Inheritance
The inheritance of forest sounds
discovered by a thirsty child
is mine and from my throat
the years of vigil songs
rush in notes unreigned.
That I sing, therefore,
I cannot help;
only choice of length have I.
Oh, to sing unendingly.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
In Loving Memory
IN LOVING MEMORY
October 1990
ACROSS THE MILES
Five years and how many stars away,
what have you seen by now?
Have you watched the binding of the Pleiades
or the loosening of the bands of Orion?
Have you counted the water jars tipped
into our mountain sky; followed
the guiding of Arcturus at his
appointed time;
surveyed the storehouses of snow?
If there is no weeping there, have you
attended the charting of peace
and hummed to the melodic
lights of healing?
Here, on this stilly autumn night
we recall the examples of prudence and
humanity, generosity and humor
you set for us
and think or you, Adventurer.
Christine Janz Taylor
Published in The Blowing Rocket October 1990
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
1973
A MEDICINE FOR GROWING PAINS
It never used to bother me. Lately, though, it had become like a recurring dream that was clearly clairvoyant but without recognizable significance. I couldn't quite manage the feeling--vague, fleeting but often containing a sudden sharpness to it that seemed to be a warning signal.
Three times a week, I go to the laundromat. I set my book on top of my laundry cart and walk four blocks to Sepulveda where there is a corner shopping area. The people at the laundromat are not a regular crowd or of any distinctive group, probably because it is not right at the beach. I like to watch the sorting of laundry at the tables and speculate on life-styles. Sometimes I have struck up remarkable conversations. Often, I have sat reading my book.
On Valentine's morning, I was feeling sad.
My small son Erik yells goodbye all the way down the street as he starts off to school; I answer until I can't hear him. On Valentine's morning, he had a bag of Valentines that he had spent a week addressing. He had not wanted to simply print the names; he had insisted on making great swirling letters with the first blocked off in the manner of Benedictine manuscripts.
I hoped he'd have a good day. I kept thinking about the pencil-box episode in How Green was my Valley. Valentine's Day was going to be no easy task for me.
As I left for the laundromat, I considered not taking my book but at the last second I shoved into the cart with a mad thrust as if to say, "You're the cause of it all."
It was a windy morning. I walked over quickly.
As I loaded my set of washing machines, I noticed a man at the table near me. I was riveted for a full moment to his small stack of laundry.
In the time I've been going to the laundromat, I have come to the conclusion that sheets are an interesting indicator of lifestyle. There has been such a variety that I have been amazed. In all the time I've been going, nobody has had the same sheets as I, which puzzled me.
The man had my sheets only his were blue.
Mine are yellow but I'd like blue better. I wished I could trade. It made me laugh to think what he'd say if I asked him. I found it hard to concentrate on what I was doing. The little bunches of blue flower clusters on the sheets reminded me of the pattern on the coat my mother made for me when I was eight years old, the coat I had snuggled in under on the night train to Paris. Everyone then had gone to sleep a few minutes after we left Geneva. Except for me. Snow had begun to fall. I had never seen snow fall in the night outside train windows. The snowflakes were soundless and gentle; and I was warm under my home-made coat. I wanted to wake someone but I was afraid. So I lay awake all night crying quietly because I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.
I noticed briefly that the man had reddish hair and then I sat down to read.
I needed my book. I have become, in the last year, very defensive about my book. I've wanted to put a brown wrapper on it, curl in the corner by the #9 dryer and close out the world.
I set the book on my lap so no one could see what I was reading and bent over it. I became completely engrossed and was soon far away and long ago in France.
I heard a voice say to me, "My God, you're reading Proust."
I had the urge to growl, "You want to make something of it?" but I glanced up because I couldn't figure out how anybody could tell I was reading Proust unless he had himself read Proust. It was the man with the reddish hair and the blue sheets trimmed with eyelet.
"Yes," I said and then timidly, as if I really weren't up to knowing, I asked, "Have you read him?"
"I read the whole thing. Took me four years."
I braced myself, "How was it?"
"Unforgettable."
He began to talk. He talked about Proust's village of Combray, about the wonderful characters and how he had read Proust in Kansas City.
