Double Vision

We spent some time over Thanksgiving weekend visiting my boy's family and some hometown friends of his. They have a year-old baby who was really cute - dark eyes, lashes so long they curled up, a face that crinkled into quick unexpected smiles. His mom kept brushing his feathery dark hair out of his eyes. I kept flicking back and forth between my own reality and an alternate universe in which, if we lived there, I could have a life like hers.

Parts of it were really nice, namely the baby. I'd love to be the mother of a baby like that. I worry a lot about pregnancy and labor, about whether everything will go well (if I ever have a baby). It would be great to have it all behind me and have this beautiful child to show for it, something I had created with my husband that we could both take joy in. Sitting on the floor with her as she played with her baby, I looked forward to doing the same with my own child someday, with almost a physical yearning. She was very involved - not the type to just set the kid down in front of the TV. She was there physically taking part in the activity, whatever it was, every single minute, singing to him, teaching him, soothing him when he started to get fractious. It looked like hard work, but also really rewarding. I could see what pleasure she took in being simply competent at motherhood, and I'd like to be that way, too. It's not that living here precludes motherhood. But right now, with my job and our schedules and where we live, there doesn't seem to be room for a baby.

Having a house would be nice too. Right now we live in an apartment in the city. I love how it's in the middle of everything so we don't have to drive anywhere, and when the sun comes flooding in the windows on Saturday mornings I think how lucky we are to have this great place to live. But having a house, a real house with a laundry room and a garden where I can plant vegetables, and a fenced yard, would be so much better. Property values are so high that I'm not sure we will ever be able to afford a house, even a townhouse, in this area. I had been wondering how feasible it would be to raise kids in an apartment. Seeing this other couple our age with their own home makes me think I shouldn't settle for less - that the life I want is within reach, it's just in another town. I pictured buying a nice old house in the neighborhood with elm trees in the yard; going shopping with my inlaws; having them over for Sunday dinner.

There's a lot I'd have to give up though. For starters, there aren't the economic opportunities there that we have here, and I probably wouldn't be able to get a job in my field. I'd have to stop expecting fulfillment from work. I think I could do that, but it would be a transition. Then there's the community. To fit in, I get the sense I'd have to go to church. I could show up for services and go through the motions, but I'd lose something of myself in doing it. Then there's the loss of all the cultural and intellectual opportunities we have here - where there are free films, lectures, art festivals, and so many other things going on all the time. I'd have to take my pleasure in simpler things - my garden, shopping, the local library perhaps. It's a more circumscribed existence. Then there's the tolerance issue. In just a few days, we passed a swastika in the sidewalk, saw a racist sign posted in a store, and got yelled at randomly by a punk in a pickup truck. I didn't see a single person who wasn't Caucasian. I felt like, in a way, I was hiding out - everyone looked at me and thought I was one of them because of my skin color, and everyone was nice to us (with the exception of the punk). But I'm not one of them. I felt like an outsider, a secret crazy atheist liberal, a wolf in sheep's clothing. I wonder if I lived there whether I could really find any friends who I could be open with, or if I'd always have to put on a kind of bland suburban-housewife cheeriness just to be accepted.

I probably don't have enough data to draw conclusions, and actually I don't mean this to have a negative slant. Perhaps it's because I could so readily picture myself making a new life there - drying my hands on my apron, waving at my kids as they ride their bicycles off down the sidewalk - and because so many aspects of my visit were pleasant, tempting me to believe I could live there happily, that I'm focusing on what I believe I'd have to give up. The suburban-housewife thing isn't too far-fetched; I think I have a crusader's ambitions but essentially the soul of a housewife. Crusades don't make me happy. They're just what I feel I have to do. Having friends over for tea and baking cookies makes me happy. I guess I will let things unfold as they will.

Nerd Alert

If you were going to join a space colony and you could only bring one book with you from Earth, what would it be?

This is a question that has intrigued me since I was ten and read The Green Book by Jill Paton Walsh, about a group of colonists from Earth who set up shop on a new planet. Each person in the colony is allowed to bring one book. Because they're not organized and don't compare selections before hopping on the spaceship, they end up taking multiple copies of Robinson Crusoe and some of the kids take comic books which quickly fall apart. One girl takes a little green book and won't show anyone what it is. At the very end, you find out that it's a blank book and she's been writing in it, chronicling the story of their colony, and everyone agrees that this is the most valuable book any of them brought. Nice hook, but you can always make paper and write on it, so I didn't think her choice was that great.

