Whirl

November 15, 2009

Elixir

My ears are still ringing some twelve hours later. Last night I stood with 100,000 others and screamed at the top of my lungs. It was a close victory, but a victory none-the-less. Afterwards—a trip to the bowl game won—thousands spilled onto the field in raucous celebration.

At some point before, there was a lull in the action. I was fiddling with my phone when suddenly the crowd starting cheering. I looked at the field but nothing was happening. A guy behind me said “what are we shouting about?”, my friend pointed to the banner board which runs around the stadium: “Get Loud!”, it said. This was all we needed to join in. One push of a button. It’s good to be part of a mob now and again!

But it’s also a little frightening. As we left, the swell of emotion was high. We struggled to navigate through the press of happy bodies and still remain together. Our guest had come to cheer on the losing team and now they were facing a long drive home. On occasion, we overheard snide remarks directed at them. Nothing major, but not the friendly, courteous treatment they’d received in our neighborhood of the stands. I marveled at how easily one might swing this crowd in any given direction.

Last night we stood united and backed our team. And as we stood united, we also stood at a precipice. To be human we need to feel the unity of a crowd; we relish that chill in our spines that comes from crossing our hearts and pledging our allegiance together. This ancient nerve runs deep and true—straight back to a time when unity meant survival itself, and survival itself meant doing things we now consider atrocious.

Today we serve this primal need through peaceful competition just as we solve our disagreements through peaceful dialog.

Right.

When you stand with thousands and cheer on your favorite team you are sipping the same elixir that has fueled lynch mobs and driven machetes. When your priest, imam, rabbi, politician, or media commentator warns you of outside danger he is strumming the same instrument as Jim Jones and Joseph Goebbels. When you rally for your cause and shout down your neighbor’s, you are flirting with the same ignorance that fed the holocaust and sanctioned Sabra and Shatila.

By all means we should join together. By all means let us cheer on our team! But let us always be mindful of who has their finger on the button; who’s hands are measuring the shots, and pouring the elixir. In the end, the instinct we must outthink is the one that tells us it is far easier to unite around our differences, than it is to unite around our diversity.

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Filed under Essay, Fundamentalism, Ohio, Politics, U.S. Politics

Tags: Ohio, Essay, Politics, Fundamentalism, Ohio State University

November 7, 2009

JAFO

I saw Dreadlock Junkie last night. At least I think it was him. I didn’t try to get close enough to confirm. Maybe because he was looking better, filled out, healthy—basically, a junkie no more. It seemed a lot easier to keep my distance and think this healthy kid across the restaurant was the same kid I saw a year ago, on the street in front of the methadone clinic.

At that time, he was skinny, dirty and mal-nourished. Though unkempt, his dreads still held together. He wore that same messenger bag I’d seen him carry on the bus a dozen times. But it was torn now, as though he’d been dragging it on the concrete. A year ago, I felt he didn’t have a lot of time left in this world.

There is something about this kid that I am emotionally drawn to. No, let me rephrase that, there is something about the obvious tragedy this young man represents that I am drawn to. The notion that any of us, no matter the safeguards, no matter the fortune of birth, could end up in a similar circumstance. How far is the fall from suburban comfort to downtown methadone clinic? And why are we more drawn to the stories of those who fall far, than we are to the stories of those who never had the chance to climb in the first place?

I cling to the idea that we can pull ourselves out of any quagmire. It’s a myth that is central to our culture and a pretty useful scapegoat for my own inaction. And so last night, it felt pretty good to put a happy ending to the story of Dreadlock Junkie. It proved my working theory and I never once had to dirty my hands.

But if it was him, if his story is one of triumph, there’s a pretty good chance it is not a tale of simple individual will. Chances are Dreadlock Junkie-No-More succeeded by depending on the good will and comfort of others—public and private. Chances are his struggle is going to go on the remainder of his life. And to thrive, he will need each and every one of the friends gathered around his table last night. Chances are if over these last two years, I were less the fascinated observer and more the helping neighbor I could have joined him at the table in celebration.

But if the opposite is true, if the stranger I saw last night was not Dreadlock Junkie. And if the odds caught up with him and now the story is a tragedy concluded. Then in my shame I’m thankful he will never know my hand was one of thousands never extended.

October 24, 2009

How to Cure a Frying Pan

In the fall, kill a mature sow. They say it’s best to do this by the light of a full moon, but I’ll leave that to your discretion. Once the beast is skinned, build a fire in your back yard and render the hide down to lard in a big black kettle. Strain out the cracklings and eat them with wanton glee.

Keep some of the lard on your stove in a nasty looking Mason jar. Use a little to start your bacon every morning. After cooking the bacon, cook your eggs in the same hot grease and then drain the remainder back into the jar. If you are doing it correctly, layers of sediment from each meal will stratify. Never clean the pan or allow water to touch it unless the skillet is scorching hot. Just wipe it out and get on with the day.

Lead a hard life. Build a farm. Marry a southern country girl who has her own frying pan. Pick a girl who benefits from the wisdom of her grandma’s kitchen and the soul of her papa’s BBQ joint. She’ll like salt on her watermelon and take absolute relish in gnawing a pork chop bone to the marrow. Don’t screw around on her; she’ll pickle your liver.

Make good friends with your mother in law. Bring her a nip of bourbon or moonshine now and then, and she’ll tell you exactly why her children are so mean.

Taste the honeysuckle. Pull out the stamen and put the inner tip on your tongue. Teach your children to do the same. Put a porch swing out front and use it on summer nights. Sit in the dark with your family and listen to the tree frogs and the crickets. You might hear your neighbors laugh from a half mile away and wonder what could be so funny.

