Eve Eve

This is a valley in Wisconsin that I like to look at as I drive to Mt. Horeb, just this side of Madison. More in my collection of landscape vistas! At least it isn't a picture of a flower, Walker!

It it New Year's Eve Eve. It is quiet and cold here and Walker is on the sofa recovering from a bug that has been working its way through his digestive tract with predictable and familiar results. I don't get these bugs because I'm old and have already suffered from most bugs twice. Even the most legthargic immune system catches on sooner or later. Caitlin and Robyn have gone up ahead of us, intent on shopping. I appreciate Walker for having the good sense to get sick. I hate shopping, unless it's for something specific that I want. For me. No detours!

How many bloggers do you think are waxing this way or that about the New Year? What subset of these waxers mentions resolutions? How about hangover cures?

I grew up very suspicious of ceremony. A therapist I saw once suggesgted that this might be due to my family's frequent withdrawal from normal obligatory social activity. There would be a funeral, or an office party or something with friends and Dad would begin to get enormously worried about it and pretty soon we'd decide it didn't really matter and we wouldn't go. It really didn't matter. We didn't explain that Dad was schizophrenic and so struggled with casual social interaction. He could never decide what to dwell upon and what to let go. He didn't want anyone to know that he was mentally ill because they would judge him. He didn't understand that they judged him anyway. So we didn't show up and we didn't explain.

The result of this ethic for me was to decide that ceremonies and holidays were suspect. Funerals could not represent the worth and existance of the departed. Graduations were canned ceremonies put on by rich regents. Weddings were seldom about the couple. Non-participation in middle class ceremony was a virtue, really. I'll be damned if I'll make a resolution!



This is the same field, just a little to the right. I couldn't get the whole vista in one shot.

Resolutions are fine, really. I just don't want to be obligated by an arbitrary date to make one. I can't say that I am not looking back at the year, at my life, and thinking about the changes I see. I am just not doing this on schedule.

So what are some things to feel good about?

Raquetball! I actually got my big self into a raquetball court and am almost to the point where I don't have to stuff my lungs back into my chest cavity after 20 minutes. My partner commented that he is no longer waiting for my to have a seizure. So maybe I'm really celebrating stamina.

Blood pressure! After skiing, raquetball, a whole lot of shoveling, and at least a gesture at a somewhat more active lifestyle, my blood pressure this week twice measured around 95/68. This is a very low blood pressure for a very big boy. Perhaps I will also become smaller (in places I want to be smaller).

Family and friends: They have taught me to show up and (almost) like it. I now often go to people's events and sometimes even participate.

At my father's funeral, I was amazed and grateful at all the people who came to pay respects. I had wondered if anyone would come to my poor (secret) Dad's event. He certainly hadn't come to theirs. But they showed, and we cried, and I didn't feel as alone as I thought I would.

I am still highly suspicious of events. People don't change all at once, or entirely.

Forgiveness: It is to cut my resentments loose. I am grateful for anyone who given up their resentments toward me. I wrote a note on my recently deceased ex-wife's "guest book" in the Tribune, and signed it "Sam Thompson (and family)." Later I thought that the "(and family") might have been over the top. "Hey, I have a family! I'm still married and my kids aren't messed up!"

I really just meant we were all thinking about them. I wondered how much forgiveness they might have for me, how much resentment remained.

Survival: I don't mean that the world is a jungle or anything, just that we are inevitably lucky to survive. Each uneventful day passed in peace and quiet serves as contrast for whatever takes us down, does us in. I'm sorry those other folks passed away. Let's have a glass of wine or something and discuss their virtues. We're still here.


More beautiful Wisconsin landscape. It was a beautiful day that day.

I'm glad you're still here. Thanks for sharing some of my life. It's a pleasure to breathe air that you exhale. Thanks for putting up with me. I hope you'll let me hang around another year or so. I'll try to improve, but I don't guarantee anything.

And, if you happen to follow the same calendar as I do: Happy New Year!

