I spend a great deal of time trying to fill out my soul, iron it from the inside, eliminate the creases where the demons lie, where old injuries are nursed and the scar tissue calcifies, where the love is balked.
Most of this work is done in solitude, reading and re-reading important books and poems or gazing at the landscapes indoors and out, but sometimes it simply must be done in company. I have to learn to be more compassionate, and sooner in the human exchange, and to love harder and clearer and deeper (though those last two adverbs often contradict each other, rudely and noisily, like kids fighting in the back seat). I hope to learn to catch my errors and omissions in time to repair them, and it's really really hard work.
I know early on when I've missed a crease, or ironed in a new one, and there are days when it would take more courage than I have to go back and fix it, though I know perfectly well that courage is enhanced and glorified by the degree of the risk. I'm never sorry to have been brave enough to amend a wrong, but cranking up the nerve is in itself exhausting, leaving me with, I think, not enough energy to take on the deed after all.
If I could ever convince myself that the possibility isn't laughable, I swear I'd move to a monastery and, I don't know, tend an onion patch and contemplate God. It just seems to be easier than this eternal ironing and starching, buffing and polishing of the all-too-close-at-hand, muddled ME.
Must be time for another nap.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Rock of Aged
I went to a rock concert last week, my first in decades. Crosby, Stills & Nash were playing for one night only at the Sandia Pueblo Casino, and it was something I just couldn't pass up. I last saw that particular group in Chicago, from the last rows in whatever arena it was that the Bulls played in 1974. I was loaded and I'm sure CSN was as well (if on more expensive drugs than the leafy, seedy pot I'd managed to scrounge). I remember that night as a significant part of a sharp left-turn in my life, screeching around a corner to get away from a premature maturity and rejoin my peers in one of their typical venues. I was almost too late, but I made it.
Anyway, we arrived at the casino parking lot last Tuesday two hours before the concert was to begin, and already there were hundreds of cars looking for spaces, and thousands of people with paunches and thinning gray hair wandering around and getting in the way of the cars. Mary remarked that there weren't even any slots in the handicap rows because so many of the arriving fans were old and infirm and used up the allotted spaces. We found a place toward the exit (I have learned SOMETHING from trips to the Santa Fe Opera), and headed for the casino for a hamburger and a Pepsi (yes, times have changed -- it's hard to find a drink on an Indian rez, and anyway I just can't load up the way I used to) before finding our seats in the amphitheater. Of COURSE the place was jammed -- this was Crosby, Stills and Nash, y'all -- and we were joined next to our seats very close to the front by a couple of other reconstructed hippies from our little hamlet on the mesa.
What else has changed? Well, there was no warm up band to pre-deafen us; CSN emerged on the stage just about on time, and they started right off with "Marrakesh Express". It was done pretty well, if a little slower and about a third lower in register than the original recording; Mary (who had an even bigger hole than mine in her cultural upbringing) LOVED that piece and hummed it for days afterwards. It wasn't the first time she'd heard it (or we would truly never have found any reason to know each other), but it was the first time she'd thought of it as musical expression.
(Aside: Mary is gestating a book, and one of its chapters will be entitled "A Nice Middle-Aged White Lady Listens to Hip Hop Music"; in the book she's taking music as a whole and finding really good reasons for all versions it. For my part, being a harmony addict, and having lived for 25 years with a heretofore musical long-hair, have no interest whatsoever in Rap or any of its descendants, but I admire her curiosity and love for the art, however raucous and annoying the expression. Have I told you that Mary is just about the most loving and accepting person I have ever known? That may be why she took me in -- I could be the human version of Rap music, and I don't think I'll explore that little metaphor one second longer.)
