Complete, delicate, simple,
young and wise.
His rhythms sweet, true,
and natural.
On the other side of metaphor
light opens deep and beautiful.
A sun unto itself
the many seeds and gardens.
Wind’s articulation
the voice of years.
Self-selected play
a quality of sense.
Mist’s memory
and the mountains he moved.
An inner growth
the flame of feeling yes.
Directions of words
design of love.
Seeing all
awake.
Forward
now.
“[They] almost hear a meaning in their noise.”–Thom Gunn, “On the Move”
What an ironic use of the word from its primal meaning in beautiful, natural birdsong….
“And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”–John Keats, “To Autumn”
beyond the uselessness of rush-hour traffic, meetings, the lies of others, the pretence that one’s job is essential and defines one’s life and the many sacrifices made for a buck. To be owned by the machines, the failing system. The selling of one’s soul and spirit daily. The inner dying inside for an illusion of importance and purpose.
As I have said elsewhere, I have never regretted retiring early at 52 and having this much freedom since. It has been most me–what most of my life has been about–being my own person, being true to myself.
Ten things are necessary for daily living: freedom, family, civilized moments of being, curiosity, humor, music, good conversation, the experience of beauty, true sensibility, and always having something to look forward to.
The rest of it–the consuming ‘sold-out’ digital life, wars, violence, portfolios, hypocrisy, cynicism, corruption, phone solicitations, advertising, fame and celebrity obsession, cruelty, barbarism, dumbing down, care-less government, declining social systems–is off my radar.
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.–Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
“I stand here dazzled with my heart in flames at this world of wonders, world of wonders, world of wonders, world of wonders…“
(Bruce Cockburn–arguably Canada’s top male folk-singer, folk-songwriter, and folk-guitarist of all time)
You ask for the dream
like a child
set on ice-cream
at a Saturday circus
You yearn for
old calendars, broken clocks
and promise to keep
your corner clear of webs
You want to retell
your famous life-story
to poets and editors:
recorders of time
But most of all
you ache inside
for the touch of
someone else
nestled close
beside you
breath warm
along your hair
whispering
dark wishes
in the still nights
of your room
“O for a life of sensations!”–John Keats
E-communication (whether by phone or computer) can certainly be very powerful, intimate, and connective, though like most things, it has its limits and limitations. I will say that–as evidenced in/by this blog–words, feelings, and ideas can all be communicated and shared easily and effectively, and that–given the potential perpetuity of a long-term maintained blog–there is definitely a certain permanence and illusion of immortality to the e-media process. And there are benefits to the instantaneous 24/7 convenience of e-mail.
But, my personal preference for communication, expression, performance, and creativity remains live in-person presence–a far more ‘electric’/dynamic mode for exchanging and sharing information (broadly speaking). If you want to really get close to someone (and vice-versa) and get to know them fully and intimately, that is still the most fun, real, meaningful, and significant way to truly and beautifully connect. That is where souls and spirits meet, commune, and connect.
There is also a palpable physicality and innerly-experienced emotionality that can never be duplicated by and will never be replaced by e-media. What matters, still, most in the lives and experiences of human beings is live in-person presence as experienced by the inner self or soul. It is there you will find a reality, truth, richness, depth, completeness, and beauty that blogs, e-mails, and phone calls never do full justice to.
CAPOTE (2005)
Director: Bennett Miller
Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener
“All I want to do is write the ending and there is no ending in sight.”
Based on true life events, Capote is a quiet-toned film about the 1960s period when writer Truman Capote covered the famous Clutter family murder case in Kansas. Capote (Hoffman) with the help of Nell Harper Lee (Keener) thoroughly and doggedly researches the case that led to his best-seller masterpiece In Cold Blood. Although Capote clearly exploits and repeatedly lies to his main storyline character–the murderer Perry Smith, he finds that he cannot remain detached from the horror of the killings and the trust that his killer-source has placed in him as a ‘friend’. In a strange, parallel fashion, the movie suggests that Capote’s life also ends with the execution of Smith.
Capote is a classic about how things often turn out differently from what one expects. There is much talk early in the film about true to what one is and the importance of honesty in one’s writing and life. As much as Capote takes James Baldwin to task about that author’s work, Capote himself is later challenged by Lee and Jack, his writing partner, about his motives and responsibility to Smith who blindly and naively trusts him.
