2 loves
he comes beside her
a touch on her arm
she turns
guides his center
to the seat next to her
another touch
nudge
sends them rolling quietly
down a hill
he sits
rests
turns again
they tumble into a light kiss
settle at the bottom
together
they gather
to watch
the birds fly
against
the setting sun
and i wonder
if i will ever
share such a beautiful silhouette
enjoy such a beautifully
seasoned love
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
She Told Me, “I Can’t”
“I can’t do it,” she said. It was a statement that needed a bit of deciphering. I did not quite know what it meant; I did not know what made this 4th grader believe that she could not—could not draw an oval. Who told her that she could not?
Cassie picked up her pencil, held it to the paper, like a knife to something she threatened to cut, then placed it down on her desk, and said, again, “I can’t.”
I was in Cassie’s class assisting with a jazz and visual arts residency. The 3rd and 4th graders worked with visual artist Teresa Cox to spend a few days becoming their own versions of Pablo Picasso and Romare Bearden. For some, the transformation was easy. For others, not so much.
“I know you can,” I said, hoping to get a sense of her frustration. What did her words mean? “I know you can. Getting yourself to school every day was a lot more work than anything you are going to do for this project, especially draw the oval. Tell me what you mean.”
“I just can’t,” she said. “It’s too much.”
Was she overwhelmed by the larger project of creating a collaged self portrait? Was she shy or unsatisfied with her artistic ability? Had she really been trained by her environment to believe that she was not capable? I told her that I knew that she was a sufficiently intelligent girl and that I was pretty sure that most of the stuff that any of us was going to ask of her in the classroom was something she was up to.
I did not say this as an encouragement, like some hero that was going to make her to believe in herself. She was wise, intelligent and hip enough so that the Marlo Thomas bit wasn’t going to work on her. Still, I was uncomfortable with the “I can’t” language and how infectious it could be to so many other things that she was going to have to do in that classroom; I was not willing for those things, much less the project she was working on, to get derailed with the most powerful words of defeat.
Would I have to interpret her “I can’t” in a way we sometimes we have to interpret “I’m bored” when kids utter the phrase? Sometimes, “I’m bored” can mean a kid wants you to find something for her to do, besides make her lunch. Sometimes it means, “I’m depressed.”
I know that our childhoods are not always happy, that they are not days to which a lot of us grown-ups want to return. Not salad days. During the past weeks spent in a half dozen classrooms, I saw more than one kid living through a day to which they do not want to return. Still, I know that they have and will return in spite of my wishes to the contrary, just as those days did in my youth. And these hard days usually do more than just feel bad: they make just about everything, including school, dysfunctional and not easy.
It was frustrating that some kids could not seem, at first (and second), to pull themselves together to complete their project with an ease that matched the task. What was more frustrating and what was the most difficult to watch was how familiar I was with what those kids experienced.
I saw my 4th grade self, the 4th grade self that, somehow, could not fit himself—force his way into the context of so many things, places, projects and knowledge that should have been simple and easy. Instead, the reality against which I fought, many of the kids I see fight, was one that portrayed the simplest tasks with unease, unsureness and few expectations.
What was Cassie really supposed to do? What was really expected of her? What had she learned about what people expected?
I am not sure what she had to fight through that afternoon, what so many other kids in the many classrooms in which I worked over the past few weeks had to fight through—whether it was something as simple as not knowing or being unfamiliar with the use of scissors and glue or if it was more of a emotional weight against which they had to fight to get themselves to school each morning.
But Cassie was not fighting anything like an ignorance of what an oval was or how to use a pencil to create one. I heard her say the dastardly magic words again: “I can’t do this.” But what followed gave me a hint to what she was fighting. “You don’t understand. I got a lot going on right now,” she said. Heavy words coming from a ten-year-old.
I did not know what I could say in the small, not private space and in the short period of time we had. The words I was able to find could not be guaranteed to be translated into something helpful for Cassie. I do not even know if there were enough words or enough common, familiar language to have anything I said make sense—be impactful in the small context in which we worked.
I looked around the room, at the kids and at myself—at what was familiar in their faces and the feelings that emitted from their fits of frustration. I said, “Yeah, I know. A lot of us have stuff going on. We have stuff that seems impossible, like nothing’s going to work. But not everything has to not work.”
I told her, urged her not to do what is so easy for us, to let that art project, that easy thing, get washed down the same drain of stuff “going on.”
I do not know the details of her life. It is not my place to ask and I did not get the time—and about those things “going on,” she was right: I did not know them. At least not as clearly as she needed someone to know, understand and listen.
