Pensive Person's Open Salon Blog

For Mr. Rogers on His Birthday

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:03:18 -0400

When I discovered that today would have been Fred Rogers's 85th birthday, I knew I could not let the day go unnoticed. Yet, even though Mr. Rogers and his neighborhood were instrumental in my development and continued growth as a man, I cannot find the words to say what I want to say. My attempt will be feeble; this is something suited for a poet, which I am not, but I'm going to shake the magic Boggle box of letters and see what words come pouring out.

"All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we’re giving or receiving a sweater, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That’s one of the things that connects us as neighbors — in our own way, everyone is a giver and a receiver.” --Fred Rogers

Spend an hour in a shopping mall, a Wal-Mart after 10 p.m. on Friday, or a few hours at an event populated with hordes of teenagers--you will witness some truly awful behaviors. When my brain is teeming with all of the quasi-abusive things I witness at any of these venues, and my body just aches with a hurt caused by our own cruelty toward one another, I have been known to turn on a re-run of Mister Rogers. As a childless man in his mid-30s, this may raise a few eyebrows; yet, I don't care for doctors and their magic green pills, so a few episodes of Mr. Rogers hanging out with Yo-Yo Ma or feeding his fish, and I feel like I had been sucking down a tasty Prozac, chocolate milkshake.

He gives me a renewed sense of man's capacity of kindness and empathy, and then I attempt to model that in my own day to day existence.

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” --Fred Rogers

I cannot imagine it was always easy for Mr. Rogers to share his sensitive side with the world. His speech to Congress for Public Broadcasting practically brought politicians to tears; and I know for certain that there were more than a few Daytime Emmy's soap opera actresses with smeared mascara as he was granted a lifetime achievement award and spoke of television's responsibility to teach the world's children the simple concept of love.

“Listening, as far as I’m concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying “I love you” is being a receptive listener…Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors." --Fred Rogers

He responded to a need in our world, and though he waged an uphill battle that constantly seemed to move to higher ground, and with every step in those comfortable shoes, he would end up taking two steps back--he never stopped responding.

When the shootings occurred at Columbine High School, it was to Mr. Rogers many turned to for a response. He was often the voice for the children; it was he who tried to bring a sense of sanity to an insane world.

A reporter asked him, "What should parents tell their children?"--his response: "Tell them to keep their eyes on the helpers." Not to concentrate on or glorify the emptiness of violence and the darkness of blame, but to look at the power of compassion and love of those who simply tried to help during an awful time in the world of children.

When I think of the tragedy of Sandy Hook or the myriad other school shootings, I cannot help but notice the emptiness. The emptiness of one who is the voice of comfort to the children; we have the politicians and the psychologists and the poor families in their grief trying to find healing, but who has been asked to offer words of wisdom to help heal the world of children? Who will be the next voice that will be listened to and respected in these times of crisis?

I never knew I could miss a man I never met as much as I miss him today.

Free: pieces of self looking for a good home

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:01:36 -0500

Being on the verge of tears for seemingly no reason while at work is definitely inappropriate.

Feeling the warmth building at the bottom of my eyes, threatening to escape, trying to push a little closer to spill down my face--to get out--to plead with me to run for the hills and never look back.

When a person invests the prime of his youth doing something that only brings him heartache and sadness, he looks in the mirror and sees how old he has grown, how tired, how disillusioned. The dream deferred truly does shrivel like a raisin in the sun, and guess what? Raisins cannot be transformed back into grapes.

With all apologies to Jay Gatsby and his eternal optimism, you truly cannot repeat the past. I realize that: I do. Yet, like a beaten dog, I keep crawling back for more neglect, more whipping, more fear. Every morning I go to that place, and I smile and lie and lie and lie to everyone about everything. As the lies compile they start to squeeze out the remnants of who I am, and I lose pieces of myself.

Be careful: those pieces are scattered in the hallways, you may slip on them; they are staining the carpeting of some of the offices; and they are available for anyone to pick up. You may as well have them, because I can't take them back. They cannot be glued, or mended, or sewn, or affixed with paper mache; they are lost to me. Maybe I should put up a flier for people so they know they can take them, or maybe I should put an add on Craigslist, "Free: Pieces of self looking for a good home." I wonder if there would be any takers.

