Weblog 170

May 10, 2009~ 12:00am
Betcha thought I'd be doing a blog entry on Mother's Day, didn't you? Well, no.....

My kiddoes are in New York this weekend, and honestly- they never really have observed this makeshift holiday. It pretty much passes without notice (except for the card and candy for my own mum, whom I've always given a sort of 'thank-you nod' on this day, although she tells me repeatedly, "Oh, doll! Why'd you do that?") LOL! Every year.

And the answer: Habit. Tradition. Because I love her.

No, today I want to talk about DRUMS.



I want to touch on the idea of how, from the first one we hear- our mother's own heartbeat, rhythm speaks to the way a human being responds to what's basically tribal in us. It's impossible to hear drums and not start tapping a toe and feeling good and more alive.



From the African stomp and ruckus around a central fire in a village, drums call to our collective tribal memory and signify community. Community and celebration. Even better than just hearing them, is playing them, and that's something the main character from the movie I just watched learns firsthand.

"The Visitor" is a wonderful movie starring Richard Jenkins- (and though I'm sure I would love it, Jenkins' career as the father in 'Six Feet Under' has come and gone without my catching a single episode.) He has one of those recognizable faces that've been around for ages, always capable- always a good performance, but never any fireworks. This quiet and moving film suits him like a glove because of its understated emotion that gently, very gently cracks open the carapace of one man's life-- a flat-lined, routine existence that comes to take on a truly daunting impenetrable solidity following the death of his spouse.



The colors of this film are muted. Mostly beiges and grays- with large expanses of concrete and crowded cityscapes, hollow classroom amphitheaters, and the echoing eeriness of the endless corridors of official buildings.

Through these dead settings, walks one lonely college professor. Walter....who's lost the one thing in his life that made it feel alive: his wife....and her music.

Walter's excuse of 'working on his book' is a bogus story he'd cooked up for the purpose of avoiding others. It's an excuse that allows him ample brooding time, and the means to dodge life itself-- but into this closeted life enters illegal alien, Tarek, a young man from Syria, along with his black girlfriend who's also an illegal, both of whom Walter finds living in his apartment in New York when he goes there to deliver an academic paper. (It's a chore Walter loathes. Especially since he didn't write it. He'd merely loaned his name to it as a favor to a pregnant colleague about to deliver, and unable to make the trip herself. Yet another thing to feel lousy about.)

Tarek plays African drums. Walter plays piano... badly, but Tarek plays drums with the brilliance of the possessed.

Slowly the lure of this young man sitting and pounding on a drum-- the joy on his face, the beautiful white smile lighting the world, a face wide awake --begins to coax Jenkins out of his lassitude.



Walter and Tarek become the most unlikely of friends, but Tarek is unusually sensitive. Realizing that his new friend is far too uptight to enjoy life, with Tarek's careful ministrations, Walter begins to open like a flower-- he learns to let go. The man learns to 'not think', just pound. Just play. "Are you thinking?" "No." "GOOD!" --big grin.

One day Tarek is taken into custody by the NYPD as he and Walter are carrying their drums through the New York City subway, and Tarek is sent to a detention center: Walter immediately calls a lawyer and stays on in the city.

Into this already improbable chain of events, Tarek's mother comes looking for him, and she's a truly beautiful woman. Suddenly Walter, whose heart has been gently cracked open by the son, finds he's stirred into much deeper feelings for the mother, and the world itself opens like an oyster pried apart by pain itself.

I won't tell you any more about the movie because if you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil it by laying out the entire plot. Just let me say that this film is the story of one man's journey through emotional mummification, and on to eventually feeling alive again, and it's like the sun has come out! The last scene of the film



shows Walter, sitting in the subway, pounding away, and each smack on the stretched skin of that drumhead, each reverberating thwack seems to say, 'I HAVE A HEART, I HAVE A HEART, I HAVE A HEART THAT'S BEATING... I'M ALIVE.'

So here we are back at the idea of drums once again-- a primal instrument: one we have organically within our own chests.



I can't look at a set of drums and not want to pound on them! (Reminds me of that song-- "I don't want to work. Just want to bang on the drum all day"-- and I know what that means.) 'Work' is what we do to pay the bills, keep the gears greased, and get from here to there, but DRUMS-- ah, drums-- drums are the spirit and the art: when not being played, these are sorely missed, so bang the drum good and LOUD. Bang it for all you're worth-- I guarantee it will make you feel better, any time, any place----- and anything can be a drum.




May 10, 2009~ 3:00pm
I'm about to head over to mum's house, but I forgot to share the one gift I got yesterday that meant the world to me.



Wayne walked in the door yesterday with one, small sprig of Lily of the Valley that grows outside his house. He held it between two fingers, grinning and asking me to sniff it. It was the sweetest fragrance in the world--- old-fashioned, light and real. Reminded me of how I'd heard that white flowers smelled the prettiest because the colored ones attract bees easily, but the white ones have only their scent to accomplish that. One tiny sprig, and it smelled like heaven. Like innocence itself.

(Thank you, honey. That brightened my whole evening.) And it still smells wonderful in its little vase.




May 12, 2008~ 5:50pm
I've been feeling 'strange' lately. Easily moved to tears. Things look odd-- the world feels like a sweater that doesn't fit. That even smells like somebody else.

I know the spring has been 'unseasonal'- so that feels different. We had a few days of blistering heat (summer)- then back to 40's and even in the 30's overnight, I mean, gees....I had to scrape ice off my car windshield this morning! Lately I'm almost afraid to look at the news.....the story yesterday about the soldier in the 'stress center' for troops at Camp Liberty just outside of Baghdad, shooting his own commades....that broke my heart.

Today I happened upon this strange picture-- and by God if it didn't speak to me!



It's inexplicable....just plain weird... and yet I felt I could easily be the little girl in the picture, with 'Bunny-Ears' standing there as though it's the most natural thing in the world.

Then there's the contrasting light that makes it hard to make out details. Yep....maybe that's it. The light. The light has changed -and it isn't friendly anymore. Anything could happen.





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