Capote’s involvement in the Clutter case is a fascinating oddity, beginning with casually reading a newspaper account of it and spontaneously deciding to cover it. Likewise, his reactions to examining graphic photos of the dead and stealing a look into a Clutter coffin are chillingly impersonal: “I found something so horrifying, it’s a relief.” There is, too, a superiority and snobbery in comments such as “he’s given me absolutely everything” and “he’s a gold mine” following his first interviews with Smith. For Capote, the case is just a means to an end–the making of his own personal reputation and commercial success, “When I think of how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.”
On the other hand, like Capote’s friends and publisher, the viewer sees that Perry Smith deserves far better than the egotistical writer is not giving in return. Smith himself is a pathetic figure downing large quantities of aspirin, is a product of a miserable childhood, is someone who has already been abused and exploited many times before he befriends Capote. Despite his irrational violent crimes, the audience can sympathize with him; unlike his confidant, he is at least capable of shame.
Capote toys with Smith, lying about how much he cares for Perry, his book’s title, how much he has actually written, Smith’s sister’s feelings, and how he is trying to save the killers from death row. But it is only later, as he wishes for Smith to die, that it becomes apparent that the case, Smith, and Capote’s betrayal of Smith have all gotten to the writer. Cracks begin to appear—friends refuse to let Capote off easily and the writer begins a long road to alcoholism.
In the end, the film becomes a study not just about the betrayal of others, but the betrayal of one’s self, and the realization of moral responsibility in one’s work and relationships. Is Capote his ‘friend’s’ keeper? The epiphany is a painful one because of the honesty required to admit to one’s selfish motives. When Capote says “I did everything I could”, Lee answers with a truth far exceeding the professed objective truth of Capote’s nonfiction novel, “The fact is you didn’t want to.” Intimacy always implies responsibility and there is a terrible price to be paid for dishonesty to and betrayal of others as well as one’s self.
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When I worked as a film classifier for the province off and on from 2001 to 2006, about 90% of the movies we/I screened were not worth the time, energy, or eyestrain. Less than 5% of the films I saw were well-made and had no false steps; e.g., A Very Long Engagement. Capote is an example of a smaller, but thoughtful well-made movie that we saw very rarely.
KLUTE (1971)
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Stars: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland
“There are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone.”
Klute is a classic thriller about three very different people engaged in a common search for identity. One is Bree (Jane Fonda in an Academy-winning performance), a nervous, insecure prostitute who is being stalked by an unremembered previous client. The second (Donald Sutherland) is the private detective who seeks to track down a long-time friend gone missing in a big city. The third is the enigmatic stalker himself who remains mysterious until the end of the film, despite his identity being revealed early on.
What makes this film special is its focus on the minefields of vulnerability, intimacy, and caring. Who can one trust when one has been exploited as much as the unstable Bree? Can people who are damaged ever recover and make lasting positive changes in their lives? How can she open to feeling ‘normally’ about a quiet stranger who is honest about everything and caringly protective of her?
The real protagonist of this film is obviously Bree, and she is laid bare to the viewer in quite a different way from her chosen work. She has aspirations to be a model or an actress and wants to improve herself, going to regular sessions with her ‘straight’ buddha-like female psychiatrist who says little as Bree, onion-like, peels her own way through monologues toward a clearer view of herself. Probably the most telling line is when she confesses a desire to go back to “the comfort of being numb again.” As things turn out, Bree holds the key to the other two male characters who mirror her and participate in their own separate, though related quests.
John Klute is a serious, determined friend of the missing man’s family who volunteers to find Tom and vindicate him of police charges of perverted harassment. He ends up learning more about himself in the process, his uptightness, and his own vulnerability and the unexpected need for someone else in his life. His natural instinct to do good and help others is the key that opens up his life even though Bree repeatedly rejects him and tries to destroy their developing connectedness.
The movie is named after him and in many ways he remains the most simple, yet fascinating character—caring for the woman who stubbornly tries to maintain rigid control over her own repressed feelings. Klute represents pure altruism and is the mysterious kind stranger that terrifies both the killer and his victim. He is the agent who initiates the action and centrally resolves the conflicts of the other two characters.
