Patriotism

Where to start. I will get running out of the way. I made up last week's failed long run attempt again at the beginning of this week, and I actually made it the full 80 minutes, and it wasn't altogether horrible. I made it 7.4 miles (average per-mile pace of 10:49), and maybe I could have tried to go faster, but I was okay with it. I actually really sort of enjoyed miles four and five, no clue why. Tomorrow I'll run again on the last day of the year.

It's been a holiday season of movies for sure. It's Complicated was funny and cute, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my very favorite person in the movie was John Krasinski (Jim Halpert), who pretty much stole every scene he was in, as I told mo, with his comedic adorableness. I didn't love it the way I loved another Nancy Meyers film, Something's Gotta Give, but I definitely had a good time watching it. Next was Nine. I have to say that I understand why a lot of people would not enjoy this movie and might actually hate it, but I liked it! Mostly I just liked Marion Cotillard, the most beautiful woman on planet earth, as far as I'm concerned. Her part, her first song, and her overall gloriously luminous face were the best things about the movie by a mile. (Hear the whole song here. Just trust me. It was gorgeous.)

Today I went to the big city with my parents and little brother to have a totally delicious lunch of crab gumbo, grilled shrimp, fish, shrimp etouffee, bread pudding with whiskey sauce -- pretty much straight ridiculousness. It was off the charts fantastic. We headed in the rain afterwards to a museum where we watched a new film and visited the exhibits. It was all very stirring, as you can imagine, and I think we all felt a bit raw emotionally on the drive home in the pouring rain. I made the mistake of trying (and failing) to articulate effectively some of my mixed feelings after seeing the movie and visiting the museum. About how it's hard for me to feel pumped up about America and victory while feeling overwhelmed, sick, and sad at the same time. About how everything and everyone now presents it as fact that we did the right thing in bombing Japan, but is that just spin to justify that we did it? Well, this did not go over very well.

I try to remember that my parents were born in 1946 and grew up with a different perspective on this, having parents and siblings who lived through it all. And I know that they think I Just Don't Get It. And I know that I don't. I have tried to get it, though, I really have. I took something like 27 hours of history classes in college, trying to understand. I spent days in Normandy (series of entries starts here) and at the Imperial War Museum in London and the Holocaust Museum in D.C., trying to understand. I dined at the same table as an English D-Day veteran and talked to him about it, trying to understand. I watched and cried through hours upon hours of The War, trying to understand. I have rented untold numbers of WWII documentaries on everything from the Battle of the Bulge (which basically caused me to have an emotional breakdown) to hidden Jewish children and Anne Frank and Hitler's final days to the Berlin Airlift, trying to understand. I was lucky enough to go on a special tour of Pearl Harbor, where I kept on trying to understand. Today was my third visit to this museum. What I'm saying is that I've tried to expose myself to lots of different avenues of understanding. But still. I do not.

It's just impossible for me to process. Maybe it's impossible for anyone to process, and maybe that's why it's all boiled down to we were right, they were wrong, the end. Maybe that's the only way that, as a nation, we could recover and heal from all that happened. My brother tried to tell me that I can't look at it through a modern filter, and maybe he's right. The wars of our lifetime have certainly not been not very clear cut, but back then, maybe things really were a lot more black and white. I guess we had to try to win by any means necessary because losing was too unimaginable. But I swear, I was permanently changed by The Book Thief. All I could think about during the film today when they showed the rubble of a bombed German town, the shell of a burning community, were the people who lived there, who probably were poor and starving and completely effed by the Fuhrer and now dead. And that ultimately it was his fault, not ours. And that ultimately the deaths in Japan were the psycho, un-surrendering emperor's fault, not ours. Right? I just cannot deal with the fact that so many regular, innocent people died who were just living their lives. And I can't even begin to deal with all of the soldiers and military people who died. I mean, I just can't. It actually sits on my chest like a weight, especially after days like today.

And when I tried to explain this, the reaction was that I was simply wrong and we had no choice and we saved the world and that's that. And -- yes. I get that. Of course I recognize that unspeakable horrors and atrocities were being committed that needed to be stopped. Of course I am glad that we won the war and liberated the camps and ended the power of the reigning mega-crazies and appreciate the sacrifices made by millions and recognize, on some level, that we did what we had to do. But it doesn't make me want to stand up and cheer; it makes me feel like throwing up because all I see is the death and destruction. And I think what I did the worst job of explaining today is that while the movie was very cool and riveting, I don't like things that pat America on the back to the extreme about how right we were and are about everything and emphasize that we are the best country ever, because I get icky associations of "enemy" countries patting themselves on the back using the same reasoning about how they're right about everything and are really the best. It is like I am hyper-propaganda-paranoid. IS THAT CRAZY? I think maybe it is. I think this is what sent my family over the edge on the way home. But I can't help it! I think I am in the midst of a personal patriotism crisis! I am just trying to honestly reflect upon this and figure out what it all means. Maybe at the end of the day, part of being alive is being for your own country. Like how you're for the college football team in the town where you were born. Maybe it's just what people are supposed to do.

