Derailing life

Ok, so I know I talked a lot after the reading Saturday, so some of my comments will undoubtedly be straight reiteration of reactions which I already mentioned. I apologize in advance for that. For me to organize my thoughts/reactions to the readings, it is easiest to look at notes I wrote in response to Amy's specific questions and expound on my feelings from there.

1: 'anything that stands out, is striking, of interest'

• I already mentioned the strong imagery and use of metaphors, the poetic nature of the piece. Some of the page numbers I scribbled down while we were reading were 290 (the neck breaking), p 296 (pretty much all of what Chaz says), and the top of 306.
  

• Right off the bat, Pace and Dalton's conversation of how Brett used to hit himself in the face.It reminds of the behavior I've experienced when I used to work in childcare and there were autistic children in my program, some of whom were not very high functioning. While the particular child I'm thinking of, I have no reason to believe that was learned behavior from the way he treated by his parents, teachers or therapists, in Brett's case it was a survival instinct. *My dad doesn't know how to relate to me, and I can't seem to make him happy with me, so maybe if I treat myself the way he treats me, then we can connect on some level. And maybe the pain won't be so bad if I'm controlling it.*

Every single relationship and interchange, whether shown or described, within this piece
was in some form about status, power, and control. These were people living with the
daily fear and grief that comes from having no power over the chaos in the world around
you. When that is your reality every minute of every day, any control you can exert over
your specific circumstances and over the lives of those around you is that much more of
a sense of security, a feeling that if you can "trudge instead of wallowing," you have at
least some small hope of surviving. You just might make it, even though the world is
falling to shit around you.


2: 'something you relate to'

• As hard as is was for me to initially recognize things in this piece that I could relate to, once the first thought came there was a lot there waiting to burst the dam. The first thing was, again, Brett's self abuse. I had no thought's on his motivation for that until about 10 minutes ago, but I could still identify the urge he and his father were having to physically manifest their emotional torment.
• Dalton. His admission of 'I killed Pace' was the first time, in probably his entire almost-16 years of living, that he could control a major event in his life, and take ownership of things. I remember 16, it was hard to get people to let make your own choices, they were too afraid of the consequences to let you learn from your mistakes. I was 17 when this play was published, and it's set 45 before my birth. And I know I can not ever fully fathom what it what it meant to be a teenager during the Great Depression, in a time when it's finally becoming accepted and a standard expectation for, in middle class working families at least, their children -- of both genders, at that --to begin to receive something more than the most basic of education before they go to work with their parents or go out and find jobs in the world beyond Mom and Pop's home. I think Dalton felt immense guilt that he had not tried to stop Pace, who was so determined to control her own destiny and provoke the people around her to give into her powerful personality, her wants and whims. And his way of grieving and assuaging that guilt was to, rather than saying he felt responsible because he was there and he let her show off to him and he wanted things from her and he gave into her, he just out and out said he killed her.
  

3: 'ways this play ties into the community'

• This was an easy and obvious question to answer, and it was already touched on by the group Saturday that the parallels between the depression in the '30s and the economic crisis we currently face, which historians and economists are labeling as the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. What we currently face in 2009 is having a global impact. And we are already seeing people losing their ability to cope with job loss, mortage payments, evictions, inability to provide for their children. We turn on the news nightly (at least, I do; I'm a CNN junkie) and hear about people committing crimes against their neighbors, people killing their families and themselves, families with no means of feeding and clothing their children. I talked to the clerk at the liquor store near campus the other night; I was half-heartedly thanking him for carding me, and he was stating that he couldn't risk losing his job (I realted to that, being an ex-server) with a family to provide for. He told me "I get WIC, but that's not enough for everything. Especially since I've got twins." People forget when they bemoan the families recieving government assistance that yes, there are some who sit on their asses and do nothing to try and take care of their kids, sure, but there are also a lot of good people, working hard to feed and diaper their little ones, but just can't make it in this economy without some help from some other source. Enough about that. We all agreed, it's rough. And the despair and pain and sense of entrapment people faced in the '30s is rapidly creeping into our society today.
• One more thing. It's back to the control issue actually, and it is, I guess, more of a question or a grain of thought to rub on your brain and generate pearls for others' blog comments. For people who have some tie to the belief, whether it be through religion or spirituality or working the steps in AA, that something larger is always in control, and if you surrender your need to micromanage everything and trust that things will work out, are times like these easier to endure? Can you keep it together in the face of despair and adversity with no solution in sight if you believe in your heart of hearts that hope is somewhere down the road?