Fall

I don’t know how it was I failed to celebrate, but in the big countdown to Zoe I missed passing the 100 day mark. Today is 98 days and counting… literally, days, hours, minutes… I’m so over this part.

Secret and I went for our last big hike on the mountain before Ms Thing’s arrival. Climbing the rise was excruciating (why did I think it would be a fun thing to do again?) I brought the camera in tow (because hiking up wasn’t enough, I needed to load down with extra baggage too) but despite stopping and looking with a watchful eye, I wasn’t moved to frame anything and shoot. It was beautiful and I did try to stop and take it in, knowing it’s the last time I’ll see it until sometime next year. It’s all golden and thirsty this time of year, and the trails are soft with crushed leaves in all different arrays of pastels and dusty. When we see it next it will be wet and green and misty.

The Madrone trees are in berry with the bark in full peel – ribbons of swirling red paper-thin curls of shedding Madrone skin adorn the trunks like they’re all gussied up for a cotillion. Just makes you want to dance with them. There’s one, my favorite, I pause at it and run my fingers along the cool smooth bark after clearing away a patch of ribbons and I wish it well and I ask for the tree to welcome Zoe. I can feel it saying hello. That will not be the last time the trees speak kindly to her.

I’ve just come in from a hot tepid tub and despite it only being 5:30 in the evening, I’m feeling full on lazy and sleepy – nothing that either a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce or the bundle of Asian Peers on the kitchen table seems to shake off (I’ve tried them both for good measure.) They say that the third trimester is marked by a return of the fatigue and bully if just the mere mention of it makes me want to nap.

We went to see The Kingdom last night. Note to self, you are no longer equipped for 7 pm showings. It was very predictable and the special effects were far less special than I’d hoped for – but there’s something about getting beat up from the inside out during an action thriller that makes the whole thing take on the tenor of one of those John Water’s 3D scratch and sniff movies. Watching the portrayal of the Saudi Muslim fundamentalists blowing up the all-American baseball game recalled that documentary Jesus Camp where the camp director touts, with no small amount of pride, that it’s high time the Christians started raising devout, brainwashed, terrorist children to strike back, just like them fundie Muslims. They really are all so indistinguishable. Isn’t it just so incredibly true that pride indeed does go before the fall? I mean, even when people don’t even realize how shameful they’ve become.

With October waking this morning, the season resolutely changed with a cool rain and overcast morning. When it cleared around mid-day and the sun bellowed across the sky, it was interrupted by high cottony clouds which just seemed to scream things like hot apple cider, butternut squash and pumpkin pie. It was warm, but it was certainly Fall.

Shelby Knox

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. - Wordsworth

T-85 and counting. I’ve had an extremely productive week even in the face of identity theft and fraud attempts on my checking account. Despite having to shut down and re-open bank accounts, update new direct deposit accounts, etc., etc., I’m speeding forward on my end-of-the-job-world deliverables. I’m not sure why I’m rushing it. When I complete everything I’ve set out to accomplish I’ll merely have to divine a new list of things to do that will make me useful until day zero. Even still, this first list includes what I think are important. I can busywork with them into oblivion after that.

I watched the documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox last night – a Netflix arrival a few days back that I’ve been putting on the back burner. It’s the story of a young devout (straight/heterosexual) Christian girl who gets involved with the local Youth Commission in Lubbock, Texas and spearheads efforts to improve sex education in the schools.

As much as I resisted liking Shelby, she won me over. Her parents are conservative and Republican and really quite proud of both of these attributes about themselves and they’re also proud of Shelby. It’s apparent that this precocious teenager is wildly more intelligent than her parents. I truly get the sense that her parents sense and perhaps even acknowledge this. It makes me wonder why her parents, inspired by this young woman, aren’t undergoing their own personal transformations – questioning the church, questioning the status quo, questioning their own values. Maybe they are, I’d have liked to see the results of any of that.

I suppose what I enjoyed most about it is that it authentically captured a young woman going through this period of earnest questioning, sitting down with her pastor time and again, exploring issues with her peers. I might not like what I heard and saw some of the time, but it was real.

In her community, it seems to have been all the rage to do these vows of chastity with the church. I wonder if now, as a young college girl, if she still clings to that vow. I wonder, if through her personal exploration, she’s found different conclusions. It would be great to see a follow up… something like The Continuing Education of Shelby Knox.

