Not a long post.
Someone close to me is getting ready to leave...
93 years is a long time. The Nintendo is 25 years old. It came out when I was 10. The stock market crashed when she was 10. The first one, in 1929.
Decades. 9 of them. Into the tenth. 2 kids, 7 grandchildren. 11 great-grandchildren, if my math is right.
To stand at such an angle, from such a vantage, to see clearly down 20 different paths...different circuits.
Just a thought, friends, for those for whom the train is arriving:
May we all board in a timely fashion, with a minimum of fuss, and plenty of people waving.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Second Chair
A thought today, perhaps, for those whose toil goes unnoticed or seen and unheralded.
I have never had a haircut i like. Ever. It isn't that I'm unhappy. That ship left port a long time ago. Rather, I just don't care. I say what I want and something else happens. Sigh, smile wanly, pay with tip. Repeat. This has been my routine for decades. I once paid a lot for a haircut. Somewhere with fancy mirrors, washbowls for shampooing, and 60 dollar scissors. Same result only poorer for the effort.
Barber shops usually have at least two chairs, sometimes three. The owner has the first chair (barbershops generally aren't "investment" opportunities), and some sad lump or two in the others. If you're second chair in a barber shop, you might be saving up for your own shop, but usually its just some guy turning toddlers' crewcuts into glasses of rye at the veteran's hall.
At the place i go now, the second chair is held by a man in his nineties named, i think, Gifas. He sweeps up for the owner's cuts and occasionally handles the overflow on busy days. Study the face of the second chair barber when his chair empties and client after client politely waves off his solicitations, preferring to wait for the first chair. As perfect an expression of abject purposelessness as you will ever see.
Several weeks ago, I did not defer. I saw the line, I had places to go. I couldn't wait. Gifas, I'm yours. What do i care? It's not as if i was going to get the cut i wanted. In all honesty, my hair isn't easy to cut. I've got three whorls all positioned at terrible locations. If the etymology of cowlick is to be believed, surely my infant head must have tasted like a salt block to some heavenly bovine servant. I even have two in my beard.
Gifas wears a smock. Like a doctor. Or a teenager working the makeup counter. Like all persons born shortly after the Great War, his hands shake. 30 minutes later i looked like i was only missing the neck bolts and an angry mob to corner me in the windmill. Or like i should wear overalls with no shirt and be kept from petting rabbits. Sigh.
So today, with a little shaggy growth to erase Gifas' efforts, I headed back to try again. Sure enough, there was a line for the first chair. But something happened. The timing of the cuts worked out in my favor. The owner's chair opened up and Gifas was still working on insuring at least a week's worth of shame for some poor 11-year-old with an impatient mother. The owner waved me over.
Every so often we are given an opportunity. An opportunity to...I don't know. To be...decent. Maybe. Or just to do something only for the sake of another. There was someone in line after me for the first chair. I looked at him, then at the owner. The moment dilated enough that Gifas shaky hands slowed to a mild tremor and he looked in the mirror at the three of us. No, I said to the owner. I looked at the man next to me and told him to go ahead. I looked at Gifas in his smock. No wrinkles there. Ironed every morning, no doubt. A small breakfast in a small apartment. Several smocks hung in a closet, each an emblem of a purpose. A reason to get up, to get out, to be needed. Maybe the reason he's lasted this long away from the support of his kids or the state.
Thanks anyway, I said. I'll wait for Gifas.
I have never had a haircut i like. Ever. It isn't that I'm unhappy. That ship left port a long time ago. Rather, I just don't care. I say what I want and something else happens. Sigh, smile wanly, pay with tip. Repeat. This has been my routine for decades. I once paid a lot for a haircut. Somewhere with fancy mirrors, washbowls for shampooing, and 60 dollar scissors. Same result only poorer for the effort.
Barber shops usually have at least two chairs, sometimes three. The owner has the first chair (barbershops generally aren't "investment" opportunities), and some sad lump or two in the others. If you're second chair in a barber shop, you might be saving up for your own shop, but usually its just some guy turning toddlers' crewcuts into glasses of rye at the veteran's hall.
