celtic_writer

The 47%...at 35,000 Feet

Candidates, debates, polls, and pundits abound these days.



Reminds me of an experience that occurred some years ago.

I was flying back to the East Coast from a teaching stint out west. Hell bet on the business of filling empty seats, the airline arranged for us to glide into increased profits via a stop at a Houston airport.

It was summer. A Friday night, and hot. Business people who had been away all week were worked up to get home. No one was paying for delay.

Some folks disembarked, then a rush of humanity jumped on. The coach section was full of action, people pushing chubby bags into overstuffed overheads, with "let's get the heck outta here" expressions the norm.

Down the aisle, through the crowd, came a lovely woman employed as a flight attendant. She was followed by a man, a fellow clothed completely in Gucci. He was so groomed that the image appeared impossible. Not a hair of his $500 haircut was askew, his suit perfectly pressed despite the humidity. Yet, as they passed me, I noticed his manicured hands were clenched, his tanned face stern as stone. Seems the immaculate fellow was late for his first class seat, and they sold it out from under him.

Ms. Flight Attendant had information that affected all of us.

"Sir, this is the only available seat we have on this flight. If you want to get to DC tonight, then this is it. And we can't leave until all passengers are seated."

Mr. Gucci was not pleased. In a loud, arrogant voice, he declared,

"I am NOT sitting back here with THESE people."

Everything stopped.

All got very, very quiet.

Oh, but you know us coach folks. The silence did not last long.

Nestled in this gathering of the great unwashed was one of us. Standing in the aisle near Row 12, the sleeves of his rumpled business shirt already rolled up to his elbows, he was searching for a place in the crammed overhead for his soft briefcase.

You got the feeling he was a sales guy who hadn't made a commission all month, a hard-working person sick of swallowing nonsense. A real guy up to his neck in debt, yet more than ready to walk through the front door to the familiar madness of his wife and kids.

Sales Guy turned and glared over his reading glasses in the direction of Gucci Guy. Then, in a voice loud enough to speak for most humanity, Sales Guy said:

"Buddy, SIT DOWN and SHUT UP!"

And...Mr. Gucci did.

Immediately.

He hustled himself into the seat behind me, seeking refuge from the wrath of laughter that erupted at his expense.

As the plane left Houston, I imagined that, like a cartoon, he had shrunk to the size of a child, and that his suit was suddenly way too big for him. And that soon he would be kicking the back of my seat, impatient to get back to his own kind.

Photo credit: Pixadus.com

Remarkable Things

A trip into nature taught me I could love something new.

I was six years of age, on a carefully-planned, permission-slip-OK'd excursion to a local farm.

Once off the bus, we were taken to a barn where there was a big iron circle that held lots of yellow things that moved.

Chicks.

The place where they huddled was golden. A tall man, wearing jeans, picked up a chick and taught me how to hold it gently in my hand, its belly supported by my small palm, tiny legs extended through the cracks between my fingers.

The chick looked up at me, chirped and chatted. I looked closely at its small face, its round, black eyes, studied how my breath softly rustled the yellow down on its head.

I knew then that this was a remarkable thing. I understood I could love something foreign to my current realm of knowing. That I could embrace a creature, or place, outside my family.

I sat there holding the chick while the others petted goats and stared at cows, climbed on hay bales, and laughed at the mud of pigs.

I simply listened and watched the tiny bird, cupping it like a gift. I imagined raising both hands to the sky, like the priest did at Mass, holding the chick up towards forever.

When it was time to go, a teacher was summoned to help convince me to release the chick, to let the man in jeans put it back where it belonged, with its kind, with the others.

I cried into the warmth of my teacher's coat as she patiently held me, waiting for the end of my upset before mixing me with the other kids for the trip back to school.

I stared out the window of the bus on the road back, leaned my face against the hard, soon-to-be-winter-cold window. I had held something unique in my young hands, a lesson that was warm, yet raw.

It was the first time I realized that life was about discovery, and also, became aware of its dichotomy. That if I wanted to get at life, I couldn't let any of it hold me back.

So, as time continues on, there are still remarkable things.

* My friend Phyll paints beautiful portraits of people. We have known each other over thirty years, and I never knew she loved to paint. Last year I stood in The Getty Center in Los Angeles and looked for a very long time at a painting called Portrait of Jeanne Kefer by Belgian artist Fernand Khnopff. It reminded me of a lovely, simple painting Phyll created of her granddaughter Claire.

