Fedoras and three piece suits.
Suspenders, always, and collared shirts.
An undershirt, even on the hottest August day in the middle of harvest.
Sweat stains.
“Heeeyy??” ~ loudly and with a steadily rising inflection. An indication he had not heard what was said.
Not a day off in his life (according to him).
“Christmas … tomfoolery. A waste.”
Torching the Chrismas pudding with rye whiskey. Smiling. The best part of the day for him.
The pen game ~ me, stretched over his lap as he drew letters and eventually words on my back with the top of a ball point pen. Guessing made me giggle. Made him giggle too. Our only shared game.
That funny walk, head down, lurching forward.
The one kiss I witnessed between my parents, as seen from the back seat of the car. We were at the airport. A peck goodbye. Goodbye.
Then there was the time he left and went to England, without luggage, and without mentioning anything about this to us.
No goodbye that time.
The newspaper, the London Free Press, every night. Blackened fingers.
The cough.
Steak and kidney pie with that fluffy flakey pastry on top.
Port.
Old cheddar cheese.
Butter, always.
Colts.
Rye whiskey.
Chewing rather than smoking cigars. Spitting.
Me holding the worklamp for him under the tractor/combine harvester/truck he was fixing late at night. “If you can see, I can see.”
Those peculiar English turns of phrase:
- Use the business end.
- You needing to look after Little Mary?
- Put a little English on it.
- My head is here, my ass is comin’.
- Ass over tea kettle.
Teaching me to drive a tractor before I could properly reach the pedals. Letting me run the harrows over a field. In fourth gear. Laughing.
Letting me park the combine harvester, driven with levers and pedals rather than a steering wheel, in the implement shed. A huge machine. A small opening. He thought I could do it. He was right. I was 9 or so.
Sometimes you have to kill your own food. My father did, being at the tail end of a generational succession of butchers.
Carving knives and sharpening steels, wielded.
The broken ankle as he tried to unjam the combine harvester.
The severed finger in the post hole auger.
Long involved stories over lunch. Or dinner. Fables, frauds and embellishments.
No eye contact with my mother, ever.
Disparaging under his breath.
Indulgent glances at me as I attempted to participate in adult conversation at dinner. Especially the “how do we fix the cultivator?” conversations. Smiling.
Not remembering my name.
Taking me to the horse races. Teaching me how to read the racing program. A useful life skill, surely.
Dozing off, prone in the backseat, no seat belt. The swerving of the car as he dozed off, too, felt like rocking.
Playing cards. The sweet plastic smell of a fresh deck.
Five card stud. Seven card stud.
Straight draw, one-eyed jacks are wild.
Rummoli.
That funny walk, head down, lurching forward, saves my ass as he fails to notice the huge hole I ripped in the hood of the pick-up truck when I drove it into the corn header on the combine harvester. My brothers take the fall, only because they saw me do it and nearly kill myself. I was 10 or so and following my father’s instructions to pick him up in the field. Had just been taught how to drive “three on the tree” the night before, by my father. I couldn’t reach the clutch, or the brake, properly.
Fewer stories.
Not remembering my brothers’ names.
The auction, selling off equipment and land. Mud, too many people, confusion. He let me hold the cheque at dinner. The house and shed remained. Father did not.
Erratic absences. Extended absences.
The phone call from the hospital. “Your father was run over by a snowmobile.” “How is this possible? It is June.” Shrugging. Another story to tell.
Not remembering anyones’ name. No one mentions this.
The phone call from the hospital. “Your father was hit by a train at the level crossing.” A longer stay this time as trains are bigger than snowmobiles regardless of season. Another story to tell.
Disappeared. Silence. No stories. Years pass. Shrugging.
The sudden return, with the announcement that the house and shed were now on the market too. No one is upset about this but me.
Being yanked out of class in high school to go look at houses “for your mother”. Because they did not speak.