At the place i go now, the second chair is held by a man in his nineties named, i think, Gifas. He sweeps up for the owner's cuts and occasionally handles the overflow on busy days. Study the face of the second chair barber when his chair empties and client after client politely waves off his solicitations, preferring to wait for the first chair. As perfect an expression of abject purposelessness as you will ever see.
Several weeks ago, I did not defer. I saw the line, I had places to go. I couldn't wait. Gifas, I'm yours. What do i care? It's not as if i was going to get the cut i wanted. In all honesty, my hair isn't easy to cut. I've got three whorls all positioned at terrible locations. If the etymology of cowlick is to be believed, surely my infant head must have tasted like a salt block to some heavenly bovine servant. I even have two in my beard.
Gifas wears a smock. Like a doctor. Or a teenager working the makeup counter. Like all persons born shortly after the Great War, his hands shake. 30 minutes later i looked like i was only missing the neck bolts and an angry mob to corner me in the windmill. Or like i should wear overalls with no shirt and be kept from petting rabbits. Sigh.
So today, with a little shaggy growth to erase Gifas' efforts, I headed back to try again. Sure enough, there was a line for the first chair. But something happened. The timing of the cuts worked out in my favor. The owner's chair opened up and Gifas was still working on insuring at least a week's worth of shame for some poor 11-year-old with an impatient mother. The owner waved me over.
Every so often we are given an opportunity. An opportunity to...I don't know. To be...decent. Maybe. Or just to do something only for the sake of another. There was someone in line after me for the first chair. I looked at him, then at the owner. The moment dilated enough that Gifas shaky hands slowed to a mild tremor and he looked in the mirror at the three of us. No, I said to the owner. I looked at the man next to me and told him to go ahead. I looked at Gifas in his smock. No wrinkles there. Ironed every morning, no doubt. A small breakfast in a small apartment. Several smocks hung in a closet, each an emblem of a purpose. A reason to get up, to get out, to be needed. Maybe the reason he's lasted this long away from the support of his kids or the state.
Thanks anyway, I said. I'll wait for Gifas.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Stranger in a Strange Kitchen, or How I Overcame Childhood Xenophobia
strang·er (str n j r)n. 1. One who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance. 2. A foreigner, newcomer, or outsider. 3. One who is unaccustomed to or unacquainted with something specified; a novice: a stranger to our language; no stranger to hardship. 4. A visitor or guest. |
Having been one and met many, I wonder how all of us can feel so differently about the concept. How a community or culture reacts to one, I think owes a lot to how often those within that community have allowed themselves to be seen as such, and how, in that moment, they felt. And further, what they did about it.
I come from a family of travelers. Not the pseudo-Roma types in the American southeast that collect down payments for un-asphalted driveways. Rather, those that wander. Or wonder. Then wander. There was a desk at my father's parents' house that I would pass as a child whenever we visited. Stuffed as it was with yellowed grocery lists, receipts, catalogs, and filleted correspondence, it stood as an ongoing exhibit of their lives in process. What caught the eye of a curious grandson, and many admiring visitors was the corkboard above it. Pinned to every inch were thousands of photos, thick as fish scales. Curling like sloughed bark, they were a record of an entire life spent in the service of, and as, strangers. On camel back. Under an umbrella, bizarre trees in the background. Darker haired, tighter skinned people that looked a lot like my grandparents smiled back from dozens of photos definitely not taken anywhere in Kentucky.
Perhaps even more fascinating were the exchange students they hosted. Its a very strange feeling as a young person to meet adults who don't speak English. They're decidedly grown-up, yet they talk like children. they're curious about you and want desperately to speak, but are forced to rely on broken phrases cribbed from television and meaningful eye contact. They were friendly with my adults and were clearly vouched for by them. And they were strangers.
