EMOTIONS

                                                            

In my years of writing I have met lots of writers and if there is one thing, all the ones I have met and I, have in common, it’s the fact we tend to be very emotional people. Now that’s not restricted just to writers by any means, there are lots of emotional people around. Their tear wells are always leaking be it sadness or pride. It’s not that hard to tug at their heartstrings. Emotions, put another way, are simply feelings and they come to us in very different degrees. I myself think it’s a blessing to have such strong feelings because you get the real meaning of things, good or bad and you want to feel them as strongly as you can to fully understand them. It also helps you to cope with the situation at hand and to heal, both body and mind.

My mom was very emotional when I was growing up way back then. I saw all her tears and snotty noses as a weakness. Later in life I admired that in her because she was just being genuine. My dad was unemotional and somewhat of a curmudgeon. When Mom would start crying he’d say, “Here we go again.” Or pass out the Kleenex.” About the only thing that would tear dad up was a 23lb. or larger Northern Pike, or a box of white owl cigars or if he found a five-dollar bill. I once won a baseball game for our team in school, in the bottom of the ninth inning and my teammates carried me off the field. Meeting my dad at the gate for my ride home he said. “You forgot your glove bonehead.”

As a Fire fighter I knew I would have to leave my emotions at the door when I was at an emergency. When you are sitting in a ditch, holding and comforting a four year old that just lost his parents in a car accident, trying not to cry yourself isn’t easy believe me. Going home and upsetting my family was not the place to do it either. So you went to a park and had your talk with God and then tried get back to life, as you knew it. I wasn’t alone in this and several times after you did your best to comfort the survivors, you found yourself back at the fire station comforting each other.

I think of the people in our lives that deal, day in and day out with this kind of sadness and sometimes I wonder how they cope. Doctors, nurses, clergy and counselors to name a few. Way to many people to mention, who are just like you and I, when it comes to getting your emotions rubbed raw. I’m betting they do the same thing I occasionally had to do-- just on a more frequent basis. Men in particular can be strange creatures when it comes to sadness. It’s been my experience that those who don’t cry will just show their grief in other ways, such as anger and this just  prolongs the sadness and makes the whole thing worse.

But back to the writing and writers. One of my jobs as a writer is to set the scene for you. If its sad I want you crying and if its funny, then I want you laughing and if I can’t do that then neither I, nor any other writer is doing the job we should be doing. Charles Dickens wrote in “Great Expectations” and I quote,” Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, Overlying are hard hearts.”

NATURAL MUSICIANS

I have always admired people who had musical ability—especially the whistlers. Now, I’m not talking about the son of that old bat in the rocking chair, in that old picture we have all seen. I’m talking about people who learned to purse their lips for something besides smooching and blowing smoke rings, and having pretty music come out of their pie hole. I have tried all of my life to whistle, but I have always sounded like a leaky iron lung on its last leg, and it sent my wife dashing for the nightstand—looking for my inhaler. Even my little grandkids come and tell me, “Grandpa, hold your mouth like this,” and they proceed to imitate a sunfish sucking a worm. When I tell them “I just can’t do it,” they say, “That’s just dumb, grandpa.” To them, whistling is like a baby nursing. No one tells them how to do it—they just do it. Over the years, there have been musicians I have heard that sounded like a canary once they got going. I often wanted to tackle them, take my Mag-Light Flashlight, and take a long look down their throats; because there is something in there that I got screwed out of when I was born. Their voice boxes must look like the business end, of a clarinet.

My mother, during my younger years, decided that I would carry the musical hopes of the family into the next century, so she made me sing in the church choir. Now the credentials necessary to sing in our church choir were—that you had to not be a mute, and you must be able to read words out of music books. For those who could sing, it was an enjoyable experience. For me, it was one cut above a colonoscopy—and I may have been better off singing out of that end of me in the first place. I have noticed as I age, and depending on my diet, I can get quite musical down there, but I am getting off the subject here so that’s the end of that. Besides, my friend edits this stuff and her sense of humor is not always like mine. 

