Webcam the World

Webcam the World

  by Heather McHugh

Get all of it. Set up the shots

at every angle; run them online

24/7. Get beautiful stuff (like

scenery and greenery and style)

and get the ugliness ( like cruelty

and quackery and rue). There's nothing

unastonishing - but get that too. We have

to save it all, now that we can, and while.

Do close-ups with electron microscopes

and vaster pans with planetcams.

It may be getting close

to our last chance -

how many

millipedes or elephants are left?

How many minutes for mind-blinded men?

Use every lens you can- get Dubliners

in fisticuffs, the last Beijinger with

an abacus, the boy in Addis Ababa who feeds

the starving dog. And don't forget the cows

in neck-irons, when barns begin

to burn. The rollickers at clubs

the frolickers at forage - take it all,

the space you need: it's curved. Let

mileage be footage, let years be light. Get

goggles for the hermitage, and shades for whorage.

Don't be boggled by totality: we're here to save the world without exception. It will serve

as its own storage.

(from 'Upgraded to Serious')

 Photo: mine, Bryant Park, NYC Sept 2010

Whoah boy!

Paul Revere

I had not been looking forward to my birthday this year and had spent the previous few weeks rehearsing the new number, trying it on for size, doubling it to see what number it was half of, and generally marveling at how quickly the previous year had passed.

I spent my birthday in Boston with my mother, two brothers, my husband and son. My son was going to be without his PlayStation for 72 hours and I was going to age, so to fortify ourselves we planned to attend Sunday mass at St John the Evangelist Church in Cambridge.

As we stood on the sidewalk after the service, I made some glum comment about my age. My husband piped up: "What's the hurry?" Apparently, I had so conditioned myself to the new number that by the time my birthday hit, I automatically added one more year.  I didn't know whether to be relieved that I hadn't 'aged', or to become concerned that I was able to dupe myself so well. But we all did the appropriate thing - which was to laugh.

My brother, the former Bostonian

Mother, brothers, son - Boston.

After church we took a walk along the Freedom Trail in historic North Boston. We started at the building ( now a pub) where John Hancock and Samuel Adams plotted the revolution. We then moved on to the spot where Crispus Attucks, former slave, became the first casualty of the Boston massacre marking the beginning of the Revolutionary War. We followed the trail all the way through the Italian quarter to the Old North Church where Paul Revere had instructed that a lantern be held up in the church belfry: one if the British were coming by land, and two if by sea (the Charles River).

We spent two nights in a hotel on the Cambridge bank of the Charles and watched the four-man sculls going upriver on the cold mornings in preparation for the Head of the Charles Regatta. On the third evening we made the drive back into New York City. I was one year older, and my son was conversing again. It was (at least) a two lantern moment.

Husband and son

Birthplace of the Revolution

Photos: Boston, October 15-17, 2010

  

Not Much Today

  There isn't much I have to say -

these pictures were a week ago, 

but could as well have been today.

Screeching seagulls hanging low

a cool wind sweeps across the bay,

these pictures were a week ago

but could as well have been today.

The Throgg's Neck Bridge's gentle bow 

has made the fractured city stay -

these pictures were a week ago,

who saw what happened there today?

There is no way for me to know.

There isn't much I have to say,

these pictures were a week ago -

but might as well have been today.

Not Much Today - by Lorraine Robain
Photos, mine - City Island 10/3/10

Something Else Entirely

My grandfather, Claude Nichols

To my great shock and delight I learned this morning that despite my previous claims to the contrary, I do have some sort of 'native' blood coursing through my veins. Who knew? Apparently, my mother...who didn't think it noteworthy till we got together with her cousin over breakfast and they started to dredge up the family history.

The story goes, there were three brothers who came from Scotland (The Nichols) to the West Indies in the early to mid 1800's. One settled in Barbados, one went to the Grenadines and the third went further south to Aruba.One of those men was my great-great-grandfather. From all accounts, my g2g-dad settled in Barbados and one of his sons later came over to the Grenadines and took up with a woman who was, if not full blooded, a hefty part Carib. My grandfather Claude was one of their sons.

