Running out of Gas

I am the consummate runner-out-of-gas (that is... one who runs out of gas, not, one who runs, who is out of gas, or... one who runs while lacking gas. Or... one who runs to exit some tank of gasoline? Don't you love English?). Oh, chuckledy, you my friend, believe this to be a mere humorous aside, but I assure you - there are souls in this world for whom the gods have given the thorn of gauge blindness. I thank holy things that I, at least am not blind to the speedometer (though my vision for it is not precisely perfect...). I run out all the time.

Karma, oh gentle reader is patient, kind and gentle mother, ever ready to extend us JUST a touch more credit, just a LITTLE more time. Until, she can't anymore, until she must take a debit from someone of her own account, and... its you. So, I respect old Mother Karma enough to not put her in that, I'm sure, very painful position if I can help it (though admittedly, I frequently fail to help it, nonetheless). As such, I TRY to stop when people are on the side of the road. Even without Karma, well, when you've been there stumping up the shoulder of a mid-city interstate between cars going 90 who could really care less if you live or die... you develop a pang of immediate sympathy when you see some other poor soul in the same predicament.

So, today, I exited from the highway - its been a most eventful week in my little, glass ball of a world, anyway, and not entirely one I am completely happy with my behavior in (when I am happy with my behavior, I shall return to the bottom, assuming I have now grown arrogant -- thank the Salvation by Grace Treadmill I understood in my youth, these things never entirely lose their echoes in one's mind). And then old Mother, she saw me exiting, and said, "Oh, well, now here's what I'll do!"

What should do if someone you love inadvertently image searches the words 'devious goddess'

And I found myself waiting at the light behind a suburban. Then... the door opened. And a man... got out. And I confess, my first instinct was the selfish one, wondering how I could pull around. BUT! I did not! For once! I popped my hazards, hopped out, and walked to the man, an African American gentleman approximately my own age with the flushed, defensive face of one who has done something humiliating, but would like to communicate to you forcefully, that he's perhaps not ready to find it funny. So, I just smiled. HE was disconsolately pushing the green suburban, singlehandedly. I had no real idea WHERE he thought he'd push it. I mean... he was at the light. And... its a suburban. They're real-real big. I think it was mostly for show, a way to signal to whoever was irritated being stuck behind him that 'hey, look, I'm trying ok?'

So I asked, "Need a hand, you trying to get it on the shoulder?'

This is the introduction that both parties know is simply a polite ruse. Clearly you need a hand, but simply going and helping without checking feels like an assumption of incompetence. In the given situation, the needy one ALREADY has a very humiliating weight of incompetence. I know. I've run out of gas once at this stop sign, and then I've also gotten in a car accident at this stop sign, that totaled my car while both cars were stopped, and without ever touching the gas pedal, or exceeding five miles per hour. I am a very talented individual.

Holly:  "Do you think she's talented, deeply and importantly talented?"Paul:  "No.  Amusingly and superficially talented, yes.  But deeply and importantly, no."

The man, of course informed me in response, "Mmmffnppp."

To which I smiled and responded 'Ah, I see!' Of course I didn't. I then offered, "Hey I think I have a gas can, in my trunk, let me check!"

At which point I did not wait for answer, though if I HAD I would likely have had the man offer, "No, I don't need a... hell... never mind, I'll tell him when he comes back."

And I DID come back. With no gas can. I hadn't one. So I was sort of embarrassed.

This is both not at ALL the picture I was looking for and yet, somehow, poetically apt.

But he then figured I guess "Well, he's dopey, maybe that at least means he's not a threat."

Oh, you silly fool...

Is this a pony? Are there moustachio-twirling pony villains?

No, actually, he just said, "Hey, would you mind going over and picking up my girlfriend at the gas station across the highway?"

"Sure, no problem!"

"She's got a gas can, she's wearing pink.... she a white girl?" That last part really DID come across as a sort of tentative question mark. I'm not sure if it meant 'is it okay, she's a white girl'? Or, 'Did you get all that'? Or 'don't worry its not a scary black person'? (which kind of makes me sad, that I think that might be what people assume I'd want to be sure of, but I think it wasn't, so I'm assuming the best) or what.

