Eye on the TV

Tonight the three of us (minus Stephen, who was in his room playing) sat down to watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on ABC. I mean, sure we have it on DVD and VHS, but there's just something about watching it as it airs on network TV, you know?

Today has been another difficult day for me personally...I've been extremely down and on edge at the same time. I'm trying to figure out exactly what's going on, but that's for another day. So...there we sat, watching the opening scene: the kids skating on the pond, with Vince Guaraldi's magnificently simple jazz in the background...and I started crying. Not loud sobbing gasps, which I'm certainly known to do, but those quiet tears that slip out almost against your will. I cried for the little girl I used to be. I can see her in my mind's eye: long brown hair, usually in two ponytails on either side of her head, big buck teeth, and all the innocence of childhood in her eyes...sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the big cabinet TV, watching Charlie Brown and feeling the excitement of Christmas growing in her heart. I cried for the teenager that I became: a bit more confident, surrounded by friends, full of exuberance and boundless hope for the future...watching Charlie Brown at Christmastime, remembering the magic of childhood. Now...that doesn't sound too festive and cheery, but I think it's necessary, at least for me, to remember those phases of my life, and pay homage to what was overall not a bad growing-up time.

So with my tears still drying on my cheeks, I wait for the local station's interstitials to end so we can finish watching Charlie and Co....there's a teaser about the forthcoming weather report, a commercial for a local car lot, and then...a promo for the nightly local news. The grey haired-and-moustached anchor man literally BLURTS: "Coming up at ten, an update on that dog that was skinned alive." And then immediately the last segment of the Christmas special rolls.

David and I exchange horrified looks. Kerry, our nine year old, has a bit of a puzzled look. THIS is what the news promo is? They tuck that admittedly horrible but overtly sensational tag line in between segments of a family Christmas show? Is nothing sacred?

And the answer to that is sadly no. The world squashes down the beautiful, the precious, the SACRED, and celebrates the ugly, tragic, and horrifying. It's truly frightening...and it makes me angry.

I live in a world that seems to me to be starving for what is GOOD, and honest, and noble...there's a reason that people save a part of their hearts for Charlie Brown, or the corny old Andy Griffith show re-runs on TVLand. But we don't celebrate that...we tuck it away in a secret place, and go on ignoring each other, asking "How are you?" and not meaning it, and not being willing to get our hands dirty making a difference in someone's life.

Instead...we stare when we pass an accident on the side of the road. We watch movies about horrible, disgusting, GORY things to somehow make us feel more alive - I guess because we're not being eviscerated like those poor stooges in the movie?

See if this rings a bell:

Eye on the TV
Cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavor
It happens to be

Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie. (from "Vicarious" - Tool)

That's the thing, isn't it? It's not so very bad if it's happening to someone else. It might even be a bit thrilling - way down inside, where you wouldn't admit it. You find yourself secretly glad that it's not YOU. Wait till it (whatever "it" is: cancer, a lost job, a betrayal) comes knocking on your door, and then it hits home, and suddenly it's a whole new ballgame.

Still...there's a part of me that won't give up, even with so much evidence pointing to the ultimate, inevitable demise of our species. I took a "mental health day" yesterday - isn't that just the cutest name EVER? - and spent a good ten minutes sitting on my couch, drinking a cup of coffee while I watched the dark, rainy, chilly day outside. The tree outside our deck is turning orangey-red and gold, and I marveled at the way the gray light emphasized the impact of the colors. And I was overcome by that ever-elusive feeling of genuine peace, of harmony and...rightness. Is that a word? Well, anyway...it was fleeting, but it was real.

How do I counterbalance that with the society of which I find myself a part? A society where men call in to local sports talk radio vehemently defending their football teams of choice, with passion and fire in their voices...where's the passion for fighting for things that MATTER? A society where children (yes, mine included) play video games and surf websites instead of, you know...PLAY...the way I did a relatively short time ago. A society where people are so desensitized to horror that a programming director slips in a tabloid-esque "dog skinned alive" headline into the break of a kids' Christmas special.

This holiday season I hope that you take the time to remember what matters...be it the Christmas story complete with Wise Men and shepherds, spending time talking...really talking...to your family or friends, or just remembering what it was like to be a kid. I'm going to do my best to have something of a Yuletide that encompasses all three, and then some.

"It really isn't such a bad little tree...maybe all it needs is a little love." ~Linus Van Pelt