Fleeting Fame Bonus

This is how it is with fame

This is how it is with fame:

One minute, you’re on stage

receiving accolades and praises,

the next minute, you’re driving

in your daughter’s used car

with the hole in the exhaust

through the Burger King,

wearing your concert gown

with the corsage still pinned on.

You wonder just what kind of quality

you’ll get at this late hour,

but it’s burger and fries (especially

the fries) that you want,

and after the laudations of a satisfied

public, you think you deserve it.

At home, your jammies

are nothing special:

a t-shirt you got in Jamaica,

and some worn pajama bottoms,

the matching top of which

you can no longer find.

But you found your way along

the keyboard tonight, and you

made an impression on the guest

celebrity who was your partner

for the evening.

But your home is ordinary,

and your bedclothes are humble,

and tomorrow you’ll no longer

be justifying late-night French fries

just because you could do something

at one required instant that not many

others can do.  Tomorrow

will be leftovers.

Fleeting Fame

If you've ever taken a bow, or accepted an award, or even just received a compliment, then you've tasted fame. Artist and cultural prophet Andy Warhol said (in 1968): "in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." I can't say I've ever been world famous, but I have been in the spotlight a few times and actually have received applause for something I've done.  My 15 minutes are slowly ticking off, at least in this lifetime: I've probably got about four minutes left.

But what does notoriety earn for anyone (besides notoriety)?  Perhaps fortune does follow fame, but there are  rich people who are relatively unknown, and famous people who've either squandered their wealth, or earn a working man's wage despite their celebrity.

You might be notorious for infamous reasons, achieving some modicum of celebrity because you have become a bad example for all to avoid and warn about: "See, Billy?  You don't want to turn out like THAT!"  Depending on the severity and distastefulness of the deed, this may be a fame you relish.  But I don't recommend seeking it.

You may earn kudos and "attaboys" for endeavors that are worthy, good and true...and entirely volunteer.  There are plaques hanging on walls in appreciation for lots of unpaid work.  Important, and worthy of a public thank you, but coming without any compensation, other than a fist bump of gratitude.

You may receive lots of heart-felt praise and ovation for something deserving it.  Your name may be in bold print somewhere, or on a marquee, or whispered by admirers and, by golly, you did work hard, and you spent time, and EARNED those few seconds of fame.

And it is all fleeting.  Not without merit, just fleeting.

An employee being celebrated for his longevity at a company and, in particular, his perfect attendance for forty-plus years (ye gads!) was heard to make this comment: "Put your hand in a bucket of water.  Now pull it out.  The hole you leave behind is how much you'll be missed."

This is not sad; it is truth in perspective.  And it prompts us to understand that what we do today, whether ruling the roost or simply layin' the eggs, may or may not have any impact on tomorrow.  But it DOES have impact today, and no matter how ordinary, it is worth doing well TODAY.

I recently left positions where I was publicly visible and publicly acknowledged for what I did.  What I did (performing music) brought me great pleasure; not only to play, but to associate with wonderful people who participated and directed this music-making. There was shared heartache when I announced that I was leaving and, consequently, a bit of fuss.

But now, new things are happening in the places I've left.  Fresh ideas, fresh perspectives, perhaps better things.  I am now in a place where I'm unknown and unproven: it's humbling.  Like most of you, I'm trying to make my mark in this world and, in some sense, leave a legacy. But there's always new people coming along to take up the cause or introduce a new one.  It is a bit of a struggle for me, but I'm convincing myself there's great value in the ordinary things that we do each day, regardless of the applause that will not be offered.

In this world of Instagram and YouTube posting, 15 minutes of world-wide fame isn't necessarily out of the question; but we owe it to ourselves and those who are coming behind us to recognize the worth of our unexceptional, ordinary offerings.

ORDINARY CHILDREN

Children of ours,

how we do go on and on,

layering “specialness” on you

like coats of paint covering

interior walls with each new fashion.

We want for you a special life,

and all the nagging and provoking,

is to motivate you

to be special forever.

But it is a life most ordinary

that you will likely live.

Small circles of friends and colleagues

will nod at your triumphs

and overlook your mistakes.

