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hermionesviolinThis morning Mary K. was asking if we’d seen the story on the news last night about the little 9-year-old girl who was kidnaped, raped, and then dropped of in front of a convenience store. I always say that i don’t listen to the news because it’s depressing and sensationalistic and makes you think that the entire world is evil and horrible and out to get you. Listening to her i started thinking about the fact that i have a friend who was sexually abused by a father figure when she was little, who self-injures and is anorexic/bullemic and sometimes suicidal. My first thought was, “I don’t need to watch the news; i’ve got quite enough to deal with / worry about in my own life.” Then i got to thinking about how the kind of caring i do for friends and the kind of caring involved in being upset over what’s on the news are very different. It’s much more painful to have a friend who was abused than to hear about a kid who was abused, even if you’re watching the mother cry in front of a shrine of photographs of a blonde darling. I started thinking about how when you watch stuff on the news there’s this distance, as well as this simplification, and i have now lost where i was going with this train of thought, so i’m stopping.
Jane got me a reprieve from what was possibly the most boring project ever because i’m tech savvy and she’s not and clarified an exchange i don’t even remember having. Yesterday i had been talking about how i remembered Dan being a jerk to me in junior high. I remember Marcia said i was horrible (she’s one of the sweetest people i know and used to be a kindergarten[?] teacher) and that she didn’t want me giving her eulogy and i told her i thought she was wonderful and didn’t have anything bad to say about her. Anyway, Jane must have told me to stop saying stuff like that (about Dan being a jerk) because today she was explaining to me why she had said that. She said, “Once you die, you’re a saint” (and i was glad to realize that she was just explaining the common feeling, not actually saying she felt that way). Regardless of what that kid did in his life or what kind of a person he was, he was somebody’s son, and it was all mothers there. I said, “I’m an insensitive brat,” and she said, “No, you’re not insensitive, but you were making make people think you are, and I wanted to stop you from digging yourself deeper.” I told her that the whole once-you-die-you’re-a-saint thing frustrates me, and i think i ignore the social graces when they frustrate me like that. I also told her about Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead, the idea of telling someone’s life, the good and the bad, at a funeral and how the characters talk about it being painful but important and how that was in my head while i was being frustrated with the glorification of this guy. She also told me that she related what had happened to her husband and he said, “You know, he might have been really mean to that girl [me], might have really hurt her feelings.” And she told me that he was probably “cock of the roost, struttin’ around, captain of the football team,” and that he probably was mean to some people, and i thought the strutting thing was a really apt descriptor and was really appreciative of the fact that she acknowledged that he was not a perfect angelic person. It was also sweet that (A) she had been concerned that i was making myself look bad when i'm really not a bad person and (B) that she wanted to clarify a comment which must have been so subtle/common/simple/casual (probably something like "don't speak ill of the dead," now that i'm trying hard to remember this incident) that i didn't even remember it five minutes after she said it.
Jane got me a reprieve from what was possibly the most boring project ever because i’m tech savvy and she’s not and clarified an exchange i don’t even remember having. Yesterday i had been talking about how i remembered Dan being a jerk to me in junior high. I remember Marcia said i was horrible (she’s one of the sweetest people i know and used to be a kindergarten[?] teacher) and that she didn’t want me giving her eulogy and i told her i thought she was wonderful and didn’t have anything bad to say about her. Anyway, Jane must have told me to stop saying stuff like that (about Dan being a jerk) because today she was explaining to me why she had said that. She said, “Once you die, you’re a saint” (and i was glad to realize that she was just explaining the common feeling, not actually saying she felt that way). Regardless of what that kid did in his life or what kind of a person he was, he was somebody’s son, and it was all mothers there. I said, “I’m an insensitive brat,” and she said, “No, you’re not insensitive, but you were making make people think you are, and I wanted to stop you from digging yourself deeper.” I told her that the whole once-you-die-you’re-a-saint thing frustrates me, and i think i ignore the social graces when they frustrate me like that. I also told her about Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead, the idea of telling someone’s life, the good and the bad, at a funeral and how the characters talk about it being painful but important and how that was in my head while i was being frustrated with the glorification of this guy. She also told me that she related what had happened to her husband and he said, “You know, he might have been really mean to that girl [me], might have really hurt her feelings.” And she told me that he was probably “cock of the roost, struttin’ around, captain of the football team,” and that he probably was mean to some people, and i thought the strutting thing was a really apt descriptor and was really appreciative of the fact that she acknowledged that he was not a perfect angelic person. It was also sweet that (A) she had been concerned that i was making myself look bad when i'm really not a bad person and (B) that she wanted to clarify a comment which must have been so subtle/common/simple/casual (probably something like "don't speak ill of the dead," now that i'm trying hard to remember this incident) that i didn't even remember it five minutes after she said it.
