Help I've Fallen Back And I Can't Get Up

I'M NOT SURE I HEAR AS WELL AS I ONCE DID, or if it’s just that I don’t pay attention. Actually you can look at teacher’s comments on my earliest report cards and know that “not paying attention” is not new for me.

Someone asked the other day, “Are you a perfectionist?” 

“Why, yes, yes I am,” I replied, thinking they had said “percussionist”.

I am a percussionist, but not a perfectionist. I’m not sure us humans have seen perfection, at least with our own eyes. But that’s for another day; another post.

Percussionists value rhythm. The older I get, the more I appreciate it, and need it. I’m speaking here about the rhythm of life. While I love jazz and it’s characteristic syncopation, I find life as a senior adult to be more peaceful when the rhythms are constant. (For example, seniors all celebrate “regularity”.)

Tonight, before I turn in around 9:30p, I will be forced by some kind of law, to throw my routine into chaos. I, and you, will have to “Spring Forward” turning our clocks ahead one hour. Just the other day, I felt like I had finally adjusted to last Autumn’s “Fall Back”.

I don’t know if “fracking” is at the bottom of Oklahoma’s current plague of earthquakes, but I do know that these full-hour adjustments in time itself shift the tectonic plates of my life’s rhythms.

But it’s not all bad. Springing forward is like the first promise of Spring time. On this Saturday morning, the sun is shining bright, but snow still sits in shady corners. In the poetry of Paul Simon:

Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground

Here are the complete lyrics of the song “Hazy Shade Of Winter” by Simon & Garfunkel. I recommend going to iTunes to buy the song. For a buck-29 you’ll have a soundtrack for this seasonal transition, making rhythm out of chaos. Oh, and it’s also a thought-provoking look at life’s seasonal rhythms.

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please

But look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside, it’s bound to be a better ride
Than what you’ve got planned, carry your cup in your hand

And look around
Leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Oh hang on to your hopes, my friend
That’s an easy thing to say but if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again

Look around
The grass is high, the fields are ripe
It’s the springtime of my life

Oh seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won’t you stop and remember me at any convenient time?

Funny how my memory skips
While looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme, drinking my vodka and lime

I look around
Leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground

If you’re intereste in a few more thoughts on life’s rhythms, I’ve written a couple of other posts on the subject. You can find them by clicking these links.

About Time
Aequus Nox

Back To The Present

RECENTLY, I WAS HAVING A METAPHYSICAL DISCUSSION WITH MY 6-YEAR OLD GRAND-GIRL; you know, like you do.

The discussion was brought on by watching a Christmastime episode of Dora The Explorer. Dora has a monkey sidekick named Boots and a nemesis named Swiper. Swiper is a masked fox who, well, swipes stuff. You can help Dora prevent Swiper from swiping by holding up your hand in a “stop” motion and saying, “Swiper, no swiping.” You have to repeat this three times. Swiper then says, “Oh, man!” and walks away dejectedly.

In this Christmas episode, Swiper is swiping presents and ruining the Christmas party. Santa sweeps in in his sleigh to explain Swiper’s fall from grace and the price of redemption. Then in the theme of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, Dora, Boots, and Swiper do some time-traveling to see Swipper in the past and in a bleak, lonely, heart-wrenching future. Their time-travel is accomplished by shaking their travel capes, given to them by a grumpy old troll who lives under a bridge (of course). We get to travel along on the adventure by shaking our imaginary travel capes, and singing the little song: “Shake, shake shake. Shake your travel cape.”

While we were “shaking our capes” Karlee asked me, “Pops, if you could time travel, would you go to the past or the future.” “I’m not sure.” I replied, honestly. “How about you?” I asked.

She thought so hard, you could almost see, hear, and smell her gears turning. “I’m good with the present.” she finally decided.

I explained to her that that is a very smart choice. In fact it was what Jesus told his followers they should do.

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6:34. The Message.

More 6-year old gears turning. Then she smiled and said, “Cool”, and we continued watching to see if Dora could help her friend Swiper put his charater flaw on hold through the Christmas Season.

Spoiler alert: The episode ends happily. Swiper repents and the party goes on.

It’s been three weeks since my last post here at About Pops. It hasn’t been writer’s block, so much as it’s been too much thinking about the past and about the future. Some personal stuff, no one cares to hear about, is at the core of it all; I think. It must be in our human nature to do that. Why else would Jesus use some of his red letters to encourage us not to?

But, if you could shake your travel cape, which direction would you go: past or future or both? I think I would go back. Not so much because I would like to change things or because I didn’t enjoy it, but maybe because I enjoyed it so much. Without a doubt I would look some people up and tell them I am sorry that I was, so many times, a self-absorbed jerk. I think I would pay more attention, listen more carefully, use people less, but who knows.

Contemplating the future paralyzes me. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I used to write occasionally about my dream to own an Airstream Travel Trailer. While an Airstream is no travel cape, there is a mystique about them and the travel I imagine that has a grip on me. 

