Smiles

There’s a young woman on the bus whose face is scarred from burns. Long since healed but still, there it is. I like to share smiles with her. She does a good, honest smile. I look around and people are averting eyes or even grimacing at this image of ‘beauty destroyed.’

Except it isn’t. Destroyed, that is. She’s lovely and even if she wasn’t in any classic sense, what of it? There is nothing ‘destroyed’ in this face or the person behind it.

There is an incredible calm about her as she climbs the steps, taps her pass on the reader, looks about for a seat and then walks and sits as though there was nothing unusual about a person with scars on the bus. Which of course, there isn’t.

Lots of bus riders have scars. Trust me, there are some scarred people to be found on the afternoon 212. People with demons, with fears and dreads and resentments and the whole plethora of burdens that twist the soul. Folks with memories they’d rather not have and habits they’d like to break and losses from which they’ll never fully recover. And they look away from this lovely girl whose scars are at least honest.

I looked away for too long. But then one day we caught each other’s eye. I like myself better when I just smile. I really like that she smiles back. At 63, a young woman’s smile can make my whole day.

Sometimes, she even smiles first. 

Zaevion William Dobson

I've been hella busy this week and don't have a missive ready to post. I need a break. We all need a break, methinks.

Here's my suggestion: Turn off CNN. For twenty-four hours, don't think about Trump or Clinton or LePage.

Instead, if you need someone to read about, Google the young man whose name I've used as a title for this post. I guarantee he'll make you happier than any politician.

Sad, too.

Carl and Joe

(Written during a flight a few days ago)

I am astounded at the generosity of a friend who passed away last week. I can’t stop thinking about the most-of-three-days I spent chatting with him less than a month ago.

Joe was the second husband of my wife’s sister, a guy who came into her life after her children had been mostly raised. For each of them, the pairing was not so much about building a future but rather about settling into a life together after many of the lessons have been learned. And as far as Mary and I could tell, their settling in was natural, effortless, meant to be.

They had too few of those ‘here were are together and life is good’ years before the cancer made itself known. They should – if a normative can be applied to something as capricious as a person’s fate – they should have had those golden years that all seek but none are promised. But life is what happens, so Mary is in Florida as I type this, trying to help her sister cope.

The world without Joe is a lesser place, I can assure you. This was a man whose stepdaughter found in him, finally, a true ‘daddy.’ Whose son’s passing was mourned by a father who was born to the title. Whose love for his wife bordered on adoration.

This was a man whose approach to knowledge of his own impending mortality was to blog about it, so that the people he cared about and who cared about him could be reassured and comforted by the chronicle of his battle, without whining or self-pity.

Selfishly, Joe and I were brothers-in-law who made the annual Jonardi gatherings enjoyable for each other. Or so it was for me and I like to think, for him as well. I’ve always been uncomfortable at these yearly extravaganzas at which I felt an interloper but with Joe there, I had a friend, a brother in the strange world of family history that wasn’t mine and references I didn’t understand.

And toward the end, rather than cocoon or rage against his condition, he shared, honestly and without a hint of bitterness, his story that could only have one ending. His humor and decency and amazing knowledge and insight when I was last with him made me think about others who have displayed grace in the face of their own demise.  Gilda Radner’s It’s Always Something, Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture (and Robert Schultz’s, for that matter) come to mind.

It was with all this playing on my psyche that I picked up two books by Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, and his last book, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium. I read the first to sort of calibrate myself to his style, although it turned out not to have been necessary. It was a good book, but the style of writing was quite different from the later (last) one.

Sagan, knowing that his nine lives were sorely depleted and that his time was nigh, elected to have a conversation with us about the ideas that mattered to him and that he felt should matter to all of us. I am reading ‘Billions’ now and so far, it’s a glorious book, a wonderful journey through the mind of a man who devoted much of his professional life to understanding difficult concepts and then explaining them to the rest of us.

I hope to provide you with a book report some time soon. But even if not, please consider reading this book. Three chapters in, I’m already better off for having done so.

Both Carl and Joe chose to leave behind evidence of their love for this world and the people in it. And today, at 36,000 feet over (Montana?), I raise my orange juice in salute to them. 

