Favorite child?

Whenever our family congregates, my siblings and I engage in, what I imagine to be a fairly common but in our case, semi-flippant debate. Assuming hindsight is 20/20, we turn the finger of accusation at one another with an impish pleasure at teasing our parents about the clear inequality in disbursement of attention toward their five children.
Being the youngest of five in a family with vast age gaps between the children, my status as the baby lends itself to frequent discussions over the ease with which I grew from toddler to adulthood. My brother and sisters remind me that by the time I reached the adolescent years, our parents had been worn down by the shenanigans of my way-paving forerunners. Ceding their point, I counter with the argument that being left to one’s own devices by definition means being left alone. While my mother regularly expressed an interest in my life, my father’s participation tended to be limited to occasionally sarcastic remarks or uttering the phrase “You are grounded.” In between punishments I was routinely an island unto myself.
During these friendly debates someone in my family inevitably recalls the deep affection showered upon me by my father as a young child. This is a point I dare not argue. I vividly remember the hours I spent with my linebacker of a father during my formative years. He carried me everywhere, like a football, and took a personal interest in my youthful projects. I particularly recall creating my own little publishing business in which I would gather numerous crisp white sheets of paper, fold them into booklet form, staple them, and add cover designs of my own invention. My father would happily exchange a nickel, perhaps even a quarter, for my handiwork, despite the poor substantive quality of the product. Most often the pages inside my products were blank.
As I grew, we seemed to grow apart. Affection, warped by emotional distance, synthesized into discomfort and then resentment. I stopped listening to what he was saying, because of the probability of an ensuing argument. Lacking any athletic skill, I sought to connect with him through our mutual love of music by joining the school band as well as the school choir. The bi-annual concerts evolved into another source of alienation. Each performance my eyes devoured the audience to determine if this was the concert he would decide to attend. The only school function dad attended in my behalf was high school graduation.
The apex of alienation occurred when, after a year –and- a -half of college, I dropped out and returned home. Unspoken disappointment seeped into all of our conversations. I was his only college drop- out. The four other Bailey children had graduated college and started families, endowing him with the greatest possible joy through grandchildren. I, the youngest, was working as a retail manager.
Retail management defined my life for almost ten years. Respect for my dedication to hard work became a connection between dad and me, but his regret at my unfinished attempt at higher education and full adult status lingered. While we were comfortable enough to enjoy watching a good game on television, I felt a vacuum of deprecation preventing a genuine breakthrough. Then my life changed.
In late winter of this year I was laid-off from a promising new job. What would my father think? How could I tell him about yet another failure? Fear of his reaction led me to a period of profound reflection on what my future held. After more than a decade away from the academic environment, I decided to take the leap and restore my father’s pride in his youngest daughter by finishing college.
Recently, dad and I talked about my decision and he gave me more than those nickels and quarters from childhood ever could when he said, “I always knew you were my smartest kid.” Maybe my siblings are right after all.

The art of loneliness...

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

- Pearl S. Buck

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

- Pearl Buck

I have been to the mountain of loneliness and waded through the river of solitude. The complexity of the meaning and value of Loneliness and her siamese twin, Solitude, fascinates me. What are the parameters for loneliness versus solitude? How sharply defined is the individual identity of each, when utlitmately fused to one another in some unfathomable way.The irony is that the physical element required by the inherent nature of Solitude has little to do with the underpinnings of her sister, Loneliness. One can be heartbreakingly lonely swimming in a sea of people, or achieve complete fulfillment in the solitude of an early morning sunrise. One of my favorite sources of rest for my weary soul is to relax on the beach on a cold winter's day. With the wind whipping through my hair and burning my cheeks the crash of the ocean can often calm the anxieties of the spirit. I have felt true contenment amidst the most discouraging times by embracing the solitude of nature, coming to find the truth in the latter quote of Pearl S. Buck, renewing my "springs that never dry up." But is it possible that at some point the practice of a consant solitude may morph into the hollowness of loneliness? They are innately joined together after all, forged by the emotional needs of humanity. Can one suffer loneliness at the hands of a hyperactive search for solitude? Those of us who may often prefer the quiet moments of solitude must expand our comprehension to understand that it is only through active socializing and connecting with the world around us on a meaningful level, doing our utmost to brush off the isolationism of loneliness, that the most profound moments of solitude can actually exist.

