A Declaration of Self

I debated for a long while whether or not I wanted to post this, and then whether or not I wanted to post all of it.  But, obviously, in the end I decided to share it exactly as I wrote it because most of the time I choose not to say the thing I want to say and I don't know if that is the right decision always.  So this time I'm saying it and we'll see what happens.  This post is dedicated to a good friend of mine, that he may do with it what he wishes:

I have amazing friends.  Amazing, brilliant, ambitious friends who plan to go out into the world and set it on fire.  I have friends who plan on going and putting out those fires when they get out of control.  I look at my friends and I know that the future of this world is in good hands. 

But that’s not me.  When the time comes for that conversation and everyone is laying out their Lives of Awesomeness I am content to let them talk.  Because I plan on living a small life. 

A small life, not to be confused with an unimportant life, is one concerned with small things.  It is not a life that takes in the grand sweep of politics and the swirling world-governing laws of science.  It is a life centered on people.  A life centered on my future family.  A life that may travel the world, but will never move it—at least, not overtly. 

Perhaps the most inflammatory essay I ever wrote centered on the two different types of civic involvement.  I referenced the schools of thought of W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington from the Civil Rights Era (I was, at the time, applying these philosophies to issues of feminism).  Dubois was a staunch advocate of aggressive and even violent change.  If the world isn’t right then you scream and kick and shove until it is.  Make people notice you.  Make people notice the problem.  Make people change!  Washington, on the other hand, espoused almost the polar opposite policy.  If the world isn’t right then tuck in and do the best you can.  Work hard, live right by yourself, and eventually people will notice.  Right comes out in the end. 

Then and now I unabashedly align myself with Washington.  I am so glad that we have Duboisians and I am so glad that I do not have to be one of them.  Both are, I think, required to change the world and it is for that reason that I feel no embarrassment, shame, or guilt for my lifestyle.

And what, exactly, is my lifestyle?  It is a life in progress.  I am not perfect, in fact I am so far from it that I don’t think I could see perfect with one of those telescopes that they use to look at planets in other galaxies. 

But I am trying to, and mostly succeeding in, being happy.

I live a life that revolves around books and movies and jokes and thinking and most importantly of all, my life revolves around the people I love.  Those of you who know me the best hopefully know that that is true.  I live life on an individual basis, not a grand scope. 

These are all broad, practically generic statements.  I’m struggling to express myself adequately without getting caught up in unnecessary detail but I feel that doing so is reducing my thoughts to truisms.  I can only assure you that I mean what I say. 

What do I most want to say? 

I know who I am and I am happy with that person.  I have chosen the life that I am leading and I am satisfied with that choice.  I love so many things in this world and I am happy that I get to experience them all and live this small life of mine.  I am so glad that I have the luxury of forming my own future and growing slowly into the person I want to be.

And if my small life doesn’t seem up to par with yours, then you can go to hell. 

The Descendants

Don't worry, I'll be writing up the rest of my Europe adventure soon.  But I wanted to write this up tonight while I was thinking about it...and it's sort of connected to my trip...

My flights to and from Europe were, as expected, exceedingly long.  I watched many movies.  The last movie I watched was The Descendants

In case you haven't heard of it, The Descendants is the movie that scooped up all the awards that were leftover after The Artist swept through (incidentally, I also watched The Artist on my flight and I highly recommend it--so awesome!).  Briefly, it is about a man who has to reevaluate his life when his wife is critically injured in a boating accident just when he is also facing a massive financial decision.  His relationship with his home, his heritage, and his two daughters are all examined.  That so doesn't do the movie justice, but it is enough to be going one with.

Now, as I say, this was the last movie I watched, and I didn't quite time it right.  I was about 15-20 minutes from the end of the movie when the plane started to land and they turned the movie off.  It was sort of in the midst of a major moment and I was like "WHA.....???!"  So last Thursday, when my good friend John asked me if I wanted to come over and watch The Descendants with him and Bryan I jumped at the chance.  Not only was I willing to watch the movie again when it wasn't on a wretched 4" LCD chair-screen, but I was dying to know how it ended.

One of the things I really loved about this movie was George Clooney's character, Matt King.  He is a good man who knows how and when to control himself--a trait I value incredibly highly.  When he finds out that his wife was cheating on him his first priority is to protect his daughters.  His eldest already knows, but his youngest, a challenging 10 year old, has no idea.  At one point his older daughter goes in to see her mother and starts shouting accusations at her.  He pulls her aside and pleads with her "Don't ruin your mother for Scotty!"  I loved that so much.  And I loved that only one time do you see him cave in and vent some of the massive anger you know he must be feeling.  For a brief moment he is alone with his wife and he breaks down shouting at her.  But very quickly he collects himself and you never see that anger expressed again.  Not even in the face of his father-in-law's cruel and unfair accusations.  I can't really explain how much this meant to me.  So often stories glamorize and advocate the lack of control as the only "real" way to experience emotions and I think this movie was a beautiful contrast.

