After Thanksgiving and Beowulf

I didn't get home (Rhode Island, that is) for Thanksgiving. On Monday last, I began to come down with a terrific cold, but couldn't pay much attention to it. I pushed through completing tasks and preparing for Tuesday evening's Board meeting at church, and decided not to set out toward New England on Tuesday night (thinking that I'd probably get only as far as London or Hamilton, Ontario that first night), but rather would just sleep in on Wednesday, If I left by noon, I could join the driving masses on the New York State Thruway and Mass Pike on Wednesday and expect to get to my sister Donna's house by midnight (depending especially on the two international border crossings, but also the traffic).

Instead, I woke up on Wednesday to find that I was really quite ill. I prepared to go to the drug store to get some medicine (and again to consider and reject homeopathy), and noticed that again an enormous amount of radiator fluid was on the floor of the car (in front of the driver's seat), and knew that I would not be driving that car 1,300 miles without seeing a mechanic.

So I stayed in bed on Wednesday, and slept in on Thursday until after noon. On my couple of trips to the toilet, I saw the snow falling (masking my unraked leaves!), and turned up the thermostat a couple of degrees. Took my medicine. Drank some fluids. Stayed in bed.

Late Thursday afternoon, I was feeling quite a bit better, and I stopped in on my neighbors Linda and Lucy and their boys. They had guests--Sheila and Jennifer and Linda and Dorothy--and I arrived at the end of Thanksgiving dinner. I ate more than I had hunger for, and enjoyed a couple of glasses of Beaujolais. (Feed cold, starve fever??) Anyway, I lasted far longer than I thought I would, and even enjoyed one of Sheila's famous games.

Even on Friday, I considered setting off for New England--but I gave that up when I realized how tired I was (and how crazy an idea that was!). So I had a good conversation with my mother instead, and told myself I'd call my brothers John and Paul (which I have yet to do).

On Sunday, I went to see the new Beowulf film with Lucy and her older son and his neighbor friend. We went to the 3-D version (I mean, wasn't that the point?) and enjoyed ourselves. The eerie animation melding real faces onto perfected bodies and action sequences ranged from stunning (I loved all the gilt effects around Grendel's mother and her realm) to sickening (the oozing slime off of Grendel's skin) to amusing (all the machinations to hide Beowulf's genitals). Some of the cinematography was confusing (why may Beowulf have quite nice nipples, and Grendel's mother none?), some forced repetitive and distracting effects that were far from thrilling (the swords and severed limbs thrust at the audience); but all in all, it was a satisfying movie that made me want to pull out my Beowulf and read it again.

I loved that some moments linger in my memory. Why was the heart of the enormous dragon so small--just the size of the human heart? I thought of my own dragon-ness, the things that set me off and make me a fire breather. The wastelands that I have created in my emotional and relational history. What dragons have I sought to slay, and who has seen me as a dragon needing to be dispatched with?

The fantail of the dragon under water spread into the exact shape of the fantail of the seductive mermaid that distracted one of Beowulf's earlier accomplishments heralded by others but remembered by some as failures. I wonder about my own failures, in history and every day, and about how I so crave flattery, recognition and attention. I hope to place my public and private failures into perspective, and hope, even, to become detached from the high and low emotions that accompany my failures--and my successes.

The glitter of the realm of Grendel's mother still haunts me. How it grew and grew, how gold inhabited one son but not the former, how it all ended in the sea, in the fire, in the earth. I worry, daily, about my own financial status, about bills owed and the long time it is taking to get caught up, about the folly of investment in real estate and my inability to invest my time in finding relationships that will sustain my private side, in Michigan. Recognition and flattery, glitter and facade . . . where does this all lead?

Bright gray sky today. Chill in the air, but the snow is melting (and the leaves are back!)

Good morning!