ZIPPIDITY DO DAH
Occasionally in the morning when I would work with Ethel
I would speak to her in Duckese. I’m very fluent in it (especially in
the specialized dialect of Duckese called Donald-Duckish). As I say, I’m
very fluent in it and she was barely a beginner. As a matter of fact I
couldn’t really get her to work on it at all but, as I used to tell her,
I thought she’d pick it up in no time because I believe she had as much
the gift for languages as I have.
One morning after much coaxing and after many refusals she gave in
and responded to my own accentless DD [I really am very good at it—even
some ducks think I’m just a misshapen duck when I speak it]. As I was
saying, Ethel said a few words in it. I asked her to repeat it because I
didn’t quite catch it but she had already turned a little pink, covered
her face and was calling herself some kind of idiot. That was the end
of it. Still I will always remember and treasure her attempt to boldly
go where she had never gone before.
It’s these little treasures that lovers share that give their world
its distinctness—things they do together, things they know about each
other, affectionate names they call each other that would sound utterly
ludicrous to others, their favorite places, songs, stories and more.
Such things build walls around their little world—not walls of
exclusion; that’s not the aim. They’re walls of security, warmth, mutual
acceptance and protection, intimacy and affection. That they exclude
others is simply the inevitability of their closeness—a closeness no one
can share for the history and commitment doesn’t exist with others and
it’s a closeness of such a dimension that they don’t wish to share it
with others.
They love each other in a way that they don’t wish to love anyone else in all the world.
In a society where people call each other things that should never be
thought much less uttered it’s almost rescue to be able to look at
people (many of whom I know) who, while they live very much in society,
have their own private, tender, brave world in which either one would
climb Mount Everest barefoot for the other.
I say it’s almost redemption because the evil of our world could
easily drive a very sensitive person to despair—a despair that might be
tinged with the notion that even God has given up on it; or worse,
horror of horrors, that God is as helpless as the rest of us [you know,
with the reality of human “free will” and all that]. To see such people,
boys, girls, women, men, children, parents, friends and on a broader
scale, socially caring people who simply can’t live their lives without
pitching in to help the oppressed and the defenseless—to see those is a
liberating experience. People like that deliver us from bone-deep
paralysis of the spirit and tell us: “If there can be one of us there
can be millions of us!”
When people like that keep us from a dismay that approaches the level
of despair they allow us to enjoy the simple pleasures of life as well.
They help us to add harmless lunacy to our lives of deadly seriousness.
I think both are needed for a balanced life.
Not long before Ethel went away I tried my hand at a little sewing. A
few stitches came loose just below the zip on my favourite pair of
trousers and I tried to fix it but I made a real hash of it so I asked
Ethel if she could do it for me and she said she would. She’d been very
ill for about six months and more especially in the final three weeks of
that period but in God’s kindness she had so improved the change was
remarkable. In any case, she still had moments of utter confusion and
she had one when she began to work on my pants.
She had them turned inside out and was working away when she called
on me to cut the stitches around the zip; I cut a few and then she said
rip it up further for me. I didn’t understand but somewhere down in my
mind I suppose I thought she meant to do a thorough job—I’m sure I
thought something like that, so I went ahead and ripped the zip nearly
off. It was only when she asked me to cut the pocket off (which I
did!!!!!!) that I realized she was off her head. So picture that, now
I’m standing with my good pants, ripped up the front and most of one of
the pockets in my hand and I’m the one that did it!.
Would you tell me which one of us was more “off the wall”?
When I later asked her about it she remembered clearly asking me to do it but she didn’t know why she would. Oh well.
We laughed about it for days and did until it lost a little of its
shine. But for a longer while after that all I had to do was say the
word “zip” or “pocket” and off we’d begin giggling and then to screaming
with laughter and her accusing me of being the worst of two lunatics!
I don’t say life’s every moment is entirely pleasant but it is a wonderful life.
Zip a dee do dah, zippity ay…………