the mark of a man

As a result of a recent dream, I have been remembering the first time my son showed me his deep and true adult character.

The dream, not written down and so soon forgotten, was nonetheless felt to be of significance.  The only portion that I have been able to retain was my son driving me on a fast road, he swerving in and out of traffic and various road situations with incredible driving skill, accuracy and speed.  The dream itself had other implications, and many specific details which were satisfying at the time, but forgotten by the next week.

But still, the dream prompted the remembrance:

My son had turned 21 that year.   I had been in a frightening car accident, had been sitting on the passenger side, sure that my life was to be over.  Happily, it was in an older Volvo, and yes, my Volvo saved my life, as the advertisement used to say.  A week later, I needed to drive a long distance home, maybe 10 hours of driving across national borders and high-speed roads.  I was wary of the car altogether and didn't anticipate taking this trip with any pleasure.  My son offered to drive me the distance, changing his plans to meet my needs.  On the road, I was very squirrelly, fearful of the traffic and the speeds and, most especially, of passing any trucks at all.  I needed my son to drive for me, and I needed to calm myself and re-learn how to be a passenger without startling or tensing.  It was a hard trip for me.  The highway speeds were difficult -- I had always been a good driver, and generally would flow with the faster traffic, managing with ease the five miles per hour (or greater) more than the standard top speed that was the normal pace of the middle and left lanes. 

Now, however, the slightest increase above the speed limit kept me tense, and attempting to pass a large truck that was going the lower truck speed limit completely unhinged me.

My good and gentle son, fierce looking with his well-configured punk style and tall, strong body, certainly at 21 years of age  was used to highway speeds and a young man's confidence.  Yet, with his mother beside him, he drove for all those highway hours at exactly the speed limit, driving in the slower right-hand lane, letting the trucks pass us by.  He did not once make fun of my jumpiness nor of my active right leg attacking a ghostly brake pedal from time to time.  He comforted me, asked me about my fears, encouraged me to relax, and, above all, allowed my needs to govern the long drive home.  When we became stuck behind a really slow truck, he talked me through accepting moving to the center and left lanes to make the pass around, pointing out that it was actually safer to get ahead of a large truck, rather than to be behind one if there were to be an accident ahead.  

I felt moved not only by the care that this adult young man was now showing his mother, but also by the great generosity which marked his entire manner during this trip.  I knew then the man that he had become, and the character that would be part of the rest of his life.

on the death of a childhood friend

She was an extraordinarily accomplished academic writer and teacher, renowned internationally. We had been out of touch for a decade, and I discovered that for the last eight years she was enduring a debilitating disease, leading her to be unable to talk, although she kept her mental capacity to her death, even completing two major books during this period of time.

I remembered her most vividly from third grade on and especially in jr. high school. We danced together -- both of us tall and awkward beside the third best friend of our dancing trio, the one who was lithe and lovely on her feet and became a professional dancer. But all of us enjoyed each others' company, spending wonderful four-person sleep-overs on mattresses on the floor, jumping on and off beds, making up stories, giggling and giggling.

In jr. high, more serious, she and I shared many confidences, stories about our crushes, of course ... it was 7th grade ... Also participating in our young peoples church group, performing or singing in the church and learning about civil rights and the war protest movement from our politically active group leaders, our eyes being opened in our very white, very conservative Boston suburb town.

In adulthood, we met perhaps three times when our paths were able to cross; sharing where our lives had taken us and also sharing new perspectives on our lives as children, hidden secrets now more easily explored in our conversations. Her academic achievements were quite extraordinary, but we shared a childhood friendship that needed no intellectual parsing. From the tributes to her written by her colleagues and students, I believe she approached her academic discussions in a similar way -- honest and open, with great respect and caring for others, interested in direct exchange with great humility on her part and focused and kind interest in the other.

An impact of learning of her passing has been the sharing of this information among a group of additional childhood friends. One other of this group is missing and greatly missed. Those of us here have a renewed commitment to keep in touch, to support and nourish each other, even if from a distance.

contentment

Just two days later, a very different mood and very different feelings. Contentment with my life, my day, my evening, the blessings I have been given. The loneliness dissipated, gone where? Odd to have such a change -- come about from the gift of sleep perhaps?

When I am tired, how comforting and renewing is sleep. Fresh sheets, newly made bed, fluffed pillows and quilt, a book beside me. Looking out the window to the beauty of the quiet night, the moon still beckoning and spreading soft light across the backyard. Lovely and reassuring.

Now I recall with comfort the many other gifts I have received. My cozy home, my good friends I can reach out to (including the new and enjoyable virtual friendship circles and circles), always always my children, and now their children. My nieces and their (brand new!) children, expanding (real) circles of loving relationships.

Any my enjoyments: many books, many movies, television at my convenience, music and music and changing moods that music can generate, the radio shows, the lovely surrounding wood (inside and outside my home), delectable food, planning for (possible) gardens with changes of weather. The changes of weather themselves. The blessing of living where there is rich, lasting, encompassing heat, then the beauty of impermanence as the trees change color and shed their loveliness, the many shades of white, snow, ice, sky in winter, the color of cold, and to anticipate the multiplicity of spring changes...

So then to be alive is to be content. And I embrace the gift of contentment in my life.

loneliness

How do I describe my feelings. Perhaps by writing I can understand. Perhaps I think I can erase this lonesomeness, this sadness. This is not being alone, with which I am well acquainted, and normally a condition which allows me quiet and contentment. No, instead, this is missing so much: missing touch, missing companionship, missing friendship, missing intimacy physical and emotional, missing another, wanting to be outside of my self, wanting to be away from my sadness.

I walk from room to room. I know to move to work to accept to ignore to hide to cover to pretend to distract. I especially know to distract. I also know my blessings, my family, my past happinesses, my friends, my abilities, my accomplishments, my children. And yet and yet and yet, this sadness appears, feeling so apart. Knowing I could likely reach out and I would receive much more, but somehow paralyzed. What is the fear. What is the sense of lack, the inability. What impels me not to seek what I want and need.

This loneliness. It tears at me, my eyes tear. I listen as my heart is beating, wanting, waiting, but not seeking.

national day of listening 2009

On Thanksgiving Day my mother gave me a platter that had been passed down from her great-grandmother, who was from Nova Scotia. It was a remaining piece from a set that was passed down from her grandmother, to her mother, to her and now to me. Other pieces of the set may have been given to her other aunts.

I decided to ask my mother more about this woman, her own great-grandmother, or her grandmother. My mother didn't know anything directly about her great-grandmother, but she knows that her grandmother lived with her in their home in Jenkintown, outside of Philadelphia, on the same train line that goes to Ambler. Her mother, the eldest daughter, had brought her down from Nova Scotia to live with them when she was probably not well. My mother was 1 or 2 at the time, and her grandmother probably died within a year of living with them, maybe 1918. She was young, Mother remembers, and her mother told her that the grandmother had violet-colored eyes. Mother remembers, from photographs, that her father and mother took her grandmother on a trip to Atlantic City. The photograph shows them in style.

The other sisters included Azul, 15 years younger than my grandmother and who lived not too far from her, in Camden, New Jersey. Mother's Aunt Jac (for Jacobine) stayed in Nova Scotia, living on the ocean, north of Yarmouth. The third sister, Gene (Imogene), died in Boston very young, soon after she married, maybe from the flu, maybe from a baby. Her sister, Irene, was away at the time, traveling with her husband.

After her grandmother died, my mother's mother brought her father, Jacob, down from Nova Scotia. My mother has a very clear memory of him lying in his casket, white hair. He was a short, stocky man, and deaf. Mother said, "He lived with us, then Daddy got mad at him and threw him out because he told my mother to get divorced from my father -- so my grandfather went to live with Aunt Azul. Daddy told me this; Mother never said anything about it. The casket was at Aunt Azul's, so I must have been 3 or 4 years old."

My grandmother also had a brother, Romeo, father of Eddie, who lives in Kalamazoo and Victor, who lived in Traverse City.

I asked my mother about the names that her grandmother gave her children. She told me that her mother told her that her grandmother loved Shakespeare, could quote all of Shakespeare's plays and all of the Bible, and so named her children with names from Shakespeare.

halo of hair

My grandmother had long hair. When I stayed at her house overnight I would watch her before she retired to bed in the evening as she took down the long braid that she pinned on top of her head every morning. She had a dish full of black hair pins. She would brush her long hair with the 100 required strokes. She sat at her dressing table and did this. I would stand at the doorway to her bedroom and watch her brush her hair. Then she would braid it, perhaps with two braids, and leave the braids down for sleeping. She told me with great pride and yet a touch of shyness how much her husband (my grandfather I never knew -- he died before I was born) loved her long hair. I don't think she ever cut it, except to trim the ends. Every morning she would braid the single braid and wrap it up on top of her head again. She had combs that she would also put in her hair to catch the fly-aways. But they were all brown or black haircombs. When her hair was all white, I found some white hair combs for her to use, instead of the brown ones, and she was so delighted, she said she didn't know that they made them anything but dark combs.

ahhhhh to fly high above

listening to the wind

skin deep

Guided by the young teen on the cusp of manhood, I marvel at his awareness, his knowledge of the birds’ calls (teakettle teakettle), the Carolina wren, the woodland hawk, the cardinal. Compared to the professional naturalist’s one hummingbird nest found in her almost 50 years (and she is one of the best naturalists I know), he has found five in his fifteen years.

He has been listening to, talking with, observing, eating, comparing the natural world around him all his life, so every plant, tree, animal, insect, and of course birds, are within him and part of his skin. He shares this wonderful knowledge with those of us who are accompanying him on the nature walk, with a deep modesty a part of his self-confidence.