* My mother had a beautifully-shaped head. I did not discover this until she was diagnosed with brain cancer, and lost her hair due to radiation treatments. My mother became a child again in the last days of her life, eating small green grapes from a white bowl held for her, turning her beautiful head to look at the remainder of her world with the utmost wonder.

* My old Labbie Margaret slipped and fell into a quick-rushing river in the western mountains of Virginia. Doug, without a thought, without considering that Margaret was old and past her time, that he had just spent $300 on a new pair of hiking boots, simply jumped in the water, and dove, and dove again until he found the old black dog who was struggling for air in the dark, swirling water, and hauled her safely to shore.

* In Burgdorf, Idaho, I heard an elk cry out, to "trumpet" some message into the cold, clear night. I thought it was a train, the sound so powerful. We were camped on top of a mountain that evening, with a glorious view of the curved sky, a spiral arm of the Milky Way, with stars so big and bright and numerous. Seeing our breath as we sat in the center of the globe of the world.

from the book Driving Mystic by Mary Gillen
Excerpt of chapter "Remarkable Things"
Publication Date: June 2011
© 2011 Mary Gillen

Images:
The Proud Mother Hen and Chicks 1852, by John Frederick Herring. Found at 1st-art-gallery.com

Portrait of Jeanne Kefer, 1885. Fernand Khnopff, Belgian, 1858-1921. The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA

Montana Police Blotter

When venturing along the road of life, a person cannot help but discover the philosophical undertones of the locations one visits. A good source for this kind of wisdom is always the local TV news.

Have visited places where the top story at 6 p.m. is "Guess who wore flip flops to meet the President?" or "Find out what famous person attended the corn boil today!"

But my favorite is the local newspaper, chock full of life-changing knowledge. You can find helpful health hints, like "soak your feet in Listerine to rid your toes of unsightly nail fungus" or "pour a bottle of Diet Coke over your hair to fade hair dye...and even remove it!"

But to keep up with current events, one immediately turns to the local police blotter.

Here are some from a local Montana newspaper:

Aging Gracefully

7:34 a.m. A lady on Blanchard Drive tends to verbally harass passing drivers while walking her dog. She was informed that this behavior is unacceptable.

Why Are We Here?

10:02 a.m. Employees at a local convenience store are not pleased with the presence of a man who lingers for hours, drinking cup after cup of coffee. His justification lies in the fact that the store offers free refills.

No Respect for Nature

11:17 a.m. Somebody stole a lovely pot of petunias from a home on Mission Trail.

Call the Fashion Police!

1:22 p.m. A man wearing a short-sleeved black dress and carrying flowers lifted his skirt at a pedestrian near an Evergreen supermarket. The flasher then scurried behind a nearby building.

The Price of Gas is Going Up

2:12 p.m. Nine or ten men and women were seen "jumping over the fence" at a Martin City baseball field. They were described as "baggy-pants, rap-type people" and were believed to be stealing gasoline.

Avalanche!

2:22 p.m. Five kids threw rocks in the road on Nicholson Drive. They all agreed to refrain from doing so in the future.

The Middle-aged Should Exercise Daily

3:17 p.m. An intoxicated man in his 50s was seen waving and swinging his arms near a local sporting goods store.

What Else Was He Wearing?

4:11 p.m. Someone noticed a man in a brown jacket pushing a stroller down Highway 93.

Call 911...Ah, Never Mind

8:03 p.m. Reports of a 'man down' in town turned out to be a case of a simple leg cramp.

Thank Goodness, or Was Alcohol Involved?

9:14 p.m. Someone saw what was described as a "big fireball" in the sky on the north side of Hash Mountain. Although the reporting party believed it to be an aircraft, all planes in the area were fully accounted for, and all was well.

Rules of the Road

Discovered that a heavy-duty tow truck operator in Idaho bills as much an hour as a programmer who lives, well, everywhere.

We were minding our own business, driving the new RV up through the mountains of Idaho, on our way north to Wyoming. Heard a funny sound. Pulled off into a park in a small town called Soda Springs. We stopped. Upon inspection, found the back axle of the new RV (with less than 2000 miles on it) ready to break.

