A SEA CHANGE is when someone comes back from an experience with a new perspective, a change of heart. I didn't learn this definition from a particular sword & sandal feature sweeping the nation right now, but rather from a podcast for children produced by National Geographic called "Greeking Out" which we have listened to many times before and now listened to again on our way to St. Louis to help my partner Chad's mom pack up her house, sell her car, and move to a new place five minutes from us. As we drove past golden waves of feed corn and green pools of soy beans and blinding solar panels and giant windmills, we revisited Season 8, an adaptation of Homer's tale of Odysseus's 10-year journey back from Troy to Ithaca. Somehow the series stays true to the essence of the story while inserting plenty of cute jokes and factoids (did you know that the myth of the Cyclops may have originated from ancient creatures related to elephants that lived on Crete?).

Once we landed at Chad's mom's house in St. Louis, we recklessly combed through a lifetime of stuff, trying to figure out what to take and what to leave behind. During long days of sorting through vintage dishes and family photos, I thought about the Buddhist concept of illusion as being one of the roots of suffering, along with want and jealousy. All the ways we think we can ward off hurt or sadness. Or, chiefly, death. Stuff offers a momentary distraction from our mortality, the mortality of those we love. But as I struggled to fall asleep night after night, worrying about all the ways I was failing Michaela as a parent, I realized that this is also a distraction in the form of a delusion—the delusion that I could control my daughter's destiny, shape her personality, do anything to ensure her future success, while neglecting to give her the one thing she needs from me the most: absolute love and acceptance. I have plenty of things I don't need—not quite hoarder level, but close—but it is the mental clutter that makes me truly miserable.

When most of the house was sorted, we went to see The Odyssey. Not on IMAX or 70 mm but still, a big screen. It is great. I plan on seeing it again, maybe several times. I have only vague memories of reading Homer in high school, mainly my classmates snickering at the potential double entendre in the epithet "Rosy-fingered Dawn." So I'm no canon loyalist. But I don’t think Christopher Nolan quite captures the essence of the story. Charlize Theron plays the wise nymph Calypso; in her weathered beach wear, she looks more like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. I also don't know why Nolan used Calypso rather than the Phaeacians as a way to reveal Odysseus's backstory, except that it upped the cheesy romance factor. But I was most disappointed in the ending, when Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway sail peacefully into the sunset. Nolan’s Odyssey is an arc of redemption. An arc of penance would feel truer to the original, and truer to life in general.

On our ride home, after what felt like ten years of packing boxes, Michaela and I listened to another episode of Greeking Out, this one focused on Circe. As it happens, this episode also contains the real ending of The Odyssey, with Odysseus having gone mad, constantly wandering the beach as though searching for something. A lifetime of delusions had finally caught up to him.

My mother-in-law is embarking on a new chapter in her life, having moved to a new city for the first time ever. Michaela is also embarking on a new chapter, beginning middle school. We are all going through our own sea change. My own is less obvious: I will work a little harder at noticing when I'm letting my mental clutter get in the way of appreciating what we have right now. Also I plan on getting rid of some of my stuff. Michaela doesn’t need me to save every single one of her drawings.

There are several moments of The Odyssey where Nolan completely nails it, but my favorite is when Matt Damon/Odysseus has just listened to the Sirens and lived to describe their song: “It told you what you most want is what you most can't have and that the most you can't have is what you already had and lost.” Here Nolan does get the essence of Homer, which is to say, life. Odysseus continues: “It was a song of all the promises I failed to keep.”

Three Things Keeping Me Going This Week

1. Speaking of tales about searching for home and migration, I loved Friend of Mushroom Head Julie Ganey’s solo show “Michiganderish” at Steppenwolf. She weaves together stories of tackling invasive plants in her backyard while feeling like an invader herself as she moves into towns and neighborhoods where she doesn’t always feel welcome. She manages to come to peace with her situation while also not completely letting herself off the hook—a balancing act to which I aspire.
2. Loved the DeKooning drawing show at the Art Institute. I now feel like I understand how he arrived at his signature and inimitable style in the late 40s and 50s—especially the series of “Women” drawings, with their wild hair and slashes for smiles. The show even helped me appreciate his later scribbly work (though it’s still not my favorite).
3. Dave Malloy’s a capella musical, “Octet,” which started at the Raven and then moved to the Goodman. Fantastic performances and my favorite piece by him so far. It is about a recovery group for people who are addicted to the Internet—and who among us can say that we have never succumbed to that particular distraction?

This Week In Mushroom News

PS: Michaela recently finished Book 2 of the Percy Jackson series, which basically tracks the Odyssey. Between that and Greeking Out, she was well prepared to see the film, her first R-rated movie. The Cyclops scene and the Circe scene were the most questionable (we used these moments to take a bathroom break), but the real nightmare fuel was in the previews: a horror movie about a freakish mom starring Jessica Chastain. Thanks AMC. If you take small children to see the movie, maybe use the previews as an opportunity to grab some popcorn.

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