random thoughts

At the risk of sounding like every other yoga lover out there, you do learn about life on the mat. Conventional wisdom has it that as most people grow older, they become averse to change. I've gone through life thinking that I was pretty much a change junkie but over the past few years, I've seen that change. I'll still take chances, but I'll want to hedge all my bets as much as possible. Having experienced enough sadness as a result of change gone awry, I'm wary about making leaps.

To get back to the yoga mat (and the dojo as a matter of fact), this fear translates into a cautiousness about my body. 10 years ago I would have pushed myself to try new moves more often. Alhtough I'm more inclined to push my body in new ways in the yoga studio than in a dojo because I trust that I'll be safe in the yoga studio, I'm still much more cautious. (I feel safer in the studio because we're encouraged to listen to our bodies. In the dojo I'm surrounded by young people who have no sense about how awful an injury is(and who are able to recover much more quickly from injuries) and who are encouraged to push themselves beyond their limts (which is okay since they can recover from injuries more easily and still believe in their infallibilty). I'm always afraid that I'll get caught up in the excitement and/or feel as if I have something to prove which will lead to unnecessary risks.

I realize that growth requires risk. I can't just retreat into a comfortable lifestyle and expect to grow. By no means do I want to stop growing physically, emotionally and intellectually. The key is to really tune in to my intuition. Just like I trust myself to know when to push and when not to in yoga, I need to listen to my inner voice when it comes to possible risks in other parts of life. Rather than avoid the new all together because of fear over injury (emotional or physical), I need to trust that I can keep myself safe. If I can't keep myself safe, then I should avoid the situation.

Sunday nights with the tube

Until last summer, Sunday evening had been reserved for HBO series for a good number of years. First Sex and the City captivated me. Then The Sopranos reeled us in. Deadwood made us laugh and cringe. Entourage charmed us as did Extras and Big Love. But because we were never able to immerse ourselves of The Wire (in spite of EW's insistence on its greatness), we vainly surfed the channels but came up empty. This Sunday though marks the beginning of TV bliss. First, we'll enjoy the politcal intrigue of ancient Rome and then we'll hurtle forward (or maybe backward. I guess I can't tell yet) to watch Gaius, the Cylons and others screw with the Capricans.

Last Sunday, we saw the first episode of Rome and were blown away by its expert plotting, truly despicable characters and shocking scenes. Because its high production values have made a third season cost prohibitive, it will be the last time we can enjoy the wheelings and deelings of the elite which is too bad. I would have loved to have seen it paired with the Sopranos, especially now that one of the plotlines will involve the tormented head of the undeworld in Rome.

Children of Men

I saw Children of Men yesterday. In advertisements, I've seen it described as a contemporary Bladerunner and I have to agree with the assessment. It's thought provoking with just the right amount of light to keep it from becoming to dark. We are shocked at how bleak the not-so-distant future in which women have mysteriously become infertile. The xenophobia in the UK is presented as a way of survival, yet it's not clear why people would want to live. That is until Clive Owen, a cynical drunk who's lost his son years earlier, finds himself the guardian of the first pregnant woman that the world has seen for almost twenty years.

Balancing the light and the dark is no small feat and it would be fun to watch the movie again to better understand how it was structured. There's the humour of Michael Caine's character as well as the dark wit of Clive Owens to sustain us until the baby is born. Then the audience like the soliders, refugees and terrorists finds themselves in awe of what is truly the miracle of life. In fact, I'd say this is the most pro-life of movies I can remember seeing.

There is more to be said about the movie, but I'm also intrigued by the movie's premise: What if there were no more children? What would happen to society if we thought that the human race had come to its end. Would we be able to create an "Art Ark" if we knew that in 100 years, there would be no one to appreciate it? Would we care how we treated the environment? Would we care about how we treated each other? Would we want to live?

Imagination and Place

The other night I watched a movie that based on the murder of 5 people by two women in Lexington, Kentucky (100 Proof.) If you read the accounts of the murder in the paper, you'll see that money is given as the motive. As a fictionalized account, the movie can offer other reasons and one in particular struck me the most. I think the women suffered from a lack of imagination. Clearly, the women wanted to somehow escape from their violent, banal and bleak existence where both women and men are sexual predators. Although the less aggressive of the two talks about owning a country store out in the country, it's clear that they can't imagine another way to live. Rather than use their minds to pull themselves out of the violence which surrounds them, they use drugs and alcohol to find oblivion.

