I was driving down a particular country road the other day, a drive I hadn't made in years. It was a hot, lazy June afternoon, just another summer day in Kentucky. I've always liked that road, which is scenic and beautiful no matter what the season is.
I attended an art exhibit at a tiny museum on this road years ago in the dark time of the year, the result of a collaboration between an artist and a poet whose imaginations ran to fauns, fairies, and living blackbirds baked into pies. It was exactly the sort of thing I liked, and I remember how magical the frosted hills and fields seemed when I drove home afterwards, as if someone had sprinkled pixie dust along with snow all over the landscape.
I remember another occasion when I took a weekend drive, this time on a benign April day of blue skies, out on that same road. As my car rose and fell with the roller-coast hills, and the miles of plank fences, grazing horses, and bright spring greenery rolled by my windows, I remember catching my breath, thinking, "I live here, and I still feel like I'm in postcard, not a real place."
Then there was the time I was returning from the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort, which is always held in November. It was twilight on a gloomy autumn day, and I was driving down a section in Woodford County where the trees on either side form an arched tunnel, so that you might almost imagine yourself in the nave of a very long Gothic cathedral. On this isolated stretch, with fields rolling out in all directions, I was startled by the sudden appearance of a large deer (or were there two?), leaping away from the low stone wall at the side of the road. That was long before I heard Rumi's poem, "Unfold Your Own Myth," with the line about chasing a deer and ending up "everywhere," but even so, I recognized some magic in this encounter.
I was remembering all this while driving the other day, drinking in the beauty of the countryside and tooling along modestly, when--lo! From the left side of the road, a blackbird flew into my line of sight. Flying low and deliberately, he swept across the road in front of my car, and I heard a thump. Looking back, I couldn't see anything, and I had visions of myself motoring down the road with a bloody bird on the front of my car. When I got to a place where I could safely stop (which happened to be the parking lot of the museum), I got out apprehensively, fearing a gory scene. To my surprise (and relief), there was nothing.
I got back in the car, somewhat mystified. Had I just winged the bird? It made an awfully loud thump for just a graze. And what caused the bird to do that, anyway? It's not as if he couldn't have flown above the car, or behind it. It reminded me of the only other time I recall hitting a bird, when one flew into my windshield as I was driving to Florida for a job interview. It had seemed like a bad omen and may actually have been just that (I didn't take the job, and I believe it was a good thing that I didn't). This latest bird, though, seemed to have melted into thin air, like one of the blackbirds from the pie, winging his escape from a floury end and not caring how many Toyotas he dinged in the process.
A few miles down the road, I had somewhat regained my composure and was musing over how much history I actually had with this road, when to my right, I noticed a sign for a narrow lane, "Faywood Road." My first thought was, "Of course. There are definitely fays in these woods, and somebody knows it besides me."
Sometime later, I realized that the name probably referred to the location of the road, running through two counties, but I like my explanation better. I can just imagine them, creeping out quietly under the full moon, once the farm dogs have all settled down for the night. They have their banquets and fairy rings under the trees in summer, and they dance and sprinkle frost under starlight in winter. Blackbirds fly in and out of their intricate dances, and they are occasionally accompanied by fauns.
One particularly sore and irritated blackbird will probably be sitting out the dance tonight, telling anyone who will listen, "If it's not one thing, it's another."
Friday, June 22, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
When the Fat Lady Sings
This is not at all the way I imagined I'd feel after defending my dissertation. In this strange new world, I'm feeling a lot of things I never imagined feeling. I just pictured a little more joy and a lot less weariness.
I remember the first time I understood the meaning of the expression "bone tired." I was traveling with friends, and we had spent a day walking around Amsterdam after three days in London (and a channel crossing) with little or no sleep. Jet-lagged, irritable, and looking a bit worse for the wear, we climbed endless flights of stairs in our very vertical hotel (Dante's Purgatorio had nothing on that place). We had to get up early the next morning to catch a train to Berlin, so prospects for R & R were not looking good. I remember falling into the huge bed, thinking, "So, this is bone tired."
