MAGIC...AND MAGIC

Recently I was in Las Vegas. It was the last night of my trip to a foster care parents association conference where I was hawking my new book for foster children: Kit Coyote: A Brave Pup.

As a treat, I went to see the most fabulous magician Mat Franco. Lots of people know him from show America’s Got Talent but I’d never seen the show and never heard of Mat. His magic tricks are stupendous, awe-inspiring and so was his personality as he unfolded bits of his childhood growing up and practicing, practicing, practicing to become a great magician. His ability to stun the thousands in the audience obviously pleased him and it pleased us– because we love to experience MAGIC even as we’re wondering how does he do that…there must be a trick!!

Earlier in the day, however, I learned about a different sort of magic. I heard about the magic performed by Dr. John Degarmo and his wife in caring for foster children. For nearly 15 years, the couple have performed the daily and nightly magic of soothing the hearts of bereaved children, calming their night terrors, coping with their rage, giving these unfortunate girls and boys the chance of believing that someone cares about them in a world that’s been uniformly cruel and callous to them.

I won’t say which magic is more potent. Because the world needs both. We need a conjurer and performer to make us believe in a world beyond the beyond. And we need individuals who are committed to the heartbreaking tasks of giving hope to the hopelessly hurt among us.

DO YOU THINK I GIVE A (EXPLETIVE)

A few days ago I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my laptop with my husband a few feet away, working on his laptop. Suddenly he said, "Something's burning!"
Naturally I leapt to my feet, knowing well exactly what was burning. "Oh no," I declared. "It's the greens." I rushed over to the stove. And sure enough the chopped kale, chard, etc. was burnt to a crisp. I turned off the stove and carried the mess to the sink to plunge into cold water.
"I don't know how we've stayed married so long," I lamented. For this wasn't the first time something had burnt on the stove. In fact, it probably was the 50th time or even the 100th time. The truth is that I'll often start cooking something and then get distracted by my work, by the phone, by any little thing and then, oops, the bacon or the potatoes or the brussels sprouts or the oatmeal burns to cinders. I can't count the number of pots and pans I've had to rescue with baking soda. And always, always I feel terrible about it. I feel like a giant failure -- as a cook, as a wife, as a human being. Isn't that the most elemental thing you're supposed to be able to do: cook oatmeal without burning it?
Suddenly, however, my husband exclaimed, "Do you think I give a (expletive) if you burn the greens!" And suddenly I realized that this huge shame that had burdened me for decades was entirely a figment of my imagination. I had this idea that I needed to be a good cook or at least a competent cook who didn't burn the bacon. If I wasn't, I was worthless in the eyes of the world.
His comment erased all that shame. I mean really --what does it matter if I burn the greens?

ALL-AMERICAN MOVE THEMES

I always thought Obama was able to be elected because of Denzel Washington. Well, not just Denzel Washington but all the handsome competent black men who've been featured as heroes in American action films. Denzel is just a striking example. I'm talking about American mass media films -- the kind that everybody sees to the movie theater to see or as a rerun on TV. In an action film, the hero struggles against insuperable odds but eventually saves everyone through his intelligence and strength and courage. Denzel saved enough people enough times that voters believed Obama could save us as well. Films have an amazing and powerful subliminal impact on viewers. And often it's very positive. Though not always. (See my blog on the reason I hate the film MILLION DOLLAR BABY.)
Take the recent film THE MARTIAN, for instance. Not a great film, not an Academy Award-winner, but a crowd-pleaser that's chock-full of very typically American themes. Theme #1 the lone American hero who is isolated from the bunch but doesn't give up -- far from giving up, Matt Damon displays great intelligence, ingenuity, and perseverance to stay alive. But Theme #2 he couldn't have made it alone on Mars without Mission Control -- that's what I call the room back at NASA that's filled with people of different ages, genders, races and so forth. When they wake up to the fact that a lone American has been left on Mars, they all get together and pursue the common goal of bringing him back alive. I don't think you'd see this diverse group of people talking to one another, listening to one another, respecting one another, and pursuing a common goal with one another in a film from France or England or  Germany. It's very American theme. Kind of OCEANS 11 on a bigger scale. And finally there's Theme #3 which is the team that in THE MARTIAN made the terrible error of leaving Matt Damon behind so they have to risk their lives to go back to get him. Shades of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Kind of stupid really - to risk a dozen lives to save one. But America has this football team, Marine corps, "I've got your back, bro" mentality or at least we aspire to believe that about ourselves. Probably dates back to the cowboy and Indian movies where you never left a wounded cowboy behind 'cause he might get scalped.
Anyway, let me know what you think on this....

