| Rickie
Lee Jones Writing Some Heroes |
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"The
only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerant uncertainty:
not knowing what comes next. If you see a whole thing - it seems that
it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all
dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired,
you lose the pattern. Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it
has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. What sane
person could live in this world and not be crazy?" |
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Sometimes I think
about heroes, I guess that's the name for them, famous people we know
but forget about, people who've made a difference in our lives that
is so profound that we take it for granted. I was thinking about Shirley
Temple, as I have a few times, and I wanted to tell her how much I have
always admired her. Her movies (there's one on right now - the bachelor
and the bobby soxer) meant so much to me when I was little, and when
I watch them now, I am taken up in the strands of some long ago, that
is, the long ago is with me still, and I can feel it here sometimes
when I watch an old Shirley Temple movie. I worry about her, wondering
how her life has gone, hoping it was something like the life one of
her characters might have had - a good daddy, a challenge met, somebody
to dance down the hall with, animal crackers in her soup. I hope those
things came to her, and that she was kind, and I am glad she is still
with us, and hope one day she takes a look at this little paragraph
of my thanks. |
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My mother grew
up in an orphanage in those years that little Shirley was making movies.
It's amazing how we are all connected, and that maybe somehow, because
Shirley was all right somewhere, my little Bettye, my mom, survived
that terrible orphanage. |
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Now I have my own daughter watch her movies (though she doesn't like black
and white) and she loves Shirley, too. Her bravery and love of the camera
was inspiring, and she was a mighty good dancer and singer at that. Here's
to you, Shirley. |
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I also think of
Katherine Hepburn, and of the writer Ursula Le Guin, and wish to send
them my deepest regards for their work. To Katherine, who kept everything
real and down to earth, and made herself and her characters radiant
for all time. I keep a picture of her in me, and sometimes when I need
to I am reminded of the good lives people have led, like Katherine Hepburn,
and then I try to walk that walk. |
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And to Ursula, who wrote
a novel that I keep with me still, that took me through such hard transitions,
that seemed to be so much about my own journey. We never know who we
are really talking to, do we? So thank you for the Earthsea books. I
hope there will be more. |
| © Copyright 2000 Rickie Lee Jones ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |