Rest beside the weary road

It is a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as empty.  They are filled with memories, with the faded echo of voices.  (Roberts)

My imagination has always worked overtime, for good and not-so-good.  I have always been one who could imagine the sound of footsteps behind me if I were walking on a dark street at night, or the crackling of brush as a hidden something follows me in the woods.  And when I saw this old house, and I’m not even sure if it indeed is a house, it captured me with its atmosphere of moody, silent brooding.  If I were to write a story about the house, I could imagine it filled with light and laughter and warmth, children and pets, guests coming and going. Now it sits on its somewhat desolate looking hill, alone, abandoned. Its time has past, and now it waits, but for what?

Perhaps it is not the house of which I am speaking, but rather myself.  For so many years we wait for some future “something,” not quite realizing that life is happening all the time, not quite aware of the present moment until it’s past.  Not aware that this present moment is my life . . .

I wonder sometimes if at heart, all of us are still 18, waiting for life to happen.

 

---

In the end, maybe only a few things matter most:  how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of those things not meant for you.  (Unknown)

How much of each relationship is based on reality versus what we hope to believe about who the other person really is?  (Evans)

Isn’t projection an astonishing phenomenon??  I’m speaking of the kind of projection in which we take a quality or characteristic that is part of who we are, and “project” or attribute it to another person.  For good or bad . . .  For example, when we fall in love, supposedly all those great qualities that we see in the other person really belong to us, but we don’t quite believe it yet.  Or when we are gagging over the foibles of one of our politicians, and calling them a “no-good so and so,” those things we hate in them — yep, you got it — are really us!

‘Tis a humbling thing — easy to own the good stuff (most of the time), not so easy to own the less than salutary.  Our current rancorous political climate can make for some awesome realizations, when we are really honest with ourselves.

Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary to look at the world upside down in order to see things right. (Gia)

This quote deserves at least a few moments of contemplation about the different facets of your life, whether they’re problematic or not.  Try turning each thing upside down — for example, “this isn’t a bad thing, it’s good.”  It’s amazing what might occur to you as a result.

It was so terribly cold.  Snow was falling and it was almost dark . . . (but through the window) the tree was more beautiful than the one she had seen last Christmas through the glass door of the rich merchant’s home.  (Andersen)

I don’t know how old I was when I first heard Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl, but I do know I was probably too young for such a tragic story of poverty and death.  I remember sobbing myself to sleep that night, overcome with the horror of this window into another reality.

I wanted so badly to do something about it, to fix it somehow, to make it better for this nameless little girl who froze to death that bitterly cold night.  In my imagination, she was really out there, looking into my window, at my Christmas tree, and my wonderful Christmas dinner.  And I couldn’t reach her, I couldn’t help her, I couldn’t invite her in.

That kind of helplessness still haunts me sometimes, all these years later.  One of the hardest things for me to deal with is the sense I often have that there doesn’t have to be this kind of injustice, that things don’t have to be this way, people can choose to behave better than this, that this isn’t right.  

I’ve learned a lot about equanimity since that time, and I’ve learned that most people are doing the best that they can at any given moment, “walking according to the light as they see it.”  I’ve learned I can be very arrogant in my self-righteous sense that I know best. I’ve learned that my reverse prejudice can be just as destructive as prejudice. I’ve learned a lot about forgiveness, for both myself and others.

But it’s hard to forget and not to see.  And often I still chafe at others’ choices when I so want them to choose differently, to rise to the fullness of what could be possible for themselves and for our world.

---

 

 Count your cookies, not your problems.  (The Cookie Monster)

The most devoted of my small but select group of readers may remember my quest for the perfect gingersnap recipe.  I finally got it taste-wise!  Here it is, for those of you who may be craving hot and spicy gingersnaps . . .

2 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsps. baking soda, 2 tsps. ginger, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper.  Stir together these dry ingredients.  Mix 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/3 cup molasses, 2 egg whites.  Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until blended.  Form into 1 inch balls, roll in additional granulated  sugar and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Almost perfect.  Now if I can only get it to snap . . .

 

As I came into the store this evenin’, I noticed the little Jenkins kid was standin’ around with his hands in his pockets, eyein’ the stick candy in the jar on the counter.  I always felt sorry for that kid since he had ears like ole Peter Rabbit in the story that Potter woman wrote— they was pink and stuck out so far you could see the sun shinin’ through ’em.  I tossed Mam a penny and motioned for her to give the kid a couple of sticks.  She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but gave him one anyways, and he ducked his head at me, in thanks, I reckon, kinda shy-like.

I walked over and started listenin’ to the gossip around the stove.  The fellas didn’t have anything new on the murder, just rehashin’ old stuff.  I stayed a couple of minutes, and then decided I’d head on out; it was cold, and gettin’ dark, and I needed to get on.   As I stood buttonin’ my coat on the porch, I felt a tug on my jacket, and lookin’ down, saw some big ears, and a sticky hand holdin’ a piece of candy.  The Jenkins kid, he grabbed my sleeve and whispered real soft-like that he had found somethin’ he wanted to show me.

