My "Little" Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow,
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

--Robert Louis Stevenson
(who, of course, also wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

A Possible Reason for the Meanness of Conservatives

A Possible Reason for the Meanness of Conservatives


Talking to Claire yesterday:

about those times when you find yourself
face to face with a wealthy person who starts to foam at the mouth
about the remote possibility that illegal immigrants—who do the dirty work while the rest of us look away or go on vacation—might receive a bit of basic health care while in this country.



And then this morning:

stopping in mid-stride for no logical reason whatsoever,
while actually on my way out the door to do something logical,
dropping down on my hands and knees in front of the art file,
rifling through, pulling out whatever spoke to my heart
and slapping it up all over the refrigerator.
Ah…
Much better.


Could it be a lack of wildness that drives conservatives to meanness?

A fear of being different, of not looking successful enough,
Of not doing the right thing—does my tie look OK?
Is my lawn smooth enough?
The bland sappy art and the elevator music,
the white walls and the beige carpets,
the high ceilings in big chilly houses with faux stone fronts,
the church services where thousands chant the same words in unison,
the same restaurants with the same food
—none of it nourishing—
appearing every few minutes
along otherwise featureless suburban freeways?


Could it be that all this blandness squeezes the wildness and fierceness
out of their poor denied animal natures
in fearsome and menacing ways?


Thank heaven that
young people are getting weirder and weirder looking all the time.
It just might save the human race.

Simply Too Much Shadow to Share

Not too current on this blog thing, am I? Afraid my last entry was in January...

Ah, well. I assume you've all had plenty to look at on the internet without any input from me.

Sometimes there's simply too much shadow to talk about. Or write about in public, anyway.

A marriage breaks up, the two people live apart for months, then their marriage reforms with new dynamics. Re-marriage, but with the same two principal characters.

And as that goes on relationships with children -- really, I should think of something else to call them besides children, the youngest is 26, for Christ's sake -- also change and evolve.

I don't know about you, but I can't seem to grow without pain. Like that story where the Worm/Dragon has to peel off 7 different layers of skin in order to become human again. Ouch. It hurts to peel off layers of old persona, old masks, old habits, old kneejerk reactions developed in childhood (complexes, a Jungian would call them).

Even when those old skins are so worn out they no longer keep out the elements, it hurts to pull them off and find out what's underneath.

So please excuse my silence. There's simply been too much shadow to share.