As children, we are all given the same opportunities to embrace strange cultures and people. To be clear, i am not describing a situation in which my mother and father encouraged me to speak to strangers, take their candy, or accept their rides. I am referring instead to that rite of passage that all of us took at some point, which i am sure is not unique to American culture; the sleepover.
I was 6. It was Friday. That morning, I took a letter from my mother to my teacher. Having read it, she sent me to the office to show it to the secretary. She read it. Then she reached into her desk drawer, took out a slip of paper, and wrote down the information. Then, dear readers, for the first time ever, before any of my plane tickets or Eurail passes, I was handed the most amazing billet any child may ever hope to receive; a permission slip to ride a different bus.
A child's ticket for travel. giving it to the strange bus driver, in the strange bus, parked in the strange location. Then, off to the strange house, filled with strangers. I had my friend as a guide of course. but the trust required in such in arrangement ought not be overlooked. Having been sanctioned by my parents, he would be my only touchstone, my only reference point, my only familiar on this expedition.
Let's be honest; i wasn't going overseas. Yet, to a small child, it might as well have been a ticket to Zanzibar. I'd had playdates before. I'd been to other houses for birthday parties. but this was different. I was alone in my strangeness. No other kids to share the oddness, and most importantly, no ride home when it got dark. No festivities, no event. No balloons or cake. Just a whole lot of weird furniture, weird lighting, weird toys, in a weird house in a weird neighborhood. and most of all, weird smells. It might feel like a normal playdate. Right up until dinner.
For those who may not think smell is important or indicative or evocative, i offer this test. Walk through or near a grade school at lunch time and convince me you don't become nostalgic. Bleach, fresh paint, and musty radiators will always be redolent of dorm life. A strange house would be so firstly because of the smell. Strange laundry. Strange cleaning products resulting in disorienting floor-based play on an odd carpet or linoleum in a weird basement. And it would all come to a point when the first fingers of aroma from dinner would find their way downstairs or out to the backyard.
Every new experience, every vacation always has a newness about it. Something to remind you that you've gone beyond the familiar. I argue that its the smell of other people's dinner that makes it real. New ingredients, new techniques. For me, as a child, that's when a play date become...sinister somehow. Foreign. Scary. And no concession, whether in demeanor or speech, would ever be made in my direction to indicate an understanding of my apprehension. My friend, his parents, and maybe a sibling or two, would simply slide into their strange chairs at their strange table and start eating their strange food.
As every day before it, that day would end. At a slightly later hour, maybe, but end it would. With strange toothpaste in a strange bathroom. And finally to bed, to be tucked into odd-smelling linens with my head pointing the wrong way with none of my stuffed animals on whom to rely, and what little light there may have been definitely in the wrong location. It is at this moment that we become one of two very different kind of people.
When i was in Europe, those moments that still glow faintly in the dark, cold, shelved corridors of my memory share one immutable common theme; i was lonely. Abjectly, despondently lonely. By choice, i travelled alone. I found friends with whom to share a day, a meal, or maybe a train ride. But by forcing myself to wander alone, and through my stomaching and enduring, and most importantly, eventually riding out the resultant homesickness, I became self-reliant. And confident. I discovered that there is something valuable in the kindness of strangers, upon which i was forced to depend to overcome my loneliness.
I think our response to the novelty of a sleepover and the overwhelming panic of being, dare i say it, a stranger in a strange land, is what ultimately determines our acceptance of other people's cultures. Even if we gave up and cried for our parents until they came and took us home, we recovered, tried again, and eventually spent the entirety of some night at a friend's house. Sometimes the night passed slowly, tearfully. Lonely. We either become forever wary and afraid of other people, other cultures, only comfortable with a lifestyle that changes little. Or we trust ourselves to other people, strangers in a strange home, to take care of us, never forgetting who we are and where we are most at peace. But stronger, more confident, and more willing to expose ourselves to something foreign.
Always waiting on the other side, as a reward for our endurance, was a bright, cartoon-filled morning. Greeted upon waking with a warm smile, by parents not much different, really, than our own. In a kitchen, now filled with sunlight, that looked remarkably less strange and rather more familiar than when we were afraid. And at a table with four legs, just like at home, with plates, not much different than ours. Piled with pancakes. Just like at my house.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Dude, don't forget; we're off next Monday.
