Category Archives: relationships

Single Inflection.

Christianity, classical music, classical musicians, psychology, relationships, sectarian Fundamentalism, social behavior, sociology, travelogues, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

[ final edit. ]

 

Single — def.

  • not having, or including, another ; only one.

 

Defining words in any language is an exercise in understanding culture. This is unavoidable. So said the Swiss woman, at the head of the dinner table around which were seated: a younger, blonde French-Swiss woman; a middle aged, married couple from Kent, England, she with her brown hair rolled up away from her neck; a tall, good-looking, traveling salesman from Stuttgart; a young, bespectacled Scottish girl enrolled at university; and, one American woman of about twenty seven years; in 1984.

(There were no indigenous French represented at table, during that meal. Had there been, perhaps the conversation would have taken a decided turn.)

These had all convened around a common theme: one annual Bible Conference for the purpose of intensive study of the Word of God, held in a Zurich high school, complete with headsets and translators for those who had come from countries not fluent in Swiss-German.

I was the American woman.

That year, having embarked on my maiden voyage to Europe by way of Scotland, I was alone; meaning: nobody I knew personally had accompanied me on my trip.

Yes; according to a definition established by Merriam and Webster in the initial year of their copyright, I was a single woman. I knew it, most acutely, seated beside the two boys from Princeton on the flight to Frankfurt; the sassiest, plugged in to Purple Rain on his earphones, turned off to me as soon as I declined the gin. Failing the Test of Immediate Compatibility, here was a sure sign that I would be proceeding solo.

Not that I had any inclination to attach myself to either of the Princeton boys. I simply never figured in the equation established long ago by the Ivy League; their blood was blue, mine was too but, to them, a critical – if colorless – social component was missing .

The Swiss woman was dogmatic; the only way to truly know a people was through their language. One had to experience them in dialogue, to derive any understanding of their way of life. Inflection, the Swiss woman insisted, was the bearer of meaning.

(A decade hence, I would return to this table, after hearing a Japanese maestro articulate the meaning of his own name in his native language; he’d pointed out, none too subtley from the concert podium, that pronouncing his first name with the emphasis on the wrong syllable would render him nothing short of a hemorrhoid.)

I recall sitting and looking around that table at each guest, wondering, in my American English silence. Try as I might, I could not name a single descriptive adjective, noun, or verb in the language of my birth which, when pronounced differently, rendered a completely distinct meaning. I was able to call up several words, however, which had dual connotations but no alteration in their pronunciation. There were also words which were pronounced the same, but spelled differently according to their meanings.

With this realization came the sensation that singled me out: how could an American understand anybody from another country? Even the Brits, with their occasional syllabic de-emphasis, were a challenge to a fledgling on foreign soil. Here I was, singularly alone, and obviously about to make absolutely no connection whatsoever with any of the people in the room.

But, I had left a boy at home.

Long having moved on to pursue another skirt he had, however, managed to create a scandal in his wake. Here, in Switzerland, the home of his mother’s birth, I was supping with associates of the American employer she’d embezzled. Yes. I may have arrived alone, but there were those my presence represented who, after my departure, would remain; I had carried both of them with me, all the way to Europe, into a household diningroom of Christians in Zurich.

And, it didn’t matter to anybody that I wasn’t married to his mother. He would follow me for years thereafter, like a lurking shadow in the mirror, beginning the moment I left the premises. No one among any of those in attendance at the Zurich Conference, whether known to me or not, would be able to think of me in any terms thereafter without his name entering the conversation. Criminal behavior knew no cultural boundaries. No matter the country of origin; no matter the language spoken.

Recently, I became reacquainted with somebody I had only known in passing decades ago. A well and world-traveled American, he calls himself “single”. But, I beg to differ; his attributes draw the curious, the needy, the broken, the unfinished, the yearning. He works in the healing arts. His life has incredible, unmeasurable meaning in those of countless others. By the definition of any culture, he does not exist outside of their realm. He is, rather, spectacularly singular – part of the great Singularity.

None of us travels alone. We are never single, lest we attempt breath in a vacuum. If we do, we’ll be crying for help. And, we had better get the inflection j.u.s.t.right.

