Beth's Front Porch

My friends, Are men necessary?  I couldn't get beyond the title (not to mention the cover).  See me at:

bethsfrontporch.blogspot.com

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I am traveling from aol to blogspot. For my latest entry, nouveau knitting, please tune your channel to:

http://bethsfrontporch.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

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Today I realized I want to see the recently released movie Jarhead. 

This is not a small matter.  Two years ago at this time, my younger son declared that after much thought he was enlisting in the Marines as soon as he graduated from high school.  He and I went on a reading bout:  Frank Schaeffer's Keeping Faith, Thomas Ricks' Making the Corps, Daniel DaCruz' Boot, Anthony Swofford's Jarhead.  ("In time of trouble," Joan Didion writes in The Year of Magical Thinking, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go to the literature.  Information was control."  Certainly she wasn't the only one who believed information was control.) 

In fact my son picked up a first edition of Jarhead at the wonderful bookstore "Bound to be Read" in St Paul, MN, where were on vacation in the summer of 2003, visiting my brother.  It's by a sensitive and intelligent writer on what his experiences were to become and be a Marine in a strange and puzzling conflict.  It is, in fact, more than that.  I appreciated Swofford's journey in the book very much.

Somewhat like the father Frank Schaeffer in Keeping Faith, I was a graduate-degreed liberal who was aghast at the idea of my child choosing an occupation in which I thought, perhaps mistakenly, he'd lose his individual identity, learn to point, shoot, and kill, and become insensitive and cruel.  I had campaigned for McGovern in '72, for crying out loud.  I wore the original tie-dye, bell bottoms, and jean jacket.

So after he told me of his intention to enlist, I drove to Carter Park, a small park with ball diamond where my sons used to play, and cried.  Probably he thought me a wimp.  Probably I did not care.  I considered him a sensitive and intelligent young man, and much as I tried to dissuade him, I was ineffective.

One week after his graduation, he departed for Parris Island, South Carolina.  For those of you familar with the USMC, you know that to some extent loved ones and friends are incommunicado with the recruit except for letters.  Perhaps I'll share some of these wonderful letters with you, as I desperately tried to hold on to a young man growing up and to an idea of myself that no longer exists.

For now, I think I'll just go and see the movie, and see what it has to say, even though the reviews are not especially positive.  I want to feel re-connected to who I was, and who we were, at that time.  It is, in fact, a good feeling.

I think I'll go this weekend, and I'll let you know how it goes.

PS  I'll be moving to another site that does not have banner ads.  I'll let you know the address as soon as it's established.  Please complain at this site:  http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke

PLEASE VISIT ME AT http://bethsfrontporch.blogspot.com/

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5 letters that rocked my world.  Another serial blog interruption. 

 

Some time ago Theresa tagged me regarding my favorite reads.   I recall seeing a phrase that intrigued me:  “rock my world.”   So now, instead of my favorite books, poems, and stories, and I give you snippets from 5 pieces of writing that rocked my world, to wit, my personal letters:

 

1.        December 22, 1986

 

There are no excuses…for the way I have treated you.  You deserve much better than me.  I am sorry for what I have done.  I will be better for you and the boys.  I was wrong.  I am sorry.

 

Enough said.

 

2.         March 20, 1987

 

Dear Beth,

 

I’m so very sorry that I abandoned you.  It was never my intention to develop this far along without any word, but up until the recent weeks I’ve felt totally out of control.  I’ve thought of calling but seriously was not capable of handling it until at least the first of the year, but that time till now has been filled with exhaustion and worry over our son Adam.  It began with ear infections coupled with bronchitis that became asthmatic pneumonia and two weeks in the hospital…Some higher force than myself has designated this time for my letter, I’m convinced.  Just this week a girl I knew from my last job and we remained friends has died of cancer.

 

The bleak reality of life’s meaning has twisted my whirlwind to a stop.  STOP THE WORLD!  My closest friend is near a nervous breakdown with a job that requires 70-80 hours a week, 2 small kids and a husband who has decided she just in any fun anymore and wants to exit the scene.

 

What is happening here?  I’m serious.  Two people, young, ambitious and good, and their lives are closing and have closed in on them.  All of this, with asthma, a very unstable move with my husband and I not getting along and just leaving you when your life was very upset by no means from you.  Confused am I about why this is so.

