neural urban renewal

I take a different route. For each day's walk, I go a different way. I go my own way, to paraphrase Fleetwood Mac. Sometimes spontaneous, other times quasi-premeditated. Best is when I embark on a different compass point from the day before. How long can I maintain this variation? The array of streets, avenues, places, drives, boulevards, circles, and lanes is finite. Both the thoroughfares and each day's combination, however haphazard, are finite. The possibilities are not endless, but are they inexhaustible, given the number of days and scenarios available to me? 

Walking out the door, I have a choice. Before walking out the door, I have a choice: Which door? Exiting the Harbor Street side, I obey the sidewalk invitation and refrain from walking on the grass, the grass cancering yellow on its verges. Or I walk out the basement door, near the playground on Emerson, climbing up its steps, a sheet of wind rippling me. Less often, I proceed out via the main lobby; less often in the Age of Coronavirus because of too many chances to encounter fellow residents and other humans, masked or unmasked. 

Which direction?

Toward Tipp Hill? Downtown by way of West Genesee? Downtown by West Fayette Street? Or toward Solvay, on Milton, toward the post office, the paperboard plant, 690, or steep hills hiding munificent mansions in a blue-collar, our-own-electricity town? Maybe industrial, treatment plant-bounded Hiawatha Boulevard slouching toward Destiny? Possibly toward Camillus, zigzagging into suburbia with its mulched gardens, 5 p.m. IPAs, and lace-curtain lonelinesses? 

I suppose I could inspect a map and plot out the precise scenarios left to me. I could chart all the itineraries untrammeled, navigable, and still available. That's not me. What a buzzkill that would be. Add this to your algorithm: Walking to the other side of the street (any street or part of a street) to break up the sequence, to foster the illusion of newness.

Is that it, is that why I insist on these new pathways?

Behold, I make all things new. (Book of Revelation)

Or is it something to do with rebooting, rewiring, overwriting, reframing, and recasting? 

History is a nightmare from which I am tring to awake. (James Joyce)

Don't stroke victims need to embark upon fresh nerve patterns, new neural pathways, to accomplish tasks formerly taken as a given?

Rinse, recalculate, recalibrate.

If it wasn't a stroke, what was the cerebral/spiritual upheaval? Where was (is) its seismic epicenter?  

We are told: Do not leave the teahouse by the same path upon which you entered it.

The journey of a thousand miles . . . . etc., etc., that cliche.

The road not taken?

Take them all. All of them. Individually and collectively.

Walk them all, every which way. And back again.

Then tell us about it.

 

hole in the donut

Waiting to board an Adirondack Trailways bus bound for New York from Syracuse, I spied a sign in the distance at the Dunkin' Donuts in the regional transportation center. 

The sign read, "DO A DOZEN."

Or did it?

Now picture a doughnut, or donut, if you will, in place of each letter "O."

"D A D ZEN." 

I pointed out this oddity, coincidence, novelty, or providential message to the prospective passenger sitting in front of me on a metal bench.

"I've never been on a bus," she felt compelled to confess.

"Never? How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"How about a train?"

"No."

"Plane."

"No." Self-conscious chuckle.

"A school bus?"

"Yes."

What Dad Zen wisdom could I impart to this brave-new-worlding daughter of her dad?

A smile, a reassuring voice.

"I wonder if it's late. I'll check," Zendad offered.

What is Dad Zen? you might ask.

If there is no self, wouldn't that rule out Dad Zen, as well as Mom, Son, Daughter, Brother, or Sister Zen?

Having no self, do we become the hole in the doughnut? 

But in doing so, are we made whole?

In Step Three of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill Wilson observed that someone, especially a fledgling seeker, might be afraid of taking a leap of faith, a surrender to Somebody or Something. Such a BraveNewUniverser might be afraid of becoming "the whole in the doughnut."  

Becoming a doughnut hole isn't just a clever Dunkin' marketing ploy.

Willing to risk becoming the hole in the doughnut takes a leap of faith, as Soren Kierkegaard put it.

