Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Magic of Wisteria

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.” Robert Herrick 1591-1674


The gnarled vines like nooses climb to the top of the pine in our yard. Twisted and contorted, they grip the hapless tree with unyielding choke-holds. Lavender bouquets of wisteria hang on frail stems from these ancient vines. The morning dew drips from them. No artist’s canvas could recreate a scene more perfectly beautiful.

Sidewalk strollers stop beneath the dangling display of color. They sniff air that’s filled with the fragrant attar of wisteria, nectar of the gods. Its indescribable sweetness floats freely, effortlessly, as it carelessly wafts its way among shrubs and trees. Tender breezes tease the bouquets into slight movements. They sway, side to side, swooning in a sensuous ritual of dance.

This morning I walk out to retrieve the newspapers. The wisteria’s pungent aroma is arresting, so I stop, infused by its essence. It dangles in small garlands, like locks of lavender braids that might adorn the hair of angels or small girls at a May Day picnic. A stranger approaches, stops and is captured by the beauty. We speak.

The stranger says wisteria is reminiscent of love. Says that wisteria, like love, defies description. Says that words are inadequate to convey the quintessential quality of wisteria’s perfume, much less describe that of love. In order to understand either, one must remove the veils through experience. I offer no opinion. I say, “It’s early, and I never discuss love without first a cup of coffee.” We laugh. The stranger then moves on.

I linger, enjoying the moment. Even before coffee, I know it’s impossible to seize the scent of wisteria. It’s a spirit, and like all spirits, it floats freely upon the breezes. We can only receive it, not restrain it, nor retain it. And most have had enough experience with love to know that when we are selfishly possessive, it withers in our hands.

I stand beneath the wisteria vines, pondering the stranger’s similarities of wisteria and love. Neither asks, “Who’s worthy to receive?” They’re ‘free’ to all. Wisteria and love are magical wherever they blossom. Both are beautiful beyond comprehension. I know there are infinitely more similarities, but the coffee, the coffee!

While standing there, noticing the wisteria, the lavender nursery appears to be alive. Bumble bees swarm in oblivious delight, flitting from one petal to the next in a paean of excited frenzy. I could only think that bees may have a better clue about wisteria and love than we know. I watch the spectacle, mesmerized, wishing I were a bee today. The coffee can wait.

We once cut some wisteria for the house. Our daughter, The Gardener of Eden, advised against it. She warned, “It’ll wilt and turn putrid.” We ignored her warning. But she was right, as we discovered. There on the counter, the bouquet of wisteria lay limp, hanging over the lip of the vase. Both its fragrance and its beauty had faded. The vine is its source of life. Separated, it becomes a dried flower, useless, except to press between book pages.

Sadly, the wisteria is ephemeral. Its life cycle is relatively short…a couple of weeks at best. It gives all it has, while it has it. Then as quickly as it blooms, it wilts. Its blossoms wither, let go and are scattered by the wind. They lie silently upon the lawn like a bluish-lilac carpet…as beautiful in death as in life.

I walk back to the house, pour myself a cup and remember some obscure philosopher’s poem on love: “Love gives, and while it gives it lives; and while it lives it gives.” I think about the stranger, about the spirit of wisteria, the spirit of love. Deep stuff so early in the morning.

By the second cup I conclude that we have a short window of time to enjoy the magic of wisteria, and maybe love, too. We’d best do it now, before the opportunity passes. Wisteria and love wait for no one!

Bud Hearn
March 24, 2011

Thursday, March 17, 2011

A Slow Leak

“There comes a time in the affairs of a man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.” W. C. Fields

On Saturday I had big plans to attend the Evans County Rattlesnake Roundup in Claxton. So much for best-laid plans! I walked out, fresh and full of expectation. A black cloud moved in and sunk my spirits.

I saw a red chalk mark on a front tire. I looked closer. The head of a silver nail stared back. O, excrement, I wanted to say, but you know what came out. I checked the tire pressure...sure enough, a slow leak.

Why me? I screamed at the heavens but refrained from also shaking a fist skyward. I'm no fool when it comes to cursing the heavens...last I heard the Occupant had a long memory. And I already have enough black marks against me.

I should have done the smart thing, like change the tire. But since I've never been called bright, I didn't. I just over-inflated, drove on and hoped. This is what fools do...procrastinate, preferring a temporary fix for a permanent solution. But I was lucky that day to have neither been snake-bit on the road nor in the roundup circus.

Since I'm a serial procrastinator, I'm sitting in the hip doctor's waiting room writing this epistle at the 11th hour. Why am I here? Another procrastination lament. I'm sitting here waiting for the x-ray results. Meanwhile, the life of my hip seems to be oozing out in a slow leak.

