Y2.02K

December 30, 2019

Greetings from the edge of tomorrow,

On a morning just like this one, not long ago, twenty years, many people were terrified about the end of the world as we know it.  If you suspect exaggeration, ask an honest person about that week; see if they were in a long line at the grocery store, loading up on essentials.

A few people just assumed that the experts were taking care of everything, but the experts were on TV saying they didn’t know what to expect.  The decade was going to flip from 1999 to 2000 and for all anyone knew, Y2K would be a catastrophe.  No one knew if computers understood calendars well enough.  Yes, the same calendars that hang from repair-garage walls, might stymie Hal 9000.

The cities would go dark.  Computers would stop talking to us, stop processing our credit cards, managing surgeries or running our elevators.  Planes would fall from the sky.  Our PC would not be able to get anything to print, even if you turned it off and back on again.  The big fear was that technology would stop, and that civilization, such as it is, would grind to an agonizing halt. 

But it didn’t.  The hands on the clock turned, the magic that is all ones and zeroes didn’t fall to hysteria when the nines turned to zeroes.  Another year flipped, and another, and technology shrugged.  We sighed with relief; the catastrophe had been avoided.  Well, my PC still won’t talk to my printer.

What occurs to me is that, as Y2K loomed, everyone was afraid that technology would stop.  No one was afraid that technology, with all of its wonders, would continue, and in startling ways.  Almost no one said “Oh no, what if tomorrow our phones will get more attention than our children?” 

No one wondered if two decades would pass, and the computers would play such an important role our lives that we would have traded time with friends, and experiences of the world, for a shiny virtual replacement.

I’ll pause here and say I am not a Luddite, and no, that is not someone from Ludington.  I am not afraid of technology and gadgets and conveniences.  I am not against the progress that this age has brought.  Some of it is lifesaving, some puts knowledge and access in the hands of people who never would otherwise be able to reach their potential.  In fact, I am a proponent of all of the advantages that The Screens have brought us.

When I learned to drive, there were rules and limitations applied, to make my life, and those around me, safe and pleasurable.  I enjoyed the convenience and advantage of being able to drive, but some experienced person first said: “Before you begin, here is how you can best use this innovation in your life.”  Also, there was a balance in my life, eventually, that said that the best way to get from one place to the next was not always by car.

One of my favorite technology helps is the directions my phone gives me.  But one of the few bits of wisdom I have held onto is that occasionally it is good to get lost.  Therein is the discovery, the surprise, the adventure, if rightly considered.

I have this book, one of my favorites.  It’s really old, and in the fashion of bookbinding in those days the pages have ragged, irregular edges.  If you hold the book slightly open and riffle the pages, the book presents you with a different place to read each time.  It falls open to this scene or that, and I feel a sense of the mystical, mixed in with the irreplaceable tactile experience.

What happens in that moment is random and a surprise.  I already know the words but as they are presented it is a magical occurrence, one that, even in the telling you, feels whimsical and warm.  Here is what appeared for me. “We find after years of struggle that we not take a trip; a trip takes us.”― John Steinbeck.   

There is no equal to this in the digital publication of the book. 

I can turn on this screen and see the peaks of the Dolomites or a sweeping prairie, or be transported to the redwoods, or marvel at the Sphinx.  It is amazing that the world can be brought to my little den.  And yet, there is no equal to standing in a forest, feeling the dampness, smelling the things growing and dying, hearing the nok nok nok of the woodpecker, seeing the deer move among the oaks.  There is no experience in a screen or VR that can compare to running under a summer sky, or the squeak of the first steps of a snow run.  There is nothing inside your headphones that will give you the same sensation as a child’s laughter.

I am grateful to be able to write to you, to send this around the globe and know our connection.  I love being able to call my family without hesitation from anywhere in the world.  And I will never trade that for clasping the hand of a friend or holding someone I love.

If this seems a bit dramatic forgive me.  I am trying to tell you kindly that in this new year there will be an opportunity to avoid a technological tragedy.  The end of this decade snuck up on me;  I was expecting one page to tip over and it turns out ten flipped by.  I looked up and we are at the edge of another decade.  It seems like a good time to resolve for balance. 

With no apologies I offer this suggestion for Y2.02K.  We can choose, being the sentient beings, to silence Siri, to darken a screen, to trade a moment’s efficiency for the color and texture and warmth that is the real gift waiting for us when we opened our eyes this morning.  And for the next decade.

It’s possible for us to create our own catastrophe, so to speak.  It’s a good time to show the world, and whoever is creating the next shiny thing for us to fall in love with, that we understand how to use technology, and how to not use it.  We can choose the richness each day, the real world as it was created for us. Life is meant for more than watching, it calls to us to be part of it, to create and love and sing and feel the ache of trying and the welling joy that comes when we experience our purpose.  Walk to the hardware store instead of having a drone deliver the nails to your doorstep.  Put the phone down, close the laptop, turn off the big screen, and turn to see who is waiting to change your life.

Hope this finds you living the reality,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

1st Moanin' of Christmas

December 19, 2005

Greetings from the peak of a stellar dendrite,

They say that there are no two snowflakes alike.   I have become numb from shoveling snow and I have had no interest in the individuality of the flakes.

When the sky is gray and low, and the ground is covered in snow, it can be a depressing landscape.  Nothing seems to be moving and the bushes and trees are lifeless black sticks wedged in the white.

Piled high in the driveway snow is a burden.  It is inconvenient and hostile and unmoving.  It is cold.  It makes me cold.  It can be dangerous, each step a slippery risk, an icy invitation to injury. 