I'll Never Be Back

When seeing a new place I often think: I am going to come back here later – when I am rich, or when I have more time, or when I have a purpose, or when I am alone with someone I love – and do this right. But it is self-deception. More often than not, my feet lead me somewhere new rather than somewhere I have already been. And as I sat at that window watching the train bore through the heart of China, I had a different, more probable thought: I’d better remember what this place looks like. I will never be back. – Brad Newsham

If we could hold each day with a little more reverence – both the good and the bad – and realize we’ll never be back, I think we’d all be better off. Even bad days would take on a more precious quality. It’s never going to be bad precisely like this again. Which even makes bad a little special I think.

I went to see Tati with the magic hands this evening. It’s more than her hands that is magic. Something always reveals itself in her presence. Tonight, for example, I realize that I have an incredibly difficult time simply letting go. I hold on. I resist. And yet when I relax enough to let go, the truths of the universe seem to greet me – my answers find my questions. Tati has taken to using hot stones in her practice and they open me up and the muscles relax under their heat and weight – hastening the process. But tonight I resisted and resisted and resisted moving to that place where my body is left behind being whim to her magic and my mind is freed into other spaces far away. (Maybe the stones kept me there?)

I was freed up enough, however, to remember that it’s time to let go.

The Mayans believe that when you are born you forget who you are and it’s the role of the villagers to sing you back into remembrance. They sing you your name. I read a short missive recently that a parent wrote about her son. He speaks of what he learned in his other life. How when he was eleven he fell off a ladder and was killed. When his parents or grandparents go to teach him things, he tells them that the other boys parents taught him that too – and goes on to fill in more details. He forgot to forget before he was remembered back into being. Sometimes I think I feel glimpses – not of another life, but of some time before and those teachers whisper things to me through my dreams.

I like the weight of this flesh. I like the way it feels curled up cuddling the dog near the fire place and the taste of smoky tea and lavender soda. I’d better remember what this place looks like.

Derailment

Firstly the NaNoWriMoing isn’t Wri-ing right along. I’ve hit a stand still. I won’t say that I’ve given up (yet?), but progress has ground to a screeching halt – metal against metal, sparks flying. That’s okay. It is what it is. There’s been such a fanfare of activities, holiday this-ing, dinner-thating, lunch in the City, guests, and oh yes, the biggest time-suck of them all, the latest season of the Sopranos is out on DVD.

Secondly, I didn’t mention this business about this old friend of mine hitting the bottom of the cage a few weeks back now. I say old friend as in former friend – he wasn’t old and he was no longer a friend. I’ve tried to write about it, but everything that comes out sounds petty and stupid and crazy. I didn’t attend the memorial (which was yesterday) mainly out of respect for his wishes. Though some contend that his wishes might have changed over time, I made the mistake of acting on those contentions while the dude was still fluttering up on the perch and getting bitch slapped for my good graces. I vowed to never let that happen again – an easy and painless vow to keep.

Without going into a great deal of detail, it’s him that needed to make his peace with the world – it wasn’t me who needed to make peace with him. I’m good with who I am mostly. Or rather, how I’m not good with how I’m walking on this planet, I feel quite fine about how I’m going about figuring that out and setting my feet right on the world. That was his fucked up journey, not mine. They just collided and it was an unfortunate collision from the start.

It’s the tense times, the unpleasantries, that I have a tendency to sit with and try to suck the marrow out of. There are lessons and learning in life that are not painful, even joyful dare I say, but when the lesson is so easy it’s hard to take pause and acknowledge that change and growth happened. When it’s accompanied by pain, that is when you really know you’re alive. It doesn’t make the joyful stuff less meaningful, important or real – it just makes it a little more invisible. When it leave a scar or mars us, there’s some proof it happened. Or so we think in these fallible, silly lives.

I have to say, ultimately it’s like those first oil-streaked pages of the Messiah handbook in Bach’s book, Illusions. If God asked you to sacrifice - your life even – would you do it? And the multitude says, “Glory to be sacrificed, crucified.. honor to be nailed to a cross, tortured and killed!” And then the Messiah says, “And if God asked you to go forth in this world and be happy?” And the crowd goes silent. And he simply says, “I quit” and walks away.

