Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Bonny Bobby Shafto

Tomorrow is my son, Joshua Dylan (for Bob not Thomas) Bradley's 38th birthday.

We used to croon to him a nursery rhyme that goes like this:

Bobby Safto's gone to sea,
Silver buckle's on his knee
He'll come back and marry me,
Bonny Bobby Shafto'
Bobby Shafto's bright and fair,
Panning out his yellow hair,
He's my love forevermore,
Bonny Bobby Shafto.

And he was a toe-head, though you'd never guess it now as his brown hair, like mine, has hints of grey in it and his beard even moreso.

My beard was grey by 40 and I colored it for several years then gave into time.

I was 28 when he was born. Which makes me 66 now.

When I was 38, my father was 78, having been 40 when I was born. (Stuff like that has come to matter to me as I grow older.)

Our daughter, Jeremy Johanna (forever Mimi) turned 35 last month. I was 31 when she was born. The math doesn't change--I'm still 66.

People told us when we were much younger, that time would fly and to enjoy our children while we could. It would go away faster than we could imagine.

I thought those people were fools. Josh and Mimi's childhood seemed endless and stressful and wondrous at the same time.

But those people were right.

My 'princess' is 35. My Bonny Bobby Shafto is 38 tomorrow.

How in hell did that happen?

They are both amazing people. Mimi and Tim will come with us to an island off the coast of North Carolina in what?--10 days from now. We've been doing it for several years. It's the island we took Josh and Mimi too for much of their pre-adult lives. Mimi renewed it after she and Tim went there one year, reliving childhood or something. I keep hoping we can get Josh and Cathy and the girls down some year soon, before I'm in my dotage. Shortly after we get back we'll go to Baltimore and be with Josh and Cathy and Morgan and Emma and Tegan for a bit.

Sumi--Cathy's pit bull that was then Josh's pit bull and the Morgan and Emma and Tegan's pit bull--and through much of that, Bern and my pit bull, won't be there. At a great age, Sumi died last week. The last 6 months she had to be carried downstairs to go to the bathroom. And she was the sweetest dog I've ever known. Even in her dotage, when she saw Bern and me she would be terribly animated and young again for a while.

We loved her deeply and mourn her greatly.

Which is not just an aside, but the glue of a family relationship. You become attached to your children's pets just as you become attached to your children's mates and your children's children.

I sometimes wonder: how can Josh and Mimi be that old? Which causes me to ponder 'how can I be this old?'



Time flies when you're having fun....



Monday, August 12, 2013

The Flora and Fauna of it all...

Our yards are viral with life these days.

Bern admitted to me today, after she had spent hours extracting a mock orange bush from the side yard, that she had too many plants.

"I never thought I'd say it," she said, her voice full of wonder and amusement. We are so surrounded by living things that I am sometimes washed over by life.

When I gaze at the panoply of plant life that surrounds us, I find it had to imagine that in 4 or 5 months it will all be covered by two feet of snow. But it will...I know that, having lived in New England now for over half of my life. It is that remarkable ying and yang that makes me not want to live anywhere else, ever.

My friends, GW and Eleanor, are moving to Costa Rica in a week or so. They are going to a land of constant late June. I give them traveling blessings but know I couldn't survive in a climate like that. I need the withering and dying of Autumn and the chill and death of Winter. That I need the resurrection of Spring and the lushness of Summer go without saying. But living always in late June--temperature 70-80 during the day and 60-70 at night might sound inviting in the depths of February, but there is no April without February. I love the turn of the seasons.

But nature is 'red in tooth and claw...and vines...."

We have a vine on our back deck that lives inside in the winter that has, amazingly, reached out to ensnare a limb of a Hemlock tree and the leaves of a Rhodendrum. I don't stand too close to it because it weirds me out and I imagine it wrapping around my throat and choking the life out of me. It also has the most incredible blossoms--blood red and seductive in their beauty--and it attracts hummingbirds, so what could be wrong with that except it could strangle me if I stood too close for too long.

A morning glory vine in the front yard wrestled down a yard long Lilly stalk to the ground. I imagined Bern's plants were turning on each other in some apocalyptic kind of endgame. I told Bern about it and this afternoon she freed the Lilly by unwinding the vine. The Lilly is standing up again, but I don't trust plants as much as I used to before I was so surrounded by them.

But this I know and know fair well, they will wither in the Fall and be covered by a couple of feet of snow in the Winter--only to return in Spring again. I like the life-cycle-ness of plants. That would never happen in Costa Rica. Plants live year round there.

That would make me very anxious since I don't completely trust them....



Saturday, August 10, 2013

The insect from hell

I went out on the back porch and a huge insect like nothing I've ever seen, smashed into my glasses and fell near the dog, who immediately ran out into the darkness of the deck. (Knowing, better than me, it seems, that the insect was drawn by the porch light.)

