The Color Purple

Greetings, Friends,

Have I got a story for you!

Two days ago, I received an e-mail from my partner’s scheduler: would you like to attend a showing of “The Color Purple” at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts? “Why yes, yes I would. That sounds like a capital idea for Wednesday night plans.”

My heartfelt response sounded more like, “Now we’re talking!”

At long last acclimating to DC, I have come to recognize that its attractions are in a class by themselves. To sequester myself at home has been an awful shame when so much of the city begged to be explored. DC is a home for the arts, inasmuch as its resources rival those of a New York or a London. The Kennedy Center itself is a match for any Broadway theater, and this is to say nothing of its countless galleries, museums, and libraries, each of which is either the largest, or the prettiest, or it was worked upon by some luminary of the humanities. In short, nothing is here that is not in some way superlative. I might spend two lifetimes absorbing all that is offered in our Nation’s Capital. And here was a lovely way to start!   

From a friend’s recent status update on Facebook, I was given to know that “The Color Purple”, underwritten by Oprah Winfrey herself, had recently begun its run at the Kennedy Center. And I half thought at the time, “yes, that would make quite a lovely evening. I would like to do that very much.” It didn’t take but a moment’s thought to resolve that response. Still, I read on and discovered not only were we invited to see the play, but our invitation came from none other than the President and First Lady themselves! We would sit in the President’s Box Seats at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts! This was too much. I pounded out an answer as fast as my fingers could muster, and within the hour, the starry engagement made its appearance on our Wednesday schedule. Here, I feel it is only right to confess my absolute love of life when surprises like this shake down at our feet.

I had to restrain myself from professing my elation to all the world! I had no idea whether it was a matter for secrecy or if we would be merely two among a hundred of the invited. It has been so before that an event I mistook for intimate, has been in fact overrun with attendees. No matter, I would have been overjoyed to be merely 1 of 1,000!

The night of the play arrived, and I dressed myself for the occasion, making sure to don my Congressional Spouse pin. Who knows when it will come in handy, or when not wearing it will deny me entrance?

We were met at the playhouse by two, fellow House Members: Suzanne Kosmas from Florida, and Kathy Dahlkemper from Pennsylvania. I couldn’t have been happier, for these fine ladies are some of our best friends in DC, and I spent my first few weeks in orientation always seeking them out for the comfort of familiar company.

We were escorted by a White House aid to to the Mezzanine level, and shown into a vestibule of sorts. Here, I could barely calm myself. There, on the wall, was the Official Seal of the President of the United States. Some few chairs were arranged in a circle around a coffee table. A coat closet opened directly on our left. Since we were not entirely punctual in arriving, we passed through this room in a hurry, and entered the box proper. At first, I thought the entire Mezzanine belonged to the President, but I soon saw that we were bound in by walls, which separated us from the other boxes. There were, in reality, only 8 seats! This was quite intimate!

The thought had, by now, occured to me that we would not be joined by the President and First Lady, but that we were invited was still a powerful charm. They had, no doubt, seen the play on its opening night.

We introduced ourselves to some few other individuals in the box–two of them, White House Staff, and two others, House Staff. Then we seated ourselves and the play began.

I noticed that the President’s Box is the exact center of  the Mezzanine, affording a perfect view of the players on stage. And at intermission, we were invited back into the antechamber, and offered champagne and snacks.

It was a fantasy come true! Every luxury was offered to make us feel comfortable. And the play was beyond amazing. The actors and actresses were totally captivating. Among them was Fantasia from the 2004 season of American Idol, whose rendering in the role of Celie was inspiring to say the least. I can think of no other play that so powerfully dovetails suffering with redemption. You come away feeling proud of the characters for what they endure and the strength of their perseverence. 

It was one amazing night and I am hoping to pen a letter of thanks to the President for making our plans so special.

Monuments

Like unto the District of Columbia herself, those elected to her keep are of a sort unclassified in time and place. That is, their lives are constantly in limbo between one place and another, and time magically increases or decreases by the traffic of time zones. On account of traveling, Congressional families are never altogether at ease in any given place. We know we must fly again before too long, and this recognition gives us to live differently than we might if we knew it was ours to stay put. Unfortunately, we rarely come to understand what makes a city unique because our time is so measured, and our visits so fleeting.

