Chapter 7
Receiving the letter from Orpheus was a confidence boost. I felt reassured that I was doing better than I was giving myself credit. I knew I could always still do better, but things were off to a good start.
I spent almost no time worrying about the fact that because my son had a medical conference out of town, I would be watching Jenny for the weekend again. All I could do was hope that things would work out as easy as they did last week with a little ‘post-dinner-sleepiness’ contributing to an early bedtime.
David dropped Jenny off with me about noon. She seemed especially excited, but then again, going to grandpa’s house probably seems a lot better than finishing the day at school.
“Grandpa!!!” Jenny exclaimed as she gave me a big hug, I barely had time to crouch down before she was hanging from my neck. I picked her up and carried her into the house.
“So what are we cooking for the guests tonight grandpa?” She said.
I froze completely. I know I am getting old, but I didn’t remember her knowing or me knowing she knew about the dinner party.
I raced through the events of the previous Friday, and felt relieved when I remembered that I had told her that we were setting up for a big imaginary dinner party, with anyone we wanted.
Now more relaxed I ask her, “What do you think they’ll want to eat?”
“It depends on who’s coming. I’ve been studying in the library at school and there are a lot of people I hope will be there. “
“Oh really?” I asked, surprised not only that she didn’t forget about the imaginary game, but also that she would take such initiative. “So who are you hoping is there?”
“Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven, Rani Durgavati and Roy,” she answered.
“Roy? Who’s that?” I asked caught up in her excitement.
“Ram Mohan Roy!” She exclaimed.
“Wow you really did do some studying, how did you stumble into him?”
“I couldn’t find much about people from India a really long time ago, but he seems like he did a lot of good, and he lived in India for most of his life.”
Till that moment, I think I had stopped really thinking about ‘reality’, and what was ‘normal’. After the first dinner party, dreams or coincidences all seemed just as real, or normal as anything else. For some reason despite recent events, this still surprised me beyond belief; she’s nine years old and has the same domineer as the guests at the dinner parties.
When I was nine I was climbing trees and catching frogs. I did build what I called my tree fort at the time, but looking at it you wouldn’t have doubted a child made it.
Well just as anything else that had happened as of lately, I figured I’d go along with it. “Ram Mohan Roy… well I do hope he comes.”
“Oh he will.” Jenny said without the faintest trace if doubt.
“Well what do you say we look through Grandma’s recipe book, and see what we should make for the party?”
As I pulled the recipe book from its spot on the counter with the other cooking books, I realized that the emotion I felt was different than before. I had never wanted to open the recipes Ann wrote again, or even do anything with the other books by it. Just thinking about doing it made me miss her so badly.
I don’t know exactly how, or at what point it happened, but though I had always hoped, I now knew that I would really see her again; it was only a matter of time. In fact, in the grand scheme of things it was a very small matter of time. Not to mention, she left me a legacy to build on, not a memorial to mourn at.
Jenny started flipping through the pages until she came upon Indian curry, excited she exclaimed, “This one! Definitely this one!”
“Ok,” I agreed as I picked up the book to look at the ingredients… which basically filled up the whole page.
“Good thing you didn’t pick the hardest recipe in the whole book…” I joked but not completely kidding.
It was an intense recipe; I only even recognized half the ingredients. I assumed the spices would still be somewhere in the cupboards, and sure enough, there they were: aniseed, coriander, cardamom, dhanajiru, methi, turmeric, and there were a few familiars, nutmeg and cinnamon.
I figured we would have to make a trip to the store but Jane had the refrigerator stocked full, everything I needed from chicken to coconut milk was there. I made a note to myself to remember to thank her for how good she takes care of me; I usually make an effort to, but I really want her to know the sincere gratitude I am feeling at this moment. Ann was always leaving little love notes, never forgetting to put her gratitude to paper.
It took us a few hours to get all of the ingredients together. We let it just simmer on low for a while to thicken. While it was thickening we took a walk over to the park and I pushed her on the swings. After a bit we headed back to the house, cooked up the chicken and rice and set the table.
We sat down and enjoyed the curry that had actually turned out pretty good. When we got to the flan for dessert Jenny started talking less and I could see her eyes wanting to shut. I even saw her do a few head bobs. “Is it okay if I go to bed a little early tonight Grandpa?”
“Want me to tuck you in?” I ask trying not to sound too excited.
“Would you?”
“Sure, why don’t you run up and change into your pajamas, I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in.” I cleaned our plates and set them back on the table. I then went upstairs and tucked her in. I even brought my guitar and played a couple lullabies.
Before I knew it her eyes were closed, and by the time the second song was over she was out like a light. I felt a little jealousy at how fast she fell asleep. With the way my mind races, and my lower back the way it is, it’s usually a while before I’m actually asleep, if I do at all.