What I do understand is that some days, it is too hard to leave the comfort and safety of home and face a boat load of Impossibles, to step out the door, to pick up a scissors or put pencil to paper. But we get up and leave, not so much out of bravery or resolve but because staying is not an option.
And for some, and maybe for Cassie, it was what was happening at home that was her Impossible, an impossible that was heavy enough create a “can’t” that creeps into too much of her days. I do not know.
What do I know? That this opportunity to create was not a “can’t” and did not have to be another failure in days of difficulty. What I did know is that Cassie’s mood and attitude not only risked not getting her project done, but had bigger ramifications, not just for the day, not just for the school year. I thought of my own experience. I wanted to tell her in the most urgent voice something from my own experience: that she needed to do something about it or they would put her in the “dumb kid” class, which is where I found myself in too much of my school career. You might think that they don’t have dumb kid classes anymore. I am not so sure that we do not live in a social climate where we are not just segregating kids into the dumb kid classes: we are making whole schools, full of uncreative can’ts: this kid can’t… our systems just can’t… we just can’t pay for…
I did not have the magic words, and thought maybe her teacher, Ms. Dixon did. Maybe. I am not sure which conversations helped. I told Ms. Dixon what was going on. I know she knew Cassie much better than I. Cassie was a day behind on her project, but she, like many other kids who were having a difficult time, pushed through and created something wonderful.
Today, there are many wonderful works hanging I the halls of the three schools. Scores of works from as many kids. It seems like a major achievement, and given the work that Teresa Cox, teachers and students did, it is a major achievement. I am not sure how to measure this achievement against the the greater complexities of “stuff going on.” I am just glad that Cassie did not let this achievement slip away. I am glad that my worries of “I can’t” could be held off long enough for the wills that made a success.
Cassie picked up her pencil, held it to the paper, like a knife to something she threatened to cut, then placed it down on her desk, and said, again, “I can’t.”
I was in Cassie’s class assisting with a jazz and visual arts residency. The 3rd and 4th graders worked with visual artist Teresa Cox to spend a few days becoming their own versions of Pablo Picasso and Romare Bearden. For some, the transformation was easy. For others, not so much.
“I know you can,” I said, hoping to get a sense of her frustration. What did her words mean? “I know you can. Getting yourself to school every day was a lot more work than anything you are going to do for this project, especially draw the oval. Tell me what you mean.”
“I just can’t,” she said. “It’s too much.”
Was she overwhelmed by the larger project of creating a collaged self portrait? Was she shy or unsatisfied with her artistic ability? Had she really been trained by her environment to believe that she was not capable? I told her that I knew that she was a sufficiently intelligent girl and that I was pretty sure that most of the stuff that any of us was going to ask of her in the classroom was something she was up to.
I did not say this as an encouragement, like some hero that was going to make her to believe in herself. She was wise, intelligent and hip enough so that the Marlo Thomas bit wasn’t going to work on her. Still, I was uncomfortable with the “I can’t” language and how infectious it could be to so many other things that she was going to have to do in that classroom; I was not willing for those things, much less the project she was working on, to get derailed with the most powerful words of defeat.
Would I have to interpret her “I can’t” in a way we sometimes we have to interpret “I’m bored” when kids utter the phrase? Sometimes, “I’m bored” can mean a kid wants you to find something for her to do, besides make her lunch. Sometimes it means, “I’m depressed.”
I know that our childhoods are not always happy, that they are not days to which a lot of us grown-ups want to return. Not salad days. During the past weeks spent in a half dozen classrooms, I saw more than one kid living through a day to which they do not want to return. Still, I know that they have and will return in spite of my wishes to the contrary, just as those days did in my youth. And these hard days usually do more than just feel bad: they make just about everything, including school, dysfunctional and not easy.
It was frustrating that some kids could not seem, at first (and second), to pull themselves together to complete their project with an ease that matched the task. What was more frustrating and what was the most difficult to watch was how familiar I was with what those kids experienced.
I saw my 4th grade self, the 4th grade self that, somehow, could not fit himself—force his way into the context of so many things, places, projects and knowledge that should have been simple and easy. Instead, the reality against which I fought, many of the kids I see fight, was one that portrayed the simplest tasks with unease, unsureness and few expectations.
What was Cassie really supposed to do? What was really expected of her? What had she learned about what people expected?
