Something Simple

Here it is, right off the bat; put the words "The Amazing" in front of your name and see how it feels. It throws waves of embarrassment over me badly enough that I want to cry and hide, that there is a falsehood, a bold lie that no one in their proper mind would connect with me.  So, where did this fountain of unease come from?

Since attending college in my later years, I was expected to and thereby taught myself to read introductions in books; the early 18th century authors would write one as an apology, an explanation to their audience that the ideas and stories presented were worthy, however, the writer expressed his, (at the time women were considered hysterical ninnies; but in truth I have found that hysterical ninnies still and will always exist in any gender), concern that the intention of the book was for safe amusement, and hopefully not a path to jackanapery and gin by hoodwinking gentle folk away from embroidery or shoeing the horse.

When I was younger (pre-40), introductions seemed to be paragraphs strung together as so much farfel that wasted reading time before getting to the solid part of the book, and that by reading, I could divine what anyone would pre-say about it, especially if the intro was written by a supposedly notable being who I imagined was a paid shill. Reading an introduction was like going for the thinner shell of a hollow chocolate rabbit before the solid ears; why bother? Just snap the head off before your brother found your bunny and claimed it for himself. We were the House of Headless Rabbits, sort of a French Revolution variant of Easter warfare. 

My skepticism of verity or that a writer could be friends with anyone tamped down the idea that these beginning pages were anything more than a snare--"introduction by Truman Capote", "by Hippocrates", "by the sentient culture growing in the refrigerator that used to be a casserole"--which also padded the book with a number of pages. Writer friendships are difficult, as there is a disposition of the job which needs the concocter to sit alone for weeks, living off of the occasional pet that has the misfortune to wander by. Erudition may not be enlightenment, but more related to indigestion combined with a misdirected pledge to set things right. Opinions. What makes you think that yours is the right one and that you are no more than a member of a gaggle? Well, that's another story to fume over.

More recent, in the past few years, we have been dragged across the cheese grater of introduction blended with saccharine, sappy blathering by authors touting how the family barks for Mom's Special Corn Pie, just like from the olde days when grandpa brought in wood for the fire and Aunt Melda wore her favorite slippers. "I had to fight my husband for the last piece." (See bunny ears, par.2, above). Thank the heavens that there usually is a small button at the top of the article saying "Jump to Recipe", which helps you avoid being hit directly with a cannonball of smarmy, unctuous discharge. No getting completely away, you may yet be sprayed with emotional oozings but you can armor yourself with any newspaper headline ahead of time. 

My goodness, I just wrote an introduction. Yikes.

This morning I picked up a book, and in a flurry of thoroughness taught by my British Lit of the 1700s professor, read the intro. The minor epistle was no more than a rah-rah section of How My Life Turned Around Because of This Book by an invited entity, who is now an instructor for the method. This developed into a hoity-toity suspicious attitude on my part, but I continued on to more meowings and thank yous to this or that, one or the other. Then a phrase caught my eye.

"And thank you to the amazing Carol Waggowitz, who blah blah blah and blah." Amazing? Carol is amazing? Amazing is when you trip while carrying a cup of tea without disaster, or maybe a green lightshow in the sky called the Borealis. Can Carol catch a ball on the back of her neck? I can.  Maybe I am amazing also. Let's try it. "The Amazing..."

Holy molasses. What have I done that would be in that category? Yes, I have caught numerous bowls and cups that were then restored to stability. Maybe amazing, but fleeting and without note in the local paper. Yes, I had a baby, once bench-pressed 90 pounds, have had paranormal experiences, and came out of a horror of childhood, but to me, "Amazing" is a once every three hundred years flash in time. Not Carol, who may be a whiz at delegating jobs, meeting deadlines, or scamming hundreds of followers out of their simoleons, but she is just burning the candle at both ends either with caffeine or a Type A drive to plow her way to success. 

You want to see amazing humans, go watch silent film, especially comedian Buster Keaton. No CGI, few safety nets, mostly genius. 

But can you? Put those words in front of your name and face the feelings that erupt? Loss, failure, gender denial (yes, Dad, I'm a girl; sorry now stop buying me footballs and let me do science) (this is another can of worms), missed opportunity, depression, oppression, fear, mistakes and more mistakes. What makes us fabulous, besides a fairy godmother? Certainly not our own brains, which seem to be hellbent on killing whatever ember still glows under the ash.

Well, you try it and let me know. Am I making too much of a trite turn of phrase? I just know that I am not even close to being so, unless you go into the "we are stardust" area of life, when perhaps we were once charged particles blown by the solar wind through the magnetosphere.  Now that would be amazing.

We are headed towards the winter solstice, when the tilt again will accommodate returning sunlight ever so slowly; we gain a half hour of illumination by the end of January. But now, right now, sleep is one of the most lovely of domains, a pile of blankets a blessing.  Prepare yourself for sleep, starting soon after 7 o'clock, and the fractious cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla will cooperate with the hypothalamus and pineal gland to waft you softly, softly off to slumberland where the little silver minnows of dreams slide through currents and tides. Sleep well, I will watch for you.

