Cleaning Out

How easy it is for us to ask others to do something that is difficult if not impossible for us to do ourselves.  I'm in the process of trying to clear out some of the accumulated clutter of the past nineteen years.  Prior to moving to Emporia, we moved at least every three or four years if not more often.  Anyone who has ever moved knows how easy it is to throw away or sell things when you are facing the overwhelming task of packing; out it goes, into the trash, into a box to deliver to "Goodwill" or into the front yard for a garage sale.  Suddenly, the pain of giving up is not nearly as painful as that of having to pack and move everything.

But, oh how difficult it is to sort things out when there is no pressing emergency.  What to throw away and what to keep?  The decision is easier in the business world than it is in our personal lives. One can access the AICPA's (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) 21-page document which describes the prescribed process and requirements for record retention in American business today.  When I was working, I had one rule for throwing out any business documents which did not fit the legal requirement.  I asked myself one question, if I needed this in the future, would I know where to find it?  If not, out it went.  You would be surprised how many documents fit that criteria.

That is only talking about business documents which are very factual and come with no emotional attachment.  It is even more difficult to determine what records and mementoes to keep for our personal lives. Not only do we have governmental and legal requirements to deal with, but we have memories which are much more difficult to put a price on.

Digging through the accumulation makes me think of my mother who died in 2014.  As her remaining years wound down, she moved first from her large suburban home in Kansas City to a smaller house next door to us here in Emporia.  Her next move was to an apartment in Presbyterian Manor and finally, she moved into a single room in the assisted living wing.  How hard it must have been for her to let go of a lifetime of memories; how difficult to watch your life's possessions shrivel down to the point where everything could be kept in a single dresser and night stand.

Like most of her peers, experiencing prosperity after the great depression meant moving up into a better neighborhood and bigger house whenever possible.  The bigger house meant there was more room for possessions, so my mother acquired more and kept more. While she had the ability to take care of everything, there was no reason to throw stuff out.   Of course, separating oneself from one's possessions doesn't happen overnight.   In my mother's case, it began when she was in her mid-eighties.  When it became obvious that she could no longer stay in the home she had known for twenty some years, downsizing had to begin.

Paring down her possessions for her first move from her home in Kansas City with a full basement and attic to her much smaller home here in Emporia, was a daunting task. We spent weeks going through closets and cabinets, clearing out items that had been forgotten for years. In the end, after an enormous garage sale and donating almost a full truck load to the Salvation Army, we still had to call 800-Got-Junk to haul the remnants away.  

When I think of all the possessions that we accumulate throughout our lives, I can't help but think about all the emotional and mental baggage that often loads us down.  In addition to physical objects, we also hold on to grudges, hurt, bad habits and harmful relationships.   I’m guessing most of us could stand a good internal house cleaning.  The problem with holding on to our past is that it clutters up our mind and in a lot of cases, unless we take a real deep hard look at ourselves, we don’t realize that those issues are there.  Nevertheless, our unresolved issues are occupying space in our minds and in many cases preventing us from moving on. 

Just as I’m finding, while cleaning things out, a lot of the things that we hold on to are nothing but trash; junk that is long past it’s usefulness.  My motivation to keep sorting through nineteen years of accumulation is that the more I sort through, the more I can envision how liberated and free I will be when I get rid of all this unnecessary stuff that I have been holding onto.  Letting go of our emotional or mental clutter can be liberating as well.

Cars I've Owned and Loved

We bought a new car.  I really didn't want one.  Our old one was fine with me, but it had over 260,000 miles on it and was beginning to show its age.

  

The problem with age, whether it is humans, animals, or cars, is that aging is costly.  Our aging dogs are keeping the vet in business and the same was true of our mechanic.  It seemed that every week I was taking the car in and saying, "we've got to stop meeting like this."  But, just like any elderly person there was always another part that had to be replaced in our elderly car.  We decided there were some things we could live with, like the driver's side door that no longer opened, but when we received the prognosis that the brakes required another $900 procedure, we decided to release it to automobile heaven.

