Decoration Day

Decoration Day, now referred to as Memorial Day, was first celebrated by African American freedmen at the cemetery of 257 Union soldiers whose gravesite was labeled, "Martyrs of the Race Course" on May 1, 1865.

Warning: This blog post has swearing in it. You should probably just navigate away if that is problematic for you.

I celebrated Memorial Day like we do here in America by planting thousands of impatiens, painting my front door, making a trip to the hardware store, and cooking a turkey burger.

It was quiet here, which gave me time to reflect on Memorial Days past, back when there was more memorial and less day.

I’m not sure exactly when my obsession with military history began, but it started with Vietnam. With tiny little children in every direction, I devoured memoir, strategy, and history between Dr. Seuss and Charlotte’s Web. I wept over Tim O’Brien’s brilliant The Things they Carried, and was consumed by China Beach, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket among others. It was the beginning but not the end.

In the years that followed, other wars found their way to my bookshelves and combat movie marathons became ritual on Memorial and Veterans days. We traveled to DC and bore witness to greatness, absorbing the history inherent in our every breath. We watched parades and saluted at Fleet Week and clambered aboard long docked warships.

I knew a lot. Enough, on one particular day, to realize that I knew nothing.

I had friends who had cancer and whose parents had died. People with Downs Syndrome kids and cheating spouses. Some who couldn’t afford groceries and some who could drown in their money and their sorrow. Living in a reality I could not conceive, they were on the front lines, while I, in the words of those brave men and women who served in Vietnam, was a REMF—a rear echelon motherfucker. (I told you there'd be swearing. It's over now)

It's funny that I remember so vividly the moment I knew this; the alternating relief for my good fortune and shame for my easy lot in life; the uneasy sense that there were no stripes on my sleeve or blood on my uniform and if I wanted them they were going to cost me.

Today I thought about that moment. About how much I miss my brave and amazing children who slogged through Europe with Band of Brothers because they understood, far earlier than I did, that life is a fight.  I thought about the men and women whose minds have forgotten their heroism, and those who call on it daily because there are children to raise and lawns to mow while a beloved is in Afghanistan.  I remembered again that only those who haven't served are eager to pick a fight, and those who have, search for peace the rest of their lives.

The days since that revelation have seen iron bonds forged with comrades in arms, years and people gone for good.  I had to get tough and get going and God help me, I hope I never have to fight those same battles again, but if I do it will be ok.  There is blood on my uniform now. That doesn't make me special--it makes me part of the human race.  Look around and rejoice at the battle scars which surround you, the inspiration to be found when we see grace amidst the fight.

Here's to life at the front.

A Golden Day

Seventeen years ago today I was living in a town that hadn’t grown more familiar over time.  The yard was an archeology dig with layers of accumulated blizzards somewhat offset by highly efficient snow removal.  Going out involved getting four children, ages 6 ½, 5, 3 ½ and nearly 2, dressed to the point that no one would call the authorities.  But that day there was a break in the action, a bit of a thaw so that you felt like perhaps, it would not be always winter.

It snowed the next day of course.

But at that point it no longer mattered because there was new life in my arms and spring in my heart.  Matthew Fredrick, known from the moment he joined us, as Matty, had arrived.  And although my children were tiny themselves, it was from the beginning as if Matty was everybody’s baby.  There were challenges—deathly food allergies in an era when the words ‘gluten-free’ drew nothing but a blank stare—but even this was faced together.  Six pairs of eyes always watching, multiple hands held out to cross busy city streets, laps for sitting never in short supply.

I worried about this sometimes.  Wondered if a day in the future would come when his wife would look at me and say, “What were you thinking?  He’s completely helpless!”  But it didn’t turn out that way.  When he went to school his kindergarten teacher said, “He does for his classmates what has been done for him—tying shoes, helping with schoolwork, seeing those who need a friend.” 

Today is his Golden Birthday, the natal celebration when one turns as old as the date of one’s birth.  Seventeen is my favorite number, but this was a much shorter trip than I imagined on the day he arrived.

Happy Birthday Matty Fredrick.  You are loved. 

Dedicated to the Ones I Love

My love had to travel this year, to far-flung places, and some that only seem far and so it was last week that I was standing in line at the Post Office, mailing boxes of pink and red to children of mine who are somehow now adults.   I thought of young parents, the joy of all that awaits them—burbling vowels and consonants unspooling into language, construction paper and Valentine boxes, hope and heartbreak—life.

We have some extra genes in this family, the Valentine gene for one.  Sara Kate and Glenn taught me that it was a day to be celebrated, perhaps even a month, and so February has always been more bearable than the rest of the winter for us.  But the Baby Freak gene is another.  Go ahead, hold your adorable bundle in front of any of this crew and watch us TRY to walk past you without stopping--peripheral vision on the alert, we will screech to a halt every time.  And so, in that Post Office queue I remembered kissing tiny feet and hands, precious words written in faltering letters, and the years when a broken heart was a simple repair.  I thought about how much I loved those days, how fascinating those children were to me....and how little I knew.

