3 June

True Parable: Loss And Love. Fear The Best, Not The Worst…

by Jon Katz
Parable

I teach my Saturday writing class at Pompanuck Farms, a 90-acre retreat and farming center surrounded by 800 acres of remote state forest. Maria comes sometimes to hike in the woods with Red and Fate. The class ends at noon, and Maria is obsessive about punctuality, she is always back a few minutes before noon to help me load the car up and head home.

This morning, she failed to show up. She has never come past noon, and when it got to be 12:30 or so, I did start to worry. Maria is a very competent person, she can take care of herself and she knows the woods well. Like most artists, she can sometimes get preoccupied and lost track of the moment.

As it came to 12:30, all kinds of images began to creep into my head. Did she get lost? Perhaps sick or injured, or chased by a bear? Was she in trouble, should I do something? My cell phone had no signal, so even if she was trying to reach me, I wouldn’t get the message.

My mother had a habit of calling hospital emergency rooms or the highway patrol if I was more than 10 minutes late. I learned from that not to panic. I learned as a journalist that bad news travels  faster than any news, and if something is seriously wrong, you will hear about it.

But I started wondering if I should do something.

Those woods are the real deal, and many people get lost in the state forests. And there are lots of bears there. This time of year, there are mothers with small babies, and they can get quite upset with people come near. And some of the woods are quite dense and thick. I would get lost in a minute if I hiked alone, it is always Maria who navigates.

So it was difficult for me to imagine that she might get lost, she hikes there all the time.

What if she needed help, or had fallen in some hollow or ravine?  Should I be standing around looking dumb? Should I head out with Red, who stayed behind with me this morning?

At such moments, when loss comes to mind, you appreciate what it is you love, you see how lucky you are in life. For a moment, I contemplated the horror of something being seriously wrong. How would we find her or even know where to look?

But I checked myself. The worst thing you can do for somebody in trouble is to panic. I just couldn’t imagine why she might be so late, she knew the trails well at Pompanuck and would not keep me waiting without a reason.  If she was lost, she would find her way back, it wasn’t Alaska. If she was hurt or sick, we would find her quickly.

The mind has its own path sometimes, and I am my mother’s child. Awful thoughts crept into my head. But I shooed them away.

One of my new mottos is: Prepare For the Best, Not The Worst. That is a choice.

At 12;35, i was going to head down the road to pick up a signal and see if she was trying to contact me when I saw Fate come crashing out of the woods and racing down the hill toward me. Maria was close behind. She had made a wrong turn, lost her way, told Fate to find the way home, and Fate, of course did.

It felt like a couple of hours, but it was only 35 minutes. “You are in trouble, young lady,” I said, but we both just laughed. I couldn’t even fake it.

I was delighted beyond words to see her, I never loved her more.  It is good to expect the best.

3 June

Review: Wonder Woman. A Goddess Saves The World From Mortals. And It Was Fun!

by Jon Katz
My Wonder Woman

I loved Wonder Woman, and as importantly, so did Maria. This is not only a terrific superhero movie, it’s also a terrific movie.

It is the first superhero studio movie to be directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins, and her particular sensibility shines through from the very opening, even in a movie stuffed with the usual endless battles and explosions and bloodbaths.

This superhero is a proud, moral and very strong force.

Almost everyone in the film is dwarfed by her (by her acting and also by the depth of the character she plays.) She sets out bravely and at great risk to save humanity, and is far more ethical and worthy than any of the human beings she encounters, battles, or saves.

To me, Superman was like white bread, a total goody-goody but bland and uninspiring. Diana is all good, admirable,  complex and deep.

Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot)  is the only superhero story to spring directly from Greek Myth.

In the beginning, the movie goes back in time to Themyscira, the legendary island of the Amazons.

Diana, descended from Zeus, is the daughter of the Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), and begs to be trained in combat by her aunt, General Antiope (Robin Wright) over her mother’s strong objections. Even as a small child, Diana was drawn to her destiny while knowing little about her history.

Diana knows nothing of men or life in the outside world, their beautiful island, occupied by a powerful community of warriors, is protected by thick fog and a mystical force field. Out of the sky falls USAF Captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), piloting a burning German fighter plane he stole in a spying mission.

After a fierce battle between the Amazons and some German soldiers pursuing Trevor, Diana decides to leave the paradise of the Amazons and join him in the effort to stop the war and keep the Germans from developing fearsome new weapons that would kill millions.

The scenes on Themyscira are the most beautiful and haunting in the movie, the Amazons are fierce but also loving, a powerful community.

I think the movie was great.

I had some nits, of course. Pine was a strong co-lead, but the bad guy Germans and demented scientists seemed weak and out of focus to me. So did the sidekicks who joined Diana and the Captain in their effort to stop the Germans and end the war ( the movie is set in World War I). The primary villain and the evil scientists just didn’t do it for me.

It almost seemed as if the men in the movie shrank in Diana’s presence, she was so strong and compelling. That might not have been an accident, of course.

The movie is too long at two hours and 20 minutes, and the final battle scene was both too long and too loud, with a dozen false endings. I was getting dizzy and sore.