Extraordinary deeds –

            and the extraordinary reactions due them –

will most likely not be yours to experience.

The accomplishments you most cherish

will be remembered by few:

others hold memories of their own,

and have no need to recollect yours.

The achievements that generate personal pride

may get an admiring comment or two,

but personal pride is not a trait

that most will appreciate.

Perhaps we are misguided,

and it is that ordinary life

for which we should prepare you:

ordinary job, ordinary spouse,

ordinary income, ordinary house.

The places you’ll go may not be so far,

and it may be small, insignificant steps

that take you away from us

and on to a new life of your own.

But down this ordinary path,

make each typical step extraordinary

and you will find that we were right:

You are special.

Liturgy of Living

When things change, especially drastically, the unmooring from the routine you know can be quite discomfiting. Changes that occur because of something foreboding or threatening -- such as rescheduling your life because you need medical care, or because you've lost your job -- need no explanation for their disruption.  The future looks hazy at best, with the potential outcome pretty bleak: of course you're going to feel uncomfortable.  (Sorry to be such a downer, right outta the chute.)

But changes we choose -- new job, new home, new venue -- while exciting, can also be upsetting. An inducement of the recent topsy-turvy undulation of our lives at mid-life was a "what-the-heck" attitude that we redefined as courage.  It propelled us to uproot and take flight and all of those other euphemisms to  "just do it."  So we just did it, and while we don't rue that decision, it has lost some of its charm. Sometimes, we're pretty mopey.

That mopiness comes from the fatigue to keep up our enthusiasm.  Perhaps adventure is best set upon when you've got something staid and secure to return to.  A beautiful song by Marta Keen Thompson, "Homeward Bound," captures this sentiment beautifully (check out the full lyrics online.  The song even has its own Facebook page!).  One line is "When adventure's lost its meaning, I'll be homeward bound in time."  The refrain is:

"Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow. 

 Set me free to find my calling, and I'll return to you somehow."

Vacations are great, and travel has always instigated wistful wanderlust in both my husband and me.  Now that we've wandered far from home (with no home to return to), our adventuresome spirit is waning a bit. While we don't want to slip back into being mundane, there is sanity and sanctity in familiar routine: a liturgy of living, I suppose.  Our challenge is to find what the new routine will be; the current one, with its loose ends, is not one we want to continue!  I will add that being together establishes a grounded stake to which we can tether those loose ends that flap in the breeze. That is a blessing.

What we all need is "purpose."  Nothing will deplete your energy more than lacking one.  It is a struggle to deem even ordinary tasks and pursuits as meriting the moniker of  "purpose."  But I think it's possible, which is why I pursue this writing thing, and look for ways I can excel in  everyday details.

SOCKS

I take great pride

in matching my husband’s black socks

just so.

Though uniform in color,

their ridges are a garden-variety

of narrow and wide,

variants that don’t mix well

in a fabric bouquet.

The size is consistent:

all long-stemmed and broad-leaved.

But there is gold on some toes,

a pollen polka-dot

that pairs only with similarly flecked.

Mixing won’t match,

and matching is essential.

Step Forward Bonus - Poems

HORIZONS

A free range stretched before us.

A vastness to the land and sky

made us breath deeper,

as though we could take in

every cubic measurement

of air and moisture, nourishment

to our courage and efforts.

Some fields lay fallow: our

choices would cultivate them.

Other fields bore generous

harvests: we could lay a path

and take our fill for our

storehouses of possibilities.

That was then: we now have

as much stretching behind us

as we have before us – maybe

more that we’ve passed through

than what we have yet to pass.

Fields are overgrown.

Intersections surprise us;

from the middle of the acreage,

we can’t see round the bend.

It is a continuous sea

of one

single

crop.

Is this our lot?

Purge Surge Bonus - poems

BURNING DOORS

The flames have a papery quality,

curling at their ends,

disappearing like vapor

at the apex of their reach.

We’re burning doors:

bedroom doors, closet doors;

hollow, cheap things that were

replaced with fancy paneled pieces

that gate our privacy,

though nothing needs to be concealed.

The kids are gone; the only personal

effects remaining in their rooms

are ones I want to keep, to create

some magic spell when they discover

forgotten bric-a-brac on a return visit.