Many people call DC home, and many of these are not members in that traveling circus of elected officials. They live their lives in the streets and neighborhoods of the city, and just as I know Boulder well from years of having grown up there, these others know DC in its completeness. They know its best-kept secrets, its life by day and then again by night, its restaurants and movie theaters, its best happy hours and its better walking paths in parks that seem altogether beautiful to the arriviste. We families who are caught always between one place and another, extend our reach barely beyond the impotent strain of a tourist, who believes he has seen the best when all he has seen is a sample of what a city offers. Yes, we have favorite restaurants, but of necessity, and only by the grace of friends who’ve seen fit to proffer recommendations. We gather our weekend plans from tourist guides, and we return again and again to the places that through trial and error, we’ve judged to be viable.

Still, it is a process, and one we should not rush. Clearly, it is an onus commonly borne by travelers in any country, that they must learn to be comfortable in a place they were not reared. DC is really the first city I’ve lived after Boulder. I’ve traveled extensively, but never felt in those travels, that I would be held accountable to the cities in which I sojourned. Who would fault me for not knowing the esoteric Athens, or the arcane Jerusalem? So it seemed these places were to my foreign eye. They were exotic and daunting, and I thought better of staying in them for only a short time, lest I recognize need in learning them beyond their tourist traps.

What put me in a mind to contemplate place? Last night, my partner and I got round to visiting the famous national monuments of DC. They stand in a line down what is called ”The National Mall”. It begins at the foot of the Capitol, then stretches North toward Washington Monument, then on to the World War II Memorial, and concluding with Lincoln Memorial. It’s quite a walk, and objects appear closer when they are, in fact, 20 minutes off. 

I heard tell that the monuments are best viewed at night because they are cast in spotlights and made to shine gloriously against a backdrop all black, of twinkling stars and the lonely moon. Whoever made that recommendation was entirely correct. We started with the Washington Monument. A stately obelisk rising in height to 555 feet, it is the tallest structure in Washington, and fittingly, it is quite terrifying to behold up close. I wondered how people went about constructing it in the 1850s. Some poor soul perched at that great height, laying mortar and bricks while gazing down the long plummet he might suffer if he were not careful. The WWII Memorial is a beautiful testimony to the courage of the soldiers who fought for America in that war. They are recounted by some 3,000 gold stars fixed to a marble wall overlooking a reflecting pool. And Lincoln Memorial is an awesome sight, quite literally a temple at the center of which, sits the famed statue of Lincoln in his chair. On either side of the statue are engraved Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and his Inaugural Address to the American People.

These stunning monuments reminded me of the temples I saw in Greece, only they represent architecture at the height of our civilization. All that remains in Greece are the hollowed-out ruins of once-glorious constructs. Even the Parthenon in Athens, beautiful as it must have been, has suffered the dissolution of its roof, which came down after the French bombarded it sometime last century. Of course, the Greek ruins are truly awe-inspiring, even in their latter years, after wind and rain have weathered them. They hint at the grandeur of Greece 2,500 years ago, when it was the worldly abode of humanity’s greatest thinkers. In our own monuments to Democracy, we are blissfully young and not yet succumbed to the meaner fates of history. We see, in them, what humanity is capable of creating, and we are proud for the work of our hands and for the strength of our ideals.

It was exciting finally to partake in some of DC’s most famous attractions, though we were not far from the beaten path. Even at 9pm, the monuments were overrun with clicker-happy tourists and maybe the occasional native out for his or her nighttime walk amongst history. If you find yourself in DC, the monuments at twilight are well worth your time.

Prisoners

In comparisons, we often discover absurdities lurking in our logic, and positions once held with unshakable adamance, are found to be nearly untenable. We are subject to fallacy even in our most righteous convictions, because certainty demands blindness in degrees. To know a thing for sure, requires tunnel vision, and the ability to focus narrowly on a desired result.