The Caribs and the Arawaks (Taino) were two of the main tribes of Amerindian people living in the Caribbean when Columbus 'discovered' this area. A common simplification is that the Arawaks were friendly whereas the Caribs were hostile - even rumored to have been cannibals. But we've learned to be a little leery of historical accounts, based on who has done the telling. What we know for sure is that the regional population of ten million Amerindians was reduced to one million through disease, slavery, revolt, extermination and finally, re-population. I understand quite well how indigenous people feel about being usurped. I even sense the angst of Sarah Palin's 'Real Americans' who fear the influx of immigrants, though the ironic 'full-circle' quality of this occurrence isn't lost on me.

Because of our history, almost all present day Caribbean people are part many things, which makes us something else entirely. But at this point, no living West Indian can argue against that history without arguing against their own personal existence.

Tibetans, after losing their autonomy, now fear the systematic influx of more and more Han Chinese into Tibet. Their country has been rapidly developed in part to put a good face on the invasion but more practically, to put down the infrastructure needed for its increasing Chinese population. I read about it and felt quite a bit of outrage because this clearly is not a mutually acceptable situation, but it never is.

No Iron Balloons

With a Henry Moore sculpture - June 2008, NYBG

It started this past Thursday - a cyclist almost ran me over on the sidewalk. He had no business there, but once he passed me I looked past him up the canyon of Fifth Avenue, wondering what it would be like to ride my own bike up the length of it. That started me thinking (of all things) about my upcoming birthday which is just weeks away from claiming another year of my life. By then, the thought was fully formed: "What have I been doing all my life?


This type of reflection is proof positive that one's youth is fast departing (I am being kind). Where did the time go? What do I have to show for it? Is this as good as it gets? Because life is truly seamless and organic, its quite difficult to tease out the tiny threads of cause from the tangled ball of their effects. So, unless you are standing in a cesspool (i.e, assuming you are reasonably OK with your life) you don't really look for scapegoats, or rogues to rue. As a result, you rarely regret what you've done, (criminals and jerks aside) rather - what you didn't do.

Enter 'the bucket list'. I'm not crazy about the term but I like the idea of at least taking stock of what you think you'd like to do before you 'go'.

Some people think they want to climb Mount Everest, or perhaps a more modest slope (you don't want to risk kicking the bucket before you fill it), go to some exotic country or other, run with the bulls in Pamplona, go on Safari in Kenya, volunteer for some noble cause, write a book, swim with the dolphins, run a marathon. Feats of endurance, feats of indulgence, and some feats of pure foolishness too.

I hadn't given it any thought whatsoever until that evening. If you'd asked me that morning what I would want to accomplish in life, I would have replied that I'd like to see my son reach adulthood, and I would like to have peace of mind along the way. 'Winning the lottery' rears its head now and then - but that's not within my control. Not that anything really is. So, I thought about it, and the first thing I decided was to call it something different: "My Liftoff List". Like a rocket-ship rather than a bucket. Something to blast off in - rather than something to kick. Up rather than down. Next, I decided that the list couldn't be populated with 'iron balloons', but rather things somewhat within my power to initiate and complete. There goes growing beautifully old like Vanessa Redgrave. So, here it is, in no particular order:

1. Become an elementary school Phys Ed teacher. I know this is possible because my son's Phys Ed teacher is at least 65, has a bum knee and walks with a cane. Thus far, I only have the bum knee.

2. Plant a garden of 'under-appreciated' plants (code for 'weeds'). I've got a jump start on this one already.

3. Dress strictly out of a (carry-on size) suitcase for a month. The only extra I will allow myself is a (carry-on size) tub of laundry detergent.

4. 'Give up' a different one of the five senses for each day of a week - and give up speech on the 6th day.
Give up the project on the seventh day because the kick to this is renewed appreciation not masochism.
 
5. Spend a night sleeping out in the backyard. Its a nice compromise between my warm bed and camping. I could move my warm bed into the backyard which would be an even nicer compromise.

