Writing True

Wrong Theocracy

2010-01-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

I received this email today:

"America, Canada, all Europe ..... needs a President like this.

"Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - Australia

"Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

"Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.

"Quote: 'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.'

"'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, Learn the Language!'

"'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

"'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

"'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.'
'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.' Maybe if we circulate this , American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths.
If you agree, please SEND THIS ON."

I get stuff like this from time to time, and I usually ignore it. Not today. My group reply:

America was founded by a group of very different people whose early leaders were all too familiar with the tyrannical role religion played in government. Even though these leaders argued and argued fiercely about many, many issues, they were clear on this point--the new nation would have a government separate from religion, ruling a country where its citizens were free to practice whatever religion they choose. This was the Age of Enlightenment, and the law of reason would guide the new state.

19th and 20th century evangelicals felt differently. In the early 20th century, they even succeeded in adding "In God We Trust" to the nation's currency, a move religious president Theodore Roosevelt strongly opposed as sacrilege. Today, people insist, against all evidence, that America's founders designed a Christian nation, despite their rigorous omission of the mention of Christ from any government documents. Some people today, ignoring both historical tyranny and modern day examples, wish to create a theocracy in the U.S. It is a horrible mistake, and goes against everything this nation was founded upon. It is also an aberration against religion.

In 19th century America, the new railroads needed workers. They also need towns and people to populate them along the new rail routes. Since the U.S. didn't have sufficient population, in numbers or willing participants, they invited immigrants. Literally--ran massive ad campaigns to sell Europeans on coming to America. There were literally more Irish in New York City than in Dublin. Town after town of German immigrants spread across the midwest. And in darker times, America became a refuge for the scientists and artists and social leaders facing death in their own countries--immigrants who helped change a backwater country into the center for the arts and science it is today.

Every business of even moderate size today does business overseas. These are our markets. We are citizens of the world. It makes sense to talk calmly and reasonably to other nations, even as we keep the ability to use stronger methods when necessary. Arrogant cowboys strutting about telling the rest of the world to go to hell, we're Americans, is neither patriotic, effective, nor reasonable. It only proves to the rest of the world that we cannot be reasoned with, that the only thing we listen to are nuclear weapons, and they'd better hurry to get some.

Mindless blather circulating the Internet has replaced thinking. If America faces any particular difficulty, it's that. Legal immigrants of varied backgrounds are no threat whatsoever. Who cares if we have multilingual people? Anyone who thinks they deliberately sit around refusing to learn English is an idiot--this would only make their life harder. I have seen many of these people, struggling to finish a college degree in a language they are still learning while working crappy full time jobs and living with their families and a few others in just a few rooms. And they do it. They fricking successfully do it! America needs more people like that, people with courage and determination, people with the will to make their lives and their world better than it is. More people with real spirit, and less mouths bitching on the Internet.

The message also ignores the reality of the millions of Muslims who live in the U.S.--doctors and scientists and professors and every other profession, just like everyone else. They don't practice Sharia law here. They don't try to, and they don't want to. They see themselves as Americans, and they follow the law of the land.

Theocratic, jingoistic Christians in America should follow their example or get out. Australia seems a possibility.

This crap angers me. Stop it. Use your brains and think, for Christ's sake.

Writer

Poem and Mountain

2009-10-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends started seminary this term. He recently emailed me (his atheist friend) the following:

Want to help me with some homework? I'm taking a class on Poetry and the Religious Imagination. This week, we're to strike up a conversation with a friend outside class about the creative moment over a poem by Wallace Stevens.

"The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain"

There it was, word for word.
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen.
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactnesses
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

So, maybe the question to ask regarding creativity or the creation of a poem is why? What does the poem, the creative act of "recomposing" and "shifting" give us? Hmm. I think of Stevens as modernist in the sense that he's looking for wholeness, but recognizes the world as fractured. He doesn't have God out there somewhere to whom he can go for reassurance. He goes to the poem, "turned in the dust of his table," to find his home. Hmmmm. What do you think?

