Enough Said: In a world of banging pots, let there be silence

Published September 12. 2016 10:14AM

  

Because of one simple gesture today, the flash back importance of something I have been overlooking for quite some time, changed my day, and I hope, will become a routine staple. This something is what many of the world’s citizens have consciously, or unconsciously, dismissed.
The importance of quiet.

It’s been quite a hot and now loud summer for us. During this year’s record breaking heat waves, we went from a huge house with near silent whole house air-conditioning to a downsized domicile with beige and gray boxes spewing cool air from their perches on windowsills. I do not begrudge their constant whirring, because like fans on steroids, they kept us cool. But one morning I realized just how in tune I had become with the mechanical choir of comfort.

On that morning, the constant droning of the air conditioners, we had turned them off because the night before was cooler, was gone. The humming heartbeat of the house, the old furnace which heats our hot water, was resting between tasks. Early morning TV was off because I was tired of listening to the political pot of stew boil and burn. That’s when it happened, that which I have not heard since the power outage of Hurricane Sandy, the comfort of quiet.
We had power, everything simply went still.

It got my attention like someone dropped a book on a hardwood floor, like a door blew shut, like a dog bark at 2 a.m.

The unexpected silence felt strange at first, as if someone had jammed cotton in my ears. But soon it was nice, then wonderful and oddly familiar from another time of less gadgets.

 

After listening to birds calling to each other in our new backyard and the gentle swish of leaves tickling each other, I was astounded by the symphony of natural sound which was pleasing, not jarring and soothing, not depressing. Silence had never been so filled with sound.
As the member of a generation raised on forced quiet times, because our fuzzy three channel black and white TVs went off air at night and switched back on at 5 a.m. with the Farm Report, I recalled my early years. (We mature types reminisce about that kind of stuff from time to time. It makes us feel right in a world of wrong.)

Our days started with the rustling of newspapers at the breakfast table instead of selected experts and pretties in a box, blaring Chicken Little sky-falling stories accompanied with award winning background music. Now we are instantly informed about the calamities of populations half a world away, with soundtracks, as if they suffer in our own backyard. Actually, communication has shrunk the world, it is our backyard.

Don’t get me wrong, I like being informed, quickly and decisively. The first thing I do when the bottom falls out of another world situation, TV is where I turn, but in this cacophonic world of instant info I think it’s time to recall the reassurance of quiet.

TV isn’t the only mind mangler. Computers, cell phones, kid’s toy tablets and real ones, all kinds of devices we turn on, plug in and hang from our ears, fill our existence like low hanging bass and a treble clouds. So much has been written about the swiftness and ease of information, and the importance of social media and its presence in our lives, I won’t go prattling on because my rattle simply becomes another noise in a world of banging pots.

So it is that on that morning, and now almost every morning, I am going to grasp quiet and hold it tight. Unless it gets hot again and I have to turn ACs back on.

You can make noise by quietly reaching Carolynn at cp.enoughsaid@aol.com

Enough Said: I am Ms. Cliché, ask me, go ahead, ask me

Published August 15. 2016 9:21AM

 

I am a senior citizen with the potty mouth of a middle schooler and the backbone of Edith Bunker. I live in a body which looks like a melted candle and my mind remembers just enough to get by; although how would I know. Because I have been around the block a few times, and seldom mince words, a friend suggested I write an advice column for those who are sliding down the other side of hill everyone else says we are already over. After I picked myself up off the floor, and wiped the laughing tears from my cheeks, I thought, I’ll give it try.

Here’s the first letter written to me, by me. It’s the thought many oldies mull over in the middle of the night, (9 p.m.), when we wake up after dozing on the couch, get up to pee, go to bed and can’t get back to sleep.

Dear Ms. Cliché,
I never thought getting older would be like this. The aches and pains I can deal with and because I can’t change the past, and can’t predict the future, I have no regrets. Though I am grateful for my long marriage and wonderful family, something is missing. I’m not sure what it is and I don’t know where to find it. Can you help me?
Thank you,
Searching Senior

Dear Searching Senior,
Years ago, my husband burst through the kitchen door proclaiming that life had gone to hell in a tool box because he had lost his wallet. My husband is great at building things but for him to find anything smaller than a jigsaw is like a bloodhound with a sinus infection.
“When was the last time you actually used your wallet?” I asked him.
“There’s no money in it, I haven’t used it in a while,” he answered.
“Did you put your wallet in your pocket when you left for work?” I asked. He looked at me like I was his mother.
Snide man said, “I never drive without my driver’s license, AAA card, Home Depot charge and a picture of our wonderful family.”
The picture was a dorky Sears Studio portrait, the AAA card had expired and I didn’t know we had a Home Depot charge.
I searched the couches, laundry basket and dog bed. He went through his truck twice, which he uses for business and drives every day. No wallet.

 

My husband got a new driver’s license, we canceled the charge card and I gave him an updated dorkier photo. I filled his shiny new wallet with all the new necessaries, plus a crisp one dollar bill for good luck.
Three weeks later my husband burst through the kitchen door.
“You’re not going to believe this but I found my wallet,” he said.
In his hand, the old lump of leather, filled with all the bits and pieces of his life which he had carried with him for years.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the truck.”
“But you searched the truck,” I said. “Did it fall out of your pocket and get kicked under the seat, or lost among all the tools or buried under all the empty to-go cups?”
“It was on the dashboard right in front of me,” he said. “I must have taken it out of my back pocket because it was uncomfortable.”
Rare for me, I was speechless.
“Well, it is the same color of the dash.” he said.

So dear Searching Senior, though you know something is missing, and you’re not sure what it is, or where to find it, just remember, no matter how hard we look for what we believe is missing in our lives, sometimes that which we seek is right in front of us all the time.
I am as sure of that as I am that my husband still can’t find a thing.
Truly Yours,
Ms. Cliché

Carolynn Pianta says you can contact Ms. Cliché at cp.enoughsaid@aol.com

When walls talk, the heart listens

  

Published July 18. 2016 9:03AM 

 

I never thought moving would be so hard. Not the actual moving part, though the packing and hauling is a bit daunting, it’s the mental separation from here to there I’m finding difficult.

My husband and I have lived in this house for twelve years. That’s not a long time considering that my husband was born and raised in the house we moved from to come here. Because I knew this house would not be our ‘forever home’, too big but perfect for our family’s needs at the time, I held off loving the house and stepped back from connecting. I considered it simply a means by which to house and eventually send our family on their way. But a lot has happened here. Like they say about talking walls: if these walls spoke it would be of life passages as casual conversation, of love and heartbreak as music.

One high school graduation, two college graduations as well as two graduate school celebrations, engagement parties, two wedding showers and weddings. And, add to that two baby showers and family gatherings to honor the births of those two little girls who have graced our lives in a way I never even imagined.

On one excruciatingly sad day in January an after-funeral celebration of my mother-in-law’s life was held here. She was a woman who proved that angels do indeed walk this earth. That we had a place big enough to gather all who honored her was a privilege.

Because we had the largest house, holidays were often celebrated here by the entire family along with a myriad of friends. These memories, these pictures pressed into the intangible plaster of this home will always be here, until those of us who experienced this special place are gone.

 

In the past 12 years I have cleaned and packed up three homes of family members who have passed away. The whole sorting and packing process is very similar to what I am doing now with my own things. I remember going through my mother’s life-leftovers. My late father’s sweater hanging on a hook and his slippers perfectly aligned nearby on the floor by the back door were easy to understand, but old greeting cards and pieces of broken jewelry I never saw her wear, why save them?

Because I am hoping this will be our last move, I realize that my daughters will be the next people who will go through my stuff. The seemingly unimportant is wrapped in tissue and stored away in labeled Staples’ cardboard file boxes because, like the cards and broken jewelry, they evoke memories that are too precious to give away or throw away. I may never unpack some of those boxes, and that’s okay, because I know they are there to remind me of the time before now, became then.

Our closing is in about a month but because the physical aspect of moving is, for us mature types, a big deal, I started the process early. Living with only our day to day kitchen essentials has enlightened me to the idea that we have too much stuff. My husband’s task, as a cabinet maker and independent contractor, has him going through this process in his workshop. The monumental undertaking of that project far outweighs what I am doing
.
So, as I attend to what is required, the memories of this house flood my heart and mind each time I pick up and pack. This is a beautiful home which is getting a young family to paint its walls with new conversations. Our new house is a smaller version of what we have here, and though I will miss this house terribly, I am ecstatic to make new memories in a place, though vacant and silent for some time, speaks to me as my “forever home.”

Granny gets another chance with the grandkids

    Published July 05. 2016 9:15AM   

Two and half years ago a grandchild came into our lives and enriched our existence like nothing else. Not even having our own children filled our heart-pockets the way that little baby did. Now another little girl has been born into our family. I wondered, could my heart swell and my arms spread any wider for another little life changer. Without a doubt, certainly and of course.

 

Holding a newborn is like holding the fragility of the future in your arms. You have to be cautious, yet sure, tentative and confident.

Babies are dependent on us as parents, grandparents and as the villagers upon which life’s safe sailing is assured. Our own future depends on them. Loving, nurturing and providing safe and enriching lives for them is what gives us our end of passage through life meaning. Born of compassion and care, the likes of which we showered on them, showers us.

Within hours of her birth I held all 7lbs. 14ozs. of new life in my arms and wondered if she’ll live to a hundred. What will she experience, what will she see in a future I can’t even imagine. What will she become, how mindful will she be of this precious world we live in. That I live long enough for her to remember how much she is loved by me, and how I so looked forward to her being a part of our lives, tugs at my heart.

The profundity of loving a grandchild is, I think, based on the lack of time we get to share with them. Time to learn their hopes and dreams and time to help steer their life’s voyage towards fulfilling ports and prophecies is fleeting.

I was a lucky baby, my grandparents were a part of my life until my own children were born. The wisdom and influence of those old folks, who were younger than I am now, was tremendous. At home, I was the much-loved daughter of two people struggling just like everybody else to survive and thrive. At my grandparents, I was simply adored.

 

At home I was on a diet, at Nana’s the candy jar was on the coffee table and always full. Funny how knowing I could reach in and take candy anytime I wanted, meant I seldom did. At home, we had structure, had to be with two parents working in a time when mothers often stayed home. At Nana’s structure was based on five words: “Be a kid, have fun.” At home, yelling; at Nana’s, discussion. At home questions; at Nana’s feelings.

I was never punished by my grandparents, never yelled at by them. My behavior was based on the credo that I could be me, and consequences were drawn on the belief that if I misbehaved it was because I was simply a kid, unless I did something really wrong, which I never did. At their houses I could be who I was, not what my parents thought was best for me to be. Everyone in our immediate family, and in our village of extended family, friends and community set the right boundaries and offered unending opportunity. From Donna Reed to Gloria Steinem, was a great and exciting time for a young girl to grow up.

In the very scary world of today I am hoping and praying this new little girl will be able to sail through life with the wind of all of us at her back, pushing just enough for her journey to be fun, exciting and filled with the kind of enrichments which grow a good person. Our new little bundle of joy, and her toddler cousin, sustain the continued hope that this time, again, we got it right.
Welcome Penelope May Dubreuil. My Sweet P. The world awaits you.

There was a day when politics included common sense

Published May 27. 2016 4:17PM | Updated May 27. 2016 4:20PM

 

We got to leave school early, the vice president was coming to Roselle Park. He was not coming to stay or make a speech, he was driving through. We were allowed to join the crowd at the head of Chestnut and Westfield Avenue to see his motorcade pass by.

For an 11 year old to see the man a heartbeat from the White House was a big deal. For anyone, it was a big deal. This was before television tracked and assigned negative meanings to every move, word and gesture. This was before politics became a four letter word.

Businesses emptied, schools closed, the crowd was huge. That I got to stand on a car bumper, a hundred or so feet back, had me a head above the crowd. Filled with a sea of parents, teachers, shop owners, store clerks and kids, Chestnut Street was packed almost its entire length of three blocks. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Like a sound wave rolling over the crowd, “He’s coming, he’s coming” flowed to the back. And there, where the roads came together, flashing lights and a convertible with the top down. Sitting on the trunk, feet on the back seat, Richard and Pat Nixon. Mr. Nixon looked energized, Pat looked terrified.

They were only to drive by but by the grace of a traffic jam and more people up on the avenue, the convertible stopped. Mr. Nixon stood, steadied himself on the backseat, and spoke. With no microphone his voice was lost beyond the first few rows but we didn’t care, it was the vice president and his wife. It was the man running for president.

