love in the time of ageism

Look closely at this picture. Closer. Tell me - do you see (as I do) a 70-something man and a 50-something woman? Perhaps it is tough to tell from this particular photo, but this is Hollywood's version of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza from the brilliant Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel Love in the Time of Cholera. Both Garcia Marquez' deftly-drawn characters are supposed to be in their mid-70s at the novel's conclusion, when they finally come together and find love in one another arms. But put Hollywood in charge and it is just another case of Michael Douglas meets Catherine Zeta Jones, or Woody Allen meets Scarlet Johansson (or any of Woody's puerile leading ladies, for that matter), or the endless litany of cinematic middle-aged, balding, wrinkled and overweight men who score eternally youthful, vibrant and slender younger women.

M and I watched this film last night. There is not much to recommend it, aside from elaborate stage sets and fabulous period costumes (for which, I admit, I am always a sucker). It was a pretty film and I guess I might go so far as to say it was entertaining -but only insofar as it was better then, say, Everybody Loves Raymond or whatever other dross might be on offer on network television on a Sunday evening. It featured a fantastic bevy of topless women, if that is what you are into. But when I reflect upon it now the morning after, all I can think of is Fermina's unblemished 72-year-old complexion.

But her lovely face was not the only thing Hollywood insisted on botoxing, lifting and micro-dermabrating (to flesh out a character set in the Caribbean at the turn of the 20th century, no less). The climax of the film/story, and the conclusion of Florentino's 53-plus years of ardent yearning, involves a riverboat, a yellow cholera flag, and the two characters finally getting down and dirty. Fermina tells Florentino, "don't look at me" as she disrobes, but he insists, and when Fermina ala Hollywood drops her dress she reveals something more akin to a post-baby body in its early 40s.

My jaw dropped. If I look as good as Hollywood's Fermina at the age of 50, I shall count myself among the most fortunate of women, I thought. But at 72, I expect I will be sagging and puckered and wrinkled and bloated and deflated in all the wrong places. Or right places, depending on who is telling the story.

Of course, Florentino is aged appropriately in Hollywood's vision, so I can't deduce that the makers of this film were simply lacking the agency of clever makeup artists. Somebody somewhere made the disgusting decision to age Florentino, to give him a gut, to hobble his strut, to cover his hair in a bald-cap, but they decided to leave Fermina eternally youthful and therefore "beautiful."

The saddest thing about all this is that because of that single misstep, the final climactic scene was utterly ruined for me. In Garcia Marquez' novel there is something so tender and so precious about two old coots finally finding love. Sure, they aren't the spring chickens they once were, they are shy about their rusty and worn bodies, they feel foolish when they consider what others might think. But they love one another despite all these things. Love is not the exclusive birthright of the young, or of the young looking -but it is available to all who will reach out and grab it. But if we take Hollywood's version at face value, we will not see ripe and venerable faces at all. We will imagine the myth to be true: that only youthful-looking old women still get laid. The sad truth is that Garcia Marquez' novel exists in part to defy that myth.

barefoot barbarians

Last night my friend B and I went for a long barefoot walk around Lake Nokomis. I spent the first 17 years of my life beside this lake, and during those years I walked around it, played in its parks, swung from its willow trees and swam in its fishy smelling waters more times then I care to calculate. But last night we walked around it barefoot. I suggested that we cross the Cedar Avenue bridge and stake out a trail through the lagoon. A muddy path presented itself and we followed it along the steep edge of the swamp. Cat-tails and reeds and mucky green water released a fusty decaying scent into the air. The swamp flanked us on the left and to our right a pile of decomposing straw rose up 5 feet and the path was treacherous, muddy and narrow. We ran down this path, our bare feet covered in muck, and we slipped and nearly lost our footing and fell into the swamp.

As we walked, I told B tales of our adventures in the swamp as children. My sister and I used to tromp around in the bog in the summer months, when all the moisture of the marsh gave itself up to the hot, muggy air and the ground beneath our feet was finally baked and barren. The cat-tails and the reeds still rose up all around, hiding us from the city, and we chased each other down paths worn by other children or homeless men seeking sanctuary. We made crude shelters from the reeds and harvested cat-tails which we brought home and tried once to make paper by spreading it wet on screens in the baking sun. The fen in summer-time became a jungle in the city, a place for wild barbarian play.

