Ditch Digger, Flower Farmer --Kerry

My mother cranked the steering wheel in her bright red 1972 Mercedes into the ditch on purpose if she saw even a bit of flora and fauna that looked delectable for flower arranging. Most indigenous Oregon plants didn't' stand a chance; cattails innocently waving in the breeze, daffodils blooming, they all were prey to my mother's observant eye.

I'd slink down in the back of the car as she maneuvered us onto yet another shoulder of the road and grabbed her pruning shears out of the car in hot pursuit of another plant for her Japanese flower arranging obsession, Ikebana.

I'd fear the worst: "What if someone actually owns that cattail? What if this is private property?"

So far her only violations have been from a few people honking the horn and a brush with three feet of mud, in which she completely lost one of her plastic rubber boots and had to walk to her car in muddy socks. I don't know which was worse sensory overload, the smelly mud or the scotch broom that was jammed in over my head.

Completely unrepentant, she claimed that the only thing that bothered her about the incident was the sucking sound of the boot as it went under.

So without trepidation I pulled the car over the other day - a beautiful, crisp, lush Oregon Spring day and tried to avoid taking furtive glances over my shoulder. I had spotted a Magnolia, in what I deemed was a "public property" ditch. I wrenched it from the branch as best I could without pruning shears. I realized I too had joined the club.

Anyone else a club member of "ditch pilferers anonymous?"

Jargon Riff Two -- Kelly

I suspect the reason I'm so miffed about jargon right now is my need - with so much serious illness and upheaval in my life - to pare things down to the bone.

I've always been fond of sparse, precise prose. "Be precise," I say, over and over and over again, to my writing students. In fact, my own precision hang-up is the number one driver of my on-going writer's block.

Sigh.

So imagine my miffed-ness when I looked up at coffee shop television (blessedly muted) and saw the following bullet point:

Fear of Risk Aversion

Just what does that mean? Am I supposed to be afraid of "risk aversion" or am I supposed to be averse to "fear of risk"?

Literally, both form a kind of emotional double negative and connote bravery in the face of risk.

When I googled the phrase, however, I found the following quote:

Can GM overcome the fear of risk aversion so many American consumers have about its brand, regardless of the actual reliability and competitiveness of its cars and trucks? That's a hard question to answer, and one only the consumer, over time, will be able to answer.

This poses another interpretation, in which "fear of risk" modifies "aversion" (i.e. What kind of aversion? The kind that fears risk, of course!). Such sloppy modification drives me nuts.

But this version, posing perception against reality, offers a lesson far removed from current economic crises.

What is depression (both economic and personal) if not fear of risk? Of change? What is it if not paralysis of courage?

I want to be clear: I do not see depression as cowardice or even as something that can be alleviated by a change in perception; neurotransmitters don't respond to will, after all. Clinical depression is a medical issue, and it's not what I'm about in this post.

A "fear of risk" aversion - just like "process management" - keeps us from living fully and authentically.

Here's hoping all of us can put such aversion aside and stride out into the messy chaos of life.

Jargon Riff -- Kelly

I'm doing my best, these worrisome days, just to be: enjoy what the day brings, and be mindful of my good fortune.

And thank the universe that I'm not part of the jargon-filled world that surrounds me.

My understanding of the need to sit with my life crystallized this week when, making my daily drive past various plants and office buildings, I happened to glimpse - literally - the writing on the wall.

EMERSON

PROCESS MANAGEMENT

"Wait," I thought, "How do you manage a process? Why would you want to? Isn't 'process management' an oxymoron?"

A little googling alerted me to the "true" meaning of that word duo (PM even has its own international journal), and I slapped right up against what I miss the least from my days in university administration: jargon. I flashed back to those horrid meetings - program evaluation, task forces, assessment reports, and mission statement creation. I can feel my pulse rate increasing as I type those words.

As a writer, I was constantly frustrated with the clunky diction and obfuscation such gatherings generated. I'd take my pen in hand and eviscerate cumbersome paragraphs, peeling them down to their essence; sometimes I'd prevail, but often others clung to catchphrases or worried that a pared down version didn't sound "smart enough." Insert graphic of me virtually banging my head against the wall. Why couldn't we just stop and go back to our work with students? Back to true process, which tended to manage itself on its own timetable?

But back to the present.

What are our lives if not process? What are our days if not process?