If I had known I could ever feel more tired, I think I would have just stayed in that bed, which would have been a shame because I would have missed Salzburg, Italy, the Venus de Milo, and several pounds of really good European chocolate.
Who knew a dissertation could take so much out of you?
I started my degree program with excitement, anxiety, and uncertainty, but especially I remember the excitement. I knew I was doing something big and kind of daring, and I recognized the same feeling in most of the faces around me those first days at school. We heard the poem by Rumi, "Unfold Your Own Myth," which pretty much told the whole story, better than we could have imagined. We had all jumped into the rabbit hole, and there was no telling what we'd see or where we'd go on the way to our degrees. There was a part of me that, out of caution, held back a little, whispering, "Just take it a quarter at a time. This is putting you into debt, so be sure it's what you want." But two sessions into the first quarter, and I knew I'd be staying.
Our campus is a beautiful place, with gorgeous gardens and trees, glorious views of the mountains, and even a glimpse of the ocean if you know where to look. I always thought of it as kind of a Garden of Eden, a magical place I had finally managed to find after many hard years of searching. Yet, as I was telling a friend last night, as mythologists we are also aware that the snake was a part of the story. Now, there are many ways to look at the snake from a Jungian point of view, and in some interpretations this creature is a necessary means to achieving greater consciousness, a consciousness that could never be attained in a state of blissful unawareness. It's always been hard for me to accept the idea of treachery in the midst of so much beauty, but after all, ignorance is not bliss. If you were asleep, no matter how beautiful the dream, wouldn't you rather be awake? I would.
So there were many bumps along the way, and some disappointments. Still, it was the work itself that was so sustaining, and that never changed. All of the sacrifices made to go the distance were absolutely worth it, and I would do it all again (perhaps a bit less sweetly and with a lot more attitude). Those hours in the classroom and the talks with friends over meals, around campus, and during walks on the beach were golden. Even now, all of those memories are lit with a beautiful light in my mind, a light that will never grow dim.
I enjoyed the classes so much that I didn't think a lot about the dissertation until our final year. Although my topic had already chosen me, I think, I was not aware of that, and the process of closing in on it was painful. Although I had confidence in my ability as a writer, I had never written a long academic piece, and the idea was increasingly daunting as it became more real. Even though the dissertation formulation process was painful, I'm glad now that it happened the way it did because I was forced to really think through what I wanted to say. For a writer who writes intuitively and not from a plan, this was a challenge, but by the time I had finished my concept paper, I knew I had something solid to work with. Whether I could make it fly the way I wanted it to was a different matter.
Writing the dissertation was a lonely process. I knew it would be, but I didn't know just how lonely lonely could be. There were times when I felt like the last person standing on earth, wondering where everyone else had gotten to. My long-standing interest in mazes and labyrinths took on a much more sober air when I actually entered the labyrinth of writing about them. It's suddenly not a lark once you're in one for real, wondering, "How do I find my way out?" "When will I find my way out?" "WILL I find my way out?" And after a certain point, "When I DO find my way out, what will be waiting for me on the outside?"
So now, having struggled through and emerged, not always in perfect form, but determined, like Childe Roland, to the last paragraph -- here I am. I've done it the best way I know how, I've learned a lot about myself, and I'm hoping for a bestseller when I turn this sucker into a book. Maybe one of these days, I'll recover some of the carefree feeling I used to have and shake off the tiredness. I always wanted to be a full-time writer on my own terms, so maybe my dream will be realized now that I've finished my degree.
So, would I recommend that YOU get a Ph.D.? Well . . . that's a question only you can answer.
I remember the first time I understood the meaning of the expression "bone tired." I was traveling with friends, and we had spent a day walking around Amsterdam after three days in London (and a channel crossing) with little or no sleep. Jet-lagged, irritable, and looking a bit worse for the wear, we climbed endless flights of stairs in our very vertical hotel (Dante's Purgatorio had nothing on that place). We had to get up early the next morning to catch a train to Berlin, so prospects for R & R were not looking good. I remember falling into the huge bed, thinking, "So, this is bone tired."