Back to the concert. Steven Stills has a serious problem with his knees, or maybe his hips -- he rolls around the stage like a sailor fresh from a two-year cruise; they only let him talk once, and what he said was not exactly clear (sorry, Buffalo Springfield), either in sentence structure or articulation. His sizable stomach was ill-disguised by an aloha shirt that hung off of his narrowed shoulders and draped close to his knees, and his alarmingly sparse hair was sadly combed over (until the wind blew it all over the place). I was at the point of despair until he took up his first guitar lick; gotta say it was as magical as ever. He hasn't lost a moment, a beat, a thought, of skill and beauty on his old, soft-yellow axe. He held on to singing the bass line pretty well, and in any case Graham Nash and David Crosby succeeded in finding their harmonies wherever Steven might have led them.
David Crosby seemed pissed off -- don't think he's ever gotten his ego past that of Stills -- and while he's lucky to be alive, he doesn't seem grateful for it. He glowered and snarled at the audience, he was snide to Sills, he only became animated when he was complaining about the Iraq war, and when that was over he subsided into immobility except for his singing and occasionally playing acoustic guitar (very well, actually). Crosby wore a faded, misshapen old blue tee shirt, also untucked as an attempt to hide HIS stomach, but even with the belly, he does seem a lot less bloated, less dissipated, than in the old days. He's a very fortunate man -- to be alive, to have a friend like Graham Nash and a long-suffering wife, and to have a voice that still, STILL sounds as sweet and true as it ever did.
Graham Nash has maintained himself the best of all of them (including Neil Young, whom we hoped would show but did not). He's still slender with a little bit of a puppy-belly, has a shock of well-cut white hair, and is animated and charming. Nash pretty well ran the show as Stills ambled around, often late getting to his mike, and Crosby pouted. Nash stations himself center stage, insulating the mad geniuses from each other and providing a musical and psychological ground for them. I think he's really the glue for the group, whether Young is with them or not -- Young being perhaps not as crazy, but certainly as weird as both Stills and Crosby -- and Nash is the perfect advertisement for genius residing comfortably and productively in a sane mind.
Most of the faves got played, except for "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" which they probably couldn't have handled, either for its length or its strenuous tempos and licks, and the group was applauded mightily, producing two encores. Graham made the geniuses come out for a group bow in a row with their (BRILLIANT) side men, and then presumably led them back to their bus and tucked them in, administering whatever panacaeas they might need to quiet their troubled dreams and get some well-earned rest. We were all satisfied, even thrilled to have had one last visit with the intricate harmonies and sweet lyrics of these troubled survivors, and all of us made it home to bed well before midnight. Love among the ruins, indeed.
We bought two tee shirts and a set of DVD's from long ago concerts, edited for content and for who was high on what at the time. I've been enjoying the DVD's, which have replaced the occasional harmonic train-wrecks of the concert, but I would not have, for anything, missed seeing the old guys gasping out "Guinevere" or "Wooden Ships" one more precious time.
Anyway, we arrived at the casino parking lot last Tuesday two hours before the concert was to begin, and already there were hundreds of cars looking for spaces, and thousands of people with paunches and thinning gray hair wandering around and getting in the way of the cars. Mary remarked that there weren't even any slots in the handicap rows because so many of the arriving fans were old and infirm and used up the allotted spaces. We found a place toward the exit (I have learned SOMETHING from trips to the Santa Fe Opera), and headed for the casino for a hamburger and a Pepsi (yes, times have changed -- it's hard to find a drink on an Indian rez, and anyway I just can't load up the way I used to) before finding our seats in the amphitheater. Of COURSE the place was jammed -- this was Crosby, Stills and Nash, y'all -- and we were joined next to our seats very close to the front by a couple of other reconstructed hippies from our little hamlet on the mesa.
What else has changed? Well, there was no warm up band to pre-deafen us; CSN emerged on the stage just about on time, and they started right off with "Marrakesh Express". It was done pretty well, if a little slower and about a third lower in register than the original recording; Mary (who had an even bigger hole than mine in her cultural upbringing) LOVED that piece and hummed it for days afterwards. It wasn't the first time she'd heard it (or we would truly never have found any reason to know each other), but it was the first time she'd thought of it as musical expression.