Because as of now, I walk past them, those pieces of myself, and they sit on the floors, on the tables, in the offices of these spaces, and all they do is gather dust. They become neglected just like the rest of me. I even kicked one with my foot, on accident. It was that piece of me that thought people, all people, had an element of goodness in them. It sloughed off in a long peel like a wood shaving after someone made me feel very, very small--and trust me, I need no help with that already. That little piece of me, that fragment of self-worth, was shaved away from my skin with every single word that was uttered with a saccharine smile, and it fell gently to the floor--like a rose petal floating down to rest atop a pool of water.

When I kicked it, it ended up under the door of another room, which perhaps may be best. I won't try to reclaim that feeling if I'm not reminded of it every day.

And that is the problem: every square tile on the floor, every saccharine smile, every pen or pencil or computer screen are simple reminders of what once was a life with potential.

On Monday, I did see his ghost: the one with all his potential. He stood in the shadows of a meeting and watched as I expressed my self articulately, elegantly, and with a knowledge base that wowed the crowd. His arms folded in that back corner, he silently mocked me as I couldn't bring myself to make adequate eye contact, show the confidence I once had, or carry that posture that would define me as a someone not to mess with. Afterwards, I looked over at him and he shook his head in disgust, and I couldn't sleep at all that night.

Year after year, he appears to me less frequently. I am not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. Once he vanishes for good, I will not remember myself as I once was--I'd miss him, but I'd also be able to sleep at night. He'd shake his head once more, with great disappointment, and evaporate into the air ducts of the building that has a clear stake in the claiming of his soul. Maybe that would be worse. Maybe then I'll cry myself out of tears, and then I won't have to worry about that warm feeling building up on the bottom of my eyelids, desperate for escape--because at that point I'll have accepted that there is nothing of me left.

Me and My Thunderbird

Sat, 5 Jan 2013 21:01:27 -0500

Our 1979 maroon Ford Thunderbird was my favorite car. I'm not sure what draws me to this particular automobile from the many we had in my childhood; perhaps it was the giant bench seats where I could sprawl out with my sister and the two of us could sleep on long car trips, or maybe it was the completely non-functional slanted window in the backseat that had the little white line painted in it of the Thunderbird logo, or maybe it was the super cool flip open headlights that would freeze during the harsh Minnesota winters and send my father on a tirade of swearing that would make a sailor blush.

Or, then again, it may be because of how we lost the Thunderbird.

My father and I drove eight hours from our house in Minnesota to my grandmother's house in far northeastern Wisconsin. She had decided to get rid of her furniture, and my mother decided she must have it. The year was 1985, and it was a hot summer month, probably July.

My father had rented a U-Haul trailer to hitch to the back of the car, and we loaded it up with a sofa, a loveseat, and two rocking chairs--all upholstered in lime green plaid ornamented with mustard yellow roses. We started the trek back across the state on the dreaded highway 29 or 21--I cannot remember which, but I know it was a two line highway that we were on for almost 7 hours, and now, in 2012, it is four lanes and a car can zoom at 65 mph instead of 55 and 45.

I sat in the back and read Peanuts books that I had taken out of my grandmother's attic; I loved Charlie Brown, and still do. Even though that Thunderbird was the size of a small yacht, it could not take the weight of the furniture hitched to the back. Smoke billowed out of the engine as we pulled over on the exit leading to Cadot, Wisconsin.

With no gas station in sight, and cell phones not having been invented, my father and I stood on the side of the road and watched smoke fume out of the hood of the car in anger.

A stranger in a pick-up truck arrived and offered to take us to his place to call the local garage owner who would look over the car for us. Remember, this was 1985, people hadn't lost complete faith in one another yet; so the two of us jumped into this old Chevy truck and headed into the town of Cadot.

Being 9 at the time, I don't know the adult conversations that ensued as we stood in some stranger's kitchen. What I remember is how this man's refrigerator was filled with plastic letter magnets in a rainbow of colors, and how I really, really wanted to play with them and make words but I didn't want to ask because I thought it would be rude and stupid--there was a crisis going on, no time for playing.

Remember, this was 1985, kids hadn't entirely lost their manners or imaginations yet.

The local mechanic showed up in some classic car, black in color, with giant orange flames on the side. It was so shiny and clean, unlike the corpulent man who rolled out of the driver's seat. He had come from our Thunderbird, said he would store our U-Haul, and he would buy the car for it's remaining parts/scarp, but otherwise there was no saving it.

My father took the cash--Memory tells me it was $50, but my father on the phone remembers $75. Whatever it was, it was enough to buy us Greyhound tickets to get back to Minneapolis.

