Back From the Cave
Our trip to "pOregon" over, I am back in my personal comfort zone and even more appreciative of it than I was before. As the line goes, "It's very nice to go travelin' to London, Paris, or Rome, it's very nice to go travelin' but it's so much nicer, yes it's so much nicer to be home."
Amen! (More sun than rain is my kind of country.)
Worth the notice, we found one representative of a now nearly extinct species; a telephone booth. It was in McMinnville, a little tourist town south of Portland. It's probably not worth your time to check this out.
I did experience a "first" which set me to thinking about how fortunate I feel to be living in this time. We flew back at four thousand one hundred feet. I've never been that high before and to have covered all of those miles in three hours or less, a trip of at least 1100 miles, much of it in nasty weather, which of course, we were well above, is still to me nothing short of amazing. Even more remarkable is the fact that most of us, as I noted in our plane, take it all so for granted. I suppose it's because I have lived through, and flown in, the prop-driven world of everything from a Stearman bi-plane to a DC-3, and even took a ride in a Ford Tri-motor to get of feel of how it was to fly in the twenties. Flying in those planes was a slower and an even riskier trip. I remember flying from Chicago to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, all of it in January over an ice-flow choked Lake Michigan. It was loud and cold and we were all, all ten or so of us, handed paper cups of hot tea or coffee just to keep us warm. I considered that at any time if one of those two engines quit we would go down into those icy waters like a brick dropped out of a window and we'd never be found let alone rescued. Of course this was nothing but irrational fear, the DC-3 would glide a bit. These days engines don't quit much so flying is safer, and I am tempted to add, "Not as much fun." But that DC-3 flight was only "fun" in retrospect, it felt like close to death at the time and that may be stimulating but it ain't "fun".
Anyway, it's still wondrous to me that we can do these things like coming this close, 41000', to being in space. As a pilot I was quite fortunate to get a small place up to 14000' (not a good idea without oxygen by the way) and when jets began cruising above 20,000 found that to be almost beyond belief. Now to double that and more I feel blessed indeed to have had the experience. Would have been nice to be able to see the more of the earth that day, we were mostly above thin to thick cloud cover, but the experience gave me something to cruise on.
And yesterday the thrill of flying a small plane came rushing up to tap my memory as a small bi-plane came rushing overhead roaring just a few feet below the bases of the cumulus clouds that crowded the sky that afternoon. Wow! From my own experiences doing the same thing I can tell you that pilot was a lot higher than the altimeter indication. What fun!
Oh well, back to my feet-on-the-ground life which is certainly fine enough.
Still; one more roar into the wild blue is a tempting dream.
Oregon Observations
Very few umbrella carriers here, unlike D.C., but there everyone is going to work in a suit so rain gear, the hooded and insulated jacket preferred here, would be an encumbrance. Besides, a rainy day in D.C. comes to an end, here, it's all day, every day and perhaps a months long event. At least, that's what it looks like after almost three weeks in March-April.
Our very small survey, six people, of Oregon residents provided an even split over those who are fed up with the rain and want to go back to where they came from, all from California, and those who have "adjusted' and will stay. No way to tell if this is an accurate representative cross section of the population but it's probably safe to say that 50% of Oregonians are not ready to go back where they came from. It does seem that half of the immigrants from California may want to reconsider. This does not distress natives from the "Beaver State". Which, by the way, we saw no evidence of, there were plenty of gulls however.
Drugs are a problem here of course; there is talk that this state is where "meth" started to invade the U.S. population of the drug addicted. Here in Oregon, heroin has begun to replace meth as the top killer. Seems it's cheaper these days.
As you would expect, given the climate, anything and everything will grow here, and grow on anything that is not moving. This is where the, "A rolling stone gathers no moss." saying was birthed and makes for a fairy tale look to trees and posts and sidewalks and roofs. When it occurs on the latter, the homeowner is in trouble. Apparently there's no saving a roof once greened up and the whole thing has to come off down to the rafters. Not till it stops raining of course. While tourists stop and take digital videos of the quaint houses with the green roofs home owners weep at the prospect of replacement. I doubt that this is covered by insurance since it's all part of the cost of living here.
Be warned, just because it has stopped raining and the sun is out, do not expect that it will be a sunny day. Allow ten minutes to pass and all of that will change. Don't expect that to last either.
For those who doubt the very existence of Lake Woebegone, we have found out what happened to Ralph who owned the grocery store there. "Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery" is in Gaston, Oregon, population 620. I have the photo to prove it for those too hardheaded or jaded to accept this at face value. Just because your folks lied about Santa doesn't mean you have to doubt everything.
We have tripled to quadrupled our daily average intake of caffeine to no avail. We are still dead tired at the three quarter mark of every day. No wonder "Espresso!" gets such a heavy play out here. Little wooden buildings, about 6x12, featuring "Drive through Espresso!" are everywhere. Not just here and there, EVERYWHERE. If we drank that much coffee in New Mexico we would be totally STRUNG OUT! We have come to the conclusion that some of the depressing names given to places by Lewis and Clark up here in the northwest corner of the state,; "Cape Disappointment", "Dismal Nitch", were the result of the fact that the Espresso stands hadn't been set up by the indigenous people at that time. The place would probably be uninhabitable otherwise.
The town of Long Beach, strung out along the highway for tourists, had a run on fluorescent yellow paint from the looks of it. Several houses and a real estate office were spay painted, none too carefully, with the stuff. Probably helps when coffee isn't enough.
The Oregon highway department is very solicitous when it comes pavement changes. "Bump" says the sign. A feature we have yet to occur when advertised. "Sunken Grade" is another one we haven't figured out yet. Nothing seems to happen post warning. On the other hand, the cheap materials used to pave most of the roads make them the loudest and most unfriendly to tires and suspensions. We're voting them Worst in the West. Yes, they take first place ahead of New Mexico, which is saying something.
Many residents of Oregon have been upset by how much of the coast has been sold off to private development. And with good reason. Some of the best beaches are now blocked to easy public access by (very) high dollar private homes. "Cannon Beach" is the worst of the lot, clearly a Malibu North, there's not a cedar shake out of place in this very chic town. We probably could not have afforded lunch here, but then we took care of that in Tillamook at the "Heartwood Café". Get the meatloaf, I don't care what the gourmet chiefs say, this was not the last resort of the untalented. Worth the stop.
Astoria, Oregon, on the Columbia river across from Washington State, is every bit the challenge of San Francisco when it comes to driving its straight-up-the-hill streets. Great Victorian houses, wonderful B&Bs at very fair prices (less than $80 in some cases).but then prices are good everywhere in the "off-season", so if you are willing to put up with the weather, just like the natives do, you can save a few dollars. If we do this again we may shoot for late September. March-April is not a fun time to go unless you're a duck.
Or a beaver.
Or a seal.
04/03/10
Garibaldi
It's a little, (population 900 in the off-season) fishing village on the northern Oregon coast. The two days we were there were wet and cold as hell, but weather aside, since it changes from moment to moment here, this is one of those quaint places that deserves the appellation. This is not, primarily, a tourist town. It always has been and is now, a fishing town.
Well, it has also been a lumber town, and a plywood-manufacturing town, but the core of its existence has been fishing. The boats moored in the harbor are far and away workboats not pleasure craft. And the fish you buy in the local restaurants aren't trucked or flown in from a packaging plant in California or China; they are boxed and canned right here in Garibaldi. That's what makes it "quaint".
Bad word. That's what makes it real.
What drew us here was, for me, the name. I remember as a kid the talk in my grandfathers south side Chicago barber shop, though it was mostly all in Italian and I understood none of it, my father would translate some of it now and then, and often the talk amongst these Italian immigrant men was about what a great hero Giuseppe Garibaldi was for the Italian people. They called him "The Italian Lincoln". This in a time when Italy was being run by the despised Fascist Mussolini who had aligned himself with Hitler.
I came to know a little bit about Garibaldi in years to come, a story book figure who, against overwhelming odds, united the peasantry of Italy, called the "Red Shirts", against the various war lords, land owners, petty tyrant lords and nobles, whose interests were served by keeping the country divided into their small spheres of influence. He pulled the country together, united the various regions and then turned the whole thing over to a man he felt he could trust with the future of the country he loved, Victor Emmanuel. Though Emmanuel would be a king, Garibaldi felt he would be a democratic ruler. And he was right.
The man who founded this village was an American entrepreneur named "Bailey" and admired both the man and what he stood for, so he named this place in his honor. Nice story.
The town is strung out along the two-lane highway which borders the harbor. The Cascades rise to the East, the Pacific to the West. There's nothing remarkable about the place except that along the Oregon coast most of the towns are all about luring tourists and this one, though it has a number of antique shops and about three motels, this one is mostly about the people who live and work here. I guess I'd call it a "Steinbeck" kind of town with characters who don't need fiction to exist. There's the woodworker who works with the rare myrtlewood, a tree which only grows for a short stretch on the Oregon coast and in Israel. He stopped working after cutting off four of his fingers on his left hand. He runs the myrtlewood shop and store in Garibaldi.
There's the waitress who used to be an electrician till one day offered a job in Garibaldi left her Portland employ and has been doing tables for four years now. "I love it here, I wouldn't be anywhere else."
The motel clerk who once lived in Denver, then Portland, "I couldn't stand the rushing around in Portland, came here three years ago and decided to stay.
Of course we would find a broad cast of characters no matter the setting, but Garibaldi is a small and unique setting and so more apt to turn up unusual folk tales.
Ah yes, the "green" factor. For those who have never been, I will confirm that green is the prevailing tone, that and the tall trees of course. After awhile, like being in New York or Chicago, you stop looking up. The "cathedral" effect is most pronounced along the coast, especially west of the main drag (101) just yards from the ocean. The alder, spruce, and hemlock grow thick and tall here, and most are completely felted with moss and set deep in ferns and sundry greenery of all makes and models. Being a desert rat at heart I am not so taken with this as Elizabeth, but the sea, ah, that kind of wilderness and wildness beating against the dense basalt and limestone shore, that calls to my soul. The desert mountains still echo this primal power in the vast silences of the deep water carved canyons which hold captive in their walls the million year old memories of the ancestors of the sea creatures seen today in these tidal pools. Visiting this ever-present force feels familiar somehow.
