"It's a beautiful life." Beautiful post, Curtis. Brought a tear to my eye. My Mom and her sister-in-law are 89. They live together in Fairfield. I stop by just about everyday to visit and help out if they need it. Mom still cooks, shops, drives, and takes care of finances. My aunt never learned to read. She gets her letters mixed up at eye exams, gets confused and frustrated trying to writing her name. My grandmother always looked after my aunt. After she died, my mother inherited my aunt's care. She has special needs and also special abilities. Somehow she just *knows* stuff. She knows exactly where I left my car keys. She knows when I'm thinking about heating up some leftovers or looking for a snack. She tells me exactly what I have a hankering for before I even head to the kitchen. As I'm leaving to go home, she's quick to remind me to take the bag of tomatoes mom had packed or remember to take the socks she washed and folded for me. If I've misplaced anything, she'll find it. Perhaps my experience with my aunt, gives me a little insight into John Paul's sensitivity to you on a crappy day. You haven't dodged a bullet, Curtis. You've been blessed to know John Paul as my family has been blessed to know my aunt.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Emily Reyn <emilymae.reyn@...> wrote: > > Alright then...."It's a beautiful life." > > > Memphis Slim on that same topic....there is great joy in the blues, no? > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_H-1J4xWs > > > > ________________________________ > From: curtisdeltablues <curtisdeltablues@...> > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 9:10 AM > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Say it > > > Â > "It's a beautiful life, say it, say it." > > The last request had an urgency that I couldn't continue to ignore. The > request was from Johnathan, who inexplicably changed his name to John Paul in > the last few years and gets very agitated if you forget. He is a twenty-two > year old African American boy-child, and I have known him since he was five. > His body has continued to grow, but his mind has not kept pace. The > euphemistic names for his condition don't give me any distance from this > human tragedy. > > He has been listening to me play music every Summer weekend for most of his > life as he wanders around while his father busks in a revolutionary war > outfit playing the fife in historic Old Town Alexandria. His dad is one of > the cheeriest guys I know, full of Christian greetings. The kind of dad who > sprinkles his conversations with the word "blessing" while standing next to > his son lost in an internal world he cannot escape from to join us on a more > level playing field. His dad and I often hug in greeting, he from his > boundless loving spirit, and me probably a little from the guilt of knowing I > dodged this bullet and he took it between the eyes. > > Johnathan "NO, IT'S JOHN PAUL NOW" calls me "Bludesman" and likes my music. > No, that isn't exactly right, he hovers around me while I play waiting for a > break when I can join him in the odd handshake elbow bump ritual we have > created together. He initiated it and I modified it. Specifically I shifted > the handshake into a fist bump when his hormones switched on a number of > years ago and I noticed that his hands spent a lot of time South of the > equator when not pressing my flesh. He doesn't mind the fist bump variation > although I do have to remind him occasionally. He repeats the ritual > sequence until I walk away with him doing an awkward, urgent last one as I am > moving out of reach. > > He is part of my intersection of human universes when I perform outside that > includes homeless people and the very rich who bring their kids to me for > enrichment, so they can take their proper place in society where John Paul is > not headed. > > John Paul is obsessed with the raising and lowering of the flag on the docks. > It took me a long time to sort it all out when he would come up to me and > inform me that it was the end of the "duty day" and mutter something about > the flag. WTF? I would ponder. Does he mean doodie or duty, and what does > it have to do with the flag? One day it all broke clear: at the beginning of > the "duty day" (his dad is in the military) the flag goes up and at the end > of the "duty day" they take it down. He "records" this event faithfully each > weekend day and night with a camera phone that has not been charged for a > long time. I sat facing this flag pole performing for seventeen years and > never really noticed this ritual event consciously. Now that I am in on the > secret it delights him to use me as an obsession sounding board like some old > codger at the bar who wont shut up about golf to non-golfers. > > I enjoy this narrow ramp into his tiny world and we run the reps together. > "Why do they take down the flag" he asks me earnestly as if it was the very > first time. "Because it is the end of the duty day" I feed back my well > rehearsed line. He lights up at the prompt. "YES it is the end of the duty > day and the flag comes down." "What happens at the beginning of the duty day > John Paul?" I ask in complete innocence. This is urgent and I need to know. > He is about to win the highest prize ever on Jeopardy: "The flag goes up, it > is the beginning of the duty day." He breaks into the kind of smile we saw > recently on the faces of Olympic