Running On Empty or, How Patience is a Belgian Characteristic

I made a pledge years ago, when the 26th stopped being a real holiday, that I would not set foot in a store for a Boxing Day sale. It would continue to be a day for lying on the couch, eating Christmas mandarins and reading the book Santa left for me. And I’ve kept my word, eschewing that horrendous frenzy that is post-Christmas consumerism, but there isn’t always a book under the tree, and sometimes I feel like spending the day after Christmas somewhere other than on the couch.

So this year we had the idea that all of us – me, my favourite Belgian, and my three offspring – could go up to the mountains to do some skiing and snowboarding. Actually, the ‘we had the idea’ was really ‘he had’ - my Belgian - with me chiming in because it seemed like a fine thing to do, at that moment. But by the time Christmas night rolled around, my enthusiasm had waned considerably at the prospect of a very early morning, the uncertainty of finding rental boots for a son with Very Big Feet, having to make a trip to the Daughter’s house to pick up her gear, convincing the Elder Son that being together on the slopes was a better idea than his going shopping, and imagining myself hurtling inadvertently down a black run, scared shitless and swearing a blue streak.

Daughter tried her best to be head cheerleader and almost had me convinced, but then Eldest Son’s feet dug in too deep to move, and the whole idea started to unravel. My Belgian tried to salvage what was left and suggested that we just take Bigfoot Son and the Daughter, but since my approach to life is generally of the all-or-nothing variety, and with the vision of plaster-encased bones looming larger in my fevered imagination, I pulled the plug completely. And went to sleep feeling like the biggest party-pooper ever.

Morning dawned, and my mood was lighter. Let’s just go for 1/2 a day, with 2/3 of the kids, said I, brightly. But oh, we still have the boot problem. And OH, what about the PUPPY??? Forgot about him. He can’t be left alone all day, and Eldest Son will be in the mall and unable to help.  So let’s drop Puppy off at a friend’s place. But OH, Friend wants to come WITH us. In that case, let’s take Puppy, Friend, and while we’re at it, Friend’s puppy TOO, but OH, the car isn’t big enough for everybody. Let’s rent a mini-van, my Belgian offers, helpfully. But it’s Boxing Day, and even though every retail outlet on the planet is open and offering 70% off, the car rental company is not. And furthermore, Daughter needs to go back to her place to take a shower first, after spending two nights on the couch at her mother’s house. Back in an hour, she says. We all know how that goes.

When finally we leave, it’s way too late to do any skiing so we’ll just go to the mountains for lunch and maybe a swim in the hot springs. We go to the Friend’s house, and Son-With-Big-Feet hands his car keys to me. He’ll ride with Friend and Two Puppies in the other car and they’ll meet us at the restaurant.
Son’s German car has a 1/4 tank of gas, and by my Japanese car standards, that’s plenty enough to get to the mountains and almost back. My Belgian mildly suggests getting more.  Sure, sure, I say. But there’s no rush. Off we go, with now-grumpy Daughter in the back seat wishing she had never agreed to spend the day with her disorganized family, 3/4 of whom are pathologically incapable of making a plan and sticking to it.

It's a lovely day and it's great to be out of the city.  The mountains move closer but the needle on the fuel gauge moves to the left exponentially faster.  The Belgian’s renewed suggestion to get more gas takes on a firmer tone but I am the picture of insouciance. Oh, don’t worry, I say, there’s one about 20 km away and we’ll definitely stop there.

But OH, the engine is starting to miss. The road climbs uphill and pressing the gas pedal down is not having the customary effect. My Belgian gently asks why I am swearing.  Other than that he says nothing, not even I-told-you-so. In the rear-view mirror, Daughter’s eyes are rolling. I pull off onto the shoulder just as the engine dies completely, and there is now total silence in the car.

Daughter calls her brother, who tells me later how relieved he is that she is only calling to say we’ve run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and not that we are already at the restaurant wondering where the hell he is. We wait, fogging up the windows, buffeted by the hundreds of cars passing us at high speed.

My head fills with disaster scenarios. We will be struck from behind by someone who has mistaken the shoulder for the road. Son and Friend will be hit at the very moment they arrive to rescue us. Or, Son and Friend will not be able to buy a gas can at the service station that is only five short km away. (Couldn’t the damn car have kept going for two more minutes???)  Or, they will be able to buy a gas can, but Son will be struck by a passing vehicle as he attempts to fill the tank. I am driving myself crazy and get out to check which side the fuel tank is on. It’s on the right, so that’s good news, anyway.

An interminable time later, Son and Friend arrive with a full can, laughing their heads off. We have not yet been struck from behind. Nor do they get hit. The engine starts. We arrive at the restaurant for lunch at 4 PM and let the Puppies out for a pee in the parking lot instead of the frolic through the snow that we had planned. The sun has already dipped behind the mountains, leaving only the very peaks brushed in gold. The food is good, but then anything is when you’re really hungry and cold and relieved to be safe.

The hot springs pool is just what we need. Submerged to our chins amidst clouds of steam rising into the crisp indigo sky, we laugh about the day. I lean into my Belgian’s arms and gaze up at the 3/4 moon. Life is good again and I’m going to overfill the tank before we head back home. And next year I'll make sure to put a book under the tree myself.

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Something I've been Wanting to Say To You

A friend who teaches elementary school has a student who got into trouble for an incident that fit his modus operandi perfectly. When she confronted him, he denied any wrongdoing and was then suspected not only of the deed, but of lying about it. When the story was finally unravelled, it turned out that he was innocent. His teacher felt terrible for having doubly accused him and apologized profusely. He told her that her apology didn’t matter, that he didn’t feel any different or better because she had said she was sorry. She thought about that, and later took him aside to say that she now realized her apology was really for herself, but that her words had made her feel better. With time, she hoped, they would have the same effect on him too.

