The Simple Magic of Careful Observation and Appreciation

Or, Do You Think God Is Sad?

As I rolled the trash out to the curb this morning, I was reminded of summer rains of my youth. We would each find an identifiable stick, head to the top of the block, and drop them into the gutter, then follow them as they "raced" to the storm drain. Assistance was prohibited, but if they got completely hung up and stopped moving you could give them a nudge to get going again. Eventually we even used pocket knives to whittle our sticks into vague boat-like shapes.

I wrote that a few days back for Facebook. It's random, but seems like a good place to start.

Earlier today my wife and I were watching our older son (age 8) run with a friend, commenting how he turns everything into a race. Another random thought from long ago came to me about the psychology of runners on cross country teams. (My dad was a coach and I ran in college.)

It's generally great to have others to run with for training. You help pace and encourage each other. When a person flags, they can focus on staying with the others; later, the roles switch. You all help each other maintain and persevere. Plus, the option of conversation helps pass the time and miles.

If you run with others enough, you begin to notice small, unconscious psychological differences. Some people are most comfortable perfectly side by side, matching each other's strides. Others, though, without awareness, always want to be a half-step ahead. If you try to match them, they unconsciously speed up. Try too hard or match the wrong people together, and every easy jog eventually becomes a blistering exertion. And others instinctively fall a half-step behind, so if you try to ease up to wait for them you slip into a game of going ever and ever slower. If you want to run at your ideal pace, you have to know your own tendencies and those of your companions so that you can arrange yourselves in a manner that won't have you going faster or slower without meaning to.

Which brings to mind something related I wrote recently in a work email to a colleague.

Don't get me wrong, I love being part of a team. But there are different types of teams and different team structures; my dad coached almost every sport (he was the athletic department at the high school he worked at when I was a kid, meaning he coached every single team they had) and I have played many different sports. My ideal team sport is cross country. Teammates help, encourage, and push each other and their places are added up for a team score, but each individual has to run their own race. There are no plays to coordinate, no balls to pass back and forth, no differing roles and positions. So while there is a team structure and camaraderie, there is not the same type of teamwork as many sports. That's what works best for me, a group of individuals working together while remaining individuals.

Coincidentally, in addition to the team structure being different than many other sports, the competition structure is different as well. Many competitions are between two teams, with a guaranteed outcome that half the participants will end as winners and half as losers. In cross country, one runner out of many will win and one team out of many will win, but everyone else doesn't go away a "loser" in the either-or sense of many competitions. It's possible that every single runner can have their personal best race on the same day. They are all mutually pushed by the competition and none leaves feeling like they've been defeated.

(I've shared similar thoughts here before, like here.)

So when I criticize the American cult of individualism (every other post) and say I have socialist meanings, I don't mean I prefer abdicating all personal responsibility in favor of some amorphous Borg collective consciousness, but something like this. Everyone still have to run the race, do the work, get themselves from point A to point B, but they do it as part of a team, working together, helping each other, with psychological teamwork and mutual obligation.

But there I go getting all earnest instead of nostalgic. My goal was to think of younger days so I can transition to sharing recent things from our lives with children.

My wife recently shared this Facebook memory from eight years ago, when our firstborn was about six months old.

[Older],

When you grow up, I hope that you will learn that life is a challenge every day. Some days are much more challenging than others. What may be a small challenge to one person is a huge challenge for another because we all have a different life journey and acquire different strengths, carry different weaknesses and struggle to overcome different flaws. One of us may be great at tennis, but can't add two digit numbers. One of us may be able to do differential equations in our head, but not be able to remember which bus to take home after having the same commute for two years. The entire point of life is to make life less challenging for each other. Not because there is a reward at the end of the tunnel or because a book told us we should, but because it is an intrinsic good. Be there for someone simply because they need it.

Love,

Mom

I love this thought (and her) so much.

Of our younger, who just turned seven:

Aahhh, yes, we see. Now we understand what [Younger] meant when he yelled "I'm playing stonemason" this morning while I was on my computer in a work meeting and [Spouse] was on a phone call, and we heard pounding and asked him to do something quiet like a puzzle. He was "decorating" the fireplace with some implement we've never seen before. Indeed.

For scale, the implement is about three inches square by and inch or two thick. We learned it was inside the weight for the balloons at his birthday party.

