pantoum's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CYNICISM SURVIVAL KIT

(No. 330 � late Wednesday night, 26 April 2006) In �Desire,� Stephen Dunn refers to �the clarity that the cynical survive with� after they lose love. Rosa and I talked about that cynicism tonight after I said �cancer trumps love� when referencing Pottergrrrl.

�Writergrrrl,� she said, �I keep hearing you talk about these women who write in response to your ad, but you seem so removed from it all, so disinterested.�

And she�s right. I�m distracting myself, but it would be damn hard to hold my interest enough to dislodge my reservations right now. Yet I know I need distractions, need to force myself to leave my house and interact instead of sitting in the dark alone, writing blog entry after blog entry about connection to � well, to what? To whom?

Probably to no one. I mean, come on. I�m anonymous. It�s a blog. It�s not connection (although I am at least processing my feelings, which is helpful�especially for someone who learns what she feels by writing about it).

I know that I need to quit isolating, but also know that this doesn�t help me find any faith in people right now.

I cried all the way home from Rosa�s last night because I kept thinking about how much Pottergrrrl and I loved to go out there together, how much we loved hiking in the woods around their house, how I�d swing her in the air in their fields and we�d kiss there.

I feel like a great big dripping open wound right now, and no damn good for anything.

My shrink says I�m just reeling from being betrayed and hurt by someone who claimed to love me, that I need to give myself a break and just heal.

And yeah, I guess that�s true. But I�m also lonely. And I am officially off my high-protein, low-carb diet until I return from NYC because Rosa forgot and made homemade pizza for dinner last night and well, I was, as we said in South Cackylacky, hongry.

We built a roaring fire�which I may do tonight at home (after the play), since it turned cold again� and watched �Waiting in Africa� on a big screen that is attached to one of the open frames above the farmhouse�s living room. The film made Rosa miss Africa and made me want to go. It also made me remember how easy it is to let fascism and bigotry rule.

Meanwhile, Cybrariangrrl and I hit the nail on the head with Africagrrrl. She left a message yesterday morning with all her phone numbers and said �call me,� left one last night when I responded by saying I�m going to a play tonight so will catch up with her when I return from NYC to tell me when she�d be home so I can call her, then left another one this morning saying to call her because she wants to be sure to catch up with each other before I leave town.

I wrote back and said I don�t think I�ll get a chance to call but I hope she enjoys the conference.

I�ll deal with this when I return.

Meanwhile, the third solid day of cold rain has made me wonder if I could live in Seattle after all. I hope so, because that�s still my fantasy. I�m vested in July 2007 and, unless something changes and Filmgrrl moves back to the east coast, I will probably start looking for job opportunities out there. This is also good motivation for me to continue purging my house of unnecessary belongings such as, oh, all those heavy 1950s jazz albums that I ought to sell on eBay.

�

The New York Times recognizes today�s somber twenty-year anniversary with an interactive �Chernobyl�s Legacy: 20 Years Later� online exhibit that includes these observations:

We all know what Chernobyl is, what an atomic plant is, but I�ll tell you how we saw it. An enemy had come to our country. We had to defend ourselves. And we set out to protect our country, our people. We all had those feelings, all of us in the 100-man brigade (that initially went in to create the sarcophage). But of course it differed from a real war. In a real war, shells explode, bullets fly, bodies fall, blood flows. Here, the sun was shining overhead. Beautiful gardens stood all around, bulging with fruit. Birds were singing. You couldn�t possibly have imagined that all this was death.�Arkady Rokhlin, Nuclear Engineer and one of the Chernobyl liquidators

In war you know where you are, where the neutral territory is, where the enemy is, where the plane is, how its bombing you, how its chasing you, how it catches you. There you couldn�t see the enemy. You see it when you�re burned already. When you�re a corpse. It�s invisible. It�s everywhere and nowhere.�Constantin Baskin, Nuclear Systems Specialist

Your soul is covered in blood. You want to cry, but you can�t.�Leonid Shavray, Chernobyl firefighter

This reminds me of a poignant poem that French surrealist and working-class hero Jacques Pr�vert wrote during his military service in WWII:

BARBARA
by Jacques Pr�vert

(translated by Harriet Zinnes and published in Carolyn Forch�s Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness)

Remember Barbara
It rained without letup in Brest that day
And you walked smiling
Glowing ravishing drenched
Under the rain
Remember Barbara
It rained without letup in Brest
And I passed you on the Rue de Siam
You smiled
And I smiled too
Remember Barbara
You whom I did not know
You who did not know me
Remember
Remember that day just the same
Do not forget
A man was taking shelter in a doorway
And he called out your name
Barbara
And you ran toward him in the rain
Drenched ravishing glowing
And you threw yourself into his arms
Remember that Barbara
And do not be angry with me if I call you by your first name
I call all those I love by their first names
Even if I have met them only once
I call all who love by their first names
Even if I do not know them
Remember Barbara
Do not forget
That gentle, happy rain
On your happy face
On that happy town
That rain on the sea
On the arsenal
On the boat of Ouessant

Oh Barbara
What shit war is
What has become of you now
Under the rain of iron
Of fire of steel of blood
And he who held you in his arms
Lovingly
Is he dead missing or still living
Oh Barbara
It rains without letup in Brest
As it rained before
But it is not the same everything is ruined
It is a rain of mourning terrible and desolate
No longer even a storm
Of iron of steel of blood
Only of clouds
That burst
And disappear like dogs
Down the streams of Brest
Like dogs that will rot far away

Far away very far from Brest
Of which there is nothing left

I will probably hang out in a caf� some of tomorrow�especially if it�s raining and I can�t cut my grass�so will try to write another entry before I get on the plane. Otherwise, I�ll be back late next week with plenty of stories from NYC.

11:55 p.m. - 2006-4-27

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next