People will endure excruciating pain and discomfort in the name of their God, beliefs and religions – but far fewer will endure their own happiness – far fewer will boldly live in bliss and joy as a way to honor their Gods. I don’t know what that says about people. I don’t know what it says about their Gods. I’m not suggesting that unhappiness, conflict, tension, discontent are all failure. They’re just parts of the road – like being born and dying – they’re merely facts of the journey, places in the sidewalk that we must step. But come on, not every dot on the twister board is red – switch it up people – you have fucking choices and it’s up to you to use them. Poking the same spot in life marked “painful” doesn’t lead to transcendence – it merely dulls the sensation and eventually normalizes it. What good is that?

Anyways. I digress. So another old friend (this time I would say that old infers a longevity to our friendship) was in town from Houston, to attend the memorial, and I fetched her from the City on Friday. We roamed a crest trail with the dog and sat and talked into the evening – about nothing in particular. It was sweet to catch up – to hear – to listen (that one is a talker..heh!) She’s a social worker with chronically homeless folks in Houston and in her late forties has gone back to school into a master’s program for social work and political science. I’m proud of her – she’s beautifully full of conviction and determination and making a better world outside herself and this in turn makes a better world inside herself. She doesn’t make a lot of money (and probably never will) but she is happy. This is so important. She is happy.

We laughed and I quizzed, “is it that Lesbian’s identified that Social Work is a chronically under-paid profession and thus flock to it?” If you want to meet cool chicks, don’t look in the G.A. line, look in professions that pay well below living wages – they are eeking out meager, starving existences in questionable neighborhoods with rampant poverty, high crime rates and slum lords. (Of course that’s not true… well.. it’s sort of not true. You can meet them at softball games too. Okay. I’ll stop. I’m kidding. You know I’m kidding.)

If you’ve ever read Studs Turkel’s Coming of Age it’s not the people who made millions in high-powered business professions who at their end of days look back on a life well lived, content with their contributions and creations. But living in poverty doesn’t guarantee happiness either.

The old friend of which I initially wrote – he didn’t live in poverty, but he also served others, sometimes even selflessly – but he still was such a bitter, miserable, cruel, thankless and unhappy coot. Goes to show you. No guarantees. But then again, maybe he had his proverbial coming to Jesus (I don’t mean that literally.) Maybe he found peace there at the end. I hope so. I genuinely do.

For my own self, in tribute to his life, in tribute to his leaving, to memorialize his time on this earth, I would set to work on peeling a few layer of bitterness from my own life and commit to be kinder and more joyful. That seems like a nice karmic end to the story of our walk on this planet.

I should say, all of this happening now is not an accident. I did not contrive it, but certainly the fates are having a hand in these days.

Wiley is fetching another old friend from Oakland today, who is in town from Philadelphia/New York for a harm reduction conference – in this case old refers to longevity of acquaintance and friend is used loosely. I have a fondness for the woman, I’ve never approached her as a confidante or felt great affection between us however. I like her, I admire the work she has done in the community, she is kind and enthusiastic and has wonderful determination with endless optimism.

She is a natural leader, yet she’s unassuming and non-threatening. It’s fucked up, but strong women who are charismatic and convey strong opinions are eaten alive – every aspect of their personal and professional lives are scrutinized. While men are revered, women are often torn to shreds and fed to the dogs. Somehow she’s escaped this fate by maintaining a down-with-the-people, down-trodden and humble leadership style. Don’t be too outspoken, always play nice with a smile on your face. She’s not ineffective and she really hasn’t sold anything out – she’s adept at flying under the radar screen. I think she’s got something going – if you’re a woman and you’re a leader, it’s best to do that by not letting anyone else realize that you’re leading and not receiving any recognition or credit for what you’re accomplishing. There is something SO fucked up about that. I am so over that. And I’m looking forward to her visit this afternoon.

I leave for Baltimore (the City that Reads – you know, because it tops the nation’s chart in terms of illiteracy rates.. so the town adopts a grammatically ill-conceived ironic motto. Dude, cities don’t read, people do) later this week and by tomorrow have to book ticket for DC the end of the month. I’ll mostly be out of town from now until then, thus my dwindling hopes about the future of my NaNo-ing this month. But maybe the time in hotels will actually be good? Like I say, I won’t write it off (heh) until failure in truly inevitable and staring me down in the 11th hour.

Okay… it’s time to hot tub (verb) until my conference call starts (in 15 minutes, yes on a Sunday) and lasts (excuse me!?!?) for three and a half hours (are you serious!?!) until guests arrive.

I feel like I haven’t wrapped up these trains of thought.. let’s just let ‘em go though the junctions – lights flashing, bells ringing, full speed ahead, and see what happens…. I’m not afraid of a little train wreck on a Sunday afternoon…. Let’s raise a glass to derailment.

