A Simple Thanks

“What time will the bus get here?”

For a moment, Heather didn’t know what to say.

Missy, our developmentally disabled ward, spends five mornings a week waiting for her “bus,” the van that takes her to her day program. She’s watched eagerly, fumed impatiently, even rearranged the contents of her lunch box a dozen times to pass the minutes.

But the minutes – that was the trick. In three and a half years of living with Missy, we had never heard her refer directly to “time.”

A simple time. Small in moments. But not in meaning.

Faced with that, what else can you do but say “thank you?”

And note the time, of course.

==

When you think about it, Thanksgiving is an odd sort of holiday.

Most holidays, aside from deliberately silly ones such as Talk Like a Pirate Day, commemorate something grand or important. They mark the birth of religions, or the founding of nations, or the labors of parents, workers, and soldiers. They underline famous names and sometimes infamous ones. (Right, Mr. Fawkes?)

And then there’s the fourth Thursday of November.

The first Thanksgiving — the one mythologized with construction-paper hats across the country, anyway — didn’t mark the arrival of the Pilgrims into a new land or the first meeting between natives and newcomers. It celebrated simple survival. Not so simple at that, either. Half of the original Plymouth colonists died in the first year, many in the first three months.

After a start like that, a good crop and helpful neighbors were things to be thankful for, indeed. Mind you, I won’t put on rose-colored glasses; I think we all know how quickly those neighborly relations turned sour. But I won’t ignore the moment, either.

And if the moment then is foggy and half-legend, the moment now is more like Missy’s grasp of time: simple in its essence, profound in its implications. An entire day, built around the words “thank you.”

That’s something we don’t always do so well, anymore.

Oh, we know the words. We learned them all as children. But “please” has become an intensifier for the resigned and the upset(“Will you please stop feeding your peas to the dog?”), while “you’re welcome” has vanished almost entirely in the wake of “no problem.” And “thank you?” That’s something we toss off over the shoulder, a social nicety less about gratitude and more about saying “OK, you did it, that’s great, can we go?”

Thanksgiving makes us take that at a slower pace. It gives us time to think about those two words and what we mean by them – well, in between the Lions and the Cowboys games, anyway.

It’s about as simple as you get. And maybe that’s why it’s slowly fading out.

It’s not a fair contest, really. Christmas has the glamour and the music and the gifts. Halloween has wild costumes and abundant chocolate. The most elaborate thing that Thanksgiving has is the food, and that’s easily subsumed by its tinsel-wrapped neighbor.

And so a time for family and gratitude becomes Black Friday Eve.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve worked on Thanksgiving myself. I know the attitude matters more than the day it’s celebrated on.

But it’s easy to lose the attitude, easy to get caught up in the stress and strain of the moment. Easy to just be too tired, to not have time.

Simple things break easily.

But it doesn’t take much to make the fragile powerful. It doesn’t need turkey or stuffing or a big dining table. All it needs is a few minutes to see the world instead of just passing through it. We’ll see soon enough how much we owe to how many.

And maybe we can even hope for new gratitudes to come.

==

Soon, Missy will watch the window again as the minutes roll by. Her minutes.

It’s only one moment. But it adds to so many that have made this year so special. And like the facets of a crystal, all these small, brief moments add up to something beautiful.

That can’t be ignored. And it won’t be.

Take the time. Always. A simple thought, for a small moment.

Thank you.

Crash Landing

Before Disney and the heirs of Jim Henson sic an army of googly-eyed lawyers on me, I need to be clear about one thing. Cookie Monster did not eat my computer. But his disco past has a lot to answer for.

Yes, you read that right. And no, I have not been eating any brownies of questionable origin.

Like many celebrities, the Muppets cut a disco album in the ’70s. Two disco albums, in fact, which should demonstrate just how close to Armageddon the world was teetering in those days. And in the second album, with the shocking title of“Sesame Disco!”, the Big Blue One himself took the mic for the most heart-rending disco ballad since “Disco Duck.”

I speak, of course, of the immortal “Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco.”

There are portions of one’s childhood that remain unforgettable. And if we ever perfect mechanical telepathy, scientists will discover that entire sectors of my brain are permanently tattooed with a thumping rhythm and the words “Me lost me cookie at the DIS-co! Me lost me cookie in the BOO-GIE MU-SIC!” So naturally, as an adult, I used the vast and awesome power of the Internet to inflict this on others.

