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Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.
Marcus Aurelius
The Fetch
I woke. You were lying beside me in the double bed,
prone, your long dark hair fanned out over the downy pillow.
I’d been dreaming we stood on a beach an ocean away
watching the waves purl into their troughs and tumble over.
Knit one, purl two, you said. Something in your voice made me think
of women knitting by the guillotine. Your eyes met mine.
The fetch of a wave is the distance it travels, you said,
from where it is born at sea to where it founders to shore.
I must go back to where it all began. You waded in
thigh-deep, waist-deep, breast-deep, head-deep, until you disappeared.
I lay there and thought how glad I was to find you again.
You stirred in the bed and moaned something. I heard a footfall
on the landing, the rasp of a man’s cough. He put his head
around the door. He had my face. I woke. You were not there.
Ciaran Carson, “The Fetch” from For All We Know. Copyright © 2008 by Ciaran Carson. Reprinted by permission of Wake Forest University Press.
Source:
For All We Know
(Wake Forest University Press, 2008)
Mikel Jollett Hollywood Park memoir p345-6
Not all narcissists are brash, cocky, or even extroverted. Some get the constant attention they crave from the world by playing the victim. Children of this type of narcissist tend to feel more like the parents spouse than child, burdened with the responsibility for the parents well being. When I learned this one day, I shouted "Bingo!" and laughed out loud. It wasn't funny; it was just such a relief to have a name for the thing I've lived with for so long: Mom and her demands, her life story full of holes and easily debunked lies, the panicking sense I always had that it was my job to take care of her.
Parents with narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder tend to cross physical boundaries. Without a feedback mechanism to understand which touch is appropriate, which body language is comfortable for others, which types of affection are welcome, they tend to invade the space of others, to leave others feeling physically uncomfortable in their presence. We are not taught our own right to determine which touches are welcome, which forms of affection are welcome. Our personal space is violated by such parents who do not recognize our need or desire for space, because they see us only as extensions of themselves.
The crossing of physical boundaries can lead to tremendous shame in adulthood and a tendency to put up with unwanted touching and sexual advances. We simply are left with the feeling that we are not allowed to say no, because we were taught that the narcissists needs are more important than our own.
Parents with NPD tend to view their children in strict aesthetic terms, wanting them to be cute and berating any physical flaws because the parents believe it reflects poorly on them. It's so strange to me how I spent years as a child believing I was fat because of this. When I look back at old photos, I see only a perfectly healthy little boy.
Narcissistic and BPD parents often pit their children against each other. One becomes the chosen child, the repository of all of the parent's best qualities, receiving the most attention, praise and pressure to perform. Another becomes the scapegoat. He is often blamed as the reason for the narcissist's behavior and the reflection of all the parent's worst qualities. The scapegoated child resents the attention the chosen child receives. The chosen child resents the undeserved resentment and anger from the scapegoat. It is so strange to me, upon learning these things, to see how much my brother and my relationship as children hewed to these precise patterns.
-Mikel Jollett Hollywood Park memoir p345-6
Stanley's Cat
"Did Stanley ever tell you about his cat?" Joe asked.
"No."
"Stanley was in LA driving his tractor trailer in bumper to bumper traffic when he saw a couple in a car up ahead having a huge fight. In the middle of the fight the man threw their cat out the window. The cat started creeping between the cars that were stopped in the traffic jam. Stanley climbed out of his truck and picked up the cat and took him all the way back home to Rhode Island. He said that cat was the best friend he'd ever had!"
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Delicious
It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Rob Reiner
When you’ve broken Federal Law to become President, when you commit Federal Crimes every day of your Presidency, you will do anything to avoid Prison. Make no mistake, we are in a street fight to save Democracy.
-Rob Reiner
Dawn + Dusk
“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”
― The Two Paths
Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins wrote, in Jitterbug Perfume (1984): Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature.
Weather
“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ”
―
Banish Imperfection
“To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.”
Pride
“It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.”
―
Color
“The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.”
― The Stones of Venice
John Ruskin
“I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”
―
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Sunday Swim
We just drove to the secret swim spot with Romeo and outfitted him with his orange life vest and double long leashes tied together. We found a huge thick dry stick and threw it in the water for him. He fetched it a dozen times and we supervised untangling the leash as needed. I waded in wearing my black dress and purple Converse sneakers. My kind of holiday, 3 minute drive 20 minute swim.
Tomato Sandwiches
I have made tomato sandwiches on home baked bread toasted, for every meal this week. I add mayo and sririacha and onion and basil too.
