Hand-me-down Treasure

Mom gave me a book that had once belonged to her father.  Grandpa's loving labor was as a Methodist minister.  The book is full of a lot of grist for that mill!  And, so being, is full of treasure.

The copyright is 1937, the title 1,000 Quotable Poems, (it's an anthology of modern verse :-).  Clark and Gillespie -- a man and a woman.  It is a re-compilation of two volumes of poems.  The best thing, the greatest treasure, is that i can hear Grandpa's voice saying them.  I can also hear my Dad's.  Seeing as how Grandpa walks in our hearts and not on the earth, and Dad doesn't remember any of them anymore, it's a huge gift to hear them in these words.

They memorized poems.  I think it was part of their education.  Much can be said of the state of education, what it was, what it is, what it can be, what it should be, yada yada (and that there has been a war against public education in the U.S. since the first public school opened).  I'm not going down that road any further at the moment.  I only memorized one poem (Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet, which i can still do, if i think about it, but to type it would not do justice to the punctuation...).  Poems, like song, are stored in a different part of the brain than are "simple" facts.  They seem to stick longer as well.  Or maybe we don't use that part of our brain enough.  Well, anyway, here are just a few of the voices:

A new acquaintance of mine was talking about how often we are our own worst critics, or own biggest barriers, or own problem.  We all know that.  And knowing that we all face the same "enemy," just as we all learn how to walk, is good.

My Enemy, by Edwin L. Sabin

An enemy I had, whose mien
  I stoutly strove in vain to know;
For hard he dogged my steps, unseen,
  Wherever I might go.

My plans he balked; my aims he foiled;
  He blocked my every onward way.
When for some lofty goal I toiled,
  He grimly said me nay.

"Come forth!" I cried, "Lay bare thy guise!
  They wretched features I would see."
Ye talways to my straining eyes
  He dwelt in mystery.

Until one night I held him fast,
  The veil from off his form did draw;
I gazed upon his face at last --
  And, lo! myself I saw.


Pretty good, huh?  Then, if you are a sibling, you will remember a parent saying, "If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all."  This one goes a bit further:

Three Gates, From the Arabian

If you are tempted to reveal
A tale to you someone has told
About another, make it pass,
Before you speak, three gates of gold.
These narrow gates:  First, "Is it true?"
Then, "Is it needful?"  In your mind
Give truthful answer.  And the next
Is last and narrowest, "Is it kind?"
And if to reach your lips at last
It passes through these gateways three,
Then you may tell the tale, nor fear
What the result of speech may be.


This last treasure, for now, was very much like opening up a special box in the attic and finding something beautiful there.  I had never known the title to this one, but the word's are spoken in my Dad's voice every time i look at it.

Something to remember when you talk to your friends today:

The Arrow and the Song, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where:
For so swiftly it flew, the sight,
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight, so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

The Core of Discovery

Sadly i write that the space shuttle program is coming to a close.  You probably knew that, as did i; and still it comes as a shock that today (February 24, 2011) is to be the last launch of the space shuttle Discovery.  The remaining operational shuttles will have their turns at last launch as well.  And then, the chilling statement (for me) is that after the last shuttle launch the US will no longer have a [public] rocket, as it has for the last 60 years.

60 years -- and I live in those 60 years!  What a great time!

I did not expect to write about the space program again in this blog.  Surely you all know how much of an affect the space program has had on the nation's economy, yes?  Do you have any idea how many men and women, myself included, went into science and engineering *because* of the whole idea of discovering what is out there, and how to get there?  Without all of those men and women in science and engineering you would probably not be reading this on whatever device you are using.  The whole reason for Discovery - both the shuttle and the idea - was in knowing that we can make something possible; we can find out more.  Curiosity, exploration, the limitlessness that is our potential.  That's the coeur of discovery.  Is space, or the heart for Discovery, really any different from Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery?

