“Relax!”
This was the 5th time she told me to do that.
“I’m trying!” I replied.
“Yes, you are very trying. But you still have to relax.”
I never should have gone to this meditation class with her. I’m much better on my own.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
Great now I have something else not to relax about. “Just give me a minute,” I asked.
“I did.” she answered, “That was 5 minutes ago.”
Okay, all I need to do is focus on something relaxing. How about reading? The last book I read was Premonition by Michael Lewis, a great book, however all about the pandemic. Definitely not relaxing.
Okay then, How about gardening? That would be more like weeding. Again, no good.
Sitting on the beach watching the sunset? That has possibilities, except it is now below freezing outside.
“Why don’t you think about me knitting that sweater, you asked for?” she said interrupting my train of thought.
“You mean the one you promised me last year and never finished?” There was no reply.
Maybe I could focus on petting our cat, that should be relaxing…at least for the cat.
Sitting on my porch sipping a hot chocolate on this nice cold day? Oops, probably shouldn’t have imagined myself drinking anything, now I have to go to the bathroom.
“This is your last chance, time’s running out,” she pointed out.
“Why don’t you relax, after all, meditation is your thing,” I pointed out.
At that point, that is exactly what she did. She just closed her eyes and took it easy. It was as simple as that.
At least she’s not pestering me to relax anymore. And at that point, I relaxed.
I am a person who spent most of my life interacting with others. My job was to learn and pass on that learning to the people that I worked with. I never realized how much being with people was part of my life. Some of it was work-related and some of it was just being social. Then came that time of my life when most of my interactions went silent. I was no longer part of a group, my interactions with people decreased incredibly, and my life took a major change. No, I’m not talking about the COVID epidemic, though that intensified the silence, it was my retirement from teaching.
When you are in a profession, in my case teaching, for over 33 years, you are used to working with kids and others pretty much every day. And then it abruptly stops, the silence is intense. Not something that I was ready for.
My wife still worked 5 days a week and I did get involved in other things. I volunteered for the Red Cross, found part-time work for BOCES as a Model Schools educational technology trainer, and got some storytelling gigs, but for the most part, my everyday get-togethers with people that I was used to with colleagues and kids stopped. As time moved on and my volunteer and BOCES work began to dwindle, I decided to go back to my original school district and substitute teach. This was a temporary fresh boost against the silence and quietness I was experiencing outside my home life. I became part of a number of writing groups like the one I’m writing this for, where I was welcomed and could interact with others on a more or less weekly basis. This was a shining light that broke through that silence barrier.
And then, of course, COVID hit.
For the past 2 years, most of my interactions have been virtual. I have virtual writing groups, virtual storytelling groups, and virtual interactions with some of the people in my school setting.
I do get to spend more time writing and working on stories and music and other things, however, it is done in the solitude of my home. My wife still works 4 days a week and our get-togethers with friends are somewhat limited. I await the day that this silence can once again be broken, letting the flow of interactions on an in-person level becomes a reality, as I think we all do.
Until then, let us all raise a glass of whatever it is you want to be drinking, and hope that that day will come sooner than later.
For those of you that want to know how my mind works when I write, here’s how I wrote this piece:
I was in my writing group on Zoom, when the story spark was about to be given out, and my computer crashed.
By the time I had gotten back to the meeting the Sparks were posted and I had lost 5 minutes of the 20 minutes I had to write
The Story Spark was posted: “On Time”, with six suggested prompts. I literally had no time to lose and no idea what to write. Seeing that the topic was “On Time” I just began to write whatever came into my mind. I basically brainstormed ideas with myself and this is what I wrote:
————–
I’m lost in time. Well, that’s easy for me to say. Since time is a relative thing. Basically, I have no time to spare. Too many things on my plate and I can’t find the time to fit them all in.
Time’s a-wasting. That is because I have deadlines and expectations that don’t fit into the time frame I have to do them, so I just let them sit.
Sometimes there is a lot of time to do things. And because of that, I do not actually accomplish anything.
I wish I could stop time and have the time to be me.
—————
4. It was at this point that my mind began to focus and with maybe 10 minutes left to write, I went on with this:
—————
Time flows in an effervescent stream
It gathers your needs and leaves little patches
Those patches are yours to use as you wish
You may fill them with work
You may fill the with play
But most of the time you just waste them away.
Is it time to begin and fulfill all your dreams
Or time to reflect and relive what you’ve done
Let the deadlines move on
Let your cares pass on by
Let the time that you spend
Create memories that bind.
For time is your master
It determines your fate.
It makes you feel anxious
It makes you feel rushed
It gives pause for solace
And time to be you.
