Rehearsal Notes

 
I work at an independent regional radio station and, while our signal covers seventeen counties, the focus is clearly local.  We do our best to cover local events of interest and one of the most interesting is the annual lighting of the county courthouse.

Each year, money is raised to pay for the decorating of the hundred and fifty year-old building the the city-block sized green space it sits in the middle of.  Then, on the evening of Black Friday, the community is invited to come down and await the arrival of Santa Claus whose job it is to illuminate the finished product.

While waiting, the growing crowd is entertained by local performers and a brass quintet who perform popular songs of the season.  There's even a choir from a local school and a community sing-along.

The ceremony has been a fixture on the community calendar for seventy-two years.  It's a multi-generational that both encourages looks backward and forward.  For every conversation that begins, "Remember the year that...," there's a "I can't wait until I can...."

But that's what this time of year is for:  looking back, and looking ahead.

I can't help but think of the snow that used to be such a common part of Christmas that I just took it for granted; the toys and the family gatherings; turkey and plumb pudding; old stories and even older jokes; the plastic bugs in the mashed potatoes and my kilt-wearing uncle who never wanted their to be any mystery about what lies beneath.

Looking forward is like waiting for snow:  anticipation can be exciting, but when it shows up, you have to deal with it.

For so many years, Christmas celbrations were the same but, once I left home, every Christmas has been different, an attempt to start new traditions, create new associations, and that only embroiders the ghosts of Christmas past.

My wife attended several Christmases with my extended family and has tried valiantly to capture some of the flavor.  She particularly latched on to the tradition of the Christmas Crackers with their paper crowns, small toys and very bad jokes.  She got a box and brought them to her parents' home for a Christmas  dinner.  She imagined I would be more comfortable with this familiar accent.  And, to their credit, her family all played along, but it was unfamiliar to them.  They were uncomfortable, out of their element, which made me uncomfortble and so there we all were sitting around the table in stupid paper hats reading jokes that weren't all that funny.  It made me miss the old Christmases even  more.

Our traditions are not just a repetition of activities, the cookies and milk for Santa, the reading of certain stories, the preparation of certain foods;  the setting matters.  Once divorced from context, they loose their power; like Dracula disolving in the morning sun.

Perhaps that's why we hold on.

The connection to the past, even if it isn't our own, can be powerfully rooting--all the more important in this ever-more rootless world.

Some years ago, I stumbled across a local television broadcast of the holiday recital of a dance studio.  It was a showcase for the different classes and each dutifully trouped onto the too-small tv studio floor, waited for the playback to begin and then did their best to execute the choreography they had been drilling for weeks. 

And, in between "numbers" the camera would cut to a "Christmas set" which consisted of a fireplace and a comfortable chair where Santa sat by while the host and owner of the dance studio, introduced the next number and, most often, each and every student in that class.  In the background, you could hear the previous group shuffling off and the next one coming on.  There were a lot of tap number and so every footfall could easily be heard.

As might be expected, herding the students was not always fluid and so it often fell to the host and Santa to "fill" until everyone was ready.  It quickly became clear that they did not have a lot of material beyond the names of the participating students and so Santa would throw in a random "Ho-ho-ho," and the teacher would talk about random students, that year's trip to New York and anything else that would come to mind while constantly looking off-camera to see if the next performers were yet ready.

There was something comic about the whole low-tech production:  from the false starts of the music to the lost looks in the eyes of the students and their inevitable mistakes.  But the show was not for me, indeed not really for the general public at all.  It was a show for parents, something to record on the VCR and share with relatives and then, when their child grew up, to embarrass them with.

I remember looking for the show every year as it, for me, marked the beginning of the holiday season.  It was one of my new traditions.

For whatever reason, the studio has stopped presenting their "concerts" on the local TV station which has only made my memory of them richer.

This brings me back to the illuminated courthouse and seventy-two years of community sing-along and waiting for Santa.

