We finished watching Season one of Mayor of Kingstown last night. The series is brutal and bloody. The story line wanders through ugly territory between realism and impossible—but convincing—fiction. Its action sequences may have stopped and restarted my heart dozens of times during the program’s first season. I believe the series is set to end after Season five, suggesting my heart will get quite a workout before the final episode transforms my television into nothing more than digital vapor.
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Today’s early horizon is blushing, revealing the sky’s emotional reaction to embarrassment or stress or shyness…or anger or excitement or any number of similar automatic responses to an unexpected stimulus. Depending on how much the sky knows about the motives of authoritarian madmen who distribute grief as if it were a reward, the pink cheeks of the morning might represent Nature’s expression of overwhelming rage. Already, the tint at the edge of the Earth is beginning to soften…first turning beige, then cooling to a very light blue. That transition does not suggest a diminution in Nature’s indignation; only an indicator that her rage has transformed into fury so great that its intensity is capable of extinguishing a thousand suns, leaving only a fine powdery ash residue behind.
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Leonard Cohen lived a significant part of his life the way I dreamed of living mine. But Cohen’s thirst for a deeply meaningful life experience obviously was far more intense than mine. He overcame the fears that might have deterred him from pursuing his aspirations. I, on the other hand, allowed my anxieties to blossom into intimidation or something even more powerful—dread or weak-kneed terror. He willingly took risks I have never been able to myself to face. His courage and adventuresome nature fueled his resolve, while my meekness stoked my timidity. He lived for a time in a decaying old house he bought on the Greek Island of Hydra—a place awash in a culture that bathed him in adventure and excitement. I lived nervously for five years, at the other end of the spectrum, in a flimsy tract home I bought in a Houston suburb, worrying about how my wife and I would survive if I lost my job and the meager source of income it provided. Cohen broke or ignored rules that would have suppressed his creativity. I imagined myself a non-conformist, but usually took care to avoid uncontrollable conflict… coloring just barely within the lines. My self-identification as a bohemian was—and unfortunately remains—a pretense. I tend to hold in high regard people who visibly and vocally challenge rules and willingly criticize the status quo. I tend to view rigid rule-followers as soft and weak, unless they wholeheartedly support the rules and their rationale. But people who disdain rules, yet follow them in fear of the consequences of breaking them…I have the same pity and contempt for them as I feel staring back at me when I look into a mirror. Hypocrisy chiseled in stone. Forgiveness does not wash away the shame; only deepens it.
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That’s all for now.
