Skeletons of Thought

I promise not to give you a dull play-by-play of my holidays but I will tell you those things that occurred that I deem to have some kind of weird philosophical spin-off.

Yeh, I’m a white-knuckled flyer. Frightened of flight. So prior to leaving on holidays I gathered up all I could gather to fluff up a comforting quilt for a chilled mind. A whole parcel of poetic lines that put flying into the context of freedom, buoyancy, lightness, floating, soaring.

My hope was that I could turn my dread of flying into something lovely. And maybe it would have worked, but when we headed for the airport, there were huge black clouds rumbling and tumbling in from the west. And ‘west’ was the direction we were heading. Right into the fray.

And then, at the airport, as we proceeded through the luggage check, something else started gnawing at me. Here we are at a counter with a long line of booths representing different flight agencies. And above the singular booth, responsible for our trip, our safety, our welfare, is an added display. A 3” black streamer about four feet long attached horizontally across the bottom of the airline-logo sign-plate. A black streamer with a repeated pattern of white skeleton faces and crossbones. I was appalled.

Now I’m not superstitious in my conscious mind, but in the subconscious, there is a layer that slumbers but occasionally stirs to harken to subtle warnings. Sights, sounds, or signals that others quickly dismiss are for me, portends of impending disaster. That streamer roused that sleeping thing. Causing even more fright. And fright, when backed into a corner, kick-starts angry defense. So immediately I’m thinking, “Grab a brain, Freak. There are some of us in this line-up that already feel our lives are on the line.”

What kind of perverted airline-checker would decorate his booth with such a gruesome display? Sure there was a green net hammock as well strung up there with colorful plastic miniatures of a starfish, a pirate ship, a sword, and a telescope that I guess were supposed to represent the light-hearted side of some kind of pirate theme. If it was October, I could readily dismiss it as a Halloween theme. I could even set it aside if we were traveling by ship to the Caribbean. But that isn’t the case. I looked around. The other agents have no special decorations on their booths. But still, the décor is deliberate so it must have practical significance but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. With nothing relative I can only conclude it has a less practical significance – the foreshadowing of disaster. And so, the underlay of superstition in my subconscious mind interprets it as a death knell.

With that interpretation I find myself becoming angrier with that agent by the moment. For heaven’s sake, he, of all people, must know how cautious one has to be about word-speak in an airport. Mention hi-jacking, ammunition, or explosives, and you will be arrested, and here we have a contrived blazon hi-jacking theme pasted at eye level for all travelers to look at. It may be about boats and pirates, rather than planes specifically, but what do pirates do when they come aboard a vessel? They hi-jack it, don’t they? And inevitably, death is likely to follow. (And like others say, ‘It’s not that I fear death itself, it’s just that I don’t want to foolishly rush the transition and I don’t want that transition to hurt.’)

I turned to Hub. “When we get to the counter,” I said, “I’m going to tell that air-rep how much I DO NOT appreciate his display – particularly all the skeletons and cross-bones.” Hub, of course, the ever-practical thinker, told me to leave it alone. “Don’t be so silly and sensitive,” he said. “I’m sure it isn’t bothering anyone but you.”

Oh yeh? Here I disagree. There are at least 25% of us in this world who are white-knuckled flyers, and another 50% of us ruled by emotion rather than practicality, so I’m certainly not alone. I have my backers.

A Slack Tale

(I’m back but I’m exhausted. So while I rest up, here for your amusement is the last post I wrote before I left. I didn’t post it because I was a bit under the weather with a grand mal of arthritis in one hip).

It’s right down to the wire – the plane leaves tomorrow – and I am still dealing with wardrobe issues. Particularly since YD has made very special reservations for an outing that she keeps reminding me to deck out in full grandeur for.

First thought was about my ankle-length gown with the velvet jacket. But the jacket is rather heavy for mid-summer wear. And without the jacket I feel a little over-exposed. So I started kicking around the idea of taking something cooler, and more versatile.

And so then I remembered the pant-suit that I bought while housed in the executive suite on Radison Avenue several years ago. The one I bought for way too much money at one of those small specialty boutiques with rugs so soft and deep that I found myself flailing a bit while walking on them in an automated reflex action to stay afloat. One of those small, but ever so fashionable, shops tucked away in the center of downtown. With French doors and mirrors swinging both ways, Greek columns, and silk plants accenting a front-end vestibule with Louis the 5th brocade chairs. A greeter-hostess who sat with me at a small table and provided coffee (in china cups) and a pre-shopping consultation surrounding color charts and fabric swatches. A consultation about winter colors, summer colors, and camouflage styles to correct body flaws. It was one of those places where I had that sickening need to pretend I was something I wasn’t just to manage the stilted conversational exchanges without sneering and saying, “Why don’t we just get real here?”

When I began to try on clothes, ladies-in-waiting appeared in small swarms to tuck and tussle and contemplate with one hand pressed to their faces like “the Thinker” before expressing a mindless cliché. “For you, my dear, excellent! For you, my dear, positively stunning!”

With a safety pin in one bra strap to prevent sag and slippage, I feared my façade of self-confidence would be destroyed by one of them offering to adjust that as well. With gracious countenance, some cutting sarcasm like "My dear, let me assist you. It appears that pin is digging into your flesh.”

So I became panicky about keeping it hidden. A difficult thing to do with the many matte noses and raccoon eyes peeking into the dressing room unannounced, to ask if I would like to try an accent scarf or some exotic jewelry with each ensemble.

It was a bit of a trial, but somehow I got through it, and eventually I was out on the street with a box containing a pant suit and a slip of minute size paper that validated a sudden crash in my bank balance. Truly, the best kind of suit I ever had if value can be rightly calculated from price and the sophistication of the place it was purchased at.

I wore my lovely jade and black pantsuit a couple of times and indeed I was not disappointed. Always comments about how lovely it was. But then, after that, the time came to refresh, dry-clean, before a next wearing. And this is what I hate. The garment that requires ‘specialized’ attention, rather than the freedom to fling it on the basement floor until the next tub of like-minded colors are being agitated at full speed with hot water and some good dependable mix of soap and concentrated stain remover.

So I procrastinated. The darn thing cost me enough already without the price of dry-cleaning which doesn’t always bring about the desired result. So eventually I did what I generally do in such circumstances – I clenched my teeth, set the washer to cold water, gentle cycle, poured in a bit of gentle soap, shut my eyes, and quickly closed the lid on the washer.

Yeh, you know it. The jacket did okay, but the pants, that were a kind of crinkled stuff, went from size 14 to size 7. From a 32” leg to a 24” leg. How do you like those bananas? So while they were still wet I started pulling. I pulled up and down and crosswise until they returned to a size 10. Still not good enough. So out came the ironing board and I ironed all the crinkles out of those suckers. Guess what—with that effort, the slacks went from size 10 to size 28.

That’s when I returned the slacks to a hanger in the back of the closet and said, ‘Enough is enough.’ And procrastination again set in. So now yesterday, I pulled that suit out and found myself wandering through the wondrous nostalgia, of how that pantsuit came to be, and the unequaled beauty it once offered. I put the outfit on and stood in front of the mirror. The slacks were so big in the hips there was room for Hub and me and two friends in those pants. Still the magical appeal they once had came to mind and I decided to haul out my sewing machine and sew them down to size.

Maybe not. Maybe that will just be the complete ruination of them. Maybe the Dry Cleaners can resurrect them? Nah. Dismiss that thought, they’ll probably lose the pants. And I don’t have the stamina to go through what I would need to go through to get them replaced.


So let’s wash them again and try something different. So I did. I washed them again. Again they came out size 7. I stretched them again – back to size 10. Now here is where we have to find a convergence in the treatment. I thought how nice it would be if I had a pant frame in my size, but I don’t. Oh yes, I do. My own frame.

So, although the pants were sopping wet, I put them on. I went out on the deck where a brisk breeze was playing. I walked about in the yard, careful, ever so careful not to bend my legs. I knew if I did, the pants would immediately begin to bag at the knees.

With the semblance of a nutcracker doll, I walked about, erect and stiff-legged until the pants had almost dried. Came to the house, removed them and checked them out. Perfect. Clean, fresh, and a perfect size 14.