We are now on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. Roadside assistance sent a fellah named Sean and his big commercial flatbed truck up from Pocatello to schlepp the RV down to a Utah dealership that does warranty repair.

The new axle has been ordered. It will be delivered in a few days. And I am happy to say that we are still here. Got me thinking that this could have been a real disaster, one skirting the realm of "It's been nice knowing you, folks."

So today it is sunny and hot here, and I have been thinking about how things happen, about the rules of the road.

1) It usually takes three times longer to get to a place than expected.

2) A long, steady hike up a hill can promise a different view.

3) Sometimes you have to lose direction in order to find your way.

4) Most days there are no maps.

5) Driving the unpaved road teaches you when to slow down, when to speed up.

6) We all still have our learner's permit.

7) When you can, take the back roads to avoid the nonsense.

8) There is always some new place to go.

9) The destination is where you are right now.

10) Everything is as it should be.

New Zealand: Getting There, British Broiled Tomatoes and Civil Engineers

Way back in June 2006, I wrote about a proposed quest to New Zealand.

Now, almost three years later, am there.

Had to leave Walt in Canyon Lake, Texas at a place where the lady Jane grooms dogs and allows the Lab the run of the place, so I know he is schmoozing with other canines and galumphing around the backyard, raising up that dry Texas dirt.

Doug and I left for New Zealand via Los Angeles. It took one Southwest flight, and the hitching of rides with three cab drivers of differing nationalities (Sudanese, Russian and Irani) who all held the same educational degree (civil engineering) from their old countries and who contributed to getting us to LAX in time for the flight Down Under.

The 12-hour, 40 minute flight from CA to Auckland left at 8:30 p.m. We lucked out and had a row of four seats to ourselves. The voice of our pilot, Captain Buttery, came across the loudspeaker, letting us know that all should go splendidly as we zoomed across the Pacific. The plane had a collection of entertainment films and cable shows, all viewable on a screen located on the back of the seat in front of you. Doug watched an interview with Steven Hawkins, and then one about CERN and the search for Higgs Boson. The excitement of that caused him to conk out, a Lone Ranger with a Qantas sleeping mask over his eyes, ear plugs and a couple of Benadryl helping him to slumber land, pardner.

Ms. Tonto stayed up and read for a while. Soon I was surrounded by three stewards, nervously inquiring about my health ("Madam, are you OK?") Confused, I replied, "Yes, I'm fine." Seems my elbow was leaning against the attendent call button on my arm rest, an action that caused multiple silent SOS signals to be hurled unceasingly to the back of the plane, as well as all automatic garage doors to open and close wildly on the island of Micronesia, I am sure.

People lined up like children preparing for bed, toothbrushes and towels in hand, waiting patiently to use the restroom. Across the aisle, a child named Tyler started to fuss. His pop would have none of it. The plane's cabin darkened.

I slept for nine hours across three seats. There was much turbulence as we flew over islands called Papeete and Noumea.

Three hours away from Auckland, the lights came on, and passengers were handed hot towels to wipe face and hands. Breakfast tray food included the British broiled tomato.

Next: Auckland.

IMAGE: New Zealand Company Flag, 1839
Maker unknown, made on board "The Tory"
Wool bunting, linen / 1295 x 1880 mm
Te Papa Museum, Wellington, New Zealand

Big Mountain and the Exorcist Steps

A few years ago, on a typically-humid sunny summer day in Washington DC, I motored my way over to Georgetown University to be interviewed for a teaching gig. The meeting occurred in a building on M Street called The Car Barn, a locale where the city's trolley cars were once stored that now hosts university folks delivering education.

When the chat was done, I walked out of the building on to M Street, only to realize that The Mighty Bug was parked in a lot on Prospect Street above the Car Barn. The closest access: the infamous Exorcist Stairs, made famous by William Peter Blatty in that 1973 horror film. There are 75 stairs and enough landings to make its height equivalent to a five-story building.

So I started to climb...and climb...and climb, pulling my large business-suited body and panty-hosed legs stuffed in big high-heeled lady shoes up those stairs. I was passed, about a hundred times, by three very athletic twenty-year-olds, running up and down the stairs for exercise, giggling and gossiping as I was gasping for breath. I finally made it to the top and had to lay down on one of the park benches nearby so someone would hopefully notice my newly-expired personage and call the police. I was not alone. I looked across to another set of benches. There sat a middle-aged fellow who had climbed the stairs as well. He had his business suit jacket off and he was wiping the sweat from his brow. His comment, "If I had a gun, I would shoot those kids."