the bounds of human decency….

A new documentary is being broadcast soon on CNN and released in theater called "The Hunting Ground" which features rapes on college campuses. The schools included in the "piercing exposé" include the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Am I surprised? I attended college there four decades ago. In my freshman and sophomore years I was invited to many fraternity parties.

I do remember getting drunk on punch at the SAE House; I don't remember any frat man treating me discourteously (is that word even used any more?). And I didn't hear of anyone else being assaulted which doesn't mean it didn't happen. Of course it may have but not been recorded or even talked about. Quite honestly, however, I believe that there was another ethic in practice at that time. I believe that societal norms were substantially different. I think the entire country has been hugely sexualized since then -- through the media largely, plus video games and what's on-line - the huge growth of the porn industry. Yes, boys read Playboy Magazine (my brother certainly did) but that's tame compared to what's out there now….

In those days, there were things to be afraid of, for sure, places you didn't go, precautions you took -- but being raped on campus by a college colleague was not one of them. I probably won't go to see "The Hunting Ground" - but I'm glad someone produced it. I don't doubt colleges have been dismissive of girls reporting assault. Dismissing women's experiences is not something new at all. And no doubt there are many college males who need to be held accountable for their violent actions. Because rape is violence against women.

In fact I believe the rape epidemic is comparable in some respects to the mass killings which occur regularly nowadays and were virtually unheard of when I was growing up. I also strongly believe part of the "owning up" has to be societal in scope -- why and how has our contemporary society become so inundated with violence and sex? It's not surprising to me that Muslim countries react in such a radical way by covering their women up from head to toe -- there exists such a dearth of ordinary human modesty and respect among people all over the industrialized world.

And it's contagious, it spreads and once the bounds of decency have been trespassed, it's hard to legislate them back into place -- even by compelling people to recognize its existence in a harsh documentary.

THE GIVING-AWAY TIME OF YEAR

Fall for me is definitely the time of change, renewal, nostalgia for the past. I spend hours neatly putting away my summer clothes and getting out the winter clothes. Among my stored clothes, I always discard a few. That also goes for other items like wool hats, scarves, blankets. Every year I remove a wool blanket, a green and red Pendleton, from a chest redolent with mothballs, and consider adding it to the discard pile. But then I don't. Though I never cared a lot for the blanket in the first place,  that is its colors and design, it was a gift from my brother and his wife 35 years ago. When I look at it, I see them – young happy hopeful. Among other things, hopeful that the leukemia that had seized my brother ten years earlier was in remission and would just somehow disappear or stay at bay. Of course it was not to be. Only a few years later, Henry was dead and his wife had a two-year-old to raise on her own. My family mourned this loss for years and years, in anger, bitterness, regret. That's what I see when I look at that blanket -- that spring of hope (though it was delusion), that momentary pause in the pain and stress and helplessness; a time when we weren't the people we are now. When we didn't have so many scars. The same goes for many items that long ago should have gone to Good Will -- a shabby stuffed elephant that belonged to my son, a robe my mother used during beach holidays -- we hold onto these material reminders like the madeleine Proust tastes that brings back his youth, we revel in those moments of feeling how we used to be, the people we once were. Even if the present moment is just as good, or better, it's not the same; we're not the same. But honestly I think this year I will give the red and green blanket away -- it's time to cease dipping into the past...it's time to affirm the present moment.

