Walking

The other morning I woke up at 5.12 am and needed to move. I brushed my teeth, smoothed my hair, put on my running shoes and left the house with just my phone clipped into my waistband. I also took a bottle of water, and ditched it behind a tree on my route for the return trip. I had been walking sporadically since I made a 4 mile Central Park walk on New Years Eve of  2010. I walked 3 miles for Earth Day. I walked to and from my work appointments near the West Side Highway (15 minutes briskly each way) several times a week instead of taking the bus or cab.

A few months ago, I began having frequent arrhythmia. I've had this all my life - an occasional extra thump, or sometimes a missing beat. At these times I would startle - my body suspended in limbo for a fraction of a second, waiting for my heart to decide. This would happen once in a blue moon, once every few months. Suddenly, early this year the episodes became more frequent and more exaggerated. I was having it every day for hours at a stretch. I never felt ill, just a very unsettled 'w-t-f?' kind of feeling, but slowly I began to lose confidence in my body, and stopped exercising.

I went to my GP, who is also a cardiologist, and had the whole range of tests done, including a 24 hour Holter Monitor. Yes, my ticker was tocking occasionally, but there was nothing serious going on - would I like some beta blockers to even out the rhythm? She asked this question with a half-smile on her face because she knows I hate to take medication.

Several years ago she prescribed Mobic for my extremely painful knees. I filled the prescription, but I never took a single pill. And thank God, because Mobic turned out to be not only a pain killer, but a killer in general.
She prescribed Nexium 8 years ago for my stomach. I took it for 2 weeks, dropped it and took up yoga instead.
Then came Tapizole for my thyroid which went out of whack after a severe bout of flu. That time I didn't mess around. I took the 10 mg for a solid month. Felt good. Broke my pills in half and took 5 mg for the next month. On my follow up visit, she said "You're doing great, let's reduce you to 5 mg" I said "Sure thing Doc", and promptly reduced myself to 2.5 mg. I was officially off Tapizole by the next month after a another round of tests came back normal.

So, my answer to the beta blocker question was ''No, thank you." As long as my condition wasn't serious, which she assured me it wasn't, I could deal with this.
On my first walk to the West Side, my heart was skipping and jumping but I kept going, tired of kid-gloving it. I figured it would see me through, or I'd drop like a rock and someone would scoop me off the pavement. The next walk was better and the next, even better. By this time I had stopped consuming caffeine and all stimulants, including my beloved Coca Cola. In my flirtations with Coke since that time, I learned that it takes one to two days for my body to properly flush itself of that one dose of caffeine.

On the morning in question, I went for an hour long speed walk along the green that leads to City Island - my heart, hiccup free. After I retrieved my bottle of water which I'd stashed behind the tree, I did some standing stretches, spending some time with my head hanging down between my legs - arms dangling. The world was upside down, the trees were growing from the sky and there was a brightening pale blue abyss below me. I was caught by surprise, by the disorienting beauty of it. And I was suddenly struck by how unequivocally the Earth supports us -  our joys, fears, and even our foolishness. I broke into a smile, then an all-out giggle right there hanging upside down. In fact, I didn't want to 'right' myself for a good little while.

Photo credit: poszu.com

Perishable News

As write this, May 21st, 2011 is in it's final hour, and aside from an Icelandic volcano acting up, it seems that the earth and its inhabitants have been spared Judgement Day 2011. The billboard in this picture was posted on tenth avenue and 37th street (thereabouts) in New York City. I discovered it on a walk to that neighborhood last week, however I had been hearing about the impending end of days for about 2 years now. My mother listens to that station (94.7), to a very level-sounding radio evangelist by the name of Harold Camping. Mr.Camping is known for his doomsday predictions - his most recent (and obviously failed) forecast was for an earth-ending cataclysm in 1994.

My mother had not placed much stock in this latest prediction, continuing to listen to the radio station mostly for the traditional hymns and bible readings. But lots of people did. I understand that the above billboard was paid for by a man who liquidated his life savings to warn people about the coming rapture. He was interviewed in Times Square tonight where he kept glancing at his watch saying he didn't understand why nothing happened. Although we are all responsible for our decisions, a surprising number of people are are easily led. Mr.Camping's prediction was couched  in such uncompromising language that he attracted a certain type of zealous believer while at the same time repelling more moderate people. If he'd said this event was 'likely' rather than 'certain', I have a feeling that he might have influenced many more people.

This event resonated with me because I am in the process of examining many of my own beliefs, and identifying the influences on my way of thinking - in short, I am trying to drill down to 'me'. In this quest, it is helpful to remember that belief and truth are not the same thing. There is also a need to tease apart belief and opinion. You could say that we present our opinions to the world, but guard our beliefs even from ourselves. I am learning that I don't truly believe some of the things that I profess (all people are basically good), and that I deeply believe some things that I had not up to now acknowledged  (some people are just plain bad). I don't know if those things are true, and with further experience its possible that my beliefs may again be revised. Or, maybe they are just opinions.

Seung Sahn, one of my favorite authors, has coined a phrase "Only Don't Know"  - meaning that we should always maintain a mind open to all possibilities. Another of my favorite authors, Shunryu Suzuki suggests that we keep a "Beginner's Mind", which means essentially the same thing. Yet a third author, Pema Chodron advises us to become "Comfortable with Uncertainty", which is a similar idea. This way of living requires that we free ourselves of the kind of opinion that often masquerades as belief, and root ourselves instead in the simple beliefs that tend to dovetail with the truth.

