Category Archives: Rumination

Woo is me

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Sure as shooting, if I sign onto a certain social network for more than a few minutes, my mailbox will start filling with woo notes — messages from men who purport to think that I’m their kind of woman. A handful are from young men who are not entirely subtle about their desire to score with an older woman. Most, however, are or seem to be from mature men seeing their soul mate/ideal woman (insert your preferred term here). Based on my profile (which does not show dating or a relationship as an interest), they would like to find out if I am The One.

Most of these woo notes have a few things in common.

  • They’re generic. They’re not addressed to me or my silly handle, nor do they allude to any of my displayed interests. They don’t even ask what I like to read or watch.
  • They refer to my appearance in some way (which may change while my photo has been temporarily replaced by a satirical political button).
  • The spelling and punctuation are so bad that often the notes are undecipherable. I try not to be a language snob, and I understand that for many using a keyboard and computer would be like me operating a jackhammer or even a needle and thread adeptly — unnatural, unproductive, even disastrous. Still, what does the lack of basic literacy say about the 21st century?

Here are excerpts from a couple of examples:

  • . . . kind of man that loves completly,maybe thats the reason why im being taken advantage of ,makes me feel like im a fool loving, is it always a crime loving from the bottom of the heart, my friend told me if you show all your love to someone, that the person will take advantage of you, is tha true? i dont think it is ,someone women are just being heartless, all i want is someone that can share the same gift of love with me , not just for a day or a night stand i want what i call forever love, . . .
  • . . . nice to write to you and will like to meet a woman like you someday . i am single man hardworking and honets faithful lovely sincer caring and kind . i dont have kids.i will really like to know you more because you are pretty and i may think you have good sence of humor ..and will like spending some time with you as well . . .

Now, I’m not actively seeking a relationship, and (spelling and grammar aside), these woo notes, as positioned, aren’t going to change my mind. I’m no expert on wooing anyone, let alone a woman, let alone myself. I can tell you what might attract my attention if not my interest:

  • Addressing me as an individual vs. shooting me a prefabricated woo note that sounds like it’s dropped en masse in the hope of luring a lonely fish.
  • Addressing me personally.
  • Foregoing the direct approach of seeking romance (sex) and engaging me in a topic of mutual interest. Were I to write a woo note, it might begin, “Robert, I read your comments about Henry Miller and think you’re off base. Here’s why” — in which case right off I would appear to be disagreeable, not to mention honest.

This is part of why I don’t write woo notes. I would introduce myself, but I wouldn’t ramble breathlessly about myself and my desire for a soul mate who loves all the standard stuff of bad personals — walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and other things that people say because they think women want to hear them. I would try to engage in a dialogue that could lead to more dialogue and — dare I say it? — friendship. I wouldn’t try to convince anyone that I’m a lonely, misunderstood romantic tapped in a cynic’s universe. If he’s perceptive — that is, someone I could be interested in — he’ll figure that out without me having to spell it out. I would tell him what I’m looking for. Connecting with another person isn’t about making lists and ticking off each point. If we develop a relationship, that too will come out naturally.

Woo notes, which I’ve received since the days of Love@AOL, are monologues without an opening for dialogue. “I’m here to talk about me. I don’t need to ask you about you — whoever you are — because this woo note is a template I send to every woman whose photo strikes my eye. A few are bound to get a response someday, and that’s all I need to get an online chat or even a date or two.”

Besides, it looks like I’m not that special after all.

Back to school

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From what I’ve been hearing, nearly everyone is back to school already. I know I’m aging because school seems so different now (required supplies?), yet it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in the classroom.

For me, school started the day after Labor Day. Our first day of school was in September, the last in June. I can’t imagine returning to school in August. Of course, that is what children are used to, so it’s nothing to them, but to me it’s all wrong.

I didn’t have a choice as to which public school to attend or how to get to it. I was in a district, and that’s the school I had to go to, by school-owned bus. Although I was at the first stop on the route, I was not allowed to cross Rte. 20 (state law? school rule?) to board, so I was always the last picked up, on the return trip. If there were 46 seats on the bus, I was the 47th passenger to get on. By the time I was in high school, I was lugging not only books (no book bag or backpack), boy style (arm straight down), but also a bulky, 15-pound bass clarinet. Unlike city buses, school buses aren’t made for standing, so that was awkward, and it was painful to stand in front of the bus in clear view of so many potential tormentors. I liked school; I dreaded the ride.

