Wandering Toward My Shifting Self

Boogieman

When my girls were in elementary school a nighttime ritual took place. Bathed and in their PJ’s they’d come in to kiss me good night.

 Occasionally, I’d jump up. Shout “I’m going to eat you all up!” When I’d reach to grab them, the game was on. Running all over the house screaming and laughing, we had a high old time. Mom watched with patience.

When she decided enough was enough, she’d take their hands, lead them into the bedroom, kiss them and turn off the light. “Night, Night!” Boogieman Game Over!

I sometimes watch ‘The McLaughlin Group’ on PBS.

McLaughlin begins with some ‘what if’ question like, ‘Will Obama’s stimulus result in bankrupting America?’

Predictably the group begins screeching. Liberal Lady, modest and earnest, often starts the melee. Conservative Barbie, chic and slick, quickly out screeches her. Neutral Newsman sits chin in hand. His voice barely and rarely heard. Pat Buchanan with a booming laugh joins the game. An old friend from the TV neighborhood, his leather lungs often make him the loudest and last one screeching.

 ‘Mom’ McLaughlin sits quietly. He looks at his group with patience. Finally, enough is enough. He quells the noise and announces the ‘right’ answer. He turns to the audience, “bye. BYE!” Closing credits, the set goes dark. Game over!

Just wondering.  Am I wrong in seeing a remarkable similarity?

Morning Jo

Whoops! What a mess!

For more years than I can accurately count, I’ve started the day with two mugs of strong coffee garnished with a small dollop of cream. This is so ingrained in the rut of habit; I don’t have to measure, or think about the process. Every move toward the end product happens without any conscious attention on my part.

Not this morning! At the point where the cream goes into the hot coffee mug, I had a flood. Light brown liquid all over the counter.

What happened? The local dairy changed their spout on a box of coffee cream. Instead of ‘the pull out the top’ pouring spout, there was a screw off cap with a large plastic spout on the side. Something new and I guess more convenient.

Never mind, I had a mess and a problem.

I could clean up the mess with a new super absorbent paper towel. Irritating but necessary. What could I do about my two mugs of strong coffee with a dollop of cream?

If I poured the way too creamy coffee down the drain and started over, I would only have one mug of coffee. Even if I went and put on my glasses to compensate for the lack of depth perception in my bad left eye, there was no guarantee the new wider spout wouldn’t do the same mischief.

I actually had to think about my morning coffee. Strange!

I finally decided to pour off part of the too creamy mug and add fresh strong coffee.  That way I’d get my two mugs – both partially full. Ah well! Maybe drinking so much strong coffee on an empty stomach is not healthy.

And so it came to pass. My first mug was a tad too creamy. But I had hopes my second mug would be more to my habitual taste.

Just saying new stuff is really irritating. My habitual routine was all shaken up. I actually had to think way too early in the morning!

Dollar Value

We were attracting a crowd!

My wife and I were traveling with another couple in Europe. We were spending several days in Venice. Our friend had read in a guide book that a fair price for a Gondola ride would be about $80. The boatman wanted $100. The argument was getting loud and heated. Day trippers from the cruise ships gathered round.

The boatman made an obscene gesture and turned away in distain. As we melted away down a narrow side street, I noticed a day tripper offer $200. The boatman responded with a slight differential nod, ‘Please enter my boat, Sir!’

We found a modest sidewalk café.  Our friend cooled down with fresh melon and ham. As we enjoyed a leisurely lunch, we discussed plans for the afternoon. We would split up.

So lunch finished, we paid the bill – about $100 apiece with tip.

Our friends took a water taxi to the island where Venetian glass was made. My wife and I sought out the church where Vivaldi had worked for much of his life. We paid the $10 per person entry fee. We sat and absorbed the ambiance in homage to a great musician. My wife quietly filled me in on Vivaldi’s life story and contribution to Classical Music.

As sundown approached, the cruise ships left. We met our friends in the now quiet main square for drinks and supper. They were all agog with their tour of the glass factory. They eagerly described the several hundred dollars of glass pieces they had bought and shipped home.

We enjoyed our drinks, our conversation, a modest supper, the quiet beauty of St. Mark’s Square as dusk merged into darkness. We found our way through a maze of quiet lantern lit lanes back to our hotel.

After a night’s rest, we hit the tourist trail with zest. We explored more of the beauty and history of this unique city before catching a train to Rome.  We never did have a Gondola ride! The $20 argument still rankled.

Was our visit ruined without a half-hour trip in a Gondola through the back canals of Venice? No! Would it have enhanced our experience of the city? Yes! Was it worth making a fuss over $20? You got to be kidding!