Be well!

Here’s my response:

This is a great assignment, especially that you must get outside input. The last of the demons preventing Buddha from enlightenment was his own ego. This is among the most revealing statements ever written about spirituality. Some things just can’t be seen from ourselves.

I’ve climbed a lot of mountains. When I needed to get into a difficult issue, to solve a troubling problem, to sort out which things were important, I went climbing. Walks, while peaceful, don’t accomplish this in the same sense. Nor is it the view--driving to the top is not equivalent. Six/eight hours of tiring climbing, however, clears the mind, leaving choices and situations apparent, courses of action clear. Some of this is activity, perhaps, but long hikes aren’t the same either. Some of it is activity mandated by survival--a very effective way to focus priorities. But most of this is getting outside one’s own mind. The experiences and memories it yields are deeply meaningful, so clear I can revisit the summit at will (and do when I need this focus), something very personal that cannot be taken away but something not mine nor me, now or then. It is more than such things. As Lao Tzu observes, “Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know.” It is beyond telling. It is a knowing that is more whole than the knowing we speak of day to day. And I immediately recognized this in Stevens’ poem.

When a Zen or Taoist painter shares his work with a friend (a work born of a moment of meditation, the painter anticipates that the friend will add a poem born of meditation on the image (this is why Chinese/Japanese painted scrolls typically have so much writing on them). Similar to what you’re doing now, the viewer gains perspectives outside his own mind (and even his own mindlessness). I see poetry this way too. A poet shares a fresh perspective, a different way of viewing our world, our experience, our nature, or even just the possibility of those other perspectives, that there indeed CAN be “thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird,” for example. This too takes us outside of our own minds, beyond our experience into views we cannot see alone. I think of an amoeba-shaped lake, its shores heavily wooded, with observers standing at various points and coves, unseen by each other, all looking at the same lake, but seeing in each case a very different lake. For a more complete view at any given moment, they will need each other’s descriptions. They simply cannot view all these perspectives at once themselves. A poet can shift through these in time.

You turn to literary theory, a tool which, though I understand it (as a musician, for example, I recognize technically everything happening in a performance), I’ve always found limiting. Yes, it can inform the context. It can also posit the arbitrary. While I notice the technical aspects, it’s not what I hear--it’s not the music, in the way that I see the world as a musician, in the way that I write like a musician, that I see “mountain” in the same sense as I see music, as who I am, yet not me nor mine. When on stage, reaching down for that difficult passage, 3000 people listening quietly, expecting perfection, counter-intuitively calming my breathing to met the challenge, pressure on, knowing it will flow of its own accord, fruits of all my years of practice and yet from a place that’s not me nor mine--this is what I hear when I listen to such a poem. It’s the “It” described in “Zen and the Art of Archery” by the Zen masters, fruits of their skill, but nothing to their credit, beyond them. Questioning the nature of language and exploring it by writing is from the inside, and yes, worthy of a theoretical examination. Seeing how the movements of our age might measure such a piece is an exercise.

The creative moment? That moment is long past. The poem itself is all past tense. When, amid all the work and angst and struggle did those difficult parts of music become “easy” for me? I missed the moment. When did complicated literature become apparent? I didn’t notice the day. These things happened far before my awareness of this--outside my mind and perception. When I did notice, they were already long established history. Why write? Why create? Reminds me of “Why climb mountains?” Modernism “in the sense of a search for wholeness” would really be wishful thinking, a preconceived “connect the fractured dots” exercise possible somehow whatever the dots, if pointless beyond fiction once connected. But that captured moment of mountain, that point in music that freezes time even as it moves through it, that meditative glimpse recorded on a Taoist painter’s scroll, that snapshot of poem--these are moments past our daily post of ego driven mind.