The day after viewing the movie I was able to enjoy an afternoon in our local art museum. While looking at the scuplture of a Buddha in the museum framed by the Minneapolis cityscape, I wondered what those two women would have thought if transported to the same place as I stood. And then I wondered while looking at the Buddha if it really mattered where they were. If they learned the power of meditation, could they transform their place into something as inspirational as the art museum?

More Horror

Last night, I watched two films in different genres which use the death of a child as a trigger for violence and horror. Both explore the ways in which two mothers express and ultimately deal with their grief. In Freedomland, the single mother allows her passion to take her away from her child which causes his death. Rather than accept responsibility, she blames a mysterious car jacker which results in unrest and then violence. Through the persistence of a policeman, she confesses her guilt and there is hope at the end that she can learn and reach outside of herself to help heal the community.

As the name implies, The Descent follows a journey into the darkness. It begins with a car accident in which a woman's husband and daughter are impaled. Her friends, lovers of extreme sports, convince her to go spelunking in North Carolina with the hope that she will be able to pull herself out of her depression. Instead, she plunges into literal and then spiritual darkness. Lost in a cave full of Gollumesque cannibals, you watch as her attempts at survival lead her into madness. By the end she has become one of the creatures of the night. In the American ending, she makes her way to the surface but in the European ending she remains in the cave with the memories of her daughter. Regardless, she has become the horror that she had witnessed.

As I lay in bed thinking about the two feel-good movies, I realized that almost all the books I've read this week, (White Oleander, The Road, The Return of the Player) foreground the real or potential injury of a child by their parents. And they all show how that pain or the threat of that pain leads the protgagonists on journeys. That of The Road is literal. The father leads his son to the west coast in an attempt to save him from the pain and horror all around him. In White Oleander, the mother's inhumanity leads to her daughter on a trip through a series of foster homes where she is emotionally and physically battered. In The Return of the Player, the mother's slap of her daughter in a shopping mall triggers the formation of a new and stonger family unit. The Road ends with the boy safe in the arms of a "good" family. And the daugher in White Oleander grows into a creative and sensitive artist.

Another common theme is cannibalism as representing the loss of our humanity. It seems as if The Heart of Darkness is woven into all my choices. In The Road, the father does all that he can to save his son but refuses to cross what is presented as the final line. Unlike the majority of survivors, he will not murder or eat others. Although we don't see the protagonist of The Descent knawing on thigh bones, we've seen the cannibal that she will become if she can survive in the caves.

The Road

I don't think I've read a negative review of The Road and now I understand why. I sobbed uncontrollably when I closed the book, but the afterimage burned into my mind is not the chargrilled infant or the pantry whose shelves are stocked with live humans, but the love of a father for his son. There is such purity in the relationship between the father and the son that in spite of the horrors depicted the beauty in that love can burn through all the ashes.

More Seduction

Since posting about White Oleander, I've had similarly intoxicating experiences with two other books: Return of the Player and The Road. It must be the case that I'm open to literary seduction during this magical time of the year. As pointed out by a teacher last night, time gets suspended somehow between Christmas and New Year's. We're not quite through with the past year but we're not quite ready to start the new one. Rather than focus on my own life, I think, I prefer to dip into others' lives.

In addition to the readerly context, I think the three novels share some qualities which contributed to their power. All three have at their heart a journey through the heart of darkness. The protagonists look at the world at face "the horror" whether it's the barrel of a gun held by your foster parent, a murder or cannibals, yet somehow they hold on to their love and retain faith in the world around them. No matter what terrible things they are forced to confront, they push foward. As a reader, I also believed faith that the books would end with a glimmer of hope thanks to notes by critics, blurbs and the authors themselves. If I didn't have that belief, I don't think I would have been able to handle the desolation of the bleakest of the three (The Road).

To keep with theme of The Road (since that's the book that currently leading me down the road to ruin these days), the books shed light on that grass which pushes its way through cracks in the cement. In spite of the parking lot which paves over the garden, it's the garden which prevails. If a book supports this belief somehow, I'm hooked.

Intoxicating Reading

I have to be very careful about when I pick up White Oleander because it seduces me. Once I start reading, I can't put it down. If I need to get a cup of tea, I'll take the book with me so I won't have to leave it. The experience reminds me of Thicker Than Water which has at its center another fragile and creative young girl who finds herself in the middle of emotional and erotic maelstrom triggered by poisonous parents.

I'll now play the 'If I were writing a paper, I would" game by saying that I'm sure that many students have discussed the two novels, but I'm more interested in why they both can draw me so completely into their fictional worlds.