Category: SSW

Another Ride with the Hitchhiker

SSW for March 25, 2021

[Potential spoilers! If you’re not caught up on your Suspense episodes (as of September 2, 1942), go listen to “The Hitchhiker” first. Then come back here!]

The “drive-in” today, like last week, brought another bout with eternity, this time through Lucille Fletcher’s “The Hitchhiker,” a Suspense episode on Sirius XM’s Old Time Radio station. I saw the title as I was flipping through the stations, and I had that immediate thought: “Do I want to go there?”

I knew the story and I knew the effect. Orson Welles. The driving. The narration. The other-worldliness. The common, relatable story of a cross-country trip. The impenetrable story of crossing over—not the Brooklyn Bridge, but the breach between here and eternity. Has Orson, or Ronald Adams, as his character was named, made it to his destination yet? Is he still making that cross-country trek, picking up hitchhiking women, crashing into a field of cows? Or did he, soon after making that phone call home, succumb to the Hitchhiker’s “Hallo!” and find out “who he really was” and where he was going?

My first reflection is the moment of indecision in me to listen to the episode this morning. In a flash of a moment when I read the title on the radio display, all the thoughts above ran through my mind—one of those flashes of eternity in an instant—and I hesitated, not sure it was right, at 5:12 AM, to be entering into reflections of the sort that this story would, yet once again, arouse and confound in my mind and soul. My first thought is: this instantaneous thought process would not have been possible just a few years ago, before the time of radios that sent written messages—words denoting station and program and song titles—across a display screen. So here is how the modern world is separate from the world of the Hitchhiker, the world of September, 1942. Yet, as I listened, my dominant thought was how unchanged our worlds are: a mother saying goodbye to her son getting in his car on a journey. And indeed, there’s so much about the journey and the situation that is unchanged: the sound of the engine accelerating, the highway sights, the roadside cafes, the radio, and the narrator’s drifty and precise observations as he makes his way over monotonous terrain and terrifying preoccupations in his mind. This does sound a lot like my morning commute.

The difference/similarity between 1942 and 2021—the driving, the moment in time, the eternity—is one of those recurrent themes, those instantaneous flashes of big meaning, that appear in my mind, time and again as I make my way through the story. I can’t help feeling I’m somehow with Ronald: we’re both driving; we’re both terrified; we’re both talking our way through somehow (and sometimes, alas, with aggressive thoughts, though mine don’t verge, fortunately, into contemplations of murder, as Ronald’s do, in his time of greatest crisis). My car is very different from his—I with my radio-messaging-display and quiet electric motor—he, with his internal combustion engine and manual transmission accelerating through all the gears. But the internal combustion engine is still in the forefront of my mind: it’s what I think of when I think of cars and highways. Everything about his trip stimulates feelings of familiarity and hominess. His reflection of his mother at the end brings quiet hope and familiar images. He’s read somewhere that “Love can conquer demons,” and he pictures his mom in her “crisp house dress” (that moms wore in the 40s, 50s, and 60s when we were young, when we needed our moms so, when there was such comfort there—both otherworldly and oh so simple and understandable).

Ronald drives, endlessly it seems, across so many regions of our country, with many descriptive details evoking the grandeur and monotony familiar to anyone who has gone on a road trip. It isn’t until he is in a surreal part of the great American Southwest, in New Mexico, with its “lunar” landscape and barren and sublime mountains and prairies and mesas, that he decides to make the phone call. We get the operator, speaking operator-speak, something none of us have heard these many years, yet still so familiar. Ronald has to request “Long distance”—as indeed there was a time, long ago, when local and long distance were different services needing different operators who had to talk to each other—and, essentially, “build” or link a connection across a network or series of networks to reach a place really far away. Ronald was attempting to reach a place far away—but not just physically far. Wherever Ronald was—and it wasn’t New Mexico—he was connecting to Brooklyn, and he did get connected—to his confusion and woe.

But I get ahead of myself. That call, with all the operators, and the coins falling in the slot with the familiar ding, so perfectly inhabited that space between the familiar and the surreal. While the new technologies of electric cars and radio displays did not essentially change the experience of driving and all its attendant fears and possibilities and routines, the new technology of the cell phone, once again, has made narrative drama and suspense all the more difficult for writers. I forgot how dramatic a pay phone could be! Ronald’s call was expensive, even by 2021 standards: $3.85, to be deposited in coins, one at a time: 15 quarters and one dime. We hear each one fall—but not only that, there are instructions from the operator: “After you deposit $1.50, please wait. When I have collected the money, you may deposit the next $1.50.” So, we hear the six coins fall—and the suspense builds through this most quotidian of processes. The operator collects and gives permission to continue. Six more coins, six more dings. Then the final four coins—and that most familiar and most shocking of phone calls.

