Category Archives: contemplative essays
Brilliant.
Brilliant – n. Very bright. Glittering. Striking, distinctive. Distinguished by unusual mental keenness.
British : very good : excellent
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My big brother was the genius.
So said all the definitive tests, administered on or about 1959.
He scored in the range that set him apart, statistically speaking, from the bottom 99.8 %, in mathematical conceptualizing, computation, and application; language identification and application; spacial relations; and, whatever else deemed worthy of exaltation by our society at the time. I can’t remember. I wasn’t there. I was teething.
Somebody told him his exact test score, in fact, a teacher at the high school. In front of everybody else in the class, it was all kinds of drama. “Scanzillo! With an IQ of blahblah, you should be ……”
And, eventually, he did.
Do.
What was expected, of an IQ.
Of blahblah.
It was quite the affair.
He raised hamsters in the basement, and sold them, and set up a hand made sign out front to advertize them, rigging an alarm with string and a buzzer to prevent the sign from being stolen. Playing piano and trombone, he led a big band which he’d organized that rehearsed in the basement, next to the hamsters. Then, he went to college, for pre-med, and raised guinea pigs by the dozens, dissecting them in a make shift lab ( in the basement ) using mum’s baking pans and canning jars. He drove all the way to Seattle and took to the hills, selling dictionaries door to door to pay for college. After college, he taught high school chemistry, and then worked in a paper mill developing paper coatings out of dyes and other chemicals. He taught himself how to build whole houses, constructing every home he and his wife ever shared. Then, he went to Cleveland, and finished his PhD in chemistry, and became the local diagnostic lab director. With his second wife and children, he moved all across the country, directing labs, serving in court as expert witness, building and selling homes, and becoming a nationally recognized consultant. He led a highly regarded life.
Last week, he retired.
I inherited the basement. By default, it became my bedroom/in house apartment, after mum’s Uncle Ewart, for whom the space had been filled and decorated, chose to reject it on the basis of rising damp. Cluttered with acquired objects, my clothing, drawings and, mostly, my own personal chaos, after graduating from college myself I would sleep down there, all day, for weeks, immobilized by anonymity and a sense of pre-destined defeat.
In America, we are really good at celebrating ambition. We reward acquisition and accomplishment. We revere, and fear, those who have established power to limit our options.
And, we are also hasty to ascribe qualitative labels to those who excel, according to their predicted likelihood. We call them “brilliant”. And, the results of their efforts we call “phenomenal”, as if we are continually surprised that a human can do anything at all.
Except that there are seven billion of us, strong. Swarming. Churning. Heaving, and careening around the planet. And, these brilliant phenomenals hover over our heads, like pressure systems teasing the barometer, testing the mettle of all humanity, setting the bar and then swiping it away just as we extend our reach.
Is it any wonder, then, that popular culture is born. And, then marketed. And promoted. And, celebrated.
A weird sort of backlash, to appease the masses? A grande comfort zone for the mediocre?
Whole tribes, doing what is popular. Until a majority of humans in America no longer care about producing anything without duplication, let alone effort. An entire people, out of touch with their own capacity for birthing beauty or truth.
This past week, I had a life changing experience. I learned to meditate. Actually, the sectarian brethren had exposed me to such practice from shortly after birth, but never as focused or directed activity. From childhood, I’d only known that meditation was reserved for thoughts of Christ carrying his cross and then hanging from it.
But, this meditation put me in touch with all that I saw within me – thoughts, feelings, attitudes, perceptions….propensities.
And, this led to the inevitable confrontation. With self.
Who was I, really, and of what was I made? What was the full range of my capacities, and how did I regard my potential role in the scheme of life?
And, I was not alone. Seated around me were several, mostly women, from all parts of north America and beyond. And, among us, we shared one thing: a love for music.
Some of us were already regarded by others as “accomplished musicians.” Others of us were awaiting such recognition, or not seeking any. But, we all shared this: we were all about to become wholly ignited by our own, natural illumination.
By the time we closed our week together, most of us were born anew. There was no altar call, no postlude, no public declaration of intent. Our birth took place in the most profound silence, because the shells holding us in were so thin and unimportant that they merely fell away as we emerged.
The light, however, was all encompassing. No angels; no demons. No hamsters, or dictionaries. No highest scores, or notions of superiority. Just humans, with hearts, baring and then carrying souls, and presenting spirits ready to burst forth with singular and magnificent brilliance.