The man in the pick-up truck drove us to the bus station. I have no idea where the bus station was, nor do I remember how long it took to drive there. I do, however, vividly remember the inside of that bus station.

Everything was seafoam green. There was a video game in one corner, Donkey Kong, and vending machines. Having not eaten all day, my father gave me 50 cents to buy something--I bought Junior Mints because I liked mint and I liked to squish them on the roof of my mouth with my tongue. Using this technique would slow down my eating and increase my enjoyment and create the facade of having my hunger satiated.

Besides me and my father, the only other people in the room were an Amish couple. The man was eating Funyuns. I hadn't never seen Amish people before; my father, who can talk to anyone, was engage in a conversation with the man who was dressed all in black with a flat brimmed black hat on. His wife sat further away, crying quietly, completely silent. The man and my dad were discussing schooling and children, since my father was a high school gym teacher, he liked to bring it up as a conversation starter--everyone has been to some sort of school, so it would create a shared interest right from the start.

The Amish man talked about discipline and the importance of hitting the Devil out of his kids; I was 9, the man horrified me.
But, he did offer me some Funyuns, which I took and ate, even though I can not stand Funyuns--but I didn't want him to think me disrespectful.

I'm not entirely sure why an Amish couple was in the bus station, and I don't remember if they rode the bus with us, or if they were waiting for the arrival of someone--but, what I do remember is the Amish man gave my father some money..just because of our hard luck with the Thunderbird. He also gave me a quarter, because I was a quiet, obedient little boy.

It wasn't until we got on the bus that I asked my dad what "obedient" meant. Back in Minneapolis, one of my father's colleagues had to pick us up from the bus station because my mother refused to drive into the city. It really was quite the journey, but from it all, it is really the strangers who stand out.

The Amish man who gave my father all the cash he had carried with him to the bus station, the mechanic in the black shiny car who came out on a Sunday--his day off--to tow our smoking Thunderbird to his garage--free of charge and to give us some cash up front for the parts, and the man in the pick-up truck who get us situated and allowed my dad to call long distance to my mother and got us to the bus station. These are the people I remember, and this is why the Thunderbird will always be my favorite car: It showed me the potential goodness of men

When the dead come over for pop-tarts and lemonade

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:10:41 -0400

I hadn't heard anything, so I wasn't expecting anyone to arrive. Yet, here they were. They came. All three of them. Apparently the rich and famous do not need to RSVP. However, I was caught unprepared, and all I had in my apartment were some cinnamon Pop-Tarts and some lemonade. I fanned out the pastries on a platter of green depression glass I received as inheritance from my deceased grandmother; I tried to class them up. I couldn't think of a garnish, so they sat on the glass looking pale and pasty.

It was a list ditch attempt to reach out. An admirer sending out invitation cards to his heroes, imploring them for a few moments of their time before his decision to just throw in the towel and drink himself into a stupor, walk outside in the frigid fall air, collapse in the field across the street and wait for the clan of coyotes to come and feast on his corpse.

Henri arrived in his wheelchair, wearing one of his big hats, his lips hidden beneath his white whiskers. He stared around the room, and smiled at the print on the wall next to my refrigerator--one of his own. He enjoyed several glasses of my lemonade and seemed overjoyed at the play of light through the opaque yellow liquid.

Mary Flannery, on the other hand, sat in a rocking chair--the one I found at a garage sale for $10. She looked so small, as I imagined she would, but with that biting wit I've always loved. Opening the door, I felt a jolt of lightning course through my body.

"I am so happy that you are here," I said holding the door to steady myself.

"Yes," she said knocking about with her braces due to her lupus, "We shall see about that, now, won't we." And smirked above those dark wing tipped glasses.

Robert had been the last to arrive. Brooding, distracted, his mind meandering in his thoughts, I was most shocked to see him at my door. I had no idea how we was able to find my place. He sat in a chair near the small coffee table and rested his head in his hands like a bored schoolboy.

The great artists sat in my living room, and with me in my sweat pants and fuzzy black footie socks. What I had done? And PopTarts? Seriously, how can I not have a piece of fruit or at least some coffee in the cupboards? Oh, yeah, that's right, I have no desire to eat and don't care. That's why I asked them here.

