As a Child Did You Soothe the Troubled Brow

Poet and Political Pundit tries his hand at advice columnist

by Rick Hilber

Today, I want to talk about the person in part that I was once.  I had a parent who had rage and anger and disappointment in his manner.  I among my siblings, perhaps not the only one, knew how to soothe the troubled brow.  There was some power in that for me the son who could make his father proud, at least if I could do as he would have done when once he was young.  It’s indeed a convoluted and arguable relationship in which the child parents the adult whose feelings seem to have him, instead of he the adult having his feelings.

What this led to of course is disappointment.  In becoming independent of my father, I sorely disappointed him and even made a point of contesting his disposition on a number of moral issues that to him were key to the very fibre of society and its mores.  Eventually, of course, the tables were turned.  My own life turns down into depths I’d not imagined could be my fate, me who was so balanced, so true, and so deliberate in my self rule.

But it happened.  I had children.  The marriage went south on me, and I wallowed in the mud of personal failure and self-pity.  Then one day my sister Peggy who seemed to have a penchant for having the very temperament of my father, handed me a photograph.  Now, I have six sisters and so why it could not have been another less like my father, I do not know.  Well, unless his hand moved hers to both take the picture and be sure that I had a print for my very own. 

What was in that picture?  It was a picture of my daughter Susan and myself.  On my face, a forlorn expression and downcast eyes, and she standing over me her arm about me giving me a hug.  The impact of the photograph upon me was a slow growth of understanding.  I had become the parent comforted now in turn by the child.  I knew, somehow, I knew that it was depriving Susan of her role as child and allowing her into the role of parenting an adult.  I had no place to hide, and it had a profound effect seeing myself as my sister did looking through the finder lens of a camera back then in 1989 or there abouts.

Can’t say it led to immediate and profound growth.  But loving my daughter as I did, it would not become a rerun or a replay of one generation into the next.  I could do it differently than my father had done with me, I could do with Susan.  So what did I tell myself?  What did I have to tell myself to get through the wormhole into being her parent and her encourager?  The answer was counter-intuitive and against the grain of how I was raised.  Parent myself.

1.      What you do for yourself now builds your children ever stronger into adulthood. 

2.      We never know sometimes the work in front of us to do that we have postponed doing because .... because we wanted for ourselves children and family and wholeness.
      We wanted it all! 

3.      Well less is more.  The half empty glass on the kitchen counter is just a portal to air or it is a transpiration interjection zone in need of distillation of what it is to do with ourselves and our time as individuals.  You have always been there for them.  They need you to be there for you now.

4.      Your children do not want to take from you who were so generous with others, just not yourself.   Lean on a fellow adult, just not on your child.  Your child is not your caretaker, you are! 

5.      You think your children need you to figure this out, but that is a canard.  It's only an entry, not the real door into what you must do for yourself. 

6.      Some will call you selfish, but the worst is that inner voice telling you that.

7.      When with your child or grandchild, teach yourself to be present with them in the moment.  That's a joy that stays with every child.

8.      So now give that to yourself, your own inner child, that one inside of you that you must nurture and care for in the second invention of yourself that is you in the life after Dad or Mom, or marriage in many cases, not necessarily. 

9.      Good gawd, are w grandparents  This is easy street so far as relationships go.  If you feel burdened, stay away from them.  The worst that can happen is they will think it their job to make you feel better.  That may be what you did for a parent of yours.  Don't do it.  It robs a child of his or her childhood to care for a parent who is feeling so bad!

10.  You may lose you, the old you, the anxiety driven one who thinks it the most responsible person in the room.  Well, you were never responsible for the happiness of another human being, especially your parent, or later, your spouse.

11.  Now comes the big reward.  If you figure this out, one day when your adult child is sick and guilts you and wants you to make them feel better, you will say words to this effect (12 and 13):

12.  Stop.  Your happiness is your own.  What time you have on earth is yours to dispose of.  Invent yourself anew, take yourself in hand, and walk out that door, the one that says that you are defined by what's happened to you so far in life.

13.  If you have to, don’t come back until you have said these words to your son or daughter who is at a dead stop in life.  And say these words over each time you feel any self pity: "My time is my own.  What I do with it determines the quality of my life and its byproducts, potentially joy, happiness, and fulfillment."

On into Friday of his dying

On into Friday of his dying 

“Go, do what you must do.”
And I turned away with diverted eyes.
And I, going about my business,
Walk out through darkening dusk.
 
In the garden a guide to the blind
Who know not what they do,
I sound the smack of lips, and hear:
“Ah, betray me with a kiss.”

The noises of the guard,
Jangling scabbards, harnesses,
And sound of hooves,
Recede into the cloak of dark.
 
All is as it should be now.
The garden sounds return;
Then recede. One birdsong,
Knifelike, cuts thru the cloak.
  
©2016 by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber. All rights reserved.

