So it's August 13. Forget that it's a Friday... I'm much too generally unlucky to get too tied in with superstition. I'm not thrilled, however, that it's August 13. I did not get this memo. I certainly did not approve it. I was driving home from the gym at 9:00 p.m. and it was dark outside. The humidity we've been suffering all summer is starting to wane. Two weeks ago I needed a sweater after watching the Jays game. There's nothing quite like August to remind us that summer only lasts so long. Things are going to change when I'm in charge.
And I will be in charge one day. Watch me.
Eight months into the year I can declare that this has been the longest year of the last 27. Or perhaps it isn't and I've managed to suppress a few memories. I'll take it either way. Let's take a toll: wedding, new apartment, new job, no holiday (oy!), alleged illness (that was a lot of fun - let's never do that again), and more foot/ankle/knee/leg injuries than I care to even try to recall. Before any of this happened I had been training hard to try a triathlon this past spring, an endeavor that was sidelined by almost all of the above right around February. Yeah, life beats me up sometimes. But I was encountered by a sudden intimation sometime this afternoon that the time has probably come to pick up the pieces and move forward. So I hit the pool this evening and made probably the greatest half-mile sprint of my life. And tomorrow I'll beat a punching bag to a pulp, and on Sunday I might take my bike out into the woods. Life beats us all up sometimes. I'm climbing back into the saddle. Can anybody really afford not to?
Things are going to change when I'm in charge. In the meantime, with luck, the rest of August will drag on and on and on...
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
For Love of Country
Still digging through the archives. This one goes back to September 2006. These early notes contributed to the general sentiment of what ultimately became the first complete draft of "Enough to Pray".
FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY
Tony plays Croatian songs in his car at full blast. He knows all the words, and he knows all the stories. When I don’t understand a song, he translates it for me. When I go to his house, he offers me Croatian food and his grandmother’s brandy. As I spent the last year studying various civil wars in the twentieth century, he readily told me all about what happened in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 90’s. He tells me about his family back home, and shows me videos of his cousins’ weddings. I was always impressed by his pride.
Then Tony told me he wants to move back home. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea, but his life is his own. Then Tony told me that if another war breaks out in that region, he wants to fight. Something funny happened to me in that moment. I don’t know whether it was anger or fear, but I believe that was the moment that I saw nationalism as a manifested evil. I was upset, if only because I saw that one day I would need to worry about my friend. We had been talking about war all year: about the nature of war, the horrors of families torn apart and devastated, the irony that Britain never seems to suffer at Hague, etc. But in all of our conversations, war was never glorified. I couldn’t believe that Tony would want to fight for nationalist causes if ever necessary.
I do see some value in fighting for country. The case could very well be one of aggressors who would force people to change their lives. That seems like a good time to fight. But there is none the less something shameful in it. For starters, if the cause is worth fighting for, then why is there a need for national songs and national artwork and national poetry? Sure, people will say that all the glitz is just to remind people who they are and where they come from. Is this to say that proud people easily forget these things? Or that an entire nation is too stupid to know what makes them great? It’s so easy to laugh at Canada as a country with a questionable culture, but the fact remains that every true Canadian knows what it means to be a Canadian (health care and tax jokes go here), knows why he or she is proud to be a Canadian, and has a special idea of what makes Canada so great. And to date, I have never heard a Canadian army song, telling Canadians everywhere that they should fight. I am not calling Eastern Europeans idiots. My family is Ukrainian, and I grew up singing all of the old Ukrainian army songs, myself. I remember them to this day, still sing them to myself. They are catchy. They are meant to rouse a crowd (the only reason I can imagine throwing ‘hey’ into the lyrics so many times). They are meant to drive home the fact that we were, are, and will be great, strong, resilient, etc. And they are meant to remind us to fight when the time comes. If only the reminders to vote every couple of years could be as entertaining!
There is no question that there is money in propaganda here in North America. It’s the only possible explanation for Michael Moore’s success (it certainly isn’t honest journalism). I particularly like the television commercial for the Marines on American television: the one where a diamond is being cut as young men are running and jumping and climbing. But there are no clips of fighting or dying. On the same note, has anyone determined the actual cause of World War One yet? No, no, not the trigger. I’m talking about something in the amalgam of arms races and suspicion and tension and whatnot. Why couldn’t anybody trust anybody else back then? Could it be that deep down at the heart of the matter, the war was caused by fear? Something so simple? I don’t see why not. Because when people are afraid, they need to be encouraged. They respond to suggestion. They need someone to tell them the answers and think for them. They need guidance. When it looks like house, home and family are threatened, and there is either no time to leave or no money to leave, it seems natural to take in all of the posters and commercials and songs that suggest the right thing to do is fight.
Fighting should be the work of soldiers. Once that gun is being aimed, and the moment becomes one’s last, does he or she think at that second about country? About freedom? About pride? About national history? I could only guess not, but then I’ve never stared death in the face. What will his or her family think? When will they find out that they’ve lost a loved one? What about friends left behind? Or children? It seems to me that one’s last moment on the earth is not a brave one, or a proud one, but more likely rather a fearful one. I could be wrong, but we’ve seen this all before. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, right?
Solutions? Don’t look to me for answers, I have none. It’s happened before, it’ll happen still, we are only human and we do what we can. We can say that land isn’t worth fighting over, but we’d be lying. We can pretend to be proud of our sons and daughters known to the country as fallen soldiers, as heroes. We can make our own martyrs and justify away every act of violence we have been involved in. Or, we can scream and cry and plea for changes, for a better humanity, for an end to the madness, for someone to recognize all of the stupidity. The madness will not end. Perhaps it’s in our blood. Perhaps we aren’t the nice, civilized, cultured, peace-loving people we would all like to think we are, but rather the Hobbesian antithesis we’d like to think we’re not. The problems will not end. But it doesn’t hurt to ask: if it turns out this is the only life we get, is it really worth risking it for something as trivial as nation? Is there really nothing more important to live for?
As for Tony, nobody can tell him what to believe. Nobody can tell him what to value, or what to do with his life. If the world is my oyster, it is also his and everyone else’s. I can care about my friends, and I can worry about them (though I’d prefer not to need to). It’s only natural to want the comfort of knowing one’s loved ones are safe. It’s a tangled mess of emotions, but then that’s human, too. All I can do is make it clear that in friends and loved ones there is always a safe place to come home to. And no song can ever change that.
FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY
Tony plays Croatian songs in his car at full blast. He knows all the words, and he knows all the stories. When I don’t understand a song, he translates it for me. When I go to his house, he offers me Croatian food and his grandmother’s brandy. As I spent the last year studying various civil wars in the twentieth century, he readily told me all about what happened in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 90’s. He tells me about his family back home, and shows me videos of his cousins’ weddings. I was always impressed by his pride.
