The Big Question Mark

The Empty Frame, 2008

Walker and Cathy Jean looked every bit the perfect couple. They had two lively children. Walker’s business was a success. They were leaders in their church. Cathy Jean was the sweetheart of her friends, a woman of strong will and the instigator of all things social among their friends. Walker and Cathy Jean were the picture of happiness, stability, responsibility and conscientious parenting.

Then one day Walker said he needed some time out. He couldn’t be more specific than that. He needed to go away and did, first across the country to a place he’d never been before just see a famous church, and then to Mexico “to think.”

No one could understand it. Walker had no explanation. Cathy Jean was clueless, torn between hurt, anger and uncertainty about the future. Life was just one big question mark to her.

When Walker returned he moved out of the house. He went on about his business. He saw his children regularly. Walker’s guy friends were concerned, but knew no more than anyone. They wondered quietly among themselves whether some kind of midlife meltdown was to blame. They knew from their own experience that even stand-up guys sometimes trip and fall. But there was no obvious explanation, no sign of mental breakdown. Walker had nothing to say it. There was no sign of another woman in his life or anyone, for that matter, to blame. Walker had no harsh words about home, Cathy Jean, the children or life.

This went on for weeks, then months, then years. Cathy Jean kept the home fires burning in the hope of Walker’s return. In time, she became resentful, then hostile. Her friends surrounded her to keep her from coming completely unhinged. Unable to understand their parents’ condition, the children took refuge in the confidence of other parents. Every now and then they got their hopes up when they saw signs of what looked like reconciliation. But that was just their imagination fooling them, letting them piece together signs that realty didn’t add up to anything.

In time, Walker asked for a divorce. He dated some and then married a woman not at all like Cathy Jean. They settled nearby, made new friends and seem happy.

Cathy Jean had a few relationships of her own after the divorce. She’s still trying to find herself, to fill her time, to get from one day to the next. She is close to her now grown children. Her friends still surround here. But how do you have closure, much less move on, when you never knew why what you thought was durable love failed you?

You Call This Swag?

Word From Shenzhen, 2011

Regular readers will recall that I sometimes joke that if Nikon would like to send me a new model D3 DSLR I’d be absolutely shameless in my mention of it here at What I Saw. I mean, really. My daughter gets offered free trips to places around North America and across the ocean to Europe in the hopes that she’ll write about the destinations in her blog. (As a matter of policy, she doesn’t accept these offers.) She gets sent dozens of review copies of cool new books. Nike once had her join a group that was going to design a new sneaker. Kate Spade invited her to doll up a Kate Spade purse.

There is a little difference, of course, between the Design*Sponge audience and that for What I Saw. For one thing, my daughter has something like 60,000 readers a day and I have, well, fewer.

A few days I wrote about my new iPad, a Christmas gift from my wife. Not knowing what kind of protective cover I might want for it, she left that choice up to me. Just after Christmas I ordered a plain black cover from the Apple online store. I could have driven to the nearest Apple store and bought one of the shelf. But that’s about a 40 miles round trip for me. The gas alone costs most than the $4 Apple charged for shipping.

I figured the Apple store would ship this cover from a warehouse in, say, Memphis or Louisville, major hubs for UPS and Fedex, respectively. But when they sent me a shopping confirmation and just for fun I started tracking the shipment, I found that the shipment would originate in a factor in Shenzhen. China. I’ve never been to China, but I envisioned one of those mega factories that Edward Burtynsky photographs so well.

Fascinated by the trip this shipment would be taking, I immediately went to Google Earth and found Shenzhen. It’s about fifty miles north of Hong Kong. Over the next week, I followed the package as it went from Shenzhen to a Fedex sorting center on an island near the Hong Kong international airport. From there it went to a U.S. Customs clearinghouse in Anchorage, Alaska, and then to several points across the United States before ending up at my doorstep.

No bad for four dollars, eh? (But a little irritating when you figure that Fedex charges me $26 to send a single page document to Philadelphia.)

By the way, the return label on the package listed a California address.

I thought that was the end of the story. I put the iPad in its new protective cover and went about my business.

Until this morning.

I opened my e-mail and discovered an e-mail message from “Cindy,” the PR manager at an outfit called budgetgadgets.com that is based in--you guessed it!--Shenzhen, China. Cindy mentioned that she’d seen my "AWESOME" website.

(Maybe in my quest to achieve the kind of critical mass readership that would compel Nikon to seriously consider sending me that new model D3 DSLR I should be casting my net in the direction of China? Lord knows there are probably millions of people there anxious to find wisdom in my avuncular style of writing.)

