Sensory Overload

Lost Souls Radio

In a time when the Presidential Radio Address has been replaced by the YouTube Video Address, and when you can download your favorite radio show to listen to on your computer at your leisure, the smoky, distant intimacy of a radio and my favorite radio voice still entrance me ~ seductive but safe, mysterious while somehow comforting, faceless yet so familiar.  Often, when I get pulled, or I sink, into a story being told to me, just to me, on the radio ~ I will look at it ~ look directly into the face of the radio telling me the story.  I catch myself doing that, like tonight; then, embarrassed, even though I'm alone, I look out at the tempting sky, with a sheepish grin, resting my very next breath on the very next word which will float up to my ear.

Tonight I got home and sat in the garage for 20 minutes, not wanting to miss a second of an interview with a funny, awkward, author ~ he was sweet even.  And I understood why an entire neighborhood of families during the Great Depression would crowd around that mysterious box, would stare expectantly into its center...and watch it....weave words of wonder.

I have nearly finished my second reading of Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón: "For 10 years, Norma has been the on-air voice of consolation and hope for the Indians in the mountains and the poor from the barrios -- a people broken by war's violence.  As the host of Lost City radio, she reads the names of those who have disappeared -- those whom the furiously expanding city has swallowed."

The book itself is a mystery to me.  It's not laugh-out-loud hilarious at a mile-a-minute as the one I read two months ago; and it's not as sleepily seductive or sadly poetic as the one I read after that; nor is it brimming with that type of complicated prose where you feel oh-so-smart just reading it and have to look up more than a dozen words to get through the damn thing.  So I ask myself, why this book?  It's so quiet most of the time ~ what's so OUTstanding about it?  What's so bloggingly brilliant about it? 

But somewhere inside I know.  I read it.  Again.  All  night.

Her voice was her greatest asset, her career and her fate.  Elmer called it gold that stank of empathy.  Before he disappeared, Rey claimed he fell in love again every time she said good morning.  You should have been a singer, he said, though she couldn't even carry a tune....She was a natural: she knew when to let her voice waver, when to linger on a word, what texts to tear through and read as if the words themselves were on fire.  The worst news she read softly, without urgency, as if it were poetry.
. . . . .

Hers was the most trusted and well-loved voice in the country, a phenomenon she herself couldn't explain.  Every Sunday night, for an hour, since the last year of the war, Norma took calls from people who imagined she had special powers, that she was mantic and all-seeing, able to pluck the lost, estranged, and missing from the moldering city.  Strangers addressed her by her first name and pleaded to be heard.  My brother, they'd say, left the village years ago to look for work in the city.  His name is... He lives in a district called...He wrote us letters and then the war began.  Norma would cut them off if they seemed determined to speak of the war.  It was always preferable to avoid unpleasant topics.  So instead she asked questions about the scent of their mother's cooking, or the sound of the wind keening through the valley.  The river, the color of the sky.  With her prodding, he callers revisited village life and all that had been left behind, inviting their lost people to remember them: Are you there, brother?  And Norma listened, and then repeated the names in her mellifluous voice, and the board would light up with calls, lonely red lights, people longing to be found.  Of course, some were impostors, and these were the saddest of all.
. . . . .

Of course, he'd heard Norma's voice before.  In 1797, the owner of the village's canteen had a good radio, with an antenna long enough to get a signal from the coast, and so, each Sunday, the women and the children and the remaining men crowded in to listen.  It was what they did instead of church.  They gathered an hour before to eat and drink and gossip.  Potatoes, mushy overripe fruit, and thin silver fish salted in broth.  Loud voices, the beginnings of a song.  They brought portraits of their missing, simple drawings that an itinerant artist had done years before.  They  hung these on the walls, rows of creased and smudged faces Victor didn't recognize, whose mute presence made the village seem even smaller.  Then, at eight o'clock, there was a hush, and static, and that unmistakable voice through the tinny speakers: Norma, to listen and heal them; Norma, mother to them all.

My cell phone rang while I was at work; I didn't recognize the number, only that it was from Houston.  I didn't want to answer.  They left a voice mail.  Then, it rang again ~ urgently ~ flashing "Mami - Cell" on the cracked purple screen. 

Mijita, she cried in my ear.  Why didn't you answer?  Te habló el Pastor!  Te quiere decir que nos hizo una oración ~ la ollíste?  Pón tu radio a "Radio Triunfo"!  Ándale.  La dirrección es: duble-v, duble-v, duble-v, punto, rrr-radio triunfo, punto, com, NO!, punto NET.

It was my mom, urging me to call "our Pastor" because he had led a prayer for us on his show, RADIO TRIUNFO.  My mom spelled out the URL for me in Spanish.  I tried to tell her that I don't believe; I can't; why would I?  How could I?  And besides, does God really listen to A.M. radio?  To Pentecostal Revival boleros?  (That's what is playing right now, as I listen on-line.)

Mija, she begs ~ Please ~ It's true she says.  She explains.  Papi has three tumors in his upper arm; he can barely even move his neck; he needs surgery to remove them.  I asked, again, if they have made an appointment to go to the hospital, not just to Dr. Diaz's office.  She tells me: But we went to Church, Sunday.  Ay mija ~ cantamos ~ oramos ~ nos dieron cena.  She used that sing-song voice, extending the second syllable for an extra beat; it always feels like a heartbeat to me, when we speak like that.  So, they prayed; they sang; they had dinner there.  He seemed to feel better after, less pain., she says.  MOM ~ por favor.  Surgery.  Please.  She changed the subject.

She begged me to call El Pastor.  I listened.  I shrank to the size of my 12-year old Self.  I mumbled, "sí, sí, sí," and hung up.  I told my co-worker.  She has two grown sons.  She gave me the Mom look.  I got up and scuffled to a private room, to call El Pastor.

Ay Mija, he shouted in Excited Radio Voice when I called.  I let him talk.  I listened.  I promised I would tune in, on-line.  He said that when he asked listeners to pray for me, the light-board lit up like fire ~ calls were flooding in.  I told myself I must have been the most popular sad story that day.  I thanked him.  I made promises. 

Because I do try to do, sometimes, what I promise people, I did go to his show on-line.  I will listen.  That's all ~ it won't kill me.  But will not believing as I listen kill me?  He asked me in Spanish, well, told me: You don't go to church do you?  ~ In order to "make up" for my not believing, I told him that I do go near a Church ~ when I volunteer at the shelter to serve food; they provide a service, "The Message," complete with a rather fantastic salsa-type band.  I hide in the shadow of the hallway connecting the ministry to the dining hall, and I listen before I go cut mold off the bread.  Is that close enough?

The only thing I remember now, of what he murmured to me, is: "En esta vida estas lista para dar, ó para recibir.  Necesitas, simplemente, recibir.  Gana tu fuerza, y luego puedes dar."  ~ In this life, you are ready to give, or to receive.  You need simply, to receive.  Regain your strength, and then you can give. 

Back in my office, my co-workers are listening to the radio.  On-line.  Streaming.  They each entered the contest for a trip for 4 to Hawaii or Disneyland.  They both said that if either of them wins, we will all go together.  I told them there is no way I will go to Disneyland; then they remind me I love the "It's a Small World" ride.  OK, I say.