Who wouldn't be afraid to take a leap of faith? Where do we fall to? Who or what catches us? Are we bruised? 

And what or who are we after The Fall?

There you have it.

It?

Alan Watts says, "This is It."

So be it.

Later, having arrived in NYC, I see In front of La Mode cleaners on Broadway near 109th Street, an Asian man wearing a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word "DAD."  

Was he practicing Dad Zen? 

(Or subliminally advertising DO A DOZEN?)

I've been staying with friends on 108th Street.

There are 108 mala beads.

A baseball has 108 stitches.

It's Opening Day.

I'll have a bagel with a schmear.
 

arriving at 'Arrival'

Having seen the movie 'Arrival,' I am left to wonder: ah, why was there not more wonder in the movie? Why was there not more 'ah'? They tried, but mostly missed the dazzling facial glows of 'Close Encounters.' They (the scriptwriters, producers) tried, too, to touch on the inevitable nexus between immanence and transcendence. But it is, in the end, a movie, a Hollywood one at that. I salute this much: despite the cliche of the threat of military intervention (I won't spoil the plot) and despite some other tropes, the production had some gravitas. 'Arrival' touched on our human yearning for connection, as well as our propensity to sever connection (e.g., kill, destroy, alienate). And 'Arrival' touched on language in a fresh way. As a wordsmith, I enjoyed that. It earnestly sought to be optimistic. I'll give it that. I did not dislike the movie. (Is that damning with faint praise?) It had more simplicity and less noise than most films like this. I confess to having experienced a chill run down my spine at some moments. So that's powerful, right? I will close by saying that the immanence and transcendence the movie sought to evoke is ineffable ultimately. (Is it not?) Which is why we have art and silence and poetry and image and dance and breathlessness and pulse and no-thing-ness.

you turn

At the intersection of Lowel and Whittier (Syracuse streets named after authors), the driver in the SUV slowed, stopped, and began a U-turn. (A woman in her fifties, she was -- to recall more accurately -- driving a CRV, one of those so-called crossovers, and for all I know it was literally a Honda CRV.) She completed three-quarters of the U-turn. I was at the intersection's stop sign, getting ready to turn left. The only other traffic was a car to my left on Lowell. I slipped through and proceeded to make my left turn. I wasn't in a big hurry, though I was a bit later than I'd planned to be on the way to a pre-Mother's Day "tea and dessert" with Mom, 99, and the seniors at her independent-living facility. I didn't impatiently beep my horn or wave my arms. The driver witnessing all this, on Lowell to my left, who couldn't go anywhere anyway except backwards, sported a beaming smile. In her twenties, hair tied up, she flashed an exuberant, bright-toothed smile of wonder and delight. It said, "Look at you, maybe you are lost. you've decided to correct your 'mistake' and do a 180. How sweet. Isn't life grand!" Or notions along those lines. Her smile was rich, patient, buoyant -- and unmistakably genuine. I was immediately grateful that I had not beeped my horn or waved my arms. I was also relieved I had not given U-Turner the finger or yell to no one in the car, "What's the matter with you? What are you doing? How dare you slow me down? What is this country coming to?" I first thought the two female drivers knew each other or were related. I assumed Smiler's breezy tolerance was several doses of "hey, that's cool, we'll find the place, no hurry, we'll get there, I'm good." But as I drove on, on Lowell, with U-Turner in my rearview mirror, Smiler was nowhere to be seen. Now it appeared that Smiler and U-Turner were strangers to each other, as they were to me. With U-Turner in my rearview, searching Tipp Hill slowly for her destination, I had a revelation. Why is familiarity the pretext for kindness? Why couldn't Smiler be someone who took the world in stride, as it came to her, at its own speed, someone who took the "good" with the "bad" equally, not personally offended or distraught by life's disturbances or challenges? Before you dismiss this view of life as either sappy/sentimental or deranged (and I get that, I really do), think again. (Or feel again. Neuroscientists tell us there is no difference biologically and neurochemically between thinking and feeling.) Aren't we offered many moments in every day with an opportunity to be either the Smiler or the FingererGrowler? I am not suggesting that I (or you) can inhabit a Hallmark, gauzy world of inhuman tolerance, or walk or drive in a hazy, psychotic fugue of benign delight. 

