In the real world, a friend of mine has escaped a very stressful life among relatives. How bad? When some one from her old house came visiting, the dog stayed right with her, shaking, the whole time. That poor dog! Now my friend and her dog have a life of far less stress. I will be putting her up in my rental property in the new year. Her rent barely matches my mortgage payments, but life is not lived for bread alone.
In a fictional world of H.G. Wells… (written in the late 19th century, set in the early 20th) malevolent Martians high up in fighting machines are hurrying across the land “as fast as birds fly.” I have composed poems about that world. One poem, which I read aloud at an “open microphone” for poets, had a farmer gratefully reflecting: Today he can stand carelessly in an exposed field! But he remembers—On the night the Martians advanced he lay in bed with doubled blankets, wearing more than double clothes, and yet still he lay chilled with fear. …Of course my Mars poems, like classic sci fi, are using fiction as a metaphor for things of concern, things that cannot be approached directly.
A TV character on the Babylon-5 station, of Russian decent, has an uncle in a remote cabin. During the dark of winter he would keep a glass and a bottle of vodka on hand to use during the Hour of the Wolf: That low three in the morning time when you can’t sleep because the wolf is at the door, reminding you of things, of how your life could have gone, but didn’t. The uncle keeps three little shot glasses too, ready to help, for in case the wolf has brought her cubs…
I don’t live on the Russian steppes but on the stabbing cold Canadian prairie, where I dwell in a wee cabin at the edge of town. I can relate to that uncle.
As the winds moan at night, I know something about gratitude: I have seen people plodding along a precipice in “12-step programs” of recovery: The original such program, of course, being Alcoholics Anonymous—which achieved for AA members what learned doctors and psychiatrists could not.
A lady “in recovery” told me, without speaking of any wolves or doors, of something life-saving, providing her with a lens of sanity: She would get out a paper and write down a list of things to be grateful for… Sounds too easy to be true, maybe, but I won’t argue with success.
From that lady, HG. Wells, TV and the real world, I too have discovered how an “attitude of gratitude” is an excellent way of life.
Here’s a poem from years after the Martian War has wrecked the economy and severely reduced the population:
…
After the War of the Worlds
The boiled pot of coffee makes the room aromatic.
My paint-peeling chair has a nice slanted back.
My steaming cup is plain and beautiful.
Overhead the roof is rain-tight.
Out the window, I know the dark clouds
will pass a sunbeam soon,
someday.
I am here
where none shall make me afraid.
My day is kind.
…
…
Sean Crawford, where blog comments are a form of poetry,
Due south of Capital City,
The home of “CapitalEx” (exhibition)
TV note: The Anglo-French European production of The War of the Worlds is still showing on the CBC, (with one left?) up to episode seven now, “eight days since the attack started.” I have seen almost nothing of it, but I like what I see.
Social Studies note: I doubt the limited series will show on any U.S. channel—except maybe on PBS—partly because the series is slow quiet drama rather than swift loud action, but mostly because, despite U.S. affluence, the American people are surely chauvinist about other countries. This chauvinism would be bad if they were still trying to be world leaders, but I think Americans are coming to know that their “world leadership,” for covid, has been their “Suez moment.” (Link) and (link) I don’t know to whom the leadership baton has been passed, but I think America has irrevocably dropped it…
Update: I guess I still had hope, for I notice I am disappointed that they fumbled and dropped the baton for the existential war in Ukraine.