All around, I see pain and difficulty as people try to manage their process down to the last tiny detail and attempt to control events and individuals.

Granted, some planning is necessary. But isn't the joy of life to be found in its unfolding? Its unfolding, not our attempts to shape circumstances to fit our needs.

Every time I drive by that building, proudly broadcasting its commitment to total control, I pledge to remind myself to let go. To just be.

Stepping away can be the best process management tool I know.

Dream to Novel: A Peeve Story --Christy

Pet peeves. I’ve got lots of them. I guess I’m just a peevish person. But numero uno pet peeve relating to writing is this phrase, “I was having this amazing dream so I woke up and wrote it down and it turned into a novel!” I know of several people for whom a dream turned into a six-figure book deal.

Because this peeve usually comes from the mouths of urban fantasy/romance writers, I’d sort of chalked it up to genre thing, but then recently I read that Josh Berk’s The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, started as a dream. Because I know and respect Josh, I wasn’t immediately peeved; I was intrigued. His book is not urban fantasy and it’s being published by Knopf, most likely on high-quality deckle edged paper.

So I’ve been thinking: What is it about books that start as dreams? I always remember my dreams and have an incredibly rich dream life, but I never wake up and think, This would make a killer novel! Usually I think, Wow, trippy dream! Shouldn’t have has so many Thin Mints before bed.

I think the reason books from dreams become so popular is because for the most part we dream in archetypes—primal, inherited patterns of thought. Look how Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, the perfect example of dream to novel, has become a worldwide phenomenon. That’s some straight-up anima/animus + shadow archetypes mixed with some Mormon doctrine (or at least that’s how I interpret the old man/Edward & young girl/Bella relationship, as well as Edward’s parents/The Church, who gave him everlasting life by “saving him” from dying in 1918, the same year Joseph Smith died. But that’s just me.).

Tapping into the archetypes of the collective unconscious is like hooking your pipes up to city water instead of pumping from a well; you’re tapping into a steady flow of ideas that we all share. These have nothing to do with personal experience, but rather inherited thought buried deep in the primal brain. Sadly, I think I’m a writer who continues to work a deep, drying well. I need to get hooked up to the flow. Come to me, oh six-figure archetype dream! I’m waiting with open arms…

Has anyone out there had the dream-to-novel experience?

Write on --Kerry

My husband is going to be a lawyer at a different place now, whenever he finds that position, without putting too much drama into it. Hence the short blog. It's been a tough week during his resignation process but tough = resilience doesn't it?
I am more emphathetic now, to those who have gone before me. This is a scary place.
Luckily I know that a job cannot take away dreams and love. For that I am grateful.
And losing a job can't take away my ability to write either, and express myself.
So write on everyone, because we still can.
Right on.

Real Magic -- Jennie

As my kids count the days (6) until our trip to Disneyland, I remember my own anticipation before visiting the Happiest Place on Earth as a seven year-old. Amy, my younger sister, and I had side-by-side twin beds with Betsy Clark quilts. Every night after our mom read us a chapter of Little House on the Prairie, Amy and I stayed up for hours, whispering about the Disneyland rides we had heard about, the characters we might see, and the treats our organic mom might let us have.

Like my kids, I had my suitcase packed weeks ahead, but with Dolphin shorts, and Saltwater sandals. Though it was late fall in northern California, it was still warm in the southern half, something else to look forward to.

Amy and I loved each other but bickered a lot over everything, especially who made the mess, and having to wear matching outfits. Plus, I had been having sleep issues, and dreaded the clock’s creeping toward bedtime. But in the mystical days before our Disneyland trip, I couldn’t wait to crawl under the quilt, get past the reading, then enter the world my sister and I had created. We had no idea how big the park was, or what was in it, or what it would look like, but we were delighted to imagine it all.

Finally, it came: the last night before the big trip. Amy thrashed around excitedly in her bed, but I was surprisingly sad. The late-night whispering would be over. So would the trip. And what if the Disneyland we had made up wasn’t as good in reality?

When our parents picked us up from school and drove the long eight hours to the Howard Johnson Hotel, I was nervous. But that all disappeared inside the gates, with its charming Main Street. When Goofy swaggered up to us in his big hat and big shoes, I was enchanted. Each moment was better than the last: the Country Bear Jamboree, the Mickey Mouse pancakes, the Electrical Parade, the Small World mermaids.

