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I Google you to see if you are still there
after seven years.
Is there eternal life among the electrons?
It seems there are fewer hits now,
but I could be wrong.

There are more oddities intermixed:
a list of runners from a race -
two of whom, when combined together,
share your first and last name.
Apparently you are also a camera brand,
and you must have a distant relation
who runs a knitting group in Iowa.

These all appear
like random thoughts
that intrude when I try to hold your face,
your voice
in my mind.

I bring up Mapquest
and click for directions.
In "Starting Location"
I type "Wishing You Were Here"
and in ending location,
I enter, "Heaven."
I click on "Get Directions"
and wait.

My Piano

You've had a day like this,
and so you know what I mean
when I say that

I wish I had a piano.

I wish I could pull the little stool out
and settle in, savor
that moment as my hands hang
over the keys - just before notes arise
to do my bidding
like 88 genies unleashed from ivory bottles.

I wouldn't wish for anything more
than well-made scales and
disciplined arpeggios.

Okay - I'm lying -

I'd love something baroque
to lift me - and my piano -
up like a magic carpet
high above the suburban sprawl,
traffic,
alarm clocks,
and daytime talk show hosts.

Somewhere up there among the stars
I'd play to the accompaniment
of Holst's "Planets",
and dispute Copernicus's findings
about the revolution of the Earth.

Soon the entire cosmos
would align itself around
our song,
correcting the error
of its previously incomprehensible ways.

Dream Lovers

1.

I bowl on Thursday nights
with my wife’s scorned lover
whom she left me for -
a cruel laugh and,
"Life's too short
to keep having sex with just you."

He found out life was too short
to have sex with just him, too.

We bowl with all the other
broken hearts,
new ones always arriving, stunned
in her wake.
They have made me
team captain
because I was the first.

I have a blue satin shirt
with, "Captain" embroidered on the back.

I am proud of how it shimmers
when they shine the lights on the disco ball.

2.

Then there is the secret
dream lover I had before
I was married.

It was just a one night fling,
but she returns now and then
to fill me in on her progress.

She doesn't threaten
to reveal our secret -
it's become something
of a sacred bond between us.

"You were mine, first,"
she reminds me.

But she is also married now.
To a dwarf.
She met him at her
disabled persons activist group
after she lost the use of her
legs in an agricultural accident
in Manhattan.

We sit in a dream cafe
drinking over-priced coffee
and show each other pictures
of our dream children.

"It's a life," she says
before she becomes a crow
and flap-flops away -
no need for legs.

When I Cursed Last Wednesday

When I cursed last Wednesday and also the day I was born, I half hoped for a whirlwind to come down to the sidewalk and challenge me. At mid-life, it all seemed ridiculous. None of it was as it was supposed to have been. And none of it could tie together in some tragic way – it was torture of a thousand little deaths. It was the pain of meaninglessness.
But God tapped me on the shoulder, even as I had mine eyes focused on heaven, my palms outstretched.
“Come on,” He said, “you look foolish. Let’s get a Café Americano.”
He placed his order at Starbucks divinely – which is to say, He didn’t stumble over grandes and talls and half-caf’s and lattes. He smiled at me as I tried to follow His lead.
“This was My idea,” He noted, “I whispered it into Howard Schultz’s ear one night – the secret is to keep people baffled – it’s what makes Starbucks so divine.”
“So,” He said when we were seated in the comfy chairs,
“You cursed the day you were born.”
“Um, yeah,” I said, sipping something that was not quite what I thought I was ordering but was probably off the menu somehow.
“And you wanted Me to ask you where you were when I laid the foundations of the earth, shut up the seas with doors, etc.? To make you feel like there is an order to the universe, so that you would be comforted in at least that fact – that even if you couldn’t understand it, at least you knew there was a plan?”
“Ah, yeah,” I said.
God smiled then, leaning back deep in the leather. “It’s all a joke,” He said, finally.
“A joke? But why dost Thou contendest with me?” I blurted out, almost spilling my $4 cup of coffee. “Shew me wherefore!”
Now I continued: “What about Rwanda? What about Auschwitz? What about crack cocaine? What about George Bush?”
“Ah, George. He’s wonderful, isn’t he?” He smiled, a twinkle evident in his eye. “All that stuff was part of the lead in to the punch line.” He leaned forward over the table that looked like it could have come from Pottery Barn. “You know,” He whispered intimately, “you have to crack some eggs to make a cake.
“And you, you’re the punch line. Isn’t that great? It’s all come to you. The whole universe has been building up to this moment – when you finally would come along and get it – that it’s all a cosmic joke.”
He slapped his knee, and looked out the window, still chuckling. “I love strip malls,” He said, shaking His head in approval. “Should have had them in Eden. Would have made things so much simpler.”
“But why me?” I squeaked, overwhelmed by the burden of being the focus of History.
“Why not?” He asked, turning back, leaning into His chair again. When I continued to look dumbfounded at Him, He sighed: “Oh, alright. So it isn’t just you. It’s everyone. The world is a custom-built joke on everyone. Everything was set in motion so that every person who ever lived or ever will live will be possessed by the same moment of clarity as you. It pays to be omniscient and omnipotent. Not just anyone could do this, you know.”
I didn’t know what to say. I sipped whatever it was that had wound up in my cup that tasted like coffee and cinnamon, maybe.
“You know, there are basically four kinds of death. First, there is painful and quick. I’m thinking of car accidents, industrial accidents where people get pinned under heavy machinery or dissolved in large vats of sulfuric acid, completely random events like alligator attacks, and also the variety of quick but painful medical conditions, such as heart attacks and strokes. One might be tempted to also add things like being hit by lightning, but that sort of event actually fits more neatly into the second group – namely painless and quick. Generally speaking, if the lightning strike is direct enough, the current actually kills the victim before his brain has a chance to process the idea of ‘pain’. So the second group, painless and quick, also includes accidental overdoses, alcohol poisoning, medical errors during surgery, that sort of thing.
“Into each life I pour just enough misery to break a person before they die. The ones that go out quick don’t have much stamina – they’re not very interesting really – so I knock them off without too much fanfare. Or sometimes a lot of fanfare, but usually they’re already gone before everyone really pays any attention.
“Some of the seemingly painless ones actually fit into the third group though, so don’t go trying to categorize things just based on external observation. There’s a difference between a kid that drinks all his father’s fifth of Kentucky burbon and passes out under his friends porch and asphyxiates on his own vomit and a 50 year old man who does the same thing. Except of course that it is likely not his father’s fifth that he drinks in one sitting. The kid likely fits in the second group. He wasn’t going to be much fun, so I got rid of him early on. But the 50 year old man, he more likely belongs in the third group. Long suffering, lots of misery. A really high tolerance for liquor and pain and nothingness. Now that is good stuff. Very interesting to watch.
“Oh, and also in the third group are people afflicted with cancer – you know, the slow, lingering kind that responds to chemo at first, but then comes back. And of course there’s Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Muscular Dystrophy, and that new favorite, AIDS. Lots of others too. Some I haven't even revealed yet. Don't go spilling the beans," He added confidentially, "but just keep watching that organic food movement. Anyway, it’s remarkable what the knowledge of definite end can do to a human being. Fascinating.
“But the best group to watch are the ones that come to feel like there is no definite end – like they might live forever. Most young people think they want to live forever. It takes actually getting old to realize that’s not such a good deal. Your children die, maybe your grandchildren die. You’re alone. No one cares about you. You get stuck in some horrible institution where they tuck you into a corner and feed you gruel and want you to play Bingo all the time. And after a while everything blurs together. All the young people come and go around you. The old friends are gone. The lucky ones, you come to realize, were the ones that went young, and quick. The itches you can’t scratch build up. You can’t cut your own toe-nails. You can’t even make it to the toilet most of the time. You can’t dial a phone because you can’t remember phone numbers. And even if you could, you couldn’t really hear the person on the other end anyway. And again, even if you could, who would you call? They’re all gone – the ones you would call.
“Your body just keeps going. You can’t sleep through the night. You’re tired all day and doze off. Food tastes bland, or just bad. But your body won’t quit. So you go through the motions day after day, wondering when it will be over.
“Finally, it’s an act of will. It takes time, but it’s an act of will. You start willing your body to stop. You fade, slowly, before everyone’s eyes – not that anyone’s eyes are actually on you. It’s a long, long road. There are moments – glimmers – when you think you have rediscovered meaning – that something actually fits together. It’s like a flash of light from behind you. You turn to look, but nothing is there. And then, no, you realize you were mistaken. So you go back to the quiet project of willing your body to stop. To release you.
“Those lives,” He said, taking the plastic cover off of his paper cup, eyeing the bottom of the cup, then lifting it to drink the last dregs. “Those are my favorite.”

