It is the series finale tonight of Mad Men, a show I have only seen in fits and starts. I won’t be viewing; it is on my to stream in marathon sessions list.
Because it is ending, they have been showing it in its entirety on whatever the station is these past few days, and I caught one the other night while I was cooking.
I don’t even know what season it was. Don is divorced, Betty has married the other guy; in this one Peggy and Don are both working late at the office, go out drinking, fall asleep together but not together on the couch.
In many scenes Don is keeping notes of some kind; is he in psychoanalysis and this is his homework? You see him writing and hear him reading what he writes. He sounds like a damn good writer at times. But the one that really grabbed me by the collar was,
We’re flawed, because we want so much more.
We’re ruined, because we get these things and want what we had.
Am thinking about this. And wondering about the effect of playing this character on Jon Hamm.
A bunch more tough, tough stuff the past few days for me, so the dark darkness of Mad Men is all too apt. Being born at the tail end of the Baby Boom I definitely recognize that fashion from my Northern VA youth.
But I cut free from all the dark into the garden today to pull weeds and impose– or try– some order. Sometimes, just got to get your hands in the dirt. It was a perfect May day, or rather perfect for late June– where did spring go?– but NO ONE is complaining after that (shudder) winter we just had.
Anyways. Tending the garden offers a grace that transcends. And that, may be all there is.