Even the scary things were thrilling: the Haunted House and the Pirates of the Caribbean. During the old Journey Through Inner Space, I was equally horrified and ecstatic to be shrunk to the size of an atom.

With the one dollar our dad had given us, Amy and I bought matching name plates: Mickey Mouse, with his arms behind his back, and our names in square letters. When we got home, I stuck mine on my headboard.

For years, even after our mom had finished the entire Little House series, I would stare at that glowing name plate. But instead of remembering the pirates, the pancakes, or the parade, I remembered the real magic: how it felt while I was waiting to go.

All around me, trees welcome spring. Normally I love to watch this process, but this year is different.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know of my mother’s amazing cancer journey and how it is drawing to a close. You may not know that my oldest sister died, at 55, of ovarian cancer in 2000. And now my remaining sister has discovered suspicious lumps; her doctor biopsied a lymph node and removed a fist-sized breast mass yesterday; pathology should be in by Monday.

I, thankfully, remain healthy.

Back to those trees. I’m stuck in a metaphor loop.

Dark branches against the sky are lungs. Bronchi. Bronchioles. Alveoli. All reaching toward the sky in a gasp for air.

Dark branches against the sky are the blue veins visible under the milky white skin of a breast.

Dark branches against the sky are the circulatory system.

Dark branches against the sky are the lymphatic conduits that run throughout our bodies.

Dark branches against the sky take the shape of a brain, tracing the folds and valleys, mimicking the neuron. Axon. Soma. Dendrite.

The tangled nests of squirrels are tumors. The small nests of birds are tumors. Fruit trees bloom with disease. The green buds are tumors, coursing their way though lymph, blood, and tissue.

The process of spring, which should mean growth and blooming and change, has become malignant.

This Concerns Me --Christy

While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. At the same time, draw the number 6 in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it.

This bothers me far more than I want it to.

Reason #1 Why I Might Write--Marcia

In working on a quilt exhibit for the High Desert Museum, I have inadvertently become immersed in American History. In entering it through the world of needlework and fabric choice I am finding history far more interesting than I did through the worlds of the Revolution and the Civil War. The quilts I'm investigating bracket those two seismic events and yet, like a sharp needle, stitch around the edges and reveal a world reflective of its times: wealthy, industrious, patriotic, religious, philanthropic, and artistically talented.

In less than a hundred years, one person's lifetime, America went from a new nation of 13 colonies to an industrial nation in the midst of a Civil War . . . And in the middle of it, women were stitching their hearts out expressing their love of Liberty, their president, The North, The South, the 12 apostles, or "gun boats". Yes, they made quilts to raffle off to buy gun boats. Some just loved fabric--really expensive fabric, challis and calico, block printed and hand painted in India and imported to England and then to America into the hands of the women of Charleston Harbor and beyond.

Fortunes rose and fell. Ways of life collapsed and were reborn.

Due to an embargo on textiles and textile workers in the early stages of our country, all fabric in America was handwoven until well into the 19th century. Colonists made their own fabric, thread, and dye. I can barely get my laundry done, I can't imagine actually making my own 3-ply thread, linen, and dye out of crushed beetles and pee, and then making my own chemise. No way, Jose. Where's my Lean Cuisine and Wife Swap, I can't handle all this industriousness.

I have read many a great quote from those swearing that a woman is only as fine as her needlework and mastering it as essential to good breeding as speaking French, to quilting being the "primary symbol of a woman's unpaid subjection . . . " oh, those Suffragettes!

One of the most amazing stories I have discovered is that of Eliza Lucas Pinkney. Eliza's mother died young. Eliza was educated in Europe, her father was British and lived in Antigua. At 15 she arrived in the colonies and, when her father returned to Antiqua with the British Military, almost immediately wound up in charge of three plantations just outside Charleston.

At 16, while reading Virgil, Eliza got to thinking South Carolina was mighty similar to Virgil's Indigo-growing Italy (!?). Eliza loved botany. Women loved fabric. Women loved blue. It was very, very expensive and had to be imported from India. It took 100 pounds of plant to produce 4 ounces of dye.

She found her own niche market. The young botanist decided to tinker around in her spare time with growing Indigo. Four or five years later, at 21, she had her first successful Indigo crop. She exported it to England, shared the seeds with her other plantation pals and Indigo became South Carolina's most profitable export.

