Shame

I rarely launch into political issues. Studies have shown that our brains work in the same way when we’re discussing politics as they do when we’re cheering for our teams. In other words, though the Cowboys would never get my vote, I think we should put more thoughtful consideration into discussion of how our nation needs to be functioning than when we are hoping our team pounds another into the turf and screaming to that effect. I ask for prayers for our leaders, not because I approve of what they do, but because I think they need our prayers. I’ve led communities, dealing with different opinions, visions, attitudes, and personalities and I know that any kind of leader, if they are to be anything but exercising their egos must have compassion and a sense of service at the core of all that they do. Our nation was founded on a system of checks and balances that demand treating each other with respect and a sense of hope for reconciliation between differing opinions that would allow them to work with each other as citizens, honoring them even if we disagree with them. President Trump does not approach his job or the citizens of this nations with any sort of respect or a humility that might allow him to serve them. The recent speech he gave in Charlottesville made me ashamed to have him as the president of this country. I don’t think he understands what it means to be humble and I worry that his appeals to the worst attitudes of hate, and violence, and racism in our nation affirms these horrors and gives courage to those who would rather preach and teach and live by these attitudes than work to be a light of hope and freedom to the world. I am proud I am an American. I take the vision of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the invitation to the world carved into the base of Lady Liberty very seriously. But this President does not disagree with my vision of our nation. He spits on it to be popular. He needs to face himself and what he is doing. This isn’t politics. This is evil. If there ever was a time to pray for our leaders it is now. Pray that our president develops a sense of shame about what he is doing.

Crab

Every year for the past 10 years we go back to our honeymoon. It’s a one bedroom apartment overlooking a beach in Carolina, Emerald Isle. We sit under an umbrella, reading, Chris does needle point. We swim, we walk, we pick up shells, we relax. When we were both working it was a life saver. Now we go on vacation from retirement. It’s a retreat from normality. I was working my way through a Jim Butcher novel, playing in the sand with my toes when I picked up movement to my left. Gulls come in to investigate sometimes. We call them dump ducks. Anything on the beach is a potential source of food, including us. But this wasn’t a gull. Looking over I saw a crab sauntering toward my big toe. These crabs live down in the sand. They have holes dug and they don’t stray too far from them. Dump ducks prey on them. They’re shy for understandable reasons. Yet here came this dude with his eyes up on their stalks, moving toward me as if I was a rock or a plant. I whispered to Chris, pointing to him, or her. By the time she saw him Crabby was within a few inches of my foot, coming on strong. I wiggled my toe, he stopped. Then he took off running across the beach, in crab fashion, that is sideways. These guys are quick, like Zoom. Crabby did a jackknife into one of his holes. I wondered what brought him so close. I think we were so peaceful that we were just a part of the environment. I like that. I think we need to spend more time on the beach, more time close to the nature that sustains and supports us. I hope he didn’t have nightmares of the rock that wiggled.

The Invitation

Yesterday Chris was having a few friends over to play cards. They play what I call ‘Hoof and Mouth.’ I don’t think that’s the real name, but I can remember it, so… Anyway it’s been raining lately, which sounds so lame compared to the Noah-esk deluges that have been falling, accompanied by active evidence of Seraphim and Cherubim (that’s Bible geek for Lightning and Thunder). The aforementioned card game gave me a deadline, which turned into a race to get the expanse mowed not only before the visitation but also to beat the next monsoon. I have a walk-behind mower, much to the dismay of anyone who hears of it. They get concerned and want to take an offering to get me a second hand ride mower. Why should I punish myself? More to their dismay, I inform them that I enjoy it. So, I was chasing the grass eating machine around the yard, sweating in the pre-deluge humidity and glancing at the growling clouds. When the rain came, we’d be bringing in the animals, two by two. I had to get the lawn mowed. A car pulled up to the curb, the driver waving at me with an envelope in her hand. She looked familiar, but it was hard to see through the deluge of sweat in my eyes. I shut off the mower and went over to her. “You look pooped.” I nodded. “Well, here’s your invitation, I hope you can come.” And off she went. I didn’t even look at it. Wasn’t time. I was on a deadline. Shoved the envelope in my back pocket and began chasing the mower again. I finished and ran the mower into the garage as a Cherubim slammed into my house, followed closely by the flash of a Seraphim and about 9 billion gallons of rain falling in 10 seconds. Timing is everything. I was in the house a few minutes when I remembered the invitation in my pocket. Chris opened it. A wedding in September. They’ve gotten to know us on our morning walks. She probably wants her invitation back after my bubbly speech of congratulations. Oh well, we’ll give them a nice gift. We’ll probably have to paddle to the church after we hack our way to the cars with a machete. The grass grows four feet a day when it rains like this. At least one yard’s mowed.