Well, they won’t, he said.

For a long time now, I have wanted to make an apology . Two, in fact. But hearing this story made me re-examine whether there was any point to saying I was sorry, if the words used to express regret are not well-received. And while it’s generally true that the giver of an apology feels a lessening of their burden, but the relief isn’t always reciprocated. ‘Do you accept my apology? ‘, we might ask, but the response is not always positive. How difficult it is to extend our regret to another, only to see it slip through their hands.

Reconsidered thusly, my apologies may simply become acknowledgements. There will still be a faint hope accompanying them that repair is possible, but an acknowledgement does not carry the same weight of expectation. An apology is a bit like a birthday present, offered without obviously anticipating anything in return. But if, when the giver’s birthday rolls around, nothing comes her way, there’s likely to be some disappointment.

A misunderstanding of the highest order passed between a brother and me some years ago and it remains unresolved, leaving traces still evident despite the erosion of time. On the surface, we appear to have gotten over it, and part of my reluctance to say anything now is a fear of re-opening an old wound. But I can’t bury things like he seems to be able to do, and my old distress, half-conscious though it is, regularly turns over and mutters in a dark corner of my mind. What also stops me from apologizing is that I believe I had valid reason to say to him what I did way back then, although I never dreamt that my words would have such a devastating effect.

And longer ago than that, events that I put in motion changed the course of my former husband’s life to such an extent that he cannot bring himself to speak to me. It is our youngest child’s greatest wish that his siblings, his father and I simply be able to share a meal together once in a while, on the rare occasion that we are all in the same city.

For that to happen, I would need to make an apology – or an acknowledgement – of what my husband suffered when he lost a life he had thought would always be his. For the sake of my son, I think I can do that, but there is something standing in the way. Until I started writing this essay I didn’t understand that it is the very real possibility that my regret will only be met with continued hostility. That it just won’t do.

That’s the crux of it. I’m afraid to say what wants to be said in case nothing comes back. No reciprocal acknowledgement, no acceptance, only silence. Or worse, outright rejection. But as Christmas approaches, I am pulled by a strong urge to make things right, to offer a gift in the true spirit of giving without expectation of something for myself.

Unwrapped, no strings attached and straight from the heart.

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Is that 'Ode To Joy' I hear?

Late, late last night, still awake long after my beloved had given himself up to sleep, I thought of the people I have begun to know in the last months, and in the night stillness, their voices seemed to come to me as faint, distant bells. Signalling their presence in tones sometimes resonant, sometimes delicately crystalline, they compelled me to listen and after a time I began to hear their clear, pure notes joining and blending together in a harmony of ideas and intention, motifs and themes.

In Penned but not Published, the writer asks if symbolism informs our writing, or our lives. Music has always been part of my life, and I once heard it described as the purest form of human expression. It seems, then, entirely right for me to consider music as a symbol for what is created in this place of writers and artists. It is our vast concert hall, and without benefit of a conductor, we play and practice, our melodies simple, tender, bold, complex, amusing, heartbreaking, dark and unforgettable; the kind of compositions that we remember long after we first heard them. We create an exquisite opus, contrapuntal and melodious although dissonance is an integral part of the whole – without it, music is saccharine and superficial.

Then today, The Pliers wrote of paving stones and the grass that holds them fast to the earth as metaphors for the things we must do in life, and how we choose to do them. She refers eloquently to “ the rush of feeling connected to another, above and beyond words and the rule book delivered by the stork along with one's corporeal form; the joy of trusting one's non-traditional ways of knowing” .

Her reference to the rule book, or rather, to its irrelevance, brings to mind another analogy. At the risk of mixing far too many metaphors, I liken my initial experience of this community of writers to being the new kid at school. On the playground at recess there are already well-established groups, and relationships within those groups – a hierarchy to be respected and an etiquette to be observed if the new kid has any hope of gaining entry to the circle. Depending on her level of self-assurance, she might try to integrate herself boldly, or hang around on the periphery, watching and waiting, analyzing the behaviour and personalities of the others to best assess her chances of acceptance.

It took me a few months to realize how preposterous this scenario was as applied to the blogging community. It took me that long to figure out that, in this environment, the usual rules do not apply. In the relative anonymity of this milieu we can present ourselves in only one context, without the factors that often influence how we form relationships in the physical world.

We are, simply, what we say. What we write. We may accompany or decorate our writing with lovely images, but we have, essentially, only one way to present ourselves to the world. In regular daily life, we assess, judge, analyze and absorb information about other people from a number of sources; the way they look, dress, the accent with which they speak, the pitch of their laughter, the quirks they reveal simply by their existence.

Here, almost nothing of that comes into play. In his book ‘Blink’ Malcolm Gladwell relates the experience of a female French horn player who auditioned several decades ago for a place in a major European orchestra from behind a screen. This was not conventional practice at the time, and although her playing was deemed far superior to the other applicants, she was denied the job once her sex was known. She didn’t give up, and her fight to be accepted for what she could do and not what her physical self was interpreted as being capable of became the basis for the standard practice of blind auditions for many orchestra players today.

Essentially, we are those musicians behind a screen. We play, we are heard and we are judged (yes, we are!) only by how we present our song. But there is an essential, crucial difference between an audition, the playground and what we do here as writers, and that is that we are not in competition . On the contrary, support of each other is what makes the music beautiful and each new voice only enriches the chorus.

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