6. Have an exhibition of my photographs and publish a book of poetry. ( Nowhere do I say they have to be any good.)    

7. Travel to the hillside where (they filmed) Julie Andrews singing 'The Sound of Music'.

8. Have a birthday party at the New York Botanical Gardens. Peggy Rockefeller's Rose Garden to be specific.

9. Learn to tolerate more asymmetry and uncertainty. Like having a list of only 9 items - and having no idea whether I'll accomplish them.

   Liftoff.

    

Artist and admirer in the Rose Garden

Peggy Rockefeller's Rose Garden - NYBG

Spirit of the Evening

Pony Boy

Pony Boy with Mom

 This past weekend I attended my second pow-wow for the year. This one was the Redhawk Native American Council at FDR State Park. There were several things on my calendar for that day (Sunday) but I thought I'd go up there since I didn't get deep enough into the last one. I got a great seat and just settled into it.

The first delight was the sight of my favorite little dancer from the Bear Mountain Pow Wow.
I'd dubbed him (to myself) 'Pony Boy' because of the horse image on a piece of his regalia.
Looks like he was there with his mom and he looked even younger than I remembered him.


The spirit of this evening was phenomenal, I think it was my best pow wow experience ever, and although I didn't get to see Pony Boy dance, what I did see didn't disappoint. There was a lot of wonderful dancing - about 150 frames worth - yet these quiet moments were the ones that stayed with me: Pony Boy - of course; the pensive, almost tender teens; the passionate, soulful youth, and the striking man with the black and white painted face. Intense, intelligent and electric.

Heroic Portraits

Alberto Korda's Che Guevara

This past Friday I went to the International Center for Photography at 43rd and 6th Ave. There were two exhibits running: The Mexican Suitcase and Cuba in Revolution. Both exhibits showcased the work of photojournalists covering in one case the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and in the other, the Cuban Revolution of 1959. I went at the end of the workday before heading home. The museum was packed as it was opening day of the exhibit and the first exhibit since the reopening of the Museum itself. 

The Mexican Suitcase exhibit was made up of 4500 photographs which had been lost for almost 70 years until (their negatives) turned up in Mexico in 2007. The exhibition showed them all, the ones which had been published during the war, as well as the ones which had not been selected for publication - what you could call the out-takes. Out of focus, uninteresting, poorly lit, badly composed - the kind of pictures that a photographer would probably destroy or certainly not let into the light of day. Not that they were all without merit, but the value of these photos was not so much in their artistry as in their completion of a narrative. They showed what the photographers (Capa, Chim and Taro) were doing in the 'in between'. 

The Cuba exhibit was interesting for another set of reasons. There was one wall titled 'Heroic Portraits', the centerpiece of which was Alberto Korda's iconic photograph of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.

The original picture isn't as well known as its cropped and Warhol-ized versions. Here is the original which includes the partial profile of (presumably) another revolutionary. The top part of Che's jacket subtly suggests a Power Ranger costume. Which is to say that the Power Ranger costume looks a lot like Che's jacket.

Michael Jackson's red 'Thriller' jacket isn't far off either, now that I think about it.

Che's combination of physical beauty, what I would call a 'reflective and virtuous face', and charismatic bearing were irresistible. This was all my impression, however I'd tempered that with the knowledge that all of these photos were posed for. Which was true except for one set.

In a small room, on the last wall of the exhibit, were Che's death pictures. After his execution by firing squad in Bolivia, the Bolivian Military and the CIA were eager to show proof of his elimination. Maybe because of the ridicule inherent in this exercise, or perhaps it was just the way his physicality was set in death, but the result was beatific.These were the photos in which the subject could not compose himself, but somehow did.

Luca Del Baldo's portrait of the dead Che - after the photograph.

Back to Backpacks

School is in, and I am once again aghast at the heavy loads that schoolkids have to carry each day. For the past few years we have tried to alleviate the problem by purchasing an extra set of textbooks to keep at home. This saves my son the lugging of books back and forth, and eliminates the 'I left my textbook at school' excuse. School textbooks are outrageously expensive - more than $200.00 for the Religion textbook ( I have my own not-so-nice take on that) and more than $100.00 a piece for math, science, social studies textbooks. We don't pay directly for textbooks, (they are supplied by the school ) but we pay alright.Tuition is quite a tidy. So, to furnish the duplicate sets, we turned to Ebay. We've been Ebay junkies for a few years now - car parts, sunglasses, cell phone accessories, spare camera batteries, books, shoes to name just a few things. The school books were a revelation: Social Studies text, $11.00; English text - $4.00; Spanish text - $2.00. One year we got his summer reading books for a penny each. A penny!