I ache with the effort of fighting through snow.  Why do I care whether the flakes are all the same?  I am busy, so much to do this time of year, let me get this snow out of the way so I can get things done.

The sun comes out and turns the snow iridescent.  It becomes peppered with children in bright colored snowsuits, carving the snow into playscapes.  Snowmen, forts, snowballs, tunnels and sculptures.  The snow is made different by the light and the spirit of the children.  And so am I.

At the heart of a pile of snow is the snowflake, an individual crystal of water that has formed through a minor miracle of circumstances.  They say that no two snowflakes are alike, that the intricate lace that makes their form is unique at each creation. 

When the snowflake is gone, it leaves behind a brief residue, and then becomes part of the atmosphere, and perhaps at some point, forms a new, unique, snowflake again.  Does this go on forever?  I wonder.

I have been caroming through my days, intent on some fuzzy purpose on the horizon, and the people around me have blurred into crowds of white and gray.  I have been snowblind.

This week I met a man who has a small observatory in his backyard.  His hobby is taking pictures of galaxies thousands of light years away from here.  He shared with me some of the beauty he’s captured and I was in awe.  It stopped me for a moment.

Each picture was brilliant in color, tendrils of stars forming a lace of light across the ink black of space.  Galaxies spinning into one another, forming different shapes, explosions growing each collection of light further outward.  Every cluster of stars formed a pattern as unique and complex as a snowflake.

Last night a light snow fell, large soft, powdery flakes from the sky.  I stood out in my yard, and even in the chilled temperatures the flakes were only on my skin for a moment.  Long enough for me to see them, and take in their shape, wonder what was next.

This morning I looked up to see a clear sky filled with stars, gathered around the moon set just to the west of me.  At my feet the stars are reflected in the snow, tiny sparkles of light, urging me to look closer, to look up, to look around.

My life is filled with gifts that I shovel out of the way, busy with my own purpose.  There are people in my day that until I look closely, will appear as one of many flurries of people.  It is only when I take time to look closely that I learn that they are as unique as a snowflake, as complex and as beautiful as a galaxy of stars.

If I could give one gift to you for Christmas it would be the moment you need to see the people, the snowflakes, in your life.  So much of what God intends for us is hidden in that moment.

Hope this finds you crystallizing,

David

Copyright © 2005 David Smith

Midnight Mercy

December 23, 2019

Greetings from the unstrained mercy,

The dash was littered with take-out wrappers, wadded receipts, empty Styrofoam cups.  Chris pushed his hand into the place where he knew the Winstons were and pulled out the pack and tapped one free.  He lit the cigarette and took a puff, opened his flip phone and pressed the only number he had ever called and listened to the blips and beeps that followed.  He heard the trilling of her phone, one ring, and she answered. 

He told his wife he wasn’t going the usual way; he had an idea to do it different this time.

She was chewing something, but thinking.  And then: “Whatthehell?”

“You are gonna get some calls I think, and I dint wantya be worried.” he rasped, a little firmer than he meant to.  He knew she was reading his mind in that moment, of course she knew, and so he stopped talking, pulled on the cigarette, blew smoke out the window.  When she didn’t say anything he finally added:  “Some kids will be disappointed, but, ..you know, they got someone watching em.”  She asked him if he was smoking again and they both laughed at his lie. 

She told him she loved him and called him something that made his cheeks blush.  He closed the phone.  He turned the key on the dash, listened as the solenoid fought for attention, then clicked it again and heard the starter grind and the engine fired up. 

The clock on the dash stopped seconds short of midnight.  Given the condition of the ’69 Country Squire station wagon it would be reasonable to assume it was broken.  But he had stopped it there.  He looked into the windshield, wiped at the condensation, and drove into the night.

Chris pulled into the alley in south Boston and parked, engine running, and opened the door.  He pulled his bag from the back and walked into the damp darkness.  In the first doorway he found the man he was looking for, and knelt next to him, silent, not wanting him to wake.  He pulled out the sleeping bag and the jacket and draped it over the man, tucking the edges around him gently.  He was back in the car before the man took another breath.

The sound of the lifters pinging and rattling under the hood caught the attention of the three children.  They were huddled together outside the shack where their mother left them a week before.  None of them believed she was coming back.  They had never seen a ‘69 Ford station wagon, although the roads in Bangalore were teeming with cars and scooters at all hours.  They watched as the man came toward them, holding out a basket.  He rested it in front of them.  Bread, bowls of rice, a jug of water.  Nested between them, three stuffed animals.

The station wagon fishtailed in the muddy snow, fighting to get over the culvert hump, and then bounced up the rutted driveway.  The house was halfway between Oglala and Pine Ridge, and the land was flat, so they saw the car coming a long way off, the headlights changing the dark into little movies in front of it.  The people in the dark house watched, afraid.

The man pushed the door open and climbed out, a big man, wearing heavy clothes.  He went to the back of the wagon and reached in and pulled an enormous bag and threw it over his shoulder and then began walking toward the house.  The woman stepped back from the window, waved her children back into the kitchen.  It was not her man, he was gone. She heard the thump on the front porch and then the sound of the man walking back across the frozen mush of the yard to his car.

When the car was gone, they opened the door and pulled the bag inside.  It was filled with food, with clothes, with new towels, and some toys for the young ones.  There was a clasp for her hair.  She held her breath: in the bottom, there was the prayer stone her mother had given her when she was a child.