Hookland
There's a Hookland word that has served me across the years - tulled - to be caught between two worlds and at home in neither.
https://twitter.com/HooklandGuide
Kissing is a Thing
At protests my partner and I never take our masks off and we're pretty PDA heavy, soooo mask kissing is a thing. Tonight we nuzzled filters on our gas masks to kiss. Also, I grab his ass often because it's COVID safe and it's a good ass.
source
Tanya Hvilivitzky
Wherever possible, we should try to lessen extra stressors. Mindful meditation, yoga, running, and dancing can help to reduce cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress and that increases our cravings for comfort foods. Also, exercise promotes feel-good chemicals, so instead of thinking of it as a burden, we can approach our workouts as something that will help us function at our best—better brain, better body. Keep in mind, too, that sleep is vital to mood regulation—and when our moods are stable, we’re less likely to feel the urge to bury our emotions...
Thich Thien-An
If we are always demanding something out of life, then we will never be content. But if we accept life as it is, then we will know contentment.Thich Thien-An
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Santosh Kalwar
Never stop just because you feel defeated. The journey to the other side is attainable only after great suffering.
Santosh Kalwar
Dream
I was in an antique store and there was a woman in a long blue dress looking at a matching blue vase. The vase had a face on it, a scowl just like hers. I wished I had a camera so I could ask her to pose holding up the vase next to her face.
Friday, August 21, 2020
Walter Shaub
The world acts as though love and kindness were signs of weakness. But if that were true they wouldn't be so hard and hate wouldn't be so easy. The ones pitching hate and cruelty speak from a place of brokenness. They reveal their weakness. Love is strength. Be strong.
-Walter Shaub
Steve Edwards Memoir
Breaking into the Back Country
by Steve Edwards
In 2001 Steve Edwards won a writing contest. The prize was seven months of “unparalleled solitude” as the caretaker of a ninety-two-acre backcountry homestead along the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River in southwestern Oregon. Young, recently divorced, and humbled by the prospect of so much time alone, he left behind his job as a college English teacher in Indiana and headed west for a remote but comfortable cabin in the rugged Klamath Mountains.Well aware of what could go wrong living two hours from town with no electricity and no neighbors, Edwards was surprised by what could go right. In prose that is by turns lyrical, introspective, and funny, Breaking into the Backcountry is the story of what he discovered: that alone, in a wild place, each day is a challenge and a gift. Whether chronicling the pleasures of a day-long fishing trip, his first encounter with a black bear, a lightning storm and the threat of fire, the beauty of a steelhead, the attacks of 9/11, or a silence so profound that a black-tailed deer chewing grass outside his window could wake him from sleep, Edwards’s careful evocation of the river canyon and its effect on him testifies to the enduring power of wilderness to transform a life.
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Thich Nhat Hanh
"Handling our suffering is an art. If we know how to suffer, we suffer much less, and we're no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the suffering inside."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Rainbow
Last night there was a double rainbow in the sky. The main rainbow was the brightest rainbow I have ever seen. This is a good omen. Biden + Harris will win!
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Stay Keen
Enjoy it. If you can achieve anything close to what you want to achieve with your writing, you are a lucky human being. If you can get someone to pay you for it, you are a very lucky one. Remember that the next time you can’t feed yourself, and remember also that hunger is good for you – metaphorically at least. Don’t allow yourself to get too full or satisfied. Stay outside, stay keen, follow your star. That’s all.
PAUL KINGSNORTH
Stir Fried Broccoli
Last night I made stir fried broccoli with my usual garlic ginger olive oil combo. It didn't taste right. I added some wine and soy sauce and more soy sauce, salt, sugar. I finally gave up and we ate it. When we were cleaning up the kitchen my husband noticed a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. I had mistakenly used it on the broccoli!
Fruit Salad Trees
Fruit salad trees, developed by an Australian family in the early 1990s, are capable of bearing many different types of fruit on them at the same time - including apples, oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, grapefruit and peaches https://buff.ly/2QURTHk
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Fetch
We played fetch with Romeo on the peninsula on Harris pond today. As long as we had two sticks he'd drop one to fetch the other. At one point he fetched both at once out of the water. My finger got in the way and he accidentally pinched it with his alligator jaws. No major damage just a throbbing purple bruise. Now we are home and he is all clean and the ibuprofen is working.
August Means...
Farm fresh tomato onion sandwich with porch fresh basil leaves on my bread, toasted and slathered with mayo.
