Morning Bus-Riding Thoughts

Bus photo from minnesota.cbslocal.com

I think the stress is getting to me, or I'm choosing to be stressed.  Some of both, probably.  I'm too sponge-like for my own good.  I tend to absorb the political angst around me - Republican efforts to dismantle unions, most recently.  It's sad seeing the ranks whipped up to hate and fear their own neighbors, their own public servants.  Meanwhile, corporate leaders preach about how American labor is too expensive, so they'll just move to Ireland.

I'm reading Thich Nhat Hahn's new book, Peace is Every Breath. I so often get seduced into thinking that all my worry-energy is something real, that some real kind of work is going on in my whirring brain.  Meanwhile I don't connect with the people right in front of me (right now, also on the bus, a couple of neighbors, Michelle and Barb, talking abuut cooking some kind of potsticker, or how best to handle tofu).

The sun is veiled with a thin cover of cirrus clouds over the downtown buildings as we pause at Nicollet Mall to do the big bus-rider exchange, letting my neighbors go on to their connecting routes and bringing on new passengers for the University's West Bank or South Minneapolis.  It's unexpectedly cold this morning, an icy wind bringing down the temperature in spite of the sun's efforts to melt the skating rinks on the sidewalks.  I've started leaving my big clunky Sorel® boots at home (handed down from a growing son), as most sidewalks are clear by now.  I'll don them again tomorrow, with yet another snow fall predicted.

Let me pledge to return to awareness of my breath, of my body moving in space, surrounded by other breathing, parka-wrapped mammals.  Let me pause to savor moments of beauty.  Let me pause before speaking, with intention that my words reflect kindness and compassion, not an aim to defend myself.  Let me cultivate hope.  Let me know and express gratitude.  Let me dare to be alive, to try newness, to grow.

It's Thawing a Bit

Now that I'm done with my January challenge of writing a "small stone" each day, I'm not sure what rhythm I'll find for blogging.  But I'm having fun with photos.  In the last few days, it's thawed a bit, which made going out for a friend's Ph.D. graduation party feel fun instead of daunting, and which has made the river flow more openly.  I even switched to a parka instead of my boot-length down coat!

 But the weekend itself has been pretty gray, a bit foggy at times.  Good napping weather.

Where have I been? Stacking up small stones.

My January challenge to do a "small stone" each day (moment captured in language) is coming along nicely- take a peek.

Having fun with small stones

 I accepted a challenge to write a "small stone" each day in January, and so far have done so.  For more info about this challenge, see the notice at the right.

It's unexpectedly - challenging!  (The point is to actually pay close attention, at least one moment during the day, and describe it in words.)

I happened upon this challenge at Mel's place - she's doing it too.

Write Hard / Die Free

I am just now catching my breath from the Christmas part of the holidays.  Last-minute shopping, wrapping, delivering, unwrapping, and feeding has taken place. My son Tim, living in NYC, has come and gone for a quick visit (dropped off at the airport at 6:00 a.m. this morning). The University made the decision to be closed over this whole week, though faculty and academic staff have ostensibly been working from home. I have done some email, and have some other projects I'll try to get to tomorrow, but I'm likely not to have much to show for myself work-wise for this week. There is still some smoked salmon left over for tonight in the refrigerator, and I'm feeling no urgency.

My favorite present came early, perhaps intended partly as a birthday present, from my youngest brother in Alaska.  Here it is:

Actual size less than an inch wide - with a hook to use it as a zipper pull.  It's a riff on a Hells Angels motto, and I'm delighted to have it.

I'm never quite as much alive as when I am writing, though meditation is good to do as well. Writing brings me back to a sense of being myself, irreducible, unchanging at the core.  It helps me dive below the flotsam and jetsam at the surface to what lies below.  I think I've been waiting for things to clear on their own, instead of pushing aside the surface distractions to reconnect with what is important. 

I've been spending the last couple of days, in between things, catching up on some blogs, and being inspired once again to clear my throat and and find voice for my thoughts and observations. 

Let this be my New Year's endeavor to Write Free, to write freely, to be free to write, to free up the writing.

Addendum:  if any of you are particularly interested in an online writing community (fiction, poetry, and more) particularly oriented to young adults (or writers with young adult readers in mind), check out Figment.  I've recently spent a couple of late evenings browsing among the posted writings, some by published authors trying out new material, and some by unpublished young writers looking for feedback.

Autumn visit to Idaho

I didn't get a summer vacation trip this year, but I did take a short autumn trip to Idaho last week - more like summer, as it turned out, with heat in the mid to upper 80s all week.  But the shadows were long, morning and afternoon, and the evening came early.  My younger brothers were down from Alaska, each of them for a month but overlapping for the week I was there.  My older brother and younger sister live in Idaho, so the five of us were all there for the first time in several years.  Our parents are amazingly fit - little change over the past decades, with their travel and church involvement and keeping up a very attractive house.  But they are in their 80s, which is hard to believe. 

I found myself with an odd double-vision - seeing my brothers and sister as young when they are, at least chronologically, middle-aged at the very least.  My parents seem unchanging, and I feel very much my youngish, unformed self when I am there.

The time passed too quickly.  I was back in Minnesota before I had a chance to have any real insights into the big questions of time passing, love and yearning and loss.  I also didn't get quite caught up on my sleep while I was there, then was propelled into rapid motion for the rest of the work week when I returned.