In one of my high school years, my last class of the day was, I think, history. I managed to get the seat in the column and row farthest from the door, by the windows. I could see everyone, but the others could see me only out of the corner of the eye. I paid attention to the class, mostly, but sometimes the pull of the sun or the snow or the trees, was too strong, and my mind would wander. And sometimes I would daydream about . . . privacy.

While a typical teenager might have dreamed of clothes, parties, and boys, and a more poetic one of symbolism and beautiful or ghastly imagery, I fantasized about privacy. I didn’t always like the regimen of school, especially having to attend classes that didn’t suit me (geometry, gym. I didn’t understand why people I didn’t bother still taunted me. Sometimes, my own tendency to wisecrack was my enemy. Mostly, though, I didn’t like that, for seven hours a day, I had no place to go, no place to hide, no place to call my own, Whether I was on the bus or in the hallway, the locker room, or class, someone could see me. And that meant I could not relax or be myself; I could not stop expending energy on negotiating the social morass.

Ah, I would think. I can manage this now because, when I’m an adult, I won’t have to.

I was that naïve.

In college, I was torn. I wanted to have friends, so I spent time in public places instead of studying — and still I didn’t make that many. And at times I retreated to my room to all the privacy I could desire — and became so lonely and depressed that I developed debilitating hives.

That didn’t work out very well.

As an adult, I have 12 to 13 hours of privacy, 7.5 of which are spend sleeping. During the rest, I may be lonely and a little down at times, but I need at least some of that time to myself. As a sheltered adolescent I could not foresee my future (and certainly couldn’t plan it). I didn’t know what the work world was like. I never knew what I wanted to do. So now, during my commute and at work, I have no more privacy than I did at school — the best I can do is escape to the windowless, sterile “sick room” when I really need to, although it is not the place to heal or to imagine. It’s just a temporary retreat. But most of the time work is like school — I’m on public display, failing to negotiate the social niceties, and subject to all the nastiness.

And unlike a student, I don’t even get the summer off.

Memorial Day

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When anyone says, “Happy Memorial Day,” I cringe inwardly. Like many other holidays in the United States, Memorial Day has become a day off from work, an opportunity to eat, drink, and be merry. Because it occurs in late May, when those of us in northerly latitudes are starting to feel comfortable that there will be no more snow and freezing winds, Memorial Day has become synonymous with the unofficial start of summer, with Labor Day marking its close (summer solstice and autumnal equinox notwithstanding).

Some people, like elders and the residents of small towns in which a single cemetery may house all the dead and where a parade features people you know. remember that Memorial Day commemorates the dead. Service organizations place American flags on the graves of veterans like my father, aunt, and uncle. Widows and widowers update their spouses on life in the past year. Unfortunate parents think of what their baby might have grown to be. Sons and daughters lay flowers reverently on stones or plant shrubs nearby to bring life to the dead. If you have lived long enough, you may pay tribute not only to parents, spouse, siblings, and comrades, but perhaps even a child or two.

Memorial Day does not have to be a sad occasion, and a picnic with all the fixings may be just the thing to put the winter blahs to rest. Before you head out to the backyard, park, pool, or beach, give Memorial Day its due and think about someone you loved and why you you loved them. Then never forget.

Magic: From faune to forest

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One day when I was in junior high school, Mr. Albert played Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy. When he announced his selection to the class, which had been raised on Frank Zappa and Jethro Tull, I exclaimed involuntarily, “Oh, I love that piece!”

I paid for this outburst for years; no bully who had witnessed it could let me forget it. I’m not sure if the lesson was to keep one’s feelings or one’s weird music preferences to oneself, or both. It may have been after this that one of my classmates embedded chewing gum in my tangled locks.

What business did I have with Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, anyway? I was quite possibly the only student in the school who had ever heard it, let alone of it.

My outburst may have been the result of emotional stupidity (the opposite of the famous emotional intelligence that successful people are blessed with), but appreciation for Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune came from a love of reading. The Girl Who Ran Away by Joan Robinson was the culprit. In the story, an English girl sent to live with an aunt instead makes shift to live in a nearby copse for the summer — thus avoiding the unpleasantness of older relatives while being close enough to feel secure.

