As If

 

"My dad had the right idea. And it all worked out. He used to say to me: 'Son, don't miss the wonders that surround you because every tree, every rock, every anthill, every star is filled with the wonders of nature.' And he used to say to me: 'Have you ever noticed how grateful you are to see daylight again after coming through a long dark tunnel?' 'Well,' he'd say, 'Always try to see life around ya as if you'd just come out of a tunnel.'"

―"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"

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Dear Kate,

Instead of the Capra/Stewart perennial Christmas classic, why not their other candy cane with a political twist?

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," an idealistic young man standing up to a well-oiled System, a mechanicalized force that would steamroller anyone, anything on its path.  It is timeless.  It is timely.  It is always out of its time.

"Always try to see life around ya as if you'd just come out of a tunnel," Mr. Smith says, because his father told him so.

To begin with, he would need to trust his father's vision.  But, we ask, who's there to trust?  As if it was ever any easier for a person to trust, in the past, when there was no vaccine, no internet, no insurance policies.  "What right have you to be morose? You're rich enough."  Every right, we say, our money can buy.

Then Mr. Smith needs to have gone through a tunnel or two to apprehend his father's metaphor.  Tunnel, the prime metaphor for our time, with light at the end of it we say we see.

But we misheard Mr. Smith.

There is no tunnel.  There needs not be any tunnel.  We live as if we'd just come out of a tunnel, always, any day, Christmas or COVID.

To live everyday, he summons us, with an out-of-tunnel vision, a childlike make-believe.

Yours, Alex