Ever hear of the Johari window? It’s a communications construct exploring the importance of others’ perceptions in understanding ourselves. I can see some things about myself, but not other things. You too, can see some things about me, but not other things, yielding four quadrants: things we both see, things I see that you don’t, things you see that I don’t, and things we both miss. Point is--I cannot truly understand myself by myself. I need the perspectives of others as well. No one truly understands how the world looks to you--not your family, not me, not your wife. The moments you can capture are enlightening insights, parts of creation otherwise unavailable to us. Why indeed? Those most personal moments also tend to be most universal. Capturing them for others shows them to ourselves--along with their significance. It’s a process, a journey up the mountain, not the view, the recomposed pines and shifted rocks pointing their direction during their transition, not once composed, that yields this completeness “in an unexplained completeness.” Inexact and exact merge. Even though the book lays turned it yields its oxygen. The poem is mountain.

I’m always saddened when people-of-faith lament that atheists don’t have God to turn to for reassurance. How much they are missing! How many can truly live their truth? How many know with certainty anytime, anywhere, they can reach down for that difficult music passage? How many are on that mountain every moment of every day? And why would such people need reassurance, or to label it anything, God or otherwise? As Joseph Campbell told Bill Moyers when asked whether he had faith: “I don’t need faith; I have experience.” Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know. Mountain, music, zen painting, poem.

I see a poem as a crystal. Multiple observations and experiences are condensed, pressed tighter and tighter, until they crystallize in “the view toward which they had edged, / Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea, / Recognize his unique and solitary home.” Physics tells us we are not slaves to time and space. Such creations let us glimpse the timeless. That’s why it cannot be told--the mountain isn’t really the point, even as it’s entirely the point. It’s why I’ve never shared this with you before, and why I don’t talk to people about my understanding of music in that sense. It is beyond telling, so we create art.

The museum has a great show, “Turner to Cézanne,” a collection on loan until Jan. 3. I haven’t seen it yet, but I will make it a point to do so, and more than once. Why? Not simply because they are very well done paintings. Paintings like these go beyond craft. Painters like these aren’t simply about superior technique, but about capturing that element of the timeless. I’ll be going to see music, mountain, poem, the fractured pieces that already are the whole--and “a place to go in my own direction.”

Writer

A Lovely Thought?

2009-05-25T19:49:00.001-07:00

Take a look at the metaphors people use to describe love, and why anyone does it is a wonder.

Right off you have to fall. Geez! Or you were conquered. Or engulfed, drowning in a sea of love. And you gave all your love, so you’re feeling empty. You don’t want to get burned again. But you’re mad, wild, crazy in love. Yet you crave it.

So love means defeat, injury, death, bankruptcy, addiction and insanity. How lovely.

Why the negative take on something everyone wants, everyone in fact needs, everyone deserves? What would happen if we spent as much time loving as we seem to invest in warding it off? Hell, even children know this: “That one likes you” “Ewwwww!” And sometimes adults don’t act much better. You are loved. Oh, the horror.

So we go home, alone, protected from love, and wish we had someone there to love.

Writer

A wonderful poem about keeping expectations real

2009-04-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

[I've deliberately omitted the title, as its connotations are no longer the same as when the poem was written.]

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own---
envoy from some village in the moldings . . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

--Adrienne Rich

Walking in the darkness

2009-04-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush,
We waited for the flash
Of morning's levelled gun.

But morning let us pass,
And day by day relief
Outgrows his nervous laugh,
Grown credulous of peace,

As mile by mile is seen
No trespasser's reproach,
And love's best glasses reach
No fields but are his own.

--W. H. Auden

May the day come when the days are so comfortable.

Writer

Just when...

2009-04-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

It's beautiful when it truly happens. The poetic irony. The better job that appears just when despair is thinking of leasing a room. That wonderful pet adopted when it just showed up after the loss of another. The unexpected opportunity, the surprise windfall, the fortuitous, the serendipitous. The fruit falls from the tree, ripe and ready. A gift.

And there you are again. After the disappointment, the discouragement, the adjustment--she enters. Smart, artistic, funny, sexy, loves what you love, prefers what you prefer, shares your interests, and finds she is interested in you, as you are in her.

