Month: December 2014

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This New Guitar

I twisted the peg, checked the tone. Way too low.

“Other direction, Rochat,” I muttered as I begin to reverse the tuning on the guitar. Better … better … perfect.

I smiled. Only 70 zillion steps to go.

Music’s never been a stranger to Casa Rochat, but it usually involves 88 keys and some desperate scrambling to turn a page without losing the rhythm or my sheet music. But this Christmas, Heather and Missy decided they were going to expand my repertoire a bit. Which is how I wound up with an acoustic guitar under the tree.
A guitar!

There has always been something about a guitar that sounds like home to me. Like a lot of Colorado kids born in the ’70s, I grew up listening to my parents’ John Denver albums, which probably set the pattern. That got reinforced by a lot of friends and relatives, especially acting buddies who would break out their six-string at a cast party. Often we’d play together, piano and guitar, chiming out folk songs or oldies or anything else we could think of.

When music became more available online, I adapted so many chord sheets that I began to joke about playing “rhythm piano.” And so, over the years, I began to think about chasing those warm, familiar sounds myself.

Easy to talk about, of course. Everyone’s got one of those friendly, fuzzy dreams from writing the next big bestseller to climbing the Fourteeners. They’re fun to bring up and cool to contemplate. But turning them into reality … well, that’s a different animal.

That’s work.

Or at least, that’s the attitude most of us take toward it.

Two attitudes, really. The first is to get disappointed when a new task doesn’t yield success right away. “I can’t draw Longs Peak on the first attempt, therefore I can’t draw.” “I tried auditioning and I didn’t get Prince Hamlet, so I’m done.”

The second … well, the second is viewing it as work in the first place.

Granted, to any objective bystander, work is exactly what it is. But most of us aren’t objective about what we do. Mark Twain hit it right on the money in “Tom Sawyer” when he pointed out that “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

I write. A lot. I read about writing a lot. Even when I read for pleasure, I catch myself breaking down the structure and style, like an architect studying a blueprint. It’s effort at times, but it’s not really work. It’s just what I do, how I think, who I am.

At least, until I break into a sort of writing I’ve not done before. Then the sweat comes and the doubt begins. The reflexes aren’t trained, the expectations aren’t familiar, and the work, so second-nature at other times, becomes visible, even awkward.

Arguably, I’m doing exactly the same thing. But my mind doesn’t know that yet. It sees work, and lots of it; a mountain to be climbed rather than a view to be discovered.

If I turned that around, I’d probably have half a dozen novels by now.

Turn it around and there’s a freedom. This isn’t school. Nobody’s making me write a book or learn guitar or become a kitchen virtuoso. This is something I can choose to do or not do, to my own satisfaction or disappointment.

Terrifying? Sometimes. But also attractive. And somewhere, buried beneath the surface of the work, a lot of fun.

We discover that on so many other things we love. Why be surprised to find it again?

And so, this year, I’m strumming. Not as a resolution, forced by the change of the year. But as a dream that can finally be real – and real fun – with some time and effort and joy.

And maybe, in the chords, I’ll even hear an echo of a distant time and a Rocky Mountain tenor.

Take me home.

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Bringing the Year to Book

With the exception of the Muppet version, my Mom has never really liked “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

It makes sense. Musically, it’s the holiday equivalent of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Logistically, it strikes a little too close to home for anyone who has to keep a house clean during the holidays and is beginning to feel run over by 10 lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing and all the assorted livestock, with the five golden rings having been accidentally thrown out with the wrapping paper long ago.

And personally, I always felt that I got the better deal anyway. Every Christmas, instead of having to feed and house 50 people and 23 birds that “my true love” wished on me, I could sit down and take hold of the world.

Or at least, of the World Almanac.

Every year, it sat like a gift-wrapped brick at the foot of the tree: the new World Almanac, the book that proved the World Wide Web would have an audience long before the first dancing cat ever hit a computer screen. I plundered that volume for nations and flags of the world, for county-by-county presidential results, for the true names of celebrities and the weirdest facts to hit the headlines. About the only thing it was missing was a random image of Rick Astley on page 47 singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

In a family where knowledge of odd and random facts was a given – a friend of mine once called dinner at our house “The Rochat Family Jeopardy Hour” – this was one of the vital grounding points, and mighty cool reading besides. Looking back, it was also a pretty good way to meet the New Year, getting a quick reminder of the year just past before stepping out into uncertain territory.

That’s an important function of New Year’s Day. Maybe even the only one.

When you think about it, New Year’s is a pretty odd holiday. Granted, all holidays are pretty odd. These are the times when we set aside a day to begging for chocolate in masks, or eating candy out of socks, or painting food and hiding it in the back yard for our kids to find (or, more often, for our dogs to discover, snarf and get sick on). Compared to this, a holiday to declare “Hey, we used up another calendar!” almost seems pretty normal.

Still, you wonder. It’s a birthday celebration for no one in particular, a chance to go wild over leaving the festivities of December for the bleakness of January. And it’s not like most of us have a choice in the matter. It’s a little like popping corks and playing music to celebrate going to the grocery store; the journey is going to happen, with or without the Auld Lang Syne.

Its sole purpose is to be a stopping point. A crossroads.

And maybe that’s enough.

It’s easy to get immersed in life, or at least in existence. When I was a kid, the Talking Heads had a hit with “Once in a Lifetime,” which hit a bit close to home for many people:

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack,

And you may find yourself in another part of the world,

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,

And you may ask yourself “Well … how did I get here?”

This is the “how” – the chance to break the surface of the water and understand the surroundings before diving back in. And that current moves fast.

At this time last year, I was still a full-time newspaper reporter.

At this time last year, I hadn’t yet gained my niece Emma or lost my Grandma Elsie.

At this time last year, we were still getting used to a Clydesdale of a dog named Blake. Still flinching at the sound of a rainstorm and the flood-filled memories it created. Still wondering if anything could stop the Broncos on their way to the Super Bowl.

Still wondering what lay ahead.

That’s a book I haven’t gotten to read yet. But I’m looking forward to the next pages. After all, it’s been a pretty exciting story so far.

Friends and readers, may 2015 be everything you asked for and a few things you didn’t.

Maybe even including the partridge in a pear tree.

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Christmas Presence

“He had eaten most, talked most and laughed most. But now he simply was not there at all!”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”

 

Every year, my sisters and I knew that to wake up Christmas, we had to wake up Grandma Elsie.

We planned it with the skill of a military operation. I would stay awake through the night on Christmas Eve, softly singing carols to myself in order to stay awake. At 6 a.m. – the earliest time we were allowed up, amidst warnings that would chill the blood of Jacob Marley – I would wake Leslie. She would wake Carey. And together, we would let our rambunctious dog into the basement where Grandma slept, so that she could make coffee and trade silly songs with us while waiting for the caffeinated odor to rouse Mom and Dad.

It was her English-accented voice that taught us the words to “Here We Come A-Wassailing.” It was her presents that always included a package of miniature chocolate Santas. She was often the one who invited us to Christmas Eve services and always the one who would have a margarita with Christmas Eve dinner at the Armadillo, our standby restaurant on Dec. 24th for over 30 years.

And this year, it’s her absence that’s felt most around the Christmas tree.

It’s our first Christmas without Grandma. It still feels strange to say or write it. It felt strange back on Thanksgiving, when my Dad’s voice quavered slightly as he remembered her while saying grace. It was an occasion with good food, good family and lots of squirming toddlers – just the sort of environment she loved most.

The place she would once have been at the heart of.

They say the holidays can be the hardest time. I had no idea how true that was until now. We’d had an empty place at the table before – once, when my new job in Kansas had me working on the night of the holiday, and a few times since after Leslie moved to Washington and couldn’t join us as frequently.

