Lightning in a Bottle

     Mark Twain is attributed as saying: “It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubts.”  This has been the little motto in my head most of my life.  Don’t talk too much and maybe I won’t make a fool of myself.  Say as little as possible.  

     Writing a blog once a week, posting it on Blogger and then linking it to Facebook is hardly keeping quiet.  It’s going out on a limb and risking the removal of all doubts.  Most Monday mornings I post the blog and link it between 6 and 7 in the morning.  I will feel a little doubt as it its quality, but satisfaction that at least I managed to go another week keeping up with my writing regimen.  Then last week I wrote a particularly stirring blog entry.  People seemed to appreciate the story and I was pretty pleased with it too.  Sometimes my blog entries are singles or grounders, there are some doubles.  There are definitely strikeouts. Last week was knocked out of the park.  Once in a while it feels like words fall into place just right and I’ve caught lightning in a bottle.  

As last week drew to an end I began to fret about what the next blog entry would be.  I do this every week.  I may have a topic in mind but nothing seems good enough and most Sunday evenings I am thinking that I ought to just take the week off or maybe just quit writing the blog altogether and start sleeping in on Mondays.  Last night was no exception.  I wanted to write about Memorial Day. 

I thought about how capturing the creative essence is sometimes called Lightning in a Bottle.  And as much as I might want to crow about how I liked my blog entry last week and woe is me for fretting about following up on it, none of my accomplishments hold a candle to the work and sacrifices of our veterans.  Last night I felt like just giving up blogging, essentially quitting while I’m ahead.  Then I wondered how many men and women in the armed forces felt the same way and kept at it, never gave up and now are remembered on this day for laying down their lives for their country.  

So I got up this morning feeling a little dyspeptic and discouraged but got this written down.  I don’t expect to top last week.  I wish I could.  But the best I can do today is thank the veterans.  I don’t know how many ever wanted to just give up and go home.  But sometimes even when I’m doing well, I get hit with self-doubt and worry that I can’t go on.  If any of our fighting men and women ever felt that way and continued on anyway, I feel all the more thankful.    

    

           

The day I lived

     Today is the 21^st of May, 2012.  It might be an ordinary day for most people today.  It’s my day off so of course I have a lot of little things to do.  On the surface looks like a regular day.  But 20 years ago today I stood at a crossroads and my life changed forever. 

     It was on this day 20 years ago that Prajna and I left in separate cars to go to the dress rehearsal for a play we were doing.  We had been dating for about 6 months.  I had been a lonely and miserable wretch before meeting her.  But now friends noted how I looked and acted better after starting a relationship.  I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.  I had a useless college degree and was having fun working graveyard shift at a radio station.  But I was 25 and aware that there would be decades to come where I really ought to be doing something significant with my life.  I had just quit smoking cigarettes and still had the image of myself as a loner who sat off and wrote dark poetry.  With Prajna in my life, I had an idea of sharing my life with someone.  But not being alone anymore didn’t seem right still. 

     Late that Thursday afternoon on May 21^st, Prajna left in her Toyota Tercell a few minutes before me for the drive from Haiku to Kahului.  A mile or so from home I approached Maliko Gulch where the Hana Highway dipped down and through.  The driver of an oncoming car was waving for traffic to slow down.  When I got around the corner there were cars stopped and I saw that there was an accident.  Then I saw Prajna’s car up against the guardrail.  I inched forward with traffic around another car facing the same way with the hood crumpled and the smell of hot engine coolant in the air.  As I passed Prajna’s car I saw her.  We made eye contact and she cried out to me.

     As clear as I remember this whole afternoon, I have no memory of parking my car or going to her.  The next thing I remember was that I was at her side.  I took a tissue from a woman and held it to Prajna’s head where her sunglasses had broken and cut her.  Her Toyota had been struck at the front driver’s side corner and was totaled.  The windshield was smashed and the front wheel was bent down.  The car seemed to have been struck hard.  Behind her car the facing the same way was the heavy European sedan that had struck her.  Prajna told me that it had crossed the center line and hit her.  She also told me her leg was broken.  I stayed kneeling by her side and heard sirens.

