Every generation has several defining, collective experiences, and for mine one of them is being completely and utterly traumatized by the movie The Neverending Story I’m referring to that one scene, of course, the scene which I believed to be the Saddest Scene Ever To Grace the Silver Screen ™; the scene where Artax the horse gets swallowed up by the Swamp of Sadness.
I am not going to lie, folks: I bawled (and truth be told, I probably still would if I watched it today).
There is another scene in that movie which actually rivals the swamp scene in sadness though; I just did not realize it until I was much older and more mature. It is the scene in which the Rockbiter sits sad and forlorn, waiting for the Nothing to take him. The giant is a big hulk of a thing. It is hard to imagine that there is anything he cannot do, but he sits staring at his big, strong hands and laments that he was not strong enough to help his friends.
“They look like big, good, strong hands, don’t they? I always thought that’s what they were.”
No matter how he is prompted, the stone giant will not move. He just waits for The Nothing to take him, because he will not live in a world without his friends. Just like Artax, he gives in to despair.
There are many things in this world I cannot fix. I am no stone giant; I’m just a human woman. I cannot give Flint, Michigan clean water. I cannot stop the war in Yemen. I cannot change the hearts of people who hate others for being different. These things I cannot do. But in my personal life I am a giant of sorts. On a daily basis, I settle disputes fairly and justly. I heal “ouchies” with a kiss. I mend broken spirits with a cup of tea and a slice of cake. I repair the war wounds of beloved toys with a needle and thread. I teach and inspire. I am a protector, a builder of worlds, a tinkerer who keeps our homestead running through sheer willpower and a dash of ghetto engineering. I am the leader who emboldens her troops when the odds seem stacked against us. I rarely feel like there is something I cannot do.
In the end though, I am only human, and there have absolutely been times when I have been in the very same place as the Rockbiter; a place of defeat and despair. My husband has always traveled a lot for work, and there was a time when all my children were too small to be of much help, so I am sure you can imagine how often I have looked at my big, good, strong hands and felt betrayed that they could not fix the problem. It is a very dark, sad, and lonely place. Some times even giants need help, and fortunately for me there was always a friend who came to my rescue.
Some times my friends helped in tangible ways. Some times financially. And some times they helped by just being around, like James Baxter, the horse from Adventure Time who spreads joy wherever he goes just by being himself.
On occasion I may bring home a few sacks of a friend’s laundry, even though my own laundry pile rivals Mount Everest in size, and the children will ask: “Why did Miss Bree give you her dirty clothes to wash?” And I simply tell them: “Because I am her James Baxter today.” They immediately know what that means.
There are many things in this world I cannot fix. The Big Problems are beyond my voodoo. I could be like Artax and let the Swamp of Sadness swallow me, or I could be like James Baxter and spread happiness in whatever small corner of the world I occupy that day. There are two horses; some days you will be Artax, other days you will be James Baxter. Every morning, the choice is yours.