I am not sure what she had to fight through that afternoon, what so many other kids in the many classrooms in which I worked over the past few weeks had to fight through—whether it was something as simple as not knowing or being unfamiliar with the use of scissors and glue or if it was more of a emotional weight against which they had to fight to get themselves to school each morning.
But Cassie was not fighting anything like an ignorance of what an oval was or how to use a pencil to create one. I heard her say the dastardly magic words again: “I can’t do this.” But what followed gave me a hint to what she was fighting. “You don’t understand. I got a lot going on right now,” she said. Heavy words coming from a ten-year-old.
I did not know what I could say in the small, not private space and in the short period of time we had. The words I was able to find could not be guaranteed to be translated into something helpful for Cassie. I do not even know if there were enough words or enough common, familiar language to have anything I said make sense—be impactful in the small context in which we worked.
I looked around the room, at the kids and at myself—at what was familiar in their faces and the feelings that emitted from their fits of frustration. I said, “Yeah, I know. A lot of us have stuff going on. We have stuff that seems impossible, like nothing’s going to work. But not everything has to not work.”
I told her, urged her not to do what is so easy for us, to let that art project, that easy thing, get washed down the same drain of stuff “going on.”
I do not know the details of her life. It is not my place to ask and I did not get the time—and about those things “going on,” she was right: I did not know them. At least not as clearly as she needed someone to know, understand and listen.
What I do understand is that some days, it is too hard to leave the comfort and safety of home and face a boat load of Impossibles, to step out the door, to pick up a scissors or put pencil to paper. But we get up and leave, not so much out of bravery or resolve but because staying is not an option.
And for some, and maybe for Cassie, it was what was happening at home that was her Impossible, an impossible that was heavy enough create a “can’t” that creeps into too much of her days. I do not know.
What do I know? That this opportunity to create was not a “can’t” and did not have to be another failure in days of difficulty. What I did know is that Cassie’s mood and attitude not only risked not getting her project done, but had bigger ramifications, not just for the day, not just for the school year. I thought of my own experience. I wanted to tell her in the most urgent voice something from my own experience: that she needed to do something about it or they would put her in the “dumb kid” class, which is where I found myself in too much of my school career. You might think that they don’t have dumb kid classes anymore. I am not so sure that we do not live in a social climate where we are not just segregating kids into the dumb kid classes: we are making whole schools, full of uncreative can’ts: this kid can’t… our systems just can’t… we just can’t pay for…
I did not have the magic words, and thought maybe her teacher, Ms. Dixon did. Maybe. I am not sure which conversations helped. I told Ms. Dixon what was going on. I know she knew Cassie much better than I. Cassie was a day behind on her project, but she, like many other kids who were having a difficult time, pushed through and created something wonderful.
Today, there are many wonderful works hanging I the halls of the three schools. Scores of works from as many kids. It seems like a major achievement, and given the work that Teresa Cox, teachers and students did, it is a major achievement. I am not sure how to measure this achievement against the the greater complexities of “stuff going on.” I am just glad that Cassie did not let this achievement slip away. I am glad that my worries of “I can’t” could be held off long enough for the wills that made a success.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
miniStories: The Boy Who Did Not Like Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
This piece first appeared at at mnartists.org as a part of their flash fiction competition, miniStories. As they wrote with it’s publication, “This winning story written by Clarence White (selected by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl) offers an understated but affecting little tale about the love between fathers and sons and the power of peanut butter and jelly.” Thanks to mnartists.org and to 3-Minute Egg for recording the event publicizing the competition and publication series, attracting established, emerging and aspiring writers to create works no longer than 500 words. 3-Minute Egg captured some of the voices from the winners’ circle, reading their pieces in the lobby of the Ritz Theater. See a video of the event HERE.
miniStories: The Boy Who Did Not Like Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
Who ever heard of a little boy who did not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Or puppet shows, pepperoni pizza, the sandbox or the caramel part of a candied apple?
Peanut butter and jelly. It is, of course, the perfect breakfast food. I remember as a child listening to the episode of School House Rock that suggested:
Peanut butter and jelly
Any time of day’s a treat.
It urged kids to eat a good breakfast, and I felt proud that my mother had already discovered the virtues of PB&J. Three decades later, as a parent, I realized how great it was—the discovery that this sandwich was a lot easier than making a lot of other breakfasts, and it dirtied few dishes, which is important when housekeeping is a personal challenge. It helps to know that it’s enough protein for a child and not too many calories for someone who spend most of his day running after nothing at all—that nothing which is everything for a child, that something which is as real as an invisible friend that somehow gets lost between the sofa cushions just before adulthood.
