How had Alex ended up here? His legs were starting to ache, and he was feeling dizzy from the skewed perspective. The noise of children from a few moments ago seemed to be fading--they were moving to a different area. Probably jeans would have been better for this position than work slacks, which were uncomfortably rubbing against the joint between his thighs and calf.
It occurred to Alex that, the longer he thought about his situation, the longer he remained in it. He probably shouldn’t stay like this for much longer, and thinking was prolonging his predicament. What should he do next, though? He could climb up on top, but what then? That seemed unsafe. Or he could jump down. But he didn’t want to jump down.
His mind flashed back to the argument with his wife Beth that morning.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” she’d said.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m finding myself attracted to Bill at work.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I’m not quite understanding this conversation.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Beth replied.
“Why did you tell me this right before I had to leave to pick up Caleb?”
“I don’t know. Don’t worry about it. Just think about bowling.”
“Think about bowling?”
“You always say that bowling relaxes you.”
“That’s playing bowling, not thinking about it.”
“We’ll talk about it later. I have to leave for work.”
Alex started to think about bowling. He let his right arm drop, clenched his fingers around an imaginary ball, and pretended to roll it. This made him swing slightly, but he was still holding himself up securely.
The sound of children had faded even more. He craned his neck around--somewhat difficult from an upside down position--and noticed that the adults had wandered away as well, probably following their kids. He hadn’t realized how strong his legs were, that he could stay in this position for so long without a lot of strain.
Why had Beth said that to him? He thought for a moment and realized that he didn’t understand the reasons behind most of what Beth said. His job teaching sociology (among other things) at a for-profit college meant that he was gone most nights as well as Saturday afternoons. About six months ago, it seemed to him, something had started seeming off about Beth. They were once like two puzzle pieces that fit into one another. For quite a while he’d felt like he’d been trying to put the pieces together but they kept slipping. He had probably stopped trying, and realized he had been thinking more and more about when he’d next be able to bowl. Beth’s advice to him simply reinforced his recent default pattern of thinking.
Alex’s face was becoming flushed. All of his blood was going to his head. Did no one notice that he’d been hanging upside down from the monkey bars for at least five minutes?
He thought about tomorrow’s discussion topic for his class, Durkheim’s Suicide. He had the class read excerpts of it and would be discussing suicide as a social issue, related more to the behavior of large groups of people, than an individual choice. People with greater social ties were less likely to commit suicide, while isolated individuals--those not clearly part of a group--were more likely to do so.
He thought about the groups to which he belonged. He had his colleagues at work, although he didn’t spend that much time talking to them. How about his bowling friends? He was among the best bowlers in his league. If he had a particularly good game, they would all yell for him to fail, and he would do the same for them. But they each congratulated the winner at the end. They’d also talk about their wives, their kids, mostly complaining about them. He’d found himself more and more quiet during those conversations lately.
He shifted his legs a bit and thought back to why he’d gotten up here in the first place. His son had been nervous about climbing the bars and hanging on them, and he’d tried to be encouraging. Well, not so much encouraging but yelling at his son that it was easy. So he’d climbed up onto the play structure, jumped onto the middle bar--rather than just climbing across--and flipped himself over.
“Look, Caleb!” he’d yelled.
Caleb had already left for another part of the playground. The parents wandered over there as well, although a couple had glanced back at him in confusion.
And maybe embarrassment? If he got down now, he’d have to face them, explain his absurd behavior. And the whole time he’d be thinking about what Beth said, wanting to tell someone, to ask for help.
“Hey, Jim, my wife said she’s attracted to another guy. What do you think I should do?”
No, he couldn’t say that, or anything like it.
His thighs and lower legs were a tingling mass of pain. Trying to rearrange himself would make it worse, so he stiffened them slightly.
“Get off me!”
That sounded like Sam, a kid Caleb often played with. Caleb seemed to bully him sometimes, though.
“Caleb, stop!”
He should get down and do something about this. His humiliation would be compounded, though. People would look askance at him not only for hanging upside down for far too long but for his kid’s misbehaving.
But wasn’t he making the situation worse by not doing anything about it?
He thought about Beth and Bill together. He’d met Bill once, a man both taller and probably objectively better looking than he was. Bill’s life was more together, a stable job, a wife, kids.
Since Bill had a wife and kids, shouldn’t Beth stay away from him? Well, Beth had a husband and kids, so there were lots of reasons for nothing to happen.
That never stopped people, Alex realized, if there really was an attraction.
He felt the pressure of blood right above his eyes, then moved his chin towards his chest to stretch his neck. He felt shooting pains in his thighs and knees.
He was an idiot, a chump. And the longer he stayed up here, the worse it got.
His vision went black, and he felt himself falling to the ground.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Jellyfish
Dave looked down at his cell phone on the table to the right of the arm of the couch. Should he call Rachel? Would she call him?
He wasn’t sure and was only vaguely focusing on the show he was watching, something on the Discovery Channel about jellyfish. They were going into some detail about the toxicity of the poison, especially that of the box jellyfish.
“Box,” thought Dave. Disturbing thoughts about sex and neurotoxins floated through his mind.
He’d always been fascinated by jellyfish, the way they didn’t even seem like animals, just semi-transparent globs of drifting flesh with tentacles. Did they have brains? How did they see?
The show had a section about how jellyfish navigate their surroundings, but Dave hadn’t quite been able to follow it.