Could I live here? Leave the dry desert country for this land of buds and berries, where signs here and there warn of "Tsunami Evacuation Area", where earthquake, fierce winter storms, and, just as we must deal with, forest fire are factors in living? Sure. But that potential for disaster isn't what derails that concept for me. It's the day after day of leaden skies, the cold rain, and, let's not forget the people. We have been visiting during the "off-season", a cold and rainy and dreary time for visitors, though the "locals" don't even seem to notice it, running 'round in shorts and tee shirts as we trudge by them, heads down and dressed in layers and rain gear. The towns and beaches are deserted, most folks don't flock to this sort of thing unless desperately driven, as we saw just last week.........it was "spring break", and during that small slice of coastal reality, just three days, showed a preview of what nice weather would bring, bumper-to-bumper traffic and lines cued up for everything. Add a factor of ten to that and you'd have a picture of summer on the coast, a blessing for businesses, a nightmare for any seeking solitude on the beach. That's something one only finds here when it's not comfortable. They come from California and points east to escape the mobs and create one wherever they go. And that's when the locals head inland to the mountains and the eastern deserts. Though there are no signs announcing them, the "Tourist Evacuation Route(s)" are well known and heavily traveled by the town folk........those who don't have to stick around to make a living from the flocks that is.
This, despite the weather, actually because of it, is the time of year
to come here to be sure. To visit. And if you do, don't miss Garibaldi and
the real coast highway, just a dark line on the Oregon map to the
west of 101. Oh, and visit the Tillamook cheese factory too. Nice to know
that the cows that contribute are not milling about in a miserable feed
lot, but in fields and covered barns, and the whole thing is a farmer co-op.
That alone will make you a fan of their product.
Not the Wettest
OK, a "Google" search has surfaced the truth of the matter, Pourland, Or'again is NOT the rain capital of the U.S......it just seems that way to this desert lover. It has rained, large and small, every day but two of the eight we have been here and promises to do so for the twelve more we have signed up for on this house-cat sitting venture. It's not that I mind, those trees that flower are flowering, and flower beds are or'flowing with blossoms, and the giant trees are continuing to intimidate, the monster that fell over and missed the duplex down the street by about twenty feet made its point that even the mighty can be brought down by the combo of very wet ground, high wind, and, lest we forget, internal rot. Politicians be warned.
Here in McMinnville, OR, thirty-odd miles south of "Pour" it must be reported that the hamburger reputed to be the "best in town" turned out to be a brick all night. Full disclosure demands that it must be admitted our source is a meat avoider so up-dates on hamburger lore may be lacking. Perhaps it was the "best" in 1941, but.......well, you know how that goes.
The state law which demands that all "metal studded tires" be replaced by April 1st ($190 fine for non-compliance) does not, at least at present, compensate for the roads that must be some of the worst in the western U.S. having been torn up over the winter. (And all this time I thought the Land of Enchantment had cornered that title.) On the subject of "fines", they hit you for $97 if you don't have your seat belt on. Why that number? Some sort of numerology thing?
Outside of some neo-Victorian and Prairie school architecture I wouldn't consider that McMinnville falls into the "quaintness" category. Sure, the moss growing on many of the roofs is unusual, and not a good thing for anyone but the local roofers or photographers from out of state, and the price of a pair of jeans on main street ($145) qualifies it as a California tourist destination, but most of what we've seen are shops filled with all the bric-brack for sale one would expect, a pizza joint, with pretty good pizza by the way, and the usual chains, local and regional. The best of the latter by the way, seems to be the Winco food store which has a great bulk food section, low prices, and, best of all, is owned by the employees. They are located in Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho.......we could use one in New Mexico.
Talked to three residents today about the obvious. All had moved here from California. One loves it because, "There's no traffic." (everything is "relative" of course. The traffic is why we're not going to explore Portland at all.except to escape to the airport.) Another says "Oh, you get used to the rain." The third said, "I've been here five years and I've never gotten used to it. I'm moving back to San Diego next month. I'll come up here to visit in the summer when it's beautiful." (Three months out of the year he says.)
Seattle is wetter, well over two hundred days a year of cloudy sky......that's about 180 more than I could take. And everywhere you go here there is no heat. It's damp AND it's cold, my two least favorite things.....not counting hot and humid...which is what it gets to be here in late summer.
Another nice place to visit (during specifically prescribed times, i.e., those suited to desert rats) but wouldn't want to endure it.
Oh, the "rain capital", when it comes to cities Google says the most rain days are experienced in Cleveland; 156 days a year. This is not the most rain, just the most rainy days. And number two is.yep; PORTLAND with 153!
I stand by my re-christening of it as "Pourland".....even if it doesn't make the top ten in total wet, it definitely qualifies as the "Stormy Weather" lyric winner; "Keeps rainin' all the tiiiimmmmme!"
The Ups and Downs of Travelin'
We're in the land of mossy roofs and intermittently drippy skies. Of whimsical bungalows and wine tasting shops. Of up-scale Goodwill stores, with a return policy, and flowering trees, all of this and more in Portland, Oregon. We have come upon the great good fortune to be invited to house-sit for a couple of friends for a three week period during which we can and will explore a bit of the Northwest, perhaps all the way to B.C. and suddenly I am finding that I don't do well with the concept of "change". "Don't do well" is a heady comment, in reality I'm feeling anxious as hell. I want to go home.
I don't know when this desire to dig in and stay put began, I've always been a traveler, but suddenly, I am less than enthusiastic about leaving the familiar in order to experience the new. Maybe it has to do with staying in someone else's home; maybe it's the sudden shift of climates and elevations. Maybe it's the damp.I don't know, I'm just having a tough time of it. We've even been furnished with a car and I find myself not being able to "identify" with this old zippy little four door Honda. I know all of this is silly at best and a little crazy at most, but there it is, I'm out of my comfort zone and yearning for home. Weird. Even if I were driving a new Jag I think this wouldn't feel "right". Maybe if I were in our car I could retreat to a familiar space and feel some sense of comfortindeed, that might be it.
Really weird. Some version of "I want my bankie".
Elizabeth does this a whole lot better than I do. Maybe that's because she was raised in a military family and moved around a lot as a kid. She never really put down roots for very long. I stayed put a lot. I moved and then stayed, for around thirty years in El Paso, and about twenty five in and near Albuquerque, with some short-lived journey's, about a year, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Houston, L.A. and that's about it. I like passing through. A camp here, a motel there, take in the scenery and then move on, that's my style. But this staying in someone else's cave, this is just a bit of a stretch for me for some reason. So far, not a fun stretch.
Another day and another understanding of just how deep all of this goes. I have suddenly come upon a swamp of feelings that obviously have existed well buried in the peat bog of forgetfulness since I was a kid. Here's how it began this morning, now that I have, in a sense, created an "omniscient" eye through which to view my actions, I note that my way of creating a "safe" place for me to be includes choosing the same cup in which to drink my morning coffee, the same chair to sit in at the table (the damned cat is competing with me about this and I am too cat friendly to shoo him off so now I have to create another "familiar" chair) and the creation of a number of routines which resemble those I have at home.
I am feeling crazier by the moment. Just how much of this do I do? Clearly I am so immersed in these rituals that I don't know I have created them and why. Having suddenly become aware of this process I now am feeling split off from my self and am not comforted by them at all. Where do I go to touch base with the predictable? I am in a land with no landmarks. Adrift in a wilderness with no map or compass.
"Alright," I say to myself, "let's back off and put feet on the ground, familiar or not, and take one step at a time." I know all of this unsettlement emanates from fears of abandonment in my childhood. But I thought all of this had been settled. Clearly not all.
We'll see how this continues to unfold when we begin exploring the territory tomorrow.
"Exploring Portland" was, as you expected, a wet and windy proposition, and pricey too. Parking for two hours was $10, "Jakes Grill", a dark wood and art deco sconce affair, where we plunged into our first fish meal ran to $37, including tip, and was not remarkable but rather a fairly ordinary fish and chips and pasta with shrimp affair, for which we might have paid 25 at home with the same results. The Portland art museums best was the third floor exhibit of indigenous art, some spectacular pieces here of weaving and carving. The $21 entry was a little daunting mainly because we were "spoiled" by our experience of D.C. and the free museums and galleries everywhere.
The Evergreen Air and Space Museums were worth the walk from town (4 miles which we thought would be 2), one of the buildings houses Howard Hughes's "Spruce Goose", made of birch and not spruce by the way, the largest aircraft ever built.and it IS a giant, not quite dwarfing the 747 parked outside, but clearly living up to its reputation. Too bad it can't be flown. That would be something to see.
Wine tasting is everywhere; this is wine country after all so the theme is coffee in the morning and wine at night. And, of course, the evil of "meth" addiction is rampant here too. Plenty of space for the addiction of choice here 'bouts.
Little by little, my inner strife has become stilled by the establishment of routine. Dealing with traffic, solving the city, explorations of the town we're in, McMinnville, thirty-six miles south and west of Portland, establishing rapport with the two cats we are sitting for, prepping for rain, or not, as the case may be, making coffee in the morning, checking email, all of these familiar chores in unfamiliar territory tend to create a comforting sameness that calms the animal inside. Inner archeology now unnecessary, I can begin to explore the outer realities. I am used to being the "rock" for those around me, now it's Elizabeth in that role for me while I slowly begin putting out temporary tendrils in order to grab hold of some solid ground. I find, though I'm not actually counting days, I am quite sure I'd not want to call this "home" for any length of time beyond what we've signed up for. The "nice place to visit, but" syndrome has set in.
Off to the coast today to get some natural beauty into the mix. That kind of thing is always something I can plug into and will bring sanity back into play.
And sure enough, the pounding surf, the tide pools, the soaring cliffs,
clean salt air, all bring back equilibrium. Traffic is terrific; it being
the last weekend of spring break and every kid-laden family is out and about.
Got a much better deal on fish on 101 than in Portland, $10 for a halibut
meal, worth the fast food atmosphere of the "Artic Circle" drive-in
in Newport. The tide was going out so all the tide pools were available
with star fish, anemones, small rockfish, and sundry bivalves viewable.
Seals were lounging about like sacks of cement on the rocks just a few yards
away. They were unperturbed by us. Probably see us as rock lice. We'll avoid
the coast this weekend, and set out again Monday for more exploration of
the real external world. And the rain has stopped. Today anyway. Whoopie!
Opening
The series of heavy, wet snows this winter have fed the New Mexico clay and convinced it to open its pores and breathe. As the mud dries, the ground remains soft and receptive to more promised moisture and all the deep roots are filling out preparing to feed the flowers and grasses that will be the bounty of spring. It's not always this way. Most often cold and dry snows evaporate away and the soil transforms from viscous mud to dust seemingly overnight. In those years only the toughest flowers and grasses emerge in April and then endure through summer until the monsoons of July call the less hardy to bloom. But this year we will have spontaneous bouquets and fieldfulls of the seldom-seen, the high desert will resemble the humid Texas hill country, Manet, Monet, all the French flower folks would have high days with full pallets. As it is, we will simply glory in our once in a decade largess and welcome our lovingly remembered visitors from other rare well fed springs.
