Nothing Less than a Wonder

Nothing less than a wonder
To embrace the spoken word again
As recognition of an undeniable is
Rather than wilting wish
For what will not be.

25 Random Things

I was tagged for this exercise by Barry and by Becky, and blog-bud Buck's are up as well. So here goes. Here are the instructions (this will have a life both on the blog and on FaceBook, where both tags and the exercise originated):

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “NOTES” under tabs on your "PROFILE" page (you may have to add the tab by clicking on the + sign), click on "Compose New Message" and paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

25 Random Things About Me. Here goes:

1. Like most military aviators, I have a call sign. It's "Doc." Most of my skydiving friends don't even know my first name. Most of my non-skydiving friends have never heard of Doc. It's still funny to me to watch either group say, "Who?" when someone refers to me by the name they're unfamiliar with.
2. When I sneeze, I'm pretty sure the neighbors' (upstairs and through the side wall) china rattles. I know that you can hear me from at least one car back--my family makes a point of reminding me.
3. I shave with a mug and a brush. Back in the late 70's, hot lather dispensers were the newest gadgets. I've had hot lather virtually every shave since the first time I ever pretended with a plastic razor and Dad handed me down his brush. Some things technology can't improve.
   
4. But whipped cream out of a can is just fine. That I've been known to mainline.
5. The last time I wore my uniform was the day I gave my last final, last semester at the Citadel. If it stays the last time except for some future official ceremony, I will not be sorry. Thirty-one years is long enough.
6. I make kick-a** guacamole. It's the one real debt I owe my former mother-in-law. "People mess it up by complicating it." I complicated it tonight with cilantro, jalapeno, and powdered red savina peppers--but those are merely tonight's enhancements to the basic recipe Peggy taught me and that I've treasured for 25 years.
7. I haven't read anyone else's 25 things because I wanted mine to be pure. I'm looking forward to that later tonight.
8. I've performed onstage as "Curly" for two production runs of Oklahoma: Goldsboro, NC, in 1985, and Merced, CA, in 1987.
9. The funniest opening to an essay I think I've ever read was, "The subject of my S. A. is . . ." I don't remember anything from it after that. I was sitting in the auditorium watching others audition for Oklahoma when I graded it, and watching my future wife lose her role as Laurie by merely reading Ado Annie's part. She was freakin' awesome. The producer looked back at me from one row ahead, and I just said, "I know, I know. Now I'll have to kiss some other girl onstage." :-D
   
10. And in 1985, after moving to Merced and taking a role as a member of the chorus in a three-weekend run of Camelot (because I'd had the musical memorized since age seven and by the time I arrived in town, auditions were over and the principal roles filled), I filled in the second weekend as Lancelot because the principal had laryngitis. I had six hours to rehearse. I never missed a line.
11. I am not gay. Mom liked musicals.
12. I serenaded Tammy Bost with "If Ever I Would Leave You" at the ripe old age of seven, while her older brother and sister held her captive. I was a sucker for a pretty face from a very young age. Someone should have warned me.
13. I was 27 years old before I learned that my grandmother took her own life and older still before I really understood why Mom liked Camelot in particular.
14. My father is the closest thing to King Arthur I will ever know, and a better man than I expect to ever be.
15. The best grade I ever earned on an academic assignment was for my final paper in a technical writing class at the Academy. It was on hunting with a bird dog. The instructor put an A in the middle of the last page and plusses out to the margin. I think he liked it.
16. I believe in destiny,
    
17. because I've rolled a Spitfire with the top down,
18. thirteen days after cartwheeling an aircraft through the treetops.
19. And I've been struck by a water mocassin (leaving only two perfect holes, a slight scar and bragging rights, but no venom),
20. while I was trudging through a swamp to find the main canopy I'd cut away below a thousand feet less than an hour earlier. But I'm still here.
    
21. I had the highest IQ among those tested in my high school class. I was tested for admission to the Cullowhee Experience in 1974 because Ms. Strawser said, "I knew you had to be a genius because you have no common sense at all." At the time, that was accurate.
22. I met most of my best male friends in high school because we were pursuing the same girls.
23. I'm afraid of heights. But only when I'm below about 500 feet and not wearing a parachute.
24. I don't often drink alone, but tonight, I had a Vesper and a bowl of guac and chips to keep me company during this post. A textbook Vesper, right down to the champagne goblet. Vesper and guac alike are gone, and I'm done, save one final not-so-random thing:
    
25. I've felt like just about the luckiest guy in the world for almost a year now. She knows why I think that. I wish the same for all my friends.
    