In the case of animals who we raise and keep for food, we must ignore the nefarious means by which we rear them, else we are faced with actions that our collective conscience cannot, in good faith, justify. We are, indeed, the most terrible prosecutors of animal justice. We treat them as we treat our worst criminals, whom we imprison in cells admitting of no light, whom we charge with hard labor, and whose life, evenually, we demand be yielded, but not painlessly. No, we must see them suffer for the crimes they have perpetrated. Our vengenace against criminals is not unlike our vengeance against animals, yet the latter are guiltless, absolved before nature of any wrongdoing. We punish them because they exist, and for no other reason. 

Is their flesh any different than our own? Do their organs work for different ends than life, the breathing of its oxygen, the pumping of its blood? For animals, we concede only that they are bodies without souls because it is easier to justify their abuse if we accept that they feel nothing, that they fail to comprehend the value of their lives. Then are we sanctified in our actions against them. Then are we right to slaughter and eat them. But suppose we are not right. Suppose they are more than bodies to be harvested. What then? Where does that leave us, in our quest for moral excellence?

Our treatment of animals hinges entirely on our assumption of their inferiority.

But let’s not equivocate. These are the facts of a farmed animal’s existence: 

Animals are our captives. They are born into slavery, which they bear as long as they are able, and when they can no longer produce, they are slaughtered in assembly-line fashion. Some animals–those raised organically or in free-range settings–are still our captives, though they enjoy occasional parole amidst the flatland of their pastures. Still, they must be herded and harvested at the end of the day. They are bound for the same destination as the others, though their path is less treacherous.

When our prisoners misbehave, they are beaten and made to bleed. So it goes with our animal chatel, whose bodies we torture until they give up what we desire: milk, eggs, flesh.

Do you remember the story of the Giving Tree, who gave everything to the happiness of the boy who visited? The tree gave shade, and leaves in which to frolick. When the boy was a man, the tree gave wood with which to build. It surrendered its trunk to see only the boy’s smile. And, at last, when the tree was no more than a stump for all its self-sacrifice, it offered itself once more, a place for the boy to sit and contemplate the loss of his friend.

How is an animal different, who gives everything to us until it can give no more, when finally we take its life, and eat it without remorse?

Some months back, a family member counseled me that to support industries that treat their animals well, is a better course to take than the total rejection of animal products. Do not punish the organic farms for the crimes of the commercial feedlots, he said. Show those businesses that there is a demand for humanely-raised food. And, in a sense, he was correct, wasn’t he? I should spend my money with businesses that have at least some conscience to guide them. But I cannot shake the realization that, however we keep them, animals are our slaves. And slavery is wrong. Their lives are not their own to live, and no matter how we would justify their captivity, the truth is that we still see them as bodies without souls. Free-range or not, we consume them. By night, we lock them into pens and cages. By day, we set them loose into fields that are simply larger cages than the ones in which they slumbered. Who is to say that these animals do not dream of more?  

Perhaps our use of animals would be justifiable were we dependent upon the nutrition of meat and dairy, but it has been shown that a vegan diet sustains people as healthily (if not more healthily) than one based in animal products. We do not need meat. We do not need milk, or eggs. We are addicted to animals, yes, but we can quit them as easily as we can any addiction. If business only knew the desire of its customers to see alternatives line our grocery shelves, there would be a revolution, and we would never miss the tortured products we left behind. All our best minds would focus on the realization of animal-free products that leave us happy and healthy. These are real possibilities.

The time has come for us to face up to difficult questions: do animals feel pain? Do they understand the value of their own lives? When we bruise them, do they not feel that pain as keenly as we ourselves feel it? We cannot simply pretend that they do not. It is a moral evil for us to assume that life sets no store for its own livlihood. Of course it does! All life longs to go on living. What absurdity it is to say otherwise. Animals have bodies, and minds, and hearts. They have eyes to see, and noses to smell. They respond to touch, just as we respond. What is so different that we treat them the way we do?

Weekend Updates

Greetings, Friends,

And a happy Friday to each and every one of you.

I need hardly say, but it’s been an unaccountable long time since I last posted. As usual, I’ll put it down to travel, and all the myriad preparations I make before departing DC or Denver, and arriving at one of the same. This time around, I had special occasion to tidy our home in DC, as I would be returning to Colorado all on my own, and my partner would stay behind to finish his legislative week. 

