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| I'm leaving . . .But not on a jet plane :-p Like the rest of them, I'm switching to blogger :-p Come visit me (not that I post all that often!) http://hedelightsinme.blogspot.com
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| Saturday Fading. . .Jimmy Stuarts voice fills the little house. Tonight, he has a western drawl, the annoying, affected accent found only in 1950s cowboy movies, even more exaggerated by the amazing volume at which the television is set. I wonder idly whether Grandpa turns the volume up because he is deaf, or whether he's deaf because he turns the volume up. At least Grandma doesn't seem to mind.
I make myself a cup of tea and steal a slightly overcooked sugar cookie from the bright red tin on the kitchen counter. My room is just down the hall from the television, but with the door closed, the ceiling fan on high, and music from the internet radio, I am finally able to drown out the sound of the movie. I nibble my cookie as I settle in to read A Communist Manifesto.
It's a quiet sort of Saturday evening. There's a calm safety to the business of studying on the weekend. For a little while, it will feel good to be productive. And then I'll go to bed.
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| Sometimes you just start to cry. . .Growing up, I rarely cried at movies. There were occasional exceptions, but they
were few and far between. It’s not that I wasn’t an emotional child. I remember months in junior high and high school
that I cried almost every day . . . sometimes multiple times a day and for no
apparent reason. Mom used to assure me
that would change and I only half-believed her.
She proved to be right, as usual.
Just as she promised there came a day when I looked at myself in the
mirror and realized that I hadn’t cried in weeks.
But just as I stopped crying over real life, I was surprised
to find myself tearing up over movies and music. First it was musicals. I saw Les
Miserables when I was seventeen and cried through A Little Fall of Rain. Then
I saw Evita and cried through You Must Love Me. The first movie that I really cried over (I mean all out silent
sobbing) was Steel Magnolias my
junior year of college. Naomi and Lee
Ann can attest to that. And I cried
during Finding Neverland. Which is okay. You’re supposed to cry during those movies.
Lately, however, the movies that make me cry are very
strange. The first summer I lived on my
own I watched The Happiest Millionaire. Not a sad movie. I don’t think it was ever supposed to make
anyone cry. But there’s one song the
father sings when his daughter leaves home, and as I sat in my little tower
room watching the DVD on my brand-new laptop computer I found the tears
crowding into my eyes and, soon, spilling down my cheeks. And no matter how much I told myself it
really wasn’t that sad, I couldn’t seem to stop crying.
Tonight I watched Mary
Poppins with my grandparents. They had
never seen it before, and it was fun to watch them enjoying themselves despite themselves. But yes.
You guessed it. It started when
Bert brings the Jane and Michael home and Mrs. Banks is too busy running off to
her suffragette meeting to stay with her frightened children. And it got worse when Bert repeats Mr. Banks’
words back to him and Mr. Banks begins to realize that he’s missing the growing
up of his children.
My parents were nothing like Mr. and Mrs. Banks. They were far more like Mr. and Mrs. Biddle
of The Happiest Millionaire (except
for the Millionaire part). Still,
watching both movies reminds me how very quickly childhood does pass and
reminds me again that my own is over and done.
Those moments (and thank God my parents let us know how much they
treasured each one) were past so quickly.
I guess it makes me a little lonely for childhood summer evenings that
seemed to last forever and a home full of family laughter and a safety that
seemed eternal. | | |
| On JoyI am not really an anti-materialist. I hope I am not too
materialistic either, but I am thankful for the blessings and luxuries
of life in these United States. I like good food, nice clothing,
amusements and (especially) air conditioning. Still, there is
sometimes reason to wonder if our luxuries come at too high a
price. Sometimes, even here in the USA, there are times when the
usual cushiness of life is momentarily stripped away. . . and in those
momens one has to wonder . . .
5 pm Wednesday Evening -
It's been a long work day in the middle of a long week. But no
matter. The day is over. I step out of the office and
litterally stagger at the heat. It is over 100 degrees, plus the
infamous mid-atlantic humidity. The head index is over 110.