At any rate it wasn't a necessary description any way. Madame Jeuneblanc (sp?) was a white girl, sure. So were most of the people there. She was also carrying a gas can approximately the size of Providence Rhode Island, (I've never been to Providence, but I stand firmly by that statistic) and a sweat suit that I believe may have doubled as a non fuel-consuming pink safety flare. I really expected her to give me the 'Dude, you're a weird dude in a  crappy car pull pulling up to a strange lady and asking her to get in' look. But she was actually quite glad I came, and we crossed the bridge chattering pleasantly, and I dropped her off at the corner. Yay!

"What's your Karma level today?"

WEll. Maybe not OVER 9000. But still. I love people. I hope they had a wonderful afternoon.

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The Three Gifts That One Remembers

So the other day, for Ms Amy's collection of ideas for meaningful gifts, I gave practical ideas. Today, I shlal be esoteric and useless. I wouldn't want you all getting used to that other extreme, and start expecting to get value from my suggestions - I don't know that I could live up to that.

I have been thinking about gifts for the last little while a great deal (it is that time of year, after all), and about what makes a memorable gift. I've gotten many over the years, from many people, of many sorts, and so I've been picking them apart in my mind to see why I remember them. In the grand tradition of classical rhetoric, I seem to think in the Rule of Three when I categorize, and so I believe I can seperate them into three basic categories.

Now, let it be said that I am leaving a few simple categories of memorable gift out, simply because of the constraints of Ms Amy's original prompt. The gift one truly needs, for example - say, an anonymous box of food when one is in a period of hard times. Or, the gift one couldn't afford on one's own. Both of these are wonderful gifts, but the first is very specialized, and the second the terrain of those with greater resources than me, in general. So, these I will not spend much time on. But, if you're rich, and want to pay off my mortgage for a Christmas gift, believe me, my friend, when I say that it will without doubt be a highly memorable gift...

In addition to this, I think its important to approach a category that I have skipped on purpose, perhaps with some debate to be made: the gift one wants. This may sound a bit stupid when I say it, but the gifts one asks for, I think, are the ones one remembers most seldom. This is particularly true when the giver is on a limited budget. If you have 5 or 10 dollars to spend, then its simply a fact of life that the gift ITSELF is going to be small and incidental. I'm not deriding the listed gift. I think that the gift one wants is a wonderful thing - but it is not filled with meaning. The act of GIVING the gift might be filled with meaning, as giving almost always is, and so I do not mean to say that giving a requested gift is meaningless. Just, the gift ITSELF is seldom memorable or meaningful, if that makes sense. It says 'I listen to you', and that's good. But, the gifts I have gotten for people that they explicitly requested have been used and useful sometimes, but I do not connect them with myself.

Which brings up another point that might engender disagreement: when I talk about a gift being meaningful, I believe there are two sides to this: the meaningful gift must mean something to the recipient, but it must also mean something to the giver. I don't mea that gift giving is a selfish act, that one must give simply in order to puff one's self up, not by any means. But in my mind, the best gifts I've received have been conversational transactions rather than declaratory. A rule of thumb - a meaningful gift, in retrospect, should be associated with a memory, instead of a fact. It should be more than simply 'In 1994, I got my mom a bowl." That's a declaration, not a conversation. Hopefully that becomes clearer as I go through the examples of types.

So, then, something tangible - or less intangible, anyway. The first type of gift, and I think the simplest to attempt when one is trying to give something meaningful - the gift one did not know existed. The unique gift, is how this is often advertised. Art is a prime example. A friend of mine who knows I love fairy tales, for example, once got me a beautiful postcard of Little Red Riding Hood that I still have hung above my desk. It does not HAVE to be art, per se, however. In fact, one of the wonderful things about this category is that it shows not only that one listens, but that one understands - just as the first friend understood my love of fairy tales, and given the artwork, clearly my aesthetic sensibilities as well.

