Letters to Jen Tilly Lane - Part 2.

 

Letters from the older brothers I never had comprised a handful of the 18 letters.  Each of these guys, except for one, were friends from college days.  We didn't date, we were just great friends.  We had lunch on campus, we bantered about Theology, we talked about Life.  And if I do say so myself, I have some very great Guy Friends.  It just seems to have so happened that we didn't end up falling in love with each other and getting married like, perhaps, it should have happened.  Sometimes you just have a gut instinct that a friendship is all this thing ever could be ... without me having to snuff you out with my pillow in the middle of the night if we had married.  I'm kidding about the murder part, obviously, but quite serious about the aggravation level that sometimes can be generated between otherwise good and decent people.   

One of the letters is a general rambling about nothing much - it was someone that was part of a group of us that were friends.  To be candid, he never quite grew out of the annoying phase of adolescent males.  This was before the trend of 27 year-olds living in their parents' basements playing video games.  I give him credit that he actually came to college and gave that a shot.  Who knows where he is now.  We had a mutual friend that I cared for very much and still think of him as a mentor and an inspiration.  Let's call him Guy.  About 15 years ago, I happened to be in the city where Guy was living at the time and we got together for a visit and heart-to-heart about all things that mattered to us.  Guy told me he spent some time with the previously-referenced letter writer who proceeded to purposefully capsize him in their water craft with the intention of drowning him.  He said to Guy, "I was jealous of you," as more of an explanation than an apology - although I can't imagine what the HELL you would say to someone you just tried to KILL!  Frankly, I have been surprised in the last decade of how many depraved people I have met along Life's Path.  

It reminds me of that great saying:  "Do not walk behind me, I might not lead.  Do not walk ahead of me, I might not follow.  Do not walk beside me either, just leave me the hell alone."  There are some people I don't even want to be Facebook "friends" with, he had moved himself into that zone.  

Then there are the friends you want to keep forever.  They are just plain golden - I have letters from two of those type of men.  Except in one case, we tag up on social media occasionally and talk about Theology, the good old days, what we are living through at the time, etc.  He married a nice wife, is raising some nice kids, and making a positive contribution to society.  I like him because we relate on a par - we always have been able to do that - and he doesn't require any fixing, or toleration.  It's just a really low-maintenance, long time friendship, where if we don't talk for years, we can pick up exactly where we left off.  There's really nothing messy or bad about it.  

In the other case, there is a sadness when I think about my other guy friend, let's call him Barnabas.  We were not college friends.  We were youth ministry colleagues at my first job and had forged a great friendship.  One of the hallmarks of these uncomplicated, brother-like relationships is the guys call me by my last name, instead of my first name.  It makes me feel like I made the baseball team or something.  I feel included and happy.  Except in this case, when he got married it changed.  Like, I never got a Thank You note for traveling to his wedding, or giving a gift.  And when I sent them a Christmas card a few months later it was returned to sender in a handwriting that was not his.  I can only surmise that she did not want to be my friend, and felt more comfortable just cutting me out of the picture.   If that is true, it kind of says that she does not trust him, which, as any mature adult knows, is the only bedrock upon which you can build a lasting relationship.  Once you begin the mistrust thing, your mind plays tricks on you, suspicions grow, and you destroy any shot at true and lasting happiness.  

I guess what I miss the most about being involuntarily cut out of Barnabas' life without cause is:  I may never get to thank him for the profound impact he had on my development as a youth minister.  He gave me a 1-page sheet of notes he took somewhere and they were so good, so useful that I actually photocopied them and gave them out to other adults that I was training, decades later.  His tenacity, his frankness made the teens trust him.  He was a good person with high moral standards and even though he was too humble to realize it, he was an absolute Beacon of Hope for people.  I always knew where we stood and I know that friendships that are that clear and true are rare for most people.  Like the last time he helped me move my apartment -he said, "Arabik.  This is the LAST time we are moving your crap anywhere!  No more new apartments!"  (I moved 6 times in 4 years.)  It turns out, it wasn't my last move, I left Arizona, but not before he left first.  That was a hard day watching one of your best friends drive off into the horizon.  Reading the letter from him will always make me remember the retreats we gave, the trips we took our parish teens on, and the like.  I don't remember him going bowling with us, though.  Somehow that would have taken the veneer off his coolness.  And he was definitely the coolest.