Convertible

At first the driver seems to be jerking her head
as if shaking off a bee
but then I see the rhythm in her movements
and catch a corner of her smile
as she bounces her head in the direction
of her passenger.

She infects him
and his head begins to bob
in time with hers.

I can't help it -
I switch off the news and
roll down my window
to try to catch a bit
of what they are listening to.
It's then that the light changes
and we all begin to pull away.

From a lane over, I follow
the little red car.
At the next light, I am along side them.
I hear a song from my youth
that makes me want to dance.

I throw open my door
and like Daisy Duke,
I jump into the front seat
of the convertible,
landing with TV precision
between the man and the woman.
They are, of course,
unsurprised.

I put my arms around them both
and as the light changes,
we drive on together,
heads bobbing,
friends for so long.

We roll down this length of road
collecting more passengers at each stop light
like a clown car.
Each of us hears the song of our youth,
each of us has been friends for so long.
It is never crowded
as long as the music keeps playing
and the wind keeps blowing.

The Second Time Around

The weight of being Hindu,
and a snail,
is so much heavier
the second time around.

The subtleties of enlightened snailness
are much deeper
than those of humanness.
The choices are so few,
one must constantly be attuned
to the earth and sky,
the temperature and the humidity.
There is no room for error,
no one wants to spend another life
exploring grassness,
even if for a summer.

Chickens at the Bronx Zoo

You might think
just because a kid grows up
in public housing
that he never saw a chicken.

But he heard the rooster
crow at dawn
in the next apartment
where Mr. Perez
had ripped out the cabinet doors
and replaced them with wire
and the family kept chickens
in the kitchen where other families
kept their plates
and cereal boxes.

Sometimes he would hear crowing at midnight
through the plaster walls
when Mr. Perez and his brothers
would stumble in and flip on the lights,
all the while
singing songs in Spanish
about Puerto Rican independence
and women sweet like cane.

It wasn't until they filled
the porcelain tub with coals
and were slow smoking
a pig in the bathroom
that the chickens and
the salsa music
finally disappeared
into the glare
of blue lights and sirens.

The tiger is in a shoebox jungle.
The monkeys climb in a forest
of three trees.
But there is no salsa music
at the Bronx Zoo.
No sweet smell of plantains
frying in the evening
floating up from the cages,
no colorful flags
waving from the golf carts
that scurry between exhibits.
How does one understand chickens
when they are so far removed
from their natural element?

A Performance of Handell's Messiah by the Leesville Community Choir (published in Moondrenched Fables)

In this little chapel far from any city
their voices rise and fall
with remarkable song:
altos snatch the lead from tenors
while sapranos and basses
lunge musically from the sidelines.

There are twentyfour of them
in simple black and white.
The fact that in some cases
the cut is finer
is apparent even
from ten pews back.

Later some of them
will climb into pick ups
with gun racks and fishing poles
to lumber down dirt roads
back to trailer homes.

We do not ask how we came to be here,
on the stage or in the audience -
it all seems so arbitrary -
because tonight they raise
all of us up
to be something
so much more exquisite.

New House

I awaken to the tattering sounds
of rain -
hopeful the day will begin
grey and slow -
breathing the moisture
through my mouth.
Only to realize
it is the ceiling fan's whir
and the casual rattle of the pull-chain.

Angry at the kilowatt hours
and the price
of it all -
off I go into the harsh brightness.

Getting to know a house
begins with sounds
like the feel of a handshake,
but the shower
is a wrapping of arms
around your body.

A Priori

You have to know
Beautiful

to inhale crisp crystal air,

to roll plums and smoke and leather
in a glass of wine.

Fire and Time

Sweet potatoes in the grill basket
tonight
chopped into chips.

I always buy too many potatoes -
sweet or otherwise -
a desire for plenty
that outweighs all other thoughts.

As the pile on the cutting board
grows
I know my character flaw
has once again manifested itself.
Sweet potatoes sliced and stacked
are like stock market crashes -
you know they will come
you just don't know when.
You can only hope
to be dining at someone else's house
that night.

It's never as bad as it looks -
fire and time reduce the calamity by half.
The sheer volume of roots
dissipates -
gives up the ghost of water wholly.

So of course now I must add
the plantain I had hidden
at the bottom of the grocery bag.
I joyfully slice that manly fruit
on the same cutting board
and on to the flame it goes -
fruit of the earth and the sky.

I think about fire and time
as I raise creamsicle colored
forkfulls to my mouth -

fire and time burn away
all that is unnecessary -

Fire and Time leave only
the darkened, sweet memory.

for Karol Wojtyla

A man who renames himself
uniquely understands the Logos.

We last spoke Karol’s name
26 years ago
when he went to stand with Peter
(once Simon),
then watched in awe
as the words flowed through his mouth
berating walls
and salving wounds –
some new, some ancient.

In nine days the Conclave –
but today
they announce the Doors of Heaven
have been opened
to a man once again known
as Karol.

