This is not at all the post I thought I was going to write next. I thought I was going to write a triple movie review, covering the first and only three movies I'll see in theaters this winter. But I wasn't really motivated to do that, and a comment I posted on a friend's blog inspired me to write up some thoughts I had a long time ago, and never got the opportunity to explore.
To begin, a question for those who have read or seen The Lord of the Rings: Who is the Christ figure in the story? (I have here a tangential disclaimer for anyone who would point out that Tolkien hated allegory and didn't write deliberate symbolism into his books. But said disclaimer spills over into a whole rant of its own, and I'd rather stick to the subject, so I'll only pull it out if it's needed.)
Now that my parenthetical has given you some space to think, you should have your answer in mind. And I'd love it if you'd comment and say who you thought of, because I'm very interested to know. Apparently most people would say Gandalf. So I'm told, anyway. And the connection is obvious: the character who died and came to life again... also the leader and most powerful, the one who guides the others.
The funny thing is, it never occurred to me to see Gandalf as a Christ figure. When a friend of mine asked (obviously having his own answer in mind, and expecting mine to be different from his), I said immediately, "Frodo." Frodo, the one who must bear an unbearable burden for the salvation of the world. From the time I first read the book, Frodo was the one I associated with Jesus. Of course, the comparison breaks down (but they all do, unless deliberately crafted as Christ figures). Frodo is mortal, and fallible, and he does fail at the point of it. But what is that last trek through Mordor but one long Gethsemane?
My friend, who asked the question, had yet a third character in mind, one I'd never thought of either: Aragorn. His take on it was Christ as the Second Adam, as outlined in Romans. Where Isildur fell, to the great suffering of the world, Aragorn succeeded, to its salvation. He then went on to reign in glory. A nice little parallel, I was impressed by it.
The point of all this: we all see our Lord in different ways; different parts of his role and his character speak most strongly to each of us. My friend's father, who said Gandalf, saw the Son of God, glorious, powerful, conquering death; my friend who said Aragorn saw the Son of Man, the crown of mankind, the only unfallen son of Adam; I saw the sufferer, the burden-bearer, the one who willingly submitted to carry a curse he did not earn.
And the wonder of it is that all these pictures are true. And there are more besides; the healer and humanitarian, the wounded lover, the accused innocent... and the list could go on. This, our true myth, has more depth and resonance than any of the mirror-myths. They each reflect a small fragment of the truth we have only begun to know.
As a writer and lover of stories, I am thrilled to the core at being swept up in this, the wellspring of all stories. As a person, I am awed almost to disbelief that the author and hero of the story would speak to me...
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
On flying
I'm so glad I was born in a century of airplanes. I love to fly: I love airports, with their marvellous array of people; I love boarding a plane and getting all cozy with my few essential items (book, writing implements, bear) and the knowledge that I have nothing to do but sit and watch and read and write for the next hour or more; I love lifting off, getting faster and faster and then suddenly realizing that you're actually being supported by nothing more than air and physics. And I love how different the earth becomes when you're separated from it.
Something that struck me, as I was in the air today, is how much less interesting everything on the ground becomes. A rock quarry, which is a stunning sight from the ground, becomes just a grey hole in the ground when you're in an airplane. The effect varies, depending on what you're looking at-- trees are still pretty great, especially when they're turning colors (though I like them best when they're bare and they look like soft brushes from the sky). And rivers are awesome. But as cool as it is to see a forest from miles above, looking like it's part of a model train set, it's about a million times cooler to see it from a few inches away.
This is something that's been dawning on me recently, as I spend lots of time with small children. I'd forgotten how important and fascinating nature is when you're a child: not Nature in any big metaphysical sense, but just common everyday nature like blades of grass and bits of bark. I used to know all the different kinds of grasses and wildflowers that grew in my yard-- sometimes their names, but always their colors, and where they grew, and what they looked like when you took them apart. My friend and I would collect berries and leaves and acorns, and set up a market with them... we'd grind things into paste, we'd build tiny forts out of sticks. That was nature.
So yesterday, I was outside with the kids and looking at a tree whose peachy-yellow leaves have almost all fallen. And I noticed it had buds, and little fresh brown twigs growing out of its branches. And I was fascinated by them: there are so many shapes and smells and textures in the world that we forget about as adults.
But I was talking about flying. I find the landscapes, as seen from the air, interesting for a few minutes, especially when we're lifting off or landing and the perspective is continually changing. But what I really love, what I look forward to every trip and what makes me thank God that I was born in an age of airplanes, are the skyscapes. Just think: five hundred years ago, no one except a few mountain-dwellers knew what clouds look like from above. And what they missed! what plains of snowy whiteness, what cities and mountains piled high, struck gold and blue by the sun! There is nothing, my friends, no sight on the planet, that I love as much as I love the sight of clouds spread out below me, with all their textures and shadows and impossibly inviting depths.
I must say I've never entirely gotten the "every cloud has a silver lining" thing. I'm sure, like most old sayings, it began with a real-life, observable phenomenon. But I've never seen anything on a cloud which I'd call a silver lining. No, my friends, I don't draw a lot of comfort from the silver linings that folk wisdom tells me are there. What every cloud has is an upper side: and it is shining and glorious in the light of the sun. I may not see even a glimpse of it, but on an overcast day I know it is there, and that one of these days I'll be up there again, on the right side of the clouds, where all is light.
Something that struck me, as I was in the air today, is how much less interesting everything on the ground becomes. A rock quarry, which is a stunning sight from the ground, becomes just a grey hole in the ground when you're in an airplane. The effect varies, depending on what you're looking at-- trees are still pretty great, especially when they're turning colors (though I like them best when they're bare and they look like soft brushes from the sky). And rivers are awesome. But as cool as it is to see a forest from miles above, looking like it's part of a model train set, it's about a million times cooler to see it from a few inches away.
This is something that's been dawning on me recently, as I spend lots of time with small children. I'd forgotten how important and fascinating nature is when you're a child: not Nature in any big metaphysical sense, but just common everyday nature like blades of grass and bits of bark. I used to know all the different kinds of grasses and wildflowers that grew in my yard-- sometimes their names, but always their colors, and where they grew, and what they looked like when you took them apart. My friend and I would collect berries and leaves and acorns, and set up a market with them... we'd grind things into paste, we'd build tiny forts out of sticks. That was nature.
So yesterday, I was outside with the kids and looking at a tree whose peachy-yellow leaves have almost all fallen. And I noticed it had buds, and little fresh brown twigs growing out of its branches. And I was fascinated by them: there are so many shapes and smells and textures in the world that we forget about as adults.
But I was talking about flying. I find the landscapes, as seen from the air, interesting for a few minutes, especially when we're lifting off or landing and the perspective is continually changing. But what I really love, what I look forward to every trip and what makes me thank God that I was born in an age of airplanes, are the skyscapes. Just think: five hundred years ago, no one except a few mountain-dwellers knew what clouds look like from above. And what they missed! what plains of snowy whiteness, what cities and mountains piled high, struck gold and blue by the sun! There is nothing, my friends, no sight on the planet, that I love as much as I love the sight of clouds spread out below me, with all their textures and shadows and impossibly inviting depths.
I must say I've never entirely gotten the "every cloud has a silver lining" thing. I'm sure, like most old sayings, it began with a real-life, observable phenomenon. But I've never seen anything on a cloud which I'd call a silver lining. No, my friends, I don't draw a lot of comfort from the silver linings that folk wisdom tells me are there. What every cloud has is an upper side: and it is shining and glorious in the light of the sun. I may not see even a glimpse of it, but on an overcast day I know it is there, and that one of these days I'll be up there again, on the right side of the clouds, where all is light.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
after much pestering, she consents, in part...
It's your lucky day. In keeping with my aim of loosening the iron fist of pride that clutches all my writing endeavors, I am going to make my NaNo work available to read. Sort of. Parts of it. To some people.
The way it works is this: I'll be posting excerpts, from scenes I enjoy and consider to not have more than three or four embarrassingly weak moments, on my other blog. Yes, I have another blog. It's here, but as of last spring it's friends-only, which means in order to read it you must either a) have a livejournal account and be listed as one of my friends, or b) have the username and password to the super-spiffy friends account I set up just so people like you could read my livejournal.
