Reading French on St. Patrick's Day...

So Hal and I are off to France, the Swiss Alps and Germany for spring break. We are packing and continually saying, "Oh crap! I forgot...(fill in the blank)" We are tired, excited, nervous, and so much more. In the midst of the insanity, I find a bit of grounding in batch of corned beef and cabbage, expertly prepared by one of my favorite people, and I remember, as a child, smelling the same aroma at my grandmother's house and wondering what had died. We have such interesting memories from childhood... we hold onto the most random information while we forget the names of the new neighbors. We hold onto the injustices and triumphs of years past, and forget to revel in the beauty of today. And yet, those pesky memories hold tight...

I remember a poster I had as a child that was of the "Bear Country Jamboree"- a cute attraction at Disneyland, yet the stupid poster gave me nightmares... I can close my eyes and see it... all these years later, I hate that poster and I wonder how many nights I lost sleep being sure that creepy things were going to crawl out of that picture. Tonight, over the cabbage, my friend gave me a note in French... and 23 years after I had a French class, I read the thing and understood each word... and yet, today I forgot the PIN number on the ATM card I've used almost everyday for 6 years.

I wonder what I will remember 20 years from now of this time period... I hope I've cleared enough French from the brain vaults to have memories of tonight... the packing, the silliness, the "have a great time" phone calls... tonight is good; tonight shouldn't be forgotten... but I could live without memories of corned beef at Nana's... yuck.

Laughing at Hamlet, Giggling with Darcy, and Finding Truth is Missing...

Okay, it is late, and this might be random... but the idea is saturating me right now, so here it comes...

It is so interesting to me how we feel we know truth... how, when we are children we ask questions, and are free to acknowledge the state of ignorance. Yet as we age, we feel we must have answers for when we are the adults and the children ask the questions of us. When I was younger, I remember realizing that most of my ideas about the world were simply my opinions, and that I knew little truth. Years passed. I aged. I experienced. Some of my ideas were disproved, while others were supported. The latter group took root, and every time the world showed an opinion as good-real-possible-agreed upon... every time, the roots grew deeper. Eventually those roots blossomed and sprouted my truths, and at some point, my opinions became my truths.

In the last 24+ hours I have seen two very strong reminders that my "truths" are often still nothing more than strongly reinforced opinions. Last night, I laughed at Hamlet. I laughed hard. I laughed darkly and ironically, but I laughed. I've never laughed at that play before. Have you read it? Everyone dies. Painfully. Tragically. Alone. It isn't funny- it is the "Great Tragedy". I thought that because a professor told me it was. "Okay" I said. Then I read it. I thought, "sad play"... tragedy... roots... truth. My truth upon entering the Bowmer Theater at OSF last night was that this was a play with only one laughable moment: the gravediggers... and the rest was palpably and painfully sad. How can truth be wrong? It was a truth built upon opinion... and when I was allowed to remember that, I was given the gift of seeing the play and the character of Hamlet in a new light-still tragic, yet with so many new shades... colors other than black and grey.

Tonight, my beautifully shy, but always stoic Mr. Darcy made me giggle with his awkwardness... and another one of the roots in my life was torn up... and it was wonderful.

Why is it we desperately cling to these truths that root us to one spot, and refuse to let us move? We can only see the world from a singular perspective when rooted down... and we miss so much.