love

Groundhog Day

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

Blogger’s Note: My Second Third post for this week is delayed tonight in favor of a movie post that is long overdue. WARNING: This could be chock full of spoilers!

In February 1993, when the movie Groundhog Day was released, February 2 was an obscure observance, and Punxsutawney Phil was an obscure rodent attraction of which I, myself, had never heard. At that time Roger Ebert gave the film credit as a somewhat thoughtful comedy, and gave it a fairly favorable rating (3 out of 4 stars on his current web site). Twelve years later, Ebert wrote a new review of the film, adding it to his growing list of Great Movies. In the 2005 review, he says, “Certainly I underrated it in my original review; I enjoyed it so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation. But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phrase This is like “Groundhog Day” to explain how you feel, a movie has accomplished something.”

My own experience with the film was similar. The first time I saw it, I liked it well enough: I laughed throughout and remembered the premise and specific scenes particularly well. Now, for me, there aren’t a lot of comedies I’ll go back to watch again and again (unless I’m channel-surfing and happen to catch one)…but for whatever reason, Groundhog Day struck me as worth a repeat viewing. In the years since, I’ve seen it multiple times and have grown to love the movie. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why.

Ebert’s second review catches a glimpse of the movie’s greatness. He cites an article in a British newspaper claiming that Groundhog Day is one of the most spiritual movies of all time.

A bit much? Think about it: We have a man in Bill Murray who is completely self-absorbed and cares about no one except insofar as they serve his interests. One morning he wakes up to find himself stuck: same alarm, same room, same routine, same job. One day, same as the next.

The premise is that he is literally stuck in time and space: He wakes up in the same place on same minute of the same day of the same month of the same year. But re-read the previous paragraph. Who hasn’t gone through a similar stretch in life?

He goes through stages: shock, anger, denial. Then he comes to the conclusion that he might as well make the most of it. He eats what he wants, acts how he wants, behaves outrageously. He gathers information “one day” and uses it the “next,” to seduce an attractive women, to rob an armored car. The rules don’t apply to him. He sees himself as godlike, free to do whatever he wants.

I’ve heard multiple priests and theology buffs insist that true freedom isn’t doing whatever you want. True freedom has at least some boundaries, which protect us and enable us be secure in ourselves and so to act for the good of others. True freedom is the ability to choose to do right, as best we can.

Groundhog Day hits this nail on the head. Murray’s character is not made happy by his power, his gluttony and greed, or his conquests. He is lonely, bitter, unloved, still stuck in the same rut, and increasingly desperate. Finally he tries to kill himself…only to find himself waking up in the same spot again and again. Suicide is, literally, not the answer. He slowly discovers he wants to be loved.

The movie could have wrapped itself up with a nice moralizing bow right there, but it doesn’t. He begins to try to live each “new” day rightly. He fails, and tries again. He uses what he learns about the people he encounters to help them instead of use them. At one point, he even seems to have set the bar too high, trying to live the perfect day, to do everything right, to help everyone and eliminate any trace of suffering in the little town. In this case he fails simply because that’s not how the world works. Even when he’s doing Good Work, he’s still not God.

He gets closer and closer to love, messes up, loses it, and gets up in the morning to make another run. He tries to make each tomorrow a little better than today.

Re-read the previous paragraph. Don’t know about you, but that sounds familiar to me, too.

Pre-Election Rant-A-Day 3: The Wrong Kind of Better

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Blogger’s Note: I’ve had a terribly long and curmudgeonly blog post brewing in my head for months, and no time to write it. So I’ve settled on the “Rant-A-Day” format. The first Pre-Election Rant-A-Day is here. Number two is here. To recap: “It’s All Good” (aka “Go Along to Get Along”) kills democracy, and you can’t legislate happiness. Okay. Where are we today?

“[It’s] The Economy, Stupid.”
— James Carville

These rants began to take shape in my head a few months ago or so, after I posted a status to my Facebook page that got people talking. From August 11 at 8:31 a.m.: Jim Thorp wonders: If parents today feel as though, for the first time, their children may not have a better life than they had — maybe we’ve been seeking the wrong sort of “better” all along?”