 

Tomorrow I’m going to a very reputable and able psychic with tarot cards to sort out and make a clean path for me.  That doesn’t soundlike the person who left for Houston, does it?

 

My friend's troubles take me out of my own.

 

3.      November 18, 1988

 

Dear Beth,

 

How are you and your kids?  These two necklaces (if you call them so) are for your children.  There is a dragon on both sides.  The dragon is the symbol of China.  It means power and longevity in the Chinese culture.  This year happens to be the year of the dragon.  The dragon also gives the best protection to children.  I hope your kids will like them.

 

The girl in the papercut is one of the best known characters in the most famous Chinese literary work – The Red Dream Chamber.   Her name is Tan Chun, which literally means “visit spring.” 

 

A new start, a new friend.  The gift of the red watercolor peonies on rice paper, framed in black lacquer, still resides in my home.

4.  I’m a letter-saver, and given some horrendous event at myhouse, given the safety of my loved ones, I’d grab the letters.  This summer I discovered a stack of letters written between 1990-1993, all from the same person.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were love letters.  Here’s just a sampling.  What do you think?

 

Dear Beth, 

 

…I hope you are finding the land of the Wolverines agreeable.  You are probably going through grits withdrawal, but not to worry; oatmeal can serve as a placebo.  I’ll be thinking of you on your birthday…

 

…Nurse that strep throat; you need to be in top form when we have that long conversation….place, undetermined; time, to be announced later…

 

…No, these are not flash cards from Miss Bell’s biology class coming home to haunt you…I just was thinking the boys might enjoy them….don’t ask, it was activity night at my place….as always I find sincere pleasure in talking with you….

 

…Since you devote so much of your time to reading the “works” of others, I will spare you the agony of one more written word…oh, what the hell; the ink is running freely, the stamp has been paid for, and I’ve one last request…that is, take care of yourself….

 

…Tell your sons that most of my bruises from playing Twister have healed and I find myself frequently humming songs from Mary Poppins…

 

…For you, writing is not an option—but is compulsory.  Keep me informed with what’s happening in your life—I mean, I want the dirt, the juicy stuff, what you ate for lunch, anything!  Take care; you will be in my thoughts…

 

…I’ve spent two days here in Salzburg and can’t find the will to leave.  The city and surrounding areas are so enchanting….but I wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you…

 

5.  August 1, 1990 Ondo State Nigeria

 

Beth love - Out of sight is not out of heart.  I marvel at how true that is as you have perpetually been on my mind ever since.  Since when?  I can hear you asking.  Well I will tell you:  since ever before, ever before we met.  Remember I told you that I knew you from before, maybe (our maybe) I mean that you are the woman of my earliest dreams.  In me, you had been, you are, and you will for sure continue to be…

 

Ok, so it’s the best love letter I’ve ever read, any time, any place.  I send this blog entry out now to my friend Mr. Dele,filled with longing and yearning for what once was and never will be.  Maybe, my maybe, not your maybe.

 

And that, my friends, is my paltry response to the tag of my favorite reads.  After all, who now reads Tristam Shandy and can be wildly amused by a blank page?  Then there is Peter Taylor's "What you hear from 'em," which represents the decline of a culture portrayed through a small town mythical character.  Then there is the wonder theme of orphans, which seems to unduly attract me....but I digress...

bethsfrontporch at 9:33:16 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 8 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

serial blog, part 3

When I leave Bigger Dodge I recall that Mr. Endearing said I should be sure and climb the hill, climb the hill out of town.  He repeated it like a child's song, the farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell.  The hill is virtually a cliff, and it is the only way out.  I climb and climb, and in a recurring dream I have, I am tipping backwards, only to be buried with Anne in the past.

But then I return to civilization, where the people don't talk to each other and look askance if they happen upon the same picture at a museum.  It is not very comforting.

Still, I decide when I return home I'll dash off a note to Mr. Endearing, thanking him for the tip on the Inn that had room.  I think, as a writer and a bookstore owner, he'll appreciate the Carl Sandburg story.  Besides, I want to tell it to someone, even if he does write science fiction.  I won't hold the science fiction thing against him.

At home I give the letter wings, spill it out, and decide whatever happens, happens.  Do I think it could leave a wake of disaster in its path?  Dear reader, would you? The letter says

Dear Mr. Endearing Bookworm, Our paths crossed briefly last Thursday at your bookstore.  I was the one who was sweating profusely and had inadvertantly ended up at the B. Casino and hotel due to a traffic jam.  All the men wore gold jewelry and the women has pastel pant suits, espadrilles, and plenty of hairspray.  It was scary.  I decided I could only get a sandwich there if someone tested it before I did.  But I digress.