Just back from vacation. Nose to the grindstone. No more holiday cheer. Gray, cold, and distinctly unfestive, January waits. The least exciting month. Just look at the word:
January
See? Boring. And yet...from out of nowhere, a co-worker or spouse or friend tells you, "Don't forget; we're off next Monday." They will say it casually, as if they've known it all along. "What!" you'll say. "Why?"
Why, indeed. How is this possible?
"We're off Monday!?"
Who has done this? In whose honor am I to be excused from work? Why, none other than Martin Luther King. In addition to a lifetime of struggle for equal rights, an enduring quest on behalf of all mankind, he is apparently blessing me with both a 3 day weekend AND the subsequent 4 day work week. God bless you, Martin Luther King.
January
See? Boring. And yet...from out of nowhere, a co-worker or spouse or friend tells you, "Don't forget; we're off next Monday." They will say it casually, as if they've known it all along. "What!" you'll say. "Why?"
Why, indeed. How is this possible?
"We're off Monday!?"
Who has done this? In whose honor am I to be excused from work? Why, none other than Martin Luther King. In addition to a lifetime of struggle for equal rights, an enduring quest on behalf of all mankind, he is apparently blessing me with both a 3 day weekend AND the subsequent 4 day work week. God bless you, Martin Luther King.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Here's to Facebook
People move away. Sometimes several states away. Its difficult to stay in touch. With friends or family. A phone call. A letter. Maybe an email. We all do what we can, but sometimes the distance between can stretch too far. You forget to return a call. You miss a birthday. A birth even. You feel guilty and the guilt, ironically, keeps you from correcting a mistake. Sometimes you get a second chance. And sometimes you even feel guilty about not having made the effort yourself for that second chance and even that will keep you from making a new connection. What's worse, the stronger the connection originally, the deeper the friendship, the stronger the guilt that keeps you from just admitting a mistake and taking what you can, when it comes. Perhaps that's the greatest part of Facebook: the mechanics for both reconnecting and maintenance are already in place. Just plug in. For so long I had been one of its leading detractors. Write a letter, make a call, I would say. All the while never getting around to it. Thinking, mistakenly, that great friends lost for too long deserved a grand antique gesture in order to adequately address the error of having let them go. In the end it was simple. I accepted a friend request. No letter, no apologies. Just a small electronic nod, and a wordless invitation to see their life. And to observe that life. Here we are, here's what we're up to. No worries. A few comments, a couple "likes" on a post. And then a moment arrives when you feel comfortable enough to try again.
A lifetime ago, i met a man. A boy, actually. So was I, then. And then he met a girl. And it was a summer. We were all seventeen, and in spite of the true joy of having no real responsibility, everything about that summer felt massive and final. And momentous. You were all seventeen; you remember. Lost track after that for years. Somehow I found them again. They were together. Happily. We had some responsibility then, but still had the freedom to practice being adults without having to commit to anything real. And then they did commit. To each other. And I was asked to stand up for them and speak at their wedding. Still one of the greatest honors I've ever been given. And then I met a girl. And when we committed, my friends returned the favor at our wedding. We stayed in touch after that. For a while. They moved, we visited. And then...nothing. I don't know how or why, but that was it. For a long time. They moved, maybe. Back home from out west. Maybe. Too many years passed with too much guilt. I didn't know. Enter Facebook.
They found my wife first. I wasn't on Facebook, so she would give me small updates. They had moved, matriculated. Then they had kids. That's what got me. I could stand having missed a move, a degree or two. But somehow, the idea of their starting a family was more than i could bear. I still wasn't sure what to say or how to say it. Turns out a shared love for bourbon and a ridiculous bottle-sweater was all it took. That and good timing. We were just about to go home, which was just a short drive from their new home, new life. So we went.