Packing. Finding:
- a drawer full of prescriptions, years worth, unfinished
- a drawer full of dentures and dental plates
- a drawer full of hearing aids and batteries
- a drawer full of cigar boxes
Uprooting. No goodbye. Bitter.
Disappeared again.
Hitch-hiking in a fedora and three-piece suit. On Hwy. 81. In July. He does not recognize either my brother or me. He makes small talk and asks to be dropped at a major intersection in London. This is even weirder than being hit by a snowmobile in June, o those many years ago.
Found by my brothers in squalor. Removed to Highbury Hilton for assessment. A nursing home is found. Nasty, frightening place. Personal items stolen. Smells not in the slightest of sweat, port, cigars or whiskey.
Remembering nothing, fragments of stories, like tape loops, get triggered from the middle, often, and have no beginning or end. Fuzzy eyes.
Gone. No goodbyes. No more stories.
It looked like a nice night for a fire in the firepit last night. My last night of solitude here at the cottage. So, after dinner, I cleaned the BBQ and started to assemble a few things at the firepit. Paper I’d been saving up as firestarter, kindling, a few containers of water, guitar, book, citronella candle, glass of wine … I noticed the two women with dogs that I’d noticed earlier in the week, walking by towards the municipal docks. I don’t know why gaydar works at a few dozen paces, but it seems to. I decided to keep an eye for them walking back and invite them over for a glass of wine by the firepit.
It didn’t take long for them to wander back up the road. I waved them over and suggested they stop by for a bit. The dogs were keen, one large, grey-muzzled black lab (Alice) and a smaller, puppy-like mutt (Maggie, six months old). I greeted the dogs first then looked up to find one of the women staring at me intently. She said, “Don’t I know you?” I looked more closely at her. She said, “High school?” Oh, my god – yes!
So, here I am, not in the middle of nowhere, but slightly off centre of nowhere … just standin’ here … and who should arrive on my doorstep but two lovely women, one of whom was an acquaintance in high school lo these many years ago, and her partner, equally as friendly and sweet.
We had a really lovely time, catching up over the fire and wine. Several hours of chat. Turns out they live up here full-time, just up the road. They suggested the local house that seems the centre of all community stuff here as a place I might check to see if my “lost/stolen” fishing gear might have been turned in. Also, these two women operate a little shop in back of their place and I’m going to check it out later today. We also might wind up going to the Serena Ryder concert together in Peterborough later on.
Wow – small, interesting world, isn’t it?
Every so often, I’ll get an e-mail that goes something like this:
I have it in my head that Julie Andrews sang a crazy song about a doctor who loved every
obscure part of her body “but he never loved me”. Am I wrong? If not what is the song?
Love j
Oh, the burden of knowing more than I should about Julie Andrews … ok, yes, she sang this Cole Porter song, a very cute one, in the movie Star! This is a bio-pic about a stage diva named Gertrude Lawrence, a friend and cohort of Noel Coward who was insanely popular in throughout the mid-twentieth century. In truth, Gertrude Lawrence paved the way for modern-day Britney Spears and J Lo and others of that ilk. Talented, high-strung, terrible with financial matters, and quite enamoured with her own mythology. The movie was too long and badly timed in the marketplace, released when big budget musicals were no longer popular.
The song lyrics appear below, and here is a YouTube clip of the very scene and Jools herself singing this song.
Verse
Once I loved such a shattering physician,
Quite the best-looking doctor in the state.
He looked after my physical condition,
And his bedside manner was great.
When I’d gaze up and see him there above me,
Looking less like a doctor than a Turk,
I was tempted to whisper, “Do you love me,
Or do you merely love your work?”
Refrain 1
He said my bronchial tubes were entrancing,
My epiglottis filled him with glee,
He simply loved my larynx
And went wild about my pharynx,
But he never said he loved me.
He said my epidermis was darling,
And found my blood as blue as could be,
He went through wild ecstatics,
When I showed him my lymphatics,
But he never said he loved me.
