Crank it Up

The past few days I've had opportunities to see a wide variety of people doing a wide variety of things--things they do well.  There can be no greater gift in life than to be a party to someone doing something at which they excel--and about which they feel true passion.

Some of that energy rubs off, like firefly phosphorescence, and we carry away a bit of their glow.  They don't mind.  There's plenty more where that came from--true passion is lifelong, not seasonal, and it takes more than the cold winds of autumn to dim that light.

Lately I've been knocking around on a few passions of my own, every single one of them involving words.  As long as I've been on this planet that's what it's been about--and one of the toughest things to learn with words is voice control.

Oh, I've got volume.  Just ask anybody who knows me--I can project with the best of them, know no modulation, and don't exactly sport the most endearing of accents.  Volume ain't the problem.  Control is.

Same thing is true of my writing.  I can wax as verbose as any word-y, dictionary-lovin', overblown, overwritten piece of drivel ever penned.  Finding that control knob--therein lies the proverbial rub.

Anyone who knows me (even superficially) knows I carry around a tiny little collapsible soap box.  It comes in handy when the need for opinionated oration arises.  I can whip that little box out, climb up on it, and deliver an opinion before my unwitting listener ever knows what hit'em.  And I can do it with some serious volume.

But sometimes the most powerful word is the one uttered with the most painfully precise modulation.  Perfectly calibrated, exquisitely timed, poetically chosen.  Now that's voice control.

Last night it was the perfectly timed words of old Will Shakespeare himself.  Romeo and Juliet died yet again on that stage, and guess what?  He got me all over again.  Sitting in an open air park on a Thursday night, jadedly aware of every plot twist and character--he still got me.  Gone are the days of swooning over the starcrossed lovers.  From my more elderly vantage point it's all about Mrs. Capulet and the sheer stupidity of her loss.  It's all about the total lack of voice control exhibited by those two families (played out in modern terms 24/7 on every cable news outlet).

Tonight it was Will's countrywoman, Jane Austen.  Fanny Price of Mansfield Park--now there's control.  Of voice, of thought, of life.  Control was the unbidden cornerstone of life for Jane Austen, and she mined it to its deepest, darkest depths in all her work.

Top it off with the quintessentially American character of bouncy little Molly Brown.  A whole different control button on that chick--loud, louder, loudest.  A woman after my own heart.  But don't underestimate Molly.  As soon as you do she will sucker punch the most sophisticated foe into openmouthed submission.

Every voice in every work completely unique.   And every voice one of pitch perfect control, of split second timing, of plain old real world honesty.

That's what I'm going after.  Power, precision, poetry.  And a little class.

"That's dignity--dignity, Mr. Brown, and we is gonna' get us some."

Molly Brown, Fanny Price, even old Will,  had the dignity of people who know how to survive in a thankless world of faux folks--they had the only voice control that counts.  Their own.

Mid-Summer Matinee

Back in the boondock days I took a class on modern cinema.  It was a good exercise because I was exposed to films I wouldn't ordinarily have watched--black-n-white French stuff I really didn't understand, Italian movies filled with oblique angles and dark shadows, rickety early Russian gems like "Battleship Potemkin".  You get the idea.

And I spent hour upon hour listening to several know-it-all classmates pontificate on the meaning of art.  The professor allowed such meditations to chew up the bulk of most class periods--the end result being, of course, we never defined "art" and I turned in my final exam certain that the value of my parents' tuition dollar had not been fully realized.

Some thirty-plus years later I find myself engaged in similarly circular conversations, only now with my own kids and their friends over the value or lack thereof in certain highly popular movies--movies which are either reflecting or shaping the culture in which we live.  Either possibility is frightening to me, because said movies seem so bereft of human spirit.  Funny they may be (depending upon one's own taste in humor), but humor that leaves me with a sour taste and a need to scrub my face isn't really funny in my book.

Generation gap?  Probably.  Subjective?  Of course.  It's summertime, after all, and the crop of summer movies has always been, even in my day, one of cotton candy carnival fare.

So how about some fluffy, adult-sized cotton candy?

Yes, that's Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks.  Yes, it looks like your typical leggy Julia Roberts-biggest grin on the planet-biggest belly laugh of any modern American film actress, fare.  But it's not.

It's better.  Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos (of "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding" fame) co-wrote a script that is smart and funny, doesn't miss a single detail of the man who is Larry Crowne, isn't afraid to make Ms. Roberts a teeny bit unattractive with a nasty little drinking habit and a pretty nasty husband to boot, and a quirky assemblage of folks who make you want to go back to school at the local community college.

