Month: October 2019

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Secret Identity

From day one, comic-book fans learn that appearances are deceiving.

That awkward-looking reporter there? He’s secretly faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and about to save Metropolis for the 300th time – this week.

That useless-looking billionaire? He roams the streets every night, battling crime with his fists, his wits, and the biggest array of gadgets outside an Amazon wish list.

The nerdy student? The big test isn’t the only thing that has him crawling the walls. Never mind shooting webbing.

And so, it shouldn’t have come as a shock to any fan of capes and cowls when acclaimed film director Martin Scorsese dismissed the long-running Marvel superhero movies – aka the Marvel Cinematic Universe – as “not cinema.”

“Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks,” he told Empire magazine earlier this month. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

At which point, the howl of my fellow geeks could be heard from sea to shining sea.

The thing is, this is not new. And it’s not limited to superheroes. Over the years, it’s been both common and easy to dismiss works of genre fiction as superficial thrill rides that may entertain, but don’t bring anything serious to the table. Works that should stay in their corner, behave, and not pretend to be real literature/cinema/whatever.

OK, time to take off the Clark Kent glasses.

Number one, there’s nothing wrong with a story being fun. That is not only a legitimate use of imagination, it’s an important one.

And number two, the presence of genre elements – whether it’s the snazzy CGI of a super-film or the swords and spells of an epic fantasy – does not mean that a work has nothing to say.

Fans of fantasy and science fiction novels know this well – the genre that was disdained by the mainstream until it became the mainstream. As the scholar Tom Shippey notes, many of the most significant books of the 20th century reached for an otherworldly toolbox. Take “1984,” with its vision of the future used to warn about totalitarianism in the present. Or “Slaughterhouse Five,” which used aliens and time travel to evoke new thoughts from the bombing of Dresden. Or “The Lord of the Rings” whose elves and orcs and hobbits didn’t just illustrate an exciting quest, but showed the lasting scars that even victory can receive in a desperate war.

You could do this for any genre. Mysteries had “Chinatown” and “Double Indemnity.” Westerns had “Unforgiven.” Sports stories had Scorsese’s own “Raging Bull.” On and on, story by story.

And it doesn’t even have to be a critically-recognized classic.  An alert reader can draw discussion, implications, and lessons out of almost any story, independent of any conscious intent of the author’s. I have friends who can begin intelligent philosophical conversation from an episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” – effectively continuing the tale by tying it to the world around them. In any tale told by humans, the human experience will not be far away.

Others have risen eloquently to the defense of the Marvel films themselves and their extended character and story development over 22 movies,  so I won’t go into a point-by-point analysis here. But I will say that this should feel familiar for another reason.

Namely, that it’s not just stories that get dismissed.

How many of us rarely get seen below the surface? How many talents hide inside someone who has the wrong look, the awkward behavior, the socially unacceptable background? How easy is it to look away from someone who doesn’t feel like … well, like us?

How much pain do we cause, to others and ourselves, because of that?

There is always a deeper story to see. In movies. In books. In people. And even if a tale isn’t to our taste, that doesn’t make it nothing.

The heart of a tale. The heart of a person. The wonder is there to be found.

If only we look behind the mask.

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Hall(oween) on Wheels

Missy is just about ready for the season.

No, not the Christmas season. Missy is ready for THAT one at the drop of a jingle bell, at a pace that would embarrass even a major retailer. Holiday displays in September? Please. Missy’s been known to welcome in the spring with a 110-decibel version of “O, Holy Night” on the stereo, and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the Face Vocal Band holiday video in July a dozen times or so.

No, I’m talking about the time of false faces and plastic pumpkins, of ghosts and goblins and culturally-sanctioned begging for food. Halloween is just about here, and Missy can’t wait.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is a new thing. Whether it’s because of her developmental disability, or just a personal preference, Missy never used to like being surrounded by people in masks and costumes, never mind struggling into an outfit herself. The magic began to happen when she realized she could become the heroes of her favorite stories, especially a certain Boy Who Lived. She’s been Harry Potter twice now, with another two Frodo Bagginses mixed in, and it looks like Star Wars might be on the way this year.