Why weren’t there horror movies about jellyfish? They didn’t fit the typical blueprint for something scary. They didn’t have large teeth or angry faces. They didn’t have a bone-chilling stare. They weren’t, like most movie monsters, vaguely humanoid, like vampires and werewolves. They weren’t even really visible, for that matter. Their semi-transparency perhaps made for poor horror visuals, but to Dave that made them even creepier. Weren’t ghosts and poltergeists also invisible?
Jim looked back at the cell phone. What had happened between him and Rachel?
They’d had a high compatibility rating on Match.com and had exchanged e-mails for a while. That moved to phone calls, and then they finally went out to dinner. Rachel had seemed pretty nervous at first--fidgety--but during the movie on their second date they were holding hands.
They liked similar movies and music, which made for easy conversation. They were both fans of Werner Herzog, and Dave had entertained Rachel with the story of how Herzog had held the actor Max Von Sydow at gunpoint when he threatened to walk off the set of Fitzcarraldo. They discussed Grizzly Man, a documentary on Timothy Treadwell, who tried to commune with grizzlies but had eventually been killed by one. They’d argued briefly about whether or not some of Treadwell’s final recordings of being killed should have been used in the film--he’d said maybe a little, she said definitely none--but the shared references had given them plenty of material for discussion.
The Discovery show was playing a Jaws-like soundtrack over the image of people swimming at a beach known to harbor box jellyfish.
On a subsequent date, Rachel invited Dave over to her apartment. They watched Revolutionary Road, about a marriage in the 1950s between a man frustrated with his job and a woman who wanted more than just to raise children. Perhaps the most interesting character was their neighbor, John, who struggled with debilitating fits of mental illness (he’s called “insane” in the film) but seemed to be the voice of reason. “Frank and April have an inkling that something is missing from their lives,” remarked Rachel afterwards, “but John realizes that the whole system, the whole world they’re living in, is fucked up.” Despite Rachel’s sympathies, Dave noticed her turning away during some of John’s outbursts. They made out on the couch after the movie was over.
Dave wondered again why horror films didn’t feature jellyfish. Looking at the image on the screen, he decided that they didn’t really appear frightening, just some goop with weeds attached. They seemed vegetative, and the word “animal” didn’t quite fit with them.
Dave and Rachel were both in their mid-20s and had been in serious relationships before meeting each other. During their second dinner out, Dave talked about the headaches that occur during a breakup when two people have lived together in the same apartment, the divvying up of furniture and, worst of all, the decision of who would get to keep the cat. Since April had seemed more attached, Dave had let her keep it.
“So, was your breakup hard as well?” Dave had asked.
Rachel looked down and said, “Yeah, it was rough,” then paused and said, “So, do we want to get any dessert?”
Dave decided that, to him at least, jellyfish were the most frightening creatures on the planet, perhaps for the very reason that they looked so unassuming. If a person was swimming and saw a shark fin in the water--even 100 feet away--running to shore was a no brainer. A jellyfish, though, could rub up against your leg and, looking down, you might not even see anything. It might be some seaweed, or your imagination. A minute later, you could be screaming from the worst pain in your life and being rushed to the hospital to remove the spiked tentacle embedded in your thigh.
Dave looked back at the cell phone. It vibrated. Was it a text from Rachel? He swiped on the phone and checked. No, someone had made a move in a word game he was playing.
He should call her. He hadn’t really done anything wrong but felt like he should apologize. Or had he done something wrong? He wasn’t sure.
“The full name of the species is ‘Medusa Jellyfish,’” said the announcer. “The term ‘Medusa’ was coined in 1752, many years before the term ‘jellyfish’ was used. Jellyfish are not technically fish...”
Images of Medusa entered Dave’s mind from his days playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends in middle school. One could escape from paralysis in the game, but in the myth one was permanently turned to stone.
Dave thought about turning off the television but somehow didn’t have the strength to do so.
They were interviewing a man who had been stung in the face and had scars all around his left cheekbone. “I had no idea what hit me. I was scuba diving in relatively shallow water, and suddenly it felt like a truck hit me in the face.”
They had been at his apartment, and they’d just finished Forgetting Sarah Marshall. They had both felt like a comedy and found Jason Segel’s character particularly endearing, his pathetic dejection played for laughs. Like most romantic comedies, everything worked out in the end, with Peter eventually finding someone who understands him (named Rachel, oddly enough), with the implication that they lived happily ever after.
After they finished talking about the film, Rachel discussed her videography classes in college, how she often enjoyed watching lighthearted movies but was drawn to making horror-style films. “Which is really odd,” she’d said, “because I get more freaked out from horror movies than anyone I know.”
Dave hadn’t known exactly what to make of this topic, and she seemed to become anxious as she spoke about it. “Do you want a neck rub?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said, and turned over on the couch. He started gently kneading her neck with both hands, using steady downward motions to try to release tension.
After a few minutes, he asked, “Does that feel better?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Do you want any chips and salsa, and maybe some wine?”
“Okay, how about both?”
He opened a bottle of white wine, poured them each glasses, and brought chips and an open jar of salsa to the table in front of the television.
After they talked for a while, he said, “It’s late. Do you want to stay over?”
Rachel hesitated. “Okay,” she replied. He had been making his bed regularly just in case this opportunity presented itself.
After they crawled into bed, he pulled her gently towards him and started kissing her lips. She kissed him back, gently but firmly. A little ways into it, he untucked her shirt and put his hand on her back. She pulled away. “I should go.”
“What?” Dave asked. “I’m sorry. We can just sleep. I didn’t mean...”
“No, I have to get up in the morning. Let me get my things.” She put on her shoes, grabbed her purse and coat on the way out, and left.
