Art is Beautiful

I feel like I need to explain a bit more about that last post.

I have been watching my new set of Northern Exposure, Season 6 DVDs. I watch one or two a night and it's a lovely way to wind down the day and get my mind still enough to go to bed. Well, last night I went out to dinner with friends -- combining my tribes -- and it was really fun. I got home around 9:30 and went upstairs to watch a Northern Exposure or two. First one was fine. No big deal. Then I decided to watch another one, sleep be damned, and it turned out to just wreck me.

It was the episode where Joel leaves the show and goes back to New York. Oh man. There was so much in it that stung me.

First, who could love Northern Exposure if the Joel character wasn't on it? Come on. He's the shit. He eats the screen. I want to see him in every shot. I light up and breathe faster and lean forward when he's on. Totally talented actor. Gorgeous man. Wonderful lines and perfect delivery. He's awesome.

Second, what early 20-something girl could watch Northern Exposure without completely relating to the sexy, tumultuous relationship between Maggie and Joel? I was every kind of Maggie in my mind. Probably still am.

Third, the writing is wonderful. Wonderful. What art needs to be, always. Smart and heartfelt and informed and it turns back in on itself and it's just smart. It is, hands down, one of the best shows in the universe. Ever.

Fourth, I realized when I started buying the Northern Exposure DVD's that the series had a profound influence on my decision to love the Ice. There are resonances of Ice life in the show and in the characters and in the clothing and the coldness and the dark winters and the profound revelations and the mystery and the tone of the story telling. Watching Northern Exposure is like watching art about the Ice that really, truly gets it. And in this episode we SEE the profound effect that life there had on Joel, and we see him coming to realize that his time in Alaska is done now and he can return to his home with a bigger understanding and a better heart . . . and all of this is what I am starting to feel about the Ice. I am who I am because of it, and I do have a bigger understanding and a better heart now. And, I'm starting to feel like it's time to return home . . . and bring everything back to try living here again.

And that's really scary and sad.

And in this episode, Joel and Maggie come to the end of their relationship and it's really gentle and lovely and they know. He hugs her goodbye and she looks at him and says "Everything. Everything I never said . . . " and he whispers, "Me too."

Oh God, how can you live through that bittersweet tenderness! How? It crushed me.

But then . . . the kicker.

Joel has been on his quest (the title of the episode, by the way) to search for the Jeweled City of the North. Some magical place he's been looking for but never found. With his love, Maggie, he is on this journey -- his life journey -- played out in this beautiful, snowy walk through the woods. And then he sees it. It is, of course, Manhattan. He realizes he must go back to the place he loved. The city becomes that place inside him that is so holy and sacred. It is his church and his soul and his meaning and his love. Maggie realizes he must go back there to be him, but she says she can't come along.

And so he goes.

And we see him on a boat, floating up through the fog and there in the center of the frame . . .

are the twin towers.

And I was wrecked.

Here is the end of this beautiful story, told over the course of six seasons, of love and loss and true meaning and understanding . . . and there in the center of the frame are the twin towers.

And the grief of it. Oh God, the grief of it.

Just a few years ago this character's love could be manifested on film by the beauty of that Jeweled City . . . of those twin towers.

And now they're gone.

And just sitting there watching this beautiful piece of writing and these wonderful performances of characters to which I will forever be attached . . .

And to just come to the smacking end, to see those buildings represent love and hope and home, and to realize that they aren't there. Not anymore. They were destroyed for ugly reasons that have nothing to do with love and hope and beauty and truth and our quiet personal important quests.

And then I had to turn it around.

We lost just a few buildings and some people. Baghdad? Baghdad has lost everything and a hell of a lot more people. And it's our fault.

And so the big pile of it all . . . of these gorgeous characters and the elevated art form of this show and the Ice association and the fact that I love the Ice and will someday leave it and then the war . . . our war of total destruction.

It just wrecked me.

I had to come home tonight and watch it all again.

And I'm wrecked still. Weeping.

My God, Art is Beautiful.

Modern American

Tonight I was watching an old Northern Exposure. Tonight I saw Joel drifting to his future, released from his servitude. He drifted right towards the Twin Towers.

Back when they existed.

Back when we knew they existed.

How are we to live through this?

How?

How are we to live through this?

Great Big Hearts Full of Love

Last night I went to a wedding.

You know those weddings where you can't help but be cynical? Those weddings where a perfectly respectable woman dresses up like a meringue and a kind man nervously makes crass comments about his own chains and freedom? And around the bar usually well meaning friends take bets on duration?

This wasn't one of those weddings.

Everyone loves this bride and groom so much. So much! These two people are so universally treasured that the event had an epic feel. We have worked with these people for eons and we watched as they met and worked together and avoided each other and wouldn't admit their attraction. I sat and calmed her as she waited days for him to arrange a time to talk it over after her first drunken admission of love. She was convinced he just wanted to let her down easy. Instead, he said yeah, me too, and the rest is history. A long hard slog for the both of them . . . to tear down each others’ scars (huge, big scars in them both) and trust and negotiate and learn and love. I have learned a lot watching them. They would get to a cliff and climb it. And then they would get to another cliff and climb it. One at a time. As honestly as they could.

And last night I watched these two beloved friends of mine, flanked by her children, take each other's hands and just delight in each other. After everything they have come through. After every hard turning point where it looked like he wasn't going to come along, where they were both scared enough to quit. Here they stood, finally fully comfortable, finally admitting it worked, finally collapsing into each other, relieved, with the promise of giving it forever.

He was positively giddy over his ring (tungsten carbide, don't you know) and she made a disbelieving face whenever he called her his wife. Her daughter led a band of sun-dressed little girls in circles around the boathouse. Her son, white shirt untucked and half unbuttoned, covered in dirt, arrived triumphantly with a jar full of crawdads from the creek. By the end of the evening, the guests were sticky in lobster slime, corn butter and heat. Drunk on champagne and glistening, we threw our arms around each other and posed for endlessly blurry digital pictures.

Old friends were there . . . Cookie and Eivind and Jay and Chad and Kristi and Teetor and Scotty and Floyd . . . all who have left and all who felt like second skin when I saw them again. These wonderful people I have loved for so long . . . all back to celebrate the most beloved among us.

It was great.

It was a great wedding. And great weddings, you know, they give you some hope.

Hope that love does indeed endure it.

And not just romantic love -- but sister love and brother love and friend and colleague love. And love that you feel when you see little strangers dig around in mud, and whole families laughing, and proud caterers heaping plates full of food, and old friends.

God damn, it's ok, that.