(Aside: Mary is gestating a book, and one of its chapters will be entitled "A Nice Middle-Aged White Lady Listens to Hip Hop Music"; in the book she's taking music as a whole and finding really good reasons for all versions it. For my part, being a harmony addict, and having lived for 25 years with a heretofore musical long-hair, have no interest whatsoever in Rap or any of its descendants, but I admire her curiosity and love for the art, however raucous and annoying the expression. Have I told you that Mary is just about the most loving and accepting person I have ever known? That may be why she took me in -- I could be the human version of Rap music, and I don't think I'll explore that little metaphor one second longer.)
Back to the concert. Steven Stills has a serious problem with his knees, or maybe his hips -- he rolls around the stage like a sailor fresh from a two-year cruise; they only let him talk once, and what he said was not exactly clear (sorry, Buffalo Springfield), either in sentence structure or articulation. His sizable stomach was ill-disguised by an aloha shirt that hung off of his narrowed shoulders and draped close to his knees, and his alarmingly sparse hair was sadly combed over (until the wind blew it all over the place). I was at the point of despair until he took up his first guitar lick; gotta say it was as magical as ever. He hasn't lost a moment, a beat, a thought, of skill and beauty on his old, soft-yellow axe. He held on to singing the bass line pretty well, and in any case Graham Nash and David Crosby succeeded in finding their harmonies wherever Steven might have led them.
David Crosby seemed pissed off -- don't think he's ever gotten his ego past that of Stills -- and while he's lucky to be alive, he doesn't seem grateful for it. He glowered and snarled at the audience, he was snide to Sills, he only became animated when he was complaining about the Iraq war, and when that was over he subsided into immobility except for his singing and occasionally playing acoustic guitar (very well, actually). Crosby wore a faded, misshapen old blue tee shirt, also untucked as an attempt to hide HIS stomach, but even with the belly, he does seem a lot less bloated, less dissipated, than in the old days. He's a very fortunate man -- to be alive, to have a friend like Graham Nash and a long-suffering wife, and to have a voice that still, STILL sounds as sweet and true as it ever did.
Graham Nash has maintained himself the best of all of them (including Neil Young, whom we hoped would show but did not). He's still slender with a little bit of a puppy-belly, has a shock of well-cut white hair, and is animated and charming. Nash pretty well ran the show as Stills ambled around, often late getting to his mike, and Crosby pouted. Nash stations himself center stage, insulating the mad geniuses from each other and providing a musical and psychological ground for them. I think he's really the glue for the group, whether Young is with them or not -- Young being perhaps not as crazy, but certainly as weird as both Stills and Crosby -- and Nash is the perfect advertisement for genius residing comfortably and productively in a sane mind.
Most of the faves got played, except for "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" which they probably couldn't have handled, either for its length or its strenuous tempos and licks, and the group was applauded mightily, producing two encores. Graham made the geniuses come out for a group bow in a row with their (BRILLIANT) side men, and then presumably led them back to their bus and tucked them in, administering whatever panacaeas they might need to quiet their troubled dreams and get some well-earned rest. We were all satisfied, even thrilled to have had one last visit with the intricate harmonies and sweet lyrics of these troubled survivors, and all of us made it home to bed well before midnight. Love among the ruins, indeed.
We bought two tee shirts and a set of DVD's from long ago concerts, edited for content and for who was high on what at the time. I've been enjoying the DVD's, which have replaced the occasional harmonic train-wrecks of the concert, but I would not have, for anything, missed seeing the old guys gasping out "Guinevere" or "Wooden Ships" one more precious time.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
More about Warriors
There we were three months ago, talking about archetypes, and I was waxing along on the subject of the Warrior, specifically in the person of John McCain. I expanded on how he's a true Warrior, if one of a not-too-advanced soul age (bear with me here), and while I wouldn't trust him with my country, I absolutely trust him to be charming, and arrogant, usually honorable, and not terribly interested in the fine points of, well, anything. Minutiae are fodder for staff: for his exec, his adjutant, his Aide de Camp, his driver, his orderly, and so forth; they're the detail men, and God help the poor bastard who misses one.