They turn back to work, to the beat of the music.  They each listen intently. 

For their names.

Visions and Villains

A year or so ago, I began reading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, A Memoir in Books.  I didn't know anything about the book when I saw it, but I was immediately interested in it because it was about exploration of the works of some of my favorite writers: Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Jane Austen.  I also thought it would be an interesting way to learn more about the politics of Iran, the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, etc.  Plus, the book was "free" because I bought two other books that day.

Initially, I was captivated by the writing ~ it was at moments vivid, intimate, uninhibited, and, in certain phrases, simply lovely.  But after a few chapters, I found I couldn't identify with Nafisi and her personal story ~ she seemed to me (from what little I read) to have lived quite a privileged life (her literary and political family, her life before the Revolution, as a professor, as a writer, and later her life in the States).  I couldn't get past the image I quickly created about her; and so I put the book down (actually, I complained loudly and tossed the book back on my bookshelf).

Recently, for some unknown reason, I decided to give the book another chance.  I told myself that I do appreciate the beautiful writing and that perhaps that appreciation would outweigh, or even enrich, whatever criticism I had of her personally.  I also read a little more about her and about the book, and various critiques of the book ~ for non-fiction I do generally like to have the "back story" on the writer and the narrative in general.  I learned more about the wholeness of the story before I went back to consider the particular morsels of the moments that sum up the story.

I reached the chapter where Nafisi discusses how upset one her students becomes when she hears the label the others have placed on her, how they define her ~ whereas one is a poet and another a painter, they sum her up as a "contradiction in terms."  And today at lunch, sitting out in the sun, this part stunned me in its stark reflection of my reality, at this moment in time:

The sun and clouds that defined Nassrin's infinite moods and temperaments were too intimate, too inseparable.  She lived by startling statements that she blurted out in a most awkward manner.  My girls all surprised me at one point or another, but she more than the rest.
~
In class, we were discussing the concept of the villain in the novel. ~~ Humbert, like most dictators, was interested only in his own vision of other people.  He had created the Lolita he desired, and he would not budge from that image.  I reminded them of Humbert's statement that he wished to stop time and keep Lolita forever on "an island of entranced time," a task undertaken only by Gods and poets.

And I sat there on the warm grass, lamenting the cold reality of the visions and villains in my own life ~ of someone creating an image of me so idealistic that there was no living up to it.  And when I failed, as anyone would have, the dark rigidity of the image would not bend to allow any new light into its corners.  The darkness of this helplessness ~ as someone else shapes the ball of clay that is You, and then destroys it, and then never lets you place a hand on re-centering and throwing the ball of clay back onto the wheel, to reshape it ~ it is blinding.

Years ago, through some freak accident, I suffered from Vertigo.  I felt like I was spinning and whirling, completely, for about a week.  Everything around me seemed like it was moving, but then so did I ~ it was like a double dose of a swift orbit ~ around me and within me.  And recently this feeling has surfaced for me not only in the three-dimensional world of my reality, but in the simulated two-dimensional Web 2.0 world: you present and perceive certain images ~ of yourself and of other people.  I see now that when the fluidity of cyberspace and your real personality are confronted by the rigidity of the zeros and ones of our computers...well, reality and flexibility and lucidity are lost ~ and so are you.

And all of these themes ~ control, betrayal of vision, fear, deception, loss ~ are beautifully portrayed in one of my favorite films: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.  I adore James Stewart ~ but I was struck more by a simple line uttered by Kim Novak, as Madeleine: Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

And that's all I thought about today at lunch ~

musing

It comes in threes for me, it seems ~ inspiration ~ often three seemingly disconnected events dance around me in synchronicity, until I notice how the elements attract each other, how they fit together, and how their combined force amplifies the electricity of the epiphany that shocks, then soothes, me.

Last Saturday night, after about four hours of a grueling hike against the wind to a snow hut that dangles precipitously on the edge of a ridge in the Sierras, I sat at a wooden table with three strangers and two friends.  The low, flickering light from the lone candle cast long shadows on the white-washed walls.  As we sipped wine and Manhattans and Maker's Mark (in my hot cocoa), and as the dense cloud of a marshmallow bobbed up and down in my cocoa, I soaked in the warmth of the night, despite the freezing, frantic winds howling outside.  Later I will write about the actual weekend and the snow trekking that I never thought my body could withstand, but for now I want to think only about the bright smile of the person who recommended I read the book Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

I bought the book a few days ago and put it at the top of my pile of "books to read" ~ the books near the bottom of the pile sighed sadly, resigned to the fate of waiting even longer to seduce me.  But Three Cups of Tea seemed confused when I walked away, leaving it naked and unopened at the top of the pile, wondering what it could have done to entice me right away.  But I was thinking about it ~ and that counts.

Then a couple of days ago, a lovely twitter friend posted a stream of tweets chronicling a conversation with someone she adores, who wanted to tell her about the death and birth of stars ~ she didn't want to forget what he was telling her about the infinite mass (and thereby possibility) of space and time ~ so she flung his words (and her fascination with him) into cyberspace, to seep in under the skin of someone like me.

So I remembered ~ and I checked ~ yes, new stars are born out of the atoms and molecules of stars that have exploded, and gravity is the driving force behind the birth of a new star.  And, although gravity is a weak force, it has an infinite range, so that slowly but surely it pulls the particles together, and they then accelerate inwards.  The process is very slow, but there is all the time in the universe for it to happen.

And I liked that. 

Then it reminded me of the massive midnight-blue sky above me that night at the snow hut ~ I went out after dark to walk around and was mesmerized by the infinite salty sky above me ~ that's what it looked like to me ~ salt everywhere, the seemingly random granules forming protective walls around the beautiful constellations.

So today I took the book with me to the tea shop, and over two pots of tea, as the steam floated up and made the still-present salt in my eyes burn, I read this in the first chapter, aptly titled, 'Failure':

The wind picked up and the night became bitterly crystalline.  He tried to discern the peaks he felt hovering malevolently around him, but he couldn't make them out among the general blackness. ... Sleep, in this cold, seemed out of the question.  So Mortenson lay beneath the stars salting the sky and decided to examine the nature of his failure.

And so I did that a little ~ really sitting at the counter with my Failure and asking it how I did it all so wrong.  It sipped tea with me a while ~ and the tango music on the speakers taunted me ~ we both sighed.  As I finished off my food and sipped the last of the tea, Failure put its heavy arm around me and walked with me outside.  And then it let me cross the street alone, on to the place where I needed to be next.

Read To Me

It took about three years for me to finally snag tickets to see David Sedaris ~ Sure, I had to buy the tickets about four months ago and I shelled out $100 to basically watch someone read out loud for 90 minutes and it took a two hour drive down to San Jose in rush hour traffic....but oh was it worth it.  If you have not seen David Sedaris, do it soon.  My addiction to Sedaris started with Me Talk Pretty One Day, then onto Naked, and then Holidays On Ice ~ I feed my habit by listening to his stories on "This American Life".  I've heard that listening to the audio books of his work is the best way to read/hear his stories ~ he is a master storyteller ~ perfect cadence and rhythm and hilarious writing.  I can personally vouch for the perfect-ness of a David Sedaris podcast on a road trip ~ you will love it.

