I Am From...

I am from dreaming of roller-skating and a basketball hoop in a driveway I would never have.

I am from overdone fish sticks, crinkly-cut Ore-Ida French fries, and frozen mixed vegetables from a single mom too tired to make anything else...and loving every bite because I loved her.

I am from never feeling like I quite fit in to the dozen schools I attended before I was twelve; I am from latchkeys that let me into houses I could never call home. 

I am from a Commodore 64 that always sat on the C:\ prompt, eventually playing the embarrassingly inferior Space Crunchers while I desperately pined for Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, and Ms. Pac Man.

I am from no father but a mother worth a million men or more.

I am from unity through diversity; I am from having the courage of your convictions and suffering the splintery consequences of riding the fence.

 

I am from racing horses bareback, speeding into sunsets looking for a love that would define or destroy me, but settling for nothing less.

I am from Wildcats, Salukis, Volunteers, Panthers, Redhawks and Raiders.  I am from never knowing the score but never once missing the games on Friday nights.

I am from “getting ready”; spending hours under the pretense of trying to look cute for cruising around parking lots, up to no good on a Saturday evening with my best friends.

I am from tingly hand-holding in dark theatres, a mouthful of cold air sparking in my teeth while kissing late on a Saturday night in a wintry cold parking lot, and the tickle of butterflies in the tummy for the love of a man I have searched for almost half of my life.

I am from being a jack of all trades, but a master of only one that I will never name.

I am from waiting—maybe not for marriage, but for when it would matter.

I am from university life:  diversity, multicultural education, identity, introspection, self-reflection, and social action.

I am from open minds, open hearts, open arms, and open mouths.

I am from nickel pitcher Tuesdays and hating cigarettes and the way they prey upon the vices of men, but open to the hypocrisy of the occasional social smoke because, damn, are they ever delicious.

I am from House Party, Heathers, Pretty in Pink, Dirty Dancing, Say Anything, Footloose, The Breakfast Club, Chasing Amy, and Reality Bites—all fragments of a fractured reflection of who I thought I was or might one day be. 

I am from being okay with being the not so small girl with the big heart; I am from never, ever being willing to return to the eating disorders that (for a short time) made me thin and "beautiful" on the outside, but sick and ugly on the inside. 

I am from a bowl of cereal in my jammies on the living room floor at dawn on a Saturday morning spent with my best friends  Tom & Jerry,  Smurfette, Strawberry Shortcake, Daffy Duck, and Foghorn Leghorn (turned way down low so my mom could sleep).

I am from worshipping my precious children as the golden apples that they are and the absolute joy in knowing that, without hesitation, I would happily lay my life down for their happiness.

I am from Philip Roth, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, Eudora Welty, Chuck Palahniuk, and John Irving.  Though I am from the Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman, I am also from pride in my fervor for all things Stephen King.

I am from the belief that book snobs suck.  Movie and music snobs, too.  Life it too short not to love every moment you can.

I am from loving Pac and Biggie in equal measure…from being unashamed (and willing to lose a bit of credibility) to share my penchant for Digital Underground, Biz Markie, Hammer, and Ice (Cube, T, and Vanilla).

I am from Carole, Janis, Alanis, Tori, Fiona and Cheryl—chicks who flipped their fingers in the faces of those that cut them and cauterized their pain through the community of sisterhood and the power of the chords.

I am from Dylan and Young and Buckley and Cohen and Cobain and Vedder—I am from music being my family and these men being my fathers—supportive ones at that.  At least they were always there. 

I am from racing toward being a stupid teenage statistic at 88 miles an hour in an ‘88 Grand Prix down country roads with the windows down and my hair slicing into my eyes screaming music from Morrissey to Megadeth and never feeling more alive for the rest of my entire life than the way I did in those stolen seconds.

I am from carpe diem, because YOLO is for the lost and the lazy.  I am from loving Mr. Keating, crying “Oh Captain, my Captain”, and sucking the marrow from the bones of life.

I am from Freddy and Jason and Michael, the crappier and slashier the flick, the better…though I humbly bow at the altars of Fellini, Welles, Waters, Wright, Hughes, Scorsese, Smith, and the Coen brothers.

I am from Nickelodeon, The History Channel, VH1, CNN, BRAVO, and TLC.  I am from pre-VHS, but I am unafraid of DVR.

I am from The Giving Tree and the philosophy of Warm Fuzzies.  Take whatever you need from me; it is all I have to give.

 

I am from the religion of recognition; I am from the prescience that there may be nothing waiting on the other side...and from knowing that our only obligation in this life is to making the breaths that we take and the moments that we make matter more than anything that ever came before...

 

I am from a passion for educating and facilitating, for personal development and for making lifelong learning connections.  I am from never lying to you and always standing beside you.

I am from helping you to grow up, to grow into yourselves, to love life, and to leading the way by living it fully forever.

 

 

 

In Review: Elysium, “There's a notion I'd like to see buried: the ordinary person. Ridiculous. There is no ordinary person.”

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”  

~Alan Moore, Watchmen   

To state that I have been in a place of self-absorption lately would be akin to saying that chocolate is delicious, driving fast is fun, and listening to loud music is cool—these are statements of inarguable accuracy and fact.

As my increasingly sassy ten year old daughter would say: “Duh.”

[While I’ve always enjoyed the rough waters in my inner seas of self-examination and ascribed to Socrates’ view of introspection as a means of self-rectification, the truth is, I’ve keep this obsessive compulsion to review my own head under a fairly tight rein—but, how does one create an online diary-blog…or, as I like to view it…a love letter to the world…WITHOUT bathing in the muddied waters of narcissism?]

Frankly, I’ve never been a terribly altruistic person—I try to live the best life possible, helping all that I can and spreading humor and hearts and flowers wherever I go, but honestly, if you look closely, most of the choices that I make that appear kind and noble have actually benefitted my life immensely:

Seriously.  I am kind and compassionate with wait staff because I know they deal with shitty attitudes all day and could use a little kindness—but also because I know I get better treatment and food that has not been inserted into their crotch before my consumption.

I am respectful and fun with my daughters’ friends because their monstrous behaviors indicate that they are not receiving adequate parenting at home and if I’m remotely kind and loving to them, perhaps they won’t steal shit from my house or go home and reveal to their parents the freakshow realities of my home, behind closed doors.    

I teach because I am really good at it, I adore working with the kids, and because I hope to make the world a little better for my children by helping make the world better for someone else’s children.

So, you see how most of the "upright" and "principled" actions I conduct are little more than personal needs coated in magnanimity.  I’m not proud of this fact; I am just trying to be candid.

I’ve recently seen a phenomenal film (twice) that twisted my conceptualization of good and bad, right and wrong—and sent my overly-introspective/self-absorbed ass on a journey with a bit of an embarrassing destination.  That film: "Elysium."  

For those unfamiliar, the Elysian Fields were believed by the ancient Greeks to be a place of utter bliss, harmony, and contentment—an afterlife reward for the decent and valiant.  Ironically, although Elysium was to be the final resting place of the good and the virtuous, its ruler was Hades, the god who was not inherently evil or cruel, but deeply feared and loathed by the Greeks because he fully exemplified the inexorable nature of death.   

Death and decay are everywhere in this film; "Elysium" is set in in the steam-punk ruins of a future Los Angeles that looks like something from a Trent Reznor video, in a world where the privileged have purchased their refuge from our burned and broken planet and are secreted safely and securely upon a glossy hub anchored in the sky above our scorched and sick minds and bodies.  Their mass exodus to a better standard of living taunts the denizens of earth with the health and wealth and opportunity only a nineteen minute shuttle ride away…if we were lucky enough to be a Citizen of Elysium, that is.

 

You see, simply being a human being or a native resident of earth affords no entrance to the harmony of Elysium—your only ticket to ride is encoded into a DNA tattoo that is scored into your flesh.  And lest you think that black market DNA stamps are all that would stand between you and the eternal happily ever after, be warned that the gates of this paradise are fiercely guarded by two of the most serenely vicious and uncompromising characters in recent cinematic history—Jodie Foster as the sublimely wintery Secretary Delacourt, and her mad merc-on-a-leash, Sharlto Copely as Agent Kruger.  Delacourt is hell-bent on totalitarian rule of her beloved utopia and Kruger is only too happy to bathe in the blood of anyone she directs him toward in her quest.  Delacourt’s strength upon Elysium depends wholly upon Kruger’s brutality upon Earth—and upon the digital prowess of the Elysium citizen who created the network of codes and armament that protects the Elysium Citizens from our filthy Earthling invasion, Carlyle, who is played with brilliant robotic indifference by William Fichtner. 

As if their clean, coiffed hair, silvery-white clothes, perfectly dermabraded skin, and lustrous abodes did not do enough to differentiate the haves from the have-nots in this film, the movie goes to great lengths to make it clear that upon Earth, we speak a mix of English and Spanish exclusively—but upon Elysium, the Citizens speak in strange and deeply affected English, occasionally lapsing into a charmingly fluent French…and, if ordering mass murder, perhaps even a touch of guttural German. 

