My presence here in Arkansas seems an oddity to many. Though it has been explored countless times already in this medium, I always seem to find myself returning to it. I would venture to guess that it stems from the confusion of life. It's natural to reach out for something known in times of unknown, like a favorite pub or a particular bench in the park. Your life isn't exactly centered around it but you feel centered while you're there.
When I left France I jumped from what had become home back to what was once home. It is perhaps confusing and a bit complicated to phrase it thus but I felt adrift. As such I did derive a sense of comfort out of my familiar surroundings. After Clint's death and my separation from M. it was perhaps the best thing for me. Admittedly though there seemed to be an undercurrent of doubt, one that perhaps mentally tagged on "for now" to my response when asked if I was "back." I'm not sure why, but even after being off in the world, I seemed to associate a slight sense of failure with being back home. It is absurd, I know.
The reaction to my "return" depends largely on the person I might be talking to. There seems to be a duality of opinion here, one that is undoubtedly the case in many towns across America. There are those that see the place as the center of something larger, a destination of perfection. Lying opposite to this are those that only know the place by a negative moniker that keeps the "Fort" but replaces the "Smith" with something my sister referred to as the "S word" when we were younger. Both camps express disbelief at my return. For the former my return is natural but they can't believe that I took so long to come to my senses.
While many see the town as a pleasant comfort, the other half seems to view the town as a mother's thumb--something that binds and chafes, something to escape. With this set there is usually a touch of envy at my fortune, envy that I had gotten out. Theirs is an incredulous disbelief that I would even contemplate a return.
So here I am, ironically stuck between the two halves. Squarely under that comfortingly oppressive thumb, I am once again seeking answers to questions that can't really be answered, only lived.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Tragedy of Circumstance
Each time I begin a relationship it always seems there will never be an end. Despite all contrary evidence that I've experienced, I always get lost in the beauty of love and coupling in its early stages.
It's only later that the cracks begin to show--your defense of certain glaring incompatibilities weakens, you cease to ignore certain characteristics. The time frame for this negative evolution always depends on those involved (I seem to be quite adept at ignoring reality in a multitude of situations). Given the nature of relationships it would be easy for one to think that the innocence and exciting unknowns of new relationships were the peak. It would be easy to think that it simply doesn't get much better. But it is only after those early bursts of emotion have passed that the nature of a love is revealed and allowed room to truly grow.
Thus the tragedy isn't that a relationship fails to grow but that it isn't allowed the room to grow. Whether it was Romeo or Tristan, Beatrice or Ilsa--without the right circumstances love is circumvented. It can never truly take flight, wings can never be completely formed.
So it is once again that circumstance thwarts a short but brilliant flame in my life. In the billowing remnants of that flame I am left only with memories of moments shared and a longing to replace the emptiness...I've never been good at being alone.
It's only later that the cracks begin to show--your defense of certain glaring incompatibilities weakens, you cease to ignore certain characteristics. The time frame for this negative evolution always depends on those involved (I seem to be quite adept at ignoring reality in a multitude of situations). Given the nature of relationships it would be easy for one to think that the innocence and exciting unknowns of new relationships were the peak. It would be easy to think that it simply doesn't get much better. But it is only after those early bursts of emotion have passed that the nature of a love is revealed and allowed room to truly grow.
Thus the tragedy isn't that a relationship fails to grow but that it isn't allowed the room to grow. Whether it was Romeo or Tristan, Beatrice or Ilsa--without the right circumstances love is circumvented. It can never truly take flight, wings can never be completely formed.
So it is once again that circumstance thwarts a short but brilliant flame in my life. In the billowing remnants of that flame I am left only with memories of moments shared and a longing to replace the emptiness...I've never been good at being alone.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The North Side of Despair
Another year has come and gone for the boys in Cubbie blue. It has proved hard to admit. Now that I'm almost a full week removed from their third loss to the Dodgers I've accepted the fact that it is over, really and truly over.
This day and age doesn't really seem as suited for baseball as it is other sports. Thus there are countless people 35 and under who just don't "get" baseball. Most of my friends are more in tune with the NBA and the NFL than they are the dynamics of the MLB. There are too many games, not enough action, any number of excuses are spit out as reasons behind their dislike of the game.
