Oh God, I am drowning in toys. I think of my Christmas list, the harmonica, to bend some blues into my music making, the Kindle, a Kindle!, for which The Egg already has literally thousands of free books lined up to give me, so I can just read until the apocalypse, at which point I will have to dive into the mound of unread books sitting right here on my shelf, real paper and spine, and then many other music making toys, movies to just sit and watch and love, a switchblade, for the occasional run-in with bears and rapists on my solitary mountain hikes, just toys and toys, to roll around on the carpet with, in gleeful celebrating. I tell myself they are all just superficial, that woman cannot live on toys alone, but really, why can't she? Let's take this idea, let's examine it without interest. Isn't it good to be enjoying a something, in these bleak cold wintertimes? just anything. And why am I so quick to trivialize the joy that any bought thing gives me? As if the stories in books and the television and the internets shouldn't be able to move me, why do I think they are so fleeting? Because not everyone in the world can afford them? Because they didn't exist a hundred years ago? Why are they not real life? This is just the time, when summer is surrendering, closing up shop, and we are left bundled up and twiddling our thumbs for months, to just temporarily appreciate these stories as friends, or to learn and learn, to cuddle up with a computer and spin a song, and then, when the spring comes, to sprout up and rub shoulders with real live human beings, to flitter into a frenzy of activity of all sorts. Maybe my spirit animal is a bear and I'm meant to hibernate for half a year. So what? I want to know, what is it I am expecting my life to be, that these things feel like distractions, even if only for a season? What is it? What's so important? This, to me, is the question of winter. I let myself believe this time is thin, missing something. What is that something? Or am I making it up, by devaluing perfectly legitimate ways to pass the time?
Oh God, I am reading the new Jeffrey Eugenides. I can't tell if it is pretentious or the anti-pretention, but either way I love that guy. He always writes about the juiciest things. This book is about falling in love during a time that the idea of the love story is being deconstructed to death. I am hoping that since he is so self-conscious about the worn-outness of the classic lovey tropes, that he can give himself permission to indulge in them a little too, because he obviously loves them. It is what makes me keep reading, the hope that even in the light of every theory and reality that makes it seem impossible, he can make star crossed love somehow believable. But maybe I am missing the point.
And now, a picture.
3 comments:
I love your blog and your mind. I heard an NPR spot about the new Eugenides and it sounded like something I would've tried to write in creative writing class in college when I was first learning about deconstruction. But probably 102983 times better! (His not mine.)
Also, I think conscientious faith ppl are really into eschewing materialism (and rightly so because it is insane in our lives) but totally forget that God redeems materially, right? Incarnationally? Eschatalogically, the whole thing will be renewed, even the toys. So maybe materialism ain't so bad.
Totally. I think my biggest problem with materialism is that it's so easy to get caught up in believing we need more and more crap, and that we should have the hottest clothes to impress our coworkers, and that our child will have an incomplete childhood if he doesn't get a 3DS. Obviously, I am not on board for that kind of greed spiral. But when it's about enjoying what we DO already have, making the most of it, what would be so wrong with that?
Yeah, I feel like the Eugenides is validating all of my misgivings about deconstruction. I actually completely love the idea of it, but the writing can be pretty tedious, and it does sort of break down any attempt at communicating. He also pokes a little fun at the self-seriousness of college philosophy classes, which I enjoy.
geez, jen, you just HAD to put it out there that yet another book must go on my ever-increasing "must read" list. i'm totally intrigued. this man should give you a portion of his sales :-)
i believe i am in agreement, and funny thing, was just thinking about something similar last night. living by yourself and only having time to take small breaks to keep yourself sane makes you enjoy the things around your home-fun movies, singing at the top of your lungs (and hoping the downstairs neighbors don't hear, in my case) and watching lovely hulu tv shows on my lovely computer. i truly believe to whom much is given much is required, and that can take many forms. if it causes you to further enjoy life and then be a better and greater person when you are around others, then isn't that using our things wisely? methinks as such.
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