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© 3/25/16 Ruth Ann Scanzillo    All rights those of the author, whose story it is, and whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect.

littlebarefeetblog.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Ptarmigan.

contemplative essays, family history, mystical experience, nostalgia, relationships, , , ,

 

There was a pond in their yard.

Not in some back corner, bordered by stone, featuring fat goldfish, built from a home improvement kit. This was a small lake, fully visible from the master bedroom window, on thirty one acres of forested New England, a body of water fed by brown trout and otters and current generation, pedigreed bullfrogs.

In the front yard.

And, that first Christmas, four months shy of their officially announced engagement, she’d traveled there with her intended to meet his parents.

Winter favored the contiguous Connecticut boroughs, their white Covenant spires gathering all to worship every Sunday in the heart of each town. East Woodstock was the destination and, to her delight, Currier and Ives,’ Christmas card perfect. As their tiny white Ford Festiva tooled around the bend, past the orchards and the fenced in horses toward the private drive, she was sure they had stepped into her grandmother’s “Ideals” catalogue.

Greeted at the door by a beaming Norwegian, and warmly embraced, she was led into the livingroom to meet the entire family. Perhaps it was the strings of Swedish and Norwegian flags lacing the Christmas tree in the bay window, or the Drambui on ice; but, by evening, a grandly atmospheric golden lighting bathing everything had found its way into her imagination, and she was heady from the fumes.

Her husband to be was a true blonde, with large, immediate, bright blue eyes. He loved his life. Always outside playing, whether it be to fish in the sound, or hunt small game, or deeply immerse in some well-planned orienteering, no day was complete without at least one eagerly awaiting adventure in the vastness of the great American refuge which surrounded him.

That afternoon – clear, not too cold – seemed perfect for a short expedition.

They’d stood at the kitchen window, she drying the colander with a tea towel, he gazing out across the pond as his mother prattled on. The opposite side of the water was bordered by a steep rise, forested towards the top, across which they could watch the eastward traveling path of flocks of fowl. As they stood gazing, to their astonishment there appeared four, possibly five large birds the size of pheasant, in horizontal flight just above the evergreen canopy –  their feathers: solid white.

From the yard where he had hastened to take her, and through the high-powered binoculars, red crowns could clearly be seen. Her husband to be was beside himself: “They’re ptarmigan, Hon-Bun!  Ptarmigan!”

She stood, staring out over the vast expanse, watching the white creatures in their slowly floating processional. White ptarmigan. These trumped the sighting of a bald eagle, or even one great blue heron. In the spirit of a four leafed clover, she wondered if this were an omen. The good kind, after all. She was almost 36 years old that year, and even meeting this young, eligible, white collar professional the previous spring had been a fluke.

Fluke. Summer flounder. They’d been fishing already, on the sound, the two of them. And, hiking – all the way up Mt. Washington, to the summit, in her mother’s cheap white track shoes from Hill’s Department Store. Camping – at Big Rock, next to a celebrity musician and his family. But, now. White ptarmigan. She turned, to see if this mystical experience had translated to her future husband.

He was nowhere to be found. She called out; her voice caught the ear of his mother. He and his father had gathered their gear – their buck shot, their hunter’s orange, and their rifles – and, made for the woods.

Sure enough, seasoned game boys, they weren’t long gone. In short order, her intended came bounding into the house like a Golden Retriever pup, his prize tucked proudly under one arm.

He’d shot one of the white ptarmigan.

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Following the wedding, her new spouse had reluctantly emptied his apartment and moved into her house, a short lived respite to be followed by a season of daily commutes to a nearby college for additional certification and, from there, a job relocation two states away. The freezer cleared of its contents, in the very back, wrapped repeatedly in plastic bags, was the body of the white ptarmigan. By the end of the next summer, her mother was dead; seven months later, so was her marriage.

The spring thaw arrived gracefully in the Great Lakes, this year. The winter, taken as a whole, was far less ferocious than in previous seasons. Bald eagles, rare snowy owls, and a remarkably tame coyote or two were photographed in the nearby state park. But, like that short, bewildering episode in her life, truncated by errant choices and death, never again would she see a white ptarmigan, dead or alive.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo  3/15/16 All rights those of the author, whose story it is, and whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect.

littlebarefeetblog.com