Kunitz, the poet I recalled in the last posting, typically ends strong: "Touch me. remind me who I am."
I don't know a great deal about Stanley Kunitz .... I seem to recall that he and his artist wife lived on Cape Cod and that he had a connection to Columbia University and was poet laureate, quite late in life, and had some connection to the National US Archives, before the USA had a poet laureate. He's one of my ghosts.
Woke up, this AM, with other more personal ghosts .... friendly ghosts ... like Casper, the mischievous little fellow of 50's (or was it 60's) television. Many of the visitors to my office suffer visitations from ghosts they wish they could lose ... preferably in some dark alley. Their memories sometimes even intrude on the latter day versions of these visitors to their minds. Disillusionments with and resentments towards family members who are either dead, changed or no-longer-necessary, as they once may have been.
My ghosts are, as I said, mostly friendly ghosts. Some are live ghosts ... by that, I mean nothing more than the traces of folks still in our lives who were once so different. Children who are grown. Spouses who have "grown up," as well, and joined the revelries of Last Quarter Play .... How did that happen?! Even grandchildren leave traces, as they grow and morph into new forms. Little "TRANSFORMERS," that they are.
But many of the ghosts of later years no longer have a presence beyond in our minds and hearts. This morning, it was an ex-Marine named Sukkie who in later life became friendly -- he and his wife, Diane -- with my parents. I was half asleep when Sukkie appeared ... followed by Maurice the Liturgical Singer and his wife Minnie. They had a son, roughly my age, and a younger daughter and a cognitively challenged brother (Minnie's Brother) named Maxie who would recite nonsense poems.
These images began a veritable parade of images ... Parents .... In-Laws .... Grandparents, I had three that I knew ... a plumber on W. 5th Street and Old Man Engler who disliked kids noisily playing on our street. Neighbors in Toledo and Providence. My neighbor who lived next door when we moved into our present home ... Sam ... who lived there with his wife and his daughter and her family and his son.
I know where many of these people were buried ... and all these images go with me.
A living visitor is coming up the office path. I hear her feet. It's time to put the writing down, for the moment.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
A Return to Stanley Kunitz: Touch Me
"Touch Me"
"Touch Me"
Summer is late, my heart. Words plucked out of the air some forty years ago when I was wild with love and torn almost in two scatter like leaves this night of whistling wind and rain. It is my heart that's late, it is my song that's flown. Outdoors all afternoon under a gunmetal sky staking my garden down, I kneeled to the crickets trilling underfoot as if about to burst from their crusty shells; and like a child again marveled to hear so clear and brave a music pour from such a small machine. What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire. The longing for the dance stirs in the buried life. One season only, and it's done. So let the battered old willow thrash
against the windowpanes and the house timbers creak. Darling, do
you remember the man you married? Touch me. remind me who I am.
I return, often, to Kunitz and his poetry ...
"Touch Me"
Summer is late, my heart. Words plucked out of the air some forty years ago when I was wild with love and torn almost in two scatter like leaves this night of whistling wind and rain. It is my heart that's late, it is my song that's flown. Outdoors all afternoon under a gunmetal sky staking my garden down, I kneeled to the crickets trilling underfoot as if about to burst from their crusty shells; and like a child again marveled to hear so clear and brave a music pour from such a small machine. What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire. The longing for the dance stirs in the buried life. One season only, and it's done. So let the battered old willow thrash
against the windowpanes and the house timbers creak. Darling, do
you remember the man you married? Touch me. remind me who I am.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Mammam Habemus? Mamman non Habemus
When the King dies, folk gather in the square and call out "Long Live the King." When a new pope or, in the most recent case, a kind of Second Pope is elected, the throngs of people call out "Habemus Pappam" .... We go yourselves a Pope.
To be an orphan ... to be without a Mother (Paul Robeson or Ritchie Havens singing? ... don't matter) or Father or, worse, to be without both is to be adrift. Mama and Papa not only provide safety but also provide answers to questions and directions on how to get certain things done.
Growing up and getting on in years ... Third Quarter ... Last Quarter .... highlights the frustration of recognizing that the Guru in the Saffron Robe? the analyst smoking his cigar? the doctor with his own name crocheted into his or her breast pocket? ... well, what to say? The curtain has been pulled away from the Great Oz. Can we make peace with that? I don't know .... ask a Guru!