It's fun.  Sure, it's not real life, but wouldn't it be nice if real life was a little more like this--where a pipe-smoking neighbor with a perpetual yard sale who is a pain in the rear can also be a friend, where it's cool to ride a non-adrenaline pumping scooter (no chase scene in the entire flick), where the Dean of Students does tai chi in a bow tie, and public speaking is the new You Tube?

What makes it work is that they (Mr. Hanks, Ms. Vardalos, et al) know people and they like them.  They know we aren't perfect, out here in the suburbs and the backyards of America.  They know we're actually pretty dorky and kind of dull, but they also know we're kind of fun, too.  After all, every single guy isn't a hung over wedding crasher who can't remember the name of the last person he slept with, and every single chick isn't a pushed up, pimped out, revved and ready pole dancer. 

Ill-fitting khaki pants and a Boy Scout sort of do-unto-others attitude can be pretty sexy, too.  Thanks for getting it, Tom and Company.

Play List

I sat down at my computer this morning to do some basic appointment scheduling, e-mailing...the usual muck-a-muck business.  An unknown member of the family or perhaps a visitor to the house (we have many), left this surprise up and loaded, the perfect beginning to an ordinary day:

I'm old and out of touch with the current music scene.  Even in the days when I was young I was out of touch with the current music scene.  If it didn't make its way to my car radio, I probably didn't even know it existed.  With advanced age and ever more distraction, I am even less in tune.  But every once in a while some tolerant young person introduces me to a little known gem that makes me happy to share their musical universe.  Mumford and Sons are such a gem.

Young enough to be my own sons, they are old enough to see the world with brave new eyes, wise enough to reflect upon what they see, daring enough to share the vision, poetic enough to make it sing.

Hailing from England, this new Fab Four is making its way around the world, living out their dream of "...[making] music that matters without taking themselves too seriously."  That's tough to do:  create something of import, of power, of substance, all the while never getting too big for one's britches.

Readers, photographers, culinary wizards--it doesn't hurt that these young men have numerous interests and passions, all of which fuel their music and make them guys you'd want to hang out with.  Shakespeare and Steinbeck come easy to their tongues, they manage an on-line book club that includes allusions to G.K. Chesterton.  Find me an American English major who's made his/her way through G.K., and I'll buy you a Diet Coke.

They aren't afraid to acknowledge the dark, because they are so vibrantly aware of the light, as they challenge the most basic human fear of dying in "After the Storm".  I'm loving the fact that even when alone, cold, soaked to the bone, the singer refuses to keep his eyes on the ground:

And after the storm,

I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.
 

And then, a reminder that life is full of one paradox after another, that perhaps it was thus designed in order for us to be jarred out of complacency long enough to notice, to appreciate:

Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won't rot.

Now, to the heart of the song, to the deepest most personal fear shared by all humans:

I will die alone and be left there.
Well I guess I'll just go home,
Oh God knows where.
Because death is just so full and mine so small.
Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before.

Bottom line--they make music.   Bottom line--they aren't afraid of the tough stuff of life, but they never forget the good.  


It's poetry, sure, poetry that sings with soul played by troubadours who aren't afraid to let themselves be overcome--overcome with sorrow, overcome with joy.

Travelogue

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

                                                 - Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

Partly due to necessity, partly due to family, partly due to personal whim, I have, of late, been a certified road warrior. In the last week I've traversed the country on a southerly journey that took me from cool, green Minnesota to the blistering white sands of the Gulf.  

Stark contrasts in geography.  Stark contrasts in society.  Countless reminders of the basic humanity that unites us all.  

Here I, a mom from Kentucky, sat at a table with a sad-eyed Iraqi girl, and her own, unyielding mother.  She smiled at me and said she liked my accent.  I smiled back and said I liked hers.  Through an interpreter her mother spoke confidently, unquestioningly, of disciplining children, of cultural differences, of what is right and of what is wrong.  I never saw that graceful girl again.

I stood on the banks of the Mississippi where Twain's own eye had scanned the horizon and I thought about just how far that scruffy little river boy traveled in his life.  I felt his unspeakable sadness, I treasured his mustache-twitching humor, and I remembered that, no matter the sophistication of his audience, he always celebrated the best and the worst that makes us human.

I traveled the red dirt roads of Georgia.  I mucked through the muck only dairy cows can produce, I swatted at the flies and felt the sweat roll down my back.  I came face to face with the hard reality of  decent jobs no fat, lazy American will perform, and of the "illegal" dedication of sweetly sad men who gladly sweat through 15-hour days to provide for far away family growing up, growing away, without them.