Last year ( for the 6th grade) I bought a really great Sharper Image rolling backpack at Marshall's. It was just sitting there at the store. Not another one like it. Forty bucks. Lands End or JanSport would have set me back $80.00 and up. Like everything at Marshall's, its hit or miss. You see an item you want, and the price is good, you grab it. You might change your mind later - but that's what returns are for. I hate Macy's and other large department stores. I'm not much for malls either. Then again, being in garment manufacturing and knowing what it really cost to make things - I try my best to avoid paying retail. That basically leaves me with the discounters like Marshall's, TJMaxx, Loehman's Century 21, and their ilk. They aren't really discounters. They are just ripping you off to a lesser degree. Am I that jaded? Maybe. An old English lady once told me: the price of anything is what people will pay for it. I remember when my son was born there was a nonsensical toy called Furby (a cross between a Gremlin and an owl ) It sold for $60.00. Outrageous, but nothing compared to the 'Tickle Me Elmo' that was going for as much as $1000.00 on the black market. Another inane toy. But, back to that backpack.

This backpack was superbly designed, sturdy, and looked set to make it through the 7th grade, until the straps unexpectedly broke - meaning that my son could not haul it onto his back to climb the 3 flights of stairs to his classroom. We started the hunt for a new bag on Ebay, but click by click we found ourselves in a maze of online stores.We were hit by such a dizzying array of brands, colors and configurations that we quit in exhaustion. An exact replacement of the beloved Sharper Image backpack would cost $80.00 and was on back order everywhere we checked. We weren't feeling that. Then we had a truly original idea. Could we repair the backpack? We scrounged around the house for nylon webbing and found some on an old ratty backpack, which we cut off and fed through the plastic clips. In two-twos we were operational again. It was obscenely easy, why didn't we think of it first?

When I was a child, our parents would have performed this whole dance in reverse - buying new only when repair was impossible, or perhaps just limping along with the broken item, making the best of what was left, and even developing an affection for its new idiosyncracies. We had a car. If you could call it that. It was an English station wagon called a Hillman Hunter. Old as the hills. Handed down from my aunt to my father if you must know the truth. When we hit a pothole, the Hillman (dubbed 'Betsy') would shake violently from side to side (the result of a shot suspension). Steering Betsy got a little dicey when she started with her little shimmey, but we quickly discovered that when we hit another pothole, the shaking stopped. It was like a magic trick that delighted us over and over again. Hit a pothole Dad! Shake and shimmey, mind the ditch, the oncoming traffic! (Somehow it never resulted in disaster) Now let's hit another! We had a similar adventurous (you could even say positive) attitude toward bumps on the head and bodily injuries. The first comment was usually 'You're lucky! Could have been worse'. That was repair. Whether it was a broken backpack, car, appendage or even marriage. How times have changed.


Photo: Tandem bike riders - Madison Ave, NYC ( 9/17/10)

Welcome Intrusions

cucumber flower

  We have new neighbors. Old man Larry died about 18 months ago and his house had been for sale since he passed. About four months ago we saw activity over at the house. Larry was my neighbor at 11 o'clock. Not to be confused with neighbor at 9
o'clock (Nancy, who hardly speaks and keeps a very tidy yard) and neighbor at 3 o'clock, Maria, (whose family were farmers back in Italy, and who crams her backyard with tomato, cucumber, squash, eggplant, peas, parsley, lettuce, peppers, and counsels me on the evils of weeds). Neighbors at noon are Terry and Kathy with the pool, the jungle and a howler of a dog named Barney. All 5 of our backyards meet, which is to say that the properties here are quite small.

the intruder





Larry, who was a WW II Vet, had many a story for me before he passed - but the saddest was of his lonely life in that huge house since the death of his wife and estrangement from his son. Older folks will tell you all sorts of stuff if you just lend them an ear. I hadn't been paying that much attention to Larry's successors ( a large Russian family) until today. Creeping over my fence right by the second birdhouse was... what?? A cucumber vine with big cucumber hanging off it! Welcome neighbors!