But would I recommend this treatment? Not really. My pant-suit is back to its original beauty but now I’m off on holidays with a discomforting bit of arthritis in one hip. I think that is what happens if you use a body frame to mold a wet pair of crinkled slacks. Still, I think it beats the distress that could come with sending them to the dry-cleaners.

A New Ballroom Balcony Gown

Vacation days are fast approaching. Remember when I asked for help on how to capture the essence of being a good tourist (blog - May 26th) ? The only help I got was from my friend, matty.

She told me that among other things, I should be “loud and demanding” and do some “wild n crazy stuff”. I’m not sure if I’ll be loud and demanding, but already I’ve started with the ‘wild n crazy stuff’.

Now YD has reserved Hub and I a room in a fine hotel with a balcony. And since I don’t intend to go dining and dancing, I decided the best kind of outfit I needed was a ballroom balcony gown. So I want to show you what came out of that effort.

Now this is my original balcony gown that is now more years old than I care to confess.
It always went on holidays with me. I’ve walked beaches in this gown and lazed in campsites in cool comfort on hot, hot days. But it’s pretty much ready to cast aside. It has been mended and mended. I even borrowed fabric from the neck facing to stitch up lacerations in the cloth. But still as long as it hangs together I don’t intend to part with it.

Now about four years ago, ED (eldest daughter) gave me some wild and crazy cotton. It was a beautiful blend of mauve and brown and gold that was more defiant in challenging me to a suitable sewing project than any cloth I’ve ever had. And I knew, before I started, that matching colors and working out a flattering method for that cloth was likely to prove more than my small brain could handle. Still, I maintain that 'a chunk of cloth in the drawer does no one any good. Even a bad effort is better than no effort at all.'

So that’s when I thought, “Why not a new ballroom balcony gown?" And so, here it is.

The wild and crazy part of it is because the fabric was wide blends and bands of opposing colors, the back of my gown is gold, the front is mauve and blue. But that might be my salvation. I should be able to be arrogant and demanding in that kind of cutting-edge style.

Do you think?

Sure Things Go "Bump" in the Night

I think I know why traditionally monsters exist in the night. But what I don’t know is why I am so much braver at night than during the day.

After dark, if something disturbs me, I will take brave, quick action without contemplation. There will be no pause to wonder if my actions will be well received, if they are politically correct, or if those actions will be viewed with disdain by others. And when I decide to write something at two in the morning, no matter how unorthodox that writing, (like this rant I'm writing right now), I bravely conclude, without question, that it makes good rational sense and has the utmost cohesiveness and clarity. Even though, when morning comes, I will look this over again and find it is nothing more than a grand mess of disconnected phrases, nonsensical thoughts, and jumbled words.

Maybe my nighttime bravery makes sense. I mean if I were to see Dracula or the Boogie Man standing in a sunlit room, I don’t know about you, but I would certainly run for cover. But if I saw these same creatures in a thin insipid stream of moonlight at night, I would just laugh and tell them point blank, “You don’t scare me.” (The reason being that in darkness, nothing is clearly visible, so I immediately chalk everything up to imagination).

So I don't fear what I can't clearly see. If I hear unusual noises at night, I bravely leap from my bed to go and investigate. I will let Hub sleep while I go to check out the back yard and wander through pervading darkness without alarm. Not so in daylight. That's entirely another matter.

If I hear uncommon noises in the garage or basement during the day, I am not wanting to investigate. There will be no investigation by me. Hub will have to check it out. Maybe it all boils down to the silly notion that “if I can see IT, then IT can see me.’

But at night I can easily rationalize anything. The creak in the floor and the noise in the wall is the house settling, the whining noise in the yard is simply the wind, the noise in the attic a wayward bird or small wood-boring insect. But these same sounds during the day are disturbing – too disturbing for me to even want to investigate.

Guess I was raised to believe and expect things go bump in the night.

You can turn off the flashlight now and go to your tent. Cause that's my scary campfire tale for tonight.

A Dastardly Day

I have no patience with anyone who thinks they can cook in the kitchen while relaxing in the livingroom. I have even less patience with husbands who thinks they can cook a perfect steak on the deck barbecue while tracking a hockey game on TV in another room as Hub sometimes does. When stuff burns, or boils dry, there is no excuse now, and has never been an excuse, except the straight-forward confession of irresponsibility. Really, people should know better.

Now having articulated those thoughts, I will tell you a story.

Yesterday I was baking my weekly batch of eight loaves of bread. And so I mixed the dough, kneaded it, and extracted a small amount to make a pizza for lunch. I put the remaining dough in my big bread bowl and put that bowl in the oven to rise in the heat of the oven light, as I always do and have been doing for years.

My pizza dough meanwhile rose on the counter for a brief time and was soon ready for topping. That’s when Hub came in and asked when lunch would be ready. By then it was late, after two. He was very hungry and so was I so I quickly began assembling the ingredients for the pizza. And while rushing to do that I turned on the oven to high, cause you know, pizzas need high heat, right?

About ten minutes later my now delayed, rather than immediate, state of recall kicked in. In a state of panic, I jerked open the oven door. Big puffy bread, quick rise, oh yes, but at the same time, the heat liquefied the bottom of my plastic bread-bowl. That part of it was now draped in long streamers around the oven racks and the bottom heat element. What a bloody mess?

Hub immediately took action. Bread bowl out on the deck, oven racks out on the deck, ice cubes to harden the streamers, and then removal of the rest of the mess. Meanwhile yelling, “Clear out of here, woman, or you’ll burn yourself!”

_______

I’ve told you before that when my feet hit the floor in the morning, it’s entirely up to me if I make or break my new day. I broke this one good.

Why am I telling you this? So if you are having a bad day, you will know with solid conviction, that you are not alone. And if you have done some stupid irresponsible thing that has you beating yourself up, you should see me.

Hub is from the old school and he does not normally help with kitchen clean-up, but in the midst of disaster he is the Protector of the Vulnerable. As dependable as a rock and ALWAYS comes a-running. I’m grateful for that fixed protector-part of the old-school philosophy that made gender differences, as they used to be…rather nice.

So Thanks to Hub, right now my oven looks like nothing happened and so does my kitchen. I wonder how this what have panned out if Hub and I were entrenched in gender equality and the spin-offs that come with that kind of thinking. I think I might still be picking plastic off the heating element as penance for my own irresponsibility.

Maybe it is unfair, and even untrue, this thought I harbor in my head, that amidst gender balance and total equality, he would stand by silently thinking… “When I make a mess, I clean it up, so when you make a mess, you can clean it up as well.”

Once Friend, Now Foe

I peek around the window casing. I must not let them see,
They will tuck their brilliant color when they see—it is me.
I still have tattered remnants locked in a childhood vault
Of a friendship that was broken, it was nobody’s fault.

But if I try to resurrect how it once was with us
I’m not sure if I should smile, or if I want to cuss.
When I glimpse their little faces and see them nod their heads.
Back come all the gentle thoughts combined with what I dread.
____

Thoughts of patient-plaited blossoms, I wear as a golden crown
And a feverishly-plucked bouquet, of soft and yellow down.

I remember all I longed to know as I lounged in a golden field,
Secrets only a dandelion knew and only a dandelion could reveal.

There were things told to me through spectral fluff
That I breathed upon with a gentle puff
Perilously one parachute clings to the vine.
Giving sacred promise – that he will be mine.
So loved by one, though no longer by three…
I’m not disappointed, if that’s how it must be.
___

Oh I know they’re so jolly in hot sunny weather,
And with all of the grand times we’ve had together
When did that fast bond get so twisted with pain?
To a malignant affinity of disgust and disdain?

I’ve never expressed it, but they certainly know
Cause they duck and fold wherever I go
They bend and cower and play hide-and-seek
And when they think I’m not looking…
They have a quick peek.

So unfold for children, when they come to play
But stay distant from me, it’s better that way
Though skittish you are and though you may hide
I know that you’re there and you’ll always abide!

A blessing in one form, a curse in another
Still a most precious gift from a child to her mother.