So, "the concert." The theater at the Center for the Performing Arts was absolutely sold out ~ 2,665 seats; 800 tickets were at Will Call.  I've never seen so many book-nerd-hipsters, young and old, in my life; it was Heaven.  We got there late but the show had not started yet; we had time to get to our seats.  However, contrary to the dotted line on the on-line seating chart, there is NO middle aisle in this crazy theater and so to reach our seats, dead-center Row 22, we had to climb over about 80+ people.  I hoped they could not smell the whiskey on my breath as I came face to face, nose to nose, with a few less-than-pleased early-bird senior citizens.

There were no long introductions, no Bio, no fanfare ~ Sedaris walked out, fumbled with some papers, smiled at us, sipped some water and explained how The New Yorker, or maybe NPR, or maybe some other magazine, had asked him to contribute a story to a collection where the theme was language, or rather, language misunderstandings in other countries.  He explained he didn't like what he wrote, so instead he submitted the story he was about to read to us, about misunderstandings between Americans, sometimes in other countries.  We laughed non-stop for the duration of the 15-20 minute reading ~ I can't even explain the story but can only tell you that halfway through, somehow, it involves the story of an American friend who visited them in France, and the level of insecurity Sedaris felt by the perfect French the friend spoke; so threatened in fact, that he responded to the American friend's French questions in Japanese, just to feel superior; and then somehow the story ends with a diatribe about wild rabbits in their garden, beginning with the rabbit he named "Chagrin!" (uttered in an explosive guttural French accent), then a dispute with his houseguest over whether chagrin actually means "regret" versus "sorrow," and ending with the rabbit he named in honor of their house guest, something like, "So Glad He's Never Fucking Coming Back."

After we all caught our breath and paused from laughing so hard, Sedaris explained that the magazine turned DOWN his submission, saying it was just a collection of, or a mish-mash of, moments; and that it "didn't really add up to anything".  He shrugged and said,

    If you count non-stop laughter as 'nothing'.

Oh, his bitter bite was priceless.  Speaking of priceless, at the end, he read us excerpts from his Diary.  In one he described either an ad he had seen, or something he did, or wanted to do ~ who knows, something like: "One large vat of Vaseline, $2.99; one six-pack of condoms, $12.99.  Making your parents think your brother is Gay: priceless."

He also told us how he generally signs books before (and after) each show.  Before the show, if he knows there will be no Emcee to introduce him, Sedaris will pay a stranger, preferably a teenager, $20 to introduce him.  Recently, he paid a 16 year old girl $20 to introduce him ~ he told her to get out there and say her name and age (definitely say your age), and then tell everyone that I paid you $20.  Of course, the audience roared with laughter ~ and Sedaris explained, "imagine being that 16 year old girl who just made a room full of nearly 3,000 people laugh ~ try to turn your back on that!"   At the end of the show, he takes questions and someone asked him if, given his insecurities, performing live had lived up to his expectations.  He answered simply, "Oh.  It certainly has."  He loves it, and it shows, and it's great.

After each show, he gives away one copy of his book published in another language ~ but only if you speak that other language.  The night before he had given away a Slovenian copy of one of his books.  Monday night, he was giving away the French translation of "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" ~ somehow, the title had been translated to "Habillez votre famille pour l'hiver" ("Dress Your Family For Winter").

During the show he read a story he will include in his next book ~ he is still working out the kinks, and (to me anyway) it was fun to hear something the general public hasn't heard yet.  He also read "Crybaby," which he said will be published in The New Yorker in a month or so ~ it involves tales of his trans-Atlantic trips from New York to France, getting used to Business Elite Class, flight attendants at a show who clued him in on "crop-dusting" (you don't want to know), a Polish man on the plane mourning the death of his mother (Sedaris felt the man "overdid it" at one point), and Sedaris' own reaction, involving tears, to the in-flight Chris Rock movie.  Oh yes ~ read that story when it comes out!

After the show, and after 90 minutes of continuous laughter, peppered with a few gasps of shock at some parts, 2665 people poured out of the theater onto the clean quiet streets of Downtown San Jose.  We talked about how fun live performances are, everything from getting there to the audience to the performer and the euphoric feeling afterwards.  The show reminded me how much I like to read to, read with, other people, and to be read to ~ really.  I love finding that one sentence (or 10) that I fall in love with, and absolutely having to read it out loud to you ~ to hear the sentence structure build, to feel the emotion of it roll off my tongue, to see the smile it evokes in you, or the glint in your eye of recognition or admiration of the writing.  All of my books ~ they are highlighted and I keep almost all of them, just in case I ever want to go back and lose myself in a sentence, or a paragraph.  The record highlighting is in any Raymond Chandler book, but primarily in my tattered copy of "The House of Mirth,"  where some of my favorite lines say:

"It is surprising how little narrow walls and a low ceiling matter, when the roof of the soul has suddenly been raised...."   

"Light comes in devious ways to the groping consciousness...." 

"Lily smiled at her classification of her friends.  How different they had seemed to her a few hours ago!  Then they had symbolized what she was gaining, now they stood for what she was giving up.  That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way.  Under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement."

Most recently, the highlighter has been bestowed upon pages and pages of "Beyond The Earth and The Sky" and even, begrudgingly, a few small sections of "Eat Pray Love."  Right now, though, I'm reading "The Devil In The White City," at the suggestion of my smart and well-read friends Ginger and Sebastian.  The story is amazing and I turn the pages feeling like I'm on the edge of my seat; the suspense is powerful and fun.  The book is about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair ~ so the history of architecture, city planning, labor issues, enormous civic pride, not to mention a serial murderer in the midst, makes for a dazzling story.  I'm almost done with the book but way back on page 17 I liked this:

Abruptly there was color everywhere: the yellow streetcars and the sudden blues of telegraph boys, jolting past with satchels full of joy and gloom; cab drivers lighting the red night-lamps at the backs of their hansoms; a large gilded lion crouching before the hat store across the street. In the high buildings above, gas and electric lights bloomed in the dusk like moonflowers.

Oops.  How'd I get here?  This was supposed to be short ~ to the point: GO SEE DAVID SEDARIS.  How did all this time and blathering on happen?  I guess the point really is: I like to read, and to be read to, and to read to people ~ how's 'bout you?

On Conclusions, Endings, & Finales

I just read an amazing article at SFGate.com by Steven Winn, the Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic: Endings are a catharsis. They give meaning to what comes before, and change us from the way we were.  The article is about endings ~ in movies, in books, in plays . . .and in your life.  We all have our favorite endings, or the endings that had a lasting impact on our lives, our perception, the art of our living ~ some of mine include Lily's demise in The House of Mirth; the look on Kevin Spacey's face at the end of The Usual Suspects; the traditionally hokey but still teary-eyed endings of It's a Wonderful Life and The Wizard of Oz, or even San Francisco's own show, Beach Blanket Babylon; the final words in Ulysses, uttered by Molly Bloom: "and yes I said yes I will Yes."; the untimely death of the wonderful actor Massimo Troisi, who died the day after completing Il Postino; and the surprise plot-twist in one of the most amazing plays I have ever seen, The Countess.  Ooh, ooh, and we can't forget the universal ending of weddings, proms, bat mitzvahs, and gay discos everywhere: Donna Summer's 1978 hit, Last Dance. ~ :) ~  But I digress...I have also had amazing and cathartic endings in my personal life ~ leaving Houston when I was 19, to come out to the Bay Area, even though I had never been here and didn't even know anyone out here; the wonderful semester with J. who knew it would have to end when the semester ended; the scandalous ending with F. which showed how me quickly people can sell you up the river; the morning of my last final exam in my third year of law school; and the "reflection" groups I led at the end of every semester I volunteered with middle-school students.  All memorable, some bitterwseet, a few traumatic.