That's the stuff I learned from my daddy, Ur-Warrior. I learned a lot more from him, of course, but I did absorb, osmotically, How Things Work in the Officer's World, in a time of war, in a time of peril, when those guys really shine. Or shone, anyway, in the previous life of this planet. I'm not so sure how things work now, but I surely know that the mind-set of the spiritually young warrior of advanced officer's rank remains the same.
Then there was my Uncle Sam Griffith ("uncle" and "aunt" were the affectionate titles we used with the closest friends of our parents), another Marine general, and a gold-standard Warrior, but with a strong dollop of Scholar in his DNA. He retired from the Corps as a Brigadier, entered Oxford University in pursuit of an advanced degree, studied Chinese, and taught it there for several years. He also wrote a number of books on military history. Sam Griffith was extraordinarily gifted intellectually, just as smart and as arrogant and tough as my father was, but approached life from the opposite position -- as Scholar, as an observer and note-taker, whereas my father plunged right into a situation, brandishing his sword and operating from the (very reliable) information he was receiving from his instincts. Historians, my father felt, do or don't get things right, but whatever they have to say about a battle, it is always afterwards, and they get to say how it was because they're the ones writing it down. The guys who were mixing it up DURING the event, meanwhile, are either dead or wounded or very drunk for a very long time trying to recover from it. Daddy never accused Sam of avoiding a fight (God knows he never did) but I think he envied Sam's ability to view whatever was going on from a certain distance, and so he belittled it when he was drunk enough.
Obviously, Daddy and Uncle Sammy did not agree on much (though they did agree that the truly manly argument had three stages: 1) Flat statement; 2) Categorical denial; 3) Personal abuse), and the two of them had some epic battles of their own, usually in the Griffiths' living room or in ours, and always after a great deal of scotch had been consumed. Neither knew what the other was talking about, neither listened very carefully or with much interest to the other, but each joined the fray with great vigor and enthusiasm, knowing from many years' experience that he was engaging a worthy opponent. Daddy seldom gave in, and these battles usually ended with Uncle Sam making a dramatic exit from the scene, his last words being something on the order of "I will not stoop to discourse with a Philistine [peasant/ignoramus/etc.]".
Those old lions wrestled together for 40 years, and I have no doubt that they loved each other dearly, lacking only the psychological vocabulary to express it. Towards the end, when my father lay dying in Bethesda Naval Hospital, Sam Griffith went to visit him only once. Daddy saw him come in the room, said, "Oh, hell, Sam," nothing more, and General Griffith burst into tears, right in front of the orderlies and corpsmen, all of whom were equally distressed, as much by the emotional collapse of the other, visiting, alpha male as by the approaching demise of The General.
I understand now, better than I did then, how the Marine Generals Cresswell and Griffith were two sides of the same coin: between them, they represented the absolute best of the essential Warrior, and that without the other, neither was complete, nor could he be all that we needed him to be. Impulse and fearlessness in one, careful reason and thoughtful execution in the other, and great humor, deep sorrow in both, they were my first heroes in the art of living life beyond and after the idiocy of actual war.
I saw today a flash of that watching Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) on television this morning. He was there ostensibly to flog his new book (Sam Griffith!), but he faced instead a relentless probing on his interest in becoming the nominee for vice president on the Democratic ticket with Barack Obama. Webb was deft in deflecting the speculation, while not ruling out the possibility either. He mentioned several times Obama's composure in the face of the attacks he absorbed during the primary season, and how he, Webb, admired that composure, all the time barely changing the expression on his own Irish mug. I may be one of the few people who know on a visceral level the great emotional sea that heaves in the core of Jim Webb -- about the Iraq war, about the unnecessary spilling of so much blood, about the valor of his own son in that mess -- and I know just as well the great good humor that has saved Webb's life. That sense of humor has saved mine many times over, it kept my father and scores of his peers from doing serious damage to the world they came home to, and Webb's example of how to make a useful, steady life under fire is a pretty good one.