We continued on out of the madness of the marsh into the decorous calm of the neighborhoods, but there my memory of the evening grows unclear. It was so strange to have a Portland friend by my side in this place so central to my childhood. It was curious to be permitted -if only for one night in dreamland - to return to a place that in my youth signified so much uncultivated and uncivilized joy.

lainey at the wedding

OK -so it wasn't as dramatic and angsty and psycho as when Nicole Kidman went to the wedding with Jennifer Jason Leigh...but still. It was cool enough. It was awesome -I went all paparazzi on every one's ass! I was like a crazy camera wielding ninja: bounding here and there, running down grannies and hopping on auntie's toe, all in a flashing, clicking quest for the perfect shot. I swear, I took about 500 photos -I am hoping at least 5 are winners. Such is the life of the paparazzo.

Not to be a perpetual downer, but there is a sad counterpart to this high and happy wine-soaked tale. I get this strangely detached feeling when I spend an evening peering through the lens of a camera. I feel as though when I am living behind the lens, I am not actually living, but I am existing secondarily to the life that is going on around me -like a human once removed. I am a voyeur of the here and now, and thereby I miss out on fully experiencing the here and now. So long as I am stalking and documenting and photographing and cataloguing and pinning down, I am not living. It sucks, actually.

I am told it was a lovely ceremony, but I have to say that I missed most of their vows, all of the toast and much of the ceremony generally because I was focused entirely upon the facial expressions of my subjects, the framing of the scene, the lighting in the room - I was so concentrated on not missing the beautiful moments...that I missed the beautiful moments. Oh, I captured them well enough on film, but I missed them entirely.

photo history

I have spent the day nursing a mild hangover (big thanks to k!:) and going through all my old photos. I have culled a pile of great shots from a giant scattered box and I am hoping to scan them all into the computer and thereby preserve them for time immemorial.

It was strange rooting around in that box. My entire history is in there: photos of my childhood summer camp friends -nearly all whose names have entirely escaped me, my various high school romances, proms and homecomings and hallway mischief, many frantic and fun last day of school pictures, both silly and serious photo-shoots with friends, trips to northern Minnesota, trips abroad, drunken parties with friends and sober family gatherings.

I couldn't help but feel saddened by a visit to the past. How is it that personal history always works that way? Can't nostalgia be sometimes gladdening? -a joyful journey of memory? Perhaps it is just the leftover booze in my system, the fact that I haven't showered in a few days, or moved at all. This week has indeed been a slothful one. It was probably not the best time for a trip down memory lane, seeing as the future looks blighted from where I am standing just now. The sun is out. Maybe I should go soak up some vitamin D and look on the bright side.

Tonight we are attending a wedding. Maybe that's it. I have never enjoyed weddings. Actually, that is a lie. I never look forward to weddings and I secretly expect to be miserable, but indeed I nearly always wind up having a great time.

tree trimming

There is a raucous cacophony outside my door just now. A whole team of Mexicans are outside limbing my giant spruce and pruning up my apple tree. There are chainsaws roaring and chippers chewing and chopping and I can't concentrate to save my life. I will be glad for the extra light gained from losing so many giant branches. My cherry tree is rejoicing to watch its sister apple get cut down to size. I hope all my shade-happy plants don't rebel when they wake this summer to find themselves in the spotlight of the sun.

I have asked Jose to leave aside the long straight and hardy sticks so that I might make pyramids of them in my yard. I would like to have beans and peas and climbing things growing up the dying apple branches. My friend B's husband knows how to make all sorts of Eagle Scout knots, so hopefully I can enlist him in my efforts and we can tie them up just so. And I would like to have a few sticks leftover so that B can have a pyramid in her yard too. I can tell already that this summer promises to be among the all-time best and growing-est garden summers I have seen. Hopefully my shoulder will be up to the challenge. My knee seems happy enough, but if it isn't one thing, though, it is another. One thing is certain, my sturdy mid-western German farmer heritage stands me in good stead -I will soldier on despite whatever pain I must endure. The work will get done and the garden will grow and blossom and fruit.

One of Jose's team dropped a spruce branch on the phone cable and it is now dangling treacherously in the street. M is setting his face and suiting up in his best farmer gear to help out - gloves and all. The apple tree is getting the pruning of its life -a hard orchard cut. It will not fruit this year, but in the next year apples should abound.

The sun has come out to bless us.

beer milkshake

Today was a giddy, fun, waste of a work day. I spent the day cubed up at my job, but I didn't get anything accomplished. I should do the adult thing and take responsibility, but I prefer to blame my cow0rker's 3-year-old daughter who tagged along to our office for the day. The girl was so damned distracting! She spent a good chunk of the day scribbling strange pictures on the dry-erase board, humming off-key to herself during some on-line game B set up for her, and telling us about her little boyfriend and the girls who like him and the various pre-school sweet-heart drama. Seems kind of early for that, but whatever.