Just a day. Half a day, really. No one deserves 60 degrees in January, but we got it. All that we may wish for our friends or family, in this life or the next, is happiness. A contentment. Peace, security, fulfillment. A beautiful home with a porch, a garage, and slow traffic going by. And healthy, glorious, magical, curious, delightful children. One would be a miracle; they had two. Should I live a thousand years, it would be a full life were I to be such a host for anyone else. A meal, a bed, a bottle of booze and chance to get to know them and their family. Again and for the first time.
Yeah, there's silly pop-up ads in the margins. And yes, there will never be an electronic substitute for the sound of a child's genuine laugh or feeling the weight of an envelope upon which a loved one has written your name with a pen with their own hand. But friends, I am saying that without this wonderful invention, the above moment might never have come about. Here's to Facebook, and all the new friends we might get to know.
A lifetime ago, i met a man. A boy, actually. So was I, then. And then he met a girl. And it was a summer. We were all seventeen, and in spite of the true joy of having no real responsibility, everything about that summer felt massive and final. And momentous. You were all seventeen; you remember. Lost track after that for years. Somehow I found them again. They were together. Happily. We had some responsibility then, but still had the freedom to practice being adults without having to commit to anything real. And then they did commit. To each other. And I was asked to stand up for them and speak at their wedding. Still one of the greatest honors I've ever been given. And then I met a girl. And when we committed, my friends returned the favor at our wedding. We stayed in touch after that. For a while. They moved, we visited. And then...nothing. I don't know how or why, but that was it. For a long time. They moved, maybe. Back home from out west. Maybe. Too many years passed with too much guilt. I didn't know. Enter Facebook.
They found my wife first. I wasn't on Facebook, so she would give me small updates. They had moved, matriculated. Then they had kids. That's what got me. I could stand having missed a move, a degree or two. But somehow, the idea of their starting a family was more than i could bear. I still wasn't sure what to say or how to say it. Turns out a shared love for bourbon and a ridiculous bottle-sweater was all it took. That and good timing. We were just about to go home, which was just a short drive from their new home, new life. So we went.
Just a day. Half a day, really. No one deserves 60 degrees in January, but we got it. All that we may wish for our friends or family, in this life or the next, is happiness. A contentment. Peace, security, fulfillment. A beautiful home with a porch, a garage, and slow traffic going by. And healthy, glorious, magical, curious, delightful children. One would be a miracle; they had two. Should I live a thousand years, it would be a full life were I to be such a host for anyone else. A meal, a bed, a bottle of booze and chance to get to know them and their family. Again and for the first time.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
To hoard, perchance to shred
Having only a cursory understanding of what is undoubtedly a complex and harrowing disorder, and having only seen maybe 5 minutes of the eponymous program, I will nevertheless assert that hoarding, in its early stages, begins with an unwillingness or inability to process incoming mail. And perhaps, as a close second, the overestimation of the "actual" value of free tote bags.
Our most recent ordeal, and most issues with sorting and discarding mail, began with a broken shredder. Like most people, the fact that we couldn't remember where or when we purchased our shredder, or more importantly, how much it cost, made buying a new one difficult. I knew that our current model wasn't powerful enough. I knew this because the sound of it shredding made me think of Ving Rhames cursing through a ball gag. And having no idea what one should cost and for what amount of power or how that power is measured, i just didn't buy one. That was the start of the darkness.
Three stacks of mail. Unread, read but unprocessed, and shred-worthy. First the shreddable pile grew. And grew. It grew because "we" (everyone knows i mean only my wife, right?) didn't want to just throw out sensitive mail items with our personal information on it. If you have a working shredder and just take for granted why a solicitation to join Curves Gym for Women requires shredding, i will be happy to explain. It contains personal information. Like your address. Which is impossible to obtain, apparently, by any means other than sorting through coffee grounds, eggshells, slimy cottonballs and used dental floss in the hopes of discovery. I knew the shredding pile was large when toppling became a concern. At which point a line was crossed (by me, alone) that is crossed once by all who eventual find themselves sobbing through a newspaper-narrowed hallway towards a TLC camera crew, lamenting the loss of their "valuables:" I put the mail that must be saved in a bag. For saving. Until later. Oh god.
