The Faith and the Reliance

Stanley Kunitz began his poem, The Layers, with the common sensibility that accrues to many that, while we have some notion of a continuing identity through our lives ... "I am me and the same me that I was yesterday" .... we had and have had a multiplicity of identities, roles and functions and each one is in a constant process of change and 'leaving behind':

The Layers (from the opening)
by Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. My own early life was destined to taste so-called Sacred Texts, as much as it was to know the difference between the feel of a Craftsman wrench and one made by the many companies that have mastered the art of designing offset wrenches that feel "just so" in one's hand. My Mother came from a line of religious thinkers, keepers of sacred traditions and Writings; the one I was named after, indeed, died September 1913 ... just 100 years ago ... even his name was to carry forward. My Father, on the other hand, was born to smithies and dairymen and thought little of demolishing what was in order to build what was to become. Mutt of such a "mixed marriage," it is, perhaps, of little surprise that yesterday I continued my writings on a theoretical piece about the sanguine value of sadness, while spending some hours pulling apart and rebuilding a pump and a filter  ... all between hours with the visitors who occasion my office and dealing with GuntherDog's need for a haircut. I never forget the other layers of my life ... of course the familial ones which come in layers of their own ... my trek through teaching and running two schools in my life, one a place for disturbed inner city high schoolers ... and one a postprofessional training institute for those who sought to work with fractured Souls by talking to them. There were the years of trying to do Mathematics, a piece of which I continue to see being cited ... the Covitz-Nadler Theorem. (A piece of theoretical Mathematics that never impressed me and still doesn't.) I remember, too, treks through trying to modify that Viennese Doctor's Theory of the OEdipus complex and, now, my work on Sadness ... nevermind years of mixing cement, building walls, plumbing and my favorite ... trying to balance vacuum driven carburetters on a slew of old cars before the process was hijacked by perfidious cyborgs and their computerized fuel injection systems. But what unifying force is there to bind all this together ... what "principle of being abides" ... to go back to Old Stanley's words? While I don't know the answer to that question, yesterday as I was playing with the filter ... dismantling-cleaning-running .... dismantling-cleaning-running .... the title of a book by the midevil Bible scholar, Nachmonides, ran through my head. In his language: Ha'Emunah v'ha'Bitachon .... rendered in English, I suppose ... the Faith and the Reliance (maybe written mid-13th C.). I haven't worked this through in my head and little if anything remains of the Nachmonides' words ... but this much kept swirling about with wrenches at hand .... life ain't much without a confidence that -- whatever the future has in store for us ("See what tomorrow brings" was the name of an early 60's LP) -- whatever unfolds, we ... in some inter-reliant pulling together .... we'll give it a whirl. I wish I remembered after this half Century + of not looking at this pamphlet-sized book of letters how the Old Guy parsed the connection between Faith and Reliance ... but that's gone to memory, at the moment. In any case, I found myself watching myself and others all day ... but particularly myself. This Last Quarter stuff? It doesn't even always make it to Overtime, y'know. Its success, it seemed to me, yesterday, and seems to me this morning, relies on whether or not we (I mean "I" and "You,"  of course) can welcome a future, whatever it may be, with that sense that it will, indeed and with great joint effort, work out ... The filter, this morning, is still running ... and so am I. And GuntherDog is still a schmuck!

A Sunday Morning Reflection

I continue to receive mail from concerned listeners ... I cannot for obvious reasons say whether the notes reflect a common sense of "Seniors" ... that we all suffer from what once was called involutional depression (melancholia) or that the comments are more closely in response to what folk imagine they perceive in me. In general, they are well-wishing ... "Hope you feel better" ... "Sorry to hear that ...." .... "OMG, that's terrible."

I discussed this a few hours ago as I was thinking of coming downstairs with GuntherDog. He did his usual "sit-down" on the landing just on the top of the stairs ... "Pet me or I go nowhere." For some reason, this morning was to be different. I sat down, too.

