by L. S. Ayers
Rome is burning. The ground is shifting underfoot, pillars are crumbling and the world as we know it is under siege How does one keep a firm footing in the face of calamity? How does one nourish hope not knowing when the next meal will come, let alone the next paycheck? How does one greet the wolf at the door? With a shotgun? With an entreaty? Slathered in meat tenderizer?
Some people weather the tempest with nary a mark, their souls intact and their sails untattered. They stand the deck becalmed as the maelstrom spins and the winds howl. Grace under fire, as it were. Where comes the bedrock that rebuffs the storm? Where comes the the inner stuff that remains unaffected? Where lies the magic shield, the armor plating that cocoons the wearer from the vicissitudes of life? Is it a trust fund? Religion? I think not…and offer Madoff and 9/11 as proof.
Perhaps the world has already presented me an answer, if only I have the clarity and wisdom to embrace it… In a younger more carefree time in life, I rode trains for a week through the wilds of northern Mexico. Possessed of only a satchel, a wandering spirit, and a paucity of Spanish verbal skills, I set out to see what lay beyond the tepid malaise of the border towns. I had no reservations, of either sort, and threw myself upon the 'kindness of strangers' in a way that would have shamed Blanche DuBois I found a land where the horizon lay on the front stoop, where the entire future was compressed into minutes and sat only an hour ahead of the present. Want fish for dinner? Go catch one right now. As in many countries, homes are built hard-by the railroad tracks in Mexico.
In a dusty wisp of a ville out in the Chihuahua desert, the train ambled to a stop to exchange campesinos. My train window paused directly opposite an adobe hut. Not two feet away was a doorway lacking a door, with only a curtain, now drawn aside, to hold off the outside world. Seated cross-legged in a circle on the carefully swept hardpan dirt floor, a family was settled in for dinner. The three small children, heads bowed, were busy chewing their sustenance. The madre, back to me, was carefully patting tortillas on the comal, while the patriarch, facing me, had just finished assembling his taco. There was little else in the room. Seeing me pressed against the window not ten feet away, he held up his taco with a flourish and a huge gap-toothed smile as if presenting his hard-won meal, and mouthed "la vida es buena."
Within seconds the train pulled away. An unknown Australian backpacker seated opposite me offered: "these people have no worries, mate."
Some years thereafter, shortly before she died, I was fortunate enough to have a heart-to-heart with my maternal grandmother. She had raised two wonderful children, endured a miscarriage, and outlived her loving husband by 30 years. She was a friend to all she met and lived a clean and humble life with poise and grace. I wanted a perspective on a life well-lived. A view from the backend. I wanted a nugget to cherish and smelt into my own being, to mine the vein of wisdom forged over her nine decades on this earth. I asked her what would she might have done differently…better. After due pause to reflect, she replied earnestly, "I wouldn't have worried so much."
Maybe Alfred E. Neuman had it right…