Ultimate Quest

by Christina Carson

I recently finished a second reading of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. A psychiatrist and neurologist by training, Dr. Frankl, at age 39, found himself a prisoner at Auschwitz and then moved to a camp associated with Dachau. It was under the intensely forbidding circumstances of prison life that he was compelled to begin exploring the nature of and need for meaning in human existence. One of the conclusions he drew was that man can find meaning in any situation and, in fact, must, for it is only through meaningful existence that we can endure, even the intense suffering he knew.

Among all its gruesome imagery, the book is liberating. My first reading of it years ago allowed me to understand the power that comes to those willing to take responsibility for their lives. I figured if Frankl managed to live without blaming others for his fate, horrible as it appeared, how could I stand there and point fingers at others in a much less dire set of circumstances? That choice invited me to look more deeply into my life. When I did, what I saw was me assigning meaning to the actions and events around me not searching for meaning within them. The former results in blaming others and traps you in your fate. The latter gives you a vision of how you can endure and rise beyond the problem confronting you.

We are raised to be far more interested in assigning meaning than in accessing it. Prisoners in a concentration camp, however, can’t

afford that luxury if they want to survive. That’s what Viktor Frankl came to understand and made incredibly clear to me: We choose how to perceive our circumstances; we then get to live with what we chose. This is the most accessible level on which the search for meaning exists, but there are others.

When Mark Twain observed: “The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day your find out why,” most people assume the quote refers to some mighty achievement or a holy grail for our personal lives. We anguish over the lack of sense and fulfillment our lives offer us and assume finding that would be the be-all end-all. However, as grand as a meaningful project or relationship can be, they are not the hallmark of human existence. 

There is an even more profound yearning for meaning at the species level, cosmic rather than personal. Life is meant to expand, not contract. We are creatures of incalculable wisdom and creativity. We are meant to be free spirits, unattached to the plethora of habits (mindlessly applied meanings) that keep us petty and afraid. That explains to me why in one of those seeming unbearable moments when Viktor Frankl cried out for relief what came to him were these words: "I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space."

Ultimately we are here to grasp the fundamental meaning of human nature – spacious, serene and unchanging. We are called to know beyond doubt what we truly are and why we are here. Imagine a life driven by that search for meaning. Just imagine…

Integral to the novels I write is

 a search for meaning, since for me,that is the

driving force in life.

Defying the Odds

Years ago, because I enjoy stories about those who defy the odds, I began to collect tales about people who survived situations that both science and medicine said they should not have. Most of those stories centered on sickness and what is termed anecdotal healing, meaning healing that cannot be explained through systematic scientific investigation. Little did I know how useful that collection would prove to be later in my life and it culminated in my novel Dying to Know.

For the last several years, I have again begun to collect stories, but this time about people who experience “old age” from a perspective that runs counter to what most believe about aging. Our culture has given us a view of aging that appears as an irrevocable march into disability and decreasing worth. So of course, collecting stories of those who've not bought into such notions has proven an interesting pastime. More fascinating than you might imagine. And why do I bother?

Every decade of our lives presents challenges to us, not because challenges are inherent to every decade, but because we have been conditioned to believe notions about every aspect of our march through life, of which many or dare I say most, have no basis in fact. Rather bold statement I know, but that has been my experience. If we peel back the conditioning and see what lies beneath, there exists a view of the world that has its foundation in freedom, freedom to be and do and live life beyond so many of the ideas that make life petty and small. The only way most of us can allow the actuality of those who step outside the boundaries we've been given is if we have some brush with such marvels ourselves. Why not be curious about the possibility that life could play out differently? Why not be open to what that might be like? It makes for a very interesting, sometimes rather hairy, but always fulfilling existence.

I remember a dear friend whom I met years back who was a grand example of someone defying the picture of aging we've all been given. She was intent on not being gobbled up by the goblins of aging. She was sprite, curious, open to learning, drove her car like a bat out of hell (she had always done that) and told no one her age, so they couldn't pin her down with numbers. One time after driving non-stop to North Carolina from Huntsville, Alabama to see friends, and then driving back a few days later, she provoked a stress fracture in her back. Bert and I organized some mutual friends to fix meals and drop by to help her heal, for science had nothing to offer for that injury, and the fear of aging began to get its grip on her. Ram Dass said it beautifully, “We’re all just walking each other home.” And so the coterie of helpers walked her back to health. It was through this episode I came to know how old she was. She was 97 then. She went on to live six more powerful years, moving her household single-handedly to North Carolina around her 101 ^st  year. For me, one exception proves the rule, and my rule has always been let me decide what’s true and what’s not.