Through the Looking Glass

I realized while drafting a couple of recent posts something I thought we should discuss. I realized that writing via a blog-medium invites reckless exposure. Even though all I pin up here, in this cyper-place is an image rather than a real person. So is there a threat? There shouldn’t be. But I think I see one although I never did in the past.

It strikes me as odd, coincidental, that as an overly-shy child, with nothing in my physical shell except a quivering emulsion of insecurities and ‘fraidy-cat jelly, I was so brave when confronted with my own reflection. I looked in mirrors and pouted and posed and contorted in reckless ways. Straining and twisting in poses of face that would have prompted pant-wetting laughter, or overt disgust, if viewed by others.

The Internet is similar to a mirror. Here we define a space and create within that space a self-image. It is a reflection as simple as a pond or mirror reflection that seems to pose no threat and thus encourages us to be brave. But is it that simple? To answer that I want to move to another discussion about mirrors and reflections.

This other thought arises from vague memories of a child’s book of fantasy – “Through the Looking Glass.” Though written well before the invention of computers, the author of this book clearly perceived the magnetic pull and fascination of reflective images. And though I only vaguely remember the story, this much I do recall. This book offers a spellbinding analogy of how mirrors offer a place so much more enticing than our real world.

And so if the story were analyzed with the same intensity as works of Nostradamus, we would certainly see the book as a foretelling of human nature and the draw of Internet communication. Here is the prophet of how an exact, but not-so-real-world copy, has the same compulsive draw because it features a perfect counterpart scenario without censure.

Some time ago I read a note about the communication and exchange of one’s unconscious needs within computer mediation. What researchers discovered is that stone-sober bloggers are impulsive and reckless. In fact, they have fewer inhibitions than a slobbering drunk at a private house party. But why? I guess because we are compelled, in ways we fail to understand, to step through the glass, as Alice did. And here in this not-so-real-world of cyberspace, we tend to dissociate with ease from the disciplines that hold us true to who we really are.

I expect you think it quite silly that we are discussing scenarios that seem as much pretend as a story about walking through a looking-glass. And I would agree except I remember so clearly how, as a child, I longed to do just that. I recall the tension and tangible waves of will and spirit that invited me to step into and explore a reversed world that held so much more appeal than my own.

So now, just for kicks I want you to go to a mirror and look in it. Take a particularly close look at the background of that reflection.

(When you’ve done that, come back and finish reading).

So now, tell me truthfully. When you looked in the mirror, didn’t the reflective backdrop of your home looked cozier, the kitchen tidier, the chesterfield more inviting? That’s part of the force and pressure, strain and draw of reflective images that can’t be denied.

As for me, so much time as passed since I was a child, but still I feel the draw. And it is not just dream-stance but even practical considerations that draw me. The twining of reality with a mirror-reflection stimulates my sorting and organizing skills as well. It makes me want to get in there and grab the twin object, so I can overlap it with the original and stash the two together in the same space.

So, it is true. I have felt the pull in a tangible way that radiates from a looking-glass inviting me to come to that world. As strong, but even more insidious is the invitation to go unfettered into the reflective image of myself on the net. But having recognized the parallels of that magnetism with a common household mirror, I remain cautious. I am keenly aware that everything in the mirror, though seemingly exact in detail — is not.

There is a contortion and skewing that changes values, expectations, and intent. It is called the ‘reverse factor – left is right, and “tfel si thgir”. That’s pretty scary.

__________


P.S. We are all aware of so many parents with responsible, modest, obedient, mature-thinking teens, that are aghast to find that they have stripped in front of viewer-cams or engaged in conversational exchanges that are so far removed from their real life persona. Perhaps this looking-glass invitational ease is the thing that parents should discuss with young people as much as other risks of the Internet. It is a seduction for a child equal to that tug you and I feel for an early morning cup of coffee…or the tug to write another Blog.

A Pic for Pauline

This little pic is for Pauline and others who wonder why I don't cut grass. I live on an acreage with about two or more acres of lawn. See the trees and other obstacles and this is only one small back corner of the yard. The bit of dirt by the gardening wagon is the flower bed I have been weeding. And yes, that is Hub out there, no doubt mulching away with fresh, anxious-to-germinate, dandelion, quackgrass, and a variety of other noxious weed cuttings...

Maturity and Minor Set-Backs

When I was a teen, I was immature. And because I was immature I thought the world rotated around me. And I thought nice clothes would make me popular and if I were ‘really’ popular, everyone would love and adore me. Immaturity made me think others adore us for how we look rather than who we are.

And when I was a young wife, I was immature as well. I thought Hub’s role was to amuse me and cater to me. I thought it was a simple equation. I cater to you with my heart and you cater to me in every sensitive and material way. Immaturity made me think this way rather than understanding, that when my feet hit the floor every morning, I am solely responsible for the quality of each and every day.

And then during mid-life, I was still immature. Now plagued by an immaturity that spawned perfectionism and dilly-dallying. Immature enough to think I had to do all tasks in the recommended way. I was seriously hampered by a belief that there is only one right way to do anything. And so, with this kind of immaturity, I ended up fussing and fuming and fiddling away hours to make sure I did things the right way. If I had never done a thing, and if I couldn’t find someone who did, I didn’t attempt it. Never occurred to me that in my soul I had enough creativity and wit to do it.

But Hah! I am now mature and my maturity brings such freedom. I don’t care anymore how other people do anything. With maturity comes the wonderful new freedom that I can, as Frank Sinatra said, “do it my way”. I have only now come to realize that is what creativity is for.

And so, now I sometimes wear socks that don’t match. I use what I have and for what I don’t have, I make do. I substitute rags for brushes, emery boards for sandpaper, and in my garden – horse shit for bulb food, hollowed out stumps for brown pots. I often don’t follow recipes. Instead I use them for a rough guideline. I convert flat sheets to fitted (without pattern instructions) and I put buttonholes in the oddest places. And here we pause. I want to tell you about the buttonholes but it is a secret you must promise not to tell.

I have a lovely navy outfit I received as a gift a couple years ago. A perfect color for me with my pale face and mature graying hair. Nice fit as well. I would have loved, loved, loved it, if it were cotton, but instead the outfit was a polyester blend. So that meant it was one outfit I never intended to wear.

The problem is I can’t stand to be sealed in plastic blends that don’t breath. But the clothes were so nice and eventually the yen to wear them was greater than I could bear. So I did the mature thing. And the mature thing is not what other people do, or the recommended thing, it is just what might possibly work.

So I made four small virtually invisible buttonholes in the crotch of those pants and two in each armpit of the shirt. And guess what? With that bit of air circulation, I can wear either, or both, in complete comfort. No sweaty armpits and no sweaty…well you know. Maybe if Brittany Spears knew how to make buttonholes?…right now there would be no photo record of her without under-pants. I’m thinking her drawers must be full of lacy, nylon-blend, polyeste-weave, transparent but yet hermetically sealed underthings rather than good ‘ol simple, peon-style, cool breathable cotton knit or sacking.

Now you may think it sounds like I have reverted to a devil-may-care attitude, but I haven’t. I still want everything I do to reside within the boundaries of dignity, decorum, and reasonability. I mean, obviously, if that were not the case, I would have simply made my shirt topless, and my slacks crotchless.

But now, to get back to the topic here, if we even had one. Unfortunately, for every upside there is a downside. Yes, with maturity comes freedom but sometimes it is a freedom I don’t know what to do with.

Yesterday I dug for hours in my flower garden. I dug up dandelions and quack grass. It was backbreaking work. Now I try not to be a nag about it but I keep saying to Hub, “Please don’t blow the grass clippings toward the flower garden when you cut the grass.” (You know it and I know it but Hub isn’t convinced that grass and dandelion clippings are guaranteed to grow volumes more of the same). So I say, not often, but occasionally, “Just go around the flower bed in the other direction so the clippings are tossed unto the lawn.”

So while I cooked supper last night, Hub cut the grass – and yes, you guessed it. He cut it so all the clippings went on my freshly-turned sod. So now what?