Scientists have already predicted the end of earth days - specifically the death of our sun and the resultant darkening ( and freezing) of the earth, leading to the end of life as we know it. That's another five billion years away. Or we could be hit by a meteor. It is all so unknowable that I wonder if it's even useful to harbor a belief in this regard.

I also have to wonder if Harold Camping himself truly believed his own prediction, or was able to grasp its full import. When asked how he would spend this day ( May 21, 2011 - the day he expected all the faithful to be raptured to heaven, including presumably, himself) he replied to the effect that he would spend the day reading the Bible and watching the TV coverage of rapture news from around the world. Which begs the question - was he expecting to be "Left Behind" ?

Manifest Destiny

I have been living in America for twenty-two years, and for the most part I feel quite at home here. I appreciate the political system, and though it can be expensive, there is a health-care system. When you call the police, the police show up, when you need an ambulance, you can count on one, except perhaps in a snowstorm. When you have business to conduct, there are clearly laid out rules which apply more or less for everyone, and when things go wrong there are channels for recourse. I mention these first because they are the things that have kept me from considering a move back to Trinidad with any degree of seriousness.

I have been learning about American History with my son as we prepare for his weekly 7th Grade Social Studies tests. Even if it is not the absolute truth, Americans take great pride in the idea of their 'exceptionalism', which has been a buzzword in the editorials lately, and I think for the most part the world buys into it. As a Naturalized American, I can't testify to exceptionalism, but what I can say is that I was unexpectedly moved to tears during my swearing in as a citizen. There is something very special about this country: it is the fact that its citizens take its specialness so seriously.

I realize that this belief in specialness is not consistently held by all Americans. Those who have fallen on hard times tend to focus more on what the government is doing wrong, rather than on the country's virtues, but I suppose that applies everywhere, as Maslow knew. Right now we are clamoring about the price of gas and consumer goods in general - but this isn't happening in a vacuum, and I don't think yelling about it will cause things to change any faster than the wheel of supply and demand dictates.

Let's have a little perspective: my brother recently returned from a trip to Uganda and a close brush with the border of Rwanda.

He says:
"The southern end of Uganda is quite scenic and appears very peaceful, but poverty is all around. Despite that, people appear to be content and even happy in what might appear to the western eye to be dire straits. They live communally and all have a little something to eat or they all starve together, however it is hard for those who aspire to something else - those who want to move up"

"Sometimes I wonder if my own value system is screwed up - these people wake up to birds singing, eat mataka ( green bananas pounded into a paste), breadfruit and fresh fruit every day, socialize
and dance into the evening as there is no electricity in many places."

Wedding in Uganda  - May 2011

Southern Uganda - May 2011

In the late seventies, I had a pen-pal from Uganda. Her name was Lizzie Nakakawa. During the time that we were corresponding, Idi Amin was the President of that country, and there were frequent bouts of unrest, though strangely enough - this was never mentioned in her letters. After a few exchanges, the letters just stopped coming, and I assumed the worst - that she'd been killed or maimed in a raid on her village. Of course, she could just as easily have lost interest in writing to me, or become busy with her own life.
I had many pen pals, but Lizzie was the most enigmatic. She sent me just one black and white photo of herself with her closely cropped afro, wearing a flowered skirt, a light colored blouse, low white pumps.. and a  megawatt smile. Those white shoes were the most intriguing thing. I often wondered if she wore them only for that picture, or whether they had some practical application elsewhere in her life. Of course, I never found out.   

There is no reason to believe that Ugandans love their country less than any of us love ours. It's not a matter of how good or bad the government is - it is a matter of identifying with the place where you were born and came to know yourself. For me, even though I have reservations about Trinidad socially and politically - the deep tugging that I feel once I get there cannot be mistaken for anything other than a sense of belonging that is inextricable from my very sense of self.

For almost a year, I have been trying to read the autobiography of  V.S.Naipaul ( The World is What It Is - Patrick French). V.S.Naipaul is one of my favorite authors, but the disdain he has shown for his country of birth (and countrymen) is hard to swallow. It is so extreme as to be a form of self-hate. It puzzled and saddened me to the point that I have not been able to finish reading the book.
I often hold Derek Walcott in my mind as a counterbalance to V.S. and his view. Here is a man who was born in St. Lucia, made Trinidad his home and embraced the entire Caribbean and indeed the whole world, suffusing his work with love songs to many lands - both overtly and subtly.

I love New York and I love America but I never touch the wellspring of myself as effortlessly as I do when I am 'home' in Trinidad. Every little curve of the hills I grew up gazing at seems like some feature of my own body, or that of some well-loved one. I am due to travel back in July and I know what I want to take back with me - it is the idea of Trinidadian exceptionalism. May it spread like a wildfire in the dry season.


*Top Photo: unattributed, taken in February or March 2011 off the Foreshore Highway, Trinidad.
It is a cloud formation in the shape of the island of Trinidad.
*Uganda photos - courtesy my brother, May 2011

Excuse me...

What causes some people to invest self-effacingly in the social ease of others, while other people are able to voice their feelings and insist on their preferences without undue concern for it?

Lately, I have been having the exhilirating experience of seeing my decisions piss people off. This, from a person whose passivity is so great that even those closest to me have no hint of its true depth.