The lighting ceremony, like the televised dance recital, is decidedly low-tech.  Some of the singers have trained voices and others do not.  It seems pretty clear that none have rehearsed with the band as there is frequently an expression of surprise at the notes each side is trying to reach.  The television camera never blinks, or cuts away and so we see the transitions between acts.  Singers walking off while the next act shuffles on and sets up.  A hurried conversation with the leader of the brass band and then the master of ceremonies makes his introduction.  The band is mostly made up of young musicians and their lack of experience is clearly audible.  But, like a rattle-trap car, it does eventually come together and we're off on a version of "Silver Bells," of "Jingle Bells," or some other bell-related holiday favorite.

And the audience is singing along.

Periodically, the audience is provided with updates on Santa's proximity to the Square.

Eventually, the word is given and the performers launch into "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" which is meant to underscore his arrival.  And then, after a chorus, or two, Santa appears coming around the corner on the Fire Department's ladder truck.  It's a big truck and there are people all around the Square, so its progress to the courthouse is cautious and lengthy.  

All the while, the crowd is being encouraged to keep singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

And then the truck turns not toward the courthouse, but to make a complete circut of the square, before eventually depositing Santa in the street in front of the stage.

Only Santa Claus Lane is choked with parents and children and he has to navigate through them like a celebrity avoiding paparazzi.

Still singing.

Eventually, Santa hits the stage and, like an elf with millions of presents to deliver, he gets right to business.  He gets the crowd to say the magic words, which are, of course "not loud enough" and have to be repeated.  And, after the third time, the lights are turned on and the show is over.

That's it.  Hard stop.

Everybody packs up, Santa is on to the next courthouse, or mall appearance, and the crowd, having got what they came for, dissipates.

It's almost like they've come for a shot, a dose of medication--or maybe a booster is more accurate:  a reinforcement of Christmas cheer to get them through December and off to a good start for the year to come.

This ceremony is something the community looks forward to each year and contributes their money to help pay for.  It's the start of the holiday season, it's the committee you want to volunteer for.  It's a constant in good times and bad, pandemic, or no pandemic.  

That's not quite true, there was no ceremony this year, but there was a courthouse lighting.  In order to avoid possible infection, a previous year's ceremony was streamed over the internet, after which the public was invited to come down to the Square and see the lights.  Even this hybrid celebration was considered a success.

Not really much of a surprise because, after seventy-two years, it's clear that the community needs this tradition in a way they don't need much else.  After three generations, this tradition is baked into the community's DNA.  Childhood experience becomes memory, becomes story, becomes legend, becomes childhood experience for the next generation:  unchangeable and everlasting.

It is Christmas.

Real life changes from year to year, but this time of year, the short days and long nights, irrespective of your particular beliefs, seems to lend itself to reflection, memory and possibility.  By the time Christmas shows up, like Santa at the Square, you're ready for a little magic.  The days start to get longer again and the nights shorter.  Time starts again.  Possibilities seem possible.

It's really not important to hit all the notes, or remember all the steps, or all the words.  We actively look for a reason to be hopeful around this time of year.  I'm not sure if it's nature, or nurture.  I'm not even certain it's a reflection of faith given the multitude of festivals that happen in December, but I am certain that a measure of optimism--a disease to which I am essentially immune--breaks through  as we near the turning of each year.  

You would think that we repetition and inevitable disappointments, this ephemeral optimism would dilute over time, but, every year, we feel the pull of our traditions, our aspirations, and our dreams.  We pull on our cold weather gear, strap on our dancing shoes, and honor our traditions, if only in the breach.

And, I guess, if there is even a possibility that hope will be rewarded in the year ahead, then maybe that's enough.

For the Team

"The tension is unbearable."

"You too...?  I thought it was just me."

"No, no, no.  It's like the not knowing is making it worse."

"Right, eh?  They're like, 'go there and it'll all be worked out.'  So, we set it up..., and then nothing."

"It'd be one thing knowing what to expect--."

"You could prepare."

"Exactly.  Exactly what I was going to say.  Preparation is important in new situations."

"Preparation is key."

"But when you have no information--.

"None at all."

"...then there is tension."

"Exactly."

"It's like, we're because of the tension--."

"The pre-existing tension."

"Exactly, the 'pre-existing' tension, and the not-knowing--."

"The lack of information."

"Exactly, the 'lack of information.'  The ignorance, if you will."

"Completely ignorant."

"The fact that we are completely ignorant about what is about to happen."

"No idea whatsoever."

