The Unexpressed Thought

I  once heard Richard Burton on a television interview say that his former wife, Elizabeth Taylor, never had an unexpressed thought.   Thinking that was clever, I parked it away in the rolodex of my brain.   Granted not a very safe place if I  ever wanted to retrieve it. I like to talk.  I love a good conversation.  My oldest son and I talked for two and half hours on the phone the other day.   We talked about music and literature and life. We covered a lot of ground, and not just the top layer.  It was great. I often judge the level of enjoyment of an outing or event by how much I enjoyed the conversation--- that's my idea of a good time.

However-- I don't  get the trend of  saying everything-- about anything anytime anyplace. The tsunami of words that washes over us everyday will surely wipe out independent, reflective thought if we engage in it.

Is quiet reflection out of fashion?  Is a reserve of thought and observation something which needs to be cured?

Here I am writing a blog and my observation of the day is that maybe we should keep some things to ourselves, to savor and develop, to reflect upon--- to keep our own counsel.  To know when discretion is the better part of blather.

Blather-- what a wonderful word.  I believe it is an Irish-ism, at least I hope so.  Coming from a people who can talk the snow off an iceberg or the green off a Christmas tree, even those blessed with the gift of gab had enough sense to know when to keep those lovely syllables to themselves.

For My Father

Since today is the anniversary of the JFK assassination, I am sharing an excerpt from my essay Mystique, which was published in Ten Spurs, Literary Journal of the Mayborn Conference Standing in the living room on a bright crisp Saturday in October 1960, my father asks me if I would like to come with him to get neighbors to vote.  Eagerly, I say yes and my mother buttons up my sweater and brushes back my hair.  Dad and I go about Rosedale ringing doorbells.  We climb the brick stoops of the houses around St. Clare's.  Dad has an impressive list of all the registered voters in the area, or maybe he just has the registered Democrats. The list would be virtually the same for our neighborhood on the outskirts of Queens where nearly everyone is a member of St. Clare's Roman Catholic Church, and if they aren’t, they belong to Beth Israel on the other side of Sunrise Highway. Oh, there are a few Protestants, someone has to go to St. Peter’s Episcopal near the Long Island Rail Road station.  Maybe they are on the Republican voter list.

So Dad rings the bell and someone answers the door, saying something pleasant to the little kid in corduroys who has come to help.  Dad always has a friendly line while conveying the importance of getting out to vote on Election Day.  Hello, Joe, I’m here with my young friend Juli-kazool to ask you and Evelyn to vote on Tuesday November 8.  As you know we are supporting the Kennedy-Johnson ticket and every vote counts. I turn three the day before John Kennedy is elected President of the United States.  He is one of us; Irish, Catholic and his daughter and I were born the same month of the same year.

In September of 1963 I finally get to go to first grade.  I put on my new wool jumper, black and white oxfords and beret for the opening day of school.  The church is filled with uniformed boys and girls, nuns in yards of black organza and starched white wimples.  I am now initiated with my older brothers and sister into this long awaited ritual.  Several priests assist Fr. Dunnigan at the communion rail for the hundreds of communicants.  We first graders kneel in place, back straight, singing the hymns, waiting for our turn next spring.  We are in touch with something here, something ancient and deep and true.  Communion of saints bridging the past to present to future; our souls, just for a moment, glimpse the ineffable.  Dominus vobiscum. Et cum Spiritu tuo.

Sr. Mary Norbert stands in front of the seventy-five first graders under her care, a long, large Rosary with a crucifix bigger than my hand hanging from her waistband, her young face pinched in the white wimple.  The principal breaks in over the loudspeaker this grey afternoon before Thanksgiving, interrupting our lesson.  Her voice cracks.  Our President has been shot. Sr. Mary Norbert steps out into the hallway to confer with the other teachers.  In stunned movement she returns and we all pull out our Rosaries and recite, the whole school, with the principal over the loudspeaker, five decades, praying for our President, for our country.  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women…. This is something like those air raid shelter drills where half the class lines up in the hallway, half huddle under our desk, Rosary marking the time until the bell rings all clear. But no, this is different.  This time something has actually happened and it isn’t a Russian bomb.  After the Rosary we pack our school bags and go home where Walter Cronkite in shades of grey moves into our living rooms and images that will repeat for the rest of our lives make their mark.  My mother is in the rocking chair with Gerry on her lap, watching history, making no comment.  I know not to question the silence.  She sends me out to play.  It is cold and grey in our backyard. The apple tree is barren and the brown leaves crunch under my feet.

...there is restlessness.  We need some fresh air.  Vatican II brought Hootenanny Masses, in English, where we really did sing Kumbaya and Blowin’ in the Wind as Fr. Dunnigan grimaced and Fr. Beliveau smiled.  The world rocked with student revolts and a fury barely contained.  The Kennedy and King assassinations played over and over until we felt like we were there, blood warm on our hands.  Kent State and the despair and grief of that young woman with the wild hair, arms upraised in ancient keening why, why, why and we can nearly hear her through the grainy image on the front page of the Long Island Press.

Crossing the Line

Somebody had to do it. So we volunteered.  With four Slimming World© comrades I proudly and cheerfully brought up the rear of the 5K “Dorothy’s Dash” for MS on Saturday.  Thank you, thank you.  No need for applause.