                                                                                 

Speaking of the unexpected. Cleaning out my son's room, I came upon his 4th grade science book from which fell these two pieces of paper. The first read: To Dean, from Justin A (still his best friend). Spiderman, you, me. I am sorry, good job on the car.

"I am sorry, good job on the car"




the car

 








I may or may not eat that cucumber as I have to sort through the moral issue of whose it is (just kidding - it'll be in a salad by this weekend), but I am definitely keeping those two pieces of paper.   

   

    
      

Facing It

Man with pipe, (Bryant Park ) Aug 2010

I take a lot of photos, but I'm always a little wary taking photos of people. It's something I have to work my way around, because I'm actually very interested in how people look, but very conscious of being behind the camera taking the picture. The double introspection is a bit much. Either you are aware that you are asking them to be super-aware of themselves. Or you are 'taking' their photo without their permission and neither seems palatable to me. If you are asking them to pose (or pause) for the photo - then you have to deal with the face most people throw up. The one they think is their best. Then you have to deal with the feeling of putting them in that position. Then, there is only a small window of time within which both parties are actually 'willing' to have the picture be taken. This is just my experience. 'Taking' a picture of someone who is not posing or not in a public performance role feels a lot like stealing to me. The only time it feels ok is when the person is an incidental part of a bigger scene, as in the picture of the girl with the umbrella. Its something I am still sorting out. One morning I saw a fascinating couple near Bryant Park. He was black, she was white, they both wore dreadlocks and were both wearing white except for the brightly colored ribbons in their hair. And, they were pushing a shopping cart with their personal effects. I felt relatively OK with the idea of crossing the street to a discreet vantage point and taking a shot of them. Which I did. But somehow, the man became aware of me, ( Crap! Was I not discreet enough?) turned his partner's head away and started to shake his fist at me. That's right. No-one else knew what was going on - but he and I were very aware of each other and the fight we were having. I felt terrible and deleted the one shot that I was able to squeeze off before he detected me. So, my reservations were not unwarranted. Fast forward an entire year and I'm in the same park ( I pass there every day on my way to work). I went to shoot a gigantic red hibiscus and then sat down for a bit. I was right behind this man. Should I? He was engrossed in his newspaper and his pipe - which he knocked against the side of the park chair every now and then. I took one - he didn't flinch. I took another and another and another - actually not even composing the frame, but working more with the feeling of taking a photo without 'permission'. I'm still not sure that it feels right.

Giant hibiscus - Bryant Park, Aug 2010

Girl, Central Park 10/28/09

Man with smoke  - Aug 2010

Lost Filling Saves Evening.

 Bee on the coleus flower stalk.

There is nothing like fear to cut anger. I think it's a better salve than happiness because when you're really angry you're invested in holding on to it, and nothing as post-ponable as happiness will oust it.

