Mental Flossing What Remains of the Day

Yesterday's posting about the important issues of clothesline usage left me with a brain crumb. A "brain crumb," for the uninformed among you (Geez. First I have to teach you about the principles of hanging your clothes outside, then I have to give a vocabulary lesson!): A brain crumb is a small leftover thought or image that doesn't blow away or hide under the bureau when you close the door behind you, like their relatives, the obediant little dust bunnies do. The brain crumb I was left with was a mere fragment of a thought, "dirty laundry." Now, to be rid of this ort, I pull out the mental floss and have at it.

I am thinking about what we keep private. I am thinking about this because I watched the totally depressing movie Dogtooth (Ah! What the floss finds!) and read the novel A Map of the World, nearly its twin of domestic gloominess. And, yes, I would actually recommend both to you, though not necessarily in one week as I experienced them.

The film, directed by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos and released in 2009, has won many awards and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. The novel, by Wisconsinite Jane Hamilton, was first published in 1994 and was an Orange Prize finalist as well as an Oprah's Book Club choice. They are both stories, one surreal, the other too real, that take place deep in the troubled heart of an isolated family. They both are woven from strands involving child abuse, sexual abuse, isolation, and truth telling. (I mean, come on! I already told you the novel was an Oprah selection!) What are the lies we tell? How do we tell truth from lies? What do words represent in our efforts to represent truth to the world around us?

The families of these two stories are as distinctive as their media. What the families share is their cocooning. Both families, visited by horrible events, are closed. Their agonies and horrors, their dirty laundry and their unmentionables so to speak, are not hung outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Think here about really smelly old athletic socks, men's smelly old athletic socks, left in a locker too long. Some doors should never be opened. That is sort of how I felt about both these award-winning creations, and yet here I am saying, yes, you should see/read them. Why? Because they'll take you somewhere, to some of your own experience.

Remember when you were little and had to dig through all the dirty clothes in the bag that hung at the bottom of the clothes chute? Probably a mean sibling had thrown something you loved down the chute in retaliation for your being cuter than she was or maybe for tattling on her for trying on your mom's lipstick, but now you are down in the basement digging through the dirty clothes looking for your favorite barrette. The smell is overwhelming, especially because the dank, dark basement admits no fresh air ever and it's been nearly a full week since laundry was done. Ah! There it is, stuck to an old sock of your Dad's. Phew! A very pungent old sock of your Dad's. You inhale it deeply. There is something to love about it.

You call up the stairs for your sister to come down. "I've got something for you!" Together, you inhale your Dad's stinky old sock and then grin at each other with total happiness.

This is the kind of dirty family laundry I remember. And now that little brain crumb is done bothering me.