One hand clapping
Back in the day when my college friends
went oooh and aaaah over silly questions that had no answer, there was this
question that was tossed around: "What is the sound of one hand
clapping?" My reactions fell into the category of "that makes no sense," or "is there
some way to do that?" But tonight, when I Googled "one hand
clapping" and "images," I inadvertently realized there actually
is a sound of one hand clapping.
Here are some images attempting to
illustrate the idea...
or, alternatively, to spoof it:
And strangely, this is the one I found
most meaningful:
It suggests that the way to hear the sound
of one hand clapping is to listen completely.
One child crying
It's been more than 40 years ago that I
truly heard this particular sound for the first, indelible time. It happened
the night my wife took off with a bank robber.
It's not that she left me for him. That
particular relationship started years earlier, when she was a fairly new school social worker and I was an Air Force Information Officer. We decided to sponsor Ted, an inmate at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary. We visited Ted monthly and became his bridge back to the free world when he was paroled.
On this night, it was Betty who was being paroled, after a couple of months of being tied down with a
newborn. This was her night to get out of the house and leave me alone with the
kiddo. So in the era when "cell" meant confinement, rather than
communication, she took off for the evening with a heavyweight boxer and
reformed bank robber while Tracy was asleep. She was totally unreachable.
After a while he woke up and fussed a
little. I picked up the little guy and changed his diapers and rocked him a
little. He was this wonderful new toy. It's not that I felt like a father. I
don't know what a father is supposed to feel like. I never felt like a father. I never
felt like a son, for that matter. I mean, I never spent my childhood thinking,
"wow, I'm a son!" We just are. In this kind of relationship, we
define ourselves not in terms of ourselves, but in terms of how we view the other. Yeah, I
was his dad, but HE was my son! Here was this marvelous creature. And he was
starting to cry.
The formuless formula
Must be hungry. I looked around for the
formula. Where did she keep it? In the cupboard? No, here it is, in the
fridge.
In this plain package. Without instructions.
How do you mix it? What do you do with it?
I hadn't paid attention to that stuff, but I was paying attention now, because
he was hungry, and he was crying, and she was nowhere around.
I rocked him. I held him. He bunched up
like a little puppy, his hands beside his face, which was pushing into the
depression beneath my collarbone. I think he was instinctively burrowing into the spot
where the milk should be, but I had none to give. He whimpered, and shook, and if
he had words, they would have been, "please, please, please." But he
had no words. Only the whimpers and then the sobs.
The great wind
And then I heard it. It came like a great
wind. It blew in from the steppes of Russia and the mountains of Tibet. It
flowed from the lowlands of Bangladesh and off the plains of the Serengeti. I could see the mothers in the ghettos and the slums, rocking their children in the dark and unable to feed them because their milk had dried up or there was no food in the cupboard.
I could hear the wail of the babies and the anguish of the mothers. In my son's sobbing whimpers I could hear the whole world's children crying. And I thought,
"So this is what it's like. So this is the sound of one child
crying." And I swore right then that my son...would never...be
hungry...again.
Pat and Dan Kinney's story
I recently received an e-mail from Pat
Kinney, a retired educator. I know her and her husband, Dan, through ballroom
dance. Here's what Pat said:
Robert,
We've been following your e-mails and blog about Wilson. We think it is a great idea and have just logged on to donate for two of them. It really hit a soft spot for us, since two years ago Dan and I were in the Amazon River region in Brazil and had walked back up into the very back area of a small village, Alter do Chao.
There was a small group of kids, probably siblings or at least cousins or neighbors, all playing soccer with an old almost completely worn out ball. The skin pieces of the cover were all flapping off and causing the ball to go in different directions. We walked back into the town, which only had about two or three stores and found the best ball we could. It was not a real good soccer ball but the best we could find. We then took it back up and Dan just tossed it into the group and said, "para ustedes." The surprise and looks of delight were amazing. They called a mother out and she smiled big. We then just walked off but have often thought about that day and the fact that they were playing with that very old completely worn out ball! We hope the one we were able to find was good enough for soccer and has lasted a long time. I'm sure it hasn't been as good as Wilson so maybe this organization will find this little village and give them some new ones.
I still don't know the sound of one hand
clapping. But I think Pat and Dan could possibly describe the sound of one
child smiling.
Thanks to them, and to others of you who
have supported my project.
 |
In a Darfur refugee camp, the feet of children and a ball of rags. |
Love,
Robert,
and Wilson
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