Thinking Ahead, Thinking Behind

My nephew graduates from secondary school this week.  Where did the time go?  I remember wondering about his birth before it happened.

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The Beginning

In the quiet world of mystery
Beats a tiny, little heart,
Replete with tiny clothes
And held in loving arms.
Quiet and little do not describe
The smile, which beams and speaks
A language all its own,
A language we’ve all heard
But forgotten in our haste
To climb out of the crib.
Soon all will see that smile;
For now, we cuddle and coo,
We treat the smile with pats
And the crying with a hug.
We encourage the smile
But must remember every emotion
Has a place and time to fill
and be felt.

-- 1 September 1990

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Then, not long after he was born, we visited his family.

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Chicago-bound

Just stepped on the 2:05 Metra train in St. Charles
(Anne dropped me off with seconds to spare),
On my way to Chicago to meet Janeil.
Rolling through little unknown communities,
Finally stopping at West Chicago depot.
The rolling of the train on the tracks reminds me
I haven’t fully recovered from the drinking spree
That Kevin and I enjoyed last night.
We started after dinner with our wives.
I drank two half-yards at a place called Scotland Yard,
Then had one beer at some blue-collar dive
Where patrons played/gambled on a game
Using five dice thrown on the bar counter
[We just stopped to pick up passengers in Winfield].
Then Kevin and I went to the Silverado
Where I told him to buy me a beer.
I headed to the bathroom as he called out,
"We aren’t leaving until you finish your beer."
I get back and he’s bought us a pitcher.
We began a game of darts
[Now picking up folks in Wheaton] called cricket
(Which he wins with a bullseye)
When some fellow walks up to join us.
We then play double out,
And three games of double in-double out,
The "double" meaning the dart must hit an area
On the board which counts for double points
[Now stopping at College Avenue --
Cute woman standing outside the window
And drinking flavored water].
Several people marveled at my ability to slam
The darts into the board with the accuracy
And speed of a baseball pitcher
[Now picking up folks in Glen Ellyn],
Bending tips and replacing them
Like they’re going out of style.
Kevin won three games while I and the other fellow
Won one a piece.
So this is the Midwest?
Highways, high tension wires,
Kids playing hide-n-seek in the backyard,
Golf courses under construction,
Dilapidated house smelling of history
[Just stopped in Lombard].
Kids on the train have heavy Northern accent --
Mom takes their picture -- conductor says,
"They uh free cawz theyuh unduh tweluhv."
[Villa Park]
Road construction workers stand in sun
With hands on hips and orange hardhats
Hiding their bald spots.
Clouds remember dinosaurs and laugh
At our attempt to immortalize ourselves.
Like a bad film in high school health class,
Scenes flash past the window,
Scenes full of potential car crashes, drug deals,
And sites for making love without contraception.
[Elmhurst]
Two teenagers of the female-who-adore-men persuasion
"For sure" "No way"
"I take it day-by-day; you know, college is worse,
I’ve got to find my own place.
I’m just like...you know."
Idle gossip -- boyfriends
"He went out with a friend a couple of times --
I was so-o-o-o hurt. I don’t trust anybody.
I mean, I have friends and a best friend.
I only have two friends who’ve been best friends
For years. I don’t trust anybody, I really don’t."
[Bellwood]
One looks through her purse.
"I’ve got 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 dollars.
You’ve got to be careful when you step off the train...
One time in Miami...I mean, I’ve got two jobs...
They took everything."
"What about your boyfriend?"
"There are so many people I hang out with.
You mean he
[Melrose Park]
Was supposedly my boyfriend. What about you?"
"Whatdya mean?"
"I go to a lot of parties."
"Have you ever..."
"No, I’ve never puked. I’ve passed out but I’ve never puked."
"You know how people’ve bragged."
"Have you tried pot?"
"Yeah, once, but nothing happened."
"Really?"
"Well. I was high for a little while. My boyfriend tried heroin,"
Shocked look from friend,
"But I didn’t try it."
"Do you smoke yet?"
"A little bit."
"I smoke those little thin ones, you know, Capri, and all that."
"Whatdya
[Oak Park]
want to do when we get there?"
"I don’t know. I guess Sears Tower."
"Yeah, and drink some beer somewhere."
"Great. We’ll have to head back to Michigan after that.
You shouldn’t have brought all that money."
"You never know."
Who are these two rising sophomores?
They don’t have any obvious past experiences in common.
They continue to
[We must be in Chicago -- rundown buildings run
Into each other -- warehouses, factories, abandoned depots]
Discuss the difference between when to drink beer,
Mixed drinks and shots. Attend college in Florida?

Institutional public housing no different than jails
Or public schools -- family living in a welfare net --
Filters out the mediocre while perpetuating mediocrity.
Media today, MTV, for instance, apparently
Promotes a California accent.

-28 July 1992

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Waiting for the Virtual Birth

Getting ready to leave St. Charles.
We’ve "played" with our nephew Nicholas,
Meaning keeping him occupied so he won’t cry.
Yesterday, Janeil and I went back to Chicago
To see the exhibits at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference --
We saw a couple of dozen virtual reality displays
Where people could put on goggles and gloves
Electronically controlled to give the wearer
The sense of being in another world.

- 31 July 1992

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Soon his stepsister and sister will follow his steps.  Maybe they'll have moments like this...


