Hello, all!
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The Red Queen
In Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, Alice Through The Looking Glass, we are introduced to the character of the Red Queen, whom Carroll described as “…a Fury, cold and calm, formal and strict, pedantic to the 10th degree.” He also described her as “not unkindly”, which is difficult to believe, as she seized and expanded a line first shouted by the Queen of Hearts– “Off with their heads”, and added “off with his/her/your/their head!” In other words, indiscriminate decapitation.
Which brings to mind, of course, our current Red Queen (certainly NOT a Queen of Hearts), Elon Musk, whose decapitations of federal workers and agencies seem aimed at the ultimate decapitation–that of our government structure, itself. Certainly, Elon is Red, participating (to increase his already obscene wealth) in the 180 degree turn towards our enemies in China and Russia. As to the Queen part, well, you can see how he fawns on the King, but I don’t want to insult any of the queens in my brave LGBTQ+ community by the comparison. In addition, every queen I have ever met would rather lose their wardrobe than engage in the Muskrat’s ungainly, awkward and frankly embarrassing dance, pumping his puny arms in the air with a chainsaw as a partner.
Third: no one would ever refer to Musk as “not unkind”. Most would add “drunk with power”. I wrote earlier of my suspicion that he had sold his soul to Lucifer, and, given his behavior, I think it’s already been collected
The real damage that is being done, however, would have stunned Mr. Carroll, who invented his topsy-turvey world to amuse three daughters of his friends, the Liddells, during a boating trip on the River Thames in 1862. There is nothing amusing about the destruction and heartbreak being sown by our richest sociopath. Which is why more and more of us are working to get him where it hurts, in his stock ownership in Tesla. The stock has already plunged, thanks to tanking sales around the world.
As a good and wise friend of mine has advised, the best way to hold on to your sanity is to pick a single outrage among so many…the one, possibly, that bothers you the most about these first 60 days of the Trusk administration. Then, show up with a rude and homemade sign at any of the growing number of demonstrations. So many from which to pick. Education, Parks, Social Security, Science, the Arts, rallies to save our Constitution. Collectively, these are our “hit the streets” demonstrations of the 21st century. Confront your representative. Flood him/her with phone calls. No one of us can do it all, but, together, perhaps we can stop the Red Queen and the Imperial President. Maybe I’ll see you at one of these gatherings!
The Catcher In The Rye
Contemplating the actions of the heartless Trump/Musk administration has helped me to think about my own development. As I mentioned earlier in these posts, I am currently scratching away at a first draft of an autobiography. These current events have led me to ponder the sorts of experiences that can lead to Door Number One: an embrace of evil, or Door Number Two: its opposite.
In my first mailer of this series, I promised to do more than just talk about our national trauma and, sometimes, to report on how my developing self-told-tale is coming. Like most free-wheeling mind moments, it leads me to think of my favorite writers.
In his classic novel, The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger introduced us to his protagonist, Holden Caulfield, a young man fed up with the phoniness of adults and an admirer of the purity of children. Holden misconstrues the words of a Robert Burns poem and “if a body meet a body comin’ through the rye” becomes “if a body catch a body ….”, sung by a young boy seen wandering in the street. Holden then imagines himself as the one who stands on the edge of a rye field, spending his time on earth saving children who might plunge off a cliff were he not there. A sort of school crossing guard on steroids.
This notion of being a rescuer as a raison d’etre grew as I worked through the first, very rough, draft of my autobiography, five-year chapter by five-year chapter. I decided to write it chronologically, the way my actual life unfolded, with the belief that every next set of years builds on the ones before.
Patterns emerge. I could see that I started to feel protective of my mother and my little sister early on. My mother lost her father when she was two and told many stories of helping her mother and two sisters throughout her childhood until her mother passed away when she was eleven. My heart went out to that little girl and her attempts to help and be supportive.
My heart went out again (it seemed to do that often) when we brought my little sister, Jeri, home from the hospital in my Uncle Jack’s car. Later, when her tricycle was snatched by a neighborhood boy, I just had to get it back for her. And, without even meaning to, I grew up to be a wanna-be Catcher In The Rye.
I know I will hear from several therapist friends about this but there’s plenty of time. The book will go through several personal edits before I even show it to anyone, but I offer two conclusions so far
One: it turns out to be a wonderful thing to travel slowly through your life and see how magic, luck, kindnesses, miracles, tragedies and challenges often lead to the next thing. Even more wonderful to see how each experience, good and bad, adds to character or, at least, to character traits. Sometimes, these are the very things that help to get one through the the endless hours of a difficult time.
Second, and lastly, I have come to believe that everyone should write their life story. It’s not publication that counts, it’s simply leaving the story behind for others to see, whenever and wherever. It also helps a person to consider the genesis of their character. A process that does not seem to have occurred to The Wanna Be King and his Red Queen. Off with their heads?
Sheila
