The Sock in My Left Pocket

I’m drinking my coffee left-handed this morning.  The dog in labor is making small circles in the living room alternately with sitting at the kitchen table at my knee panting her brains out.  The waiting is not easy when it gets to this point.  At 4:30 am I was standing outside watching her sit and stare up at the morning stars, again, panting.  After two days of NOT panting like this, I recognize this as progress.  My mantra all along has been, “We sell no wine before its time.”  But the reality is, my heart has been ready for this litter for a while. 

I can’t explain why I long for this series of events, and yet when it comes, I am sometimes “sore afraid.”  The one place I do not want this journey to take us today is the veterinary office.  It seems that when a dog in labor gets to the veterinary office something has gone awry and it ends up in a caesarean section.  It’s not that it is pricey, which it is, that takes my breath away at the thought of it.  It’s that the dog looks like HELL when the surgery is done and they give her zero pain killers and then pop a bunch of puppies in my willow basket with the heating disk and tell me, “call us,” or the equivalent thereof.  I’ve seen that movie twice and didn’t enjoy it either time.  It takes a dramatic labor and turns it into a medical event.  The dog has to nurse her puppies to get them to stay with us – or they won’t make it because I absolutely stink at hand-feeding anything.  I’m lucky I am able to feed my ownself.

This particular labor has been an exercise in patience no more than the rest.  The one thing that is different is I feel older and due to lack of sufficient Vitamin D in me, I started this game exhausted.  Two days before today, when I thought the original due date was, I was lying on the futon I had made up for myself downstairs near the whelping room trying to take a nap.  My whole body hurt.  Not like flu-ish.  Like my arms particularly were just tired of being arms.  Thankfully at late morning the temperature that day was moving up towards a beautiful mid-day 70 degrees.  I put my sneakers on, clipped a lead on Madeline Grace and headed out to walk the track at the farm next door.  The next day (which was yesterday but feels like last year somehow, again courtesy of my Vitamin D level being in the toilet) it was in the 40’s with a cold, biting wind driving across the pastures and paddocks.  I put on my fleece lined winter coat and brought Madeline on a Labor March again.  In my right pocket was the cell phone in case of emergency…. But I’m not sure who I would call on a work day.  In my left pocket was a sock.  Not just any sock.  This is an extra soft, something like terry cloth sock, with a loose-fitting band.  It is not a lucky sock; that’s not why it was in my pocket.  It just bears the distinction of being the perfect size to pop a 7-ounce newborn puppy into should she decide to drop one on the track as we walked.  And, no, that wouldn’t alarm me. 

I like dogs.  Dogs tend to like me.  But I draw the line at letting the dog birth puppies on the futon WHILE I’m sleeping in it.  I snuggled with Madeline Grace and helped her feel more comfortable, giving her a back massage and stroking her face.  She has done this labor-thing before and clearly doesn’t remember the doula mantra of “pain-with-a-purpose.”  She only knows in her sweet dog brain that she is uncomfortable and something is pushing inside her that feels out-of-sorts.  Actually, this time it will be a few somethings, or rather, someones.  This time, she is clingy like Velcro-dog to me.  But getting her OFF the futon, where she finds it comfortable isn’t something I can convince her to do.  I have given myself over to the idea – which is essential for dog breeders – that there is a lot of laundry in my near future.  So, I leave my place of rest and go upstairs to proceed to get dressed for this day.  The time of that maneuver was 4:30 am or thereabouts.  This is a time frame I am completely unfamiliar with, except for cases where I needed to go to the airport.  I am surprisingly un-tired now, despite watching an episode of Bull and one of Blue Bloods last night back-to-back until maybe 11 pm. 

I moved my activity upstairs toward the goal of getting dressed for the day at this prehistoric hour.  Then knowing that where this day would take me was uncertain, I toasted two slices of apple strudel bread and booted-up the Keurig with a cup of Hazelnut coffee.  Tiny bits of dry dog food are littered around the dishes of the three dogs.  Apparently when I fed them rice and scrambled eggs last night, they were less interested in the kibble so they just sorted it out on my floor.  I knelt with a dustpan in hand to begin the clean-up.  Even I am surprised at how un-stiff I am today at this time of the morning.  My brain, typically close to comatose on any other day at this hour, wants to write.  Madeline Grace is making small circles on my living room floor.  She meanders into the dining room area and begins walking lonnnnngggggg until she has stretched out her body to the floor.  It must be hard to get comfortable lying on your belly when it’s the size of a typical summer watermelon.  She repositions herself again.  I am almost running out of words and it is 5:33 am.  All I hear is the steady panting of an amazing dog in labor.  I swig the coffee that is now rapidly approaching room temperature.  Its bitterness makes me wonder how I was too lazy to open the new container of creamer with amaretto in the refrigerator.  Then I remember what time it is and how foreign operating this side of daylight is to me.

