TIME Magazine Cover: Are You Mom Enough? - May 21, 2012 - Parenting - Mother - Babies - Children - U.S.

TIME Magazine Cover: Are You Mom Enough? - May 21, 2012 - Parenting - Mother - Babies - Children - U.S.:

'via Blog this'

Theater of the Absurd:

On the worst week in stock performance so far in 2012, from Wall Street, Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, even Houston; mainstream sources of media have been pouring out a pipeline of strange, abnormal, and disturbing information that got so thick and nasty this week that I finally noticed the absurdity of it all and turned it off. I am sick of being immersed in the strange but true stories blasting off of the screen, or talking to me on the radio as I drive. Have you heard or seen this stuff?

• A writer for the Houston Chronicle was fired because she makes money on the side for being a nude (exotic) dancer.
• Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying a huge income tax bill when the social network site goes public later this month.
• Graphic image of a mother breast feeding on the cover of TIME magazine (see link above via Blogger)
• Chief Justice of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in California, had sexually explicit material on a personal website, reported by the LA Times. 
• A popular gun website selling Trayvon Martin-inspired paper targets depicting a hooded sweatshirt similar to the Florida shooting victim
• The Philadelphia Inquirer ran the front-page story of a former priest transferred eight (8) times in 25 years amid a trail of complaints about his infatuation and misconduct with teen boys. He is finally being prosecuted for sexual abuse.
• Three iconic figures of entertainment, sports, and politics are currently on trial in United States federal court: John Travolta of TV and movie fame since the 70s, Roger Clemens baseball star since the 80s, and Senator John Edwards a major political figure since the 90s. All on trial for nefarious misconduct, lying, or fraud. (innocent until proven guilty)
• Jennifer Lopez fondled and groped during a dance routine on FOX’s American Idol, where she is singing about making love to young male dancers, during one of the highest watched shows among young people on the market
• President Obama decides to change his position on traditional marriage, apparently worried about his chances at re-election; pandering to the farthest left political wing of his base.
• The trailer for a new film-noir crime thriller set in Mesquite or Garland, Texas which looks to be one of the most graphic movies since The Exorcist: http://youtu.be/W16OlLoB5Fw

The quality of discourse in our culture matters. It's what dominates the national psyche, dictates the conversations and patterns of thought of viewers and listeners. The media business is so saturated and competitive, that the battle for our consideration turned ugly. Whatever is the most absurd, peculiar, salacious, prurient, violent, negative, controversial, adversarial, provocative, different, and even naughty; has the best chance at catching the attention of the audience with deliberate placement of striking, noticeable material at the lead of the broadcast or the cover of the publication.

I'd suggest what Eugene Peterson once said in The Message; that viewers and listeners would do best by filling their minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. This might sum up what I am trying to get my mind around as I look at this week’s news. Turn it off. Enjoy some time with your mother this weekend.

©Mark H. Pillsbury 

Part IV: The Dreamer

No one has fully grasped what the dreaming mind is doing.

It doesn’t turn off during sleep: brain cells fire, the mind spins; current or past circumstances play out like a movie. Gerri never dreamed, usually knocked out by drugs and vodka; however, since the funeral, images, motifs, and drama haunted his sleeping hours.

Surely these apparitions inform Gerri in some way about his grief. He hoped to understand this condition, then healing could begin and balance restored to his waking life. But his latest dream, unlike any other, drove him deeper into depression.

In the dream Shelby walked up to Gerri in a crowded place, as if they happened upon each other by chance, along the boardwalk in Venice Beach. Stunning, alluring, and radiant in her youth; she seemed just as he remembered her twenty years ago when they fell in love.

As she stood there, the morning light beaming from behind, Gerri could almost see through her; but the colors weren’t faded, on the contrary, everything about this dream popped.

Gerri believed God allowed him to interact with Shelby to lighten the immense guilt burdening his daily life since her death. The relationship between the significant and the fortuitous existed in God’s realm; he did not question the dreams, they were in a reality over which he had no control, indeed he was grateful for the Shelby’s appearance.

“Baby, do you realize how much I miss you?” Gerri asked her. “If I could go back to 1992 and marry you again, I’d do it, but I’d act differently this time!” Unlike Gerri who was plaintive and serious in these conversations, Shelby acted ethereal and joyous.

“Stop, that G.” Shelby said with a wry smile. “We can’t be going back there anyway.” “Let’s talk about right now,” she insisted. Shelby looked around, with her head on a swivel, making sure no one bumped into her on the busy boulevard.

“My love, I can’t stay long!” Shelby urged Gerri when he got distracted. Shelby held a Bible in her hand which looked like the old one from her childhood that sat on their home bookshelf, untouched. No white robes or halos over Shelby Austin, just comfortable jeans and flats with a colorful top, her hair pulled back in a girlish ponytail. Desultory, he was self-conscious for being heavier and much older than Shelby in this dream.

“What do you see of us down here?” Gerri questioned. She grinned, knowing his curiosity, adding seriously, “I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you very much at all.”

As the conversation wound down, a strong breeze blew across the boardwalk and on the horizon a storm gathered with dark, foreboding clouds. The crowd thinned out, flags swirled and snapped in the breeze, and big fat raindrops smacked the pavement, reminding Gerri of tears he shed during the day. [Never did a drop hit Shelby, which appeared very strange to the dreamer].

“My expectations were wrong when we got married, sugar.”

“Marriage was on my checklist. I did not take it seriously; I should have tried to understand what you were going through, instead of helping you with your self-image issues, we medicated our pain away,” Gerri continued, “once we got on that stuff, you never really came back to reality.” So filled with regret, the tears literally oozed from his eyes as he spoke, spilling down his cheeks in streams.