The weather is the usual unbridled colt of early March, kicking up winds, blowing rain, and snow all in a mixed up bucking whirl and changing direction minute to minute. The sun will be out full looking like the beginnings of a warm spring day, but the howling wind pulls a puffy blanket of clouds over its face; "Not yet! Winter's still boss around here!" and the battle's lost for the moment. It's back and forth like this for about the first half of the month, then a seductive lull and Spring makes a full out announcement of its intention to move in.only to have Winter attempt one more coup with a major dump of snow which, no matter that we are all wise to this sneak attack and know it's a last hurrah, we still blunder into the idea of betrayal claiming that "No one expects this sort of thing." And "Where did that come from?" and other such bewildered sounding exclamations.both from the humans and the naïve fruit trees that are always caught with their buds out a bit too soon.
Then Winter will chuckle the way it does, skidding out the door on a carpet of mud and leaving all of we grumblers finally secure in the idea that that indeed was the coda. By the second week in April we're finally out of threat territory and moving with assurance into what the Summer will bring, monsoon rains would be an added blessing, but first we will have to endure the curse of the no-see-ums which all the added moisture, the blessing, will call forth a bumper crop of these flying "chiggers". Nasty. Fortunately they have a short life span of two or three weeks. Unfortunately, that is more than long enough to gain them a reputation which, if we have a bad enough season of them, will be something we will talk about all year long. "I'll never forget the summer we were inundated!" etc. (We like to use words like "inundated", in order to add drama to our otherwise low key existence here in the Land of Enchantment.) This means that our local news people must search long and hard for items to be "hysterical" about on the 10 o'clock news. Our weather people are even more challenged. They will use words like "inundated" and phrases like, "This looks like a really BIG one folk!" keeping us engaged in a mass worry about a drizzle of rain or a two inch snow fall. They welcome tempests-in-tea-pots like dogs in a squirrel filled forest.
As for the bugs, ask a Coloradoan about the "four seasons" and they will quote the ol' mountain saying, "Snow, mud, bugs, and the Fourth of July." They have the same "bugs" we have but they like to brag about it like they do about Denver being the "Mile high" city. (So is Albuquerque but we don't mention it much.) But, just to put things in perspective, at least these bugs aren't the deer flies and hummingbird sized mosquitoes of Minnesota and the upper Midwest. Relative to that, we ought to feel guilty complaining about our little bug problem..guilty and thankful we don't have to employ the "It could be worse!" strategy in order to cope.
No, nowe are blessed and we know it. More to be thankful for here than many other places. Our winters are fairly easy to take, unlike those endurance contests in Montana and Idaho, and in summer a one hundred degree day is more often the case rather than a week or a month of baking unlike El Paso, and the low humidity makes it a lot easier to be here than in Georgia or Mississippi. Or Houston for that matter.
All things considered, the "tough" years, when fire is an ever present threat, and we begin to think that this might be the beginning of the drought-that-will-never-end decade and the never happy weather forecasters begin wearing black arm bands to mourn the absence of any weather system that might bring rain; suddenly the monsoons will kick in and everyone will be grateful for whoever it was who spun the prayer wheel or sent up the burnt offering, which, it seems, was accepted, and we will be "saved" again.
Every year it's either a big snow winter or a big rain late summer that will pull us back from the brink of despair. So far this season we have nothing to worry about.but, of course, we'll find something. Can't let God know we are content lest we call in some punishment for our hubris.
That Midwestern guilt dies hard.
On a Desert Island
You know those old record reviews that included the "If you could take one record to a desert island" etc. One I chose a long time ago was the classic Miles Davis Quartet recording "All Blues". I hadn't thought much about that forced choice thing for some time until today when I found myself captured again by what I'm listening to right now. It's Mel Torme's, "The London Sessions". I've heard it dozens of times as background and foreground. Sometimes I've used it as a kind of teaching tool about the use of harmonies and flatted notes to create and support a mood. Sometimes I've played it because I've been in love. Sometimes because I've been out of love. Every time I've played it, it has touched me in some way, whether its been Torme's delivery, or the lush backings, the beautiful arranging or the amazing alto work of Phil Woods.
Yes, this is the one I'd take to the island. This is one I'd never tire of.
In the past I've skipped over some tracks but on this cold, sunny day I'm alone in the house so I've cranked the Harmon Kardon up and I'm savoring each one.
First is Stevie Wonder's "All in Love is Fair"the strings are back and under in this one and Mel is out front with this poignant lyric, then in comes Phil with a diggin' in blues prepping a launch for Mel second chorus. This is head shakin' stuff with the strings coming on stronger and Mel taking notes to where you would not expect to find them, to a painful irony."all in love is fair." and then Phil with a last comment.
Strings begin "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and Mel with a soft harp background sings it all soft and mellow until the strings come on full and carry him on a wave to the second chorus.so beautiful it brings tears to me and reminds me that I am in love.here and now, no yearning in this one, just beautiful celebration.
Take some time before you listen to the next cut. Take a sip of wine, look out the window, think about the one you love, then break out of it all and dive into "New York State of Mind" with Mel and Phil.man, you'll want to be on the trip Phil blows. It comes on slow, but you can tell Mel is planning something.and it's Phil!
Take another break after "New York" 'cause there's an aria coming up and you have to be in the mood to really listen.
This is Janis Ian's "Stars" and it's not something just anyone can sing.Edith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, maybe Carley Simonand Mel Torme'. Mel and the orchestration make it, but you must submerge into the words and story of this one. Take the time and it's worth the journey into this little opera.
Then comes one that Torme' arranged, Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns", it's a big band swinging arrangement and you know Mel, who was a good drummer was hearing his pal Buddy Rich on this one. It's good.better than good; it's fine!
If you force me to choose only one track to take to the island, it will be this next one, Paul Williams wrote this touching piece, "Ordinary Fool". How many times have I sung this song to myself and never even knew the words. What a piece of work this is, between the harmonica backing on the first bars to the strings coming in like a wonderful groundswell of melody to Phil following them with a heart ripping bluesman; this is, as Spencer Tracy once said of Kate Hepburn, "churce!"
I'd say," painfully exquisite". But then Spencer had a better script writer.
Take a short break after this to drink in the last notes of that harmonica ending.
Then listen to the medley of "When the World Was Young" and "Yesterday When I Was Young" and remember. I think of our youngest girl when I hear this one, I think of her fast and loose lifestyle and wonder if I played this for her if she would suddenly pull herself out of her self-absorption.
.and then I remember myself and those days I lived when I was her age.and I pull it all inside and know that it's not about herit's about me.and us.
.and then for the finale', I recommend that you cut a few slices of really good, sharp cheese, get some smooth wine or a cup of apricots and have a few bites and sips of sharp and sweet to listen to Mel and Phil finish with "Bye Bye Blackbird".
You probably won't hear this record the first time you put it on.but in time, you will. I'm so glad I have. all the way to Mels final "bye-bye, bye-bye" Blackbird finish.
(Note: By the way, if I had to choose ONE song to listen to over and over it would be none of the above really. It would be Nesume Dorme'. Gets me every time.)
Under the Sink
"We've got a leak." came Elizabeth's call about a week ago. I went to look and saw the telltale signs of water, the dark spot about a foot across inside the cabinets. This isn't the worst case of course, that's when I discover a leak under the house, a nightmare that only occurs around three in the morning. We're talking major trouble when that has been the case, but under the sink is usually not so bad, so I felt around amongst the piping and found a slow drip rolling down one of the plastic tubes running to a faucet. It was slow enough that I didn't feel like getting to it anytime soon.
A few days later I figured out what the source was, the spout in the center of the two-handle faucet was loose and water was seeping out around it when it was turned to the left sink. "Just keep it turned to the right for now." was my problem solving advice. And time went on.
But the dripping did too, and getting worse daily, so came the day of reckoning. The wet spot was getting wetter and things were not looking good under the sink. I knew we had a "lifetime warrantee" on the faucet assembly but of course it was the one warrantee that could not be unearthed anywhere, so off to the hardware store to get a new one. I thought it would be an easy in and out procedure....but no, what seemed to be just one leak turned into two and then three and then four. And what started out to be just and uncomfortable few hours under the sink wrestling with tight fittings turned into a major overhaul of all the plumbing and two days in neck, shoulder, and back straining struggle.
But, I learned a lot.
Whoopee! Don't you just love those "learning opportunities"?
Freeing up the faucet assembly was the first hurtle. How do these things get tighter over time? Fortunately I remembered the special tool that gets to the nuts high up under the sink. If you don't have one of these the job is harder by a factor of 100. I don't have one of course, but our "car whisperer' neighbor, who is a retired mechanic, has every tool ever invented to deal with the evil genius of engineering which puts all essential nuts and bolts just out of reach and around a corner so that any one without an engineering degree can't get to them. So I borrowed the tool which made the first part of the job only incredibly difficult instead of impossible.
It took about two hours of struggle to get the old assembly out using The Tool, along with the usual assortment of hammer, screwdriver, assorted wrenches, most of which do not quite fit, towels and finally pillows under arching back and neck, etc. Putting the new one in was not as hard since there was no build up of corrosion on all the bolts to deal with.....and then came the golden moment, turning on the water.
Why was the connector leading to the cold water faucet leaking?
I tightened it up.
Still leaking.
A bit more tightening.
Still leaking.
A bit more.....
SNAP! The plastic nut breaks. This means the entire water line from the water shut off valve to the faucet has to be replaced.
Elizabeth thinks it's fun to hear me talk to myself while involved in these kinds of dramas. Not that I'm terribly articulate while under duress, or under the sink, but she's not involved in a book and there's nothing on TV. so why not? Meanwhile my vocabulary of profanity is not broadening.
Not yet anyway.
Off to the (big) hardware store, which, by the way, is 35 miles into town.
Once there I wander through the warehouse of possibilities not knowing what I'm looking for. I call two of my homeowner friends who might possibly have some clues. Nobody home. Finally I ask, hoping against hope that I'm not talking to an airhead. It turns out that the little old lady in the Home Depot smock is a plumbing expert and she doesn't tell me, she leads me to the right stuff, a metal connector and a metal hose that will solve the problem.
I am saved!
Thirty-five miles and back on the job, sure enough installing the connector and the hose takes care of the leak.
That leak at least. Turn on the water and.....why is the other hose leaking? I slowly begin tightening the nut on the hot water side, keeping in mind what happened to the other one.
SNAP!
Much "self-talk" latter and then back to town. This time I am an "expert". Another metal connector and hose. Back under the sink, I put the stuff together, turn on the water.
