Meeting on the Way

     The last Monday of February, 1980. It’s a miserable day in intermediate school. A skinny, slouching kid in a green windbreaker drags his feet past the classroom doors. His backpack is hanging off one shoulder. He had hoped for no math homework. But he's got three pages of multiplication. He’s in the second lowest math class and can never seem to concentrate on the problems. He would like English more if he didn’t have to spell well. He likes science, but gets marked down because his work is so sloppy and hard for the teacher to read. He likes band, but can’t really take a snare drum home to practice and doesn’t have much passion for it. In fact, he doesn’t have a lot of passion for anything other than trying to be different than everyone else. If he’s learned anything in school, it’s that being an outcast is easier if it’s a choice.

     He has missed the bus because he had to stay after school to do extra math. It’s about a mile and a half walk home, all downhill. He doesn’t mind. Sometimes it’s better than riding the bus anyway. So he walks out of the school grounds and starts the quiet walk home down Lahainaluna Road. 

     There is little traffic until a gleaming silver car seems to burst out of nowhere. It skids to a stop, gull-wing doors open and a man bumps his head as he gets out. The man looks at the boy and smiles.

This is it, the boy thinks. The aliens that are from my true home are here to take me home.

Instead, the stranger walks to the boy and looks around. He's quiet and rocks on his toes. Finally he points to the vacant fields all around and speaks.

     “Someday this will all be houses. That sugar mill down there will be gone. It’s all going to go away. Nothing stays the same, kid. You had a lousy day at school today?”

     The kid nods. What, is this stranger a time traveler? No, that car looks like it ought to fly like the ones in the stories he’s made up. The stranger continues:

     “I’ve got news for you. You’re not an alien from another planet, okay? I know that’s an easy thing to imagine. And when you think that, it kind of exempts you from the responsibility of trying to get along. I mean, it’s okay to be an introvert. But you’re not as different as you think. Even those popular kids have anxieties.

The boy looks from the car to the stranger. The man wears glasses and a long black coat, jeans and boots. The man goes on:

I just wanted to come along and tell you, it gets better. You are a lot smarter than you think, just because you freeze up doing three-digit multiplication, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You’ve got a great imagination. You know those stories you make up with your toy cars and spaceships? Yeah, I know, you’re not too old for toys, don’t worry. You keep doing that. It exercises your mind to create worlds like that. Don’t ever stop.

     The boy is shocked. This stranger knows about the worlds.

     You made up a story the other night too, as you were going to sleep. You do that also. The story was about two guys doing a rescue mission to a strange planet.

     The stranger sits on a low wall. He looks at the boy with the look that is sad, but proud.

     “I shouldn’t have come and done this. So I’ll just tell you the truth and then fix it. It’s true, David. I did travel back in time. I thought I would come back and see you on the week of your 13^th birthday and then I couldn’t resist saying something. I mean, I remember what it was like. And I wanted to tell you that it will get better. You’ll make some new friends. In a few years, you won’t have such a miserable time every day at school. And when you grow up, oh man, your wife will be the prettiest, sweetest girl ever.

     At this the boy makes a face.

“Now calm down. I know you still don’t like girls now right? At least that’s what you like to think. But here, I’ll prove I’m you from the future, something you never told anyone. That girl who looked out the school bus window at you? I know her name, so do you. Yeah, I know how you feel, that little crush. No, you won’t marry her. At the end of this school year, you’ll never see her again.”

The boy’s knees feel weak. But more than the gelatinous fright he feels, there is a thrill of relief. This person really does understand everything. Questions start bubbling up in his mind. What other advice could his future self give?

“I’m not going to tell you anything else. Well there is a lot more I wish I could tell you. I would like to tell you that in your future, you should make better choices. If it’s something that feels good right away, but you regret it later, then you shouldn’t do it at all. I wish I could tell you so much. Buy stock in Apple, learn to drive a stick shift, don’t watch the movie Serenity until you’ve watched the Firefly series. But no, you’ll have to make your choices and live with them. Anything I tell you to do different, it might compromise you meeting and falling in love with her, the one.  

The stranger beckons the boy close, pulls off his eyeglasses and points to the blue of his eyes.

“Look here. You’re going to forget we met. But you’re going to feel better today. You’re birthday will be fun this week. Life will get better. Forget everything else I said.”

The stranger almost stands, but looks back at the boy.

“But remember this too. Write that story down. The story about the space rescue mission, it’s not publishable, but get a notebook and write it down anyway. You are going to find that you love to write. It’s a better escape from reality than what you do now. You were born on Earth, deal with it. Go on home now. Happy Birthday.

The kid in the green windbreaker turns and walks down the hill and the stranger watches him go. The kid is still slouching and dragging his feet. But he’s looking up.

