On Language

I re-read yesterday's post, and marveled at my lousy use of language. So, in keeping with that theme, here is this month's poem.

The Poem Can Fail

I worry the words:
have I put them in the write order,
matched the noun and dangled a worthless article,
made the phrase active or passive,
a complete thought or incomplete concept;
have I taken that nebulous grey idea in my head
and used two dimensions of letters and paper
to transform the same thought in your head?

I worry the words to death,
I obliterate and rearrange them
until the whole frame disappears.
I’m sorry, I failed to tell you the story;
lost in translation,
vanished from my own moving paint,
edited away by an overly sharp pen.

Sleep Awareness Week

My daily commute includes an electronic sign hung above the Thruway. The content varies; usually it contains a warning about a traffic accident ahead, or slowed traffic at the next exit. But this week, the flashing message seems rather bizarre:

Sleep
Awareness
Week

Stay
Alert

Translate that? This is ‘Sleep Awareness Week’ (just think, some legislator probably sponsored this honor). Are we supposed to be aware of our sleep? Pay more attention to our rest patterns? And why should we stay alert? Is there a crisis due to the lack of sleep in our modern lives? We aren’t aware enough of our sleep? We should stay alert to this fact?

More likely, the designation refers to falling asleep behind the wheel, and we should keep ourselves awake and alert on the highway. Or should we be alert to the driver next to us, and make him aware of our (their?) sleep? or lack thereof? Hey, sir, you’re looking a little wane and pale this morning; get to be before 9 tonight, will ya?

I don’t know which is more vacuous and pointless here: the fact that someone designated a week to ‘sleep awareness’, the silliness of the phrases used as part of the campaign, or using a large highway billboard to advertise it.

Or, that I’m even writing about it.

Passages

Years ago, I avoided Gail Sheehy’s book, Passages. I understood that she identified transitions in life and relationships, and categorized them into various phases. I wouldn’t read it because such categorization felt too deterministic. I wasn’t going to be told how my life was turning out, I didn’t want to know the social or psychological patterns that the years would create for me.

How simplistic – and naïve. Life happens, and we have choices that drive that life. Each life is a journey, we travel the path with many different people, we develop relationships that help us along that path.

As Vonnegut would say, so it goes.

So here’s the news that led me to think of Sheehy: our daughter is engaged. A transition in her life, and ours. Frank and Erin are happy, and that happiness does spread to those around them – including us. Marriage is a life marker, and so Erin’s will be a marker for their life and for ours. We won’t just go along for the ride; we’re part of the trip. Hang on, all!

I altered the heading to this journal. It now contains a passage from a desk calendar that a friend bought for me at Christmas; it consists primarily of eastern philisophical wisdom, with an occasional literary reference. I'll post these occasionally. Meanwhile, just so we don't lose it, here is the Jefferson passage that was up there for the first few months:

"...we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake." Thomas Jefferson, 1798

George W may believe that getting a democratic state in Iraq justifies his means. But his principles are still awry and should not blind us to the dangers of his actions.