There are today at least 28 preforming rock and soul singers in this country over 70. One, BB King, is on the cusp of 90. And The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, recently released a dynamite album singing the great Diva Classics. The British singer-songwriter Adele made waves with her rendition of Rolling in the Deep, but the Queen of Soul, with almost 40 years on Adele, turned that song upside down with her version. Nothing has the potential to fire up art like years lived with passion and grit. Listen to her tell you about it here:

Aretha singing Diva Classics

          I’m sure there is an area in your life right now that you’re tripping over because of what society instilled in you as a rightful perspective, when in truth there is another one for you,  one that will take you down a different road. You know me, I’d say go for it. You see, the destination of that “other road in the yellow wood” is what I've always called Home.

Short Story - Saving Grace

by Christina Carson

When can never truly know the power our smallest gestures of kindness or goodwill have on the lives of others…

  Adrienne Wall Photography 

Mrs. Gerhardt squatted down in front of her five year old daughter and worked feverishly to roll up the waistband of her child’s ruffled pantaloons so the pants no longer dragged on the floor. She hadn't had time to try the new outfit on her daughter earlier due to the seeming never ending list of must-do’s that defined her life since her recent divorce. He just walked out, she thought. Shacked up with that woman from work and walked out. Realizing where her mind was heading, she pulled her thoughts back to her present task before her anger reached another boiling point. The dress that was part of the ensemble fit fine, but Gracie was not a tall child and the hem of the pants covered her shoes and then some. Her mom struggled to get it all hiked up evenly. But every few seconds, her hand would come out from under the dress, and she’d push the heel of it into her forehead and rub hard and slow. Haggard was the word that best described Tricia Jo Gerhardt and late was the second best; today would make it three times this week in fact. She was struggling up the corporate ladder now; she needed the money. But tardiness was not well tolerated.

“Hold still.” It was a command, not a request. Gracie had been unaware she was in motion of any sort, so she just kept standing there as she had been. “I spent a great deal of money to get this dress for you, so you could look pretty on picture day.” The dress she was referring to was la haute couture for the preschool set. Peasant dresses were what they were called, the material hosting multicolored patchwork with ruffles at the wrists. The bloomer-like pants worn underneath the dress had ruffles at the ankles. Gracie would have preferred being outside playing with her dog, Billie, rather than getting all gussied up. This foray into preschool had not been her choice. She smiled over top of her mom’s bent head at her golden retriever, who watched this early morning fiasco yet thumped his tail expectantly, like they’d go play when this was over.

Once Mrs. Gerhardt had finally reached a length with the bloomers that allowed Gracie’s little satin ballet slippers to show, she pinned the fabric to the waistband and sighed. Still squatting, she gave her daughter a final once over starting with her ringlets, which she bounced a few times with the palm of her hand then shook her head and breathed out through her teeth. She hated that wildly curly hair her daughter had inherited from her father. She felt it made her look a bit too ethnic, is how she put it. Next, she licked her index finger and cleaned off the corners of Gracie’s mouth where some toothpaste had gathered. With that accomplished, she pushed herself up to standing, the silk in her slacks having suffered some heavy creases from that crouch. As she walked off to grab her purse and keys, she attempted to smooth them out, but in a fit of impatience she shook her hands like she was removing water from them, only the gesture depicted a woman on the edge. She left Gracie standing there, the child unsure if the inspection was over or not.

“Gracie what are you dawdling over. Come on. We’re late.” Gracie trailed after her kicking her heels up in a little gallop, stopping to hug her dog, then just outside the kitchen door she stopped again to pet her stick horse. Her mom stood by the car door, her fingers drumming out what sounded like a horse galloping, waiting.

