Month: January 2021

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I Want My Llama

Two hours beforehand, she’d been great. An hour before, she’d calmly gotten in the car, ready to go. But as we entered the office on D-is-for-Dentist Day, Missy finally decided she’d had enough.

“NO!”

We made promises. Offered hugs. Started up some favorite music.

“NO!”

The assistant made all the right moves. She admired Missy’s shoes, looked at her proudly offered comic book (a Darth Vader one), bantered with charm and patience. Missy liked her. Even responded a bit. But there was no way she was getting near that dentist’s chair or giving her new friend a long look inside her mouth.

“No!”

Finally, we took the Kenny Rogers route: know when to fold ‘em. But before the dentist began to discuss options and tactics for the next appointment, the assistant had one last card to play. After a moment’s departure, she stepped back in the room with someone new to meet … a white stuffed llama, complete with pink-and-white sparkles on its side.

Missy’s smile broadened. Her hands reached. And while it didn’t immediately turn defeat into victory like the final scene of a Star Wars movie, it planted a seed. Tension relaxed, nerves unclenched. The weird and scary became a little more normal and welcome – especially when it became clear that yes, the llama could go home in her overstuffed purse.

Today could only do so much. But tomorrow, just maybe, had gotten a little easier.

And if that isn’t a sum up of the last year or so, I don’t know what is.

Last week, when I bantered about Bernie memes, I mentioned how disrupting a familiar scene can make you see it with new eyes. But there’s a flip side to that, too. When many things are strange and unsettling, having even one “normal” touchpoint can ground you. The ordinary becomes a shield against the overwhelming.

It’s why stories of the fantastic, from King Arthur to Harry Potter, often begin with a hero who knows as little as we do.  They become our interpreter and our teacher, as we learn together about the bizarre new world that’s opening around us while sharing a common starting point of what’s supposed to be normal.

It’s why we reach for the familiar and soothing when a crisis hits – a favorite book or TV series, a friend who’s a good listener, or even a simple and mindless chore that can restore a feeling of control.

And it’s why, in a landscape like today’s, anything that gives a peek of the world before or after COVID-19 becomes a sign of hope.

It can be taken too far, of course. We all know that. Acting like everything’s normal in the midst of a wildfire or a flood or a worldwide pandemic is a good way to endanger yourself and everyone around you. So you take precautions, you learn the lessons, you adapt and survive and grow.

But survival includes the mind and the heart and the soul. If something comforts and restores you without causing harm – to yourself or someone else – that, too, can be an essential part of adapting. Not a leash to hold you back, but a bridge to carry you through.

Missy’s new friend has now joined the stuffed herd at home. Its softness still beckons, its sparkles still gleam. And while it won’t prevent the need for another dental visit, it can at least promise that there’s more than anxiety ahead.

The uncomfortable can’t be avoided. Not wholly. But with enough help, it can be endured.

Especially with a trauma llama close at hand.  

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Weekend of Bernies

With a Sanders-stuffed world exploding into life online, I suddenly heard my brain echoing the rhythms of Dr. Seuss:

I’ve seen him in the Muppet box,

I’ve seen him painted by Bob Ross,

I’ve seen him in a Broadway show,

And galaxies ‘long time ago,’

I’ve seen those mittens here and there,

That Bernie’s nearly EVERYWHERE!

If you have no idea what I’m talking about , you probably haven’t been on social media much since the inauguration. In the hours after Joe Biden took the presidential oath and Amanda Gorman seared her verses into our imaginations, Sen. Bernie Sanders abruptly took over. Or at least his photo did.

The image of Sanders bundled tightly against the cold on a folding chair, wearing mask and mittens and an irascible expression, has suddenly become the latest internet meme, photoshopped into a zillion settings. The bridge of the Enterprise. The Iron Throne. The diner of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” A box of Sleepytime tea. On and on it goes, the sillier the better.

Some of my friends are reveling in finding new ones, while others are imitating “The Scream” as Bernie takes over their Facebook feeds. It’s a little like the ever-multiplying brooms in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” only without the theme music.

Wait. Do you think someone’s put Bernie in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” yet? Hmmm …

For a punster like me, it’s been kind of fun to watch the silliness. The very definition of a meme, after all is a contagious thought, one that keeps finding new ways to evolve and spread. There’s a reason it’s called “going viral” – although, in this day and age, that’s probably not the most welcome image to evoke. (Apologies.)

It’ll subside eventually. They always do (even if they never quite die). But why is it catching on so hard right NOW?

Two reasons, I suspect.

The first is the simple one: it’s silly. And after weeks of tension in the national news, a lot of us needed something silly. Have you ever had that moment where life has been hitting so hard for so long … and then all of a sudden a stupid joke breaks through the walls like Kool-Aid Man at a birthday party, and you just can’t stop laughing?

But the real power, the one that gives it legs, is the mismatch of the original image.

