Bear Hunting with a Switch

Bear Hunting with a Switch

“God Damn, you’re big enough to go bear hunting with a switch”, was the observation I often heard from my dad, on the rare occasions that he took notice.  He made this comment because I was a big graceless girl, with a lumbering slew footed gait, the proverbial bull in the china shop. I had a large moon shaped face with oversized front teeth and freckles splotching my chubby cheeks. At 5’9” I was almost as tall as my dad and had a loud carrying voice.  Oddly, what I heard, when dad told me this, was that I was strong and able to take care of myself.  It wasn’t until later I realized what he had actually been telling me was that he thought I was fat and graceless and a little repulsive to him.

 

One of his four children, I was the third girl and about five years older than my brother, the last of us to be born. Our dad never hesitated to share his opinion of our intelligence, abilities or body type.  Encounters with him often left us shaken both figuratively and in actuality, so our goal was to stay out of his sight, knowing the less notice he took of us the safer we would be.  The only time this would change was after he had a few drinks.

Growing up I didn’t know the term, alcoholic but I did see how dad’s personality changed when he drank.  When sober, his temper was short and his disposition dour but like a reverse of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde he became outgoing and sociable when he drank. He also became impulsive and uninhibited so that our world often careened from one extreme to the other.  In either persona he painted our world in big gestures and broad strokes, as likely to backhand one of us for accidentally interrupting, as he was to buy a horse and lead it home on a rope strung out of the back window of the station wagon.

I don’t have clear memories of my dad, just a vague outline of a barrel-chested muscular man with dark hair.  From old pictures I can see that he might have been considered handsome.  In his day he would have been described as “black Irish,” dark and brooding, with a dark complexion, curly black hair, light hazel eyes and a burly frame.    He was an intelligent man, a tool and die maker, as they were called then.  Always curious in a compulsive way, he would immerse himself in a particular subject.  When sated he was just as quick to release it, never to think of it again.  He once purchased a microscope for the sole purpose of viewing mold growing on cheese. He had a brief career as a professional wrestler, under the name of Bobby Lund. By turns a photographer or a cook in the merchant marines, he moved his family regularly to pursue each endeavor.

When I was in the third grade he took a job in Chicago and instead of moving, mom stayed in Indianapolis with us.  In Chicago he met another woman and eventually he and mom divorced after twenty-three years of marriage.  None of us regretted his absence. He had no comprehension of the injuries he had inflicted on his family. He left us damaged, his children feeling ashamed and inadequate, his wife worn out from trying to appease him.

 He was fifty-three years of age when he died of cirrhosis, a sick and lonely man. At sixty-two I understand how short his life had been.  How hot does a person’s soul burn to flame out in such a short amount of time?  What demons chased this man, my father? Maybe he was his own demon, as well as ours.

I was twenty when he died, years before I began wondering about why I am, who I am and I did find many answers to that question. I know parts of the hulking young girl came forward into my adult life. Undeniably, the insecure and awkward girl is here—but the girl that heard strong and able, instead of fat and graceless, has also been there to guide me.

Perhaps, I truly have gone bear hunting with a switch.

Diana, for the Poplar Grove Muse

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL is a movie about older Brits who choose to move to India to live in a palace. They hope that they will be cared for impeccably in their older years, thus allowing a grander life style for those with limited resources , an escape for some, and a grand adventure for others who had depleted their welcome in their own specific social circles. Every wonderful British actor seemed to have signed on:  Judi Dench, looking fabulous in linen; Tom Wilkinson;  Bill Nighty from that delightful film, ‘LOVE ACTUALLY,’ and ‘UNDERWORLD’; and the always pursed up, ever intolerant  Maggie Smith, grimacing at her constipated best. Another favorite actor is Penelope Wilton from BBC’s ‘DOWNTON ABBEY’ as well as the effervescent Dev Patel from the Oscar-winning ‘SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE’. The director,  John Madden of ‘SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE’ fame shaped Deborah Maggach's book THESE FOOLISH THINGS into a gem of a film with the help of Ol Parker's screenplay. It is chock-a-block with love issues: old love, bad love, shamed love, unfulfilled love, gay love, modern love, substitute for love, and the always complicated parental love.

Gem may be too strong a word for this film, since it is pretty predictable. But sometimes that works--we like knowing where we are going and predictability can be just fine. This glimpse into another culture, mediated by the ubiquitous  western disdain for bad water, poverty, incompetence, and ‘those’ simpler dusty people, is typically coupled with an inane superiority that makes it equally playful and off-putting.