But my favorite scene was the last one.  The scene I missed on my flight.  It isn't anything dramatic or exciting.  It's just one long straight shot, as though you're looking out of their living room TV right at their couch.  Scotty, the youngest, is tucked into a corner, wrapped in her mother's old blanket, and you see her father coming back from the kitchen with two bowls.  He sits down next to her and hands her one bowl, filled with strawberry ice cream, and pulls the blanket over himself as well while holding his bowl of mocha chip.  They sit there, eating their ice cream, watching a documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman, and you can see the elder daughter walk by in the background.  She pauses, then comes in to the room and perches on the edge of the couch next to her father.  He scoots over so she has room and pulls the blanket over her as well, while she sinks back into the couch against him.  After he settles the blanket over her, he hands her his bowl of ice cream and they all watch the TV.  He reaches over and takes a bite of strawberry ice cream, the camera watches them watching the show, and then the scene ends.

After the movie ended they asked me where exactly I'd gotten cut off the first time.  I told them and explained how sad that was because that last scene was my favorite in the whole movie.  Callie agreed, but then scoffed "Except...I'd love to see any family that actually does that.  Everyone sits on the same couch, under the same blanket, with only two bowls of ice cream?"

It was one of those moments where you feel yourself creating a future memory in your head.  The moment where something hits that perfect soft spot in your soul and you know that one day you will recreate that moment in your own life.  That's how I felt about that scene as I was watching it.  Then, when Callie scoffed at it I was sad, as though she was telling me that I couldn't create that in my own future family one day.  That beautiful moment of unity and comfort.

But I will create that.  I will have a moment under the same blanket, sharing ice cream, all on the same couch with my children.  And when that moment happens, I will look at my life from above for just one second and I will see that I have fulfilled my dream and my soul will be completely and utterly content for a heartbeat.

Cultural Education Times

Fun Fact: weddings are a big deal.  Always.

I'm currently in Germany for two reasons.  The first is because I've wanted to come back to Europe ever since I left it four years ago.  The second, and rather more important, is that my good friend Ralf is getting married.  Strike that...he now IS married.  At least, part way.

So, we got the news last fall that he was engaged and I decided right then and there that I was going to be at the wedding.  As it turned out, it wasn't quite that simple, since Ralf and Marlene decided that they were going to pick a date two weeks before the end of my semester.  However, I somehow worked it all out, and here I am.

Today was the first day of the wedding.  That's right, it's a two day affair.  Today was the civil service, which is a quite small affair, and then tomorrow is the big religious ceremony that will be attended by about 160 people.  Today was when they go to the equivalent of the city hall (the village...office of bureaucracy?) with only their very immediate family and get married legally.  Ralf's parents and his two sisters (with respective boyfriends) were there, as well as a cousin he used to be best friends with when they were young.  Marlene's two brothers, her sister and sister's fiance and their baby, her parents, and her grandparents were there.  And me and Kara.  I felt mildly out of place for a moment.  But then they asked me to take a lot of pictures for them and I didn't feel so out of place.  Alas, unlike an American city hall, which would be boring and beige and have recessed fluorescent lighting making everyone looked green, their city hall equivalent was...in a crypt?  It was in a stone-built basement space that really did seem incredibly crypt-like.  Either way, it was really wretched lighting and most of my pictures came out blurry so I won't really be able to help the family out after all.  Not to mention, I decided it would be cool to video the actual ceremony, so about three minutes after the dude started giving his speech, once I realized he was speechafying rather than just asking everyone to sit down and shut up, I started recording.  I handed the camera to Kara because she had a much better view, but we eventually decided that perhaps we should stop videoing until something interesting happened.  Which meant that Kara turned the video off.  And then they stood up to exchange vows.  Kara ran over to the aisle so she could get a really great shot of the the minister between their two backs and caught the whole thing perfectly.  Except she forgot to actually turn the video back on to record.  So really all she got was her own nice view of the vows.  And Ralf and Marlene have a nice long video of their minister talking forever.  I hope he was at least interesting.  Alas, I have no idea...