When I was seven, my mother and I visited a friend of hers. My mother's friend asked if I wanted some milk. Easy enough, I said yes. She pulled down a glass from the cupboard, poured some milk into it and handed it to me. I took it, said thanks and raised it to my lips.
To my horror, there inside the glass - along with the milk, was a cobweb.

Now, a cobweb is different from a spider's web. A spider's web is silky and almost invisible.
A cobweb is a long abandoned spider's web which has been embalmed with dust and the opacity of disuse.  I saw it, paused, then carefully started drinking, having decided that I couldn't bring it to either adult's attention without causing embarassment for everyone. I drank without shaking the glass, and the cobweb co-operated - collapsing into a greyish thread-like mass which floated on the meniscus of the milk, with one tentacle still stuck against the glass. It was with a genuine sense of accomplishment that I finshed the glass of milk without the cobweb making contact with my lips.

I can follow the breadcrumbs from there through a forest of deferences all the way to the paralysing root canal episode which finally brought anger and outrage, and clarity about my passivity. That galvanizing event caused me to suddenly launch into a string of defiant 'no's' in the face of almost any request or suggestion, as if to aquiesce was some sort of suicide. It was bound to happen, I suppose - a kind of backlash. Having purged that venom somewhat, I have entered a considerably more pleasant pasture of options: "I'd rather not"; "I'm sorry, I can't"; "That doesn't work for me"; "I prefer X, thanks", and if need be I might just be able to say, "Excuse me, but there's something in my glass..."

At Least, In Pairs

Newsflash: Tail Bites Dog

As best as I can make out ( I did have to perform some intricate translation from video-game speak to current English), some hacker organization codenamed 'Anonymous' has shut down (hacked) the PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Store as retaliation against Sony's attempts to sue them for hacking. Could neither of them see this coming?

Hackers run a healthy business servicing gamers who want to bypass difficult phases, artificially boost their reps and prematurely unlock the booty-chest of rewards for elevated prestige.
The hackers' latest strategy which has met with stern disapproval from Sony, is a 'jailbreak' which allows players to downgrade their PlayStation system to bypass the sophisticated upgrades which have all sorts of firewalls and retardants to 'creative gaming'. 

With the Network down, players can't link up online and have to play with the machine ghosts, rather than with their Avatar-clad Clansmen.
I suppose I should be glad that my son wants 'real human' interaction and refuses to play against the machine. He likes to chit-chat while doing battle: blue-tooth talking to Queens, Austria, Florida or where ever his buddies' bodies are hunkered down. My son, whose handle is Tizzik, can be heard calling to Ching-wing for cover, or chastising Krispy for shooting him by accident.
To speak with Ching-wing or Krispy today, Tizzik will have to make a long distance phone call, though I doubt there is anything they'd want to talk about now that the system is down. Funny how that is.

Luckily, Tizzik has many flesh-and-blood friends, (you know, like brick-and-mortar stores) twenty of whom came to his birthday party last month.
For the first time, girls were on the invited list, though only one brave member of that species showed.
My anxiety level went way up - didn't they travel in packs, or at least in pairs? We tried to keep her entertained with metal-ring puzzles and wooden 3D brain teasers, as well an origami kit.
For a moment it looked good - a couple of the boys got interested in the puzzles and left the gaming consoles. I got misty-eyed, thinking I had a real live party on my hands, but sadly some of the boys drifted back to the games, some went into the backyard, and we were back to the one birdie on the wall.

She was a real trouper, though - always smiling and polite. My husband and I loved her because she was on our side, i.e the outside. We catered to her every whim, and marveled at what great friends she and Tizzik must be for him to invite her here just to ignore her. We gawked covertly from the kitchen - a cordless free-standing, fully alert tween capable of coherent conversation - a classic model! We looked over at the boys, thumping on their control pads, yelping and howling - where on earth was she going to find a match?

Four I Follow

I love poetry - but having said that, let me also say that a lot of poetry goes over my head. I can't seem to stay with very long poems, or poems with too many painterly words like 'inchoate'. I hate the word 'inchoate' and will ditch any poem which contains it. There are poets who bang you over the head with their MFA degrees, and there are poets who just bang you over the head. Take Sylvia Plath. I heard she was brilliant but I could not approach her for years. I bought one of her books pledging to read it through - but I still haven't.


I have been attracted to the work of poets who use sound well. For me, it is as though the interlocking of sounds, their echo... is some kind of high logic, like inevitability, or an unavoidable truth.
Here are four I follow:



a small number 

So far, have managed, Not
Much.So far a few fractures, a few factions, a Few
Friends. So far, a husband, a husbandry, Nothing
Too complex, so far, followed the Simple
Instructions.Read them twice. So far, memorized three
  Moments,
Buried a couple deaths, those turning faces. So far two or
  Three
Sonnets. So far, some berrigan and Some
Keates. So far, a scanty list. So far, a dark wood. So far Anti
Thesis and then, maybe a little thesis. So far a small Number
Of emily's letters. So far, tim not dead. So far, Matt
not dead. So far, jim. So far, Love
And love, not so far. Not so love. So far, no-Hope.
So far, all face. So far scrapped and scraped, but Not
With grace. So far, not Very.
                                                           - Olena Kalytiak Davis


White Egrets 
I
Cautious of time's light and how often it will allow
the morning shadows to lengthen across the lawn
the stalking egrets to wriggle their beaks and swallow
when you, not they, or you and they, are gone;
for clattering parrots to launch their fleet at sunrise
for April to ignite the African Violet 
in the drumming world that dampens your tired eyes
behind two clouding lenses, sunrise, sunset,
the quiet ravages of diabetes.
Accept it all with level sentences
with sculpted settlement that sets each stanza;
learn how the bright lawn puts up no defenses
against the egrets stabbing questions and the night's answer.
                                                               
                                                                 - Derek Walcott


The Long Up 

You can see the
land flattening out
near the top. The
long up you've faced 
is going to stop.
Your eyes feast
on space instead 
of pitch as though
you'd been released.
The measured pace
you've kept corrupts
with fifty yards
to do - fifty
times as hard
against the blue. 

