An Uneasy Resonance
I wonder to myself why each day my thoughts are inevitably drawn to the vastitude of mortality, inescapable as nightfall and the loss of innocence.
It’s not that I am a dark thinker—I am filled with no doomsday prophecy nor overwhelming pessimism. Pragmatism, maybe, honed on the stone of reality. But not necessarily dark. I find humor in most everything life sends down the winding path. I am not into the gothic, though lately I have found myself more and more drawn to the literary and cinematic equivalents, I suppose—at least as far as the mainstream is concerned. It’s not that I detest a happy ending, but as I grow older I find the bitter root of truth more palatable than the honey-sweet bliss of ignorance .
We watched a potentially forgettable film a while back: The United States of Leland. The basic plot was intriguing, though the piece as a whole was plagued by a staccato tempo and somewhat stale script. Still, afterward, there was an uneasy resonance that lingered in my soul, a kind of eerie paramountcy. It may have been seeds planted willfully by writer and director Matthew Ryan Hoge—seeds that germinated subtly in my mind—or it may have been nothing more than an unintentional metamorphosis of the movie based on it’s ingredients. I believe art is neither inherently good or bad—many would use the term to describe something that has already reached a level of some critical weight or canon. I think mediocre art is capable of a kind of self-transformation, which is to say that the sum of the parts can be transcended through even the accidental combination of particular elements.
Without offering too much of a plot spoiler, let’s just say that a central theme is the underlying (and to most people invisible) sorrow that surrounds even the most apparently joyous moments; the encumbrance of an ability to see the mortal reality of present and, more importantly, future turns of circumstance.
The cloud’s black lining.
Leland accounts watching a youth baseball game and seeing beyond the cheering parents and energetic towheads to the one boy who sits at the end of the bench, unable to compensate for his lack of ability and popularity with unfunny jokes and tired theatrics.
In the whirlwind kiss of a young couple in love he sees the eventual betrayal and heartbreak of a roaring passion gone cold.
A dark, glass-is-less-than-half-full kind of movie on the surface, possibly, but also central is Leland’s incredible sadness at his own inability to effect change, to bring true happiness and contentment to these strangers (and, of course, himself and those important to him).
The crushing mass of overwhelming compassion.
I received an email a couple of weeks ago from my aunt Karen, informing us of my other aunt’s diagnosis with early stage breast cancer. In all, the news was very encouraging, the prognosis excellent. Indeed, with my aunt Joyce’s vivacious lust for life—with her ability to see what Leland couldn’t: the good in not only the good times, but even in the bad—my first thoughts were of the absoluteness of her ability to strut past this with the confidence and surety of a boxer who knows she has been matched with an opponent unworthy of her talented and richly experienced gloves.
Still, I was left with (as my Aunt Karen so eloquently put it in her email) an uneasy resonance. I had cancer just three years ago, and though I am moving further away from the sickness, and as much as I might want to return to the downy comfort of innocence, I can’t escape the knowledge that I am permanently moving toward my own mortality. And this truth leaves me bereft of words for someone who means very much to me and despite her verve could probably use (and should expect) something from one who has so far survived the beast.
So I sit, crushed by the sheer mass of overwhelming compassion, wordless. I want to write, I want to call, and yet I have done neither. Because the truth of the matter is, after you get past the incredible need to make someone else feel better, there is still that black nugget of fear that you aren’t better.
There, I said it:
I am afraid.
That, however, is no reason to withhold saying the things I want to say to my aunt Joyce—someone who is a living part of my heritage: a Branson; my mother’s sister.
Joyce, if you are reading, my lack of contact since you were diagnosed is nothing short of cowardice on my part. My fear has left me without enough words, terrified that there is nothing I can say to make you feel better, but worse, fearful that should I speak too loudly, the beast might hear me and come calling again.
So please forgive me if this blog seems too impersonal, for it is truly a shield of sorts, a lame attempt to reach out to someone I love and about whom I am thinking constantly while still hiding in the shadows at the side of the road. I am afraid of my own mortality, of leaving a wife and son without a companion and father. I feel as if just talking about it will somehow strike a stone, a stone that will throw a spark, a spark that will ignite the fire. I’ve seen too many loved ones pass at the hands of this disease, and having lived with it myself, I fear most that I will never be without this shameful cowardice.
What I do not fear, however, is for your future, Joyce. I have no doubt in my mind at all that you will weather this as I have seen you weather all the rough seas—with strength, humor, love, and most of all: success. I know you will do what you always do—make us all proud.