In Winn's article, he writes that "A great artistic ending, by contrast, is both startling and inevitable, mysteriously certain. It clarifies even as it complicates, crystallizes and expands."  I think great endings in our own lives should be this as well, impossible as that seems.  Last night, New Year's Eve, I sat around a table with old friends and new, discussing 2004 and our resolutions for 2005.  I generally avoid resolutions because they tend to put more pressure on me, more fear of the failure of not accomplishing things such as "clean out bedroom closet" and "end world hunger."  But one person at the table read off his list of resolutions he had made for 2004, a courageous act given the drinking involved, and openly discussed which resolutions he had accomplished and which he had not.  The list was long and diverse and touching and bold, and the sentiment captured well in this sentence from Winn's article:

The last day of the year comes whether we're ready to make sense of it or not. We bully ourselves into musing retrospection and halfhearted resolutions, inventing a story to fit the end.

This year has made little sense to me and last night, as I met new people, I found myself making half-hearted attempts at inventing a story that would fit where I was that night, and why, and how.  Nothing came to mind and maybe I came across as aloof, or mysterious, or just plain crazy.  It didn't matter though because I brought all the food and was busy steaming tamales and heating Mexican rice for everyone anyway, and trying to make sure the non-Latinos didn't eat the corn husk.  It was a nice time.

But I left that night with still no story to fill up the empty shell that comprises my 2004.  Melodramatic, but true ~~ if you only knew.  And, maybe my not making resolutions last year was part of the problem.  Maybe keeping goals "in my head" where no one knows about them in case I fail, well, maybe that's not such a good plan of attack.  So I went for a drive today to the North Bay ~ and reminded myself how lucky I am to live in the Bay Area . . . and reminded myself that it's probably time to leave, to move on, to put an ending to the Bay Area before it puts an ending on me.  I drove around and realized it was like I wanted another look, just to make sure I knew what I was thinking...it was like dumping that gorgeous J. Crew model boyfriend you know is not good for you ~~ you take one last look into that beautiful face and realize how empty it all is. 

And so I called my sister and checked the job market down in Southern California and submitted applications for a couple of jobs and conferred with friends and made sure I can do this ~ move . . . physically, emotionally, carefully.  As difficult as the Bay Area is, there is a certain "comfort zone" which keeps me anchored here ~ and those kinds of comfort zones are like quicksand.  And so I want to dig myself out of this hole I have dug...hopefully move south ~ or at least move within myself to reinvent my life in the Bay Area, I suppose.  But really, that was the least cathartic realization of the day.

You're OK . . . Until Further Notice . . .

That's what my supervising partner told me at work this afternoon . . . I sat there for a second, thinking, "well, that sounds like maybe I am not getting laid off. . . wait, does it?"  I didn't know which way was up anymore.  Like I posted earlier, today was Pink Slip Friday and people were getting called in one by one to learn their fate . . . but I didn't get my talking-to until 1:30 p.m.!  That means I waited around for hours, pretending to work in my office, clutching my stressed-out stomach, on the verge of tears, watching while people cried in the hallways or commiserated in the kitchen or sat in stony silence waiting their turn ~~ as people were told they were getting laid off, the emails started coming out, "leaving for the rest of the day."  Many people left work early ~ the ones who stayed attended a full staff meeting around 2 pm where we learned more details about a possible Round 2 of lay-offs.  So, for now, I am secure in my job ~~ if by "secure" you mean, like, I can walk around on egg-shells, fearful of the potential impending doom, and the rug can be pulled out from under me at any time.

So, it seems in my job-situation, like my law-school-experience and job-hunting and relationships, this mantra, "you're OK . . . until further notice," dominates . . . and I'm really tired of feeling/being in limbo ~ ~ I want someone, or something, or fate, or the Moon, or the pizza-delivery-guy to look me in the eye and say, "this is what you will do ~~ this is what you are destined to become."  In the timeless words of Derek Zoolander ~ "Who Am I?"

Sigh.  After the lay-offs, no one could concentrate at work and so after the staff meeting, people just started going home.  I went home and read a little before going to dinner and read this funny, and timely, passage in David Schickler's Kissing in Manhattan :

    Donna had grown up in Manhattan.  As a girl she took ballet classes at Ms. Vivian's, on the Upper East Side.  Ms. Vivian watched Donna's body carefully, to see whether Donna had a vocation for ballet.  Ms. Vivian was an expert on the matter of young women's arches, calves, breasts, and demeanors.  Fable had it that Ms. Vivian possessed gypsy blood, that she could read in a girl's limbs and attitudes that girl's destiny.  Jezebel Hutch, for instance, grew up with Donna and took ballet at Ms. Vivian's for seven years, until the day Ms. Vivian tapped Jezebel's shoulder and said: "You are an astronaut."

    Jezebel giggled.  She was twelve.  "What?"

    Ms. Vivian was stone faced.  "You are an astronaut.  You will fly to the moon in the machines that men make.  You will be noble, but you will not dance."

    Jezebel's face collapsed.  "But —"

    Ms. Vivian pointed to the door.  "Farewell," she said.

And I laughed out lout because I need a Ms. Vivian in my life, dammit.  I feel like a yo-yo at work and in my personal life and in this great big ocean of a world . . . I  mean, where the hell is my buoy?  I'm not asking for a life raft, or a yacht, or even a paddle-boat . . . just a buoy, to mark the navigational channel I should take, to keep me afloat for a while until the Coast Guard gets here . . . and by Coast Guard, I just mean my kick-ass self . . . I'm treading water and my kick-ass rescue-self is tired so I need a little help.

And by help, I mean a little re-focus, a little loving support dammit, a little fun.  So I drove to dinner at my friends Seb & Michele's house to laugh and scream and color with their amazing daughters, little Jac and Dylan.  On the drive over, one of my favorite Matt Nathanson songs came on, Pretty The World, and his lyrics showed me a glimmer of direction:

show me how pretty the world is.
cause i envy the way that you move
show me how pretty the world is...cause i
want something just a little bit louder
show me how pretty the world is
cause you're brilliant when you try
show me how pretty the whole world is tonight

i never thought that i could be who i am
i never thought that i could see where i was
i always thought that all this was just wasn't me
i always thought that all this was could never be

So maybe all the things I'm scared of, the potential success and failure of trying to be an attorney, of trying to bitch-slap the law, of trying to pursue some-sort-of-social-justice-sensibility, maybe it is me, maybe it can be, maybe I can do it and not lose sight of what's important ~~ or, maybe, as my friend Autumn considered (before she passed the California Bar Exam ~ go Autumn!), I can become a magician ~~ as Autumn pointed out, I'd get to wear a cape and carry doves around.  ~ :)
. . . ai, who knows . . .somebody somewhere, send me a Ms. Vivian, please.