One day, Charlie hears a flute playing a tune that climbs the scale, then descends — Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Entranced, she finds the musician, a young man staying in a caravan (trailer) in the woods, and they become friends. He is a young adult, and she is still a child, but their meeting obliquely reveals the possibilities of the adult world of romance. When I hear Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, emotionally I am transported to a late summer’s day in the depth of still, sun-dappled woods, a misfit, outcast child wanderer meeting a man, that is, a man thought of as a man, for the first time. It’s beautiful, wistful, and melancholy, a point in time that makes me forget the past and yearn to know the future.

Perhaps the bullies were right to mock me. If you have had the patience to read this far, though, I think you are not one of them.

As a child, I directed my limited book budget primarily to two types of books: horse stories and mysteries (you can imagine my feelings if the mystery involved a horse).

A great story, like The Island Stallion (Walter Farley), combines a noble equine enigma with mystery of place — an isolated, lost world known only to the horses and to the boy protagonists. The concept of a place that is remote and unknown to man haunts me. In a recurring dream, I take a walk in the tiny woods next to the trailer park. Just beyond the thicket behind our yard, I suddenly see an unlimited vista of trees, ravines, and meadows, unseen and untouched by humans. In the dream I am surprised yet joyous, wondering how I could have not known of such a marvel and how long I could hold onto the incredible sense of euphoria and magic before it disappears. Did Lewis and Clark ever have a moment when they wondered if the land was infinite, infinitely lovely, and lonely?

The island stallion is hidden, and so is The Mystery of the Great Swamp (Marjorie Zapf). As Jeb works his way into the seemingly endless Okefenokee, I am lost with him, hearing only the hush of the great wetland punctuated only by animal calls, the movement of the trees, and the slithering of snakes into the water. In this dangerous world of primordial beauty, it’s not surprising that a great secret dwells undiscovered. I wish it could have remained unknown.

I believed in the island stallion. I believed in the mystery of the great swamp. I may not have believed in them literally, but I believed that such things were still possible. When I stopped believing in the possibility, the best part of the child’s imaginative spirit died in me, I think.

Some of my favorite books proved to be straightforward mysteries, but there was always something special that appealed to me. In Mystery by Moonlight (Mary C. Jane), the protagonist discovers a comfortable little shed where she can be by herself to think and to write. Jane’s description of this place, amidst autumn leaves and under a moonlit sky, made me long for something just like it. The Mystery of the Crimson Ghost (Phyllis A. Whitney) and Mystery in the Pirate Oak (Helen Fuller Orton) also create places that were so outside my limited experience that, while ordinary enough to most children, they seemed mystical to me. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) was another magical place, and I felt profound empathy for the three lonely children who discover its restorative powers. Even today, I could wish to find such a place, too — and a soul mate who appreciates it as much as I do.

While Avonlea is a wonderful place in Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery), I saw myself in the intelligent, imaginative, wistful, stubborn, and misfit Anne. Unlike me, Anne gives free rein to her dreams. Unlike me, Anne is blessed with more than one kindred spirit she can trust — she wins over even her opposite, Mrs. Lynde. When people look at me, I wish they could see and appreciate those qualities that make Anne so loved. And I wish I could show those qualities, and I wish I could trust.

The final three books are mysteries, but with a clear, understated, haunting element of magic. In The Magic Tunnel (Catherine D. Emerson), an ordinary mass transit ride ends in an extraordinary place — the New Amsterdam of Peter Stuyvesant. How wonderful life would be if, at least once in a while, an ordinary trip could turn into such an adventure. The vividness of the encounter piqued my interest in history, too.

Today’s plastic snowstorms are no more than a part of the household bric-a-brac, but The Snowstorm (also known as The Snow Ghosts) by Beryl Netherclift takes us back to an eerie, silent, snow-filled world of Victorian children who seem to be trying to lead us to something important.

The Secret Pencil (Patricia Ward) appears to be ordinary enough when Anna, on vacation with her family in Wales, finds it, but then it starts to write enigmatic messages when the mood strikes it. It’s up to Anna to determine what they mean.

I have not re-read any of these stories for many years. In a way, they all end sadly. The mystery is solved, and all that is left is a return to everyday life and a memory. Even Anne, with so much promise, is dimmed by the cares and constraints of adulthood until she becomes almost dull. The snow ghosts disappear, and the snowstorm returns to being a decorative object. The pencil, once communicative, has nothing left to say, and no amount of wishing will animate it again.

I have changed, too. I’m an adult, with too many years of having the real world, with its practicalities, prevarications, and needs, beaten into me, and I fear that I might not be able to read these stories with the marvelous childlike sensitivity, feeling, and wonder that has been bludgeoned out of me over time.

Magic, literal or emotional, is ephemeral. A child like the one I once was is open to its possibilities, but there is always a sense that it will end, just as summer ended for Charley and the young man. Perhaps if we could cling to it (just as if I could hold onto my vision of the infinite, unspoiled wilderness), it would no longer cause the thrill of discovery and the longing ache of loss. Whether magic comes in a book, a dream, a vision, or a kindred spirit, love it while you can and remember that feeling as best you can because you may never experience it again. It is that possibility, that probability, that makes my longing and my melancholy stretch as far as my forest.

That rules the night

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I don’t believe in astrology, but according to the Gallup Strengthsfinder program, one of my top strengths is “connectedness,” a sense or conviction that all things are connected and that things happen for a reason. Perhaps that is why, having been born under what astrologists call a moon sign and bearing a variant of the name for the Roman goddess of the moon, I instinctively feel a connection to the “cold-hearted orb that rules the night.”

I had heard about a total lunar eclipse on February 13 and meant to make a note of it, but lately at many levels life has been unkind, and my mind is churning itself ever inward in a quest to find relief from the outside pressures and internal emotional turmoil that are beating it back.

That’s probably why I forgot about the eclipse.

Fortunately, J. noticed it and called me around 9 p.m., just in time to witness the loveliest moments.

The last total lunar eclipse that I witnessed was many years ago, perhaps a couple of hours later in the evening. I walked over to 55th Street and Lake Shore Drive and found dozens if not hundreds of people standing around, pointing and talking. It was an event, something to be planned for, enjoyed with others, and talked about afterward.

I was by myself but did not feel it. Like many, I stayed until after 12:30 p.m. or 1 a.m. so as not to miss a glorious moment. What was one day of greater weariness at work at such a time? The opalescent beauty of the eclipsed moon made my soul ache in a wonderful way, and the crowd around me, with whom I had at least this one moment in common, helped to ease it. It was a wonderful ache, the kind that can never be duplicated.

Now, as long as I am here at The Flamingo, I can see the moon rise over Lake Michigan from my living room window until it reaches a certain height in the sky. When J. called, I didn’t have to take time to dress and go out. I could watch the eclipse the way I always like to watch the full moon — naked, exposed, unhampered.

Yet I think I might have preferred sharing the experience, if not with an empathetic, warm-hearted friend, then perhaps with an unknown and transitory neighbor.

I looked down to where I had stood for the previous eclipse and saw no one. It was too cold. A lone Chicago police car made its circuit of the parking lot before heading west, away from the dimmed, eclipsed moon. A steady line of cars passed each other in their north or south journeys on Lake Shore Drive. Places to go, people to see, no time for cold-hearted orb above.

The flurry of traffic in its oblivious rush reminded me of a warm evening many years ago, when a full rainbow arced over the sky, its ends disappearing into the the north and south horizons. I stood at the edge of the road marveling as much at the hurry that prefers the mundane to the extraordinary as at the arc of pale colors against the storm-darkened skies.

Perhaps wondering why I was standing in such an odd spot, the driver of a car finally stopped so the passenger could get out to snap mobile phone photos that could not have done this magnificence the aesthetic justice it deserved.

This night the moon was too high in the sky for anyone in a car to notice it, and there were no strange, lone womanly figures standing by the road to serve as a signpost. The police made their accustomed rounds of the parking lot as they do every night, and the world drove on, unaware of the event taking place thousands of miles away visible right over their heads.

I couldn’t help thinking of a time when the world was, in theory, less connected than it is today — when western and eastern hemispheres were ignorant of one another; when there was no telegraph, telephone, or Internet; and when communication in writing or through messengers and emissaries took weeks or months to wend its way back and forth.

Anyone who was still awake might have looked up into the sky and seen the strangely darkened glow of the moon and felt connected to the universe the moon represents, to God or the gods, and to something greater than the work and cares that bind us together yet keep us apart. Those watching the moon’s temporary transformation might have realized that they were not alone in their sense of awe and wonder. For a moment, they may have felt themselves transformed, too, into part of something great and magical, something that spoke to their mind, their heart, and their soul. And then some more practical person, perhaps a spouse or a parent, might have called them in out of the cold and the elements — or that practical soul may have felt themselves drawn to see what was so compelling and beautiful.

Sometimes I think that the more physically connected we are through technology, the less spiritually connected we are to the something greater in which our tiny planet exists.