During a particular Christmas Pageant at the church, I was goosed by the boy behind me, and I hit a high G that only dogs and the maestro could hear. Shortly thereafter, the choir director told me she had too many Irish tenors already, and maybe it was time to give it a rest for a while. One of the other points of contention for me, in the church choir, was that this was the birth of rock and roll for me. These people were still singing about bringing in the sheaves, and I had no idea what they were.  So I would put my book in front of my face and hum “Rock around the Clock,” while they all swayed and sang their lungs out somewhere on the banks of the River Jordan. Meanwhile, I was singing backup to Bill Bailey and The Comets, immersed in my own little world and cussing out good old Mom. Later—again my mother’s idea—I played in the high school band. I was the only trumpet player with duct tape over the end of his horn. The band director told me he was trying out some new tones. The backpressure of blowing into that muted horn must have done something to me because, even today, just blowing up a balloon gets me lightheaded, and off in the distance I hear John Philipp Sousa saying, “Oh, my God.” I must say though, that I did learn something about music, and even today my rendition of “Danny Boy,” sung in the shower, can bring tears to my eyes and the dog has been known to join in with me.  It’s funny how those animals have an ear for talent.

LIFE WITH MOLLY CHAPTER THREEE

Well, as I go into 2013 and take stock of what happened last year, I want to write a few lines to tell you about Molly. For those of you who don’t get to read my column regularly, Molly is my soon-to-be one year-old Labrador dog. Christmas was pretty bleak for Molly this year. Here in the Holst house, we still subscribe to the old “naughty or nice theory” when it comes to being rewarded at Christmas. Molly is way on the wrong side of naughty and nice. You could run the Sherco power plant down in Becker for a couple of days on Molly’s growing coal pile.

Molly has an affinity for toilet paper. When she finds the door open to the commode, she will go in there and take a huge bite out of the toilet paper roll.  She doesn’t unroll it or scatter it around; she just takes a gargantuan bite out of the side of it.  That leaves whoever is using what is left of the roll, wiping with something that resembles paper dolls.  Needless to say, this makes for other hygiene problems with your cuticles, and things like that, but we won’t get into any specifics here.

I buy Molly a lot of bones to chew on as a way to keep her from eating things, I would rather she didn’t eat, such as my shoes and furniture. She loves bones when they are new, but as soon as she has them chewed into a sharp shard that resembles a Cro-Magnon man’s spear tip, she abandons them—all over the house. In the house, I have to wear engineer boots with steel soles for leisure shoes, or risk lacerating my feet. I tried picking the bone pieces up, but apparently she doesn’t like that and goes to great lengths to reestablish them in my traffic patterns. I drink no water after four p.m. as trips to the bathroom at night, in the dark, are strongly advised against.

Eating time has now become somewhat of a hassle for me because Molly likes to beg for some of my food. Actually, her own food dish, with actual dog food in it, has a spider web over it. She doesn’t flip my arm up, or bark, or cry—she’s subtle and just gently lays her head in my lap—and drools. I am now wearing the bottom half of my fishing wet suit to the table to prevent having this “just wet your pants” look. She does get to lick the plates, which does help with the dishwashing, but my plates are losing their pattern on the bottom because she is quite aggressive with them. I have also found missing dishes in unusual places, like in the traffic patterns in the house amongst the bone shards and on the basement steps—the very ones I walk down, carrying a basket of clothes that I can’t see around.

When my kids were young, there was a kids’ program on television called “Muttley the Snickering Hound.” You know the old “heh, heh, heh” laugh. Now I’m not for sure about this—and she might just be panting—but she has this same sound coming from her jowls every time I injure myself on one of her carefully-placed booby traps. One other thing I should mention—Molly likes to lick your ears. Not up and down or sideways. No, she forms her tongue into a wet corkscrew and tries to get right down to the old ear canal. Water in my ears used to be a summer swimming thing, but not anymore. On the good side, no more earwax. What’s that you say? My pants are wet?

WINTER THOUGHTS

                                                

The other day, I walked through the woods as snowflakes fell softly around me. Winter gives me a glimpse into places in the woods that have always been there, but lie camouflaged in the summer months. The woods seemed so deathly silent in the winter air, and from time to time, I stopped and rested because I needed to silence the noisy crunch of the snow beneath my boots. I thought of the words of Robert Frost, “Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though: he will not see me stopping here. To watch his woods fill up with snow.” My thoughts went back to 1960, when I was living in a suburban community and working in the cities. My heart ached for the woods I used to escape to as a young man back home in Northern Minnesota. I was uprooted and far from the place I loved so much.