I, on the other hand, stayed put and had this monstrous creature with four wings and about 5 inches long swirl around my head. Finally, it landed on the wall and I got the terrified dog to come in with the terrified man.

I went upstairs and tried to describe the whole ordeal to Bern, who didn't seem to think it was so big a deal, so I kept enhancing the story, relying on the dog to back me up, and before I was through, the mystery insect had scales, teeth, a two inch stinger and the mystic ability to read my mind.

Bern still wasn't impressed. But then, she isn't scared of moths either, though their little hairy bodies drive me to the edge of horror.

(I heard on radio today that people in Australia eat locusts--they call them flying prawns. There are places where the farm insects the way they farm fish because they are becoming a more important form of protein.)

Our daughter Mimi used to eat ball-bugs when she was small. I don't know their real name but when you touch them they roll up into a ball. 'Crunch, crunch' would be the sound of Mimi eating ball bugs she found beneath rocks.

That creature on the back porch is now morphed into a Pterodactyl in my mind. 'Crunch, crunch' would have been the sound of it eating me and the Puli.

Yet, Bern is not appreciative of my terror...or the dog's....


Friday, August 9, 2013

Death from the sky...

This morning an airplane, scheduled to land at Tweed/New Haven airport, instead crashed into two houses in East Haven killing as yet an unknown number but at least 3 and probably a 13 year old and 1 year old in one of the houses. The report on radio said, 'the children's mother survived....' Newscaster, you may think so but I guarantee that the woman she was yesterday most certainly 'did not survive', will never be the same, may not be able to get over this at all.

Death fell from the sky for those two suburban children. What are the odds? Why does it matter? The House, as always, won.

The next report, without missing a beat, was about Senator Ted Cruz calling the President 'dangerous'--I kid you not, right there on radio--and repeating his threat to shut down the government if the Affordable Health Care Act (passed by Congress, signed by the President, judged Constitutional by the Supreme Court) was not de-funded. As if keeping 30,000,000 Americans (it's more jarring to write it out than say 30 million) were a good reason to bring the government of the United States to a halt. Really, that's what Cruz wants to do--deny 30,000,000 Americans the health care the act gives them that they don't now have.

And two kids are dead in East Haven when Death fell from the sky.

Well, since it was a working class neighborhood of East Haven, those two kids might not have had health insurance. So Sen. Cruz now only has to deprive 29,999,998 Americans of health care. Who knows.

After that was a report on how many 'growth enhancing drugs' American farmers are giving to their animals--so much, in fact, that Europe, Russia and China are considering not importing American meat since all those folks don't want chickens and cows that were injected with the stuff Lance Armstrong and A-Rod took but in much higher doses. ( Well, I'm sure Lance had more than a chicken but not nearly as much as a cow.)

At least those two kids in that fireball in East Haven didn't grow up to die of disease caused by eating Growth Hormone or Genetically Altered food. They went quick and, as the radio guy said, quoting a neighbor, 'they didn't know what hit them.'

I'm always confused by the 'didn't know what hit them' argument that something was ok and even good about Death falling from the sky.

It still HIT THEM and they still died, it seems to me.

I almost hope they did know what hit them so the 13 year old could have picked up the baby and they could have held each other as they died.

I hope to God Ted Cruz eats stuff with Growth Hormone that has been Genetically Altered. He undoubtedly believes in all that. I stop much short of wishing a plane to fall on him.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Life is hard enough without being engulfed in a fireball when a plane crashes on you.

(God help us: the news should shut down and take a minute of silence after announcing the insanity of two children dying because a plane fell on them. We should be given some spiritual and psychic recovery time before we have to endure the asshole from Texas....)


Thursday, August 8, 2013

Something gentle

Something gentle moves me always.

Something soft and loving.

Something that comes out of nowhere and ends up in the moment where I'm living.

It can really be no more than a smile from an old woman in a parking lot,
or someone holding open the door of the library for me,
or Bern touching my face when I'm not expecting it,
or our neighbor, across the street, waving a greeting as he goes by with his beagle,
or someone letting me into traffic,
or the woman at the bank remembering my name,
or Luke, our cat rubbing against my bare leg (since I'm wearing shorts),
or my daughter Mimi calling just to talk,
or almost anything.

And all that happened today, just in one day.

We should notice the tiny little things more.
The things that brush against us from time to time,
and use those to memories to measure how wondrous life is,
rather than watching cable TV.

Really.

Ponder that.

Please.

Pretty please with sugar on it.....


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Another found poem

Looking through these papers is like experiencing deyavu "all over again" as someone wise (I've narrowed it down to William James, Mark Twain and Yogi Berra) once said.

Marion Cleo Jones Bradley was my mother. God bless her for that. She grew up during the depression and had a hard life. She somehow, climbing out of poverty and ignorance, became a teacher and taught 1st or 2nd grade for years, decades.

I found this poem about her. It seems a bit harsh, but I wrote it over seven years ago and who knows (certainly not me!) what I was thinking when I wrote it. But it was like meeting an old friend in Grand Central Station to find it. And I share it with you.

