What On Earth Have I Done?

by Robert Fulghum

  Ah, but what right have I to speak critically of such things? Me, a heathen, heretic, and certainly neither Greek nor Orthodox.

  I speak as an insider. Once upon a time, I was baptized. According to the rules of the church of my childhood. Not sprinkled like the Methodists, as if you were going to be ironed. Not just dipped in an indoor pool for the sake of convenience. Baptized according to Scripture—outdoors in a river, following the example of John the Baptist and Jesus.

  My mother was a serious Southern Baptist. And her cousin from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, urged her to take no chances and do it right. The cousin, it seems, was a “Two-seed-in-the-spirit, Foot Washing, Flowing Water Baptist.” When she sang the old hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River”, it wasn’t about a picnic.

  The summer I was twelve, dressed in white shirt and pants, I was properly baptized in the Brazos River—more formally named by the Mexicans, “Brazos de Dios”—the Arms of God. My mother was pleased. I was not. I was scared. My uncle Roscoe had told me to stay out of the river because there were alligators and poisonous snakes in it. But I lived. Was thereby “saved.” And was told I would therefore be going to heaven. When I tell the Greeks about my baptism, they are impressed. Like I’ve got a platinum membership card. An insurance policy that can’t be canceled.

  I don’t believe one can save one’s soul. I don’t know what that means.

  I believe one can only live one’s life, saving nothing, spending it well.

  But it’s comforting to have my afterlife contingencies covered.

  And, should it prove to be the case that there is a heaven and I go, I imagine my mother pointing me out in the great golden hall. “Look, there’s my boy, Bobby Lee! He may have lost his mind when he grew up, but he was properly baptized and so he gets to sit very close to the front. The dippers and sprinklers and child-washers are way back there—up in the bleachers.”

  Don’t get me wrong. Baptism is a serious spiritual ritual. No disrespect intended. As a metaphor for reawakening, it can be meaningful if it makes you think about keeping your path on this earth a righteous one. And that’s a good thing, no matter which religious club you join. There are many ways. Some wet. Some dry. Some lost. Some found. And if the Way works for you and for the commonweal, then do it.

  The Great Law of the Conservation of Matter and Energy says nothing is ever lost. Everything is saved. Everything comes and goes. It only changes form. Water is essential to life. As is earth and energy. We exist in the flow of the mud and light.

  That I believe.

  54

  Solstice with Nose Music

  The twentieth day of December.

  Spring comes tomorrow for me.

  The winter solstice is the beginning of my New Year. Even though the evidence of the change is felt only in the slightest increase in the length of the day, more light and life are on the way.

  The weather gods have thrown a sinking curve ball this week, spinning wet North Atlantic air down across Spain into North Africa, warming it and bending it back across Morocco and the Libyan Sea, and curling it north again across Crete and on out over the Aegean Sea.

  This is a Levantine wind that picks up perfume from the winter-blossoming orange trees in the groves along the African coast. Perhaps it is only the yearning of my imagination, but I swear I can smell this wind: the soft rain benevolently sprinkles orange blossom pollen across Crete. And the smell of the salty sea is always in the mix.

  The olive harvest is finished, the trees trimmed and fertilized for new growth. More smells are added to the pungent air: the ripe note from the olive-oil pressing, the astringent note of smoke from burning piles of leaves, and deeper tones of fecund earth freshly turned beneath the trees to receive the winter rain.

  Cretan nose music.

  The sweet smell of distant irrepressible spring pushing its promise up through the winter of the spirit.

  55

  Winter Count

  In this season of the year, the Audubon Society conducts its annual avian census. Worldwide, its members flock together to count birds. An admirable activity. In so doing, they contribute valuable statistics to ornithological research, while enjoying the social pleasures of gathering outdoors with their own unique species: Bird-watchers.

  The custom of year-end accounting has merit. Financial reckoning. Counting one’s blessings. Reviewing resolutions. Even taking stock of smaller, less obvious things and events may prove worthy.