Cook your supper cornbread in the same skillet as your bacon. Make it with buttermilk and white cornmeal. Make it thin and crispy–just a couple of layers of crust really. It should be the last thing out of the oven before the blessing is said.

Keep the yard swept clean of all grass. It makes it easier to spot snakes. Best to shoot them on sight because the children won’t be able to tell if they are poisonous. Teach your kids to shoot and handle a gun properly–boys and girls alike. They should know how to use a shotgun and a rifle. Pistols are only made for killing people; you don’t need them around.

Be polite to peddlers, even if you can’t afford to buy something. He’s come a long way in the afternoon dust. Offer him a glass of cold well water and a chair on the porch. Look over his wares, and let him catch you up to the goings on in the world. Chances are he’s in this occupation more for the talking than the selling.

Chickens bring rhythm to a home. Let them roam your yards and fields during the day and they will reward you with rich, yellow eggs. Guinea hens are even better. They will teach you the land as you hunt for each nest.

Send the children off to school. Though you didn’t need it to run a farm. You know they won’t be farmers.

Watch your husband die young in the very bed you kept with him. As the years go by, watch your children leave, each in turn. Don’t re-marry after he’s gone. Neighbor men will covet your land. So tend the old back garden he and you built together. Keep it going and strong every year; even as tractors threaten in the distance. Shell peas on the porch out of a galvanized bucket. Hoe and rake the rows in the morning and at twilight. Over time, your tools will show decades of self-reliance .

Take everything the kids will offer: the electrical service, the gas stove and some years later, the indoor plumbing. Your neighbors all have it. But don’t trust the television. If you can see them it’s likely they can see you too. Always be properly dressed before you watch it.

Don’t fret about the grandchildren. Keep a warm kitchen for them. Let them push their trucks in the yard, run in the fields and climb the trees. Enjoy the looks on their faces when they realize what the outhouse was for. One day after you’ve lost count of grandkids, your daughters will want to move you to the city. Tell them you don’t want to go. Hold off as long as you can. It’s hard to go from your own rich eggs to store bought.

They won’t know how to respond to you. Your are fading to them and in their confusion they shower you with empathy. But all you can feel is outrage. Your senses are betraying you, each in turn.

Pack the frying pan in newspaper. But oil it first. Put it upside down in the top of the box, that way water won’t settle on it.

Make friends with these new old strangers. You are going to die with them.

It won’t take long.

Just withdraw from the canned, tasteless meals, and the ever droning lobby television, and the endless distraction of bingo and prayer.

And one twilight summer evening you will find yourself back in the garden, the two of you working each side of the last row in tandem. Your first child moves inside you and you pause to show him. While he puts away the tools, you move inside to light the lamps and make the cornbread.

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Filed under Cooking, Essay, Fiction, Life, Rural, Southern Life

Tags: Essay, Farming, Rural Life, Southern Life

September 24, 2009

Woven

Think of your life as a thread. Each moment from the beginning of your life constitutes another linear filament within that thread. A thread can be long or short, depending on circumstance. A thread will start thin and weak, but over time it can grow in thickness—strengthen, just as an infant strengthens physically, mentally, and hopefully emotionally.

Healthy threads have a coating, an invisible layer of self esteem which helps to cushion them from the friction of other threads—the friction of everyday life. In addition, a healthy thread is somewhat porous. Able to absorb the sentiments of the threads around it—able to be aware of, empathize with, and gain strength from other threads—both within their immediate vicinity and elsewhere in the fabric. In a healthy thread, these forces are balanced. If the thread is too porous, it will weaken and die, if it is too sealed, it will be brittle: less flexible, and unable to benefit from others.

As your thread runs on through the fabric of life you will be aware of other threads. Some threads will be off in the distance, on the periphery of your awareness, while others will be close. They will run parallel and will intertwine with yours. These are the threads of those closest to you, your friends and family—running side-by-side with your thread for long periods of time, intertwined with you. Think of those you encounter in transit, never to see again, as threads which are woven perpendicularly into your path. They lend as much strength to the fabric as you.

Put enough parallel threads together and you have a string, then a rope, eventually a cable. Once woven together, the weaker threads can be protected and strengthened by the others. Threads running entirely on their own—with no friends or family—are very vulnerable. But within a properly woven rope, each thread is partially sheltered from the friction outside. If one member breaks, the others will continue to support the load. New threads are incorporated and others wind away into the fabric.

The weave of a rope makes it difficult to see the internal structure. Though each member of the rope is exposed to the outside world at various times, an outside observer can never see fully into the core. In healthy rope, this serves a purpose in that it allows the younger, weaker threads to grow in an environment free from harsh outer frictions, but then gradually take them on as they grow in strength. But this opacity can also hide a cancerous thread from the outside word. Others are not able to discern the fundamental flaw in the rope tears or breaks—damaging many threads. Often, the flaw is never spotted at all and the rope will continue to spawn unhealthy threads which migrate into other families and do more damage—this is abuse.

The fabric of life is alive with the energy of communication. We communicate with other threads and because of that, we are aware of the greater fabric as a whole. When a rip in the fabric of life occurs, this awareness is quickly passed from the locality of the event to the consciousness of the threads around it and perhaps even far beyond. The emotional message is proportional to the scale of the fracture but diminishes with time and distance. Thus a single tragedy will be empathized with by the larger fabric—by threads further away from the tear—but the emotional and physical impact will not flow as far as say a major rent in the fabric—a war or genocide for instance.

One day your thread will end. It may suddenly break, or it may taper into nothing over many years. Your family string will continue. It will not break even though your thread is no longer part of it. The closest threads will absorb the energy of your loss, but the fabric of life continues on, forever unbroken.