And I'm not tagging anyone with this. My inbox is the equivalent of the dead letter office for chain mails and memes, but if you feel like sharing, you know I'd love to hear it.

Peace y'all.

Guest House

There are those to whom explaining ourselves is useless. There are those to whom we can explain ourselves and rejoice that they get it. And, for some lucky few of us, there are those who get it so well that they explain us to ourselves. This, from such a one to rescue me from my own all-too-frequent-lately dark days:

Of course there are days where you would feel depressed. You have had the rug ripped out from under your feet. It's the shock of facing of reality versus expectations you once had. At 49, you would have thought you would be willfully sharing your retirement and second career with the original Campbell Clan under one roof, that you would be there to coach into flight your youngest as she begins preparations for college, that when you came home there would be someone who had likely at least started formulating an idea about supper and who could not wait to see you, you thought you would be Christmas shopping for your wife and with your wife, you thought you would still be jumping out of airplanes (THAT is what is wrong with you right there), and you thought you would be living in a place surrounded by good friends. Even your transitional aspirations of a yellow walled cottage with a porch have shifted considerably.

Instead, you are working for peanuts, up to your eyeballs in debt, getting a divorce, living in a white walled box with just your dog, working for a place that pretends to be more military than it really is, you have no idea where you'll be next year, there is no warm body in your bed (regardless of whether it puts out or not), and when you walk in to your apartment it is the wrong kind of quiet. Both your kids live far, you are constantly shifting your schedule to put others' needs before your own, the weight of tax and divorce paperwork presses, student grading and curriculum planning presses, and day to day, you go without the healing touch of another human. Swats on the back don't count.

And with the diagnosis came a prescription:

You need to re-read Rumi's poem Guesthouse. It is just for times like these.

So, for those of you who've never read it, here is Rumi's "Guest House." Peace ya'll. Doc.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks
(from http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/guest_house.htm).

Once, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová

[Bumped and updated with clips from YouTube.]

Music is a theme we repeatedly return to here at They Rode On. Movies too. Occasionally, the two merge. The movie Once is one such instance. I might have missed it, but for a recommendation from fellow aviator and blogger, Lex.

I've said before that Adagio for Strings may be the saddest piece of music I know. There's a new contender for that title. "Falling Slowly," from this movie has an effect I can't really explain. It's not even the words. It happens every time that chord change comes leading into the chorus. Waves of almost overwhelming sadness. All in all, that's a pretty interesting accomplishment. Also worth adding to your playlists if you subscribe to any online music service that will allow you to listen to tracks you may not own are "When Your Mind's Made Up" and "Lies." There's a good write up on the artists, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, at Wikipedia.

"Falling Slowly":


"Lies":


"When Your Mind's Made Up":

The movie is wonderful. There's really nothing about it not to like (with the possible exception of some rather interesting cinematography wherein the image of the central subject is steady in the frame, but everything in the periphery jumps around in a way that makes you wonder if there's something wrong with your vision--you get used to it, but I'm not sure it really adds anything to the film). It's a movie about nice people, doing the right things, and having good things happen to them. If that sounds boring, then go rent something from Hollywood where affairs, betrayal, murder, bitterness and everything despicable in human nature is the norm (and if all of that wrapped up in one neat package appeals to you, then see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead--just get your affairs in order first).

For this film though, just throw a log on the fire, grab a blanket and a snuggle partner, and enjoy. Even though it may not end the way you want it to, one could make the argument that it ends even better--it ends the way it should. (And if it helps, you can always take consolation in real life, where the on-screen chemistry between Hansard and Irglová (according to Wikipedia) continues to this day.)


Doc's grade: a solid A.

Strings Through the Eye of a Ring

“He sketched for the sergeant a problematic career of the man before them, his hands drafting with a marvelous dexterity the shapes of what varied paths conspired here in the ultimate authority of the extant—as he told them—like strings drawn together through the eye of a ring” (Blood Meridian pg 84).

This quote came to mind tonight as I was thinking of the wonderful way in which so many different blogs connect through each of the blogs of their respective owners. Buck has a post up today of himself in Russian hat similar to mine. Jay dropped in and commented on the golf post below and next thing I knew I was learning the recipe for a new drink (which I will report on as soon as I procure more peppermint schnapps).

Finally, back in that same arena where I saw James Taylor a few months ago, I managed to make it out on the ice tonight for charity sake. I didn't mind that I fell once. What I wish hadn't happened is that I took out my date on the way down. The funniest part was lying there on the ice, looking over at my hand pinned between her and the ice and realizing I'd actually tried to catch her. It seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do. If you're going to knock a woman off her feet on the ice, the least you can do is offer any body part of your own that may cushion the fall. I don't think that hand helped a whole lot.