The story ends, and I have to shut off the radio before there is any disruption to the mood of fear and worry over the eternity—or end—of Ronald’s fate. But I recover soon, as it occurs to me that perhaps Greg Bell has some provocative notes on the story. So I turn the radio back on, and it comes on right away, since radios nowadays no longer use tubes that need to warm up—and it’s Orson Welles I hear. He’s talking about the war effort … in a most visual way that would require its own essay to depict. He pronounces the first syllable of “Nazi” as though it were “gnat” (gnat-zi)—a pronunciation I haven’t heard before. So, the thematic mixture of familiar/other (or different)-worldly continues. Welles is encouraging people to buy war bonds—to lend Uncle Sam 10 cents on the dollar … possibly through a payroll savings plan. He has much to say about it, with a fine statement about the preferability of US bonds over Nazi or Axis bonds—on our wrists. So we’re right there, in September of 1942, just about 10 months into this war, with such a long way to go, an eternity, but still the movement from Brooklyn to New Mexico, and ordinary life and transitions to eternity are happening at home, on the radio, as though no war ever disrupted and took over life as we know it.

The Hitchhiker—strange and right there (always appearing, always surprising)—is a moment in time, and a forever, out of time. Greg Bell comes on and reminds us of Lucille Fletcher’s stature as a suspense writer (she of “Sorry, Wrong Number” fame). I think of her relationship (wife) to the great musical composer of Suspense, Bernard Herrmann, who was, it so happens, the musical composer for tonight’s episode. Fletcher, we learn, wrote the Hitchhiker specifically for Orson Welles, and sure enough, Orson Welles, put his usual genius right there and made it become what it needed to become: a piece of terrifying moment in time, across time, repeatedly casting us into the familiar, made just unfamiliar enough. Ronald describes it when he is traversing New Mexico, near the end. In his loneliness, he looks out on the gloomy landscape and his movement across that country, which he pictures in terms of the indifference of a fly walking across the face of the moon. And then he calls his mom.

Water on Mars, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Nancy Sinatra

SSW for March 18, 2021

And now Part 2 of this semester’s notebook begins. I reflect: the process is becoming more a “thing,” certainly for me personally: I’m doing what I ask my students to do: think all week about possible topics; plan for a good session; start early so I have momentum; try not to think too much about specific lines of possible development—so as not to forget them by “writing” them (in water, like John Keats’s name); try to keep open to the late discovery of a topic; try to let the discovery energize me; try to get some work done that needs getting done; try to find the meaning in life, as in “what, really, needs to be done?”

I’m still facing the abyss, looking into eternity … trying to make sense of it all … trying to make sense of this single moment in time. I read in the news about water on Mars—there was a lot of it, apparently, but we’re talking about 3 billion years ago. That’s literally something that some scientists have said: Mars was such and such 3 billion years ago (but now all that water has gone somewhere—in the rocks below the surface? Into outer space?). Three billion years ago: That’s so long before any of my three topics of today: vaccine purgatory, Nancy Sinatra, and really going back, Cicero, who, ancient as he is, still is not all that close to even one billion years ago. All these billions of years bang against the limits of my comprehension and imagination, kinda like the trillions of dollars being spent so lavishly and stingily and carefully and crudely in President Biden’s Coronavirus stimulus package. I think of Terry’s comment about how he conceives of amounts like that: he can’t. So, it has no meaning. And we’re probably all in Terry’s boat, as we throw up our hands at the seas of thousands and millions and billions and trillions, and figure it must all work out somehow—whether it’s through making things up (printing money? declaring victory and moving on? Imploding in insolvency?) or just hoping for the best.

My three topics cover some range: the news of the day, the heartstrings of a daughter’s devotion; the connections to eternity and fleeting urgency and eternal resonance—if disguised in continuing preoccupations that have no hope of permanence, despite how persistent they’ve been in continuing on. As for this last, I’m thinking of Cicero, who both seems so relevant and so completely gone from existence.

A good starting point—a theme of my notebooks lately—is the “drive in”: I drive in on Cicero Ave., so Cicero the man is “right there”—kinda—living on, despite the avenue having nothing really Ciceronian about it. It’s large, I suppose, like the man. I can’t stop thinking of Cicero’s mortality: He was 63 when he died, my age, and he had accomplished so much. How can not every human relate to Cicero? He was given privilege at the start of his life born into the “middle class”; he had family he loved (Brother Quintus in De Oratore); he achieved greatness in oratory, law, and politics. And he died before his time—because he was so important. He had to be murdered. So, he never had the chance of fading away, becoming irrelevant and forgotten. I remember you, Cicero; I read your treatise of “oratory”—one of many you wrote on that topic, and I can see your development in theory, your love of your brother, your admiration for your mentor, Crassus, your nostalgia for an earlier, happier time. I think of the reflective, “end of life” tone of De Oratore, a book written while you were in your mid-fifties—still a man with a lot of living left, but nonetheless, a man who was looking back, looking to teach, looking to create a dialogue of friendly and different voices trying to figure out just what is it about persuasion, performance, public life, responsibility, exploitation, strategy—all the stuff that goes into, surrounds, comes out of effective, responsible, service-oriented speech? I feel you right here, in my mind, Cicero. Yet, I also feel those nagging questions: Why all this effort? Why are we remembering you? Why did you have to be killed, after such a valuable life, at a point in your life when retirement beckoned, with those pursuits away from the forum and Senate—the reading, and math, and music, and leisure you talked about in De Oratore?

