SMALL PLEASURES AND COPING WITH REALITY

Even though it means saying good-bye to summer, we take that first fall air into our lungs with a relish reserved for the best of things savored. It is our nature to give up that which we enjoy only to find replacement in that which we enjoy as much. So, as summer fades we look forward to the joy of fall with its cool nights and mild days

With all our shortcomings, we do find the best ways to make our days bright. And we find these ways in the little things like the air of a fall day or the splendor of the sun as it extinguishes itself into the evening sea. There is something in each of us that finds a just-rightness in the small pleasantries of life.

For me there’s a day in November, usually about a week before Thanksgiving, when the frost sticks in sheets to the crisp red and yellow leaves that quilt the ground.. It’s a day that used to sneak up on me, grab me by the senses, scream surprise, and leave me with the scent of holiday in my head and the mellow peace of mind that all’s right with the world. Now, I look forward to that day in November, never knowing just when it will hit, but knowing it always will and knowing it holds the perfection of the ages.

It’s not that I’m some hopeless romantic taking pleasure in small things. You can see it in the satisfaction of the first swallow of cool hops on a hot day; the self-satisfied smile as the beer goes down. It says just-right-perfect. It’s the clap of hands as a wide receiver finds himself all alone in the end zone with an inflated pigskin prize and equally inflated spirits. It’s seeing your baby for the first time.

We love these small moments of ecstasy so much that we often set the stage for their occurrence. In summer we charbroil hot dogs and hamburgers turning them into the scents of good times and find memories. Winter brings us before warm fires and ever changing flames that enchant us like wizards performing feats beyond imagination.

We write songs, poetry, stories, and novels about the good old days, the way we were, and ragtime; all succeeding because they remind us of small moments of perfection.. We simply enjoy being reminded that the workaday world has an alter ego.

There are universal truths that manifest themselves to us all through a kind of instinctual understanding. These are called archetypes: the door left slightly open; a single leaf twisting in an autumn wind; the ship sailing over the horizon. These images all mean something to us. They make us ponder. As that final leaf loses its battle with the wind and flutters to the ground, we close our eyes, tilt our heads back, release a long and loud breath and wonder about the inevitable death which awaits us. It is the realization of humanity and nature sharing the same space. It’s a coke and a smile; the you and me of life.

The best artists of all disciplines incorporate these universal signals in their work. Some examples: Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”: Archibald Macleish’s “Ars Poetica; Robert Penn Warren’s “Blackberry Winter, Beethoven’s “Pastorale (sixth symphony)”; Paul Simon’s “Scarborough Fair”; Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. All of these have the main ingredient and universiality which attract us like so many moths to great flames. The list is long; the names immortal.

It is the nostalgic in us that makes us collectors. We save an old tool, beyond repair or use because it gave us good service. We hang our first dollar; we keep old school letters; we all have an old sweater with holes at the elbows one we can’t leg go. So we tuck our memories full with small treasures that remind us of past moments of joy, quietude, and peace; reminders that there’s more to life that death and taxes.

Maybe it’s the best thing of all, being able to step from this everyday world into that fantasy of timeless solitude called daydreaming. When reality is too harsh or even when we are merely bored with it all, humankind has the ability to leave it behind; to step out of Monday and into the mind where we find peace. It is the place where we acquire a sense of oneness with the universe. As the world becomes more complex, as our senses are blasted with more and more decibels, smells, sights and textures, as we grow weary of a nine to five existence, we find more and more that fond memories and old impressions are the stuff that life is made of.

So life continues and we, not sure of every step, test the future with the past; knowing the unknown by calling upon what we know now. It might frighten a more timed species, but humans find repose in the small gestures nature allows; in memory, through art, within the realm of the senses, through the response to a frosty November day. Let summer sleep through another winter. Let work creep up around my neck. Let responsibility get a strangle hold on me. I’ve the two best defenses: memory and imagination. I am the medicine for my own melancholy.