You are, after all, Max’s daughter.
It’s not that I am a dark thinker—I am filled with no doomsday prophecy nor overwhelming pessimism. Pragmatism, maybe, honed on the stone of reality. But not necessarily dark. I find humor in most everything life sends down the winding path. I am not into the gothic, though lately I have found myself more and more drawn to the literary and cinematic equivalents, I suppose—at least as far as the mainstream is concerned. It’s not that I detest a happy ending, but as I grow older I find the bitter root of truth more palatable than the honey-sweet bliss of ignorance .
We watched a potentially forgettable film a while back: The United States of Leland. The basic plot was intriguing, though the piece as a whole was plagued by a staccato tempo and somewhat stale script. Still, afterward, there was an uneasy resonance that lingered in my soul, a kind of eerie paramountcy. It may have been seeds planted willfully by writer and director Matthew Ryan Hoge—seeds that germinated subtly in my mind—or it may have been nothing more than an unintentional metamorphosis of the movie based on it’s ingredients. I believe art is neither inherently good or bad—many would use the term to describe something that has already reached a level of some critical weight or canon. I think mediocre art is capable of a kind of self-transformation, which is to say that the sum of the parts can be transcended through even the accidental combination of particular elements.
Without offering too much of a plot spoiler, let’s just say that a central theme is the underlying (and to most people invisible) sorrow that surrounds even the most apparently joyous moments; the encumbrance of an ability to see the mortal reality of present and, more importantly, future turns of circumstance.
The cloud’s black lining.
Leland accounts watching a youth baseball game and seeing beyond the cheering parents and energetic towheads to the one boy who sits at the end of the bench, unable to compensate for his lack of ability and popularity with unfunny jokes and tired theatrics.
In the whirlwind kiss of a young couple in love he sees the eventual betrayal and heartbreak of a roaring passion gone cold.
A dark, glass-is-less-than-half-full kind of movie on the surface, possibly, but also central is Leland’s incredible sadness at his own inability to effect change, to bring true happiness and contentment to these strangers (and, of course, himself and those important to him).
The crushing mass of overwhelming compassion.
I received an email a couple of weeks ago from my aunt Karen, informing us of my other aunt’s diagnosis with early stage breast cancer. In all, the news was very encouraging, the prognosis excellent. Indeed, with my aunt Joyce’s vivacious lust for life—with her ability to see what Leland couldn’t: the good in not only the good times, but even in the bad—my first thoughts were of the absoluteness of her ability to strut past this with the confidence and surety of a boxer who knows she has been matched with an opponent unworthy of her talented and richly experienced gloves.
Still, I was left with (as my Aunt Karen so eloquently put it in her email) an uneasy resonance. I had cancer just three years ago, and though I am moving further away from the sickness, and as much as I might want to return to the downy comfort of innocence, I can’t escape the knowledge that I am permanently moving toward my own mortality. And this truth leaves me bereft of words for someone who means very much to me and despite her verve could probably use (and should expect) something from one who has so far survived the beast.
So I sit, crushed by the sheer mass of overwhelming compassion, wordless. I want to write, I want to call, and yet I have done neither. Because the truth of the matter is, after you get past the incredible need to make someone else feel better, there is still that black nugget of fear that you aren’t better.
There, I said it:
I am afraid.
That, however, is no reason to withhold saying the things I want to say to my aunt Joyce—someone who is a living part of my heritage: a Branson; my mother’s sister.
Joyce, if you are reading, my lack of contact since you were diagnosed is nothing short of cowardice on my part. My fear has left me without enough words, terrified that there is nothing I can say to make you feel better, but worse, fearful that should I speak too loudly, the beast might hear me and come calling again.
So please forgive me if this blog seems too impersonal, for it is truly a shield of sorts, a lame attempt to reach out to someone I love and about whom I am thinking constantly while still hiding in the shadows at the side of the road. I am afraid of my own mortality, of leaving a wife and son without a companion and father. I feel as if just talking about it will somehow strike a stone, a stone that will throw a spark, a spark that will ignite the fire. I’ve seen too many loved ones pass at the hands of this disease, and having lived with it myself, I fear most that I will never be without this shameful cowardice.
What I do not fear, however, is for your future, Joyce. I have no doubt in my mind at all that you will weather this as I have seen you weather all the rough seas—with strength, humor, love, and most of all: success. I know you will do what you always do—make us all proud.
You are, after all, Max’s daughter.
posted by Commish at 5:04 AM
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