Life proceeds apace, one day at a time, and we find hope lives, even knowing what could happen, but also knowing what could finally happen. That elusive "one," that small subset of the population, grows in your land.

And so, not knowing, yet knowing, we truly live.

The Mystic Writer

Spring and All

2009-04-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast--a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines--

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches--

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind--

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance--Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

--William Carlos Williams

Memory and Desire

2009-03-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

--beginning of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland"

Introspection

2009-03-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of our exploring
will be to return where started
and know the place for the first time

--T. S. Eliot

Where's Writer Been?

2009-03-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

Here's my video creation by way of explanation. I tried to embed it, but alas, you'll need to copy and paste the link:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090320153215600

Also:

Sonnet: Love Is Not All

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

And speaking of sonnets...

2009-03-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

--Edna St. Vincent Milly

Valentine’s Day Ire

2009-02-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

You’ve heard it plenty, I’m sure—the lament that Valentine’s Day is just a holiday invented for the greedy greeting card industry, and therefore the speaker refuses to participate out of righteous resistance to such outrageous manipulation.

Is this really so horrible?

A day to remind someone you love that you care? How is this any worse than the traditions surrounding birthdays or Christmas? What’s the big deal? Participate or not, as you choose. The need to pontificate against it, though, suggests more than greeting cards are at issue.

It is a curious holiday, to be sure. After all, it’s named for a Roman priest who brought lovers to marriage in trying circumstances, and the date is the anniversary not of his birth, but of his execution. Interesting omen.

Like other modern holidays, this one falls on or between solstices and equinoxes, replacing pagan celebrations with Christian counterparts. Lupercalia, celebrated Feb. 15, featured sacrificed animals, from which the priests cut thongs for whipping all the women they encountered, to ensure fertility. A BDSM holiday.

Or perhaps you prefer the Juno Februata festival, Feb. 13 and 14, featuring boys drawing the names of girls from a hat. Valentine’s Day, in English folklore, is the day birds begin mating. So all in all, a very, um, practical, get-down-to-business kind of holiday. The courtly love tradition of the High Middle Ages whittled this down to choosing a sweetheart. So much for progress.

But detractors can still revel in a romantic priest’s martyrdom, and the massacre of seven gang members in a North side Chicago garage in a hail of seventy sub-machine gun bullets and two shotgun blasts on the morning of Feb. 14, 1929.

Just in case you don’t care for chocolate, flowers, greeting cards, fertility, erotic flogging, astronomy, romantic/sexual partners, or the mating habits of birds.

Writer

Diving into the Wreck

2009-02-11T19:28:00.000-08:00

by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

______________________________________________

I was thinking through feelings and thoughts, sorting through what I want to say, but find I can't really add much to what Rich has already so eloquently said. I keep fruitlessly working at it. Somehow it helps. The wreck and not the story of the wreck. Not sure how. It just does.

Writer

Pain and Peace by Moonlight

2009-02-03T20:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, as I went skiing just after work, I came across a clearing I’ve seen hundreds of times before. A bad storm cleared this bit of forest a few years ago, leaving piles of trees like badly hacked grass. Even today, we’ve really just become accustomed to the turns around some still downed trees.

On that particular evening, though, as the sun set through the spruce behind them, several remaining dead trees stood highlighted, jagged and tall, rough sentinels to the almost forgotten storm, abrupt reminders that the “clearing,” while lighter than the surrounding forest, is not truly clear--and it never has been.

Things long since settled, almost forgotten, appear unbidden, apparitions dragging their shadowy history, rattling never attached chains in mockery. Past pain is suddenly present, and for no apparent reason, no visible trigger, and without welcome. Not as clear as it seemed. The jagged sentinels stand witness, the past not truly past, remnants of ancient storms uncleared.

Tonight, darkness beat me to Stoney Pond, but with a clear sky and a bright moon overhead, I decided to ski anyway. With slick, sleet-like conditions, the skiing was fast and not a little harried at times, especially tethered to a husky…but I’m glad I went, despite some spills. It was such a peaceful night, the forest so beautiful, a great night for a leisurely ski, just letting thoughts slowly sort themselves out, if not resolve anything.

