Category Archives: mystical experience

baffling personal experience

Dropping Your Sunglasses.

contemplative essays, Deep Thoughts, mystical experience, , , , , , , ,

Mammy was the family saint. She always had a smile, a cheery, chatty story, and a deep peace. But she was also profoundly intuitive, perhaps even psychic.

As a child of the late 1800s in eastern Pennsylvania, my grandmother’d enjoyed the “Key Game”……one blindfolded, spun around, then sent – still with the blindfold on – to find the key hidden by the room full of players. And, who could say how she always found it, every time, and quickly.

Yes; Mammy was a source of comfort and encouragement to a vast extended progeny, primarily through daily, hourly prayer. But, she was also quite superstitious. Long after putting aside the deck of cards when, as a young girl, she converted to the life of a Christian, she retained several “beliefs”.

One of them concerned omens. Mammy always knew that, if a bird fluttered by your window, you needed to stop and pray for the safety and protection of all your loved ones. And, this, along with other signs, she took as seriously as she did a direct answer to supplication when it came her way.

In the days before my mother died of cancer, lying in the hospice bed brought into her room at home, a crow appeared in the back yard. The bird was lame, unable to fly, only walking slowly across the yard. This omen was impossible to ignore and, in spite of my fragile faith, I knew my mother would soon pass.

Decades earlier, our dog, Nero, had been a lively part of our family. The day I’d come home and was met by an eager wagging tail and a face, that face still branded in my memory, of a beseeching, sweet animal who wanted to chase the stick, me too busy at that moment, bounding instead into the house – at that very second, something told me that this would be the last time Nero would ask me to play. Sure enough, two days later, our precious dog was dead of a flipped stomach, my pleas that she be lifted by someone strong enough and carried to the vet ignored by everyone.

The year my beloved father moved in with me, I’d searched for a daytime caregiver to supplant my efforts while at work finishing up the school year. One girl I’d been directed to contact by a woman who overheard me in the drugstore. She came so highly recommended that I could not ignore the opportunity. But, the day she showed up at the front door and I looked into her face, there was a grey shadow that crossed her countenance. A sensation passed through my chest and out the other side. Though I couldn’t know at the time, she would be the prime suspect in a household theft discovered days later, with only my 94 year old father as witness.

Last Christmas I took a trip south, to visit my brother and his family and to check out the baby grand piano that was waiting on hold for my perusal. Upon entering the dealer’s showroom, I removed my sunglasses and looked around at the setting in the lobby. In a few minutes, the salesman with whom I had spent many email exchanges preparing for this moment appeared. Lean, taller than me, balding and bow tied, he extended his hand. As I reached to grasp it, my sunglasses fell to the floor.

Bending down to pick them up, I had yet another of those infinitesimal moments. The same feeling I’d had so many times before tore through me like a fleeting current, so brief so as to be almost undetectable, as if my body intended to process and discard it before my mind could react. This was yet another sign, and another foreboding.

And, typically, I disregarded the omen. Following the salesman into the room, I would subject myself to a power of persuasion so overtaking that months would pass before I would fully grasp what had happened to me.

Today, I sit facing a legal scene that will likely take weeks of my most precious thought hours, impacting my productive quality and every aspect of my more nourishing anticipations. And, I can’t help but look at my Mammy’s face, in photograph and illustration, and feel her gentle admonishments, and implore her intercession one more time on my behalf. And, I ask the Almighty for an even bigger sign the next time, one that might slap me right in my tracks and make me feel the pain. Far better a momentary hurt than half a lifetime of regret.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo

5/1/15  all rights the author’s. Sharing allowed upon request. Thank you.

littlebarefeetblog.com

Just Who Do You Think You Are?

civic commentary, classical music, mystical experience, sociology, , , , , , ,

Day #2 of “the match game”, or, Let’s Wreck It.

*  *  *  *

Tearing south on upper Peach Street, Slumtown’s answer to Telegraph Road and any generic mall complex beat from Charlotte to Fairfax – to Lowe’s, again, because one more gallon paint. Yep; a single bag of plaster powder had held out for the ceiling cracks, a huge relief from the prospect of sheet rock. Nope; didn’t want to live under the threat of a sky like that falling on my precious new piano.

But – should I even show my face at that counter, after my rude behavior 24 hours earlier?  In luck ! Spying a trademark red vest, I scurried after his grey-haired shuffle down Aisle 4, waiting with uncharacteristic grace while the gentrified senior heading toward him offered a pandering greeting, and then pounced. I needed ceiling paint; here was my Benjamin Moore chip; could we make a white tint, using this hue?

He was sure he understood what I wanted. He was also sure he couldn’t be certain that we could make it happen. I tried. Really I did. The vow to be nice was ever-present in my consciousness. Causing this man to hyperventilate was not my plan.

