It is hard sometimes to separate the author from a text; Stacey reminded us during seminar that the characters in In Search of Lost Time are not real people. But damn it, sometimes it seems like they may have been. I imagine Proust, locked away in his apartment, drugged up, creating a story – a mammoth, wordy, longest-sentence-in-the-universe kind of story – that leaves me to wonder how much is from his imagination, and how much is bits and pieces of retrieved memories; people tend to write what they know.

This last week’s reading and the unfathomable kindness that Verdurins bestowed on poor old Saniette left me riddled with questions. I scoured the readers guide, looking for hints, clues as to what these often cruel people’s motives for such an unforeseen act of kindness may have been; do they in fact have hearts of gold?

Perhaps this is a problem with not reading the entirety of the text; we don’t see the whole picture. But even after perusing the readers guide at the back of Time Regained, I found not one snippet about either character that would give the reader a back story as to their motives. Maybe Gustave Verdurin (his name is revealed on a page we did not read) was beaten as a child by a cruel governess that led him to seek a match with Sidonie, a woman with an equally terrible upbringing, whom resembled his tormentor in stature and also in temperament. I could speculate for days but this goes back to what Stacey said, they are not real people. Proust, who could spend hundreds of pages going on and on about flowers and obsession and churches and paintings and artists and that damn little band of girls really could have stepped out of his observations of what the narrator thought was happening, and informed his readers – offered a bit of history – about the other characters in his book.

Even when he chooses to share about Swann, the narrator clarifies that he has been told that they share similar characteristics. It is all about M, all the time.

As we have yet to read Time Regained, I will hope for answers. What brought about the Verdurins change of heart? Will Gilberte and Saint-Loup weather the storm of their deceitful love? Will our narrator ever find love? And who gave Swann that damn note? Tune in next week for all the developments of 19^th century France’s version of As the World Turns, just with madeleines and a whole lot more misery.

I am having a week. I suppose this happens, you guessed it, every week, but this week seems to be ending on a rather surreal note, a heavy, hard blow to the gut kind of week. I am writing this in my living room while my friend’s four year old son destroys my bathroom. Equipped with multiple, variously sized plastic containers and some small plastic lizards, Townes is taking a bath. I hear the water splashing in ways that could only occur when hitting the floor. I told him he was stinky, he agreed, so now he bathes, and destroys.

Townes has been coming to stay with me off and on for several months. His mother has to take his younger brother, Laszlo, to therapy several times a week; he has a degenerative disorder called SMA. He cannot hold himself up and cannot do most things that a healthy two year old can do. But he laughs and smiles like the best of them, his bright blue eyes sing.

Yesterday (Friday), I received a message from Valerie, Townes’s mother, asking me to work for her, stating that she had been up all night with the little Laszlo. A few hours later I would find myself instead, in the company of Townes, as they were forced to rush Laszlo to the Seattle Children’s Hospital; I have just acquired a child for an undetermined amount of time.

It is hard to have a friend describe to you what it is like to have a sick child. She tells me about how he quit breathing. She tells me that her partner spent 15 minutes trying to “bring him back”. She tells me that she thought they had lost him and about the feeding tube that runs down his nose and the tubes are shoved down to help him breath and the morphine they have to give him now to keep him calm. She tells me all these things as I talk to her on the phone Saturday night, Townes asleep soundly in the living room. She tells me how all the tubes and machines failed during the afternoon and for another short moment, she believed her young son had died.

A friend comes to take Townes for the afternoon so I can work on school stuff (so I can read, that’s all I ever do). It is now Sunday, today, and I have taken the afternoon off of work. I read Proust. I read about his ailing grandmother. “We see ourselves dying, in these cases, not at the actual moment of death but months, sometimes years before, when death has hideously come to dwell in us.”[1] I think about my friend and her fiancé standing over the bed of their youngest child. Is death looming over too? Has death entered their life, an unwanted intruder? I am trying to remain positive. I continue to read through the Proust; it seems so unimportant.

I find out through a text message that Townes’s father will be coming down from the hospital to retrieve him tomorrow, they want the family to be together. I think again of the Proust and the relationship that our narrator had with his mother and grandmother. I think of little Laszlo and the love that his mother feels for him. I think of the way that she must be feeling right now, being so close to losing a child.

Perhaps the relationship that Proust wrote of Marcel and his mother, is just how love works when someone has been so close to death. Maybe in sickness and the reality of death looming changes things. Maybe the love Marcel felt for his mother was honest. Maybe it is us who do it wrong.

Townes is currently watching the Ewok Adventure with my house mate. He occasionally bounds over and asks him what I am doing, I am sitting in another part of the house. I explain that I am doing homework for school. He tells me that he didn’t know grown-ups could go to school, rolls his eyes, and returns to the couch. Earlier he told me that Laszlo was sick. He asked me if I knew that his mom and dad had gone to the hospital. I wonder what he thinks and what he knows. I wonder what he will remember from all of this. I wonder what all of us will remember from this.