Isn't it ironic that hiking has now become part of my life.

I come from a long line of people who love to eat. The Gillen coat of arms is the knife and fork. I was also spawned from two people who believed that camping meant making a reservation at the nearest Holiday Inn, and hiking involved pressing the Up button on the elevator.

Doug and I have been hiking a lot on our journey, and it has helped me lose some weight, which is good.

But this past summer, I met my hiking nemesis in northern Montana.

Big Mountain.

It is, pardner.

A ski resort, it is a place to hike along beautiful mountain trails and pick huckleberries in the off-season. And if you make it to the top, you can ride the chairlift down for free.

The top means you trot from the base of 4464 feet up trails to the summit of 6817 feet, a hike of 3.7 miles or so.

Doug has hiked Big Mountain many times. "Piece 'o cake," he told me when we got to the trailhead.

At first, it was easy. Like something out of the Sound of Music. The pretty little Alpine flowers were blooming, and around every bend you expected to see a young Julie Andrews twirling and singing about how alive the hills are.

Then, slowly, the height of the mountain turned evil. Each corner held terrain of increasing vertical horror that required so much effort that all I wanted to do was lay down on the path on my stomach, kick my arms and legs, and hold my breaf till I turned brew.

Doug tried to encourage me. "We only have to go one more mile vertical and then it levels out some."

So I simply did what every overweight middle-aged Celtic writer would do: I pouted as I trudged up that wall of hell, keeping my arms at my sides, and my head down, convinced that if I met someone as cheerful as Julie Andrews coming the other way on this path, she would get such a shove.

At that point, Doug told me later that he didn't have the heart to tell me about..."Heartbreak Hill."

"You would have turned around and run down the path so fast that it would have seemed like something out of a Three Stooges movie." he told me later.

Wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo.

Heartbreak Hill is the last 1/2 mile climb to the summit. I somehow clawed my way to its top, where Doug was waiting for me, all congratulatory and happy that I had made it. I was too busy leaning my face against a corner of a "Don't Feed the Bears" sign to answer him.

He pointed up a slight incline to a building about 100 feet away. "C'mon, Mare, let's go in there and get a cold drink."

It was like I was looking up at Mount Everest.

"No," I replied. "You will have to carry me."

"I am not going to carry you," Doug said.

"OK, then go up there and tell that building to come here," I replied, uncooperatively.

I did climb that little hill, as I realized that I really did need to go to the bathroom, a call of nature I could not ignore. I also discovered that inside that building, the restrooms were located down two flights of stairs, another height that would have to eventually be climbed once again. I went into the Ladies Room, took off my shirt, wrung it out, and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was standing straight up. Mad woman loose on top of the mountain.

A little while later, Doug came into the ladies room to check up on me. As it was off season, there were no other ladies in there to go "eeek." He coaxed me out of that haven to again, make another climb to where a cold refreshing drink was waiting.

Yes, it was worth it. 'Cause later, we got this:

Exorcist Steps Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Some Summer Discoveries Across the U.S. of A

1) Watch for Signs You May Be in the Wrong Place

Canyon Lake Texas

New Braunfels, Texas

2) Or Signs You May Be in the Right Place

Trout Lake, Western Colorado

Sidewalk stencil, Albuquerque, New Mexico

3) Things That Awe

Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

Arches, Utah

Inland Sea, Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country

Shark Whorl Fossil, Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum, Vernal, Utah

4) Good Eats You Don't Expect

Ye Old Chuckwagon, Lava Hot Springs, Idaho

5) Unique Dining Implements

Water Glass, Ye Old Chuckwagon, Lava Hot Springs, Idaho

Embracing Renunciation

To invent life, you must be careless about fate.

When you hear the world change, it is a shell placed so close to your ear that the sound becomes part of your mind.

Chaos is a gift inherited. Be a pagan among pilgrims so you can harvest the unforeseen.

Imagination unrestrained by the ordinary becomes the asylum some of us seek. When we finally listen, we leave home...forever.

My grandparents heard something, and trawled across the Atlantic from Ireland to a shore that was concrete and full of noise to start their lives again. Layer upon layer, child upon child, they turned new ground into old territory.