We speed to destinations unimportant as the moon presides over all.

Toes, tourniquets, and imagination

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For the past week my right big toe has been in varying stages of infection. When this happens, I leave it alone, and usually it resolves itself in a few days.

By Friday, however, it was clearly demanding attention. It was and is red, hot, swollen, and tender. There seemed to be two options: amputation or antibiotics. Despite temptation, I opted to start with the latter supplemented with an antibiotic bandage.

Last night when J. and I returned from Whole Foods, I took my shoes and socks off first thing — and spotted blood on the bandage.

“Hmmm,” I said, “where did that come from?”

“What?” J. said, focused on checking his mail using my DSL connection.

“Blood,” I said, removing the bandage carefully. Usually my toe doesn’t bleed. “Oh,” he said. Nothing ruffles him when he’s focused, although spurting blood might get his attention.

I peered at the bandage. I took off my glasses and peered more closely at the bandage flecked with red and at the toe, which was still red, hot, swollen, and tender, but which was definitely not bleeding.

Then it hit me what the “blood” was.

“Hmmm, never mind, it’s the fuzz from my red socks,” I said. “Hmmm,” he said.

I may be more imaginative than intelligent, but at least I’m methodical.

Which brings me to tomorrow.

As far as I know, I’m signed up for a class on CPR/AED (automated external defibrillator). This should prove interesting, because this is the kind of practical, useful information and work for which I am ill suited. In a society where every pair of hands is needed to do something productive, like cooking, sewing, or crafting, I would be voted off the island immediately.

I’m reminded of my Girl Scout days, probably at least 35 years ago. One day, probably on a Sunday afternoon, I found myself in what I think was a community center or church in a neighboring town, participating in a first-aid class. The atmosphere of the place, which with its folding chairs and whitewashed walls and echoes of spaghetti dinners was perfectly ordinary and even institutional, combined with the dreariness of the day seemed to inspire my imagination with an impossible-to-describe feeling of both homeliness and novelty. Places that were new to me always left me feeling strange, probably because I did not get to go to many of them.

All I remember of the class is demonstrating our newly acquired skills on an adult dummy and a baby doll.

There was one other thing. I came away thinking that tourniquets were bad, a very last resort, because they meant amputation. This impression was so strong that I had it for years, until I was older, less imaginative, and more knowledgeable, when I finally understood the purpose and use of a tourniquet and that limbs didn’t fall simply because one had been used.

While this is step one of enlightenment, it doesn’t mean I could ever learn to apply one.

I think of one of my Girl Scout friends, an eminently practical girl who undoubtedly breezed through the program and who used to wonder occasionally how someone so “smart” could be so stupid, and who still seems to feel the same way about me. I suspect she is not alone.

And I think of the idealist protagonist of Anne of Green Gables, whose daydreaming inattention to food storage led to a mouse drowning in the pudding, to her foster mother’s chagrin. I can see Anne, ever the dramatist, mistaking red fuzz for blood (and citing an appropriate poem for the occasion) and envisioning amputation while bypassing the reason.

Thirty years of adult life and loneliness have stifled some, perhaps much, of my imagination and my tendency to skip the details and to react before thinking, and out of necessity made me a little more pragmatic and practical. The cares of adulthood seem to be the enemy of imagination. We don’t have the time or the luxury not to be practical, efficient, and responsible — all things that sap the joy out of living.

I miss that Girl Scout, who was both bright and stupid and who frustrated everyone with a practical nature.

And I could use a friend like Anne.

Magic of Disney

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I seem to be in a curmudgeonly mood, so now is as good a time as any to confess that I hate Disney.

I’ve seen very few Disney movies (intentionally), and I’ve never been to Disneyland or Disney World. Yet I hate Disney.

Of course, the contemporary American can’t help being exposed to Disney. The movies, merchandise — lots of merchandise — and advertising are avoidable only if you live in a hermit’s cave and can miss out on the highway billboards, shopping, television, radio, or the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even then, they’d probably find you via direct mail.

Given my exposure level — minimal for someone who lives in a major urban area where advertising assaults the senses constantly — my antipathy toward all things Disney feels entirely natural. It’s not something I’ve developed over time. What is it that I find so abhorrent?

Some of it is, of course, Disney’s ubiquity and popularity. Far from being “magical,” Disney is crassly commercial, catered to small children and to the parents who indulge them — and so ingrained in American culture that each generation passes on their love for what is essentially a mass commercial enterprise as though it were an unmatched, irreplaceable family heirloom.