But Elliot would not eat peanut butter and jelly. A profound disappointment, not just for the nutritional and housekeeping ramifications: it also meant my son was missing out on one of life’s basic comforts, one that would help him cope with a series of life’s rainouts, missed birthday parties and bad afternoons at the principal’s office.
But other kids are usually better influencers than parents. Kids know what’s important.
It was Elliot’s friend Brandon who created the breakthrough one morning of a sleepover. “Can I have HONEY on my peanut butter and jelly?” he asked.
“How about it, El?” he turned to my son.
It was a disproportionate joy that accompanied the sandwich making. I made two sandwiches, the middle topped off with a drizzle of honey. I was a little bit too proud of my five-year-old son and myself. “Hey, this is pretty good,” Elliot said. Of course, the crust was left on both boys’ finished sandwiches, which didn’t spoil the triumph.
Nothing could spoil the triumph. Not even the day months later when I forgot the honey—and was absent-minded enough to blurt out the fact as we were driving to mommy’s house. His quivering voice threatened to summon a crisis that could easily last through the rest of our week’s final moments together. “Try it Elliot.” I hoped, “It’s okay.”
I could hear the first bite into the soft sandwich as sure as I could feel the lump in his throat that would make the peanut butter part hard to swallow. I was quiet, hoping for the best and concealing my own voice’s quiver.
The sandwich was fine—and not just because PB&J tastes the same without honey. It was fine because five-year-olds know how to keep their daddies from crying. “It’s pretty good, even without the honey,” he said. I cried later. On the drive home. With a smiling crust in the passenger seat.
[Leave comments at http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/ministories-the-boy-who-did-not-like-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwiches-2/]
miniStories: The Boy Who Did Not Like Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
Who ever heard of a little boy who did not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Or puppet shows, pepperoni pizza, the sandbox or the caramel part of a candied apple?
Peanut butter and jelly. It is, of course, the perfect breakfast food. I remember as a child listening to the episode of School House Rock that suggested:
Peanut butter and jelly
Any time of day’s a treat.
It urged kids to eat a good breakfast, and I felt proud that my mother had already discovered the virtues of PB&J. Three decades later, as a parent, I realized how great it was—the discovery that this sandwich was a lot easier than making a lot of other breakfasts, and it dirtied few dishes, which is important when housekeeping is a personal challenge. It helps to know that it’s enough protein for a child and not too many calories for someone who spend most of his day running after nothing at all—that nothing which is everything for a child, that something which is as real as an invisible friend that somehow gets lost between the sofa cushions just before adulthood.
But Elliot would not eat peanut butter and jelly. A profound disappointment, not just for the nutritional and housekeeping ramifications: it also meant my son was missing out on one of life’s basic comforts, one that would help him cope with a series of life’s rainouts, missed birthday parties and bad afternoons at the principal’s office.
But other kids are usually better influencers than parents. Kids know what’s important.
It was Elliot’s friend Brandon who created the breakthrough one morning of a sleepover. “Can I have HONEY on my peanut butter and jelly?” he asked.
“How about it, El?” he turned to my son.
It was a disproportionate joy that accompanied the sandwich making. I made two sandwiches, the middle topped off with a drizzle of honey. I was a little bit too proud of my five-year-old son and myself. “Hey, this is pretty good,” Elliot said. Of course, the crust was left on both boys’ finished sandwiches, which didn’t spoil the triumph.
Nothing could spoil the triumph. Not even the day months later when I forgot the honey—and was absent-minded enough to blurt out the fact as we were driving to mommy’s house. His quivering voice threatened to summon a crisis that could easily last through the rest of our week’s final moments together. “Try it Elliot.” I hoped, “It’s okay.”
I could hear the first bite into the soft sandwich as sure as I could feel the lump in his throat that would make the peanut butter part hard to swallow. I was quiet, hoping for the best and concealing my own voice’s quiver.
The sandwich was fine—and not just because PB&J tastes the same without honey. It was fine because five-year-olds know how to keep their daddies from crying. “It’s pretty good, even without the honey,” he said. I cried later. On the drive home. With a smiling crust in the passenger seat.
[Leave comments at http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/ministories-the-boy-who-did-not-like-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwiches-2/]
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Home, Part 3
This is the last of a three part series. See “Home, Part 1” and “Home, Part 2” in the previous two posts. Wishing all of of you, whether I know you or not, a nice home weekend.