If you think I've been keeping riches of deep and life-altering thought away from you by not mentioning this journal sooner, set your mind at ease. The chief purpose of it is to keep out-of-state friends posted on my life and happenings... and to say the occasional silly things that pop into my head that I wish to share, but not to have tainting my public image (because, um, I have a public image and all, what with this highly-trafficked blog... ah, never mind.) This here is supposed to be my quality journal... which explains why I post so infrequently.
ANYway... so if you want to have access to the story excerpts I shall put up, email me, or comment here, and I'll send you the info to log in. Only if I know you, though. If you're a random stranger who likes my blog (I'm sure there are hundreds of you), well I'm sure you're a very nice person, but you'll have to content yourself with the wit and wisdom to be found right here.
The way it works is this: I'll be posting excerpts, from scenes I enjoy and consider to not have more than three or four embarrassingly weak moments, on my other blog. Yes, I have another blog. It's here, but as of last spring it's friends-only, which means in order to read it you must either a) have a livejournal account and be listed as one of my friends, or b) have the username and password to the super-spiffy friends account I set up just so people like you could read my livejournal.
If you think I've been keeping riches of deep and life-altering thought away from you by not mentioning this journal sooner, set your mind at ease. The chief purpose of it is to keep out-of-state friends posted on my life and happenings... and to say the occasional silly things that pop into my head that I wish to share, but not to have tainting my public image (because, um, I have a public image and all, what with this highly-trafficked blog... ah, never mind.) This here is supposed to be my quality journal... which explains why I post so infrequently.
ANYway... so if you want to have access to the story excerpts I shall put up, email me, or comment here, and I'll send you the info to log in. Only if I know you, though. If you're a random stranger who likes my blog (I'm sure there are hundreds of you), well I'm sure you're a very nice person, but you'll have to content yourself with the wit and wisdom to be found right here.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
some words of a great man
G. K. Chesterton was a lousy novelist.
This statement may come as a surprise to those who know me and know my love for Chesterton. But rest assured that I have not suddenly reversed my position. I still love Chesterton; as much as I have a soulmate, he is it. And I love his fiction works no less than his nonfiction... but in all honesty I must acknowledge that he was a lousy novelist.
His characters have no distinct voices, and hardly any distinct personalities. They do not come to life as people at all. There are essentially two character voices he uses: the wise and the unwise. The wise voice speaks in Chesterton's own, and delivers insight, usually in the form of paradox. The unwise voice exists to give the wise voice something to respond to. Chestertonian dialogue is more like Socratic dialogue than proper fictional dialogue. And, over the whole body of his fiction, it is possible to identify about seven distinct types into which nearly all of his characters fall. But that's all right, because the true characters of Chesterton's stories aren't the people at all.
The true characters in a Chesterton story are ideas; often an idea is personified by one of the people in the story, or spread over several, or several condensed into one person. But, by combining people and events, he puts ideas into play with one another. A Chesterton story is really just a Chesterton essay dramatized. And once you come to look at it in this way, a Chesterton story is every bit as delightful as a Chesterton essay.
He rejoices in wordplay, in pun and paradox. Better than any other writer I know, he links the whimsical and the profound. He is fond of turning things on their head, a master at creating a sudden shift of perspective which yields new understanding. He is a jolly philosopher, with optimism that comes not from blindness, but from an unshakable faith that the good, true, and beautiful is stronger than the evil.
There's a great website, providing most of his writings for free and public consumption, here. If you want to read his fiction, I suggest starting with the Father Brown stories. If you want to read nonfiction, you can't go wrong with any of the essays. Some of my favorites are "The Case for the Ephemeral," "A Defence of Rash Vows," and "Cheese." And if you want to read the most marvellous love-letter ever penned, the one that would have irrevocably captured my heart had it been written to me instead of to Miss Frances Blogg (later Frances Chesterton), it is found in the essay section under the title "To Frances."
In case you're the kind of person who tells yourself you'll check out the link later and never will, here's a sampler of quotes.
"I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."
"It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe,” or “Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet.” They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority."
"What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."
"One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a color. It is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white."
"Passing from the last miracle of practical foresight, we come to a box of matches. Every now and then I strike one of these, because fire is beautiful and burns your fingers. Some people think this a waste of matches: the same people who object to the building of Cathedrals."
This statement may come as a surprise to those who know me and know my love for Chesterton. But rest assured that I have not suddenly reversed my position. I still love Chesterton; as much as I have a soulmate, he is it. And I love his fiction works no less than his nonfiction... but in all honesty I must acknowledge that he was a lousy novelist.
His characters have no distinct voices, and hardly any distinct personalities. They do not come to life as people at all. There are essentially two character voices he uses: the wise and the unwise. The wise voice speaks in Chesterton's own, and delivers insight, usually in the form of paradox. The unwise voice exists to give the wise voice something to respond to. Chestertonian dialogue is more like Socratic dialogue than proper fictional dialogue. And, over the whole body of his fiction, it is possible to identify about seven distinct types into which nearly all of his characters fall. But that's all right, because the true characters of Chesterton's stories aren't the people at all.
The true characters in a Chesterton story are ideas; often an idea is personified by one of the people in the story, or spread over several, or several condensed into one person. But, by combining people and events, he puts ideas into play with one another. A Chesterton story is really just a Chesterton essay dramatized. And once you come to look at it in this way, a Chesterton story is every bit as delightful as a Chesterton essay.
He rejoices in wordplay, in pun and paradox. Better than any other writer I know, he links the whimsical and the profound. He is fond of turning things on their head, a master at creating a sudden shift of perspective which yields new understanding. He is a jolly philosopher, with optimism that comes not from blindness, but from an unshakable faith that the good, true, and beautiful is stronger than the evil.
There's a great website, providing most of his writings for free and public consumption, here. If you want to read his fiction, I suggest starting with the Father Brown stories. If you want to read nonfiction, you can't go wrong with any of the essays. Some of my favorites are "The Case for the Ephemeral," "A Defence of Rash Vows," and "Cheese." And if you want to read the most marvellous love-letter ever penned, the one that would have irrevocably captured my heart had it been written to me instead of to Miss Frances Blogg (later Frances Chesterton), it is found in the essay section under the title "To Frances."
In case you're the kind of person who tells yourself you'll check out the link later and never will, here's a sampler of quotes.
"I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."
"It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe,” or “Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet.” They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority."
"What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."
"One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a color. It is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a color. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white."
"Passing from the last miracle of practical foresight, we come to a box of matches. Every now and then I strike one of these, because fire is beautiful and burns your fingers. Some people think this a waste of matches: the same people who object to the building of Cathedrals."
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
On impossible endeavors, and what to expect 20 days from now
November is such an exciting month.
It wasn't always this way. Back in 2001, and all years previous, November was a low point in the year, second only to February in dullness, greyness, and general interminability (it's a word now folks.) Then in 2002, a friend with a penchant for discovering interesting and curious things online emailed me this link: www.nanowrimo.org. That one email changed my Novembers forever. ("Forever", in this case, is defined to mean the span of time between 2002 and 2005, and possibly longer.) Now they are thrilling, agonizing, infuriating, triumphant, despondent, panicked, giddy-- almost anything except dull.
In case you haven't compulsively checked the link already, I'll explain that November is the month when a handful of lunatic writers decide every year to attempt writing an entire 50,000-word novel in thirty days. The "handful" is getting quite large, with tens of thousands of people signing on from all around the world. There's a large forum where we all come to share our lunacy and procrastinate. It's great fun. There's no prize for those who make it-- except that you get a bright purple 'winner' banner in the NaNo forums.
The purpose of this exercise is to get people who have always talked about wanting to be writers to sit down and actually write. If you're trying to produce 50,000 words in thirty days, it's fairly certain they're not going to be terribly good words. It's a madcap dash, where you must throw all considerations of form and aesthetics aside and make a break for it. It requires laying aside perfectionism, self-criticism, and attention to detail, and just slopping words onto the page as fast as they'll come. In my three years of participating, I've never even made it to the halfway point.