If I had known I could ever feel more tired, I think I would have just stayed in that bed, which would have been a shame because I would have missed Salzburg, Italy, the Venus de Milo, and several pounds of really good European chocolate.
Who knew a dissertation could take so much out of you?
I started my degree program with excitement, anxiety, and uncertainty, but especially I remember the excitement. I knew I was doing something big and kind of daring, and I recognized the same feeling in most of the faces around me those first days at school. We heard the poem by Rumi, "Unfold Your Own Myth," which pretty much told the whole story, better than we could have imagined. We had all jumped into the rabbit hole, and there was no telling what we'd see or where we'd go on the way to our degrees. There was a part of me that, out of caution, held back a little, whispering, "Just take it a quarter at a time. This is putting you into debt, so be sure it's what you want." But two sessions into the first quarter, and I knew I'd be staying.
Our campus is a beautiful place, with gorgeous gardens and trees, glorious views of the mountains, and even a glimpse of the ocean if you know where to look. I always thought of it as kind of a Garden of Eden, a magical place I had finally managed to find after many hard years of searching. Yet, as I was telling a friend last night, as mythologists we are also aware that the snake was a part of the story. Now, there are many ways to look at the snake from a Jungian point of view, and in some interpretations this creature is a necessary means to achieving greater consciousness, a consciousness that could never be attained in a state of blissful unawareness. It's always been hard for me to accept the idea of treachery in the midst of so much beauty, but after all, ignorance is not bliss. If you were asleep, no matter how beautiful the dream, wouldn't you rather be awake? I would.
So there were many bumps along the way, and some disappointments. Still, it was the work itself that was so sustaining, and that never changed. All of the sacrifices made to go the distance were absolutely worth it, and I would do it all again (perhaps a bit less sweetly and with a lot more attitude). Those hours in the classroom and the talks with friends over meals, around campus, and during walks on the beach were golden. Even now, all of those memories are lit with a beautiful light in my mind, a light that will never grow dim.
I enjoyed the classes so much that I didn't think a lot about the dissertation until our final year. Although my topic had already chosen me, I think, I was not aware of that, and the process of closing in on it was painful. Although I had confidence in my ability as a writer, I had never written a long academic piece, and the idea was increasingly daunting as it became more real. Even though the dissertation formulation process was painful, I'm glad now that it happened the way it did because I was forced to really think through what I wanted to say. For a writer who writes intuitively and not from a plan, this was a challenge, but by the time I had finished my concept paper, I knew I had something solid to work with. Whether I could make it fly the way I wanted it to was a different matter.
Writing the dissertation was a lonely process. I knew it would be, but I didn't know just how lonely lonely could be. There were times when I felt like the last person standing on earth, wondering where everyone else had gotten to. My long-standing interest in mazes and labyrinths took on a much more sober air when I actually entered the labyrinth of writing about them. It's suddenly not a lark once you're in one for real, wondering, "How do I find my way out?" "When will I find my way out?" "WILL I find my way out?" And after a certain point, "When I DO find my way out, what will be waiting for me on the outside?"
So now, having struggled through and emerged, not always in perfect form, but determined, like Childe Roland, to the last paragraph -- here I am. I've done it the best way I know how, I've learned a lot about myself, and I'm hoping for a bestseller when I turn this sucker into a book. Maybe one of these days, I'll recover some of the carefree feeling I used to have and shake off the tiredness. I always wanted to be a full-time writer on my own terms, so maybe my dream will be realized now that I've finished my degree.
So, would I recommend that YOU get a Ph.D.? Well . . . that's a question only you can answer.
Friday, February 10, 2012
The Doors of Perception
I posted on Facebook the other day that I was going to try to see the divine in everyone I met. It sounded like a great idea, but after half a day I realized I was going to have to leave the apartment to do it (ha, ha!). To avoid getting blasted by the divine light that was sure to result, I decided to take it slow. I went to Whole Foods and Joseph-Beth Bookstore last night, and it was fairly late, so there weren't many people around. One of the employees at Whole Feeds greeted me with a friendly smile -- it wasn't at all hard to see a light shining through her. I was off to a good start.
