michaelboy

The getting out is the release and birth of a thousand stars and a thousand more after



Orion Nebula, NASA, Hubble Space Telescope

Folks sometimes wonder why anyone would want to expose themselves to the sadness, pain and suffering of others. Really though, I think if we forever turn our cheeks, it still will wholly exist and certainly will never miraculously languish into nothingness. Surely good comes well-shaped and defined by sad, always in contrast but never as its overlord and to learn this constantly, is to bring a better life into your own heart. I promise.

Above an open valley, knowing always to the place where I can’t change what is or bring back a single event to re-live exactly and erase a single tear, whether spoken or not.
In the inexorable recreation of life, inexactly I am determined to honor these soft places where horses and men have failed. But I will not attempt to do what they could not.
Yet surely I will line the path with ground-pine leaves of oak, ever-blooming iris and daffodil

All of which are much older and wiser than my life and all I could ever hope to be and simply knowing this is touching and what a cemetery is to me.

*

It was about fifty years ago on that night when we wrapped arms around each other and kissed in this community swimming pool. It was a Friday night swim-dance and this was simply a flash of a moment (perhaps all of three minutes) in the long stretch of decades, but certainly it made my mind spin a whole lot that night. Notwithstanding, I've carried it gently with me, ever since.

She was a year ahead of me in high school, so we really never interacted much and certainly never brought up the kiss with each other. Hell, I've never really spoken about it to anyone and it's been so long, that sometimes it feels... almost like it was never even real.

I saw her in Kroger's a couple of years ago. We exchanged a bit of small-talk near the greeting card department and I kept thinking the whole time that I wanted to somehow express gratitude or at least my acknowledgement for the unspoken...but it just seemed stupid, inappropriate and really out of place. I sometimes wonder, even though I hope -- if she remembers it.

Are you able to miss someone that you never chance to see or touch?
Can you keep looking to them and not see the curve of their mouth?
Without a conversation, will their voice stay embedded in you?
It’s closer to reverie and what you often see when you can not.

* * *

Sinéad Lohan's lovely performance of a memorable Bob Dylan song:

If I knew,
Oh boy blue.



Sometimes, I would simply stare at the print of The Three Musicians on my bedroom wall and wonder about the living man who wore a beret. Why did he paint that way? Why did it make me feel good just to look at something that simple and that complex? Afterall, it was just a bunch of lines and color messed around on a piece of paper, and it was more.

In the days of AM, on many nights, I listened to O’Brien on WCFL (and sometimes even Quatre-Vignt Dix from Canada) -- on a Lloyd's analog clock-radio. Those radio waves bounced around the ionosphere at night and somehow made it all the way to the Ohio Valley, not just for me... but it felt that way.

I’d wonder how far Chicago was and just how windy a Windy City could really be. Were folks walking around with wind-broken umbrellas? Did the litter scatter around the streets in wind devils or was this just stupid capricious fancy?

Sometimes I’d pull down my NASA FACTS brochures from the bedroom closet and look at pictures of the Gemini, the Apollo and of all the rovers and probes.

For several years, one of the spindles in the headboard of my bed was loose and to calm myself before sleep I would twist it back and forth -- causing it to squeak. It was a comforting routine. One day, for whatever reason, I decided to work a little Vaseline into the joint at the bottom end of the spindle. After that, it never sqeaked again.

I will always regret silencing it

Up near the apple tree, where my dad hung a rope swing, was the sandbox he made for us. It was rather simple and rough - just four 2 x 10’s nailed together and then filled with brown building sand from the local lumber company. While we didn’t have many toys, I remember a metal Tonka road grader that my mom purchased second-hand at the swap-shop in town. It was one of my favorites and while I can never bring it back, I miss it and still would love to "grade" a road or two.

Near the sandbox was the standing trunk of a rotting tree. One day I decided it would be fun to throw a few firecrackers in a small round hole in the side of the tree...but with that I unknowingly killed an entire nest of altricial woodpeckers. As well, I know I can’t bring them back either.

There are many things we must settle solely in the silence of our hearts.

I wrote letters to my two U.S. senators and the congressman who represents my district regarding my thoughts on DHS/ICE. I'm not sure if it will make a difference but I needed to try. It's just so horrible, sad and wrong.

According to Miss Stephanie Crawford... Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him. Miss Stephanie said Atticus didn’t bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat. Too proud to fight?’ inquired Mr. Ewell. Miss Stephanie said Atticus said, “No, too old,” put his hands in pockets and strolled on. Miss Stephanie said you had to hand it to Atticus Finch, he could be right dry sometimes.” Later when explaining his actions to his son Jem, Atticus says, “Jem, see if you stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some sort of comeback. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved his daughter one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. You understand?”

From: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960



While not universally so, as there are times when a fight is completely appropriate and justified, that a more carefully measured response to aggression sometimes brings a more effective and desirable result.

The hard part for me, is figuring out, given any circumstance, which approach will be felicitous and which will not. When I was very young, I hoped to be much wiser than I am now -- especially at my age. However, finding the right answers may be more of a stochastic process and according to  principles of the random walk theory, I should eventually run into them. So there's that.

In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables... Jean Valjean steals the silver spoons and forks from Monseigneur Bienvenu - even after being shown a great hand of kindness. The gendarmes return Valjean promptly where, without reproachment, the bishop insists he had given Valjean the silver and furthers to mention that Valjean has forgotten the very valuable silver candlesticks. It is then, in a moment, that a new path begins to open for the man....

”No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself. In order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of the most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle.

Even on his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and that was all. But what was his thought?
It would have been impossible to divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded. But what was the nature of this emotion?”


Ultimately this terrible rapscallion becomes a person of great character....all for a few candlesticks - or rather, for the gesture to which they are a symbol. (okay, just like a grade school book report - You’ll have to read the book to find out how it ends) I will say though, It amazes me how such small acts of kindness, understanding and generosity often have the power to affect a person’s life in very positive and substantial ways. Especially when they may seem undeserved.

* * *

For those who showed me kindness for all the times when even "I was a girl"...