Sometimes
just wisps of things people say, remarks made in passing, stick with me and
influence me more than whole tomes of philosophy. Two such throw-away lines
have been particularly haunting me lately. One was a mild reprimand issued to
my dog decades ago. The other I heard just recently.
The
long-ago comment was uttered by an itinerant handyman my mother hired to do odd
jobs after my father died. We had a variety of handymen we called on in those
disoriented, posthumous days. I’m not sure why we had such a parade of workmen
through the house then. My father had been neither handy nor interested in
making any repairs about the place, and we seemed to get along without calling
in much help. Why suddenly, after my father’s death, did we feel the need to
fix leaking faucets, replace broken tiles, etc., etc. Those things had been
leaking and broken for years.
Maybe
it was because when my father was still around, we felt we had a safety net. If
a minor problem should suddenly explode into disaster – there was at least
someone else around to psychologically share the fright of it. Now that he was
gone, we felt vulnerable to such dire eventualities. So we bestirred ourselves,
getting the little things repaired in hopes that we could prevent any of them
from mushrooming into catastrophe.
Most
of the local handymen available to do odd jobs turned out to be disasters in
and of themselves. Some proved to have very limited knowledge about making any
repairs. When one undertook to change the washer on a faucet, he didn’t think
it was necessary to turn off the water supply to that sink before starting.
Water gushed. Unbelievably, another handyman thought the instructions had said
to moisten your hands before working on the fuse box. He had somehow failed to
see the NOT featured in bold type in all the warnings that preceded how-to
instructions on working with electricity. “Do NOT work in standing water or with
moist hands or clothing.” Electric shock ensued.
Then
there were a couple of lechers whose primary motive for “helping out” had been
the access it would afford them to a new, and therefore presumably lonely,
yearning widow.
Finally,
there were the teenagers whose parents had insisted they earn some money before
heading off to college in the fall. The teenagers didn’t want to be working at
our house, or anywhere. They wanted to be out having a last dating fling before
buckling down to the books. They oozed resentment. One managed to dislodge part
of our gutters in his angry, aggressive attempts to clear that gutter of leaves
as quickly as possible. So irate was he at having to go back up and reattach
the gutter, he slammed the ladder against our building with such force that he
smashed our yard light.
However,
after all this mishap and mayhem, we did find one reliable workman who knew
what he was doing and who went about the jobs in a steady, professional way.
His name was the Presidential “John Adams,” and indeed he looked as if he might
have been born a New Englander. He was tall and thin, with a somewhat wooden,
weathered look, like the figurehead on an old whaling ship. He also had a New
England kind of taciturnity and reserve about him. We somehow gathered that he
might be a recovering alcoholic who found sketchy lodgings in various
shelters. But he didn’t bring any of his
life problems onto the job. Except we did get a glimpse into the hard-scrabble
road he must have travelled in that one memorable stone of philosophy he cast
in the direction of our dog.
Actually
our dog was more of a puppy, or a dog on the cusp between puppyhood and
adulthood. During the times we were too distracted elsewhere to keep her
strictly in check, she would follow Mr. Adams around, yapping in a mixture of playful
eagerness to participate in his energetic doings and of resentment at the
intrusion of this obvious interloper.
Mr.
Adams took this pesky tag-along in good part for a while. But finally, when the
dog’s company threatened to become actual interference, Mr. Adams addressed her
directly. “You have to be quiet and go sit by yourself now,” he instructed her.
“That’s what growing up is. It’s learning how to be alone.”
The
melancholy truth of that hit me. I was a teenager then, but I suddenly knew
that he was right. I knew that’s what awaited me. Adulthood was a matter of
entering into an essential aloneness. It was a shouldering of responsibility
without the likelihood of any true companion to share it. Adulthood would
certainly be devoid of the unconditional love some of us know as children.
Instead it was a setting sail into a vast ocean - without another soul in
sight.
The
second piece of wisdom that I’m sure will stick with me was not uttered as an
article of philosophy. It was just a casual personal observation. I happened to
catch it as part of an interview with Angie Dickinson appearing on CBS’s Sunday
Morning Show. Dickinson has largely retired from her career as actress and
sex symbol. She has become an avid poker player and challenged her interviewer,
Mo Rocca, to a card game. As they played, Dickinson reflected on her life. She
felt her years of stardom had been a wonderful adventure. She didn’t mind
having been known for her beauty and sex appeal. That had enabled and added to
the adventure of it all.
After
a little while, the two broke off playing cards. Mo Rocca walked with Dickinson
to the balcony of her home to share her spectacular overview of Beverly Hills.
After they had gazed together at the rolling vista for a moment, Dickinson gave
a slight shrug of contented resignation. She said, “One day I won’t have all
this.” (She didn’t inject the word “soon” into her reflection, although, since
Dickinson is in her late 80’s now, that hint of soonness hung unspoken in the
air.) But she just issued the truth of the matter bare. She said, “One day I
won’t have all this…. but I won’t know it.”
She
delivered that last line with an air of confiding triumph. Yes, we will all
lose everything we have in the end, but we won’t know it. We won’t dwell in
that desolation, experiencing it endlessly. Therefore, we can fling back
defiantly, “Take that, Death! You’ve done your worst, but I’m not aware
of it. So the joke’s on you! Ha HAAA!”
These
two wisdoms bookend my own reflection on my span. There was Mr. Adams’ somber
view at one end of all the packed activity. But then here came Angie Dickinson’s
point – ultimately a happier thought about the other end of it all. She made me
realize what a final invictus it will be.