Because I don't speak German.  Turns out "lending a hand" is 100% easier and less frustrating when you can actually understand what is happening around you.  Kara and I spent a hefty part of this morning just standing around wishing we knew what was going on so that we could help.  Even just getting to the hall was hard because no one seemed to know what was going into what car, including us.  Also, it turns out that if you get a crowd of Germans in a room and you want them to accomplish something you should give them about 50 times longer than you think they'll really need.  We stood around doing absolutely nothing for a solid hour after the wedding service trying to figure out when and where to sit down.  Eventually we did sit down to tables that Kara and I had set up the day before for Sabine, Ralf's mother.  We ate possibly the most delicious soup on the face of the earth.  It looked like this:

It looked sort of completely terrifying, but turned out to be heavenly.  Those cubes are actually egg, prepared some mysterious way so that the yolk and white were completely homogeneous.

Here's a picture of the table settings and Marlene's flowers

Kara took that picture.  The dinner was lovely, except for the part where the guy handing Kara her plate knocked over her champagne flute full of orange juice and some of it got on my camera.  I was real worried, but turns out it was ok.  There was also a stinkin' cute baby girl there who, aside from a really unfortunate mullet decision by her parents, was skull-explodingly adorable.  This is another of Kara's pictures, showing her in all her cuteness wearing the fabulous little baby sweater I want to learn how to knit:

Ok, so that picture doesn't really show the sweater.  But it shows her insane cuteness in profile.


Anyway. Enough pictures for now because it is taking forever to load them and I need to go to bed 18 minutes ago.  So, after the luncheon Kara and I were put in charge of clearing off and putting away all the tables and chairs, which we completed with admirable swiftness.  All of us then trouped home (siblings, parents, significant others, and us Americans) and changed out of our nice clothes so we could go to the other hall where we'll be having the other service tomorrow.

This was where the insanity really began.  Remember how I said weddings are a big deal?  Remember how I said a bunch of Germans in a room are completely incapable of just getting to work?  Yeah, both of these facts were forcibly demonstrated to me today.  Along with the conviction that when it comes to setting up tables and chairs and covering those tables with table cloths...just trust the Mormons.  Seriously.  We have years of experience with these things.  We really do know the best way to fit the tables in and still leave room for the caterers.  Alas, they did not trust the Mormons, and they were a bunch of Germans (and one of them is a physicist!  I should have already known we were screwed!).  So we literally spent 40 minutes just trying to figure out exactly where the tables should go.  Part of this involved the most perniciously fastidious measuring of distances I've ever seen.  Heaven preserve us from a table one or two millimeters out of line!  Also, I think there really is some truth to the idea that Americans are obsessed with work.  In the time it took Kara and I to fold all 160 napkins (into chicken's feet, if you listen to her, though I thought they looked nice enough) They managed to...put two strips of ribbon on all the tables?  I think they also managed to put out a few glasses.  Most of the people there were actually eating some of Marlene's lovely chocolate cherry cake, or sitting and chatting.  After Kara and I finished the napkins we took over putting out the glasses (water and wine) and trying to make sure that all the wine glasses matched.  We kept having to work around the two or three guys who spent pretty much the entirety of the 5 hours we were preparing the hall going around making infinitesimal adjustments to the silverware, chair, and table placements to make sure that they were all lined up absolutely perfectly!  I've never seen such obsession over alignment in my life.  And so completely unnecessary....

After five hours of this Kara and I were ready to go home.  The fact is, there really was only enough work there for about three hours had everyone chipped in and worked hard.  Instead we drug it out by an extra two and that knowledge was wearing on the two of us.  Except that we realized that probably much of our frustration would have been eased had we known what anyone was saying at any point during the entire process.  For one thing we could only ever wait for Ralf or his sister Andrea or Joe (the American exchange student of years gone by) to tell us what to do.  No one else felt comfortable talking to the Americans.  For another, no one but those three could understand when we made suggestions, so we were pretty much completely ignored every time.  But despite all that, when we came back from a trip to the grocery store with Ralf we were forced to admit that the hall did look quite lovely.  I will admit that I was worried.  There are no less than four different reds on those tables, and not a one of them matching.  But from a distance they sort of all blend together and you don't notice so much.

Tangent about the floor:  instead of the traditional boards, cut in long strips along the grain of the wood, this floor was made of the perpendicular ends of the boards.  That is, if you took the ends of all those long boards and stuck them all in together, you'd have this floor.  It was a fascinating pattern of half-arches and I'm going to take a picture of it as soon as we get back tomorrow.  Bryan will love it!