'Waiting' is the operative word in today's medical world. It gives one totally too much time to contemplate ailments. I study the wall charts that demonstrate the hip's action in graphic color. Mine is the one with bone spurs that resemble bicycle spokes radiating out from a worn-out wheel socket. I shudder, sit down, thankful not to be looking at heart and intestinal charts. My body can’t afford any more leaks. At least my ego has so far escaped puncture.

This all got me thinking about the insidious process of leakage. It reminds me of my gigantic character flaw held over from youth. That of procrastination. Given this proclivity, it's a miracle I ever entered life in the first place...heck, I may even be late for my funeral.

Not that I'm alone in this despicable trait. I know two more I can call by first name. Yet it helps to voluntarily come out of the closet, so to speak, and confess my failings publicly. I may be the chief procrastinator of all time. Some badge in life is better than no title, dontcha think?

As for me, I'm long overdue in writing this 'Great Come-clean Confession.' I have a good friend, a psychiatrist, that I consulted years ago about the procrastination problem. He procrastinated in giving me a couch visit, saying I didn't have enough money nor did he have enough time to cure an incurable disposition. Since then I've been happy to condone this debilitating condition, realizing psychiatry is best left to the insane. And he was right…I didn’t have enough money.

Waiting for the doc's visit gives me time to think. Why do we procrastinate? The reasons are multiple...I think mine is the stupid belief that things will work out if left to themselves. But it could just be the inherent trait of most unregenerate Southerners to be lazy. Why else does Cracker Barrel still put rocking chairs on their front porch?

Slow leaks abound. Every roof leaks sooner or later, bank accounts melt down faster, portfolios diminish and cash deflates at an alarming rate. We sit around waiting for the other shoe to fall and endure, like water torture, the slow leaks of our lives.

Maybe the unexpected tire blowout is preferable, like the one I had last week. At least my options were clear...change it or walk.

What's slowly leaking from your life? Hope it's not a hip!

Bud Hearn
March 17, 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Something Has Changed

I wake up this morning feeling that something’s changed. My recent age, 69, is new. One thing for sure is that I am no longer a10-year old being chased by the police chief from the dark corridor of my home-town city jail. Jails seem to entice children.

Such remembrances pop up from dark pits. And who can fathom such phantasmagoric figments that a mind can assemble from its uneasy dreams? I wonder if I’m even living. I test the body to see. I wiggle toes, then feet, the fingers, arms and finally open my eyes. I live. Glad that hasn’t changed. But something has. I can feel it.

I stumble into the kitchen to discuss the situation with Mr. Coffee. I ask if it can do anything to improve my state. It’s like God, silent. But not the dogs, who bark out their hunger pains. Nothing new here.

By the second cup I’m able to stumble to the street and search for the newspapers. Today I discover them dangling from a giant shrub. Same old same old here. At least his aim keeps me guessing. But while outside, I feel that sense of change again. Hmmmmm.

I search the wet newsprint for some hint of my feeling. I see that the Clarion Resort on Jekyll Island is being foreclosed. Who’s surprised? It’s been a breeding pit, the palace-of-choice for noon-day trysts and bedbug infestations. The Authority says it wants no upscale resort to replace this derelict dive, but wants to keep things status quo. Business as usual over there it seems.

The thought of business comes to mind. I hear from some that my recent business model of hiring young people and relieving ailing banks from their cheap land miseries is suspect. I wish to answer by saying that it’s not confusing, it just transcends understanding. Some minds are shallow, hard to change.

Uh oh, I read that the local hospital has hung a ‘No Vacancy’ sign out for the sick and dying. All of a sudden I feel very ill. Could this be the cause of my sense that something’s changed? The ‘what-ifs’ slide under the door and fill the room. All of a sudden I feel this urge to call all of my doctors, reserve a bed. Now is this “change we can believe in,” folks?

The shuttle Discovery just landed. Says it’s now going to be in a museum. Is this what happens to the old and successful? What, 39 missions in orbit? Reminds me of some politicians who have soared in their worn-out orbit far longer than necessary. Maybe they should be stuck in museums for viewing, like the glass-entombed Chairman Mao, whom, they say, looks younger each year. The reason? Cosmetic chemicals from Chernobyl creatively applied. Some things never change!

Some friends have switched from business to bridge or golf. Perhaps I’m envious of their unchanging life. I recall what a non-golfing friend once said about the game. She remarked, “Hell to me is being chained to a chair watching golf all day.” Some minds are fertile, indeed.

