Whistling in the Dark

When the trains pass through our town day or night, the engineer sounds the whistle. When I was new to town, I noticed it a lot. But quickly it became a homey, familiar sound--barely discernible, not because it isn't loud but because it's regular and expected. Under normal circumstances, people here would probably only notice the train if it didn't come through--like we sensed the deafening silence of the skies after 9/11.

But things are not normal right now in our little town. One of our beautiful young people, for reasons known only to himself, employed the train that he must have heard passing through town his entire life as a tool to take his own life. Instead of taking minor comfort in its predictability, its familiarity, he envisioned it as a source of ultimate relief to some inner pain he was not able to manage and did not know enough to share.

What happened? Did he pass out? Would he have changed his mind at the last minute if he had been able to hear the insistent, nearly hysterical blare of the train's horns on that freezing cold night? Questions abound. Theories are postulated. An investigation will commence. Perhaps some answers will present themselves in time. Maybe the devastated family and friends will take some solace in those answers. Time will tell.

In the meantime, for many of us, caught up in that train whistle that used to just mark the passing of time is the desperation of an engineer feverishly trying to save a life that cruel circumstances have thrown in his path, the devastation of a family embarking on a journey of incredible pain, the helplessness of a town left only to ask why and the cries of a young boy who was lost in the night.

Wrestling With Wrestling

O.K., so yesterday I find myself at the Middle School wrestling match cheering and carrying on as if I actually like wrestling. We live in a wrestling town, the Mayor's hometown. But I do not come from a wrestling town. I come from a big city where, in my day at least, guys wouldn't think of grappling intimately on a mat with other guys fully clothed, let alone wearing anything as undeniably ludicrous looking as a wrestling singlet. Seeing my first wrestling match left me in an odd state that was equal parts incredulity, bemusement and horror. Maybe, since I had to watch my son in hand to hand combat with another little kid, there was a bit more horror than anything else. But the Mayor and his brothers were big wrestlers here in high school and the boy is now a seasoned wrestler, too. I've had to adjust.

For years I attended matches with the sole purpose of being on-hand when, in my mind inevitably, the boy would need to be rushed to the hospital with a concussion or neck injury. Thus far, and I am pounding wood here, this has not occurred. It's been about 7 years now. I still view the sport as dangerous to some degree, but it is less so when they have years of training behind them and face opponents with years of training. That, I think, is the difference that allows me to enjoy the sport now. When both wrestlers know their moves and are methodically looking to gain the advantage through recognized wrestling techniques, the match has a certain grace about it. It is logic and knowledge of anatomy applied. And, much to my surprise, it can be a lot of fun to watch.

I've learned a lot of pertinent things to yell during the match. Cries of drive, circle, off your knees, and get heavy have all escaped my mouth. Yet, I still tend toward the more motherly, "you can do it (insert kid's name here)!" I love watching the boys cheer for each other. They are told to get up and applaud after each match and they do. But you can tell the ones they really have their hearts in--when a teammate is winning his first match or has been unnecessarily roughed up, but pulls it out in the end--the cheers fill the auditorium and the excitement is palpable. It's a dynamic that makes me wish I'd been part of a team at some point in my life. Though I've never been a sports participant or much of a fan, wrestling has helped me see it's value and experience it's joy.

These matches can still get a bit dicey, though. Kids who join up later are big and strong, but don't have the moves down. They are dangerous to other wrestlers. If your kid is pitted against a kid who doesn't know what he is doing, it is ugly to watch and actually very risky. If you're lucky, the inexperienced kid is a "fish" and gets pinned easily. Otherwise, he's a strapping kid who is frustrated into fight mode. Technique is out the window and there is a lot of throwing and slamming. This is not fun to watch and the fact that this can happen is the reason that, although I do enjoy a match here and there, I will not miss this sport too much when the boy outgrows it.

Resolved to Write

Over the past two months, since my last entry, I have had many enthralling ideas for posts that have gone by the wayside in either a flurry of holiday activity or as a consequence of post-holiday exhaustion. Add to this, the November election of my husband as Mayor of our town and perhaps you can understand why I've been distracted.

New Year's traditionally being the time for new starts, I am determined to rededicate myself to having a purpose outside of facilitating the needs of our household and responding to stimuli. This is generally how I have been living my life--responding to stimuli. Not to say that I've been wasting time; I have not. People need to be fed--I feed them. Laundry piles up--I wash it. Dogs need exercise--I run them. The car needs fixed--I take it in. The boy needs help with homework--I make flash cards. All good stuff. But it is not a planned existence, nor is it a purposeful one. As a result, although it is not hell on earth, it is not particularly fulfilling.

I've had a few fulfilling moments here and there in the recent past. One came as I recovered a couple of throw pillows I happen to love. I created toile casings, trimmed them with piping and sat down to rediscover the art of hand sewing. The next occurred when I wrote the Mayor's acceptance speech. It was succinct, it was powerful and it was a lot of fun picking out just the right words. I've also found a sense of purpose volunteering my time on a crisis hotline. The theme I'm trying to point out here is that I need to focus on making time for creative pursuits that make life more interesting to me than it is when I simply do the things that must be done.

Sometimes I'm slow. This is probably not a huge revelation for some readers. In fact, some of you are probably reading this saying, well, duh (which, just for the record, I hate). But for others who are caught up in the business of running a family, my experiences here may hold a clue to why they are not particularly happy. I need something for myself that is outside the realm of the common good. My brain needs little excursions to places that delight it, renew it and give it something to fall back on when it is being bored to tears by minutia. Therefore, I am resolved to make a calendar (already done for January) that includes brain care, exercise and fun. Those things that, like this blog, go by the wayside when we allow the day-to-day to take over everything.