Here's the trick with the unique gift - you have to have taste. ITs horrible, that. But in getting someone something they did not know existed, one is, presumably getting something that one knows that the other will ebt hrilled to LEARN that it exists. And that's tricky. I've mucked this one up MORE than once with Amanda, and one always knows, EVEN if the recipient is ever so polite. There is a particular energy in opening a gift one is delighted with that one can see when it is lacking. Taste is a very, very tricky thing. Some people are very good at it. I applaud and wonder at these people.

The second type of gift is subtler, and requires a different skill-set: the gift one would not buy for one's self. I will warn you ahead of time, I have NEVER mastered this one. But the basic idea of it is simple - there are some desires we each have that we feel we cannot fulfill for ourselves. There are many reasons for this - the gift that is too expensive to buy for one's self is a simple example, after all. But it can be different. Sometimes it is a logistical difference. For example, I cannot buy Shreddies or Mackintosh Toffee even though they they are both delicious, memorable parts of my childhood, because I live in the United STates (And Old Dutch Ketchup or Dill Pickle Chips... Mmm....). Other times, we each have out own reasons. Sometimes one cannot accept something because it seems so frivolous - real silk stockings, when one really ought to buy regular hose, perhaps. Or it is something one is  too old for - Adults are horrible about this one, many of us refusing to buy toys for ourselves. Particularly, this is wonderful if one can understand the nostalgia of a desired recipient. There is a power in that, because it connects you with your friends, not only in their present, but in their past. IT is a way of saying that you are friends with their whole life, not just with the moment you are exposed to. Then, there are gifts one simply feels one cannot buy, for personal or social reasons, things which are forbidden to one, but which, if they're a GIFT after all, one can accept.

Of course, wrapped up in all this is two difficulties - one is to know what one's friends yearn for but cannot ask for. This is tricky business, and requires a cautious ear, and a close relationship. And then, there is the fact that just because one wants somethign doesn't mean one woudl be glad to receive it. OFten, the things we forbid ourselves, we forbid on a very complex and deep level, and receiving them can cause complex reactions inside our minds. What this requires, tehn, is a very deep and powerful sense of empathy and emotional closeness. You have to understand, basically, what it is tat you're doing by giving a given gift, not simply discover what the gift is. And, perhaps, to understand how and when a gift should be given.

The final type of gift, and one that I think has been lost to an extent in our day, is the gift that is about the giver. Again, as when I talked about who gifts shoudl be meaningful to, this sounds perhaps odd, but if you look into the past, you see many examples of this. The medieval lady who woudl give a ribbon or garter to a knight is a good example - the knight wants, as a gift, a piece of the one he loves. Another example, one I came across entirely by accident long ago is from the Victorian period, when women would sometimes cut off long locks of their hair and braid them into watch-chains for people they loved. Handmade gifts often fit into this category - whether one has NEED of the things one's children bring home from school, whether one even LIKES them really, one is always happy to get them - and those after all usually are barely personal, being a template a teacher had each student follow. At this very moment I'm wearing one of my favorite gifts, a scarf that a friend of mine wove by hand, and its dearness, in part, is that it bears the imprint in it of the hands that made it, that I was given, as much as a piece of fabric, a story to have.

The great impediment here is that one must be confident that the other person wants a piece of you. This sounds petty, but in practice, its very difficult (at least for me) to imagine someone receiving something the message of which is basically, "I know you love me, so I wanted you to have something to remember me." There is almost an arrogance in that thought that its very frightening to face up to (hence my handmade gifts usually being a combination of this and, for example, the first type of gift). And there is the very real risk that a gift given in this way WILL come across as a bit self-indulgent, like receiving a signed copy of Gadding With Ghouls from Gilderoy Lockhart (Harry Potter reference, ftw!).  I don't know the solution for this.

Which is really, in some sense, the trick with any meaningful gift - they are fraught with risk. The commonality with any of these gifts is that one is invested, personally, in them - that, to put it crudely, the success of the gift is a reflection of one's personal character, at some level, of one's empathy, perception, skill, or wisdom. This makes meaningful gift-giving a terrifying concept. I won't deny this. I spend about a month and half after finishing Christmas gifts cowering under the weight of my own expectations. In a sense, though, I think that subconsciously, this is why we value these gifts so much, because aside from anything else they say, I love you enough to want to do something difficult for you, and I trust you enough to do something dangerous with you. There is an intimacy to this that is some ways much closer than holding hands or a kiss on the cheek - there are people I would hug that I would never make a doll for, because I do not know them well enough. So that's really the LAST warning I'd give - meaningful gift giving is a selective activity. IT is something that one must do only with those one feels one can do it with - if you try to do it with your whole Christmas list, then you'll hurt yourself.

