Part Twenty-One, Something Really There: A Tale Told With Time

Part Twenty-One

We'll Get By

Joan Ann Lansberry

December 8, 1997

Laura caught on the ascent upwards at Tuzigoot
A cold bleakness seeps into my depths. It invades my entire being. Is it just the rain? Achy joints cannot move my fingers fast.
I am suspended in slow motion, while the fleet minutes race on ahead of me. Where are those minutes going?
I don't know. But here, where I remain, cold gray icy questions pelt like the falling rain.
Worries. Each cold drop pesters until I am flooded with fear.
Can I make the changes necessary to deal with the Weather?
Will I endure my Fate?
Or will I just sink, like a broken ship going down to crash?
What will it be?
JAL, 12-8-97

December 9, 1997
The sun is shining in the deep turquoise winter sky, and a patient hope fills me. Karen Matheson sings:

low A mid C low A mid C mid C D E-D-C
Although the summer is over.
low A low A C C D C E-D-C
And we're all a little colder.
G E E-D-C We'll get by.
G E E-D-C We'll get by.

("Evangeline", by James Grant)

Yes, we'll get by. I am not alone. I'm part of a wonderful team and we hang together against any struggles. We each do what we can within this little community of family. Weakness meets strength and the whole becomes undefeatable.

later in the day...
It's amazing how your experiences can give you a new perspective on life. When Laura used to grieve over the things she can no longer do, I'd tell her "Be glad you used to be able to do those things. Some people never can do those things."
Now that nearly everything takes me twice as long as it used to, and I've had a bout of grieving, I can now understand Laura's feelings. My glib statements were little comforting. It doesn't matter how extraordinary the old feats were. All that matters is you feel bad and frustrated over your current limitations relative to then. Also there is still the tendency to judge oneself by one's production, no matter how one has tried to ween ourselves from societies values.
No, a quiet stubbornness seems the best solution. Never mind what yesterday was. That was then, this is now. You are playing a new game now. Be heroic for today. With those thoughts, I have renewed courage. I know one day the sewing machine could be forever silent. I may become too crippled and poor-sighted. But I'm determined to make that day as far off as I can, if there indeed must be such a day. I will rejoice in the accomplishments of today.

December 11, 1997
Some of my best sewing accomplishments have been captured on film! I made the three of us fancy Renaissance style dresses for Anton and Cynthia's wedding this month. The pictures Helina took of us have been developed and I've scanned a few. I chose styles from that era, so we could enjoy wearing them at SCA and Renaissance Faire events. Julia's was from a pattern, while Laura's and mine were custom design. Laura told me how she wanted hers, and I kept sketching until she said the drawing was what she visualized. I'd selected silky gold fabric for my chemise. However I didn't have a design in mind for the outer garments until I had the fabric. We were keeping to tones of blue and/or green as these were the wedding colors. Laura saw a lustrous black watch plaid and suggested that for me. It was perfect for my SCA character, who is Celtic. The square lines of the plaid would be best complemented by square lines in the design. So my vest piece has a square neck and a straight bottom. I'd toyed with the idea of a small peplum for my vest, but having it end at the waist proved most figure-flattering. I used several fitting bodices for each to obtain the perfect fit and design. This method proved quite successful!

December 15, 1997
See the poem I wrote today!

December 17, 1997
As part of my mother's Christmas present, I sent her a subscription to UTNE Reader, the best of the alternative media. There is often much food for thought in this progressively minded magazine, and so I hoped the mental nutrients would do her some good. The Jan-Feb issue arrived today with a most pleasant strange experience. I read each article with a view to what was my mother thinking of that article. My mind was meeting hers in an almost tangible gray space. I sent her a letter which discussed a couple of the articles, and now await response.
An article I read after I finished that letter really engaged the mental neurons. The cover story lead-in said :

High tech may rule today, but tomorrow belongs to the human spirit.
I did more than just write to my mother about it, I wrote a letter to the editor:

As a long-time 'trekkie', Spock on the cover really caught my eye. However I'm not sure what the article it illustrates is talking about. How has high technology become a force "whose decrees we must blindly obey"?
Just who created technology? It is we ourselves. It is only a TOOL, and it is to what ends it is used, guided by which values, that determines its merit. It is precisely "human achievement" that makes it all possible.

I have no doubt that the magazine will be inundated with letters to the editor. I have a feeling that the vast majority expressing views similar to mine will also send their letters via the "high tech" marvel of the computer!
I do hope they pick my letter out of that huge pile and print it. I did try to make it as powerfully concise as I could, knowing brevity is the editor's dream. It would so make my mother proud to discover my letter in that magazine!