But looking back now, I realize that even with my goal in mind, I was avoiding looking at people around me. I am often hesitant to look too closely at other people, whether from shyness or fear of appearing rude or whatever it might be. Actually, I'm now wondering if the habit of not really looking at others is part of what makes us dehumanize them. It's easy to go from avoiding their eyes to seeing them as objects in your way to the checkout counter to cutting them off in traffic. And it's no difficulty at all to move from that to projecting all of your shadow onto them. Everything you refuse to own in yourself gets shifted onto other people, and the less they seem to be like you the easier it is to do.
Did someone tell everyone about what I'm doing? All I know is that I received a radiant smile from a young man, a stranger, in the parking lot a little while ago. When I got to Starbucks and decided to challenge myself by actually looking around to see who was here, I immediately caught someone's eye and received another smile. We all know how powerful a smile can be, especially on a dark winter day. I've received at least three bonus ones in the last 24 hours, and I really think it was my unspoken intention to be more open that communicated itself to other people. Change your mind and change your life.
I was at a conference at school in the fall, and a young artist was there with an exhibit she called "Mirror Box." It consisted of climbing inside a machine that, with the aid of light and mirrors, allowed you to see your face and another person's superimposed. It sounds so simple, but consider: you climb inside and find yourself face to face with someone completely unlike you and then, by the magic of art, see what emerges from putting the two of you together. I tried it with two strangers, the second of whom was a young man with very dark skin and hair, about as unlike me with my Irish paleness as could be (his family was from Iran). Yet when I looked at the combination of our faces, there was nothing strange about the result. We looked like an ordinary person, not even particularly exotic.
I think we have been sold a bill of goods that encourages us to either ignore the suffering of others or to blame them for everything that's wrong, whether it's the Democrats demonizing the Republicans, Christians doing the same to Muslims, whites and blacks at each other's throats, or the rich against the poor. (My guess is that many of the 1 percent are just as upset at the state of the world as the rest of us.)
For all the thought and energy that goes into policy discussions on how to solve problems like famine, poverty, environmental degradation, and lack of economic opportunity, I'm starting to think the answers might be more basic than they seem. Maybe we just need to, as they say in Jungian terms, take back our projections. I think that is an eye-opener far more mind-blowing than any psychedelic experience could ever be.
If you ask me God left the world unfinished on purpose. We're supposed to do the rest. We are the co-creators and need to figure out how to eliminate suffering, advance the condition of the human race, and live in harmony with nature. Seeing God in others is not limited to human beings but includes all other creatures and the world itself. It means supporting efforts to eradicate hunger; sending money to help save the wolves and the polar bears (I know we'll be sorry when they're gone); and supporting the efforts of other countries to attain higher standards of living and more human rights. It means paying attention and speaking up.
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been better said by others. I'm not saying anything that I haven't always believed, but what's different now is that I better understand how I'm implicated in what's wrong in the world, usually by the things I fail to do more than bad intentions. Studying mythology has made me aware of (1) how unified we really are and (2) how there is often something very different from what appears to be there, on the surface, trying to peek through. There are so many openings to the divine, both in and around us. "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru' narrow chinks of his cavern." -- William Blake.
I also have to say quite honestly that some of my best education has occurred since I stopped working and stayed at home to finish my dissertation. I have time to read, think, and consider. I think the struggle to make a living blinds a lot of us to what is really going on because it takes so much time and energy and leaves little over for anything else. Do we need a revolution in the accepted way of doing things? Is our Protestant work ethic making us less human? Just saying.
But looking back now, I realize that even with my goal in mind, I was avoiding looking at people around me. I am often hesitant to look too closely at other people, whether from shyness or fear of appearing rude or whatever it might be. Actually, I'm now wondering if the habit of not really looking at others is part of what makes us dehumanize them. It's easy to go from avoiding their eyes to seeing them as objects in your way to the checkout counter to cutting them off in traffic. And it's no difficulty at all to move from that to projecting all of your shadow onto them. Everything you refuse to own in yourself gets shifted onto other people, and the less they seem to be like you the easier it is to do.