Anyway, I sound very authoritative about all this but I'm not - really (and my gift giving history reflect this) I've no idea what I'm doing when it comes to gift giving. Its a clumsy, difficult practice. I'd love to hear remarks, rebuttals, contradictions in the comments.

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In Defense of Happiness

Having been generally grouchy lately (special apologies to Ms Nymeth, Ms Debi, and Amanda on that one...) I have noticed myself falling at times into an old trap - glamorising misery. It's a classic trick, as old as Greek Tragedy (and older), the tendency to believe that sorrow is greater than joy, that misery is a more real and powerful feeling than ecstasy.

Heck with that!

Happiness can be meaningful - I feel silly even having to SAY that. Happiness has it's gradations and variations, it's intensities and mysteries, it's secrets and ceremonies, just like sorrow. And sometimes, I think it's hard (especially for snotty nosed snob jerks like me) to remember that. So, here's a quick list of five books that are filled with happy, and pregnant with beauty and meaning, all at the same time:

1) Silas Marner - There are those who call this book saccharine, and it has been imitated so many times it's easy to read past. But Silas Marner has a gentle joy that suffuses it, even through a drug addled mother dying, a burglary, and an angsty secret. The book is beautiful because it accepts the sorrows of the world, accepts that there's no God waving his happy stick and making them all better, and nonetheless, in the end, shows how beautiful and joyous life really is. No book tells the healing and sanctifying power of love quite like Silas Marner.

2) Better Angel - I just read this book recently. It was written in 1931, and tells a very frank tale of what it was like to be a homosexual in the 20's. I honestly read this book fully expecting it to be a downer, and character after character was introduced that I fully expected to end up lettign me down. But Better Angel is filled with a passion and honest affection for romantic love that lets the author redeem men with sincerity and feeling. The scene in the book where the protagonist tells his best female friend (who's in love with him) that he's gay was one of the most bittersweet, but frankly love-infused moments of reading I've experienced in a long time.

3) The Arrival - Ms Nymeth just reviewed this recently, but in case you missed it, The Arrival is a graphic novel with no words, that tells a fantastical tale about emigration and immigration. The world Tan builds is a pitch perfect mixture of terrifying and exciting exoticism, where everything you meet has an equal chance of being filled with danger or filled with compassion and hope. And in the middle of the world is human beings who, through their mistakes, love each other, care for each other, take care of each other, in spite of the instinct for self-preservation. And by the end, you see some of the terrifying newness of the beginning transform almost magically into symbols of hope and joy. This is the most joyful book I read last year, I think.

4) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Another coming of age story, and ironically another story of immigrant life, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a book that loves everyone. CArrying all the stock characters and situations of the worst of tragedies: drunken father, crushing poverty, gender discrimination, racial discrimination, childhood in the shadow of hopelessness - this book manages, by sheer force of will, to refuse to pity itself for even the shortest of seconds. And in the process, you learn what it is to love characters, even the ones you would normally hate, unconditionally and completely.

5) Emily Dickinson - When I told Amanda the books I was thinking of putting on the list, I mentioned Emily Dickinson and she looked at me funny. Yes, Dickinson wrote about Death. But she also wrote some of the happiest, most soothing and gently courageous poems in the history of mankind. She also had a wicked, winking sense of humor, and a cheerful unvarnished affection for beautiful things. If you've only read the ones they give you in school, try Emily again - it's where I turn when I need to cheer up.

So! I feel better! Do you have any favorite books that show how powerful joy can be? Feel free to leave them in the comments - or make your own list if you like. It's so easy to create this false dichotomy between Happy Books and Important Books. But, to be blind to joy in the world is just as crippling as to be blind to sorrow - and just as unfair and productive of injustice to those around you, really.

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