There are still a lot of people who don't "get" science.  I won't argue about whether or not the universe is, indeed, limitless -- certainly the planet Earth, as we know it, is not.  There are legitimate complaints that too much environmental degradation has occurred because of the misdirection, mistakes, mismanagement, lack of forethought that has occurred in the industries that arose.  Yet I tremble at the thought that children today grow up without any big dreams, without knowing that we can make something that was previously unheard of into something big, something beautiful, something that works.  That their own potential is the thing that is limitless, and to stretch as much as possible to find out whatever is there to find out.

Some good, some not so good, came out of the Corps.  I suspect it is something that would happen eventually.  The same, perhaps, as that someone would go into space.

Maybe our artists have already begun to lead the way... i hope.  After all, Jules Verne took us to the moon over one hundred years before Neil Armstrong set foot on it.  The "great leap for mankind," indeed.  Evidently it required 100 years of thought (is that the same as having 100 monkeys? parable or not?) before we could physically achieve it.

We are creative, we are creators, it is a human's nature to find stuff out.  Sometimes it's good, sometimes not so good, and still it is part of who we are.  Sometimes the discoveries are on the inside, sometimes about the world we have lived in for the last three million years, sometimes about who we can become, or how to fix what we have, about our own individual limitless potential -- it is our coeur.  May we always have the coeur for Discovery.

One year ago...

I was in the town where i grew up.

Mom and Dad had moved to a retirement center.  They are planners and had been sort of planning this move for maybe 20 years.  Like all of us, they can be realistic and pragmatic when the need arises:  because a big house isn't necessary when the kids aren't there anymore, nor is it necessary when it becomes tiresome to keep it up.

They moved into their nice apartment in October, and were able to close on the house before the calendar year was up.

By January we knew that their living arrangements weren't working already.

Dad had begun to forget things, and they knew that he has "Alzheimer's."  My take on "Alzheimer's" is that it is progressed old-age forgetfulness, a bucket-label, useful for insurance and care purposes.  Please understand:  There *is* a problem there. But the progression varies, the symptoms vary, and from everything i've read i find that there are a myriad of causes and triggers, and environmental contributions.  The medical classification is "Alzheimer's," and it works.

They moved to the retirement community at this time because we were all worried that Dad would over-exert, or get lost, or fall down, or something, and no one would know.  In a retirement community there would be more eyes and someone on call at all times.

When they moved he either got worse, or it became more obvious that he had gotten worse at the old house and was able to hide it through habit and familiar patterns and objects (we might never know which it is in any Alzheimer's person).  This meant that Mom now had a person with many child-tendencies on her hands, who is also her spouse, and her own health to take care of, and...

February, one year ago, I went to my home town to help Mom and my sister and my Dad get him settled into his own apartment.  In this new place for him there would be people to watch him, help him, and he wouldn't get lost because he couldn't get out on his own.  And Mom (we hoped) wouldn't have to worry as much.  Assisted Living is what it is commonly called.

This February, he is in the "Care Center" because there are too many things he can no longer do for himself.  The need for the move was obvious, less traumatic on all of us, especially Dad.  He now asks Mom where his wife is (by name ! :-).  This kind woman with mostly grey hair can't be his wife, he knows, because he has a picture of himself and his wife on their wedding day.

A year is not so long:

- My daughter was in 2nd grade, and is now in 3rd.  She was becoming proficient at adding two 2-digit numbers.  Now she is handling 4 digit numbers, subtraction and adding, and occasionally dabbles in multiplication and fractions
- She was able to read 600 minutes in a couple of months, and now regularly reads ~1200 minutes/month
- We added a room to our house, and put up solar-water-heating panels
- I have a sister in a new house, and a sister-in-law in a new house
- Two nieces are in their senior years
- One niece started first grade
- Our 5' trees are now close to 6'
- Mom has mostly adjusted, i think, to living single and visiting Dad
- Dad no longer makes complete sentences, and needs someone else to shave him and brush his teeth.

I don't really have a point.  Things change.  We grow, we build, we age.  I don't even know that it's important to reflect on the last year.  I suppose that February, for now, will be my yearly signpost.

Heroes!

Today I had the privilege of assisting my daughter's teacher take the class to a concert by the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra.  As an educational event it only lasted about one hour and was geared toward ages 8 and 9.  Of course I was delighted to attend!  I have no idea how much my enthusiasm transferred...

The Maestro came out, and said that they would be talking about planets, starting with some of Handel's "Water Music," which fit in nicely with the speaker.  Planets? sure, that means they would be playing selections from Holst.  Probably the ones that sound most like Star Wars music (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter - John Williams made the music sound familiar to the audience), since some of the kids would have seen the movie.  Speaker? for an orchestral concert?

Mr. Maestro said he didn't know that much about planets.  I start thinking about Physicists and Astronauts.  Mr. Maestro said perhaps we should ask someone who's actually _been_ in space.  My heart leapt, blood coursing, goo started dripping from my eyes for lack of any better way to express the excitement.

Barbara Morgan (just google) stepped onto stage!  Yahoo!  What a great role model!  A woman, teacher, used to teach on a res, chosen to be an astronaut, an Idahoan, giving instruction, and working with someone entirely outside of her field!  Yahoo!

And, personally... I was agog.  I saw a real, live astronaut walk onto the stage.

It started when I first learned about space.  Leapfrogged when we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in the middle of the night.  This is why so many of us became scientists and engineers.  Apollo 13, another reason to be in science.  It was a time when a lot of us grew up believing that we could actually do anything.  And we did -- we went to the moon, we built the space shuttle.

I watched the first space shuttle go up with my brother, and the two of us walked with our heads in the stars for a while after that.  Is there anything cooler? how could anyone not want to be an astronaut? to go into space?

More recently, John Glenn went for another ride... renewing my hopes that somehow I would be able to hitch a ride on something big, no matter how old I became.

I went to the Johnson Space Center some random number of years ago -- the wall was a shrine to me.  The photos and names of every crew that has gone up is there.

Ah.  Well.  That's what heroes do for us.  They are bigger than life, they carry us into the realm of possibility, into the stuff of dreams and make those dreams real.

Yes, back on Earth there was a large team of people making it happen.  Did I mention Apollo 13?  They are all heroes.

Somewhere along the line we realize that heroes are "only" human.  Which, after all, should be the greatest encouragement that we've ever heard:  You and I, you see, are "only" human too!  We can be heroes.  We can bring others into the realm of possibility, into the stuff of dreams, and we can make those dreams real.

Go forth, my dear hero, and make a dream become real.

Thank You

I am thankful for the amazing family that I grew up with.

As siblings, of course, i'm not sure that any of us thought of each other as "amazing."  There are several other words that we probably used, like an average family, to describe each other.  My parents, of course, could not say anything bad about their kids, nor would they say anything discouraging *to* any of their kids.

I don't remember a single one of us ever standing out from the crowd, nor any one of us receiving any "notable" honors.  Honors, yes!  Standing away from the crowd, probably.  There just hasn't been anything that made us appear anything other than average.

I do assume that we are average.  Amazing, fabulous, awesome, and fantastic people are, evidently, average.  (Otherwise other people would find us all more notable.)

Given that we are average then that's a really good thing!  That means that there are a lot of really compassionate, really capable, really productive, quite healthy (admit it!) people on this planet.  People who are committed to doing their best, being their best, giving their best, living their best.  If my family is average then this planet is in a lot better shape than the news would have us believe.

I choose, today, to live my amazingly fabulous awesome fantastic average life in my amazing fabulous awesome fantastically average way.  You too, ok?

Bravery Is as Bravery Does

I am very brave.  Sometimes.

Bravery, unlike beauty, isn't in your eye.  It's in the pit of your gut, and tells your adrenals whether or not it's time to run away, pass out, or barf.  Bravery, though, like beauty, is beheld by the beholder.

Here is an example: Standing in front of a group of not-happy people and saying that their product is still not manufacturable, or that the fix (Stamp On Board) on the 20th revision of the product deserves its acronym, was not such a big deal for me.  For some people, the prospect of standing in front of any group of people, let alone saying something, is enough reason to change one's identity, leave the country, and fill every barf bag on the journey.

I, myself, congratulate me every time I write something down for public view.  And even more so, when I talk about something that is dear to me.  This is not something which I do easily in public, on the internet, or sometimes even in a private-secret-decoder-ring-low-tech-letter.  Sure, it could be easy telling someone else that his/her baby is ugly (i.e., the SOB); telling someone else that I am the one with an ugly baby... that's something entirely different.  Surely it'd be best to hide the baby, protect it, nurture it, and hope it turns into a swan, yes?  Well, no.  All of us have an ugly baby.

With that horridly scatter-brained intro behind me, I present to you an attempt at bravery.  (It is an early draft, and at the same time those with able eyes will notice improvements made since the first draft.  That first draft being sent in virtual secret-decoder-ring not completely low-tech methods.)

Sliding

Behind the creaky doors was one more treasure:

a flurry of memories drifting from the old Flyer sled.

He called it sliding...

First, a powdery footstep to start downhill, then a hiss of the runners as they spit snow behind them, faster and faster.

It's the thrill of not having control, the blur of time going by,

not knowing for sure what he just missed, what landmark he passed along the way.

Frozen spray blurs his vision as he skids across the creek,

and fragments of his childhood splinter from the surface

heaping in random piles as he topples into the snow on the other side.

Or was that the school teacher who fell off his pony into the snow when it was his family's turn to host her for the weekend?

And wasn't that the time that Dad rode the plow horse to get him? Stories drift thick and fast and much bigger than his pony, Rex.

He once tied the sled to old Rex, "and that did not work too well," he says, as he laughs with the thrill of the ride

and a few stray sparkles glance through his eyes, setting over a distant winter.

The weathered slats on rusty hinges hold little that's new;  Mostly a tangle of cobwebs, with dust flaking off in the breeze.

But for now he has his sliding memory.

(August, 2010)

Snark

Dear brother (he lives near water which can be sailed upon, you see, anyone else can read this too),

Remember the boat we called the Sea Snark? They're still around. They are little sailboats that no person who really likes to sail takes seriously. They were made of styrofoam when I was young. It looks like they're made of recycled plastic now.

Encyclopedias were kind of our web when we were kid. All parents who wanted to encourage their kids to study had them. Too many were used for reports in elementary schools. What does this have to do with sailing and Snarks? Read on, dear brother, read on.

Encyclopedias were around in the days before supercomputers, for those younger than I am. We'd pull one of the tomes off of the shelf and look for something interesting. We'd read a bit, and then find something in the entry that we didn't know much about yet. Off we'd go to look up that item, and on and on it went. This is quite like websurfing. For instance...

A friend on Facebook posted that Martin Gardner died yesterday (May 22, 2010). Who, you may ask, is Martin Gardner? The short blurb on my friends Facebook post tells us that he was a mathematics and science writer... with a lot of interesting interests. So, of course, I looked it up myself, and surfed around a bit to find out what I might have read (or might want to read) of his.

Ah. It turns out that I am second-hand acquainted with his works! Why, a large number of my friends and relatives have read and/or quoted and/or otherwise assimilated several of his philosophies. Perhaps I've read some of his articles, but neglected to remember the author. It turns out that he wrote some annotations to Lewis Carroll's works.

Ah. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass -- I read those as soon as I was finished with first grade. That's right, I could read, the books were on the shelf, and I chose to read them. Perhaps that explains a few things... Anyway, in this item about Martin Gardner I found snippets of commentary on something called The Hunting of the Snark, a poem by Carroll. I had not read it before.

Ah. There it was. Sailing to a distant land using a map - a blank piece of paper - in order to hunt for a fictional being.

Ah. There's more! It looks like a lot of people have referenced the The Hunting... . Even Supreme Court Justices made passing references. And, no less, a small recreational sailboat was named the Snark.

Ah. A small, lightweight sailboat, never meant to be taken seriously, but certainly excellent for children's adventures and imagination. After all, the world's best entertainment comes from within one's own imagination.

With love,

your sis.