Metaphor Morning

A metaphor morning. Crisp and bright, that feel of early October back East, one of those days you loved when you were young because the world was dying and, after dying, coming back to life. The realization was what we used to call a cheap thrill.

They say kids like horror movies because the terrors allow them to encounter death at its most cruel and irrational and irresistible and then overcome it. That is, the kids overcome because when the movie is over – and the sequel be damned – they are still alive and well, ready to buy the world a Coke. That the fantasy is fantasy reinforces the reality. We are alive and likely to be for a good while longer. When you are young one is one and two is two but another 40 years of life is forever.

Interestingly, the math doesn't change much until you hit 55 or so.

Same thing for meeting the Fall when you are young or even middle-aged. We will die. But not now. But as I said, once you creep past middle age….

Enjoy the coffee. Go to the ballgame. Grade the stories and worry a little less why your suggestions are either ignored or misunderstood. Worry less about the quality of the suggestions. It’s not life or death.

Life is life. Death is death.

Hoo-ha! Don’t apologize about rediscovering the obvious, to yourself or anybody. Advise all to read Flannery O’Connor's “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

P.S. appended somewhat later in the day: My link was simply to the first page I could find that gives some sense of the plot of the story. (Link in haste; repent at leisure.)

I would interpet "Good Man" in quite another way, a very literal way and not nearly so hopeful: I just saying knowledge of imminent death changes the way you look at things, which does not mean it's a better or wiser perspective. I think I preferred Granny as bitch, but that's just me.

As for the fact she wrote stories that can mean in so many ways: That's just Flannery O'Connor, girl genius.