Coping

Coping, 1950's style: Pain can easily be covered up and forgotten.Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the suburban experiment is the fact that now two generations of Americans, having fled, look back at these subdivisions with nostalgia. In Holy Land, Waldie presents himself as a character that has deserved to call Lakewood home. He has experienced the place. Part of the collective American experience is mobility and the striving to obtain that mobility, and having that luxury is a way to escape the true experience of place.

Waldie has a collection of real experiences in Lakewood because, instead of fleeing at the first sign of distress, he chose to remain and work through shock, pain, and grief not just within the confines of his hometown, but within the confines of his very own childhood home. Having spent time in Lakewood he has not only garnered a greater appreciation for the town and its history, but also for himself and his own perspective. Although the deaths of his parents are touched upon delicately in the book, his coping mechanisms – such as painting the walls white – demonstrate both a very typical effort to mask the pain and a sincere commitment to his home.

All too often, grief and recovery are treated as fleeting experiences that can be remedied easily or avoided entirely. Waldie chose to experience his hurt in the place in which it was dealt to him. For others, it is easier to simply pack up and go – leave the pain in the place where it feels the most vivid. In doing so, we retreat from our own history and deny ourselves a truly well-rounded experience of ourselves, our homes, and our places. It is easier for some to sugar-coat than to cope. Or, as in this image from Doctor Dan: The Bandage Man, a children’s book from the 1950’s, it is easier to cover it up with a bandage and forget about it. Click for more on the history of this book, which was sold as propaganda for Band-Aid bandages. Appropriately, the brand “Band-Aid” was never mentioned in the children’s story, but the book came with “Six Real Band-Aid Adhesive Bandages!”

I am as guilty of this defense mechanism as anyone, but I admire Waldie’s ability to transcend his own grief in his hometown. After the shock of loss subsided, I could not bear to keep living in Park Slope, so where did I look to move first? The polar opposite: Williamsburg.