So, we bought a new car, or a new used car I should say.  We found a 2015 model used car with 5,500 miles .  Eureka!  The days are long gone when I feel the need to impress friends or neighbors with the latest new gadget or car, although that was not the case in my younger days.  Like a lot of us when we were younger, the type of car that we drove was always very important.  In fact, the first car I bought was the only other used car I have every owned.  All the rest have been driven off of the dealer's showroom floor, new. 

My first car was a Dodge Dart,  gold with white leather interior and a push button transmission.  I would never have picked out that car.  My father found it for me shortly after I graduated college when I needed cheap transportation to my first real job.  My father always had a fondness for Chrysler products.  I don't know why.  He was a quality control inspector for Ford for years, which might say something about the quality and reputation of Fords in those days.  He found a good deal on a car that never gave me any problems, but, it was not the car of my dreams.  It wasn't me. 

I drove that Dart for a couple of years while I settled into having a steady paycheck and finally made my way to the Volkswagen dealer to buy my dream car, a yellow VW convertible.  I loved that car, except in the snow.  It got around great, but the top was not air tight.  I would find myself chugging up steep, icy hills  , passing other cars that were spinning out, all the time being  surrounded by snow swirling throughout the interior.

   

That car was followed by another VW, a red Karmann Ghia convertible, one of the most fun cars I've ever owned.   A guy I worked with convinced me that I needed to sell it to him and as a result, I ended up owning the first Toyota of three.

 

The Toyotas were followed by two Hondas and then a Saturn, which was followed by a Ford Ranger and then two Volvos, which were purchased not for aesthetics, but because they were safe and reliable cars.  When you get older, safety and reliability become more important than whether or not your car makes a statement.  The last two cars, the Volvos, were also the only automatic transmissions that I ever owned with the exception of that push button Dart.

Our new car is an automatic also, but it is not a concession to age.  I still prefer to drive manual transmissions, but they are becoming impossible to find here in the U.S.  Stick shifts are not only fun to drive, but safer than automatics.  You can't be a lazy driver with a stick shift.  You have to think ahead.  Then there is the challenge of being able to idle at a stop sign on a hill without using the brake.  Automatics don't offer the same opportunity.

Our little old Ford Ranger has a manual transmission and we will probably keep it until we die.  It will keep running until then as it has no electronic parts. There is very little that can go wrong, unlike the cars manufactured today which purposely have computer obsolescence built into them.

Our new car has all of these electronic warning systems, for backing up or monitoring a blind spot.  It has GPS and Wi-Fi, but these luxuries are little more than computers that can go bad at any time and where is the fun in that.  The cars today may be as efficient as a cell phone, but they will never provide the thrill of driving down a deserted two lane highway in the middle of Western Kansas at 100 miles per hour with the top down.

Without Love

It's was a beautiful morning. I was sitting in my garden having a rest after putting in some more plants and then the day was shattered, like so many have been recently, by the news of another school shooting. “When is it going to end?” I asked myself. Everything has changed once again. What I was going to write about no longer seems relevant. The only things that matter now are all the families who have to go through the pain of losing their love ones in such a senseless way. In a nation like ours, with all the resources that we have available why can't we solve this problem? Have we become so desensitized that we have no desire to hold those to account who are responsible for this madness? It isn't just the gun manufacturers. It isn't just the mental health community or the social case workers that let people fall through the cracks. It isn't just the media, who in a way glorify the violence and its perpetrators by broadcasting the chaos that they create over and over and over ad infinitum. It isn't just the manufacturers of video games who have created a culture of violence. It isn’t just rap that glorifies violence and an in-your-face lifestyle. It's all of us, even those who care about our fellow man. It's all of us because we were at rave at each other. It is each one of us thinks we are in the center of the universe and our own well-being is the most important thing. I think we need a major reassessment of our worth. It doesn't matter how many cars you on or how many square feet your houses are or how fashionably you were dressed or what fine restaurants you've always dined in. We are failing as a society and as individuals if we fail to protect our most precious possession, our children and each other. The problem is, laws are not going to change the situation. That's the first thing we talk about, gun laws, all kinds of proposals have been made for how to correct this situation with laws, but none of them are going to make the difference. We have to address the reason behind all of the desperate lives that cause people to think they have no recourse but to lash out at others. This time, however, the cacophony of protests was dimmed by another unlikely event taking place, the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. For a few hours on Saturday morning, a good portion of the world was transfixed as an American commoner, with one failed marriage behind her, of mixed race, raised by a single black mother, from a family that could be described as dysfunctional at best, vowed before God and the world to love and be faithful to the person who is fifth in line to the throne of England. Accompanying all of the pomp and circumstance that is a Royal wedding, was a fiery message about love by a very black American Episcopal priest, Bishop Michael Curry taken from the book of Amos in the Bible. His words may have been for Harry and Meghan, but they were words that the whole world needed to hear. “When love is the way -- unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive, when love is the way, then no child would go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever flowing brook. When love is the way poverty will become history. When love is the way the earth will become a sanctuary. When love is the way we will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way there’s plenty good room, plenty good room for all of God’s children.” And I would add, when love is the way, we won't have to worry about our children being slaughtered in their classrooms by their peers. Does it sound too simple? Perhaps yes, but desperate times call for desperate measures and sometimes there is nothing more desperate than love. The words to the old Doobie Brothers hit come to mind: “Without love, where would you be now?” Look around, this is what it looks like without love.