“My little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near. Between the woods and frozen lake. The darkest evening of the year.” My love for nature had been taken from me back then, and replaced with streets and houses and noisy buses. Even the city parks seemed to be bordered with urban sprawl, and a never-ending sea of humanity.  People always rushing from point A to point B. Horns honking and sirens wailing. From Monday through Friday, and for forty years after, I was sentenced to stay there because there was no other way to survive.

“He gives his harness bells a shake to ask me if there is some mistake. The only other sound is the easy sweep of the wind and downy flake.” Today, the trees resemble silent gray and white sentinels, standing at attention and forming an almost impenetrable barrier. They’re resting now, their naked limbs stripped of foliage save for an errant yellowed leaf, clinging stubbornly to its host and waving silently at me, enticing me to come closer, but for too long I refused. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”

It’s different today though. I kept all those promises, to others and me. I lived and loved and rode the wild wind. I went so many places I scarce thought I would or could, but always, this enchanting forest I thought I understood and never did, was tucked back into the recesses of my mind. Now I’m back—drawn to its innermost secrets. I leave the path at dusk and fade into the forest. I touch each tree and bush until I reach the banks of a softly flowing river, and deposit myself in the shelter of a towering craggily oak, in a bed of yellow grass. There are no more secrets that I care to see. No more hills to climb, no more rivers to cross. I’m not ready to sleep yet like so many of my friends and loved ones who went before me. But then, that’s not for me to say, and I can wait. Everything from this day forward is a bonus, and I thank the good Lord for being my chaperone, my constant companion and guardian on this wonderful trip.  I thank Him for the family He blest me with, and all that I possess.

My dog, my constant companion who left me to explore, now comes and sits beside me, looking at me with those sad searching eyes. Let’s go home, she says. We found what you were looking for.

MY SUNSHINE

                                                           

When I was little boy I used to listen to my mom sing as she went about her housework. I wasn’t sure where all her happiness came from, for in my eyes we had so little. But each day she would just seem to be so content there in her own little corner of the world. She died of cancer at the early age of 57 but I never heard her complain about it or anything else for that matter. In my entire life I never met anyone who was so much at peace with her life and the world around her, even when it was coming to an end. Most of her songs were hymns and old favorites like “You are my sunshine.” I too liked to sing and still do.  Now I didn’t say I was a good singer --I just said I liked to sing. Fifty years later when I was told my wife was going to die I remember coming home from the hospital and sitting on my back steps crying and singing softly but out loud, “You are my Sunshine.” But that day when I got to the line that said, “Please don’t take my sunshine away,” I became like a stuck needle in the record player and I just kept singing it over and over again. At that moment that lyric had become my prayer.

I’m writing this three days before Christmas. Much has transpired in the last year and a half. I’ve healed so much from last year. Last year I think I just went through the motions of enjoying Christmas, to please all of those who were trying to help me. This year I have the holiday spirit in me once again. To those of you who know me more closely, you know I have a new friend, a special friend. I’m sure it has a lot to do with my new outlook. For once again, my life isn’t just about me anymore and believe me, I love that kind of responsibility.

I think about the friends I have that lost someone close this past year, like I did the year before. I think how can I help them find their way out of that valley of grief? How can I help them find peace and happiness again? As a writer I’m constantly giving my views and advice. Not to interfere in others lives but just to say this was what worked for me. It is surprising how in a world of seven billion people; one lone soul can feel so alienated and lonely. But to those of you that are there right now, I’ve been in that spot too and I feel your pain.

It’s a new year for all of us and with that new year can come new hope that maybe we can get it all together this year. That maybe we have finally learned some hard lessons about life, both in a personal basis and in the ills of this country. Life will never be perfect because too many outside things beyond our control influence our lives. My father always said. “Most men are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” There is lot of truth to that my friends. A year and a half ago when I lost my sunshine I questioned it. But the sun shines for all of us from many different places. From another old song mom sang came the line, “Open up your hearts and let the sunshine in.” That’s right because we make too many of our own clouds. We put them there without really knowing it but we can take them away, if we really try.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND MAY GOD BLESS US ALL----------MIKE