Writing Exercise

Cyrille had long been a society man. All in his aspect, was precise, though not demure. When last he had dined alone, he was not yet fourteen. That night before the morning on which he vowed gentility, he laid awake with his eyes perfectly wide. A wish enamored him, of being the sort of man who sits at the head of a table, whose gestures are theatric, whose investiture he measures by the swooning of his audience. He longed to mesmerize a crowd, as he had seen done by his father. Many a night, he gazed in secret from the shadow cast of the old grandfather clock in the hallway: the grand banquet unfurled! Toasts floated in the air like the giddiest of bubbles. Wherever they chanced to pop, a lightness prevailed. All was the merriment of laughter, and the exuberant outbursts that give character to life’s greatest excitations. At times, the very foundation of the old manor seemed to quake with the din of their festivity. Hands clapped upon their chests: nothing is so near to death as a relentless tickle. The ladies erupted and the gentleman roared. Their fists came down upon the table, and their eyes poured forth tears. Red wine spilled in floods, and down the ivory linens. Garments were heard to fray, and some merely fainted with too-little faces to express what they felt. 

Cyrille longed to be the muse of such proceedings. He would be the impresario, or nothing at all.

Atrocities

This week,  the civilized world stands in ghastly awe. Its eyes blink in unutterable astonishment at the return of the annual Canadian Seal Slaughter, quite possibly the darkest perpetrator of animal-cruelty to be found anywhere on Planet Earth. I pray that everyone makes this their issue. Even if you believe in nothing, believe in this: that Canada must be stopped in its sanction of this unconscionable institution. A country that proposes, in 2010, to host the Winter Olympics, which celebrate peace and goodwill, has perhaps even greater shame to bear for the cruel irony of its crimes against animals. Before these atrocities have ended, over 300,000 baby seals will meet their demise on the ice. They will be sleeping as their murderers approach, little knowing what awaits. Some will go down instantly to the unforgiving trauma of a bludgeon to the skull; others will survive with scarcely more than a wish to die in some other way. I cannot express the sadness I feel as I read account after account of this brutal massacre. These are baby seals! They’ve barely begun to live! But no sooner have they learned to take joy in living, than they are slaughtered in the most horrific way imaginable. Why? Why must people seek the death of innocent creatures? Why must they destroy life so that some shallow society person halfway around the globe, can trot around in seal skins?

What is wrong with people?

The United States has proven its condemnation of this annual brutality, as have other countries, through petitions signed, and letters personally addressed to the Canadian President. Yet Canada will not stop. They doggedly refuse to withhold hunting licenses. It now behooves us to boycot Canadian seafood, and to enact personal embargos against Canadian products. The only way to make Canada see reason is to show them that the world of which they are a part, and the global economy in which they trade, will no longer tolerate the Seal Hunt. Please let everyone know that this is an issue worthy of their attention. If one must take a stand, then stand for life!

No doubt more familiar to people than the Seal Hunt, is the latest flu pandemic to rage across borders. Over 80 people have succumbed to Swine Flu, and cases have been reported as near as New York City. Little wonder that such diseases begin with the animals we imprison and raise for slaughter. Just another example that our methods of self-sustenance are fatally flawed. I would ask that each of us, this day, considers the many ways in which our mistakes return to us. Perhaps, if we didn’t subject pigs to the heartbreaking conditions of our agribusiness, diseases like Swine Flu would never come to afflict.  

Some weeks just really bum you out…

Backyards

Now that the warm weather has returned, our lives are fraught with possibility. For those whose cicumstances compel them to be sedentary, there is always the backyard! Indeed, while dreams of faraway places yet stir, entire worlds bustle in our midst, and we barely pay them any notice. Culture so idolizes the exotic, that it rarely if ever portrays our provincial commonwealth, of trees in parks, or flowers burgeoning in the midst of concrete. Our everyday surroundings are quite extraordinary, and no less a statement to the miracle of life than a distant giant whose lot it is to be photographed by flocks of tourists. In aspect, perhaps insignificant, the phenoms we so carelessly pass on our way to work, or while waiting to be picked up on street cornerns, are merely smaller versions of the relatives we admire in the pages of National Geographic.

