rice

Find the prompt here:
https://peakd.com/hive-161155/@daily.prompt/2-may-2024-mariannewests-freewrite-writing-prompt-day-2360-rice-shower

Rice shower. This makes me think of weddings. Which is appropriate because this weekend, my mom and I are flying up to Portland to attend my nephew's wedding reception in Salem. He actually got married a few months ago, or actually last October, wow, time flies, but it was a very small affair, and now they're having the reception.

Sidenote about rice thrown at weddings. At some point when I was a kid I heard that when birds eat the raw rice, it swells up in their bellies and they can explode. I believed this, of course. Thought it was awful, everyone should know so no one would throw rice at a wedding. I grow up, the internet is everywhere, and it turns out that shit isn't true. I think there are still things like that, that I was told as a kid that seemed plausible so I believed them, that I haven't yet investigated. Lochlan asked me today if I could give him a superpower and I said I would give him the power of critical thinking. He asked what that was and I said, it means you think carefully about things, or something like that. I don't remember what I said, but I don't think I explained it very well. I wanted to respond simply and in a way that he would think it sounded somewhat like a superpower.

Okay, so back to to this wedding reception. The timer might have stopped by now, I'm not sure because it's not making a sound, but I want to keep going...okay I just checked and it actually had 25 seconds left, but guess what? I'm going to keep going to get these thoughts out.

I posted something on FB the other day about some conservative church that things a woman's place is to be a wife and mother because that's what the bible says, and mentioned that I'm glad I'm not a Christian anymore, and that I'm going to see family this weekend that are that type of Christian (yep, my nephew's family) and that I was wondering what queer pride garb I could wear to really throw my values in their faces. I don't think I phrased it quite like that, but that's kind of the sentiment behind it. I think these family members hold really harmful views about queer people, just for one, and I'm sick of people's views causing actual harm to others. "Impact not intent," folks, get with this century.

Anyway, my mom says to me today, "You're not planning on causing some kind of scene at the reception, are you?" And I don't remember for sure if those were her exact words but that certainly felt like the sentiment behind them. And I was just kind of flabbergasted. Like, doesn't she know me? Like, she's really worried I would deliberately cause a scene or instigate an argument? I'm not a very confrontational person when it comes to starting stuff like that. I'm trying to be more okay interrupting people to call out when I hear harmful words or viewpoints I really disagree with, but that's the stage I'm at--just trying to get comfortable saying, "Hey, that's not cool." And what it makes me think of now is my mom's own discomfort with confrontation. She is SO uncomfortable with confrontation, and I witnessed that a lot growing up. So I'm sympathetic to my mom, but I think we grown up people, we white people, we people who are really doing ok with the status quo, need to grow the fuck up and get a lot more okay with being uncomfortable and making others uncomfortable when they are acting in harmful ways. But that doesn't mean I'm looking to start a fight and I think my mom should trust me enough to know that.