A Sign...

The bewilder is shrinking. I won’t say to right sized because who knows what that is. I mean, maybe we’re supposed to carry dumbstruck around like a permanent satchel – the wonder of the universe and all that. Sometimes (maybe mostly?) we misapply it.

An exercise in something – how we imbue things with meaning that don’t. How swift the line is between something and nothing. How sadly silly this whole world can be sometimes.

There was a time last week, so lost in my moment, in that reaching to achieve, that I lost something. I reached out and touched the computer screen wondering if there was someone, somewhere, seeking contact too. I don’t mean through this virtual world. My grandmother would understand this, no doubt. She sat there long enough waiting too. Somehow I knew, deeply, the meaninglessness of what I was doing despite how impressed people can sometimes be with these kinds of efforts. This is because I know. This is because I’ve seen the face of hopelessness and there was truth in the murder of crows feet and knitted brow – that blank, abandoned stare on her face. Empty eyes. I wanted to take her face in both of my hands and kiss her passionately while she died.

But I didn’t (and neither did she.)

Men At Work In Trees

Good morning world. I started the day off with a 7 am conference call. In honesty, I had the phone on mute most of the time and was perusing the internet for interesting reads. Isn’t it their job to keep me engaged and entertained? Oh wait.. where’s my responsibility in that? Well.. there’s that again now isn’t there. Back to my responsibility.

I have my morning routines – my ablutions, rituals, what-have-yous. I drink my coffee, scan the blogs, read the newspaper, cuddle with the Honey Bee (she is such a cuddly punim!) When I’m done reading and cuddling I take my coffee out to the hot tub and meditate on the day while I look at the sky – be it clear blue like today or marbled with veins of wispy clouds like yesterday – whatever the case, I look at it and I contemplate the day while my coffee is perched on the edge.

Yesterday the clouds reminded me of my grandmother’s fireplace mantel at Christmas. She’d drape multicolored lights on the mantel, cover it with spun glass and place little angel figurines in the clouds of spun glass that reflected and diffused the lights just so. She’d sing Sunday school songs to me and my sister. Her efforts never cultivated or instilled in either of us a belief or faith in God, but I loved to hear how her voice trilled and quivered when she sang. It made her happy and that was fun to watch. Equally entertaining was watching her in church, sway like a fan at a rock concert, hand in the air, waving back and forth like tall grass in a gentle breeze, chanting like a mantra with eyes closed, “yes Jesus. Thank you Jesus." That was part of the color of my youth.

Her and grandpa’s purple Cadillac, his big silver and turquoise rings, his boleros with scorpions encased in amber or Lucite and his Pentecostal preacher ways. Fire, brimstone and the odd and out of place pool table and pin-up-girl calendar in the basement. In the weeks and months before his death he would chant, “Through faith we are healed. Through faith we are healed.” But he died anyways, quite young really – a painful death from cancer. That big formidable man brought to his knees like that. It just wasn’t right. He was larger than life, like the character from Big Fish. He spun tales. He’d win us prizes at the winter carnival ice fishing competitions by going to his fish house on the big lakes up north, catching huge fish and keeping them alive in ice water until the competition on Lake Nokomis. They’d never seen such fish come out of that lake! He’d proudly present his grandchildren with the spoils of the day – a twinkle in his eye and a big belly laugh. He could instill belief and faith in a frog.. not necessarily a faith a God, but definitely a faith in him. He was the kind of person you could believe in.

I love my memories of them. So back to my ablutions. I am distracted in my routines because there are tree trimmers in the redwoods next door and there’s something disturbing about peering up at the sky and redwoods and seeing a workman’s butt and the soles of his shoes. It somehow disrupts and disturbs things like fond remembrances of grandma and fails to bring an order to the day. So instead, I’m here, leering at the workers through the living room windows who are infringing on my routines and wondering when I can get back to the dealings of the day.

The Lies We Stand On

Now you might think I’m overly obsessed with this kitchen, with this floor – but you’d only think that way if you’ve never been in a major earthquake. What we think is solid, isn’t. Concrete, brick and all we stand on as foundation is like sand in the face of nature. To run my toes through the grass and feel rooted in the earth – it’s pretty to think so. I like the illusion and there’s nothing wrong with that. And I want black and white flooring covering up the dust of dead things that form the carpet that we walk on from which springs life only to decay again and again. I want something more permanently dead beneath my feet and my feat in my kitchen – the center of home life. This is the place from which all nurturing springs and here, of all places, we need the lies to stand on. I want my fucking floor.

