“All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.”
Seymour: An Introduction - J.D. Salinger
A friend called a few days ago with a bit of bad news. He was moving out of his home, into the warehouse he used at his business, a small manufacturing company that is just one of so many struggling to survive in this depressed economy. His wife, the sweetheart he had met as a young man in college, had left the previous day, driving east to Florida where a job waited for her in Miami. The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers, and he had just finished an exhausting two days packing up the last of all the “stuff” that had accumulated over the years in their home, an agonizing task, as everything seemed to be connected to another time, another place, the pastures, glens and hollows of a long marriage—all holy ground he had walked in years past. I was friends with them both, so it is always hard when something like this happens. It was the final end to a long partnership, in both love and business, for they worked together as a team for decades. Together, when they cooperated, they seemed to spin out magic. She was the dynamic public face of the company, handling sales calls and writing orders with large companies like Disney, Target, and Wal-Mart. He was the quiet, steady producer, managing the daily operations, staff, design and manufacturing process for the products they created together.
They were like wood and fire, but there came a time when the fire began to waver, grew weary, and looked for other work, leaving the wood to smolder on and eventually grow cold. Once they stopped working together as a team, the dynamic they created with their unique talents and temperaments came to an end. I watched the company slowly shrink and die, from 8 employees, to 6, to 4, then 2 and finally it was just one remaining, an artist/ receptionist holding forth in the front office while my friend worked all the manufacturing alone in the warehouse. He had lost all the big accounts, but had managed to transition to an all web based business, squeaking by each year like so many others. Now the marriage had finally ended, and he has become the master of all that remains of those years. The boxes clutter up the warehouse where he sits now, holding forth on this last piece of holy ground as he continues to face the hardship of a small business owner trying to survive the worst economic decline of our lives.
Having just made a life migration of my own, with a sortie to North Carolina in search of love and fortune, I had returned a year ago to my beloved California, like a knight out seeking the grail, coming back to Camelot, the quest having failed and the kingdom all in disarray. It is so hard, in these times of dislocation and transition, to perceive the sanctity of the place where you end up after a long chapter of your life has concluded. But I knew in my heart of hearts that, even with dreams lost, love unfulfilled, the future uncertain, and so much fear and suffering in the land, this was holy ground as well. So I sent that opening quote to my friend to offer a small strand of hope, along with the affirmation that you get a second chance in life, in all things—in love, work, and anything you do. As long as you are willing to live, and can find a way to believe in yourself, there is always “yet more.”
I thought, also, of all the people in the country who may find themselves in distress now, with lost homes, lost jobs, failing businesses, their retirement nest egg melting away, their dreams lost, packed up in boxes now and sealed with tape, consigned to a moving van, or to UPS, and heading out to some other piece of holy ground to start over. And I wondered for a time if love would ever win through in this world, and why people grow apart and turn away from one another, or fail to fight more dearly to preserve what might have been possible between them. Yet, being ‘all growed up now,’ I knew also that the line by “Badly Drawn Boy” was so true. In the song “Promises” he laments: “Sometimes you just have to walk away…”
So here’s to all the lonely, discarded, unhappy people out there, struggling on in this time of so much uncertainty and pain. Look down at your feet. You are standing on holy ground. This is your time, your place, wherever you are, whether it be nestled among the boxes of your warehouse, or out on a turnpike somewhere east of Memphis, moving on. If you can find the sanctity of this moment, in spite of all you have lost and left behind, you will have your fist around the nub and soul of life itself, and you’re going to be just fine. Think to yourself that you aren’t just trying to get somewhere now, to a time or place when things are all better and you can finally rest at ease. This is that time. Because if you can’t find it here and now, you won’t find it anywhere. It is from this ground that your new life will grow, that the new America itself will be born. It may not be anything at all like the dreams you had. The faces and places will all be different, but it will be yours, ours, the new nation we create from the hardship and trial of these years… Holy ground, hallowed ground, and we’re all standing on it this very moment, here and now.