H: "GuntherDog ... This has been going on a long time, now. Niine years that you refuse to come down the stairs to pee until I've admitted my fealty and debt to you by slavishly petting you."

GD: (Quizzical look ... followed by a turn of the head)

H: I have feelings, too.

GD: (? Whaddya-say? I couldn't hear you.)

H: Nevermind. Just, never-you-mind. Look. (why do people so often invoke the sense of vision ... whatever) Nobody has it easy. You're pushing ten and I'm on Medicare ... that is, we're close in age. Two Old Guys trying to make it through ... Don't ask me, you smart-ass dog ... Don't ask me "through what" cause I frankly don't know.

GD: (? Can I pee, now?)

H: Well. I'm not petting you, this morning. I have a sneaky suspicion that dogs think their prostates are between their ears and demand this bizarre stimulation. Well, no more. You scratch your own head. Wanna pee? Lift your hind leg and do your scratching thing. I resign. Oh! It's not all you, Gunther. Part of it is having this role of pater familias for so many years ... Married for 48 ... 3 kids ... let's see. If I add their ages, I get 130 years of Fathering. Throw in the inlaw kids, an ex inlaw kid, and six grandchildren and I think I get something just shy of 300. Nevermind the 40 years of being in a service industry and worrying about the needs of students and the visitors who consult with me.

GD: (? I really gotta go. Can I pee, yet?)

H: No. I need to finish. Lookie here.

GD: (There he goes, again, with making fun of my failing eyesight)

H: Before you, there were three Saint Bernards, Kaz Kuratowski, Schreber and Mitzvah), and then there was the real lady dog ... I mean she was a lady and among the finest that walked on God's Earth, Shayna Rosa the Wonda Dog.

GD: (Stop, already)

H: Not till I'm done or you get off your ass and walk down the stairs on your own steam, Schmuck! There were cats, as well: Hans who turned out to be a Hannah, Muncacz who showed up at the back door hungry, Matyos actually from Hungary via Vienna brought by one of your older brothers, Winnie-cat and Emily who both belonged to your Sister, who you know, as well, and Pretty Girl Freud who was found in Richmond by your other older brother. Geez. I've been taking care of these, I figure, for more years (counted cumulatively) than that kidnapper in Cleveland got years for being apparently a real monster ... he got life + 1,000 years.

GD: (Enough. It's no wonder people think you complain too much. Nobody signed you up ... you weren't conscripted into this life)

H: Well, either were you. You didn't even get a draft card?

GD: Woof.

GuntherDog, at this point, toddled down the stairs ... I? I sat there for 5 minutes, or so, and contemplated my navel.

"And the beat goes on."

Truth be told? The past "Life + 1,000 years" have been pretty good, and many -- by no means all -- of my fellow travellers have known how to throw a good party.

I have a birthday coming soon. Maybe GuntherDog and I will go running through the woods peeing on every other tree and then come home for a Last Quarter afternoon nap.

Getting Obstreperous

Enough Already! (a rant)

Isn't it enough that I have to hold on to the railing walking down stairs or need to let GuntherDog lead the way so I don't fall over him and break my neck?

Isn't it enough already that that scruff-of-a-dog refuses to come down himself until I pat and pet the royal dog's head on the top landing of the stairs?

Isn't enough that no one feels a damn thing for an orphan who gets medicare and/or collects Social Security?

Isn't it enough that I have more than a half dozen Doctors all younger than me?

Isn't it enough that symptoms seem to grow in number year after year?

Apparently not for, apparently, we Players in the Last Quarter have to listen to  all kinds of rot ... day after day!

... Anthony Weiner explaining why Oscar Mayer runs his campaign for mayor?

.... why it's just dandy that the Mayor of San Diego, der Linder Torte, has been accused of asking his female staffers to come to work without undies?

... why it is fine for the Governor of Virginia to take what appear to be bribes?

... why infant mortality in USA is maybe 30th in the world of civilized nations?

... why our education system lags behind requiring us to import both field laborers and IT professionals and Physicians to do our skilled and unskilled labor?