My problem is, as most of my problems in life are, three parts pride and two parts laziness. Laying aside perfectionism and self-criticism: not so easy. Damn near impossible sometimes. There are many, many areas of life where I'm willing to do a merely decent job-- content as long as I don't utterly disgrace myself. Writing is not one of these areas. It's a toss-up whether my perfectionism is more suffocating when it comes to writing or when it comes to relationships. God may know which one I have a harder time with; I certainly don't. For whatever reason, writing is the act that lies nearest to my soul, and it wounds me to even think of doing it less than magnificently.
I am fortunate in that my two worst qualities, the aforementioned pride and laziness, tend to take the edge off one another. Pride motivates me to work harder at most things than my laziness would otherwise allow; laziness encourages me to let go of things that my pride would otherwise keep an iron grip on. In writing, though, the two simply tag-team to sabotage me. When I am wearied of perfectionism, I slump into a refusal to do any work at all. When I build up my motivation again, pride leaps in to freeze my words before they ever reach the page.
This is why I have "failed" NaNo three years in a row. This is also why I continue to attempt it, even when the outlook for finishing isn't good (this November's agenda includes editing nearly a whole book of my father's, writing a newsletter, and a trip out of town, as well as possibly being responsible for my family's Thanksgiving dinner). It's important that I give myself this month every year-- not so that I can let all my writerly inhibitions go and work with both abandon and diligence, but so that I can practice doing so. I'm still not very good at it. I think my record is around 20,000. But I'm getting better. And one of these years I will develop the courage and dedication to achieve the purple banner. And that will mean that I'm just a little bit closer to being able to live and love effectively, and to make a little more successful my raids on the inarticulate.
It wasn't always this way. Back in 2001, and all years previous, November was a low point in the year, second only to February in dullness, greyness, and general interminability (it's a word now folks.) Then in 2002, a friend with a penchant for discovering interesting and curious things online emailed me this link: www.nanowrimo.org. That one email changed my Novembers forever. ("Forever", in this case, is defined to mean the span of time between 2002 and 2005, and possibly longer.) Now they are thrilling, agonizing, infuriating, triumphant, despondent, panicked, giddy-- almost anything except dull.
In case you haven't compulsively checked the link already, I'll explain that November is the month when a handful of lunatic writers decide every year to attempt writing an entire 50,000-word novel in thirty days. The "handful" is getting quite large, with tens of thousands of people signing on from all around the world. There's a large forum where we all come to share our lunacy and procrastinate. It's great fun. There's no prize for those who make it-- except that you get a bright purple 'winner' banner in the NaNo forums.
The purpose of this exercise is to get people who have always talked about wanting to be writers to sit down and actually write. If you're trying to produce 50,000 words in thirty days, it's fairly certain they're not going to be terribly good words. It's a madcap dash, where you must throw all considerations of form and aesthetics aside and make a break for it. It requires laying aside perfectionism, self-criticism, and attention to detail, and just slopping words onto the page as fast as they'll come. In my three years of participating, I've never even made it to the halfway point.
My problem is, as most of my problems in life are, three parts pride and two parts laziness. Laying aside perfectionism and self-criticism: not so easy. Damn near impossible sometimes. There are many, many areas of life where I'm willing to do a merely decent job-- content as long as I don't utterly disgrace myself. Writing is not one of these areas. It's a toss-up whether my perfectionism is more suffocating when it comes to writing or when it comes to relationships. God may know which one I have a harder time with; I certainly don't. For whatever reason, writing is the act that lies nearest to my soul, and it wounds me to even think of doing it less than magnificently.
I am fortunate in that my two worst qualities, the aforementioned pride and laziness, tend to take the edge off one another. Pride motivates me to work harder at most things than my laziness would otherwise allow; laziness encourages me to let go of things that my pride would otherwise keep an iron grip on. In writing, though, the two simply tag-team to sabotage me. When I am wearied of perfectionism, I slump into a refusal to do any work at all. When I build up my motivation again, pride leaps in to freeze my words before they ever reach the page.
This is why I have "failed" NaNo three years in a row. This is also why I continue to attempt it, even when the outlook for finishing isn't good (this November's agenda includes editing nearly a whole book of my father's, writing a newsletter, and a trip out of town, as well as possibly being responsible for my family's Thanksgiving dinner). It's important that I give myself this month every year-- not so that I can let all my writerly inhibitions go and work with both abandon and diligence, but so that I can practice doing so. I'm still not very good at it. I think my record is around 20,000. But I'm getting better. And one of these years I will develop the courage and dedication to achieve the purple banner. And that will mean that I'm just a little bit closer to being able to live and love effectively, and to make a little more successful my raids on the inarticulate.
Friday, September 23, 2005
On triumph
It is an exhilarating thing to stand on the front lines of the battle between good and evil. Many people, in their day-to-day lives, work in the camps of this battle, often without realizing it, and their contributions are not to be underrated. But I am talking about standing directly in the line of fire—placing all your strength and all your devotion in a desperate stand against the destruction of something precious. The scale does not matter, nor the field: it can be physical, emotional, intellectual, or moral. Those who have stood here know what I mean.
My battle was small, intimate, and nearly overwhelming. It was a fight for the sanity of one person. The battle was not mine to win—victory, in such cases, comes only from the soul of the person and the Holy Spirit, in a private mystery of healing. But it was mine to fight. For over a year, every resource I had and many I didn't were called into the service of this battle. And we won. The sun broke through, the lie was defeated, and life began to grow again in the soil of truth.
That kind of triumph doesn't allow for conceit. I know that in my own power any resistance I could make would have been feeble. I know that in my own power, my faults of selfishness and arrogance would have overwhelmed any good I was able to do. It was grace which provided the continued strength, grace which provided the checks to my own unholy impulses. Most of all, it was grace that provided the ability to act out of character when it was needed—to push farther than I had ever done, to supply resources I did not yet possess. The grace of God upholds his warriors, and it is his gift to us that he allows us to be his arms in the fight.
That kind of triumph doesn't come without cost. I have never been able to tell fully what it was to stand in that place. The anguish, the helplessness, the desolation I walked through is private and unique, as every sufferer's suffering is private and unique—known only to the heart of God, who holds all our tears in a bottle. Then, too, there was the external cost: missed opportunities, undeveloped relationships, because my life for that year was wrapped around the all-consuming battle.
That kind of triumph doesn't leave you. For ever and always, I will have the knowledge of this victory. And in a world where evil is overwhelming, this is no mean possession. Once at least to me, suffering, struggle, and sacrifice were not in vain. Once at least, I have stood in rank against the dragon, and it was the dragon that fell.
Hard as that place was to walk in—and it was the hardest thing I have ever done—I have felt, since then, a desire to go back. Not to the same situation, not even to the same kind of situation, but to a place where the battle is clear and the stakes are high, a place that demands everything you're capable of and then some, a place where all your faith and all your love are called into single-minded service. A place where, though you do not know how to fight or even how to survive the next day, you know that you are fighting for the good. I found that I loved this place.
This is why I write fantasy, and why over and over again I return to read it. Particularly children's fantasy, because it is in these books that the battle between good and evil is played out most clearly and unapologetically. It is fought in ways and on grounds that you and I will never encounter, but it is fought against strong forces, at great cost, and to great reward. During my own battle, the story that most resonated with me was The Lord of the Rings. The movie version of Return of the King came out in the middle of that time, and I wept and wept to see Frodo and Sam making their way through Mordor. That was my fight: to walk with my friend through hell, until the deadly burden could be released and destroyed. That story was more real for me at that time than any tale about college friends going through hard times. This is why I write fantasy.
And this is why I will seek out another battleground. In this perpetual (but not eternal) war, we all have our part. Many spend their lives on the home front, working steadily to build the resources of the good, and the value of this work is immeasurable. But for myself—I think I was made to be a soldier. I don't know what fields I will be called to fight on, or for how long, or how soon. And until the time comes, I will work in the places given me. But I will be looking, and waiting, for a time when I am once again called to active duty.
