Wabi-Sabi

 

            Autumn has always been my favorite season. I’ve always enjoyed going back to school, whether as a student or a teacher. Though the season is typically associated with dying, with the falling off (thus “Fall”) from the ripeness of summer, for me it’s more about starting than ending. This from a poem I wrote about going back to work:

 

      First Days

 

At school first days always shine

like new keys I carry over the polished

floor to the scramble for old friends,

all pros, tan and telling of bears, novels,

the lake up north, painting in Umbria,

a wedding or two.  And above the sink

just down the hall my face caught by the

institutional mirror glows simple as pudding.

 

 

            And, of course, John Keats celebrated the beauty of autumn in his “To Autumn,” which I recommend in its entirety. The poem begins: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” and it goes on to describe the abundant ripening, though with hints of mortality as winter approaches: “the soft-dying day,” “the small gnats mourn” and “the light wind lives or dies.” Summer ends. Those of us living in northern Michigan know this.

 

            Keats is approaching the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi. Robyn Griggs Lawrence describes it thus:

Broadly, wabi-sabi is everything that today’s sleek, mass-produced, technology-saturated culture isn’t. It’s flea markets, not shopping malls; aged wood, not swank floor coverings; one single morning glory, not a dozen red roses. Wabi-sabi understands the tender, raw beauty of a gray December landscape and the aching elegance of an abandoned building or shed. It celebrates cracks and crevices and rot and all the other marks that time and weather and use leave behind. To discover wabi-sabi is to see the singular beauty in something that may first look decrepit and ugly.

Wabi-sabi reminds us that we are all transient beings on this planet—that our bodies, as well as the material world around us, are in the process of returning to dust. Nature’s cycles of growth, decay, and erosion are embodied in frayed edges, rust, liver spots. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace both the glory and the melancholy found in these marks of passing time.

In other words, the awareness of our transience actually enhances and deepens our experience of beauty. Melancholy rocks. The older I get, the more I appreciate wabi-sabi. I hope people around me do, too.

 

NOTE: If you take wabi-sabi too far, it becomes wabi-slobby. And if you take it in a Native American direction, it becomes kemosabi.

Old Movies

            We recently decided to check out some older movies available for screening. Here are a few of our rediscoveries:

 

Sister Act – Just as enjoyable now as it was the last several times we saw it. We love Whoopie being Whoopie, the odd nuns were fun to watch, and the music is contagious. Sister Act 2 was not quite as good, but also enjoyable.

 

All the President’s Men – A number of people recommended this as one of their favorites, but we could not get into it, possibly because of our saturation with today’s political crimes. Dumped it after 15 minutes.

 

The Birdcage – Totally enjoyed seeing this again. Nathan Lane and Robin Williams? How could we go wrong? Yes, the drag queen acting was over the top, but that’s part of the fun. See it.

 

The Green Book – Somehow, we missed this when it came out. The movie tells the true story of the Don Shirley Trio, a jazz group popular in the 60s. The story centers on the relationship between Don Shirley, a Black classically trained pianist, and his driver, a tough Italian-American, as they tour the South and deal with the racism they find at all levels of society. We especially enjoyed the movie because Kim dated Don Shirley, and another member of the trio, when she lived in California. I did not see her in the movie.

 

The Way We Were – I don’t think I’d seen this before. Good star power from Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand in a love story, with serious political differences between the lovers, that spans several decades. Certainly worth a look. I wonder what the story would be if it were set in 2025.

 

Chicago – Watch it for the dancing. The movie is ultra-stylish and very enjoyable.

 

Harry Potter (1 & 2) – Never saw these when my kids were growing up. I could not follow the plot, mainly because I was distracted by the amazing special effects created way back in 2001.

 

Something’s Gotta Give – Wonderfully entertaining! How can you go wrong with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton?! See it again – if only to appreciate what we lost when Diane Keaton died. We will look for more of her work.

 

We also watched some old sitcoms and other tv shows:

 

Seinfeld – After watching a couple of episodes, I thought, “This really holds up, years later.” After a couple more: “O.K., I’ve seen enough.”