(originally written Apr 2005 in memory of Pope John Paul II)

At The Cross Roads

We let the sloping exit ramp
take us up and off the highway
letting the car slow
under its own weight.
The station is desolate,
the price absurd - but
this is Connecticut -
a transition between worlds.

The attendant has a crew cut
and a neat shirt.
It is only when he steps
from behind the register
that we see the tatoos
that dance up his arms.
He does not smile.

Another family comes in -
a dad and two little girls
dressed for the beach,
they tow a boat behind
their SUV.

A young man leaves
his dented station wagon
at the pump
and swaggers through the doors.
He wears a wife beater,
his arms lean with youth.
His pants sag,
sinched with a belt
around his buttocks.
He does smile and asks us
if we know how to get to
Manchester?

As we pull away
from the barren strip the station
stands on,
I wonder if it closes at night.
I wonder if the attendant will look
out the window at the dimming light
as cars come and go.
I wonder if he will shut out the lights
and lock the doors at some point,
or if the relief will come
sliding up in the dark
some time long after the moon has risen
and the streetlamps have begun to hum.
I wonder what his car's tires will sound like
as he presses gently on the accelerator,
as they lift and fall
over the cracked and buckling black top
heaved by the frost
that will come again and again.

Two Roads Converge

at my destination.

Tonight I choose
the slower road,

the one with the stoplights
that make you pause
with strangers in front
and behind.
You almost have to consider
the strip malls
and side walks
and street signs.

Tonight I choose the one
with the lower speed limits
and the one
where the cop waits
just below the crest of that hill.

The other is just as fair:
longer, smoother arc;
speed limit that gets you there
fast, but takes you farther.
This other where you can fade
into the music,
or the chatter on your radio.

Tonight
I choose the slower road
and turn off the iPod,
turn off the air conditioner,
roll down the windows
and try

to breathe.

the squadron commander

when he sat still
he was as unintimidating
as a marionette:
long arms and legs,
a length of nose
that looked
like a caricature,
black eyes still.

but when he began to move,
his hands pointing
or on his hips;

but more importantly
when he began to speak

his physical appearance
melted away
in the blur of his booming voice.

you saw how his subordinates,
officers and sergeants alike
reacted
to his Machiavellian philosophy
that it was better
to be feared than loved.

it was years before I realized
that he had been passed over
for promotion.
he was gone as was I,
as was everyone -
the natural flow of the Army -
the unit stays, the men move on.

when he smiled
and said a kind word,
it meant something.
young men put these smiles
in their wallets
and brought them out
over beer like pictures
of girlfriends back home.

Rosemary

At sunset on my porch,
I pinch a twig of rosemary
between my thumb and forefinger
and smell the swelling sweetness
of its aroma
even before I lift it to my nose.

It brings me back to

years ago
out on the Dona Ana range
sitting in my HUMWV.
The desert burned with the heat
of engines and summer.
The setting sun called forth the colors
of the mountains that lay hidden
during the ordinary hours.
The rosemary grew wild in bushes.
Abrams tanks roared and clattered past
indisriminately grinding sprigs into the sand.
As they went down,
they blessed the dry air with flavor,
cancelling some of the sickly smell
of burning jet fuel.

And many years later,
the sun just above the horizon,
next to the barbecue
was a pot with a healthy plant
growing, cared for.
I, fingering a few leaves
like today, listened
as an old Army buddy
recited a litany of trials and gratitudes
of a year of surgery
and chemotherapy for his son.
"It was hard," he understated.

"Smell this," I said.
"Do you remember Dona Ana?"

In Front of the Storm

the air is full of contradictions:
pregnant with heat,
penetrated by a cool breeze;
darkening brightness, despite
the bruised clouds
and patches of sun.

the other cafe customers
at the sidewalk tables
avoid commenting
on the coming tumult.
we deny the inevitable
by resolutely sipping
and chewing,

but our feet are not tangled
in the chairs' legs
as they might have been.

Abraham, Dragons, and Pizza

I have ventured into uncharted territory tonight.  There are important issues to explore.  "Beyond here, there be dragons," sailors used to say.

A minister friend wrote me to say that she was working on a sermon about the Binding of Isaac (see Genesis 22 - http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis+22).  It's a tough story about faith, love, and obedience, because it presents an incredible moral dilemma.   In fact, it's one of those stories that seems to be unresolvable – and ultimately leaves us in the zone of faith.  How could a just and merciful God call upon Abraham to demonstrate his total loyalty by telling him, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you".  Never mind that He ultimately lets Abraham off the hook (sorry to spoil the plot for those of you that skipped Sunday School that day).  How could He ask such a thing?

But tonight that's not the uncharted territory I am exploring.  Tonight I am venturing into the deep unknown of a completely new marinara sauce recipe.  I know.  It's scary.  But that's not all.  I am also tempting fate with a completely new pizza crust.  All at once.  It's a bit overwhelming, so I had to write about it. 

I learned to make sauce from my mother many years ago (see the earlier "Making the Sauce" post).  There is something intensely personal about making sauce.  It's not even intentional.  My mother learned to make sauce from my grandmother.  But if you tasted from each of their pots, you would have to admit that though they were both tomato based, the similarity ended there.  My mother struggled for years to have her sauce taste just like my grandmothers.  I remember her breaking down in tears once when I was young enough not to understand how to answer such questions as "do these pants make me look fat?" when she asked if her sauce tasted as good as grandma's. 

But I have to admit that while my grandmother's sauce – especially her meatballs – was a thing of mythical proportion – my mother made an amazing sauce.  So good that you will almost never see me order a red sauce in a restaurant.  It's just not worth it.  And if I do, the answer to the question is always, "No – not as good as Mom's – but nice try."  See – sort of like, "Of course those pants don't make you look fat.  But you might cut back on the cannoli."  I can be trained.  It takes time.  But it can be done.

And it has taken time, but I make a pretty good red sauce.  It's not as good as Mom's.  Ask my father.  It's an entirely different taste.  Like that silly game "telephone" you used to play as a kid.  I watched her make it.  I wrote down what she did.  I even made it with her standing next to me.  And it still tasted entirely different.  Like I said, except for the fact that it is made with tomatoes... 

Asian cultures love paradoxes.  Buddhist writing seems to be filled with them.  The Chinese texts that I have read (in English, thank you) are mostly in short aphorisms that are designed to make you think and puzzle – they don't offer a straight forward answer.  Perhaps this is the secret that the West has yet to really uncover.  In my experience reading any of the great philosophers of the Western tradition, you will find their efforts at straightforward exposition to be at least as baffling as, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  Perhaps truth is so complex that to try to break it apart in linear text is no more possible than drawing the sound of morning birds welcoming the sunrise.