But those were small things by comparison, shadows that could be put to flight if needed. All of us knew that, if it were necessary to have the whole crew at the old house, we would find a way there.

Not so easy this time.

It may be most powerful now because of the ritual. Christmas is the time when traditions wake and walk again, when we do things the way we’ve done them for years upon years. Favorite movies, favorite meals, favorite memories. The weight of that habit can become mighty, as Heather and I discovered our first Christmas, when we debated whether stockings were emptied before presents or afterward. (I still think I was right.)

But when the time comes to walk that ages-old dance again, there’s suddenly a step missing. A skip in the music.

And it makes the absence, the presence, more noticeable than ever.

Perhaps that’s as it should be. I’ve always had a disdain for “getting over it” or “moving on.” Memories should remain, just as love remains. How horrible to even contemplate forgetting, how hideous the thought of putting that memory away, like an unneeded ornament in a taped-up cardboard box.

But memory doesn’t have to be joyless, either.

Grandma loved this time of year. She may have had mixed feelings about the snow – or even spectacularly unmixed feelings – but she never failed to take joy in the lights, the music and especially the gathered family. She would not have wanted that joy to end, nor should it.

Not even when it needs to live side-by-side with grief for a while.

It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to remember.

But it’s also OK to celebrate.

And so, as we scramble to gather presents, I’ll also stop to mind a Christmas presence. Maybe even sing an off-kilter carol or two.

I’ll wake up her memory yet again.

And with it, wake up Christmas one more time.

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Beginning to See the Light

For the third time in four nights, Missy and I hit the road. And as we drove, the nightly refrain again rang out.

“Look a’ that!” Missy’s finger shot out to indicate a brilliantly decorated home and yard, accented by an inflated sleigh with reindeer.

“Look a’ that!” A roof edge outlined in blue-white LEDs, looking as though it had been claimed by stained-glass icicles.

“Look a’ that!” Electric candles in the windows, the only soft glow the house had.

“Look a’that! Look a’that! Lookit!”

By the end of the trip, Missy’s busy finger was still requesting new avenues to explore, pointing out the signs of lit homes and neighborhoods all the way back to the house. At her direction, we could have gone for hours longer, then likely started again.

“Want to do this again?” I asked as we pulled back into the driveway.’

Vigorous nodding. “Yeah!”

I couldn’t blame her. After all, my inner Missy was doing exactly the same thing.

There are a few things that really mark the start of the Christmas season to me. There’s the annual struggle to find and erect the Christmas tree, festooning the branches with every long-held decoration we own, right down to the bodiless head of Holly Hobbie. (LONG story.) There’s the comforting strains of John Denver and the Muppets, singing in the season as only they can. (After all these years, I still automatically respond to “Five … gold-en … rings!” with “Ba-dum, bum, bum!”) And yes, there’s the well-worn tapes and discs bearing tales of Scrooges and Grinches and sad-looking Christmas trees that only need a little love.

But the essential punctuation for me has always been the lights.

My wife Heather’s the same way. We react to Christmas lights the way a groundhog reacts to its shadow, ready to add six more weeks to the season just so we can see it all. We spent many a date night noting and categorizing the displays we’d pass, including:

* The Landing Strip: A roof perfectly outlined in a single color, with no other decoration, seeming to call out to passing aircraft, sleighs or UFOs.

* The American Epileptic Association Award: A home with so many blinking and flashing lights that it could have been level 37 of an especially busy video game.

* Disneyland: The home and yard that had been completely taken over by lights, figurines and licensed characters, cramming in five Santas, two Nativities, the whole Mickey Mouse family and a utility bill that could have reset the national debt.

* Oh, Really?: These would be the well-intentioned ones that somehow didn’t come off quite right, like the automatic Santa Claus in one home that bobbed back and forth, looking oddly like he was pounding on the window, trying to escape.