The film also speaks to the complexity of being a modern woman, and the ways in which women are always portrayed. Diana and the Amazons are drop-dead gorgeous, they all looked like…well, movie stars. Couldn’t one of them have a normal body, I wondered? Even this movie about powerful woman directed by a brilliant female director could not find a way around the unyielding Hollywood stereotype of women and what their bodies must look like.

The film is ultimately a movie about humanity, and it never loses that focus.

Jenkins chose to develop character over combat, although there is plenty of the latter. I thought it was odd for the first female-dominated superhero movie to end with a preachy short speech about the power of love when our hero had just left thousands of bodies bodies scattered and body-dropped all across the battlefields of Belgium.

Diana never loses her moral compass, even when given the opportunity for easy revenge. She is fiercely competent, yet at the same time an innocent.

I think it’s patronizing and tired now to judge movies only by how strong their female characters are. Even Disney gets it these days.

What is special about this film is the depth of Diana’s character, her resolve in the face of the usual bumbling and morally weak men around her and her ability to project decency even as she draws upon great reservoirs of strength and courage.

In an age of greed and dissembling and gutless politicians and their rationalizing – we can’t even agree on what truth is any longer – Wonder Woman never wavered, she never wobbled away from her convincing moral code. That was inspiring to me.

No man in the movie came close to her character or clarity, but at the same time Director Jenkins never forget that these movies, even with all of their endless chases and explosions and karate movies, are supposed to be fun.

This movie is fun.

And while I couldn’t begin to count the dead bodies in the film, Jenkins also mastered the Star Wars genius for presenting violence without much detail or graphic bloodshed. The movie is fine for young children.

I recommend it highly, and Maria loved it as well. This Diana is literally a goddess, and as such, she towered over all of the people she encountered, not only in terms of her superpowers – there were many beautiful scenes of bullets ricocheting off of her shield, but because of her unshakeable faith in good. She was the most convincing superhero I have yet seen.

Even though almost all of the human beings she met disappointed her, she never gave up on them, or on her duty to save them from themselves. I can’t wait for this sequel.

3 June

I Must Say I Like Bright Colors. Bedlam Farm Notebook. Wonder Woman!

by Jon Katz
I Must Say

“I must say I like bright colors,” Winston Churchill. “I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.”

Me too. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and feel badly about the browns and greys.

Some notes from Bedlam.

-The final planning for the Pompanuck retreat for the RISSE soccer team is underway. The retreat will be at the end of June and Ali and I are lining up the scheduled. There will be a campfire outdoors every night. Maria is leading hikes out into the forest. I’m cooking and reading scary stories at night.

We will have classes on art, handling stress, and story-telling. I hope to get each one of these kids to tell a story about themselves. We are excited.

-My cold is fading, and looks like I can skip the anti-biotics.

-This morning is the last class of the season for my writing workshop. If they students are game, I’m up for resuming it in the Fall. It is a wonderful class and group of people.

– Wonder Woman is much on my mind, and Maria’s. We are going to see it this afternoon. I love everything I have heard about it, hope it meets expectations. I live with a Wonder Woman, this will hit close to home. Maria is much into Goddesses, and I think this is a Goddess movie.

-Maria is planning a re-design of the kitchen. Yellow cabinets, white walls, blue trim. A Frieda Kahlo kitchen.

 

3 June

Chairs And Picnic Table For The Mansion: Thank You!

by Jon Katz
The Army Of Good Marches On

The Army Of Good Marches On.

Just last night, I asked for help in purchasing some outdoor chairs and folding tables so the Mansion residents could picnic and meet and engage in activities outside, on their beautiful lawn and near their gardens. The $500 I estimated this would cost was raised within hours, from one generous donor and a number of smaller donors.

Thank you. The Mansion staff will choose the appropriate chairs and tables, the residents have particular health and safety needs. They will picnic outside, have some activities and classes there, or just go out and have lunch of they wish.

Thanks so much for this help.

The Mansion is a Medicaid facility, they have little extra money and your support is an enormous help to them and to the residents. Can’t thank you enough. I am continuously touched by the generosity and selflessness of the community that has formed around this blog.

People ask for nothing but the satisfaction of giving. I would be happy to give credit but few people want it  (it is perfectly valid to accept it). In recent months, many of us – me for sure – have found a positive and meaningful way to deal with the turmoil unsettling the country

We have turned away from anger and hatred and argument and channeled our feelings and values towards small acts of kindness, towards doing good. There is much need out there, and you all have done a great deal of good.

These tables and chairs will transform the summers of many of the residents, who will now be able to gain safe and comfortable access to the beautiful grounds that surround the building.

Doing good is grounding, healthy and also healing. I can’t say enough about what it has done for me, and for Maria as well. The small acts of kindness have added up to enormous good for many people, from the Mansion residents to many refugees and immigrants.

Thanks, thanks thanks, again and again. I seem to be saying it a lot. When the tables and chairs come, I will be there to photograph them and show you what you have done. We have enough money for this, if any more comes in, I will place it in a general fund for the small things Mansion residents may need.

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