There’s more to my distaste, I suspect. When I think of Disney, the first words that come to mind are “conformity” and “control.” Disney is as much part of the suburban American childhood experience as day-care, cars, and pumped-up self-esteem.

Most parents I’ve known have faced a moment when they think their head will explode if they have to watch The Little Mermaid one more time. Those with money will surely find themselves at Disney World in the near future. For a while, even athletes shilled for Disney, saying after winning a championship, “I’m going to Disney World!”

There’s no doubt that something about the world of Disney appeals deeply to something in the American people. Perhaps it is that need for control. Beyond the character cuteness and cleverness and the carefully managed visitor experience lies a vise of control in which nothing is left to chance. It is the control of the alcoholic, who needs to be in charge and to keep reality at bay. The “magic” is not magic at all; it is control.

In this planned world, managed to the smallest detail, horrifying folk and fairy tales become watered-down, predictable, affirming stories of good and evil. They are just scary enough for a slight thrill of slight uncertainty and danger, but the handsome boy and the beautiful girl go on to live the American dream — invisibly, because Disney is about youth, not age. The villains suffer some form of punishment, but nothing like the punishment inflicted in real fairy tales. In one tale, the wicked woman is placed into a barrel of inward-facing spikes, which is rolled down a hill — a sort of rolling iron maiden that you won’t find in a carefully sanitized Disney version.

Magic acts are based on control; the magician and assistant control the audience’s perception of what they think they see. Disney is an elaborate magic act without equal. Small children don’t see workers with plastic heads, and even jaded teens can become immersed in the more sophisticated rides and attractions. Giving up control means losing yourself in the magic — all of it an act, a pretense.

With Disney, the illusion, the appeal to the senses, and feeling of wonder are so complete that the critical brain is not engaged. Disney children grow into Disney adults who, not surprisingly, want to pass on that same feeling, which they remember as “magical,” to their own children. No doubt Disney struggles to compete with all the sophisticated diversions that are available today, but its entertainment empire thrives.

People seem to go along with magic acts as long as the illusion is seamless. We don’t really believe that a woman is being cut in two (and put back together) on stage. The better the illusion, however, and the more elusive the trickery, the more awed we are. “How does he do that?” Interestingly, there are always a few who seem disappointed when magic acts prove to be trickery. They say, “It’s a trick! He didn’t really saw the woman in half!” as though they think the act of illusion should be reality, as though they confuse the two.

That’s the problem. Magic, not illusion, should be reality. Magic is something greater than ourselves, and therefore magic is spiritual. The parting of the Red Sea and the miracles of the New Testament are magic — great, inexplicable events that, whatever your beliefs, are recounted as though they had really happened, as though they were reality. Magic is real, magic is powerful, and magic is dangerous. Magic, no matter how benevolently used, even to feed the five thousand, is frightening because it is greater than ourselves, and we cannot understand it or its powers.

There’s no room in our world left for magic. Our science has explained nearly everything, and we have faith that someday it will explain everything that remains uncertain. If someone parted a sea or brought the dead back to life, we would be determined to figure out the illusion or to find a rational explanation. We will not be satisfied until we prove that there is nothing greater than ourselves.

Disney is an illusion designed to prolong the illusion of childhood. But Disney is not magic. Instead of believing in the potential of magic and all its possibilities, we’d rather pay for a well-crafted facsimile because we are sure that that is all there is. Instead of seeking the magic — and power — of the imagination, we, like other animals, rely on stimulation of our senses. The popularity of the theme parks, the movies, and the products prove there must be a real thrill in this, and perhaps a yearning for more.

That “more” is magic, and it cannot be bought or sold — by Disney or anyone else.

Week of October 28, 2007

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To my knowledge, nothing this week flooded, leaked, crumbled, broke, or collapsed — not even me. I did have odd dreams, although I didn’t remember much of them when I woke up. Also, thanks to PMS, I fell asleep soundly on the bus, even missing my stop one evening, and sometimes started to doze at lunch. I felt myself drifting off during a couple of department meetings, which may have been noticed because I had so little control. There were a few times when I felt overcome, almost sick with sleepiness. Then, at 10 or 10:30 p.m., when I tried to sleep, it wouldn’t come. I wasn’t exhausted, and it would take me unusually long to get to sleep. Then I would wake up two or three times during the night. Once or twice I overslept. All that should be relieved soon, but it’s an odd feeling to have so little say over one’s body and functioning.