... why the 2nd Ammendment guarantees the right to own an armed B52?

... why it takes two claw-foot tubs and four hours for a couple to have sex, nowadays? (with nobody able or willing to explain to me how in the Harry Houdini that's done! ... Maybe I should ask Eliot Spitzer?)

... and why the hell it's gotten so damn hot, these days? (According to the Dems, it's technology out of control; according to the Publicans, it's either just part of cosmic cycles or else God's revenge on Sinners, Infidels and Homosexuals)

Any case ... this Senior Citizen has had enough, already, and supports an ammendment to the US Constitution requiring that members of Congress and the Senate sign an oath requiring them to have sex in just one tub at a time and to lose anything that lasts more than 4 hours!

Geez! Just, Go see Alice!

(Sorry for the rant! Was a tough day, yesterday. I dreamed last night of Flux and soldering; sounds like a sexual dream to me! Whoopee! Whoever dreamed up Flux was among the brilliant innovators of history. For the uninitiated? Flux is the Petro-Gel one smears on both surfaces of a joint just before soldering. The idea is that the Flux rapidly reduces in volume as the pipe is heated, rendering a vacuum which will suck the melted solder evenly into the joint ... yielding a 50+ year seal. Now, why can't my doctors be elegant in their thinking and brilliant like that inventor.  Dang! The Docs would stick a tube into the tiny space to watch and be seen with jaw dropped/mouth agape/without a clue, telling the pipes to come back in ten years.)  

One of those odd days, yesterday, that seem to take us on treks that, while they don't go very far, are monthly parts of marriage in the Last Quarter. Really didn't matter whether it was M or me, this time. A set of symptoms arrives ... this time on a hot beach. We take a breather. The symptomatic one lays down back at house ... the complex of symptoms had not been typical of a Myocardial Infarction. Did not want to panic the grandkids. Maybe dehydration? heat related complex? it had been really quite hot on beach and we were on the 'could there be miracles' organic juicing diet. An hour later, the symptoms are no better. The health center on the Island is run by a whole team of Clem Kiddidlehoppers .... call the pharmacy ... 'y'could go to one of thos emergent health issue places up near Pocomoke City ... hospitals? oh, they're 50 miles away or thereabouts.' At this point, it takes two to walk the patient to the car. 25 mins later, we're facing a very worried receptionist who takes us right back. 45 minutes, two ekg's, a line for fluids, and blood spots all over the aqua-blue moo-moo (one size fits everyone from Jack-Spratt to Manatees) and floor later and patient is on Emergency Medical Ambulance going north to the big city ... Salisbury. Spouse following in car ... nervous? you bet! EMS folk: 'now don't you go runnin' no red lights or tryin' to keep up with us. Police gonna lock you up, if'n you do.' Actually, the EMS folk were very nice and the 'abundance of caution' Physician's Assistant who made the only decision he could and his staff were all doing exactly what they should have been doing. OK .... most of you know the next four hours ... More ekg's, more lines, more attempts at drawing blood, more x-rays, great Indian Lady Doc ... really clear in her thinking (this, you know, is not always but often the case that ER Docs are good and quick thinkers) ... checking with old ekg reports from back home .... Couple pressing for discharge before they have to drive home in dark ... hard to see at night ... 'could easily be sharing ambulance heading back North if you don't let us go, soon' ... Nevermind GuntherDog panicking and really needing to pee ... kinda like an old person after getting fluids in an ER. You get it .... Made it back just as the Sun's effects were all but gone from its new home beyond our horizon ... patient feeling crumby still in this 9 hour romp ... couple ready to go to sleep to call it another day Playing in the Last Quarter. Report: Turkey sandwich in ER looked different than the Green Miracle Juices of past week and, standing here on the beach awaiting His Majesty's arrival just before 6, the heat wave has broken. Hey! All's Well that Ends Well!