"Indigo proved more really beneficial to Carolina than the mines of Mexico or Peru were to Spain.... The source of this great wealth ... was a result of an experiment by a mere girl."

--Edward McCrady, historian of colonial South Carolina

Eliza amassed a great fortune, and from all accounts worked really hard for it, and considered herself a patriot. During the Revolution, however, her plantations were destroyed and her life left in ruins. She lies in an unmarked grave somewhere in the south, but there is a stone commemorating her as the mother of two sons of the Revolution. Hmmmm.

Something about Eliza's pluck, acumen, determination and demise is stirring, haunting, and disturbing. Indigo is my favorite color. Charleston is a fabulous city . . . Do I have an historical novel in me? Has somebody already done it? It certainly can't be as hard as handweaving flax.

Online Mothers--Kerry

Horrors! I turned on, gasp, daytime t.v. this morning and watched the "Today Show" pundits. Normally I get my news from an NPR webcast, but today my husband was home, so I can blame the t.v. indulgence on him, can't I?

I did learn something actually relevant to blogging, mothers and life in general. (Amazing! My i.q. did not actually fall when I watched the tube). An advertising exec from an agency called Razorfish was being interviewed for a segment called "The Big Business of Online Mothers." She explained that websites such as Cafe Mama http://www.cafemama.com/ (started by former editor of Hip Mama and Portland resident) and other online websites designed by mothers were rapidly proliferating and influencing the advertising demographic, including, yes, the blogosphere, in many areas of life including environmental issues in the case of Cafemama. Advertisers were giving away products to online journalist mothers, in hopes that they will influence their demographic to buy a particular deodorant or diaper. Yes writer mamas, apparently there is hope for us yet in the land of free stuff even if we don't get paid to blog.

So if we diligently post our blogs and wait patiently, is free stuff going to start arriving on our doorstep? I'm still waiting, but at least it's given some meaning to turning the t.v. off and blogging.

Saint Dominic -- Jennie

"Who do you hold in your arms?" Father Anthony asked my husband eleven years ago in the vestibule of Our Lady of the Mountain during our son's baptism. "What will he be?"

"Whatever he wants to be," Dave answered, pulling the white gown over Dominic's baby feet.

"He could be a great artist," Father Anthony said. "Or a saint. You could be holding a Nobel Prize winner."

This was big. Having our first baby was tough enough. We had never thought about his potential, his impact on the universe.

At only nine months old, Dominic was already a vessel.

Here we were, in church again, less than two weeks after my mom's funeral.

"There is great grief in this family," Father Anthony said. "Let this child heal you."

He has.

I can't tell you the sorrow that melts when this boy puts his arms around me. He has hands like his dad's--large and capable--and shoulders that invite the world to rest there, as his brother and sister, and his uncles and grandpas often do.

"Do you realize the significance of his name?" Father Anthony had asked during the pre-baptismal meeting. "Saint Dominic: handsome and compassionate. An ordinary boy, with extraordinary love."

Eleven years later, this is so true. Our Dominic is a gentle spirit who stands up for the mistreated. During his first grade year, the classroom assistant cried while telling me about Dominic pairing up with his autistic classmate and cheering him on in P.E.

Our hero of virtue is in fifth grade now, and we hear these kinds of stories about him every week.

He is a friend to all, a leader.

There's a lot of pressure on this young man, most of which he puts upon himself.

He takes out the garbage, ties his little brother's shoes, and starts the car every morning--without being asked.

Last month, when I was behind on itemizing our business taxes, I considered having Dominic do it. Although he'd be happy to, I managed to remember that he isn't even in middle school yet. But really, he would've helped out--no complaints.

How did his daddy and I get such a miracle?

We are asked often.

There's a lot of his daddy in him: discipline, a good heart, the will to do what's right. But he is himself, too: a fanatic Lego builder, an electric guitarist, a bike jumper.

What will he be? We still don't know.

But this is for sure: Dominic, who has slept on the floor by his little sister since her bout with epilepsy two months ago, who slipped an extra dollar under his little brother's tooth fairy pillow last night, who asks me how my writing's going, this boy is a gift from God.

A Flashy Recycle -- Kelly

Me? I got nothing today.

So, in honor of the seven writers at Flashy Fiction, I offer my response to today's prompt, recycled from aways back.

I don’t remember which of the guys got the idea to replace the star on the tree with a picture of John Lennon, but Ben handed me David’s copy of Let It Be and a pair of scissors.