I think I'll just go watch this and cry some more.

2 days into '09

Ah ... 2009. So far, so good. New Year's Eve was spent turning in early after turkey and sausage gumbo and spinach pie with B. at my parents' house. On day one of the new year, I slept in and then treated myself to a matinee of Milk, which I'd been wanting to see for months. It did not disappoint. My most powerful encounter with the story of Harvey Milk will always be catching the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk on TV by accident and learning the story for the first time, but this was an excellent movie and I'm very glad I saw it. It made me very sad, both the way it ended, of course, and thinking about how little things have changed despite how hard Harvey Milk and his colleagues fought. I mean, sure, a lot has changed, but clearly, as we saw so disgustingly this year, a lot also hasn't. I wish this movie were getting more press and were open on more screens because I think it's important. The cast was great ... Emile Hirsch particularly impressed me -- it was hard to recognize him as the same kid who played Alexander Supertramp. 

After going to see Milk, I went over to my parents' house to continue to feast on leftovers. My mom wrote thank you notes for wedding-related kindnesses while watched Enchanted. She, unsurprisingly, found it delightful. Later that night, we continued eating still more leftovers and watched Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day; both of my parents really liked it, as I knew they would. What is not to like? I've now seen that movie four times and could easily watch it again today. It's wonderful. Kymm Zuckert, I am not sure what you are waiting for! This is your kind of movie.

After packing in three movies in the course of one day and falling asleep to Sarah Vowell's story of the Puritans, this morning I got up relatively early and headed out for a run. After about a mile, I decided that the morning fog, while very cool looking, was a bit creepy. I argued with myself for a while about whether turning around due to basically zero visibility was neurotic or sensible, and I came down on the side of sensible, ran a mile back home, and turned on Jillian Michaels for the rest of the workout. Oh, how level one still pains me so! My arms basically burst into flames, but I soldiered through. 

I showered and headed to the coffee shop to meet my old friend Herpreet, with whom I had a nice two-hour visit out on the patio. It is always nice to see her and to catch up with someone you've known for a million years. Old friends are so important, and I need to never forget that.

Then I headed over to S.'s to help get ready for a gathering at her parents' house tonight and eat handfuls of her mother's amazing white chocolate peppermint candy. I have to say, when the holidays well and truly come to a close and all friends and relatives have finally returned to their homes far away and all of the leftovers are gone and I return to work and real life, I might have to cry a little bit. 

I hope to post some pictures soon ... now I must get ready to head back to S.'s house for the gumbo event, which leads up to the Party of the Century tomorrow night. 

What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing

Not sure where to start, so I'm just going to start typing. It's Memorial Day, and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that, but none I can really find words for at the moment. Mostly I'm just thinking about my friend Jessamyn!

I really liked Iron Man. I have always loved Robert Downey, Jr., and he did not disappoint in this role. I definitely recommend it.

I'm not really sure what has been going on. I've been really busy with work. B's mom is here, which has been nice. I sort of went into a manic panic when it came to pre-visit housecleaning, which was silly. We had dinner with my parents the other night, took her to a plantation, took her to a museum, took her to the top of the capitol, had lunch with my parents today, and overall it's been a merry time. Today my mom made three different salads -- her cabbage crunch salad, a green salad with fresh pears and toasted pecans and feta cheese, and a curry chicken salad with dried cranberries ... delish!