  In Crete there’s a winter count in this category. Between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, a count of the bugs in one’s house is undertaken. It’s a fairly recent tradition. In fact, this is the first year. And mine is the first house. I am the founder of the count.

  The custom honors Saint Lethargius, patron of the overfed, the bored, and the lazy. His followers gathered on the couch in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Inert yesterday afternoon, having postponed the meeting from the previous day, due to the disorganized condition of the high priest and his faithful acolytes. In that state we began noticing bugs. And started counting.

  Oh, no—not bugs again. Yes. Bear with me.

  Before long my companions and I were engaged in surveying the inside of my house and its porches, making our count, and recording our statistics. Here’s our tally:

  Scorpions-3—1 large ivory one—1 weeny red one—1 black

  Spiders-3—all small; all brownish-gray

  Moths-1—possibly of the Tribe of Clothes-eaters, now deceased

  Grasshoppers-2—1 yellow, 1 speckled

  Wasps-2—in winter dormancy, or possibly defunct

  Cockroach-2—or maybe the same one seen twice

  Millipedes-9—small, red and black

  Centipedes-none—but we know they’re somewhere around

  Beetles-11—assorted sizes and colors

  Pill-bugs-5

  Snails-none living—3 small, white. unoccupied shells

  Father longlegs-1—doing push-ups on the ceiling

  Ants—maybe 30 tiny black ones and 1 large red giant

  Cricket-1/2—with one leg missing - a partial cricket

  Small snakes—rumors but no sightings

  Too-tiny-to-identify-or-catch-but-definitely-bugs—9 or 10

  Book bugs—little-bitty, fast-running eaters of literature—5

  Flies-7 in three sizes—dead

  Wall worms, short, red, rubbery—2

  Unidentified tiny flying midges not seen but heard—3

  Mystery bugs: Something that burrowed into the sugar bowl but was not found—1

  Something in an apple—1

  Something claimed to be in someone’s underwear but not produced for objective identification—1

  Factoid: There are more than seven hundred thousand known insects. So our count is shamefully low. We apologize. We will do better next year.

  You may insist that some things we did count are not in fact insects. Don’t get technical. If it’s small, crawls, or flies around in the house, and tempts one to flee or kill, it is a “bug,” according to the formal classification of our patron, Saint Lethargius.

  And I share my daily life with these creatures. I dismiss them as “bugs” in the same way I dismiss unwanted plants as “weeds.” But that’s an ungenerous attitude toward amazing living things.

  A sadistic member of our Investigating Committee urged us to put everything we could catch alive into a glass jar for a gladiatorial contest to the death. But that is a nasty Roman tradition, not Greek. Saint Lethargius is Orthodox. No. Too lacking in respect.

  So we revived the Small-Scale Olympics.

  There was a weight-lifting competition, using a coffee bean, a single popped kernel of corn, and a Cheerio. The pill bugs refused to participate, rolling up into a ball. But a red-and-black-striped beetle, when turned over on its back, defeated all comers by lifting all three items and tossing them over its head. Several contestants were, unfortunately, rendered hors de combat by the judge’s inept positioning of the weights.

&n
bsp; The swimming competition, held in the kitchen sink, was won by a black beetle. The cockroach won the sprint going away, leaving the scorpion spinning in circles, and the tiny ants wandering around lost. A spider ate a teeny-tiny-midgy thing on the edge of the pool, and the large ant carried one small ant away for lunch. The spider and the big ant were disbarred from further competition. Cannibalism is bad sportsmanship in any league.

  A grasshopper that leapt from the top of the kitchen cabinet to the floor without harm won the Getting-Down-Off-A-Very-High-Place contest. Two pill bugs that fell from the same height remained balled-up, too stunned to move. Wrong league. Most contestants fled the stadium and disappeared as soon as they had a chance.

  “Surely,” you say, “This couldn’t have really happened?”