What is not to love in a houseplant, that may be adored in the verdure of the rainforest? Granted, we tire of familiar sights, and our longing is satisfied singularly, by that which our eyes have not yet pierced. But it is unfair to the  everyday miracles, that we treat them with disdain, and stoop to inspect them only by way of condescension.

One can learn as much about life by studying a dandelion, as by photographing a hundred rare blooms across multitudes of faroff borders. That which is to be admired, is equally present in the eyes of a house cat, as in the orbs of a tiger. What song is so sung by birds of “paradise” that spoils the beauty of a bluebird’s lilt? 

Are the answers to life’s lasting questions not further than the pine tree out your window, or the handful of Earth you lift from your garden? Why go far, when the world awaits so near?

I am reminded just now, of something my partner once told me: “The best part of traveling, is coming home”. Here, here!

Weekend Warriors

Sometimes, we bid farewell to our routines, and set out for impromptu travels to long-missed places. When last we were in New York, it was en route to a place I contended far better. It was August, and we were at the outset of our journeys into Greece and Israel. I had quite nearly the time of my life, though that distinction should be reserved for adventures yet unknown. I really ought to devote a post to Greece. Visiting that country-origin of the myths I so love, was a culmination of many of my fondest dreams. And it was every bit the wondrous place I had imagined.

In any case, even I, who loves to haunt the glamorous milieus of the world, even I was hard-pressed to find merit in this particular trip to New York. No sooner had we landed in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, than we began our deliberation of the next day’s activities. We had only to attend a lunch in the morning, and then we were free the rest of the weekend. But it must be remembered, the trip out East is not short, and arriving back into a weeks-long neglected home, is no great prize. In fact, I found our kitchen overrun with ants, and spiders, and moths! Of course, loving each the same, I can’t bear to employ cruel methods to their removal, and I’m quite at a loss how otherwise to treat them than to pull up a chair and have a long chat about private spaces, and the rudeness of those who invade them. Your suggestions are most welcome.

By the time the lunch had wrapped, we had decided to be impulsive. And that’s how we ended up in New York City!

Our time was pleasant enough, even if the weather was not. In fact, it rained nearly every one of the 48 hours we were there. But that didn’t stop us from going on about the town, to various and exciting attractions. We saw an IMAX film at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was all about dinosaurs, and a new theory that holds flooding responsible for their extinction. I love dinosaurs! As childish as it may seem! But every year, a brave Einstein rises from the ash of conventional thinking, and proposes something startling regarding the most mystifying disappearance of all time. I wonder if any of these conjectures is at all likely. After all, such controversy among the scientific elite, serves only to deepen our doubts. 65 million years is such a long time. Even the best-preserved fossils may lead an eager mind into fantastical territory. As always, humans love to pinpoint things, and so the search goes on for indisputable proof of what happened. Alas, for the scientists, this quest may prove unending.

Later on that evening, we attended a beauty pagent for actors on Broadway. Funny, though it must sound, this show was seriously entertaining. All of the event’s proceeds went to the Ali Forney LGBTQ Homeless Shelter in New York City. The show’s host and its panel of four judges, hailed from various Broadway shows, and the contestants were each performers from The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Billy Elliot, Wicked, and Hairspray. They competed in three categories: Talent, Interview, and Swimsuit. By now, my description has you rolling your eyes, but bear with me a moment longer. These guys were serious about winning, and each had prepared nearly three weeks in advance, for various performances. We left before the judging was complete, so as to avoid the mad rush out, but it was immensely entertaining, and all in the name of a wonderful cause. If only I’d had the sense to take pictures!

Last but not least, the first night of our stay, we discovered out on our balcony, what appeared to be a wounded pigeon. It wasn’t at first obvious to me that anything might be wrong, but with the weather as horrible as it had been, I thought of putting out a few crumbs for the bird to eat. The next evening, I saw him still there, only a few feet moved. I set out a few more crumbs, and this morning, right before we left, I was overjoyed to see that he had flown! I was quite worried that we would leave New York having never known his ultimate fate, and I suppose that has not changed, but I was happy to see that he had at least moved.  

At last, we are back in D.C., and I can get back to writing. I know it’s been a few days since my last post, and hopefully, I’ve not lost any precious friends along the way! Please drop in to say hello!

Back, Alack!

Salutations, Friends,

Are you, like me, trapped indoors, by this plaintive drizzle? 

I’d really wished to avail myself of a walk about Boulder today, but it looks unlikely. Unless I find merits in being wet! Then I shall have a grand time gamboling through the slush.

Tomorrow I return to D.C. And time, time is never enough to enjoy the comforts of home. I feel as if I arrived only yesterday. Yet I visited with friends and family, hosted a party for my partner’s parents in honor of their 40th anniversary, wrote and rewrote, and that’s a wrap. It begs the question, what is time well-spent? Is it goverend by seconds and minutes? Or is it subject to whimsy? Perhaps its condition lies somewhere between both extremes.     

For my own part, I am certain to prefer the open-ended day to its more regimented other. Nothing beats free time, as far as I’m concerned. It is wonderful to waken with the stretch of hours unaccounted, and to contemplate the possibilities. I fancy that everyone wishes more time to have. But we live in a world obsessed with the hour, and it seems like an alarm is always waiting to sound off.

True to form, I’ve spent much of my time this trip, happily, with lightweight burdens of only-occasional social obligations and meetings. I don’t believe I’ve offended many by my relunctance to pay them visits. But who knows? My love affair with peace and solitude, may yet prove embarrassing to the expected duties of a Congressional Spouse. To those I missed, I promise to trim the hedges next time out! You have my word!

For now, it’s probably for the best that I get back East. I have many projects to tend, and we all know the wilds that supplant when we soldiers of civility are absent our posts!

More Oddities, Please

Greetings, friends!

One highly-challenging aspect of Congressional life, is its draconian regulation of gifts. I am made to appear ungrateful by the law that binds me either to return largess as it is bestowed, or else pay fair-market value to its thoughtful purveyor. This is the truth! I cannot accept gifts for which I do not first seek clearance with the all-powerful House Ethics Committee. By the time this song and dance has reached its tedious conclusion, free rides are scarcely worth the trouble of accepting them.

Tickets to the concert event of the century are equally vetted as a DVD or a book of photographs, or a glass of wine, or a lunch of french fries! Only two months ago, amidst the opening ceremony of my partner’s Boulder-based Congressional Office, he and I were presented with a most beautiful quilt, which our craftsman had taken pains to execute all by-hand. And of course, present within the article were all the unmistakable touches that only a true friends knows to render. The quilt was trimmed in blue and green, in likeness of a peacock, which our friend knew to be my favorite bird. There were also some few insignia relating to the tastes of my partner. So, you see, I felt quite honored to receive such a gift of time and energy, met in the aspect of a beautiful work of art.

No sooner had I taken the gift into my arms, than I was informed of an awful duty: I must return the gift, or I must pay its maker, the material value of the piece! Well! I wasn’t about to send it back as if it meant nothing at all. I made out a check for $25, which price our friend confirmed to be true, and the matter was square.

But only imagine my embarrassment! I exchanged e-mails with our friend for many days following, in which I apologized for the cruelty of the particular law that compelled my actions. By the end, he understood our position, but was not the less bemused by our inability to accept so much as a quilt from a frind we could most certainly document as being true and faithful.

By way of explanation, the “no gifts” rule is in place to ward against potential conflicts of interest. My partner being a voter on issues affecting each of us personally, a gift from any individual or organization must be questioned as from a source that intends to sway his opinion in favor of particular legislation. Of course, a long-time friend has no such grandiose designs on the legislative process, but again, any gift we wish to keep, must receive blessings from the House Ethics Committee.

The Representative of the people who so enshrine him or her with authority to speak in their stead, is held to an exacting standard, and so is his partner!

All who know me, know how much I love to receive gifts! Who doesn’t? But I submit myself to the non-negotiable positioning of a public life. My only dilemma is in whether I should send out a mass e-mail informing my friends of this unfortunate circumstance, or else wait for each case to rise individually, and relate my woes personally, after-the-fact. I do love to keep everyone on the same page, but it does upset me to break this news. And, I am unsure that an e-mail would long-stick in the minds of those whose expressions of affection lead them naturally to bestow tokens thereof!