Bittersweet

When I was growing up, American Bittersweet was common in our corner of Wyandotte County  The housing addition where we lived bordered a wooded area that was dotted with the orange berries hanging from the trees. The woods, or timber as we called it, was an enormous play area appropriated by the neighborhood kids, for hiking, exploring, building tree houses, and daydreaming.  It was the place where I first started constructing stories in my head.  In retrospect, it probably did not encompass more than twenty acres, but we bravely surveyed every inch of it.  One of our favorite pastimes in the fall was hunting bittersweet and trying to pull it down from the tree limbs around which it was entwined.  We would take it back to our respective homes where it would become the centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner.  

Now, years later, it seems very appropriate that bittersweet was associated with Thanksgiving.  This year will mark the first time that my mother has not been present at our family's bountiful Thanksgiving dinner.  It will be the first year that we will not have her famous potato rolls. Much like Lou Jacobi's famous line in the movie, Avalon, "You cut the turkey without me?"  it has become custom for one of the cousins to always ask, "Did Aunt Velma bring the potato rolls?" as he walks in the door, as if that is our primary reason for giving thanks.  At ninety-five and in the last stages of her life, attending the family dinner is no longer a possibility.  That prospect makes me wonder if we will have anything to be thankful for this year.  Not only will we not have her potato rolls, we will not have the camaraderie that centered around the remaining family matriarch.  Now the cousins from McPherson, Overland Park, Lee's Summit and Bentonville have nothing to travel to Emporia for, nothing to draw them together. 

The early settlers to this country, the ones who first offered thanks, were not relying on precedence or even bounty to give thanks.  They knew that gratefulness was not born out of abundance, not out of the comfortable trappings of their warm and cozy homes, not out of being surrounded by family and friends, not out of anticipation of the next day's shopping spree, but out of gratitude and hope. 

 None of the things we now associate with Thanksgiving:  the Macy's parade, turkey and dressing, pumpkin pie, college football games, or Black Friday, have anything to do with the circumstances of the Pilgrims. The early settlers left most of their friends and family behind in another land.  They were surrounded by death; only fifty of the original one hundred and two settlers survived.  Those that survived found themselves living in a harsh land with barely enough subsistence to maintain their lives.  If you've ever visited Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, you know that the huts they built for shelter were primitive at best and provided none of the comforts to which we have become accustomed.  As Edward Winslow, one of the colonists, wrote concerning their feast, "And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

"Not so far from want."  Would it occur to any of us to choose those words to describe our circumstances today?   Living in this country forged by the dreams of our forefathers, that has become a beacon of hope and prosperity to the world, not even the poorest among us comes close to the dire circumstances of the colonists whose dreams made our abundance possible. 