Then Tony told me he wants to move back home. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea, but his life is his own. Then Tony told me that if another war breaks out in that region, he wants to fight. Something funny happened to me in that moment. I don’t know whether it was anger or fear, but I believe that was the moment that I saw nationalism as a manifested evil. I was upset, if only because I saw that one day I would need to worry about my friend. We had been talking about war all year: about the nature of war, the horrors of families torn apart and devastated, the irony that Britain never seems to suffer at Hague, etc. But in all of our conversations, war was never glorified. I couldn’t believe that Tony would want to fight for nationalist causes if ever necessary.
I do see some value in fighting for country. The case could very well be one of aggressors who would force people to change their lives. That seems like a good time to fight. But there is none the less something shameful in it. For starters, if the cause is worth fighting for, then why is there a need for national songs and national artwork and national poetry? Sure, people will say that all the glitz is just to remind people who they are and where they come from. Is this to say that proud people easily forget these things? Or that an entire nation is too stupid to know what makes them great? It’s so easy to laugh at Canada as a country with a questionable culture, but the fact remains that every true Canadian knows what it means to be a Canadian (health care and tax jokes go here), knows why he or she is proud to be a Canadian, and has a special idea of what makes Canada so great. And to date, I have never heard a Canadian army song, telling Canadians everywhere that they should fight. I am not calling Eastern Europeans idiots. My family is Ukrainian, and I grew up singing all of the old Ukrainian army songs, myself. I remember them to this day, still sing them to myself. They are catchy. They are meant to rouse a crowd (the only reason I can imagine throwing ‘hey’ into the lyrics so many times). They are meant to drive home the fact that we were, are, and will be great, strong, resilient, etc. And they are meant to remind us to fight when the time comes. If only the reminders to vote every couple of years could be as entertaining!
There is no question that there is money in propaganda here in North America. It’s the only possible explanation for Michael Moore’s success (it certainly isn’t honest journalism). I particularly like the television commercial for the Marines on American television: the one where a diamond is being cut as young men are running and jumping and climbing. But there are no clips of fighting or dying. On the same note, has anyone determined the actual cause of World War One yet? No, no, not the trigger. I’m talking about something in the amalgam of arms races and suspicion and tension and whatnot. Why couldn’t anybody trust anybody else back then? Could it be that deep down at the heart of the matter, the war was caused by fear? Something so simple? I don’t see why not. Because when people are afraid, they need to be encouraged. They respond to suggestion. They need someone to tell them the answers and think for them. They need guidance. When it looks like house, home and family are threatened, and there is either no time to leave or no money to leave, it seems natural to take in all of the posters and commercials and songs that suggest the right thing to do is fight.
Fighting should be the work of soldiers. Once that gun is being aimed, and the moment becomes one’s last, does he or she think at that second about country? About freedom? About pride? About national history? I could only guess not, but then I’ve never stared death in the face. What will his or her family think? When will they find out that they’ve lost a loved one? What about friends left behind? Or children? It seems to me that one’s last moment on the earth is not a brave one, or a proud one, but more likely rather a fearful one. I could be wrong, but we’ve seen this all before. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, right?
Solutions? Don’t look to me for answers, I have none. It’s happened before, it’ll happen still, we are only human and we do what we can. We can say that land isn’t worth fighting over, but we’d be lying. We can pretend to be proud of our sons and daughters known to the country as fallen soldiers, as heroes. We can make our own martyrs and justify away every act of violence we have been involved in. Or, we can scream and cry and plea for changes, for a better humanity, for an end to the madness, for someone to recognize all of the stupidity. The madness will not end. Perhaps it’s in our blood. Perhaps we aren’t the nice, civilized, cultured, peace-loving people we would all like to think we are, but rather the Hobbesian antithesis we’d like to think we’re not. The problems will not end. But it doesn’t hurt to ask: if it turns out this is the only life we get, is it really worth risking it for something as trivial as nation? Is there really nothing more important to live for?
As for Tony, nobody can tell him what to believe. Nobody can tell him what to value, or what to do with his life. If the world is my oyster, it is also his and everyone else’s. I can care about my friends, and I can worry about them (though I’d prefer not to need to). It’s only natural to want the comfort of knowing one’s loved ones are safe. It’s a tangled mess of emotions, but then that’s human, too. All I can do is make it clear that in friends and loved ones there is always a safe place to come home to. And no song can ever change that.
The Empty Canvas
I sit here staring blankly at an empty canvas, an unmarked page, unsure of what to say but so sure I want to say something, say everything, without needing to decide on where to start. The beginning, yes, the beginning, but what can be said for a story with no definite beginning, one that followed destiny, or fate, as it should fall, one with no trigger, no turning point, no denouement, just being, itself? What is this paralyzing hesitation that keeps my fingers chained to each other, my hands to my sides? Where did this uncertainty arise? What to add? What to leave out?
I hear them laughing already, rolling their eyes, rejecting, rejecting. The voices laughing are my own. The eyes rolling are my own. The story rejected? Also my own. It doesn’t start with Once upon a time, doesn’t end with happily ever after, doesn’t end at all. Why should it be told? There is no lesson to learn on my account, no moralizing, no preaching, no precedent to set. Who wouldn’t see my words and wonder why I’d felt them worth saying at all? I have no story as unique as I. Or perhaps I do, and that’s what stifles me, staring at my blank sheet, muted. If everybody’s been there, then who is left to care?
Who among us wasn’t once a scared child, driven by insecurity, greed, the ever-screaming longing to belong? And who among us hasn’t spent hours and days and months and years plagued by thoughts that nothing would be good enough, that we simply were not good enough, and struggled with that beast, and sometimes won, and sometimes lost? And who among us hasn’t missed that opportunity that could have turned the tables, could have changed it all? And who among us hasn’t said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person? Who among us hasn’t loved, hasn’t lost, hasn’t loved unrequitedly, hasn’t unwittingly broken a heart or two? Who among us hasn’t cried into a pillow, wishing for death, wishing for sleep, wishing for that one thing that could heal our wounds? Is there a person who has truly never laughed? The story has been told, has been played out in ourselves time after time after time after time, and will continue thus long after us. What can I possibly say?
Where is the air? It was here just a minute ago, fresh and abundant, and now I can’t seem to find it. The room grows small, breath grows short. I need… I need… I don’t know what I need. A cup of tea, a nap, a walk outside, some solitude, some silence. Solitude is as often an enemy as it is a friend. Silence can scream louder than human voices, louder than sirens. Sleep, a welcome friend, grows increasingly elusive, and when it comes it serves only to distract. It will never readily agree with me, carry a message for me, a message yet to be painted on this still-blank canvas. It knows only some odd form of stillness, but cannot still the mind.
