About zips and trouser-pockets
Occasionally in the morning when I’m working with Ethel I 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’s barely a beginner. As a matter of fact I can’t really get her to work on it at all but, as I told her, I think she’d pick it up in no time because I believe she has as much the gift for languages as I have.
One morning about a year ago, I’d suppose, after much coaxing she responded to my own accentless DD and 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. 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 favourite 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 because the history and commitment doesn’t exist with others and it’s a closeness they don’t wish others to share.
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 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 defenceless—to see those is rescue. 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!”
People like that 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.
Several weeks back 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 them 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’s been very ill for about six months and more especially in the final three weeks of that period but in God’s kindness she has so improved the change is remarkable. In any case, she still has moments of utter confusion and she had one when she began to work on my pants. She had the trousers 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, with her urging me on, 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. Now I’m standing with my good pants, ripped up the front and most of one of the pockets in my hand.
[Would you tell me which one of us was more “off the wall”?]
She remembers clearly asking me to do it but doesn’t know why she would. Oh well.
We laugh about it now and we will until it loses a little of its shine. All I have to do is say the word “zip” or “pocket” and off we both go giggling. If a trouser-mending shop had done it we would have one situation but since Ethel (and I) did it we have another.
I don’t say it’s all pleasant but it’s a wonderful life.
One morning about a year ago, I’d suppose, after much coaxing she responded to my own accentless DD and 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. 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 favourite 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 because the history and commitment doesn’t exist with others and it’s a closeness they don’t wish others to share.
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 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 defenceless—to see those is rescue. 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!”
People like that 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.
Several weeks back 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 them 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’s been very ill for about six months and more especially in the final three weeks of that period but in God’s kindness she has so improved the change is remarkable. In any case, she still has moments of utter confusion and she had one when she began to work on my pants. She had the trousers 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, with her urging me on, 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. Now I’m standing with my good pants, ripped up the front and most of one of the pockets in my hand.
[Would you tell me which one of us was more “off the wall”?]
She remembers clearly asking me to do it but doesn’t know why she would. Oh well.
We laugh about it now and we will until it loses a little of its shine. All I have to do is say the word “zip” or “pocket” and off we both go giggling. If a trouser-mending shop had done it we would have one situation but since Ethel (and I) did it we have another.
I don’t say it’s all pleasant but it’s a wonderful life.
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