Whited Sepulchers

Beauty isn't worth thinking about, what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty dollar haircut on a fifty cent head.

Garrison Keillor
******************
Hello Lily
******************
Across the street from where I used to live is an old red brick building. The bricks were dirty and some of the cement between them was chipped, eroded and falling out. One day workers came, set up ladders and commenced to fill in the cement areas between the bricks where it was needed, Then, a few days later, they washed down the entire front of the building until the bricks looked almost new.

But then they took down their equipment and left. They never repaired or cleaned the sides or back of the building. I mentioned that to my neighbor and he patronizingly said it was because the front was the only part you can see from the street.

So that's it. It's only the superficial that counts. It doesn't matter what goes on behind the expensive suit or evening gown as long as it looks good. "Whited sepulchers, full of all uncleanness."

The kidnapper drives a good car. The sweet angelic girl is a liar. And when the con man finally takes off with your money everyone will say "But he was such a nice fellow."

What about the holy Christian pastor who burns Korans or the swift and sturdy politician, the family man, with a secret lover in the next town.

How about those who hide their ignorance behind a popular slogan (America, love it or leave it) or a misunderstood action (The Patriots Act). Like the woman with a big cross on her chest who proclaimed that she was a good Christian and believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The self appointed pastor who claims that God sends a hurricane or visits a disease upon us to punish us for our sins and bring us closer to Him. The idiots who flood the ACLU with mail at Christmas time out of pure ignorance.

People need to face facts, stop assuming things and start thinking for themselves, and if they don't know the facts, find them out. Look at the sides of the building, or behind it, and see what's there and what isn't.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
********************

Sorting Through The Pieces

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

Garrison Keillor
*****************
Hello Sandy
*****************
While trudging through this tangled jungle of human behavior one day in the merry, merry month of April, I was taken by surprise by a pair of roving ideas. One was that I was lugging around with me a heavy sack of my past, recent and otherwise. The sack contains all kinds of useless and harmful memories, impressions, thoughts, beliefs and regrets. It was clear to me that I could not go forward in my life with any degree of energy and purpose until I had unloaded this sack, threw it off the edge of a cliff.

But the other idea is that maybe not everything in this sack is worthless. I know better than to go through everything that's in there to make a value judgement about each thing. I might as well throw myself off the cliff if I tried to do that.

I took a nap this afternoon and woke up with a start thinking about someone I hardly knew. I had been working at the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod. It was my day off and suddenly there was a French Canadian girl following me around. She was very nice and we spent the day together, the evening and eventually went to sleep somewhere around the playhouse. We didn't have sex, we just knocked around and did things. I remember I woke up in the middle of the night and she was staring at me, eyes wide open. I spoke to her but she didn't answer. She was asleep. She slept withy her eyes open. I remembered hearing about people who did that. It was strange. I went back to sleep. When I woke and went back to work she disappeared. I never knew her name. What a strange memory to have. It happened over 50 years ago. And why did it suddenly come back to me?

What it tells me is that there are things and people in that bag of trash that will come out to be looked at and thrown out or saved and that I probably don't need to go searching for them.

That experience quite unnerved me. I went for a walk in the cold and rain. As I can tell I'm still having trouble getting rid of the bag of junk I brought with me when I moved. The only time I feel alright is when I'm typing. It's logical and therefore calming. As someone said I'm putting the pieces of the puzzle back together after an upheaval. There's a strange paradox here. It doesn't matter what goes on around me here, It's unimportant. But it's the only thing going on around me. Meanwhile I'm trying to sort through the thoughts, emotions, point of view about this and that, memories, and find the right place in my head and my heart for the things that need a home while I look at the same chaos with my material belongings. I don't want to do either. I've never felt this way before that I can remember. I hope I'm not losing my mind.

I think Bruce had the best solution. He told me to read a novel of far away places. So I read some philosophy. I'm searching for the campfires of those gentle people. Haven't found them yet.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
**********************

Fingersposts Of Life

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

Garrison Keillor
********************
There are good scars and bad scars.

Many years ago I was attempting to get from northern New England back to New York City and my career. I had made it as far as a farm house in upstate New York. I was completely alone. It was the middle of Winter. I had a larder of food, but no heat and no electricity. I had to chop wood to warm myself and cook. One day I was sawing the branches off a fallen tree when the saw slipped and cut deeply into my finger.

I had no phone, no car, no neighbors and no traveled road nearby. There was no way to get to a doctor. So I tightly wrapped up the finger and held on to it for a long time until the bleeding subsided. When I looked at the wound I could see right down to the bone. I kept the wound clean and wrapped up as tightly as I could, For a week or so it meant doing everything one handed. But it eventually began to heal. The bleeding stopped, the pain subsided and new flesh grew over the finger.