     Soon there were emergency vehicles everywhere.  Firemen had no trouble pulling the car door open.  Getting Prajna out of her car and onto a gurney was difficult and painful.  I followed the ambulance to the hospital running red lights right along with it.  When I got to the emergency room I knew I needed to get in and see her.  Girlfriend wouldn’t sound good enough. I strode through the open doors that only authorized personnel could pass and for some reason I announced that Prajna was my fiancé.  This held weight with the staff. Even though I was ushered out of the room they seemed concerned for me too.  I called Prajna’s home and talked to her brother.  I explained that she was banged up but would be okay.  Prajna’s mom and brother got there soon after. 

We began a long wait as doctors came and updated us.  Yes, her left femur was broken and they had to put pins in it to fix the position.  They couldn’t use a general anesthetic but would give her enough meds to dull some pain and make her forget the rest.  Friends came to check on us.  Late in the evening a doctor came out and told us there might be a problem.  They were afraid there could be bone fragments in Prajna’s blood.  That could be fatal.  I got a cigarette from a friend and went outside. 

Here is where I felt the crossroads underneath me.  If Prajna died, I could be the dark brooding loner forever.  Was that what I wanted?  People would point to me in awe at the tragic coolness.  Then down the other way was me giving up that desire to be alone and sharing my life with someone. I remembered how miserable I had been over the past few years.  And I decided it didn’t matter. I didn’t want a tragedy in my life even if it enhanced my writing and no matter how cool it made me. I wanted Prajna to live.  I wanted to walk away from that dark loner and live my life with her.  I prayed that outside the E.R.  

Prajna was never in any danger.  The doctors had been taken aback by Prajna’s irrational talking, asking them if they wanted cream cheese on their bagel.  I don’t think that God wanted me to pray that night for Prajna to live as much as for me to live.  And I did.  We both did.

Prajna and her car about a month after the accident

this was my idea of what I would have been like without Prajna

This is most likely how I really would have ended up

    

           

All the Cool Things

     The best thing about driving the Chevy Nova in the rain was that the downpour made so much noise on the metal roof that you couldn’t hear the inferior slant six motor laboring and leaking fuel.  Forgive the tired cliché but it was a dark and stormy night. I was driving on the Hana Highway in Kahului.  I was holding the wheel tightly and wishing the window defogger worked.  The driver’s side window was down to keep the windshield clear.  But still, streetlights headlights and taillights all blurred though the feeble wipers.  I could also see ahead and off to my left the approach lights of The Kahului Airport.  The old car barely had any headliner between the metal roof and the passengers.  The rain was so loud I couldn’t hear the radio.

     Suddenly for just an instant the noise of the rain stopped and then started again.  I would have not believed it unless I was there, but it sounded just like it was just switched off for a second and then back on.  I thought there was only one thing that could have caused that, and looked out the side window.  There was an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 about to touch down at the airport.  It had flown directly over me and for just an instant sheltered the rain from me. 

     I spent the rest of the evening pondering that incident.  It was a wonderful example of being in the right place at the right time.  A few days ago I paused while vacuuming and wrote in my notebook: all the cool things.  I sometimes write things in this notebook because ideas of things to write about can be capricious.  I wanted to remember some of the real cool things I have experienced.    

For example, when I was perhaps in 6^th grade my dad performed a wedding for the daughter of a Navy Officer who captained a nuclear submarine.  The captain invited our family aboard the next day.  I got a guided tour of The Hawkbill.  I looked through the periscope and saw torpedoes.

     Another time when I was working for KNUI radio there was a restaurant going bankrupt that owed the radio station a considerable amount of money for advertising.  They worked out a deal where anyone from KNUI could go eat for free with as many guests as they wanted.  It was a somewhat fancy restaurant too.  We ate there only three times because it was a bit of a drive.  But it was still free dinner.  Among other things I had escargot and we didn’t bother to share deserts.  Mud pie for everyone.

