Was there something you wanted to do with your life, something that slipped through the cracks between your days? Was there someone you loved who never knew? And where are you going so fast?
Then, what would you die for?
Then, who would you live for?
And, if you are hiding, what would happen if, for one perfect moment you took off your faces and let us see exactly who you are? Are you afraid that we wouldn’t love you? Or worse, are you afraid that we would?
— Jim Warda
This is my life.
I’m driving down Western Avenue on the far north side of Chicago. It’s 6:30 pm on a Tuesday evening as I veer in, out, around, and past the crowded rush of cars. I’ve mastered the art of changing lanes without veering into recklessness (or another car) — or at least so I’ve convinced myself — and tonight as I push past colossal SUVs, new Camrys, and worn-out old vans, my skills are in high form.
Near Devon an early eighties beater of a Chevy Nova lumbers along in the left lane, trying my patience when I can’t get around. I’m not sure which is the illusion, the way the car appears to be veering sideways as it moves, the result of a bent, unrepaired chassis, or the fact that the car is actually somehow going forward. As the light turns green at Touhy, Mr. Nova appears lost in a meditative haze, and it takes a blast of my horn to return him to the rush-hour reality of the moment.
I’m on my way to Transitions Bookstore near North Avenue, for a scheduled 7:00 pm book event, trying to make time in a city whose roads only mock time. It’s definitely one of those stop-and-go, change-lanes, switch-the-radio, check-the-clock, make-the-light kind of drives. When at last I pull into the parking lot, I’m frustrated and frazzled. With all the congestion and sitting at lights, I figure I have actually averaged zero miles per hour, all the way down from Evanston. Only an act of God has deposited me here.
If my math abilities are the worse for wear, at least I’m only a few minutes late, and the talk I was planning to hear has not yet started. Time to catch my breath. Order something to drink. I see a couple of friends and join them at a table. I’m looking forward to tonight’s speaker, local Chicago author Jim Warda, whose weekly on-line column, "Moments Online," I’ve been subscribing to for a while. By the way, the topic this evening? "Where Are We Going So Fast? Finding the Sacred in Everyday Moments." It’s the title of Warda’s new book.
Chasing Self-Awareness
My life is full of such ironies. But that’s okay. My life is also full of moments of catching myself in such ironies and contradictions, running myself ragged as I do, always on the trail of some sort of higher self-awareness. It can seem as if a day doesn’t pass when something I’ve done doesn’t cause me to shake my head or laugh at myself or wonder just what was I thinking. Once in a while I might even extract some meaning from the moments when I am, as they say, being only human.
Where Are We Going So Fast? is all about being human. In it the Chicken Soup for the Soul contributor offers readers a series of rich and highly personal insights into the many moments that make up one person’s life. It is a life filled with work and family and tenderness and love that runs deep. A life full of grand aspirations and mundane worries and a thousand daily reminders of the ways our lives intersect and why we need each other. A life I imagine much like your life or my life.
Warda is a writer also blessed with a poet’s touch. The stories offered here invariably pull readers into a kind of intimate, contemplative space. We are there in the quiet of the night as Warda watches his wife holding their newborn baby, mother and daughter appearing almost as one in this dad’s tender-eyed observation. We are there when his legs buckle at the news that his father has just died — and later, as he delivers the eulogy that reveals to us his father’s love for life’s simple pleasures, like cantaloupe, poetry, and mowing the lawn.
Warda takes us outside on the worst wintry day, to feel the cold, whipping snow as he shovels his driveway, the icy misery of the moment. Until, the falling snowflakes suddenly remind him of a similar, long-ago day, when he prayed for snow so school would be canceled and he could grab his sled and run outside. He also takes us into our own hearts, or at least holds open the door as he gestures for us to step inside, reminding us as we enter that we deserve to be loved, that we are loved.
I have a place in my life for a book like Where Are We Going So Fast?
Warda challenges my cynicism in ways that are good for me. Not that cynicism per se is bad. Hardly. Talking modern politics, I’m cynical about so much of what is precisely because I am so idealistic about what could be. That’s also always seemed like a good thing to me. But I’ll admit when I’m tired or discouraged, this otherwise healthy intellect of mine can melt down into a kind of muddy pool of harsh judgments, one in which I’m inclined to see the world in sweepingly short supply of simple human compassion.
With his simple, touching, sometimes romantic stories, Warda brings me back to my spirit. The voice is like a minister whose mission is to remind us of the essential beauty of the human experience. He does so effectively because his voice is honest and strong. Authentic. It all works because the soul of these short vignettes originates from a place of a deep, abiding love, for the "glory and tears we live each day," as Warda writes, for the gift that is life itself.
I suspect some people might criticize what he does here, or consider his style overly sensitive. But perhaps that says something more about our culture, when sensitivity is considered a condition we can suffer from, or have too much of, either creatively or in our character. Warda instead challenges us to embrace our sensitivity, not so much to see things his way as to remember perhaps what we already know. To remember what it is that moves the heavens in our lives — and what it is we are here to do.
Just a Kid on the Sidewalk
The other day a friend of mine drove up from downstate. Her daughter, Lillian, now ten years old, whom I have written about before, was enrolled for three weeks at an academic summer camp at Northwestern University. Living in the dorms with a group of fourth to sixth-graders, it was her first trip away from home, outside of staying with relatives. She was studying philosophy. It seemed to me that the mother was having a harder time with the separation than the daughter. That’s why the mother was hoping to catch a glimpse of the daughter as she walked along Sheridan Road, returning to the dorms after class. (I was also beginning to grasp why the program imposes such strict limits on parental visits during the camp.)
As it turned out, we ended up sitting in a parked car near the Shakespeare Garden on campus, within viewing distance of the sidewalk along the road, but also a discreet distance out of the way. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, time for class to let out. My friend the mother put on her dark glasses. Sure enough a swarm of students soon began to appear along the sidewalks, traipsing back to their dorms. Kids everywhere. We watched for a few minutes but there was no Lillian sighting. Then, all of a sudden, there she was! She had her backpack on, walking along with three other girls. Looking like such a big girl now. But also still such a kid.
We don’t approach her but just watch. My friend’s baby is growing up. It is a moment.
I think Jim Warda would understand.
Contact WordWind5@aol.com to subscribe to Jim Warda’s weekly column, "Moments Online."
Where Are We Going So Fast? Finding the Sacred in Everyday Moments, by Jim Warda (Sheed & Ward, 2001). Foreword by Jack Canfield.
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A Series of Good-byes September leaves arch this road, testament to another year that’s passed into another year. And, once again, I understand that life is a series of good-byes. Because people come and go. In fact, it seems like we’re always saying good-bye to someone. Some people enter and leave our lives in a heartbeat. They gently touch our hearts and are gone. But others weave themselves into who we are and what we believe. As for me, I don’t do well with good-byes. In fact, I’d much rather keep many of the people I’ve cared about around me forever. Of course, then we’d probably have to put on an addition. Instead, when I look at good-bye as a way to live what I’ve learned from that person, I begin to see possibilities. So I take at least one special thing about that person and bring it into my life. For instance, if that person stands up for what they believe in, I’ll try harder to stand in the fire. If they laugh often, I’ll try not to take life so seriously. By doing these simple things, then, I keep that person around even though they’re gone, which is my way of honoring them. Even those I consider not to be good people touch my life. I look at the evil or wrong they do and try to erase those things from my life, or at least reduce their power. If they’ve knocked a person down, I’ll help that person stand. It doesn’t always work. But I try. — Jim Warda |
Mark Harris is a Chicago-based writer. Visit his Web site, A Writer’s Voice.