On Pessimism and Poetry

I ran into Charley the Winters Express publisher a week after my last column ran and he said “your column was the most depressing column I’ve ever read”. OK, I can’t argue with that. It was supposed to be about the December downer that a lot of us feel. I had a few other people tell me that they could relate and also have some of the same feelings. Anyway, writing that column and spending time thinking about how I lean towards the pessimistic view of life just made me wonder WHY?

            Coincidently that week I was looking through an old box of photos, birthday cards, and papers that had been stashed in the basement. I found my high school diploma that my mother had returned to me ten years ago when she was moving to a smaller place. When I opened it there was also my birth certificate as well as my Argentinean I.D. card from when I was 4 years old. There was also a folded up piece of yellowed dried out paper that I didn’t recognize. To my surprise when I unfolded it, it was a type written (for lack of a better term) poem. I recognized it as something I had written in my early teens and man did it hit home.

            I’ve been wondering of late if all my thoughts about the state of the world and of my feelings about life in general are a product of age or have they been there all along? This poem kind of answers that question. I’m going to try and reprint it for you to read with all its grammatical and spelling errors intact. Here it is, my first and (as far as I can remember) only attempt at poetry. Hey, and don’t laugh. Remember I was probably only in 7^th or 8^th grade when I wrote it.

Me     I am me, even though sometimes I wish not to be.   You see I being me, is hard for others to see. Is it not true that sometimes thee does not wish to be thee. You see some peopl think that I dont like being me. But what do they see? They see truth and they seeuntruth. They see me and they see you. They see us in the middle of This over populated over polutid over problemed world. They see maney of me, but I think many of them are like alot like ME                                                 BY       EDMUND LIS

 

I guess we can safely say that I’ve been feeling for a long time now that the world we live in is a pretty messed up place. I also hate to say it, but I think my generation has made it worse. I am part of the original “Me Generation”, we were self absorbed during the 70’s and obsessed with material greed in the 80’s. We are the reason the economy is in the toilet without a safety net for many to hang on to.

Of course when you’re talking about such a large group you have to generalize a little. Not everyone I knew was a money grubbing immediate self gratifier, but I did know a few and I have to admit I had my moments. What I can say is that in my own small way I have tried to change things. Not the whole world just my immediate sphere of influence.

To help combat overpopulation I had a vasectomy before I could produce another mouth to feed. As a small business owner in the early 90’s I used to save and store all my cardboard, cans, and bottles. I would then haul them down once a week to the lone (volunteer run) recycling center we had in town. I also got fired from my 80’s corporate job in part because I was too vocal about my displeasure with the greedy direction my boss (and peer) was taking his company. Most of all what I have always tried to do is just be a good person. I try to treat people, places, and things with respect, compassion, and empathy. Of course I am human so I haven’t always succeeded but I do try.

So this brings me back to the question of being pessimistic. Maybe I’m thinking too much about the label itself and wanting to identify with it. If in my life I keep trying to make things better then I must also be optimistic that it can get better. So am I both or neither, is the glass half full or half empty? You know what I see when I look at that glass, I see half a glass. I guess that just makes me a realist.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 16 of the following link. Winters Express 1/31/13

All I have to say about December is "Bah Humbug"

      This December people were asking me if I was going to write a column for the month. My reply was simply, “it’s the holidays and I don’t want to be depressing”. So why is December a downer for me with all that “joy and merriment” all around. Here’s my list, no need to check it twice.

Birthdays: There are way too many people around me with December birthdays and that adds a lot of stress to the holidays. My wife Diane’s is on the 20th, my twin siblings are on the 15th, the same birthday as my father in-law who died 15 years or so ago. My mother in-laws birthday is the week before my wife’s and my nephew’s is the 28th. Oh, and last but not least; my sister, the one that was murdered the day before her 15th birthday. Her birthday is the same day as my wife’s on the 20th which makes my wife feel kind of weird, so she always wants to keep it low key, especially around my mother.

Christmas: Not having been raised with any kind of religious teachings, Christmas was all about Santa Claus and presents not Jesus or Hanukkah for that matter.  Both my parents were born in Argentina and raised Jewish so I think for our family Christmas was more about trying to be American. We didn't have any history or traditions around Christmas so for us kids it was all about the getting and not much to do with the giving.

I for one have never been very good at receiving gifts which in turn makes me uncomfortable at giving gifts. I've always been of the mind that if I want or need something I will just get it myself. On the flip side I also don’t want to guess what someone else may want or need.

      In my 50 plus years of Christmases and birthdays I can only think of a couple of times where I've been truly happy with a gift I've received. They were both from my wife and seeing as how we've been together for over 30 years that’s about a 3% success rate. Finally after all those years of trying to find me that perfect gift I convinced her to just get me what I want, nothing. So now I get nothing and you know what? I’m still not satisfied, just a little sad.

New Years Eve: Like we need another collective excuse for a party. I guess I’m a little jaded living next door to the most happening party bar in town. It’s just how I want to start the New Year with drunken revelers being loud, exploding fire crackers, and puking on my front yard.

Moira: That was my sisters name, like I said at the beginning she was killed on the day before her 15^th birthday. That would be December 19, 1973. She went off to school that day and never came home. My parents reported her missing but the police listed her as a possible run away. This was back in the day before we all knew about serial killers, missing kids on milk cartons, or that friends could keep a secret about something so terrible.

      At the time Moira went missing our house and family were not a happy place. My parents were always fighting and inching towards a divorce, with us kids feeling the stress. My older brother had just gone off to college and I was a rebellious teenager who couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. When I heard that my sister might have run away I thought “cool” she escaped and I wished that I had the guts to just leave, but I just escaped with the help of drugs and alcohol. For the month before some kids found her body in a park, life just went on for me in my usual smoky cloud of obliviousness. That included her birthday, Christmas, and New Years.  Her murder has never been solved and for most of my life I didn't think much about her life or death. I don’t know if it’s my age, or that I spend a lot of time reflecting on the past, or that my emotions aren't buried in the smoky clouds anymore. But for whatever reason I think of my sister much more these days, especially during December.

      Like I said, December is not my favorite time of year and I’m glad it’s over but it’s not all doom and gloom or an insurmountable downer. There is that short lived collective spirit of giving that we see around us, there is the annual return of Egg Nog, and for Diane’s birthday there is our favorite meal in the world, Smelt & Frites at Bistro Jeanty in Napa to remind us of Michigan and simpler times.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 12 of the following link. Winters Express 1/10/13