 The third guy letter was from, let's call him Patrick.  He packed his letter with holy cards of saints.  Ten to be exact, which included:  St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Gemma Galgani, and the Blessed Mother.  His letter was a simple catch-up on how he was pursuing his dream of religious life with a new Franciscan order that was being started, and his plan to teach high school... which I don't think he actually ended up doing.  He had been for some part of his life a lost soul, and the mercy of God found him and just changed his life.  He was exceedingly joyful for about 99.7% of the times that I saw him on campus.  He walked with such a spring in his step, that he at times appeared to be on a pogo stick.  The last thing he left me with in his letter was how much he loved me because "God's love & mercy toward me is so astonishing, I often dissolve into one big tear drop of gratitude." It would be my wish that every person could have a friend like this.... an absolute treasure.

At times upon reflection, one can be struck with the sense of gratitude for the characters in our lives.  It is a play, at times a Divine Comedy, with many different actors holding their roles as they interact with and influence us.  The last two letters I want to comment upon were friend women that were much my senior, and in fact have both gone on to their eternal reward at this point.  

I think of the University I attended as one big melting pot of kids from a variety of states and countries but all seemed to have a common zeal as people of faith.  It may not have been equal, but it was an important component for arguably 90% of the campus population.  We were not perfect, but we wanted at least to be good.  And I don't know how it is that my horizons expanded beyond the University on the hill to the community surrounding it, but somehow it did.  Back in the day before computers, there was this archaic thing called the typewriter.  And all papers submitted to professors were executed on such a machine.  However, typewriters had no spell check, and no grammar-check bluelines under phrases that needed a re-do.  The spell and grammar checker were one and the same:  ME, the typist.  I typed papers for countless University scholars, as we were, in the six years I was there.  People trusted me to keep their secrets on their psychology autobiographies, edit their documents, and then educate them later on what got changed and why.  I was a student typist and an English teacher all rolled into one.  

Then one day a senior citizen from the city called up to the campus looking for a student to type "something" for her.  And my name was provided as the go-to.  So she drove up to see me with her manuscript in hand and I had my assignment:  to type her memoirs.  Her handwriting can only fairly be described as:  Exquisite.  It was cursive at its absolute finest, as her letter now in my hand also attests.  In this letter she shares her excitement of how well the memoirs were received, and of an upcoming fancy dinner party she was preparing to attend with her husband.  She seemed to have quite a social life that involved lots of special desserts.  Her letter had a warmth and affection to it that makes me wish I had been able to give her more time.  She appreciated what I was able to do for her, but the typing project had also opened up her heart to make a new friend.  She shared that she had never gone up the hill to the University before, having lunch with me there was her first time, and she was received with both attention and graciousness by my fellow students.  Mrs. B, you taught me to be open to the new person, to make new friendships possible by opening the doors to "outsiders," and I hope to extend myself more to people in life.  Thank you for being part of the process of me maturing in friendships.

My last senior citizen letter was from a generous woman who opened her home to four of us young women (three from the University) for a summer of fellowship and ministry near Boston.  Let's call her "Faith."  Faith was a nurse at a Hospital in a major city.  She wore her nursing whites from shoulder to toe every day at work, and pulled her long silver hair up into a tight bun on her head.  She must have been an impeccable, flawless nurse.  But she also liked a good laugh, and good food, just like we her younger boarders did.  At that stage in our lives, two out of the four of us were obsessed with the idea of finding Mr. Right, and getting married.  I asked Faith once if she ever considered getting married.  She seemed to be looking through the sky to another world as she answered:  "Yes.  But he went to the war and did not come back."  My heart hurt for her in that regard.

With my friend Grace, I read her letter and pondered how much we have in common, despite the decades of age between us.  We are both people of faith; we love poetry and prayer groups; and we love the ocean.  I wrote a poem in her honor on behalf of we, her 4 boarders for the summer.  It was about The Lady by the Sea - and she told me often how it moved her to tears.  But it was she who took our faith and gave it the nautical analogy:  Abba Father is the Navigator of Life; Jesus is the Helmsman of my soul; the Holy Spirit is the Power of the Wind in my sails.  How beautiful.