The best part was when we all decided to give ourselves scotch-tape face-lifts. I think B took some photos, and were I not committed to remaining at least a little anonymous I would post them in a hurry. With my nose taped up I have that shrewish Nicole Kidman look when I laugh. It was hilarious. Anyhow, at the close of the day, because her daughter was "good" throughout, we all hauled off to Fat City for milkshakes and fries. The kid got hers to-go so we grown-ups could mosey over to the nearest Guinness on nitro for a sleepy afternoon snack. It was the next best thing to a beer milkshake. And I gotta say: a day like that is the next best thing to a day off.

Oh -and, as icing on the day's cake: on the way home on NPR I heard that despite the expectations, the Rev. White/Obama smear campaign has had little play in the polls. Obama is still polling in much the same position as before, and if anything he has made gains in how favourably people perceive him. I heard that a staggering 80% of Americans had been following the story of the Rev.'s strange talk and Obama's race speech -by golly, those are nearly American Idol numbers, are they not?? Perhaps there is hope...

please don't tell me what i don't like to hear

from the New York Times, March 25 2008

Senator Hillary Clinton broke her week-long silence Tuesday morning about Senator Barack Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying that she would have changed churches if her pastor had made the racially divisive and anti-American remarks that Mr. Wright had made.

“He would not have been my pastor,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters and editors at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as she interviewed for the paper’s editorial endorsement. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.”

It is sad to see Hillary getting on the mainstream fox-news chartered bandwagon. Since when do true believers vacate churches that preach ideas that challenge the status quo and cause discomfort to the powerful? I am fairly certain that had the Clintons been subject to a from-the-pulpit tirade about how "rich white people" rule the world, they might have felt a mite uncomfortable -and who can blame them? Is such speech divisive? Perhaps some view it so. Is it true? Pretty much, yes. Is it ever enjoyable and uplifting to hear the bare naked and terrible truths about ourselves and our ilk? It can be. Is such confrontation, however painful, sometimes a necessary contributor to spiritual growth, heightened discernment and a more righteous encounter with the people of the world? Most definitely.

What if the same ideas were expressed by a white male minister? Would they be more readily received? Wouldn't the very same people who are currently so offended be instead challenged to confront their own inner demons had the jarring words been spoken by a trusted white pastor? This is in part a tangent, but I think it is worth considering.

It seems to me that Senator Clinton's characterization of Jeremiah Wright's statements as being "racially divisive" is simply that: a characterization, a trite summation without much by way of substance. I would like to hear more specifics -which statements exactly does she find divisive? Is it divisive for a black man to insist that whites face up to their heritage as oppressors? In any of the snippets replayed time and time again on Fox, was the Rev. Wright ever shown to be calling his parishioners to rise up and take arms against the stolid and entrenched establishment?

Is it perhaps that whites live in an illusion of 21st century racial harmony and find any mention of racial distrust to be "divisive?" Does white America believe that the civil rights movement is over and done with now that Jim Crow is off the books? Do we really believe that affirmative action has leveled the playing field? I frankly think most white Americans were surprised to find that black America is still hurting, and they certainly did not enjoy having their noses rubbed in it. I mean, let's admit that what we can't see can't hurt us, and so many of those most offended likely never have to encounter black people at all in their daily lives, much less the very alive and real black anger at a historical injustice that has never quite been remedied. And while the pain of black America is a new sort of pain with different symptoms, it still hails from the same source. In his monumental speech last week, Barack Obama articulated with striking clarity how modern black American still suffers under the yoke of the past, how the legacy of slavery still plays out within the community in real and concrete ways . The Rev. Jeremiah Wright speaks with his whole heart from that hurting place, because it is a place in which he has lived and worked and dreamed and cried and struggled for his entire life, and Barack Obama was right to sympathize.

To fail to see the value in such a call to truth, to expect only pampering from the pulpit, to ask from religious ministers only warm and friendly encouragement is to turn our collective backs on what it means to face our demons and confront injustice in our own hearts and lives. I am surprised to see Senator Clinton straying down this path towards mediocrity and milk-toast. Well, maybe not.

