Thoughts on Being Cast Away

I've been thinking about Nancy all day. Most of this past weekend, if I'm honest.

Could be I'm trying to master this solitary life she left me. But I don't suppose I need any special reason to think about her. Still, if I do need a reason, she's on my mind because her birthday's February 8th -- exactly fourteen days from now. Good thoughts. UP-beat thoughts. No sadness.

Anyway, I opened my calendar-book this morning and found the poem I recited to her as part of her every birthday present from about 1979 forward. I still mark her birthday with this same poem. Good habits are difficult to break.

The poem is entitled Love. I can't help reading myself into the poem. It runs about fifty short lines in all. It's about how loving my wife -- and being loved by her -- shaped me in ways I find difficult to maintain. As if living-up to her every day made me a better person. As if her reaching into me and drawing forth the best of me gave me a better self to live up to, as well.

I suppose that now, in her absence -- in the absence of loving anyone as I loved her, and being loved as she loved me -- I'm afraid I'm losing a sense of myself our love gave me for nearly forty years. It's like, over time I realize I somehow became us instead of me. So I miss that person I liked being when she was present in my life. I miss also the work I did, the way I did it, when she was present in my life. I ask myself if I was not a better person during that better life.

This poem captures that idea -- that personal doubt -- better than any other poem I know.

You should find this poem by Roy Croft. It's published in his Collection of Poetry (Blue Mountain Press, 1979). The first nine lines set his theme:

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

The middle lines of the poem specify how his lover discovers within him good things he otherwise would not imagine were there. In this way she helps him grow. The last five lines clarify how her presence changes him:

You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

I know only one other poem that speaks to this idea that loving changes a person for the better, and not loving changes us for the worse. A. E. Housman makes the point clearly in just eight spare lines:

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well I did behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.

Now there's a scary prospect! My fear is that in losing my wife, my loss of mySELF is all but inevitable. How can that be? How can a person lose his SELF? Don't we own the person we become? Doesn't growth have a sort of permanence?

A few years ago I would have answered these questions with a resounding YES!

Now I'm not so sure. I know two things for certain. I learned these two things and acted upon them over the past forty years of my life. First, I worshiped my wife. Second, I loved my chosen work. These two facts shaped my life, fostered my growth, and sustained my mental and physical health. Love and learning are perhaps the two most life-giving aspects of life.

When Nancy's death seemed imminent, I retired. I thought if I spent every moment of every day with her, I might possibly help her pull through. I also knew that if she died, I would know I had done everything possible to save her. I thought that would make a difference. Perhaps it does.

Nevertheless, I miss my work. I think that if I still had my work, it would both distract me and sustain me -- force me to keep growing. Teaching well demands constant study and growth. This blog is part of my struggle to grow, to make sense out of things that interest me, to share such things with anyone who may be interested. The blog is one activity that forces me to study and learn, and then clarify for myself and others what I'm learning. In that way, a blog is like teaching.

I also miss teaching because it was a challenging life out among many people. Being among people was always fun for me. A solitary life is okay. But it's not nearly as much fun. I just don't see what other choice I might have made, given Nancy's situation.

Yet, the blog may connect me to people. Could be I'm speaking only to myself. But if so, the effort is still worthwhile -- if only because it keeps me growing.

One evening last week I was watching my DVD of Cast Away. Be assured I have studied that story scores of times over the past three years. Chuck Noland's struggle to survive and shape his solitary existence proceeds in series of discreet processes by which he masters himself and his environment. We see him make fire, make simple tools, make and shape his shelter, fashion a sun calendar, and yes: even make and love a friend. In many ways, in fact, Wilson was something like a blog. Noland created an audience with whom he could speak -- and imagine responses.

Only when he has completely mastered himself and his environment and expended his growth potential within the restrictive environment of the island. . .only then does he risk total escape from his predicament. He has already tried to die, but has failed in that dread enterprise. So it makes sense that he should cast himself away once more. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say test himself once more.

When life on the island challenges him no more, he makes a clear-cut choice. With the "sail" provided by chance he sets off on a new adventure. He works hard. At the point where he feels he has exhausted all his resources, he casts away his oars and prepares to die. Chance alone can save him.

And it does.

But not quite. Because we know intuitively that life does not give us the comfort that stories do. Most stories have a BEGINning and an ENDing. Alas (or HOORAY!) life goes on. ChoicesCHOICES! ConsequencesCONSEQUENCES -- leading to more damnable choices and more insufferable consequences. Or maybe not: exciting choices leading to interesting consequences. Or, if you like: interesting choices leading to exciting consequences. Man creates his life through selecting and hazarding challenges. Our choices make our lives.

The cross-roads scene near the end of the film is an intriguing choice. We recognize its meaning: the ultimate crux commissa: the cross of commitment. That moment in time when we realize that the choice we make determines most of what follows. Even Christ couldn't avoid such a moment. Nor can we.

The film doesn't permit us to see what Chuck Noland chooses. How many times in the course of the film have we seen him choose? First, we see the life he has chosen at the beginning of the film. Second, we see him choose life on the island. Third, we know he once chose death on the island, though by chance that choice failed. Fourth, he chooses to cast himself away from the island rather than continue that stultifying existence. Fifth, he feels compelled to leave his fiance rather than dismantle the life she has begun in his absence.

Sixth, we find him at still another choice-point at that cross-roads. Four choices. Four new lives. Which life will he choose?

Will he choose to approach the woman? The one package he saved and delivered seems to foreshadow he might. Though we catch only a glimpse of her, she looks like a lovely hand-full. We see she has burnt at least one poor guy's name off her overhead entry gate. How many others has she effectively burnt out of her life? Independent. An artist. Hmmmmnnn!?

The other choices are wide open. No clues. Just adventures. Grow and glow as you go! Noland might find any number of interesting women any which-way he turns. We know he can build a life -- and a fire -- because we've seen him do it.

Anyway, he's so young and beautiful he can probably choose any number of women and any number of lives. Though none of us know how long we may live. . . . (Nor are most of us beautiful.)


Of course, the beauty of Cast Away is that it doesn't really ask what Chuck Noland will do. It asks each of us what choice we might make. It suggests we should pay attention. Are we aware we may at any time be at a "cross-roads" or life-defining moment?

The reason the film fascinates me is that it leaves me at my own
cross-roads. What should I do? It gets me examining my current
situation and speculating about possible options.

First, I'm probably twice Chuck Noland's age. I see no beautiful, artistic, unattached welder-woman in my future. Or any other woman for that matter. In fact, I recently called a woman, only to discover she had changed her number. Hmmmnnnn. Let's scratch that option.

Still, I see three possible directions or ways I might take:

I could sell out, cash out, and split.
But I like it here, solitary or not.

I could stay here in this house and neighborhood I love.
I'm getting accustomed to solitary existence,
writing a blog, working out, doing yoga, meeting
with and enjoying my few friends. living frugally,
taking occasional trips to interesting places.

I could combine this second choice with a serious effort
to FIND a new and interesting place where I might be able to
to find new work as an educator and maybe find a woman.
How 'bout I maybe find a teaching job at a School for the Blind?

Don't worry. Whatever I do I'll maintain contact with my counselor.

We've already got too many
raving maniacs loose on the road.