Thank you for your fabulous suggestion of The State Park Inn.  They did have space for one night and the park is lovely.  I tried all the trails marked "rugged."  Not.

I wanted to share an incident that happened in Bigger Dodge.  I went on a house tour where the guide urged me to go to the home of Ann Teweksbury, age 95, and take a tour of her personal home.  Ann and I talked a bit and then after I viewed her collections, heavy on Wedgewood and 18th century silver, I told her what I really enjoyed was the small etching of Carl Sandburg, personally inscribed to her from Sandburg,and placed obscurelyin a corner.

She then said Carl was a friend of the family (her childhood family) and he would come over and they would have family discussions.  As she grew older she would be his secretary, taking down his letters.  After he college graduation (Wellesley), Sandburg and his wife invited her to stay at their home near the Michigan sand dunes (really fun if you've never tbeen there).  But he was so busy reading the Life of Lee, she said, that there was little for her to do, so she went out and slid down the sand dunes in her raccoon coat.

At any rate, I enjoyed the anecdote and hoped in some small measure to redeem myself for not reading the Harry Potter books, which you adore.  Probably I remain at the complete wastrel level.

When I visited Ann, she was dressed in a royal blue dressing gown.  Yellow plastic cups were at the tableside, one with a straw and dried up frizzy stuff, like a rootbeer float gone bad.  Everything seemed vaguely medicinal and I wondered in an O2 tank was nearby.

There were some moments on the this trip that just seems rather magical to me.  Ann was certainly one, and meeting you seems another.  Generally I'm not given to superlatives or sentimentality or writing long letters to strangers, unedited etc etc  Please forgive letter self destructs.

--B.

PS  Ann had heard of Toledo, Ohio and knew is home to a marvelous art museum and world class glass collection.  It seems some people may have only heard of Toledo, Spain.

Someday, I may perhaps learn a modicum of my impact on some people, but it wasn't with that letter.

Two days after I sent it there was a voice mail waiting for me from Mr. Endearing.

to be continued

bethsfrontporch at 9:27:33 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 3 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Slight interruption of the serial blog for my adoring fans.  Sorry.

 

October 8, 2005

Dear Theresa,

 

I’m sorry we were unable to meet on Thursday, but somehow these things are for the best.  I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d write you a little letter about some of the things I wanted to discuss with you, as I do sometimes.  Please forgive in advance all of my ramblings, misspellings, nonsensical musings, and the fact that this is mostly about me.

 

In the side pocket of my purse I’ve been carrying a little note card with a bright pink post it note on it.  On this note I have chicken-scratched a few ideas I had that I wanted to discuss with you.  There is a tiny “Th” with a circle on it, so I don’t get it confused with a few other cards and post it notes I have, but those are in boring colors and say things like “take out brush” (the city is having the brush pick up this next week).  I don’t mean to say that our friendship is reduced to a post it note but I find it helps me focus on what’s important.  I can’t count anymore on remembering the ideas when I need them.

 

So on the bright pink note are three main concepts, sort of inter-related, and sort of not. One is “The not finish problem”; two is “blog”; and three is “dating.”

 

I really wanted to discuss with you the not finish problem, which is something I’ve touched on before.  I’ve been studying it a bit, because I don’t think it’s related to procrastination or some bad habit that I may have.  Instead, it seems to be related to my idea that writing for me is about discovering what I have to say.  Because once I’ve discovered it, I want to move on to the next thing.  Ok, I’m Magellan, found this country, let’s find the next one!  I don’t care about honing and polishing and communicating in the way that is necessary for great art.  That does not seem to be my gift.

 

For instance, here’s the first part of a story I was writing, and I liked it:

 

Frizzy

 

Frizzy calls me at work and says she’s been admitted some place with a schmarmy name to disguise its presence, like Rhododendron Place.  I don’t quite catch the name.  I’m always a step behind her.  She says the friend who was supposed to bring her had her own crisis, so instead of a friend she got the police, who brought her in at four in the morning.  She says she wouldn’t call me except she’s desperate, and could I stop and pick up some clothes for her after work, it’s almost on the way, but if I can’t do it, she understands.