My sauce is good, like I said, but my calzones are world famous.  (Calzones are basically pizza turnovers for you unitiated.  And when I say "World famous" I mean I have some friends who like my calzones and got stationed in Germany.  When they come back, I won't be able to say that anymore.) My secret is in the dough.  Or at least it always has been.  I make a thick, fluffy, sweet dough.  It's actually based on a bread recipe I got from a neighbor in New Hampshire 20 or so years ago.  Instead of using water in the dough, the recipe calls for milk.  And lots of sugar.  It also called for using shortening instead of oil, but over the years I've gotten lazy and gone back to using canola. 

I discovered the archetype of pizza at Avanti's in Amherst, Mass.  When I was in college they would occasionally send out coupons to the dorms for a large pizza with two toppings for $6.99.  Avanti's would count double cheese and double dough as toppings.  When the pizza would arrive, it would weigh about 10 pounds and be about three inches thick.  Looking back, it was probably terrible pizza.  But it's the stuff of legend now – like my grandmother's and mother's sauces.  It exists in a time and place that is gone and cannot be recreated – so all that is left is the memory of something that that has taken on the nature of a Platonic form.  So forever in my mind, a truly great pizza is one where the slices are so thick you have to unhinge your jaw to slide one into your mouth, and the cheese is so thick and gooey that you must have a beer on the floor next to your futon to wash it down with.

But tonight, as I said, I broke with tradition.  I surfed the web looking at a variety of pizza dough recipes.  My wife is enamored of thin crust pizza.  I've always thought of thin crust pizza as something like a cracker with cheese.  But I uncorked a bottle of 2005 zinfandel and thought, what the heck.  If I'm going to have crackers and cheese, I may as well have a nice glass of wine with it. 

Pizza dough recipes are actually quite simple.  Yeast, flour, oil, water, sugar.  Pretty much in the same proportions.  How complicated is that?  But do you ever go to two pizzerias (real pizzerias – not those corporate machines like Pizza Hut or Domino's) and get the same taste?  Do you want to argue it's the sauce?  The sauce isn't that much more complicated when you get down to the raw elements – tomato sauce, tomato paste, olive oil, garlic, oregano, basil, bay, a shot of red wine, some salt and pepper. 

Yeast, flour, oil, water, sugar.  Not unlike fire, water, air, and earth.  Can't make much with those, either.  

I found one recipe where the author praised the use of large quantities of yeast for flavor.  I'd never really thought about adding yeast for flavor.  So I tripled the amount of yeast I normally put into my dough.  I used honey instead of sugar to start the yeast.  No milk this time.  I rolled the dough out thin and flat, and basted it with the new marinara, then sliced some fresh mozzarella and dropped it on the pizza like continents in an island world. 

We learn to do things a certain way.  It becomes the right way.  Over time it becomes our way.  Our signature on it.  No one else does it quite like we do – no one could – even if they tried.  We come to love our own ways.  Perhaps we become inflexible, deep in our rut of repetition.  Paradoxes, dilemmas – these are powerful tools to shake our minds, to reconsider – to force us to stick our heads up from deep in the well trodden lines we follow.

Why would God force Abraham into the dilemma he did?  It's hard to say.  If you're Christian, you'd like to think of God as loving, that he would never have made Abraham follow through with the sacrifice just to prove a point.  But look what God does to Job on a bet.  This is the same God.  Another paradox.

I'd like to believe in the case of Abraham that God never intended to allow Abraham to follow through.  If he didn't intend to, then you could say this was just a thought exercise God put Abraham through.  To shake him out of his preconceptions, to awaken a deeper understanding through the full force of paradox. 

When Job dares to challenge his fate, God bellows down from the heavens, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." (Job 38:4)  The gist is that a mere mortal like Job or one of us doesn't have the ability to see enough of the big picture to really understand the logic and beauty of the universe that God (or fill in the force of your choice) has set in motion.  What might seem like a paradox to us is simply elegant truth to God.  Or butterflies flapping their wings on the plains of Argentina.

The pies took about 10 minutes to bake.  They were thin and crispy.  The marinara was extraordinarily garlicky, the fresh mozzarella smoother than the shredded stuff you buy in bags.  They went down well with the zin. 

It felt heretical to crack a pizza crust.  But it was good.  Good to break out of the old ways. 

Sometimes you just have to have faith, and go out amongst the dragons.

 

Phantom

"Night-time sharpens, heightens each sensation.
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination.
Silently the senses abandon their defenses.
Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendor . . ."

-- Andrew Lloyd Weber – "Music of the Night"

"People are messy," Jeff, a friend from my last assignment, used to say.  Usually it was over coffee in the DFAC (that's military-ese for "dining facility" which is a cafeteria in English – everything has an acronym in the military) when I was complaining to him about some latest round of personnel issues I was dealing with. 

I think that's a great observation about life with people in general – not just at work.  Jeff was right - people are messy.  And when Jeff said messy, he didn't mean unclean or untidy – though that certainly applies to a good many.  Heck – it applies to me.  You'd know what I was saying if you ever saw my desk.  What he was talking about was the complexity of social interaction.  People make a mess of relationships, and since relationships are pretty much everything, then logically, people make a mess of pretty much everything (A=B, B=C, then A=C – you get the idea).

I have always had a fondness for walking at night.  When I was younger I would often wait until everyone else was in bed, then wander out the back door and out into the town.  My parents lived in a small city in western New Hampshire.  Main Street was just a little more than a mile from our house.  I would walk down Court Street, passing all the old houses that had once been the residences of mill bosses in the 19^th century.  These were sometimes graceful Victorians, but always imposingly large.  When you passed the new court house – very much 20^th century office building box architecture – you were on Main Street.

At the top of Main Street was (still is) a classic white church.  In front of the church, a rotary, complete with rotunda where bands sometimes played summer concerts, fountain, and obligatory war memorial of someone on a horse from some war a long time ago. 

By midnight, Main Street was mostly deserted.  The traffic lights switch to blinking red or yellow, depending on which way you are passing through the intersections and the rotary.  Occasionally there would still be a few pick-up trucks parked along the median, redneck hicks in from the surrounding unpopulated areas not wanting to call it a night just yet.  They would have cans of Bud held low against passing cars – in case.  But passing cars were few and far between.  Mostly the streets were quiet.  Any noise penetrated farther at night.  The unsubtle drunk laughter.  The sound of tires coursing over the pavement as a car turned a corner and the tail lights disappeared from sight.  The hum of air conditioners sputtering on or off.  The sound of your own footsteps on the pavement.

I'd walk along Main Street, looking at my reflection in the darkened shop windows.  The emptiness was peaceful, in an almost mischievous way.  The yellow light of street lamps was almost like a mild rebuke – one you could ignore with impunity, but it was always there. 