Condensation

This morning the windows are covered with water, condensed from the humidity around us, probably close to 100%. I wonder how it can be so wet and not be raining or under water. Nemo would feel at home. Beads run down the panes, small rivers and their tributaries. Plants are wearing jewelry, celebrating. The ground as wet as from a storm. Yet when I walk, I don’t gather jewels. Plowing through the watered air, I leave it behind. My warmth vaccinates me from gathering the water that surrounds me. Such an intricate dance of temperatures and humidity. It creates the clouds, the storms, the hurricanes. As intricate as a butterfly’s wing. Each bit and part finding a fit with another and creating a wonder on the window pane.

Coffee

Coming downstairs in the morning’s dark hours, when dawn is still a suggestion on the horizon, opens the house in a way no other hour allows. There is an intimacy then, an aloneness that is not lonely. Only the mocking bird sings then and the street is still empty. Then I make my coffee, a latte. And I contemplate the universe.

Asking for Directions

As you might have noticed there have been no posts in the last few days.  That’s because yours truly has been sunk in the mire of technological difficulty.  I pushed a wrong button and lost contact with my blog.  Thanks to my friend Ted and my son Benjamin, I found my way back. 

To tell you the truth, I felt ripped off.  And slightly paranoid.  My experience with computers has not been stellar, more like black holish (I get near them and am sucked in while being smushed by their power).  My son told me that they are dumb machines, capable of doing all kinds of things, but as with any machine, you turn the wrong widget, it reacts badly.  He told me to keep pounding (I don’t think he used that word, but it sounds good to me) on them until they give you what you want or you throw them through a window and start over.  He also said that you have to defend yourself against their seemingly whimsical reactions.  Save, Save, Save. 

So, I’m taking some steps to do just that. 

But in the midst of all the fireworks and gesticulations, I discovered again that the best asset to have in the midst of a problem is a friend. 

So, thanks to Ted and Benjamin. 

Blessings be upon you.

Isn’t Hypocrisy Fun?

 

To the north of our house is a gazebo, about 12 by 12, roofed, electrified, cement floor.  It’s a lovely place to sit in the shade during the heat of the day.  It’s a wonderful place to put your feet up after working, or a place to have a drink, whether you’re smoking a cigar or not. 

Today as I sat there considering a toad who was working his way under the table that supported my feet, a wasp, black, nipped in the middle, stinger hanging out the back came to rest on my shoe. 

Bees are part of God’s plan.  Wasps are one of Lucifer’s additions to the plan.  Bees sting at the cost of their lives, so rarely do so.  Wasps sting if they have a bad hair day.  They punish the closest bit of protoplasm for the barometric pressure.  They are builders, they make paper and mud homes to raise more nasty little black terrors. 

And here was one of the devil spawn on my shoe.  Then another came buzzing down to join his compatriot.  Oh goody two of them, communicating about how to torment other beings, having a meeting right there.  They took off together, flew in tight formation up through the rafters up to the roof beams to a clump of vines, where there was a formation of other living nasties crawling and buzzing there.  It was a headquarters for a network of assassins!

The logical reaction to such a discovery is to go to the garage and find some sort of chemical that would destroy them.  I mean, I hate ‘em .  I kill ‘em right?  That’s logical. 

Large but.  There is nothing logical about killing.  There is nothing logical about putting chemicals into the environment that poison things.  I mean, this is not inside our house.  This is part of the great outdoors.  They were here before we got here.  Where do I get off treating them like they have no right to life?