“I’m too stoned to cut straight, and what if I cut George, man? I never liked John that much but, shit, he’s shot.”

All things considered, I didn’t double check with David before I cut. I handed the portrait to Ben, and he pulled a chair over and propped it among the branches. Everyone was quiet for a minute. Just then, someone on the other side of the room dropped the needle on The Stones “Miss You.” There’s justice, I thought. The King is dead. Long live the King. Let’s dance. I chugged the rest of my wine, put the mutilated album back in the block and board shelf, and headed to the floor.

It was just after ten, and faculty were starting to trickle in. They’d been grading all evening and were ready for a break. I felt hands on my waist, and a voice in my ear shouted, “You look thirsty. I’m headed to the keg. Now do you like it with head or no head?” I knew it was Professor Reed*. “Head, always!” I smiled and slipped away. I’d seen Professor Williams come in, and thought I’d best attempt a rapprochement.

I was pretty sure she’d be here tonight. David had shown up at one of our Friday night department drinking things, and she’d taken notice. His painfully thin, tofu fed demeanor called up her Berkeley glory days. His radar registered this immediately and, being David, he began figuring out a way to use it. He knew he’d need an outside reader for his dissertation. He’d audited one of her courses, poured it on pretty thick, and my radar detected her attraction. Even though my dealings with David were a deep secret I was pretty sure that, somehow, Williams knew. Williams always knew everything.

I knew she liked red wine, so I picked up an extra for her and headed that way. We made eye contact and I lifted her glass. The group of dancers blocked my view, so it was way too late to turn around when I saw that David was on a similar mission. We arrived at the same time, and when she turned to greet him, her gaze fell on the tree and rose to the top. She spun around and hissed, “My God, what have you arrogant children done now.”

Flashy Fiction!

Here's a fun new diversion: Flashy Fiction! Seven writers, seven days of flash fiction. Each day there's a new writing prompt, which will inspire you to write a mini "flash fiction" piece in the comments section. It's fun and gets the gears rolling...come check it out!

Reason #5628 Why I Can't Write--Marcia

I called in sick today. James was snoring, it was rainy, there was a sub in my classroom, I' m on a deadline. I'm sick of school, my kids are sick of school, I'm freaked out about a job due Friday. So I decided what the hey, I'm calling in.

I settled in front of the fire with my big stack of books, a nice cup of coffee, my slippers on . . . the kind of day I dream of in my head all the time, and get to experience once every three years . . . Ahhhh, I started ruffling through the beautiful pages picturing quilts made by women more than 150 years ago.

Then someone rapped on the door and rattled the knob, and my morning by the fireside deep in research was over. My little idyll came tinkling down around me like so many crystal pendants on a delicate chandelier. I kid you not, my bliss, carefully constructed, lasted less than five minutes.

So, the day has slipped by, my work is not done, my blog is not done, and my writing is not done. Here is what I have to offer today:

In honor of Women's History Month, there will be a poetry reading tonight down at the Community College. This sounds like the kind of thing I ought to be doing. The last time I did anything literary-ish was more than a decade ago when I had a poem published in the West Wind Review. We met at the Rogue Brewing Company and congratulated ourselves and "read" our pieces. It was so long ago, I wasn't even married. It's been awhile since I've submitted anything.

I picture myself going downtown tonight--hanging with the artistes. Do I still own a black turtleneck? I need something in my nose or tongue don't I? A tattoo? None of the looks I used to sport would make the cut anymore: I liked to look either deep and interesting or romantic and poetic --sort of Gloria Steinem meets Nora Lofts in a vintage petticoat. Now I just try to put on a little mascara and make sure I'm in something other than my husband's underwear. (Yes, I have worn them in a pinch.)

In Honor of Women's History Month, I delve back into my own . . .

Here is a musing from a file I just opened entitled "college years".

"Hey you! These ain't no radical rose colored glasses. It seems to me Joe, that your glasses are pretty pink as well. Thinking it don't matter. Thinking you can run around with your money and your white skin and your fancy education. Didn't you learn that the world is our backyard? Or were you in the class that said the real man is an island unto himself? That's what you must think man. Yea, you go off and make your little graphs and charts. Collect your data. All of your practical information and go be rational. Make your practical investments. But remember you aren't an island--somebodies blood is gonna spill all over you, that you are drenched in it already."