Anyway, at the time I read the book, I picked out The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy as my choice. It's about a six-year-old boy in Hungary whose life gets torn apart by WWII. He ends up a refugee orphan in America and finds solace when he's adopted by a nice Midwestern family. It's so beautifully told, and parts of it (like when he gets reunited with his horse) still made me cry when I reread it last summer.

Later, I revised my selection to Possession, by A.S. Byatt, which is a really intricate, elegant exploration of Victorian literature and scholarship. It weaves together so many literary themes, myths, and poems that I figured it would give me lots of food for thought in the long evenings. Plus, it's a love story.

But now I have a new choice. It's the dictionary. I know, you are amazed at my choice. "Wow!" you're thinking. "What a laaame choice!" But really. What you truly want if you're leaving everything you know is a kind of all-encompassing work that captures everything you want to remember about life on Earth. With a dictionary, you can start out looking up piroplasm, and get sidetracked into explorations of persimmons, pugnacious, and photofluorography. Along the way you can laugh at perspicacious and prestidigitation. You could have endless hours of fun staging spelling bees and knowledge-a-thons while the weird alien wolves howl outside your village. The dictionary won't provide any comfort if you want stories, but it captures all the ingredients you need to remind yourself of the stories you already know.

I Want Costly, Painful Surgery

...At least, I want to fix whatever's wrong with my foot. The night-time bunion regulator I bought ("especially designed for people who don't want costly, painful surgery") doesn't seem to be doing the job. The ball of my foot still aches when it's pressed against anything, like the inside of a shoe, and now the side of my foot seems to be hurting too. It's getting harder and harder for me to walk even short distances.

It's silly how much this bothers me. I have this sense that at my age I should be in perfect health, able to do anything I want, and even a minor limitation that isn't my fault frustrates me. I feel like, obscurely, it is my fault, that it's a moral weakness or something. I always feel this way about health issues. I should probably get over it because as I get older more stuff is going to go wrong, and it's dumb to beat myself up about it every time. It's not like the beating up will obviate the need for surgery, anyway. I'll probably still have to have that done. With lots of things in life, if you plan ahead and are smart, you can avoid consequences, but this isn't one of them.

Wonderful Wizardry

Yesterday, after waiting in a line that wrapped around the block, I finally got to see Harry Potter. It was good - better than I expected. The Quidditch World Cup scene was breathtaking, with the ranks of seats going up and up, and the impression of terrific, dizzying space in the arena. So was Harry's flight from the horntail, particularly the part where it's clinging to the roof tiles and, menacingly, searching for him. I also loved just about every scene with the Weasley twins. I never really took to them as characters in the books, but they were great on camera. I've got criticisms too, but I'll leave that to the more die-hard fans who are no doubt at this very moment debating the finer points of the film in chat rooms.

One of the things that struck me about the making of the Harry Potter series was that since it spans ages 11-17, with one book/movie per year, they had to cast actors at a young age and follow them right through adolescence. Imagine having the most awkward years of your life filmed and watched by millions of people. Granted, they have a crew of makeup specialists and special effects artists to help them look cool, but even so. There's only so much you can fake. Like Emma Watson's flawless complexion. How many of us had perfect skin at age 15? How does she do it? I still don't have skin that good, and when I was her age, it was a disaster. How did they know, casting her at age 11, that she would grow up lovely? did they look at her parents? can you examine pre-teen skin and predict how it will respond to puberty? Or is it sheer luck?

Clases Españols

I am trying to learn Spanish, under the patient tutelage of the maintenance guy who does the rounds in our office every night. I always used to say hello to him, and he would wave back. At some point he told me his name and asked mine, and then he said "Como esta?" so I said "Bien, gracias" and he lit up with smiles. I told him that's really all the Spanish I know, but I would like to learn more.

