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Eating Crow

Eating Crow

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Yesterday, for the first time in several years, I took a yoga class. Yoga is one of those activities I am theoretically for — until it comes time to actually do it.

I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t do the first pose — sitting cross-legged on the floor. My knees don’t like that anymore. I quickly adapted a faux cross-legged position, one that put my legs farther out in the floor than the other students gathered in a circle around the instructor, John. And it went rather steadily downhill from there. When it came time to learn the crow or Bakasana position —balancing on arms with bent knees — I had to laugh.

I had taken a class with John before and remember it as challenging but fun. This time it was only challenging. Which raises the question, who has changed — John or me?

Both, I’d say. This was a more advanced class and John was subbing for it. But I’ve been ossifying, too, hardening into position. One hour of yoga didn’t do much to dispel muscle stiffness, but it did help me see how much I need to strengthen and stretch. And this morning — ouch! — it’s an easy lesson to remember!


(Crow position courtesy yogaoutfitters.com.)

The End of Sanctuary?

The End of Sanctuary?

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When I wrote of barbarism yesterday I didn’t yet know about the slayings in Jerusalem. This time terrorism has reached much farther than Indiana. It has reached into the sanctuary itself.

It is difficult to measure grief and outrage, but this incident is striking in its brutality. The piousness of the victims, their vulnerability, the contested city in which these slayings took place — a city riven by religious violence.

I looked up how often murders occur in places of worship and found a Christian Science Monitor article reporting that as of last June there had been 780 deadly attacks in U.S. churches in the last 15 years, according to Carl Chinn, a church security expert who was himself a victim of church violence. Such violence was almost nonexistent before the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, Chinn said.

The numbers worldwide are much bigger and more horrifying, I’m sure.

Religious-based violence is nothing new. But the ironies are too great to ignore. That a force intended for good has been hijacked for evil. That a place built for sanctuary has become a killing ground.

Barbarism Comes to the Midwest

Barbarism Comes to the Midwest

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When I chose Hanover College as a shy, bookish 18-year-old, it was mostly because of its beautiful Georgian style buildings, its stunning views of the Ohio River, the long wooded drive to the bluff where the campus clusters. Only later would I come to appreciate the school’s fine teachers and midwestern modesty.

But one thing that was true all the time — and still is, I hope — is that like many small liberal arts colleges, Hanover was set apart from the world. I remember once as a prank someone set up a sign at the beginning of that long, winding drive. It said: “You are leaving reality.” And you were. Hanover was a bubble where your only job was to study, make friends and learn to live on your own.

Yesterday I received an email from Hanover College. I already knew what it would say:  Abdul-Raman Kassig, formerly known as Peter, and a former student at Hanover, was executed by ISIS two days ago. His father, Ed, was at Hanover the same time I was; he lived a few doors down the hall from Tom. Peter Kassig was working to help the people of Syria when he was captured last year. He converted to Islam only recently; his name means “servant of the most merciful.”

Sheltered by tall trees and cornfields, sitting serenely above the Ohio River, Hanover College seemed the last place terrorism would reach. If it’s here, then it must be everywhere.

Catch a Falling Star

Catch a Falling Star

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Who knew a comet could be lassoed and landed? Who knew a comet could be stalked and studied, pursued and parsed, its every movement charted and filed, honed to such precision that its whereabouts could be predicted with certainty 300 million miles from earth?

A comet has always seemed a quicksilver thing to me. More light than substance, even though I know it has rock at its core.

Now this rock hurtling through space — the ultimate moving target — has become a laboratory. It may yield the secrets of our solar system, the scientists tell us. It is a “cosmological dream,” the Washington Post says.

A dream not just for cosmologists, I’d say, but for us all.


(Photo: Curiousread.com)

My Favorite Veteran

My Favorite Veteran

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Until March 20, 2014, World War II was for me a living entity. A part of history, yes, of course. But because my father was a tail gunner in a B-17 bomber and flew 35 raids out of East Anglia, it was also a part of family lore. I grew up hearing tales of London during the war, meeting girls under the clock in Victoria station, coming back to base to find empty bunks and chairs after a raid.

Since Dad died, the personal part of the war is by and large over me for me. It’s there only in a sepia-tinged way. Not my memories but someone else’s.

On the other hand, Veteran’s Day has taken on new meaning. Mom and I went to the cemetery on Sunday, left flowers by Dad’s headstone. I looked for a small American flag to plant there, but small American flags are in short supply in November.

I stood for a minute in the wan autumn sun, looked out at the rolling hills, the grazing cattle in the distance. Dad would like this spot, would probably make a joke about it — hey, not bad for a grave.

