"Nor Yet Asleep With Our Lamp Unfurnished..."

Beth, the author of The Cassandra Pages (see sidebar), lost her father-in-law on Friday. He was ninety-nine years old, lucid until just about his very end. She has written of him often and well, the posts about him collected under the title of The Fig and the Orchid. A long and fascinating life, that, alas, proves once again how very short and precious life is indeed. No orchids, but almond blossoms here, as Beth spoke several times of how he longed for the green almonds of the land of his youth.


Image via Wikipedia Commons.

Having A Life is No Excuse

Welcome to any who have found their way here via John B's blog, Cycling in Wichita. I'm days late in getting to the welcome, so apologies if you've been circling in a holding pattern, waiting for a new post. Can anyone translate that sign in the last post ? (Those photos open up much larger in a new window, you know.) John B apparently has a life and three blogs: I merely have a life that, of late, has gone from tumbling from one cesspool of exhaustion to the next to one in which I have rested, deservedly, I hope and think, on some cushiony pockets of sloth. But he is right: I see bikes everywhere. Unless the NYTimes city blog (see previous post) is playing with my head, I really need to get out more, because I see bikes everywhere only in one place. Here is another vehicle one doesn't see often (or at all) in the wastelands between city and country.

Why, O why, I wonder, do we not build for to accomodate walkers, bikers, segways, wheelchairs, etc. Could it be that it suits the infrastructure that we keep off the streets ? I have a whole big post tangent to this topic coming up. Stay tuned. Am off to the bike shop for few things, then to the garden before it gets too hot to do anything.

One note to do with biking, and then another about something that is probably worthy of a separate post all together, but which I had best write down before I forget. First: my area has police on bikes. This is a surprise, since I have never seen them in my part of town before, but ran into them, almost literally, the other week while they paused on the road across from a small park/playground, of necessity standing on the small and rutted shoulder between curb and street. It was dark. Though it looked as if their bikes had lights mounted on the handle bars, they were not turned on. They were wearing no reflective clothing at all. I understand the need for stealth (if that's what it was about), but it was all I could do not to roll down the window and give them a lecture on how not to get killed. I felt about eighty, imagining in my head what I did not do, as I drove too close to, and then past, what I at first thought were tree branches moving in the wind (no, cops on bikes): "Sonny, a helmet won't help you if a car drives into you and across your midriff. Here, Sonny, I've got some reflective tape in the car. Let's at least get some around your wrists and ankles so that you can get home alive to your mother..." If I live so long and keep my brain to boot, it will be fun to do this when I'm old. At present, after almost circling back, I decided not to risk being harassed for the rest of my existence for telling representatives of the peace and safety realm what they surely already know.

Completely unrelated item: as many of you must also, I can see the names of a number of wireless networks in the area when I connect to my own (my computer shows anything within range, locked or not). Of late, a new one has appeared. Its name is "White Power." This disturbs me to no end. I wonder if: a) they are too stupid to know everyone can see it; b) perfectly aware that everyone in this diverse community, which includes a number of ethnic groups as well as nationalities, can see it, and they are offering up this ugliness to affront and to intimidate.

Hidden Bicycles

Okay, one not so hidden, and, as is evidenced from my last post, I've got biking on my mind lately (and happy for the company: thank you, John B., for your comment !). Both of these pictures come from today's NYTimes. The first, of the not-too-hidden-bicycle genre, is from the international section containing an article on the rise of the Dalit politician Kumari Mayawati, pictured on the posters shown in the market. At the center of these posters is a flag of a bicycle and a raised hand. Nothing to do with the story, I'm sure, but I'd like to know what's up with the bicycle. I can't read the script or the language, and would be grateful to know what it says.

Next up, from the City Room blog (but found in print in today's Metro section), is a picture of a mural, already literally whitewashed ---sometimes the metaphor is so literally true that it is painful--- because the rat signalled an anti-snitching campaign that the city has been trying to overcome. To the left of the rat, is, I believe, an abstract image of a cyclist, maybe a messenger, crouched low over the handlebars. My primitive photo editing did allow me to add a big yellow arrow pointing at what would be the cyclist's nose.
From there, you can see the shape of the helmet atop his head, and in the strong vertical line to the right, a strong, squared arch of the shoulders and jacket/messenger bag caught in motion, the legs and body folded over the frame of bike. Do you see it, too ? Alas, gone with the rat. Instead of painting over all of this art, couldn't our dear censors simply have found the artist and/or changed the caption of the noosed rodent's stop sign ? "Stop Poverty ?" "Stop Strangling Free Expression ?" Or with a few brush strokes, transformed the slipknot to a nice tie (rat race and all), and added a simple "Stop for Bicycles ?" I hate it when good art is wasted. Damn.

