use your words

I was noticing tonight that our dog sometimes growls. I wasn't noticing for the first time, but it did occur to me to wonder why it doesn't bother me. Occasionally he'll grumble-growl if he gets poked or shoved in the middle of the night (he sleeps in bed with us). Otherwise, though, he only growls if we try to take away one of his toys. I'm willing to bet most dog books would tell me this is a very bad thing, and I must put a stop to it and sternly punish him next time he tries it. But he never snaps, never bites, just growls. And so I disagree.

What do we tell little children when we're training them to play nicely with others? We tell them not to hit Billy because he took your train away; ask him nicely whether you may have a turn playing with it. We tell them, in short, to use their words. Well, dogs don't have language in the way that humans do, and there just isn't a dog vocalization that comes off as a friendly yet assertive request. Well, as I see it, doggy language is a mix-and-match affair. He growls; that's the assertive part. But he's not biting, and his tail is sometimes wagging -- that's the friendly part. And he's holding onto the toy -- that's the request. What he is doing is not the challenge to my authority some might see it as, but his way of communicating to me what he wants.

I find myself a little amazed that some humans with all the benefit of decades of teaching never manage to learn this simple lesson; but without teaching, without training, without even a common language, my amazing dog figured out the principle -- to use his words.

"endure, my heart..."

I have a quote from Homer's Odyssey pinned up on the corkboard behind my desk. "Endure, my heart; you have endured worse than this." And as much of a comfort -- well, not precisely a comfort, but a strength -- as it can be sometimes, I have realized it's not always true. At least once in each person's life, it has to be false. At least once, every person will have occasion to say, "this is the worst pain I have known." And unless your earliest memory -- or perhaps your first moment of life, depending on how you think of it -- is of the very worst suffering you will ever have, that quote will be false more than once. And when I realized that, I thought it an enormously depressing idea. You mean I have to suffer worse than I ever have before, and I have to do it more than once?! But, at the same time, thinking back on the worst pain in my life, even that thought is, in a strange way, a strength.

I was reminded of a line from C.S. Lewis's Perelandra -- which, remarkably, I remembered almost word-for-word. The hero was going to sleep one last time, knowing that in the morning, he would face his enemy, and fight him, and he'd darn well better win. And he thought, "at this time tomorrow I will have done the impossible." Hard as it will be, I will do it, or die in the attempt. And by this time tomorrow, it will be over. That's sort of how it feels, going through that pain, and knowing that that quote, true so many times, is false this time. This is the worst pain I have ever suffered. But here I am, suffering it, yes, but surviving it. This hurts worse than anything I've ever known, but I can get through it. I know I can get through this, because I am getting throught it. I can get through this.

an overwhelming question... oh, do not ask, "what is it?" let us go and make our visit...

I have long found it a curious fact of life that store brand packages are so unattractive. Sometimes it has to do with cheaper packaging - plastic bottles instead of glass or a plastic jar instead of a little tin. But even aside from that, they tend to be unattractive; the pictures on the packaging just aren't pretty. It baffled me for a long time that they don't bother to put a pretty picture on the package. I'm sure that somewhere working for them, they have somebody who was in his high school photography club and can take a picture of some cookies that makes them look really appetizing. Yet they don't. And I think that I've now realized the reason; they want the packaging to scream "store brand!" at the customer. Because a lot of people (myself included) don't care about buying the name brand for a lot of things. So when we go looking for butter or peanuts or dishsoap, we actually look for that rather pathetic looking box or can or bottle that means it's cheaper than the name brand. And that's how we find it.

What really baffles me, though, is unattractive books. Unattractive books at Borders or Barnes and Noble cost just as much as the beautiful ones do. I grant you that it can be really difficult to design a really beautiful book, but it's really not hard to identify one. There's somebody whose job it is to OK books before they get printed. So how do some books get printed? You know the ones I mean - the ones you look at and think, "Oh, man. The people who published this book must have just hated it 'cause there is no excuse for a book this ugly. I could design a better cover than that." Okay, you're right; you don't spend that much thought on them. What you actually think is, "Nope." An ugly cover does nothing but hurts that book's sales. So why do ugly books exist?

