Category Archives: quotidian

a week!

Posted on August 27, 2010 | Leave a comment

Well, that was some week.

Tuesday I got thrown for a loop when students started emailing me wondering why the website for the online course they’d registered for didn’t seem to exist. Well, that would be because I signed a piece of paper saying I’d teach a face to face class on Wednesday nights. There were a lot of personnel changes going on in the department, so I’ll chalk it up to that. I regret that some students had to drop the class, but you really just can’t pull an online course out of your ear on -1 day’s notice.

The course format announcement didn’t get made until Wednesday. I spent all day at work that day, yet put 0 hours on my timesheet because the entire day was spent putting out class-related fires. That’s ok, because I’ve banked over 50 hours of “in case” time off that needs to be used up before I either get replaced or hired. But personnel did call and ask me for my references.

If I get hired, I’m buying myself a bicycle and a new vacuum cleaner. It is highly unsatisfying to vacuum when you can feel the machine spitting stuff out on your toes as you walk behind it.

Class itself was fun, though I’m not used to standing up for 2.5 hours straight any more and it reactivated my lower back pain. Lordosis doesn’t do well with standing around, and I get distracted enough in the classroom without pacing. A lot of stretching has been in order.

I’ve been trying to get more sleep, as I was averaging about 6 hours a night there for a good while. The frustrating thing is that after 7-8 hours, it is much harder to wake up and maintain focus through the day. I think perhaps I really need 9 or more hours (which just isn’t going to happen until my dissertation is complete), and stopping at 6 interrupts the sleep cycle at a point more amenable to waking.

I forget the days now, but there were Treasures to Report.

A mockingbird feather found. A pigeon feeding its babies. Flitting dragonflies. The full moon peeking out from behind layers of clouds. Enough life in the air that it is possible to believe there might ever be a chill again. Butterflies moving on to different bushes with small purple flowers. A little girl climbing a tree more bravely than any of the little boys. A resurgence of local blueberries. Falling asleep with the windows open to the sound of cicadas, crickets, and frogs. Goldfinches at my backyard feeder. Tiny fuzzy white caterpillar with black eye spots.

A sad thing is that I can no longer smell the oaks in McCorkle place because there is always too much nasty Axe body spray/Bath and Body Works hideous synthetic nose burning miasma lingering from the bodies of undergraduates.

A good thing is the word miasma.

The return of the undergrads is always a good exercise in remembering just how much farther there is to go in being equanimous and opening in love to every moment. You’re not really suffused with loving-kindness when you feel like clocking someone in the head with your parasol. The alternative is to really look at them and take them in, which can be overwhelming because the vast, vast majority have so much pain or fear or emptiness about them and yet they are trying so hard to project otherwise. Of course you can really say that about any group of people almost anywhere, no?

Stopped by Weaver Street Market on the way home tonight to hang out with a friend a bit. Had a nice pint of stout. It’s been quite a while since I’ve just enjoyed a nice pint.

And now the cleaning fluid has soaked in long enough and it is time to finish cleaning up after the cats in preparation for my own private dance party. These events have the best DJ ever.

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Posted in quotidian, work

brief.

Posted on August 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

daily report. No more butterflies. Just bees.

Not much else, as I think my cats were somehow feeding me sedatives in my sleep and it was all I could do to walk in today.

A sickeningly thick and strong strand of spider’s silk caught me.

1-5-0 is back open with real food for lunches. With biodegradable forks, even. This is a very happy thing, as I was tired of their tofu wrap and bean salad (and Weaver Street’s vegan chicken salad wrap) and have pretty much given up on keeping myself fed beyond fresh juice, fruit, and frozen Indian entrees.

And then utter chaos erupted and I’m going to try to sleep in spite of it. Tomorrow will be a day. Wonderful things could happen.

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Posted in quotidian

daily report.

Posted on August 24, 2010 | 2 Comments

A cathedral in a pecked-out cicada thorax. Ants attending Mass. Take, eat.

Two feathers.

Smaller, rounded-winged butterflies in the SILS garden hedge, and fuzzy bee bums.

The fountain in fast-forward, the most exuberant droplets less hesitant than usual.

Surprising rain in the afternoon. The smell of wet bricks.

A very large black bird swooping over the highway.

An old bumper sticker that read, “I     my      ,” because the red was faded

Yesterday: the most perfect acorn.

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Posted in quotidian

nature good.

Posted on August 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy. Since we are part of the animal kingdom, our senses are naturally more alive in the outdoors. The rustle of leaves or the rapid flight of birds could indicate the presence of a mountain lion or bear. Hiking in places where we are not the only predator ((When I hear a person claim to be “top of the food chain,” I want to transport them to the wilderness with nothing but their wits and see how superior they feel.)) helps us understand that all of life is intimately interwoven and that we are a part of that web.