So now she points out pumpkins with alacrity and paints them with enthusiasm. (Yes, we paint rather than carve.) She ooh’s over costume pieces and keeps her Hogwarts robe handy just in case. And when October hits, it’s time to roll. Literally.

And that’s where the challenge sometimes comes in.

Because of her cerebral palsy and other balance issues, it’s hard for Missy to walk long distances. So once she’s all dressed up and has her pillowcase in hand,  she and I do the neighborhood trick-or-treat run by wheelchair.

And appropriately for Halloween, that’s when the unseen becomes visible.

If you’ve ever had to travel more than a short distance on your own wheels, you know what I’m talking about. A host of obstacles that most of us never even think about suddenly loom up with the inevitability of Freddy Krueger pursuing a teenage nightmare. High curbs. Cracked pavement. Cars parked on the sidewalk, or hedges reaching over it like a lurching zombie.

In many respects, Longmont is better than a lot of communities about this sort of thing, or we wouldn’t be able to consider trick-or-treating at all. But even so, it still requires constant awareness, regular rerouting, and enough effort in boosting her wheelchair over small hurdles that it pretty much becomes my Oct. 31 core workout.   Sometimes Missy giggles at the effort, sometimes it draws a “No!” of annoyance instead.

At times like this, I am grateful for the neighbors.

On a night when fun could easily become frustration for her, many of them keep a lookout for her. Some have met her at the bottom of porch steps with their bowls of candy, so that she doesn’t have to keep getting in and out of the chair. Some have given her an extra share, or kept a special supply on hand just for her, to make her night a better one. Many have greeted her or helped clear the way for her while going house to house with their own children.

It’s a parade of small kindnesses and moments of caring. And they make a difference.

Just as they do long after the costumes are back in the closet.

Many people face similar hidden obstacles, whether because of race or sex or disability or a hundred other things that are simply part of who they are. Most are like that crack in the pavement – easily crossed without thinking by  most of life’s travelers, but an insuperable barrier to some.

That’s where awareness matters. And kindness. And empathy. A realization that others walk on a different path and face different challenges than we do, and an effort to understand and meet those challenges.

It’s a basic trick. But it can be such a treat. And it makes all our days a lot easier.

Even the ones with overpowered Christmas carols.

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Double-0 My!

As the first flakes of Longmont’s snow season crept to the ground, Leroy Brown stood ready for action.

That may sound a little incongruous for Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown, the ace child detective of Idaville (as opposed to Jim Croce’s ill-fated gambler). But for our new-ish brown Hyundai of the same name, its moment had clearly arrived. The heater roared. The engine hummed. And the newly-attached license plate declared its tough-guy status to the world.

Or at least, the last three digits of said license plate.

Leroy Brown was now agent 009.

As you might imagine, the prospect of our car now being part of the British Secret Service has inspired much hilarity from friends and family, especially when we all considered whether the Q Branch Option Package might be installed. (For the record, there’s no smoke screen and no oil slick, which probably wouldn’t pass emissions tests in Colorado, anyway.) But among the shared laughter, one friend introduced a note of reality – well, cinematic reality, anyway.

“As I recall, 009 suffers an unenviable fate in the Bond canon …”

Hmm.

For those who aren’t deeply familiar with the series, the James Bond movies do have an agent 009. A few, in fact, but the one who gets the most screen time appears in the opening minutes of “Octopussy,” fleeing an East Berlin circus in a clown suit while chased by a pair of knife-throwing twins. (You kind of had to be there.) Fighting back hard against his pursuers, he’s mortally wounded and knocked into a river … but still survives long enough to stagger to the British Embassy and deliver, with his dying breath, the Faberge’ egg that kicks off the rest of the plot.

So, OK, you could argue that it’s an ill-omened number.  But I liked it better than ever.

This was a double-0 agent to identify with.

Everyone knows James Bond, agent 007, the handsome expert on a dozen plot-relevant subjects, who makes the ladies swoon and always has the right gadget to get out of a tough situation. Bond walks through life with expensive clothes, expensive cars, and a plot armor that guarantees he’ll always come out on top in the end, even if many of his lovers and associates aren’t so lucky.

