The Inconstant Heart
Imagine a comic strip capturing the hearts of millions of people with its portrayal of an ordinary family living in ordinary times, exhibiting traits of character and little quirks of personality endearing them to their ever-widening audience, over years of installments. The charm of Lynn Johnston's daily cartoon caught the interest of countless people throughout the world.
Her comic strip was widely syndicated, and her imagination became a hot spot for people to settle momentarily during the course of the day to refresh themselves about the state of the North American family. She became her own little industry, revelling in the details of a young and growing family, throwing their parents for a loop on occasion, but always there was a constancy, a certainty that all would be well.
There was a big goofy family dog to share in the backyard fun, a set of grandparents to share in the children's upbringing and memories. There were deaths in the family and a birth - of a baby sister - and countless events that conspired to steal the hearts of fascinated readers. It was widely held that Lynn Johnston's regaling of the public with the antics of children and the steady-state of their parents' marriage was closely patterned on reality.
Her fresh outlook on familial life, reminding us how integral close attention to growing children's needs is to their reaching their full potential as human beings, kept us abreast of how a well balanced and socially conscious couple could ideally deal with difficult situations. Including accepting a a friend of their older child, marginalized by his secret, and welcomed by the family regardless.
A crotchety and beloved elder, a forgetful father, a mother suddenly concerned at the fleetness of time creeping up on them, expressing concerns brought to all of us as we merge with destiny. The heartbreak of losing a family pet, and then replacing it with a clone, the freeing up of one's children to take their place in the world, all of it meant others were closely paralleling our own experiences.
And, best of all, the yardstick of an exemplary family life, which we could secretly use to measure our own ventures through the highway of life's experiences. On paper, casually sketched, with deep meaning behind and beyond the obvious, they presented as dependable, loving, emotionally stable, a credit to the society they represented. But as so often occurs, reality intrudes and what appears as a given is not.
The ideal family struggling to cope with everything that life exposes them to through their formative years was well portrayed and lovingly presented to the world. Much of this was Lynn Johnston living out her own fantasies and offering them to her loyal readership. Her devastation and emotional withdrawal when her husband of 30 years informed her suddenly that he was withdrawing from their marriage was not part of our shared experience.
Her misery and loneliness and resentment and despair were her own, not ours. The strip continued to amuse and entertain and inform us, but we were living her dream of perfection, not her reality of distraction and misery. Surely she deserved better? Don't we all, when we strive to be one with another? Can love be so transitory, there for three decades, suddenly absent, gone elsewhere.
Gone, in Lynn Johnston's case, to another woman, a woman well known to her, whom her husband had been intimate with for quite a while. Although Lynn Johnston had picked up emotional clues of her husband's withdrawal from her, she still did not understand, much less suspect him of infidelity of the heart. Women who love and whose lives are full and emotionally charged, can be very complacent.
We human beings are given to sundering our most intimate relationships, for reasons great and minuscule The banality of the accustomed, the allure of the new. Irresistible longing for something other than what has become too familiar, too cloying, too predictable. Was selfless love there to begin with? Who can ever tell?
For better or for worse.
Her comic strip was widely syndicated, and her imagination became a hot spot for people to settle momentarily during the course of the day to refresh themselves about the state of the North American family. She became her own little industry, revelling in the details of a young and growing family, throwing their parents for a loop on occasion, but always there was a constancy, a certainty that all would be well.
There was a big goofy family dog to share in the backyard fun, a set of grandparents to share in the children's upbringing and memories. There were deaths in the family and a birth - of a baby sister - and countless events that conspired to steal the hearts of fascinated readers. It was widely held that Lynn Johnston's regaling of the public with the antics of children and the steady-state of their parents' marriage was closely patterned on reality.
Her fresh outlook on familial life, reminding us how integral close attention to growing children's needs is to their reaching their full potential as human beings, kept us abreast of how a well balanced and socially conscious couple could ideally deal with difficult situations. Including accepting a a friend of their older child, marginalized by his secret, and welcomed by the family regardless.
A crotchety and beloved elder, a forgetful father, a mother suddenly concerned at the fleetness of time creeping up on them, expressing concerns brought to all of us as we merge with destiny. The heartbreak of losing a family pet, and then replacing it with a clone, the freeing up of one's children to take their place in the world, all of it meant others were closely paralleling our own experiences.
And, best of all, the yardstick of an exemplary family life, which we could secretly use to measure our own ventures through the highway of life's experiences. On paper, casually sketched, with deep meaning behind and beyond the obvious, they presented as dependable, loving, emotionally stable, a credit to the society they represented. But as so often occurs, reality intrudes and what appears as a given is not.
The ideal family struggling to cope with everything that life exposes them to through their formative years was well portrayed and lovingly presented to the world. Much of this was Lynn Johnston living out her own fantasies and offering them to her loyal readership. Her devastation and emotional withdrawal when her husband of 30 years informed her suddenly that he was withdrawing from their marriage was not part of our shared experience.
Her misery and loneliness and resentment and despair were her own, not ours. The strip continued to amuse and entertain and inform us, but we were living her dream of perfection, not her reality of distraction and misery. Surely she deserved better? Don't we all, when we strive to be one with another? Can love be so transitory, there for three decades, suddenly absent, gone elsewhere.
Gone, in Lynn Johnston's case, to another woman, a woman well known to her, whom her husband had been intimate with for quite a while. Although Lynn Johnston had picked up emotional clues of her husband's withdrawal from her, she still did not understand, much less suspect him of infidelity of the heart. Women who love and whose lives are full and emotionally charged, can be very complacent.
We human beings are given to sundering our most intimate relationships, for reasons great and minuscule The banality of the accustomed, the allure of the new. Irresistible longing for something other than what has become too familiar, too cloying, too predictable. Was selfless love there to begin with? Who can ever tell?
For better or for worse.
Labels: Human Relations, Realities
posted by Pieface @ 6:05 PM
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