Seeing Again

 I recently spent some time with my 97-year-old mother-in-law.  It was our first visit since COVID rearranged everyone's travel plan.  At her age, she's assumed her rightful place as the Grand Dame of my wife's family.  She is also a good touchstone for all the social, political, and cultural changes going on.  Her eyesight is not good, so I try to read to her on each visit.  It is always well received and much appreciated. 

This time,  after a brief session, we were chatting and I happened to mention that I recently looked up the house I grew up in on Google maps.  From there I found a real estate listing and was able to see some of the sales histories since my sister and I sold the place after my father's death.  I was bemoaning the fact that there were no interior pictures but I could see that the front lawn and our big silver maple tree were gone replaced by concrete.  My father's beloved redwood on the front side had been painted blue or was replaced by blue siding.  It was hard to tell which.  

At this, my mother-in-law began to muse about her childhood home.  She told me that her family purchased the home in Newton, Mass in 1930.  The lightbulb came on.  

"Would you like to see if we can find a picture online?" I asked. 

At that, we began her search on my iPad.  Sure enough, the stately home of her childhood appeared.  Her reaction was mildly astonishing.  To say that seeing this home elevated her spirits is an understatement.  It was almost as if I'd brought someone from the dead.  In a way, that was precisely what happened.

She was so overcome with emotion that she instantly called her 93-year-old sister to tell her the news.   Now,  both these elders are not currently computer savvy and cannot perform the simplest of searches because of eyesight.  In fact, they've pretty much given up cyberspace.  But this ability to view their childhood home was just too much.  It got me thinking.  To see something you never expected to see again is quite an experience.  

It reminded me of the time I went to an Italian festival in San Francisco some years ago.  There was a room with enlarged photos of the Italian community in San Francisco during the Depression years.  I was struck by one photo of an old stake truck with a big wine barrel on the bed and a big crowd around it.  The caption explained that it was a Sunday delivery of wine that many folks were crowding around.  With wine illegal, many Italian-Americans were unable to continue some cultural traditions.  

Suddenly, an older man, accompanied by two women became very animated.  All three were speaking in Italian.  The gentleman was obviously emotionally overcome.  He began to cry.  People turned to look.  Finally, I asked one of the women accompanying him what was the matter.  

"He sees himself as a young man in this photo," she replied.  Sure enough, there in the crowd, waiting for their Sunday wine allotment, was a younger version of this tearful man.  Powerful.  Again, like seeing something yo never thought you'd see again.

Do right

 Hard Times.  Those two words have accompanied American history through many a decade.  When used by a noted historian like Howard Zinn, pay attention.  The quote below is currently making its way around social media and for good reason.

Aside from offering hope in the midst of the current malaise, Zinn reminds us that courage and kindness exist concurrently in even the most difficult of circumstances.  Perhaps the real message here is to not freeze up, don't lock yourself away.  All around me today people are wondering how much more they can take.  With the pandemic, climate crisis, and the brutal invasion of Ukraine, which gives life to the specter of nuclear war, and perpetual racism, no wonder folks are trying to find a literal and figurative hole in which to hide.  

Find the humanity, Zinn seems to say.  Like Mr. Rogers, who urged children in a crisis to find "the helpers," we must seek out those people and experiences where human life is valued above all else. 

Like the ancient Greek philosopher, Herodotus said, "We can never step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing upon us," the world we currently inhabit is changing daily.   

An old spiritual I like to hear now and then reminds us that "Now is the healing time." That healing can take many forms and is best accomplished by many taking small steps.  There is another chip of philosophy running all around my brain.  I think it might be Thoreau.  Anyway, that bit of knowledge goes, "If you would prevent others from doing wrong--Do right." This is what got me to make personal decisions that affected my own life.  Decisions made while holding a moral compass.  

The first step in doing the right thing is to acknowledge that morality exists.  Some folks aren't sure, at least that's how they act.  Except for the sociopath, of course, who recognizes no moral authority.  Who has the incapacity to feel what other humans feel and is often ill with malignant narcissism.  The trouble is, of course, there have been ard currently are national leaders who are carrying this disease.  Still, we must remember that they do not rep[resent the mindset of the countries they purport to lead.  Their mental flaw is, of course, that they do not realize that when the mass of people unite, and when an idea's time has come, there is very little they can do to stop that.  Of course, in this atomic age, that could have devastating consequences, but fortunately, more often than not, it is them and their false idols who end up on the trash heap of history.

The Cold Hand of God on His Arm

 Shakespeare spoke and wrote of a time that was, "out of joint."  A time when the music of the spheres (planets) was in discord rather than concord.  Music with the wrong sound from the wrong chords.  We all know the vicissitudes of normal life,  but there are times, like right now when the entire universe seems out of synch.  

People sometimes say, "I'm snakebit" to describe the experience.  Yet when it seems like the entire universe is affected, it calls for a bigger idea.  Like the year 1968, our culture here in the U. S. of A seems to be going through this kind of reality.  As the world we knew 54 years ago, our country is incredibly divided.  We have an ever-increasing income gap and what we once knew as a generation gap and a credibility gap have been replaced by value shifts and calling out liars for what they are: liars.

    As a child of the 60s, myself, I vividly recall that feeling of pervasive fear that came with my possible future being wrapped up with the unpredictability of the Vietnam War, a nuclear war, and living in a country where one's political belief could evoke anger and violence that was easily life-threatening.  Our counter-culture was enraptured with "Peace" because the world we were living in was anything but peaceful.  

So now, as the world places its eyes on the atrocities coming out of Ukraine daily, that old familiar feeling returns.  What we have now witnessed rivals the imagery and horror of WW II.  Some would call it surreal, but is that really the correct word? Surreal gets misused all the time.  People who mean that something is unbelievable or unreal, often say surreal.  But there is an element of the bizarre in surreal that defies explanation.  If you win an Olympic gold medal and are asked how it feels (because you certainly will) and say it feels surreal, is that really what you mean?  It might feel fantastic but does it also feel macabre?  Hardly.

    War is surreal.  This week we've seen the death of Ukrainian children along with the early casualties of Putin"s land grab war.  That approaches surreal.  That has the quality of a heavy weight inhibiting your breathing.  It traps you, won't leave you alone.  It cries out that the world has lost its way. 

    I'm reminded of Kenneth Patchen's novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight.  Often described as a surrealistic novel, it is a powerful anti-war message written during WW II.  It offers no solution and details a group of people traveling across the country in a world gone mad.  Much like today, there are forces that surround us from every angle.  There are the literal explosions and those more figurative but definitely capable of destruction.  Our time out of joint features a rise in crime, gun violence, a pandemic we can't really trust be over, severe inflation, an increasing unhoused population, and the general overall feeling of malaise when it comes to our safety and security.  

I've been reading the Patchen novel for over 50 years now.  A little at a time.  It's a very different experience, believe me.  Its literary merit,  or lack thereof, depending on your taste, is best left for another time.  Suffice it to say, it is eminently quotable.  See my title here.