Last night I was stirring the pot again, walking to the corner drugstore to get a repair kit for my mother-in-law, who'd lost a dental filling during her encounter with a slice of cranberry nut bread from Zaro's. That wasn't why I was angry, on the contrary - I'd hoped taking the walk would distract me from the bitter feeling that was threatening to ruin the start of my weekend, if it hadn't already. Anyway, I walk in to the Walgreen's (which has come and plunked itself down in the old location of our neighborhood grocery store, which was itself hemmed out by astronomical lease rates. I heard Walgreen's paid $5 million, and the grocery store manager told me they just couldn't beat or even match it). I went quickly to the dental aisle and picked up the repair kit and some Ambesol in case my mother-in-law started to have pain - then I went to the register to pay. In front of me there was a frail elderly lady who was speaking in a whisper to the checkout girl while sliding her Chase banking card across the counter. Then she turned to me, stepped aside and said - 'Miss, go ahead.' Normally I would, because I am always in a rush, but instead I said - no, no take your time. I realized that the wait was cooling me down and I really didn't mind. So the old lady turned back to the girl and continued speaking: 'This is my card' (again sliding it towards the register). She had no purchases. Waving her hand: 'I went back, but they are all out'. The girl and I turned to look toward the back of the store trying to figure out what it was that she couldn't find. 'They are out and about doing things'. 'I came out and the door closed, see this is my card' (again pushing the bankcard forward as if it would somehow explain everything) 'I put the key in, I think it was the wrong door...' At this, she put her hand over her mouth in a expression that was a mix of despair and "oh-oh, I made a mistake". It was then that I noticed two medical bracelets on her right wrist and my insides dropped. She was lost, or forgetting, or both. I don't know if we were seeing 'Big Al' or a close cousin, but immediately connecting the dots, the room collapsed into concerted action. It was like slow motion suddenly speeding up again as it does in the Matrix movies. The salesgirl took her to have a seat at the Pharmacy, and made a call to the medics. The security guard nodded assuredly as if he'd just foiled a robbery. Another sales person materialized at the register to ring up my purchases which now seemed  ridiculous and comforting at the same time - a lost filling, what a laughable thing! That was when happiness (or a close cousin) was free to make its entry.

Photo: this morning, while writing

West Indian 'Iced Tea' - a summer recipe

Here are the ingredients for one of my favorite summer beverages - it's called mauby. 

Served cold, its a golden brown, bracing thirst quencher. OK... its an acquired taste, but it is brown. I've been drinking a lot of it lately as a substitute for coca cola: no caffeine, no fizz, but I've got the cold covered.

Clockwise from top: 

mauby bark from the mauby tree

anise/anise seed  

(use either seeds OR flower stalk with seeds)

star anise (seed pod shown with seeds)

clove

cinnamon stick

bay leaf 

and at the center - spice.

To make the concentrate:

*Add 3 cups of water to a medium sized pot over a high fire.
*Add 8 pieces of mauby bark, plus all other ingredients (in about the amounts shown) to the water and bring to a rolling boil. Boil till water reduces to about 2 cups brownish concentrate.
*Pour off the concentrate and save.
*Add a fresh 3 cups of water to the pot of herbs and boil again. This can be done 2 more times, each   successive boil yielding a less bitter concentrate.

To make the beverage:
*Add 2 or more parts water to 1 part concentrate (depending on how much hair you want on your chest).
*Add sugar to taste.
*Chill and serve.

Photo: tonight, kitchen table.

From here

We'd like to think our perspective matters.

We know that the law upholds our right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', but that's just a cease and desist. What of us, really?

Do our thoughts matter?

our feelings?

What about our individual experiences?

'If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears...'

and, what does it mean 'to matter'?

Photos: 
1&2 - at the blessing of the fleet, City Island, NY (June 2009)

3 - butterfly on seathrift (my backyard)
4. my neighbor's garden gnomes
5 &6 - Zhongshan Park, Shanghai China (2007)
7. self portrait - Trinidad (2009)

Compensation

I have been plagued most of my life by a propensity for getting lost, and by a poor memory. Both would haunt me in serial nightmares which may have their roots in childhood trauma (what doesn't?) and would eventually mushroom into a lifelong fear of getting lost and forgetting.

Getting lost and forgetting.
One of my mother's sisters spent her last years in a deep fog, a victim of Alzheimer's. Two of her other siblings are in earlier, but nevertheless devastating stages of the illness. My Aunt Yvonne called up the other day from Devon, England where she lives alone. She is sill lucid enough to realize that she is forgetting, which may be more distressing than being in total oblivion. She does not want to live alone anymore and is planning what she says will be her last trip to Australia, a country she very much loves.
My Uncle Henry lives in Texas. He wakes up at night disoriented and wanders through the house looking for the familiar among the mundane. He thinks he's lost, but he's forgetting too. Is there any difference?