She has moved back to the dining room table area just to be near me.  The other two dogs are not far away from us.  She rises again to begin the pacing.  She now sits at my knee.  Valor has woken up and stands for a moment with two front paws on my knee.  He has learned to talk this year.  As he yawns, he makes the distinct sound of “hellll-oooooo.”   I get up and look at the low-lying horizontal stretch of clouds over the house diagonally across the street from mine.  It is breaking and the sun is rising a purple-pinkish color in streaks of glory and I am grateful.  Madeline begins up and pacing in the living room, I don’t have the heart to move this downstairs.  She is ready and soon she will drop a sweet little bundle of fur on my floor.  All the clean up will be mine, but so will all of the love.  My stomach feels nervous for these last few moments.  My eyes have tears stinging at the corners – I live for this – and she continues the relentless panting. 

I realize that a breath of fresh, crisp morning air would do us all good.  The three dogs and I bound down the basement steps and out the door.  Madeline circles and circles and I wait.  I find myself clenching my jaw a bit.  At 5:55 am the sun may be rising on the one side of the house, but on this the back side facing south, the moon hangs boldly in the center sky.  It is sliced decisively in half against a soft blue backdrop.  Madeline sits to watch the moon.  I observe my breath, her breath, Valor’s huffings of mist from our lungs into the cool air.  We sit.  We wait.  I drag her inside because my nose is cold. 

We return to circling and pacing.  It is now 6:35 am and she sits at the door giving me, her Village Idiot, the message – let’s go out again.  I rise, the slave of her morning activities. 

An unproductive hour passes outside.  I attempt blowing “smoke rings” with my breath.  It does not work.  Her efforts buy her more time in the process.  I wonder what is the hold up inside her.? At one point I thought she was minutes away from just pushing the next Lion King out her back door.  The next minute she is sitting to provide herself counter-pressure.  Inside only a few minutes, she is sitting by the door asking to go out again.  I am reluctant to step back into the chilled air with her.  Other dogs it seems do their business in the whelping box and all is right with the world.  My dogs seem to need to pace throughout the house like an expectant mother in the maternity ward hallway. 

I relent; we return outside.  The morning has warmed up and I go inside to snag a cup of vanilla ice cream for her … which she politely refuses.  Don’t lose your faith in me, I took a spoonful for myself before I offered her a portion.  I got the bright idea of putting a lawn chair outside and sat there sunning my face as she … did very little.  So more time elapsed with little visible progress.  But birthing, like all other mysteries, involves interior work that can go on for an extended period of time before the fruit of labor is born.  I brought her inside to narrow our area of work a bit.  And we wait.  Still.  10:45 am.

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What's My Line?

It was the first time I ever saw THAT on a bumper sticker.  It was only a parking permit. It said:  “Parking Permit.  Cape Cod.  NUDE BEACH.”  Hilarious that someone would advertise that they are the person who goes there.  Then you look at the person driving the car and you think, “too much information,” followed by, “If you are representative of who goes to that beach, ewww.”  Not exactly a Sistine chapel model.

It reminded me of a friend from the southwest desert that invited me over for dinner adding the caveat, “Make sure you pull into OUR driveway; the next one is the Nudist Colony.”  WHAT?!?  She told me that every evening the inhabitants of the colony take a stroll up the driveway and back to the house. (It sounds boring if your route is the same every day, no?)  It kind of reminded me of the part in Genesis where Adam and Eve walked with God Himself in the cool of the day.  I think they were wearing the same attire: nothing but a smile.  My friend said to me, “Yeah, we had the parish priest over for dinner one night and all of a sudden They come strolling up their driveway.  I had to think quick and say:  Father, have you seen our living room furniture before?” and ushered him away from the kitchen window.  Probably an unnecessary maneuver but it was worth a chuckle.

But back to the other topic:  I love bumper stickers.  They are the place where Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press and Absolute Rudeness compete for space.  I enjoy the funny ones.  I am sick of the political ones.  I appreciate the faith-based ones. 

My father is a recent convert to Bumper Sticker World.  He used to be so “against” them for the same reason he hated similar tee shirts.  His exact quote was, “I’m not advertising for ANYONE unless they pay me!”  Then, he found “his” bumper sticker slogan and drank the Kool Aid, or vice versa.  It read:  “I’ll keep my money, my guns, and my rights; YOU keep the change!”  I was surprised to see him jump on board and plaster that on the back of his SUV.