Today I see the Love that birthed these five amazing humans, that carries them still; the sonorous resonance of lives I cannot fully comprehend--mystery engraved on their very dna.  The persistent will to climb, or figure things out by yourself, or eat books like food, are not simply personality traits, they are hidden doors that will unlock the life you are meant to lead.  I look back to years gone by and realize, We have no idea what wonders are hidden in the people around us.*  How could I have known; how could I have lived without constant gaping astonishment, if I had understood then, the true nature of the flowers that were blooming before my eyes?

We are an imperfect crew, lest you get the wrong idea on this day of love.  We’ve had mountain highs and Death Valley lows, and we’re in some of them right now.  But this year, on a day when I will not see any of them face to face, they are in sharp focus in my heart, shoulder to shoulder and atop a hill, the sun coming up behind them.  It is glory only partially understood, but from where I stand, it's quite a view.
* The Guys, a play by Anne Nelson

18 Degrees Fahrenheit

It is February and there is so freaking much snow that I pretty much want to cry when I leave the house.  I hold my breath when I step outside and do the fifty-yard dash from the parking lot to the security entrance.  In other words, I’m cold and apparently my brain is too.  Here, however, are a few thoughts that managed to thaw out.

         My wonderful new job is in a museum and at some point I had the brilliant idea that I would power walk its halls of glory when it was closed.  The temp is perfect, the views are gorgeous and I can crank up my Ipod and run the marble stairs to my heart’s content.  One day I really overheated and headed out the nearest door to cool off in the covered parking garage. On my unsuccessful 5^th or 6^th attempt at trying to get back in, the director of security services happened to return from lunch.  It was a humiliating trek through the proper entrance, visual evidence of my escapades scrolling on security screens before my eyes.  About halfway up to my office I realized…Oh, I work in a Museum.

         Daniel is in Philadelphia for two months doing a play with Alex Burns, an amazing director who directed him in R&J.  If you live within spitting distance, go and see the Quintessence Theatre Group’s production of Don Juan because these are brilliant minds at work.  And there’s a bonus too…you know how there’s always one person currently designated the World’s Oldest?  Well, I think the guy playing Don Juan might be the currently designated Best Looking.  For someone who mostly fell for skinny and sense of humor, it’s more of a clinical fascination than anything, but I’m telling you, there’s good looking.  And then there’s This.

         I am not trying to tell God how to do his job (oh no I would never do that) but seriously, life would be so much easier to figure out if passive aggressive people lit up or changed color when they were behaving badly. 

         Last week was Chinese New Year, which was celebrated well at my place of employ.  The festivities caused me to consider how much I love new beginnings---January 1^st, Rosh Hashanah, the first day of school, Easter, and the dark waiting of a new moon every single month;   even Monday, that much-maligned day of the week, feels like blackboards freshly washed and waiting for chalk white thoughts to cover them.  God’s mercies are new every morning but sometimes I need to turn a page to remember that.

         February 5 was our favorite Welshman’s birthday and in spite of good intentions, no well wishes made their way to Oxford.  Happy belated birthday Rahman—may this be a stellar year.

         The other day I was shopping for Valentine’s Day and I thought, Good lord, at this time of year I crave color so badly I could eat a 64 pack of crayons.  One of our neighbors in the building in New York had this fabulous winter scarf in a hot pink plaid, and when I complimented it one day he said, “In February or March there are days when it’s this or the gun.  I think choosing this is best.”  In the midst of a gray sky and snow blinding lawns, my $7 rings from Target are the cure for what ails me.  The stones will probably fall out in May, replaced with lilacs and forsythia.  Now that’s what I call a good investment.

Gay like Happy?

I think the tragic feeling is invoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing -- his sense of personal dignity.

ARTHUR MILLER

On Friday night I was a pretty blank slate.  Yeah, I’d read more than my share of military history, and had a general sense of where the armed forces had triumphed and failed over the years.  But when I walked into the Spencer Theatre for KC Rep’s production of Another American Asking and Telling, all I really possessed was a vague sense that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was another red tape snafu.  A game of Twister gone horribly awry and it was fixed so it was over, right?

Thanks to Marc Wolf, I know better now.

That night I met Miriam Ben-Shalom, a decorated drill sergeant, and the daughter of a WWII veteran, who wanted nothing more than to serve her country.  An offhand comment led to a commander asking her one question.  Picture it suspended, the answer hanging in the air between the work that defines you and public humiliation:  “Sergeant Ben-Shalom, are you a homosexual?”

There was a reason they said Don’t Tell. 

In 1976 Miriam Ben-Shalom was discharged by the Army she loved.  And how did she repay this betrayal?  By spending the next 35 years trying to get back in.  She stands on stage, piercing eyes, rigid with anger, with sorrow, with shame.  Except it wasn’t her.  It was Marc Wolf, asking and telling like somebody’s life depended on it.

