I am (yam?) of the generation that used to run home after school every day to watch Popeye cartoons. Beyond the short-lived delusion that having had spinach at dinner meant I could defend myself against the bully across the street, the strange world of Popeye held a lasting fascination.
My most enduring image is this: Olive Oyl goes off one night on a sleepwalking tour of a skyscraper construction site. Eyes tight, arms out, oblivious, she strides perilously high among moving girders and swinging wrecking balls. Popeye, awake, follows desperately, trying to protect and save her and suffering multiple disasters along the way.
Yet even as she takes one unconscious step into the void after another, steel beams slide gracefully, unfailingly, under her feet to support her.
Olive Oyl remains perfectly unharmed.
For many years I was that Popeye, desperate to stay alert to dangers, hypervigilant on behalf of my four younger siblings, each seemingly programmed to self-destruct in various and even creative ways, and every new turn of our lives seemingly bent on encouraging it. Thus, in my early days, I was driven to always know -- and enforce if I could -- the one “right” path.
The short version of how that worked out for me is it didn’t.
Codependency 101 aside, I’ve come to think that life at heart is about letting go of Popeye.
And embracing Olive.
My most enduring image is this: Olive Oyl goes off one night on a sleepwalking tour of a skyscraper construction site. Eyes tight, arms out, oblivious, she strides perilously high among moving girders and swinging wrecking balls. Popeye, awake, follows desperately, trying to protect and save her and suffering multiple disasters along the way.
Yet even as she takes one unconscious step into the void after another, steel beams slide gracefully, unfailingly, under her feet to support her.
Olive Oyl remains perfectly unharmed.
For many years I was that Popeye, desperate to stay alert to dangers, hypervigilant on behalf of my four younger siblings, each seemingly programmed to self-destruct in various and even creative ways, and every new turn of our lives seemingly bent on encouraging it. Thus, in my early days, I was driven to always know -- and enforce if I could -- the one “right” path.
The short version of how that worked out for me is it didn’t.
Codependency 101 aside, I’ve come to think that life at heart is about letting go of Popeye.
And embracing Olive.
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