I had never been in a 5K.  Long, long time ago, I twice signed up for a twenty mile Walkathon.  The first year it poured so my friend and I found our way to the Statue of Liberty where we met up with a group of kids from the neighborhood and climbed to the top of Lady Liberty.  In soggy shoes and blue jeans heavy with rain, we climbed round and round the steep and narrow stairs just to pass by the windows in her crown and look out, very briefly, at a gray and soggy harbor.  You do that kind of thing when you’re 15.

The next year was clear and hot.  We made it to about mile 13 before our blisters persuaded us to stop.  So what did we do?  We walked around Battery Park, of course.  The blisters didn’t seem to mind a ramble as much as finish line.

I didn’t sign up a third year.

Saturday morning in Flower Mound, Texas was cold.  The afternoon before, the temperature hit 79.  So when they said it would be cooler in the morning, I was very glad.  I should have paid attention to how much cooler it was to be.

The wind was blowing.  I should have had a hat and gloves and a winter coat.  Nope.  A velvety zip up jacket, with a hood and pockets, thank God, had to do the job.  I was tempted to slither off back to the car and head home. But those other ladies reminded me to go and register and get my chip.  Once you’ve got a chip, you are committed.  So we walked.

The real athletes lined up first, the people with obvious muscles in shorts and tank tops (didn’t they know it was cold?)  An awful lot of professional looking runners were taking this 5K seriously. We fell in with the people pushing baby carriages.  There was a good size group of us in our red Slimming World© T-shirts.  We were women who have been defying the lure of cookies and creamy desserts for months putting one foot in front of another for a good cause.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning. It wasn't long, though, before the rest of the group moved on ahead of us.  Way ahead of us.

The five of us passed the finish line at 58 minutes and change.  Yeah!!  A nice ramble in cool November weather where five women did what women do best.  We talked.

And that is the genius of Slimming World©.  Not only is the plan remarkable and do-able and full of common sense, it is social.  It is therapeutic.  It is fun.  We are in this together

Because we want to bring up the rear. (Pun intended)

Next

Last week I did something I hadn’t done before. I removed a blog post. Why? Because it was ill conceived and poorly constructed. And, I have come the point in life, or the age, in which I think it is not only a good idea to admit my mistakes, but it is necessary. Necessary? Yes. Because if we stick to our mistakes and if our egos are too fragile to take correction, then we have just added a traffic jam to any meaningful conversation. Meaningful conversation is one of the treasures of life. I enjoy a good conversation about as much as I enjoy reading. And I enjoy reading quite a bit.

As Craig Ferguson (comic and naturalized American citizen) likes to say, in America you get a second chance. And a third chance. And if you are tenacious, as many chances as you want.

I should be more cautious, I suppose. Boy, that’s difficult when words just want to burst and spill all over the page. My oldest son Michael, who takes after his mother in this, had a comeback line that has become part of the idiom in our family: “I’m just saying, is all”. This became a regular defense when he said things that irritated his brother into a brawl. “Just saying” has started many a war, many a romance, many a confession.

And many a needed conversation.

In this age of political correctness, where great swaths of topics are off limits lest you be considered unenlightened, we need to keep the conversation going. We need to think things through and articulate what we think. If we do not, we will be silenced by those who grab the microphones and talk their way into power. Then I’d really be in trouble. The gatekeeper of my words is usually off duty or taking a nap. Words slip out. Whole heated monologues and arguments break loose from my unrestrained tongue and untethered fingers.

There are still places in this world where that quality would land me in jail or in front of a firing squad. So before our freedom of speech slips away because we stop exercising it, let’s keep the conversation going.

Next!

A Good Season

It's been a good season. The kids—and grandson- and the one on the way- are healthy—our work is getting out in the world.  Our youngest son is stepping into his acting career with a bit of style and good graces. Serendipity is one way of putting it—events and people winding around to meet him and offer him new doors in which to make a grand entrance.  He’s always had an abundance of confidence and a sense of destiny—so far it seems he was right. When he was a toddler he told stories about how he and Jesus hung out in heaven before he was born arranging this family and plotting his path.  Having lived longer than he, I hope he always remembers these moments of grace when life throws up the inevitable obstacles.

Over the years I have discovered that getting through tough times—times of struggle and doubt and pain—that the act of remembering the good seasons, the abundance and blessings, joys, laughter, just plain peace and contentment, can act as a lifeline to hang onto when we feel battered.  There comes a point, or several, when we understand the De Profundis Psalm 130:  Out of the depths I cry to you o Lord.  Lord, hear my prayer.

Sometimes, though, when things are going well, blessedly, even, there is a small warning, a caution, to not get too excited or expectant, because you just never know when the crash will come.  The great equalizer.

But, geez, what kind of a grouch can dip into that pool of emotion every time life is good?  That seems rather ungrateful doesn’t it?

I do it all the time.  It’s an insurance against feeling too good, too confident. Yesterday, when I had planned to get this post out, I had a roller-coaster day.  The morning sent me several e-mails from readers who (dare I say it?) loved my short story in The Rose and Thorn Journal.

Now everyone loves praise, but, years of training against being “too big for your britches” kicks in and some imp pokes my confidence and warns me to just wait, something bad will come and you’ll be back to where you started.

I had one of those events handy—I couldn’t reach one of my sons.  Didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, answer his phone.  He was always so good, so prompt, at returning calls.  So naturally, gearing up for disaster since I’d just been blessed with good tidings and praise, I pictured him on the side of the road, upside down in his car and unconscious.  So I couldn’t write.  I couldn’t eat.  I could only worry.  Now that is something I know I’m good at.

I’ve got to get a new hobby.