The station wagon roared from place to place, down lonely farm roads and into crowded barrios.  Crisscrossing the desolate steppes, easing between tenement houses in gutted cities, stopping at funeral homes, and nursing homes and homes with no doors where the meth addicts ached.  He left them what they needed, not what anyone thought they deserved.

Anywhere there was someone forgotten.  He went to the broken people, the sinners, to the last child, to the lonely grave.  He put food in hands, put a few dollars in a collection plate, fixed a window that let snow in, and while the exhausted mother slept, head on the counter, he did the dishes and left her a plate of her favorite banana bread.

He paid the bail for the kid with a list of mistakes that would get longer, but not in jail.  He wrote an apology note for an angry husband and left it where his wife would find it.  He left a pair of new socks for the widower who had never learned to sew anything.  He opened a sack lunch and put in slices of bologna where there was only bread and mustard.  He put a book of poetry under the pillow of the heartbroken boy who was sure he’d never love again.  He stood with the little girl in the migrant detention camp, who was too afraid to go to the latrine alone.  He helped her back to her tent and put a small doll on her pillow.

The phone rang and the woman answered and explained in quiet tones.  She was patient, told each person what they needed, promised that everything was all right. Each time she hung up the battered phone on the wall she chuckled a little at her husband.  What a world.

Chris took the last Winston and threw the wrinkled package on the dash.  He was tired but it was a good tired.  There was still places he hadn’t been but that would always be the case.  He laughed a little, feeling his wife laugh, thousands of miles away. 

He reached onto the dusty dash again and pulled out the list, the one he was supposed to follow.  Good ones, all of them, but they’d be good again next year.  He leaned up and tapped the plastic bezel over the clock and the second hand swept past midnight.  He put the cigarette to his lips and slipped the car into drive and pointed the wagon north.

Hope this finds you spreading cheer,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

2nd Moanin' of Christmas

January 28, 2008

Greetings from the sound booth,

I love to listen to music, and I like variety, but lately I have had less tolerance for what is on the radio.  I still have my favorites from classic rock and roll, but I find myself straining to hear something fresh and original, something with character. 

That’s why I was paying attention when I heard just a slice of a song from a group named ‘Grizzly Bear’.   It was a strange mix of sounds; muted banjo, piano, and subdued percussion, and behind it, ghostly vocals.  The sound was old and subtle, mixed with a techno edge. 

The feel of the music was different, and when I heard the group interviewed I found out why.  The album, called “Yellow House” was recorded in an old house.  The band incorporated what they found there; pots and pans, cupboard doors, an old out of tune piano, a rocking chair.  The sound of the music held the character from the house where they lived, not a sound proof, controlled studio.  The music did more than include the acoustics of the house; it absorbed the feel of the house. 

I know little about making music, even less about recording, but I recognize the feeling from the music.  I have been thinking about it all this week as I listened to the sounds of my own house. 

In winter the wind can roar across the fields next to us and even with the line of trees near our house makes a howl around the windows, down the chimney.  There is the hum of the refrigerator, mindlessly cycling up and down to keep the milk cool.  The snick of dog nails on the wood floor, a clink of his collar bling.  The furnace whispers warm reassurance.

Water running in the shower upstairs, playing the pipes in the walls, rattling as the water is slammed off, tick tick ticking as the pipes cool.  The clock in the hall chimes, just a tad too slow because it needed winding a few days ago.  The phone rings.

Sound levels go up and down with the population level.  My children make enough noise on their own, but matched with their friends the racket goes up exponentially.   Laughter, arguing, cheering, and the rumble of stampeding feet. 

I can tell which son is coming down the stairs by the cadence of footfalls as they descend.  I can hear when four teenagers converge on the bathroom at the same time, even when I can’t make out the words they are using. 

When you open the silverware drawer, it slips in the track just a bit and rattles the forks and spoons, a jangle and clunk.  The tea kettle whistles.  The back door moans a little when opened.  The floors squeak. The phone rings. The storm door rattles when it closes.  Someone is coming home; there is the vibration from the garage door opener.  There is a Velcro kind of schrrccch when you open the front door.  It makes the dog bark.

Homework being done.  Rummaging in unlikely drawers for scissors, paper, pencils.  The stereos pump out music, for better concentration.  The phone rings.  The electric pencil sharpener grinds off what’s not needed, sounding angry for being disturbed.

Toilets flushing, lunch bags being crushed into backpacks, Cheerios raining into glass bowls, clothes hampers being dragged down the stairs, thumping resentment at each step.  The phone rings.  Talking, arguing, yelling, laughing, joking, asking, reminding, scolding, disagreeing, apologizing, praying.  And pleading: will someone get that phone!

The kids make their own music.  Practice, practice, practice.  Trumpet, guitar, piano, cello, bass.  They sing.  There is kitchen dancing, music bumping from the Bose, shuffling on the wood floors while the clean plates get put away, clinking glasses and cups in time.

In this quiet time this morning there is only the click of the keyboard, the huff of the coffee pot, impatiently reminding me to have another cup.  And this other music; it isn’t a sound, but it is.  I can hear my family here, sleeping, growing, dreaming.

Just as the music from “Yellow House” took on the sounds of the house it was recorded in, I am etched with the sounds of my home.  I sound different because of the noises made here.  I sound richer, more complete.  What better music is there?

Hope this finds you listening,       

David

Copyright © 2008 David Smith

3rd Moanin' of Christmas

December 20, 2010

Greetings from where it is warm,

I am writing this in a room that is illuminated only in the glow of our Christmas tree just outside of the French doors.  I can turn in my chair and see the apron of gifts circling the tree, puddling out into the room in brightly colored ribbons and paper.