As I join the mass off people pressing toward the Metro stop, I reflect
on the blessings of being a woman. Today I looked perfectly
professional in a loose knee-length skirt, pink cami and black
sweater. And now I can disgard the sweater. A man jostles
me in his long sleeves and neck tie. He is pale, but flushed and
looks quite literally about to faint from the heat.
We make our way down the escalator. It is a little cooler in the
Metro tunnel - but not much. Down here it is even more crowded;
something is wrong with the red line, forcing more commuters to find
alternate routes. I sigh and find a place leaning against the
escalator. It would be both hot and crowded.
The crowd is distracted and impatient for the train to arrive.
When it does, I manage to sqeeze on fairly easily, but those behind me
aren't all so lucky. "Please step away from the doors" says the
recorded message as passengers block the doorway.
"People, people," follows the conductors irritated voice, "this is only
a four car train - not everyone can fit. There is another train
behind me." Heedless of the instructions, a rather large
man pushes rather forcefully against the crown, effectively shoving us
all even further into the car (we had already moved as much "to the
middle of the car" as we thought physically possible, but apparently
touching one another is not truly close enough), the doors slide closed
and with a tremmor and balance-throwing lunge, the train is
off. At the next stop the shoving commences again as people
try impatiently to get off and even more try impatiently to get
on.
DC is not a friendly city. In fact, I have often commented to
friends that it is one of the least friendly city's I have seen.
Less gruff and rude than New York perhaps, but not nearly as willing to
acknowledge the existence of a neighbor or tourist. Even at
Christmas it was all but impossible to elicit a holiday greeting from
anyone on the street and the Metro, at that time far less crowded and
hot and uncomfortable was all but silent.
On a day like today, with heat exhaustion and Wednesday frustrations to
add to the natural sullenness of the commuters, I expected the ride to
be miserable. And to be sure it's far from luxurious. But
then the man whose chest I am currently pressed against apologizes
wryly for touching my hand where it clings to the rail. And the
woman behind him laughs and complains about the heat in cheerful
exasperation. There is a family of tourists from Nothern
Caliornia who ask if they will be able to get off at their stop and
laugh at themselves for being stupid enough to get on the metro at rush
hour. Soon the whole end of the car is talking. The words
are mostly complaints about the crowd and the heat, but the tone is
friendly. We compliment one another's clothing, confirm one
another's advice to the tourists, promise to make exiting the train as
uncomplicated as possible.
This isn't the DC I know. It feels like a community, like a
small-town barber-shop on a Saturday afternoon. And even though
I'm hot, and tired, and squished, it's the most pleasant commute I've
had since I've been back here. We have something in common, even if
it's only struggling to get through the hot, hot August day. And
somehow, we're all a lot happier in our discomfort than we ever are on
the days that we all have our own seats and the air conditioning keeps
us pleasantly cool. It does make one wonder. . .
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| Remembering Wonder . . .Take it all in, it's as big as it seemsCount all your blessings and remember your dreams
~Jimmy BuffetI planned to share funny stories from our trip to the Keys. . . but then I started to write and found that funny stories aren't what I remember. I remember lots of laughter. I remember broad smiles and scrunched faces, and whole persons doubled over. But I don't remember why we were laughing. I guess I don't remember because it didn't really matter. What mattered were the moments of laughter shared as friends.
 
What mattered were the moments of wonder and silence, when we forgot about ourselves and each other. Moments lit by flashes of lightening in a
thunderstorm or by a sheet of rain moving across the open water -
when, as Em said "you could see all the way around the storm." Clear moonlight moments with the soft yellow glow of tropical stars overhead and Venus so bright I thought I could pluck her from the sky. Vibrant sunset moments full of overwhelming red and orange, peaceful ocean moments of breathless exclamations over the azure waters.
  
What mattered was losing the tempation to grow up. I had almost forgotten the breathless excitement of delight - the pure unselfish pleasure found in a beauty which, as Lewis says, "has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us." What mattered was remembering that joy and lonliness are closely related. That homesickness and longing are worth desiring. What mattered was remembering wonder.
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