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were Native Americans in our family tree.  Maybe it’s the Druid thing.  Who knows?  But in spite of my difficulties with killing we’ve got a problem.  If they nest up there, we can’t rest in peace.  It’s like Orcs setting up a nest next to my Elven home.  Ain’t happenin’. 

Ok, no chemicals.  But water is natural, isn’t it?  So, I moved the cushions, got the hose with the best pressure, made sure there were no kinks in it, set the controller on ‘power wash’, and blasted the living crap out of the headquarters.

Call me a nasty non-environmentally aware idiot, or call me a hypocrite, why didn’t I use poison?  Go ahead, call me names.  But this is the best I can do to make deals with my better angels and my demons.  The wasps can build in my trees, down by the creek, just not here. 

I wish I could talk wasp.  I could explain the whole thing to them.  I doubt they’d appreciate my argument.  They’d sue me after they stung me.  And then they’d laugh.  I wonder what a wasp laugh sounds like.

Comments

 

I just found a page of comments, buried in the behind the scenes stuff for the Blog.  People have been actually saying things about what I write!  I thought I was just sending my impressions and ideas out into a cyber reality without bumping into anything. 

The page says ‘no comments.’  It hides what they say.  I wonder if that’s to protect me, or to give me control of what gets displayed.  I tried to move the comments I found onto the page, but no such luck.  I’ll have to get a more cyberly capable person to help.

But to all you folk who have commented, thank you.  You’re very kind.  Now, how do I communicate back?  I’ll have to ask about that too.

A Rose

 

I sent information for the bulletin to a church where I’m preaching.  They wanted a short Biography for me.  It took me over an hour to put something together and then I had to call Chris, who’s visiting her mother, to put it into any kind of order that didn’t sound like a badly cooked egg.  Even with the grace and glory she was able to add, it sounded like an obituary. 

How do we communicate to others about ourselves?  That, I surmise is something of an art.  But to do it in a paragraph, a few sentences, taking into account the context, then, even art begins to falter.  The listing of educational degrees earned doesn’t say a word about learning.  To speak of years of work says nothing of the people, the accomplishments, the pain, or the joy rolled into those years. 

I was mowing the lawn yesterday.  Just within the verge of a bed of orange and red Canna Lilies, a climbing rose works its way up through a Crepe Myrtle.  I didn’t plant it.  It’s all the way over by the creek.  But there it was, reaching toward the light.  One perfect bloom, deep red, full, petal after petal rested among all the foliage.   I had to stop, though rain could be coming at any minute, I had to stop.

How many roses bloom, unnoticed?  How many bits and pieces of our lives, revelations, epiphanies of glory and beauty go unrecorded, unlisted, unknown by any but ourselves?  That rose will bloom for years, allowing me to remember a moment of heat and sweat, and the smell of mown grass, and the clouds pregnant with thunder and rain.  Yet it will never make my bio. 

Perhaps if I put that there, instead of my degrees, they’d know me better.  But then they’d think I was some kind of nut.  Well?

I’ve got to go back and visit it today.

The Attic

 

Storage space is a rare commodity in our home.  As a result, we’ve poked around trying to find places to appropriately sock away stuff.  We have two attics here.  One is through a closet (reminds me a bit of Narnia).  That’s where we put luggage and off season clothes.  It’s awkward but it’s easy to get to. 

The other one is larger, but it’s something of a pain to access.  I have to wedge a step ladder in front of the washing machine, pop an unhinged hatch up into the space and climb into the oven or refrigerator depending on the season.  Insulation abounds, no floor to cover it.  Lots of space but not lots of usable space.  What floor is afforded has already received the Christmas debris.  So, I’m putting in a floor. 

It doesn’t sound difficult, but it’s awkward to say the least.  As I get pieces of plywood cut to fit through the hatch, fitted and ooched into place screwing them down with the driver I also brought up, being careful to stay balanced on the rafters (a bit of a slip could put my foot through the ceiling) all the while dripping on whatever I’m doing, then I have more floor from which to work.  Oh, and I have to be careful not to fall through the hatch.  Chris has warned me I’ll dent the washing machine. There is hope.  But the present tense is tense, and drippy.  Anything to be stored up there should be stuff that we don’t need weekly. 