After we became guardians to Missy, my wife’s developmentally disabled aunt, it cranked up the Light Run by a few notches. No surprise, really, because Missy is a little like a home at Christmastime herself.

No, I don’t mean that she comes with running lights and glowing reindeer (though she might find that really cool, come to think of it). But she often meets the world at one of two extremes. Sometimes silent, her expression hidden, taking in the places and people around her. Or else with her feelings completely on her sleeve, cheering at a bite of pie, beaming at a newly-met passerby, calling out when she wants to go somewhere (or even more loudly when she doesn’t).

All that’s missing is Clark W. Griswold getting humorously electrocuted in the background.

So these last few years, I’ve watched both the neighbor lights and the “Missy lights.” Both seem to transform the world around them with just a little effort. And in a landscape of darkened homes, that effort stands out all the more brightly.

Maybe there’s some hope there for all of us.

Meanwhile, it’s time to hit the road. Somewhere out there is a rainbow-colored Rudolph with our name on it. Maybe even literally.

“Look ‘a that!”

I can’t wait.

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I Didn’t Mean To … And I Love It

Three things in life have the gift of utter invisibility: the second half of a pair of socks, the car keys when you’re 20 minutes late, and the last box of Christmas tree ornaments.

“Not in the garage … not in the basement … not in the closet … wait, here’s some wrapped newspaper … no, those are old dishes …”

I don’t know about peace on Earth, but I was ready to give last year’s Scott Rochat a piece of my mind. Where were the stupid things?

One more try in the basement. Back straining, I pulled out old boxes of newspaper clippings … old suitcases … an old plastic tub full of …

Oh!

“Honey?” I called to Heather as I brought my discovery upstairs. “Take a look at this.”

The grungy plastic tub didn’t hold any Christmas ornaments. But it did hold an album of wedding pictures. More specifically, wedding pictures of Heather’s grandparents, in a worn but glorious black and white. Further down were more discoveries: a book of tales from India lavishly illustrated by Heather’s great uncle, old pictures of our ward Missy as a baby, even a picture of Heather and Missy as girls together, hair shining in the light.

“That’s incredible.”

We never did find that last box of ornaments. But it no longer mattered. We’d already unwrapped the most amazing present imaginable

***

It’s odd, really, but the best discoveries are often like that. Seek and ye shall find … but not quite what you were looking for.

Ask Richard James. He was trying to find a way to make naval instruments more stable when he accidentally knocked over one of his springs – and found he’d discovered the Slinky.

Or maybe Percy Spencer, who found a melted chocolate bar in his pants, and realized it had been cooked by the microwaves of a magnetron he’d been working on.

A stove left on too long led to vulcanized rubber. A transistor grabbed by mistake helped create the first pacemaker. And we’ve all heard the story about dirty dishes and penicillin.

On and on the list goes, oddly comforting in its serendipity. It’s a reminder that even our frustrations can come back to help us and that the “right thing” may not be what we think.

Nobody’s perfect – and it turns out that’s pretty wonderful.

Granted, there are mistakes and there are mistakes. I’m pretty sure nobody’s going to give me the Nobel Prize for successfully introducing my chin to a concrete sidewalk, for example. But if we don’t fear mistakes, that’s when real learning can take place.

My brother-in-law Brad, one of life’s truly handy people, once told me and Heather that a lot of home projects were easier than they looked. “You just can’t be afraid to break anything,” he said.

Good words to remember.

***

Looking back at my own delvings and the more noteworthy discoveries above, there really does seem to be a common thread, a balance that has to be struck. You have to be willing to make the effort, without being so focused on what you should be seeing that you miss what’s there.

If I’d said “Oh, well,” and done something else, I’d have missed a treasure. But I also would have missed it if I hadn’t started to widen my search.

Instead, in a season of the unexpected, we found a welcome surprise. That’s more than worth a few missing beads and bangles. And who knows what new discoveries might lie ahead?

I might even learn about this wonderful thing called “labels.”