 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – These were intriguing when I was a kid. I’m no longer kid enough. It seemed a bit forced and self-consciously clever.

 

Frasier – Worth an episode or two, but it got a bit repetitious.

 

This is only a short list of tv programs, but it makes me wonder, in the spirit of looking back, what were my favorites? What comes to mind: Taxi, Cheers, Friends, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Cosby Show. 

 

What are your favorites? And do you have any older movies to recommend? Winter is coming to us . . ..

 

 

Neighborly

 

            Since all of our neighbors are soon to be gone, fled to warmer climates, I’ve come to examine just what it means to be neighborly. Two recent examples come to mind:

 

            Rick and Sandy, our neighbors to the north, demonstrated how to be neighborly when we had all our smoke alarms go off – as I wrote about in a previous blog. They immediately stepped up, disconnected the offending alarms, and called their electrician to come by the next day to get our alarm system working properly. They stepped up without hesitation – at least, none that we could see. They stepped up in a similar way when a large branch fell on our garage. They called a carpenter who had done good work for them, and he showed up to repair the damage. Aside from the specific gratitude for these actions, I also felt a kind of warmth knowing we have neighborly neighbors who are looking out for us.

 

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            I deleted a paragraph about our un-neighborly neighbors. Who wants to read someone else’s complaints? But I confess that I did enjoy writing it . . ..

 

            This neighborly issue is important because we are old. We are at an age when we need a back-up in case something goes wrong. And it really helps if our back-up is close – as Rick and Sandy were, and other former neighbors were (that’s you, Barry and Karen). Though we didn’t have to call on them, we knew they were there for us. They would, for one example, keep an eye on our vacant house when we were doing the snowbird thing between Michigan and Florida. There are a lot of needs that can occur short of a 9-1-1 call. We have family who would drop everything and come to our rescue, but that’s not the same as a neighbor who can fetch some milk from the market when we are too sick or injured to go get it, or drive us to the dentist appointment.

 

            My dictionary’s first definition of neighbor is “one living or located near another.” Clear enough. But I am drawn to the second definition of neighbor: “fellow man.” Setting the “man” issue aside, I am drawn to the example of this definition in action: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Being “neighborly,” then, means bending toward the second definition, and extending the range a bit beyond next door. Loving thy neighbor as thyself might be a big ask, but it’s good to keep it in your heart, your words, and your behavior. That’s my neighborly advice.

 

 

Clouds

             Kim and I are fascinated by clouds, and she has taken hundreds of photos, a few of which we would like to share with you. Most of these were taken from our home on Torch Lake.

            But first – why this cloud fascination? What’s the appeal? There’s always beauty, of course, whatever that is, but also there is something dramatic, especially in those clouds that say, “change is coming,” usually in the form of rain, possibly a thunderstorm. And clouds are appealing because they are up there, above the earth, disconnected, for the most part, from our petty and nasty earthly struggles. They are part of our earth, but also above it, obeying its own laws, much the way many religious people envision a holy realm above our earth, obeying its sacred laws. Thus, the clouds offer a kind of deliverance – if you put your mind and spirit to it.

Kim did not take this photo - it was at the other end of the lake.

This was taken at our home in Gainesville, Florida. 

North Carolina

for Genne'

Dover Beach

            We recently saw “My Oxford Year,” a movie that English majors will enjoy, in which the main character quotes the end of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” and is told by her professor/lover that the poem is the most depressing poem in the English language. Perhaps. But “Dover Beach” is also said to be the best short poem in English. I’m not sure how people came up with that rating – presumably by surveying college English professors. I do know that I have not written a better poem.

 

            Anyway – here it is: (You have my permission to skip the poem, though you don’t need my permission, and it will be your loss.)

 

Dover Beach

            by Matthew Arnold (1867)

 

The sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast, the light
Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

 

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

 

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

 

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

            Sad stuff, indeed! “The turbid ebb and flow / Of human misery . . ..” The only solace that the poem offers is, “Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!” The world sucks – Big Time! – and the best we can hope for is fidelity: No screwing around!

