EMILY, JOHN & NOBODY

MAYBE I WAS WRONG. Someone said THE search is for significance, and it made sense at the time, so I concurred and set out on the journey.

Now? I’m not sure that’s correct, it’s certainly not necessarily real. Or, maybe it’s the picture of “significance” that’s fuzzy. How do you know if you’ve reached it? What does it look like? Is it fleeting? Are we falsely equating significance with fame or renown?

For today, for me, the worthwhile search seems to be for “belonging”, at least that’s my opinion. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m thinking that our significance comes from being in community, in family; being loved and cared for and cared about, and in caring for others—belonging. Even if your only membership is in the club for Nobodies: membership two.

#260
By Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

[Note: click this for in interesting article on Ms. Dickinson’s poem.]

I’m a big fan of Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”—not an expert, just a fan. It has helped me make sense of life for many years. Here’s a refresher:

First there is the need for Safety and Security.

Secondly, once we feel safe and secure we can take a risk or two, put ourselves out there and seek to Belong somewhere—meeting the need to Belong.

Next, Esteem needs. Taking a few more risks in hopes that someone will say, “Way to go! I’m so glad you are who you are.”

Finally for Maslow there is seeking to meet the need he calls Self-Actualization. My understanding is that at this point we can look at our lives and say something like, “I was born for this.” It’s where we sense a calling; where our gifts and passions converge.

Significance can be found all along that journey. Feeling safe and secure, for example, can be hugely significant especially for the abused and marginalized.

I’ve always thought of Maslow’s hierarchy as something like a mountain where you move upward step by step, stage by stage until you reach the summit (one that not everyone reaches). Now as a Medicare card-carrying Senior Adult, it seems to me that as we age we move back down the mountain.

I don’t mean to brag at all when I say that I reached self-actualization. I found my life’s calling and was able to spend my best years caring and nurturing young faith pilgrims, young artists, young soul searchers, hopefully providing safe and secure environments for them, offering them a meaningful place of belonging, affirming and encouraging them, and creating a path to help them discover themselves and move toward actualization.

As I wrapped up that work in a planned, formal sense, I found myself appreciating those sentiments that said, “Hey you’re old, but you’re still my friend, you’re still Pops.” You know—Esteem level stuff.

And also Belonging level stuff. Clearly this is more important than ever: family, friends, and my buddies I meet with every week at The Quarantine Tavern. We need those people who still love us and want us when we become “men of a certain age.”

Do we ever return to that place in life where our greatest need is Safety and Security? Definitely. As I watched my Mom and Dad pass, there came a moment where that was all they needed. Mom especially. Ultimately, we could not offer her safety from COVID, or from a final loneliness. I have no doubt though that until her last breath she knew she belonged. And I know that in her next breath after that last one in her physical body she heard the words, “WELL DONE!” How’s that for the ulitmate dose of Esteem?!

You’ve got to be careful with things that have stages and steps. It’s easy to get the idea that life can be compartmentalized, that it all happens in an orderly, structured way. It doesn’t.

Making too much of categories and formulas can become a self-fulling prophecy. For example I know that I am an INTP in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. If I’m not careful I can become paralyzed in my own thinking and isolation.

Remember John Lennon’s song “Nowhere Man” recorded by The Beatles:

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

It’s kind of like that if I’m not careful.

I like this advice from Albert Einstein:

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

Yikes this is turning into a crazy stream of consciousness. Let me abruptly wrap up with this from “Nowhere Man”.

He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me at all
Nowhere man don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all 'til somebody else
Lends you a hand

Or; in the words of Barbara Striesand,

“People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

[Note: click this for an interesting look at the song Nowhere Man]

[One More Note: click this for an arrangement of John’s song by one of my favorite duets The MonaLisa Twins.]

ANOTHER SEASON

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

How long can we make this request? Is this an all-you-can-eat, daily-serving-at-a-time kind of thing?

Should; at some point our prayer be, “Lord you have given me daily bread every single day for so many days now. However, if you offer today’s portion I will take it, as a gift, without presumption.”

image “borrowed” from Molly Harris who also made the cool bread bag

Doug, my friend, mentor and sage, says that as we age we fall into the “medical vortex” of endless doctor’s appointments, tests, procedures, and on and on.

The band “Blood Sweat & Tears” had a song called “Spinning Wheel”. A snippet of the lyrics:

Drop all your troubles by the riverside
Catch a painted pony on the spinnin' wheel ride

They weren’t writing about the medical vortex. But at the ages they are now, surely they could see the relevance.

I mention this idea, because it is now my reality—one I don’t do well with. Some senior citizens seem to revel in the medical abyss, their lives happily dictated by their appointments and stuff.

I’m one of those who feels like every doctor delights in pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and poking, prodding or probing something, then writing a prescription with a never-ending list of side effects. Speaking of which, I always mute the every-growing abundance of prescription drug ads on TV. As a matter of fact, if I were the TV czar I would prohibit all medical related ads along with any ad where GMC has hoards of people carrying their pickup trucks tailgate up a hill.