On Principle

Won’t it be crazy when I post that the FLOORS ARE DONE!!!! YAHOOO! I’M ALL MOVED IN!! Yes, that will be crazy, wild and exciting. Too bad they’re not. Too bad I’m not. I won’t belabor this point. There’s been more delays in getting the product (it’s not easy being green.)

There’s a new cyclery in town. Well, it’s been there for a year but I made an effort to stop in for the first time on Saturday – so it’s new to me. I finally broke down after these several years and bought a pair of bike shorts. I promise I won’t wear them without board shorts – on principle.

Speaking of principles. I am struck that we rarely write about principles (perhaps at this age I prefer poetry to heady prose on principles and political conviction?) What are my virtues? Ah… what a tangled web we weave and what a weave of contradictions are my virtues.

My virtues are that I can be kind and that I can be cruel and that mostly I am wise in using my rulers and meting out right proportions of the two. Unless, of course, you think me too kind or you think me too cruel, then there’s either something wrong with me or there’s something wrong with you. So perhaps this isn’t a virtue at all?

My virtues are that I am fiercely independent and don’t compromise on my values. This is all well and fine unless you don’t fit neatly into my spectrum of good, moral and just and then I’m sure you think on me as rigid and a thought fascist. Yet I try to be open, a relativist and listen – still I’ve been given the gift to think, reason and act and I use these gifts.

I am humble. I have an idea of myself that is right sized. I am small in the face of the enormity of the universe yet my size doesn’t hinder my ability to stand up for what I believe in. While I don’t know if I can change the system I accept that I might not be able to and I try anyways. Not trying is choosing a certain kind of death. I actually have beliefs – not a belief in God per se, but a set of articulated values – of judgments if you will, well conceived, I believe, overtime – an ethical framework or lens for evaluating circumstances and informing my actions within them. Though again, I’m flexible.

To tell you that I have beliefs, however, doesn’t tell you what those beliefs are. You’re to take on faith that they’re interesting, good, sound? And then you’re to take on some faith that I act on them accordingly? I believe, for example, that health care should be a right, not a privilege. I believe that science needs democratizing. I believe that we can experience a greater sense of joy every day if we cultivate and strengthen our community. I believe community includes the people who live next door to me, not just people who look like me, dress like me and/or share my values. I believe the people I have the strongest visceral reactions too (positively or negatively) are most like me and I need to pay attention to both so I can strive to see myself more clearly. I believe that EVERYONE of us believes that we’re good people, motivated by good things, doing the best we can – and given the state of things a good many of us are wrong and we are likely part of that good many errant in our thinking on a spectrum of issues at any given time.

I believe that my government is failing its people. I believe that my president has lied. I believe that many if not most politicians are corrupt. I believe the only way to change the government is by getting involved – somehow. I believe that a small group of people can change the world. I believe a single person can change the world. I believe a poet or a playwright can change the world. I believe an artist can change the world. I hope I believe in the vision of the people with the most youth, energy, wisdom and courage to change the world.

I believe that it doesn’t matter if society accepts me if I can love and accept myself. I have come to discover, over time, that I only care if other’s accepts me until I come to accept myself.

Once someone said, “if you want people to take you seriously, you shouldn’t wear your hair like that, dress like that” etc. I am not a straight white man. On some level it doesn’t really matter how I wear my hair, how I dress, what piercings or tattoos I wear on my face and body – I simply do not conform to what the ruling elite takes seriously – straight white men. We must dig deeper. We must be smart, articulate and strategic. We must speak through the overlay of judgments being meted out and demonstrate that we are a force to be reckoned with. If we dress up in suits and conform we’re becoming part of the problem – because some people don’t have the luxury to hide the colors on their skin in order to taken seriously. And some don’t have the economic means to afford the suits that might engender respect among elite wealthy crowds. We must demand that people listen to what people say and judge us on the merits of our arguments and content of our character – and not the color of our skin, our hair or how we dress. And on the same token, we mustn’t be shocked that some people have a hard time doing this – we must help one another and not judge those who have a difficult time seeing past the superficial trappings of this mortal coil. In the same way we wish not to be judged by the way we look, dress, etc., we mustn’t judge people with a disability to look deeper. (But be aware that sometimes we're not taken seriously because we're not saying anything interesting or valuable and it has nothing to do with how we look!)