Monday, August 17, 2020
Robert Bly
“What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. His soul is the issue. Instead of pursuing the woman and trying to get her alone, away from her husband, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.”
― Iron John: A Book About Men“The inner boy in a messed-up family may keep on being shamed, invaded, disappointed, and paralyzed for years and years. "I am a victim," he says, over and over; and he is. But that very identification with victimhood keeps the soul house open and available for still more invasions. Most American men today do not have enough awakened or living warriors inside to defend their soul houses. And most people, men or women, do not know what genuine outward or inward warriors would look like, or feel like.”“In ordinary life, a mentor can guide a young man through various disciplines, helping to bring him out of boyhood into manhood; and that in turn is associated not with body building, but with building and emotional body capable of containing more than one sort of ecstasy.”
― Iron John: A Book About Men“When a man says to a woman, "You are my anima," she should quickly scream and run out of the room. The word anima has neither the greatness of the Woman with Golden Hair nor the greatness of an ordinary woman, who wants to be loved as a woman.”
― Iron John: A Book About Men“The Wild Man doesn’t come to full life through being “natural,” going with the flow, smoking weed, reading nothing, and being generally groovy. Ecstasy amounts to living within reach of the high voltage of the golden gifts. The ecstasy comes after thought, after discipline imposed on ourselves, after grief.”
― Iron John: A Book About Men“Zeus energy, which encompasses intelligence, robust health, compassionate decisiveness, good will, generous leadership. Zeus energy is male authority accepted for the sake of the community.”“Our story gives a teaching diametrically opposite. It says that where a man’s wound is, that is where his genius will be. Wherever the wound appears in our psyches, whether from alcoholic father, shaming mother, shaming father, abusing mother, whether it stems from isolation, disability, or disease, that is precisely the place for which we will give our major gift to the community.”
― Iron John: A Book about Men
― Iron John: A Book about Men
Anthony Bourdain
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/27/499308031/in-appetites-bourdain-pleases-the-toughest-food-critic-his-9-year-old
In 'Appetites,' Bourdain Pleases The Toughest Food Critic (His 9-Year-Old)
EccoAnthony Bourdain spent decades in the restaurant business before discovering that he had a gift for writing and storytelling. His new cookbook, Appetites, features food he cooks for his 9-year-old daughter.
As the host of the Peabody Award-winning series Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain has visited conflict zones like Beirut, Congo, Gaza and Libya — places his CNN colleagues routinely cover. But Bourdain is clear that he doesn't want to be mistaken for a journalist.
"Journalists drop into a situation, ask a question, and people sort of tighten up," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "Whereas if you sit down with people and just say, 'Hey what makes you happy? What do you like to eat?' They'll tell you extraordinary things, many of which have nothing to do with food."
Bourdain says experiencing the everyday lives of people around the globe helps give depth to the news reports about those places. "I mean, who are these people we are talking about when we talk about Benghazi or Libya?" he says. "Is it not useful to see them with their kids, to see how their everyday lives are?"
Author Interviews
At Daughter's Insistence, Bourdain Includes Ratatouille Recipe In 'Appetites'
So what does Anthony Bourdain eat when he's at home, being "ordinary"? During the course of his 16-year-long career in television, he has developed a reputation for trying just about anything — including unwashed pig rectum and rotten shark. But his new cookbook, Appetites, focuses on food he eats at home with his young daughter, including mac and cheese, burgers and some of his favorite Asian dishes, like Korean army stew.
"When I cook at home it's with a 9-year-old girl in mind," he says. "I mean, she's who I need to please, and if she's not happy, I'm not happy. The whole house revolves around her and her friends. So it's reflective of that."
Interview Highlights
On the cookbook
I wanted it to be useful, approachable, reflective of the life I've lived over the past eight or nine years as a father, as opposed to a professional trying to dazzle with pretty pictures and food that's different than everybody else's. ... I wanted to make a beautiful cookbook, [a] creative-looking one, spoken in honest, straight-forward, casual terms that gives the reader reasonable expectations, that encourages them to organize themselves in the way that I've found to be useful as a professional.
It's also reflective of, I think, age, and all those years in the restaurant business. Most chefs I know after work do not want to go out to dinner and be forced to think about what they're eating in a critical or analytical way. They want to experience food as they did as children, in an emotional way. The pure pleasure of that bowl of spicy noodles or even a bowl of soup that their mom gave them on a rainy day when they'd been bullied in school. I mean, that's a happy time when you can escape this world and lose yourself in food. These are recipes where hopefully, I try to evoke those feelings and emotions.