In the vacuum images and stories swirl and swirl toward the void, and I can’t help but wonder what is to be found on the other side. To follow into the void is an exercise in futility. To reverse the pull is to stick fingers down the throat of the mind’s eye, regurgitate each image, some too sacred for words, some too banal to matter.
I hear them laughing already, rolling their eyes, rejecting, rejecting. The voices laughing are my own. The eyes rolling are my own. The story rejected? Also my own. It doesn’t start with Once upon a time, doesn’t end with happily ever after, doesn’t end at all. Why should it be told? There is no lesson to learn on my account, no moralizing, no preaching, no precedent to set. Who wouldn’t see my words and wonder why I’d felt them worth saying at all? I have no story as unique as I. Or perhaps I do, and that’s what stifles me, staring at my blank sheet, muted. If everybody’s been there, then who is left to care?
Who among us wasn’t once a scared child, driven by insecurity, greed, the ever-screaming longing to belong? And who among us hasn’t spent hours and days and months and years plagued by thoughts that nothing would be good enough, that we simply were not good enough, and struggled with that beast, and sometimes won, and sometimes lost? And who among us hasn’t missed that opportunity that could have turned the tables, could have changed it all? And who among us hasn’t said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person? Who among us hasn’t loved, hasn’t lost, hasn’t loved unrequitedly, hasn’t unwittingly broken a heart or two? Who among us hasn’t cried into a pillow, wishing for death, wishing for sleep, wishing for that one thing that could heal our wounds? Is there a person who has truly never laughed? The story has been told, has been played out in ourselves time after time after time after time, and will continue thus long after us. What can I possibly say?
Where is the air? It was here just a minute ago, fresh and abundant, and now I can’t seem to find it. The room grows small, breath grows short. I need… I need… I don’t know what I need. A cup of tea, a nap, a walk outside, some solitude, some silence. Solitude is as often an enemy as it is a friend. Silence can scream louder than human voices, louder than sirens. Sleep, a welcome friend, grows increasingly elusive, and when it comes it serves only to distract. It will never readily agree with me, carry a message for me, a message yet to be painted on this still-blank canvas. It knows only some odd form of stillness, but cannot still the mind.
In the vacuum images and stories swirl and swirl toward the void, and I can’t help but wonder what is to be found on the other side. To follow into the void is an exercise in futility. To reverse the pull is to stick fingers down the throat of the mind’s eye, regurgitate each image, some too sacred for words, some too banal to matter.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Veteran
Digging through the archives... this one's from December 2006. I think of this man everytime I sit down to write. His name wasn't really Ron.
“ I can tell you a funny story, but not really one about the war.” I had just met Ron in a barroom I’d never been to before. He was probably in his later fifties, grey-haired and wrinkled, and passionate about life. He had spent the night cracking jokes and flirting with the bartender, and making conversation with every stranger he could attract. That’s where I came in. I seem to attract the life of the party in places like this. We spoke for a little while about hockey and literature as he bought me a few drinks. He meant no harm. When in the run of our conversation he mentioned he had served in Vietnam, it piqued my interest.
“What was it like to be there? I’m sure it wasn’t how the textbooks say.” I quickly explained to him that I was writing a book about war, and that I was looking for an honest account. He eyed me carefully.
“What are they teaching you?” he asked.
“They teach us lots of things. In high school they taught us that soldiers went to World War One and died for our freedom. In history classes they taught us that propaganda was behind the whole thing. In university they taught us that the thought of going to war was the most glorious sacrifice a man could make for his country, and in English classes they taught us that the glory was a golden lie. But not many people teach us what the soldiers actually went through.”
“You listen to me, little girl. There is nothing glorious about war. You wanna know what goes through a soldier’s head? It’s ‘get me the fuck out of here.’ And if it’s a high-ranking official, it’s ‘get my men the fuck out of here.’ Glory? It’s fucking propaganda.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“It’s the truth. And you know something? There is no worse feeling than bombing the shit out of a town and seeing for yourself what you did. I once had to see the damage I did to a town. Our first orders were to blow the town to smithereens, and we did. But the regiment that was supposed to finish the job wasn’t there, so they told us to go into the town and finish the job. I followed my orders. I went into the town, and saw all the buildings destroyed, bodies lying in the street with their skin burned off, blood everywhere. And do you know what it was that made me cry?”
“What?” I asked.
“A dog. A dog who had lost one of its legs. In the army, they teach you only how to kill. They train you not to care. But here was a crippled dog in a destroyed city, and it was all my fault. You know what I did when I saw that? I followed my orders, and finished my job.”
“That must have been horrible. I mean, to go into the village and see all of the people you killed.”
“Sweetheart, I never said I killed anyone.”
“You’re right,” I said, “you didn’t. That couldn’t have made things any easier.”
“No. But don’t you dare think there’s any glory in the war. I know exactly what I did, but don’t take it as offence if I don’t actually say it.”
“I don’t.” We left the heavy topic for awhile and spoke a little more about hockey. Ron introduced me to a friend of his, Howard, a native Canadian who had a daughter in university studying English. We cracked a few jokes and toasted to the finer things in life. There was a twinkle in Ron’s eye, a sense of true joy that only a man of experience could show. A few minutes later, though, Ron pulled me aside. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore, the way he had been before we spoke. His mood had changed in a heartbeat, and I was afraid that perhaps I had awoken a demon that would have preferred to stay dormant. Ron wanted to speak to me alone – he was serious. I obliged. I wanted to hear what he had to say. For some reason, this stranger whose slightly wrinkled face and twinkling eyes had smiled at me a short while ago from across the room wanted to confide in me. We stood away from everyone else.
“You want the truth, Natalie, I’ll tell you the truth. And you can spread the word.” I was no longer ‘little girl’ or ‘young lady’. He was calling me by name. “I don’t like talking about these things. That war was thirty years ago, and I still get nightmares when I think about it. You try to move on with your life, but how can you? You know something? I was in a POW camp in Vietnam.” Ron started to quiver. He stopped blinking altogether. “I was in a POW camp, and I escaped. I escaped on foot, with a razorblade.” Ron’s face started turning red, and he squinted as he spoke, as though he had just been jabbed in the rib. “How do you think I escaped with just a razorblade? What do you think I had to do?” Ron’s unblinking eyes were red, bulging out of their sockets as the shaking got more and more violent. His voice started breaking as he spoke, and I was certain that Ron was going to cry. But somehow he held himself together. In his position, I’m not sure I could have. But then, they had trained him not to care, had they not? I saw this guilty, angry man standing before me, shaking and quivering, forced suddenly to think about the men whose throats he had slit, and I couldn’t speak. What was I to say? This is what the war did to our soldiers! This is what the soldiers signed up for! Were sent out for! And here I stood before a broken man, and I had robbed him, if only for a moment, of his joy and zest for life! In his now-shaky voice he continued. “Natalie, not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. I remember each one of their faces. It was one thing to shoot weapons from far away, but how do you kill a man face to face? And I had to. It was all I could do! I watched as my friends had the shit shot out of them! I saw what happened to the people in the POW camp, and all I could think was ‘It’s not happening to me,’ and I got my hands on a razorblade and did what I had to do.”