As they drove to the school, Gracie’s mother lectured. “Now listen, I can’t be at the picture taking today, so here’s what you must do to look pretty for the photographer. Plump your skirt out and do not, under any circumstances, pull at your bloomers. Do you hear me?” Gracie nodded, never taking her eyes off her mother as she doled out her instructions. “You usually make that silly looking grin. Don’t so that this time. Smile pretty. And don’t let the camera lady take your shoes off because I paid a bundle for those slippers, they are real ballet slippers, you know. So leave them on.”

Gracie was trying desperately to remember each item of behavior that was now her responsibility. But all that she managed to remember was the comment about her smile being somehow wanting. That worried her most for she didn't know what a nice smile looked like or how to make one. The parting shot as her mother opened the car door, undid her seat belt and tugged her out was when she said in an edgy voice, “ I love pretty girls and smart girls, so don’t disappoint me.”

In the time Mrs. Gerhardt had dropped Gracie off at her classroom and then disappeared down the street with the speed of a small caliber bullet, Gracie drooped like a four-day-old cut flower and walked to a quiet part of her classroom hoping to hideout. She was usually a buoyant little girl; quiet yet sweet, but this morning she felt frightened. She knew words to describe what she sensed in her mother— angry and sad. But she had no awareness of states of mind like driven or frustrated or abandoned, the state her father had left them in.  What made sense to her was that she was somehow responsible for her mother being upset. And that made her feel like she was bad. She just didn't know why.

Gracie stayed over in the corner hugging her bunny which she managed to sneak into the car with her. She hid it in the folds of her skirt so that he, Mr. Welty, would be there if she needed him. She sat rocking on a little wooden chair, trying smiles on her face, hoping to do one that felt right. She thought she had a good one and held Mr. Welty out in front of her to give her feedback. But before he got a word out, the teacher was there asking her if everything was okay. It so startled her that she leapt up from the chair, feeling her bloomers slide down as she rose.

She hadn't noticed the ruffles had gotten under her feet, and her sudden jump up pulled them down to mid-thigh. Gracie had been so wrapped up in her smile practice that she couldn't focus on the teacher’s question. Instead, she worked to get her bloomers back up to her waist.

“Is your pretty new dress for picture day?” the teacher asked.

Gracie nodded her head several times.

“Well you look lovely today. Your mother will be really happy to have pictures of you looking so pretty.”

That eased Gracie a bit, because she remembered her mommy saying she loved pretty girls. She looked up at her teacher and asked, “Do daddies love pretty girls too?”

The teacher winced knowing the situation at home. “Oh yes, Gracie, daddies especially love pretty daughters.”

She wanted to talk with Gracie more, but some minor outbreak across the room forced her to leave Gracie without further comment. The little girl turned back to practicing smiles, but the teacher was now calling the class together. Gracie didn't know when their pictures would be taken, but every time she thought of it she felt frightened in a strange way. She didn't know the word dread either, or she would have understood what was happening to her.

On the other side of the school, Mattie Bolton, who had been taking pictures of preschoolers all morning at Haines Elementary, was returning from her fourth bathroom break of the day wondering if people would begin to think she had a medical condition of some sort she’d spent so much time in the washroom. Had they investigated, they would have found her leaning against the wall trying to regroup. It had been a long day so far and now the afternoon stretched before her. She’d been involved with this photography gig for years, but it seemed of late the kids had become more ill-mannered and uncooperative than prior times, often almost impossible to work with. They either cried and whined or behaved like over-wound wind-up toys careening around the set with no concern for her equipment or props. And their mothers, when present, merely sat watching, making no effort to rein them in.

It seems every generation complains about kids relative to their own past, and Mattie was at that age where there were more years behind her than out front.  But she was beginning to sense a growing agreement among adults of all ages that kids today were more akin to those in Lord of the Flies than Anne of Green Gables. And if you want to see this in all its glory, try to take their pictures.

She took a deep breath, rallied her last bit of patience and walked slowly back to the room where her set was located, hoping she’d not find one of the little imps hanging from the backdrop or swinging round the light stands....

To finish this story, click here.

A Movie I Won’t Forget

by Christina Carson

Sometimes a movie comes along that should not be missed. Still Mine is one of those.

The setting is New Brunswick, a beautiful eastern Canadian province backed up against Maine, capped by Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula, toeing into Nova Scotia while the rest of her faces water, the most notable the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy.