And I began to talk. I told him that I had always been very much nested in my house, coming out and into society like a groundhog to volunteer piano playing for seasonal musical events. I had been content. But when I started my writing class, I had a strange thing happen to me. I was confronted for the first time in a long time with my taste. Unknowingly, a new feeling had taken hold. I was meeting with a group I liked, intelligent, witty, and I had been overwhelmed by a longing. A longing for affiliation. I kept wanting these people to be "my people." I had begun to question my judgment because so much of what was important to me turned out to be important only to me. I had been shaken by this.
He asked me why I didn't pick out a particular group to belong to that liked the same things I did. Was I aware that there is a Proust society? No, I hadn't known but I would hesitate to do that. I wouldn't know why they were there. Was it for the writing or the strange, gripping transactions? Besides, what if not one Proustian also liked Chandler? Would I want to be narrowed down to only Proust?
He stopped in what I felt was the middle of the conversation and we went along about the business of laundry.
I felt immensely better. I wished I could say, "Thank you for the chat; it will probably change the direction of my life. A sentence here and there can do that, you know." I thought I should at least say goodbye. I didn't say anything. I thought he had left so I sat down again as my clothes were drying.
"Listen," I heard him say, "here is my card. If you ever feel like talking Proust, come on in."
I looked at the card. It was engraved with the name of an antique shop, south, on the hill. The Graffiti Gallery.
"I've been by your shop a million times! It's on the way to McDonald's. I can't believe it."
"I know. You looked so different without your hat and your children but when you were talking about your class, I knew it was you. Every time you stopped at the window and pointed out that clock to your children, you had that same look. You don't know how many times I've thought of running out and giving you that clock! My assistant knows of you. She said if I so much as came to the door, you'd run off and find a new route to McDonald's."
"It's true," I laughed. I told him I was glad for the card and the chat. I told him that I would never go, couldn't go in his shop but I promised I would wave as I went by.
Erik came home elated. He had gotten 32 valentines.
It had been a good day. I was relieved.
It was as if I found out twenty-eight years later that I was not the only one watching the snow fall on the night train to Paris. There had been no need for crying.
It never used to bother me. Lately, though, it had become like a recurring dream that was clearly clairvoyant but without recognizable significance. I couldn't quite manage the feeling--vague, fleeting but often containing a sudden sharpness to it that seemed to be a warning signal.
Three times a week, I go to the laundromat. I set my book on top of my laundry cart and walk four blocks to Sepulveda where there is a corner shopping area. The people at the laundromat are not a regular crowd or of any distinctive group, probably because it is not right at the beach. I like to watch the sorting of laundry at the tables and speculate on life-styles. Sometimes I have struck up remarkable conversations. Often, I have sat reading my book.
On Valentine's morning, I was feeling sad.
My small son Erik yells goodbye all the way down the street as he starts off to school; I answer until I can't hear him. On Valentine's morning, he had a bag of Valentines that he had spent a week addressing. He had not wanted to simply print the names; he had insisted on making great swirling letters with the first blocked off in the manner of Benedictine manuscripts.
I hoped he'd have a good day. I kept thinking about the pencil-box episode in How Green was my Valley. Valentine's Day was going to be no easy task for me.
As I left for the laundromat, I considered not taking my book but at the last second I shoved into the cart with a mad thrust as if to say, "You're the cause of it all."
It was a windy morning. I walked over quickly.
As I loaded my set of washing machines, I noticed a man at the table near me. I was riveted for a full moment to his small stack of laundry.
In the time I've been going to the laundromat, I have come to the conclusion that sheets are an interesting indicator of lifestyle. There has been such a variety that I have been amazed. In all the time I've been going, nobody has had the same sheets as I, which puzzled me.
The man had my sheets only his were blue.
Mine are yellow but I'd like blue better. I wished I could trade. It made me laugh to think what he'd say if I asked him. I found it hard to concentrate on what I was doing. The little bunches of blue flower clusters on the sheets reminded me of the pattern on the coat my mother made for me when I was eight years old, the coat I had snuggled in under on the night train to Paris. Everyone then had gone to sleep a few minutes after we left Geneva. Except for me. Snow had begun to fall. I had never seen snow fall in the night outside train windows. The snowflakes were soundless and gentle; and I was warm under my home-made coat. I wanted to wake someone but I was afraid. So I lay awake all night crying quietly because I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.
