There is a lyric in Rogers and Hammerstein's musical adaptation of "Cinderella" that goes "in my own little corner in my own little chair I can be whatever I want to be...all alone in my own little chair." And while I am aware of the juxtaposition of such an idea, I am nevertheless fond of the concept that solitude can bring human imagination to its full potential.
Similarly, a passage in Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling novel, Eat Pray Love, highlights the beautiful image of gathering people into one's own corner, as it were. She begins with the nagging idea--a distant desire--stemming from toxic relationships as well as too much time spent inside her own head. (Rather like Cinderella, if you ask me...) But then comes a moment, utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, that leads Liz to write a list of names. Names of people who she knows support her. Love her. Want her to succeed. She begins with her nearest and dearest, expanding out into the vast ocean of strangers and famous figures and foreign faces and dead poets and perpetual wonderers who she just knows are in her corner, even in death, distance be damned.
I would like to think that Elizabeth Gilbert would be in my corner. And that she would be in good company with anyone from my coworkers Cindy, Amanda, and Kathy; to Shakespeare; to Hank and John Green; to Libby and Smac and Sam and Jenny and Traice; to Vincent van Gogh; to the Buddhist Lama I met in a stranger's living room; to the Fam; to Abe Lincoln; to the Brothers Grimm; to that guy who comes into the restaurant on Sunday mornings and gives me hugs and says he likes my smile; to the family dog; to Kimya Dawson; to strangers in admissions offices in various states who read about me and decide that words on the page speak volumes about a person; to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and Jim Henson; to Mary Oliver; to my friend Sara for whom I need to find a better word because the dictionary version just doesn't cut it; to Jane Austen; to "Zumba Missy;" to Robin Williams and Billy Crystal and Steve Martin and Martin Short and an entire generation of people who chose to devote themselves to entertainment and ridicule and laughter and good old fashion mirth; to Neville Longbottom; to Paul Parsons; to Patrick Henry and William Pitt and Thomas Paine; to Indiana Jones; to the best teachers I ever had--and maybe even the bad ones too--cause after all, a lesson is still a lesson; to Calli and Devin and Angela and Alicia; to Ian McEwan and J.K. Rowling; to Jimmy Stewart; to Debbie and Brenda and Laurie and Sharie; to Walt Whitman and Mark Twain; to Elise and Aubrey and Robyn; to FDR; to my cousin Peter; to Howard Shore and Hans Zimmer and John Williams; and, indeed, I hope, to you, dear reader.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Power and the Glory...of Story
Today I did rather little. Well, I suppose that depends. I was under the weather and so stayed at home in or near or on a bed or couch for most of the daylight hours. I did some laundry, made chai tea from scratch, finished reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and capped off the evening by seeing the film adaptation of J.S. Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
As with most books I read, Green's work got me thinking about a great many things all at once--some things that were directly connected to his topics, and others that were the kind of thing that make me marvel at the complexity of the human brain for all the relation they had (or did not, as the case may be) with anything written within TFiOS's 313 pages.
Similarly, the movie based on Foer's book moved and challenged me in ways I did not expect. At times I was in complete agreement with the young character of Oscar, and at others I felt almost guilty with anger and frustration toward this fictional child who is simply expending his every waking moment and every measure of strength and mental prowess within him to solve a "mission" his father set him on before his (the father's) untimely death on September 11, 2001.
Both Green's book and Foer's film made me think about how it is hard to be the outsider kid in a world where things might just be easier if we could all be the same. I thought about how death is inexcusably and tortuously unfair, wether it is sudden or the result of long-standing inevitability. I thought about how we as humans so enjoy categorizing and labeling things and others that children suffer the consequences of this even before they become aware of humanity at all. I considered how hard and painful and thankless it must be to be a parent--how the honesty of children can cut a parent to the quick, yet they keep on loving anyway. How inconceivably agonizing it is for a parent to watch their child waste away and die before their eyes, knowing they will live on when that child is dead. Or the torture of a child who must live without his parent.
I thought about little things too. About Oscar dropping his glass when he heard his father's final message, improbably thinking to myself that he should clean it up, lest his mother come home and see the mess. I considered the struggle it was for Oscar to even summon the courage to ride on a subway train, his fear that his father would be disappointed with his shortcomings evident in his face, while his father's simple desire to have his son experience a swing-set spoke volumes about hope, expectation, pressure, sorrow, and the bond of family. In the case of TFiOS, I found myself feeling almost jealous of Green's fictional cancer-suffering teens with their witty and sarcastic view of the lives they lead and their zeal for books or true love or sacrifice.
I thought about how Gus says that more people are dead than are alive now, but that Oscar says the exact opposite, and then how Gus says that if each person alive could remember 13 dead people, then all the people who had ever died would have someone to remember them (if only we did not have such selective memories and often all choose the same dead people to remember, like William Shakespeare and Amelia Earhart.) I thought about how Hazel vows to remember the four Aron Franks, while so many of us think only of Anne Frank or Otto Frank or even, in our vile humanity, Adolf Hitler.
