Re-Telling the Story

Thursday we went to the zoo. You have a cold and wanted to be held and then let go, held and then let go. The crocodile looked like a statue of a crocodile except for its eye, the pupil swinging from right to left in that optical room. You ran through a fake, hollowed tree trunk, Daddy standing in the light at one end and me in the light at the other. The black and while monkey with the long, soft tail looked like a human asleep with his face turned toward us, his features carved out of soft, black leather. The otters were hungry, running to us where we stood and opening their mouths, making plaintive meeping sounds, white teeth thin as hairs from our vantage point. You practiced running, mostly away from us, and when we called out "good-bye, Thisbe, see you later," you raised one hand, a backhanded wave, without looking back.

Now I have your head cold and we are both a little miserable, a little OK. Today before I left to buy Sudafed and Boogie Wipes and a bagel and a latte, you and I read a book about telling time and a book in which Curious George accidentally flies away in a hot air balloon but is miraculously saved by workers on Mt. Rushmore. Then we read a wordless book entitled "Breakfast for Jack" about a boy who forgets to feed his dog in the morning. One of your favorite activities of the day is feeding Luxy and so I think this book struck a particular chord, as soon as I finished reading you signed "more" so I read it again. And again. And again. It took four readings for you to be satisfied that the dog would, ultimately, be fed.

And maybe Daddy and I are not so different. Each year we worry about making money, about classes and grants and how we will survive. Each year we make it though. We do not lack for anything (though a vacation in Hawaii might be *nice*) and yet we continue to worry. We laugh about the toddler's compulsion to hear a story over and over again. And then we go to church, Daddy and I, so that we can hear from a different book that our lives are abundant, that we are unconditionally loved, that we will be taken care of--

Yesterday in class I taught a poem called "Lot's Wife" and when I asked my students who could summarize the story for us, only one student raised her hand. "Do you know this story?" I asked them. And they didn't. Last week we read an article about the relationship between dreams and myth. Humans who are permitted to sleep but not dream eventually go mad. Campbell argues that myths function in the same way for a society--they give us a way to process our shared (but repressed) fears and needs and desires. And while I certainly don't want all my students to become Christian, I worry about the disappearance of shared myth in our society. I think the prevalence of super-heroic films (Spider-man, Batman, The Hulk, Green Lantern, X-Men, Captain America, etc.) is the result of that longing, but I'm concerned about the quality of these stories, the ones that are becoming our common language. They hinge on the same outcome, they often separate darkness from light. They are immediately recognizable and understandable and safe.

It's a bit early, I think, for Leda or Lot's wife, but I hope these stories become a part of you someday in the way that they have become a part of me. Even if you decide not to become Christian, I hope you read the Bible, for the story of Jesus, yes, but also for the stories of people doing strange and weird and inexplicable things as they wrestle with the world they've been given.