Navel Gazing As Mode of Recovering A Day Devoted to Support

Sunday feels like an extension of Saturday, all day we only continue to attend to the problems that occupied the day before; middle-age lived in the context of community demands almost utter self-abnegation, and one wonders if its ravages will leave one's voice intact (?).

Sometimes I wonder if I am less prepared for this revelation about life because my youthful disinterest held me back from decyphering these themes in literature, theatre and film -- or, sometimes I wonder if it is because so many of the writers have been excised from their communities (either self-banishment or the derision a prophet feels anytime s/he returns home) and therefore don't know (and can't write about) this part of life...


(I realize that I have ignored several other possibilities: that such narratives run so counter to the agentic mythology of the West that there are insufficient vocabularies available to interested authors and audiences...or...that the nature of this moment of revelation is neither tragic or comic and thus such a story lacks an appropriate generic home...I'm sure there are more...)