     And right up there with these times is something that happened less than 10 years ago at church one Sunday morning.  Someone got stuck in a storage closet.  The door was completely jammed and there was no way to get it open.  There are times that someone who wears big heavy boots every day can only dream of.  And this was one of those times that everyone realized there was only one way to get the door open.   With the blessing of the pastor, I kicked the door open.  I felt high the rest of the day.

     Those are just a few things that I like to remember.  There were things that I didn’t really cause to happen and I just happened to be in the right time at the right place.  I wanted to write about cool things I got to experience, however, because last Friday made two years that I started this Roadwalker Blog.    I don’t think chance had a whole lot to do with me starting the blog that morning.  I had wanted to do something like it for awhile.  Then that morning the Word of the Day in my inbox was Navel Gazing.  It meant useless or excessive self contemplation.  It became my first blog topic. I thought that is all this blog would be.  Sometimes it is. Over the two years this blog has evolved.  There have been hits and misses. But sometimes, once in a while the self-indulgent rain is eclipsed by a soaring idea for just a moment and I have the chance to try to capture it, and then share it.  Thanks for reading.

    

           

Choosing and Accepting

     There were rules about riding in the car when I was growing up.  Being safe of course took priority, so seat belts were usually worn.  I don’t know how much good they would have done in an early 70’s Volkswagen Bus.  One rule was clear however, no sirens.  I had a knack for sounding like an actual siren to the point that my neighbors would look out their windows as I pedaled by.  My dad made the rule: no sirens while riding in the car. He explained that he would think there was a real emergency vehicle bearing down on us and have to pull over.

     One evening we were returning home from Phoenix.  This was a two hour drive we took every few months.  We had stayed at my grandparents and now were tucked in for the drive home.  My sister had a bed made up on the first bench seat and I was on the rear seat playing with cars.  We probably weren’t buckled up.  I knew the rule about sirens in the car.  But I had just heard a new siren on TV.  This was the European style “hoh-hee hoh-hee hoh-hee” and one of my toy police cars was going to engage this siren.  I wouldn’t be breaking the rule.  The local police and highway patrol cars were hulking Ford Galaxies with traditional wailing sirens.  There were no European Police cars anywhere so my dad would not be fooled or distracted by this new siren.  So I started in. “bee-boh bee-boh bee-boh”

     The order from the front came to stop the noise.  I continued, just a little quieter. “bee-boh bee-boh bee-”.

     Sounding very tired and angry, my father told me to stop.  I had halted on “bee” without completing the sound with a “boh”. I felt the sound in me aching to get out.  The van was so very quiet even the motor’s noise faded into the background while I wrestled with the last half of that sound.  It only took seconds and I gave in and spoke the last bit of the siren. “boh”

     I’m not sure what happened after that.  My mom may have had to take the wheel.

     I wanted to share this story as an addendum to my blog two weeks ago when I confessed to being “a destructive roughneck” as a teenager.  I had a friend point out to me that I really wasn’t the punk I may have been painting myself to be in that entry.  And he’s right.  I did manage to stay out of trouble, not just because I was slippery and never got caught, but mostly because I tried to do the right thing a lot of the time.

     But I wanted to make something clear.  When I did do the wrong thing (there were plenty of things I did wrong) I was fully aware of my actions.  Just like laying in the backseat of the van feeling the urge to make one little noise and knowing it was wrong and doing it anyway.  My young mind made itself up that evening to go against what was right.  I was fully aware that I would get in trouble.  I knew all of that and felt I needed to make that noise anyway. 

     The same thing applies to every other time I succumbed to temptation to do the wrong thing.  I knew it was wrong to tip an outhouse. The same goes all the other things that don’t deserve mentioning.  The unfortunate thing is that as I grew older, my self-destructive behavior was shrouded.  Things I kept at began to not seem wrong anymore because of denial.  