My battle was small, intimate, and nearly overwhelming. It was a fight for the sanity of one person. The battle was not mine to win—victory, in such cases, comes only from the soul of the person and the Holy Spirit, in a private mystery of healing. But it was mine to fight. For over a year, every resource I had and many I didn't were called into the service of this battle. And we won. The sun broke through, the lie was defeated, and life began to grow again in the soil of truth.
That kind of triumph doesn't allow for conceit. I know that in my own power any resistance I could make would have been feeble. I know that in my own power, my faults of selfishness and arrogance would have overwhelmed any good I was able to do. It was grace which provided the continued strength, grace which provided the checks to my own unholy impulses. Most of all, it was grace that provided the ability to act out of character when it was needed—to push farther than I had ever done, to supply resources I did not yet possess. The grace of God upholds his warriors, and it is his gift to us that he allows us to be his arms in the fight.
That kind of triumph doesn't come without cost. I have never been able to tell fully what it was to stand in that place. The anguish, the helplessness, the desolation I walked through is private and unique, as every sufferer's suffering is private and unique—known only to the heart of God, who holds all our tears in a bottle. Then, too, there was the external cost: missed opportunities, undeveloped relationships, because my life for that year was wrapped around the all-consuming battle.
That kind of triumph doesn't leave you. For ever and always, I will have the knowledge of this victory. And in a world where evil is overwhelming, this is no mean possession. Once at least to me, suffering, struggle, and sacrifice were not in vain. Once at least, I have stood in rank against the dragon, and it was the dragon that fell.
Hard as that place was to walk in—and it was the hardest thing I have ever done—I have felt, since then, a desire to go back. Not to the same situation, not even to the same kind of situation, but to a place where the battle is clear and the stakes are high, a place that demands everything you're capable of and then some, a place where all your faith and all your love are called into single-minded service. A place where, though you do not know how to fight or even how to survive the next day, you know that you are fighting for the good. I found that I loved this place.
This is why I write fantasy, and why over and over again I return to read it. Particularly children's fantasy, because it is in these books that the battle between good and evil is played out most clearly and unapologetically. It is fought in ways and on grounds that you and I will never encounter, but it is fought against strong forces, at great cost, and to great reward. During my own battle, the story that most resonated with me was The Lord of the Rings. The movie version of Return of the King came out in the middle of that time, and I wept and wept to see Frodo and Sam making their way through Mordor. That was my fight: to walk with my friend through hell, until the deadly burden could be released and destroyed. That story was more real for me at that time than any tale about college friends going through hard times. This is why I write fantasy.
And this is why I will seek out another battleground. In this perpetual (but not eternal) war, we all have our part. Many spend their lives on the home front, working steadily to build the resources of the good, and the value of this work is immeasurable. But for myself—I think I was made to be a soldier. I don't know what fields I will be called to fight on, or for how long, or how soon. And until the time comes, I will work in the places given me. But I will be looking, and waiting, for a time when I am once again called to active duty.
Monday, September 05, 2005
A Tale of Five Cars: Squeak
Some people have a string of past relationships they can tell stories about. Each one has its own follies and traumas, its own excitements and beauties. Some of them are remembered with fondness; some with bitterness; some with longing. Taken together, the stories of these relationships paint a fascinating picture of one person's emotional life: the ways they have grown, the lessons they have learned, and the things that never seem to change.
I have a string of past cars. Like a parade of ex-boyfriends they march through my personal history, with their shades of elation and disappointment, triumph and defeat. In my automotive history, as in any romantic history, tragedy and comedy are mingled, and sometimes inseparable. There are lessons here for the ages, and a few for me to learn just once. In eight years I have owned five cars. This is not a great track record. I protest, though, that it is not fickleness or inconstancy that prevents me from maintaining a long-term, committed relationship with a vehicle. Other factors prevail. Read well, and judge at the end how much I am the fool, and how much the victim.
My first car was named Squeak, and my father bought her when I was sixteen. I'd never thought I would be one of those kids whose father buys them a car when they're sixteen, but then I'd never anticipated the trauma that both my father and I would suffer when he was teaching me to drive.
To understand this, you must understand three things. First, that my father had recently bought a fairly new white pickup truck, of which he was quite proud. Second, my father doesn't believe in training wheels. If you're going to learn to do something, he believes, you may as well start out with the hardest part. My family never has owned and never will own a car with automatic transmission. For me his oldest daughter, it was understood that "learning how to drive" meant "learning how to drive stick."
Third, my father is an engineer, and has a native sympathy and concern for the well-being of mechanical systems. And he knows a lot about cars-- which meant that, from the passenger seat, he had a deep and visceral understanding of exactly what was happening in the depths of his shiny new truck every time his sixteen-year-old daughter ground the clutch or clashed the gears.
These circumstances did not make for a gentle and reassuring educational experience. I've blocked out most of the specific memories, but I do remember my profound relief when Daddy came home from a weekend business trip driving a 1988 Hyundai Excel which he had bought off a co-worker for $100. He announced that this was my car, and her name was Squeak.
Squeak was light blue and cute as a button-- in a peeling-paint sort of way. She had a pert, triangular shape, and a friendly expression from the front. On either side of the rear license plate were two small stickers, one that said "GB" and one of a Union Jack, both of which delighted my Anglophile soul. Best of all, she made a sweet little jingling noise when the door was ajar or there was anything else she felt the driver needed to be alerted to. The door ajar sensor was a little off, too, so every time you drove over a bump, and sometimes for no reason at all, she'd let out a little jingle. Once or twice I swear she was singing along to my music.
She did have a few faults, of course: the gas gauge didn't work, which, coupled with my irrepressible optimism and belief that I could always make it just a few more miles, led to my logging quite a few hours trudging by the roadside toward the nearest gas station. Her paint, as I said, was peeling, and several bits of plastic broke or fell off on the inside. Then, of course, she was a Hyundai, which meant lots of quality time with our mechanic.
But the thing that bothered me most was the lack of air-conditioning. People who have never driven a car without AC don't fully appreciate how hot a summer really gets-- and when you rely on a 60-mph wind for any cooling you are to receive, a traffic jam ceases to be an annoyance and becomes an ordeal suitable for monastic training. Squeak's long, sloping rear windshield allowed for the maximum greenhouse effect, too. Every time I parked, from April to October, it was an agonizing gamble on whether the threat of rain outweighed the pain I would suffer on returning to the car if I left the windows up.
What she lacked in luxury, though, Squeak made up for in personality. We talked a lot... more me than her, but she was a good listener. She was privy to my thoughts, worries, observations, and frustrations over the the course of two rather lonely teenage years. When I wondered if a certain young man was interested in me, she was the first to hear about it, with all my observations and analyses of the evidence on both sides. When he and I started dating, and I found myself chatting less and less with her, I like to think she understood, and that her happiness for me outweighed her jealousy.
I always tried to respect her feelings, and only spoke harshly to her when she broke down, or when the heat was particularly unbearable. We had a close bond. When, a few weeks after we finally parted, I won a full scholarship to the school of my choice, one of my first impulses was to drop by the mechanic's where she rested and tell her about it. I rejected this urge as probably unhealthy, but it speaks to her importance in my life.
Like a first love, Squeak has a place in my heart that will never quite be uprooted, no matter how many newer, more attractive, more reliable models come into my life. The mechanics we gave her to apparently fixed her up a bit and managed to sell her again, because I've seen her once or twice around town since then. Like running into an old and fondly remembered friend, it always makes my day.
I have a string of past cars. Like a parade of ex-boyfriends they march through my personal history, with their shades of elation and disappointment, triumph and defeat. In my automotive history, as in any romantic history, tragedy and comedy are mingled, and sometimes inseparable. There are lessons here for the ages, and a few for me to learn just once. In eight years I have owned five cars. This is not a great track record. I protest, though, that it is not fickleness or inconstancy that prevents me from maintaining a long-term, committed relationship with a vehicle. Other factors prevail. Read well, and judge at the end how much I am the fool, and how much the victim.