Shelby reached out to him, just beyond their touch. She searched his eyes and lovingly assured him through her tone and pitch, once again using her angelic voice, “Gerri, listen to me baby; none of us do what’s right, most of the time we only think of ourselves, even in marriage.”

“God showed me mercy, taking me from this world,” she looked around the scene, “I was a bad influence on Bobbi Kristina!” Now Shelby seemed remorseful, “Can you believe that I exposed my only daughter to the things that took me down?” “What role model is that?”

“I behaved badly; there were natural consequences for that down here, although it was all forgiven when I got home,” Shelby looked off toward the roiling surf. “It was like the prodigal’s feast.”

“And I can sing clearly again where I am Gerri,” she beamed, looking him directly in the eyes, unashamed; “Heaven is a good place. Your job is to take care of her now, your second chance is with your daughter; I will know how grown-up you are by what you do with her, Gerri.” That was all for now, then she turned and walked north back up the avenue.

 Stunned, Gerri just stood there fixed to the concrete. In just a moment looking down, Shelby blended in with the crowds and disappeared. He jogged toward where she had walked but she vanished as if a ghost.

Would Gerri say this correctly describes the dream: A ghost story? Or a love story?

©Mark H. Pillsbury

[fiction composed Feb. 19, 2012]

The New Rostra (rostra novum) A new blog: Part VII: The Journey

The New Rostra (rostra novum) A new blog: Part VII: The Journey: "The Journey (from the storm chaser saga...) ©Mark H. Pillsbury Image: Augusta Jones dress/Hilary Jessica beamed walking down the aisle t..."

I envisioned episode VII would be the conclusion of the storm chaser saga, but I thought that Rick was so full of regret for not having married Jessica and settled down, essentially doing what she had nagged him about for over a year; that the regret illustrated by his daydream would merit one more post. They have run out of options in this thick Texas woodland. The final chapter will be called "A time to Die" from the ecclesiastical reference made in the sixth episode. How many more it takes to get to the conclusion, I just don't know at this point, but keep reading!?

image credit: ©Lego (Fire and Rescue set)

Part VII: The Journey

The Journey (from the storm chaser saga...) ©Mark H. Pillsbury

Image: Augusta Jones dress/Hilary

Jessica beamed walking down the aisle toward her eager groom, beautiful in an off-the-shoulder dress she bought for a steal in Dallas. Rick’s eyes moistened, not fully comprehending the significance of this day, they had come through so much to arrive at these nuptials. His storm chaser groomsmen grinned and poked at each other agreeing how hot she looked, genuinely happy for this couple they had known for so long, with whom they hunted the terrible twisters of Tornado Alley.

Hazy thoughts merged into one of their house together on a quiet Norman street: dogs yelping, mowers humming, children playing; steady suburban bliss for spouses beginning life together. Rick teaching at the University and Jessica working at KOKH on the weekends, the Tahoe traded for a Honda sedan and a babyseat; their journey ending up in the peaceful outskirts of a college town they knew well, with a conclusion this couple only dreamed of.

After years of dangerous, adrenaline-pumping pursuit of natural weather phenomena, Rick and Jessica settled down into domesticity and routine, eschewing a volatile, reckless lifestyle for one of patterns and predictability, consistency and certainty. They were happy together, comfortable with sameness rather than the adventure of life on the road in the face of death. This was a switch voluntarily made, trading wild mercurial love for marital oneness. Rick pictured himself holding his wife early in the morning, lovingly brushing her hair back over her ear, misty about lost opportunity even as the CRACKLE of the blaze snapped him out of his daydream.

Image: North Carolina

Clay yelled from the fire break, he saw an opening out of the closing circle of flames. Motionless, Rick was quickly rolling through might-have-beens in his mind as he and Jessica stood by the truck. Clay scouted the scene around their dead-end cul-de-sac: no roads, no turns, no water, no helicopter, no GPS, no cell phones, no laptop, no 9-1-1 calls, no fire/rescue teams, no knights riding glistening white steeds would show up where they were trapped whisking them away from peril.

They would have to run to higher ground, some refuge from all this dark, suffocating smoke and burning, oppressive heat.

Rick moved with resignation, sadly, toward Clay, pulling Jessica by the arm, wondering if his soft suburban fantasy would ever come true; gripped by fear that their escape route seemed to be through the a dark tunnel of trees, leading to an unknown destination of indefinite peril. Like devil’s throat off Cozumel, each team member follows the next, linked hand-in-hand, or hand-in-fin, restricted all around, unable to see, or stretch wide, pushing slowly through the passage.

The bed of straw, pine needles, dried leaves, and branches tamped down with each step, crunching and shuffling as they hurried down the trail. With dryness in the air and underfoot, it was understandable why wildfires consumed acre after acre of fuel-rich woodland. Clay led them through a winding journey seemingly going nowhere but at least they were leaving the fire.

photo credit: AP/ J.C. Hong

Rick’s instincts to path-through-plan nagged him as he dragged Jessica bouncily down the path like a rag doll lagging slowly behind, hitting saplings and trunks as if a pinball. While they hurried, Rick wondered if this maze was a question with no answer, a puzzle with a missing piece. His bias toward action included favoritism of maps and planned escape routes via radar tracking, so he was as frustrated as he was frightened!

Were they going downward in elevation, or did it just appear to Jessica that the plunge down devil’s throat this time happened in a dry hot land descending into a dark, smoky grave?

(to be continued in Part 8...)

©Mark H. Pillsbury (this work of fiction was composed on 19 July 2011)