People who know me tend to make fun of the way I’ve obssessed over the idea of owning one, but can never take the big step. The uncertainty of the future scares me into inaction. Not just with buying an Airstream but a lot of things.

Let’s take the Airstream for example. I watch the classified ads for Airstreams religiously. At least once a month you’ll see an ad that basically says, “We used the trailer once but now major health issues prevent us from using it.”

Is there some correlation between buying an RV and having a catastrophic malady? Or, worse yet, what if I buy the thing and then “buy the farm”? Now my Amazing-Missus is stuck not only with my ukulelee and my Vespa, but with an Airstream as well.

[Shake the cape] Conclusion: if they were handing out tickets to the wormhole, I think I would pass, because in the wise words of a 6-year old, “I’m good with the present.” (For now.)

Merry Christmas Ya'll

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, we all go through it together.” —Garrison Keillor

Photo Credit: Dave Fuller.   Design Credit: Molly Hennesy.

I'm trying not to get all sentimental, not that there's anything wrong with that, but one of my favorite Songs of The Season, since I heard it play while Clark Griswold was locked in his attic watching old, home movies, is THAT SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS (the Chuck Brown & Eva Cassidy arrangement). If I could, I would give you the buck-29 to buy it on iTunes; as my way of saying "Merry Christmas". I can't, but I can at least give you the lyrics:

Christmas is the time of year
For being with the one's we love
Sharing so much joy and cheer
What a wonderful feelin'
Watching the one's we love
Having so much fun

I was sittin' by the fire side
Taking a walk through the snow
Listening to a children's choir
Singing songs about Jesus
The blessed way that he came to us
Why can't it remain all through the year

Each day the same
Hey yeah, that's what I wanna hear
Heh, heh, it's truly amazin'
That spirit of Christmas

All the kin folk gather round
The lovely Christmas tree
Hearts are glowing full of joy
Sense the gifts that we're giving
And the love that we're living
Why can't it remain ohh all through the year

Each day the same
Hey yeah, that's what I wanna hear
I'll tell ya, it's truly amazin'
That spirit of Christmas

Remember, Ebenezer Scrooge's words after he had learned his lessons in A Christmas Carol? He said, "I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year."

I want to be like Scrooge--the reinvented one, not the mean, miserly one.

---

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
and we beheld his glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
—The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, Verse 14.

Can I get an AMEN?!

Flippin’ The F

REMEMBER YOUR FIRST COMING OF AGE? That time that’s pretty much filled with excitement and terror and rites of passage. Remember puberty, your voice finally changing, and all those Firsts?

In a feeble attempt to establish credibility, let me point out that I have a degree in sociology with a focus on adolescence, and 30 or so years of working with teenagers. I also have 44 years of experience trying to realize that I’m not a teenager anymore.

One of my old textbooks, Arnold van Gennep’s book, The Rites of Passage, he explains, “I propose to call the rites of separation from a previous world, preliminal rites; those executed during the transitional stage liminal (or threshold rites); and the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.”

For example, around 14 or so, we begin to long ardently for independence—our own transportation—to come and go as we please. Call this “the rite of separation from a previous world.”

None to soon we get a driver’s manual, probably the most diligently studied textbook in school history and we take Driver’s Ed: “transitional stage liminal (or threshold rites).”

Finally the day comes that we get our license and Dad hands us the keys: “the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.”

If you’re a faithful reader of About Pops, you know that one of my favorite story genres is bildungsroman (coming-of-age stories). You also know that I like to talk about the age of nearing retirement as my second-coming-age. If you’re bored and want to read more about that, here are links to a couple of posts I’ve made on the subject.

LIFE AS STORY
AGE IS A NUMBER

While I am not yet retired, and in fact, I can’t even see retirement from where I am, still I can see I’m in the that preliminal rites stage of separation from a previous world.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great job and I get to work with some amazingly creative and energetic young adults, but I do look forward to the weekends and Monday morning often comes to soon. Maybe it’s Nature’s way of preparing me for the time when I will not get up and go to work M-F. Maybe I’m entering the threshold rites stage.

Last Friday morning I was going through the morning ritual: make my toast for peanut butter and strawberry fruit-only spread, start the coffee, take my daily tablespoon of olive oil, and so on.

I commented to My Amazing-Missus, “I LOVE flippin’ the F.”

“I beg your pardon?” she lovingly replied.

All of my peers these days take a cocktail of pills: baby aspirin, fish oil capsule, multi-vitamin, vitamin D, and assorted other pills for heart health, arthritis, etc. We all put them in a little box divided by the days of the week. On the lid of each section is the letter of the appropriate day. When I get to flip the lid on the F I know I get to wear jeans to work and that the weekend looms.

The second-coming-of-age isn’t as exciting as the first, but it is something. Someday instead of getting a driver’s license I’ll get a metaphorical Gold Watch. I wonder if after the “ceremony” it will be as fun to flip the S, the M, the T, the W, the other T, and the other S has it has been to flip the F?