May be our last day here on the edge of the Americas .... waking each morning to the Ocean .... It's been many a thinker, but most recently Leon Kass after writing his lengthy volume on the Book of Genesis, The Beginning of Wisdom, who went about hither and yon speaking to audiences about the value of mortality ... carrying on a tradition amongst all the great religions that one should live each day -- whether in the Second, Third or Fourth Quarters -- as if it was your last. Indeed, one should meet each person as if it was the last time you'd meet them ... do each task as if it is your last opportunity to finally carry it out or to carry it out, again, with grace. The word grace must share its origins with the word gratitude ... two sides of a coin. The grandkids ... the half that came, this year ... will be leaving tonight and M and I will leave tomorrow. The prophets are predicting major storms that will arrive to conquer the heat that has had its grasp on the East Coast. Maybe next year all the grandspawn will visit ... maybe if I stop calling them 'spawn,' more will come. Nah! The grandkids know we love them. M and I will be back, this Summer. This is the first time, I've decided to take all Fridays off in July and August beyond some weeks. Some of the visitors to my office are displeased. They call or -- how very modern -- text. I don't tweet, well not yet. It's hard for the to articulate the thought that they might miss me. Such a human experience ... missing another when they're absent ... betimes, when they're present and cannot quite be present. Oh! There are lovers embracing on an unoccupied lifeguard stand. I keep repeating in these notes how strongly I feel about hello's and goodbye's and their feeling relatives .... glee and sadness. There is an ebullience, however, that goes on in presence, as well ... maybe even harder to own. To be open to hello, presence and goodbye ... Is there more?

Not much to report ... sitting here waiting for the Sun to rise .... looking out at a calm Atlantic ... M, the Kids and Grandkids are back at the house sleeping, most likely. The lifeguard stands, where they are, remain empty for another four and a half hours. Mostly couples have come to offer up praise to Eos for her pink sky or to mouth the words I recall from Psalms ... Mah Gadlu Ma'asecha, Yah ... How grand are your creations, God ... M'od Amku Machschvosecha ... How very deep your thoughts. CAUTION: Seaward Cuurents may exist. Signs of a universe only apparently self-aware. Last night, the kids went to say good-night to the Sun, while M and I went to hear a reading of a new play. The local Shrink and her husband's 12 year old (who looked 16) was one of the central characters. An acting out Goth teenager growing up without a father in a little town was repeatedly threatened by her Mother with being sent to live with Grandma in Chincoteague, the town in which we have parked ourselves for 34 Summers and the very same town in which the play had its first public reading. The hall in which this was staged was pretty full and had that nursing home smell of a Senior Center, its previous incarnation. The AC failed, last night. A laughing gull just cawed, as if to say: What y'complainin' about, Bud. 'I wasn't,' Herr Segal, 'just sayin'.' Thar she blos. Deep Pink .. top half visible not out of the Atlantic but above a misty horizon ... She's late, the Sun, she is ... and her audience of 30 or 40 are now visible ... all visibly facing East toward her ... She's bright Pink now and they're, I imagine, each trying to figure out their purpose in standing erect on the surface of one of her smaller satellites ... Mama Earth ... or, at least, I am ... sitting here at the edge or is ot on the edge? She's free of the mist, now ... promising another 95 degree day.

Miracle Cures

When my Dad was dying, one of his middle kids would bring him meds and supplements to take. I fondly remember his plaint: 'Every week she brings me this little white pill ... a different one every week ... but each one is promised to cure what ails me. I mean each one and they're all different.' Yesterday, on holiday and away from my office, one of my kids and the grandkids came, carting a "juicer" ... For those who aren't juiced yet, a juice extractor separates the pulp of vegetables and fruit (Kale, Squash, Cucumbers, Carrots, Apples and pairs ... you name it)from their juice and "micronutrients" (hey! just how SMALL are those nutrients?). The juice has a recognizable flavor ... one that wouldn't sell much in local supermarkets .... and another-Worldly color ... like WWII army green ... You wouldn't paint a car that color. Last week, I got to watch such documentaries on how juicing can change your life. Frankly, I'm ready for some Botanical Magic ... a resuscitation. Have been vacationing on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for 34 years, since the juicer, our youngest, was three. The 6 mile trek to the beach on board one of two bikes gets longer every year ... bridges get steeper ... more young folk passing my 1974 Raleighs (a Supercourse II and my favorite, an International)... pisses me off to have some 25-40 year old run by me with a "good morning". Good morning, my Ass, you young whippersnapper! The bikes are not the problem ... When I take them to mechanics, they offer to give me even-money for one of their carbon-graphite new-fangled models. The mechanics drool. When I bring my older edition body to the Doctors, they never offer to trade. I mean never. I'm waiting for just one -- man or woman -- to opine: Geez ... What I wouldn't give to have a body like you. There are no pictures on this blog! Back to vacation. Bottoms up! Juice? Down the hatch!

