The Tree at the Center of the World

The countryside is a particular shade of gray-brown outside of the towns, everything the luster of a dirty hen's egg laid bare in the wan November sunlight.  It is a color that has no name, I think, or at least not one you would care to remember.  Because who would want to remember something that reminds them of ghosts and distant love?

The trees all start to look the same, except the pines (of which there are more than a few) and the occasional leafy holdout showing off in a  last gasp of red or gold glory.  Even those few specimens look downcast, like a king who just lost the war, taking off his crown to hand over to the victor.  The only thing missing is a cast of crows alighting in the barren fields.  The few birds to be seen usually manifested as seagulls and waterfowl down by the many rivers crossed on this journey.  Every rule has an exception it seems, and this day was no different.  Somewhere close to the halfway point a quartet of turkey vultures was observed sitting on the ridge line of a small outbuilding on a farm that was passed.  Fitting for the time and mood, they had their backs to the sun and wings outspread, like exotic flowers soaking up the heat on a cold fall day, their feathers the petals.

The radio kept to a murmur, because the flower of my heart was napping in the backseat.  There are only so many farms she can see, barns and twisted oaks before the novelty (for her) wears off.  I didn't mind so much.  She needed the rest and I needed the quiet.  This drive through the eastern Virginia tidewater flatlands, from my boyhood home back to the place where my adult self keeps a bed, it lends itself to reflection and rumination.  There is a general lack of elevation, a scattering of 'artifacts' of civilization (silos, houses, tractors, signs) in combination with a sparseness of actual humans in the landscape.  I am attracted to this terrain, yet unsettled by it.  I want to live in this place, but fear I'd be more alone than I feel now.

So how far away is far enough?  How close is close enough?  These thoughts loop over and over as cruise control takes me closer to where I'll sleep tonight.  Almost all of the family that gave me life is slipping further and further behind.  I am a lighthouse keeper on a far, frozen rock and I'm watching the supply ship sail away into the mist.  I wave until my arms ache, the ship dissolving into the gray rim of the horizon, and I can only hope things will last, that the ship will come back.

It is no ship I'm on, only the 12-year old fading gray seat from which I captain the nondescript vehicle that is my car.  The wheel is worn under my hands, as is the shift lever, but they feel good.  Solid, in their own way.  The analogy I can think of is like well-made tools used for decades by the same craftsman, or perhaps a well-worn saddle perfectly broken in.  I do not kid myself that this car is a miracle of modern engineering, like some Swiss watch on wheels.  It does make me a tad melancholy to think that soon I may have to replace it.  It has indeed served me well, but the pasture beckons, as it were.

If only I had the stable in which to keep it.

Lunchtime approaches, as does the small town which is home to where I will eat, as is my new tradition.  The daughter isn't so thrilled, claiming she doesn't like their food, but my craving for a fried oyster sandwich will not be denied.  We always stop here on our way back.  The restaurant proclaims it is a family "tradition since 1938" and that simple phrase sends a pang through my heart, as we sit and scan the menu.  I look around at the old wood paneling, the heavy brown wood tables, the lines on the faces of some of the patrons.  A few look as if they have been coming here since 1938, but today I don't see that as the punchline to a joke.  I see it as a lifeline.  A thread.  A root connecting people to their past, through the soil of the present.  I am envious.

There is no drama to our order, the fried oysters a fait accompli for me, and Her Majesty confessed that she might eat a turkey sandwich, should one be brought before her.  And so it was.  I devoured mine with gusto, she had to be alternately plied with humor and threatened with loss of wishing well privileges in order to secure passage of a few nubbins of turkey down her gullet.

The wishing well is in the back, a treat for the kids, where they use a small "fishing pole" to snag any one of a number of plastic fish from the bottom.  They can then redeem the "catch" at the register for a trinket selected from a case at the front.  Her choice today was a plastic link bracelet, multi-hued and adorned with a green frog motif cast into the surface of each link.  Quite fetching, she thought, and just the sort of thing that her mommy would like. I smiled as she tried it on, and we turned to go.

It was then the insight flashed on me.  Watching my daughter skip-hop-march to the car,  I felt my earlier envy fade.  I have my lifeline, my thread: she is right there in front of me.  As she laughs in the November sunlight, I feel my roots spread out a little further, a little deeper.  Home may not be so far away as I think.

Gifting

Often the simplest, humblest things make the best gifts.  The challenge for us, as humans with filters, preconceptions and biases, is to recognize the simple, humble thing as being a gift.  No easy task these days, when Thanksgiving is often over-commercialized as a day to "spend time with family and share good times and a meal", when what they really mean is a time for eating too much, watching football and then prepping for the Black Friday sales.  Because nothing says "I'm thankful" like a shopping spree one can't afford, to buy things you want for people you may not like.  And keep doing that all the way through the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Ah, I digress.  This was not meant as a Scroogey screed against one of the biggest holidays in America.

