It’s surprising where you find encouragement, and lessons of strength and grace.
I was reminded of that recently when I watched, again, the “whale scene” in the Pixar movie, “Finding Nemo”. Certainly those of you who have seen the movie recall when Dory (the short-term memory-challenged fish) and Nemo’s father, Marlin, are ingested by a whale while in the midst of their search for Nemo. The scene marks the nadir of Marlin’s faith in his ability to find his son. Here’s how it goes:
MARLIN
Would you just stop it!?
DORY
Why? What’s wrong?
MARLIN
We’re in a whale! Don’t you get it!?
DORY
A whale?
MARLIN
A whale! ‘Cause you had to ask for help! And now we’re stuck here!
DORY
Wow. A whale. You know, I speak whale.
MARLIN
No, you’re insane! You can’t speak whale! I have to get out! I have to find my son!
[sobs]
I have to tell him how old sea turtles are!
DORY
Woo-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoo!
(notices MARLIN, now seemingly without hope, laying on the back of the whale’s enormous tongue)
Hey. You okay?
(comforting him)
There, there. It’s all right. It’ll be okay.
MARLIN
No. No, it won’t.
DORY
Sure it will, you’ll see.
MARLIN
No. I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him.
DORY
Huh. That’s a funny thing to promise.
MARLIN
What?
DORY
Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.
(noticing that the WHALE has come to a stop)
Hmm..
MARLIN
What’s going on?
DORY
I don’t know. I’ll ask him. MMMWWHAAAAAAAAA! HUUUWHAAAAAAAAA..
MARLIN
Dory. DORY!
DORY
..AAAAAAAAAAT’SSS-GOOIIIIIIING..
MARLIN
Dory!
DORY
..OOOOOOOOONNN?
(to NEMO)
I think he says we’ve stopped.
MARLIN
Of course we’ve stopped. Just stop trying to speak whale, you’re gonna make things worse.
(there is a sudden decrease in the “tide pool” within the whale’s mouth)
[gasps]
What is that noise? Oh no! Look what you did! The water’s going down!
It’s-it’s-it’s going down!
DORY
Really? You sure about that?
MARLIN
Look, it’s already half-empty!
DORY
Hmm…I’d say it’s half full.
MARLIN
Stop that! It’s half-empty!
The WHALE speaks again, in “whale speech” unintelligible to us.
DORY
Okay, that one was a little tougher. He either said we should go to the back of the throat, or he wants a root beer float.
MARLIN
Of course he wants us to go there! That’s eating us! How do I taste, Moby?? Huh?? Do I taste good!?
(to DORY)
You tell him I’m not interested in being lunch!
DORY
Okay. HEEEEEEEEE–
MARLIN
Stop talking to him–waaaah!
The water level drops again and the two small fish are seemingly about to be consumed by the whale.
DORY
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
MARLIN
What is going on??
DORY
I’ll check! WHAAAAAAA–!
MARLIN
No! No more whale! You can’t speak whale!
DORY
Yes, I can!
MARLIN
No, you can’t! You think you can do these things but you can’t, Nemo!
They both realize that MARLIN has used NEMO’S name instead of DORY’S name; in essence, a replay of a prior argument between MARLIN and NEMO.
DORY
Okay.
MARLIN
(hanging on for dear life)
Dory!
DORY
He says it’s time to let go! Everything’s gonna be all right!
MARLIN
How do you know!? How do you know something bad isn’t gonna happen?
DORY
(after a pause to ask herself that same question)
I don’t!
MARLIN/DORY
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
And I’ll leave the conclusion of that scene to those of you with access to the movie. It’s a wonderful moment and it serves to center the film on something less random than randomness. While I won’t go so far as to call this the “God scene”, the parallels to Jonah’s experience are undeniable, and clearly the fact that Marlin and Dory have navigated a great expanse of ocean to reach a seemingly unattainable goal (finding a single clown fish, now captured and kept in a tank in a dentist’s office hundreds of miles away) represents a circumstance too unique to be circumstantial. When you add Randy Newman’s lush, mystical soundtrack to the scene, it becomes…transcendental.
Go see for yourself.
Thanks to those fine writers and storytellers at Pixar for today’s motivating lesson for me.
“In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity.”
In 1938, Samuel Barber sent Arturo Toscanini the score for his “Adagio for Strings” and Toscanini sent it back in short order without comment. This apparently annoyed Barber until he got word that Toscanini was going to premier the piece in November of that same year, and he had simply returned the score to Barber because he had already memorized it. In fact, he did not look at the score again until the day before the premier.
The really intelligent people of this world are different than me.
Sung, improbably, by Michael McDonald, at what must be the top of his range.
Beautiful song from another age.
“I Can Let Go Now”
It was so right
It was so wrong
Almost at the same time;
The pain and ache
A heart can take
No one really knows;
When the memories cling
And keep you there
‘Til you no longer care –
You can let go now
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/c/collin_raye/i_can_let_go_now.html ]
It’s wrong for me
To cling to you
Somehow I just needed time;
From what was to be
It’s not like me
To hold somebody down;
But I was tossed high by love
And I almost never came down
Only to land here
Where love’s no longer found,
Where I’m no longer bound
I can let go now;
I can let go now
Well, it’s certainly good to be back, y’all!