Wierd Flipping Yule

This is a "sample picture" Windows thoughtfully put on my computer. I couldn't resist it. Fake blue trees!

Okay, let's quit kidding ourselves. It's a strange Holiday season. I thought things would settle down at middle age, but the truth is that things just get more complicated.

Christmases are anniversaries. If anything has changed, particularly for the worse, in our lives, we measure that decline during the holidays. Christmas becomes about loss and no amount of presents in the Universe can change that.

My mother confessed the other day she had completely forgotten about my father's history of paranoia and dangerous behaviors. I suspect she has the right idea there, but of course this is not an idea. Her sense of history is fading like the signal from a radio station as we drive away from it. Dementia meets denial at the dusty crossroad.

My sister in law Michelle decided to take all of my father in law LeRoy's photos and sort them by categories. Of course, she got to choose the categories. I should do a whole blog about people who actually have time to sort other people's pictures. In the "Robyn and Family" section, Michelle put pictures from our wedding. There was a picture of my mother, immaculately dressed, smiling broadly and competently, looking absolutely bullet-proof, frozen in time on one of our happiest days. Wow. And do you know what? She would have been about my current age. Happy Holidays!

My ex-wife just died and her mother called an old friend to make sure I knew. I don't have the slightest idea how I feel about Nancy dying. Some friends have offered condolences, although I took pains not to be a part of her life after divorcing her. My loss was a long time ago and everyone who knew me got to enjoy it with me. It would be a bit specious to mourn now. My oldest friends just shake their heads, remembering how difficult it all was. I'm guessing Nancy's family is having a real humdinger of a holiday.

I googled Nancy's ex-husband and found him on a fitness web site out of Palatine, Illinois, looking faintly like Jack LaLaine. Bill is apparently still a personal trainer. Now this is a perfectly respectable way to make a living, really. Snore. Unfortunately, he was reportedly less boring in person, at least when she divorced him, apparently engaging in scary gunplay. Apparently, I was the nice ex-husband. Who'd have thought it?

My dear friends Diana and Kevin are coping with her cancer. All Diana wants for Christmas is an end to nausea and disability. That doesn't seem like much to ask. I don't think they did a lot of shopping. We all agree that this qualifies as the worst way to spend the holidays: puking. Most people save this for New Year's Day and do it on purpose. It's good to have options.

Part of having an English degree is having read things that most people don't read, but should have read. Cocktail party guests who have read Ulysses outrank those who haven't. (The correct answer to the mention of French author Marcel Proust is: "Ah . . . Proust," by the way. This might indicate you have read him, or it might not.)

The only Proust I've actually read is Swan's Way from Rememberance of Things Past. The premise of Rememberance is that each moment in time is filtered by all the intervening moments that have occurred, between that first moment and the present one. Each experience filters memory.

I wonder if there ever was a simple Christmas, for anyone.

Every day most of us get up and try our best. We try to be happy and productive, and often what we settle for is getting through, getting past, getting by. On Holidays, we confront ourselves, our memories, our expectations, our guilty feelings, our obligation to make merry.

When we used to visit my Grandmother and Grandad Thompson in Southern Illinois, Grandmother used to arrange to have folks stop by and see Dad. Dad hated this. He was often very uncomfortable being there and did not appreciate being on display. Grandmother would plan events and doggedly insist:

"We're going to have a good time."

Yule

It's Christmas morning in our home. One family gathering down and one to go. Mom came over and drank fake wine and we opened presents, then went to my brother and sister in law's for Christmas eve. Today we go to my father-in-law's for round two.

I think Christmas spirit is harder to muster these days. I spent a good deal of time thinking about helping my mother manage the noise and chaos (and keeping her from ingesting too much real wine). That part came off pretty well, actually. I can't help thinking about the mother I used to have, though, before dementia.

So, maudlin man, what do you have to feel grateful for?

Healthy, vital children. A great wife. A good dog. A mortgage which is not sub-prime. A faltering Republican Party. Raquetball. Cross country skiing on 8 inches of new snow. A green guitar. In laws who are good at managing fake wine. The house is clean already. A good job. A band I like playing in. Friends who know me and are still my friends. Cameras. Birds. Warm socks. Books. Leftovers. Cars that start on cold mornings. Songs to sing along with.

Happiness is best when it is allowed to happen. In seasons when it must be made manifest on demand, it can seem strained. It is better to count blessings than it is to count gifts. Peace be with you and yours.

Rest in peace

I got a call yesterday from my old friend Ann, with whom I seldom speak anymore. There was a time when she was a very dear friend of my first wife, Nancy, and I. When we divorced, Ann remained a good friend to Nancy. I drifted away, as friends sometimes do. My former mother-in-law, Shirley, wanted me to know and so called Ann, because Ann could track me down.



Ann related that Nancy died the day before yesterday in the home she shared with her parents and her 13 year old daughter. Ann said that Nancy was very depressed after her sister Annette died of MS earlier this year and had been in poor health with a blood clot on her leg. It was not clear whether her death was due to poor health of if she took her own life.



I made the decision years ago that my anger about our relationship was unresolved in many ways, at least between us, and that it wasn't going to work for Nancy and I to be friends. Because of this, I didn't hear much about her life. I knew that Nancy married Bill Phan, a mutual friend, and that they had two children: Adam, 17, and Audrey, 13 (might have Adam's age wrong. . . I just remember him at our graduation party, and Robyn and I were only just married, so I think he'd be a year older than Caitlin).



According to Ann, what I did no hear was that Bill and Nancy divorced with spectacular misery. Their relationship turned violent and Bill became dangerous and at one point held the children hostage at gunpoint. I really don't have the whole story and I don't intend to turn this into gossip, but this detail colors how difficult it must have been for them. As a therapist, I work with families in which violence occurs and I understand the damage it does to those involved, particularly to children, who learn things about danger and intimacy which bitterly flavors their future relationships and steals from their childhoods.



Nancy was difficult and complicated, capable of great honesty and monumental self-deception. She could be very kind and open hearted, and a good friend to those she allowed close enough to know her. We said many things to each other in anger and our relationship was not good for my self-esteem (or hers, probably), but she was, deep down, a good person. She did not deserve her troubles.

Those of you whom I have bored with tidbits from my English degree, have probably heard me rant about the definition of "tradgedy." By definition, it is not a tragedy when an old woman is hit by a train, or a baby dies at birth. In order for a story to be a tragedy, the characters involved in the plot must carry into it the seeds of their own destruction.

I remember when Nancy and Bill began to become romantically involved. I remember Nancy denying that anything was "going on," and thinking to myslef that this was interesting because I had not asked. I remember that Bill was suicidal months before he became Nancy's room-mate and was calling friends at night in despair. I remember thinking that this match was not, perhaps, prudent. Our friend Kathy wore black to their wedding in order to make that point.

There was a period of time when Nancy and I tried to have a child. For reasons known only to the mythical supreme being, we did not succeed. When my children asked me about what happened to Nancy, I told them she married a friend of mine and they had two children and lived in Chicago. I told my kids that, just as I had found some happiness and had raised a family, Nancy had settled down as well. While I wondered how the two of them, Nancy and Bill, had worked it out, it did not occur to me that they were experiencing such misery. Neurosis, perhaps, but not misery.

I left a note on the "guest book" of the Chicago Tribune, where you can find the death notice for Nancy G. Zielinski, and comments from friends and relatives, including a sweet note from her little brother Gary, a truly nice guy. It was hard to come up with something to say.

I wanted them to know I noticed and that I care. I feel relieved and a little guilty for escaping the life I made with Nancy, which was so hard on the two of us.

I guess that's survivor guilt, eh?

Ice, baby.

It rained and it froze for a whole day this week, covering everything in a clear wrapping of ice. We hid in our homes and avoided going out. When it finished our world was crystaline. I went out and took some pictures, of course.

