Tender Secrets

I'm making a little progress each day on the book I'm reading called The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. It's still a painful book to read because the main character, Smithy Ide, is so unwilling to mask his deficiencies. But I love his insight about life. He's quite nonchalant about most things in life—including the time he got shot while fighting in Vietnam and the time he was hit by a truck while on his cross country bike ride. It's the in between moments—those moments when he's evaluating what has happened to him that I find most interesting.

One of those moments comes after he has just finished reading a book he bought on the road called Iggy. The book is set in the 1800's and it's about a black Cowboy who was just looking for his place in the world—sort of like Smithy.

Here's Smithy's reaction after finishing the book: "Anyway, Iggy. So good I was sorry I finished it. It was his whole life right until he was an old black man eating an apple under a Colorado cottonwood. Everybody would think that he was just another old black man, but all of us who read the book knew that he was a giant. A great man at the end of his life. It was a tender kind of a secret, and I loved knowing it."

What I liked about his take was this—obviously he knew that Iggy was a fictional character and that he would never really see Iggy sitting under a Colorado cottonwood. But it seems to me that Smithy was saying that everybody has a story and it's a shame that we pass each other by without listening to each other's stories more often.

If that's what he was saying, then I think Smithy was right.

And can't you just relate to his "tender kind of a secret" line? I instantly thought of many tender secrets. When I go to a concert and hear a "filler" song that never got any radio play, but for some reason, it touched me—I feel like I know a tender secret. When a friend tells me about his or her guilty pleasure, but doesn't want anybody else to know—I feel like I know a tender secret every time I see, hear, or experience his or her guilty pleasure. Not long ago, a man I know gave me several writing books. They belong to his father-in-law who passed away recently. As I flipped through them, I saw many passages underlined and all of them were the tender secrets of a man I never met.

Letting too many people know our tender secrets would somehow diminish their power. But what an empty life it would be if nobody knew our tender secrets.

You're Beautiful

I don't really get the song You're Beautiful by James Blunt. It's about a man who sees a woman he's attracted to on a subway, but she's with another man. But the stranger has a plan—or so he says in the first verse of the song. In the next verse the stranger says he doesn't know what to do and concludes with "Cause I'll never be with you." In the next verse, the stranger says that they shared a moment that "will last till the end." But then he concludes the song with the realization that he'll never be with her.

So much for the plan I guess.

Blunt has a good voice—in a Bee Gees sort of way, but this song makes no sense whatsoever and it's just weird that a stranger would be so attracted to someone to be thinking about sharing a moment with her that will last forever. Now, if the song reminded him of somebody he once loved and seeing this woman on the subway somehow reawakened that love, then I would understand. But I must be crazy, because somebody sure likes this song—it's on the radio constantly.

A few days ago, I told a friend that I didn't get this song and he said, "I thought you would love that song. It sounds like one of those chick-flicks you like so much. In fact, I'm predicting that this song will be made into to a romantic comedy."

How could I not laugh? Partially because he's right about me—if this were a chick flick I probably would go see it. And partially because he's probably right about the marketability of such a movie. Love at first sight works for me in the movies. Maybe it's because I can actually see the two people and their mannerisms as they make eye contact for the first time. Maybe it's just because I like sappy movies. But, love at first sight in a cheesy song that makes little sense (if the guy had a plan, then why didn't he give it a shot?) doesn't work. At least for me.

Friends

This is a repost from my previous blog:

My grandmother used to tell her grandchildren stories about the way things used to be when she grew up in Hazen, Arkansas. She told us about the Friday-night-sings they used to have where everybody just sort of showed up at her house and they all sat out on the front porch playing spoons and singing. She told us about how mothers used to watch out for each other's children and every child knew that if they got too far out of line, their mom was going to get a phone call. And she told us how people looked out for each other. When one family was low on food, another family just happened to have "a little extra."

This might seem a little too "hickish" for some in our modern society, but deep down, I think that most people long for such days. Remember the character named Wilson on the wildly successful sitcom called Home Improvement? He was Tim Taylor's eccentric next door neighbor. Wilson spoke in colloquialisms and quoted philosophers that Tim had never heard of before, but he had a gentle way of getting Tim to realize how self-centered he was. Tim responded by making the necessary corrections in his life and he always realized how important Wilson was to him.

Beyond the emotional bond that Wilson and Tim had, they watched each other's house during vacations, they attended each other's parties, and they hung out together in the local hardware store. They were very different people, but they cared enough to be involved in each other's lives.

With all of this in mind, not long ago, I read an article written by Greg Marago about a new website that made me shake my head. The purpose of the site is to provide a "service" for men who want to meet women. A man hires an "attractive, smart, vivacious" woman to accompany him to an event and the women serves as a way to "popularize him" among other females "and, if he's lucky, get him some action."  

"Sound like rent-a-friend?" Morago said in his article. "In a way, it is. But hiring someone to perform the roles or services that traditionally have been the responsibility of best friends is a growing trend. Need someone to take you to the airport, drive you home from a night of heavy drinking or help you score at a bar or nightclub? There are services happy to take your money to help you out.

"Aren't these things friends did for free? Isn't this the domain of your closest buddy or best girlfriend? Not anymore."

Thankfully, Morago found "pop culture expert" Susie Watson to quote in his article. Here's what she said: "If you look back, historically there was a time when a friend or neighbor was an absolute need; now they're a luxury. At one time, you couldn't survive in this country without good friends and neighbors. Today, what has happened is that these services have appeared, and because they've appeared, friends tend to sit back."  

