Saturday, September 27, 2008

The Bunny's Tail

Dad wore Old Spice Aftershave. As a child I loved that smell. It covered up the stink of alcohol which oozed from his pores and which gagged me as I reached up to kiss him goodnight.

One of the requirements in our family was that I pretend to adore him. On the rare occasions I didn’t, he’d shout, "YOU MUST THINK I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON!”

As an adult, I imagine myself saying, “I do think you’re a terrible person. Consider what you’ve done to my mother, to our house, to me. Don’t come around here with your alcoholic victimization routine.” But at the time I was struck dumb, paralyzed from the terrible wound that we called a family.


Dad has been dead six years now. One of the things my daughter inherited was his old leather key chain. She says, “It used to smell like [Grandpa], but it doesn’t any more.” Curious, I take a sniff and my hound dog nose picks up the scent of Old Spice.

Instantly the memory of him comes back so intensely he seems to be in the room with us. Tears fill my eyes. My daddy is here and he’s gone forever.

I lean against the wall, very mixed up. On one hand, I am a scared kid, hiding under the kitchen table while he beats my mom. Another part of me remembers…

The first time he came home from rehab, I was five or six. He had made two ceramic bowls in there--one for my brother and one for me. I still have mine. On the side is a picture of me with a halo and my nickname Pody followed by pictures of cats dreaming about fish or saying “meow.” Best of all, at the bottom of the bowl was the back of a bunny. If I ate all my cereal or whatever, I could see its fluffy tail.

Today I hold the bowl in my hands and think how he went to the trouble to make this treasure for me. If there was a fire in our house (and assuming the cats and husband were safely outside) I would grab that bowl, because hidden underneath the alcoholism, he’d loved me all the time. And underneath the fear and hurt and anger I’d loved him.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Small Things With Great Love

I’ve been feeling especially blue. The news seems full of evil goings-on. Like most good citizens, I vote, donate money, forward e-mails, etc. But I get freaked out when the nastiness is more powerful than us good citizens. In the face of this, what seems most sensible and mature is to do some act of violence, like blowing up the mall.('course then I realize this might not be the best idea, especially since my best friend owns the mall.)

Back in high school, I hung out with other hippie wanna-be’s, all of us dedicated to peace and love. Therefore we despised anybody who wasn’t with us. My catch phrase at the time was “When the revolution comes, your house will be the first to go.” (Meaning if you weren’t as loving and kind as we were, we’d burn your house down.)

This is the insanity of a culture that tells us the only sane response to evil is “getting back at them.” Like this is going to change anything. ("I well remember the day Lyttie Poe burned my house down. Suddenly it made me realize how wrong I’ve been, so I now will devote my life to peace, equality, and singing Kumbaya.”)

Years ago I finally got around to asking God what to do about all the evil in the world. The response I got was “Go thou and do the opposite.” (Yes, I know it sounds dorky, but I don’t control these things.)

I’ve discovered I can get a lot farther by becoming a loving person myself than by trying to make the world a loving place.

An example: four years ago I met a woman named Katie who is my polar opposite in religion and politics. Today I count her among my dearest friends, because we’ve learned to look past the differences and focus on what is beautiful about the other. (Besides, in every other way we’re exactly alike.)

Anyway, in response to all the horrible news items, here’s what I did: I wrote “You are a precious child of God.” on small strips of paper and wove them into a clay heart I found lying around the house. Then I went to a church parking lot, asked my Higher Power to guide me to someone who needed a lift, and put it on a windshield. I don’t know how the person reacted to it; when I came out later the car was gone. But that day I felt like I’d done my small part to go “Nya! Nya!” to meanness and violence.

To paraphrase my favorite philosopher Elwood P. Dowd, “In this world you must be ever so clever or ever so nice. I prefer nice.”

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Poe Starts a Blob

For those of you who don’t know me, I will warn that I am hopelessly neurotic. For years I hid this fact, desperately trying to look like Magnum P.I. It was no fun and I wondered why I felt so terribly isolated from the rest of the world.
I am happy to say that today I’ve learned to embrace my neurosis, even finding it sorta cute. The magic is that the more I smile on my dark side, the more attractive I am, at least to the nutty, insecure folks I hang out with.

I must say it took a lot of courage to start up this blob thing. I had to play three games of FreeCell just to calm me down.

My biggest fear is that nobody will come to it.

When I was 7, I read a book in which two kids set up a lemonade stand. (My favorite part was when a man comes by in his car and buys a glass. After one sip, he pours the whole thing down the side of his car.)
This sounded like a great fun. I got out a box and set up a stand at the edge of our curb. Only I didn’t want to make lemonade (probably sounded like too much work), so I pulled off a bunch of flowering tree branches off and laid them on my stand. I attached a “For Sale Flowers” sign and sat waiting for all my customers.
Then nobody came by. (I forgot to mention we lived on a dead end street; I think one car drove down the whole time. He didn’t stop.) After an hour or so I put my flower stand away, feeling deeply ashamed, discouraged, and out of touch with the rest of humanity. Of course, I was the child of an alcoholic; I always felt ashamed, discouraged, and out of touch with humanity.

Why am I telling this story? My hope is that somewhere out there a few friendly folks will wander down my dead-end street and stop at the little flower stand I’ve set up.

“What most pleases
a good God
is for
my little soul
to love my littleness
And my poverty.
That is blind faith
that I have in his mercy.”

St. Therese of Liseaux