March 24, 2014

From Jim McGuiggan... ZIPPIDITY DO DAH


ZIPPIDITY DO DAH

Occasionally in the morning when I would work with Ethel I would speak to her in Duckese. I’m very fluent in it (especially in the specialized dialect of Duckese called Donald-Duckish). As I say, I’m very fluent in it and she was barely a beginner. As a matter of fact I couldn’t really get her to work on it at all but, as I used to tell her, I thought she’d pick it up in no time because I believe she had as much the gift for languages as I have. 
One morning after much coaxing and after many refusals she gave in and responded to my own accentless DD [I really am very good at it—even some ducks think I’m just a misshapen duck when I speak it]. As I was saying, Ethel said a few words in it. I asked her to repeat it because I didn’t quite catch it but she had already turned a little pink, covered her face and was calling herself some kind of idiot. That was the end of it. Still I will always remember and treasure her attempt to boldly go where she had never gone before.
It’s these little treasures that lovers share that give their world its distinctness—things they do together, things they know about each other, affectionate names they call each other that would sound utterly ludicrous to others, their favorite places, songs, stories and more. Such things build walls around their little world—not walls of exclusion; that’s not the aim. They’re walls of security, warmth, mutual acceptance and protection, intimacy and affection. That they exclude others is simply the inevitability of their closeness—a closeness no one can share for the history and commitment doesn’t exist with others and it’s a closeness of such a dimension that they don’t wish to share it with others.
They love each other in a way that they don’t wish to love anyone else in all the world.
In a society where people call each other things that should never be thought much less uttered it’s almost rescue to be able to look at people (many of whom I know) who, while they live very much in society, have their own private, tender, brave world in which either one would climb Mount Everest barefoot for the other.
I say it’s almost redemption because the evil of our world could easily drive a very sensitive person to despair—a despair that might be tinged with the notion that even God has given up on it; or worse, horror of horrors, that God is as helpless as the rest of us [you know, with the reality of human “free will” and all that]. To see such people, boys, girls, women, men, children, parents, friends and on a broader scale, socially caring people who simply can’t live their lives without pitching in to help the oppressed and the defenseless—to see those is a liberating experience. People like that deliver us from bone-deep paralysis of the spirit and tell us: “If there can be one of us there can be millions of us!” 
When people like that keep us from a dismay that approaches the level of despair they allow us to enjoy the simple pleasures of life as well. They help us to add harmless lunacy to our lives of deadly seriousness. I think both are needed for a balanced life.
Not long before Ethel went away I tried my hand at a little sewing. A few stitches came loose just below the zip on my favourite pair of trousers and I tried to fix it but I made a real hash of it so I asked Ethel if she could do it for me and she said she would. She’d been very ill for about six months and more especially in the final three weeks of that period but in God’s kindness she had so improved the change was remarkable. In any case, she still had moments of utter confusion and she had one when she began to work on my pants. 
She had them turned inside out and was working away when she called on me to cut the stitches around the zip; I cut a few and then she said rip it up further for me. I didn’t understand but somewhere down in my mind I suppose I thought she meant to do a thorough job—I’m sure I thought something like that, so I went ahead and ripped the zip nearly off. It was only when she asked me to cut the pocket off (which I did!!!!!!) that I realized she was off her head. So picture that, now I’m standing with my good pants, ripped up the front and most of one of the pockets in my hand and I’m the one that did it!.
Would you tell me which one of us was more “off the wall”?
When I later asked her about it she remembered clearly asking me to do it but she didn’t know why she would. Oh well.
We laughed about it for days and did until it lost a little of its shine. But for a longer while after that all I had to do was say the word “zip” or “pocket” and off we’d begin giggling and then to screaming with laughter and her accusing me of being the worst of two lunatics! 
I don’t say life’s every moment is entirely pleasant but it is a wonderful life.
Zip a dee do dah, zippity ay…………

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