On starting out as a dishwasher and what attracted him to the restaurant industry
David Scott Holloway/EccoBourdain began his career as a dishwasher, and jokes that he learned "all the most important lessons" of his life scrubbing dishes.
I started working as a dishwasher one summer and it was really a big event for me, because up to that point I was lazy. I was the kid that if you hired me to shovel your walk in winter, I would really do a terrible job of it, probably find a way to weasel out. ...
The kitchen brigade [were] the first people whose respect I wanted, and the first time in my life that I went home feeling respect for myself. It was very hard work. You had to be there on time. There were certain absolutes, certain absolute rules, and for whatever reason I responded to that. ...
I was a happy dishwasher. I jokingly say that I learned every important lesson, all the most important lessons of my life, as a dishwasher. In some ways that's true. Thomas Keller, the great chef, talks about ... the magic of discovering that you line the dirty dishes up, you push them in the machine, and they come out clean every time. There's something very comforting about that. ... I still like being at the bottom of a steep learning curve. I liked being the worst in the kitchen and struggling every day to earn respect and status within that hierarchy.
On writing his first cookbook, Kitchen Confidential, and finding his writing voice
I think, to a great extent, the reason Kitchen Confidential sounds like it does is I just didn't have the luxury or the burden of a lot of time to sit around and contemplate the mysteries of the universe. I had to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning, write for an hour and a half, and then I had to go to work to a real job. ...
It was liberating in the sense that I had no time to think about what I was writing. I certainly had no customer or reader in mind, because I was quite sure no one would ever read it. That was in many ways a very liberating place to be. I've kind of tried to stick with that business model since.
On twice being given the honor to kill a pig for a village feast in Borneo
That first time I don't think I had ever killed an animal before. I had been ordering them up as a chef over the phone, so I was culpable in the death of many animals. But here I was being asked to physically plunge a spear into the heart of a pig. It seemed to me the height of hypocrisy, however uncomfortable I might've been with that, to put it off on somebody else. I had been responsible for the death of many animals. Here I'm being asked, I didn't want to let the team down. I didn't want to dishonor the village or embarrass anyone.
The first time was very, very, very, very difficult. My camera guys almost passed out, it was certainly very difficult for me. The second time, as much as I'd like to say that it was still really hard, and I think I said in the voice over, I don't know what it says about me, probably something very bad, that I have become — I have changed over time. I'd like to think in good ways, for the most part, but I've also become more callous. I've become able to plunge a spear into the heart of a screaming pig and live with that much more comfortably than I did the first time.
On finding great neighborhood places and hearing reactions from locals
Ideally I'll go to a place, like I'll find a little bar in Rio, let's say, some little local place that perfectly expresses the neighborhood. It's not a tourist-friendly place, for lack of a better word, I hate this word but I'll use it anyway — "authentic." I'll feature that on the show.
The response I'm looking for is to hear from someone from the neighborhood saying, "How did you ever find that place? I thought only we knew about it. It's truly a place that we love and is reflective of our culture and our neighborhood."
But on the other hand, it's kind of a destructive process because if I name the place — and I don't always when it's a place like that — I change it. The next time I go back, there's tourists. There're people who've seen it on the show. Then I might hear from the same person from that neighborhood saying: "You ruined my favorite bar!" All the regular customers have run away and it's filled with tourists in ugly T-shirts and flip-flops.
On food he hesitates to eat
If freshness and hygiene is a question, generally it's tribal situations that are problematic, where the whole tribe, the chief is offering you something that's what they have. Often they don't have refrigeration, it's often old — their tolerance for meat that's even spoiled is higher than [that of] my relatively sensitive stomach. Often these dishes are eaten in one large bowl with the whole tribe jamming their fingers in. So yeah, rotten food, food that's clearly not clean, water that's clearly not good — those are a challenge.
On the flavor spectrum, I'm pretty good with just about everything. ... When you get to, like, rotten shark in Iceland, I mean I could do it, but I'd rather not. Won't be doing that again. It's unpleasant but it's not the end of the world. I don't know, for sheer soul-destroying misery, if you're talking about a bite of food that just makes me question the future of the human race and sends me into a spiral of depression, I think eating an airport Johnny Rockets pretty much would be the nadir.
On getting sick
I've lost three days of work in 16 years ... only three days that I've been down for the count and confined to bed and desperately, horribly ill. Generally speaking, if it's, like, a street-food stall that's busy, even if it looks dirty as hell, if there are a lot of locals there and they're eating and they're happy, my crew will always eat at that place. Eating a Caesar salad at the major chain hotel in Central Africa or the Middle East, that's where you run into trouble, stomach-wise, generally.
On losing interest in fine dining, because of his love of street food
I'm happiest experiencing food in the most purely emotional way. And it's true of most of my chef friends as well. When it's, like, street food or a one-chef, one-dish operation, or somebody who's just really, really good at one or two or three things that they've been doing for a very long time, that's very reflective of their ethnicity or their culture or their nationality — those are the things that just make me happy.
I'm spoiled, like a lot of fellow chefs. We get a lot of fine wines and dinners thrown our way and you do reach this enviable point where you just don't want to sit there for four hours, with course after course after course. It's too much, first of all. It doesn't feel good at the end of that time, and it's not interesting. And if the waiter is taking 10 minutes to describe each dish [and] it'll only take you three to eat it, something's really wrong. I think people lose sight of the fact that chefs should be ultimately in the pleasure business, not in the look-at-me business.
2nds
We drove to THE BIG APPLE farm in Wrentham yesterday and bought a peck of tomatoes labeled 2nds. They taste like firsts to me. After my swim I ate tomato on sourdough toast with onion and basil and mayo + sriracha.
Sunday, August 16, 2020
Philip Pullman
I don’t know where my ideas come from, but I know where they come to. They come to my desk, and if I’m not there, they go away again.
PHILIP PULLMAN
Woodie Guthrie
Old Man Trump
Words by Woody Guthrie Adapted by Ryan Harvey, Music by Ryan HarveyI suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project
Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!
I'm calling out my welcome to you and your man both
Welcoming you here to Beach Haven
To love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place
To have your kids raised up in.
Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!
*The recorded version of this song is available on iTunes.
© 2016 Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. (BMI) & Ryan Harvey (ASCAP)
Sunday Morning Happiness
What made me happy this morning was going out and cleaning my street with a bucket and a grabber, before anyone was awake. Now when I look out it's clean on both sides of the street. Yesterday I cleaned the parking lot out back. Sometimes it's the little things that bring the greatest reward.
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Carrot Salad
Shred a bunch of peeled carrots. Add pineapple chunks and juice. Add walnuts and salt. Enjoy.
Cucumber Yogurt Salad
Peel and slice cucumbers thin add plain yogurt, salt and onion. We added fresh basil.
Delicious Air, 68 Degrees
After weeks of 90 degree temperatures it's delicious to drink the cool air. I raked up twigs and leaves from the communal driveway. I spontaneously vacuumed under the bed and couch. I made shredded carrot pineapple walnut salad and cucumber yogurt salad to go with my batch of cooked kidney beans. The temps will rise again so this was a chance to clean up.
Senegal Surfer
'When I am in the water, I feel something extraordinary,' says Senegal's first female pro surfer
Friday, August 14, 2020
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Summer Iced Tea
2 Yorkshire teabags, 1 black cherry berry Celestial Seasonings herb tea, steeped for 5 minutes in boiled water. When cool add ice and a splash of apple cider.
Death and the post office.
Six months into an interminable lockdown, I find myself missing the long dead. The throughline feels like a logical one – it’s a pandemic. Of course I’m thinking about death.
Death and the post office.
That took me slightly by surprise, even in a year where nothing has been what I’d imagined. I didn’t think we’d be arguing whether or not we, as a country, should be able to send and receive mail. Then again, I didn’t think we’d be debating on whether germ theory is real or not, either.
Robert Reich
We're dealing with an egotistical maniac who's hell-bent on stealing this election, bringing back segregation, keeping children in cages, and sending secret police into our cities. This election isn't about right vs. left. It's about fascism vs. democracy.
-Robert Reich
Audre Lorde
“Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner our our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.”
Audre Lorde
Spiritual Historian
An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.
JAMES BALDWIN
Adam Schiff
Has there ever been a president so utterly devoid of scruple, so naked in his ambition to steal an election? Trump is so terrified of losing that he'll take the entire system down with him. Our post office. Our elections. Our very democracy. His depravity is boundless.
Adam Schiff
Loathe Suburbs
Does anyone else loathe suburbs? I despise them and everything they stand for.
Living on a stage set inside the ego bubble was how I grew up. I hated it and I was determined not to repeat it.
My Grandparents lived the urban life in NYC, on Brighton Beach. They rode the subway and spoke to everyone. I knew at age 7, that was the life for me.
Luisa A. Igloria
“I try to learn the gold-slow rhythms of afternoons, the thrift of hours from the longer bones of time.”