Welcome to the World, Kid

     I’ve cut 6 umbilical cords in my life. 5 times I’ve done it with scissors, once with a scalpel. The first time I did it, I said 5 words that were easy enough to remember so it’s what I said each time after. I fell into a habit. “Welcome to the world, kid” is pretty informal. But I was tired the first time. I didn’t have time to think much. I just kept saying it. Maybe if I thought about it I would have said something else.

There is comfort in knowing what to do and expect. In the first years of your life that’s how it should be. In your first few months when you have a need, it should get met soon. When you’re hungry you get fed. When you’re uncomfortable you get changed. As the months go by, you might begin to learn that your needs are not always met right away. That’s part of growing up. There is a lot to learn about growing up. It might start with the first time you are hungry and not fed right away.

Those tiny memories fade to the back as new experiences fill your growing mind. New tastes are everywhere as you explore with your mouth. Some things taste good and some not so good. You may learn that taste is just like the rest of the world. Some new things to see and hear are nice and some are not. The same goes with faces peering down at you. You might not know why you don’t like some of them and why you feel some are nice. It’s okay. Your mind is growing and learning.

And one day you will learn the devastating truth that you are not the center of the world. It won’t dawn on you all at once. It may take a long, long time to realize that the big people in your life have other lives too. These other lives don’t have you as a part of them. There are big other lives of big people with work and meetings and big people talking on telephones. There are the long legs of big people standing around talking about things that are not about you and things you don’t even understand and you’re left to stand and look up and listen to big people and big words.

You slowly realize that there is a big world besides your own. It’s the whole wide world out there. It has loud things, barking dogs and rushing traffic. There are things you mustn’t touch and places you cannot run. Is everything out in the world bad? Will that clap of thunder hurt you? Can the wind blow you away? Is that man on the street with the cigarette and the scowl a bad man? Why do the bugs die when you step on them? Where did the cat go when he didn’t come home anymore? When Mommy or Daddy go, will they come back?

So hold someone’s hand when you’re scared, when you cross the street and when the wind blows so hard that you’re afraid. It’s okay to cover your ears when the noises get to loud. It doesn’t make the noise go away does it? But isn’t it nice to make the sound not so loud?

There, you see? You are learning a little about controlling the world around you. You can make it a little quieter. You can begin to pick and choose things. And then you are entering into a time in your life where you explore, not only your world, but your boundaries. How far can you go? How much is too much? What can you do and still be loved? It’s a time of learning, and it’s a time of frustration. Why can’t you eat all the toothpaste? Why can’t you walk to the ocean? Why can’t you hit? Why do you have to be nice?

And this difficult time won’t last. One day you will remember how good it feels to make people happy. One day you will want them to be friends, not just so they can like you, but because you now know that they need friends just like you. You will start to think about other people’s needs and feelings. And you will like knowing that you are helping others to be happy.

All your life so far, you will have felt love. It has grown from the day you were born when you felt loving hands on you and you loved the feel of your needs being met. Later, you loved seeing people you knew and doing things you liked. You loved affection and you loved to give it.

And eventually you learned to love in a new way. It is a love where you don’t just want what’s best for you, but what’s best for others, for the people you love. Sometimes that means you don’t get what you want, and it’s okay.

And all along from the day you were born and never stopping, you were made to be loved. You will be loved by your family, friends your creator. God made you for a reason. That reason is that He loves you very much. You will learn more about this as you grow. You will never stop learning about Him and His love.

But for now, sleep. Rest and grow. There is nothing in the big scary world right now that you need to know about. There are just two things in your world right now, growing and being loved. Welcome to the world, kid.

Time Topples the King of Cool

     A.J. put on my headphones and then turned to me and gave me a look like I was cannibalizing myself.  I stammered to explain to him why I was listening to that particular music. Suddenly, I didn’t feel the coolness I had expected. He gave my stereo headset back and didn’t talk to me for a while.  It was a few hours before the curtain went up on opening night of our fall semester college play when he saw me with my Walkman.  I was listening to the music that I thought best would psyche me up to get onstage.  I was acting my first lead role in a stage play. 

The last time I had been onstage was only about 5 months back in a dance concert at Maui Youth Theatre.  Five months back, a few hundred miles away, and a completely different world. It had been my last time onstage before going off to college.  I was cast as an actor rather than a dancer in the opening dance number and lip-synced to a song from the movie musical, Xanadu.  The number started off in a 40’s style with a USO canteen look.  Three girls did an Andrews Sisters imitation to the voice of Olivia Newton John.  I would stand in the wings while the first part of the song played.  It was a bubbly tame sound.  I would breathe and gear myself up.  Then the number transitioned into a more 80’s hard rock song.  I stamped out onstage, the lead singer flanked by two girls.  I lip-synced to the chauvinistic lyrics, not paying attention to anything but the high I would get from being a great big ham.  I felt like I was the coolest dude on the planet.  It was one of the biggest thrills I’ve ever had onstage.  The dance concert closed in August and I was already getting ready to leave for college.