Now when he comes by on his rounds, he spends an earnest few minutes every day conducting a one-sided conversation with me. He comments on the weather, identifies the office supplies on my desk, inquires how my day went, etc. I can usually understand what he's saying, but I can't formulate a reply - I don't know how to conjugate verbs or anything. Actually I don't know any verbs. Yesterday he flipped through a newsletter about dairy cattle management that was on my desk, and pointed out "vaca", "vaca," "caballo," etc. I pointed at a picture and said, "Vaca." Alas, it was a bull. He almost fell over laughing. "No es vaca!" wiping the tears from his eyes.

Note to Self

Dear Erin,

When you get a great idea while you are brushing your teeth for an opening sentence/paragraph for a short story, don't just go to bed planning to write it down in the morning. I know you think you will remember it, but you won't.

- Erin.

A Night-time Adventure

One of my favorite things to do is wander around someplace at night that I'm not supposed to be. Last night on my way down from the bell tower in the cathedral, I found a spiral staircase that someone had left unlocked by accident.

It was pitch dark - I had to feel my way down with my hand in front of me. I could smell the stone all around me, pressing in. Once I rounded the first turn and was completely surrounded by the stairs, I felt a flush of excitement - how far down did the stair go? would it be dark all the way? what if someone closed the door behind me and I was locked in? After a while I saw a grey glow up ahead, and came to a tiny narrow window looking out over some battlements. I kept going down the stairs into darkness.

Up ahead, the stone began murmuring echoes of a voice, a kind of magnified Voice of God. I Know You Are There Erin God might have said. You Are Not Supposed To Be In There. There was a kind of revivalist twang in his voice, a call and response rhythm. Can I get a Halleluiah? - Halleluiah! God sounded Baptist for sure. I got closer and the stairs opened out onto a balcony behind a massive stone pillar. I was up in the ceiling of the cathedral, overlooking (three stories below) a special evening service with a hell-and-brimstone preacher. I was right up next to the stained glass windows that no one ever gets to see, with the saints looking reprovingly at me. I peeked over the edge (cautiously - the security guards patrolling the cathedral are mean). I'm not usually afraid of heights, but the drop to the stone floor below inspired a heart-pounding dizziness, and I shrank back behind the pillar again.

The balcony ran all around the walls, disappearing into countless staircases like the one I'd come down. If the cathedral was under attack by swarms of invaders in swirly red cloaks, they could battle the resident priests a hundred feet above the ground. The air would be full of clinking swords. Meanwhile, I'd race down the back passages that only I knew about, a novice in a white gown, and take the secret tunnel that emerges in quiet twilight somewhere on the grounds, far from the cathedral walls. Halleluiah.

Rallying

I really do wish I was sharper. I want a keen mind that ferrets out illogical statements and carves up arguments so people are afraid to debate with me. Maybe it wouldn't lead to happiness, but it would protect me from scorn (real or imagined). I do OK on intelligence tests, but that only means I can tell which of the five shapes doesn't belong. What I need is real-life carve-em-up smarts.

In other news, this afternoon I marched in a political protest. We were having a meeting in the conference room when we heard the cheering outside - sounded like a sports stadium full of people. We leaned out the windows and saw the whole street was blocked off and thousands of people were marching, waving Ethiopian flags and banners that said, "U.S. Stop Supporting Zenawi" (the prime minister in Ethiopia, who's responsible for widespread human rights violations, and whose rule is being propped up by the U.S.). My coworkers let out full-blooded yells and pumped their fists, and people looked up and waved at us. Later, I went out and marched with them, all the way up to the police barricades where there were officers in riot gear holding German shepherds, and others riding police horses. The horses were freaking out about the flags - they kept jumping and rolling their eyes. I didn't stay till the end, but I was impressed at how many (working-age) people were there, who had obviously arranged for time off from their jobs to march in the rally. I hope a crowd that large won't be ignored.

War and Remembrance

I was lucky enough to have the day off for Veterans' Day. Went to the museum, saw an exhibit on Americans at War and another on polio. Then around sunset I went to see the war memorials. The WWII memorial was especially beautiful - just as dusk fell they turned on the lights around the fountain. The sky arched overhead melting from blue-violet in the east to lemon-yellow in the west, and there was a three-quarters moon. I stood on a rise overlooking the memorial and the people shuffling to and fro, and just felt overwhelmed by the consciousness of sacrifice that filled the air.