As the Africans say, 'this is my story, receive it with a blessing and send the blessing back to me...."


MOTHER'S DAY

Well, every day is 'mother's day',
if we are to acknowledge the broad, inclusive
knowledge of our best friend, Dr. Freud.

Who among us can disentangle from the clever, ubiquitous web
of deceit, devotion and dread she wove around us?

"Step on a crack and break your mother's back."
She didn't make that up,
but she would have, given the choice.
Control, control and more control:
that is the currency of Mother Love.

However, this is about my mother 
(write your own poem about yours!)

My mother made a mistake in timing.
She died the week of my 25th birthday.
Elsie, her younger sister, my aunt,
put her hand on my shoulder as I sat
by my mother's death bed, feeding her vanilla ice cream
from a little paper cup with a weird wooden spoon
as if it were exactly what she would want
as she lay dying--which is True as True can be.

"Happy birthday, Jimmy", my aunt Elsie said,
(though she may have said "Jimmie"--the spelling
of my nickname was almost Shakespeareanly varied)--
"did anyone else remember?" she continued,
into more ice cream I was feeding to an almost dead woman.
No one else had--not even my father,
not even me--I'd forgotten my own birthday,
twenty and five: a Big One.

He, at least, could be forgiven.
His wife, after all, was dying.
But why did I forget such an auspicious date?
Because 'mommy' was more important?
Of course she was--she'd made it so
through innocence and guile
and the web she'd woven around me
in all the years before.

She never hit me--not once--I swear it is true;
except with guilt and 'responsibility' and the sticky
lace of Mother Love.

I've lived a life-time since she finally died,
sated on ice cream from my hand.
I only remember her face from photographs
and remember her voice not at all.
She was a good mother--believe you me.
She did all she knew to do and more besides.
And she loved me. She did--she did.
And would love me more if she knew
the man I am today.

Yet, over three decades later, I remember this:
my father and I standing on the loading dock
of Bluefield's hospital, watching the dawn.
Nurses were unhooking all the lines that had held my mom
to this life. I expected some tender moment,
sleep deprived as we both were.

What I got was this: my father looked down at my shoes
and handed me thirty dollars--a twenty and two fives.
"Buy some new shoes for her funeral," he said.
And I said, holding the bills in my hand,
"this isn't enough...."

Although, in those days, it really was.

jgb-1/19/06
 

 

A poem I found

So, I was looking through some old papers and came across a poem I wrote on the Feast of St. Hugh (google it) at Holy Cross Monastery in 1999.

It's obvious from the poem that I had gone to Holy Cross by myself because something was heavy on my heart. I have absolutely no idea (though I've pondered it since I found the poem) what that heaviness was or was about.

Perhaps the healing the poem is about really happened. Or, just perhaps, it is my capacity, whether it is genetic or learned, to absolutely 'forget' bad experiences. I remember most of the things that made me joyful and fulfilled. The things that weighed heavy on my heart at the time...I simply don't remember.

Anyway, here's the poem.

On the back porch of a monastery deep in the night

I smoke rapidly against the chill and to ward off the haunting,
    near-by moaning of a coyote for the moon.

Then I notice: the Hudson is as dark and smooth
    as a chapel floor.

I brought grave burdens to this Holy Place
to offer to the God
      of Confusion and Pain;
and have prayed all that away,
      emptying my gunny sack of
      Suffering.

Then I notice: the windows of the house on the far side
      of the river
      glimmer like votive candles 
      in the crypt.

Without knowing why, the Darkness Inside
       my Soul has become the Darkness
       of this night.
And I am not afraid.

Then I notice: the clouds hang low
       in the frigid air,
       like incense above an altar.
       Leaves, dry and wind-pushed,
       shutter along
       the pathway below like
       ghostly footsteps
       of long dead monks.
(Somewhere an exhaust fan
        wheezes and rattles.
        A novice at his prayers.)

I did not expect such sudden, sweet relief.
I expected to howl at the moon of Pain,
        coyote-like,
        with stiff hairs on the back of my neck.

Then I notice: the wind through the trees
        and 
        the clickity-clack of the Albany train
        across the river.
        If I listen--really listen--like a creature
        unafraid of Darkness....
        Everything sounds like chanting.

God is everywhere.
In the Burden.
And in the laying
             of the
             Burden
             down.

Back in my room--St. Mary's, this time--I have a small bottle of Merlot.

One more cigarette and then I go and drink it
         from my coffee-cup chalice,
         with gratefulness and peace
         before I sleep and dream.

It is then that I notice:
         the Blood of Christ.

(November 17, 1999--the Feast of St. Hugh.
West Park, New York.)
      ---Jim Bradley 

 

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About Me

some ponderings by an aging white man who is an Episcopal priest in Connecticut. Now retired but still working and still wondering what it all means...all of it.