So much has happened since last I spoke, to whomever is listening; relationships have come apart and the ragged ends regenerate like a seed carried by the wind. Sadness predominates, but with episodes of such profound bliss that I’m truly thankful to have lived through all of this without the loss of my health, both physical and psychological. And it has brought me, once again, closer to my walk with Christ, and that carries with it the entirely of the universe. Hard to argue with someone whose domain is defined as such.
As if that isn’t enough change for a lifetime, I have left my former ER job and am headed to another, with a blessedly short interval of downtime between jobs. It’s easy to panic in situations such as that but ER docs don’t do panic very often and I’ve held to that throughout. As it’s hard to hit a moving target, I’ve found solace in remaining ever in motion. And I have to say that my former keepers have been very good to me in terms of helping me to find other opportunities in emergency medicine. Also, I answered approximately 4 postings for locum tenens jobs (the medical form of “freelancing”) on locumtenens.com and for 5 days straight my phone did not stop ringing with potential opportunities. Those of you who’ve known me for a time will recall that most of my life prior to medicine was structured in a freelance model, and I was most happy when I had a host of opportunities out there. It’s good to drink from different fountains during a drought, or a plague.
Hence the permanent presence on my computer monitor these days: I will never, ever again have only just one job. That was my mantra when I was in TV; thank God I was reminded of it, and the wisdom inherent within.
My daughter, who will turn 8 years old in a few days, remains a bright light in my life as she is as resilient and level-headed as any adult I know. She lives in the “now,” which is not always such a good thing for adults but for a child trying to make sense of a complex world, it’s a blessing. “What do I need now?,” says the child’s mind. “What do I not have?”
For me, the answer is presently, “not much.”
* As an addendum, may I heartily recommend to you the choral/orchestral recording of Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna. It’s sublime, mystic, and immensely beautiful throughout. If I have mentioned this previously, please forgive the duplication.
I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshine-y day.
I’m sorry for the absence — many, many changes in the interim. Notably, I am apparently worthwhile to God, else I would not be alive and, at this moment, typing out my telegraph message from out-to-sea. Though I cannot yet see the shore, I’m headed there and should be back on dry land within a few months. Much love goes to my friends and acquaintances who understand that sometimes the quickest and surest way to save everyone on the plane is to jettison the toxic cargo — in that case, me.
Peace.
In answer to that question, there’s a bit of turmoil in our lives at present. Blogging on that issue isn’t quite the right thing to do, but i do intend soon to address my recent withdrawal from Facebook (however temporary — or not — it may be) and my response to the resultant silence <insert sound of chirping crickets HERE>.
But here’s a hint to my take on that silence: peaceful.
Love.
OK, lemme get this straight:
New iPhone customers can get the new iPhone 3G S for $200 less than existing customers, due to the “early upgrade” clause?
Hey, AT&T:
1. Current iPhone users are your base. You make money on the service plans, and with most hardware you’re revenue neutral.
2. The Palm Pre is really cool and can multitask in a way the iPhone, even with the 3.0 update, cannot. And Apple hasn’t figured out how iTunes can identify and block the Pre from syncing with it like an iPod. And Verizon is simply a more reliable network than yours.
3. A version of the iPhone is coming to Verizon soon. Your monopoly on the handset, at least in a limited sense, is about to end.
4. You’re gonna get us with a new two-year commitment if we buy the 3G S anyway; it’s arrogant to charge $200 for the luxury of upgrading the handset.
5. We’re in a recession.
I predict the launch will be substantial but not overwhelming. I also think AT&T will back off this pricing plan after their initial numbers don’t measure up. It’s hard not to see them as greedy in this particular strategy. The mobile phone landscape is changing rapidly and AT&T has never proven itself to be particularly adroit. With the Pre out there and the Android platform maturing steadily, it’s about to be a whole new ballgame. Boys, you might want to rethink flogging your base to recoup revenue losses from the current downturn.
I’m just sayin’.
**N.B. ATT came to thir senses in the bottom of the 9th inning. They’ve reduced the price of the phone to what a new customer would pay, although you do have a contract extention to deal with. I swear, when this cell phone crap hits the fan someday, a lot of people are going to see cellphone service providers for what they are: the dial-up service providers of the neo-cell era.
Remember when people thought free internet access was crazy?
When does a 58 year old man who appears drunk, has difficulty walking, is slurring his words, appears dehydrated, is tachycardic, a little hypotensive, and yet can carry on a meaningful conversation come to the ER and get right back to a room and a lot of attention?
When he’s septic. Happened this morning. Great case!
“The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy.”
Corrie Ten Boom
Here’s to my tante Louise, who died Friday at the age of 84 years.
She was born in Normandy, France and once administered (undoubtedly under duress) to Herr Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany, a manicure, in Paris, during the Nazi occupation of France.
I called her by telephone last Thursday, the first time I had spoken to her in 15 years, and on Friday she died, in Sacramento, California. She is the widow of my uncle Forrest, brother of my mother, Clara, and as far as I am concerned the matriarch of my mother’s family. Who can claim a pedigree such as hers?
As I was saying goodbye, she interrupted me to say that she loved me. Of course, I reciprocated, but my sense is that the one who first brings it up forever has the upper hand.
She’d insist on having it that way.
My daughter, Mimi Louise Herren, aged six years, carries her name forward.
Godspeed, tante Louise: back to Gaul, and to all there that beckons your return.