Pumping Mud

I just finished reading a novel called Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes. Given the subject matter, Present Imperfect or Future Imperfect might be more apt.

Fellowes' previous novel, Snobs, was equally good. True to it's name, it was about social classes in Britain, and where you might think Past Imperfect is about social class distinctions, since the bulk of the characters are of the upper class in Great Britain, in truth it's about youthful dreams and time and and what time does to our lives...and our hopes. So many of Fellowes' characters wind up with flawed lives and crushed promise. That won't lure you in?

There are so many changes in social mores that he nails. Ascot. Debutante balls. Toeing parental lines. The death knell pain of being at a party with a controlling personality. In one passage, at a debutante ball Fellowes, like a social anthropologist reporting on tribal mating patterns, describes the pain of trying to engage someone in polite conversation where there is a complete lack of interest, no matter what topic is touched on. He says a friend always said of this type of social interchange, that it was like "pumping mud." Far more vivid than the proverbial "like pulling hen's teeth."

The book opens with a scene that was very painful to me, because it strikes at my heart at this moment. The protagonist is reflecting on the London of his boyhood, versus his middle age, and he says, "London is a haunted city for me now and I am the ghost that haunts it. As I go about my business, every street or square or avenue seems to whisper of an earlier, different era in my history. The shortest trip round Chelsea takes me by some door where once I was welcome but where today I am a stranger. I see myself issue forth, young again, and as I watch beside that wraith of a younger me walk the shades of departed, parents, uncles, aunts and grandmothers, great-uncles and cousins, friends and girlfriends, gone now from this world entirely, or at least from what is left of my own life. They say one sign of growing old is that the past becomes more real than the present, and already I can feel the fingers of those lost decades closing their grip round my imagination, making more recent memory seem somehow greyer and less bright." Washington holds many such losses and ghosts for me.

I remember my father telling me that if you live long enough, you see your friends go away, or even more so, die off, until there is so little left of what was your life. Making new acquaintances is not that easy with the passing of decades, and if it's hard in youth, even more so for the isolated elderly. I can remember in the later years of my father's life, I drove him to a funeral viewing of a man that he had known for decades, that he rode to work with for decades, and when we arrived, and he had paid his respects, he said to me, "Get me out of here. I cannot take it anymore." This from a man always present and accounted for to honor his peers. But he had finally hit the wall. No more. And that...was that.

The next piece I write is going to be about one of my own personal walls, and my ghosts, and how going through something like that can now haunt me, and level me.

A Return To Poor Person's Shopper's Food Warehouse

I don't know what it is about Poor People's Shopper's Food Warehouse, but I keep getting into the most interesting conversations in there. The other night I went in for a few things. The store wasn't crowded, but there was a backed up line at one register. An older black woman was in front of me, dressed to the nines. She had on a white raincoat with gold buttons, a white lacey hat, black dress, hose and shoes. She turned and whispered to me conspiratorily, "There's only one woman checking out," (meaning the cashier.) "Really?" I whispered back. She nodded like it was a disgrace and crying shame as in "what's the world coming to?"

We started talking. She told me she had been to a funeral at her church earlier in the day, and she said, "I was in such a rush to the get to the church on time I did something stupid." I asked what and she smiled and said, "I forgot to put in my teeth." Sure 'nuff, just a few scragglies here and there. I told her I certainly didn't notice because I was admiring her hat and thought she looked "real spiffy." She thanked me then started telling me about how she had found some real bargains (mint Life Savers.) Her cart was packed, and she was leaning over it with her cane.

She asked about a cake in my cart from the bakery, and I told her I had a friend with a birthday, and even though they said not to do anything, I got a small Italian cream cake and some candles to celebrate. She said, "When a man tells you not to do anything, they really mean for you to do it." I nodded. She went on to praise the bakery and how the woman who baked for the store was "a doll." I had only seen an older woman back there with gold teeth, so I guess that's who she meant. Next time in, I'll remember "doll," rather than "teeth."

She went on discussing the store in general, then we shifted the conversation. I had mentioned I was tired from being over in a house of someone deceased, clearing things out until late, and I was really dragging. I told her the woman had been 96 years old and living on her own, and that seemed to perk her up; thinking she might make it that way, maybe. We talked about what it was like removing things from a deceased person's house. She said, "I'm originally from Philadelphia, but I've been living down here for decades. When my mother took sick, my two brothers wanted me to move back to Philly to take care of our mother, but I told them "No. I'm not doing it." She paused and added, "That would be my brothers Jack and.....Jack Ass."

She stayed put in D.C. with no regrets. She said they still want her back up there, but she isn't budging. She talked about a man in her life who is "sniffing around her." Trust me, this woman had me howling with laughter. It was all in her expressions and timing. A store manager came up and split us up to go into two express lanes. I told her I didn't want to go because when that happened last time, the cashier was looking at my coupons and check and license, just short of biting it for authenticity, and everyone being held up was pissed, and sure enough, I got back into that cashier's line again. Same thing.

When I was done, I saw the church lady over by the pharmacy talking to a friend, so I went over and said, "I want to thank you for our conversation today. It absolutely made my day, and I had such a good time talking to you." Her friend turned to me and said proudly, "She goes to my church!" I told her, "Well, it's obvious everyone in the store knows her and loves her (they did know her, too,) and that she's a very interesting lady....and funny. My church lady turned to me and said, "I'm the Whoopi Goldberg of Aisle 3!" And on that note, we parted. Laughing.