If I was still immature I could kick him in the shins and pour Round-Up on ‘his’ lawn. If I was still immature I could throw things, smash things, or cut the belt on his lawnmower. If I was still immature, I could cuss like a trooper and stomp my feet. Even throw his supper in the garbage can. And if all else failed, if I was immature, I could cry.

But unfortunately all the foregoing possibilities are too immature for a mature lady. And crying won’t do because that act has to have a proper qualifier. Sure mature individuals cry, but only for the serious heartbreak that comes with loss – loss of people, pets, affection, love. Flower beds don’t qualify. Immature tears that once flowed freely for every frustration are now mature tears and mature tears are sparsely shed. They are for heartbreak, not minor setbacks or minor discouragement.

And so, with maturity comes freedom, but the flip side of that is with maturity there also comes a mature level of responsibility that supersedes the cleansing of mind and soul with cursing, screaming, tears, and a temper tantrum of notable proportion.

But…since…because…now…that I’m totally mature…dear oh dear, what can I do?

P.S. You’re wrong, oh so wrong. That was not a sniffle you heard. If anything I must have just caught a cold.

A Call to Worship

I fall to my knees.

Drawn not by fear, or need, or any force of conviction – simply drawn by an intangible magnetism. A slight tug on all my limbs like a minute increase in gravity that urges me to kneel and prostrate myself and bow my head.

And when I do, a brilliant light peeks through clouds of darkness and spreads a burnished and visionary carpet around me of green gilded with gold. I remain with head bowed, sensing that the light is too blinding, too bright to look in the face of.

I grope at the earth, the soil of time – as old as creation, itself. I dig my bare hands into the ground. I seek deliverance like a frantic soul rocked by an earthquake. Hoping I will find reprieve—through penance. Repentance through covering myself with dirt, clay, and the rotting fecal material of cattle rather than sackcloth and ashes.

I do the thing I am only gently compelled to do, yet too weak to turn from. Despite the manure embedding itself under my fingernails, and sharp blades of grass cutting my hands, and slow-bruising stones pressing into my legs, I remain kneeling and frantically groping at the gritty soil.

And then from nowhere a breeze comes rippling, rippling, and suddenly and unexpectedly tosses my hair into an upward sweep. It strokes me with a warm gentle softness around my ears, forehead, and brows giving me the same ease and shivering-delight of a child when a soft brush is swept against his downy head.

Another, almost imperceptible, waft of magical air presses and holds me firm in sacred-worship-form. Worship of earth and day and light and life. And that same current of air makes indiscernible my physical discomfort.

I slip into another dimension. I am now only aware that I am among the resurrected. In awe and wonder I examine the tender and refreshing aspect of those recalled from their tombs.

I expected it. After all, this is my faith. So that being the case, why am I so filled with wonder at this trans-reversal? I guess because I had lost so much confidence in the faith. I was so filled with doubt. Doubt that resurrection can not come when death had been too long a sleep. That is part of my doubt but the other part of my doubt-blame falls on those who insist God’s voice is audible. What nonsense? Spirits have no physical voice-box. They are soundless. All that is spoken by God is spoken through forces and processes of nature.

But despite that analysis, my doubt is forceful. After all, these were cadavers trapped in the grasp of the terminator’s bitter cold and ice, and mold and decay for what had seemed to me, a never-ending season.

But here, in the garden, doubt flies like a helium balloon unanchored. Here I find the truth of the message of resurrection. And the marvel of it renews me, the light renews me, new life renews me, the breeze renews me. And so, deep within my soul, I too, am resurrected and reborn. Faith in resurrection is reaffirmed.

And so the unscheduled call to worship concludes. More than two hours have zipped by. Prayers are finished and I arise. An erect stance comes slowly as the separate vertebrae in my back slowly unlock one link at a time.

But that cursed perennial garden is cleansed, the dirt is fluffed, the weeds discarded. And as I make a pilgrimage back to house and home, with legs bruised, fingernails torn and hands chapped and dry, I wipe stomata from my brow. Bleeds of purged disillusionment and doubt.

As I withdraw, I smell the soot and charcoal stench of the damned. The stove is still on and supper is burning.

What is a Tourist?

All of us think of ourselves as ‘tourists’ at some time or other in our vacation travels. And being unsure, as we are, what tourists do to segregate themselves from the natives of a particular locale, we re-color ourselves, in bright tourist clothes. And we do the obvious. Group around guides in the town square with cameras at the ready. Or ask a total stranger to take a picture for us. And of course we all wear sunglasses. But the rest of the time we just end up staring in a puzzled way at other tourists with the hope that we might pick up something more, some other subtle nuances on how tourists are supposed to act.

So, although vacation is a pleasant escape from our normal work-a-day world, don’t be kidding yourself. There is a job to be done while on vacation and we are all mindful of it though, for some strange reason, we never speak of it – the tourist thing. We know that being a tourist is far more than just being a traveler. In reality, the tough part of the job is to be a good enough ‘tourist’ to deserve the label while not in motion.

But because ‘being a tourist’ is a sporadic and temporary identity, we don’t know really what it is that segregates tourists (beside colorful loose-fitting clothes). We can find manuals on how to be a good camper, a good golfer, even on how to behave when visiting the queen, but there are no manuals with rules on how to be a ‘tourist’ (aside from marketing information about guides, routes, sights, restaurants, and hotels). But we don’t need so much to know what to see and where to go – we need to know how to do the job.

Cause when we are tourists we prefer to be seen as tourists. It’s an integral part of vacationing. I think in the back of our minds, it is even part of what we are paying for. It’s important that we understand it more fully. It is our identity in a foreign place where we have none.

And so I have to wonder, ‘Can being a tourist be so hard?’ Seems like it is, because despite my best efforts, I still feel a deficiency that is bothersome.

For me, this is an immediate concern because in a few weeks I am going on vacation. So if you know any specific tourist mannerisms, movements, looks, that will help me with this specific identity, tell me quick, before the plane leaves the tarmac. I will enjoy my vacation so much more if I know I’ve got this tourist thing down pat.

And when I do get it down pat, and I get home from vacation, what the heck—that’s one book-publication niche that isn’t over-saturated—so then I’ll write the manual. And you just watch that baby fly off the shelves.

New-Age Child-Rearing

When child-rearing is managed by the book, parenting is ultra-intensive. A hard labor every minute of every day. And so I have often thought. “Why is parenting becoming such a heavy burden, such a fearful task, such an overwhelming job?”

The answer is quite simple, now that I’ve thought about it. We choose to make parenting more intensive. So intensive that I am appalled at the many young mothers I know that are NOT having a good time. Instead they are so stressed and overwhelmed with parenting, they are in a frightful state. And so I think, “Why are we doing this, and when are we going to stop?”

I remember when I was a young mom. I raised my kids without help with housework. I was solely responsible for cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, and 90% of the time – parenting. With strict gender divisions of men and women’s work, and with few labor-saving appliances, pretty much anything to do with home-comfort fell into my lap. So yes, occasionally I was overwhelmed.

I used to think, “If I only had a little more help,” but now I observe young mothers and this is what I see. Homes where child care and household duties are split right down the middle, and still mothers are even more overwhelmed. Far more than I ever was. How can one find a sensible explanation for that?

But back then, parenting was simple. Babies were to be kept warm, burped, fed, bathed, cuddled, and with clean dry bottoms. And for toddlers and youngsters there were no compulsory obligations outside of making sure they felt loved and safe, content and happy. And always, through all those childhood years, I assured them even when they had not the vocabulary to understand, that I would keep them safe and protect them.

Still, that part of it came naturally. Reading came naturally to settle them down for a nap but what did not come naturally was any obligation to seek expert opinions on every facet of their lives, or to entertain them with the sophisticated stimulation of flash-cards, or the obligation to run constant intercession in everything they did.

But now, heaven preserve us, one has to research the care and control of children daily. To be a good mom, that is. One must discover how to care for children by taking time to read stuff that is too scary to ignore. Starting with the introduction of solid foods, what to feed, how much to feed, when to feed, how to feed.