"That we have 'no idea whatsoever' about what is about to happen, makes more tension."

"Tension on top of tension."

"Layers...."

 Exactly."

There was a long pause.

"You don't think we're being too 'judgy'...?"

"'Judgy'?"

"Yes.  You don't think we're failing to give them the benefit of the doubt."

"'The benefit of the doubt'?"

"Yes."

"We are not exactly in a 'benefit of the doubt' kind of business, are we?"

"No, I suppose we are not."

"No, you suppose that we are not.   Can there be any doubt about that."

"No..., I suppose that there cannot."

"And do you know what else that there cannot be any of?"

"What?"

"There cannot be any supposing.  You either know, or you do not. And if you do not know, if you do not have certainty, well...."

"Well what?"

"You and I both know that there is a way that uncertainty gets screened out."

There was another long pause.

"I guess that explains it."

"Yes....  Explains what?"

"The tension."

"That would certainly explain it."

"It's all across my shoulders.  Up and down my neck too. Feels like something's gonna snap."

"Like after you check the wiring and hook up the cap, there's that moment when you slide it into the stuff....That instant, just as it's going in when you're not sure."

"Or like when you're going in for the wet work and you're not sure.  You know? I mean you've done your homework, but you're not sure, until you get your hands in there, whether you can take them.  Kinda like that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Remember that one guy?"

"What guy?"

"You know, that one guy.  Great big bear of a guy. First you hit him with a clipboard, and then I hit him with a shovel?"

"Was that the guy who wouldn't stay down?"

"Would not fucking stay on the ground."

"Beat on him like his was a drum."

"Big fucking drum.  Don't you break the shovel on that particular individual?"

"You know that I am a simple working man."

"Regular Joe."

"A stand-up Joseph if ever there was one.  And as a working man, I depend on my tools."

"The first thing you taught me:  it's important to have good tools' you said.  Words to live by."

"Absolutely.  At this particular point, I am using shovels for a large part of my professional life and--I have to admit--I have developed a particular brand loyalty."

"When you find something that works...."

"Exactly, when it works you stick with it.  Only, as you well know--."

"As I know only too well."

"On this particular occasion--."

"At this moment, your loyalty was not repaid."

"No, indeed, it was not.  At this specific point in time, my loyalty was repaid with a snap, a crackle and a pop--."

"It goes flying."

""Exactly.  The head of the shovel goes flying and the bear--."

"The bear, at this moment, is  not even flushed. In fact--."

"Isn't this when he started smiling?"

"At this exact moment, he did, in fact, smile.  He started to smile and I knew--."

"We were in the shit then.  Definitely in the shit. He sure could dish it out."

"Precisely, he could take it and he could dish it out.  And I do not mind telling you that he was not stingy with the portions."

"No, indeed he was not."

"Thank goodness you found that jug."

"Amphora."

"What?"

"It was an amphora."

"Amphora?  Who knew? Whatever it was.  The big fucking jug that you hit him with.  That did the trick."

"Lucky it was there.  Never seen one before, except in the books.  Didn't expect it to be there and it just appeared."

"Wherever it came from, you found it and it did the job.  Put him down long enough so I could let the juice out."

"Lot of juice."

"Lot of guy, lot of juice.  You've got to expect that."

"You're right.  You are certainly right about that."

"About the juice?"

"About the tension.  That was very tense."

"I suppose that you have got to expect it."

"What?"

"The tension:  it comes with the territory."

"That is true."

"You have to learn to live with it."

"I understand.  I just don't know how much longer I--."

"Can remain in this line of work?"

"I do not know how much longer until my shoulders will reach my ears from all this tension."

"I thought that it was your suit."

"What?"

"I thought that this was a bold fashion choice that you were making with the exaggerated shoulders."

"I paid good money for this suit."

"The money may have been good--."

"Are you seriously going to criticize my sartorial sensibility?"

"I don't know about 'sensibility'...."

"I do not see where you are in a position to criticize."

"What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Wrong?  It is not about what is wrong; it's whether there's anything right."

"Just because I do not dress like a string of Christmas lights--."

"Is that what you think?"

"What I think is that we are supposed to be in the background, not walking around drawing attention to ourselves."

