Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Cookies, Charlie Brown and the meaning of life

I dropped two batches of cookies on the floor today. This has not been a good week for baking.

However, the cookies survived since they were in a sealed Tupperware container. I gingerly opened up the lid and, although there were an awful lot of crumbs, there only seemed to be one cracked cookie.

Whew. No need for panic today.

On a completely different topic, I had an interesting experience watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's becoming clear to me that I'll look for messages and meaning virtually anywhere and everywhere, because I found myself looking hard to find them in a 40-year old cartoon tonight. I was excited about seeing it because I love Christmas cartoons (almost as much as I did when I was a kid), but it had a whole different feeling this year. I wasn't just watching it because it's what I do every year - I was watching it with new eyes; I was looking for something, anything that might help me make sense of this too often cruel world. It was almost like seeing it for the first time in some strange way.

Everything is so different this year. Even Charlie Brown. Sometimes I lament the fact that nothing is simple anymore - a Charlie Brown special can't just be a fun distraction - but that's what happens when your world is turned inside out and upside down. Nothing is simple anymore.

I know I'm making a lot out of a half hour cartoon, I just think it's really interesting that my mind is working so differently - it's desperate to find comfort and it takes me on the most interesting voyages in its quest to find meaning in life.

Other than echoing my own thoughts on the commercialisation of Christmas, I'm not sure what else Charlie Brown had to offer tonight, but the search still felt good and worthwhile.

But quite apart from that, sometimes a half hour of cartoons is just what the soul needs. And it did mine good tonight.

2 comments:

Catherine said...

This is a phenomenon I wasn't prepared for...the searching. At first I searched for the "perfect" momentos. Then I searched for messages in nature. Now I search for meaning in things I read. It's bizarre, quite frankly. But I understand I'm not alone, as several other women who have experienced stillbirth or neonatal loss tell me they feel the same. We are, apparently, trying to attribute some meaning to something that is truly meaningless...at least at this point. If you believe in God, the the meaning is there, we're just not privy to it yet. And not being a person of great faith, I have found that my search is truly a search to get "answers." I don't do well with the blind faith thing. And I am, honestly, pissed off that God expects me to take this one on blind faith. Not getting a job, not getting a house, those kinds of disappointments I'm more than willing to take it on face value that God has a plan. Not the death of my baby. So I keep searching. But I really know, in my heart, that I'm not going to find the answers anywhere unless or until the Big Guy decides it's time to understand it all.

wow...all that from Charlie Brown...who needs therapy? lol

Ann Howell said...

Glad the cookies survived! The first year I found myself looking for meaning all over the place, too. Trying to find some order in the chaos, some reason why this had to happen. As you pointed out, the answers aren't always important as th search itself. It makes us feel connected to the children we lost, and that's always a good thing.