I saw the handmade implements of men forced to create in order to survive.  I saw how ugly we can become, regardless of country, regardless of race, regardless of religion--I was reminded that the brutish animal isn't far below our shaved and deodorized exterior--and I reveled in man's own will to live, to care, to share.

I  thought about a country gone mad over a gross maternal miscarriage of justice, of a people more captivated by cupcake wars than by stopping war.  I looked forward to heading north on I-65, to looking into familiar faces, to hearing a familiar laugh.  I marveled at the resolve of those who came before me--the steely will to make this home for all of us--for those with accents just like mine and for those with uncommon poetry on their tongues.

And I was grateful.  For it all. 

Pain Lab 101

Pain is a four-letter word that is difficult to define.  It has an infinite number of meanings, of shades, of degrees, of intensities--as many as the earth has fingerprints.  My version of pain, both physical and mental, is mine alone.  The only way you can know or understand it would be if you could plop inside this fifty-year old body and slouch around the way I do for a few hours.

My idea of intense pain:  natural childbirth.  No Demerol, no epidural, no swoozy, woozy good stuff flowing into the willing vein.  Just gritting your teeth, breathing, concentrating more than you ever knew possible, and getting the job done.

Sure, it hurts.  But you know when you enter that weirdly gratifying place that it...will...end.  And that at the end of the tunnel is a sweetly swaddled little face with midnight blue eyes lying across your exhausted body.  Talk about gratification.

But there's another kind of pain.  The kind that never goes away.  This variety makes doctors furrow their brows and look back at the chart, wondering what they've missed.  Wishing they had another pill to offer, another diagnosis to define.  This pain goes by the moniker of "chronic."  The addition of that one adjective is, for most, an instant death sentence to the normal life of one's dreams.

That word, along with a few others, has brought me here:

This small, understated sign is the only advertisement of the Mayo Clinic PRC in Rochester, Minnesota, a place where people get their lives back.  To the average reader this description may be a bit melodramatic, perhaps a little over the top, smacking of a made-for-TV Lifetime movie.  To a mom who's been here with her kid for three-plus weeks, it's a simple statement of fact.

The program starts out with instant, total immersion.  There is no hand holding, no kum-ba-yah let's all sing a song of misery together kind of gathering in.  There's a hit-the-ground running to-do list for kids and parents alike that sets folks on edge, that instantly shoves us out of our comfortably worn grooves of coping, and forces us to examine what our (and their--the kids in pain) lives have become.

That's the first pang--the first indication that this ain't gonna be easy.  And that first day I knew I had to grit my teeth, bear down, concentrate and get the job done, all over again, only this time with absolutely no guarantee of how it all would end.  Even worse, I had to watch my kid while she did it, too.

There are lots of long hallways here...lots of hard steps to take.  And many of these kids come into the program on the first day in a wheelchair.  For a lot of reasons, some due to bullheadedness, some due to luck, mine walked in on her own steam.  But that fact in and of itself has amazed and awed some of the best docs in the country.

What happens behind these doors and in these rooms is a fascinating, complex process of science, humanity, and hard work.  The best of the best work here and focus their fine intellects, their vast knowledge, and their expansive hearts on our kids.  They know what they are about--and no matter how much the kids may balk and stumble, no matter how pissy we parents become, they never lose focus on the goal:  getting these kids back to the lives they want to lead.

They aren't asking for much.  In most cases they want what the rest of us take for granted:  just a regular life.  Or as regular as they can get it.  Along the way they've lost the basics--for some it's walking, for others it's running, for some it's being able to stand up without passing out or throwing up or both.  For most it's a seven-day-a-week life of normalcy that they mourn, not climbing Mt. Everest or quarterbacking the Super Bowl.

For the parents it's a blessed day or two with normal worries about normal kids:  dating catastrophes, bad grades, fender benders, college applications, tuition bills.

And for the lucky few who make it here, for the lucky few who make it through, at the end of these three and a half weeks, with continued work and focus and commitment, that's exactly what we all will have.

Naming the Names

A few days ago I wrote a poem for someone who is dying.  I have never met Sneezy and I never will because he is beyond the ability to speak--and when he is able to manage sound those precious seconds should be preserved for those who love and know him best.