I thought a lot about my grandparents throughout the day, since all four of them served in WWII. (In fact, they all met in the service. I owe my existence to WWII.) As terrible as the war was, there was an element of pleasure in their recollections of the war days, the lifelong friends they made, the sense of shared purpose. All those crisp pilots' uniforms and brave, rosy-cheeked girls writing letters to their men at the front. Victory gardens. Slogans like "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!" Posters encouraging housewives to "Scrimp and save, so he'll have enough" with a picture of a handsome, smiling soldier. When I was a kid, we had one of my grandfather's posters left over from the war hanging in the dining room: "Food is a weapon. Buy wisely, cook carefully, EAT IT ALL."

It seems like the war, at least on the home front, brought people together; it wasn't colored by protests and disillusionment like Vietnam and Iraq. I wonder why, when it cost so many lives, the population as a whole was behind it. Maybe there seemed to be no alternative. Maybe it was so much a part of everyday life, and so many families had people in the service, that protesting the war would have seemed naive at best, counter-productive and treasonous at worst. 1940's children on their bikes cheering for the soldiers seems "innocent", a show of support that ignores the more complex issues. But maybe to people then, our protests against the Iraq war would seem "innocent" and unrealistic, something only people uninvolved in war could afford to do.

Haves and Have Nots

I have stumbled across a mystery. You know those UPS drop boxes with the little sign that says "Today's pickup [has/has not] occurred"? When the driver comes by to pick up the mail, he switches the sign to "has". But when does it switch back? Does UPS have to send someone around at midnight to switch all the signs to "has not" for the new day? Or is it hooked up to a timer and it flips back automatically at midnight?

I was actually interested enough in knowing the answer that I called UPS. But the customer service person I talked to, Pat, didn't know. Actually I think she didn't get why I was asking at all. At first she was defensive and said it was early for today's pickup to have occurred, and if I had concerns about that... and then I explained that I wasn't calling about a specific box, I was just curious. Silence on the line. I could hear her thinking, "Boy that girl has a lot of time on her hands." I tried asking more roundabout questions like, do the drivers go around later to change the sign back? Pat said no. So does the sign flip back automatically? Pat said no, the drivers flip it when they pick up from the box. But how does it get back to "has not"? Pat said stiffly that she had no more information for me. The trail was cold.

Anyone out there know?

Books Ablaze

I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451, one of those books everyone has to read in school but I somehow missed it. Actually I missed a lot of the classics, so I'm filling in the gaps in my education bit by bit.

It's pretty good - the writing is old-fashioned and a little clunky, with characters often behaving unrealistically for the sake of high drama, but there are some great themes about government oversight of individual lives, and the choice between living in a simplistic, black-and-white world and a more challenging spectrum of grays. Some of the descriptions are also pretty good. Here's one I like:

"The trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain...They walked in the warm-cool blowing night on the silvered pavement and there was the faintest breath of fresh apricots and strawberries in the air."

And another one - the eyes of a woman who has overdosed on sleeping pills:

"Two pale moonstones buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran, not touching them."

And another one:

"The blowing of a single autumn leaf.
"He turned and the Mechanical Hound was there.
"It was half across the lawn, coming from the shadows, moving with such drifting ease that it was like a single solid cloud of black-grey smoke blown at him in silence."

And the last one, as he's walking in the forest at night:

"A deer. He smelled the heavy musk like perfume mingled with blood and the gummed exhalation of the animal's breath, all cardamom and moss and ragweed odor in this huge night...
"There must have been a billion leaves on the land; he waded in them, a dry river smelling of hot cloves and warm dust. And the other smells! There was a smell like a cut potato from all the land, raw and cold and white from having the moon on it most of the night. There was a smell like pickles from a bottle and a smell like parsley on the table at home. There was a faint yellow odor like mustard from a jar. There was a smell like carnations from the yard next door. He put down his hand and felt a weed rise up like a child brushing him. His fingers smelled of licorice."

I bet it was Queen Anne's Lace, they really do smell like licorice.