still on vacation ... dog beginning to kvetch!

sandcastles in morning ... home at night

In search of energy ... vacation

Is it possible to imagine that energy might eventually be in short supply? Certainly, never occurred to me during the First Three Quarters. My next generation is encouraging me to begin juicing ... JUICING? the Fountain of Youth. Any case, I do have this week to attempt to locate wells of energy, even if no Fountain is to be found! I'll see what happens and get back to you.

There are Perks to Being Old Enough

I'm off to co-lead a discussion with a colleague, my youngest child. She and I share an office.

So, all you Second and Third Quarter types, eat your hearts out ... There are perks to being old enough to have a child old enough to share a stage with you and old enough, herself, to have a child old enough, this Summer, to be off writing good fiction.

Adios for today

On Reading Yesterday's Post

Life may not be about post-mortem's on yesterday's events, thoughts or writing but I do typically begin each posting here by reading the previous one ... Love and Hate ... Sadness and Glee ... Hello's and Goodbye's .... So much of what I write here does seem to be about the paired experiences and feelings that we carry with us into the fields we work each day and this past week or so has been no exception.

I call it juggling ... the capacity, that is, to carry both sides or the many sides of some experience, including those related to getting older. I watched a documentary with M, last night, on the benefits of juicing ... of lengthy periods of time where one consumes the freshly extracted juice of vegetables and fruit, in quantity or alone ... Interesting piece by a youngish Aussie, Joe Cross, who juices and gets juiced on juicing by holding out a hand to others struggling with symptoms and weight. I wondered if the same effects are felt in the Last Quarter ... ENERGY, ENERGY, ENERGY.

But there are, indeed, a number of experiences that I hear about regularly from those who are in the 60-80 corridor and the 80+ folk, as well, including diminished energy levels. Back pain and pains, in general; irregular sleep; weight issues; sadness; aloneness; and a host of "wear and tear" (sexual and bowel and urinary functions all seem to change -- "not covered on your warranty, Ma'am!) problems that don't seem to be covered by the manufacturer's promises.

Some of the readers to this blog think me maudlin .... Frankly I identify more with children book characters like mischievous Madeline ... or Curious George. Looking about ... here and there ... and getting into trouble .... Some keep asking me questions, as if I had answers. There was a how-to manual of sorts for Inquisitors ... the Maleus Maleficarum ... the Witch's Hammer ...

In the work I've done in my professional life, we often contrast EXPLORATION with EXPLANATION. The latter seeks to  provide answers for queries, as if one could provide such closure.

Mom and Dad at the door: Why were you not home at curfew?

Adolescent: Mom, Dad .... I was having a great time with my friends and for a while I was sexually exploring/being explored by &%^$^&. And while I was thus engaged, Oh, Dear Parents ... I really didn't give two hoots about you Old Birds.

EXPLANATIONS are never, to my way of thinking, either adequate or safe; rarely, if a question has been posed, will the other be satisfied with the proffered answer.

EXPLORATION is a different bird, altogether. It looks to what the experience was like ... how it felt ... and whether it's experientially similar to previous such encounters in the world of being.

EXPLANATIONS are ashen grey; dang! EXPLORATIONS are green with potential growth and change.

