Rainy Days and Mondays

Rainy Days and Mondays: A lyrical litany

Weather has a strange power over us.

Steven and I took a short walk in the rain. When we headed back to the car, I wondered what all my hurrying was about. 

What ever happened to the notion of the purposeful, romantic walk in the rain, one where people actually get wet? Is this an exclusive rite of very young, fools in love or  lovers in a Nicolas Sparks novel?

Perhaps it is true that rainy days (and Monday) always get us down.  But how can I claim I made it through the rain, if I don’ ever soak it in? Sure, I prefer sunshine on my shoulders, but there is something healing and humbling, and exhilarating about standing in the rain. All little kids know that.

I am not advising you rush out into an open field during a tornado, or stand under the tallest tree in a thunder and lightning storm or casually disregard a local hurricane emergency evacuation, but baby, the rain must fall.  So don't just stare out the window, get out there, let the rain fall over you sometime, and not just to see if there really is something, somewhere over the rainbow.

The sun will come out, tomorrow.  Enjoy the rain today, it washes the planet clean, and fills our lakes and streams and grows our food. It is one of the most powerful and paradoxically, most gentle sources of life.  

And always after the rain, here comes the sun.

NO, YOU CAN'T THROW ROCKS AT THAT OLD WOMAN

photo courtesy of
Abigail P. Gage

Several Saturdays back, Steven and I were strolling down the main roadway of Latimer Lakes Park, in Horn Lake, Mississippi. A sweet family walked past: a father and two daughters. The father exchanged greeting with us and we smiled at the little girls, who looked to be about 6 and 8 years-old. We were barely out of earshot when I heard one sister admonish the other, "No, you can't throw rocks at that old woman."

I howled.

That moment is certain to be a permanent addition to all the memories we have collected in public parks over the last three decades.

You could say that our "official" life together began in a state park. May 11, 1984, Steven, who had graduated the semester before, telephoned my dorm room from his apartment in Delaware (This was in the age before ubiquitous cell phones) and told me to be up at 5:30 AM. In the still darkness, he drove us out to Round Valley State Park in Lebanon, New Jersey.  When the sun came over the horizon, he asked me to marry him (I had a hunch that was what this was all about and could hardly contain myself through his speech about something-or-another-undying-love. Steven would say that I didn't contain myself).

Limestone Rock
Shades State Park. IN

Thus began our life-long love affair with national, state and local parks. In Shades State Park (Indiana), Steven picks up other people's trash; I identify wildflowers. We stop at over looks (Hawk Mountain) or on beach fronts (Galveston) and take in the view. In every state we find something somewhere to illicit a sense of gratitude for this beautiful planet.

photo by Moon Rhythm

Lums Pond, DE

Talking about this recently, we discovered we hadn't been to any of the big boys together: the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Yellowstone or Mount Rushmore. We seem to prefer exploring nature close by wherever we call home.

I suppose we'll eventually get to the big ones, but for now we're content to watch the mighty Mississippi roll pass, and hope the kids don't throw rocks at this old woman.


Oh, a little shout out to daughter Abigail who took me on an outdoor site-seeing expedition all over the big island of Hawaii.  She's an ace at planning trips here in the US and abroad, including our fall family trip to the Great Smokies.  I love you!

Great Smokie Mountains

Betting on Love

February 16, 1985
Colton Chapel
Lafayette College

Two Weeks.  That was the longest any of Steven's SAE Fraternity brothers were willing to bet on the staying power of his newest relationship.

As Steven likes to tell it, back then we were both students at Lafayette College and both on the Dean's List. Only, I was on the right one. And it was true we did have some interesting (and at times perplexing) run-ins with professors and administrators.

February 16, 2014
Methodist Hospital
Memphis, TN

In the local supermarket, one crisp autumn Saturday, Dr Pope, Chair of the Religion Department and ironically a Protestant, greeted us with,"Good Morning, Marianne" - look of astonishment- "What are you doing with him?"

There was also that time Steven and I took a walk about the quad, and Registrar Cyrus Fleck strolled past.  He glanced sideways, tipped his hat. "Good morning, Marianne."  Then stared straight ahead. "Mr. Gage."

I suppose we were an odd couple.  But I found something fundamentally good and lovable in Steven and he returned love for love.

November 2010
Germany

Truth be told, his love was deeper and stronger.  That's why, two blinks of the eye, four children, eight major moves, richer-poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, thirty years later we're still together.

Anyone care to hedge their bets on the next thirty?

Wine and Facebook

A simple Facebook post started it: continuing comments on how many bottles of wine this writer may or may not have in her wine closet.  Yes, closet.  Cellars are at a premium here on the Mississippi Delta.  The initial FB share had nothing to do with wine.  It was a Grammarly meme that read:

Dear Optimist, Pessimist, and Realist,

While you guys were busy arguing about the glass of water, I drank it!