Movie "Lore" shows the perils of innocence...

I just saw the film "Lore" based on a book The Dark Room about a 14-year-old girl who travels with her young brothers and sisters across the savage landscape of post-WW II Germany to find her grandmother.

This subject fascinates me because I write a book series: Far and Away about children displaced and relocated during WWII. My middle-grade and YA novels include True Brit about an English girl who flees war-torn London for sunny Santa Fe and the most recent, Forced Journey: The Saga of Werner Berlinger about a German-Jewishboy who leaves Nazi-held Germany for the United States, hoping his family can follow. The theme of Far and Away is "sometimes you have to travel far and away to find your best self". That's certainly true for Lore, the 14-year-old who is featured in the recent film. She's a lovely innocent, yet she's also clearly tainted by the fascistic Nazi obsessions of her parents and other Germans of the time. There's this strange dichotomy between the simplistic notions of Lore and her siblings who cling to a gentle china faun (sort of reminiscent of the glass collections owned by the excessively-shy sister in Glass Menagerie) and the children singing and dancing  sweet German folk melodies and their fierce hatred of Jews and others who don't belong to their culture.

Lore wavers between these attitudes, just as she wavers between childish innocence and budding sexuality. In the scene's climax, she crushes the faun and other china creatures under her heel -- she's so outraged with being deceived by her parents. And so unprepared to deal with life's real exigencies. Earlier in the film she's buried in the mud a picture of her father (who has claimed to be defending the homeland  in Belarus) along with a picture of starved concentration camp victims -- she doesn't understand exactly how the two are linked but understands there's some connection and so she despises both.

It occurs to me that my books are simplistic to a degree also. Perhaps that's why I choose to write for children...it's an excuse (professional and personal) for not delving more deeply into complexity, ambiguity, and the lies we perpetuate about our culture, our families, our selves. Movies like "Lore" inspire me to reach further....rz

A Cross Between Saturday Night Fever and Long Day's Journey Into Night

Everybody who’s seen Silver Linings Playbook probably has an opinion it. I was very eager to see the Oscar-nominated film especially after viewing the interview between Katie Couric and the director, David O. Russell and the two lead actors Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper. The interview was a heartfelt discussion about the experience of a family who’s impacted by mental illness – the struggle, the frustrations and pain of parents attempting to help their child, the tears…

Naturally anyone impacted by mental illness is gladdened by the fact that this brain disorder is being addressed in a mainstream feature movie. The fact that this topic which is so often ignored or sensationalized receives attention and visibility is a plus. However after seeing the film, I did have some questions that were similar to those I experienced after seeing the Broadway musical Almost Normal. Both films depict individuals with Bi-Polar Disorder. And certainly Silver Linings does a good job of capturing the mania of the protagonist Pat who’s just been released from a psychiatric facility after physically assaulting his wife’s lover.  Unfortunately, depicting the depression which usually accompanies Bi-Polar Disorder is much more difficult to show on the screen because movies are about “action” and depression is often about “inaction”.

Also I thought this plot point was the story’s weakness. Just like in Almost Normal where the mother ostensibly becomes ill due to the death of an infant, the implication is that Pat becomes ill and behaves in an out-of-control manner because of his wife’s infidelity. In other words, if bad things didn’t happen to good people, we wouldn’t have mental illness. That simply isn’t the case. Though schizophrenia occurs more frequently when abuse is present in the person’s background, there are many young people from happy healthy environments who are vulnerable to the illness. And people from extremely abusive homes who don’t get it. Ditto for Bi-Polar Disorder. Circumstances like stress or abuse can trigger attacks of the illness but it often arises “out of the blue” with no discernable causation. The irrational and unaccountable nature of mental illness is usually very difficult for people to understand or accept. Especially in movies we want clear-cut reasons for why things happen!!

When describing Silver Linings to others, I tend to use movie shorthand: “Well it’s kind of a cross between Saturday Night Fever and Long Day’s Journey into Night. As you may recall, the first movie is a wonderful dance flic about a working class family while the later is about an extremely dysfunctional family scourged by the opiate addiction of the mother. The first is basically an upbeat love story revolving around a dance competition and that’s the direction that Silver Linings takes after Pat meets the gorgeous, nutty Tiffany, starts popping his meds and learns to dance. In other words, meet the right girl and the right medication and you’ll be all right. Everyone will cheer for you in the end.

As we all know life rarely has such triumphant moments. Mental illness goes on and on and on. There are victories and then there are defeats and then possibly another victory and so on – if you’re lucky you can maintain an equilibrium between the two ­­– that’s what you end up striving for.

And yet there’s a lot to cheer for in Silver Linings because it does bring mental illness into the spotlight in a very humanizing light; these are all people we can recognize and relate to and care about. We see their anxiety, embarrassment, grief, tears. We want them to succeed – not just the two lovers ­– but Mom, Dad, Brother, Friends – it’s a whole community that finally pulls together. And let’s face it – that’s what we all need!!

what is it like to be famous??!

What is it like to be famous?? That's the question a ten-year-old student poses to me at a school book-signing. Like most authors, I do not feel at all famous. Any more than I feel rich. What I do feel is humble and grateful and, at moments like this school book-signing, I feel extraordinarily fortunate to be able to contribute to children's minds and hearts and imaginations. Why else would I write children's books?
The kids I speak to are genuinely interested in why people write stories. So I get a chance to think about and express why I write and what I feel about storytelling. And I tell the kids that  stories are about journeys and growth. My books in the FAR AND AWAY SERIES are about actual journeys of children fleeing war-torn countries and going someplace safe (they hope) during the war-torn years 1939-1945.  But I tell the kids that this "external" journey must be matched by an "internal" journey -- the journey from selfishness to compassion; from fear to courage, from prejudice to understanding. And I explain that stories give us the opportunity to travel all these journeys in ourselves. Stories enable us to grow ourselves into bigger, more humane, kind, understanding, brave people.
When I speak to school groups I always write down my talking points and they're usually pretty simple. I never include the word "passion" and yet when talking about storytelling I become totally passionate. Stories have fed me and continue to feed me. They provide me with the meanings about the world that help me continue and move forward with my life. And I tell the children that frankly writing is even better than reading because you are telling the story you most need to hear. You are doing for yourself first what you hope to do for them - you are creating the meaning that is most likely to sustain you, you are repairing the ill and strengthening the frailty; you are imbuing yourself with the fortitude to continue.
So far my book True Brit has been read and enjoyed by adults as much or more than children. I think that's because I'm not just writing for children, I'm writing for the child within...But I'll explore that topic another time.

The Draw of Downtown Abbey -- an intimate community

After posting that negative reaction to Downtown Abbey, I've continued thinking about the appeal of this program.  There's the element of mingling with the rich, powerful, eloquent and well-dressed, of course. That's a distinct draw. Who wouldn't want to engage in such clever repartée with a quick and appropriate response to everything said?

Another feature of the program, I believe is the representation of a tight community. At a time when few of us even share a meal together on a regular basis, here are the servants and the nobility sitting down together and dining on home-cooked (looking delicious) fare 3 times a day. Who wouldn't want to be part of that group who live dormitory style; who share their woes and their thrills; who engender a sort of intimacy that we rarely experience as we drive around solo in automobiles (mini-gated communities I call them) or dine alone or go to movies or the library or walk the dog or pursue other solitary pursuits?

It's not just a community -- it's a very active and for the most part caring community -- and the caring seems to waft upward from servant quarters to the main house and trickles down (a substantial trickle) from up above. How genuine it is...how accurately it represents real attitudes and behavior, I'm not sure...but it is a complex sophisticated portrayal of the interconnectedness of relationships between different classes.