Well, maybe I am.

p.s. This episode reminded me of Splashed Woman of Times Square, in the Eighties, who got doused by a cab. It drenched her. I witnessed this, fifty yards away, on my way to work. She laughed.

Iceland, day 2.4: Geysir, onward upward

The sun was setting and dusk falling as we approached Geysir, just before 1700 hours. The area is a bubbling cauldron of fire and ice, just what Iceland is known for and marketed as. As one first approaches, there is a small steaming hole atop a small rise, surrounded by ice. Little signs throughout warn that the water is hot: 100 degrees Celsius or more. That means: boiling hot. Still, I wanted to reach in and just touch the water quickly, the way a WET PAINT sign counterintuitively beckons one to touch. But I did not. Some of these hot springs, which abound in Iceland, are always percolating and are not active as geysers. Our word in English borrows from the Icelandic place name of Geysir and the Icelandic word, which borrows from Old Norse: to gush, gusher, to pour. As a wordsmith, I had reverence for the place for this reason alone. How often does one experience such etymological originalism, or word-birtherism? Icelanders bake bread in the hot ground near here and other places, for 24 hours, but I neither saw nor bought any. I saw one or two other bubbling craters before seeing the large, active one, Strokkur, as in "churn," which had people shrieking and jostling some twenty yards away. The experience is oddly lunar, here and elsewhere, though how would I know, never having traversed the lunar landscape. (And there's no water shooting into the air there.) I walked up to THE geyser. It had just "gone off." some little kids were laughing; perhaps they were a tad too close and got doused with mist. Up on a slight incline, I was not worried about that. From the prior bursts, you could see which way the wind was carrying the steamy plumes. A low, chained fence kept people at a safe distance. We were told this active geysir goes off approximately, but unpredictably, every 2 to 8 minutes. A pool of water, perhaps 20 to 30 feet in diameter, percolated and rippled. Then it would start to heave, as if it were breathing, or as if it were a creature getting ready to cough. without exact warning, BOOM it bursts upward vigorously like a rocket launch with an iridescent blue at the bottom hurling skyward and turning steam white and exploding into the air. It pauses as a column, some 75 feet high, and starts dispersing downwind. I stayed to witness two or three eruptions close at hand. Having been warned about the difficulty of timing, I did not attempt to photograph or video record it. My battery was low anyway. More than that, I knew it'd be a futile attempt and I wanted to take this in and let it surprise me. Of course, that was in line with the explicit purpose of the whole trip: to reset my true north bearings by taking in new surprises, to see what would be revealed -- around me, in front of me, in me. The eruption was cleansing. And innocent fun. Erupt, release, spray, spout off, churn, release pressure, recharge: it was all there as the perfect natural metaphor machine. And onward and upward, too. As is said of the wind itself (as well as spiritual matters), one never knows exactly where it comes from or where it goes, or when. Same here. This seemingly endless geyser gives the appearance of everlastingness, though it merely happens to be "alive" now. It has not always been active and, like Geysir itself, can become dormant or more quiet.

We headed into the sunset, darkness enveloping us. Trond played some Icelandic music. It was a long and wondrous day in the Golden Circle. I drifted off to half-sleep on the way back to Reykjavik. We stopped in the cold dark to view the Northern Lights, off the highway, taking advantage of the absence of light pollution. If it were not for Trond pointing out the subtle greenish-blue wave above the horizon, which became two fairly distinct waves, I would not have discerned it as aurora borealis. I would not known where to look and would have expected (there's that word again) shimmering, Technicolor flamboyance. So, it was not postcard-dramatic, but observable and a fitting cap to the day. 

crash-wrapped

I woke up to see the mosaic-looking pockmarks of broken so-called safety class consisting of the (now former) rear (driver's side) window of my car. Technically, I was seeing this hours after awaking. But it was my first venture outside. Past 11 a.m. I have typically expected this. Or Something Mischievous, e.g., slashed tires. Call it the cost of urban living, though I suppose it can happen anywhere. I suppose. I suspect a bullet, but when the police officer arrives, within an hour or close to it, he discounts that theory instantly, allowing it could have been a BB (no, not Brigitte Bardot; but what is the origin of BB?) and maybe a rock (unlikely) but some sort of projectile, given the dot and its radiating beauty of glass-beaded destruction. I was more pissed off than -- than what? sad? hurt? More or less, dismayed by the stupidity and annoyance of it all.

