Natural occurrences

It's hot out there. The grass is dry, and some lawns look scraped and scalped, patches of parched red dirt pushing into view through straw-colored remains. We're keeping the AC around 78 degrees, and it feels cool. I don't go out there much except to get into my car and drive to work, or to walk my requisite hour after the sun goes down. There are places on my walk that seem cool and breezy. That's because the people have just watered their plants and the sidewalk is wet and evaporating, creating a tiny local breeze. It would be interesting to be one of those people. The people who care about the outsides of their houses.

I walked past one of the don't-care houses, and the little boy on his motorcycle-looking bicycle said, "There's a bottle!" I had stepped on part of the same bottle the night before, so I followed his pointing finger, and there was the bottom of the broken beer bottle. Then I noticed he was about to contact a stray piece of it with his bare heel. That wouldn't do, so we both spent some time collecting all the pieces while his mother watched, immobile it seemed, from her chair on the front porch. "People just throw things out of cars!" I yelled, cheerfully. She nodded or something. I walked on.

The cop who lives on the corner has got the poison ivy starting up again by the big tree on the edge of the lot. But the drought has brought the vine so little fuel that it remains tiny; the three-part leaflets haven't even reached the trunk. I am not sure if I'm gung-ho enough to bring along my spray bottle of ivy-killer on my walk. Where did the expression, "gung ho" come from, anyway? It can't be good that I use it. Anything automatic has to be suspect. As well as anything over-considered.

I am trying to finish a tiny poem. It has eight short lines. It was an assignment from the Soul Mistress of my writing group. It's supposed to be about writing poetry, and has to contain an onomatapeia. I've written it, but it doesn't have quite the impact I'd like. I can see becoming obsessed with perfecting it. What other activity to pour oneself into than something as insignificant as the arrangement of a few words? Because, after all, a poem IS a magic spell, and the spell has to be cast correctly.

Then again, how can I "pour myself" at all in this weather?

Nothing is real; nothing to get hung about...

The near impossibility of getting any sleep in my tent during the Memorial Day weekend music festival helped me appreciate my conventional house and its dusty bedroom. My state of mind at around 3 am both nights at the festival was bizarre. At that hour, music was still heard intermittently in the campsite area, followed by whoops and hollers of drunken delight. It was all very benign, but still, it forced me to go into meditation mode, discounting all worldly phenomena. Such mental “nothing is real” efforts tend to carry over into the next few days, when things are back to “normal,” and should be considered “real.” So I am not sure what the benefits of another such “vacation” would be, except that the music was very enjoyable. I am considering doing it again next year but bringing my earplugs and getting there early enough to secure a less public campsite. Seeing people’s feet shuffle along six inches from the tent opening was disconcerting. It made me think about homeless people who live on the street in cardboard boxes. My husband, who joined me for the second night in the tent, commented that in fact, it did not resemble the experience of the homeless, because we could look forward to getting back to our conventional house and its dusty bedroom. A homeless person, by definition, could not do that, but would be in a continual state of insecurity and anxiety about their own welfare. Perhaps he’s right.

Everything is so impermanent: our houses and cars, our clothes, our jobs and their technologies, the things we think we are interested in, the fluctuating states of our health. I always revert to being a “big picture” person, maybe because I’m lazy. But most involvements, intellectual, personal, or artistic, seem sort of illusory to me. Or they do now that I’m older than I ever thought I would be.

There is no reason to post the picture you see here except that it’s a “scene” that's now gone: my 19-year-old self, with my little brother (the Incredulous Pithecanthrope whose link is at left) during one of my infrequent visits to my family’s big suburban house (long since sold to another, more “together” family). It was 1969, and I was in recovery from the excesses of urban hippiedom, wearing my other brother’s hand-me-down vests and shirts. This was probably a few months before I moved in with a boyfriend and began working for a well-known Cambridge movie theater that, surprise, no longer exists.

The idea of impermanence (a shibboleth of Buddhism) is useful when you’re squirming in discomfort with just a thin mat between you and hard ground and being frequently jolted awake by sudden loud sounds as if undergoing torture by sleep deprivation experts. But it’s an idea that also gets you thinking—too much.

Hippie dippie time

It's probably been about 30 years since I attended a "music festival." Not that I haven't been to concerts in the park, and such. A few years ago I even went to Lilith Fair for an evening with a friend, but we didn't camp out. I recall being angry because they wouldn't let me take my bag of healthy food into Lilith Fair, but instead wanted to make sure I purchased their crappy food for lots of extra money. But the music was good. I even got to see the multi-talented Jewel belt out some classic blues and jazz. (After that, I couldn't resume my ignorant, jealous disparagement of her.) My point is, though, that I'm going to a "grassroots" music festival called "The Acoustic Cafe" this weekend with a girlfriend and her kids. I'm actually bringing my tent. And mosquito repellent. My spouse may join me for a day; that will be nice; it's only a short drive away from the old homestead to which we daily cling. I hope I can forget my troubles and get happy. Honestly, I don't HAVE any troubles, really. But perhaps I can focus on enjoyment rather than anxious feelings of "what am I supposed to do next?" I may even eat a baloney sandwich on white bread! But I am bringing my special, healthy beer.

Home stretch?

I shared my 87 pages of rambling on my topic with my thesis advisor. He said he liked the writing. In fact, he was in Mexico, working on an academic study-abroad program, and had taken the thesis with him. He said that he enjoyed reading my thesis as much as the New Yorker magazines he'd brought with him. Perhaps he was just flattering me, but why would he do that?

He did say, however, that I needed to restructure the order in which I presented certain topics, and that I needed to provide some context information for the "reader." Darn. I was trying to avoid that! To heck with the reader! My writing is about satisfying MY whims. Or used to be.

It's going to be a slugging-away summer.