Yet two-thirds of the earth is covered in water, and when my parents came of age, they soon were out to sea. As a family we were exiles, cast afloat on my father's ambition to earn more than $10,000 a year and my mother's need to stop researching nature in a biology lab so she could craft some of her own.

We were constantly taking possession of new lands. My grandparents, left behind, shook their heads. For them, the shell grew to contain an ancient animal that shut off each chamber it created, trying only to live in the last room of its experience.

History repeats itself. Now it is my turn to leave.

Two months ago I said, "Enough." After 31 years in the Washington, DC area, I decided to leave the traffic, certain family drain and memories of a dead life for something new, and welcomingly unknown.

Renunciation is the true redemption. Made arrangements to give away most of my possessions. Hundreds of pounds of books went to the library. The beloved Bug is now in my sister Kathy's possession. Beds, couches, kitchenware, tables, microwaves -- all given away to good homes.

What I still own is housed in blue Rubbermaid tubs -- eight of them, to be exact. Doug came up to VA with his truck, and with a rented UHaul trailer, helped me schlepp these rubber boxes, a guitar, a Black Lab named Walter, some clothes and a laptop to his home in SC. We will venture west to Alaska this summer, then south again to find land and a place to build a round house.

Looking through the tubs yesterday, I found I bought only what is important to me. Books, art, music and writing.

I gave the rest away.

Am on the right track.

Chatwin's Folded Pages

Saturday night, soon to be Sunday. Adjusted a Web app for a client today, then ate a steak with salad. Labbie Walt and I went for a walk. Leaves have finally fallen from trees, and the wind in Mason Neck blows them about.

Before I fall asleep these nights, I pick up a book, as always. And lately it's been the re-reading of nomad Bruce Chatwin, a Brit who left the society of Sotheby's so he could wander around the world to see what was really going on.

I originally found Bruce Chatwin in a bookstore, his tome on a table marked "for $2.00 or less." It was a book about Welsh brothers called On the Black Hill. It was his only work officially marked "fiction." I didn't want it to end.

There may be better writers in this world, but this man tells great stories. When he was a child, he discovered "a piece of brontosaurus" on display in his grandmother's "glass-fronted dining room cabinet." This treasure was "thick and leathery, with strands of course, reddish hair." It was a creature that "lived in Patagonia." His grandmother's cousin, "Charley Milward the Sailor, found it." Eventually the experience sparked a book called In Patagonia. I hope some day you get the chance to read it.

What I like about Chatwin is that he makes me fold the page corners of his books. An action spawned by a phrase I want to remember, wish I had written, a few words I can return to that make me think. While reading "Among the Ruins" last night, he wrote about a man named Axel Munthe, a Swedish physician descended from Scandinavian "bishops and burgomasters" who made an escape to the island of Capri. There he bought a villa, and made it into his own. Chatwin quotes Munthe:

"The place is small. It was built by me on the principle that the soul needs more room than the body..."

The soul needs more room than the body. When taking that sentence to heart, how can anyone on this planet need to be kept hostage, in business, or in life?

To the Top of Things

It is fall finally. The squirrel is gone from the house, and the droves of blackbirds have flown through Mason Neck, signaling the spawn of cold.

What is the old saying? You simply put one foot in front of the other.

Off to New England tomorrow, climbing trails to the tops of mountains, a journey that smells of pine.

Doug drove his truck and trailer to my home in northern VA, and said, "Hey, let's go. We can develop and hike and listen to whatever happens along the way." And he will visit a surgeon in Bahstin, to have a growth removed from his ear, a remnant of his experience in Vietnam. Agent Orange. It is cancer, but not melanoma. He will survive. It is a time when I will wait for him. Read a book...perhaps Henry Miller or Herman Melville...in a cold waiting room at a VA hospital in Bean Town, where my nurse friend K has an "in", where he will get the best treatment for a bad experience from the top surgeon.

Marg coughs now. Yet she can still climb to the tops of mountains, smiling the entire way. She just wants to be with the pack. Until she can't take another step. She is the sweetest of Labs. And Walt becomes Rin Tin-Tin, galloping through streams.

Leaves change color. So does life. And all move on.

It is the Celtic New Year in a day or so. I like the newness. The Celts believed in life, and that all comes around again.

Something worth believing.