003-Oz

My daughter and I read children's literature every night, from a list of recommendations. We just finished reading The Wizard of Oz which is not only a pervading cultural reference, but also a classic movie I saw once at my Grandma's. 

My Grandma rarely babysat me. She lived for a time in the same apartment building I'd lived in until I was seven. So I must have been just a little bit older when I stayed at her place and she suggested we watch The Wizard of Oz. I was an over-sensitive child who had barely survived the trauma of Bambi and had taken refuge in my grade one teacher's ample bosom during The Rescuers Down Under. So when the green witch and her flying monkeys appeared on screen, I had long been sensing the mounting tension and devised a plan to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. My plan was nearly foiled when my grandma offered to pause the movie. I convinced her it was ok. She suggested I leave the bathroom door open so I could still see the screen, and I had to accept the compromise. Somehow, we got to the end of the movie. My unfamiliarity with her made me doubly nervous.

All this to say that the book is nothing like the movie. Had I seen a more faithful version, I'm sure I would have been fine. It is strange though that in the slew of remakes, no one has ventured to lay a finger on the Wizard of Oz, as if Judy Garland were a sacred finality.

002-Stories

The other day I watched Becoming – a documentary about Michelle Obama’s two-year book tour. It focuses on qualities of hard work, perseverance and self-confidence. It is about how working hard and having enough faith in yourself can land you in the presidency I guess... or how it did for them. It’s about how hard it was for them to become the exception, and it’s about fostering new exceptions. It features people basking in the shine of their glamour, like hikers warming their hands at a campfire. 

I can’t help but feel an uneasy ennuie. I like the Obamas. I believe their story. But does the narrative feel worn to you? Like advertising for excess capacity?

Do you know how often the Obamas talk about story? Thirty-four minutes into Becoming, Barak makes an appearance and says to an aid: 

“It’s fun listening to her tell these stories, some of which, part of me, is like (…) ‘That’s not exactly how it happened!’”

Michelle’s response to his on-stage teasing is: 

“My book, my version of reality!”

At the end of one of the shows, Barak has his hand on his wife’s back as they’re heading toward a car and he says,

“You’re just a good storyteller.”

Their production company Higher Ground has a mission “to harness the power of storytelling” and the documentary American Factory is their first investment. In a ten-minute feature interview with the producers, the word “story” is said 21 times. The repetition is to emphasize that everyone has a story, that there is power in telling stories, that stories create connection and solidarity and that there should be more stories out there. 

The word “story” has taken on the importance of an anchor, not the kind that moors a ship, but the kind used in rock climbing, to which are attached ropes and rock climbers. I wonder if it’s enough to secure higher ground for very many given the nature of the sport.

001-Tension

Sometimes I feel like I have to write or I will explode. I get sidetracked though because I get preoccupied with the wanting to explode part. I wonder, “Does everyone feel like they will explode? Why do I feel like I will explode? Why is it that I have this desire to write? Why is it that my life is preventing me from writing?”

Sarah Ruhl writes that “life is not an intrusion” and to view it that way is wrong. Brenda Ueland quotes a long passage by Vincent Van Gogh that a person “feels by instinct: yet I am good for something, my life has aim after all (…). There is something inside me, what can it be!” There is just, lately, so much life to deal with.

It’s not just that kids are home, now and into the foreseeable future, but that I imagine I should be doing something more than distributing printed sheets, overseeing writing assignments, keeping tabs on homework and making supper. 

Maybe I feel cheated? Only a few months ago, I was, for the first time in ten years, all alone in the house after the school bus had made its pick-up. There was time to think about gradual next steps. There was the illusion that bursting forth was next; a professional flowering, an exhale of pent-up energies. But maybe this was too narrow a vision. I’m mistaken: not a corpse flower, but a vine maybe, with the energy and flexibility to grow over all the hard things, making Bahaus-like outlines softer.

I miss solitude. I miss solitude so much that I wonder what is wrong with me. I’m ashamed about wanting so much to have solitude. My shame folds back in on itself and makes me feel impatient and sour and sad. I crave hearing of other people who need solitude because for the moment, I feel flawed. Ueland prescribes it, as though people have a harder time understanding its benefit than defending its use. She writes, “inspiration (…) comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude…”

I need solitude, I say, because I need to make something, I need to prove something to myself! And I want to cry! Don’t you understand? But while I’m lacking solitude, these expectations are making the pain worse, and really, it would be better to let them go, just to ease the tension a bit. 

So I’m lowering the bar. Inspired by Sarah Ruhl, I’ll write 100 essays right here, Covid-themed. I need to focus on quantity to get over the paralysis of quality and the plague of perfectionism. So here’s a start.