The light bulb that normally lights this desk is burned out, but that it is irrelevant because the lamp in which it’s installed is broken.  It is a very nice looking bulb-coffin, one I have not made time to fix or, more likely, brought myself to throw out.

It is on a list of things that should be fixed or dealt with.  Weatherproofing, leaking tub, cracked drywall, sump pump, broken drawer, messy workbench of tools waiting to be organized.   All of these stand in line outside my door like specters, muttering and complaining that they can’t get the attention they need.  I turn my back on that door and focus on the light from the tree.

The stairs to the basement are near collapse.  I intended to fix them several months ago, and several times since then, but other priorities pushed the stairs down the ‘to do’ list.  So instead I chose to wait for a more opportune time, which if you look in the Encyclopedia Procrastinatia, you will find in volume ‘N’ under ‘Never’.

On the other side of the windows, winter has our home wrapped in ice, the snow banked up around the edges, frost on the glass.  Temperatures in the single digits are common, and this isn’t even Canada.  From the vents near my feet a steady current of warm air, pushes back the chilled draft.  In fact, it is a cozy room.  But in the line of muttering things my furnace waits, a foul scowl on its face, vengeance in its heart.

Most of you already know that my method of furnace maintenance up to now has been somewhat rudimentary and yet technically astute and eminently effective.  I’ll explain but you may want to get your Mechanical Engineering degree and come back.

When the furnace goes out, I remove the panel that encloses the magic parts.  I find a large stick or something heavy enough to get its attention and then bang on the furnace until I anger the Fire god and he tries to incinerate me by igniting the furnace.  So far this has worked 100% of the time. 

I’ve come to think of my furnace as a persnickety relative that we put up with because to do otherwise would be too painful.  As it happens, this relative lives in our basement, which adds a whole creepy aspect to my simile.  Now bring in a morbid flavor; the furnace is on its death bed. 

The part of me that I think with most of the time, the cheap part, has avoided investing in a new furnace for two main reasons: I don’t want to spend the money, and the money required is an amount I do not wish to spend. 

But there comes a time when even the power of parsimony cannot fend off the pressure of reality.  Our furnace submitted an ultimatum, which I don’t think is a bluff, and I must react.  I am not going to be blackmailed by a cantankerous 30 year old conglomeration of metal.  So it is being replaced with a more agreeable version.

Ah, but first the basement stairs must be fixed or a new level of comedy will be added to the mix.  Now where is my stair-fixing tool?  Somewhere on the workbench in the garage, buried under other things waiting to be fixed, layered with Christmas cookies we don’t have room for in the refrigerator. 

You should not have a hard time connecting the dots here.  A ruined lamp, a crumbling staircase, an outdated furnace.  Add drafty windows, a car that starts on the third try and eaves troughs filled with frozen leaves, and the picture begins to take shape.  Now bring on the Holiday crush.

I realize it sounds like I am a bystander among chaos, but in fact these things are just like the lists in most people’s lives.  We all have at least a dozen plates spinning at one time, and just when they are all going someone tosses in a flaming bowling ball to juggle.

All of it matters a great deal and none of it matters at all.  Most days these things don’t distract from our lives, and even now, with major repairs clawing at the door, I am resolved not to let it ruin my spirit.  On a different day I might have my head in my hands, gnashing my teeth with worry.  But is hard not to have hope sitting in the glow of the Christmas tree, decorated with charms from years of family history, surrounded by gifts chosen with love, given with love. 

It’s hard not to have hope, in the face of life’s irritations and interruptions, when beyond the light of the Christmas tree is the Light we wait for.  Christmas is a time of celebration and joy and prayer.  It is a time to connect with friends, to share time with family.  But, for me, it is also a time of rest, a time of peace, time to gather strength to deal with whatever else life might bring.  Armed with that, no line of muttering ghosts can trouble me.

Merry Christmas.

Hope this finds you wrapped in light,         

David

Copyright © 2010 David Smith

4th Moanin' of Christmas

May 9, 2011

Greetings from the threshold,

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.”  William Blake

I told my daughter as much as I could, but in the end I have to trust her instincts and believe in what I have learned about people.  The best of what is in store for her as she travels is behind doors and the only way to experience that is to knock.


The porch was long and shallow, barely a step from the edge to the front door, facing west into the small town.  I looked at the house from the street and felt like it was a good place to knock. 

The door was solid wood, a six panel design.  It had been stained a deep color to match the exterior trim, but the sun had faded the stain, fractured the varnish into a glazed jigsaw puzzle. 

I had made as much noise as possible coming up onto the porch and knocked firmly on the door casing, so if anyone was home they knew I was outside. After a minute, I heard someone pull on the door; it hung up on the jamb, and stopped.  I thought whoever it was might have given up when suddenly the door was jerked open.

A man stood in the narrow open space, most of him hidden.  His face filled the opening, a full white beard, head framed with white hair.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Hello,” I said, “How’re you today?  Listen I wonder if I could ask you a favor?”
Long silence.  The space between the door edge and the frame narrowed slightly, not a sign I liked to see.  The door stopped.

He looked past me to my gear on the sidewalk, my bicycle packed for long distance, loaded with most of what I owned in the world.  The front tire was in tatters, shredded from exploding just an hour before.

“You on the road?” he asked, pushing his chin at my bike.  I nodded.  And the door nudged back open a bit. 