I believe in love. I believe that love heals. I believe in intimacy. I believe that trust must simply be given and possibly later lost – that’s it’s an impossible thing to simply have to start out earning.

I believe in the mystical origins of the Church (it is said that the church is the energy created whenever a group of people come together in common worship – that this energy created is greater than the sum of the parts.) I believe that when I am with friends who share common beliefs and we celebrate together, something is created that is greater than each of us – it’s almost tangible. You feel this in the pit at punk shows. It’s the tingling in the back of your neck when you witness the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. On those Friday nights when you’re hanging in the park with friends and you randomly just feel a great sense of kinship, belonging, being part of something – there it is again. Turn a stone, split a log… it is there.

So how do I act in consort with these beliefs? I am an activist and an educator. I sit present and repeat myself to be heard. I keep my eye on the end game – it’s about the goal not always about how we get there. If the devil is in the details then surely it must be true that some kind of salvation or enlightenment rests in them too. I try to gather information and include the concerns of diverse people/communities in my efforts so that others don’t have to come after and fight to change programs so that they better serve their needs. Better that they serve diverse groups of people’s needs from the beginning. I have an open door. I try to cultivate deep, rich and meaningful relationships. I embrace failure. (When I tell myself, or others tell me, “that’s impossible,” my response is, “okay… it’s impossible and I’ll likely fail. Let’s start with that as a given and go ahead and try anyways. Likely the worst we can do is exceed expectations.”) I have sat on the board of a Dance Company. I sit on the board of an international trade/policy organization. I try to buy locally grown organic food. I walk and ride my bike instead of driving, often. I train and walk my dog. I laugh at least once each day.

I strive to see myself objectively.

The most revolutionary, radical and rebellious thing I do is respect and love, to the best of my ability, the people who come into my life – even when I sit in the midst of their judgments.

Searching for the Soul...

Searching for the soul of America….

There is an interview with Jacob Needleman in the December 2002 issue of The Sun, called Searching for the Soul of America, about his new book, The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders. I haven’t read the book and in fact I haven’t even finished reading the interview. I went to San Francisco State University in the 1980’s, and I took a general ed philosophy course from Needleman, intro to philosophy and religion or something of that ilk. He was an inspiring teacher – one of those rare academicians who wasn’t merely a subject matter expert but also has a natural talent for adult education. I still remember texts we read and bits of lectures, one particular on intrinsic will, even a decade hence.

I sit down at my computer and begin to write this in hopes of forcing my mental grammar and perhaps unsticking my stuckness. Now here is an example of what is happening – when I wrote the first paragraph, about not having finished reading the Needlemen interview, my friend Will’s voice echoes in my head saying, it’s the problem with the left, we don’t read anymore. We read what other people think about what other people think about what other people have written, but we don’t actually read and formulate our own opinion. And upon making the proclamation he asks me what I’ve read or what I’m reading lately and I tell him, Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, by Martin Prechtel, his own story of becoming a Mayan Shaman among other things. And it reminds me how long it’s been since I’ve been reading this book and how little time I’ve spent to finish it and how it’s moved from something that I’ve really enjoyed to another task on my to-do list. And it reminds me that I need to take what Will said and consider it more deeply, about how this lack of reading the actual texts cripples our ability to reflect, contemplate and integrate new ideas. And it reminds me that I need to call Will, who called nearly two weeks ago now and I’ve yet to touch base back with him and how awful this is given he’s been in poor health of late. And it reminds me that I’ve always wanted to read the Upanishads. And when I wrote how I’m trying to force my mental grammar and unstuck my stuckness a loop began running through my head, “Slaughterhouse Five, Slaughterhouse Five, Slaughterhouse Five… so it goes, so it goes, so it goes….” This is what it’s been like lately. This is how my mind has been working, or perhaps more aptly, not working.

I started reading the Needleman interview while I was on the Larkspur Ferry to San Francisco. The ferry first passes San Quentin State Penitentiary and later Alcatraz. San Quentin used to be a high security prison, notorious for its hardened criminals and stories of the horrors and atrocities that took place in this prison lead to reforms in the prison system in California. While San Quentin still has a high security wing and houses death row inmates, mostly the prison is what guards call a boy’s camp - low security, non-violent offenders, picking up trash on the hillsides. Alcatraz has a great deal of notoriety, maybe least of which is what it represented in terms of a change in the penal system in America. It was the first prison built for punishment as opposed to reform of criminals. Now one can debate whether or not the prison system, as it stands, reforms anyone, but when you look back at some of the founding principals of America, of what those Europeans were escaping, part of what they were escaping was the European justice system. The Founders, in their declarations of independence and in the Constitution were doing many things - among them was the creation of a penal system based on reform as opposed to punishment. Alcatraz was the first admission of failure to truly embrace and achieve that principle.