Most of these reasons I can live with. Everyone has different tastes. I do, however, find it ironic when friends who "love" soccer list game pace or "lack of action" as a reason for their inability to derive pleasure from watching baseball. It escapes me how one can truly appreciate the tactical vagaries of soccer but not baseball. Obviously in many circles it's "hip" for one to "love" soccer but I think it's as much about personality as it is the changing face of the world.
"It's no wonder some people find the game dull, especially in an age of Sports Center and instant gratification. A lot of baseball's appeal is in the Scheherazadian nature of the game--the narrative develops slowly. Clock drive football compresses and distills, while baseball invites discursive rumination. It's an archaic style that attracts a different fan." -Phillip Martin, 9-21-08 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Since that compression is missing from baseball there is more buildup. Once that aspiration is deflated at season's end, it stings. As a Cubs fan you become somewhat immune to the many pitfalls and let downs within a season. You're calloused and accustomed to that sting of defeat. It's when you ease your inner guard and allow the light of hope to burn within you that you leave yourself vulnerable as a Cubs fan. My own light clicked on early this year and continued to flicker the entire season. Even after the Cubs dropped the first two in Chicago, deep inside me a miraculous curse breaking ember was smoldering.
It wasn't to be. Once again, in a miraculous fashion, the season ended for the Cubs. It's easy to lament one's circumstances but excoriating one's fate is of no use. Instead we dry our eyes and cast our gaze ahead to next year--to find new hope in a new spring. We, as Cub fans, live in the quiet hopes of tomorrow and the joyous possibilities it holds.
This day and age doesn't really seem as suited for baseball as it is other sports. Thus there are countless people 35 and under who just don't "get" baseball. Most of my friends are more in tune with the NBA and the NFL than they are the dynamics of the MLB. There are too many games, not enough action, any number of excuses are spit out as reasons behind their dislike of the game.
Most of these reasons I can live with. Everyone has different tastes. I do, however, find it ironic when friends who "love" soccer list game pace or "lack of action" as a reason for their inability to derive pleasure from watching baseball. It escapes me how one can truly appreciate the tactical vagaries of soccer but not baseball. Obviously in many circles it's "hip" for one to "love" soccer but I think it's as much about personality as it is the changing face of the world.
"It's no wonder some people find the game dull, especially in an age of Sports Center and instant gratification. A lot of baseball's appeal is in the Scheherazadian nature of the game--the narrative develops slowly. Clock drive football compresses and distills, while baseball invites discursive rumination. It's an archaic style that attracts a different fan." -Phillip Martin, 9-21-08 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Since that compression is missing from baseball there is more buildup. Once that aspiration is deflated at season's end, it stings. As a Cubs fan you become somewhat immune to the many pitfalls and let downs within a season. You're calloused and accustomed to that sting of defeat. It's when you ease your inner guard and allow the light of hope to burn within you that you leave yourself vulnerable as a Cubs fan. My own light clicked on early this year and continued to flicker the entire season. Even after the Cubs dropped the first two in Chicago, deep inside me a miraculous curse breaking ember was smoldering.
It wasn't to be. Once again, in a miraculous fashion, the season ended for the Cubs. It's easy to lament one's circumstances but excoriating one's fate is of no use. Instead we dry our eyes and cast our gaze ahead to next year--to find new hope in a new spring. We, as Cub fans, live in the quiet hopes of tomorrow and the joyous possibilities it holds.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Wishes and Wants
For some reason I've always had a predilection for literature from the early 20th century. Most noticeably this preference is for works that take place in the interwar years from 1920-1940. I'm not so sure I can truly put my finger on the reason why. It seems that there is hardly ever a direct causal relationship between reason and preference. There are vaguely descriptive reasons I can give--the level of decadence that seemed to pervade life, the manners, the suppressed simplicity of the worldview. I think, in truth, it perversely seems almost idyllic in my mind. An era seemingly caught between modernity and the Victorian era, the exact point of society before we spilled over into the chaos of "modernity."
With my fear of planes I suppose I've always felt as if I was born in the wrong era, that I was more suited for the leisurely travel norms of that time. Perhaps I'm kidding myself to entertain such notions but I've raced through Forster, Maugham, Greene, and Waugh and continually feel drawn to their world.
Naturally it was not without a sense of irony that I realized the other day that, in a way, I've been living in a new manifestation of that time period. Perhaps this realization should have occurred to me already with the gloom and doom of another depression splashed across the news each day (Unfortunately I tend to be tragically oblivious. For as observant as I feel I can be, this streak of blindness can be somewhat surprising).
It can be quite easy to find parallels between historical eras if one sets out to do so. I imagine it's almost as easy as finding behavioral or moral justifications in the bible. Everything is found for those who care to undertake the search. For my own comparison it's easy to picture the fracturing of a societal naivete, a la the WWI, in the events of 9/11, the roaring 20s in the freewheeling banking practices of the early 2000s, and our own recession as the depression. What is left but a war to bookend the period?
Obviously the time periods of these "parallel" events don't mesh. The later events occur compressed--a naivete that took four years to crack was shattered in only a day. As we were drowning in the forgetfulness of prosperity the world continued to move on around us.
My good friend in California, Matt, made a very valid point during our discussion of the dualities between responsibility and happiness. It serves very nicely has an ending point for this particular post. Matt compared the current state of much of the financial sector with that of our peers. I'm taking the liberty to quote him directly (courtesy of the wondrous gmail)--
"A lot of our generation has been blessed with many great opportunities and not often have we seen the possible negative consequences of the risks we have taken. So we keep on taking the risks, keep on pushing it."
If there is a better analogy that describes the majority of young American adults and their personal struggles between "reality" and the easy almost hedonistic lifestyle they had grown accustomed to, I have yet to see it. Matt's assessment of the situation nails the crux of the issue, for our own age or for the 1920s. In both eras we became tangled up in the illusion of prosperity...so fooled by the hopeful smokescreen of flourishing affluence that we lost sight of reality. We are now stuck with the outcome of our own orgulous Ostrich act. Perhaps it's too ominous and perhaps too obvious to close with a warning, but as they say, "be careful what you wish for." Even if it is as absurd a literary lark as wishing to live through the ups and downs of the interwar period.
With my fear of planes I suppose I've always felt as if I was born in the wrong era, that I was more suited for the leisurely travel norms of that time. Perhaps I'm kidding myself to entertain such notions but I've raced through Forster, Maugham, Greene, and Waugh and continually feel drawn to their world.
Naturally it was not without a sense of irony that I realized the other day that, in a way, I've been living in a new manifestation of that time period. Perhaps this realization should have occurred to me already with the gloom and doom of another depression splashed across the news each day (Unfortunately I tend to be tragically oblivious. For as observant as I feel I can be, this streak of blindness can be somewhat surprising).
It can be quite easy to find parallels between historical eras if one sets out to do so. I imagine it's almost as easy as finding behavioral or moral justifications in the bible. Everything is found for those who care to undertake the search. For my own comparison it's easy to picture the fracturing of a societal naivete, a la the WWI, in the events of 9/11, the roaring 20s in the freewheeling banking practices of the early 2000s, and our own recession as the depression. What is left but a war to bookend the period?
Obviously the time periods of these "parallel" events don't mesh. The later events occur compressed--a naivete that took four years to crack was shattered in only a day. As we were drowning in the forgetfulness of prosperity the world continued to move on around us.
My good friend in California, Matt, made a very valid point during our discussion of the dualities between responsibility and happiness. It serves very nicely has an ending point for this particular post. Matt compared the current state of much of the financial sector with that of our peers. I'm taking the liberty to quote him directly (courtesy of the wondrous gmail)--
"A lot of our generation has been blessed with many great opportunities and not often have we seen the possible negative consequences of the risks we have taken. So we keep on taking the risks, keep on pushing it."
If there is a better analogy that describes the majority of young American adults and their personal struggles between "reality" and the easy almost hedonistic lifestyle they had grown accustomed to, I have yet to see it. Matt's assessment of the situation nails the crux of the issue, for our own age or for the 1920s. In both eras we became tangled up in the illusion of prosperity...so fooled by the hopeful smokescreen of flourishing affluence that we lost sight of reality. We are now stuck with the outcome of our own orgulous Ostrich act. Perhaps it's too ominous and perhaps too obvious to close with a warning, but as they say, "be careful what you wish for." Even if it is as absurd a literary lark as wishing to live through the ups and downs of the interwar period.
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