Yesterday, I had one of those procedures. It was scheduled for a year ago, but COVID prompted hospitals to shut down “elective” surgeries and procedures. So, I’ve had a year to fret and stew about this one. Going in I knew there was “cause for concern” from an earlier screening test.

So, in these past few days I’ve worried and wondered—can you ask for daily bread again today and tomorrow and the next day? I mean, I know I can, but it’s just that I’ve been given so much. I’ve lived 70 abundant years, more than anyone deserves. Can I ask for a few more? Can I ask for another day, another serving of daily bread so to speak, when I’ve been given so much?

Last night, after a long nap to sleep off the anesthesia from the procedure, we watched the last few episodes of “Anne With An E” on Netflix. (Should I be admitting how much I enjoyed this series?) There were three seasons and I wanted more. I guess we always do. I wanted to see Anne and Gilbert married and having grandkids. I wanted to see more; more of my kids and grandkids living their lives. I wanted to take My Amazing-Missus on the road trips I have promised her which we’ve planned for years, which were stolen from us by COVID, ice storms, snow storms, etc.

But see. There I go. Wanting more. Another season.

We lived through the Siberian Blast. Our heat was on. Our pipes didn’t freeze. We didn’t have to boil our water. But I wanted more.

Somewhere near us lives a person with a Cadillac Escalade. It has a vanity tag that says, “BLESSED”. I assume they are referring to their Escalade. I wonder if there was room for more letters on their tag, would they go on to say: “This is enough. BUT, I would also like to have the daily bread (aka next year’s model).”

By the way. The procedure went fine. Everything is good. I get another season. I’m grateful and blessed. But, I will be grateful for tomorrow’s bread too. And if it’s not too much to ask: could we make it a biscut with gravy?

Measure Your Treasure

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

I VIVIDLY REMEMBER my first dollar of disposable income.

dis·pos·a·ble in·come
/dəˈspōzəbəl ˈinˌkəm,dəˈspōzəbəl ˈiNGˌkəm/
noun: income remaining after deduction of taxes and other mandatory charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes.

I was probably 7 or 8, walking to a friend’s house up the street. There it was; a dollar bill! You know how in the sketch of George Washington on the ONE he’s turned slightly, facing left-ish, but his eyes are cut back to the right? His look seemed to say to me, “I’m yours now, let’s do something fun.” So my friend and I walked to a little neighborhood grocery store, bought a can of vienna sausages, a loaf of bread and a couple of Tootsie Rolls. It was an impulse purchase spawned from hunger. Once I was full of bread and little weiners, I wish I had bought baseball cards.

Thumbing through my vinyl records, trying to decide what to listen to next, I started estimating how much I had invested in just the records in this one box. From the early days of having a few dollars to spend, often I chose music: records, 8-track tapes, CDs, digital music, concert tickets, drumsticks, stereo equipment, headphones, turntables, speakers. Throw in the guitar in its case behind where I’m sitting right now, a set of Ludwig drums and Zildian cymbals in another room, you could label one large treasure chest “MUSIC” and find a huge piece of my heart.

My love of music is not unlike a hunger. It’s different than that feeling that leads you to use your found money to buy vienna sausages. Music is an experience without end. How can you take a limited number of notes like the eight of an octave and add a few half tones and make endless melodies? Consider a song that you’ve heard many many times before. Play that song from a quality vinyl record on a good turntable with a good cartridge, into a phono pre-amp, to a powerful amplifier through quality cables and into well-designed speakers or headphones and you will hear things there you’ve never heard before: soft strings, the rumble of a distant bass drum or the ting of a triangle, a voice in harmony, all adding layers and more layers.

My dad had a young friend named Ken. He was a school teacher in Tulsa. After school he made pizzas in a little joint called The Pizza Parlor he owned on 11th Street in Tulsa. For several years he taught school and made pizza but finally took up the pizza business full time. He changed the name to Ken’s Pizza Parlor and later expanded to a brand he called Mazzio’s.

I spent a lot of the disposable income of my youth at Ken’s. His original pizza sauce and thin, crispy crust are something I still long for. If you had enough friends to share the cost of a pie, there would be enough left for a few songs on the jukebox. I can close my eyes and picture the checkered table cloth, the red glass candle holder, the smell of the pizzas cooking and I can hear Otis Redding singing “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…”

So, in the years of my first coming of age, you could measure my treasure or the disbursment thereof and guess that my heart longed for round things that came in square packages like a new L.P. record album or a Ken’s pizza to go.

A really good pizza and a classic record share more than their shape. They are both like a package deal—a complete meal, a complete experience. Together they cover the all the senses: touch, sight, smell, sound and taste.

I’m not an expert in either music or pizza, but I’ve had my share of experiences. I’ve heard live in concert a range from Led Zeppelin to Rene Fleming. From Diana Krall to Jars of Clay. The Beach Boys to Elton John. Vanilla Fudge to Pink Martini.