He listened to my story for a few minutes, and I watched him soak it in, making up his mind where this might lead.  His hand was still on the door knob but he hadn’t closed it.
Bob took his time.  I could see he was used to sizing people up, but I could not tell how he was deciding about me.  He listened to me for a bit more to see what I wanted, and then stood back a bit and let the door swing wide, a long, bass creak moaning from the hinges.  He let go of the door and invited me in.

People are like doors.  Sometimes they are closed, and no one will ever know what is on the other side.  Sometimes the door eases open, and you can peek into their lives, see a band of what it is like for them, but you are left to wonder about all of what is there.  It is always their choice, but we are all partners in the dance because we choose to knock or not.

Bob Starr had travelled more miles than he could guess, almost all of it by climbing onto freight trains as they slowed down in switchyards or on steep grades.  He had hoboed for most of his life, living in the gravel around the sidings, the tall grass at the trestles.  He had slept on, in and under boxcars from every rail company that moved freight.  He owned little and wanted for nothing. 

Bob gave up the road when he met his wife, traded one passion for another.  He got a regular life with a job and taxes and insurance and never looked back.  He worked hard, saved his money and bought the two of them a house to live in, the only house he’d had since he was a boy.  He started a collection of hats to hang in the house, and the two of them made it their home.  And then she died.

When I came off the road I knew I was a writer.  It is what I do even when I am doing anything else.  Part of that is looking at the doors I see and wondering and imagining and then, sometimes, knocking.   Doors of all sorts, some very secure and forbidding, others with beautiful panes of glass that invite the light.  I knock because I’m interested as a person, and then as a writer, and because I have been taught that what’s behind the doors is the best of what life has to offer. 

People look out to see who you are, if they know you.  They make a guess about if they want to know you.   And sometimes, if the timing is right, and if they are willing, the door swings wide open and you are invited in.  It is an honor, and the trust can’t be taken for granted.

Bob sat behind his door for a long time, wrapped up in that house tucked against the Sierra Nevada’s, maybe waiting for someone to knock.  Waited for ten years.  Could have been anyone, but it was me. 

We sat and talked for hours; he was fascinated about the idea of traveling by bicycle, and after a bit, when he saw I was willing to share, he poured out questions.  When he was ready, he told me his story, and I saw a light in him, saw the door wide open.   I gave him a hat for his collection, he gave me a book the thought I’d like.  We parted company as friends.

Thirty five years have passed since that afternoon.  I wrote Bob one time but he had left that house with no forwarding address.  I like to think he got on a bike and went down the road, went where he chose to go, because I know that was his nature.   I’m glad I met him when I did.

Last night, somewhere in Indiana, my daughter and her friends knocked on a door and were invited in by a ‘sweet couple’ who were once strangers but now become part of the quilt of friends they will make on their journey.  Not just on the road, but for all of life.

They made the exchange I have made hundreds upon hundreds of times.  Knock on a door, step back and wait for them to know they have nothing to fear from you.  Extend your hand as a friend and then see if the door swings open.  It’s what people are best at really, and even with the risk of guessing wrong about which doors to stop at, it is worth the effort.

People are like doors.  They protect what is inside, some with strong locks, because that’s what’s needed in this world.  But doors are not nailed into the frame.  They are on hinges so that they can be opened; they are meant to be opened.  In that way we can know one another, which I believe is also meant to be.  Just as I believe that I am meant to write about it.

Hope this finds you stepping through the doorway,

David



Copyright © 2011 David Smith

5th Moanin' of Christmas

March 15, 2010

Greetings from that one guy who writes EVERY dang week,

“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”

From John Lennon’s song ‘Beautiful Boy’

This quote has inspired me to start several thoughts:

Life is what happens to you when…

… your elbows are on the table.

…your credit card statement arrives.

… you wake up from a deep sleep while driving on the expressway.

And this week, these words have been echoing in my head:  Life is what happens to you when you are complaining about life.

After decades of practice I can listen to people complain about things without getting too emotionally involved.  I’ve come to learn that this is just how some people process things, how they make conversation.  I have a Kevlar tolerance for complaining, but I have to admit that lately my patience has worn thin.

For many people the purpose of complaining is to vent, to let off steam, deal with suppressed emotion.  It also becomes a place to assign blame, to appear superior, and maybe even occasionally to develop solutions.  Complaining is a way of exerting control over an obnoxious situation.  Some people complain to be the Town Crier, others so that you know how hard their work is.

Whatever the purpose, if your mind is cranking out the list of complaints, it changes you.  Research has shown (a phrase often used to support a vague yet harmless fabrication) that when we complain our vision blurs, our hearing dims, we can only smell the putrid, and only hear the caustic.  In layman’s terms, when we complain we stain our brain.

I think the level of complaining has ratcheted up a little.  People are dissatisfied with many things these days and the best way to deal with that, especially if they are feeling helpless, is to just complain about it.  Here is a short list of some of the complaining I heard yesterday afternoon:  Politics, health care, daylight savings time, pennies, air travel, cell phone coverage, rap music, kids today, foreigners, donuts, puppies.   Yes, even puppies.

At some point, if we are honest, we will recognize complaining is usually selfish, narrow minded and immature.  I think we all need an occasional turn on the grumble-go-round, but some of us are staying on for the little rush we get when we get really get going.  It can be addicting, and it has its own gravitational pull.  If you are complaining I guarantee you will attract other complainers. 

It is self destructive.  Retelling the dramatic story of how there was no valet parking or the mail came late or how bored you are or the popcorn is stale again, is a toxic pool.  It is self pity that blinds you to the perfect sunrise, ruins your favorite song, and distances you from the people you like.   At times whining is self fulfilling; “Poor me, and now look, poor me again.”

