Williams Wisdom

“Never use the front of a book for a coaster,” my aunt Carol said, “set the glass on the back side of the book, to keep the front in good condition.”  (She also once told me that the greatest disappointment in her life was that her children were more Norwegian than her.)  All the books in her home have water rings on the back covers.

My sister Melissa said to me “never run unless absolutely necessary.”  But when is it completely necessary?  If you are being chased, yes, but I have seen those chase movies and they rarely end well for the runners.  

Sometimes when I mow the lawn I drive the mower at its highest speed and lurch around the bumpy yard.  It is a ridiculous sensation: to be moving inexcusably, irrationally (and actually not all that quickly) fast on a riding lawnmower; teeth shaking around, steering wheel vibrating, bouncing up and down on the seat.  It is frivolous and it always makes me laugh so hard.  If I were feeling sad that is what I might do: go hop on the lawn mower and mow grass too fast.  

Before I was allowed to drive on the road, I would drive the Samurai around the cow pasture—too fast.  The grass was very short, grazed down to the roots, but giant bull thistles remained, some standing over six feet tall, covered in fuzzy white seed heads.  Sometimes, in the Samurai, we would run down those thistles, too fast, and laugh at the clouds of seeds that would spray against the windshield—until some caught fire in the motor and the smell of smoke stopped the mirth.  My sister Christi said “I told you that you were going too fast.”  My aunt Diana told me that my grandpa used to do the same thing with the Cadillacs he would occasionally rent, just for fun.  

My sister Christi asked me “so you just get full sized carrots and you just clean the outside of the carrot and then eat it?”  Yes, because I find this trend of baby carrots befuddling: they’re not babies, in fact, and if they were wouldn’t they carry the same stigma as veal?  Besides, eating baby carrots seems too much like chomping on my own knuckles to suit my tastes.  Christi says “well you never hear about people doing that anymore.”  That is true, though perhaps you rarely heard about people eating carrots before, either.    

At the airport in Milwaukee there is an area of benches just past the security lines marked with a sign “Recombobulation Area.”  Josh asks “there is a dis- and a re-, is there ever just combobulation?” There is.  Combobulation is the state of being located somewhere between the placid and composed and the completely out of control disorder.  In the state of combobulation you might move too fast, laugh at the tragedy of the every day, and be gloriously unconventional.  It is where things become clear and life should be lived. 

Like eating full carrots, you never really hear about people running as fast as they possibly can.  Sometimes, though, sometimes you just have to take off and move as fast as you can.  Ignore the peripheral and focus straight ahead until all things blend together in a state of perfect combobulation.