Good Luck Trolls on St. Paddy's Day

 

Recently Amy finished a round painting that included an extra-terrestrial riding a unicorn, surrounded by “lucky” symbols. Near the bottom are two trolls, also known to be good luck charms, (see: Troll Doll).

Trolls remind me of an episode from my youth that has always stayed with me. In the early 1960’s our family of seven were becoming upwardly mobile and lived in a lovely neighborhood in Washington DC. I was almost a teenager. Not quite. My father, Richard W. Boone,  worked in the field of social reform and was quite active leading an organization called Citizens Crusade Against Poverty. Mother had begun working as an independent insurance broker. It was decided to hire a live-in domestic helper. Mother nixed any applicants that were young and pretty. The choice was Mrs. Smith; a homely middle aged black woman who came to live with us and took a bus home to a black neighborhood on weekends. Mrs. Smith was treated with deference and became part of our family. She ate at the table and if any child talked back to her they would hear it from father. Her duties were cooking, keeping the home clean and tending to piles of laundry—everything my mother would be doing if she had not begun working as an insurance agent.

In the early 1960’s troll dolls became one of America’s biggest toy fads. Boys as well as girls collected them. I had several. I liked the broad round face, the hair that stood straight up, the glass eyes with the half-wild stare and the gooey feeling body that would bend and spring back. When I started keeping them in a private place in my clothes drawer, the trouble began.

One afternoon I was in my room and Mrs. Smith came in. She made me open my drawer, revealing my trolls. Two dolls were resting gently on their backs looking up at us. They smiled mischievously with their big eyes, resting contentedly upon a pile of clean, folded white t-shirts.

“What are these?” she demanded. I could not explain exactly what they were . . . “Well, take them out of the drawer. I don’t want to see them again! And I am serious!” I was flabbergasted but removed and hid them somewhere else.
 
A week or so later, after the storm had passed, my little trolls went back to their home in my drawer. Mrs. Smith took clean undershirts and pants to my room, opened my dresser and got a shock. This time she was almost furious with me. “I told you not to put those in your drawer!” I knew this time she meant it and my dolls absolutely gave her the creeps. Secretly, I was happy my trolls had such huge hidden voodoo powers—after all, I had thought them to be harmless pet toys.

Sunday Times

Both my parents were avid consumers of information. My mother, a speed reader, read five library books a week for decades. When she was too frail to go to the library, her neighbor would deliver fresh books to her and take a sack of used ones to return. She read everything from physics to history to pulp fiction. Her mind was an encyclopedia. She did not need to leave the charms of her home, with its big trees and garden, to see the outer world. Books brought her adventures.

My father was engaged all his adult life with social matters and remaking America into a fairer and more just society. No wonder then that every day three newspapers arrived at my parents home in Santa Barbara, California: The New York times, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and the Los Angeles Times. When he passed away, his obituary and an article appeared in the same papers. (See my blog, I Always Loved Him)

I inherited some of my parents intellectualism. I am an artist, a designer, photographer, business owner, writer and world traveller. When I am at home I have a weekly ritual of going on Sunday morning to a well known local coffee bar and newsstand, called The Downtown Subscription. I buy a pastry, cup of coffee and the New York Times. Then I sit by myself and enjoy the ambience of art exhibits on the walls, music, and conversation all around. The Sunday paper is thick and full of timely and interesting content. I take it home and read it thoroughly, taking a week to finish—in time for another.

Eleven years ago I wrote a similar piece about going for the Sunday paper: (See- Sunday Times and Dried Leaves)

The Seed of Life

It was a spring Saturday, I was sixteen years old, my father and I were out on the front lawn, pulling dandelion weeds out of the grass. During our casual conversation, I confided I had yearnings for happiness. His response startled me: “Why should you be happy when so many people are suffering in the world?”.

My father, Richard Boone, who died two years ago, was a social scientist—a problem solver determined to bring about justice and a better world. His entire adult life was devoted to action in the social arena. He was instrumental in empowering and improving the lives of masses of people in America. He invented the term "maximum feasible participation" and used it like a mantra. A close confidant of Robert Kennedy, he helped develop President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty and the Food Stamp program, initiated the Foster Grandparent program, uplifted disenfranchised southern black people to vote and gain representation . . . started an organization called Citizens Crusade Against Poverty, became executive director of The Field Foundation, helped found the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington DC and much more.  He did not believe in God, and quoted Karl Marx: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” He told me that too much was made of Mother Theresa. She helped the poor and sick in India but did not attack the root social causes of their plight. He liked Mahatma Gandhi more.

Sometimes I am shocked to tears by news of what happens on our planet. As calamities grab the headlines I see my father’s perspective.

Enlightened beings tell us to accept sufferings along the way in life, but be happy in our closeness to our Creator. Our human side suffers, but finds mercy and light in the spiritual realm.

