Another Kind of War

We tooled about in San Rafael yesterday morning, gathering parts for the irrigation system (soooo stupid to pay what I paid to put that damnable thing in and then water the lawn by hand… /sigh), puttering about in hardware stores and then we went bowling for a break in the action. I so suck at bowling and at the same time I enjoy it immensely.

I made very licious black bean island soup – spicey and salty and hammy and garlicly. After the mountain sojourn with the Pumpkin Cookie, we perched on the sofa and watched a four part BBC documentary on the German/Russian War of the Century. It was striking, horrific, refreshing and bone chilling to hear German and Russian officers speak so candidly about unspeakable things. The documentarian would ask, would you consider that a war crime? Sometimes they would answer yes, mostly they would respond with a resolute no - it was war, it was the way it was. The Russian soldier relays how at the taking of Berlin he called the German officers to a house, one by one, and personally slit their throats – described the vulnerability of the human body and the easiest way to fell one.

I believe he was the man who responded, when asked if he considered this a war crime, that it was not, who is to judge him, how those years are, as they say, lost in the oblivion of history. But it’s clear those days stay with him keenly, in his mind’s eye, a file recalled simply, with some voice recognition pattern – perhaps a mere image or smell can recall than. Just like that. He’s gifted with no oblivion.

This morning we watched one of the Dog Fight series, I think about F16s. What was different about the men interviewed in the War of the Century and that Israeli fighter pilot in this Dog Fights episode was that the Israeli fighter pilot never stopped smiling and he lacked any (all?) humility. Line them all up side by side and Melnik, I think, was the worst – if there are degrees of evil.

Now that there has been enough viewing of war and human atrocity, we move on to more gentle pursuits – I’m going to see Marion Nestle speak at the Commonwealth Club tonight. I suppose that’s just another kind of war, eh?

Oh God...

I’m sitting here near mid-day avoiding the to do list of life. The great and wonderous Emma Goldman wrote that women need to live simpler, yet richer and deeper lives. We can each take that to mean whatever we need it to mean, I suppose. At one time in my life this meant abandoning to do lists altogether and changing my ideas of accomplishment and success to be who I am and what I strive toward becoming with regard to my internal life. Lately it’s about moving out a kind of paralysis – a paralysis that was crucial toward accomplishing the task of stopping smoking – of sitting and doing nothing and not smoking, of weathering boredom and not smoking, etc. Now that I’ve proven I can do that after three years, I’m sort of bored. So I wonder, what am I avoiding, exactly, except my own fulfillment? (How did brushing my teeth become a metaphor for fulfillment? Heh.. I’m kidding.)

I was nearly through Son of a Witch (the sequel to Wicked, the story of the Elphaba, Oz’s wicked witch of the West) when I hit a stand still. I’d been so enjoying it and in to the story and I got distracted by something… I’m not sure what. There’s a few lines that have struck me. Here’s one:

People say “my God!” all the time, but usually they mean, “oh shit.”

And here’s another:

A capacity for interiority in the growing adult is threatened by the temptation to squander that capacity ruthlessly, to revel in hollowness. The syndrome especially plagues anyone who lives behind a mask. An Elephant in her disguise as a human princess, a Scarecrow with painted features, a glittering tiara under which to glow and glide in anonymous glamour. A witch’s hat, a Wizard’s showbiz display, a cleric’s stole, a scholar’s gown, a soldier’s dress sartorials. A hundred ways to duck the question: how will I live with myself now that I know what I know?”

How will I, indeed! And I think to some degree we all live behind masks that we work at slowly peeling off so that we may reveal ourselves and feel both known and loved. Even when we don’t even know we’re wearing them.. then suddenly we realize, oh look, I’ve had this silly thing on all my life… it’s not so muggy and I can sure see more clearly now that I’ve thought to take that wretched disguise off…. Here I am. Wow. Who’d a thunk. And sometimes, strangely, we suddenly slip into something we never had on before, like waking up in tennis shoes (that’s weird) glued to our feet. How ever did that happen?

And I think Oh God! (and yes, I really mean oh shit) and find myself in search of the right strength of solvent.. something to loosen off the shoes but not so powerful as to wrench the skin from my bones. There’s the rub, eh? It’s all about the right solvent. If it scars, it’s too strong.

And what is this kind of pyschological (dare I say, spiritual?) solvent, this thing with the strength to strip us down to precisely who we are but not so strong as to destroy us? Is there really some precise science to the whole thing? Is the pursuit of this tangential question a mere reveling in the hollowness? (I think, yes!… and I so love to think yes!) And I think Oh God!, and I’d like to believe I meant something better…. But I probably don’t really…

It’s not really all so heady. It’s time to act, not sit in melancholy ponderings. It’s time to be, not think. Throw caution to the wind… it’s a new year…. Jump!