[1] The Guermantes Way page 430

After lecture on Monday, I found myself wondering about storytelling, and if it is in fact a lost form. How rare it is to find ourselves sitting around campfires telling the tales of our forefather’s great victories and also of their debilitating defeats. No longer do we warn of, as per the Basso text, the coyote that may or may not be pissing up stream or the grasshoppers that could decimate our crops[1]; the stories that were once told offered advice and guidance to the young, as well as a form of entertainment. But is Benjamin right? Is storytelling really a lost art?

My family does not have many great stories. My mother has on occasion spoken of her grandparents and the great-depression – life in the dust-bowl. She has shared stories with me of her impoverished childhood, her parents moving her from town to town in hopes of finding work, and the small drawer that she was allowed to keep her belongings in the minuscule mobile-trailer in which they called home. Perhaps she told me in an attempt to instill a desire to better myself through education and hard work?

I have been told stories of time spent in Hawaii when I was a child. My father and mother would drive into coconut groves, my mother would leap out of the car with the speed and precision of a lynx, and grab a coconut or two, completely ignoring the posted signs warning of potential death due to the coconuts falling from above. Perhaps she told me this story to simply keep me from getting killed by a falling coconut?

And then I find myself thinking about the stories that I give value to. I have shared on many occasions the story of my younger sister getting ran over by a van when we were young children. My memory is blurry but the consequence of not paying attention, by myself, the driver of the van, and my sister, resulted in her being injured. Maybe I tell the story because it was traumatic. Maybe I tell it so that others, in their future, pay attention.

Pay attention.

It was while driving home from the dentist today that I realized – I was paying attention – that I spend a good portion of my day listening to stories, as do majority of the American people. It is piped in at the dentist’s office and grocery store. It is in our earbuds and on the car stereo. It is in every restaurant we dine and practically everywhere we go. It was right there with me, on that drive, as I flipped through the stations.  Music.

Benjamin stated in the beginning of his essay on the works of Nikolai Leskov that, “…the storyteller in his living immediacy is by no means a present force. He has already become something remote from us and something that is getting more distant…” and later, “the art of storytelling is coming to an end.”[2]

In 1969, in reaction to the Vietnam War, John Fogerty wrote a song for his band at the time – Creedence Clearwater Revival – entitled Fortunate Son[3]. The song, the musical story, tells of the class struggle taking place during a time of civil unrest, a time of wars being perpetuated by the rich but fought by the poor[4].

Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
Ooo, their red, white and blue
And when the band plays “Hail to the Chief”
Ooo, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son, son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one, no

Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand
Lord, don’t they help themselves, y’all
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one, no

Yeah, yeah
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask ‘em, “How much should we give?”
Ooh, they only answer “More! More! More!”, y’all

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no military son, son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one, one
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one, no, no, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate son, no, no, no[5]

Fogerty is telling a story, a story that I have heard many times over. I know the story behind the song not only through the words themselves, but from the conversations I have had about them. But Fogerty is only one example of many. The more I think about songs that have left a lasting memory, that tell a story that may be politically motivated, a testament to a social change (Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young also delved into the Vietnam War and the shooting of four student protesters in Ohio), a declaration for peace (John Lennon, Imagine), or perhaps one of many, many anthems for those mending a broken heart (Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive). Seriously, think about some songs that stick out to you and what they mean.

It is hard to know what exactly defines a story, which we discussed in Stacey’s seminar on Monday as well. I imagine music does not fit the parameters as discussed by Benjamin but it seems that music now is an example of how stories can be told and retold. Musicians are the evolution of the storytellers of the past?

I also want to clarify that not all musicians are good storytellers; I am not interested in the wisdom of Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber, but I do believe that there is something to be said for the story in a song.

[1] Basso, Keith H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

[2] Benjamin, Walter, and Hannah Arendt. Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.

[3] Grow, Kory. “John Fogerty Addresses ‘Fortunate Son’ Concert for Valor Controversy.” Rolling Stone. November 13, 2014. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/john-fogerty-addresses-fortunate-son-concert-for-valor-controversy-20141113.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Retrieved from: http://www.metrolyrics.com/fortunate-son-lyrics-creedence-clearwater-revival.html

Once a month I get a call from the United Way to check in with me about my “little”. Several months ago, after several elaborate background checks (the NSA has nothing on the United Way), multiple interviews, and majority of my friends and family being grilled as to what kind of person I was, I was given the all clear to protect the president, no, I was given the green light to be a Big Sister.

The phone call is always the same, what do you like to do with your little? How is she doing in school… It is the same series of questions and I generally give the same series of answers. Today, the woman I spoke with wanted me to start asking my little more serious questions about her friendships in school as well as asking her, “how does she like being where she is at in her life?”