In the final hours before I set sail (or take wing, as the case may be!), I attempt to leave our homes in decent working order, that I will be not greeted with chaos when I return. An unwelcome house is such a trial to the nerves. So I went about my chores with more-than-ordinary fastidiousness. When I left this last Wednesday, I am pleased to say, the house promised to take care of itself in my absence, and to be an eager subject to the needs of my partner. I bet you never knew that houses could make promises! But mine did, as I threatened to allow its overthrow by insects if it acted foolishly while I was away. Being once overthrown, and then reclaimed by certain ingenious methods (among which, cinnamon played a vital role), it knew better than to test my resolve.

But my poor partner! He is in the final stretch before Congress adjourns for a month-long recess in August. Of essence to the work of the House this month, is the passage of healthcare legislation.

The current, 111th Congress is wonderfully ambitious. In the first six months of Obama’s administration, epic bills have come to pass. Most recently, the Climate Change bill–which, like all bills, is not without its critics–is nevertheless a much-needed answer to the challenges of our changing climate. And isn’t it a testament to the power of an open mind that our lawmakers have accomplished so much, so quickly? Obama’s message of change has positively and absolutely had its effect.

Toward that end of healthcare legislation by month’s end, my partner has had several sleepless nights. Yesterday, I received notes from him at the hours of 1am, 2am, then 4am, and finally 5am. He had been in his Education and Labor Committee meeting since 10am earlier that day, and 19 hours later, mark ups were still up for debate!

What an awful schedule to bear, but let it never again be said that our elected leaders do not work hard on our behalf. I have never seen laborers work such hours, and devote themselves so entirely to straining out details that are of importance to their constituents. It is a wonder, after a working session like that, most Members simply accept the fact that they missed an entire night’s sleep and set about powering through the next day as if it were nothing. I might very well call in sick, but then again, I’ve always known I don’t have the stamina it would take to represent 650,000 people!

So it goes, I’m in Boulder until Tuesday. In August, my partner and I are moving after five years in the same apartment. On Monday, I do a final punchlist walkthrough, and on Tuesday, it’s back to DIA for another flight East!

Imagination

All day long, I’ve been engaged in dreaming. Not asleep, but I’ve been hard at work devising images and ideas for a story I plan to write. Yet, for all my many hours of faroff looking in the reveries that have consumed me, I’ve only just come to be aware of how much of my imagination I’ve surrendered to the physical world. When I was a teenager, and rather bereft of worldly possessions, it did me well to imagine what I might someday possess. Often, it was shapeless and without definite color. It existed out of time, and had to it, no measurable dimensions. My vision was more of a feeling. I felt that the world was a marvelous place in which reality was unfixed. There were possibilities out there, and I loved to dream of grand exploits in faroff places.

Because I lived in an apartment with my parents, I knew the brute functionality of things. I knew that a faucet dispensed water, and that a refrigerator chilled liquids. I knew the thermostat brought forth atmospheres of warmth and cold. And I no doubt knew, when I visited with friends more monied that we, that such things existed more excellently or more beautifully than what our little income could afford. I understood that money could furnish luxury beyond the mere functionality to which I was accustomed. And so it came to pass, I coveted the sinks in which the porcelain was real, and around which marble formed countertops, and mirrors reflected burnished brass. I longed for beautiful Persian carpets in spite of the low-pile rug with which our apartment had come prepared. I wished for larger windows, the better to admit sun and the eventide breezes that carried aloft lilacs. All of these wishes had their places in a real world. For I had seen them with my own eyes. But what of the things I did not see? What of the worlds that were wholly absent in my vicinity? I saw cats all around me, and so came I to know animals of infinte grace, whose eyes appeared wise. I saw their tails and their whiskers. I felt their silken fur beneath my caresses. I knew their claws when they climbed, or when my foolishness possessed them to inflict me with a scratch. All these things, I could now imagine any creature under the sun possessing. But what about feathers? What about scales? What about animals ten times the size of a cat, or 100 times smaller? How could I know such things existed without seeing them? When I saw dogs, I had some notion of relativity. They were larger than cats, and seemingly less solitary. Their noses were longer. Their eyes appeared plaintive, not wise.

