Feeling Ver-Clipped

I reached into my back pocket and brought out the crumpled list:

Bananas, peppers, milk, bread, coffee

Considering that they weren't on the list, it's a miracle that I even remembered to look for paper clips.  And, if a person can be allowed two miracles in one day--even two lame ones--I'd go so far as to say it's a miracle that I actually found the paper clips.

HyVee, after all, isn't exactly in the paper-clip business.

But, most grocery stores--even smaller ones--have an aisle (or, more likely,  a shelf or two) set aside for what might be called the widows and orphans--those odd things that, every couple of years or so, we need and hope to God we won't have to run to Menards or Office Depot to get.  Think ream of paper, handful of screws, highlighters, and paper clips.  Like Rudolph's island of misfits (er, make that aisle of misfits), it's an easy aisle to miss, which is why I was so pleased to find it yesterday.

Scanning the myriad oddities, I found three options--three!--for paper clips--jumbo, color-coated and standard.  Settling on the standards, an odd thing happened when I grabbed the box of 200.  Immediately, I had the strangest feeling that this would be the very last time in my life that I would buy paper clips.  Ever.

Why, I wondered, would a box of paper clips cause me to have an existential moment, if not an actual full-blown crisis?  What was it about these ordinary items that jarred loose the notion that I would not always be here?

I suspect that, had there been only 50 in the box, my life would not have flashed before my eyes.  Likely, nothing would have flashed before my eyes, and I'd have scratched myself, yawned a bit and tossed them into my cart, zombie-like in my uncaring.

Apparently, 200 is my mortality-rate tipping point for paper clips.  Which makes sense, if I generally use 5 a year, because I can't imagine myself as a 98-year-old person heading to HyVee to get some more.

Maybe this explains my lifelong resistance to big-box stores. 

Most people love big-box stores for all those eye-popping savings wrapped up in mind-boggling quantities.  I hate them, though.  I always thought I hated them because they were big and  crowded and it was weird to be able to buy trampolines and t-bones all in the same place.  Now, though,  I think maybe it's because big-box stores are overwhelming reminders that I'm going to die and there ain't no way I'll be able use 400 rolls of scotch tape between now and then!

Before heading to the checkout lane, I had a fleeting, secret longing.  Safety pins!  Rare and precious, I can recall only three safety pins that I've had in my house in the past 20 years.  I have no idea how any of them came my way, but the two larger ones frequently accompanied me to work, holding together a gaping shirt or keeping closed another buttonless pair of pants, so that I might keep my job.  I'd be hard pressed to find even one of those safety pins today.

Alas, HyVee doesn't carry safety pins.  Thank goodness I'm so over caring about bulging button-ups and dysfunctional denims!  Now, I've just got to be really careful these next thirty or so years.

Making a Clean Sweep

My Defcon 5 kitchen sink.

In my house, the level of cleanliness generally confers the depth of friendship between us.  Below is the chart I use before pulling out the vacuum from the closet.

DEFCON 1: Cocked pistol--maximum readiness and immediate response.

For distant relatives or practical strangers I'm forced to entertain, I have (somewhat grudgingly) pulled out all the stops, Holt-style.  That means I will have dusted and vacuumed that day, picked up the kitchen and wiped down the counters that day, cleaned the first-floor bathroom with actual products as well as swapped out the dirty hand towel for one with fewer stains and holes--again, that day, and vacuumed the fur balls off the stairs.  Depending on the time of year and the level of judgment I anticipate, I may even spritz the kitchen-sink window to try to get rid of some of the water spots on it.

DEFCON 2: Armed forces ready to deploy and engage within 6 hours.

If you are a new friend, or a person I hope will become a friend, you will be greeted by a living room whose rug bears recent vacuum streaks and whose fireplace mantel has been pretty much swiped of dust.  Evidence of Finn will be limited to his actual body, all fur piles either in the vacuum bag or kitchen garbage can.  You will find the kitchen tidy and wiped down and the stove top scrubbed to the point where the marks that remain are simply unremoveable.  Believe me, I've tried!   I'm willing to spend a little more time on the kitchen because we likely will spend some social time there. The first-floor bathroom will smell of 409 and soap, and the towel will be folded smartly atop the rack, though you still will feel awkward using the bathroom, since it is tiny and has two doors that seldom close at the same time.  Some things cannot be addressed without a contractor and a good loan.

DEFCON 3: Ready to mobilize in 15 minutes.

For old friends who are stopping by for a visit, Finn fur has been picked up, by hand, and thrown into the library garbage can.  Dirty dishes are loaded into the dishwasher.  While the kitchen counters may show evidence of morning's toast crumbs, visitors will still feel relatively confident that they will not contract anything serious by eating or drinking whatever is offered.  The bathroom also can be used with relative confidence.

