Continued Connections

TOWN & GOWN BISTRO
A PUB WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Making your way in the world today
takes everything you got
Taking a break from all your worries
sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away? . . .
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
The troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name . . .
You want to go where people know
The people are all the same
You want to go where everybody knows your name. . . "

~ Song from Cheers ~

****************
At some level, isn't that what we all want -- to be known? It's what Hafiz calls "that great pull to connect," to be in synch, to harmonize, to be part and parcel of the universe. Think of the photographer in The Memory Keeper's Daughter, placing one photograph beside another, hoping to find that "the entire world is contained within each living person. . . . he yearned to capture on film: these rare moments where the world seemed unified, coherent, everything contained in a single fleeting image" (similar project).

I know I've posted this poem before, but it [Red]bears repeating:

With That Moon Language

Admit something:

Everyone you see,
you say to them,
“Love me.” [Choose Me!]

Of course you do not do this out loud,
otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still, though, think about this,
this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives
with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,

with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye
in this world
is dying to hear?

Hafiz (1325 – 1389)
14th - Century Beloved Persian poet and lyrical genius

****************
Writing six centuries after Hafiz, the Irish poet, priest, and philosopher John O'Donohue (1956 - 2008) looks at "this great pull" in a different, unsettling way. Yes, of course, we all want to feel connected, but is that always such a good thing? In Anam Cara: A Book of Celctic Wisdom, O'Donohue analyzes our craving for connection. Like Hafiz, O'Donohue asks us to search our souls and "Admit something":

We assume too readily that we share one world with other people. It is true at the objective level that we inhabit the same physical space as other humans; the sky is, after all, the one visual constant that unites everyone’s perception of being in the world. Yet this outer world offers no access to the inner world of an individual. At a deeper level, each person is the custodian of a completely private, individual world. Sometimes our beliefs, opinions, and thoughts are ultimately ways of consoling [does he mean "deceiving"] ourselves that we are not alone with the burden of a unique, inner world. It suits us to pretend that we all belong to the one world, but we are more alone than we realize.

I feel somewhat dismayed yet intrigued by Donohue's suspicion that we are fundamentally disparate beings, despite our yearning for connection. Do I deceive myself that connection and coincidence govern our mutual existence? Possibly. Do I write essays and blog posts not so much in celebration of our similar outlooks but to console myself over a mutual failure to "connect, only connect" (see also: Commonplace Book, King & Queen, Handful of Dust, Heroine of Sensibility)? I hope not. Still, O'Donohue's words are haunting.

The Cheers song says we want to see that "troubles are all the same" and be where "people are all the same," but maybe, as O'Donohue suggests, we are incorrect in our assumption that this could ever be our reality. Perhaps such a place exists only on television or deep in our romantic imaginings. Yet, after ten years of blogging on this topic, beginning with my E. M. Forster - inspired Mission Statement, the connections keep on coming! They appear of their own accord, neither imaginary nor forced, woven daily through the Great Conversation. Only recently, after having all three read the same novel -- Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things [more on this later] -- my sisters and I were discussing our shared perceptions of literary coincidence:

Kit: Do you ever notice that sometimes when you read a book or see a movie or learn a new word -- all of a sudden it's everywhere!

Peg: I know what you mean about universe coincidences. I’ve sometimes wondered how this is possible because it seems to happen on such random topics.

Kit: Precisely!

Di: I love when things like that happen! Sometimes Tom and I will be talking, and one of us says something, then the person on TV will say it. Like the universe is singing together.

[Or as another friend put it: this infinite symphony of existence.]

How appropriate that they should both pick a musical metaphor to describe this phenomenon of universal synchronicity!

I am particularly fond of literary connections that fall into the category of "connections about connections." Take, for example, One Good Turn, a delightfully dense British mystery in which the endearing private dectective Jackson Brodie becomes obsessed with puzzling out the distinction between a connection and a coincidence:

Jackson: There's a connection between the two girls, there has to be. . . .

Louise: "Could just be a coincidence."

Jackson: "You're playing devil's advocate. And I don't believe in coincidence . . . A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen." (343 - 44)

Jackson: "You say coincidence . . . I say connection. A baffling, impenetrably complex connection, but nonetheless a connection. . . . he could see something that made sense. A tangible connection, not just a coincidence." (369, 374)

Louise: Jackson had been . . . Making his bloody 'connections' everywhere. (435)

Jackson: "You say connection, I say connection." (448)

****************
dialogue from One Good Turn (2006)
by Kate Atkinson (b 1951),
scholarly, spell - binding British novelist
****************
. . . and lastly . . .

"Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds.
Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world."
(463)

This closing thought on interiority & connection . . .
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ Open Your Mind!
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

The RedBear Connection

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Welcome RedBear!
Back in early June, my older sister Peggy sent this "picture of a kitty who has decided we are his family. I think I'll keep him and see if I can convert him to an indoor kitty. When I saw him outside the front door this morning I just had to take his picture because it reminded me so much of your quote, 'a house where all's accustomed, ceremonious.' Doesn't he look like he just belongs here? If I keep him I'll call him RedBear because he's a ginger boy and built like a little bear."

In addition to the E. M. Forster quotation, the words of Mark Twain came to mind when I saw RedBear waiting so proudly and patiently on Peg's front porch: "A house without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat, may be a perfect house, perhaps, but how can it prove its title?" Clearly, my sister has a perfect house, and this cat knew it! As a discerning feline, he could sense that this dwelling proved its title and chose it for his new home!

Coincidentally, my older brother Dave once had a similar cat with a similar name, and shared his story: "This cat looks a lot like the cat we had in Crailsheim that we named Bear. He was a big old woolly street cat that learned the joys of being a kept cat indoors. When he died of kidney failure I spent the last night with him laying on the laundry room floor. He woke me up to say goodbye and then passed right before my eyes. Needless to say, it was a long weekend. Good luck hanging on to this boy. He really looks like a keeper!"

At the end of the month, I asked Peg if RedBear was still hanging around, and she sent the good news: "RedBear is now an inside boy. Very sweet and fits in like he was always here. . . . learning the joys of being an indoor boy after living outdoors . . . getting along fine with his 'brother from a different mother.' His biggest problem is that we have to control his food or he gets sick. He's so used to fighting for his food that he wolfs down any food put in front of him. He's a wonderful addition to my home."

Thanks to Peg
for sharing these pictures of RedBear & Squiggles
and for thinking of my Fortnightly Blog!
Thanks to other readers as well, who have entered so gratifyingly into the spirit of my various blogposts:

Tracy: "I love that you save these things, it reminds me I have a kindred spirit out there who takes joy in the little things of our past and, with that, those little things become bigger."

Brigit: "Kitti Carriker, you're a cultural force of nature!"

Evelet: "Kit o' my heart! . . . May you always err on the side of audacity."

Jan: You understand "the power of story and poetry to transform and transcend. I am forever in awe of you and so so grateful to know you."

Jim: Kitti, you are the Keeper of Memories. Thanks for sharing them with so many . . . you are an essential connection.

Milly: "Today we were discussing diary and journal genres. Then we talked about blogs. I told the students that one of my friends has a blog. They wanted to see it, and I showed them. They thought it was cool and so literary, but the boys were more impressed that Sam played football for Purdue!"

Kitti: That is so sweet! Thanks for doing that! I wish all my friends who teach would show their students my blog, or maybe give them an extra credit assignment to read one of my posts! I always LOVED the concept of extra credit (both as student and teacher)! Sam has now graduated from Purdue and moved on to New York City, but I'll be sure to tell him that his legend has traveled to Northeast Missouri!

Why Connection & Coincidence?
Because as Henry James says:
"The whole of anything is never told;
you can only take what groups together."

In closing, I share the words of the ageless, timeless Hafiz:
"Still, though think about this, this great pull in us to connect."

and this excellent song about
Coincidence & Connection:

Come and See
Look up here,
Most people can't make out the difference
But it could be a small change
In the light

And sometimes
We watch our lives align
But the questions remain:
Did you will it? Is Sight benign?

Is it coincidence or connection?
Come and See
Fall to your knees
and hear the call
Are you still lovesick for it all?

Is it you that
Brighthens the same sea that
Curves my path and life-lines
Is your shine like mine?

And the difference between
Betting your life or dying
Could reveal itself in a small change
In the light

Is this coincidence or connection?
come and see
fall to your knees
and hear the call
Are you still lovesick for it all? [emphasis added]

Sung by Young Galaxy
In one of our favorite summer movies:
The Way Way Back

P.S.
Just Look at RedBear . . .
Such a Foxy Gentleman!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, August 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com