“Oh man,” I said. What else could I say? Ron hadn’t blinked in well over three minutes now. His face burned red. My heart sank. “I’m so sorry.” I wanted to cry, myself. I was choking up inside and holding back the tears. It was what I wanted to hear, wasn’t it? The things they never taught us in school. The reality behind the phrase ‘war is hell’ had never struck me quite so sharply. There was no comforting Ron. He wasn’t looking for comfort. And yet, for some reason, for perhaps the same reason I had asked, he wanted me to know.
“They sent us out there to kill,” said Ron, “and we killed. I think about it everyday. And when we got back, they didn’t want us. The only job I could get when I came back was as a cook! They wouldn’t let us into the Legions because we’d lost the war. We didn’t lose the war! We shouldn’t have been there. They never wanted us there! I don’t want pity. I was a soldier, doing what I had to do to survive. But you know, the circumstances don’t matter. The war doesn’t matter, and the danger doesn’t matter. There’s only one word for what happened that day in the POW camp, and it’s Murder. I did what I had to do, but I just wish there had been another way.” It was then that tears sprang from his eyes. A grown man crying, with no support. When he placed a hand on my shoulder, I let him leave it there. It was the most I could do.
Ron wasn’t finished talking, but when he calmed down we rejoined his friend. The redness in his face faded, and he started blinking again. His shaking slowed down a little, and he regained control of his voice. “At the Legion, we never talk about what we’ve been through,” he told me. “We go there for a drink, for a laugh. We ignore the rest of it. Nobody wants to think about being a soldier. Nobody wants to think about fighting in a war. The guys over there, they know the truth.” A few minutes passed, and then Ron went on.
“I look at what’s going on these days in the Middle East. All these kids they’re sending out, sending home in coffins. It’s such a waste. A buddy of mine asked me how long it would take me to take down a town out there, and I told him twenty minutes – and I’d flatten everything in the way.” Ron’s voice was starting to break again. He had tears in his eyes, and he started struggling to catch his breath. He didn’t like what he was saying, and I could see it. “They’re sending kids out there who don’t know what they’re doing. They should send us old guys. I mean, I know I can’t fit into a tank like I used to, but dammit, we’ve done it before! We’d get the job done quicker! We’d do it right!” Ron looked at me for a second as though I was on my deathbed, and he was looking at me for the last time. For all I knew, it could very well be the last time I would speak to this stranger. For a minute I thought I sensed a bit of pity. “This world’s a mess, and us old guys should clean up the mess for you young people. You shouldn’t be out there, learning how to kill from scratch. People your age should be studying, and partying, and making love. . .”
“And writing books,” I interrupted. For the first time in awhile, Ron smiled. He cupped my face with his hands, and then hugged me.
“God bless you,” he said. “You put this in your book. But don’t ever say there’s anything glorious about war.”
“ I can tell you a funny story, but not really one about the war.” I had just met Ron in a barroom I’d never been to before. He was probably in his later fifties, grey-haired and wrinkled, and passionate about life. He had spent the night cracking jokes and flirting with the bartender, and making conversation with every stranger he could attract. That’s where I came in. I seem to attract the life of the party in places like this. We spoke for a little while about hockey and literature as he bought me a few drinks. He meant no harm. When in the run of our conversation he mentioned he had served in Vietnam, it piqued my interest.
“What was it like to be there? I’m sure it wasn’t how the textbooks say.” I quickly explained to him that I was writing a book about war, and that I was looking for an honest account. He eyed me carefully.
“What are they teaching you?” he asked.
“They teach us lots of things. In high school they taught us that soldiers went to World War One and died for our freedom. In history classes they taught us that propaganda was behind the whole thing. In university they taught us that the thought of going to war was the most glorious sacrifice a man could make for his country, and in English classes they taught us that the glory was a golden lie. But not many people teach us what the soldiers actually went through.”
“You listen to me, little girl. There is nothing glorious about war. You wanna know what goes through a soldier’s head? It’s ‘get me the fuck out of here.’ And if it’s a high-ranking official, it’s ‘get my men the fuck out of here.’ Glory? It’s fucking propaganda.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“It’s the truth. And you know something? There is no worse feeling than bombing the shit out of a town and seeing for yourself what you did. I once had to see the damage I did to a town. Our first orders were to blow the town to smithereens, and we did. But the regiment that was supposed to finish the job wasn’t there, so they told us to go into the town and finish the job. I followed my orders. I went into the town, and saw all the buildings destroyed, bodies lying in the street with their skin burned off, blood everywhere. And do you know what it was that made me cry?”
“What?” I asked.
“A dog. A dog who had lost one of its legs. In the army, they teach you only how to kill. They train you not to care. But here was a crippled dog in a destroyed city, and it was all my fault. You know what I did when I saw that? I followed my orders, and finished my job.”
“That must have been horrible. I mean, to go into the village and see all of the people you killed.”
“Sweetheart, I never said I killed anyone.”
“You’re right,” I said, “you didn’t. That couldn’t have made things any easier.”
“No. But don’t you dare think there’s any glory in the war. I know exactly what I did, but don’t take it as offence if I don’t actually say it.”
“I don’t.” We left the heavy topic for awhile and spoke a little more about hockey. Ron introduced me to a friend of his, Howard, a native Canadian who had a daughter in university studying English. We cracked a few jokes and toasted to the finer things in life. There was a twinkle in Ron’s eye, a sense of true joy that only a man of experience could show. A few minutes later, though, Ron pulled me aside. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore, the way he had been before we spoke. His mood had changed in a heartbeat, and I was afraid that perhaps I had awoken a demon that would have preferred to stay dormant. Ron wanted to speak to me alone – he was serious. I obliged. I wanted to hear what he had to say. For some reason, this stranger whose slightly wrinkled face and twinkling eyes had smiled at me a short while ago from across the room wanted to confide in me. We stood away from everyone else.