I think about the quiet, watching the moonlit trail. I think of sharing these experiences, how nice it would be, how odd that so many people would think it strange, or place it beyond anything they’d want to do. Some paths just seem to want to be traveled alone.

Why is that, I wonder. People wonder why they can’t find love, for instance, but the truth is they don’t want it--they would rather be independent. The song “Nature Boy” is correct: “The hardest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love”--and here’s the hard part--“and be loved in return.” Or more specifically, to allow ourselves to be loved in return. Joni Mitchell is right: “And you love your loving…not like you love your freedom.”

I look at the stars again, back at the car, and strap my husky in the back seat. She’s an independent creature too--but she’s also a pack animal, one who knows without thinking she belongs with others. Humans are also social animals. Why do we fight it so?

A couple times in my past I disappeared for a while, not even close friends knowing for sure where I was or how to contact me. Just time for me and my thoughts, finding myself, sorting things out. I’m starting to feel the need to do it again.

Writer

Our own brand of magic

2009-02-01T17:55:00.000-08:00

Perfection Wasted
by John Updike

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market —
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That’s it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren’t the same.

– 1990

Thank you to all those who have shared and continue to share your magic with me and have allowed me to share my own with you. That subtle, easily missed perfection will never be wasted. Not on me, not on us.

Writer

Wanderlust

2009-01-09T20:51:00.000-08:00

When I graduated from college, I had all sorts of dreams. Among them was the urge to see the world--maybe not as big as George Bailey’s in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but strong nonetheless.

I had already seen much of the country, courtesy of my parents, who dragged their children from state to state during vacations from attraction to attraction. I’m not complaining--I saw the Badlands, the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Carlsbad Caverns, Yellowstone, the Smokey Mountains, a bit of Mexico and Canada, and a host of other wonderful sights. I loved it--though I thought we should settle and soak in each sight, rather than cramming as many as possible into a few vacation weeks, only to enjoy the pictures later.

I wanted to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, to canoe the Mississippi, to sail the St. Lawrence, to cross the Rocky Mountains, to climb Machu Picchu. I didn’t want to do this alone, however. I shared my vision with several adventurous friends, but one by one, they all had new jobs, new girlfriends, new living situations or various other new circumstances that would stand in the way of such untrammeled endeavors. So, after a lot of conversation and investigation, my expeditions, one by one, were replaced by those closer to home.

Well, I have lived in the middle of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and now live a few hours from the Adirondack Mountains. At home, I’m surrounded by beautiful countryside, with beautiful hiking, skiing, and kayaking opportunities just minutes away. My wish to soak it in has become a life. Instead of going somewhere to see nature, I live with it. And when I desperately need a walk in the country just to clear my head, I only have to go outside.

I now have friends who want to wander, if not in the same way, at least to seek greener grass. I think about it, and I certainly appreciate all the wonderful sights to see, and all the wonderful things to potentially do in life.

But except for someone to share it with, I’m content.

Writer

What IS a "Normal Life"?

2009-01-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

Sittin’ here just thinkin,’ taking a few moments break from work (OK, I DID get out earlier for an…interesting ski with my husky across sleet…), I’m struck by how many times I’ve heard the words over the years, in a wide variety of contexts, “Well, I need to get my life in order first.”

Just whose life IS “in order”? What does that even mean? Someone with no problems? Someone with no entanglements? Someone whose life moves everyday perfectly synched to some cosmic schedule? Who ARE these people?

Well, they don’t exist, of course. I’m all for continual self-improvement and striving for the best, but to wait for that before truly living is sad, and perhaps dysfunctional, if understandably so. We’ll all die first!

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in new relationships, and it’s rooted in pride. I’m as guilty as anyone--I do alone very well, I don’t need anyone, I’ve got other life issues to address, and so on. I certainly have my share of pride, too. But despite our individual culture--and this is not to ignore the many benefits of valuing each of us as individuals--it’s flawed at best.