I wonder! Dollars may describe a price, but do they define a value?

Time Outs

In the Spring of my thirteenth year, I was caught in a storm. Thunder rolled, lightening cracked and rain poured down in blinding sheets.

This storm was metaphysical not material. We’d just moved into a new town. I’d started in a huge magnet High School miles across town. I had watched my father die of a violent heart attack. In the blink of a death, family income was cut to one fifth normal.

I walked to a city park. I sheltered under a pine tree. I tried to identify the texture of my life.  The bane of fear was painfully abundant. ‘Aha’ insights of blessing seemed unattainable. Walking back and forth to my pine tree, I finally figured something out. Storms come and go beyond my control. I can look for sunbeams peeking through dark clouds.

During the summer of my life constant motion threatened to disorient me. Marriage, children, building a career, the dizzy whirlwind never quit. Like Christ fighting temptation in the wilderness, I laced up my hiking boots and went into the woods. Riding a canoe down a swift river, I found peace in the harmony of earth, wind and fire.

In my autumn, the color of my life changed. Green morphed to red. I counted my blessings. My career was reasonably successful. My family was reasonably healthy and happy. My friends were abundant.

But as red faded to brown, I put on my traveling shoes. Visiting cities of my ancestors – spiritual, intellectual and immigrant, I rediscovered bane and blessing as a condition of being human. Museums remembered their struggles. Beautiful churches and city centers bore witness to their joys.

As the cold of winter begins to close around me, I sit in my ergonomic computer chair in fuzzy slippers. I look out my window at black tress against a white landscape. I turn on the Ethernet and look for colorful rays of hope.

I wonder, will my grandkids know the renewing power of Time Outs in their insistent Right Now cyberworld? To sanctify with modesty the bane of suffering and dance with delight the blessing of joy! To be still in a peace beyond words!

Winter fog drifts across my vision. In it I see Mom during a rough day flop in a chair sweaty, disheveled, at her wit’s end. She’d close her eyes for a moment. Smile and say, “Thank God, the first hundred years are the hardest!”

Then she’d pop up and get on with what needed to be done.

Sweet Sadness

We three cousins sat in Doc Hanson’s dining room. We looked at a winter ravaged garden struggling back to green life. We lingered over our Swedish lunch – you know, strong coffee. every recipe starting with a pound of sugar, a pound of butter and a pint of cream.

We’d gathered to say goodbye to Cousin Mary in hospice. California Cousin Dorothy and her husband Roy were legally responsible for making final arrangements. But Dorothy woke up with ‘a bug’. Jane and I volunteered to drive out to the Clan Cathedral and make burial arrangements.

We got the job done after getting lost a couple of times. All the old landmarks were gone.

Iona had promised us lunch. She’d bought Doc Hanson’s cottage when the ‘home place’ was sold up to a neighbor who ‘farmed big’. Thanks to our common immigrant ancestor making babies over fifteen years, we were all of a birthday age, but of different generations on the family tree.

‘Outlaw’ Cousin Jane had married into the clan during her first teaching job in the village. My summer visits to Grandfather made me City Cousin. Country Cousin Iona was born and bred on the homestead. We’d known each other all of our lives.

We chuckled over Doc Hanson’s eccentricities. He’d dug a steep ramp into his basement to park his Model T next to the furnace. “T’s” were famous for being able to back up steep inclines and hard to start in winter. So many memories to share; some sad, some sweet, most smiling chuckles.

As the sun sank toward the west, Iona told of wrenching pain over the decision to sell up the ‘home place’. No one in the current generation was Swede stubborn enough to starve on a quarter section.

We lingered over coffee reluctant to let go of our clan comfort. As we left for town, Iona wistfully commented, “There’s no place left but the churchyard!”

I said my final goodbye to Mary and said good night to the cousins. The next morning driving home I had an epiphany. I’d puzzled over my Mom’s insistence at subscribing to the village newspaper when she had not lived anywhere close to ‘the home place’ for forty years.

As late winter sun rose over a rolling prairie eagerly soaking up its renewing warmth, it hit me. My Mom’s identity was anchored in a Place. Even though her bed and board had come from a wide variety of spaces, the center of her “self” was in a place. A Place that changed very little during her lifetime!

I was blessed as a kid to know a Clan Place.  It enriched my roots of “self”. My kids were born and bred in spaces. Spaces that changed often!

My grandkids are born and bred into cyberspaces that change with the speed of light. They will never know the old shoe comfort of our sweet sad clan lunch.