Watson continued:

"It's not just because we're more busy. It's because we've become more self-absorbed. Think back to earlier times, when people would have dropped everything to help someone else. They wouldn't have said, 'I can do that next week.' They would have put their own needs aside to make themselves available now for others. It's a selfishness that sadly has become more a part of our daily lives. I don't think we expect as much out of our friends now."

Could she have nailed her analysis any better?

Brevity of Life

Over the past couple of months, I've had my share of family members and friends who are dealing with health problems. And over the last few years, I've had my own health concerns. All of this is yet another reminder about the brevity of life. It comes and goes so quickly. The scripture says it this way: "Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" (James 4:14).

On Saturday night, we got another reminder when the small town of St. Mary, Missouri (located about 80 miles south of St. Louis) was hit by a tornado with winds ranging from 113 mph to 206 mph. Can you imagine? And they also saw softball-sized hail. Sadly, the tornado picked up a truck containing a married couple tossed it under a roadside propane tank—killing the couple.

The couple had no idea when they got up on Saturday morning that it would be their last day on earth. But most of us will have no idea when our last day will be. It will just come, and then go, and time will march on just as it has since God set the earth in motion. What we do between now and our last day counts for eternity. Knowing that ought to make today seem extremely significant.

Over the Rhine

The first note of music I ever heard from Over the Rhine crushed me—in a good way.  Then I heard Karin Bergquist pouring out her soul as she sang the first lyrics I ever heard from the band, "What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be…" from a song called "Latter Days." If the music crushed me, the lyrics massaged me back to life and reminded me of the delicate balance between beauty and heartache—and that sometimes, heartache can be beautiful. Not in a masochistic sort of way, but in an "I'm alive enough to feel this pain" sort of way.

After hearing their music for the first time as the backdrop for a television drama, I started hearing more of their music as characters on other television shows struggled through the many challenges they faced. As I flipped through the stations the other night, I caught the tail end of another one of their songs being used in the same manor.

I only have a couple of their approximately dozen CDs and I'm not sure how "big" this group is in the mainstream of the music industry, but somehow I don't think that matters to them. While they certainly seem to have a good following, they appear to be the type of people who relish the important things of life. The two primary members of the band, Linford Detweiler and the aforementioned Karin Bergquist, are married.

Listen to this blurb about the couple, taken from their website: "Several months into a national tour in 2003, Karin and Linford realized that while good things were happening with their music, little energy, creativity, or time was left for their life together. The road began taking a toll on their marriage. They opted to put the tour on hold and retreat home. 'When we came home, we bought two cases of wine and decided we were going to put a bottle on the kitchen table every evening and start talking until nothing was left. The idea wasn't to get smashed, but to talk face-to-face and open up, even if that meant deep into the night.'"

Marriage before anything else. I knew their music touched me for a reason.

Clear Things

A few years ago, Florida seemed to have this strange sort of hold on me. I usually go there once a year for a writer's conference in the Bradenton area and over the years I've made several good friends in various parts of the state. At times it was difficult for me to distinguish the exact source of the pull—yes, part of it had to do with a woman. Part of it had to do with weather. As someone who loves to play tennis, playing all year long would be a dream come true. And another part had to do with venturing out on my own.

For one reason or another, I've never really felt free to venture out into the world to do my own thing. That might speak more about my insecurities than it does my desire to live up to my responsibilities, but sometimes that line is a blurry one as well. I do travel quite frequently, but it's hard to enjoy any place to its fullest when time is limited. I don't have a big desire to leave the city I live in now, but I think knowing that I could do it would mean more to me than the actual action.

The calling Florida had on me seemed so clear at the time, but my circumstances didn't seem quite so clear. I never did quite get over the clarity of the calling though. I'm rarely clear about such big things. Maybe I was just swept up in the emotion of it all—I can't really say for sure, but I ran across a paragraph yesterday in the book that I'm reading that really got me.

I'm reading The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. I wrote about the book in a previous post. The book is about a 40-something year old alcoholic named Smithy who loses his parents in a car accident and then finds out that his long lost sister is also dead. In his grief, he goes out to his parent's garage, sees his boyhood bicycle, rides it to the end of his driveway and keeps going. He travels all the way from Rhode Island to Los Angeles to claim his sister's remains. On his way he meets people, some good—some not so good, and in the process he gets his life back on track.

The book is painful to read. Smithy's character knows exactly what he is and he's stopped trying to convince himself otherwise. I think he's like most of us though—he's spent large portions of his life in denial, but by the time the book begins, his character is forced to see himself as he really is and it's unnerving—both for him and the reader.

Anyway, here's the paragraph that got me:

"Now, this is one of those clear things. Where I was. A pretty grove of fir trees. Picnic benches. Bathroom. A pretty place. When you're a kid, place is everything. And when you leave, you're so absolutely aware of departure. I haven't been aware for a while now. Long enough, actually, to not be aware when one place started running into another place, until they were all the same. But on this Saturday, in this cool grove, with kickstand down and my feet feeling wonderful, I had a sense, a real sense, of having left Rhode Island and crossed out of my life."

Smithy saw his leaving Rhode Island as "one of those clear things" and somehow he knew that it would lead to a different life. Geography had nothing to do with it. Risk did. People did. A willingness to follow clarity did. And while I'm only about a third of the way through the book and early on in Smithy's journey, I can already see how this trip will be the medicine that his soul needed.

Would an experimental trip to Florida have had the same affect on me? I don't know. But I think I'll be a little more open to clarity when it hits me again in the future.