Sincerely,

The Opportunist

(Don’t you just love how Grammarly always uses the

Oxford comma? But I digress...)

I posted the meme, but the whole how-many-bottles-of-wine-can-she possibly-own thing was started by my very own sister, who commented,”quite frankly, if you know Marianne Gage, it was not water in that glass.”  Patti followed her accusation with the ever ubiquitous “lol.” 

Well...let the FB-comment ruckus begin.

I certainly did not deny that, at the start of the holiday season, 60-some bottles of wine rested peacefully in the closet or that 59 (umm...better make that 57) currently remain.  I did not bother to tell the curious that at one time we had over 120 said bottles.

I do not blame myself for the attraction.  I blame my sister.  Not the one that posted the FB comment, but the other one.  The one in California. In 2009, we took a family trip out from Texas to see her.  That’s when Jacque took me on my first wine-tasting tour.  And I loved it.  Because, let me tell you, Texas is good at many things—mostly big things—but wine-making is not one of them (Italian food is another, but that story will have to wait).

When Steven and I moved to the scenic Finger Lakes region of New York State, it was wine-heaven. Finger Lakes (Wine Country) New York boasts over 100 wineries nestled on the graceful, rolling shorelines of the region’s four main lakes: Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka and Canandaigua. We honed our tasting skills and became amateur collectors. We even bought the Teaching Company’s Everyday Guide to Wine (but boy, if those people think $400 Italian reds are everyday, they are seriously mistaken).  We actually got to very few of the 100 wineries; our favorite was Anyela’s Vineyard just off Skaneateles Lake and a few miles from home.

But, alas, our stay in New York was short-lived and now here we are in the greater Memphis area where we mostly mix a little song in with the wine.

Cheers. 
And always remember: every box of raisins is a tragic story of grapes that could have been wine.

Football, The Rivalry and the Three Last Things

The Rivalry is a college football game played by two institutions located seventeen miles apart in eastern  Pennsylvania: Lehigh University Mountain Hawks and the Lafayette College Leopards (my alma mater as well as my sister's, my brother's, my niece's, my husband's and father-in-law's). It is the most-played football rivalry in the nation and the longest uninterrupted annual rivalry series. As of 2014, "The Rivalry" has been played 150 times.

I mention this above in such detail because here in Mississippi, as in Texas or Alabama or Indiana, my neighbors would be incredulous that The Rivalry did not involve their local teams.

But it doesn't and  it is so old it predates football trophies; the winning team just gets to keep the game ball. These are painted with the score and displayed in winning institution's hall of fame or in the case of Lafayette, President's house. 

In 2012, prior to the 148th game, the presidents of Lafayette College and Lehigh University jointly announced that the 150th game would be played on November 2, 2014 in Yankee Stadium. Forty-eight thousand two-hundred fifty-six Pard and Hawk fans showed up.

Looking at the FB photos of my classmates and friends in that near-capacity crowd got me thinking of this 150 year-old tradition in the context of a larger one.  For those of us who profess to be Roman Catholics, Sunday November 3rd, the day after the big game, was the feast of Christ the King, and the end of what the Church calls Ordinary Time (The liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church begins with Advent).

For weeks now we’ve been listening to Scripture readings and homilies on the last things:  Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. And obtaining Heaven, as St. Paul might say, is akin to winning the big race, the prize.

Here in Northern Mississippi, the Priests of the Sacred Heart tend to focus on challenging their flocks to do something with our lives, something, as Mother Theresa would say, beautiful for Christ. Something that says “I am what I believe” and “I believe you (the stranger, the child, the outcast, the lonely, the sick) are worthy of my time, my talent, my treasure, my inconvenience. And you are worthy of such gifts without question, without cost, without return, without blame, without judgment, without exception."

It’s a hard teaching, and one that I'm not convinced is humanly possible.

Certainly there in the stands, enjoying The Rivalry, were business executives and leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, the rich and the wealthy, the privileged.  With its annual tuition and fees adding up to nearly $60,000, Lafayette has a healthy share of students and alumni from the top earners in the United States.  That in itself is of little importance.  What is important is to what end do we use this education? Is that end "love?"

The Rivalry has endured for one and a half centuries. It’s classic American fun and games.

Us against them. Pick  a side. A winner and a loser.

Pardee Hall

I hope we Pards have welcomed the stranger, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And that we did so, and continue to do so, without counting the cost.

That’s us with them.  No taking sides.  No losers.

Yesterday the Pards won, 27-7.  I hope you all enjoyed it. 

I hope you all win the big race too.

We’ll gather by the twilight’s glow,

In front of old Pardee,In all the world no other scene,

So fair so dear to me.

The Art of Eating in These United States or Why My Husband has to Order Meatloaf Out

One of my favorites memories is eating sushi in Texas.  Yes, that Texas.  The red meat state.  Steven and I were meeting a fifth generation Texan for dinner.  This well-do do, successful business man left his over-the-top self-confidence back at the ranch.  Poor fellow didn’t know what to make of it all and probably would have preferred some chicken fried steak - Texas fare I tried only once, and only so I could say I did.  I wasn’t sure a Jersey Girl was genetically capable of digesting the stuff (Yes, Nosey, she is, but she doesn't want to).

