Javier Rodriguez "Jr" Corpa
In this new year, I may forego salt and sugar.
After talking about a new kitchen for a couple of decades, my wife and I moved up the schedule when the kitchen faucet went kerflooey, followed by plumbing to the dishwasher. The oven saw what was happening and baked its last.
Waiting for the kitchen cabinets to arrive, we are still sheltering in place.
When the hammering and ripping-out, the saw-whining and drill-pressing aren’t all going at the same time, it’s possible to catch snatches of workmen talking.
“This sheetrock is old,” says either Alvin or Chuck. By the time this sees ink, I will know their voices as well as I know my wife’s. “They don’t make sheetrock like this anymore.” Chuck, I think.
Is it good that this fabled sheetrock is leaving its moorings? Too late to ponder that. It’s out the back door, an exit last used when our near middle-aged children were little.
There is a model aircraft carrier—big—in my garden. It calls to mind the almost four years I lived on the USS Intrepid, sailing in endless circles in the Gulf of Tonkin as our planes launched air strikes at people who, paraphrasing Muhammad Ali, had not called us sailors bad names.
The garden aircraft carrier’s island was gone when I found the toy ship on a trash pile. Into the void left by the missing island, I placed soil and sprigs of mint, swords to plowshares, the suggestion of might to an herb that adds zest to tea.
“Whoa,” says one of the workmen pushing a wheelbarrow along the garden path. “I got distracted by the ‘battleship’ and missed my turn.”
There is one holiday party left on the sked, a New Year’s Day affair where everyone brings a dish, assortments of foreign and domestic beer, wine, good whiskey and, as we say, their appetites. Note to party planners: Provide non-alcoholic drinks and water. A new year reminds us that, possibly, we have drunk all the alcohol the Big Kahuna meant for us to drink.
As much as I like holiday parties—the chilly nights with men in their floral-print shirts under down jackets and the women aglow in red dresses—I am not sorry to see the end of the season of good will. My Lord, the tension!
I once heard a host, chuckling, bid her guests welcome, then suggest they steer clear of politics for the evening. No “I don’t know how you voted, but I think you’ll agree ... ” Nyet! You’re pretty sure you know how that particular floral-print voted. You might as well have been in the booth with him as he voted, and then, just experimenting, hit the little lever again.
The next time you’re walking past a roof full of Mexican workers, slow your pace to listen. Rare is the angry word. Common is the song in Spanish. There is a lot of laughter and good-natured shouting that, in Spanish, I’m sure means, “Hey, you hit yourself – again!”
At a pre-Christmas party, a neighbor and I did the fandango over the nation’s ills before he stopped talking, drew a deep breath and said, “I’m just so tired of all this.” We clicked plastic cups to “Brother, you said a mouthful.”
Is it redundant to say “new beginnings?” If you’re talking about quitting smoking, losing weight, controlling drinking, making a garden, resolving to listen or at least perfect pretending to listen, saying “new beginnings” is not redundant.
Zen tip: The perfect listener is one who keeps eye contact with the speaker while texting with hand and phone in pocket.
As part of my new beginning each year, I plant a garden, even if I do not want to plant a garden. Zen, again: If you would have peas in spring, you must plant the seed at Thanksgiving. If that one-night, killing frost in January thwarts your intentions, plant again or quote Jean 4:7 and resume napping. Jean is the Cajun prophet I just made up. Scripture and verse cited are fill-in-the-blank. With luck, Jean 4:7 will replace the quotation from John on bobbing signs behind home plate at big league baseball games.
On the other side of the wall from where I sit pretending to work on my young adult novel, Chuck and Alvin are knocking out vintage sheetrock in my wife’s mid-century modern kitchen. Chuck and Alvin laugh a lot. When one of them bangs a finger with a hand sledge, the other asks solicitously, “You hit yourself – again?” They both laugh.
The next time you’re walking past a roof full of Mexican workers, slow your pace to listen. Rare is the angry word. Common is the song in Spanish. There is a lot of laughter and good-natured shouting that, in Spanish, I’m sure means, “Hey, you hit yourself – again!”
I will close by not asking for the return of bipartisanship. As a people, we may be safest when elected officials disagree. If big government does nothing, maybe little government will spring up in towns and villages, which will grow to become cities, and we’ll be in trouble again. But it buys us time.
When you need a shot of succor, read Ecclesiastes. All is meaningless under the sun. Implied is that without God, everything is meaningless. Leave God out of it. Pretty much everything we do in the long run is without meaning, though it is important to mow the grass.
I want to give Jean 4:7 another plug, so I will close with it. “Sanity, thy other name is (fill in the blank).
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