As someone who grew up in the South with black "help", I have often remarked that there's rarely if ever a portrayal of the subtle and complex relationships in that society -- it's almost always romanticized, exaggerated or stereotyped in one way or another with villains and heroes or heroines who are completely at odds with one another. Quite different from Downtown Abbey....

Leap-frogging into grandparenthood

A friend was speaking to me today about the fact that he met young people who said they didn't want to be parents but wished they could be grandparents. He expressed confusion. He wanted to know what did these young people mean?

The obvious meaning is that they don't want the responsibility of being parents -- the fuss, the time, energy, mess, fear, anxieties of the most difficult job in the world -- they want to fast-forward past all that and just be grandparents -- people who can enjoy a child for a few hours or even a whole day or week but always be able to hand back Joey or Zoey to the parents who takes all the responsibility.

Grandparents also enjoy the freedom to love purely without the demands of parenting. Since you're not responsible for the food, the dentist, the tutor, the rules about eating, dress, behavior, etc. -- you can simply love!! It's very sweet. You can love children in an extremely wholesome and undemanding way for the kids are no longer consciously or unconsciously an extension of your ego -- your looks, brains, musical ability or whatever else you had planned for your child -- they can just be who they are. And, without the overlay of ego, grandparents usually have a real curiosity about this new individual who's entered in the world without the desire to shape him or her into anything else.

Unfortunately, however, for all young people who wish to leapfrog over parenting and go straight to grandparenting, that's not how it works. You don't become chef in a kitchen without learning how to boil water and peel onions and scrub pans. Parenting comes first -- with its peculiar delights and major difficulties. You earn grandparentdom like you earn wrinkles and white hair -- it's a reward, an honor to be accepted, appreciated, and relished. As it usually is...

Downton Abbey -- What a pill!!

I find it hard to believe that even the most die-hard Downton Abbey fans of which there are legion could have really enjoyed the first episode of the new season. Hardly anything interesting or entertaining appeared. All the show was offered were tired story-lines (except maybe Bates and his cell mate). The conflict between Mary and Matthew seemed entirely trumped up while his receiving a huge fortune, at the same time Lord Grantham was losing his, was unbelievable (if the Lavinia's father had really believed Matthew was marrying Lavinia, wouldn't he select his future son-in-law as first in line for heir, not third). Of course no soap plot is entirely logical.

The coup de grace, however, was Shirley Maclaine in the role of Cora's mother. First of all, there was no familial affectionate connection between Shirley and Cora or with any of the granddaughters (except a tiny nod to Ethyl when she wants to marry an older man) -- it's one thing for the English to be such patent snobs but Cora is American and it is her mother. I don't even recall their having any intimate conversation. In the second place, presenting viewers with such a crass unattractive wealthy (possibly Jewish as her name is Levinson) American woman is so clichéd. Perhaps the English are Yankee-bashers but this treatment was obvious and extreme!! Julian Fellowes has shown so many subtle touches in the past, it's truly disappointing that his wizardry has begun to fail.

