patience

The value of our art

April 14, 2014 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

image courtesy of google images. Spangled Blengins, Boy King Islands. One is a young Tuskorhorian, the other a human headed Dortherean by Henry Darger

Let me tell you about Henry Darger, the man who wrote one of the most detailed and bizarre books in history.

Never heard of him? Me neither. At least, not until I happened to stumble upon his story a few weeks ago. Seems strange that someone who did something so grand could be so unknown, doesn’t it? But it’s true. In fact, you could even say that’s why Henry was so extraordinary.

He was a janitor. Nothing so special about that, but nothing so wrong with it, either. There is no correlation between who a person is and what that person does for a living. Einstein was a patent clerk. Faulkner a mailman. Henry Darger mopped floors.

An unassuming man. A quiet man. He never married, never really had friends. Just a regular guy living a regular life, one of the faceless masses that occupy so much of the world who are here for a short while and then gone forever.

Henry left in 1973.

There are no accounts of his funeral. I don’t know if anyone attended at all, though I like to think they did. I like to think there was a crowd huddled around his casket that day to bid him farewell.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that so many people are discovered to have been truly extraordinary only after their passing. Such was the case with Henry. A few days after his passing, his landlord went through his apartment to ready it for rent. What he found was astonishing.

What he found hidden among Henry’s possessions was a manuscript. Its title may give you a clue as to the story’s scope and magnitude:

THE STORY OF THE VIVIAN GIRLS, IN WHAT IS KNOWN AS THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL, OF THE GLANDECO-ANGELINIAN WAR STORM, CAUSED BY THE CHILD SLAVE REBELLION

Did you get that? If not, I can’t blame you. I had to read the title three times to even understand a little of it, and that doesn’t count the time I actually wrote it out.

The breadth and scope of Henry’s book went well beyond epic. The manuscript itself contained 15,000 pages. Over nine million words. Over 300 watercolor pictures coinciding with the story. Some of the illustrations were so large they measured ten feet wide.

A lifetime’s worth of work. Years upon years of solitary effort, hundreds of thousands of hours spent writing and painting, creating an entire saga of another world.

And all for no apparent reason. Not only did Henry Darger never seek any sort of publication for his work, he never told a soul about it. His book was his dream and his secret alone.

I’ve thought about Henry Darger a lot since I first read about him. Which, as change or fate would have it, just to happened to be the very week my newest novel released. A tough thing, that. You’d think it wouldn’t be, perhaps, but it is. No matter who an author is or how successful he or she may be or how many books or under his or her belt, the most important thing to us all is that our words matter. Matter to others, matter to the world. We want what we say and think and feel to count for something.

But Henry Darger reminds me that none of those things mean anything. In the end, we cannot account for how the world will judge our work, and so, in the end, the world’s opinion really doesn’t matter. Simple as that.

What matters—what counts—is that our words stir not the world, but ourselves. That they conjure in our own hearts and minds a kind of magic that neither the years nor the work can dull. The kind of magic that sustains us in our lonely times and gives our own private worlds meaning. The kind of magic that tinges even the life of a simple janitor with greatness.

Willsey the dog

October 29, 2013 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

Having the evening breeze blow over you and make ripples in your glass of tea is a pretty nice way to end your day, which is why I love my porch. It’s a good vantage point to my own little slice of world, one that unfolds before me in the sort of high-definition that far eclipses my television.

My porch serves as a good object lesson, too. It’s proof that if you hold still and listen long enough, something pretty insightful will happen.

That didn’t seem to be the case last night. I was holding still well enough. That wasn’t the problem. And the problem really wasn’t the listening, either. I was doing that, too.

The problem was what I was hearing.

The dog was a mutt. Half beagle, half Australian shepherd, with maybe a little bit of border collie thrown in. Having all that muddled DNA inside you would surely cause more than a little confusion. Trust me when I say that dog was more than a little confused.

So was its owner, who at the moment seemed a little perplexed as to if he was walking the dog or the dog was walking him. He tripped and pulled and pushed. The dog ran and stopped and tangled the leash around its owner’s legs. It was a sight.

And over and over between the barks came pleas of despair and sorrow:

“Willsey, stop!” “Willsey, come!” “Willsey, hold still!” “Dang it, Willsey!”

It took a full five minutes for the two of them to get from the corner of my block to the front of my house. And even though I was enjoying the cool of the evening, the man was sweating as much as a boxer after a ten round fight.

Willsey stopped and sniffed at our mailbox post. Just before he was ready to do his business, I let out a small cough. The owner looked at me on the porch and gave the dog a quick jerk. He’d have to hold it for the next post down the road.