My wife Heather nearly lost her own cookies laughing. It became a running family joke, something to dial up when nothing of less epic silliness would do. Which made it inevitable, of course, that we would introduce it to Missy.

At this point, there are three important things to understand about our developmentally disabled ward. Missy loves the Muppets. Missy also loves disco.

But Missy does not necessarily love the Muppets singing disco.

And so, when I mixed it into an evening YouTube session, Missy giggled. Then smiled. Then decided the joke had gone on long enough and punched the power button.

Now, even in these permissive modern times, there are still a few things you just don’t do. You don’t pull a car key out of the ignition at 80 mph. You don’t wear black and silver at a Broncos rally. And you really don’t turn off a computer in mid-stream.

“Wait!”

Too late.

When I brought everything back up, my word-processing files were among the walking wounded. About half of them had to be saved into a new format, document by painstaking document, in order to be usable at all.

I have seen many a parent recite under their breath “I love my child … I love my child … I love my child.” I think I’m beginning to understand.

But here’s the funny thing. It was worth it.

It was worth it because of the time spent laughing with Missy, however wrong a turn it may have taken.

It was worth it because of the enforced trip down memory lane. As I patched and ported my files, I discovered columns I’d forgotten I’d written, scripts I hadn’t performed in years, even parodies that made me smile one more time.

Most of all, it was worth it for the chance to underscore, without mortal injury, two fundamental truths of parenting: that accidents happen, and that even when they do, your people are still more important than your things.

Hug, forgive and learn.

I think if more of us remembered that, this would be a nicer world.

There’s still a few repairs to make. But it’ll be OK. Both the family and the machine will survive to make more memories, even if it occasionally takes a minor crisis to do so.

Sometimes, that’s just the way the Cookie Monster crumbles.

The Smallest Flame

The coldest night I remember came a few years ago, during an outdoor candlelight vigil.

The outer desolation matched the inner feeling. It was about one degree at best, with the wind driving the temperature far, far lower. The sort of night when reporters carry pencils, so that frozen ink won’t stand in the way of a story. The sort of night where the air seems to turn to blue fire on every exposed piece of skin and no one, man or beast, ventures outside unless they had to.

This crowd had to.

There had been a death, of course. One of those car accidents that claims someone far too young far too soon. Now friends and family had gathered on almost no notice to light their small piece of fire and share one more memory, standing together shoulder to shoulder.

Someone started to sing familiar words.

Silent night, holy night,

All is calm, all is bright …

The melody, still soft, gained strength as others joined in.

Round yon virgin, mother and child,
Holy infant so tender and mild …

And then, united in a whisper-strong moment.

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace.

And for a moment, the cold didn’t matter at all.

***

I’ve always liked winter the best of any season. There are the occasions for family, of course:  the visits for Thanksgiving, the calls at Christmas, the chance to see and joke and marvel at how “She can’t be starting middle school now! Really?” Add in the lights and decorations, the music, and the snow that can transform an entire landscape — when it doesn’t rearrange your spinal column trying to shovel it — and you have a near-perfect team.

But I have to confess, it’s only recently that I’ve come to appreciate the cold.

Cold is the feared henchman of the winter season: silent, quick, often deadly. It lays siege to you in bed, dogs your steps when you venture outside, rides on a “lazy wind” and cuts straight through you. It doesn’t tolerate the ill-prepared  or the unlucky.

In my mind, it’s always been easier to fight than the broiling heat and humidity of summer since, as I’ve often joked, “You can always put one more layer on, but there are only so many they let you take off before calling the cops.” But that’s like saying it’s easier for a high school football team to play the Detroit Lions than the Denver Broncos — technically true, but you’re still in for a rough time.

I’ve always accepted it as a necessary part of a beautiful season. But there’s a hidden quality that makes it powerful, one glimpsed only in moments.

Cold, like crisis, unites.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it amplifies our best and our worst. We’ve all driven the major roads and seen the anger, impatience and desperation that result from even an inch of snow on the ground. But we’ve seen the better, too. This is the time for the volunteers that search the streets and staff the warming centers for those in need, for neighbors who shovel out neighbors, for crowds that stand just a little closer together to keep warmth from escaping.