We are skipping our single stones across the surface, whereas he has dived into the depths time and again.

He introduces us to the equesitum (horsetail) and its properties, a low-growing feathery and rather beautiful plant whose leaves can clean and scour pans, giving it his respect by informing us (twice) that it is one of the ancient plants.

Sitting now facing the lake, my time for quiet and observation, and, as always, feeling the healing and restorative power of this place. The strongest force for me is the wind, bringing the coolness, the smells of the air so fresh, the beautiful music of leaves, rustling, also delighting in the sight of these leaves winking swaying from the branches. The lake gives its approaching concentric ripples, beautiful in their constantly changing but consistent patterns. A little bit of bright yellow (woodland sunflower) and purple (loosestrife) appear among all the many greens surrounding and on the lake.

The music of the wind and the trees continues to be played; no silence here. It is an August morning, but there has been a change today and the fall approaches.

I am content.

mindfulness

From a collection of Thich Nhat Hanh's journal entries, Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966
If you tarnish your perceptions by holding on to suffering that isn't really there, you create even greater misunderstanding. Reality is neither pleasant nor unpleasant in and of itself. It is only pleasant or unpleasant as experienced by us, through our perceptions. This is not to deny that earthquakes, plagues, wars, old age, sickness, and death exist. But their nature is not suffering. We can limit the impact of these tragedies but never do away with them completely. That would be like wanting to have light without darkness, tallness without shortness, birth without death, one without many. One-sided perceptions like these create our world of suffering. We are like an artist who is frightened by his own drawing of a ghost. Our creations become real to us and even haunt us.

totem

Stories in Cedar
Totem pole types include story-telling legend poles, wedding poles, history poles, poles that ridicule bad debtors and those that honor the dead.
Meanings are elusive, for the ravens, wolf crests and bear symbols now stand apart from the ceremonies that breathed life into the carvings. Mortuary poles honor the dead. Often cremation ashes are kept in a receptacle in the back. The single figure at the top represents the commemorated person's clan. Crest poles, usually part of a house, portray the ancestry of a particular family.

ocean

oral tradition

Here is why traditional stories passed down through families can be so compelling.

What is involved includes discipline, insistence on accuracy and confinement of the storytelling within a family group.

The Tlingit native people have numerous clans; within each clan a storyteller is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring his or her own people's history. This responsibility is neither given nor received lightly. A storyteller must tell only the stories of his own clan, never that of a neighboring people. A new storyteller may not publicly repeat the stories until she has proven to the elder who is teaching her that she can repeat it word for word, with no changes nor elaboration.

The storyteller, young or old, sits close to his audience, seeing them and observing their reaction as he speaks.

Recently, I was privileged to hear the story from a Huna Tlingit (Xunaa Ka`awu) young man about how what we call the Grand Pacific Glacier in Alaska's Glacier National Park rapidly took over his ancestors' lands centuries ago, displacing his people to a new settlement. He spoke to his audience with the storytelling mantle that had been bestowed on him (his grandmother made him repeat the story accurately five times before her permission was granted), and exactly in the manner of respect that was prescribed.


Within my own family storytelling, we have never considered the importance of these protocols, so we expect individual memories to change aspects of what is remembered. We rely on the written word, so place less importance on oral memory or repetition. We suspect that one person's remembrance must always be different from another's. So we enjoy our family traditions and we believe our family stories to be important to us as a small group of related people, but we don't quite trust that the information is truly accurate. We want to see a diary of the period, or an official document, or another form of written history. And yet, these, too, can be distorted, as we know well by the common occurrence of immigrant names being changed by officials who could not understand foreign pronunciation or when a foreign sound could not be rendered adequately into English. We know that typographical errors are made; before our eyes and ears we hear the former vice president of the United States rewriting with his version of history the events of less than a single decade.

With the trust that stories are communicated accurately from grandparent to grandchild, then a people, a family, can ensure that what is passed down from generation to generation, from century to century, remains true to the memory of the events.

photographs: woods

beauty

succulence

shelter

changes

The best advice my older sister gave me as a young mother was:

the minute that you get used to your children doing something a certain way,
they will change

Remembering this held me in good stead as my two grew and changed and daily discovered new activities, new ways of thinking, new aspects to the world around them. I could never become complacent with who they were and what they could do. I was also taught by my children to adapt and to look for changes and to appreciate and embrace for myself what was new and what might be unfamiliar.


I was reminded of this the other day when my grandson, now 5 1/2 (and currently he always adds the additional 1/2 when asked his age) seemingly changed before my eyes. It had only been a week, possibly two, since I had seen him last and all of a sudden he had grown from a toddler to a little young man. His manner was different, he moved differently, he had more patience, he took care of his little sister differently, his concentration, which was always great, now seemed to become even more focused. I kept seeing in his face the changes that had taken place, seemingly so quickly, and which now anticipates the older young man who is yet to develop.

day of birth september 2003

photographs: water

rapids

transition

reflection

© penny corbett may 2009