Dear Friends,
I was five when Stanley Kramer's movie 'On The Beach' (1959), based on the best-selling novel by Nevil Shute, was released, and by the time I saw it twenty years later, my star-wars brain considered it a bit slow, slightly obtuse. The stark black and white footage registered quaint.
I admired Gregory Peck and sympathized with Ava Gardner's character wanting to experience sensual love at least once before she died, but the annihilation of the human race from nuclear war, as seen through the eyes of the soon-to-be-dead survivors clinging to the Australian coast, didn't measure up to the fast paced disasters of real life in vivid color on my daily screen. Much later I read that Linus Pauling (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1954) was quoted as saying 'It may be some years from now we can look back and say On The Beach is the movie that saved the world.' (Pauline Kael Review) Really? Granted, it's nearly fifty years later and I'm still alive, but is the world saved? Maybe, but I'm not so sure about the species Homo sapiens.
My cynicism has grown exponentially over the years. After all, I grew up with this ghastly scenario of radiation death looming over my head. Intellectually, I know it well. If our bodies aren't fried in the first few seconds after the bomb explodes, we'll rot from the radiation clouds that will blanket the Earth. The citizenry of Ohio tried to prepare. In Elementary school we practiced filing into the hallway to put our heads under our arms, as if that would save us from the poisoned air. In my circle of adults prayer was invoked…daily.
Luckily, my father and, in particular, my mother's gift for light-heartedness shielded me from doomsday overkill. In the late 60s - early 70s, the all encompassing fear of nuclear annihilation or hell in the afterlife was too much for a sensitive soul such as myself, so I, like most of my generation, partied heartily. Well, what little I could get away with. My father, a career detective, was good at his job, and my whereabouts were high on his check list.
My parents felt their religion was the only option out of this morass of human-spawned misery, and I instinctively felt, then and now, that patriarchal religions are in part fanning the nuclear fire. My strange beliefs did not always sit well with my father, (my mother bowed out of any discussion bordering an argument), but in the end our love for each other was all that mattered, and we all lived long enough for me to figure that out.
After my daughter was born, I experienced my own peculiar 'Revelation' - don't argue about religion. As a result, my folks and I had good times again, like when I was little.
1957 My husband, the freethinker, suspects we are an experiment for some intergalactic super race. Well, why not?
ET Sometimes I feel like Jacob in the Old Testament. After wrestling all night with his manly Angel he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (Genesis 32:30 KJV) After my own 'all night of wrestling' with manly creeds, I too, have seen the face of a God, and of a Goddess. I am that I, and thereby 'saved' via the wonder of me, a being of flesh, blood, and consciousness, just like you, the person reading this.
As a result of much introspection, I no longer look for all my answers in the Judaic-Christian Bible, a book compiled, and edited by a committee of men with personal and political agendas. In fact, I no longer look for all my answers in any book, choosing instead to be open and receptive to the miracle of life before my very eyes. A cursory read of the history surrounding the birth of many 'sacred texts' is a testimony to prejudices that seem inherently human, not divine.
One obvious prejudice is the lowered status of women in religion, which is reflected in our history, art, and in society, as a whole. Are women marginalized because of religion, or is the religion constructed to reflect the human experience? After all, believers of both sex claim the Judaic-Christian Bible is his-tory. Eve did a bad, bad thing, according to these people. History created, or history recorded? 'Putting a woman in her place' is not solely a religious theme, and therein may be clues to the real problem; human nature, the male - female thing.
Unfortunately, while we're waiting for the experts to figure out the 'why,' the rest of us, male and female, continue to be skewered by the visceral policies of unbalanced patriarchal systems worldwide.
Yes, I'm a cynic, and no one has lauded me for 'saving' the world, yet, but I am definitely a player in the game of life. I keep my game pieces at hand, ready to play. My game of words started many years ago when my skin pricked as I read the poetry of Williams, Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, Yeats, Pasternak, Rimbaud, Sappho, Solomon, Ginsberg, Neruda, Bishop, Gibran, and many more. Like Eliphaz the Temanite, “A spirit passed before my face: the hair of my flesh stood up.” (Job 4:15 KJV) A. E. Houseman described the seat of this sensation as located in “the pit of the stomach.” (A.E. Housman, The Name and Nature of Poetry - London: Cambridge University Press; and New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933) p. 46) I've been following my gut ever since.
As I write this, nuclear war is still a threat on this planet, and violence wages all around. Somehow (or by the grace of Deity) I've managed to stay in the game long enough to experience a wide range of human emotion. Death, love lost - it all hurts, and can paralyze, but if we open our hearts to each other, and embrace this breathtakingly beautiful planet, a blissful balance can be reached.
Love can come in all shapes, colors, and sizes, even species. My dogs are definitely sensitive to my feelings. When I come home they make a beeline through the doggie door to the backyard, after foraging through the garbage bin that I sometimes forget to empty before I leave the house. I'm sure it's to avoid a nasty encounter that would spike my blood pressure. A sense of humor doesn't hurt either.
In closing, this humble collection of poems and short stories is a sample of my thoughts for friends, new and old, and an offering to those I have loved, and continue to love. Regardless of belief, we share our place in the sun, and it is my sincere desire that we all survive… 'On The Beach.'
Sincerely,
Conrad Reeder
Juno Beach, FL
2005
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