The Needleman interview, at least what I’ve read thus far, doesn’t talk about or address the American penal system. But reading the interview and pondering the soul of America and contemplating this rediscovery of the wisdom of the Founders – well, it strikes me that the landscape isn’t exactly an accident. I’ve often thought, on my way to work, traversing the Bay in the ferry, that I’m not suppose to allow these institutions to simply blend into the scenery and I’m not suppose to observe them passively…. Water, sea lion, island, bridge, San Quentin, Alcatraz… or maybe I am. Maybe both things are true, look at the parts distinctly, and also the mosaic they create and learn from both stories. I’m not sure. I just don’t want to grow too accustomed to them, like they’re facts. But they are facts. But they’re not. Both things are true, all at the same time.

At any rate… I was listening to one of my favorite radio programs the other evening, This American Life. I don’t actually listen to the radio. I go to the website (http://www.thislife.org) and listen to episodes - sometimes two or three each evening. I was listening to an April 2002 episode (#210) called Perfect Evidence. Act one, Hawks and Rabbits, was the story of three boys, Calvin, Larry and Omar, convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, tried as adults and sentenced to life in prison. After 15 years and the advent of DNA technology, they were able to get a lawyer to take up their case and were released. The biological evidence did not tie them to the crime. The main interviewee of the boys who became men in prison, was amazingly articulate, thoughtful and intelligent. I’m not saying that people in prison are generally not well-spoken or that they’re not intelligent. As one listens to the program, however, it’s hard not to consider that this man’s references and abilities were tendered and cultivated in the context of incarceration. The interviewer never draws attention to this, never pauses after a particularly brilliant observation or thought by the interviewee and just says, “wow.”

During the interview, the wrongly accused and incarcerated man, Omar, is telling the story of how he needed one of his fellow alleged accomplices, Calvin, to sign an affidavit attesting to the fact that he is not an “O secretor” re: his blood type. Calvin wouldn’t sign. The last time he signed something it was a confession, construed and written by police officers, and this landed him in prison for life. In order to move their appeal forward, his signature was required, and Calvin had developed a new policy not to sign anything. He noted, additionally, that he had found God, found religion, accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and personal savior – that he put his faith in God. “That ain’t the way the God I believe in works,” Omar said. “Your faith in God in good. But act on it. You can’t say you believe in no God and not believe in your own ability to think, reason and understand because he gave you a brain to do just that with.” I thought, “Wow. That’s beautiful.”

Later Omar talks about the Declaration of Independence, which he had read in prison. He says something like this: “When I read that document I was like, wow. How it actually incorporates talking about rebelling against an oppressive government. If the government becomes too oppressive, the power is actually in our hands… That’s why, when you talk to anyone that claims, especially those who speak about the American character and what we should do, you should aks them let me hears youse recite the Declaration of Independence.” And Omar recites, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And you will come to find out that the average American don’t even know it.

In the Needleman interview he says, “In my book I suggest that the deepest purpose of the United States government is to provide conditions under which our society can flourish spiritually as well as materially.”

This is where I want to and all at once do not want to stop. Here’s the mosaic without the mud. But where’s the mud?

The mud is filling the trough that I dug out around the foundation, upon my contractor’s advice, to protect the house. Instead of providing drainage and protecting the foundation, it creates a moat for the water to gather and threatens the stability of things. The mud is filling the ditch Ed dug yesterday in the front yard, to reveal the pipes that have burst coincidental with these downpours that have rendered us without water for nearly a week now. So in the midst of storm front after storm front, winds felling trees and ripping shingles off the roof, hail battering our shelter and water filling the river to its bank, in the house we are dry and parched. For days now I have been contemplating the foundation and I just can’t lightly dismiss the metaphorical implications of all of this.