So, out of that relativity I came, imagining many creatures whose features were neither feline nor canine, but both.

I suspect all our imaginitive powers inher from that first comparison. Difference suggests possibility: the possibility that between two extremes, there exist countless combinations. And when we see a cat alongside a dog, we naturally wonder if such an animal lives in which each of these others is present in some measure. How bizarre! Yet how worthwhile to envision life’s experiments! We love to question whether so many seemingly contradictory elements can work in concert. Can a cat run as quickly on legs more suited to a dog? Can a fish fly, or a bird seek its prey underwater? Nature is the grandest imagination of all.

But clearly, our own imagination requires some point of reference from which to begin. Without an object to ponder, one cannot imagine a reconfiguration. And isn’t a reconfiguration really what imagination is all about? We consider the way things are, and then we consider how they might be if we changed the particulars. We are left with a product in which only the arrangement has changed, though the substance has remained.

Thus, imagination sustains itself on reality. But I do believe there is such a thing as overfeeding one’s mind. When, after too long a season in the real world, we look about ourselves and can imagine nothing more than what we already see, then we have lost our capacity to believe in things unseen. For example, the man who spends his life observing big cats in central Africa, might struggle and fail to imagine a cat whose color is violet. Such a notion is simply unrealistic because his concept of cats is so fixed in what he has seen in the real world. And supposing he does see such a rare and untenable specimen, his time in the field must always compel him to call the creature a trick. Knowledge always counsels against a belief in the fantastical.

Likewise, he who reads a newspaper everyday, is too keenly aware of the state of world affairs. He has less of a mind to imagine Palestine and Israel ever declaring peace. He lacks vision to conceive of a time when government will meet the needs of its people unconditionally. He can think of the world only in terms of its page one headlines, or its book reviews, or its classifeids.

So, as I was working on my story, I realized that I am in danger of becoming that man. I have seen the world both splendid and lackluster. I have measured it against itself, and come to know what is possible only by what is probable. I fear I am becoming less apt to accept things which I have not already seen. And when I sit down to imagine incredible things, I imagine things not so incredible as well-documented in the pages of encyclopedias.

What is the key to retaining one’s imagination? Once upon a time, I believed that to stay imaginative required a willful sort of ignorance. But ignorance is a negative word. Rather, I thought it needed a kind of innocent naivete; a mind fed only on the sparest diet of facts and figures, and only so much as it needed to begin reconfiguring what it had seen. In that time, whileI lacked reference to the many glorious and tangible delights of the real world, I suffered gladly for the greater pleasure of imagining things that did not exist.

Knowledge, as ever, is a benediction even as it is a curse. One learns what one needs to live in the real world, but at what price? To imagine is humankinds greatest commonwealth. I, for one, would gladly forego knowledge if it meant I could recapture even an iota of the absurdities that once filled my head and my life!

Picture with President Obama

Hello, Friends,

Here is a picture snapped at a White House Reception for Members of Congress, hosted by President and First Lady Obama on May 20th, 2009.

 

An Indian Wedding

So many, last week, were my occasions for wonder, that a post about my hike in Dillon alone will not suffice. I have more to tell of my time in Boulder!

On the 4th of July–that day when most contented themselves in homage to our National Independence, to watch electric flowers explode on the horizon–my partner and I had plans of an altogether different nature. And of these plans, I had known for some weeks. Still, I was not a little disheartened that I should be made to give up fireworks for an Indian Wedding. But that was exactly what I would do, and my faint-hearted resentment soon gave place to anticipation.

My partner being ever a great admirer of Eastern culture, and twice a voyager to the country of India, thought well of placing an Indian Wedding on his shortlist of things to do or see in this lifetime. And why not? Indian weddings are famed for the grandeur of their designs and the felicity of their executions. It is, for example, not uncommon that parents spend their entire life savings upon the ceremonies and parties, which may last as many as three days in succession. All that is best in form and function, has its place at an Indian Wedding. The ornamentation is divinely intricate, yet magnificent of scale. A thing as unassuming as a Wedding Invitation receives the treatment of a fine tome in which the pages are gilt and bound in cloth. Such an invitation may then receive inlays of Swarovski crystals, amidst arabesque images of florals and paisleys.

