Ivy PagePoetic Entanglement

Aug
24thBeat Generation, and life as a Gen X-er

This weekend my family and I met some friends at the New Hampshire sea-coast to enjoy our yearly pilgrimage to the ocean and eat overpriced seafood. Fun was had by all and sunburns were on the menu for my husband and me. After a few hours of reading and writing on the beach, and combing it for treasure with our youngest girl we had dinner with our friends and visited a little second hand bookstore in Rye, New Hampshire. This is where I found some treasures. While combing through the ninety-nine cent table, thumbing through V.C. Andrews and worn out copies of the best seller lists, I managed to find a book called, Beat Spirit by Mel Ash.

Beat Spirit seems to be a self help book for the aspiring beat within us all. It serves as a guide for those who are interested in the experience of being beat, as well as giving some information on the foundation of the beat movement, all of which interests me. I am working on a thesis for graduate school right now centered on the idea of the performance of self in poetry. This book and my thesis topic has made me start thinking about the cycle of humanity in the generations.

At lunch today while sitting with my kids, husband, and brother-in-law over a sub we discussed the expectations and assumptions made about the generations. My husband and I are both Gen X-er’s and between the two of us very nearly bridge the later decade of the generation. My brother-in-law is a generation Y-er, but feels he is closer to the X-er’s. After doing a little research, it turns out that my children are considered part of the y-ers and the z-er’s (also known as the silent generation). I wonder who comes up with these definitions and why? It’s not like people look at the generation you come from in a job interview or when considering dating options. What is the point? But, I digress…I guess what started all of this was the idea that Beat Spirit talks about how every generation has its own set of people who think it can be done better. We aren’t talking about the typical concept of the American Dream, what I am referring to is a better quality of life. Doesn’t everone want that?

Some people are perfectly happy with a 9-5 job that pays the bills and keeps them in enough money to have a family and go on annual vacations to another section of the country or world. While I am quite the home-body, I still dream of something more. Having enough to live on is great, but I strive to find a way to effect some positive change in my own little section of the world. Even if for no one other than my children, and myself.

So many people are down about the economy and oil prices right now that we all are just searching for a way to make a few extra dollars to heat our house this winter, and I have decided that while heat is important, I can’t lose track of my goal to find a way to live and feed my children while making our quality of life just a little better. To find a way to be able to spend time with my husband and get him out of a graveyard shift factory job that he hates, and show my children that sometimes sacrifice of things means a better life and more time to enjoy it.

All of this is to say, life is short ( to sound cheesy) and I don’t want to look back and think I missed the point…do you?

Until next time,
Ivy