1. After having taken a more ambitious hike yesterday, today I returned to my routine hike on the trail behind the hospital. On this hike today, I got a little ahead of myself early on and established a little too quick of a pace -- I was excited that I'd had a good day yesterday on the Pulaski trail, momentarily forgetting that I had hiked that trail at a slow to moderate speed. Today, I slowed myself down after I reached the first bench and I had a much better hike at the slightly slower speed.
Almost every day on this trail, I encounter a fit middle aged woman. Usually, she is just starting up the trail when I am nearing the end of my hike back down. Today, however, we met higher up on the trail as I was coming down. Soon, as I continued my descent, I could hear her behind me and I stepped aside to let her go by. I realized that, unlike me, she had not taken a rest stop at the picnic table at the trail's viewpoint. I fought off the urge to compare my fitness to hers. I'd done the same thing yesterday when a young man was running up the Pulaski trail. Comparing myself to these other trail users is toxic. Happily, I quickly got my mind right again. I'm not in good enough shape to be hiking these trails briskly. I am improving my stamina each time I hike, no matter what my speed or how often I rest. By hiking at a slower rate, especially when I hike solo, I'm not holding anyone up. Quickly getting my head back on straight enhanced my enjoyment of today's hike significantly.
2. Recently, both Dan Armstrong and Cas have asked me if I'd seen the movie Green Book, and, until today, I hadn't. I don't care much any longer who wins Academy Awards. I don't watch movies thinking about whether they are potentially award winning. I do, however, read reactions to the awards. As I paid my rental fee for Green Book today and prepared to watch it, I was keenly aware of many viewers' and commentators' criticisms of the movie. Not having seen the movie, yet, the criticism made a lot of sense to me and I didn't know what I would experience watching the movie.
I didn't expect the movie to feel so old-fashioned to me. Yes, I realized the movie's story was set in 1962, and, as the movie progressed, I felt like I was watching a movie from the 1930s or 1940s. I enjoy a lot of those movies and I gave in to my enjoyment of Green Book. Somehow, as I got more absorbed in the movie, I gave myself over to what was feeling more and more like a Frank Capra movie, especially because I knew, in the back of my mind, that Doctor Don Shirley and Tony Lipp wanted to return home from their trip by Christmas. I began to anticipate that possibly this movie was going to move toward some kind of Christmas miracle. There's a scene late in the movie involving a flat tire and when it played out the way it did, I really felt like the movie had moved into what I'll call Capra Land and its conclusion confirmed this.
I hadn't expected Green Book to be a comedy in the classical sense. We tend to think of comedies as movies made for laughs, but, in the long history of the comedy genre, comedies were stories that explored the affirmation and power of community, the vitality of rebirth, the beauty of unity, the leaving of home and returning again, changed, and the mysteries of spiritual transformation. For years, I've regarded comedies as stories that don't look at life so much the way it is, but that give form to our wishes and dreams, that bring possibilities to life. In the end, I experienced Green Book as movie portraying transformations, the overcoming of cruelty, and a kind of communal harmony in ways that might be wished for or dreamed of, not in ways that necessarily actually happen (or have happened).
For whatever it's worth, I read the criticisms of this movie and I understand them. I understand that those who found this movie distasteful and naive were put off by a feel good movie being made from a story about about two men, one black and the other white, on a road trip.
I admit, though, that for years I've been emotionally moved by old-fashioned movies, Christmas movies, movies that play out the wishes and dreams I have of goodness, mutuality, reconciliation, togetherness, and the communal joy of feasting and celebration.
So as I became absorbed in this movie, I was moved by it.
Later, I revisited the criticisms, took the questions the critics raised seriously, and gave them a lot of thought and I've learned a lot from what I've read.
I can't really reconcile my emotional experience with the movie and these negative responses to it. These opposing responses co-exist in me and represent tension I live with a lot -- about many things.
3. While watching Green Book, I suddenly felt an urge to fix hot shrimp. I'd fixed rice earlier in the day and fried a block of tofu. An eggplant sat in the fridge ready to be cooked up. So, I wondered, how about if I melted some butter, added Frank's Hot Sauce, poured it over about a dozen shrimp or so, mixed the hot shrimp with sauteed eggplant bits and the tofu, and served it over rice?
I think it worked.
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