back in the saddle ... sort of
you'll have to forgive the title of this post. i'm hunkered down for a sam peckinpah-fest on the provincial public television station as i type. yeah, i know. a rockin' saturday night.
while a discussion of my love-hate relationship with what i consider the quintessential genre film (the western) could provide some fascinating reading (topics might include my somewhat dysfunctional television upbringing -- due to my mother's crazed affection for a "good duster", by the time i was 10 i had seen the complete john wayne oeuvre, some parts of it multiple times -- or the way in which i thoroughly embarrassed myself in my first undergrad film seminar when i horrified my classmates by reciting verbatim snippets of dialogue from stagecoach) watching ride the high country (joel mcrae *swoon*) made real some of what has been tripping through my subconscious over the past week in such a startling way that it somehow seems worth writing about.
westerns, especially westerns from the 1960s, are often about returning -- think the man who shot liberty valance -- and lately, i've been returning more often than a tennis ball in the french open.
this week marked both my return to the boathouse as a rower and my return to the full-on writing of my dissertation, and while i'm thrilled to have my hands on my blade(s), and my fingers on my keyboard (and to have both enterprises clunking along surprisingly well!), i'm finding the return unsettling in much the same way that the ex-sheriff is unsettled when he returns to the town he "cleaned up" a decade ago to confront a double-dealing partner.
i've done everything i can to make my coming back easier. i've dug out my lucky unisuit, the one with "power" embroidered on the right thigh, and i've hooked up my housemate's new dvd player in anticipation of needing to break out the adam's rib at some point in my writing process, however none of this prep has settled the unsettled parts of me.
i think this is a product of the fact that i'm just not the same person i was, even a year ago. as i've discussed in previous posts (perhaps a little too much, with a little too much evangelical zeal), the start of the rowing season marked a long process of gathering up bits and pieces of myself that had been scattered in a very painful break up, including those parts of me that make up who i am as a scholar. thus, while the environs are familiar, the perspective from which i'm seeing them is not, and at the moment, things look a little topsy turvy. yes, rowing is still rowing, and my dissertation is still a central focus of my day's thoughts -- my feet still drive down against the foot stretchers as i come out of the catch, and i still do my best writing on scrap pieces of paper with a favourite pen -- but i'm seeing it all with different eyes, and thus, along with rediscovering the joy that motivated me to do all this in the first place, i'm finding new pitfalls and blemishes.
like a wary alan ladd cautiously throwing off the comforts of a pastoral domestic life with jean arthur in order to return to his life as a gunslinger in shane, i'm just a little twitchy right now as i confront familiar experiences with altered vision. somehow, i think the only thing that would help is a great opening credits sequence like the one from the magnificent seven. yeah, okay. and having yul brynner as a co-star wouldn't hurt either.
while a discussion of my love-hate relationship with what i consider the quintessential genre film (the western) could provide some fascinating reading (topics might include my somewhat dysfunctional television upbringing -- due to my mother's crazed affection for a "good duster", by the time i was 10 i had seen the complete john wayne oeuvre, some parts of it multiple times -- or the way in which i thoroughly embarrassed myself in my first undergrad film seminar when i horrified my classmates by reciting verbatim snippets of dialogue from stagecoach) watching ride the high country (joel mcrae *swoon*) made real some of what has been tripping through my subconscious over the past week in such a startling way that it somehow seems worth writing about.
westerns, especially westerns from the 1960s, are often about returning -- think the man who shot liberty valance -- and lately, i've been returning more often than a tennis ball in the french open.
this week marked both my return to the boathouse as a rower and my return to the full-on writing of my dissertation, and while i'm thrilled to have my hands on my blade(s), and my fingers on my keyboard (and to have both enterprises clunking along surprisingly well!), i'm finding the return unsettling in much the same way that the ex-sheriff is unsettled when he returns to the town he "cleaned up" a decade ago to confront a double-dealing partner.
i've done everything i can to make my coming back easier. i've dug out my lucky unisuit, the one with "power" embroidered on the right thigh, and i've hooked up my housemate's new dvd player in anticipation of needing to break out the adam's rib at some point in my writing process, however none of this prep has settled the unsettled parts of me.
i think this is a product of the fact that i'm just not the same person i was, even a year ago. as i've discussed in previous posts (perhaps a little too much, with a little too much evangelical zeal), the start of the rowing season marked a long process of gathering up bits and pieces of myself that had been scattered in a very painful break up, including those parts of me that make up who i am as a scholar. thus, while the environs are familiar, the perspective from which i'm seeing them is not, and at the moment, things look a little topsy turvy. yes, rowing is still rowing, and my dissertation is still a central focus of my day's thoughts -- my feet still drive down against the foot stretchers as i come out of the catch, and i still do my best writing on scrap pieces of paper with a favourite pen -- but i'm seeing it all with different eyes, and thus, along with rediscovering the joy that motivated me to do all this in the first place, i'm finding new pitfalls and blemishes.
like a wary alan ladd cautiously throwing off the comforts of a pastoral domestic life with jean arthur in order to return to his life as a gunslinger in shane, i'm just a little twitchy right now as i confront familiar experiences with altered vision. somehow, i think the only thing that would help is a great opening credits sequence like the one from the magnificent seven. yeah, okay. and having yul brynner as a co-star wouldn't hurt either.
posted by Amanda Bonner at 9:49 p.m.
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