Seymour: An Introduction - J.D. Salinger
A friend called a few days ago with a bit of bad news. He was moving out of his home, into the warehouse he used at his business, a small manufacturing company that is just one of so many struggling to survive in this depressed economy. His wife, the sweetheart he had met as a young man in college, had left the previous day, driving east to Florida where a job waited for her in Miami. The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers, and he had just finished an exhausting two days packing up the last of all the “stuff” that had accumulated over the years in their home, an agonizing task, as everything seemed to be connected to another time, another place, the pastures, glens and hollows of a long marriage—all holy ground he had walked in years past. I was friends with them both, so it is always hard when something like this happens. It was the final end to a long partnership, in both love and business, for they worked together as a team for decades. Together, when they cooperated, they seemed to spin out magic. She was the dynamic public face of the company, handling sales calls and writing orders with large companies like Disney, Target, and Wal-Mart. He was the quiet, steady producer, managing the daily operations, staff, design and manufacturing process for the products they created together.
They were like wood and fire, but there came a time when the fire began to waver, grew weary, and looked for other work, leaving the wood to smolder on and eventually grow cold. Once they stopped working together as a team, the dynamic they created with their unique talents and temperaments came to an end. I watched the company slowly shrink and die, from 8 employees, to 6, to 4, then 2 and finally it was just one remaining, an artist/ receptionist holding forth in the front office while my friend worked all the manufacturing alone in the warehouse. He had lost all the big accounts, but had managed to transition to an all web based business, squeaking by each year like so many others. Now the marriage had finally ended, and he has become the master of all that remains of those years. The boxes clutter up the warehouse where he sits now, holding forth on this last piece of holy ground as he continues to face the hardship of a small business owner trying to survive the worst economic decline of our lives.
Having just made a life migration of my own, with a sortie to North Carolina in search of love and fortune, I had returned a year ago to my beloved California, like a knight out seeking the grail, coming back to Camelot, the quest having failed and the kingdom all in disarray. It is so hard, in these times of dislocation and transition, to perceive the sanctity of the place where you end up after a long chapter of your life has concluded. But I knew in my heart of hearts that, even with dreams lost, love unfulfilled, the future uncertain, and so much fear and suffering in the land, this was holy ground as well. So I sent that opening quote to my friend to offer a small strand of hope, along with the affirmation that you get a second chance in life, in all things—in love, work, and anything you do. As long as you are willing to live, and can find a way to believe in yourself, there is always “yet more.”
I thought, also, of all the people in the country who may find themselves in distress now, with lost homes, lost jobs, failing businesses, their retirement nest egg melting away, their dreams lost, packed up in boxes now and sealed with tape, consigned to a moving van, or to UPS, and heading out to some other piece of holy ground to start over. And I wondered for a time if love would ever win through in this world, and why people grow apart and turn away from one another, or fail to fight more dearly to preserve what might have been possible between them. Yet, being ‘all growed up now,’ I knew also that the line by “Badly Drawn Boy” was so true. In the song “Promises” he laments: “Sometimes you just have to walk away…”
So here’s to all the lonely, discarded, unhappy people out there, struggling on in this time of so much uncertainty and pain. Look down at your feet. You are standing on holy ground. This is your time, your place, wherever you are, whether it be nestled among the boxes of your warehouse, or out on a turnpike somewhere east of Memphis, moving on. If you can find the sanctity of this moment, in spite of all you have lost and left behind, you will have your fist around the nub and soul of life itself, and you’re going to be just fine. Think to yourself that you aren’t just trying to get somewhere now, to a time or place when things are all better and you can finally rest at ease. This is that time. Because if you can’t find it here and now, you won’t find it anywhere. It is from this ground that your new life will grow, that the new America itself will be born. It may not be anything at all like the dreams you had. The faces and places will all be different, but it will be yours, ours, the new nation we create from the hardship and trial of these years… Holy ground, hallowed ground, and we’re all standing on it this very moment, here and now.
