12.18.2011 Season's Greetings!

12.18.2011

Recalling this year's challenges reminds me that many of my gifts, my blessings, come in plain brown wrapping. So I give thanks that salvation was sent to us 2,011 years ago, embodied in human frailty. I look for the lesson, the perspective to see that every soul intersects my life for a reason, for my benefit. I call Andy* as my mentor in that capacity. 
*Name changed to preserve privacy.

Andy was an experienced tradesman, could run any crew efficiently, adapt to constantly changing priorities, a great teacher. Despite this, he had his flaws. Patience was not his strong point. For awhile, I thought he simply didn't want a woman on his job. When I saw him browbeat another of the crew, I realized he simply didn't like anybody. So demoralizing was this daily tirade that I pulled over each morning halfway to work and threw up, for the first 6 months. My dentist thought I needed a bite guard, that I was clenching my teeth while sleeping. Andy drove off the entire crew one by one, including his own brother, over the course of a couple years.

As I really, really needed that job, I wondered what possible lesson I could extract from this punishment and what Andy's purpose might be in my life. I prayed for an answer and one day I recognized it: Andy's gift to me was callouses, a toughening-up. And these callouses came in handy when I dealt with unscrupulous people in my industry. No classroom prepared me better for the hockey game rules common in that field, or indeed, the world. 

To wrap this gift, this blessing, in tissue would be to scoff at the abuse. So I share my epiphany regarding Andy. One morning much like all the others, he was evaluating my performance, critiquing my technique, and generally giving voice to his opinion, all at full volume and within an inch of my nose. And suddenly it struck me: He hasn't hit me and he hasn't fired me. Either he can't or he won't. With that realization, the yelling seemed to fade away, and my lips turned up just slightly. Almost imperceptible, but he caught it. "And just what the H*** are you grinning at?!" he demanded. I just shook my head to indicate nothing in particular. He resumed his assessment, but the volume was down and his heart wasn't in it. He continued on in his accustomed manner for the rest of my tenure there, but I graduated from boot camp to PFC, in Andy's view. 

Merry Christmas, Andy, and may you appreciate the gifts and blessings in your own life, as you have taught me to treasure mine. And may this Season of Blessings bring all of you gifts wrapped sometimes in silk, and sometimes in burlap.

12.09.2011 My Uncle Bill

12.09.2011

As I was growing up, my Uncle Bill seemed larger than life. Air Force Reserve, member of the Mountaineers, doting uncle to his niece, the only member of my extended family I knew.

I considered him my rich uncle, and I don't recall him ever arriving without a gift for me. Before my teens, these gifts evolved into experiences rather than material presents - summer camp, day trips, Scottish Highland events, memory makers that never break, wear out or expire. 


In a tumultuous childhood, he represented stability. He always showed up, kept his promises, dependable. He funded my Girl Scout excursions, hauled me to museums, the science center. He took me on my first plane ride, expanding my picture of the world. Perhaps my early country-wide wanderings had their beginnings in that flight.

He put himself through college to get an engineering degree, acquired a pilots license and bought a small plane, climbed peaks with mountaineers in Washington State, and carried the first "portable" 2-way HAM radio to the summit of Mt. Rainier. The story goes that the radio out-weighed him by several pounds.


I remember him as a tall, handsome man, handlebar mustache, athletic, brilliant. He taught firearms handling classes, knew military history (is there any other kind?) back to ancient times, and served in the Korean War. Leaping tall buildings would not have surprised me.

Best of all, he loved cats. I think this is the part of him I treasured most. We both spoke cat, from the blue-bloods to the meanest alley cat. Their independence and agility, power and beauty appealed to me, and, I think, to him. Cat radar remains one of my litmus tests, amazingly accurate. 


Uncle Bill married in his 40's, trading in bachelorhood for family life. All that love came to rest on a woman strong enough to recognize the warmth in his soul, and respect enough to share her own. First the grandchildren, then the great-grandchildren, came to know the loving, humble man that I know as Uncle Bill. And they tightened that circle when he bid the love of his life a lingering farewell until they meet again in the next life.

He doesn't pretend to understand why loved ones are wrenched away, even while he walks daily with his God. Faith takes over where neither logic nor reason can satisfy his great Why? Still he prays, still he believes, even without knowing if he will ever find out. Meanwhile, Earthbound, he is reborn again as each new great-grandchild arrives, to be that larger-than-life hero in their memories, maybe the greatest gift anyone can be.

12.02.2011 Inclusive versus exclusive

12.02.2011

Julena, my surrogate daughter-in-law, brought a Thanksgiving feast to the house this year. She called early in the week, proposed an ambitious menu, and adjusted every dish to accommodate my allergy to all things Milk. 'I want to be in-clusive, not ex-clusive," she explained. And what a feast! No canned yams or cylindrical cranberry sauce at this table! Not everyone can pull it off like Julena . 

