nothing's gonna change if you can't, can't save me
Increasingly, I love TV. I think TV is getting better. Well, certain TV. (Not really looking forward to the Wipeout premiere next week, but it's Tristan's favorite.) I love to watch TV on DVD; I'm kind of voracious like that. I could watch episode after episode punctuated with nothing other than bathroom breaks and drink refills. Alex is much the same way, but Bill can only do three episodes max. And even that's usually just a gesture of kindness towards me, who is usually pleading, "Can we watch the next one? Can we? Please?"
The show I consumed recently is Sons of Anarchy, which, if you read my Facebook, you already know. For one thing the writing is smart and the characters are very well developed. For another, in just two short seasons the theme has already spun into its own mythology, bleeding over into a Wiki and little tidbits fleshing out the picture of the town of Charming, California being hand fed to us from the blog of the writer of the show, Kurt Sutter. (Kurt also breathed life into The Shield, if you watched that. Kurt's blog reads like the screed of an angry ,tattooed, ex-addict, ex-slacker with far left leanings, so, of course that got me all fired up, too.)
So I watched the whole thing, you know, and since I finished it I've been thinking about it a lot, which is funny. I mean, it's TV, it's not Hamlet - except, ooops, that's exactly what it is. But that's not actually where my thoughts took me.
What is strange to me, is that why the hell would a quasi-housewife-middle-aged-student and mother such as myself be so head over heels immersed in the story line of the life of a motorcycle club? What could I possibly have in common that would resonate here? Well, my poor dead uncle did love to ride, I guess that's true. His house was full of music and Playboys, the garage was full of bikes, his friends all went by weirdo nicknames, and he had that spider tattoo on his forearm. I feel so sad when I think of Uncle Mike, how kind and drunk he was when we last spoke. But I did not spend a lot of time with him.
Also I'm about to go to Northern California next week to visit family with Grandma, which is loosely where Sam Crow (SAMCRO - Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original) is located.
I love this show so much that Alex and I dissect the story constantly. Last week in the car, at a red light, I had an epiphany (or maybe it was a DUH moment). It's about family - and so was The Shield, for that matter. It's about a family of dysfunctional, pseudo-related misfits and boy, that's right up my alley.
What I find riveting about this story is the generational evolution of the club. Much reference is made to the "original nine," the founders of the MC. The MC weathers betrayals and rifts, but perseveres. Some are cast out, others "patched in." Without a structure like this, such as a family, (or, perhaps a business, har har), groups of humanity are less likely to survive these kinds of wounds. Even in a blood family, actually, these things can splinter a group irreparably. The MC is always on the verge of this kind of splinter. Old and new wounds, wound tight like a spring loaded with blades, release without warning and lay waste to those within reach.
But wounds heal. Or sometimes they don't, and those people choose to pick the scab and keep that anger fresh. For the sake of the group, though, the only way to live is to let go. Forgiveness is a spiky thing. My Grandpa had this awful tree in his yard when I was a kid. It would drop these awful round spiky seed ball things. Heaven help you if you stepped on one barefoot. Forgiveness, sometimes, can be like swallowing one of those things. This is true in the club, too. It isn't easy to forgive, but it is necessary.
Revenge feels necessary too, but it only leads to a bigger plate of spiky dinner. Or perhaps a plate of Crow. Revenge is cathartic only inasmuch as it protects the family. And even then you'd better know what the fuck you're doing.
In practice, I think that revenge exacts itself without any help. It's the only way I can forgive, knowing that those who seek to harm really only harm themselves. Even if we never see it from the outside, they carry the stain within.
I am very lucky in life right now. Poor and drowning in debt, sure, but I am happier than I have been in many years. I have hesitated to write about that because I don't want to mislead someone into thinking that I'm only happy because we sold the MC (misfit club). That couldn't be further from the truth, I quite miss the ol' MC. I'm happy because I'm medicated.
About five or six years ago, Allison told me that I should see somebody for anxiety and I pooh-poohed her, even though I knew in my heart that it was true. I finally did something about it, and it's as though the knotted skein of yarn in my belly has released. I don't carry around the knots anymore, it's just a tidy weaving of stuff being where it's supposed to be, and that's pretty liberating. An unforseen big side effect of treating my anxiety problem has been forgiveness. I forgive the people who laid my heart to waste, recently and far in the past, too. I am letting that hurt go. I am sending it down the creek in a boat made of leaf, and I hope to never see it again.