Mother intuition, that strong elixir of self-confidence, that initializes in a mom’s soul and psyche an accurate impersonation of how their child is feeling is being sadly weakened by expert interference. That innate intuition that made moms so sensitive that they could feel the heat of a fever or coolness through touch, that told them when children were simply out-of-sorts or racked with the pain of a tummy-ache. The thing that made them dare to recklessly give a little porridge to a crying babe to see if they would readily accept it. Can’t be doing that when instructions from the experts forbid such nonsense for another six months.

And now, with shared night feedings, even the super sensitivity is lost that made moms stir from a sound sleep at the slightest rustle in the crib adjacent to their bed. Of course, there is another reason moms don’t always hear baby’s cries. The other reason they don’t hear them is because the crib is no longer adjacent to the bed as if it had no proper place to dwell. The crib is now down the hall where it looks best in a brightly, tastefully, decorated nursery.

And oh yeh, the experts say its now okay for babes to cry. That is the latest word from the communication experts, that want us bending to every word they say, every phrase they coin, but, on the other hand, encouraging us to ignore a baby communicating a request for an unfulfilled need.

And so parenting that once was simple has become so complex that one must engage in lengthy, time-consuming journeys through manuals and source documents. Everything must be carefully adjudicated. Food must be adjudicated for every ingredient – vitamins, sugars, fats, and the like. And that leads to a further compulsory adjudication of source, storage, and preparation.

Children, in order to be all that they can be, must be emotionally and physically stimulated in pre-determined ways. With numbers, letters, music, shapes, textures, pictures, etc. Mothers are responsible to ensure their wee daughters have father relationships that will not impact in a negative way on their future choice of husbands. Mothers must ensure they every interaction will fulfill a purpose of good, positive, influence. To guarantee that, they must run intervention in every aspect, and waking moment, of their children’s lives. They must ensure their surroundings are put through a fine filter that gives consideration to every germ, bacteria, sound, fume, fat, scratch, and indoctrination. Time must be set aside for formal obligatory story time. Time must be set aside to translate into toddler dialect appropriate behavior rather than children learning through socializing with their own little friends what is acceptable and non-acceptable.

Rewards and punishment have become an endless turmoil of conflicting philosophies about consistency. A consistency that is not necessarily fair, demanding an all-encompassing reinforcement of the value of each and every child despite the reality that the behavior of one is pleasurable and the other totally frustrating. Punishment has become a complex 12-step program that includes an immediate review, briefing, time-out, de-briefing, and summation. Positive reinforcement is almost as time-consuming. It is a 6-step program that must trap every good thing and make it into a grand event.

And then, there must be time for moms to schedule other obligatory things necessary for proper child raising. Time committed to loving themselves. That too, is necessary for a child to be raised properly. Sure there is that primeval instinct whispering in our ear that motherhood is a time of devotion and dare I say it – self-sacrifice? But how can one hold true to such Neolithic thinking in today’s sophisticated world? So certainly, parenting must include set-aside time for hair, nails, and body massages. This is a part of parenting that is not obligatory. It is compulsory.

Now you may well wonder why I am not discussing fathers here, but that would double the length of this rant into a grand epistle. Their duties within the modern task of parenting are just as long, just as self-propagating as the roll of mothers. Fathers must deal with another subset of complexities and filtering. They have specialized rolls to play in nurturing, physical development, and emotional sensitivity. The latest flowcharts of childhood development have expectations for both parents beyond comprehension. Every new day, child experts, doctors, or dietitians, add yet another burden to the heap of fears, warnings, and protocol to be ciphered, learned, understood, and translated into the parenting process.

And so, should I be surprised when I see today’s moms, even with dads that vacuum and do laundry and prepare dinner, more overwhelmed that I ever was when I was putting cloth diapers through a wringer and hanging them on a line? What is so odd about all of this is we seem, as a cluster, to think of vacuuming and laundry as ‘work’ while ignoring the hard work, time, and intensity we are building into sound parenting. Not a moment’s thought is given to how mentally-demanding the once simple task of parenting has become. Demanding enough that manual labor pales in comparison.

So I wonder if this constant tampering with the job description of parenting isn’t having a ‘watershed effect’. The ‘watershed effect’ is a ridge of highland that causes rivers to part and flow in different directions. Is this what is happening with parenting? Are we creating a high ground that is splitting what is beneficial into two streams – one beneficial, the other more damaging than helpful? Could it be that the damaging stream is carrying along confused parents so overwhelmed with fear and stress that they are more and more abandoning children, resenting them, even abusing them in ways that make us truly sick at heart?

How are you doing? All you people that were just fed, clothed, loved, and kept from harm? You must all be total dismal failures with every kind of emotional and social problem that ever touched the life of humankind. Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?

Writ and Testament

An odd sort of blog, this writ and testament is for my family. But you may read it if you don’t mind involvement in, what some might label, a rather dark discussion. And if you do make that choice, please feel free to comment.

To my three daughters, there is so much to and fro about last writs and testaments being legally verified, probated, and authenticated. There is much to-do about them being blessed, signed, sealed, and witnessed by lawyers who rack up phenomenal fees for separation and execution of each one of these abstractions. The profusion and confusion leads me to believe that I can no longer expect expressions in a simple letter stashed in my safety deposit box to be upheld. But hey, if my writ is buried in my blog, who can defy its authenticity?

And so, firstly, I want medical intervention, but not extreme intervention, if I become critically ill. You know that for me quality of life has to do with simple basic considerations. My needs are like those of a child. So although I may some day be too sick to express my needs, I want little more than basic comforts. I want to be dry, clean, and warm. I want cotton bedding and comforting arms if I am sad. I want food and drink. And I don’t want any excuses that I might choke to death or linger if given either. If I choke to death, so be it. If I linger, Health Care may just have to redo their budget or cut-back expenses in some other budget designation. And girls, please forgive me, if these considerations force you to attend my bedside for three months rather than three days.

I know much of this goes without saying, knowing that each of you are of a mind that so closely parallels my own except perhaps, for a couple of other considerations.

I want fresh air, an open window, and a beam of sunlight. I want morphine for pain but girls, track those dosages, I don’t want extra to hurry me on my way. When bedridden, I want to be turned on my side – with a small quilt folded between my knees – cause you know my back kills me when I lie on my back for more than a few moments. And I would consider as a nice gratuity, soft Hymns of transport.

What I don’t want is to go into palliative care until I am drawing my last breath. Already I can’t sleep in a bed that has a grand oak headboard. When I am half-asleep and I awake looking up at a towering grand oak headboard, my mind starts playing nasty tricks on me.

And for those possessions I own, I want you to divide them equally except the stuff in my craft room. For that stuff, whoever is brave enough and willing enough to clean it out, that courageous person is entitled to additional compensation. Compensation, that I am sorry to say, cannot be provisionally provided through ownership of the goodies stored there.

Now I may be naïve but I hoping that with this blog I can supersede the many aspects of the legal system. And in that confidence, it seems I have no need to make all those extraneous determinations that society insists are pertinent.

Truth is, I am pretty chaffed by the modern philosophy about death that has trimmed medical intervention in an acute way (to reduce costs), while expanding legal costs to the departee that are as big as the sea and the sky. Seems like, if I follow all the terms of current protocol, there ends up being such a bombardment of concerns it could drive me to take desperate measures. Maybe even Euthanasia? The risk is real but as long as I have my wits about me, I will not allow that to happen.

And so, yes, I realize that if I am wrong, if a blog-writ is unacceptable and if I have no ‘legal’ writ, the Public Trustee will tie up everything. But, so what, if this writ is unsatisfactory, let him do that. I laugh to think what he will do with all those scraps of lace, dress patterns, quilt blocks, and scraps of fabric even if he does take my sewing machine. But by God, girls, if this blog post isn’t good enough, and he wants my stuff, let him be the one to clean out the craft room in the basement.

And in conclusion, when I have transferred, do what you like. I will be in God’s hands and it matters not to me at that point what happens to the ‘vessel’ I have vacated.

It goes without saying, but to any skeptical attorneys, barristers, or solicitors, this post contains the express wishes of Roberta Smith of Elusive Abstractions.