 

By now I’m measuring everything she says, even when I first hear her voice.  There’s a big flow chart in my head when she calls, and it usually starts this way:  someone was supposed to help her but didn’t.  I know it won’t be long before I’m one of those people.  But not this time.  I am a little afraid where the flow chart will go next if I say no.  So I tell her sure, I’ll do what I can.

 

Then, at last, I discovered the end and what I wanted to say.  I knew the answer.  But there’s a clunky section in the middle, and now I have no desire to finish it, I just want to move on to the next thing and discover it, whatever it might be.

 

So I’ve been working on strategies to deal with this.   I do seem to function best when I can write a whole piece at one sitting, like “Just a vignette” in my blog.  I need to feel urgency and importance.

 

Then I thought, maybe I’m not listening to the problem.  If I need strategies because I don’t want to finish, maybe there is something fundamentally wrong and I’m not seeing it.  I stumbled over Rilke’s statement a few weeks ago, “A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity.”  My letters are borne of necessity.  Then I thought, maybe the problem is I am working in the wrong form.  ***Ugh***  I’m not sure that was an insight I wanted to have.  It is also freeing, and worthy of a whole other letter, so remind me to go back to this, will you?

 

This leads me to the blog, which unfortunately, has turned into a bog.  I have already lostinterest in the serial blog, because I know where it’s going, and it doesn’t feel important, except that I created a letter that is important, heartfelt and full of yearning, and I wanted to share it.

 

Which sort of leads me full circle, with reference to writing:  I really believe my letters are my gift.  The question for me now is how to make that work?  And what does it mean, “work”?  I don’t know the answer to these questions, and perhaps I do not want to know, at least in any concrete, pre-determined way.  As I said to you in an earlier letter, I am in love with uncertainty right now.  My writing is like my trip:  without a clear destination, so the journey is the destination.

 

I don’t want instruction or advice, particularly.  I just want someone I can talk to, who will really listen.  So, I am just a sad character in a Billy Joel song.

 

Oh, I was going to talk about dating.  Well, maybe next time.  Much love and hope to see you next week or sometime when it’s good for both of us ;-)

 

Beth

 

P.S.  I know you love snail mail and ordinarily I would send it that way.  But then, I am just not feeling like being ordinary today.

bethsfrontporch at 11:48:45 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 4 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Serial Blog, part 2

When I reach Bigger Dodge I head towards the state park, and lo and behold, they do have room at the Inn.  It's a lovely place, replete with hiking trails, cliffs, and waterfalls.  I decide to drop Mr. Bookworm a postcard and say hey!  thanks!  what a great suggestion!  But there is no postcard to be had, not a scap of stationery, not in the room, not in the gift shop filled with soaps in layered colors, and not in the restaurant overlooking the river.  So I forget about him.  For the time being.

I happen to stop at an elaborate 19th century home, open to the public, and I'm the only person there.  The town seems deserted.  The tour guide, Helen, a retired schoolteacher, tells me I should be sure and take a tour of the Teweksbury place.  She says it’s private, and Anne lives there now, and she’s 95, and the grande dame of the town, everyone takes care of her, but if the door is ajar and there’s a paper note on the step by the door, I can go right in.   It’s right through the garden, there, she points.  She sees my hesitation and says I really must see it, there is a hanging staircase, it's really a unique place.  So I decide to walk through and see what’s what.

Indeed, the heavy black door is open and a small handwritten note says that I can view the house for $3.00.  I enter, and immediately it seems to me that instead of taking care of her, everyone is waiting for her death.  Her house is like Miss Havisham’s in Great Expectations, filled with dirt and cobwebs and umet expectations.

I find Anne tucked away on a Victorian loveseat, in front of a north window, enshrined by her walker, a box fan going full blast, and a towering stack of envelopes addressed to her, torn open and left asunder.  There are three yellow plastic cups on a nearby table, with flex straws, and dried up foam on the sides like a root beer float gone bad.  There's a faint medicinal odor and I peer behind the loveseat to see if an oxygen tank is in hiding.

She is dressed in a blue silk dressing gown, open to her chest, and her left fingers stroke the cleavage at the opening of the gown.  I’m vaguely embarrassed about where her fingers might end up.

She asks all about me, where I'm from and what I do.  She's heard of Toledo and says she's been to the museum there and loves the glass collection.  She talks about her Wellesley days and her daddy, who gave her a graduation present of a trip to Europe, but he didn’t say how long she could stay, so she stayed three years. 