Going on vacation for another week and a half ... EXPLORING inside and outside.

  

Connection and Friendship

I think it was Sampson Raphael Hirsch who tried to define Love and Hate. My memory has it that he saw Love as the feeling that the presence of the other person made life more worthwhile while their absence would have precisely the opposite effect. Hate? Hate was the sense that the very presence of the other made life less pleasurable and, just maybe, their absence would contribute to a sense of wellness. When I was young and cheeky (before I became Old and Cheeky), I had a sign on my university office door: Never underestimate the value of homicide in solving human dilemmas.

It seems awfully dramatic, perhaps, but just like Happiness and Sadness, Love and Hate may well be these everyday/quotidian companions to the lived life. With those we love, perhaps, we revel in their happiness and in their successes, while even those who imagine themselves present at the Sermon on the Mount find difficulty in Loving their enemies (Matthew 5).

When I returned from my 4th of July four day weekend, there were, perhaps, three types of welcomes waiting for me.

• "Gladdened that you're back."

• "You abandoned me. I hate you."

• "Glad that you're back but, even so, I won't admit to it on a stack of Bibles .... Grrrr."

Feelings are queer experiences and experiencing them in the presence of another and especially in the presence of those to whom they are directed is difficult no matter in what Quarter one is Playing. In the Last Quarter, I can't tell whether it's easier or harder to offer up such expressions. As the air gets thinner and the time grows briefer sitting here in this First Pew, it does appear more important to me to express the Love and both the Glee and the Sadness parts. In Europe in the 19th C., there was a custom of writing an Ethical Will ... of leaving something other than things and property behind.

At the close of the Books of Genesis and Deuteronomy, Jacob and Moses (respectively) intermingle loving and hateful feelings (think it worth reading both) .... Jacob reviews his kids' failings and Moses, calling to the Heavens and the Earth to be witnesses and then announcing "This is the Blessing," reams the Children of Israel (eg, A stupid nation! and not wise ... grown fat only to kick their God) ... cuts them a new one, as folk are prone to say on the street.

I hope to do better.

Bedouin Bandits at Sea

It was 45+ years ago that I and Milton met during my stint as a graduate student and his as a young professor ... just a couple of years out (of his own studies). And now, he we were at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean sitting in a tent shelter like two old Bedouin Chieftains in some Arabian Desert. I do have memories of lengthy conversations in the cafeteria of Buffalo's Interim Campus where the Math and Philosophy (and some other academic departments that I don't recall) were temporarily housed as a new campus, the dream of a visionary gone by, Marty Myerson, was being built. The table I'd typically be occupying was visited by mostly the young faculty .... I had begun graduate school very early with but a year of undergraduate studies officially recorded on transcripts, so that I was still much younger than the crew that made space for me.

This seaside dialogue was different and the same. My son-in-law visited our desert abode but he's much older than anyone I can recall visiting our cafteria discussions. His twin daughters would occaaionally come in to stir the pot ... playing like 9.5 year old girls ... originally identical .... now anything but and striving against each other. The Writer/writer of Genesis had a good time describing the intrauterine experience of Jacob and Esau ... S/he took the word run and put it into a reflexive conjugation .... and constructed ... va'yis'rotzitzu ha'banim b'kirbah .... And the boys ran around after each other in her innards (Rebecca's, that is). Life begetting life begetting teaming life.

But the conversations remained. Milt wanted to know how ... or, anyway, quizzed his young "student" on how it was possible that religions so similar to each other 'banished' members of the other sect and how this happened to Otto Rank, Freud's young Secretary of the Wednesday Night Meetings. Banished was a harsh word and harsher deed for someone who expressed a hardly discernible difference. The conversation muddled around a bit and I offered the analogy of flying over a major urban area with lots of little suburban towns clustered about it. From the sky, no stark differences could be perceived. Indeed, if there were any difference it would have to do with the seat of power and each one's idiosyncratic laws. Who's your Priest, Minister, Imam or rabbi? ... Any case ....

