Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, June 05, 2004
We're heading out this morning to NYC to attend our friend's mother's memorial service and see some friends we haven't seen for years. We plan to be back Monday morning, and I'll try to post something from New York - but expect regular blogging starting next week. My apologies to everyone who hasn't been getting comments from me for a long time. I've missed writing to you, and I'll be back soon.
8:35 AM
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Thursday, June 03, 2004
Well, anyone who has ever gone through the disorientation of re-entry into one’s former life after a long time away will know how I’m feeling. It’s been a strange few days since coming back home, made even more so by the poignancy of knowing we were not only away, but have made a major decision about where we’re going to be spending some big chunks of our time. I’m enjoying being back in my own house, the layers of personality and years of life it represents, luxuriating in its size, the convenience of having a washer and dryer, a functional kitchen, a shower, and closets for clothes. Despite the chaos of the garden and the constant drizzling rain the past few days, it’s beautiful outside, and having missed a month of growth makes the emergence of full-blown perennials, shrub and tree leaves even more of a miracle than usual. I’m happy to hear familiar voices, and know we were missed.
During our time in Canada, we were often asked, as if by a concerned sibling, “So – how are things in the U.S. – really?” When the conversation went deeper, it was said more than once, “From here, it seems like your whole country has gone kind of nuts – paranoid wouldn’t be too strong a word.” I couldn’t argue; I think it’s true. But coming back home has simply reinforced that view. At the prestigious nearby university, where only two professors were willing to demonstrate opposition to the war in Iraq last year, the whole faculty is in an uproar over personnel issues. Meanwhile, in my town, a few eighteen-year-old kids got into a fight last week with kids from a different town, a number of boys and girls got slashed up with knives, then the fight moved to the low-income housing complex where one of the ringleaders lived, rifles were fired at people at random, and it finally took the whole police department to break it up – all for no apparent reason at all. And today, on my way down to the post office, I saw that the most beautiful tree in the village, a mature catalpa – one of only two here – had been cut on the grounds of a business property. Years ago, the village committee that J. and I helped establish met with the zoning board to change the regulations for that property and some others in our downtown, specifically to restrict certain types of noisy and inappropriate business, and to protect and encourage planting and preservation. We all talked about that tree. And today it lies on the ground, chain-sawn into pieces. I understand – catalpas are messy. They shed blossoms in the spring, and pods in the fall. Probably the owners didn’t think the tree mattered to anyone. Now there is one more emptiness where a tree used to be; one more place to be filled with asphalt.
Like Butuki, I muse about what’s wrong. There are jobs in this area, there’s a good environment, fairly low crime, and we’re far from urban problems and fears of terrorist threats, if those are the source of the paranoia and desperation I see in society at large. But the sense that the ship is rudderless, and the society spinning out of control, reaches even here. Poor people in this town are getting poorer, while five miles away, people are building two-million-dollar houses. Individuals seem to be increasingly concerned with “me, me, and mine”: protecting my car, my home, my job, and to hell with everybody else. Without access to even that much control over one’s life, is it any wonder that people go on shooting rampages or beat up their wives and kids? And frankly, I find it even more worrisome that people who do have education and opportunity and quite a lot of control can’t seem to look past their own concerns. What it looks like to me – and this is not a flattering assessment – is the fruit of years and years of selfishness and increasing expectation suddenly called into question. People in all economic classes seem desperate when confronted with a reality that may not measure up to those upward expectations. Yet instead of looking outward, understanding the interconnectedness of the world, and figuring out a collective solution, they’re pulling in. It’s happening to us as a country, and to people as individuals, because we haven’t yet got the maturity, leadership, or courage to do anything different. I’m glad to see Bush&Co. self-destructing, and I hope it happens fast enough for the election. But does anyone really think a Kerry administration will be able to turn this massive ship, with all its weight and momentum, and all its complicated, secret indebtedness, quickly around?
I wish everyone could have the perspective of being seen from the outside, and having to talk about - even try to explain - America to non-Americans. I wish everyone could spend a month reading only foreign news. I wish everyone could see the ways in which other peoples manage to enjoy their lives without being as nutzoid and consumptive as we are. The change in perspective is not only negative; you figure out what you love about America, too. But you also come to see yourself as a citizen of the world, a shrinking world that we’re all responsible for. For me, it comes down to being fascinated by cultural difference, and feeling deeply fatigued by national political identity. Can human beings ever learn to treasure the one, and transcend the other?
Vermont was vert-er than vert, and our house feels like a palace after living in a room the size of half our upstairs for a month. We wander around like cats, sniffing and making sure it's really home. Outside, the gardens look like Sleeping Beauty's forest; I've never seen such chaos but it's sort of beautiful. Among the weeds: deep red peonies, dark blue lupine, and the fists of fat poppy buds. Maybe I'll just leave it all like this...
Twenty minutes after we arrived, Shirin appeared with Persian food for our dinner. Now that is friendship.
Our last day here is windy, bright and clear, as if the fast-moving air is sweeping all the particles of dust and pollen away and leaving unimpeded vision, accompanied by the music of the wind. J. is out on the back porch squeezing lemons for fresh lemonade for our party tonight - at the market this afternoon they were 7 for 1 Canadian dollar. There will be vin rouge, of course, but fresh lemonade seemed like a good way to inaugurate the summer. This isn't a holiday weekend in Canada, but today is a free museum day all across the city, and it's also one of the "Tour de l'Ile" cycling holidays, when many major streets are closed to encourage cycling and exploring. We couldn't do either of those things, but they seemed like a great idea. Closer to home, the residents of rue Garnier, two streets east of here, had their own street closed today for a "repas communitaire" - community meal - at noon: what we Americnas would call a block party.
At the market, shopping for tonight, we bought fresh cheeses, cherries, strawberries, salad things, and some grilled chicken that had been prepared at a North African shop with an outdoor grill. I'm making a platter of cold cooked asparagus, sliced tomatoes, little red potatoes in vinaigrette, and feta cheese. Other people are bringing wine, cake, chocolate, bread. Mon Dieu, how am I going to manage the withdrawal?
J. and I have been talking a lot about the differences between here and home; some are external and obvious, of course, but many are more internal. One of those is the lack of pressure in this society, which goes practically unnoticed by Montrealers, I imagine, but for us is not unlike that air-clearing breeze, leaving in its wake first a sort of confusing emptiness, that one eventually sees is filled with awareness of a whole different level of life, once the pressure is removed. I'll certainly be writing more about this, as well as contemplating how to integrate it into our life life back home.
Our internet access ends at midnight. We'll be home tomorrow night.
