I was an airplane recently and met Gary, a 36 year old project manager who was going through a divorce. We were standing in the middle of the aisle waiting for the bathroom and although the cubicle emptied out quickly, we continued to chat. It felt like an international flight somehow, as if we’d have the entire night, the flight attendants would soon join us, pour another cup of tea or glass of wine.
In present tense: I’m bored within ten minutes and angry at myself because of it. I’m also tired and feel let down by an in-flight movie I just saw that was disappointing, starring two of my favorites: Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. I’m convinced that while live theatre always seems to move me to tears, movies rarely do unless they’re on an airplane. As if a message has been sent directly from somewhere in another time. But not this time. In The Lake House, she looked great, he looked great and their voices rang true, but the acting and writing were less than stellar.
One exception in a moving exchange between father and son: “He knows he must be captivated by nature; he must be captivated by the light. Always the light.”
I’m lost in the lack of great writing while he tells me about his last six months. Now lost, searching for ‘resolve,’ I find myself telling him that there’s nothing to find and that it will get worse before it gets better. I’m not a cynic and my own divorce was amicable, so I feel for anyone who goes through the torture of a break with hostility. There’s not much of an age difference between us, yet I feel like the older sister he needed to meet that night, so we continue to talk.
A seeker, he grasps for answers that make sense. I think to myself as I look at his searching face – no answers really make sense. It’s a funny thing, when you let go of clutching onto the sensical part of the questions and the answers, clarity comes, even if it doesn’t have a beginning, middle or end.
Gary has an innocent youthful face matched by lack of life inexperience, despite his years. We continue to wait for the bathroom as others move ahead of us and he tells me that he just finished an inspiring book that makes him question his sense of being and what to do for the rest of his life – a novel, no, well sort of he says, but not really.
Luckily he didn’t watch the movie, the one where I had hoped Sandra Bullock would move me to a different plateau, like great movies, novels and art often can. In the last two hours, he has finished The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell, an accidental account by soldier John Crawford of the war in Iraq. It has also made him lose faith in being an American. Can anyone say Nixon years?
But now, it feels much worse somehow. Then we had the picture perfect family in black and white on our TV sets to fall back on. Today, a central sense of community is scattered in so many directions, people don’t know where to turn.
A good book group choice I ask? Absolutely, he says, eager to learn more about the book group. Move to San Francisco, I say with a smile. He hands me the book, as he dives into the book. I realize this one soldier’s account was perhaps his first exposure to Iraq’s reality. America’s reality.
Crawford and his unit spent months patrolling and occupying a hostile Baghdad and in order to survive, he talks about the need to be inhuman in some of the most human moments. Vietnam was that way. War is that way. He tells me to take the book, so I do and promise to add to my growing pile on my bedside table, all of which get read eventually.
I love the title. It made me think of all of our true stories and how many we truly reveal and to who over the course of our lifetimes. It made me want to reveal more and to hear more truths, more raw realities, more stories of turning to inhumanity at the precise moment we want nothing more than to be human.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