I noticed briefly that the man had reddish hair and then I sat down to read.
I needed my book. I have become, in the last year, very defensive about my book. I've wanted to put a brown wrapper on it, curl in the corner by the #9 dryer and close out the world.
I set the book on my lap so no one could see what I was reading and bent over it. I became completely engrossed and was soon far away and long ago in France.
I heard a voice say to me, "My God, you're reading Proust."
I had the urge to growl, "You want to make something of it?" but I glanced up because I couldn't figure out how anybody could tell I was reading Proust unless he had himself read Proust. It was the man with the reddish hair and the blue sheets trimmed with eyelet.
"Yes," I said and then timidly, as if I really weren't up to knowing, I asked, "Have you read him?"
"I read the whole thing. Took me four years."
I braced myself, "How was it?"
"Unforgettable."
He began to talk. He talked about Proust's village of Combray, about the wonderful characters and how he had read Proust in Kansas City.
And I began to talk. I told him that I had always been very much nested in my house, coming out and into society like a groundhog to volunteer piano playing for seasonal musical events. I had been content. But when I started my writing class, I had a strange thing happen to me. I was confronted for the first time in a long time with my taste. Unknowingly, a new feeling had taken hold. I was meeting with a group I liked, intelligent, witty, and I had been overwhelmed by a longing. A longing for affiliation. I kept wanting these people to be "my people." I had begun to question my judgment because so much of what was important to me turned out to be important only to me. I had been shaken by this.
He asked me why I didn't pick out a particular group to belong to that liked the same things I did. Was I aware that there is a Proust society? No, I hadn't known but I would hesitate to do that. I wouldn't know why they were there. Was it for the writing or the strange, gripping transactions? Besides, what if not one Proustian also liked Chandler? Would I want to be narrowed down to only Proust?
He stopped in what I felt was the middle of the conversation and we went along about the business of laundry.
I felt immensely better. I wished I could say, "Thank you for the chat; it will probably change the direction of my life. A sentence here and there can do that, you know." I thought I should at least say goodbye. I didn't say anything. I thought he had left so I sat down again as my clothes were drying.
"Listen," I heard him say, "here is my card. If you ever feel like talking Proust, come on in."
I looked at the card. It was engraved with the name of an antique shop, south, on the hill. The Graffiti Gallery.
"I've been by your shop a million times! It's on the way to McDonald's. I can't believe it."
"I know. You looked so different without your hat and your children but when you were talking about your class, I knew it was you. Every time you stopped at the window and pointed out that clock to your children, you had that same look. You don't know how many times I've thought of running out and giving you that clock! My assistant knows of you. She said if I so much as came to the door, you'd run off and find a new route to McDonald's."
"It's true," I laughed. I told him I was glad for the card and the chat. I told him that I would never go, couldn't go in his shop but I promised I would wave as I went by.
Erik came home elated. He had gotten 32 valentines.
It had been a good day. I was relieved.
It was as if I found out twenty-eight years later that I was not the only one watching the snow fall on the night train to Paris. There had been no need for crying.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Somehow
SOMEHOW, IN A TIME OF TROUBLE
A heavy snow had fallen for that early in the year. The milk had frozen and cracked the bottles on the back stoop. Soot had already settled on the sills when we got up. The snowflakes that I had seen drifting like lullabies during the night seemed by eight o'clock, when my brother and I set out for school, to have caught the news of wartime. They had piled up grey and lumpy, great newspaper wads thrown across each lawn.
I walked with my older brother to school and I waited for him after school. I had to wait in the cold an hour and a half or walk home six blocks by myself. The choice was mine. I never gave it a second though. I waited. My brother was often taunted by a group of boys from his class that walked ahead of us. To have a tag-a-long little sister was considered unmanly. I could have spared him this abuse but when I mentioned that maybe he'd be better off without me, he said, "Aw, they're just jealous."