The best reaction was this comment from Facebook: "When two worlds collide: his idea of decorating and your idea your idea of decorating."

A couple more about him:

Most of the family slept in this morning after a busy weekend, but [Younger] was too excited for his birthday and woke early--though he knows not to wake the rest of us, that he should quietly entertain himself and let us rest.

I remember at one point drifting out of sleep a bit as he joined me in bed to snuggle, followed by our most social cat, Lion. Lion was anxious for breakfast and doesn't know to let me sleep, so he climbed on top of me, kneading for a bit before settling in for a sit, purring loudly in my ear. "Good job, Lion," I heard [Younger] whisper earnestly. "Annoy Dad so he wakes up."

-----

Even when you do your best to avoid it . . . 

Saturday, [Younger] went with me to do some of the shopping for his party. Driving home, he was so excited about the idea of cooking hot dogs over the fire that he chanted, "Wienie roast. Wienie roast." Then he slipped in a wordplay: "Wienie boast." I LLOLed (literally laughed out loud) before I could stop myself.

So, naturally, he asked, "What does 'boast' mean?" I gave a neutral definition, unrelated to the context of his usage, but he got it.

So, naturally, he decided to create and try out a few wienie boasts. "For example," he said.

So now I've had to explain that's something we don't do.

-----

[Younger] decided at church yesterday morning his face was too hot so he stuck it on an air conditioner vent for a while.

I didn't plan for a "scissors theme," but these two are both recent shares:

When you get so fed up with the children causing wanton chaos and destruction, beating on the house, that you think modeling the behavior back to them might make a point, except your demonstration is far more effective than planned.

I worked four hard hours turning over the garden yesterday and then took the kids to the pool for two hours today, so I was past my overexertion point and took a nap. You would think I could trust the 7 and almost 9yo to play quietly. [Younger] wrapped duct tape around [Older]'s head and he patiently waited for me to wake up and cut it out.

The second one is from my wife.

This was in a pile of his final schoolwork of the year. We haven't done much to encourage this desire (or discourage); it's all him. His grandpa would be proud.

I finished his birthday gift just in time: my first ever fired clay sculpture. It definitely has flaws and was a learning experience, but overall I'm happy with the result.

It technically didn't survive the kiln, came out in pieces. That was partly due, I think, to the way I worked the clay; there are better ways to create something. And I should have practiced cat faces/heads before making the official ones. But I put the pieces back together with glue and painted it with acrylic instead of glaze for a second firing. I think the paint might actually look better this way than if I'd completed the full process.

This poem from my recent feed captures something great about childhood, attention, and mindfulness.

Taylor Mali

MAGNIFIES AN OBJECT TEN TIMES

is what it clearly said

on the handle of the magnifying glass

my father received on his fifth birthday.

He took it as a warning; the birthday gift

would only work its magic ten times

and no more, becoming, after that,

just a small round window with no miracle,

toy giant’s monocle, a circle of simple glass.

 

And so he went about his days with curious thrift,

weighing how much he needed to see any part

of the world up close, observing as best he could

with his own eyes first, thinking, Do I need to see

that dead bug big? That dandelion, that blade

of grass, that wriggling moth in the spider’s web?

I can imagine most of nature’s gifts and crimes.

Best not to waste one of my ten precious times. 

 

He lost count of how many miracles he’d left,

and for weeks after half-expected the magic of the glass

to simply stop. And I have asked him to tell me 

of the thrilling moment he realized, or was told,

“ten times” in this context simply meant tenfold

and not ten instances, but he cannot remember. 

Likewise the joy that must have come with such

a limitless epiphany. But what he does recall

and says most he misses still is the way the magic

made him see the world the rest of the time,

not through the glass, but all the time

he thought that magic would not last. 

 

—from Rattle #42, Winter 2013

The simple magic of careful observation and appreciation.

Related: a short storty from the book Honeycomb by Joanne Harris, which I first shared in Turning Trolls Into People.

"Five Princes in Search of Their Heart's Desire"

In a far-off land lived five princes, who went off one day in search of their heart's desires. One prince went in search of love. The second, in search of riches. The third craved knowledge; the fourth fame. Only the fifth and youngest prince had no particular goal in mind; he simply wanted to see the world, and to enjoy what it had to offer.