Decisions, decisions…

Convictions

Everyone loves a good conviction. By nature, extreme, its singular language is that of the minority. Even if this is not its denotative meaning, all will agree that a conviction widely-held hasn’t very long to go on its path to convention. No sooner does it pass into tenet, than it is declawed and consigned to the maximum security confines of history. There, it pleasantly recalls a time of controversy, in which its place was to foment. But already, it has lost its capacity to inspire counterculture. People are at ease to discuss it, and to forget its prior urgency. 

Anyway, what fun is a conviction unless it stands you out in a crowd of commoners?

But what I am here to say, is not that convictions are a joy to hold. That cannot be doubted. Nor would I suggest that the passing of conviction into a stage of popular acceptance, is at all bad. Acceptance is really what we strive to achieve when we define ourselves radically. Rather, I would call upon those with convictions to bear, and I would ask them to consider the seeming of their beliefs alongside their less-fiery creeds.

As a vegan, I have not chosen a path of least-resistance. Yet I long for the day when my decision lacks defiance to be noted. For now, it qualifies as a conviction. But early this morning, as I laid in my bed, I thought of the stark contrasts in my life. I considered the extremity of my diet, yet alongside these other indulgences: a soft bed with softer pillows; a climate-controlled room; purified drinking water on my nightstand; a window, a shade; a door to lock-in privacy; a clock to rouse me from long hours abed. All of these things, and more, suggested a serious contradiction.

How is it I have quarrels with the way in which society feeds itself, while yet I indulge in so many of its luxuries?

At issue is not whether one can find fault with a single aspect within a system. Indeed, one can, and one very often does. But so much of my argument for veganism is contingent upon a return to simplicity, that abstinence alongside indulgence (as I have seen in my own routines), presents quite the appearance of self-righteousness.

My project is to consider my life as a whole, and to align as much of it as possible, with the fixed notions and the actions that follow, of a simpler existence.  

Those of us with convictions, remain so immersed as to be still in the mainstream, but we are a countercurrent. And a truly alternative perspective, if it is to make sense, requires the alteration of other perspectives, else it appears a fluke in an otherwise conventional life.  

Take a moment today to consider your convictions, and what (if any) impact they’ve borne unto the rest of your life. If it is a truly challenging belief, it cannot exist in isolation, but it must overflow into all other aspects of your existence. It must be present in the greatest and the least of your moments.

What is a conviction, if not this?

Missing

To those bloggers more seasoned than myself, reader requests must be the stuff of everyday. But I am awe-struck, and I promise to be just so when I receive my next marching orders.

You see, I was quite content to leave my footnote of a week ago, to mystery, but I have counted upon you all to resurrect my enthusiasm in writing about Boulder. I am here, today, to tell you what I miss when I am away in D.C. But let’s not get a swelled head, shall we? We’ve had more than enough of those.

Merely a week now separates me from the longest time I’ve ever spent away from home. I was gone from Boulder for some five weeks, and in that time, it was all-too-easy to forget where I’d started.

But at the outset of this journey, which scheduling meetings had made me ready to expect, I contemplated the very long time of my leave. I wondered how I would get along without seeing familiar sights, and familiar faces. I am whatever sentimentality dictates. Often, I find myself in the grips of a fondness for things that reason struggles to understand. I form attachments to objects, even to packages of food that I never bothered to open. The magic ingredient in this brew, is time, which, in its way, endears even the most commonplace of things.

For people, I am yet fonder, but they are the inanimate objects that tell me I am home. In this way, nothing more estranges than a new bed, a different set of clothes, a pot or a pan with someone else’s cooking encrusted upon. Sometimes, I wake at midnight with the sleep still in my eyes, and I think I am home. But as the mist clears, I despair to find myself 2,000 miles away. It might as well be the stretch of the Universe between places in my heart.   

So I busy myself with indoor industries. I wash dishes. I do laundry. I plan entire days around my trips to Whole Foods. None of this is incidental, I am sure. To venture out more willfully, may mean the acceptance of D.C. as a second home, as a place in which to take comfort.

While I am merely four months from starting in this new city, I am not yet at ease in its midst. I barely know the street just beyond my own. When I walk from my door more than three blocks, I feel disquieted and lost. Though these are the feelings of a person displaced, to say nothing of the city itself. The island paradise of which I dream, would impress no less a sense of strangeness when first I arrived. All places become familiar, again with time.

