betrayal
More schools handing out high grades based on low standards. They lull students into a complacency that's shattered by failed statewide exams.
dirt
The fierce wind blows dirt into our eyes. The dirt is loose because nothing has been planted yet. Only a few stringy weeds have claimed the soil.
do-si-do
We're stumbling through the steps for completing the square, as if we're in a clumsy mathematical square dance with no feel for the music. Just going through the motions.
duck
A duck puffing and rustling with deep blue in its wings, looking like an agitated decorative pillow.
glares
She urges me to admire the chandelier, to contemplate its intricate beauty, but it's blazing, and my eyes hurt.
together
People gather in the park to fish, share a blanket, feel fresh air, catch at a friendship that's slipping away.
turtle
A turtle on a rock, its head tilted up as if it's scenting the weather.
Showing posts with label loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loss. Show all posts
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Friday, March 9, 2018
The Optimist's Daughter: Examining Love and Loss
She wept for what happened to life.Laurel, the main character of The Optimist's Daughter, is a widow and now an orphan after her father passes away, years after her mother's death. She moved away from Louisiana a while ago, but returns for the duration of the book - first for her father's medical problems, then for his death and for a short time after the funeral.
Her parents' home is full of things she hasn't known about or hasn't thought about in a long while. It's also tainted by the presence of her father's second wife, Fay, a crass, insensitive woman who at one point gets compared to the weather, an uncomprehending force of nature that sweeps through people's lives.
For Fay was without any powers of passion or imagination in herself and had no way to see it or reach it in the other person. Other people, inside their lives, might as well be invisible to her. To find them, she could only strike out those little fists at random, or spit from her little mouth. She could no more fight a feeling person than she could love him.The novel reckons with the costs of love. With love comes profound loss; how does one cope? Is the solution to live like Fay, who performs grief but doesn't feel much of anything in a deep way? Because she feels less, her survival in this world seems more assured; in this sense, she's more hardy than Laurel. But she's brittle in other ways. Laurel does survive, in her own way, relinquishing possessions and bearing memories forward.
The memory can be hurt, time and again - but in that may lie its final mercy. As long as it's vulnerable to the living moment, it lives for us, and while it lives, and while we are able, we can give it up its due.One of the things I appreciated about this novel was the sensitive way it made the dead come alive in memory. They aren't fixed and silent images. Laurel, for instance, considers those who have died and wonders about them, why they acted as they did, and what they'd say or do now. Of course, it's not the same as them being alive, but they're a part of her world still. I think a part of her courage - to keep living, free, afraid, full of light - comes from thinking about her relationships with them and their relationships with each other.
Between some two people every word is beautiful, or might as well be beautiful.While Fay lives in the realm of objects, just plain hard materials, Laurel has greater depth and so has more to lose. And yet, she's strong at the end, cut loose from her father's home and going off on a tide of spirit and possibility.
(I read The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty for the Classics Club Challenge.)
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
The Country of the Pointed Firs: Jewett's Exquisite Book
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett is intense in its depictions of people sharing their lives while also living apart and alone. An author spends a summer in a remote coastal village in Maine, at the end of the 19th century. She meets people who show her parts of their life and the depths of their character. And at the end, she has to leave. It's only a season, full of weight and breadth but also coming quickly to an end.
The book, which I read for the Classics Club Challenge, isn't plot-heavy. It's a collection of meetings, conversations, meditations on nature (human and the natural world), all beautifully written. The people who inhabit the village become extraordinary because of the attention the author gives them. Here's one look at Mrs. Todd, whose house the author stays in for the summer:
And here is an old man she meets:
The book weaves together beauty and joy with misery and loss. These feelings are inseparable. As the author looks out on nature, she observes the decay and death along with the promise and loveliness:
The author grows pretty close to some of the villagers, and the villagers feel fairly close to each other, or at least committed to each other; at the same time, they're separated in private griefs and memories they rarely speak about. They've enlarged their lives by finding a place in an extended family or community, or by gaining an intimate knowledge of nature, whether the woods or the sea. But they're still alone, each distinct and separate in character.
I'm tempted to share many more excerpts from this book, because it's so beautifully written. The author takes a season and tries to give it permanence in text. Even when there's the bittersweet feeling of knowing it all passes, that all these people have died, something of them and the world they live in are still around.