Trading Obligations

I’m in the livingroom at my computer, catching up on some blog reading. Hub is watching TV. He goes to the kitchen, I hear him sharpening the bread knife. Then he yells to me down the hall. “Would you like a tomato and mayo sandwich?”

“Sure,” I say, thinking how nice it would be to have something to munch on while reading blogs.

“Good,” Hub says.
“Do you mind making me one while you’re making yours?”

At the moment I have no smart comeback so I just ignore the comment. Two minutes later a carefully constructed sandwich cut into High-Tea niblets shows up on a sandwich plate on the corner of the desk.

Guess good things come to those who wait. Maybe not?

I finish my sandwich, take my plate to the kitchen, and Hub yells down the hall…“I hear the sounds of someone in the kitchen making tea.”

I was doing nothing of the kind, and had no intentions of doing so, but gee-whiz, did I have any choice?

Well-Worn Comforts

I don’t know about you but I find haunting comfort in looking out my kitchen window at the same landscape, day-after-day and year-after-year changed only by high-in-the-sky or low-slanted sunlight and the color wash of the various seasons. In this I find contentment and I find similar contentment in my old tatty jeans, my gardening shoes stressed and faded by antiquity, and my old ravaged and worn living room rug. My old things provide me with caressing comfort that new things no longer provide.

Simply stated, the longer I have something, the fonder I am of it. Of course in my younger years I wanted everything new, fashionable, cutting edge, but I’m not like that anymore. With the progress of time, my things, concrete or abstract – landscapes, words, jeans, shoes, books, furniture, and even floor coverings have subtly formed a dynamic in my existence that goes beyond possession. As I age, I value as priceless that which ages with me. This is my new old-age perception that provides body and soul with a counterirritant for my physical and mental decline.

And so, in keeping with that perception, because I’ve had Hub for a very long time, he is right up there with the rest of my aging abstractions of indeterminate value. Like my kitchen landscape, Hub is precious because he has longevity on his side. And at this stage of my life, longevity positively doubles and triples the value.

I tell you these ponderings because for Mother’s Day, Hub installed new laminate floors in the living room and dining room.

So now I look at my new living area. There is a warm gloss and sheen to the new floors. But there is a part of me that misses the old silver-gray rug. I should have had a new rug years ago but I kept putting it off. Didn’t make good sense to get one with three dogs that come in and out at will through the dog-door regardless of the weather. So instead of a new rug the old rug was shampooed and shampooed. And surprisingly, despite coarse treatment, that old rug washed up nicely although all my arduous shampooing efforts could not erase the fatigue of its many years. How many years? I’m not too sure. Maybe fifteen, maybe more.

So when sadness at the loss of something precious that I’ve had more than half as long as Hub began to wash over me, I said to myself, “There is one thing that is going to make me appreciate my new floor wholeheartedly.

When I see what is under that rug there will be nothing but solid relief that it was ripped out. Just one bit of mold, one crawler/larvae/tick, alive or dead, will make me feel absolute orgasmic ecstasy that the old rug is gone.

But guess what? There was nothing. Not even a dead fruit-fly. No mold. No disgusting thing whatsoever. Yeh, a bit of debris and powdery underlay, but nothing to make me click my heels together and happily kiss my old rug good-bye.

I share this final secret with you. Please don’t tell Hub but my appreciation for my new floors is somewhat blunted by sadness. I can’t help feeling like a little bit of my heart and soul went out the door with that old grey rug that we danced on so many times and that caressed puppies’ feet and my own for so many years.

The Evolution of Political Correctness - Conclusion

Friend or Foe?

It’s truly odd to me how often scientific facts slip from public favor into a state of “re-call”. Every time I turn on the news there is another fact being dismissed or re-called. And although it shouldn’t happen, it does. Re-calls on once deemed healthy foods, or once deemed desirable products.

But although it only takes 10 or 12 complaints for a consumer product to be re-called, philosophical notions, though not near so rigorously tested, are seldom, if ever, re-called. Maybe because it so hard to track down the few individuals that direct the Social Conscience of a country. But even if we knew, I don’t think there would be re-calls. Problems may arise, there may be modifications, but still there is never an out-and-out re-call of any new ideologies. They are just given a new sophisticated name within the subset of ‘progressive thinking’ and let loose without proper introduction.

So we have ‘progressive thinking’ and within that subset we have ‘political correctness’. And for either one, there will never be a re-call. But, truthfully, if the two were more accurately named for what they are – say as ‘induced thinking’ and ‘cloned correctness’ – I think we might eventually reach a point in time when a re-call might be considered.

I’m one of the very few that would like to see a re-call. My reasons for thinking this are fairly basic. It seems to me that when internal whisperings of the mind are fenced in by superficial definitions, rather than set free, we destroy truth and the measure of who we are, whether good or evil.

Who determined that we must bite our tongues and speak pleasant reveries? Reveries that hide the darkness within savage breasts. Or conversely, reveries that cause questioning of the validity of the light that radiates from virtuous and commendable souls. It may sound Utopian, but utopian thinking is as impractical as it is idealistic and stylistic and so is political correctness. It leaves us in a superficially ‘nice’ place, but at the same time, a place where there is no obvious separation between friends and foes. It is a form of legalized voice-speak that destroys communication at the basest level.

So you might say to me, how can be benefit from having to listen to mean, distressing commentaries? Well, if ‘practice makes perfect’, the more crap we sort through the more adept we will become at sorting through crap. Young people need to hear some crap in order to learn to adeptly sort through concepts of good and evil. When all they hear is political-correctness, they cannot adroitly assess the overwhelming proportion of lies mixed with truth. It is hard to sort crap from salvage when gracious words are hiding the darkest of evil intent. When so many are living a lie.

Political correctness makes the enemy as invisible as the enemy is in the unending war in Iraq. It seems to me that even when troops eventually pull out of Iraq, the war will not end there. How can it when the enemy is invisible, and with that invisibility so easily able to infiltrate without causing a ripple? The same invisibility will come into play if we continue to pursue the idea of Political Correctness?

I would rather know who I am dealing with. Though I may not like what I hear, I nevertheless appreciate the little nuances or bold outrages that cue me to remove myself from association with some people. That suggest that I need to be on guard. If we want to protect our children, we want to know where convicted child-molesters reside. But even more so, we need to know where inauspicious hazards lie. And it may well be that the slightest latitude in casual conversation (if that conversation is not impeded by political correctness) can serve as an early warning system that an evil sickness resides within persons in our own community, family, or social group.

I think it is better to understand emotions than deny them. I think we are better off to understand that we will have days when others will cause us anger, sadness, disappointment, discouragement, and pain. Progressive thinking is learning to deal with it. Can we not accept this is how things are and return to honest interchanges cushioned by this simple bit of insulation?

“Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never hurt me!”

I think the greater unrest is perpetrated by legislating political correctness. I don't know about you, but I am more frightened by invisible threats than visible ones.

The Evolution of Political Correctness - Part II

Don’t Be Too Forward

If you are a woman and if you captured your significant other in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s, than I have to ask you a few questions. Did he chase you or did you chase him? Did you reveal what was in your heart before he revealed what was in his? Did you call him when he didn’t call you? Did you ask any of these questions – “Will I see you again?” “Can I have your phone number?” “When can I call you?” Or did you introduce any of these topics into conversation --- Going steady? Exchanging class rings? Next date? Marriage? Wedding garments, rings, rituals?

If you did, excuse me, but weren’t you just a little bit ‘too forward’? Did no one ever educate you in the Not-too-Forward-Political-Correctness (NTFPC) policy for young women?

In the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s – the NTFPC policy was in effect and rule number one was – men are in charge. They must be the ones to ask to see you again, ask for your phone number or broach the big question. Young ladies immediately lost all dignity and appeal by being brazen enough to reveal the intent of their hearts before he revealed the intent of his. And furthermore, most guys left nothing but a roiling trail of dust when assertive girls ignored the policy.