I thought of each of them: Flannery slowly being eaten away by her disease, writing hours each day, torturing herself to complete her novel; Henri's cancer ridden body forcing him into a wheelchair as he goes to build a chapel out of kindness to a young woman who tended to him in his illness; and Robert, poor Robert, who heard voices in his head, practically starved himself, and strove to create beautiful music.

They all had suffered for their art, but each and every one of them had purpose, direction. They knew why they were on this earth, and they felt what they did had value.

Until this moment, I never knew how badly I wanted to know what that felt like--to feel like what I do has value, to believe in my purpose.

I asked them to show me the way.

When I verbalized this question, the room fell silent. Robert looked at my bookshelves; Flannery crossed her arms and pursed her lips into a small circle; and Henri picked up the doily on my coffee table and produced a scissors from the inside of his coat and started cutting. I absently picked at a PopTart.

Shockingly, it was the composer who first reached out. As I picked at the pastry, he placed his hand atop mine. I was transported back to when I was 18 years old. Taking myself out for a nice dinner, drinking a glass of wine, and then seeing the Schumann Cello Concerto in a minor performed--with me in the front row. At the first stroke of the soloist's bow across her instrument, I held my breath and gripped the arm rest at her passion--a passion that only existed because of him.

Looking into his sad eyes, a small smile crept across his lips, "we send light into the darkness of men's hearts, Justin, such is the duty of the artist. Do you have a light to shine upon them?"

No, no I didn't. I shook my head. Tears? Honestly. This was not the time for some sort of girlish emotional sob-fest. Man it up, I commanded myself.

Robert didn't seem to notice. He returned to the thoughts in his head, and Henri just kept cutting away at the fabric I had on the table. I wish he would have asked before he had done that.

It seems that Flannery had decided rocking in a chair was the next Olympic event, and she was going at it with great fervor. Her arms still crossed, and that tiny frame of her exuding that silent strength of conviction and faith. But then she stopped, glared at me, and practically shouted:

"You know why I write?" She demanded of me. I felt like this was a test.

"Because you are good at it?" I practically whispered, unable to make eye contact with her.

"That's right. At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily." I noticed her stare above her glasses and take a quick scan of my small apartment, "Hmm," she grunted, "It looks like you have mastered the domestication of despair, but I don't think you are quite happy with that current condition. Don't be the worst our age has to offer."

Starting back at her rocking, I knew she had finished her piece and would say no more. In fact she made an excuse about going to Mass and stood up to leave; Robert followed her lead. I showed them to the door, leaving Henri behind, momentarily.

After our goodbyes, I turned to see him drinking one final glass of lemonade, relishing the tart refreshing coolness. He consumed the yellow color, and it became a part of him. The man simply oozed color and beauty. With his large frame in his chair, he started to make his way toward the door, the scissors having disappeared back into his coat pocket.

It felt odd standing above him, I almost knelt to be at eye level with him. With a frail, tentative grasp, he reached out for my wrist and turned it palm up. He placed my cut up doily in my hand, curled my fingers over the fabric, and looked me straight in the eyes and smiled.

This, I knew, was a rarity seldom seen..especially in photographs. I fanned open the fabric to unveil one of his abstract plant looking cutouts. I felt the thin fabric in my hands and pushed it close to my chest.

"You see, Justin, there are always flowers for those who want to see them."

And he started rolling out the door.

Standing, alone, with the fabric in my hands, I closed my eyes and simply breathed:

"Oh, Henri, I really wish I could see them...I really, really want to see them....I do...."

My Summer of Scarves

Mon, 3 Sep 2012 20:09:59 -0400

William Least Heat Moon travelled around the United States in 1978 on the blue highways found in the Rand McNally atlas. The blue highways indicated those country highways that tend to bypass larger cities: after losing his job and getting divorced from his wife, he lived out of his van and explored his nation and himself.

His great travails in life lead to his great travels in life.

My summer lead to the creation of many different scarves.

These scarves are the ones I knitted over the past six months, and each has a story--especially the one that is missing.

Blue and White Striped Scarf

In my family, my sister and I fit within a gap. The majority of our relatives are either much older or much younger than we are, and now that she and I are in our late 30s, we have become surrogate caregivers for those on the other end of the spectrum.

However, she is 1,000 miles away from the family; on the other hand, they are all practically on my back doorstep.

Aunt Jeanie is 84 years old, lives in a trailer park by herself, had no children, and has skin cancer. She had 13 minor surgeries on her face this summer, and I was often the one to take her to appointments and stay with her for the day after to make sure everything was healing.