Why are both shut off valves leaking? Drive to the local, smaller, hardware store, get two valves and glue (all of our plumbing is plastic stuff called PVC. Thank God it's not the old copper stuff.) Turn off water, saw through pipes and take out old valves, glue in new ones. Turn on water. Why are these new valves leaking?
Back to hardware store, young woman asks, "What do you need?"
"Two new valves and maybe I'm using the wrong glue." I show her the pipe I'm working with, "Oh, you can't use glue with that stuff, you have to use a valve with a 'compression fitting'". (This is a thing you have to tighten up rather than glue to achieve a seal.)
Back under the sink, cut the new/old valves out, reconnect with the new valves, turn on the water, tighten here and there....no leaks!
Done! Only took two days, about $140 and a whole lot of driving and self-talk, which amused Elizabeth no end.
I know one plumber who has a sunny disposition. One.
He's retired.
Mindlessness
The mob of juncos, our winter bird, swarms the swath of birdseed I hurled out this morning. They and the rabbits, the latter ranging from two to nine at a time, peck and inhale each granule until only the husks remain. This effort takes the juncos the better part of a day, though the rabbits only stick around for a few hours in the morning.
It's their behavior that interests me, their sudden explosions into the surrounding trees caused by no apparent threat just a sudden bolt which causes the entire bunch of about fifty to take off.well, almost the entire bunch. There are always two or three that stand their ground, apparently wondering what all the fuss is about, and little by little, the hysterics return to resume the graze raiding no discernable comment from those unmoved.
Every time I witness this sudden flight I am reminded of the studies of crowd behavior that talk about this very phenomenon in humans. The sudden shift of a mob into one mind, a dangerous one at that, that seems to take place in an instant, and always there are those who remain sane, one here, one there not swept away but at the same time with no power or ability to shape the mob mentality at all. They are often trampled or remain the innocent bystanders who pay a heavy price for passivity. "Rumor, Fear, and the Madness of Crowds" is the book that comes to mind. It's a small text, a paper back which gathers dust on my office bookshelf, a simple little study of the history of crowd mentality madness which overwhelms all logic and reason in an instant and usually, if not always, propels every soul involved into chaos.
I can't figure out what sets them off, the birds that is. I am very careful to not make any sudden moves while seated at the window, and they are not even startled by the raucous jet jockey swoops of the scrub jays, or the heavy bomber landings of the two fat white doves that always arrive late. You would think those would be the obvious disturbers of the peace but no, there is no single outward stimulus, they just suddenly burst into the air and disappear into dark branches. Then they all wait for a time, maybe three or four minutes, then in twos and threes, followed by tens, return to scratching and pecking.
Considering we are all related biologically, I wonder how all our brains become entrained by some unconscious stimulus to then act in concert in irrational ways. My next thought then takes me to some of the town meetings around the proposed national health plan. Of course we know there were many in those audiences who were "plants', shills of the conservative Right determined to cause disruption in order to undermine any attempt at civil discourse. The fact that this tactic was employed with some success speaks to our tendency to operate as one mindless organism in the push of the moment without recourse to reason.
This seems to be the Republican strategy right now, do anything to arouse opposition and avoid all real dialogue and problem solving so that we can all simply be driven into the trees to our separated perches and forget about what we have set out to accomplish. No longer a community bent on tending to our needs individually at least, we get scared off by whatever says "Boo!" and find it hard to get back to business, the business of our own survival.
A cry of, "Run for the hills sanity (They'll call it "socialism") is coming!" is the cry and we are off and running. This is the one thing I must fault the President on and it is the same shoal that caused the Clinton attempt at a national health plan to run aground.
Mr. Obama, There is no way to create "bipartisanship" with people like these. They are not interested in cooperation. All they want is more chaos and out of that failure. If we allow them to sink this best chance at a national health care plan we will all deserve what the rest of the industrialized world and our progeny will see us as; birdbrains.
I know there is absolutely no hope this small diatribe will get to the Pres., I'm just venting after all, probed into action by a bunch of birds flying off the handle over nothing at all. Funny......sometimes it seems we who would call ourselves "liberals" get run off by just as little. "Bad socialists!" the Right Wing calls, and we go flittering off declaring our innocence of such a charge. Maybe one day, not soon I suppose given our fear of calling a spade a spade, but one day one of us will stand our ground and peep; "Yeah socialized medicine. What's the big deal? Let's go for it!" Isn't that what the military, the Congress and all of us over 65 have in place already?
Boo!
Existential New Mexico
They really take this "Land of Enchantment" stuff seriously at the New Mexico Highway Department. Here are the latest entries in the weird road signage category: "Dust Storms May Exist".
In Colorado, a more pragmatic state I've noticed, the above sign would read; "Dust Storm Area, Use caution." But in our state we are not sure that we can rest on the assumption that dust storms do exist, hence the hedging.
This sign was followed about fifty feet further on by, "Zero Visibility Possible".
It is true that there is a high school nearby and this sign may refer to the inability of teenagers to grasp the long range effects of current behavior. This is, of course, pure speculation on my part, but then these signs do promote that kind of open ended thinking.
In fact, I have often been aware that "Zero Visibility....." is "Possible" even probable given the myopic nature of prediction when it comes to making life choices. Take my marriage to Elizabeth for example. When we married I took on the parenting of three young children. "No problem." was the phrase I uttered when the proposition was laid out before me. Now right there was an example of "Zero Visibility......" for sure. In fact, neither of us could see very well at the time as I recall. There wasn't any warning sign about ".......Storms May Exist" either, but then what does one do? We drove merrily on and were none the wiser until well after we had survived the crashes.
The signposts of life, they're posted, but not always succinct.
The Thrill
My memory just got "jogged" by a small observation in a biography I'm reading; a kid gets a new bike with plastic streamers coming out of the rubber handlebar grips.
Wow! Do I remember that. When I got my first two wheel bike, a stripped down Schwinn, red of course, with white rubber grips and red and blue streamers coming out of them.
Flames!
And when I remembered that I also realized that I still get the same level of excitement when I get anything new. It has always been the same, commensurate with age, whether it's streamers coming out of bike grips or a '57 Chevy convertible, or a 42" LCD TV, or my Canon Xsi SLR, or.....well, even that nice pair of jeans I treated myself to from Sears. They were new for a change, not second hand thrift store gleanings. (Though a really good pair come upon by lucky chance, might give me a bit of a charge.)
Yep, I like new "stuff', I confess, I'm a consumer.
Maybe part of this is due to being raised in the Depression and WW ll when we made-do for a long time, ten or fifteen years I'd guess. Darned socks, patched pants, homemade shirts, cars held together with bailing wire, it was all a matter of course.
Then there were the lean years in the Army, married with a baby and just hanging on, then 'trade school" (for radio and TV announcing) and a midnight to eight AM job, followed by break-in jobs in radio, meaning low pay and terrible hours in very small towns......then a time of making it, the Chevy convertible, a great stereo set up, a house, then back down again, college, graduate school starvation (making it on a turkey a month with lots of pasta) and buying nothing. I mean nothing for two years.
And then another up-swing, then "retirement" with limited but sufficient income where we can't get everything we'd like but most of what we want certainly.
Enough for sure. Yes, even the 42" LCD TV.
Looking back over the years of wanting and getting, every "getting" had, and has, the same "flavor" as those plastic "flames" back when I was around twelve.
Still a child at heart. Guess that's why I still like Christmas.
01/21/10
Sounds
The sound of engines for a guy can be iconic. For me it's the sound of the Wright Whirlwind, the engine that powered what we, as kids, called "double wingers". Everyone else called them bi-planes. Even in Chicago a plane flying over our house was something that caused people to look up. And bi-planes, with that distinctive Wright engine sound, were especially attention getters.
The airliners of the day, we're talking 40's, DC-3s, also featured the Wright engines but they were not as big or as loud as those single engine beauties, and they didn't fly over that much either. The sound of that engine was a deep, "coughing" roar; you could just about hear every cylinder of the 14 fire. The only way to hear something close to that sound today would be on a passing Harley, or a clone using the HD exhaust system. Even at that, it's a poor imitation, more tenor than baritone.
I was walking through a pictorial exhibit at the Albuquerque Art Museum the other day and looking at pictures of the early airport and there, lined up in front of a little shack called a hanger, were about seven bi-planes from the late twenties and next to them the sleek racers of the thirties which were, basically, bodies welded to huge Whirlwind engines, the monsters of their day. What a thrill it must have been to hear those engines come to life as they set off on coast-to-coast dashes promoting civil aviation and a country in a hurry.
In a hurry to forget the Depression we were all in at the time. It was also striking to notice that as late as 1936 or so, our best bombers and "pursuit" aircraft looked fresh out of WW l. Rickety, underpowered old crates that were just barely airworthy. In the meantime, Germany and Japan were busily turning out planes that were better than anything we had dreamed of and out flew us even as late at 1944. The ME 109 for example had inverted fuel-injected engines while we were still flying with carburetors. That meant they could loop loops around us as we were freezing up and stalling until we caught up with more powerful turbo charged engines in planes like the P 38, the P 51 and the P 47.
Those first two, the 38 and the 51 were also iconic sounds by 1944. When they would fly over you could hear the distinctive sound of the whine of the turbos. And they went over so fast they were hard to spot, unlike the old bi-planes that seemed to hang in the air for long periods of time as they lumbered over.
Though our olfactory systems bring back memory best, sounds can do it too and do it in great detail. Steam engines can call up my childhood in an instant along with the whistles they carried. Jets and diesels just don't do it for me. I know we can get around faster with 'em, but for my generation the romance of engine sounds is just about gone.
I guess that's why a goodly number of "geezers" are found on Harleys. Just listening for the "good old days".
By the way, I'm not one who buys into that idea much. The "good old days" that is. Things were just as hard then as they are now, we just didn't hear about so much on a daily basis.
I do miss the slowness of bi-planes though. That's when I fell in love with flying and the only way to do it; with a helmet, an open cockpit, a Wright Whirlwind roaring up front..oh, and don't forget the admiring girl back at the airstrip awaiting the return of her pilot hero.
It never was really like that you know. But it was a nice fantasy.
12/24/09
Blu-ray Go Away!
I've always been one to gravitate to the latest technology for a few simple reasons;
One; I like music.
Two: I like movies. And..
Three; Being an introvert I don't like going out much.
All this adds up to wanting to hear music on the best sound system I can afford.....and wanting to see movies via the best video set up and based upon the same economics. So, when stereophonic sound systems came out I was first in line. (Yes, there was a time before stereo, it was called "monophonic" and it wasn't all that bad.) Stereo was to mono what color TV was to black and white. And I wanted a color TV as soon as the fist sets hit the market.