        - Kay Ryan
  

As Kingfishers Catch Fire 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

         

                                  - Gerard Manley Hopkins

                            

Man Push Cart



Potato Guy's cart is the one on the right..

 Yesterday, I had decided that I would have a middle-eastern lunch of hummus, falafel, and an Israeli-type salad. I brought my own hummus from home, and was heading out onto Broadway to locate a few falafel balls and the salad. I went to one of the street carts - and was surprised to see a familiar face behind the counter of the cart on 39th and Broadway. It was 'Potato Guy', a Pakistani street vendor.

I have known Potato Guy for more than 20 years, which is about how long we have both been making our livings in the Fashion District of New York City. There was a time when I used to have a baked potato with sour cream and brown mustard (plus a sprinkling of chives) almost every day.  


We had not seen each other in such a long time that we couldn't recall each other's names, but neither wanted to admit it - so yesterday my name was 'Hey Sweetie!!' and his was 'Oh my God, how have you been?!''
He'd been struggling. He'd given up the potato cart and was now trying his hand at rice and beans with chicken. It was hard finding good people to work with, he said. He had tried for so long to make it...but was just surviving. He told me about a news article he had read in one of the Pakistani papers, about a freshly minted MBA who could not find a job, and so went out on a limb (literally), taking courses in plant husbandry, eventually finding a job managing a grove of fruit trees. According to Potato Guy, Fruit Guy was doing well. His takeaway from that story was that he should keep trying - if one thing doesn't work out, he should keep looking and moving forward.


Usually, the street vendors won't sell falafel balls separately, as they are used to garnish the meals which are their mainstay. However,I was going to walk away not only with the falafel balls, but also a container of rice and beans with chicken. Potato Guy did not want to take my money and I started to feel distress rising - difficult as it is for me to receive gifts and favors, and especially now after hearing his story. Finally, we settled on a compromise which we both could live with - half price.


Street vendors are somewhat like frontier people - as much for their little wagons and their hardiness as for their transient occupation of the cityscape. I like to think of them as the street keepers. Most of New York City's kiosks and carts are manned by South East Asians, which is to say Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians, but they aren't the only ones out here pushing carts: there is at least one Eastern European operating on my street corner serving breakfast fare: coffee, tea, doughnuts and bagels. Some of these men have wives and families back in their homelands, the street cart embodying at once their foray into an unfamiliar territory, and a lifeline to their families back home. It is no different a scenario than many of us as immigrants have faced, but I don't think any immigrant story expresses itself so literally as the street cart vendor peddling foods (often foreign to his own palate) so far away from home. As I left Potato Guy, with his upbeat outlook yet palpable despondence, it almost seemed like the cart was pushing the man.  

 

To Spring

My ivory helleboros

We may be staring down the barrel of a possible Nor' Easter, but Spring can't be turned back. Out in the yard there are stirrings: while it seems to me that the daffodils were slow to get going, and the tulips are reluctant to open their cups, the crocuses have spent themselves and the helleboros is already yawning. The red spear-like shoots of peony and the large circular crowd of hostos tips have already emerged; hydrangea buds are swollen, and creeping jenny sprouts have resurrected from the nodes of last year's growth. In my yard, helleboros is the de-facto herald of spring. They are the first ones out of the box, sometimes even before the last frost. I have two colors - ivory and purple. They are in full bloom and will remain so right through the summer. As usual, I am reluctant to touch anything in the yard for fear of removing something important. Which is not to say that I have a spectacular garden - only one whose every little inhabitant is of interest to me. I remember the first spring I was here, my neighbor came to help me do some weeding. In her zeal, she cut my peony shoots down to the ground. Oops. I cringed and bit my tongue. She has made amends with tomato and petunia seedlings by the handful every spring since. This spring, my most anticipated guests are the columbines (one deep plum with pink, one pure white) and the calla lilies (deep plum and pink varieties) which I planted last year. 
The columbines appeared just last year and I hope they'll be back. Aside from these, I hope for an interesting assortment of weeds, and couple of new hatchlings from the birdhouse which is already coiled inside with dry twigs and feathers, and has sheltered three crops of eggs since I put it up.
Here's to spring, here's to life.

blue wild flower

Getting the Whole Picture

Recently, I was watching a documentary about Alaska. It's a genre ( Alaskan documentaries) which seems to be proliferating in the wake of 'Sarah Palin's Alaska', which I found to be surprisingly interesting, by the way. Alaska the territory is an easy sell: breathtakingly beautiful, pristine, one of the last new frontiers. This particular documentary was looking at the effects of global warming on Alaskan ecosystems. In one scene, humpback whales were being filmed during communal bubble net fishing. There were two layers of filming taking place. Meaning, the on-screen team which was observing and filming the whales was itself being filmed by an unseen camera team - which at one point in the scene was flushed out of hiding by yet another camera team filming from third remove. It was just a film-making technique, but somehow this sudden unmasking was unsettling to me. We don't always see the whole picture. Some things reveal themselves only with time, but some things are deliberately hidden.