"I do not draw attention to myself.  When have I ever done that? Drawn attention to myself?  I would never risk a job, jeopardize an order like that."

"Oh really?"

"Really.  Name one time when I have risked--."

"Springfield."

""You were ready with that one.  How long have you been waiting to throw that back in my face?  We got the job done, did we not?"

"You weren't the one to have to spend the next year and a half on the bench."

"Is this about the scars?  You can hardly see them anymore."

"Maybe you cannot."

"He got the jump, you have to expect that in this line of work."

"Fair is fair, but he got over on us because you were not paying attention."

"It's like they always say, 'time to buy something is when you see it.'"

"I got lead leaching into my bloodstream on account of you needing a new tie?"

"Look, I apologized, didn't I?"

"Do you still have it?"

"Have what?"

"The tie.  Do you still have the tie?"

"No.  Yes. I don't know."

"Figures."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is that you do not know if you still have that fucking tie, and I still have more lead in me that a goddamn number two pencil."

"Don't be such a baby."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"A baby:  you are seriously calling me a 'baby' right now?"

"Yes.  You know the risks in this line of work.  Somebody always gets hurt. Nine times it's the order, and the tenth..., that's what you get paid for."

"How come I always seem to be number ten?"

"You're just 'lucky'?"

"I do not think luck even enters into it."

"You're angry."

"Damn straight.  You're not the one held together with after-market parts."

"Look, it just worked out that your end of the stick was shorter."

"But every time?  Every fucking time?"

"What are the odds?"

"Exactly, what are the odds?"

"Would it make you feel better if I gave you a free shot?"

"What do you mean?"

"After we're done here, how about I let you have one on the house?  Start to even things out"

"What?  Are you mad?"

"You and me, we are partners, are we not?"

"Sometimes I wonder."

"But today, right now, we are partners."

"Yes."

"So, I am saying, I am prepared--."

"You are 'prepared'?"

"To take one for the team, yes."

"You are prepared to do that?"

"I am prepared."

"Then there's no reason...."

"'No reason'?"

"To wait until after--."

"What?  Now?"

"Why not?  'For the team', remember?"

"Are you seriously going to pull one on me?"

"Yup."

"Right here?  Right now?"

"Can't think of a better time."

I distinctly said after this."

"I know what you said."

"And you still want to do this here?  Now?"

"Yup."

"But.., civilians?"

"Always a risk.  Besides, if I wait you'll be ready for it; expecting it."

"True enough, but still....  You're really going to do it?"

"Your idea."

"Yes, but--."

"But nothing."

"This will even the score.  After this we will be even?"

"It'll be a good start."

"Ah, you're using the Glock:  good choice."

"Nothing but the best for my 'partner.'"

At that moment, the door opened and a technician in rumpled blue scrubs stuck their head around the corner.

"Mr. Pink?  Mr. Wolf? We're ready for you."

Scrooge

I've been thinking about Scrooge lately.  

We get a glimpse into what may have informed his world view through the various interpretations of Dickens' text, but, were you in his shoes, what would it take for you to turn your back on your community and your fellow man?

The question is interesting to me because the story is a story of redemption which suggests that, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, he had to power to change all along.

And yet he did not.

For Scrooge, redemption requires a traumatic intervention.  A series of three shocks to the system, far more powerful than a simple clicking of the heels, in order for him to return home, to his true nature.

The story attempts to convince us that he is at the end, just as he was in the beginning--of his life, not of the story--open-hearted and filled with the Christmas spirit.

Is Scrooge authentically transformed by his experience among the spirits?  Or is he suffering Stockholm Syndrome?

Does he adopt his "new" attitude because he is a changed man, or is he, in an act of self-preservation, adopting the affect that he believes will most please his tormentors?

Don't get me wrong, I love this story.  It is full of complexity and rich in veins that demand mining.  It's one that I return to every year.  But, with each revisiting the experience of another year of life informs my response.

The story begins by making it unequivocally clear that Marley is dead and that this must be understood before anything else.

Scrooge's partner had to die before the story could start.

I have questions.