We took our time on the way home, counting maples and looking for cardinals, but we didn't downright dawdle because we had to be back at 4:15 for Jack Armstrong. Also, my mother was alone and she was afraid of kidnappers. I figured when I saw the relief on her face that she was afraid someone would kidnap her. To be afraid for us was illogical as I was in the care of my brother, which was like saying I was in the care of my father. But since my father was away I didn't feel I really knew him; my brother's care seemed titanic in comparison to any father's.
My brother was an unlikely looking hero but my hero, nevertheless. He was skeleton skinny, short, with dark brown hair that often looked more black than brown; it curled with Irish abandon and grew all over the place. His eyes were so dark I wasn't sure he had pupils as ordinary people should. He had too many teeth which, however, were evenly lined in a large mouth. During the winter, his skin was pale, never ruddy; he never blushed the way I did. Altogether, in winter, he had a ghostly appearance; he was a study in black and white like the woodcuts in our book of Pilgrim's Progress. His teachers remarked that he was meticulous, compulsive, industrious, delightfully well-mannered and a genius. I would have preferred to call him nice but genius was great, too.
I liked having a genius around the house. It's handy not to have to know anything. Also, people outside the family assumed that because I was quiet and my brother's sister that I was a genius, too.
Being supposed a genius made up for too many teeth not evenly lined in a large mouth with straight-as-a-plank hair. I watched my reputation carefully by declining to speak and practising my handwriting. Kindergartners were supposed to only be able to print. I thought, though, if I could skip learning to print, I could save a lot of time. I was afraid if I went about printing at my customary pace that I would be so far behind by the second grade, I would have nothing but hours of homework. I would miss the Lone Ranger. I had extravagant long range plans which, among other things, definitely included the Lone Ranger.
We rented part of Mrs. Elvira Hardy's house. The front porch had been boarded up to make a bedroom that led into the kitchen. Mrs. Hardy ate one meal a day at her Association Hall so she had no use for a kitchen but she needed the three bedrooms for her historical records. To use the bathroom we had to go out our back door, tear around to her front door and then upstairs. We had to be finished by the time she came home at 7:30. No getting up in the night. There was room on our porch-bedroom for a double bed and the radio. My mother was very cheerful about it saying that this was just all temporary. But actually, we liked it a lot. My mother had previously had servants when we lived in Brazil so it was quite a help to her that there was not too much to clean. She was able to bake biscuits, from an old family recipe, that were tasteless and hard. My mother had grown up on a farm in Indian Territory where the chores were suited to the child and she had never done anything but pick walnuts. My brother had learned to concoct spaghetti, though; we were well off. We ate early, not the usual nine o'clock we had been accustomed to, because of the possibility of Mrs. Hardy stopping in. Godliness was somehow related to leanness and starvation in her mind. Seeing us dipping biscuits into the sprawling spaghetti would have brought on a scathing sermon.
We, also, after she came home, got under the covers to talk. We knew she'd eavesdrop and my brother was hopelessly subversive. Although he was a patriot and kept track of the campaigns on a huge map, he had outlandish notions of the future. He had discovered a book from out of the orient that extolled the virtues of pacifism. He said desperately that the war must be won but in our own private lives we were sworn to non-violence. When I say "we" I mean "me." My mother wouldn't hear of it. She thought we'd all go to jail. There was no way to contact my dad if we went to jail because he was at a top secret location in the Atlantic. One day, though, he sent us a clipping from Time magazine that told all about a top secret operation in the Atlantic, so he said we might as well write. My mother didn't care about writing but it made her a little more open minded about going to jail.
My brother explained and explained at me how we were to resist should an incident come up. I didn't comment. As far as I was concerned it was a lot of malarkey. I was the smallest in my class. The teacher called me Concertina because, first of all, when the roll was called, I replied, "Present, Mrs. Lippincott," as though I were singing Mairzy Doats and Doesy Doats, and secondly because I was so tiny. I really wouldn't have had a moral choice in a confrontation but I was fascinated by his theories:
"What happened to Jesus after He was in the Temple" he asked me. I shrugged. "How come no Bar Mitzvah? How come if He was an apprentice to Joseph He never even showed off with one little boat? He had to borrow. Didn't He take any pride in the work He'd been at for 18 years?" There were endless questions along the same line. And finally he popped the answer. "I'll tell you what happened. Joseph couldn't go through with this crazy idea of Mary's and he had Jesus kidnapped by Mongols. Jesus spent 18 years in China, that's what He did. But He couldn't tell anybody about it or they wouldn't listen to what He had to say. He had to be 'just-plain-folks' from Nazareth. And what did He say?"
