ON ANOTHER LEVEL

This is a different kind of writing than I usually post.  It's what they call 'narrative non-fiction'  (I think.) and more autobiographical.  Let me know what you think!  -- Jane

ON ANOTHER LEVEL

When I was a little girl, I loved to watch my mother get ready to go out but literally, on different levels.  On the surface I saw a lovely lady looking fresh and coiffed.  She wore her green silk brocade shirtwaist dress with gold threads that shimmered. There was a smell of face powder and freshly applied lipstick which always required some strange but interesting facial expressions.   There were the instruments of beauty lying on the dresser such as tweezers, emory boards, and, the one which seemed, even to my unschooled mind, the closest to a medieval torture devise: the eyelash curler.  There was a good smelling perfume in a lovely cut glass bottle.  And all of it glittered with the reflected light shining from the thick glass top of the dresser.  Life, temporarily, on that level, seemed suffused with the sophisticated stability of a Connecticut suburb of New York City.

But as much as I loved that level, there was another realm that enchanted me:  If I bent down I could look into the side of the thick glass and see into a different world.  It was like floating in a green, sunlit ocean of calm that extended indefinitely.  And yet, at any moment, with the mere lifting of my head, I could be back in the everyday world above.  Then return, then back, then return, then back.  I could watch her, and know that the other world existed just below the surface.  Or, I could be in the other world and not see her.  I would try but could never be in both worlds at the same time.

 In the same years I had special places I'd go to.  There was a grove of trees on a hill near our house.  These pines provided me with a room of solace, a place to be alone and wonder about my life, and my family.  I could pretend it was a cottage in the country where I lived alone in another era or it was a secret hideout of a daring scout.

There were two other trees that were special.  One was for climbing.  I'd jump up to catch the lowest branch, then bring the legs around, hoisting the body up and climb high into the leafy top.  There, with the breeze and the sun on my body and a view of the surrounding area, I would feel like a sea captain at the top of a mast with a sense of exhilarating freedom and mastery.   The other tree was for more contemplative moments.  Like the biblical imagery of a tree nurtured by a stream, it sat, shady and serene, with a crook in it just right for reading.  And that too would take me to other worlds at other levels.

Saturday mornings in the Spring and Summer I'd join my father at the tennis courts, though never to play tennis.  Instead, it was Doc’s snack shed set high above a child’s vantage point and the woods and stream beyond the stone wall that brought me there. In his little green hut, Doc, the calm old man with a lean and lined mustachioed face, was the Zen master of all sodas and candies.  From his perch he would patiently and quietly observe the faces of those choosing from his domain of treats.  Sometimes I had enough allowance saved up and with me to buy something on my own.  Usually it required a great deal of cajoling and plaintive pleading with my father (also known as whining) to achieve my goal.    Those times, when the sun was so unbearably hot, the game so interminably long, and the spending campaign finally successful, made the taste of a cool, wet can of grape soda or the sweetened licorice of Good and Plenty all the more delicious. 

When I wasn’t focused on Doc’s candy heaven, I would wander beyond the stone wall and venture into the woods beyond.  There, in a patch of undeveloped land probably no bigger than a city block, I found another world beyond the everyday.  Wedged between the main street and the courts, it was probably one of those leftover lots that one whizzes by, not even noticing, on major commercial roads around the country  The little stream gets clogged with trash thrown from cars or by teens walking past, but never through.  But to me, this place was a beautiful, pristine forest, the jungle, the Garden of Eden without anyone else. The sun filtered through the trees and it felt as grand and as beautifully lit as a Hudson artist painting.  Ferns and frogs abounded.  Dragonflies flitter over the water which moved so lazily.  And I was an Indian princess camped on the side of my people’s life source.  I was a fairy princess joining the dance of the little people’s fair.  I was a solitary traveler like Rip Van Winkle lost in a different time.  I was fully in another world and when it was time to come out, I felt refreshed and renewed.

I suppose those times of being in a different realm or level are similar to what one experiences with meditation or those heavenly moments of transcendence -- you go beyond everyday life, and you ‘come back’ refreshed and renewed.  But you can’t be at both levels at the same time.  If I pay attention to what's happening on the surface, I can't be in the place of calm.  Even today, when I'm snuggling with my husband or sons, it won't feel blissfully sweet if I'm thinking about all the things that need to get done.

I sometimes worry that kids today don't have places on a different level.  It seems they live in a world of veneer, without ever seeing or being beyond it. Their towns have nothing but housing tracts and strip malls.  The fields and woods that were there have disappeared and only their names remain.  Or they don't feel safe.  People wake up to the TV, rush to the car, get to the job or the school, talk whatever talk, walk whatever walk, go to organized afterschool activities, rush through dinner and chores, watch TV and social media, and go to bed exhausted.  They don't even honour their dreams, a nourishing spring that is definitely at a different level!  When the weekend comes they rush to the sports, or malls or the home improvement stores and busy themselves with restaurants and movies.  There's nothing wrong with any of that.  It's just that, it reminds me of that old pop song by Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is?  Is that all there is?"  And the answer, in my experience, is no.  There is a deeper level to life all around us there for the seeing.  We just need to stop and go there.