Light
(This entry talks a little about The Road. I don’t consider what I say to be mega-spoilery – it’s nothing you wouldn’t gather quickly when starting the book or read in reviews, probably – but if you haven’t read it and are super spoiler-averse, you might want to skip it.)
There’s been a lot of crying these days. It seems to come and go. I cried at the end of The Road and The Lives of Others. I’ve cried during every episode we’ve watched so far of Friday Night Lights on DVD. I cried during multiple viewings of Paul Potts (thanks, Sally, for that wonderful link). I cried last night before going to sleep while trying to explain to B. how I want to try to spread light in the world.
I know that sounds stupid. But I’ve been thinking about The Road. Mostly about how the man and the boy could not ever stop to help anyone else. They couldn’t share food they needed to live. They might be attacked by the person asking for help. They had to be selfish to stay alive. Helping others meant hurting and possibly killing themselves.
I pass people asking for money at a certain stoplight I pass twice a day. They hold tattered cardboard signs that say they’re hungry and that they need money for food. Their clothes are torn and filthy. They are thin, and their skin shows the sign of exposure and sun. And they stand right outside my car window holding the signs while I sit at the red light and I just look away. And I don’t know why I do that. In the past, like years ago, I would sometimes drive straight to McDonald’s and buy a supersized meal deal and bring it to the person. I thought somehow that would help them more than a dollar. But sooner or later I just stopped giving anything at all. Maybe because seeing them day after day after day has desensitized me altogether. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. But yesterday something dawned on me and that is that it certainly does not hurt me to give one of these men or women a dollar. It does not mean I will go without. It would not endanger my own life like it would have the man’s or the boy’s in The Road. And maybe it would really help that person. I wonder if it is really up to me to decide what they need the money for. Do they want it to buy drugs or alcohol or cigarettes? Do they want it to buy lunch? An Icee? Shoes? How the hell am I to know, and who am I to judge them?
I want to be a more giving person.
Since January, I have held in my heart the story of a woman who was killed pre-dawn just outside her own home. I keep returning to the website set up in her honor – to see if her killer has been caught, to look at pictures of her and her husband and their baby and their pot-bellied pig. I never met them or saw them in real life, and I hope it is not intrusive that I have gone to the site and peeked in on the remembrances of her and tributes to her. I am so moved by the outpouring of love that has been shown on that website for her and her family. And the recurring theme, it seems, is that everyone saw her as a burst of light in the world. And I hope it does not seem like I am trivializing a stranger’s life or trying to boil her life down into some kind of simplistic nutshell. But what I take from reading about her and learning about her in whatever limited way something like a website can portray is that she was the sort of person I would like to be. Someone who welcomes people who need welcoming, feeds people who need to be fed, rebuilds communities that needs to be rebuilt, creates what needs to be created, loves life with all of her being.
The other day after work it was thundering and cloudy and suddenly not swelteringly hot, so I plopped down on my back patio after getting home from work and just felt the thunder roll in and called for my dog. Unbeknownst to me, B. was standing in the open doorway behind me taking photos. I have the luxury of sitting in my backyard calling for my dog with my nice boyfriend waiting inside after coming home from my job that pays me enough money to live comfortably. I feel like I should appreciate that more and be more of a force for good and light in the world. I don’t know how. But I know I want to try. In small ways or big ways, doesn’t it just matter that we try?
There’s been a lot of crying these days. It seems to come and go. I cried at the end of The Road and The Lives of Others. I’ve cried during every episode we’ve watched so far of Friday Night Lights on DVD. I cried during multiple viewings of Paul Potts (thanks, Sally, for that wonderful link). I cried last night before going to sleep while trying to explain to B. how I want to try to spread light in the world.
I know that sounds stupid. But I’ve been thinking about The Road. Mostly about how the man and the boy could not ever stop to help anyone else. They couldn’t share food they needed to live. They might be attacked by the person asking for help. They had to be selfish to stay alive. Helping others meant hurting and possibly killing themselves.
