Double Sightings

Last evening, working in a walk when the wind had finally died down, I strolled past a woman standing by her mailbox. She looked familiar ... and she was still there a few minutes later as I had turned toward home. "Do I know you?" she asked. 

In the few minutes since I'd passed her I'd figured out the connection. "I think you go to my church," I said. And yes, that's exactly where we had seen each other.

In a small town, you often bump into neighbors at school or at the grocery store—usually when you've run in grubby from gardening and hope you won't spot a soul you know. Not so with suburban living: the population is exponentially larger but the possibilities of chance meetings infinitely smaller.  

I treasure these "double sightings." From them grow the connections from which friendship flows. 

(Even snow people like company.)

Sky and Clouds

One of the more effective meditation metaphors I've learned is to see the calm mind as blue sky and the worries and troubles that beset us as clouds in that sky.  They come and go; they obscure our vision. But the blue sky is still there.

It reminds us that even when tranquility seems to have vanished, it actually has not. It's there all along, and we can restore it by resting the gaze, stilling the breath, and seeing the clouds — the worries and troubles — for what they are: distractions.

This doesn't mean I put this metaphor to practice, but it's top-of-mind enough that when I look out my office window at thick clouds and an ever-shrinking patch of blue, I remember ... and take heart. 

Mr. Basement

The coffee table in the living room was cleared of its usual clutter in time for Easter guests and somehow still remains a blank slate. Carpets are vacuumed, and new floors gleam in the "dining room." 

In other words, the first floor of the house is looking spiffier than usual. 

But for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And here, as soon as one floor of the house looks better, another looks worse. 

It's a bit like Dorian Gray's portrait in the attic, where the image of the man ages but the man himself does not. Or it could be two faces of the same person, a la Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: one industrious and law-abiding; the other ... a monster. 

In my house, it's Dr. First Floor and Mr. Basement. 

Out There

I spent almost every minute Sunday outside: reading on the deck, bouncing on the trampoline, weeding in the yard, swinging on the hammock. 

It seemed the best way to honor the day, to be in it as much as possible. Because in this place, in this clime, spring is the season. 

Now I'm back at my desk, finishing up work for class tonight, trying to channel any intellectual energy I have to the difficult task at hand. Deconstructionism: there's a reason why the prof saved it for last. 

But my heart is out there with the wood poppies and the lilacs, with the azaleas and the begonias, resplendent and dear. 

Orthodox Easter

They entered the ornate cathedrals, slogging through rubble to get there. One photograph shows a country church and a lone woman entering with a basket. Another shows a hastily assembled altar, soldiers in fatigues. 

It was Easter yesterday in Ukraine, but the shelling and the funerals continue. The message of a suffering savior and a glorious resurrection, the promise of eternal life, was delivered amidst the smoke and the terror. 

For us,  the war in Ukraine is a story we read in a newspaper, a report we watch on television. Switch off the screen, put down the paper ... and it goes away.

For the brave souls in Ukraine, there is no pause, no end to the horror. For them, for now, war is life.  

The Unwritten

In a recent class on feminist literary criticism, my professor talked about the push to find overlooked female voices, the letters and journals, the stories stuffed in sewing baskets or left behind in convent cells. 

I found that exciting: the newest works of the literary canon, the books that are out there but must still be discovered, that don't yet have a readership, a home. 

But at least these works exist in some form, ragged and hidden, inchoate and incomplete.  

What about the books that were never written, the ideas that vanished before they could be jotted down, that fell victim to the cookstove, the washtub, the cradle? How do we recover those? 

Earth Day

How wise were the Earth Day founders to honor our "other mother" on this day, in this season (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere). 

For who can ignore the earth on a day like this: just warming, just greening, filled with eye-popping color.

With tender shoots and delicate blossoms.

Still far too many of us, I'm afraid.

Cold Comfort

In class we take turns leading discussion on the various works we're reading. Next week, in our penultimate class, I will lead again. Only this time, the works I've been assigned — by Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze — are theoretical to the point of unintelligibility. 

I spent some time yesterday poring over the 1600-page literary theory anthology, dutifully underling and checking what seemed to be the relevant passages. But I have no idea if they're truly relevant. 

It's embarrassing! I mean, this is not the theory of relativity. This is something that, at least on the surface, I should be able to understand. 

But one thing I've been reminded of often these last few months is how little I know. And, when I'm not on the hook as I am this week, I take comfort in that. 

Warmer Amble

It's a sunny day that begs to be explored, and I have my usual dilemma: to move the muscles or exercise the mind. The mind usually comes first these days, because I start inside and it's easier to stay here for a few hours. 

And as bright as the light is, streaming into this morning room, the purring furnace tells me it's still cold out there. I'm happy to wait until it's purring a little less before I venture out.

