Delirium

[Wetzelbill]

DELIRIUM

I rarely get sick anymore, yet when I do my sense of childhood vulnerability kicks in. Those times of youth, missing school, lying in bed, eating soup and guzzling the all important “plenty of liquids.” In a way it was fun. Then again, when you’re young any old excuse to miss school is met with glee.


So for the last several days, I have been confined to my apartment. Little has changed since my childhood, at least when it comes to sick days. I love nothing more than a good book or a little television. Except now my taste has an exquisitely adult evolution to it. Whereas in the old days I’d watch some cartoon such as Scooby Doo, nowadays I am watching pro wrestling and Family Guy, which are both adult ways of staying childlike and immature.


So, I sift through my DVDs, either ones I own, rented from Blockbuster or have on loan from the library, and restlessly figure out ways to keep my mind off the pain and sickness or at least the pain and sickness I am slightly embellishing so my youngest brother will do things for me. It used to be my mother. Now I pull the sickness pity card out on my brother. Maybe an extra cough or groan does it, but usually I have always been able to finagle at least a glass of water or an extra blanket whenever I needed one. Without a doubt, this is a vital skill to have. Somehow I cannot bring myself to watch any of my dvds. I enjoy looking at them. Thinking about the topics. Considering the themes of the ones I’ve viewed before. Sometimes I contemplate the previous works by a director of one of the films. Like Domino, which was directed by Tony Scott. The Tony Scott of such films as Man on Fire, Enemy of the State, True Romance and Top Gun. (how I long for the days before Tom Cruise went nuts)


I watched some of a History Channel documentary called Israel: The Birth Of A Nation. It made me think of those early days of the country, the leaders they had. My brother and I hit pause and discussed this at length. Israel had an amazing group of leaders. A core group that became some of the most influential leaders in the world. David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan (my dad loves this guy), Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin and Monachem Begin. I’ve always been interested in Begin. After the partition Israel developed their own military, the Hoganah, which answered to Ben-Gurion, who was their first Prime Minister. Also, at the time came about two underground, I guess you would call either militia or terrorist groups, depending on your point of view, called the Stern Gang, which was headed up by Shamir, and the Irgun, headed up by Begin. Monachem Begin went from being the leader of a group like the Irgun, to being the Prime Minister of Israel, to signing the historic Camp David Accords with Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat. Those occurred in 1977 and were mediated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize for that. I have a fascination with all of this.


The rest of the dvds seem united by certain themes. Foreign films dealing with a vanishing way of life or a group of people with a plight. Although the Israel one fits into this nicely too. Osama a film about a 12 year old girl in Taliban- controlled Afghanistan, forced to pretend she is a boy, so she could work, saving her family from starvation. City of God about a young boy growing up as an artist in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Sometimes In April which follows two brothers in political conflict with each other during the 1994 genocide of over 800, 000 Tutsis in Rwanda. Rabbit-Proof Fence, the story of three aboriginal girls in Australia taken to a boarding school, where they escape and make a 1500 mile journey home. The one which resonated the most with me is Dersu Uzala, directed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa and Academy Award winner of the Best Foreign Language Film of 1975. It chronicles the life of an idiosyncratic Mongolian frontiersman, who lives in Siberia. He helps a Soviet surveying expedition, befriending one of the members of the group. He’s a symbol of the dying wilderness around him. A man of a time that is ending. Kurosawa with his flawless and customary feel for humanism, portrays Dersu, as he declines physically and spiritually with age. He is not able to adjust to the modern world either. Dersu is not unlike the romantic symbol of American Indians and Siberia is portrayed almost like the American frontier. I wonder if he really is gone? Where his people are now in modern Russia? I’m curious to see if his story is not one of a vanishing life, but one of a forgotten people.


Books. Sometimes I can barely contain myself I want to read so many. I was glancing through my bible the other day. The book of John begins “In the beginning there was Word, and Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It suggests to me that God and the Word are indivisible. They are one and the same. This makes sense. My enthrallment with the beauty of language is now put into context. For a believer in God, must be a believer in the Word. Wordiness is next to Godliness. So if nothing else can heal my illness, well, then hopefully Words can heal my heart and enrich my mind. The other day I finished A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut. It’s starkly political and hilarious. Vonnegut is a true humanist, he doesn’t necessarily believe in God but he lives by the Beatitudes. He also said, I will paraphrase, that if you want to piss your parents off but can’t stomach being gay, then go into the arts. I write. Somehow I think my parents aren’t so much mad as they think I may be in need of a reality check. Or a trip to a nuthouse.