On Monday, October 29, J. T. and I met after a Lyric Opera dress rehearsal and went to Red Light (Jackie Shen). At some point early on, perhaps during the small plates, J. T. started peering past me at something by the entrance. “I really can’t see very well and can’t be sure, but that looks like Mayor Daley and Bill Kurtis.” I turned around to look, although I did not have a good angle and could not see well through the plants, but I did spot a forehead that strongly resembled that of one of Da Mare’s family members, a niece with whom I had worked 10 years ago. “Looks like Daley to me,” I said. I’m not from Chicago, and I’m not fond of the Daleys in general or Richard the Younger in particular.

J. T. remained uncertain. “There’s no security,” she pointed out. “This isn’t a power place. And the mayor wouldn’t stand at the bar like that.” (Why not? I thought.)

A few minutes later, I looked to my left, and there could be no doubt now. Daley and Kurtis had moved to the center of the room and had been joined by Kurtis’s producer-girlfriend, Donna LaPietra, whom J. T. recognized from a ZooBall dinner. They spoke to Jackie Shen, then were taken to a private room, which I could just see into. J. T. was beside herself that there was no security. I noted that three or four men had gone in shortly afterward, but she said, “Those are suits.” Maggie Daley arrived some time later.

I’m recording this as this is the first time, I am sure, that Da Mare and I have dined at the same restaurant at the same time, perhaps even in the same restaurant. Most likely it will be the last.

Monday morning I read about the accident in Wadsworth, Illinois, that killed or injured 59 draft horses, many young, many Belgian. Every time I looked at the drooped eyes of the horses pictured, clearly in shock, I saw an inexpressible world of suffering and betrayed loyalty and trust. I cried every day at work. For many, including me, it did bring to light the use of horses in the pharmaceutical industry, the slaughter of horses in Canada and Mexico for French and Japanese markets, and, if that were not bad enough, the inhumane conditions under which horses are transported and killed. Like dogs, in our culture horses are working and companion animals. Their slaughter should be as repellent to us as it would be if it were poodles or Pomeranians.

Later in the week, I read about a fire in a foie gras company building that killed 15,000 ducks. 15,000! I imagine how those ducks must have felt, trapped, unable to flee, suffering unspeakably, and all for human greed. I also read about the slaughter of a dolphin pod, including babies, by the Japanese; the story was accompanied by a graphic, disturbing photo of the bloodied bodies these intelligent, sentient animals. All for human greed.

I cried for the horses, the ducks, and the dolphins partly because I cannot save them, I cannot comfort them, and I cannot reassure them that not all of my kind are hellish, heartless monsters. And because I know that what happened to them is the proverbial tip of the proverbial iceberg, that human cruelty is pervasive and unstoppable, that even now, at this moment, any moment, unthinkable cruelties are being committed without thought other than money and sadism against those with no voice, committed without conscience, committed without end.

What do I want to be?

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In the 1960s, boys wanted to be firemen or policemen, and girls wanted to be nurses or teachers.

Except me.

I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I didn’t know what it meant to “be” something. I never thought about adults or what they did all day, even the teachers I saw every day. I didn’t know what my father did when he went to work; I knew only when he left and when he returned. Once in a while, he would come home with a cut or scrape, but I never learned how they came about.

As I grew older, I figured out that doctors and lawyers had more money, but I couldn’t say why. I was naive about socioeconomic status and based my own affections on the merits of the person before me, not on what their father did for a living or how much money he made.

In college, I learned the importance of status and money to others. A young woman in my dormitory asked me what my father did before his retirement. Still unclear as to his exact job, I said he worked for Ford Motor Company. “Was he a VP? Of what?” she asked. I didn’t know what a VP was or did, but I told her what I did know, that he worked in shipping, in the rail yard. Her eyes and facial expression changed. “Oh, he was a worker,” she said dismissively. Neither she nor anyone in her circle of friends spoke to me again. In addition to being the child of a mere worker, I must have seemed the height of stupidity and social ineptitude. Later I would see the campus communists protesting speakers and would think, “What do they know of workers?” I seemed to be alone.

I thought about this the other day when I did a keyword search and came across job listings in health care. Registered nurses, licensed nurses, administrators, directors of nursing — all the usual health care positions.

