It’s hard to know what to make of such goings-on . . .
Sharp Objects Falling out of the Sky
On certain Wednesday mornings
Sharp objects from the sky
Come shearing down the sides of clouds
Like spaceships zipping by
And boulders, ashtrays, cutlery
And great meteorites
Come slashing from the heavens
—But clear up by Wednesday nights
. . . but I’ve come to expect the unexpected . . .
That wonderful invention the GPS is generally a generous gift to a diva of disorientation like me. With my myriad forms of dyslexia all interlocking magically to make it virtually impossible for me to find my way practically anywhere past my own mailbox, it’s nice to have a personal assistant, albeit a computerized one, telling me how to get from Point A to Point B and beyond. And I do love a good road trip, when the opportunity arises.
You are Here, but There’s No Here Here
But even our GPS (sometimes fondly called Peggy Sue after the lady who first helped us find our way around our new home, town and state) in all her digital wisdom can’t find everything. Sometimes, as on the above-pictured occasion, she has no more clue where her driver and passengers are than they do. And you know, it’s kind of amusing to me. Not only does it amuse me to look at the GPS screen and see it telling me that I am a little red arrow flying through the air in the vastness of uncharted space, but it’s weirdly reassuring to me that my lack of omniscience is far from unique in this world. All the same, I do appreciate Peggy Sue’s selfless assistance when it’s needed and available.
On the other hand, there’s plenty to be said for going forward without knowing what comes next. In life, it’s just plain inevitable–prescience of any sort is in mighty short supply. On holiday, going with the flow is often the perfect way to have a rich and full adventure, and even the occasional mishaps stand a chance of being fodder for both present delight and reminiscent hilarity. On the pictured ‘flight’ across uncharted Texas territory, my spouse and I were so happily absorbed in relishing the sights along the unknown way that we both failed to notice one of our other digital auto-assistants signaling us that the supply of petrol was diminishing, until it was seriously questionable whether we’d make it to a gas station before the tank ran dry. We knew we were in the vicinity of Seguin (a place we’d been through a few weeks ago) and crossed our fingers that following the intermittent signs to town would get us to a refilled tank in time. Not only did we make it in time, we had a trip in a time machine on the strength of that refueling. The little bit we’ve seen of Seguin has a remarkably somnolent sense of being stuck in time, and not even strictly one single point in time but rather as though everyone in the whole town has dragged his or her weathered boots every step of the way through its history, and everyone in turn has stopped off at a different spot in the past before picking up speed and rejoining the flow of time. Past and present meander in and out of each other and the buildings and land around Seguin and beckon us, in our turn, to slow down and enjoy the oddity of being off the map and off the tow rope of time simultaneously.
We didn’t stop quite long enough to buy wrestling tickets, mind you, but the lure of the unique and the mystery of moving ahead without any inkling of what might lie ahead kept us rolling along all the happier when we were securely back on a full tank (once we found one of those vintage petrol pumps that was fully functional and deciphered the toothless ramblings of the guy sitting in his lawn chair ‘instructing’ us through our transaction from across the lot). If we hadn’t been to Seguin, we’d never have experienced its time-capsule marvels, potted around wondering how on earth a town that size could survive with so few gas stations, or gotten to see the World’s Largest Pecan, a sculpture on the lawn of City Hall that is probably really about the second or third largest representation of said nut in the US and possibly about the second or third least decorative sculpture (sorry, Seguin!) upon which any town proudly bases a promotional motto. Strange? A tad. Stuff I could easily have lived a long and healthy life without seeing or experiencing? Perhaps. But I’ve no regrets that our particular turns in the road took us there and led us to all of that fun, plenty entertaining even without wrestling tickets.
Snaking Suspicions
Bartholomew’s bones are now buried
In a bag in a box in a berm,
And when he has fully recycled,
He’ll become a new breed of a worm.
In life he was lousy and lurid,
Licentious and lickerish he;
Bartholomew Bogle was wicked
As one creepy creature could be.
So down in the dirt he is digging
New depths better suited his sin,
Alive, quite the snake, let us make no mistake,
Now interred, he’s the same in new skin.
Let Bartholomew go to the devil,
Worming down to the deep for his due,
And at least we can bless in our hearts the good lesson:
I won’t be a Bogle–will you?
Little Beasties’ Escapade
Raccoon, Armadillo and Possum set sail
In a galvanized bucket, the teeth of a gale,
On the reservoir lake in the midst of the night,
Under cloud-obscured stars and without the moon’s light,
For they were on a mission requiring the dark,
At imperative speed, wildly searching the spark
Of a glimmer ashore on the lake’s farther side,
Where they’d scramble the banks and find somewhere to hide–
And what was their mission, to act like scared squirrels?
Escaping, of course, from the amorous girls
Of the possum, raccoon and ‘dillo persuasions.
Run and hide’s all one can do on just such occasions.
The heart is a tough nut to crack!
Cynics All (Turnabout is Fair Play)
He knew the patter well; he said his lines
Like memorizing store-bought valentines
Meant to purloin a schoolgirl’s stony heart,
But his intent was different from the start,
Because the walls he’d breach were harder stone
Than made by schoolgirl innocence alone,
Were built of granite mortared all with lies
Told earlier by men who’d fantasize
That such a flimsy imitation love
Could be the trinket she’d be greedy of
Accepting, that she’d bend to such poor jewels,
But she’d built fortresses against the fools–
So he, like all his predecessors, fell
Because she knew the patter all too well–
Until at last there came the honest man
Who spoke the truth;
She took his heart and ran.