I've been reading Linda's journal for a long time ... long enough to know that she is all about the Turbo Jam. I knew it was a tool in her fitness routine, but it wasn't until I saw her legs and passed out from their sheer awesomeness that I got on eBay and bought myself a copy. I did it for the first time this morning when B. went to play racquetball and his mom went for a walk around the lakes. As I told Linda in an e-mail, I am becoming increasingly frightened of my own stomach. It's always been a place where my out-of-shapeness manifests itself ... along with a big bottom that is sort of big no matter how in shape I am ... but my stomach is now doing this weird thing when I bend over where my stomach goes down before the rest of me and is sort of like a distorted, distended other being, like a sandbag attached to my body, and it's so bizarre and so disturbing. While this Turbo Jam video does not specifically address the stomach, I'm hoping that just getting moving again will be an overall good thing for my overall body. I could barely follow the steps and do not understand the different kinds of punches and am wholly baffled by how the teacher's somewhat skimpy orange bikini sports bra holds her boobs in place and I ended up just kind of punching the air randomly to the beat and trying to kick my legs out without putting my foot through the TV or taking out one of the cats. But I think it's okay because I did sweat a lot and get out of breath, which is more than I've done lately, so I hope to get into a little routine and stop scaring myself with the flubberoo.

We watched The Painted Veil last night. I sort of hated the first hour, but by the end I was glad we watched it. I've decided I think Naomi Watts is a very good actress because she just comes across as very natural. Edward Norton, on the other hand -- I've decided that he bugs me. Whereas Naomi Watts seemed to really inhabit her character, every move he made -- every turn of the head, scratch of the neck, hand on the hip -- seemed so calculated and actor-y. It was definitely not an exciting movie, but the scenery was pretty and I ended up being mildly moved by it.

I was much more moved by Secret Lives: Hidden Children & their Rescuers During World War II. I love a good WWII documentary, and this definitely was one. I cried and cried when one man, then a boy, spoke of how when the war ended, freed from his hiding place and his hidden identity, ran out into the streets waving a small Dutch flag and shouting, "I'm a Jew, I'm a Jew." I cried and cried when children grew up and re-met their rescuers -- their parents during those years, really -- half a century later. I was very struck by one woman who was the biological daughter of a rescuer couple who remains angry that her parents risked her life and the lives of her siblings to hide Jewish children. She said she's been angry about it most of her life. And I felt so sad for her and so sorry. And I wonder how all these years later she cannot see the experience with some perspective. That because her parents did what they did, children were saved. And it was dangerous, but nobody died. Not them, not her. So wasn't it ultimately a good thing? I enjoyed this movie very much.

Yesterday we visited a special Jim Henson exhibition. It was just wonderful. If it's coming anywhere near you, I think you should check it out. After coming home still feeling a bit happy/weepy from the exhibit, I went on an all-things Henson YouTube search. I loved watching the singing from his memorial service (part one, part two). And I somehow came across a version I'd never heard before of "The Rainbow Connection," which is one of my favorite songs, even when sung by the likes of Andy Bernard. Anyway, it's by the Dixie Chicks, and here it is, and it made me cry and then cry some more.

Can we talk about plantations for a second? An African American man I rode around with a lot at work last week is probably his mid- to late-60s. He was born on a plantation in St. Fr-ville and picked cotton every summer until he was 19. We were talking about plans with B's mom, and he said we definitely needed to take her to a plantation. He said he loves visiting them, loves walking through the grounds and gardens, even loves seeing the slave cabins. I asked him, not very articulately, if walking around a plantation makes him feel "yucky." (The best word I could come up with. I'm not proud.) He said definitely but he still likes going because he thinks they're beautiful. We had a pretty interesting conversation about it. So when B. and I decided to take his mom to one, I kind of kept him in mind. And sure, the house was beautiful. And hearing about the history from the tour guide was sort of neat. But I about gagged when she said something about how "they're very proud that slaves were not abused at this plantation." Well -- swell. It gave me an overwhelming sense of ickiness.

Here's a picture of the house from the top of the levee:

I can't think of anything else to say about the plantation other than that the best part of the visit was the restaurant's sweet potato fries. And now here are some more pictures of late:

And the Oscar goes to Hal Holbrook

Life has been going on.

I re-read Tiger Eyes (again). I read The Palace Thief, which had four really good and also really depressing stories in it. I was supposed to be studying at the library last night, but instead I wandered to a room full of children’s and young adult literature and scanned the shelves of my favorite writers. I came to Jean Little and let out a little squawk when I saw the spine of a book named Kate. Kate? KATE? Kate has her own book? I could not believe it. It is a sequel to my beloved Look Through My Window. I promptly e-mailed Lisa to inform her of this discovery. So instead of studying last night, I read the first half of the book. And it is so wonderful to be with Kate and Emily and Jean, James, John, and Anne again, only from Kate’s perspective this time instead of Emily’s. And I just finished The Road Home, which I liked very much. I’m not sure how I called myself an Ellen Emerson White fan for twenty years or so without ever reading this book. I thought a little about the character of Max in Across the Universe when I was reading it. And about China Beach. I guess I am lucky that all I know of war is what I see on TV or movies or read in books.