What is this better we’ve been after? In my day-job, I write a great deal about economic growth and quality of life and human capital, and to a point, I believe we need to turn the economy around, lift folks out of poverty, and generally make life better for everyone. I mean, it sounds good. It makes sense. So why does my heart rebel?

Maybe it’s because, deep down, I agree with this guy (any excuse to use this clip; I picked this version on this site because the site was obscenity-free). In case you choose not to watch a very funny video clip (or in case they pull it at some point), permit me to quote: “When I read things like, ‘The foundations of capitalism are shattering,’ I’m like, maybe we need that, maybe we need some time where we’re walking around with a donkey with clanging on the sides…because everything is amazing right now, and nobody’s happy.”

We could use some perspective. We could count a blessing or two, and be content.

I’ve talked with my parents about their childhoods, and I know I am a generation removed from poverty. I’ve talked with friends who can’t find work — I know that edge is closer than we think. I also know my solidly middle-class five-figure salary puts me in the top quarter of earners in the U.S., and way ahead of most of the rest of the world. I know people making 10 times what I make, raising half as many kids, who look at me and shake their heads: poor stiff. I also know how comfortable our existence is. We’ve got too many bills, but we’re paying them. I’m in debt to my ears, for a modest house, yes, that has lost much of its value — but also for a million little things I used to think we needed so my kids could have a so-called better life. I know that if my family finances collapse because of reckless spending, it’s my own fault, and I know with each minivan load of stuff that goes to the church garage sale, or friends with new babies, or Goodwill, our lives improve, if for no other reason than we’re letting go. Even the kids are happier. They don’t miss it.

I remember when I got accepted to Yale — what a burden it was at first, to think that thousands of other students were trying to get in, and I applied almost on a dare, and got in. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go — I’d never thought seriously about it — and now I had the golden ticket. Leave Remus, Michigan, for a school of presidents.

I was scared.

I remember my dad pulling me aside after a day or so, and saying, “I just want you to know, you don’t have to go to Yale if you don’t want to. You don’t have to go to college at all. If you decide you want to stay here and work in the shop, that’s fine with me. Whatever you do, I just want you to be happy.”

Sure he wanted a better life for me, but that wasn’t measured in dollars or degrees. He had already given me a better life by being home for dinner, pulling me out of school to take me hunting and fishing, insisting that I work hard and well and contribute to the family, not drinking or smoking, and teaching me to say I love you (and even to cry like a man, on occasion). He sacrificed for his family. He gave me more than he got as a kid, but it wasn’t more stuff. It was more of himself.

My fellow freshmen at Yale thought I was nuts when I said I wanted to be a high-school biology teacher. They rolled their eyes when I shrugged and said I came East for an education, not a job. (Hear that? That’s the sound of a squeaking halo.) They were incredulous when I came back from Wall Drug engaged.

We used to want these things: to serve others, to better ourselves, to love and be loved. Financial independence used to mean “owe nothing to any man,” as St. Paul said his letter to the Romans; now it means a strong credit score and purchasing power.

On the radio yesterday, a prospective voter wondered aloud why his legislative candidates were obsessing over which president, Bush or Obama, was to blame for the economy, while Americans are dying in two wars. Where in this economic engine (and myriad other car analogies) do we, as people, live and move and have our being?

It’s not the economy. It never was. The economic collapse is a symptom of a world so suffering-averse that it would rather sell out its children than sacrifice its lifestyle.

We vote our pocketbooks and consume ourselves.

Joy Rising

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Crossing campus afoot. The sun gleams coolly, bright enough to invite skin, distant enough to appear modest. A day for loving, but I am not home. I should be working, but the words won’t come.