What is remarkable about walking through a sleeping city is to see it without the layers of social interaction that go on during the day.  People walking, bustling along the sidewalks, cars pressing to get from one place to another as quickly as possible, flaring at the stop lights.  Doors opening and closing, conversations – in person and cellular, radios.  Movement everywhere.  People coming in.  People going out.  People getting into cars with packages.  People crossing the street.  People to get out of the way of.  People to acknowledge with a small smile (not too much – this was New England after all), a courteous nod. 

A mess.

This picture of sunset was taken over a lake on my walkabout a few weeks ago on Orrs Island in Maine.  It reminded me of walking at night.  The docks abandoned.  No bungling tourists crowding there way unskillfully down to boats. 

I was looking for a place to sleep for the night.  I had hoped to go camping.  Unfortunately the only camp ground for many miles appeared not to be ready to take guests.  So much for spontaneity.  Sometimes it earns you a long night in the front seat of your car.  But I am glad to have paid that price to see the unfurling splendor of the night as it played out before me. 

It was not all that unlike night on Main Street – lit with flashing yellows and reds, the glide of white headlights, red tail lights.  Neon from pizza shops where you could see the help in the back cleaning up, running a mop through the darkened dining room up front.

Main Street emerges as something graceful and gentle under the shelter of darkness.  Something beautiful and uncomplicated.  Buildings' lines soften.  The streets flow like rivers.  There is a peace to be found at night, walking, even in the heart of a city.  It is the peace that people seek when they go out into nature.  I find that peace at night.  Temporal distance from the messiness of people.

There are days when I wish there were only nights.  Jeff loves people.  When he says they are messy, he says it with affection.  I wish I were more like him.  But I'm not.  I'm a night person.  A phantom of the sidewalks and alley ways.  Sharpened by the night.

Pink Floyd on My Mind Today

"And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"

I had ju-jitsu practice this morning. We practice on Tues and Fri from 6:30 to 8. Our practices are held at an office building in Alexandria. There is no parking, but there is a metro station nearby. So I park at a metro station one stop down, and ride the metro up to the Eisenhower station.

Once you go through the gate of the metro, you don’t get charged again until you go back out a gate. Then the machines calculate how far you have traveled and charge you appropriately. If you don’t go out a gate, you don’t get charged. If you go out the gate you came in, you get the minimum charge - I think it’s $1.65.

There have been many days where I thought it would be good to get on the train and just ride it all day, back and forth from one end of the yellow line to the other, then to metro center and ride the blue, then the red, then the green, going from end to end, over and over. Movement without a destination.

Today I had the overwhelming desire to do that. When I got back to the Huntington Station where I park, I just wanted to get back on the train and start riding. To watch the urban scenes flow past, to see the lights of the tunnels blur by. To emerge from the dark suddenly, blinkingly into the light again like Dante rising.

Sometimes the answer seems to be in the movement.

But then Pink Floyd says,

"Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here."

Evelyn

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding" - Job, 38:4

There was a woman named Evelyn who cared for me when I was an infant - only for a few months. When I was born, my father was working and going to nightschool to finish his high school degree, and my mother was finishing her last year of college. By the time I was about a year old, we had moved away to Amherst where my father started college. Evelyn saw me only a few times after that. But until I was 35 years old, I always received a birthday card from Waltham, Mass, with the signature line, "Love, Your old babysitter, Evelyn."

It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I began to reciprocate. I started sending her birthday cards and even occasional notes with pictures of my own children. She loved them and would write back immediately. But then I would usually wait months before responding again - or until one of our birthdays came around again.

When I received the birthday card I had sent her with the words, "deceased" scrawled across the address, it was hard to believe. I hadn't seen Evelyn in more than 20 years, but the fact that a birthday card wouldn't come the next May - it seemed almost unthinkable. It was one of the forces of nature. With winter comes snow, with spring, rain and flowers, and a birthday card.

I don't think I appreciated how lucky I was to have this bond with someone almost a stranger until many years later. How do you explain it? You could argue that Evelyn was a lonely old woman living in a second floor walk-up in a decrepit building and had nothing better to do. Perhaps. Perhaps it was more about her happiness than mine that she sent those cards year after year. It certainly was not because I was particularly worthy. I hadn't earned that love. But the fact is, she touched me and made me believe that there are random acts of goodness in this universe that we sometimes take for granted, that complement the cruelties and excesses that much more often come to play center to our stories.

When my birthday comes around each year now I think of Evelyn, each year making sure to get to the grocery store and buy a card for the baby she had held and cared for all those years ago. She didn't know the man I had become, except by occasional notes and pictures. I don't know that these would have made much difference to her. What I believe she thought she knew was the core of me - all the rest was just trappings. The ones we come to love - the ones that love us - it never ceases to amaze me how random this is. And to be loved for your core - it's a thing that defies understanding. A thing that comes only a few times in life, if at all.

Music In the Air

Between the parking lot and the library is the GMU
Performing Arts Center. It is a beautiful clear,
breezy, but cool day here today. As I was crossing
the street and heading toward the campus pond, I
suddenly heard a trumpet coming over the wind and the
water. It was just scales, but he had such clarity
and such range. He must have covered three octaves.
And as he reached the highest range, it felt like
hope.

With the sun shining and the air clean and fresh and
music literally in the air, there was no room for
anything like self-pity - even if I was spending my Spring Break in the library.

I finally saw him when I was almost to there. He
was standing outside in a t-shirt (it's definately not
more than 40) and jeans, with just his trumpet. He
was playing something else when I got to him - no
longer reaching for the high notes, but not clearly a
song. But so clear. I stopped and watched him for a
while and he saw me. I was probably a 100 meters
away, but he could have been right next to me it was
so clear. He turned my way and played something that
was probably just part of his warm up.

It's a fine day to be alive his trumpet was saying. I
wanted to thank him for such a wonderful gift this
morning.

But I didn't say anything. I just went inside. This
was just a few minutes ago. I wanted to share it with
you because I wanted you to know that I think it is a
fine day to be alive, and I want you to feel that it
is a fine day to be alive, too, even if you didn't get
to hear his music.

Learning

It was a snow day. My mother had picked up my grandmother and brought her to our house to watch us for the day. I had gone out with one of the neighborhood kids – Jimmy A. – to play in the snow. We were about 12 at the time. Jimmy was one of those kids from the neighborhood that you played with when you didn’t have anyone else to play with. And he felt the same about me. He had other friends – friends that spent time in the principal’s office and the “resource room” where they got extra attention and got to go on special outings. He’d have probably been on Ritalin if he were in school today.

I don’t remember what lead up to what happened exactly – I think we tried to bumper ski a few times – you know, wait for a car to drive by, then grab a hold of the fender and slide on the slush in your sneakers. I was fast enough, but wasn’t really brave enough for that. Jimmy was stupid enough to try, but not fast enough. So I think that’s when we decided what would be fun next would be to throw snowballs at cars. We were on the corner of Tolman street and I can’t remember the other, but it was on my paper route. This was on the Waltham/Newton line – an old suburb with lots of Italians and Jews that had made it out of the city. Not wealthy, not poor. Lower middle class. Lots of duplexes and quads. If you lived in our neighborhood, you had a good blue collar job, or you were a poor white collar worker. Or you lived there because your parents lived around the corner.