     There was a clear view of the right thing to do that I ignored in the back seat of the van.  Decades later it wasn’t as clear.  But I still knew what I was doing and want to take responsibility.  Stepping out of denial was the first step in my recovery.  It was one of the most difficult things to do.  But once it’s done there is a relief to it.  I feel better sharing the amusing stories and a little wary of the more sensitive ones.  But I just want to be honest and real.

         

    

           

Not knowing what That Is

I looked up at my mom as she hung up the phone.  I may have been three or four years old.  She told me that Mister Gurkey died.  (40 something years later I remember his last named rhymed with turkey.)  As the family of a local pastor we got prayer requests and information sooner than others.  And for the past several nights when I said my prayers before bed my mom had asked me to pray for Mr. Gurkey because he was in the hospital.  I don’t remember if I asked why he was there but I think that he was an old man near the end of his days.  So I had been dutifully praying every night for him. 

After my mom told me what they said on the phone I imagined the person at the other end of the line.  They were frantic and busy.  Whatever had put Mr. Gurkey in the hospital in the first place had gotten worse.  Now the doctors, who had been working on him for days, were busier than ever trying to fix him.  I expressed my thoughts to my mom and she told me that the doctors were done trying to fix Mr. Gurkey.  When someone died, there wasn’t anything the doctors could do anymore.  I considered that and I was doubtful of that finality. 

Death to a preschooler was just too big and way too long to imagine.  That night when I said my prayers I added on: “and help Mr. Gurkey up with you.”  Again my mom had to explain something.  Once someone was with God in heaven you didn’t need to pray to help them anymore.  Everything was okay once they were with God.  Despite those joyous tidings, I still did not care for the idea of death. Each night when I would say my nighttime prayers, just before the “amen” I always said “and thank you God for everything…”. It may have been right around then that in my mind I silently added: “except dying.” 

Our family dealt with the death of a pet over ten years ago when one of the four pet rats we had died after only a few weeks.  The four children, Harrison, Naomi, Benjamin and Sarah, were devastated.  We buried the dead rat in the side yard and had a whole funeral.  We knew that rats had limited lifetimes and saw the loss of several more rats over the years.  Prajna and I didn’t seem to learn our lesson when we got Sarah a beta fish for her birthday which didn’t last a month.  By then we owned Pumpkin.  The animal shelter had already named him when we got him.  He grew to a big orange cat and survived two moves and saw the passing of 4 other cats. 

When I got home from church yesterday Sarah was digging a hole in the corner of the yard.  Prajna told me that they found Pumpkin dead.  He had no signs of injury or poisoning.  We don’t know why he died.  I went out and finished digging the hole.  I let Jamie take a few shovel scoops.  Then we all gathered around, put the cat in the ground and took turns filling in the hole.  Prajna said a little prayer thanking God for Pumpkin and we put flowers in the fresh dirt.  It was the most elaborate pet memorial since Darcy the rat.  It wasn’t quiet for a moment when Nathaniel walked away saying he hoped his lunch hadn’t gotten cold.

Sarah was the one who took care of Pumpkin the most.  Most of the Facebook posts express sympathy to her.  I kind of want to say that I liked him a lot too.  And as I write this I can look directly to my right and there is the windowsill with Pumpkin’s food dish.  Some mornings around this time he could be there.  Now he’s in the ground or in cat heaven, we can only wonder. 

All my kids are older than I was when I first grappled with the notion of death.  They are all older than any were when our first rat died.  Today, Nathaniel is a few months shy of how old Harrison was when we lost Naomi.  And after Naomi, a ginger tomcat might seem insignificant.

And I think it is.  For better or worse, dealing with loss has toughened me a little bit.  The loss of Pumpkin doesn’t hurt too bad.  I think I can get through this.  However, even after 40 years, I still think of death the same way I did back when I was very young.  I’m not as afraid to fall of my little bicycle for fear I might die.  But  death is a great big unknown.  No matter how much I believe God’s promises, I still don’t know exactly what to expect.  And me, someone who gets bent out of shape when I don’t have a precise floor plan for a weekend event, like to know what to expect.  I think that faith has to be a mighty stepping stone in the walk I take.  The passing of a cat reminded me of that.         