But, in minutes, the gallon was mounted. We reminisced about the old paint mixers, churning like cement trucks you could hear clear back to the wall aisle of the old stores, because we were both of that certain age…

His hunch was dead on; the tint was just right. After tapping the lid with his tightening hammer, he brought the big can to the counter. I looked at him. He’d been so sweet. David. What’s your last name, David?

Hume.

“Hume? As in famous 18th century Scottish philosopher, David Hume??”

*  *  *  *

The year…maybe 1990. Smith-Corona had made a type-writer hybrid that took floppy disks, with a little horizontal word processing window so you could see what you were typing. I’d fallen behind on my quest for the elusive Master’s in Music Ed, but Jeffery Smith, the newest Ivy league pedigree on staff at Fredonia, was teaching a class in Baroque opera and I had just that one, rehearsal-free evening.

We covered the opera house wars, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and then, the piece d’resistance: castrati. Professor Smith assigned us the mandatory viewing of “Farinelli”, with English subtitles – the story of the most infamous Italian hyper-tenor with truncated testiculatta ever to strut the operatic stage.

The movie was raw, sensual, and riveting. But, the research paper assignment which would count as a mid-term; now, there was a task. After mulling for days on a potential topic, my  mind drifted across the Mediterranean….what else was happening in Europe during the 1700s, perhaps even in, say, Scotland?

Seek, and ye shall find.

Even the ancient, 90’s search engine did not fail me.

Now – who in the world was this David Hume?

Writing the paper was invigorating. Comparing an as yet unheard-of-by-me philosopher’s view of proper comportment, which molded an entire nation’s culture, with the bawdy, degenerate lifestyle of Farinelli….was a literary field day. And, Jeffery Smith must have enjoyed my indulgence: he gave me an A.

Castrati were a curious anomaly of a time in history that would live out an evolution unprecedented even by the Biblical eunuchs. But, David Hume? Now, here was a different animal altogether. Teaching his people to revere “keeping up appearances”, in order that they might Represent a whole nation’s idea of civilised elegance. William Wallace would forever pale in my firmament to such a notion of power over human behavior. To an Anglo-Saxon/generic Mediterranean hybrid raised by a barber and a seamstress, this was a concept.

I never forgot about the 18th century philosopher. And, now, almost two decades hence, here I was standing at the paint counter in Lowe’s, speaking with a man who bore his name. But, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

“Yes.” he said, with conviction.

“He was my great-great [ great, great…. ] grandfather. I was born and raised in Thornlie Bank, between Paisley and Glasgow.”

See……this is why, even when we know full well that the government is only telling us ten per cent of what’s really happening, and the IRS wants more and more of what we work so hard to bring home, and our educational system needs a total overhaul, and the cameras are everywhere…..this is why we stay. We stay, because there is no other place on our earth where, when we least expect to, we can still find a gem living quietly under a rock.

The living, breathing descendant of Scottish philosopher, David Hume....I give you: David Hume!
The living, breathing descendant of the most important Scottish philosopher and economist of the 18th century……mixing paint at Lowe’s. Ladies, and ever-gentle men, I give you: David Hume.

The Message.

contemplative essays, mystical experience, nostalgia, , , , , , ,

This week, the new Avengers blockbuster came out swinging. Everybody who could get to Hollywood for the premiere showed up. And, the mesmerizing voice of Ultron, in his live-streamed interview on the Big Red Rug, gave Marvel credit for “creating anticipation” like nobody else.

In my solitude, I marveled.

* * * *

The year was 1991. I’d just completed six months in the high school music classroom of a colleague who’d decided, at the last moment of the waning summer, to go live on his boat in Florida. For the year. He’d left some 185 students in full-on revolt, and the District had gone through six long-term subs in four months before deciding to rock the chessboard.

The call had come in from Personnel four days before my scheduled return from an unpaid graduate leave. The Personnel Director made it clear that this call was a favor to me, that she was giving me an extra two days to get everything which belonged to me out of the east side high school music room. Out of necessity, the District had chosen to move me out of the site where they’d placed me, at the start of my teaching career nearly three years earlier, and into the one across town because of this “emergency.”

I was livid.

Down to my last fifty bucks, I had no choice. And, the kids and I had built their competitive marching band from less than scratch! Their choir had received an Excellent rating from the Sandusky adjudicators! The high risk expellates from the four corners of the county, when they weren’t putting tacks on my chair,  were writing essays in music appreciation class using complete sentences! There were only 80 in total across the entire department, but they were my students and, you are correct; I had no intention of leaving them.