That had been three days earlier, and he hadn’t heard from her since. He vaguely remembered that there were tears in her eyes when she left, and she’d looked shaken up.
What had he done? He didn’t think he was being pushy, and everything had been going fairly smoothly in their relationship up until then.
The lights were dim in Rachel’s apartment as she sat on the couch with her two cats. She’d briefly been pulled in by a show about jellyfish but had turned it off partway through. It was well-done but too unnerving.
Should she call Dave? No, the explanation would be too complicated. She sort of wanted to apologize, but how could she parse it? She wanted to apologize for leaving, but she didn’t want to negate what she had been feeling at the time. Anyone who was with her would have to know that she could be unpredictable, that she could be upset for reasons not apparent to those around her and which she wouldn’t be able to explain at the time.
She had turned off the television at the point they were comparing jellyfish to medusas. Everything was blamed on women. Women paralyzed men, terrorized men, were mysterious and amorphous and dangerous.
No, men were the jellyfish. You thought you were in a beautiful ocean, a perfectly safe environment, enjoying the salty smell and the sunlight above. And then, out of nowhere, you’re in blinding pain and confusion, left with a scar that lasts for the rest of your life.
After that, you don’t want to visit the ocean again.
He wasn’t sure and was only vaguely focusing on the show he was watching, something on the Discovery Channel about jellyfish. They were going into some detail about the toxicity of the poison, especially that of the box jellyfish.
“Box,” thought Dave. Disturbing thoughts about sex and neurotoxins floated through his mind.
He’d always been fascinated by jellyfish, the way they didn’t even seem like animals, just semi-transparent globs of drifting flesh with tentacles. Did they have brains? How did they see?
The show had a section about how jellyfish navigate their surroundings, but Dave hadn’t quite been able to follow it.
Why weren’t there horror movies about jellyfish? They didn’t fit the typical blueprint for something scary. They didn’t have large teeth or angry faces. They didn’t have a bone-chilling stare. They weren’t, like most movie monsters, vaguely humanoid, like vampires and werewolves. They weren’t even really visible, for that matter. Their semi-transparency perhaps made for poor horror visuals, but to Dave that made them even creepier. Weren’t ghosts and poltergeists also invisible?
Jim looked back at the cell phone. What had happened between him and Rachel?
They’d had a high compatibility rating on Match.com and had exchanged e-mails for a while. That moved to phone calls, and then they finally went out to dinner. Rachel had seemed pretty nervous at first--fidgety--but during the movie on their second date they were holding hands.
They liked similar movies and music, which made for easy conversation. They were both fans of Werner Herzog, and Dave had entertained Rachel with the story of how Herzog had held the actor Max Von Sydow at gunpoint when he threatened to walk off the set of Fitzcarraldo. They discussed Grizzly Man, a documentary on Timothy Treadwell, who tried to commune with grizzlies but had eventually been killed by one. They’d argued briefly about whether or not some of Treadwell’s final recordings of being killed should have been used in the film--he’d said maybe a little, she said definitely none--but the shared references had given them plenty of material for discussion.
The Discovery show was playing a Jaws-like soundtrack over the image of people swimming at a beach known to harbor box jellyfish.
On a subsequent date, Rachel invited Dave over to her apartment. They watched Revolutionary Road, about a marriage in the 1950s between a man frustrated with his job and a woman who wanted more than just to raise children. Perhaps the most interesting character was their neighbor, John, who struggled with debilitating fits of mental illness (he’s called “insane” in the film) but seemed to be the voice of reason. “Frank and April have an inkling that something is missing from their lives,” remarked Rachel afterwards, “but John realizes that the whole system, the whole world they’re living in, is fucked up.” Despite Rachel’s sympathies, Dave noticed her turning away during some of John’s outbursts. They made out on the couch after the movie was over.
Dave wondered again why horror films didn’t feature jellyfish. Looking at the image on the screen, he decided that they didn’t really appear frightening, just some goop with weeds attached. They seemed vegetative, and the word “animal” didn’t quite fit with them.
Dave and Rachel were both in their mid-20s and had been in serious relationships before meeting each other. During their second dinner out, Dave talked about the headaches that occur during a breakup when two people have lived together in the same apartment, the divvying up of furniture and, worst of all, the decision of who would get to keep the cat. Since April had seemed more attached, Dave had let her keep it.
“So, was your breakup hard as well?” Dave had asked.
Rachel looked down and said, “Yeah, it was rough,” then paused and said, “So, do we want to get any dessert?”
Dave decided that, to him at least, jellyfish were the most frightening creatures on the planet, perhaps for the very reason that they looked so unassuming. If a person was swimming and saw a shark fin in the water--even 100 feet away--running to shore was a no brainer. A jellyfish, though, could rub up against your leg and, looking down, you might not even see anything. It might be some seaweed, or your imagination. A minute later, you could be screaming from the worst pain in your life and being rushed to the hospital to remove the spiked tentacle embedded in your thigh.
Dave looked back at the cell phone. It vibrated. Was it a text from Rachel? He swiped on the phone and checked. No, someone had made a move in a word game he was playing.
He should call her. He hadn’t really done anything wrong but felt like he should apologize. Or had he done something wrong? He wasn’t sure.
“The full name of the species is ‘Medusa Jellyfish,’” said the announcer. “The term ‘Medusa’ was coined in 1752, many years before the term ‘jellyfish’ was used. Jellyfish are not technically fish...”
Images of Medusa entered Dave’s mind from his days playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends in middle school. One could escape from paralysis in the game, but in the myth one was permanently turned to stone.
