Meanings & Trivialities

[catelin]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's overcome with this horrible feeling that nothing I write means anything anymore. I catch myself thinking, "Ok, who do I want to propose to today?" and then I think, "Why bother?" Not that I've really been thinking that, but it illustrates my point. My day-to-day life seems so ridiculous now. It seems so completely boring and small compared to the headlined news that I finally shut off but still the traces linger in my head. The goofy anecdotes, the stories, the poetry...I think, does anyone even give a rat's ass anymore? Why is it that I feel that everything I write here should now be something profound? Something so much more full of meaning than anything I wrote before? I suppose it is natural to search for words to fix things. After all, that is my business. People get hurt. I write words that fix things. I speak to jurors and judges and tell them, "This needs fixing." I wait for verdicts with white knuckles, nervous...but still always certain that things will be fixed. I've always been certain of that. Proud that I help people. Proud that I stand up for the weak and voiceless. That I roar with their stories, feeling like Clarence Darrow or Atticus Finch in a pair of heels. Knowing that my friends on other side of the room were just as committed to doing right by the Constitution...even when their clients were despicable, we all had a sense that we were doing just what we should be doing. That we were fighting the good fight...even from different perspectives. All of what's happened has made me maudlin. It's made me feel stupid and small, and worse...trivial. It's made me want to push my breath into the hollow of your neck, to lie down with you and forget anything else but flesh, to look at your eyes and know that there's still someone who really sees that I'm still here. I want to tell you about my day, and laugh about almost being thrown in jail for contempt of court by the crazy judge...you know, the one we always giggle about. To have you brush my hair back from my face and tell me yet again that my Irish temper will be the end of me. I want to tell you about the boys. How they found a clear green marble yesterday in the dirt and told me that they were sure it must be a treasure that someone had buried a long time ago. How Max told me that he was sure the treasure had some sort of magical powers, but he just had to figure out the right words to make it work. I just want to find the right words. But how do you find magical words when you feel that your voice has left you?

Comments

making sense of it all

[talkshowhost.livejournal.com]

Cate:

I am going to throw my hat into the ring here, not because I think I have anything truly deep or profound to say, but because I know the sadness you are feeling, and I wanted to express my solidarity, especially seeing as how what I want to do is so much affected by Black Tuesday.

Before all of this happened, I was working on writing out a video project that my best friend and I are going to work on when I get back to South Carolina. I was planning on flying to Minnesota to see AJ. I was going to write another road trip story from my past and send it to you for AtomicPetals. Since the attack, I have been in a kind of fog. As I believe I mentioned somewhere else, one of my earliest memories is of going to the top of the trade center towers with my dad, and part of me feels like that memory has been stripped away. I have been sitting here wondering what will be next. But you know what? EVERYTHING will be next, because it has to be.

I am going to write that project out, although I'll be careful about any references for the time being, as most people will be. I'm going to get on a plane and go to see AJ, even though I was already scared to death of flying. I am going to write you that story and send it to you, because it's something that happened and it is life-affirming and proof that we are better then those who would try to subjugate our will.

The day this happened, I was wondering how I could bring a child into a world where such horrible things could occur. And then I sat and watched her playing with her dog, this wonderful little bouncing ball of energy and spark of life, and I realized something. We are deeply saddened, forever touched, by the images and stories from around the country and around the world that have been coming in. For as much as there are those who seek to shrink the global consciousness and eliminate our world village, they have failed, as they will ALWAYS fail. And while there are those who are quick to say the United States brought this on itself, and that our foriegn policies might not have always been the greatest, we still live in a place where, when the chips are down, we come together and we do the right thing. This whole ordeal has made us all appreciate the little things a bit more, has made us slow down and take stock of our lives and what the price of freedom can sometimes be.

So my answer to your question, Cate, about how do you find that magic when you have no voice, is that your voice hasn't left. It never leaves. But as you get older, as you grow, your voice grows and changes with you. We are all a lot older today then we were last Monday, but our voices are still intact, still strong, maybe even stronger then ever. And you will find that the trivialities are just as important as the life-changing stuff, because big or small, they help us define WHO WE ARE. No terrorist attack can take that away unless we choose to let that happen.

As a final note, I wanted to thank you personally for convincing me to come here and start my journal. I know that as hard as this has all been, it would have been much, much worse without being able to come here and read these stories and share with everyone my own. So thank you, Catelin. I am glad we let each other know we are out here.

Re: making sense of it all

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Steven. You are a real gem of a man...and I am lucky to have run across you. I am so glad you began writing here and I always look forward to reading what's going on with you. Stick around! : )