The right connection

   As I walked in the park yesterday, I had an old, familiar but unwanted feeling. A sense of what could almost be described as dread, certainly negativity, pervaded my outlook. As is usual in these situations, I could not seem to muster any concrete ideas on how to change my view.

   Nearing the corner of the southeast side of Stow Lake, I saw a man that I once had an argument with, a man that I find disrespectful and bullying. I imagined that something bad was going to happen, and supposed that seeing him in some way justified my negative view of the world at that moment.

   I felt him look at me as we passed, and he let out a loud spit as I heard him turn around to call his dog. I sensed that it was directed at me, but kept on walking as if oblivious to his presence. I was glad that I did.

   I continued on, satisfied that I hadn't engaged outside of my own feelings, and a minute or so later approached a pleasant woman that I see almost daily, and with whom I've had some nice conversations about wonderful things that we had each recently experienced in the park.

   "Beautiful day" she said as we passed, and my mood instantly changed.

   I suddenly sensed a connection to the world, as if I hadn't had one for some time, even though I may have felt one recently. I just tend to forget the good things more easily than the negative ones.
    I realized at that moment in a visceral way that it is absolutely vital for me to try to focus on the positive relationships that I have, no matter their depth or complexity, and to reaffirm them often. It seems that I have difficulty recalling them with sufficient force to keep myself filled with the feelings that I get from them. Without them, I am often left feeling alone and fearful.

   

Self-editing

   I've had some things happen in my life recently, particularly in the last week, which have helped me to visualize the complex ways that I censor myself from doing what I feel.
   I was going to add the word heart to the previous sentence ("feel in my heart"), but realized that saying so might have been another way to split myself away from my feelings; it would posit that there was some kind of difference between my feelings, as if some were more essential or real than others.
   I'm glad that I caught myself.
   The experience which really allowed me to see a clear example of this occured through a relationship I have with a person that I would casually say hello to when I see them. This individual began doing something that I found bothersome and inconsiderate, although it didn't affect me directly. I became increasingly annoyed by the behavior, and decided to stop acknowledging them when we would pass.
   For the first few days, I could feel their gaze on me as my eyes would avoid them. I felt like I had a right to do what I wanted to in instances like this; after all, all that I really have in life that really belongs to me is my opinions and choices.
   Well, after a few days, while I was writing, I came to realize that I may be hurting this person for something that was not really terrible; they were just doing something that I didn't like or approve of. It became clear at that moment that this individual probably had a good heart. I didn't want to cause pain to that heart, nor others' if I could help it.
   The thought occured to me that perhaps I should talk with them about why I had stopped greeting them, explain my feelings, but I held back. I thought that the situation was not really that big of a deal, or that talking with them at all was perhaps too forward. It just seemed too something.
   It registered clearly to me as I thought on it that I often do this; I feel that I should do something, then stop from doing so the more I think about it. My rational interrupts what seems to be my true feelings.
   So I set out to try to repair the damage, ready to talk to, or simply say hello to them again when I saw them, but they ignored my gaze as we passed. I didn't want to force anything their way, realizing that they had probably been hurt by my sudden lack of friendliness. I'm pretty certain that they had no idea why I had stopped greeting them, but were now protecting themselves from me, and perhaps more pain.
   I understand now that I had done something similar; I had shielded myself from my own uncomfortable feelings about the world by protecting myself from it.
   I decided that I would continue to be open to repairing our very superficial relationship, and never stopped being open to acknowledge them, should they decide to look my way again.
   They did.
   "Nice hat" I heard as we passed on what was perhaps the third or fourth day after my intial avoidance of them, to which I replied, "thanks".
   I'm assuming that this person didn't really care very much about my hat, but figured that they too had probably decided to mend things. The hat seemed like it could be an opening for that. They were right.
   I believe now that it was my desire and ability to remain available in this circumstance that had allowed them to fill that opening with a gesture of warmth.
   It strikes me that although my relationship with this person was, and still is not significant in my life (I really know nothing about them), the experience was.
   I had made a true, meaningful connection with another person.

My unquiet mind

   As I watched the voter returns from the recent presidential elections, I was quite shocked by what I was witnessing.
   Like many people it seems, I was quite surprised as I watched the returns reported. Disappointed, for sure, but I didn't think about it much more than that as I got into bed for the night.
   Surprisingly to me, I had trouble falling asleep immediately, which was unusual, but imagined it a short alteration in my normal pattern. Perhaps it was inevitable after seeing the news I had just retreated from.
   As I tried to calm myself, I became aware that thoughts had changed; what had started as rapid, seemingly random thoughts about nothing in particular, had changed to particular ones about people who seemed to do whatever they wanted in the world, without apparent care for others.
   Unanswered questions formed in my brain, oscillating between the new President-elect of the United States, to a man who I see on occasion walking his dog in Golden Gate Park, then back and forth again and again. The man seems from the park seems to enjoy watching his dog attempt to catch squirrels, and did not care for my protestations when I confronted him about it. What seemed to unite these two individuals for me was that both men appeared comfortable in saying and acting as they wished, apparently at ease with themselves for being that way.
   I kept trying to fathom how a person could think like those individuals (Donald Trump, too, seems to say and do whatever he pleases), but came to no comfortable, calming conclusion. I couldn't imagine how one could act so inconsiderately and justify that behavior to themselves. That was what was so remarkable and hard for me to really understand.
   Personally, when I am angry or frustrated I can act in ways that I wished I had not. Still, I always feel really badly about it afterwards. Usually excessively so.
   Perhaps I couldn't quiet my mind because what I regard as selfish, inconsiderate people really do bother and disturb me. Or, maybe it was because I was so uncomfortable with wishing I could act below my own higher values without bitter self-judgment.

The clocks took the stars

   When I first moved to San Francisco, I was enamored by the beach. Getting there from where I lived in New York City was really a pain (and a commitment of the good part of a day), and I relished that here, in my new home, I could take a thirty minute ride on public transportation there. Later, I got a car, and it became even easier.
   In those first couple of years, I would walk the shoreline, enjoying watching groups of snowy plovers dart in and out of the receding waters. Often, I would sit at the top of the dunes, off to myself, and think.
   Later on, I started to drive on occasion to the Marin Headlands, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, to walk or look at California quail. Then, I discovered some of the beautiful spots in Golden Gate Park, closer to my apartment.
   It was here that I realized I could walk the same stretch of path around Stow Lake, taking in all of the life there, and have now done so for perhaps three years now. I am there now almost daily, and have rarely felt bored or tired of it. The animal life fluctuates to some extent by season, but it is mostly the weather and varying light that creates the nuances that keep me interested in a physical environment that doesn't seem to change that much.
   As the days have been getting steadily shorter during this late fall, the sunrise further and further away when I arrive, I have been able to experience early mornings that have on occasion been quite clear. I have been moved by the deepness of the sky, the clarity of the stars, and the sometimes beautiful glow of the moonlight.
   Many times, I just like to be part of an environment that is so dark and still.
   I have looked up to the sky, seeing signs of living that at the moment are every bit as vivid as the ones nearby me, including my body, Even though I  believe that those things are in some ways imperceptily far away, I still feel as related to that as I do to this. There is something about the sometimes near darkness, at other times deep blue illumination, that reminds me how little of the world I really know.
   I never really purported to know much of the world, anyway.
   Today marked the end of daylight savings time, and already I feel melancholic for that near-absence of light. Getting to the lake one hour earlier is not so feasible, and even if I did, I risk getting a ticket for parking there before 6:00 a.m.
   When I was there this morning, a guy who I see regularly made a comment about how light it was there today, and seemed pleased by the fact. Although it has been at times somewhat frightening in that early hour, with so few (sometimes, no other) people around, I have come to love it.
   In some ways, I feel like I had discovered something that didn't exist before for me.

Thoughts on me writing now

   I'm sitting here in the customer lounge at the Honda service center in San Francisco waiting for the recalled passenger side airbag in my car to be replaced.
   I first began this blog entry two days ago while sitting in a coffee shop, and quickly discovered that writing about this subject, me, is difficult.
   Normally, I begin with a subject of sorts, even if it's only a loose one, then proceed to weave in my thoughts and feelings about the thing. The writing is always of course about me, whatever the subject, but to begin with an 'idea' seems to keep me just enough from the rawness of my own feelings to make me more comfortable, and therefore a bit easier for me to write.
   I'm not trying to maintain here that writing should be easier, or that it should be anything in particular; only that I find that being still and completely available to myself makes it hard for me to be.
   I have just realized that I have been avoiding the subject again, so back to it.
   I am still sitting in the same chair that I began this piece, and I am aware that my breath is shallow, and that I am feeling both frightened and sad. Although I have a certain confidence in myself at this very moment, I'm not sure what part of this sense is true and what is defense. I only know that when I am still and really thoughtful, I can feel the child in me that is so afraid and unprepared to be in the world.
   It really takes some effort and concentration on my part to focus on the things in me which I want to avoid, and I continue to work at it. It is my belief (and hope) that an increseased knowledge of what is really going on with me will help me to not be so blind to why I think and act as I do.
   That being said, as I am experiencing some of those feelings now, I can't say that it feels good.
   To be truly aware of my fear and sadness makes it hard to face the world. I imagine going out into the street at this moment, no longer sheltered from it as I sit here in the service center's lounge, and I am fearful. It's apparent to me why I have developed so many techniques to avoid myself, and pleased in some way that I have not yet perfected how to unravel them regularly.

Light and dark

   It was approximately one hour before sunrise when I arrived in the park. Although it was quite dark as I began my walk, I noticed as I approached the southern part of the walking path around Stow Lake that I could see more clearly than I normally do at this hour, in this location, during this time of the year.

   It became obvious to me, suddenly, that the moon was visible clearly. It wouldn't be correct to say that it shone brightly, but it did illuminate the area well. The quality reminded me of the dullness of my poor quality flashlight bulb in the darkness.

   I took the picture above using my phone, and although the camera does not generally manage low light very well, on this occasion it captured the sky the way I saw it.

   I realized that it was both dark and light at that moment, which got me thinking about polarities, and how ready I often am to see people, situations and things as either good or bad. I don't mean that in the sense of good and evil, but still categorize my world in ways that blind me to the beauty of the grey areas, of the unknown. It is apparent to me that some categorization is important for protection, but these things are too-often overreaching in me. They also blind me to the subtle and minute, where I am able to best sense freedom.

   It was sublime the way I could see certain things sufficiently there off the walking path, the old rustic bridge, for example, while being keenly aware that it was just too early to be able to see anything clearly. That bridge looked like it was being represented as a memory in a film. 

   As I finish this blog entry, I am reminded of how important it is to have regular experiences of beauty and mystery in my life. It is these these things sustain and motivate me to continue on in a world that I often find so painful and uncaring.

My Adam's apple

   I stated to think about my Adam's apple the other morning as I was shaving.
   I have a rather unkempt beard, choosing to shave only occasionally the small areas under my less-than-prominent cheekbones and part of my neck, and these parts only every several days. When I do, it gives me occasion to look at my face in a closer way than I might normally.
   So today, as I ran the very sharp blades under my face, I moved the skin over the bump on my neck carefully so as not to cut myself. Looking more closely at this ungainly area, I started to think about it.
   Of course, the fact that it is referred to as an Adam's apple is not lost on me as my given name is Adam, and it has been for all of my fifty two years. Even so, the prominence on my neck does not feel like like it belongs any more to me than it does to others that possess this feature without the name aspect. It amuses me that language should refer to it as my apple, because it doesn't feel that way.
   I'm engaged by the fact that I only seem to pay any attention to this area when I need to avoid it, and am currently wondering how this may apply to other aspects of my life.
   For example, I believe that I may pay closer attention to some things in the world precisely because I don't feel the need to avoid those things. It would seem that a sense of security allows me to look more closely, yet I wonder if my fortified defenses have blinded me more than just a bit in this regard.

Six cents

   I was a bit nervous today as I began my morning walk around Stow Lake, having had a nasty verbal altercation with a man there yesterday. The man is new to the park, at least at the time when I am there, and he has a dog that he keeps off the lead, despite the reminders in multiple locations that they must be leashed.
   For a few days, I have seen this man doing what seems to be training of the animal, at times pointing to squirrels in the park to show them to the dog so it can run after them, which it does. On a couple of occasions, including yesterday, it got very close to catching one, which upsets me, so I confronted him about it.
   Probably needless to say, my words fell on deaf ears, and I became angry, cursing at him in the process. It unsettles me greatly when I lose my composure like this, all the more so that it should happen where it did, as I cherish the area as a place I can go to quiet my mind early in the day.
   Following the incident, and talking about it with several people, I decided that I would not let it go any further. Instead, I would focus on my own feelings about the man's behavior. I figured that my mental health and spirit were more important than anything else.
   So, as I began my walk this morning, I felt comfortable with my decision, though still with trepidation.
   As I turned to finish my first one mile lap, I saw him, and even though his dog ran over to me, which I found frightening, I kept my mouth shut, and a remarkable thing happened.
   A rush of fear suddenly welled up inside me, and I realized that the intensity of these feelings were similar to those I experienced when I had confronted him yesterday. It became clear to me at that moment that the anger that can feel so explosive to to me at times is almost certainly an expression of fear. I had felt unsafe around this man's behavior.
   There was anger, too, over my perception of his lack of care and consideration for others, but the intensity seemed to have more to do with how his behavior made me feel about myself.
   I think that I had known this before, but it had never been so obvious as it was then. It felt very empowering to know that I could see myself more clearly by containing myself better.
   As I continued my walk, I decided to take the road below the pedestrian path, as I often do, and found a nickel on the ground. I almost always pick up money when I see it, believing it be a kind of sign of good luck. I often hold coins in my hand after retrieving them, as if it gives me a feeling of security.
   This particular time, it felt like a reward for the control I had exerted over my reaction, and an added plus to the insight I had received from it.
   When I found another coin ten minutes or so later, this time a penny, the term "sixth sense" came to my mind as I looked at the two of them in my hand. Although this term alludes to the supernatural, there was something that felt quite out of the ordinary in this experience.

Moth on my window

   A couple of days ago, after finishing my morning walk in the park, I got into my car to go to work.
   I connected my phone to the auxiliary input so I could hear some music that I liked, and noticed something on my windshield. It appeared to me to be a moth, at least according to my poor knowledge of insects.
   Although I am not terribly fond of insects when they are in my apartment, I don't mind them much when I am outside, as San Francisco does not seem to have as many of, nor the types that would irritate me so growing up in New York City. Also, I recognize them as living things that are trying to make their way in the world, like me.
   So instead of using my car's windshield wiper or washer fluid to try to make the animal leave, I started off, figuring it would depart on its' own, peacefully.
   I starting driving, quite slowly as I was in the park, but it didn't move. Even as I sped up and exited onto the surrounding city streets, it didn't fly away, but instead moved to a different place, perhaps six inches away.
   At one point, while stopped at a red light, I thought that maybe it was dead and was somehow stuck there, having moved before not by its' own life, but by the wind and force of the car's movement. I then considered that perhaps it was injured and unable to move more than it had.
   I wondered whether it had decided to spend this time on my windshield, which now seems like a ridiculous thought to have about an animal that must have a tiny brain, but it's place there seemed intentional to me at the time.
   I arrived at my job, parked my car in the lot, and took the picture below from inside of the vehicle.

   I sat looking at it, feeling that this thing trusted me, as if it sensed that it would be safe there. Perhaps it knew that I had respect for its' life. Interestingly, I had come to see it in a way that I did not previously precisely because it had stayed there on the windshield for all of that time.
   Although doubtful, it seems that it had intentionally set out to broaden my vision of it.
   This small creature had helped me to focus on something other than the sometimes difficult feelings I experience when I transition from the wonderful, calming feelings of my morning walk to the often times emotionally trying circumstances that can occur at the workplace.