Interesting instance of convergence though: later at dinner, we ran into a couple with whom I ventured onto the ice three years ago--the only other time I've done so in the last four years. Just figure the odds. Life is strange that way.

All in all, a great evening, from ice skating to wine, dinner, unexpected meetings with old friends, and hours of smile-driven conversation that I was frighteningly disinclined to see end.

Blue skies! Doc.

Indescribable

I know that this blog has few readers who don't know me personally and who don't know where my life has been lately. So, let me share, just a little. I said on New Years this year, that I thought 2007 would be the most profound year of change I'd seen in as long as I could remember. It's shaping up that way.

I've been busy finding my way back to myself. I've been getting to know my daughters better than I ever have. More importantly, they've been getting to know me--not me filtered through anyone else's eyes, but through their own, seeing me, perhaps, in some ways, for the first time.

Anyone who knows me, knows I pretty much don't get nervous. I've crashed cars, experimental planes, come out of a coma that was supposed to be final, twice opened a reserve chute less than two seconds from impact (the last time, only a month ago). People asked if I was scared. The answer's always been honest--"Not really. I was busy."

Only twice in the last two years could I really confess to being no kidding nervous to the point of knowing it. The most fascinating thing about it is how much it's surprised me.

Once was orbiting a stadium packed with 50,000 people, waiting to jump in with my class flag. I'd planned that jump for more than five years. That the reality of it set my heart to pounding nearly out of my chest, with nearly 800 jumps behind me already then, was itself almost surprising enough to calm me down. I rarely even got excited about jumps any more, let alone nervous. Don't get me wrong, I love every jump. But mostly, they're calming now, centering more than exciting. I never did figure out what made that one so different. But I haven't forgotten the feeling.

Today, I've figured it out. That feeling's back. What it is, is the waiting. Having set events in motion that you've imagined again and again, the time almost here finally, yet nothing to do for the moment but orbit, door open, knowing you're about to step out into thin air again, but this time, into the irreconcilable flesh and blood of a reality you've imagined a thousand times. A thousand times a thousand. It's the waiting. Nothing to hear but the pounding of your heart in your own chest. A thing you've grown personally and professionally unaccustomed to. Ground rush is less frightening.

Today, I'm like the little boy, who having behaved badly in church, is being carried out by his dad, and passing the last pew, throws one last glance and plea to the parishioners, "Ya'll pray for me." I may not land on target this time. I may not land standing up. I might not, I'm afraid, even make the stadium. By I am, by God, going out the door the second that green light comes on.

"You know who you are."

Seasons of Love

I've been asked more than once to name my favorite season of the year. Enough times that for years now, I've had no trouble doing it.

My favorite season is: the beginning. I mean, when answering the question with regard to the calendar, those early days of every season when we first notice the change, embrace it even, as a welcome shift from something we've had enough of, finally, for at least one more year. Maybe that shift from autumn to winter, or from spring to summer is too subtle a thing to notice, really, a shift in degree more than kind. But those other two, we all feel, and most, I think, welcome. That initial bright day after the long, cold hibernation of winter when we notice the first green buds springing from gray branches and can finally step out the door without a coat and scarf, and the sun seems once again to hint at the days soon when it will light the world head on, rather than from around some cloudy corner. I like winter, I love snow, I find grey days, like Thoreau, more favorable for reflection. But, by the time spring comes, I'm ready for it. That's a real change, a beginning. The slide from spring to summer is a thing more subtle, insidious even. A first day may even escape notice; rather, suddenly, one day, we'll realize it's been summer for a week already, or longer. The same for that slide into gray and cold that doesn't so much mark the beginning of winter as let us know that we've been there for days or weeks already.

But autumn. Perhaps my single most favorite memory of the first home I ever owned is wrapped up in that beginning. I can remember sitting on the street in front of my townhome, the top down on a Carmine Red 1975 Triumph Spitfire, James Taylor's Dad Loves His Work in the tape deck, a glass of Dry Sack Sherry in my hand, and a cool breeze on my face. I probably sat there because, as yet, I had no patio furniture for my deck, nor even a couch for my living room, or table for the dining room. But no matter. From the deck, I would have missed the slant of the sun through the water oak and the rattle of the leaves on the pavement. Had I not been where I was, the smell of leather might not be so inextricably linked to those first days of fall for me.

