“I’m going to pay for this column.”
That was a great lead by a political columnist in the daily paper last week, calculated to lure people to read on. Hers was an expose of machiavellian machinations on the national political scene.
I’m borrowing it. My view is not with wide-angle lens but a microscopic peek at an ill-tempered, judgmental and ungrateful old soul who’s in dire need of an attitude adjustment. Wouldn’t blame anyone a bit if they flip to another page. Move along, nothing to see here.
It started as a “fie on love” theme for a Valentine’s Day column. But I chickened out, plus missed the deadline. Besides, I undermined my own stand by sending a whole slew of valentines. Commercial though it may be, I embrace Valentine’s Day as a time to finally send thank you notes for Christmas gifts, a plausible time to slip a little cash to kids in the clan, and bake sweet treats for family and friends. A virtual hug but not a clinging, smothering one.
Why am I talking about sweet treats? This is Lent. Pick up the repentance theme; get to the subject of my dark side. It would be easier than talking about love just now, in my life, in my family, in my mind.
We were flooded with love at the beginning of the year. Arriving unexpectedly came the child who has been the focus of love and pride for decades, now grown into a caring, totally together, mature professional woman.
It was a long-planned surprise visit from 4,000 miles away to celebrate her mother’s significant numerical birthday. It absolutely trumped any surprise gift ever.
It was also a strategic mission intended to prod a couple of lethargic ladies of the senior generation to shift into a higher gear, get financial and health affairs in order and to clean out closets and get rid of stuff.
We did get a start and it helped to have help. Moldering newspapers with past significant — usually dire — headlines went into the recycling bin. Stacks of other papers were sorted for a shredder. Boxes of non-treasures were transitioned from closet to the curb for Big Brothers-Big Sisters pickup. Clothes in outgrown sizes are heading for a church outreach center.
It made me envy friends who have a lifelong pattern of moving on, liberated with each move by unloading superfluous stuff.
The effort was somewhat satisfying and gave us a vision of what’s ahead. But we had to struggle to feel the love by the end of the week’s work. The older generation balked, slipped back into second gear, got downright cranky at having others peer into drawers and mementos. The younger left exasperated and downhearted that she did not match Hercules in his legendary, mythical stable-cleaning.
At the core of our family, we love each other and know the feeling is mutual. We also know each other as unique characters with personalities, quirks and opinions developed over lifetimes, none of which were pampered. Each feels they earned the right to be prideful, curmudgeonly and complex as is.
Mercifully we only live in close quarters for short time periods. The recent experience gives me new perspective on other people. I envy an octogenarian widow who is happily secure for life in her longtime home because her daughter moved in and they successfully work at getting along with each other. I’m in awe of neighbors who live in the same house of 12 people in four generations. But I can understand a police story about domestic strife erupting among people living too crowded together to survive intact.
Back to honu speed
Once the whirlwind passed back home, we lapsed back to honu speed — picture the long naps in the sand! I confess to a lingering sulk, resentment that nothing I’ve held dear looks like legacy material to the next generation. I balk at being told what to do; thought that ended with retirement. I worry and wonder if all of the above are symptoms that I’m “losing it.” For sure, my sense of humor flickered like a power outage, but is having a stash of glass jars, or a drawerful of bookmarks collected on my travels also a symptom of a fading brain?
At a lunch, I was telling this woeful story with full dramatic effect when a new friend deflated the huffing and puffing. “Oh, we know our children don’t want our things. We just gave things away and moved to a smaller place,” said Evie, a cheery forgiving grandmother, who was like “Singing in the Rain” to my Wagnerian storm and thunder theme.
My friend Hildy, who has been grieving while she dispersed worldly goods left behind by her sister, chuckled at my dudgeon: “If it’s not something I can take with me to the care home, it goes,” she said.
It’s overwhelming. Maybe in addition to getting the funeral plan, I’d better prepay a contract with a hauling business.
So, now here’s where I’m supposed to weave in a Biblical transition, about letting go of things and getting into our spiritual closets for a good housecleaning to prepare our hearts for Easter. Sweep out the hurt, resentment, pride. How can the light and love flood into an ungrateful heart heaped with moldering burdens?
Many are the Gospel themes that would fit.
But the scenario I picture myself in is the long trek of the crowd that Moses led out of Egypt. They had to leave possessions and lifestyle behind. They ran scared with energy when the threat was clear, but then dawdled and meandered and got sidetracked with wars and backslid into the bad old ways. They complained and balked at Moses’ leading and prodding. Even when they heard God thundering on the mountaintop and Moses armed with the word, they didn’t get it that they were the chosen people of God.
They didn’t know it was going to be a 40-year journey of transition.
The 40-day Lent each year reminds us that the journey continues into each generation. I like to picture myself shedding spiritual and mental baggage as I march through Lent. Continuing to unload some of the physical stuff, that will be the Lenten penance, for sure.
I’m not sure which will be the hardest part of the trip. But the recent awareness-raising experience has made a point: there won’t always be another Lent.