Of course recording media progressed to and me with it, though I never had a wire recorder, my dad did, and it was quickly replaced by reel to reel tape (I had suitcase size Ampex, the best in its day) then the huge leap to cassette, which made everything portable and put tapes in cars.
After tape came CDs of course, so I got a player, and when the time came to be able to do it, a CD recorder so I could transfer my tapes to disk, etc. And of course since I wanted this new-and-improved stuff right away, I paid top dollar for what would later be "New(er) and (even more) Improved.!" not to mention cheaper.
I'm satisfied with the fidelity of the CD format and after many, many hours of transferring music from LP to tape cassette to CD I have drawn a line and will not further complicate my life with MP3s and iPods. I don't need hundreds of pieces of music playing in my ears at all hours.
As for video, of course I had the best, highest fidelity VCR, then 4-head "progressive-scan" VCR, then the laser disk player (with disks the size of an LP record for those of you who never saw one). These were the precursor to DVD and, though they presented a better picture than VHS, they were nowhere near as good as DVDs and a lot more expensive. And very few movies were available for either rent or purchase.
Along came DVD and large screen LCDs and the marriage of the two made movie viewing a real pleasure. No more going out to theaters and paying escalating prices for one movie and popcorn, not to mention the gas to and from and the "industrial" ambiance.
So I got the best "DVD-Player-Recorder" I could afford and it worked very well.....and next all the shouting focused on the newest and most improved improvement; "Blu-ray"; "Puts you right in the action!" "Clearer, sharper, more life-like images than ever before!" "Better than plain old DVD!" etc. (All of this shouted over a five speaker home theater system.....which you have already guessed, I have.)
I fell for it of course. I bought a Blu-ray player. Paid too much again.....the new technology tax. The first one, a Phillips, had this periodic need to be 'up-dated". I'd get a Netflix movie and it wouldn't load let alone run. I'd have to go on line to get an 800 number to call in order to receive an "up-date DVD" which would take a week to get. Then, after up-date number one the same situation would occur again and, back to the Internet and an 800 phone call, etc. So I sold the Phillips, at a loss of course, it was now "old" technology after all, and bought a newer Sony, which did not have to be up-dated. At least not yet.
Next, I signed up with Netflix to get Blu-ray DVDs. This cost an extra $4 a month, but, I reasoned, we'd be getting all that "CLEARER, SHARPER.!" thing so.....worth it right?
There were two things we, Elizabeth and I, noticed right away, first, the movies seemed to take forever to load and second, there was going to be a "problem" with some movies somewhere during the play. The movie was going to get hung up, frozen in place or repeatedly stuck.and it would always turn out to be impossible to get it to move beyond that point, which was always at a crucial part of the story.
Plotus interruptus!
Try as we might with "Pause", "Scan" "Start" etc. we'd get the, "This action is prohibited on this disk." message.....what could be so wrong that it would have to be "Prohibited? And we'd have to start all over again and then try to find the scene just beyond the "stuck" spot. Once achieved, maybe, it would then stick again a few short scenes later.
And there was this other thing......the picture looked exactly as clear as "old fashioned" DVD, no better, no worse. I mean really, how "clear" can anything get? This was not the difference between analog and digital TV, not even close. There was, is, no discernable difference!
So, this morning, after having to bail out of a movie we were trying to watch last night and shipping it back to Netflix with the usual Blu-ray complaint, "Movie will not play." (This was not a damaged or even smudged disk by the way.) I went into my Netflix Queue and switched all Blu-rays to DVDs and changed my Account back to "DVD only", thus saving money and frustration.
A line has to be drawn somewhere after all. As we have all discovered over time, newer doesn't really always mean "better". Much of the time it just means more hype leading to more complication and more of every thing else......mostly money.
Enough already! We can already see the pores on Sean Penn's nose, we're sticking with good OLD dependable "low tech". And we'll pass on the next "thing" too. You know it's inevitable......3-D players and then a whole trainload of re-done DVD's in a new format, which, of course, will not play on the "old" equipment.
Etc.
Call me "retro" but I think I'll sit this next tech surge out. ....'course; if it really IS 3-D.....
hmm, come to think of it, maybe I'll just get out of the house and take a walk in the New Mexico landscape. It actually is already 3-D.........AND it's REALITY too!
Oh; and it's FREE!
Still Pertinent
"Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. We pay for a single fighter plane with half a million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more then eight thousand people. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging form a cross of iron."
This was a speech made by Dwight Eisenhower in April of 1953. The only thing that may have changed in the intervening fifty-six years would be the number of bushels of wheat it costs for a new fighter and the number of homes we could build instead of launching the equivalent of a destroyer or a submarine. Of course we may not be building the latter today, and, thanks to more sanity-in-government, we have dumped the "Star Wars" scam, but money is pouring into what Ike warned us about; the bottomless hole of the "military-industrial" complex.
By the way, the original draft of that famous speech included one more word, left out to avoid ruffling too many feathers, and that word was and is critical to the central issue. What Eisenhower originally wanted to say in his 1953 "Chance for Peace" address, and which he reiterated in his farewell address in 1961 was a warning against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial-Congressional complex."
Including this word brings the responsibility for the maintenance of this alliance home where it belongs; to us. Mid-term elections are coming up, and there is a long tradition of the party in the White House losing seats as voters express disappointment that everything promised has not, to date, come to pass. The problem with this thinking is that the House and Senate are deliberative bodies, the Senate even more than the House given the six year terms for Senators, and this means they do not move quickly to enact legislation that may mark a departure from entrenched thinking. I am hoping that progressive Democrats can hold on to and improve gains in both houses so that we can make positive changes in the direction this "complex" has been moving.
Why do I think things can be different? I don't have any educated guesses or insider information about this at all. I just have, call it a "hunch", a "feeling"......something tells me that this man we have put at the helm can and will make a notable difference in this area.
Yes, I know about the additional troops in Afghanistan and some of the other "issues" that don't seem to be getting addressed as quickly as we would like. But the battle in the foreground that must be won first is health care. And this is taking all the "clout", energy, and maneuvering, and, yes, back room wheeling and dealing available right now. Political capital is being bought and sold to get this thing done and if you were to read about what it took to get Social Security through in the 30's, in the middle of the Great Depression, about how much had to be given away, including the proposition of medical care for all which was offered up as an "sacrifice" to those who would have blocked the entire proposal, then you would see how the game must be played.
The only way more gains can and will be made will be to get a larger majority of progressive thinkers in Congress, and, in the somewhat near future, the Supreme Court, we must outlast the Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas alliance after all. And then, I believe, the real shifts in this country's destiny will begin to take place.
All of this based on "hunch" and "feeling(s)"? Yes,
I admit that's all I have to go on. That and some knowledge and experience
of history, and, oh yes......hope. That is where we started
just over a year ago after all.
What Happened to Romance?
The other day I asked Elizabeth what some of the current pop music lyrics are about. I can't bring myself to listen past the "noise" to plumb those depths. "It's about anger and how screwed up the world is, that sort of thing..unless it's 'alternative' and then it's like the 60's and about how we should make the world a more wonderful place, etc., etc."
What brought this question up was that I was listening to the lyrics of something from "The Great American Song Book" (the collection of music, mainly from the 30' and 40's, by composers like Porter, Gershwin, Rogers and Hart, etc). This, in case you are not familiar, is music which is about human relationships so you'll hear, "Love is just around the corner." or, love sought or lost, "Stormy weather", "Blues in the night", or "Black coffee"......and so many, hundreds, more. But today none of this language is heard.
Here's a lyric that just occurred to me which would be totally out of the question to be sung by any suitor today, "I took one look at you, that's all I meant to do, and then my heart stood still....." the only response that might elicit would be a 911 call. This, it seems to me, means that the language of love has been so coarsened that there is no beauty left in it. And a whole generation, maybe two, of young people consider that their only meaningful relationships are made up of silly, and "safe" flirtations on, "Face Book, or "Twitter". Flocks of boy-men are still living at home at 30, while girl-women don't bother with "commitment" but dither about spending all their time suiting up for some undefined something. Neither can admit to their true hearts desire, they can only experience this as a "virtual reality", a kind of computer game about sitcom love. Not having the experience of romantic love at a young age, when it begins to amp up and supply most of its juice, they plod along into adulthood and settle for approximations.
Elizabeth believes that all of this is a result of kids who were raised by others while both parents worked so the kids never really bond or learn to trust love as a constant and as a foundation for themselves. The concept of love becomes a myth, a fairy tale as real as Santa or the Tooth Fairy, something that can only be found in a "Lord of the Rings" fantasy but certainly not a genuine or even an important part of real life.
The idea of romantic love began, history says, in the Middle Ages, and was the stuff of poets and balladeers who built upon stories of knights and fair maidens, of dragons and castles. These tales found fertile ground then because they tapped into a yearning that was beginning to be felt in our psyches. Once we figured out the food- shelter-clothing thing we wanted something more in our relationships besides the fulfillment of sexual need and physical security. We wanted the luxury of being wanted for ourselves by another. That would be the "sociology" of it at least. Then there's the psychology and mythology, all built upon the biology after all.
Well, back to the music; right now I've got Billy Holiday singing a very painful version of "Sweet and Mellow" with a poignant tenors played by Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young echoing her words. I've listened to this track about fifty times over the years, it was recorded in 1957, but this time it has taken me to a deeper level of listening and feeling. Billy's failing voice, a thin, raspy sound brought on by too many years of booze, heroin and persecution transmits so much of the suffering a lost relationship causes that, though I no longer am in the midst of that kind of angst, I can still connect with the memory. Maybe that's the thing young people today are fleeing, and maybe Elizabeth is right, perhaps this current avoidance of all things romantic is based on the original pain of abandonment felt when a kid is left in the care of someone else for most of its formative years and it is now totally suppressed so it has become a knee jerk reaction to anything that approaches the possibility of a heart involvement.
Is it "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."? I'd like to be able to beat a retreat here and say, "Who knows, maybe we're better off." But the drug and alcohol use in our society, the loss of civility, the general tenor of things, the meanness, the worship of things over the well being of people......I know we're a materialistic society, but it seems to me, and maybe it's just the selective memory of age, but it seems things have gotten a lot worse in our society despite all the opportunities via communication to make them better. Though I don't get involved in it "Facebook" and Twitter" and all the other so-called "social networking" venues seem to only be about self promotion, a seeking after that illusive "15 minutes of fame" rather than any genuine sharing of thoughts and feelings about anything more than current events and "who's hot?".
I guess the short of what I'm saying here, is that the concept of romantic love, as a value, has fallen on hard times and we are the poorer for it. In order to be totally free and independent it seems most people are fleeing emotional involvement to avoid any possibility of loss and pain and instead have only invested in the superficialities of being human.