  Skeptic. Well, OK, the bugs were real enough. They were all there, doing their usual buggy things. We saw most of them. But all the rest of it? Well, of course not. Too much effort is required. The Society of Saint Lethargius has a cardinal rule: Never move off the couch.

  But we imagined it could have happened.

  And imagining that it could is the reward for membership in the followers of our patron saint. As he himself once explained, “If you can imagine it, why bother to do it?”

  There were some things from that day I did not imagine.

  Another kind of winter count.

  That afternoon, alone as I floated down into the sink of sleep, I recalled the laughter of a friend as he got into his car to leave—still delighted by a small gift I gave him: a mechanical bird that barks every time you shout at it.

  I recalled the farewell handshake of a friend with whom I do not share a common language—but he warmly took my hand and then pressed his other hand on top of mine as a seal on our unspoken friendship. He understood about the bug count. And will have tales to tell in the village.

  I recalled the solemn ritual of an enthusiastic good-bye kiss on both cheeks from a four-year-old child who helped find some bugs.

  I thought about the pleasure of having friends who are capable of having such lighthearted fun on a dull winter afternoon.

  I recalled standing alone out on the porch watching the countless waves on the sea, and then counting far away friends who I wish had been there for the winter count.

  And I laughed when I remembered the pipe lighter my granddaughter gave me for Christmas—a little pink pig that shoots fire out his nose.

  All of these things were real and true.

  These, too, are part of a winter’s census—nothing large—just the count of small winged things that fly through the air and perch in the heart and mind as memory.

  These I counted. And slept.

  Praise to Saint Lethargius, the patron saint of what counts.

  56

  The Story of the Leopard

  in the Village and How Manolis

  Learned to Waltz

  Its once cream-colored body now blotched with a pattern of rust from abuse and age, and its backside now shredded with black holes from yesterday’s shooting, “The Leopard” lies dead in the village square. The villagers lament its loss. And also dread the possible consequences. Willful vendettas are as unyielding as the stones of the Cretan landscape, and the killing of The Leopard could be the beginning of a cycle of bitter reprisals. Unless . . . unless . . . Young Manolis learns to waltz.

  The seed of this story was planted in the fecund soil of young love when Young Manolis’ aunt was wooed by an Austrian officer serving in Crete with the German army during the war. He promised to come back for her. Some-day. The years passed. True to his word, he returned one fine morning driving a new cream-colored Volkswagen Beetle. The lady’s brother, Old Manolis, the father of Young Manolis and the senior living member of the family, was outraged by the Austrian’s presumptions and unrelenting in his refusal of the offer of marriage. The Nazis had killed his father. In the name of all the saints, “Ochi!” “No Germans! My sister marry a German? Never!”

  With knives and pistols in their belts, Old Manolis and his sons escorted the terrified Austrian back to the night boat to Athens. They would not kill him. Unless he came back. They kept the Volkswagen, considering it a kind of war reparation, replacing the two donkeys the Germans had confiscated from their family in 1942.

  Old Manolis did not really want a German car. He wanted a Cretan donkey. But he was persuaded by his sons to convert the tiny sedan into a four-wheeled beast of burden. Except for the driver’s seat, the insides were gutted to accommodate pigs or goats. A metal frame was welded onto the roof to carry hay or fertilizer or bags of olives. And a hitch was added to the rear bumper to pull a trailer.

  The car-become-truck was never driven on paved roads or into town because it was meant for work not pleasure. And work it did—with the uncomplaining reliability of a slow-but-sure-footed donkey.

  The vehicle’s carrying capacity was truly prodigious. It was not uncommon to see the old man cramped against the steering wheel, the inside stuffed with three milk goats and a crate of chickens, rakes and scythes roped to the outside, a sack of cement lashed onto the hood, and the roof piled with a load of hay larger than the Volkswagen itself. When the roof load was covered by an army-surplus camouflage tarp, the tiny car looked like it was being mated by a giant tortoise.

  And so it was, year in and year out, season-to-season, Old Manolis and the absurd little truck became a daily spectacle of village life.