The book, which I read for the Classics Club Challenge, isn't plot-heavy. It's a collection of meetings, conversations, meditations on nature (human and the natural world), all beautifully written. The people who inhabit the village become extraordinary because of the attention the author gives them. Here's one look at Mrs. Todd, whose house the author stays in for the summer:
It is not often given in a noisy world to come to the places of great grief and silence. An absolute, archaic grief possessed this countrywoman; she seemed like a renewal of some historic soul, with her sorrows and the remoteness of a daily life busied with rustic simplicities and the scents of primeval herbs.
And here is an old man she meets:
There was a patient look on the old man's face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with whom to speak his own language or find companionship.
The book weaves together beauty and joy with misery and loss. These feelings are inseparable. As the author looks out on nature, she observes the decay and death along with the promise and loveliness:
The tide was setting in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness of their fierce beaks. The sea was full of life and spirit…
It was not the first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wastefulness of nature, the thousand seeds that die, the unused provision of every sort.
The author grows pretty close to some of the villagers, and the villagers feel fairly close to each other, or at least committed to each other; at the same time, they're separated in private griefs and memories they rarely speak about. They've enlarged their lives by finding a place in an extended family or community, or by gaining an intimate knowledge of nature, whether the woods or the sea. But they're still alone, each distinct and separate in character.
I'm tempted to share many more excerpts from this book, because it's so beautifully written. The author takes a season and tries to give it permanence in text. Even when there's the bittersweet feeling of knowing it all passes, that all these people have died, something of them and the world they live in are still around.
In the life of each of us… there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Three Stories from Stephen King's Just After Sunset
Collection: Just After Sunset
Author: Stephen King
When King finds the emotional center of a story, shows us the hearts of his characters, it makes all the difference. There are stories in this collection that have an interesting premise but don't develop. Sometimes there's too much straining for effect. But here are three stories I like because they're gripping and for the most part are told with heart. Each has its own unique atmosphere of horror.
Title: The Gingerbread Girl
Emily is running from the horrors in her life. She takes up running after her baby dies from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Separating from her husband, she moves to a family property in Florida where she'll need to use her running abilities, along with her ingenuity and will to survive, in order to escape from a psychotic neighbor. (There's a painfully suspenseful scene where the main character tries to break free from a chair she's tied to before the homicidal neighbor returns to torture her and finish her off.) At its heart the story is about someone striving for life. Emily fights to live and outpace the terrors the world holds for her.
Title: N.
Told in a collection of case notes, letters, and newspaper clippings, the story is a horrifying mystery centered on a psychiatrist and a patient, referred to as N. in the case notes, who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). N. has many of the usual compulsions of people with OCD, such as the need to count things a certain number of times, arrange things in certain ways and perform other rituals. But he tells his psychiatrist he's doing this for a very real reason: to prevent the reentry of a demonic entity into the world.
Given that people with OCD believe that their rituals and compulsions stave off disasters, the psychiatrist at first thinks that his patient is merely imagining this Lovecraftian entity. But when he visits the site that his patient tells him about, a remote field in rural Maine with a grouping of rocks where the creature might break through, he begins to have second thoughts. He develops his own compulsions. But is this terrifying creature of darkness real? Or has the psychiatrist merely taken on the symptoms of his patient, which does happen sometimes?
Title: Willa
The story sort of crumbles into bittersweet goo as it goes on, while still remaining sad and chilling. It starts with a group of passengers waiting in a remote Wyoming train station. The train is set to come at any moment, but David can't find his fiancée, Willa. The other passengers tell him not to go looking for her; many of them don't like her. David doesn't even realize how long she's been missing, and he remembers how she's sometimes chided him for not being able to see what's right in front of his eyes; like most people, his capacity for denial is strong. When he finds her, he discovers that some things, like their love for each other, haven't changed and that "perception and expectation together" really are powerful.
Author: Stephen King
When King finds the emotional center of a story, shows us the hearts of his characters, it makes all the difference. There are stories in this collection that have an interesting premise but don't develop. Sometimes there's too much straining for effect. But here are three stories I like because they're gripping and for the most part are told with heart. Each has its own unique atmosphere of horror.