Craig and Irene Morrison [James Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold] are the people who carry us through this story, a couple in their later years who are still very active and love one another with such frank honesty and open-heartedness that not a drop of sap drips onto the script that holds their lines. They own a large tract of land that they and some of their 7 grown children farm. But there is a cloud in their sky when the first signs of dementia appear in Irene. 

The theme of this story, however, is not about that sad decline but about the honor a life beholds when we do not compromise our integrity. It’s not that Craig Morrison is a rebel; he just won’t buckle to nonsense, and as he starts to build a new house that will accommodate Irene with her encroaching challenges, he meets up with the worst sort of nonsense - bureaucracy. His attempt at a simple solution becomes grounds for the fight of his life as he runs headlong into the insanity of rules, codes and petty people made seemingly important by a society that has granted them the power to run their lives. Craig and Irene, however, never reneged on taking responsibility for themselves and their lives, and it serves them now especially. With all the hoops he has to jump through, even though he is a master builder, Craig gets stopped dead in his tracks.

It’s a simple plot. That’s not the reason I’m mentioning this movie. What it really has to offer is a view of later life not commonly presented.  Aging is like any other part of life, it becomes the experience you expect. We in America, in particular, have been given a view of this period of our lives which frightens and repels us. We move toward it like the chain-dragging ghosts of Scrooge’s Christmas Eve terror. Craig Morrison does not. His life has indeed become problematic on many levels and at one point, his craggy face gentles as he looks adoringly at his wife of many years and says, “I’m worried our luck’s beginning to run out.”  This is where the movie gifts us with a high truth. Old age is not the problem. It is merely the repository of the unexamined conditions and beliefs we gather through our lives. Craig Morrison’s old age exhibits the power and stout-heartedness that accrue to a life grounded for 89 years in integrity and love. Watching what that looks like as he faces what he must results in a movie depicting the splendor that honor and engagement bring to our lives at any time, and how elder years can even magnify that glow.

Oh, and did I tell you…this is based on a true story.  Watch the trailer and get the DVD. It’s a movie that should not be missed.

Trailer for Still Mine

For those who cannot view the trailer for Still Mine on this blog,
click here

Living on the Street

How close to the edge will you come, to know something you really want to know…? a short story by Christina Carson

It was one of those gorgeous fall days. Leaves were beginning to mottle the grass still green from fall rains. The ones still attached to the park trees rattled in the now cool breeze sounding like old bones clacking together. Sadie lifted her face toward the sun as she walked idly along the cement path that mimicked the lake’s curves. The sun’s heat was no longer scorching and now felt soft on her skin.  Her hands, clasped behind her back, hung onto a small brown paper bag, her lunch. She had brought it to the park to eat away from all the noise and endless drama in the corporate scene where she worked. She often ate in this park and was fond of a particular bench under a clump of crepe myrtle trees just up from the lapping water. The spot felt like a natural shelter and at this point in her life, shelter was something Sadie sought in many forms.

As she rounded the last curve at the far end of the lake, she stopped, dismayed. Someone was sitting on her bench. She stood still for a moment fretting. She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted the comfort of her special spot. She studied the man who now occupied one end of the bench. He was sitting almost statue-like. A few pigeons had come up to see if he had any bread for them. He stared down at them and appeared to say something she was too far away to hear. His hands were folded in his lap, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The pigeons seemed to enjoy his presence for even without food, they pecked around his boots and stopped to rest in his shade. That helped Sadie with her decision. If the pigeons thought he was safe, perhaps he was, and she could share the bench with him.

As she got closer, she could see he looked a tad tattered. Street person, she thought. Hope he’s not schizophrenic or drugged up. She grimaced a moment as she noticed how much she’d changed. Years back she’d never have thought about that and it wasn't just changing times that brought up those concerns. She could feel how hard her heart had become, how pinched off from life she was. For christsake, she thought, I’m not the only 45 year-old whose husband ran off with a younger woman. But no matter how rational she tried to be, whenever her mind began to rummage through that heart-rending year, the pain of betrayal owned her before her next breath.