The third character is the sexual deviant lurking at the edge of ‘opening up’ in Klute. Like the other two characters, he too makes a breakthrough in understanding the price paid for repression and obsession. As he puts it in the dramatic climax, there are “sicknesses and weaknesses” that should never be exposed. Although there is the terrible price of numbness that Bree has paid for maintaining control over her clients, there is also a toll for the bogeyman of this piece who amasses four murders, to cover his essential sadism. A startling reminder of all the Jeffrey Dahlmers and Boston Stranglers of our modern world, he symbolizes, memorably, the potential dangers unleashed in the ever-apprehensive transaction of ‘opening up’.
In short, there may be reasons to let some devils remain locked up, though for many—the Brees and Klutes of the world—there are very good reasons to, as Bree puts it, “let it all hang out.” Klute exists to show us that opening up and trusting others who really care for us is a risky business at best. But that the resultant emotional growth and truly deep, personal benefits are far too great to go ignored or unheeded.
My grandson (14 mos.) wakes up from a nap. He is a bit groggy but happy to see me and ready to get going. Holding him, I open the drapes with one hand and point to the house next door, the trees, and blue sky, naming these aloud. He is interested. I gesture with one arm to the toys, books, and clothes in his room, telling him what he is looking at. I hold him over his crib and he drops his clutched giraffe and soother in the crib. A routine. We are done with his room and its immediate possibilities and enter the living room–his gated world, literally.
He sees what an adult sees–the usual furniture, draped window, rug, shelves, tv (never turned on while I am there)–and then his eyes fall on all his preferred and remembered images–the toys on the floor and shelves, his playpen, his toy vehicles, the tent in the corner, the Bichon-Shitzu dog–what he likely considers to be his next possibilities for the day.
I put him on the floor and he goes to his favorite–the colored plastic stacking cups–to begin taking them apart and then reassembling them in his preferred order. This is his more obvious first structured play routine–aside from turning pages of books–that intrigues him as a recurring play possibility from which the rest of his playtime can proceed.
Later I will crawl into his tent to wait for him to bring me cups or other toys, maybe even one of his vehicles pushed in, nose-first. Or some good old peekaboo play with the flap over the tent entrance. All these interesting, fun possibilities. Later in the day, the dog may go into the tent and he will follow to offer the dog her bone, once memorably being caught in the act of moving the bone up to his own mouth!
Possibilities. The possibilities of play, what a day might be like, and–imagined–a life might become ahead long-term.
I used to play with my two kids when we went to the restaurant. I would have them close their eyes before removing one item from the table. They would open their eyes and try to guess correctly which item had been removed. Pure simple fun arising as a spontaneous non-structured play activity in a random context. For me, looking back, this is the way I have lived my life, how I taught, how I performed, and how I played with others along the way. Always, the possibilities. What might be possible if one imagined and then created in process, spontaneously. The memorable fun that arose for me and others. As simple as killing some time in a restaurant or in the process of babysitting. Playing, performing with and for others. I still enjoy it.
In my own only-child childhood, I was lucky to be often left to play by myself and I, imaginatively and creatively, made my own fun. My own tent was two sticks in the ground with a rope in-between with a mogey-smelling blanket hanging over the rope. My own mongrel dog played with me inside. In winter, I was/became two hockey teams playing on the rink my Dad flooded for me over the driveway (we had no car). I played long into the blue darkness after school, skating and play-making free and blissfully happy. What Wordsworth called “delight and liberty” in his most famous poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”. The same thing I see, many years later, in my grandson in a world gone e-techno-nuts.
“Unknown” once said that the impossible can always be broken down into possibilities. Certainly that is an approach I have always used in many situations when faced with problems, crisis, and seemingly impossible obstacles. What is still possible here? What might happen next? What are the enjoyable/fun possibilities via play and performance? How can this situation be made better or improved? What learning possibilities might occur if I/we….? How might this possibility move me/us ahead somehow? What structures or approaches might be tried? Can fun, freedom, or order be created from this apparent boredom, chaos, or staticness?
Back to my grandson. He has learned to pull his books out of the book basket, to open them on the floor by himself, to push them across the floor, to drop them behind the hassock. He has also learned to put even large books on the table or couch, to stand and look at them while turning pages. He has a world, but it is one in which he is quickly achieving a mastery of environment and of the things therein. He explores different possibilities for these things as he plays, even with the same old cups. “Delight and liberty”, indeed.