“You want the truth, Natalie, I’ll tell you the truth. And you can spread the word.” I was no longer ‘little girl’ or ‘young lady’. He was calling me by name. “I don’t like talking about these things. That war was thirty years ago, and I still get nightmares when I think about it. You try to move on with your life, but how can you? You know something? I was in a POW camp in Vietnam.” Ron started to quiver. He stopped blinking altogether. “I was in a POW camp, and I escaped. I escaped on foot, with a razorblade.” Ron’s face started turning red, and he squinted as he spoke, as though he had just been jabbed in the rib. “How do you think I escaped with just a razorblade? What do you think I had to do?” Ron’s unblinking eyes were red, bulging out of their sockets as the shaking got more and more violent. His voice started breaking as he spoke, and I was certain that Ron was going to cry. But somehow he held himself together. In his position, I’m not sure I could have. But then, they had trained him not to care, had they not? I saw this guilty, angry man standing before me, shaking and quivering, forced suddenly to think about the men whose throats he had slit, and I couldn’t speak. What was I to say? This is what the war did to our soldiers! This is what the soldiers signed up for! Were sent out for! And here I stood before a broken man, and I had robbed him, if only for a moment, of his joy and zest for life! In his now-shaky voice he continued. “Natalie, not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. I remember each one of their faces. It was one thing to shoot weapons from far away, but how do you kill a man face to face? And I had to. It was all I could do! I watched as my friends had the shit shot out of them! I saw what happened to the people in the POW camp, and all I could think was ‘It’s not happening to me,’ and I got my hands on a razorblade and did what I had to do.”
“Oh man,” I said. What else could I say? Ron hadn’t blinked in well over three minutes now. His face burned red. My heart sank. “I’m so sorry.” I wanted to cry, myself. I was choking up inside and holding back the tears. It was what I wanted to hear, wasn’t it? The things they never taught us in school. The reality behind the phrase ‘war is hell’ had never struck me quite so sharply. There was no comforting Ron. He wasn’t looking for comfort. And yet, for some reason, for perhaps the same reason I had asked, he wanted me to know.
“They sent us out there to kill,” said Ron, “and we killed. I think about it everyday. And when we got back, they didn’t want us. The only job I could get when I came back was as a cook! They wouldn’t let us into the Legions because we’d lost the war. We didn’t lose the war! We shouldn’t have been there. They never wanted us there! I don’t want pity. I was a soldier, doing what I had to do to survive. But you know, the circumstances don’t matter. The war doesn’t matter, and the danger doesn’t matter. There’s only one word for what happened that day in the POW camp, and it’s Murder. I did what I had to do, but I just wish there had been another way.” It was then that tears sprang from his eyes. A grown man crying, with no support. When he placed a hand on my shoulder, I let him leave it there. It was the most I could do.
Ron wasn’t finished talking, but when he calmed down we rejoined his friend. The redness in his face faded, and he started blinking again. His shaking slowed down a little, and he regained control of his voice. “At the Legion, we never talk about what we’ve been through,” he told me. “We go there for a drink, for a laugh. We ignore the rest of it. Nobody wants to think about being a soldier. Nobody wants to think about fighting in a war. The guys over there, they know the truth.” A few minutes passed, and then Ron went on.
“I look at what’s going on these days in the Middle East. All these kids they’re sending out, sending home in coffins. It’s such a waste. A buddy of mine asked me how long it would take me to take down a town out there, and I told him twenty minutes – and I’d flatten everything in the way.” Ron’s voice was starting to break again. He had tears in his eyes, and he started struggling to catch his breath. He didn’t like what he was saying, and I could see it. “They’re sending kids out there who don’t know what they’re doing. They should send us old guys. I mean, I know I can’t fit into a tank like I used to, but dammit, we’ve done it before! We’d get the job done quicker! We’d do it right!” Ron looked at me for a second as though I was on my deathbed, and he was looking at me for the last time. For all I knew, it could very well be the last time I would speak to this stranger. For a minute I thought I sensed a bit of pity. “This world’s a mess, and us old guys should clean up the mess for you young people. You shouldn’t be out there, learning how to kill from scratch. People your age should be studying, and partying, and making love. . .”
“And writing books,” I interrupted. For the first time in awhile, Ron smiled. He cupped my face with his hands, and then hugged me.
“God bless you,” he said. “You put this in your book. But don’t ever say there’s anything glorious about war.”
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
In Praise of Small Victories
Big victories feel great, but they come as the result of equally big struggle. Small victories are much less rare, and come from tribulation similar to bumps on the road. I like the small victories. They remind me that things could be so much worse. For a not-so-bad situation, I'm doing not-so-bad. If it's as close to perfect as I get, I'll be happy forever.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Procrastination: How to Put Off Doing Taxes
It's that wonderful time of year again. I've had my tax documents sitting on my desk since mid-March. I've promised myself to fill out the tax forms every weekend and twice a week for the last 4 weeks or so. The pile is still untouched. Here are some suggestions on how to further put off getting the job done:
1. Watch a Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew marathon. Try to change the channel or turn it off three or four times, and then hate yourself for not being able to turn away from such an evil and depressing show. Later, blame the marathon for your sudden urge to read the National Enquirer.
2. Try to beat a life-long aversion to fish. Cook it in a way that fish is the most scant ingredient in dinner. You can't go wrong with ODing on tomatoes, right? When dinner's ready, poke at the chunks of sole with your fork and second-guess whether or not it's cooked through. After dinner, curse that the tomatoes haven't overpowered the smell of fish in your home. Make a mental note to cook with more garlic.
3. Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Mistake several shadows for spiders. Curse the giant splotch of blue paint on the white stucco.
4. Watch the whole series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Try to function for the next half week with your brain on strike. When your brain cells start regenerating, watch the whole series of Fawlty Towers.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat.
6. Move your tax forms from the desk into a more visible spot, to keep that chore at the forefront of your mind. Wiggle your toes, just to see if you can. Resolve to lose 20 lbs by walking for two hours every night. Wiggle your toes again at the end, just to see if you can.
7. Decide that you really wish you'd learned more languages. Spend the rest of the evening online looking to order a copy of Esperonto for Dummies. Order 5 different For Dummies books in the process, because you'd never thought about them before but right now they seem like an excellent idea. Imagine putting your newly-acquired juggling skills to use.
8. Promise yourself you'll do the taxes just as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act. Then decide that the Patent Act is a little thin in the plot. Look up a word in the dictionary, and decide the dictionary is also a little thin in the plot. Create a master plan to rewrite the dictionary as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act.
9. Come to realize that you really don't swim enough. Head to the pool to squeeze in a few laps. Get bored after 20 minutes, and consider that maybe swimming wasn't what your life was missing after all. Change plans, and become a whisky connoisseur overnight.
10. Make a list of all the things you need to do or should be doing but aren't. Promise yourself to be more focussed and disciplined. Starting tomorrow. Then read the opening chapter of half a dozen books and ultimately pass out in an anxious frenzy over how there just doesn't ever seem to be enough time.
11. Kill the evening teasing the cat.
1. Watch a Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew marathon. Try to change the channel or turn it off three or four times, and then hate yourself for not being able to turn away from such an evil and depressing show. Later, blame the marathon for your sudden urge to read the National Enquirer.
2. Try to beat a life-long aversion to fish. Cook it in a way that fish is the most scant ingredient in dinner. You can't go wrong with ODing on tomatoes, right? When dinner's ready, poke at the chunks of sole with your fork and second-guess whether or not it's cooked through. After dinner, curse that the tomatoes haven't overpowered the smell of fish in your home. Make a mental note to cook with more garlic.
3. Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Mistake several shadows for spiders. Curse the giant splotch of blue paint on the white stucco.
4. Watch the whole series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Try to function for the next half week with your brain on strike. When your brain cells start regenerating, watch the whole series of Fawlty Towers.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat.
6. Move your tax forms from the desk into a more visible spot, to keep that chore at the forefront of your mind. Wiggle your toes, just to see if you can. Resolve to lose 20 lbs by walking for two hours every night. Wiggle your toes again at the end, just to see if you can.
7. Decide that you really wish you'd learned more languages. Spend the rest of the evening online looking to order a copy of Esperonto for Dummies. Order 5 different For Dummies books in the process, because you'd never thought about them before but right now they seem like an excellent idea. Imagine putting your newly-acquired juggling skills to use.
8. Promise yourself you'll do the taxes just as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act. Then decide that the Patent Act is a little thin in the plot. Look up a word in the dictionary, and decide the dictionary is also a little thin in the plot. Create a master plan to rewrite the dictionary as soon as you've finished reading the Patent Act.
9. Come to realize that you really don't swim enough. Head to the pool to squeeze in a few laps. Get bored after 20 minutes, and consider that maybe swimming wasn't what your life was missing after all. Change plans, and become a whisky connoisseur overnight.
10. Make a list of all the things you need to do or should be doing but aren't. Promise yourself to be more focussed and disciplined. Starting tomorrow. Then read the opening chapter of half a dozen books and ultimately pass out in an anxious frenzy over how there just doesn't ever seem to be enough time.
11. Kill the evening teasing the cat.
Don't Read This If You Hate Feet
Sprained toe update: I really wish this thing would swell up or change colour or something. It just hurts. When I walk on it for awhile, it hurts more. And it's hard to wiggle. I'm not the type that would normally sit around trying to wiggle my toes, but these days it's become quite the preoccupation, as though if I were to wiggle it just right the pain would go away. It's not working, by the way. Just makes it more sore.
I've been taping the thing up since sometime last week, thinking that it might help to immobilize it. It does help. However, my foot is now twisting in some pretty impressive ways, and I can comfortably predict that the next injury will be either a sprained ankle or a fractured fifth metatarsal, which was only too much fun the first time around. Otherwise, it turns out that claustrophobia works on a micro scale as well as macro. In the same way that I get claustrophobic in elevators and walk-in closets (just the thought of them makes my head spin and my stomach drop), my toe seems to be rebelling in a huge way against being taped to its neighbour for any period of time. I've been so careful not to cut off any circulation and to space the toes with plenty of cotton, but it's not working... my toe is constantly trying to escape like a toddler in a carriage, and it's fighting hard.
A more humble person would take a few painkillers and make a more honest effort at staying off the injury, like using crutches. I'm much too proud for that. I even lack the shame that would keep me from rambling on about my toe on the internet.
:)
I've been taping the thing up since sometime last week, thinking that it might help to immobilize it. It does help. However, my foot is now twisting in some pretty impressive ways, and I can comfortably predict that the next injury will be either a sprained ankle or a fractured fifth metatarsal, which was only too much fun the first time around. Otherwise, it turns out that claustrophobia works on a micro scale as well as macro. In the same way that I get claustrophobic in elevators and walk-in closets (just the thought of them makes my head spin and my stomach drop), my toe seems to be rebelling in a huge way against being taped to its neighbour for any period of time. I've been so careful not to cut off any circulation and to space the toes with plenty of cotton, but it's not working... my toe is constantly trying to escape like a toddler in a carriage, and it's fighting hard.
A more humble person would take a few painkillers and make a more honest effort at staying off the injury, like using crutches. I'm much too proud for that. I even lack the shame that would keep me from rambling on about my toe on the internet.
:)
Saturday, April 10, 2010
My heart goes out to a lot of people today. The last time I was this upset over an overseas tragedy was when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Sometimes you just can't help feeling that something isn't right.
I'm really happy that I don't live in Europe. I'd like to visit some day, but the petty rivalries between Canada and the States are no comparison to the evil that lives between people and groups in Eastern Europe. I can't even bring myself to read the news out there more often than not, and whenever I give in to curiosity and take a look at what my fellow Slavs are saying I find myself angry and bitter and emotional. Sure, my education on the subject has been heavily influenced by my nationality. As has everybody else' from out there. It saddens me that we're all hypocrites in some sense or other, more so in that we can't change it. It seems like everyone out there seems to know a completely different history, and none of those histories is more true than the others. All histories are somewhat nationally and emotionally charged, and this is no secret (the winners write the history? Only too true). It's like a huge stalemate, where in affirming what we know to be true we deny something someone else knows to be true. In a group of countries that have all historically been aggressive, brutish, and essentially inhuman to each other for no objectively good reason, no one is "better" than anyone else, no country is "better" than any other (though one in particular is likely to try to change that before any other). Nationalities tolerate each other, some people love each other, but nothing I read from out there ever strikes me as genuine. How can it be, with so little trust among nations? And what makes this even more difficult is that I could not confidently say that any one country really deserves that trust in the first place.
I broke down in tears when I woke up this morning, and within minutes heard about the plane crash in Smolensk that killed the Polish president and elite. I'm not Polish, but I couldn't stop shaking and quivering as I watched TV Polonia for a few minutes. I was a little afraid. Maybe something in this situation, besides it being a terrible tragedy (and as has been alleged by many others, a sardonic sort of irony), really isn't right. Or maybe it's just a little too close to home.
I'm really happy that I don't live in Europe. I'd like to visit some day, but the petty rivalries between Canada and the States are no comparison to the evil that lives between people and groups in Eastern Europe. I can't even bring myself to read the news out there more often than not, and whenever I give in to curiosity and take a look at what my fellow Slavs are saying I find myself angry and bitter and emotional. Sure, my education on the subject has been heavily influenced by my nationality. As has everybody else' from out there. It saddens me that we're all hypocrites in some sense or other, more so in that we can't change it. It seems like everyone out there seems to know a completely different history, and none of those histories is more true than the others. All histories are somewhat nationally and emotionally charged, and this is no secret (the winners write the history? Only too true). It's like a huge stalemate, where in affirming what we know to be true we deny something someone else knows to be true. In a group of countries that have all historically been aggressive, brutish, and essentially inhuman to each other for no objectively good reason, no one is "better" than anyone else, no country is "better" than any other (though one in particular is likely to try to change that before any other). Nationalities tolerate each other, some people love each other, but nothing I read from out there ever strikes me as genuine. How can it be, with so little trust among nations? And what makes this even more difficult is that I could not confidently say that any one country really deserves that trust in the first place.
