School Night

One of my most special childhood memories happened when I was around 12 years old.  I was going through a bit of a rough spell--I can’t remember exactly what it was, a typical 12-year old angst.  One night I was having a hard time, feeling the weight of the world.  It was a school night, and my sisters had already gone to bed.  So I sat in the rocking chair in my bedroom, in the dark, and rocked, holding my favorite teddy bear.  The bear’s head had become separated from his body a year or so earlier, but I still loved him.  So, holding his head in place, I rocked him in the dark, and was comforted.


My parents were still up, and one of them passed the bedroom and apparently saw me rocking, because soon after, both came into my room, took the teddy bear and left with him.  I could hear them in the family room, fussing a bit under their breaths, working together.  I kept rocking, waiting.


About 10 minutes later, they came back in the room, and placed the bear in my arms, his head re-attached by a series of threads.  I continued rocking, a little caught up in my drama, but with a warm place in my heart.  I knew everything was going to be alright.

  

"Border Collie Swinging on the Moon"

This oil painting is one of a small collection I own by Todd Young.   The atmosphere of a summer evening has always been magical to me.  Throw in a border collie, the moon, and a few sheep, and, Voila!







Posted with artist's permission

Certainty is so Tempting

I often observe in myself a desire for certainty, and I suspect I am not alone in this.  So I found this little satire by Anthony de Mello quite delightful: 

The Sting 

"A saint was once given the gift of speaking the language of the ants. He approached one, who seemed the scholarly type, and asked, “What is the Almighty like? Is he in any way similar to the ant?”

Said the scholar, “The Almighty? Certainly not! We ants, you see, have only one sting.  But the Almighty, he has two!”

Suggested post script:

When asked what heaven was like, the ant-scholar solemnly replied, “There we shall be just like Him, having two stings each, only smaller ones.”

A bitter controversy rages among religious schools of thought as to where exactly the second sting will be located in the heavenly body of the ant.

Anthony de Mello, "Song of the Bird" 1984



Steinbeck Revived!

I cannot let this day go by without reviving my topic of John Steinbeck.  I'm afraid I did him a disservice by implying that ALL of his works were trying to forward a worldview of despair and fragmentation.  I remembered today that I had read and really liked "The Winter of our Discontent."  Definitely not a book meant to leave you in a pit of hopelessness, although at some points you might wonder. 

It's funny about that book.  My father and I discovered a few years ago that we both thought it had a particular ending, and we didn't really like it.  But then we reread it, separately, without talking about it, and found that we'd both misinterpreted the ending the first time, and actually LOVED the ending.  I highly recommend this book, which was Steinbeck's last.

Can an Honest Story Have a Happy Ending?

A tendency lurks in the literary world that for a book to be considered "literature" it must have a gloomy, pessimistic outlook.   Why is this?  Although novels have long held tragedy as a staple, it seemed that in the early 20th century a spirit of despair began to permeate literature.  A sort of heavy-handed emptiness that seems almost purposeful, as though the authors were trying to sow the seeds of their own doubt.  Or maybe it was just their world-view.  But, in a way, it's patronizing, as though they wanted to wake up the happy people--"Can't they see they're miserable??  Or should be??"     

Have you read Steinbeck?  The Pearl?  The Red Pony?  The Grapes of Wrath?  Good grief!!  Although it's been 30 years since I read them, and I was only 18 at the time--maybe I should pick them up again.....

Well, clearly, I don’t have answers, at least not yet, so I will resort to someone who has thought this through and writes better than I do.  Let’s bring in Rachel Kadish again, so you can have another taste until you check out the book.  This is from page 2 of "Tolstoy Lied"—I’ve edited a bit.  I apologize if this seems a bit lazy, but she's great!

“For people who claim to want happiness, we Americans spend a lot of time spinning yarns about its opposite.  Even the optimistic novels end the minute the good times get rolling.  Once characters enter the black box of happiness, no one wants to hear a peep out of them.  I’ve learned how hard it is to find a good non-tragic novel on academic’s approved-reading list.  Hester Prynne doesn’t make out too well in the end, does she?  Ethan Frome and poor Billy Budd and just about everyone Faulkner or O’Connor or Porter ever met are doomed…

Let me be clear:  some of my best friends are tragic novels.  But someone’s got to call it like it is.  Why the taboo?  What’s so unspeakable about happiness?

What I want to know is this:  Can the American story have an ending that’s both honest and happy?  Can we ditch the venerable idea that life is meaningless without tragedy?  That our only choice is between noble suffering or numbed-out conformity?”

"Tolstoy Lied"

I just had to open with this passage because it resonated with thoughts and a perspective I've had for many years and I was so happy to see it in print.  I've never understood or bought into the idea perpetuated by modern fiction and film that happiness, goodness and a struggle to live according to one's values makes for an uninteresting narrative.  I just started reading the book, "Tolstoy Lied" by Rachel Kadish, and the first page enraptured me---

   "THERE IT IS.  Right there on the novel's first page.  Right there in the first line, staring the reader in the face.  A lie.
   Nothing against Tolstoy.  I'm an admirer.  I simply happen to believe he's responsible for the most widely quoted whopper in world literature. 
   "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
   Literary types swoon over that line, which opens Anna Karenina.  But have they considered the philosophy they're embracing?
   If Tolstoy is to be taken at his word, a person must be unhappy in order to be interesting.  If this is true, then certain other things follow.  Happy people have no stories you might possibly want to hear.  In order to be happy, you must whitewash your personality; steamroll your curiosities, your irritations, your honesty and indignation.  You must shed idiosyncratic dreams and march in lock-step with the hordes of the content.  Happiness, according to this witticism of Tolstoy's, is not a plant with spikes and gnarled roots; it is a daisy in a field of a thousand daisies.  It is for lovers of kitsch and those with subpar intelligence."

There's more, so check out the book if you're interested.  I'm only on page 11, so I can't attest to the rest.  But I'm so glad someone put into words what I've railed against for so long.  Not that I have anything against unhappy people's stories, I just don't believe they're the only ones whose stories are worth telling.