(I owe the first part of this column to an informal writers’ workshop sponsored by the Smithy Pioneer Gallery. The small group, led by Gallery Director Danielle Newell, meets Sunday afternoons and is open to anyone interested in the writing craft. As a warmup exercise on that very rainy afternoon, we each wrote a few paragraphs on the weather and emotions. Here’s what that keen group prompted me to scribble down) The dour old Scotsman, the one featured in jokes without number about buying lottery tickets, pinching pennies, scorning worldly ways, etc., once silenced a friend who was praising the beautiful weather.
``Aye,’’ he said grimly. ``We’ll pay for this.’’
It’s a wonder anyone talks to that Scotsman, the way he knocks wind right out of your sails if you’re happy. But, then, if no one talked to him, there’d be no jokes.
Of course, he’s a caricature of Scots. They really are as jolly and positive as the rest of us. But maybe some do carry a strain of an old-time, stony Calvinism that distains undue worldly pleasure. And perhaps that’s what spoke in the crusty old man: Having too much fun in the world may mark you out as one of the unsaved.
Which means, that as swatter is to fly, God’s wrath will eventually slam you down, ending your fun forever.
But maybe there’s a subtler, more secular grimness in that geezer’s words. Maybe he’s just saying, ``Go ahead and draw your mood from the beautiful weather. But how will you feel when the sleet comes, and the ice, and freezing, wretched snow?’’
Better to soldier along in plodding glumness, than to be bounced around by the temperature and barometric pressure. Hunker down, put up with life. It’ll be over soon enough.
Oh, spare me the company of that old boy! Let him go visit with Eeyore, the donkey in ``Winnie the Pooh.’’ Whatever the weather, Eeyore is at his perverse happiest when he’s feeling low and put upon by existence.
While those two mope together, I’ll sit with a pint of strong cider under a shade tree, rejoicing in the greenness all around, and in white clouds against the blue. And give me a similar pint, when comes the grimmest of winter.
Let me sit, feet propped up by the wood stove, and be thankful for the cider, warmth, and all good things. . .
That’s as far as I got, writing in the good company of those other scribes. (If you’d like to join the fun, call the Smithy: 547-8671, or just show up with paper and pen on Sundays at four.) But I went home that day through pelting rain, thinking about our feelings and their control on viewing the world and living our lives. I thought especially about our emotions.
Later in the week, I carried ruminations further, outdoors and under a shade tree. No cider in hand, but a glass of iced tea. I sat rejoicing in still another day’s display of drifting white clouds (what a summer for them!) and drifted myself into a favorite image for emotions: They're like weather fronts that pass through us.
I like that image. It stresses the lack of control we have on emotions’ overshadowing and then departing us. And, more important, it stresses emotion temporariness.
The lack of control and their fleeting nature mark both positive feelings and disheartening ones. Intense joy really is fleeting (that Scotsman again!), as are simple happiness, serenity, rapture over nature or art, a sense of being blessed, a burst of sudden, intense joy over a loved one. Like weather fronts, these lovely, positive emotions move in, possess, and then move on.
As do the disheartening ones: sadness, for instance, disappointment, a sense of loss, the pain of petty betrayal.
These drift on and finally through us. And we brighten again.
I guess I’d distinguish these transient states of positive and negative feeling from other, more prolonged examples that almost become states of our being. I’m thinking, for example, of crushing grief at loss or a spouse or child, of clinical depression, searing outrage at the way we humans treat one another and all given us in stewardship. Such states aren’t transient. They are only transcended with help, hard work, and (dare I say it?) prayer.
I have a good friend, a hero to me, who has lived with clinical depression for decades. While still suffering, he transcended it by becoming a skilled counselor _ for others with clinical depression.
And searing grief, I know from experience, can eventually give birth to deep empathy with new grievers.
And outrage at humans’ behavior can move beyond banners and marches to determined action, large and small, that counters human self-centeredness.
There are also, of course, blessed and prolonged states of being, some achieved by us, others gifts of grace.
I’m thinking of fundamental serenity; a nourishing centeredness of self (not self-centeredness); the blissful gift of abiding, reciprocal love; a rejoicing in life and even its natural limits. Guard those feelings. They are treasures.
In sum: Put up with the weather fronts, for they’ll surely pass on. Take hold of deeper negative emotions and shape them, as best you can, into the good and useful. And as to those deep states, those positive one: Rejoice and be grateful.
And should you, on a walk, overtake someone like the dour Scot, greet him brightly, link arms with him, and hustle him along a little faster, talking of the good, the bright, the beautiful. He’ll grumble, but he’ll secretly enjoy it.
READ ABOUT Jim Atwell’s book, From Fly Creek—Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country at JimAtwell. com
Columns
From Fly Creek: Passing fronts and settled weather
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From Fly Creek: For help with the smug
I’ve been having much fun lately, friends, writing a short book called “Saints for Special Needs,” completely fictional characters whomight get us thinking about humanity—and ourselves, in particular. Here’s a sample. Let me know your reaction. (Oh, and I have a fine cartoonist to illustrate the book!) [Almost every culture has a place for “the wise fool,” the vacant sort of person who, in fact, has a witty and trenchant view of humanity, and may even see into its future.]
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In These Otsego Hills: Still more from 1986
Early August found us asking the question, “Does anyone know when Edgewater was builtand by whom?” The answer, much of which came from Ralph Birdsall’s history of the village, appeared in the Aug. 13 column as follows:
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In These Otsego Hills: Continuing on from 1986 ...
We continue this week by answering the question we asked if anyone remembers the old Cooperstown National Bank? On May 13, we wrote: “Martha Dickison, Delaware Street, called to tell us about the Cooperstown National Bank where she worked at her first ‘real job’ after her graduation from school.