For some reason, the position of “case manager” caught my attention. No one at age 6 wants to be a case manager. No one at age 6 has heard of a case manager. As with nursing and many other fields, to be a case manager requires specific education, training, and experience. At some point, you have to decide to become a case manager and then you must prepare for it. It’s a long-term commitment, different than becoming a store cashier or a call center operator. If you are a case manager, you are a case manager — your commitment, at least for now, has made the profession part of your identity.

This may be where I get hung up on career choices. I can’t get past thinking of careers as functions that society needs performed. To me, it’s something that someone pays you to do and that you perform so you can do what you really want to do — whether that’s buying a house and having a family, collecting lovely things, traveling to exotic or exciting places, or following your academic dreams.

Specialized functions seem so limiting to me. I don’t mind writing copy, but I don’t want to be thought of as a copywriter because I can do so many other things. I learn quickly and thoroughly, and I think strategically. I come up with ideas and develop solutions to problems. I’m a good judge of people. I can earn the respect of people of diverse personality types.

There are things I’m terrible at, too. I don’t have the patience for advanced math or physical sciences. I’m not mechanically inclined; in fact, I’m dimensionally impaired. I’m introverted, so I would not do well at anything that requires an outgoing personality, for examples, fund raising or sales. Authority and top-down discipline are antithetical to me; I could not succeed in the military, on the police force, or as part of any bureaucracy.

I have a clear idea of who and what I am, and of who and what I am not. If I remember accurately, my dad’s official position was “checker.” My current official position is “senior copywriter.” Just as my dad was much, much more than a “checker,” I am more than a “copywriter.” I chafe, I think, because the guardian types who tend to be in charge in any organization prefer to see people in terms of function instead of possibilities, and because i have not taken enough risks to find a function that focuses on my abilities, capabilities, and interests, not tasks.

There must be something comforting in knowing that you are a good case manager, that there will be a foreseeable need for case managers (or at least their talents, knowledge, and skills), and that there is little or nothing else you would rather do. You have a plan, a certain amount of job and financial security, and perhaps a general sense of contentment that balances the day-to-day frustrations any job brings.

I have but a vision — and it’s blurred, scary, and forever elusive.

And so I continue my function, paralyzed by inertia, never happy, always discontent and unfulfilled, forever dreaming.

Marcel Marceau

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22 March 1923 to 22 September 2007

At some point during my first job, I learned that many of my co-workers had a great aversion to mimes and clowns, describing them as “scary,” “creepy,” and “weird.” Over the years, I’ve found that this distaste is common; something about mimes and clowns disturbs the contemporary American mind — perhaps the combination of sophisticated modern sensibilities and some association with unpleasant childhood memories.

Not my mind. I loved Marcel Marceau’s act.

When I was a student, probably in high school (I don’t think I wrote these things down, alas), our French class went on a couple of excursions. One of them was to see Marcel Marceau. Afterward, when I understood who he was and what he was known for, it struck me that French language students had gone off to see a French performer whose act did not include a single spoken word. It wasn’t like attending a Eugéne Ionesco play performed in French by French-speaking actors, as we also did, or having Jacques Yvart come to our school to sing in French. We were not going to benefit from hearing French spoken. Instead, I believe we took advantage of an opportunity to experience a French icon.

And we did. Marcel Marceau was marvelous. He did not need speech to convey a change in character or emotion. His facial expression, posture, movements, and body language proved that spoken language is not necessary to communicate. A middle-aged Frenchman, a Jewish survivor of Nazi occupation, spoke eloquently to a group of teenage WASPs without saying a word.

The skit I remember best depicted a series of failed suicide attempts — by gas, by hanging, etc. Always something went wrong, and silently the character went about the grim business of trying every means possible. With the crass lack of thought that is perhaps natural to youth, we, along with the adults, laughed at each of the hapless character’s futile attempts to end his life. While we may not have recognized it at the time, the humor lay in the irony — a failure at life, a failure at death. As one obituary said, “Marceau likened his character to a modern-day Don Quixote, ‘alone in a fragile world filled with injustice and beauty.'”

Marceau, like those who inspired him, including Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, was no failure. He could not save his father from Auschwitz, but he did what he could to save Jewish men by forging documents and children by taking them to Switzerland. More than 30 years after World War II, his performance gifted me with the appreciation for bringing “poetry to silence” that I still have today, another 30 years later.

When I hear mimes and clowns disparaged, I remain silent. Now that silence is in honor of Marcel Marceau, a great mime and man whose artistic and humanitarian legacy needs no defense from me. It speaks for itself.