medalists. So far it all is cute and > charming and I am filled with virtuous compassion-bliss. Then he proceeds to > run this routine into the ground until I have to shoo him away so I can > continue my show. As he walks away I hear the bits and pieces of our > "conversation" repeated in fragments. He articulates each word > very carefully as if each syllable is as precious as a Vedic hymn. > > Once I ran into his dad at the health food store with his other son. This > son is brilliant and snarky and the essence of youthful cool. He is a nice > kid who not only connects, he is on point, and talking with him stretched my > mind to keep up. His father speaks about John Paul with the same level of > pride and adoration. I make a mental picture of their dinner table and then > send it to the place I keep my photo essays on Appalachian children with > mothers hooked on Oxy. Let's make sure that little fire wall is secure, OK. > > Once I was going to my car later than usual with a bag full of cash. It > wasn't Mitt Romney money, but on the street it attracts attention from those > I wish wouldn't notice. I am in a parking lot alone and someone is lurking > behind a cement divider keeping out of sight but I catch a shoulder. "Shit!" > After all these years of being safe I am finally gunna have to man up and > defend myself. I pick up a mic stand and imagine the amazing Kung Fu moves I > could do with it to keep this creep away from my rent money. Suddenly he > makes his move and I can see a big African American man lurching toward me. > I could have hugged John Paul I was so relieved. He wanted to run some last > minute reps on me as I packed my car. > > Sometimes I try to hack in through the reps game and see who is inside. I > ask him a question like "what is today John Paul" and ask him to tell me the > days of the week. I ask him what comes after Tuesday. He answers a few > questions and then gives me a sidelong sly smile and his eyes shift. He > knows what I am doing and he is not going to let me in any further. We go > back to our routines and I am once again thwarted from doing some magical > Curtis jiu-jitsu, where my powers of rapport can transcend...whatever. It > ain't happening. > > So here I stand in the parking lot again. (I'm gunna pull all this together > with the beginning just you wait.) I have had a particularly tough day on the > head of a tough month on a tough Summer. I have already pushed the > boundaries of a polite length of a post so I will only give you some > snippets. On the home front, 92 years old sucks not only because you get > spider legs that can't carry you to the bathroom, but because the Lord has > decided that moving people to heaven would be much easier (for God) if he > started with the mind first. My busking day was filled with off and on > drizzle forcing me to pack up and set up many times for fewer and fewer > tourists. I am bone weary and my cash bag is mighty slim. > > John Paul is pressing me hard as I pack up my car like a sloth changing > trees. I am so tired of the sucky side of life I could almost cry. I say > almost because John Paul for me is a lodestone for reframing me off my own > pity pot every time. I wish I could bottle him and take a belt when I wake > up at 3:00 in the morning and think about how exactly to proceed to empty out > a family home to sell the house while its previous owner pisses in a bedpan > in room 126. > > "It's a beautiful life, say it, say it." He looks at me desperately. He has > never used this phrase with me before. > > "Yes, John Paul, it IS a beautiful life." I say, breaking his rule for how > this has to go down according to the synaptic fury raging inside him. > > "No, just say, 'It's a beautiful life'" he insists. > > "OK, John Paul, It's a beautiful life." > > He is ecstatic. "It's a beautiful life" he says with a smile that seems so > enigmatic I wonder for a second if some wandering mendicant or perhaps Christ > himself...no I don't have any version of a "there" to go these days. This is > just some freaking fluke of life that I need to sit back and enjoy. > > "Say it again" he insists. Now the magic is gone, like so many good things > we love, John Paul is about to beat this puppy to death. > > "Gotta go John Paul" > > "Why" he is slightly alarmed. > > "Because I have to eat my dinner and go to bed" I say, shifting him onto one > of our favorite parting rituals. It works. He lights up. > > As I drive away with both of us waving madly I hear his voice trailing off. > > "You have to eat your dinner and go to bed" he says with obvious satisfaction > that this is how it should be. > > Alone in my car I remember that I just saw Louise Hay's picture on a list of > seminar speakers, remember her, Miss. Affirmations that got so popular Al > Franken's Stewart Smally brilliantly satirized it on SNL. But is wasn't the > affirmation that lifted my spirits on the way home or the weird coincidence > of him laying this trip on me when I really needed it. I have my own reps > that I use to keep the howling winds away just like John Paul. It was > knowing about all the bullets I have dodged by not being John Paul or his > father or his brilliant brother. And it doesn't exactly make it easier for > me to face how another life is ending, but I can't help breaking out into a > full belly laugh. > > Yes John Paul, it IS a beautiful life. If he can say it and mean it, I sure > as shit can. >