I had been shopping for a new dentist, and getting ready to ditch my dentist of the past twenty years. It was a painful process, in no small part because of my difficulty with change, letting go, moving on. But also because of a feeling of betrayal. In this case, when the full picture came to light, it appeared that I got two unnecessary root canals courtesy of a tag-team effort by my dentist and his buddy, the endodontist.

What outed them was the fact that the diffuse jaw pain which had initially prompted me seek treatment, had not varied in quality or intensity a full 2 weeks after the procedure. I confronted the dentists individually - each of whom responded by offering the other's services for free - for another root canal on the last live tooth in the neighborhood - the wisdom tooth. I was incredulous that either of them thought they could ever get me to say Ah again. I responded by visiting The Good Doctor Moore, getting a diagnosis that "this bad boy has to go", and pulling the wisdom tooth. I have been pain free ever since. 

That still left me with two teeth to reconstruct at a hefty cost (even with insurance) and a boiling rage that kept me paralyzed for months. Should I sue them? I didn't have the stamina for it. I felt powerless and to some extent, violated. I also felt that I was partially to blame for my own predicament. I should have questioned more, trusted less.

Finally, as the year opened, I took a deep breath and started interviewing new dentists. I walked into one office and walked right back out. I didn't need to see that dentist - the place was such an energy sink.

I have finally settled on a new dentist who will not be perfect and who will not have my complete trust, but with whom I feel a level of comfort.  I am still somewhat angry, and I have become more assertive not only with my health care professionals, but with authority figures in general. However, It feels good to move forward. Hell, it feels good to move, period.

Killing my Darlings

Passion. Nothing worthwhile gets done without it and yet sometimes the object of one's passion, the inspiration, is so out of harmony with everything else that's already paid for (or mortgaged) in your life that there is simply no reasonable ground for it to occupy. This might be something that you cannot afford, whether financially, emotionally, morally - or by some other measure which has meaning for you. This would be something which has the potential to destabilize everything else.

Simply put, we either pursue the object of our passion or we don't. Giving up the pursuit of what ignites us and makes us feel so alive is hard. Many times the outward pursuit is relinquished, but the inner self pines while going through the motions of what is 'left' of life.

As I look back, I see that this had become a pattern for me.
It started when I was eleven, with my first crush on the boy next door. I thought he was the most intriguing and enigmatic creature. We would fly our kites, ride our bikes, run through the rain and race stick boats down the flooded streets, climb trees and fight 'berry wars', pelting each other with the small inedible fruit of the largest tree in the park. Though we would hardly speak to each other directly, I would imagine that we were 'together' within the larger circle of our respective brothers and other friends who were always present.

When he got a girlfriend who was pretty and 'girly' I was devastated. There was no way I could compete. I was a hardcore tomboy, skinny with my hair cropped short. She had shoulder length fling-able hair, wore nail polish and lip gloss and sported two-piece bathing suits while I had not yet graduated from my Speedo Racerback.  It took me a long time to recover from the loss of what I never really had.

In college I fell for another boy, and while those affections were returned, things were complicated by the fact that we both had significant others. This was the first instance of my having to give up the object of my passion for a greater good - and it was hard. For years I did not move on, though I appeared to. There would be other instances, culminating most recently with a yoga practice with which I'd become too involved, to the detriment of my family life. Ultimately, I would find it hard to become too deeply involved with anything at all.

Weaving its way through all of these disappointments has been the practice of poetry writing.
Though the outcome of my efforts has been mixed, writing has yielded at least one very important lesson that I have at last applied to my life in general.

In the process of writing poems, sometimes there is a metaphor, line or word that we are so enamored with that we insist on it. Not that this element might be so bad, on the contrary, it might be brilliant - but our reluctance to take it out prevents us from discovering whether or not it really serves the poem. It is for just this reason that we are strongly advised to remove it.

In life, however, it's tough to question our natural affinities - and even tougher to eliminate them. It's unsettling to think we might have misplaced our love, or our attachments. And finally, it is crushing to think that something we love dearly might not be good for us or serve the highest good of our lives.

Let's be real - many of us might be quite content to leave the 'highest good' out of the equation. What is that anyway, but conjecture? Who can prove what is the highest good, and what combination of elements might bring it about? The argument can end right here and many times it does, however the poetry metaphor appeals to me for a few reasons:

Passion Located and Joy Defined
Passion can clearly be seen to reside with the creator (or experiencer), not capriciously popping up in random objects or situations. The opposite argument - that some object, practice or other person is the originator or source of one's passion, seems hollow. Joy in this context is seen to be what arises naturally out of the engagement of passion with whatever it chooses.  

Editorial License
Of necessity the writer is split - being both the creator and the primary audience for the creation. The editorial function is what causes and simultaneously bridges this gap. It's a kind of holy trinity: the creator gives, the editor takes away, the audience yeas-or-nays - but they're all you. The real-life application of editorial license encourages us to make hay while the sun shines, and to make our own sunshine if necessary.

