Saturday, June 25, 2016

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.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

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.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

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.