I was having my regular FaceTime chat with my mom yesterday. It’s mostly me chatting, hoping she’s listening on some level. It’s hard for her to engage in conversations now, but if she’s awake and alert, we sometimes have a moment.
I have an old piano songbook of hers called “Favorite Songs of the Nineties.” No, that’s not the 1990’s, it’s the 1890’s. Something made me think of that book, so I dug it out and started going through it with her. I’m a little surprised at how many of those old songs I know – at least the choruses.
“Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde, And the Band played on, He’d glide cross the floor with the girl he ador’d And the Band played on…”
The interesting thing about that book is that my dad went through it when he was somewhere in the process of his dementia journey. He was a band teacher back in the day, so the pages are filled with his notes, like “Start – in C (one step up) – ready – DONE.” Or “Play in C – OK in cut time?” He circled some of the chord notations and made some changes in the music occasionally. There was hardly a page that had not been touched by his band-teacher pencil.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do! I’m half crazy, all for the love of you! It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage, But you’ll look sweet on the seat Of a bicycle built for two!
I kept singing through the familiar ones and took a stab at the unfamiliar ones. My mom seemed to know most of them. She’d either hum along or she’d clap as I sang, if it was a peppy one. Sometimes we’d come to one at the top of which my dad had written a very commanding “NO.” I always told Mom about these prohibitive comments of his and wondered what it was that made him reject those songs. I came to “Give My Regards to Broadway,” and he’d written “T22 – chorus OK – swing it!” So I swung it.
Give my regards to Broadway, Remember me to Herald Square, Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street That I will soon be there; Whisper of how I’m yearning, To mingle with the old time throng, Give my regards to old Broadway And say that I’ll be there e’er long.
When I came to “Mary’s A Grand Old Name,” I HAD to sing it for my mom, since her name is Mary. I think sometimes she wished she didn’t have such a common name, and especially one that was associated with the old nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” The fact that she was a somewhat contrary person didn’t help. Dad’s notes on that one said “SWING.” All righty then!
For it is Mary, Mary, plain as any name can be; But with propriety, society will say Marie; But it was Mary, Mary, long before the fashion came, And there is something there that sounds so square It’s a grand old name.
We moved on from there to “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” which contains the line about dancing the Hoochee Koochee and being your “tootsie wootsie.” People just don’t talk like that anymore, do they? Imagine sidling up to someone at a dance and saying, “Hey, baby, let’s dance the Hoochee Koochee. I’ll be your tootsie wootsie!” I’m afraid that you’d be left standing by yourself. No, the days of Tootsie Wootsie are gone.
We sang a few more and finished up the concert with a rousing rendition of “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De Ay!” If you haven’t sung that before or heard it, you’re really missing out. There are a lot of verses which I skipped (per usual) and the chorus just repeats the title phrase eight times. I remember singing along on that one pretty gustily at home as a child.
I wonder if all these old songs will just fade away into oblivion. It’s not like they’re very high-brow like classical music. But there’s an energy and innocence to them that’s very appealing. By the time we finished, I felt like I’d spent a very pleasant hour with both my Mom and Dad.
I’ll probably just Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay this in the morning. If you don’t know what that means, I can’t help you.
Well, at least we won’t be confronted with political ads for awhile. We can all bow our heads in thankfulness for that, right?
Moving along, I came back from our extended time away with a renewed zeal to finish the watercolor painting course that I started in January. I sort of rushed through the last two projects. In fact, for the last one (“Oh, Deer!”) I couldn’t even be bothered to trace the original drawing onto my watercolor paper – I just eyeballed it, did a rough sketch and said to myself, “Good enough for rock and roll!”
I should explain that saying. We went to a concert years ago at which one of the performers was a guy from the rock band, Petra. He was tuning his guitar and after a moment declared, “Good enough for rock and roll!” I’ve taken that motto on for whenever I don’t feel like I need to strive for absolute perfection on something. In other words, most of the time. I’m more of a corner cutter. Sometimes it works out well, and other times…
“Owl Be Seeing You.” I didn’t name these, by the way. I’m glad you can’t see the original.
“Oh, Deer!” Looking at my rendition, it would really be more aptly titled “Oh Dear!” Something happened to the deer’s back that I can’t explain. And also the trees. But on the positive side, I got the first really good explanation of how to use masking liquid when painting.
