Dichroic Reflections

maundering around my brain

Maybe it's something in the air, or the heat of summer, or the swirling divisions in this country, but I've read three posts (the third one is friends-locked) on different but related subjects just this morning: cynicism, depression, bipolar depression, attitudes, and the result on all those of choosing attitudes, prayer, and medication. For me, Matociquala's approach of "choosing joy" is the one that resonates, the one that applies in daily life. I realize, though, that in cases where depression is checmially caused (hormones, mental illness) that there's a lot more than a simple choice involved. I've seen cases where medication was indubitably required. But I do think choosing joy has to come first, even to allow the decision to seek medical or other help.

There's enough evidence that the world is going to hell to convince anyone. But there's evidence of hope as well, and the two balance so nearly and both are so subjective that this is a decision that can't be a mechanical matter of sifting data. Madeleine L'Engle once wrote that she didn't know for sure whether God existed, but found that she had to live as though He did, for her own peace. It's like that for me; I can't say for sure that the cynics aren't right that the good is draining from the world, but I choose hope and joy as the way I want to live, and I will until and unless forced to do otherwise.

Later note: in her comment to this entry, Rachel mentions Jack Gilbert's A Brief for the Defense, which enumerates the reasons for joy far better than I could. And he even mentions the faint sounds of oars!

..............

I was listening to songs from Fiddler on the Roof again this morning. My favorite song from the musical has always been Far From the Home I Love. I've always figured that's because I was a soppy sentimentalist at heart, and maybe that was the first reason, but this morning I realized that maybe it's because I identify a little with Hodel in her rebellion. Tzeitl marries Motel, and while she goes against the usual matchmaking system, still, he was her childhood playmate and they settle not far from her parents. Chava, it's true, rebels most drastically in marrying a non-Jew, as I did, but she doesn't have any reason for it other than falling in love with this particular man. (Also, she doesn't get a song.) Hodel is the only one who leaves her home (before everyone is expelled at the end), and while she leaves it specifically for a man, she also seems to share something of Pertchik's dreams. They are the only two who have dreams of something outside the little town of Anatevka.

As I did. I left my city after college and moved 1500 miles away. Now I live even farther. (Unlike Hodel, I met my man along the way - but I wouldn't have met him at all if I hadn't left home.) I can't say I love the neighborhood where I grew up as she loved Anatevka, but I do miss some of the people I grew up among, and I do love the greater city of Philadelphia still. But I left looking for a bigger, more open life than I'd have been able to live there - that's the best I can put it. No wonder I identify with Hodel.

There are only a few stories where I think I know what happened to the characters after the end, and this is one. Tevye and his family sailed to New York. His brother helped them get started; Tevye and Golde worked in whatever jobs they could find, maybe she in the garment factories and he delivering milk. They learned some English but always spoke with thick accents. Their children were fluent in both Yiddish and English, and had better jobs, maybe in retail or working in a government office. And their grandchildren were... well, me, and my brother and all of our cousins and the Jewish kids like us. Tzeitl and Motel worked in the factories too, but got to advance up the ladder as they aged. They were a bridge between the older generation and their own children, as well as Tzeitl's younger sisters. Chava and her husband left Russia. They went to Germany or England and their children assimilated. Pertchik was released or escaped from Siberia. He and Hodel went first to the US, where there was a joyous reunion with her family, but they couldn't stay put. He got involved with the workingman's associations and the Socialist groups, which led to involvement with the Zionists. They fled to Palestine, where they joined a kibbutz and worked hard to build the land, planting trees and irrigating farms - backbreaking labor, but leavened by the belief that what they did mattered. Maybe they lived long enough to see the State of Israel established, and died happy.

It's sort of like when you're buying a gift for someone and you find something that's perfect, even though it's not something you'd want for yourself. Their dreams aren't mine, but I can see where they led and feel their power.

Posted by dichroic at June 7, 2005 10:41 AM