 

            When I reread the poem a couple of days ago, what struck me was something different. Kim and I have a real sense that the world is going to hell – from the wars to politics to global warming to gun violence to the difficulty in getting someone to answer the phone. So, at least, do what you can to cultivate and grow your closest personal relationships – your spouse, your lover, your BFF. I think about this as our neighbors here are all fleeing the coming Michigan winter, and it will be pretty much,  except for Kim’s telephone conversations, the two of us on our own.

 

            Which brings me to the core issue: What does it mean to be “true” to one another? It has to go deeper than simple sexual fidelity – not an issue at our age. My dictionary includes, as part of the definition of true, “conformable to an essential reality.” I don’t know about “conformable,” but the key is “essential reality.” Two people who are being “true / To one another” are presenting and acknowledging each other’s “essential reality.”

 

            No bullshit. Speak from the heart, and listen with your heart. Easier said than done, especially for a guy, as I am sometimes reminded . . ..

  

Bang

            You know how you sometimes feel your life is moving smoothly along. Yes, you are getting older, slowing down a bit, forgetting a few things, but you are making plans for the rest of the week, the rest of the year, and maybe even the rest of your life. I remember when I was playing drums in a rock and jazz group in college and after, and we would sometimes conclude a song with a “fade-out ending,” where we would just play quieter and quieter until we faded into silence. Not a bad way to go . . ..

 

            But sometimes there’s a Bang! It could be a sudden heart attack, or a fall that leads to a broken hip that means you can’t live in your home any more. And sometimes Life sends you a preview Bang, just to remind you what your plans mean.

 

            Kim and I got two reminder-Bangs last week. First, we were driving home from some medical appointments in Traverse City, noticing the light rain and the dark clouds we were heading for, and happy that we would get home with the storm long gone. I was planning what I would get done that afternoon, but when we pulled into the garage, we noticed water on the floor. We looked up and saw some large holes in the roof, and a branch as thick as my arm penetrating down halfway to the floor. We walked around back and saw that a large high branch had broken off of our neighbor’s tree and crashed into our garage roof. So much for our day’s plans.

 

            Fortunately, it all turned out OK – at least, so far. Our neighbors on the other side called Tyler, who came out late that afternoon to begin repairs and make our roof waterproof, and he spent most of the next day completing the job perfectly. Our lives were not seriously disrupted, except perhaps our relationship with the neighbors whose tree did the damage. (We are waiting to see how insurance handles this.) But it was a Bang! We imagined what it would have been like if a large tree had fallen on our house, and we are looking fearfully at some huge trees next to our house. I am, by nature, a worrier, and I now have plenty to work with. We didn’t actually hear the Bang, but we felt it. And we still do.

 

            The second Bang came while we were driving. We were going just under the speed limit when an oncoming car turned left just in front of us, perhaps running a blinking yellow arrow. I slammed on our brakes and jerked the steering to the left, and we missed the car by inches. My 40 mph and his oncoming 20 mph would and could have been very costly. The day before this our friends Jim and Angie had sent us a photo of their car after it had collided with a deer. Ours would have been worse. They said they are both OK, which I pretty much doubt. I spent the next twenty minutes imagining what I would do if we had rammed onto that car – how our day and our lives would change for the worse. Then another car cut across two lanes directly in front of us, to go to a gas station on our right, and I again had to slam on the brakes. Again, I thought how that might have disrupted our lives – totaled car, of course, and probably serious injury. What if we couldn’t climb stairs, or if I couldn’t drive? What if I started to forget people’s names? Nursing home? Live with our kids? 

 

            These were Bangs that didn’t happen – yet – but Bangs nonetheless. I drive more attentively now, and Kim and I make back-up plans, sometimes beginning, “If we can’t climb the stairs, then . . .,” or “If I die first, then . . ..”

 

            This is my Big Bang Theory - more likely than the fade-out ending.

No Blog

 I am not posting a blog entry this week. We are fine, but very busy. Hope to get back on track next week. Find something constructive to do with the time you would have spent reading my blog.

 

--David