When Spring came I got to New York due to an unexpected visit from a relative. I didn't tell her about the finger. Now I have a very faint scar on that finger. It was a good healing, and when I happen to see that scar I remember the incident with the saw one cold gray Winter day when I was trying to survive and get back to where I belonged. It's a good scar.

Scars are for remembrance. From them we can recall the events of our lives: accidents, attacks which we survived, foolish things we did. They can be marks of bravery and survival.

Then there are the bad scars. Those are the scars left on our emotions, the psychological scars. There are regrets for things we did or didn't do, for things we said or didn't say, insults we can't forget, enemies we can't forgive, deep long lasting scars of failure and rejection. And the worst kind, scars from wounds we haven't felt yet, caused by ignorance, arrogance, egotism, selfishness and lack of respect for those around us who deserved it.

Years ago I knew a producer whose entire life had been influenced and paid for by his very wealthy parents, including his college education and his position in the business world. This unfortunate fellow had no sense whatsoever of an ethical standard. He simply didn't have one. He remarked to me one day that he had no sinister side, and he really believed it. But he would lie, steal other people's ideas, interfere with their work, give orders that made no sense and issue insults that he thought were humorous.

He wrote a book about a subject of which he wasn't anywhere near to being an authority. Because of his position and his parents' influence it was published, of course, It got terrible reviews and no one read it. That didn't bather him. Everything he did was done with a smile and a sense of warm friendliness and comradeship toward everyone around him. His sense of self-importance was so grand that he was simply totally unaware of himself.

If he lives and wakes up he may begin to realize how much harm he has caused other people. He may come in contact with his sinister side. If he faces up to himself in an unjustifying manner and truly begins to regret his actions he may uncover the huge number of wounds he has caused himself. If he knows how many ways he has whipped, lacerated and burned his own character by his actions and sets about healing himself with repentance and a change of behavior he will carry scars for the rest of his life. And they will help to make him a better man.

When I read in the news about someone who is "scarred for life" my reaction is "So what!" We are all scarred for life to one degree or another and thank heaven we are. My scars are my business. They are no one else's. But I carry them proudly because they remind me of who I was.

DB= The Vagabond
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

Only 7 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
*******************

Kinkily Knack 3/20/09

I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

Garrison Keillor
?????????????????
Hello special friend.
___________________
What is this with reality? It keeps changing. Today's brick wall is tomorrow's mirage. I have seen too many things in life appear to be what they aren't not to be suspicious about the reality of anything.

Reality must certainly be looked in the eye. Let's face facts, as the saying goes. But in the facing of them it's amazing how many of them disappear. I think the focus goes in the wrong direction sometimes. While we are busy facing what we think is the reality of things the true facts are overlooked and silently slip away.

Elizabeth Perry, the actress, once said to me that for her the first thing she needed to know about any role she took was where the play takes place. Place, the physical environment of the story, is one of the most vital elements in preparing a script. A scene played in a kitchen is going to be very differently affected than one played in a field.

I was doing a play in New York and in the play there was a line which read something about working to buy a house and then when you move into the house where are you? One day in rehearsal the director, whose name I have forgotten, said to us that before we start she wanted to deal with some of the realities, so I raised my hand and asked where we were. Were we still in the apartment or had we moved into the house? Her answer was "Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter where you are." Well, so much for dealing with the realities, I thought. It's a good thing Elizabeth wasn't in the production.

I was looking out of the window of my apartment in NYC one day and across the street there was a restaurant. In front of it was one of those double metal doors, flush with the sidewalk, that leads down into the basement of the building. It was open and a small crowd of people were standing around looking into it. Soon a couple of police cars arrived and the police put a yellow caution tape around the open doors. An emergency vehicle from the fire department showed up.

I had to go out briefly to get something from the local store. While there I asked them what had happened across the street and was told that an old lady had tripped and fallen into the basement. Back upstairs I saw that the crowd of people had grown. The police were holding them back and the owner of the restaurant was there wringing his hands. Shortly an ambulance arrived, two paramedics got out with a stretcher and went quickly down into the basement. They were down there for a long time. People were getting anxious. I was getting anxious. Finally they came back up with the stretcher. No one was in it. They got back in the ambulance and drove off, the police removed the caution tape, the manager closed the double doors and the crowd dispersed. There was no old lady in the basement. There never had been.

When I was a kid every phone call that came into the home was a real one. That reality has gone.

DB
(Journeys of the Vagabond)
-----------------------------
Spring is here. What are going to do about it?
***********************
***********************