But I sat at a table and wrote a poem about him.  On the back of my first draft, when I had a few blank moments to fill, I began a list.  A naming of the dead.  In a matter of seconds I had fourteen names.  Fourteen souls who, for a variety of very sad and very personal reasons, had no longer been able to tolerate life on this earth and had chosen, in that last split second of darkness, to move on.

Then I added more names.  People who had tried, but failed (or, depending on one's prespective, had succeeded, by staying on earth).  Those whose struggle had at least been enough to reach my own ears.

The list is varied and complex, just as the lives reflected are varied and complex.  But one constant is there, a steady stream of sorrow, a dull abiding drumbeat of pain.  There, in every name.

One name is still raw.  My neighbor.  A boy two years younger than I, now a middle-aged man, who came home to his parents' welcoming arms, who fought, who worked, who tried really really hard.  But who in the end just couldn't stay with us.  I never knew him as a man.  I never even really knew him as a boy, any more than I really knew anybody else in high school.

But I remember his eyes--they were big and beautiful under a thick fringe of long dark hair--even then it seemed he was trying to hide those beautiful eyes behind that beautiful hair.

And I thought about Sneezy.  He had fought hard for many months, for long days in and out of hospitals, rehabs, operating and recovery rooms.  His refusal to give up, to let go, to miss a chance to tell one more joke, to get one more laugh, was still palpable in those who knew him best.  His will to live was with us in that room, even though I never saw him open his eyes or heard him utter a single word.

Two men.  Two lives.  Both bumping up against mine.  Neither of whom I knew.  Both I will never forget.

Road Trip

I've been avoiding this blog post.  Avoiding it hard.  Because the writing of it will force me to confront a very ugly truth about myself.

I have some pretty bad habits, and they aren't all just quirky, funny, or weird.  They aren't as easily rectified as cleaning out my purse, checking a mouse trap, or biting my tongue (although that one's pretty hard at times).

And some of these habits have been years in the making (fifty to be exact--that's half a century of habit development).  A lot of time to dig the hole, pour in the quik-crete, tamp it down, soak it with the garden hose, and watch it set up.

Years ago I used to patronize this establishment just off of I-65--with my children, in strollers.  We used to buy their back-to-school Oshkosh B'Gosh outfits here, and wind up at the book store with ice cream cones.

The outlet mall that kept this exit hopping with families, with beachgoing Canadians, with folks looking for a bargain, has long since become defunct.  In its place is the "adult" establishment you see advertised above.  The asphalt is potholed, the parking lot scruffily barren.  At night the lights glow dimly, dully, obscenely.  I turn my head away because I know somewhere inside that outlet mall a girl the same age as one of my own daughters is doing things to and with men old enough to be her grandfather just to make a dollar.

And the habit?  The one I've been avoiding acknowledging?  At the same time I turn my head I turn up my nose.  I allow myself to feel superior, better than, above.  And in the few short seconds it takes my mini-van to speed by this exit I minimize the lives of every single person who ever drove through those potholes, of every single girl who ever called this place a job.

I elevate myself above another human being instead of allowing myself to see their plight.

I told you it was ugly.

I spend a lot of time on I-65, coming and going, taking and delivering.  In any given year I pass this exit a multitude of times.  And a multitude of times I allow myself to feel better than, instead of akin to.

An essentially bad habit--because as Coach has reminded me, watch your habits, they become character.

What this habit says about my character is this:

I take the cheap, easy route in assessing my fellow man.

I take the cheap, easy route in finding my place among my fellow man.

I take the cheap, easy route in processing the lives of my fellow man.

This past Sunday, a day still celebrated in most of our country as God's own day, I found myself yet again on I-65.

And in the amount of time it takes a mini-van to pass an exit I began work on developing a new habit--it will take the next fifty years to get it right, if I ever do.

Every single time I pass this exit, every single time I see a sign like this, every single time I have the urge to turn my nose up, I'm going to put  my  head down.

I'm going to put my head down and send a little, honest-to-God message from my heart to the hearts of every single person in there at that exact moment and it's going to be this:

I know you're there.  I'm sorry you're there.  I hope you never have to go there again--I want better for you in your life.

That's all.  Pretty pathetic and small in the world of habits, in the universe of doing unto others.

But in my pinchlipped little universe of character development, I hope it's a start in the right direction.

This post is the fourth in a five-part series.

Rat Race

We've recently experienced a home invasion.

An entire platoon of hardy mice have taken over our house.  They run past us while we watch television, pausing long enough to make obscene gestures with their little mouse paws, before moving on to the next party they have planned.