The show I consumed recently is Sons of Anarchy, which, if you read my Facebook, you already know. For one thing the writing is smart and the characters are very well developed. For another, in just two short seasons the theme has already spun into its own mythology, bleeding over into a Wiki and little tidbits fleshing out the picture of the town of Charming, California being hand fed to us from the blog of the writer of the show, Kurt Sutter. (Kurt also breathed life into The Shield, if you watched that. Kurt's blog reads like the screed of an angry ,tattooed, ex-addict, ex-slacker with far left leanings, so, of course that got me all fired up, too.)
So I watched the whole thing, you know, and since I finished it I've been thinking about it a lot, which is funny. I mean, it's TV, it's not Hamlet - except, ooops, that's exactly what it is. But that's not actually where my thoughts took me.
What is strange to me, is that why the hell would a quasi-housewife-middle-aged-student and mother such as myself be so head over heels immersed in the story line of the life of a motorcycle club? What could I possibly have in common that would resonate here? Well, my poor dead uncle did love to ride, I guess that's true. His house was full of music and Playboys, the garage was full of bikes, his friends all went by weirdo nicknames, and he had that spider tattoo on his forearm. I feel so sad when I think of Uncle Mike, how kind and drunk he was when we last spoke. But I did not spend a lot of time with him.
Also I'm about to go to Northern California next week to visit family with Grandma, which is loosely where Sam Crow (SAMCRO - Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original) is located.
I love this show so much that Alex and I dissect the story constantly. Last week in the car, at a red light, I had an epiphany (or maybe it was a DUH moment). It's about family - and so was The Shield, for that matter. It's about a family of dysfunctional, pseudo-related misfits and boy, that's right up my alley.
What I find riveting about this story is the generational evolution of the club. Much reference is made to the "original nine," the founders of the MC. The MC weathers betrayals and rifts, but perseveres. Some are cast out, others "patched in." Without a structure like this, such as a family, (or, perhaps a business, har har), groups of humanity are less likely to survive these kinds of wounds. Even in a blood family, actually, these things can splinter a group irreparably. The MC is always on the verge of this kind of splinter. Old and new wounds, wound tight like a spring loaded with blades, release without warning and lay waste to those within reach.
But wounds heal. Or sometimes they don't, and those people choose to pick the scab and keep that anger fresh. For the sake of the group, though, the only way to live is to let go. Forgiveness is a spiky thing. My Grandpa had this awful tree in his yard when I was a kid. It would drop these awful round spiky seed ball things. Heaven help you if you stepped on one barefoot. Forgiveness, sometimes, can be like swallowing one of those things. This is true in the club, too. It isn't easy to forgive, but it is necessary.
Revenge feels necessary too, but it only leads to a bigger plate of spiky dinner. Or perhaps a plate of Crow. Revenge is cathartic only inasmuch as it protects the family. And even then you'd better know what the fuck you're doing.
In practice, I think that revenge exacts itself without any help. It's the only way I can forgive, knowing that those who seek to harm really only harm themselves. Even if we never see it from the outside, they carry the stain within.
I am very lucky in life right now. Poor and drowning in debt, sure, but I am happier than I have been in many years. I have hesitated to write about that because I don't want to mislead someone into thinking that I'm only happy because we sold the MC (misfit club). That couldn't be further from the truth, I quite miss the ol' MC. I'm happy because I'm medicated.
About five or six years ago, Allison told me that I should see somebody for anxiety and I pooh-poohed her, even though I knew in my heart that it was true. I finally did something about it, and it's as though the knotted skein of yarn in my belly has released. I don't carry around the knots anymore, it's just a tidy weaving of stuff being where it's supposed to be, and that's pretty liberating. An unforseen big side effect of treating my anxiety problem has been forgiveness. I forgive the people who laid my heart to waste, recently and far in the past, too. I am letting that hurt go. I am sending it down the creek in a boat made of leaf, and I hope to never see it again.