The Beauty of the Broken Pattern

 HS #134 2026.9.10

 

The Beauty of the Broken Pattern

 

Did you meet Erling Haaland this past summer? He’s the exceptional Norwegian soccer player bursting with personality who was delightful to watch.  YouTube continues sending me videos of his antics on and off the field – crazy kicks and head butts, blushing when kissed by other players, tenderly interacting with young children. The guy is loved and admired by everyone. More on that later. 

 

 A quiz for you: The following is the first six lines from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12: 

When I do count the clock that tells the time  

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night  

When I behold the violet past prime  

And sable curls all silvered o’re with white  

When lofty trees I see ________ of leaves  

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd  . . .

 

Fill in the blank with the word that Shakespeare used: barren or bereft? 

 

If you chose “bereft” you correctly noticed the iambic pentameter in which every second syllable of a ten-syllable line gets accented. And you would be wrong! Shakespeare set up a pattern, an expectation, and then intentionally broke it – such is the beauty of surprise. 

 

I have a new favorite comedian found on YouTube: Anthony Jeselnik.  Some of his content is off limits, but he has mastered the art of breaking from the expectation. One example: I recently visited my mother for a week. All she wanted from me was to run errands for her. Every day she asked me to go buy her the daily lottery ticket because if she doesn’t play, she can’t win.  Finally, I told her, “Mom, don’t you realize that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning – than of me doing you a favor.” 

 

I find that hilarious. Of course we expected him to say, “ – than of you winning the lottery.” His unexpected closing caught us off guard, yet it fit perfectly with the story. 

 

I just now returned from the home of Martha, an 88-year-old Yooper friend who lives alone on 33 acres a couple miles from my U.P. cabin where she still mows her own lawn and climbs on her roof to shovel the snow.  I met her 25 years ago while walking the Au Train Lake Superior beach, and visit her every year for pancakes and conversation. A musician, today she played the Bach she is presently mastering. She showed me the chords Bach used – unexpected, yet when heard, they fit perfectly. One has the same reaction as to Jeselnik’s humor, “Of course, why didn’t I see that coming!” 

 

She explained that Bach and Handel were born less than a month apart and that Handel’s music is the best that earth can produce, but Bach’s is from heaven.  I had to agree. 

Bach, Michelangelo, Shakespeare – perhaps Jeselnik. They create(d) things of rare beauty, and that beauty of often obtained via the unexpected. (Did you expect to see horns on Michelangelo’s Moses?) 

Then Martha showed me her garden, tiny compared to the huge expanse when I first met her, filled with plants with claimed medicinal/spiritual powers. Telling me about her neighbors and friends, she mentioned one who was rather odd, and then editorialized, “People who live alone grow strange.” 

 

I laughed inwardly. Indeed, Martha was describing others, but perhaps realized she was describing herself as well. Serving three years in the Philippines for the Peace Corp under Kennedy, even now she laments that she isn’t doing enough to better the world. Intrigued by all things mystical, she loaned me a book which foretells each person’s death based on hidden mathematics from the Bible. I pointed out that the 1997-published book predicted nuclear wars in 2000 and 2006. She then lost interest. 

 

Although some MAGA neighbors and relatives find her contrary and outspoken, I marveled when she tenderly picked up a bug from the kitchen table and carried it outside “to his home.”  She gently brushes mosquitoes off her body rather than swatting them because, “They want to live too.” 

 

Just as gently, perhaps, as the way Erling Haaland treats young fans. Haaland is another – younger and better known - example of someone who entertains and inspires us by being his authentic self – fun, crazy, and always doing the unexpected – to the consternation of the goalies. 

 

Both of them (AND recently departed Dolly Parton!) show that just as in poetry, music and comedy, humans who break the usual patterns add beauty and interest to our world.