Here's the clothes lines we hide in our back yard (it's not allowed in the covenant we all seem to ignore. Neither are big dogs, apparently, but we think of Tye as slender).

At the end of the day it warmed and the rain seeped under the ice and made it possible to pry it off the concrete with only a little effort. Those of us veteran Iowans who are equipped got out our heavy iron ice scrapers and broke it up. Then we got out our metal shovels and pushed it toward the edge of the driveway. Then we used our bent handled, back-saving scoop shovels to heave the ice into piles in our yards. Those of us who still do not own snow blowers felt virtuous and independent, knowing that the snow blower people likely had inadequate ice removal equipment, due to over dependence on mechanization, and could only salt and sand the ice, which, by definition, will not "blow."

I cleared the drive and sidewalk but the ice remains on everything else and today everything is covered with a dusting of snow.

Yesterday when the sun come out I drove around marveling and the shiny glistening shape of familiar trees, enjoying the sparkle. Of course some folks suffered downed power lines. My worksite was shut down early in the afternoon when a transformer blew. That was okay. We were done.

No one needs counseling during an ice storm. On the heirarchy of needs, being able to stand up when going outside trumps angst and ennui. I hope I spelled ennui right. It isn't a word you get to use all that often Ennui is like those sexual terms which one knows but seldom finds occasion to speak out loud, like cunnilingus. I used to think the word misled was pronounced "my-zeld." It's not all about sex.

I drove to Des Moines on Thursday to hear a presentation from a big man in charge of mental health at the Department of Human Services. He is big in stature, fairly defining the word portly (I believe his picture is in Webster's as an illistration), and is making big changes in mental health here. He says. We'll see. I drove west on highway 30 and then down through the heart of our corn belt from Marshalltown to Bondurant and into Des Moines. It's a great drive with ice all over everything. Frozen rural whiteness with crystal glazing. I am fairly sure that no one on that stretch of road was thinking about ennui or cunnilingus.

Today we make the final push toward Christmas, figuring out what we have not bought yet, wrapping things, getting the tree together.

This tree, by the way is vicious. Caitlin picked it out. There were a bunch of fluffy fir trees with soft needles and symmetrical branches, easily cut and lifted to the roof of the car. Caitlin decided that there has always been a rule (huh? always?) that the tree has to be taller than she is in order to be acceptable. The cuddly easily managed fir trees were not taller than Caitlin.

The tree she chose is enormous, the same shape as the portly director of mental health for the Iowa Department of Human Services. It has razor sharp needles packed onto denselfy grown branches.

Clearly, this tree did not want to die. The farmer who sold us the tree said his wife had really been wanting him to leave this tree and let it grow, but he said "we just won't tell her." I suspect this was a ploy, that guests to the tidy farm have been razored and slashed by this aggressive conifer, and that this was his chance to unload this feral tannenbaum on unsuspecting city folk.

We got it bungied to the top of the car and crept home, hoping it wouldn't fall off our car and puncture someone. At home, we sawed off more lower branches so we could get it into our stand.

It took us about 30 minutes and a short marital spat (also traditional) to get the tree straight. We used serious gloves.We tightened it down. We walked away. It fell over.

We picked it up. We had another 30 minute straightening/marital encounter session. We sighed with relief. We got the tree to stand up.

Robyn went into the living room by the tree to study. It fell on her. She sustained scratches and abrasions. We picked up the tree, freeing Robyn. Then we had more marital encounter, straigtening, tightening. This time I wired the tree to the wall. I wanted to drive screws into the tree but could not get close enough without severe pain.

We gingerly decorated the tree. It is truly beautiful and . . . portly.

It is a strange and beautiful world, and however fair or unfair it is being toward you these days, peace to you and to yours.

Composition issues

I'm trying to figure out why I can't put spaces between paragraphs all of a sudden. It works in the composer, but when I publish all the lines disappear. I like spaces between my paragraphs and have been doing this since I began blogging back in 1949.

Now, when I hit the publish button the preceding space should Still exist! I don't think that's a lot to ask.

