Nothing could be more mundane, and that's why I like it. The chickens are securely put to bed (or to roost) for the night, with fresh water, food, and a rock in front of the coop door. I'm enjoying a bowl of rice and beans with a rum and OJ, beginning chapter 8 of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Gven Golly is in town teaching her Tuesday night yoga class, and I have the house-sitting to myself for a while. So I take a walk around the yard in the crusty snow, work out a little on the broad front porch of our friends' log house, listen to the Mothers, the Who, and the Clash on their excellent stereo. It's remarkably comfortable here, more evenly heated than our brick antique in town, with doors and windows that are snug and tight. The weather has gotten warmer after last week's snow and ice storms and this week's subzero nights. When the wind blows, it knocks the melting ice off the roof and trees, and the strange house makes lots of odd noises.
Gven and I talked about doing something like this ourselves in ten years or so, moving further away from the city and getting a couple of animals. Something about being here opened up a kind of conversation we haven't had in a long time. Sitting across Lulu's table facing each other in this big country kitchen with my wife of 26 years and friend of 28 - more than half my life - we talked about where we were back in '76, '77, '78. Part of that time was spent house-sitting in a friend's log cabin in the snowy hills of upstate New York, using their kitchen, woodstove, and bed (but no plumbing, no chickens, and no Clash). A lot has happened since then, and now our older child is almost Gven's age back then.
We had a great week. It didn't go exactly as planned, of course, but what adventure does? I didn't have the time away from work to spend leisurely days out at the ranch. My ancient nordic skis stayed in the car all week, with no time or opportunity to strap them to my feet and take off across a field. Our offspring didn't want to shelve their own plans to trek out route 3 and visit us and the chickens - not even for a couple of hours! But Gven Golly and I did celebrate our anniversary in a manner befitting our life - with a bottle of red wine and a take-and-bake pizza from Mama Mimi's - after putting the lovely chickens to roost for the night.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Why I love the rec center
It's Saturday morning in early December, and youth basketball leagues haven't started yet, so the gym is strangely quiet when I came out of taiji class. There happens to be an old, worn-out ball in the corner, and it called out to me. Since I don't have to be anywhere else right now, I pick up the ball, take a shot. I have no legs and no touch; I haven't played in over a year, but there's nobody here but me, the ball, the hoop, the floor.
Paradise. Pair o' dice.
My first few shots are rough, but soon I find my stroke, and the jump shots start falling. A spin move comes out of nowhere, a follow shot with the left hand, and a hook off the board. The hardwood in the old brick gym resonates with the drum-like sound of the ball on the floor. I start to find my legs enough to elevate a little; both the backboard and the rim are forgiving, and I make more than I miss. Heating up now, I take off my sweatshirt, and movements become freer, ball-handling easier, limbs looser and everything more integrated as I find a rhythm. I'm hitting baseline jumpers, one, two, three in a row, bank shots from the key, and floating lay-ins.
Finally a bunch of young guys saunter in, walk the length of the court, check me out, walk out, come back with a ball, and start shooting at the other end. One of the beauties of the court: it's a two-part universe where two private games can go on simultaneously. A funny thing happened then: no longer in my own world remembering moves I learned in my Detroit driveway in the 60s, I suddenly lost my legs and my touch and couldn't buy a basket. A rational person my age would have yielded to the warning signals coming from my left thigh every time I went up, called it fatigue or an old injury or whatever, and gone home. A few more people came to stand by the door: a younger boy, a couple of teenage girls, a woman with a baby.
I kept shooting, just took a little more time to retrieve each stray rebound, and I got it back - the stroke that drops the ball cleanly through the net, the ankle-knee-hip-spine-shoulder-elbow-wrist uncoiling that spins the ball through the hoop, and the concentration to look the ball into the hole. Eureka or deja-vu or amen.
Eventually I was ready to pack it in, and the young guys were playing 3-on-3 half-court. One short-haired white kid, one Asian kid in baggy pants, four black kids in black shoes, black shorts, black Nike shirt, black head-band, black dew-rag. When I sat down to watch, they started playing full-court and gradually showed their knowledge of the game: a post-up here, a back-door, pick-and-roll, or give-and-go there, moving without the ball, a nice inside pass, good position on a rebound - even some defense. It's a beautiful game when it's played by people who respect it, themselves, and each other.
