wanderings (an homage)

Life is sometimes what you wander into.
~ Joe Bednar

Got into the car this morning and fired up my trusty iPod. Just like that, up comes the title track off Steely Dan’s third studio album, Pretzel Logic. The tour supporting this album was once termed the “tour of disillusionment.” I forget who coined the phrase; and I’m not sure if he or she was referring to the audience –- who were somewhat befuddled by the more complex nature of this new material –- or to the band itself. Probably both. Either way, lukewarm tour reception prompted Walter Becker and Donald Fagen to retreat into the studio and abandon live touring for decades.

I would love to tour the southland, in a traveling minstrel show
Yes I'd love to tour the southland, in a traveling minstrel show ...

Something I read recently stirred up nostalgia for my old college days -- when, ironically, I was into lots of classic rock tunes like this one. The “something” was a very poignant, thought-provoking blog post by Joe, an old college friend of my husband’s. The memory that it conjured up was that of my own freshman year on a different campus. Specifically, the day –- no, the actual moment –- I suddenly felt at home ... at college, in school, in my own skin. I was walking toward my dorm at dusk, backpack slung over one shoulder, hand in my pocket, crossing the business quad. Everything about that instant stands out vividly: the angle of the light, the scent of the pine trees, the sweater I was wearing. I had the simple thought, this is going to be okay. It just clicked comfortably into my head, the way a phonograph needle settles into the groove of a familiar old 45. My life stretched out before me like a bright white six-lane highway.

I have never met Napoleon, but I plan to find the time
I have never met Napoleon, but I plan to find the time ...

In his blog, Joe describes a college friendship that was, and then it wasn’t, before eventually coming around again. He alludes to the fears and plans of his own teenage self; the companions that came alongside him for the first leg of the trip; the unexpected and occasionally unwelcome turns that occurred down the road. Many of us might recognize in his description a person we ourselves haven’t seen in the mirror for some time: a hesitant, hopeful, headstrong version of the grown-up skin we somehow wandered into; an increasingly pragmatic, pensive traveler who’s navigated that ever-narrowing highway across the years and into the jurisdiction of the lives we lead today.

And what would happen if we introduced those two selves right here and now? How much would they still have to talk about, to compare, to admire in one another? And would they still share that buoyant conviction that things were going to be okay?

“Friends,” observed Stephen King in Stand By Me, “can come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant.” So it is, I find. And maybe, in the end, the real ones are meant to do more than help us navigate our own detours and disillusionments. Maybe they’re meant to bear witness; to preserve continuity; to help us stay true to the best and brightest and most worthwhile parts of the person we are and the person we’d once hoped to be. Even when those days are gone forever; over a long time ago.

Oh yeah.

All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

laughing matters

Did you ever try to hold in laughter? I mean, hold it in so hard that your eyes water and it looks like the Egg McMuffin you had for breakfast is disagreeing with you? I find that, as I get older, I don’t laugh nearly as often, as loud, or as long as I once did -- or as I probably should. But in the days of my comparative youth, solemn events sometimes gave me the giggles.

Now okay, I know how atrocious this sounds. I’m ashamed to admit it myself. I want to stress that I’ve never been the kind of person to feel bona fide amusement in serious circumstances; but I’ve come to develop a theory. My theory is that this, uh, tendency was due to what my great-uncle Joe termed “can’t-scratch-your-nose” syndrome. You know what I’m talking about: the conundrum that occurs when –- for whatever reason –- your hands are restrained, or you can’t reach your face, or you’re not allowed to fidget. Perhaps you’re carrying a grand piano; or a big scowling nun is sitting next to you in church; or you’re floating around repairing the NASA space station. Suddenly, you realize you’re unable to scratch your nose. It’s not that you have to scratch your nose – it’s just that you’re abruptly struck with the awareness that –- should your nose begin to tickle, even just slightly –- you would be completely powerless to do anything about it. And so, if you’re like me, you focus on this restriction and your nose starts to itch like mad.

Accordingly, in true “can’t-scratch-your-nose” spirit, the most horrendous laughter-gaffe of my youth occurred when I was a junior in high school. It happened during an awards ceremony for my 96-year-old next-door neighbor. I forget what he was being congratulated for, exactly –- possibly just the ability to sit up unassisted for the duration of the two-hour program –- but that’s not what I want to emphasize. What I want to emphasize is that I was absolutely, 100% composed until someone invited the bagpipers up front to play an interpretive rendition of “Man in Motion” from St. Elmo's Fire (remember, this was the 80s). I also want to emphasize that I began my stern internal pep-talk of STAY SERIOUS STAY SERIOUS STAY SERIOUS immediately, and didn’t feel a single chuckle-churning whatsoever until they were well into the chorus. That’s when I hit the proverbial floor, as in crouching for cover and fleeing in a low, frenzied fashion straight to the restroom.

Now of course, in a more forgiving world my chosen restroom would have been vacant. And of course our world is anything but, and so this one was packed with unsuspecting middle-aged women. Unfortunately, once I was safely sequestered inside the stall, roughly 35psi of previously-suppressed air pressure exploded through my nostrils in a sound that approximated an amplified duck whistle. Within a single beat of time, the restroom became abruptly, utterly silent. So in my desperation to cover this mortifying outburst I flushed the toilet, which made me begin to cackle outright; a sound I, in turn, attempted to muffle with several more rapid-fire toilet flushings. I’m not sure how the casual observer might have interpreted all this whooping and whooshing, but I will say I’ve never heard so many feet shuffling so frantically toward an exit door in my life.

Ah, misty watercolor memories. So is there a moral to this uncomfortable little episode? Well, I suppose you might take it as a pointed reminder that somebody, somewhere, is always having a day worse than yours. As for myself, I guess, it just helps to remember that once, it really was just that easy to conjure up a big, boisterous belly laugh ... no matter how inappropriate the situation. Because –- don’t get me wrong –- laughing out of turn is never a good thing.

But as Uncle Joe would tell you, it’s better than losing your sense of humor altogether.