I saw not all but most of The War on PBS.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the latest Andy Samberg video. It’s one thing to make fun of GWB. But this very scary guy is basically our enemy at this point and we might end up going to war with him. Maybe it’s because I can’t stop thinking about The War, but it just seemed like a very modern and patriotic thing to do – to be able to be so crass and rude to this dictator and we have the freedoms that allow us to do that. I think I have dictators on the brain.

The War was harrowing and heartbreaking and sometimes very gross. But I think it was pretty great. I didn’t catch every night of it, but what I did see was good. Tom Hanks narrated newspaper articles written by a Minnesota reporter named Al McIntosh. I don’t know if it’s that the writings were really good or Tom Hanks just did a great job reading them, but every time he started talking, I immediately started boo-hooing. It reminded me of that part of Field of Dreams when Terrence Mann goes to hear about Doc Graham and the old newspaper lady reads his obituary and it turns out that she wrote it … Tom Hanks read that kind of writing by this Al McIntosh guy and it was just too much for me. It was kind of an overall weepfest, especially when old grandpas’ voices started quivering when they were talking about their experiences. A little American girl & her family were held among American and British “POWs” (they weren’t actually POWs, they were just normal people who were living in the Philippines when it got taken over by the Japanese) for several years in a shanty-town sort of POW camp there, and parts of her diary were read by a little girl narrator … I never knew about that … it just shows how widespread and truly world-wrecking the war was. It’s all very upsetting. It’s hard to explain. It blows my mind how many hundreds of thousands/millions of civilians got bombed to smithereens by the Allies both in Europe & the Pacific (not even counting Hiroshima & Nagasaki) and we were supposed to be “the good guys.” It’s a little much to take. I started thinking about The Book Thief. It was kind of a masterpiece, though, I think, and a staggering achievement. But I’m glad it’s over, because my eyes were starting to get bloodshot. I also think I need to start watching more sitcoms.

You can listen here to Tom Hanks as Al McIntosh. I still think about the people interviewed. Every time Sam Hynes would open his mouth, I would think, that is the most articulate man I have ever heard speak. I told B. that he talks like a writer. Well, duh. Turns out he’s not only a writer but professor of literature emeritus at Princeton. And because I am a total ignoramus and had no idea who he was, after watching him speak and share his experience night after night after night and being totally charmed by him, when the narrator said that Daniel Inouye got his Medal of Honor fifty years later as a sixth-term United States Senator, I burst into tears. I burst into tears throughout the entire thing.

Not to mention when Norah Jones sang as the credits rolled.

It’s been a while since I started this entry. I finished Kate, and I am with Lisa – it’s no Look Through My Window. Now I’m re-reading The Pigman, just because.

I went to see Into the Wild this weekend. I’ve never read the book, but my sister has, and I remember that she was very affected by it and she told me a lot about it. I don’t feel like I can really make a judgment about the guy; I didn’t know him and I don’t know why he did what he did or if he was just on a suicide mission or what. I don’t feel like it’s my place to decide whether the way he lived and died was right or wrong. All I can say is that it was a powerful and ultimately devastating film, and I’m glad I saw it. If Hal Holbrook does not win the Oscar for best supporting actor, I’ll think there is something very wrong in the world. A lot of things in this film moved me – the landscapes, the amazing nature photography, Emile Hirsch’s performance overall, Catherine Keener – but Hal Holbrook is who made me cry and cry and cry, and I was just blown away by him. HAL HOLBROOK, I LOVE YOU.

Return with Honor

I finished Return with Honor, a documentary about prisoners of war in North Vietnam from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s who were held in what's known as the Hanoi Hilton.

This was a story I knew nothing about, and it was a fascinating film. The men told their own stories; it was basically an oral history. But what made this movie unique, at least out of the war documentaries I've been watching lately, is that the filmmakers were granted access to archival footage taken by the North Vietnamese of the prisoners during their captivity. So these men, twenty-five years later (the film was made in 1998, and most were released in 1973), were talking about what happened to them there, and then old footage of the men would be shown. For example, the North Vietnamese government denied that the men were being tortured, and one of the men explained how he was filmed and knew it would be broadcast, so he blinked the letters "t-o-r-t-u-r-e" with his eyes in Morse Code to convey that message to the folks watching at home. And there was actual footage of when he did that, standing there, looking a little freaked, and blinking his eyes. And there was instance after instance of that, and it was amazing to see what the men looked like back then and then see them telling about it all those years later.