The other day, I heard a news story of a conflict in Africa. A village had been caught up in hatreds. A woman told how her father was tied to a tree, then had his throat cut. Next she was raped in front of her children.  How does this woman now find “happiness”? She must forever live in a broken, haunted world.

During my youth, I did summer work in the inner city in Washington DC. One day I was tasked with spending time in a school office, helping a troubled boy from the ghetto. As he sat next to me it was obvious something terrible was within him. He had no emotional animation, was crushed and could not conceive lessons. A heap of abuse scarred him from his earliest days. Though in a physical form, he seemed gone . . . liked a bombed out building that stands but is charred and desolate inside. All I could do was make simple lines on a sheet of paper and have him copy as best he could. He did that with great effort.

Bahiyyih Khánum (1846 – July 15, 1932) was the only daughter of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. She was given the title of "Greatest Holy Leaf". A saintly woman, she is regarded as an immortal heroine in the annals of the Baha'i Faith. Because of the persecutions of her Father, much of her adult life was spent as a prisoner or in exile.

During her darkest hours, she wept:

“O God, My God! 
Thou seest me immersed in the depths of grief, drowned in my sorrow, my heart on fire with the agony of parting, my inmost self aflame with longing. Thou seest my tears streaming down, hearest my sighs rising up like smoke, my never-ceasing groans, my cries, my shouts that will not be stilled, the useless wailing of my heart.
For the sun of joy has set, has sunk below the horizon of this world, and in the hearts of the righteous the lights of courage and consolation have gone out. So grave this catastrophe, so dire this disaster, that the inner being crumbles away to dust, and the heart blazes up, and nothing remains save only despair and anguish . . .
O my Lord, I voice my complaint before Thee, and lay bare my griefs and sorrows, and supplicate at the door of Thy oneness, and whisper unto Thee, and weep and cry out.”

Before she died at the age of nineteen from cancer, my daughter Naomi endured the utmost pain, misery and heartache. During the last two years of high school, she had a tube, called a port, dangling from her chest. It went into her heart for administering chemo.  At one point the drugs were administered in such great doses as to destroy her bone marrow. She was a Make-A-Wish Child, and modeled fashions on a nightclub runway in New York City. A talented artist, she was accepted to a prestigious art college but died the year she was to begin. When times were the worst for Naomi, she dug deep and wrote in her journal: "Show up and be lovingly present, no matter what it looks like out there or inside of yourself. Always speak the truth of your heart."
The day before she died, Naomi remarked to a friend, "I love my body, it has been so good to me.”

I believe God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. And this is why when terrible things happen in life we carry on . . . we continue to "show up." Just as a forest that is burned down and obliterated leaving only charred earth is able to regenerate because the seed of life survives beneath the surface holding the blueprint of renewal, so too, every human being has a pureness within that is beyond destruction.

"Have patience - wait, but do not sit idle; work while you are waiting; smile while you are wearied with monotony; be firm while everything around you is being shaken; be joyous while the ugly face of despair grins at you; speak aloud while the malevolent forces of the nether world try to crush your mind; be valiant and courageous while men all around you are cringing with fear and cowardice. Do not yield to the overwhelming power of tyranny and despotism. Continue your journey to the end. The bright day is coming." ~'Abdu'l-Baha,

Wrapped In Wonder

Now that I am traveling again, the world speaks to me in new ways, and I listen. My parents have provided me a room, but it is barely large enough for a bed. I cannot fit my suitcase or clothes, so my belongings are half in their house and half in my car. In THE DREAM, material things are of no concern, for it is consciousness of unfolding time and events that are most important. It seems the moments are wrapped in wonder.

It is a revelation to me how my parents have slowed so significantly. Both of them are acutely aware of and concerned for each other. “Age does not protect you from love, but love to some extent protects you from age.” Jeanne Moreau (Fr. born 1928). Their dog is a fixture, and after my mother prepares the food, my father gets down on his knees to hand feed the old creature. Each day they carry forth; last night my mother prepared dinner for ten people, and my father does 20 minutes of difficult calisthenics each morning when he awakes, and continues working from his home office.Since we are living together, we take three meals and a nap each day. I walk the dog with my father. It is funny to think I am going to raucous Rio De Janeiro and carnival in a few weeks; something opposite of the life I am now living.

I am able to see myself in my parents, and get a close-up picture of aging. One thing I realize is that in youth we take our strength and stamina for granted and push forth with many projects. But in old age, as the body weakens, people are often forced to pay less attention to what they want to do and more attention to the simple task of getting from point A to point B, and surviving another day.
Really, in the scheme of eternity, a human life of 90 years is less than a blink of an eye. My dear daughter Naomi died when she was nineteen, and my father might part when he is eighty-five . . . it is essentially the same length of time: less than the flash of light from a falling star.
Here is a video clip from The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, honoring my father, Richard W. Boone: Video