Making Hay, Making Sunshine
The editor always has something to work with. The creator may become despondent, and the audience might be clueless, but the editor can evaluate what she's got based on her goals. Taking something away spurs the creator on; the editor is in charge of the storyline because she is not wedded to it. She is constantly working with what she has to maximize the Venn of the creator's passion and the audience's joy. 

The Law of Indeterminate Expression
The poem you end up with is never the poem you set out to write. This is an ironclad truth, and one the poet is deeply grateful for (though not at first). You may think you're one step away from perfection, but everything you change changes everything else and you just have to keep going with it till it resolves. If this is done faithfully, the result will say something more important, and say it better, than the original attempt could. Knowing and accepting this from the start takes some of the sting out of the vicissitudes of life.

Inspiration, Not Expiration
The writer is not bound by (or to) what inspires her or her writing. There is no obligation to pay homage, or to ascribe it any unusual power. The writer is free (indeed, required) to take inspiration and bend it to her own purpose. Either that, or it will bend her. Now I fully understand why the poet Kay Ryan told me (when I gushed to her about how much she inspired me), "Go forth and do differently".

As in poetry, chances are neither my passion, my joy, nor I will perish with the thing I must edit out of my life. No doubt something will be lost, something I will miss - except for the belief that in the end, good can and will come without it.

My Oscar Picks

I completely enjoyed my movie binge these past few weeks. With less than a week to go for the Oscars, here are my favorites in each category. 

 

 Actor in a Leading Role

  Loved Colin Firth and James Franco, but I have to go with...

• Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
• Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
• Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
• Colin Firth in “The King's Speech”
• James Franco in “127 Hours”

 

Actor in a Supporting Role

No contest, its...

• Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
• John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone”
• Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
• Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
• Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech”

 

Actress in a Leading Role

  Annette Bening was great too, but this actress pulled out all the stops... 

• Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
• Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
• Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”
• Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
• Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

 

Actress in a Supporting Role

Her performance gave me the chills, and I couldn't forget...

• Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
• Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”
• Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
• Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
• Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

 

Best Picture

For me, it's between "127 hours" and...

• “Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
• “The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
• “Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
• “The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
• “The King's Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
• “127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
• “The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
• “Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
• “True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
• “Winter's Bone" Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

Biutiful - and the Age of Reason

Yesterday was the warmest day for the year here in New York (almost 60 degrees) and the city was buzzing with activity. Getting off work a little early, I took the opportunity to see the last movie on my list, Biutiful. It had a gritty, oppressive tone - small spaces, the tightly wound emotions of the players, each desperate in his own way. I loved Javier Bardem in this movie. He played the father of two who manages groups of illegal workers in Barcelona, becoming emotionally attached to several individuals in the process - an oriental woman who works in a sweatshop, and a North African street vendor dealing in counterfeit handbags. Bardem's character Uxbal is terminally ill, separated from his bipolar wife and worried about who will take care of his children after he is gone. He is also a spiritual medium, sought in his community to aid reluctant spirits in their transition to the afterlife.  Every character in this movie harbors a secret, even the dead ones. There was urgency and tragedy at every turn with very little redemption. Yet, I emerged onto Times Square afterward feeling refreshed.
 
The unrest in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Middle East has begun to weigh on me - and I wouldn't be surprised if people in general just don't have the emotional energy to sustain an interest in all the protests to come. The conflict in Egypt fit the formula for American consumption: a peaceful, righteous protest, a skirmish which kept everyone on the edge of their seats, the unlikely onset of mercy and reason, high hopes followed by dashed hopes followed by a miracle denouement. With relief, many will have dropped Egypt like a hot potato by now, satisfied that they'd seen it through, and wishing that the rest of the process would unfold smoothly, quietly and out of view. The conflicts in Bahrain and elsewhere may not be as clear cut, the rulers may not roll over, the military powers may not be as sympathetic toward "the street", and overstimulated western observers may not have it in them to care as much this time around. 

Last night my son wanted to talk. Every now and then he announces "I'd like to have a little chat". Sometimes it's a funny observation or a question about something he doesn't understand. Last night it was both.
"You know mom, I was sitting in class looking at the letter A and suddenly it hit me - why is an A an A?" 
"Because that's what we were taught, that's why" he answered his own question.
"I've been thinking about it all day and that's the only reason I could come up with." he said.
I agreed with him - and we talked about both the limitations and the usefulness of names; the fact that they are necessary compromises that help us communicate - indeed, that help build unity and understanding on both interpersonal and global levels.
Or cause governments to fall like walls. "The people", "the street" - these are names which have taken on new meaning for the world in recent weeks. The people have become noble and the street has become the pulse, the cornerstone, the truth.

As we conversed I could see that my son, still shy of thirteen, was trying to sort out what he really knows or can prove to/for himself, and what he has to take or accept as true.
After a pause he said "I have been wondering about something else." 
"Why am I here, and what is my purpose in life?". I smiled, and we continued talking on a practical level about what that could be, and how we might begin to get clues about it. 

In truth, I don't know the answer, but this is one of those questions that signals deep awareness just by virtue of being asked. As his mother, I was quietly jubilant. As his fellow human, I was overcome with love and compassion. Welcome to the world.

2011: An Oscar Oddessy

I am almost at the end of my 2011 search for Oscar magic. The last movie standing is Biutiful (Javier Bardem, actor in a leading role). I hope to see it this coming week.
Many Oscar hosts weave their monologues out of story lines from the nominated movies in ways both informative and entertaining. Here are some of the common themes and potential parallels they may want to explore this year.