The memories I have of that summer by the sea are many.  Some of them are great memories, fun memories, and others are things that I could have done differently, better.  But it is okay.  As Faith pointed out, it was a time of growing and maturing for all of us.  Really, is that not the work-of-a-lifetime:  growing and maturing?  Can we ever in this life say, "now I am complete, now I am done."  And yet for Faith, her race is run and she is crowned with the grace that was her due for being who she was without hesitation.  My life is richer for having been her friend.  And now my job is to be that kind of person for the young people in my life.  

To all my friends who wrote me those letters back then and the letters you send me now - thank you for your friendship, your candor, your faith, your sincerity.  Thank you for being "givers" in life - you are the blessings that walk silently beside me as I travel my road, and I am more than grateful for you.

                                                         #########################

Letters to Jen Tilly Lane - Part I.

 

I lived in climate of paradise over 30 years ago.  Most days, I think that leaving Arizona was the biggest mistake I ever made ... but then again, all the nice people I've met since then and dogs I have acquired...  A visitor to my house yesterday (after not seeing me for ten years) summed up my activities as we toured through my house:  "Bik (my nickname), you've raised birds, made wine, raised dogs, and what else ... you've done good!"  I felt a bit of validation.  I am both a goal-setter and an achiever, and as such, any periods of inactivity or nonproductivity make me anxious.  I have to say one of my favorite religious books was The Purpose Driven Life because I suddenly felt that my desire to feel purposeful and creative was validated.  We all need validation.  It doesn't always come when we want it, but it happens when God knows we need it.  I tell you the following stories, changing the names for obvious reasons but for sure and for certain these stories are true.  And true things are worth telling.

In 1981 I bought a wooden crate the size of an end table.  The crate was used to ship my belongings to myself for my freshman year in college.  That wooden crate has been with me in Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts and New York.  I think it will probably always be with me, even when I am 94 and living in the nephews' garage apartment with a dog and a Siamese fighting fish named Spike.  

For some reason, last week I decided to move The Crate down into the basement.  I thought I knew what was in it:  40 years worth of my journals and my University diplomas and my beautiful green, gold, and black hood from University graduation.  I had hoped some day to use it when I would be receiving my doctorate... but I would have to be in school again to make that happen.  It seems I have been too busy living to get a doctorate.  That, and learning two more languages seems daunting to me at this point.  I digress.  That Crate was beastly heavy so in a swoop of utter genius, I unlocked it and began to unpack the journals and carry armloads of them downstairs.  And then I found a surprise:  a stack of 18 letters from a variety of personal friends, dated 1987-1989 or so, bound together with a red rubber band.  I made time later that evening to read them.

I won't tell you about every single one of them, but I will share lessons learned from revisiting a few of them.  First of all, there were two people I had letters from that I could absolutely not put a face to the name.  That disappointed me because in one of them, a woman poured her heart out to me.  I looked her name up on facebook and then had a shock for myself.  This is the same woman whom I saw at a NY Thruway rest stop a year or two ago.  I walked up to her and said, "I don't know if you remember me, but I was on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje with you in 1988.  I am sorry that I don't remember your name, but I did want to say hello to you."  She was cordial and we went our separate ways.  Fast forward to me reading her letter - and honestly I don't even think we had a conversation with each other when we were on that pilgrimage in the same group so maybe that's why I didn't know how to respond.  Because what exactly is it, I ask you, that you say to a person who tells you in a letter to half-way across the States, that they lost their middle school child due to a hidden health condition, and that their grief was almost unbearable, and that they blamed God?  It was this anger that somehow turned inside her to something that pointed her towards pilgrimage and reclaiming a faith for herself.  I would have been 24 years old when I first read that letter... how could I know, at that age, what to say ... and yet ...