Cold unites. It has to. Because no one can stand against it alone.

Severe need brings us together, whether it’s a 30 mph wind of solid ice or an act of unspeakable violence on a beautiful September morning. Maybe it shouldn’t take that much. Maybe we should know better how to join as the family we are, without the crushing power of mutual need.

For now, we are as we are. But winter’s chill serves as an annual reminder than we can be something more.

Maybe it’s not much. Just a candle against the dark. But candles can be enough, when held together. Enough for long enough.

The air is again blue fire as I write this. A warning, and a reminder.

Let there be candlelight.

A Hitch in Time

Phil Connors, the fictional weatherman, once lived Feb. 2 over and over. No matter what he said or did, he’d wake up in the morning to find it was Groundhog Day all over again.

What an amateur.

If Phil popped by Casa Rochat these days, he’d find more time loops than an episode of “Dr. Who.” Lately, it seems like everyone has their personal piece of calendar turf that just refuses to go away.

For the dogs, of course, it’s the daylight savings business. Like most canines, Duchess the Wonder Dog and Big Blake aren’t too sure about this whole “Spring Forward, Fall Back” business – especially when it messes with their feeding time. So while I’m rejoicing at the return of a stolen hour of sleep, they’re filling 30 minutes of it with big eyes and urgent tails, wordlessly asking “Don’t we get Food Time yet?”

For Missy, our developmentally disabled relative, it’s Halloween that’s getting recycled. Which is a novelty, really. She’s often gotten locked onto Christmas, ready to play carols on the car stereo at top volume until the back-to-school sales hit. But Halloween used to be a holiday she preferred to avoid – at least, until she made an inordinately successful re-entry into the Trick-or-Treat field this year with the world’s coolest Harry Potter costume. Now, she parades her chocolate-covered winnings for all to see, wanting to know why we can’t grab the glasses and wand and go out for another candy run.

And then there’s the larger world. The one that sometimes seems stuck on Nov.4.

I don’t just mean the phone callers, though that has been a little exasperating. Life in a swing state as it approaches Election Day tends to be filled with polls and surveys, to the point where it seems more worthwhile to unplug the phone, ask friends to text or email, and spend the evening watching an ad-free DVD. But once The Day has gone by, the phone usually becomes safe again – or so I thought until it rang at 9 p.m. on Wednesday.

“I represent an independent market research firm …” Click.

But it’s more than that, really. If you take a look around the press or Facebook, it’s obvious that for many, the election still isn’t over. The fight goes on, My Side and Thy Side, regardless of where the ballots fell or who now occupies the big desk with the box of American flag pins.

I’m not always sure how I feel about that.

On the one hand, I can’t argue with the passion. There once was a time when Americans seemed locked in political apathy. Not anymore. Social media especially seems to enable the launch of a dozen crusades a day, all of them armed with zeal, determination and catchy quotes of dubious origin. Politics needs people who care, and we have no shortage of that these days.

But so often, it feels like an ideological version of the Indy 500. Lots of energy, dedicated to covering the same ground over and over again, without making any real progress.

Please don’t misunderstand. I do care. I’ve got my own candidates and causes that I consider vital, my own list of names that I consider to be utter disasters. I’ve got my own hopes and worries based on the way the ballots came down.

But come down they did. And now we have to find a way forward from there.

Together.

I suspect that the biggest issue for most voters this year was not the economy or terrorism, but simple fatigue. Most of us, I think, are tired of seeing a government whose members dig in their heels and go to war with each other at any excuse or none.

There are a lot of reasons, some of which need serious attention. But the simplest thing that most of us can do is set the example we want to see. We need to still care, to still strive – but without hating our neighbors who have cares of their own. Don’t surrender to evil – but don’t be quick to interpret disagreement as evil, either.

It is not easy. It requires judgment, kindness, endurance and understanding. But if we can do it at a ground level, maybe we can drag Washington along with us – or at least make its bickering irrelevant while we all work together to do what needs doing.

We don’t need to agree. But we do need to live with each other, work with each other, learn from each other. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll find an extra Trick-or-Treat bag along the way.