     I kept a cassette tape of that song.  I had it at college where everyone seemed smart, wealthy, or good looking.  I felt like I didn’t belong and sometimes listened to the tape whenever I was feeling rather uncool.  The song began sweetly with the female vocals.  Listening to that part would begin to build me up.  Then it went into the hard rock part.  I would close my eyes and remember the past and how cool I had felt.

     So on opening night, the cast of The Real Inspector Hound was sitting out in the risers before the house opened.  I sat listening to that song my Walkman.  I was trying to remember the high I would get listening in the wings.  A.J. was a little more of a theatre veteran but must have thought I was cool because he was interested to see what I was listening to.  I handed over the headphones with the music still playing.  He heard just a little bit of Olivia Newton John singing to “forget about the blues tonight, sweet babe”.  A.J. looked grossed out.  How could I explain: Wait!!! This music makes me feel cool.  I was cool to this music once, no, lots of shows over three weekends.  I was king of the world!  I was COOL!!!

     No that was the past.  The coolness was gone and grasping onto it that night had not made me feel cool, it had made me worse than not cool.  I was uncool. 

     That was 1986.  I would like to say that I learned my lesson after that and saw the wisdom it letting go of the past and focusing on the now.  But I have always had a tendency to dwell in the past.  Even though this seems to provide copious fodder for my blog, I think that it’s mostly a character flaw.  But I hope today’s entry can be an example of how I can deal with this in a healthy way.  Here was an incident (in my past) where my dwelling on the past had an opposite effect of what I wanted.  Today I think I am better.  I try to focus more on what is happening now.  Although I am a product of my past, I am also very much a husband and father today.  I cannot be distracted by the past because there is too much to live for right now.  It feels like a hard slough to wade out of sometimes, but the truth is I’m not there anymore. 

     It is fun to reminisce about 26 years ago and connect with the old friends I had good times with.  Thanks for those memoires, you know who you are.  I won’t forget the past, but I think I’ve finally started moving on.  A lot of that is thanks to the friends I’m surrounded by today.

    

           

Dissolving Motes in the Wake of Time

    

It’s what we older folks wish we had more of.  Young children, especially last month were lamenting its slowness.  Their parents felt it rushing like the wind in the wake of something massive passing by with unmatched speed and power.  Despite its motion through space, it has no mass.  It has been called God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.  Of course I’m ranting about time.

     I can’t say for sure what time is made of, perhaps memories.  But if that is true then time might be very feeble indeed. Three days ago I was considering what to blog about.  I have grown weary of the lecturing and ranting about how December made me edgy.  I have been dealing with what I considered to be the highest possible themes and imagining that my musings are an essential beacon at the beginning of everyone’s week.  Truth be told, Roadwalker is a writing exercise that I share and other people are kind enough to indulge me by reading.  So while I was vacuuming three days ago and considering what to write about I tried to check what time it was and then gave a frustrated huff.  My watch battery died several days ago and I haven’t worn it since. 

I thought then that I would blog about how I’ve always had the ability to keep track of time in my head but still how much I love wearing a wristwatch and how vital it was at the radio station to know precisely what time it was to catch the ABC network feeds.  I thought about Peter Fonda in Easy Rider throwing away his wristwatch in his iconic and rather lame film as a symbol that he was no longer tied to established society.  I had an idea for a blog and I had some building blocks to hold it up.

     The next day I was wrapping up another vacuuming job.  I remembered vacuuming the previous day.  I remembered what room I was in and that I had thought of a blog topic.  And that was all I remembered.  The topic, the wristwatch that I still wasn’t wearing, motorcycles and good rock music, all gone.  I began to compose a new blog in my head right there about how my memory was going the way of the brown pigment in the hair on my head.  What had happened to my past?  Once forgotten, did it exist anymore?

     I don’t know when the first blog topic came back to me, but probably when I when I tried to check the time on my bare wrist.  And then did time re-establish itself?  I don’t know.  Memories are a funny thing.  I can still hear the school bell in my head from kindergarten almost 40 years ago.  I can remember the words to songs my class sung in elementary school.  I remember insignificant details about all kinds of things I’ve done all my life.  But I can’t remember how many times I’ve asked one of my kids the same question or told Prajna the same lame joke.  And I am pretty sure that I used to be able to think of a writing idea and be confident that I would not forget it.  Now, I’m not so sure.  I have been jotting notes down more often lately to preserve ideas.  Sometimes I lose the notes though.

     If all my past is made of is my memories then my past is dust motes in a shaft of light.  Lucky for me I can record silly little memories here on this blog.  If you read back to when I first started blogging a year and a half ago a lot of it is little snippets of my past.  I might go back to telling stories like that some more as long as I can tie them into what is happening today.  I want those dust motes to form little bricks and not be lost as time blasts on.