I’ve got my cans on, listening to Jeremy Renner croon it up. (Wait. Hawkeye from the Avengers is a singer?)
Renner inspires me. Crushed nearly to death by a snowcat, he still survives, thrives, and lives. Lately I’ve been watching his Disney+ show Rennervations in which he takes these worn out and decommissioned vehicles and turns them into something that gives back to a community, whether it be a mobile dance studio or music studio (built out of a tour bus or city bus!). I have two episodes yet to watch in the first season and hope the show gets picked up for a second, and even if it doesn’t, I hope Renner keeps up the philanthropy anyway.
I think about Renner, and how he forced himself back from the brink of oblivion to draw breath again. If he can, so I can. I’ve been behind the eight ball, under the surface, floundering. I’ve been knocked senseless, and can’t quite feel enough rage to get back off the mat and fight back. I don’t know that I believe in fighting anymore, but those standing over me with fists raised don’t seem to care. I recall “be angry and sin not” from the OCB, and think maybe it’s time I drew up some righteous anger to fuel my fight.
There is plenty to make me angry, to enflame my passions: injustice, cruelty, and outright black evil. But I spent my childhood in a blind rage, fighting anything and everything. I engaged in one final war to end all my wars and break free from my personal hell. Ever since I’ve been trying to rest and be at peace. I haven’t found it. Rest eludes me; peace isn’t mine. Maybe that’s because there are battles yet to fight.
Jeremy Renner is acting again, and released an album about his horrific accident. I can’t muster the impetus to get off my butt and engage with my hobbies. I am mostly healthy, and though depression is a constant specter, I have few excuses. I wonder what would happen if I was in a terrible accident and was faced with the choice Renner was: give up and die or get up and live? What would I do?
I’ve wanted to keep my head down, and not engage. I am afraid. What if I start fighting again and can’t stop? I remember the black temper of my teens and early adulthood. I don’t want to go back there, but maybe there is a middle ground? I remember a moment from Avengers: Age of Ultron in which Renner’s Hawkeye is fighting the robotic army of Ultron, and takes a second to try to motivate the inexperienced Wanda Maximoff.
“Hey, look at me. It’s your fault, it’s everyone’s fault, who cares? Are you up for this? Are you? Look I just need to know because the city -it’s flying. Ok, look, the city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense. But I’m going out there because it’s my job, okay, and I can’t do my job and babysit. Doesn’t matter what you did or what you were. If you go out there you fight, and you fight… Staying here you’re good, I’ll send your brother to come find you, but if you step out that door – you are an Avenger.”
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)
For too long I’ve been in the shadows, kept down by trepidation, fearful of my own shadow. It’s familiar territory. I spent my childhood in a prison of anxiety, unable to walk into a Blockbuster (kids, ask your parents or grandparents) to return a video. I was angry at everything, and nothing. Afraid of everything. Then I grew up and imagined that I got help for my demons and convinced myself that I was healthy.
The truth is: I feel like Wanda Maximoff. Caught in an unstable situation I don’t understand, that is partly my fault, and unable to make sense of what I am supposed to do next. But I feel words coming to me telling me that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the past held. What matters is what I do next. I need to muster the courage, the righteous fury, and energy to get up, step out the door keeping me held back, and become what I am meant to be.
I need to fight again!
a simple man 