A peace is an interesting construct. In more quotidian speech, most of us might be more inclined to say “make peace” here. It wouldn’t take any more syllables and could be spoken with the same emphasis if necessary. But A peace is compelling in its one of many sense. There are many peaces that can be made in the world, of which this would be one and there is also The Peace, which is more broad ranging in some ways and also more local in that it is almost always used in the sense of keeping the peace or disturbing it. But Laertes is not interested in being led to a peace. That’s probably just one peace of many but the most significant one with Hamlet is his main concern.

Heads up – I wrote this two years ago. This news is old. But the darkness in it remains the same. Luckily, I still have health care. And so do lots of other people, still. For now. The fight continues.
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My actual sickness is in my head, where the climate is stormy and cloudy most of the time. And today I also have a sickness in my heart because I saw the news. And the news tells us that our governmental body has voted to kill all our health care. It is, by most accounts, a cruel piece of legislation which will likely result in 24 million people losing their healthcare. I may be among them. And the fact that people with immense privilege can play dominoes with our health care – well, it does not instill much confidence in our future. I feel despair thinking about the callousness that must exist in these folks to be so cavalier with all of our health.

One representative is reported to have said if you’ve lived a good life, you won’t need health care. He makes plain an underlying idea that somehow illness is a moral failing – that anyone who gets cancer, for example, deserves it for some reason.
No one deserves it. Although there would be a kind of beautiful irony if that guy got it.

Ever since I donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, I have been subscribed to their publications. The Intelligence Report featured so many articles about hate groups – because one of the things they do is monitor them. One of the articles featured a guy who’d been undercover with the FBI in one of these groups and he said it was important to just let them spew forth in whatever corner they hung out in because it was when they felt their spewing forth was limited that they began to want to get guns and get violent. His advice was to let them go a little bit so that they would not let go a LOT.

The other thing I learned was about a march slated for a post-election KKK celebration. Apparently, they planned to march down the main street of some town, loud and proud of their hateful heritage. Counter protesters amassed great crowds to minimize the impact. But when the time came, two of the leaders ended up in prison after coming to blows among themselves and the march ended up as a quick drive down the street, in trucks with confederate flags on them. In the end, the counter protest was much bigger and the hate march was laughable. The article in the Intelligence Report called them Ku Klux Clowns. No disrespect to clowns – but the KKK, when given the space to clown themselves, did a rather good job of it. Free speech and the right to assemble gave them space to make fools of themselves. Maybe the thing to do is to let them come and then laugh at them.

I have just come from my third eye doctor this year. (Ha. Third Eye Doctor sounds like someone who is looking after my third eye rather than the third doctor I’ve seen for my eyes.) The first doctor I saw back in July proclaimed my eyes the picture of health and put me in progressive lenses that made me want to puke. Five months later, I saw a more specialized eye doctor who marveled at the depths of my suppressions, who proclaimed my convergence insufficiency quite entrenched. And now this third eye doctor who tells me my convergence insufficiency is compensated and that given that I’ve gone all these many decades without a problem, I may not need to treat it at all, though if I were his wife, he’d have me do the vision therapy.
I’ve had people suggest that the headaches and migraines that have plagued me this year were eye related and some say yes, others say no. The most recent doc says if I don’t get headaches after reading it’s not eye related.
The world of the body is complex and confusing. What is muscular? What is chemical? My migraine medication is an anti-depressant and works like a magical charm. What is the cause? What is the effect? The eyes, when disturbed, make me want to throw up or give me a headache – but most of the time, they’re just doing their best. What is what?? And how to proceed?

And since I wrote this a couple of years ago, I have since seen a fourth and fifth eye doctor (though they were at the same center) and I have had Vision Therapy and had my eyes thoroughly re-educated. At my last check up they told me I was good to go.

My vision is a lot more coherent and it’s cool that I learned how to see double. I still get the migraines though. They’re a LOT better but they probably weren’t eye related. More like hormones and blood vessels. Still lost in it.

It is a little bit sad to me that I couldn’t identify the handwriting of my friends I’ve made since the information age began. The ones I knew before I know from their letters, their postcards, their notes.
Each person’s text messages look like every other person’s text messages. Each person’s emails look like every other person’s emails.
But the handwriting of the people I knew before, it’s written indelibly in my memory. If you were to put before me the handwriting of a handful of old friends, I could match them easily.
With new friends, I’d be guessing.

It will, too. But like those arrows Claudius just described, they’re going to turn right around and get you. Revenge is like that. One revenge leads to another.
And it often backfires in the process, bringing the revenge onto the person who attempted it. Revenge IS good for dramas in that it is an endless cycle of dramatic events. But for life? It’ll get you before it gets your target, most likely.

Maybe seeing your sister as perfect contributed to the problems, Laertes. Maybe it might have been better for her mental health to see her as a human being instead of a perfect woman standing on a mount.
I mean – Hamlet describes his father as “a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.”
That’s a human way of looking at someone. (Of course he also idolizes his father with that Hyperion nonsense…but that’s another story.)
Women are always expected to be perfect. This line tells me that it has been ever thus. We are not permitted the same indulgence of humanity. We are meant to achieve perfection in our looks, perfection in our behavior. We are never allowed to make mistakes. I think if Ophelia’s family had made space for her to be human instead of perfect, she might have survived this play.

What stories has Claudius told Laertes? I mean – sure – there’s the truth, which is that Hamlet killed Polonius, thinking it was the king. But this is information Claudius can only have gotten out of Hamlet himself or Gertrude. Or from intuition. Which is probably the more likely.

I mean. Hamlet has not done so much murder attempting as he would like to. And there’s not a lot for Claudius to point to. Nothing but Polonius’ death. Which, sure, maybe that’s it. But Laertes’ question here suggests that maybe Claudius has been doing some serious truth embroidery. Claudius has been sewing up a whole truth embroidery sampler for Laertes.

There are moments in which I almost forget the terrifying state of the world. For a fleeting instant, when the sun is shining and children are laughing, it seems that all will be well, that there is nothing to fear.

And then you remember the turning of the wheels of power, the ones that are grinding into dust: Art, beauty and all the delicate, vulnerable people of the world. You remember that there is injustice at the border, that people have stopped wanting to visit your fair land due to the xenophobic mania sweeping the country.

But. Sunshine. Children. Yes. It well appears.

Maybe it’s the way the actors said it in those first imprinted productions, but I had always thought this line was about Hamlet. I thought it was Laertes planning for Hamlet’s murder. But he doesn’t know from Hamlet yet. This is a litany of crimes against Polonius. These are all the issues with Polonius’ death. Only one of which is not Claudius’ fault. Claudius didn’t kill him, it’s true. But it must have been his decision to not give him a decent funeral. It is curious. Why make himself vulnerable by not honoring a statesmen? Why hush it up? How does this benefit him? There must be a reason. But I’m not clear what it could be.