Our brains latch on to incongruity – to things that don’t quite fit. And at a formal event, where everyone is focused on trying to be oh-so-elegant, it’s the ordinary sight that leaps out – the well-known face looking like Grandpa who’s just checked in from his daily errands, waiting for the school band concert to finish up already so everyone can go inside and get warm.

That sort of mismatch  is a powerful hook for any story.

It’s why the original Star Wars begins, not with a mighty hero, but with a robot butler and his mechanic friend who suddenly acquire the information that could save the galaxy.

It’s why The Lord of the Rings puts the world’s future in the hands of an obscure hobbit.

It’s why comedies, tragedies and horror stories across the ages have reveled in bringing together the two people who must NOT meet. It creates tension and opens up possibilities.

What’s more, that’s true in the real world as well.

When we break up old patterns and jar ourselves out of ruts, we let ourselves see the world again. We take a fresh look at things that have become familiar. It lets us invent, create, experience. It even helps us hold others accountable as we look at a situation and ask “Why doesn’t this fit?”

So yes, it’s a silly meme. But the power that makes it work is something quite real. Even wonderful.

So go on. Enjoy (or endure) it while it lasts.

Bern, baby, Bern.

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This Looks Familiar

“Uh-oh!”

That’s one of the Missy phrases that triggers instant attention every time, especially when accompanied by laughter. Our disabled ward likes to pull pranks from time to time, and the more she knows she’s doing something “wrong” – usually putting something where it doesn’t belong – the more jovial she’ll be.

I looked up from the book I had gotten out, on the alert … and laughed as well. Once again, Missy had just swiped my glasses from where they were resting and tried them on. My oversize lenses framed her face surprisingly well,  especially when paired with her crooked grin.

“Go show Heather!”

Off she went. Soon Heather’s laughter echoed as well. And then later that night, after we’d put Missy to bed, she noted something.

“You know,” she said, “it’s amazing how much she looks like Andy with those on. I mean, I always knew there was a resemblance but with those glasses, you can really see it.”

She showed me the pictures – one she’d just taken, the other an old shot of Missy’s brother Andy, who had died in 2006 at the age of 40. Same smile and laughing eyes. Same coloring and facial structure. And now, even the big glasses were similar.

No doubt. None in the world.

Wow.

I’m sure you know the feeling. It’s a little startling, isn’t it? And that sort of déjà vu can lurk around any corner, whether it’s a familiar face, a well-known location, or an old time that seems to become new again.

Maybe especially that last one. Lately, at least.

That may sound a little strange to say. After all, these last 12 months or so have seen an unprecedented use of the word “unprecedented.” (Sorry.)  Maybe in reaction to that, we keep reaching out for comparisons that will make everything make sense. Are we once again seeing the stubbornness and desperation of the Great Pandemic of 1918? The unrest and division of 1968? Are we reprising the corruption of the Watergate years, the economic uncertainty of the Depression, the political uncertainty of Europe between the wars?

Ultimately, of course, every time is its own. But as the old saying goes, even though history doesn’t truly repeat, it often rhymes. It’s still made by us – and our hearts, our minds, still have a sibling’s resemblance to those who came before, however much the world around us may have changed.

And so we find ourselves dealing with the same sorts of core issues given new faces and forms. Fear. Injustice. Uncertainty. Prejudice. Anger. Round and round we turn, sometimes reaching for something better, sometimes grasping only for ourselves.

No, not so different at all.

And therefore, maybe not so hopeless as we might be tempted to think.

At this time of year, it’s common to quote the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe a little TOO common, as we grow tempted to set aside meaningful action for beautiful words, or adopt a spirit of complacency instead of struggle. But with that warning in mind, his words on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize seem to fit these “similar times”:

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights,” he said, “we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”

That’s not a pat on the head. It’s not an excuse to sit aside and say “Oh, well, things will work themselves out.” A struggle not joined is lost. But it is a call to hope, a reminder that working for hope is not futile. That the worst times carry the seeds of the best – if we’re willing to put forth the labor to plant them and help them grow.

Similar times. Similar fears. Similar promise, if we can face the moment with hope, courage and effort.

If we don’t?

Uh-oh.

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Once or For All

Some moments freeze the frame. With shock. With disbelief. With the sudden awareness that you’re living in History with a capital “H.”

The last flight of the Challenger.

The morning the Twin Towers fell.

Wednesday.

The images from the Capitol felt surreal – and yet too real. Something that could have come from a movie or a Tom Clancy novel, and yet something that could have only happened in the far-too-real world.

Something that’s ours. Whether we want it or not.

As I write this, it’s been three days since the storming of Congress. We’ve seen and heard so much – the evacuation of Congress and delay of the vote, the staffers whose quick thinking got the ballot boxes to safety, the bizarre sights from the broken-into chambers and offices. We’ve heard the shouts and screams since, seen the calls for accountability, witnessed the beginnings of consequences in the real and online worlds.

