If It Makes You Happy, It Can’t Be That Bad…

                As a child, I hated salad. And you know what? I hated that I hated it. I wanted to like it so badly. I knew it was healthy and I was supposed to like it. So, I decided to make myself like it. I forced it down with a cup of soda for every bite. I ate it in public so I couldn’t spit it out. I ate it with tons of dressing then with none at all. I tried everything short of eating it while standing on my head. (Feel free to psychoanalyze me later) That little neurotic experience has never left me and this week it’s been on my mind as I’ve been asking myself, “Can you learn to love what’s good for you?” The answer: The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.

                This book has haunted me for months now. I racked up enormous overdue library fees trying to figure out why it bothered me so much. I'll fill you in on why, but let me catch you up. The main character Macon Leary is a middle-aged man who writes travel guides for businessmen who travel for work but wish to “pretend they had never left home”. He tells them where to find a McDonalds in Italy, what hotel in Spain has the most American-looking bath towels, etc. He's the perfect picture of boring and yet somehow also complex and mentally unwell.

                In the novel, he has two love interests. The first is his wife Sarah who leaves him early in the novel because he seems to be living his life on autopilot since the death of their teenage son. He opens up to no one…not even the reader. Reading it, I often felt like I was watching a person who had no emotion at all. I guess I don't blame Sarah for being completely fed up with him... (That’s probably another reason the book haunted me)

                His second love interest is Muriel who is, to say the least, eccentric. She works about 5,000 odd jobs, is half of Macon’s age, and has “aggressively frizzy” hair. At first, Macon seems annoyed by Muriel, which is exactly what you would expect since his personality is so opposite of hers. He shuts her out just like he does everyone else. But her persistence pays off, and slowly we watch Macon go off autopilot.

                Now, what bothered me so much about this novel? I never decided who I wanted Macon to end up with. I know the “right” answers. Ethically, he should end up with his wife. And yet, Muriel seems to make him happier. What was “good” for him? Logically, Sarah is good for him. She is constant. She's married to him. She's stable and devoted. And yet... SPOILER ALERT: Macon doesn’t choose Sarah in the end. He makes efforts to go back to Sarah. He even breaks up with Muriel near the end of the novel, but he can't deny that with Sarah he returns to his "business as usual" self. He wants to learn to love what's good for him but can't.

                Can you learn to love what's good for you? Macon couldn't. In general, I don’t think there’s a yes or no answer my question. But what I only recently realized is this: Learning to love what’s good for you is much easier if you don’t know what you’re missing. Had Macon never met Muriel, maybe he could have learned to love Sarah again. Had I never eaten a cheeseburger, maybe I could have forced myself to like salad. Maybe that’s why businessmen read Macon’s travel guides. They didn’t want to risk seeing a life they wanted more than the one they had, a life that might not be as “good” for them but was more compelling. But what kind of world is that? Doing only what is “good” for you and not what you really enjoy---what you really care about? Is living life with blinders on really a living life?

                I’m not trying to endorse infidelity or to discourage salad-eaters, but I think it’s worth asking ourselves what is worth the fight. Choking down lettuce to satisfy your vegetable quota probably isn’t worth it. Especially when maybe, if you’re really lucky, there is a vegetable somewhere out there that tastes good and is stuffed with Vitamins A & C, too. One day, perhaps I will have my salad and eat it, too.

“You’ll know the emptiness was there when something comes along to fill it” –Lark Rise to Candleford

Writing Music: “Use Somebody” by Laura Jansen and “Rewind” by Stereophonics

The Cure to Homelessness

     Don’t be alarmed. I have food, clothes, shelter, and a bed (though be it a shared bed). I’m not actually homeless---at least not by the common definition. But moving back “home” after four years of school, I don't feel at home. If anything, my home is in all of my boxes of things sitting in the basement (see picture). Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my family, but this house isn’t my home anymore…and neither is SVU. For those four years, it was my home and I probably have never been more attached to a home (as evidenced by the pool of tears that appeared when I left). Unfortunately, as Carrie Underwood would say (or sing), these were only temporary homes. So, here I am searching for my next temporary home and praying that this feeling of homelessness is not permanent. Here lies the perfect opportunity to prove to that lit therapy works. My cure for homelessness? Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

     Anyone who has read this novel either knows exactly where I’m going or is questioning my sanity. Are there characters more homeless than these? Each of the 9 sections in the novel is the name of a different place. Talk about temporary. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the main characters Oliver and Susan Burling Ward were the free-spirited, adventurous, traveling types. But it’s painfully obvious that Susan is the rooting type. As her grandson/the narrator says, “There was a real nester in that woman,” and her husband’s big dreams and constant job-chasing simply aren’t conducive to that. At the very least, I understand Susan’s frustration. Our hearts are homeless together. Sometimes, it’s therapeutic just knowing you aren’t alone.

     When I first read Angle of Repose, I thought that all of the cities Susan lived in were just stops on the way to her real home --- which I wrongly assumed would be the last “stop” in the novel. But as I was re-skimming, it dawned on me that there were moments when she was “home” even when she was in the throes of a strange city. Exhibit A: Boise Canyon. “Abandoned in its gulch, its garden gone to weeds, its fences down, its ditches drifted full, its windows out, [etc., etc., etc.] it would look like failure and lost cause. But while they were there it was a hopeful struggle, not lost cause, and for a while it was a little corner of Eden” (371). Exhibit B: Michoacán. I couldn’t find a good passage to prove it, but she was totally ready to be a Mexican mama. My point is this, if Susan could find that feeling of home in a run-down house in the middle of Boise or on a Mexican veranda, just maybe “home” has nothing to do where you’re at or even how stable/permanent the place is. Home is a feeling, an attitude. Here's the real kicker: we're in control of that feeling. Why else would one city be so homey to Susan and another so the opposite? Even when they are equally strange to her. I have to blame how open-minded or bitter she was at that point in time.

     Some of the last words in the novel are: “Wisdom is knowing what you have to accept.” What I, what we, have to accept is that life is full of temporary homes. Changing homes will always hurt. I think Susan would say (in much more eloquent language, if she could speak from a fictitious grave): “It’s like breaking a bone. When it’s time to leave, accept the pain. Think of me and know that you (thee) aren’t alone. Learn from my bad example and never forget that ‘a broken bone thickens in healing’ if you let it” (381). Well said, Susan, well said. But break it must...break it must.

Writing Song*: “Coming Home” by Gwenyth Paltrow and “Temporary Home” by Carrie Underwood

*I write to music. It’s usually one particular song each time, and I wouldn’t be a good music missionary if I didn’t share with all of you.