Since the glass place said they can't replace the window until Thursday (this "event" was Monday), I drove over there, so I could procure a temporary remedy, in case of rain, and to protect me (i.e., my car) from the exposure of naked air, and from the potential for raw entry into my vehicle that holds no valuables, at least in my eyes (children's books? CDs?).

They put some "crash wrap" on it (sort of like shrink wrapping the damage, or keeping it frozen in time in the hot summer day). I joked with the lady at the desk: "'Crash wrap'? I could use some of that every day." Smiles in the waiting room. 

Crash wrap.

True.

Who doesn't need some crash wrap for one's psyche, soul, spirit, person -- almost daily?

And, boys and girls, what exactly, in your view, would that spiritual balm, that crash wrap, consist of? What would it be?

labyrinth

Yesterday I walked a labyrinth. What does it mean today?

The quick answer is, "I don't know." The longer answer is: "I don't know, but I will share here with you my succinct next-day postlabyrinth reflections."

The labyrinth in this case was at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in the rolling, emerald, June, cumulus-shadowed hills of the Berkshires. "Kripalu: explore the power of you." It is a winding path bedecked on its sides by swaying or bobbing flowers, the path consisting of wood chips. It is not a maze with false dead ends and blind alleys and false starts and false finishes. It is a winding path that in a sense you cannot stray from. At its end is a statue of Buddha and a statue of an angel with evidence of previous pilgrims: folded notes, (presumably) petitions, and queries. Coins (pennies, nickels), apples and other fruit, candles, burnt incense. The detritus of spiritual search.

I was instructed that before entering the labyrinth, one can pose a question or riddle or quandary. Pose to whom? I don't know. The universe, the inner self, the labyrinth. I posed no specific question, query, quandary, or any other word beginning with Q. Perhaps I was afraid of the weight of such a proposition. I was also told to breathe in and out, a certain number of prescribed inhalations and exhalation, before embarking. I tried some of that but lost count. My labyrinthine companion posed a question or item of some sort to the cosmos before walking the labyrinth. The topic? That's between her and the air.

Although I was not alone on the labyrinthine path, I was alone. And so it must be. Only I can walk my path.

I wanted to know the names of flowers, those aside from the obvious daisies (day's eyes), with their unnameable hues, fragrances, and textures. Why? The are fine without names. They are there, naked and real.

I saw two bees, gathering pollen. Busy as you-know-whats. I stopped. I watched. I delighted in them. I was not afraid of being stung. As I began again on the path, one of the bees swirled toward me. I thought it might sting me. It did not. But if it did, so what.

I walked barefoot for a while.

I closed my eyes at times.

I opened my ears, the birds, the breeze, the rustling branches.

At the end, after the end point with the statues, the end point becomes the starting point for walking back. It was an altogether different path. The same path was not the same path. It was now a path stained by me and my own just-traversed path experience.

The walk back (a relative term) seemed easier. I wanted to hurry.

You know how people say, "God has a plan for me?" I often have trouble with the marionette aspects of that phrase. But as for labyrinths, I felt this afterward, about this labyrinth: we each have a path; it might even be the exact same path for each of us. But it is infinitely different for each of us. (Reminds me a bit of "Labyrinths," or maybe "Ficciones," by Jorge Luis Borges, a favorite of mine in my youth.)

As it should be.