The others mocked him, saying that he had never been serious; that he had no ambition and therefore, that nothing he did would amount to much. Then they set off in different directions, the four eldest princes on horseback, the youngest idling on foot, stopping every now and again to investigate a flower, a stone, or to follow the tracks of a spider ant on the dusty highway.

Meanwhile, the four elder brothers rode as fast as they could through the countryside, heading for the gleaming spires of cities, with their promise of wealth, love, knowledge, and fame.

The eldest prince soon found himself in a city of women of all kinds, many of them hungry for love. But he was proud and impatient, and Love remained elusive.

The second prince rode into a town where the streets were paved in brass, the air was spiced, and even the beggars wore velvet. But for all the town's beauty, there was no gold to be found in the place, and so he was disappointed.

The third young man arrived in a city known for its magical storytellers. But there were no libraries in the town, or schools, or places of learning, and so the prince rode off again.

The fourth prince, after many days, came to a city of theatres. Actors, singers, and dancers thronged the busy marketplace, each vying for the attention of the audiences that came and went. One look at the competition, though, and the fourth prince was discouraged, and he set off home without delay, or attending a single audition.

And so the four young men went home, opened a keg of wine, and recounted their adventures. As each of the princes told his tale, describing the landmarks and buildings and gardens of the cities they had seen, the brothers came to realize that the city of women, the city of beauty, the city of stories, and the city of theatres were all one and the same city, which they had approached from different gates, each prince thinking he was alone.

"What bad luck," they said, "to find the one city in the whole world with no one to love, no wealth, no books, and no chance of finding artistic success." And they drank, and nodded sagely, and agreed that their luck had been terrible.

And then they looked around and saw that their youngest brother had still not returned. They opened another keg of wine and waited. Surely the youngest Prince would not be long.

Time passed: weeks, then months, then years. Still the young prince did not return. His four brothers stayed in the palace (which by then was in some disrepair), drinking wine and discussing their dreams and disappointments.

Occasionally, travellers who came by the palace spoke of a young man--a prince, they said--who had come to a city nearby. The boy had started out penniless, telling tales in the marketplace of his travels and of the many things he had learnt as he roamed the countryside. One day the queen of the city--a woman famed for her beauty--had heard of the marvellous stories told by the young traveller. She had come to hear him speak, and they had fallen deeply in love. Their wedding had been the richest that the country had ever seen, and their love the most passionate and lasting. And now, years later, the young man was famed throughout the land for his wisdom, his wealth, his talent, and his knowledge.

The four elder princes at last understood that this was their brother.

They opened another keg of wine (their cellars were greatly depleted by then) and said: "Well, he was lucky. He must have accidentally found his way to another city; one in which Love and Fame and Wealth and Learning were present in abundance."

They never left their palace again, not even to see their brother. Instead, they emptied the wine cellars, one by one--until the wine had all been drunk. Meanwhile, reports of their brother's fame grew, but by then they had all stopped listening.

Not to be boastful and with an eye toward preserving self-aware humility, the young prince and his approach to life resonate with me. I feel like my own willingness to enjoy life without too many goals or ambitions driving me have helped me be similarly successful.

This is a change of pace and tone from the rest of the post. From Lisel Mueller's book of poetry Alive Together.

THREE POEMS

ABOUT THE VOICELESS

1

The voiceless wear scarves pulled tight

across their mouths, like the woman

on the commuter train

with the huge eyes and olive skin.

No English. Somehow she conveyed

that she had paid before getting on,

but she had no ticket. The conductor said

he wanted her name and address

so the railroad could send her a bill.

Her eyes went wild; the conductor

was wearing a uniform.

She shook her head: no English!

Her eyes above the muffler

darted from corner to corner

with the frantic speed of any small thing

that's trapped and cannot find an exit.

2

Sometimes the voiceless decide

to shield their eyes. At McDonald's

a man's hard gaze slides sideways

to check me out, and when I turn

the eyes go blank, freeze forward,

agates that have seen nothing.

On the bus it happens again,

different hair and clothes, same eyes;

secretive antennae

darting and gone, bars drawn

across the windows of the soul.

I stare at two missing children

on the poster above his head.

Their eyes are straight on me,

as if I were the camera

and trust still possible.