Now it’s time to get back to my big project “A Year at Providence Place.” It’s been hard to recover from being gone for three weeks right after the first month.
If this post isn’t good enough for rock ‘n’ roll, I’ll go ahead and delete it in the morning.
Remember Tiddlywinks? It’s an old-fashioned game with a funny name. I had five children over at my house this afternoon and suggested that we play it. They looked at me quizzically – play what? I still have the set that we played with when I was young.
I probably wasn’t the best person to teach them since the only thing I remembered was that you use the big disks to try to pop the little ones (winks) into the pot. I looked it up later and the big ones are called “squidgers,” which makes the whole thing even better. The game has been around since 1888 and became a popular craze in the 1890’s.
The thing that struck me was how refreshingly simple the game was. Have you taken a look at board games lately? Gone are the games that you could learn in five minutes. We gave our son a board game last year called “Wingspan.” It’s a beautiful game, but it was stressful for me to try to learn. The rules were really complicated and hard to remember (I’m sure my age doesn’t help).
In my research I discovered that the modern version of Tiddlywinks uses far more complex rules and high-grade equipment. Bah, humbug. Just give me a squidger and let me try to get the wink into the pot.
I’ll probably squidge this post right into the Tiddlywink pot in the morning.
I went up to visit my friend Sara fairly soon after this and providentially this happened to be over Easter weekend. O, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. She informed me that she’d be attending a sunrise Easter service outside and did I want to come along. Hmm…getting up early – STRIKE ONE. It was going to be somewhat cold out. STRIKE TWO. And the Jesus thing. STRIKE THREE. “Sure, I’ll come,” was what came out of my mouth instead of “No thanks, I’ll just sleep in.”
Easter morning pre-dawn found us clambering up a hillside, grabbing hold of random trees branches for stability, and making our way through brush along the way. I was cold, I was tired and crabby and felt a little bit crazy for being associated with this small group of fanatics. We got to our destination and milled around uncertainly as the sun began to rise. Fortunately, somebody seemed to be in charge, a friendly guy wearing a bandana around his forehead. He read from the Bible, said some earnest things, and then (my memory is somewhat dim on this part) I think people hung things on a tree that had something to do with their faith. It’s possible that an impromptu hymn or chorus of praise was sung. I’m guessing there were prayers. There were proclamations of joy about the resurrected Lord. I didn’t participate, but was strangely moved by this joyous ritual. Suddenly it didn’t seem like I was surrounded by fanatics, but by people who knew something, or Someone, that I didn’t know.
A fresh breeze was blowing that morning – in the air and in my soul. I wasn’t a Christian when I went back down the hill, but I wasn’t the same person who had climbed up that hill, either.
Meanwhile in college, I took a physiology class as part of my major requirements. Learning about the different systems in the body and how intricate and incredible they all were, I marveled that all of this could have come about through evolution. I didn’t doubt evolution, of course, but it no longer seemed like an airtight theory. I was filled with wonder and wrote a poem.
She told me There’s a universe in All of us. Exciting, endless, It self-perpetuates And self-regulates, A feast of complexities. My mind stretches To imagine; to fathom What it does naturally. So fascinating, this Paradoxical search For the invisible pilot.
Ah, the search for the invisible pilot. A couple of months later, I wrote in my journal: “I find myself thinking constantly these days. No unusual in itself except that these are not the thoughts of an idle and trivial nature that are common in moments of repose. Instead, I have filled my head with beginnings. For instance, I am beginning to explore the possibilities of God in my life and what that could mean to me. I have many questions, twice as many doubts, and yet the thought persists and presents itself at odd times and issues its challenge to me.”
I should mention that it was sometime in this period that I took the infamous speech class in which one of my classmates gave an introductory speech telling us that the most important thing he could tell us about himself was his faith in Jesus Christ. This revelation made me roll my eyes inwardly, hoping we wouldn’t have to listen to this guy’s religious speeches all quarter long. The story of how I got to know that fellow and later married him has been told elsewhere (God, The Matchmaker), so I won’t belabor the point here, but this, too, was an important part of God’s strategic assault on my stubborn unbelief.