The Online Etymology Dictionary adds this for you to chew on:

labyrinth (n.)

c. 1400, laberynthe (late 14c. in Latinate form laborintus) "labyrinth, maze," figuratively "bewildering arguments," from Latin labyrinthus, from Greek labyrinthos "maze, large building with intricate passages," especially the structure built by Daedelus to hold the Minotaur near Knossos in Crete, from a pre-Greek language; perhaps related to Lydian labrys "double-edged axe," symbol of royal power, which fits with the theory that the labyrinth was originally the royal Minoan palace on Crete and meant "palace of the double-axe." Used in English for "maze" early 15c., and in figurative sense of "confusing state of affairs" (1540s).

managing newness

In a profile in The New Yorker on Apple's design maestro Sir Jonny Ive, Ian Parker declares, "Ive manages newness." Managing newness. It's a daunting challenge, I am sure. And when you are in front of the forefront of the avant garde, as Apple is, it is even more of a task. But when you come right down to it, isn't that the daily challenge for you and for me? Newness unfolds in every moment. Nothing is permanent. The world is being created anew as I type this and as you read it. Newness abounds, physically and metaphysically. How do we manage it? With what tools or resources? With wild abandon or strict discipline? Toward what end? Managing newness. As it is written, "Behold, I make all things new."

internal medicine

I saw a sign on a doctor's office:

INTERNAL MEDICINE

What is that? Does a priest practice internal medicine? Is it what a metaphysician looks into? And then what would external medicine consist of?

posture

Someone corrected another's posture. If it were a ballet class, I can see it. The pupils of dance want corrective measures. I suppose they do in the zendo too, but not in the same way. Imagine walking into church and being remonstrated for not making the sign of the cross "properly." Maybe it's just me. A problem with authority. But who likes to be "corrected"? Then again, one of my daughters has called me, an editor, Mister Corrective. Perhaps it boils down to how; it translates to tone. In a religious or spiritual setting, can you judge moral posture by physical posture? I tend to think not. And yet my morning zen reading spoke of body and mind being unified. So, yes, I understand the Eastern tradition's emphasis on form, such as during the tea ceremony. Perhaps that is why the master archer told Eugen Herrigel, in "Zen in the Art of Archery," you can miss every shot and still be a master archer. I must be a Westerner at heart. You might have a stance and a swing like Ted Williams, but you still need to get hits to be a good batter.

sayonara haiku

My friend-brother-seer-sage-compadre-bro-coffeemate-guru-buddy Warren (a.k.a. Joe) left town yesterday, on a new, more southern (less snowy) boulevard after some 40 years along these salty Syracuse streets.

I am already feeling the presence of his absence here at Freedom of Espresso at Franklin Square, not far from where he lived with his sparkling wife, here as I now tap the laptop keys, listening to Bob Dylan sing "Desolation Row," at the time of day we typically huddled, laughed, cried, cavorted, exchanged, narrated, gossiped, encouraged, wondered, reminisced, hoped, and bonded [note that serial comma, Joe].

tall skinny latte

conversation atmosphere

hot cinnamon truth

'This Is Water'

Bookstores grant me a galvanic pleasure bordering on the manic, or the erotic, or both. I want to draw in the delight of delicious words: by digestion, in morsels or by the mouthful; by injection; by osmosis, by obsessive-compulsive-disorder savant memory; by paper or electronic note taking. I am the kid in the candy shop with eyes as big as donuts.

Tonight I borrowed from the shelves a collection of W.S. Merwin poetry, a collection of poetry by Amber Tamblyn (Bang Ditto), The Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Everyman Library edition), and This Is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life, by the late David Foster Wallace.

I sat down in the cafe and read some of Amber Tamblyn's poems. Very witty. Telling. Scathing. Confessional. I truly enjoyed one poem about hating haiku (not necessarily what you think) (actually, I read that while standing by the shelf, just as I earlier pored over Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity?, an apologia, as we used to say in Latin) as well as Amber Tamlyn's "Hate, A Love Poem," if I remember its title correctly.

But finances and time being what they are, I read David Foster Wallace's "manifesto" in one sitting. Was I borrowing? Or stealing? Rest assured, I felt little guilt. After all, I first encountered reading in a bookstore at City Lights Books, in San Francisco, in 1974. (You lie, Pawlie, or else why would you be writing about such issues?)