I had plenty of time to knit.

She'd smile, watch her Jenny something-or-other polka television show, and tell me tidbits of stories of the family.

"Oh, that Aunt Sharon is a stinker..." (translation: Sharon ran away with Aunt Jeanie's first husband leaving my Uncle high and dry on the farm with two boys to raise).

"That Jeff, what is wrong with him?.." (translation: He's a drug addict)

Even Jeff, despite his drug problem and selfishness, gets a dollar every Valentine's Day. Since my birth until the present day, Aunt Jeanie has sent a dollar in a Valentine's Day card to every grand niece and nephew born to her 9 brother and sisters. Her address book is a large mustard colored book with glittered flowers on the cover; it stepped right out of the 1950s. In it are meticulous notes of addresses for all the family members. Paging through to my name, I saw every apartment, dorm room, and house I have ever lived in my entire life. Each address listed the year and month I moved to a certain location and the month and year of when I moved from that location.

With such dedication and devotion to the family, the least I could do for her would be to sit and watch her polka shows and knit a scarf for her.

"Oh, now you don't give me that scarf when you're finished, young man," she said to me quite sternly as she watched the evening news under an ahfgan. "I won't be around long enough to enjoy it. You just keep it for yourself."

And, despite many protests, I ended up taking the scarf home with me, along with some canned citrons and freezer jam: Even though I'll be wearing it, it will always be Aunt Jeanie's scarf.

Purple and Grey Scarf

The purple and grey scarf is a beast of knitting. It's monstrous and would probably be appropriate for Herman Munster. It was not my intent to make it so large. Circumstances were beyond my control.

Unfortunately, my cousin and her husband came to spend some time with me and my parents as we were visiting my dad's sister. They stayed for a week.

I knitted for a week straight, to the point that my wrists would sound like bubble wrap every morning when I would stretch them out.

It was worth it.

My cousin's husband is a cop, and he is a very bad man. Several years ago my sister came to visit over the fourth of July; she seldom comes to visit, so she has been elevated to celebrity status. This was the first time she met The Cop, at a bar, on the fourth of July. After we all went to bed, the two of them sat on the porch and "talked" about this and that--until he suggested the two of them go behind the barn to "pound one out."

She declined; she told me, of course--we are siblings despite how little we actually talk with one another; and it has been awkward ever since.

So, instead of interacting with him, I knit. My mother knows the story as well, and she throws barbs across the room:

"Hmmm, I think I'll make some poooound cake today. Would you like that?" she says smirking directly at The Cop. Zing!

Making steak on the grill, she turns to him and gives him a mallet: "Make sure you pound it good before placing it on the grill. It needs to be tender," and then she pats him on the shoulder like the dog he is. Zing!

Across the room, in the big white Lay-z-Boy, I knit faster. Every few inches of scarf can be attributed to some sort of awkward interaction or phrase hurled from my mother's mouth.

The Missing Scarf (Light Blue and Peach Diagonal Stripes)

The light blue and peach scarf is the one I know the best. It was a gift for my grandmother. It's very, very soft. It had to be, though, Grandma is a surly Swedish woman who is never pleased with anything.

She is too tired to live, too bitter to die, and too scared to live.

With cancer feasting on her lungs, she sits in her chair coughing away, not talking to anyone.

"All I want to do is sleep," she says, very honestly, "If I could sleep for a week at a time, that's what I would do."

And without another word she walks down the hallway and closes her door. My mother and I shrug our shoulders and leave--we had been excused.

I knitted the scarf as carefully as I could, any flaw would be pointed out--and once found, she would never wear the thing.

My mother and father had to go back to Texas, so the three of us went to visit her one last time. I gave her the scarf.

"It's soft," she said. She analyzed every inch of it, looking for flaws; and not finding any, she cried and she cried and she cried.

Granted it wasn't because of the scarf; it was because we were leaving, that scarf just happened to be there for the ride.

She climbed out of her chair and hugged me, her arms around my neck, on her tip-toes like a little girl holding onto her daddy while dancing on his shoes at a wedding reception.

In the raspy half-voice of an 80 year old smoker, she used my name, which she never does because she always has hated it--my mother named me after someone she did not approve of--but she used it as she said goodbye.

I can still hear it; I will always hear it.

I seal in the story of my family through knitting.

Travelling across the country, William Least Heat Moon may have learned about himself and places and people across the country, but his was a story of blue highways.

Mine is a story of scarves.