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.