And they have lots of parties.  Involving Hershey kisses and bananas, loaf bread and potato chips.  Even gourmet cheeses attractively displayed on mouse traps.

In short, they rule, we humbly serve.  I've even started making my grocery list with the mice in mind.  Cheese?  Got it. More Hershey kisses?  Of course--Valentine-wrapped just for their little rodent romances.

Actually, I kind of like mice, in some weird Beatrix Potter kind of way.  They are cute.  They are small.  They star in countless major works of children's literature.  They don't take up much room.  And, apparently, they are very resourceful.

But their bathroom habits leave a lot to be desired, and you know about my housekeeping deficits, so the mice must go.

So I've developed a new daily ritual.  Carefully, slowly, agonizingly, slide open the drawer next to the kitchen sink and check the trap.  If empty, close the drawer.  If, sadly, full, again close the drawer, and wait for husband to remove said remains and re-arm.

That's it for New Year's change, for personal growth and development.  Daily writing.  Nope.  Monthly exercise.  Never.  Weekly reading.  Forget it.

But, every single day, as sure as the sun, I check that trap.

If I can habituate such a gruesome task, one would think a more pleasant, more physically or spiritually fullfilling, task should be a simple no-brainer.

No way.  But the guru (aka Coach) has spoken:  "Watch your actions--they become habits."

And thus I now have the habit of checking the mouse trap, sometimes several times a day, even in the wee hours of the morning.  And, through years of careful cultivation, I also have the habit of avoiding the must-dos, the have-tos, the should-dos, and the ought-to-dos.

Time to work on some new actions in hopes of developing some new habits.

Chapter read in how-to-write book.  Check.

Blog post written for the first time in almost eight weeks.  Check.

After the mouse finishes his cooldown, I'll hit the treadmill.

Repeat cycle a few thousand times, finally take down the rest of the rodent brigade, and perhaps I'll replace one tiny habit with some real, human-sized, grown-up ones.

Note:  This post is the third in a five-part series.

Scene 73, Take 979: Action!

Today I'm going to clean out my purse.

How's that for a to-do list?  Yes, it actually is an item that was on my list this week.  Why?  Because I was packing around the flotsam and jetsam of a partially consumed package of Nabs stuck way down in that dark cavity a couple of weeks ago just before my son took to the tennis court at an out-of-town tournament.  

Not a big, set-the-world-on-fire kind of action, but an action nonetheless, and a necessary one at that.  I was getting tired of pulling out my cracker-encrusted wallet at the Dollar Store.  Guess what?  I actually got that one tiny little action done, and why?  Because of those words.

Today I'm going to clean out my purse.

Of course it took several days in a row of thinking that to myself before I finally reminded myself into submission and actually completed the action.

Ah.  The power of the list.  The quintessential ability of words to transform themselves from some neurokinetic firing in the brain into physical actions--noticeable, even (on a rare and remarkable good day), commendable, actions.

Flip side of that coin:  I hate cleaning my house.

There's some words for you.  Words that on a gut-level, absolutely visceral level, I mean.

I really do hate cleaning my house.

If you've ever lived here, stayed overnight here, or even passed through and had a Diet Coke here, you will already know that.

I hate it for so many reasons--not because I hate my house itself--I love my house.  We built this house.  We raised (and are raising) our kids in this house.

I hate it because of the ticking time clock.  Which I only hear when I'm cleaning my house.  You know the clock.  The one that says tick-tock, you're almost fifty.  Tick-tock, for every hour you rummage in that closet, for every second you spend knocking the burned pizza out of the oven, for every moment you spend moving that pile of old clothes, you are one step closer to infinity.

That's the one--but I only hear it when, on the rarest of occasions, I actually knuckle down and tackle some domestic cleaning project.  Other days my mind rambles on its own prosaically random course of up this path and down another, read this poem, share this quote, Google this author, frame this picture, print this article, mail these bills, pump that gas, put your foot on the brake, lock the door, unlock the door, open your eyes, go to sleep.

In the middle of all this thinking and doing, or not thinking and not doing, is this:  Watch your words, they become actions.

Nah.  Not really.  Actions are actions and words are words.  Isn't that what we learned in school?  And never the twain shall meet.

Yes, really.  Notice the above examples.

Today I'm going to clean out my purse.

Purse cleaned.

I hate cleaning my house.

House not cleaned.

Simple cause and effect.

I'm going to start small and work big.

Today I'm going to clean out the junk drawer.

Tomorrow I'm going to love mankind, really love mankind, in spite of itself, in spite of me.

Note:  This post is the second in a five-part series.