Both of these literary adventures make use of a great many other literary allusions, but all for the purpose of telling their story--a new and original one built on foundation of other stories and other facts or fictions or words overheard in public places or newspaper clippings found in pockets. I love stories. And I guess what I found myself pondering and asking more than anything else today was the question of my own story. Am I writing a story worth reading? Am I "living my best life today"? Am I facing (any of) my fears? Am I learning? Am I helping? Serving? Hurting? Looking? Mattering at all?
In Gus's words, I suppose I want to leave a mark. Not a scar. Something good. Maybe that is wrong thinking and I should just want to love and be loved, like Isaac does. Or maybe I should just cling like hell to the family I take for granted and should love them for and in spite of their differences like Oscar's mother. Or maybe we are all just a side effect of something far greater than our own consciousness can conceive.
I don't know a lot of things. I wish I knew more. I wish the world was fairer to sick kids and widows and fatherless boys and round-shouldered old men and stray dogs. I wish I knew how to right wrongs and help without hurting and had the courage to do or even say.
I do know that I love books. They make me think and question and lose sleep and even feel unsafe and uncertain at times, but without them one thing is certain--the world would be a far darker and more worse-off place without them.
I encourage you to read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by J.S. Foer (and to see the film of the same name) and also to read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Links here and here.
As with most books I read, Green's work got me thinking about a great many things all at once--some things that were directly connected to his topics, and others that were the kind of thing that make me marvel at the complexity of the human brain for all the relation they had (or did not, as the case may be) with anything written within TFiOS's 313 pages.
Similarly, the movie based on Foer's book moved and challenged me in ways I did not expect. At times I was in complete agreement with the young character of Oscar, and at others I felt almost guilty with anger and frustration toward this fictional child who is simply expending his every waking moment and every measure of strength and mental prowess within him to solve a "mission" his father set him on before his (the father's) untimely death on September 11, 2001.
Both Green's book and Foer's film made me think about how it is hard to be the outsider kid in a world where things might just be easier if we could all be the same. I thought about how death is inexcusably and tortuously unfair, wether it is sudden or the result of long-standing inevitability. I thought about how we as humans so enjoy categorizing and labeling things and others that children suffer the consequences of this even before they become aware of humanity at all. I considered how hard and painful and thankless it must be to be a parent--how the honesty of children can cut a parent to the quick, yet they keep on loving anyway. How inconceivably agonizing it is for a parent to watch their child waste away and die before their eyes, knowing they will live on when that child is dead. Or the torture of a child who must live without his parent.
I thought about little things too. About Oscar dropping his glass when he heard his father's final message, improbably thinking to myself that he should clean it up, lest his mother come home and see the mess. I considered the struggle it was for Oscar to even summon the courage to ride on a subway train, his fear that his father would be disappointed with his shortcomings evident in his face, while his father's simple desire to have his son experience a swing-set spoke volumes about hope, expectation, pressure, sorrow, and the bond of family. In the case of TFiOS, I found myself feeling almost jealous of Green's fictional cancer-suffering teens with their witty and sarcastic view of the lives they lead and their zeal for books or true love or sacrifice.
I thought about how Gus says that more people are dead than are alive now, but that Oscar says the exact opposite, and then how Gus says that if each person alive could remember 13 dead people, then all the people who had ever died would have someone to remember them (if only we did not have such selective memories and often all choose the same dead people to remember, like William Shakespeare and Amelia Earhart.) I thought about how Hazel vows to remember the four Aron Franks, while so many of us think only of Anne Frank or Otto Frank or even, in our vile humanity, Adolf Hitler.
Both of these literary adventures make use of a great many other literary allusions, but all for the purpose of telling their story--a new and original one built on foundation of other stories and other facts or fictions or words overheard in public places or newspaper clippings found in pockets. I love stories. And I guess what I found myself pondering and asking more than anything else today was the question of my own story. Am I writing a story worth reading? Am I "living my best life today"? Am I facing (any of) my fears? Am I learning? Am I helping? Serving? Hurting? Looking? Mattering at all?
In Gus's words, I suppose I want to leave a mark. Not a scar. Something good. Maybe that is wrong thinking and I should just want to love and be loved, like Isaac does. Or maybe I should just cling like hell to the family I take for granted and should love them for and in spite of their differences like Oscar's mother. Or maybe we are all just a side effect of something far greater than our own consciousness can conceive.
I don't know a lot of things. I wish I knew more. I wish the world was fairer to sick kids and widows and fatherless boys and round-shouldered old men and stray dogs. I wish I knew how to right wrongs and help without hurting and had the courage to do or even say.
I do know that I love books. They make me think and question and lose sleep and even feel unsafe and uncertain at times, but without them one thing is certain--the world would be a far darker and more worse-off place without them.
I encourage you to read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by J.S. Foer (and to see the film of the same name) and also to read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Links here and here.
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