Chaos Theory, Part 1: The Entropy of Black & Blue (Dishes)
by motherblue212
Energy of the universe is constant. Entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. —Rudolf Clausius, German physicist, mathematician and one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics
photo by Kim Rullo
ENTROPY: a measure of disorder in the universe or of the availability of the energy in a system to do work. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
_________
I broke a dish…Well, actually, I didn’t… Really, I just opened the cupboard and the dishes came pouring out.
A loud cacophony of crashes ensued. Angrily, I looked downward and screamed inarticulately at the floor. Another direct result of my poor household organizational skills and my often disheveled nature, I thought. In that moment, I had no idea why this freak event brought me to that depressive, narcissistic anti-me sentiment, but there it was, unexpected and disruptive, like the mess laid out before me. A feeling of my mother washed over me as I stared at the broken ceramic shards. She was organized. I am not. She was neat. I am not.
As unkempt as some aspects of my mother’s life had been, everything on the surface always had its place.“What the hell?!” were all the words my thoughts could muster. Whomever said motherhood and domestication was a natural, genetically inherited trait was seriously misinformed. Fort maker — yes! Lightsaber battler — bring it on! Dish stacker — thumbs down.
My thoughts drifted to a friend whose mother had just died. We had spoke of our weird shared experiences that weren’t really shared but weren’t mutually exclusive either. Our different mothers wading in this underlying current of “mutual-ness”: mutual sentiment; mutual sadness; mutual self discovery; mutual regret. Regret is such a terrible thing.
photo by Kim Rullo
Crack! I stepped on one of the shards. My misstep didn’t really hurt, it just brought me back to the floor. It reminded me of the mess that was still there. Kneeling to the ground, I haphazardly started to pick up the taunting ceramic remains.
I got down low, laying my body close to the broken pieces.
I chuckled to myself and began to think, Isn’t this all so very cliché? So cute? So apropos? The words “a beautiful lie” came to mind. I wasn’t sure what the lie was: my perceptions of my mother or my perceptions of myself. Even the random patterns on the floor were deceiving me in their own way. Strong and thick, yet jagged and broken. A few large segments with miniscule bits behind them, surrounding them. Food particles from last night’s dinner added to the debris that was adorning my less than pristine kitchen floor. They looked like mother, or at least mothers as I intimately knew them. I captured it with my camera. After half my life without her, it was what was left. Not really sad, just different, distant, objectified. Her’s and mine.
Debris and strength.
I began focusing on chaos. I began to miss her.
photo by Kim Rullo
continued next week: Chaos Theory, Part 2: Fumbling Towards Extropy
_________
THE ORIGINS OF MOTHER BLUE:
This post was written this past winter shortly after I heard news of the death of a friend’s mother. My crashing dishes and our multiple conversations inspired this true event and in turn this event prompted me to begin writing this blog. It is the beginnings of my entropy and my journey towards extropy.
The photos in this series are called “Black & Blue Mothers (Dishes).”
Mother Blue 
It’s true – you’ve captured the struggle of: who was this person and why did i think she was this way? or rather: why do i think i am that way? i have dreams where i am with my mother and i think i really know her, and i wake up and i’m still confused, still getting to know her. now her papers, my memories – that’s what i have left. a really striking series, i love it.
Thanks, Lisa. And you are absolutely correct. I have discovered that during my childhood I had this perception of my parents, my family, my loved ones in one way, then as an adult with adult perspective I see them in a totally different way. But with my parents being gone for virtually all of my adult life and my immediate family gradually and rapidly downsizing over the years, my research has unfortunately (or fortunately) had to be more speculative, more emotional, more psychological and less based on others perceptions or paperwork. I realize as much as my parents never knew or will know me as an adult, I too, have only a one dimensional perception of who they are and still wading through cryptic clues left behind.
so true – so, so true, that one-dimensional perception of why they are. were. it’s like th story ends and we have to go back through the pages, tracing how it got to that end. a search, i feel, i’ll be on for a long, long time.