We smiled at each other and said hello.

“Wouldn’t want a dog, would you?” he asked me.

“Sorry,” I said. “Looks like he’d be a full time job.”

“Buddy,” he said, “you don’t know the half of it.”

I nodded toward the mutt hanging from the end of the leash. “Kind of a strange name for a dog. Willsey?”

He laughed and said, “Yeah well, happened by accident.”

He bent down, rubbed the dog on its head, and was rewarded by a face full of slobber. He snorted, the dog snorted, and I snorted.

“My little girl brought him home,” he said. “Just had to have a dog, and she worried me to death. You think this dog’s ugly now? You should have seem him when he was a pup. Looked like Satan himself had coughed him up. And she says, ‘Daddy, can we keep him?’”

“And what’d you say?” I asked.

“I said, ‘Well, we’ll see.”

“Which I’m guessing became Willsey.”

“Yep,” he said. “Seven years ago. Hated him at first. Still kinda do. But you know what? He’s growin’ on me.”

He patted the dog again and got another face full of slobber.

“I like it,” I told him. “The name and the story.”

The man laughed and then proceeded to drag/push/pull Willsey on down the road.

“Neighbor’s got a fresh coat of paint on the mailbox post,” I shouted to him.

“Oh, Willsey’s gonna love that,” I heard.

I smiled to myself and resumed my rocking. I didn’t know who to feel sorry for the most, the man who was stuck with the dog or the dog who was stuck with the man. Maybe both should have been pitied in equal measure. Then again, maybe they both deserved each other.

But I wondered about all those things I’d said “We’ll see” to in my life, all those things I thought would happen or wouldn’t and then didn’t or did. And then I wondered about all the other people who used that phrase every day. We never know what’s coming in this life. We can seldom see what challenges or blessings wait just around the next corner.

And we can seldom see the blessings in our challenges, too.

Gums and the never ending field trip

October 8, 2012 by Billy Coffey 8 Comments

Took a day off from work a while back to do something I haven’t done in about twenty years—go on a field trip. My daughter’s class was to spend the day at a local university, and she was psyched for some Daddy Time. I was pretty psyched my own self. That goes to show you how long it’s been since I’ve been around about sixty third-graders.

Any thought that our time together would be both quiet and alone was quickly put to rest with the appearance of one of my daughter’s friends, who sat with us on the bus. The little girl’s name still escapes me, though I’m sure she mentioned it. Many, many times. Mentioned quite a few other things as well. Many, many times.

Country folk like me (the men in particular) tend to shy away from calling people by their given names, opting instead for nicknames of their own creation. There is an art to this. A good nickname is comical but not mean, and usually connotes a certain physical attribute or facet of personality. I tell you that so I can tell you the nickname I’d given my daughter’s friend by the time we hit the interstate.

Gums.

Because she never shut up.

Never, ever.

The trip began with me in the middle of a bus seat designed for two small children at the most. Ours contained two small children and one big redneck. Gums began her questions early and often:

“Are you the writer?”

“You don’t look like a writer.”

“Why do your jeans have holes in them?”

“Why don’t you have any hair?”

“Can I have a copy of your book?”

“Why don’t you shave?”

“Is that your notebook?”

“Can I see?”

That was the moment I paused and asked my daughter if she would mind switching seats. There would be more room for us if I was at the window, I told her. It was a lie, of course. But the truth was that I wanted to use her as a sort of human shield, and I couldn’t tell her that.

For her part, Gums didn’t mind. She could talk across my daughter to me just as easily. I had a headache the size of Texas by the time we got off the bus.

We made our way into a ballroom, the setting for most of the day’s activities. Seven people to a table. My daughter sidled up to me in her chair. So did Gums.

Third grade fieldtrips seem to revolve around crafts. I’m not a craft sort of guy. My little girl is (thankfully), though I still had to pitch in with the glue, the tape, and the stapler. Likewise Gums, who managed to staple both herself and me to the mask she was making before we finally got everything straightened out.

That’s how most of the day went, my arms tired from my daughter clinging to them and my ears tired from the chorus of “Daddy, look!” and “Hey Mr. Coffey, c’mere!” It didn’t take me long to realize I’d never make it as a teacher.

The ride home was interesting. Me mashed against the window, my lap filled with a ceremonial mask made out of construction paper and fake feathers and a drum make out of two popcorn containers. Mass hysteria from the seats behind me, teachers fighting the good fight to keep everything calm.

My daughter laid her head on my shoulder. I saw her smile, and I knew the day had been worth it. A smile from her is always worth it.