Did someone tell everyone about what I'm doing? All I know is that I received a radiant smile from a young man, a stranger, in the parking lot a little while ago. When I got to Starbucks and decided to challenge myself by actually looking around to see who was here, I immediately caught someone's eye and received another smile. We all know how powerful a smile can be, especially on a dark winter day. I've received at least three bonus ones in the last 24 hours, and I really think it was my unspoken intention to be more open that communicated itself to other people. Change your mind and change your life.
I was at a conference at school in the fall, and a young artist was there with an exhibit she called "Mirror Box." It consisted of climbing inside a machine that, with the aid of light and mirrors, allowed you to see your face and another person's superimposed. It sounds so simple, but consider: you climb inside and find yourself face to face with someone completely unlike you and then, by the magic of art, see what emerges from putting the two of you together. I tried it with two strangers, the second of whom was a young man with very dark skin and hair, about as unlike me with my Irish paleness as could be (his family was from Iran). Yet when I looked at the combination of our faces, there was nothing strange about the result. We looked like an ordinary person, not even particularly exotic.
I think we have been sold a bill of goods that encourages us to either ignore the suffering of others or to blame them for everything that's wrong, whether it's the Democrats demonizing the Republicans, Christians doing the same to Muslims, whites and blacks at each other's throats, or the rich against the poor. (My guess is that many of the 1 percent are just as upset at the state of the world as the rest of us.)
For all the thought and energy that goes into policy discussions on how to solve problems like famine, poverty, environmental degradation, and lack of economic opportunity, I'm starting to think the answers might be more basic than they seem. Maybe we just need to, as they say in Jungian terms, take back our projections. I think that is an eye-opener far more mind-blowing than any psychedelic experience could ever be.
If you ask me God left the world unfinished on purpose. We're supposed to do the rest. We are the co-creators and need to figure out how to eliminate suffering, advance the condition of the human race, and live in harmony with nature. Seeing God in others is not limited to human beings but includes all other creatures and the world itself. It means supporting efforts to eradicate hunger; sending money to help save the wolves and the polar bears (I know we'll be sorry when they're gone); and supporting the efforts of other countries to attain higher standards of living and more human rights. It means paying attention and speaking up.
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been better said by others. I'm not saying anything that I haven't always believed, but what's different now is that I better understand how I'm implicated in what's wrong in the world, usually by the things I fail to do more than bad intentions. Studying mythology has made me aware of (1) how unified we really are and (2) how there is often something very different from what appears to be there, on the surface, trying to peek through. There are so many openings to the divine, both in and around us. "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru' narrow chinks of his cavern." -- William Blake.
I also have to say quite honestly that some of my best education has occurred since I stopped working and stayed at home to finish my dissertation. I have time to read, think, and consider. I think the struggle to make a living blinds a lot of us to what is really going on because it takes so much time and energy and leaves little over for anything else. Do we need a revolution in the accepted way of doing things? Is our Protestant work ethic making us less human? Just saying.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Kentucky Is the New Black
The first time it happened to me, I was in the soup aisle at Kroger. I was going about my business when I caught a glimpse of someone I thought I recognized and, for a second, was ready to say hi to a classmate. A moment later, the reality hit me: "I'm in Lexington, so that can't be someone from Pacifica." That was the first of many instances where worlds collided as I attempted to balance a working life and residence in Kentucky with the long commute to graduate school in California. Since then I've had to re-orient myself many times, placing myself in the proper time zone and locale when someone who reminded me of someone else gave me a split second of uncertainty as to my actual place in space and time.