So if we wanted to stop, how to do it?  I have some ideas, but before you read them I want to suggest something.  It’s not an original idea, but the first time I read about it a few years ago I thought it was remarkable.  And intimidating.

The concept is simple.  Try to go one whole day without complaining.  If you snorted derisively just now it is either because you think it would be easy, or because you realize that it might be impossible.  So, if you’re feeling confident or challenged, let’s give it a shot.

Here are some ideas on how to battle the bellyaching:

1. Replace complaining with something else.  I recommend chocolate.  Or smooching.  Every time you feel the urge to kvetch, eat a Dove bar or kiss your sweetheart.  You’ll feel silly at first, but I guarantee you’ll get over it. 
2. Be grateful. For everything you can list to complain about you have something to be grateful for.  It is an immutable fact that you cannot be unhappy and grateful at the same time.  If you’re not unhappy you’ve got no business complaining.
3. Be compassionate.  You want to complain about that guy who always gets to park right by the door just because he’s in a wheelchair?  Trust me he’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.
4. Serve others.  There is some built in humility here, which makes it challenge to get a ‘poor me’ gripe session going.
5. Quit the gang.  The next time someone says, “Wanna know what really bugs me?”  Tell them “No thanks.”

I’m picking one day this week and committing.  I challenge you to do the same.  Pick 24 hours, promise yourself you are not going to complain, and tell someone who will hold you accountable.  Write me and let me know how you do.

If we are going to build a satisfying, fulfilling, exciting life, it’s up to us to choose what to include and what to leave out.  You have to choose, and then act.  Maya Angelou said:   “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”

Hope this finds you in the middle of it,          

David

6th Moanin' of Christmas

September 1, 2003

Greetings from behind the chaos,

There are six people who live here, plus the hundred or so children who visit each day.  We generate a lot of dirty dishes, as you can imagine, and since we are a civilized group, we make attempts to wash the dishes before we use them again.  Clean dishes are a mark of an advanced society, rarely seen in primitive cultures where they rely solely on take out food.

When I was a single person, I didn’t have a dishwasher, I washed my dishes in the sink.  There were only a couple things to wash since I usually ate over the sink anyway.  Silverware could be cleaned immediately after use by wiping vigorously against my blue jeans.  Whenever I was entertaining, I would soak the dishes in a solution of 1 tsp vinegar, and 1 tsp ammonia and one gallon of water, and then serve corndogs on a stick, which were consumed standing at the sink, filled with the aforementioned solution.

Nowadays we have a dishwasher, a really good one with a lot of fancy features.  The dishwasher is designed to wash dishes, but really has become an extension of the cupboard, by which I mean that there are almost always dishes stored there.  The reason is because no one knows if the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or not, and if you open the door to look, someone might ask you to put the dishes away.  A regular question in our kitchen is “Are these clean?”

I know some people who hang a little sign on their dishwasher that has “Clean” and “Dirty” on either side.  Then all they have to do is remember to turn the sign over at the right time, and later to believe they remembered to do it.  Our fancy dishwasher has a little readout that says the dishes are clean, until you open the door and sneak out a glass, leaving the rest of the dishes in dishwasher limbo.  The rest of the dishes will be put away ‘later’, a time that has been more accurately described in the book of Revelation.

So, the counter near the dishwasher becomes sort of staging area for the dishes waiting to be washed.  When that area is full, then dishes go into the sink, then on to the rest of the counter until we reach the toaster.  When we run out of dishes, or reach the toaster, it is time to empty the dishwasher.  That’s when we make ourselves scarce.

You might suggest that we consider paper plates to reduce the number of dishes.  (Maybe you weren’t going to, but it helps advance my theme, and after all, who is running this show?)  Yes, they are gauche, and not environmentally friendly, but when it comes to my convenience, I’m willing to risk the ire of tree hugging Miss Manners types.  If there is such a type and if they have such an ire.

I don’t mean the fancy Chinette brand, I’m talking about the “Bonus Family Pack” which you can buy anywhere for 99 cents for 5000 plates.  Of course you can’t actually separate 5000 plates, they are usually stuck together 122 at a time.  These are so thin that we have accidentally served them as soft shell tortillas, which wasn’t all bad with enough salsa on them.  The net result is that we wash fewer dishes, but we all have paper cuts from the plates.  Perhaps I have digressed from my original theme.

In the past, I would hesitate to load the dishwasher, because I have been told that there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.   There are all manner of pins and racks and pockets and holders in the dishwasher, and each must be used appropriately or we violate our warranty, and/or the Versaille treaty.  After my first orientation, which included a video and hands on demonstration, I became a little intimidated.   There is a manual to follow in case I am unsure of my method.  Rather than risk the ire of the manual, and the woman holding the manual, I sometimes choose not to load the dishwasher.  Not in a fit of pique, mind you.

But, I am a grown man with significant life experience, and I might add, I’m a little bit of a rebel.  I have moved past my fear of manual-holder retribution, and have taken to loading the dishwasher pell mell and willy nilly.  When the trays are filled with dirty dishes, then I put an unmeasured amount of soap in the little tray, and close the door, and in my most rebellious manner, I push the ‘AutoWash’ button.

I have also on occasion, usually when the dishes reach the toaster, emptied the dishwasher.  I don’t always know where some of the more unusual stuff goes, but I can usually get the glasses and plate put in the correct cupboard.  Yes, I know the coffee cups go upside down and the glasses go upside up.  No, you don’t mix the small forks with the big forks in that little tray because who knows what that would lead to.