— Luisa A. Igloria
Absentee Slumlords
You can tell which buildings they own from a mile away, porches filled with garbage, bacon grease stains down the side of the building, broken fences, mile high piles of dog shit. This is how absentee slumlords destroy a neighborhood, and a city.
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Politics
First my mother became president and that has been traumatic. But now my sister is about to be vice president.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Children learn more from what you are, than what you teach.
W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Dream
I dreamed we lived next to a house that was a temple and we got invited in for a holiday and nobody was social distanced. Everyone was eating chocolate treats off of trays and there were no masks.
Porky was a pilot and I had a trip on his 2-seater airplane flying between city buildings. I complained about stopping at a 7-11 for snacks.
Because I kvetched I
got locked up in a mental institution with my truly crazy former
neighbor Ed. I was alone in a huge room filled with musical instruments.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Banana-Coffee Smoothie
2 bananas ice cold coffee plain yogurt & 1 tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk. Buzz in blender and share with a friend.
Awaken
"To awaken suddenly to the fact that your own Mind is the Buddha, that there is nothing to be attained or a single action to be performed – this is the Supreme Way."
— Huang Po
"You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck."
— Rumi
Be Bored
“To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life, but from the perspective of concentration training, it’s incredibly valuable.”
― Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Skating Away
My new way to handle a heat wave is to go ice skating. Skating uses different muscles. I love watching the other skaters that's the best part.
Some Good
“Do some good in the world for no other reason than wanting to be part of the solution.”
― How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country's Top Students
The Tycoons
“The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.”
― Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
Greater Effort
“Ironically, jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because like flow activities they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one’s work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it. Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.”
― Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Cal Newport
“Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging.”
― Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Monday, August 10, 2020
Sunday, August 09, 2020
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Thanksgiving and Christmas
and the School Year...
are all cancelled until we get a new president
and a vaccine
several worlds each day
“There is no poetry where there are no mistakes.”
―“I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies”
― In Mad Love and War“I know I walk in and out of several worlds each day.”
―“To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.”
―“It's possible to understand the world from studying a leaf. You can comprehend the laws of aerodynamics, mathematics, poetry and biology through the complex beauty of such a perfect structure.
It's also possible to travel the whole globe and learn nothing.”
― The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: Poems“A story matrix connects all of us.
There are rules, processes, and circles of responsibility in this world. And the story begins exactly where it is supposed to begin. We cannot skip any part.”
― Crazy Brave“I was born with eyes that can never close...”
―“I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear. I release you. You were my beloved and hate twin, but now, I don't know you as myself”
―“All acts of kindness are lights in the war for justice.”
― The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: Poems“I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.”
― Secrets from the Center of the World“My generation is now the door to memory. That is why I am remembering.”
― September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond“Someone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts”
―“She exists in me now, just as I will and already do within my grandchildren. No one ever truly dies. The desires of our hearts make a path. We create legacy with our thoughts and dreams.”
― Crazy Brave“I could hear my abandoned dreams making a racket in my soul.”
― Crazy Brave“True power does not amass through the pain and suffering of others.”
―“My father told me that some voices are so true they can be used as weapons, can maneuver the weather, change time. He said that a voice that powerful can walk away from the singer if it is shamed. After my father left us, I learned that some voices can deceive you. There is a top layer and there is a bottom, and they don't match.”
―“Because Music is a language that lives in the spiritual realms, we can hear it, we can notate it and create it, but we cannot hold it in our hands”
―“I listen to the gunfire we cannot hear, and begin this journey with the light of knowing the root of my own furious love.”
― In Mad Love and War“In Isleta the rainbow was a crack in the universe. We saw the barest of all life that is possible. Bright horses rolled over and over the dusking sky.”
―“Bless the poets, the workers for justice, the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache, the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh meaning—We will all make it through, despite politics and wars, despite failures and misunderstandings. There is only love.”
― Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems“Those of fire move about the earth with inspiration and purpose. They are creative, and can consume and be consumed by their desires [...] My father-to-be was of the water and could not find a hold in the banks of earthiness. Water people can easily get lost.”
― Crazy Brave“And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.”
― Crazy Brave“I Give You Back'
I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear. I release you. You were my beloved and hated twin, but now, I don't know you as myself. I release you with all the pain I would know at the death of my daughters.
You are not my blood anymore.
I give you back the white soldiers who burned down my home, beheaded my children, raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters. I give you back to those who stole the food from our plates when we were starving.
I release you, fear, because you hold these scenes in front of me and I was born with eyes that can never close.