As a young women I had sound instruction in the policy. I understood the policy. But no one can be on duty 24 - 7, so sometimes when I was off-duty I did ‘sport fishing’. It was a nice break because when I was off-duty I could ignore the NTFPC policy and say anything I wanted to say, bring up any topic I wanted to, and tell some bewildered fellow to pick me up at 2:00 the next day. And then I could lay down the rules whether we were going to a dance, dinner, or shopping. Having broken the rules of the NTFPC policy, I pretty much expected I would never see him again, but so what – he was just one of those temporary catches that didn’t matter anyway.

But other times, I was doing serious fishing with only one thought paramount – to hold and to keep. And so, if that was the case I never ever said, “Do you want my phone number or where can I reach you?” I never said, no matter how lovesick, “Will you phone me?” I determined not to reveal the intent of my heart until he revealed the intent of his. Too ever-present was my real fear of a quick exit and a roiling trail of dust….

And that might have been all well and good but there was a spin-off from observing the rules of the NTFPC philosophy. I also, just realized the other day, that when in that catch and hold pattern, I never showed much appreciation either. I never said things I should have said. “I really had a lovely time. Thank you for asking me to come.” I never said, “I really enjoyed my evening,” or “will I see you again?” But that is the problem with Politically Correct Policies – they certainly put a damper on spontaneity. So you may well ask, if I never revealed what was in my heart, how did I catch Hub?

It is all quite amazing considering the impact of the NTFPC policy. I couldn’t be so ‘forward’ as to suggest to Hub that I was interested in marriage though that was my hidden hope. Everything I wanted to say, felt compelled to say, was so politically incorrect. Far “too forward”. So finally, at my wit’s end, I tried to diplomatically skirt the issue by suggesting that we go to the Marriage Licensing Office (MLO) for the purpose of self-education. It couldn’t hurt for us to know what getting married entails. It couldn’t hurt for us to know if, perchance, someday we might want to marry “ “ “someone” ” ” what was involved – if there was a waiting period, if blood tests were required, how much it cost, etc.

But the day we went to the MLO, the office was so busy, there was no time for explanations or questions. Before we knew what was happening, a clerk pushed us into a line-up and then with utmost swiftness and efficiency we were questioned, spun into a small chamber for blood tests, and out the door with a Marriage License in hand.

I brought it home, stuck it in a drawer, and there it stayed. But one day, while Hub was looking in the drawer for something else, the License resurfaced. He checked it out and that’s when he realized it had a fast-approaching Expiry Date. Had we discussed the matter? Of course not, cause it was up to him to bring the subject up.

And I never asked, which was how it was supposed to be. I never pressed, which was how it was supposed to be. But Hub, meanwhile, must have been frustrated at my reserved coolness about marriage and so he looked at the license and proposed in a rather oblique way with this stern ultimatum.

“If I’m not good enough to marry, I’m not good enough to be here, and if I’m not good enough to be here, I am walking out this door right now and you will never see me again!”

When he said that I panicked. And of course, I happily agreed to marry him.

_______


When my kids were growing up, these were such busy years that everything remains a blur. But despite that I remained convinced that I passed on to them all the solid values of my upbringing including the NTFPC policy. But apparently not. Last week I had this discussion with one of my daughters and at the conclusion she looked at me in stunned silence, then laughed and laughed. “Oh Mom,” she said, “that is the funniest thing I ever heard. Will you be really dismayed if I tell you within those confines, I was much too forward.”

The Evolution of Political Correctness - Part I

REV AMOS COMES TO TOWN

He arrived in our small town in a long, low-slung, blue Caddy convertible with chrome hubs and white-walled tires. He was dark-skinned, straight, tall, and slender. As dashing as a Rhett Butler. He walked with such rugged grace in his slender narrow-toed shoes that flashed like footwear decked with chrome, and his fine tailored three-piece suit. His hair was black and wavy – his smile infectious.

His three-day crusade was booked in the town theater. For the disenchanted people of our small town this was a free night of entertainment at its best. The flyers promised that at his crusade, the lame would walk, the deaf would hear, and the blind would see.

The first night we filed into the theater with excited anticipation. A large crowd of poor and hardworking people from the surrounding district. We came, dressed in the formal wear of hard times. Men dressed in overalls patched with strong string and squares of integrity, women dressed in thin hand-sewn lightly starched dresses, children with scrubbed faces in shrunken sweaters and hand-me-down skirts or pants that hung limply and irregularly with hidden mechanisms of string and safety-pins to hold them up. We shuffled to our seats in ill-fitting shoes with distressed soles, broken buckles, and knotted laces.

The Evangelist flashed pearly white teeth as he was introduced and strode purposely to the pulpit. His face radiated a special glow. A glow of countenance and physique too remarkable to be a simple reflection of stage-lighting. I could only think as I stared at this tall dark man that his special radiance could only be the consequence of a spiritual presence that hovers near and encompasses only the irreproachable. And then I heard a strumming-sound like a double-bass viol and realized it was his voice. So like a melody. So like a song.

He began purring verses from the Bible. We were immediately entranced. As if hypnotized. Shuffling feet were hushed. A silent reverie settled on the crowd, even babes and children listened intently as if to a soft lullaby, while the purring voice soothed us. And when Rev Amos had finished the reading, he clicked on a tape machine and music played as ushers passed collection plates. Flat wallets were pulled out of pockets void of anything except outstanding bills for cattle, seed, and groceries. These were shifted to one hand while individuals sought with their other hand to find loose coins. Paper shuffling? Not so much. Only the sound of coins jingling.

The ushers walked the collection plates to the front and placed them on the pulpit. Rev Amos picked them up and while still in the motion of moving them to a shelf lower in the pulpit, he stopped in mid-air. Suddenly changed his mind. He handed them back to the ushers who still stood adjacent to the pulpit. And that’s when the melody of his voice got a bit pitchy.

“Come on, Folks,” he said, “You can do better than that. Pass those plates again!”
Jaws dropped and feet shuffled. The ushers turned to retrace their steps.

But that aura of righteousness that had shone on Rev. Amos now shone on all of us and the refraction didn’t glow on our faces, it glowed in our minds. Suddenly we were all thinking and envisioning the pale blue Caddy with the shiny chrome hubs parked amidst the dull peeling paint and rusting bodies of ancient coupe-cars and old pick-ups in front of the theater. And with that mental reflection three quarters of the audience stood up and promptly left the theater.

It was a disappointment to many of us that we didn’t see miracles of lame people walking, blind people regaining sight. But I remember the day well because what I did see was the miracle of the weak finding strength. In that trusting, willing, and accepting crowd, I knew then, as I surely know even today, that the first time the plate went round, all gave willingly with the utmost generosity and goodwill.

The intent of the Reverend was to bring a message of comfort to the comfortless but in the end he was unwilling to share that message without bartering over the selling price. Unfortunately, he failed to realize that even then, within the profusion of moral obligations of the simplest of men and women, there was a microbe of jelly completely evolved, (later named ‘Political Correctness’ ), that demanded respect and dignity despite impoverishment, illiteracy, or geographic location for all people.

This microbe has for centuries been the keystone of small town thinking. Uniting communities politically in their demand for respect. And so, within the hour, word spread to the far reaches of the community leaving little hope for Rev. Amos. The rest of his crusade was canceled and that same afternoon we saw the interplay of sunlight and chrome as the long, low-slung Caddy pulled out of town.

In truth, this was a time when we had no context for Political Correctness. It defied explanation at that time even more than it does now. But maybe instruction does not always come from understanding. We certainly gave Rev Amos good solid instruction in that discipline through nothing more than an instinctive, somewhat primitive, common understanding of the morality of right and wrong.

The Gig's Up

I have a reputation in this neighborhood for cooking for my puppies, more so than for my husband. Everyone in this neighborhood knows my puppies get home-baked dog treats and elaborate meals with cooked meat scraps drenched in chicken-broth and beef-gravy condiments.

And the other thing I need to tell you is that over the years I have developed relationships with my neighbors that vary from one to another. Some neighbors are as informal when they visit as my own family. They drop in unannounced, anytime of the day. And if we happen to be eating, and I’m still cooking, I throw on an extra plate and add some speedy thing to the menu like toast, hot-dogs, macaroni, or something from a tin. Whatever happens, whatever the case, we so solidly understand each other that there is no reason for me to be anxious even if the toast burns, the fudge doesn’t harden properly, the macaroni is welded together into one big dumpling and the cake is doughy in the center. (P.S. I have the odd cooking failure as everyone does but I exaggerate here just so you’ll readily realize how much at ease we are with each other).