Another letter thanked me profusely for my support and understanding.  It was a friend, probably three years younger than me, who had a crisis pregnancy and had decided to place her child for adoption so that he could have a better life.  I know what I told her then, because I know what I would say now to anyone in that position:  Adoption is always a better choice than abortion, but that doesn't mean it will be an easy or pain-free choice.  Yet it is an unselfish, beautiful, brave step .... a step only a VERY GOOD PARENT could make, putting your child's welfare before your own emotional need.  And this young woman thanked me and blessed me for being one of the few people who "got" why she did what she did... I remember how spiritually compelled I felt to write the letter of support and love to her ... and yet as I mailed it was wondering how it would be received.  I never anticipated how important the letter was to her emotionally - it buoyed her up when others did not support her.  That is what her letter I held in my hands last night told ME.  Within two decades later, she had married a wonderful man and was living a happy life when her own health condition tanked ... and she passed away.  When she placed her baby for adoption, she had no way of knowing that she would not be seeing him graduate from high school even if she had raised him herself ...

And I had no way of knowing that within two years of her letter to me, I would be standing beside a young expectant mother who was about to do the very same thing:  place her son with a family that could give him the start in life that she could not.  This young woman struggled every year around his birthday - one year begging me to drive to the city where he lived to attend church to see if she could catch a glimpse of him.  I did not surmise that we could predict any of our reactions if we did that, and managed to talk her out of it.  Now, approximately 30 years later, she and her husband have raised a wonderful family and her firstborn son reached out to re-connect with her.  He has been received back to the arms of the woman who gave him life, while bringing his generous, faithful adoptive parents into an even bigger circle of love as well.  Oh, the beauty of the road trodden by the brave!  I am so honored to have been part of that story.

Then there were two letters from young women, friends from college, sharing with me that they were engaged.  I am a big fan of marriage - even though I have not yet married (while there is breath, there is a hope) - and I remember two different occasions where people told ME before anyone else that they were getting married, saying, "we just knew how happy you would be for us!"  The two "engagement letters" were quite different from each other.  While they were newsy and friendly to me, the notice of moving toward marriage was a much more stunning piece of the letter.  In Sandy's letter she admitted that while her beau was a faithful, good man - and I know they loved each other - she was "afraid" to get married.  I don't think I ever knew or asked her why she was afraid because that certainly isn't the thing you should be wrestling with while you are saying, "I do."  Perhaps the tremendousness of self-donation for sixty years going forward was on her mind.  The fear of the Great Unknown, as it were.  Or maybe it was the laying down of her arms as a self-sufficient woman of the age that seemed daunting, or maybe it felt like putting a white flag up and losing independence that she couldn't wrap her brain around.  I think it is fair to say that most men of this age have no IDEA what the women's liberation movement did to the female psyche.  While Gloria S and her friends set out to "liberate" women from domineering, chauvinistic stereotypes (where I agree), they also set out to emasculate the other gender and destroy the institution of marriage (ideas I strongly oppose) in order to give women a very distorted freedom, which turned out to be in fact a bondage.  Freedom is always closely linked to the responsibility that comes with it.  You cannot do what you want, when you want if it is going to hurt other people ... or be self-destructive.

The second engagement letter had a mountain inside it.  Jocelyn was marrying a man who had spent time in seminary and figuring out what his next career would be.  He was thinking of becoming a counselor, but practically moving towards a blue-collar job that would more readily support his wife and future family.  While it made sense to us as young adults, her parents were not on board with it.  This is the part of the story where all of us want Roma Downey and Della Reese to appear as two angels and straighten the parents out and show them how young love will eventually mature if we give it light and room to grow.  I guess if I had a daughter, the angels would have to visit me personally to let me agree that any man was good enough, or noble enough, or smart enough to take her for a wife.  So I guess I get that cautious or oppositional spirit of her parents, but I am aware, even though I have not communicated with the couple since those days, that:  a) they did get married; and b) they are still happily married ... and that is what we had all hoped for... without knowing the particulars of how it ironed-out along the way.

I do not know why I answered some of these 18 letters, and did not answer others.  Over time I developed a habit of turning a letter over and writing a date on the back of the envelope that indicated when I responded to them.  I know at least three of the people who sent me letters now have an Eternal Address where the USPS cannot deliver.... which brings me to the 3 Priest Letters.