Still eyeing the man on the bench, she wondered, who was he? She huffed her breath out her nose as she realized what she had just thought, Was; who was he? Who was she for that matter, for she certainly felt more was than is.

She had been approaching slowly, but something about that last thought brought a resolute pace to her walk. Not wanting to scatter the pigeons, she walked behind the bench to the other end and looked at the man as she asked, “Mind if I share the bench with you?  I like this end of the lake best.”

He said nothing, nor did he look at her. She began to feel uncomfortable. About to excuse herself, she said, “I’m sorry…”  Still staring straight ahead, he raised his hand slightly. Then he patted the bench seat. She lowered herself onto the far end of the bench, offered him a quick little bob of her head and said softly, “Thank you.”

She followed his lead, stretched her trousered legs out in front of her and leaned back. She laid her lunch bag in her lap and began to quiet herself, since that tiny hint of rejection that had gone through her when he didn't reply had already started her heart thumping. The pigeons didn't come under her legs. She guessed she didn't feel very sheltering to them. What a basket case I am. If I think this behavior is so stupid, why can’t I stop it?

She scanned the lake, near tears, and attempted to get her attention on the mallards that were slightly off shore. “It will pass,” he said. The kindness in his voice made it almost impossible for her not to begin sobbing. “Don’t hold your tears in. Let them wash you clean.”

Her emotions were so conflicted now; she hardly knew what to do next. She studied him out of the corner of her eye. He had several days’ growth of beard reminiscent of the young lions’ in her corporate scene in their attempts to create an image they never quite achieved with their smooth skin and unweathered lives. Underneath the ashy pallor of the man, there sat, nonetheless, someone who felt solid. His fingernails were dirty, his clothing worn and a bit dingy, his hair wild from too few cuts and too many mornings uncombed, but still he appeared unapologetic. No, that wasn't quite it. He appeared to feel comfortable with himself. She wondered how that could be? How did he get to that place from where he was?

She began to open her lunch bag to the cheese sandwich, baby carrots and apple she’d thrown together this morning when she decided to eat at the lake. Absorbed in unrolling the bag’s open edge, he startled her when he said, “Are you comfortable now?” The bag fell out of her lap. She made three quick grabs to reclaim it before it hit the ground but with no luck. She scooped it off the grass imagining how silly she must have looked. “Apparently not,” she replied.

He smiled deeply, the way people often react to the easy comfort honesty brings to any moment. By then she had the bag open, the wax paper off the sandwich and was offering half to him. He took it not like a man who was hungry but a man who was touched.

He bit into the sandwich and asked, “Did you run out of imagination this morning?”

This time she laughed, “It is pretty dull isn't. I decided at the last moment to eat here, and this, she held the remainder of her half sandwich up before her eyes, was the product of that lack of planning.”

“Are you sure it was a problem of planning?”

To finish this story, click here.

What is it About Horses

by Christina Carson

I grew up in horse country, the best luck I could have had as a child, for like so many young girls, I was possessed by the beauty and spirit of horses. I don’t know why that happens to so many of us young women, but it hit me rather hard about seven or eight years of age. That was after fueling my imagination by reading every book of horse stories in the library. So I moved on to something a bit less virtual.

I borrowed my doll’s blanket and took it down to our post and rail fence along the road’s edge. I threw it over the top rail, like a saddle, and tied clothes line to the post as if they were my reins. There I’d sit “riding” for hours hoping one of the many horses that lived on the farms around me might just come down our country road and the rider let me pet one. That close, I could slide my hand down their satin-like necks, catch their alluring scent and pretend they were mine. Yes, I had it bad, this love affair with horses. Some took pity on me, I understood years later, and let me pet their horse. Some, in a certain air of arrogance all too common to the horse world, which I was to come to know in all its meanness in my teens, ignored me and passed on by. But nothing deterred my drive to be around them. Until I could come up with something better, there I was day after day.