The students would be out in force were it not Spring Break. Instead, campus is largely depopulated and scraped bare from winter, with just a hint of green on ground and none on the trees. My left shoe squeaks with each step. I peer at my surroundings through dark-rimmed glasses, jaw set, brow serious, daring the few passers-by to comment. It is a mask of sorts, to guard solitude. I do not wish to speak; only to walk and to think. Hiding in plain sight. I am not alone in this game. On three separate occasions I pass seated students (one perched atop a limestone buttress, his back to a brick wall; the other two beneath separate leafless trees) staring fixedly past their books.

Ahead a glossy brunette stretches languidly beside her rippled beau catnapping on the new grass. She turns from belly to back, then props herself suggestively on her elbows in order to emphasize the impossible pinkness of her fitted tee. Her exposure is her cover. He opens one eye, smiles, then rolls to one hip and plants a beefy arm firmly in the grass for her to admire. He speaks. She tosses her shining hair and laughs out loud. He grins handsomely, more on one side than the other.

Their colors are complementary. They insist without speaking that you must notice them. They swear by their perfection that they were made for each other. I see them clearly and cannot tell who they are.

Even the two mop-topped guys tossing a Frisbee on the vacant mall are incognito. They appear studiously disheveled, their board-shorts and earthy t-shirts are at least 10 degrees premature, and they shout too loudly to each other in the silence, as if to emphasize the tremendous fun they are having. In this they are not unlike the shining lovers.

I squeak further down the flagstones. A woman in a bright printed dress and chunky jewelry is seated on a bench, speaking softly into her cell. As if on cue, her voice climbs as I pass: Oh. My. God! Her sudden drama scatters pigeons. A dark-clad dissident is tacking flyers to a nearby kiosk with a stapler, but see how his skinny jeans come prewrinkled, how the white North Face logo stands in stark contrast to his black backpack and jacket. They are neither secondhand nor surplus. He is not from mean streets; he is a rebel with means.

I dress like a student, frown like an academic, and walk like I’ve somewhere to go. We are images passing.

And then.

I turn a corner to see a young woman approaching. She is short, well-rounded and feminine, with a mass of dark bouncing corkscrew curls, and a long, quick stride that belies her height and brings her quickly toward me. Her face is fair-skinned and unadorned; she is not looking at me, or even where she is going. She is alone, watching something unseen, and I see in her eyes the dawning of some great joy; soft lips move from quiet smile to toothsome grin verging on laughter. Cheeks flush, then blush, with this new dawning. I am an unnoticed witness to unguarded emotion, unvarnished happiness. Baby’s first laugh. Boy’s first notice of girl. For this brief moment, she is the most beautiful person I can imagine.

What joy rose in her in those few seconds I’ll never know. We pass. I don’t look back.

Blogger’s Note: This reminds me of two other posts, about our images and the faces we put on: Skin Deep is Deep Enough and Tres Chic(ago). Hope you like ’em.

A Love Letter … To You

/ J. Thorp / 5 Comments

I’ve made a lot of choices
Most have not been wise
But I have some really good friends
I’ve been fortunate enough to find
They get through the lonely days
When I want to stay inside myself
They get me out of my shell
Out into the world …

Heartless Bastards, “Hold Your Head High“

I used to think I was good at being alone. I remember my last two years of college in Connecticut, with my future bride half a country away, I felt like I had being alone down to an art form. I had routines. I got sleep. I listened to my own music, watched Polish movies no one else wanted to, ate in the dining halls when most of my friends moved off campus, worked 20+ hours a week and still went to class. I got stuff done, talked to Jodi on the phone (and chatted online, before we knew what it was called), and was generally a pretty happy guy.

I remember when I discovered I wasn’t good at being alone. I went to Chicago for a conference. It was around Christmas, a few years after Jodi and I married. Certainly we had Brendan, maybe Gabe, too. I remember wandering downtown the first evening, wrapped like a package in my old wool overcoat and scarf, enjoying the swirling snow, the glittering lights, and the bustle of holiday traffic on the Miracle Mile. I remember the brief pang in my chest as I thought, Jodi would enjoy this. I remember calling home from the hotel, then settling in for a long winter’s nap.