Barack Obama could use those skills; I hope he knows that.
That's the stuff I learned from my daddy, Ur-Warrior. I learned a lot more from him, of course, but I did absorb, osmotically, How Things Work in the Officer's World, in a time of war, in a time of peril, when those guys really shine. Or shone, anyway, in the previous life of this planet. I'm not so sure how things work now, but I surely know that the mind-set of the spiritually young warrior of advanced officer's rank remains the same.
Then there was my Uncle Sam Griffith ("uncle" and "aunt" were the affectionate titles we used with the closest friends of our parents), another Marine general, and a gold-standard Warrior, but with a strong dollop of Scholar in his DNA. He retired from the Corps as a Brigadier, entered Oxford University in pursuit of an advanced degree, studied Chinese, and taught it there for several years. He also wrote a number of books on military history. Sam Griffith was extraordinarily gifted intellectually, just as smart and as arrogant and tough as my father was, but approached life from the opposite position -- as Scholar, as an observer and note-taker, whereas my father plunged right into a situation, brandishing his sword and operating from the (very reliable) information he was receiving from his instincts. Historians, my father felt, do or don't get things right, but whatever they have to say about a battle, it is always afterwards, and they get to say how it was because they're the ones writing it down. The guys who were mixing it up DURING the event, meanwhile, are either dead or wounded or very drunk for a very long time trying to recover from it. Daddy never accused Sam of avoiding a fight (God knows he never did) but I think he envied Sam's ability to view whatever was going on from a certain distance, and so he belittled it when he was drunk enough.
Obviously, Daddy and Uncle Sammy did not agree on much (though they did agree that the truly manly argument had three stages: 1) Flat statement; 2) Categorical denial; 3) Personal abuse), and the two of them had some epic battles of their own, usually in the Griffiths' living room or in ours, and always after a great deal of scotch had been consumed. Neither knew what the other was talking about, neither listened very carefully or with much interest to the other, but each joined the fray with great vigor and enthusiasm, knowing from many years' experience that he was engaging a worthy opponent. Daddy seldom gave in, and these battles usually ended with Uncle Sam making a dramatic exit from the scene, his last words being something on the order of "I will not stoop to discourse with a Philistine [peasant/ignoramus/etc.]".
Those old lions wrestled together for 40 years, and I have no doubt that they loved each other dearly, lacking only the psychological vocabulary to express it. Towards the end, when my father lay dying in Bethesda Naval Hospital, Sam Griffith went to visit him only once. Daddy saw him come in the room, said, "Oh, hell, Sam," nothing more, and General Griffith burst into tears, right in front of the orderlies and corpsmen, all of whom were equally distressed, as much by the emotional collapse of the other, visiting, alpha male as by the approaching demise of The General.
I understand now, better than I did then, how the Marine Generals Cresswell and Griffith were two sides of the same coin: between them, they represented the absolute best of the essential Warrior, and that without the other, neither was complete, nor could he be all that we needed him to be. Impulse and fearlessness in one, careful reason and thoughtful execution in the other, and great humor, deep sorrow in both, they were my first heroes in the art of living life beyond and after the idiocy of actual war.