I guess we all have attics.  Places where we put things, memories, joys, fears, hobbies, relationships that we want to keep, but we don’t access them too often.  We can’t keep everything.  Then we’d never be able to appreciate things, we’d only keep them.  Some people like to keep life stripped down to bare walls and floors.  Why keep stuff?  My life tends to have more to it than bare walls and floors.  I like to do more than function.  Everything I keep is about a story, a person, a glory, and almost every bit and piece is valued.  We are still getting rid of stuff.  But I hope that we never strip our lives down to function and only that. 

As I get more floor laid, I kind of like the space, hot though it may be.  Attics are interesting.  The bones of the house are visible.  The how’s of the structure are there to see.  We’ve got a good house.  The heating guy said it’s tight.  He spends a lot of time in attics. 

I’ve got a few pieces cut.  Time to visit our home’s bones. 

Novels

 

Novels are different than essays or even short stories.  I’ve got three novels that I’m working on right now.  Two of them are in re-writes, and one is just beginning.  The amount of focus and organization necessary to tame these beasts is a whole different discipline. 

But as I write them I get to submerge into another dimension of life, creating characters that breathe and act according to personalities that sprout in my head and then claim a life of their own.  That’s where the organization and focus comes in.  If they are to live as characters that allow ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’ (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) their attitudes and dreams and fears and actions need to be grounded in that which has gone before and as they come in contact with others the dance that is created must step to the themes of the story as well as the interaction of the characters and the environment. 

See what I mean?  Getting going is the most difficult.  It’s like raising a kid.  Who are these people going to be?  From where do they come?  How do they think and react?  And what is their story?  Once they start walking, it’s a lot like a child.  They teeter along and then they run.  It’s the initial stages where the false starts and falls take place.

So, next time you read a book, take a moment to embrace the work and passion that it took to gather all of this together and allow it to tell its story.  It’s quite a journey.

The 4th

 

A couple churches wanted me to preach this past Sunday, but I said no.  The choir director at Chris’ congregation was putting together a men’s chorus to help celebrate Independence Sunday.  That’s right up there with Pentecost, right?

I have a hard time with putting on a patriotic show in church.  That’s God’s place.  Why are we waving a flag?  Aren’t we on God’s turf?

We were given satin bow ties to wear.  Stars and Stripes.  My dog Sam used to growl in his chest.  It was more of a rumble.  I think I rumbled when I put on that tie.  But I did and we sang some good harmony to “Eternal Father Strong to Save.” 

The preacher said that he liked the 4^th.  But it wasn’t a country or a flag that made us patriotic.  It was an idea, the idea that those crazy people (I added crazy) put together in the Declaration in 1776.  He read a good chunk of it and the hair came up on the back of my neck. 

Thomas Jefferson was nuts.  He had so much to lose.  Most of them did.  But they all signed it.  They put their names on that parchment and reached out beyond sense and logic into a dream. 

I’m an American.  I’m not continental.  That’s a GPS coordinate.  I’m part of this same dream.  I’ll wrassel with folks about how to celebrate it, but I’m just as proud of my country, maybe more so, than people who don’t approve of my politics.  And that’s their right and privilege.  I believe in the dream that those crazy guys reached for and I will go on believing in it in spite of our feeble efforts to add or detract (that’s from another dreamer).  Maybe I need to be a bit more humble and climb down off my high horse once in a while. 

So, whoopee do!  Happy Birthday USA.  I’m going to Bar B Q tomorrow and put out the flag and I think I’ll read the Declaration.  Some good stuff in there.

But please don’t make me wear that stupid tie in worship.  Satin?  Oh please.

 

Silence

 

It’s early.  It’s Saturday.  It’s fourth of July weekend.  Even the birds are quiet.  Maybe they get time off too.  The angel clock in the living room is doing its thing, making sure there are some sounds.  But quiet rules. 