I’m a softie.  I like to advertise my favorite beaches, my faith, my sense of humor, and my dogs.  Oh, and Work likes me to have the parking permit on there too.  My first car had so many religious stickers, I called it the “God Mobile.”  The beach sticker I won’t put on my car is “OBX” because even with my two university degrees, the first time I saw that I thought it meant “Obnoxious,” not “Outer Banks.”  So if I who am relatively bright was that easily confused, I don’t want other people to think I’m advertising myself as obnoxious.

I am kind of surprised that the Thought Police in the state where I live and pay taxes hasn’t outlawed bumper stickers.  The sticker may make someone think differently, no?  Or perhaps it could be a catalyst to road rage?   Or it may make you laugh so hard it impairs your driving!  Well, maybe the Parking Permit just tells the bare truth.  If so, I think it’s kind of a bum-mer.  I think it was funny, but maybe I read it too quickly when it streaked-by.

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The Good Neighbor

I haven’t thought of him for about 7 years but when I woke up recently from a very nice nap I realized the dream I had was more about him than the woman in it.  In the mixed-up land where dreams dwell and pieces of my life and his got flip-flopped, I figured it out.  I was back living in the country house I rented almost two decades ago.  In the dream, I was living in his house alone and the woman in the house across the lawn suddenly had relatives appear taking stuff and selling campers.   I spoke to one of them and grabbed a dog by the collar and brought it home … and woke up from the dream with my real dogs next to me.  

But this is how the story really went:

The first day I met him I felt as if God and Norman Rockwell painted him into my life as my next door neighbor.  His face was wrinkled and weathered from outdoor life. He had an easy, partially toothless grin and a voice raspy from 70 years of smoking.  He wore a plaid work shirt and you could see the edge of a scoop-neck men’s tee shirt above the second button.  I never saw him in anything other than jeans – perhaps workers’ Carharts once – and he walked slightly bow-legged, perhaps from years astride a motorcycle or farming equipment. 

He began our first conversation mini-speech that went kind of like this:

“Now.  A lot of city folk think they kin move out to th’ country and make it, but they just don’t have it in ‘em, what it takes to survive ….”

You would’ve thought I was becoming a pioneer wife.  I assured him that my eleven city years had been preceded by birth and youth in very rural suburbs.  I didn’t make more apology than that.  Good farm manners teach you that if the word “Now” followed by a period, they are fixin’ to tell you something worth knowing… like our tutorial on noxious farm weeds.

He said he noted some nettles in the back brush.

“Now.  I don’t care who y’are if you tangle with stinging nettles, y’ll have a problem.  But if you look nearby y’ll see a small plant with orange/yellow flow’rs.  Snap that stalk open and rub it on where the nettles got you.”

And so it was.  Seasons later, on a cool October Saturday morning I was pulling tall stalk weeds up behind the garage when some leaf merely brushed against my inside fore arm.  It’s hard to say which I felt first, the itch or the pain.  For a moment I pondered Calamine lotion which arguably has never worked for me so I dismissed it quickly as the arm began to feel warm and look slightly blotchy in that area.  Then I turned and looked again at the tall weeds, noting their thin ragged-edge leaves and I said out loud:  “Damn!  Stinging nettles!”  I scanned the area.  My eyes fell upon the smaller plant with aloe-like short stalks and pretty orange flowers.  What if it made it worse?  I slit the stalk with my thumbnail and dripped the green juice on my arm, lightly spreading it with the stalk.  Instant relief.  I’m telling you.  Instant.  Relief.  Since then, I’ve looked for this plant every time I’m in a wooded area because they are also fabulous on mosquito bites. 

Sometimes he and I would take our respective riding lawnmowers out at the same time.  We would each do half of our grass, then stop in the middle for a chat.  I remember the time he spoke about his wife who had passed the previous year.  I barely knew her to say hello, she mostly would hop on their golf cart and drive the other direction across a little bridge to their son and daughter-in-law’s home next door to them.  He said, “Y’know she’s been gone a year now.  It just don’t feel the same.”  There really was not much more to it than that.  The pain of loss and a knowing that re-orienting to the new normal was not on the agenda made it impossible for me to respond adequately other than: “I hear what you’re saying.  I’m sorry.” 

I was always impressed with his ability to do the old style gentleman proper introduction.  I had pretty much thought that was a lost art to our civilization.  He introduced me to his grandson who was from out of state serving in the military.  Then he volunteered their efforts to cut down a few tree limbs for me, which they did.  He was teaching the young man something about being a good neighbor without making a federal case out of it:  he was just doing it.  I know when the grandson went back to his life across the states, my neighbor missed him something fierce.  He said, “that crazy kid!  You know he calls me every single morning on his drive into work?!”  It wasn’t a complaint.  He was basking in real family-style love. 

