MentorBoom

             From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night Good Lord, deliver us!                                           Cornish Prayer

            “. . .mirrors reflect souls and evil beings have no souls, therefore no reflection.”                                                                                  Vampires.com

As usual, I didn’t hear it, but Pamela, the catlike sleeper, did.  “Did you hear something?” she asked as I swam up from the bottom of a big dream.  “No” I said and listened.  Not a sound, very quiet, no disturbance.  Within moments I was diving headlong back into the darkness of the dream from which I had emerged.

Before dawn I moved silently downstairs  and turned on the lamp with the fluorescent bulb.  Down the short hallway the house was very dimly lit, the skylights were not yet in operation.  At the half-bath door, I paused.  What had been the source of whatever bump in the night Pamela heard?  I slowly opened the door and turned on the light.  I was confused by the scene.

The big oval mirror above the sink, in the heavy metal frame, was lying face down on the counter.  Small stones from the candle holder were scattered in and about the basin.  I looked up and saw 2 big holes where the screws and anchors had pulled loose, allowing the whole mass to drop with the crash we’d dimly heard.  I quickly calculated that the repair task was beyond my meager capabilities.

Once before the oval frame with the beveled glass came crashing down.  That time the glass had shattered into shards we found for months afterwards, occasionally stuck in a toe.  Come to think of it, that broken mirror had foretold some upcoming rocky times; the portent was confirmed.

This time the glass did not break, I salvaged it whole and put it aside until I can get the holes patched and devise a way to keep it in place.  In the meantime, every time I wash my hands and look up, I feel like I’ve become a vampire–there’s no reflection.  Is this perhaps also a portent, but this time one of awakening?  Perhaps I’m being told, reflect.

Maybe I’m simply being guided by an obvious experience to take time to reflect for myself.  It is way past time to allow others to define me.  If I’m always depending on what I get back from the other to define who I am and how I should be, I’m captive.  Reflect, don’t prey on others like a vampire, needing their essence for sustenance.

Don’t burden anyone else with the need of their approval for my happiness.  That’s a recipe for unhappiness, frustration and a vicious pendulum ride that true relationship, relationship with myself or relationship with another, cannot long endure.

                 The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate.                                          Bern Williams

My granddad was a tinkerer.  He had every kind of plain and exotic tool and gadget you could imagine; he was in the industrial hardware business.  In his basement sunroom was a fully equipped wordworking shop where we would silently spend time together in the sawdust filled air.  This was a haven for me, the boy he called “Butch.”

“Peepin'” was my grandfather‘s parakeet (one in a long line of “Peepin’s” I came to find out).  The current Peepin was a constant presence on his shoulder.  The colorful, cocky critter was constantly mawking, squawking, and saying some word or other that seemed like an utterance from Delphi to me; I didn’t know birds could talk.

Among “Daddy Griffin’s” collection was a beautiful brass telescope, like one would see the Captain using from the deck of a British naval destroyer out searching for pirates 250 years ago.  It was with this classic instrument I learned that out beyond what I could see in the night sky lay a whole cosmos of stuff, infinitely far.

Of course, once one’s mind is opened to new possibility, like a talking bird (which I thought must be smarter than me) and a device that could show me unseen worlds, another bolt of awareness struck me.  It was in school that I first saw a microscope.  The pieces fit together so perfectly in that instant: there is a device to show me infinitely far, and also, a device that could show me what was infinitely near.

Here I was, a southern boy, the connecting point, by my own observation, of that which was beyond the moon and that which had been hidden in pond algae for all these years.  Infinitely near and infinitely far.

I look back on being Butch and loving my grandfather and his magic bird and I find such a richness of imagination that came from the richness of the physical environment at his house.  Early life positive stimulation makes for more engaged children, more synapses form.

I read this week that newer generation human DNA markers are changing (mutating?) at a rate 100 times that of our grandfathers, as the rush of information and adaptation needs bombard the race.  This might be so, and it holds great possibility, we hope, for the future.  But, the closeness, the environment and the unconditional love I found with my grandfather and his tortoise-paced DNA powerfully informed the rest of my life, and I give him thanks.

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.  Bernard Meltzer

I know, I know, 1960 is very ancient history, but I have this thing for remembrance days.  Having kept a journal now for over 35 years, I’ve developed this habit of annually recalling what happened on this day or that one.

My best friend was also Robert all during my early life.  We started staying over at each others’ homes when we were only 4 or 5 years old.  It’s like when we met each other we knew we’d been around before and were glad to have the companionship once again.

When he was 13 and I had already turned 14 his parents got “the call” parents dread above all, their beloved son and older brother had been killed in a car wreck during the night of March 1-2 while driving back to college with some friends.  Everyone else walked away and Jay was dead.

At school that morning, I was called out of class.  My teacher told me that Jay had died and that Robert wanted me to come be with him.  A light snow had started as I left school.  By the time I got to his house the snow had started to accumulate and it was cold.

We stayed downstairs instead of going to his room as we normally did.  In retrospect, his mother was probably sobbing upstairs.  We were quiet and I remember we knelt on the sofa and looked over the back at the beautiful blanket of snow just out the big window.