Make sure that you use it
As best as you can
Though time may be endless for worlds that exist
We’re stuck in one lifetime that doesn’t persist.
This time to write’s over
As time tends to do.
Till next time I see you.
This writing is through.
————
5. At this point, I ran out of time and was asked to share what I had written.
It was a cold wintery day. I was sitting down in front of the fire in my comfy chair with a mug of hot cocoa in my hands. Between the wafting smell of the chocolate and the warmth of the fire, I could feel my eyelids slowly close when there came a loud knock at the door.
Startled, I almost dropped the mug of chocolate into my lap. I placed the cup on the side table and went to the door.
It was a large wooden door to my cabin with no window to see who was knocking. I asked who it was, but got no response other than another loud knocking. With a little trepidation, I slowly opened the door.
She stood there in front of me. A small diminutive woman, dressed in a tattered coat, clearly too cold to talk. Not knowing what else to do, I invited her in and had her sit by the fire. It took a while, but she finally warmed up enough so that she could communicate with me.
She motioned for something to write with and I gave her a pen and some paper. This is what she wrote:
“Please help me. I am deaf and cannot speak. I have been abandoned by my family and friends. They no longer want to put up with my disability. I need to find a place where I can be accepted.”
Judging from the looks of her, I could tell that the tale that she had told me had some truth to it. I didn’t know how to react. Luckily for me, I had learned some basic sign language in my youth so I tried signing to her. “What do you want me to do?”
Her face changed as I signed those words. She immediately dropped the pen and paper and began signing too quickly for me to understand.
I signed to her to slow down, which she did.
She wanted shelter from the cold and food. I knew that I could provide her shelter and warmth for a while as I was single, had an extra room, and certainly had food to provide her with nourishment. The question I had to answer to myself was, was I willing to do that for this stranger?
It turns out, I was. I said that I would allow her to stay with me for a few days, while I tried to find a more permanent place for her to go to.
I can’t tell you whether it was due to my being alone for so many years or the help that she gave me with the cooking and companionship, or just due to the kindness and person that she was, but those few days, turned into a lot more.
I never did find out the full background to where she had lived and the trials she had to go through in that period of time before we met. Maybe someday she will tell me that story. Until then, I am just happy that she came into my life.
Especially on cold winter nights where I have someone to share with me a mug of hot cocoa and a warm fire to get cozy with.
I’m old and tired. It’s been a good life for me, not so much for others. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, I know. My main focus was myself. What I could get for myself. How much I could use others to attain the glory that was me. And I did well, despite what everyone else says.
As I said, I’m old and tired. I know that these are my last days. With no heirs to speak of, I have reflected on what I should do with all of my worldly goods. I would like to leave it all to a monument in my name. It would be glorious. But now I must sleep.
———-
It is the night of my last sleep and a vision comes to me. It is sort of like that from the Dickens story, “A Christmas Carol”. I see the world through the eyes of all those I had ruled over. I see the kind of person I really am. I try to rationalize that I was a good person… but I never was. I hurt a lot of people, where I could have helped. Something inside me breaks. I am not the good person I believed I was. I have wasted the wealth on myself when it should have gone to others. I want to change, but it is too late.
As the morning comes I wake up crying. But it is not to my voice, but to a baby’s. As I open my eyes, I am in a hospital. Things look very fuzzy at first. It takes me a while to focus. There is a woman lying on a gurney. I appear to be upside down and am covered with slime. There are no mirrors for me to get a look at myself, but when I look towards my feet I realize that I am not who I think I am. I’m no longer old and tired. I’m a newborn and for the moment quite unhappy. I’m brought to this woman and find myself comforted as she smiles down at me. I am very confused, but the closeness of her body calms me. There is a man in the room also holding the hand of that woman and also smiling down at me with what appear to be tears of joy streaming down his face.
My mind runs through all the things that I did in my life. Is this a dream also? Slowly I realize that it is not.
I will be able to change who I was. This time I will make sure of it. I bask in the warmth and comfort of the people around me I know that this time will be different. This will be my second chance.
As the minutes turn to hours, my memories of my past life begin to fade. Soon they are all gone and he is left as an innocent babe.
———-
So ends the tale. Will he change as he grows up? Will the caring family that brought him into the world this time continue to care for him as they raise him, the way he wanted to be raised? Only time will tell.
Did you ever have that grandparent, aunt, or uncle that every birthday or holiday event gave you a present that made noise? You know what I mean. It was that toy fire truck, that when you pushed a certain button a siren would go off. Or that device that had a spinning wheel on it that could point to an animal or letter of the alphabet to teach you something and all you had to do was pull on the string attached to it and let it go to hear it tell you what you had just pointed to. Maybe it was that Jack-in-the-Box, that when you cranked the handle it would play the tune “All Around the Mulberry Bush” before Jack popped out of the box.