At any matter everything was set for the dinner party. I headed down and sat in my armchair and started looking over the notes I had been scribbling down through the week, of questions I could ask.
Time flew by and before I knew it there was a knock on the door and opening it, in walked Ram Mohan Roy. When he introduced himself I was too shocked to make a comprehensible reply. Next at the door were Mozart and Beethoven. Shakespeare was followed by Ralpacan, Marcus Minucius Felix, Rani Durgavati, Frances Rene de Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo.
As self-taught amateur historian I was happy that after racking my brain I did remember almost every person, Rene and Hugo were writers from France around the turn of the 19th century. Rani was a queen from India during the beginning of the reign of the Mughals, so that would be about 1550. Ram Mohan Roy was an Englishmen but also familiar to India, there at the end of the reign of the Mughals about 1800. Shakespeare was from England in the late 1500s. Mozart and Beethoven were both from the late 1700s, Mozart a little earlier in Austria, and Beethoven from Germany. Marcus was from Rome around the year 200. The only name I didn’t recognize I found out later, Ralpacan was born in Tibet in the year of the dog 806.
The dinner started off very similar to the previous parties, I stood and welcomed them all. I unnoticingly still had my note paper in hand when I sat down; realizing I debated in my head whether to put it away, but before I had time to finish my thought Ralpacan spoke, “You can just start at the top of the list with the first question if you would like.”
“I didn’t want it to seem too staged or formal…” I stuttered; then laughed as I realized that was the first question I had written on my paper: How do they know what I’m thinking.
I read the question, and then looked around the room to see who seemed like they wanted to answer. I started to get the odd feeling as they looked back at me with suspicious smiles, as if they had known the question and knew who wanted to answer, and were just waiting for me to figure it out. I looked at everyone twice, and none of them made any changes in expression, so the third time I stared each one down. I had made it most of the way around the table until starring at Ralpacan, he laughed.
“I was so goo
d at keeping a straight face but you got me.” Ralpacan confessed.
“Oh so that’s why you were the one to read my mind at the beginning.”
“It wasn’t so much mind reading as being observant; you froze, looked down at the paper and then looked behind you, then stopped as you were starting to get out of your chair.”
“Okay yeah, that must have been a little obvious, but what about the more subtle ones?” I asked.
“Iron-y is an important vitamin of life.” Ralpacan joked, at the fact that they were reading my mind about how I wondered how they could do so.
“I give you an inch and you pun a mile,” I joked back. Though we had only been sitting down together for a few minutes, that laugh together made it feel like we had always been friends. After the laughter died down Ralpacan spoke more serious now.
“You might think we are just giving you the same answer for everything, but would you still want to listen if I said the answer is also love?”
“I have always believed that love conquers all, so carry on,” I said agreeing.
“It’s not till later, in really quiet moments, when our thinking is the clearest, that we can recognize the marvelous change in us, from those few moments we really get outside of ourselves and think about others. We spend too much time watching ourselves, and commentating back to our selves our observations of how we feel; as if we didn’t actually know firsthand already how we are feeling. It’s not such a bad thing in itself, but looking inside ourselves is most beneficial to finding ourselves in others.
The more you can find bits of yourself in someone else, the more you will not only understand why they do what they do, but you will be able to guess what they probably might do next. The more familiar we are with the shoreline, the easier it is to know where the waves will resolve.
We are all indeed different, and, absolutely unique, but we are also all essentially the same. Has there ever lived a person, that never in their life felt alone… or felt the discouragement of falling short; ever felt the temptation to betray trust, or had their trust betrayed; excited for a new scene, a possible romance or just that things will get better; has a simple act of kindness not at least touched our hearts once? I hope, oh I hope at least once; but I hope more so, that many times our hearts get touched. So in what way are we truly different?”
I racked my mind to come up with a solid reasoning, but all that came to my mind were different favorite colors or food, different career choices or different cultures; but we are not a sum of our visual or palatal partialities, or even our occupation. “We are just different because we are.” I finally blurted out, a little over defensively.
“You’re right, we are!” He replied.
I felt embarrassed for feeling defensive, but not for long, smiling he continued. “What truly makes us different, is that we were each made different. How many different trees are there? But all of which need water, nutrient and sunlight. All trees wave in the wind and grow toward the light. Even between the palms or the pines: so seemingly simple, I have yet to see two identical; and that’s not mentioning where their roots go, or even where or what their roots end up by.”
I don’t know if he was really done speaking or if he sensed the load on my thoughts to process what he just said. I was grateful of his mindfulness for me, and his humility to not just command the conversation. I futilely attempted to wrap my mind around the nature and nurture aspects of each person trying to keep in mind what Ralpacan said about us still being essentially the same. The juxtaposition of my metal sweating while Ralpacan was contently eating was entertaining.