I went to a beautiful, dreamy, tiny East Coast Liberal Arts College. Almost everyone was priveleged . I think I was mostly angry at my dad and brothers and instead, while heavily influenced by my Democratic-Socialist boyfriend got very het up about South Africa. I was so militant I protested The Man, who was actually Margaret Heckler, and walked out (briefly) on my graduation ceremonies. I did, however, have on, underneath my blue gown, a long peasant skirt, a red leather cummerbund and a high-necked victorian blouse--All of this before Medicine Woman.

Here is a doozy I believe written about loving the wrong kind of boy . . . something I did fervently and often.


"Why did she stand in the wind,
sand biting her ankles,
cardboard truths folding against her chest
Pressing a hip to hold up the corner of his hope?

Why did she?

Not because he needed someone to believe
in the creases and vegetable stains of thin worn words.

Maybe she believed in hard-pressed paper
Maybe she found something sound in corrugations
but mostly because cardboard can't stand alone in the wind."


Nice. The stains and creases concern me. I didn't like being too specific back then. I didn't want my mom or the loser boyfriend to know what I, I mean she, was talking about.

Here I am at my tragic/romantic best circa 1985:

"I search myself for the spot where the pain used to be
the ache which was you
Your tongue in my heart [he was a really good kisser]
A pain-in-the-ass neighbor one learns to live with

I woke this morning to find the house of my heart
Clean
And empty
A history of what I used to call love
Vacuumed away

Just when I was getting used to it."


Now skip forward about twenty years. I spend most of my time writing about my neighbors: Women's History Be-damned!

They are so worried about their lawns.
I knew she wasn't nice.
She and the skinny, enhanced Martha Stewart from across the street always
comparing notes.
Martha's house is bigger
Her Bungalow-style garage is a workshop and a studio
It's all white inside--nothing but a Table Saw and an elliptical.
Martha has a white terrier.
The West Point Bitch has a schnauzer
and she just had her new sprinkler system dug in
and her lawn rolled out.
She doesn't even let her own dog poop on the lawn
She frisks down the street in her fleece anorak
big glasses
and leggings
dog neat on a leash.
I don't know where she lets him do his business.

When my giant gallumpher goes roaring down
the block headed straight for Martha Stewart's
(he likes the terrier)
he crosses West Point's freshly rolled lawn.

My child goes racing after on a rickety-ridge scooter
scudding along the asphalt
chasing the black beast from hell
only to find
West Point
out on her green green grass
daffodils and snow drops curling at the base of
a lovely dogwood
her B.B. gun aimed directly at his heart.


So there's the drivel from the archives. Have a great day! Celebrate your own history--you too can be really embarassed.

Short Attention Span Writing--Kerry

The sign flashed in front of the car as I was driving through the bucolic town of Amity in the Willamette Valley.

"Amity Vineyards", one of the first vineyards in Oregon, was painted on the 4 x 6 wooden board. There was a bit of paint peeling in the corner and blackberries graced the bottom of the pole it hung from. This simple unassuming sign prefaced an entire story line I created in my head as I continued to drive. The owner of the winery and my family had planted our grapes during the same years in the 197o's.

"Path of the Pinot Pioneers" is still in my head. I am waiting for the perfect time to get it out on paper, in between bouts of a persistent stomach flu that is traumatizing my children and countless other things that take precedence to the birthing process of article writing.

At least I know the story is there, in line with several others.

I'm composing stories in my head all the time. Getting them onto paper is another thing all together.

THE Movie -- Jennie

If you only have seven dollars for one movie, see "The Wrestler." With its simple scenes, the plot is unpredictable, delivered with clever cinematography and well-crafted acting. Mickey Rourke elicts respect and compassion. Women will swoon (and cry), and men will seriously envy those abs.

And the soundtrack? Will take you back twenty years right to the state fair. I could never define how I felt about the next decade of music, until Rourke put it into his words.

"The Wrestler" beats "Slumdog Millionaire," in that the film does not rely on sweeping cinemascapes, color, flashbacks, or a cast of hundreds. It is not as inspiring as it is empathizing. If nothing else, it is rich, heavy in metaphor and irony.

This is a film that explores the tough and tender sides of a one-trick pony's struggle to define his essence and purpose. Like the wrestler himself, the story is simple, but deep. We may not agree with the wrestler's choices, but we understand his fight, and cheer for him all the way.