ecclesiastes – DTyesthatDT

I went for a walk yesterday. At the beginning, I stopped to stretch on a granite bench next to a monument to a little girl who had died in an accident. She was a student at Dassel Elementary School at the time of her death. I think she was nine. There is a beautiful stone with her name and a thoughtful verse carved into it along with the bench and some nice landscaping in a small courtyard on the east side of the school near a side entrance. There is a giant oak tree that overhangs the courtyard too. It’s really nice. I live across the street from it and I can see the bench and stone from my bedroom window where I have my home office during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As I stretched I looked up and saw another entrance farther down the block that brings you into the old gymnasium that doubles as a stage and theater like many older schools had. It’s a lot like the former middle school gymnasium and Orwall Auditorium in North Branch where I grew up. I like the old schools with their humble facilities a lot more than the richer campuses that our tax dollars and levies build these days that produce far poorer results for everyone except the administrators and unions in my opinion. Why are the teachers and students the ones who seem to suffer? Aren’t they the reason for the school being there in the first place? I think we’ve lost focus on what we should be prioritizing and spending our time and money trying to accomplish. This isn’t my overall point and I apologize for the side track. I’ll get the wagon back in the ruts now.

Two of my daughters played basketball in that gym when they were little. It was really fun and really hard to watch at the same time. I so much wanted them to do well, but I also wanted them to have fun and be okay with whatever the outcome was. It was hard to listen to the other parents whose children weren’t living up to their expectations. It was worse when they yelled at them or coached them from the stands. It was also hard to listen to the parents who didn’t pay attention at all or the ones who displayed their lack of care by playing with their phones the whole time. There were also the parents that criticized other people’s kids and talked about how much better their kid was.

I sat behind a lady who criticized and made fun of my daughter one afternoon. Four of her kids had worked for me at my restaurant at one time and I had a good relationship with three of them. I fired the fourth one for stealing and generally being lazy, among other undesirable habits, after giving him many chances to redeem himself and this is why the lady hates me and my kids. I’m sure she knew I was there and she took the opportunity to take her petty revenge. It was really hard, but I kept my mouth shut and let her do her thing. I still struggle and go back and forth between despising her or feeling sorry for her and her family. Few things make me happier than seeing good parents who pay attention to their kids and really care about them and few things upset me more than bad parents who don’t realize how much they’re damaging their kids. We all do it in one way or another, but some of us are trying really hard to avoid causing damage while others only see themselves.

I thought about all of these things as I walked past the playground that was barricaded to enforce social distancing recommendations, the people at the park and a nearby house who were having a party or family gathering of some type in spite of the social distancing recommendations, and the people who I met on my walk who, like me, aren’t completely sure what to do when they encounter another person in public at this point. It’s complicated. I walked past people walking, running, biking, and driving with and without masks on. Should I have one on? The answer depends on who you listen to or who you believe or trust.

Things like grocery shopping and putting gas in your car have gotten complicated also. What is the etiquette? Nobody really knows. Each person, store, and situation is different and has different expectations and beliefs. The CDC and WHO and different politicians and doctors all have their recommendations which seem to change weekly or even daily. There is a lot of judgement, complaining, and criticizing going on also and plenty of social media platforms to do it with. This goes for opinions and advice too. Again, it’s very confusing and a little stressful even for someone who does’t get overly anxious about things. I can only imagine what the poor folks with actual anxiety issues or hypochondria are going through right now.

I feel fortunate, blessed, lucky, or happy (however you want to say it) to be healthy and to still have a job that I can go to even if it is in the makeshift home office that I hastily put together a few weeks ago. Many people do not have their health or a job to be thankful for. I have two old computer monitors sitting on a Nike shoe box and a Quaker oatmeal box hooked up to my laptop and I’m okay with that. My back and hands hurt a little from the bad chair and desk along with my bad posture habits, but I’m okay with that too. An old herbalist that I listened to years ago said that we should be thankful for pain because it reminds us that we’re alive and trying to heal.

I thought about all of these things on my walk and as I finished the loop and walked back to my house past the elementary school I thought about the little girl on the stone again. Mileka the third grader. I never met her or even heard of her until she died. I didn’t know she existed until I read her obituary in the local paper. I had another Ecclesiastes-like moment as I thought about the vanity of life and how arbitrary it seems at times.

