Walking away and diving for dreams

We had a nice afternoon, deciding to go to a movie with an early dinner afterwards.  The movie was Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the 2011 release, and was excellent.  I spent some time in Stockholm, so it was nice to see the old city with its narrow streets and cobblestones.  I have been in December when the snow was coming down in a blizzard, and the windows were lit by the Julstacke lights.

The movie had a lot of powerful scenes but perhaps the most disturbing was the terrible rape of the heroine, Elsbeth.  I had not realized that the author, Steig Larsson, had witnessed the gang rape of a young woman when he was in his teens.    Failing to help her,  he was haunted by the brutality of men against women.  We talked about that after the movie, both of us expressing that there are terrible people who are within our midst, perhaps that we know, who do awful, unspeakable things to others.

I also didn't realize that Larsson lived in fear of his life because of his anti-establishment views in which he sought to counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power-culture in schools and among young people.  Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

And finally this sentiment:
“Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause.” ~Stieg Larsson

Walking away without sentimentality is one of the most difficult things.  How is it possible to not have some sentimentality, some grief, some regret?  I have too much sentiment,  I think.  I have found it easy to walk away in the heat of anger. That's the self-righteous part when anger fuels the feet and the mind to distance itself.  But, that fuel gets reduced to fumes when the reality of regret, sadness and great loss come in.  I would like to not lift a finger for a lost cause, but I am a sucker for them.  The underdog, the lost, the downtrodden have intrigued me for a long time.  It is a reason that I was attracted to alcoholics and the unmanageable life.  Sometimes you just have to trust your heart, dive for dreams,  and see where that leads you.


dive for dreams
dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)
trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)
honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death
away at the wedding)
never mind a world
with its villains or heroes
(for good likes girls
and tomorrow and the earth)
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neating each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
-before leaving my room
i turn, and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and were.


silently if, out of not knowable


silently if, out of not knowable
night's utmost nothing,wanders a little guess
(only which is this world)more my life does
not leap than with the mystery your smile
sings or if (spiralling as luminous
they climb oblivion)voices who are dreams,
less into heaven certainly earth swims
than each my deeper death becomes your kiss
losing through you what seemed myself,i find
selves unimaginably mine;beyond
sorrow's own joys and hoping's very fears
yours is the light by which my spirit's born:
yours is the darkness of my soul's return
-you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars 

~ee cummings