— Mark Coleman, “A Breath of Fresh Air“

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Morning Report: Mushrooms that looked like pancakes laying on top of the grass.

Then, the most amazing thing. There is a little fenced garden next to Manning Hall. A small hedge blooming with small white flowers pads the inside of the fence all the way around. This morning there were SO MANY Eastern Tiger Swallowtails ((I identified the species tonight using my new favorite website: http://www.discoverlife.org/ )) eating from these flowers. The hedge appeared decorated with living ornaments—yellow and black wings with luscious blue at the bottoms fluttering everywhere. If you looked deeper, past the butterflies—which was difficult—there were even more bumblebees moving around in there.

A plasma display window?—The shifting baseline problem in a technologically mediated natural world
Peter H. Kahn Jr., Batya Friedman, Brian Gill, Jennifer Hagman, Rachel L. Severson, Nathan G. Freier, Erika N. Feldman, Sybil Carrère and Anna Stolyar
Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 28, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 192-199.

ABSTRACT: Humans will continue to adapt to an increasingly technological world. But are there costs to such adaptations in terms of human well being? Toward broaching this question, we investigated physiological effects of experiencing a HDTV quality real-time view of nature through a plasma display “window.” In an office setting, 90 participants (30 per group) were exposed either to (a) a glass window that afforded a view of a nature scene, (b) a plasma window that afforded a real-time HDTV view of essentially the same scene, or (c) a blank wall. Results showed that in terms of heart rate recovery from low-level stress the glass window was more restorative than a blank wall; in turn, a plasma window was no more restorative than a blank wall. Moreover, when participants spent more time looking at the glass window, their heart rate tended to decrease more rapidly; that was not the case with the plasma window. Discussion focuses on how the purported benefits of viewing nature may be attenuated by a digital medium.

Last night: I was not consciously nervous about today’s phone interview, but some part of my brain was because it would not let me get to sleep and stay asleep. When I was asleep I dreamed about scanning down a column of series headings in Excel. I got maybe 4 hours.

Today: Tired. Only needed to work 4.2 hours, but I went in at normal time to do other stuff while present in case of bibliographic emergency. As the interview time drew nearer my body started having full on anxiety symptoms. Nausea, heart rate up, lips numb, dizzy, feeling of floating above my own head going, “Oh come on body, you are going to talk to people you work with every day and impress on a regular basis. Just stop these shenanigans.” I did some sitting with my breath, but honestly, I don’t think that helps very much. It just heightens the physical sensations of anxiety for me. Or maybe I just don’t do it right. Anyway, the interview was not terrible, but I was frustrated with myself for feeling inarticulate and rambly, and for forgetting to make a couple of points I had down on my notes sheet. Was so jangled afterward, trying to shush the “you screwed that up” fear, that it took me the rest of the afternoon to copy catalog a website.

Read in McCorkle Place for a while, then had dinner with a friend at Pepper’s. He dropped me off at Forest Theater, where I was headed to see Paperhand Puppet Intervention’s Islands Unknown. Going in, I saw the most beautiful dog. It did not look like a Great Dane to me, but its nose probably would have hit the lower part of my chest. It was lanky and glossy black. It struck me such that I told the man walking it, “That’s the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen.” Went in, immediately spied a friendly acquaintance from circulation, waved, sat down, and then was invited down to sit with him and my ophthalmologist and his family. Just as the show was starting another friend who has been out of town came in and sat right in front of us.

Favorite parts:

  • a real butterfly at the edge of the stage when the books in the library became butterflies
  • the book on the library shelf pushing itself out to get the girl’s attention
  • the cat puppet
  • shouting ENOUGH!
  • bats flying around overhead
  • the information overload puppet
  • the movement of the ocean puppet
  • the real moon rising up at the back of the theater, opposite the stage moon

Wednesday a friend and I were talking about how Paperhand’s message can be boiled down to “Nature good, Man bad.” That’s a view I can definitely get behind most days, when I witness and hear about humans being bad, bad animals all over the world. There is definitely a Paperhand formula. You know what to expect from one of their shows. But the execution is always different and wonderful. My sense of this show was that it was less “Nature good, Man bad” and more “Nature good, Man part of nature, Man who could be in more balance with nature but chooses not to move toward balance bad.”

