Matters of Gravity

Episode #8: Margie's Thesis

After dinner it was still light out as the group migrated to the more comfortable chairs in the large family room overlooking the Canyon Creek Reservoir. It had been very pleasant weather throughout the day, but a bit cold for the season, so the speedboats and jet skis had been retired early. A few fishermen trolled slowly, and a colorful couple of kayaks could be seen on the far side, but other than that, a silent calm had settled over the waters with inverted reflections of the snowcapped mountains providing a classic view.  Roger had taken his cup of coffee with him; the others were now sitting calmly enjoying all there was to see. Julie had been wheeled into position. As Margie sat in the overstuffed chair next to her, she laid a hand on Julie's.

"So what is this profound theory of yours, Margie dear?" It was Julie who set them to the task Roger and Margie had allocated to this slot of time. "How involved are we in this generality of yours?"

"That's the pertinent question, Auntie. Leave it to you to ask it."

"Yeah. That question is definitely what interests me," Roger confirmed.

"Well, My thesis is descriptive not personal in the sense of naming names.  If the descriptions are uncomfortable to any of you we can fix it together, okay?"

Margie paused with the others remaining silent and then proceeded: "This whole issue of the significance of the general myths that are ingrained in our 'racial memories', as Jung would have put it, comes down to how 'involved' we each are in them. It turns out that everyone in any culture is intimately affected by these myths and they form the templates of all our thoughts and behavior patterns. For example, all older people mourn the passing of things the way they were when they were young. For most of us, it is that 'serene little street' where we were raised that was indeed special with the forest, the ferns, the squirrels and birds, the flowers, the ponds with their colorful koi. None other than Ray Bonn ingrained that phrase, in its various versions of serenity, into our consciousness. It was his phrase. It was how he saw the place where we were raised and he tried to preserve its privacy for as long as he could – the nest he would not defile, I guess. Eventually, of course, progress swept it under. It is now totally destroyed. I had a taxi take me by the old place during my layover in Seattle. There's nothing left of that serene little street – nothing. There are probably ten or twenty ticky-tack houses on that property now, none of them with the least bit of charm."

"Yeah. We had to sell; you knew that. The developments had closed in all around. The crime rate is phenomenal in that neighborhood now. The whole area has gone to hell," Roger ranted with emotion. "Anyway, we didn't want to live in the heart of a metropolitan area. We wanted to get away."

"Exactly," Margie replied. "That's precisely my point. We all remember a time when things were good, and now they're not so good. 'Progress' has taken a heavy toll. So we all yearn for that place and time of our distant past, that Garden of Eden. We try to recreate the myth."

"My dad used to say that every man just wanted to find 'a womb with a view'," Ellie contributed with a cute smile. "That's what it is, isn't it? We want to get back to the comfort we had before all the responsibilities."

"It's more than that, children," Julie said. "It isn't just a yearning, for some it results in a creative act. It did with Ray and Helen. That 'serene little street' and the home they built there were designed as creative acts."

"Designed?" Roger asked. "How do you mean?"

"Well, the house was laid out the way Helen had thought a house should be even when she and Ray were young. And the yard? Ray laid that out to match a place up on the side of this canyon somewhere near where this very house sits. It was the most beautiful place you can imagine – well, I guess you can imagine, because Ray did a rather marvelous job of recreating it."