One of the things that his family did was have bonfires on the lawn in the summer.  He said to me, “You’ll always be welcome at our fire.”  That’s a big deal.  They would light a fire in the evening and sit around in lawn chairs talking and laughing.  I was always too busy with my own preoccupations to take him up on the kindly, standing invite.  But it was important that he said it.  He was the patriarch and he had issued the invite. The only time I lit a fire in my own yard was when I was burning ground bees in their hole.  I drenched a rag in kerosene and stuffed it in one hole; and then went to find the second hole – because bees always have an escape plan – that rag, which I would not light on fire, was soaked in gasoline.  You don’t light gasoline because it has a short flash-point and will blow up at you.  Kerosene, on the other hand, is a slow burn, and you need to remember the lawn chair if you are going to do this project.  But mostly, “don’t try this at home” applies to most city people in this situation…. Because they just can’t survive the country, as I was told…

The day that I told him I was moving to the next town where I had bought a house he was not without care.  His words said it all:  “Just when you find a good neighbor, they move out …”  He asked permission to hug me.  Of course.  Always the gentleman.  I assured him that I still wanted him to come out to my annual Memorial Day barbecue.  You’d think I was 40 miles away instead of 5 from the look on his face.  But I moved out in June and then drove by his house around Memorial Day to see if his truck was out front.  For weeks, I drove by and then it struck me … I went online to the obituaries.  I suspect he is sitting at a bonfire with his wife now … But for the record, maybe I wasn’t the good neighbor.  He was.

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Just to be Clear

Just to be clear:  I DO go to Church for Religious reasons, not just to be distracted by men.  When I was back home over Christmas vacation, my childhood friend asked me the nefarious question:  Where DO we go to find men?  I told her that the best place to find alcoholics is typically in a bar, so I rule that out.  The best place to find a problem gambler or under-employed single male is at the casino, so onto the next option.  Then she asked me if Church was a good place.  I told her, nah, because priests still aren’t allowed to marry yet and the single guys that are there are either elderly widowers or younger guys struggling with “Do I have a vocation to the priesthood or not?”  Or the others, which I care to not itemize.  My comments are strictly based on personal experience and do not represent anyone else’s thoughts except for maybe accidentally.  But, man, do I have data!

I went into church strictly to attend to my God-business once.  I made it my personal mission to be 100% focused on what was going on with the service.  I knelt down and folded my ten fingers interlaced – the way kids who did not attend Catholic school do, because I hear-tell that nuns don’t let them pray in that posture.  And we all know the tales about when nuns don’t like what you do (think:  12 inches of correction smacking your hand).  Actually, to be fair, back in the days when nuns swatted bad Catholic school kids, corporal punishment was ALSO permitted and practiced in the public school system.  It’s just we didn’t talk about it because in that era parents and teachers were in cahoots.  If you got in trouble in school, and “home” found out about it, there’d be Round 2 of corporal punishment that was no joke.  So at least public school kids didn’t spread it around that we could’ve got swatted in school.  Again, not having attended Catholic elementary or grade school, my comment to the kids that say (as my father once complained), “Sister Mary Peter hit me with a ruler” has a standard reply:  and you did NOTHING to deserve it??  Yeah.  Just checking.  I taught high school for four years:  I know about the “innocence” of students.

But as I was saying.  It seems every time I go to church and try to focus 100% on what I am allegedly there for, the Good Lord looks down from above and says: “let’s see how focused she really is!”  I kneel to pray and close my eyes.  The worn-out kneelers send a warning twinge up my knee that somehow tweaks at my lower back.  Consequently, I sit back with knees still on the kneeler, but fanny on the edge of the bench (yet another non-nun-approved posture).  My eyes still remain shut so that I can keep my mind on the heavenly business of prayer.  The scent of clean, beeswax candles wafts from the single white pillar and the side rack of smaller ones sitting in red glass holders.  I think we have those red glass holders to get God’s attention – you light a candle to give Him a reminder of the prayer you are putting before Him.  Well, then someone got nervous about fires in church and switched those candles to be faux-flame with a button you push to give a flicker of hope.  I don’t know as if God answers prayers attached to those candles.  You can’t cheap-out on the Almighty, after all.  A slight scent of mothballs from an elderly person’s coat seems nearby.  I open my eyes for a second and to use a biblical phrase, “Lo and behold!” a handsome specimen of male humanity is situated within 4 rows ahead of me.  Augh!  I am undone! 

