Frontiers

Hamlet's "undiscover'd country" refers to the destination of our souls after death.  But I think there's another country we see from afar and yearn for in life.  Every child can't wait until he grows up, he pines after the coming days of independence and privilege.  Every grownup yearns for the carefree days of their youth.  The grass is ever greener.  I don't mean the usual trite landmarks of life we often dog-ear in our own subconscious autobiographical works-in-progress; we won't be talking about first kisses or crushes here.  There are a few subtler moments in life when I think we can all recall feeling brave and intrepid, blazing a trail into the unknown and grown up.



My grandfather was a very proper man.  He was an insurance agent, he traveled for business often and had an office with very little candy and no toys.  He was rarely seen without a necktie, and always maintained a calm, reserved demeanor reminiscent of Gregory Peck.  His horn rimmed glasses weren't an ironic hipster statement, he just wore them to see.  He was the product of a distant, unreachable generation of grownups with their own sights, smells and sounds.  The man was an island, a kindly, older Atticus Finch.  His was a tidy, polite love.

But I knew him best as a young child, when sights and smells are more potent than memory.  I know a lot of people equate the smell of their grandparents' home with something old, dank and stale.  Not so with mine.  Their house always seemed to carry a briskness, a newness, a polish to it.  The carpet always seemed freshly vacuumed, dust never seemed to attach to their shelves, the kitchen was never messy. Even when Grandma was baking bread or making dinner, her "mess" seemed orderly.  My grandparents never smelled old to me, they smelled like grownups, that was all.

I vividly recall him sitting at the table for breakfast, richly adorned in all of the colors, textures and smells of what I deemed as the far off realm of adulthood.  The harsh musk of aftershave dulled by the warm milky aroma of his small bowl of Cream of Wheat.  The crisp inky bookstore smell of his freshly folded newspaper, its smooth pages always turned to a business article with lots of boring words in tiny inscrutable print, devoid of any pictures.  I can still hear the tinkle of his orange juice glass, the brief hiss of citrus as his sharp spoon pierced the soft red flesh of his bitter grapefruit half.

I was always stunned at how comfortable he looked in a shirt and tie, a horrible dress code whose discomfort I was grateful only to endure each Sunday.  Somehow the fabric of his dress shirts looked softer, his tie more silky, wrapped around his neck cooperatively like an old friend.  I had a clip-on that stabbed my windpipe.  His slick 50s haircut suited him well; my cowlicks were untamable.

One day I finally got up the gumption to abandon my Frosted Chocolate Crunchables or whatever dessert was being passed off as a kids cereal and asking instead to partake in some more grandfatherly fare.  I mimicked grandpa's portioning (I might have added extra sugar to the Cream of Wheat) and was pleased to find that I actually liked this "grownup" food.  We split a grapefruit together on more than one occasion, although I recall sprinkling significantly more sugar on my half to quell the bitterness of the fruit.

To this day I still feel markedly more grown up than usual when eating Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, Malted Milk, or a simple half of grapefruit.




I remember going in for my first surgery (well, the first I was old enough to remember).  But it wasn't this experience that really sticks out in my mind.

My surgery was early in the morning, I think I was scheduled to go under at 5:30 am.  My parents woke me up before the sun was up.  Before there was even a faint hint of light on the horizon.  For the first time in my life, I saw the starry sky of a new day.  The air was so quiet, it felt like we were the only three awake in all the world.  I remember looking up out of the car window on our way to the hospital and drinking in the vast black emptiness of space, feeling so small, but somehow taking comfort in that fact; if I'm so small, than my problems must be pretty small, too.

This was my undiscover'd country: the wee hours of the morn. So late it was early, so early it could still be called late.  Day's darkness, a strange new phenomenon for my young eyes to behold.  I've pulled all nighters since then.  I've been out with friends until three or four in the morning.  I've woken up at some ungodly hour to get a proper start on a roadtrip or a hike.  But I never felt more out of place, more thrillingly audacious than that early morning as a kid headed to the hospital under a deep dark morning sky.




I felt awfully proud of myself one night as a fourth grader.  I had read not one or two chapters, but nearly half of The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe in one night.  I couldn't be stopped, I was a speedreading demon!  I remember coming out into the living room waaaay past my bedtime, but it was summer, no school, and since I'd just been reading for fun for hours, I think my parents were more lenient in such cases.  I talked with my dad about the book.  We talked about what an interesting story it was, and how compelling it was despite the childish talking animals.  Yes, even in fourth grade I thought that was juvenile.  We're both C.S. Lewis fans, and we had a good time talking, but he, not wanting to spoil anything, did most of the listening, giving me leeway to geek out.  I think my dad held back a lot, afraid that too much would fly over my head.

He was right.  I was halfway through The Silver Chair (we had a box set of all the Narnia books) and I heard my parents use an unfamiliar word.  It sounded a lot like analogy, I already knew what that meant.  I asked them about it later that night.

"Allegory?  It's kind of like an analogy, but more symbolic," dad tried to explain.  "It's when a story or its characters represent something else."

I nodded in feigned comprehension.  This concept was too abstract for my cartoon addict brain.  Then he boiled it down to something pertinent to my own experience that changed my perception of the world forever.

"Aslan is Jesus."

...

WHAT?!?!!!

I lay in bed that night staring up at the grainy patterns of the wooden underside of my brother's top bunk, mulling over the stories I had read so far, matching them up with Biblical events and parables.  The stone table and the crucifixion, the resurrection of both characters, even some lines taken straight from the four Gospels.  How had I not seen it before?  Inception didn't blow my mind nearly as much as this revelation.  Suddenly I was aware of all of the parallels, double entendres, and subtle wordplay around me.  I had joined a group of elite intellectual adults who saw the world in more ways than one.



I'm not a trekky.  Space isn't the only frontier.  Everyone has plenty of undiscover'd country to delve into in their own lives.





What frontiers remain in your life?  What have you already conquered?




S