Two celebrated American authors...! two famous quotes...! two big mistakes...!
In his sprawling LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL Wolfe lamented, "you can never go home again." In his later life, Fitzgerald lamented, "in America there are no second acts." And while their words have quite understandably resonated with millions of readers over the years, there are times when even such catechestical wisdoms fail the test of time.
For most of us, yes, life is limited to a sparse first act. Born, loved, worked, died. In all too many cases, we may actually have only a prologue, for our lives never develop into a full script. And while such lives are like gardens that never bloom, Fitzgerald's own experience was a brilliant first act, then premature obscurity. He understood the American psyche's love affair with brilliance, but how it turns shoulders once the light goes out.
And yet, history gives the lie to Fitzgerald's despair. It is rich with the lives of those whose second acts fired even brighter than their first. In religion we are acquainted with Abraham, Moses, Paul, Augustine, Francis of Assisi and Luther. In government there is Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Eisenhower, and Jimmy Carter. In the arts, consider those who were great in their early careers only to be greater still in their second careers: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Paul Anka, Clint Eastood and posthumously poets like Dickinson and painters like Van Gogh.
Equally haunting is Wolfe's sadness about never again being able to retrieve the youth that we all lose. How many times we taste the brine of this truth when we gather for family holidays and school reunions. So much of what we have played on the screens of our memories turn out to be mere illusions. Worse yet, sometimes delusions. Which is why, despite Hallmark's best efforts, holidays and reunions all too often fail the test of our hopes.
And yet, history hints that some in our midst have never lost the key to this locked door, nor misplaced the maps that can guide them back home. We sense this in the way so many seem so young despite their years. The twinkle of fun coating the wrinkles of their eyes...the flair of wonder that lights up the stories they tell...the happy way they watch little children, small puppies, lemonade stands and snow fights. None of these elders seem to have forgotten how to find their way back home again. And, better still, bring something of it back with them.
These thoughts come from one small example of tens of millions who, I believe, have found second acts after their firsts. Nor have they ever had to evacuate their best memories of home and youth. And -- to push the case a joyful speculation further -- these happy souls perhaps envision a second, look-homeward act even after they at last close their earthly eyes.
Now who can really tell them they're wrong.....?
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NOW YOU TELL ME....!
ReplyDeleteI think every loser HOPES for a second act, and every winner KNOWS it's just out there waiting for them.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to your CV:
ReplyDeleteObviously, we can all go back to where we grew up and see people we have loved a long time. But that is not 'home' as TCW understands it. What's 'home' for an 'angel'?
The same goes for 'second acts'. It is a fact indeed that we all get second chances, in America as elsewhere, provided we can see them at all. Perhaps FSF meant that in America more than elsewhere we find it hard to see the many second chances that pass us by - notwithstanding likely counter-examples (there are always counter-examples). I don't know. All I know is that you're getting at two monuments of the human mind (not just the American mind) with nothing but a page or two of grumpy-old-man common sense and a neat little CV.