Missing Peace

The epic stolen wallet story has been meowed to the tree tops, the store windows as I walk by, and the little worms in last year's apples.  In other words, it's over, with the gracious St. Anthony providing closure.  I was so happy.  Other people came forward with stories of this man coming up with lost rings and lost loves; I shall light a candle for him, which I did.

But how can this get better?  A STATUE!  You know Catholics, even a few of the lapsed ones, are big on representations of dead people who supposedly died in exceptional grace, and it's sort of like collecting Star Wars figures in my mind, no smirking intended because, boy, St. Anthony has come through enough to grant him some respect at this address.  A statue.  Someone to talk to besides cats.

From eBay, selection was easy, nothing too frou-frou, just a simple fella with the painted eyes looking in the same direction.  Representations have St. Tony holding a stem of lilies for his purity, and often a baby Jesus who was found in his arms while having a vision.  Don't forget that the man was ill most of his life, and was treated by medieval medicine based on the Greek idea of your humors out of whack.  Blood letting, rubbing a lump of lard on the patient then feeding it to a dog.  Well, you see.  The deck was stacked against living very long, for those remedies are as effective as butter on a burn.  Like Mom did when the iron left a red streak on my hand. Big fat double spoonful of nope.  But maybe they give you visions.

I waited for the box.  I waited for the cat food and cat toys which were to be delivered by the carrier that isn't the postal service.  The seller's feedback button fussed and harrumphed, let's get on with it, already.  Then came the notice!  Delivered!  Yay!  But to whom and where are a mystery.  Tweren't me.

A case of cat food, a cat playhouse, and two cat toys were missing from my door in the apartment building besides the 3 pounds of St. Anthony statue.  In my mind, and it has happened, the delivery was put at the right number door in one of the six other buildings.  I truly don't believe it was stolen by my neighbors, most everybody knows everyone else, yet, yes, there is the chance.

I let the pet company know, and their response was to send another duplicate order out to me, free of charge.  That's $70 worth of cat stuff.  This is the company known as Chewy, and brother, they are a part of what is right with the world.  I'm still embarrassed that they did that, but maybe their losses create a substantial tax write-off.  The gesture gave me warm fuzzies, and the cats, well, they are busy playing cat boss with their new fort.

But the other seller, who mailed St. Anthony out on his pilgrimage to my home; they are investigating through the carrier whose name begins with F, and hopefully the GPS or satellite eyeball in the sky will figure out where the package was left.  Not every neighbor in every building has golden wings of honor, and maybe this was a delightful gift of manna from heaven for someone and their own cat.

Maybe it was their poor little scruff of purr who's fed leftover noodles, and the owner saw this as an opportunity to better the feline menu, also with a catnip stuffed raccoon, and a cat fort.  Maybe they recently turned a corner and could use a saintly resin reminder that this ain't all about their own miseries.  Maybe they lost the last written note from a love who went to Greece to teach belly dance and would like to find it to put under a pillow.  I don't know, but maybe that load of stuff was needed elsewhere.

Yet to me, this speaks of irony.  My St. Anthony statue, who is accorded as the finder of lost things, is itself gone with the wind.  Lost.  It's a shame that the small business on eBay is going through a search and rescue, as am I, EXCEPT from this end, Fedex does not want to know anything about me.  Because a signature was not required, they claim no responsibility for where the package was left, which to me is a bunch of hooey.  I know the seller mailed Tony out, I know it wasn't received at my end of the transaction, and can only hope he shows up somewhere.

The conundrum is, who to ask for help finding St. Anthony when he took a left turn at Albuquerque? It's the essence of self-help, asking Anthony to find Anthony, similar to myself at the end of high school, when no clue of who, where, what, or why appeared to magically take my hand.  Now that would be an interesting course of study for teens; what the hell are you supposed to do after taking that last step off the terrazzo floor outside the guidance counselor's office and into the real world if you weren't going to college?  How do you get to your goals?  St. Joseph, patron saint of jobs; St. Matthew, a tax collector for the Romans, the patron saint of finances.  The Archangel Chamuel is a patron of love.  That's enough to get you started; at least, started thinking about things and how to really get there.

I was up at 5 a.m. today to be ready for a doctor's appointment at a preposterous time with a bit of testing tossed in.  Makes for a long day, and the night now pulls at my coattails, whispering of jammies and a bit of a read before.  It's an odd winter, full of fog with smallish puddles of snow every so often, which means more mosquitoes next year if the weather doesn't get cold enough to freeze them off.  But, now it's time to gather the cats.

Sleep well and long, it is still winter, when the outside world bundles up while we watch through glass windows.  Cozy and dark, woolen afghans old as grandmothers and grandfathers, pillows and clocks, cars heading home, far-off channel markers sounding plaintively in the harbor, sleepy children, tired animals, both grateful for a place inside.  Let go the day, have saints and wishes paint your dreams. Good night.