After rereading this entire piece i realized how lengthy it is. But still, i think i'll leave it as it is.....
Things in my life are finally starting to even out. I've got a great job that pays me well, my writing is slowly starting to find it's way on to the page, i'm even getting the occasional Email inviting me to participate in writing journals. As i write this, the new central air system is purring softly in my 103 year old house. I won't have to spend another August fanning myself with a magazine and peeling myself off the couch. They should be trying to pry the grin off my face. So what gives?
I never wanted to become one of those cold, removed people who wander around aimlessly wondering where it all went wrong. But i'm afraid that's just what i've become. I've become desensitized to the point of coldness. And bitter. My mother always told me that the older i got, the calmer i would become. I wouldn't always be the angry, young woman that thumbed her nose at organized religion and at the unfairness of the government. So, as i find myself rapidly approaching 41 ( my ovaries are drying up as i'm typing this) i expected a new calmness of being, i didn't expect utter numbness. I've lost my patience with other people, i've lost my compassion. This is why i can't even watch the news anymore because i know somewhere in my heart, that when i can't even beat my fist down over a child being beaten to death, another shooting in the Bronx, another girl gone missing~ i know when i just sit there and watch, unblinking, unmoved, that i've become one of those people that i never really liked or understood. I've nearly stopped caring.
This is gonna sound like a weird connection but it's true~ i came to this realization last week after i got home from work. 'The Crucible' with Daniel Day Lewis and Winona Ryder was on one of the dish channels. I had played the part of Abigail in high school but had never seen the movie so i figured why not. What you have to understand about this movie is 'when' and 'why' Arthur Miller wrote it. That it's based on the Salem Witch trials but at the time of it's authorship, the United States was in political upheaval over McCarthyism and the fight over Communism. People were being called out unfairly over their beliefs. They were being persecuted over phantom charges and being black balled over trumped-up and usually unfounded allegations. Careers and lives were ruined, reputations were torched. 'The Crucible' was a metaphor for the climate of the United States at the time. As a matter of fact, paranoid as it may sound, the U.S. is starting to become a weird hybrid of 'The Crucible' and George Orwell's '1984'. I don't know about you, but this shit kinda freaks me out. Blah, blah, blah~ you get my point.
So i'm sitting there watching this and i suddenly feel so drained, so exhausted and sad. And then it occurred to me that all of this is happening again. Here and now. The situations in this country that make up our every day lives are now steadily becoming the norm. And it's eating away at me to the point of shutting me down. I just want to turn away, avert my eyes. Don't mind me, folks, i'm just walkin' by! Nothin' here to see! Move along. It's affecting the way i view the world, my crafte, myself. But it's not what i want for myself. I want to be overwhelmed by the possibility of something more~ i want to collapse under the weighty adoration of hope. And hope seems so absent these days, replaced by war and reality TV, with talking heads spouting about Britney Spears, Bradjolina and rising gas prices.
Faith, Hope and Charity. Simple principles that seem to have taken a dirt nap. (Except for Hope, we all know she went to L.A.)
All of that said~ here's your assignment: ( i know, i know.FINALLY )
Tell me about something amazing that's happen to you lately. Who tripped across something unexpected and stunning? Who found love? Who knows a Cancer survivor? Whose baby took their first steps or said their first word? Did any of you experience something extraordinary or find that simple sort of miracle in something ordinary? Read something inspiring,found a new way to express yourself?
What have you seen today?
Go to it~ let's see what sort of magic we can create.