Fire Memories

Yesterday was a beautiful and sunny day here in Oakland ~ I ran some errands with a friend, surviving a Saturday stroll through IKEA to help him pick out a few furnishings for his new apartment ~~ to endure the IKEA experience, we kept quoting our favorite lines from one of our favorite movies, Fight Club:

The things you own end up owning you.

Tyler: Do you know what a "duvet" is?
Jack: It's a comforter....
Tyler: It's a blanket, just a blanket.
Now why do guys like you and I know what a duvet is?
Is this essential to our survival?

Fuck Martha Stewart.  Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic.
It's all going down, man.

IKEA is only part of yesterday's equation, though.  I got home at 5 pm and sat at my desk to check email (...the things you own end up owning you...); my windows face West and so the sun was low in the sky, streaming in through the curtains ~ but this huge black cloud seemed to pass over the sun, blocking out the light ~ and the third time it happened, I looked out to see the apartment building behind mine on fire, and suddenly I noticed all the fire engine sirens which had a moment ago just been background noise I was ignoring.  At first, the clouds of smoke didn't appear so large, so I figured, well the firefighters are here, it's under control.  Then suddenly, the clouds of smoke were huge, black, pungent, and filling the air ~~ so I watched as three or four firefighters climbed up on the roof. 

I haven't been this close to a home burning down since I was 14....when my family's house burned to the ground, everything lost, on Christmas Eve.  The smell of the air yesterday and the sight of black clouds darkening the blue sky stirred this eerie memory in me; and so I stood on my balcony and watched, unable to walk back inside and forget the fact that right in front of me someone's home was being lost.  And then I heard a woman crying and shouting.....I thought it was a tenant maybe, down on the street ... but I looked across the way and saw that she was trapped on the top floor corner apartment, pressing her face to the window screen, shouting for help.  The firefighters on the roof couldn't hear her because of the noise from the sirens and fire, and because they were in the middle of the roof, several yards from her corner apartment.  It was awful ~ she looked right at me, shouting for help and crying, as the black smoke billowed out of every window ~~ faster and larger and darker.  People on the street and I started shouting to the firemen and pointing to where the woman was trapped ~~ and I watched as one fireman walked over on the roof in the direction of the woman's apartment.  With complete calm, and keeping his eye on the area where the woman was trapped, he said, "We have a rescue situation over here, guys."  I mean, he was amazing ~~ utterly calm.  The fire crew put up a ladder on the side of the building and a fireman climbed into the apartment to help the woman get out through the part of the building which, although filled with thick smoke, was not yet in flames.

I grabbed my keys and walked around the block to go to the front of the building.  Five huge fire engines filled the block, massive water hoses snaked up the hill, TV crews were arriving, and several police cars were zig-zagged on the street.  I watched the growing crowd of neighbors watching, and recognized the expression on each face, each thinking two things: (1) Damn I'm glad that's not my apartment; (2) God, that could have been my apartment.  When I was 14, I sat in a neighbor's house across the street from my family home and watched my neighbors watch my house burn down, with that same expression.  I hadn't been this close to a burning building since then and part of me wanted to turn around and go back home yesterday ~~ to turn away, like many of us want to, from something so painful to watch, and feel, and remember.  But I stayed, and watched the fire ~~ within 7-8 minutes it was huge ~ we could feel the heat down the street and the apartment where the fire started was literally gone within 10 minutes.  I wondered why the firefighters weren't yet spraying water into the burning apartment ~ instead they were pouring water on the neighboring house and on the light pole right in front of the burning apartment, which was on the top floor.  The sight was amazing.  The sky was cloudless and a calm blue, the fire ladder was sticking straight up, extending as high as the light pole, the violent orange flames were kicking and screaming as part of the roof started caving in, and as the water shot up onto the light pole, a bright rainbow formed around the entire scene.

I finally realized that the firefighters were waiting for the fire to die down in that apartment, which it began doing once everything inside was completely destroyed ~ they were simply containing the fire to one spot and then controlling it to go in and fight it once it died down.  The fire crew began shooting intense streams of water into the apartment from all sides and for a minute we all thought it was under control.  But then something "popped" in the apartment underneath and within seconds that one was engulfed in flames, too.  Gawd, all the noise!  The firefighters had a chainsaw and axes; the sound of water rushing down the street and parts of the roof hitting the ground added to the controlled chaos.   A woman next to me was on her cell phone, telling her father-in-law on the phone, "it seems to be under control, your apartment looks ok...." and then calling him back to say, "no, it spread, your apartment is on fire."  I watched the firemen go into what remained off the first torched apartment and begin tearing down the roof above them ~~ chunks of debris, still in flames, were crashing down all around the firemen ~ we all watched in awe at what firemen do....and I thought of the taxes I am more than happy to pay to keep our fire houses fully staffed.  Within an hour, most of the fire was controlled and contained to one corner of the building, although you could see that smoke and water had caused heavy damage to the entire building.  The smell of water-soaked ashes began filling the air, and I couldn't bear the memory anymore so I walked back home, thinking to myself, "I better get renter's insurance".

On my street, many of the neighbors were out on their balconies, talking to each other, and they asked me if I knew that the electricity was out on our street.  It was 6:45 and the sun would be setting soon, so I went to my apartment to get candles and find a flashlight.  I thought I should go out, go somewhere and maybe watch a movie while the electricity gets fixed.  But, I was pretty shaken up by the sight of that woman clinging to her screen window, shouting and crying.  My street was pitch black and silent ~ I live at the top of a hill, on a dead-end street, so the quiet around me is intense sometimes.  I decided to stay home and finish reading The Alchemist, surrounded by candles, and with a little flashlight streaming across each word.  If you have never read The Alchemist this way, you should try it ~ it's stirring and emotional and intense.  I thought about the new stuff my friend had just bought and the reasons he had an empty apartment that he now needed to fill with new "things".  And I remembered how my family lost everything (well, material possessions) in that fire when I was 14, on Christmas Eve no less ~  and how I stopped believing in God that night, as I slept on the floor of a relative's home, wearing borrowed pajamas; and how many years it took me to start believing in things again, to start having faith in people ~~ and how often and strongly that faith has been tested.  I realized how much like "home" this apartment feels to me ~~ "home" because I know many of my neighbors, there are often people out on their balconies chatting with each other, when my neighbors go out to the store they often call me and ask if I need anything, I have keys to three of my neighbors' homes and everyone knows my telephone number in case they have an emergency, and because the people on the street in front of the fire expressed genuine concern for the neighbors left homeless by that fire.

I thought about the things I have lost.  And I went back to reading about Santiago's journey in The Alchemist:

"Men dream more about coming home than about leaving," the boy said.  He was already reaccustomed to the desert's silence.
"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil.  And one can always come back.  If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.