There seem to be a number of types of reactions to being orphaned. One has the orphaned taking on all the roles that were once performed for him or her. "I can do anything better than you can," the song goes. Or, at least, I can muddle by doing it all. The whirling Dervish Orphan. S/he is faster than a speeding train and more powerful than a speeding bullet (even if s/he confuses things sometimes) and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. .... Eventually that person, like the aging cat who embarassedly misses the counter, fails to get a job done and gets frustrated. In the most disillusioned like Hemmingway, maybe, only one way out exists.
Another orphan feels thoroughly helpless to take on any of Mama and Papa's magical mystery tasks. Everything seems impossible or impossibly burdensome. Every counter is too tall to reach and all the cat food is on that counter. "If I could build me a ladder like my Daddy used to build, I could get there. But poor DaddyCat broke his neck on that last jump and I'm afraid to try."
Both solutions suck. One yields a sense of aloneness and the other? Depression.
There must be a middle ground, y'think?
Lemme try that leap, next time.
To be an orphan ... to be without a Mother (Paul Robeson or Ritchie Havens singing? ... don't matter) or Father or, worse, to be without both is to be adrift. Mama and Papa not only provide safety but also provide answers to questions and directions on how to get certain things done.
Growing up and getting on in years ... Third Quarter ... Last Quarter .... highlights the frustration of recognizing that the Guru in the Saffron Robe? the analyst smoking his cigar? the doctor with his own name crocheted into his or her breast pocket? ... well, what to say? The curtain has been pulled away from the Great Oz. Can we make peace with that? I don't know .... ask a Guru!
There seem to be a number of types of reactions to being orphaned. One has the orphaned taking on all the roles that were once performed for him or her. "I can do anything better than you can," the song goes. Or, at least, I can muddle by doing it all. The whirling Dervish Orphan. S/he is faster than a speeding train and more powerful than a speeding bullet (even if s/he confuses things sometimes) and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. .... Eventually that person, like the aging cat who embarassedly misses the counter, fails to get a job done and gets frustrated. In the most disillusioned like Hemmingway, maybe, only one way out exists.
Another orphan feels thoroughly helpless to take on any of Mama and Papa's magical mystery tasks. Everything seems impossible or impossibly burdensome. Every counter is too tall to reach and all the cat food is on that counter. "If I could build me a ladder like my Daddy used to build, I could get there. But poor DaddyCat broke his neck on that last jump and I'm afraid to try."
Both solutions suck. One yields a sense of aloneness and the other? Depression.
There must be a middle ground, y'think?
Lemme try that leap, next time.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Alienation
Tuesday night, I was to attend a meeting at the local professional society in Philadelphia. As I was going in, I was talking to someone I've known for not quite 40 years. He was to teach a course and I was going to meet with a reading group that has been meeting since the 1960's and to which I was invited some years ago. He was wearing a men's tweed hat that might have looked fine on a driver of a 1959 MGA and still looked good, today. As we were going in, one of the members of my reading group arrived. He, too, was wearing a tweed cap and he, too, was involved in this professional community for 40 years or more ... a community with not much more than a hundred professionals. I'm not a voting member of this society due to history and politics, but, rather, something of an honorary member. Still, it struck me as profoundly sad that these two both foreign born physicians, members of the same group for many years, had never met nor did they know each other's name and needed to be introduced by an outsider of sorts. How alienated a world we live in has often struck me but maybe never more profoundly than at that moment.
After the meeting, I left feeling blue and glad -- only later -- when I arrived home to M and Gunther Dog. It's loaded with a sort of pathos that all these years have passed in my life and the 65 and 75 years of my colleagues and, still, people don't quite get on with each other in communities of mutual interest, concern and fraternity with each other.
After the meeting, I left feeling blue and glad -- only later -- when I arrived home to M and Gunther Dog. It's loaded with a sort of pathos that all these years have passed in my life and the 65 and 75 years of my colleagues and, still, people don't quite get on with each other in communities of mutual interest, concern and fraternity with each other.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Euphemisms & Other Kindnesses
One of the visitors to my office calls me Grandpa Smurf. One of my kids told me -- or maybe it was M -- that the Old Guy on the Smurfs was Papa and not Grandpa Smurf ... unless Smurfette had a teenage baby or something, there is no Grandpa there among the Blue-faced Leprichauns of TV-dom ... that is, Grandpa Smurf already "passed," as we're prone to say.