Cross a boundary and you could get arrested on on side and told to slow down on the other. I'm no sociologist, but my guess is that people in the various townships are quite similar ... ah! ... but the seat of power ... it's all about power

Milton told me my analogy sucked. I told him that I felt fortunate that he hadn't used one of his favorite expressions (either 'Are you stupid' or 'Just goes to show you don't know everything') and would live with my sense that he was a blind and deaf and obstreperous old man. He laughed. So did I. Would we have said the same if our wives hadn't been sitting outside in the light of day? Who knows?

Maybe Playing in the Last Quarter has as much to do with appreciating the other and your history together than what is said. After all ... it's pretty much all been said before. I'll ride out to the beach this morning and set the tent up, again, so the Old Bedouin Chieftains can carry on conversations that began long before woodstock and Watergate the Religious Right and Tet .... oh .... and grandchildren.  

And in the seventh year, shall thine fields lay fallow ...

Who wants to up the retirement age to 70? Maybe we should retire them.

I'm tired. I need a vacation. The people who visit my office seem approximately split ... half ok with my going or into "good riddance! I need a vacation freom you" and a second half that is, let's say, not pleased.

There was a volume on Creativity by Silvano Arieti in 1976 ... won a lot of awards ... it was thick ... 500+ pages but very readable. Like her majesty (who's a pretty nice girl but without a lot to say), no great conclusions ... except ... vacations seem to be necessary.

"I really need a vacation. I really need a vacation ...."  and when I return "Boy, did I need a vacation ... boy! did I need a vacation."

Back to Categories

The air in Northeastern USA is not only infused with humidity ... 80-90-100% and heat, but with the media shrieking and shrekking about the Trayvon Martin killing, the discovery that Paula Deen had used a racial eithet, the Dems and the Reps, Liberals and Conservatives and the world splitting into factions, it may be an odd time to be talking categories. Still, the subject came up for me in response to an online friend's comments about her priorities.

I wondered what categories moved me. Ah, but let me explain how I think of such matters. It occurs to me that we human-folk tend to see ourselves as predominantly this or that ... where this+that adds up to a hefty percentage of the population. Let me give you an example. Some time ago, eating with an old friend, she explained that where she grew up there were Whites and sub-Whites and that my geneology placed me on the sub-White side of the street. I attributed her loose-lips to the wine that accompanied dinner but didn't resonate, at all, about skin color. Skin color doesn't work for me as a category ... I don't feel that I belong to one side of this "divide" or the other.

I listed a few for my on-line fiend; here are those and a couple more:

• Kind .... Unkind (that has a place in my mind ... I leave unkind groups)
• Liberal .... Conservative (a kinda muddy distinction)
• Quick-minded .... Slow-minded (Holding less and less for me as my brain seems to be seizing up)
• Educated ... Less-Educated (I don't think so but I did have a lot of schooling)
• Having Children ... Childless (which am I? ... the kids all left except GuntherDog)
• Male .... Female (I don't think so)
• Old ... Young (Something works there ... heading down to VA for weekend with friends ...
• avg age       just below 70 ... must say something)
• 'My religion' ... 'other religions' (I do feel I belong in/to my religious tradition ...)
• 'My skin color' ... 'other skin color' (Feel no belonging on any side)

I've long been suspicious of those who teach multiculturalism, as if I could know another better by knowing their skin-color or religion. I was once castigated in a workshop when I presented the history of an African American woman who would consult with me. The more I thought it silly, the more the group wanted to offer me up on some altar as a burnt offering. The fact that we both grew up in similar areas, in intact families with religious affiliations, etc .... meant nothing to the mob that wanted to hang this so-designated "White Male." (Anyway, as I said, at least one of my friends thinks me "sub-white" [and I don't think she meant 'under Vanna White'] and I don't play football or drink myself silly.) I don't know whether knowing where I fit in the above splits does anything either ... but on this night when an arrhythmia disturbed my sleep, I did, indeed, come back to ask "where do I belong?"