Such was the case at this wedding, where also, upon entering the ballroom at the Ritz Carlton in Denver, we were greeted with luminescent ice sculptures in the fashion of peacocks, whose translucent plumage glowed cerrulean by the grace of some few well-placed spotlights. The centerpieces at each table were the forms of candelabra, from which crystals shivered in profusion. These latter had come the long way from India herself, the better to realize the themes at hand. Women dashed to and fro in a procession of otherworldly garments in which were to be admired the finest and most decadent details. Again, one saw the painstaking inlays of jewels and embroideries of gold thread. It was no less a vision that what Cindarella must have beheld in the court of her prince. And one could not help but give pause to consider the lovely dresses that might always surround us were it not that lackluster vogues now consume the time of our lives. It takes no less than an Indian Wedding to show what is possible, and what is delicious to the eyes.

The bride and groom literally held court from the head of the stage, where they were arrayed as if images of royalty, upon two golden thrones. They listened intently to a chorus of those whose charge it was to toast their newfound happiness. And then there were dancers! Dancers brought forth, to express in motion what the bride and groom no doubt felt in their hearts, which was unabashed joy. And again, one saw what is luxurious in the adornments of their costumes, in the expressions of their faces.

A hundred little details consumed me, that might have delighted everyone or me alone. Rose petals by the thousands were strewn across the floor. The wedding cake, three tiers high, matched perfectly the hue of the bride’s dress. It was the blush color of romance, ringed with braids of tiny, edible pearls, and topped with a golden crown. Delicate votive candles shined out from multi-colored vessels. Tapestries of surpassingly beatiful patterns in silver, hung each wall.

To say that the proceedings were lavish would short them unfairly. I might go on forever, but suffice it to say, I wished that all weddings could be so awe-inspiring. Indeed, such occasions remind us that ceremony is beautiful, and that people have created their own forms of sublimity and majesty. I like to think that love is both simple and excessive, and the wedding captured both in a seamless and silken pageantry I won’t ever forget.

Nature’s Art

Dear, Friends,

I’d like to share a short post on a wonderful experience I had this past week in Boulder.

Of course, as usual, my time back in Colorado was a treat. I do so miss it when I’m away, and when I’m back in town, it seems my experiences are always, rather appropriately, exceptional. So it was about the middle of the week, my partner and I ventured to beautiful Summit County. In the town of Dillon, we along with some fifteen others, met famed nature photographer John Fielder, whose charge it was that day to lead us on a hike through, quite possibly, the most gorgeous tract of country I’ve ever yet lain eyes upon.

The trail passed through a brilliant meadow of columbines and other wildflowers, and through forests thick with aspens. Everywhere I set my foot was the softness of velvet, and the air shimmered with all the hues of daylight.

I was astounded that such a place could exist. It was very much like a scene out of a fairy tale.

Much as I tried to find some evidence of human presence–perhaps a crumpled paper, or a shred of metal out of place–I found nothing to that effect. The place was utterly idyllic and untouched. Yet a beautiful order reigned there, as if Nature herself had mowed the grasses with delicate finesse, and fashioned the trees into perfectly balanced stands. Surely, it showed the self-same beauty that humans aspire to in all their artistic endeavors.

It reminded me that Nature is always beautiful. No matter its configuration, it appears well in-balance, and supremely elegant. Our human architecture may be dazzling, at times, but let us judge also of its failures: the noisy, dirt-ridden cities; the cracked pavements; the car exhaust; the smells of steel and concrete. Nature is always in good taste, but in our fumbling to recreate her majesty, too often we find ourselves frustrated. In Nature, things exist wholly beautiful. In civilization, we draw up beauty alongside ugliness, and this is the price of pretended apotheosis.

Yes, I was surprised at how “tidy” Nature appeared in that little-known tract, yet immediately, it made sense. Why should Nature not be well-proportioned? Why should the elements of her design not be executed flawlessly? Whence this notion of Nature unkempt and slovenly, for surely she is not.  In her minutest details, there are the very models of our most felicitous accomplishments. They are order and chaos, by alchemy, perfected.