In the spirit of simple is better, I'll keep this short.  The best gift one can receive, in my opinion anyway, is one that often isn't dressed up in shiny finery.  It doesn't necessarily advertise itself, or stand out from the noise and clatter of everyday life.  It may even sidle up to you quietly, waiting patiently for you to notice...and when you do, you'll be forever grateful.

When others open up their lives to you, invite you in, break bread with you, no matter how humble or grand...this truly is worth the price of admission to be a human being.  Excess and consumerism pale in comparison, when you have the honor of sharing space, time and nourishment (for the body and the soul) with those who offer these things out of love.  Remember that, this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving, to my fellow humans.  May we share bread and salt.

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Special thanks, and love, to The Missus and The Mister for the inspiration.

A Friend of Mine Said "I Quit Smoking Cold Turkey..."

"...and I said, 'Whaddya smoke now? Ham?'..."*

Badabing! Yes, ladies and gentlemen and indeterminates, I am a comedian! Sometimes...

You know, in my line of work, I regularly get accosted by idiots pretending to be savants**, people asking me patently stupid questions and the like. So it didn't surprise me when IB at Idiot's Stew bugged the shit out of me asked me very politely to lay up a guest post for his "Turkey Palooza" fest of all things Thanksgiving-ly bloggable. Having a soft spot in the Gumbo ticker for idiots, especially idiots as cool my bud Ian (an idiot who actually knows something, mind you), I immediately said f#*k off moron yes, I would be immensely pleased to be a part of such a horrendous travesty festive and heartwarming event in the blog-o-sphere. So my chilluns, go forth and visit Idiot's Stew for to read my humble contribution to the party.S tay awhile, rifle through his CD collection, steal some books...just don't touch the beer unless he says its okay...you'll enjoy the visit I'm sure!

*Yes, I ripped that off from Yakov Smirnoff. What? It's funny!

**Oddly enough, have not been accosted by any idiot savants.

And I just remembered to include the link. Ai yi yi...

Sometime to Return, To Myself

I ran the way, I walked a fine line
Wasted time only to find
You were callin’ I think finally
To remind me I am fine…

Picture this: It is close to Thanksgiving, 1988, and the worn-looking Chevy Nova is barreling down the highway on Route 460 in southern Virginia. Cruising down into the Piedmont region with the Blue Ridge Mountains small and getting smaller in the rear view. In the front passenger seat sits a cassette/radio combo boom box, the height of second tier portable music technology in the pre-digital age. A cassette box lies next to the boom box, skittering about on the cracked red vinyl of the seat as the driver takes the curves just fast enough to be interesting without posing a true public safety hazard.

The boom box is there because the car is a 1977 model, with a radio that only pretended to play music that anyone wanted to hear. Pushbuttons and that Day-Glo orange needle offering up frequencies that seemed to bear little resemblance to what was actually on the airwaves. The driver doesn’t really care, though. This is his first car, and nothing could be finer than flying down the blacktop, belting out punk rock songs at the top of his lungs.

The terrain is flattening out now, hitting that stretch of small towns between Lynchburg and Petersburg, the “Elam-Farmville-Crewe” axis as the driver of the car had dubbed it. He knew a girl whose last name was Elam, he knew someone who went to school in Farmville (home of Longwood College) and Crewe? Well, Crewe was the home of the 7-11 pit stop, a perfect coincidence of thirst, numb ass and full bladder coming together in a siren call to stop and take a break. Crewe was also the place to call home from the pay phone and let the ‘rents know about when their boy would be home for the break. Crewe was that place where he called home in a voice shaking with relief and homesickness to let them know he would be home late that one time he and his buddy slid off the road on a patch of black ice. They sat in a ditch for a while waiting for a tow truck, watching other drivers careen off the road for entertainment.

Doing the what-we-can
Working without a plan
I'm beginning to understand
It's getting out of hand…

Thanksgiving, in what would be his senior year of college. Five years of architecture school on the way to winding down, and the driver was ready for it to be over. Make his family proud on the way to becoming a respectable citizen. Maybe get a job after graduation, follow the path just like everyone else and find that path to stability, career and 2.5 kids.