    

           

I'm sure of nothing.

     I tend to not believe in karma.  A friend once pointed out to me that if karma was real, Jesus wouldn’t have been nailed to a cross to die.  I think that what happens happens, regardless of what I’ve done in the past.  But sometimes I do notice the irony once in a while.

     In my cleaning job nowadays, I sometimes have to pick up cigarette butts around the area outside church.  With latex gloves, nothing is too gross.  But I can’t help but remember when I was a smoker and I tossed most of my cigarettes on the ground.  Is this reaping what I sowed? Is it just irony?  Or does God keep tabs on me and counted every Marlboro flicked out the car window, thrown to the sidewalk, or crushed into the ground? 

     One night this past week I was home from work.  It was almost 10:30 pm and the church parking lot lights were off.  I saw headlights moving around in the dark, so I got my phone and went to a window to have a look.  I had in mind to call the sheriff dispatch if it looked suspicious.  The vehicle began to accelerate and swerve.  Moments later it left the parking lot and sped away.  The security alarms had not gone off.  I hoped all was well and slept fitfully. 

     The next day I found two fast food trays where I had seen the vehicle.  Apparently they had been stolen and then used for what I learned was called “tray surfing”.  At first I thought that meant putting the trays under the wheels and spinning around.  But when I learned that people actually stood on the trays and were pulled by the vehicle I couldn’t believe it at first.  The danger and idiocy of that act astounded me.  But the trays had holes worn, practically burned, though them right where feet would be.  Someone really did that.  And when I shared this discovery with people, the inevitable allegation came out: “You would have done the same thing as a kid if you’d thought of it.”

     Would I have?  I did love to spin donuts with my Mustang.  But did I steal things from fast food restaurants?  Yes, my friends and I took a WET FLOOR sign once.  But did I do property damage?  Well a friend and I made a habit of tipping over a port-a-john every time we drove by a particular park.  Maybe I never put other’s lives in danger, but no question about it, I was a destructive roughneck back in the day. 

     Now I clean up after people.  I don’t deal with property damage or vandalism very much.  (Although someone did illegally dump an old dishwasher in the church’s recycle dumpster Saturday.)  Is this work my penance?

     No, I don’t think so.  I enjoy my job too much for it to seem like reparation. I don’t mind cleaning up after people. I just am incredulous at what I see sometimes.  About two weeks ago I saw a kid skateboarding past the NO SKATEBOARDING sign with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  I asked him how old he was and he snapped that he was 16.  I was rude to him.  I told him he oughtn’t to be smoking and should be going to the high school group instead.  He shrugged me off and skated away.  I felt terrible for being rude.  I think that I saw myself in him too much and said to him what I would have wanted to tell myself at 16.

     “Youth is wasted on the young” the old saying goes.  Sometimes it seems to me that wisdom is wasted on the old.  I don’t know.  Maybe it doesn’t have to be.  I know a lot of nice kids (not just my own) who are willing to listen to wisdom.  And I wish I could model it more.  I wish I had been more polite to that kid with the cigarette.  I wonder if he would have listened if I told him that I had been somewhere close to where he was, cocksure king of the world with an unknown future.  Or maybe there was no way to reach him.  But more than carless disregard for other’s property, kids who don’t seem to care about themselves disturb me greatly.

     Maybe a price I pay for the sins of my youth is the wisdom. Instead of a price to pay it’s just a result.  Accompanying this wisdom is the desire to pass that wisdom along.  Sometimes my blog goes too far that way.  I don’t want to presume to tell anyone anything other than what I’m thinking about and how it’s affecting me.  And lately I’ve been feeling like people should listen to me because I was foolish in my youth.  And now what?  I’m not a chowderhead anymore?  I’m afraid that this blog reads like it was written like one.  Once in a while, the world throws for a loop and it comes out in my writing.   The search for truth this week has only concluded that while other people might demonstrate empty headed actions one way, I can demonstrate the same state of mind trying to make sense of it in 878 words.  