Reading is a way to understand the world. The delirium of sickness is a way to think you can understand stuff that you in no way ever could. Like terrorism. Like politics. Like men. Like women. Especially women. So, I’ve been glancing over the book version of The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. Even the introduction by Gloria Steinum has given me all sorts of smart sounding facts. Did you know that in Hindu temples the female genital symbol, the yoni, is featured along with it’s male counterpart, the lingam? It’s been worshipped as more powerful than the male symbol for thousands of years. Hell, I didn’t need to read a book to know that. Male genitalia is about the weakest thing on earth. It’s so weak it reduces men’s brains to complete blathering mush. Male genitalia is more of a symbol for stupidity than anything. Anyway, did you know that Gnostic Christians consider Mary Magdalene the wisest of Christ’s disciples? Organized religion is quite misogynistic in many ways. Women are excluded from leadership positions. The worship of anything feminine is often marginalized. I was raised as a Catholic. Catholics have a funny relationship with women. Women can’t be priests, yet we have a special relationship with the Sacred Mother, Mary. Somehow the Hail Mary has always been my favorite prayer. I always have felt close to her. Either that or it’s a short prayer and I just like to say it and get it over with. I haven’t fully grasped which one yet, or if it’s both. Women confuse me though. No amount of reading will take care of that. The only male on earth who understands women is Kurt Vonnegut and I already mentioned him earlier so I won’t explain. The thing I like about The Vagina Monologues are the questions. “If a vagina could talk, what would it say, in two words?”

“Slow down”
“Is that you?” (by the way, I am no mathematician but isn’t that three words?)
“Feed me”
“I want”

I think what one would say to me right now, if anything, would be “ Next topic.”


You know what fascinates me, whether I am sick or healthy? The correlations of history and other events. What I mean is we all live in certain times when world events are going on. What do they parallel? Our lives, things we are interested in and plain old history all coincide with each other. For example, say how does my life coincide with the terror attacks of September 11, 2001? Because one has to do with the other in a certain way. I, as a product of this period in history, have been affected by those actions. It made me take the time to learn more about the world around me. Now, I am much more informed about and engaged in this world. Another example comes from a book I am currently reading. Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink. Here we have two men, one a black man from the United States and the other a white man from Germany. They fought two fights at a time when the world was on the verge of going to war. It meant something. Sports and politics and everyday life have a funny way of converging with each other. Jews boycotted Schmeling because he was from Nazi Germany. Blacks worshipped Louis because he was a hero to people who were impoverished, oppressed and marred by socioeconomic turmoil. Schmeling and Lewis were sportsmen, neither one of them bought into politics. But, as men of their time, they had to live with it, just to do what they loved to do. Which oddly enough, included beating the hell out of each other. When Schmeling upset Louis, it was used as propaganda of Aryan superiority, never mind that the victor, was high-cheekboned with dark hair and claimed to be part Mongolian. When Louis destroyed Schmeling in the first round a few years later, the Reich turned the broadcast off a minute or so into the fight when it was obvious Max was about to get knocked out. A sporting event was taken off the air by politicians so the average person would not be subjected to a situation which would undermine a political ideology. Amazing, isn’t it? Men of their times. Just like me, I suppose. Just like all of us.


That’s it, I‘m ready for bed. Tomorrow I should feel better. I already feel like I will. Maybe as I lie in golden slumber, dreams will take hold of me. Stars will shimmer in the night sky. The cool breeze of a fan will wisp around my room. Snow is outside. My mother comes in with a bowl of soup and a glass of orange juice. I’m lazing around in bed, sick and gleeful. There I am. Childlike and vulnerable. I sit up and the world vanishes before me.

[NMMNG]

1. I forget what classic "sick days" were like

I so rarely take off for illness these days, and when I do it is because I am so horrifically ill that I am bedridden and must sleep off whatever is making me sick (most commonly a very severe migraine). Therefore I'm unable to "enjoy" my sick day. I'm the type that if I'm able to maintain consciousness and remain upright I will show up to work.

Perhaps I should relax my standards a bit so I can enjoy some of the fruits of the "sick days" as described in your wonderful tale. :-)

[Wetzelbill]

2. oh yeah

a few of the days recently were miserable, but I did catch up on a little reading and so on. Not an ideal time for enjoyment, but I made due. :) Glad you liked it. I just whipped it out. Felt like writing just to write. :)