At least that is what it looked like from the outside. Burnout was starting to creep in, under pressure from just trying to keep up and do his best. Trying not to waste his parents’ money and his precious energy, all the while telling himself this is what life was supposed to be. The driver was perhaps not even fully aware of the hidden cracks in the foundations of his life, but they certainly fueled the gnawing in his gut, increased the volume at which he bellowed out the songs pouring from the radio, set to volume 9 so he could scream and hear the music over the noise of the wind rushing through the open windows. Even then he knew, without having the ability to articulate it, that something was not quite right. That maybe, just maybe, he was not so certain of himself, that he had not made his choices based on what his heart wanted.

Passing the sign pointing the way to Red House, the driver reached over and hit the rewind button, to hear that song again. He grinned at the opening power chords and drew a deep breath. Not too much farther to Crewe.

I have seen these do-si-do's
I've walked up on this road before
Picked it apart for hours and hours and hours and hours
Of turning tossing and looking and listening
To you and all the fucked up things you do…

The driver was used to this by now, the hours on the road trying to set a new land speed record to get home, without getting caught by the state troopers that popped up every now and then. He fancied himself a rebel now and then, but he knew he really didn’t want the hassle of a ticket.

The time on the road was a time for conversation, a weird and loopy dialogue with himself. Dialogue, that is, when he was not trying to sing along with the radio. Strange conversations about the Universe and his place in it, never once thinking himself weird.

Years later, the driver felt shamed into not talking to himself, because…well, that isn’t normal…is it?

In the grip of youthful self-absorption, the driver knew nothing of the minefields of the future, those dangerous explosives suddenly uncovered by the velvet covered brutalities of that which is called Life. No, such things were not even on the radar. And why should they be? Loud music, a fast car and time: all the time in the world. The driver smiled. The sign said Crewe was just a few miles ahead. He reached over again, and hit the rewind button.

But you're doing the best you can
With every grain of sand
That's trickling through your hands
Sayin’ catch me if you can…

Picture this: A midsummer early evening, July 2009, and the worn-looking Honda Civic is not speeding, exactly, but close to it. The car is on the highway south of Baltimore, midway between an old home and a new one. Under a sky the color of dusty silver and pale oranges, the driver is fighting back tears and fatigue and trying to master a gut that can’t decide if it wants to play nice or just torture its owner. The driver is tired, really tired. The trip is not so long in the physical sense, a short jaunt of about three miles. Piece o’ cake, yes?

Then why did it seem so long?

Doing the best I can living without a plan
I'm taking what I can get I haven't seen nothing yet
If one day you wake up and find what you make up
Come and get me come and take me there
Into your illusion I make my intrusion
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere…

The radio was playing, softly. The CD slot was empty, and the driver suddenly realized that the song coming out of the dash was not the song playing in his head. It figures, he thought, absentmindedly reaching out to hit the rewind button. A rush of hot tears as he realized he had no rewind button. The song played on, no chance of doing it over. He wept.

The driver wiped his eyes and told himself to stop being such an asshead. He knew why. The weekend was winding down, another weekend where he was privileged to be a father not just in name but in the real. Dropping his lovely daughter off carried with it a tinge of relief (the child was quite a handful, and he was no longer a spring chicken), but it made him realize just how disconnected the parts of his life seemed to be. The distance between what he was and what he wanted to be stretching out that three mile drive into what seemed like three hundred.

The hourglass is draining fast
It knows no future holds no past
And all this too will come to pass
Never forever whatever

The Honda pulls slowly into the parking space, a world-weary ship tying up to an unfamiliar wharf. Inside, the driver turns the engine off, but hesitates with his hand on the keys. Resting his head on the steering wheel, the hardness of it against his forehead giving him an anchor against the waves besetting him all around. He rubs his forehead against the plastic, grinding it and gritting his teeth as he comes to grips with the true cost of not listening to your heart. He slips the keys from the ignition, opens the door and steps out into the heat of a life starting over.

If someday comes early comes whipping, comes whirling
To take you for all you have learned
The tables are turning your bridges are burning
My destination sometime to return...

Italicized passages are lyrics from Sometime to Return by Soul Asylum, off the album “Hang Time”. A fine tune, indeed, to crank up loud.

In The Cathedral On Thanksgiving Day

Alone in the cathedral this November day
Or so I thought, as I prayed away fears
Cool morning air and the fallen leaves
Your voices bringing me to tears

You were there in the sunlit leaves
Unseen, perhaps, but not unfelt
I ask who is there? Who is it that grieves?
Geese answered me, my heart to melt


Thankful in the cathedral, that I am not alone
On the heron’s blue wings, I see
A spirit land among us, sunlight shone
Bright on my icy skin, and our souls in three

Might it be ghosts? Or unrequited love?
Details not of my concern
For in that moment brief

It was all of you I could discern

For now, this is enough.

(In memoriam of G-maw, E. and C.: Thanksgivings that were and will never be)