We woke to rain this morning -- and no water, but we faced that philosophically. That is, when the Edgefield County Water and Sewer Authority gets the water back on, it'll flow through our faucets again. For Whitby the rain couldn't have been a better start to the day. With the ground softened, the mole tunnels through the field between the house and Country Club were so inviting. By the time he barked at the garage door he was soaked, shivering and mud from paws to elbows, from the tip of his nose to his eyes. He had had such a good time!
No, I wasn't furious. Rather, giving him a bath provided me a chance for simple regrounding.
Happily, I've had generous amounts of time for reading of late. The reading material I've had in hand during the past week, however, has taken a psychic toll. As I wrote one day last week I was reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel while at Kanuga sitting on Eagle Rock overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. Since returning home I began and finished my thirteen-month-old copy of "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, an extraordinary account of her first year following the death of her husband. Not only does she explore her own delusional rationalizing during that difficult time, the way she writes, the style of writing she employs, is itself expressive of her fragile state of mind. I was captivated.
This morning, as we waited for that first cup of coffee (luckily, we had a pitcher of water in the refrigerator), I turned to an article in the March 24th issue of The New Yorker: "Exposure: Behind the Camera at Abu Ghraib." I realize that we are at war, but my heart clutched at an early quote from an MP on seeing that frontline prison for the first time: "The emcampment they were in when we saw it at first looked like one of those Hitler things ..." It didn't get any better.
Those two accounts of prison camps, one from World War II and one from the current war, combined with Didion's self-preserving "magical" thinking is making for intense inner conflict. How much are my assumptions of a national moral high ground a case of wishful thinking, of simply not being able or willing to look at reality? I realized with a hideous jolt today, and not merely because of details in The New Yorker article, that not only do I do not trust the government's party line on that prison or any other associated with this war, I don't really trust much at all. This from someone who was taught -- and accepting of that teaching -- to trust authority, from parent to teacher, from elected official to diocese -- and who has spent plenty of her life trying to be in concert with and to please that authority. (I note with wry interest the automatic shift in self-reference in that last sentence, dodging I and using the more distant someone and her instead.) The immediate struggle is this: That we Americans may have/probably have succumbed to the same tactics we say we so abhor is chilling and humbling and frightening.
Who are we? Who are we, really?
Who do we think we are?
How "magical" is my own thinking when it comes to our national myth of peace-loving and even-handed wisdom?
Now what?
For the moment, I'm grateful for a muddy dog who forced me back into the present for a good dose of soap and warm water.
But, I can't not continue the line of thought.
Showing posts with label Elie Wiesel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elie Wiesel. Show all posts
30 March 2008
26 March 2008
The trek to Eagle Rock
This day began the same way yesterday did: a 6:30 alarm, a 7:00 call home, a shower, breakfast at 8:00. After breakfast I tidied my little room and, sitting in the lobby where WIFI is available, gave e-mail about an hour. I felt productive and, when I closed up the computer, I felt finished. That’s one of my most persistent longings – to feel finished. So, today I know I have received at rare gift. I am grateful.
As lunchtime approached, I organized my photography vest with an extra camera battery, a polarizing filter, crackers, sunglasses and the “Kanuga Trails” map and began the trek to Eagle Rock via a trail known as Baldwin’s Reach. Although it is only about two miles from my room to Eagle Rock, over half of the way a steady climb, it took me nearly an hour to reach my destination.
Other than not being a young as I used to be slowing my pace, along the way a melodious brook caught my attention, resulting in a slight detour to get closer to it. While I watched and listened to the water, gradually I became aware that I was surrounded by small yellow flowers tucked into the shade all around me. What a surprise; what a delight. Efforts at getting close enough to photograph them and at getting the exposure and light balance right seems to have paid off, though I did tramp away up the trail afterward with damp knees.
It was the sound of the water, though and not the flowers, that changed the way I walked today. I saw less and heard more: the whisper of the wind in the tall pines; the rasping clatter of the back-lit, fluttering, golden leaves still clinging to the limbs of the beech trees; the multitude of chirps, tweets and other calls of the birds along the path, which for most part I could not see.
With high thin clouds shielding the sun somewhat Eagle Rock's long views weren’t particularly noteworthy. But, to me with the persistent breeze providing a hushed sigh above and around me, it was the perfect place to spend some time. I had Elie Wiesel’s “Night” in the vest and I read -- with my back to a warm boulder -- for about an hour. The subject of the book, his account of being in a Nazi death camp as a teenager, conflicted with the scene in front of me rather dramatically, somehow making me experience both of them more intensely.
I returned to Kanuga proper on the northern arc of the Corn Mountain Loop, an old road which gave me much more stable places to put my feet than descending Baldwin’s Reach would have. All told … a three hour excursion, making for a really great day. .
As lunchtime approached, I organized my photography vest with an extra camera battery, a polarizing filter, crackers, sunglasses and the “Kanuga Trails” map and began the trek to Eagle Rock via a trail known as Baldwin’s Reach. Although it is only about two miles from my room to Eagle Rock, over half of the way a steady climb, it took me nearly an hour to reach my destination.
Other than not being a young as I used to be slowing my pace, along the way a melodious brook caught my attention, resulting in a slight detour to get closer to it. While I watched and listened to the water, gradually I became aware that I was surrounded by small yellow flowers tucked into the shade all around me. What a surprise; what a delight. Efforts at getting close enough to photograph them and at getting the exposure and light balance right seems to have paid off, though I did tramp away up the trail afterward with damp knees.
It was the sound of the water, though and not the flowers, that changed the way I walked today. I saw less and heard more: the whisper of the wind in the tall pines; the rasping clatter of the back-lit, fluttering, golden leaves still clinging to the limbs of the beech trees; the multitude of chirps, tweets and other calls of the birds along the path, which for most part I could not see.With high thin clouds shielding the sun somewhat Eagle Rock's long views weren’t particularly noteworthy. But, to me with the persistent breeze providing a hushed sigh above and around me, it was the perfect place to spend some time. I had Elie Wiesel’s “Night” in the vest and I read -- with my back to a warm boulder -- for about an hour. The subject of the book, his account of being in a Nazi death camp as a teenager, conflicted with the scene in front of me rather dramatically, somehow making me experience both of them more intensely.
I returned to Kanuga proper on the northern arc of the Corn Mountain Loop, an old road which gave me much more stable places to put my feet than descending Baldwin’s Reach would have. All told … a three hour excursion, making for a really great day. .
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