Maybe my sadness in reading you this year is my connection to you, at age 63 this year—this pandemic year, when thoughts of mortality are heavy in the air each day, despite me being almost one week into my post first-dose vaccination. Yesterday’s front page Tribune story was about people my age—or a tad older: the 64-year-olds who were too young to be in that over-65 1a group, first to be vaccinated, but who, as folk approaching their mid-60s, were also in a somewhat increased risk group because of age. The article spoke of the state of “vaccine purgatory” some people this age felt—both too young and too old, kinda neglected or not taken care of, as they wait their turn for a vaccine. But who, at whatever age, does not think this way? We are all in purgatory—waiting, uneasy, unsettled. For though we may have led full lives—who knows? Will some Mark Antony put the hit on us?

The article spoke of a couple who had retired last year. The man pictured and his wife were enjoying their retirement, but yet there was this cloud over them. Was it the fear of pestilence and death that was afflicting people like them all over the world, and no place worse than right here in America? It could be. The Page 1 picture was flattering—I looked at that 64-year-old, and thought: Yes, he’s got some miles left on him. If I didn’t know this was a story about his age, I wouldn’t have thought of his age. He had a smile, not too many wrinkles, some hair on top, not too thin and not totally snowy. He looked good—happy—ready for the good life. I thought: how am I looking? In some ways, I’m at my best; I certainly, as I’ve often said, don’t feel any different from when I was 18…. But I am different … by some 45 years. I didn’t have to wait, by the way, for my vaccine—such being the benefits of the hypertension and diabetes that my 45-years-post-18 have brought. So, I’ve acquired issues—but I don’t feel them. I feel connected and disconnected to the man in the paper, and I wonder how Cicero would have felt to be 63 in 2021, and part of me thinks he would have been just the same, and that’s a comfort.

The warmest comfort in this drama of “grasping at something that lasts” in the midst of disappearing-water-on Mars after billions of years, comes, however, with the melancholy confirmation today, on the ride in down Cicero Ave., that Nancy Sinatra, after 14 years of being “Nancy for Frank,” will be airing her final show this Sunday—thus, closing off a significant portion of her life, and concluding this picture she has created of … what? A daughter’s love? A music expert’s analysis? An insider’s look at the context behind the art?

I was so surprised at how touched I’ve been by her show these many years. Have I been an XM customer that long? My first satellite radio predates “Nancy for Frank”; it even predates “Siriusly Sinatra,” as the station was called “Frank’s Place” back then. The station has evolved over the years and across the name change—with all of the changes improvements, with one exception (where are you, O, Jonathan Schwartz?). Nancy’s tenure doesn’t seem to be situated in time: she exists, reflecting “Sinatra,” always there, as indeed she has always been. The first child, the inspiration for Phil Silvers, the daughter, the sister, who, during her tenure on the station had to say goodbye to her brother and mother—sic transit gloria mundi—losses we all felt as family, because that’s what happened in this tenure: we became family. Nancy was herself always, and that honesty made it so easy to be with her. She didn’t need to argue a case for her father, but she lived that case so naturally and lovingly. I’ll leave to others to characterize the art of her programming, but it was artful—playing whole albums, always with attributions and stories, geeking out with Chuck Granata, signing off with “sleep warm Poppa; sleep warm, Frank….”

At first (has it really been 14 years??) it didn’t seem like Nancy—or like her voice. Such a singer she was, and such an alluring young woman—of course, in those boots. I always thought of her with that power—walking (that’s what they were made for, you see) but not only that, but walking over something, on to something. But this Nancy, with Frank, seemed to have gotten someplace—and that place was one of appreciation, love—and scholarship. I found so much more to appreciate in Frank Sinatra through the person he was through the person Nancy is. Such a gift she’s given us, in so many layers and in such beauty. We have the music—her father’s and hers, yes, and we have the context of family and memories and other artists and easy humility and pride about it, because that’s the easy truth of it. Rest well, Nancy. No sleep yet, okay? But warmth, yes.