Now I am obsessed with waiting to get a glimpse at his left hand.  When in the need-to-know, I am able to spot a wedding ring from 500 feet.  Practice makes perfect.  Early on, I get a glimpse:  no ring.  The teenagers sitting with him, the poor things, they must be longing for a new mother in the tragic loss (I imagine) of their mother.  I imagine our camping vacations, our laughter at baseball games, sharing popcorn at our family movie nights.  The opening song in church begins, we all stand.  Today is my day.  And then, suddenly, it’s not:  the luscious blonde mother slides into the bench late, snuggles up next to him, and raises her eyebrows with a familiar smile to her husband.  Her husband, the BUM who doesn’t wear a wedding ring! 

It was not the Holy Bible that gave us the phrase: “God helps those who help themselves.”  It was Benjamin Franklin.  The guy who thought of harnessing electricity with a kite and a key by snagging a lightning bolt?  It just goes to show you that a guy who gets knocked on his bum too many times is not the source of wisdom, but rather, the inspiration for an example of perseverance.  Taking Ben’s advice has been a lifetime exercise in futility for me.

My friend at work verbally prodded me on a Friday as we left work: “be willing to step out beyond your comfort zone.”  (I have NO comfort zone anymore!)  I spent the whole weekend working up the nerve to be ready when they called for volunteers after church to take down the Christmas decorations.  It’s not that all of a sudden I felt a surge of community service desire flowing through my soul.  It more had to do with that guy that sits alone every Sunday morning and reads the bulletin during the homily.  He has seen me – we have made eye contact on the way out of church – but he has made no move to engage me in conversation.  It seems he might be shy.  It has taken me two weeks but I have worked up the confidence to take down holiday decorations.  I just hadn’t found my “opening line” yet.

So there we are, after the last song, people moving forward to help carry the statues from the manger scene downstairs.  I am elbow to elbow with him as they are handing over wisemen and camels to people willing to carry them.  It comes to me like a zip of light, and I lean toward him and say: “Note to self: the poinsettias can go home with us, not the statues.”  He gave me that half smile that people give you when either:  a) they don’t think you are funny; b) they object to talking in church because it is too holy.  I tell you what, if I was blonde with noteworthy eyelashes and a southern accent, there’d be more talking in church, sanctioned by the ever-so-pious men.  Of this I am certain.

I get to the front of the line just as the last camel has been handed out.  Now, I am without my lines, without a job, and without some level of personal dignity.  I turn.  I see no leader taking the reins.  This isn’t my moment, so I walk down the aisle, as if I know what I’m doing, to ask the pastor if all the poinsettias need to move to the back of the church.  I hope he will engage me in conversation to make me feel visible again as I am turning some shade of fade-out.  He is hammering out details of something else with another parishioner.  I move on to the deacon and ask the question.  The deacon replies that ONLY the poinsettia’s in front of the altar can be taken.  I don’t want a poinsettia.  Not at all.  I want a ROCK to crawl under.  No one reaches for me to put me to work.  There are no people taking charge or giving directions.  The deacon bellows again from mid-church to take ONLY the poinsettias from in front of the altar.  He’s not talking to me.  He’s talking to anyone who will hear him… in a radius of 5 miles.

Maybe this group of people has done this for years and I am just an “extra” in this cast.  I grab my jacket and purse and bolt for the door before Mr. Handsome comes back from dismantling the display of the manger’s stable.  I get in my car and do the one thing I know to do for myself:  I head to Dunkin’ Donuts.  I make a beeline for the women’s room to find it locked.  I wait and pretend to read the bulletin board which is littered with business cards of everything from Massage therapy to snowplowing.  I take my next huge step forward in organizational leadership and commandeer the Men’s room and lock the door. I wish I could bolt it so I could have a good primal scream for myself.  But it is only a button lock and those can be popped from the outside.  My stay is brief: I order my breakfast and drive to Utica.  It seemed the thing to do.  I shopped and drove around for two hours until I felt suddenly so exhausted I wanted to be home on the couch with my dogs.  And they just thought I was going to church!

Last week my mother again said to me that I should “stop looking” and then someone would find me.  She is Polish, but she is not a gypsy and she has NO crystal ball.  I think of all the advice people have given me to find Mr. Right.  They put the mental burden on ME to be the right person – I already am -  instead of looking to find the right person.  I have assured my mother that when they lay me in my coffin for viewing at the funeral home, look very carefully.  You will see my eyes are not quite closed:  they are looking toward the door to see if Mr. Right has finally come, a day late and a dollar short.

