Random Thoughts From A Winter Interlude Back Home

I. It seems to me that I have been seeing the snow-frosted, western mountains with more clarity of late, particularly in the last few months since I began formulating a plan to leave Montana.

II. The Arctic surface of the frozen river glittered like geological rubble on the surface of the moon. Yet underneath the ice floes and three-car-pile-up chunks of snow, the water was continuing to head north to the Clark Fork. Walking further along that quiet trail behind Kiwanis Park, I came to a gap in the snow and ice, as a channel of water spilled its way along. With the low January sun directly behind this scene, the water was blindingly white. As I moved alongside and passed this little break in the solid surface of the Bitterroot, the water turned green and blue as it sloshed over sheets of ice and eroded narrow land-bridges of snow.

Hamilton is now meant for moments of solitude, a cradle of grace and meditation. It may be time to leave now, but I could see myself coming back some day.

III. I crossed the low-slung wooden bridge, a burnt-sienna flare in the midst of the white of the snow, the grey of jumbled stones, and the brown of wintering bushes. I passed through the stands of aspen trees and along the icy paths down to the water's edge. The trees cut off all connection to and sight of the paved path. So of course I scrounged along the frozen ground and among the dead leaves for a bunch of rocks and fired salvo after salvo into a little island of snow and ice in the middle of the rushing water. Of course, that's the entire purpose for a winter river: a target for throwing rocks.

I think the only thing guys ever really want to do is to throw rocks at things. That does explain our current foreign policy, if you substitute rockets for rocks.

Gradually, I knocked away bits of snow and ice from a narrow section of the mass, enough to cut a new gap for water to sidle through. It's a nice feeling to make a difference in this world.

IV. I spent an evening in front of the fire, drinking red wine and reading. It is a rare thing to read two books in a row that talk to each other. It's like you suddenly become witness to the two authors debating. Sarah Vowell's book Radio On says it's okay to be bored by NPR sometimes, especially by its too-polished news programming; Zadie Smith's novel On Beauty presents people so entrenched in the idea of liberal education and tolerance that they become rigid, fearful, and intolerant.

And after reading that, I watched Firefly with my folks. A bad man took a hostage and began declaiming, setting up a dramatic, drawn-out climax to the episode, until Mal boarded the ship and shot him in the head without breaking stride. In another episode, a crime lord's henchman refused to take the refund Mal offered him for a deal gone south. The henchman said Mal should keep the money and hide, because he, the henchman, would hunt him down and kill him. So Mal kicked him through the ship's engine. Kind of a cross between Indiana Jones watching the Nazi encounter the jet propeller and Han shooting first.

Somehow, it all seemed to relate in one big happy conversation.

V. On a sunny Sunday, Dad I drove forty minutes north and then forty minutes south on an errand, listening to the new Beatles album and just visiting. It was fantastic. We talked about growing older and becoming friends with your parents, and I realized how lucky I am to have such a good relationship with my folks. Not everyone has as good of a support structure for a launching pad.

It's nice to know that you can go home again, at least for a little while.

Random Thoughts Concerning Kurt Cobain, Therefore Not Truly Random, But Reducing the Notion of Randomness To A Farcical Mess Requiring Abnegation

I. Definition of Nirvana= 1. A term used in Buddhism to indicate an end to suffering, deathlessness, an extinguishing of the cycle of samsara. 2. A Seattle grunge band, a voice of disenfranchisement, became a franchise; subsequently the lead singer committed suicide.

II. If Kurt Cobain was such a hero to so many disenfranchised youths, why did he commit suicide rather than continuing to use his success and money to ease suffering for others? I understand they did organize charitable concerts and denounced violence against women and stood against homophobia, but why give up? For such a pure light to self-extinguish, that truly is a tragedy. Granted, I don't know that much about him. What I know is mostly of the iconic, martyred figure used in Nick Hornby's novel About A Boy.

III. Nirvana was already a pop sensation, supposedly to Cobain's dismay. Did his suicide have a Phoenix-effect for him, resurrecting him from the ashes of an unsatisfying stardom to something more mythic? In Hornby's novel, he is described as looking like Jesus--what did his sacrifice do?

IV. If he became a myth, why did the movie version of About A Boy change the musical figure from Cobain to some rapper? Did they think Cobain was passe already? Frankly, the movie would have been a lot better keeping the Cobain plotline. One more instance of a film being a needless desiccation of a book; you can make a film adaptation of a novel and still have substance. They blew it.

V. Suicide does not seem a very Buddhist way to achieve enlightenment, even if you come to the mindset that this body is transitory and an illusion. Nirvana in the Sanskrit may literally mean "to extinguish", but suicide is not what they had in mind, I don't think.

VI. In her book Radio On, Sarah Vowell (who is one author I would truly love to meet) talks about Kurt Cobain "[haunting] the wasteland [of radio in 1995]" most of all." She describes how Cobain's pain and pure anger in his songs was a liberation for many angry, lonely youths growing up. I suppose in the post-Vietnam America of no innocence, he was as close to a perfect idealist as could be found, propped up as a revolutionary figure, propelled to a place of cultlike reverence by his tragedy. Nixon lied, Elvis died, the government lost the trust of entire generations, and the entire culture took on the appearance of a trap, a vicious cycle of suffering, oblivion and used car commercials; samsara, and Cobain's rejection of it does take on connotations of Buddhism.

Was he an example of perfect integrity in refusing to live in a world in which the mainstream culture subsumed his rebellion against it, marketing and capitalizing on his anger?

How does the passion with which he sings of his suffering reconcile with the notion of Nirvana? Only in the escape of that passion and suffering, and that brings us back to the paradox of his suicide.

VII. Then again, he was just a human with a drug problem, and perhaps that was his tragic flaw, marking him more as a Greek tragic hero than a Buddhist guide, which is in keeping with the image of the phoenix.