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*This piece dedicated to Madeline Bruser, “The Art of Practicing”, and inspired by our Mary Duncan.
© Ruth Ann Scanzillo 8/2/15 All rights reserved. Sharing permitted, upon request, and with kind and appropriate reference to the author. Thank you.
littlebarefeetblog.com
New York.
July 23, 2015 11:20pm
Just because you stay home doesn’t make you any less qualified to be alive.
I’m from a city that just barely made it to the big map. Bad council decisions, insular geography, what have you. The rest of the world moved on without it.
About twenty five years ago, my friend Sally found me a house here. She said it was the prettiest in town. More importantly, this one and a half story original from 1895 was located on a corner between two main arteries, a full ten minutes max from anything I needed or wanted to do. For $34,5. I grabbed it, and never looked back.
And, then I went back. To work.
Work. Studs Terkel had quite a bit to say about work. In fact, he wrote the book. And, Studs was from a county town only minutes from here.
Work, for me, would be the becoming. Being an artist, I set about to make a thing of beauty. First, I used materials. Later, I would use people. Children. Sometimes, losing sight of the fact that the materials in my works of art were living, breathing organisms with worthy needs and wants of their own. Young beings, fragile and sensitive. That was probably my biggest failing; I would wonder, to this day, if I’d ever hurt a child irrepairably in my determination to complete the masterpiece of my imagination.
But, no one could say that I hadn’t worked. And, the efforts made bore their own fruit.
We are all called upon, whether we hear the voice doing the calling or not, to make something of value out of our lives. Some of us are given more than one set of gifts, of a type easily identified by the masses. These are called Talents. Each are meant to be developed, and then expressed, in some meaningful form. Sometimes they come forth easily, finding their place with little effort; others take more care to refine. But, sooner or later, one born with talent is just going to be out there embodying the gift. There’s a certain inevitability to it all.
Others are given quieter functions. Curiosity. Compassion. Empathy. Nurture. These, too, are gifts. And, when all are presented to the greater society, everybody benefits. From every nook and cranny of the world, people who are actively contributing to truth, and beauty, and growth, are the lifeblood of the planet.
I’ve also been to New York – the center of the known universe. And, I know plenty of others who have. Some have even lived and worked there. And, the report from the front has not always glittered with gold.
Moving to the bigger city to seek one’s fortune has, historically, been the pattern of the emerging fledgling. Somewhere, somebody said that, the greater one’s inherent potential, the more important to place oneself in the midst of the most recognized centers of society.
This may have been truer when life was smaller, overall. When the perimeters could be more cleanly defined. When the goal could be more clearly visible, the horizon within view.
But, for every expectant bundle of energy that gets off the plane or the bus or the train, there is a lifetime of encroaching realization waiting at the station. A tiny apartment, on a dusty sidestreet. One precious collection of minor opportunities that somebody says will eventually grow into the bigger one. And, perhaps a decade or two of increasing isolation, anonymity, maybe even disappointment.
Mostly, those who become self sustaining in New York do so because they manage to find a smaller collective. A studio. A neighborhood. An extended family of others, who share their loves and propensities. You know. Like a small town.
Mary Engelbreit said: “Bloom where you’re planted.” Oh; maybe she wasn’t the first. But, she said the words out loud. And, then she repeated them, using pretty colors and shapes, until they were everywhere. Back in the 1980’s, Mary’s constitution of this meme had quietly found its place on the greeting card rack of life. Most never knew Mary. But, many lives would come to benefit from what she did.
Friday evening, I will be meeting a lovely young woman for, as they say, coffee. She’s in town for a few days, visiting family and friends, and we haven’t seen each other in over twenty years. But, back in the day, Charline was my student, and neither of us ever forgot the other. Like so many who are part of the thriving throng, she made a life for herself as a teacher in another small town, much as I had. This will be a good reunion, the best kind. We will celebrate the most important part: mutual human value.
We won’t be meeting at a cafe in Manhattan. We won’t have to. There will be no agents, eager for a piece of us. There’ll be no wannabes, seizing our favorite table. We’ll be attending Gallery Night at our local art museum, where just as many beautiful things and people can be found as any of their kind, anywhere. And, those who gather there will have every bit as much to offer the world as anybody else.
We’ll be thankful for our village, the place we call home. And, we’ll be fully qualified to say so.
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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo 7/23/15 Thank you for reading. Sharing permissible by request.
littlebarefeetblog.com
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