Sputterpub's Blog

   When I was 23 I fell in love with a brass-chased pewter box at Gump’s.

It was made in the shape of a duck, it came in two or three sizes, and the perfect one sold for about $20. It seemed like half the people I knew got married in the next two years. For every one of those occasions I went to Gump’s and bought one of those boxes as a wedding gift.

Sometimes I had it sent. Sometimes I took it away with me. The regular Gump’s wrapping (real satin ribbon with knot on the bottom so the box never did stand up straight) was good enough.

Finally, after a couple of years of this, I bought one of the boxes for myself. I think I even stood at the wrap desk waiting for it to be packaged the way all my previous ducks had been.

I took it home. I loved it. I still own it.

And I never bought another one of those boxes again.

What the heck? It’s not like I stopped loving them. It was kind of like once I had one, I needed it to be as exclusive a possession as possible: no buying them for friends. I felt a little small about that, but I still liked the box.

That wasn’t it. There was no need to feel small.

It’s so clear now. I kept buying the box for others because I wanted one myself. Each wedding presented the question to me: what would I want if I were the one getting married? And the answer kept coming back: pewter duck box.Until I acquired one. The next time I asked myself the wedding gift question, the answer had changed.

   When I was around 10, I started mirror writing. I think my father first mentioned it to me; later I learned about Leonardo. I found it rather easy to write backwards in cursive. It got to where I could do a decent job with my left hand too, but it was always prettier from my right. It’s kind of crazy, to actually view mirror writing in a mirror. It always looks off, the way a picture of an upside down face looks weird if you turn it around.

It was a natural step from mirror writing to reading backwards and sometimes upside down. Anagram puzzles and license plate games helped too; after awhile letter order just didn’t matter that much.

I recommend viewing backwards whenever you wish. It will demonstrate to you how often coincidence occurs: dog/god, live/evil, stressed/desserts. It will sometimes create lovely sounds; try backwards pronouncing AIRPORT or EMBARCADERO or SACRAMENTO. But mostly it will entertain you. Sometimes I laugh out loud reading street and business signs backwards.

Every Bob I know reverses the spelling of his name. And my oldest grandson, my grandboy OttO? He spells his name backwards and upside down.

     When I was 11 or 12, I had a little bout of insomnia. It was autumn, the beginning of either 7^th or 8^th grade, and for a few nights I couldn’t fall asleep.

Nowadays that might have a different name. When I hear people describe insomnia, they report no trouble falling asleep, but then waking about three hours later and being unable to return to unconsciousness. That wasn’t my problem. I got in my bed at my normal time, did the usual snuggling down and twisting to my side, tucked my hands under my chin, and … nothing. I just lay there awake.

I fretted about it. I began to worry about how I’d feel and perform the next day, with insufficient sleep. I got out of my bed and went to my parents for help.

They had a big bed, a California king. I remember entering their doorway, saying I couldn’t fall asleep. Mom wasn’t up for it. You had to be a baby or distinctly ill for Mom to get up at night.

I guess the job was allocated to Dad. I can summon up the vision of his silhouette in the room. They had no nightlight but they slept with their curtains and window open, and Dad, first sitting up in bed and swinging his legs over the side and then standing and walking toward me, was a tall shadow against the window light.

He walked me back to bed. Tucked me in and sat on the edge. Talked to me.

He told me that rest is when my body repairs itself and grows. He said repose is critical but sleep isn’t. He acknowledged that sleeping is better than lying in bed all night – it rests your brain more but mostly it makes the night short – but he was emphatic about the object: it was to be still and rest and mend and grow.

I don’t even have to tell you what’s next. Of course I fell asleep. Almost as soon as I relaxed I lost consciousness. And more or less lost the ability to be bothered when I don’t sleep.

In the light of day Mom conjectured that my insomnia was caused by my lack of a date for an upcoming school dance. I don’t think she was right about that. To this day I don’t know what caused it. I know what cured it.

When I was around 40, I collaborated with Katie to create a shaggy dog story.

We’d been chuckling about the genre, kind of collecting them. I think our favorite was the tale that ends with the line “people who live in grass houses shouldn’t stow thrones.” We decided to make one ourselves.

We knew we needed to start at the end, so after a bit of talk we twisted our selected moral into “don’t cry over milled spilk.”

Then we had to create spilk. Clearly it was a grain. We had to come up with a milling accident. That wasn’t difficult at all. I don’t remember the details of our story, but we could do it again in minutes, preferably around a kitchen table with coffee mugs in our hands.

If you’ve ever created a crossword puzzle or a maze, you know how much it teaches you about solving them. Well, making up a shaggy dog story is even more instructive.

Not only do you acquire a better understanding of the medium. You learn how easy it is for a person, narrative-crazed as any person is, to create a story that explains observed phenomena.

Hello, godlet: You just made a myth.

     When I was 47 I joined my parents and brothers for an emotional pilgrimage. Our folks were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary, and they took us to their favorite city.

So there we landed, seven of us in Paris. My brothers brought their wives and did a bit of travel before arriving. I flew over with my parents and then stayed a bit after the “boys” left, in the apartment my parents rented on the left bank.

When we were all together we kids slept in a small hotel near the parental apartment. My brothers each had a modest room to share with spouse and I was in a single. It’s a good thing I’m into small spaces, because that was the tiniest room I’ve ever occupied on land. I could touch both side walls while lying in my narrow bed. To get to the one doorish window you had to climb over the desk. It was my own little Parisian closet.

During that week each of my brothers paid a private visit to my room. It wasn’t like they wanted to tell me anything – it just occurred that late one evening Andy and another midnight Steve came by for a visit, sat on the narrow bed next to me, and talked. I’ll never forget an exchange between Steve and me.

He spoke first. He’d been rambling about his ex-patriot experience and he uttered, “When I think about it, I have to say I have no regrets. But I’m sure if I had it to do over again I’d make different choices.”

I was astounded. I was struck by the contrast and symmetry between us. I said, “Wow. It’s just the opposite for me!” I remember his face then – he was sitting at an angle to my right and I had a three-quarter view of his attentive visage. I continued: “I definitely have some regrets. But I’m pretty sure if I had it to do over again, I’d make the same choices I did.”

   When I was around 10, my father began telling me that you’re either a leader or a follower, with unsubtle suggestion about which one to be.

I’m sure he would have told me earlier but I don’t think the subject came up. I was so clearly my own person, at least until 5^th grade. I didn’t change then but group dynamics did, and parental perspective.

Given a choice between those two terms, my father was unquestionably a leader. Confident, strong, authoritative. Good at indignation. A person with initiative rather than impulse.

I resemble him those ways. I think I inherited by gene and environment. But the whole truth is, I don’t take or give supervision well. I never was very good at working with others or playing on a team. He was better at those activities than I, but best on his own.

I noticed these contradictions and after some years I decided there must be a third way. Neither a leader nor a follower, but a go-you-own-way-er. I imagined a path of destiny at a tangent. I settled with that for awhile.

Over time I learned the triple perspective is considered wise. This, that and (ah!) the third path. That’s kind of Eastern. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis is the West’s contribution. Yes.

But lately I’m hearing an argument for four. It’s not a combative argument; it’s more of a mental admission.

I’m seeing that there’s really this, that, the other path, and then review/decision. It’s like I have to solve any problem by developing a thesis, introducing an antithesis, marrying them into synthesis, and then having the whole issue reviewed by the other hemisphere of my brain.

Lately I’m living in fours. And I’m smiling at the coincidental number of dimensions in our existence.