We made snowballs and waited. A car drove by, we threw. We missed. I always missed. I never played baseball as a kid – I can barely throw a ball even now. My wife laughs at me when I try. Another car came – we threw, we missed. And then there was one of those big 70’s boats – an Impala or something – it was tan. We threw – I missed. Jimmy’s snowball smacked into the side of the car. There was a moment’s hesitation, then the car slammed on its breaks and squealed into reverse. We turned and ran. God knows where Jimmy went, but he was gone. Like I said, I was fast, but I couldn’t think where to go, where to hide. I ran down the middle of the street as I heard the car shift back into drive, and the wheels squeal and run through the slush. I finally cut into someone’s yard, but there was a fence around the back yard. I didn’t know what to do. I look back and think, I just should have jumped the fence, but running into a stranger’s backyard seemed unthinkable for some reason at that moment. Then it occurred to me – my snowball didn’t hit the car. I wouldn’t get in trouble. I walked casually back out to the street. The car slammed on its breaks and the driver door flew open.

The man who emerged was a tall – probably over 6 feet. I was maybe 5’3” at the time, 110 pounds or so. He had grey hair, so I suppose he was in his late forties or early fifties. He had on a red and black hunting jacket – it looked like a dark table cloth – and construction boots. I remember the boots well.

I don’t remember if he said anything before he began to beat me. I think he may have just grabbed my jacket and started pummeling me with his other fist. He hit me in the head and face many times. My arms too, of course, because I was trying to shield my face.

“I didn’t hit your car” I kept trying to say between blows.

Finally he knocked me to the ground. He seemed satisfied and was starting to walk away. I was on all fours in the slush on the street, spit and blood draining from my mouth. As I started to stagger to my feet in a rage I shouted, “You fucking bastard!”

He turned and flew back at me, and punched me again, sending me back to the ground. “You’re a little bastard, you are!” he bellowed. I remember that as if it were yesterday.

Then he kicked me in the ribs with his boots, two or three times, till I fell over in the snow.

Then he walked back to his car and drove away.

Some other kid had been watching – some kid I didn’t know. He came over and helped me. I remember him saying, “Holy shit” or something like that.
I stumbled home. The kid walked with me. It was only a few blocks. Before I went in, I wiped the blood from my lips. Amazingly I didn’t have any facial bruising – so I guess he must have mostly hit the sides and back of my head.
I tried to conceal what had happened as best I could, but I collapsed on the couch in our den. My grandmother said, “Are you OK?” I somehow brushed her off. I never told my parents what had happened. I just remember lying on the couch and hurting all over.

I never threw snowballs at cars again.

The Shildkrote

A friend of mine told me the German word for tortoise is shildkrote. This literally translates to shielded toad. Apparently it is quite common in German to form conjunctions of this nature, combining two (or more) ideas to make a third. This happens in English as well of course, but the idea of a tortoise being a shielded toad made me laugh, and it also got me to thinking about the nature of names and naming.

I grew up around New England. The first snow of every year was a thrilling moment that every child looked forward to. I’m not sure it’s something that ever gets out of your blood – waiting to see those first flakes swirling down out of nowhere, melting away the instant they hit the ground – more flakes falling – then suddenly the torrent begins and soon the flakes no longer melt, but begin to accumulate, blanketing everything. It is a transformative experience to watch the world remake itself.

I’ve heard the Inuit (the ethnic group most people are thinking of when they say, “Eskimo”) have a hundred words for snow. So I went to look them up on the internet. Apparently that’s a myth. A quick investigation shows that the Inuit have what is called a “polysynthetic language”. This means that their language is structured in such a way that they have a few base words they join together into longer words that can take on the meaning of whole sentences in English. For example, they might say something like “snow-blowing-around” or “snow-falling-thick-wet”. So instead of a hundred words for snow, they have hundreds of combinations of modifiers that go with snow. When I was a kid, we had a word for the latter kind of snow – we called it “snowball-snow”.

We’ve only had two snow storms this year in Virginia. I happened to be studying on campus when the last one hit. It hit fast and dumped a couple of inches on us in a few hours. When I came out, everything was storybook white. I snapped this picture of a statue that I walk by every day when I go up to school with my cell phone. It’s called “Three Sisters” or something like that. I think on that day we could have renamed it “Three Sisters in Kufis” which would have been something related to, but completely different and unique from "Three Sisters" and "Kufis".

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about sculpture. I especially don’t know much about modern sculpture that is about space and light and movement (even when the sculpture doesn’t have any moving parts). Sometimes it’s fascinating to look at and makes you ponder the nature of shape. An interesting sculpture can make you think about curvature in a whole new way, or texture, or, well maybe even movement. (By the way, if you do know a lot about sculpture, feel free to provide me some education). I do know effective sculpture does this like any other work of art - by reference to things we already know. A work without a reference point is not art.

I like the way the German’s named the tortoise. A name made of a conjunction gives you reference for understanding how you’re supposed to relate to a thing. When you look at a tortoise, you have to think of a toad and a shield, and how those two things came to be synthesized together in this very slow-moving animal. Its tortoiseness is captured in that relationship in the German language, despite the fact that I don't think there is a very close biological relationship between tortoises and toads. A unique name loses it’s precision. What does “tortoise” mean, except by reference to something else? A synthetic name gives you so much more to go on. Is it possible to know anything without knowing it's relationship to other things?

Wasn't it Shakespeare who said, “A thorn-handled-woman-charmer by any other name would still smell as sweet” – or something like that?

Pottery Barn and the Dark Night of the Soul

The night after we hiked out from Point Reyes (see "About a Web" below), my friends and I spent one more night in San Matteo before heading our separate ways once again. Of course we spent the evening telling stories about friends and family after taking showers and having some yummy Chinese food. My friend A.'s story about someone close to her has set me off thinking about the nature of alienation in modern society, particularly as it is embodied in consumer culture.

A. told the story of a young man who, after graduating from college was doing quite well for himself in corporate America. After several years of pursuing the American dream, he decided to take some time off and do the quintessential American odyssey and take a month long motorcycle trip. A month turned into two months, then six months. Finally two years later, he returned to the U.S. having toured South America on his motorcycle and marrying a young lady from Columbia. She describes the trip as his escape from the golden chains and silken ropes of the consumer capitalism trap. "I was starting to shop at Pottery Barn!" she quotes him as saying.