Late that night, after the lights came back on, my Mom called me.  She was at a conference in Anaheim and was sad there had not been time for me to fly down and see her over the weekend.  Sometimes my conversations with my Mom can be very touching because she gets so damn sappy with me (now you know where I get my sap-factor) ~~ I was a terrible teenager daughter, we clash often; but when I told her about the fire in the neighborhood, well  she knew without my describing it how the sight of the fire affected me ~ she soothed me with her words and funny promises of sending me more tamales by FedEx and some HerbaLife protein powder because, as she said, that's the only way she can "nourish me" right now since I am so far away.  And we talked briefly and cryptically about the difficult year I have had ~~ not saying too much, just enough to know she still believes in me, even if I don't.  And then I went back to re-read part of the story I had just read:

"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way.  It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream.  That's the point at which most people give up.  It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.' "

So, I made a chocolate shake from the stuff my mom sent me and I stayed up thinking ~ I walked out on my balcony to look over at the broken windows of the burned apartment building and could smell that unmistakable wet ash.  All types of metaphors filled my head ~ if you knew what I have been going through, you could imagine the sensory overload I was experiencing.....and I tried to come up with a plan to master some lessons.  It's interesting that when the fire started yesterday, and the clouds blocked out the sun momentarily, I thought it was a solar eclipse (until I realized it was a fire).  This month, there will be a partial solar eclipse on the 13th/14th and a total lunar eclipse on the 27th/28th ~~ you know how I am, always seeking out the meaning of everything, the mystery behind omens ~ and I read this, a sappy article about the "spiritual renewal" marked by these eclipses.  So, maybe I will incorporate that  theme into my master plan ~~ or maybe I will burn some memories, who knows......but I gotta do something.

I think that begins with remembering my family's fire, something I have tried many years to forget, despite the clanging that clouds my memory every time I hear fire engine sirens.  My father had designed and built that house from scratch ~ we had moved in only nine months earlier and thought we were "all that" with the "fancy" two-story home, each of the four kids with their own room (finally) and preparing to celebrate a big Christmas with lots of presents.  The entire house burned down because that winter, Houston was the coldest it had ever been and the water pipes had frozen ~~ there was no water in the hydrant to fight the fire; all we could do was watch helplessly, waiting only for the damn thing to die on its own.  After the fire, being told we'd had no insurance, we moved back to our tiny 3-bedroom/2-bath home (all 6 of us) in the same neighborhood, two streets away.  We would drive by the remains of our new/destroyed home, walking around on the foundation, nearly paralyzed with grief over all the hard work my father had just seen go up in flames.  But not my Dad; he got right back to work ~~ he drew up another set of blueprints, he saved up money, and he re-built the damn house within a year, right on the same foundation ~~ for my Dad, that thick black smoke that symbolized the destruction of something he created, it didn't choke the life out of him but rather breathed fresh air into his lungs, new life, new perspective.  As a "joke" he added a swimming pool in the backyard, "just in case we ever need water again to fight another fire."  Besides, he added, the second time around he could re-position doors and cabinets the way he "really wanted them."  This time we didn't fill the house with the fancy furniture we'd bought the first time, we had not much money left.  So we just filled the house with US ~~ loud and loving and crazy and fighting and shouting sometimes, but a stronger "us" built on the same foundation.  Sappy, I know ~ but true; unless you've seen what you think is your life go up in flames, then you can't imagine what I mean here.  Like my Dad, I need to draw up another set of blueprints; like my family, I need to reclaim the foundation I thought had crumbled; like my Mom I need to have faith that homemade tamales and love via FedEx are plenty of nourishment.

Anyway, I thought about all that last night on my balcony.  And again this morning as the wet-ash-smell lingered in the air.  And I guess I'll keep thinking about it until, like Santiago in The Alchemist, I realize the buried treasure is right where I am standing.

Random Mid-Week Thoughts

By 12:30 this afternoon, I had hit my Sensory Overload ~ I read through difficult email messages, had a maddening personal exchange with a friend who lives around the corner, and a torturous telephone conversation with another ~~ on all levels, in all types of communication, I am pretty beat up today, most of it brought on by myself. I went to the coffee shop on Lakeshore Avenue to get away and sit in the sun and read my new book, the matter of desire, by the Bolivian-born, American-based novelist, Edmundo Paz Soldán. I was up all night a few weeks ago, and saw a TV interview with Soldán, so I was intrigued enough to go out and buy his book. Apparently, Soldán has become the latest spokesperson in the McOndo literary movement, which "stands in opposition to the more bucolic magical realism of such writers as Gabriel Garcia Márquez; the McOndo writers instead embrace an urban vision that incorporates the pervasive influence of American pop culture in today's Latin America." That this new literary movement is called McOndo is, obviously, a reference to an urban, Americanized setting ruled by McDonald's, iMacs, and MP3's ~ but the name is also a tongue-in-cheek homage to the fictional village of "Macondo," the setting for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. Those writers are witty, I tell ya.

The eerie thing is that when I finally had time to open the book, about a week after I bought it, I discovered that the quote on the page before the title page is the Ford Madox Ford quote from the novel, The Good Soldier, which you know I blogged about a few days ago. And, if you know me, you know I am always seeking out reasons for these serendipitous connections (coincidences, some would say). But Fate paraded more connections out in front of me as I began reading the novel this afternoon.

In the book, the narrator, Pedro, travels to Bolivia to learn more about his father and his father's death ~ but also to escape a love affair in New York ~ and, of course, these two missions to his trip are ultimately about a desperate search for answers to his own life. After landing in La Paz, Pedro looks for the family member who is supposed to meet him there, and he realizes: "This is my city, but I would still feel like a stranger if there were no familiar face to help me, a glance to save me from my frequent forays into the depths of solitude at the slightest blunder of reality." And so, by the fourth sentence, on page one, I felt this connection to Pedro ~~ some inexplicable intimacy or awareness, which made me uncomfortable in its familiarity. Later, Pedro struggles with the possible onset of a migraine, knowing he will have to rely on Imitrex to tame the ferocious pain ~~ and, again, if you know me, you know I carry one-dose Imitrex nasal-spray in every bag, in every backpack, two by the bed, and one in the car, in case one of those debilitating attacks hits at a time when I cannot lock myself in a dark room to fight off the pain. And so, by page four, I love and hate Pedro and Soldán because I wanted to escape today, to forget about the chaos around me, but instead I am thrust dead-center into a mirror.........

And Pedro thinks to himself:

"Some were born to leave hieroglyphics behind them; others, to decipher them, to clarify the world another strives to make opaque. I belong to the latter, and I'm convinced that our work is no less honorable, no less deserving of recognition, than that of the creators. Without us, without our answer to their threatening, secretive challenge, they could not exist."