My little, we will call her Jane, is 12. I am quite sure she does not know where she is at in her life. Jesus, I am almost forty, and besides the geographical location at any moment – like right now, I am in my living room at home – I don’t have the slightest idea where the hell I am in my life. I remember being 12, well kind of, and it was absolutely miserable. Would I have offered up this information to someone distinctly older than me, or any age, if directly asked about it? Absolutely not. I had a hard time not laughing at this woman on the phone. Perhaps she does not spend any time with teenagers, or pre-teens for that matter.

After getting off the phone, I found myself going down the rabbit hole, back into those god awful years as a pre-teen. The ridiculous outfits, the first time I got high, the first time I got drunk, the handful of middle schools and high schools I attended. It makes me uneasy. Writing about it now, takes me back yet again. But I am not that kid anymore, and I am grateful to be sitting in my living room as a fully functional adult.

An adult who will have ice cream for dinner – in some cases, those unexpected detours down memory lane warrant a treat.

My yard needs to be mowed. It is tedious little things like that that perturb me. I need to mow my god damn yard and I don’t have the time but I most certainly have the allergies that yell at me, “no, you do not want to mow the god damn yard!” Stupid yard. Stupid allergies. In Fall, I took a class called Silence, Solitude, and Laziness –the pillars of the good life. I spend a lot of time still thinking about what equates a good life. Is it mowing the yard? Is it finishing assignments on time? Is it doing well at my job? Is it traveling? I keep wondering when the big reveal will happen, the tada moment, when someone jumps out and tells me — hey, this is how you live a good life. I know this is no going to happen but I still like to look for it.

Sometimes I feel like I get glimpses of it when I hang out with little kids. Kids that just love you for no particularly good reason. They don’t care if you think your smart or stupid, skinny or fat, and they most certainly do not care about that pesky zit that showed up on your neck (although they will be more than happy to point it out to you). I have a little 4 year old buddy named Townes, whom comes over to my house on occasion. The first time he came over, I told him that I had a tub of toys, referring to a large plastic tub I keep stowed in my garage for such a time when children overtake my house. After pulling my car into the garage, Townes rushed into my house, and promptly found the bathroom. He then pulled back the shower curtain and gave me a look of absolute disdain, “there are not any toys in this tub,” he yelled, annoyed that I had seemed to have lied to him. I laughed and showed him the correct tub. Kids are so damn literal.

If Townes was a few years older I would pay him to mow my yard.

I wonder if Townes will have any recollection of such an interaction. To him it was no big deal, to me it was hilarious, and worth mentioning to multiple friends. It is always interesting to see what one deems important, what one chooses to recollect with great detail. I remember the look on his face, the grass-stained jeans he was wearing, and his lopsided bangs (it is a well proven fact that all children, at one point or another, will get their hands on scissors, and give themselves a lovely new hair-do). I remember the smudge of tomato sauce on his upper lip due to the pizza we had eaten at Old School. I imagine that this will fade, this memory, because that is what they do. Shuffled away in some place deep down.

Maybe this whole thought was brought about because of my need to mow my yard and his grass-stained jeans.

I really just need to mow my yard.

Journal Entry 4/7/2015

“I thought there would be more.”

The first time I watched Boyhood was last year at the Capitol Theater. The theater was dreadfully cold, the chairs seemed to actually hate me and would without provocation attack anyone who happened by (or at least it seems like it; they really are the most uncomfortable of chairs), and I managed to eat way too much candy and popcorn and a massive burrito from my work, but I found the movie to be entertaining and did not give it much thought beyond that.

With one enormous exception, the conversation that Patricia Arquette’s character has with Mason as he is finishing packing for college. He is in his room, she is sitting at the table and starts to cry. When Mason asks her about it she simply says, “I thought there would be more.” She mentions hitting all the milestones in her life, marriage, divorce, children going off to college, and now she believes that all she has left is death – she thought that there would be more.

I don’t know why exactly this statement hit me then. I watched the movie for a second time yesterday and again, found myself crying when she began to cry. I knew what she was going to say. I knew how it made me feel last year in that theater downtown. But here I was again, crying at the same spot, of the same movie, after the exact same phrase was uttered. I think it’s the fear that there won’t be anything more is what gets me. What if no matter how hard you work, how deeply vested you are in school, how much money and time you donate to charity, how often you call mom, floss your teeth, and are an all-around a swell person to everyone in your path, what if in the end you are still kicking yourself in the ass and asking ‘is that it’? I imagine it more of a shaking your fists at the sky, screaming to the clouds above, “is that really fucking it?” or some other expletive filled temper-tantrum.

Everything that I do now, every single day, is in hopes that when I find myself old and alone that not for one god damn second will I have think there would have been more. I want to be exhausted, ready to check out; I want to be so full of life that if I have any more I would simply explode.