Oh golly, I thought. Am I supposed to be able to answer that? I was not up on these things.
"I'll tell you what he said," my brother interrupted. "It's all here in Chinese. Love. Charity. And no hitting."
He talked on this way until it was time for Inner Sanctum during which I remained under the covers. Lights out would come swiftly with thoughts in my mind of where we would all end up. My mother, in her place in the middle of the bed would sing dully, "Does you want the stars to play with or the moon to run away with...in your mammy's arms a creepin' soon you will be sleepin'" and would be the first one asleep.
The late November snow staged the scene for finding out what this no hitting entailed.
When I go out of school the snow seemed camel high. I waited on the steps imagining a ride to Jack Frost's glass palace. My brother was among the last to come from class. The six boys were ahead, throwing snowballs. I am convinced that I was not intended as a target but it all happened so quickly that everyone assumed instantly that it was an intentional blow, a challenge. One of the snowballs hit me in the eye with full force. I did not cry out although the pain was fierce because I was so scared. I saw the look of rage on my brother's face. Fighting six heavy opponents was going to get us massacred. Resisting was going to accomplish the same thing. I saw the grisly end coming as the boys surged toward us like a glacier turned into a flash flood. They couldn't have been more than four feet away when suddenly my brother flung his arms, scattering his books across a snow bank. He began shouting in a torrent of passion, "Holy Mother! Queen of the Angels! Strike down with thy divine touch the souls of mine enemies! Michael, King of all Glory! Cut away the eyes of these abominations you see before you and roll them to the gates of everlasting Hell. Spit our their hearts from your mercy and twist their veins of ice into a crown..." Throughout, he was spinning, rolling, flailing about in an on the snowbank, the wildest creature I had ever imagined. He looked like a character in a sped-up silent movie making angels in the snow. I wanted to laugh at this black and white extravaganza but the accompanying sound was terrifying, unearthly and came out in such a rush that I was paralyzed with fear. The boys watched a full minute and then took off like the Devil was after them.
My brother and I sat in the snow awhile not saying anything. What would we have done if his attack hadn't worked? I never after had to find out.
However, the lesson came in handy on a more minor scale when my son Erik was about four. I was saddled with a new neighbor's boy. The boy was a brat, a whiner, a temper-tantrum prone, unimaginative poor excuse for a human being. I did what I could but was getting nowhere much and the influence on Erik was devastating. My joy of a boy, my wild-haired Irishman, famed for riddles and long distance rock climbing was turning into a brat, a whiner, a temper-tantrum prone, unimaginative excuse for a human being.
One afternoon, I was sitting in the bedroom which functions much like the old porch-bedroom only it manages to contain a rocker, a TV and a table where we have our spaghetti, in the same amount of space. I had had enough of both the boys. I eyed the bed. It is not a regular bed with a headboard, springs, slats and such refinements; it is two double mattresses on top of each other, very fine for jumping on. Usually it has eight or so bed pillows in differing cases, unarranged, which are not for having fights because someone might break one of my long cherished souvenirs. The pillows are for getting comfied-in and for constructing secret caves. The bed is about four feet from the rocker and had at that time a white spread; it looked very like a snowbank.
With a speed I've never been know to have, I leaped onto the bed. I set myself like Joan of Arc on bent knee and with my "sword" swiped at the pillows and shouted, "Queen of the Angels! Hear my supplication! Spill milk over the heads of mine enemies and fling their teddies to the far corners of the earth! Take away this burden and spread your smile of glory over all! And then I cracked up laughing looking at those two faces. It worked. I only did it once but it was as though I had the power of the evil eye. I never needed it again.