We truly are 'not so far from want.'  The material things that we consider ourselves thankful for cannot compare with the spiritual blessing of friends and family.  It is reflecting on the bitter loss of our friends and family that causes us to realize just how fortunate, how blessed we have been.  It is only in the midst of pain and loss that we realize how sweet our lives have been and continue to be.

This year, as we celebrate our day of thanks, the centerpiece of our celebration will once more be bittersweet.  But instead of the living plant, this year our centerpiece will be the living memories of those who have left us as they have moved on with their lives or to a better place, along with those we have left behind as we moved on as well.  We are truly blessed.  To paraphrase Edward Winslow, we are so far from want, so blessed with abundance, that we wish you could join us in our celebration of thanks.

True Love's Heart

For Valentine's Day, a story I wrote years ago.


He never could see why she'd married him. He hadn't had much to offer when they met. He'd been nothing, but a horse groomer, a cattle groomer he told her. He spent years roaming from town to town, ranch to ranch, grooming cattle for wealthy people to put in shows to win blue ribbons. That's what he told her at least. Truth was he was more of a drunk. Roaming from town to town was true, and true he did comb a few tangles out of the coats of the polled Herefords, but basically he roamed from drink to drink, from waking up on one stable floor to another, never noticing the day or the hour. It didn't make any difference.

Then he met her, and things changed. Her love filled up all the empty places. He became a sober man. And, as if to somehow repay her for replacing his futile, stumbling, existence with the key to her heart, he brought her gifts every Valentine day.

My first recollection of Valentine’s Day was when I was about five years old. I always sat at the front window of our green stucco bungalow peering through the lace curtains waiting for the blue sedan which deposited him at the curb every afternoon. On this particular day, the guys in the car pool were more than their usual rowdy selves. They rolled down the car windows in spite of the drizzly February day and yelled out after him as he made his way up the stairs with both arms behind his back.

"Papa, Papa," I cried, running to meet him. But for once he didn't drop his lunch bucket to pick me up. Instead he walked down the hall past the bedrooms and through the dining room, looking for my mother, the velveteen box hidden behind the back of his greasy overalls.

He found her in the kitchen, where, putting his arm around her, he shyly handed her the box. "I love you, Mommy," he said, a forty-one year old little boy.

"Oh, you shouldn't have,” were her first, and as I was to learn through the years, customary words.

I was excluded, for the first time I sensed that. While I would never feel unloved, this love, this day never stretched to include me or my brothers.

That was to be only one reminder of many over the years. Every Valentines day, I knew without fail, that regardless of what our fortunes were that year, there would be some kind of gift on Valentines Day. It might be she didn't have but one new dress throughout the whole year, and when fortunes were really bad, the only clothes she had were those she made herself out of feed sacks, but regardless of what it took, come Valentines Day, there would be his heart and the heart shaped box of candy.

I remember every different one he gave her. In the years when things were really tight, it would be a plain paper box, red with a ribbon around it. And in the years when things were going a little better, it might be a velvet heart, or a satin heart with satin roses on it. One year he gave her a lilac heart with lilac roses on it. It was always my favorite, but then, I was never much one for taste. It didn't matter what they looked like, her heart was taken in them all.

What brought to mind all these past Valentine's days was a mid-morning call from my father. "Cate," he asked, "Would you go see your mother? It's Valentines Day, you know. Could you go buy a heart to take to her at the home? You know I just can't get out. My knees are a little too weak. But it hurts me to think of her being there and not having a box of chocolates on Valentines Day. Just sign it "I love you.""

"Oh, Papa," I started to cry.

"I know,” He tried to cheer me up. "I know it's hard to see her like she is, but even if she doesn't know anything, she still might think I'd forgotten her on Valentines Day, that she isn't my sweetheart anymore. You'll go won't you?"

"I'll go, Papa,” I replied, "I'll go."

Reassured, he gave me further instructions before he hung up the phone. “You know she still loves her chocolates. Make sure it's a Russell Stover heart. That's her favorite kind."

"I will.” I promised.

"Thank you, Cate,” I could hear a tremor in his voice as he hung up the phone, "Thank you."