One of the most touching moments of the film, which made me cry throughout, are you kidding me, was a very frail and wounded man lying on a gurney saying in a very weak and shaky voice, "I would just like to tell my wife that I will get well, that I love her, and I hope to see her soon. And I'd appreciate it if you told her that." And I squinted at the screen and realized that it was John McCain.

The men used a tapping code to communicate with each other because for the majority of the years they were in captivity, they were very isolated. So they would tap on the walls and get to know everything that could possibly be known about each other across concrete walls, sometimes never having met or laid eyes on the person they shared their most intimate contact with. They would exercise in their cells, they would design houses in their minds, they would compose poetry ... they would do anything they could to keep their minds active so they wouldn't go nuts. Many of them attempted suicide. Some were offered the opportunity of early release, and they turned it down, because that would be breaking the code. It wouldn't be fair, and it might be harmful in some way to those left behind. John McCain was one of those. I don't really know much about John McCain's politics, but seeing him as one of these guys -- I'll tell you. It makes me want to shake the dude's hand.

The prison was built by the French to torture the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese used the techniques they learned from the West to torture the Americans, largely airmen who were shot down and captured. War begetting war, cruelty begetting cruelty, and so it goes. One of the men drew pictures in his mind of the torture techniques with the plan of drawing them on paper one day, and he did, within a month of his return home. The film showed his drawings, and they were awful. They were tied up in ropes and their joints were dislocated. One of the men cried when remembering how the worst part of it for him was spending every night lying on his concrete slab hearing the screams of his fellow airmen being tortured and knowing he couldn't do anything to help them.

During one interrogation, a propaganda minister told one of the POWs that the war would be ended in the streets of America and that the POWs were part of that plan -- they were used as pawns to incite American protest against the war. And the airman was told that America could never win a war like that war, between two groups of the same country, and that once America finally understood that, it would all be over.

The stories they told were unbelievable. The dignity they exhibited when telling the stories was even more so. That sounds so trite, but it's true. They spent 5, 6, 7, 8 years of their lives imprisoned under horrific circumstances, and they seem to believe that what they went through was better than being killed in action, and they recognize that the welcome they received upon returning home and their treatment as heroes was so different from the way most of the other veterans were treated, and they acknowledge that it wasn't fair. They think everyone who fought in the war should have been welcomed home like they were.

And the cynical side of me wants to say that this is all formulaic bull, but when you see the men in their 50s with tears in their eyes and catches in their throats talking about what it was like and then you see footage of them in their 20s actually there, in handcuffs, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes and pale skin that only got to go outside for 15 minutes a day, and you see the moment they are transferred from North Vietnamese to American custody and they are doing their best to salute their officers and to be brave, and you see their wives and children running to them across the tarmac and hear their voices shaking when a microphone is put before them upon their return and they say in a quivering voice, "God bless America," well, it all seems very real and true.

After I finished the movie earlier tonight, I went to the grocery store. And as I waited in line, I picked up a People magazine with a big spread about Paris Hilton and her "life behind bars." I have never been able to muster much of an opinion about Paris Hilton. The most I can do in her general direction is flare my nostrils and shrug. I've never understood all of the hoopla around her and I've never gotten worked up about her in any regard. But as I flipped through this article about her, this article about Paris Hilton, after having just watched a movie about men who spent 8 years of their lives being tortured as prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton, I suddenly developed a very strong opinion about Paris. And that is mainly that she should shut the fuck up, and that for her to paint herself -- or for the media to paint her -- as some kind of traumatized victim is so disgraceful that it makes me want to vomit.

In conclusion, I'm very glad that I watched this film the week of the 4th of July. And I hope that kids are being taught about this in history classes today, because I never was. And if you are at all interested in history and the suffering and the experiences that go on in war on all sides, this film is most definitely worth watching. (If you don't believe me, Anne Lamott also thinks so. And she is always, always right.)

Frogs and falling chocolate

Life is going on. I stayed home on Friday night and did a week's worth of chores in one night and watched Dragonfly upon my parents' recommendation. I will not pass the same recommendation on to you. We usually have fairly similar taste in movies, but this one is just bad.

I woke up early on Saturday morning, stopped for a frozen coffee, and headed north to see my boyfriend. We ate pasta with walnut pesto for lunch and went to the grocery store to stock up on food for our canoe trip later that night. We spent part of the afternoon watching The Good German, which had cool lighting and a neat style but was mostly a bore. That said, Cate Blanchett remains unbelievably stunning and amazing to watch. This movie looked like a series of very beautiful black and white postcards, but the story never grabbed me.