My brother came recently to see me after a long absence. He didn't recall his theories, the confrontation, Jack Armstrong, or even being a genius. He remembered our Saturday rides on the elevated when we went to the city, walked from one end of Grand Central to the other and then got back on. I had forgotten.
It seems we pluck from our memories the moments that we need. And at that critical hour, when Erik was about four, with all flanks moving in on me, I needed a snowbank and a peace plan.
A heavy snow had fallen for that early in the year. The milk had frozen and cracked the bottles on the back stoop. Soot had already settled on the sills when we got up. The snowflakes that I had seen drifting like lullabies during the night seemed by eight o'clock, when my brother and I set out for school, to have caught the news of wartime. They had piled up grey and lumpy, great newspaper wads thrown across each lawn.
I walked with my older brother to school and I waited for him after school. I had to wait in the cold an hour and a half or walk home six blocks by myself. The choice was mine. I never gave it a second though. I waited. My brother was often taunted by a group of boys from his class that walked ahead of us. To have a tag-a-long little sister was considered unmanly. I could have spared him this abuse but when I mentioned that maybe he'd be better off without me, he said, "Aw, they're just jealous."
We took our time on the way home, counting maples and looking for cardinals, but we didn't downright dawdle because we had to be back at 4:15 for Jack Armstrong. Also, my mother was alone and she was afraid of kidnappers. I figured when I saw the relief on her face that she was afraid someone would kidnap her. To be afraid for us was illogical as I was in the care of my brother, which was like saying I was in the care of my father. But since my father was away I didn't feel I really knew him; my brother's care seemed titanic in comparison to any father's.
My brother was an unlikely looking hero but my hero, nevertheless. He was skeleton skinny, short, with dark brown hair that often looked more black than brown; it curled with Irish abandon and grew all over the place. His eyes were so dark I wasn't sure he had pupils as ordinary people should. He had too many teeth which, however, were evenly lined in a large mouth. During the winter, his skin was pale, never ruddy; he never blushed the way I did. Altogether, in winter, he had a ghostly appearance; he was a study in black and white like the woodcuts in our book of Pilgrim's Progress. His teachers remarked that he was meticulous, compulsive, industrious, delightfully well-mannered and a genius. I would have preferred to call him nice but genius was great, too.
I liked having a genius around the house. It's handy not to have to know anything. Also, people outside the family assumed that because I was quiet and my brother's sister that I was a genius, too.
Being supposed a genius made up for too many teeth not evenly lined in a large mouth with straight-as-a-plank hair. I watched my reputation carefully by declining to speak and practising my handwriting. Kindergartners were supposed to only be able to print. I thought, though, if I could skip learning to print, I could save a lot of time. I was afraid if I went about printing at my customary pace that I would be so far behind by the second grade, I would have nothing but hours of homework. I would miss the Lone Ranger. I had extravagant long range plans which, among other things, definitely included the Lone Ranger.
We rented part of Mrs. Elvira Hardy's house. The front porch had been boarded up to make a bedroom that led into the kitchen. Mrs. Hardy ate one meal a day at her Association Hall so she had no use for a kitchen but she needed the three bedrooms for her historical records. To use the bathroom we had to go out our back door, tear around to her front door and then upstairs. We had to be finished by the time she came home at 7:30. No getting up in the night. There was room on our porch-bedroom for a double bed and the radio. My mother was very cheerful about it saying that this was just all temporary. But actually, we liked it a lot. My mother had previously had servants when we lived in Brazil so it was quite a help to her that there was not too much to clean. She was able to bake biscuits, from an old family recipe, that were tasteless and hard. My mother had grown up on a farm in Indian Territory where the chores were suited to the child and she had never done anything but pick walnuts. My brother had learned to concoct spaghetti, though; we were well off. We ate early, not the usual nine o'clock we had been accustomed to, because of the possibility of Mrs. Hardy stopping in. Godliness was somehow related to leanness and starvation in her mind. Seeing us dipping biscuits into the sprawling spaghetti would have brought on a scathing sermon.
