 Unspinnable |
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I'm at a loss as to what to say other than my weekend was good but somewhat exhausting. On Friday night, I met up with Grace (a friend from high school who recently moved back to town) and two friends from work to see Fahrenheit 9/11, and to our surprise and delight, this being redneck central and all, the theater was packed. It was a lively crowd, and it truly was kind of a bondish experience. We felt that we were among Our People. I could not help but notice that every single time there were scenes of soldiers or civilians in Iraq, a young man in front of me would immediately put his head down and put his face in his hands, and the woman with him would put her arm around him and pat him on the back comfortingly. I could not help but wonder if he had been there, or if his brother or sister or friend is there. I think it was seeing him, as well as the horror of those scenes, that made me put my head down and weep. I could not watch those scenes either. When my mother said sadly, "I cannot believe you went to see that movie," I said, "Believe it, Mom!" And she asked me if it made me hate Bush more, and I said, "No, not possible," and she just looked more and more sad until inevitably saying that we went to Iraq to get rid of Al Qaeda, and I said, again, "Mom, no, we didn't, but I understand, I think, why you think that," and then I said, "Look, I love you, but we cannot talk about this. You will not change my mind, and I won't change yours, and we're family, and it's pointless to argue about this," and she asked me just to please look at both sides of the issues, and I said that I have, and I do, and she then jokingly requested that I watch Fox News at least once a week. And I laughed, but I was sad. Because my mother is –- truly –- a good person, and not an idiot, and she wants only good things for her family and this country, and yet we will never see eye to eye on these things. And I don't want to lump my mother in with the idiot masses, because I don't want to think that think the masses are idiots. I want to think that they just want to believe in the office of the presidency and that all of this loss of life has not been in vain. In that way, I think we want the same things. I've thought a lot about this film since Friday. As Elizabeth and I discussed as I drove home from the theater, you can't spin those scenes in Iraq. You just can't. They are what they are, and they are horrifying and heartbreaking. And I sat there and I wondered what it would be like to go to sleep and never know if foreign soldiers would charge in, breaking down the door and screaming at me and my family in a language I didn't understand. And I couldn't even disdain the American soldiers for their sometimes seemingly cavalier rock and roll bravado, because if I were given that job, I'd have to psych myself up somehow, too, I guess, and make it more sometimes like a video game than real life. I don't know. I don't blame them, and I don't think this movie is in any way anti-military. Or at least not anti-soldier. I know that I am not anti-soldier. I don't relish the dominant monkey male motherfucker attitude as displayed by anyone, soldier or not, but I think anyone with two eyes and a heart can see what's underneath that here, which is in a lot of cases youth, fear, courage, strength, and homesickness all wrapped up in one package that's coping as well as possible. The soldiers are doing what they've been told to do because that's what soldiers do. I can't begin to fathom what it must be like for them or their families, and I respect and support them as individuals even if I don't respect and support the reason they've been sent there. And whatever songs they have to sing to get through their time there without losing their minds, I don't fault them for that. (I'm not going into the soldiers who have clearly abused Iraqis and probably each other and the nightmare of that. Right now I want to focus on the good ones, because I think that's most of them. I want to believe that.) Ultimately, no matter what anyone thinks of Michael Moore, those people, both American and Iraqi, and the people who love them, are (physically or emotionally or both) forever wounded and forever devastated. Or dead. And the more I think about it, I know that more than the gruesome images of the bloody and the beaten, and even more than seeing that guy in front of me do the same, what made me hang my head in that movie theater, as I closed my eyes and wiped away my tears, was shame. On Saturday morning, I got up early and went grocery shopping and did some laundry and watched Love Actually and baked some butterscotch brownies and then passed out on the couch. That night, I went to my parents' house to greet my mom who was home from her trip. Saturday is kind of a blur. I didn't close the door to my bedroom all the way by accident when the dogs were inside, and they got in, and a great chase ensued. In a wise move, I hurled my Weight Watchers giant ice cream cone at the dogs, but all that did was leave chocolate streaks all over the floor and walls as it skidded to a dull stop. Using strength I didn't know I had, I snatched up a flailing and caterwauling Zuko as he pounced on Marley as she perched frozen on the top of the couch and wrestled him into his crate. Marley took off and Daisy ran after her and crawled under the bed where she was hiding, but I picked her up and popped her in her crate as well. Khaki was okay, but Marley hid under the bed for hours. I went to put the couch back together and noticed that Marley had sprayed some brown liquid on wall and couch and I cleaned it up morosely as I realized that my animals will never coexist peacefully. I can't "let them duke it out" as so many people suggest, because Zuko will eat them. He was not pouncing on her playfully. He was pouncing on her to eat her. I know it. I can tell the difference. Daisy gets caught up in the moment and loves a great game of chase as well as the next dog, but she will not get that close because she's a wuss. But she gets so riled up by Zuko and it's just an uncontrollable hysterical freakshow and I would rather have to separate them when they're all inside than end up with a cat with a broken back or neck. You know? JESUS CHRIST. It was awful. I think the dogs must have sensed my fury and hatred towards them this morning because they were utterly silent in their beds instead of spazzing and wagging and squealing like they usually are when I wake up and go in the kitchen. They just sat there in silence until I put them outside and fed them and then ignored them. I need to ignore them just a little while longer. On Sunday, I went to two friends' babies' baptisms. Jeannie and I felt like we were in church for the entire day. And last night, my parents and my brother and his girlfriend and I went to watch my little brother play a gig, and when he started playing the theme from The O.C., I actually stood up in my chair and jumped up and down and shrieked in an involuntary expression of solidarity and glee. The crowd overall seemed to enjoy his music, singing along and being drunk and happy on the patio with a thousand fans whirring. Because it's rained every day for about two weeks, it wasn't as awfully hot as usual, and it was a good time. At church, I saw the parents and sister of a guy who was killed at the Pentagon. I hugged his parents on the way out, and they asked about how my sister's trip is going. They are nice people. All of the kids swam together when we were younger. And I wondered what they think of the president. And about whether they think that people like me who went to see this film about all that is wrong with this country are somehow spitting on the grave of their son, whose name my mother calls forth in every discussion we have about this, as if my not supporting the president or the war is somehow disrespectful to his family or to his memory. And I want to say to her that it's just the opposite, and that if anyone is being disrespectful to his memory, it's an administration who uses it and that of thousands of others to attempt to justify its unjustifiable actions. And I want to say that I really think we should just leave his memory to his family, because it's no one else's to claim. And these are the thoughts in my mind these days. It's so hot that it's hard to think clearly about anything, but I worry about this country and this world. And I want it to be a good place for those babies I held yesterday. And I want to figure out how I can help it to be. I just don't know how.  About this time in ...
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