I broke down in tears when I woke up this morning, and within minutes heard about the plane crash in Smolensk that killed the Polish president and elite. I'm not Polish, but I couldn't stop shaking and quivering as I watched TV Polonia for a few minutes. I was a little afraid. Maybe something in this situation, besides it being a terrible tragedy (and as has been alleged by many others, a sardonic sort of irony), really isn't right. Or maybe it's just a little too close to home.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Enough To Pray
So the word's been out for a few years now. I'm perpetually finishing and rewriting a novel about war. It's been an equally difficult and rewarding project that sits forever in the forefront of my mind. The first question I'm always asked is on which war I based my novel. I didn't. In the course of my studies, my independent research and through interviews I've come to know several major incidents in several major conflicts throughout various periods in history. There isn't a single war that I can pinpoint that really captures the entire sentiment I want to convey. I've tried, and the closest I've come is to very loosely take an example from the Spanish Civil War, but there's always something more that needs to be said that just won't fit.
My obsession with the subject started in University, when I decided to compliment my major in philosophy with minors in history and English. One studies fact, the other ideas, the third art, and it didn't take very long to realize that the ideas really didn't always fit the facts and that artists have always been anguished by the incongruencies. It's a real problem with philosophy, and always has been. As someone who studied only because I had a genuine interest in these things, I found it agonizing when some aristocratic thinker had taken it upon himself to dictate how the world should be, with little consideration of what the world actually was. Not all philosophers were so flawed, but the frequency with which ill-informed ideas occurred is scary to someone who cares. The real trigger for me was the disaster that was the First World War, which I believe Vonnegut described best as something like 'humanity's first failed attempt at suicide'. The role that propaganda played in that situation, the folly that drove it from beginning to bitter end, and the absolute stupidity that "ended the war" are all unbelievable, and say something really important about human nature. We can deny the facts and feed ourselves golden lies to make us think that someone in that war was fighting for something, but the learned know perfectly well that it just wasn't the case. Dulce et decorum est, indeed...
As I was talking to people and reading and learning and thinking, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the hypocrisy at play anytime war comes on the scene. I find myself unable to tolerate many people's opinions of war, not out of disagreement, but rather because I can understand the triggers behind these opinions. There are good reasons for these wars to happen, and there seems to always also be a bad reason just the bat of an eye away. This applies as much now as it has throughout history. Propaganda annoys me because I recognize it when and where I see it. Don't be fooled -- it's everywhere. The more I see and the more I recognize, the less I find myself able to form an opinion of my own. In a very personal way I'm torn when it comes to the subject and it's best sometimes just not to ask what I think if one has any hope of leaving the table in less than an afternoon.
My book is called Enough to Pray. It is not religious, per se. It does not advocate any particular point of view on the question of religion. I created a place, created conflicting parties, created a war, and created an end to the war. The book's purpose is not to moralize, but rather to call a few things to attention. First, that we've lost sight of ourselves along the way. Second, that humanity is a beautiful thing that is worth saving and toiling over and ever improving. Third, that humans are capable of cruelty in the same degree that they are capable of good. And fourth, that we should never lose hope, we should never let go of joy, and we should never take ourselves so seriously that we forget how to laugh. None of these are new ideas, they've been expressed time and again by thinkers and artists and businesspeople and labourers and village folk and history itself. My book is merely a reiteration of what we all already know, placed in a light that I have made my own. It is a labour of love, and I've worked hard to make it into exactly what I want it to be.
It is forthcoming. I promise. Again.
My obsession with the subject started in University, when I decided to compliment my major in philosophy with minors in history and English. One studies fact, the other ideas, the third art, and it didn't take very long to realize that the ideas really didn't always fit the facts and that artists have always been anguished by the incongruencies. It's a real problem with philosophy, and always has been. As someone who studied only because I had a genuine interest in these things, I found it agonizing when some aristocratic thinker had taken it upon himself to dictate how the world should be, with little consideration of what the world actually was. Not all philosophers were so flawed, but the frequency with which ill-informed ideas occurred is scary to someone who cares. The real trigger for me was the disaster that was the First World War, which I believe Vonnegut described best as something like 'humanity's first failed attempt at suicide'. The role that propaganda played in that situation, the folly that drove it from beginning to bitter end, and the absolute stupidity that "ended the war" are all unbelievable, and say something really important about human nature. We can deny the facts and feed ourselves golden lies to make us think that someone in that war was fighting for something, but the learned know perfectly well that it just wasn't the case. Dulce et decorum est, indeed...
As I was talking to people and reading and learning and thinking, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the hypocrisy at play anytime war comes on the scene. I find myself unable to tolerate many people's opinions of war, not out of disagreement, but rather because I can understand the triggers behind these opinions. There are good reasons for these wars to happen, and there seems to always also be a bad reason just the bat of an eye away. This applies as much now as it has throughout history. Propaganda annoys me because I recognize it when and where I see it. Don't be fooled -- it's everywhere. The more I see and the more I recognize, the less I find myself able to form an opinion of my own. In a very personal way I'm torn when it comes to the subject and it's best sometimes just not to ask what I think if one has any hope of leaving the table in less than an afternoon.
My book is called Enough to Pray. It is not religious, per se. It does not advocate any particular point of view on the question of religion. I created a place, created conflicting parties, created a war, and created an end to the war. The book's purpose is not to moralize, but rather to call a few things to attention. First, that we've lost sight of ourselves along the way. Second, that humanity is a beautiful thing that is worth saving and toiling over and ever improving. Third, that humans are capable of cruelty in the same degree that they are capable of good. And fourth, that we should never lose hope, we should never let go of joy, and we should never take ourselves so seriously that we forget how to laugh. None of these are new ideas, they've been expressed time and again by thinkers and artists and businesspeople and labourers and village folk and history itself. My book is merely a reiteration of what we all already know, placed in a light that I have made my own. It is a labour of love, and I've worked hard to make it into exactly what I want it to be.
It is forthcoming. I promise. Again.
There's nothing natural about yoga. That said, it's amazing how after doing yoga for a little while your body starts naturally fighting spontaneous inclinations to twist into a pretzel. Like memory foam...
I woke up this morning to find 5 text messages on my phone, sent between 2am and 6am. From different people. I'm touched that you thought of me two hours before I had to wake up, but when do you sleep?
From dictionary.com: indefatigable\in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\ , adjective;
1.Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.
Or, Not Me.
I woke up this morning to find 5 text messages on my phone, sent between 2am and 6am. From different people. I'm touched that you thought of me two hours before I had to wake up, but when do you sleep?
From dictionary.com: indefatigable\in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\ , adjective;
1.Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.