I saw today a flash of that watching Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) on television this morning. He was there ostensibly to flog his new book (Sam Griffith!), but he faced instead a relentless probing on his interest in becoming the nominee for vice president on the Democratic ticket with Barack Obama. Webb was deft in deflecting the speculation, while not ruling out the possibility either. He mentioned several times Obama's composure in the face of the attacks he absorbed during the primary season, and how he, Webb, admired that composure, all the time barely changing the expression on his own Irish mug. I may be one of the few people who know on a visceral level the great emotional sea that heaves in the core of Jim Webb -- about the Iraq war, about the unnecessary spilling of so much blood, about the valor of his own son in that mess -- and I know just as well the great good humor that has saved Webb's life. That sense of humor has saved mine many times over, it kept my father and scores of his peers from doing serious damage to the world they came home to, and Webb's example of how to make a useful, steady life under fire is a pretty good one.
Barack Obama could use those skills; I hope he knows that.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Warriors
Much to the dismay of my militantly pacifist friends [MPF's], I really understand John McCain. He's a lot like me, and I grew up surrounded by people a lot like him, all of them warriors. A friend who did time as an officer of the Marine Corps Force Recon in Viet Nam says that McCain doesn't care whether he's hopelessly out-of-step with the American political zeitgeist, he just wants to win a war before he dies. It's his legacy, and it's his turn; he badly needs to come back from the shame of buckling under torture in the hands of the NVA (as if anybody blames him, and nobody blames him as much as he blames himself). His grandaddy won a war, and died days after coming home from it; his daddy won a war, or at least didn't lose one -- it was taken away from him by the politicians, in the eyes of the warrior. And here's John, hung out to dry with this hopeless mess in the Middle East. It's not a good war, but it's the only one he's got. He's such a core-value warrior that he despises Rumsfelt and the shambles he made of this country's military. The point is, of course, McCain feels that the military is everything that's right about this country -- honorable, unassailable, the line in the sand, the guys on the wall keeping us safe at night. And he's their last champion.
That kind of talk just infuriates my MPF's; they are of the firm conviction that soldiers and sailors and Marines are nothing more than criminals, at best superfluous to the successful progress of our society, at worst its greatest hindrance -- macho, arrogant, blood-thirsty, fascist, etc etc etc. MPF's get pretty exercised about it: in a recent conversation with one about WWII (in which both our fathers fought and suffered mightily, miraculously emerging alive and at least physically whole), I said I thought the world would be a wretched place had they not participated. MPF said angrily, "But they're not HEROES, for God's sake!" I was stunned, and uncharacteristically unable to reply -- so, a month later, I finally do so. See, I think they were all heroes, and not a single one of them thought of him/herself as a hero; each has said they were just doing their job, and it was a lousy job first, last and always, but it needed doing and they were at hand. That is exactly how I would define a hero, and the hero class includes most mothers, all middle-school teachers, a lot of plumbers and the Dalai Lama.
We can't really deny or dismiss the warrior -- it's an archetype of the human race, just as integral to the psychological structure of the species as are the scholars, servants, priests, sages, artists and the kings we all serve. Not all warriors are war-mongers, it's just a sub-class that expands when we need them, like the remarkable collection of men and women, sages and kings AND warriors, that showed up in late 18th century America: perfect timing and placement, don't you think? There are warriors who do indeed sacrifice themselves for the survival of the tribe; there are those who really do patrol the wall of our territory so we can sleep safely inside the perimeter. Those are the ones whose ranks surrounded me as I grew up, who made it possible for a female child -- the daughter of the regiment -- to grow up relatively fearless: nothing would hurt me, not on their watch.
There are the warriors who will follow the power-grabs of their monarch, no matter what; there are those whose lives are given over to their heart-connections; others use their quick wits and fearlessness in the cause of justice; and then there are the Explorers. (That's me, and that's a whole 'nother blog.)
At the same time, warriors usually make lousy presidents: they're not really very good at seeking or achieving consensus; they're not very good people-persons, beyond their extraordinary talent for story-telling and their remarkable personal charm; their tendency toward the honorable course cripples their politics -- they just can't lie easily, and no politician can survive that genetic flaw. John McCain isn't good president material, certainly not now. He's Miniver Cheevy as a retired four-star general, limping along in a war-ravaged body, grimly trying to keep ahead of the regiment: he was born too late, and it's only getting later. He's a certified American tragedy; I'm relieved that he probably won't be the next president, but I love him and I grieve for his sorrows.