Title: The Gingerbread Girl
Emily is running from the horrors in her life. She takes up running after her baby dies from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Separating from her husband, she moves to a family property in Florida where she'll need to use her running abilities, along with her ingenuity and will to survive, in order to escape from a psychotic neighbor. (There's a painfully suspenseful scene where the main character tries to break free from a chair she's tied to before the homicidal neighbor returns to torture her and finish her off.) At its heart the story is about someone striving for life. Emily fights to live and outpace the terrors the world holds for her.
Title: N.
Told in a collection of case notes, letters, and newspaper clippings, the story is a horrifying mystery centered on a psychiatrist and a patient, referred to as N. in the case notes, who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). N. has many of the usual compulsions of people with OCD, such as the need to count things a certain number of times, arrange things in certain ways and perform other rituals. But he tells his psychiatrist he's doing this for a very real reason: to prevent the reentry of a demonic entity into the world.
Given that people with OCD believe that their rituals and compulsions stave off disasters, the psychiatrist at first thinks that his patient is merely imagining this Lovecraftian entity. But when he visits the site that his patient tells him about, a remote field in rural Maine with a grouping of rocks where the creature might break through, he begins to have second thoughts. He develops his own compulsions. But is this terrifying creature of darkness real? Or has the psychiatrist merely taken on the symptoms of his patient, which does happen sometimes?
Title: Willa
The story sort of crumbles into bittersweet goo as it goes on, while still remaining sad and chilling. It starts with a group of passengers waiting in a remote Wyoming train station. The train is set to come at any moment, but David can't find his fiancée, Willa. The other passengers tell him not to go looking for her; many of them don't like her. David doesn't even realize how long she's been missing, and he remembers how she's sometimes chided him for not being able to see what's right in front of his eyes; like most people, his capacity for denial is strong. When he finds her, he discovers that some things, like their love for each other, haven't changed and that "perception and expectation together" really are powerful.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Worth Watching: The Station Agent (2003)
Title: The Station Agent
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Language: English
Rating: R (not sure why - probably because of some of the language)
At the heart of it, this movie is about people's hunger for companionship and their adjustment to loss and the passage of time.
Three people form an unlikely friendship in The Station Agent. Finn McBride (Peter Dinklage) is a man with dwarfism who immerses himself in the world of trains: their make, their speed and movement, their history and the routes they've taken. Joe Oramas (Bobby Cannavale) is an outgoing, talkative food vendor, filling in at his family's food truck because his father is ill. And Olivia Harris (Patricia Clarkson) is an artist who could be genuinely calm and joyful if she weren't struggling with a horrible tragedy in her life.
One weakness in this movie is the way the characters keep getting thrown together in coincidental meetings that can feel forced; the filmmakers really want them to be friends. But I didn't mind so much, because I want them to be friends too. The kind of friendship that grows between them, three people who live in different worlds and ordinarily wouldn't connect in life, is beautiful.
And then, even with the movie repeatedly throwing them together, their friendship remains in some ways fragile. It doesn't take much to shut people out of our lives. Sometimes when we need people the most, we push them away. If we're lucky they won't go away forever.
*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Language: English
Rating: R (not sure why - probably because of some of the language)
At the heart of it, this movie is about people's hunger for companionship and their adjustment to loss and the passage of time.
Three people form an unlikely friendship in The Station Agent. Finn McBride (Peter Dinklage) is a man with dwarfism who immerses himself in the world of trains: their make, their speed and movement, their history and the routes they've taken. Joe Oramas (Bobby Cannavale) is an outgoing, talkative food vendor, filling in at his family's food truck because his father is ill. And Olivia Harris (Patricia Clarkson) is an artist who could be genuinely calm and joyful if she weren't struggling with a horrible tragedy in her life.
One weakness in this movie is the way the characters keep getting thrown together in coincidental meetings that can feel forced; the filmmakers really want them to be friends. But I didn't mind so much, because I want them to be friends too. The kind of friendship that grows between them, three people who live in different worlds and ordinarily wouldn't connect in life, is beautiful.
And then, even with the movie repeatedly throwing them together, their friendship remains in some ways fragile. It doesn't take much to shut people out of our lives. Sometimes when we need people the most, we push them away. If we're lucky they won't go away forever.