Reflections on "Massacre of the Innocents"

What is it about the people and places written of in the bible that capture the artist’s imagination? Based on the prolific production of art imitating life, at least life in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, there is something about bringing these texts to life, visually that appeals to the creative spirit. For me, the study of works depicting various aspects of the Judeo-Christian tradition enhances the understanding of it. I agree with the authors of my textbook, Hauer and Young when they connect the presentation of biblical themes in pop culture, in this case the high culture of art, as contributing to the meaning of the Bible itself. One of the paintings that have personalized the meaningfulness of the Bible is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Francois Joseph Navez’s Massacre of the Innocents.
Every time I make a trip to the Museum, I visit this painting. The stunning quality of the work never fails to stop me in my tracks. The portrayal of the devastation of King Herod’s tyranny is summed up in this vibrant masterpiece. The intensity of the color and the detail of each individual down to the hair ornaments and jewelry pull the observer in to the moment. The despair felt by the forlorn mother as she holds her slaughtered child in her arm and the fear of the woman behind her in anxiously trying to quiet a miraculously unharmed infant. The innocence of the victims depicted by the alabaster tones of their skin, while in the background there is some suggestion of the evil that continues on. This symbolic scene could be one of thousands that occurred during King Herod’s paranoid attempt to prevent the fulfilling of a prophesy. The power of this portrait is that whenever the story of King Herod is discussed this “snapshot” has become the reference image that comes to mind
In seeing the results of the Biblical influence in the great world masterpieces, I can only think that the power of the art is a direct result of the artist’s ability to transfer the power of the text to canvass.

Don't make eye contact, or the Kitty Genovese Effect

Growing up in New York, one of the first lessons of social behavior is: do NOT make eye contact. The New Yorker is enculturated to manage crowded subway platforms and busy sidewalks by intentionally avoiding those seemingly harmless interactions that can evolve into awkward, perhaps even unsafe, social situations.
Unfortunately, while the unspoken rule is conducive to getting from point A to point B without incident, when it is applied in a community level it may lead to dire consequences.
The case of Kitty Genovese,although long past,continues t draws a sharp picture of the social harm caused by the exaggerated notion of "avoiding eye contact" when the numerous witnesses choose to stay out of a precarious situation that does not involve them. As Martin Ginsberg describes in his essay,Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police," For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman..."
How could this happen? The standard of community assumes a relationship for mutual benefit of its citizens. When does the internal warning to avoid eye contact - to stay out of it- become the belief that involving oneself in ensuring the well being of a neighbor is an inconvenience?
While the brutal stabbing of Kitty Genovese occurred over 45 years ago, one wonders how much has changed? Turn on the nightly news and hear the story of a gang rape on a Middle School campus with witnesses recording every detail on their cell phones.Kitty was a young woman screaming for help, relying on her community to respond to her pleas. Within a comnmunity, like Kew Gardens or even that Middle School schoolyard. a victim reasonably expects the protection of neighbors or community members. The aid Kitty receives, in this case, is a shout from an apartment window, "...Let that girl alone!"
Yes it was dark and several local residents explain an uncertainty of what was actually taking place, but the disturbing indecision exhibited by any to get involved depicts an ongoing issue for modern society.
One neighbor, Gansberg writes:
...had called the police
after much deliberation.
He had phoned a friend in
Nassau County for advice,
and then he had crossed
the roof of the building
to the apartment of the
elderly woman to get her
to call.

Meanwhile, Kitty Genovese is dying in the street. Time and time again, hearing her cries and uncertain what to do, if anything, the mebers of her community put self-interest over community health; refusing to get involved when a neighbor's life is at stake.
When an individual on the street looks away it allows the a sense of personal security. When a community "avoids eye contact" it's a failure to protect the well-being of its citizens.