And you loved that gift. You loved it so much that you played with it over and over and over again. And shared all those beautiful sounds with your family…over and over and over again. You had no idea how much of that repeated noise was engraining itself deep within the battered brains of your parents, sisters, or brothers.
Did you ever have that kind of gift-giving person in your life?
I’m not sure what prompts those people to do such a thing to a member of their own family. But I do have a theory. Revenge! You see when the parents of the gift recipient become grandparents or uncles and aunts, it’s only reasonable to assume that it is payback time. Time to share the earworms* they had to suffer through with others. And who best to share it with, but family.
The other possible reason might be that it is a rite of passage. There is some biological need for you at a certain age, to pass on to children, a new way that they can annoy their parents with some sort of mechanical, instrumental, or electronic device. I would guess that this rite of passage is unknown and undocumented, and you may not even realize why you are doing it. In fact, you might have good intentions and a real purpose for sharing said gift, even realizing that it might be an annoyance at home.
It was December 1983. I was teaching an inter-age 4th and 5th-grade class. I was really into folk music at the time. Each year, near Christmas time I would give a small gift to the students I was teaching. Usually, it was pens or pencils and an occasional Homework Pass (This was a piece of paper that they could turn in at any time of the year, to be excused from a non-long term project or assignment.). This year would be different. As I said I was into folk music and in particular folk instruments…silly ones. So this year I gave each student
a nose flute and a kazoo .
Nose flutes (sometimes referred to as humanatones) produce sound by blowing air through your nose while your mouth does whatever the inside of your mouth (tongue and the roof of your mouth) does when you whistle a tune. The kazoos on the other hand only require you to hum a tune making sure that all the air you expel is coming through your mouth.
Though each instrument will play a melodic tune, as long as you can hum or whistle a tune, the quality of the sound over time can become annoyingly earwormish.
My intentions were good, and the kids loved the gifts. It took a while to teach my students how to play their nose flutes. It’s almost impossible if your nose is stuffed up. They were specifically told not to share their nose flutes or kazoos with others for health reasons. However, no restrictions were given as to when they could use their gifts. I timed the giving of the gifts towards the end of the day on the last day of school before vacation.
I did receive some input from my students, when they returned from the holiday break, that some of their parents were not quite thrilled with the gifts I had shared. But what could I say…it was a rite of passage for me.
In 1983, I was not married, and though I was an uncle, I did not have the experience of having a child of my own with a noise-making device given by a relative. That, in fact, did not happen until I got married, had a child, some ten years later, and had to live through the gifts that my sisters gave to them. But I did get my revenge when my sisters’ kids grew up and had families of their own, and I was the “granduncle”. I mean, someone had to keep the tradition going.
*earworm – a catchy song or tune that runs continually through a person’s mind.
Those of you that read my blog, may have read about the Zoom meeting I once had where I was Zoom bombed by multiple me’s from my past: https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=2566
As I stated then, I tried to reconnect with them again, but with no success. I had so many more issues that I wanted to discuss, but I gave up trying. Little did I know what would happen to me when the topic for this writing piece was to be “Meetings”.
When I got the topic yesterday I decided to brainstorm with members of my writing group for ideas to write about. I opened up the Zoom app, when all of a sudden I got an invitation to join a meeting. It was coming from me. I thought to myself, “Great, which one of my old selves will I get to talk to?” I did not get what I expected when I accepted the invitation.
A hoarser, older voice spoke out to me rather gruffly, “Well it’s about time you accepted my invitation.” Then I noticed the image on the screen and the name attached to it.
I replied, “But I just got it a minute ago.”
“Dang that stupid gmail,” he retorted, “I forgot how slow it was back then. Why, I sent you the invite at least 15 minutes ago.”
“I see what your screen name says, but are you really me 20 years from now?”
“OF COURSE I AM! You dimwit, who else would want to talk to you. Oh yeah, that’s right, people don’t stop talking to you until 2030.”
“What? Why would people stop talking to me?” I questioned.
2041’s answer was quick. “Because they were tired of you getting to go first all of the time.”
“Wait a minute, you mean my writing friends?” I asked.
“Of course, your writing “friends”, I zoomed you at a time you were doing a writing assignment, didn’t I?”
“Hold on,” I said, “You mean that you contacted me all the way from 2041 just to let me know that going first in writing groups, makes people not talk to me in 2030?”