This Is Water is adapted from a commencement address David Foster Wallace gave in 2005 to the graduating class at Kenyon College. He never gave another such address, the book-jacket flap says. Someone decided to publish it, handsomely, after his death in 2008.

I had browsed through the book once before; this time I felt an urgent need to read through it. Not sure why.

And I freely confess I was rather floored by its title, This Is Water. [Some versions of this still float around the 'Net, but I felt better about linking you to a site for purchase of the "authentic" version of this pamphlet.]

Was it serendipity or unconscious connection to pick up this book, following on the heels of my last post, on water?

I once met David Foster Wallace very briefly, which is a semi-humorous story in itself for another time.

He died last year, a suicide. I found out about his tragic death after returning from a friend's wedding, in Ithaca, on a day that also happened to be my son's birthday (which is how I remember the exact day).

Many of those who eulogized David Foster Wallace (who happened to have Ithaca connections), this year and last, in The New Yorker, and on a PRI radio feature, spoke achingly of his gentleness and wit and understanding of American culture.

All of those things come through in this little gem of an essay, made all the more haunting and sad by its references to suicide.

I will not dare (or be so rude) to summarize This Is Water. I already feel like a cheapskate in not having bought it. I do not want to cheapen its message, or its delivery. (Not to say I can't buy This Is Water at some point, for myself or someone else or shave my head and give copies to pedestrians on South Salina Street.)

I can, however, report that I am glad I read it tonight, sitting in that cafe. Yes, it made me rueful (hey, if one can be rueful, can one also be rueless?). But it also made me a bit wiser.

Wrong word.

Attentive?

Braver?

Alive?

Aliver?

L'eau de lune

"I read the news today, oh boy . . . "

Actually, I didn't read the news; I heard it on NPR. (Who reads news anymore anyway? Sad.)

The news I refer to is that scientists studying stuff brought back decades ago from the Apollo missions have found molecules of water (water-bearing minerals, more accurately).

One scientist said, "This is not your grandmother's water." It's not oceans, or even puddles, or even liquid. Nor is it solid or gas. It is something else.

And surprising.

Surprising.

One scientist said she was so surprised she thought her instruments needed to be calibrated.

Water. We thought we knew you. We thought we understood intimately this building block of life. In our thirst for knowledge, we thought the word "water" in its infinite connotations and denotations quenched something. We were cocksure that, well (pun intended), water was at least wet, and close to solid in the frozen north, as solid as "meaning." But, alas, Water, we hardly knew you.

Water. Just a word, just a concept.

And how many other watery definitions will slosh down the drain of certainty as our world, our cosmos, rocks us with surprise?

How many other words turn out to be just like, um, water?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Hamlet," Act 1 scene 5

Take This Book

. . . break it open, and digest it.

Take This Bread is a deliciously nourishing memoir. At least for me.

You'll have to decide for yourself.

At least the author is true to the biographical etymology of San Francisco, that's for sure.

"In

an

utter

emptiness

anything

can

take

place."


John Cage

Dish Network Disabled

Lying in bed last night around 11 p.m., just after reading Larry Woiwode's A Step From Death memoir, I was jolted out of my incipient, albeit typically restless, slumber.

The dishes!

The dishes were lying in the sink and on the counter, not a lot of them, but, still, the remains of the day, more accurately the evening, the detritus of plates and bowls and silverware; a small frying pan; some glassware and cups.

What will this do to my vow of never waking up again to dishes from the night before?

I decided to let it be, not to arouse from the bed and disturb the universe.

I decided the point was to observe, to see, to learn; that the point wasn't the dishes themselves. The point was me (or the lack of me).

Remember what Robert Pirsig said in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Something like, "The motorcycle you are working on is yourself."

I did them today.

No guilt.

Pleasure, in fact.

The Topography of Pain

About six weeks ago, I slipped on black ice. I didn't fall to the ground, but my left leg went flying out from me, asunder from the mainframe, making feel as if a bullet had entered my hamstring. It was evening. I almost thought I might pass out from this breathtaking shock, or that I'd need to call from my cellphone to get help into the house. I managed to walk, got some traction, and limped through the home portal.