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A New Year, A New Look in 2019

The wrapping on the toilet paper roll made me think of it.  There were little green falling leaves pictured on the wrapper.  I remembered that in some countries they don’t have the roll, just the leaves.  It gives you pause to think of it.  I have a friend who has been a missionary across The Pond for over 40 years.  He has taught the people of the village how to dig fish ponds to raise their food.  He has helped in the work of education in their seminary.  He told me tales of women walking for miles to attend Mass with babies on their backs.  As the hot sun beat down on the babies, they do what babies do … and there are no such luxuries as disposable diapers/nappies there.  So the spot on mama’s back grows wet, hot, sticky as she gets to church.  And they sing and dance and pray for hours.  Then she gets to walk back home.  No cry room for a fussy toddler.  No Buick to hop in and try to race the fellow congregants out of the parking lot before the last blessing is given.  It’s just a different world.

He came to visit me here in the States once during the summer.  I remember a few things about that visit 25+ years ago, but relative to this writing I will tell you about our trip to the Mall.  My city tried to build a bigger Mall to rival the Mall of the Americas in the Midwest.  At the time of his visit, ground had not been broken yet.  I thought maybe he’d like to see the different kinds of stores we have.  He was unimpressed.  What he DID comment on was the child in the shoe store who was having a good old-fashioned “fit” and saying to his mother:  “but I don’t like them!”  My friend couldn’t refrain from commenting on how disrespectful American children are, even ungrateful.  It was a sweeping generalization that left me with a bad taste in my mouth because not all of our children are this way.  The adults, perhaps that’s another story entirely.

He wanted me to come teach theology in their seminary.  I was just ending the Arizona chapter of my life and beginning my Central New York story and couldn’t quite wrap my brain around the idea of leaving so soon.  Perhaps I should have.  Then I found out that African seminary was not serious young college students, but rather, junior high age boys and the level of my interest dropped.  It’s a long way to travel just to teach grade school.  Then there were other considerations. 

I couldn’t imagine living away from my American comforts.  Well, mostly it was about the dog, I think.  Now I have three dogs and am fairly anchored without question to this continent.  I like electricity.  I like flush toilets that are indoors.  I like hopping in my car and going shopping or sight-seeing or to the state park.  There’s a line in a popular movie where the man says to the woman:  “You had me at 'Hello.'”  In my case, as I learned more about the African village – the weather, the adorable guinea pigs that live in the bush outside my friend’s window, the agricultural area, the warmth of the peoples, I felt drawn to go there.  And then he said the game-changer.  And my response:  “You lost me at 'cobra in the chicken coop today'.”

So I like my creature comforts.  I have grown accustomed to my freedom and responsibilities.  My wardrobe is not fancy but it is fairly comfortable, as is my house.  But I do, thoughtlessly, what so many other Americans do:  I complain.  In fact, I may actually have a college degree in complaining because I am so good at it.  I can make being displeased come out like an entertaining story.  My colleague and I were talking about our tendency as humans to be judgmental.  I can be judgmental and make my listeners walk away with the impression that I am of refined taste and very wise.  I’m that good at being that bad (uncharitable).  I am also easily depressed.  I am not going to confession publicly here; I’m just stating some mental habits in which I detect I may not be alone.  And I know I need to change.

When I met her I did not know that one statement from her would change my kaleidoscope of life so much.  She is an elderly immigrant from an Eastern bloc country.  Her eyes twinkle when she talks.  She always seems joyful to me.  She barely speaks English and I did some grocery shopping for her.  One day she had that tired-look and I asked her how she was feeling.  Answer:  “Not so good.  My heart.  But, you know, tick, tick, tick for 90 years and it gets tired.”  She held up her wrist to show me the bracelet with the nitroglycerine vial on it.  I didn’t know people still used nitro.  Hmm.  Then she added:  “My husband, he die.  He had a ‘bad heart’ too.  We were both in the camps many years ago.”  

There are times when you have to keep your own eyeballs from popping out of your head.  There are even times when me, the person who mass-produces words effortlessly, can’t find one single appropriate thing to say.  Here was the moment.  What do you say to someone who endured a concentration camp and yet had such a joyful demeanor now how many years later?  I think I would be:  Bitter, angry, mentally disfigured by my mistrustful and displeased nature, and even angry at life itself.  And, yeah, I call myself a Christian, so there are a bunch of mental expectations I have of myself – and even others have of me – just because of that belief system.  Most likely I would disappoint all of us. It leaves me asking myself if maybe, just possibly, I should count my blessings instead of aggravations? 

I am thankful that she felt comfortable enough to slip that into our conversation because I think she may have saved me.

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A Flying Purse, A Corner Table

The power to be invisible is a tricky thing.  When you desperately want someone, anyone, to notice you, and they just plain DON’T, you can feel painfully evaporative.  It is a toss-up which thing is worse:  neglectful invisibility or open derision, teasing and shaming.  It would seem to me the sad fact of being a human being means, at one time or another, we may experience any of the above.  On the other hand, when you want the ground to open up a swallow you, it never does.  Cruel fact:  we are not in charge and we just have to roll with it.