That kind of talk just infuriates my MPF's; they are of the firm conviction that soldiers and sailors and Marines are nothing more than criminals, at best superfluous to the successful progress of our society, at worst its greatest hindrance -- macho, arrogant, blood-thirsty, fascist, etc etc etc. MPF's get pretty exercised about it: in a recent conversation with one about WWII (in which both our fathers fought and suffered mightily, miraculously emerging alive and at least physically whole), I said I thought the world would be a wretched place had they not participated. MPF said angrily, "But they're not HEROES, for God's sake!" I was stunned, and uncharacteristically unable to reply -- so, a month later, I finally do so. See, I think they were all heroes, and not a single one of them thought of him/herself as a hero; each has said they were just doing their job, and it was a lousy job first, last and always, but it needed doing and they were at hand. That is exactly how I would define a hero, and the hero class includes most mothers, all middle-school teachers, a lot of plumbers and the Dalai Lama.
We can't really deny or dismiss the warrior -- it's an archetype of the human race, just as integral to the psychological structure of the species as are the scholars, servants, priests, sages, artists and the kings we all serve. Not all warriors are war-mongers, it's just a sub-class that expands when we need them, like the remarkable collection of men and women, sages and kings AND warriors, that showed up in late 18th century America: perfect timing and placement, don't you think? There are warriors who do indeed sacrifice themselves for the survival of the tribe; there are those who really do patrol the wall of our territory so we can sleep safely inside the perimeter. Those are the ones whose ranks surrounded me as I grew up, who made it possible for a female child -- the daughter of the regiment -- to grow up relatively fearless: nothing would hurt me, not on their watch.
There are the warriors who will follow the power-grabs of their monarch, no matter what; there are those whose lives are given over to their heart-connections; others use their quick wits and fearlessness in the cause of justice; and then there are the Explorers. (That's me, and that's a whole 'nother blog.)
At the same time, warriors usually make lousy presidents: they're not really very good at seeking or achieving consensus; they're not very good people-persons, beyond their extraordinary talent for story-telling and their remarkable personal charm; their tendency toward the honorable course cripples their politics -- they just can't lie easily, and no politician can survive that genetic flaw. John McCain isn't good president material, certainly not now. He's Miniver Cheevy as a retired four-star general, limping along in a war-ravaged body, grimly trying to keep ahead of the regiment: he was born too late, and it's only getting later. He's a certified American tragedy; I'm relieved that he probably won't be the next president, but I love him and I grieve for his sorrows.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
New Year's Devolution
As I've said lately to those few who will listen, I am glad to have survived the holiday season. It was quiet -- too quiet: my kids were all celebrating a wedding in Chicago, some friends were out of town, and other folks hereabouts were doing their own thing.
I have heard of several local get-togethers to which I was not invited; for the first time since we got here, I haven't been on the "A" list. I've decided to look at it as yet Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth (remember AFOG?). It feels a lot like the years when I would start in a new school (all of them), and not fit in, ever. I remember alternating between relief that I didn't have to worry about conforming to a cultural ethic with which I was entirely unfamiliar (small-town Mississippi in the late fifties, for a horrifying example), and loneliness of sometimes frightening proportions. I was, as I have said before, pretty much an only child since my sisters were close in age and at least had each other to fight with (a lot). For the most part I did a good job of entertaining myself. I'd read, listen to music, play with my dog, annoy my mother -- that kind of thing. Now, when the neighbors are yokking it up, I read, I listen to music, I play computer games, I read some more, I play with my dog, I annoy my roommate, then read some more. On the whole, the periods of loneliness, then as now, have been few and short-lived.