Dave thought about turning off the television but somehow didn’t have the strength to do so.
They were interviewing a man who had been stung in the face and had scars all around his left cheekbone. “I had no idea what hit me. I was scuba diving in relatively shallow water, and suddenly it felt like a truck hit me in the face.”
They had been at his apartment, and they’d just finished Forgetting Sarah Marshall. They had both felt like a comedy and found Jason Segel’s character particularly endearing, his pathetic dejection played for laughs. Like most romantic comedies, everything worked out in the end, with Peter eventually finding someone who understands him (named Rachel, oddly enough), with the implication that they lived happily ever after.
After they finished talking about the film, Rachel discussed her videography classes in college, how she often enjoyed watching lighthearted movies but was drawn to making horror-style films. “Which is really odd,” she’d said, “because I get more freaked out from horror movies than anyone I know.”
Dave hadn’t known exactly what to make of this topic, and she seemed to become anxious as she spoke about it. “Do you want a neck rub?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said, and turned over on the couch. He started gently kneading her neck with both hands, using steady downward motions to try to release tension.
After a few minutes, he asked, “Does that feel better?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Do you want any chips and salsa, and maybe some wine?”
“Okay, how about both?”
He opened a bottle of white wine, poured them each glasses, and brought chips and an open jar of salsa to the table in front of the television.
After they talked for a while, he said, “It’s late. Do you want to stay over?”
Rachel hesitated. “Okay,” she replied. He had been making his bed regularly just in case this opportunity presented itself.
After they crawled into bed, he pulled her gently towards him and started kissing her lips. She kissed him back, gently but firmly. A little ways into it, he untucked her shirt and put his hand on her back. She pulled away. “I should go.”
“What?” Dave asked. “I’m sorry. We can just sleep. I didn’t mean...”
“No, I have to get up in the morning. Let me get my things.” She put on her shoes, grabbed her purse and coat on the way out, and left.
That had been three days earlier, and he hadn’t heard from her since. He vaguely remembered that there were tears in her eyes when she left, and she’d looked shaken up.
What had he done? He didn’t think he was being pushy, and everything had been going fairly smoothly in their relationship up until then.
The lights were dim in Rachel’s apartment as she sat on the couch with her two cats. She’d briefly been pulled in by a show about jellyfish but had turned it off partway through. It was well-done but too unnerving.
Should she call Dave? No, the explanation would be too complicated. She sort of wanted to apologize, but how could she parse it? She wanted to apologize for leaving, but she didn’t want to negate what she had been feeling at the time. Anyone who was with her would have to know that she could be unpredictable, that she could be upset for reasons not apparent to those around her and which she wouldn’t be able to explain at the time.
She had turned off the television at the point they were comparing jellyfish to medusas. Everything was blamed on women. Women paralyzed men, terrorized men, were mysterious and amorphous and dangerous.
No, men were the jellyfish. You thought you were in a beautiful ocean, a perfectly safe environment, enjoying the salty smell and the sunlight above. And then, out of nowhere, you’re in blinding pain and confusion, left with a scar that lasts for the rest of your life.
After that, you don’t want to visit the ocean again.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Food (and other things) as Drugs
Many elements of our lives serve a drug-like purpose including television, food and exercise.
Research supporting the drug-like effects of television isn’t even new. The quick cuts and other editing effects unavailable to us in our everyday lives trigger something called the “orienting response.” When we lived in constant danger of being eaten by predators, fast movement and quick changes in scenery got our attention very quickly. Television capitalizes on this instinct and pulls us in.
If television is a drug, what are its effects? It immediately relaxes people, perhaps because our orienting response requires a kind of oneness with our environment to fully process quick movement. Once we turn it off, though, we feel immediately tense as the more abstract worries of the day come rushing back. Producers know this, so they’ve cut out commercial breaks between shows and start new shows right after a previous one is done. Why turn off the TV when a new show has already begun? The system is engineered to promote addiction.
Michael Stipe (of REM) was being interviewed in a bar with televisions and kept complaining the the interviewer that he couldn’t concentrate on the questions because he couldn’t help but get pulled into TV images. TV images are about as easy to ignore as the smell of fresh baked tollhouse cookies.
Television for young children seems espeically harmful--possibly contributing to autism--so it would seem that we should approach it with extreme caution. No “TV as babysitter” for kids four and under. There is a massive level of brain development as well as honing of fine and gross motor skills during that time. Television is the last thing a human at that age needs.
But what do about families that need to work numerous jobs in order to pay rent and feed the kids and use television to keep a toddler out of trouble? How about longer maternity or paternity leave, just like every other country but the U.S. has? Give parents--from any social class--time to raise their kids.
The whole question of television watching gets a bit trickier as your child gets older. My son, who is nine, loves cheese. I did as well at his age (and still do). Many kids will eschew meat, vegetables and fruits in favor of as much milk as they can drink. Kids also love sugar and chocolate.
Every food in that list has drug-like effects, and some might argue that they are addictive. Cheese contains tyrosine, which calms people in times of stress. Chocolate also increases levels of tyrosine and contains the stimulant theobromine. Milk calms people through tryptophan. Robert Lustig, a reputable dietician, has proven with mathematical precision that the refined sugar in a soft drink has the same systemic effect as the alcohol in a beer (he discusses this at 1:20 or so).
Do we really want to start worrying about any food that has a drug-like effect? Tropical fruits such as pineapples, mangoes and bananas are so sweet that they might promote highs in kids similar to those from refined sugars. But aren’t these also highly nutritious? Grass-fed beef contains essential fatty acids, which can protect against depression when consumed in moderate amounts.
