PureSchmaltz

Rendered Fat Content

Love/Love

14 11, 15 10:45 Filed under: MorningMissive
love:love
Just another morning. Brighter than most. No hint of last night’s calamity in this morning’s serenity. The magpies arrived to see if they’d trained me yet, rejecting the pumpkin seeds I’d left on the deck railing. I quickly replaced them with stale bread broken into bird bite sized pieces. Yes, they have trained me, I agree, but I entrain to entertain Rose The Skittish Spinster Cat, who seems to enjoy the first thing in the morning bird visits. She barks at them but it’s feigned alarm. No harm done and I dispose of the stale crusts.

A shadow hangs over the place, though. The BBC chattered half the night. NPR took over just before dawn. The unimaginable settling into another disquieting new normal. I must listen to the news to somehow infuse the unwanted recent history into the body of my acknowledged story. It’s inescapable now. Denial slinks back into her shadow, not selected for this team either. Once ingested, though, the shocking taste seems to disappear. The bitter flavor lingers longer than the sweet, but both flee the palate more quickly than the long anticipation enticed it. I’m soon enough hungry again.

I suppose I’m supposed to have become more cynical now, to be more diligently setting aside my childish, hopeful notions; become defensive and warier, but I do not want to. Twice burned, finally cautious? Another night passed. Another thief departing. Another indignity visited upon us all. The morning news explains that there is no evidence of any heightened threat level this morning. There was no evidence of one yesterday afternoon in Paris, either. Night thieves never send ahead requests for an audience. They, or ones like them, will certainly return. Nothing dissuades their kind. Kill the father and the son shows up. Kill the son and the mother avenges. Kill the mother and her brother and cousin will decide to even the score.

This seems a bogus competition. If we could make time run backwards, we might once again achieve the only perfect score ever registered, zero to zero; or as the tennis people translate it, love/love. Beyond that modest beginning, every lower-order passion prevails and not even winning really settles anything. Let the resulting grudges judge resolution. Beat me and I will not be capable of respecting your prowess. If I beat you, I gain justification for more deeply understanding just how unworthy you’ve become to receive my deepest respect. We seem engaged in a race for ever greater negative space, undermining everyone involved in the process.

The local Listserv has a resident troll. This week. he received a warning shot across his bow. Either he’s just as clueless as his intolerant postings disclose or he’s faking it. I suspect that he’s not faking anything. He seems to be the sort of man who really should stay away from his keyboard after that second bottle of wine. Maybe his mother degraded him in his youth. I don’t know. He proclaims that honesty is the best policy. Always. “Believe me,” he insists, “I know!” He clearly knows for himself but seems to not know for anyone else. This puts him in a difficult position because in this small culture, nobody judges anyone based upon what they know for them self. He has the right to say anything he wants, but a greater responsibility not to.

We live civilly in restraint, passions banked, much unsaid. It seems to me that there’s always someone who doesn’t get the responsibility memo. These people crack the sidewalk everyone else needs to use. They seem an intrusion into our treasured serenity. What do we do? Some throw back better than they receive. Others demean, probably echoing the experience they received from the troll’s prior response. The troll does not understand. I’m convinced that he will not understand, either. Most of us just stay as far away as we can from this irrationality generator, hoping he’ll wander away on his own. He might get barred from the group, an injustice from his perspective, sweet salvation from ours.

I could, I tell myself, get to know this guy, maybe even influence the emergence of some social conscience, but I’m planning on being out of town next week. Scheduling’s difficult. The deadly inconvenience prevents me from even attempting from saving this wayward soul. Who made me the judge of civil engagement, anyway? Who made him the likely criminal suspect? I will probably take him up on his offer of a cup of coffee, though I don’t drink coffee and could care less about his genuine antique Italian espresso machine. I wonder what’s ticking inside him. I wonder what kicks up inside me when he starts ticking so offensively.

We are none of us very natively compatible. There is no norm. We peck at each other, seeking order to satisfy ourselves. A genuine fool’s mission. Engagement under these conditions seems to diverge from any average. Tougher underbellies sometimes help, but then there’s an act so outrageous, so previously unthinkable, that no armor deflects the sword. The attacker dies in the assault leaving me nobody to wreak vengeance upon. The cycle perpetuates itself, or seems to.

Who among us ever first sees that they might be the pattern-breaker? Am I ever that curiously anointed one? Do I want to go speak with the troll or talk to the surviving representative of the outrageous opposition? Do I just eye-for-an-eye, hoping the other guy, not me, will go blind in the battle? Where lies the edge of awful accommodation? Where lies the beginning of a trending difference tomorrow? I don’t know the answer to anything.

I know this morning, rising with promise, not a cloud in the sky, blizzard warning still two full days away. My stale bread’s gone, gobbled up by wild birds clever enough to tame me. I will never be able to tame them in return. The beauty of every dawn drags that perfect score up over the Eastern horizon: Love/Love. I’ll have to wait until the end of the day to learn how this day degrades or improves this perfect beginning.

©2015 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved









Tags: ,

blog comments powered by Disqus

Good For A Goose





PureSchmaltz Archive Search


November 2024
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
© 2006-2024 by David A. Schmaltz all rights reserved

Made in RapidWeaver