Oh well, that's just the "romantic" in me thinking that the
World should trust the heart again instead of placing all trust in the head.
Obviously a bias.
Odds, Bodkins, and Creative Writing
"Fresh country grown squash, al dente pasta, mama's original red sauce, sweet Italian sausage, a blend of three aged sharp cheeses, and garden green peppers. Those are just a few of the ingredients in this Southern Italian dish taken from an old family recipe. A deep, rich rainbow of flavors will awaken dreams of a Mediterranean retreat. This is a meal that you might be lucky enough to discover in a small family run resturanto off the beaten path somewhere outside of Napoli. That's where we found it." $14.95
That's what the creative menu writers might have said if we had had dinner at some up-scale joint with good linen and a wide variety of house wines. What it actually was at our place was what my Italian grandmother would call, "mushcombrule" (at least that's what I think she called it. And don't ask me to look up the spelling, all I could find was "miscuglio" which may only be accurate if it means, "I'm crazy".)
What it was of course is just what we called it tonight, "left overs" from about two or three other Italian meals. "Cleaning out the fridge." is the other name for it. And we have a variety of wines too. "Three buck Chuck" was on the list tonight. Add a similar vintage at the up-scale place and we can inflate that $15 tab by another six at least. Figure I'll have two glasses and by staying at home and eating tonight's "special" we saved about $50, including the tip. (Elizabeth doesn't often have wine so that's $6 saved right there.)
And, we didn't have to put up with whatever background music they were serving up at the time. (Often either the Ames Brothers mangling some Italian favorite or Mario Lanza almost hitting that top note on "Oh Solo Mio".)
We've grown tired of risking our capital at sundry restaurants and coming up with so-so meals in pursuit of the adventure of eating out. We cook so well right here at home that we find nothing can touch it for quality out there in the "real" world. Since we "invested" in a very nice grill, a "Weber" for you purists, our sirloin and tuna steaks are done to perfection, and that alone is hard to find anywhere away from our deck. And, from what we have experienced we are starting with better quality goods to begin with.
Not long ago we splurged at a very up-scale joint in the city and I decided to risk something I'd never had before, "Wild duck with wild rice and tender shoots of."etc. It was horrible. I actually sent it back to "charring" just to kill the taste. (And I never send things back being a Midwestern guy and a recovering Lutheran to boot.) I should have gone for the good ol,' "Blue corn enchiladas with chicken." that caught my eye in the first place. Here in the southwest you can't miss with blue corn chicken enchiladas. Add red chili of course.
I've been writing about death of late, not because I'm preoccupied but its been happening with disturbing frequency close by. (See "Killing" and "Awareness") add to this the fact that last week I "deported" another squirrel from our premises, and just two days later two baby squirrels showed up looking lost and hungry. Seems I had sent mom off, so I began to feed them of course. (Never mind the logic of this. Just figured I'd grow 'em and then deport them to where mom was.) They lasted a day or two and then suddenly were gone. The reason soon became apparent. The rattler I dispatched in "Killing" was the predator. It is, as I've often noted, about the quick and dead here in the wilds of New Mexico. Of course I felt guilty about the babies but there wasn't much I could have done about the situation. And yesterday a baby hummer was found below the feeder outside our bedroom. Mistook the window for clear air we suppose.
I'd like a break from the dying around here but we have a memorial service to conduct this week for the mother and brother and friends of the girl who died in the car accident that happened down the road from our place a few weeks ago.
I know that death walks side by side with us as we live but maybe after this week we can take a few steps away from the stifling proximity of this "companion" and dance a fling with Life.
What is a "Long Dance" anyway?
I get that often. And my usual response goes something like this; "It's an intense ceremonial gathering that lasts about three and a half days and at the end of it it has become a change agent the likes of which cannot be compared to anything else out there." (In the world of workshops and retreats that is.)
That's about the best short hand I've been able to come up with over the years and being an introvert and not really invested in long conversations or in "selling" anyone on the Dance, I haven't really expanded or expounded on it much. But after every Dance we get letters and emails and phone calls and face-to-face comments which really tell what the Dance is for those with the moccasins on the ground. These are "fresh" from this years Dance, prose and poetry, they do a much better job of exposition than I could:
"As I sat on the floor of the Kiva for a few minutes during the dance with the rain pouring down outside, it felt womb-like. And when it was over, and we could see the red streaks in the dawn sky through the east door, it was like a birth, a new beginning indeed. The birth waters had poured down all night and we were born, all of us, like siblings, out into the dawn light.
"As I rested, sitting on the floor near the wall, I could feel the drum beat as it bounced off the wall. I could feel it viscerally and it was as if the drum was altering my heartbeat. The heartbeat of the Mother. It seemed we would all be altered in this way, our hearts sharing the same rhythm. Another way we are all connected."
What drew me to the Long Dance to begin with, besides the blonde beauty I had followed in hopes of relationship, was the drum. It insinuated itself into my mind, heart and soul. I couldn't get rid of it, nor, after a time, did I want to. It seemed right. It seemed, in some strange and even foreign way, to become important, more important than what I thought of as "real life". So, though the whole thing made no logical sense to me I wanted to be close to that drum again. The blonde became irrelevant.
This writer captured, post Dance, that feeling:
The drums are quiet
the dance is over
we have scattered
to the four directions
But hush-listen
to the echo of the drum
inside your head.
Be still-feel
the echo of the drum
in your heart
We have been birthed
out into the World
in a flow of love
grasping to resolve in the one hand
courage in the other
And the echo of the drum
the heartbeat of the Mother
saturates and sustains us
we remember.
and the echo of the drum
the heartbeat of the Mother
connects us.
(Remarks & "Echo of the Drum", K. M. White)
I remember saying before the Dance began, that anyone from outside the boundaries of our experience would be mystified and, if given to reading the N.Y. Times as a life-style, amused at the goings on. They simply would not "get it". When I try to make it fit for them I find that I have, in the process, squeezed all the juice out and all that is left is the pulp. Nothing of the essence, just the structure. In a very real sense, you can't get here from there......not without a willingness to leave that place of certainty completely. With that leap however, everything becomes possible.
Remember the character of the cynical New Yorker played so well by Van Johnson in the movie we so often reference? To understand the magic his more open companion was experiencing he had to suspend his investment in his preferred belief system. So, in ceremony, we "lift" the land and all upon it to another way of knowing....just as valid, just as possible. Then Brigadoon begins to live in us all and the drum carries us deeply into its poetry.
OK. But what is the Long Dance?
It is a means by which a potent spiritual juice is poured back into our bloodstream and infused into our bones. It is an opportunity to bring the magical dreamer back to life in us. It is a time and place of making dreams come true.....the dreams that truly matter, the dreams that make our lives whole. To return to the poetic, it is a re-awakening of the dancer we were born to be.
There is no more pragmatic way to say it; to know it one must do it. One must be willing to enter another world for a time. Sometimes we call it "Oz", but there is nothing behind the curtain in Oz. In the metaphor of Brigadoon, there is genuine essence, real magic that can be hand carried into any reality you like.
Maybe not the pages of the Times, but into your life?
Certainly.
Hearing
This afternoon I was listening to Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing"* for about the seven hundredths time and like the experience all really good jazz provides, hearing it fresh.again. *(From the, "Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall" collection. Columbia Jazz Masterpieces.)
Each listening provides a new aspect and this time it was Harry James clear and powerful tone leading the entire trumpet section. I mean they are all good in their own right, (Ziggy Elman could match James note for note for sure) but you can hear James influencing the attack of the section until they all take on the same energy in following his lead. Truly lovely.
I laid off "Sing" after awhile, got busy with some photo stuff and on came "Life goes to a party". It can sound like a hokey 40's arrangement at first until you plug into the section playing, the trumpet section doing a call and response with the saxes, all tight and swinging with Goodman riding over the top. And then in comes Harry with a solo that became a classic as soon as he played it. Gene Krupa could be heavy handed much of the time, but in this one he is the perfect driving force.
This really great big band piece is followed by a real gem of an ensemble and the introduction of one of the all time great rhythm sections; Count Basie at the piano with his spare and perfect style paired with his bassist Walter Page and the ever-present, on-tempo guitarist Freddie Green. Even Krupa settled into the tight swing provided by these three. The Goodman rhythm section was good, but this combo was brilliant! And sailing along with them, Johnny Hodges on alto, Lester Young on tenor, Harry Carney, baritone, and over the top Buck Clayton and Harry on trumpets, all blowing a full-out fun version of "Honeysuckle Rose", what a gift to music these guys were then and now.
Even in the middle of working on a PhotoShop project I had to stop and hit the "re-play" button on the boom box I have in my office so I could hear Basie tinkle away while being carried on top of that section and as the whole thing wound up here came Harry James with another unforgettable solo followed by the whole group taking "Honeysuckle.." out kicking. Wow!
Hard to follow that up with anything less than, well;
.hell, hit the "re-play" again and take it away boys!
I'm told (by Elizabeth) this all of this can only be appreciated by someone who knows the music and that's probably true. There is no way I can communicate what's there to any one not hearing what I'm hearing, but here's my recommendation, buy the set noted above, and play it a few times, not just once to see if you like it. There's a lot to hear, all the way from Benny's famous theme (Don't be That Way") played as well as it was ever played, to the break-neck tempo of, "Dizzy Spells" played by the quartet made up of Benny, Krupa, Teddy Wilson, piano and Lionel Hampton on vibes.
Listen, let it sink in and then really listen.and, like sipping a really good wine, once you really taste it you will find the content timeless.
PS, towards the close of "Sing.." and just before the famous "rouser" by Krupa and the band, pianist Jess Stacy plays one of the most beautiful pieces of (unrehearsed) music you will ever hear. It is a gem buried in this well known recording and worth pausing in the swing of things to really hear. Take the time to savor it.
I'm a Gemini
I'm really not up on astrology. Frankly, I don't get it at all. I can't find a way to accept it in my cosmological system. My Mr. Spock brain won't allow for the bulk of Mars having something to do with my life on any level. Not to mention that gas bag Jupiter. But all of that aside, it is said that we Gemini folks are "communicators". Well, I was a radio announcer once, and I do some writing. And I answer all letters and phone calls and, these days' emails.
But I draw the line after the latter. I'm not going to do "Twitter", "Face Book", "My Space" or any of the other permutations of "What are you doing now?" facilitations. And that certainly includes "Texting".
I admit that, though it took awhile, I do value cell phones, but that's where it stops. It's a phone. It's not a camera, not a way to get on the Internet while I'm out and about, not a way to find a restaurant, or a way to discover where I am. If I don't know where I am I should pay more attention to where I've been, that's my curmudgeonly advice.
