Row, row, row your boat,
gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
into the light
There are those who would set fire to the world.
We are in danger.
There is only time
to work slowly.
There is no time
not to love.
The day after the reactors in Japan started to melt down these lyrics sprang to mind. Not a day has gone by since when I haven’t found myself singing them, or sharing them with clients or friends.. They come from a poem by Deena Metzger and Charley Murphy put them to music in the 1980’s. It was a song that was sung at my first marriage, the two of us devoted at the time to not only each other, but anti-nuclear work.
The past two weeks the disaster in Japan has come in and out of my therapy room. The rain here in our city seems to be relentless, and it feels to many like we might live out our lives amidst a storm that will not cease.. Several clients have mentioned that they have been trying to put together an earthquake preparedness kit only to find out that first aid kits and whistles (which you blow if stuck in rubble) are sold out in this city. Along with, of course, potassium iodine.
So, I keep breathing into that song. I also keep flashing on a scene from my childhood. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I lived outside of Detroit. We had a bomb shelter in our basement.. During that stand-off with Russia, when nuclear war seemed imminent, I was down in that grim little room, playing with Barbie, trying to get away from the fear of the grown ups and the television news.. My legs stuck to the green vinyl couch and squiggling away, I looked up at the big shelf of spam and deviled ham and had a moment of childhood clarity.
I had been told that it would be so bright (the bombing) that I’d have to put a pillow over my eyes to not be blinded. It hit me clearly that I would not go along with my parents plan. Spending the rest of my life with my family in that little room, eating spam while the earth above me was scorched, this was truly horrifying. I resolved to walk out into the light, Barbie in hand. Hopefully dressed in her pink satin evening dress with the white boa.
That childhood clarity still abides in me. I still retain that image of walking out into the light rather than hiding out in the dark. Which doesn’t mean I don’t believe in being prepared for an earthquake. Of course, my earthquake kit sure doesn't include spam. And, I truly think I would feel safer with a cyanide pill than with a whistle.
5 comments:
Pitch313
said...
I grew up at a naval shipyard that built and repaired nuclear submarines. One a given day, there might have been more reactors in my hometown than anyplace else on the West Coast. Radiation accidents happened, and many were covered up. But I'm sure that I did get dosed.
But wait! There's more!
My hometown was a primary target for nuclear attack. First by fleets of lumbering bombers. Later by sleets of missile born warheads. I had visions of atomic apocalypse dancing in my head! For real!
For a garnish, there were a few commercial power and science research reactors here and there up the road and down. Could maybe be an oopsie or two!
What I'm leading up to--Surprising myself, I am not all that worried about the possible effects of the Fukishima reactors event on me or on the West Coast. I suppose that I had to contend with my dread of atomic apocalypse a long time ago, and I won't go back.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that nuclear accidents or intentional releases are not terrible. They are. But the way I see it, if they're going to get you insidiously, you'll never realize it. And if they're going to get you directly, you'll be dead.
I, too, in those moments when I can't help but visualize something horrible like nuclear war, hope to walk right into the center of it. I would not want to be one of the survivors. Is that selfish?
Interesting, Reya... I would have never thought of this as selfish. For me, it's a kind of acceptance....not fighting the storm/death - walking right out into it. Maybe I actually would fight like hell to live when it came down to it, but that early sense of "fuck it - I'm walking into the light" stays strong in me. Of course, my 7 year old self would not have said "fuck it".
My dad built bomb shelters and fallout shelters. We had one of our own. The only fight I remember my parents having was around the truth about atomic war. After a bit of a struggle between them, one weekend morning after breakfast, my dad said to the two of us, "Boys, a bomb shelter is nothing but a human oven." This was in the middle of the Cuban Crisis. I will never forget it.
My dad built bomb shelters and fallout shelters. We had one of our own. The only fight I remember my parents having was around the truth about atomic war. After a bit of a struggle between them, one weekend morning after breakfast, my dad said to the two of us, "Boys, a bomb shelter is nothing but a human oven." This was in the middle of the Cuban Crisis. I will never forget it.
5 comments:
I grew up at a naval shipyard that built and repaired nuclear submarines. One a given day, there might have been more reactors in my hometown than anyplace else on the West Coast. Radiation accidents happened, and many were covered up. But I'm sure that I did get dosed.
But wait! There's more!
My hometown was a primary target for nuclear attack. First by fleets of lumbering bombers. Later by sleets of missile born warheads. I had visions of atomic apocalypse dancing in my head! For real!
For a garnish, there were a few commercial power and science research reactors here and there up the road and down. Could maybe be an oopsie or two!
What I'm leading up to--Surprising myself, I am not all that worried about the possible effects of the Fukishima reactors event on me or on the West Coast. I suppose that I had to contend with my dread of atomic apocalypse a long time ago, and I won't go back.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that nuclear accidents or intentional releases are not terrible. They are. But the way I see it, if they're going to get you insidiously, you'll never realize it. And if they're going to get you directly, you'll be dead.
I, too, in those moments when I can't help but visualize something horrible like nuclear war, hope to walk right into the center of it. I would not want to be one of the survivors. Is that selfish?
Glad you are blogging. Keep it coming.
Interesting, Reya... I would have never thought of this as selfish. For me, it's a kind of acceptance....not fighting the storm/death - walking right out into it. Maybe I actually would fight like hell to live when it came down to it, but that early sense of "fuck it - I'm walking into the light" stays strong in me. Of course, my 7 year old self would not have said "fuck it".
My dad built bomb shelters and fallout shelters. We had one of our own. The only fight I remember my parents having was around the truth about atomic war. After a bit of a struggle between them, one weekend morning after breakfast, my dad said to the two of us, "Boys, a bomb shelter is nothing but a human oven." This was in the middle of the Cuban Crisis. I will never forget it.
My dad built bomb shelters and fallout shelters. We had one of our own. The only fight I remember my parents having was around the truth about atomic war. After a bit of a struggle between them, one weekend morning after breakfast, my dad said to the two of us, "Boys, a bomb shelter is nothing but a human oven." This was in the middle of the Cuban Crisis. I will never forget it.
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