Why did their girl die while my girls got to play basketball in her school? My oldest daughter is about to get her doctorate, my son is about to get his bachelor’s degree, and my two younger girls are working hard and advancing in school too. Why did I get to watch them play basketball, stack rocks on the shore of Lake Superior with them, listen to their fears about what the Corona virus outbreak means for their futures, drink coffee and eat pancakes with them, make homemade pizzas with them, play badminton and go for walks with them, argue about differing opinions with them, clean up after them, get annoyed by them, and show them love every day, and her Dad doesn’t get to do any of that with her?

Why is anyone alive or dead? I don’t know. You don’t either. It’s unknowable. My kids’ degrees and careers and schooling are being disrupted and delayed which is causing some pain and upset, but the pain means they’re alive and struggling. I’m thankful that with all of the chaos and uncertainty across the globe presently, I am alive and struggling. I’m thankful that you are alive and hopefully struggling to some extent too. Whatever pain and anxiety your are experiencing right now proves that you are alive and that you care and those are good things. Be grateful for the struggle, my friends.

And, on this Easter Sunday of 2020, be thankful, also, for the one historical figure who beat death like a rented mule. He’s the guy who our calendar is still numbered for 20 centuries later. He’s the guy who, as C.S. Lewis said, is either a liar, lunatic, or Lord because He claimed to be God. He didn’t just claim to be a generic god, either, He claimed to be God with a capital G. He claimed to be YHVH, YHWH, Yehweh, Jehovah, the great I AM who talked to Moses and the Prophets, or however you want to represent it. Jesus claimed to be the God of the Old Testament, the Creator, in the flesh, so either He was lying, He was insane, or He really was. There are a lot of opinions about this topic too, but this one is worth your time to objectively and honestly look into for yourself. Memes and jokes and one liners aren’t the best way to form your views of this topic. It’s quite a bit more important than who “wins” The Bachelor or the Superbowl. This is another great opportunity that you have because you are alive, so take advantage of that and struggle with it like I do.

I get in these moods occasionally that remind me a little of Solomon’s ‘life is meaningless’ passages from Ecclesiastes crossed with a good story from NPR’s This American Life crossed with a Hallmark movie. I called it an existential funkphoria today which is stupid, but I’m going with it. The existential funk/sentimentality hangs out with love and some other good feelings and the ‘what might have beens’ tag along like a third wheel.

It makes me happy to be sad sometimes. I’m happy that I can still feel things and that my heart isn’t hard. That’s why you cry when some people die. You loved them, so the sadness at losing them balances the love. I remember thanking God that I was sad when my Grandma Myrtle died. I was pretty messed up in my head at that time and questioning myself quite a bit and I was happy to realize that I could still feel something real. That’s why I was happy about being a little upset today too, I think. There is always light with darkness.

I took my Super Mom on a road trip from somewhere near the Wisconsin border to St. Cloud for breakfast. Why is it exciting to drive 75 miles for breakfast? Several reasons. I got to spend hours in conversation with my Mom while driving through some sentimental and beautiful countryside and there was a pretty great breakfast at The Place waiting at the other end. (If you haven’t been to The Place in St. Cloud for breakfast, I recommend it. The outside is kind of creepy, the inside is refurbished with a side dish of gritty, and the food is great. If you like potato pancakes, bring several friends who also enjoy them because you won’t even come close to finishing one by yourself.)

Why is my Mom super? Many reasons. My favorite reason is that she was given a year and a half to live about thirty years ago. That didn’t work out for the doctor who is probably dead now himself, but it worked out great for the rest of us. There is also the fact that my Mom is probably the nicest person I’ve ever known. And, she’s funny and has good stories. But, I’ve told you about her before and this post is about funkphoria, dangit!

It’s always sentimental for me to drive through North Branch and think of all the people and memories from that town. I still see the town of 1,200 people from the late 1970’s that I moved to in second grade underneath the one that’s slowly digesting any remnant of it. On the way home, we drove past both of the houses that our family lived in while we resided in North Branch. Cornfields and pastures now grow houses. Those crappy little seedlings that the neighbor planted and my parents laughed at are now towering evergreens that block the view of the farm behind our old house as much as the housing development built in their field does. The Nelson’s round barn is gone, so that view would be diminished anyway. My Mom pointed to a tree in our old yard and said “Mr. Blakeslee planted that tree himself.” I think I was supposed to be impressed, but I have no memory of the man even though the development is named after him. I drove past houses where people named Andy, Rich, Brian, Danise, Steve, Butch, Kurt, Mike, Dell, Dale, and many others grew up. I know “You can never go home”, right? Right.