Matt Damon plays Max Da Costa, the orphaned-ex-con-with-the-heart-of-gold archetype kind of role that usually goes to the Channing Tatums of the Hollywood food chain—but Damon handles the role deftly, with a quiet dignity and an emotional stoicism that most modern action stars simply could never convey.  Seriously.  Max Da Costa follows amiably along trails blazed by fellow reluctant fictional sons of heroic anarchy like Eric Draven, Thomas A. Anderson, and Tyler Durden.  [From “The Crow,” “The Matrix,” and “Fight Club,” respectively.  And, respectfully, if you didn’t already know that, why the fuck are you even reading this blog…?]

Without giving too much away, I will share that there is a glaring, ironic, and unavoidable disconnect in the fact that Max labors for scab wages, trying to earn his parole and his soul, in Carlyle’s company, Armadyne—the very defense factory that creates the machines and weapons that control, abuse, and enslave his people.  Consider yourselves warned: Be prepared to leave the theatre drenched in shame of capitalism and reeking of the stench of corporate greed.  A terrible thing happens to him on the way to work and a terrible thing happens to him when he is at work and…well, hell…spoiler alert: Max is given five days to live.

Now here is where that whole inner-conflict/ self-absorption issue came to bear for me.  Like most indulged, first-world inhabitants, I’ve played the “What if…” game a million times.  What would you do if you had no wife, no kids, no responsibilities, and you were given five days to live, your freedom, and a pint of potent painkillers?  The answer, for me, would likely never have been the path that Max takes—but his Darwinian prime-directive for survival demands that Max never lose hope as he drives himself to near-annihilation to exhaust every possible avenue for his own preservation…which means making his way to the healing medical “bays” that come standard to every Elysium home.  These medical bays are miraculous pod-like devices with the power to detect, analyze, and cure everything from leukemia to mending broken bones in less time than it takes to nuke a frozen dinner upon our planet.

How the story unfolds becomes complicated and weighted with the emotional gravitas of Max’s childhood friend, the beautiful Frey, played with solemn compassion by Alice Braga—the fellow soul whose place in Max’s youth he has tattooed upon his flesh and in his heart, based upon his childhood promise to one day take them both to the big miracle in the sky.  Without giving away more than would allow you to enjoy the film on your own, I will only say Max becomes the unenthusiastic courier of precious cargo that serves as his key to the Elysium kingdom, but Frey’s presence brings the burden of choice and consequence, hammering home the message of what, if anything, we owe to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our fellow man. 

I’ve read interviews where Damon, good-naturedly, reduces this film to a “summer popcorn flick”—but I’d venture so far as to say that he has deeply undersold the greater significance of this movie.  The only thing I can say, without giving away more than I already have, about my emotional and intellectual response to the conclusion of “Elysium” is that I have never felt more acutely aware of my personal privilege, nor have I ever felt more grief in a movie that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with renovating a broken system to distribute all opportunities equally to all people.  I never thought I could weep, not once, but twice, at a story without relationships between lovers or heartache between broken souls—but Elysium awakened my love for principle and my heartache for my fellow man.

As the brilliant film “District 9” (both films were written and directed by Neill Blomkamp) was a parable for apartheid and mistreatment of immigrants, so “Elysium” becomes an analogy for the spoils of wealth, privilege, immigration, and health care reform—all neatly packaged in one hell of a kick-ass dystopian sci-fi narrative filled with action that was actually interesting.  (And this is no small thing and well worth noting, as I tend to zone out in elaborate action sequences, especially when cliché or overly lengthy.  “Elysium” struck the perfect balance of innovation and emotion in each of its carefully crafted fight sequences.)  This allegory translates to a personal journey for each viewer as we ponder what we would do to save those we love—as well as forcing the viewer to grapple with meatier issues like the basics of human rights (how do we define or uphold these for some but not all if, by definition, they are inalienable for all humankind?), constructs of social responsibility (do we even have it?) and more philosophical questions (like: “If everyone could be healthy and wealthy...why would that be special?” or “If everyone had universal access to excellent physical care, how would we control our population?”)

 

Between seeing the film for the first and the second time, I read that the earthbound slum scenes were filmed in dumps outside of Mexico City and that the scenes of the wealth and privilege of Elysium were filmed in Vancouver, Canada.  I wasn’t trying to draw any conclusions or cast aspersions in one direction or another based on this information, but you can be assured that I was gnawing on that bone throughout my second viewing.  As the lights came on in the cozy theatre where I had lain (yes, there were soft couches and blankets and pillows, oh my…), sipping vanilla Manhattans and noshing on shrimp and Caesar salad, it took me longer than the usual moment to adjust.  As I wiped away my tears for the second time in less than a month, my server—Hector—graciously folded my blanket for me and cleared away my glasses and dishes with a warm smile, inquiring if I’d enjoyed the film.

Indeed, Hector. 

(Sometimes even 20% will never, ever feel like enough.)