My friends, Kevin and Diana returned from the hospital finally. Diana was the patient but Kevin lived there, too, and Trooley, their noble dog, spent a significant amount of time in the car in the UI Hospitals Parking Lot. That way he felt like he was doing something. They're at home snoozing and eating food they like. They are having long periods of sleep uninterrupted by occuaptional therapists or medical students, or occupational therapy students.

I am protesting this revolting lack of spaces after paragraphs by writing this in Courier, which is much less attractive type. But enough about this, really.

I was in Iowa City last night and we cancelled practice because it was surely going to snow and the fellas didn't want me to get into trouble going home. I didn't really snow, to speak of; it was just dust on the driveway. We rescheduled for tomorrow night. It's supposed to snow.

We are performing at the Mill Friday night. Friday nights are not my best night to play because about 10 p.m. all I really want to do is sit on the sofa. It's pitiful. When I was a young man we played two four hour nights there about every sixth weekend. Once I played there, when I was playing with John Swinton, and I saw Keith's calendar. Greg Brown was booked for 40 dollars that Saturday, and I think we got paid 30, and drinks -- lots of drinks.

The Mill was full of graduate students and old hippie geezers and poets and lots of noisy drama students, and generations of musicians. For 40 years, the Mill spawned hundreds of musicians, all of whom could swill drinks and eat good suppers, and hide out. Keith would tell you what you were worth as a musician if you asked, and he was brutal, and often right. The first time I auditioned for him, he changed the channel on his television set during my song.

Now the Mill is a nice club, but it isn't run by Keith Dempster or booked by Pam. The food still comes late, but it doesn't taste as good. We'll play and listen to each other (becuase we have to -- insufficient practice)and make that familiar and comforting music. Somebody in a Press Citizen editorial blog said that most Iowa City musicians believe we are full of ourselves. I personally don't think most Iowa City musicians agree. But we are full of ourselves sometimes. It's a pleasure to be in a band that works and I, at least, don't believe I'll probably ever been in one this good again. When I play, it fills me up, and so sometimes I'm full of it, and that's that.

Well I'll be damned! My spaces are back! Cool.

Tacotown

Tacotown

Lyrics by Sam Thompson

It's raining

And all of the people

Have boarded their windows

And gone home

No one

Not even the Sisters

Noticed a thing until it was done

And it's raining all over town

She lived back of McDonald's

Just off of Waco

In Tacotown

He was

Pitching for pennies

Waiting for something to come down

And it's raining all over town

It didn't look too good

Staying out late at night

But it didn't hurt too bad

And no one will be the wiser for its

raining

It's raining

And all of the people

Who leave for the winter

Have packed and gone

Something's

Better than no one

Until something better comes along

And it's raining all over town

I wrote Tacotown a long time ago, probably in 1979. I was new to Iowa and trying to capture something of the neighborhood I grew up in. I have always thought a lot about the people I grew up with and those who didn't leave. I think I was really writing about myself in this song, but was too young to know it.

This thing is still not accepting spaces, which really messes with my peferred layout style. Not sure what happened. Pissing me off.

Lyric

Small Pieces

lyrics - Sam Thompson

It depends on whether or not you're wrong,

it depends on whether or not you want to know,

after all the visitors have gone,

standing by the picture window

throwing stones.

It's all broken into small pieces.

They've all fallen on the ground.

I'm so sorry,

Sweet Jesus,

how can you carry your burden around?

How will I remember when you're gone?

How'm I s'posed to wake up when that morning comes?

After all your memories have passed,

running out like water from your fallen glass.

Where you goin'?

I've been standing here waiting for you to come.

I've been callin',

can't you hear me from where in the world you are?

Where in the world you are. . . .

All broken into small pieces,

they've all fallen on the ground.

I'm so sorry, Sweet Jesus,

can you carry your burden around?

For some reason, Google will not let me put spaces between paragraphs tonight, so I have experimented with form to try to help the reader distinguish between verse sections. Did what I could do. Sorry