Or, Not Me.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Rainy Thursday Randomness
1. This week I have read more of Wuthering Heights than of The Patent Act. I hope you can forgive me.
2. Sprained toe update: This is probably the single strangest injury I've ever had. The pain in the toe itself only registers 2-3 on a 1-10 pain scale, a discomfort, but the real damage is in the fallout. Walking on it for 3 weeks has led to knee pains and my entire leg essentially unhinging itself from my hip in protest. I've relented and taped my foot up, but having toes taped together is an altogether different interesting sensation, and I'm starting to think that what I need is a really pimped out cane.
3. Honeymoon in Morocco?
2. Sprained toe update: This is probably the single strangest injury I've ever had. The pain in the toe itself only registers 2-3 on a 1-10 pain scale, a discomfort, but the real damage is in the fallout. Walking on it for 3 weeks has led to knee pains and my entire leg essentially unhinging itself from my hip in protest. I've relented and taped my foot up, but having toes taped together is an altogether different interesting sensation, and I'm starting to think that what I need is a really pimped out cane.
3. Honeymoon in Morocco?
Dark Purple
So I was at Starbucks, and there was an old woman in line in front of me. She was wearing a dark purple shirt and pants and carried a matching dark purple umbrella. She ordered a coffee and a sandwich, and paid (I kid you not) entirely in dimes, nickels and pennies, and asked for a receipt. I got my latte and took a seat before Buddy behind the counter finished sorting through her change. All I could think of was how relieved I was to not have walked in earlier and been obligated to stand there and keep cool while watching her count out $9 in small change. And how little I like dark purple. The End.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Empty Canvas
I sit here staring blankly at an empty canvas, an unmarked page, unsure of what to say but so sure I want to say something, say everything, without needing to decide on where to start. The beginning, yes, the beginning, but what can be said for a story with no definite beginning, one that followed destiny, or fate, as it should fall, one with no trigger, no turning point, no denouement, just being, itself? What is this paralyzing hesitation that keeps my fingers chained to each other, my hands to my sides? Where did this uncertainty arise? What to add? What to leave out?
I hear them laughing already, rolling their eyes, rejecting, rejecting. The voices laughing are my own. The eyes rolling are my own. The story rejected? Also my own. It doesn’t start with Once upon a time, doesn’t end with happily ever after, doesn’t end at all. Why should it be told? There is no lesson to learn on my account, no moralizing, no preaching, no precedent to set. Who wouldn’t see my words and wonder why I’d felt them worth saying at all? I have no story as unique as I. Or perhaps I do, and that’s what stifles me, staring at my blank sheet, muted. If everybody’s been there, then who is left to care?
Who among us wasn’t once a scared child, driven by insecurity, greed, the ever-screaming longing to belong? And who among us hasn’t spent hours and days and months and years plagued by thoughts that nothing would be good enough, that we simply were not good enough, and struggled with that beast, and sometimes won, and sometimes lost? And who among us hasn’t missed that opportunity that could have turned the tables, could have changed it all? And who among us hasn’t said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person? Who among us hasn’t loved, hasn’t lost, hasn’t loved unrequitedly, hasn’t unwittingly broken a heart or two? Who among us hasn’t cried into a pillow, wishing for sleep, wishing for that one thing that could heal our wounds? Is there a person who has truly never laughed? The story has been told, has been played out in ourselves time after time after time after time, and will continue thus long after us. What can I possibly say?
Where is the air? It was here just a minute ago, fresh and abundant, and now I can’t seem to find it. The room grows small, breath grows short. I need… I need… I don’t know what I need. A cup of tea, a nap, a walk outside, some solitude, some silence. Solitude is as often an enemy as it is a friend. Silence can scream louder than human voices, louder than sirens. Sleep, a welcome friend, grows increasingly elusive, and when it comes it serves only to distract. It will never readily agree with me, carry a message for me, a message yet to be painted on this still-blank canvas. It knows only some odd form of stillness, but cannot still the mind.
In the vacuum images and stories swirl and swirl toward the void, and I can’t help but wonder what is to be found on the other side. To follow into the void is an exercise in futility. To reverse the pull is to stick fingers down the throat of the mind’s eye, regurgitate each image, some too sacred for words, some too banal to matter. Such is my plight, at times, it seems…
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
It's hardly even worth the time it took me to write this!
I could say "Enough with this 'God is a bad idea' garbage," but I somehow think the vehement Dawkins-philiacs (I won't call them atheists, in order to preserve the dignity and good name of atheists everywhere who have not succumbed to this slop) won't be hushed by a "now, now, that's enough of that." Given the time, energy, and interest, I could engage these crusaders easily enough - most of their arguments have little or not relation to historical fact, and most of their temperament is based entirely on emotion and opinion. However, I have absolutely no desire to engage with pseudo-intellectual children in a playground full of broken glass.
God is not a bad idea. It's the people behind the ideas and the actions those people perform that are bad. Ideas themselves aren't even real in any relevant sense... They, themselves, can't hurt anybody.
I'll attribute to mere ignorance what people may not know about what motivates people to act - usually politics and economics. My only request is that if you actually truly believe that it's the idea of God which is the source of our world's problems, then please open a history book, and kindly stay out of my headspace.
God is not a bad idea. It's the people behind the ideas and the actions those people perform that are bad. Ideas themselves aren't even real in any relevant sense... They, themselves, can't hurt anybody.
I'll attribute to mere ignorance what people may not know about what motivates people to act - usually politics and economics. My only request is that if you actually truly believe that it's the idea of God which is the source of our world's problems, then please open a history book, and kindly stay out of my headspace.
Friday, January 29, 2010
I laugh when people who claim to know of Axl Rose still complain that he's... well... Axl.
*cough*
Axl Rose played at the ACC last night. Played? Sang? Is there any point in referring to him as Guns n' Roses anymore? Who cares. It was a great show. A die hard fan, I had very few problems with waiting until something like 11:30 for Axl to show up. I also was not too disappointed that he doesn't look the way he did twenty years ago, doesn't snakewhip across the stage... even the greats need to slow down at some point, and I would rather see less snakewhipping and less running around than less show. He played until 2:00 a.m. Say what you will, but I quite enjoyed that a rock concert not only didn't start early, but also didn't end early. Sort of keeps the spirit alive. Axl held it together to the end. I bought a t-shirt.
My father disagrees with my idea of a great show entirely, and that's alright.
Axl Rose played at the ACC last night. Played? Sang? Is there any point in referring to him as Guns n' Roses anymore? Who cares. It was a great show. A die hard fan, I had very few problems with waiting until something like 11:30 for Axl to show up. I also was not too disappointed that he doesn't look the way he did twenty years ago, doesn't snakewhip across the stage... even the greats need to slow down at some point, and I would rather see less snakewhipping and less running around than less show. He played until 2:00 a.m. Say what you will, but I quite enjoyed that a rock concert not only didn't start early, but also didn't end early. Sort of keeps the spirit alive. Axl held it together to the end. I bought a t-shirt.
My father disagrees with my idea of a great show entirely, and that's alright.
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