It sounds like the start of a joke, doesn't it?  There were 3 Priests walking by a river and one of them said .... (You get the idea).  And these three men were completely different from each other - not cookie-cutter in any way.  One of them I never met but his sister and I rented a house together for a while. I know I had written an initial letter to him saying hello, and asking him for prayers ... because that is what hermits do for a living, so I wanted to put him to good use!  He was a member of a religious order that was cloistered away from the world on a cliff somewhere wonderful.  He sent me cartoons, thanked me for the ministry I was doing at the time, talked to me about nothing much, assured me of his prayers that I find a husband, and invited me to visit ... by now I imagine he is in his 70's.  

The second Priest's letter contains a postcard from a beautiful European country which he returned to when he left the States.  When I was in college, he came to teach Theology on our campus for a semester.  There was just one thing that made me feel kind of sorry for him:  we had world-class evangelists and famous people also teaching in that department.  So much so that if you weren't a known conference speaker, it made me wonder, who would take your class?  So I signed up for his class on The Letter of St. Paul to the Romans just to see if he was saying the same thing that my true Theology Saint (Fr. Francis Martin) was teaching. He was an unusual person with a European haircut, either that, or he cut his own bangs with a bowl on his head like the mothers in the depression did for their kids.  And he asked me after class if I would save a dance for him at the student mixer that night.  I was surprised.  I didn't know priests were "allowed" to dance.  I also think I kind of had a crush on him.  So here was this letter telling me of his life in Europe (1989) hand-scrawled on a piece of paper 3inches by 3 inches with a photocopied note on the other side to other friends.  And that is pretty much all there is to say about that.  We all have a cache of friends we reach out to and we hope they are glad to hear we are alive & well, and have taken up skiing on the Swiss Alps and have a very nice prayer community to which we belong.  And for a brief moment, I was part of the cache... and it seems I didn't respond to that letter either. 

The third Priest's letter was again mostly about ministry (because that is what I was doing for a living) and very kind.  His story bears a bit more telling though.  He was one of those evangelists I mentioned above, teaching at University.  And he was known throughout the world for being fantastic with young people.  He wrote books, gave conferences, held healing services.  He was all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips.  But the one thing I related to about him that I guess I never realized to this day is that he had scars on his face.  Growing up, I had scars left behind by the chicken pox, and subconsciously I think I related to this person.  I knew what it felt like to be trying to make something of your life, but feeling like I could never forget being called "moon face" and "crater face" in Junior High.  And while I hated - truly - my own junior high experience and never wanted to work with teens in a million years, I can tell you that my favorite and best jobs were the ones where I worked with teens, particularly the junior high crowd... because they loved me.  What I thought would be horrible, ended up being a very healing experience.  At the first parish where I worked, I had kids that would buzz around me like bees around a very sweet flower.  I just remember loving them from my heart and they loved me right back.  And somehow over the years, most of the scars on my face have faded.  I still struggle with the ones inside my heart, as most of us do, so I never quite forget how it feels to be imperfect, and that's just how life is.

So this priest told us he was retiring to the mountains to live a life of prayer and penance.  He had years ago been a counselor - probably a psychologist - and then he became a university professor, and then just as I began my ministry career, he was wrapping up his.  I reached out to him to come give a presentation at a school where I was teaching.  He came and brought a deacon to travel with him, and very graciously went out to dinner with a group of teens  and adults later.  It was a stellar day and then a few years later I started to understand what else had happened in his life.  

I remember the day in Pastoral Guidance class where he referenced the then-popular movie Prince of Tides.  He bellowed across the classroom - just to be sure we didn't miss his point - "Do not EVER think you are doing a client a favor by sleeping with them!  It is against the very heart of not just Christian teaching but ethical counseling practices."  It struck me as an odd outburst.  I don't even know if it had anything to do with what we were talking about in class that day.  But he made a strong point.

Fast forward to almost two decades later, and the Bishop of his home diocese made a sweeping case to lift the statute of limitations on clergy accusations to a broader band of time.  And all of a sudden I realize why my ministry hero, my friend, my teacher is no longer in a parish, school, or conference agenda.  What I choose to believe about that is this:  perhaps when he was younger he made the Prince of Tides mistake, and it caught up with him.  That would also explain his loud declaration in class that day.  I don't think his situation was anything other than that, but those kind of mistakes got swept into the Zero Tolerance Zone established by the USCCB.  Whereas, I am not the picture of Compassion when I hear about child molesters and I tend to get very, very outspoken about the importance of victims' rights to see their assailants convicted and jailed,  I also believe that every man is, proverbially, "due his day in court."  The legal system of our country rests on the concept of "Innocent until proven guilty."  Our Media - which exists only to promote itself, not to propel unbiased truth - has twisted that to "Guilty until proven Innocent," because that is what sells news.  That is also why I only buy newspapers to line my bird cages with.

