Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Bambi: the real story (Part I)
If you've never read this, and most people haven't, be prepared for a shock. Felix Salten's masterpiece Bambi: A Life in the Woods was written in 1923. As a Hungarian Jew living in Austria (later to flee to the United States), he already felt the seismic trembling that foretold the rise of the Third Reich. At least, I think he did. Those deer, the dire conversations they have, are full of hopelessness and doom. Little Gobo vibrates like thin glass before an earthquake.
This ain't the Bambi you knew and loved. There isn't a character named Thumper, though Friend Hare and his family come to a very bad end. This is nature red in tooth and claw, but it's also the heartless greed and oppression of humans as they rape and plunder Eden, just as they always do. Suitable for small children? I wonder.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
27. . . up (in memoriam)
Don't know what to say, or feel, or do
I never do
or do
or do
it just don't seem fair
when a restless outlaw wind
streaks fire in her hair
no it don't seem right
screaming scribes of the soul
they lift up the moment
dance like a demon
then
savagely
throw life away
all part of the act/tion
to press acceleration
until it's past blur
as if
in an act
of
stunning
subversion
you have finally
bought the myth
of your goddamn godhood
until it's past blur
as if
in an act
of
stunning
subversion
you have finally
bought the myth
of your goddamn godhood
some
trains
wreck
slow
ly
ly
but
most
are
too
too
fast.
and the sweet
ceremony
of innocence
(blood
sacrifice)
ceremony
of innocence
(blood
sacrifice)
gets
drowned
in
the
babble
of
fame
to die in a blur of speed
splashed on the wall
no better than a fly
just try
to see James Dean
inch thick on the asphault
a smile on his waxen face
don't know what the point of this-all is
but I know I won't sanction
this queasy twisting in my gut
for someone I never knew
or even liked
or ever listened to
is it better to fly
or die
or fly and die
or only
just
to
try
Friday, July 22, 2011
Miracle child
Behold, a miracle.
On July 4, I posted an entry called Say yes, and start again. I told a story, a true one, about one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever known about.
This was the sledding accident on a Christmas Eve in which 4-year-old Lucia was killed by a truck turning a corner. Through a series of incredible coincidences, her mother, infertile for years, was able to become pregnant again. This story's twists and turns were labyrinthine, but at many crucial points, faith was the force that made it all possible, even against impossible odds.
And she is the result. This baby bloomed out of tragedy and is soft as a rose and bright as the stars. Her name is Stella Lucia. Look at her! She's a miracle.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The powerless now
I don't know why I just wrote that story, the one about the dog. It occurred to me last night, came into my head, kept on bugging me, and my first reaction was, "No." I didn't want to write it. I knew it would end badly. I knew it would be about pain and abuse and powerlessness. I wondered what dark corner of my soul drove me to express all that anguish.
There's a theory floating around, mostly in these reality shows that I never watch (except Hoarders), that we somehow recreate (and recreate and recreate) the conditions of our childhood, especially the pain and grief. THIS time it's going to be different. It's a dynamic that comes out in relationships. Daddy will be gentle this time, Mommy won't end up in the psych ward, brother won't set fires and go to jail. Or just: I won't be a wimp, I won't be unpopular, THIS time I'll test myself at home, at work and at play, and come up shining.
And you know what happens?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
You don't win, because you can't. Childhood may be the template for adulthood, but I've started to think our only hope of being happy (unless we've been incredibly blessed with a happy childhood and unconditional love) is to shed it, shuck it off. Let it drop off like dead skin or a turtle shell.
I love a certain Bible quote, from Lamentations I think, which I put in one of my comments to good ol' Matt, my most faithful reader: it's all about being "new every morning".
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
Oh, so it's the Lord's great love that is new every morning, not us! If we're not so new, then we're obviously made from the crazy-quilt scraps of the past. It's hard to shake, after all. Why did we evolve with such acute memories, and why is the loss of memory considered such a catastrophe? Isn't it really a blessing in disguise?
And yet, and yet. Having said all that, I have a problem with the currently wildly-popular "power of now" theories that purport to solve every problem you ever had. Those psychologists on TV who hold the hands of hoarders as they scream bloody murder at their families say things like, we must live in the moment. "Now" is the only time we have.
That pretty much does away with planning of any kind. There goes your estate, eh? And learning? How can you learn from the past, or from anything for that matter, in a sealed bubble of "now"?
If we always lived in the now, human evolution would not have taken place, or at least not beyond the level of chimps, who are fully capable of ripping the faces off their loving caregivers. We evolved to learn from the past and plan for the future, so we wouldn't bloody starve or get eaten by something bigger than we were.
I've got nothing against the concept of "now", in fact for the most part it beats the pants off the past, except that it doesn't really exist. It could be said, as time slides along, that it's always now (for what other time can it be? The future? The past?). But at the same time, because time does not stand still even for a nanosecond, there is no "now", nothing static, not even a "moment" that we can stand still to apprehend. So if it's always now, and never now, for the love of God, could someone please explain to me: what time is it?
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