Hi. This is Ginger Johnson and you’re listening to Past Perfect: A Podcast.
I’ve been busy planning something that has needed to remain on the low-down until the details were ironed out. During this time, my thoughts have very much been in England, specifically in Oxford. So if you’re in a forgiving state of mind, I hope you’ll forgive me for going back to the beginning of March for the first segment. It has much to do with what I’ve been up to.
March 4, 2014
Each spring, your mind shifts to Italy, to Roman skies, to marble mosaics, to churches and monuments. You itch to fly away, to see something exotic, to walk upon ancient roads, to breathe in air that has wound its way in and out of spaces for millenia. You check airfares. You check vacation schedules. You think in Italian, in Spanish, in the words of any other language you can conjure up, though not much remains of anything but English.
When you were thirteen, your grandparents took your sister and you to England for a summer. It was a celebration of their 40th wedding anniversary, and they let you join in. They rented a flat in Surbiton, Surrey, the upstairs of a beautiful house. It seemed palatial to you, coming from your 900 square foot post-WWII urban home. You lived upstairs from a single mother and her three boys, who must have thought you were terribly American. You suppose you were.
You navigated London and its surrounds via bus, tube, train, and foot. You don't remember many specifics about that summer other than it was formative for you. That summer indelibly printed onto the landscape of your memory the call of place. You visited cathedrals and castles, ships and museums, and within those places you encountered stories, histories, natural and man-made beauty, and traditions that all came together in a way that called to your heart.
Since that time, you spent a semester in Siena, Italy, a month backpacking through Europe with your sister, ten days on another study abroad in the Lake District and London, a week in Rome, a week in Oxford, six weeks in Seoul, South Korea, and a week each in Istanbul and Greece.
And each spring, you crave more places, more possibilities, more stories. Some springs, you get to plan an adventure. Most springs, you settle for an adventure in your backyard. But that's ok. The sky is impossibly blue today, the maple trees are tapped, and there is magic in the woods.
March 15, 2018
Each morning, you stand by the window watching your boys until they're on the bus or picked up. You watch them leave your circle of safety and hope for the best. You can't know what that day will bring. Nothing, maybe. Or maybe a bomb threat. Maybe a math test. Maybe a lockdown drill. Or maybe a real lockdown.
But on this day, there is something different.
A rally. A walk-out. A demonstration.
Your oldest son asked if you'd call to have him dismissed and bring him downtown to attend the demonstration. You want your voice to be heard, and even more, you want your son's voice to be heard, so you call the school, you pick him up, you drive downtown.
You don't know what to expect, but the reality makes you weepy. A crowd of teenagers, many carrying hand-drawn signs stand gathered in front of the church, chanting. Adults congregate around the edges. A band plays, keeping time for the chants. Horns honk as their drivers show support. One man in a truck wags his finger in dissent at them. Local politicians chat with the group.
You chant and cheer until your throat hurts, even though you realize that you're the only adult in that part of the crowd standing with the kids doing so. You're enveloped in the courage of these kids. You wish you could squeeze them all, imbue them with strength and with courage, with hope and with love. Instead, you walk over to the coffee shop and buy as many hot chocolates as you can carry in two trays.
"Whipped cream?" the barista asks.
"Yes," you say.
You load up the trays and hope you don't slip on the snow outside. When you make it back to the crowd, you worry that no one will want any--after all, you're a stranger, even if your intentions are good.
"Hot chocolate?" you ask, and before you know it, the cups are received with gratitude and delight, and the trays are emptied. Of course. Teenagers. March in New Hampshire. It's cold and many of them are not dressed for the weather.
A woman drives by, honking her horn and blowing kisses.
Steady on, my friends. We're behind you all the way.
The Murky Middle
March 29, 2011
She realized today that she very well might be in the middle of her life. Not the mid-life crisis middle--just the middle. One-half. The mid-point. The watershed.
The thought makes her pause. She calculates quickly, numbers flying through her mind.
Could she have already passed it? What if she was already on the other side of the hill? If she already passed it, what had she been doing? Was it something important? What if she had passed her mid-point doing something mundane like laundry? Or filing her nails? Filing her bills? Making spinach ravioli? At what point was she halfway through? Last week? Or last month? She knows that there's no answer here, that no one knows the length of her days, but still. The thought that she's already passed the mid-point stays with her.
If the average life expectancy is 78, she's already there. But maybe she comes from hearty stock. Maybe she's got good long genes in her. Heaven knows, she didn't get good long legs from her genes.
She decides to look up average life expectancy for women now, because 78 seems young still. Lo and behold, Google give her something better: a life expectancy calculator! Answer questions about habits, nutrition, family illnesses, etc, and out pops a number, the number you will reach before you need to start thinking about those pearly gates.
It's too tantalizing. The disclaimer says it only takes about 10 minutes. She can't resist. It's like shaking the magic 8 ball and seeing her future: "Outlook good."
So she answers the questions. No cigarettes, no drinking, good diet, yes exercise, blood pressure low, can't remember HDL levels, sunscreen mostly, sleep not so good, but hey, we all have room for improvement, don't we? On and on, she answers questions, and before she knows it, the test is over, and the number she receives is a number she often saw on her report card in high school. Does one's high school average correlate with life expectancy? Hm. Good thing she was on the honor roll.
She does the math again, and a stupid brand of relief comes over her. She hasn't reached the mid-point yet. Theoretically, of course. She still has years--nearly a decade--to plan something profound to mark that day, but whenever that day comes, she hopes she'll be surrounded by her boys: the Gingerbread Man and the gingerbread boys; family and friends near and far, all laughing and eating, singing and dancing, sure in the knowledge that there is more yet to come.
From my quiet office to your ears, wishing you impossibly blue skies, safety, and longevity. Until next time, be well and let your light shine.
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