A Trenchant Critique
I wrote a paper once discussing the effects of the horrors of war on soldiers, and the striking similarities between civil war diaries and memoirs from Iraq. These men were so changed that when they finally returned home they longed to return to battle not for some learned bloodlust or need for adrenaline under fire, but to be among those who had lived through it. They yearned for companionship with other men with whom they knew had experienced it, and wouldn’t even talk about it with anyone else. Which is why by 1900 Civil War vets from both sides would sit and talk with each other at battle reunions to the bemusement of bystanders who were shocked at the camaraderie between the men wearing blue and the men wearing grey. I thought it strange that they would even want to return to the sites of battle at all. Hundreds of men descending on Bull Run, where so much blood was shed forty years earlier, just to sit in the fields and reminisce.
Today, people hike and bike and camp and drink wine all afternoon in a place where, a hundred and sixty years ago, these reminisces were made. Now people fight a war of words over proposals to build roads and power lines through these fields. So much has changed, but so much has not. Today, Jeffersonians want a co-op and an insurance pool-Hamiltonians want a public option. But I digress.
I mourned for Saturn because I felt camaraderie with him. I had fought my own war. Except that he won his, and I lost mine. He got his novel out. Mine is still sparse lines of verse…a few chords… a melody in the background of my dreams. One day I’ll finish it, perhaps, but so much has changed. I’m not sure I can get back there-or that I’d even want to. He had his Liz to push him away throughout, back into the pages of his book. My Liz was like his Cami, lifeless and surrounded by dead bees. And I have something so much better now-something worth writing about-if I can manage to keep it. Besides, this one doesn't feel like a war.
Much of what’s changed has been my own doing, and some of it was harder than anything else I’ve done. This thing that ends in May is keeping me from sleeping, but thing I gave up in January isn’t anymore. But I’m still too curt in my sarcasm, and I’m still too harsh when I mean to be funny. The din of a crowd can still put me on edge, and I still don’t like the man I become when I drink. I still have that terrible habit of waking up just before the alarm sounds, which is why I woke up at 6:22 today. I still harbor secrets, and feel like I’ll burst into tears at inopportune times. And I am still a master procrastinator, which is why I’m posting here and not reading about the historical significance of the ways different colonies celebrated the ratification of our constitution (some with 13 rounds of fireworks, some with 13 toasts-if you were wondering).
Sometimes I’m too cryptic for my own good.
And for some reason, today my cat smells like coffee.
Today, people hike and bike and camp and drink wine all afternoon in a place where, a hundred and sixty years ago, these reminisces were made. Now people fight a war of words over proposals to build roads and power lines through these fields. So much has changed, but so much has not. Today, Jeffersonians want a co-op and an insurance pool-Hamiltonians want a public option. But I digress.
I mourned for Saturn because I felt camaraderie with him. I had fought my own war. Except that he won his, and I lost mine. He got his novel out. Mine is still sparse lines of verse…a few chords… a melody in the background of my dreams. One day I’ll finish it, perhaps, but so much has changed. I’m not sure I can get back there-or that I’d even want to. He had his Liz to push him away throughout, back into the pages of his book. My Liz was like his Cami, lifeless and surrounded by dead bees. And I have something so much better now-something worth writing about-if I can manage to keep it. Besides, this one doesn't feel like a war.
Much of what’s changed has been my own doing, and some of it was harder than anything else I’ve done. This thing that ends in May is keeping me from sleeping, but thing I gave up in January isn’t anymore. But I’m still too curt in my sarcasm, and I’m still too harsh when I mean to be funny. The din of a crowd can still put me on edge, and I still don’t like the man I become when I drink. I still have that terrible habit of waking up just before the alarm sounds, which is why I woke up at 6:22 today. I still harbor secrets, and feel like I’ll burst into tears at inopportune times. And I am still a master procrastinator, which is why I’m posting here and not reading about the historical significance of the ways different colonies celebrated the ratification of our constitution (some with 13 rounds of fireworks, some with 13 toasts-if you were wondering).
Sometimes I’m too cryptic for my own good.
And for some reason, today my cat smells like coffee.