On Wednesday, I noticed someone had scratched some moss off a rock. I got so angry. This hatred welled up for whoever thoughtlessly put their desire to make a mark on something ahead of the fact that a tiny plant was growing there, being alive and doing its thing. It billowed out to include the people who mulched over the tiny trees in April, and those who dumped the disgusting ugly mulch over the moss growing in my small front yard area in January and planted shrubs that are now dead. I got to a moment of wondering why we couldn’t just leave things alone and wishing I could avoid causing the demise of any living thing, before reminding myself that I don’t want to have to hack through dense vegetation to get into my house, that I do love McCorkle Place, which is an entirely groomed artificial “nature,” and that I cannot abide a mouse-sized spider running amok in my kitchen. As I said to my friend Wednesday, “It is so hard to avoid being a big hypocrite in this culture.”

I mean, how many carbon credits does the creation and run of a Paperhand show eat up, between hauling materials and puppets, people traveling to rehearsal and performances, lighting (that confuses night flying creatures) and sound amplification, etc.? Less than many less worthwhile things, I’m sure, but still.

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Posted in quotes, quotidian, wonders and treasures

almost.

Posted on August 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

Today it kind of almost felt like my sense of community was coming back.

There is a person I pass every day on the walk across campus. You know, you can do that for years without ever saying anything to each other. I’ve done that before. But three days ago I started nodding and saying good morning. And this person smiles and says good morning back. So what had been, for a couple of months, an internal observation—oh there’s that person again. is that person running late, or am I running early?—has become a small act of connection with more than just the trees. Sometimes it feels like no one wants to intrude on any one or risk someone being mean, so we all go around ignoring each other.

I’ve moved from work projects that required a lot solitary, abstract brain work to a number of faster moving projects that require more interaction with colleagues across campus.

I saw that someone’s car was in the market parking lot when I swung by on the way home from work. I went back and forth about whether to find them and say hello. I felt a bit anxious about how it might be awkward, given the way long-standing friendships and recently defunct romantic relationships had lined up. But I saw him sitting alone and the desire to say hi overrode anxiety.

I was just going to say hi, grab some groceries, and go home to check some things off of my list, but instead we ended up talking for quite a while. With my odd sense of time, I couldn’t tell you how long. But it was very good. And because I sat there talking for a while, I also ran into someone I hadn’t seen in quite a while, but had been thinking about recently. She will be on campus when school starts, so perhaps I will have the chance to see her more often.

Then a co-worker was in the produce section.

Then a large shiny black beetle was frantically on its back on the floor underneath the apricots. I turned him over, but it seemed like he was having trouble walking on the slick smooth floor. So I carried him out the in door (omg I broke a rule!) and deposited him outside.

One of the things I was going to (and eventually did) check off my list tonight was exercising. I run in place on an exercise trampoline. I haven’t done much exercise since starting work at the library in January, but I ran last night and tonight. Exercise is good for the brain and I need all the help I can get right now. One extra good thing about running is that it is captive time. I’m moving but stationary. I can stay still enough (while moving furiously) to watch things—films, talks, etc.

For the past two nights, I’ve been watching “Mindfulness and the Brain: A Professional Training in the Science and Practice of Meditative Awareness.” It’s at the intersection of Buddhist practice and interpersonal neurobiology, so it is a good reminder of the possibility of integration and connectedness.

It is good to re-hear The Good News About Neuroplasticity. Lately my faith had been wearing a bit thin.

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Posted in quotidian

respite.

Posted on August 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

This was the word that kept coming to my mind over the weekend: respite.

First, the heat broke. It will be back up to 93°F tomorrow, and I’ll close the windows and turn the A/C on before I go to work tomorrow. But since Friday afternoon, the windows have been open, letting in fresh air and cicada song.

Second, I took an unplanned rest retreat. The only souls I spoke to from Friday at 5pm until this morning at 9:45am were my cats. And they aren’t very good conversationalists. I didn’t play any music, except for a drumming recording last night as I was preparing for bed. After working for a little while on Saturday morning, I mostly avoided the computer, except to watch a documentary Saturday night. I read. I slept. I went feral and loved my silence, solitude, and the smell of the crooks of my elbows. By Sunday evening, I felt recharged enough to take on some neglected cleaning projects. I finally took care of a fairly large energy/emotion suck from my downstairs that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to dismantle in the aftermath of a recent relationship end/shift/change. I feel home in my home again.

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Walking across McCorkle Place this evening, I stopped at Dancer the oak and gathered some of the sawdust still in little piles beneath her. I crouched at her foot and leaned my back against her trunk, observing mushrooms poking up through the mulch.