My Idea

I had an insight yesterday, on my way home on the bus (I do all my best thinking on the bus). I was wishing I was smarter. Sometimes there are mental challenges just hard enough that I can see I'm not smart enough to understand them - it's like revving an engine, and it's overheating and starting to make that burnt electrical wire smell, and I start to feel frustrated and disappointed in myself because I just can't get it. Anyway, I thought, "Boy, if only I was smarter - I'd be happier..." and then it occurred to me that maybe that's not true. In fact, maybe it's the opposite. A lot of smart people are also really depressed, plagued by a host of neuroses, and dissatisfied with themselves. On Maslow's Hierarchy, they've achieved all the basics like food and shelter, but they're struggling with things like self-actualization and legacy to the world and sense of purpose, and those are notoriously tricky. It's a lot easier to be happy when your thoughts run no deeper than your desire for a bowl of soup. And then you get a bowl of soup.

Then I asked myself, "Would you rather be smarter, or happier?" and the answer to that is a shoe-in. Or maybe I should say no-brainer.

So, my insight was not the old "ignorance is bliss" discovery which everyone knows, it was the technique of making myself feel better by setting up a choice between what I think I want (and don't have) and what I really want. I can use this for the rest of my life. "Would you rather be rich, or happy?" I'll ask myself as I open up my 99 cent can of Campbell's tomato soup. "Would you rather live in a nice house, or be happy?" "Would you rather have lots of friends, or be happy?" It works great.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear...

I think the worst emotion to feel is fear. I'd rather be angry, excited, guilty, bored, lonely, anything other than that sick, fizzy, wretched feeling. I was thinking about fear on the bus this morning. (Because I didn't want to go to work, because my boss yelled at me on Friday and I felt flashes of fear, periodically, all through the weekend, thinking about having to face her today. Which is stupid, because it's such a little thing - but I'm not good with confrontations.)

Some other things that make me feel afraid, some of which I am certainly going to have to do in my life:
- Going to a job interview.
- Having a baby.
- Buying a house.
- Moving away from my parents.
- Getting sick or disabled in a permanent way. Like, finding out I have diabetes and I have to deal with that for the rest of my life. Or losing my sight. Or getting paralyzed because I wimp out and have an epidural. Which actually still happens to some women.
- Experiencing a terrorist attack.
- Losing my partner. I'd rather die first. I just don't think I could handle the loss.
- Getting attacked physically - mugged or raped.

And the mild ones:
- Driving alone at night when I don't know where I'm going.
- Getting in trouble for something I did - socially, work-related, whatever. I can't stand being torn down in public.

I'm reading Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale, and I'm so in awe of his chutzpah. I'd love to have that kind of confidence. He basically lived with fear every day of his life, knowing he could be caught at any time, and that if he was caught, the consequences were going to be really bad. I could never do that, even if I was smart enough to carry off the cons the way he did (and he was brilliant).

I wonder if maybe I'm unusually fearful just because nothing that bad has ever happened to me. Little things like my boss yelling at me totally crush me, just because I'm not used to that. Maybe I should've been more of a delinquent when I was a kid, so I could toughen up. Maybe I should welcome the little things, even go out of my way to find them, so I can get the experience I need before the bigger ones come along.

Waterworks

I feel like I've been really teary lately about certain subjects, to the point that just looking at an image or thinking about something brings the tears into my eyes. I don't start bawling or anything, but I feel like if I was alone and wanted a good cry, I could easily have one. Things that have prompted this recently (besides the starving New Orleans dog):

- The scene in About Schmidt where he passes the cows on their way to the slaughterhouse, and you see their big white-lashed eyes looking out of the slats in the trailer. I thought that was the saddest part in overall, a very sad movie.
- Runner-up: The final scene where he starts crying when he sees the picture his sponsored child has sent him. It was the way he was trying to smile and cry at the same time that got me. Weirdly, gestures of despair and compassion are equally likely to stir up the tears for me. That's why this scene is so poignant because it's the perfect combination.
- The idea of losing my parents.
- Illegal trafficking in wildlife - parrots especially, but other animals too.
- Not having been there when my cockatiel died. She was so sick and weak at that point, but I still thought she would pull through. I wish I'd been there with her to comfort her - instead I was running late that morning and just hurriedly kissed her goodbye before going off to work, and then I never got to see her again.
- In Winged Migration, the scene with the Canada geese in the pen trying to take off, and the way the wild flock circled overhead calling to them, before giving up and flying away.
- Last night at a zoo lecture on invertebrate diversity. Someone asked a question about conservation and the speaker said very passionately, "We are going to lose 90% of the species on earth by the year 2025. It is inevitable, it's going to be a consequence of our increasing population and conversion of land into agricultural uses. Every single being on earth has the exact same right to live as you or I. Every one deserves to exist."