I put my coat on, walk out of the office and down the street, wondering if I am worthy to be the bearer of his love to my mother. I wonder for myself, what my own marriage would have been like if Charlie had brought me boxes of chocolates during the years when I was unable to see any more love in his eyes than I did, when we had grown so far apart. Can something so simple as a paper box hold something together that is no longer there? What about all these small tokens of love that my father brings my mother, are they the real thing? Charlie gave me so many more things than my father ever gave my mother, yet, in the end it was never enough.

Later in the afternoon, after I’ve once more become absorbed in my work, I look out my office door just in time to see the florist bring flowers to one of the girls that works here. For a minute, a swift second in time, a minute of home strikes me, but then I realize there isn't any one in my life who would be sending me flowers. Certainly not Charlie, that was dead a long time ago. But it is Valentines Day and it brings back memories of better times, memories of my father, and his Valentine Days. I’ve witnessed what it is to be loved and adored. Somehow that erases the emptiness of having never really been loved, for just myself, and replaces it with hope instead.

Silent Night

I wrote the following years ago as part of a fiction writing group in New Jersey.  It seem appropriate to the season.

It was one of those frustrating, last days before Christmas. I wore the wrong shoes to the mall and my feet hurt so badly that I picked up the first thing I saw in the kid’s sizes, not caring if it matched or not. Concentrating on not limping, I was unaware that the ranks of shoppers had dwindled down to an unseasonal few and so was quite surprised when I walked out the door to see that the earlier dusting of snow had been replaced by at least six inches of the white stuff. The parking lot was deserted, so I slogged to my car wishing for once that we didn’t live so far off the beaten path.

Apparently, everyone else was safe at home because the road was practically deserted, peacefully so. Clutching the steering wheel tight and driving slower than usual, I made it home, tense, but safely. The dark house confirmed the suspicion, aroused by the lack of bus tracks down our seldom traveled street, that the children, although they would be highly insulted if I referred to them that way...they were fourteen and seventeen after all, weren’t home from school yet either.

Dropping my packages just inside the front door, I immediately called their school...no answer. Just as I was looking up the number for the bus company, I heard the stomping of feet on the porch and ran to open the door. They were going to be chilled through and through. Instead, when I flung the door open, I was greeted by a tall, rangy, stranger who pulled his blue stocking cap off just as I turned on the porch light. I backed into the house and quickly latched the screen, still holding the door open. Any fear for my own personal safety was quickly replaced by suspicion that he had, or at least had knowledge of the whereabouts of my children.

“What?” I asked, peering through the screen.

“I’m sorry ma’am to bother you, but you see, it’s my wife.” He pointed with the blue cap towards a battered grey car that I hadn’t noticed before, at the end of our driveway. “I think it’s her time.”

“Time?”

“ Yes’m. I don’t think we’re going to make it to her sister’s place in Silent Springs...that’s where we’re headed.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t stand here all day long explaining things with my wife out in that car about to have a baby.”

“A baby?” I asked, slightly incredulous. That someone would stop on our remote road because they were going to have a baby was too much to believe. Convinced it was a hoax, I wanted to close the door, but not before I knew if his appearance had anything to do with my children.

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you in,” I told him through the still shut screen.

“Then, would you just come with me and look at my wife?” he asked.

Thoughts tumbled through my head...they had my children and were going to take me too...”Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, and I don’t know what you’ve done with my children, but you better not harm one hair on their heads or I’ll...”

“I’m not trying to hurt your children,” he said, as my sentence trailed off “I’m only trying to get my own born”. And with that he straightened the cap on his head and retraced his footsteps back to the car.

I waited long enough to see hear the sound of his engine turn over and see smoke appear, signaling that he had started their car before I closed the door and turned inside to call the bus company since no one was answering at the school. When I finally reached them, I was told that every bus was back but the # 4 bus. “Is that the one that goes down Hook's Neck road?” I asked. “Yes, that’s the one. Apparently the radio is out because we’ve tried to reach the driver, but he doesn’t answer. I’m sure everything is ok; it’s just the weather that is slowing him down.”