All in all then, I guess I fly in the face of what defines a "communicator" today. It is claimed that all of this stuff promotes "social networking", but when I see someone at a restaurant table sitting with friends wearing ear "buds" and texting this looks like the antithesis of "socializing" to me.
And why is it that anyone needs to wear earphones all the time anyway? The very idea of having one thousand pieces of music on an iPod is to me about as alluring as obsessional thinking. I see people walking through a park with earphones on and I just can't quite get the point of the walk in the park! "God, those birds just drive me crazy! Give me heavy metal anytime!"
Bizarre.
For that matter, what's more interesting than walking down a city street and hearing snatches of all the passing conversations?
Oh! I forgot, nobody's talking. They're all listening to some version of the latest pop pap. For all we know they may all be listening to the same thing.
Yikes!
All of this "social networking" has given rise to a new phenomenon, isolation depression bought about by people who work at home on a computer, stay at home to entertain themselves and, on rare occasion undertaking an outside venture, stay inside themselves via earphones, Blue Tooth, and texting.
As usual, communication, a good thing taken to ridiculous extremes.
This curmudgeonly comment may just be the product of my Capricorn pragmatist, or my Vulcan moon intruding into my hen house in conflict with a Mercury rising.
In "retrograde" of course.
The Creeping Paranoia Post 70
It just sort of jumped out at me, I hadn't thought this way ever, unless I was piloting a single engine plane over a place like Canyonlands or Bryce Canyon, places which do not offer serendipitous emergency landing strips. The thought of death being "immanent" began to bug me on a daily basis.
No, it was more like hourly.
It was a subtle thing at first, self talk about making sure Elizabeth knew how to do something like turning off the pellet stove or checking the water pump under the house.....or making sure she knew where important files were "just-in-case".
Well, all of this is OK now and then, but after awhile I noticed that I was becoming obsessed with tying up "loose ends". Preparing for The End. "There, that takes care of that." sort of thinking.
The problem became that a good deal of what I did every day had that this-might-be-the-last-time-I-do-this feel about it. In short, insanity was taking over in the guise of rationality.
This is a favorite trick my mind likes to play. 'Obsess about this!" it begins, "you never know" etc, etc., etc., etc.
And I'm the one who always tells Elizabeth to "Stop worrying so much, you'll drive yourself crazy!" In fact this is what I wind up telling most of my clients; "Whenever you start to obsess just tell your brain to, "Stop! Never mind the exploration or the archeology, and never mind the tendency to think there is some use to it all. Just quit!"
Yep, I've got it all figured out for them. This morning I woke up going over and over (and over) what I could have done yesterday when I presented a workshop on "Allowing Magic into Your Life". Oh yeah, I could have been much better organized. I could have done this, I could have done that. I was dumb to have said that.I should have covered this. I shouldn't have gone off in that direction because that was a dead end. I shoulda-coulda-woulda, etc., etc., etc. I think I need medication(s).
I finally got a handle on the death thing. I stopped myself by fully inhabiting the here-and-now and not allowing any "wandering" from that place. It took some strong self talk for a few days, and a reasonable amount of logic, "I might as well live fully now before I get surprised." went some of the internal monologue. Or sometimes just, "Shut up!" worked to stop the insistent tide.
I feel mostly in the moment now and death will have to wait outside in the waiting room instead of hovering over me all the time. After all, I have real things to be paranoid about.
Still crazy after all these years.
"We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone!"
I did not grow up seeing signs like this. In case you weren't aware of their history they didn't show up until lunch counter sit-ins and restaurant boycotts began in the late 50's. These were the obvious responses to the challenges to apartheid when the wave of resistance began to be felt north of the Mason Dixon Line. The "No shoes, no shirts, no service." signs were about hippies of course and they were an outgrowth of the former. The connection being that hippies were also "radicals", i.e. trouble makers.
I grew up with racism, haven't we all.....as the South Pacific song goes; I was, ".carefully taught." by all around me, my father, mother, grandfather, and my favorite uncle, all used "nigger" as the acceptable noun to describe any African-American, this latter a totally unheard of term. Black people were not really Americans after all.
I fought against racism all my life; I was shocked by my parent's attitudes and by the attitudes of society. I was outraged when, in the company of my best friend who was black, I was refused service at a down-at-the-heels drive-in restaurant outside of El Paso, Texas. I wanted to blow the place up, "How do you cope with this bull shit?" I furiously exclaimed to my friend. "You just live with it." He replied calmly.
When my landlord terminated my lease because, in the wake of my having some black friends over for dinner he suddenly came to the realization that my dark skinned wife, who was Mexican-American, might possibly be black as well, it was then (1960) I discovered that my own home town, the "cosmopolitan city" of Chicago was, according to the Urban League, the "second most segregated city in the U.S." (next to Jackson, Mississippi). All this happened at the very moment that the NAACP had begun an action to integrate the Lake Michigan beaches around Chicago (our apartment was on the South Side lake front) and we were suddenly seen as a "plant", an interracial couple who were a part of the "movement".
I aligned with the Urban League determined to fight it out until the specter of angry white mobs attacking my little girls sent us packing back to El Paso, which, coincidentally, had just become the first city in the U.S. to integrate all public facilities by law.
With all of this I still didn't realize that the poison of racism flowed in my blood until the day in 1963 I happened upon the televised speech of a "black radical", a man who I felt was just stirring things up unnecessarily. When he said, "......I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.."
That phrase, "they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." spoken by Martin Luther King that day broke through my own denial and I knew the nature of my own racism.
Since then, I have seen how that poison infects us all, white, black, red, brown, yellow.......it's stink is everywhere, and it contaminates in both overt and subtle ways the way we see each other. "Gangsta rap" is seen as acceptable racism being a response to white oppression. AIM can talk about all white people as "European oppressors" and this is taken to be a natural response to the natural greed of the latecomers to American shores. Hispanics can put down "Anglos" as land grabbers and oppressors.......and on and on it goes, all justified, all documented and all of it just as racist as white hostility based upon skin color and arrogance of "class". Who are the "bad" and who are the "good"? Is revenge racism justified in response to original racism? Is there any way to end it all?
Now we have come to a doorway opened to us by the election of Barrack Obama. Remember that this man, this black man who stands at the pinnacle of power in the world was characterized as a "tool of white power" when he was a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. This characterization was made by some black people. He was seen by some as "not really black enough." I wonder if he is black enough now?
Most of the world is celebrating his election. More than that, the world is once more marveling that America can live up to it's promise. We, most of the electorate, have judged him by the content of his character. It has come to pass Martin; we have gotten there at last. Let us now pray that the rest of the populace, racists of one stripe or another, will see that we are all now in this TOGETHER!
Let us not refuse anyone.
No Sad Endings
I don't want to see movies with sad endings. I don't want to read dreary poetry. Themes of betrayal don't draw me, horror stories don't call to me, misery doesn't recruit me for company.
Why?
I don't even want to explore the answer to that question. Sure, I fear death, the specter of some debilitating rot taking over my, so far, well functioning body, so that's probably a contributing factor to my avoidant reaction. Or maybe I'm just tired of bad news. After all, it has been the reason de etra for the current political climate for almost a decade and I'm worn out. I have no space left for hopelessness. I am full up.
This doesn't mean that all the movies I will watch will be from PIXAR, but I'm not going to waste two hours of my emotional life being dragged through some fictional characters muck of a life only to wind up left in a cold, wet gutter. You think Sound of Music is sappy? I'll take "The hills are alive with the sound of music." over the vicious tone of "Dark Knight" anytime.
The horrors of Gaza and Darfur, the tragedy of foreclosure and job losses in America, the wreckage left behind by the experiments of the Right Wing during the Cheney administration, all of this is sadness enough.
I'm ready for "Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead" and "Atta
boy Clarence!", and "All's well that ends well." I don't
need a manipulative deepening experience of loss and grief to get me in
touch with my heart, I am wide open to joy.
The "What-ifs" and the "If onlys"
"She said a bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been"
Paul Simon's lyrics from "Slip Sliden' Away" tell the story of the real "vampires" that can steal our life blood. I've had a battle with these demons for some time, maybe most of my life. In fact, as screw ups led to debacles over the years my list of "what ifs" and "if onlys" grew and grew until there was no room to make a list of joys.
Fears and regrets tend to pile on as time goes by and after age sixty intrusive themes of, "Yikes! Here-comes-Death!" loom and trump the agenda. I finally snapped out of this spiral a few weeks ago when I heard myself tell a client that they had to stop obsessing over who to blame about the past and get on with daily living.
In the instant I made my statement I said to myself, "This is one of those 'we teach best what we must learn' things'." It's time to get back to the good ol' Here-and-Now thinking.
I keep remembering the day I went up on top of the Franklin Mountains above El Paso, Texas with a girlfriend of mine who was terrified of heights. This didn't come to the surface until we had to make a crossing of about thirty yards along the knife edge of a ridge with a five hundred foot drop on each side. To keep her focused on moving ahead I told her to run the here-and-now mantra till she got across and it worked to hold her fears at bay. I kept that lesson for myself for a long time but then, once my own life settled down, once I was in a healthy relationship which didn't require my full attention to daily maintenance, like walking that ridge, I began a habit of reflection over the past, and a lot of self blame and regret began to fill my thinking. Voila! the "if onlys" had moved in. Then when I passed the sixty five mark the "how-much-longer-do-I-have(s)" joined the chorus and the "what ifs" piled on.
These things are very subtle, stimulated by any random event from a bird smacking into a window and dying right in front of me thus bringing on a flurry of, "what ifs", to having a glass of wine at night and remembering when I refused to have a drink with my dad and, inside, criticized him for having one himself (it was during one of my "abstinence" periods) thus creating an opportunity for a full range of "if onlys".
Damn! It has taken me way too long to awaken from this habit (a "if only") and I've got to start celebrating the RIGHT NOW! right now.
These are hard habits to catch let alone break. There's a seductive quality to reminiscing and nothing wrong with it until it bleeds into a "If only.....I hadn't done that terrible thing-said that-believed that-avoided that-loved her-drove-drank-etc.-etc.-etc......in the blink of an eye I've been captured by that dead end journey and I've begun to feel sad, bad, etc.
The "what ifs" are just as sticky. I catch myself making sure that all the "loose ends" are tied up so that if I keel over in the next hour Elizabeth won't have anything she will have to do that I haven't done. Then I begin to feel sad that she will be alone and miss me, then.......etc.
Today another message sent from the "Universe". I pulled up next to a car upon which the owner had mounted a bible verse on the rear window....Mathew 6 v 34, it's that one about "take no thought for the morrow......" (you can look it up). Couple this with the message I received yesterday, a notice from the V.A. that my doc wanted to see me.