We saw people on both sides of the issue, portrayed by an actor who so thoroughly inhabits each soldier, that you would swear there was trickery involved.  Every time he did it, moving seamlessly from a chain-smoking, eye rolling WWII era Southern nurse who did not check the box marked Homosexual because, “That was for, prostitutes or something and I wasn’t that,” to a hyperactive, medal heavy Colonel who commented and twitched his way through his experience with a squadron of one gay man and ten sociopaths, leading him to declare, “and that’s why gays don’t belong in the Army.”  Interestingly, I recognized this soldier the moment Wolf opened his mouth—an outspoken and often lonely critic of the Vietnam war.  He’d gotten so many big things right. 

And yet, are we not merely a compilation of our own experiences, unless we hear the lives of others?  Will we allow ourselves to feel the grief of a mother whose child arrives in a closed coffin, thanks to his brothers in arms; the loss to an officer of all he held dear, his children casualties in the rubble; truth, the gift that emerged from a very public hell.

Each word spoken is verbatim from the interviews Wolf spent three years and all of his savings, gathering.  The words hang around your neck for hours, hilarity and tragedy weaving their weighty garland.  But the performance is a tour de force; an acting master class that is not to be missed.

Plays like this are the reason we have theatre.

Another American Asking and Telling at KC Rep January 14-February 6, 2011  http://tickets.kcrep.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=4179

The Daily Grind

Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.

Studs Terkel

       Do work. Rayner Fredrick 

Today I got my first paycheck at my new job.  And while there have been paychecks, over the years, that elicited enthusiasm, I do not remember one bringing me so much joy.

The unemployment statistics churn out week after week, anticipated by stockbrokers and Obama's press secretary and the governors of states who are trying to figure out how in the HELL they are going to make 2+2=5.  But to millions of gainfully employed folks who are going about the business of life, they are just one more unfathomable number in a world filled with them.  

14.5 million people in this country are out of work.  

Until last Monday I was one of them.

And then, just like that, I was getting up at 6 and praying early and wearing clothes that weren't jeans.  I was thrilled.  I was terrified.  I wanted badly not to disappoint.  I made my lunch and got a security badge and the next thing you know, I had been there for two weeks.

The funny thing was I hadn't thought about the money.  Of course the initial sigh of relief could have been heard in New Guinea, but once I started, I didn't even think about it.  A hungry man appreciates food; a hot one, the AC; and a lonely one, companionship.  You might be groaning about getting up and going wherever it is you have to go in the morning, but when I rise, all I can feel is grateful.  So when Mike the mail guy handed me the big envelope with checks for my department I didn't even open it right away.  I passed the other checks out to my colleagues and then came back, found my letter opener and saw in black and white the exchange I had made, of effort for reward.

I have gotten bigger checks in my life.  But this one is, and probably always will be, the best.

Our Girl in Cape Town

She is sleeping now, this daughter of mine with whom I wait in airports, holding hands and saying goodbye--tears and joy our now-familiar mix.  A world away in summer, in Africa, while I contemplate once again the gift of her life.

The breakup of a family means many things, most of them a grueling kind of sorrow.  Yet, like any trial by fire, what rises is lasting treasure, a gold refined to its very essence.  I see all of my children gleaming in the sunlight and brushing ashes from their hair and shoulders.  But right now, today, there is just one story to tell.

She is extraordinary, this one.  Her first grade soccer coach called her The Pit Bull and yet when she wasn't demolishing opponents she was picking daisies, skipping downfield and tending to scrapes on the sidelines.  Over and over we moved.  Changing schools like so many cardigan sweaters yet each time she managed to find her way to the dearest friends, attracting loyalty and kindness with a gentle nature anchored in steel.  Unknown at the beginning and beloved at the end, every single time.

How astonishing that such friendship would be mine as well.  Too cautious for my own good, I put up walls around my heart, fearful that my children would feel overly responsible for my joy and knowing that they were working hard enough to hang on to their own.  But at some point in her freshman year of college Mary Glen shared that she'd told someone I was her best friend and all I could think was, Me?  It was the first chink in my armor.  Piece by piece we tore down the walls of parent and child and rebuilt ancient ruins, cities long devastated, until what was between us was so dear I could not have imagined it to exist.  She is, as Kris says, the closest witness to my life, total honesty and intimate secrets sandwiched between the hilarity of daily life and the binding cement of a hard journey walked together.

She adores Friday Night Lights and old Alias, and Slings and Arrows.  She has loved and lost, and loved and loved, growing and maturing so that life does not carry the same mistakes back to her doorstep, but instead the best kind of man.  She keeps a list of quotes on her wall a la Franny and Zooey and every time I read them I feel the deepest kind of joy to know such a soul so intimately. And perhaps most amazing of all, she has not only opened up her life to me, but offered up her friends as well, willing us to know each other, pushing me past my reticence to an entirely new life.

She is the woman I always wanted to be.

But for the next three months, she is on the other side of the world.   And even in an age of technology, tonight it's just a bit too far.   I'm counting on gratitude traveling fast.