Ai, and I ask myself which am I? The creator, or the writer of the personal Rosetta Stone which seeks to translate a language you yourself fails to comprehend? I remember a few years ago, when I was in the "creator" mode and a boyfriend, C., basked in the complex, convoluted, callous reality I had created for myself. And now? I tinker away, with a small, broken, dull carving tool, picking away at a huge slab of dark stone, trying to carve out the translation, the answer, to these challenges around me ~~ trying to open up a sphere of light in that huge, oppressive, mysterious, dark stone. And yet Fate continued to torture me in this damn scenario ~~ as all of these thoughts come pouring into my head, and heart, and soul, and I remembered all of the "treading water" I have done lately or the "swimming just beneath the surface," who would have guessed it, but that damn song, "The Tide Is High," by Blondie, came on...... ♪ ♪ "I'm not the kind of girl who gives up juuuust like thaaaaat ~ Oh, noooo, oh, oh" ♪ ♪ I know, I know ~ I'm on thinking overkill/overload; I feel like Pedro's uncle in the novel: "His mind never ceased working. His thoughts crowded in on one another, falling between the coordinates of space and time only to expand, ramify, and intertwine with everything in their path." A little later in the book, Soldán illustrates Pedro's relationship with his uncle, who collects all sorts of antique typewriters, radios, and telephones:

       "Whose is this?" I said, pointing to the light green Smith Corona that occupied center stage.
       "Your dad's. He wrote parts of Berkeley on it. A collector wanted to buy it from me for a lot of money. Did he think I was crazy?"
       I admired it in silence: a small machine, portable, more suited to a professional or a busy executive than a romanticized writer.
       I saw your iBook," he said. "I don't like the color, prefer something more subtle. I have a Mac too. Until just a while ago I had a Commodore 64 that I'd made some adjustments to, to make it faster and run current programs. I finally got tired. It was too much work."
       "You don't collect any other type of antique. They all have something in common."
       "Yes. They allow communication at a distance. because, you know, that's the best way to communicate. At a distance. The presence of people only blocks communication."
       "And what we're doing now?"
       "Sometimes it can't be helped." He finished his whiskey in one long swallow and put the glass down on top of the dictionary on the table.

And today, in particular, I hate the truth of Pedro's uncle's declaration: the presence of people only blocks communication ~ and so we live in a digital age, where your closest connection, most intimate revelations, are sometimes online, to a faceless stranger ~~ as I often tell my friends, I was born in the wrong century. But here I am, and what can I do? Communicate with friendly strangers, at a distance ~ and you now know more about me probably than members of my own family. Pedro's uncle is surrounded by dictionaries and almanacs and encyclopedias ~ and he sets crosswords for a living, cloaking his clues with secret messages ~ he is surrounded by the medium of communication, and yet abhors actually speaking with other people. Oh, don't we each know someone like that? This morning, * I * got in the way of communication ~ I felt inundated by information and requests and advice ~ in person, on the phone, by email ~ and I don't know what to do about that right now; except to stop listening, maybe stop talking.

A little later in the book, Pedro questions whether he chose the right career by going to academia, where he has to assume the insignificance of his contribution. Pedro loves the world of books and research but he wants to be more relevant ~~ "not necessarily a politician like [his father] ([he] didn't think he had the heart for it), but maybe a strategist for some political party, or an influential analyst in newspaper opinion pages." And who among us has not questioned his/her relevance in this world, or questioned our choice of career? Except that Pedro seems to be thinking the things I am asking myself. He traveled in the direction of exploring the mysteries of his father's life, but in the direction away from his complicated love affair with an engaged woman. I (hope to) leave next week for Nevada ~ running towards something, to work on a campaign I feel so committed to, and yet running away from so many other things, so many other commitments. And my hope is that making a tiny difference in the campaign, will make a big difference in me.

Maybe I can only communicate with certain people right now ~~ say, strangers, or very young children. Last night I had dinner at my very good friends' house, S&M. They fed me and wrapped leftovers for me, and gave me a check to donate towards my fund to send me to Nevada. They often tell me that I do those things which they cannot attempt (because they have a mortgage to pay or a family or big jobs), and so they live by the "It Takes A Village" philosophy: send me out there instead, and they feed me, and donate when they can, and let me do laundry at their house, and I babysit their beautiful girls. Last night, little Jac, who is around 3-1/2, slipped and hit her chin, hard, on the edge of the dining room table. One minute she was laughing and excitedly telling us a story, the next instant she was sobbing. We calmed her down and distracted her with talk of dessert and she said, suddenly, "Look! I'm not crying anymore!" And it struck me as so honest and pure that she could point out when she had stopped hurting ~~ don't you wish we, as adults, had the courage to do this...and then laugh again, and shout and hug everyone and run around, eating cake, like she did? She is amazing, that little girl. Later, she wanted to join our adult conversation so she said, "John Kerry!" just to get our attention. I need to hang out with her more often, and listen to her, and let her listen to me, because she has a lot to teach me.

On Heading Out To A Swing State ~

I am packing up some stuff and was flipping through some of my old books today when I came across the The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford. Ford wrote this book in 1914, as Britain approached War with Germany, and traditional authority was being violently challenged on all fronts: threatened strikes by industrial workers, the fight for Independence by the Irish, the struggle for women's suffrage. The book is about adultery and deceit and passion, but the title is a reference to the narrator's struggle to make sense of a world that is disordered and morally chaotic. The narrator, John Dowell, is naive, obtuse ~~ he has blind faith in appearances and in the old-fashioned traditions of society ~~ and lacks a capacity for passion (sexual, moral, societal, personal). In the book, Dowell is trying to tell us that his wife has been having an affair for nine years with his good friend Edward ("the cleanest looking sort of chap, an excellent magistrate, a first rate soldier, just exactly the sort of chap you could have trusted your wife with") ~~ he wonders whether morality is nothing more than a mockery, whether "good people" really exist, and about the disappointing difference between appearance and reality:

Is there then any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's lives like the lives of us good people...broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?

What the heck does all this have to do with swing states? Well, I think our country right now is disordered and morally chaotic; I think our current Administration has made a mockery of Morality; I think we all know the current Administration is trying to convince us that appearances are all we need to believe in, not the reality of the complete absence of WMD's, not the reality of poverty, not the reality of economic disaster on the horizon; I think the "utopia" Dowell imagines in that scene above, well, that doesn't have to be a fantasy ~ I think we can make it real again, by Booting Bush and electing John Kerry. And in all this, the election has become a series of War references: the "battleground states," the "ground troops" (volunteers) in the swing states, the "attacks" the candidates hurl at each other, the "targeted" voters.

Well, I'm packing up my gear and going to a swing state ~ Nevada it seems right now, although my exact "assignment" will be confirmed next week. I know Florida, Ohio, and Missouri are worth more electoral votes, but I can't drive that far, and my primary effort will be outreach to Spanish-speaking voters, and probably some Native American communities. Nevada is worth five electoral votes and currently, the race is neck-in-neck, "Barely Bush" with Bush up by 4 points. I hope my car makes it out to Nevada, I hope I can find a way to pay my rent while I am gone, I hope the job offer I asked to defer until after the election will still be here when I get back. I will be working on mobilizing the Latino and maybe Native American vote, Getting Out The Vote in our communities, people whom you know aren't being included in polls because they might not have phones or answering machines, or they work from 7 am to 7 pm and thus aren't home when the pollsters call, or they aren't fluent in English so they can't answer the polling questions, or because they might only have a cell phone instead of a land-line and there is no way to poll cell phone users ~~~ so, don't listen to the polls, especially the ones showing Bush's lead growing in Arizona ~ trust the grassroots effort to get those voters out on Election Day.

