“Sunday Circle”

c. 2019 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(11-19)

Everything inevitably comes back to Harry Chapin.

Most people have heard his memorable ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ at least once. But otherwise, may know little about his prolific songwriting, and life as a folk troubadour. Yet in personal terms, his legacy is one held as a compass of sorts. A marker which has dependably directed my thoughts backward to the beginning on many occasions. Most recently, while honoring the memory of my late nephew-by-marriage.

God called him home at the age of 56 years. Like the singer, gone too soon.

My first wife expressed fandom for Chapin often during our marriage. She would play his music at home and in her car. Sometimes, adding her own concert anecdotes. Her son loved the tune ‘30,000 Pounds of Bananas’ and would giggle with amusement when listening. The song ‘W.O.L.D.’ was a particular favorite of mine, said to have inspired Hugh Wilson to create ‘WKRP in Cincinnati.’ But another classic composition also stuck in my brain. His song ‘Circle’ struck a personal vibe, because I remembered him playing in Ithaca, New York. So hearing his work took me back to those Cornell days, before returning home to Ohio, and meeting my wife-to-be while wallowing in the confusion of readjustment. The first concentric trip of many to come while we were together.

“All my life’s a circle

Sunrise and sundown

Moon rolls through the nighttime

‘Til the daybreak comes around

All my life’s a circle

But I can’t tell you why

Seasons spinning round again

The years keep rolling by...”

She grew up in a family founded in rural Pennsylvania. I sprang from parents who were born in Kentucky and West Virginia. So we both had relatives who lived close to the soil. Our pairing happened naturally, with no need for encouragement from a matchmaker. Her influence was cherished by everyone. After my childish fits of rebellion in the Empire State, she nudged me back to sanity. I needed her for companionship, but even more as a voice of experience.

She was ten years older, and more wise in spirit.

When we divorced in 2002, with work stress and self-importance clouding my judgment, I felt the circular motion take hold once again. My life routine fractured, as it had on the streets in New York. I stayed with family members and lived out of my truck. Off course, off kilter, and wandering. Unbalanced and unprepared. I squandered time like cheap liquor. My only concern was to be free. And free I was indeed, though also homeless and nearly out-of-work.

My wife wanted to dump our careers, and begin again. To save ourselves from the perpetual ladder-climb. I should have listened. But as before, logic held little appeal. I was distracted by shiny trinkets and the rolling dice. A fool’s gambit, with much risk and little reward.

“It seems like we’ve been here before

I can’t remember when

But I have this funny feeling

That we’ll all be together again

No straight lines make up my life

And all my roads have bends

There’s no clear-cut beginnings

And so far no dead-ends...”

After a second divorce and personal chaos, my circles continued to spin, while trying to get back on track. Like broadening ripples across the surface water of a pond. I worked as a newspaper editor. Echoing childhood traditions with a basement office, set up as a copy of the one used by my father. Writing every day. This wordsmithing adventure paid dividends of self-satisfaction, accolades from readers, and notability. But little cash. Every stepping stone felt familiar under my toes.

I never found another stable relationship. Yet the imprint of she who had gone before remained. I could hear her advice, whispered in my ears. Her sense of discipline. Her enduring hope. Her kinship with others on the journey.

And, I could hear Chapin from my stereo. Even with no vinyl platter spinning on the turntable.

“I found you a thousand times

I guess you done the same

But then we lose each other

It’s like a children’s game

As I find you here again

A thought runs through my mind

Our love is like a circle

Let’s go round one more time...”

Even after most of two decades apart, small things carried me backward to the beginning of our courtship. Someone mentioning Fisher’s Big Wheel, the department store where we met. The sight of an old Ford Maverick in my neighborhood, like one she had owned when we were dating. An old woman at work, short of stature and tough with her Irish heritage, who made me long for my ex-wife. Every loop turned inevitably back to the point where we had joined.

Now nearly 60, out-of-steam and retired early due to disability, I returned to some of the platitudes she offered when time had not yet moved us so far forward. Things made sense that did not, before. Meanwhile, deja vu filled my head. Each sunrise mirrored the last. A figure cast in the heavens, repeated day after day. With my personal arc just as curved and infinite.

“I found you a thousand times

I guess you done the same

But then we lose each other

It’s like a children’s game...”

Last week, when my wife’s nephew passed away in his sleep, I did a time-slip back to our beginning. The news came as both shocking and sad. With a roundabout effect of transporting me to the time when I had first begun to ponder membership in the family. I remembered that my new relative laughed when calling me ‘Uncle Rod’ as we were only two years apart in age. He was gifted, socially skilled, handsome and funny. Always smiling and cheerful. In good health. Yet somehow, chosen by the master of eternity to leave before we were ready.

I was numb when trying to process his exit.

My trip to the funeral home was one taken in silence. Because I had not spoken to many of them in 17 years, it felt much like our primal meeting from 1984. A gulf of dissimilar experiences separated us, in the wake of my divorce. Yet strangely, my affection for them remained. My love for the nephew I had gained, and now lost. Though invisible for so long, the bond had not been broken. Waiting in line, balanced on my failing hip and hot-rod cane. Sweating, shivering, swallowing down the unpleasant taste of bad decisions and humbling results. I waited, for my turn to offer condolences and love.

Then, it was over.

The ride home had Chapin crooning in my head. His message-in-song offering comfort. The circle from yesterday to now had been drawn again, in chalk mined from the ages. I felt strangely close to my ex-wife, undeniably paired though divided by circumstance. Her whisper remained in my ear, and her touch lingered on my heart.

I knew Harry would understand.

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