Anyway, we finally made it home--all of us wiped out.  Tomorrow Kara and I have to get up early so that we can move our things to a neighbor's house, where we'll be spending Saturday night.  Some 20 or so cousins are descending upon this house tomorrow, or so we've been told.  I can only assume they'll be packed over the floor much like the Africans were on those old Spanish slave galleys back in the 15th century.  Kara and I (as well as Kami and Joseph when they return from Berlin) will get a full apartment to ourselves in said neighbor's basement and I'm perfectly willing to relocate for that kind of space and privacy.  I believe we'll be back Sunday night, though, since someone in the family is supposed to be driving us to the airport Monday morning.

I'm both excited and nervous for tomorrow.  On the one hand, it will be nice to see all our work from yesterday put to use.  The ceremony tomorrow is much grander and I think it will be much more comparable to an American wedding.  I'm quite looking forward to the experience (though not so much to the open bar, especially combined with the dancing we've been told to expect in the evening).  However, the temperature here has been dropping every day and tomorrow is supposed to be the coldest day so far.  Of course, the day I'll be wearing a thin little dress!  I may die, and I'm sure Kara definitely will.  But we'll power through as best we can and hopefully I'll get some great pictures to show you all tomorrow!

Lastly here's a picture of the happy couple just after they were married.  I'm excited to see her fer rlz wedding dress tomorrow!

Adventure and Discovery

I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester, which has been one of the greatest decisions of my life.  Especially on "long weekends" like the one we just had.  See, my normal weekend is already four days long so I didn't think the long weekend would affect me (effect me?), but with BYU's obsession with mucking about with the calendar suddenly my long weekend turned into a week off!  And over the course of this week off I have done some awesome things.

I sat down and tried to actually plan my life.  I sort of didn't quite plan it as thoroughly as I hoped to, but I've made a good start I think.  I discovered that this is the best possible semester I could have ever have chosen to miss the last two and a half weeks of school.  Truly, it's like it is meant to be.  I went to the library and checked out most of the books I need to read in the next three weeks.  It's a hefty re-useable shopping bag full and I'm pretty excited.

Awesome!  A picture of the exact re-usable bag  that is currently sitting on my backseat stuffed full of YA fiction!

I rediscovered Mumford and Sons and Queen and The Civil Wars, having neglected them for about 9 months.

I played Trivial Pursuit with a lot of people I love and discovered that I'm still really bad at Trivial Pursuit.  Not only that, but as soon as you ask me a question to which I do not know the answer I suddenly become incapable of formulating an answer that is even an appropriate guess.  I believe this phenomenon is responsible for all of those "Americans are such idiots" videos Leno likes to show.

I actually visited some of the people that you see randomly and say "we should totally hang out some time!" and then you completely forget about them.  When I ran into Denise in the JFSB and we said that I said "No, but really.  We're picking a day.  Right now!" and we did and I went and it was awesome.  I went over to their house for dinner on Sunday and I finally met her and Tyson's little boy Will .  He is one of the happiest, calmest, adorable-est babies I've ever met and I can't wait to play with him again.  I played games with the Remys for several hours and had an absolutely lovely time.  Next time I'll have to invite them over to my apartment for dinner.  Whether or not they can come with the baby, at least I can invite them.  I think they'd enjoy games with my roommates.

are we seeing how cute these people are??

On Monday I forced myself out of my comfort zone to go on a snowy adventure with Griffin, Mike, Jessie, and Griffin's cousin Taylor.  Before I went I was not quite to the point of nauseating nervousness, but just shy.  But, as it turned out, I had a really great time.   I mean really.  Such a good time that two days later I'm still thinking about it.

Tuesday I read a book.  I read the entire book.  Then I felt restless and unproductive for having spent the day reading, even though it was homework.  I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and had a killer ipod dance party.  I reveled in the fact that my knee only hurt a teeny bit.  Then I sat on my floor and started drawing illustrations for a children's book that I have decided to make.  Then I watched New Girl with my roommates.  Then I came into my bedroom and started teaching myself to knit while watching Tangled.  I felt better about my productivity, even though I only created one line of stitches.  I'll figure out how to add another line of them!

except I was knitting with much prettier charcoal grey yarn...

And today I read another book.  All of it.  And halfway through I looked at myself reading my book and I suddenly realized that I didn't feel that anxiety of wasting time that I have felt any time I sit and read anymore.  Devoting a second day to reading broke that wall that has slowly built up over the last few years that cut my psyche off from the immense, calming joy that reading has always brought it.  I found that joy again today.  I felt the old familiar annoyance when I had to put my book away and go to work.  Luckily, today I finally got to see our new shop and find out how awesome it is!  We have windows now, and the space is so much lighter and nicer, with the potential to be even more awesome as Caleb continues to finish it.  And Caleb takes such good care of me! He has set up two full tables that are just for me and he says he wants to get me another one so I have "enough space"! He worked all weekend putting up about eight 100-watt lights to make sure I have plenty of light.  He just got me a sonic cleaner and an oven.  He is, without a doubt, the best boss I've ever worked for.  I love my job so much!  And then as I was driving home I realized that working down in Payson will give me the perfect excuse to drive.  See, I love to drive, but I don't really ever have anywhere to go and can't really justify just driving around for no reason when I have to pay for gas.  But now I get to drive 30 minutes to and from work so I don't even have to feel guilty about it.  Awesome!

image searched "driving" and found this.  Why does this picture even exist?

Then I got home and decided completely whimsically and on the spur of the moment to buy my friend's Kindle for no other reason than that she wanted to sell it to me and I want it.  But I'm pretty excited about it.  And my roommates were discussing Lent when I came in, and what they were planning on giving up for their Lenten fasts.  And I have decided that I am going to try to give up something.  I'm going to give up all meanness in my life.  I've been feeling strangely disturbed recently by all the unkindness I've seen around and I think this is the perfect time for me to try and get rid of some that may be of my own creation.

Then end result of all of this is that right now, as I lie here in bed and write this before going to sleep, I feel a great, comforting sense of optimism about my life.  I don't know what it shall be, but I am sure, in this moment, that it will be lovely and that I will be in control of it.  I don't feel that soothing assurance often, so I am luxuriating in it for now.  I am learning how to knit, I'm creating a children's book, I have an awesome job, and I have the benefit of so many wonderful people in my life.  I am grateful.

there is no possible better way to end this post than with a picture of Wil Wheaton.
Fact.

It Aint Fair...

I should 100% be going to sleep right now, but instead I'm writing this post.  Once again I am faced with a topic far too vast to be addressed in a small, insignificant blog, but again I feel impelled to put my thoughts into words for my own sake if for nothing else.

I would not have thought that my young adult fiction class would be the class to provoke most of my "deep thinking" for the semester.  "Deep thinking" is the name I gave just this instant to what I consider to be the very best part of my academic career--the thinking I do beyond, above, around, and through my assignments.  It's when I take ideas and carry them through and really explore them.  Usually it has nothing to do with actual class work or credit.  And I repeat, I did not expect my YA fiction class to be the one to spark it.

But I have been lucky.  My professor has assigned us, thus far at least, some truly superb books.  This week's was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.  I read it today.  I think I read it once before years and years ago, but apparently it was one of a very small list of books that I don't remember very well at all.  So today was an essentially fresh and new reading.

Somehow, inhumanity and cruel treatment of others has become a theme in my life the last couple of weeks.  Last week I read the Hitler Youth book, about which I posted.  Then the Holocaust and WWII seemed to keep coming up in various disparate points in my life.  Then there is this book, which fits right in to the theme.  And now, after two weeks of stories about people hating, hurting, and dehumanizing other people, I am starting to chafe and feel raw.

The fact is, when I read these stories about Nazis beating and murdering Jews without remorse, or white men slapping and kicking black children who happened to look at them wrong, the fact is that I am flooded with righteous wrath.  I want to take the fear those poor people experienced and I want to take it right into the hearts of their tormentors.  I want them to know exactly what they put their poor victims through.  I want to cause them the same pain they cause to others because I feel like that is the only way they could ever understand what they'd done.  And it is the only way to make things right and even and square...

Even as I'm writing this I'm brimming with emotion--utter fury that a human being could treat another in such a way, wringing sympathy for those who suffered such vindictive treatment, and embarrassment that I should presume to pity these people as though I can even begin to comprehend their experiences.  I mean, I can read this book, or To Kill A Mockingbird or Hitler's Youth, or any other book, but I can never really fathom what it was like to live in the same world as the actual people.  So who am I to be angry on their behalf or sorry for them?  Who am I to read their stories and then write a blog post as though I have something important to say?

But I must.  Because as I was sitting here on my bed, wondering how things like Slavery and the Holocaust could exist, I suddenly had a bright shining realization that had the gleam of truth about it.