   As I exited my car and headed into work, I looked at it again, and took the picture above, from the outside.

   When I left work, nearly nine hours later, I had forgotten about what had happened earlier, and got into my car to drive home. 

   It wasn't until I looked at the photos that I had taken that I  remembered what had happened, and realized that the insect had left my windshield at some point during the day.

Seeing crocodiles

   I have been thinking a lot about darkness recently as the days are getting steadily shorter. 

   Each day when I arrive in Golden Gate Park, it takes a little longer for the pre-sunrise light to fall on my part of the world, so I have a longer time to both be a bit frightened, but also to appreciate the opportunities that it affords me to see the world in more creative ways.

   As long as I feel reasonably safe, near-darkness has become my favorite kind of light.

   Two days ago, as I began my early day walk, I saw something off in the distance in the road, but had a difficult time determining what it was. At first, I thought it was a raccoon, but then decided that it was too small. I walked a few feet more towards it, and it crossed my mind that it could be a crocodile. 

   Of course, it doesn't make any sense that I had thought that. The conditions for the animal don't exist in that particular park (nor have they ever been reported at the location, as far as I know), and , as I further neared the object, it became clear that the shape was quite wrong. Still, crocodile was what had come to my mind.  

   I guess that the reason that this poor job of visual identification was so meaningful for me was that I was able to be so wildly off in this case. It isn't too difficult, in my opinion, to imagine things in a nonsensical way; believing them to be that way, not quite so simple.
   I hope and believe that this points to a loosening in the parameters for how I determine the world I maneuver through.
   In the past, I have tended to think of darkness negatively, as calling a person "dark" seems to connote. More recently, I tend to think of it more as that which can hide or disguise wonders.

Do you see a crocodile here?

The possibilities in darkness

   It was quite dark as I began my morning walk yesterday. There was just enough light for me to see where I was walking without tripping on a curb, but not enough to keep me from thinking that I had seen things in the shadows. I really like that about darkness.
   Almost immediately after my arrival, I was startled by a sound that I heard off to my left, which were probably ducks or geese squabbling in the lake. Perhaps a minute or so later, I thought that I had seen a coyote duck into the bushes and trees around forty feet in front of me and to the right, though as I neared the area I surmised that maybe it probably had not been there at all.
   Realizing that perhaps I had been misled by the desire to see something that I would find wonderful, I started thinking about expectations, and wondered if it was these that led me to see what I believed I had. I ruminated on that idea for a while, thinking, probably incorrectly, that expectations were not good because they led me to unrealistic notions.
   I thought a bit more, and realized that although expectations are frightening for a person like me that often feels that the future will disappoint, it was really possibility that led me to think that I had seen something that I would find exhilarating.
   While expecting something wonderful might not be the best way for me to approach my life, remaining open to what is possible, although potentially frightening, is I believe realistic, powerful and inspires hope in me.

What do you see there?

Eichler homes

   I took the two pictures below a couple of weeks ago when I went to see a group of houses near my job that real estate developer Joseph Eichler had built. The one in the bottom picture, also close to my workplace, was taken about a year ago.
   Eichler's company, Eichler Homes, helped to make available for the general public modern architecture, and the properties designs express to me a hopefulness for the future. Of course, this is my only very personal opinion, but I find the horizontality of the buildings unassuming, aesthetically appealing and inviting, and even though there is much hidden from the person looking at the homes from the outside, I feel a sense of freedom from the unobtrusiveness of the buildings in their surroundings.
   The homes that were built were considered middle-class dwellings at the time, (mainly in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area), and were said to be the first homes to market and make available modernist dwellings to a wide range of people (i.e-not only the wealthy). Besides the homes being economically feasible to to many, Eichler refused to discriminate against anyone from buying them.
   Although the current real estate market, and me and my wife's financial situation in general, do not allow me to realistically dream of buying one of these homes, the fact that they are so available for me to see is refreshing and inspiring. It gives me some faith that the beauty made by humankind is not simply for those better off than me.

Wood duck

   As I walked around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park yesterday, I noticed a couple of objects that I had never seen before. It seemed obvious to me that they were new and had been installed by human beings.
   Appearing to be made out of some kind of metal, they were shiny, and reminded me of a larger version of something that I have just learned are called Asian conical hats, like the one below. Their shiny metal appearance also reminded me of how alien spaceships were represented in low budget science fiction films from the nineteen fifties, and above them was a narrow, rectangular, dark wood box with a hole cut in it, that looked like an elongated birdhouse.

An Asian conical hat

One of the objects in question, in a picture
taken by me as close to it as I could get to it.

   I passed by the two of these things that were easy to see from the walking path I was on, and thought about asking someone if they knew why they had been placed there, but reassessed that idea, imagining that it would be better if it remained a mystery to me. I often think this way about the things that I see during my morning walks.

   I continued on, and as I approached the southern part of the lake, I saw one of the gardeners that I knew from the park. For whatever reason, I decided to forego my earlier dedication to remaining unknowing about the objects, and asked him about them.

   He told me that they had been placed there recently by the Audobon Society to encourage the nesting of wood ducks. Continuing, he told me that he had only seen one wood duck in the area this year (seen below, in a picture I took), and I told him that this was the case for me as well. He added that other people who are regular visitors to the area had told him that the one that is seen here is too small to be a wood duck. but finished by stating that the Audobon Society must be correct, as they are experts. I agreed with him.

   As I neared the end of my walk, I started thinking about the people that had told the gardener that it wasn't a wood duck at all, about the Audobon Society's determination, and the question of who had authority in this case. I also began to think about determinations in a larger sense, and authority in general.
   Although I certainly resent people that I see as having some kind of influence over me (I resent a lot of people!), the reality for me is that authority, and the idea of it, is in some ways as amorphous and difficult to define as is my own sense of self. The circumstances where power seems most obvious, like when a police officer pulls me over in my car, does anger me greatly, but maybe no more so than my own feelings of powerlessness in general.
   Perhaps when I am very happy, it is at least partly because I feel something like wholeness or integrity; at these times, ideas such as power or repression are far from my mind.
   The animal that you see in the picture below, whatever it is, seems quite contented being as it is. I doubt it is aware of the the discourse waged over it.

Who says I'm a wood duck?

Running strollers

   There is something that both bothers and saddens me a bit when I see people jogging with their babies in strollers. It's been somewhat difficult to tease out why this is, and even though I do not see them very frequently, there is a kind of disdain which wells up inside of me when I do.
   Searching online the technical term for these things for the writing of this blog, I learn that they are called "running strollers", a name that interestingly and coincidentally, seems at least in part to capture some of what I find most distasteful about them, as they are rather conspicuously named for the one running rather than for the one being hurdled around. Obviously, the name wouldn't be aimed to the strolled as they are not the ones with the purchasing power, but it nonetheless implies an uneveness in the pairing that bothers me.
    I often feel like I'm missing something because I don't feel as busy as other people appear to be, nor do I have great difficulty finding the time to do things that I need to or want to. I enjoy my life much more when I take my time and do not feel rushed, nor do I have the desire to need to be that way, but I still have the (probably false) impression that I should be.
   Contrarily, this strolller appears geared towards the members of the population that need to "kill two birds with one stone" because their time is that limited, that valuable.
   It's probably an ailment of being human that it can be so hard at times to accept oneself as is, and I seem to have way too many ideas about myself transmitted from my parents that most likely aren't true and are not beneficial to me. Seeing them as such is not so easy, though.
   In this regard, there was an unsaid when I was growing up that I only did what was easy for me (this implied in a way that I should feel guilty about it), that I was perhaps lazy. If the natural outcome of this then for me as an adult was that I would not care to be an achiever (the kind of person that I imagine running strollers appeal to), I think that I can honestly say that I am comfortable with that moniker.

