Bittersweetness

I'm driving home today, processing what happened to me, and I'm struck by the horrifying brutality and angelic "lightness" of being (to quote Kundera).  I woke up this morning to the BBC World Update story about a twelve year old girl who was gang raped by ten UN Peacekeeping soldiers who went home without so much as an accusation.  Early in the day, a student who read the Alice Sebold memoir Lucky told me of a three year old child who had been raped by a worker at her daycare; no prosecution occurred because of a loophole in the law.  Later, another student asked to leave on a pass because she is going to be with her boyfriend who is undergoing surgery, loving him beyond the confines of physical life.  I watched the Hayao Miyazaki film Spirited Away with a group of beautiful, compassionate, empathetic seventeen and eighteen year olds who are about to embark on the next phase of their lives, and who I will truly miss because I've grown to love them.  All of them.  And in the afternoon, we were made aware that a child had been found dead nearby.  My eyes are full of tears - bitter ones and joyful ones all mixed together.  

I don't understand anything.  I don't get why people keep trying to do things to each other, why everything is supposedly out in the open but there are so many secrets.  Why we have so much information but no meaning or responsibility attached to it.  Why we produce satires of the things that are broken in our culture, yet do nothing about those situations but sit and laugh and feel bad for laughing because none of it is really funny.  Why so many children throughout the world are exploited and used because adults are bigger and better at manipulation - and the rest of us are apathetic and too busy watching our big screen tvs and buying things on the internet to really care.  

I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I'm paying attention now.  I'm looking for a way into the fray.  I don't think most of us are Gandhi, but we do have a voice and a vote and can slow down a little - to take responsibility for who and what is in our lives.  Turn off the damn TV and radio and get off the internet and actually talk to people.  Who knows how many secrets wouldn't be kept if we reached out to each other and actually knew who is in our lives.  We might see less conflict, less crime.   Maybe, God forbid, we might help someone who is thinking about doing something tragic to see another way of dealing with life.  

Millay

I have been reading Edna St. Vincent Millay, a devastatingly excellent poet, who makes me realize how critical specificity and sincerity are.  I don't mean the Hallmark card-esque smarm that makes every emotion valid since it is artistically presented on cardstock.  I mean the clear-eyed stepping out into the truth when you know there's no net under you and your friends are standing on the sidelines, looking around like you are no one special, and your lover is suddenly uninterested in your conversations, continually leading you to something that will distract you from what you want to say...

Lately it has become evident that I allow things to happen that I don't always endorse.  And in trying to stem the tide, emotions are sometimes involved, strong ones, people's hearts and plans.  Even mine.  But when I don't stand up in the river of whatever I'm caught up in and tell the truth, I loathe myself.  I feel dirty and can't wash the feeling off.  

It is very hard to be completely honest when you love someone.  The margin between love and power is like a pie crust.  I think the key is letting go of the outcome, letting go of the power, remembering the beauty of that person and how they have blessed your life.