I’ve had pizza from Ken’s on 11 Street in Tulsa, and pizza in Florence, Italy. A slice or two from Saluggis in New York City to Uno’s in Chicago. Which is better Chicago deep pan or New York City pizza? It’s apples and oranges. It’s Miles Davis and Blake Shelton.

PIZZA AT UNO’S IN CHICAGO WITH OUR BEST BUDS—CHARLIE AND SHIRLEY

It’s all nuanced. Whether it’s a good slice or a cool L.P. you need to enjoy in just the right setting, at the right time. You need to be open to something new. You need to listen and taste slowly and attentively.

Memories and music, treasures and matters of the heart.

FLAT AND GLUM

FLAT! It has a certain undesirableness to it doesn’t it? Flat tire. Fell flat. Flat tired. Flat land. Smashed Flat. Even in music, flat the third of a chord and it becomes a minor chord and maybe The Blues.

B.B. King

I’m a part of a group of old guys that meets once a week at a place called The Quarantine Pub. It’s a virtual place (via Zoom). Our topics of conversation vary widely: world events, sports, art, books, movies, cars, poetry, food & drink, women, death, life, the call of the wild, the past, the future, and the present (just to mention a few). In a recent meeting we were talking about the overall state of things—the pandemic cloud, unrest, too much rest, old age, etc. One of the guys in the group described how he felt as “Flat”. Yes! That’s what it feels like. Not really depressed or discouraged or remorseful, just… Flat. I had been looking for the perfect descriptor and there it was.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is done by a guy named David. He lives aboard a narrowboat on the canals of England. I’ve mentioned him before. In his last video of 2020, he announced that he would not be making as many videos.* It hit me hard. It was the same feeling I had when I watched the last episode of Downton Abbey or The Queen’s Gambit or Seinfeld or Frasier or heard they were closing Bell’s Amusement Park in Tulsa. (Well that may be a little over-stated.)

In his last video* he talked about feeling the impact of this dark, gloomy state we’re in, trying to find just the right word, I was yelling at him through my computer screen: FLAT!!

He didn’t hear me but he used another word: Glum. That’s a very British sounding word I thought. But I like it; so much so that I searched the dictionary to get a bit of history on the word. What I found was so interesting. The word, although it sounds like something from the past, is more popular today than it ever has been. I don’t know who’s keeping the count on these things for all these years, but I’m taking their word for it. Take a look at this screenshot and note especially the graph for the word’s mentions.

Now we have two emotionally loaded, clear words to describe life in the winter of 2020-21: flat and glum. So what do we do about it?

Carpe Diem. Seize the day. If the day is too big and ominous or out of reach, seize the moment. Understand something: I’m talking to myself here. This blog is part public writing and part personal journal. I’m not trying to tell anybody what they should be doing. I’m planting and fertilizing ideas in my own garden. We’ll see what pops up.

Moment seizing I can do. If one-day-at-a-time is too daunting, too fraught, I’ll shoot for moments. Not literal minutes, but the moments. Like Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem. Like Amanda Gorman breathing new life into poetry and recitation. Like the Thunder coming back from 18 points down to beat the Chicago Bulls. Like the Facetime calls with our kids. Like my Amazing-Missus’ banana nut bread.

I can look forward in glimpses too. I can’t focus on a large chunk of time like the rest of 2021 for example. But I can anticipate getting my second dose of the vaccine in a couple of weeks. I can look forward to spring, to our next road trip, to gathering with our family and my brother and his family to finally lay our parents remains in the ground together and celebrate them once more.

Since we’re going slow anyway, why not stop to smell the roses (which I think is another metaphor for seizing the day or the moment), that is if you’re still able to smell things like roses.

Did you hear the news morsel about the flood of bad reviews for scented candles. From Newsweek:

A customer wrote on Yankee Candle's online shop for the Sparkling Cinnamon fragrance—a one-star review, where the purchaser, under the headline of "Waste of money," wrote "I purchased three of these. What a waste. There's virtually NO scent to these at all!! If I wasn't confined to my home because of covid I would return these for sure."

Turns out scented candle sales are down. Complaints about scented candles not being scented are up. But is it the candle or the covid nose? The corelation is too significant to ignore.

I guess if you can’t smell the candle or taste your food… Blame the Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker.

See what happened here? I slipped into a different coping tool: if you don’t like the ways things are, find someone or something to blame. “We wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be flat and glum if it weren’t for the Other—the other guy, the other party, the other worldview, the other politician, the other race, the other religion, the other ____________.

I’ve tried this approach, it’s a gimmick, a fool’s errand. It’s a lie. You can’t rehumanize yourself by dehumanizing others.

So, I’ll be here seeking to seize the wonderful moments, availing myself of the opportunities by reading good books, listening to good music, spending time (in person and virtually) with people I love, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, praying, meditating, and eating banana nut bread.

I know that “man does not live by bread alone” so, I’ll have some of her biscuts and gravy too. Seize that!

---

Here’s a link to David’s video on YouTube. Watch it all but especially the section from 3:05 to 4:32.

---