Ode to The Straight Story

I guess you could call it tears therapy. Or cinema therapy. Either way, it's also part two of my Arts-in-Grief "newsletter": 

The movie "The Straight Story." 

(Part one: my mourning musical soundtrack).

It, too, has played a role in mourning my father. Or maybe pre-mourning? (Precocious mourning? The term for the mourning you're in before the death? Will see if there's a specific word ... there is! 'Anticipatory grief.' But maybe also Pauline Boss's 'ambiguous grief'?). 

You could say watching the movie, which first came out in 1999, was an exercise in controlled mourning. 

It's an extremely simple film, old-fashioned in many ways (no special effects, limited use of soundtrack, straight-forward cinematography), but one of the best I've ever seen. 

It's the story of an older gentleman living in the Midwest (and played by the absolutely fabulous Richard Farnsworth) who knows the years left to him aren't infinite so he sets out to see his estranged brother (played by Harry Dean Stanton; Sissy Spacek plays Farnsworth's daughter in a way that will break a part of your heart before the rest of the movie breaks what remains of your heart). 

I re-watched it over a series of weeks last Fall. I wanted to be alone with my grief while I watched it, which meant daytime viewing, so I consumed the movie in snippets, when I had time -- and when I felt the need.

When I first saw the film, years ago, I don't know the moment in the film that tapped my tears -- perhaps simply the end. I only know during this most recent viewing, I cried the entire time, knowing how the film would culminate. That simple final scene is so powerful (I won't say anymore to avoid spoilers -- the trailer wisely avoids showing it). 

I actually thought quite a bit during the days surrounding my father's funeral about the fate of those who are estranged from loved ones; when those loved ones die, I would imagine the grief must be almost insurmountable because there were no intermediate moments to attenuate the loss.

The irony: the copy of the movie I watched in the Fall is one I'd bought for my parents. They never watched it. Maybe they didn't need it. They weren't truly estranged from anyone. Just maybe their former selves -- and aren't we all?

Neither here nor there: I hate the phrase 'retail therapy,' but that's probably just because I hate shopping. Cinema therapy, which I find comes in handy after sleepless nights, sounds much better. 

Last thought: if anyone reading this is estranged from someone, watch the movie and see if you don't think it's time to reconcile. Especially if it's a sibling or a parent where simple misunderstandings and disagreements (exacerbated by ego) have caused the rift.

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When an ex-reporter like me tries to write fiction

“Well, is he crooked or not? 

My editor didn’t bother waiting for me to walk across the newsroom to his desk. He'd spotted me the moment I turned the corner from the hall by the elevator into the large open space where all of us reporters and editors worked. I was reading an email from my father on my smartphone while nibbling a bagel. Another day in journalism – fielding quasi-existential questions while inhaling lunch on the fly after a news conference ran long.

 

I was sapped. But I had been on the beat long enough to understand his unspoken question.

 

Without looking him in the eye, I said, “You ever cheat on your wife?”

 

I could feel Joe smile immediately, as if to say, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” It was almost as if I were able read his thoughts – how he preferred saucy women reporters to the men who wandered into the field with a sense of entitlement even though he wasn't going to object too much to the routine promotions of said men.

 

He allowed himself -- and me -- a small chuckle. “Not if I can help it.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Exactly what?” Looking at his watch, he picked up some papers from his desk. “I have to go into a roomful of editors right now and they’re going to want to know if the Mayor is crooked enough to put on the front page.”

 

“I know. And I’m telling you he might be as crooked as you are. Or he might be a helluva lot more crooked. Just can’t tell yet.”

 

The police scanner blared with static, and then the dispatcher's voice emerged. “Stay on the line caller,” she said, then nothing, followed by, “Caller advises that her husband has locked himself in the bathroom with a handgun and a three-year-old child…..”

 

We listened for a moment instinctively, then ignored it. Not our problem. Our corner of the City Desk didn't deal with the cop beat.

NYT: "Watching the U.S. Election While Irish" (file under 'articles I love')

This is the art of writing a newspaper column -- or an op-ed -- at its finest:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/opinion/cnn-election-ireland.html

And it's a perfect thing to post for St. Paddy's Day. I've been saving it for a while as you'll see.

Sláinte! 

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To be denied their Dutchness (Auster)

From Paul Auster's memoir, The Invention of Solitude:

“Nearly everyone speaks excellent English in Amsterdam. This ease of communication, however, was upsetting to him, as if it would somehow rob the place of its foreignness. Not in the sense that he was seeking the exotic, but in the sense that the place would no longer be itself – as if the Dutch, by speaking English, would be denied their Dutchness.” (p. 83-84)

Exactly!

And the Italians indulging their sudden mania for English are denied -- are denying! -- their Italianness.

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The Obituary We All Need (to Write) -- for Brevity

I couldn't let the tiny, standard-issue obit that ran on the funeral website be the last word about my Dad. I had too many other things to say.

So my kind editor at Brevity agreed to run this piece (link below), the obituary I had to write. The extended version.

And yet! There is still so much more to say. For many reasons, I suppose, beginning with the most basic fact: he was my father.

But also: HE was a character. After a lifetime of labeling others with that comment, I have come to conclude that he, above all, was a character. And since I believe I take after him much more than I take after my mother, ours was a complex relationship. One that begs for some investigation.

I also concluded in one teary moment while driving back home to Connecticut that I really had a wonderful Dad. Me being me, I concluded it -- or better yet, admitted it -- far too late. And me being me, I realized it while reimagining a scene from my favorite movie, "It's A Wonderful Life." The angel, Clarence, says to George, "Don't you see? You really had a wonderful life."

In my version, he says, "You really had a wonderful Dad."

To read the piece for Brevity, go here:

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/the-obituary/

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