Bespoke Money

(Pun.)
Wow, it has been a long time. All unintentional, as almost every day I have thought of something to post, but then have fallen asleep or into a book as I have (now, finally), segued into a new phase of my life. I now have a very short commute (a little over nine miles, round trip), and last summer's purchase, the incredible gas-saving car. It is not a hybrid, but gets 38/40 easily. I could also, as it turns out, bike to work. So courtesy of Bike Commuter, I plugged the numbers into the mileage/carbon footprint/money to be saved calculator ----under commuter tools---- and assuming that I would be steady, but lazy (I picked 3 days a week for frequency), you'd think with the short commute and the wonder car I would not save much money, but, wow, was I wrong:
Your daily gas savings is $4.95 dollars and 22.85 lbs of CO2 will NOT be added to the atmosphere
Your weekly gas savings would be $14.85 dollars and 68.54 lbs of CO2 will NOT be added to the atmosphere
Your monthly gas savings would be $59.40 dollars and 274.15 lbs of CO2 will NOT be added to the atmosphere
Your yearly gas savings would be $772.20 dollars and 3,564.00 lbs of CO2 will NOT be added to the atmosphere
Sorry. I know that these numbers should be in green. Still, I am greedily impressed. If I add a fourth day, I would save over a thousand a year. A thousand. Now, this is important, because I took a pay cut for a happier life, and in the back of my mind, I've been scheming about how to make up the difference. My new and happier career will be rather all-consuming, so I've been looking at ways of simply cutting costs. Geez S, she cried, Holy Moly. This is really an almost painless way to do better. Now, don't get me wrong: I have a strong love and/or use for new electronics, sushi dinners and lunches, a good drink, dry cleaning, espresso. So I am not in a dire situation at all. Luckily, my question has been about how to maintain my current lifestyle without, if you follow me, cutting back on it. Here, I thought, is a perfect example of how "nickel and dime stuff" can turn quite substantial. It would mean, even with a short commute, that if you did not have a bike, it would pay for itself over the course of a year. So every time I bike to work round trip, I pay myself 4.95 into a special account (or whatever the daily rate is, per the calculator), and by the end of the year, I have quite a premium in addition to shapely calves. Nice.

Hemless

This morning, I looked at, or rather, actually saw, the towel rack in my bathroom, which contains no towels (they are flung over the shower rod), but, I am ashamed to confess, a week's worth of work clothes folded over the rack each afternoon and topped with a successive layer, Monday on the bottom, Friday on the top. The intent is to get them off as quickly as possible and hang them later after sorting what needs to be laundered. Alas, there is quite a bit of archeological psychology that could be done. At the very back (bottom), forlorn and askew, is a long gray skirt, one of my favorites, a piece of blended three season wool that usually never makes it back into the closet because it is often unearthed from where it rests to be worn again. Now hanging at a steep angle that clearly reveals its longtime placement on the rack, it hangs with its hem undone on one side, the threads still in place. It was unhemmed by a boot buckle. How long has it been there, I wondered. It has been, if the previous photo did not give this away, a period in my life where overwhelmed with uncertainty, responsibility, and fatigue, I have let things at home fall where they may. I only make way for myself in the moment: clear newspapers to read new ones, run the dishwasher to have dishes, sleep because I simply can't stay awake.
Downed hems are a giveaway: the surest sign of neglect of self ---not of appearance, that's been, for what is worth, kept up--- it has been the inner space that has been in disarray, favorite things, plants, pursuits, pushed aside for the "later" that feels as elusive as a gasp for air that is never quite deep enough. How long, I think I was asking myself as I gazed at the hanging hem, has it been since I could really breathe ? Years. And yet today, I can exhale. Several days ago, just in time for summer, came the news that the chance I had taken has paid off: I will be leaving behind the work I have referred to as "the option" and returning to the field (the life) I know and prefer. It is only on this blog, and to a few people close to me that I have been able to complain about being employed in a position I have not at all liked. Somewhere, sometime, I will write about the class difference, or maybe life experience difference, that fed into various responses to my dilemma. All I can say is that if you've had your dream job/profession, and you are forced to live outside of it without finding something of equal force, it is hard to be the person you were. I fought to get back, and when it seemed beyond reach, here it is: I am returned from exile, to different borders, but returned nonetheless.
The skirt is going to the tailor soon. It needs to be taken up.