After a few minutes, Mr. Nixon sat, the motorcade moved on and we dispersed. That was the year a sweaty lip and gleaming forehead lost to a cool candidate with a face covered in make-up.

Years later when my youngest daughter was a little older than I was when Nixon came to town, Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey was running against Al Gore for the democratic presidential primary. He was coming to the Diner in Old Saybrook. Because I remembered the importance of my little-girl encounter with politics years before, my little girl and I had to go.

We were early, I picked my daughter up from school. He was late.
Among the few hundred who showed up we got a spot in front by the entrance stairs. Not an overly popular candidate at the time, I was surprised by how many people showed up.
Sen. Bradley stepped off his bus. Basketball Hall of Famer, he was easy to spot, a head above the crowd. As he approached us, I reached out my hand, we shook and then he reached for my daughter’s hand. They shook
.
“Hi honey,” he said as he climbed stairs and disappeared into the diner.

“He shook my hand, he called me honey,” she said beaming with pride.

For the rest of the day she said that phrase over and over again.

Bill Bradley lost the primary that year. Richard Nixon lost the year I saw him. But winning or losing or getting caught up in a hail of dirty tricks isn’t my point. Regardless of one’s opinions, and whether our perceptions of them were correct, it was a time when our leaders were either good or bad.

Back then “tricky” was a pretty awful way to describe a president or candidate, but now, evasive, divisive, heartless and clueless seem to be the new political adjectives. I’m not touting the value of the “good old days”, (there was a lot not good then too), and I’m not proselytizing any candidate, I’m pushing for common sense in a climate of political madness.
 

 

 

 

Without food and water, the little bird’s fate was inevitable

Published May 02. 2016 9:22AM

 

I was the first to hear him chirping high up in the rafters at work. His outside peeping sounds, mixing inside with canned music and business announcements, were nice. At first we didn’t see the little guy, we just heard him. Then I spotted him flying from I-beam to I-beam. Intermittently he’d land on fixtures and pause motionless, just long enough to look as if he were part of a display and for sale. It’s common to see a bird inside a big building like Home Depot and BJs, but in our store, unusual.

 

A couple of years ago we did have a baby seagull walk through the in-door, and after a stroll up and down a couple of aisles, he calmly walked right out the out-door. But on the day I discovered our little bird, trapped inside and chirping at us to help him, it was heartbreaking. I knew, without food and water he was going to die. I kept telling myself he’d find his way out somehow, even though I knew it was unlikely. The store got busy and after a long day, I went home for a three day weekend and forgot about the bird.

The following Monday I went to work with nothing but the tasks at hand on my mind and there in my department, perching proud on top of a sign, was the little bird. Astounded that he was still alive and appalled and feeling guilty that I had forgotten about him, I got a bowl of water and a bag of wheat-chips from the vending machine in the employee lounge. Placing them at the top of the highest empty fixture, I hoped he’d find them before the store opened in two hours and I’d have to put them away. The little guy was skittish, he never found the food and water.

Years ago, in an East Lyme apartment, when my husband and I removed the fire screen from our woodstove to clean out cold ashes, a bird flew into the room. Because the stove pipe vented directly to the outside it wasn’t unusual during warmer months for a bird to flutter down the pipe and end up staring at us from inside the screen.

We spent over an hour trying to catch the terrified bird. We tried everything from using a broom to shoo him toward the door, to scooping with a long handled fish net. Finally I found a piece of decorative netting and tossed it like a Third World fishermen casting a net. Got ‘em.

The terrified little bird’s heart raced against my palms as I took him to the open slider by the deck. Triumphantly I opened my hands while gently tossing the scared little guy to freedom. He flapped up against the overhang of the deck and flew right back into the apartment. It took us another 15 minutes, and few more casts, to catch him again.

There would be no net casting for our little friend high in the rafters of the store. If he didn’t eat and drink we all knew he’d die. Once the store opened I removed the food and water. With a handful of crumbled chips I made a Hansel and Gretel crumb trail leading out the automatic in-and-out doors which we paused open. Customers were coming and going so for our little bird to find the food, and be lured outside by our cleverness, we figured it was pretty unlikely.

Ten minutes later I announced over the loud speakers to concerned customers and staff, “Elvis has left the building.”
Cheers echoed in the rafters.