Terrifying as this all is, it is not the kind of 'getting lost and forgetting' that has plagued me.
Let's start with numbers. I can't hold them in the order that I got them. Dyslexia? Maybe.
My job is all about numbers - special numbers like prices, quantities and dates. Markdowns and margins.
These are numbers that no one can afford for me to get wrong, so to compensate for my handicap I have become a note-taker extraordinaire. I have notebooks dating back ten years detailing my daily to-do's and important events including a log of the days I was not at work ( absence is a defense), phone numbers, user names and passwords for the secured sites and databases I must navigate in the course of doing my job.
If there is a meeting, however informal, I take the minutes. Minutes are especially important in two-person meetings. If I sense that 'drape thy derriere' (aka C.Y.A) insurance is required, I follow up with an email detailing the exchange. This dysfunction is not limited to numbers, but happily, problems with prose are less in evidence. My worst work-related nightmare is being cornered with a question whose answer I know but can't remember. Try proving that. I'd be the perfect fall-gal if I couldn't  refute or confirm something with conviction, and as you know, conviction is the difference between the blue sky and a self-healing... I mean, a cell ceiling.

Similarly, I have no sense of direction - no internal gyroscope. Or, not one that functions: turn me around a few times and I'm lost. I thought a GPS would make up for my non-existent nose for North, but it did so much more. The directions given by the typical GPS are moronic, containing lots of loops and 'long cuts'. However, following them is not as moronic as getting lost and it is loads better than feeling lost.
I've named my GPS's female voice 'Alice' as in Jefferson Airplane's Go Ask Alice.
I once followed Alice's directions for Brooklyn which took me from the Bronx to lower Manhattan via the FDR Drive and through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Had I Map-Quested it, I might have gotten there faster than you could say 'Jackie Robinson Parkway', but at least I had the luxury of telling Alice where to get off, rather than feeling like an idiot that I got lost. GPS devices are really mis-marketed as navigational aids; they're at least 50% psychological aids, too.

In all seriousness, I would not like to fall victim to 'Big Al'. I'd much rather lose my faculties gradually in a way that my son and future grandchildren would find at least mildly entertaining. The more hokey stereotypes I can fit, the better. Advances in dentistry have probably saved my teeth from a watery resting place and circumvented a slew of old-lady jokes, but hell - I can get bifocals, my hearing could fade gradually.
In the movie 'Mission Impossible III', Tom Cruise's character, breathless from a brush with death, phones a friend for a favor: access to some restricted data files. The friend says, 'I've gotta use my scissors and shit for this.' which to me, was hilarious. I cracked up laughing, repeating it (at least twice) to my son, who informed me dryly with a withering look: Mom, it's 'I'm gonna lose my citizenship for this.'
Which, in 22 states and counting, would be no joke. I like what I heard better.

Corners

This morning, while riding the bus on my way to work, I had a sudden flashback of my childhood school.

It was a bluish-gray building, I'd say I remember it as a 'stern' shade of gray. The principal, Sister Gerome, always wore a black skirt and a white shirt, and on her head - a black cotton veil over a white skullcap.

The school building itself was symmetrical, but the yard was another matter. The building's wide entrance was secured only by a large black accordion gate which gave access to the lobby, and beyond the lobby, a central courtyard around which the classrooms were arranged in two tiers. The central courtyard was our main playground, but around the perimeter of the school was a narrow ribbon of yard, itself shielded by a tall fence from the sidewalk and the street beyond.

One of these peripheral segments was, inexplicably, a triangular shaped space. The apex of this more or less isosceles-shaped triangle was the least frequented spot in the entire school compound. Children would walk there with an air of trepidation, heightened by the fact that the apex was not closed, but open just enough for one child at a time to pass through to another segment of the periphery. Not only that, but the apex opened into a tiny rock garden with some low shrubs. So you'd have to navigate the narrow opening, step onto the gravel and squeeze past the shrubs. Its fair to say that the apex was planted like this to discourage us children from passing there.

The interesting thing about this morning's flashback is that it was built brick by brick from an instantaneous image of this little corner of the schoolyard. Its almost like I've folded and stored the entire memory of the school in the empty space that was the open apex of a triangular shaped piece of yard. First came the corner,
then the fences, the courtyard, then the lobby, Sister Gerome, and finally the facade of the school in that stern bluish gray.