Several days later, in the shower, I noticed a shocking but luridly beautiful bruise running from the back of my upper thigh, near my groin, to well below my knee, down to the calf almost to my ankle. A bruise without even falling. I asked BalletDaughter, who witnesses or experiences many leg injuries, is that possible? Have you seen it? Yes. Ice it. R.I.C.E., which, I think, stands for rest, ice, compression, elevation. I iced it in Germany. The bruise more or less bled downward and dissipated. But I can still feel the tug of the pulled hamstring from certain movements.

Bruises.

They take a long time to heal. A very long time.

Especially the unseen ones, outside the domain of the physical.

What acronym, as in R.I.C.E. above, would be recommended for the healing of spiritual bruises?

Epidural Tensionitis

Google the term "thin-skinned," and you'll see an array of references to wrinkles, skin care, spa treatments, etc. That sort of stuff. (Well, I correct myself: you'll see more of that if you search "thinness of skin.")

Thin: now, there's a word larded with layers of meanings.

Face it (a face with wrinkles called "laugh lines," or "laughorist lineage," in my case): today I had a bad case of what I'll term epidural tensionitis.

The tensile strength of my outer psychic layers (id est, skin) was sensitive to the slightest touch. In this case, one micromanaging workplace e-mail, laden with perceived power, threat, and insult, sent to me tipped the scaly scales of my spiritual skin today.

Ever have those days?

Urban Legends 3

Phonics

Wearing a straw hat that gives me a slightly Amish look, I walk the dog in the hot dusk. Up by the muni pool, a kid asks me if I have a cellphone he can borrow. "No," I quickly lie. His eyes catch me. We size each other up, face to face. He says, "I'm tryin' to find my brother and I can't find him. I don't know where he's at up here." "Your brother?" I say, almost adding, "You don't know where your own brother lives?" He gets the implication just the same and says, "Not my brother like dat. My friend, I'm looking for my friend for about twenty minutes. I can't find him." The private joke between us is that we both could be laughing over this term brother, as if I don't get it but I do, and vice versa. He's tall, gangly, maybe 16; maybe 14. His bike is way too small for him, tricked out in duct tape around the handle bars and a peace symbol uniting several cables just above the front tire. I reach into my right pocket and take out my shitty, worn cellphone. I ask for the number he wants to call; he calls out the numerals; I punch in the digits. When it starts ringing, I hand him the phone. No answer. We try again. Finally, he gets a response. "Yo, where's your crib at? Hunh? I'm on it. I been up here waiting on you. For like twenty minutes. 270? Aaight." He gives me the phone. "Thanks," he says. "Have I good night," I say. He rides off, but I lose track of him, mildly curious as to which street he goes to. I walk the dog home, down the half-block.

Histrionics

After supper, I'm in my car, roll down the window, and approach Richaaargh. "Hey, Rich," I say. "I saw how you tracked down that hot rod the other night. You're crazier than I am." He says, "Yeah, I followed him all the way down the hill, even knocked on his door, but he wouldn't come out." I convey my doubtful admiration for Richaaargh's persistence. "I had to laugh when I saw you out there checking his car out with a flashlight. You're gonna get yourself killed." Rich laughs (though he's not The Laughorist). "His plates don't match the registration sticker." I tell Rich all he has to do is call the cops and they'll tow the Firebird Z28. "I know, " Rich says. "But I'm gonna get that car." "How's that?" I ask. "Next time, I'll stand in the road, and all he has to do is just touch me and I'll fall down, then the car is mine." I chuckle. "Well, then, we never had this conversation, then, did we, Rich?" I tell him. "What conversation?" he says, and I drive away.




Tonics
Not far from my neighborhood but oceans away in other respects, in the upper room, at the top of the church stairs, they are talking honestly and openly. I am late. No one seems to mind. Of the dozen or so in the room, I am the only white male. And an old one at that (but likely not the oldest person in the room; hard to say). No one seems to know, or mind. There is the occasional laughter, and yet an aura of serenity. When someone talks, no one interrupts. I sit by the window. I feel perfectly safe, as I close my eyes and listen and faintly smile. The breeze is a welcome tonic, as is the lilt of their voices, their stories, their journeys, their amens.

