Skip to main content

State of constant wonder

"I think the brain is afraid of being in a state of constant wonder […] I think we should reinstate wonder, banish expectations." - Rectify

I have been watching the show Rectify on Netflix this summer.

It is about a man named Daniel who was put into prison (on death row) at the age of 18 for the death and rape of his girlfriend.

It's not really a who-done-it, although there are elements of that. Instead, the show is more focused on the inner and outer lives (and where the lines gets blurry in between) of people going through something unimaginable.

Twenty years later, DNA brings doubt to his guilt (despite a guilty plea, which may or may not have been coerced).

He is released into the world of his loving and supportive family, which seems great, except after years of being warped by solitary confinement, it is not as straight forward as it sounds.


The show depicts the first couple of weeks of freedom. A word which I have italicised because the meaning of true freedom is an ongoing theme throughout the show.

The show does not reveal if he is truly guilty or not, it keeps that question unanswered and proceeds to ask a set of other equally important questions.

What does freedom mean? Many of the characters are trapped in narrow lives and although they have not physically lived in a jail, they have not lived full lives (have any of us?) either, especially since for many of them, they have been singularly consumed with freeing Daniel.

Daniel's freedom is also cast into question. The conditions that he has lived under on death row, often in solitary confinement, have significantly changed his demeanour, his speech pattern, his grip on reality and he is re-entering the world as an adult, that he last occupied as a teenager, all of which have left indelible marks.

In one moving scene, Daniel is played music to by the prison chaplain the first time in a very long time in solitary confinement, and it becomes all too clear the depth of his deprivation.

It also asks about our ability or inability to behold wonder. Daniel's reaction to even the simplest things like a grocery store, an inflatable man in front of a store and cell phones, made me take stock of how much my brain has become accustomed to everyday objects and has almost ceased to see things for the first time. As a result, my expectations of what I think I see and know threaten to crush me at times.

I urge you to watch it. It is beautifully filmed and the story is told from surprising angles from which I had not thought to look before. After watching one of the most recent episodes, I had very vivid dreams of drippy cherry blossoms mingled with dark black tornado clouds. The cinematography tapped right down into my psyche somehow. It's not everyday that that happens.






Comments

  1. hmm. might try that... your label is 'being awake'... which is something. i might need to watch someone else struggle with wonder, yah? as always, spot of glistening writing here.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still.   We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue.  Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision.  They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped.  Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...

the words fell out

 Despite being an introvert, I do often process big life events (and many many small ones) out loud by verbally hashing out my thoughts with whoever will put up with me. But this morning when I woke up to the big red blotch on the U.S. map...all my /the words fell out.  They fell out unsaid, unformed. Got to work and probably , in another time, would have annoyed my co-workers, dominating the conversation with my verbal extrusions, but not today. I just mutely stared across at them and nodded. My dad came for lunch.  Normally, we relish a good political diatribe, especially when we feel sure of our perspective, but this time, all I could do was munch on fries and marvel at all the unarticulated thoughts that I was not even bothering to retrieve. The silence inside me was noticeable.  Social media was awash with reactions and I just looked away. I couldn't bear to read one word about it. I was not receptive to any reactions,  accusations, reflections,  words...

I entered August without you.

 I won't visit you this month.  You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you.   I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.