I swore I wouldn’t write another word about him. He possesses the opposite of a Midas touch, what you might call a “tainted touch,” as he spoils everything he puts his small hands upon. He is not worth your thoughts or words, I tell myself.
***
Portage Park occupies 36.5 acres on Chicago’s northwest side. It’s a public park and it has a bit of everything for everyone, tennis courts, ADA-accessible playgrounds, an inline skating slab, a dog play area, bike paths, baseball/football/soccer fields, a gymnasium, a cultural arts center, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, open grass areas and an enclosed nature walk/sanctuary.
One October the park hosted an all day family-themed fall festival, with music, food, live farm animal exhibits and a spacious pumpkin patch.
In what I thought at first was a clever idea, the festival planners housed the pumpkin patch inside the park’s fence-enclosed nature walk/sanctuary. For a nominal fee, I don’t recall exactly, maybe a quarter, attendees could purchase an entry ticket, stroll about the sanctuary and pick from a thousand or more pumpkins scattered throughout the enclosure.
The nature sanctuary was developed some years earlier as a garden respite within the park, intended to provide a tranquil spot for reflection or meditation; a zone where those in recovery from illness or perhaps experiencing undue stress could find a bit of solace or comfort within a clamorous, bustling city. This park-within-a-park is filled with plants, grasses and trees native to the area. It has a couple of different meandering paths that divide and circumvent the multi-layered plantings. The paths are surfaced with densely packed mulch, designed so that someone in a wheel chair could easily navigate the terrain.
Sweet Husband and I took our grandson to the Portage Park Fall Festival that year:
As Grandson streaks ahead of us checking out pumpkins, some placed up on slate seating areas or amongst the native plantings and boulders, a young girl approaches from the opposite direction, her father walking directly behind her. The pathways are barely wide enough for two, or maybe three people abreast. As I spot her I reach forward to grasp Grandson’s hand, “Slow down, buddy, someone is coming this way.” The girl is about seven or eight and she is using one of those walkers that have wheels on the front and stopper legs in the rear.
Now this sanctuary may have been designed for wheelchair accessibility, but the planners had probably not given thought to a youngster perambulating with this type of walker.
Yet she is beaming, her cheeks flush with color, as she approaches us, calling out happily to her father who walks closely behind her. His face is a bit more on the grim side as he carefully watches his daughter navigate on her own. She is small in frame, closer to frail and fragile than to hale and hearty. Her arms seemed to have some spasticity or maybe inelasticity, so that it takes a bit of finesse along with her concentrated effort and strength to lift the rear stops slightly, as she leans her upper body forward a bit to help propel the wheels and the walker just the right distance over the packed mulch and away from her torso. She then lowers the stops and gratefully they do their job, holding properly on the decaying compost. She then hoists her body forward to again meet the front of the walker. She earnestly but happily repeats this process, over and over and over, just to traverse a few feet.
***
I work hard to keep negative thoughts from forming in my mind. Maybe it’s a selfish exercise, as I am the chief recipient of any benefits that my positive thinking can produce, perhaps Sweet Husband receives secondary benefits, I don’t know.
“Look for the good in everyone” is a Quaker maxim that appeals to me. I try, oh how I try.
But when I read something about the leader of my nation, I also think of that brave, beautiful little girl and then I think about the time he mocked a man with an affliction similar to this heroic child. It’s like a chain reaction in my head. I see him, I see her, I see him again. “You petty, cruel, vindictive, bully of an excuse of a human being…” -I try to stop my thoughts, wishing I had a styptic pencil or some similar apparatus or drug I could apply to arrest the blood oozing from the cut to my brain. Then I remember, “Okay, he, too, has problems. He’s emotionally delayed. He is bereft of love, of humor, of generosity, of humility, of compassion. He is broken on the inside. Just puhleeze, someone, please get him out of the office of the president of the United States of America. I beg of you!”
***
Sweet Husband and I know this police officer, actually he is a “tac officer,” a member of Chicago’s gang tactical squad. We met him when he married a longtime family friend. He possesses a magnetic personality and is a handsome man, with a face that belies his years as he nears retirement eligibility. I’ve met his tac partner, also youthfully handsome and charming. And I wonder if that’s a requirement for their job. When they don their “plainclothes” uniforms and attempt to blend in with the city’s toughs, does it help if you are good looking, fit and amiable? Anyway, suffice it to say that his is a perilous profession, fraught with danger. He is a good and brave man and it's a privilege to know him.
***
I glance at the news headlines this week and I see that the leader of my nation has proclaimed that:
“We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”
Did I mention that my tac officer friend, about whom I worry, is of Puerto Rican descent and has friends and loved ones living there?
And then the leader of my nation turns around and virtually hurls a hand grenade at The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's subsidies, knowing full well that doing so will devastate millions of American families, and perhaps impact negatively the family of the young girl we saw at the pumpkin patch.
This same man has attempted to sell his nation for a wheelbarrow of rubles.
Aargh! There goes my mind, “These are our fellow human beings, you buffoon! You- you petty, cruel, vindictive, bully of an excuse of a human being, you lily-livered, draft-dodging…” Where is my styptic pencil?!
“Remember, Ranell, breathe in, breathe out… go now and pull some weeds… wax on, wax off… remember mindfulness and your best effort in everything you do, no matter how seemingly mundane… see yourself in others… look for the good, Grasshopper, always look for the good…”
***
Okay, this is really it! Done! Finis! I’ve vented and I’m moving on. I shan’t ever waste another word on him.
***
You're walking. And you don't always realize it
But you're always falling
With each step, you fall forward slightly
And then catch yourself from falling
Over and over, you're falling
And then catching yourself from falling
-Laurie Anderson
***
“How sad, a heart that
does not know how to love, that
does not know what it is to be drunk with love."
***
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| Grandson watching & listening as musicians tune up at the 2016 Portage Park Fall Festival (I recall that as the sounds of the instruments reached Grandson's ears, he froze in this position, long enough for me to pull out my cell phone for a pic) |
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| Inside the Portage Park Pumpkin patch, up on a slate seating area |
***
“What are kingdoms without justice? They’re just gangs of bandits."
- Augustine of Hippo (The City of God)
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