To understand I will take you on somewhat of a tangent.  I'm sure you all remember the movie Taken.  The Liam Neeson movie that came out a year or two ago that everyone just loved.  In it an ex-CIA operative has retired to be closer to his daughter.  She goes on a holiday to Europe and is kidnapped by sex-traders.  Her father then goes on a bloody rampage through Europe to rescue her, killing brutally, mercilessly, and without the slightest remorse anyone who happens to stand too close to him.  Everyone loved this movie because we all loved seeing Liam Neeson circumvent laws that so often seem more a hindrance than a help, and get bloody, efficient results.  I walked out of that movie deeply disturbed as I realized that I had just watched literally hundreds of people die and I had relished it.  I can't tell you how many people responded "yeah, but they were horrible people!  They deserved it!"  Be that as it may, I couldn't help but feel that a movie like Taken played to an unhealthy place in human nature which ought not be cultivated.

Because the fact is, the moment you start rationalizing cruelty by any sort of reasoning, you are on the dangerous slope.  One of the great tragedies of something like the Holocaust or of Slavery is the scarring left in its wake--the mental and emotional backlash.  You take a group of people and categorically demean them to a point where their lives hold no value...what could you possibly expect would happen to those people once they're finally released from your power?  The hatred of the Jews for the Nazis or the blacks for the whites is a horrible thing.  Their lives and their children's lives for generations are warped and mutated by a hatred that is just as blind as the hatred that they experienced.

What I'm trying to say so unsuccessfully is that these terrible points in history often lead to reciprocation.  That righteous anger I feel, that desire to hurt the tormentors as their victims were hurt, those same feelings are felt by others and we try to punish the tyrants somehow.  They need to suffer because they made others suffer!

But what does that make us?  What does that make the victims?  Suddenly the roles are reversed.  And just because you were once a victim doesn't mean that you cannot become a bully.

The epiphany that I had as I was sitting here on my bed was this:

If you cannot possibly find any way to value yourself besides setting yourself up over another person  by stripping them of their humanity...how low...how little must you value yourself?  And how immensely must you loathe yourself?

That was my epiphany.  And along with it came the realization why righteous wrath simply will not work.  Why you cannot punish away that kind of bad behavior.  If you hate yourself that much--that the only thing that can make you feel good is to compare yourself to something you consider less than human--no amount of punishment or pain will fix that.  Indeed, it will but add fuel to the fire.

What can fix that?  The horribly beautiful or beautifully horrible truth is that love is the only thing that can fix that.  Love and forgiveness and acceptance.  If you hate me and I hate you back, that does nothing but create an endless cycle of hate.  But if you hate me and I love you and forgive you back...even if you hate me till the end of time, by removing my own hatred I have managed to decrease the net hatred in the world even just by a little.

My righteous wrath isn't gone.  In fact when I think about forgiving someone in a situation like that a large part of me revolts.  Where is the justice in that?  How can I possibly suggest that such a thing is even possible?  Honestly, it may not be possible for many people.  Maybe their suffering passed the point of no return beyond which they cannot come back without some recompense being paid.  And maybe that's good.  But just try to imaging for a moment a world where everyone loved others--and more importantly, everyone felt well and truly loved.  Imagine a world where everyone knew who he or she was, the value they had, and that they were loved by those around them.

Can you imagine a Holocaust in that world?  Because I cannot.

Forgiveness and love are the way to that world.  Not hatred or vindictive punishment or retribution.

Swing Heil

In the memorandum, Himmler also warned the police about young people who ignored German culture and preferred jazz music and swing dance.  These resisters were called the Swing Youth, due to their taste in music.  According to Himmler, the teenagers said, "Swing Heil," instead of "Heil Hitler."  He noted that the boys wore their hair long and the girls wore makeup and painted their fingernails.

Today I read Susan Campbell Bartoletti's Hitler Youth: Growing Up In Hitler's Shadow.  It was a fascinating read.  I hesitate to try and write a post about it because I don't think I could do justice to the topic without much more time and research, but at the same time I felt an overwhelming wish to voice some of my small thoughts.  Frankly, most of my mind is focused on the war more than the actual book.  That being said, I must briefly mention that, as a person generally uninterested in non-fiction, I was very impressed.  Ms Bartoletti created an incredibly well-crafted book that presented difficult information in a very engaging manner.