3

I've seen one of the voiceless

borrow the voice of the saxophone.

He stands on a downtown street

on a wintry, dull afternoon

blowing his heart out. His heart

slides down the tube of his instrument

and comes out in a long, sweet note,

excruciating and breathless,

like the harrowing pleasure of sex.

A voice made human, a language

all of us, shoppers, browsers,

and purse snatchers, understand.

You can see more from that book sprinkled into posts here, here, and here.

I recently finished reading the book Kaleidoscope by Brian Selznick. Here's what I wrote for my review:

I love the approach of this book. It's a collection of short stories, of original fairy tales. Each is fantastic in different ways. And each features a protagonist and a friend or companion or otherwise connected character named James. The collection gives a vague, impressionistic sense that each story is about different versions of these two in different realities. As seen from different fractured angles of a kaleidoscope. It's a great concept.

As with all story collections, some of the tales connected with me more than others. Overall, most of them did; plus a few I loved and none were disappointments. My only real complaint is that I hoped a greater sense of connection between the stories would develop by the end, that a bigger picture might emerge, and I didn't get that. Still, this was highly enjoyable reading. Definitely one to recommend and share.

Here's a random quote I like without any context:

Behind me was thunder and wild animals, and in front of me, darkness. I couldn't stop thinking about my nightmares.

And a few excerpts, starting with this bit from "A Trip to the Moon":

"The Sun is a Monster who believes there should never be darkness or night!" proclaimed the King of the Moon. "Without darkness, there is no night, and without night, there is no sleep, and without sleep, there are no dreams." The King of the Moon stood and raised his fist to the sky. "And without dreams, everything dies."

Without dreams, everything dies.

From "The Abandoned House":

I looked at a broken clock leaning against one of the walls. The hands were lost and the glass was broken. The metal weights had fallen, and the rusted chains that once held them in place were nearly indistinguishable from the wild tendrils that grew upward out of the floor.

James saw me staring at the ruins of the clock.

"I think it's broken," I said with a smile.

"Maybe not."

"What?"

"I mean, clocks tell time, right?" James didn't take his eyes from the clock. "So don't you think this one is still telling time?"

"That clock is definitely not telling time." I laughed.

"Well, it used to tell time in seconds and minutes and hours, and it doesn't do that anymore. Now it tells time in decades, and centuries."

"I don't understand what you're talking about," I said.

"Most people think time is a machine that needs to be oiled and wound with a key. They think it's something you control and maintain. But maybe it's more wild than that. Maybe it's bigger and stranger. Maybe time is uncontrollable, and endless, and . . . dangerous. Like a forest eating a house."

From "The Story of Mr. Gardner"

After his wife died, Mr. Gardner apparently grew unsatisfied with the collection. It was too big, too overwhelming. He told his sister he was going to write his own reference book, a single volume that would contain all the information in the universe, which he would dedicate to the memory of his wife. He went up to his attic, sat down at his desk, and typed the word apple on a piece of paper, probably thinking that was as good a place to start as any. But as he tried to define the word, he found himself also having to define so many other things, like the color red (which itself was nearly impossible to define), and the idea of seeds, and the concept of shiny, and the taste of something delicious. He found that he had to write about supermarkets, and the concept of sin, because he remembered Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. He wrote about Snow White, who ate a poisoned apple, and he wrote about the smell of the apple pies his grandmother baked when he was young. When they found him dead in his attic room, he'd been working on his book for over twenty years. He was surrounded by seventy-five thousand pieces of paper, still trying to finish his definition of an apple.

There was some talk that a local museum would try to save the book, but a group of boys broke into the house one afternoon and set the place on fire. The pages from Mr. Gardner's book burned fast and bright. Some of them, as if they were trying to escape, floated up past the burning walls of the house. They drifted on the heated air and landed in my yard like snow. James and I collected as many of the pages as we could and brought them inside. They were charred and smelled of smoke, but we boxed them up and put them safely away. After that, when we were alone after school, we'd open the box and read from Mr. Gardner's definition of an apple. There were stories and ideas that clearly linked to the apple, like Johnny Appleseed, or a page with the history of a town in Scotland that I realized had something to do with the word Macintosh, which is a type of apple. But other pieces of paper had writing I could in no way connect with apples. James and I read these scraps to each other, as if they were from a magician's book of spells. "'Regarding the migration of butterflies,'" James read out loud, "'the trip is so long, and their life-spans are so short, that it takes them five generations to get there. Imagine leaving for vacation but it's your great-great-great-grandchild who arrives.'"