Gums peeked at me and made a come-here motion with her finger. I leaned in close, ready for whatever questions she had this time. She had none. Instead, she leaned her mouth toward my ear and whispered, “I wish I had a daddy like you.”

Oh my.

I didn’t mind Gums talking the rest of the ride home. And to be honest, I kind of felt bad for nicknaming her Gums (though she seemed to enjoy it quite a bit).

But I learned a lot on that field trip. Not just how to make ceremonial masks and drums, either. I learned a little something about kids, too.

About how they need something else besides food, water, shelter, and love.

They need attention, too. They need adults looking at them in the eyes and listening to the things they say. And say, and say…

Back to school call to arms

August 6, 2012 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

It’s often said people don’t miss what they don’t know, and that is a maxim proven true many times in my life. Like right now.

When I was a kid, back-to-school shopping involved little more than perusing the two aisles of office supplies at the local Roses, where the selection was limited and the quality was debatable. But now there’s Staples. If there had been a Staples when I was in school, I’m sure I would have roamed the aisles of notebooks and pencils with the same sense of wonder and excitement my children are displaying.

Shedding the outdoors for a classroom is now a call to arms. One look at the sheet of necessary supplies in my wife’s hand that came directly from the school officials confirms it. Pencils, notebook paper, backpack, glue, tape, composition book, erasers, and kid-friendly scissors are just a few of the necessary items. I feel like I’m sending my kids off to college rather than fifth and third grade.

Although I am at times not so patient a father, on this day and in this store understanding comes easy. My kids are regarding our trip here with the perfect blend of excitement and seriousness. A tiny seed of knowledge is being planted within them that somehow this supply shopping is no errand. In a few years it will sprout and grow into the knowledge that what they are doing is the physical manifestation of a spiritual truth. They will see this a holy rite, and a universal one at that.

Because if my children are anything like me, all this shopping and ogling over school supplies and all this excitement over starting a new year will likely one day be replaced by a determination not to screw things up yet again.

I was never a standout in school. Nowhere near honor-role caliber. Average at best. I suppose I had the smarts to do better and be more, but not the drive or discipline. What people thought of me and how I fit in mattered much more than learning the Pythagorean theorem or how photosynthesis worked. Then, and sometimes now, the things that really shouldn’t matter at all mattered very much.

For me, the best days of the school year were the first few and the last few. The first few because they always held the most promise. The last few because by then I had firmly entrenched myself in my yearly rut of getting by rather than pulling ahead, and just wanted everything over with.

But summer vacation is the Great Eraser, three months of sunshine and play that put enough distance between me and the previous nine months to suggest the next year might be mine to own. Back-to-school shopping would always cement that thought. All those fresh notebooks with empty pages waiting to be filled with knowledge? Pencils sharp and wood-scented, ready to chew on in deep thought? And of course there was the epitome of student organization, the Trapper Keeper. Those were the weapons I would wield in the battle against myself.

And it always worked for the first few weeks, after which those notebooks would be filled with doodles born of boredom and angst, the pencils would be thrown at either a classmate or the ceiling, and my Trapper Keeper would have been torn to shreds and abandoned in the bottom of my locker.

We have good intentions, don’t we? Every notion to make the next day our best, to rise above petty thoughts and empty words and become who we know we can be. And still every night we close our eyes with the nagging thoughts of who we let down and what we couldn’t measure up to.

Just as we can’t be the perfect student, we’ll never be the perfect people. Deep down we all know this. But we also know that just because our feet are stuck in the mud of this world doesn’t mean our hands can’t reach ever higher toward the sky. Just because we cannot fly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stand tall.

That’s what I want my children to know as they walk these aisles.

Pleasure in the wanting

September 21, 2011 by Billy Coffey 11 Comments

Today is the end of what has become a rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating road. That’s something I’ll tell you, dear reader, and no one else. Especially my son. Because he is to blame for all of this. And, by extension, so am I.

I’ve always found it fascinating how certain traits in parents are passed on to their children. I’m not talking about things like hair and eye color. I’m talking about attitudes and preconceptions, things that go a long way in defining how they see the world. Good things. Bad things, too.

Take my son, for instance. Folks say he has my looks and my hairline, two things for which I’ve already apologized to him. Like his father, he loves baseball and walking through the woods. And he also has a tendency to fixate on something he wants to the point of near obsession.

It’s this last point that has led us down the rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating road.

My son also loves Star Wars (again like his father, once upon a time). Five and a half weeks ago found the two of us in the toy aisle at Target, where we stood face to face with what he described as the single greatest thing ever in the history of the world—a Darth Vader costume. Complete with mask, utility belt, cape, and a genuine imitation lightsaber.