But for now, when I return to Boulder, it is the closeness I miss. I have walked for hours on end, between downtown and in the mountains, and I have gone where I have not before been, but I do not feel endangered. In Boulder, a new place is a possibility. In D.C., it is a threat.

Here, I have needs met, but in D.C., they roll in my stomach, or in my mind, for days on end, while I decide whether to go abroad of my house. My fear of trekking, is nameless, but all-too-real.

Then there is childhood. All of it, for as long as I was a youth, took place in Boulder. All the mysteries in my mind, are likewise places. Real places! I remember the street of my childhood, where, even now, I can return, to see the trees from which I swung, the rocks that hid treasures, the sidewalks I paced, the characters I scribbled when the concrete was moist. I can see the rose bush from which I picked flowers for my mom. I can peer in alleyways, where I suspected my lost cats. I can look back in windows, and remember who lived there so many years ago. I can go back to the small places, and find secrets abiding. When I am starved in my soul, I can go the cemetery where my mother is buried, and I can talk to her, and hear her voice. 

I recall my first job, and the strange feelings that filled my heart when I realized I had begun to grow up. But there, too, I can repair, and see the doorways I walked through, and the stairs leading up to the breakroom, where I met my first friends.

And I can walk at CU, and remember who I was when I was a student. Then I can pore over images in my head, of things that I did, and people I met. The mystery of growing up comes back to me, with every step and every look. In Boulder, I can relive those moments, and touch the things that were real, that are real still.

After so much displacement, I believe that Boulder is special in a way few realize, who have not ventured away. There is a simplicity here that does not exist in Washington. It is not merely the casual way of its people. It is their sense of belonging in a natural place. It is the realization that lives are made alongside trees, and rocks, and water. It is the recognition that things man-made have the power to miguide, and that it is better to feel warm than to feel cold. It is the readiness of a people to be in touch with things deeper than money, or jobs, or cars, or houses. It is quiet, where one is reminded of being alive, and there is no finish line. 

That’s what I miss when I am away from home.

Cave In

Do you ever wonder what it must have been like to live in the Stone Age? I do! 

These days, life is less about surviving, and more about staying entertained. It’s true. Our worst enemy is boredom. We are neither hunters, nor hunted. All our time goes to idle thought, which turns to poison in our brains. Indeed! Overthinking is a terrible waste. It fails to change the fundamental nature of what we face, but where it succeeds is in its capacity to divert us. It is a wonderful industry over which we toil. When other entertainments fail us, we turn to self-conflict, for that is never resolved. We may safely say that we will never grow bored with ourselves, so long as we never answer the questions that plague us. And those questions are often easier to answer than we suppose, but settling them for once and for all would deprive us–how terribly!–of something to do!

 Ironically, the more we work to entertain ourselves, the more jaded we become. Yesterday’s dance song is nothing more today, than a droning beat. We learn the dialogue in our favorite cinematic scenes, and before we know it, the actors have lost their power to engage us. So we go on to our next great preoccupation, whether it is a song, a movie, a particular kind of food, a hobby. Whatever it is, we tire of it in time. 

Our nature seems more bent on intellectual dilly-dallying than actual living.

To discover that which “truly” defines the human condition, I tend to find ancient time is a more honest confessor than our modern age.

In that time long ago, of stone and wilderness, humans lived dangerously. Their days must have been extreme in a way modern people can scarcely conceive. They put fire to everything they did. All was the desperate balance of survival! Now, can you imagine anything more thrilling than desperation? Ah, to wake in exceptional states! To judge of nothing, mediocre or mundane! To be indifferent to nothing, and fascinated by everything!

Most days, I fall asleep because the world seems to have closed for business, but I feel my heart still racing!  

 

A Scholarly Ruse

During my two-day training to become a tour guide of the US Capitol, I numbered one of three Congressional Spouses in attendance. My classmates, perhaps 20 more besides, were primarily staffers and personnel from government offices. At one point during the second day, I sat behind a group of three presenters, whose charge it was to familiarize our group with safety procedures in the the Capitol Visitor’s Center. I eavesdropped on their conversation, and was surprised to find at hand, the topic of Congressional Spouses. One asked another if the “2″ Spouses that had been in attendance were still present. Clearly, I had been forgotten or else gone unnoticed. The other responded that they had left on their way to an event luncheon. Still another chimed in, asking how one could tell a Congressional Spouse from anyone else. The answer amused me, not least because it demonstrated just how much a person purports s to know, even when that person knows nothing at all. Knowledge is traded at a premium, and he who is its purveyor, though perhaps rightly deemed the blind leading the blind, nevertheless enjoys the respect of knowing that which others only wonder.  

