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Currently at Toronto Pearson: 12.
(Another one mostly written at the cottage a month ago.)
Twenty-some years ago I read something in a "Facts and Arguments" essay in the Globe about how "self-consciousness" is really selfishness. I think about that from time to time. (There's one other thing from a "Facts and Arguments" essay I read long ago that I think about from time to time: a bit about how in Judaism it's a mitzvah to give alms to the poor, and so you should be glad when a panhandler asks you for money.) It's a cruel thought (especially because what do you want to do, make self-conscious people self-conscious about their self-consciousness?), but it's importantly true. (Of course, it's also false. Self-consciousness and selfishness are not co-extensive. Neither, exactly, are self-centred-ness and selfishness, nor self-absorbed-ness and selfishness. Nor, for that matter, self-awareness and selfishness. It occurred to me a long time ago as a curiosity that "self-consciousness" and "self-awareness" say the same thing in different tones.) I'm thinking about that again this morning, before and after a guy staying at the cottage next door came paddling his motorboat back in. The boat had been gone since maybe three yesterday afternoon; maybe around six I started getting concerned about the fact that it wasn't back yet. I started to feel like one of those fishermen's wives you read about, scanning the seas for the overdue boats. Meanwhile this guy's presumable wife was in the cottage next door with their very small presumable kids (and for all I knew last night, maybe he was, too--I still have no idea whether he was or not). By nightfall I was kind of going out of my mind wondering what had happened to that boat, and that guy. I could've gone and knocked on the door--I thought of it, I thought of knocking on the door and saying "I'm sorry to bother you, but I noticed that the boat has been gone for a long time and I was wondering if everything is all right." But I didn't do that. As it happens I go ridiculously far out of my way not to be seen by anyone next door, or anywhere else around here. So I sat here and worried, and I peered at the cottage next door and worried, and I watched out the window as their car (which had gone out at some point in the evening) came back after dark, and the presumable mother get out with one of the very small children, and worried, and I listened for motors and voices and worried, and I thought that this guy might be dead, and maybe I would've been able to keep him from being dead if I would've gone and knocked on their door, and worried. And then, wandering around between our cottage and theirs late this morning, I heard paddling coming around the shore, and I ducked inside and watched as the guy (who seemed to be wearing the same shirt I last saw him in yesterday), sitting at the bow of the boat, paddled it in to the dock. (The last I had seen of the guy and the boat yesterday, I saw the guy pick up the gas tank. I suppose he was weighing it in his hand. I guess he may have misjudged.)
Speaking of self-consciousness and hiding from the neighbours: early last summer the two old folks, of my grandparents' generation, from my grandparents' church, who built their cottage there shortly after my grandparents did, came over to say hello, while I was out replacing the little front porch, which had rotted through. ("Funny they'd rot like that," said the old man of the old porch boards, and the old woman said, "Well, they'd probably been there a few years." (The year before, their son had told me how his father and my grandfather had traded wood while they were building their respective cottages. His father, who worked for the power company, got wood from big electrical cable reels; my grandfather got wood from packing crates at the railway factory where he worked. He told me that, as a kid, he spent his winters pulling out nails.)) We had a pleasant enough chat, and then, when they were leaving, the old woman said to me that they had just wanted to come over to say hello, to be neighbourly. "You come over and say hello too," were her parting words to me, to which I could not reply, and they were left hanging in the air for me trip over. Once upon a time when I was a little boy, the five of us--my grandparents, the old next-door neighbours, and I--were all going to church in town together. On the way, the old man learned that I would not be going to Sunday School (or, as I distinctly remember him saying, Sundee School). I was fine with going to church, but no way in hell was I going to Sundee School (presumably because, though I would not have said so at the time, in Sundee School I would be forced to interact with the other children and with the Sundee School teacher). He did not take this news happily, but happily for me, he was not in charge of me, so I got to sit in church with the grown-ups and not go to Sundee School. Now, it happens that this church is one of those free-wheeling "gospel hall" kind of churches, and it happens that in this church service people were invited to stand up and say something. On this particular day, people were invited to stand up and say something about what they were thankful, and this old man from next door got up and talked about how he was thankful for Sundee School teachers.
You know, this is not a bad old man and I do not dislike him. Actually I liked both him and the old woman quite a lot when I was a little boy. Once, we were over at their cottage playing a card game, and the old man asked what church I went to. My grandfather mischievously piped up that I was a heathen. When I said I was an Anglican, the old man said, "There's a lot of truth in the Anglican bible." I was a bit perplexed by that at the time, but I liked it, and of course I liked it more when--years later--it came to pass that I understood what he meant. (I learned from my father only a few weeks ago that my grandmother had been an Anglican until she was a teenager, and--my father says--would sometimes point this out when my grandparents visited our church. (I don't remember her ever saying that, but I do remember, on those occasions, my grandfather always saying something about how Anglicans keep jumping up and down in their church services.)) Anyway, this is not a bad old man and I do not dislike him, and I was genuinely happy to see him and the old woman, for the first time in many years, at my grandfather's funeral. And I don't believe he got up in church to say that he was thankful for Sundee School teachers to humiliate me, and I don't know that he even did it to teach me a lesson or exhort me or anything like that. But it sticks in my mind, and it sticks in my craw, and though I don't hold it against him, I will always hide from someone who would do something like that.