It's not sacrifice

My whole life – at least my adult life, so that would be the last few days, anyway – I’ve read and heard frequent references to the sacrifices parents make on behalf of their children.

While I understand what people mean I’m not sure the characterization is apt, at least not for people who earn the right to be called Mom or Dad. The truth is, I think I’ve done okay as a parent and I don’t recall making any sacrifices.

Perhaps I just have a bad memory or perhaps I’m misconstruing the term but I don’t think so.

Mary and I entered into a pact early on that served us reasonably well throughout our child-rearing years. We would face what came at us while trying to tend in the direction of positive outcome. And when we had to make a choice between our comfort and our children’s well-being, we would opt in favor of the kids.  I know, that sounds very ‘well duh’ but really, that’s sort of how we planned our life as parents. We voiced nothing more or less philosophical than that.

So as the challenges came, as we knew they would, we just did what parents do. We had a white wing chair in which one of us spent most of the night every night for well over a year. Having a sick baby meant Mary and I were both able to recite the Nick At Nite rerun lineup and I’m pretty sure I memorized a couple episodes of The Donna Reed Show in their entirety. Came to hate a certain purple dinosaur but that may have just been a matter of druthers.

I recall some long periods of budgetary skinniness when we had to pony up for choir fees and tour costs.

Mary and I both volunteered for various and sundry kid-focused activities over the years. We’ve stood out in the cold with cookie-hawking Girl Scouts, chaperoned car washes, built scenery and a portable puppet theatre, provided refreshments, swept up after, you know how it goes.

Mary and I volunteered for most of Two’s high school volleyball games, Mary as scorer and yours truly as line judge. I can tell you now without fear of scarring my daughter too badly that I really hated that gig. I would much rather have watched the games and line judges are not well respected in high school volleyball circles.

More than one Christmas, Mary and I limited our largesse for each other in order to make sure the kids got their fave toys and yes, there was at least one Christmas Eve that found us frantically trying to find the favored toy of the year.

It’s not sacrifice. It’s something good, perhaps even mildly noble. But it’s not sacrifice. Because the whole point of being a parent is the creation and nurturing of something better than oneself.

And besides, how can it be sacrifice when you end up with these daughters? 

(Insert expletive)

Two deaths in the family, within the last 24 hours, of people I really care about.

Please take a few minutes to hug someone you love.

Dinner guests

I’m pretty sure I’ve done this one before but I’m too damn lazy to sort through six hundred-plus entries to find out. So, I’m just going to risk redundancy.

I was cross-commenting in Facebook with Cecille, a friend from high school days about a woman who runs the Safe Place for Kids in Baltimore and I mentioned this woman is someone with whom I’d like to have dinner. Which of course led me to thinking about how to round out the guest list, which of course, included the word ‘list’ and you can guess where this is going, right?

My perfect dinner gathering, not including the people who read this, who go without saying will be invited but will probably have to sit at the kids table, no offense intended:

·         Ericka Alston – She created the Penn North Safe Kids Zone, and you could spend 21 minutes in a lot worse way than watching her TED talk, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.

·         Sheila - Because I think she and Ericka would drive the conversation even if no one else spoke.

·         Carl Sagan – For his humanity and intelligence and incredible insight.

·         Elie Wiesel – So we don’t forget

.

·         Chita Rivera – When I did a show with her we had some dead time waiting behind a set piece together for our entrance and she talked and talked about her daughter. Not about herself or her career on Broadway or politics or, or, or… Oh, and also for her jokes.

·         Sylvia Earle – The marine biologist and National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence. I could listen to her for hours.

·         Arland Williams, Jr. – He chose to save others at cost of his own life and had to have known he was doing so. I’ve wondered about him from time to time for thirty-four years.

·         Malala Yousafzai – Shot for daring to demand her right to an education, she has become a beacon for a generation.

Mary and I would serve, thus allowing us to eavesdrop. 

Back home

I’m home for a week or so and taking a day completely off to rest and write.

Okay, I’ll do some cleaning and take shirts to cleaners and cook the pork roast for lunches in the coming week. But no work-work today, although I can’t promise for tomorrow. And no yard work or garage straightening. I’ll do whatImustandnomore because today is my day to be me.