I’ve been in the woods when there were moments like this, rare moments.  Living things move, and they tend to make noise.  The wind in the trees makes noise.   At the shore there is the systole and diastole of the surf, and all the players in the gull league.  They’re called Laughing Gulls for a reason.

Sound is the norm of life. 

They say there is no sound in space.  You need atmosphere to carry the waves.  Here on these islands of rock, within envelopes of air, sound tells of movement and life.  So this moment is a startling exception.  I can appreciate it as such, but it’s strange, alien.

I’ve been in church sanctuaries that felt like this.  The atmosphere is other, different than the norm.  There is a sense of presence in it.  Without all the distractions, there behind it all.  Something, without shape, in the silence.

There, a mocking bird decided to hold forth.  I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed.  I think I’m grateful to be alive.

Waving

 

She drove off down the street like she was going to the grocery store.  Her list said she’d packed everything in the suitcases, had her bag of shoes, her computer was in the back seat with her pillow, the small cooler was on the passenger seat floor, and her snacks were above it in easy reach.  She even remembered her phone charger.  That one would have gotten by me.  When I kissed her I told her to come back.  She said I could count on it, so I started, “One, two …”  The first thing I’ll tell her when she returns will be, “…five million, eight hundred thirty-two thousand, seven hundred forty-five.”  That’s before I give her the rose.  Hey, we have our traditions. 

I know, it’s only seventeen days.  The important word in that sentence is ‘only.’  It’s a word that is marinated in relativity.  It’s been a long time since we weren’t together most of the time.  And this business of absence makes the heart grow fonder is a bunch of hooey.  It’s strange.  It’s a little scary.  It’s painful. 

So I stood there and waved.    

Not One of the Crowd

 

Harry Dowdy joined the church in Shrewsbury when he was in his eighties.  He showed up with his wife, his love Beezie, and told me after that first visit that he was a refugee from the nearby big church where he couldn’t stand the theology being preached anymore and I had nailed it, for him. 

Being a sheep stealer was never on my agenda.  The probability being that if they were difficult to please in church A, they probably would have a hard time in church B.  I thanked him for his review and warned him that he should hang around a while before making any decisions about transferring.  He smiled into my eyes.  I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but that’s what he did.  It’s rare.  He nodded and I felt that something had just happened.  He and his wife were in the next new members’ class.

Harry was a great guy.  I relaxed around him.  He had me out to his house about once a month for lunch, he’d cook.  Nothing fancy, but the conversation was amazing.  We played golf now and then, nine holes.  He’d choose the nine he wanted to play.  With him I didn’t get better scores but I had a great time.  My shots tended to go longer, that included over the green.  He told me I’d be a good golfer if I could curb my enthusiasm.  He wasn’t sure if that was worth a better score.

He loved Beezie.  She died a couple of years into our relationship but was limited physically and cognitively before that.  There was no doubt in his mind that she was a gift given by God to him that he didn’t deserve.  It helped him understand Grace.  One of the women’s circles, fellowship groups, did a reception after her funeral.  He gave them a substantial gift.  They told him they had made Beezie an honorary member of the circle, so he came to their meeting and joined the circle.  I don’t think he was looking for a date.

He gave me a book he liked, Daily Dose of Knowledge, Brilliant Thoughts.  It’s 365 quotes from everybody anybody can think of, covering just about anything anybody can think of.  I’ve used it ever since.  It’s one of those books that you start looking something up and end reading 20 pages.  The book reminds me of Harry.  Our conversations always went beyond any initial issue.

I found a quote from Harry’s book that I used in today’s sermon.  Edith Sitwell said, “I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.”  It spoke in harmony with the scriptures from which I was preaching, and it spoke articulately to so much that is going on in this day and age, and it reminded me of a single human being who never even considered being insignificant, or being proud of prejudice of any flavor.

Harry refused to be stupid.  He paid attention to every day, considering its issues and those who spoke to them as vital input for the banquet of every day.  Its courses were compassion, humility, and self-giving love.  His spirit thrived on the diet.

He died in 2015.  He wanted a funeral that was in harmony with Beezie’s.  I use the bulletin of the service as a book mark for the book of Brilliant Thoughts.  There are three pictures included, Harry and Beezie dancing the jitterbug on the front cover, in the center, a family mob with the two of them sitting at the front, the mob was their fault after all, and on the back cover was the two of them, holding hands walking away down a beach. 