I had been eying California from afar for years, wondering if I could ever make a life there, so I was really bemused by the ways it was becoming a significant presence in my day-to-day life while I remained in place in Lexington -- though it is not exactly accurate to say that I remained in place, because things were already changing. I had a dream right after starting school in which I was sleeping out on a balcony, up on a cliff overlooking the sea. Moonlight and then sunlight shone down on me, and I felt alive and exhilarated; I knew I was in California. I felt perfectly at ease in the dream, a moment of pure bliss that was succeeded by concern as I realized that the sea was rising fast and I needed someone to help me move my bed inside. My interpretation of the dream was that I had taken a definite step in a direction that my psyche approved but that I had a great deal of anxiety (not shared by the other characters in my dream, whose attention I could not get). My concern was not so much with drowning as with ruining the mattress.
Somebody I know once described Lexington as a "safe" place (compared to the great unknown). The familiarity is both comforting and, at times, stifling. Years ago, a restlessness so intense would come over me, often on a Friday night, that I would literally drive around for hours, picking familiar and unfamiliar neighborhoods with warrens of streets to get lost in, turning the radio to a rock and roll station, and looking for something -- adventure, novelty, occurrences out of the ordinary -- that I was not likely to find, at least in the places I was looking. It was actually a sudden decision, ten years ago, to spend a weekend in L.A, a rather unexpected act that took even my breath away, that started to inch me, little by little, toward an ongoing relationship with a place that in some ways seemed like an unlikely draw.
On the other hand, I'm a writer, and a writer is always looking for new ideas and experiences. Although people kept telling me it was Northern California that I should really be looking at, that L.A. was too shallow and uncultured, I discovered a fascination with the city that I couldn't talk myself out of. I have generally been well treated in L.A.; except for their behavior on the freeway, people seem easy-going and friendly (someone put money in my parking meter one time in Venice, and that has never happened to me at home). I am not an aspiring actress or screenwriter, so I haven't experienced the rejection that probably grinds down many transplants. I am overwhelmed by the effort it takes to get from one place to another, even just to park the car. The size of the place is daunting. But I have been amazed at the richness of cultural offerings, from the Getty Center to Disney Hall, and the sunshine is wonderful.
Yes, I am put off by the great emphasis on surface appearance and image that seems so prevalent there. On the other hand, my training as a mythologist tells me that images are often richly compounded representations of much that lies behind them. Movies are carriers of the collective imagination, and the film industry, often derided for a lack of seriousness, is actually an indicator and curator of the things that are most important in our culture.
In some ways, I've had one foot, or at least a big toe, in California for quite a while -- but in other ways it still seems like a million miles away. Last time I was there, though, an unforeseen development gave me a taste of home that I hadn't expected. Because who would ever have expected that homey, folksy Kentucky would become Hollywood trendy . . . but that's what's happened! Everywhere I looked, from the sides of buses to the sides of buildings, was the image of the hip as can be star of Justified, which takes place in Harlan County (and Lexington) and features a somewhat more colorful segment of the population than I can lay claim to myself. Nonetheless, references to familiar places and things abound, and the themes of violence, kinship, the difficulty of leaving home (and of coming back), and the conflict between regions and attitudes are both realistic and strangely inflected in a Hollywood accent.
This could be a sign that I might find myself more at home in L.A. than I could have expected. I might be the new "It" Girl, with my slight Kentucky drawl and name-dropping references to Ale-8-One (bottled in my hometown). On the other hand, consider the chances for disorientation. Last night, I was taking a closer look at a past episode for local references when I noticed low mountains in the background, obviously meant to be the hills of Eastern Kentucky. If you weren't paying much attention, the illusion was almost complete. But I recognized the broad, creased surfaces of the mountains surrounding L.A.: California mountains just don't look like the ones in Kentucky, which are darker and more somber to my eye. What I thought I was seeing was not in fact what was really there.
I've wondered for a while what a cross between California and Kentucky would look like. It might take some doing to bring two such different places together, but it looks like the popular imagination is already running off ahead of me. Maybe by the time I get there, there will be a local source for Ruth Hunt's bourbon balls, an art-house theater as hip as The Kentucky, and a porch swing with my name on it.