Not long ago, and I am purposely vague on the date, I was feeling particularly industrious and not a little rebellious, and decided to empty the dishwasher.  I put the plates on the plate shelf and the cups and the glasses in their area, dealt the forks and spoons and knives into the correct slots.  It wasn’t until I reached the pots and pans that I noticed the hardened scrambled egg.  A closer inspection of a few of the forks showed some spaghetti sauce between the tines.  Hmm.  Perhaps these were not clean dishes after all. 

But now I have a dilemma.  How can I go back and identify all those dirty dishes I put away?  I could go back through every shelf and every drawer and search for signs of food on each dish and fork.  Or I could take everything out of each shelf and rewash the whole shebang.  Hmmm.  What should I do?  Even better, what DID I do?

Enough time has passed that my decision is not really important.  The important thing is that I am continually advancing as a human being, learning things, trying things, and along the way, helping other people.  That’s what’s really important.

Hope this finds you using the phrase “Fit of pique”,

David

Copyright © 2003 David Smith

7th Moanin' of Christmas

February 13, 2017

Greetings from the smitten,

Julius had stopped pretending he was an out of work actor.  Now he was an out of work busboy.  The only redeeming part of his unemployment was his side gig, busking in the park as a living statue.

Each afternoon he would go to the park and drop his box as close as he could to the fountains, where all of the tourists eventually passed.  By the time the sun set he would clear fifty bucks.

Julius would pull out a costume from his trunk, then paint his face and hands, and for most of the afternoon he would stand perfectly still on a plywood box and resist the urge to spit on the tourists who taunted him.  They would stand there and mock him, and when he wouldn’t break, they put a dollar in the bucket in front of him.  Sometimes loose change; it all added up. 

It was not acting.  But it was better than clearing dirty dishes in ‘Kaos’ or whatever they were calling that hole in the wall they told him not to come back to.  On this day, Julius was dressed as Cupid.  It was not a great idea, took so long to do the body paint and he had to borrow a bow and a quiver, and paint it white. He felt a little self-conscious in toga.  But he knew the tourists would love it.  Especially today.  There would be a lot of pictures, a lot of dollars.

No one came close for three hours.  For the first time in what seemed like forever he was going to lose money standing still.  Then, out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman walking toward him.

She was petite, moved gracefully, like a dancer, as if her life was being choreographed one step at a time.  He couldn’t turn his head to watch her so he was forced to let her reveal herself.  She was barefoot.  Her dress was some filmy, silken fabric; the word ‘diaphanous’ came to mind, a word he had never used in conversation.  Her hair was auburn, braided close to her neck.  He felt his heart begin to pick up.  She was incredible.

She stood close enough for him to see the texture of her skin, the almond shape of her eyes.  He waited, trying not to stare at her, keeping his focus soft so he stayed inanimate, in character.  He was not the god of desire, he was a statue of the god of desire.  Suddenly his mouth was dry.

He watched her looking at him.  He could see a thin necklace around her neck, a small heart dangling just below the tiny hollow of her throat.  Where his lips belonged.  He waited, willing himself to be still, while everything else in him told him to move.

She stretched up, brought her face within inches of his.  He could feel her breath on his skin when she spoke:  “It’s painful isn’t it? To be right there, so close to life, and unable to do what your soul screams for.”  She spoke softly, only he would hear.  In the timbre of her voice was something primal that plucked at him in a place he hadn’t known about.

Julius felt himself trembling.  He could feel her eyes exploring his.  He realized he was holding his breath.  And then it was too much; he blinked. And then looked into her eyes.  She smiled.  “There you are.” she whispered.

Julius could not move.  He was not pretending to be a statue; he was frozen by her, not wanting to do something that would distract her, or cause her to leave.  He was not thinking about any of this, just mesmerized by the life in her eyes, a vibrancy that pulled him out of the world and into just this moment, which became his future.

Time stopped mattering.  They stood in place in the middle of the plaza and the world swirled around them, and it was just a reflection of the life they created for in each other’s eyes.  He felt something welling between them, a mixture of pain and joy, something he could only equate to music for some reason.  It was being created right in that moment.  He knew she was smiling, could see the lines forming around her eyes.  She took a deep breath, breathed him in.

And then she was gone.  Slipped from him like water.

It took a moment for him to recover, and he looked across the plaza she was already beyond the fountains, heading toward the alley.  Julius straightened, realizing where he was, and dropped his bow and leapt off the box to go after her.

He ran, stiff legged from standing for hours, into the alley.  He could see her moving through the crowd, thought he saw her look over her shoulder at him.   How could she be so far away?  She was not running, just moving effortlessly through the throngs of tourists coming the other way.

His heart was hammering.  He saw her once more and then lost her.  Now he was frantic, pushing people aside, breathless as he fought after a glimpse of her.  He searched the street for an hour, finally realizing why people were staring at him, remembered he was wearing only a toga.  He walked back to the plaza and saw someone had stolen his tip bucket.

The next day he walked the alley again, dressed like an out of work busboy.  He hadn’t slept, couldn’t stop thinking of her, hating himself for not saying something or asking her name…anything but just standing there like a statue.

He circled the block, thinking that maybe she worked near here.  The second time around he found himself in front of the art museum.  Without pausing he turned in and pushed through the large glass doors.  He strolled through the front lobby and into the halls, looking from side to side, not at the art but the other people there, searching for her among the docents, the gift shop clerks, the art lovers.  There was no reason to expect her there, but there was no reason not to.

