Come my friends...

 

When I was in the 7^th grade, my parents took me to see the movie “Dead Poets Society.” I don’t feel like it’s an overstatement to say that it changed my life. It was the day I knew I wanted to become a teacher. It was what started a lifetime of interest in studying residential schools. And most importantly, it was the moment that I realized I loved language:  That there were others that loved language. That poetry was not just for sappy 14 year old girls who published their diaries in the back of Seventeen Magazine.

The movie quoted various parts and pieces of all manner of verse. But the one that struck a chord with me (though truncated) was Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” That day in that theater started my love affair with this poem (that day, followed by no less than 83 viewings of a VHS tape of this movie that I wore completely out before I had even finished high school.) 

We revisited “Ulysses” in our high school English class (thanks Dave...) I wrote a paper on the poem in college and taught the class the day we covered the particular writing. It has been with me for many years, this verse; sometimes when it found me and other times when I called it to my side.

Assuming that other normal, non-nerdy people don’t have a working knowledge of this poem, let me tell you a little bit about it, and why it has always been so appealing to me.

The poem is based on Homer’s Odyssey, and tells the story of our hero Ulysses.  To SparksNotes this up for you all, basically, after his voyage, he comes home, looks around and says, damn. I’m old. And I’ve been through hell, and war, and adventures and battles. And now, here I am finally home. What to do, what to do?

The poem is his response to this return. And his answer?

Don’t stop. Keep living life to the absolute fullest. (I cannot rest from travel, I will drink life to the lees.) Embrace the battles fought by learning from each one. (I am part of all that I have met.) Shun stagnancy. (How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!)

I always loved the ambition. The optimism.  The thought that at the end of someone’s life after a million adventures and hardships, you could still-- would always-- strive for something else; something better.  I didn’t understand why I liked it at age 13. At age late 30-something, I can’t imagine a text more perfectly encapsulating how I want to live my life.

If you happen to be one of the, like, 1% of the world who recognizes this poem at all, it is no doubt due to the last stanza:

Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The number of times these lines have run through my head in my lifetime is innumerable.

But they are fresh for me right now.

By all accounts, 2014 has not been one that I would choose to replay for either me or my friends. Beyond the smaller life things that seemed to crowd the lives of my loved ones; job changes and losses; homes lost or sold; hirings and firings and moves and scares and every day stresses, has been the bigger things this year: Massive illnesses, near death experiences, divorces, deployments, and the passings of loved ones both old and very young. It’s been a year for the books, to be certain. Not the kind of book you’d voluntarily check out from the library (though possibly fodder for a Lifetime mini-series.)  

I’m not going to try to sugar-coat it. I’ve been generally trepidatious about the holidays this year and much more subdued than is typical for me. It’s the first year I’ll be without my dad, which is no little thing for me. I miss him tremendously, especially at this time of year when typically I’d be thinking of fun things to send him; having Ellie make him pictures; planning my trip home to see him. And Thanksgiving. That was our holiday. We were never apart on Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday of the year. This year, he will be conspicuously missing from the table.

So will J.

I mentioned the general crappiness of the year the other day to one of my dearest friends as I was inviting him to join Ellie and me for Thanksgiving. “Even though it’s been a crappy year for us both, let’s get together and celebrate anyway,” was the gist of my invitation.  

He looked at me sort of funny and said basically that he didn’t agree with my assessment of the year. Now, this was quite something coming from this particular friend, given that he was one of the people I would have decidedly chalked up on the side of “suck” if I was making a tally board for the year. 

I looked at him puzzled. “Listen, I got sick in a place I could get better; what could have killed me ended up being not as serious. I have had family trouble, sure, but it’s resolved. 26 years of drama finally over. Your husband is securing your future by doing this deployment thing as quickly and painlessly as possible guaranteeing that he can take care of you and Ellie forever, buy a house and never have to do this again. Your dad passed quickly without much suffering, when you knew he was ready. It could be viewed as bad. But I don’t know…I feel like we’re all still doing pretty good in spite of it all. ”

Though much is taken, much abides.

That’s all I could think in that moment. That he was right. That though it seems like so much has been taken from those I love this year, we all have so much to be grateful for still.

This year, and hopefully every year, I need to remember this. I have so much. And I’ve got so much more to do. I don’t have the time (or desire) to dwell on what has gone. I have so much to be thankful for.

I’m hosting a Thanksgiving my father would be proud of this year. Though he’ll not be at the table, he’ll be here. And  I’ll have a house full of friends and family putting to rest the bad, and sharing with one another our grateful thanks for those things which abide.

Come my friends...

And though we may be a little wrinkled and weathered and worse for the wear (Smite the surrounding furrows!) …and though we may not be a strong as we used to be…that which we are, we are. Made weak by time and fate but strong in will…

This year, we all have heroic hearts. And regardless of what has been taken from us, we will continue to strive…to seek…to find…

And not to yield.