Two months in: screams made of stars and thunderbolts
I’ve been about two and a half months in Omaha, NE. It’s November 1. Tomorrow is Laura’s birthday (yay). The day after that…feels a whole lot like D-Day. What will we decide? Who will we be? What will we have to grieve, regardless?
Do you know The Monster at the End of This Book? It’s a Sesame Street board book featuring Grover. He turns around at the beginning and sees the title of the book (they love to break the fourth wall, those Sesame Street architects). From that point on, he’s working against you, desperately trying to prevent you from turning pages. He doesn’t want to face the monster, you see.
It puts you in a weird position as a kid, this book, because it makes you want to laugh at Grover’s fear. He ties knots, hammers boards together, and even builds a brick wall to keep you from turning pages. I remember the delight of smashing through his feeble attempts. Because I was strong. Because I had power. Now I read the book and I feel for him. He’s only asking for help. He’s only saying, “I am so scared. Could you please stop?”
He also gets really angry. At one point, he screams, “YOU TURNED ANOTHER PAGE! You do not know what you are doing to me! Now…STOP TURNING PAGES!” The illustrator draws stars and thunderbolts pouring from his mouth. His protest is not a shout so much as an atmospheric event.
At the turning of the final page, he begs. He says, again and again, “Please.” But I always turned the page. That’s the lesson you learn early, and it keeps being reinforced. They will always keep turning the pages.
I get it, Grover. I’ve been screaming in cars in response to newscasts lately — not spontaneously. It’s quite deliberate. And to scream you kinda have to be deliberate: you gather yourself up, like up, then bring everything you’ve got to the middle of you, right in your chest, before you slam it out and through. It’s strange to scream — for me, it’s been years. I know this means that I am lucky.
In a way, it felt good to hurl something out of me. It also hurt a little. And more, it surprised me, the fierce clawing through my chest. If someone were to draw me, stars and thunderbolts would pour from my mouth. If you were to read me, you would maybe pick up on that same sense of desperation and anger: “Why won’t you just STOP?!”
We’re about to turn another one. Sometimes it feels like it could be the last page. Regardless, I’m afraid to see what’s on the other side. You know?
In the book, it goes okay (spoilers ahead). You turn the last page (of course) and Grover discovers that the “monster” is him. He’s relieved, and I remember feeling relieved for him as a kid. And also full of some condescending pity: Grover was being so silly! There was nothing to be afraid of after all, and I had just taught him that.
But I’m not sure this is true, for a few reasons. This is my one beef (now) with the book — fear doesn’t have to disappear or be rendered silly and benign in order for the revelation to be profound. On the one hand, there are real monsters out there. We know that. On the other, though, returning to the book itself, I don’t think it’s actually quite so clear cut who the monster is in the end. Sure, Grover has littered the pages with rope remnants and other debris — he’s made a huge mess. As for whether he actually is a monster in terms of his species, I can’t say. But I can say for sure that in this case, the reader’s actions are just as if not more appallingly monstrous. This lovely, sweet creature keeps asking and then, increasingly, begging for you to stop turning pages. But you won’t. You arrive at the last page and Grover just takes the blame. I cringe a little now at his final words: “Oh, I am so embarrassed.” Why?
So who’s the monster here? Jesus, what was this book teaching me?
Perhaps this is starting to seem quite dark. And sure, it is. I’ve been thinking a lot about election day, 2016. I remember Obama saying, “no matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning.” But it kinda didn’t, am I right? And the symbolism of Daylight Savings Time ending this morning doesn’t feel good, does it? I want to save all the daylight we can. There’s a monster coming. So yeah — what good does this strange board book have to offer?
I remember wishing as a kid that I could somehow be with Grover. I mean, it was so fun to torment him by turning pages, but I also wanted to explain: that I thought it would probably be okay, that I would help if a monster really did show up. But also, I think now that Grover was actually pretty brave, in a way I never recognized. He was so desperate and scared, confronting that last page turn. He literally saw the writing on the wall. The end was coming.
But he didn’t run away. He could have. Those Sesame Street architects do love breaking the fourth wall. I can see it now: he understands that you’ll never help him, so he turns around and walks away, leaving you there alone to turn the final page. Because, really, fuck you.
Grover doesn’t do that though; he stands true. He stays with you and not only discovers but owns the monstrousness inside of him — how his fear became destructive. And I think maybe the book calls to the reader, if they’ll only listen. I think maybe it offers more than one option. Sure, you could close the book with pity and condescension: “It’s silly to be so afraid.” You could let him take the rap. Or you could — we could — pause on that last page. We could own how power over Grover made monsters of us, too. How we weaponized his vulnerability against him. How we hurt him. I wonder what would happen next. I wonder what new pages could bring. I wish I had realized it then. I’m sorry for it now.
I’m feeling the need to draw all this together, tie it into a neat bow. But I can’t — it’s all so goddamn messy. So scary. It’s Sunday, and I really don’t want the week to start. Yeah: there’s a part of me hard at work trying to stop this from coming somehow. She’s tying knots and building walls. She is all star blasts and thunderbolts. She is so, so afraid. It’s kind of irritating. I don’t want to be this afraid, you know?
But she needs me, I think, and prodding her forward without mercy is cruel. So I’m trying to remember all of the story, as much as I can. I’m trying to pay attention (in addition to making phone calls and frantic donations — November is gonna be a lean month). I think there is a small but insistent hope to be found in the potential of what happens around that last page turn, every time we feel that we’re facing one. Maybe there could be a transformative power and life in moving forward together — painful and stuttering and destructive though it may be, though the outcome is far from certain, though it’s so, so dark. What could we make and do if we could acknowledge, as individuals and as a country and a species (particularly those of us occupying positions of privilege and power), that the monster is us? That we are here, together, for a reason?
For today, I’ll just say, I’m sorry, Grover. Don’t be embarrassed. You were the braver one, in the end. I can’t stop the pages from turning, but here, I’ll sit with you in the middle of this mess. I don’t know. Maybe that’s one way to move forward, by keeping all of what is at work inside us: the weary, lung-sore grief, the powerful, atmospheric riot of rage, and so much more. Nothing is denied or discarded. We’re angry and tired and full of regret and sorrow. But together.