After a while, the director comes in and tells them they have to take their game downstairs to the other gym (the rec center has TWO gyms!) because it's time for the girls team to practice. Two tall, athletic, serious men enter the gym carrying clipboards and bags of balls - the coaches. I take my own bag and my endorphins and head home, but stop at the deskon my way out to thank the director for the time to play.
Paradise. Pair o' dice.
My first few shots are rough, but soon I find my stroke, and the jump shots start falling. A spin move comes out of nowhere, a follow shot with the left hand, and a hook off the board. The hardwood in the old brick gym resonates with the drum-like sound of the ball on the floor. I start to find my legs enough to elevate a little; both the backboard and the rim are forgiving, and I make more than I miss. Heating up now, I take off my sweatshirt, and movements become freer, ball-handling easier, limbs looser and everything more integrated as I find a rhythm. I'm hitting baseline jumpers, one, two, three in a row, bank shots from the key, and floating lay-ins.
Finally a bunch of young guys saunter in, walk the length of the court, check me out, walk out, come back with a ball, and start shooting at the other end. One of the beauties of the court: it's a two-part universe where two private games can go on simultaneously. A funny thing happened then: no longer in my own world remembering moves I learned in my Detroit driveway in the 60s, I suddenly lost my legs and my touch and couldn't buy a basket. A rational person my age would have yielded to the warning signals coming from my left thigh every time I went up, called it fatigue or an old injury or whatever, and gone home. A few more people came to stand by the door: a younger boy, a couple of teenage girls, a woman with a baby.
I kept shooting, just took a little more time to retrieve each stray rebound, and I got it back - the stroke that drops the ball cleanly through the net, the ankle-knee-hip-spine-shoulder-elbow-wrist uncoiling that spins the ball through the hoop, and the concentration to look the ball into the hole. Eureka or deja-vu or amen.
Eventually I was ready to pack it in, and the young guys were playing 3-on-3 half-court. One short-haired white kid, one Asian kid in baggy pants, four black kids in black shoes, black shorts, black Nike shirt, black head-band, black dew-rag. When I sat down to watch, they started playing full-court and gradually showed their knowledge of the game: a post-up here, a back-door, pick-and-roll, or give-and-go there, moving without the ball, a nice inside pass, good position on a rebound - even some defense. It's a beautiful game when it's played by people who respect it, themselves, and each other.
After a while, the director comes in and tells them they have to take their game downstairs to the other gym (the rec center has TWO gyms!) because it's time for the girls team to practice. Two tall, athletic, serious men enter the gym carrying clipboards and bags of balls - the coaches. I take my own bag and my endorphins and head home, but stop at the deskon my way out to thank the director for the time to play.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
I take it back
I take back what I said with regard to shopping and the "true meaning" of the high (priced) holidays. It was in reply to One Mean Chickadee's heartwarming, self-deprecating account of her and Jack Spatula's socially conscious celebrations, which are laudable. Basically what I blurted was, Hey, if you look around, you will see in the frenzy of mass consumption that the reason for the season is frenzied mass consumption. Or money - making it, having it, spending it.
But I take it back, or half of it anyway. I still believe the observable facts speak for themselves, but I've had second thoughts about my conclusion, based on a couple of hours last Saturday afternoon.
I stopped at the coop on Crestview for flour, and the woman in front of me in line was taking some extra time because she wanted to donate her used computer monitor to the coop, so one of the staff people came out to help her with it. The clerk was a former, short-term, qigong student. As I was leaving, two young women in running tights came bounding in to pay for their Christmas tree and get help loading it on top of their car. While I looked at the few trees on display outside the store, another staff person helped them tie down the tree with the two small bungees they had brought along. Gray-haired guy in black Chuck Taylors had advice, of course: "You might want to close the door and roll down the window an inch, then hook the bungee." By the time they drive off with the semi-secured spruce on their roof, everybody is smiling.
I'm smiling, too, as the 4,000th (or something) broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera comes on the radio in the debut of the third announcer in 73 years. I stop at the specialty food store on Indianola to buy fish and cheese, as I do once a year. While the man is showing me various kinds of herring, the minister at my church walks by, smiles, and says hello. I make my purchase, stopping for a free sample of an amazing almond pound cake, and drive home listening to Verdi while a light snow falls, my heart chakra working overtime.
It's all so very sappy. The helpful people, the cut trees, opera on the radio. Homo sapiens.
But I take it back, or half of it anyway. I still believe the observable facts speak for themselves, but I've had second thoughts about my conclusion, based on a couple of hours last Saturday afternoon.
I stopped at the coop on Crestview for flour, and the woman in front of me in line was taking some extra time because she wanted to donate her used computer monitor to the coop, so one of the staff people came out to help her with it. The clerk was a former, short-term, qigong student. As I was leaving, two young women in running tights came bounding in to pay for their Christmas tree and get help loading it on top of their car. While I looked at the few trees on display outside the store, another staff person helped them tie down the tree with the two small bungees they had brought along. Gray-haired guy in black Chuck Taylors had advice, of course: "You might want to close the door and roll down the window an inch, then hook the bungee." By the time they drive off with the semi-secured spruce on their roof, everybody is smiling.
I'm smiling, too, as the 4,000th (or something) broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera comes on the radio in the debut of the third announcer in 73 years. I stop at the specialty food store on Indianola to buy fish and cheese, as I do once a year. While the man is showing me various kinds of herring, the minister at my church walks by, smiles, and says hello. I make my purchase, stopping for a free sample of an amazing almond pound cake, and drive home listening to Verdi while a light snow falls, my heart chakra working overtime.
It's all so very sappy. The helpful people, the cut trees, opera on the radio. Homo sapiens.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Establishment Clause
Ho-ho-ho, this is not a pun on that other jolly old seasonal icon, just to get that out of the way.
For that matter, it's not an original thought either, so pardon, dear reader (all 2-3 of you) if you've known this all along, and it's taken me 50-plus years to get it straight, but now that it seems perfectly clear and obvious I have to get this said.
There is a difference between living in a country that is 90 percent Christian and living in a Christian nation. Even if the population of that country was 100 percent Christian (or 100 percent Hindu, 100 percent Muslim, 100 percent Wall-Squatting Neoconfucian (my personal preference) or 100 percent Woodstock, that fact alone wouldn't make it a Hindu, Muslim, Wall-Squatting Neoconfucian, or Woodstock nation, with apologies to Abbie Hoffman, may he rest in peace and love. What's obvious to me, but clearly not so obvious to about 59 million others, is the difference between a religious population and the secular state they live in. Render unto Caesar, and all that.
All of which comes down to the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," which effectively and wisely prohibits the establishment of a national religion. Is that so complicated? As for the free-exercise clause which follows it, "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," it would take an extreme, Antonin Scalia-type interpretation to infer that giving legal status to the religious beliefs of a single sect of true believers, and then applying it to the whole population, follows logically from the first-amendment protection of the free-exercise thereof.
But all that is obvious, right? Or should I write to the hydra-headed Bush-Cheney-Rove-Falwell monster in the Oval Office to ask who died and made them Ayatollah?
Does the presence of the word 'god' on money automatically grant official status as National Church in Charge of Inquisitions whichever Christian sect raises the most campaign cash? Or does the free exercise clause trump the establishment clause, allowing the majority - or the minority with the loudest voice and deepest pockets - to freely exercise the imposition of their authoritarian, patriarchal religion on the rest of us. If so, we're not a country ruled by laws, as they taught us in our archaic social studies classes. But you already knew that.
For that matter, it's not an original thought either, so pardon, dear reader (all 2-3 of you) if you've known this all along, and it's taken me 50-plus years to get it straight, but now that it seems perfectly clear and obvious I have to get this said.
There is a difference between living in a country that is 90 percent Christian and living in a Christian nation. Even if the population of that country was 100 percent Christian (or 100 percent Hindu, 100 percent Muslim, 100 percent Wall-Squatting Neoconfucian (my personal preference) or 100 percent Woodstock, that fact alone wouldn't make it a Hindu, Muslim, Wall-Squatting Neoconfucian, or Woodstock nation, with apologies to Abbie Hoffman, may he rest in peace and love. What's obvious to me, but clearly not so obvious to about 59 million others, is the difference between a religious population and the secular state they live in. Render unto Caesar, and all that.
All of which comes down to the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," which effectively and wisely prohibits the establishment of a national religion. Is that so complicated? As for the free-exercise clause which follows it, "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," it would take an extreme, Antonin Scalia-type interpretation to infer that giving legal status to the religious beliefs of a single sect of true believers, and then applying it to the whole population, follows logically from the first-amendment protection of the free-exercise thereof.
But all that is obvious, right? Or should I write to the hydra-headed Bush-Cheney-Rove-Falwell monster in the Oval Office to ask who died and made them Ayatollah?
Does the presence of the word 'god' on money automatically grant official status as National Church in Charge of Inquisitions whichever Christian sect raises the most campaign cash? Or does the free exercise clause trump the establishment clause, allowing the majority - or the minority with the loudest voice and deepest pockets - to freely exercise the imposition of their authoritarian, patriarchal religion on the rest of us. If so, we're not a country ruled by laws, as they taught us in our archaic social studies classes. But you already knew that.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
proto-quasi-post-conservative
"Every day I get in the queue, to get on the bus that takes me to you...I don't want to cause no fuss, I just want my magic bus."
I love the Who, and that song in particular. But this isn't about the Who, or rock and roll, or buses, or traveling, or love.
Yes it is. Specifically, this is my attempt to deal with the onset of parental holiday madness in its myriad forms. The forms of madness currently hitting me in the face are "kids" coming home and leaving again preparatory to coming home and leaving again. The good news, of course, is that they still coming home (and leaving again). Being concerned about their physical, psychic, emotional, and material well-being, as I am, this most recent Thanksgiving visit from Abe and Zoe was simply my chance to find out that they are fine.
They still leave their stuff lying all over the floor, and the kitchen is always a mess, and we run out of food pretty fast, and I never know where they are or when they're coming back with the car, but they have all kinds of new things to talk about, they articulate their ideas so much better, they're much more self-reliant, and they're fine.
I like to look at this kind of thing as a test. How well do I cope with my kids' ways of coping with the tests that life, professors, friends, roommates, administrators, freedom, police, harsh weather, and Amerikan politics throw at them? The choices they make largely determine the kinds of things I have to cope with, and the choices I make in coping with their choices can make their next set of choices either easier or harder, more or less instructive, empowering, liberating.
Zoe got her schedule (and invoice) for spring semester in the mail. Holy shit, you're taking TWO art history courses and TWO philosophy courses AND French?! A different set of challenges for her, but the same kind of dilemma for me. To listen, inquire, advise, inform, and coach her in what I think I know about what I think she's doing; to let her do what she has to do, the way she has to do it, for herself; to let her know that it matters, that there will be consequences whatever she decides, and that it will be alright.
Abe will get on a Greyhound bound for New York today and return to the Bronx, where in his absence his housemates were evicted and their squat burned down. He's been in touch with them daily, and they have a plan to regroup, and we will all cautiously stay tuned to see what living situation they come up with. Meanwhile, we had some fun together eating hearty meals, doing a little yard work, watching old Monty Python videos, talking about music and books and movies and cities and jobs and stuff. The conversation that began 22 years ago just gets better and better.
I love the Who, and that song in particular. But this isn't about the Who, or rock and roll, or buses, or traveling, or love.
Yes it is. Specifically, this is my attempt to deal with the onset of parental holiday madness in its myriad forms. The forms of madness currently hitting me in the face are "kids" coming home and leaving again preparatory to coming home and leaving again. The good news, of course, is that they still coming home (and leaving again). Being concerned about their physical, psychic, emotional, and material well-being, as I am, this most recent Thanksgiving visit from Abe and Zoe was simply my chance to find out that they are fine.
They still leave their stuff lying all over the floor, and the kitchen is always a mess, and we run out of food pretty fast, and I never know where they are or when they're coming back with the car, but they have all kinds of new things to talk about, they articulate their ideas so much better, they're much more self-reliant, and they're fine.
I like to look at this kind of thing as a test. How well do I cope with my kids' ways of coping with the tests that life, professors, friends, roommates, administrators, freedom, police, harsh weather, and Amerikan politics throw at them? The choices they make largely determine the kinds of things I have to cope with, and the choices I make in coping with their choices can make their next set of choices either easier or harder, more or less instructive, empowering, liberating.
Zoe got her schedule (and invoice) for spring semester in the mail. Holy shit, you're taking TWO art history courses and TWO philosophy courses AND French?! A different set of challenges for her, but the same kind of dilemma for me. To listen, inquire, advise, inform, and coach her in what I think I know about what I think she's doing; to let her do what she has to do, the way she has to do it, for herself; to let her know that it matters, that there will be consequences whatever she decides, and that it will be alright.
Abe will get on a Greyhound bound for New York today and return to the Bronx, where in his absence his housemates were evicted and their squat burned down. He's been in touch with them daily, and they have a plan to regroup, and we will all cautiously stay tuned to see what living situation they come up with. Meanwhile, we had some fun together eating hearty meals, doing a little yard work, watching old Monty Python videos, talking about music and books and movies and cities and jobs and stuff. The conversation that began 22 years ago just gets better and better.
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