He moved into the next gallery and stopped, all of him stopped.  He tried to swallow and could not.  She was there, in a pool of sun from the skylight above, luminescent, filled with the same energy he felt when he first saw her.  Julius felt his knees weaken, and he lowered himself onto a bench.

‘Dancing Maiden’ the small sign said.  ‘Alberto Cambi. Italian. 19^th Century’.

She stood there, draped in light, her dress, the thinnest possible shape that marble could take, flowing over her like a second skin.  Her hair, now Carrara white, like the rest of her, twisted into a braid against her neck.  She was smiling.  Barefoot, in mid-step, he could sense the movement, he could see her dancing, see her gliding as she had first moved into his sight.

It took incredible effort to stand again, as if the earth conspired to keep him in place in front of her.  He moved closer, unaware of the people who stepped back to make room.  He stood inches from her, saw the tiny heart around her neck, saw the shape of her eyes.  Longed for the color that had been there, where now was just the carved white, the fine lines that sprung from her smile etched more than a hundred years without changing. 

But even in the cold marble he could sense her.  He felt the same vibration, the same warmth he knew from the day before.  He could feel her breath, he could hear the sensual cello stroke in her words. And he said: “It’s painful isn’t it? To be right there, so close to life, and unable to do what your soul screams for.”

He leaned a little closer.  Looked into her carved eyes, felt the synchronicity again, saw them look back at him. 

“There you are.” they said as one.

Hope this finds you waiting for love,

David

Copyright © 2017 David Smith

8th Moanin' of Christmas

July 18, 2005

Greetings from out in the fringe,

Any place I have ever visited I have gotten up early to run.  There is a different taste and smell, a different feel in the early morning, and I am always curious what a place is like during that time.  I enjoy the freshness and promise of the new day; it would be all that I write about if I could come up with a way of not repeating myself. 

I have seen incredible beauty.  I have been inspired by sunrises, awed by creation, in nearly every place I have traveled.  I’ve watched the sun come up over Edinburgh, Dallas, Atlanta, San Diego, Sydney, Chicago, Wounded Knee, Baltimore, New York, St. Thomas, New Orleans, and countless other places.  On beaches, in parking lots, in giant cities, in small towns on nameless roads, I have gasped for air while I run, and had my breath taken away by God beginning the day just for me.

And I’ve seen something else, almost without fail.  I see the people who are waiting.

In the dim light of the predawn hours, I see them drifting together in small huddles, talking in low voices, or just waiting.  They are the people waiting for work. 

The migrant workers and day laborers.  They are clustered around light posts or under trees on corners where they know a man will come by with a truck looking for few guys to do something. They squat at the curb, or sit on rocks or lean against trees, waiting.  Waiting. Waiting. 

I remember running through Atlanta; even in the early hours I could feel the heat from the buildings, baked in from yesterday’s sun.  I ran by an agency that hired day laborers and even at that early hour there were hundreds of men lined up, waiting for the doors to open.

I run by people waiting for buses that will take them to their jobs.  Women in maid’s uniforms, men in coveralls, standing beneath the bus stop sign, where the grass has been beaten back to bare earth from the many people who waited there.

I always say hello because it seems polite, but in the dark they are not always comfortable answering.  Sometimes they watch me go by, maybe they will wave.  Some just stare ahead or look away to avoid contact with me.  Others seem not to notice me.

There are others I see when I run.  They are waiting for something, but it’s impossible to know what it is without knowing their story. 

I see men sleeping in doorways, surrounded by their belongings, wearing their net worth in order to keep warm.  Cardboard, newspaper, scraps of clothing are pulled around them to give them shelter while they sleep.  I see others waiting next to shopping carts, or under awnings, or sitting on exhaust grates to keep warm.  Some are toothless, dirty, unshaven, wrapped in rags.  Others seem remarkably well kept considering they live on the street. 

I run by these people in the cracks and crevices of our society; offer a hello or exchange a nod with those who look up as I pass.  We do not fear each other.  They know I have nothing to offer them, and I want nothing from them.  I think we have curiosity in common.  They must wonder what compels a normal person to get up at this ungodly hour and run for no reason.  I wonder what they are waiting for.

We don’t call them bums, because it is derogatory, like they have no ambition and that’s how they end up living on the street.  But the truth is, some are bums. 

But many of them are not.  They are someone’s parents who couldn’t handle the stress, or someone’s daughter who became an addict, or an alcoholic or worse.  Some are victims, true casualties of racism or mental illness or violence. They have had bad breaks, or made bad choices, or been handed a bad deal.  And now they wait.

They wait for someone to give them spare change, or to offer them a meal or to give them a ride or a place to stay.  They wait for a guy who owes them money to come back, or for their lotto number to hit, or for life to get better.  Some wait to be saved.

I can run by and run on with my life.  I am working on my cardio, I am not the guy to save people. My nature is not to pity those who wait.  I want to pull them up and tell them to quit waiting, to do something.  But I don’t think that is what they are waiting for.

You will never see most of the people who wait.  They will be in shelters or at the food bank or in jail or in the unemployment line.   Some will be working a lousy job waiting for something better to open up. 

By the time sun is up, these people who wait will evaporate.  They will have made their way into their day, to work or to panhandle or to sleep in shade or out of the snow.  They will have been prodded along by policemen or shop owners or by the jackals that prey on those who wait.  

I feel compassion for the people I run past in the waking hours.  I will probably not save anyone but I can do what I can do, same as you.  I can be kind.  I can give money without being cynical. I can offer my time to help where it matters.  I can offer encouragement.  I can point out the sunrise.  I can tell you about the people who wait.

Hope this finds you with your hand out,

David