When I was teaching junior high school I had the opportunity –and I took it – to tell this personal story to help the kids work with the whole business of letting stuff go mentally (not that I am an expert; I am not) … among other things that are basic life lessons.  I saw it happen so innocently in class.  The boy lost control of his pencil and it flipped forward into the open back pack of the girl sitting in front of him.  He reached in to take the pencil back out and she went off on him like fourth of July.  Her reaction was not anywhere appropriate for a classroom environment, but it provided me an opportunity to educate that I wouldn’t miss for the world:  I stopped them -  “Okay People.  Let me tell you what just happened here.”  The young man just wanted his pencil back and was clueless as to why this girl had yelled at him.

“Guys.  This may seem like it is going to be embarrassing for a minute but just stick with me.  Do you want to know why girls go crazy when you go in their purse?”  YES, WE DO! Someone shouted. 

I continued as follows: 

“As a general rule, Gentlemen do not go into women’s purses.  That is a no-fly zone.  Even if you are asked to fish something out of there to help her out, it’s best just to hand the purse over and let her do it herself.  Chances are, you can’t find anything in it anyways.  Mine is like a bottomless pit of miscellaneous stuff, but I digress.  Let me tell you a story.

When I was in junior high school, I had Math class with Miss Bradley.  I would ordinarily not carry a purse to class except for the times during the month when I needed to if you catch my drift.  <insert one kid groaning here; and another girl telling a boy WHY that would be; a few shades of pink later.> 

So in my purse was one thing.  And my purse was held closed with a little snap thing.  When I entered the class, sometimes I would put the purse on my desk for a minute and The Mean Girl would snatch it and throw it across the room like Joe Namath sending a football to the end zone.  I was MORTIFIED.  If the floor could open up and swallow me alive, it would not have been too soon.  Guys, you have to understand this.  In a girl’s brain, if that pad fell out of the purse onto the floor it would not just be one thing.  It would be hundreds of them, falling continuously until they stacked all the way up to the ceiling with my name written on every one of them.  And THAT is why you shouldn’t go into girls’ purses if you can avoid it.  Because we are just weird like that – nothing in that department is a small deal:  it’s a BIG DEAL to us.” 

The girls did not cheer for me telling the story but instead they looked a bit relieved.  Somehow I had spoken our gender-wide portion of fear to the Other Side and it had been understood.  Why?  Because humiliation is a common piece of our human existence.  What humiliates girls is not necessarily the same thing that humiliates guys, but we all understand – and want to avoid – humiliation.  It is the better specimens of humanity among us that want to avoid humiliating others. 

Our desire for invisibility is not that far from what happens in the animal kingdom.  Invisibility is a subtle form of defense from predators.  Chameleons change to reflect the colors that they are near so they seem to blend-in.  It keeps predators from seeing them.  Some animals’ coats are colors that blend with their environment so they can hide.  With people, we have no such luck. 

I think of the elderly lady sitting alone in the corner booth of the restaurant.   I loved this particular restaurant because it had a woodsy-theme to the inside (clue:  moose head hanging outside the restaurant) and there wasn’t a bad view in the place.  Mostly my friends and I would sit against the window to look out to the agricultural land that surrounded us.  They made a mean steak, too, but I sidetrack to food topics too easily.   Anyways.  This woman was most likely in her late 70’s and she always sat in the same booth every time I was at the restaurant.  She had a sort of beehive hairdo colored a light reddish orange.  I don’t know how tall she was because I never saw her stand up and leave.  For all I know, she could have lived there. 

One Friday night, my dinner companion and I sat two tables away from her.  In the middle of the meal, the waitress greeted her and visited.  Then she waved another waitress to the table and they sang “Happy Birthday” to her.  How sweet.  She smiled politely, the kind of smile you make when you are trying to make the other person feel good but you don’t feel so good yourself.  It is a social-courtesy-smile.  At the end of our meal, I walked over to say Happy Birthday to her as well.  After all, some day that may be ME sitting in the corner.  She thanked my friend and I for our well wishes but barely retained eye-contact with us.  Her eyes traveled out the big picture window beyond the rolling lands to somewhere I could not fathom.  Then she said the unthinkable.  “My husband was trying to hang on to make it to my birthday.  He just couldn’t do it anymore.  He died two weeks ago.”  And just what do you respond to that?!

Her whole world had flipped upside down, inside out two weeks before her birthday.  Here strangers and waitresses were wishing her well and the only voice she really wanted to hear WAS HIS.  Her ability to be gracious under this strain and not burst into tears was astounding to me.  I can barely write about it or remember it without getting something in my eye. 