Growing up in middle class 1960 America made for a rather boring culinary experience.  The variety of foods, like the family budget was limited. Baked chicken parts, fish sticks, sausage, meatloaf, the typical meat-vegetable-potatoes variety except for the high holidays and Thursday night spaghetti. In fairness to my parents I should note that I was a finicky eater, a very finicky eater, whose favorite condiment was ketchup - lots of ketchup.   On just about everything, especially the meatloaf.

Besides predictable variety in the diet, we could also be certain that our meal was never undercooked.  Mom had a very real fear of trichinosis.  Turns out she had an elementary school teacher who suffered from it.  Modern food preparation techniques and agricultural science aside, meats had to be cooked on the well-done-and-dry side.  To this day, my siblings and I ask, “Is it done yet?", as we peer into the oven and stare at the roasting bird or pig and expect to somehow divine the answer.

When I was a preteen, grandmother tried to get me to try shrimp and cocktail sauce.  She promised I would like it.  She was right.  "Try the mushrooms," she suggested. "You'll like them."  She was right.  But I drew the line. Every year at annual clam-bake offered by my father's employer, I dipped pulled roasted chicken in clarified butter while everyone around me dipped lobster.  There was no way I was going to eat that thing.

Then, skinny, finicky me met Steven, my not yet handsome husband - to clarify, he was handsome, but not my husband.  Yet.  Steven asked me to lunch one January afternoon.  We were both college students working the interim session at Lafayette College.  I was in the biology department’s laboratory annex breeding fruit flies like crazy.  Again to clarify: the flies were breeding, I was merely moving them from vial to vial.  Steven was photographing metal samples with the metallurgy department’s scanning electron microscope that for some reason was housed in the biology building.

Lunch, he told me would be tuna salad.  He would be making it in the SAE house kitchen.  I wasn't scared of the kitchen, not with their commercial dish-washing system.  But let’s get a few things on the table, so to say.  To me tuna salad meant tuna with mayo and maybe celery.  I don’t like tuna.  I don’t like mayo and I don’t like celery.  But I did like Steven.  A lot.  So I went along with his plan, mentally preparing to take a few nibbles and spend the rest of the afternoon wondering about the caloric value of fruit flies.  Well, turns out Steven Gage tuna salad was a shocker.  Tuna, yes but with raisins and apples and pecans and dressing and oh so good that I didn’t notice the celery seed. That was a first epicurean eating experience with Steven Gage.  

Now 30 years and eight states later my culinary tastes (and waistband) have developed considerably. I long ago gave into eating the occasional lobster. Two years ago, I even tried the scallops.  Yummy.  So tonight, I’ll have the vegetable pakoras and raita and shrimp coconut korma.  And Steven?  He'll have the meatloaf because his wife ran out of ketchup years ago.

Meeting Gandhi in a Catholic Church in Mississippi

The world's great champion for non-violent civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandi would be 145 years old on October 2.  His birthday is a national holiday in India.  It is also recognized by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Day of Non-Violence

Last Saturday, I was sitting in a little classroom in a parish center in a church in the heart of American South. Christ the King Catholic Church in Southaven, Mississippi offered an all day adult faith formation / catechist certification workshop. Attendees came from five area parishes, making up the northern deanery of the Diocese of Jackson.  Most participants came as catechists fulfilling requirements toward certification.   A few others, myself included, came for the adult faith formation.
The session I attended was titled: Prayer and Spirituality.  In the afternoon, Gandhi paid a visit.  Not in body, of course, but in spirit.  Our facilitator introduced us to Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins, those traits which the holy man considered to be spiritually perilous to all mankind:

Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

These, Gandhi wrote in  Young India,  on October 22, 1925, are the roots of violence.

There is, of course, universal truth in Gandhi's observations from nearly a century ago, observations that seem to be ignored in much of our modern world.

There is much focus today on the reality of sociopaths in our midst.  Experts claim 1 out of every 25 people is a sociopath.  It seems to me that these are  the people who are aware of the perils of the seven deadly sins, and sin anyway because it is of no consequence to them. What care they of the consequences to you or to me or to unnamed multitudes?  

There is, of course, nothing new, under the sun. Even the Scriptures say so.  But for those of us who claim Christ, we also claim to be made anew, in His image.  So as we near Gandhi's birthday. I wonder: Do I demand work, conscience, character, principle, sacrifice from myself?   Do I model them to my children?  Do I expect them from my friends, my leaders?

Do you?

Maybe the best way to honor the memory and legacy of Gandhi is to take a long hard look at ourselves and the culture we are building.

Then as Gandhi also said:  Be the change that you wish to see in the world.