on in my life (as opposed to those of you who read it for clues to the location of my secret cache of Nazi war gold).
So, to sum up, Merlyn and Phoebe haven’t been happy together for quite some time. I’ll spare you my amateur psychology, but I’m convinced that Phoebe is incapable of being happy anymore, and when she’s unhappy she swings through the lives of those close to her like a wrecking ball.
I find it helpful to think of the whole thing as an amputation. Even though cold reason tells you that your Phoebe is gangrenous, you can’t help but feel that it is knit to you, part of you, and that your symmetry and wholeness will be inextricably marred by its removal. But it is necessary. Also, there will be terrible pain involved in the operation, and probably some blood, and you won’t ever function as well, as naturally, as you did before. But it is necessary. Still, the sheer irrevocability of it gives you pause. It is hard to imagine anything but death that could motivate someone to undergo such a self-mutilation, which I suppose gives you an idea of what Phoebe has been like lately. Ultimately, I think Merlyn would have refused the operation and damn the consequences, much like a certain other cowboy, if the stakes hadn’t been raised to the point where they threatened ‘Bekah and Abbitha.