As I got my mind settled, I apologized, “Though I know there are nothing but good feelings in this room, I still should apologize for my intermittent coherency. Not to make excuses, but as enjoyable and enlightening the conversation is, the weight of the truth is, well… a little overwhelming. I have more or less caught my brain up to where my spirit feels to be on the topic, so I think I am ready for more. So who would like to share next?”
“Will is the most entertaining and light hearted of the bunch, maybe he should speak,” Mozart suggested.
“I did actually have something I have wondered.”
“Go on,” Shakespeare relied.
“Your writings seemed to change quite dramatically…” I was interrupted by a snicker from Ralpacan.
“I’m sorry I just love puns,” Ralpacan interjected.
“I didn’t even catch that until I heard you laugh,” I admitted.
“You mean the evolution from writing comedies to tragedies, and then to comedic tragedies I imagine?” Will clarified.
“Yes, exactly!” excited he knew exactly what I meant.
“We start by not thinking about sad things, preferring only to laugh, then we get caught up in the drama. After that we realize that drama is ridiculous, and the only thing to do with it, is laugh it away. I was glad by the time I got to the ‘other side’ I was okay with there not being any drama. Drama is entertaining but not fulfilling. We get nothing from it; in fact, I think we lose something.
There’s nothing that we learn from drama that we didn’t already know. The only thing we never seem to learn from it, is the only thing it teaches: that we aren’t as sneaky as we would like to think. No one says after watching a drama that they didn’t see something coming, someone or multiple people in every dramatic situation do things they know are wrong; in fact, we head straight for the worst when we seek drama. It plays on our raw nerve, which eventually will go numb.
On the ‘other side,’ everything is so real and vivid, that there is no nerve too far gone. Everyone on arriving to the ‘other side’ fully feels the weight of truth. The ability to discern truth may or may not have been sharpened, but that is a different story.
There is an over whelming feeling of, ‘there’s more here,’ and a joy that hits as urgency, to shed anything between you and the light. There’s nowhere on the other side where light doesn’t touch. I think it is awkward more than natural at first, but when the awkwardness is spent, it’s apparent there is no better way for things to be.
Some people struggle with the reality check more than others: I’ve seen some just curl up face down and cry. When I see that happen I feel I can relate, though my experience was a little different arriving on the other side.
I was blinded by the light. I shut my eyes and just stood there in a haze. Much like those I see crying at some point, I became tired of the haze, and decided whatever the light was, I didn’t care how much my eyes would burn, I would choose it over the haze. Just before I made the effort to open my eyes, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes, and I saw my son Hamnet who died at the age of eleven. He didn’t look eleven, but it was him. We embraced, and in those moments I didn’t even feel the burning of my eyes. I didn’t realize till later, because the burning was gone for good; I felt in that moment changed.
Mortality in an instance passed into a dream… and I let it go. I am surprised that so easily I did, but also very grateful. I think if I would have tried to hold onto it… well… I guess I don’t know, but I’m just glad I didn’t.
“What do you mean you let it go?” I asked.
Shakespeare continued, “I think it comes down to this: you are not given the choice to fix the broken you, you can receive a whole new you, or keep the old you. There are too many interweaving of the soul to just take any single part completely out, or let anything completely in.”
“But you remember your life here, so how is it a whole new you?” I asked.
“It’s not about forgetting, but more that you allow yourself to remember perfectly. You have to absolutely accept everything for what it is. You can’t truly remember perfectly until you leave yourself.”
“And then you get yourself back?” I asked
“But it’s more of you, more of you then you ever imagined existed… it’s all of you.”
“Wow” I said in amazement.
Will continued. �
�Who we become at the end of our lives is the sum of all of our decisions. Who we can be after, if we choose, is everything we ever could have gained from those decisions. A failed decision is just as good as a good one, when you accept your fault.”
“What would be the difference then if our decisions wouldn’t matter?” I asked feeling confused. Not that I didn’t believe in grace, but how it worked on an eternal scale I couldn’t fathom.
“I didn’t say they didn’t matter, just that their face value after the fact is the same. The difference comes, in that you experience more as you choose better. We can lose the will to decide if we are not careful. A drunkard and missionary will experience many different things. The missionary learns many things that a drunkard learns because he is sent to love him.”
“But he also learns more,” I said, feeling I could see where he was heading with this. But I still couldn’t grasp the big picture.
“Exactly, because a missionary is sent not only to love drunkards, but every person. That also goes for every good person, not just those who are religious. In fact it is very possible to get so caught up in the religion, that its mission is forgotten. Every man’s mission is to love his neighbor. You can see now a little more why?”
“I never saw it like that,” I admitted.
“And the way you saw it is also true. It’s not that one is more important than the other, or that you can have one without the other. We love because we want to be filled with love, but not just so we can be filled ourselves, but that with it, we can fill others.”
“Which is the only way to be filled, right?” I asked.
Just then there was a sneeze. We all turned to the source which was the stairs.
Dinner Party Page 8