Cars and relationships

   I didn't grow up in a car culture, so I haven't really ever cared much as an adult for ones that look sporty, luxurious, or have a lot of horsepower.
   When I was a child of about six or seven, I went to the New York car show. I was a fan of sports cars at that time, and recall liking the Plymouth Duster in particular. Thinking back, I believe that its' main attraction for me lied in its' logo, which looked like the Tasmanian Devil cartoon to me. That was a long time ago.
   Having lived in San Francisco (California that is!) for the past ten years, I have come to realize that it is not only a dramatically more car-based place than my native Manhattan, but that for some people, what they drive is as or more important than having a functional one to drive. For many people in this category, it seems that they might believe that their car states something a bout them.
   This became even clearer when one of my coworkers, a native, asked me my opinion on whether or not it was okay to touch another car's bumper when parallel parking. I answered that I thought that it was inevitable at times, and she was aghast! She later told me that she was fresh from an experience with another New Yorker, who had tapped the bumper of the car behind him when he had parked.
   I have thought on and off, though not too deeply, about how I feel about my own car, and more so, about whether there were objects in general that I felt as strongly about as some people seem to feel about their automobiles.
   For me, clothing comes to mind as being important, but more in the sense of liking to look a certain way than believing that it says anything important about me. I have always tried to avoid obvious labels of any kind for the express desire to not advertise for anyone, and although some of my clothing purchases as an adult have been more than strictly utilitarian, I don't think that they have ever been made so I can appear to be representing something in particular.
   It's perhaps more than just a little contradictory that a person with as many tattoos as I have should want to be sort of unnoticed, but that's how I feel.
   When I was three or four years old (some time before my interest in the Plymouth Duster), my family lived in Paris for a short time, and my mother has told me that I loved the french Citreon 2CV, or "deux cheveux". The car was inexpensive, made originally to encourage farmers to use motorized forms of transportation, and generally regarded as "ugly" by many at the time (many still think that it is). It seems that my aesthetic can be traced back that far.
   Thinking again about my own car, I have always enjoyed the fact that it is an economy model, assuming perhaps that it illustrates the beliefs I hold about my relationship to the objects in my life. Perhaps in that way, my car states something about me as clearly as the person who views theirs as a symbol of status.

The parent question

   My wife and I went to a party a few months ago in a very secluded neighborhood on one of the hills I had never visited here in San Francisco. Held in a house that felt architecturally open and appeared to be expensively appointed, the occasion for the party was to celebrate and welcome the new principle at one of the schools where she teaches part-time.
   I don't do well with crowds in general, and as we walked in I encountered what appeared to be a large one. I felt overwhelmed, despite the modern, sparse, and what I would imagine would normally feel airy quality of the house design.
   We managed to get a little food (all of the catered items had detailed descriptions next to them), and I found the backyard, which allowed me to breathe a bit better. Fernanda introduced me to a few people, and as we snacked, we wondered what all of the people had in common. She said that she imagined that most must be parents of children at the school, and went to get us a bit more food.
   It seems that she was correct.
   A man came up to me and introduced himself in the way that people do that seem much more comfortable around strangers than I ever have ever been, and asked me what grade my child was in at the school. I told him that I don't have any children, nor did my wife as far as I knew, and told him that she was a teacher there. He told me that his child was in their "third year", and although I didn't exactly know what that meant, I nodded and smiled. I was probably close to twenty years older than him.
   Although the assumption that I had children is not new to me (many of the nurses and caregivers where I work have supposed the same thing), this particular one made a strong, albeit less-than-conscious impression on me. I don't know why it affected me differently this time, but it did.
   Perhaps it was the sense that Fernanda and I were the only adults among one hundred or more people at the house that didn't have children, or maybe I intuited that we were poorer than everyone else, but it stirred something strange within my consciousness, and unusually for me in a situation such as this, I felt satisfied in my life rather than lacking.
   I can't explained why I felt like I did. I think I'll just leave it at that.

Thoughts on ethnicity, black people, and suffering.

   As an ethnic Jew growing up in New York City, I always identified in some ways with black people. This is not to say that I ever imagined that I was black, but I did feel akin to them in some ways, as I never sensed that I had much in common with white people. White people never seemed other in the ways that I felt it, and because there were so many black people in my environment when I was growing up, I felt like I was at the least very much among them. I did also identify with other Jews that I knew, but mainly the ones that embraced their ethnicity rather than religion.
   When I was perhaps nine or ten years old, my cousin Johanna and her family lived downstairs in the same apartment building that my family did, and I remember my sister telling me that Johanna thought, perhaps jokingly, that she thought hat she may have been black. I think that it may have had to do with her body type and hair, and though she probably did not really believe it, I could see where she was coming from. Being Jewish seemed to me to be determined on being religious, which I wasn't, while being black didn't appear to have those kinds of prerequisites. The way I saw it, if one was born black, they were black. It seemed simpler and more accepting, and black people struck me as proud. I certainly wasn't,
   As I have aged, I have became keenly aware that although I don't always feel it, I am in fact white, replete with all of the perks that I have read and have been told come with being born that way in our society. I won't list those perks here (because this blog entry is already difficult to write without sounding either racist or insensitive), but let me just say that I imagine that I may be accepted simply because of my appearance in ways than many people of color are not.
   During the past couple of years, there has been a lot of media attention given to the practices of law enforcement towards the African American community, in particular the killing of unarmed black men. With the widespread use of cell phone video, these practices have shown a wider public, including myself, what must be an ongoing issue over many, many years. Some of the videos have been quite graphic and unsettling to many, as have some of the tactics used by to protest these injustices.
   I like to think of myself, perhaps ideally, as being at least somewhat progressive and open minded, but I have come to realize over time just how conditioned I have been as a white male, and perhaps closed and protected as a person of any ethnic background. This has become especially evident to me recently, when there was a fissure in my outlook over the recent sniper attack on the police in Dallas, Texas.
   It wasn't the fact that police officers were targeted in this event that jarred me from my normal emotional response, but the investigation into the man that perpetrated it. As more information was released about the person that committed the attack, I began to think more about the kind of anger and frustration that he must have experienced to make him feel that doing something like this seemed like an option. More than thinking about it though, it was more of an experience on my part. His humanness came through to me, and with it, my own humanity surfaced.
   Amidst the conditioning and defenses that have been erected to protect my own grief, I was able to see this man in his suffering, and perhaps achieve a bit more insight into my own.
 

An unexpected feeling of freedom

   A few days ago, I had been thinking about driving up to Ukiah to surprise Fernanda. She had taken the bus up there three days earlier to see her brother, who was in the hospital recovering from a surgery. He was okay, and was to be going home.
    It was strange that I had thought to do this trip, as driving exacerbates the pain that I feel from the bulging disk in my neck, but I woke up feeling a bit bored, like I have been having too much "me" time. I also thought that it would be wonderful to see Fernanda's face when I showed up unexpectedly.

   The day before, after buying a pair of shoes that I had felt remorseful after for doing, I had gone back to return them, which lifted my spirits. I felt like I had one less thing to concern myself with or weigh me down.
   I don't know if I still felt some leftover sensation of being less encumbered than usual, but as I put a few things into the trunk of my car, I became aware that I had suddenly felt quite free. It might have been that I felt at that moment that I didn't need more to be okay, but more than anything I think it was the notion that I could do what I wanted that day. I could do the drive up north, or not, but it was up to me. I had a choice.
   It's probably hard to fathom for those that are not me (which is everyone that I can think of) just how powerful this feeling of choice is for me, but I will say that what generally makes me feel most agitated is the sense that I am being impeded or blocked in some way.
   I am aware, of course, that I cannot do just what I want to do in the world without consequences to others, and I do care about others, but sensing some actual level of authority over my own life is a rare and wonderful thing.
   