By the time this appears in print, another two days will have passed. An eternity. Because the weird thing about frozen-frame moments is they move surprisingly quickly in their aftermath, fast enough to make even the most prescient observations quickly obsolete.
So I’m taking a step back from the immediate. And asking a bigger question.

What do we want this to be?

Not “How do we spin this?” Not “How do we assign blame?” Not even “How do we get in a DeLorean and prevent this from happening,” though I wish that were an option.

No. What will this be?

I’ll explain.

One of my own frozen-frame moments – one for many of us, I suspect – goes back more than 20 years to the mass shooting at Columbine High School. My mother was still a teacher at the time at a school with a very similar name, which meant that as I watching events unfold in a Kansas newsroom, I was also having to reassure friends that she was OK, that she wasn’t at that Columbine.

It was a punch in the gut. And for some years afterward, any fresh report of a major school shooting hit that wound. More than once, I went to the keyboard to pour out the pain of what had happened, to try to understand, to try to be even the smallest part of helping our country say “Never again” and mean it.

Well.

You know the rest.

They kept coming. They became so common that I couldn’t write about every single one. It took the classroom dispersals of COVID-19 to interrupt the string – March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting since 2002.

So common that it began to numb.

And the frame kept freezing a little less.

So I ask again – what will Wednesday be?

Will it be a 9/11, a one-time horror that leaves an impact but no immediate sequel?  

Or will it be a Columbine, merely the first of a chain?

Ultimately, that’s up to us.

A professor of mine, Simone Chambers, once said the fundamental principle of politics is that talking is better than fighting. It’s a simple concept to state and an easy one to abandon. After all, a conversation takes two willing people. Conflicts, like car accidents, require only one behaving badly.

Can we commit to talking? To listening? To hearing?

That doesn’t mean being a milquetoast, rolling over rather than risk offense. If anything, it requires the courage to stand up to folks who would trample on the conversation and say “No. We don’t do that here.”

Conflict is not unique to this time and place. American politics has never been an episode of Masterpiece Theatre. But we have been better. We can be. We must.

Freeze the moment again. Examine it.

And then, together, let’s decide what we want to learn.

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Hi, Resolution

All right, it’s time for a little bit of January heresy.

I’ve never been a big believer in New Year’s resolutions.

Don’t get me wrong. Goals are great. Commitments are wonderful. But making a big promise just because Jan. 1 happens to show up on the calendar – to hit the gym, to write the novel, to finally understand the offside rule in soccer – always seemed a little odd to me.

Why now?

Yes, I know the answer to that one, or as much of an answer as there is. The New Year’s a symbol of change. Speaking realistically, there’s very little that separates Dec. 31, 2020 from January 1, 2021. But when the date ticks over, it’s a reminder that things keep changing … and in the case of the late unlamented 2020, not a moment too soon.

So it’s natural to want to change ourselves, too. But making a change just because it’s Official Changing Time doesn’t have a great track record. As I noted last year, about 8% of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions actually keep them. The Broncos offensive line performs better than that.

So maybe it’s time for a different approach.

One that’s focused less on what we’d like to be and more on who we are.

I’ll explain.

I’ve learned a lot of important lessons in life, many of them the hard way. About how little control I really have over things. About living with loss and honoring memory. About taking the time to truly appreciate who we have while we have them, and the notes they bring to our common song.

Most of all, though, I have learned and learned and learned how to hope. Not the sort of dewy-eyed “Gee, maybe someday all this will get better” expectation, but a real belief that by acting together, we can make things better – which means that I can’t shirk my part of that.

Time and again, it’s been that ability to hope and that willingness to back it up with effort that have made a difference. It’s been a solution over and over.

So much so, that I’ve started thinking of it as a re-solution.
And that, I submit, is what we really need to look to in this new year.

It’s important to grow. But it’s just as important to examine ourselves, see the worthwhile things that have already grown in us, and commit to reinforcing them. Just like the plants you want to save, those solutions need to be fed, watered, strengthened.  

They’re what got you this far. And they’ll ultimately be the roots for the growth that lasts.

It’s not easy. A lot of times, it’s downright exhausting. I’ve seen my fighting hope sucked into the ceiling fan again and again, taking fresh lumps each time.

But I’ve also seen it helped build a family. A new career. A place to go to when things are at their worst, whether it’s the personal loss of a cousin or the shared loss of a normal reality.

My re-solution is still there.

And like any well-worked muscle, it keeps getting stronger with use.

That’s what will carry us through.

Resolutions help mark a change in time. Re-solutions confirm a change in life. They’re not always as simple as that promise to take guitar lessons (which I still need to do) but they undergird so much of what matters.

Find your re-solutions. Feed them well. Put them to work and don’t let up.

Who knows? Maybe when December comes around again, we’ll actually want to look forward to what’s ahead. I’m sure hoping to.

Just as long as it doesn’t involve that blasted offside rule.