The Day Before February 5 [2021]

[Note:  This entry is an example of two SSW sessions written during workshop with my freshman writing class at the start of Spring Semester, 2021.  SSW stands for “silent sustained writing,” a weekly practice of 40-minute writing sessions conducted throughout the semester where the entire class, including the instructor, “looks at the world as a writer,” selects genres and topics of the author’s interest, and writes.  The weekly sessions build into a “writer’s notebook,” that explores what Nancie Atwell calls an author’s “writing territories,” and that approaches the task of “teaching” writing through a process of “cultivation” of a writer’s identity, rather than through specific instruction in teacher-chosen skills.  Early in each semester, I try to model how the process works for me–and how it has evolved for me as a writer over time.  It’s about writing as a way of being, rather than something learned, mastered, and checked off….]

February 4, 2021

Clearly, this notebook project is inseparable from my grieving process for Ang, which now approaches that magical mark of 10 years, and the restarting of living. At least my notebook in recent spring semesters has functioned this way. Last year, my first ENGL 120 SSW entry was on Ang’s birthday (January 23), and this year, we’re five days later, and just about dead center between the January 23-February 5 nadir of the year for me. And by a moment of grace the past weekend, I was given a story to write about by Ang’s brother, Terry.

Terry deserves, as do all my kids, his own writing notebook. He’s been impressing me so much this past year, as he wrote both a book (A Wonderful Waste of Time) and an eleven-part pretty massive podcast called “Chicago’s Civil War”—a documentary on a little-known Chicago treasure, the baseball city-series between the Cubs and Sox that ran from the early 1900s to 1940s. We had Terry over for dinner on Saturday the 23rd, when we celebrated Ang’s birthday, and he surprised me—with something I knew, but had forgotten. He told the story so well, it made me laugh and cry—and appreciate in his telling and his memory, just how present Ang is to him. Ang’s spirit is there, and in different ways, in each family member’s little and big stories.

Terry actually told us the story in the morning of Ang’s birthday, when Loretta and I drove over to his apartment to finally deliver his Christmas present, a brand new, leather recliner. Terry needed some moving help to clear space in his apartment. So he and I first had to throw out his very junky blue reclining chair. We carried it to his alley, and looked at it there, and then he sat in it, almost as though to say goodbye, almost as though this were all wrong—this throwing away of that chair that had been in the family since 2000.

Terry, as always, knew the exact date we had gotten the blue recliner. He sat in the chair, and rocked, and we wondered if this would be the last time he or anyone else would sit in it. The weather was nice for January 23rd, with a bright sun, and Terry began his story. It just seemed so right to see him there, in his chair in the alley, with the sun on his face telling the story of Adriana’s chairs—plural, for they started out as two chairs in 2000. I began to wonder if Loretta and I made a mistake in buying him a new recliner for Christmas. Before we delivered it to his apartment, we set it up in our living room, and kept it there for the four weeks between Christmas and Ang’s birthday. And we grew to like it there. We teased him that he wasn’t going to get it—that it seemed to fit our house pretty well. Well, looking at Terry, telling his story in his old chair in the alley in the sun—led me to think, maybe we should have just let well-enough alone, and kept the new chair at our house for Terry to use when he came over, and for him to just hold onto Adriana’s blue chair…

Adriana was a nurse, a co-worker of Loretta’s at NMH. Back in 2000, she offered Loretta two blue rocking recliners that were in really good shape. They were swivel recliners (an important detail to get the full effect of what follows). Adriana had to move cross-country, and so she had to unload lots of possessions. We had a big old Chevy Astro van with removable bench seats, so I said, “Sure, I’ll pick up the chairs.” Thankfully, I could enlist Terry, Age 12, just the right age to be of real use in moving furniture. Terry recalled every detail of the ride to Adriana’s northside condo on that morning 21 years ago. “It was a Monday,” Terry said. He commented that the ride to Adriana’s was uneventful—because he had a seat in the van—the passenger side seat in front. However, his seat was not guaranteed for all the driving we had to do that day. Since the day of the pickup was a Monday, it was my day to pick up my mother, Terry’s grandmother, from her afternoon dialysis treatment. So, Terry and I were, first, an efficient moving team, and then a ride share. And then we had one more stop, even after dropping Grandma off.

We got to Adriana’s condo, made pleasant small talk, and loaded the two chairs into the van, upright, as though they were Captain Kirk’s command chairs from which to control the fate of the universe with placid ease and resolve. They took up the whole back of the van, so there was no question we made the right choice in removing both benches.

Off we went to Howard and Ridge on the north side to pick up my mom. And here’s where Terry’s storytelling kicks into another gear. With Grandma in the car, he couldn’t sit up front. So the only place for him to go was in the back, and the only place to sit was in one of the recliners. His description of that trip to Grandma’s house from dialysis had all the joy and terror of a 12-year-old driving home in a bouncing van, in a recliner, no seatbelt; it was priceless. It was one of those new, weird experiences that becomes memorable when one is at that threshold age. To me, I listened in a mixture of delight and horror at my decision to let him travel in such a dangerous way. I think back now on how I tried to be efficient—pick up chairs, use son’s help, pick up Grandma—and, last on the list, pick up Ang who, in his summer before high school, was at his first cross country practice.