MoveOn.org is pushing an effort called "Leave No Voter Behind" where they are raising funds to send 500 organizers out to the battleground states ~~ most of these volunteers will take unpaid leave from their jobs, so you can help support them by donating at the MoveOn.org site ~~ they want to raise $5 million. Me? Since my Fellowship ended on September 3 and I still don't have a job, well, I only want to raise enough money to pay a few bills while I'm in Nevada so that I don't lose my apartment or my health insurance, and so that when I return, the bill collectors won't have cleaned out my place and kidnaped my cat (Bill) for ransom.

If you feel so inclined to support your sister, Mari, feel free to donate to my own little cause, fighting for Nevada's 5 electoral votes, by clicking on the button below. And if you feel further so inclined, please pass this along to your friends or post it on your own blog ~ hopefully, anyone who can't travel to a swing state can donate a little bit of money, even $10 makes a difference, to MoveOn.org or to me, or to your own friends who may be heading out "to battle." Yeah, I know it's a crazy idea ~ but I'm trying to take our country back....won't you help me? Think of it as:

• It Takes a Village to Get the Country Back, or
• Nevada: Only $2 per Electoral Vote, or
• Help Me Make Nevada Blue, or
• Nevada: Don't Gamble on Another Four Years of Bush

Yeah, I made up those slogans myself. Pick your favorite and donate if you can. If I raise more than I need, :), I'll donate the surplus to MoveOn. All I know right now is that I will live with a Host Family wherever I end up; as soon as I get more details on where I will be, what I will be doing, and when I leave, I'll post about it. ~ Sigue la lucha and peace and all that. ~~ :)

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On Finding Balance and Reclaiming Past Lives

(Heads up: Sappy Overload coming your way, Sap Attack, Super Sap ~ the following post is pretty damn sappy. Read at your own risk.) Tonight I drove up to the Berkeley campus to meet a student at the Free Speech Movement Cafe and help him with his personal statement for his law school applications. It is so incredibly warm here, and school started last month, so as I drove around looking for parking, groups of undergrads in shorts and Cal t-shirts and backpacks crowded the sidewalks ~ it made me want to be back in school, back at the I-House with my friends, taking a nap on my books, pretending to know something about a lot of things, excited to learn. It's a privileged existence, really, and I miss that blissful angst. Meeting with my student-client was also an eye-opening experience, creating more questions for me than the answers I provided him for his essay and academic/career development. We spent a couple of hours discussing his many achievements and travels, his fight against cancer, and the many questions he has about what he wants to do with his life. It's humbling to have someone look to you for answers about life, and law school, and the legal framing of social issues ~ what do I know, right?. I felt a little overwhelmed ~~ but you know how damn sensitive I am. Here I was speaking with yet another human being, connecting again with someone on a very personal level, but this time not about politics ~~ just about him, and his struggles and studies and society and what the hell it all means. And I drove home, thinking about him and how young he is and how his entire life seems to be in front of him ~ and realizing that mine is as well ~ I have this exciting opportunity I yet have to tell you about, a new beginning maybe, a new chapter in this chaotic life ~~ and when my student-client and I were discussing his personal statement, that's how we broke things down into manageable pieces: the chapters of his life. What chapter am I in? Did I just get out of that creepy dream-sequence, and is the real part about to begin? Am I in the middle of a flashback sequence? There's a lot going on ~~ segments of my past creeping up and sneaking past my present, maybe into my future, but do I want that? On the drive home I thought about part of a poem Saul Williams wrote and included in his "Slam Diaries":

if i could find the spot where truth echoes
i would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future
i would let their future dwell in the past
so that i might live a brighter now

now is essence of my domain
but it contains all that was and will be.....

The "Slam Diaries" are part of the journal that Saul and the other filmmakers kept during the making of the film, Slam. The first time I saw this movie, I was left speechless by its magic ~~ Saul Williams' poetry in particular hit me hard ~~ I mean, brutally honest and passionate and sheer raw emotion ~~ the art of living a way most people are terrified of living.....raw. The filmmakers got real poets to play poets (you must see Beau Sia perform live!), cons to play cons, went to prison for their prison "set" and made real prisoners forget for a few days that they were locked in cages, as their reality was incorporated right into the film during shooting. Slam tells the story of Ray Joshua, an original, gifted young rapper trapped in a war zone housing project known as Dodge City. Unable to find a job, Ray copes with the despair and poverty of his neighborhood by using his wits and verbal talent. In the Slam Diaries, there is this quote by Ray Joshua: "This ain't no metaphor. This is my life."

And do you see now the connection I am finding between George Lakoff's "Metaphors We Live By" and this movie ~ the social constructs of politics ~ the political framework of poetry? So, I have all this whirling around in my head, it feels, like with the force of those waves Hurricane Ivan is hurling at the Coast....and I remembered, went way back into my past and my subconscious, to find this other poem I adore by Saul.....this poem down below which meant so much to me years ago, which my friend Ginger read aloud to me once ~~ and, finally, I reclaimed it ~~ revisited a particular portion of my past, and brought it square and center into my present.....wanting to shape it and remold it into a part of my future ~~ a way to weave love into political activism, the art of awareness, connecting politics to real life. In the Slam Diaries, the Editor writes, "All films are political. If there is zero political consciousness in a film -- that's its politics." And so I feel these days that all life is political ~~~ I don't want my life to have zero political consciousness. And I came home and found the poem ~~ the poem that shouted out at me from the movie screen, the poem I saw Saul Williams perform live, the poem he told me about in person, the poem that meant so much to me in a certain time in my life. And I re-opened the pages, re-uttered the words, rephrased its metaphors, and am reclaiming its imagination:

The Wind's Song

the square root of kiss is a hum
i hum under my breath when i contemplate the drum
of your heartbeat
and my heart beats for your breath
i revel in the wind for mere glimpses

i'm tornado over you
would you look into the eye of my storm
i whirlwind through your life like breeze
and fill your lungs
as we achieve the second power of a hum

i love...

as instruments come to life
through breath
the wind sends my high notes to indigo communions
with Coltrane's Favorite Things

...this is my body which is given for you,
this is my blood which is given for you...

my love like the wind, uncaged
blows time into timeless whirlpools
transfiguring fear and all of its subordinates
(possession, jealousy, fear)
into crumbling dried leaves

my love
is the wind's slave
and, thus, is free

my love
is the wind that is shaped
as it passes through the lips of earthly vessels
becoming words of wisdom
songs of freedom
or simply hot air

my love
is the wind's song:
if it is up to me, i'll never die.
if it is up to me, i'll die tomorrow
one thousand times in an hour and live seven minutes later.
if it is up to me, the sun will never cease to shine
and the moon will never cease to glow
and i'll dance a million tomorrows
in the sun rays of the moon waves
and bathe in the yesterdays of days to come
ignoring all of my afterthoughts
and preconceived notions
if it is up to me, it is up to me
and thus is my love:
untainted
eternal
***
the wind is the moon's imagination wandering:
it seeps through cracks
explores the unknown
and
ripples the grass
my love is my soul's imagination
how do i love thee?
imagine