Wandering Toward My Shifting Self

Accidental Friend

I had just swallowed my first sip of coffee and lit my first cigarette. My landline rang. It’s dark outside. Who’s calling at 11 PM in the morning?

It was my daughter. She’s celebrating a birthday with friends in Washington, DC.

“Dad, today we visited the Holocaust Museum and Ted Kennedy’s grave at Arlington Cemetery. I can’t tell you how moving it was . . .” She went on to describe her profound emotions at these sites.

I listened and reflected on the contrast of a malformed life who used law to enslave and kill and a redemptive life who legislated compassionate justice.

I began to tell her my plans for today.

Here’s where the conversation got tangled up – confusing. Her today was my yesterday. My today was her tomorrow. Whatever? We got our clocks coordinated.

 Then she told me she had called my cell phone earlier with no answer. When she dialed my landline later she misdialed.

She got an eighty year old woman who didn’t slam down the receiver. Instead, when my daughter explained she was a bit concerned about her dad, the woman looked up my landline number. She then told my daughter, ‘Oh, I live nearby – I’d be glad to run over and check on him.’

My daughter thanked her, but didn’t think it necessary. The old woman then said, ‘Can we pray together he is alright?’

My daughter wasn’t comfortable with this or with an old woman roaming the city so late at night. She told the woman, ‘thank you for your help; rest easy, I have other family in town if there is trouble.’ The woman insisted again, ‘I’m only blocks away, I’d be glad to check!’

What a weird, wonderful, digital world!

Today is always yesterday’s tomorrow. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is gift.

What a gift! A dialing accident found a friend who lives in the forever and forever time of a Transfigured Christ.  No recrimination about a yesterday should. No speculation about a tomorrow could.  Simply a ‘be glad to help’ today would!

$$$$ Value

 ‘Hey! I know that street.’ The House and Garden channel droned on in the somnambulant afternoon. Not really dozing in my chair, the picture of an older section of Chicago got my full attention.

A couple of years earlier, this young couple had bought an old style Chicago apartment. They loved the location and the ambience, but were unhappy with the old style kitchen. The show told the story of remodeling the kitchen into a modern one, but keeping the classic ambience. The Designer revealed the finished job with an apology. The job had cost almost double the $125,000 the owners had budgeted. “No matter, it’s beautiful! We love being able to walk to the cafes, clubs and subway. It’s worth every penny you spent.”

The TV droned on as my mind drifted back a half century. My first professional job was in an older section of Chicago. On my desk was a calendar provided by an insurance company. Each page had the header ‘You will earn $250,000 in your lifetime!’

This proved remarkably accurate at 65 when I got my Social Security income summary. This quarter million dollars funded the raising of two lovely and accomplished daughters. It enabled frequent visits with our four grandkids. It allowed us to enjoy hundreds of friends.

We traveled. We back packed and canoed in a dozen National Parks. We spent time in as many historic European cities. Our road trips took us through two thirds of the Lower 48.

We enjoyed each other and our life together.  At our Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary, we could say with time tested truth and heart tested fervor, “It’s worth every penny we spent.”

I thought back ten years to my wife’s successful battle with Breast Cancer. After months of surgery, radiation and chemo she was declared in remission. Neither a quarter of a million dollar kitchen remodel nor my $250,000 lifetime earnings would’ve kept us from bankruptcy when the medical bills came due.  “It’s worth every penny Medicare spent.”

What is a dollar worth?

The most basic answer to that question is: a dollar is a piece of paper with a number printed on it. It costs maybe a penny to produce.

We don’t think of dollars in those terms. We add the numbers and brag or bitch about the gross sum!

The 115 year old Chicago retailer, Sears, offers a clue about dollar value. Its current ad suggests that dollars can either enhance or encumber the days of our lives. They hint we should choose:

LIFE. WELL SPENT. 

   

Red Hats

“Of course a proper lady doesn’t go out without her hat!” My sister’s voice sparkled with the lilt of youth as she reminisced about her 1942 spring outfit of a coat with matching red hat.

 

Following Pearl Harbor our Dad was assigned to Fifth Army Headquarters in Chicago. We lived in a downtown hotel. I was nine. She was seven. Going all by ourselves to the café next to the hotel, we thought ourselves really grown up people.

 

I don’t know if headwear denotes status anymore. I do know I like hats. A Basque Beret keeps my head warm in winter. A well worn Greek Fisherman’s cap does the same while shading my eyes. A Russian fur cap does the job when it’s bitter cold. A British driving cap protects my bald spot from sunburn in the summer. A rumpled Irish hat keeps gentle rain from fogging my glasses. A straw Plantation hat with a four inch brim does the same for sun. Hats stuff my coat closet.