I will do my best to change things up for him as will all the other family and friends. I will put his big rabbit on his car and push it across the floor. He will smile to see his rabbit driving/riding on his own. An interesting new possibility in his environment, very much like the ones he creates already himself for his own amusement. Possibilities. Simple fun possibilities which open up a larger world of experience. Along with the encouragement and support for such and playing with a child.
Outside our shared world, I know there are many other possibilities. I ponder a few. The children who never go outside all summer or after school. The children who are given screens, by my grandson’s age, to help prepare them for jobs and our brave new e-media world. (Questions in passing: Do babies and toddlers need screens, or to be ‘screened’? Do they need e-media advertising?) The ones whose parents stare at and into screens of smartphones and tablets and don’t speak to their children. The ones who are left to fend for themselves or told to go play with their own screens. A different approach. A different attitude. A different kind of play. A different kind of freedom and separateness.
And what are the possibilities implicit there? What is the learning? What is the interaction, care, connection, and love? Do the children ever get to play the old-fashioned way? Do the children feel “delight” and a range of imaginative possibilities that they themselves can generate naturally on their own? How might both kinds of children turn out in later life? What kind of personal world will they later choose, create, and live in? And how will parents of the future play with the children of the future?
Yes, that many possibilities.
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William Blake once spoke of the necessity of creating his own “system” (or world) rather than being enslaved by another/’s. My own life has evolved from that basic tenet and a preference for and belief in a world of unlimited possibilities. As I have commented earlier, I am very much a possibilitarian. I hope my grandson is his own person, too, ultimately. I don’t know that the same can be said for a lot of folks today who have turned their lives, autonomy, minds, hearts, souls, and spirits over to screens primarily or exclusively. I sometimes wonder and fear what their “range”, depth, irony, humor, perspective, caring, balance, autonomy, and internal richness are like.
Very challenging and demanding. Quite exhausting, too, over seven hours! The thing to remember is to see the world through his eyes and context. What is the environment he typically plays in? Then consider the possibilities which are embedded in the situation and do some of these, inviting him along with you. He will watch and- if you make the play open-ended and collaborative–will automatically jump in, too, to join you, sometimes putting more, new twists to the outside-the-box play you have initiated.
Combining toys in new and different ways demonstrates what kinds of things can be done that are more imaginative or creative, such combining block and ring play. Toddlers this age, learning to stand and walk, like movement also. They like being pushed on a toy vehicle of some kind. but always it is important to be supportive in comments and touches to let them know they’ve done well or are moving forward in whatever ways. A variety of play is good, too, Often they will move from one toy or play area to another as their fancy chooses or changes.
It is good to be on their levels, physically, on the floor though sometimes they will need ‘alone time’–after feeding works well–to play separately, such as in a playpen with perhaps a large book, an oversized stuffed animal, and a toy which plays a number of tunes–classical tunes–all work very well. The most essential thing is to play with the child on his level, imagining and thinking as he does, all the while introducing other, slightly different possibilities to show that the context (and the greater world) contain many possibilities, especially if you try different things. These are the first basic steps toward nurturing creativity and imagination. And, of course, what will happen is the child will begin to introduce his own nuances and types of play.
I should add a word about performances. Children perform as they play; they try out roles and parts and the parent or grandparent should, too. Children enjoy performances, the simple efforts to entertain and relate to them. The only thing an adult performer needs to be is to think and imagine like a child and to admit the child into the performance with some give-and-take, leaving possible roles for the child. The performances may include everything from simple whistling, handclapping, unconventional hand and finger movements (especially for infants), to singing or recitation.
A word about books. Simply making available cardboardish page books, opting for books that don’t necessarily have words, oversized books, books with moving parts or unusual physical constructions open up an interest in reading. Given the above, children will go to books on their own, pulling them out of book baskets, pulling them over to you to read with them. They will read by themselves, opening the books and turning the pages on their own once they are shown how that works. They will drag books everywhere to couches or tables to read while standing, They will treat them the same as toys. And they will soon start making sounds if left by themselves with books in playpens, for instance, in their own worlds, beginning to explore language vocalizing.
Yes, playing with a 14-month-old is full of learning and growth possibilities. And the role of parent or grandparent is to help open up these possibilities through play, collaboration, performance, modelling, and a little teaching. Did I mention that playing with a 14-month-old is ultimately a test and challenge of oneself, one’s own imagination, creativity, and free thinking and feeling, as opposed to customary, limited, limiting modes of adult sensibility and response?