Simply considering our biology dictates man was meant to live with woman, and woman with man. Sure, its more than that--which is why sex with someone loved on multiple levels and for multiple reasons is wonderful, not just a biological act. But to pretend this is apart from our nature is silly.

Perfection doesn’t come easily, if it comes at all. So here’s to imperfect relationships and abnormal lives--in all their messy, individualistic, problem-soaked and vastly interesting living-life-to-its-fullest glory.

Writer

A Hard Year’s Beginning

2009-01-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve got to learn to stop getting into long distance relationships. Or I’d like to. Thing is, I keep meeting interesting women who don’t live next door. So I’ll probably keep doing it.

In particular, I find there’s a process:

1) complain there are no good men
2) meet good man
3) get interested
4) get serious about man
5) get very happy
6) think of every possible scenario about what could go wrong
7) sabotage relationship so that none of those things can happen
8) be sad
9) complain there are no good men

Long distance makes it impossible to go get coffee and talk, so we add hiding behind the keyboard or turning off the cell phone to further complicate the issue.

I guess I don’t understand.

I’m a “let’s take what’s good and work from there” kinda guy. Look for things wrong, and you’ll always find them (doesn’t anyone read “Young Goodman Brown” anymore?).

But, a relationship of any kind takes the decisions of two people.

Seems I’m back at square one.

I don’t like it.

Writer

A hard year's end

2008-12-30T18:23:00.000-08:00

Dearest dragonfly,

I'm home safely, checking email by the pillows where I often work, and the first thing I notice is that it smells like you. I re-read your last few messages, checked the discussion board and looked at pictures, but right now my so recent memories of you seem so much more real than these pics.

I'm just feeling numb--and I know I'm very tired, even though I'm not entirely feeling it. As you were finishing with security, the guy next to me says, "It's hard when they leave, isn't it?" "Yes," I replied, "It sure is." I watched the spot where you left to go to your gate for a while...I don't know why...I guess it was just hard to let go. I used the men's room and walked back to the car, in no hurry at all. Back at the car, I set down the food bag, pulled out the Play It Again Sports receipt, checked for the parking ticket, and headed slowly for the exit. I waited in the cash lane. "Three dollars even," the attendant said. I fumbled for the three dollars, and handed them over. I set my wallet back, a bit dazed I guess, because the attendant said politely, "You're set. Happy New Year." I nodded and pulled away with tears starting in my eyes. This was it. I was leaving the airport.

I collected myself, but a quarter of a mile later I was sobbing. A few breaths, and I again collected myself just before turning onto South Bay Road to head to return your skis. I almost considered not doing it. I missed the same turn we did before (well, it WAS dark this time), and made the same backtrack.

Inside, the lone sales attendant was working on something in a corner, machinery running, so I had to wait. And wait. And wait. Skis sitting on the counter. Finally he came back, remembered the phone call, and we step by step completed the return, tears appearing as quickly as I can try to suppress them. "Happy New Year," he says. I thank him, walk to the door, and the tears win.

On the way home, I think of taking Shanti for a run somewhere, but I gradually admit it will be too dark, too icy and too late before I'm home and can go somewhere. Besides, I'll have to shovel the driveway. I'm glad of this--some simple, physical activity sounds just the ticket. Chocolate is there most of the time I'm shoveling, as she's waiting for a dog bone. Shanti, at the bottom of the driveway, whines for one too.

Bones dispersed, bags brought in, I fed the cats and check email.

"Throw yourself into work first thing in the morning!" I think, and imagine getting in skiing, some outside repairs, some cleaning, and jumping into my course work. "Get a good night's sleep--get an early start tomorrow!" I think, knowing the snowstorm is likely to influence that, remembering the snow blower needs the shear pins replaced, and knowing I probably won't be able to sleep.