Offense and defense

   A couple of weeks ago, I was in Trader Joe's on Masonic Avenue doing my weekly shopping, quite contented that it was emptier than normal. I had felt pretty confident before going there that it would be so, as the Golden Gate Warriors basketball team were in the playoffs, and most of San Francisco seemed quite invested in the team's plight. I had heard a report on the news a few evenings before that for one of the earlier games, eighty percent of televisions in the San Francisco bay area had been tuned in. Mine was not one of them.
   The idea that so much enthusiam was as focused as it was on a sports team, although satisfying for me at that particular moment, was also concerning; it reminded me how banal I often find people's interests, how 'group think' seems so prevalent in so much of the world, and also, I imagine, that I could not share in that excitement due to my own beliefs and prejudices.
   It's often hard for me to tease out whether I avoid considering myself a part of large groups because of a lack of shared pursuit, or for fear of being rejected, but the satisfaction that I must receive from feeling a bit superior to people in my interests doesn't near the sadness of feeling so apart from them.
   Back to the Trader Joe's experience,  after I had finished doing my shopping, I got online to pay. When my turn came, I began bagging my items as they were being tallied by the cashier, and decided to talk with him. Sometimes, I reach out to people in this way as a way to combat my tendency to isolate myself, despite feeling apprehension at doing so. I thought I'd share with him my thoughts regarding the lack of a crowd there.
   "I wish the warriors were in the playoffs every night" I said, or something like it, and told the young man that I didn't care for crowds or sports very much.
   "Me neither", he said, and I became somewhat excited that my attempt to feel related had paid off.
   I asked him what he was interested in, thinking that perhaps we had something in common, and he began to tell me that he spent most of his free time making suits of armor, sometimes spending a lot of money on very expensive materials. I believe he said they were high tensile steels.
   I don't know if my facial expression changed noticeably, but I felt great disappointment that my experiment had apparently failed. I felt at that moment that I should have just kept to myself, that I would have felt more related to a basketball fan than this person at that moment. In hindsight, this man's enthusiasm for his hobby, which was somewhat out of the ordinary, should have given me hope, but there at the checkout counter, I was disillusioned.
   As I think about it now, I imagine that this kind of disappointment is what keeps me so defended in the first place.

Dogs carrying their own leashes

    Recently, I saw a man walking his dog, or more correctly, walking next to his dog, as his pet had a collar around it's neck attached to a leash, but the leash was being carried in the animal's mouth rather rather than in it's owner's hand. I am often annoyed by what I perceive as people making up their own rules around posted signs (such as "dogs must be on leash"), but on this occasion my judgment was diverted by this sight of the dog, which was quite powerful for me.
   What felt like a blossoming of allusions rushed forward as I watched the dog happily, seemingly proudly, trotting along with the end of it's own restraining device between its' teeth. Of course, one could make the point that these animals appear to often feel affection for their masters, and so should be proud to do something for them (such as carrying the leash), but it still struck me as an odd, unnatural setup.
   I'm well aware that many dogs have crates, basically a cage, where their owner lives, and which are supposed to be used by its' master to replicate the animal's home den (and which they seem to generally like), but this too feels like they are used to repress, even if the animal seems to enjoy it. The leash in particular strikes me as a device which serves to tame and divert it from it's original, wild nature.
   I have been careful to use the term owner or master when referring to the person that walks and cares for their dog, because I feel like it is important to be honest about the realities of where the power lies in this and all relationships.
   To see an animal that seems to accept, at times revel, in their own restraint, whatever the living thing, disturbs me.

Where am I coming from?

   Yesterday, during the time I spend trying to think as clearly as possible, I had a thought that I was surprised by; the sense that  was I was not really at home in California.
   For many, many years, I had considered myself a New Yorker, by birth and deep in my bones, and even during my first five or six years living in San Francisco I thought I was a member of that metropolis that just happened to be living here on the west coast. It's not that I didn't very much like the city here or the state that I have explored and continue to love to investigate; it's just that I didn't imagine that the New Yorker could ever be supplanted. It seemed like it eventually was.
   At some point, I declared to myself and anyone who showed any interest that I had adopted California as my state. It wasn't that I had forsaken my origins, nor had I become a true member of this newer place; I had merely made a declaration to it.
   Some years passed, and I imagined that the problem of figuring out how to refer to me had been solved (comfortable in thinking of myself as a sort of Californian) until yesterday, when I sensed that I didn't think of myself in the same way anymore. It was a bit of a revelation.
   It's not that I had been aware of thinking consciously about the subject at that moment, but was perhaps a little more in touch with the lack of visibility and support I had often felt as a child. Sensing that I was and am not cared for has always made it difficult for me to feel rooted.
   As I ponder it now, I wonder how to situate myself psychically when I feel so much like a visitor at times, even in a city that I know much of so well. While it is frightening to feel as if I am dangled in the world by an apparatus that I cannot verify, I sense that there is something good about this suspension, that perhaps the recognition of this very old and primal fear inside of me is a step towards it no longer mastering me so blindly.

Sports fans, local teams, and the personal pronoun "we".

   When my wife and I first moved to San Francisco, our home for the past decade, I never imagined that it was a city where sports would be so heralded. The natural beauty of the place, it's history as being a welcoming place to the LGBT community, and it's reputation for progressive politics gave me the impression that professional sports would not capture the interest of the people here on a wide scale. I was wrong.
   It's true that over the past few years there have been three bay area teams that have either won or nearly won their sport's respective championship title, but I still find the excitement and sustained interest difficult to comprehend. Perhaps it was the same way in New York when I lived there and the Yankees baseball team and Giants football team were both winning, but I don't remember it that way now.
   Many times I've heard people talk about one of the local teams and have noticed the word "we" used in the sentence, such as 'we should have won last night' or the like. It could be that there is nothing particularly novel in this usage, that I just never noticed it when used by people in reference to their favorite teams, but it certainly never registered with me.
   When I hear someone using the plural form when speaking about a particular play, score or whatever, I can hardly contain myself from asking the speaker if they are on the team they are speaking of. I mean this in a tongue-in-cheek way, of course, but there is a part of me that is genuinely perplexed. As I think about it now, I wonder who it was that first employed this form as a technique for feeling included in their team's plight. it's an interesting trope.
   Surely, a sports team relies on their fans as a whole to support them financially (money made from ticket sales, the purchasing of authorized merchandise, etc.), but I am disturbed by this idea, ridiculous and obvious as it may seem; the fans probably know quite a bit about the athletes, but the athletes most likely know nothing about the fans. One group knows the other's names, the other does not.
   So while it's apparent that only one group is in the public eye, the unevenness of the relationship bothers me, and is in my opinion not deserving of the word "we" in referencing it.

Thinking in two places at once

   A few mornings ago as I was driving, I felt unusually calm. It was during the morning commute, and although I was not in a rush, I had the impression that everyone else was.
   Often, when there is a lot of frantic activity around me, I tend to get caught up in it. If I feel that people are being inconsiderate or rude (and driving seems to bring these things out in many people, including myself), the feelings that I have about the world can quickly change from those of relative satisfaction into agitation. Sometimes at these moments, I feel like I don't want to be part of it at all any more.
   As the traffic flow accelerated and the drivers appeared more aggressive, I began to feel constricted. I could sense those familiar feelings of despondency arising, but on this occasion I could see them as a thought, without their immediate metamorphosis into something like an undeniable reality.
   Many, many times, I have attempted to think myself down from this kind of escalation by trying to amend my very emotional response with a rational thought, reminding myself that the deep hurts I have felt were not necessarily what were happening in the current moment. Unfortunately for me, this technique has been a mostly losing proposition. Although I have been so terribly frustrated at times in these endeavors, it makes what happened this particular morning that much more remarkable, as my thoughts at that moment seemed to happen independently of my attempts at intervention.
   I have tended to think about this experience in a kind of moralistic way (i.e.-I reacted in a 'better' or more 'appropriate' manner on this occasion), but believe now that I really don't know why I experienced this change at that particular moment. I've thought a lot about the possible explanations, written them here, edited them, then rewritten them, but I think I'm just going to leave it as a question.