And for the record: as a white middle-class woman, I believe that the statement (and I paraphrase) that the world is run by rich white men is a true and accurate statement -it is a statement of fact. It may not be something about which white America enjoys being reminded, but no one can really argue its veracity.

her triumph

my favorite poem by William Butler Yeats:

Her Triumph

I did the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon-rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

mid-day doldrums

OK, so I am sitting here at work, hardly bothering to pretend to work at all. The sky in Portland today is a vast, heavy sheet of gray and the rain has been coming down sideways all morning, even turning to giant flakes of snow for a few freakish moments. I am counting my lucky stars that I am not stuck in frigid Minnesota. My mother tells me it is warming to a balmy 40-something today. She says they have been weathering temps around 10 degree in March, which as a fully acclimated Portlander I can scarcely imagine. I can't say I miss living in the Midwest. Not even the teeny-tiniest part of me misses it. And the weather is the least of it.

Here I am posting about the weather. Can you believe it? It is definitely one of those days. I wish I had a dark and terrible novel to read - preferably one set upon the moors in Scotland in the thick of winter, or on a dreadful windswept Western plain - I wish I had a fireplace, a giant glass of thick and sticky red wine and nothing but time, time, time. Days like these make me long for the fetal position and a booze IV.

a theory of blogging

Last night K and I were talking about how creepy it is to blog. I am anxious for her to start one of her own, so I can voyeuristically pry. Reading hers should be useful if nothing else for inspiration. If I know K, she will have this funky little beat-poet-style blog while mine just plods on and on and on and I write about stupid shit like tramadol and Jeremiah Wright.

To be perfectly honest, I am having a difficult time being perfectly honest. I told K that I am struggling to sort out who it is that I am actually "talking to." Who is my audience? There are only a handful of folks in my real life who even know I am posting this material, so I am not too concerned about their eyes. I think there is always that fear of discovery lurking in the back of my mind, editing my words, limiting my ideas, keeping me from using names, dates, places, real life stuff. I am hoping as time goes by I will just get over it. Because who really cares anyhow.

tramadol review

Ok -so, I am mildly amused that this endeavor appears to be turning into a prescription drug review blog. This is not my long-term intention whatsoever. It just so happens that I am struggling with chronic pain and my best efforts to suck up and deal have fallen short of late -thus the drugs option. So, at the risk of seeming like the junkie that I swear up and down that I am not: here is my review of tramadol:

This shit is seriously tripped out! -I felt like I was completely wired all day. I actually spent the day running around organizing the office and doing all sorts of shit I have put off for a long time. The curious thing about this painkiller is how it doesn't seem to actually work on the "pain" per se, but rather the way pain effects the psyche. Tramadol, from what I have read, is sometimes prescribed as an anti-depressant -and I can tell from its effect how it might work well as a head-med. I felt bugged out -like a completely happy, hyper-spaz, almost like I was hopped up on speed. I recall similar feelings from my days on prozac in high school.

I am realizing that pain is mostly just depressing -and the depressing part of pain is very nearly as awful as the sharp, biting, terrible, searing aspects of pain. And if you can medicate to such a degree that the unhappy feelings associated with pain are mitigated, the pain itself is really no big deal. Pain is totally managable -it is the way that pain dictates the rest of your life, the way it limits and proscribes your future that is so utterly demoralizing.

cyclobenzaprine low

I saw my so-called "primary care physician" today. He didn't really remember me, despite the HMO fantasy that this is still the 1950's with doctors making house-calls and the like. I tried to get out of having to actually visit his office in person, but I was told on no uncertain terms by his nurse that the doctor does not prescribe on the phone. I am not sure what that policy is about, if it is not about making a few extra bucks and radically inconveniencing those they exist to serve. So I left work early, missed a few labor hours, forked over another $20 co-pay to sit in a stuffy office and be told what I already knew. I need some more dope and an appointment for an MRI.

I spent the day in a groggy fog. The cyclobenzaprine makes me into a lethargic and useless blob, but it makes sleep possible and for that I am grateful. I have never been the sort to pop pills, but looking in my cabinets of late one would be hard-pressed not to think me a bit of a junkie. I admit that I tend to hoard the fun stuff -the leftover knee-surgery vicodin, the over-the-counter codeine from the UK. Even the un-fun penicillin comes in handy. You never know when you will find yourself without health insurance here in the great United States. If you lose your job that might be it for a while, so having a secret stash of antibiotics is essential to any long-term personal health care plan.

