Jackie Paper

When I was a kid, the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon” had an enormous impact on me.

“Puff”, without exaggeration, provided me with one of my first experiences with actual heart ache. (Little did I know, how much was to follow!) When you’re that sad, and that hurt, the pain you have really does seem like it is coming out of your heart. The actual ORGAN.

I was not ready to grow up yet, of course, when I heard the song first. I was 8 years old or whatever … but my little 8 year old self WEPT for poor little Puff, creeping back into his cave, rejected by Jackie Paper. I would literally put my hand over where my heart was, and press in, hard, trying to soothe the pain.

I made the promise to myself (how many such promises are made! and how many are kept?) that I would never ever ever EVER turn my back on Puff the Magic Dragon … I would NEVER do what Jackie Paper did!

It’s interesting … haven’t thought of that in years. My feelings, whenever I heard the song, were so melancholy, and so deep, and so cutting that they qualify as “soul-growth”.

Along those same lines: I saw the movie “Bless the Beasts and the Children” when I was 10 years old. Has anyone else seen that film?

I was probably too young to see it, but hell, it was running as an after-school special, so I had no idea what I was getting into.

It’s about this group of misfit boys who are all sent to a reform school, a kind of “Boy’s Town”, out in the desert. Each one has a specific problem – violence, babyish behavior (one kid still has a security blanket and he’s 14), illiteracy, whatever. They have to work on a ranch at the reform school – and there is a pen filled with buffalo at the ranch. Or maybe it’s wild cattle. Not sure.

And this group of boys get the idea: “Those buffalo should be free- they should be roaming the plains – Let’s set them free!”

Elaborate semi-illegal planning follows. The boys bond as a group. They are going to make this grand gesture – they are going to rebel – but in a way that does some GOOD. They aren’t gonna be losers anymore. They are going to be heroes. They are going to free the “beasts”.

Finally – after much tribulation – the boys open the gate.

And the beasts – so tamed, so UN-wild – do not know what to do. They do not run out of the gate, they do not make a move. The beasts choose to stay in the pen.

The boys all are screaming at the beasts – crying – pushing at them – “RUN! RUN! YOU’RE FREE! WHY WON’T YOU RUN??”

Anyway – this film remains so vivid in my mind that, to this day, I can remember certain lines from the film, certain camera shots.

That movie made me so sad, it devastated me so deeply, that I would say I probably have never fully recovered. By that I mean: before I saw that movie, I was ONE way. After I saw that movie, there was a shift. I wasn’t quite the same afterwards.

I haven’t seen that movie since. I have no idea if it was good, bad, cheesy, stupid. All I know is, it opened something up in me. An enormous abyss. I was a child, a young girl, but the abyss yawned wide, and I was suddenly, for the first time, able to see the sadness of so many people, the grief waiting for me out in the world, how sad things can be, how things sometimes do not work out.

It was a moment where the child died a little bit – making way for the adult.

My soul grew up after seeing that movie.

Thoughts on all of this:

An early encounter with the sadness of the world, of what I would call the human condition, can expand the soul.

However: too many encounters with the sadness of the world before you are “ready”, or – too many encounters in general, shrivels the soul up, embitters life, hardens the edges.

Some damage to the soul is irrevocable.

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11 Responses to Jackie Paper

  1. Jim says:

    “However: too many encounters with the sadness of the world before you are “ready”, or – too many encounters in general, shrivels the soul up, embitters life, hardens the edges.
    Some damage to the soul is irrevocable.”

    I disagree, oh do I disagree. Your soul, or your essence, that which binds you to God cannot be damaged. What we perceive as damage is our reluctance to bow to the ultimate majesty of a perfect universe and our place in it. The dualities of our existence teach us lessons both sweet and bitter to strengthen and enhance our ability to experience this life. Great depths of pain and confusion increase our capacity to experience joy and love. Sadness is an inner understanding of what we can and cannot influence externally. Frustration comes from a lack of acceptance of what is and what isn’t and what actions can be successfully undertaken and what actions are futile.

    Kahlil Gibran says this so much better than I can:

    from The Prophet, On Joy & Sorrow

    Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”
    And he answered:
    Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
    And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
    And how else can it be?
    The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
    Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
    And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
    When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
    When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
    Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
    But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
    Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
    Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
    Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
    When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

    And a woman spoke, saying, “Tell us of Pain.”

    And he said:
    Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
    Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
    And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
    And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
    And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
    Much of your pain is self-chosen.
    It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
    Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
    For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
    And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

    I know this is true because the experience of my life, which has in no way been gentle, has shown me so.

    Some get lost along the way and some aren’t capable but all have a place in perfection.