Condoleeza Rice on Privilege Should Be Heard Out

Adult readers only for this one. If anyone considers me a racist for using the word "nigger" to define the behavior of Caucasians or those who believe themselves to be Caucasians, so be it. The truth will hurt, but I promise just a little, unless of course you are delusional. 

And so, the young Black American from the home of his or her lilly white parents goes off into America to the land of entitlement called Oz in which she or he learns that the color of her or his skin is the determinant of her or his personal success with admissions to schools, to jobs, to careers, to funding.

Maybe privileged Black lives do matter too! Didn't anyone bother to tell them that the lot in life of a Black American is to be burdened. Or, is it that you have to be a Black American raised by Black parents to feel the privilege of being White American? Hmmm.

Maybe Barack and Condoleeza having known privilege can now in comfort leave behind those burdened by their Blackness. I doubt that of course, or that either one thinks that way. But they have left behind countless White folks who never knew what an easy glide to greatness they had in life. Why? Because the lot of most children of privilege is just take it all for granted. That's a consequence of privilege, just not the inescapable consequence of it.

I praise Condoleeza for her self-directed living of her life, and Barack too. Two great Americans. I dare anyone to tell me otherwise that these two were never deluded by privilege. They had to overcome privilege just like other White folk (notice how singular that use of "White" is in this context).

Now about those of us White Folk who have this sense of aggrievement and entitlement that Blacks want our jobs and immigrants and women. Yes, we want our jobs first last and always, immigrants to hire as servants, and women regardless of skin color to do our bidding. Who is the nigger now? Isn't that Condoleeza's message on what it means to be aggrieved and entitled?

If you really listen to our First Lady, raised by her African American parents, I bet you dollars to donuts she will tell you that she was privileged to be raised in her parents's home, and to have had such stalwarts for examples of hard work and graciousness even in the worst of times and conditions.

Conclusion.  So to my fellow White Americans, do not be deluded by the privilege of the color of our skin. It should not be a door opener or a start to a relationship with a person of the opposite gender or proclivities. The color of one's skin should not be the determinant of access or success. So do not let it be. Thank you Condoleeza for setting us straight, those of us with ears to hear. Geez, I hate it when a Republican gets something right!  

The Parable of the Child in Time a Comfort

By Richard J. (Rick) Hilber

About nine months, a pregnant woman inseminated, houses and hosts a human fetus. She is the person, the family, the city, the county, the state, the U.S. of A., and the United Nations to this unborn human being, and the one true god.

The fetus is taking every nutrient, every molecule of oxygen, every good vibe into its being and converting what is good and necessary into its very life, really life itself. In some pregnancy some of the time, disorder occurs. Just often enough to instill hopefully a small quantum of fear in every virgin, and should, and a great deal larger quantum in every inseminating male.
There is a disruption, some infiltration, or some genetic string that is amiss. A troubled pregnancy becomes a fetus that may not have what it needs to ever reach the birth canal and its own separateness from its host.

The woman goes to her doctor who being disinterested (not the state, not the father, not the family), speaks for the pregnancy as to whether it can succeed. Will the fetus be born? What are the chances for the child that will be born? What will the quality of life of this child be like?
The woman feels like she has some information and an awareness of the consequences. In the dark of night, she goes to her knees and weeps. It is important that she do this, and to her that she not be comforted or coddled, or lied to, or told what to do.
She tells her husband and then her father that the fetus must be in her humble understanding aborted from her womb. Each tells her for the sake of society that if she does abort the fetus, he will disown her.

There are no winners here for a curse is on the fetus, the host, and the family that is riven by the disorder in the pregnancy and also in the host. The husband and father feel righteous, justified in setting limits on the wife and daughter that she can not set for herself apparently.

There is a failure of mutuality.  It is cold and disconcerting, even if it is not indifferent. God seems to be standing just to the right, behind her husband, and when she looks again, just to the left of her father’s shoulder.
 
The woman reflects again. She prays about the losses with which she is confronted. She goes to her spiritual adviser. The adviser tells her to visit the chapel and to beg for God’s mercy on her and her unborn child. She does this, says the words, and she feels arid and abandoned. She walks out of the chapel, and she collapses.

An aneurysm in the main artery to her womb has provided her the exit, the one with no exit. She miscarries there on the floor. She has her answer. Her prayer was answered? I don't know. What do you think?

Twenty-five years down the road now. She is holding her first grandchild, and she smiles warmly and cuddles the infant, and feels whole. God has indeed been merciful to her.
Feeling gratitude in her heart, she stays very present in the life of her grandchild, the only family member who sees double while doing so.

Age does that to us all, doesn’t it? We go into the room. We go down on our knees. We weep for what could have been. No one comforts us, and no one should. We either have resolve or we don’t, to live the life God gave us, or didn’t, and we just had what it takes to make a life for ourselves in a cold, indifferent universe.

©2015 by its author Richard J. (Rick) Hilber. All rights reserved.

A Spell of Winter, and A Scene for the Taking

By Richard J. (Rick) Hilber

A photographer who is an artist of similar talents lives in the farm country of the Red River of the North not far from Alvarado, Minnesota.  Her name is Therese Masters Jacobson.  As 2015 was winding down and 2016 was just getting under way, she and her husband Dale would make trips to visit Dale’s mother whose health was at risk, a trip of some distance. 

The farm roads and highways that took the couple for the visits must have been repetitious for them although winter travel in the Red River Valley of the North can turn treacherous with winds across the flat landscape that take even a dusting of snow off the fields and twirl and twist a blizzard of ice particles and snow into the sky just above the Earth.  This happens with much frequency without any regional weather forecasters to ward travelers off, encouraging them to stay home.  Ground blizzards just are, and then they are not.

But something else was going on this particular winter’s day in early January 2016.  In the car as usual on such a trip, the poet husband and his artist wife share the miles and the space whether either speaks or not. Today something is different, at least for Therese.
 
Was it the light of the sun on a near perfect winter morning?  Suddenly, the wife, urges her husband to pull the car over onto the roadside.  He does.  She powers the window down, and moves her cellphone into position to take a photograph of a setting.

Dale, the husband, is not surprized at all.  In this case it is no concession, no marital rebalancing of the relationship.  He is recently retired, and this is the very kind of spontaneity that makes time with one another new and special each day.

Even the untrained eye can make easy sense of scenery.  Dale the poet perhaps does not think he stands for that proposition, but today in this story he does.  He might be thinking of some poem with winter imagery for all we know.  Maybe “Snowbound” by John Greenleaf Whittier.

 Now a disruption.  Just a tad really of analysis which I hope does not ruin the scene for anyone listening or reading.  I mean only to practice with you the delight in talking one's way through a scene, a particular scene, the one of which Therese took a picture.
 
The story now is not so much about Therese and Dale however.  It’s about the composition that the photographer Therese has produced by capturing the scene for us, and sharing it with us too.
So here goes.

©2015 by Therese Masters Jacobson.  All rights reserved.  Used above by this essayist with permission.

The perception of depth in the photograph is created by distinct and distant shelter belts as if inked in on the blue sky were individual trees and then so distant more like shrubs of full grown trees. This result though is eased by the horizontal lines like the edge of the field and the distant horizon too so much so that it's like a graph of the elements in the photo is just behind the vertical and horizontal elements. These lines are certain for the eye which being so tied to meaning by practice, our brains hardly need to supply the information that makes sense of this particular scene (call that activity "feedback").

I believe the simplicity of the photograph is very much a product of its ease of interpretation by the viewer, at least at first. However, humans are social animals, and interest quickly settles on further details.

The story in the picture though is what calms the mind of the observer and that is what looks like a meandering path through the plant stalks. The problem with analysis of the photograph is too much angst.  For example, the path may actually provide some drainage in a wheel rut for all I know.  However, that is a "brain fart" in my humble opinion and for photo appreciation we benefit nothing by being too technical or expert (as an actual farmer might know exactly what the path into the depths of the field happens to be).

But for a moment let's go toward the expert's appreciation, the farmers and the hydrologists. The stalk stems have been left on the land to catch the snow and keep it where it can help plant growth in the spring instead of blowing off into the ditches and rapidly exiting the country into the feeder streams that feed the Red River of the North and flood farm lands of other folk down stream.

So an important story is being told in this picture. The shelter belts may have been planted already several generations back during the recovery years from the Great American Depression when soil conservation for the first time had the attention of the federal and state governments.  This particular field may be slated for being left fallow for a year of rest from being just crop land.

When the thaw is complete, its farmer may harrow his or her field.  The plant roots and  shortened stalks will be turned over into the field, thus returning to the soil needed ingredients for new plant growth.

A photograph like this one is really a shrine like emblem of our culture in the Red River of the North. We are quietly appreciative and worshipful of our Mother, the Earth.   The farmer and the city dweller share that commonality.  We are indeed one in the spirit of a place, which though rugged for its weather, we call home.

©2016 by Rick Hilber, poet of "Down the Highway, a Peace" (Friesen Press, 2015).  All rights reserved including the photographer's rights.

Greetings.  A new year finds me hard at work on two new books of poetry.  I have my hopes up that one or both will finish the year in print.  The reception for my first book of poetry entitled Down the Highway, a Peace has been warm if limited which for one mature as I am is expected.  I am reminded that more folks probably write poetry than would ever purchase a book of poems.  Still, we pursue our art and we do not obsess about things beyond our control.  The learning curve on promoting a book in print is an entirely different experience than crafting individual poems and the more daunting task of providing a home for them in a collection or sequence of poems.  Thank you, all of you, who encouraged me, came to a poetry reading, bought a book, or corresponded with me on individual poems.  Rick Hilber