I realize this is the most boring rant, but it is my life of late. A groggy, painful, annoying day-to-day. Poor M. He bears it well, if not without a few complaints. I feel sorry that he has to deal with such a gimp. I like to think there are other aspects that make up for all I lack in the health department.

modern medicine

I woke up this fine Easter morning with my right shoulder aching to high heaven. I told my husband that I suspect the doctors and the drug companies and the laboratories and the HMOs of conducting nothing but a grand experiment on us -and we are stupid enough to pay them vast piles of money for the privilege!

It has been 3 weeks now of this awful searing pain. My basic motor function is completely compromised -cleaning the house, putzing around the garden, -even writing this blog causes me pain! The first doctor I visited gave me some drugs (muscle relaxants and steroids! -yum!) and referred me to physical therapy. And I am subsequently given to understand that this doctor is now my "primary care physician" -the 21st century equivalent of the "family doctor" -I have spent all of 15 minutes with this dude! Anyhow, the guy had no idea what was wrong with me.

The physical therapist is a great lady, super fun, friendly, -we're even from the same hometown etc. -but I am going every week and when I am there she watches me stretch and pull on stuff and do a few basic exercises and I am thinking "I am paying $30+ for every 15 minutes of this cheery conversation and to do a few stretches."

But the punchline is how it shook down when I went in last Friday for my annual exam. I asked to see a female. Something about having a strange man poking around down there makes me feel rather uncomfortable. Anyhow, so this woman does my exam and at the conclusion, I inform her that I am in serious pain and tell her the entire backstory -how I was on steroids, the steroid prescription ran out, the PT isn't helping, etc. She refuses to give me anything for the pain because I "need to see my primary care physician" in order to get what I need. So, I tell her "Alright -so I will need to take another 1/2 day off work, fork over another $20 co-pay, spend another 2 hrs in your waiting area in order to get 3 minutes facetime with my supposed 'family doctor' so I can get one measly prescription for Vicodin? -why don't you just go down the hall and ask him?" It didn't go exactly like that...truth is, I started bawling. I sobbed and begged for something to take the pain away and she refused. She sat there stony-faced and refused. I was crying when she walked out of the room.

So -I have been gritting my teeth all weekend long and praying for Monday to come quickly so I do not have to sit through another day at the office hurting like this.

I hate modern medicine.

the truth of the matter

Fact is, I am just getting warmed up -and who better to oil the gears of the poetic but Mr. Dylan Thomas. But poetry is not on my mind just now. I was making excuses. Throwing in filler (nothing against you, Mr. Thomas). There is something about starting an on-going diatribe on a blank white digital page that made me choke.

Truth is, I have spent this evening and the last refreshing my memory concerning all things theological. Particularly respecting liberation theology, with which I was once familiar but have long since lost the thread.

But it all came rushing back this week, didn't it? And why? Because of the honorable Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his parishioner, Barack Obama and that ugly tangled media web in which they are both currently caught.

I am puzzled in the extreme to find examples time and time again of how completely modern Christianity seems to have lost its roots in a historical and biblical prophetic tradition. Mainstream American Christians live as though pledging allegiance to a political state and particular policies is some sort of litmus test for salvation. Rev. Wright's sermons were no more offensive or controversial then those uttered by Jeremiah, or Amos, or Hosea, or Isaiah...or Frederick Douglas or Martin Luther King, Jr....or Jesus...or anyone who has ever had the courage to say unpopular things against powerful people. I am realizing that if Jesus Christ himself came to earth and walked among us and spoke out against the evils of this world (much as he did over 2000 years ago), his very church would have him killed again and think they were acting in righteous faith.

I confess this is all very personal for me. Perhaps I should include a note about myself, where I come from, where I hope to be going. That will have to wait for another time.

on second thought

Now that I have posted one Dylan Thomas poem, my remaining favorites are competing in my head for attention. Here is another passage of which I am quite fond -it is the fourth (IV) section of his poem entitled "Our Eunuch Dreams"...

This is the world: the lying likeness of
Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move
Loving and being loth;
The dream that kicks the buried from their sack
And lets their trash be honoured as the quick.
This is the world. Have faith.

unruly scrawl

I have named this blog after one of my favorite poems by Dylan Thomas entitled "My Hero Bares His Nerves."

Mr. Thomas is his own best defender:

My hero bares his nerves along my wrist
That rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
The proud spine spurning turn and twist.

And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.

My hero bares my side and sees his heart
Tread, like a naked Venus,
The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;
Stripping my loin of promise,
He promises a secret heat.

He holds the wire from the box of nerves
Praising the mortal error
Of birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves,
And the hunger's emperor;
He pulls the chain, the cistern moves.