Yesterday's stroll was a hurried one: I threw on a down vest and dashed out the door. It wasn't until I rounded the corner that I realized I needed a hat and gloves.

The frigid fast-walk refreshes and energizes ... but I'm hoping for a warmer amble today. 

Virginia Bluebells

About 30 minutes north of here a road dead ends and a trail begins. The trail slopes gently down through a lofty forest to the Potomac. 

We hiked it last week, tipped off by a fellow walker that there were fields of Virginia bluebells to see. 

And, reader, she was right ...

3,700!

It's a cool, rainy Easter Monday, perfect for catching the breath and putting away the good china.

Over the weekend, I realized that the blog hit a milestone: 3, 700 posts. I love it when the numbers sneak up on me. 

Blog writing is such a daily, piecemeal endeavor that I forget the dribbles and drabs add up to something. 

On milestone days, I remember that they do. 

Force for Good

Passover began two days ago. Ramadan began two weeks ago. Today we celebrate the holiest day in the Christian calendar.

Powerful prayer storms are being stirred up around the globe: clouds of incense,  spiritual readings and focused intent. It is a time of turning inward, in search of grace, and of turning outward, in search of strength.

May the synergy of these holy days create a force for good to foster peace and prosperity around the world. 

Unsettling

A burst of warm weather is greening the trees and fast-forwarding the azaleas. But two days ago, you could still take a walk around Lake Audubon in full-bore sun; almost none of the leaf cover that normally closets and cozies that trail was out on Tuesday. Which made for some strangely open vistas.

It was a different kind of experience. I admired the views, but I felt exposed. 

It made me think that we grow accustomed to certain sceneries in certain weathers, and not having them unsettles us. 

Perhaps it is during these off-kilter times, in these unsettling moments, that we see things clearly. 

The Workhorse

I've never been one for smart appliances. I'd rather not talk to my toaster or send messages to my thermostat. But sometimes, I think I might be reading their minds.

A few weeks ago, while sorting  laundry, I was suddenly struck by the age and dedication of our decades-old washing machine. How many thousands of loads has it swished and swirled and spun dry? How many times have I spun that dial, always clockwise, of course.  How many more loads did it have left?

I must have been sensing metal fatigue, because a few weeks later. the workhorse died. It wasn't an overload or turning the dial counter-clockwise (the only two ways I was told you could break it), it was the great machine's heart that gave out—its motor died. 

After a few days of thinking we might fix it, we realized we had to buy a new machine ... and so we did. It's a fairly simple model, as modern machines go, but it's bigger and shinier and plays little songs when it starts and finishes. It is, in short, a show pony. Let's just hope it grows into a workhorse. 

Terror in the Tunnel

For 15 years I was a Metro commuter, riding the Orange Line train from Vienna to the District and, later, to the Crystal City area of Arlington. Before that, long before that,  I rode the New York City subway whenever I wasn't walking through the Big Apple. 

All of which is to say, I've spent way too many hours/days/years (?) of my life riding the rails of some underground transport system or the other. I mastered the art of looking the other way when disturbed people entered my car and began hectoring fellow riders — or of slipping away entirely and hopping on an adjacent car when matters seemed to be spiraling out of control. 

I can only imagine yesterday's horror on the N Train in Brooklyn: the smoke, the shooting, the blood, the panic. Terror has erupted, this time in a subway tunnel. Not to be gloomy, but it's only a matter of time before it erupts somewhere else again.

Old House

Whenever I'm in Lexington I make the pilgrimage and drive to the houses where I grew up. Unlike my own children, who know only this much-loved and much-battered center-hall colonial, I had three places to call home. 

My sister and I drove past one of them last month. It's a house I lived in only two-and-a-half years, the one I returned to from college and my early work years in Chicago. But though my time in the house was short, it left a big impression. 

I'm not used to seeing the house from the back, but we drove down a cul-de-sac that gave us this view, that showed us the deck that's been added, the trees that have grown up in the decades we've been gone. 

When I look at this photo, I see not just a ranch-style house with a walk-out basement and steep driveway, but the rooms inside ... and the people who used to live in them. 

Back to Practicing

When I bought the new piano last year, I told myself I would play whatever I wanted. No agendas.  No "practicing." I only wanted to hear the sound of the instrument, which makes any kind of playing pleasant to the ear, even the rusty renditions of pieces I once played with ease. 

But I've reached the point in this renaissance (can I call it that? I think so) where something more is required, some sort of foundation for the playing that is to follow. 

That something is Hannon. Yes, Hannon, much reviled in my youth but now revealed for what he/it actually is: the means to an end. The stronger and more nimble my fingers, the better I can master the Brahms' intermezzos and  Chopin nocturnes and Bach fugues I'm trying to play. 

At this point I begin to understand the purpose of those dreaded assignments of my youth, the scales and the Hannon and the other exercises I avoided whenever possible, teacher notes scribbled on the yellowing pages, usually the words "slow down." Can it be that I'm now inflicting these exercises on myself? 