I release you, fear, so you can no longer keep me naked and frozen in the winter, or smothered under blankets in the summer.
I release you
I release you
I release you
I release you
I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved,
to be loved, to be loved, fear.
Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash. You have gutted me, but I gave you the knife. You have devoured me, but I lay myself across the fire. You held y mother down and raped her, but I gave you the heated thing.
I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't hold you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice, my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart my heart
But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid
of dying.”
―“I sit up in the dark drenched in longing. / I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didn’t have at dusk.”
―“You’re coming with me, poor thing. You don’t know how to listen. You don’t know how to speak. You don’t know how to sing. I will teach you.” I followed poetry.”
― Crazy Brave: A Memoir“It was the spirit of poetry who reached out and found me as I stood there at the doorway between panic and love.”
―“I wanted to see everything. It was around the time I acquired language, or even before that time, when something happened that changed my relationship to the spin of the world. My concept of language, of what was possible with music was changed by this revelatory moment. It changed even the way I look at the sun.”
― Suspended“I walk in and out of several worlds every day.”
―“In the end, we must each tend to our own gulfs of sadness, though others can assist us with kindness, food, good words, and music. Our human tendency is to fill these holes with distractions like shopping and fast romance, or with drugs and alcohol.”
― Crazy Brave: A Memoir“Alive. This music rocks
me. I drive the interstate,
watch faces come and go on either
side. I am free to be sung to;
I am free to sing. This woman
can cross any line.”
― She Had Some Horses
Joy Harjo
“Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. You must make your own map.”— Joy Harjo, from "A Map to the Next World" in How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems:1975-2001
The Damage
I hope they shoot the orange tyrant just like I wished my mother would die. They do eventually die, the tyrants. But the booby prize is they are not ever completely gone. They still live in your head, and all of the damage they caused is still visible.
Amused
New sink feels like a whole new kitchen, new shower curtain feel like a whole new bathroom. I'm easily amused by small things.
The Best Part
Best part of summer is coming home from the local pool wearing a wet bathing suit + sweatshirt + towel and making an iced coffee.
Turn Anger into HOPE
By Rupinder SinghPractice makes perfect.
The Sikh faith teaches us two things: To continually seek connection with the Divine, and to rise above our ego to do so.
Sikhism identifies five explicit “vices” — also referred to as “evils” or “thieves” — that pull us away from the Divine. These vices include lust, attachment, pride, greed and, yes, anger. Sikhism acknowledges that we are human beings with requisite human failings, but luckily, our faith also advises us on how to let go of them, too! Here are 7 tips to keep anger from robbing you of hope.
1. Accept it.
Anger is a part of the human condition.
Recognize that anger is a part of the human condition. We know that we have this failing and so it is incumbent upon us to prepare ourselves for it. Sikhs believe that everything happens according to God’s will, or hukam; in other words, what happens is meant to happen. What we do have is control over how we respond to it. So be angry; but remember that we can choose to stay in a rage, or we can transform anger into productive energy.
2. Pause.
Taking a pause to reflect is an explicit and regular part of Sikh scripture, which often invokes a formal instruction to pause, or rahao, to absorb a key theme or lesson. When faced with anger, it is good practice to pause and reflect. When we feel anger, it’s an opportunity to ask ourselves about the source of that anger. What is the hurt we feel underlying it? When we can identify the hurt, we can then identify what steps we can take to address it. It won’t all happen in an instant, but taking a few deep breaths, a walk around the block, or even an evening away from devices and social media can be healing and promote reflection.
3. Fear none, and instill fear in none.
Overcome your own fear and frustration, but while doing so, do not cause others to be afraid. In other words, channel the energy behind our anger and let our anger motivate us to act, but not in ways that will hurt others. It might feel good to lash out in the heat of the moment, but that good feeling never lasts. Compassion does. Avoid seeking revenge and instead focus on finding solutions.
4. Remind yourself to be optimistic. Repeatedly.
Sikhs remind ourselves to maintain high spirits no matter what we’re facing. This constant state of optimism is a concept known as chardi kala — a state of mind we are taught to hold even in the worst of circumstances. We invoke this phrase at the conclusion of all of our religious services. We maintain optimism not only for ourselves, but also with faith that despite the injustice we see in the world, the Divine will shower blessings on all people.
5. Surround yourself with positive people.
Keep the company of saints.