Cindy’s note suggests that I might like to pick something from their inventory and review it.

Like the $5.06 Tissot leather band wristwatch?

The $1.49 mini Flexible microphone mic?

The $1.58 stainless steel mini hacksaw keychain?

The $2.56 “Cute Hello Kitty Compact Plastic Make-up Vanity Mirror”?

If I’m going to shill for swag, it really ought to be for something worth more than the cost of shipping. Are you listening, Nikon?

La Fille du Regiment

Lemon Chicken, 2009

This one takes a few links to work. So please hang in with me for a moment.

It starts here:

In the years before I was born, my mother was secretary to the son of the famous psychic Edgar Cayce. Cayce started his career as a photographer in a small town in Kentucky. He had “spells,” though, during which he took on powers of insight beyond his knowledge. People came to him from around the world for practical advice about life, health and unexplained phenomena. The “readings,” as they came to be known, were physically and emotionally taxing. But Cayce was successful identifying homeopathic remedies, helping people find things and, in his later years, delving into matters biblical and mythical.

After Cayce’s death in 1948, his son Hugh Lynn took over the leadership of the foundation that continued Cayce’s study of ESP and other paranormal phenomena. It was a small organization in those days, held together by a few hundred members and a small headquarters staff, which included my mother.

Over the years many hundreds of thousands of people—perhaps millions—have found their way to Virginia Beach to visit the Cayce library. Some are serious scientists, learned scholars, theologians and others curious to compare notes. Some are spiritual seekers. Some are just kooks of the first order who don’t fit in anywhere else and hope they’ll find a home here.

Because of my mother’s connections with the place, various of these people passed through our home as I was growing up. My personal connection with the place, though, is no more exciting than that when I was baptized Hugh Lynn Cayce stood as my godfather and before I was old enough to work anywhere else I mowed the grass at the foundation’s headquarters.

Part Two:

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll recall how the fast food chain now known as KFC was once known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, and how its founder and figurehead was a portly white-haired gentleman in a white, three-piece suit named Colonel Harlan P. Sanders. It was Colonel Sanders who came up with the special recipe of “twenty-one herbs and spices” that made his fried chicken so tasty.

[For those unfamiliar, the title of “Colonel” is an honorific bestowed by Kentucky’s Governor and Secretary of State on individuals in recognition of their “noteworthy accomplishments and outstanding service” to the state.”]

Part Three:

One day when I was in my early teens, a woman driving a sliver Rolls Royce with a portrait of Colonel Sanders painted on the driver’s door drove up to the Cayce foundation. A lot of celebrities visited the place, so this wasn’t such a big deal. The woman turned out to be the only daughter of Colonel Sanders. She came as a seeker, decided to stick around and bought a house a few doors down from us.

Part Four:

One quiet winter afternoon, I was walking down to the beach when I happened upon the portly Colonel himself, white suit and all. There was a brief introduction. We shook hands. It was like meeting a cross between Santa Claus and Boss Hogg.

And to bring some closure:

Many years later I worked for a man who hailed originally from New York City. John was a proudly outspoken Italian-American, an expert in his field and great fun and inspiration to work for. He was always known among staid Richmonders, and not always politely, as “that New Yorker.” But despite the social exclusion he sometimes experienced, John still maintained a curious fascination with things Southern. One of his greatest pleasures was getting chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken or, as he referred to it, as getting chicken from “the Kentucky Colonel.”

[Sorry, I couldn’t find anything better with which to illustrate this than a picture of lemon chicken.”]

When You Get Older

MJB Triptych, 2011

(Click on picture for larger)

When you get older, your bracelets are made of plastic and are more about instruction than about decoration. Gravity tugs at you a little harder. You don’t get upset about a bad haircut. Making it through the day without pain is reward enough.

While my mother kept teetering back and forth at death’s doorstep, I kept thinking I should be taking some thoughtful photographs of her. My Flickr friend Debra Ripley, whose mother is on a similar path, has taken some wonderful and poignant photographs of her “mum.”

It was hard to do this when my mother was confined to bed. Most anyone photographed against a pillow stands a good chance to looking like a one-dimensional flesh-colored Lima bean on top of a pillow. No matter what your age, it’s not your best look.

The real problem, though, was my mother, who was always known among her peers as quite the beauty. She was the Queen of the May in her junior high school, back when they did such things. In her teens she was the pretty girl who sang with a band. She and my father were once referred to in the newspaper as “songbirds.” She was married twice and had at least one serious suitor when she was in her sixties. Even in her late eighties, such elderly gentlemen at the assisted living facility as could raise a little sap liked to catch her eye.