As a matter of fact, I am. I know that practice won't make perfect. But it will make better. 

Trail Talk

Walkers usually keep to themselves. We're an introverted bunch. But yesterday was different. 

"Can you believe this day?" a woman said to me as she came closer, gesturing to the blue sky, her arms raised as if I were a long-lost friend. 

I thought for a moment we might know each other, so enthusiastic was her greeting. But no, she was just a fellow traveler, her tongue loosened by the endorphins or the trail or the fact that we were both alive and well on a glorious spring morning. 

Lucky Enough

A male cardinal hops along the front walk, pauses briefly, then flies up to perch on a slender branch of the climbing rose, his crimson plumage shouting out from amidst the green.

It's not long before he's back on ground, foraging in the leaf meal, pecking around the forget-me-nots, glinting in the periwinkle. 

He shines, this cardinal, his feathers brighter, as I've read they are this time of year. He's all decked out for the ladies, of course. And I'm lucky enough to be around for the show.

(Unfortunately, the cardinal couldn't be bothered to pose. But I did snap a quick photo from the rear.)

The Good Fight

So far, April is proving to be as wet as March was windy. The months are playing their usual roles, in other words. 

I feel a certain responsibility on rainy days: unless otherwise occupied, I should use them for cleaning closets or going through old files in the basement. 

Which means that after I've written, and after I've studied, and after I've made today's calls and sent today's emails, I must get myself to the nether regions of the house ... and fight the good fight.

The Bells of Healy Hall

If I'm lucky, I arrive on the Georgetown campus in time to hear the bells of Healy Hall toll the Angelus. It makes an already timeless experience feel even more so.

The bells were tolling last night as I walked to class past the old stone buildings through a cool and soggy evening. 

I thought about a passage from Thomas Cahill's Mysteries of the Middle Ages, which details a 1219 visit between Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt, Palestine and Syria. 

Some scholars think that it was then that Francis came up with the idea of tolling the Angelus bells at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. — the Christian version of the Muslim call to prayer. A likely story, and maybe just that, a story. But it was easy to believe it when the bells were ringing. 

April for Real

The new month has crept up on me. Though it is April in reality, it is March in my mind. What to do about this? Get out and walk through it, I suppose. 

I'll be looking for the usual signs: violets nodding in the early grass, bluebells along the path. The yellow blossoms of forsythia greening along the stem. And if we're lucky, the dogwood and azaleas will overlap enough to make the tableau you see above.

Winds will blow, rain will fall, maybe even snow. But the sun will mean business. That's another way to know that April is really here.

The Walking Cure

Solvitur ambulando — "it is solved by walking" — is the unofficial motto of this blog. Throughout the years, the walks I've taken have not just stretched my legs and bolstered my mood; they have also proved, over and over again, that simply getting up and moving is the solution to many of life's problems.  

For the most part, then, despite all the physical advantages it brings, I still see walking's chief benefit to be a mental one.

What I remembered this weekend, when I strolled outside for the first time in seven days—after being down with a cold and other annoyances—is how walking helps a body recuperate. The combination of fresh air and footfall working their magic.

The walks were not the fastest I've ever taken, nor did they cover the most ground. But they took me out of the house and into the wide world, and I was grateful for them.

An Obit a Day

Sometimes, the best way to start the morning is by reading an obituary. Not just any obituary, though. It needs to be one like that of Arthur Riggs, 82, who with a colleague, Keiichi Ikatura, developed synthetic insulin. Riggs died March 23. 

I learned that Riggs and Ikatura developed a genetic technique that led to the first human-designed and human-made gene that would function in any organism. This paved the way for the creation of synthetic insulin, a "lifesaving development for millions of people with diabetes," the Washington Post said.

Before this discovery, people with diabetes relied on insulin from cows, which had a high rate of allergic reactions. The synthetic insulin avoids this risk.

Dr. Riggs lived in the same house for 50 years, drove "modest cars," said the obituary ... and quietly gave away much of the money he earned from royalties on patents — $310 million — to the institution he helped to found. The name of the institution: the City of Hope. 

(Ikatura and Riggs in 1978. Photo courtesy City of Hope.)

Homework

In the continuing saga of my return to grad school, I'm finding at least one part of the experience nice and easy: part of my homework this week involves watching an old movie. 

It's the 1943 rendition of "Jane Eyre," the version of this oft-filmed classic that Jean Rhys, author of the Jane Eyre prequel Wide Sargasso Sea, would have known. I'm watching the film before reading Part One of the book, which we will discuss at the next class.

Compared with hacking my way through Postmodernism, New Historicism and various other critical theories, viewing a film seems ... positively dreamy.

Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine. Homework: bring it on!

(Seeing as today is April 1, I must add this disclaimer: no fooling!)