The closets hold domestic things:

towels, cleaning supplies, light-bulbs.

We could dismantle the new doors, burn them, too,

and leave the shelves revealed

for all to see.

There’s nothing hidden now

in this house; just a cock

and his hen living among the sticks

left behind.

Step Forward

Up and down rocks
on Precipice Trail,
Acadia National Park, Maine USA

My mother often recalled the story of the day I learned to ride a two-wheeled bike.  Dad had removed my training wheels, and I was going to master the thing!  It was a hot summer day, but I stuck to it: getting on, pedaling, falling, getting on again.

I came inside, hot and sweaty, and asked for a drink.  "Why don't you sit down for a few minutes and cool off?" my mother remembered asking.  "No," I replied, breathlessly, "gotta do this." And back I went, the screen door slamming behind me, to scrap up my knees and bruise my shins.  I was riding on two wheels by the end of the afternoon.  My legs were pretty banged up, but not my pride nor my ego.

What the heck happened to that determined little girl?

My close friends will probably say that determined little girl grew into a determined adult.  As mentioned in a previous post, I'm not known for my sentimentality, and I would add that I'm not known for sensitive patience, either.  I want those around me to get with the program, or fill me in succinctly so I can join.  Given a task (and the tools necessary), I go go go!  My husband likes to start things: I want them finished.  We're either a perfect match, or a lit one!

But I'll elaborate my question: what happened to that determined little girl who would keep trying, despite faltering several times?

Our recent cross-country move upheaved us by our roots; now we're anxious to be planted.  But I'm not sure I need to bloom in the same way.  In fact, I embraced this grand adventure with excitement that I could possibly be "re-invented."  Did I need to build a schedule of musical endeavors just like the one I had left behind?  Was I a particularly-shaped block that fit into a similarly-shaped hole?  Or could I try putting corporeality to a dream?  Perhaps I could even return to a previous iteration of who I was and what I did.

In that vein, I have considered (and even applied) to positions requiring writing skills, employee relations experience, personal public relations.  Part of me (that two-wheeler aficionado) wants to keep up the effort to make that work.  I'll be throwing my hat up in the air like MTM in Minneapolis! But, there's a part of me that is now a cautious adult, thinking through all things carefully, not wanting to start what I may not finish "perfectly." (Ah!  There's the real problem!)

At my age, people expect knowledge and wisdom: I can't impress people anymore with wisdom beyond my years because my years suggest I've got wisdom! What would be ideal is if my past experience proved that I was reasonably bright and self-motivated, and given those traits, would be an excellent candidate, if someone was willing to take a chance and show me how.

So I find my steps forward are really back into the comfortable footings of familiar surroundings. Not so bad, when being a contributing member of society is your goal.  Might as well contribute what you truly have to give.  But I would very much like the incantation to conjure the spirit of that determined little girl who willingly accepted the bumps and cuts of trying hard...and was pleased, even when the outcome was wobbly.

Let's wobble on.

Purge Surge

So. Much. Stuff.

When we put our house up for sale, we were told to clear it out for showing, to leave nothing smaller than a bread loaf on any surface.  Each day, after brushing my teeth, I'd pack away the toothbrush holder -- a plastic black box with holes -- just in case someone was interested in wandering through our house that day.  We were to "give people an opportunity to imagine themselves living there," with no remnants of lives lived there before.  Even lives with good dental hygiene, apparently.

To vacate living space, we gave items to the Salvation Army or sold them online.  We packed up books, CDs and VHS tapes.  We gave away the shelves on which these things were stored.  We gave away couches (yes, couchES...plural noun), we gave away dressers, we gave away desks.  I gave away one grand piano to my son, paying for its shipment to Montana.

And I gave away my grandmother's iron bed, a three-quarter sized hulk-of-a-thing that  I had personally cleaned and repainted when I was a teenager.  We'd had a custom-sized mattress made for our daughter to use with the frame.  I had notified my children that I had no intention of carting, across the country, belongings that they wanted but couldn't take right away. Either they accepted them now, or they were tossed. My daughter declined the bed.  I had no use for it.  My grandmother's bed, given away.