When you’ve had that kind of attention throughout your life, you tend to be a little vai…no, let’s just say “conscious” of your appearance, especially when, as my mother puts it, you start “lowering your standards” out of convenience. The old dressing table that used to be covered from edge to edge with mirrors, lotions, creams and various tools of the trade is reduced now to but a hairbrush and a pair of tweezers.

For years she wouldn’t let me photograph her. The shots I could sneak weren’t very good. She didn’t want to be seen as a fading beauty. She’d already pointed me to the photographic portrait, made when she was young, that she wanted to have used in her obituary.

One of the benefits of dementia is that you stop sweating the small stuff, if for no other reason than that you can’t remember what the small stuff was. So it was on the occasion of a visit my sister and I made to our mother’s nursing home the past weekend that we both carried cameras, ostensibly to take a few pictures of the three of us together. I also managed to catch a few candid shots while my sister occupied our mother with conversation.

All things considered, it’s amazing that my mother is still residing on this side of the turf. She still has a lot of health challenges, but is at least able to spend some time each day sitting up in a wheel chair. To our surprise, she also displays a quick wit the likes of which my sister and I saw no evidence when we were growing up. It’s like we’re getting to know a new person.

My sister has an interesting theory about this. She wonders if perchance we’re seeing the woman our father married? Are we getting a glimpse of the humor and good nature that drew him to her long before things went sour?

There’s no one left who can answer this question. But as I look at these pictures it also occurs to me how much the profile of my face is like that of my mother. So if there’s a chance I’m getting a glimpse of a personality from more than sixty years ago, I’m pretty sure that I’m also getting a glimpse of my own face thirty years from now.

On the Occasion of the 411th

Looking for New Material, 2010

Who knew?

I started this blog a little over a year and a half ago. I had several ideas in mind for it, some of which I’ve since discarded. At first, it was a challenge, to see if I could do something every weekday. Then it became a challenge to see if I could make it to one hundred posts. That seemed ambitious at the time, but had something to do with one of the original goals.

Now I notice that I’m writing the 411^th post to What I Saw. I don’t know exactly what I had in mind at the start. But I sure never would have envisioned that I’d make it to four hundred and eleven.

I write a lot for work. But it never occurred to me that I might have the quarter of a million or so words of rambling prose and fiction I’ve offered up here thus far.

I was listening the other day to an interview with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim in which he described the joy of creation. The joy he had in mind, though, was not the result—the song or tune, in his case—but rather in the time during which he was creating them. As an example, Sondheim described sitting down one night after dinner to see if he could create a board game for a friend.

“I started about 9:00 p.m. with a pencil and paper and the next thing I knew the sun was coming up outside. Certainly I must have stopped sometime during those hours to get a snack or go to the bathroom. But I didn’t remember anything of it.”

Most days that’s how it is with me and this blog. The therapeutic aspect of it—and that’s how I look at it, the part that seems to be the payoff for me—occurs during the generative phase, the part that challenges me to do something that is hopefully interesting enough to be worth sharing.

The part that comes after that is the gravy. That’s where you come in.

I’d probably keep doing this even if there were no audience. It’s gotten to be a habit that's good for me. But there’s no denying that I enjoy your company when you take a moment to stop by. I’m always grateful for your comments.

The current (1/17/11) issue of The New Yorker magazine includes a fascinating piece by David Brooks about how “the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of a life.” As a researcher, I’m always trying to learn more about why we do what we do and how we become who we are.

There are a lot of interesting ideas to think about in Brooks’ essay. But one of the thoughts that particularly resonated with me was this, mentioned in the context of a discussion of what makes people happy:

“Research over the past thirty years makes it clear that what the inner mind really wants is connection.”

I didn’t think I was doing this blog for the connections. But like a lot of people, what I don’t know about myself is probably a lot more than what I do.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

A Moment: Lois & Carl

Coca Cola Delicious, 2009

After Lois' husband left her, she stopped caring about anything. Friends stopped coming around. She began drinking heavily at night and then throughout the day. She kept company with people who weren’t good for her. She became lax about her appearance and about the care of her son Carl. The boss at her part-time job offered her a full-time position. Instead, she quit, even though she now needed the money more than ever.

She stopped taking care of the house. When her money ran out, she sold the house and moved with Carl to a dingy apartment over a shop on the town’s main street.