Relationships have beginnings as well, but exciting as they are, I think I would say my favorite season in relationships must be autumn. Having survived the fragile excitement of spring and the turbulent storms of summer, those that make it to autumn are special indeed. Having made it that far, there is little doubt that they will last to the end of our winter as well. And just as with the calendar, there is something noticeable in those first days of a friendship's autumn, something softer about the light each brings to the relationship, something comfortable in the way an autumn friend wraps your heart in a blanket of acceptance. Like the cold air chilling the skin of your face while your body is safe and warm under a blanket at a mid-November football game, every other human interaction serves only to accentuate the warmth and safety of that friendship.

I closed an e-mail to one of those friends today with an expression, "Autumn hugs," that conflates both aspects of that season, calendar and relational, and that encompassed so much for me that I felt compelled to explain it. I share it here, only because, so far as I can tell, the limited audience of this forum hasn't expanded beyond a small circle of very close friends, all of whom can appreciate it. And though I may share it, the mental image it describes will always be inextricably linked to the friend that inspired it.

I think of an autumn hug as one of those moments we wish would last forever, outside on a deck in the slanting, yellow, muted light of late afternoon, paired glasses of some rich, buttery, cool chardonnay sitting on the rail, both persons in sweaters, melting into one another in no hurry, arms all the way around, one hand in the center of the back, the other gently stroking the back of a head, fingers entwined in hair, and a gentle, crisp breeze fanning that long hair across my face, the scent of which forms a medley with perfume, the just now decaying leaves and the hint of someone's first-of-the-season lighting of an upwind fireplace. A hug no special thing motivated. A hug that doesn't need to lead to anything else. The hug, the moment, the memory in the making of two hearts beating next to one another, is all. That kind of hug.

I will miss that this season.

And to accompany this rumination on seasons, I offer the following song from the musical Rent, which as soon as I hit "publish," I intend to watch, finally, having driven out to rent it between paragraphs above. Regardless of what the rest of this film does or doesn't have to offer, that one song is as good an anthem to friendship as has ever been written.

Here's wishing you all lots of those hugs.

Arwen

Just in case anyone needs a reminder of what it feels like to love and be loved. Balm for the heart. Enjoy.


All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
---J.R.R.Tolkein

Boys & Girls & Minefields

I recently reconnected with a longtime friend, but one with whom I'd lost touch. We were (or seemed, we're both now learning) more comfortable around one another than any other two people I know of opposite gender who find one another attractive. We were remarkably capable of interacting on, and moving fluidly through, a full spectrum of relationship levels without the usual stripping of mental/emotional gears, and subsequent stagnation at one level or another, that usually takes place in such inter-gender friendships. It has taken us a quarter-century to learn that neither of us was as nonchalant as we seemed to the other. That shouldn't be surprising. But the most remarkable thing about that, is that whatever trepidation we might either have felt at each beginning or shift in levels, the appearance of calm and comfort at the outset of each became reality with astonishing rapidity. That is, the successful concealment of gastrointestinal butterflies became their effectual banishment.

That learning though, that all was not as it initially appeared so long ago, has led us both to a better understanding of what our own children now face as they enter the frightening world of dating. From a mother's perspective, that realization reads like this:

Too often, perhaps we don't realize that the male partner in [a] relationship might be feeling a little insecure or completely intimidated as well. I have always, because of my own insecurities, assumed the complete comfort level of the guy. It is nice to realize now (through someone who should know how guys can feel) that my sons will be nervous, perhaps feel in over their heads, in deep water, etc. in their relationships sometimes. It sounds idiotic for me not to have been acutely aware of that, but they often seem so "overly-confident" now, that I forgot to realize that this may not be the case, and especially in matters of the heart.

It was that remark about sons seeming "so 'overly-confident'" that got me thinking about how the whole dynamic works. So, being a teacher, and firmly believing that the most effective instruction usually involves analogies (because it enables us to move from the old known to the new concept with more ease), my mind started making analogies as I read the message above. (That they are military analogies should come as no surprise to anyone. It is no accident that one of the best known cliches of all time firmly yokes love and war in relation to fairness.)

Here is the conclusion I reached: Relationships are like minefields, at least when we're young. No matter our sex, they are minefields pure and simple. Step wrongly, and you might not lose a leg from the knee down, but you'll sure lose your self-esteem. At the time, that seems even worse. So, we see them the same, whether we're a boy or a girl, but we react differently. That's where the hormones and hardwiring come in. (And that I can write a phrase like "hormones and hardwiring," in all seriousness and without reservation, hesitation, or guilt, goes a long way to explain why "politically correct" is a phrase seldom uttered in connection with my name.)