I hung up and walked to the window and pulled back the curtain to see if the car had left. It was still sitting there, engine running, and lights out. There was enough light from the snow to see, but the windows were steamed over so I couldn’t make out the occupants. Deciding I would confront the man once more for an honest answer, I grabbed my coat and marched down the drive. At my insistent knock, the window rolled down. My glance skipped over the man in the blue cap to the girl in the passenger’s seat. She was no older than my own Lucy, seventeen at the most. Her face was ashen and covered with beads of sweat, yet she smiled weakly at me, and then winced as she clutched at her stomach. “Good Lord, Man.” I cried as I pulled at the driver’s door handle. “You need to get her out of here.”

“That’s what I was trying to say.” I looked at the red, faced man and saw the tears gutting his face. Why, he was not much more than a boy himself. “Here,” I cried, as I ran around to the other side of the car. “Let me help.”

Together, we helped the girl out of the car and half stumbled, half carried her to the house.

I led them to my bedroom and we helped her on to the bed. “We’ll put her in here” I put another pillow under her head, and then gathered up some more blankets. All the time, the young girl was trying to make herself comfortable and whimpering quietly.

"I’ll call 9ll." I said as I started to leave the room.

“I don’t think that’s going to do any good. This baby’s going to come too soon, and beside, we can’t afford no doctor, anyway. That’s why we were on the way to Mary’s sister’s house. She’s a midwife and she could help us out.”

However, before I even started down the hall to make the call, the girl cried out. “This is it, Joey” and the tone of her voice made it clear she was serious.

You know how it is in an emergency, a sixth sense takes over and you do what you have to do. I boiled water, gathered blankets, called the hospital for emergency instructions and watched in wonder as a most beautiful baby boy entered the world.-

In the midst of everything, the children came stumbling home. All safe and sound with tales of being stuck in a ditch and waiting at a farm house until the bus was pulled out. “We would have called, Mom”, Lucy, ever the responsible one said, “but the snow was so heavy it knocked out the farmer’s telephone. He had to take the bus driver into town to get a tow truck.”

“Yeah,” Brian, the eleven year old chimed in.” and I think Lucy liked old Tony.”

“Tony?”

“Yeah, the kid that lived where we got stuck.”

“I didn’t either, he was just nice.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s not what it looked like”

They chattered on until I told them they would have to be quiet.

“I’ve had my own excitement tonight.” I explained as I led them to the bedroom door.

I opened the door and introduced the wide jawed children to the boy who sat staring in awe at his wife and new born son.

“Did you really do that Mom?”

“Where did you learn how?”

After a minute of ooohing and aaahing over the tiny baby, I led them out of the room and closed the door so we could all tell our stories in more details over a cup of hot chocolate.

Finally, around midnight, I realized that it had stopped snowing. I slipped on my coat and walked down to the end of the driveway to put one of my old quilts in the back seat of the car in case they needed it in the morning. The furious snow had been replaced by a clear sky and a full moon that turned the silent snow to silver. A lone window shown from my house where inside my children were all safe in their beds and the girl Mary and her new baby lay sleeping. I found myself humming as I walked back to the house....”...all is calm, all is bright...”

I Hope You Dance

We had a visitor at the community chorus practice last night. She was a choral professor at Julliard for years and took the time to address the choir about performing. She was heartened that, here in the rural midwest, the pursuit of classical choral singing is still alive, but she took us to task on our attitude. 'Singing is dancing,' she said. 'You have to express that flow and grace and joy while you sing. You have to be in love with what you're doing.'

I was reminded of that this morning as we read our daily C.S.Lewis. It was not what he wrote, but how he wrote that struck me. There is a flow and a grace and a joy in his writing that lets you know he really loves the subject. And those of us reading his works, experience joy in the reading as well.

There have been times in my life as well when I have felt that flow and grace. It's when I'm doing something that I love. Not necessarily something that people expect me to do, or something that is in vogue, or even something that is easy for me. But when I'm really doing something I love, sometimes I feel that joy and grace and I think others notice it as well.

Oh, and Happy 91st Birthday to my Mother.  She's still baking and dancing!