And though, no doubt,
It was not very smart of me,
I kept on a-wracking my soul
To figure out
Why he loved ev’ry part of me,
And yet not me as a whole.
With my esophagus he was ravished,
Enthusiastic to a degree,
He said ’twas just enormous,
My appendix vermiformis,
But he never said he loved me.
Refrain 2
He said my cerebellum was brilliant,
And my cerebrum far from N.G.,
I know he thought a lotta
My medulla oblongata,
But he never said he loved me.
He said my maxillaries were marvels,
And found my sternum stunning to see,
He did a double hurdle
When I shook my pelvic girdle,
But he never said he loved me.
He seemed amused
When he first made a test of me
To further his medical art,
Yet he refused
When he’d fix up the rest of me,
To cure that ache in my heart.
I know he thought my pancreas perfect,
And for my spleen was keen as could be,
He said of all his sweeties,
I’d the sweetest diabetes,
But he never said he loved me.
Refrain 3
He said my vertebrae were “sehr schone,”
And called my coccyx “plus que gentil,”
He murmured “molto bella,”
When I sat on his patella,
But he never said he loved me.
He took a fleeting look at my thorax,
And started singing slightly off key,
He cried, “May Heaven strike us,”
When I played my umbilicus,
But he never said he loved me.
As it was dark,
I suggested we walk about
Before he returned to his post.
Once in the park, I induced him to talk about
The thing I wanted the most.
He lingered on with me until morning,
Yet when I tried to pay him his fee,
He said, “Why, don’t be funny, It is I who owe you money,”
But he never said he loved me.
My mother had to feed 12 people three meals a day on a rather skimpy budget. When I think back on it, this was really quite a feat. Although I learned a lot from being in the kitchen with her, I wish I’d paid a little more attention to her creative resourcefulness in stretching her food budget, keeping food interesting/healthy, and not being wasteful.
It was a big deal for me, last Christmas, to feed eight people in my small abode. That one meal took a lot of planning, and I got a lot of it wrong. I had enough food for an army, as it turns out. An army considerably larger than eight. There were leftovers.
Mom was creative with leftovers, or whatever was at hand. Part of the trick was, of course, making sure that the right basic stuff was on hand. And, honestly, when feeding 12 people, casseroles made from opening a tin or two of this or that never did generate complaints. Therefore, one of the “must have” cooking ingredients was a supply of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup.
Food snobs poo-poo recipes that include the instruction “Open a tin of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup” as being well below acceptable standards of cuisine. On most days, I consider myself a bit of a food snob.* Except today. And, wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup on hand, just when I needed it.
Usually, Sunday dinner involved a large, roasted dead creature. My father, a Brit and a butcher/farmer by trade, would call any roasted dead creature “a joint” and I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out why. Most popular beef roasts do not involve a part of the anatomy anywhere close to a joint. When the “joint” was not beef or pork, there would be poultry – either chicken (several) or a turkey, which was my favourite.
Turkey was my favourite primarily because turkey leftover options involved a few of my all time leftover favourites, all of which also involved Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Something heavenly happens when you combine leftover turkey gravy with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. These favourites included:
– turkey a la king (creamed turkey with veggies, served on toast)
– turkey pot pie (my all time, bar none, favourite leftover meal – essentially, turkey a la king in pastry)
– turkey tetrazini (somehow different than creamed turkey on toast and I’m not sure why)
So, tonight, staring at a fridge filled with well-enjoyed, but nearly about to go off meat and veg, I embarked on a slightly more health conscious version of tetrazini, which I dubbed “Three Pork Tetrazini” or by its Swedish name “Pork Pork Pork!!”
First, I had to go to the general store to fetch the requisite tin of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. I spotted a coyote on the way back from the store. I am, truly, where the wild things are.