Everyday activities, then, can work as prescription drugs as well as illicit ones. Don’t we want some of these good drugs? During a workplace seminar years ago, the presenter stated that every time you cross something off a list, you get a surge of happy chemicals in your brain.
The phenomenon of “runner’s high” is well-documented.
Music stimulates dopamine, a pleasurable neurotransmitter associated with searching or hunting.
“Hunting” for something on the web also boosts dopamine. Pornography ramps up dopamine during the search and then floods the brain with it during climax.
How much can we possibly prohibit, caution against, or ban?
And at this point, I haven’t even touched on “hard” drugs like alcohol (yes, it’s as bad as many of the others), marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. Chocolate also triggers anandamide, one of the active ingredients of marijuana, so we’d better watch out in case anyone tries to eat enough unsweetened chocolate to trigger a cannabis high.
What do we do with all of this information? We can’t ban anything that might be a drug, because everything in our environment functions as a drug. Sunlight promotes vitamin D production which makes us happier. Working towards an exciting goal--learning skateboarding tricks, cooking a new and exciting recipe, writing a blog post such as this one--all boost dopamine levels.
Do we just give up and put our six month old in front of the television?
How about a cost-benefit analysis? Most of the evolutionary triggers for neurotransmitters--exercise, accomplishment, healthy fats, etc.--are clearly beneficial. The enjoyment we get from music and reading doesn’t seem all that bad either.
How about movies? We seem to enjoy those--and learn from them--even if there’s some kind of sedation involved from the medium.
The “do we ban it?” question seems absurd most of the time, considering most of us don’t want the government telling us everything we can or can’t consume. But excess in any area--video games, drinking, even strenuous exercise--seems like a bad idea for most people and should probably be approached with caution. We worry about someone who drinks a six pack of beer a day, so why shouldn't we worry about eight hours of TV each day? They’re both harmful.
But moderation seems to work most of the time. Why not have a beer or two? What’s wrong with being addicted to a television show? Why not take up bike racing if the pain point of exertion gives you a high?
We need to look at these things and consider them. I don’t think Alcoholics Anonymous is a perfect organization, but they have some important things to say about addiction in their survey. There are some of the more obvious problems--passing out drunk, for instance--but the idea that strikes me most (a paraphrase of questions 6, 7 and 12) would be “Is this addiction interfering with relationships, work or other areas of your life?” This seems to me like a great evaluative tool. Certain things that might initially seem harmful--low-level marijuana use, for instance--suddenly don’t seem that bad. Others, like video game addiction (which I had to quit at one point) suddenly seem more harmful, because they can crowd out social interaction.
But cheese and chocolate are always good.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Impact
Does a word in poetry count the same as a word in prose?
Time slows down in a poem--we see every detail in a scene
more vividly,care is taken, the normal flow of time is disrupted.
The buck strolling near my son’s school, then darting in our direction.
“Remember, it’s a wild animal,” someone says as it disappears into the woods.
Or, driving down a four lane city street during morning rush hour,
when a deer starts jumping around in traffic, everyone driving 40,
but my memory is a series of photographs, each of the deer in a different lane
(He finally made it across the road unscathed)
Years earlier, my dad was driving on a quiet highway in the fog in early dawn,
When, at the top of a steep hill, he suddenly found his windshield
covered in deer, cracked, the car totaled, the carcass knocked to the side of the road.
Perhaps a word in a poem--listen to it, this word, the syllables you
hear right now--does have a greater impact
Like soft, delicate hairs pressed into a windshield.
Time slows down in a poem--we see every detail in a scene
more vividly,care is taken, the normal flow of time is disrupted.
The buck strolling near my son’s school, then darting in our direction.
“Remember, it’s a wild animal,” someone says as it disappears into the woods.
Or, driving down a four lane city street during morning rush hour,
when a deer starts jumping around in traffic, everyone driving 40,
but my memory is a series of photographs, each of the deer in a different lane
(He finally made it across the road unscathed)
Years earlier, my dad was driving on a quiet highway in the fog in early dawn,
When, at the top of a steep hill, he suddenly found his windshield
covered in deer, cracked, the car totaled, the carcass knocked to the side of the road.
Perhaps a word in a poem--listen to it, this word, the syllables you
hear right now--does have a greater impact
Like soft, delicate hairs pressed into a windshield.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Open
You. Whoever you are. Do you work in an office? Do you work outdoors, moving girders to help build skyscrapers? Are you in a hospital, healing the sick? Do you stay at home taking care of children?
Maybe you live 20 miles from the nearest town. Perhaps you live in the middle of a large city. You might be recently married or together with someone for twenty years.
Or maybe you’ve been single for a while.
Whoever you are, join us. This is an open invitation.
Do you remember your family, your mother and father, on either side of you when you were young? Nothing could hurt you, because they were always there for you, their goal in life to keep you safe.
We will do the same. Or perhaps your mother and father weren’t there when you needed them. Perhaps they were too busy working or paying the bills. Was your father a little rough with you? Was your mother moody, rarely able to listen? Did your parents divorce? Perhaps you never met your birth parents and were adopted. Maybe you were raised by two fathers or languished in foster care.
No matter. We will be there for you. We will support you and give you love, companionship, acceptance.
Do you remember joking around with friends during high school or college, a group that has long since fallen apart?
Our care will be stronger than theirs. You will laugh with us, eat with us, drink with us. We will respect you just as you are. That is our mission, and your mission is to do the same for any new member.
