Woke up early this morning and stepped out to view the incredibly round moon descending in the west. Thinking again how lucky we are residing adjacent this field--now a park--enabling such a view from the comfort of our darkened living room.
Watching this moon now as I write I cannot help but reflect on all the full moons of my past, those Poyas in Sri Lanka, the silly drug-fueled full moon nights of my college days, the soul-igniting full moons of my first trip abroad.
I recall one particular night on a ship bound to the island of Corfu in Greece. I'd spent about three days traveling by train through all the way through Italy, barely stopping to eat, detraining in Brindisi where I caught a ferry. It was a night passage across the Aegean and I stayed awake absorbing the motion of the vessel on the sea, the scent of diesel from the stern. I will always recall, perhaps even in my dying minutes, peering into the sky of that ancient night, resting my eyes on the cool, round beauty of that white orb shimmering its brightness onto that storied sea. The moment involved such a complexity of emotions that even today, I am left trying to sort out what I was experiencing then.
It was indeed an ancient night. I was leaving, as so many lads in their early twenties do, venturing outward to the world and it's hidden fields; I did not know I was also venturing inward toward a place of almost parallel mystery. The moon that night was as it is today, a talisman of my journey. It was an ancient errand with the oldest and most trusted companion a young traveller could have had.
Perhaps it is the familiarity of the moon that draws me, or perhaps what I see in the moon is what I see in myself: a series of orbits bringing the world into sharp focus in one pass, blurred ambiguity in the next. I am as temperamental as the moon, as indifferent, as fathomless. I am cratered and pocked from the battery of the cosmos and, as foolish as the moon, keep coming back for more.
Perhaps it is significant to have such a moon this morning, the day of my first colonoscopy. It's more of a discomforting thought at the moment but a necessary ordeal, I suppose. At 51, I can abide by such a precautionary measure if it means being able to live a little longer.
And what is it to live a little longer? I fell asleep last night thinking for some reason of the recent botched executions of death row inmates. How difficult it is to die for some of us, how easy for others. I think it comes down to will. Could it be that so many "dead men walking" actually have such an intense desire to live that their bodies might withstand the most potent poison allowed; could it be that those who have lived so intensely (Robin Williams) that they see no credible way to continue with their lives? Perhaps life itself has become the toxin.
How is it that we decide within ourselves to go or to stay?
Harking back to an interesting Fresh Air interview yesterday with NPR Book critic Maureen Corrigan who, in her latest book on Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby presents a character, and in fact many characters, who have come to define the archetypal American antihero. The character is a man, sometimes a woman, who is engaged in a life of pretense, conducting himself in that way he believes he should out of entitlement, social ambition, a construct of himself in the face of stark and contrasting reality. He is in essence in denial of his own humanity: the shadow of a man who might have, had he not chosen a life of excess and greed, become an actual person. And yet Fitz accomplishes in Gatsby's character a tragic hero, who must at last be accountable for the neglect and artifice of his existence. He is a man in constant yearning of what will ever be out of reach: very much an American proclivity.
So, if the subjects of the last two paragraphs can be merged, a proper expression of my present state of mind may arise. How is it a person decides to live his days? What myriad criteria, what layers of complexity must a person navigate in order to achieve safe passage to our truer selves? Is it by living to extremes, seeking out the boundaries and voids beyond; or are we to find ourselves within, mine the deeper territory we carry each day in our ordinary lives. Here is a theme so often explored in literature, and it may be simplistic to characterize the two journeys East and West (Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund come to mind), but not too far a stretch.
And isn't this the dichotomy arising between Michael/Cordelia and Jade in Drum? Hasn't Jade embarked on her life inward, swirling into a mire of her own anxieties and self-doubt, while immortalizing their sea-going lifestyle, holding that bright fire up in her mind as if never to be extinguished? And it is gone, that fire. She lives with the illusion of its warmths, so that all she needs to do is dwell upon it to feel her own sense of worth and direction, however misguided that may be.
How is it that these characters decide to live or otherwise further their lives? Or the question may be, how have they shaped their decision to live? We see choices ahead and we react accordingly. I see Michael almost as a Gatsby--seeking always the unattainable. And what is Michael's green light across the bay? I think I need to figure that out. Jade needs to figure that out.
As I recover from my little posterior analysis this morning, I will be rebooting the old Scrivener manuscript for Drum and continue editing with the questions above in mindful view. It is important to keep these questions in the heart of Jade's own inquiry too, for her discoveries are the reader's. Drum needs this reinvigoration. Jade is a kind of Nick (in Gatsby) or Ishmael (in Moby Dick): she must engage, be the journalist in spite of herself, and in spite of the vastness of the mystery before her.