Women step carefully, gingerly, more slowly, but apparently methodically, because you're nervous and a little frightened about where to step next, but you believe it's probably worth the risk to get to the other side. Men watch that and mistake that deliberation for confidence and poise. It looks to us as though you know where to step next, know where you're going.

Men--because our dominant hormone is testosterone, and its dominant manifestation is action dammit!--run. We run, full tilt, across the minefield, with apparent abandon, because we're nervous and a little frightened and have little idea where to step next, but like you, believe it's probably worth the risk to get to the other side, and since we don't know where to step, one footfall is as risky as the next, and the faster we run, the more quickly it'll be over, dammit, whatever the result. Women watch that and mistake our speed for courage or confidence or both. It looks to you as though either the minefield doesn't concern us in the least (which leaves us open to accusations of insensitivity more often than courage), or else we know exactly where we're going and where to step in order to get there.

There are exceptions, of course. Any generalization invites exception. There are some confident men and women. And there are some men and women who recognize masculine bravado and feminine deliberateness for the charades they are. But I think, in general, the description above is useful in explaining both our sameness and our difference, on the very broad scale. Thus, like any generalization, it is useful only so long as you remember it is just that, a generalization.

Jerry Springer U.

One more reason why dating between Carolina and State students is a bad idea. I'm sad to say my Tar Heel boy comes off looking the worst between these two.

Jerry Springer U.
Even in this era of students posting intimate details of their lives online and in a season when students have shown no shame about posting photographs of offensive parties online, “The Pit Breakup” stands out:

Ryan Burke, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, invites his girlfriend from North Carolina State University to meet him at the Pit, a central meeting point on his campus, for a Valentine’s Day surprise. She arrives and finds hundreds of students (some estimates top 1,000) whom he had invited via Facebook. Her boyfriend starts by introducing an a cappella group — not to sing some romantic melody, but the Dixie Chicks’ defiant hit “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice.”

When the song is done, Burke tells his girlfriend that she has been unfaithful and that he’s dumping her. They exchange harsh words — several of them four-letter epithets — while the audience watches, laughs and jeers. At one point, the crowd starts chanting “slut, slut, slut” at the woman. She fights back (verbally), telling her by-then-ex that if he needs an audience to break up with her, he must have the problem. Many of those watching have cameras and are filming throughout, and numerous videos quickly end up on YouTube, where in less than two weeks they have attracted more than 500,000 viewers — along with parody videos, Facebook groups pro and con, and much debate.

More at Inside Higher Ed, Jerry Springer U

The Real World

My apologies for my absence this last week, but Valentine's Day and my lovely spouse's birthday fall within the same seventy-two-hour span and demand my full attention. It's worth it. But it puts a dent in my attention to the digital world.

I will say though, for my thousands of readers in Colorado Springs (I could be overestimating that by 999 or so), there's a new restaurant on the block that is going to be a success and then some. Plate Cuisine opened back around November and it is, by far, the best thing going on the north end of town. We've been there for drinks and made dinner of the appetizers from the bar menu while tucked into a cushiony corner with friends and racking up a respectable bar tab. And Wednesday, we visited for Valentine's dinner, having made reservations a month ago. I can't recall having had, ever actually, so exquisite a meal for so reasonable a price.

We began (well, okay, I began with Woodford Reserve, it having recently begun to rival Russell's Reserve as my favorite bourbon, since a friend recommended Woodford during a rum tasting a few months ago at The Blue Star) with appetizers of lobster bisque for her, Ahi sashimi and seared foie gras for me. We followed that with a jicama salad with cilantro/habanero dressing for her and a more mundane yet delicious traditional Caesar with white anchovies for me. Normally, we would have ordered different things as a main course and shared, but neither was willing to budge from the Chilean Sea Bass in an ever-so-delicate lobster cream sauce, which turned out to be the right call, since neither would have really wanted to sample or share had the other ordered something else. For dessert, a chocolate torte and a classic creme brulee with coffee was a perfect finish. The entire meal was complimented by glasses of Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay (there are few wine cellars in Colorado Springs to rival The Blue Star's, and Plate's doesn't begin to, but the cooks--ah, they're really on a par, I think, and Plate may even have an edge). The more I think of it, the more impressed I am with this new kid on the Colorado Springs culinary block. I've paid twice or three times as much for meals in Napa or Sonoma that weren't a whit better, and maybe not so good. Plate Cuisine wins my highest recommendation.