*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Worth Watching: The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
Title: The Secret of Roan Inish
Director: John Sayles
Language: English (and a bit of Irish Gaelic)
Rating: PG
Synopsis
Fiona Conneely (Jeni Courtney) goes to live with her grandparents near Roan Inish (Island of the Seals), which used to be her family's home. Several years ago during an evacuation of the island her baby brother, Jamie, was washed out to sea in his cradle and never seen since. As Fiona settles in with her grandparents she learns about a family story involving a selkie, a seal that can slough off its skin and become human. When she visits Roan Inish she spots signs of human life and finally comes across a young boy who runs from her approach. It's her younger brother, she's sure, but how will she convince her family that he's alive? And what will get him to stop running from her when she calls his name?
Characters
Fiona is a stalwart girl; she listens and observes, and she's not easily afraid. What drives the film is her curiosity about Roan Inish, and then her determination to bring her missing brother back and help heal her family.
Her grandparents, played warmly by Mick Lally and Eileen Colgan, give Fiona a healthy loving home, and she finds a friend in her older cousin, Eamon (Richard Sheridan), a straightforward and hard-working kid. She also encounters another relative in back of a shop, gutting and scaling fish; people say that he's not quite right in the head, but he's also the one who tells Fiona about a key part of her family's past: the story of the selkie.
The film's treatment of the selkie (Susan Lynch) is matter-of-fact. The film doesn't marvel over her appearance or add any special effects to her transformation. The focus is on the emotion of the story; the selkie is torn between her family on land and her compulsion to return to the ocean.
The ocean is a character too, murmuring on the surface, silent below, slapping the sand and rocks. The seals lounge on the rocks watching the passing boats with their dark uncanny eyes.
Relationships
The ocean's rhythm of give and take shapes the history of Fiona's family in complex ways. As Fiona seeks out her brother she finds herself contending with the ocean and with her family's past.
Her cousin, Eamon, comes to believe her claims that she's seen her missing brother. Eamon becomes an older brother figure to Fiona, and her confidant; at one point he helps her with the difficult task of preparing the abandoned cottages on Roan Inish for habitation.
At the heart of it the story is about understanding one's past and bringing family back together, in a struggle to deal with traumatic changes and a world that's quickly modernizing. Fiona's grandparents have a warm secure home but their way of life is in danger, and they may have to move inland. The cities offer jobs but also fracture families, and there's a struggle to stay rooted in one's heritage and not lose it all to modern forces. Fiona is drawn to Roan Inish in part because her family was whole when they lived there.
Memorable sights and sounds
Stars and water framed by a bedroom window, as Fiona peers through the darkness at Roan Inish. The film in some ways has the quality of a dream, though it treats magical creatures as a concrete reality - improbable but not impossible.
The visuals are beautiful throughout - fog and cloud, a grassy knoll overrun with wild flowers, the watchful eyes of the seals who stealthily change the course of boats. The selkie herself with her pensive face and wild dark hair is also a sight, stirring a stew at the hearth or letting her child's cradle float in the shallows by the beach.
Stand-out scenes
One of the best sequences is when Fiona and Eamon are rebuilding the old cottages together. They're young, determined and competent. I love when movies show children as skilled and able to work wonders without superpowers or magic (and without the movie having a patronizing attitude towards them). The soundtrack is especially lively and beautiful too in this part of the film.
Further thoughts
In a lesser film, the reunion with Jamie would have taken place with melodrama and fanfare, close-ups of teary faces. There's never a sense that the film is talking down to the audience or holding itself cheaply. The same is true for the story-tellers in the film, who weave folklore into family history and trust that the substance of their tales will compel your attention.
Director: John Sayles
Language: English (and a bit of Irish Gaelic)
Rating: PG
Synopsis
Fiona Conneely (Jeni Courtney) goes to live with her grandparents near Roan Inish (Island of the Seals), which used to be her family's home. Several years ago during an evacuation of the island her baby brother, Jamie, was washed out to sea in his cradle and never seen since. As Fiona settles in with her grandparents she learns about a family story involving a selkie, a seal that can slough off its skin and become human. When she visits Roan Inish she spots signs of human life and finally comes across a young boy who runs from her approach. It's her younger brother, she's sure, but how will she convince her family that he's alive? And what will get him to stop running from her when she calls his name?
Characters
Fiona is a stalwart girl; she listens and observes, and she's not easily afraid. What drives the film is her curiosity about Roan Inish, and then her determination to bring her missing brother back and help heal her family.