Young Heroines with Dead Fathers

True Grit 

Smart-mouthed, gutsy teenage girl searches for her father's killer with the aid of a grizzly lawman. She loses her hand as the result of a snakebite.

Winter's Bone

Smart-mouthed, gutsy teenage girl becomes a bounty hunter in the search for her missing father. The bounty is no less than her family's home and property which her father (a methamphetamine cook) had put up as bond with the county prior to his disappearance. He turns up dead. She cuts the hands off his submerged corpse and brings them to lawmen for identification.

Honorable mention in the Severed Hand sub-category - 127 Hours. 
See Also: Self Mutilation

Bank Heists Gone Wrong

The Town  

Childhood buddies controlled by an aging Godfather-like florist, stage a series of bank robberies. One man wants to quit the business, but the Godfather demands that they do one last job. It goes right - they get the money and no one is hurt, not even the bank manager who was temporarily taken hostage. Then it goes really wrong. Bank robber falls for bank manager and ends up having to protect her and eventually himself from his cohorts and the Godfather, somewhat thwarting his exit from a life of crime. 

Animal Kingdom

Four brothers, controlled by their Godfather-like mother, stage a bank robbery that is  alluded to in the opening credits. Soon after, one brother is killed by the police, then the remaining 3 brothers kill two cops in revenge. Then another brother is killed by the police. With two brothers dead, the dynamic darkens. The mother finally starts to grieve and turns her anger on to the eldest brother who has gone off his medication and becomes increasingly menacing.

Controlling Mothers

The Fighter

The story of two brothers pimped out for prize money by their mother,who had long since neutered their father. She is the whole shebang - trainer, promoter and decider of everything, and is backed by gaggle of crone-like daughters who all depend to some degree on their brothers' earnings. The story takes a happy turn after their father finds some cohones.

Animal Kingdom 

Mother demands kisses on the lips from her four sons, and after the killing of the first son by the police tells her remaining sons (one freaking out and the others catatonic from shock) "Calm down."

See also: Bank Heists Gone Wrong. 

Self Mutilation  

127 Hours

Adrenaline junkie goes on a desert hike without telling anyone. Gets his hand caught between a rock and a very hard place and spends 127 hours taking inventory of his backpack (which does not include a cell phone), making farewell video recordings to his parents, practicing extreme water conservation by recycling his urine, finally getting around to amputating his arm just below the elbow. It's an uplifting story of survival, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of miscalculating one's independence. 

Black Swan  

In this movie, we get to see the ugly underbelly of ballet - split toenails, broken ankles, bulimia, restricted diets, and the perfectionism typical of dancers taken to its grotesque extreme by this ballerina who literally would give her life for the role.

See also: Dubious Lesbian Sex Scenes.    

Dubious Lesbian Sex Scenes 

Black Swan 

Earnest 'goody-two-shoes' ballerina digs deep for dark qualities to bring to the role of the black swan in the ballet Swan Lake. She digs so deep that she splits her personality, indulges in activities of which she has limited recollection, blurs fantasy with reality and generally speaking, loses her mind. The lesbian sex scene which earns the movie a spot in this category may not even have happened - since her lover's face morphs eerily into her own just before she blacks out.

See also: Self Mutilation

The Kids Are All Right

In this movie, the alleged lesbian sex scene takes place under the sheets while one partner watches a pornographic video featuring gay men. Go figure. Julianne Moore's character later goes on to have very uninhibited heterosexual relations with the couple's sperm donor, devastating her wife and I 'd bet, confusing the entire viewing audience. 

In the words of an incredulous Annette Bening: "Are you straight now?"

I would add, "Or what?"

Marriages in Trouble

Blue Valentine

The story of a married couple who fell out of love. She was a nurse who bumped into an old boyfriend in the grocery store, he was a quasi-employed moving man with anger issues. There were questions of earning power, division of labor, switching of allegiances etc.

The Kids Are All Right

The story of a lesbian married couple who fell out of trust. She was a doctor, she was a quasi-employed landscaper with a thing for her sperm donor slash only client. There were questions of earning power, division of labor, switching of allegiances etc.

Confusion of Fantasy with Reality

Inception

The futuristic tale of a dream-walker, an operative who can enter into someones dreams and steal ideas, or plant them there. Problem is, he spends so much time on the job that he has difficulty distinguishing between dreams and reality. His plight is further complicated by the attempts of his dead wife to hijack any dream he is having or participating in, with the aim of keeping him asleep with her permanently.

Black Swan

See also: Dubious Lesbian Sex Scenes

Teamwork, of a Sort

Toy Story 3

Woody and the gang escape the incinerator by linking arms in a 'human chain' to the strains of 'We Belong Together' (best original song nominee).

The Social Network

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg proves that there is indeed an 'I' in team, and that through strategic share-splitting, one's rival (er, friend and financier) can be swindled out of his place on the masthead.

Coronations, of a Sort

The King's Speech

Stammering blue-blood takes a crash course in elocution to prepare for the throne which is being thrust upon him, and for the speeches he is expected to make as King. In due course he and his linguist become friends. True Story.

The Social Network

Socially inept Ivy League student dreams up (steals the idea for) a social network in an attempt to gate-crash a prestigious campus clubhouse. In due course his network garners 500 million users, he and his one friend become enemies, and he is crowned Time's Person of the Year. True story.

See also: Teamwork, of a Sort.