"Is that true?" I asked.

"Yes," said James. He knew a lot about butterflies.

We had only a tiny fraction of everything he wrote in our possession, but the fragments included references to Greek myths, the origins of the universe, children's fantasy novels, the quests of King Arthur's knights, the creation of the periodic table, a man who found the entrance to a buried city behind a wall in his house, spaceships, ancient Egypt, mysterious castles, the invention of the kaleidoscope, and the knitted blankets of his childhood bed.

"It's sad that Mr. Gardner died without finishing," I said.

"I suppose," said James. "But I think he may have discovered something interesting."

I waited for James to continue. He gently placed his hand on top of the pile of papers, as if he was touching a living thing, and said, "The entire universe can be found inside an apple."

My favorite for last. From "The Garden"

"It's impossible to know everything in the universe," I said after a moment.

"Is it?"

"Wouldn't that make me like . . . God?"

The dragon smiled. "Aren't you the clever one?" he said.

I looked at the reflection of myself in the surface of the apple.

"What are you waiting for?" asked the dragon.

"I'm thinking," I said. "If I knew everything, there would be no mysteries."

"I suppose that's right. No more mysteries for you."

"There would be no wonder."

"Perhaps not."

"There would just be . . . answers. You don't feel wonder at things you know the answers to."

"I guess not," said the dragon.

"Life without wonder seems sad."

The dragon shifted in the branches. "Do you think God is sad?" he asked.

"I don't know."

A wonder line of logic leading to a wonderful question.

And one more set of stories, these from The Three Princes of Serendip: New Tellings of Old Tales for Everyone by Rodaan Al Galidi. My brief review:

An excellent collection of folktales the author brought with him from Iraq, some widely known in many storytelling traditions. The illustrated package is beautiful, the storytelling voice slightly formal. I think the best compliment I can give is that my two boys, ages 6 and 8, who normally like their stories full of action and adventure and silliness, really loved this book. And I certainly did as well.

Not an excerpt this time, but the full story.

"The Father, the Son, and the Donkey"

Once there was a very beautiful girl named Sousan who lived in a city where the balconies were filled with flowers, the shutters looked like butterflies, and the windows were always open for the fresh breeze to blow through. Sousan thought everything she saw was beautiful. Everyone loved her and she loved everyone, and she helped everyone she could.

One day, she went to visit her grandmother. The boys in the street called after her. "Hey, look at that strange girl over there in that ugly dress!"

Shocked, Sousan fled into her grandmother's house.

"Oh, Sousan, don't pay any attention to them," her grandmother said. "It's not a bad thing if someone doesn't like you! It doesn't matter if someone doesn't think you're beautiful. Not everyone will always love you. And that's not a problem. It's simply how the world works, and if you're at peace with that, it's fine. Just as long as you know yourself that you're a lovely girl with a good heart."

But Sousan did not want to believe her. "But, Grandmother," she said, "I don't understand. I love everyone, so why doesn't everyone love me?"

"Some people think differently than you," her grandmother replied. "Or they look at things differently. Or they are different. So when that happens, don't be disappointed." Sousan shrugged. And her grandmother, who could see that Sousan was not convinced, said, "Wait, I'll tell you a story."

And she began: "Once upon a time, a father and his son were traveling to Baghdad, the city of One Thousand and One Nights. They left their village and went straight across the desert to the other side, the father sitting on the donkey and the son walking beside them. They passed oases and sand dunes and eventually they came to a village.

"In that first village, the people watched them go by and called out, 'What a wicked man! Look! He is making his son walk while he is sitting comfortably on the donkey!'

"The father and the son heard the people talking and did not like what they heard. So before they came to the next village, the father climbed down from the donkey and let his son sit on it while he walked beside it.

"But in that village too, the people watched them go by and had something to say about it: 'What a bad son! Look at him sitting there on the donkey and making his old father walk. If he is not considerate of his father now, when will he ever learn?'

"The father and the son heard the people talking, and before they came to the third village, they both climbed up onto the donkey together.