“I gotta have that, Dad,” he said.

“Sure is nice.” I looked at the price tag. “How much money do you have?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out three quarters, a rubber ball, and three Legos.

“Don’t think that’ll do it,” I told him.

My son knew that. Reality is rarely comforting, however, so he spent the next few days sulking. All of his other costumes—and his has dozens—paled in comparison. His life would not be complete until he could walk through the house as Darth Vader, doing that deep, throaty breathing and intimidating us all with the dark side of the Force. His paltry (to him) allowance meant he’d have to wait months to save enough money, and by then the costume would be gone. It was hopeless.

But then my son remembered his report card and his standing deal with his grandfather. Good grades equaled good money, much more than what I’d give him for cleaning his room and taking out the trash. The problem was that he had five weeks to wait.

And let me tell you, that was a long five weeks. A rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating five weeks.

He marked the days off his calendar. Asked me to float him a loan. Stared at a picture of the costume he found on the internet, then stared at me with puppy-dog eyes. He moaned and whined. He yelled and pouted. He even said he dreamed he’d finally bought it. My son obsessed over that costume for five weeks, and he just about broke me in the process.

Then came today.

Report card day.

His marks were good, which meant a quick trip to the grandparents between the end of supper and the toy aisle at Target. Two hours later, it was all mercifully over. I peeked at my son through the rearview mirror on the way home. He was cradling his prize. You should have seen the smile on his face.

It stayed there for a while.

As I write this, my son’s beside me on the sofa. He’s dressed to the nine’s—mask, cape, belt. Lightsaber. He’s slumped in the corner watching a rerun of Phineas & Ferb. During the last commercial, he said, “Did you see that new Lego set they had at Target? That would be awesome.”

I figure I have another six weeks or so to hear that. Yet another rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating road.

I suppose I’ll comfort myself with the hope that he’s learning a valuable lesson through all this. One that we all should learn at some point.

Because there are a lot of things in our lives like my son’s Darth Vader costume—things that are wonderful before we attain it and nothing special afterward.

The weight of worry

May 19, 2011 by Billy Coffey 16 Comments

To say my daughter is a worrier would be an understatement. She worries about everything. There are the normal worries of a nine-year-old—Do people like me? Am I going to get an A on my math test? How do I fit in and stand out at the same time? But there are also worries no nine-year-old should concern herself with—What if I don’t become a doctor? What if the whole world blows up? What if God isn’t real?

This has all been going on for a while, and many times I fear it’s getting worse. The world expands when you turn nine. You’re right on the cusp of young adulthood. Things get scary. I understand that. Which is why I’ve gone to great lengths to calm my daughter’s fears and ease her worries.

But lately I’ve noticed a shift in the way I act towards her. I’ll see my daughter coming into the room and know by the way she walks—small steps, head down—and the way she whispers “Daddy?” that something’s on her mind. Something pressing and important.

I’ll say, “Yes?”

And she’ll relay that day’s fresh worry. Whether small or large, warranted or not, doesn’t matter. There is no distinction between important or not. All worries feel the same.

And yet while before I would patiently listen, now I find myself cutting her words short. And while before I would give her the best advice I could, lately I find myself giving her subtle variations of, “You worry too much, and you need to stop.”

It hasn’t worked. My daughter has now gone from worrying about the whole world blowing up to worrying about worrying.

It’s frustrating. For her and for me. This is perhaps the first time I’ve realized that the parental reach extends only so far. At some point, one’s children must act on their own. Nothing I can do can assuage my daughter’s worry. She must do that on her own. And that she can’t—or rather won’t—makes me angry.

It makes me angry because I know what harm constant worry can do. I’ve done it all my life. Like her, they started both small and normal. Also like her, they soon magnified themselves into large, dark shadows of very small and light things. They became like boulders I carried on my insides and refused to put down, dragging me along to the point where steps seemed as miles and the horizon ahead never moved nearer. I was stuck, imprisoned not by life or the devil, but by my own self.

That’s what I fear for her.

That’s why I’m angry.

I see in my daughter my younger self. I want her to be more than her father, and I’m mad that she doesn’t see that she can.

It hasn’t taken me long to realize what an ass I’m being, though. Here I am a grown man, and I still worry about things I shouldn’t. Why should I be angry with my daughter for doing the same? Better, I think, to show her the love and understanding I’ve always refused to show myself.

I can’t be angry that I cannot make her what I wish her to be, because I can’t make myself what I wish to be.

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