Ah, the mushroom connection…. le-champignon… that’s another story for later (and/or years ago and possibly still buried somewhere around this site…). What struck me about them today was how the mushrooms themselves are fairly soft and squishy, usually velvety to the touch. Yet suddenly, here they are, appearing to have silently exploded from the earth when I wasn’t looking. Mulch and soil are pushed aside like so much rubble.

I was quickly beset by vicious mosquitoes, so I did not linger with Dancer and the mushrooms. I did notice, however, that her fallen limb was purposefully cut. I assume this would not have been done without good reason, but the fact that it was done in such a way that two lower limbs were damaged made me a bit angry. So it goes. Breathe it out and inhale perspective. How many of my lifetimes would fit in the lifetime of that tree right now? How many of me would fit inside her trunk? What are my concerns really worth? The answer is so faint it passes like one leaf scuttling across the brick path.

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After work I went grocery shopping and was once again astounded at how expensive it is to eat the healthy food I do these days—mainly fresh organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. And some cottage cheese, maple nut Clif bars, and cherry Larabars. Oh yes, and frozen Indian entrees. I’m not that virtuous. I am very grateful that I can afford my diet. I couldn’t afford to eat this way before January, and there are a billion ways things could unfold. I don’t assume I’ll always be able to afford it.

Part of the weekend’s unplanned retreat was avoiding the grocery story by raiding the freezer and pantry for some older staple foods like pasta and some frozen vegetables. I love pasta, but I can notice a big difference in how I feel after a big bowl of pasta versus a VitaMix full of grapes, celery, kale, and apple. I just note this and appreciate the fact that I can keep myself well-stocked with fresh bright things to eat if I deign to leave my house.

Speaking of being grateful for good food, I started The Fruitful Darkness this weekend. It is written in a somewhat revelatory tone, but most of what she is saying is not news to me. Animals and trees deserve respect? We are all connected at the root of things? Yes. Being reminded doesn’t hurt, but seeing animals and trees is a better reminder than reading it in a book. A number of things I’d like to read more about seem like mere sketches. All that said, I’m still reading it, so I’m getting something out of it. I mention it here because it includes this Zen gatha by Thich Nhat Hanh, to be recited before eating:

In this plate of food,
I see the entire universe
supporting my existence.

I have a fairly visceral negative reaction to being asked to stop and say something, or listen to someone else say something, before I eat. This comes from years of being forced to hold hands before sitting down to eat in order to listen to someone ramble on to/about the “heavenly father,” who had the power to “bless the hands that prepared this food and the hands that brought it to us,” and to bestow “traveling mercies” on anyone who would be leaving after the meal. There is nothing offensive in the literal experience of this, but it taps a much-deeper vein of memory of assimilation by the Southern Baptist Borg at a time when resistance was truly futile. The quoted phrases above are enough to make me want to kick something if I dwell on them for a moment or two.

These days my practice is to push right into harmless things to which I have a knee-jerk negative reaction. This is what led to me doing karaoke “I Wanna Be Sedated” in my friend’s yard a few months ago. I do not do karaoke, see. Oh yeah? I’ll show me.

The above gatha resonates just enough that it may be the thing to deflate my pre-meal blessings reaction. We’ll see. If I can remember to think about it. Speaking of mental lapses, I apparently forgot I ordered The Fruitful Darkness and ordered it again, because I now have two copies.

I came to my computer to post something else from the book, and talk of food got me off track. This is unattributed on p. 157, and I love it:

Soil for legs
Axe for hands
Flower for eyes
Bird for ears
Mushroom for nose
Smile for mouth
Songs for lungs
Sweat for skin
Wind for mind

As I slowly drove the winding narrow road home from the grocery this evening, a hawk flew low across the street. Right in front of my car he seemed to transition from head-first laser-targeting to talons-first landing in the woods. All I really caught a glimpse of were barred tail feathers spread out as he disappeared behind foliage.

Treasures, all around… magic things…

God made love to me,
Soothed away my gravity,
Gave me a pair of angel wings,
Clear vision and some magic things.
God is love to me.
Thank you for those things.
Understand the world we’re living in—
Love can mean anything.

–Tim Booth

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Posted in books, quotidian, wonders and treasures

Tagged , ,

battle.

Posted on July 27, 2010 | 1 Comment

Tonight I did battle with a spider in my kitchen.

At first I thought it was a mouse running directly toward my feet. Then it charged at me two more times. The last time, I had a fly swatter.

I won.

I’m glad I won, or I would have slept like this tonight:

My arachnophobia has really eased up after a year of doing meditation and trauma work. At this point I wouldn’t claim a full-on phobia, as I let many spiders live in the house without disturbing them. And they don’t bother me.

A spider that can be mistaken for a mouse, however… THAT is a problem.

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Posted in quotidian

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