A Ceremony of Days
June takes her place in the procession. As always, there is no time like the present. But for a few months, I forgot that fact or at least chose not to think about it. I am referring, of course, to the past few months in which I did not write, which may have gone unnoticed even by my most loyal readers but weighed heavily on me.
“Everyone is always too busy,” someone said to me recently. But life goes on all around us, whether we notice it or not. Here I recognize the days that passed unmarked, in the form of anonymous conversations and experiences.
The Music Shop
I finally went to that old music shop I always drive past and wonder about. A middle-aged man in a denim vest was sitting on a bench out front and said hello as I walked up. I said hello in reply and went inside. It smelled pleasantly of antiques and old books. The shop was filled with musical instruments, so many that I had to be careful where I stepped—and there was a case of used books and a wall with several Japanese antiques. I was the only person in the shop. Then from behind the counter a tea kettle began to whistle, and the man outside came in, went to the back and poured himself a cup of tea. Oh, I thought, he must be the owner. I pointed to the Japanese antiques and asked if he’d ever been to Japan. “No, but I’d love to go. I’ve heard it’s a special place.” “So have I,” I said, “my grandparents lived there many years ago, when my grandpa was stationed there as a dentist for the military. These antiques remind me of the old relics my Mom has.” “Oh, right on!” he said, which made me laugh inwardly. With his cuffed jeans, denim jacket and sandy blonde hair, he looked like he might have been a soft rock star back in the day, and he talked like it too.
I pored over the books for a while and finally selected Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It was about time—to call myself a writer, without ever having read this book, was truly unacceptable. “Ah, a classic,” the man said as he rang me up. I looked at the collection of stickers on the side of the table—all band names I liked or at least recognized. I asked him if he played any instruments. “Oh yes, I play a bit of banjo, fiddle, guitar, drums. I love music. I play in a band with some folks around here.”
I should have asked where his band was playing! I thought as I left the shop. I’ll go again sometime.
Conversations over Brunch
“Christianity is full of pat responses. It’s like a meat grinder, churning them out. If you get close to it with a sincere question, it’ll cut your finger off. Christians can be so harsh sometimes.”
“Something I’ve been thinking about lately is that we are saved before the foundation of the world, so a better question than ‘when did you become a Christian?’ is ‘when did you realize you were a Christian?’”
At a Graduation Party
“There’s a concept in medical science that your brain is who you are, not how you are. So when a disease takes your brain away, robbing you of clear thoughts, words and memories, you no longer exist. And I think that’s so sad. You’re so much more than your brain.” Your life has value no matter what hand nature has dealt you. It’s so sad, the hopelessness that a physicalist framework has wrought. Do you see how important it is to believe in an eternal soul?
Writers Supporting Writers
“I love you guys!”
“Drunk already?”
“What? Can a man not have love in his heart? It’s true, I love you guys. It’s been a tough week; I got salmonella poisoning, my liquor cabinet fell over in the thunderstorm, and I got the flu. Give me a break. I’ll have you all over for a floor party, where I’ll make a cocktail out of all the liquor that crashed onto the floor. It’ll taste disgusting, but we have to commemorate the loss.”
Translated from Conversations with an Elderly Ukrainian Man
“I worked as a doctor in the Soviet Union and when children needed to be put under anesthesia for surgery, I would breathe in a little of the anesthesia to make sure the dose was right. I did that regularly.”
“Once, I encountered soldiers as I was out walking. I told them all to go home, and may God go with them.”
Road Trip Stories
“In the Soviet Union, we had limited access to books. We read some international novels in school, but I don’t know how they were selected. A lot of French authors, I don’t know why. Some of the international authors that were most popular in Russia were mostly unknown in their own countries. Like the American sci-fi author, Ray Bradbury. When Sergei Bondarchuk came to Hollywood to receive the Golden Globe award for his epic War and Peace film, produced in the 1960s, he asked to meet “this great writer” who was so popular in Russia. His American hosts were puzzled by the request because, at the time, Ray Bradbury was relatively unknown in the U.S. Now he is much more popular (think Fahrenheit 451), perhaps due in part to his visit to Hollywood at Bondarchuk’s request.”
Stories at the Dinner Table
“At the seaside retreats at the university in South Korea, people would take boats out to go fishing. Once, emergency response was called on a professor who had gone out fishing because the life guards realized they could no longer see him in the boat. But when they arrived at the boat, they found him asleep, perfectly unharmed. Speaking of disappearances, there was once a college student in Russia who went missing from school for a week and his mother, in a panic, sent out a search party. What do you suppose happened to him? He fell in love! They found him with his girlfriend in another city. His mother was furious and told him to get back to school right away.”
“There was once a Russian who traded an expensive fox fur for a kilo of mandarins, because he had never tried them before. And another who divulged government secrets in exchange for mandarins because he loved them so much.”
What I Should Have Said
Have you ever tried being yourself? And before you laugh, think about how you are always worrying about what other people think and never realizing other people are thinking the same thing. Are you worried about people not liking the real you? Give them more credit—no one likes a faker. Would you? But I know, it’s hard to be sincere. I of all people know how hard it is to say what I’m really thinking, or to stay silent when I’m not thinking anything at all.