A common cliché is that we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time. The Sikh faith teaches us something very similar: We are taught to keep company of saintly people, the sangat, to benefit from their energy. As such, we should also avoid angry people. It can be so easy to get stuck in a negative echo chamber on social media, or swallowed by Twitter @ battles, or in a passive aggressive tit-for-tat with coworkers. Never read the comments! Instead, seek those who exude peace and a willingness to engage fruitfully in discussion, whether online or in person.
6. Be humble.
Remember that no one is perfect. Including ourselves! If we can get rid of our sense of superiority to others — even when we’re sure we’re right and we’re sure they are wrong — it fundamentally changes the lens through which we see them and we can better accept their full humanity, flaws and all. And our own. Judging our own mistakes, beating ourselves up for them, and feeling helpless aren’t productive. So accept and move on! (See Tip #1.)
7. Take action.
Start small. You can always do something.
Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, taught that while truthfulness is the highest virtue, higher still is truthful living. In other words, be the change. A tactical way to dispel anger and replenish (and spread!) hope is to serve your community selflessly, a concept in Sikhism known as seva. Sikh teachings encourage community service as a responsibility. Serving others proactively without expectation of a reward brings with it inner peace and tranquility, as well as connection. This doesn’t have to be a huge endeavor. Start small. Volunteer at a local community center or library. Clean up a public park. Play an instrument? Give a performance at a local nursing home. Have particularly friendly, people-loving pets? Consider getting them registered as therapy dogs. Remember, you can always do something.
What are your best tips for keeping anger at bay, and staying hopeful? Tell us!
Summer Salad
We picked up a bushel of cukes from The Big Apple Farm and made a summer salad for dinner last night. Sliced cukes, Vidalia onion, green olives salt pepper buttermilk, dried cranberries, Adobo, kosher salt.
I ate it for breakfast today.
Allergies + Mood Cycle
My battle with allergies and mood cycle is won by daily lap swimming. What arrived as a curse ended up as a blessing and perhaps even a superpower.
Happiness
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
― Helen Keller
Living Philosophies
What I believe -- by Einstein (1930)
The following was originally published in October 1930 on FORUM, vol. LXXXIV, No.4.
What I Believe
Living Philosophies XIII
by Albert EinsteinStrange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.
I do not believe we can have any freedom at all in the philosophical sense, for we act not only under external compulsion but also by inner necessity. Schopenhauer’s saying – “A man can surely do what he wills to do, but he cannot determine what he wills” – impressed itself upon me in youth and has always consoled me when I have witnessed or suffered life’s hardships. This conviction is a perpetual breeder of tolerance, for it does not allow us to take ourselves or others too seriously; it makes rather for a sense of humor.
To ponder interminably over the reason for one’s own existence or the meaning of life in general seems to me, from an objective point of view, to be sheer folly. And yet everyone holds certain ideals by which he guides his aspiration and his judgment. The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
Without the sense of collaborating with like-minded beings in the pursuit of the ever unattainable in art and scientific research, my life would have been empty. Ever since childhood I have scorned the commonplace limits so often set upon human ambition. Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.
Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.
My political ideal is democracy. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized. It is an irony of fate that I should have been showered with so much uncalled-for and unmerited admiration and esteem. Perhaps this adulation springs from the unfulfilled wish of the multitude to comprehend the few ideas which I, with my weak powers, have advanced.
Full well do I know that in order to attain any definite goal it is imperative that one person should do the thinking and commanding and carry most of the responsibility. But those who are led should not be driven, and they should be allowed to choose their leader. It seems to me that the distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force. I am convinced that degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors. Time has proved that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels.
For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to such regimes as exist in Russia and Italy to-day. The thing which has discredited the European forms of democracy is not the basic theory of democracy itself, which some say is at fault, but the instability of our political leadership, as well as the impersonal character of party alignments.
I believe that you in the United States have hit upon the right idea. You choose a President for a reasonable length of time and give him enough power to acquit himself properly of his responsibilities. In the German Government, on the other hand, I like the state’s more extensive care of the individual when he is ill or unemployed. What is truly valuable in our bustle of life is not the nation, I should say, but the creative and impressionable individuality, and the personality – he who produces the noble and sublime while the common herd remains dull in thought and insensible in feeling.
This subject brings me to that vilest offspring of the herd mind – the odious militia. The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake – the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient. This heroism at command, this senseless violence, this accursed bombast of patriotism – how intensely I despise them! War is low and despicable, and I had rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings.
Such a stain on humanity should be erased without delay. I think well enough of human nature to believe that it would have been wiped out long ago had not the common sense of nations been systematically corrupted through school and press for business and political reasons.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which out dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.
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