Violets in the Street

When my stepmother was eighty-eight and I was fifty-nine she said, “I never realized how very thoughtful you are.”

It surprised and pleased me. What had she seen that led her to that conclusion? It also angered me to remember all the times I had been thoughtful in our family and never been recognized for it.

I pictured violets in the street. Every time I tell this story I picture violets in the street.

When I was ten and my stepmother was thirty-nine I went to a nearby field and picked a large handful of wild violets to give to her. She loved violets, they were her favorite flower, and she cultivated several small flowerpots of African violets. On my way home as I crossed the street in front of our house, the bundle of violets came apart in my hand and most of them spilled to the street. There were not enough of them left in my hand to make a decent gift so I let them go, and I went into the house weeping with shame and disappointment.

“What’s the trouble?” my stepmother asked as I lay inconsolable on my bed. I could not tell her. And I never did.

I call her my stepmother here, but my sister and I were never allowed to disclose that she was not our natural mother. It was never spoken of, even in our family, though my sister and I did occasionally speak of it. But that’s another story.

When you are a thoughtful person it doesn’t occur to you to say, “I’m being thoughtful right now.” When you are a thoughtless person it doesn’t occur to you to say, “I am being thoughtless right now.” No one can say that truthfully because to do so requires some bit of reflection.

When you are a thoughtful person you might remember something and say, “I was thoughtless yesterday,” and you will wince inside. It is very painful. When you are a thoughtless person you might remember something and say, “I was thoughtful yesterday,” and the recollection will bring you great satisfaction.

When you are a thoughtful person if someone says, “That was thoughtless what you did yesterday,” you will feel pain and think about what you did and apologize. When you are a thoughtless person and someone says, “That was thoughtless what you did yesterday,” you are aggravated and you tell that person that, one, you were not thoughtless and two, that it was the other person’s fault.

When you are a thoughtful person you are not thoughtful all the time, but you are regretful when you become aware of your missteps—and every time you remember them thereafter. When you are a thoughtless person you are not thoughtless all the time but you don’t think about it one way or the other, perhaps because you act out of a sense of duty.

There are many thoughtless persons in the world, and they are angered at the thoughtlessness of others. Thoughtful persons are also angered by the thoughtlessness of others.

But when you are a thoughtful person and are the recipient of a thoughtful act you are deeply grateful. When you are a thoughtless person you don’t notice thoughtful acts.

When my son was thirteen and I was thirty-seven I passed an empty space in the Walmart parking lot and took another two spaces beyond. He asked me why I did that and I explained that there was a car behind us and if I had taken the first one the driver of that car would have had to wait for us to get out of the way, whereas this way both of us could pull into our spaces. He remarked that I was thoughtful and I rejoiced inwardly because if he was noticing the thoughtfulness of others there was a good chance he would himself become thoughtful.

One has to work at evolving into thoughtfulness. Remaining thoughtless all one’s life is pretty easy.

When I was sixty-eight and my stepmother was ninety-seven I drove two thousand miles to be there for her and help out any way I could. The day I arrived she said, “I love you but I want you to go.” I asked why and she said because she didn’t want me to see her like this. A thoughtless person finds a thoughtful person easy to love. I wanted to tell her this was not the worst I had seen her but I left her room in tears. Her friend/caretaker chastised her then came out to talk to me and told me how older people could be but I was not crying because of my long drive but because this was a completely accurate and poignant depiction of my whole life with her.

I stopped in the next morning before my departure to say goodbye and I could tell from the look she gave me that she knew we would not see each other again. She wanted our goodbye to be somehow profound. She made no mention of regret over sending me away. I said my goodbye but was restrained. I do not regret my restraint.

A thoughtful person’s ability to love is not infinite.

Be Strong!

There was a saying circulating in high school: “Small minds talk about things, average minds talk about people, great minds talk about ideas.” I was annoyed by that. First of all, it was a statement about people, and therefore the product of an average mind. Then what did that author know about great minds, or ideas for that matter?

I do not claim to have a great mind. It is a little nasty of me to be bored by most conversations, but I cannot help it. Once I have figured out how the brake pads fit into the calipers on my truck, I don’t care to discuss how other pads fit into other calipers, unless there is something revolutionary or ingenious about them. Sports talk, celebrity talk—I've just never been able to get into it. I feel a little inadequate on the fringes of such conversations, but there is absolutely nothing there for me.

Like everybody else, I want to join in the human celebration. But the stuff I find fascinating  does not interest that many people. In fact, some take on an attitude of superiority, and derogate cerebral activity and those who engage in it. But I have no shortage of very dear friends and a darling family, so I truly have no complaints about all that.

It’s just that I want to share some of these odd thoughts that float around in my head all the time. And so I started this blog. What a great device! I’m having a ball and can barely stay away from the computer.

And then I find myself allowing myself to get into more and more esoteric material (actually I've only just begun), and I realize that the ratio of blog readers who are interested in this stuff is likely the same as the ratio of people on the street who are interested. And then I find myself thinking this stupid thing: maybe I should write about more popular stuff so more people would be willing to read it. Maybe my own friends are tired of it already.

Now that, dear lonely reader, is exactly my dilemma and my downfall. I have done this to myself many times, with writing, with painting, with socializing. It is so easy for others to say, “Don’t worry about what other people think! Just do your own thing.”

I am quite positive that the people who say that do not find their minds awash in metaphysical ponderings over quantum mechanics in the brain. Perhaps they imagine I am debating over painting a tree or a car, when I am devising color relationships so subtle that critics think I have no color sense at all. It’s easy to tell me to wander off alone, but I am not that strong.

Still not complaining, not really.

Now I am going to complain. Those criticisms stop me cold. Please do not misunderstand. My complaint is not with the critics, it’s with me!

I wrote a book, a memoir, about the many canoe trips I have taken with my family. The book is finished but for two or three cosmetic amendments that would take me one afternoon.

Several people have read it and claimed to enjoy it. Some have offered suggestions and I have implemented a few of those and ignored others. But then there came a criticism with a rather unkind delivery, by a person who had slapped a template over the book. My memoir did not fit with this person’s dogma about what a book should be. Clearly my critic had made no effort to understand what my book was about—and didn't care. That person was as right as a teacher.

What did I do? I did not touch my manuscript again. I read three manuals about writing that troublesome material, and even though the guides said that there are different types of story, and that the book I had written fit one of the forms just fine, still I let my work lie. It remains untouched; even though I know I could easily finish it and send it off to Kindle.

The concepts I have been presenting in this blog are right close to the center of everything worthwhile that I do. Those ideas drive my painting, my memoirs (I've got four in various degrees of completion), my favorite activity (canoeing), and, most of all, my friendships with and love for other people.

I have to stay strong and keep on. I cannot take the advice of some of my friends and say “who cares what people say or like?” That attitude is just not in me, whether it “should” be or not. Instead I will say, “I hope there are many others who, like me, enjoy thinking about this stuff!”

I hope there are many others who, like me, enjoy thinking about this stuff!