Melancholia: From a Letter I wrote soon after 9/11/2001

[Hardrada]

Sorry I haven't been sending you as much news as I could. I'm not much of a correspondent lately. I have been really bothered by events lately. I don't care much for this war. I think we should have just gone in with UN support and basically rebuilt the country and fed the people and in that way terror would ebb. Well, of course, there is a whole lot of other stuff to do also to ease tension. I do feel the criminal terrorists should be caught and tried before the World Court. We are still making the same old mistakes and this does not make me feel joyous. I was, of course, not exactly gleeful before with Bush the Younger getting away with things like that big tax cut BUT I had some hope the popular pressure of the various global left movements would make a difference in policies. That all seems to be moot now and it will be tough to get back where we were with all of the scare tactics and war babbling on TV.
Yet I was not so melancholy before. I can clearly remember having a pleasant Labor Day weekend in Kenosha where Roberta's sister lives. And the week after I was busy sorting all the interesting books I had bought there from one of her friends. On September 10th, my wife's school had an open house so I went there with her in the evening to have pizza with the staff, and the students and their parents. It was a cheerful group of people milling around. She stayed and I walked home to get caught up on my bookwork since I had just gotten four big boxes from Powell's Books in Chicago and I needed to get them shelved and out of the front entrance. As I worked the kitchen FM radio started to play Schubert lieder. I began to pay attention to them. One began and it was absolutely haunting, sorry I forget who the accompanist was, but the singer was Kiri Te Kanewa and the song was "Gretchen am Spinnrade." and the piano introduction really set the mood of a desperate longing as the song opened with "Mein' Ruh ist hin." My Peace is gone, she sang and this was a refrain. "My peace is gone." I hadn't heard this song for a long time and I stopped what I was doing to listen to it.
And then resumed my work which turned out to be lengthy and arduous but I got most everything squared away and went to be at 3 AM the 11th. At 11 AM, I stumbled downstairs to get myself some breakfast and to let the cat outside when the phone rang. It was my sister Deb calling from St. Paul. She is a flight attendant with Northwest and she said she was grounded. No flights and then she told me why. Alas, I know my history and am conversant with the Middle Eastern situation, so I was not utterly surprised. I watched the tragic events on TV part of the afternoon (I still had to work) and after awhile the Schubert song came back into my consciousness: "Mein' Ruh ist hin." My peace is gone. All too true. And that song comes from Goethe's Faust moreover which is a heavy reference in itself: what happens when you make a pact with the devil. Because of this pact, Faustus had left Gretchen.
Nowadays, of course, only governments, military establishments and international corporations can make deals with the devil so to speak with the result that we are all left futilely working, like Gretchen at her spinning wheel, and most mournfully singing how our peace is gone. I hope not gone forever.
David R.

[Suich]

1. "My peace is gone."

Too true...thanks for sharing.

[Hardrada]

2. It was a way I dealt with this traumatic event.

I did manage to put it into historical and cultural perspective. Thanks for noticing.

[Hardrada]

3. One more try with this perspective.

& then I'll say bye bye to it.