The future, my friend, is ours. Together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
But what is a large group without one true companion? We assure you, you will find him. Or her. Or, if you prefer, we can find someone in between.
Within our safe haven, you will meet the person of your dreams. Envision a person you wished to be with, the one who got away or rejected your advances. You will find this person. Or, if you are already with someone you love, you can both join us. Think of running your hands through your lover’s hair. The spark that may have died will be relit. Your lips on the other person’s as you look into the fire at the center, burning for both of you.
For us.
But what is your mission, you may ask? What is our goal?
It is simple, as I have been telling you all along. Safety.
But what does that involve, you ask? What must I commit?
First, you will help us build. This goes beyond a physical structure. We are building a community, a group of people who will protect one another. We are building bonds and expanding. We are building peace and closeness, constructing our shared vision brick by brick.
There is one aspect that may prove challenging.
Sometimes, during the times we gather around the fire for prayer and communion, one member breaks the silence. It could be any member. He warns us. An intruder has been sensed at the perimeter. The sanctity of our group has been threatened.
No, not simply the sanctity. Our very existence. We always ward off threats, because if we didn’t, if we allowed ourselves to be broken apart, all would be lost. The covenant that we have so carefully kept with each other would be thrown into disarray.
You see, the intruders do not attack us with weapons. They do not bring knives, or guns, or tanks. They sow dissent. Intruders are like neutron bombs, destroying all life but leaving the appearance of an outward structure. If an intruder infiltrates, the love we share would be corrupted into distrust and hatred. Families would fall apart. Leaders could be ousted and even murdered. Everything that we had built up, sometimes through a lifetime’s dedication, would be reduced to nothing.
You understand the danger of intruders.
But you are now one of us. We have taken you into our fold, and you have either found your beloved among us or brought another with you to further increase our strength, our community, our shared sense of peace.
But there is an intruder, a usurper. You have been trained as one of us on how to deal with this problem, to sense the one who is different. At least one in any group will be able to feel the virus in the system, the deadly parasite that could eat us out from the inside if not properly addressed.
You are in the temple with the fire in the center, part of our group. Someone has sounded the alarm. We close our eyes, because intuition is more powerful than sight.
You breathe deeply, eyes closed. You feel something in the back of your neck, at the top of your head. Your alertness is heightened. You know something is wrong, that someone is threatening the way of life you have taken so long to create, who could lay waste to the entire enterprise, bring you back to your lowest point, when friendship and love were out of reach, when you felt alone, unprotected, at the whim of circumstance, when one small unpredictable event could leave you destitute and desolate. You worked with us to create this, and someone--or something--is hell-bent on destroying it.
Your arms tense. Your unconscious is guiding you, leading you to the source of the problem. You put your arms out in front of you, fingers tingling. Your hands feel shoulder blades. You have found the bacterium, the parasite, that which would destroy what we have created. Eyes still closed, you quickly put your hands around the person’s neck. There is an ensuing struggle, but you have righteousness, the value of the life you’ve created, on your side. You grip harder, feeling the heat of the fire to your left. Your hands still around the neck, you shove the invader into the fire, that which burns and purifies, leaving the world cleansed and pristine again. You hear screams, the smell of burning flesh.
You open your eyes. Unfortunately, the invader was the one you loved. You hear the person’s final screams as he or she is consumed by flames.
We will find you another. There are many among us, all loving. We will protect you and keep you safe from foreigners, those who would destroy everything we have built.
We are grateful for your sacrifice and will comfort you in your sadness. And we promise, you will find new love.
Our ranks will continue to grow.
Maybe you live 20 miles from the nearest town. Perhaps you live in the middle of a large city. You might be recently married or together with someone for twenty years.
Or maybe you’ve been single for a while.
Whoever you are, join us. This is an open invitation.
Do you remember your family, your mother and father, on either side of you when you were young? Nothing could hurt you, because they were always there for you, their goal in life to keep you safe.
We will do the same. Or perhaps your mother and father weren’t there when you needed them. Perhaps they were too busy working or paying the bills. Was your father a little rough with you? Was your mother moody, rarely able to listen? Did your parents divorce? Perhaps you never met your birth parents and were adopted. Maybe you were raised by two fathers or languished in foster care.
No matter. We will be there for you. We will support you and give you love, companionship, acceptance.
Do you remember joking around with friends during high school or college, a group that has long since fallen apart?
Our care will be stronger than theirs. You will laugh with us, eat with us, drink with us. We will respect you just as you are. That is our mission, and your mission is to do the same for any new member.
The future, my friend, is ours. Together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
But what is a large group without one true companion? We assure you, you will find him. Or her. Or, if you prefer, we can find someone in between.
Within our safe haven, you will meet the person of your dreams. Envision a person you wished to be with, the one who got away or rejected your advances. You will find this person. Or, if you are already with someone you love, you can both join us. Think of running your hands through your lover’s hair. The spark that may have died will be relit. Your lips on the other person’s as you look into the fire at the center, burning for both of you.
For us.
But what is your mission, you may ask? What is our goal?
It is simple, as I have been telling you all along. Safety.
But what does that involve, you ask? What must I commit?
First, you will help us build. This goes beyond a physical structure. We are building a community, a group of people who will protect one another. We are building bonds and expanding. We are building peace and closeness, constructing our shared vision brick by brick.
There is one aspect that may prove challenging.
Sometimes, during the times we gather around the fire for prayer and communion, one member breaks the silence. It could be any member. He warns us. An intruder has been sensed at the perimeter. The sanctity of our group has been threatened.
No, not simply the sanctity. Our very existence. We always ward off threats, because if we didn’t, if we allowed ourselves to be broken apart, all would be lost. The covenant that we have so carefully kept with each other would be thrown into disarray.
You see, the intruders do not attack us with weapons. They do not bring knives, or guns, or tanks. They sow dissent. Intruders are like neutron bombs, destroying all life but leaving the appearance of an outward structure. If an intruder infiltrates, the love we share would be corrupted into distrust and hatred. Families would fall apart. Leaders could be ousted and even murdered. Everything that we had built up, sometimes through a lifetime’s dedication, would be reduced to nothing.
You understand the danger of intruders.
But you are now one of us. We have taken you into our fold, and you have either found your beloved among us or brought another with you to further increase our strength, our community, our shared sense of peace.
But there is an intruder, a usurper. You have been trained as one of us on how to deal with this problem, to sense the one who is different. At least one in any group will be able to feel the virus in the system, the deadly parasite that could eat us out from the inside if not properly addressed.
You are in the temple with the fire in the center, part of our group. Someone has sounded the alarm. We close our eyes, because intuition is more powerful than sight.
You breathe deeply, eyes closed. You feel something in the back of your neck, at the top of your head. Your alertness is heightened. You know something is wrong, that someone is threatening the way of life you have taken so long to create, who could lay waste to the entire enterprise, bring you back to your lowest point, when friendship and love were out of reach, when you felt alone, unprotected, at the whim of circumstance, when one small unpredictable event could leave you destitute and desolate. You worked with us to create this, and someone--or something--is hell-bent on destroying it.
Your arms tense. Your unconscious is guiding you, leading you to the source of the problem. You put your arms out in front of you, fingers tingling. Your hands feel shoulder blades. You have found the bacterium, the parasite, that which would destroy what we have created. Eyes still closed, you quickly put your hands around the person’s neck. There is an ensuing struggle, but you have righteousness, the value of the life you’ve created, on your side. You grip harder, feeling the heat of the fire to your left. Your hands still around the neck, you shove the invader into the fire, that which burns and purifies, leaving the world cleansed and pristine again. You hear screams, the smell of burning flesh.
You open your eyes. Unfortunately, the invader was the one you loved. You hear the person’s final screams as he or she is consumed by flames.
We will find you another. There are many among us, all loving. We will protect you and keep you safe from foreigners, those who would destroy everything we have built.
We are grateful for your sacrifice and will comfort you in your sadness. And we promise, you will find new love.
Our ranks will continue to grow.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Speak
In Tanya Barrientos’ essay “Yo Hablo Espanol,” she describes her humiliation and frustration with the looks she gets because she doesn’t speak fluent Spanish. She was only a toddler when her parents moved to the U.S. from Guatemala, and they made a conscious decision for the family to assimilate. Spanish would not be spoken, and therefore little Tanya, perfectly fluent in English, would not be subjected to to the stereotype of the “lazy Mexican.”
Later, as America embraced cultural diversity and rejected the “melting pot,” Barrientos found herself barred from the Latino community. She was not a true Latina because she spoke Spanish like a gringo in Spanish 101. But she also wasn’t accepted in mainstream white culture because of her high Inca cheekbones and last name.
I found myself relating to the story as I was teaching it but wasn’t sure why. I have never spoken any language regularly except for English. But then I remembered: my speech was considered odd for most of my life until ninth grade.
When I was five and my brother was three, our family moved to Bath, England for six months on a Fulbright exchange. My dad taught at the community college there, and his colleague--at whose house we stayed--taught at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City.
Bath has some historical significance in England, but it’s not exactly a metropolis. Our address was “Up Yonder, Box Hill.” The neighborhood seemed somewhat provincial.
Children regularly threw rocks at my brother and me because of our American accents. I particularly remember walking along a narrow path with a tall hill on the right. One child was talking to me animatedly—something about “wearing your Sunday best”--while another child waited on top of the hill out of my sight. I suddenly felt a pain in my right eye and blood on my face. The cut from the rock was on my eyelid. The kids took me home and helped me clean it up, repeatedly emphasizing that I was to tell no one what happened.
I am also now right-handed based on my trip. I initially wrote with my left hand but was corrected until I started writing with my right. Apparently writing with one’s left hand was consider a sign of demonic possession.
(This story is not meant to imply that Brits are backward. I don’t doubt that I would have been an outcast in the American South with my northern accent, and a Southerner would likely have faced a similar fate in Michigan).
By the end of my trip I was officially welcomed into the fold by the other children. This was likely because I finally spoke like a full-fledged Briton.
When I returned to the U.S. to enter first grade, I received a number of odd looks based on my accent. In second grade, I remember trying to say the word “cat” and realized I could not--I pronounced it “cot.” During one recess a couple girls on the playground repeatedly asked me to say words and then broke out laughing whenever I spoke.
After a few years I completely forgot about the issue and entered middle school. At this point I started getting picked on. My guess is that this related to my being short, shy and nerdy--and being in middle school. I became vaguely aware that I didn’t speak like those around me and decided to try to do so in order to “fit in” better. The cadence of my speech became more choppy and the tone more nasal. I began to clip my “ings” and started to sound more like a Michigander. A teacher I’d had for AP History in eighth grade told me during his ninth grade logic class that I’d lost my accent.
I have no idea if this effort did me any good--I was ignored in tenth grade, which was worse in my mind than being ridiculed--but the changes stuck.