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Up On Hawthorn Hill: Spring inventions
The second line of Lawrence Durrell’s novel “Justine” reads as follows: “In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of Spring.” I first read all four novels of his magnificent Alexandria Quartet during the year I traveled from Saigon to Paris after working in Vietnam for a refugee organization for several years.
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From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
Time to bring you up to date on Fly Creek’s happy clambering into Spring. First, the eatery scene. “Is Jerry’s open yet?” The answer is, “Oh, yes!” The porches are freshly stained; the lawns a uniform green, and the hop vines are already climbing the posts on the covered side deck. Blue and I went up there to lunch earlier this week, and I celebrated spring with my traditional bacon, onion and Swiss cheese hamburger. We two sat on the deck, enjoying the broad view and some spectacular clouds marching across, up toward Schuyler Lake.
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In These Otsego Hills: More from 1986 ...
This week we continue with the discussion of telephone service from the pre-dial days. On March 12 we noted that: “No one has yet produced a telephone directory from pre-dial days, but Doug Preston of New Hartford recalls that some business (which one?) in the village had the phone number 7.”
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Home Notes: Celebrations abound at the Thanksgiving Home
April was a month of celebrations and much to appreciate. We had a 90th birthday celebration for Wanda Noyes on April 4 including her family and friends. Personal care staff Dee Bouck worked with residents to hand paint Easter eggs for the tree in the activity room.
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In These Otsego Hills: 1986 continues ...
This week we continue our journey through the columns of 1986 with the answer to the question “for whom, according to tradition, was Hannah’s Hill named?”
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Book Notes: Baseball book features local contributors
Baseball is part of the nation’s fabric. Most kids have a memory of the game either from playing Little League, attending a major league contest or meeting a favorite player. In Cooperstown that feeling is magnified since we are the official home of baseball. We get to see firsthand what has made the sport the national pastime.
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From Fly Creek: Ya really wanna know?
SETTING: Fly Creek General Store. CAST: Assorted seated geezers, drinking coffee. [Door opens, enter heavy-set geezer; walking slowly with wide stance, maybe prostatitis.]
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In These Otsego Hills: Returning to 1986 ...
For the past several years now we have undertaken sharing some of the area’s oral history we have collected over the years that we have written this column. Therefore, this year, we would like to go back to 1986 to share that rather unusual year. Those who were here then no doubt remember that it was that year that the village celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.
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From Fly Creek: For reasons unknowable
[Jim’s reached back to 2002 to share one of his favorite columns.] My father was born as the last century began into a river village in tidewater Maryland. He told me once of a man there in his boyhood who, like so many, made a thin living tonging for oysters in the cold months and, in the hot and humid ones, crabbing and raising vegetables.
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In These Otsego Hills: CCS balancing act ... side two
Last week we shared a number of activities in which students at CCS can participate. We thought it was an impressive, if not overwhelming, list. And we are indeed pleased that the young people of our area have these opportunities. However, we think it is also important to keep in mind that these undertakings do have a cost associated with them. They are not free. In fact there are, no doubt, those who would say they do not come cheap.
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From Fly Creek: A graceful crowd
Make of this what you will, friends. I feel I’m really meant to share it with you. Despite good medication for my Parkinsonism, every four or five weeks I can sensethe symptoms building up on me, giving me more than ordinary trouble. Lately it’s been falls, and last week brought a typical one. I’d gone out to get the paper, moving along with penguin steps on the snowcoved ice patches, and usingmy spike-tipped cane the waya climber uses an ice axe. But circumstances overcame me. Parkinson’s wipes out the possibility of multi-tasking.
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In These Otsego Hills: This and that and the other side ...
We note that the CCS Class of 2012 is presenting its senior class play, “Snow White” by Tim Kelly, this week with performances 7:30 p.m Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, and at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. All performances will be at the Nicolas J. Sterling Auditorium at the Middle/High School.
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In These Otsego Hills: That green thing ...
Of late we have noticed that our email inbox has been much busier than usual. In fact, we find ourselves hard pressed to keep up with all the various messages we receive. As a result we suspect we have not answered some in as timely a fashion as might be thought appropriate.
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From Fly Creek: What you need to know
In their last Sunday’s bulletins, all 84 churches of Otsego County were to have carried announcements of an important meeting; most of them did. But because the announcement is so important, and not just to the churched, here it is again.
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Book Notes: Living the magic of ‘Hoosier’
A lot of people consider “Hoosiers” the best sports film of all time. The 1986 classic follows the exploits of a fictional small town Indiana high school basketball team in 1952 as it attempts to achieve the impossible dream of a state championship. The story is inspired by the true life achievement of the 1954 Milan team, who with an enrollment of only 161 students shocked big city power Muncie Central on a last second shot to win the state title. It’s the kind of sports story that represents something that is hard to grasp unless you live in a small town.
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In These Otsego Hills: The most perfect village... home to heavy industry?
We suspect we would get a whole lot more accomplished if we spent less time thinking, pondering and musing about things. In fact, there is a good possibility we might actually have completed our goal of cleaning the basement if we only focused on the task at hand, instead of trying to figure out the world around us. It almost makes us wonder if it is possible to think too much about things. We certainly hope not because should that be the case, we are in deep trouble.
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Up On Hawthorn Hill: The past in the present
Clichés abound about the value of photographs. Most are probably true at least to a certain extent. What I do know about an image is that it represents something of the past that is not the pastitself. But that is the power of any image. It represents something that once was. The beauty of an image, revisited, is that it functions as a catalystfor reliving in the present a past experience. My own view, one that I thank the Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges for, is that all we ever can experience is the present.
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From Fly Creek: For help with the smug