Well, he led me around back of the store, and reached under the springhouse and motioned for me to come close, and what did he pull out but that big ole hunk of silver.  I didn’t waste any time askin’ him where did he get it, and he said he found it in the mine.  I turned it over in my hand and noticed it didn’t have no hole or hook nor nothin’ to hang on the strap the murdered man wore, and decided maybe it wasn’t the same piece. I asked him would he show me where he found it, and he looked scared and said he never went near that mine when it was gettin’ toward dark because of spooks.  But he did agree to meet me at the entrance the next mornin’.

I dreamed of silver all night long, and spooks, too, and landslides, and woke up in a cold sweat, not sure I wanted to find what might be waitin’ for me that day.  But the Jenkins kid was right there where he told me he’d be, lookin’ excited-like, and led me down a bunch of corridors in the mine, bein’ careful to mark his way with string and chalk.  Me, I don’t like enclosed spaces, so I was sweatin’, even in the cold, and wished we’d soon get to where he was leadin’ me.  Finally he stopped, and motioned with his lantern to look up.

And sure enough.  A big ole hunk of ceiling of this corridor had given way, and the light shinin’ in the dark reflected offa long curvy veins of silver and zinc amidst the limestone walls.  Looked like more zinc was left in that rock than those no-good Turner guys had led folks to believe when they closed the mine.  But the big news was the veins of silver . . .

Why, silver was sellin’ for 50-60 cents an ounce, not what it used to, but that was still plenty more than nothin’.  That could mean the world to folks around here.

While I was standin’ there feelin’ greedy, the Jenkins kid all of a sudden blew out his lantern, and pulled me down in the darkness.  And I heard it, too.  The sound of footsteps gettin’ closer.  Spooks didn’t make noise when they walked, did they . . .

. . .when Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter  bleak, and dark, and bereft of hope . . . (Conners)

I wonder sometimes what would stir me enough to leave the comfort and safety of the womb I have created for myself, and venture forth on an unknown journey such as these “three wise men” of the Christmas story took.  At one time, it would have been adventure, curiosity, a sense of mission and sacred purpose, a calling . . .  Now I suspect that the only thing that would compel me to undertake such a journey would be extreme discomfort, and fear that would border on terror rather than just alarm.

And my sense is that our refugees today experience that kind of discomfort and terror, following their own “star” not so much to a place of possibility and new beginnings, as away from danger and hardship.  From my impossibly smug and complacent existence, at least in contrast to theirs, I feel like an old groundhog, burrowed into my den, and not about to emerge into a world that is dark and cold and inhospitable.

Do groundhogs, I wonder, ever venture forth in winter by choice, in those times when their biological rhythms say “hibernate, fool,”  when physically they are not ready for such rigors?  Maybe if their burrow was blown up . . .  Or, for this old groundhog at least, if their discomfort finally overcame their biological predispositions . . .

So . . .  What would “three wise groundhogs” do if the “star” that drew them forth was that of survival?  Go, or else, the star dictates — choose to go, or choose to die.

Groundhogs, on the move, in December . . . 

 

I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.  A magical thing, and sweet to remember.

We are nearer to spring than we were in September.  I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.  (Oliver Herford)

A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of year for a journey, and such a long journey.  (T.S. Eliot, The Journey of the Magi)

The story of the Three Wise Men is such an integral piece of the Christmas tradition, and has always been one of my favorite parts of the “story.”  I love to sit in a darkened church at a children’s Christmas pageant, and watch the little ones in long bathrobes and cardboard crowns stumble up to the baby Jesus with their gifts.  The Biblical accounts of this part of the Christmas story are sketchy for sure, so a lot is left to the imagination.

T.S. Eliot’s forty-nine line poem, The Journey of the Magi, is his fantasized account of what the journey of the wise men of the traditional Christmas story might have been like.  The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by one of the three wise men.  The account tells us that these kings/magicians/astrologers saw a star in the sky which they noticed began to move, and they decided to follow it, because they guessed it meant that something important might be about to happen.

It was a long journey, and in Eliot’s version, both the weather and the route were hazardous.  From the very beginning, they encountered various difficulties, traveling through barbarian and dangerous desert and mountainous territory. The hazards hidden along the way seem to speak to the spiritual nature of the journey, and we get the sense that spiritual journeys are meant to be tough.

Even the camels began to complain (sore feet and so forth), and the camel drivers grumbled and griped, wanting booze and prostitutes.  The people they encountered on the journey were inhospitable, hostile sorts, and for safety, they took to traveling at night, getting little sleep. When the wise men did manage to sleep, they were troubled by nightmares and “voices” warning them that this venture would come to no good end.  And indeed, for the wise men in Eliot’s account, the “end” of the journey raised more questions than it answered.

We are left knowing that the journey of the wise men is our journey.  We all have a spiritual journey to take, mountains to scale, deserts to cross . . . Probably nothing will be more important in your life than your own.