Thursday, July 1, 2010

Slavic Faulkner

After speaking with my parents I'm left wondering and fearing what catastrophe I'll inevitably meet.

My life, thus far, has been boring.  Exceedingly boring. I am shy, insecure, and prolifically phobic.  A boring life suits me well.

I'm in the middle of doing research for a book I'll one day get around to never bothering to write.  I'm planning for it to be like an Eastern European Absalom, Absalom! (sort of like a Slavic William Faulkner novel).  I'm scouring the last four generations of my family for any melodrama or perverse tragedy.
I anticipated finding very little to work with.  My parents only told me a few stories repeatedly as I grew up.  They clearly weren't hiding anything.  I assumed there was just very little to tell.  It turns out, though, that the stories were neither boring nor being hid.

Only a few questions produced tales of Nazis, curses, stabbings, gypsies, infidelity, refugee camps, communists, night time border crossings, and so on.  Further, that's only the Balkan-tip-of-the-iceberg: my father has a bad memory and my mother isn't very interested in stories involving her home town (and I haven't even spoken to my grandmother or aunt yet(!)).

I have enough fodder for writing to get started (as an aside, why do they call it fodder; isn't fodder poop?).  All this fodder now has me asking "why is my life exempt from all of this excitement?"

Perhaps my life will have some watershed moment of tragedy.  The generations of family will forever know me as "Danny.  Creek swimmin' Danny.  The one that died from the amoeba.  Yeah, that one."

Don't get me wrong: I don't envy the action.  I also realize that the only thing I'm probably doomed for is quiet.  My protective parents have coddled my fears and capitalism has me running on a faithful cycle of produce and consume.  My time has been saved for a story sans adjectives.  That's fine.  I've come to terms with it.   

But if I do get tired of the quiet boredom when I'm old I'll just do something crazy and everyone will mark it up to senility.  "Crazy old Danny.  He pushed off in a little sailboat and never came back."

what I listened to while typing:  Devotchka - Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack

1 comment:

  1. Well, I like your writing. That counts for something I think. Depending how you look at it though. You could say "That counts for something" coming from Bryan sounds like he is saying that he doesnt like anything but he likes me writing. Or you could say to yourself "that counts for something" coming from bryan sounds like a presumptious terd, like everything he says is gold. What a jerk!

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