I don’t put these things together and think that I am a victim or that we’re all victims. To the contrary, I put these things together and I think, “Listen to this story. There are stories being told in our lives and in the landscape and we must listen to the stories.” And perhaps the most resonating words are those reflections from Omar, “Your faith in God is good. But act on it.” How these words arise out of injustices and the pursuit of justice, the landscape of this country, this land, this house – this is not a mistake. This is not merely a coincidence. That the very government of this place, America, might be built on a foundation aimed to inspire spiritual flourishing, that someone would write that and that I would read that while tooling past San Quentin after having just listened to Omar’s words. That is not a mistake. That my own foundation is threatened and how ill equipped I feel to address it, how little I know how to right it. That is not a coincidence.

I’m reading this book that I can’t seem to finish that talks about the Mayan way of life - about how houses aren’t built to endure but to be in a constant state of repair and how this reparation is an event that bonds and strengthens community – ties it together. And I think how the plumber who is suppose to help us fix this leak is my neighbor and how he failed to show up today or even to call despite the week wearing on and his commitment. And I think of how the contractor hasn’t returned my pages or calls for a simple reference for a roofer and how he mislead me around the problems with my foundation. And I think again that these things aren’t merely a coincidence, how these things are not a cosmic mistake – how instead they are telling a story. And this story is both beautiful and shameful – titillating yet difficult to look at.

I am not searching for the soul of America, I’m only searching for my own soul. I work for a non-profit – it’s about the big We. And my inability to work today is perhaps a mirror for how I’m stuck in the big I, how I can’t really find the mud or the glue that holds us all together even when it’s threatening to seep under my own doorway and over my own thresh hold. I see all the pieces, but I don’t see what’s holding them together and I don’t even see the connections between them with striking clarity. I don’t feel my faith in much of anything these days, making it incredibly difficult to act on it.

This really isn’t suppose elicit pity or a sense that this poor girl is stuck. And so here I pause and stretch and look around my cluttered study contemplating that this is not what was intended, this is not how things were supposed to be, and instead of finding my soul I find a stack of paper on the floor, a clutter of this and that, unopened and unpaid bills in little piles amid junk mail and flyers and I think that perhaps I can’t act on my faith, but I might act on clearing the clutter and maybe, in some small way, this will help – but I’m not sure how and I can’t help but think it’s just another distraction. The dog is nestled in pillows on the bed, curled into a cozy ball of warm fur and downy pillows. She’s snoring lightly and it makes me smile.

Re-volution

I imagine that looking at the world from outer space it appears to change little from minute to minute. I imagine that you could look at this brilliant blue and green sphere for a good long time and like looking at a marble it wouldn’t appear to change much over the course of say an hour or a day with the exception of the angle of the light (and maybe the patterns of the clouds).

And then we zoom in on this little beach, with its relentless rolling waves and wind. Every time a wave washes in it displaces a little sand, carries something in and something out with it. All and all over the course of a typical hour, while there is a million little changes going on, they’re not tremendously obvious albeit perceptible to anyone paying attention. Sure the beach changes quite dramatically over the seasons. In winters the heavy surf carries the sand out of the tide pools and deepens them. In the spring a river cuts the beach in two and brackish water is home to a bounty of little fish. The longer one looks at this beach, truly the more changes one is apt to see – from the more obvious waxing and waning tides to the more sublime new set of delicate prints left from a crab scuttling across the softer sands. The closer one looks at the details, the more changes are apparently going on.

Put the magnifying glass on a higher resolution and narrow the scope to simply this little tide pool. Nearly every time the water washes in and out the entire ecosystem of the pool appears to change. New life brought in, residents who’d perhaps been there awhile or maybe even just taken hold carried away. Perhaps the only truly permanent fixtures being the lava rocks that bank it and the sea slugs that lay a little more solid for their weight. From the perspective of the tide pool the world is in constant movement from chaos to short-lived order to chaos again. Sometimes, at low tide, there is a protracted period of calm. But even peacetime carries with it it’s own set of threats and upsets. From the perspective of the tide pool, change and movement is incredibly obvious. Turmoil is the natural order of things.

Earth is such a pretty word (I say it in my head and under my breath – air-tha’). I think of all the names men might have given this planet and Earth is a perfectly fine choice, but I don’t think it would have been mine. And while I think about such lofty things as naming the planet, I’m really most thrilled to notice today that my toenails have grown back (a trouble likely due to poor-fitting hiking boots.) Because my toenails, why those are part of the tide pool that is me. My beliefs, those would be something of the lava rock that banks it. Ed, Cassie and a host of others, they would likely be my sea cucumbers. (The funny thing is that when you poke at a sea cucumber they dispel everything from their stomachs. Heh.) Secret Agent Dog, maybe she’s something like a barnacle, sticking to my beliefs.