Valentine 's Day

I feel a bit like an extraterrestrial each year on Valentine's Day. 

It was a fun day in school in first grade--and through fourth grade when I made a paper-and-cardboard cash register with a slot at the top in which to deposit our valentines and a drawer to pull them out for distribution on February 14. From there my memory goes blank. 

I don't believe I ever had a date on Valentine's Day. I guess I was not in love. Nor did I feel personal pressure, nor peer pressure, nor girl-friend pressure to pretend. While eventually Marney and I were indeed in love, my guess is that we were never in the same town on February 14 until after we got married. Perhaps our letters had an extra portion of romance that week. When we got married the day had no special meaning among the Guatemalans of our Peace Corps site.

Then came Little Rock, Boston, two daughters, graduate school, Martha's Vineyard--aware of the day, for sure, but never part of a peer culture that gave it emphasis. 

I remember smiling and puzzling when I read how important the day had become in Japan. 

In the late 70s we moved to Fort Collins. I believe it was more the decade than the place, but I found myself in a culture where what had been for me a day to be enjoyed mostly by kids had become a day celebrated with enthusiasm and obligations by adults. My first reaction was a wish for adults to get out of the way and let kids have the fun. Yet, I could not avoid some guilt induced by annual comments from friends that I was not romantic, that I was neglecting a romantic obligation. 

I had these thoughts and feelings on February 14. Now, two days later, they are slipping away fast enough that I must capture them before they disappear.  Also, I do believe I must be grateful that there is a day each year that becomes a ceremony  to remind me of at least one item in my satchel of inadequacies.




(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins

Sick Had a Warm Side

Being the sick one at 1469 Van Buren had its warm side. 

Special attention.

I believe none of us doubted that we were loved by our mother, Leona. But, being sick in bed in a family of five kids meant Mom could and would make me the focus of her love and attention. I remember when I was very small that she would climb onto the bed with me and hold me while I tried to go to sleep. Lonely, isolated in an upstairs bedroom, jealous for the normal family life heard from below, I could expect her frequent visits to see how I was doing, perhaps take my temperature, apply a damp cloth to my forehead, give me my Aspirin and a glass of water. The whole family treated the sick one in the family with care and concern. It helped me to have a room right next to the only bathroom. Everyone venturing that way would poke a head in the doorway and ask how I was doing.  Unspoken, something better than an armistice reigned in that province of sibling rivalry.

Special Meals.

If well enough, we made it downstairs for meals. But, there was an incentive to be not quite well enough. That meant homemade chicken soup and other items on the sick-day menu would be carried up the stairs to me, usually by one of my sisters, where it tasted better and more healing than downstairs.

Malted Milk and Ginger Ale.

My dad believed that Ginger Ale was good medicine for the flu. We never kept soft drinks in the house except for special occasions, and being sick was a special occasion that usually found somebody in the family going down to the “milk store” to get a couple of bottles for the sick one. Ginger Ale was never a favorite of mine. It tasted a bit like medicine. However, I loved the flavor when I was sick because I knew that I was the only one in the household experiencing the luxury of a healing soft drink.

A malted milk (we never added the word “shake”) was another order of magnitude special. My dad also felt this ice-cream treat was good medicine—knowing as well that it was a delicious treat. Less often, of course, than chicken soup, not quite as often as Ginger Ale, Dad would go himself to a soda fountain and bring back the malted milk chosen by the patient--for me, that was usually butterscotch. Again, nobody else in the family got one. And I absolutely loved malted milks.

I need not describe the worst of having the flu or being otherwise under the weather, but, yes, I have fond memories of being sick at 1469 Van Buren.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins

Prospects of Returning Home

Gardens of Pleasant Regret: 

on prospects of returning home, written on the airplane to home 

after believing I might have had a stroke 

during a solo visiting Kristin and family in Brussels 

I wish to see the garden,
the gardens—the tenth of an acre around my house—
hard surfaces I laid down,
soft earth I dug up,
the green,
the hues-floral,
successes after decades of error and trial,
the done, undone and yet to do,
a patch of lawn that will need cutting,
weeds that will have erupted,
and gifts from good seeds that dropped in.


I wish to smell the smell,
listen to squirrels, birds, and gate,
and I wish to walk with pleasure and companion
as I hear—with pleasant regret—
of what I missed in the days and evenings of my absence.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins 

My Habit of Observing Adults

“If I had only …” : I Disliked this Adult Lament. 

"If I had only ...," I know that either I heard this phrase and its ilk a lot when I was little or I heard it a few times and could not get it out of my mind. And I mean "little." My memory is of me sitting on the floor looking up to hear one adult visitor after another say it. 
It came mainly from visitors, though I probably heard my father say it a few times. My mother? I don't think so. I heard visiting adults make statements like: 
"If I had only bought that 100 acres across the road from … I'd be a rich man now. 
"If I had taken that job when I had the chance I'd be sitting pretty today." 
“If I had listened to him I wouldn't be in this pickle." 
It was always about something they should have done when they were younger because it would have made them richer, or happier, or famous, or whatever. 
Granted, the people who came into my house and made these statements were people who earned their meager livings from the sweat of their brow. They had reason to dream about what could have made life easier. However, I did not know much about that. What I did know is that I had to grow up, and I did not like the idea of growing up regretting the decisions I made along the way. 
Was it fear? I don’t know. I just know that the “if-I-had-only” statements bothered me enough to make a permanent impression. They bothered me enough that at some point when I was still a little kid, I silently vowed I would live so that I would not ever have to say, "if I had only ... ."

Even then I knew I could not control everything that would turn my decisions good or bad. I could not ensure that things would always work out. I could try to make good decisions, but when I made them I had to be willing to accept their consequences. I don't know how to write this in a way that does not sound pretentious--that I was grown up beyond my few years. I was not. I was just a kid who like most little kids could be fascinated by what towering adults would say. Yet, when it came to if-I-had-only statements, I knew I did not want to become the old me who would make kids uncomfortable with such talk. 
I believe I have done pretty well at keeping my vow. However, more important to me now--more fascinating to me now--is how I cannot forget this vow when I have to make a decision 
or find myself where Robert Frost's "two roads" diverge.

Often, 
perhaps too often, 
I tell my if-I-had-only story 
to others faced with with a difficult decision, 
or with seemingly minor decision that could alter life's path, 
or with a dream that looms hauntingly within reach.
I know I tell this story because I must tell it, not because they must hear it.

I Psychoanalyzed Old Ladies on My Way to the Communion Rail

An observation and amateur analysis brought me to the same conclusion as did listening to adult laments. It started later, because it could not happen until I turned seven and had my first communion. 
There was no particular order to communion at St. Columba Church. Each pew of people decided by nods of consensus when non-communicants would sit back and let communicants exit the pew and head to the communion rail. We always sat as a family about a third of the way from the front on the left hand side (Mary's side, Joseph's side was on the right). We would file out to the left putting us in the outside aisle headed to the altar. We would usually--but not always--return by the intermediate aisle, entering the pew from the right. My parents seldom went to communion in those early days; they did on Christmas and Easter. We kids all filed out of the pew each Sunday. 
I must have often sat near the outer aisle, because I remember often finding myself among several old ladies. There was a bit of jumble and a somewhat reverent scramble to get in line.  Would the old lady now standing near my pew let me into line ahead of her or behind her? Well, I learned there were two kinds of old ladies. There were those who smiled, seemed to enjoy my joining them, and gave me silent gestures to take my place in front of them. There were others with grim faces who made no eye contact and used their elbows and steps to make it clear that my place in line should be behind them. 
Puzzling over the difference I reverted to psychoanalysis and made a generalization. I concluded that the old ladies who smiled and let me take my place in front of them were happy with the lives they had lead. Those who elbowed me aside and kept their grim faces were disappointed—even angry—with the lives they had lead or had been forced to lead. How else could I explain the difference to myself? 

(I did not restrict my conclusion to old ladies. It was just that there were more of them going to communion than old men.)

This is a story I have told less often, perhaps because I recall it less often. No matter; its effect was to reinforce my resolution to avoid the “If-I-had-only” traps in life. I did not want to grow old with a grim face, elbowing aside kids on their way to communion or anywhere else.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins 

1 

1962: Flunking into Depression—and Out

This story was not going to be a story. I had just tossed the poem below into my file of things that might someday fit among my autobiographical sketches. The poem is about a descent into and escape from depression. It is a fairly simple story because it tells of a personal journey that took place over thirty hours, less than two days, in 1962. I remembered the journey well enough to write it down in 1967 when Marney flirted with depression from our frustrations in getting down to work at the beginning of our Peace Corps assignment in Guatemala. I wanted my own experience to help her. I doubt it did; events took over; we were soon down to work. I see now that this experience is an important piece in the story not only of my emotional development, but also intellectual and artistic. At most, the poem hints at the larger story. Thus, this extended introduction is more important as an autobiographical sketch than is the poem. Where do I start?

I flunked English,
yes,
my first quarter at Dartmouth College.
Humbled-but-hopeful, I traveled 1400 miles by train home for Christmas break.
Second quarter
I flunked my second quarter of Calculus.
Devastated, I began the long train ride home that five years later produced the poem below.


Perhaps I will recall and write sketches that tell more of how I gradually discovered how my brain works, and, therefrom, discovered who I am. For now, I tell you that the low point came in 1963 somewhere along my solo train journey from White River Junction, Vermont to St. Paul, Minnesota. The journey started at the office door of my Calculus professor where I saw I had failed his class. I had achieved a passing grade in only four of the six college courses I had taken.

I do not remember by what means I went directly from his office to the railroad station in White River Junction. There I boarded a Boston-and-Maine train and began my thirty-hour railroad journey that continued over night on the New York Central, and finished on the Northern Pacific. I was headed home for spring break. From White River Junction I transferred in Springfield, Massachusetts to the New York Central which took me through Albany, New York to Chicago, Illinois. After a walk across the Chicago “Loop” from LaSalle-Street Station to Union Station I boarded the Northern Pacific train that took me to Union Station, St. Paul.

Twelve weeks earlier, arriving home for Christmas break with my first failed class heavy on my heart, I had lingered in the frigid air of the St. Paul morning. Not quite ready to put myself and my story onto the city bus that would take me to family and home, I walked around for half an hour waiting for the department stores to open. I wanted an emotional massage from the hustle, bustle and sparkle of Christmas. I remember the soothing distraction I got walking (for the first time) through a doorless heated entry into the sparkles and smiles of Christmas. I did nothing more than ride escalators up and down--first in one large department store, then the other. Then, somewhat fortified and comforted, I boarded the bus for the short ride from downtown to home.

The season of this second journey in failure offered no such massage. Nor did I seek one. I wanted only to get the difficult task over: tell my proud parents and high-performing sisters of my latest failure. I had by journey's end come to peace with my failure. I was prepared to return to Dartmouth and enjoy what could be my last weeks in this still-exotic place far from home. I knew that during this visit I could offer my family only disappointment, and that they knew they could do little to ease my pain and theirs. I boarded the Hamline-Cherokee bus at 7th and Wabasha., got off at Minnehaha and Pascal into a week of blur I scarcely remember. I know I felt resigned to my fate and confident I had found something in myself (a vague something) during the train ride. I also knew I had to test that something back at Dartmouth. I felt prepared for both both worst and best outcomes in the next academic quarter. Spring break could be no more than a calm before my test. I can now say I tested the words of this poem well before I wrote them. I, the tester, give them a passing grade.


Finally, below, “the poem below”:

Depression

I get way up
I can go way down
in all aspects of life
and in almost all
I can go with others
or cling to others
be pushed by others
or pulled by others
tromped by others
stifled by others
encouraged by others
or exalted by others.
But when I go way down
in the aspect of inside outedness
when vacuum has sucked my energy
from the top of my brain
down through a taut throat
past a heart that just beats
past lungs that just breathe
sinking lower
when it's impossible to sink lower
when I don't give a damn
to be pushed
pulled
encouraged
or exalted by others
my hands with fingers groping in
rather than out
are incapable of clinging.
I don't care if I'm stifled by others
or tromped by others.
I can't go with others
because there are no others.
There is only self
a sunken self
a sinking self
a self traveling alone
a self which
try as it may
cannot sink beyond itself.
The further I sink
the smaller the prison.
So I begin to swell
in claustrophobic hate of self.
I want out.
I know there's a way
but I can't find it.
There are echoes of suggestion from all sides
but the outside world is now too distant
too distant to be real.
I'm searching for a thought
for that's all I have left
a thought that can open up the way.
Open up.
Up! Open up!
Then a fuzzy coolness enters my raging hate.
Whom do I hate?
Self
of course
self.
But who is self?
It is the self of now?
I was all right until all this sinking began.
Who was doing the sucking that caused the vacuum?
Who turned me inside out?
Who was kicking whom?
Who was making who suffer?
Who is suffering?
Who else is suffering?
Who the hell else is suffering?
Those echoes are becoming less distant.
He is real; so is she;
and they;
thank you sir; yes mam; excuse me; 'd love to.
There are echoes from the inside now
but they are too distant to be real.
Ahh! a deep breath
a heart beating with vitality
a smooth unnoticed swallow
too distant to be real
too distant to be heard.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © http://komivesianpoetics.blogspot.com/2007/11/depression.html1994 :: Depression :: ,0x06

Departing Child

December 31, 1966: He joined another to form a new family.
He left this note in hands of the two who formed his family
on an earlier day.

When I try to thank two people
who have given life and self
to my life and self,
what do I thank you for?

The nightly noisy dinner table,
where problems large and small
were settled by loudness of voice
and strength of numbers.
The pay-day ice cream.
The childhood freedom
to cross streets, hike to parks, to get lost.
The punishment of misdeeds only immediately after the act.
Your support for each other.
These have been important;
thank you.

Thank you for your self respect;
You show me the importance of being me.
Thank you for living to the ideals of a child,
for your life of purpose and direction.
But, above all,
thank you for being human,
for confessing to human frailty,
for measuring what you are from what you do.
You show me how to love as well as measure.

You have given me a life of love,
success,
household riots,
tears,
error,
encouragement,
Christmas and Halloween.

I tried to paint your white house black
--your green door white.

Thank you,
I am happy.

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2008 :: Thanks from a Departing Child :: ,0x05
.
.
Here is a  LINK directly to this same poem at Bob Komives Poetry, and indirectly to more poetry and other outpourings.

Yes, Yes I Was

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 2017 :: 1708

A Comfortable Place

exotic
comfortable
familiar
strange

These common streets seemed once uncommon.
These common folk were once exotic folk.
To them it is home,
has always been home--
          rarely beyond its boundaries,
          never beyond its language.
To me it was far,
farther from home than I had been;
my first time out of the Americas,
my first time in Europe;
and this was Central Europe,
Hungary, near Austria.

Here I found houses with no front door,
addresses that ran upward on one side of the street
ran strangely downward on the other.

In this common cemetery
I watched clusters of people
arrange a sea of flowers by day,
light a sea of candles by night.

Here I stumbled upon a palace
where Joseph Haydn had composed
and directed his music.

At this humble store I bought good wine
at less than the cost of coca-cola.

Here I saw headscarved old ladies on large bicycles;
walked by grassless front yards and back yards--
          filled with fruit and vegetables,
          flowers and raked earth;
met old Russian trucks loaded with sugar beets;
got passed by horse-drawn wagons of manure;
picked up fallen pecan nuts with a gypsy.

At this gate I was greeted,
felt discomfort,
gave my first kisses to a grown man's cheek.

Here, now,
for yet another visit,
in a place that will never be home,
in a place that is ever more familiar,
much is common among the once exotic.

Again I am here, but why?
They are dying;
they are dying who bind me to this place.
They are dying,
and younger bonds seem not to tie.

I came a decade ago
and found ancestor strangers buried here.
I have come again and again to visit new friends
among found relatives who live here.
When I come back once more (as I must),
I will find nothing exotic
but much that will be strange.
As I walk past familiar houses
to the familiar graves of ancestors
I will happen upon graves of friends
and find a comfortable place to mourn.

Bob Komives  ::  Fort Collins © 2004 :: Comfortable Place :: 0401 

Shirt-Off-My-Back story

08/25/15 

I go in to pick up the pizza I will enjoy with my friend at his house.

"$27.92" says she; "l like your shirt."

(20-year-old chambray--sleeves modified to 3/4 length due to wear).

"I'll sell it to you for 27.92," say I.

"Are you serious?" asks she.

"Yes. Are YOU serious?" ask I.


I walk out with a free pizza wearing my 50s-looking white under-shirt.

(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins