LIFE WITH A CAPITAL ‘L’
CHAPTER FOUR - “LEANING”
Section ONE
“Straighten up!” Virtually every child hears this command applied to his posture or her behavior sometime in life. Who knows, perhaps the saying began at the Mayflower, or even before, with English Puritans who put our future aboard. Wherever it was planted, it rooted and Americans, traditionally, are loath to lean. Leaning means to rest against or on something for support.
I recently read about a strong, single pioneer who, like many other women of the nineteenth century, moved from east to west homesteading land. She logged trees and cut from them everything she needed from wall logs to roof shingles. She raised livestock, hunted rabbit, frightened off bear, put down wounded or diseased animals, hauled water, planed posts, built fences, dug the outhouse pit, gathered berries, begged a garden too yield, and late by lantern light after meals mostly of corn mush, she washed out her stockings for the next day, killed crawling critters settling in her bed quilts, then crawled in herself. (Molly Gloss, Jump-Off Creek)
Generation after generation, Americans encouraged and practiced independence. Even church movements reflected this. Early Roman Catholic immigrants surprised the curia with new, non-European self-determination. Later, fundamental Protestantism strengthened this course by stressing a “personal” nature of salvation, individualized and privatized faith. Historically, Americans stand straight. We try not to tilt. We consider leaning a sign of weakness. But lean we must, if we are to be real.
Help? Yes. Most of us are ready to help others. But to askfor help? We are reluctant. A willingness to help others but never to ask for help ourselves is akin to a group of monkeys with one willing to groom others but who refuses reciprocation. Independence too firmly maintained signals danger. An independent primate will socially fail, then literally weaken and lose its community connection. Ditto, people who fail to learn that reciprocation is a vital exchange, that learning is strength, not a monkey on our back.
Before leaning is an action it is an attitude—one not always easily cultivated. Voices of people whose stories I have heard over the years scramble forward as examples in my mind—childhood stories of abandoning or emotionally absent parents, adult stories of broken confidences or broken promises.
What does a six-year-old know about a permanently disappearing parent? She knows absence. What does a neglected child know as well as he knows how to tie a shoe? He knows that trusting, loving, depending, leaning, can hurt you.
What do emotionally wounded adults learn whether or not they realize it? They learn to straighten up. Those who at some point in life leaned, only to have support jerked out form under them, long for help to come unrequested, from the outside, they long for a “no risk” support. But this book is about the inside of us, about noble character. Even when we have been hurt, whether scars are old or new, we must learn again to lean, to omit ourselves to asking for support when we need it. Otherwise, we cease functioning well as members of community, whether our community is of friendship, organizations, marriage, or family.
Leaning risks; it declares vulnerability, it admits needing help and asks for it. It understands that independence is not always admirable, that standing up straight is not always good posture.
Jesus leaned, even from the cross. Dying, he saw two people he dearly loved—Mary, his mother and his disciple John. Risking, leaning hard on their love for him, he entrusted them to each other. Then, as completely as any strong individual trapped in a paralyzed body must, he leaned for basic needs. He was thirsty. He said so. He, powerful and noble man that he was, leaned for relief.
The apostle Paul, independent cuss that he sometimes was, grew tender and honest when he leaned on his young friend, Timothy.
Be diligent to come to me quickly . . . Get Mark and bring hin with you, for he is useful to me for ministry . . . Bring the cloak that I left . . .and the books, especially the parchments.
2 Timothy 4:9, 11, 13
Paul is confident that the “Lord will deliver me,” but he asks Timothy not to delay. “Do your utmost to come before winter.” Good lean by a strong man. Leaning states a need as opposed to waiting for another to guess it, predict it, see it, or initiate aid. Sometimes real people lean just a little, sometimes a lot.
Lean a Little
Once upon a time all our family expect eldest son Doug went canoeing in boundary waters between Canada and the USA. Our ten-day trek launched off from Lake #1 near Ely, Minnesota. My journal says,
Day One:
He who said, “He who rides, rows, and does not read,” was right. Actually it was David who said it, a few days before we left California, in response to my selecting books to take along.
“No reading en route,” he said, knowing more than I about paddling and portaging between lakes one through six.
A paddler’s eyes do not consult pages, they read the horizon, the black, clear lake water, the position of the sun, and on this day, the presence of the moon. It will wax to full during our trek. Beauty binds nature’s book and while there is a continuous theme, every page differs. The sun sifts light through dense shoreline growth, the wind imprints water patterns, some quite chillingly exciting. The tone is set by sounds of birds, ducks and breeze, a paddle against water and sometimes against aluminum; sometimes aluminum in shallow water against rocks. A human “hello” comes from rarely passing canoes, but always we have the merciless buzzing of giant flies.
Once upon a time our family went canoeing. They next year when a plan to repeat the ten-day trek unfurled in the minds of family men, I unfurled a memory of portaging:
The portage of all portages . . . 105 rods long (one rod= sixteen and a half feet). Do NOT visualize a smooth, straight path for our portage. This sixth portage of the day . . . came after eight hours of canoeing. Even Gordy, the wilderness lover, used the word “exhausted” and said, “I can’t take any more.” But he took a lot more.
We began this final path ob surmounting a series of boulders, then moved nearly straight up, foot space by foot space, between large rocks and rigid, retired tree roots lodged between looming trees and dense undergrowth. It wound over, down, up, andround, and finally deposited its cane-and-supply-bearing-travelers on the shore of Insula Lake. Three canoes reloaded, we pushed off to find our first night’s campsite.
For the seventh time today, we unloaded the massive amount of gear required by our party of six. By 10:30pm camp is set, all food is strung twelve or more feet off the ground, tents are sprayed against gathering mosquitoes, dinner and dishes are done. Tomorrow, we row to our permanent camp.
The next day I wrote,
How can I wake up with my hands dirty? They were clean when I went to bed.”
These months later, as conversations turned again to canoeing, I remember the beauty, the exciting thunderstorms, forest fomites and wild blueberries, the sketching, reading, and writing allowed by quiet remoteness, the delicious fish caught and eaten, conversations, campfires, family connections, the loo-loo-looof loons, snapping turtles, entertaining otters, mushrooms, and wildflowers.
I remember the open-air outbox. You just could not call it an outhouse. There was no house to it. I remembered too that our daughter Kim added to the margins of my camp journal sketches of giant ants and wrote, “ants . . . about 30,000,000.” I remembered and said, “Once upon a time is plenty for me.”
“Perfect,” said my quick-thinking husband. He knew ths year our son, Doug, wanted to go but had to work. “What if . . .” reasoned the Pine men in my absence, “what if Doug the breakfast cook provided a reliable replacement? Then he could go!” Oh, the brilliance of these creative men!
Mom cooks; she doesn’t have anything important to do while we are gone. How they did reason. Actually, that is a question. How didthey reason? How did they talk me into this harebrained exchange? How did Doug convince his employer to give it a try? How did I ever consent to such a deal? However—it happened. Doug leaned and I allowed, and then I began a week of training.
July 23, 1981
It is Thursday. This morning at 5:30 I trained to cook breakfasts and serve lunches. Last Saturday night I learned to “close.” I can’t believe there are so many pieces to a restaurant! Everything has to be taken apart, cleaned, emptied, and refilled, covered, refrigerated, or shelved; turned off, turned over, turned in, or around. There is a procedure for everything.
Today I pretty much opened the place by myself. Doug watched. Could I prep sandwiches, run the finer-hungry meat slicer, chop vegetables in the huge chopper, remember the setting numbers for tomatoes and mushrooms (#15), meats (#4), mix tuna according to the boss’s recipe, make coleslaw? Can I order supplies, sack breads in freshness order, prep the salad bar and steam tables, wipe tables, straighten chairs, get trash containers, mats, signs where they belong, make quiche, prepare the cash drawer, start the trill, properly brew tea and coffee, and make lemonade? Are the serving utensils in pace, the quiche utensils? The #100 serving scoops for butter and creamed cheese? Is the toaster rotating?
Are cutting trays in place, foods ready for breakfast orders? “Specials” written on the morning board? Deli towels drained of their overnight soak of bleach and vinegar, rinsed in “degreaser,” squeezed out, placed in appointed places around work area where goods are served? Did I read any instructions left from yesterday’s night crew? Are magic markers placed in the Styrofoam cup UPSIDE DOWN? Do I remember to freshen cream pitchers, or how to whip ten pounds of cream cheese, make dressings, reach supplies on shelves far above my head with a long handled ladle, or how to properly supply refrigerators?
Can I properly clean the hot grill when I finish cooking, throwing ice on it to create steam, scrape off oil and food residue, then scrape the surface clean with a grill brick which is a black crumbly mess, and finally perfectly wipe down all its nooks, crannies, and knobs? Place cooling rack on top, then announce happily and adamantly, “the grill is closed”? Can I? Remember, it is worth it. I pull in three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour.
I leaned hard on Doug in that week of training.
Coming up- the scary second half of “Lean a Little”
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