the inner shlemiel

Tonight I went to see a documentary "Laughing in the Darkness" about the Yiddish storyteller Sholem Aleichem who created the character Tevvye, the milkman; the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" was based on his stories. The story of Sholem Aleichem's life encompasses much more than his biography -- it's the story of eastern European Jewry and its transformation or attempt at transformation into contemporary life, particularly American life. It's the cultural clash between a very provincial people (not simply a religion but a culture) living in a remote part of the world (the pale of Russia for the most part) and Modern Times. When I write this, it occurs to me that the culture clash was not peculiar to Jews  -- Italian, Swedish, Chinese, Hungarian -- most cultures experienced the same confusion, the same loss of identity as Jews which is why Charlie Chaplin could satirize it so potently. We all had to become something very different than what we'd been in our effort to become American, to fit in to the U.S of A. (Some cultures like Native Americans are still traumatized by the effort at transformation.) And for some, the transformation was never complete which is why we still have movie-makers like Woody Allen or a movie like the Coen Brothers "A Serious Man" -- which humorously describe this culture clash that continues to occur generation after generation. That feeling of being ill-equipped to fit it, of even wondering whether fitting-in merits the loss involved? What is that loss?  It's a loss of a certain humanity, of accepting human foibles, of not needing or even wanting to measure up to the bar of financial success or any kind of "success" -- it's the right be a schlemiel, a slacker, a low-achiever -- and that being okay. In "Fiddler on the Roof" Tevvye sings, "If I were a rich man..." The original Sholem Aleichem story was "If I was a Rothchild..."but Tevvye is a milkman; he's not ever going to be a Rothschild and frankly we need more Tevvye's than Rothschilds, don't we? The truth is not all of us want to spend our lives becoming rich and famous. We don't aspire to be Bill Gates or even Steve Jobs. And yet we live in a culture that constantly extolls achievement, that presses us to achieve, achieve and achieve so more...no wonder so many people are depressed; no wonder so many people feel not good enough. I was actually asked that question today in an interview about a book of mine that's just been published. How does it feel to be a writer who keeps writing even if the path is not the Pulitzer (that's not how the question was phrased but that's what I thought the interviewer meant). I was kind of surprised, but I attempted to say: If you like to write and you do write and you have any success at all, like publication by a local publisher -- hey, that's great!!! And I was greatly cheered by seeing Sholem Aleichem pull out his notebook every chance he got, just to write, cause that's what you do, that's what feels good, that's who you are whether or not it's recognized or acclaimed. You do what you do because you're claiming your humanity -- and that's the goal. That's always been the goal.

The Better Divorce

I just read an article in the NY Times about the "good divorce" --  because the writer is so pleased her divorce was better than her parents. A lot better. My generation didn't know how to get a divorce I suppose because we hadn't had parents who divorced, so we didn't know how. When I went to high school in the '60's there was one student, as far as I knew, in the entire high school whose mother was divorced. It was a big deal. The girl's identifying characteristic, so to speak. People had parents (as one learned later) who drank. "Admit it, everyone knew," said one of my classmates later. "My father was a lush." There were parents who were skirt-chasers, who molested their children (again we hear of it 50 years later); who were mentally ill (those kids lived in total isolation, fear, shame, anguish); parents who argued, threw dishes at one another, and so on....But mostly the Boomer Generation had parents who stuck together. Unless they lived in California which, as far as we were concerned, was another country. A country of divorced parents and wild kids.