My first car was named Squeak, and my father bought her when I was sixteen. I'd never thought I would be one of those kids whose father buys them a car when they're sixteen, but then I'd never anticipated the trauma that both my father and I would suffer when he was teaching me to drive.
To understand this, you must understand three things. First, that my father had recently bought a fairly new white pickup truck, of which he was quite proud. Second, my father doesn't believe in training wheels. If you're going to learn to do something, he believes, you may as well start out with the hardest part. My family never has owned and never will own a car with automatic transmission. For me his oldest daughter, it was understood that "learning how to drive" meant "learning how to drive stick."
Third, my father is an engineer, and has a native sympathy and concern for the well-being of mechanical systems. And he knows a lot about cars-- which meant that, from the passenger seat, he had a deep and visceral understanding of exactly what was happening in the depths of his shiny new truck every time his sixteen-year-old daughter ground the clutch or clashed the gears.
These circumstances did not make for a gentle and reassuring educational experience. I've blocked out most of the specific memories, but I do remember my profound relief when Daddy came home from a weekend business trip driving a 1988 Hyundai Excel which he had bought off a co-worker for $100. He announced that this was my car, and her name was Squeak.
Squeak was light blue and cute as a button-- in a peeling-paint sort of way. She had a pert, triangular shape, and a friendly expression from the front. On either side of the rear license plate were two small stickers, one that said "GB" and one of a Union Jack, both of which delighted my Anglophile soul. Best of all, she made a sweet little jingling noise when the door was ajar or there was anything else she felt the driver needed to be alerted to. The door ajar sensor was a little off, too, so every time you drove over a bump, and sometimes for no reason at all, she'd let out a little jingle. Once or twice I swear she was singing along to my music.
She did have a few faults, of course: the gas gauge didn't work, which, coupled with my irrepressible optimism and belief that I could always make it just a few more miles, led to my logging quite a few hours trudging by the roadside toward the nearest gas station. Her paint, as I said, was peeling, and several bits of plastic broke or fell off on the inside. Then, of course, she was a Hyundai, which meant lots of quality time with our mechanic.
But the thing that bothered me most was the lack of air-conditioning. People who have never driven a car without AC don't fully appreciate how hot a summer really gets-- and when you rely on a 60-mph wind for any cooling you are to receive, a traffic jam ceases to be an annoyance and becomes an ordeal suitable for monastic training. Squeak's long, sloping rear windshield allowed for the maximum greenhouse effect, too. Every time I parked, from April to October, it was an agonizing gamble on whether the threat of rain outweighed the pain I would suffer on returning to the car if I left the windows up.
What she lacked in luxury, though, Squeak made up for in personality. We talked a lot... more me than her, but she was a good listener. She was privy to my thoughts, worries, observations, and frustrations over the the course of two rather lonely teenage years. When I wondered if a certain young man was interested in me, she was the first to hear about it, with all my observations and analyses of the evidence on both sides. When he and I started dating, and I found myself chatting less and less with her, I like to think she understood, and that her happiness for me outweighed her jealousy.
I always tried to respect her feelings, and only spoke harshly to her when she broke down, or when the heat was particularly unbearable. We had a close bond. When, a few weeks after we finally parted, I won a full scholarship to the school of my choice, one of my first impulses was to drop by the mechanic's where she rested and tell her about it. I rejected this urge as probably unhealthy, but it speaks to her importance in my life.
Like a first love, Squeak has a place in my heart that will never quite be uprooted, no matter how many newer, more attractive, more reliable models come into my life. The mechanics we gave her to apparently fixed her up a bit and managed to sell her again, because I've seen her once or twice around town since then. Like running into an old and fondly remembered friend, it always makes my day.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
a poem is never finished; only published
Logos
Once there was a language whose sound meant shapes:
Its word for dog leapt up in tail and scrabbling claws,
Its word for feather rocked on the breath that formed it,
Its sun-word scorched the ear that heard.
To speak was to give birth; to shudder forth creation;
To sear the living sky with newborn stars.
To hear was to die, and be reborn
With the new word stamped into the pattern of your veins.
This language, if it is still spoken,
Is whispered in hidden galaxies or the shadows of tree-bark,
And we have only the echoes of words
Left when the forging tongue rolled to silence.
The poet must work from the other end,
From a blade of grass must build a tower
Of shadow-words which, if the time is right,
Will seem to stand up thin, and sharp, and green.
to Scott
Do not think I fancy myself
The keeper of some mystic secret.
I claim no divine clarity:
I know no more than you.
I, like you, have tasted blood
I know the salted nights
Rolling in red and salted skin.
You know as well as I do that this salt will burn away
Leaving– we cannot guess.
Only I feel and name the hidden pulse;
Only I assail the mystery
Which lurks as a panther, black and tearing,
And am cast back, bleeding for presumption;
Only in my blood I must give it a name–
The strongest name I know.
Only I have stood beneath the moon
In a place of windy darkness
And this hit me: that love is white and cold
And burns the flesh off of our reaching fingertips.
The Water's Wide: an expansion
The water's wide beneath my shaking heels;
I'd walk across if I had sainted feet,
But the sun's too bright to see my Savior's face
And echoes of his voice don't firm the waves
Enough to hold me up. I cannot see
Even a shadow of the distant shore
And if I could, what then? I can't get o'er.
And neither have I dreams to lift me up
Above the clouds, to see what there awaits.
The dreams which used to be my fire and food
Are helpless to uplift this heavy flesh.
Awakened, I am earthbound, but compelled
To go where no earth lies to hold my weight.
I cannot swim so far, and this year I
Would need a stronger aid than wings to fly.
Give me a boat, a rocking hollow shell
To intercede for me before the waves;
I do not ask for sails or motor wheel
Only an oarlock, and a place beside
For a companion, who is also bound
For the far island; I could not leave here
Without him, nor would any shore appear
If I set off alone. So bound by you
We'll make our way in one that carries two.
And two will row, in halting stilted time
Hampered by different rhythms, cramped in space
That seems too narrow for us both to move.
And days on end surrounded by flat sea
And dim grey sky, and never more alone
That when I look at you, a stranger here
Though we have rowed for years. And yet my dear,
My shipmate, slowly we will learn our oars,
And more: someday beneath a clearing sky
The shore will welcome home my love and I.
Once there was a language whose sound meant shapes:
Its word for dog leapt up in tail and scrabbling claws,
Its word for feather rocked on the breath that formed it,
Its sun-word scorched the ear that heard.
To speak was to give birth; to shudder forth creation;
To sear the living sky with newborn stars.
To hear was to die, and be reborn
With the new word stamped into the pattern of your veins.
This language, if it is still spoken,
Is whispered in hidden galaxies or the shadows of tree-bark,
And we have only the echoes of words
Left when the forging tongue rolled to silence.
The poet must work from the other end,
From a blade of grass must build a tower
Of shadow-words which, if the time is right,
Will seem to stand up thin, and sharp, and green.
to Scott
Do not think I fancy myself
The keeper of some mystic secret.
I claim no divine clarity:
I know no more than you.
I, like you, have tasted blood
I know the salted nights
Rolling in red and salted skin.
You know as well as I do that this salt will burn away
Leaving– we cannot guess.
Only I feel and name the hidden pulse;
Only I assail the mystery
Which lurks as a panther, black and tearing,
And am cast back, bleeding for presumption;
Only in my blood I must give it a name–
The strongest name I know.
Only I have stood beneath the moon
In a place of windy darkness
And this hit me: that love is white and cold
And burns the flesh off of our reaching fingertips.
The Water's Wide: an expansion
The water's wide beneath my shaking heels;
I'd walk across if I had sainted feet,
But the sun's too bright to see my Savior's face
And echoes of his voice don't firm the waves
Enough to hold me up. I cannot see
Even a shadow of the distant shore
And if I could, what then? I can't get o'er.
And neither have I dreams to lift me up
Above the clouds, to see what there awaits.
The dreams which used to be my fire and food
Are helpless to uplift this heavy flesh.
Awakened, I am earthbound, but compelled
To go where no earth lies to hold my weight.
