10:52 p.m. - December 07, 2002
On epics and soliloquys about nothing
I savor new beginnings whether arising out of tragedy or joy, relish the start of a journey, seeking the new before the now is old. The allure is the labor of establishment, the sweat equity that goes into surveying the vista and forging through the jungle. It is the excitement of the unknown and the surety of challenge.
I am a fan of the epic, printed or celluloid, as long as I can be enveloped into a world full of complexities, the same surfeit that inhabits my own and give cause to flee. It is admiring Odysseus who I think continued his journey not because of happenstance and Olympian whimsy but because he dreaded retracing his footsteps. After you've gone so far, how can you turn back? The momentum of far pushes further, unnatural is to defy momentum and regress. The Santayanesque trope of the epic has its genesis in pursuit of the vaguely attainable and the story develops as a record of success but not failure, because if one has embarked on a journey how can one call a set-back failure if the story is not yet concluded? There is always something beyond the next hill or sea swell, and this compels me, intrigues me. Me, who's being is focused on the predictable, desire most that which I do not have, the capacity to heave-off and just go.
I have the wannabe-epic itch, a lifting score playing in the background, the desire to leave a forwarding address but having none. Like most epics, the true action occupies the internal arena with the external merely a change in scenery. I am loathe to say I am on an interior journey simply because a fan of hyperbole I am not yet there is a Yet. And a counter-yet. I think, How easy to deny avoid ignore hide away but really, I have no control over this egress. This has to happen, must, by law of physics and momentum, fate if you will indulge epic-speak. The point is I can sense change, see it, though admit such improvement is slow and frustrating and like watching ice melt. Take your eyes away for a minute or two, and you see change; watch the cube, and you miss everything. The more I obsess, crave order and control, the less I have; the less I obsess, the more my ship seems righted instead of listing.
There is a darker side to starting new; it is never finishing the now. But that's another topic.
Some day I wish to teach a class on the epic novel. The Iliad, The Odyssey, of course, but also Jean Auel's Clan series, the movie Shakespeare in Love. I'm looking forward to going back to school.
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Dreading tomorrow's memorial service and likely drama. My presence is requested 7-9 and that is exactly what I shall deliver. I will not be sucked into family squabbles, I will not speak ill of them, I will not lend my support to one side or the other. I will be neutral and aloof and will not roll my eyes or groan inwardly or consider the time wasted. I will say hello to the cousins and aunts, shake hands with the grandfather and uncle, make small talk with no one. I will not look at my watch more than once every ten minutes. I will smile but not condescend. I will resist temptation to declare war and right old wrongs.
My aunt's organs have been harvested. Corneas, kidneys, liver, lungs, skin, blood, marrow. Everything but her heart. My mother said today that the marrow will be transplanted into a 17 year old boy and that strikes me as beautiful.