Hitler's plan for training the youth of Germany is a fascinating and terrifying thing.  As I read this story of indoctrination and peer pressure I just kept looking at the world in which I live.  The climate of fear and reactionism that allowed Hitler to successively strip Germans of their freedoms with no opposition (indeed, each new breach of their freedom was often celebrated as a victory) seems so like the one in which we live today.  SOPA created an international outcry that roused people from their somnolent apathy and their outrage has, at least for now, been acknowledged.  But where was that same outrage when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act which, among I don't even know what else, allows the government to detain Americans "suspected of terrorist activity"?  This law was signed off by the president this month and is now in effect (insofar as I am aware...).  Setting aside the issue of detaining anyone without basic rights because I can only address so much here, the fact is that under a new and frighteningly broad definition of "terrorist activity" our government can now detain us, it's own citizens, indefinitely and without trial.  It may seem reactionary and extreme to imply this comparison, but I can't help but worry...is "The War on Terror" a good enough reason for us to sit quietly while our civil liberties, such an enduring hallmark of this nation (even as its reputation has suffered ever more tarnishing from the hands of outsiders and insiders alike), are chipped away one by one?

Ironically, I found a bitter sort of comfort even as I mused on these frightening ideas.  Bartoletti begins her book with a quote from Hitler himself

I begin with the young.  We older ones are used up...But my magnificent youngsters!  Are there finer ones anywhere in the world?  Look at all these men and boys!  What material!  With them I can make a new world.

Hitler understood the importance of the rising generation in the success of his war machine.  Bartoletti's book describes the activities the Hitler Jungen (HJ) orchestrated to get all the children involved.  She describes hiking and camping and summer camps.  She talks about the patriotic propaganda that played to the fervor of young minds.  Hitler had an immense gift for speaking, and with his nation's youth he used it to terrible effect.  Bartoletti includes several first-hand accounts of boys and girls in their teens who heard him speak.  They talk about how inspiring he was and how his words went right to their souls and captured their hearts and minds.  My bitter comfort as I read these accounts was a knowledge that the youth of my generation are immune to such insidious tactics.  The fact is, mine is a generation defined by apathy.

I cannot be proud of this safeguard. After all, apathy is just as dangerous as misguided fanaticism.  It was the apathy of others that allowed families to be dragged from their homes and put into concentration camps.  With enough apathy, fear, and carefully placed manipulation bad men can create a world all of their own making.  The fact is everyone wants their world to be ok.  They don't want there to be problems and trouble and issues.  It is frightening to think that something is wrong because that means that it must somehow be fixed.  Bartoletti interviewed actual members of the HJ and they talked to her about their inability to face what they had done.  So many of them simply could not accept that the man they had believed in with religious fervor was a madman and a murderer--not even when they saw the evidence with their own eyes.  People don't want to believe that the world is gone awry and that they have been a part of it, no matter how inadvertently.

But most of all this book overwhelmed me with the horror of violence and war.  Hitler took an entire generation and raised them up to be perfect soldiers.  Boys and men capable of the most horrifying atrocities towards their fellow men with little or no immediate remorse.  As I read Bartoletti's accounts of "mercy killings" and then the Holocaust I kept trying to understand how such programs could exist...and keep existing.  It wasn't just the insanity of Hitler; somehow hundreds of other people were pulled into complicity with it.  He was just one man.  Somehow he took living, feeling human beings and turned them into something less, something that was capable of looking others in the eye and inflicting every imaginable kind of torture on them.  How did he do that?

And yet this is not an isolated example.  To our shame, the history of human cruelty is as long as the history of human existence.  The worst part of this is the fact that it continues to exist today.  The fact that after witnessing something so appalling as World War II there still exists places like Guantanamo Bay.  That there are still terrorists and extremists and people filled with hate (or even more terrifying--people filled with militant zeal).  That people are still capable of taking another human being's life in his or her hands and snuffing it out because someone told them to...or because they told themselves to.  How?  How are we still doing this to one another?

I wish I had answers to any of these questions or solutions to even just one of these problems.  How does one abolish apathy while staving off misguided zealotry?  How does one subdue the demon within Man that strips from him his Humanity?  How do people conquer their wills and learn to interact with each other civilly and reasonably?  I don't know.  All I know is that even without solutions we have to keep trying.  Bartoletti told the story of various young men and women who rose up in rebellion under Hitler's regime.  In every instance they were quickly found and executed, their voices silenced, leaving what appeared to be little or no change in their wake.  It was difficult to hear their stories without bitterness as I wondered what it was for.  But I had to remind myself that the simple fact that I could read their stories all these years later means that they had some effect.  I cannot find the words to explain what their sacrifice means to me, a privileged and ignorant girl some 70 years later.  All I can say is that I am so grateful that they made it.  And perhaps, with that example to inspire me, if one day I find myself called on to sacrifice something of my own to protest against injustice, hatred, violence, or cruelty I will be able to make the right decision.  Even if I don't think it will make a difference.

Twilight: slasher fiction for the emotionally starved...