I've been watching a lot of movies (the writers' strike has struck us all); a recurring theme has been social acceptance, and here I go again. Tonight it was "Little Miss Sunshine" -- a perfectly delightful movie, and once again the nonconformists won the day. The family had each other, and that was all they needed. Dwayne said, "It's ALL a beauty pageant, isn't it? From beginning to end?" I have to say there are times when that seems to be true. Maybe it's not a beauty pageant up here on the mesa, but there is something that everybody does that I don't do, or haven't done, or there is something that nobody would EVER do, that I've apparently done. God knows what, but there it is.
It's not a new dilemma for me, but it has come around again and again over the years, and I have learned that when something does that, it is indeed AFOG, and I'd best tend to it. I have to decide if it matters that I'm not on the "A" list, and if it does, how much scrambling I'm willing to do to get back on it. If I decide that it doesn't really matter in the long run, then I have to figure out how to honor myself better, or more consistently, so these stomach-drops don't happen.
How important am I to the world? Probably exactly as important as I think I am, at any given moment. I have looked with pity on people who mistake attention for affection, and affection for love; they never get that cup full, even when they get what they think they want. Most of those people are a lot younger than I, and I think, a little smugly, that they have a lot to learn. Apparently I do, too. Karma she shall kick back.
Good God. Is this a New Year's Resolution? Does it count if it's too amorphous to state in twenty-five words or less? Probably. I will go so far as to say, "I'll try to love everybody better, harder, more clearly and deeply, and that includes myself."
That will just have to do.
I have heard of several local get-togethers to which I was not invited; for the first time since we got here, I haven't been on the "A" list. I've decided to look at it as yet Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth (remember AFOG?). It feels a lot like the years when I would start in a new school (all of them), and not fit in, ever. I remember alternating between relief that I didn't have to worry about conforming to a cultural ethic with which I was entirely unfamiliar (small-town Mississippi in the late fifties, for a horrifying example), and loneliness of sometimes frightening proportions. I was, as I have said before, pretty much an only child since my sisters were close in age and at least had each other to fight with (a lot). For the most part I did a good job of entertaining myself. I'd read, listen to music, play with my dog, annoy my mother -- that kind of thing. Now, when the neighbors are yokking it up, I read, I listen to music, I play computer games, I read some more, I play with my dog, I annoy my roommate, then read some more. On the whole, the periods of loneliness, then as now, have been few and short-lived.
I've been watching a lot of movies (the writers' strike has struck us all); a recurring theme has been social acceptance, and here I go again. Tonight it was "Little Miss Sunshine" -- a perfectly delightful movie, and once again the nonconformists won the day. The family had each other, and that was all they needed. Dwayne said, "It's ALL a beauty pageant, isn't it? From beginning to end?" I have to say there are times when that seems to be true. Maybe it's not a beauty pageant up here on the mesa, but there is something that everybody does that I don't do, or haven't done, or there is something that nobody would EVER do, that I've apparently done. God knows what, but there it is.
It's not a new dilemma for me, but it has come around again and again over the years, and I have learned that when something does that, it is indeed AFOG, and I'd best tend to it. I have to decide if it matters that I'm not on the "A" list, and if it does, how much scrambling I'm willing to do to get back on it. If I decide that it doesn't really matter in the long run, then I have to figure out how to honor myself better, or more consistently, so these stomach-drops don't happen.
How important am I to the world? Probably exactly as important as I think I am, at any given moment. I have looked with pity on people who mistake attention for affection, and affection for love; they never get that cup full, even when they get what they think they want. Most of those people are a lot younger than I, and I think, a little smugly, that they have a lot to learn. Apparently I do, too. Karma she shall kick back.
Good God. Is this a New Year's Resolution? Does it count if it's too amorphous to state in twenty-five words or less? Probably. I will go so far as to say, "I'll try to love everybody better, harder, more clearly and deeply, and that includes myself."
That will just have to do.
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