DEFCON 4: Above-normal readiness

Neighbors popping over for a beer will be greeted by minor tweaking. The dining-room table is mostly cleared, Finn fur is visible along the floorboards, although the most copious piles have been shoved into a dark corner near the church pew.  Dirty dishes are neatly piled on kitchen counters and spaghetti-stained kitchen towel has been swapped out for a clean one.  Magazines have been stowed in drawers although the morning's half-done crossword sits pathetically atop the footstool in the library.

DEFCON 5:  Lowest state of readiness

Here for a game of Scrabble?  Virtually no effort has been made to impress you.  After all, what's the point?  If you are thirsty or hungry, you will have to serve yourself and be willing to rinse out a glass or fetch a dirty fork from the dishwasher.  Likely, you also will have to flush the toilet before you use it.  Best to just go ahead of time.

It's with some trepidation that I share this chart with you, especially if you will be coming over some time in the next year.  What if you consider me a good friend yet you find my house sparkling clean when you pop in?  Will such foreknowledge threaten our friendship?  Will you be offended that the toilet has been swished, the dog hair hidden away?  My hope is that you'll excuse me for the transgression and trust that I'll do even less for you next time.  You are a good friend, after all. 

Naturally Inclined

Last night, I fell asleep imagining myself floating face down, in warm, salty Caribbean waters,  my eyes taking in the coral wonderland beneath me.  Beats the heck out of an Excedrin PM, that's for sure.

In the last dream I had this morning, I was playing pickleball with Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and Reese Witherspoon.  Pete kept bumping into the net, which was somehow both annoying and kind of charming.

I woke with a smile and a sense of calm.

Maybe that's why I was so aware of all the wonders outside this morning--the bright bend of late-winter light, the nervous robins flittering in our crab apple tree,  the call of a lone goose looking for its peeps.

Relentless news cycles and bullying buffoons can wear a person down.  But, just when I fear my edges are disappearing for good, I find myself redrawn in sunlight and fresh air.

Ten minutes into this morning's walk, I felt my circuits restart.  A low thrum ran through me, as real as the traffic on "O".  As we strolled the path, Finn found a hundred smells that I could only imagine, and I was happy to just stand there and watch his amazing snout soak it all in.  I kept eyeing the trees, hoping to spy a sleeping screech owl wedged perfectly into a carved out knot.  It's a bit of an obsession of mine, these days.  Just last week, while exploring tree limbs for signs of animal life, I found a large opossum slumped over a high branch, worn out, it seems, from living life as an outlier.

We wandered past a dozen bluejays pestering the squirrels, squirrels chittering at the robins, robins freaking out about who knows what, and who knows what churning up little piles of fresh dirt alongside the sidewalk.

It took us 45 minutes to walk a path that normally can be done in 25.  But there was nothing normal about this beautiful morning, bright and new, taut with the news of something else altogether,  waiting just around the corner from us.

Not My Type

In June of 1980,  I graduated from high school and the world was forever changed--but not because I graduated.

Duh! 

That same month, Ted Turner rolled out CNN, the first 24/7 all-news network the world had ever seen.  Well, I didn't actually see it, since we didn't get cable for a long, long time.  Prior to CNN, though, I doubt any of us had thought of anything in a "24/7" kind of way.

Thanks, Obama.  Er, Ted.

Since that dubious rollout (Ted's, not mine)  things have been a shipwreck.   I mean, what could possibly happen to journalists--the keepers of the gate!!--when someone leaves the damned gate open all night long?!?   I'll tell you--mild cramping and raging diarrhea, that's what! . . . and journalists have pretty much been pooping their pants ever since.

For reasons both personal and professional,  I've been thinking a lot about life in journalistic terms, most of them typographic.

Two terms, in particular, keep popping up in my noggin--kerning (the space between letters) and leading (short e--the space between lines).

KERNING (the space between individuals)  

Whathappenstomeaningwhenwelosethespacebetweenthings...Howdowedecidewhatismostimportantifeverythingistreatedthesame?

The endless pipeline of news does nothing to truly inform our citizenry. We need to return to the days when a group (yes,  journalists--I still believe in their integrity) acts as gatekeeper, determining which stories we see and which ones die on the newsroom floor.  I understand that this is an ironic statement, considering that news organizations helped create this kerning disaster.  But the current situation--in which everything is equally weighted and all are welcomed through the gates--is not helpful to anyone but those who are in power.  

And most of us aren't in power.  

LEADING (the space between lines)

When it comes to problems that arise from managing the space between lines,  I lay much of the blame at the feet of 'social' media. What audacity, using that term 'social,' when it's clear that social-media sites too often encourage the exact opposite of social living--each of us huddled, alone, in our living rooms, staring into our laps, while Facebook and Twitter build coalitions of sameness until we can hardly imagine 'the other' as human at all.