I was a little shocked and confused by how much the sight of one particular dead tree upset me. I attached a picture of it to this post and you can see the reflection of my Mom in the glass. That was my favorite climbing tree when people had things like that. I climbed so many that I had a favorite is another thought I had. I drove by that today too. It’s dead now and slowly crumbling like that past. Like all of our pasts. It’s now about 1/3 of its grandest size. That tree had a split trunk with a big hole in the middle of it facing straight upward where dumb squirrels sometimes hung out until they realize they were getting wet or that there was a dumb kid climbing the tree. I almost fell out of that tree a few times because I would spook a squirrel out of that hole and it would scare the poop out of me too. The hole was a perfect hand hold for climbing higher, but I never dared to reach blindly for it for fear of getting rabies or at least a nasty bite or scratch.

I hid up there one time when a bunch of young boys, including me, were having a fireworks war. When my brother walked by stealthily hunting me, I lit a pack of fire crackers and tossed them down at him. (This was quite a feat of dexterity because the older boys took the lighters and us younger boys had only matchbooks. Also, I was about fifteen feet up a large tree.) As they sailed perfectly down the back of his shirt, I realized two things: One, this was probably my last day above ground. And, two, I had a very short window of time during the ensuing chaos to get down out of this tree and run. I got down quickly, I ran very quickly, and I somehow managed to avoid being murdered. It was a day of miracles, apparently.

There was another tree in our yard that had a bird’s nest in it every year in the same place. I would climb it and check the nest for eggs. Later, I would climb it and look at the mother bird as she sat completely still on the eggs in the hope that I wouldn’t see her. In my childish way, I thought she was my friend and I talked to her for extended periods and told her about things that bothered me or that I was upset about. I guess this was the therapy tree. I also talked to the neighbor’s cow, so there’s that. Multiple therapists. The bird monologues all ended one summer when the male bird, who I must have mistimed for many years, expressed his dislike of my discussions with his lady. He chased me out of the tree and continued to chase me and my friend Nick across the yard and into the little shed that would eventually become our pig barn. It was really hot in there, but he swooped at us whenever we tried to come out, so we stayed in there sweating for a long time. Eventually, we made a run for the house and I remember yelling for my Mom to open the door. Bird therapy over. At least I still had the cow. (Side note: The cow was eventually slaughtered and the fence became a great lesson on the raw power of electricity when my friend dared me to pee on it. If you ever have the opportunity to discourage a child from doing this, please do so.)

I fell out of the big tree one summer evening around dusk while I was climbing by myself. I landed on an exposed root flat on my back and the wind was crushed out of me. There was a blinding pain that almost made me pass out and I thought that I had broken my back. I started crying out of pain and fear and I was afraid to move. If I tried to move and I couldn’t, it would be true, I guess. I laid there for a long time until it was getting dark and cold. My Mom called for me like Moms used to do. I tried to call back, but my voice was weak and full of tears and fear and she couldn’t hear me. She was too far away. So, I moved and I found that my legs worked. Maybe I had only been badly injured and not paralyzed, I thought. I slowly walked up to the house and I told her about the fall and my back and she rubbed it a few circles and said that she was sure I’d be fine. I’m still not sure about that.

The tree was a pretty good defensive position and I hid up there now and then to avoid a beating. My main tormentor didn’t like to climb trees, thankfully. He would stand under me and threaten to climb up there and get me. Then he would tell me all of the terrible things he was going to do to me when I came down. My patience generally won out and I usually made it to the house.

I also hid in the tree from the bad things that were going on in my house. I cried up there. I tried not to hear the things that were going on in the house when I was up there. I tried to hide up there while my name was being yelled and threats were being offered warning me to get back in the house. In the end, I always had to go back inside.

So, why did seeing the dead tree bother me so much? I’ve driven by that house a handful of times in the decades since graduation and noticed the tree. I remembered it and some of the stories surrounding it, but it never upset me. Was it the fact that it was dead now and decaying? It honestly confuses me.

Solomon said that everything aside from serving God is meaningless, vanity, and grasping for the wind. I guess he was in a bit of a funk at that point too. I don’t claim to completely understand the meaning of Solomon’s words, but as we get older I know we think about the meaning of our lives and in our lives, if any. I didn’t have a lot of meaning in my life in those days, but I had that tree, a bird, the neighbor’s cow, and a friend that knew what was going on. It’s weird, I know, but I have to think that’s why seeing that dead tree shook me a bit. I think I’d feel the same way if I heard that long-ago friend had died even though I haven’t really talked to him since middle school. They were all something good in the world at that time. There is always light with darkness.

Tag: ecclesiastes

The Walk

Existential Funkphoria