Stacks of unread magazines can also be a point of concern. Moments of tension periodically (pun intended) arise in our home when my wife confronts me about putting a mixed stack of Health/Fitness/Shape/Woman/Home/Garden/Woman'sShape/GardenFitness/HomeHealth/ShapeHealth/Woman'sGarden/FitnessHome/ShapelyWoman'sGarden into the pile of newspapers for recycling. Not because i'm mixing glossy print with newspaper (shut up, all of you; it goes in one truck anyway). Rather, she was bothered because 1) she hasn't read them yet (pffft) and 2) she hasn't removed the address part with our name and our "secret codes." Which, she imagines is used only as a shortcut by identity thievery adepts to easily extract personal information.
The trouble with this logic aside from bagged mail, is the same as with hitchhiking as a successful path for a career in murder: the victim pool has evolved. Its a cold, lonely, unsatisfied murderer that stalks our nation's highways. Likewise, potential identity thieves are not be-masked, striped-shirted prowlers rooting through our bagged garbage with a flashlight clenched in their teeth. Nor are they waist-deep in a garbage barge, occasionally turning a grimy, trash slicked face skyward, thrilled at the discovery of my wife's discarded Frontgate catalog.
In summary, fix your shredder. Or buy a new one. And read your magazines quickly.
Our most recent ordeal, and most issues with sorting and discarding mail, began with a broken shredder. Like most people, the fact that we couldn't remember where or when we purchased our shredder, or more importantly, how much it cost, made buying a new one difficult. I knew that our current model wasn't powerful enough. I knew this because the sound of it shredding made me think of Ving Rhames cursing through a ball gag. And having no idea what one should cost and for what amount of power or how that power is measured, i just didn't buy one. That was the start of the darkness.
Three stacks of mail. Unread, read but unprocessed, and shred-worthy. First the shreddable pile grew. And grew. It grew because "we" (everyone knows i mean only my wife, right?) didn't want to just throw out sensitive mail items with our personal information on it. If you have a working shredder and just take for granted why a solicitation to join Curves Gym for Women requires shredding, i will be happy to explain. It contains personal information. Like your address. Which is impossible to obtain, apparently, by any means other than sorting through coffee grounds, eggshells, slimy cottonballs and used dental floss in the hopes of discovery. I knew the shredding pile was large when toppling became a concern. At which point a line was crossed (by me, alone) that is crossed once by all who eventual find themselves sobbing through a newspaper-narrowed hallway towards a TLC camera crew, lamenting the loss of their "valuables:" I put the mail that must be saved in a bag. For saving. Until later. Oh god.
Stacks of unread magazines can also be a point of concern. Moments of tension periodically (pun intended) arise in our home when my wife confronts me about putting a mixed stack of Health/Fitness/Shape/Woman/Home/Garden/Woman'sShape/GardenFitness/HomeHealth/ShapeHealth/Woman'sGarden/FitnessHome/ShapelyWoman'sGarden into the pile of newspapers for recycling. Not because i'm mixing glossy print with newspaper (shut up, all of you; it goes in one truck anyway). Rather, she was bothered because 1) she hasn't read them yet (pffft) and 2) she hasn't removed the address part with our name and our "secret codes." Which, she imagines is used only as a shortcut by identity thievery adepts to easily extract personal information.
The trouble with this logic aside from bagged mail, is the same as with hitchhiking as a successful path for a career in murder: the victim pool has evolved. Its a cold, lonely, unsatisfied murderer that stalks our nation's highways. Likewise, potential identity thieves are not be-masked, striped-shirted prowlers rooting through our bagged garbage with a flashlight clenched in their teeth. Nor are they waist-deep in a garbage barge, occasionally turning a grimy, trash slicked face skyward, thrilled at the discovery of my wife's discarded Frontgate catalog.
In summary, fix your shredder. Or buy a new one. And read your magazines quickly.
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