I pass people asking for money at a certain stoplight I pass twice a day. They hold tattered cardboard signs that say they’re hungry and that they need money for food. Their clothes are torn and filthy. They are thin, and their skin shows the sign of exposure and sun. And they stand right outside my car window holding the signs while I sit at the red light and I just look away. And I don’t know why I do that. In the past, like years ago, I would sometimes drive straight to McDonald’s and buy a supersized meal deal and bring it to the person. I thought somehow that would help them more than a dollar. But sooner or later I just stopped giving anything at all. Maybe because seeing them day after day after day has desensitized me altogether. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. But yesterday something dawned on me and that is that it certainly does not hurt me to give one of these men or women a dollar. It does not mean I will go without. It would not endanger my own life like it would have the man’s or the boy’s in The Road. And maybe it would really help that person. I wonder if it is really up to me to decide what they need the money for. Do they want it to buy drugs or alcohol or cigarettes? Do they want it to buy lunch? An Icee? Shoes? How the hell am I to know, and who am I to judge them?
I want to be a more giving person.
Since January, I have held in my heart the story of a woman who was killed pre-dawn just outside her own home. I keep returning to the website set up in her honor – to see if her killer has been caught, to look at pictures of her and her husband and their baby and their pot-bellied pig. I never met them or saw them in real life, and I hope it is not intrusive that I have gone to the site and peeked in on the remembrances of her and tributes to her. I am so moved by the outpouring of love that has been shown on that website for her and her family. And the recurring theme, it seems, is that everyone saw her as a burst of light in the world. And I hope it does not seem like I am trivializing a stranger’s life or trying to boil her life down into some kind of simplistic nutshell. But what I take from reading about her and learning about her in whatever limited way something like a website can portray is that she was the sort of person I would like to be. Someone who welcomes people who need welcoming, feeds people who need to be fed, rebuilds communities that needs to be rebuilt, creates what needs to be created, loves life with all of her being.
The other day after work it was thundering and cloudy and suddenly not swelteringly hot, so I plopped down on my back patio after getting home from work and just felt the thunder roll in and called for my dog. Unbeknownst to me, B. was standing in the open doorway behind me taking photos. I have the luxury of sitting in my backyard calling for my dog with my nice boyfriend waiting inside after coming home from my job that pays me enough money to live comfortably. I feel like I should appreciate that more and be more of a force for good and light in the world. I don’t know how. But I know I want to try. In small ways or big ways, doesn’t it just matter that we try?
posted by eliza @ 7:53 PM
6 Comments:
I think you are already a force of light in this world. But yes, yes, I think the most important thing is that we try. I'd like to try more often, myself - and you inspire me to want to figure out more and better ways to do that. Love to you.
I think Jessie is right on both counts: you are definitely a force for light in the world (my world, at least!) and the important thing is to try, and to continue trying.
Beautiful, beautiful. I am always trying to be the light - and I am always failing - but I'm trying.
That picture brought tears to my eyes! I love a girl who loves her dog!
I volunteered at a Salvation Army van that drove around giving meals to homeless people, and several perfectly fine people looking for a free meal. What I remember the most is that the group leader told us: We feed need and we feed greed. God can sort it out. It changed my whole attitude and it is so true. All we can do is our best to help those less fortunate, whether materially or spirtually. You're so right!
My love for you is deep and true.
I had just been thinking to myself how unselfish it was of you to, forgive the idiocy of how this will sound, show me how to blog. I had been thinking, it would have been easy for Eliza to not share her insights and advice and blogs she likes, and especially her own blog, with someone she knows from a whole other world. It would have been totally understandable if she'd not been kind enough to put my name out there. And normal for her to feel that maybe I shouldn't infringe on her space. I was thinking all of this, and then I read your entry. You chose not to be selfish and instead to just help a friend, and that has been a lot of light for me. And it's a little thing - but also big.
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