Months later, the restaurant closed.  I wonder where she spends her birthdays now.  I hope she found the resilience to make the most of the time she has been given as a unique gift to her.  But if it was me, I’d probably be looking for a corner table in a restaurant with a view, just trying to be invisible.

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My 2018 Special Project

For a while, they were popping up everywhere like dandelions on a summer lawn.  Except we make quick-work of pulling out dandelions where I come from – and these other things should definitely stay.  I am referring to “Little Libraries.”  A Little Library is like a crate mounted on its side to the top of a post.  The front part of the crate faces, not up, but out toward you and typically has a plexi-glass panel that hangs down to protect the books inside.  Private citizens put them up, obviously to encourage reading.

Where would you see them?

I believe the first one I noticed was in front of the house near the ice cream stand down on the south side of the city.  What a perfect place!  It looks like it needs some attention at present, with books askew a few different directions, visible from the street and the plexi glass looks like it may not be hinged level… but that’s just me a Type A looking at these things.

The second one was in a residential neighborhood with a bench next to it.  That particular Little Library, and its bench & house, has a quaint white church situated across from it.  I imagine that if the Diocese hadn’t closed the church due to, not lack of funds, but lack of imagination, people would still be there every weekend.  And as they strolled to their homes on pleasant mornings after leaving church, they could peek at the Little Library and perhaps borrow a book for inspiration that week.

There is yet another Little Library packed with romance novels that sits in a cove at one of our nearby State Parks.  The perfect place to grab a read if you are out there camping with no Barnes & Noble for miles away!  Maybe the best part of camping – aside from the fires at night – is just sitting there in your lawnchair pretending to read a book while listening to the neighbors banter at the next campsite (voice of experience).

Lastly, I remember noticing one on a small side-street in Ocean City, Maryland.  As my vacation companions and I walked toward the boardwalk I said out loud, “Oh, there’s one!” as if I saw an old friend.  I always check to see what books are inside.  I am curious and I wonder if people leave their favorite books, or ones they are okay to never see again.  Hmmmm….

Meanwhile back at my workplace, one of the ladies started piling books on the counter near my desk.  It was becoming messy and I began thinking of a solution.  It was kind of fun – I went to the store and bought a crate and painted the outside of it, decorated it with stickers of books and hot air balloons, and clever sayings.  The finished pieces are not on a post or stand – just placed on a counter or end table.  They require no flip down plexi-glass to guard the books (in most cases).  Thus, the Indoor Little Library-making phase began for me. 

One of our long time staff physical therapists walked by my desk, caught a glimpse of the Little Library, and stopped on a dime.  He said to me, “I have been on the board for the library in my town for years.  I take photos of Little Libraries when I see them on vacation.”  That weekend my creative spirit began to stir – I made him his own Library and wrapped it into a large gift bag.  I brought it to his department’s office.  Later when he came down to thank me he said:  “In all the years I’ve worked here, that is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”  He had tears in his eyes.  So did I. 

I made one for my favorite Latin scholar.  I made one for my guy who fixes the machinery that I break at my house.  I made one for each of my two nephews, Michael and Gabriel.  Most recently, I made one for the chapel at church.  This project has been a creative outlet for me.  I love choosing the colors and slogans and stick-on’s for each Library.  No two is the same:  compasses, race cars, Biblical phrases, and small book stickers abound. I believe I even have a cute little monster on one of them. 

I think reading is the key to success in any career or life path you choose.  When you read different genres, you ingrain the use of good English (unless you are reading something written in dialect:  think of the difference between Professor Higgins and the flower girl in My Fair Lady and you get the idea).  I myself am a voracious reader and book hoarder.  There.  I admitted it.  I hoard books.  But I know where they all are – on my shelves at home, tucked in a box in my car, or on the coffee table Little Library in my kitchen – there is order.   You won’t trip over them.  They are not a mess.  But when I die, whomever cleans out my house is going to be mad as a wet hornet at me.

I taught high school in the early 1990’s and always pushed teens to read.  It does wonders for your SAT scores.  It opens doorways to understanding a broad variety of philosophies and peoples to you from the comfort of your own dwelling.  A good book is a good friend when you are in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. A boring book is a great cover if you are eaves-dropping on people at the beach.  LOL.  Books are so useful in so many ways that I pity people who hate to read for whatever reason. 

I guess I would say that I write because I read; but also, I read because I write.  It is a happy circle that I wish everyone could share!  So if you run into me at Walmart or Michael’s looking at wooden crates you’ll know someone is about to be proselytized into the amazing world of Literacy!

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