I Want to be Enzo the Baker

“To believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one only essential thing.”

― Mark Twain, Joan of Arc

Stay with me now, this will all come together in the end. I am a bit rusty as I have not taken fingers to the keyboard to compose a blog post in yet another long period of time.

You see I had to give myself a time out. I was heart sick about my country, about its people, about how divided we are, about death still knocking on the door every day as I read the headlines, about masks and budgets and viruses, oh, my. I was even sick of myself. So I did an emotional quarantine to just take time for me to parse things out. I needed to come to terms with the fact that I could never fix it all by myself. I had to deal with the thought that my father was turning in his grave (yes, and all the men and women like him) because he shed blood for a country that is now at the very least befuddled and at its worst full of enmity.

I quickly thought of the word “fugue,” not the musical term but the one that is defined as “a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts in full awareness but upon recovery cannot recollect the acts performed.” Okay, it is a bit dramatic, but so am I, especially when I am pondering the state of the world. I had felt as if I had been sleepwalking for the last year or so, and awoke to what had surely been that fugue-like mental state before I mentally checked out. But there it was, just the same old morass. AND if one looks up the word “morass” one finds--”a complicated or confused situation: ‘she would become lost in a morass of lies and explanations.’” The dictionary even stated “she” so I knew I had the right word for moi.

My prescription for such a blue mental state? Well, of course my standards—lots of TCM, not TLC, but Turner Classic Movies, and books, and devotionals, and napping with the cat in my lap. I only went out to pick up groceries, for a fugue definitely calls for lots of vanilla bean ice cream and coffee and sweet tea to get one through such a state.

I felt like I did at seven—paralyzed and afraid. I began to think on just how much of a moral coward I was, stuck in a rut and helpless to dig myself out. It’s a terrible thing to think of oneself as a “coward,” for I come from brave people and I was letting them down.

Somewhere in the middle of this I decided to watch “The Godfather.” Yes, I have seen it multitudinous times, but nothing like a good old standard to lull you to a nap or at the very least relax you, for you already know the dialogue by heart. But I was not led to a nap, for I had reached the scene where Michael rushes to the hospital because his father, the Don, has been shot, and all police protection has been withdrawn. Here he goes, Michael Corleone, the lone war hero and HE is going to take action.

He begs the nurse to help move his father to another room as hit men are on the way to dispatch his father. The move takes place and Michael hears footsteps, and challenges an approaching man. He is a small guy, holding a bunch of flowers. Michael asks the stranger who he is and he replies “I am Enzo, the baker.” Michael tells him to leave, but Enzo has been the recipient of a favor from the now wounded Don, and refuses to leave. He tells Michael he will stay and help, “for your father, for your father.”

And so, two men, neither bearing arms, end up on the front steps of the hospital just as the murderous thugs show up. These villains slow down just enough to see that Michael and Enzo must have weapons in their pockets as they look poised to shoot. Crisis avoided, the would-be assassins hurry off.

BUT Michael and Enzo had no weapons and had just pulled off the bluff of the century. Enzo decides he needs a cigarette after this, and as he is trying to light it we can see his hand shaking radically. Enzo was petrified! However, he had “shown up” and rendered assistance in spite of the fact that he was sore afraid. So I decided right then and there that for the rest of my life I WANT TO BE ENZO THE BAKER!

I don’t want to be flummoxed by events around me. I don’t want to have to put myself in the corner anymore. I want to be brave—even if I have to fake it like Enzo did to save the day. I just needed a plan.

So I decided to get up every day and read my devotional book and say my prayers—THE most important part of any plan. I decided to put on pretty colors and ditch anything that bespoke a dull, drab existence. I put on makeup (just a little) as one readying oneself for battle. I read more and still watched television, but talked to friends more and re-connected with family and friends I had not been in touch with enough. In short, I was trying to use those famous bootstraps to pull myself out of my ditch.

And it worked. After a month I am feeling better. Am I as brave as Enzo? I still don’t know. But I think of him and real people who are brave in the face of danger or distress. I hark back to those ancestors of mine who made it through everything life had to throw at them as they built this country. They were just little guys, “bakers” themselves, who stepped up when it was time to do so. I quit wallowing and am now on my “be brave” campaign. Join me. You can shake if you’re a little scared. You must read your Bible to gird your loins. And just act sensibly and kind. We can do it. We can turn up the heat and pull ourselves out of the doldrums.

So adieu for now, if you’ll excuse me I have some “shakin’ and bakin" to do.

"I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane

I'm more than some pretty face beside a train

It's not easy to be me"

"More Than A Bird"

Five for Fighting