Too little leading and we become claustrophobic.  Too much leading and we don't hear or recognize each other.  

In typographical terms, here's where we find ourselves these days:

Make America great again!

We are a country of immigrants!

What happens when we build too much room between ideologies?  Too often, we just quit listening to the other and, instead, paint them with a broad brush, which is pretty much the same as brushing them off altogether.  

God bless George Tuck and his harder-than-I'd-have-thought Typography class!  It was there that I learned that spacing is an art, that we can lose meaning when we cram things too close together, just as we can lose touch when we space things too far apart.  It was there, in my Typography class four years after the birth of CNN, that I learned to consider the space between things--and how important that space can be.  

As we kick off a new decade, I offer a toast--Here's to the chance to learn those typography lessons all over again.   Because, if we don't take the time to learn about the art of kerning and leading--honoring the spaces between things--we likely will find ourselves both asthmatic and antipathetic, unable to breathe and unable to care about each other.  And I just can't abide such a life.  

Striking My Funny Bone

The things that elicit tears are not, for the most part, mysteries--loss, pain, ragweed.  But the sources behind laughter?  Their iterations are as varied as M&M flavors.  So, how do I explain all those giggles and guffaws from Friday night's co-worker Christmas gathering?

It wasn't one thing, that's for sure.

Turns out, humor, like a three-course meal, is a multi-layered thing, even if the results seem simple and pure.  And, like food, our personal tastes influence our reactions to it.

For instance, while I'm a nut for word play, physical humor and a well-told story, if there were a humor food truck called F Bombas, I'd likely drive on by.  Despite my ruddy, sturdy look, I'm a delicate creature when it comes to stimulating my funny bone.  A proliferation of swearing, like too much almond extract, is a turnoff for me.  Plus, it seems like cheap writing.  Although there has been one exception in that department--Hugh Grant's f-bomb rat-a-tat in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" cracks me up every time!

When I review the recipe for Friday night's fun, some common ingredients emerge--likable people, comfortable surroundings, good food, bad puns.  Interestingly, only one of those ingredients has its roots in humor.  Giggles, it seems, come more easily when mixed with some sort of behind-the-scenes bubble-inducing elixir--a baking soda for the soul, if you will.  Trust comes to mind as just such an ingredient.

A truly funny evening starts with a teaspoon of trust, ensuring that everyone--even the introverts (especially the introverts)--can have the stage at some point.   With trust in place, humor can flex its many muscles.

I've got a great friend--deeply respected in her profession and the larger community--whose dance moves leave me breathless and drunk with joy.  Another can rattle off a seemingly endless string of rotten puns--regardless of topic--leaving the rest of us vacillating between thoughts of violence and hopeless, joyful surrender.  And a well-timed sideward glance or eye roll?  Priceless!

Yes, there are limits (see F-Bombas).  And, while we are free to delve our own depths of weakness for material, we should be wary of such spelunking of others' lives.  Unless those folks are famous (see New York Times v. Sullivan, 1964).  Regardless of the target, though, mean humor runs its course quickly and leaves a person feeling kind of dirty and depleted.

The best humor lightens and connects us, like a perfect meal enjoyed in good company. 

Words into Being

Masting (noun)--The synchronous production of many seeds. 

So I wasn't dreaming!

Those swamp oaks at Woods Park really were cranking out the acorns this fall.  And now I have the word that has nudged my observations into being--masting.

Isn't that the way with words?  That things or processes take on life and meaning when there is a name for them?

I think of how excited I was recently when my friend Steve shared the article about masting.  Suddenly, my casual observations had hard science and an easy-to-remember word to back them up.  And I like that word, masting.  It evokes a sailboat to me, with its sturdy center pole transforming cloth and wind into engine.  An untethered sail, after all, might as well be a bed sheet.

Because I have a tendency to anthropomorphize everything, I readily assign trees brains and personalities, as well as the ability to communicate and feel (although, again, the science kind of backs me up here).  But, carrying over the sailboat theme, I can see trees as masts themselves--not only their sturdy trunks as mast (an easy comparison) but, now,  this periodic, almost gaudy overproduction of acorns--the masting--becomes  a kind of sail that propels these trees into the future.  And this act of masting clearly is about the future.

And the fact that masting is synchronous--that all of the oaks in an area overproduce during the same year?  Well, I can practically hear them chattering to each other!  German forester and biologist Peter Wohlleben calls that chatter--carried out by the fungal networks that move between trees' roots--the wood-wide web.  Ain't that a kick in the shorts?!   Granted, weather--specifically spring-time weather--also clearly is helping these trees to organize themselves.  And organize they must, since acorns don't just appear overnight.