This statement immediately resonated with me in a way that if he had said, "I was starting to shop at Wal-Mart" could not have. After I came home, it started me reflecting on the nature of social, spiritual, and creative alienation here at the dawn of the 21^st century. So why would the idea of shopping at Pottery Barn trigger such a response? On some levels, Wal-Mart and Pottery Barn are the same. They are retail outlets that sell imported goods in brick-and-mortar stores as well as over the internet. Pottery Barn also publishes a paper catalogue, but then so does JC Penny and Sears – neither of which would have resulted in anything more than a shrug in this circumstance. Pottery Barn isn't even a real company – it's actually just a brand that belongs to the Williams-Sonoma Corporation. I tried to find out how large Pottery Barn's sales were last year, but they were buried in the Williams-Sonoma financial data. Williams-Sonoma, which has several brands including Williams-Sonoma, had a total of $3.7 billion in sales in 2007, and a net income of $208 million after taxes. (They were apologetic in their annual report for not having done better especially with the Pottery Barn brand – but I think that's another story – see http://www.williams-sonomainc.com/inv/anr/WS_06AR.pdf). By comparison, Wal-Mart had gross sales of $375 billion and net earnings of $14 billion (http://www.valueline.com/dow30/f9638.pdf). Wal-Mart being 100 times larger than Pottery Barn's parent company is significant for my story because it illustrates the nature of Wal-Mart's business. To sell $375 billion worth of stuff, Wal-Mart has to be able to reach into our everyday purchases continuously. You have to need Wal-Mart. If you think about it, you could live solely on the stuff you could buy from Wal-Mart – especially if you happen to live near a super Wal-Mart. You can buy your jeans, a head of lettuce, a futon, and the oil for your car all in the same shopping trip. If you need it to live, you can buy it at Wal-Mart. The converse could be said for Pottery Barn – if Pottery Barn sells it, you probably don't need it to live. But does it necessarily follow that we don't need Pottery Barn?

The idea of alienation plays a central role in Marxist philosophy. Marx's idea, as I understand it, is that through the process of division of labor, we have lost touch with something essential in our being that flows from the wholeness of life. By dividing tasks and only focusing on one small, disconnected part, we become isolated from ourselves and from others. This effect of isolation is what he refers to as alienation. I think if you watch a show like "The Office" or read Dilbert comics, you quickly get an idea of what this means. Alienation is a significant source of dissatisfaction with life, and leads to a loss of meaning.

Marx wasn't the first to express this idea of alienation. Born in about 250 AD, the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus also wrote about the idea of alienation, though he did not use this word. In Plotinus's ontology, there was one transcendental being he referred to as "The One." His belief is not all that different is not all that different from what many New Age believers espouse today. He believed that through contemplation and appreciation of beauty, an individual could get closer to "The One", and it was only through contemplation of the transcendent essence of "The One" that we could be truly happy. Since ultimately the only real thing was "The One", and we were all a part of "The One", the farther from our understanding of the transcendent we were (i.e., the more alienated from the transcendent we were), the unhappier we were.

Christian doctrine was being formalized around the time Plotinus and the Neoplatonists were writing. In fact, there is clearly a heavy influence from the Platonists and Neoplatonists on early Christian doctrine. The idea of separation of the body and soul, for example, arguably is an idea that comes from Plato. But going even farther back, the Apostle Paul, also a Greek, while imprisoned in Rome in about 60 AD wrote to the Colossians: "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight…" (Colossians 1:21-22). Paul is a pretty tough guy, but he's dealing with a tough subject. What I think he's saying is that we can become separated from our true selves by sin, but through prayer and creating a relationship with God, we can overcome that alienation.

We can even leave the Western canon altogether and see alienation in the practice of Zen in the East. Zen in simple terms is the seeking of enlightenment (called "Satori") by being completely awake in the present. "In the moment of enlightenment, you have a keen sense of being alive, a keen appreciation of everyday reality" (http://www.ljhammond.com/phlit/2001-06.htm). A key element of achieving Satori is overcoming the rational – something we in the West do not do well without external aids. It is the rational that approaches life with analysis – the process of breaking things down into component parts so that each piece can be understood. Eastern thought in general is more holistic, and Zen's emphasis on overcoming the rational is an effort to bring together the many pieces of life that our rational processes make of "The One."

So what about Marx, Plotinus, Paul, Buddha, and Pottery Barn? I think the common thread in the literature of alienation is the loss of the beautiful. An alienated life is a life without beauty or grace. I believe artistic expressions of beauty help unify our minds and overcome the natural tendency to a splintered soul.

The existence of "The Artist" is one example of the division of labor that Marx thought brought about alienation in modern life. By having artists and non-artists, we disconnect the non-artists from the process of creating beauty. Non-artists are alienated from beauty in the same way that non-farmers are alienated from food. But if everyone reverted to a state of nature where there was no division of labor, we would rapidly spiral down to a quality of life that is barely above that of wild animals. It is precisely the rational division that enables us to exist and thrive. Take it away and there is only suffering and death.

All that said, there is something special about being connected to the creative process. Here I mean creative in the sense of any activity that makes something beautiful – whether it is art, artisenry, or agriculture (if this doesn't make sense yet, you should read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"). It is why despite the fact that we can buy sweaters at Wal-Mart for less than an hour's wages, people still learn to knit. It is why despite the fact that we can buy a table and chairs at Wal-Mart for less than a day's wages, people fill their basement workshops with woodworking tools.

Like many of you, I have young children. Inevitably my house is filled with refrigerator art. Marx would have liked it, I imagine. (Or maybe not, given the historical Marx wasn't much of a father.) I like it. I value each of those pieces because of their context.

When we were camping at the beach out at Pt. Reyes, one of the things we did was collect rocks. The rocks on the plate with the candles are the rocks I found. I'm no geologist, but I think they must have been some sort of igneous rock, because they are all layered with the same type of minerals. The black layers were harder than the grey, so over time the ocean had worn the grey away, leaving a a rippling effect. They are interesting. But they were also meaningless. Were meaningless that is until I picked them. Then they were meaningful. When I put them on the plate with the candles, they became beautiful as well.

When you walk through the sliding glass doors of a Wal-Mart and the semi-retired guy smiles at you and says, "Welcome to Wal-Mart" your first response probably is not to stop and say, "I am now surrounded by beauty." I would argue that you might be, but it would be hard to be sure. Wal-Mart doesn't deal in beauty (the beauty section with all the cut rate make-up and hair products aside). It deals in the minimally acceptable. There is no shame in this. There is a place for the minimally acceptable. That place is where your heart is not. My heart is not in my athletic socks. It's not in the rug I put in front of the toilet in my bathroom. It's also not in the pack of 50 cd's I bought to burn my mix of 80's tunes. These are efficient purchases.