Nest building

   I took the picture below as I passed the small pile of stuff seen below. It appears to be comprised of mostly grasses and perhaps a few small twigs, and I imagined that it was gathered to build a nest when I first saw it. It is spring here in San Francisco, and many of the birds around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park are preparing for, or have already had babies.
   As I thought about it a bit, I figured that what is in the picture may not in fact nesting material, but perhaps the leftovers from a lawn mowed nearby.  Anyway, it got me thinking about material, in general, and it's relation to that which has not yet been realized.
   Most people that visit the park seem to focus there attentions on the babies already born there, but I find it much more beautiful to see a blackbird or great blue heron with a few sticks or dried grass in their beaks. The image holds the idea of the possibile before the completed task. Even a nest, finished as it may be, can hold this potential for me, especially when there are only adults visible in it; the likelihood of a developing life in an egg or eggs below remains hidden, almost literally pregnant with possibilities.
   To embrace the idea of the unseen is so wonderful, because it involves keeping my senses and self open to what is around and inside of me, including feelings, smells, and the minutiae of the physical world.
   As the grasses in the picture below could have been used to construct an object for something which has yet to exist, the process of writing and the words that I choose to use are the materials that I find available to construct and realize ideas that I have, and the ones yet to formulated.

Perhaps my next blog entry is in there

Smoke coming from my nose, peripherally.

   I have been having nosebleeds pretty regularly for the past six months or so, and finally decided to go to a specialist a couple of months ago. I had been to an ear, nose and throat doctor a few years back when I suffered from the same thing then, and the doctor had cauterized some blood vessels in my right nostril, which stopped the nosebleeds. That worked for a couple of years.
   I was hesitant at first to go back for this procedure, as I figured that it had not really solved the problem altogether; I also hadn't loved the bedside manner of the doctor that had performed it. Eventually, the nosebleeds became more regular, so I decided to search out a different physician, and made an appointment.
   The new specialist put me at ease with his likable personality, and I felt like we hit it off immediately. We talked about a variety of things, many of which did not include my nose. I enjoyed his company.
   He performed a cauterization, but approximately ten days later the nosebleeds returned, and back I went.
   He seemed a bit surprised to see me again so soon, but back up there he looked, bright light strapped around his forehead like a coal miner heading into my nose. He identified and thoroughly cauterized a small, raised area in my upper right nostril that he felt certain had been the site where the nosebleeds had been emanating from, but I soon got another one, exactly four days and five hours later.
   It's interesting how certain things can make one so precisely aware of time.
   The doctor had told me that if this cauterization didn't work, he would do it the next time with a laser, and when it didn't, I was in his office again.
   He explained what the procedure would entail, showed me on a tongue depressor what the instrument did when it contacted something (it blackened it!), and informed me that I'd smell something like burning flesh. For some reason, that description didn't shock me as much as I feel like it should have as I think about it now. Perhaps it was the beginning of the surreal quality of the entire experience.
   He began, and I immediately got a whiff of, then saw peripherally, that there was quite a bit of smoke coming from my right side. As he continued, he asked an assistant to come in to help him by holding my right nostril up so he could see the area better. It was then that the vapors seemed to increase a lot. I noted this, and he admitted to being surprised by the amount.
   I looked to the face of the assistant to see if her expression transmitted anything about what was happening in front of her, but it revealed nothing that I could positively identify.
   It really was quite a unique experience to see smoke coming from my body, and the fact that my head was tilted up and back to the left, right nostril flared and in my field of vision, made the smoke difficult to see clearly. The event was at the same time hazy, dreamlike and undeniably visceral.
   As I write about it now one week later, I am reminded of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein theorizing about pain and subjectivity. He posited the question of how a person can know for certain that the pain that they feel is their pain, and not another's. I remember being both amused, but also fascinated by the idea when I first read about it.
   My own body's emission of smoke struck me as undeniably real, yet as if it was happening to someone else, too. It felt as if I could have been watching myself, but using someone else's vision.
   How wonderful it would be to have that option regularly.
 

The sound of woodpeckers

   I have been hearing the knocking sounds of woodpeckers for the past couple of weeks around a certain few trees near Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park as I walk in the early morning. I say 'around' a few trees because I really cannot tell exactly where the sounds are coming from, and this morning was the first time I made any real effort to determine a more specific location.
   I have avoided knowing more fully since I am generally there to focus on my walking as a kind of meditation, but also because the idea of not knowing the origin is beautiful to me. I only looked a bit more intently today because I so enjoy seeing woodpeckers.
   I find it interesting, and perhaps a bit contradictory, that I should so embrace the mysterious and unknown the way that I do, as I often find myself creating a knowable routine to give myself a feeling of predictability and security in the world. Whether it is conflicting. or maybe just a sign of more complexity to wish for both the enigmatic and familiar in my life, they seem to fit for me. Perhaps each side allows the other to flourish more fully.

Memories of Lucky Penny

   I saw a penny on the ground while walking in Golden Gate Park a few mornings ago, passing it without a serious thought about picking it up. It was unusual for me that I didn't kneel down to retrieve it, and as I walked on a bit further, I thought about why I hadn't. I have always thought of lost money in the street as being lucky to find, and this could have been a lucky penny.
   As those last two words came to mind, I immediately starting thinking about an old-time neighborhood diner near me and Fernanda's apartment with that name.
   Like so many older and unremarkable restaurants in San Francisco (and I'm guessing many other cities as well, including my home for forty two years, New York City), places like Lucky Penny always seemed somehow like they would be in business forever, though I could never fathom how it had stayed solvent for so long.
   Serving not such great food (although Fernanda always liked their veggie sandwich), The Lucky Penny was wonderful to me for its' true diner feel, filled as it was with an often older and wide cross section of apparent ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, which I see less and less of as this city continues to attract the wealthier classes. There were always black people there, too, who I have always enjoyed sharing a culture with, but certainly see less here than I did in New York. Although I didn't go there too often, it was reassuring to know that the Lucky Penny was there. It's burgundy colored and sometimes ripped vinyl booth seats seemed like an integral part of a real, traditional diner experience.
   There was something very egalitarian about it for me, seeing all of those different kinds of people together, in one place. If I was there in the morning, the restaurant would often have booths of young people eating off a night of drinking or drugging, as the place was twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year. These people never bothered me, only reminding me of my younger years, and adding to the sense I had of the place as a repository for all.
   I vaguely remember hearing that the Lucky Penny would in fact be closing some time before it actually did, but don't recall if I ever knew the actual date it had been scheduled to do so. I passed it one day as I drove down Masonic Avenue, and it was closed. It was the first time I had ever seen it that way.
   I don't know why I have not written about the closure of this landmark before, nor seemingly even thought to, but it's interesting to me that I was moved to do so by my split second decision not to pick up a potentially lucky penny that morning. Perhaps the loss of that opportunity led to the recollection of another.

