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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
On my 49th birthday, my back hurt and my soul hurt. But solace came in an unexpected form.
Apr 25, 2003 | Last week on my 49th birthday, I decided we should all kill ourselves; that it's all hopeless. These are desert days. Better to go out by our own hands than to endure slow death by scolding. However, after I had a second cup of coffee, I realized that I couldn't kill myself that morning -- not because it was my birthday but because I'd promised to get arrested the next day. I had been arrested three weeks earlier with an ecumenical bunch of religious peaceniks; people who still believe in Dr. King and Gandhi. Also, my back was out. I didn't want to die in crone mode. So I took a long hot shower instead and began another day of being gloated to death.
Everyone I know is devastated by our heroic military activities overseas. A lot of us thought things were desperate after the 2002 midterm elections, but those turn out to have been the good old days. I can usually manage a crabby hope that there is meaning in mess and pain, that more will be revealed, and that truth and beauty will somehow win out in the end. But I'd been struggling as my birthday approached. So much had been stolen from us by Bush, from the very beginning of his reign, and especially now. I wake up some mornings pinned to the bed by centrifugal sadness and frustration. A friend called to wish me happy birthday, and I remembered something she'd said many years ago, while reading a Vanity Fair article about Hitler's affair with his niece. "I have had it with Hitler," Peggy said vehemently, throwing the magazine to the floor. And I have had it with Bush.
I think the United States has done a horrible thing. We crossed a country's borders with ferocious military might, to impose our form of government on a poverty-stricken nation, without any international agreement or legal justification. Now we're instructed, like naughty teenagers, to refrain from saying that it was an immoral war that set a disastrous precedent. You hear dozens of times a day on the news that life is better for the Iraqi people now. But will it be in six months? Will it be for my son's generation?
While I was thinking about all this, my priest friend Tom called to wish me happy birthday.
"How are we going to get through this craziness?" I asked. There was silence for a moment.
"Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe," he said. "Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe."
Tom loves the desert. A number of my friends do. They love the skies that pull you into infinity, like the ocean. They love the silence and how if you listen long enough, the pulse of the desert begins to sound like the noise your finger makes when you run it around the rim of a crystal glass. They love the scary beauty -- snakes, lizards, scorpions, the kestrels and hawks. They love the mosaics of water-washed pebbles on the desert floor, small rocks that cast huge shadows, a shoot of vegetation here, a wild flower there.
I like the desert for short periods of time, from inside a car, with the windows rolled up, and the doors locked. I prefer beach resorts with room service. But liberals are going to be in the desert awhile.
So the morning of my birthday, because I couldn't pray, I did what Matisse said once: "I don't know if I believe in God or not, but the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer." I closed my eyes, and got quiet. I tried to look like Mother Mary, with dreadlocks and a bad back.
But within seconds, I was frantic to turn on the TV. It was like a craving for nicotine. I was in withdrawal -- I needed more scolding. Henny Penny! Henny Penny! I needed more malignant celebration. All the news anchors seem to agree that Bush has pulled off a great victory, even though we couldn't find Saddam, or those rascally weapons of mass destruction. But I didn't turn on TV. I kept my eyes closed, and breathed. I started to feel crazy, and knew that all I needed was five minutes of Wolf Blitzer. If I could hold out a few hours, I could get a hit of Lou Dobbs' ecstasy of moral rightness. I listened to the birds sing outside; and it was like Chinese water torture. Then I remembered the weekend when 11 million people marched for peace, how joyful it was to be part of the stirrings of a great movement. My pastor says that peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet, and I felt both that weekend. It didn't matter that Bush said we were just a focus group.
I lay down the floor with my eyes closed so long that the dog came over and worriedly licked me back to life. That cheered me up. "What did you get me for my birthday?" I asked. She started to chew on my head. It helped. Maybe the old left is dead, but after we've rested awhile, we can prepare for something new. I don't know if Howard Dean can lead us, or John Kerry or Dennis Kucinich: I'm very confused right now. But I know that in the desert, you stay out of the blistering sun. You go out in the early morning, and in cool of the evening. You seek oasis, shade, safety, refreshment. There's every shade of green, and every shade of gold. But I'm only pretending to think it's beautiful; I find it terribly scary. I walk on eggshells, and hold my breath awhile.
I called Tom back.
He listened to me, gently. Usually he just starts calling out to anyone nearby that I am mentally ill beyond all imagining, and probably drunk and showing all my lady parts to the neighbors, but on my birthday, he listened. I asked him for some good news.
