Day by Day

I watched “The Last Picture Show” during the week. Even though it is a 1971 movie, I hadn’t seen it before. I didn’t see very many movies during my five years on the Snowy Scheme. There is so much that I could relate to in this movie set in a small country town in the early fifties. No, I didn’t get to go to any nude swimming pool jaunts. We were much too inhibited for that, and besides no-one in town had a swimming pool. The closest I got was swimming bare arsed in the river as a kid. But, apart from the salacious bits, there was so much in the movie that evoked waves of nostalgia to this small town kid, and brought the realisation to me of how much we were influenced by U.S. culture even in that small country town in outback Australia.

Above is the picture show. It’s that brick building in the background, and was the most imposing building in town. We didn’t get TV in the bush until early 1974, so the picture show survived for a few years after that. As a kid I used to sweep it out after every picture show, which was three times a week. For that I, and two other kids, were paid ten shillings a week each, but best of all, free pass to the pictures! As a bonus we got to keep any small change that happened to fall out on the seats.

The picture show was the entertainment centre for the town where, regardless of social strata, we all gathered to be carried away in fantasy from our humdrum existence for a few precious hours. I do wonder how many felt as I did as a kid that we were somehow cheated because our lives weren’t like what we saw on the screen. Now, as I read on the internet how dreadful the lives were of some we placed on a pedestal, I am much more circumspect when comparing my life to that of others. Max Ehrmann said it so well, “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” Ah, Max, would that we saw movies illustrating your thoughts rather than those of John Wayne.

So many country boys from our little town escaped by going off to join the services. How I, tethered by my electrical apprenticeship, used to envy them when they returned with tales of exploits in Hong Kong, Japan and other exotic places. I always planned to join the navy at the end of my apprenticeship, but by then I was hearing a different side of services life from my friends, who by now were anxious to escape the confines of service life and return to the freedom of civilian life. It seems that it wasn’t like “South Pacific” at all. The picture show had it all wrong.

So now, looking back on those years where we looked to the picture show to live out our fantasies, I do wonder if we have moved on at all. In some ways I do yearn for that simple life where a couple of times a week the good guy always won, reinforcing our belief that good always triumphed over evil. But the reality is that when the last picture show folded, so did our illusions.

Perhaps it’s just as well. I guess we had to grow up sometime.

“You think this is just another day in your life. It’s not just another day — it’s the one day that is given to you, today. It’s given to you, it’s a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life, and the very last day, then you would have spent this day very well.”

Occasionally in this life you come upon words spoken by another that resonate so well with your own thoughts that you feel an instant rapport with the person speaking them. You want to shout an emphatic, “Yes!!!”. You want to shake him/her by the hand and say, “Thank you so much. My life is the richer for this chance encounter with your uplifting words.” And then you wonder about his/her life that led to such wisdom. Like anything worthwhile in this life, it wouldn’t have come easily.

The words at the beginning of the post were spoken by an elderly gentleman about halfway through the TED video below. He articulates my thoughts so much better than I ever will. He speaks around the middle of the video. Best I shut up and hand over to him, I think. I’ll just stand aside and applaud.

But before I do, you’ll be pleased to know that Squawker continues to improve. He’s quite a character. He doesn’t seem to need to hear any inspirational words. He just gets on with living and gives no care to his disability without complaining. Well, not too much. He’s only a kid after all.

“Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astounding universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.” Carl Sagan

I’d not seen those words of Carl Sagan’s before this week. I suppose he was referring to religion as “spiritual fantasy”, but maybe not. There are other spiritual fantasies we can dream away, I guess. Some believe in astrology, others in New Age spiritualism and the like. And who am I to know what are fantasies and what are not. We each find our own truths in this life.

My blog friend, Hangaku Gozen has this week an excellent post including art appreciation, where she discusses certain works of art at an exhibition she attended with her adult children. She advises that one has to really look at the art piece to determine just what the artist was trying to say. I had to confess that I am very much the Philistine so far as art and literature are concerned. I wish I wasn’t, as I feel I am missing an important part of what my fellow humans have to say about Life, and I am the poorer for it. Maybe there’s still time to redress at least some of this huge gap in my knowledge, but I fear the worst. The rather feeble excuse of the futility of teaching an old dog new tricks comes to mind. 

So, what has this to do with Carl Sagan’s words? I think it can be fairly said that this astounding universe of which Carl speaks is also quite a work of art. And sadly, I think we go through life without appreciating this work of art as much as we might. As my good friend, HG, advises, we have to look closely at the piece of art to fully appreciate it.

And so it is that I came to look much more closely at one of the universe’s pieces of art in our backyard – a young crow, or is it a raven? I can’t really tell. He/she turned up in our backyard a couple of weeks ago, and made his/her presence felt in no uncertain terms by squawking incessantly. On closer examination he/she had plenty to squawk about. He/she was limping rather badly. I suspect it had fallen out of the nest, although it was no baby. I could see the mother trying to feed it from time to time, but that didn’t seem to appease the squawking.

It had a sibling who was able to fly rather awkwardly onto the back fence out of the range of the neighbour’s cat. “Squawky” was unable to get that high, so we became rather concerned that he/she may become a meal for said cat. Law of the backyard jungle, and all that…

So, we took some water and bread down to Squawky and waited. Sure enough every crow/raven from miles around came to feast on this unexpected treat. Squawky was trampled in the rush, well, figuratively speaking. Still, he/she must have managed to get some of the bread crumbs, and seemed to be improving just a little each day. And today, wonder of wonders, he/she actually flew enough to sit on the fence, much to the delight of Mrs Snowy and myself, and no doubt, to Squawky’s also.

And I have to wonder if somewhere else in this astounding universe (or universes) that Carl speaks of, someone is enjoying a wee tipple, and rejoicing in the fact that a little crow/raven could now fly up to sit on a fence – and marvelling at the wonder of it all.