If news happens and you don’t know it, is it news?
I am sure there are those who don’t know that the last 72 hours witnessed a wedding in England, scrap of a space shuttle launch, beatification of a dead pope, killing of a terrible man, record tornadoes in southern United States, to name a few.
Sometimes I think news is a great excuse to observe instead of live life. Sometimes I don’t think that at all.
What’s new with you?
To erase his name from the polls of humanity will take time. To become indifferent will take time, but that’s what it takes because the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. I want to feel the opposite of love.
I am not there yet. Hearing the news last night, what did you think and feel? For me, it was like chugging an emotion cocktail comprising shock and elation and fright in one bad gulp.
This morning I’m daunted. For days to come a face will be broadcast and film clips aired that spark memory of evil. It is hard hard hard not to hate.
Indifference. Find me.
I hope Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), in therapy to recover from a shot in the head that leveled her Jan. 8, 2011, near Tucson, AZ, is crabby.
To regain use of her right side, she pushes shopping carts down hospital corridors, practices indoor golf and bowling from a wheelchair, and is trying to write with her left hand, according to April 27 Christian Science Monitor daily news briefing.
That’s enough to make anyone accustomed to fancier activities crabby.
But, I hope she’s crabby, because general all around grumpiness is a good sign of getting better. I hope she knows, soon, that doing these tasks so small and basic, is magnifient, noble, brave.
On this airplane, I want to sit as close to the pilot as possible. Having done a little airborne transport, I know for a fact that the butt of the plane is where bumping and thumping ravel nerves and provoke aggressive talk and no one acts regretful for same.
However, the front of the plane has a downside. It is utterly quiet, as if our privileges will be taken away if we act up.
I practice shrinking, taking in my appendages to fit this seat with room to spare. I also unravel in a confined way, never elbowing anybody and standing only high enough to peck my way out of the aisle to the bathroom, and only if absolutely necessary.
I think the best way to be in front of everyone else is to minimize. Yet, I do admire the loo-loo loudmouths toward the rear. I just don’t want to sit there.
Dad got old very fast when his age flopped from 85 to 86 years old. He recognized all of his neighbors and kin, and what he recognized bore little resemblance to who each was at the time.
I visited him on Fridays at the Elmhurst house both he and I knew well, he as the provider and me as the sole daughter, who expected to be duly provided for.
There on the front porch, we tended to sit because I wanted to. Dad probably liked the indoors better but he was gallant.
One day was more memorable than most because I learned what dumb is. Me.
We sat on canvas sling chairs, marvels of engineering, having survived 40 years. We looked out at Utley Road in front of the house and down at our feet, which were closer.
Dad spoke: “It is a long journey.”
I felt ephiphany, which feels like wisdom, like soul. This would be a deep moment. I was ready to receive from him such wisdom about life, about age, about what the heck had been going through his head in recent days when he forgot where the garage was.
“Ah,” says I and I wait.
“Long journey,” repeats he in a voice that never before was baritone in timbre.
“Ah,” repeats myself and I wait.
Since nothing forthcomes in the pause between now and eternity, I look where he is looking, which is down, at his brown shoes. There an overfed, suburban ant is lugging a crumb between Dad’s two feet, heading gosh only knows where.
Today is Earth Day and today is Good Friday.
Here we have earth sitting at the head of the table to blow out candles on one more year of pulsation. Here we have a day of the year when the earth stops between noon and 3 p.m. because this was the period that Catholics believe Jesus hung on the cross and died because we were too stupid to be good.
I think earth understands grief even if it doesn’t condone it. I think earth allows grief because it is part of itself.
I think earth deserves a cheer and a hug for being a good sport.
Happy earth day, earth!
Good Friday is oddly named. It’s the day, in the life of Catholics, to say the stations of the cross by walking the walk with a savior man who was too young to die and was so much better than imagination can imagine.
In Elmhurst’s Immaculate Conception Church, the oil paintings depicting the stations of the cross ringed the exterior walls like a necklace. To say the stations of the cross required reverence and it required time, neither of which were ever forthcoming, except on Good Friday.
There was a belief that the more often you said the stations of the cross, the better, like practicing for a marathon of suffering. But, by the time you arrived at the nailing on the cross, believe me, the bleak darkness of sin was on you like tar. Walking became a shuffle, head felt so very heavy.
I don’t know if saying the stations of the cross was a good thing or not. I know saying them was hard, very very hard.
Dad loved the color brown, which I found inexplicably hilarious. Who liked brown?
Mom found his choice less humorous, I think because he lavished this preference on things that might have sported a hue more lively, more comely.
He got around Mom’s dislike for his like by coming up with compromises. When he selected the family pontiac Grand Pre, he explained to we of dubious trust that the new tank-ish vehicle dominating our driveway was BRONZE, not brown.
When the sculpted, ice-blue carpet that Mom loved as much as polka dancing wore out, he replaced it with a brown turf he told us was English-Club TWEED, not brown.
When I selected my first pair of spectacles, in the fifth grade, I mooned over frames in shell pink, winsome blue, daring and darling peach. Dad, and I will never know how he managed this one, nudged me to choose what he said was MILKY MINK, not brown.
Aunt Dollie warrants remembrance and attention, which was what she got when she lived. I knew her as my Dad’s aunt during the 1960s and thought her exotic and stylish, as far as aunts go. Her haircolor was eggwhite, and I never saw it any way but bunned, sleek and severe. Her skirts were mammoth, though she was not, and she sewed pockets into them to hold her chihuahua Chico, like a hankie.
She gave off the air of party and had a really good walk, swishy. She looked like a woman who had opinions. She looked like a woman who liked looking like a woman who had opinions.
She and her husband Harold didn’t have children, which may account for her elegant clothing allowance. It may account for the affection she gave Chico.
This I could not share. Chico could never have been a pup, or else the cute-gene skipped his generation. His was the bark of a beast clamped in a bear trap. His was the mien of a blender spun on high speed.
I wonder why he was such a nasty dog. Perhaps living life as an accessory just rubbed him the wrong way.
During the 1960s, the worst part about going to confession in Immaculate Conception Church in Elmhurst was waiting in line bestride its two confessionals. We had a lot of sinners in Elmhurst and most of them went to confession on Saturday afternoon, this being mandatory if you wanted to receive communion at Sunday mass.
Two things made this stressful. First, it isn’t fun to stand in a line of sinners, publically, for anyone to see. Second, there was no talking while waiting. The silence of the contrite is deeper than any other silence I’ve known.
My fellow bad-doers tried tricks to minimize the stress. Some pretended they just waltzed into church on a lovely free afternoon, carefree. These sat in pews waiting until a line shortened, then dashed to the end, as if nobody would notice. Others fingered their rosary beads and sometimes their lips moved, as if to illustrate their holiness despite the sorry state of their soul.
In line, I strained to hear the muffled conversation ongoing between the current confession-ee and the priest. Never could. I also prioritized the sins I planned to confess and generally held to the idea that telling the worst sin last might result in that one going unnoticed. Never happened. I also made promises to God. It is stunning the promises you make when you are scared and I made some whoppers.
And, yes, this was problematic because breaking a promise is a sin.
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