But now I'm just numb, my brain a fog. Perhaps this is a good time to return my sister's call. Probably going outside and loading that wood into the leanto is a good idea too. Work and picking up pieces will have to wait for tomorrow. But first I email you.

And nothing, nothing would ever have prepared me for watching you walk down the security line, tears streaming down your face, aching to just hold you and tell you everything will be all right, feeling so much longing, desperately wanting just to comfort you, and to never again watch you have to face anything alone.

Writer

Why doesn’t college work better? An Introduction

2008-12-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

As much as I like teaching, it’s often frustrating, seemingly relentless (part of why I’m buried and not blogging as much these days) and short of tangible rewards. On top of that, criticism of higher education is common, from employers to students. Why? What prevents colleges and universities from performing better?

I’ve thought about writing a series of reflections about this for over a year. At that time, however, I was also angry at a handful of related issues, and it wasn’t the time for clear thinking. Now that I’m merely buried in work, though, I’m ready to explain. The problem, in no particular order, is students, professors, high schools, parents, taxpayers, administrators, government, employers, guidance counselors, economics, culture, and society at large. Did I leave anybody out?

As I find a moment here and there, I’ll explore these areas one by one, labeling them when I do as part one, part two, etc. But here’s a start.

Higher education exists for one purpose--to continue. Seriously, no irony. It always has, since its inception in the 12th century. Sure, if research occurs, if education happens, if knowledge expands, terrific. But the system is set up not to reward those endeavors, but to continue. In fact, not only have many new ideas originated outside of supposed intelligentsia, but also those institutions often opposed the new approaches. Despite its more recent “liberal” label, college is a thoroughly conservative institution.

All the other stakeholders have much the same focus--to survive. Admittedly, lots of people throw themselves into endeavors for lots of commendable reasons. But the bottom line is survival, not growth. What growth does occur is a byproduct. Add a healthy dose of self-justification, and we have a system of higher education.

So join me on an exploration, and I look forward to your comments along the way.

Writer

The Healthy Balance Game

2008-12-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

In Hermann Hesse’s "The Glass Bead Game," the young Joseph Knecht asks his mentor, the Music Master, for advice. Knecht is uncertain about which direction to take his career, about how to best respond to the events around him, and about difficulties he sees in official positions.

The Music Master tells him of a time, when he himself was young, that he likewise sought the advice of a respected elder and mentor, a Sanskrit scholar known as “The Yogi.” As the Music Master described his concerns and woes, the Yogi instead asked several questions about his meals, about his bedtimes, about his meditation practice. Instead, the Music Master had let good practice slide in each of these areas, largely because his concerns were so important and pressing.

But the Yogi points out not only the slip, but also that just when we most need to address health concerns (meals, bedtimes, meditation) during periods of stress, we are least inclined to correct our faults and return to normalcy. Ironic to be sure--we ourselves know we are off-balance (hence the stress), but leave behind balancing elements, even ferociously defending the counterproductive choices.

I am guilty as charged of this offense. Overwhelmed as I am, though, with work, home matters, personal challenges, and many, many projects for the future, some of them immediately pressing, I shall strive to remember to seek balance.

As another yogi tells us at the end of the novel, all is maya.

And welcome back to my blog!

Writer

Birth of a World Leader

2008-11-06T16:47:00.000-08:00

I got thinking today during a long afternoon walk.

I've supported Obama for a few years. I was impressed with his convention speech in 2004, and happened to hear him speak more informally a few times after that, and again, I was impressed with his intelligence, responsiveness, and through command of the issues--not just party talking points. So I looked deeper, and liked his command of strategy, his willingness to delve into new, but not reckless, approaches, and to follow them aggressively. I also liked his understanding that yes, things will get messy, but we can still strive for the positive.

I was delighted when he won the primary. I watched anxiously as we approached Election Day, and started to relax as I saw the red/blue map redrawn in part. A popular win as well as an electoral win, and a decisive one. I was happy indeed, as I believe that we have elected a president who can lead practically, delve into the complexities of issues, look ahead to the long term, and inspire us to again unite and be proud of our country, not just our party or our slice of the country's many beliefs.