But at the same time, I have other neighbors descended from a more formal clan. And those neighbors wouldn’t dream of stopping by unannounced although I see them slowly driving by and looking at vehicles in my driveway and envying those who do. They are so curious in fact, that sometimes they phone just to ask who was visiting. And I can hear the disgruntled huff when I tell them one of my informal neighbors dropped in unannounced.

That is how it is and always has been so I was surprised last week when formal neighbors who for thirty years have never come for a visit unannounced, drove into my yard. Formal neighbors that are so pained by the overt audacity of my informal neighbors that in all these years they have refused to befriend them and if forced to speak to them only do with chilly rigid civility. But now into my driveway comes Formal Husband (FH) and Formal Wife (FW) – unannounced. The same FW that complained to me for years about how rude and improper it was of her sister-in-law and mother-in-law to stop in unannounced.

Now some days Hub and I have rather late suppers and it just so happened when this couple arrived, although I hadn’t yet set the table, we were just about to sit down and eat. Seeing the pots on the stove, the wife apologized profusely for interrupting our evening meal and insisted that we ignore her and her husband and go ahead and eat. They had eaten in town and were just on their way home when they decided to stop in. So I did exactly as she suggested. Put on our supper and poured them coffee to sip while we ate.

Now like anyone else, some supper’s are a slammed together mish-mash of whatever is in the fridge, other times – not. Tonight’s supper happened, by chance, to be grilled steaks, mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and salad. Dished up, it was an attractive meal.

So we visited for a few hours and after our company left, Hub said with a grin, “Woman, you do me proud. I was happy to see you had made such a delightful supper. One that showed that you spare no effort to ensure we eat well. I could see she (the wife) was impressed and he (the husband) was probably thinking if she cooked like that he wouldn’t be going out to a crummy restaurant.”

I laughed and said to Hub. “It wouldn’t have mattered if we were having hot dogs and pan-fried left-over macaroni (which happens to be very good with a dollop of sour cream or stewed tomatoes), ‘cause I already had a back-up plan.”

“Oh, and what was the plan?”

“These neighbors know as well as any of our neighbors how much time I spend cooking for my puppies. So if the menu had been some less-than-appetizing mish-mash of leftovers I would have just dumped ‘your supper’ in the doggie’s dish and said, ‘Oh, that stuff wasn’t for us…that was for the dogs.”

Unfortunately, Hub is not always quick at recognizing my intent. I can just see me dumping Hub’s supper in Dough-Gee’s dish and then Hub sitting there staring at the dog, stomach rumbling and real tears flowing down his face, while Dough-Gee cleaned up the dish. And then, of course, the gig would be up, and the neighbors would know it was a put on and we’d all feel bloody uncomfortable.

Sex & Immortality

One of the blessings of life is that every week some new discovery makes its way into my consciousness. And when that happens, my imagination kicks in, and pretty soon I have a whole new philosophy to contend with. Now if I thought I saw a UFO land in my potato patch, I wouldn’t tell you. That would be just too irrational. But if I conceptualize theories from undeniable facts, especially theories that relate to the meaning of life (which no one knows for certain anyhow), then I am anxious to share those suppositions.

Now before I begin I must tell you that I see no conflict between ‘Biblical creation’ and ‘evolutionary’ creation. They fit as nicely together as two lovers in the spoon position.

After all when we read the story of the Biblical creation you will find it does not say that God mixed and molded any substance into fish and fowl. What it does say is that God commanded the waters (with their first tiny evolutionary microbes and stardust sprinkles from God’s hand) to ‘bring forth’ and ‘bring forth’ may well mean in an evolutionary way, fish and fowl. (Gen 1:20).

And then, from that he commanded ‘the earth to bring forth’ cattle and beasts (more evolution) (Gen 1:24). And so I reason that there is no conflict between creationism and evolution. There is nothing in the Bible that conflicts with evolution. Those references I have just cited validate that the earliest microbes evolved and adapted as evolution claims. And likewise, there is nothing to debate about how early man, if ape-like, could be in the image of God? Although God made earliest man in the image of God, nobody is using their head if they think this refers to man’s physical form. God has no image. God is a spirit and spirits have no physical design. The image of God that early man was given was not a domed forehead, smooth skin and an erect physical form. What he was given was an imprint of spiritual consciousness. Within that first more-man-like than ape-like creature, God deliberately caused a mutation of an embryonic consciousness, will, and intuition, that could evolve as freely as physical form did from the earliest form of a hairy ape-creature loping on four limbs to an erect creature capable of artful hunting, harvesting, and pondering. So where is the conflict between creationism and evolution?

That is the basis of my convictions and now we can move on to today’s discussion.

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This week I have been reading “Human Destiny” by Lecomte du Nouy. And in this book, while reading about evolutionary theories, I was totally astonished to discover that species of asexual reproduction are immortal. Do you realize what that means? That there were and still are species on this earth that are immortal. Here Lecomte du Nouy explains:

“Asexual cells do not know death as individuals. They are immortal. (but) All of a sudden, with sexual generation we see the appearance of an entirely new and unforeseen cyclical phenomenon: the birth and death of the individual.”

Elsewhere he says:

“They (asexual species) never die, except accidentally. They go on untiringly doubling their number according to their specific rhythm, so that if it were not checked by a more general or dominant phenomenon, they would soon smother the earth under their mass.”

That bit of information got me thinking about Adam and Eve and creation. The way the story goes is that the Garden of Eden was a perfect paradise where Adam and Eve would live forever. Living forever???…that means immortality. So now I’m thinking, if they initially possessed immortality prior to their disobedience, they must have been created as an asexual species.

Hey, that makes sense when I consider the evolution of the first woman, Eve. The Bible says she was made from Adam’s rib. Isn’t that how asexual reproduction works? But unfortunately in this fission, separation, rebirth, or whatever you call asexual reproduction, a slight mutation took place. But we know mutations can happen. The all-knowing Darwin told us so. The mutation was that Eve ended up with a genitalia mutation. And so, although clones of each other, one was man and the other woman. And meanwhile, the asexual Adam, in reasonable time easily regenerated a new rib because that is what asexual creatures do.

But now, comes the distress concerning the apple. What was in that apple they ate? Or perhaps I should be asking, “What happened at the Apple Feast that made them cover their private parts with leaves when God came back to walk with them in the garden?”

Maybe it isn’t recorded, but maybe there was another command to do with their immortality and their initial existence as asexual creatures. Asexual species have no rational reason to engage in physical sex, particularly since the act cancels immortality. So what was God really saying when he warned them with this command (Gen 2:16-17) “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt SURELY DIE.”

So I have to ask was God really saying, “No eating of the fruit of that tree and no engaging in physical sex.” It is intriguing to me that prior to this warning, Adam and Eve felt no shame in their nakedness but after their disobedience with the apple, they felt so guilty, that their nakedness disturbed them and they sought to hide themselves. Apples have nothing to do with nakedness but sex certainly does, so maybe while they were alone in the garden, the two of them did more than eat the forbidden fruit.

And so, when God returned to the garden they were ashamed and felt a need to cover their nakedness. That only makes sense to me if they were romping in the bushes. And then God probably said, “You are asexual and thus immortal and that is why in good faith I told you there could be no physical sex. Now look what you’ve done. Disobeyed and because of that disobedience you have lost your immortality.”

And then, God expressly said to Eve, the seductress, something that is totally understandable in the light of all that I have just told you.

(Gen 3:16) “Unto the woman he said, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shall bring forth children (no longer with the ease of asexual reproduction); and thy desire shall be to thy husband (physical sexual lust), and he shall rule over thee.’

And obviously, under such circumstances he felt it necessary to inform Adam he was no longer immortal. So unto Adam he said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen 3:19).

So there you go. No more immortality for man. I knew it all along that there was much more to this story than I originally extracted from it, and if you think these theories are nonsense, maybe go read it for yourself.
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