Now, this is just a hair (don't say a word about my disappearing hairs) difficult. The Last Quarter doesn't align with other measures of age, as it includes years from Late Middle that morph into Old Age, Dotage and, betimes, Dementia. (Dotage, by the way, is the Age of Dotterers who walk hither and yon without knowing exactly why and -- and this is important -- who've forgotten that Dottering might be spelled with two-T's). All this is to say that between the Addled state that many Fourth Quarterers find themself in and questions of General Semantics, it is no small feat to decide when to don the title: Old Man. And it doesn't make it any easier to know that all the Rockers of our youthful years 50 years ago have either, as the Capitol Steps averred, "traded their Weed in for Weed-whackers" or have applied to sit in Rockers for repaints of Grandma Moses ... ... or that when Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were singing "Old Man," the person they were referring to was roughly the age of our kids.
This is serious, now. No funning. "What am I?"
What am I when the tonicity in my lip muscles decreases sufficiently to produce drool stains on my tie?
What am I when younger people look at me with a degree of pathos as they hold the door open?
What am I when kids walking on the street smirk or comment a bit when I drive by in a roadster?
What am I if I no longer care if I forgot what I was looking for when I walked into a room?
What am I, Heaven forfend, if I don't remember the different usages of Lunesta and Levitra?
Now, please don't tell me; Grandpa Smurf gotta figure this one out by himself.To be continued (with any luck)
Now, this is just a hair (don't say a word about my disappearing hairs) difficult. The Last Quarter doesn't align with other measures of age, as it includes years from Late Middle that morph into Old Age, Dotage and, betimes, Dementia. (Dotage, by the way, is the Age of Dotterers who walk hither and yon without knowing exactly why and -- and this is important -- who've forgotten that Dottering might be spelled with two-T's). All this is to say that between the Addled state that many Fourth Quarterers find themself in and questions of General Semantics, it is no small feat to decide when to don the title: Old Man. And it doesn't make it any easier to know that all the Rockers of our youthful years 50 years ago have either, as the Capitol Steps averred, "traded their Weed in for Weed-whackers" or have applied to sit in Rockers for repaints of Grandma Moses ... ... or that when Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were singing "Old Man," the person they were referring to was roughly the age of our kids.
This is serious, now. No funning. "What am I?"
What am I when the tonicity in my lip muscles decreases sufficiently to produce drool stains on my tie?
What am I when younger people look at me with a degree of pathos as they hold the door open?
What am I when kids walking on the street smirk or comment a bit when I drive by in a roadster?
What am I if I no longer care if I forgot what I was looking for when I walked into a room?
What am I, Heaven forfend, if I don't remember the different usages of Lunesta and Levitra?
Now, please don't tell me; Grandpa Smurf gotta figure this one out by himself.To be continued (with any luck)
Monday, March 3, 2014
Brief Riff: Happiness, Sadness, Envy and Immobility
Two Thousand years ago, the Middle East was in a state of frenzy ... waiting for The Promised One to come and save them from tyranny and war and illness. Greeks, Romans, so-called Barbarians ... Invading ... Ruling ... Being Displaced ... Whole Populations moved about so many game pieces. Religious and Philosophic cults must have been plenty. Today, all is different. The Crimea, once again, has become a momentary hotspot for Russians and Ukrainians to stand-off or stand-down. Two Thousand years ago, there were Essene Cults and Kumran Cults and the New Christian Cult and Pharisees, to boot. Some walked the line between cults. M and I named our second child after one of the scholars who did ... but not because of his Politics but rather due to his Pragmatism.
A story was told of Akiba that he had a child late and was planning a one month celebration of his birth and his faith tradition's requirement that he symbolically redeem the child from the Priest-Class who were promised the gift of first born among the Cattle, the Produce and Human Babies, too. The story goes that Akiba was confronted by a non-believer who questioned the reasonableness of his planned celebration. "Celebrate? Don't you know that your son was born a mortal and, therefore, surely shall die." Akiba responded: "We don't make an oleo of Glee with Mourning. We Celebrate at times of Celebration and Mourn at times of Mourning." So, was Akiba's Pragmatism.
