Passion
August 16, 2008
I’ve lost far too much sleep watching the Olympics this week. Phelps, Liukin, Torres, Misty May, Yang Wei, Coventry—the headliners, but every athlete in Beijing has devoted an inordinate chunk of life and sacrifice to training. What drives a person to pursue the shot put (all that chalk on the neck), or synchronized diving? I decline to participate in any activity, sport or otherwise, that requires a Brazilian wax.
But perhaps I am the last person who should speak about the eccentricities of passion. I waited 2 long weeks for titles to arrive from Amazon: Eastern Pilgrims—the travels of three ladies (published in 1870), Books and Readers in the Early Church, How the Codex was Found. Guardians of Letters. Arcane books for an eccentric passion. Yes, they’re fairly riveting.
Not sure why I’m gripped by the interests I have. Who can explain why someone feels an inexplicable pull towards 400 meter backstroke or headstone transcription…Nascar, 18th-century furniture, LP album covers, hot-wire chemical vapor deposition?
Or, in my case, parallelism in Hebrew poetry, or the issue of parablepsis among ancient scribes? Are my Scotch ancestors to blame for this? Maybe all those canned green beans from my childhood.
Entry Filed under: Bible Notes, Creative Nonfiction / Memoir. Tags: codex, Olympics, passion, Scottish ancestors.
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1.
sarahemc2 | August 19, 2008 at 11:27 am
I like your metaphor very much–except that now I feel like I understand your love of literature less, because it’s been compared to something I think is just silly and obsessive. If I weren’t so lazy, I’d start a feminist outcry about gymnastics, and even Putt agrees the women’s beach volleyball team needs to wear more clothing. And it can’t be the canned green beans… I ate them four times a week, and I wait anxiously for almost nothing except the pizza guy.
2.
inktarsia | August 19, 2008 at 1:04 pm
There’s a strange elegance in perfecting what the human body can do. But I wish they awarded gold for textual criticism. Or to underpaid comp instructors who teach this country how to write. P.S. I neglected to include ramp kimchi and Leonard whatshisname in the Nascar list.
3.
Lauralyn Thompson | August 20, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Okay, honey? You need to get out some.
Passion is a funny thing. We make fools of ourselves over the strangest things. But passion for literature is probably one of the better ones, considering I just bought the boxed set of “Queer as Folk” and watched it until…like…four a.m. And oh, by the way? I’m pretty sure the Brazillian wax may have had an influence there too… but I’m not sure.
But yeah, I did canned green beans. I’m not proud of it, and only outside the twelve-mile legal limit, but when they were cooking with bacon, I inhaled.