When I was nine or ten, fate smiled on me. I was to meet Pennsylvania State Director. I was visiting with a horsey friend my age, and she took me out to the barn where she kept her horse. I idolized her; she was a horse owner. The barn was one of those, huge old white-washed stone buildings with a loft and a cobblestone yard. Several stalls faced into that yard with Dutch

doors, so the top door could be open, letting each horse have a view of the world. None of the horses had their heads out that morning, so I began wandering around the yard peeking into each stall. As I walked about I noted hoof prints in the scant snow left over from a storm several days prior. I stopped at a set so large that both my feet fit in one print. They were outside one of the Dutch doors, but I couldn't see into it because the stall was raised up about six inches for some reason. So I leaned against the bottom half of the open Dutch door, my head even with its top and waited for my friend to return and explain these hoof prints that had caught my eye.

Without any warning, I was suddenly being lifted off my feet by my hair. I yelled out with the pain and that caused whoever it was to let go. Rubbing my head, I turned around furious only to be stopped dead by what I saw. There before me was the most extraordinary animal I’d  ever seen, his immense head bent over the door, his long and wild fore top shading black, penetrating eyes that looked at me as if he were God himself. He towered over me, and all I could do was gape in utter wonder. I had never seen any creature so beautiful, so wild looking, so massive. Unbeknownst to me, I had just met Pennsylvania State Director, four-time state champion in an era when draft horse competition was at its peak. He was a Percheron stallion. He was outrageously magnificent. And he appeared rightly to know it.

My love affair with draft horses started that day and stayed with me forever. My hair grew back, and I too moved on to horse owner, sharing the next eight years with a fine hunter-jumper who made my teenage time bearable. But deep in my heart, like that first love of your life, there lives to this day the memory of that superb creature, gleaming like shiny coal, mane wild and tumbling down his neck, tamed but unbent by any petty rules of man, the one, the only Pennsylvania State Director.

You can find my short stories on this site (see right column)
and my novels here.

Have We Always Loved Them – Dogs That Is

by Christina Carson

I’m one of those dog lover types. I've been licked by them, snuggled by them, entertained by them, guarded by them, taught, bitten and saved by them. This world would be incomplete without them. How dogs came to be part of the lives of Homo sapiens is still more conjecture than fact. But somewhere the love affair started, and we have been nothing but better for it. They have assisted us with innumerable tasks, many of great import, but still I hear people treat them as lesser, basing it on, “Yeah, but they can’t talk,” as if talking were the be all, end all of interaction. Many people have known the insightful awareness dogs can bring to their lives coupled with their generosity of spirit in serving as plebeians among us when in fact their awareness of the world around them exceeds ours by miles. And as for communication, I found out long ago that I was the weak link in that. Once I opened to the possibility that I could hold up my end of the “conversation,” it was amazing what crossed between my dogs and me.

One of my favorite books regarding this sort of communication, a book whose title I cannot remember to save my soul, was the true story of a California screenplay writer asked to babysit an actor friend’s German Shepherd for the summer, a dog trained in military, police and security work. The writer had never had a dog and had neither knowledge of nor interest in them. So on the first evening when this dog opened every closet door in his house by mouthing the doorknobs, then checked them out and pushed the doors closed with his paw, he wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Then each night in response to the slightest sound, the dog would launch himself off the bed, using the sleeping writer as a launch pad and often dislodging him from the bed, as he investigated every nuance of the night.

As so happens with writers, he hit a lull with his writing project, and since it was spring time in the hills where he lived, he longed to go hiking rather than sit at his desk. What brought his day-dream to a conscious level was when the dog showed up at his desk with the writer’s hiking boots in his mouth.  Since he assumed dogs were more robotic than aware, he thought this was pure happenstance. Of course it wasn’t, and the story goes on to relate some rather spectacular experiences of communication between them, each one educating the writer finally to the point of acceptance and amazement with these four-legged partners who so willingly share our lives.

I was recently wading through vintage photos of dogs and owners, people of all ages and status. It didn’t matter whether they were decked out in finery or out in the fields, their dogs were in the photos with them. That’s what raised the question that became the title of this blog. And of course it is rhetorical. Dogs have allowed us to domesticate them to our needs and have been pulling for us ever since.

There is one book whose title I’ll never forget which you dog lovers out there will surely enjoy, Another Place Another Time by Bert Carson. The book has three different and compelling dog stories that run through it. And it’s not my bias that has me suggest it as a touching and clever read, but rather that I know a fine story when I've read one. See what you think.

In the meantime, keep your dogs close, and you’ll always find your way home.