Balboa Sushi House

   The afternoon that I began writing this blog entry I had been walking on Balboa street to buy a nice desert from a Russian bakery near my apartment called Cinderella. The  bakery is located just down the block from my favorite San Francisco Japanese restaurant, Balboa Sushi House, and as I passed the place, I looked in to see if the co-owner, Annie, was available for me to say hello to (I felt badly if I passed by here without at least looking in to smile). There were a few people standing outside the place, and as Annie peeked out for a moment, she saw me and came over to tell me that her husband had died the day before.
   A young man came out to join us, and Annie introduced him to me as her son, just in from their native Korea. Annie hugged me as her son bowed and thanked me, and she proceeded to tell me about her husband's heart attack in the restaurant the night before, how suddenly everything had happened, and that he had too young to die. It was very sad and somewhat unreal to me, as I imagine it was for her, too.
   She went on to thank me for being so nice to her over the years, and told me that she loved me. I didn't know what to say to her when she said that, but I must say that it was really touching. I wondered whether Annie had said those words a bit too easily somehow, as I often question if people really mean it when they say things like that to people that are in some sense strangers, at least in my eyes. I rely didn't know anything about Annie, not even her last name.
   Wondering if I should be feeling those feelings too, I realized then that it had been nearly ten years that Fernanda and I had been going there, and I really did feel a warmth for her in my heart when I would enter her place. My desire to consistently return there was partly for the sushi, but mainly for the warm service and sweet decor, filled as the restaurant was with plants, small figurines and various artwork and mementos from regular patrons.
   Annie, with her colorful clothing, ran the front of the place, while her husband made the food in the back. I had only met her husband once, when he came out from the kitchen to say hello after I had told Annie that I had never actually seen him. Interestingly, when I called to order takeout a couple days before, her husband picked up the phone, which he had never done in the years that I had called there.
   Strange that I had had this encounter with him, only the second verbal exchange in these years, just a couple of days ago, and now he was dead.
   Annie was so gracious with me today as she mourned with friends at the restaurant; I really felt like I meant something to her, even though really just a customer. Perhaps the reason she had told me that she loved me was because she has a lot of love in her.
   She told me that she will be returning to Korea to live. It seems that the strongest ties that she had to San Francisco was her husband, and the restaurant they ran together.
   As I think about Annie and the loss of her husband, I feel that there is less sweetness in my life, too.









 

On not being here

   Although looking too long into a stranger's eyes has always felt to me like a bit of a potential altercation, I did grow up in a crowded city with an active street life, so people seemed to be looking at and negotiating the surroundings we shared. It may not have been a great space, or perhaps it was one that felt contested, but still it acted as a common denominator for us.
   Although I didn't think about it much back then, many of the same things that impacted me also affected those around me. Even people who were extremely intoxicated or publicly under the influence of drugs seemed to be existing in this shared space more than so many of the people I see contemporarily; smartphones have taken many away.
   The insistent downward attention to technology creates a new public space, but one that seems filled with a kind of ghostly presence. The people that I see appear present physically, but often no more than that. They pass me on the street, though rarely look my way. They seem to be neither completely here nor wholly somewhere else.
   As a person that has often found it hard to see others in a three dimensional way (finding it difficult to take into account other's histories, fears and insecurities), the predominance of smartphone technology in the world we share has made this even harder for me as it relates to strangers; they almost literally strike me as two dimensional in the places that we share.
   I long for the days, though probably remembered ideally, when strangers and I would meet in a shared environment, and although sometimes contested or even antagonisitc, neither could say that we were not completely there.
   Of course, we really are still together, but I do now often feel alone.

Political people

   This morning as I walked around Stow Lake, so glad to be back to a spot I enjoy so much after a few days away in the mountains, I overheard a snippet of a conversation which got me thinking, giving me fodder for writing this blog entry this morning.
   Spoken by a woman who appears to me a politically progressive person in her late 40's or early 50's that I often see towards the tail end of my walk, she said, "...it shocked me because he's such a political person."
   Of course this was just the smallest part of a dialogue which I was not privy to so have no idea in what sense or context the sentence was uttered, but what I perceived was that the woman was describing a person that she had previously thought was 'political', but who no longer gave her that impression.
   I immediately recalled my younger years and the radical Marxist ideas which I was so interested in, particularly the concept of hegemony as elicited in the writing of Antonio Gramsci. In his work, the concept of the person as a political entity in capitalist societies is hidden, so as to appear natural, allowing the ruling classes to continue their domination.
   As I thought about what I had heard, I imagine that what this woman had been talking about involved this very idea, in that she probably assessed that the person she had spoken of had either lessened their interest in, or ceased to become consciously involved in 'the political'. It appeared to me a classic example of the kind of political recuperation and naturalization that Gramsci felt was so important to address in Marxist theoretical analysis.
   These thoughts had been such an important part of my life for some years, and although I am pretty uninterested in being politically involved for the past half decade or more, I still believe in Gramsci's ideas, and cannot forgot that I am always political.
   Although my ideas of myself have changed and hopefully continue to as I grow older, socially and politically, 'myself' has not.

Self-assured people

   About a month and a half ago, for Presidents Day weekend, Fernanda and I took a trip up north to the Russian River area. On the first morning, we took a short drive into Guerneville from the town of Monte Rio, where we stayed in a sweet, small bed and breakfast called the Highland Dell Lodge.
   The four mile trip to Guerneville was taken with the express desire to eat lunch at a place that we had been to previously, called the Big Bottom Market. We had had really nice experiences there on two previous occasions, enjoying both the healthful food and kind staff, and were looking forward to this visit, too.
   After parking the car, we could see that it was much more crowded than we remembered it being, but were able to procure a table, and ordered our food and coffees. As we waited, we witnessed a constant parade of mostly young, fashion conscious people that seemed ridiculous in this rural environment. Though the workers in the place were themselves young and perhaps a bit hip, they were not like these people in their attitude; they seemed to care more about where they were than how they looked.
   At a table near us were a group of young families, all appearing to me to be confident in themselves, and I wondered, as I do at times, how people like that live and view the world and their own lives, as theirs seems so different from mine. They seem like they either know what they are doing in life or will be able to figure it out rather easily as they go along. Of course, I don't really know what living is like for them at all, but that's just how it seemed to me.
   On the same trip we also had coffee and baked goods at a place called Bia Cafe, located in Monte Rio, which was much less crowded, and had an extremely outgoing proprietor and decidedly less-than-hip clientele. It was much more to our liking. The owner was middle aged, appeared down-to-earth, and was certainly vivacious.
   Then, at some point during a congenially spirited conversation with one of her regular customers, she said proudly, "honey, you're never gonna' meet another me!"
   Although Fernanda and I certainly found this woman a lot more likable than the hip youngsters in the Guerneville place, it was her self-assured, confident attitude which took me back a bit as I thought about it later. Although I do believe that everyone is to some extent distinctive, I find the idea of people being so confident in their uniqueness a bit cocky and unreal. For me, freedom often lies in the  betweens, doubts and contradictions in the people and things in the world, because it is here that I am allowed  to join the millieu. Like a room, I can only enter where there is an opening.
   Although I myself am often less than self-assured, I don't think that it is this fact which solely determines my mistrust of the confident; I believe that my feelings of fallability, held so closely, keeps me in constant touch with my own humanity, which will always be imperfect. I don't always like how it can often foster so much insecurity within me, but when I think about, it makes me proud in some way.

Does insensitivity sell?

   There is a commercial that I see on television pretty regularly for the BMW X1 automobile. The advertisement begins with a young man walking with what appears to be mail in his hands, apparently coming back from his mailbox. We see a car enter the driveway in reverse, cargo door open as it screeches to a stop, spilling out it's trunk's contents at the man's feet. A laundry basket and assorted clothing are most evident.
   Next, we are taken to the interior of the car, where we see an attractive woman looking back in the rear view mirror as she drives away, a smirk on her face. A neighbor appears to the left of the man in the next driveway, to which he says, "it's complicated", then looks down at his things, as if to ascertain if everything is there. He goes on to say, "she's just dropping off my stuff". It seems that these two were once a couple, but their relationship had ended.
   I've seen this commercial many times and have found it distasteful on every occasion, but now when I see it I find it very sad, both in content and in the fact that it took a number of people and money to create something so cold. Perhaps the first time I viewed it in this way I was feeling a bit more sad than I usually do, but I imagine that this sadness only helped me to see the insensitivity of the portrayal more clearly.
   Though no expert on failed relationships, I have had enough experience with them, both platonic and sexual, to know that they hurt, even when they are necessary and their dissolution seems necessary. I wonder then what the producers of the commercial were thinking when they thought it would be 'amusing' or 'lighthearted' (I've seen it referred to in both these ways online) to show someone literally dumping out another's belongings in such a thoughtless, or worse yet, thoughtful way, as if that person had no feelings at all.
   Interestingly, the man seems almost unaffected emotionally by this act, save for perhaps being embarassed in front of his neighbor. The woman driving the car, the one taking the initiative, is perhaps supposed to appear healthy by doing this, being empowered enough to do what's right for her; but is this where we as a society must exert our will, at someone else's expense?
   If there were to be a backstory to what we are seeing in the spot, say if the man had been equally or more rude to the woman previously, should we still feel the same way about what we're witnessing now?
   I wonder why it is that neither man nor woman in this commercial seems very saddened by what has happened, and it disturbs me that we as viewers are not apparently supposed to be either.