I realized I was the end: the last one to have a linear connection to these things. My kids did not want these items: they hadn't eaten cookies served on particular plates, or visited the family homestead where these earthy treasures had first been collected.  Purchased or handmade, these things were used, mended, and reused until they had become iconic.  They were the triggers for stories, links to a family's past.  As I pulled things to the curb, I said aloud "it stops with me."

What is interesting is the ordinariness of these things: a cobalt blue pitcher with matching glasses that belonged to my grandmother is still among the bric-a-brac currently in storage, waiting for us to get a residence.  The set is beautiful, but not very useful: the pitcher's cracked, and the white sailboats painted on the glassware are rubbing off.  It is shelved for show.  I've heard the story that the set was some kind of premium received with the purchase of detergent or perhaps S&H Green Stamps.  Will the things I buy at Bed, Bath & Beyond today become the priceless relics of tomorrow?  Lord, don't let me burden my children with that!

My husband has labeled me the least sentimental person he knows (he has had to teach me a little nursery-style rhyme to remember our wedding anniversary).  But there are some things I cherish because my own mortality is minimized by their existence: the people who first owned and used them linger with us still just because this stuff is in my hands.  Given away, we all stop.  I am the end.

And that leaves me with only the next step forward as an option.

Third Acts

Off We Go

Recently, I extracted myself from all that was familiar and moved with my husband 2,400 miles west of the place we'd called home for 27 years.  That's a lifetime.  No, really: it's my son's lifetime.  We moved to Michigan from Arizona when I was seven months pregnant, and we calculated tenure by his birth.

Seems inconceivable to have spent that much time anywhere. It's inconceivable to have spent that much time on earth!  Does everyone experience this dumbfoundedness as they age? I recall my grandparents being quite comfortable with their elderliness.  They fell into an easy swing, keeping a regularity of mealtimes, walks, tedious tasks that passed the time and gave them purpose. Weekly menus stayed the same, their clothes, their haircuts, the purchases they made: there was nothing new to adjust to, and that was fine with them.  Why is it my friends and I seem restless?

I won't count myself among the "elderly," something for which I'm sure my peer group is relieved. But I count my years and realize I'm past middle-age.  Years ago at a thirtieth birthday party, a friend received a t-shirt that said (paraphrased) "I'm not going downhill: I'm still climbing.  That's why I'm tired all the time."  But I am now feeling the wind in my hair.  My life roller coaster car has tipped over the top.  Y2K was how long ago?  Seems like just last year we were questioning our reluctance to store in our crawl space water jugs with added drops of bleach, and some cans of spam.  And Fig Newtons.  To quote my father:"They just never deteriorate!"

Yes, the acronym YOLO makes the rounds these days, and as far as we all know, it's true.  Even if it isn't true, we don't remember the previous lives, so it's moot.  Currently, I'm spending a lot of time on my own in small studio apartments as J and I move from one Airbnb rental to another, an adventure of its own, I suppose.  The niggling daydream I've had for years to be recognized as a writer is now an annoying idea.  I either act on it, or I let it go.  I let go of a lot of stuff when we emptied our house, realizing that if my kids didn't want it, it ended with me (more on this another time).  But instead of letting go of this particular fantasy, I need to make it reality.

So here goes.  And the question of the day: what are you taking with you in your coaster car as you pick up speed going downhill?

THE MIDDLE AGE

They call it middle age.

It is hoped that this age is the middle,

and some other age is the end.

The Middle Ages is most noted for the plague:

the Black Death.  The Shadow of Death,

for all its blackness, hangs over me

in my middle age.

I think about dying more now

than when I was a child, first experiencing death

with aged relatives

who had odd behaviors

and certainly were ready for it.

My father died at 58.  “So young,”

said women in the plant

where I worked.  “Really?” I thought,

all of 22 , and seeing the middle age landscape

as a distant horizon. 

I’ve always been bad with distances.

I consider now my husband dying,

and want some reverse incantation

just in case the thought alone

conjures the hooded specter.

I think of me dying, and am both

intrigued and afraid. 

As a believer, I want to see Jesus,

and want also to have Him give me some great

assignment I have to complete here

on earth

that will take a long,

long time.