The Speaker had done a monstrous thing, to lay those secrets before the whole community. They should have been spoken in the confessional. Yet Peregrino had felt the power of it, the way the whole community was forced to discover them again, and then again; and each revision of the story forced them all to reconceive themselves as well, for they had been part of this story, too, had been touched by all the people a hundred, a thousand times, never understanding until now who it was they touched. It was a painful, fearful thing to go through, but in the end it had a curiously calming effect."Sometimes I hear my voice, and it's been here, silent all these years. Years go by will I still be waiting, for someone else to understand."
-Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
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Date: 2003-06-11 03:44 am (UTC)I guess that plays into my distaste for over-sentimentaliity. My reaction probably seems cold to stories about people and events that I don't know. The more fasinated the nation by some story that is susposed to tug on your heartstrings, the more anoyed I am likely to get. On the flip side, I am free to feel deeply about people I know. It is a lot more real.
That particular story is interesting to me simply from a criminologists point of view, what the girl did to survive and what the police did to aprehend the suspect.
You know... this post is one of the reasons I like reading your stuff...
Date: 2003-06-11 12:43 pm (UTC)In the first case we know, on some level, what's going on. But we can't relate to it. Even if our house has burned down, we see the fire truck rolling by and it's a distant thing.
When you're waiting for the truck yourself, it's different, harder, because it is personal.
Television, radio, newspapers, all have made the world seem smaller but it is still to large for us to grasp. We read of someone being raped or murdered or robbed or losing their home and it is "someone else's problem". Sometimes, we see that it has happened close to us, a neighbor, someone down the block, or even a relative separated by distance and we feel it more intently. We have an anchor to which we can attach importance and understanding. Neither a full nor complete understanding because it still isn't directly affecting us, but we can at least comprehend that it occured within our worldview.
There are times I wonder about the world we live in. I've wandered far, though never far enough... I envy you your trip abroad, though only a little for I'm working on getting across the ponds myself. And it's a continually surprising thing to see that people are all the same, underneath. We are good and bad and imperfect and saints, all roled into one.
We share our myths and legends and sciences.
We share our emotions (love/hate, joy/sorrow, all emotions seem to be coins with opposite sides that shade our views)
What we still need to learn is how to understand outside of our neighborhood, be that our street, our block, our neighborhood. I don't believe we can really encompass a city, they are too big, too many people. And, even while media brings them closer, they are still too far away to understand.
Which somehow, though I'm not sure yet, ties to speaking of the dead. We rarely stop to think how others view us. Alfred Nobel was given that opportunity and made some drastic changes in his life because he read what people had to say about him in unvarnished terms. <snaps fingers> that's what it was.
The news gives us distance at the same time it brings us closer. It allows us to be more open by putting up a bridge between us that doesn't really bring us face to face. The web does the same thing.
And, for some, this is a good thing. For you, I believe it is. It makes the world both smaller and safer.
Unfortunately, there are far too many l33t d00dz wh0 don't understand the difference between honesty and license to attack. I've met a few myself. And they represent a tyranny of the vocal minority. But I won't get sidetracked by that.
I'm gonna have to post about pens and shoes soon. I've been discussing it with N and I think it bears some relevancy here to talking of the dead and how Jane reacted to your comments.
peace
-J