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Vacations Are Like Perfume Bottles

Sitting in the Village Vanguard,
An underground jazz club;
I sit listening to the Billy Childs Trio,
A classic trio jazz group,
And I think back to the past few days in NYC.
I remember the smell of horse manure in Central Park,
Disinfectant in a subway station
And body odor
And musk incense while crossing a street near Times Square.
Not a lot of street people around...
They must be on holiday in the suburbs.
In fact, all the people here seem to be tourists
(It takes one to know one!).
Last night,
while we were standing on the 86th floor
Of the Empire State Building,
I was busily trying to figure out
Which buildings were which
When I suddenly realized,
"Hey! I’m in New York City,
Not some classroom on identifying the landmarks of NYC.
Enjoy the moment for what it is.
Don’t compartmentalize it."
So here we are in Greenwich Village
Trying to capture the essence of the place.
Something about the chords in this song
Make me feel melancholy.

- 5 September 1993

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Unexpected News

Every day is an adventure and...
(But what is a day?
A day is the collection of experiences
Between two long sleeping periods.)
Today’s adventure was once again exciting.
Around 8:30, Janeil answered the phone
And heard the disturbing news from her parents
That her aunt, Irene, had died yesterday.
Irene had a heart attack not too long ago
And spent a few days in the hospital.
She had returned home.
Janeil’s parents called Irene earlier yesterday
(Or the day before)
And got no answer.
Irene’s granddaughter Kathy drove to Irene’s house yesterday
And as the news was reported to me,
Kathy said, "She was dead. Cold."
The crocus bulbs are blooming
And one daffodil has opened up.
The dwarf crested iris (hybridized) are blooming,
And so are the pachysandra.

- 20 February 1994

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Time Slows Down In A Garden

Chirping like soldiers marching down a dusty Southern road,
Frogs keep time in this quiet backwater of the Florida panhandle.
Insects make my legs look like the surface of Mars --
Red and pockmarked with bites.
I sit on the shoreline of a lake.
I sit on the edge of Eden State Gardens,
The former home of some rich person
Who left the house and gardens to the state of Florida.
They say some movie about frogs was filmed here.
Well, I was sitting underneath the shade of a live oak tree
Draped with Spanish moss
But the insects and a bit of rain
Have pushed me back into the comfort of a car.
The Eden State Ornamental Garden
Sits on the edge of the Choctawhatchee Bay.
I came here about three years ago
When my grandmother’s garden club national meeting
Convened in Sandestin.
The gardens haven’t changed all that much --
Still slightly overgrown.

- 23 July 1993

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Properties of Assumption

Mischief wants me to pet her or hold her --
To just pay attention to her.
Finally, after (an eternity) 30 seconds,
She has settled against my leg.
I went to work for six and a half hours today.
I left at 15:00 and came home to a well-lit yard
And the air temperature in the 50s.
I started to walk straight from the truck
Toward the mailbox and changed my mind.
I put down my DayTimer (a daily scheduler/planner)
And filled a gallon jug with birdseed instead.
So many things I take for granted in this yard.
As usual, the birds were singing all around me.
I filled the empty birdfeeder
On the shepherd’s crook in the backyard
And the birdfeeder beside the garage.
I walked the path in the woods
And saw the first trillium of the season.
I also saw a brake fern on a rock in the lower path.
Some scorpionweed
(Also known as water leaf, hence its botanical name)
Was growing on another rock.
The Jacob’s ladder looked good.
So did the marsh marigold.
Daffodils are coming and going like ocean waves.
My cousin, Phil, and his wife, Maria,
Had a daughter within the past day or two:
Sophia Maria, 8 pounds, 2 ounces.

Someone(s) egged our mailbox again.
This time, the nameplate was knocked off.
I don’t tolerate this childish behavior
As much as others
Because I did not participate in mailbox egging as a child.

- 3 March 1994

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A Prose Poem To Cheer You Up (For Sherri)

I am at a loss -- for words, for emotion, for images upon which to build a letter of encouragement -- because the challenges in your life have been so much greater than mine. Your sense of self has bloomed and died a millennium of lifetimes. You are the phoenix’ phoenix. I know from whom you were born but not from whence you came nor where you’re bound. You and Anne have strength for an army yet you are duty-bound to only two charges each. They, too, will climb from the ashes of divorce. They will draw their own conclusions and the harder they suffer now, the more they’ll have to draw on later -- humor must strike a balance, however, for your children to be able to put a label on their pain later on.

I sit on the floor, cross-legged beside a suitcase of my grandmother’s belongings. I want to talk to Nana right now and tell her that I will not meet her in the great Southern Baptist Church in sky but that does not mean...it...I want to say...I cannot cry but I miss her. I miss her love of life despite her chronic pains. I miss talking about the Garden Club, her work with the church; her handmade gifts; her crackly voice; our family history in Tennessee. I cannot cry. I cannot laugh. I cannot cloud this quiet moment on the floor of a house in Big Cove, Alabama. I want to cry but crying now is an act on the private stage of my mind. I want to feel but to feel right now is only to show [me? you?] that I am human but I am human so why must I pin emotions on my chest like a badge? I am every part of me -- knee ache, Nana ache and all.

I sit here and wonder if Jaime and Jennifer feel like I do. Do they not want to feel but just have life go on and get over this part of their life that has just been too much of a struggle for nothing lately? Will the perspective of time make any difference? Sometimes it doesn’t seem so. I’ll never draw a meaning from it all but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I want the view from the mountaintop of middle age to show me a pattern, a design, but all the wind in my face cries is "Maria" (oh, wait, that’s Phil, not the wind).

- 19 February 1998

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