Swamped Buddha as Rorschach

I am sitting on my porch with my legs stretched out in front of me into the sun, listening to an album by Lucy Kaplansky. I have a headache making its way around my eyeballs in spite of the previously mentioned Saturday breakfast of cappuccinos and Excedrin. The opening song, "Tides," is very powerful, or perhaps it only echoes the thoughts that have preoccupied me of late. I thought long and hard about actually reporting the song I was listening to when I began this entry because of the potential for misunderstanding the coincidence (and it is) for a pun in bad taste with the photo also posted here, which is, of course, an AP photo from Rangoon. These past weeks have seen earth come to life this spring in such violent ways: Burma, the earthquakes in China, the tornadoes ripping through the midwest. And here, I won't keep you in suspense for your Rorschach: what do you see in the photo ? Ruin or something spared from it ? Rain, flood, and temple roof all around it, the Buddha, still upright and apparently unharmed, seems to offer its gaze of calm to the landscape. Perhaps my interpretation originates in some deeply founded psychological premise I have about life. Perhaps it is how things look at the moment. I have, after all and somewhat inadvertently, done something that has left the outcome of my circumstances precipitous (that is, dangerously balanced between one extreme and another). No bodhisattva, I am unfortunately at one with the forces that threaten to both rend and repair my life, by which I mean the life I lead, and not, thankfully, my physical self. I have never been one to toss it all for something else if there is to be a gap between the former and the latter. It has been convenient, though, to construct a narrative that might sound that way, say, to an interviewer, to explain certain sudden movements. In other words, I can construct a narrative of myself that makes me seem like a risk-taker. Not an overly bold one, mind you, but one enough to: a) be apparently convincing and moderately impressive; b) make me wonder if it might not be the true way to see things.
On the other hand, when I did these things I never except for once consciously described it to myself as risk-taking behavior (unless one counts my profession in general, which, trust me, is not usually described in this way). No, I thought, and do predominantly think, of the things I did as being compelled by circumstance. Not that I did not have choices within those circumstances, but the circumstances themselves were not what I would have liked or made. Attribution theory has its limits. So here I am (not). I wonder if, as we approach or enter into middle age, that a biological craving for security begins to make its way into our consciousnesses, much as the urge to leave home and get out on one's own predominates in one's teens and twenties. Perhaps it is simply the calculus of age and time: at forty and beyond, there are only so many fresh starts and do-overs left. That sense of the infinite possibilities of lives that could be led has diminished somewhat. But certainly not courage ? People who know me well, those onto whom no narrative of my life need be foisted, have often called me strong. Perhaps the circumstances that have made me so or seem so (my first thought is often what choice did I have) are akin to the overtraining of an athlete: now, as I await the outcome of certain possibilities, a phone call or an e-mail sets off in me a feeling I never really had before: a weakness in my chest (not the rapid heartbeats many talk about, but a feeling as if my heart has suspended its work for a minute or so), weakness of the limbs, a quick-gripping, all encompassing sweep of fear. Knowing that there is action that can be taken always makes me feel better in any circumstances, so it has been a strange time of generating even more possibilities "just in case," pondering, with seriousness and a profound sense of the finite, the possible lives that still may be left to led. While I pursue them, I have realized that I begin to ponder how logistics for taking care of what I now hold dear (people, pets, precious things) would make possibility x or y or z hard/less appealing/impossible/tough. Talking yourself out of it, in layman's terms, but so far, I have not., at least, completely. I was reading the blog of a young diplomat (here), who at one point says that he felt that when something wasn't going his way, he would only have to wait it out, and eventually, the tide would change. Of course, from what I read of the blog, this sentiment is not coming from someone who simply lets circumstances roll by or over him. But it gave me pause: I have no such confidence in tides, so to speak, or to put it more plainly, I have no faith in a predictable rhythm of fortune, or, as I said many entries ago, that we get what we deserve. Earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes as proof. Randomness is a bitch. I must admit my hand in creating my current condition. I set this in motion and now am left to wonder if I will get through what I have wrought. It is a strange time: the sun is out, the music plays, my refrigerator runs and is well stocked. I eat and am warm at night and in comfort under the sun. The cats play and sleep under the covers. Worry, not tragedy, consumes me. For that, there should be some candle to light, some small flower of thanks to place in front of what is unmoored.

For those who would like, here are the lyrics to "The Tide," but you need the voice behind them for the full effect. I can't say I identify with the little girl the narrator was, but the first two stanzas with their chorus are another story as are the last:

There are demons in the water
There are devils in the sea
There are dangers in the current
When the tide goes out of me

I could drink you under the table
I could drink you out of town
I could drink you off the planet
Drink myself into the ground

Chorus

And I have nothing for you tonight
I have nothing for you tonight
I have nothing for you tonight
I have nothing for you

I was made to be a good girl
Carried buckets made of stone
Full of envy, full of sorrow
On a tightrope all alone

And all the time I was on fire
I burned with every stride
And now I see this anger
Is the horse I choose to ride

Now you say you want something nice from me
Well if you find it, take it, it's on me
In the meantime don't bother me
The tide has washed the nice from me

Chorus

In the nothing are the voices
And the pictures of my life
In the nothing of the sky
Is an ocean made of light

In the nothing of my silence
Is a sad-eyed little girl
On a tightrope she is singing
As she passes through this world

Chorus

Alas for Joe Sorry

Just a short post tonight. No update on the "alms" except to say that its possibility is still afoot. No, this is to report that the blog I praised so highly several posts ago, Home for Tea, has gone dark: after getting a thank you for mentioning it from its pseudonymous author, I visited it several days later to find that it was open to "invited readers only." I was not among the invited, and there seemed to be no way to contact the author to ask for an invite. I have occasionally tried again, to be greeted with the same message. This evening, I found "this blog has been eliminated." I can only hope that the author has perhaps decided to write for print publication and is working away at the manuscript now. Darn: it was so well-written and funny. Where are you Joe Sorry ? I look forward to the novel one day.