It's snowing out, once more. Someone said it was -- for this Season -- the 15th measurable snowfall, here where we live not far from Philadelphia. It seems less violent that the hooplah that predicted it and the Prophets are prophecying only a few more hours of snowfall. Last night was the Oscar Awards Shindig. I was tired and decided to turn in early but caught bits and pieces. Lots of people having a good time.
I've often talked in these notes about the beneficial value of Sadness and try, simultaneously, to model my belief in the healing properties of Glee. There are many, though, who cannot enter these worlds in the spirit in which Akiba laid them out. They get caught ... stuck ... entrenched in odd thoughts .... that Immobilize them in Envy and other disrupting feelings that get stuck in their Emotion Craw. Some examples:
"Watching the Oscars is torturous ... all these Beautiful People without a care having fun. Not me." (envy of others)
"I'm at the Party but nothing could ever be this good, again, so I'm miserable." (envy of Self)
"Whenever I think of past Glee, I remember that I am no longer Happy." (no wonder)
"When I think about my Life, now, I realize it's not worth it." (If I may chuckle: Darke Diem!)
The Last Quarter, I admit, is not for the feint of heart ... it requires a combination platter of what Akiba would have called Chessed and Gvurah .... a plate with room for both Random Acts of Everyday Kindness in a mixture with Warrior-like Moxie, both in order to meet head-on a world that is not always kind.
It was a bit earlier than the time Akiba walked through his land that another peripatetic scholar opined that the Good Days would arrive when the "hearts of the Parents return to their Children and the hearts' kindness of the Children comes lovingly back to the Parents" (closing lines of Malachi).
Glee can oscillate with waves of Sadness ... but
Glee cannot conquer Envy.
War cannot block those Random Acts of Kindness.
Sadness has room for both Glee and Kindness.
If you didn't get it in Quarters 1 to 3, there's still time.
Ask the kids. Life is a variant on Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Gotta go shovel a bit .... May it be for joy.
A story was told of Akiba that he had a child late and was planning a one month celebration of his birth and his faith tradition's requirement that he symbolically redeem the child from the Priest-Class who were promised the gift of first born among the Cattle, the Produce and Human Babies, too. The story goes that Akiba was confronted by a non-believer who questioned the reasonableness of his planned celebration. "Celebrate? Don't you know that your son was born a mortal and, therefore, surely shall die." Akiba responded: "We don't make an oleo of Glee with Mourning. We Celebrate at times of Celebration and Mourn at times of Mourning." So, was Akiba's Pragmatism.
It's snowing out, once more. Someone said it was -- for this Season -- the 15th measurable snowfall, here where we live not far from Philadelphia. It seems less violent that the hooplah that predicted it and the Prophets are prophecying only a few more hours of snowfall. Last night was the Oscar Awards Shindig. I was tired and decided to turn in early but caught bits and pieces. Lots of people having a good time.
I've often talked in these notes about the beneficial value of Sadness and try, simultaneously, to model my belief in the healing properties of Glee. There are many, though, who cannot enter these worlds in the spirit in which Akiba laid them out. They get caught ... stuck ... entrenched in odd thoughts .... that Immobilize them in Envy and other disrupting feelings that get stuck in their Emotion Craw. Some examples:
"Watching the Oscars is torturous ... all these Beautiful People without a care having fun. Not me." (envy of others)
"I'm at the Party but nothing could ever be this good, again, so I'm miserable." (envy of Self)
"Whenever I think of past Glee, I remember that I am no longer Happy." (no wonder)
"When I think about my Life, now, I realize it's not worth it." (If I may chuckle: Darke Diem!)
The Last Quarter, I admit, is not for the feint of heart ... it requires a combination platter of what Akiba would have called Chessed and Gvurah .... a plate with room for both Random Acts of Everyday Kindness in a mixture with Warrior-like Moxie, both in order to meet head-on a world that is not always kind.
It was a bit earlier than the time Akiba walked through his land that another peripatetic scholar opined that the Good Days would arrive when the "hearts of the Parents return to their Children and the hearts' kindness of the Children comes lovingly back to the Parents" (closing lines of Malachi).
Glee can oscillate with waves of Sadness ... but
Glee cannot conquer Envy.
War cannot block those Random Acts of Kindness.
Sadness has room for both Glee and Kindness.
If you didn't get it in Quarters 1 to 3, there's still time.
Ask the kids. Life is a variant on Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Gotta go shovel a bit .... May it be for joy.
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