Big deal. So what makes this dinner stand out? Just this: nobody else noticed. Nothing was lacking, everything was delicious, and I was free to overindulge with the whole family. In-clusive, not ex-clusive. Not separate, but familial. Wikipedia describes "family" thus: 

"In human context, a family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children."

Her smile upon her 10-month-old sons' face evidences faith that the world smiles with us. Sharing that sunshine is as natural as breathing, unconscious and unrestrained. Despite my rather solitary existence, she brings me into the circle by the simple yet powerful act of sitting down to break bread with me. A simple social convention.


But no bread ever tasted better.

11.28.2011 And Now, We Return You To Your Life, Already In Progress

Like awakening from a dream, or exiting a movie that sweeps you away, rejoining the rest of the world is like stepping off a playground merry-go-round. There's an abrupt shift in speed, perception, mindset, emotion. And periodically, I find that sensation when I become engrossed in reading, projects, music, anything that absorbs my attention & separates me from my routine. Which is frequently. 

I'm not alone. Someone looks up and remarks, "Oh, look at the time!" I have yet to learn to meditate deeply. However, I "throw away the clock" when I pop weeds from the lawn. It's a cinch I will never overtake them, but the small progress I make is secondary to the soothing, repetitive motion. It's almost hypnotic. I've been surprised more than once when a passing doe snorted her warning to her fawns, having tip-toed to within 50 feet of me.

When I jogged regularly, I would similarly pass into that ethereal realm, attuned to the rhythm of my shoes contacting the path, my breathing audible in my ears, peripherally aware of danger such as dogs or bicycles while detached from the scenery outside my own skin. Any interaction with a pedestrian would bring me out of my revery, a struggle to merge back into the current time zone. Would it surprise you to know long drives put me in the same state?

I drift almost trance-like into that state of suspended animation when I sit down to my keyboard and pull up a blank page, rather like the white sheet in the adjacent typewriter, reminding me of my Dad's old portable. And I am home. Everything brings to mind a familiar passage I've read, an experience or sensation, analogies by the score, a funny story. Old friends. Then a phone rings, real life intruding on the past, or the future-tripping.

If these experiences resonate with you, I have companions on my journey. I welcome you to this adventure!

11.22.2011 I Come By It Naturally

11.22.2011

Seems the small community newspaper editor put a limit on published opinions from my father, as did the larger metropolitan papers. Often tongue-tied in person, he found print more patient, less demanding, inflection bound in adjectives rather than subtle facial expressions, less intimidating for an engineer who planned out the most superficial conversations. Did he change the world with those views? Did he change his world?

Within the first year that I was involved in a small start-up, I stood before a very large state agency hearing, the lone voice calling for specific safety measures in the workplace. Stakeholders unanimously overrode me, citing expense, but it became law. Even the federal government adopted this measure. And although I was warned that inevitably someone would perish on the job, no one came close. This, in trades which run double the average risk. Did I change the industry?

We both found our voice. May you find yours.

11.17.2011 Why Aren't You Writing? First Post

11.17.2011

First Post: At Bumbershoot, a few years back, a palm reader stood in the shade of a building, an enormous woman dressed ridiculously in a black-and-white striped short-sleeved shirt, holding a rhinestone-studded leash which ended at a tiny Chihuahua, stretched out as far as the tether would allow. Her handwritten sign, black marker on a scrap of cardboard, proclaimed her occupation and price. As I approached, the dog pulled even harder at its line, and a skinny man intercepted me to collect the fee, silently holding out his hand, evidently her (self-appointed?) agent.

I recall almost none of the details she read from the furrows in my hand, and related to me, except that they seemed on target. The only question she asked has followed me all these years. Somehow, she knew my secret desire, my guilty pleasure, that outlet I denied myself because I imagined it unworthy of the precious time invested. Rhetorical in nature, that query has encroached on my conscience since that fateful moment. I have been unable to ignore it, erase or delete it, and until now, incapable of finding an outlet. 

Hence, the name of this blog. 

My father was an engineer, kept a journal he called Wage Slave which outlined the unremarkable events of an unremarkable life. Since his passing some years ago, I have occasionally perused the pages of his journey across this planet. New dimensions of his personality emerge from those pages, painstakingly chiseled out of a portable manual typewriter - a luxury he allowed himself, I think - and another, more complex man takes shape before my child's eyes. Four over-sized volumes fill a handled file tote.

With reading and writing, perhaps I can liberate us both from that wordless tomb.