Augh, so now that one has made me cry, writing about it. The presentation included slides of the beautiful insects, frogs, and other organisms the speaker had photographed all around the world, including a blue gecko from Madagascar. In the photo, the gecko was hissing at him with its mouth open in protest because he had been poking it to get it lined up for the picture. The idea of that beautiful little creature making such a brave gesture of defiance against an animal hundreds of times its size represents for me the helplessness of all the other species on earth that are in the path of our willful consumption. The extinction of other species is a crime for which future generations will not, and should not ever, forgive us.

Songs for the Departed

Went to an All Souls' Day Service for the Faithful Departed last night. I didn't mean to go to a service, it was advertised as an opportunity to hear the choir perform Faure's Requiem, and I'm always up for a good requiem. But then when we got there, suddenly ushers were handing us programs and ushing us into a pew, and there was a gold cross progressing up the aisle and it was a regular church service (gotcha!). Nicer than usual, though, because of the cathedral ambiance - we were sitting up in the chorister section where you don't usually get to be, and there was lots to look at - carved wood, high stone arches overhead, swinging censer, etc. I didn't find the service that useful, tuned in periodically and heard the usual stuff about Jesus dying "to save the whole world," Purgatory, true believers, etc. So I spent the time instead thinking about the departed I've known, remembering them and what they brought to my life. I thought about my grandparents' accomplishments throughout life and wished I had been mature enough to tell them, when they were still alive, that I was proud of them and that I loved them. I wished I had spent more time talking with them. I also thought about the many pets I've had who have brought me so much joy, and how even the memory of their affection continues to make me happy.

I think the most valuable things a religion can do are to teach people how to be happy in their lives, teach them to live sustainably so future generations have the same opportunities that they did, and give them ways to cope with the fear of death. I don't think Christianity does a very good job of any of those. If I were starting my own religion, I'd skip the creation and afterlife myths, the worship requirements, and definitely the exclusionary stuff. The focus would be entirely on having respect and compassion for the earth and for other living beings. Kind of Buddhist, but more proactive - I think one aspect of Buddhism is to accept suffering, and I'd be more interested in finding ways to prevent or stop it.

Speaking of Victorian Parlor Games

Here's a good one we made up last night. My dad was flipping through channels on TV when I said, "Want to play a game?" He said, "I like toothy Donald Sutherland," in reference to a TV show. My mom laughed and said, "How do you play that?" I said, "You have to make up another sentence with the same first initials for each letter." My dad turned the TV off (yay!) and we spent the next half hour composing brilliant sentences and laughing at each others' genius. It was so much fun. We must have come up with dozens - these are the only ones I can remember now.

I like toothy Donald Sutherland.
Ingots lightly tumble down slopes.
It's, like, T-D-S. (tedious)
Iceland lava touches drifted snow.
If ladies trip, don't smile.
Intelligent lonely teens date seldom.
It's love! The dog sits.
Impatience likely takes down soothsayers.
I laughed, then danced samba.
Indolently lolling tea drinkers slurp.

Unicorns, Knights, and Damsels

Recently I watched The Last Unicorn, a great animated film I remember from my childhood. Every time we went to the video store, I would beg my parents to pick that one. It was still good - especially the scene where she runs through the seasons, and the dramatic ending with the red bull and the unicorns boiling up out of the sea foam. Very dated though, and a lot of the middle story seemed flat. It's hard to imagine how it could have captivated me so much as a kid that I would want to watch it back-to-back.

Anyway I looked up the actress who did the unicorn's voice, which is really high and shrill. It was Mia Farrow. I was walking down the street (doing my November Resolution lunchtime walk!) when I got an image of 40-something Mia whinnying into the mike at the studio, "Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh! I am a unicorn!" and it struck me as so funny that I started laughing out loud. I had tears in my eyes by the time I controlled myself. People must have thought I was a nut.

On an unrelated note, Rufus Wainwright is awesome. I'm so glad I got introduced to his music. I would like to live my whole life with the kind of racing joy I feel when I hear "Beautiful Child."