PS: The title line is from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

PPS: As a general rule, I firmly dislike T.S. Eliot. Do not think my quoting him means I like (or understand) his poetry. Neither does it mean I am impeccably cultured, merely that I have a friend who is. (And for anyone interested, I'm taking bets on how long it takes her to respond to that comment...)

the trinity revisited

I was thinking about the Trinity (yes, it is the Pantheon now, but Godspell is still of a very different sort than the other three - Wicked, Fiddler, Les Mis), and I thought of something they have in common that I hadn't thought of before. Speaking of Robert Cormier's books, Lisette Allred said that they encourage hope and noble behavior despite, and even partly because of, their sadly-ever-after endings because "we understand whom we are meant to imitate." Even when the hero's story ends badly, we know we should imitate him because it is his motives, his thoughts, his actions, that the author shows us; we understand who we are meant to imitate.

But in these plays - in the Trinity - we see different characters. Yes, we love and admire Jean Valjean. We know that Marius and Cosette love each other. But we also see why Javert thinks himself a good man. We see that Eponine certainly loves Marius as much as Cosette does. We agree with the choice Elphaba makes, but we see why Galinda makes hers too. We understand Chava's decision to marry Fyedka, but we understand also why Tevye cannot accept them. It's as if the authors of these plays are saying, "I don't have any corner on the truth market. You have to decide what to believe for yourself." It's like in 'No One is Alone' from Into the Woods. (By the way, if any one song could singlehandedly deify a show, I think it would be this one.)

Mother cannot guide you,
Now you're on your own.
Only me beside you,
Still you're not alone.
No one is alone.
Truly, no one is alone.
Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the wood
Others may deceive you;
You decide what's good.
You decide alone;
But no one is alone.

we believe all sorts of things that aren't true - we call it history

"A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."-- The Wizard of Oz

It sounds charming at first, doesn’t it? It sounds charming, and sweet, and ever so true. It’s okay: you can say yes; I thought it sounded lovely at first, too. But stop for a moment and think about it. "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." Have you realized what the implications are of that statement?

You see, ever since I’ve come to love Wicked (the musical; unfortunately, I was unable to find in myself any fondness for the book), I find myself unable to think of The Wizard of Oz in any other terms. That is, the Wicked Witch will never again be the bad guy for me; she will always be the beautiful heroine Elphaba. Dorothy has been ousted from her position as protagonist, and I’ll never be able to think of her as anything other than that whiny silhouette I saw at the Kennedy Center.

So, returning to my original topic, I repeat the Wizard’s statement: "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." As I first read it on my friend’s wall, I didn’t think such a noble sentiment fit the Wizard at all. Then, I thought about it for a moment and realized that it fits him perfectly. I don’t think the Wizard gave a fig for anyone in Oz but himself, yet everybody in Oz thought he was the best thing to happen to them since the brilliant idea of putting marshmallows in hot chocolate came along. He was the Wonderful Wizard – complete with a wonderful heart.

Elphaba tried to help all sorts of people. Doctor Dillamond. Galinda (one time was not long after Loathing, remember!). The Lion. The Wizard (remember the monkeys?). Many Animals, probably none of whom she’d ever met before. The Flying Monkeys. Nessa. Boq. Fiyero. She loved most of them probably more than some people do anyone in their entire lives: she sacrificed her reputation and very nearly her life for them. By the “end” of her life, though, she could’ve counted on one hand the people who loved her. So, she was the Wicked Witch – heartless.

Unfortunately, it would neither be quite fair nor quite true to say the opposite – that a heart is judged by how much you love, regardless of how much you are loved by others; but I think it would be true to say that it ought to be. We humans are rather stupid at times; some bad people have been able to fool an awful lot of us into loving them without loving any of us in return. But, some good people have managed to love an awful lot of us without our ever so much as noticing them. That’s why that quote isn’t noble and sweet: it’s saying what matters isn’t how much you love, but how good your PR is. I’m afraid I can’t say that’s not how the world works, but I’m pretty darn sure that that’s not how it should work. So you keep your quote from the Wizard of Oz – I’m going to go listen to Defying Gravity.

PS: The title line is taken from a line from the musical Wicked by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz.