Love Is Elemental

                                                        If I don't love you
                                                       Grits ain't groceries
                                                       Eggs ain't poultry
                                                      And Mona Lisa was a man
                                                                               Blues Lyric


     Two of our dearest friends are getting married. We are watching the wedding preparations with eager anticipation -- from a comfortable distance.
     Perhaps some day the lords of irony will explain why weddings may be a test of mettle. Who should be invited? Who will understand that not everyone can be? Will a thousand details fall into place? If they don't, what is Plan B?
     Meanwhile, out of earshot but known full well to the couple, friends take it upon themselves to meddle vicariously. Do they "approve"?  Did the couple make an impulsive decision? Are the  particulars of the ceremony appealing? Is it scheduled  too soon? Not soon enough?
     At our house, "approval" of this wedding is hearty and heartfelt.  We have watched these two with fingers crossed. We thought they were right for each other.
     They reached their  decision about that in their own time and way. They have been in  a relationship for several years, and have lived together for several of those. They have worked at learning how to be good for and to each other. They have not rushed or jumped to their conclusion. In my view they have built, piece by careful piece, a model of loving commitment.
     Some would argue that it's not a valid model, because both partners in the relationship are men.  This prejudice, I hope, is on its way to being erased from the public norms of our country. Above the personal and private detail of their gender, the marriage our friends are building fits every value held by healthy societies.
     They will have to weather yet awhile the pandering of some politicians to zealous factions. (Most recently, the Trump administration has stacked a so-called human rights commission with anti-gay activists. Of course the Trump administration befouls everything it touches, but others have  also been willing to exploit innocent American citizens, even from the White House. The second President Bush abased himself with a pose of support for an anti-gay constitutional amendment that he knew could never pass.)
    This brand of cold-hearted cynicism will not prevail in the long term against the larger public's rapid embrace of gay marriage. Across the arc of human years, love has transcended boundaries of age, race, religion, ethnicity and more. Now we come to gender, and once again to the life lesson that love validates itself beyond the power of others to ban.
     Or, as the blues-man might phrase it: Love is love. Period. And if that ain't so, grits ain't groceries.

Gravy And Virginity

     A friend has given me a special gift: A breakfast of biscuits, pork sausage and white country gravy. He knows my background among yeomen of small towns and countryside.  And so he knows that this breakfast was a meal of memories.
    Life for me now has become citified and gentrified, a far cry from times when breakfast gravy could be a staple. In this universe, people can make  a much wider variety of  lifestyle  choices.  They are vegetarians, paleo-dieters, yoga buffs, joggers. They eat at restaurants whose menus carry heart-healthy and gluten-free symbols. They go faithfully to the gym. They are wary of processed food.
      The outer me conforms. When in Rome. If social conversation turns to the latest advice from diet gurus, I want to be appropriately attentive. If someone mentions Downward Dog, I don't want to ask about pet training.
     But with it all my inner contrarian remains restless. And though he can be a grouch,  he does make a point from time to time.
     He reminds me that even in the realm of hard science, today's revealed truth may become tomorrow's revised theory.  At the mundane juncture where nutrition science meets daily life, he favors the example of the long-maligned egg, which has now returned to the better graces of the experts.
     As I listen to a friend declaiming upon a new exercise routine, my contrarian may whisper to me of Jim Fixx, the fitness pioneer of the '70s.
     Who died young.
     Of  a heart attack.
     While jogging.
     My contrarian sees elements of trend-mongering in these matters -- a certain desire to be among those In The Know, and a certain attitude toward those who aren't. He clucks over gluten-free regimens touted by people who don't really need them. And he dares me to enthuse widely over my gravy breakfast. He says I'd soon be admonished in the tones used by parents on children who didn't finish their spinach.
     He can safely afford to be a lifestyle Luddite. The outer me cannot, however.  In the real world, non-conformity -- like virginity -- is admired more in the abstract.  I prefer to get along. Which is to say, about the gravy breakfast, he's probably right. Anyhow, I don't mention it.
    I've learned to pronounce quinoa; to smile through Fitbit reports; to agree that I really should get around to trying yoga; to get along by going along. And for those times when my inner contrarian simply will not be ignored, I have a fallback resource. My friend knows a great place to get country ham biscuits.

Fear of Flying

             


            I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.
                                                                            Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

      I must fly this summer.  A special occasion requires it.
      I would as soon be beaten with a broom handle. On a scale of personal gratification this would rank with the experience of commercial air travel, and it would save money at the same time. But it would not, alas, get me to my destination. I must fly.
     I suppose that Saint-Exupery, the poet-aviator who found beauty and wonder in flying, would be disappointed with those of us who dread it. Statisticians surely are. They assert year after year that I am safer in an airplane than in my automobile.
     Statisticians may say things that are accurate but not useful.  They could tell you that the statistical chances of surviving Russian roulette are actually pretty good. However, the downside of this model is so bad that prudent people are not guided by it.
     In the matter of flying, the statisticians' implacable numbers cannot change certain facts. If my automobile's engine fails, I will coast to the side of the road and languish there until the tow truck arrives. If my airplane's engine fails, I will die a fiery death.
     The possibility of fiery death -- however small -- is a flaw in the quality of my travel experience.
      In earlier America, one form of community punishment required a miscreant to sit astride a fence rail. The rail was then hoisted to the shoulders of  men who carried it through town for the purpose of exposing the victim to public mockery. The victim's physical pain might be magnified through the attachment of weights to the ankles.
     Reference sources do not clearly say which person first imagined this form of torture. Nonetheless, we may reasonably wonder if a descendant designed the modern commercial airline seat.
     Occupancy of this perch does not require me to undergo public mockery.  It does require a certain willingness to grovel. I am not allowed to know, forthrightly, how much I must pay. (What's the fare to Keokuk? It depends.) Down to the last  minute, I cannot know if I'm actually going to get what I paid for. (Flight 911 has been delayed/canceled/rescheduled/moved to gate 4,792.)
      And under penalty of ejection or even arrest, I must reconcile to the possibility of being treated as a hostage.   
     Perhaps some future item of business school curriculum will explain how an entire industry came to a business model based on the essentials of mugging and extortion. Meanwhile, we must take things as they come.
      Thus I will arrive at this summer's occasion mildly addled by a mixture of anxiety, anger and resentment. People will inquire about my trip. I will offer a game smile and say something noncommittal.
     They will smile back in implicit understanding of what one travel expert notes: We define a successful airline flight in negatives. The plane was not late; luggage was not lost; there was no screaming infant two rows back; the passenger in the next seat was not a boor.
     The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus said that adversity contributes to learning.
     That has been true of me in the matter of flying.
     I've learned to suspect that statisticians don't actually do much flying themselves.