Certainly, the death of any long-term partner will produce trauma.  Scrooge's reaction is an interesting one in that he absorbs Jacob Marley's life. He takes his money and his meager sticks of furniture.  He takes over his house.  And yet, we are not really given any indication that these actions result in any significant change in Scrooge's world view.  Scrooge subsumes Marley giving up that which was his for that which was Marley's and yet for seven years, he has not changed the name of his company.  It is still "Scrooge and Marley," but, in reality, the firm should probably be called just plain Marley.  

These are acts of sentimentality that are nowhere else displayed in Scrooge's character during the first part of the story.

He does not value his nephew as a living link to his dead sister, but chooses to blame him for her death.  He likes the fact that people will get out of his way rather than deal with him.  He seems to relish sending away those two men of business endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.  And he has no compassion for the poor who would rather die than go to the poor houses.

But Marley.....

We are told that since taking over his life, Scrooge hadn't given his former partner a second thought until those men appeared in his office on Christmas Eve and then, he starts to see his face in door knockers and the tiles in his fireplace surround.  And then in the vaporous flesh of a spirit.

Were this a contemporary tale, we would understand these as symptoms of trauma, orf post traumatic stress.

Understood in this way, Scrooge's affect, his world view, make sense.  He is in pain and lashing out at the world in response to what he perceives as wrongs that have been done to him.  In effect, the Scrooge persona is a mask, a suit of armor against the world being such a cruel place.

So, what might the world have done to Scrooge to make him as we find him?

It's not being packed off to school, because all of that is undone when his sister comes to rescue him.  It's not whatever happened between Scrooge and his father because all of that is forgiven.  

In the book, we are given no information about how Scrooge and Marley meet.  We are given a scene where Scrooge and Belle break up and we are told that he is now a person who values every interaction as a transaction, in terms of gain and loss.  We know they had a long-term relationship, but we don't know for certain how long and to what extent.

One could argue that it is this relationship that is what begins to poison Scrooge against the world.  But Scrooge obviously continues to evolve because he is not yet the schemeing, grasping, covetous old miser that is described at the beginning of the story.  At some point, gain ceased to be the yardstick and became an end in and of itself.

The only constant of which we are aware is Marley.

Is it reasonable to assume that the loss of Belle is the precipitating trauma that resulted in Scrooge as we meet him, or could it be prolonged exposure to the toxic Jacob Marley?

It seems quite possible to build an anecdotal case against Marley and his malignant influence on Scrooge, but how does that profit us in understanding the story?

I think that it is possible that when we meet Scrooge he is treading water and has been since Marley's death.  

Despite taking the affirmative, if hostile, act of "consuming" all traces of Marley by assuming his worldly goods, Scrooge is doubtless repeating patterns that were engrained when Marley was still alive if, for no other reason than that they are familiar and would doubtless provide some comfort in a mourning process.

There are hints of this "patterning" in the annual conversation between Scrooge and Cratchit over being allowed time off for Christmas Day.

The disruption of the two men of business and their inability to distinguish Scrooge from his long-dead partner has to be seen as an inciting event in the same way that words and phrases, sights, sounds and smells can be triggers for those who live with post-traumatic stress.

This experience does not go down well, or to put it another way, is hard for Scrooge to digest.  He even attributes Marley's apparition as the reaction to a "badly digested bit of beef."  One can easily imagine him processing this slight as he returns his Marley home.  This would, in turn, provide a context for him seeing Marley's face in the door knocker.

The seemingly paranormal events that Scrooge experiences while entering his house and preparing for bed can thus be seen as associations.  He is literally surrounded by Marley's inanimate posessions and the triggering has brought them to life.

Where he might have spent the intervening seven years since Marley's death trying to re-gain some mastery over this defining relationship, that stability--such as it might have been--has disolved much like a ghost passing through a solid object might.

Marley's stated purpose in appearing to Scrooge is save him from suffering the tormet of an afterlife of suffering for not having invested in mankind's welfare while he was alive.

That Marley is described as dragging a lengthy chain suggest that his freedom is somehow limited, his ability to have agency is impaired.  Obvious interpretations, but it further suggests that Marley as described is less a creation of the ominiscient narrator, than of Scrooge's tormented psyche.   It is not Marley as he might be, but Marley as Scrooge sees him.  Marley is suffering because Scrooge believes he should suffer.  Scrooge is acknowledging that Marley has wronged him.

The remainder of the story is an internal battle for control of Scrooge.  The path that journey takes, fragmented as it is, is not because of the whim of these spirits that are being sent to Scrooge by Marley, but rather aspects of the Scrooge psyche trying to become whole; to become fully integrated.  Scrooge is trying to emerge from under Marley's shadow.

Does Scrooge successfully escape?

I don't think I can seriously approach that question, because I think it is at precisely this point that I find myself as I write this.

I think it is because I recognize this internal struggle for integration that I keep coming back to this story and, in particular, the Alaistair Sim film version of 1951.

The scenes that are the most vivid for me are the ones with Marley and the other spirits.  The Ghost of Christmas Past is disturbing because of the different scenes that he conjures up for Scrooge, scratching at memories that Scrooge would rather see buried.  The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is the stuff of nightmares because of his inscrutable, judgmental silence, but it is the Ghost of Christmas Present that frightens me most. 

In the movie, the Spirit shows Scrooge a series of vignettes in which are depicted various celebrations of Christmas.  Some of the participants are known to Scrooge--his nephew, and the Cratchit Family--and some are not such as the singers who, for some reason, I associate with Welsh coal miners.  The intent is to show different modes of celebration that are not dependent on status and material position, but rather on a connection to the true spirit of generosity and compassion for one's fellows.

Most time is spent with the Cratchits and their fully-realized Christmas dinner, albeit on reduced circumstances.

Scrooge seems particularly drawn to the plight of Tiny Tim and askes about his future.  The spirit--in his only act of prediction, or indeed awareness of days other than Christmas--responds that unless something happens there will be an empty stool next to the fireplace.  This moment and the drinking of the toast to Scrooge, despite his continual mistreatment of Cratchit, seem to be the most affecting as they elicit an expression of compassion from him as indicated by his desire to have a word with his clerk.

In each of his interactions with the spirits, Scrooge seems to acknowledge and understand the meaning of the lessons he is being taught, but at the Cratchit's something more seems to happen.  He is no longer "too old" to change, but rather seems anxious to be returned to his world so that he might begin his reformation.

At the end of his time with this spirit, Scrooge is introduced to the spirit's wards, Ignorance and Want  He warns Scrooge to beware them both but to be most concerned about Ignorance.

The moment of their revelation, when we first discover them under the spirit's robe, clutching to his legs, is shocking because it is unexpected and because they stand in stark contrast to Scrooge and the well-fed spirit.  

It is this jump-scare moment--one that evokes the sudden self-correction of a vinyl record that had been skipping.  

The time with the middle spirit is spent looking at disconnected moments.  The Ghost of Christmas Past deals chronologically with the evolution of Scrooge--his backstory--and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come provides a glimpse of Scrooge's legacy.  Christmas Present is less linear in his presentation and that created a disorienting effect, but it is also perhaps the most authentic.

Coherence is one of the filters that comes with hindsight.  It is also a lens through which to see a path toward one's future.  Only in the present are we truly in open water and subject to the pounding of waves coming from all directions and the pull of changing tides.

And it is here, out of sight of land--port of embarkation, or of call--that it is easiest to lose your way, to be blown off course; to become 'misguided,' if you will.

It is Dicken's contention that Scrooge is misguided and the spirits that are sent to him are intended as a course corrective.

What troubles me, as one who has been lost at sea for many a year, is that when all is said and done Scrooge returns to Marley's house.  He has travelled the Great Circle to his port of embarkation.

Scrooge goes to bed as a man who is certain, a man who knows that the idea of spirits is 'humbug," and he greets the new day as one certain that he doesn't know anything.  He has been reset like when you turn your computer off and back on again. 

The last act of the story is Scrooge making choices that are out of keeping with his character.  He begins to give away his money: a big turkey for the Cratchits, a raise for his housekeeper and a new coal scuttle for the office.  These would appear to be in direct response to the traumatic events of the previous night.

Are they any more authentic that the choices made prior to meeting Marley's ghost?

