not just a pret­ty face

I almost for­got my best sto­ry of all. Last night Avery and I were watch­ing one of my favorite movies ever, “Strong Poi­son” by Dorothy L. Say­ers. Part of the plot involved a fake medi­um pre­tend­ing to speak to those who have “crossed over,” and those “wait­ing for the Great Change.” “What Great Change is that?” Avery asked. “Well, some peo­ple believe that when die, you don’t just die, but you pass over into anoth­er realm. Some of these peo­ple think it’s Heav­en, and some peo­ple think you move into anoth­er body,” I explained. “Oh, right. Do you believe in heav­en, Mom­my?” I said, “I would cer­tain­ly like to think that when you die, you don’t just stop exist­ing at all, but I’m not too sure what hap­pens. What do you think?” Avery pon­dered a moment. “I think that you live a life of per­pet­u­al thought. Just think­ing, end­less­ly.” I object­ed, “But would­n’t you get awful­ly hun­gry, and then you would­n’t be able to con­cen­trate?” “No, you would­n’t have any body needs, because I don’t think you would keep your body.”

“You know what,” I mused, “Mamoo used to won­der what would hap­pen when she got to heav­en and had to choose between Grand­pa, who died so long ago, and Lon, who she’s been so hap­pi­ly mar­ried to for so long.” Avery was uncon­cerned. “I am pret­ty sure that if there is a heav­en, it’s not near­ly so strict about things like that. I don’t think there’s any rule about bigamy in heaven.”

To try to keep up with my daugh­ter’s intel­lect, I have been try­ing to open my mind to some great British play­wrights, so I start­ed with a screen­writer for “Spooks” called Howard Bren­ton. His com­men­tary on the DVDs was ter­ri­bly eru­dite but also fun­ny, and for such an intel­lec­tu­al pow­er­house (with over 40 plays under his belt) I thought he did­n’t take him­self too seri­ous­ly. So I ordered “The Romans in Britain,” in a col­lec­tion of his ear­ly work, and boy am I out of prac­tice as far as stretch­ing my thoughts. Very dark, very intense, but worth a try. Pip says that I will enjoy it more if I read it aloud, but I think that might just mark my descent from the mere­ly odd to the tru­ly loony. Any­way, give it a try.