But, I digress … the rest went as follows:
1. Boil water for whole wheat pasta of choice. Prepare to desired doneness. Drain.
2. While the pasta is doing its thing, chop four slices of bacon into one inch squares and toss in fry pan @ medium-high. Follow this with:
– garlic
– chopped onion
– chopped peppers
– mushrooms (lotsa mushrooms)
3. Stir the fry pan mixture around a lot. If bacon isn’t providing enough grease, add oil of choice – either butter or olive oil will do.
4. Pour glass of wine. 🙂
5. When the bacon is looking almost done, add chopped leftover pork loin and chopped lean ham. Keep stir frying.
6. For heaven’s sake, don’t over cook the pasta!!!
7. Add several handfuls of baby spinach carefully picked over for mushy leaves and those weird skinny non-spinach leaves that always seem to sneak in. Keep stirring this up.
8. When the spinach has “melted” and incorporated into the mixture, add the tin of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Stir to blend in and let heat through.
9. This recipe has both BACON and tinned pseudo-food. DO NOT add more salt at any time. That is just silly.
10. While the soup heats through and blends in, grate some old cheddar. Sprinkle that on top and stir until incorporated. The whole mix may take on a brownish tinge. This is desireable.
11. Add the drained pasta (hope you started with a big enough pan!) and keep folding until the pasta is fully covered in the sauce.
12. Pour another glass of wine. Serve.
The observant amongst my readers will note that this recipe does not have to be made with pork or, indeed, any dead creatures at all. Any combination of stuff stir-fried in garlic and oil, coated in Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup and glued together with old cheddar and served over pasta is going to be pretty yummy.
And it was. 🙂 AND … if you serve it with enough wine and call it “tetrazini”, your guests may just believe you!
*I was called a “coffee snob” the other day. I can’t imagine why. 😉
One of my favourite Beatle songs is also one of their least known.
I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
I’m filling the cracks that ran through the door
And kept my mind from wandering
Where it will go
And it really doesn’t matter if
I’m wrong I’m right
Where I belong I’m right
Where I belong
See the people standing there
Who disagree and never win
And wonder why they don’t get in my door
I’m painting my room in a colourful way
And when my mind is wandering
There I will go
And it really doesn’t matter if
I’m wrong I’m right
Where I belong I’m right
Where I belong
Silly people run around
They worry me and never ask me
Why they don’t get past my door
I’m taking the time for a number of things
That weren’t important yesterday
And I still go
I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
Stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go oh
Where it will go oh
I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go (fade out)
So, here I am up at this cottage. For about 10 days in a row, eight of them on my own entirely. Well, except for the sweet, elderly/ailing and lonely neighbour who wanted me to come to “the hall” with her tonight and play euchre. And the bears. And the fish.
I had this idea that I wanted to bring everything with me in one go so I wouldn’t have to make any trips into Lakefield, this nearest town of any size. This includes food, of course.
In the back of my mind, I thought – this is it. My diet is going to veer entirely and utterly off the rails now. I stocked up with everything I shouldn’t have. Mostly carbs. Potatoes. Pasta. Rice. English muffins from St. John’s Bakery. Kraft dinner. Popcorn. Chips. Pancake mix.
And bacon. And cheese.
AND – the cottage owner’s parents dropped by yesterday with freshly baked cookies and apple cake. (Free cottage AND freshly baked goods … how the universe does look after me when I ask … but I digress …)
I remember how I used to eat. Three substantial meals a day, mostly carbs. Grazing/snacking in between. Minimal fruits and vegetables. Minimal physical movement. Here I am, in the perfect environment to return to my old self. There sure isn’t a lot to do up here, physically, and I’m virtually surrounded by carbs.
The thing is … I can’t do it. Not like I used to, anyway. I needed some exercise today and tried to get some by walking from this cottage to the main road, about a three kilometre round trip, I’d guess. I really enjoyed the walk to the main road and the tour of the general store but was thwarted on the return leg by the presence of one or more bears. I was scooped up by some cottagers who didn’t want it on their conscience that they saw bears and didn’t escort me safely back to my doorstep. My attempt at at least SOME activity … foiled …
But, in terms of eating … I just can’t do it like I did before. Sure, I’m having more carbs. But, somehow, a lot of vegetables snuck in and I’m eating those, too. So, the balance is different. But, the big thing is quantity and paying attention. I cooked for the cottage owner before she left – lamb chops on the bbq – and I made some yummy new potatoes. In my old frame of mind, there would be no leftover potatoes from the first meal. Now, there were enough to sautee for the following night’s dinner.
Also, my meal times are all off, so I’m just asking myself if I’m actually hungry. If the answer is no, I busy myself with something else for a while. Yesterday, I did something I’d been planning to do – made a big tray of nachos – yum! This was mid-afternoon and I enjoyed them while watching a movie. Filled me up entirely. I didn’t eat dinner and I had a few crackers and a bit of kohlbassa before bed. No more with the three huge meals, etc.
Today, I skipped breakfast (wasn’t hungry), tried to walk (see above) and then deeply and thoroughly enjoyed my extremely rare Kraft Dinner treat for lunch. (Did you know they have a three cheese version now? I’m not sure what that means since it looks like powder to me, but I digress yet again …) I mean, I really enjoyed it. Maybe my pseudo-bear encounter made me appreciate the pseudo-cheese more fully. Then … almost eight hours later … dinner, which was a salad. Spinach/arugula base, a layer of alfalfa sprouts, chopped peppers, a peach, tomato, thin sliced sweet onion and a dollop of cottage cheese. I topped it with sauteed ham and mushrooms, drizzled with light balsamic dressing. Mmmmmm … I’m totally full now.
I’m sure not going to lose weight out here. But maybe I won’t gain quite as much as I thought I would when I arrived.
September, 1982. I was 18, about to turn 19 in moments. A kid off the farm, starting undergrad in a decidedly urban discipline (theatre) and being completely and utterly naive about everything, including myself.
I attended one of those small Ontario universities that sprang up in the 60’s as an almost counter-culture response to the staid, traditional schools like U of T, Western or Queen’s. Permanent buildings were not funded until the mid-70’s and, as such, had that horrid 70’s concrete slab look to them. Garbage receptacles were concrete. Even the “furniture” in the halls were concrete – I kid you not. Between classes, students lounged about on concrete slabs covered with naugahyde cushions in varying shades of purple, orange, and amber. The lecture halls themselves were decked out in orange and amber plastic “chairs” and were steeply raked, so that the instructor stared up at what appeared to be a near-vertical wall of students. There was even a slightly theatrical element to the design that was, wisely, rarely used by professors. You really could enter stage right, or left. Most profs just came in the huge double doors way up in the “theatre” and picked their way down the stairs with the rest of us. In any case, the buildings had vaulted high ceilings supported by vast grey walls, and were the antithesis of “welcoming”.
As with most majors, there was a selection of mandatory courses and a handful of electives. I had to take one science and, like most of my science-fearing confreres, I picked Astronomy as being, possibly, the easiest to swing. I wonder if the very sweet, stereotypically corduroy-jacketed prof ever clued into the little troupe of Fine Arts majors that wound up in his intro class every year?
One other popular elective was Intro to Film. I mean, really, how hard can that be? Watch movies and write about what you liked or didn’t like, right? If there was popcorn, I was “in” for sure.
I’ll never forget the first class in Intro to Film. Students were assembling in the mid-sized lecture hall that seated, perhaps, 250 people. Minutes before class was to begin, a person entered the class. I didn’t notice her until she was receding away from where I was sitting, appearing to float regally down the wide concrete “stairs” that led to the lecture area. She seemed to have layers of diaphanous material that floated around and behind her … I realize now that this was some kind of scarf or pashmina or some such. She walked slowly and deliberately, carefully muss-coiffed reddish hair and this purposeful gait drawing our eyes, collectively, to her. She may have been wearing some kind of designer boots or something – I remember, eventually, tuning into the sounds her footfalls were making. It took her some time to get to the lecture space at the bottom/front of the room, by which time the room was effectively silenced. I’m not sure if anyone in the room had seen any person like this person – I certainly hadn’t, and I hadn’t even seen her face yet.
These lecture halls were outfitted with portable blackboards on wooden frames with wheels. Still not facing us, Professor picked up a piece of chalk and slowly, deliberately, with care, wrote the following on the blackboard.
B – I – R – D
She put the chalk down and wheeled to face the now quite attentive room. Quietly, firmly, she said, “If anyone here has signed up for this course anticipating that it is a ‘bird’ course, please leave now.”
And then, she just stood there, staring at us. Inspecting us. Maybe daring us. We were all frozen in our seats, of course. No one dared move or scarcely even breathe. After what seemed like an interminably long time, she gave a quick nod and began to talk about what this course meant. Thus began my journey into visual literacy, and my connection to Professor.
Professor is, of course, a real and intensely private person whom I’ve had the pleasure of being connected to, on and off, ever since that first day of Film Studies. If she allows, I may be able to publish her real name here but, until then, Professor will do.
Is it sacrilegious to suggest that, of all the courses I took in my four years in the snug embrace of fine arts academia, Intro to Film was the most valuable and has had the longest-lasting effect? I often wish I’d followed my gut at the time and switched my major to Film Studies, but I was too well-trained to finish what I’d started. Also, Film Studies majors had an air of elitist intelligentsia about them. Pale-skinned (perhaps from a lack of natural light 🙂 ), always wearing black, sitting in outdoor cafes, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and morosely debating the use of chiaroscuro effects in German Expressionist films of the early 20th century. The pre-goth goths. The Visu-Goths. Only other Film Studies majors understood what the hell they might be talking about and I guess I’m just too proletariat for that.
Actually, as I think about it, I’m a huge hypocrite. I remember wearing a lot of denim and getting into screaming fights over nachos at the London Arms about Brecht as a precursor to the Open Theatre Movement in Argentina. Nonetheless, I can’t deny that I revelled in where Intro to Film, and Professor’s insistence on disciplined critical thinking, took me.
Off we went, on a journey through D.W. Griffith, Potemkin, Caligari, Fritz Lang … later, Truffaut, Godard (often shortened to GOD) … eventually Canadians like Snow and Wieland. We were challenged to observe the relationship between how a message was conveyed and what the message was. How does this communication really work? What are the conventions, the signifiers? Can we identify the language? How do our brains, and our varied cultural perspectives, interpret the visual? What does dark “mean”? What does light “mean? Why? How does cultural context change meaning, especially meaning we take for granted? What does movement, gesture, positioning do to our interpretation? What can a shifting camera angle do to these very things? Who are we, the viewer, beside the camera? Who are we intended to be? What is our perspective?
We looked at print and television advertising. This is not, strictly speaking, “film”, but incredibly accessible as a way of teaching visual literacy. Tableau, shape, positioning, colour, gesture. Who are we, the intended partakers of the images? How do the creators’ assumptions about us, the viewers, drive their decisions? At what point is the advertiser’s understanding of the viewer so profound that the use of image, text and subtext becomes manipulation?
Professor was the first seriously smart person who reassured me I could write, and think critically. I remember one of my first submissions in this course. We were given a strict page/word limit and, try as I might, I couldn’t stay within it. I edited, cropped, trimmed … I was really worried about this. Frankly, Professor scared the bejesus out of me. I don’t recall how far over the limit I went, but I recall adding a hand-written note apologizing for the excess length. The paper was returned, with a B+ or an A- or thereabouts and a hand-written message, saying, “I don’t mind reading over-limit papers when they are of such calibre.†Whoa. This woman, who took this discipline of study so seriously, who clearly took her own intellect and intelligence seriously, was prepared to take me seriously, too. That was astounding to me.
Learning from Professor didn’t end after this particular course, I’m thankful to say. Although she wasn’t formally my instructor for any further courses, she was part of a circle of creative types that I was also grateful, over time, to find myself part of. Her bearing and clarity of purpose, always confident and almost regal in nature, still inspires me. I recall her repeating some advice she received when it was her turn to take over the quasi-management role of Department Chair for two years. She was told to “always respond – never reactâ€. I can see this fitting her perfectly and, I must admit, it has served me well, too, in many scenarios.
Understanding subtext, and context, and, for that matter, text are Professor’s main gifts to me, and no doubt to hundreds of other students who signed up for her B-I-R-D course. Dig deeper … look inside the messaging … ask questions … analyze the “how†of the message being conveyed with as much, if not more, rigour than the “whatâ€. View from all perspectives. I now teach communications, and work directly with communications tools and techniques in my consulting work. I really don’t think I’d be doing any of this, at least not doing it with any level of applicable understanding, without Professor’s incisive insistence that visual literacy is Important and Useful.
It was 1988. I was two years out of undergrad, after majoring in a field of study (theatre) that I realized I couldn’t “major” in for real. (At least the other major, English, has been profoundly useful.) There I was, in my first job out of school – a management job. I had a lot to learn, and yet I seemed to have a knack for some of the basics.
For reasons out of my control, and ultimately out of my employer’s* control, the job ended. Abruptly, it felt, but I know now that this was a most gentle release back out into the work force, compared to some of what I’ve witnessed in the meantime.
I remember feeling really distraught over this job coming to a close – what would I do? What did I want to do? How would I pay the rent? Do I have ANY marketable skills? The world stretched before me, more like a gaping maw than a smorgasbord of opportunity. I was 25 and completely clueless about how to proceed. I felt paralyzed with options, none of which appealed particularly.
We had a few weeks notice to wind things down in this office. We sublet office space from a commerical real estate specialist, Bob, whom I’d gotten to know reasonably well over the course of time sharing space. He became a sort of “big brother” figure, listening and gruffing/lovingly asking me the pointed questions I needed to consider. Still, I felt like I was twisting in the wind, and time, she was a-tickin’.
One day when I was in a particular twist, Bob sat me down, looked me in the eye and said the following. “Ultimately, all you have to do is breathe. That is all you have to do to sustain your life. Nothing else matters. Just breathe. That is it. That is all you *have* to do.”
I had been all caught up in my perceptions of my life’s requirements (“I *have* to pay the rent”), my expectations of myself and success (“I *have* to get onto a career track that brings money and prestige”) … and all of the other “have to” inner monologues. They were all MY monologues. I could shut them off entirely, if I so chose. All I had to do, my only requirement, was breathing.
I could do that. It was a brilliant starting point, like throwing all the “have tos” out the window and starting from scratch. Once I’d landed, emotionally, in that beautifully expansive spartan place where only breathing is required, I could add back in the pieces that I felt I could handle, one-by-one. The decisions I was prepared to make, I made, one at a time. Any decisions I didn’t feel ready for, I deferred. One step at a time. Everything slowed down to the pace of my rising and falling chest. All I really had to do, after all, was breathe.
I don’t always remember this lesson as quickly as I should. I’ve had other times when circumstances have left me similarly paralyzed. But, at some point, after twisting around in my discomfort for a while, I remember – all that is really truly required of me is breathing. Everything else is gravy. And, truthfully, the fact that I have choices beyond breathing makes me a very very lucky girl. I live my life in an abundance of nourishment, both of my soul and my body. Opportunities. Choices. Amazing Friends. Health. Music. Love. Activity. Good Food. Coffee :-). When I need to slow things down to the pace of my breathing, I can. All of the richness of my life will remain, even if I slow down to appreciate and understand it more.
*Gosh, this was 21 years ago, now. And I haven’t written the long overdue post about this job and one of my life’s most important mentors, this very special employer. Do stay tuned … it’s a good one. 🙂