Scrooge is a thoughtful and sensitive child who becomes transformed into greedy, grasping, covetous old sinner after meeting Marley.  He is again transformed, or appears to be transformed, by exposure to the Spirits.  At the end of the story, are we now seeing the "real" Ebeneezer Scrooge?  Is it like those cartoons where the character gets amnesia after being struck by a frying pan and can only recover his memory by another blow to the head?  Or is Scrooge a study in adaptation as a means of survival?

If the former, then we should all buy frying pans and keep them handy in case of emergency.  If the latter, then Scrooge could very easily return to earlier behaviors, or indeed take up entirely new ones.

But for the fact that we are told by the story's narrator that Scrooge was true to his word and became a good friend and a good master for the rest of his life, we have no direct evidence of this.  The narrator has his own credibility problems, not to mention an apparent obsession with the comparative vitality of door nails versus coffin nails.

Don't get me wrong, I want to believe that Scrooge is redeemed because it promotes the idea that it is never too late to change one's ways and the resulting world view.  However, to return to the open water analogy, it is not clear which is the right direction and it is not possible to try them all until you are back on course.

Like Scrooge, I am trapped in a limiting world view that has transformed my behavior and all but extinguished hope.   I have also wasted a lot of time looking for my Marley only to find myself in the open water.  I cling to the extremely unlikely notion that a ship will pass and rescue me, even though I know that the only certain way out is to start swimming.  But if I leave this spot--stop treading water--then how will they know where to look for me....  But if I start swimming, how will I know I'm headed in the right direction?  What if I make the wrong choice?  I should, but I can't; I have to, but I won't 

Conflict may be a critical component of drama,  but it is a wooden shoe in the mechanism of decision.

Doing nothing is better than the destructive potential of doing something.

I have in effect Scrooged myself.  I have become a hoarder of regret, keeping careful records of the decades of inactivity that have led me to where I am, so far from the shores of where I want to be.

I should go an get a frying pan, but I've already had once concussion and all that did was make me less driven.  I worry about what another might do.

And I haven't yet done enough to be visited by spirits.

Can't even get that right....  

Humbug.

The Road to Moscow

Like so many, I watched this week's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  I didn't want to because it seemed that, despite the troubling allegations, the outcome seemed to be predetermined and the deck stacked.

And I watched the coverage on MSNBC, so I understood this as another in a series of epic battles between good and evil with nothing less than the future of the country at stake.  Before the opening gavel, I knew that Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony would be moving and that Judge Kavanaugh's would be combative.  I knew that the Republican majority had elected to hire a female sex crimes prosecutor to question Dr. Blasey Ford out of concern for the optics--they didn't want to appear in Democratic campaign commercials providing more evidence of their party's apparent hostility to women.  And I knew that the nomination was going to get voted out of committee and that Judge Kavanaugh was most likely to be confirmed by the full Senate.

It was as though the battle had been decided and all that remained was the assignment of casualties..

What I was not prepared for was Judge Kavanaugh's affect.

He had already demonstrated earlier in the week a remarkable ability to hew to talking points in a brief but rote interview with Fox News, but in Thursday's hearing he wrapped himself in indignation and claimed the mantle of victim.  He was a victim of a "political hit" designed to exact revenge on behalf of the Clintons and re-litigate the 2016 Presidential Election..

Here was an angry middle-aged white man who was too busy with school, athletics, church and scouting to be intimate with a woman who was being accused of sexual assault.

He seemed more angry about the fact that he had done everything that had been expected of him and come through the time-honored farm system of power elites the natural outcome of which was to be a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court and that inevitability was in danger of being ripped away from him.

And for what?

Kavanaugh had worked in the W White House for a president who was himself alleged to have been a serious drinker and substance abuser.  That had been overlooked, so is it was hard to imagine that he might expect any "blemishes" in his past to be overlooked?

Between the pro forma evasions of his initial testimony where he declined to answer specific questions about his legal opinions out of respect for "judicial independence" to his ham-fisted attempts to deflect questions about his possible experience of drunken blackouts, Judge Kavanaugh came across as defensive and resentful.  Despite Senator's Feinstein's characterization of the process as a "job interview," it seemed as though Judge Kavanaugh had been expecting a coronation and not an inquisition.

The allegations surrounding Kavanaugh are serious and need to be investigated and the confirmation process should be paused while this happens.  The way that men assert power over women is toxic to our society and should be called out whenever and wherever it happens.