 

Modern psychiatry tells us that we accumulate stuff to compensate for our insecurity. Oh Me Oh My!

 

It’s not just hats. Every flat surface in my condo, vertical and horizontal, is covered – more precisely buried.  Pictures – ancestors, grandkids, vacation scenes, etc. Knick-knacks – memorabilia of some ridiculously silly times, some seriously magic moments. My desk, my light table, any wee space available hosts partly done projects, projected projects and bills that need to be done right now.  

 

I’ve always defended my clutter with a fact of my nurture. My mama done told me! A house should be: “Clean enough to be sanitary. Cluttered enough to maintain sanity.”

 

Alack and alas! Modern medicine robs me of the comfort that sanity is a healthy reason for clutter!

 

My material chaos doesn’t result from compulsive hoarding. I find joy giving away stuff other people can use.

 

Stuff helps me remember good friends, good times, good feasts and other goodies of my life. True, I sometimes get overwhelmed – nay paralyzed with every nook and cranny stuffed with keepsakes. I dealt with that by sanctifying my favorite bits and pieces as holy relics of a blessed life. I got the job done with the saintly authority of a Cardinal’s red hat from my closet.

 

Alack and alas! This sorting cleared out a few spaces. But I have lots of favorites. Then Psychiatry took away my comfort in consecrated clutter.

 

Empirical evidence has shown that no pharmaceutical or therapeutic protocol for the disease of accumulation has been found. It’s rooted too deeply in a fearful dysfunctional personality.

 

If pills and reasonable incantations don’t ameliorate this malady, I’m doomed. Pray for me – for my malformed persona encircled by stuff.

Time Out

Once upon a time, maybe in third grade, I had a really exciting recess.

 

It had not been a good day in the school yard. During the morning recess the kids from the other side of Lincoln Ave had thumped me several times on the teeter totter. During the noon hour I got into a game of marbles. It was a ‘for keeps’ game with Billy and Harold. They didn’t clean me out, but my marble bag sure was smaller when the bell rang. Did I mention Billy and Harold were big guys in that other side of Lincoln Ave gang?

 

I was not in a good mood during after lunch classes. By the time afternoon recess came I was downright mad at the world and Harold and Billy in the flesh.

 

Afternoon recess finally came. We organized a game of Red Rover back of the gym. Harold and Billy were at one end of the line in front of the brick wall. They called me out. “Red Rover, Red Rover, let me come over!”

 

Just what I had been waiting for! With steam coming from my ears and revenge pounding in my heart, I dug my feet into the gravel and hurled myself toward their locked arms.

 

Wham! I did it. I broke their solidly joined grip and ran full speed into the brick wall.

 

The recess bell rang. I shook myself to clear the dizziness and staggered back to class. I don’t have the clearest recollection of the next few moments. My teacher called Mom to come and get me. I was standing on top of my desk singing ‘God Bless America’ at the top of my lungs.

 

After several days of bed rest and gallons of chicken soup they let me back in school. I still didn’t like Harold and Billy much, but we all sat at our desks with decorum.

 

A painful day of childish rage earns a smile, at a distance of seven decades. The smile turns upside down, when grownups today play Red Rover on a Washington, DC playground.

 

Fish Fry

We drove north to a small lake someone had told us about. Deep in the Northwoods, we found the only Fishing Camp on the lake.

Carl and Jo, my wife and I set up our tent, rented a boat and sat around a campfire eagerly planning opening day tomorrow. We were going to fish!

Of course, we told tales of big ones that got away.  We were fisher people! We got into friendly arguments over the best way to rig our lines tomorrow. Minnows or leeches? Noisy surface lures? Bucktails or spoons? Deep running lures? On and on, we were going to catch fish!

As the campfire burned down to coals, we began to discuss the best way to cook these fish. Each of us had a tried and true recipe. Motivated, we crawled into the tent. Dawn couldn’t come soon enough.

We’d fished hard. The sun was slowly sinking in the west. We’d emptied our tackle boxes. After long hours of hard fishing, our stringer boasted a couple of scrawny fish. Bummer!

And then it happened. We drifted into an obscure bay where the fish were still spawning. After a bit of fiddling around we discovered if we shortened our lines to six inches and poked our poles right down into the nests, big fat fish would take a bare hook.

Wooohee! We eat well tonight!

We’d read the fine print on our fishing licenses. We knew this was against Fish and Game Regulations. But who’s watching. We’d eat the evidence. The chances of getting caught and paying a fine were about nil.

After a triumphant fishing trip, we drove home with full bellies. And bragging rights to big ones that didn’t get away.

We discussed morality. A sin is a sin is a sin! The question is:  does ignoring a bureaucratic regulation when no one’s looking constitute sin.

That was long ago. Today, we live in a much different world. I wonder?