December 21, 1997

Early Morning Mental Meanderings
Will that technology save us? I try to strain through my dim eyes to get a view of the future. Can better, less polluting methods of industry be discovered? Car exhaust is the main ingredient in most of our pollution. Types of engines have been invented that don't cause so much pollution. But greedy car makers won't use this technology. They lobby against it, in fact. They don't want to use the new designs as it would cost a lot to make the changeover. So our cities are filled with ugly brown clouds.
Maybe the main problem is there are just too darn many of us humans. We consume the earth's resources at an unprecedented rate. For all the efforts of education, very little recycling goes on. Perhaps the depression of the youth is not without warrant.
One such sensitive young person left his mental meanderings on the Community Front Page a few days ago. James Balducci said:

We are fairly smart compared to other creatures, but we are not that smart really. Our existence on this planet does not amount to anything. The only thing we can do is amuse ourselves in our lives. Then we die. What does it mean? Life seems "trivial and meaningless". He goes on to wonder, "It seems like everybody expects you to have kids. Like it is the right thing to do and if you don't have kids it is wrong. Well I am very confused by whether to have kids (or not). Is it selfish not to have kids? What if I spend my whole life just amusing myself and not having kids to take care of? Is that wrong? Perhaps it would be boring, but I just don't know what the reason is to have kids.
Peter Vokac answered him:

You are skeptical about having kids. So many of your generation are, with extremely good reason. Does it not occur to your that your feeling is right and your culture is wrong? The human instinct works. We like to deny it, but I'm a believer having seen so many examples. Our species has overpopulated. Your feeling is coming from deep inside where your mind connects to the species minds. Weird, but too evident to deny.
And what is the answer to finding meaning within the sheer absurdity of it all? Too many believers in prepackaged religious formulas have pat answers to this question. It is easy to understand that little satisfies an intelligent mind. James wonders what it would be like to stop time. What could he do while time was stopped? What would life be like if he had special powers?
Peter answers him:

Surely you've seen enough Star Trek, the original version, to see the answer to the Power question. If you were truly all-powerful you would become quickly bored. Excitement comes from the effort to affect an unknown question."
James wonders what it would be like to be immortal:

But in a way, it is sad not to be immortal. We will all die. What is the point? Sometimes I think that we are all like ants or even bacteria We are just here to reproduce our DNA. It is like evolution has its own agenda and we are just particles in its ongoing mechanism.
Peter answers:

When you finally know too much, you realize that human individuals are no more than bubbles in a stream. Our time is short, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and unrecorded in the long run. Our sole possession is this very moment. Therefore the highest and best use is to seize it. I am always glad that I did something fun and crazy spontaneously, and I have many lifelong regrets over missing opportunities to "just do it".
Peter's daughter Valen answers some of James' deep thoughts as well:

As far as a God goes...who knows? Maybe there's one, maybe there's lots. I think it's vain of man and the religions to expect god to nursemaid us and make things happen for us. I think of us all as something more akin to a perpetual motion machine where someone stops by every now and again to take notes. Maybe a cosmic Teaching Assistant.
She continues:

You know, for dying, there's a point. We die, but our thoughts and actions can live forever. I think that's most intriguing. Maybe that's why geniuses tend to die young. They put so many pieces of themselves into their works to be spread around in the future that there's nothing left.
Maybe that's why so many boring people live past 100 and nobody even notices. I'd hate to die and have someone say "Well...Valen's dead." "Yup, reckon so." Nods, drinks, coughs, "Yup, Dead alright..." How frightening.
She further explains her philosophy of life:

Probably change is the force for avoiding the ruts and patterns of life. But fear keeps people away from it. Fear is interesting. Stark Terror is fascinating. How else can we explain the success of Poe? But people will avoid it to the point of suffering a dull ache on many levels for years rather than deal with a single sharp intense period of fear and suffering.
It's those brief moments that make you feel alive. It's like ripping off a bandaid instead of slowing peeling it back.
Sure I'm apathetic. Sure I'm cynical. Sure I live half my time in an odd twilight zone of my own mental creation. But I feel like I've lived and can add every experience to the bunch.
James ends his post with this, a philosophy that would surely make the world a better place if we all follow it. It is a fit answer to the depressions of life.

Here is some advice for life. Again this is just as much for me as it is for you.
1. When in doubt, give people the benefit of the doubt.
2. If there is a problem in your life, and you don't know what to do, look at it. Keep looking at it. Learn about it. Turn it over. Examine it some more. Keep examining it until you find a way to get around it or solve it. Just don't ignore it.
3. Be sweet to others, even in day-to day things. For example, be nice to the person at the check out counter. Say "pardon me" instead of nudging somebody out of the way when you need to get past them in the aisle. When you drop even a scrap of paper, pick it up and throw it away instead of saying "whatever..." Open car doors for your loved one.
Listen to people when they talk to you and think about what they must be feeling, even for just an extra couple seconds, before you respond.
Learn to identify your prejudices and acknowledge them before you draw conclusions about others.
Peter has the temerity to add one. "Always take out more trash than you brought in.
Valen responds And I'd like to be so bold as to add #5. Be a mental pack rat. Keep it all. You'll need it some day.

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