We, also, after she came home, got under the covers to talk. We knew she'd eavesdrop and my brother was hopelessly subversive. Although he was a patriot and kept track of the campaigns on a huge map, he had outlandish notions of the future. He had discovered a book from out of the orient that extolled the virtues of pacifism. He said desperately that the war must be won but in our own private lives we were sworn to non-violence. When I say "we" I mean "me." My mother wouldn't hear of it. She thought we'd all go to jail. There was no way to contact my dad if we went to jail because he was at a top secret location in the Atlantic. One day, though, he sent us a clipping from Time magazine that told all about a top secret operation in the Atlantic, so he said we might as well write. My mother didn't care about writing but it made her a little more open minded about going to jail.
My brother explained and explained at me how we were to resist should an incident come up. I didn't comment. As far as I was concerned it was a lot of malarkey. I was the smallest in my class. The teacher called me Concertina because, first of all, when the roll was called, I replied, "Present, Mrs. Lippincott," as though I were singing Mairzy Doats and Doesy Doats, and secondly because I was so tiny. I really wouldn't have had a moral choice in a confrontation but I was fascinated by his theories:
"What happened to Jesus after He was in the Temple" he asked me. I shrugged. "How come no Bar Mitzvah? How come if He was an apprentice to Joseph He never even showed off with one little boat? He had to borrow. Didn't He take any pride in the work He'd been at for 18 years?" There were endless questions along the same line. And finally he popped the answer. "I'll tell you what happened. Joseph couldn't go through with this crazy idea of Mary's and he had Jesus kidnapped by Mongols. Jesus spent 18 years in China, that's what He did. But He couldn't tell anybody about it or they wouldn't listen to what He had to say. He had to be 'just-plain-folks' from Nazareth. And what did He say?"
Oh golly, I thought. Am I supposed to be able to answer that? I was not up on these things.
"I'll tell you what he said," my brother interrupted. "It's all here in Chinese. Love. Charity. And no hitting."
He talked on this way until it was time for Inner Sanctum during which I remained under the covers. Lights out would come swiftly with thoughts in my mind of where we would all end up. My mother, in her place in the middle of the bed would sing dully, "Does you want the stars to play with or the moon to run away with...in your mammy's arms a creepin' soon you will be sleepin'" and would be the first one asleep.
The late November snow staged the scene for finding out what this no hitting entailed.
When I go out of school the snow seemed camel high. I waited on the steps imagining a ride to Jack Frost's glass palace. My brother was among the last to come from class. The six boys were ahead, throwing snowballs. I am convinced that I was not intended as a target but it all happened so quickly that everyone assumed instantly that it was an intentional blow, a challenge. One of the snowballs hit me in the eye with full force. I did not cry out although the pain was fierce because I was so scared. I saw the look of rage on my brother's face. Fighting six heavy opponents was going to get us massacred. Resisting was going to accomplish the same thing. I saw the grisly end coming as the boys surged toward us like a glacier turned into a flash flood. They couldn't have been more than four feet away when suddenly my brother flung his arms, scattering his books across a snow bank. He began shouting in a torrent of passion, "Holy Mother! Queen of the Angels! Strike down with thy divine touch the souls of mine enemies! Michael, King of all Glory! Cut away the eyes of these abominations you see before you and roll them to the gates of everlasting Hell. Spit our their hearts from your mercy and twist their veins of ice into a crown..." Throughout, he was spinning, rolling, flailing about in an on the snowbank, the wildest creature I had ever imagined. He looked like a character in a sped-up silent movie making angels in the snow. I wanted to laugh at this black and white extravaganza but the accompanying sound was terrifying, unearthly and came out in such a rush that I was paralyzed with fear. The boys watched a full minute and then took off like the Devil was after them.
My brother and I sat in the snow awhile not saying anything. What would we have done if his attack hadn't worked? I never after had to find out.
However, the lesson came in handy on a more minor scale when my son Erik was about four. I was saddled with a new neighbor's boy. The boy was a brat, a whiner, a temper-tantrum prone, unimaginative poor excuse for a human being. I did what I could but was getting nowhere much and the influence on Erik was devastating. My joy of a boy, my wild-haired Irishman, famed for riddles and long distance rock climbing was turning into a brat, a whiner, a temper-tantrum prone, unimaginative excuse for a human being.