My emotional being expanded that day.  I wanted to reach out to my friend in some way I didn’t yet have the capacity to give, but maturity coursed through me for the first time that I remember.  My life changed as I learned about compassion and unconditional love.

I also learned a bit about the power of silence, that sometimes it’s okay to just be quiet. There’s often a greater healing quality in just being together than in all the words we could conjure.

The Answer Stone

This was written for my godson, Beau, when he was a young boy.

A young boy with blonde hair and sparkling eyes walked the shore of the pond looking for a frog to be his friend.  The blue of the sky was the color in his eyes as they darted here and there looking in vain for a jump, a splash, a croak that would tell him where his friend would be.

Suddenly the boy saw something bright lying half-buried like a precious treasure, in the muddy sand of the pond’s edge.  He bent down to pull it from the mud and as he rinsed it in the cool water he saw its color come free.

In his hand he held a smooth stone, clear in some places, murky in others but a beautiful color of purple, unlike any other rock around.  He forgot about frogs and stood still, turning the stone in his hand, watching how the sunlight played on its surface and feeling the velvety texture.

The boy ran to his mother and sister to show them the wonderful surprise he had discovered, all the while carefully holding the rock so it wouldn’t be lost.

His sister said it looked like the tooth of some ancient fish, broken off at the base and worn smooth everywhere else from eating so many little fish.  His mother thought it was the color of the first wildflowers of spring poking up through the thick, green grass. 

As they stood admiring the find an old man with gray hair and eyes the color of the stone appeared from the trees.  They were not afraid.

He greeted them and smiled as he saw what the boy was holding.  “You’ve found an answer stone” he said.  They didn’t understand.

“They are very rare and found only by very special people.  I’ve been around here a long time walking the shores of this pond and I’ve only seen a few people find them, and even fewer who put them to good use.  They only seem to work for the ones who actually find them and here is how they work. 

“You’ll keep it for a while and think it’s great.  You’ll show it to your friends but they won’t understand, so soon you’ll tire of it and it will find its way into a drawer, or a toy chest, or a fish bowl where it will be forgotten.

“But, one day when you’re older, you’ll have a problem, something you just can’t seem to work out or find an answer to and you’ll go looking for that stone.  You’ll find it where it has been all this time.

“Then you’ll go off by yourself, somewhere quiet and alone.  You’ll hold the stone in your fingers and close your eyes.  As you gently rub the stone and breathe deeply your problem will appear before you and soon, if you are quiet and at peace, your answer will come.

“The answer won’t be something that’s hard to do.  It won’t be complicated and it will feel right.  You might say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that before?’ and it will be your answer.  Then it’s up to you to do what the answer suggests; no one else can do it for you.”

The boy, his mother and his sister all looked down at the stone with amazement and when they looked back up the old man was gone.  When he looked back toward the water the boy saw a frog hopping into the lake.  He slipped the stone into his pocket and went running to catch up with his playmate.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.  The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Growing up in small town North Carolina during the height of the national cigarette smoking binge, cigarettes were everywhere.  My mother didn’t start smoking until she was 39.  For the first time in her adult life she had some disposable income and it was the cool thing to do.  She took the habit to her grave.

My father smoked cigars until the dentist said the white spots in his mouth and throat were from smoking those things.  He quit smoking them and started just chewing them.  He was never far from an appealing, chunk of wet brown tobacco that he’d stuff between his lips and teeth.  That habit cost him his life.

Both of my older siblings smoked, as did my best friend when he was about 14.  I quickly followed.  When I came back to the family business at 27, I was still smoking.  I didn’t hide it but I didn’t do it too publicly; I was ashamed of the stinking habit.  Dad and I talked about smoking and quitting one day when we were playing golf.  It was clear he wanted me to quit, but he didn’t press it.

He told me that when I’d had polio as a child of 7-8 years, he’d made a pact with God.  He prayed that if I would be delivered from crippling, deformity or a life in an iron lung, he would quit drinking and dedicate his life to one of service.  I was delivered and he kept his promise to his God.  He became a very sober and generous man.  For him giving up anything was a matter of moving toward something else.

I have repeatedly asked myself since that conversation nearly 40 years ago, What am I moving toward?  Most of the time my response has been muted and unsure.  Generally I form some vague thought about how I want things to be different, but rarely do I focus my clear, undivided intention on it.  Without that, it has no energy to grow. Simply moving away from something unwanted doesn’t cut it; we humans have to have something to move toward.

When I talk with a business owner client about retirement and succession I often say, “Unless you have something to move toward, leaving the business is not going to happen.”  As a friend of mine said about his father, “He retired to Scotch.”  Sorry, but that’s just not a sufficient ambition.

What do I want to move toward?  What will make me focus my intention in such a way as to actually move in the direction I know is best?  The trick is to move away from negative behavior and toward the more positive, while the consequences are not too severe.  It really is a matter of turning from the door that has closed, see the new door, open it and follow that less traveled road.