Our Own Heroics
Our history is riddled with the tangled lines of man and myth,
Lines blurred by our conception of ourselves and powers that are with
All spirits, in our being; juxtaposed with this our creeping sense
That maybe, possibly, there might be Something greater, more immense–
The whole idea, if we be honest, sets a chill on every skin
That makes each want to change the balance, name himself the paladin,
The master, royalty, creator of all good in this our sphere,
So we can worship our fine selves in glorious beauty without fear–
Every culture, every era, each community has shown
That we wish inside, mere humans, that what’s fancied and what’s known
Were no grander than our smallness, so we’ve always tried to make
Ourselves the gods, the overmasters, even if it’s clearly fake–
Pretty masks and big stone statues, crown and crypt, elixir, spell;
We’ll try anything we think can make us kings of heaven, hell,
Or earthly realm–but here’s the problem: it looks great, but just a touch
Too great–it turns out we’re grand, but not for long, and not so much.
Of course I’m vain. I would love to be thought of as a great beauty. Not that many people on earth could probably say with full honesty that they wouldn’t like to be thought attractive and compelling and engaging in the slick social way, no matter how sincerely they live the principles of much deeper character. But, that confession aside, I can also say that I am not so exclusively vain that I mind having others be indifferent to, or even dislike, me. Let’s just be realistic enough to say that that would be beyond impossible.
Take a good look at MEEEE!
So I really can’t have too many qualms about making fun of myself and exaggerating my own failings and shortcomings and even pasting on ones I don’t think I actually own, if it buys me any artistic pleasure. After all, there’s a bunch of fun to be had in clowning and playing characters and being someone or something new and weird and ridiculous. There are reasons we still have art and theatre and fiction all around us. It’s amusing to make the stuff and amusing to see what others have made.
I’m pretty fabulous no matter what you see!
I guess that makes me a cheap sort of witch or magician, maybe, when I’m making up my fictions in visual and verbal imagery. Kind of a fun vocation, when I get to play at it. Abracadabra, here I am for your amusement. Poof! Now it’s your turn.
He’s a wacky fella, my dad. One of his finest features has always been his excellent and distinctive sense of humor, and there was never any question that having a father who’s delightfully silly is one of the finest advantages a kid could have in her upbringing. No surprise that, with Mom being the sort of hospitality genius that everyone loves and Dad providing much of the comic relief in that hospitable package, our household was always a popular place among the friends and classmates of all of their children. Both were also compassionate and reasonable and practical parents, and I don’t have to tell you what a rarity that is in general, so our home was a kind of hangout-central among the school-kid cognoscenti.
Since today is the anniversary of the birth of that Hardest Working Dad in Showbiz, I am drawn to reminisce on the many years of service that my father has given as the resident chief goofus in our family.
That in itself is gift enough, but his life of service has always been so much broader and deeper than mere lightheartedness. As a pastor, as Chairman of the Board of Regents for a university, as bishop, and as president of a hospital board, among many other roles he’s filled in his life’s work, Dad has never taken his labors lightly, even when the best tool he had for doing any or all of these jobs may have most often been the humor he brought to the table. He’s just never been one for sitting around and letting the world rush on around him.
I wish I could say that I inherited a tenth of his sense of humor, let alone a hundredth of his ambition and work ethic. Instead, I guess I should thank him once again on his birthday for not only being a dandy dad but also helping to fill the requirements of the universe in these services where I may have left some gaping gaps. So thanks, Dad, from the bottom of my full heart, and may you have not only a very happy birthday but all the warmth and laughter that can be wrung out of many more years. Oh, and cake. And, since you clearly are your father’s son when it comes to all of the characteristics noted above and we all know Grandpa would have felt the cake was best completed with some, have your cake with a couple of sizable scoops of chocolate ice cream.
Okay, this one’s not ice cream, but it’s chocolate dessert and it’s homemade. And it tastes pretty great, if you ask me. (1 ripe avocado, 1 ripe banana, 1 heaping tablespoon of cocoa, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, a pinch of salt, and honey to taste, all blended together until the pudding is smooth.)
Frenemies
When cat and dog and sheep and goat, yea, fox and hen and hog and stoat
Befriend each other, work and play like boon companions, night and day,
It’s time to question if the world as we have known it is unfurled,
Unraveled, undefined, undone–if we should pack our bags and run–
For such behavior’s a disgrace and flies in Mother Nature’s face.
So, be alert! The fox and hen, sheep and the goats, like gods and men,
Belong apart; the stoat and hog must not be friends, nor cat and dog.
In a Sentimental Mooed
Oh, pretty little heifer cow, I think you’re cute but know not how
Appreciation paid in full to such sweet charm could seem but dull
Poor compensation for my plain bland bullishness; am I a drain
Upon your dewy calf-eyed ways; am I so silly in my craze
For you, adorable and fine, that I’m a fool to wish you mine?
Nay, let us frolic and cavort and caper ’round for joy and sport,
Let us delight in being calves and neither shrink from fun by halves
Nor ever find we’re short of hay in pasture, or get sent away,
Or be penned up, for these things, too, would make a poor calf cry Moo Hoo!
No tragedy besmirch our wooing and leave us sadly this way mooing;
Let us, instead, just take a vow to stay together, bull and cow.
Art-Colored Glasses 