I haven’t minded sounding more like those around me, but a Northern Michigan accent is not without its problems. Another Michigan resident I met years later--a woman I was trying to impress--was proud of her Canadian-sounding accent while stating that mine was closer to that of a Yooper (the half-endearing, half-derogatory term used to describe residents of Michigan’s upper peninsula). My Ohio-born wife also has poked fun at me for pronouncing “salsa” as a nasal “sayalsa.”
As someone so frequently ridiculed for his accent, I should be more tolerant towards others’ speech, but this hasn’t always been the case. My brother and I as teenagers were not above mocking our mother, who was born in Indiana to parents who moved North from Georgia. We especially liked imitating her clustering of verbs, such as “Can you run go find the towel for me?” Our all-time favorite, though, was when some minor issue would come up--a dropped sewing needle for instance--and she would yell “Goddamn bloody fucking son of a bitch!” loud enough for any impressionable teenage house guest to hear.
I am also fond of an Ohio friend’s story of teaching in Tennessee and a student’s informing him that he “smoked a pop.” My friend was puzzled and tried to figure out how a soda could be smoked. The student repeated “smoked a pop” until both became frustrated with the exchange. My friend finally realized that the student “smoked a pipe.”
Unlike Barrientos, I don’t have to worry about basic fluency. But I still sometimes think about the way I speak. I hesitate whenever someone asks “How are you doing?” on whether to say “well”--revealing potential snobbiness--or “good,” which implies that I am a man of the people but do not necessarily know my grammar.
But I don’t worry any more about getting rocks thrown at me.
Later, as America embraced cultural diversity and rejected the “melting pot,” Barrientos found herself barred from the Latino community. She was not a true Latina because she spoke Spanish like a gringo in Spanish 101. But she also wasn’t accepted in mainstream white culture because of her high Inca cheekbones and last name.
I found myself relating to the story as I was teaching it but wasn’t sure why. I have never spoken any language regularly except for English. But then I remembered: my speech was considered odd for most of my life until ninth grade.
When I was five and my brother was three, our family moved to Bath, England for six months on a Fulbright exchange. My dad taught at the community college there, and his colleague--at whose house we stayed--taught at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City.
Bath has some historical significance in England, but it’s not exactly a metropolis. Our address was “Up Yonder, Box Hill.” The neighborhood seemed somewhat provincial.
Children regularly threw rocks at my brother and me because of our American accents. I particularly remember walking along a narrow path with a tall hill on the right. One child was talking to me animatedly—something about “wearing your Sunday best”--while another child waited on top of the hill out of my sight. I suddenly felt a pain in my right eye and blood on my face. The cut from the rock was on my eyelid. The kids took me home and helped me clean it up, repeatedly emphasizing that I was to tell no one what happened.
I am also now right-handed based on my trip. I initially wrote with my left hand but was corrected until I started writing with my right. Apparently writing with one’s left hand was consider a sign of demonic possession.
(This story is not meant to imply that Brits are backward. I don’t doubt that I would have been an outcast in the American South with my northern accent, and a Southerner would likely have faced a similar fate in Michigan).
By the end of my trip I was officially welcomed into the fold by the other children. This was likely because I finally spoke like a full-fledged Briton.
When I returned to the U.S. to enter first grade, I received a number of odd looks based on my accent. In second grade, I remember trying to say the word “cat” and realized I could not--I pronounced it “cot.” During one recess a couple girls on the playground repeatedly asked me to say words and then broke out laughing whenever I spoke.
After a few years I completely forgot about the issue and entered middle school. At this point I started getting picked on. My guess is that this related to my being short, shy and nerdy--and being in middle school. I became vaguely aware that I didn’t speak like those around me and decided to try to do so in order to “fit in” better. The cadence of my speech became more choppy and the tone more nasal. I began to clip my “ings” and started to sound more like a Michigander. A teacher I’d had for AP History in eighth grade told me during his ninth grade logic class that I’d lost my accent.
I have no idea if this effort did me any good--I was ignored in tenth grade, which was worse in my mind than being ridiculed--but the changes stuck.
I haven’t minded sounding more like those around me, but a Northern Michigan accent is not without its problems. Another Michigan resident I met years later--a woman I was trying to impress--was proud of her Canadian-sounding accent while stating that mine was closer to that of a Yooper (the half-endearing, half-derogatory term used to describe residents of Michigan’s upper peninsula). My Ohio-born wife also has poked fun at me for pronouncing “salsa” as a nasal “sayalsa.”
As someone so frequently ridiculed for his accent, I should be more tolerant towards others’ speech, but this hasn’t always been the case. My brother and I as teenagers were not above mocking our mother, who was born in Indiana to parents who moved North from Georgia. We especially liked imitating her clustering of verbs, such as “Can you run go find the towel for me?” Our all-time favorite, though, was when some minor issue would come up--a dropped sewing needle for instance--and she would yell “Goddamn bloody fucking son of a bitch!” loud enough for any impressionable teenage house guest to hear.
I am also fond of an Ohio friend’s story of teaching in Tennessee and a student’s informing him that he “smoked a pop.” My friend was puzzled and tried to figure out how a soda could be smoked. The student repeated “smoked a pop” until both became frustrated with the exchange. My friend finally realized that the student “smoked a pipe.”
Unlike Barrientos, I don’t have to worry about basic fluency. But I still sometimes think about the way I speak. I hesitate whenever someone asks “How are you doing?” on whether to say “well”--revealing potential snobbiness--or “good,” which implies that I am a man of the people but do not necessarily know my grammar.
But I don’t worry any more about getting rocks thrown at me.
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