I was remarkably ignorant of the Bible and of Christianity, in spite of having had some church-going in my background. One time I was with a friend who was driving his parents’ car and saw that they had a small plaque adhering to their dash that said, “The King is coming.” I said, “I didn’t know your parents were Elvis fans!” He got a funny look on his face and said, “That’s in reference to Jesus Christ’s second coming.” Oops. Very embarrassing! Well, since he brought up the topic, I asked him a question that had been on my mind: if Jesus was so great, why did the Jews kill him? I could tell the question caught him off guard. Nevertheless, he rallied and gave a pretty good explanation.
I began writing letters to God in an attempt to start some sort of relationship with Him. I didn’t really know who He was yet, but I was yearning for…well, I didn’t know, but something, someone. An early prayer: “Please help me to be the person that you made me to be by keeping my mind open, my heart free, and my deeds good.” There was a place on campus down by the river that I’d go sometimes to pray out loud, feeling rather silly about it, but very earnest. I was reluctant to talk to others about my burgeoning interest in religion, and even more reluctant to talk about Christ. I had a set of ideas about avid followers of Christ, that most of them were “glass-eyed, tunnel-visioned fanatics.” I was afraid of losing credibility in the eyes of those who knew me. I feared losing their respect. Most of all, I feared losing myself. A whimsical poem I wrote as a letter to God expressed both my longings and my doubts.
Dear Deity of dubious gender: Show me your garden of infinite splendor. Tell me truly (between you and me) is being omnipotent all it’s cracked up to be? Give me a sign, not a bush all aflame, send me a breeze that whispers my name. Or maybe tomorrow when I open my eyes, bring me a mood to match the sunrise. You see, O Great One, I don’t lack respect, but without definition, what can you expect? I must also confess, I question with despair – can this nebulous concept even hear my prayers? Well, enough of my queries, but one last request: to the souls I know, please give my best. And if you should happen to pass through my town, I hope you’ll come see me and prove you’re a noun. Best regards, Lynn B.
Summer came, and with it came loneliness and loss. I’d become deeply attached to a close friend of mine and when he finally realized the depths of my feelings, he very kindly let me know that those feelings were never going to be returned, at least not in the way I had hoped. We parted ways and I was heartbroken. The few friends I had were busy with other things. When I wasn’t working, I retreated into more sad poetry and spent a lot of time playing the guitar and singing. In fact, singing had become a central part of my identity – it felt like all I had left of myself with everything else stripped away.
Right on schedule, I lost my voice. I had gotten laryngitis during a busy time at my job that required a lot of talking so I ignored the laryngitis and woke up one morning realizing I had no voice left. Nothing. The doctor I consulted told me that it might take two weeks to get my voice back and in the meantime, no talking, no whispering, no vocalizing whatsoever. As it turned out, it was 3 or 4 weeks before I could speak at all and complete recovery took a lot longer – I was unable to sing for about a year. It was the last brick needed to complete the little house of self-pity and misery that I’d been building. I didn’t see it at the time, but God, this canny God was backing me into a corner right where He wanted me.
I confided all my woes to my friend Sara, who by this time was a committed Christian. I was a weepy mess. Imagine my shock when she started laughing instead of coddling and consoling me. “Oh Lynn,” she said, “I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I can see so clearly what God is doing in your life and it makes me happy. He’s taken everything away that you thought you could count on in order to get you to look to Him.” Indeed! I can’t say I shared her mirth, but it took most of the pity out of my pity party and that wasn’t a bad thing. Privately, I thought if this was God’s way of doing business, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sign on the dotted line.
For those of you who have been following my blog for awhile, you’ll have noted a little repetition in this part – stories I’ve told before. But I wanted them to be put in the proper context within this larger story, so thanks for bearing with me.
I’ll probably delete this bad boy in the morning, but of course, the story will live on.
If I told you that the setting sun was a giant pumpkin in the sky, would you have any evidence to the contrary? I suppose you’d regurgitate all sorts of science-y sounding jargon about giant balls of gas. But then you’d be guilty of killing a metaphor. And how would you be able to look yourself in the mirror after that?
This message has been paid for by People for the Ethical Treatment of Metaphors.
If I delete this post, will I have metaphorical blood on my hands?
Lynniebeemuseoday 