Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2019 #3: The Devil's Backbone and Cranberry Bliss

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2019 #3: 

The Devil's Backbone and Cranberry Bliss

The Devil's Backbone is real brothers and sisters. I know, I know, every state, probably every county, has some crazy upanddown and twistyturny road identified with the body of the Prince of Darkness, but I'm talking about the real one. The one that I drive almost every day. The one that leads to my office. The one that has me dodging deer most of the year and skidding on ice  the rest of it. THE Devil's Backbone. 

Above is a wonderful picture of it. And it might look like this tomorrow. There's been a little snow today, and maybe there will be more tonight. But I don't have a good picture of how it looks today. Not one that I can share with you. Except in words. Still, the picture I saw while driving today and the picture that made my ribs ache all day is the one that led me to meditatin' on what I thought would become my Ironic Advent Meditation for this this third day of Advent in the Year of Our Lord 2019.

Also Cranberry Bliss. 

I got moving late today after standing in line for most of what felt like a century at the Verizon store. That's right, after absurdly using a T-Mobile phone in an area that basically has no T-Mobile signal for six years or so (I'm stubborn that way), I'm finally switching. I feel a little shaky. All these messages. Slow down. 

Anyway, or anyways as my daughter Jennifer (and most of the rest of Ben Camino's friends, conveniently named Jennifer) always says sometimes, I was worn out before I even started from the mind-numbing experience of a contemporary cell phone store. Do they still call them cell phones? Regardless, my new one is a real smart phone. I guess. Really I'm not sure what "smart phone" means. But mine must be smart because every time I try to write algorithm (something I do quite often actually), it corrects it to Agamemnon. Smart ass phone, I call it. 

He's back to the thing he does with italics, I can hear all the Jennifer's whining. 

So, weary already from the drudgery of day 337 in the 2,019th year give or take a few since the nativity of the baby who the songs say makes everything shiny and bright, I zipped up, over, and around THE Devil's Backbone. This needs theme music to play every time I say that phrase. And I did what I often do on that road. I look around. And I ponder. 

In autumn, it's an easy ponder. In fact, it's most just a gut reaction and may not even rise to the ponder level. Kind of like Wordsworth his first time at Tintern Abbey (do yourself a favor and read it; it's the best). If all of this part of Indiana were as hilly and windy and eccentric as this here little road hardly wide enough for two Souls much less two pickups, you Yankees and Texans and Californicators would be paying the big bucks to stay in our yet-unbuilt hillside resorts just to gaze (and perhaps ponder) at the brilliant colors of our autumns. And probably ski in our winters. But . . . no. 

Indeed, the colors we have. Color-wise our autumns are pretty great. But we are generally as flat as flat can be around here. Like my soul (not to be confused with my Soul) much of the time. Maybe that's why I like THE Devil's Backbone (theme music). Yes, yes, there's some thrill involved. And there's the fun memory of always honking on the rise before one of those narrow ridges. I asked my dad once why he did that (and in South Texas, the roads were even straighter and the hills were even . . . not hills), and he said it was to warn a potential driver on the other side who might not be able to see that you were coming but who might be drifting a bit. I've done it ever since. And I never don't do it without thinking of that dear giant, my father. I especially like to honk with someone else in the car so I can tell them about him. 

Also Cranberry Bliss. 

So my soul was deadish, as was the landscape. And by dead, I mean, leafless without the lovely cover of white you can see in the picture above or the swath of color you can see in the photo below. I swear to you dear reader, we had some winds last Wednesday (and believe me I remember the exact day, because I was up in the air in a small airplane thinking I maybe wasn't going to make it this time) that did a real number on the remaining autumn leaves on The Devil's Backbone (theme music). And pretty much anywhere else around here. 

Also, the sky was a perfect pale grey. So pale that I spelled gray grey. There was sun somewhere, but not on the Devil's Backbone. And the grass that was visible (as in, not covered in dead leaves) was the palest green imaginable. So pale that I was tempted to spell green graan. 

It was numbing. It was lovely, pale, empty. It was gloom, swaddled with the end of all things. The world was sere. Like my soul. My God, sere is a beautiful word. Thank you Lord for Old English. 

That's not as sad as I know it might sound to some of you. After all, Ben Camino is still going to somehow twistyturn this thing around to be about Advent. That's something to stay alive for, isn't it? Well, isn't it? 

In truth (or at least, in language, and those are pretty much the same in my soul), Advent, for me, has always been like a trip up and down and twistyturnyaround like my drives on this dangerous, seemingly dead, road. I go with the turns and with the gloom and with the emptiness, I honk the horn of warning for people who very probably are not there but who might be drifting if they are there, and I remember my loves, and sometimes, more than I let on, feel the goodness of still being on the road. Still moving forwards (and up and down and twistyturny). And still remembering my dear giant father (may he rest in peace). And headed towards a place where I fit and where, I hope, I will be welcomed. 

Of course, I might have been really depressed and not thought about any of this if I weren't carrying with me in my Soul, the gift that so many long for and depend on to keep their hope alive, to give them joy, and to remind them of the goodness that this season promises. That's right, sitting on the seat next to me, I had my Benedictine Breviary, with the Advent prayers for the today. And, obviously, a beautiful Cranberry Bliss bar from the Gas City Starbucks. For a friend. Because even The Devil's Backbone, even on the deadest day in recorded history (I know, so dramatic), can be just another high (and low and twistyturny) way to bliss. 

Ironic Advent meditations often plow my soul (and perhaps yours, dear reader). Some of them have been traumatic to remember and to write. People often asked me, "are you OK?" This was as it should be. I hope that you will agree with me, though, that to be fallow is not to be shallow, despite the linguistic similarity. I let my soul and Soul relax today into the sere gloom of The Devil's Backbone. Trusting, or maybe hoping is a better word, that memories of my father, the pale grey sky, good work to do, friends, my smartass phone, a gift on the way, and Cranberry Bliss (or Goo) matter in a world where everything matters. Thanks for taking the drive with me.