Pink Floyd on My Mind Today

"And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"

I had ju-jitsu practice this morning. We practice on Tues and Fri from 6:30 to 8. Our practices are held at an office building in Alexandria. There is no parking, but there is a metro station nearby. So I park at a metro station one stop down, and ride the metro up to the Eisenhower station.

Once you go through the gate of the metro, you don’t get charged again until you go back out a gate. Then the machines calculate how far you have traveled and charge you appropriately. If you don’t go out a gate, you don’t get charged. If you go out the gate you came in, you get the minimum charge - I think it’s $1.65.

There have been many days where I thought it would be good to get on the train and just ride it all day, back and forth from one end of the yellow line to the other, then to metro center and ride the blue, then the red, then the green, going from end to end, over and over. Movement without a destination.

Today I had the overwhelming desire to do that. When I got back to the Huntington Station where I park, I just wanted to get back on the train and start riding. To watch the urban scenes flow past, to see the lights of the tunnels blur by. To emerge from the dark suddenly, blinkingly into the light again like Dante rising.

Sometimes the answer seems to be in the movement.

But then Pink Floyd says,

"Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here."

Evelyn

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding" - Job, 38:4

There was a woman named Evelyn who cared for me when I was an infant - only for a few months. When I was born, my father was working and going to nightschool to finish his high school degree, and my mother was finishing her last year of college. By the time I was about a year old, we had moved away to Amherst where my father started college. Evelyn saw me only a few times after that. But until I was 35 years old, I always received a birthday card from Waltham, Mass, with the signature line, "Love, Your old babysitter, Evelyn."

It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I began to reciprocate. I started sending her birthday cards and even occasional notes with pictures of my own children. She loved them and would write back immediately. But then I would usually wait months before responding again - or until one of our birthdays came around again.

When I received the birthday card I had sent her with the words, "deceased" scrawled across the address, it was hard to believe. I hadn't seen Evelyn in more than 20 years, but the fact that a birthday card wouldn't come the next May - it seemed almost unthinkable. It was one of the forces of nature. With winter comes snow, with spring, rain and flowers, and a birthday card.

I don't think I appreciated how lucky I was to have this bond with someone almost a stranger until many years later. How do you explain it? You could argue that Evelyn was a lonely old woman living in a second floor walk-up in a decrepit building and had nothing better to do. Perhaps. Perhaps it was more about her happiness than mine that she sent those cards year after year. It certainly was not because I was particularly worthy. I hadn't earned that love. But the fact is, she touched me and made me believe that there are random acts of goodness in this universe that we sometimes take for granted, that complement the cruelties and excesses that much more often come to play center to our stories.

When my birthday comes around each year now I think of Evelyn, each year making sure to get to the grocery store and buy a card for the baby she had held and cared for all those years ago. She didn't know the man I had become, except by occasional notes and pictures. I don't know that these would have made much difference to her. What I believe she thought she knew was the core of me - all the rest was just trappings. The ones we come to love - the ones that love us - it never ceases to amaze me how random this is. And to be loved for your core - it's a thing that defies understanding. A thing that comes only a few times in life, if at all.

Music In the Air

Between the parking lot and the library is the GMU
Performing Arts Center. It is a beautiful clear,
breezy, but cool day here today. As I was crossing
the street and heading toward the campus pond, I
suddenly heard a trumpet coming over the wind and the
water. It was just scales, but he had such clarity
and such range. He must have covered three octaves.
And as he reached the highest range, it felt like
hope.

With the sun shining and the air clean and fresh and
music literally in the air, there was no room for
anything like self-pity - even if I was spending my Spring Break in the library.

I finally saw him when I was almost to there. He
was standing outside in a t-shirt (it's definately not
more than 40) and jeans, with just his trumpet. He
was playing something else when I got to him - no
longer reaching for the high notes, but not clearly a
song. But so clear. I stopped and watched him for a
while and he saw me. I was probably a 100 meters
away, but he could have been right next to me it was
so clear. He turned my way and played something that
was probably just part of his warm up.

It's a fine day to be alive his trumpet was saying. I
wanted to thank him for such a wonderful gift this
morning.

But I didn't say anything. I just went inside. This
was just a few minutes ago. I wanted to share it with
you because I wanted you to know that I think it is a
fine day to be alive, and I want you to feel that it
is a fine day to be alive, too, even if you didn't get
to hear his music.

Learning

It was a snow day. My mother had picked up my grandmother and brought her to our house to watch us for the day. I had gone out with one of the neighborhood kids – Jimmy A. – to play in the snow. We were about 12 at the time. Jimmy was one of those kids from the neighborhood that you played with when you didn’t have anyone else to play with. And he felt the same about me. He had other friends – friends that spent time in the principal’s office and the “resource room” where they got extra attention and got to go on special outings. He’d have probably been on Ritalin if he were in school today.

I don’t remember what lead up to what happened exactly – I think we tried to bumper ski a few times – you know, wait for a car to drive by, then grab a hold of the fender and slide on the slush in your sneakers. I was fast enough, but wasn’t really brave enough for that. Jimmy was stupid enough to try, but not fast enough. So I think that’s when we decided what would be fun next would be to throw snowballs at cars. We were on the corner of Tolman street and I can’t remember the other, but it was on my paper route. This was on the Waltham/Newton line – an old suburb with lots of Italians and Jews that had made it out of the city. Not wealthy, not poor. Lower middle class. Lots of duplexes and quads. If you lived in our neighborhood, you had a good blue collar job, or you were a poor white collar worker. Or you lived there because your parents lived around the corner.

We made snowballs and waited. A car drove by, we threw. We missed. I always missed. I never played baseball as a kid – I can barely throw a ball even now. My wife laughs at me when I try. Another car came – we threw, we missed. And then there was one of those big 70’s boats – an Impala or something – it was tan. We threw – I missed. Jimmy’s snowball smacked into the side of the car. There was a moment’s hesitation, then the car slammed on its breaks and squealed into reverse. We turned and ran. God knows where Jimmy went, but he was gone. Like I said, I was fast, but I couldn’t think where to go, where to hide. I ran down the middle of the street as I heard the car shift back into drive, and the wheels squeal and run through the slush. I finally cut into someone’s yard, but there was a fence around the back yard. I didn’t know what to do. I look back and think, I just should have jumped the fence, but running into a stranger’s backyard seemed unthinkable for some reason at that moment. Then it occurred to me – my snowball didn’t hit the car. I wouldn’t get in trouble. I walked casually back out to the street. The car slammed on its breaks and the driver door flew open.

The man who emerged was a tall – probably over 6 feet. I was maybe 5’3” at the time, 110 pounds or so. He had grey hair, so I suppose he was in his late forties or early fifties. He had on a red and black hunting jacket – it looked like a dark table cloth – and construction boots. I remember the boots well.

I don’t remember if he said anything before he began to beat me. I think he may have just grabbed my jacket and started pummeling me with his other fist. He hit me in the head and face many times. My arms too, of course, because I was trying to shield my face.

“I didn’t hit your car” I kept trying to say between blows.

Finally he knocked me to the ground. He seemed satisfied and was starting to walk away. I was on all fours in the slush on the street, spit and blood draining from my mouth. As I started to stagger to my feet in a rage I shouted, “You fucking bastard!”

He turned and flew back at me, and punched me again, sending me back to the ground. “You’re a little bastard, you are!” he bellowed. I remember that as if it were yesterday.

Then he kicked me in the ribs with his boots, two or three times, till I fell over in the snow.

Then he walked back to his car and drove away.

Some other kid had been watching – some kid I didn’t know. He came over and helped me. I remember him saying, “Holy shit” or something like that.
I stumbled home. The kid walked with me. It was only a few blocks. Before I went in, I wiped the blood from my lips. Amazingly I didn’t have any facial bruising – so I guess he must have mostly hit the sides and back of my head.
I tried to conceal what had happened as best I could, but I collapsed on the couch in our den. My grandmother said, “Are you OK?” I somehow brushed her off. I never told my parents what had happened. I just remember lying on the couch and hurting all over.

I never threw snowballs at cars again.