 

New Again

About once a month I get a migraine that puts me down for a few hours and drastically increases my gratitude for the most mundane things once it has passed. There are a number of strategies that I use to combat these headaches which usually encompass the left side of my head, neck and back. When I was a teenager, I used a bandana tied tightly around my head and soaked with alcohol. 

After I had my son, the bandana was replaced by one of his cloth diapers, which conferred a kind of comfort that may have had curative properties as well. My alcohol of choice was and still is a green liquid marketed in the Caribbean as a cooling aid to be used in hot weather. It comes in a plastic bottle with a picture of a penguin and a glacier. 

As I got older and the migraines got meaner, I needed to add medication to the mix - usually Excedrin Migraine. However, when I began to practice yoga, I learned that body movement in itself could be healing. The theory is that even without conscious intent, the body is always trying to generate antidotes to whatever ails it, and that physical movement aids this process. I started to apply this whenever I had a migraine. The only directive to be followed is the body's own feeling. Sometimes there is an urge to twist, or to yawn or to stretch or move in some specific way.

With my migraines, twisting my body at the waist plus hyper-extending my neck to one side with my jaw dropped, synchronized with deep breathing worked wonders. Sometimes my mouth would suddenly be flooded with a distinctive tasting saliva - sweet, bitter, salty or some combination of these. In training, I was taught to mindfully swallow this saliva as it contained some medicine which was generated by my body.

Yesterday's headache did not yield for six hours, even with the 4 pronged approach of the bandana with alcohol, medication plus yoga. It was like riding a raft downriver complete with rapids, eddies and waterfalls. It may sound odd, but it was an interesting journey. And once I reached the end of the ride - the world was new again.

In Search Of Magic

I am two thirds of the way through my Oscar movie marathon for 2011. I want to see all ten Best Picture nominees, as well as all of the movies from which Best Actor or Best Actress performances were nominated. And, I want to see them all before the Academy Awards Ceremony on February 27th. So, in addition to Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, and Winter's Bone - I will need to see Biutiful, Rabbit Hole, Blue Valentine, The Town and Animal Kingdom. As of tonight, I am 11 down and 4 to go.

This little exercise has encouraged me to look at movies I would normally have no interest in seeing. For example I hate the sport of boxing,which was a hurdle I had to overcome in order to see The Fighter. For my trouble, I was rewarded with Christian Bale's performance. He lost a lot of weight to play the role of a washed up, crack addicted ex-boxer whose last shred of self respect hung on the question of whether he had actually knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard as he'd like to remember, or whether Sugar Ray had tripped. Before I saw this movie, I liked Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech) for best supporting actor, but Geoffrey seems a little tame to me now.

In addition to Christian Bale's spot-on performance in The Fighter, and the ride to save Mattie's life in True Grit, another magical experience for me was in the music from 127 Hours. Bill Wither's Lovely Day was entirely unexpected given what went before (musically speaking) in the movie, and so very uplifting. It was a life-affirming counterpoint to a scene that was utterly dismal, all the more so because it was based on real life events.

Winter's Bone was raw and touching - do people still live like this in America? When I saw the lead character taking her younger brother and sister (they were what, eleven and seven?) through the motions of target practice with a rifle and assorted empty plastic containers, admonishing them to "never, ever, never" point the gun at each other - I thought: guns sure make sense in Missouri, especially when your own kin are out to get you. I loved Jennifer Lawrence in this movie (lead actress). As she and her two younger siblings stared longingly at their neighbor skinning a deer while they were starving in plain sight next door, the brother wondered aloud whether they could ask for a piece of meat.

Her reply was the best quote of the movie: 'You should never ask for what ought to be offered'.

What didn't thrill me though, was The Social Network. It's very of the moment, I suppose - but it didn't take me anywhere special. Neither did  Black Swan, for all its dark weirdness. Nicole Kidman was pretty good in Rabbit Hole, but I was too distracted by her puffy lips. I don't think plastic surgery serves actors very well. Also, Nicole seems to have a stock way of expressing grief - same as she did in the movie Far and Away, which was a long long time ago when Tom Cruise still seemed normal.

Contrasted with Annette Bening in The Kids are All RIght, Nicole Kidman was as responsive as a rock. Annette Bening was wrinkled and bleary eyed, slightly plump and scarily real. I still have to see Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, but so far Annette Bening has my vote for best actress.

Son (to his mothers, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore): 

I don't think you guys should break up

Annette Bening: Why?

Son: Because you are too old.

Which proves that gay marriage has one key advantage over 'hetero' marriage.

With partners of the same sex, the prospects of each finding a new partner are equally good... or equally bad.

The King's Speech is favored to win almost every category in which it is nominated, so I'm purposely not focusing on it too much. I've seen it and I loved it, especially one luminous scene in which the King and Mr. Logue are walking out in the sunshine after a rainshower.

This scene is visually unusual - somewhat backlit with the pavement shimmering like pewter, the two figures almost halo-ed and silhouetted. This bright scene is the setting for one of the emotional low points of the movie.

Though I've seen Inception three times, I don't think it is going to win many awards. It's in the vein of other brain teasers like The Prestige and The Departed: nail-biting suspense and a convoluted story line that requires at least 5 viewings to grasp fully - but how you love every minute of your nervous confusion!

Yet to be seen are: Biutiful, Blue Valentine, The Town and Animal Kingdom. I'm still on the lookout for magic.