Walking into Pottery Barn is a completely different experience. Pottery Barn is about beauty (and now you can replace "Pottery Barn" with the upper-middle end store of your choice if the Arts and Crafts style isn't for you). But Pottery Barn represents the pinnacle of what Marx was objecting to when he talked about alienation. Here we have a lovely Sedona ottoman: "Handwoven from natural rattan over a sturdy wooden frame, our ottoman is perfect for summer relaxation." Only $119. Over there we have the Arlington Armchair: "Energize an entire room with a single chair in a vibrant print… Slim seat and back cushions give our Arlington Chair exceptional comfort without compromising its style." Only $999 in brushed canvas. More for suede. Pottery Barn represents the manufacture of beauty divided completely from meaning. These are not efficient purchases. We go to Pottery Barn in search of something we desperately need. Pottery Barn promises Satori. Pottery Barn promises spiritual reconciliation. Pottery Barn promises union with The One. But these are empty promises because there is no meaning to something that someone else makes, that someone else selects, and that we buy with our divided resources.

Capitalism is an incredible engine that brings us things we need to survive. It has delivered a quality of life that was unfathomable in any other period of human history, if that quality of life is measured in material wealth. People who respect the trade are far less likely to go to war with each other, so it also promises us peace. The non-sensical drivel that Marx and his ilk spun from a deep observation about human need for meaning has dealt the world nothing by misery. But capitalism delivers material wealth – it gives us Pottery Barn - how do we reconcile the existence of cold beauty in our lives?

The picture above was taken in my living room. The coffee table, candles, and even the dish were purchased at Pottery Barn. I like Pottery Barn. I'd love to be able to make a coffee table that is as attractive as the one I was able to buy from Pottery Barn. I'd love to be able to make candles wrapped in birch bark. I'd love to be able to hammer a piece of metal into a lovely dish. But I wouldn't even know where to begin, never mind have all the tools required.

Do we need Pottery Barn? I think so. I started shopping at Pottery Barn a long time ago. I don’t buy much, but I don’t expect I’ll stop soon. But I can’t get to meaning through Pottery Barn, and it is a mistake to think so. Meaning is free, but takes work. After all, it is the sound of one hand clapping.

***

To read the Williams-Sonoma annual report, go to http://www.williams-sonomainc.com/inv/anr/WS_06AR.pdf

The quotes about the pottery barn products were from www.potterybarn.com

For some basics on Marx's alienation, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

About a Web

This past weekend I went hiking with some friends along the Point Reyes National Seashore (http://www.nps.gov/pore/). This web was suspended between the rails of a small wooden bridge over the fresh water stream that ran by our campsite. I took it the morning we were getting ready to pack out. You can see the morning fog that rolls in off of the Pacific had not yet burned off.

From the bridge back to where we left the cars was about a 5.5 mile hike. It was gentle slopes with good trails, so it wasn't a hard hike, but it was long enough that there were relatively few casual visitors hanging around our campground. When we hiked in we did so in the darkness with only our headlamps to light our way. This amplified the sense of heading into total isolation. We had a pretty rowdy night once we arrived, under the mistaken impression that we were completely alone. (Luckily our neighbor was understanding and joined us the next night for a few hours.)

A web is a thing mostly of empty space. In fact, even the most solid things are mostly of empty space when you regress far enough. Things that we hold to be certain are mostly just the result of determined efforts by the tiniest particles to stay in relation to each other, over empty distances that can only be considered proportionately impossible.

I was lucky to go on this hiking trip with a group of people that included two friends whom I have known since a time before I have memories. As a potted basil (see earlier post), there aren't many people I can say that about. These two friends' (who are brothers) mother babysat me when I was less than a year old and my parents and their father were going to the same college. Our lives weave in and out over almost four decades now and have taken very different paths. At this time we literally span the country, with one brother living near San Francisco, one in Minneapolis, and me of course near D.C. Despite differences and distances, we have managed to stay connected.

I was also lucky to go on the trip with three other people. One was the wife of one of the brothers, whom I have known for many years now and is also now an old friend. The second is a close friend of the brothers, and I had met several times over many years, but only spent casual time with. The third I had never met before, but was now the fiancé of the second brother. Each of these new friends is special to me, and I am glad to have had time to spend with them. After all if you add strands to a web, it just becomes a bigger, more complex web.

Over the last several weeks I have had something of a renaissance with old friends. I seem to have reconnected with so many people recently that I have felt at times almost overwhelmed. It's a good sort of overwhelming, though sometimes the emotions of reconnecting can be a bit swampy. One must tread lightly at risk of falling into unmarked holes. Not unlike hiking a new trail by the light of a headlamp. Or perhaps more like hiking along an old trail that you think you remember, but you can't be sure there hasn't been a washout or a slide since you were there last. Or perhaps the grass has just grown over a place that your feet once knew well.

If you take away one strand from a web, it probably is still a web. If you take away two, it is still probably a web. How many strands can you take away before you no longer have a web? I'm fairly certain there is no such thing as a web with no strands. One could hardly call a single strand a web. But two strands? Three strands?

I recently read a terrific article by two famous economists - George Stigler and Gary Becker - who were trying to explain why people seem to have a "taste" for certain things. One example they used was why some people have a taste for listening to music. Their argument, in a very simple form (and manipulated to fit my purposes…) is that we make investments in certain activities, like music appreciation by spending time learning about that activity. We might take a music appreciation class to learn about the evolution of German Romanticism for example. After having invested time in learning about German Romantic composers and what they were rebelling against, we would have a greater appreciation for what Wagner and Beethoven had actually accomplished. Presumably we would then get more joy from listening to their music. Stigler and Becker called this learning "musical capital". The more musical capital you accumulate, the more pleasure you got from listening to music. Unfortunately, the value of this musical capital depreciates with time, so it is necessary to constantly renew the stock in order to continue to maintain the same level of pleasure that was available before. Kandie and I learned a long time ago that this applies to marriage. Unfortunately it's an easy lesson to forget when the business of living gets going.

I remember sitting with my grandmother a year or so before she died trying to help her connect with an old friend by phone. She was very worried that perhaps this woman had passed away because she had not responded to my grandmother's letters. By this time my grandmother was quite hard of hearing. When the woman's husband finally picked up the phone, we had an odd four way conversation (my grandmother used a speaker phone because it was easier for her to hear) – me repeating and clarifying what the old man said for my grandmother, him speaking for his wife because she was unable to hear on the phone at all. When we hung up, she was sad, but satisfied. At least this connection was still there – so many others had been severed.

It takes some work to keep all the strands connected – against weather, random interference, and most powerfully time – and I have to constantly relearn that this maintenance should not be neglected. If friendships are the strands in our web, it is the richness of life that is captured and made solid in the seemingly empty spaces between them all.

P.S. – the Stigler and Becker article is called "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum" and is in the The American Economic Review, Vol. 67, No. 2. (Mar., 1977), pp. 76-90.

P.P.S - the two great photos (other than the web) were taken by my friend Annette. Must give credit where credit is due.