for those who are UnKnown--after beckett

"you weep, and weep, for nothing, so as not to laugh, and little by little . . . you begin to grieve."

endgame, beckett


sometimes you cry because you're supposed to.  at funerals.  at sentimental love scenes in movies.  when you fall on your bike and scratch your face.  when your heart is broken.  when you're three and you can't find your mother at the market.  you cry.  you may even weep.  you may burst into bawling because it's what you do.  you get that tightening in the back of your throat.  the tingling in your nose.  the welling of tears that threaten rain.  and the tears teeter on the edge of your lower lid.  and you resist--which only makes it worse.

and you hope someone will make you laugh.  you hope there will be a witty joke or a happy remembrance or an arriving mother or just a distraction to stop the ensuing weeks of rain--the tingling in the nose.  you want something to divert the tears.

and then you laugh.  you laugh well.  and you think that will stop the tears.  it does.  for a moment.  but the laugh has made the tears fall.  and somehow the combination of tight throat and laughter that rises from your middle has caused you to cry.  and the dam breaks.  and you find your nose running and tears running and you're chuckling--or smiling or guffawing.

and then you are silent.

pause

and if you give the silence time, you wonder.  you wonder at what you are.  at why you are crying or laughing.  or both.  and if you give it long enough, the silence lets you ask questions.

and so the match begins.  and in only a moment you have asked enough questions to fill a thousand-thousand books.  and sometimes you have the courage to wait for answers.  sometimes you're not afraid of the silence into which the emotions have hurled you consentless (or senseless or spent).

and you wait.

pause

and there is time.  there is all the time you have to wait.  to go about your business while you wait.  to live in a state of waiting silence.  to listen.  to not be afraid that the players have forgotten their lines or forgotten to show up or forgotten.

and in the silence you remember grief.  grief that smells like wet and shoes and salt and cotton candy.  and because of the silence you give in (or you resist).  and you grieve because the volley of questions is unending or the volley of answers are unsatisfactory or the volley of silence is unalleviated.

silence.  silence.  silence.  silence.

take off your shoes.  your hat.  look around you.  measure the space.  find its edge.  sit or stand or walk or dance.  listen to the sounds--sometimes it sounds like words.  sometimes it sounds like babble.  sometimes it sounds like weeping.

but wait.

"do not climb on toads"

evidently, someone of great import is being quoted on this sign.  and because of the profundity, these things should be posted somewhere other than this sign which stood so near said toads.

and please, if you're having bowel trouble.  well, you know. . . don't use the water feature.  however, if you're not--go right ahead and use that water feature.

the toads won't mind.  really.

. . . or what I will call a reflection on dismemberment

I am more than nominally intrigued by the dismemberment motifs in the Bakkhai and Oedipus the King.  People lose arms, legs, hands and (most notably) eyes.  What is it about the loss of such integral appeditures that Euripides and Sophocles were so fixated on?  In both plays the apex of tragedy begins its sweep upward at the announcement of Penthus's limbs being torn off and Oedipus's eyes being gouged out.  We respond (how could we otherwise?) with disgust and untenable curiosity when the horrific events are announced.  We are at once revolted by the conjured images of our imaginations--How could a mother do that (rip and tear and shred bare-handed) to her son?  And how could a son do that (Oedipus-like) to his mother.  And then gouge out his eyes?  And at the same instant our curiosity is unconstrained--How much blood did Penthus have in him?  What did Aguae look like when trance-like she began the frenzied dismemberment of her beloved son?  At the moment of action, what was the "look" in Oedipus's eyes?  What did he see?  And what is the wrenching sound of dismemberment?

As the true tragedy of the plays is revealed--a stew of hubris, god-ignoring, and fate--the disgust and curiosity is in some small way satisfied.  The lament of Agaue and Kadmos is more wrenching than the imagined sounds of the dismemberment--they too are being dismembered while their own disembodied limbs lie strewn across the stage.  The cure for the curiosity is more potent than the curiosity itself.  No need to see Oedipus in the self-mutilating act--his tearless cries at the sound of his daughter's sobbing is enough to satiate our want of eyes.  

We have seen enough.

And maybe, if we were watching, something in us has lost a limb too.

o the sparrows (with apologies to fortinbras).

maybe it was the sparrows.

maybe it was the ecphonetic O.

or maybe it was fortinbras' fault (when you can't blame bill gates, blame fortinbras).

last week after class i did not take the interstate home.  i intentionally avoided the most efficient route.  my car turned left (sans premeditation, predetermination, preordination, or election) when i wanted it to turn right.  as my car habitually neared the familiar route, i decided to listen to my right-turn-self in a moment of action and eschew the interstate.

i defy augury.

i also defy the interstate.

in the moment of decision, i wondered if this habit-defying action would really change anything.  would i get in a wreck not intended for me?  would i pass something or someone that would alter my perception of the world so much that i'd never be the same?  would i run over a wooly worm that would have otherwise survived if i had run over a beetle on the interstate, and this said beetle's great-great-grand beetle would eventually (butterfly effect-like) cause the destruction of mankind?  have i seen too many movies?  the extrapolations are endless.

what if (dangerous isn't it?) claudius had allowed hamlet to go to wittenberg?  would it have been action enough to get him out of denmark and distract him from revenge?  would he have been off packing his bags trying to decide which vintage t-shirts to take, and which ones to leave behind when ghost-dad made his appearance? would rosencrantz and guildenstern (or was it guildenstern and rosencrantz?) have stayed home because hamlet wasn't there to behave erratically and force their invitation?  would polonius have continued blathering empty axioms until ophelia ran off to become a carny (tragedy indeed)?

and then there's fortinbras.  lest we forget the formidable viking lord of revenge, he's always doing something:  marching, defending honor, sending captains off to chat with kings, revenging, this and that. if hamlet had gone off to wittenberg as planned, fortinbras would still have arrived to revenge his father's honor.  ergo, claudius dead.  ergo, a bigger stack of bodies.

so what?  moody hamlet turns right towards wittenberg--avoiding the proverbial butterfly.  there's always fortinbras waiting in the wings to do the deed.  claudius gets revenged.

i went interstate-less.  i missed the crucial beetle of world destruction.  no worries, fortinbras was in the car behind me--i saw his norwegian complexion in my rear view.  i got a new view, however.  i looked at the city in a new way.  i saw the surface streets.  i saw people i'd never seen before at a stop and go 45 rather than 70.  and now rather than non-active habitualness, maybe the habit-breaking act makes the next one easier.