  

    

           

Being "fine" on a Sunday Morning

o   Sunday Morning 5:20 a.m. The dad drifts back to sleep after getting up with the middle child who had a nosebleed.  He had his mind set on getting up at 5:30 to read the Bible and pray.  Now he’s convinced that without just a little more sleep he will perish.

o   7:52 a.m. The school age children are fighting because one of them woke up the other.  The parents get up and yell at them both and notice what time it is.  Then the parents both discuss who was supposed to get up first and start a special Sunday breakfast. 

o   8:20 a.m. The toddler, who has been quiet all this time, has been cheerfully playing in the mess he filled his diaper with sometime last night.  His sheets, bed, stuffed animals and body are all soiled.  The dad runs a bath and the mom starts a load of laundry.  Mom discovers the clothes she was planning on wearing to church balled up in the washer with several towels. 

o   8:35 a.m. The dad feeds the children the last of the cold cereal but they are out of milk.  The kids don’t mind the dry cereal except the younger school-aged who tries to use a spoon still because it’s his favorite spoon that he finally found outside yesterday in the sandbox.

o   8:45 a.m. None of the children can find a complete pair of shoes.   

o   8:50 a.m. Church starts in 10 minutes and this is when they would be leaving.  The kids are fighting.  Mom is trying to fix her hair.  Dad is saying to get in the car.  One child is wearing mom’s bedroom slippers and the other has rubber boots.  The toddler in his high chair has evacuated his bowels again.

o   8:55 a.m. The oldest child just blew the car horn and now the neighbor’s dog is barking.  Mom quickly eats a Lunchable® while dad cleans and dresses the toddler. 

o   9:00 a.m. The older children have made up a new song to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell” but the only words are “we’re gonna be late for church.”  Mom reminds dad that they’re late anyway and please drive carefully.     

o   9:07 a.m. The children’s cheerful song as lapsed into crying as dad yells at them to be quiet.  All three kids are crying.  Dad hold his tongue at the classic muscle car in front of him that ought to be going 90 miles an hour by the look of it but instead is going 20.

o   9:09 a.m. The car in front pulls over to look at a house for sale.  Dad pulls around and blows his horn.  Mom rebukes him and reminds him that they have a fish decal and need to set a good example.

o   9:15 a.m.  The car is parked at church.  The mom is trying to calm the kids down.  Dad looks for the diaper bag.

o   9:20 a.m. Most of the music is over.  Mom and dad have dropped off all the kids at Sunday school and are relegated to the front row of church for being late.  After the last song everyone is greeting and shaking hands.  Dad sees the mom with a big friendly smile.  The pastor steps up to shake his hand and the dad wonders if he washed his hands after changing toddler last time.  When asked how he is he answers: “fine”.

It was never quite that bad.  Some Sunday mornings were stressful.  I can remember events that led me to believe that Sunday morning was The Devil’s favorite day to mess with folks to see if they would not get anything out of church.  And I heard pastors agree with me.  I won’t go into a discussion here about the nature of evil or its master.  And I hope that the scenario above was at least a little humorous if not somewhat recognizable.  I wanted to point something out with all of this.

We did have mornings where we sat in the parking lot and tried to get it all together.  Once I was out of the minivan and amongst the church folks, there seemed to be this need to project an image that all was well and that we were a nice Christian family.  It’s too bad that human nature seemed to compel that desire to put up a front.  I think the only reason that we fooled anyone may have been that everyone else was too distracted putting up their own to notice others doing the same.  Sometimes when we had a heart to heart talk with friends we learned something shocking: We were not the only ones to have mornings like that.

Having the kids older now has definitely taken the edge off Sunday mornings.  I think it also helps, however to just be real.  Maybe the fronts we put up can come down if we see that a lot of us have them.  So if you see me sometime and I say I’m doing fine, you have my permission to not believe me.  And please take that as a hint to be honest with me too.