While there is not much that I can contribute to the conversation on sexual assault,  I do know that its effects are corrosive and indelible.  

Where I believe I can contribute is on the order of succession and the overwhelming sense of dislocation that can result from being just about to win the game when the rules are suspended.

I grew up in a home where children were to be "seen and not heard."  I lived in a house where my dad often insisted on "quiet time for adults" to the extent that it was possible to go a whole week without seeing him.  I learned early and often that in order to have access, I had to learn how to be quiet and pour a mixed drink.  One of the highest compliments ever paid to me by one of my father's friends was that I would be a "good person to get drunk with."

It was in hanging around and mixing those drinks that I learned about my dad's battle to live up to his father's expectations.  

He had gone to an all-boys residential school, graduated with an M.B.A. and worked in the investment business all with the expectation of going into my grandmother's family business.  He had done all the preparatory work with the understanding that he would get the call to join the company and that call never came.  His brother got the call, but my dad's never came.

I think he was still expecting a call right up until the time the company was sold.

And, while he was waiting, he kept working in a business he had no real stomach for and he kept medicating his frustration.

He was often an incoherent, or belligerent, drunk who was verbally aggressive and who might, or might not, remember the specifics of the the things he did or said.

He was a good man, who I believe always tried to do the right thing, but he was also capable of causing great pain.

I know I have a similar sense of waiting for a bus and recognizing that it is never going to come.

I was going to be a writer.

That was very clear to me from high school:  I was going to have a tweed jacket with elbow patches and shelves full of dog-eared notebooks overflowing with my deep thoughts.  I didn't have a clue what I was going to write about, but I was definitely going to be a writer.

I remember one time my mother invited a filmmaker to the house who worked for the National Film Board of Canada.  One of the strongest takeaways from listening to him was the importance of having a point of view, a lens through which to capture and tell the story.  I was self-aware enough to know that I didn't have one and went to work trying to figure out how to get one.

I am still looking.

It was for that reason that I gravitated to working in the theatre.

It is a world full of extreme characters, dramatic stories and plays.

One of the earliest lessons you learn in that world is the value of strong opinions; there are two temperatures:  hot or cold.  Either you "love" something or you "hate" it.  

You could love a particular show because you, or someone you knew, was in it or you could hate a show because you weren't, or didn't, or because you just didn't understand it.

From my earliest days in the theatre, one of the shows I hated was Chekov's "Three Sisters."

Part of my animus was due to the fact that Chekhov is always described as being a writer of comedies and "Three Sisters is three-plus hours of the least funny comedy you have ever seen.  To my teenage brain it was nothing but incessant whining about how the sisters would rather go to Moscow.  

They had been born and raised in the big city and, through circumstances, now find themselves trapped in the country unable to return:  that old sit-com trope!

As a teenager raised on television, it was difficult to appreciate that "comedy" could have more than one meaning and that Chekhov was writing about more than the given circumstances of the play.  Among other things, the play is not about realizing goals, but about negotiating with others and oneself to get our needs met.  Understanding the difference is the product of time. 

I have a similar rage-sadness in me recognizing that I will not reach my goals and a resistance to locking the door to my elbow-patch dreams.  I waited decades for what I thought was going to be my turn, for a story to tell and a point-of-view from which to tell it, and it's not going to come.

It is only now, at fifty-seven, that I can see it is, as Chekhov writes, possible to accept that and still be resentful and angry about it.

I made choices:  big ones, small ones and all sizes in between.  I stopped when I should have gone, waited when I should have started and left when I should have stayed.  And each of those choices have consequences.  They don't get averaged; you don't get to take away the best and the worse and only consider those in between.

I believe Dr. Blasey Ford.  I don't think there is enough "up-side" in coming forward with her allegation to balance out lifetime of trauma and the abuse that has come her way.

I also have no empathy for Judge Kavanaugh.  Just because you are qualified for a seat on the Court doesn't mean you get one, as Judge Garland can attest.

Recognizing that choices made even in the smallest moments can change the trajectory of your life, no matter how carefully you follow the rules, is a mile marker of maturity.  Dr. Blasey Ford had to learn that lesson thirty-six years ago.

My mom always told me that girls mature faster than boys.