I hadn't thought about the race issue other than standing against the racist/Islamic charges, as I truly believe in the man. Election night, I really started to realize that yes, of course, this has got to be a major event for black Americans, even as Obama didn't run based on race. And all those references to Lincoln in the acceptance speech--last few elections the Republicans emphasized they were the party of Lincoln, not so much this time--as well as Dr. King, and I started to appreciate the historic importance of this election beyond my own political preferences.

But today, listening to voices around the globe, I also started to realize that we have elected not only a president, but a world leader. I knew he would be more popular than Bush, that he would strive to work with other countries when reasonable, but I'm catching a glimpse of just what expectations people have for this new president. We also talk about, carelessly really, America as the "leader of the free world," but this time we've actually elected such a world leader.

Many, many problems stand in the way of progress, of course. But I believe we have found a leader up to the task, able to build for the long term, capable of careful consultation with others of the same ilk. I know others don't always share these beliefs, but at least a number of them have made clear they will stand behind their new president and work together as we can, and that's the start of a nation and a world that can start to first believe and then realize--yes we can.

Writer

Rewards of a Dead Garden

2008-10-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I should do a quick check of the gardens, even though I stripped them last week before a frost. I left the sunflowers and the corn, so since tonight is a hard freeze, time to see what little can be salvaged.

What little? I was out two hours. I have a bag full of corn---lots of it small, but that's OK, all ripe. The sunflower seeds are gone---birds and rodents, I suppose. But then I have new peas and beans---not great looking ones, but certainly acceptable, and my broccoli plants are still thriving and producing delicious offshoots. So I picked a bag of greens.

Then the walnuts. One black walnut tree, which produced a few walnuts last year, has dropped all its leaves----and seven bags full of walnuts, with at least another bag's worth still on the tree!

Writer

Palin with the terrorists

2008-10-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is so short---a busy life and lots of online writing responsibilities are preventing regular blogging in the short run.

But this I have to say. Negative campaigns are nothing new, obviously. But Palin's crack about "palin' around with domestic terrorists" is over the top, distasteful---and desperate.

Yes, negative campaigns work. I hope not this time. Surely voters can grasp that campaigns go negative when they can't compete based on their platform? And spinning facts is one thing---extreme exaggeration and malicious innuendo is quite another. Nothing illegal or improper happened here. In fact, a community benefited.

I see partisan glee at such attacks, but here's my question---why would we elect someone we already know will lie to us?

Writer

Financial Crisis 101

2008-09-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

Time for a $700 billion (and that's just the STARTING figure) bailout, we're told.

What a lot of people miss in all this is:

1) the "banking system" referred to isn't the issue in this crisis--commercial banks are already well-regulated.
2) this "crisis" didn't spring up overnight (see the previous post).
3) this plan ENDS independent investment banking by NATIONALIZING the remaining investment banks (the others are now under commercial banking regulation)
4) this plan STRIPS the power of controlling the purse strings from Congress and hands it, WITHOUT OVERSIGHT, to the Secretary of the Treasury (appointed by the President and needing no Senate confirmation)
5) this bailout expands the government's actions to the INSURANCE industry (AIG).
6) this is the latest "we're in a crisis and must act immediately to take extraordinary measures" tactic Bush used to sell his invasion of Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMD) and the subversion of the Constitution under the Patriot Act.

Of course, he passed those when a Republican Congress rubber stamped his idiocy. I hope the Democrats have the balls to reign him in this time. Yes, the financial mess is real, and yes, something, unfortunately, must be done--but it DOESN'T have to be rammed through immediately with this false sense of urgency. The credit markets will be fine as long as something is in the works. Let's take the time to get one right, for once, and yes, the people fleeced under the usury-like mortgage practices deserve at least a chance to make good on their debt and keep their homes---THAT will be better for the country, its people, its lenders--and its economy.

How much longer will the sheep voluntarily line up to be slaughtered?

Writer