The optimism and jauntiness that served him well in wartime kept him going throughout his long life. And it spilled over to others, too; it certainly did to me.

So Veteran’s Day is no longer a musty, creaky holiday. It’s about doing one’s duty with a wink and a quip. It’s about grace under pressure. It’s about Dad.

Familiarity

Familiarity

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Suzanne was born 26 years ago today. It’s the first birthday I’ve spent with her in three years. Not that one expects to be with an adult child on every birthday, but after having her so far away from home these last three years having her here feels pretty darn good.

I think today as I always do about the moment I first saw her — and the feeling is as clear today as it was then. It was a supercharged familiarity. “I know you,” I said to myself the instant I glimpsed her face. “Of course. It’s you.”

And even though she lives in Africa now, and has been independent for years, I still have that feeling about her — and about Claire and Celia, too. There they are, I think, as I watch them grow up and enter their own lives, the children I was meant to have. As unmistakable as blood or water.

The Dentist

The Dentist

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On Monday I went to the dentist for what was supposed to be a routine extraction. It was a wisdom tooth, not impacted, and I was assured that I didn’t need to consult an oral surgeon.

Wrong! The routine quickly became difficult and I experienced two hours of what can only be described as medieval dentistry — with gloves.

As I reclined there, hands clasped tight, mouth pried unnaturally wide open, the young (key word) dentist experimented with tool after tool. (I was waiting for him to try a come-along!) And I kept imagining those old illustrations of medieval dentists. I’ve seen this kind of art in modern dental offices; it’s supposed to be a humorous nod to how far we have come.

After Monday I would say we haven’t come far. Because now I know that underneath all the equipment, all the whirring, spinning bells and whistles of modern dentistry, there is still just the dentist and the tooth. It’s a contest of wills. In my case the dentist won. But just barely.

Johann Liss, Farmer at the Dentist, 1616-17 from Wikipedia

Did Someone Say Fudge?

Did Someone Say Fudge?

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It’s the last day of school in Fairfax County, which means little to me now except less traffic in the morning. It was our first year in 20 to be rid of elementary, middle or high school dates and deadlines.

But today is still special. It’s the day that for years we celebrated with matinees, lunches out, shaving cream fights at the bus stop — and a peculiar ritual: watching “The Music Man” and making fudge.

The tradition started more than a decade ago, when we popped in a video of this musical to watch in the evening after an afternoon at the pool. There’s a scene where Marian and her mother make fudge. And so we started making fudge, too. It’s a delicious summer pastime anyway, fudge being the most boardwalk of candies.  But even if it wasn’t, we’re conditioned now: Hum the first few bars of “76 Trombones” or “Till There Was You” and we’ll start to salivate.

So tonight, Celia and Claire will gather at the house and we will measure out the sugar and the cocoa powder and the milk. We’ll set the pan on the stove and tend it till it bubbles and boils. We’ll test it (often) and finally take it off the flame, beat it to glossiness and pour it onto a plate. If it all works according to plan we will be on a sugar high before it’s dark.

School’s out for summer! Who needs champagne?

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

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What you remember is the precision, even in death: straight lines, markers in rows. Such even rows that it’s hard to tell if there are hundreds of graves or thousands. Of course there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands when you add them all up.  The final resting place of those who served.

There are 131 national veteran’s cemeteries in this country and many more state and local ones. My dad lies in the Camp Nelson National Cemetery, only miles from the Kentucky River. It has a history of its own — a civil war camp where the wounded were treated and African American soldiers enlisted.

It’s a sunny, placid place with a roll to the land and a few big trees along the borders. I visited in April, got a better view of what I couldn’t quite take in before. It’s proper and dignified, the grounds meticulously maintained.

It’s amazing the pull the place has on me now. I wish I was there today.



(This photograph is of Arlington.)

Anniversary

Anniversary

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This day, the curve of its numbers, its 2 and its 4, the late Mayness of it, all of its features and character will always and only mean one thing to me: my parents’ wedding day.

This is the first day in 62 years they have not celebrated it together. Here’s what I wrote about them two years ago, on their 60th wedding anniversary:

What started 60 years ago was not just a marriage; it was a family, a way
of life. It was jumping in an old Chevy and driving across the country.
Finally running away to California to start all over again — then
realizing that Kentucky was where they wanted to be all along. … There has always been a certain jauntiness, a sense that you didn’t have
to be what circumstances dictated. Dreaming was encouraged. …

And in fact, they kept on dreaming, right to the end of Dad’s life.