It's full-bore autumn back here in Minnesota.  I watched a swirling mass of leaves torn from the trees yesterday on campus.  For some reason it came as a big surprise.

And the neighbors are already decorating for Halloween. 

Gee - where have I been all my life?

Well - I'm back.  Sorry it's been a while since I've showed up in this place.  When I was wondering what I could say about the quickly-vanished summer, it felt as though there wasn't much there that I could even remember, and I haven't laid down much of a bread-crumb trail of photos.  Lots of fun with our curly, snuggly dog, certainly.  A couple days of vacation here and there, mostly used in sleeping.  Reading/listening to some cool books (the star event was The Yiddish Policemen's Union - now, that was amazing).  

The main event has been another in the long repeated-earthquake-series changes in my workplace, but they say that's the new normal.  I have a new boss and a new office (which has, however, the same view over the playground across the street).

My colleagues are mostly the same.  My duties haven't changed much (some responsibilities gone, some added).

I've been wondering if external change is so exhausting because there's so much internal change that I'm not quite conscious of, in this year-I'm-pushing-60.  Sounds - and feels - so old, right now.  (No offense meant to those of you comfortably past that benchmark.)

I just did a google image search on the phrase, and the slogan below popped up several times.  I guess that's the next stage to contemplate.

As the days go by. . .

Same as it ever was . . .
Same as it ever was . . .

I had one of those poor-pitiful-me spates of feeling the time was just flipping by too dang fast today, so turned to trusty ol' Google to try to find what my memory wouldn't cough up in a hurry, that Talking Heads video about the futility of our Western way of life, or whatever it was about, that's haunted (and amused) me for some years.  But I couldn't remember the name of the group or the song, or any of the lyrics.  Putting in "Eighties Rock Music," and checking down the list of the first site I came to, I quickly found Talking Heads and equally quickly found a copy of the video. 

What always worked for me with this song was the undercurrent of the water running underground - from archetypal/Jungian work, it's been my image of the Unconscious, which is the source of being/consciousness itself, as well as the source of all creativity.



This  is a concert version rather than the original music video - I've enabled the privacy setting.

This evening's hour of journal writing - which is always good for me - and also finding, through a link to the first T.H. video, a blog by a young woman who writes against violence (and just today linked to a disturbing, recently-released MIA video imagining a fascist state rounding up and killing red-headed young men) - I'm feeling somewhat better about life, the universe, and everything.  Pushing 60 doesn't need to mean, as it did for my very much loved grandmother, giving up on everything I've ever dreamed about and imploding to late-in-life cancer. There are spiritual and intellectual and imaginative adventures (and works) still before me.

But it's also the case that hanging onto any fantasy of Making A Big Difference in the world is increasingly obvious as a big waste of time.

The Shaker hymn has it right: by turning, turning, we come round right.

Back to where we began, to know it truly for the first time. Which is in my case, an arid land of mountains and sagebrush.   (A big contrast to this rainy, rainy Minnesota green dripping place these past weeks.)

When the rain started (again) tonight, I had a series of quick memories of rainstorms coming through my mountain city in my girlhood, which was often a blessing - the drama of the building stormclouds, the echoes rocking back and forth, and lashing rain, and the cleansed, sparkling, cooled-down freshness after the storm had blown itself out.  These could come and go in an hour's time.  It always made me feel excited and secure, at the same time, summer storms.  None of the endless stickiness of this high humidity.

Perhaps I need to do some digging back and find the day-dreaming, hopeful girl I was (and still am), so I can ask the question: where do I want to go, with the arc of years ahead of me?

Before . . . and after . . .

Before . . .

. . . and after:

Happy spring, from Charlie the Dog.

Happy Friday on a cool but sunny mid-May day!

I'm still experimenting with my blog layout and have picked one of my May Day parade photos for now behind the title.

Breathe: a good reminder for the end of an unusually hectic week, no?

Yesterday, which was chilly and rainy, my colleagues and I were helpers at our college Commencement ceremony.  Because of the rain, we were forced to line students up along the basement corridors of Northrup Auditorium, using some ancient practice rooms to get people to fill out their name cards and put on their robes and (for the masters-level grads) their hoods, an archaic bit of velvet and silk that is a bit tricky to get on right (it needs to be pinned in the front if you aren't a male graduate, in which case the loop for your shirt button works; and it needs to be draped right, with the silk side pulled out at the bottom, but not too much).  Helping with the hoods allowed us to give people a bit of a reassuring pat, as they nervously fumbled with their caps and tassels and bobby pins and such.

These adult masters-level graduates were, it seemed, suddenly very young and shaky.  Starting something new, something unknown.  The energy is always amazing at these events.  Something about ceremony touches us deeply.

One young graduate, rushing through at the very last minute, left something precious on the table - a plastic bag with a certificate of cremation and a clay paw print of her recently deceased dog.  We could only speculate that she was bringing the spirit of a beloved long-time companion animal with her through this transition in her life.  Fortunately, the student's name and address was on the package, so I went back to my office after the graduates were safely delivered to the auditorium and hunted down her phone number and e-mail address.  Early today, I got a response - she had gone back hunting for this lost memento, and was pleased that I had kept it safe for her.

I had the sense that there was a story to be told about this beloved pet, but can only speculate about the loss coming right at the point of completing this difficult task of a masters' degree.

May she fare well in her new professional life.