Part of the delight of Terry’s story was the memory of my mother’s reaction upon her first realizing the situation. She was like, “Oh,” and she nodded and got in. That “Oh” spoke of an accepting disposition of the chaos of “life with people”—of a regular ride home with a reckless/responsible son she trusted; who was in the midst of that busy, insane time of raising numerous children, some small; who himself was raised by Italian, voluble, chaotic parents. She said “Oh” acceptingly, got in, and began talking.

There may have been a comment from her, or even a judgment, but all I remember was the typical, water-off-a-duck’s back, opposite of non-plussed reaction of my mother to the antics of, well, just about everyone about her. In her later years, my mother was serene. Accepting, not pushing back. She had been through it—whatever “it” was—the Depression, WWII, emigration and immigration, a difficult marriage, five kids, widowhood—and at the end she exuded grace and gratitude for all she had—her kids, her grandkids, and her health—such as it was. Terry’s story didn’t delve into all that feeling, but his story, as my kids’ stories so often do, brought the memory of the “Oh,” back to me. I heard it. Truth be told, she might not have said “Oh” that way that time—but it was her signature gesture and attitude in that last, blessed phase of her life, about 4 years’ worth of widowhood and weekly, shared pickups and drop-offs for dialysis. In telling the story in the alley, Terry was activating so many memories of our family—my role as beleaguered parent/son, his role of a 12-year old mover/adventurist, and Ang’s role as a cross country novice that summer before high school, dutifully taking on a summer activity, not necessarily the one of his choice, but something that kept him focused and purposeful—a responsible oldest child transitioning to a new phase in his life.

What Terry did tell about Grandma was the way she invited us in when we reached her home, and told us that she had some leftover pizza from the night before. “Did we want any of it?” Of course! So we ate and talked and soon it was time to embark once again on our multi-pronged mission of the day: Leg 3 of our cross country extravaganza, driving to Fenwick to pick up Ang from that first cross country practice, that, by now, had ended quite some time ago.

I think back now, as I must have thought then: it all made sense: Fenwick was on the way home from Grandma’s house, so why wouldn’t we plan it this way? As we were leaving, my mother said, “Do you want to take the rest of the pizza with you?” Of course! This was before the time when Gen would develop the theory of the “pizza clock” and how it resets (or doesn’t need to). But we knew even then, you just don’t say no to a box of pizza you could take home with you.

The ride to Fenwick was uneventful. Terry was back in the front seat, in a seatbelt, and we were just two moving guys driving home, with a short stop to pick up Ang. Ang needed to be picked up, and not just for transportation. His practice was a rough one. While he was never in horrible shape physically, he was not especially conditioned for long distance running either. This was Ang’s introduction to the Fenwick way, the competitive, “we’re distinctive,” we’re special kind of aura of that proud institution. So of course, a first workout was going to be … challenging to the point of being brutal, and brutal it was.

Here’s where we need Terry’s deadpan narrative style. He painted a picture of Ang’s appearance or mood or state at that time. First, Ang wasn’t all that enthused about having to do an activity—any activity—that summer. But as the oldest child, he often got, as is common, the rawest deal in “requirements,” strictness, and toeing the line. He had to get a job in high school, whereas the younger ones didn’t. He had to run errands and give up his time for various family responsibilities. He had to organize his pursuits around the family’s schedule in ways not so focused on in later years. And on it went. So Ang was a little dispirited to “have to” go to cross country in the first place. And on this day, as Terry told it, there were so many compounding factors: the hot temperature, the workout, the lateness of our arrival, to name a few. And so, we arrived to see a completely defeated new member of the Fenwick community—wilted and annoyed, slouching to the car.

Terry got out to greet him. He told him, “Ang, there’s no place for you since the back is filled.”

Pause. Then with the flair of a game show host, he opened the side van door with outstretched hand. And there it was, positioned just right: a reclining chair and a box of pizza waiting for him. And it was one of those moments … when the harp plays, the slant of light glistens, the hand of God touches you, and salvation opens up before you.

I remember such moments with Ang when there’s a turn: things are going so bad, but then not so much anymore. And then the storytelling starts happening (the “best of all breathing,” Faulkner called it), and the smiles start coming, and all the “what happened before” is just part of the setup of the joy and fulfillment that will become a story, years later, told by a guy in the alley with the sun in his face, saying goodbye to a worn-out, over-used recliner.