But, the District played on my ignorance of the Union’s protections. I had no idea that what they were doing was a flat out violation of Section Whatever of the Teachers’ Master Contract. A 30 day grievance period had just commenced, within which I could have taken this maneuver to the courts, but I was clueless – and, they knew it. They wagered that they’d be able to make this play, and clearly won.

Hot tears flying from my face, I tore over to my classroom and dumped stacks of music, arrangements, and props into plastic bags, rage erupting from my lexicon. Seventy two hours hence: the first day of the semester.

Edward James Olmos had nothing on me. I wore a skirt. I put my hair up. And, standing at the head of 85 strange, chattering choir students, I waited. For a full ten minutes, I stood.

They chatted. They looked at me, then at each other. They laughed, braided each others’ hair, poked each other from behind, and carried it all to a full crescendo. Still, I stood. Finally, the talking diminished to an occasional mutter until there was, at last, complete and total silence. Then, I spoke.

“I’m. not. leaving.”

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Five beats later, they were told who I was, where I’d come from, and why I was there. Then, we began our vocal warm ups.

The six months weren’t all that. Easily the most talented drummer tried to steal the trapset, one nut, bolt, and cymbal stand at a time, until he was caught by a classmate. Another graffiti’ed some choice erotica on the music cabinet with what looked like a wood burning tool. Yet another stole a car, making a sorely needed hit with the ladies.

However, there were several encouraging aspects. The choir classroom was at the end of the main front hallway, not marooned in a parking lot annex. The faculty couldn’t have been nicer, more warmly accepting of me, more genuinely happy to have me join them. I felt like one of the staff from day one. And, in spite of everything the students had been through, even though I didn’t give them the band trip to the Disney World parade they’d been promised by their absconded seafarer, they did produce a fully staged spring concert that brought down the house. By the end of the school year, the students and I were deeply satisfied and looking forward to remaining together in my new found home.

But, the Lord of the Public Schools had other plans. Quick to dismiss my rights as a third year teacher, they hastened to declare my position encumbered by, you guessed it, the Florida boatman, and I was told I’d be returned to the east side high school.

Now, mind you, in six months time, the woman they’d slid into my job had returned to the District after a pregnancy leave of approximately nineteen years, and everybody on the faculty over there loved her. She’d dismantled the entire marching program, and was rumored to be giving six students lessons on their instruments after school so they could sit in the stands and play as a Pep Band. The degree of Pep they likely generated boggled my imagination. Only one visit to my old classroom told the tale; there were computer-generated pixilian signs posted on the walls, like some feeble facsimile of Superhero dialogue balloons. But, instead of “Kapow!” and “Bam”, they bleated: “Enthusiasm!” and “Energy!”. Clearly, there was none of the above to be had anywhere in my former, newly adulterated classroom, and perforated computer paper wasn’t about to birth any.

The art teacher at my new site tipped me off. Apparently, there was a spot open for bid in the elementary system and, he said, nobody among the music faculty was likely to want a step “down” from any one of their coveted high school positions. He encouraged me to take it.

Surprisingly, the thought stirred me. I’d reached the middle of my third decade, and the nesting hormones tugged at my belly. Little children. The old woman who lived in the shoe. Colors, shapes. Joyful, silly songs. Wonder. Puking.

I took the bid.

The last day of school that semester was a hot one already, even on the main floor facing away from the late afternoon sun. The six boys in my music appreciation class had just an hour or so left to get their research papers in on time, and I sat at my desk, stacking the last of the materials that didn’t belong to me. Soon, here came Eric, the most committed of them all; his paper was the best one, naturally, and he’d spend every last minute making sure of it. We had a nice, momentary chat, and I wished him well; he was one of the seniors, and would be enlisting in the military.

And, then it was time. I sat, staring across the choir tiers at the large, paned windows facing the street. This would be my last hour at a desk in a high school classroom. The past four years had been exhausting – intense, sometimes crushing, endless/year round, and I would not know until some  two decades hence how much those kids would mean to me, or, more surprisingly, what I would come to mean to many of them.

I thought about how it had felt the day I had been hired to become a teacher, reading the letter of acceptance on my bed in the old, upstairs apartment, feeling my identity as a family restaurant waitress fading with the news. I wondered what would happen in this classroom, when my vacated position was refilled by the likely very tanned and legitimately encumbered Mr. G.

Quietly, I smoothed the formica laminate surface of the now empty desk with the palms of my hands. Then, I opened a drawer and removed a black felt marker. A lone stack of scrap paper in the corner caught my eye. After selecting one of the larger sheets, in my favorite calligraphic style I printed out a message, and tore the borders of the paper around it to form a casual, irregular shape. Then, I placed it on the empty desk top, and left the room.

The message was simple:

“Create anticipation.”

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(Hand to God)

© Ruth Ann Scanzillo 4/16/15 all rights reserved. [BAM.]

littlebarefeetblog.com