In truth, it is somewhat difficult to pick out “officially” important persons on Capitol Hill. At a certain point in time, it must have been intended that stately personages wear lapel pins indicating their place in the governmental hierarchy. My partner wears a lapel pin indicating that he is a Congressman, and the appearance of the pin is unmistakable. I fancy that this tradition derives from many an-erstwhile occasion of social gaffers who assumed too much the insignificance of their superiors. When their embarrassments became too much to abide, the institution of pin-wearing was born, or so I imagine.

Now, the image of the pin is well-known and all who pass it in corridors and crowded rooms, pay their respects dutifully. I myelf was issued a pin when I first arrived. Oval-shaped,  whose colors are blue and silver, and depicting our national Eagle, the pin is fashioned to leave doubtless, the identity of its wearer. Yet often, in spite of my pin, I am taken for a staff assistant, or a Congressional aide. I am not embittered by the mistake, and put it down to the youthfulness of my appearance. I should be flattered that others assume I am fresh on the scene. But truthfully, the mistake is, at its least, annoying. When attending an important event, I wish not to be troubled with explaining why I am there and who is my boss. I politely tell the inquisitor that I am a Congressional Spouse, and that I have no boss. Then they apologize all over themselves and walk quickly away. But their assumptions nevertheless remind me that I never know who I am speaking with, whether a head of state or a courtesy clerk, and to presume a person’s importance is the surest way to embarrass oneself.

But let me return to the topic of pins. The tradition being now long-standing, many have discovered that a pin worn upon the lapel is a means of respect. Consequently, one walks through the halls of the US Capitol, and sees nearly every other person sporting lapel jewlery of some kind. It had been a best-kept secret, what now is the commonest parlor trick. What do all these pins mean? Are the wearers truly elected officials, or are they lobbyists proclaiming their organizations? Or is the pin merely cosmetic? With so many people wearing so many pins , it does not surprise me that I am often ignored where my pin is intended to apprise others of my station. 

During my training, the gentleman who asked how to distinguish a Congressional Spouse, was answered by another as follows: “They wear necklaces that show they are Spouses”. How absurd! Not only does the answer assume that all spouses are women, but it is plainly untrue. Spouses are identified, as I have said, by their pins.

Another gentleman got it right: “Spouses wear pins, but I haven’t seen any today”.

Well, I was seated directly behind this individual, and so, while he knew to look for a pin, clearly he had no idea of the pin’s fashion.

Each, in their turn, made a definite statement on Congressional Spouses, and each was incorrect. But each was admired for the so-called knowledge he possessed. I mention the instance now, because it occurs to me how very much people believe they know when, in actuality, they know nothing. It would be harmless, but that followers never stop to think that their teachers may be perpetrators of misinformation. At one time or another, each of us lays confidence in those who seem scholarly. All one needs do to convince the masses, is make statements sweepingly and with seeming certitude. Persuasion is either loud or it is articulate. Whichever you choose, your credentials follow instantly. 

Now, for the bigger picture. It is too easy to dupe the unsuspecting and the incurious. People are eager to believe what they are told. They are too lazy to find out the truth, so welcoming that which only appears to be true. And to those same blind followers who so quickly accept first answers in the guise of authority, the world can be quite the opposite of what they’ve been led to believe.

If a security guard persuades his cohorts that there are no Congressional Spouses in the room, even when one is seated directly behind him,  what does that say about our complacence and our willingness to remain ignorant? Big business relies upon our laziness to accept that which we are told. As it relates to food and the treatment of animals, we are assured that meat is a vital component of the human diet, and that factory-farmed animals are treated humanely. And we believe it! All because the spokespeople spinning lies in our ears, have done so passionately, and eloquently. A lie is a lie, no matter its dress.

I am deeply disturbed by unearned credulity. If we accept one lie, have we not accepted a thousand? What else is pernicious, for which skillful orators have cajoled our approval?  

Think about it before you make your next big decision.