(I don't say that I should. I only say that I do.)
(Another one mostly written at the cottage a month ago.)
Twenty-some years ago I read something in a "Facts and Arguments" essay in the Globe about how "self-consciousness" is really selfishness. I think about that from time to time. (There's one other thing from a "Facts and Arguments" essay I read long ago that I think about from time to time: a bit about how in Judaism it's a mitzvah to give alms to the poor, and so you should be glad when a panhandler asks you for money.) It's a cruel thought (especially because what do you want to do, make self-conscious people self-conscious about their self-consciousness?), but it's importantly true. (Of course, it's also false. Self-consciousness and selfishness are not co-extensive. Neither, exactly, are self-centred-ness and selfishness, nor self-absorbed-ness and selfishness. Nor, for that matter, self-awareness and selfishness. It occurred to me a long time ago as a curiosity that "self-consciousness" and "self-awareness" say the same thing in different tones.) I'm thinking about that again this morning, before and after a guy staying at the cottage next door came paddling his motorboat back in. The boat had been gone since maybe three yesterday afternoon; maybe around six I started getting concerned about the fact that it wasn't back yet. I started to feel like one of those fishermen's wives you read about, scanning the seas for the overdue boats. Meanwhile this guy's presumable wife was in the cottage next door with their very small presumable kids (and for all I knew last night, maybe he was, too--I still have no idea whether he was or not). By nightfall I was kind of going out of my mind wondering what had happened to that boat, and that guy. I could've gone and knocked on the door--I thought of it, I thought of knocking on the door and saying "I'm sorry to bother you, but I noticed that the boat has been gone for a long time and I was wondering if everything is all right." But I didn't do that. As it happens I go ridiculously far out of my way not to be seen by anyone next door, or anywhere else around here. So I sat here and worried, and I peered at the cottage next door and worried, and I watched out the window as their car (which had gone out at some point in the evening) came back after dark, and the presumable mother get out with one of the very small children, and worried, and I listened for motors and voices and worried, and I thought that this guy might be dead, and maybe I would've been able to keep him from being dead if I would've gone and knocked on their door, and worried. And then, wandering around between our cottage and theirs late this morning, I heard paddling coming around the shore, and I ducked inside and watched as the guy (who seemed to be wearing the same shirt I last saw him in yesterday), sitting at the bow of the boat, paddled it in to the dock. (The last I had seen of the guy and the boat yesterday, I saw the guy pick up the gas tank. I suppose he was weighing it in his hand. I guess he may have misjudged.)
Speaking of self-consciousness and hiding from the neighbours: early last summer the two old folks, of my grandparents' generation, from my grandparents' church, who built their cottage there shortly after my grandparents did, came over to say hello, while I was out replacing the little front porch, which had rotted through. ("Funny they'd rot like that," said the old man of the old porch boards, and the old woman said, "Well, they'd probably been there a few years." (The year before, their son had told me how his father and my grandfather had traded wood while they were building their respective cottages. His father, who worked for the power company, got wood from big electrical cable reels; my grandfather got wood from packing crates at the railway factory where he worked. He told me that, as a kid, he spent his winters pulling out nails.)) We had a pleasant enough chat, and then, when they were leaving, the old woman said to me that they had just wanted to come over to say hello, to be neighbourly. "You come over and say hello too," were her parting words to me, to which I could not reply, and they were left hanging in the air for me trip over. Once upon a time when I was a little boy, the five of us--my grandparents, the old next-door neighbours, and I--were all going to church in town together. On the way, the old man learned that I would not be going to Sunday School (or, as I distinctly remember him saying, Sundee School). I was fine with going to church, but no way in hell was I going to Sundee School (presumably because, though I would not have said so at the time, in Sundee School I would be forced to interact with the other children and with the Sundee School teacher). He did not take this news happily, but happily for me, he was not in charge of me, so I got to sit in church with the grown-ups and not go to Sundee School. Now, it happens that this church is one of those free-wheeling "gospel hall" kind of churches, and it happens that in this church service people were invited to stand up and say something. On this particular day, people were invited to stand up and say something about what they were thankful, and this old man from next door got up and talked about how he was thankful for Sundee School teachers.
You know, this is not a bad old man and I do not dislike him. Actually I liked both him and the old woman quite a lot when I was a little boy. Once, we were over at their cottage playing a card game, and the old man asked what church I went to. My grandfather mischievously piped up that I was a heathen. When I said I was an Anglican, the old man said, "There's a lot of truth in the Anglican bible." I was a bit perplexed by that at the time, but I liked it, and of course I liked it more when--years later--it came to pass that I understood what he meant. (I learned from my father only a few weeks ago that my grandmother had been an Anglican until she was a teenager, and--my father says--would sometimes point this out when my grandparents visited our church. (I don't remember her ever saying that, but I do remember, on those occasions, my grandfather always saying something about how Anglicans keep jumping up and down in their church services.)) Anyway, this is not a bad old man and I do not dislike him, and I was genuinely happy to see him and the old woman, for the first time in many years, at my grandfather's funeral. And I don't believe he got up in church to say that he was thankful for Sundee School teachers to humiliate me, and I don't know that he even did it to teach me a lesson or exhort me or anything like that. But it sticks in my mind, and it sticks in my craw, and though I don't hold it against him, I will always hide from someone who would do something like that.
(I don't say that I should. I only say that I do.)