So my friend Danielle and I have this thing where we go and watch whatever Twilight movie happens to be out and we laugh hysterically.  It worked well for Twilight and New Moon.  She was out of the country for Eclipse so I missed that one, but I hear she went and saw it down in Brazil and laughed enough for both of us.  She has recently moved out to New York to be fabulous, but she's back in town for a few days visiting for Christmas so we figured we'd better get us to a late showing of Breaking Dawn 1.0

if your goal is mocking this seems promising, right?

What. The. Hell.

What the hell is that movie?  I'm sorry to be vulgar, but that is really all I can say, over and over.

So, for people like me who had no idea what was going on, here's a rundown.  I actually was just going through doing a play by play but it was taking way too long.  Especially when I realized that this movie is really just four things: wedding, honeymoon, express pregnancy, and delivery.  That's all you need to know.  They get married, they go on a honeymoon, she gets pregnant with the demon baby of death, and then she gives birth to said baby.  And somehow they stretch that into a movie just 3 minutes shy of 2 hours.

But that makes it sound sort of normal.  Oh no.  My first serious "this is wacked out!" alarm went off when she wakes up from her wedding night.  She's all gooey eyed remembering how beautiful it all was and then Edward walks in and asks her how bad she's hurt.  Then he pulls up her sleeves and you see his little fingerprints all over her arms and shoulders.   Suddenly you get a whole new perspective on abusive relationships as you listen to him abjectly apologize for hurting her, swear he never meant to and he'll never do it again, and listen to her get angry with him for...not for hurting her, but for refusing to hurt her even more.  What the what?  He sticks to it for a couple days and all the booty shorts and little negligees in the world won't sway him...until she wakes up from a dream crying cause he just doesn't want her...BLECH!

But that was nothing compared to Gollum!Bella of creeptastic pregnancy emaciation.  The emotional manipulation that happened between her and Jacob.  The bizarre militancy of Rosalee standing guard over PregnantGollum!Bella.  The sippy cup'o'blood to keep sweet li'l baby happy.  The abrupt change in Edward from baby loathing to baby worship.  All of it leading up to a scene that I don't think I'll ever be able to erase from my memory...the Vampire C-Section of Horror.  This is what happens, absolutely no exaggeration.  Bella, Edward, Alice, Rose, and Jacob are having tender bonding times when Bella drops her Cup'o'Blood as Edward hands it to her.  She dives after it and breaks her own back.  She falls, breaking her knees, and is about to splat her little head on the tiles till Edward dashes forward to catch her.  This sends her into labor, but Carlisle is out catching a bite, so it's up to Rose, Alice, Edward, and Jacob to deliver the little one.  Bella is lying there on the delivery table, back still broken, and the rest stand around at a loss till Edward says the baby is suffocating and Bella screams to get him out.  Jacob stands in as the husband, holding her hand and shouting at her to hang in there as Edward snatches up a scalpel and slices open her stomach.  Unfortunately, her uterus has become vampirized and scalpels are useless against it...so Edward rips it open with his teeth!  He comes up with his face covered in in his wife's blood and starts cooing over his new little girl!  Everyone just stands there!  No one thinks "Oh hey!  This woman has just had her stomach and uterus ripped open and may be hemorrhaging out, plus her back is broken.  This may be a good time to vampirize her completely...you know...while she's still alive."  Oh no.  No one even thinks "Oh hey, daddy might want to wipe some of the blood off his face."  They just stare at the baby, watch it take a bit out of it's mother, and coo over how cute it is.  Until Bella stops breathing that is.  Edward finally realizes his wife is in bad shape and hands the baby off to Rose.  He takes out a syringe of "vampire venom" and jams it into her heart.  When that doesn't appear to work he just starts sinking his teeth into her at random, a visual accompanied by a truly cringe-inducing squelching sound.  Nothing seems to be working, and he cries and Jacob cries and Bella looks like dead Gollum.  Oh.  But inside she's becoming a vampire and screaming her head off.  But you can't tell.  She just looks dead and sad.

I would post a picture...but you can't find any

 pictures of a scene that horrifying!  What does

that tell you?

You know what?  Forget the fact that Jacob then imprints on a baby girl.  Forget everything else about this movie--the bad acting, the horrible special effects, even the other questionable plot points.  What the HELL was that scene?  How do people go and watch that and still think that this is a great, beautiful, powerful love story?  What was that!?  I can't ask enough because I can't get an answer.  I walked out of the theatre so disturbed and so confused and so completely creeped out that all I could say was "why did we see that movie again?" over and over and over.