I only write this because I personally had so little direct contact with divorce in my life (my husband and I have managed to stay married a very long time) until my son -- already a father -- separated from his girlfriend. I had no idea of the impact on our grandchild who was only one at the time. I assumed he would be okay. After all he was growing up mostly with separated parents so that was the world he knew. But I was wrong. From the very beginning, it was clear he relished having his parents together. On the few occasions when his Mom and Dad were in the same room -- holidays, for example -- he so delighted in the moment. "Look, Mom, there's Daddy." he'd say with joy and wonder. Now he simply misses the parent he's not with. We have a photograph from the one Christmas the three were together. Actually it's a triptych with one photograph of my son, the Dad, on the left, a picture of the baby with Mom in the middle and a picture of Mom on the right. The picture hangs in the bathroom, over the toilet. Every time my grandchild stands on the toilet after peeing so I can help him wash his hands in the adjacent sink, he studies that picture. I study it too. We both are sad for a moment together. We both wish that little family had stuck together. But my "daughter-in-law" (that's what I consider her) is like many young women of that generation. Her parents (the Boomer generation) had a horrendous divorce when she was in her teens. It was an awful experience in every respect. She seems determined to circumvent that emotional upheaval by not committing to marriage in the first place. I don't entirely blame her. My son was hugely immature when they got together. At the time he didn't have a job, didn't take care of the house; he was largely irresponsible. No wonder she kicked him out. I believe, of course, that he could have grown into the responsibility motivated by his love of being a father. But she didn't give it time to happen. Maybe she saw herself as forestalling the eventual agony. But the agony is there anyway whether it comes early or late...And it's especially present for our grandchild. Of course we all pitch in, both parents and grandparents, to care for him and make sure he feels loved at every moment. But his missing, his sense of disappointment that both his beloved parents aren't present in his life at all times, is palpable. That bit of sadness is woven into who he is just like his marvelous sense of humor, his huge imagination, his tenderness. No there is no good divorce, I don't believe -- not when children are involved. There's simply a "better divorce". It's not simply that math scores slip (as national studies seem to indicate) -- it's the child's sense of an intact universe, a sense of completeness, of wholeness that's lacking. That's what our grandchild has to compensate for, has to struggle to achieve. Maybe this early separation beats the other sort -- it's surely better than a hostile, violent marriage.  But I wish my grandchild had the best of everything ( not materially but emotionally) and that's not possible when his parents are split. I honestly believe he experiences a core psychic split that will heal in some fashion, but will always exist...like invisible scar tissue. So, yes, there are better divorces but, for children, not good divorces.

Little Donna

It's never too late to grow up. A friend named Donna recently offered me a very useful metaphor. She said she was going on a trip to meet with a prospective boyfriend and before going she performed this ritual. She put "little Donna" in a pocketbook and put the pocketbook in a drawer and closed the drawer. Little Donna was not going on the trip with her and sabotage her efforts at creating a genuine love relationship.

She explained to me that "little Donna" was the portions of her personality that were still childish or adolescent -- bits and pieces that hadn't caught up to the rest of her growth and maturity as a person. I listened closely. I can truly relate to this metaphor. There are parts of me that simply won't behave, that won't act rationally, that continually cause problems in relationships (usually) -- parts of me that are selfish, greedy, petulant, immature, irresponsible, childish. The ME FIRST parts of me. The angry, I WANT MY WAY parts of me. The LOOK AT ME parts of me.

For whatever reason, these parts didn't get resolved in my youth -- they come around and keep coming around despite many lessons, hard lessons, that should have pushed me to move on, grow up, reach a higher level. A part of me digs in her heels and says "NO I STILL WANT TO BE FREE AND IRRESPONSIBLE - I WANT TO BE A CHILD FOREVER!!"

At age 60 and older, isn't it time to really look at those unruly parts of ones self? It seems late to be paying attention. But it's not too late. We all know old ladies who behave in extremely childish ways -- fussy, greedy, petty -- it's not very becoming. And we know other elderly ladies who are very dignified, very disciplined, serene. Wouldn't we prefer to be the latter?

But it ain't easy to put our "little selves" in the drawer. The longer she's been in our life, the more entrenched. Also there's always a good side to hanging on to one's child. The enthusiasm, the playfulness, the zest. How can one still enjoy being a child but eliminate the childishness? That's the issue. That's the work.

WORST MOVIE

We've just been treated to the venerable Academy Awards celebrating the BEST movies made but what are the WORST movies ever made and couldn't some of the WORST movies ever made also have won Academy Awards?

My answer is YES. Definitely YES. There are a number of movies that won BEST PICTURE that I hate. One of those might be the recent winner "No Country for Old Men" except that I only watched the first one and half minutes before leaving the theater. (Fortunately it was a multi-plex so I just went into another room and watched another film). Cause I knew that I didn't need to see how Javier Bardem was going to find new and different cruel ways to kill people for two hours longer. And yet some people, like my sister in law, loved that movie. And it won a heap of Oscars.