That’s not most of us.

Most of us, I suspect, are a little closer to 009. Struggling against situations that we’re not really prepared for. Having to constantly keep moving to keep from being overwhelmed. Fearing that one mistake or bit of bad luck will bring everything crashing down. Maybe even feeling a little ridiculous while doing it.

And yet, still doing what we need to do, with everything we’ve got in us.

That, too, is a hero. Much more of one than Commander Bond, in fact.

And it’s a heroism we see every day.

Maybe it’s holding a life together in the face of physical or mental challenges … or a family together with finances and nerves strained to the limit … or facing the world while the heart quietly screams for someone who’s been lost. It may be any of a million other situations – the details are personal, individual, private.

But the strength shown is one that speaks to us all.

So Leroy Brown, agent 009? Absolutely. In fact, it’s an honor, one that I’m happy to carry on behalf of all the 009s out there.

It’s a bond. Universal bond.

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Delay of Game

Hold the phone. Stop the presses. Check the stars for once-in-a-century alignment because the universe has gone weird.

It’s October. And Missy’s birthday actually fell on … Missy’s birthday.

No, I haven’t been drinking cold medicine for fun, though the dazed look on my face sure might look like it. That’s what happens when you get ambushed by reality.

You see, this practically never happens in the Rochat household. Or at least, at a frequency reserved for Halley’s Comet, Cubs World Series championships, and smash hit rap musicals on Broadway.

We are the masters of “birthday observed.”

It’s not from spaciness or a lack of care. Missy’s birthday in particular is a major highlight of the year for both Heather and myself. Usually, it means that our developmentally disabled ward gets to hit her favorite bowling alley for an afternoon of pins, pizza, and presents while every available relative in the area cheers her on. That pretty much lifts her into second heaven right there. (Subsequent layers of heaven are unlockable by the presence of dancing, Legos, art opportunities, Harry Potter, and/or live music, especially if the Face Vocal Band is involved.)

But “Missy’s birthday” and “Missy’s Birthday, Observed” have been as much as three weeks apart sometimes. It’s not just a matter of “Oh, this is the closest weekend” – sometimes it’s fighting like mad to keep it in October at all.

There’s the minefield of other birthdays in the family. The wild card of Heather’s health. The challenge of finding a day when even five of us can be in the room at the same time. Heck, one year Missy’s birthday fell in the middle of a major bowling tournament, when there was hardly an alley to … well, spare. (rimshot)

And it’s not just Missy. Between luck and logistics, my February birthday has often gone well into March, or our July anniversary into the back-to-school sales. It’s not the precision of a rifle shot at a defined target, but the run of a World War II bombing raid that lets off all its ordinance in the expectation that something will get hit.

And these days, I suspect that we have a lot of company.

Life happens. And these days, for most of us, life happens at high speed as every moment bombards us with more demands for our attention. Whether it’s the job, the latest crisis, or an electronic environment that sends out more alerts and distress signals than the starship Enterprise, we are deluged.

Is it any wonder that our full worlds collide, bounce, and hold each other off so often?

That makes it more important than ever to step back sometimes, to make some times protected and special. I know, that’s easier to say than do. (Believe me, I know!) But I’m going to say something that may sound heretical.

This isn’t a battle against the calendar.

It doesn’t matter when you make that time. Only that you make it.

The calendar doesn’t care. The clock doesn’t care. They’re tools, and they’re even useful tools. But caring belongs to people.

If a person knows they’re loved and cared for, you can celebrate them any day of the year. After all, in a way, you’re already celebrating them every day of the year.

If you know that this is the moment when you can regain a bit of peace and balance, it doesn’t matter if the sun is high or the stars are shining. It matters that you’re aware, that you know what you need, and that you value finding it.

The world may be chaos. The choices may be limited. But the time you choose will always be the right time – because you cared enough to choose it.

And if that choice lets you cheer on a broadly smiling Missy at a bowling alley, so much the better.