I often wonder about my son's inner life. Just as I wasn't able (and indeed, never seriously wanted) to share my childhood perspective with my parents, I can't know how my son perceives his world, how he throws his net over the things he means to keep, which oddly shaped corners will suggest the whole, and which empty spaces are carrying entire segments of his universe.

An Ode to Weeds

Maybe it's an act of deference. Or defiance. But, yes, I water weeds. North America has so many beautiful flowering weeds (I recently learned that Emily Dickinson cultivated the dandelion) that I think its a shame to obliterate them. Besides, I am a lax gardener - I like a little disorder in the border. My first spring with my own garden was a revelation. We arrived in the month of March and didn't know what was in the yard. By April I learned: Helleboros for one. Peonies for two. Hostos, Lily of the Valley, Dwarf Maple, hyacinth, tulips, azaleas, as well as two very fragrant shrubs with white flowers that smelled like jasmine - but whose identities are still not clear.

Helleboros

There were also the 'weeds': the vigorous white potato vine, a purple flowering weed, a yellow flowering weed, a blue flowering weed, a pink flowering weed, a patch of beautiful moss growing under one tree and some tiny succulents piggybacking on top of that.

These flowers are small, but they do take on a kind of beauty when left to grow in numbers, or when photographed up close. I don't know why I've got such an affection for them. I let the potato vine grow as it pleases and 'speak to it' nicely about leaving the tomatoes and the hydrangeas alone. By and large, it has complied. I let wild grasses come up in my patio boxes, reasoning that their fluffy tufts are like flowers after all...and there is a succulent weed that has come up between the flagstones that I am watching  to see how far it will fan out. 

Maybe I was so starved of vegetation in my first few years here that I am reluctant to pull up anything that brings a little beauty into my world - no matter what the neighbors say. We have 2 full grown pine trees - down from 5, (neighbor on the right complained about the pine cones and needles falling onto her yard). Maybe I am so angry that I bowed to pressure to cut down those 3 evergreens that I am holding onto my weeds with all my might.

Photos: mine - taken in the backyard.

                                                  

                                                  

  

A Brush with Authenticity

Yesterday, I attended the Red Hawk Pow-Wow at Bear Mountain State Park. I've been attending these events ( at least one every summer) since I was given a medicine wheel by my friend David about 7 years ago. I was going to Arizona for training in energy healing and he thought it was an appropriate present. The medicine wheel itself was very simple: a leather-wrapped circle divided into four quadrants,each dividing bar made of the same pale leather twisted on itself. It was garnished at each of the four junctions with a turquoise-colored plastic bead. He told me quite plainly, and almost proudly, that this particular medicine wheel came from an Avon catalog. Now, I've only seen an Avon catalog twice, and neither time were medicine wheels featured, but who would claim that if it wasn't so?

David is a Guyanese-born East Indian with a British accent who looks for all intents and purposes like a Native American. David actually resembles the Native American actor Wes Studi (who played the Huron Indian 'Magua' in the movie 'The Last of the Mohicans'). He told me that he takes full advantage of this fact: growing his hair down past his shoulders, 'infiltrating' Indian Nation gatherings all over the Tri-State area and hanging out with the Indian bretherin. His earnestness is endearing, and I get it.

A good number of the participants at Pow-wows these days don't even look like Native Americans. I've seen African American Native Americans, and likewise many decidedly Anglo-looking Native Americans who must have just a sliver of Native DNA - between them! Even I, having not even a pin-prick's worth of Native blood, find a great deal of resonance with the idea of being Native - having some pristine, primordial aspect that is unevolved in the best possible sense of the word.

The first (and only) dancer to get my attention yesterday was the young boy pictured above. To see his picture is to see nothing. I was mesmerized by his movement - the intensity of his physical presence and the subtlety of his interpretation. He looked all of seven. He balanced his body securely even as he lowered it into a near-stoop while swaying his trunk purposefully left then right to the beat of the drum. His head was majestic as his arms, like levers, cranked the whole of him back upright. What a joy! I doubt this was instilled in pow-wow prep - there were 5 other dancers in his age-group and none of them displayed his exquisite intuition. There is just this thing - and you know it when you see it.