But there is one movie that I did watch from start to finish that I totally despise and it also won BEST PICTURE.  In my opinion MILLION DOLLAR BABY is the worst movie ever made. Not because of its production values or the directing or the acting -- all of which were excellent. But because of the MESSAGE of the movie. Now you may ask: What is the message of a movie? And I will tell you quite simply that the message is what you carry away from the movie, it's the underlying truth of the movie -- it's what it's REALLY about -- and sometimes even the people who make the movie don't even know....

But the underlying message in Million Dollar Baby is that spunky, talented, determined young women end up in a hospital bed wishing they were dead and biting off their tongues until a self-absorped daddy figure kindly pulls the plug and takes them out of their misery. 

No, I don't think Clint Eastwood knew that his movie was cruel and vengeful toward energetic, ambitious young woman at least not on a conscious level ( on an unconcious level he may have because he's had a few forceful young women in his life who didn't make him happy). Nevertheless it's impossible for the ordinary movie-goer to walk away from that movie and not think WOW the ending of this movie sure is different from Rocky or The Fighter or Cinderella Man. Especially Rocky -- because that movie is typical of the down and outer who works his ass off, literally and figuratively, but despite all huge odds ultimately wins the match, wins the girl, wins the OSCAR, becomes such a super-hero we can't get rid of the dude.

That's not what happens to the enterprising boxer Maggie (Hilary Swank) . It could happen but it doesn't happen. Instead she gets thrown an ugly punch by a tough black female fighter and falls and hits her head and the rest is misery. Really deep dark gruesome misery. And why does this make me mad, really spitting mad -- is that young women who are talented and spunky and determined need to know that they can win, just like Rocky, they can overcome the odds (of their upbringing or their education or their appearance == cause that still really matters with girls -- or whatever their challenges are) and go to the top, the very top. They too need to believe they can get the man and the money and the applause or whatever they set their heart on...they are not going to end up wrecked and ruined and needing some patriarchal dude to alleviate their distress.

I wish this movie would disappear. The fact that it was well acted, etc. just means that its message becomes stronger and more persuasive. And don't think young women don't get it. They do. So I ardently hope some day Clint Eastwood will make a movie with production values as good as Million Dollar Baby but with an entirely different message for young women -- and that movie also will win an Oscar.

THE WHY OF THINGS

As a writer and somebody who thinks about things, I love to watch my grandson’s brain working. At age three when he doesn’t have a mastery of language and he’s still learning new words, you can see him thinking about things. Thinking how to say things, how to describe what he’s seeing. It’s fascinating. Not to mention how easily he remembers everything you’ve said to him.

Like this morning we were petting the cat and talking about how the cat could use his claws to climb up a tree; how the dog had claws too but didn’t have the sort of claws to climb up a tree. He had just learned that information during the last time we talked about the cat and he was eager to show me his new knowledge. He demonstrated with his arms and hands how the cat would climb up the tree. He repeated it two or three times.

He searches for words to describe what he wants to say. He’s so eager to learn and know more. There’s so much in the world that fascinates him. I love for him to ask why about very simple things we take for granted. Why does water come out of the faucet? Why does the pan get too hot to touch? Why is the floor slippery if you spill oil on it? Why does the cat have softer fur than the dog? So many things in the world to wonder about…

We grown-ups are so busy doing things and things are just something that’s there to help us do what we want to do – the water comes out of the faucet so we can fill up the teapot or brush our teeth. If the oil spills on the floor, we need to clean it up. When the pan gets hot enough we’ll melt butter and cook our omelette. We live in a utilitarian universe. We rarely wonder why any more. We rarely even think about the world we’re living in. We busily try to find other worlds – in the newspaper, in a book, on the television, on the computer. What about the world existing around us? The very simple, solid, here it is now world that grabs Brandon’s attention at every moment.

How my heart comes alive as I live the day with him, moment by moment. Last night he pointed through the skylight at the moon shining above – magic – it’s magic and it’s right in our lives, right now, with us.