“Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and his width and all his power and all his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that spent spray over the old man and all of the skiff.”
Excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.
Two months ago I started reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I did not finish it for no other reason than I was impatient to read (again) The Old Man and the Sea. My other excuse; I was too occupied with our almost four week road trip we embarked on to finally visit three of my sons and their families. (Over a year and a half of sitting in our bunker following the science. Too long we had been away from much of our family and grandchildren!) Vaccinated we felt free to move and move we did. Mid May until the second week in June we drove to Nashville then Greensboro and Pittsburgh. Approximately 2700 miles we saw the USA, not in our Chevrolet, but a beautiful Appalachian view in our Subaru. Of course most importantly we spent many days with our children, wonderful daughter-in-laws, and our fantastic grand daughters and grand sons. Have to confess though I found time to read. Nashville son lent me a great read I recommend to you, HOT,HOT CHICKEN A NASHVILLE STORY written by Rachel Louise Martin. ( I will highlight more of this story in future blogs.)
My daughter in law’s mother is a literature professor at Belmont University in Nashville. We were given a novel that she is having her students read, SING, UNBURIED, SING. Published in 2017 by Scribner written by Jesmyn Ward. SING won the National book award for fiction. I will begin to highlight her novel in a moment.
As I wrote in April, I read the Old Man and the Sea while in my twenties. I remember I was thrilled by the adventure. Hemingway’s attention to details about the great fish and the many days the old man fought him finally “catching” him satiated my life long love affair with fishing. To catch a WHOPPER as we called our massive 6 inch “brookies” as kids was a dream! To this day I am thrilled watching the dance of a small mouth bass, the explosion of the large mouth bass, the power of a brown trout as they fight to escape the hook on the end of my pole. My grandsons and granddaughter share that love for fishing!
My 72 year old eyes re- reading the Old Man and the Sea still helped me capture the young passion I have for fishing but now I empathize with the old man as only an another old man can. This current reading afforded me the insight to understand Santiago’s passion and respect for the fish gave him the strength to accomplish an unbelievable feat. His old age be damned. The unwanted guests at the great fish’s funeral, the sharks, be damned also! Santiago’s priceless adventure was still celebrated by the boy and his village upon his surprising return days later. The fish’s great spear was gifted with love to the boy, Manolin. May be with wishful thinking on my part, I closed the novel feeling that Santiago was not a poor Cuban fisherman but a very rich man. Why? Because his life was lived doing what he loved in a village and the sea where he learned to love and share unconditionally!
As I publish this post I have not finished reading Ward’s novel SING,UNBURIED,SING. Next month I will expand on my thoughts written here. I want to share the following excerpt as it involves Mama sharing a family multi generational gift with her daughter Leonie.
“Do you?” I asked.
“See?”
I nodded.
“Yes,” Mama said.
I wanted to ask her. What you see? But I didn’t……………...
“You might have it.” Mama said.
“Really?” I asked.
“I think it runs in the blood, like silt in river water. Builds up in bends and turns, over sunk trees.”
She waived her fingers.
“Raises up over the water in generations. My mama ain’t have it, but heard her talk one time that her sister, Tante Rosalie, did. That it skips from sister to child to cousin . To be seen. And used. Usually come around when you bleed for the first time.”
One of my life questions: Can “seeing” “hearing” be cultivated? If you have been following along you know that intuition is a focus of my learning to live in the moment.
Of course Jesmyn Ward’s novel, SING is so much more. This novel has a plethora of acclaimed critics, literary and journalistic institutions writing glowing critical praises. The 45 pages I have read of this 285 page story have certainly whetted my appetite. I am especially focused on how she exposes “the cruelty of the criminal swapped in for the torments of slavery….” Slate
Ward involves the Parchman Prison “where twelve and thirteen-year-old black boys were taken for petty crimes…..At Parchman they were beaten like slaves. They died like slaves.” The preceding quote is lifted from An Interview with Jesymn Ward by Louis Elliott.
That intrigues me as I was born in 1949 while my family home was on the grounds of Danvers State Hospital later living on the grounds of Medfield State Hospital. My father was the Superintendent of the farms and I worked as an Attendant in the locked wards of Medfield until I finished my college undergraduate studies in 1972. Parchman criminal, but abusive in their mission, State Hospitals mental, but also abusive to so many over the years, decades and century.
So many state hospital stories. Some shared thru folklore, some shared around the kitchen table, and some seen first hand by me as I started my 45 year career in heath care. I know Parchman Prison thrived on the rot of white prejudice to blacks, but mental health was also ripe with the stench of fear and prejudice to so many who acted in a way not sanctioned by the powers that were and still be!
Stay tuned!
Be in peace and joy!
Thank you for reading.
Mark