How much have I dared in opposition?
Stole away to Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, a middle of the day matinee. One of those times when I could also recite large chunks of the source materials; one of those times when the performance of those familiar source materials moved me anew.
Folks might debate the why of going to a movie or a play alone, or dining alone (don't get people started on that one). But for me it is about the discipline and the experience of being alone with my thoughts during a creative encounter. And sometimes it is not wanting to explain the sigh of rhetorical recognition ("you realize you’re thirty and are having a terrible time managing to trust your countrymen") or the clenched fist of rhetorical recognition ("where the Negro is concerned, the danger as far as I can see at this moment is that they will seek to reach out for some sort of radical solutions on the basis of which the true problem is obscured"). Or to even have that sigh be overheard, or that fist be observed.
Baldwin and Buckley were born in New York in 1925 and 1925, respectively. Baldwin died in 1987. Buckley lived until 2008.
What a robbery.
Attribution:
No, this year I want to call
myself to task for what
I have done and not done
for peace. How much have
I dared in opposition?How much have I put
on the line for freedom?
For mine and others?
As these freedoms are pared,
sliced and diced, where
have I spoken out? Who
have I tried to move?
— from The birthday of the world by Marge Piercy