I cannot swim so far, and this year I
Would need a stronger aid than wings to fly.
Give me a boat, a rocking hollow shell
To intercede for me before the waves;
I do not ask for sails or motor wheel
Only an oarlock, and a place beside
For a companion, who is also bound
For the far island; I could not leave here
Without him, nor would any shore appear
If I set off alone. So bound by you
We'll make our way in one that carries two.
And two will row, in halting stilted time
Hampered by different rhythms, cramped in space
That seems too narrow for us both to move.
And days on end surrounded by flat sea
And dim grey sky, and never more alone
That when I look at you, a stranger here
Though we have rowed for years. And yet my dear,
My shipmate, slowly we will learn our oars,
And more: someday beneath a clearing sky
The shore will welcome home my love and I.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
the song list
I like, as you may learn if I become diligent about keeping this blog, to make top 5 lists. Some are long, some are short (yes a list of five items can vary in length... see below), some are serious, some are whimsical, some are my customary mixture of both. Here we shall look into my five favorite songs. I should explain that by 'songs' I mean more or less contemporary, more or less secular songs, because I can't possibly weigh them against my favorite hymns or folk songs or classical pieces. That said, here we go:
#5: The Language or the Kiss, by the Indigo Girls.
The thing I love best in the Indigo Girls' music is when they work through a sequence of wringing harmonies, moving the chords closer together one note at a time so it feels like your heart is being squeezed tighter and tighter. And they do that in this song, and it's beautiful, but that's not why I love the song. I love it because it expresses a conflict which has troubled me at least since my freshman year in college. Without trivializing it (I hate summarizing the meaning of good songs or poems because I feel that it necessarily overreduces), the conflict is between the craving for human bonds, and the drive to create, which for most of us is and must be a solitary act. There is a passion in creativity, be it intellectual or artistic or any other kind, that is fierce and consuming. It demands independence, stability, and a certain detachment from the tangible things around you, and its reward is a particular joy, deep and unshakable, which does not come, in my experience, from anything else.
Standing against this is the longing for love, for warmth, for fellowship, the desire to share oneself and one's life. There is another joy, profoundly different in quality, that comes from being devoted to another person, and binding one's life up with them. Some people find themselves naturally drawn to one of these joys and relatively uninterested in the other; for many of us, though, both call, and there is a painful conflict. The fear I have is that this conflict is irresolvable. And this song speaks to both the conflict and the fear.
#4: What a Good Boy, by the Barenaked Ladies.
More inner demons: this one, to me, speaks to the desire to be found perfect. I think someone on the Ladies' songwriting team and I have very similar struggles in the area of perfection and vulnerability, because whenever they stop clowning around this same theme seems to come out (and even the clowning is in some ways symptomatic of it). We want to be beyond questioning and above reproach; we want to maintain rigid control of the way others see us. If this means leading a dry, cold, hollow life, so be it. It only becomes a problem when something (usually someone) draws us out and makes us reach for love. Of all their songs that touch on this issue (and it is a many-faceted one), this I think is the best.
#3: Hey Jude, by the Beatles (but you knew that).
I've fallen in love with this song twice: once lyrically, once musically. Back when my brother and I listened to the oldies station all the time, we found this song kind of a drag... it was okay, but we didn't like it that much, and it was going to take up the next seven minutes of radio time... half of it with na-na-nas. Then a few years later, I heard the line "you're waiting for someone to perform with" and it hit me like the answer to the riddle that's been bothering you for months. After that I started listening more closely to the words, and over the next several years one line or another seemed to be speaking as the voice of my personal counselor.
The second time I fell in love with the song was when I first saw The Royal Tenenbaums. If you've seen the movie, you'll remember there's a long intro section talking about the characters and explaining the setup, and of course it's a Wes Anderson movie so everything is completely deadpan but there's this sharp tragedy underneath it, masked in the eccentricity and the flatness of the characters. And playing behind the voiceover is 'Hey Jude,' but you don't really notice it until right at the end of the intro the second son lets his pet falcon free, and the song comes up full-volume, and it's just this brilliant moment of soaring emotion as the hawk glides through the city... it's perfect.
#2: The Boxer, by Simon and Garfunkel.
This is one of many songs (and poems too) where the music grabbed me first and made me love it even though I couldn't understand what the words were really about, and then slowly over the years it's as if layers are peeled back from the meaning and every so often I listen to the song again and have a new burst of understanding. I will never forget the first time I heard this song. I was about sixteen, and I'd just gotten a Simon and Garfunkel tape (yes, we listened to tapes back then) for my birthday. I think the family was in the family room watching a movie, but for some reason I'd left and was back in my little four-foot-deep room listening to the tape. The Boxer was the third song on it, and I liked the beginning of the song well enough, but when the 'lai-lai-lai's started I was frozen to the spot. I stood there with my eyes closed, listening to the layering of instruments, the deep bass throb and the crying strings on top, and I was overcome. And my reaction to the song hasn't changed much over the years. It wasn't really till college that the words began to resonate with me: the loneliness and the smallness of the voice, and the image of the boxer carrying the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him till he cried out, in his anger and his shame, I am leaving... anyway this is an amazing song, and it's been my favorite since I was sixteen and would be still except for...
#1: Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen.
How to even talk about this song? It was not, like The Boxer, love at first sight... it was a slow building, hearing it the first few times while doing other things, and thinking 'that's a lovely song' but not really paying attention, but listening more carefully the next time and being glad to hear it again. It was when I was driving to school for the beginning of my sophomore year that the full beauty of it hit me. I played it four times on the way down (and I normally try not to repeat a song even once.) I didn't know it then, but the coming year, and indeed the rest of my college life, was to be a cold and broken hallelujah. Getting to sing and play the song in my last year for Night of the Arts was the perfect summation of my time there.
A word about the versions: the version I knew first, and still love the best, is Rufus Wainwright's. The piano gives warmth to the song, and Rufus's tender and slightly unearthly voice touches the verses beautifully. Jeff Buckley has an exquisite voice, but his version is colder-- I like it at the beginning, when he sings with a painful intimacy, but when he gets louder the emotional force is lost to me. Leonard Cohen's own version is odd-- over-arranged and over-produced. I like to listen to it, but I think it doesn't nearly do justice to the simple beauty of the melody. By far the loveliest performance of the song I have ever heard was when Justin Rosolino did it live with his two friends Brian Webb and Bill something-or-other. One of the favorite moments of my life.
#5: The Language or the Kiss, by the Indigo Girls.
The thing I love best in the Indigo Girls' music is when they work through a sequence of wringing harmonies, moving the chords closer together one note at a time so it feels like your heart is being squeezed tighter and tighter. And they do that in this song, and it's beautiful, but that's not why I love the song. I love it because it expresses a conflict which has troubled me at least since my freshman year in college. Without trivializing it (I hate summarizing the meaning of good songs or poems because I feel that it necessarily overreduces), the conflict is between the craving for human bonds, and the drive to create, which for most of us is and must be a solitary act. There is a passion in creativity, be it intellectual or artistic or any other kind, that is fierce and consuming. It demands independence, stability, and a certain detachment from the tangible things around you, and its reward is a particular joy, deep and unshakable, which does not come, in my experience, from anything else.
Standing against this is the longing for love, for warmth, for fellowship, the desire to share oneself and one's life. There is another joy, profoundly different in quality, that comes from being devoted to another person, and binding one's life up with them. Some people find themselves naturally drawn to one of these joys and relatively uninterested in the other; for many of us, though, both call, and there is a painful conflict. The fear I have is that this conflict is irresolvable. And this song speaks to both the conflict and the fear.
#4: What a Good Boy, by the Barenaked Ladies.
More inner demons: this one, to me, speaks to the desire to be found perfect. I think someone on the Ladies' songwriting team and I have very similar struggles in the area of perfection and vulnerability, because whenever they stop clowning around this same theme seems to come out (and even the clowning is in some ways symptomatic of it). We want to be beyond questioning and above reproach; we want to maintain rigid control of the way others see us. If this means leading a dry, cold, hollow life, so be it. It only becomes a problem when something (usually someone) draws us out and makes us reach for love. Of all their songs that touch on this issue (and it is a many-faceted one), this I think is the best.
#3: Hey Jude, by the Beatles (but you knew that).
I've fallen in love with this song twice: once lyrically, once musically. Back when my brother and I listened to the oldies station all the time, we found this song kind of a drag... it was okay, but we didn't like it that much, and it was going to take up the next seven minutes of radio time... half of it with na-na-nas. Then a few years later, I heard the line "you're waiting for someone to perform with" and it hit me like the answer to the riddle that's been bothering you for months. After that I started listening more closely to the words, and over the next several years one line or another seemed to be speaking as the voice of my personal counselor.
The second time I fell in love with the song was when I first saw The Royal Tenenbaums. If you've seen the movie, you'll remember there's a long intro section talking about the characters and explaining the setup, and of course it's a Wes Anderson movie so everything is completely deadpan but there's this sharp tragedy underneath it, masked in the eccentricity and the flatness of the characters. And playing behind the voiceover is 'Hey Jude,' but you don't really notice it until right at the end of the intro the second son lets his pet falcon free, and the song comes up full-volume, and it's just this brilliant moment of soaring emotion as the hawk glides through the city... it's perfect.
#2: The Boxer, by Simon and Garfunkel.
This is one of many songs (and poems too) where the music grabbed me first and made me love it even though I couldn't understand what the words were really about, and then slowly over the years it's as if layers are peeled back from the meaning and every so often I listen to the song again and have a new burst of understanding. I will never forget the first time I heard this song. I was about sixteen, and I'd just gotten a Simon and Garfunkel tape (yes, we listened to tapes back then) for my birthday. I think the family was in the family room watching a movie, but for some reason I'd left and was back in my little four-foot-deep room listening to the tape. The Boxer was the third song on it, and I liked the beginning of the song well enough, but when the 'lai-lai-lai's started I was frozen to the spot. I stood there with my eyes closed, listening to the layering of instruments, the deep bass throb and the crying strings on top, and I was overcome. And my reaction to the song hasn't changed much over the years. It wasn't really till college that the words began to resonate with me: the loneliness and the smallness of the voice, and the image of the boxer carrying the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him till he cried out, in his anger and his shame, I am leaving... anyway this is an amazing song, and it's been my favorite since I was sixteen and would be still except for...
#1: Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen.
How to even talk about this song? It was not, like The Boxer, love at first sight... it was a slow building, hearing it the first few times while doing other things, and thinking 'that's a lovely song' but not really paying attention, but listening more carefully the next time and being glad to hear it again. It was when I was driving to school for the beginning of my sophomore year that the full beauty of it hit me. I played it four times on the way down (and I normally try not to repeat a song even once.) I didn't know it then, but the coming year, and indeed the rest of my college life, was to be a cold and broken hallelujah. Getting to sing and play the song in my last year for Night of the Arts was the perfect summation of my time there.
A word about the versions: the version I knew first, and still love the best, is Rufus Wainwright's. The piano gives warmth to the song, and Rufus's tender and slightly unearthly voice touches the verses beautifully. Jeff Buckley has an exquisite voice, but his version is colder-- I like it at the beginning, when he sings with a painful intimacy, but when he gets louder the emotional force is lost to me. Leonard Cohen's own version is odd-- over-arranged and over-produced. I like to listen to it, but I think it doesn't nearly do justice to the simple beauty of the melody. By far the loveliest performance of the song I have ever heard was when Justin Rosolino did it live with his two friends Brian Webb and Bill something-or-other. One of the favorite moments of my life.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
On the suffering of the innocent
This is a response to a post by a friend of mine, so if you want to know what triggered these thoughts, or simply what I'm referring to, read his first: http://tegidtathal.blogspot.com/ Steve, you can thank me later for the vast wave of new readership that will come to you through this link.
First of all, as I said in my comment to his post, I agree with pretty much everything he said (that "pretty much" being in there because my lib arts training has conditioned me against absolute statements about anything I have not spent seven hours considering in minute detail.) This is more of a spinoff, a reflection, a view from another angle, than it is a rebuttal. That said, I commence.
The statement that got me working was "it has absolutely nothing to do with you." This, as you must know, is not strictly true. Anything that springs from, touches on, or in any way concerns a relationship, by nature has something to do with both the people involved. That's the essence of a relationship. It would be more accurate, in the situation described, to say, "it is not caused by or reflective upon you." I agree that a man may have doubts about his own readiness to enter into a permanent, monogamous relationship, and that these doubts may not reflect at all upon the woman. In that sense they have nothing to do with her. In a different sense, though, they have plenty.
Imagine (and, like Steve, I should disclaim that this has not happened to me, it's merely a reflection of things I've observed and imagined) what it would be like to have the person you love, trust, and are counting on to be with you for the rest of your life, suggest out of the blue that you date other people. It would be hard not to be hurt, confused, and frightened by this. Even if you were fully assured that it was not a reflection of anything in or about you, the hurt would remain. So, while the man's doubts in our hypothetical situation may not be in any way related to the woman herself, they most certainly have to do with her, if only because they hurt her and leave her struggling to understand what's behind it.
This is how it always is. It is common wisdom to say that all problems in a relationship are caused by both people to some extent. Common wisdom is, in this case as in most, usually right. But what it overlooks, and what I think our current culture is all too anxious to overlook, is the reality that sometimes one person in a relationship acts, or feels, or changes, in such a way that the other person, though not in any way responsible, is deeply affected. The situation described above is one such case. Another (quite different) would be when one person converts to, or leaves, a religion. In both of these cases, the other person may not have any control or responsibility, either in causing or preventing the change, and yet the relationship will be profoundly affected.
We don't like this because we like fairness. We want, in some measure, to be able to understand the things that hurt us because we had some hand in them, however subtly. This (I am told) is why rape victims so often continue to feel guilt for what happened to them. Accepting guilt and responsibility is hard, but even harder is accepting lack of control. If something painful happened to me that I was partially responsible for, it means I have some measure of control over the situation. It means I can keep it from ever happening again. If something painful happened to me that I neither caused nor could have prevented, it means the world has power to affect me beyond my control. And that is a terrifying thought.
Taking it back to the level of relationships-- it is inevitable that in a prolonged intimate relationship, you will be hurt by the other person, sometimes in ways you have no responsibility for, and therefore no control over. And what is one to do, faced with this inevitability? It is tempting to run away, to shut people out, to never let anyone in close enough to have that power. This is not just a cliche I'm voicing. I say this-- I who have wanted nothing in my life more than I've wanted to love and be loved by one person, specially-- I have considered what I have suffered, unwillingly and without responsibility, in the past, and what I might suffer in the future, and I have wanted to bail. Alaska is my retreat of choice... I could sit there in a little cabin, with a big dog and a small cat, and write through the long winters, and send nice, courteous letters to friends and family and occasionally have someone up for a visit. Or I could move to New York City, which probably offers even greater opportunity for anonymity and seclusion. Either way, I would be safe, insulated from the dangers of intimacy.
It won't do, of course. To live like that would be to forsake the vitality in human life. It would be like trying to live as all bone and no blood. The giving and receiving of pain is part of the whole flow of human relationship, the mystery of letting yourself be touched by someone whose will is wholly separate from your own. Touch can be pleasant, or painful, or comforting, or irritating. But to be isolated from all touch would be to deny your nerves their function-- and science has learned that the body cannot long tolerate such denial.
And it is not as if we are being asked to do something new. Christ himself, the one person who perhaps could have avoided it, courted the friendship of someone who he knew was going to betray him-- and with a kiss.
First of all, as I said in my comment to his post, I agree with pretty much everything he said (that "pretty much" being in there because my lib arts training has conditioned me against absolute statements about anything I have not spent seven hours considering in minute detail.) This is more of a spinoff, a reflection, a view from another angle, than it is a rebuttal. That said, I commence.