There’s that. But there’s also Angelo’s way: the way things would work out for him up until the very end. All of that sweat and responsibility and grousing led to a comfortable chair and a pizza. Like the man chased by tigers in Kahn’s story (another family go-to meme), Ang found the strawberry on the mountainside, and “it was the sweetest tasting strawberry he ever had.” Angelo, and I bless him for this, could turn on a dime, and let go of a bad moment and lean into the new thing that was happening and inviting a smile and a different conversation. And Terry’s reaction to it was something of a unique possession of his alone (for it was completely lost to me till he told the story and brought it, and my mother’s “Oh,” back to me). Terry has held on and helped us remember, and on February 4, I couldn’t be more grateful to both sons, to all my children, to Loretta, as we close off, this very day and in SSW, our first ten years of life after—and still with—Ang.

The Day After February 5 [2020]

[ Note:  This entry is a companion SSW (silent sustained writing) to the previous posting two weeks earlier.]

February 6, 2020

Is there such a thing as a grief hangover?  Is the whole thing a hangover?  Two weeks ago, on Ang’s birthday, I wrote that I had to power through to February 5, and then start breathing again.  Today is February 6, and I’m breathing, but it’s a bit labored and troubled.  I was thinking about the “getting through” or “getting to”—but not the “getting beyond.”  What does February 6 and beyond look like?

I think such things because today had such prominent features to it—a mixture of (1) the world in your face (snow day in February) and (2) entrenched defiance on my part not to let the world interrupt who I was, and wanted to be, and what I wanted to do today.  I’ve fallen into a solitary morning routine the past year or so, and, like an old cranky person, I’ve grown protective of it.  I wake up early, stay off the computer (the only time of the day that’s true), and I engage in an increasingly regular ritual of getting ready.  I make lunches;  I brew coffee with the French press;  I leave a full thermos for the girls to have when their day starts hours later;  I clean up the night’s dishes and run the dishwasher, hoping to earn some credit (and to help the kids avoid censure for the mess they left);  I put on WFMT, and find accompaniment in the soft tones of both the music and the through-the-night announcer;  I shower;  I dress, my clothes having been laid out the night before (another old-person tendency creeping up on me—way over-preparedness about trivial things, obsessiveness in procedures);  I look through the house to see what the others will wake up to, and I try to smooth out what could disturb or inconvenience them.

Today was just another one of these mornings, but everything was amped up, all these tendencies put on steroids. First, I woke up way early.  Was it the worry over the weather?  I wish I could say it was, but the truth is I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier—to such an extent that I wonder if I sleep at all at night.  It’s become just another brief nap—that I, of course, need more of, since I’m not sleeping at night.  Is it the January-February grief cycle that’s disturbing my sleep?  Maybe.  I think it’s more the grief I feel over my broken heart of life at SXU—the stress of committee and department work, the inability to hit the stride of making things work, finding the truth, living our mission, bonding with colleagues, transitioning out of past roles, and on and on.

The morning routine has been a kind of retreat for me into my own solitary peace.  I’ve felt so alone—whatever the cause—be it Angelo or the sorrows of SXU—and I’ve found comfort in the quiet and regularity and interiority of computerless/deviceless domestic procedures, followed by the zoned out, but purposeful drive in, with minimal traffic (so important to beat the traffic, and my earlier and earlier start to the day was motivated by a quest to find that time that was early enough to beat the rat race.  I’m not sure I found it, but I know it’s before 4:55 AM.  At some point I’m going to begin hitting up against the prior day’s late traffic rather than this day’s early traffic).

So this morning—out of a desire to protect the routine, which was threatened by the snow, and to increase the psychological medicine of “being of domestic service” to help the family get started on their days, and to lean in a bit hard to the “man of the house” father stereotype (but in a good way?), I woke up an hour early, not planning to do all I did, but just falling into it.  I decided to unbury three cars, get them started and warmed up (not that they’d stay warm, but so that the windows could all be cleared, at least for the time being).  Loretta’s car had a broken scraper, so I switched that out with mine.  That was hard to do, since mine is like the most luxurious, most functional scraper-brush on the market.  But I felt so proud to surprise her, and so proud of my sacrifice, which seemed to say, “I will do anything for you, dear. (Yes, even this.)”

This morning, in some kind of productive frenzy, I even turned on the computer before going out to dig out the cars.  I thought, “I could start the cars, brush them off a bit, leave them on, come back in the house and read a report, then go back out and finish up the cars.”  I was moving—and I wanted to get ready for SSW, about which I had changed my mind several times (write about grief?  write about SXU’s troubles?  write about this afternoon’s committee meeting and our lost way?).

It was later when I got in the car and started driving that I realized what was going on with all my productiveness that morning.  A song came on—as it often does—and a miracle of emotion and utter stopping of what was going on, and a transport to the Other Place (where you needed to be all along) takes place.

I came to realize there might be something wrong with my morning routine, that I might be escaping from life, withdrawing inward, trying to control the uncontrollable, trying to secure some inner peace—but maybe leaning in too far with it.

