dianahooley Out West

Remember the Life You Led in the 1990’s?

One of my cherished morning rituals, when I couldn’t get my kids out of bed to go to school, was to blast Guns N’ Rose’s “Welcome to the Jungle” throughout the house. I thought of that ritual this morning as I poured a cup a black coffee and sat quietly in the big leather chair to watch the sun rise.  My solitude was only disturbed by the sound of wrens and robins waking up on the pear tree outside.  It was a thoughtful morning, the kind I like now that I’m older, so I took a sip of coffee and picked up a book sitting next to my cup.  I was struck by the first sentence I read: “There are many lifetimes, in a lifetime.”

Was this some sort of pitch for reincarnation, I wondered?  Then I reread the sentence and glanced up to watch the sun’s rays inch over the canyon wall.  Because I’d been thinking about my children, I considered that lifetime, the one I’d led in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  I was rushed and harried, always managing meals, clothing, appointments, and celebrations.  But I was young.  I had thick dark hair and firm, line-less skin.

I could do push-ups, and climb mountains, and eat a plate of spicy spaghetti without a hint of acid indigestion.

That lifetime, the 1990’s, was truly another lifetime.  The internet had not been invented yet so we spent time on telephones, looking up information in encyclopedias, and watching VHS videotapes we rented from Blockbuster Video.  We didn’t just look different back then, we were different, even at the cellular level.  According to Stanford University, the human body replaces itself with new cells every seven to ten years.

More importantly, we were not the same people emotionally and intellectually in that 1990 lifetime. Which is a good thing, considering some of the misses (mis-takes, mis-haps, and mis-steps) I made back then.  Like that time I drank too much at a faculty Christmas party.  I lost my balance and tossed a plate of chicken wings down the front of some glittery dress next to me.  I don’t like loud parties anymore, and I care even less about drinking too much.

Sometimes we forget that though our past belongs to us, we do not belong to our past.  We live many lifetimes in a lifetime.  That was then, this is now.  We do not have to be defined by our crazy youth, frustrated parenthood, or career-driven mid-life. Those were all our identities at one time, but I live now, in this space—and it’s different.

In fact, if we don’t move on to the next lifetime, we’ll inevitably run into trouble.

For example, a friend of mine was traveling through Kalispell, Montana with her husband when she decided to look up an old boyfriend who lived there.  She said it’d been nearly twenty years since she’d last seen this fellow.  They decided to have lunch together at a downtown restaurant, my friend and her husband, and her old beau and his newly pregnant wife.  She said it was so great to see her ex.  She laughed and talked to him in that old, familiar way.  She looked at her former boyfriend and said, “Oh, you were always such a renegade!”  Then suddenly the boyfriend moved closer to his wife and picked up her hand to hold it. “Am I a renegade honey?” he asked his wife.  My friend said she felt so embarrassed.  She’d temporarily lost herself in another lifetime when she’d had a relationship with this man.

I saw a movie in about 1990, a videotape I must have rented from Blockbuster.  The Mission starred that handsome young actor Robert De Niro.  De Niro played a conquistador in the 1600’s who’d killed his brother in a jealous rage.  Broken with shame and regret, De Niro’s conquistador turned to the church for help. He made a harrowing trek up the face of a cliff to a church mission at the top.  His journey up the cliff was made infinitely more dangerous because the conquistador insisted on carrying his armor, and the sword he killed his brother with, on his back.  When he finally clawed his way over the rim of the precipice, a priest came and cut away his heavy back pack.

I’ll never forget that scene, De Niro as the conquistador, laughing into the sky, free finally from the bonds of his past.  It’s a lesson for all of us.  We are fortunate to live many lifetimes in a lifetime.

 

 

 

Image Credit:  1990 Diana Hooley     Image Credit:  Women Rowing North by Mary Pipher     Image Credit:  The Mission

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Splendor in the Grass

It’s a spring evening, cool yet warm.  The grass in the yard is still slightly damp from the rain last night and there are small mud puddles in the drive way.  Watching the neighbor girl, Mylie, and her little sister running barefoot across their yard I think, spring is a great time of year to be a kid.

“Hey!” I holler across to them.  “Don’t you guys know you can only go barefoot on months that don’t have the letter “R” in their name?  What month is this?”

“April! It’s April!” they giggle and jump up and down on cold, red feet. “But it’s almost May and May doesn’t have an “R” in it,” says the shy little sister (I can’t remember her name).

I watch them awhile sitting on our porch step.  The lilac bush next to the house is breaking into bloom and there’s a whiff of perfume in the air.  What game are they playing now?  Mylie’s trying to hit her sister with a big ball.  They must be playing dodge ball. I think about all the ball games my brothers and I played growing up (besides softball). We played “kick the can” using a ball instead of a can, and ball tag, where you didn’t touch your opponent to tag them but instead hit them with a ball.  We also played “cigarette” tag (it was the smokin’ 60’s after all).  If you squatted down quick enough and named a brand of cigarettes, you were safe.  Amazingly, we knew all the brands of cigarettes:  Marlboro, Winston, Pall Mall.  We had a harder time playing “car” tag.  After Ford and Chevy, we had to resort to generic vehicle names like “pick-up” and “station wagon.”

Mylie’s little sister stops suddenly at the side walk edge, and does a cart wheel.  Ah. I enjoy seeing how gracefully she executes her cartwheel, lithe arms and legs rotating in a perfect half circle.  I used to do cartwheels when I was a kid—and round-offs, which were half cart wheels and half flips.

Could I do a cartwheel now?  If I physically survived the attempt, I can see myself swinging through the air, all hips and stomach.  It’s not a pretty picture, and I find myself laughing even considering it.

The neighbor girls begin to chase each other.  It used to be fun to run—when I was little.  Adult running is usually a morning jog, which ironically, we do for our health but end up hurting either our knees or our back.  A jog though, might garner us a small endorphin rush, something besides a martini to beat back the mid-afternoon blues.  Jogging is nothing compared to the absolute joy of running when you’re an eight-year-old.  At that age I never walked anywhere—I ran.  And lovely spring evenings were custom made for running and playing.  We didn’t stop until the last light of day was gone.  Then I’d throw open the screen door and fly into my mom’s kitchen, my nose dripping and my body all chilled from the night air.  Mom would say, “Shut the door! It’s getting cold outside!”  And I’d whine, “It’s hot in here, mom. I’m hungry.”

William Wordsworth, the early 19th century British poet, wrote many poems with childhood and nature as their theme.  He believed in reincarnation and thought that young children, being closer to the event of birth, were more aware of other existences, other lives before birth. As I watch Mylie and her little sister, I’m reminded of a particularly beautiful passage in one of Wordsworth’s poems.  A line in this passage became the title of an old movie, Splendor in the Grass:

“That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.  We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.”

Image credit:  Girl Running through Grass