Carl was confused by his mother's behavior, but too young and powerless to do anything about it. He had his ninth birthday at a cheerless party in the new apartment, just him, his mother, one of her drinking buddies and three slices of coconut cake from the diner around the corner. "I asked your father to come," she told Carl, "but I guess he didn't want to."

The apartment was on the second floor above the Modern Office Supply store that, despite its name, was not modern at all, having been made redundant by the new Staples store out on the bypass. Modern Office Supply was where people who still needed typewriter ribbons, carbon paper and other antiquated office supplies shopped.

None of this mattered to Lois, or did it that the neighborhood wasn't exactly the best place to be raising a young boy. All that mattered to her was that the rent was cheap and that Stanley Williford, who owned Modern Office Supply and the building, was old and sympathetic to the plight of a single woman. He’d been raised by a single mother himself just after the Depression, and turned a blind eye to Carl's occasional pilfering of construction paper, colored pencils and other things he needed for school projects that Williford knew Lois either couldn't afford or wouldn't be bothered to come downstairs to buy.

During the day when Carl was at school, Lois sat in the window overcooking Eden Street, dreaming of regaining her grasp on life and some kind of purpose. She thought about writing children's books full of playful animals and life lessons. But she didn’t care enough to write them.

Some afternoons when one of Lois’ male friends was hanging around, usually another drinker, she would get a quarter from the guy and give it to Carl and send him to make a donation to the poor at the church down the street so that she could have the apartment to herself for a little while. "You wait til you can give it the Father Rick himself, Honey,” she’d say, knowing full well that the priest was only part-time and wouldn't be there most days.

At night, after Lois had drifted off to sleep on the couch in front of the television, Carl sat in the same chair by the window and watched the traffic light at the corner change from green to yellow to red and then back to green again, whether there were any cars there or not.

Carolina

On the Blvd St. Germain, 2006

I ran into Carolina at a New Year’s Eve party. This has gotten to be the only time of the year we see each other any more. Once upon a time, though, we worked together and saw each other every day.

When I was in college I waited tables at a beachside hotel restaurant. Carolina came to work as a bartender and cocktail waitress. All the guys fell in love with her.

Carolina had the kind of lithe and exotic beauty one associates with, say, Tahiti. Her long dark hair didn’t so much as bounce as dance like a wave in the air. It was her seeming innocence that would captivate you next, though you’d have been way wrong to call her naïve. Carolina came from a boisterous family, the only daughter and youngest of five children. Her brothers followed their father into the officers’ ranks of the Navy. Carolina, though, wasn't cut out for that kind of structure. She liked drinking and riding in convertibles too much. She hung out on the beach and surfed as if she’d been born on a wave. She dated fast guys. She knew her natural beauty was enough to disarm most men. But she was also the kind of woman who never acted as if she was any prettier than any other woman.

Carolina lived with her architect husband and their young daughter in an apartment within walking distance of where we worked. The child was as beautiful as her mother. Carolina’s husband seemed to understand what kind of woman he had on his hands. He stayed in the background, but you knew he meant business if you got too close to Carolina. Looking back, I suppose his pride might have been wounded that it was necessary for Carolina to have to take the bartending job.

There were a few women like this in my youth. They were the kind of girls you dreamed about, but figured you probably never had a chance with. If they paid any attention to you at all, you were probably too flummoxed to know what to say.

I turned twenty-one during the time I worked with Carolina. I like to think she bought me my first mixed drink. But since I wasn’t exactly new to drinking, let’s just say it might have been the first time a beautiful woman ever bought me a drink in a public bar, though strictly speaking, Carolina didn’t even buy the drink since she was the bartender.

Years went by. I went back to college and stayed away for another decade after that. I made new friends, got married and started a family and a career. Another decade passed. The memories of that year at the beach hotel became ancient history.

And then about ten years ago my wife and I were at a New Year’s Eve party given by some friends. There, across the room, was Carolina. To suggest that we’d had a relationship and that this was some kind of “Some Enchanted Evening” moment would have been giving our connection too much credit. But we’d been friends and spent a while catching up. I learned that her marriage to the architect hadn’t lasted much longer. He moved to another state. Their daughter grew up. Carolina married again, this time to a surfer who makes his living doing odd jobs. She and Bo are very happy.

By my reckoning, Carolina must be sixty, perhaps even a year or two older. The years haven’t been entirely kind to her appearance. But her eyes are as deep blue and entrancing as they were those nights long ago when she carried drinks out to the terrace by the ocean.