Oh, Oh. All the usual fears raced through my brain of course. I'd seen him just two weeks ago and got blood work done...."and the only reason he'd be calling me back would be that he was (greatly) concerned about what he had seen there......and was it the PSA score (prostate stuff) or the stratospheric cholesterol reading or some kind of (strange and alarming) esoteric blood result......?"
etc.
I went in and discovered that it was a problem all right. A computer problem! "You're blood work looks great." is basically what he said.
"Take no thought for the morrow......" I got it.
I GET it!
How Raven (Elizabeth) Believed Her Name....
It began simply enough, I had given Elizabeth the name, "Raven" not long after we met. Both she and my then youngest daughter Winter carried it. Physically there was the black hair of course, but the name fit them because of much more than that, though Elizabeth remained unconvinced. Raven, like "coyote" is the trickster-teacher in the spiritual world and the wise-bird of legend and real life. It is also the one bird that seems to experience being a bird as much more than just a daily effort of hunting and gathering. Watch any raven for awhile and you will see a bird who is having fun while going about the business of living. This bird has a lot to teach.
One day, not long after sunrise, a few people arrived at our place to set up for the "Sun Dance" that was to begin later that day. They parked in our lot and went down to the dance circle site to begin preparations.
About an hour later as they were returning for supplies and I stepped outside to greet them just as a flock of ravens flew overhead. Suddenly one peeled out of the bunch and circled down to land on one of the parked cars. The owner walked to it, opened the door, and the raven hopped across the roof and perched on the door and began preening. The man held his hand open and the raven dropped a feather into it. Right about then I figured there was something out of the ordinary going on.
I ran inside the house and grabbed my camera as Elizabeth walked over to the car and held her left arm out to the bird, which jumped onto it, walked up her arm to her shoulder, nipped her on the left ear, then hopped across her back and nipped the right. Then it hopped down her right arm and flew off into a pine tree nearby.
There are many more details to this story that Elizabeth is prone to add, but these are the bony facts of it. Now I will add all of the "disclaimers" to please the scoffers; thirteen miles away, as the raven flies, there was a raven that hung out in an equipment yard. I don't know how long that bird was there, but it did seem to not be bothered about the proximity of people.
That's it.
So let's consider the odds, it's Sun Dance time and a flock of ravens flies over, what are the odds that one of them might be that people "friendly" raven? There were maybe ten ravens, so perhaps 10-1. What then are the odds that this particular flock would fly over this area? Given all the points of the compass they could choose, let's say, arbitrarily, 360-1. That they would fly over on the morning of a Dance we'd have to add 365 to that so 725-1. And add to this that this particular bird would select to land here and walk up the arm of a woman who sought confirmation of the name "Raven". this is such a long shot that I'd have to give it lottery odds. A million to one shot. And I'm sure a real statistician would add permutations which would add to this number considerably.
I think it would be a much harder sell to convince anyone that all of this was pure chance. I mean, it would at least instill a glimmer of doubt in a professional doubter's structure of belief would it not? But in fact, when I tell this story, and/or the one about the coyote skull (see "A Story") to a committed skeptic I know they think I am telling a story that is primarily a metaphor, or that I am outright lying.
Or maybe that I'm simply a nut case.
If there is a confirmed skeptic reading this I can only say this; these are not manipulative tales told to attempt a conversion. They are not metaphors created to "teach", and lastly, they are not lies. What they do for me is to take me down to the foundations of my own spiritual belief they tell me that I don't have to make a great leap-of-faith or put on hold my own reason and logic to believe that there is more to this mystery of life than the marshaling of "odds" can resolve.though the worship of pragmatic explanations can dissolve just about anything that is inexplicable by any other means of understanding.
Besides; I am a skeptic.....and they certainly convinced, and continue to convince, me.
I know that these things did happen.....happened to people who were neither gullible nor innocent of life experience. They were simple occurrences to be sure, no Lazarus raising, no fishes and loaves, but impactful, and quite to the point of what was needed.
So Elizabeth's name is Raven! Of that she is very much assured.
Me too.
A Story
I'm a jazz fan. It's the music that brings me home to my self. If I've been exposed to a day of really bad music, on hold for minutes that seem to be stretching into hours, and it's been Kenny G, or rock ("Classic" or not, I can't take much of it) or the boring and predictable Bam! Bam! Bam! accompanying the rap, hip-hop noise emanating from our 16 year old's room, after a time I need my head and heart cleared and jazz is where I go.
Sometimes I will find myself needing to explore an old piece that has drawn my attention once again and I will play the same track over and over and over, hearing something in it I haven't ever heard before, though I've listened to it a hundred times. Miles Davis and "All Blues" will catch me like this on occasion.
Some poetry is like that for me too and I will re-read a piece again to recapture what caught me the first time, or to hear it afresh to awaken me to what I missed in the first go 'round. "The Road not Taken" is one like that.
I have a story of my own that I re-tell now and then because I think it will help others to hear it, even though some I know have probably heard it ten times over the years. In reality I tell it more for me, because I need to re-visit the emotions that were present when the story was born into my life those many years ago. It's a "touchstone" of sorts, a place to which I return to reawaken faith and hope.
This is the story:
But first.....just a bit of background. This story didn't spring entirely from the moment, there were many "tributaries" that fed into the stream of it. It's often true that a spiritual awakening, or a "miracle" happens when the ground is already prepared for it.
Not always, but mostly.
To be brief I will just say that I had been looking for a way to understand and believe that there was more to life than our just being, as my brother-in-law contended "animated pieces of meat". But I was deep into "proofs" about this. I wanted the facts not just hopeful leaps of faith or assurances from people who burned a lot of incense and meditated all the time. I wanted to be convinced!
I'm still that way about most politics and "Best apple pie!" claims.
I had come north from my apartment near El Paso to the mountains outside of Albuquerque. I'd come to visit friends and to gather some shreds of cedar bark from the trees that grow in the area,. I was using six to eight inch lengths of it to create small smoldering fires for the daily ceremonies I was committed to performing at the request of a medicine man I was working with. This was part of my personal spiritual quest. One of the "tributaries".
He had taught me a little ritual to perform with the trees in order to gather the bark in a "conscious" manner. This was simply a process of taking a pinch of tobacco up to the tree selected and offering a prayer about why I was gathering the bark and that I would be using it for good purpose, and wouldn't be taking much.
This seemed to me to be a nice way of keeping a person aware of conservation which is what I figured it was really all about.
I like to keep things "rationally" based.
Another tributary was this; I had been seeking a name. I wanted some sort of spiritual identity and through a series of very odd events occurring over the preceding months I had come up with "coyote" a name which carries many levels of understanding.....but this is another story.
The events which led me to this name could be considered "magical" by some, but for me, they might have simply been random occurrences and I thought I might be making more of them than they deserved. The real dilemma was that I was the one doing the "interpreting". Since I didn't trust anything I might come up with as coming from "The Source", my interpretations didn't amount to any kind of proof I could consider valid.
So to prove that; the name was real and therefore purposeful, and thus, that there really was a Creator spirit running this show and all of this ceremony and ritual was worth the undertaking, my criteria was this; someone, unbidden, would one day hand me a coyote skull as a gift. That would be the proof I would need.
Kind of a tall order but not unusual for a skeptic.
The scene was set.......and there I was doing my obligatory ceremony with the tree of my choice, one chosen at random from among thousands of possibilities in the Cibola National Forest at the foot of the Sandia mountains.
In the midst of this undertaking I was suddenly struck with this thought; "This isn't the right tree."!
This was a very uncharacteristic response for me because I'm a point-A-to-point-B kind of guy. I don't reflect much on "feelings" about right or wrong trees. I was just doing a ritual after all. But there it was, and the feeling of "wrongness" persisted until I looked around at the forest of cedar trees and picked one that, and this is my memory of it, was "greener" than all the others.
I walked over to it and began my ceremony again, feeling "right" this time.
But midway through something in the branches, deep inside and right up close to the trunk, something glowingly white, caught my attention. I moved some branches aside and stepped inside the shade and saw, hanging in the fork of a main branch, a skull.
A coyote's skull.
All these years later I can still feel what I felt then though time has lessened the impact. Tears flooded my eyes and my legs could not hold me up. I could only cry and say, "My God! It's all real! It's REAL!" My shock at that realization was only equaled by the guilt I felt that I could ever have doubted......and then came the pure joy of the reassurance that this tangible gift represented.
Then I wanted to tell someone, anyone......to reassure them, to spread the news of this experience. But there was no one near to tell and, after I sat with all of it for a time, I determined that keeping it all inside seemed important. Letting it permeate every cell to purge the doubts felt like the best use of this miracle. And I had no doubt then, nor do I have now, that that's exactly what this was.
I have chosen to tell this story again now and then but only when I felt the time was right to it revisit that feeling, to bring it back to life in me and share it with those who need it. There have been many other "miracles" since then, but nothing so clear-cut, so out of the "could be explained away" category. And of course, I could, if I worked very hard at statistics, probabilities, and permutations, explain even that one I suppose
Well, considering the odds, maybe not.
Sometimes, when I am feeling unloved, or more accurately, unlovable, I will finally whittle all of those who might possibly love me down to my daughters of whose love I am absolutely sure and then I stare at a picture I have of my wife Elizabeth and, once again captured by her warm soul eyes, I will be brought back to my center. From there I can rebuild to a place of balance.
This coyote story never fails to ebb the tides of doubt which rise as hours of facts begin to overtake my moments of faith. Just as the sure love of my daughters and my life partner, the poetry of jazz and the depth of prose bring me back home to sanity, it reminds my doubting brain and my cautious heart of what I came upon in that forest of cedar. It was not something imagined or dreamed, it was a tangible gift I could, and still do, hold in my hands. A reality that brings me spiritually alive once again and without the specter of doubt to cloud my hope.
And this is also true; I know, that despite my strong intent it is impossible to convey the power of this story to another to instill the same response I had to this experience. How can I paint a sunset so that you can see it or send my experience of deep love to you so that you can feel it? The Bible has never convinced me of virgin birth or resurrection and though Carl Sandberg has told me of the "Wilderness" he cannot take me there, I will have to put on my own hiking shoes for that. And so it is for "miracles". All I hope to do by telling this story is say that it is possible for any human being, searching for something to believe in, to find it.
The method is simple; fight to keep your own mind and heart open to all the potential for magic. But don't wait for it, actively seek it out.just as it has been said: "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." It takes work, whether that be doing the ceremonies and rituals or just walking in the woods, to overcome the inertia, but the rewards for those efforts, if you believe in the worth of hope, are priceless.