She keeps saying I suppose you want to hear about the house but I tell her I want to hear about her.  She says after her husband died--they had no children--she went on numerous buying trips to Europe for antiques and glass.  She says that one time she went and said that she wanted something....and she says excuse me, but I'm going to vulgar, expensive. She giggles like a schoolgirl. 

She says the collections are upstairs and says I am to go upstairs and see them.  Before I leave the room she asks if I gave her the three dollars.  I smile and say I placed them by her side (which I had)  and she says, it's my filthy lucre!  And we both laugh, big man-size belly laughs.

Upstairs I wonder if there will be a skeleton in a bedroom, like this is some strange twist of Faukner's "A Rose for Miss Emily," but there are only dusty glass display cases filled with Wedgewood and 18th century silver filling what once were bedrooms.  Each piece is marked.  I don't care much about them.  There are life size oil portraits of her husband and of her, with bronze plaques saying they were painted and given to them by the city in their honor, for all they did for the town.

But in a little out of the way corner by the hanging staircase I spot a small etching with a powder blue matte and black frame.  The etching is of Carl Sandburg, and there is a small hand-written inscription to Anne on it.  From Carl.

I trot downstairs to Anne and say I like her etching of Carl Sandburg.  She says oh yes, he was a friend of her family's, and he used to come over in the afternoon and they would have discussions, which needless to say, were quite interesting.  She says that as she grew older she served as his secretary, taking letters and so on. 

Then she went to Wellesley, she says, and after her graduation, Carl and his wife invited her to stay with them for ten days at their house on Lake Michigan before she left for the European trip her daddy gave her.  But, she says, Mr. Sandburg was so busy reading the Life of Lee that he had little time to spend with her.  So she spent her last time with Mr. Sandburg going outside to Lake Michigian and sliding down the sand dunes in her raccoon coat.

to be continued

bethsfrontporch at 8:47:22 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 5 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

This is a response to Theresa's tag regarding "6 things."  I tag...Paula ; http://journals.aol.com/paulajlambert/PaulaLambert-Author/

1.  Things I plan to do before I die.

Achieve a state of grace. 

2.  Things I can do.

I can name my all girls rock band The Skintights.  We wear leather and I am the lead singer, angry and reactionary at times.  At our first concert we requested that the President declare a period of mourning after Hurricane Katrina, so that we could all reflect and converse about what happened and our expectations, of ourselves, our country, and our government.

I can write really odd and puzzling letters, like the one which will be revealed to you in "Serial Blog."  In addition, I wrote one this past Thursday, in which I said, I was reading Lucy Grealy's Autogiography of a Face, a profoundly moving book.  I wanted to say something to you but instead was choked up by the book.  You looked at my black shoes.  I wanted to hide my feet. 

Please, if you thing I'm off-kilter, throw this away!

3.  Things I can't do.

Sing.  Look good in leather.

4.  Things that attract me to the opposite sex.

This site is under construction.  (reminder to self:  put under the category "things I can do":  I can be elusive.)

5.  Things I say most often.

Tell me more.  How do you feel about that/what do you think?  What if...?  Interesting.  Good luck.  Have fun.  Would this work for you?  Enuf (short for, may you have enough love, enough money, enough of whatever you need...). 

6.  Celebrity crushes.

As a girl, Paul McCartney and Jim Morrison.

As an adult....will be announced at the second intermission.

Now...back to the show....

bethsfrontporch at 7:36:53 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 4 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

 

Mr. Endearing Bookworm

 

I walk into the bookstore in Dodge and a lanky dark haired man is sitting on sofa.  Each arm is hung over the back and his feet are planted on the sofa, slightly apart.  If a man were to be crucified sitting down, this might be what it looks like.  He’s wearing whitish jeans and a short sleeved sky blue t-shirt. 

 

As I come through the door he says something, but the sofa is two thirds of the way back in the store, far enough back that it’s darkish, away from the glare of the sun.  I can’t hear what he says, but it’s longer than can he help me, but I figure it’s something like that, something said with the expectation that I’ll answer in an equally perfunctory and non committal way, requiring nothing of him.

 

I tell him I understand I can get a sandwich here.

 

Some strange marionette operator must pull his strings then, because he’s up from the sofa instantly, tall, maybe six feet two or more, dark hair cut short, looking a little like the actor Tim Robbins, but not slick.  He’s not ready for the cameras.