I had been eying California from afar for years, wondering if I could ever make a life there, so I was really bemused by the ways it was becoming a significant presence in my day-to-day life while I remained in place in Lexington -- though it is not exactly accurate to say that I remained in place, because things were already changing. I had a dream right after starting school in which I was sleeping out on a balcony, up on a cliff overlooking the sea. Moonlight and then sunlight shone down on me, and I felt alive and exhilarated; I knew I was in California. I felt perfectly at ease in the dream, a moment of pure bliss that was succeeded by concern as I realized that the sea was rising fast and I needed someone to help me move my bed inside. My interpretation of the dream was that I had taken a definite step in a direction that my psyche approved but that I had a great deal of anxiety (not shared by the other characters in my dream, whose attention I could not get). My concern was not so much with drowning as with ruining the mattress.
Somebody I know once described Lexington as a "safe" place (compared to the great unknown). The familiarity is both comforting and, at times, stifling. Years ago, a restlessness so intense would come over me, often on a Friday night, that I would literally drive around for hours, picking familiar and unfamiliar neighborhoods with warrens of streets to get lost in, turning the radio to a rock and roll station, and looking for something -- adventure, novelty, occurrences out of the ordinary -- that I was not likely to find, at least in the places I was looking. It was actually a sudden decision, ten years ago, to spend a weekend in L.A, a rather unexpected act that took even my breath away, that started to inch me, little by little, toward an ongoing relationship with a place that in some ways seemed like an unlikely draw.
On the other hand, I'm a writer, and a writer is always looking for new ideas and experiences. Although people kept telling me it was Northern California that I should really be looking at, that L.A. was too shallow and uncultured, I discovered a fascination with the city that I couldn't talk myself out of. I have generally been well treated in L.A.; except for their behavior on the freeway, people seem easy-going and friendly (someone put money in my parking meter one time in Venice, and that has never happened to me at home). I am not an aspiring actress or screenwriter, so I haven't experienced the rejection that probably grinds down many transplants. I am overwhelmed by the effort it takes to get from one place to another, even just to park the car. The size of the place is daunting. But I have been amazed at the richness of cultural offerings, from the Getty Center to Disney Hall, and the sunshine is wonderful.
Yes, I am put off by the great emphasis on surface appearance and image that seems so prevalent there. On the other hand, my training as a mythologist tells me that images are often richly compounded representations of much that lies behind them. Movies are carriers of the collective imagination, and the film industry, often derided for a lack of seriousness, is actually an indicator and curator of the things that are most important in our culture.
In some ways, I've had one foot, or at least a big toe, in California for quite a while -- but in other ways it still seems like a million miles away. Last time I was there, though, an unforeseen development gave me a taste of home that I hadn't expected. Because who would ever have expected that homey, folksy Kentucky would become Hollywood trendy . . . but that's what's happened! Everywhere I looked, from the sides of buses to the sides of buildings, was the image of the hip as can be star of Justified, which takes place in Harlan County (and Lexington) and features a somewhat more colorful segment of the population than I can lay claim to myself. Nonetheless, references to familiar places and things abound, and the themes of violence, kinship, the difficulty of leaving home (and of coming back), and the conflict between regions and attitudes are both realistic and strangely inflected in a Hollywood accent.
This could be a sign that I might find myself more at home in L.A. than I could have expected. I might be the new "It" Girl, with my slight Kentucky drawl and name-dropping references to Ale-8-One (bottled in my hometown). On the other hand, consider the chances for disorientation. Last night, I was taking a closer look at a past episode for local references when I noticed low mountains in the background, obviously meant to be the hills of Eastern Kentucky. If you weren't paying much attention, the illusion was almost complete. But I recognized the broad, creased surfaces of the mountains surrounding L.A.: California mountains just don't look like the ones in Kentucky, which are darker and more somber to my eye. What I thought I was seeing was not in fact what was really there.
I've wondered for a while what a cross between California and Kentucky would look like. It might take some doing to bring two such different places together, but it looks like the popular imagination is already running off ahead of me. Maybe by the time I get there, there will be a local source for Ruth Hunt's bourbon balls, an art-house theater as hip as The Kentucky, and a porch swing with my name on it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
