Giving Credit

(This is the second part of a two-part reflection on Thanksgiving and gratitude. Part 1 is here.)

I am not big on gratitude. Or rather, I’m not big on people telling me (or me telling others) to feel gratitude. Don’t tell me how to feel. I feel how I feel, and telling me to do otherwise is nothing but an invitation to fakery. Thank you, no.

But there’s something related and important that doesn’t ask us to fake anything, something specific, founded on reason and facts that should always be acknowledged: credit.

I mean credit here in the sense of “always give credit where credit is due” — “props”, as the kids say. Not in the sense of finance. the credit cards that everyone is trying to get you to max out over the next month. (Speaking of that, have I mentioned that my book makes a great Yule gift for the Zen Pagan on your list?)

Sometimes after a really good movie, I’ll sit and watch the credits scroll all the way through. Partly it’s because I’m not ready to leave the liminal space of the theater; but also sitting and reading the names of all those who worked off-camera is a meditation on the creative process. When we think of the Lord of the Rings trilogy we think of the star actors and the direction of Peter Jackson, but the work would not exist without the efforts of hundred of extras, camera operators, carpenters, painters, rock & foam technicians, set dressers, sound techs, miniature builders, stuntpeople, wardrobe seamsters, and payroll accountants.

And as I think about that, it strikes me that in anything that I may have accomplished in life there’s a long list of those who were “off-camera” who deserve credit.

Here are some of them.

Let’s start at the very beginning: credit to the Big Bang, to time and space, matter and energy, to this physical universe (and maybe multi-verse). Credit to the Sun’s furnace that powers us all, credit to this third rock out from it that supports us. Credit to the very first life form, ancestor of us all, to the laws and customs of chemistry that allowed it to come to be.

Credit to four and a half billion years of evolution. Credit to mass extinctions, to the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and made room for us mammals.

Credit to whoever it was who hosted the New Year’s Eve party where my parents first met. Credit to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, an interest they shared. Credit to Great-grandmom Suzie, who encouraged Mom to write to Dad while he was stationed in Vietnam.

Credit to the Catholic Church teaching the ineffective “rhythm method” of contraception to the newlyweds.

Credit to the guy in the apartment above (or was it below? or next door?) who had band practice there, playing “Hey Jude” over and over again in the last days of my mom’s pregnancy. Credit to McCartney and Lennon for writing the song. There was music to attend my birth. Credit to Mom and Dad for not naming me “Jude.”

Credit to Tom Passaro, my father’s best friend since high school and source of my name.

Credit to the writers and performers of “Laugh-In”, the TV show my mother was watching when she went into labor; she wouldn’t leave for the hospital until the show was over, there was laughter the night of my birth.

Credit to the grandparents who gave me a sense of heritage. Credit to my mom’s mother who taught me to play blackjack and “go fish”. Credit to my mom’s dad and his tall tales. Credit to my dad’s mother, her strength and dignity after her stroke. Credit to my dad’s father, family patriarch, unashamed to hug and laugh and cry.

Credit to Mom, who taught me to read and write — not just to make letters, she helped me with that “write a story using five of your spelling words” homework. Every poem, every story, every essay, every song I write, comes from her.

Credit to Dad, who taught me logic, showed me puzzles where from one set of facts you could determine a new truth. Every line of software and every reasoned argument I craft, comes from him.

Credit to my brother, rival and playmate, the young athlete to contrast with my young scholar.

Credit to my uncle who brought his guitar to family gatherings, and to my aunt, 70s feminist, intellectual, single mother, hostess of so many family gatherings.

Credit to the first girl who kissed me. Credit to the first girl who…well, let’s have some discretion.

Credit to the musicians and bands I listened to growing up, to the authors I read, to the librarians who lent me their books.

Credit to the teachers in the classrooms. Credit to the teachers outside the classroom. Credit to childhood friends…and to childhood bullies and their followers, who taught me hard lessons.

Credit to my ju-jitsu sensei, who taught me ways to deal with them. Credit to my karate senseis over thirty years, who continued me on the path. Credit to my shiatsu and massage teachers, who showed me how that path had a component of healing arts. Credit to those who’ve let me practice those healing arts upon them.

Credit to the men and women I’ve shared apartments and houses with over the years, for putting up with me.

Credit to the places that have fed me and/or kept me supplied with coffee and/or beer and/or wine while I wrote: to Planet X, Funk’s Democratic Coffee Spot, Leadbetters, Sara and Desmond’s, The Cellar, Liquid Earth, Red Emma’s. Credit to the grocers and farmers and brewers and roasters who supplied them. Credit to the Earth that grew the food and the grains and the beans, to the rains and the rivers and the wells, to the Sun that powered it all. (Have I already mentioned the Sun and the Earth? Well, let us list them twice, that is more than fair.)

Credit to every lover or desired lover who’s inspired a poem. Credit to every stranger who’s struck my mind.

Credit to generations of Zen teachers, credit to generations of magicians, credit to the drummers to whose beat I’ve danced and to those who built the fires around which I danced.

Credit to my dogs, to Buffy and Kato and Piccolo and Chewbacca and Ringo, the Taoist sages who have walked with me.

Credit to the poets, to Emerson and Whitman and Thoreau and Ginsberg and Snyder and Tennyson and Issa and Basho and Ikkyu.

Credit to the plumbers and the trashmen (and women) who remove the waste and prevent disease.

Credit to the cars driving by North Avenue as I write this. Credit to the reflections of the bookshelves in the window. Credit to this present moment, and again credit to this present moment, and again credit to this present moment…

Credit to the folks cleaning up the place as I leave, wiping down the tables, putting up the chairs, making all ready for the next generation of patrons.