I lay awake a long time. I tossed and turned, turned on the tube, discovered that old truth of cable (hundreds of channels and nothing on), and nonetheless watched parts of several movies. I finally drifted off in the wee hours, woke tired at the alarm’s cry, and shuffled off to the conference’s morning session.

By the end of the first full day, all of things that sparked wonder the previous day now only increased the hollow ache in my chest. I wanted to go home. I was a family man.

In college and thereafter, I discovered something else about me: not only am I not good at being alone or apart from the people I love, but I also tend toward being an all-or-nothing friend. I’m either right there with you, deeply, personally, and for the long haul, or I’ll give you the old reverse nod and try to remember your name. I’m terrible with names, worse with birthdays and such, I generally hate phone calls, and, as a writerly sort, I can’t send a casual email to anyone I don’t feel I know pretty well. (My casual emails are studiously so, and I have the obsessive habit of re-reading them after I send them and wishing I’d worded them differently. Sometimes I’ll clarify with a P.S. after the fact.) So you might imagine that maintaining a casual acquaintance isn’t easy for me.

But I like people. Too much, sometimes. I like people to the point that I get emotional when strangers do. I like people to the point that when they do bad things I’m shocked and disappointed, almost moreso than angry. I like people with views so counter to mine that my guts tie in knots in anticipation of when it’ll all blow up. I practice what I’ll say when it does, in my head so you can’t hear, hoping that it’s the right combination of words that will convey vehement disagreement and utmost affection.

Somebody told me a couple of weeks ago that I don’t seem like an insecure guy. Maybe I’m not. But I want to do right by you. All of you. It’s completely naive and idealistic and impossible. It’s exhausting at times, and about every two weeks I want to secede from society. I want to pull into my shell just so I can breathe.

You people invariably coax me out again. Today, dozens of you took a second to wish me a happy birthday, in the midst of a stressful, eat-at-your-desk, student-protest-outside-the-window, what-the-hell-am-I-doing kind of Tuesday. Facebook, of course, has made the casual friendship so easy that even I can do it now, but still—you took a couple seconds out of your day to brighten mine. Why did you do that? Maybe you’re thinking it’s not big deal, but I smiled through the sporadic train wrecks of the day because you decided to burn a moment on me.

Do you realize what that is? There’s a word for it, one we use in a million wrong ways and are too often afraid to use right. Yup. That one.

So I’ll say it, and may your cheeks burn to hear it: I love you. Yes, even you. And don’t worry if you were about to let me have it regarding something I said or did. Go ahead. It’s gonna be okay; I’ve got it all planned out.

The Exquisite Ache of Loving

/ J. Thorp / 5 Comments

While we were visiting friends in Michigan last weekend, they were saying goodbye to a loved one. We offered to stay away — to not burden them with guest beds and towels and six extra mouths to feed. They insisted we come, to share what they had to give. “We may have to leave for a few hours,” said the wife and mother of three. “And we may eat hot dogs,” said the husband and father.

I don’t want this to come across the wrong way — like taking pleasure in pain — but there is something beautiful about being invited to share in the sorrows of another. I’ve said before: it’s easy to share in the good times — anyone can do that. But vulnerability requires trust, and real empathy is hard work. The intimacy of a family drawing together at the close of a life can be deeply moving, and in this case, the opportunity for us to share these moments and to feel strong and useful, able to listen and to be leaned upon, was a source of great peace and joy to me. Like all hard labor for a good end, the ache I feel for our friends brings with it a little smile — the result of shared and genuine emotion, of loving and being loved.

Does that make sense? I commented to a friend not long ago that genuine emotion seems to be a rare thing. And I know for my part that I am a sponge for it — I’ll soak any source ’til I’m dripping (usually from the eyes). Our work-a-day lives too often require cold calculation and compromise, a daily quest for the brightest shade of grey. A splash of color — even the deepest of blues — resonates, and we are grateful.

Thank you, friends, for sharing your lives with us. We love you.