*******
What does it mean when our lover puts a toothbrush in the bathroom for us? What does it mean when we give them a key, and how is that key different from the key we leave with our neighbor for safe keeping? I remember a friend’s exclamation when her boyfriend gave her a drawer for her clothes at his house. Welcome. Trust. Love. Knowing we belong.
What happens when seeing that toothbrush in the morning is no longer a welcome site, or anything else that goes with that love, spouse? Years ago, a friend said, “I just need to get alone.” At first, we thought she was telling she needed a loan. “No,” she said, “I need to be alone.” She needed to move out of the apartment she shared (secretly without her parents knowing) with her boyfriend.
What happens when we lose his or her trust or lose that trust in them? What happens when we fall out of love?
Maybe nothing. How many toothbrushes are sitting in the house, memories too precious to throw away and not willing to institute the insult of using them to scrub nooks and crannies? A found key: I know whose P.O. box it belongs to. No use giving it back; of no use in any way. A key. A toothbrush. A found sock.
A stack of strawberry soda that my grandmother used to keep in a room just off her kitchen.
It was a mountain that never seemed to dwindle. The endless supply was meant not so much to lure her grandchildren as it was a message to her daughter that those grandchildren should spend more time with their grandmother. Even though we spent three weeks most summers of our childhood in New Orleans, grandma wanted mother to send us for longer, extended stays, long enough to make a dent in her proud pile of red “cold drink.” It was more than a hint. It was “proof,” of course, that we, her grandchildren BELONGED there, with her, the right of her grandmotherhood.
That visit would never happen. Grandchildren grew into young adult grandchildren and then into adults. They became too busy to take a near month-long chunk out of their summer and then too old to really care about red cold drink. I don’t know if she, little by little, gave the soda away to the neighbor children, if they were slowly pilfered by the one son she had who never really got his life together or if a large pile of soda was her only company when she was stricken by the stroke that would, in little time take her life.
In the quarter century since her passing, I have wondered who else would sit all day on the front stoop waiting for me come arrive in a place that was especially for me. I wonder for whom I will sit on that stoop. Is the extra toothbrush in the linen closet just another pile of strawberry soda sitting in the back room?
Like grandma, we sit and imagine the object of our love. We wait with toothbrush, special tea, special cereal, whatever white or colorful noise helps them sleep. We want to create a space that will prompt someone to ask as that love ventures without knocking to cross our threshold, “Do you live here?” We look to have such a place of our own; we long to find other places were those we love make us belong.
On that late spring afternoon, I walked into Mary’s house, as I had so many other days, like I lived there. On that or any other day, another friend might have walked through the unlocked door and waited for Mary, sitting on the day bed on which that they would not have guessed—or bothered to think that she and I had made love.
Others would walk into the kitchen and wait for her and wait for one of the many important discussions we had there that could change the world, if only it would listen. That John walked in with me and that a dozen others would soon follow, I confined the two of us to the living room, bathroom and kitchen. We waited. Other days, I waited: waited on that day bed; waited in the kitchen; waited with open cupboards as the contents of those cupboards waited for me; waited in the quiet white walls and no noise in the bed of the farthest back bedroom, free, welcome and wanted. I was free to fall asleep, lie awake, make myself at home.
(Leave comments at http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/home-part-3/)
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Home, Part 2
When we were kids, our grandma and grandpa had a television in every room (except the bathroom). They never moved from the side-by-side, shotgun duplex, the last of the properties of several they had owned and grandpa had tended over the years. The background squawk of the TVs was as constant as the simmering pots on the stove.
I don't know what grandma's favorite show was or even if she paid attention. White noise. Colorful noise, maybe blunted by the power and color of her personality. It mostly played in the kitchen, toward the back of the house, much of which had been built by grandpa. At one point in the house's history, the kitchen was the back of the house. Mom told tales of trips to the outhouse, even as inner City of New Orleans dwellers.
Whatever grandma's favorite show was, grandma knew that all of the people in them had indoor bathrooms, just like her, and likely had more than one color TV—maybe in every room, just like her. Toward the front of the house, the televisions rarely played. Instead, the sound of a bar across the street often filled the air. An ironic coexistence, given that grandpa was a Baptist preacher and did not set foot in the establishment. It was an ironic coexistence with his step son who lived in a tiny living space upstairs with its own entrance who regularly stepped into that establishment.
Ironic? Uneasy? Maybe neither. All these things belonged. Was it a sense of humor or a load of tolerance—or maybe an exercise of non-judgmental Christian love—a test of the church's Great Commission playing itself out, a world across the street that begged the preacher man to save then; and a man who was more willing to open that door than his wife was eager to accept.
Or a test provided by grandpa's eldest granddaughter who, on a Sunday morning, dressed finely for the good church people to see, one of four shiny, cared for grandchildren of whom he was much too proud, would peer into that magic TV box at American Bandstand, full of gyrating young people running afoul of the expectations of that sacred day and afoul of young Christian lady conduct in general.
But she loved to dance. She loved dance, a student of people moving to music, to the beat and of their hearts' desires, still too early in life to have an understanding of what all those desires were, but knowing of them—enough of them to watch, not getting to close and knowing that she could watch because she was her grandfather's granddaughter.
The TV would be turned off not from disapproval, even as my mother and I lived moments of uneasiness, appropriately worried about hurting grandpa's sensitivities, feelings or the equilibrium of moral order. The TV was turned off because it was time to go to a church service at which grandpa would preach, that would last hours and would be capped off with a score of fawning middle-aged women who had to meet grandma and grandpa's beautiful grandchildren.
Those three-week summer visits were punctuated on the front end by grandma's vigilant wait on the front stoop for a weary carload of Minnesota kids to show up at the house on Roman Street. We would arrive as new-again strangers who would ease into the growing familiarity that, at some point, devolved into mostly-hollow threats from grandma saying that if we did not behave, we'd get a whipping so bad we would not be able to sit down for a week.
********
Next week, the final installment (I think) of “Home.” Be sure to check out the first installment at: http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/home-part-1/. In the mean time, tell the rest of us what home means to you.
I don't know what grandma's favorite show was or even if she paid attention. White noise. Colorful noise, maybe blunted by the power and color of her personality. It mostly played in the kitchen, toward the back of the house, much of which had been built by grandpa. At one point in the house's history, the kitchen was the back of the house. Mom told tales of trips to the outhouse, even as inner City of New Orleans dwellers.
Whatever grandma's favorite show was, grandma knew that all of the people in them had indoor bathrooms, just like her, and likely had more than one color TV—maybe in every room, just like her. Toward the front of the house, the televisions rarely played. Instead, the sound of a bar across the street often filled the air. An ironic coexistence, given that grandpa was a Baptist preacher and did not set foot in the establishment. It was an ironic coexistence with his step son who lived in a tiny living space upstairs with its own entrance who regularly stepped into that establishment.
Ironic? Uneasy? Maybe neither. All these things belonged. Was it a sense of humor or a load of tolerance—or maybe an exercise of non-judgmental Christian love—a test of the church's Great Commission playing itself out, a world across the street that begged the preacher man to save then; and a man who was more willing to open that door than his wife was eager to accept.
Or a test provided by grandpa's eldest granddaughter who, on a Sunday morning, dressed finely for the good church people to see, one of four shiny, cared for grandchildren of whom he was much too proud, would peer into that magic TV box at American Bandstand, full of gyrating young people running afoul of the expectations of that sacred day and afoul of young Christian lady conduct in general.
But she loved to dance. She loved dance, a student of people moving to music, to the beat and of their hearts' desires, still too early in life to have an understanding of what all those desires were, but knowing of them—enough of them to watch, not getting to close and knowing that she could watch because she was her grandfather's granddaughter.
The TV would be turned off not from disapproval, even as my mother and I lived moments of uneasiness, appropriately worried about hurting grandpa's sensitivities, feelings or the equilibrium of moral order. The TV was turned off because it was time to go to a church service at which grandpa would preach, that would last hours and would be capped off with a score of fawning middle-aged women who had to meet grandma and grandpa's beautiful grandchildren.
Those three-week summer visits were punctuated on the front end by grandma's vigilant wait on the front stoop for a weary carload of Minnesota kids to show up at the house on Roman Street. We would arrive as new-again strangers who would ease into the growing familiarity that, at some point, devolved into mostly-hollow threats from grandma saying that if we did not behave, we'd get a whipping so bad we would not be able to sit down for a week.
********
Next week, the final installment (I think) of “Home.” Be sure to check out the first installment at: http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/home-part-1/. In the mean time, tell the rest of us what home means to you.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Home, Part 1
This is the first installment of a three-part series. It began as an assignment given to me and my colleagues as Givens Foundation Emerging Writer Fellows. There are many facets to this theme, and I will get the chance to explore them with my fellow writers as we workshop each others’ works, but I hope that some of you will leave thoughts, now or at the end of the series.
Thanks for reading and thanks for passing this on to friends.