We had a good time canoeing though this trip was somewhat less exciting than the last. I really enjoyed eating our sandwiches in our boat as the sun set. My favorite parts of this trip were the two frogs who hopped on board, Fritz and Ferdinand, the latter of whom spent much of the ride perched on my boyfriend's knee. And it was cool to only be guided by starlight since there was no moon.

We had an excellent brunch Sunday morning ... a mimosa, great Nicaraguan coffee served in a French press, soup with pesto and orzo, grits with veal grillades, and warm bread pudding with sugared pecans and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It was pretty much ecstasy on a table. And seeing a little about how they do things there make me like it even more in retrospect.

I would like to randomly point out that I predicted before Rosie even joined The View that things between Rosie and Elisabeth would end badly. I remain somewhat obsessed with how suddenly things spiraled into such ugliness at the end, and I stupidly keep watching the show because of guests hosts like Kathy Griffin, whom I love. Damn you, The View.

I stopped at Maryelizabeth's house on my way home yesterday and hung out for a while. Her baby is a ball of cute with black hair and blue eyes, just like her three-year-old was. I actually strapped the two-month-old in the baby carrier and toted her around the grocery store on my chest, which was amusing. I have to say, it's pretty astounding to see my friend with these two little girls, juggling them and wrangling them like a champion. I am sure it's not easy, and I give her props for remaining upright. Meanwhile, our mutual best friend Shelley is moving to Hawaii in six days to take up residence with her fiance, Bachelor Andy and Tessa, and the cast of Lost. Holy shit!

Between watching The Good German and reading the amazing The Book Thief, I've been consumed with all things German lately. I recorded American Experience: The Berlin Airlift, and it was pretty fascinating. I'd never even heard of it. The entire time I was reading The Book Thief, it occurred to me that I never really gave much thought to the ordinary German people during World War II. As for the characters in the book on Himmel Street, they were just poor people trying to survive and eat and who truly lived in fear of not joining and following "the party." They weren't evil, murderous people who wanted to annihilate Jews and take over the world even though they were "Heil, Hitler"-ing with the best of them. Disclaimer: I am going to sound very simpleminded and like an elementary school child when trying to explain this: it made me wonder if somewhere in my mind, not really consciously, but if somewhere in my mind, I grew up villainizing a whole country of people, imagining them all as wicked and evil, because of what their leader did. I honestly don't really think I ever thought about anyone in Germany at that time except for Hitler and the Nazi party officials and the SS. But what about the people who were just trying to live, keep their jobs, afford bread, and not freeze to death, and whom we bombed to rubble? And my boyfriend pointed out that much of the world probably thinks the same way about us. Not that George W. Bush is Hitler or that what he's done is like what Hitler did, but he's certainly no peach and we've just sat back and let him continue doing and saying one stupid-assed thing after another.

Anyway, my point is that the show about the Berlin Airlift just drove home a lot of the thoughts I had while reading that book. The people in Berlin were starving and their city was crushed and divided, and they needed help. And so for whatever reason -- out of the goodness of Truman's heart or because he wanted to be reelected -- whatever the reason, this huge operation was undertaken to feed them. And the kids on the show talked about how the sound of American and British planes overhead was once the terror of their lives -- just like in The Book Thief -- and now all of a sudden they had to wrap their minds around the fact that when they heard these planes, they did not have to fear for their lives and hide in the basement until the all clear because it was now a friendly sound and chocolate bars would fall from the sky. Can you even imagine? And the American and British pilots talk about how they didn't have warm feelings towards the Germans because they were the enemy, after all, right? But when they landed with the food, they saw that they were just normal people, some of whom even ended up being mechanics on their planes so the project could keep going and succeed. They were like, hello, we were just blowing each other up a few months ago, now let's work together and make this work.

It's just a lot to think about. I saw photos of these kids and I thought about Leisel and Rudy in the book and it was like fiction and reality were colliding in my mind and heart. And the show talked a lot about the splitting of the city into the four quadrants and now all of a sudden Russia became the enemy and look, half a century of fear or more death and horror started and a wall was built and what the hell? It makes my head hurt and spin a little and wish I had taken a lot more history classes. I mean, my God, I think I took something like 8 or 9 of them in college, but not really from this period. And I kick myself for that. And now I have put truly an inordinate number of World War II documentaries into my Netflix queue. And I really, really, really want to go to Berlin.