Serendipity

Rob and I watched the John Cusak movie, Serendity, the other night. It was notable for several reasons. First, it’s the first time we have been able to watch a dvd in the living room for well over a month. Second, it re-introduced me to the term serendipity. And finally it reminded me of being cubed about this time last winter.

Of late our movie watching has been confined to Rob’s computer screen as we lay cuddled up for the night in our bed - a very nice way to view a flick by the way that I highly recommend to those pressed for time and behind on their list of must-sees. We always check out the previews after a movie is over, and it is here that we have found a treasure trove of films that have proved interesting to very enjoyable views. Serendipity came to us off The Shipping News ( a good film but by warned - it’s about a widower). Rob and I are both Cusack fans, and this film looked entertaining, and death-free, and seemed vaguely familiar with it’s destiny theme of love/soul mates (though I don’t technically believe in soul mates as defined in the Holy Writ of the Widowed). It was wonderful to back back on our uber-uncomfortable sofa in a living room now free of Christmas now that the rapidly denuding pine was cozy in the snow of our front, and our decorations were packed away for our Christmas’s yet to come. I usually drape my legs over Rob’s lap, and he will absently rub my feet and calves. I love our time together regardless, but time in the dark that is intimate and yet not has such a glow.

Serendipity is a word coined from a Persian folk-tale about three princes who made fortunate discoveries that they were wise enough to recognize as such while they were questing for things entirely different. The word appears first in a letter from Horace Ordpole the 4th Earl of Orford to his friend, Horace Mann (not the American educator). In his use of his term, the Earl put heavy emphasis on the idea of being wise. In some ways it reminds me of the cliche - God helps those who help themselves. In the film, the characters discuss receiving signs from the universe that are meant to guide a person to their destiny or soul mate. The characters, like many people I know, take black and white positions on the idea of fate and destiny. Either our lives are completely scripted or we are free will all the way and the masters/authors of our own fates. No one, not surprisingly, takes the middle ground or contemplates the idea that perhaps our lives our a mixture, though the sales clerk, played by Eugene Levy, wades in with “What if it’s a random, godless universe where nothing makes sense at all?” Despite that, I am one who buys completely into the theory because much of the calmer and contented aspects/times of my life coincide with me following the roadmap of signs that the universe sprinkles on/near/around me constantly and of which I am usually only half-aware even when I am paying attention.

Rob and I are a serendipitous pairing. I am not sure if it is because our losses that we are more in tune with occurrences that a great many simply shrug off as random, or don’t notice at all, or if our new insight is part of our destinies too. I know that people who have experienced tragedy buck violently at the notion that all things happen for a reason, but nowhere is it written that the events that will make up our lives will be happy ones or ones that we would agree with if given a vote on it now. That some people experience more “bad” than “good” is a purely subjective, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I have this feeling that nothing happens in our lives without our permission, or tacit agreement, somewhere in the past. I really do think that I knew what was coming long before it did for reasons that I won’t go into fully now (except to say that more than once in my early life I seemed to know I would be a young widow - for example my Barbies were all war widows with children despite the fact I had G.I. Joes to mate them with). I am not certain why I agreed to the life I have lived so far, but I am pretty certain I did and perhaps in the next life I will remember why.

This particular dvd featured out takes and we always watch the special features because we can check out other movies or the soundtrack this way. Many of the movies we end up requesting from the library (we rarely go to the video store) come from the trailers on dvd’s , and we often check out soundtracks this way as well. All of the out takes were deleted scenes from the film. One of the scenes has the two love interests getting to know each other while the girl is “cubing” the young man. Cubing is one of those psychological personality tests which works as follows:

You are in a desert and you see a cube.
1) How big is the cube? 
    What is its color? What do you think about that color? 
    How far away is it from you? 
    Is it transparent?  Can you see what is inside? 
    How big is the cube compared to the desert?  What is the ratio?
2) There is a ladder. 
    Is the ladder leaning on the cube? 
    What is the color of the ladder?  What is it made of? 
    What impression does it give you? 
    What is the distance between the cube and the ladder?
3) There is a horse. 
    What is the distance between the cube and the horse? 
    What is the color of the house? 
     

I took a cube test similar to this one just over a year ago. Basically my cube was the size of a suitcase lying flat on the ground and was made of crystal or glass and it was transparent. The ladder was one of those aluminum extension ones and it was lying flat on the ground too and away from me. The horse was a stallion, black with a white mane and it was wandering in the distance. So, the cube represents me. I was flattened, fragile and my emotional state was obvious. The ladder was the people in my life. Aluminum isn’t the strongest of metals, it is light-weight and the fact that it was lying flat and away from me represented the fact that I wasn’t being well-supported in my life. The horse represented my lover. Black is an obvious one. He was dead. And not nearby. Cubing is one of those things you can only do once without prejudicing the outcome.

At the end of the film, the characters have followed all of fates clues back to each other and are celebrating the serendipitous moment at Bloomingdales where they met years ago. I remarked to Rob that it would be difficult for us to go back to the place where we met - the YWBB - because it is an Internet message board. He reminded me that he had saved the entire thread before he unregistered and had his posting history there erased. I had gone him one better when I left there and you would be hard pressed to find any evidence I was ever there at all. I suggested that we could return to Idaho Falls and he suggested we stroll along the frozen banks of the river that runs through a park in the town. Ironically, though we have pictures of some much of our time together, we haven’t a single picture from that weekend. Too much serendipity that weekend and I don’t think it can be captured on film anyway.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

My widowed sister-in-law is here for the week with her two teenagers and we have had a couple of lengthy conversations about widowhood. Two themes emerged in respect to myself. First of all there is the ever annoying comments on my inner strength and determination which render me “amazing” and which I will never really understand I’m afraid. I am not special or amazing though I will concede on strong with the caveat that I see it as my dislike of giving in - I am a more stubborn person than anything else. Then there came the observation that my grief critics are critical because of this tough persona I have. This came during a point in the discussion this morning when I was talking about Will’s mother, extended family and friends. I conceded the point because I had to. It’s completely true that I do not like to admit total strangers into my emotional circle. And I don’t consider blogging to be a portal either. I have friends and good ones who read this blog and comment - some more than others, but the majority of people who read (and it’s not a sizable audience) do so without much interest in me as a person and without commenting. I read few blogs where I don’t comment at least occasionally, even if I don’t a warm and fuzzy relationship with the writer but I have come to regard other people’s lives and struggles as merely different from my own and not a direct reflection on who they are as people necessarily.

But getting back to ghosts. I find that each time I talk/write about my struggles and the residual baggage (as my sister-in-law terms it) that I feel like I have unloaded some and walked away from it. In some respects this as dangerous as leaving bags unattended in a airport because you don’t know who will find it and what the reaction will be or if you have left something of importance behind.

I have been thinking for a while now that perhaps it is time to walk away from blogging. I keep at it because I like writing but don’t know if this is the most productive use of my time and because it is a way for friends to keep up with my life and I have been horrid in the past for keeping in touch, so blogging you might say is my lazy answer to that. Still, it is stealing time away from real writing that needs to be done, and when I say “needs”, I mean I have a stories in my head screaming to be written. It’s funny how conversations can trigger all sorts of seemingly random reactions but this wasn’t isn’t that random at all. This blog, though it is mainly about my journey of the past nine months has me tied a bit to tightly to events that preceded it and it’s time to move farther away. Blogging is not a forward moving thing for me anymore.