Right Now I'm Watching

I may be slightly obsessed with all things British. Until we shifted back to Portsmouth, this obsession took the form of books. But now that I'm reunited with my TV, I've delved into the delicious world of the BBC, specifically mystery British TV series. It's best if they are period dramas, but I'm starting to work my way toward shows set in the present day.

Right now, though, I am captivated by Endeavour. Set in the 1960s, the show chronicles the early years of Inspector Morse in Oxford, England (duh). You may know that the television show Inspector Morse was a huge hit across the pond, running from 1987-2000. Endeavour is its prequel so we get a young version of the Inspector just as he is finding his way on the police force, already leaps and bounds above the others in his detecting skills.

The mysteries are always a mystery to me until the very end. Some tiny moments of romance and a slow reveal of tidbits from his past slowly gives the show (and its characters) a personality that makes you want to binge it. I'm in the midst of series three, but all four 4-episode series are available to stream for free on Amazon Prime. Give it a try!

Lives Of Purpose

I keep hearing the same advertisement on Pandora. It's a few kids talking about what private schools they will soon be attending and how well a particular private elementary school prepared them. A narrator mentions that the school grooms children to have "lives of purpose." Possibly it's the manner in which she says those words, but I find my feathers ruffled every time I hear it.

Obviously I don't have children so maybe that makes me immediately disqualified from commenting. Maybe it's obvious that every parent's main goal is to have children with "lives of purpose." I don't know about that, but I can comment on society's obsession with "purpose" and "meaning." Why has having "purpose" became an end all be all measure by which we judge success? Why can't we just be happy? Everything is go go go, achieve achieve achieve, do more more more. 

Capitalism plays a role. In our current society, having money equals power, having power equals success, having success equals everything. But to what end? And at what expense? Why do we work so hard? It seemed that there was a time when you could have a job, leave the job at 5pm, and have enough to have a home, enough to make ends meet, enough to be well-respected and appreciated. Now everyone is always "so busy," stress is more common than non-stress, and it's a constant rat race just to come out even. There has to be a backlash at some point...right?

In my time not working (at least in the traditional 9-5 sense), I've noticed a shift in myself. When people first asked what I was doing with my time, I quickly mentioned that I was working with a career counselor, doing some consulting, and learning yoga. I felt pressure to name accomplishments, ensure others that I was doing something to "stay in the game." Why? Why couldn't it be okay for me to be reading crappy books and floating on the raft in the sun? I was happy. Happier than I'd been in a  long time. Why did I feel the constant need to demonstrate "success?" I've started to admit that my summer was for me, for my relaxation and rejuvenation, and admitting that I read historical romances, colored mandalas, and enjoyed being with my dog.

There are more layers to this. For example, somehow women are supposed to have demanding, high-powered jobs and also be amazing mothers. Don't get me wrong, I am enormously grateful for the fact that being part of the workforce is even an option for women, but it sure would be nice if caregiver policies caught up, the impossibility of one-earner households would be addressed, and the continued prevailing notion that if you're not a mother, you're not a woman might be challenged.

All I'm saying is that I think it is 100% legitimate and even the best option for some people to just be. To not choose a path where long hours and stress are pushing you up the rungs of a hierarchical ladder. To not strive for some greater purpose, deep meaning, or extreme success.  

At lunch with a friend earlier this week, we chatted about this very notion. She said she thought it was time for a revolution. So take a deep breath. Drop the expectations and the pressures and the external motivations. Know that you being you is enough. Or try anyway. It's all easier said than done.

A Poem For A Thursday

Peace
C.K. Williams

We fight for hours, through dinner, through the endless evening, who
        even knows now what about,
what could be so dire to have to suffer so for, stuck in one another's craws
        like fishbones,
the cadavers of our argument dissected, flayed, but we go on with it, to
        bed, and through the night,
feigning sleep, dreaming sleep, hardly sleeping, so precisely never touch-
        ing, back to back,
the blanket bridged across us for the wintry air to tunnel down, to keep
        us lifting, turning,
through the angry dark that holds us in its cup of pain, the arching dark,
        the weary dark,
then, toward dawn, I can't help it, though justice won't I know be served,
        I pull her to me,
and with such accurate, graceful deftness she rolls to me that we arrive
        embracing our entire lengths.

This isn't generally the kind of poem I'm drawn to, but there was something about it that I really liked. It made me recall one of my own poems about an argument and how the tension played out in a sleeping couple. For some reason, I had used music and sound images - staccatos, crescendos, violin strings, and the rattling annoyance of a radiator. This poet did a better job winding together these images to portray that jumbled, icky, roiling gut feeling of fighting then living with someone we love.

I initially found a lot of war-like language and imagery in "Peace," but on later readings, I saw references back to their dinner with words like fishbones, cadavers, dissected, and flayed. Also interesting how these words could describe dinner or the battlefield, which in this case, may be one and the same. 

The repetition of "sleeping" helps the reader feel that endless pain of not being able to rest amidst the context of disagreement. He does that again by repeating the images of the darkness. How amazing is "the angry dark that holds us in its cup of pain?" Love it. Then it's done, as these things often are, and they embrace. This is something I imagine we've all experienced and like artists do, the poet is able to capture it so accurately and beautifully, forcing us right back to those moments and those feelings.