Penelope’s Joy Andrea

Wagner

I used to think that Penelope must’ve been pissed that she had to constantly undo her burial shroud since Odysseus was taking his sweet time out at sea. Sure, it’s brilliant—she manages to keep, mildly put, angry suitors at bay, but at what cost?

Incessant undoing with no end.

Would there be an end? How could she know? This might be her new life, her new eternity. Weaving, weaving, then unweaving. Knowing, numbly, that the weaving goes nowhere.

It’s become a recent tradition each Christmas for me to have the bright idea of taking up crochet. It sounds romantic, and it’d be good for my hands to do something rhythmic. The Platonic Ideal comes to mind: the hat, the scarf, the acrylic/wool sweater. Tantalized, I get to work.

And shortly it unravels, or more appropriately, gets stood up in favor of something else, only to be remembered vaguely for the next year. So goes the cycle.

Until a few weeks ago, when I did something heartbreaking. Bravely, I took the strand from the latest brown yarn semi-circle-meant-to-besquare. I yanked.

Pop. Pop. Popopopopopopop.

Layers and layers: removed. Hours of time: erased.

I was so scared. I thought it would hurt me. I thought of Penelope, her bitter resentment, undoing, undoing, undoing.

But Penelope, I think I’ve found your joy.

What, monotony? No, multiplicities.

I can do so many things, break them, and do so many more. The shroud forms, rips, and new realities take place.

Penelope, I’m sorry for what they did to you. Your anguish haunts my fingertips.

Oh but Penelope, Isn’t it wonderful?

Gillian Wegener

But not a nurse and not a secretary and not a teacher (conditional). That was women’s work. So what else? My dad said I could join the Navy. “They have uniforms for pregnant sailors.” My mom didn’t say anything (ellipses), but then again, she was a secretary. My dad said, “Learn to program this computer.” So I followed the directions—early binary code, 0’s and 1’s delineating boredom—and a tiny spaceship flew across the gray screen. My mom said, “Can you make dinner tonight?” And I did and no one liked it. My parents thought, with all the advice, that they were being helpful, but my dad said, washing his hands of it, “Well, you’ll marry an English teacher and live in Bend, Oregon.” My mom said, washing her hands of it, “You’ll figure it out.” I wanted a fortune teller to read my palm or my tea leaves or her crystal ball, but no fortune teller was listed in the PennySaver. I tried to figure it out. I candy striped. . . okay, not a nurse. I file-clerked. . . okay, not a secretary. I said, “I’ll become an English teacher” and my parents shook their heads. The wrong choice was made (passive voice). I made the wrong choice (active voice). “She’ll never make it. She won’t last five years,” they said after waving goodbye (situational irony that I didn’t know about until much later). “She can’t. She won’t,” and so on (hyperbole, but not really). I didn’t know about their Deep Disappointment for years, but it mostly doesn’t matter because I proved them wrong, but still. I was a people pleaser (past tense). I am a people pleaser (present tense). Given a choice and then making a choice that they thought was the wrong choice. We all learn to live with disappointment—no matter our choices (theme, followed by metaphor). Disappointment, USA, just a mid-sized city marked in red on our pocket-sized roadmaps.