Assessing rather than feeling

The woman with the book

   There is a woman that I see regularly while walking on the path encircling Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. The course that she chooses is clockwise, opposite my direction, and she approaches at such a hurried pace, with head and shoulders leaning far enough forward, that it appears to me that she could at any moment fall flat on her face. It's as if the upper half of her body is exhorting the lower half to catch up.
   As far as I can recall, on every single occasion that I have seen this woman (which I believe is always on Saturdays and Sundays), she possesses two articles which I always recognize as hers; a gray sweatshirt with the words Michigan State printed on it, and a book being carried in her left hand. I know nothing about her except that she seems friendly enough, smiling at me each time that we pass.
   I didn't think too much about her ensemble the first few times I saw her, and quickly became so accustomed to it that it no longer struck me as unusual until perhaps a week ago, when something allowed me to be filled with wonder about this interesting character (and I mean character in the most loving way possible, as this word is often used with derision when describing people).
   I don't know what allowed me to see her in this way, in her uniqueness, but I got to thinking about these two pieces of her outfit, and many questions came to me. I wondered if it was always the same book that she carried, and whether it was or not, did she read it regularly? If she did, was it before or after her walk, or was she carrying it more as some kind of accessory, as I suspected? I also thought about that sweatshirt with the school name printed on it, and wondered what her relation to that institution was; student, teacher, or maybe just a Michigan native fondly remembering or proudly advertising her home state?
   In my mind, I have the belief that these two articles of clothing, which I have never seen her wear anything but, function as a kind of security blanket, a tradition which gives her comfort in the world. I certainly have my own, as I imagine most, or all of us do.
   The writing of this blog entry has taken a couple of days of unsteady work, and during the process, I could not conjure up anything else specific about her walking ensemble. There is something fascinating to me that I can so specifically remember certain things, yet be so seemingly blind to, and forgetful of others. Perhaps this woman with the sweatshirt and book uses those two things to keep in mind some of the things important to her.

Freshly left ball

   I saw the tennis ball seen in the picture below as I strolled around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. I walk at a pretty swift pace (each one mile lap taking me about seventeen and a half minutes), and what interested me most about this object was the fact that I hadn't noticed it there the previous time around. When I say that I hadn't noticed it, I mean that I'm pretty certain that it hadn't been there before, and when I realized this, the time that had elapsed since I was last there became for me suddenly filled with possibilities.
   What had happened during my absence, and why the ball had been left there puzzled me a bit. I imagined it had belonged to a dog. and wondered why dog or owner had allowed the ball to be left there. Was this intentional, or was it an oversight, with neither animal realizing that something was now missing?
   I thought of all of the lives that were being lived, and about how big and supple the world must be to accommodate them all. I have for many years found myself amazed that mores and laws seemed to be enough to stop individuals from killing others haphazardly, and at this moment, in a similar vein, wondered how the earth doesn't buckle under the pressure of the population and its' movement.
   What I'm trying to convey, perhaps not so well, is my awe of the otherness of almost everything that I see. I find it sad and isolating, but also truly remarkable, precisely because of its' impenetrability  For me, one of the most wonderful things about life is all there is that I do not know, and never will. The opaqueness of the world allows my imagination and desire to interpret room to flourish.

Memories and sadness and Judy Collins

   One of the albums that I most disliked hearing in the family apartment as a child was Judy Collins' Colors Of The Day. I had always thought of it as being one of my mother's albums, I surmise now that it must have been chosen by my father, as I don't believe my mother had very much interest in music at that time. Really, I never thought of my mother as really being particularly interested in anything, though she was probably invested in a great many things, as are we all.
   Back to that album. Released on May 8th, 1972, when I was eight and a half years old, it was really boring to me at that age, and full of a kind of an emotional heaviness that I was not able to understand, nor was I prepared to. Though many decades have passed, I can still regress to that hurt, but I've become more open to the feelings associated with it. The sadness and melancholic introspection which so turned me off to that particular record are some of the very things that I enjoy most about it now.
   So it is that when the opening notes of the first song on the album start playing (the country styled "Someday Soon"), I often find myself psychically transported back to the wood-floored living room of my childhood, this while sitting in my car in San Francisco nearly three thousand miles and forty five years away. It often feels perfectly, and strangely natural.
   While much of what I listen to from my childhood and adolescent years is music that I have ambivalent feelings about (especially the top forty music, which I rarely enjoy since then), Colors Of The Day is a recording which has really undergone a complete metamorphosis in my mind. Although I'm pretty sure that it's my attitudes and tastes which have changed, it's almost as if the music itself has. Perhaps I'm just able to hear it differently now.

The wonderful person

   I have many thoughts during the day, many of which are produced, or at least guided by the fears that I have and past needs which went unfulfilled. The ideas that I have and actions that I take have often been developed to try to keep me feeling protected from a world based on the past, but there are times, generally when I am quiet and at ease, where I am able to feel and see things in a way which seems quite present and often surprising to me.
   This morning was one of those times.
   As I walked, and the chilly, post-rain air emitted a feeling of "freshness"(as one person I know put it), the idea came to me that my wife is really a beautiful person. This impression was followed with the thought that her struggles to be in the world, which I can at times find irritating as they relate to me, are in a very literal way a reflection of my own difficulties in this area. I use the world literal here because it struck me in such a matter-of-fact way, and I realized then that if I could manage to be more aware, more cognizant and forgiving of her efforts, that perhaps I could do the same in regards to mine, too. It dawned on me what a good heart Fernanda has, and that probably, nearly all that comes from her still sprouts from this kernel, no matter how it may bother me.
   I remember as I am writing this that it was this quality which probably most drew me to her those nearly fifteen years ago, and it is still there, though it has been made murkier by my own struggles to exist in a world that I often find to be hostile, and which very much color my impressions of the person I love most.
   I realize that the more I can see her in this way, the more wholly and with forgiveness I may be able to envision myself, too.

Like ants

   My daily walks around Stow Lake have been started in near darkness for the past couple of months, mostly because the days are fairly short this time of year (but getting longer), but also due to the fact that I've been trying to walk an extra mile when possible in order to lose a few pounds added around the December holidays.The extra exercise feels good, too.
   I quite often find Stow Lake magical, but in the predawn hours it can be especially lovely, due in no small part to the the way the area looks when barely visible, where things in the distance seem mysterious, and my eyes and brain misread the material world. I believe I see animals in the distance that are not actually there, the lights from the few surrounding lamp posts illuminate what's nearest them in strange ways, and I see the distant interactions of people in a way that I only do here; I see them like ants.
   I recall coming home to my apartment after close to a week away on vacation, and seeing a line of seemingly thousands of ants stretching in and out of my refrigerator. While a bit horrified and disgusted (there were hundreds of dead members frozen to death inside inside the cold door), I was also fascinated by their organization, and saw that somewhere amidst the two ends of this line, stretching from the food source towards the nest, was a place where the ants would pause before passing each other.
   I imagined at that time that the individual members would relay some kind of information that was necessary to perform the large scale operation they were undertaking, although what was being transmitted was inaudible to me, Even if there were sounds being made at those many brief meetings, I doubt that I would have been able to decipher them anyway.
   In a similar way, I understood that whatever the people that I saw in the distance at Stow Lake were communicating was not for me to know, and although I assume that it was mostly in a form that I understood, the English language, it may as well as been as foreign to me as the ants' manner was.
   Often, when looking outside of my own subjective experience, I find the ways of others as strange and hard to comprehend.