Nothing seems to explain my sense that something has changed. So I shower, dress and prep to leave. Outside I notice the sun peeking through the oak trees, which are shedding leaves like an old garment. I stop, observe. Someone’s been in my yard with a paint brush. It’s a verdant green. Shrub stubble now blossoms with green leaves, birds sing and crowd the feeder. Something’s going on.

Flowers bloom all over. The seeds in the small packets seem to have germinated, thanks to the sun and my daughter’s tender touches. She has names for every shrub, flower and tree. She talks tenderly to them, nursing them as though they were her own children. Her Eden is alive and well.

With so much disturbing our lives these days, our unhappy land and plundered planet, I often don’t know what to think. But I do know one thing. Spring is the reason I feel a change…the perennial promise of that Someone who’s really looking after things.

Soon the green tree frog will emerge from the ground and paste its white belly, like putty, to the window pane. Its pals will assemble the cacophonous choir and chant from the trees and the small pond next door. Nature is what’s changing. I feel it.

And I know I’ll feel a lot better when I hear the music of the frogs again!

Bud Hearn
March 10, 2011

Thursday, March 3, 2011

What, me Worry?

Yet man was born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7

Famous words of one Alfred E. Neuman, a role model for children of the 50’s. This grinning, snaggle-toothed idiot with jug ears and a crooked eye graced over 500 Mad Magazine covers dating from 1954, when I discovered him. Or, he discovered me.

I was 12, covered with zits, buck-teeth, and grinned like a goofy country boy eatin’ sausage. I had no worries to my name, or, with the exception of a bag of marbles and a stack of comic books, had nothing else, either. He was my icon then, and remains so now. Shrinks say we learn to be who we are at an early age. This may explain some things about my generation’s character.

What exactly do children have to worry about, anyway? Not much. Ok, forget the small troubles boys always get into. I like to call them ‘learning experiences.’ Experimentations with fire were my favorite. Once, my brother and I almost burned down our town by torching a sedge field…but the statute of limitations has now run and the sheriff’s dead, so I can ‘fess up to the minor indiscretion.

My pals and I preferred other harmless combustible and lethal devices, including dynamite and guns. What, us worry? We were indestructible. We’d not yet learned about the incendiary consequences of what’s now called ‘social relationships.’ Especially those that involved the opposite sex. Comparatively speaking, our other learning experiments were child’s play when it came to women. Alfred E. Neuman began to become irrelevant when we learned these things.

In summary of youthful worries, I think it was the stash of dimes my mother always seemed to have that saved me from the trauma of anxiety. Dimes purchased comic books. I never threw one out. They towered in large stacks and were terrific for trading with friends. In retrospect, perhaps comic-book trading should be a requisite course in all MBA programs. I bet they teach this in China, y’all.

But we can forget these old days of youthful glee. Big worries consume us now. Do I have to name them? If I did, package stores would quickly run out of all things alcoholic. And that would be something to really worry about.

Just this week I picked up The New Yorker magazine and, lo and behold, I see an artist’s rendering of mass hysteria….people fleeing an approaching huge, black asteroid, Apophis by name, speeding at 25,000 miles per hour towards the earth. It portended a catastrophic conclusion of the world and all social experiments therein. Facebook included. Now, there’s something to worry about, folks.

Curious, and somewhat frightened, I read on. Scientists pontificated on the reality of the result of the mass destruction of all mankind, like the dinosaurs. They suggested ‘we’ll’ be the dinosaurs if one of these asteroids strikes the planet. Of course, as in all news, ‘talking heads’ and ‘experts’ dominate the discussion, leading the illiterate into their intended conclusions. I came to the conclusion they had never heard of Alfred E. Neuman.

Multiple options were discussed on the eradication of these threats to humanity. Government funded, of course. What’s new here? Everybody wants government funding these days. Hell, it seems everybody’s getting’ it already. But while that theme was not quite explicit, it was indeed implicit. It’s gonna cost more than dimes for comic books, children.

Even the Alfred E. Neuman occupying the Casa Blanca joined in, commenting from his orbit. His solution? Put a man on the Apophis asteroid threat, aim it at Russia and hope. But Russia had already thought of that possibility, and planned the same thing. I wondered if Bruce Willis were for hire to the highest bidder.

Other interesting solutions were discussed: wrapping the menace in plastic, thereby creating a solar sail to send it elsewhere in space; place a huge bazooka on the moon to pummel it with boulders; explode it with nuclear warheads. The list went on and on, ad absurdum.

No conclusion has apparently been reached for the eradication of these threats. But it is giving folks another something to worry about. At least it takes the mind off more mundane matters, like bills, healthcare, and raising children. And that’s a benefit untold.

What, me worry? Not yet. I’m looking for traders for my old Mad Magazines…what do you have for trade?

Bud Hearn
March 3, 2011