Clarence
**********
Thanks for reading and thanks for passing this on to friends.
Clarence
**********
John and I made our way up the walkway to Mary’s house. It was a sunny, spring afternoon. We had just come from our local political convention: 1994, a year in which we failed, again, to win the Governor’s election, a year in which I would be on one of many versions of the staff that could not get our guy into the mansion on Summit Avenue. That day, Mary had invited several people over. I don’t know who we endorsed that day, for what offices or what issues we decided. I’ve been to more than my share—and a good share of other people’s conventions—a constant blur and while I can remember the details in the moment—but don’t ask me today about any moment of years of beautiful spring days spent inside school auditoriums when more sane people would be outside playing in the newly arrived Minnesota warmth.
I don’t remember, either, what John and I spoke of on the car ride to Mary’s. I don’t remember who drove, although I think it was me.
John was a not-yet-old but past grownup California blond who was way too serious to waste his toe-headed noggin on surfers’ waves. My much younger nappy head was willing to listen and the two of us spent the trek from convention to Mary’s in tandem—until we stepped onto Mary’s walkway.
I walked a step ahead of John. We came to the front door and I reached up to open it and began walking in. John was a bit startled and shot me a what-the-hell-are-you-doing glare and said, “Do you live here?”
I did not live there. Not really. But John did not know the substance of my over-familiarity. He did not know that over-familiarity was more than a function of how many times I had been there. He did not see the implied welcome invitation of the woman who rarely locked the door to her house. He mostly did not see my relationship with Mary, one that was more than familiar, but one that made it a place to lay my weary head as much as my dusty satchel.
Months before, Mary’s dog Beau’s made his first visit to my house. We walked in the door and Beau shot in and made his way down the hallway. We did not notice at first, but a minute after we arrived our noses told us that he had left something in the hallway.
We both laughed. “It means that he knows this is a place where I belong,” she said. He had done the same thing when he walked into her house for the first time. A pet-savvy friend told her that pets will do this: leave droppings in places that they know are the places of their people. I don’t know how Beau knew this. He saw no tooth brush in the bathroom. He saw no clothes in the closet or a favorite mug in the cupboards. Maybe there is a smell. Maybe it was the way that she walked to the door, a step ahead, that told him that this was a place she belonged. At that point, I was not sure if Beau belonged. We laughed some more. I let Mary, her body still heaving with laughter, pick up the mess while I opened a window.
Dogs are like people. Or maybe people are like dogs. Or maybe this is just a false, crude and convenient anthropomorphism. There is something about the places where we will leave our mark and our precious possessions; drop our weapons, our hair and other things that we hold tightly inside when we are somewhere we belong or somewhere that is our own. There are places where, when we show up at the door, they have to let us in, places where we get to decide who comes in and places where we get to poop—just once—and the other creatures living there will still want us.
These are places where we will tolerate our mess for a period of time and the messes of someone else for a much shorter period of time. They are places where, even in that mess, we are content to fall asleep in the middle of it, whether that mess is one of physical things from our closets, kitchens, toy bins for kids or toy bins for adults; or the emotional messes even if they stir our dreams and make sleep restless.
And sometimes those messes are so bad, they can’t be ignored, even when the eyes in our head and the mind’s eye are closed and we try to settle a heart that won’t be quieted.
I listen to the dreams of friends and, just as often, the nightmares that have left them restless. I listen because the friends will tell me, want to tell me, seek out my ear. I listen because it is much easier than sitting on my own couch and having mine analyzed with a scrutiny that makes them hard to put to bed. And just as often as I hear the dreams that led my friends, way too young and anxious to fly out of their parents’ nests, I hear the nightmares that chase them away with a ferocity that makes me cover my ears, not wanting to believe that their child-selves had to sleepwalk through such caustic purgatories.
A friend talks about the “distant murmur and hum of traffic” that perforated the darkness in which she slept as a child. First in a two-story blue house set on a busy, small town highway in southeastern Wisconsin. Later, after her parents split up, it was the front bedroom of her father’s place during the weekend visits. Today, she still needs the white-noise drone for slumber, a necessary accessory in that place where she lays her head. It is the lullaby that lets her body and psyche know she has arrived at the place she is supposed to be.
Where we are supposed to be changes, nests change and so do the people who occupy them. But these are places with familiar sounds, familiar smells, familiar walls, familiar faces and familiar pillows. It is said that the smells are the most powerful, wresting memories from our subconscious. Still, I think the faces are most important—or more so what is behind those faces.