    Sorry – these days are full of thought and reflection…

  2. bill says:

    “All I know is, it opened something up in me. An enormous abyss. I was a child, a young girl, but the abyss yawned wide, and I was suddenly, for the first time, able to see the sadness of so many people…”

    What striking phrasing you possess, Ms. S. I fell head first into your sadness.

    You’re really quite the writer…

  3. Betsy says:

    I can still sing the song….”bless the beasts and the children”

  4. Betsy says:

    oh – when i was in grad school one of my prof’s played us a tape of a man from Mexico speaking of the subject of grief and praise – and how the two are so interlocked – i can’t directly quote him but he asks us to imagine our most wonderful moment – that moment that couldn’t be better – and how in that moment of pure joy there is also the pain of knowing that the moment will end and it cannot last forever. the same is true in the true process of grief – an example being in death – that the person would not be so grieved were it not for the joy associated with that person – he describes the circle of grief praise and i hold this philosophy close to my heart because i find it beautiful…and it makes sense to me.

  5. Amanda says:

    Upon reading this post, I was reminded of an animated film that I hadn’t thought about in a long while called The Last Unicorn (1982).This was my favorite movie when I was little,I watched it obsessively, and I think I lost a bit of innocence every time I saw it.I guess I was always a little masochist. Anyway, the first time I viewed the film was I believe, the first time I experienced heartbreak. I get an achy sensation inside just thinking about it.

    I am so glad I stumbled across your musing. I had thought my reaction to “The Last Unicorn” was trivial.

  6. red says:

    Beautiful comments, all. Gives me a lot to think about.

  7. Laura says:

    When I was about 10, I remember a movie called “The Electric Grandmother”. It was a story of a robotic grandmother, created for a motherless family. She never ages, although the family she cares for does. It is the first movie I ever cried watching (and certainly not the last). It made me realize the reality of growing old, and of mortality. It reminded me that I too, will grow old (God willing) and witness those around me pass on, and that thought scared me. Still does, to some extent, although I now welcome the future and things I will experience.

    Beautiful post, Sheila. I think that’s something every adult can relate to from when they were a child.

  8. Joe Katzman says:

    I remember “The Electric Grandmother,” Laura. Great movie, though I saw it as a happy story. Especially when she’s taking care of them in their old age… a lot of people would give almost anything to have someone they had known and loved all their lives take care of them then.

    Anyway, with respect to your experiences, Sheila. Ironically, what you confronted that day was an illustration that some situations leave lasting scars – and the result was a scar left on you. But it happens, and not just to buffalo. Listen to people from the former Soviet Union talk, or from other repressive regimes, and the story of the buffalo who couldn’t leave when the fence was finally open rings with a deep, abiding verity.

    Some damage to the soul is indeed difficult to remove.

    Part of being an adult is finally realizing that things can happen to people, after which it may not be possible to put them back together the same way again. That changes the way you look at the world. And this realization is not dependent on, or conferred by, age.

    Jim’s quotes from Gibran have a lot of wisdom in them. You may find that if you work to truly understand this early insight of yours, it will change the way you see most people around you in positive ways. Everyone has a story, and some of those stories are invisible to you but shape them much as those buffalo were shaped. Once that’s really internalized, the natural result is to deal with others more thoughtfully, and with more respect for what may be there beneath the surface. And the results of that are very positive.

  9. red says:

    Just to clarify one thing:

    I was not saying that my experience seeing Bless the Beasts and the Children damaged my soul irrevocably.

    I am grateful for that too-early glimpse at the pain of the human condition. It deepened my compassion for others – just as you described, Joe. Definitely.

    I was comparing that kind of soul-growth, borne out of sadness, to what happens to children who grow up in war-torn countries. Who see, in front of their own eyes, their mothers raped. Their fathers decapitated. Who are ripped out of their parents arms and taken away. Who witness unimaginable horrors.

    Of course people survive these things – and many go on to lead productive lives. Look at Elie Wiesel, etc. But I suggest that something was ripped out of them that can never be replaced. That damage is for good.

    People can live with unbearable sadness and still go on. And perhaps, Jim – you are right. I do believe that you are right: that in the eyes of God, we are all perfect. Our souls, our essences, our Is-ness, can never be touched in the eyes of God.

  10. Keith Turausky says:

    Good to see I wasn’t the only kid with a Puff the Magic Dragon complex… it’s just SO SAD!

  11. Kate says:

    Just a quick comment and question about the Electric Grandmother movie. For years I have looked for someone else to help me remember more of this movie that I watched when very young. I remember the Grandmother being crushed by a semi at the end, not being there for the children as they grew into adults. I was beginning to believe that I had dreamt up this movie. I googled it this morning and was directed to Red’s musings. If anyone knows more about the Electric Grandmother movie please email me.

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