Her grandparents, played warmly by Mick Lally and Eileen Colgan, give Fiona a healthy loving home, and she finds a friend in her older cousin, Eamon (Richard Sheridan), a straightforward and hard-working kid. She also encounters another relative in back of a shop, gutting and scaling fish; people say that he's not quite right in the head, but he's also the one who tells Fiona about a key part of her family's past: the story of the selkie.
The film's treatment of the selkie (Susan Lynch) is matter-of-fact. The film doesn't marvel over her appearance or add any special effects to her transformation. The focus is on the emotion of the story; the selkie is torn between her family on land and her compulsion to return to the ocean.
The ocean is a character too, murmuring on the surface, silent below, slapping the sand and rocks. The seals lounge on the rocks watching the passing boats with their dark uncanny eyes.
Relationships
The ocean's rhythm of give and take shapes the history of Fiona's family in complex ways. As Fiona seeks out her brother she finds herself contending with the ocean and with her family's past.
Her cousin, Eamon, comes to believe her claims that she's seen her missing brother. Eamon becomes an older brother figure to Fiona, and her confidant; at one point he helps her with the difficult task of preparing the abandoned cottages on Roan Inish for habitation.
At the heart of it the story is about understanding one's past and bringing family back together, in a struggle to deal with traumatic changes and a world that's quickly modernizing. Fiona's grandparents have a warm secure home but their way of life is in danger, and they may have to move inland. The cities offer jobs but also fracture families, and there's a struggle to stay rooted in one's heritage and not lose it all to modern forces. Fiona is drawn to Roan Inish in part because her family was whole when they lived there.
Memorable sights and sounds
Stars and water framed by a bedroom window, as Fiona peers through the darkness at Roan Inish. The film in some ways has the quality of a dream, though it treats magical creatures as a concrete reality - improbable but not impossible.
The visuals are beautiful throughout - fog and cloud, a grassy knoll overrun with wild flowers, the watchful eyes of the seals who stealthily change the course of boats. The selkie herself with her pensive face and wild dark hair is also a sight, stirring a stew at the hearth or letting her child's cradle float in the shallows by the beach.
Stand-out scenes
One of the best sequences is when Fiona and Eamon are rebuilding the old cottages together. They're young, determined and competent. I love when movies show children as skilled and able to work wonders without superpowers or magic (and without the movie having a patronizing attitude towards them). The soundtrack is especially lively and beautiful too in this part of the film.
Further thoughts
In a lesser film, the reunion with Jamie would have taken place with melodrama and fanfare, close-ups of teary faces. There's never a sense that the film is talking down to the audience or holding itself cheaply. The same is true for the story-tellers in the film, who weave folklore into family history and trust that the substance of their tales will compel your attention.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Week in Seven Words #57
galvanic
Jerked out of sleep early morning by the thought of how much I need to get done in less than two months.
mirrored
Reflecting on someone else's behavior I suddenly get insights into my own.
tweaking
Her teasing has enough truth, humor and kindness that I dissolve in laughter.
twinkling
The rain twinkles in deep black puddles; the raindrops hit the water in starbursts.
utter
Each word is a pearl or a drop of poison.
wail
A man cries out in grief, in a corridor that's usually full of greetings and loud conversation.
willing
When people tell me their plans their eyes are intense, their words intent; they think that if their description is sufficiently detailed, they'll find themselves in their desired reality, their dreams concrete. For a moment their words allow them to inhabit that reality and step into the shoes of their ideal future self.
Jerked out of sleep early morning by the thought of how much I need to get done in less than two months.
mirrored
Reflecting on someone else's behavior I suddenly get insights into my own.
tweaking
Her teasing has enough truth, humor and kindness that I dissolve in laughter.
twinkling
The rain twinkles in deep black puddles; the raindrops hit the water in starbursts.
utter
Each word is a pearl or a drop of poison.
wail
A man cries out in grief, in a corridor that's usually full of greetings and loud conversation.
willing
When people tell me their plans their eyes are intense, their words intent; they think that if their description is sufficiently detailed, they'll find themselves in their desired reality, their dreams concrete. For a moment their words allow them to inhabit that reality and step into the shoes of their ideal future self.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Undone - a short film
A wrenching, disturbing, and beautiful film.
From the film-maker:
From the film-maker:
A stop-motion animation using textured and tactile materials, as well as personal imagery, that represents the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Inspired by my grandfather.
Undone from Hayley Morris on Vimeo.
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