My parents lived in the house, in which my siblings and I did most of our growing up, well into my 40s. They were there long enough for it to be grandma and grandpa’s place. Long enough to be the oldest people on the block. But it was always the place where I could lay my head, my satchel and almost every version of my stuff, my material possessions—even the messes that were created by my string-saver mentality.
There are places where, when I show up, they have to let me in. There is a place where I can sit without worrying if it is my chair. I can go to the refrigerator and take what I want—or maybe ask, not if I can have what I want but, rather, if anyone else had plans for it already. Someone will either offer to do my laundry or ask if I can help with the laundry that is there. I will be fed or expect to feed someone including myself. All of this is a step of intimacy beyond that which makes us merely welcome.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Leaving Kevin
Ten minutes into sandbox play, I wanted to go home. I sat across from Keven Ward. Kevin was in 5th grade. I was in 6th. Kevin, a toe-headed, skinny lad, avidly plowed with his Tonka Toy bulldozer. I was less enthusiastic.
I felt odd, because for the previous ten years, just about everything I got my hands on became a car or truck--or bulldozer--or some vehicle I pretend to drive.
Suddenly, watching Kevin move sandy earth and listening to truck sounds coming from his mouth as we sat in front of the ranch office his parents owned, I was aware of how uninspired I was to do the same.
Instead of feeling the fun, I felt guilty. Guilty for leaving Kevin. I was still there in the sandbox, but emotionally, I had left the play space in which he was earnestly engaged.
Kevin was nice enough to invite me to play. He was cool enough--not that cool meant much to me at that point in my life. His family had a ranch. They had a college bookstore, both of which held enough adventure for two grade-school kids, and enough trouble to tactfully avoid. They had a camper, a Winnebago in which they took me on two camping trips. They were all nice to me.
And maybe that is why that leaving felt like such a betrayal.
But I had already left that childhood space before I got there. It was the first time I had any concept of my own personal maturation--real change that was, for some reason, more powerful than graduating to footless pajamas, being able to bike across town on my own, or even later, getting behind the wheel of the huge family station wagon.
I had an awareness that, at that moment, different from any other moment during the time I had known Kevin, I was older than him. Somehow, we had lost, without either of us noticing, a big chunk of peer space, the space where we could both be excited by toy cars and making truck noises and having that be enough to keep us entertained and connected with each other.
The next year, I would be in junior high and Kevin would still be at our grade school. I am not sure how many little boy things I had shed by the time I reached junior high, and how many I carried with me. A pile of toy cars that I left in the toy bins of our basement were not missed, but even today, the loss of a baseball glove is devastating. (I am still mourning the loss of a baseball glove I acquired in college.)
But losing friends from childhood is inevitable. The guilt of not knowing how to bring Kevin, occupied with the amusement of the toy bulldozer, into my emerging adolescence has belatedly transformed into a mild grief. Today, I am none-the-wiser, except to understand that I have grown out of friends and they have grown out of me, and it is a blameless loss. And it is a constant renewal with joy, pain and pangs of longing for past simplicities and futures not yet achieved.
I think of this today as I think of an old photograph of the old gang, Kevin included. We are posing with our baseball gloves on the vacant lot behind a house of another friend. We all seem happy with the sun beaming down on us, glad there are just enough to field a two teams for pick-up sand lot. I am wearing a glove that I still have today, one I pull out when an emergency game of catch breaks out and a kid needs a glove to participate.
I still have the memories of that lot, the place, the faces and the fun we had. A couple of these kids are still friends. But more is different than the same, as it should be.
And I look at my son and the relationships he has, how they have transformed and what it will mean in the future, what they have meant in the past, the joys, the heartaches and the wondering: what will happen in later days—or even with the passing of the next summer. I look at some of his friends and see Kevin in them—and sometimes in him. I see Kevin in myself.
In the mean time, it is a luxurious discovery to find that adult fun is really kid fun. It is a luxury because what I see as recreation is really the life work of the young while for us grown people, it is just play. It is adult because I am old enough to see that those things are so good for our mind and body. Our creative imaginations. An academic test of how we interact with others and care for their fun and well-being. Only games.
And most of the time, the grief that comes from winning or losing—either the game or the friend, is more a lesson than permanent injury, and we pick up with life and the kids who happen to be on hand for the next game, lesson and adventure.
And in the mean time, it is fun because it is fun. And now, more so than before, it is fun because I can see it in the faces and bodies of the children in addition to feeling it myself. And in the mean time, I can tell myself that I have at least grown a little.
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