“Yeah…no.” was 2041’s quick reply. “It might have been about the thing you wrote.”
“And what would that have been?” I asked.
“According to the rules, I’m not allowed to tell you, it might change your future,” he answered.
“Then why Zoom me?”
“I can’t tell you,” he continued, “I just figured I’d warn you without telling you.”
“Okay, so go ahead.”
“The thing is,” 2041 said, “you’re going to get a number of books published. I’m not going to say by who, or about what, however I will say, be careful when you write the sequel to your third book. It has implications.”
I began to wonder about 2041’s location. “Where exactly are you right now?” I asked, being the curious type and wondering how if he is not supposed to let me know anything about my future, how he happens to be able to Zoom me.
He replied, “Let’s just say, we’re at an undisclosed location so as not to be found and on a secure encrypted line. Christina is here and David and Lara are all safe also at another witness protection site.”
“This is where my future is heading?” I questioned rather nervously.
2041 responded, “Yes…maybe, no. You see, if you follow the path I took to get here, then yes, in 2041 you will probably be here Zooming yourself. However, if you change something that happened before now, like maybe that 4th book, not that I’m telling you to do that, something else may happen. That’s the thing with your future, whether you know what happens or not, you really don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Well that really cleared things up,” I said sarcastically.
“Good luck,” 2041 said. “I have to end this now before my 20 minute free Zoom time is up and I can be traced.”
And before I could say anything the Zoom session ended. As Zoom meetings go, this one was one of the less pleasurable ones. I’m pleased that I found out that eventually I will get some of my stories published, and that Christina, David and Lara will be with me when I’m in my 90s. Not too pleased with the rest of the stuff. I guess time will tell what path I take when the moment arises to make a decision about a 4th book about…whatever it’s about. Hopefully I’ll remember this conversation with 2041.
So today’s story spark is “Meetings”, I wonder what I should write about? And whatever it is, I’ll make sure I don’t go first.
I finally got this stupid machine to work, now where or should I say when will I go with it. Going to the past might be interesting, but you know, that is what history books are for. Why relive the past? We all know what happened.
It seems to me that the future is where it’s at. If I can find out things that are going to happen in the future, maybe I can prepare for it and even benefit from that knowledge. After all, I am a man of the 21st Century. We are the people that only care about ourselves, not anyone else. At least that’s how it appears to me with some of the people I meet and see on TV in the news.
Let’s see, it’s December, a time for celebrating, and for gift giving. Why don’t I move into my future and see what I’ll be getting as gifts this year? I hate to be surprised.
I step into my newly designed time machine. Sit down in the comfortable reclining chair I provided for myself. Adjust the dial so that I make it to later in the day on Christmas and push the Run button. There is a short blip on the screen, my surroundings change, and I find myself just inside the room where gifts are being given. I’m not seen by anyone in the room, which is good, since I’ve heard that seeing yourself physically can cause a time paradox and totally wreck the timeline.
I notice that no one is giving me any gifts at all. In fact, I am the only one giving gifts to others. This can’t be right. This is supposed to be about me! I increase the outside volume so that I can hear the conversation going on.
“But you said that we shouldn’t give gifts this year,” my brother said. “We should just be happy to be together.”
“We all agreed with you,” my father said. “This was to be a holiday of pure thankfulness, and not thoughtless gifts.”
“We all liked that idea,” my twins stated at the same time. “Why are you doing this?”
I was confused and heard myself say, “But I thought by, saying we shouldn’t give gifts, you would all think how noble I was and you would get me better ones.”
The mood in the room definitely saddened. No one bothered to open any of the gifts I gave out. Granted they were all gift cards to Dunkin’ which is what I usually give. It was easier that way.
At this point, the Time Machine, which had been set on a timer, returned me back to my own time and place.
What just happened? I thought this gift-giving thing was supposed to be all about me. Wasn’t this the me generation? Based on the fact that my family was willing to forego presents just to be together, maybe I got it all wrong.
At that instant, my time machine disappeared. And in its place was a note to me written by me in the future. It stated, “You don’t need this machine anymore. You learned what you needed to learn. It’s time to change.”
Did you ever wonder who you are? I mean, what made you the person that you are. I have been thinking about that over the past few days and here’s what I came up with.
Let’s start with my family. My mom was a kind, caring person who loved kids. Though she disciplined me at times, I still could feel the kindness and love that she had for me. I would hope that that caring and love of children that I have comes, in part, from the way my mom brought me up.
