September 11, 2001
WE SEARCH FOR COMFORT IN A TIME OF ANXIETY
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AT FIRST, I THOUGHT IT MUST BE JET LAG |
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that was making me indecisive as I stood before a newsstand in the Atlanta airport last week. I was looking for a magazine to read on my way home to Portland, en route from a visit to see my daughter in Europe.
For 30 minutes I studied the magazines before me. Nothing felt right. I didn't want to read more about the attack in New York, so I passed on the news magazines. Magazines with fancy, high-tech gadgets didn't appeal; despite the president's encouragement, I felt no desire to buy anything expensive. Covers with celebrities seemed offensive; I didn't want to know a thing about Tom Cruise's sex life, Anne Heche's inner voices or the box office figures for the latest Adam Sandler film. Nor did I want to look at high-end couture in the fashion magazines or hard-edged, modern design elements in the home décor magazines. |
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Then it dawned on me: I was looking for comfort. Comfort. I rolled the word around in my brain. I wanted to read something that would make me feel better.
In the next few days I found myself noticing the choices I was making as I returned home and re-entered my real life. I took real pleasure in digging out my flag and hanging it from the front of my house. I bought vanilla-scented candles at the grocery store and lighted them at home - and not just when I was expecting company. I thought about getting a cat or a dog. I love fine food but found I was preparing comfort food, mashing potatoes and making a pumpkin pie, whipping the cream by hand as I remembered my grandmother doing. |
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Looking back at my activities since the attacks, I realized I'd been seeking comfort, without being aware of it. Just days after the twin towers fell, I drove to my parents' house on an island outside Seattle. My mother dug out an old songbook from my early childhood, a tattered red book of Raggedy Ann and Andy songs. She played the piano and we sang the old songs, songs I'd forgotten I knew. |
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A few days later I'd flown to Vienna, Austria, to see my daughter, who'd been shaken by the Sept. 11 events even from a distance. We always get along well; on this trip we hardly let go of each other. |
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While in Europe I'd taken a side trip to Rocamadour, a religious shrine in France. In a small shop I'd spotted a small string of crystal rosary beads, just like the beads I'd been given as a young Catholic girl. I no longer have a child's innocent faith, but I bought the beads. |
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I also bought an inexpensive folk art painting in Prague because, among the dark, anguished-looking paintings in the gallery, its image of orange-roofed cottages seemed so cheerful to my daughter and me.
My friends tell me they're experiencing the same need for family, for comfort. Several friends I hadn't heard from in years renewed contact. One told me he'd just ended a relationship he knew would never make him happy or lead to marriage. He's looking for a life partner. All my single friends are now.
Another friend called his mother and ended an estrangement that had lasted almost a decade. He barely remembers why he was so angry all those years. |
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But sometimes comfort is hard to find. |
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Over the weekend I wanted to see a movie. But not just any movie. No pre-Halloween horror movies. No violence-filled action movies; fake heroes seemed ridiculous when American soldiers were in harm's way. No apocalyptic science-fiction films, no dark dramas of family turmoil, betrayal, conflict. I wanted a movie that would give sustenance and solace. I couldn't find one, although I did see listings for several films about serial killers and one about a pedophile. I stayed home.
There wasn't much better fare on television. The reality shows that last season seemed silly now seemed offensive. I flipped through the channels, bypassing shoot'em-up Westerns, Hollywood celebrity bios and a documentary about cutting-edge military weaponry. In the end, I curled up with a cooking show on the Food Channel. |
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On Sunday afternoon a friend and I went to Powell's for the express purpose of finding a few books that might give us comfort. Forget the deep stuff, I told her. No literature, I wanted feel-good reads.
But I couldn't find them. Every book I reached for was about human misery in one form or another. The new releases. The books buried in the stacks. Where was the comfort? And why did I feel vaguely ashamed to be looking for books about relationships that were rewarding, family members who loved one another, characters that worked out their problems by the final page? |
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Clearly, the search is not only mine. Across the country there are dramatic signs that Americans, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and in the face of vague, imminent new dangers, are seeking comfort. Church attendance has shot up, junk food sales have risen, many more people are going to masseuses and retreat centers, therapists and dating services. People are gardening more, sewing more, staying home more.
How long will it take for the magazine, book publishing and entertainment industries to see the hunger and feed it? Because as long as the enemy wages psychological warfare against our nation, Americans will seek solace in the foxholes of their homes, the company of their friends and family members, the reassurance of well-told stories about people who are strong without being violent, people who prevail because they are good, not evil. |
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Yes, it's simplistic, idealistic, even sappy. But it's the kind of fodder that fed the spirits of Americans during the Great Depression and World War 11.
Now that I'm conscious of my search for comfort, I find it enters into even the smallest decisions I make in my day. I reach for soft clothes, for flat shoes. I won't watch the news before bed. My quest is shaping the months ahead: I've invited my family to my home for Thanksgiving, and they're coming from all over the West to attend. We'll cook together, watch football together, sing early Christmas carols, argue over the best way to make gravy and whose version of the old family stories is true. |
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The old recipes, old harmonies, the old arguments. There will be a lot of comfort in that.
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Reach Margie Boule at
Music credit to Gerald Ross' Guitar |
By MARGIE BOULE