My fallen hero has since been laid to rest beneath the green carpet of grass.  This year, I learned that he passed away six years ago - without fanfare.  I think about the countless people he has helped spiritually - and there have been many.  I remember the days when he would call up to the phone in the hallway of my dormitory (and the others on campus as well; before we had cell phones) and I would answer it and he would say, "This is Father So-and-So, I am sending pizza up to you all - can you see to it that it is fairly distributed?"  Yes.  Was this kindness or atonement for sins of a past life?  Maybe.  Life is complicated.  Somehow in our human hearts, even the greatest of generosities of a repentant heart can never quite seem to equal one serious evil act.  And I know if he was alive, and I actually was talking this through with him, he would immediately point out what we both believe to be true:  The one act of an innocent man dying on a cross for a world of sinners was enough expiation in the eyes of God who is Father of all.  In the end, we have to trust that God is going to sort it out more justly, and in other cases, more mercifully than any of us could.  I'm hanging my hat on that.

                                        ###################################

  

The Sound of .... Vermont 2021

 

It appears there are more mountains than people in Vermont.  Other than a nearby traveler who hums, taps, talks to self, sings, etc., Vermont is quiet.  I mean really quiet.  There are people here, I presume, because I see parked cars at the condo.  But there are no voices.  Screen doors closed, and solid doors open, but no kind of noise.  Even the mosquitoes turned off their engines... and word has it they are considered the Vermont state bird.  People can't possibly be working from home at the condos where we stay because the Internet keeps going on the blink.  We ran into people at the pool the other night and tried to make conversation with them, and the father and his kid just turned their backs to us and swam to the other end of the pool.  Bizarre.

The other thing about Vermont is they are, apparently, "saving trees" one cash register receipt at a time.  Frankly, if I don't write down my expenses on the corner of something quickly while the "amount spent" is still in my short term memory bank, my register is going to be an ever-loving disaster.  And, strange surprise, you can't do coin parking meters or coin laundry machines here.  They only accept "plastic."  (How can you open an app when Wi-Fi is still out?)  If my parents were to vacation here, they'd go home with dirty laundry because they don't "do plastic."  So in the end, a whole generation of people who believe in paying cash for service and are old enough to not work and vacation anywhere they want, won't do it HERE if they have to pay laundry and parking meters with plastic.  I'm chalking this one up to another millennial idea to make things faster and jettison human jobs (ie. meter maids).

Oh, Stuff it

Yesterday we went to a place where you can make your own stuffed animals (the company shall remain nameless herein).  I could not find anything of an average size below $40.  I could have bought a $25 critter made of dense, knobby material - not soft and silky like the others - and They would donate one of the same to an emergency responder station for children in distress.  A nice thought.  But in the end both the kid and the buyer would not have a silky bear but a knobby one.  Something not right, but I can't quite put my finger on it.  Are they just trying to "move" knobby bears at a cut-rate?  If they donated them ALL couldn't they just grab a tax deduction for charitable purposes - or does Vermont not work like that?

And speaking of fingers... remember the strange photo of the grinning politician wearing mittens?  (And it's so much harder to do business and "move money" with mittens on, isn't it - so maybe this slows down crime?)  The stuffed animal store had a huge display of like-mittens for sale, perhaps, better to say "for purchase" since the word "sale" implies a bargain.  $50 for awkward granny mittens?!  Are you people out of your minds?!?

The Love Language of  ... FedEx

Ah - signs of life - big foot is stomping up the condo stairs - perhaps Sasquatch vacations here?  Then the delivery man booms-out the name of his company and makes someone's day.  I heard a woman say, "Oh, they've arrived!"  If you've read Chapman's book The Five Love Languages, I am a solid score on "receiving gifts" - so all that to say when the FedEx guy came to deliver furnace filters at my house the other day, I got so happy I almost hugged him.  No matter that I purchased them for myself.  I think he should yell, "INCOMING!"  when he comes up my driveway.  I get so excited.  I would've made a great mommy to a child inclined to bring me a handful of wilting dandelions.  I know I would exclaim with joy:  "Posies?!  For me?!  So beautiful!"  and the child would beam and run off to catch salamanders for me and put them in an empty mayonnaise jar with twigs and grass cuttings.  

"Writers Write" (Ann Landers)

My travelmates don't think I can hear them as I sit on the porch.  They are talking about journaling - and who does it (me), and they don't.  People who don't write need something else like smoking or sudoku or crosswords - because if I don't write my head will explode.  As I see and experience things, this is the way I process and share the percolations in my head.

It is breezy and cool today - September first - this patio is great.  I saw sunrise over the mountains this morning - wow - that one moment with the ball of fire blazing in the sky was so moving.  Then I went back to bed.  I can stand only so much raw inspiration. 

The Men of Vermont                                               

The Grand Silence of Vermont was broken by Rick the bookstore guy.  I think I found a book to buy because I felt sorry for him.  He was awkwardly masked, somewhere behind the counter surrounded by a tidal wave of tenuously perched books.  Any attempt to organize his store at this point would be akin to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.  the shelves were a disaster of epic proportions.  Adrian Monk (the television detective who I plan to marry) would've gone right into a panic attack at the sight of this store.

Sometimes people just talk to me for no reason.  My mother has encouraged me to listen more and talk less, to draw other people out.  This has mostly turned out to be bad advice.  First, because I am bad at it.  I find myself interesting and funny and firmly believe everyone else should too (tongue-in-cheek).  Second, and more to the point, people tell me stuff I don't need to know.

For instance: the bookstore guy.  He told me about someone who returns gifts that he gives them (We can all feel that angst, I agree.)  I pointed out to him that perhaps the worst part of that is when we give, we give a piece of our own thoughtfulness, and when that is rejected it hurts our hearts.  In effect, it rejects not just the gift, but the giver - I don't need this, is translated to our psyche as, "You have nothing to offer me."

Then he switched to talking about moving from living with roommates to having your own place.  (He was in his early 60's so I don't know why this topic rose up)  I merely commented how happy I am - when I recall some of my roommate situations - that I now live with three dogs instead of people.

He took that comment to a whole other level and said a psychologist friend told him dogs give to us emotionally and perhaps even biophysically.  Huh?  To the point:  by bringing dirt into our homes dogs  build up our immune system by exposing us to other germs for which we subsequently develop antibodies.  Irony:  he was wearing mask when he said this, and  the sign on his door insisted that me and everyone else who entered, vaccinated or not, had to be masked.  These types of people drive me crazy.  They need to decide whether or not they even truly believe in the vaccine they want to mandate.  I looked at him and said something relative to:  I have a hard time getting excited about dog shit being tracked into my house.  He was quick to assure me he was only referencing dirt.  I tried to stammer my way toward wrapping up this odd conversational-free-association-experience.

I was also still mentally boxing-up his comments about food pantries needing to broaden their stock to include women's feminine supplies and how glad he was that we lifted (did we?  who is "we"?) the taboo of speaking about such things in public so now we can really help people with what they "need."  And, honestly, for all points of the conversation we had, I will always think of this man as the stereotypical Vermont Man Type 1.  I couldn't see behind the counter but I bet you five dollars he was wearing Birkenstocks... possibly with socks on.

Vermont Man Type 2's persona would be captured by the guy running a gift shop we stopped by on our way home.  I walked into the roadside shop and immediately began trying to mentally identify a funky smell.  Not exactly a maryjane smell.  Not cigarettes.  Perhaps outdated balsam potpourri?  But funky nonetheless.  And as he sat behind his counter writing - he said - stock identifiers on  a piece of paper (as in "Stocks & Bonds") he somehow told us he just sold a house online... in 8 hours ... for $795,000 .... yes 3 zeroes.  I assure you if I just made THAT kind of sale I would not be sitting in a run-down gift shop selling maple candies and garden banners to middle-aged fat women fleeing the state.

To look at the guy,  I would really expect he'd be playing Jimmy Buffet songs on the store radio. Tee shirt, wavy dark brown hair, middle-aged but strong looking and yet laughed a lot.  But he just sat there in the quiet scribbling numbers, talking to himself.  I presume he was wearing flip-flops, not Birkenstocks.  I also didn't get the impression he voted for Bernie.  He was too unapologetic about his financial success.  Five bucks says he was born in another state and moved to Vermont.

Vermont Man Type 3 is captured by the painter Norman Rockwell.  He is the subject of the "Freedom of Speech" painting in the series on The Four Freedoms.  Rockwell, I have been told, puts a trick in each of his paintings - as a result, in order to find this detail, you find yourself pulled in to make you study it more. The Vermont man exercising his Freedom of Speech at a townhall meeting is wearing a plaid flannel jacket.  It has buttons; his shirt has a zipper.  That's the trick.  But it is also the job of a good artist to show you, the viewer, that we have subtle expectations of the things of life - like our clothes - and those can be adjusted without doing damage to the overall picture.  I love Rockwell for his ordinary yet exquisite portrayal of American life.  Actually, the guy in the painting reminds me of what my friend's dad would have looked like when he was younger... and I imagine in his life he has gotten plenty of use of his freedom of speech.  

Vermont - is it open for business?

Vermont is only really open from Thursday to Sunday.  Our travel group wanted to try the Flatbread Restaurant that other people raved about in the condo guest book.  It had a sign:  "Open Thurs- Sun."  This was not only a let-down but a point of annoyance because none of our vacation stay overlapped with their "open" hours.  And I don't  think it was a public health reason that kept them closed.  I think they just don't feel like working Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, so they don't.  I always thought half the charm of running a small business was meeting people and, for that, you have to have an "Open/Aiberto/Bienvenu" sign... instead of Open Thurs --> Sun.  Just sayin'.

The Snake at Hildene

Hildene is a fabulous estate with an amazing garden area built by Robert Lincoln, who is related to - yes - Honest Abe.  Their gift shop (which he probably did not build) had the coolest puzzles and I may have found a new hobby... because I need one more thing to do...   

The furniture at Hildene looked quite uncomfortable, which in my humble opinion, is a sign of a true antique.  Bureaus had lots of drawers and are stained very dark and not too nice.  It'd take three strong men and a draft horse to move the sideboard in the Lincoln's dining room.

On our way through the woods to look at the Pullman car (train travel for the rich & famous), one of the travelers looked forward on the gravel drive and said, "ugh.  snake."  And for those of you inclined to ask, "was it a gardener snake?"  I give my standard reply:  "I don't care WHAT he does for a living."  Ghastly.  As I picked up my pace and kept my eyes peeled for his relatives, I no longer was enjoying walking the road.  I was also keeping an eye on the dark clouds moving in which were perhaps related to the tropical storm moving inland up the New England coast.  I was now breathing like a person who is either pre-asthmatic or quite out of shape.  But I got even.  On the way of driving out of the Hildene estate my tires ran over something bump-bump, bump-bump.

Pleasant Distractions

I think about two things a lot lately:  dying and dating.  Not because I am likely to do either of them any time soon, but just because I have a lot of material to consider on each.  However, I do not think about dying when I am eating ice cream; nor do I need to be on a date to eat ice cream, so I am glad to report that I enjoyed my frozen favorite almost every day on vacation.  I've cut myself down to a single scoop so I feel less remorse:  when I get on the scale at home I can blame the # on something else.  

Return to Dogland

This morning I dreamt I was living in my apartment in the city again.  In the dream I was calling my dogs and they weren't to be seen.  One came, I knew it was Madeline.  In my sleep I called, screamed, actually, panic-stricken, for my Valor and my Sophia.  They were nowhere to be found.  I woke up and realized I was home in my own bed, Madeline was nearby and I could hear Valor and Sophia in their respective kennels in the living room waiting for me to be awake and let them out to get this day going.  Maybe they were really the ones dreaming of me when I was on vacation in Vermont, wondering why I did not come immediately when they called for me.  Nonetheless, here I am, and here they are, and all is right with my world now.

                                                                          ###