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.