"But the people in the third village had something to say too. 'What on earth is going on? Look at that poor donkey! That man and that boy are both sitting on him. They're going to break his back! Why won't they think of the poor animal? Can't they take turns sitting on him?'

"The father and the son heard this too. And what do you think they did? Before they came to the next village, they climbed down from the donkey and both walked beside it.

"The people in that village looked at them in surprise and then at one another. Then they burst out laughing!

"'Unbelievable! Just look at that! Don't that man and his son know that donkeys are for riding on, not for walking beside? What a couple of fools!'

"The father and the son heard the people talking, and they had finally learned their lesson.

"'Father,' said the son, 'it does not matter what we do. People always have an opinion about it.'

"The father smiled. 'Exactly, my son, so we must not listen to others, but to our donkey's back and our own hearts. If the donkey's back does not hurt and our hearts do not hurt either, then what we are doing is right.'

"The father and the son smiled, and the donkey brayed. 'And if this is the lesson we have learned, then our journey has been worth it,' said the father. And he turned his face to the sun, which was shining down upon that beautiful day."

Sousan smiled. "That was a lovely story, Grandmother," she said, "but now I'm going back outside to play."

The next one is a favorite of mine. I ran into and shared another version of this tale in On Earth as It Is in Heaven over ten years ago. It's apparently been around for a long time.

"Soup"

In the middle of the desert, there was once a very small kingdom. It was no more than an oasis. One spring was enough to provide water for the whole kingdom. One donkey was enough to travel through the whole realm. One person's voice was enough to make a story heard from one side of the kingdom to the other. In that small kingdom no one was ever far from anyone else.

Long ago, a king and a queen lived in that realm, which was not only very small but also very beautiful. They had four sons and a daughter. The king always proudly told his children that he would not wish to live anywhere but their own small kingdom. The princes and the princess loved it too, but they were also curious about the world beyond the desert.

"We want to see more of the world, to meet other people, to learn the lessons that life teaches," they said.

"You do not need to travel in order to learn," said the king. "I shall teach you the most important lesson of all. I shall show you what real love is--and then you will know enough."

He told his cooks to make the tastiest soup they could. He made his carpenter build a long table, and the smith was ordered to make forty spoons, each of them three feet long. Then he invited forty people to a royal feast. They were all people who liked to talk about love. But they did not carry love inside their hearts.

That evening, the king, the queen, the four princes, and the princess sat at the table with their forty guests, who all came from the kingdoms beyond the desert. In front of each of them was a bowl of the most delicious soup and, beside it, a spoon that was three feet long. The hungry guests wanted to start the meal, but no one could get even a drop of soup into their mouths with those long spoons. They made a dreadful mess, and at the end of the evening, all forty of them went home with empty stomachs.

When the guests had left, the king's children looked at him with puzzled expressions on their faces. "Just wait," said the king. "Tomorrow we will have a second feast. I have invited forty other guests from the kingdoms beyond the desert. But these ones carry love not only on their lips but also inside their hearts."

The next evening the royal family sat at the long table with the forty visitors who all had love inside their hearts. They were served bowls of the delicious soup too, with exactly the same long spoons. But these people, because of the love inside their hearts, thought not only of themselves and their own hunger but also of others, so they used the long spoons to take some soup from the bowl of the person opposite them, and then they fed it to that person. The person opposite then returned the favor, and so everyone was able to enjoy the delicious soup. And all the guests left the little kingdom with full stomachs.

The king felt satisfied as he sat in his oasis that evening. “Did you see what happened?" he asked his children. "You do not need to learn more than this: if love is in your heart, then soup will fill your stomach."

Though I don't remember the story so much for the soup as the spoons.

Finally, a feel good. Though it's public, I don't really write these posts for others so much as to articulate and capture my thoughts. But a couple of posts ago I wrote about my encounters with a specific person, so I thought it only fair to find him on Facebook and let him know. His reaction felt really nice.

Neo Crossed with Willy Loman

I'll throw in this bit from our Messenger exchange: I'm really glad you gave DTK a chance and appreciated it (especially since you liked the parts I'm particularly proud of but I was afraid nobody else would get; and also because you made the effort to understand the humanity of the narrator and don't glibly dismiss him).

Affirmation is nice.