Masting . . . it is a small word that ignited my imagination and made something real, even though it had already existed outside of my knowing it.  That gets me thinking about the incredible value of words, and what happens to us--or to nature or to anything else--when we possess or lack the words to name them.

Do things--or people--only exist when we know what to call them?  Certainly, it is easy to discount those things (or people) we do not know by name.    Conversely, there is deep joy in having mysteries unveiled in the naming of things.

I think back to Santiago, the first openly  transgendered student I'd met.  His was a journey I could not imagine, but when that name--transgendered-- finally appeared in our lexicon, it was no stretch of the imagination to predict the deep relief that must have washed over him, this name whispering him into being.  How many folks before him, spanning generations, had no name for themselves?

Name-calling is serious business.  Like masts and masting, this naming of things is all about how we move into the future.  We should take care to do it well. 

Gobble It Up

Thanksgiving always opens up an extra space or two in my heart.  (Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my pants, which seem doubly determined to remain true to the pesky number stamped on the little tag inside them.   I find that confounding, considering that most of my jeans these days are more plastic than denim . . . ).

But this is not a post about confounding things.  Rather, it is a list of suggestions, things we can do to keep those heart spaces opened up all year long. The framework for these reflections comes from an old railroad ad campaign--Stop, Look and Listen!  Really, that's good advice, no matter which side of the tracks you come from.

STOP!

Stop doing. 

No, really.  Just stop.  Too often, doing gets in the way of simply living.  Blame it on our obsession with filled calendars or our need for peer approval, but,  for some reason, Americans have decided that doing is the same thing as succeeding.  But, thinking something doesn't necessarily make it so.  Thank goodness.

To break out of that mindset, then, some time this year, stop working--not forever, but for a day or two, just long enough to go to Thedford (see left), where you will be lulled by the loping Sandhills, wooed by the winding Middle Loup, transported by the hum of endless trains.  Honestly, my clan did almost nothing there, but all of us would count it as one of the best vacations of our lives.

And, of course, you don't have to go to Thedford (although I think you should!).  The point is to step away from what you know and move into something different, something slower.

Stop clicking.

My life certainly hasn't gotten larger or better by clicking more.  Sure, I've gotten closer to the Amazon guy, but I've also ended up with more cardboard and crap. And less money in the bank.  Better to buy local, where the store isn't always open and you may not find everything you think you need,  . . . which is a happy, if not backwards, kind of fairytale ending in itself.

And if, in clicking, you hope to learn more about the world, I'd suggest logging off and turning a page instead.  Read a book, buy the newspaper, thumb through the National Geographic at the library.  Often, information that takes its time getting to us is more valuable and more valued.

LOOK!

Specifically, up.

A few years ago, I saw this meme about our love affair with cell phones.  Had the cellular apocalypse not already been occurring, I'd have called the meme 'prescient.'   There is no greater shame for me than to be caught looking at my stupid phone when someone is talking to me.  Alas, that shame probably seems quaint to others, since the act almost has become second nature.  But, really, there is nothing natural about our relationship with our devices.

Besides, if you fall into the trap of living a hunched-over, digitally-filtered life, you miss everything that's happening above you.  And--oh, my!--the view is really something!

There is no better way to start my day (and, if I can just tweak my schedule a bit, I'd add "end my day") than to be outdoors, following the sun.  In general, I'm a fan of looking up.  And, if you have a stiff neck, watching a sunrise or sunset doesn't even involve that much "up," considering that both take place on the horizon.  

A sunrise reminds me of the steadfastness of the natural world, regardless of what's happening in the news.  Time in nature slows me down and puts me on alert, all at once.  And I feel changed--every time.  It's a fine do over.  Maybe the finest. 

LISTEN! 

I once sat on our front steps, the thick summer evening sliding into a cool, calm night, and listened to earthworms move dirt.  I sat there, gape-jawed and mostly silent (a person can't just hear something like that and say nothing!), stunned to hear all of that life just under my feet.

A bit of a talker, listening, for me, is like writing or playing guitar or cooking--it requires some practice.  But all of that practice eventually leads to more interesting stories, better meals, longer jams . . .  and a quiet joy within me.

In listening, I make room for others, and--ironically--I find my own life stretched and changed a bit.  The more I listen, the more varieties of life I can see in this big, beautiful world.   A robin's frantic call on a summer's evening leads me on an owl hunt.  A friend's deep sigh tells me to be patient and let things be.  That one note in the song from "Cider House Rules?"--every time I hear it, it washes over me and I am moved.

The haunting musical note, the peculiar churrr of dirt overturning, the aching tone of a friend's recollection , the Robin's sharp trill of alarm . . . We can't know the stories unless we listen to them.

It is the soft edges of our silence that frame and enliven them. 

It is in our willingness to stop, look and listen that we find our hearts filled to bursting.

As for the jeans?  Well, that's what the button's for.