Then there’s my dad. He was quite a disciplinarian. He always wanted me to be a great sportsperson as he perceived himself to be. The fact that I never became that person, I’m sure disappointed him. However, as disappointed in my athletic prowess as he might have been, he rarely showed it. Not that it was fun losing a lot of games, but he watched me play. He took me to the park to learn skills that I needed to be better at playing. So from him, I learned to accept what I could do, and enjoy playing more so than winning.
I have two older sisters. Marion, my oldest sister was kind of a second mother to me. Being 8 years older than I was, she felt she had the experience to show me the path I should take. Though most of the time I did not follow her advice, her advice was still there, a choice that I could make. From her, I learned that there are other points of view in the world and we need to at least acknowledge them.
Leslie, my third mother, is 5 years older than I am. Being the sister closest in age to me, I could relate to her more. She was the one that introduced me to ice hockey and also gave me advice growing up. She was a teacher. Her advice sometimes coincided with Marion’s, but often came from a different point of view. She continues to share events and activities that she partakes in with me and encourages me to do more. At this point in my life, I also get the opportunity to share some of my advice with her. It’s nice when it can go both ways.
Other influences in my life came from friends in college, who taught me to be myself and not try to be someone else, to become more independent.
Upon graduating college, it was colleagues that I worked with that became true friends and guides in the making of me. They allowed me to be creative, try new ideas, become more professional, and inspire others.
In 1985 I met the love of my life, and in 1993 my son, David was born. I must say that both my wife and son, have had a great deal in shaping the person that I am. No matter how long you are married, every day is a new adventure. A new part of you and the person you are with continually creates new things and the bond is strengthened. And raising a child and watching them grow and become the person that they are meant to be, not only builds your own self but hopefully imparts all the pieces of you into them so that they can become who they are meant to be.
Finally, there are all of you, my writing friends and readers. You allow me to be introspective and bring out the person that’s me. And for that, I am forever grateful.
And that is who I am. I am a collection of the others that cared to involve their lives with me as I grew up and stay with me today. Thanks for being you. I wouldn’t be here without you.
In my family when I was young, there were my parents, my two older sisters, and me. My grandparents had passed away prior to me being born and my half-brother was not to be discovered until I was 62 years old. My mother had two older brothers and two older sisters; my father only had one younger brother. Other than my Uncle Hugo (my mother’s oldest brother) and his family, who lived in the same apartment building we did, I didn’t get to see my other Aunts and Uncles and their families very often though they all lived in New York City (Manhattan, Queens, and Nassau County in Long Island). One reason for not seeing our extended family more often was that my parents didn’t drive. The only way to visit our relatives was for someone else to take us by car, or we’d go by subway, which in some cases was about an hour trip with at least one transfer to another train. Being the youngest I didn’t relate very much with my cousins.
Most of our holiday get-togethers and traditions were just with my immediate family.
I do remember having Thanksgiving at our apartment, where on occasion my Uncle Kurt (my father’s brother) and his family would visit from Queens. I can remember going outside and playing football catch with my cousin Peter in the grassy part of Manhattan College, which was across the street from our apartment building. Peter was my closest cousin in age (I½ years older than me). That’s about all I remember about Thanksgiving. I’m sure we had turkey, bread stuffing, and cranberry sauce, which my mother prepared, but that’s it.
For Chanukah, I do remember lighting candles at home. I can see the menorahs we had and the tray that they were put on in my mind. As to gifts I only remember getting one gift for all of Chanukah, not one each night. My sister may remember it differently.
Even though we were Jewish we still got in on the gift part of Christmas. We would get together at some point close to Christmas with other families that had young children in our apartment building. My sister, Leslie, remembers this occurring in the lobby of the building, whereas I remember it taking place in the recreation room on the 5th floor of the building, right beyond the apartment where the superintendent of the building, Mr. Flynn, lived and where birthday parties and events were held. While the parents socialized, the kids played games. At some point, Santa arrived to deliver gifts to all the kids there, regardless of their religion. Santa was in fact, Mr. Flynn and it wasn’t until I was much older, that I found out that the gift I received from him was purchased by my parents.
On Christmas Day, we’d visit our next-door neighbors, the Keltons, and later on when they moved out from our apartment building, at their house, where gifts were exchanged. That for the most part was my Christmas experience each year. As traditions go, I certainly enjoyed it.
Nowadays, with my own family, we celebrate both Chanukah (my background) and Christmas (my wife’s background). We light the candles every night of Chanukah, either at our house or at someone else’s or virtually, with my son and his wife living in Virginia and Covid restrictions and all. It is good to see each other even if it is not in person. For Christmas, we celebrate at my daughter-in-law’s parent’s home. We have had both real and artificial trees at our house. Presents are given all around on each Christmas day, and we share time together with family, which is the most important part of it all.