A brilliant first ten minutes help us quickly pinpoint each of the seven characters' major traits and foibles. We identify the good one, the prickly one, the sick one, the nice one, and learn who is vulnerable and irritable, who has secrets, and who is the informal leader as well as the survivor. As we watch them in airports and on buses and all uniquely Indian modes of transport, we feel their realization that they are ‘not in Kansas anymore.’
 

There are no big surprises other than the straightest character freely acknowledging his gayness to the others with most of group understanding and politically correctly sympathetic. We knew who would be the most changed and who was attracted to whom but it was still a gift to watch it unfold. Sometimes no surprises are an okay thing. The person who needed to leave did so and happily everyone else embraced this new chapter of their lives almost unquestioningly. The big question we all leave the theater with is "Would I do the same?” My own bias is that having the old randy guy, and the long in the tooth hottie seeking to improve her lot in life continually highlighted to lighten the mood is tedious and regrettable. Although we all know the' type' we just don't hang out at those mixers anymore, and after age 60 it is not such a good look, even if you are well preserved. Every movie has to have this story line, making for a few predictably lame viagra sorts of jokes.

The views of India are familiar to anyone having visited, and remind those travelers of all the unexpected assaults on the eyes, nose, ears, any hidden sensibilities of our pasteurized life style with this more authentic mixture of the extremes of living. Camels and elephants, chickens and cows share the streets with people, food, plants and trees. Pollution is everywhere, dotted with buildings majestic or humble, old and contemporary. Most appeared crumbling and mildewed.  A few poor untouchables sweep with bristle-challenged brooms, never quite cleaning a spot of dirt for long, just sort of dusting things up. But color is everywhere, in dress and smiles and pace of life.  Once the unfamiliar streets, food and cleanliness become navigable, our seven-some mostly realizes that the fear of unknown threats and imminent diarrhea and disease are all self imposed. Is that not what all of life's big aha moment are anyway, just realizing the truth that was always right in front of you all along?

The goal of the manager of the hotel is to have his guests "so happy here they will not want to die." Played by the lovely Dev Patel, he is pitted into his own Indian family drama of running the decrepit mansion as his mother plans to sell it, while he tries to woo a parental-unapproved- love interest. Untouchables flutter about with no explanation as to their status (which was a unfortunate missed opportunity to teach--but those are always the pieces of dialogue that end up on the cutting room floor.)

The clever quote throughout the movie is "it's all good when it's over. If it's not all good, it's not all over.“ Simplistic, but the one character who feels good (at last) is the one whose life is soon over.
 

Because everyone portrayed is over 65 for sure, I fear it will not be very mainstream, but the theater I saw it in was packed at 1 pm on a Thursday and admittedly filled with an audience of the same age .  The joy of seeing people at the end of their years looking critically at old habits and morés and seeing something different than they supposed life would be, adds an excitement to life that is so hopeful for us all. As the small-lettered words under the hotel billboard told us in the beginning the Exotic Marigold Hotel is 'for the elderly and the beautiful.' 

You can be both even in today's culture.

Carole for PGM 

Goldfish

I met my daughter when she was 10 months old and I traveled to China to pick her up. As beautiful and profound as everyone says it is, our relationship is tinged with a fundamental sadness that covers me from head to toe every single day of our magical lives together: on the day she was born the woman who gave birth to her, or someone close to that woman, picked up this baby, wrapped her in a blanket and left her outside on the ground in front of an orphanage.

Nothing I can say or do from that moment on can mitigate this basic human sadness.  Who or what would make a woman abandon her baby?  I cannot even begin to guess.  Well yes, I can.  I can and I do and I believe that as my beautiful daughter gets older and begins to understand she will ask me and I must be ready to give her answers.

I don’t feel like an heroic person who swooped into a backwards country and made some child’s life magic.  I cringe when people tell me how lucky she is.  It is I, in fact, who is the lucky one.  I feel like I stole something primal and important from a country that is just beginning to find its feet and understand itself.  Sometimes I must confess, I feel like a thief.

A friend and I were discussing adoption one day, she herself is adopted, and she said to me, you have started telling her, her story, haven’t you?

“Um, no,” I confess. “I have not.  I thought I would just wait until she asked.  I figure she will ask questions because we do not look alike.”  

“No,” the friend said, “you must begin to tell her now.  This is her story, you must have her hear it and know it before it becomes a big deal.”

The weight of this story and its import to my girl hangs low and heavy over us every night as we lay down to read. I know without careful consideration that my friend is right, and it is a story she must know as she grows, so that it becomes a kind of backbone story and she can gradually hang other details onto it to eventually create the full and rich story of her life.

So I say to her one night as we are lying in bed, would you like to hear the story of how we met?

“Yes,” she says and now you must know that my girl is not one to climb into bed and wait patiently for her story and then roll over and sleep.  My girl jumps and moves and tosses and turns.  She is motion, so I begin to tell the story to a moving target.  I say it low in an almost whisper so she will strain to hear it, but really I think, I am sad to tell it, sad for her to know the truth.  I almost hope she does not hear me.   

Flash forward two weeks and I’ve told her the story now many times. In fact, after the first time I told her she began to ask for it by name:  tell me the story of the time we met.  And so I begin every night…A long time ago in a far away place there was a little girl named Yi Xiao Jian.

It is at this point that she always interrupts me to tell me her favorite detail of the story.  It is not that we flew on a plane to get her, or the fact that we met in a big conference room, or that we were there with all her friends' mommies and daddies, or that she was first in the room carried in the arms of her nanny. No, the detail she always remembers and tells me herself, before I even get to the end of the story is that Mommy brought her goldfish crackers.

So the story becomes the time I brought goldfish crackers to a very faraway place, and I can see in her eyes that she is making a memory for herself. Years from now, long after I am gone, she will remember our meeting not because she remembers, but because she has told herself a story again and again, making the memory more and more vivid as the time wears on.  Her small fist filled with orange fish shaped crackers and the laughter that came easily as she ate every single one.

Amy for the Poplar Grove Muse

Water's Edge

During April Poetry month, I attended a lovely day of poetry discussion with the Poetry Detectives group followed by a short workshop sampler offered by Nancy Long on the Japanese Haibun form.

Following is one attempt.  There have been many others since.  This can be kind of addicting.    

   Water’s Edge

The mailbox at the end of a Carolina strand nods with sea oats pushed eastward by prevailing winds.  We leave messages on yellow paper as children, wistful promises of our return.

In starglow one milky way night I run with a flashlight from far up the beach to alert the porch people of the hatch.  I’d felt them first, tickling the tops of my brown feet, then caught them in a pale light beam as they scurried to the surf line.  Other children join me as we call for our mothers in the dark, strain to hear their watery voices over the whooshing of waves and all that wonderment.

We carry you out of the cottage, sorrowful, sniffling, suffering your infant adjustments to the hum of strange waters.  At the end of the still warm boardwalk,  a holy circle of strangers gathers round an enormous black disc , a muted scratching, a thwap, a thump, a digging spray of cool night sand.  You quiet like the rest of us, breathe in the leatherback night, the luminous pearlescent jewels deposited just so.  Later, we follow her at a distance, the silent procession of us, stopping at the ocean’s edge, mouths agape, tears on our cheeks.  And you sleep.

Stars in a night sky

Illuminate the wonder

Promise of return

BLR-- Poplar Grove Muse

The Pre-Pack

My former mother-in-law always kept a bag packed. I kept one packed too.  She kept hers packed in case she might have to go to the hospital. I kept mine packed in case I might get to go somewhere fun. I think that says it all about our disparate outlooks on life.

I have loved to travel for as long as I can remember. A big part of the fun for me is preparation. In the astrological realm my sun and rising signs are in Scorpio. We are the detectives of the zodiac. Naturally, I love researching and finding out as much as I can about the place I’m going to. Even before Google made it easy, I still enjoyed the search, the discovery of the little things that might make the place I was going to special. My moon is in Virgo, which means I like being organized. And that is where the pre-pack comes in.

I like getting my suitcase out a couple of weeks before my departure date, checking all of the standard items that I always keep in it and restocking if necessary.  Then I make my list of what I will need for this trip according to the weather and geography of my destination. Next I make a list of things I’ll need to buy. When things are bought and assembled, I like to lay everything out and think about how I’ll fit it all in my small suitcase. I’ve learned to travel light over the years and I enjoy the challenge of less is more.

I don’t think of myself as a girly –girl, but in this one case, I seem to be one.  I like to figure out how many different outfits I can create out of the least amount of clothing. Scarves help to completely change a look and don’t take up much room. I also have fun coordinating earrings and bracelets to enhance each outfit. I lay everything on the guest bed next to the suitcase and think about which outfit I’ll wear for traveling. This is important in case your luggage doesn’t arrive when you do. You might be wearing those clothes a little longer than you planned; in cases like this it’s always good to dress for comfort.

Now it’s time for the first round of trial packs. This takes about a week. After the first trial pack, I leave it for a day or two and think about whether I’ve made the best use of the space.  I take everything out and rearrange it for the second trial pack. I realize almost immediately that the first trial was better than the second, but still not quite right. The next night I remove everything again and as if by magic, everything is placed in perfect configuration. Except for the last-minute items, I’m packed with a week to spare! 

My next project will be preparing my backpack. Since most of my travel revolves around writing, the contents of the backpack constitute my essential tools to get myself in the writing zone. I always keep a separate travel journal to record the sights sounds, tastes and smells of my destination. If I feel a deep connection to the place I’m visiting, there are many entries describing the emotions I’m feeling on this journey.  The universe serendipitously brings travel journals to me, since so many people know of my love of travel. I let go and allow that to happen. But I can’t leave finding the perfect notebook and pen to chance. This search may take several attempts. I don’t usually start out with a vision of exactly what the notebook will look like or how the pen will feel in my hand; I will know it when I see it. When those items are procured, I’m ready to place them in the backpack. This does not require trial packs because the backpack has designated places for its contents, thus eliminating the pesky guesswork of the non-specific suitcase. My backpack is my back-up in the lost luggage contingency, so it must carry small amounts of essential toiletries, medicines, writing supplies, laptop, iPod (a nicely compact item for reading & music listening), travel documents and the always essential snack items.

As departure day rapidly approaches, I pore over my itinerary and dream of the places I will see, some new, some old. I will write about how this journey will change me, how I have grown from this experience. But for now, I’m in the moment of enjoying the pre-pack and celebrating my Virgo moon.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

Endings, Happy and Sad

In my faith community, we have lost a number of beloved, indispensable member-friends in recent months. I believe I have been to eight funerals in the last six months (and have begun to understand my parents’ “resolution,” after living almost their entire lives in a mid-sized Midwestern town, to attend fewer funerals). Many of us are reeling from the passing of these extraordinary “ Greatest Generation” folks and our collective loss of their wisdom and patience and long perspectives.

Being present at so many memorials to lives well-lived has raised issues I had never adequately considered, and allowed me to think about how memorial services can be conducted, as well as how lives can be lived and remembered. I have learned that if you die shortly before your 98^th birthday, the church may not be as full as your life was, because you have outlived so many in your circles. I have learned that the sanctuary can be packed to overflowing, but the words spoken may fail to capture a life that was so much more than could be expressed, so that the gaping hole left in so many lives stands as the most powerful testimony to a life lived to the very limits of human energy. Hearing old-timey hymns I usually have little patience for, and knowing that they were chosen by my deceased friend, or their family, gives me a new appreciation for the comfort that a hymn I had dismissed may hold for others. I have thought long and hard about the demonstrated human qualities that compel friends and family to show up for a memorial service and remember their loved one.

An overwhelming realization, one I hope to carry with me more consistently in my life, is that some of the quietest, humblest people can be, deep down, the most fascinating and wise.  As a somewhat reserved person myself, I don’t tend to draw people out as much as I could, and certainly as much as I later wish I had. I so regret not asking Lou more about his transformative service as a marine in World War II, or talking with Harry about what it was like to run against Jesse Owens, among many other topics. I had no idea that Helen had a career besides that of mother long before most women did, and I wish I had learned more about what demands and indignities her bravery subjected her to. I also wish I had made the effort to learn more about the difficult time our congregation went through in becoming the first integrated church in Bloomington. We have one older member who returned to us only a few years ago, having been removed by his angry parents over this issue decades ago. I think I’ll ask him to tell me all about it next time I see him.

I’ve also had ample time to think about what we are actually grieving in our loss. Happily, people sometimes die having lived their time among us so fully, and having made such complete peace with the end of life, that it is inspiring, and in our sadness we realize that the loss is almost completely our own, that there is virtually nothing more we would wish for the deceased; our magical thinking is only for ourselves, to have had more time, or to have treasured the time we had more intentionally.

The first death that touched me deeply was that of my maternal grandmother, when I was 19. I had grown up around the block from her, and she had been a constant, patient, deeply supportive, and inspiring presence throughout my life. While my mother had been with her in her final hours of physical suffering and was grateful to see her out of her pain, my sister and I were inconsolable, and wept unceasingly throughout a triumphant celebration of her life in the home congregation in which she had married, seen her daughter and son married, and provided years of deeply musical keyboard and vocal service. We simply wanted MORE, for ourselves, more time and experience with the woman who had meant so much to us from our very beginnings.

I have much to learn about so many things surrounding the end of life, as well as the living of it. However, I am hoping for a pause in the intensity of my recent learning experiences. Enough loss, for now.

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

The Adventures of Emma and BearBear

Chapter (1)

The little bear’s fur was sugar cookie brown.  His dark coffee colored eyes and nose were carefully stitched on his face and his curving smile gave his face a cheery expression.  His legs and arms were short and chubby with a lighter shade of brown on their bottoms. Two round soft ears were perched at the side of his head and just a bit of a tail was attached were tail are usually attached.  On his chest, lovingly stitched were the words “My Baby Bear”.

To Emma he was her BearBear, her best buddy. They had been each other’s best buddy for as long as either of them could remember, and that was a really long time because Emma was over five and half years old.  She was old enough to be starting real big kid’s school and would be going off to kindergarten in a few months.   She was excited but a little sad too because BearBear wasn’t allowed to go to school with her.  He told her not to be gloomy he would find lots to do while she was at school. Besides he knew she would come home and tell him all about her fun day.  This made Emma feel better.  BearBear always knew just the right thing to say to make her feel happy inside.

Emma was just waking up and humming quietly to herself as she did sometimes in the morning.  BearBear was snuggled in next to her neck where it was warm and smelled sweet, it was his favorite place to sleep.  When she realized she was humming the ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider” song she started to giggle, which made BearBear giggle too.  They were like that, they liked to laugh together about silly things.  

Once, when they were playing hide and seek BearBear hid in the top draw of Emma’s dresser.   It took Emma so long to find BearBear that he fell asleep waiting to be found.  She finally looked in the drawer and found him tucked in behind her pajamas.   He was snoring softly and one of her tiny baby socks was stuck to the side of his head.  The sight was so funny that she laughed and laughed, then held him up to the mirror so he could see what was so hilarious. The sight made them have giggle fits until they dropped to the floor holding their tummies because it just looked so silly.

Hugging BearBear tightly to her chest Emma said, “BearBear, I think we should go on a Big Adventure today, just the two of us. What do you think?”  Of course, BearBear thought that was a great idea and told Emma he would go on any adventure as long as it was with her.

Emma jumped out of bed holding onto BearBear and went in search of her biggest, sturdiest backpack.  It was the backpack with the special pocket added just for BearBear.  When he sat in the pocket it put him at just the right level to peep over her shoulder and see where they were going. She found the backpack in the closet and while she was there grab a pair of blue jeans and her blue tee shirt, the one with the kittens on the front.  She quickly dressed, brushed her teeth, pulled her hair back in a ponytail and headed down the stairs.

 “First we need to get provisions”, She said. “That’s food and stuff” she explained when BearBear looked puzzled.  They went to the kitchen where Emma packed two peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches, honey, two apples, two boxes of orange juice and a small bag of M&Ms.   Into her pack she also added her princess flashlight, her duck call whistle, her green explorer binoculars, a light jackets for herself and one for BearBear, pencils and drawing paper and her camera.  After placing BearBear safely into his special pocket, she pulled the pack into place on her shoulders. Putting on her favorite hat, the pink gingham one with bows, and they set out on their Big Adventure.

It was April and although the sun was shining brightly the wind was still brisk and it sent gusts of air swirling around their heads. As they stepped out of the front door the swirling current snatched at Emma’s cap.  Reaching high with his little paw BearBear caught it just as it was about to fly away.  Laughing, she thanked BearBear as she put her cap back on more firmly this time. 

As she walked Emma hitched her backpack higher on her shoulders so BearBear would have a better view.  “Where should we go first,” she asked and thoughtfully BearBear scrunched up his face and finally said, “How about the pond where the ducks swim. We could have our picnic in that pretty white gazebo.”  Emma thought that was a fine idea, so made a right turn that took them down a curvy lane and soon they were standing inside the gazebo that perched on the bank beside the pond. 

Diana for the Poplar Grove Muse