I have an image from long ago of me wiping the kitchen counter in a circular, repetitive motion, in a Zen-like way, while the kids, all five of them, when they were young, were in the other room, being joyful and crazy and annoying and impossible.  My wiping motion was control:  “I’ve pushed back the forest, and this space is mine, and it’s clean, and it’s regular, and look, it’s clean…and round and round, it’s clean, see…?  Peace.”  There in the kitchen was my little clearing of counter—and the radio or little under-the-cabinet mounted TV with the ballgame on, quietly providing other context, giving me the illusion of not complete escape into the interiority of my own circles and clean space…:  “I am still connected (and how could I not be, with those five dervishes of energy, just in the other room, bursting with so much growth and drama and other reality?).”

So much of my dream in life has been the quest for such peace, and I wonder if my current morning routine—justified in this way, is still just a little too much.  Am I out of balance?  Did the growing of the kids, and their movement into other rooms, farther away, allow me to fixate too much on my circles?

Yesterday we had Ang’s godparents and his cousin Jane and her husband and three dervishes of kids over to have a celebration of Ang.  I’m grateful for the bustle of life in such an event.  Loretta’s day in the setup was nonstop—a full day beginning with a work out, Mass, a trip to the cemetery, shopping at Costco, shopping at Jewel, going to Freddies (yes, Freddies) to pick up the chicken parmesan, gnocchi, lasagna, ravioli, meatballs, and salads.  I am grateful for the way the kids all chipped in, the way everyone came over, the conversation, laughter, storytelling, and reminiscing.  I was a happy and sociable participant in the gathering—but also a little quiet and off to the side.  Was I thinking about my morning routine, that was just a few hours away?  I was a bit.

Was I feeling the grief hangover then?  Was the hangover the result of the social interaction or the intense inner withdrawals and worries over getting things done?

One big lesson I learned from Ang was that “we’re not in control”—and a version of that lesson came home to me when the song came on.  Without planning, without setup, the transport took place.  It was Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in a duet of “True Love,” from the movie High Society (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl5EPEzukNQ).

When the song came on so many of my prior—and unperceived—anxieties and preparations became apparent.  I had been stressing out about how to honor this 9-year anniversary;  maybe I would write about random and brief Ang memories in SSW (the stoplight at 58th Avenue that starts up a conversation with him every day?);  maybe I would focus on the gratitude I felt for the text message from Lorenzo, “thinking of you today”;  maybe I would write about SXU’s leadership, and how they are pulling the rug from so many supports that have enabled SXU to grow and be strong over the years—i.e., maybe I would not write at all about Ang, because it’s just too hard, too involved—next year will be the year, that ten-year mark, and my “tenure” in grief will have been earned, and then the turning point.

The song brought Bing Crosby’s silky smooth baritone that alone in itself is miraculous.  But the duet is with Grace Kelly, who is more than “royal”—what is Grace Kelly?  Magic is too harsh a word;  there’s something softer, more beautiful, more transient and eternal, hopeful, and absolute about her, or the symbol of her.  Together they sang:

For you and I have a guardian angel
On high with nothing to do
But to give to you
And to give to me
Love forever true.

It’s romantic love they’re singing of—but it’s another kind of love, too.  The love of a protector.  Is Ang the guardian angel?  Or is there a guardian angel unseen keeping him close to me?  The words and feelings of these lyrics swell up and fill me.  Time, leisure, love, protection, generosity, sharing, and eternity:  Bing and Grace sing it, and I drive on snowy streets without a word from Ang these long nine years, but with a guardian angel’s efforts, breaking through, giving me a forever that might be, maybe?, redeemed.

January 23, 2020

[Note:  This entry is an example of an SSW session written during workshop with my freshman writing class at the start of Spring Semester, 2020.  SSW stands for “silent sustained writing,” a weekly practice of 40-minute writing sessions conducted throughout the semester where the entire class, including the instructor, “looks at the world as a writer,” selects genres and topics of the author’s interest, and writes.  The weekly sessions build into a “writer’s notebook,” that explores what Nancie Atwell calls an author’s “writing territories,” and that approaches the task of “teaching” writing through a process of “cultivation” of a writer’s identity, rather than through specific instruction in teacher-chosen skills.  Early in each semester, I try to model how the process works for me–and how it has evolved for me as a writer over time.  It’s about writing as a way of being, rather than something learned, mastered, and checked off….]

So it begins again.  Another writing notebook.  Today is a special day.  You can tell so much about a semester’s writing from how it starts.  I hope my students can grow into this routine … I feel I need to help it work for them, to model, to get them started.  But today is special for other reasons, or rather one big reason.  Today is Ang’s birthday, and there’s so much to remember—so much to think about.  Loretta will be going to All Saints cemetery this morning to be close to him.  It’s her tradition on January 23rd, one that was never quite right for me, and as she says, we all grieve in our own ways.  For me, one of the most healing things I could do, one of the best ways for me to “be with” Ang is to write about him, and so the two worlds meld.  I’ve had so many SSW sessions thinking about Ang, being with him.  I look forward to today’s.