The statement that got me working was "it has absolutely nothing to do with you." This, as you must know, is not strictly true. Anything that springs from, touches on, or in any way concerns a relationship, by nature has something to do with both the people involved. That's the essence of a relationship. It would be more accurate, in the situation described, to say, "it is not caused by or reflective upon you." I agree that a man may have doubts about his own readiness to enter into a permanent, monogamous relationship, and that these doubts may not reflect at all upon the woman. In that sense they have nothing to do with her. In a different sense, though, they have plenty.
Imagine (and, like Steve, I should disclaim that this has not happened to me, it's merely a reflection of things I've observed and imagined) what it would be like to have the person you love, trust, and are counting on to be with you for the rest of your life, suggest out of the blue that you date other people. It would be hard not to be hurt, confused, and frightened by this. Even if you were fully assured that it was not a reflection of anything in or about you, the hurt would remain. So, while the man's doubts in our hypothetical situation may not be in any way related to the woman herself, they most certainly have to do with her, if only because they hurt her and leave her struggling to understand what's behind it.
This is how it always is. It is common wisdom to say that all problems in a relationship are caused by both people to some extent. Common wisdom is, in this case as in most, usually right. But what it overlooks, and what I think our current culture is all too anxious to overlook, is the reality that sometimes one person in a relationship acts, or feels, or changes, in such a way that the other person, though not in any way responsible, is deeply affected. The situation described above is one such case. Another (quite different) would be when one person converts to, or leaves, a religion. In both of these cases, the other person may not have any control or responsibility, either in causing or preventing the change, and yet the relationship will be profoundly affected.
We don't like this because we like fairness. We want, in some measure, to be able to understand the things that hurt us because we had some hand in them, however subtly. This (I am told) is why rape victims so often continue to feel guilt for what happened to them. Accepting guilt and responsibility is hard, but even harder is accepting lack of control. If something painful happened to me that I was partially responsible for, it means I have some measure of control over the situation. It means I can keep it from ever happening again. If something painful happened to me that I neither caused nor could have prevented, it means the world has power to affect me beyond my control. And that is a terrifying thought.
Taking it back to the level of relationships-- it is inevitable that in a prolonged intimate relationship, you will be hurt by the other person, sometimes in ways you have no responsibility for, and therefore no control over. And what is one to do, faced with this inevitability? It is tempting to run away, to shut people out, to never let anyone in close enough to have that power. This is not just a cliche I'm voicing. I say this-- I who have wanted nothing in my life more than I've wanted to love and be loved by one person, specially-- I have considered what I have suffered, unwillingly and without responsibility, in the past, and what I might suffer in the future, and I have wanted to bail. Alaska is my retreat of choice... I could sit there in a little cabin, with a big dog and a small cat, and write through the long winters, and send nice, courteous letters to friends and family and occasionally have someone up for a visit. Or I could move to New York City, which probably offers even greater opportunity for anonymity and seclusion. Either way, I would be safe, insulated from the dangers of intimacy.
It won't do, of course. To live like that would be to forsake the vitality in human life. It would be like trying to live as all bone and no blood. The giving and receiving of pain is part of the whole flow of human relationship, the mystery of letting yourself be touched by someone whose will is wholly separate from your own. Touch can be pleasant, or painful, or comforting, or irritating. But to be isolated from all touch would be to deny your nerves their function-- and science has learned that the body cannot long tolerate such denial.
And it is not as if we are being asked to do something new. Christ himself, the one person who perhaps could have avoided it, courted the friendship of someone who he knew was going to betray him-- and with a kiss.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
On superlatives
Today as I was walking back from lunch, I ran into a friend who inquired about the progress of my book. I was able to give a favorable report with less dishonesty than usual, and he of course proceeded to ask when it will be presented to the public. I told him by graduation, he expressed eagerness to read it, I expressed thanks for his interest, and we went our ways.
Unfortunately, as so many casual encounters do, it got me thinking. The book, story, novella, whatever it is growing up to be, will indeed be finished by May... under some definition of 'finished.' Already I have had to cut back on my goals for the project, making it two parts instead of three. This morning I was faced again with the stark realization that in no way, except by adding eight or nine hours to the length of each day, am I going to be able to do the kind of exhaustive revision I had intended to do. I will have to be content with presenting something that looks like a story, is coherent, and is at least moderately entertaining.
That will do for academic purposes-- and it is, after all, the academic purposes that impose the deadline. If I ever try to publish it, which I would still like to do, I will spend a good deal more time on it. I have resigned myself to the fact that it will be declared finished, as far as my school is concerned, long before I have finished with it. But that leaves hanging the difficult question of friends reading it.
I will let my friends read it, of course. At least a few of them would be highly disappointed if I didn't. But here perfectionism, my iron-handed opponent, begins to speak. I managed to quench him several years ago with regard to academic work-- otherwise I would never have turned anything in. And so I will feel comfortable handing the story in to my professor in its polished but imperfect state. But I still hate the thought of presenting anything to my friends which does not represent the height of my vision.
Why? Because I want them, and everybody else, to see the best I can do. Most of all, I don't want them to see my work in an incomplete state and think it is the best I can do. I want to dazzle, to astonish, to make everybody cry, "We had no idea you could do such incredible work!" I believe, with all the hubris I was born with, that I am capable of doing this. And I don't want to present to the public any work which falls short of that ideal.
But then I thought, What, after all, is the best I can do? If I write something that dazzles and astounds, does that mean I have reached the height of my capability? If I write something excellent, could I not yet write something better than that? "Do your best," applied to my writing, suddenly loses all sense, for I will never know when I have done my best. At least, I pray I will not. If I write a dozen novels in my lifetime, doubtless critics will declare one or two of them to be my best, and that is all well and good. But God forbid that I should ever look at a work of mine and say, "That is the best I am capable of." As long as I continue writing, I mean to continue reaching for new heights of excellence.
So it appears, after all, that my ambition to present my friends with the best I can do is futile. There is no "best I can do." There is only the best I have done. And that "best I have done" will, please God, continue to grow better as long as I live.
Unfortunately, as so many casual encounters do, it got me thinking. The book, story, novella, whatever it is growing up to be, will indeed be finished by May... under some definition of 'finished.' Already I have had to cut back on my goals for the project, making it two parts instead of three. This morning I was faced again with the stark realization that in no way, except by adding eight or nine hours to the length of each day, am I going to be able to do the kind of exhaustive revision I had intended to do. I will have to be content with presenting something that looks like a story, is coherent, and is at least moderately entertaining.
That will do for academic purposes-- and it is, after all, the academic purposes that impose the deadline. If I ever try to publish it, which I would still like to do, I will spend a good deal more time on it. I have resigned myself to the fact that it will be declared finished, as far as my school is concerned, long before I have finished with it. But that leaves hanging the difficult question of friends reading it.
I will let my friends read it, of course. At least a few of them would be highly disappointed if I didn't. But here perfectionism, my iron-handed opponent, begins to speak. I managed to quench him several years ago with regard to academic work-- otherwise I would never have turned anything in. And so I will feel comfortable handing the story in to my professor in its polished but imperfect state. But I still hate the thought of presenting anything to my friends which does not represent the height of my vision.
Why? Because I want them, and everybody else, to see the best I can do. Most of all, I don't want them to see my work in an incomplete state and think it is the best I can do. I want to dazzle, to astonish, to make everybody cry, "We had no idea you could do such incredible work!" I believe, with all the hubris I was born with, that I am capable of doing this. And I don't want to present to the public any work which falls short of that ideal.
But then I thought, What, after all, is the best I can do? If I write something that dazzles and astounds, does that mean I have reached the height of my capability? If I write something excellent, could I not yet write something better than that? "Do your best," applied to my writing, suddenly loses all sense, for I will never know when I have done my best. At least, I pray I will not. If I write a dozen novels in my lifetime, doubtless critics will declare one or two of them to be my best, and that is all well and good. But God forbid that I should ever look at a work of mine and say, "That is the best I am capable of." As long as I continue writing, I mean to continue reaching for new heights of excellence.
So it appears, after all, that my ambition to present my friends with the best I can do is futile. There is no "best I can do." There is only the best I have done. And that "best I have done" will, please God, continue to grow better as long as I live.
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