Spiders

[Note: Stephen King once wrote, on writing, that he "throws up in the morning and cleans up in the afternoon."  Meaning he allows himself the scintillating freedom of writing, uninhibited, before editing.  This is my new philosophy: to let my thoughts flow and fall where they may, bubbling and rolling and freewheeling outside the boundaries of highly edited self-critique.  So, I guess, this is my way of vomiting.]

 

Yesterday somebody committed suicide three blocks away from my house.

I am sitting on the floor of my bedroom as I type this.  There are clumps of hair on the floor that I can’t see until they get stuck to the bottom of my running socks, which are made out of some special moisture-wicking fabric that acts like hairball Velcro.  I should vacuum.

I drove home from work around seven yesterday.  I was in a hurry.  I was hungry and had picked up two frozen pizzas from Whole Foods, since it was Tuesday and on Tuesdays they are two-for-one.  I didn’t even turn on the radio.  The sun was getting ready to set and between the houses and trees I could see the Olympic mountains outlined purple against the fading sky.  I was driving home and I was hurrying and I was thinking about nothing and listening to nothing and running my hands through my hair, and somebody was about to kill himself.

I drove past his house, with my window down, listening to nothing.

Or her house.  Why do I automatically think it was a man?  Are men stronger?  More likely to follow through on a fleeting, violent thought?  Are they more desperate than women?  Can they not process their emotions as well as we can?  Is it sexist of me to assume that the person who pulled that trigger or took those pills or pulled that kitchen knife out of the drawer at seven in the evening as the sun was setting and I was driving home to have dinner was probably a man, and probably desperate, and probably stubborn enough to really-actually go through with it?

We heard the sirens as we ate.  We drank wine and looked at gossip magazines.  The police were taping off 73^rd and kicking down a front door and finding a body on a floor or in a bathtub and we were debating Who Wore It Best.

Somebody somewhere is remembering putting a diaper on that body.  Cradling a neck too small to support its own weight.  Somebody can’t sleep tonight because they once held the hand of that dead person on the first day of school.  Took pictures of him on a carousel at the state fair.  Yelled at him.  Sent him birthday cards.  Took him camping with his cousins in the Olympics.  Made him vacuum his bedroom floor.  Somebody somewhere didn’t watch the sun set tonight because the sun can never set for them again, not ever.

You can’t see the clumps of hair on my carpet from far away, but from close up, here on the floor, they look like spiders from the corner of my eye.  I wonder what else I am missing.

Notes on a New Beginning

Everything has changed.  Abruptly, my life has shifted from what was comfortable and familiar, a worn college T-shirt, a threadbare pair of Nikes, to something entirely and dramatically new.  I should have expected it—you should always expect it—but change is a sneaky bastard.  Even if you ask the universe for it by name you never really, really, think it’ll happen and then BAM—you’re blindsided.

Six weeks ago I was knocked for a real loop.  I’m still trying to get both my feet back under me, which may take a while, but hey—that’s the nature of epiphany.  It doesn’t come quietly.  It doesn’t just whisper, or tap you on the shoulder: it throws a brick through your windshield and burns down your house.

Forgive me for being purposely ambiguous.  This post is just to say, I’ve been revolutionized, and there is more to come.  Stay tuned.

I’ll leave you with a Sanskrit mantra, something we’d chant in my most Easterny yoga classes.  Say what you will, but there’s something more, something extra- and super- and meta- about the click of the consonants in your teeth, the space in your mouth opened by vowels, the buzz of Ms and Vs on your lips and in your bones.  It speaks to the power of the written word, the Word that transcends, and the epiphany that occurs when we allow ourselves to encounter it.

Om bhur bhuvas svaha

Thath savithur varaynyam

Bhargo dheyvasya dhimahih

Dhyoyonah pratchodhay-yath

(Translation: “We worship the word that is present in the earth, the heavens, and that which is beyond.  By meditating on this glorious power that gives us life, we ask that our minds and hearts be illuminated.”)

The Best Five Films I’ve Seen Recently

In no particular order:

Wall Street (1987).  Michael and I watched this classic because we want to see the sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, with Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan.  But the original, starring Michael Douglas in his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko, is pretty fantastic.  Despite dated technology (cell phones the size of shoeboxes) and fashion (Daryl Hannah’s horrible fluffy ‘80s hair and interior décor—faux exposed brick was never chic, honey), Wall Street was a well-paced, intriguing thriller about greed and the American dream gone awry.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002). The only Adam Sandler film in which he seems relatively normal.  But only relatively, since his character suffers from acute anxiety and bouts of destructive rage.  Directed by P.T. Anderson of Magnolia and There Will Be Blood acclaim, the film is very weird, and at times very loud—with an odd percussion soundtrack that seems to reflect the chaos building in Adam Sandler’s mind.  That is, until he meets the lovely Emily Watson.  An interesting plot, an innocent love story, and Sandler’s best acting (IMHO) make this film quirky and enjoyable.

I Capture the Castle (2003).  I haven’t seen this movie in years, and I’m glad I dug it out of the Netflix archives.  And Lord knows I love a good period piece.  The film follows one very eccentric family living in a decrepit English castle in the 1930s.  It also stars some interesting actors, like the kid from E.T. all grown up (and looking weird as ever), Romola Garai of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights and Atonement fame, and Henry Cavill from The Tudors, my number one guilty period piece pleasure.  A highly entertaining coming-of-age story set in pre-WWII England, when women bobbed their hair and wore all kinds of fur.

Chinatown (1974).  Jack Nicholson leads a spot-on cast in this film noir thriller set in 1930s L.A.  (I guess I’ve had a thing for the ‘30s recently.)  Lots of intrigue and misdirection, lots of unreliable characters, and lots of danger and cool-looking old guns.  Directed by Roman Polanski (before he was forced to leave the U.S. for having sex with a minor), Chinatown revolves around a murder (of course), and the truth becomes murkier as the facts are uncovered.  Faye Dunaway plays the sexy recent widow to Nicholson’s private eye—their chemistry, plus a never-saw-that-coming ending, make this a quintessential mystery thriller.

Let the Right One In (2008).  I saw a preview for the American film Let Me In, and thought I remembered seeing previews a while back for the exact same movie—so I did some research and discovered that Let the Right One In is a recent Swedish film based on the same novel as Let Me In. Confusing, yes?  I’m not sure why they decided to remake this film so soon, especially since the Swedish version is pretty dang incredible.  Set in 1980s Stockholm, it follows the budding friendship between Oskar, a 12-year-old boy from a broken home who gets bullied violently at school, and Eli, a vampire.  But before you think Twilight, think again.  Eli is many centuries old (or at least, the film implies she is) but appears as a 12-year-old girl.  It is as if she is trapped in the hormone-riddled mind of a preteen, along with an insatiable thirst for human blood—which she truly abhors.  But somehow this sad, lonely boy is able to connect with her on some level, and they begin a very sweet and innocent relationship…even though Eli kills people on a regular basis.  It is an odd mix of love story and horror film, but is handled in such an artful way that you don’t really care how weird it is.  The title refers to vampire folklore that says a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited.  I won’t say more, since I don’t want to give it away, but I would highly recommend this creepy-beautiful film as a darkly sweet look at what constitutes humanity.