Thirty four, and just under nine years since he left us.  That other anniversary, February 5, is in two weeks, and so I’ll need to power through till then, and then start breathing again.  Is it this time of year—the doldrums of late January?  Or is it the need to reach 10 years beyond losing Ang—that theory of mine that there would be a 10 year adjustment to the loss of him, whereby my life could slow down, stop, turn, and then slowly start up again—with new memories, new foundations, new hopes….  One more year, and I’m feeling that my suspicion was right—the time was needed, is needed.  Ten years is about right, at least as a minimum.

On Ang’s birthday the past few years I find myself going back to 1986 and that experience of childbirth, or rather witnessing childbirth, for the first time.  That was an eye-opener.  But then, everything about Ang was an eye-opener.  I feel a need to convey something of Ang to my beloved students.  He was so special to me, and they are all special, or becoming special to me, the way students always do.  I hope they let themselves go places today that surprise them, touch them, and open up new possibilities.

That day in 1986 was about five days before the Bears played in and won their first Super Bowl.  I was a huge fan that year—as was just about everyone in Chicago.  I was scheduled to work my security job that Sunday and miss the game … but Ang was born and so I was able to take off.  That was his first gift to me, and it was a good one.  On the day of his birth, while I was at Walgreens picking up some needed things (diapers?), I saw in the checkout lane a very expensive (to me, at that time) commemorative magazine previewing the big game.  It was $5.00.  I was very poor at the time and couldn’t justify spending that much on a frivolous thing like a Bears magazine.  But Ang gave me the excuse!  It was a present for him.  And it was, and when I told him about it when he reached the age of reason, he cherished it, he read it, and he kept it close (till it became tattered and lost).  But really, standing there in Walgreens, I just wanted that magazine.  On Super Bowl Sunday, I placed him in his baby seat, put him in front of the TV, and told him, “Ang, you’re about to see something that no living person has seen, or could appreciate.  You’re starting out life well, young man.”  And he continued well, becoming a huge Bears fan and sports fanatic, in the healthiest way.  He died on February 5, 2011, the day before the Packers won their last Super Bowl, and I thought, wryly, what Ang would do to avoid seeing the Packers win….

But that was not really true.  Though he did have a healthy and playful sense of rivalry with the Packers, he wasn’t bitter about their success.  Terry reported grousing to Ang about the Packers in one of his last conversations with him.  Not only had the Bears missed a very easy late-season opportunity to eliminate the Packers, but they proceeded to be eliminated by them in the first round of the playoffs.   As he often did, Angelo transcended the dynamic saying, “Yeah, it sucks that the Bears aren’t in it, but it’s the Super Bowl!”  And so, on he moved, with joy and purpose, commencing one of his last organizational acts, collecting baht, and running a pool for the Super Bowl for his friends in Thailand.  (We got the winnings the next week when we traveled to Thailand to bring Ang home.)  We have pictures of him running the show, organizing things, at a bar, of course, looking as though he were conducting significant business, but really just making squares.

I wish I could create a picture of Ang for my students.  I think of my longstanding reflection of “no explanation needed”—the great comfort in there being so many people who knew Ang intimately, and who “got him”—who would remember actions and gestures and stories and tone of voice—immediately, instantaneously—deeply and expansively, without any words.  Angelo was a landscape, and the memories of him are the flash of lightning that illuminates the entire territory in an instant, giving you a view of more and more dazzling imagery than you could imagine unless you had first seen it.

In so many ways, he was just an ordinary college-type kid—funny, self-absorbed, conscientious, concerned about social justice, concerned about social outings, tireless, indulgent, generous, the center of attention, the guy in the background, the bursting through life of life itself.

His friends still visit him on Facebook, posting links to news and culture that remind them of him.  Sometimes they just call out to him in longing for him.  I don’t visit the page much, just as I don’t visit the cemetery, I guess.  I’ve been fearful of locking down on one experience of him, becoming dependent on it, and then having it go away.  The part that doesn’t go away is my own memories….  The store is limited … but he’s still so alive in those moments.  He speaks through them, in a way that seems new and changing.  He was such a presence for me, and he always surprised me—so I’m missing those surprises—but I still have the smile, the wryness, the energy, and the illuminated landscape that makes me feel “wow.”

We’ll celebrate tonight, with cake, and one of his favorite meals, probably pizza—though we’ve been debating what he would choose, since his diet changed so much in the last few years.  We will gather and be the normal, well-adjusted family we always are.  We might tell some Ang stories, but maybe not.  We all will continue grieving for this lost landscape—so known, so understood, so appreciated—in our own ways.