Breakfast has sure been tasty so far... Chapter 3 is all about traveling to work and I should qualify my email with traveling anywhere that takes you from home sweet home out into the world and then back again. The story of Martin Guerre fascinates me but I've been jaded by Broadway making every story in the universe into a musical. I am still trying to get the overly trite lyrics from the Martin Guerre musical out of my head that Rob played maniacally when it came out around ten years ago. Unfortunately for me (and you) the words of the title song made a permanent residence in my memory. (Look I'm Martin Guerre! There's no disguise, look in my eyes, I'm him I swear! And there's more... Look! I'm Martin Guerre! Broken and torn, I was reborn, out of despair!) The real story, though, is a doozy of a philosophical thinker "of a sixteenth-century French peasant who goes off to work in the fields one morning and doesn't come back. Time passes, and six years later he-or someone claiming to be him-returns, to take up again with his wife." The villagers compare the Martin they remember with the current man claiming to be him and they're not quite sure it really is him. How do we KNOW that the person we know and love that left for work is the same person who comes home at the end of the day? I know it's Rob who comes home because when the door opens I listen for a whistle and when I hear the chirp there he is, in green scrubs traipsing into the living room. But what if he didn't come home for six years and then came in the door one day in green scrubs with his old standard whistle? I know I wouldn't be sure it was him, even with the whistle because he'd been away so long. But what if you're sure it's the same DNA but the personality is startlingly different? Since I've been using Rob as my example I'll just make him the star and share my own Martin Guerre experience. In the summer of 2000 when Rob started his highly demanding and sanity taxing 2nd year of residency the kids and I went to Provo for six weeks and when I returned I really did wonder who this alien was in Rob's body. The Rob I encountered was not the same person I left six weeks before. In place of the happy, involved and social father and husband was a cranky, exhausted and glassy-eyed robot from the deep, murky pit of a maternity ward. I knew it was Rob because he still was semi-interested in Broadway musicals and golf but he didn't talk or laugh very often and his eyes had lost their sparkle. He didn't even want to tiglet Jonny who was one year old and, as you all know, highly tigletable. It was still the same genetic soup I kissed goodbye six weeks earlier but the personality I came home to was completely and permanently different. He truly was a different person from the experience of 2nd year residency. Smith says, "All of this means that if you do arrive at work as the same person who left your house, it's somewhat a matter of chance" just as one person's personality and life experience that walks out your front door is never the same that walks back in at the end of the day or the end of six weeks. Time changes everyone. The story of Martin Guerre is unique in that they weren't sure it was actually him but every one of us who leaves on a journey to anywhere "harbors the possibility of being blown off course...no matter what maps we use."
Tara, I loved your review! Very fitting that Ch. 3 was yours, as you had some experience with Martin Guerre. I had never heard the story, but very interesting. Thanks for sharing about Rob, to not want to tiget Jonny is insane and I might have demanded a DNA test! I loved the last line - everyone who on a journey to anywhere "harbors the possibility of being blown off course...no matter what maps we use." Very thought provoking, because it could mean emotionally - depressed, work was horrible, physically - car accident to or from work, or any number of things.
Ideally we all come home from a trip or day of work better off than when we left. Maybe by being aware and thinking of it I can come home from a bad day at work and not let my negative energy take over. Great ideas, Tara.
Agreed! I loved your response Tara. I hadn't heard about the Martin Guerre story either but found it really interesting and the play on his name also ironic. My response from the chapter is the issue of the crowd phenomenon. Yes, when commuting to work I feel like the crowd at its worst as we "revert to the lowest common denominator". I don't like borrowing my roommates car for the mere fact that I can't stand the drivers and the rat race. I digress and exhibit some road rage and shaken fists. Anyway, from the experience I encountered at the Triathlon yesterday as kind of changed my perspective on things regarding crowd mentality. No where is it more apparent than in a race, i.e. the triathlon that each individual is competing for this common goal (kind of like going to work). But since life is full of paradoxes, why is it that in races one encounters so much encouragement and motivation from fellow runners/swimmers and cyclists? My roommates and I talked about it for a while yesterday: the phenomenon that encouragement, motivation and camaraderie exist in an environment where individuals should be competing against each other. I think it's largely because all of us realize the training and heartache gone into training and that the competition is really against oneself and not each other. For this reason, I love the common purpose and becoming "more than the sum of its parts" in crowds, particularly the one I found at the traithlon. There's more I could say on this but I'll stop. I also like the piece on showing up. I have a hard time with wanting to show up but I feel better every time I make the effort to not call in sick.
Tara, this is a very impressive piece of writing that I didn’t know you had in you. It’s tightly constructed, painfully personal, and striking in its comparisons to Martin Guerre, a real tour de force of what appears to be a spontaneous outpouring of deeply connected thoughts and feelings, all traits that make for memorable writing and compelling reading. Its painful application to your personal life (the “completely and permanently different” Rob you discovered after the six-week hiatus) is a sobering commentary on your significant discovery that “Time changes everyone.” The questions that gnaw at me as I contemplate this inescapable truth is: Will the change be for good or ill? What makes the difference? And do the negative effects have to be permanent? Does the person whose changes seem so evident to the loved one realize that the light went out?
In retrospect, I wonder if my two years of agony trying to finish my dissertation after beginning a full teaching load at BYU in the fall of 1970 killed something in me. Did a light inside me go out permanently? I remember feeling more serene and laid back about life before that marathon nightmare of perpetual work, returning to the office from 7-12 each night to research and write after teaching all new classes during the day. I remember being furious that my graduate studies hadn’t prepared me for the reality of teaching large sections of basic humanities classes, where many of the topics were as new to me as they were to the students. It proved to be a real trial by fire that almost burned me out before I got started. But the most deleterious effect was a subtle, unwitting shift in my priorities that has produced negative consequences in the lives of those I love the most: my wife and children. I won’t go into my past regrets for too often choosing career over family in my daily priorities, but that trial created permanent consequences that I’m now attempting to rectify and will continue to work on for the
rest of my life. The good news is that progress is being made, slowly but surely. Prayer and fasting have helped immensely. Your revelations sparked resolutions in my own life. Thanks.
I wish I had simple answers to the weighty questions posed above. The profound truth that we are altered by the unexpected traumas and trials of daily life is much like a strong cross wind that blows an artillery shell slightly off course in the trajectory to its assigned target (I’m borrowing from your apt metaphor). One click of difference in the azimuth at the source equals a huge difference at the other end. So it is with our lives. Nothing is insignificant in the tests we face, yet nothing that attempts to deflect us from our eternal course can permanently alter our reaching the target if we let Him into the equation. This hopeful truth, made real by the Savior’s limitless love, was powerfully reinforced by my recent re-reading of George Ritchie’s book, Return from Tomorrow, about his near death experience during WWII. Dr. Ritchie’s life was permanently altered for the better by his brief exposure to the Savior’s light and love, the only power that can permanently eliminate the darkness of this life.
The Prophet Joseph endured more cross winds than anyone I know of except Jesus and look what it made of him. Without continual adversity, Joseph would have remained a simple farmer from upstate New York, but not the mighty prophet of the Restoration he eventually became. We know something Robert Smith probably has never even thought of, that we all have the potential to make permanent the good changes that are forged by our most painful experiences. We don’t have to be “blown off course” if we hold tight to the iron rod (the word of God). With His help, “Time changes everyone” for the better.
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