I miss Harry, as I miss so many with whom I have had the privilege of sharing parts of the journey.  But he is here with me, smiling into my eyes. 

 

 

 

Rumble and Thud

Rumble and Thud

It’s been sunny all day.  We went swimming.  This afternoon the heat and the humidity made it an effort to work in the sun.  The sun set with wind coming in from the North.  The flashes came like headlights turning into our driveway, flickering for a moment and then gone to shine somewhere else.  The first rumble shook the glasses in the breakfront, taking away all question.  It rolled across the street, a party that wasn’t paying attention to the sound regulations.  The rumble had a movement to it, a roll that brought it down hill, out of the anvils up above.  But there was no roll or movement at its end.  Only a thud, a slammed door that made a point of power and finality. 

Now comes the rain.

Stiff Upper Lip

 

During the normal weather of the summer, that is sun, heat, and rain every couple of days, the grass of my lawn grows rapidly.  More than a week between cutting and it’s beginning to look like I do when I try to stretch a haircut to six weeks.  Shaggy.  Lately we’ve had a stretch of rain, lotsa rain.  A few days of lotsa rain.  The lawn reacted.  My grandfather would want to bring out the bailer and get the hay ready for bailing.  The forecast listed cloudy with no rain until the afternoon.  Time to fuel up the mower.

Trying to start a habit of being good to myself, I usually split the mowing into two sessions on two days.  Age, heat, push, pull, yada, yada, yada.  But considering the monsoon that had descended upon us, if I got a four hour window, get it done.  When I finished the first half, I chugged some lemonade, wrapped a wet tea towel around my neck and went back out into the 90 degree, 85 percent humidity. 

It was getting hard to see through all the sweat pouring down my face, and I had to push the chattering mower close to one of the big pine trees on that side of the yard.  The cone was one of the tight ones, it hadn’t opened yet.  Picked up by the rotary blade, the cone was flung at the tree that had dropped it, bounced back, and hit me in the mouth.  It felt like a sucker punch from an offended boyfriend, or someone who you just beat on a layup, for the seventh time.   Sometimes they take you by surprise, sometimes they’re embarrassing for the one throwing the punch.  This was the former kind.  I thought maybe I was hallucinating from overheating or dehydration.  But the blood in my mouth made me stop to make sure I hadn’t lost a tooth.  Immediately my upper lip swelled up as if to prove that I better watch running that noisy thing near the tree’s roots, his turf and all.  Or it could have been, I better watch running that noisy thing near her kids.  Either way, I had a fat lip.

I shook my head, restarted the mower, and finished the job.  The bleeding had stopped, but I still had a golf ball above my upper teeth to prove I had lost the fight.  As I was putting the offensive mower away, I wondered why nature doesn’t hit back more often.  Maybe it does, but people don’t give the trees or the raccoons or the squirrels credit for the assault.  We don’t give nature credit for having power. (Global warming isn’t real right?) Maybe I need to let the yard know I’m just giving it a haircut, no harm intended.  In the old days, our ancestors talked to the spirits of the trees and the sea and the animals.  Hey, it’s only polite.  After all they were here first.  Where do we get off messing around with their back yard?

Gotta remember that next time I gas up the mower. 

Being Famous

 

The other day someone asked me how they could find my blog.  I told them to just look up my name, I was sure it would be listed.  They got back to me to tell me all kinds of things about yours truly that they found.  “You’re famous!” 

It made me wonder about that title.  Surely the meaning now is vastly different than it used to be.  Anything we do is immediately recorded and released onto the web, making us well know rather quickly.  But are we well known?  Or is the nature of the things we’ve done apt to put our names out there? 

I have a friend who does his best to get his name into anything he can.  He figures the best way to remain anonymous in this digital age is to stand in a snow storm of trivia.  According to his theory, the ones who truly stand out are the ones who are off the grid.  I think he wears an aluminum hat.