Part of being me is spending some time with Daughter One. Spent some time talking about family and work gossip and that was wonderful but not necessary for my happiness. Just being in the same space with her is precious time. She’s a good head, as we used to say.

Night before last, I had dinner with Sheila and Karen and that was special in its own way. And I’m planning a road trip wit me bro in a month or two that will be fabulous.

But today, I’m alone with my stuff and my thoughts and the knowledge of my daughter close at hand.

My life is good. 

Cleo the Crafty

It’s been some time so I figured I’d catch you up on the dog-related doings at Chez McDermott.

Previously on the Canine Hour, Odin the Large and Lazy had passed on to that big doggy bed in the sky, and his absence had left Zoey the Small and Annoying confused and saddened. So, not long after the tragic event, Daughter One and I went to the local animal shelter to start perusing breeds and planning our next adoption. We made it about halfway down the line of cages before I could tell by the angelic glow surrounding One’s head that she had found The One.

I have also let you in on the fact that having lost a Great Dane / Black Lab mix, One elected to fill the void with none other than a Chihuahua, one of the five or six breeds concerning the adoption of which I had famously and - as it turns out, ineffectually - said, “Never!”  (Side note: When a father of daughters says ‘never,’ that translates roughly to ‘until the women in my life inform me otherwise.’)

Ahem, moving on…

So Cleo, as she came to be called set about winning the hearts of the humans of the house and gradually wormed her way into Zoey’s heart, as well. She really is a cute little thing, runs like a bandy-legged gazelle and loves nothing so much as to be in physical contact with one of her peeps, preferably in a position of repose on a convenient lap.

Lately, she has fallen into habits that are somewhat, shall we say, less cute. For a while, she decided that she was too dainty to go out in the rain so she took to conducting her fluid adjustment activities on the dining room rug. We humans were slow to figure out her subterfuge, which accounts for the fact that said rug is now rolled up outside, awaiting my next trip to the dump.

She is a master at pulling crapola out of any trash or recycling receptacle she comes across and has developed an acrobatic routine that involves leaping up, hooking front paws over the lip of the trash can, then leaning back so that her weight tips the can over, the better to access the contents, my dear. It is not unusual for me to come upstairs from my office to find the family room strewn with an assortment of discarded mail, wrappers of various descriptions, and the occasional used cotton swab. (I agree – ew!)

 We wondered why the lid to the dog food bin was repeatedly left askew until one day One came into the kitchen to discover a pair of itty bitty doggy legs sticking up over the rim, blissfully dancing to the rhythm of the munching sounds coming from inside.  Her latest skill involves burrowing her way into the forty-pound bag of kibble. For at least twenty years, through the various dogs and combinations of dogs the bag containing extra dog food has resided in the cubby behind the ready bin. Twenty years it went unmolested.

Until now. 

Until Cleo.

Now, I don’t want you to think we’re silly enough to leave her alone in the house so she can commit her burglaries unobserved. No-o-o-o! She does not require our absence in order to commence her perfidy. The brazen little monster carries out her criminal actions right in front of us! The other day I heard a rustling and went into the kitchen – barely around the corner from where I sat working in the dining room – to discover her doing her darnedest to chew a hole in the kibble bag, having already managed somehow to slide the bin out of her way.

So now our home décor includes a half empty bag of dog munch sitting on top of the sideboard. It won’t be there for long. We’ll find a more protected – and we hope out of sight – place to store it. And not entirely for reasons aesthetic.

Yesterday I came around the corner to discover a Chihuahua sitting in the hallway in front of the sideboard staring up at her erstwhile prize. Since she was entirely unconcerned at my presence, I was able to stand there and study her for a moment. And I saw the look on her little face.

This was not the forlorn countenance of a tiny animal recognizing defeat. No, what I saw there was a world class climber, dispassionately calculating the route for her free climb up the face of El Capitan.

Gawd help us. 

Marsha

I met Marsha on the bus. This is how I meet many of the ‘new people’ in my life these days. I spend almost an hour, usually with many of the same people.

I tend to be sort of cocooned, pulling out my book or my Nook and going into another world other than taking occasional glances outside to look at people or water or mountains, only emerging from my chrysalis stage at the last possible moment upon arrival at my stop. But every now and then, something spurs interaction in a less superficial way than the normal ‘excuse-me’ and ‘did you drop this’ sort of engagement.