Mysteries of Fate and Transport

Fate and transport.

I love that term, even though it evokes a dreadful memory. Edit that to say, formerly dreadful.

First, the memory. Or, as Vladimir Nabokov memorably put it, in the wondrous title of a piercing and singular autobiography: Speak, Memory. (Anyone interested in writers or writing should check out the terrific essay at the link.)

It's 2002. I'm a technical editor and writer ("Project Specialist") at an environmental engineering firm. Oh. Let's speak it. (Why not? I am too old and detached from it to care or fear.) It was Blasland, Bouck & Lee, or BBL. (Today it goes by something like "BBL, an Arcadis company.") The client needs a chapter on the "fate and transport of constituents" at a contaminated site. We cannot, however, use the words "contaminated" or "contaminant" or "contaminants." In language -twisting the evil propagandist Joseph Goebbels could appreciate, we euphemistically call the pollutants or contaminants "constituents," evoking thoughts of the electorate or at worst neutral players in the drama authored by Mother Nature. I am tasked with writing Chapter 6, if I recall correctly, of a feasibility study (FS), or maybe it's a remedial investigation (RI). There's one problem: I am not in any manner an expert on the fate and transport of anything, certainly not constituents. I read up on everything I can find (articles, websites, in-house technical journals). I enlist the help a brilliant colleague, but he too is not an expert on fate and transport. But no one else wants to help; it is not corporately expedient. In fact, it is de rigueur not to help me. The real corporate expert, out in the Rocky Mountains, could conceivably help but does not, owing to schedule, distraction, indifference, malice, or, what?, his pending sex-change operation. He doesn't write one word to help me but charges 40-some hours to the project, for feck's sake. I can't sleep. My eyes are hollow. I am falling apart, ready to cry at anything or anyone. My therapist sees me in ruins. I work on drafts until 1 a.m. at home. I submit it to the clients. They hate it. My superior hangs me out to dry. That is my fate, transported there by misery and madness.

That was then.

Today, somebody at my current workplace mentioned something about aquifers, and it transported me back to those fateful days. Those former days were the beginning of the end of that toxic job.

Tonight, walking the dog, the sky bright at the horizon, a blue of Caribbean waters deepening into a nightly dark blue denim of dreams and blankets, starlit fabric heralding a creeping absence of day and light, I wondered at the fate and transport of the blossomed and billowing forsythias competing for hue and chroma with the double-yellow stripe in the middle of the park road.

I wondered at the fate and transport of emerald hills carpeted fresh and raw as any dusk in Ireland.

What is my own fate and how will I be transported there?

My mind bubbled with echoes of virility and nubility seen at the mall I just returned from (okay, I'll fess up: that's a highfalutin way to describe my ogling of scantily clad female beauty -- at least scanty compared to the coated cocoons of wintry dress sported round these parts for about nine months of the year).

Fate and transport. We see it all over.

I get home and a silverfish centipede scampers in the dark of the kitchen. I cringe at them. I fear and loathe them. I kill it by stepping on it with my shoes, slightly disappointed the dog or one of the cats didn't see it first to do my dirty work. Then it would seem more, um, natural.

Moments later, in the bathroom off the kitchen, it's a spider. I take a tissue and catch it and toss it into the toilet bowl while continuing with the fate and transport of the not-quite-forsythia-colored streaming of my personal constituents. After earlier browsing through Buddhist books and after buying A Book of Hours illustrated by my high-school teacher John Giuliani, I admit it wasn't kindly to Mr. Spider. Yes, I suppose I could've tossed him or her outside.

But I was in the middle of my own surficial water discharge/recharge cycle.

Nobody's perfect.

Such is my fate.

May this posting transport you to somewhere you have not been to before.

Tschuss.

P.S. As you know, I'm annoyed that the poster up above is missing the comma after wildlife; plus the rest of its punctuation is a dog's breakfast.