Before the net created the tropical storm of information that lifts simple sand high into the atmosphere, it took something of significance to make a dent in ‘being known.’  You might have been a big fish in the puddle of your world, but the major tributaries won’t pick you up.  Being known took some major water pressure.  Now, piddles make news.  Enough piddles, you’re known.  But by whom?  And for what?

When I preached last Sunday, the congregation wanted to know what to call me.  Chris and I smiled and started making a list of things people have called me.  David, Rev, The Rev, Pastor, Pastor David, Pastor Dave, Mac, Rev Mac … The list went on for a while.  It made me realize how many roles and resulting titles I have assumed.  But that doesn’t make me famous.  That makes me busy.  Are they synonymous? 

Lotsa questions.  Not many answers.  But I’ll tell you this:  I ain’t famous.  But that’s only according to me, and what do I know.  I’m just a retired old fart from North Carolina.  

 

Glory Days

 

“It’s a weapon, not a sword.” The first words my coach said to a bunch of nervous adolescent boys put us back a step.  He was the only one holding the ‘weapon’ we were itching to get our hands on.  But there was a long way to go before thirty inches of steel was put at our disposal. 

I guess the past does get clearer as we age.  That was decades ago.  Those practices seem vivid as I pick up my foil today.  Learning to move my hands and feet.  Learning to lunge and parry.  Learning to hold and control this tool of the sport with fingers instead of fist, see?  Clear lessons.

There’s a competitive fencing club here.  I’m going down tonight to see what’s up.  I’ll be taking my mask and glove and weapon.  I’m wondering if, in this modern day, the disciplines that were foundational to my sport are still taught.  I’m wondering if the coaches are as tough as mine were.  I’m wondering what role this rusty blade will play here and now. 

This is a different weapon.  My first lessons were with a French grip.  I moved to a Modified Belgian.  That was stolen with the rest of my equipment.  It was like losing a child.  I got this one a few years ago on a whim.  It’s new, without experiences, without scratches, without bruises and blood, not one win or loss.  I feel a bit the same way.  All that experience, all that work and pain and joy, all that losing and winning seems to belong to someone else.  I’m covered with scratches and dings, I’ve lost and won all kinds of things, but now I feel like a kid again.  All that experience, knowledge, and skill is gone. 

Days and years add things to us and at the same time take things away.  I remember an insane confidence then, and I remember a terrible insecurity.  I remember hearing my name announced for the first match in the finals of the Mid Atlantic Conference finals and being sure that they’d made a mistake.  I couldn’t have made the finals.  I guess all our life is like that, a bouillabaisse of insecurity and confidence, neither extreme taking into account the potentials or the limitations of the moment.  

But the best times are those when we look over the edge of now and step, even when it feels like a grand canyon looms.  What’s to lose except an opportunity to experience a moment of life?  Another memory to consider as we remember the Glory Days.

Pasta Olio

 

Having been born in Bloomfield and spent most of my life in New Jersey, it’s no wonder one of our children is an Italian teacher.  Part of what it means to live in North Jersey or the environs of New York City is to know what ‘real food’ is like.  To experience Italian is to eat and to be passionate about it.  

To know Italian food is to know pasta.  Pasta goes way beyond spaghetti and red sauce (or gravy, depending on the region of Italy being represented by the cook).  To recite a litany of sauces and dishes is to go through a scrap book of the palate, a journey on which I have been fortunate to be spoiled by some amazing cooks, sitting down at their tables, most often kitchen, and having a hard time getting up.  At the core of all this Italian food is Pasta.

One of the most elegant and knowledgeable gentlemen I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing told me that Pasta Olio is the most basic and the most easily messed up approach to this foundation of good food.  If he had never been to a restaurant (he meant an Italian restaurant, of course), he would simply order a plate of this arrangement of the basics of Italian life, pasta, olive oil, and garlic.  If the establishment did a good job, it was worthy of his business.  If not, he’d wait for new management,  Pasta Olio being the litmus for good food.  He looked great in a tux too.

Chris asked me what I wanted for Fathers’ Day dinner.  We had pan seared scallops, tomato and cucumber salad with fresh basil, and Pasta Olio.  I’ll be coming back here.