  Old Manolis came to cherish the vehicle and its sturdy utility, but he did little for it except to keep it running. When the front fenders rusted loose, he hung them back on with baling wire. When the headlights burned out, he cut them off the fenders and replaced them with flash-lights. When the muffler fell off, he did not replace it, because now people could hear the cannon fire of the Volkswagen rumbling up the road and get out of the way.

  _________

  And when great splotches of rust worked through the cream-colored paint, someone painted black circles around them, creating a wild-animal-skin effect. From that day forward, Old Manolis’ car was called “The Leopard” in the village.

  At ninety, when he became too blind and deaf to work or drive, Old Manolis loaned the Leopard to his oldest son, Young Manolis, making it clear that it was only a loan, not a gift. The Leopard would always belong to the old man. In a less traditional culture, he would have been buried in it.

  But, now, alas, The Leopard’s days are over. The shotgun’s blast made a sieve out of the rear hatch, destroying the engine and the rear tires. Young Manolis did it. At age sixty-five, this steady, thoughtful, kind man marched out into the village square and blew his father’s pet car away. His only regret was that he had no dynamite to obliterate the remains.

  Why? First you must be told that Young Manolis’ only daughter went off to Graz in Austria to attend university. Superbly intelligent, she wanted to become a doctor. She fell in love with a young Austrian medical student and brought him home to the village and her family. They approved. Even her grandfather, Old Manolis, did not object. Times have changed. This is the world as it is now. That she will marry a “German” is not a problem.

  But there is a crisis.

  It concerns the wedding reception. A thousand people will come to the celebration in the fancy hotel in Platanias: The whole village, all the relatives, and a mob of the groom’s family from abroad as well. And on that occasion, the bride has asked her father—required of her father—begged her father that he will dance the first dance with her. Wearing a new suit and tie. Waltz. In the Austrian manner.

  Waltz? Waltz! Ochi! No! He would not. Never!

  His wife, sons, and cousins prevailed upon him. And worst of all—almost beyond bearing—his own father insulted him in front of his family. Old Manolis shook his finger under his son’s nose. What was he afraid of? Cretan men fear nothing! Cretan men are dancers! The Germans would laugh at him if they knew of his fear. Crete did not win the Great War to go down in defeat over a dance!

  The old man had d
one his homework—Young Manolis could secretly take lessons from the fat English lady in Halepa.

  Young Manolis must learn to waltz.

  Ochi! No! He would not! Never!

  In retaliation, his father flung an inflammatory curse: “You are a coward!” shouted Old Manolis, and turned his back in contempt.

  Ashamed and outraged, Young Manolis grabbed his shotgun and marched out of the house. He wanted to kill something. And so he did. BOOM! BOOM! The Leopard was shot with both barrels at close range. And now his father will never speak to him again. And his wife will cry for days, if not weeks. And, to his everlasting humiliation, his daughter will waltz with her father-in-law at the reception.

  Forever after he will know what his family is thinking: “Coward.”

  Unless, of course, Young Manolis goes to Halepa to visit the fat English lady and learns to waltz. He will. He must. Are not Cretans men? Are they are afraid to dance—even in the silly Austrian manner?

  Of course not!

  And, somehow, The Leopard will live again. The men in the village will see to it. Tires and a new engine are already on the way from Athens. The men will install a CD player in the car, as well. With a disc of the music of Johann Strauss already in place.

  ONE-two-three . . . ONE-two-three . . . ONE-two-three . . .

  Young Manolis must learn to waltz well.

  He will be waltzing for Crete.

  57

  Megalo Paskha—April 2004

  Suddenly—everything happens all-at-once.

  One day it is cold and windy and raining. And the Cretans are sluggishly enduring the last dull days of winter. The next day the weather turns warm, the sky blue, the land green, and the flowers explode from the soil. And the next day it is Megalo Paskha—Easter-doubled plus Passover—the rare calendar event when the Orthodox Church and the Western Christians and the Jews celebrate a holy day at the same time.