I’d been riding the same morning bus with Marsha frequently since last time I made a routing change and other than nods and occasionally teaming up to help a newbie figure out their stop, we’d never spoken. But one morning we were standing next to each other in the queue and one of us commented on a particularly clueless set of riders the day before and it turns out Marsha is as much of a gabber as am I, so off we went.

She’s quite an interesting women. After spending x number of years serving as a crew member on private yachts and charters, she holds multiple certifications and now teaches at a maritime academy in Seattle. She has great stories of dealing with self-impressed sea dogs who consider themselves far too salty to accept guidance – or worse, grading and correction – by a ‘mere slip of a girl.’ Never mind that their sole path to qualifying for a higher paying job and more prestigious position in the maritime world passes through her evaluation of their grasp of the material. 

This is a woman who started her career working large private yachts for a captain who maintained about 50/50 gender division in his crews. She says she “kept my mouth shut and head down and just did the work,” and fortunately this guy was more interested in developing talent that checking out the local talent so under his tutelage she flourished.

She worked hard and was smart enough never to pass on an opportunity to learn or to assume more responsibility. And when she was ready to spend some time ashore, found a berth teaching other people what she had already learned.

She told me about dealing with gruff old duffs. And people who inexplicably ignored their lessons after ponying up several thousand dollars for the privilege. Go figure, but I’ve seen the same thing elsewhere. It kills me to have a class of twenty or so in a classroom in, say, Denver and realize that the guy who flew there from Hawaii or the gal from New Hampshire can’t be bothered to pay attention to the material. Marsha and I share that experience.

You might suppose that having both spent significant periods at sea – I was in the Navy during my formative years – we would spend our time together swapping yarns about exotic places or typhoons we’ve known and loved.

No, mostly we talk about teaching adults – actual or theoretical – in professional development courses. It’s shop talk between peers of a sort and I really enjoy our time together. It doesn’t hurt that she’s a truly nice person. 

Difficult times

I am watching several young adults of my acquaintance go through some difficult times. Emotionally, financially, physically tough stuff. And I am finding it very difficult to hold in abeyance my natural tendency to step in and fix things. Not that I’m sure I could, if I tried.

What’s difficult is the not trying.

My mind is awhirl with dread if/then imaginings of what will come to pass should they not find their way. Not because the world is hard (it is) or because I am frustrated in the knowledge that all of them are so smart and insightful and good people who could own the world if only they understood how to make a start (I am).

They will. Find their paths and make a start, I mean. But knowing the sun will rise doesn’t make the night less foreboding.

It’s not my role as elder that binds this fear to me, not at all. If I looked at things entirely from where I now stand, I would be able to embrace the certainty of their success. I know now that if you just keep chugging, things eventually work out. But we are each a collection of points of view, each from a different age and situation, a different point in time. And each of those snapshots is laden with the feelings that accompanied the versions of ourselves they represent.

The snapshot from when I was their age is of a not very hopeful me. It is a picture of a ‘me’ who had lost the woman who I thought would be the one, of a ‘me’ feeling unloved and therefore unlovable. Of a ‘me’ with no particular career direction, whose attempt at college had been abortive, who didn’t respect himself and saw that lack of regard reflected in the eyes of those around him. A ‘me’ who – thanks to the tender ministrations of a drunk driver – could not be certain that the seizures would ever stop or the memory ever fully return.

I went through a shit-storm of self-doubt during what should have been years of defining and forging a trajectory. Instead, I simply kept colliding with myself. And I grew fatigued by the sheer effort of recovering from self-inflicted failures.

I did recover. A good woman and a caring family and a very few steadfast friends saw me through. I found my path and eventually my stumbling became a stride. Life does get better if you just keep on keeping on. Or to be more accurate, if you steadfastly refuse to finally give up. The dawn comes, the storm abates. Life becomes livable, then enjoyable, and eventually precious.

But you have to trust enough to make the start.

I wish I’d understood that sooner. I gave up much of fifteen years of my life. I can’t get it back.

So, I guess what I would say is simply this: today is your life. Yesterday is gone and next year is never promised.

Please, live today. It’s what you have.