 

He says yes, I understand correctly, and he has chicken salad, ham, or tuna salad.  On a croissant.  He turns and moves towards a small counter to my left.  By this time I am up to the counter and the books are just beyond, used onthe left, new on the right.  I wonder which has the most interesting choices. 

 

Mr. Bookworm asks me what I’d like to drink and I choose iced tea and he starts to draw it into a large red paper cup.  He says it will be ready in a minute.  I say no rush.

 

Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians stands facing me, a green cover, looks like hardback.  It’s odd, I’ve just been thinking about Alexie, how and he and Denis Johnson seem like writers whose work is not “safe.”  The books are an odd assortment – best sellers, contemporary literary work—Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude – and something I take off the shelf, I can’t remember what.

 

Mr. Endearing says it’s ready and so I take a place at a round table.  He is at my back and I turn my head and ask if he’s a lifelong resident of the town.

 

No!  He says he lives an hour away.  He says he’s originally from Cleveland.

 

I say I can tell from his accent.

 

He asks where I’m from and when I tell him he says he’s never heard of it. 

 

I shrug my shoulders and say it’s a small town and there's a university there.

 

He asks if I teach.

 

I say no, it's much worse.  I administer.

 

There is a chicken salad on a croissant in front of me with a small bag of chips.  I’m ravenous.  I look down at my black slacks and they are covered in a shower croissant flakes.

 

He asks if I came to gamble.

 

No, I say, and you are the second person to ask me that, although I did accidently and inadvertently end up at a casino.  Which is another story.

 

So he asks me how I came to be there and I say I'm traveling along the Mississippi on the Great River Road.  The river is majestic and powerful, and I have reverence for it.  I don’t tell him why I’m really on this trip.

 

Am I going to Bigger Dodge, he asks, and I say yes, and by the way, does he know a good place to stay there? 

 

He walks around the table and says if by miracle there’s space, a great place would be the inn at the state park.  He says to be sure and go up the hill, and not stay down in the town.  He says that would be a great place, and that he’ll let me have some peace now.

 

He walks away again and then I feel him come back, and he says he’ll only interrupt this one last time, but if I could stay at another casino down the way, which is always full on the weekends, but there may be room on a Thursday night.

 

Off he goes, saying he'll really let me have have some solitude, and I say I'll see you in a minute. 

 

To be continued

 

bethsfrontporch at 9:56:01 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 4 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

To Jamie

I'm walking from my office to the parking lot.  Tan students in halter tops, t shirts, and hefty back packs are zipping past me like errant bees.  I can feel the wake of air as they pass. 

Over by a curb a tall man is standing, hovering over the other students, taller, and paler.  He's wearing an odd color of brown pants with an elastic waist.  He's waving his cane off the curb like a metronome.  He says softly but with an attitude, help me?  anyone help me?  anyone?  A blonde with a yellow halter top zips past.  Well walk right by me, then!

I walk up and ask if he needs help.  It turns out he's Jamie, a 3rd year philosphy student, 31 years old and blinded in an accident at 26.  The transit bus didn't come to take him to class, and I offer to walk him there.  He asks for my shoulder.  When I tell him my name he asks if I know the Kiss song, something Beth, and he starts to sing it to me in a lovely, lilting voice.

We are on our way to his Latin class and when we depart from the elevator he hands me a pocketful of papers.  He says his schedule is in them, and that will say the room number, because he doesn't know, and I don't undersstand where in this maze of a building we are going from his description.  The papers slide out of my hand, and before they hit the floor he asks me what I've dropped.  He says before being blind he was a sequential artist, and when I ask what that means he says comic books.

He wants me to guess how old he is, before he tells me.  Now, a few days later, I want to tell him that he's a fine looking young man, engaging yet pale, and I'd say it with a smile on my face, and he would hear the smile.  I might tell him we have both lost something, and I am sorry for his loss.  I might say I can still feel the gentle cupping of his hand on my shoulder.

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To Theresa - yes, let's do a reading.  I'm looking forward to it.  I fell off the book project.  I'll try to get back on it.  Maybe.  No promises ;-)

To Vicky - I'm so glad you are back.  I think the love matter right now has to do with my capacity for loving, loving in a compassionate, understanding, whole way.  Sheesh, who knows what that means ;-)

Beth

 

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