One afternoon, I was sitting in the bedroom which functions much like the old porch-bedroom only it manages to contain a rocker, a TV and a table where we have our spaghetti, in the same amount of space. I had had enough of both the boys. I eyed the bed. It is not a regular bed with a headboard, springs, slats and such refinements; it is two double mattresses on top of each other, very fine for jumping on. Usually it has eight or so bed pillows in differing cases, unarranged, which are not for having fights because someone might break one of my long cherished souvenirs. The pillows are for getting comfied-in and for constructing secret caves. The bed is about four feet from the rocker and had at that time a white spread; it looked very like a snowbank.
With a speed I've never been know to have, I leaped onto the bed. I set myself like Joan of Arc on bent knee and with my "sword" swiped at the pillows and shouted, "Queen of the Angels! Hear my supplication! Spill milk over the heads of mine enemies and fling their teddies to the far corners of the earth! Take away this burden and spread your smile of glory over all! And then I cracked up laughing looking at those two faces. It worked. I only did it once but it was as though I had the power of the evil eye. I never needed it again.
My brother came recently to see me after a long absence. He didn't recall his theories, the confrontation, Jack Armstrong, or even being a genius. He remembered our Saturday rides on the elevated when we went to the city, walked from one end of Grand Central to the other and then got back on. I had forgotten.
It seems we pluck from our memories the moments that we need. And at that critical hour, when Erik was about four, with all flanks moving in on me, I needed a snowbank and a peace plan.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Listen to the Sound of Brown
A homework essay, circa 1976.
LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF BROWN
I've learned something. No, not the usual profoundly unsettling, earthshaking something that I suspected all along--this bit of learning was quite ordinary and may explain everything.
It came during the Cubs game on Sunday. Vince Scully mentioned how amazing it was that Burt Hooton could pitch such a good game at night and be completely off during the day. Hooton made me think of hoot-owl which made me think of eyes which made me think of seeing which made me think of Rachmaninoff. With me, the direct route of thinking about things always includes Rachmaninoff. He once said that the note F# (sharp) was a sunny day. I thought he was wrong about that. F# is clearly a great grey nor'easter. I didn't realize until I was thumbing through Psychology Today at the same time as Vince was commenting on Hooton, that Rachmaninoff and I are on the same side, included in a rather small crazed group known as synesthetes. I've resisted being put in crazed groups but there it is in black and white. Rachmaninoff and I hear in color. I thought everybody did. The importance of F# is not that we disagree as to what color it is but that we hear it as a color at all.
I can blame a lot on color hearing. It's called synesthesia and it's what makes a three syllable word, for me, brilliant blue and what a five letter word its touch of umber.
I've always had a penchant for changing people's names. I never analyzed it; I just did it because I liked to. I've been going over some of the ones I've changed, what I changed them to, and the ones I've left alone. A pattern is emerging. Is it conditioning that causes me to avoid the name Liz and forces me call Ross nothing but Ross? Or is it that "Ross" has bunches of green and "Liz" has streaks of black and yellow? Will there never be a Liz I can like? Is Cey a sure winner because "Cey" is red, white, and blue? Is Brunswick all that I think or is she illusion--silvery purple Brunswick? Did Smith become popular because it's so creamy beige?
Synesthesia would explain why I have a near mania for certain words like "foolish" with its tiny sprinkles of lavender and "kilometer." I was pleased when I read the country might go metric. "Kilometer" is a worthwhile import; it brings pink peppermint stripes and orange California poppies to all the highways of America.
According to the article in Psychology Today, this crossing of the senses is found in many children and lost to a lot of adults. Maybe that's why I find adults dreary. Maybe that's why I'm delighted when I find somebody who knows what in Corona I'm talking about. One of the examples of synesthetic authors given was Kipling with his "The dawn came up like thunder." One of my favorites!
This is all leading me to reappraise some of my likings. It's an interesting avenue of investigation but one I'm not going to ponder at length. Or, at least, not now. It's a foggy, stormy afternoon here in Manhattan Beach. I'd rather be playing a little Rachmaninoff. Something in F# to match the day.
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