Bird behavior

   I'm sitting in a coffee shop called Latte Da in Lee Vining, California. Drinking a decaf and watching birds around a feeder, I feel at peace and satisfied watching their energy and apparent etiquette over who feeds first. The cool weather and my place in the warming sun feels good.

   What at first seemed like a complete free-for-all now appears to possess some kind of order in the process, though I certainly don't understand it. It would seem that the larger birds (in this case, sparrows) should be able to take their turns when they wished to, but they appear to be in no rush to eat. In fact, they look at bit nervous and confused over the apparent chaos. 

   Some of the smaller birds rush from nearby branches to eat, then back, then quickly to the feeder again, but it is difficult for me, a non-bird, to accurately determine who is who, and sometimes even what species they are. I believe there are only three there in total, including the sparrows.

   While I find all of the birds to be just so beautiful, I see as most enjoyable the mystery of their collective behaviors. Amid apparent chaos, there seems to be some kind of loose etiquette. Most likely, from my vantage point, I'm either be too close or far to see it.

   

Lost inside

  I was feeling feeling extremely angry and confused by Fernanda'a actions as I began my morning walk in the park in the early morning. I recognized from a distance two women coming towards me as Betty and her friend, whom I recognized but whose name I don't know. She always acknowledged me with a greeting that came out as, "ga mawnig".

I wanted to both scream a and hide from everyone.

As they neared me, I looked over at them, feeling that I shouldn't simply ignore them, despite my mood, but they did not seem to see me. It was quite strange. There are times, though irregular, when I feel so bad about myself that I wonder if everyone can see inside of me. In this instance, I seemed to have been partly right. but appeared to have been seen through.

I continued my walk, hoping that the exercise, scenery and fresh air might help to alter my pained mood for the better. I started to think about my mother, and how she often seemed to look at both familiar faces and complete strangers as if she were not there looking at them. She would stare at them until one of them would look back at her as if to say, “what the hell are you looking at?!” 

I wondered what it must have been like for me as an infant, looking up at this person who must have been looking at others rather than me. I imagined that when her gaze did turn to my direction, that it might be somewhat bewildering. What I had really needed were her assurances.
Although I've thought and talked about this subject quite a bit, I now have a conviction that what I was experiencing at that moment the very kind of hopelessness that I had felt when my mother was not able to show me that I existed. Although Fernanda is my wife and not mother, she provides a powerful anchor which helps me to feel visible and alive. When I feel distant from her, I want to escape, but find that there is nowhere to go.

Waiting, beginning and anticipation

   This is the morning that I began in earnest looking forward to returning home to San Francisco after nearly two weeks in Buenos Aires with Fernanda. I think that we have together, and hopefully separately, had a pretty good time on this trip.
   After showering, I prepared myself to go to one of the local coffee shops to write a bit before being joined by her, and thought as I readied myself to leave the hotel about what waiting, which I seemed to be experiencing, really feels like.
   Writing about it now, a little later in the day, I realize that delaying or being delayed, beginning and ending are simply ways that I have always managed the powerful and frightening sense that things are actually continuing.
   I remember in my early teen years convincing my father to buy me tickets to see the rock group KISS, the ticket sales beginning so early that there were several months before the actual day of the show. I had those two tickets push-pinned to a cork board in my room, and though very excited at the prospect of seeing my favorite band, I recall that anticipation was at times excruciating. I remember thinking that it was too far away to ever happen, that it couldn't be worth that pain.
   So it is that now, with one and a half days left here and looking forward to being both here and home, I am able to imagine without too much difficulty being back in our apartment. I trust, or rather imagine that it will happen, and perhaps imagination is what I have always been needed to fill the abyss I face when looking towards the unknown.

Robert's passing

   I was a bit shocked when Betty told me that Robert had died. Although I hadn't seen him for some time, I was still fully that he had touched me. I just needed to remember.
   Because I hadn't been at the park for quite some time, I must have thought at some recent time that he might not still be alive. Still, the news surprised me. I imagine that although we might fully expect someone to die, perhaps even anticipate it, its difficult to fathom it.
   I  remember being at my father's deathbed in the hospital in Oneonta, New York, waiting for his last breath. I was shocked when it happened.
   When Betty stopped me as we walked in opposite directions around Stow Lake, I felt guilty for thanking her for telling me about Robert. I meant to thank her for informing me, but it felt afterwards like I was thanking her for his death. It's hard to know what to say when you're told of a passing of a person important to someone else; it's confusing when it's someone that you knew only a bit.
   Robert was a man that I talked with only for short periods of time when I had finished my morning walk in the park. He would sometimes tell me a not-very-funny joke, and honestly, I can't really remember much of what else we would speak of. Still, I was moved that he would come out of his car to talk with me as I neared. I don't know what we had in common that might have formed a bond between us, but I felt one, and I believe he did, too.
   Once, I wanted to hug him, but didn't. I don't really understand why I felt so close to him, but he felt like a family member that had always accepted me fully. The news of his death reminded me that I miss him.

Barn smells

   From the ages of about eleven to fifteen, I went to a kind of hippie summer camp in upstate New York, parts of which were a small, working farm. One year, I was assigned to stay with a group of boys in a converted chicken coop.
   During those summers, some of us would play floor hockey in the storage floor of a nearby barn. I loved the smell of the hay there, and although those years were not the happiest for me, there was still something about the aromas there that I have sweet memories of. The smell of the weeds burned to keep away the insects during outdoor evening events, the biodegradable soap we used at the bathing stream, and that hay.
   I  am surprised when I reminded of it that people don't talk more about smelling in a positive sense. I cannot offhand think of another example of a thing that can so powerfully illicit memories seemingly dormant for so long. When people talk of smelling something, it usually is of something they find unpleasant.
   Perhaps most interesting is how the olfactory seems to bring forth past experiences in an almost non-linguistic way. And although I am someone who finds language to possess so much potential beauty, I also can see it as being too dominant and reaching. My nose can often have a better sense of things.































  

Calling dad

   I thought about calling my father as I got into my car early earlier. I think this every couple of months or so, though my father's been dead for eleven years at the time of this writing. I don't know whether that's a little or a lot. Anyway, I didn't feel particularly close to him as an adult when he was alive.

   It's not strange to me that I should have thought to call him in the morning (I regularly think to call other people at this time), but the idea of calling him made me think more today why I do so. Surprisingly to me, I even thought of telling him that I loved him.  

   I imagine my wish to call him and others as I go out into the world is an attempt on my part to feel more related and less afraid; perhaps less or more me. Maybe the thought of telling my father that I loved him was a merely a wish to feel closer to a world that I often find so antagonistic.