A Short Walk Towards Normal

It seems “normalcy” is in high demand. I’ve heard a lot of people lamenting or demanding it the last several days. If they could talk to normalcy’s manager, it would be in trouble; if I could manufacture it in a shed and sell it out the back door, I’d be rich. Sadly, such is not my skill set. 

Instead, from what I have I give to you: today I took a walk. 

You may or may not have the ability to walk outside right now, but please join me.  You’re welcome to share my eyes and thoughts, skin and nerves and bone. Normal or not, today is a day to share with others.

I’ve clambered down into a drainage ditch that captures stormwater runoff from my apartment complex. A few days ago it held water from recent rains. Then, it looked mysteriously swampy. It looked like the sort of place you might see alligators, maybe even plesiosaurs, as wading birds stalked through the pools. It looked like the sort of place with lost temples and malaria and Indiana Jones’ Lost Sequels.

Today the water and plesiosaurs are gone. In its place are grasses and clovers, oxalis and plantain and dandelions: the sort of determined springtime growth best described by the richness of the word “vegetation.” I balance on the concrete rim of the stormwater outfall structure, avoiding the teeming life as I watch. There’s a constant fluttering motion over everything from small moths and butterflies, white and dusty blue and yellow and speckled black and grey. They are busy with the business of pollination.  They are busy ignoring me, not that it takes any effort. For this moment, this is their meadow. 

The butterflies aren’t alone. The birds are also here, everywhere. They’re mostly mourning doves, blue jays, and mockingbirds, a Central Texas trio, their voices the only sound that out-competes the grasshoppers. Sweet softness from the doves, and a puckishly trilled repertoire delivered with the mockingbird’s usual panache; the less said about the jays, the better. 

Even on a day like today, with so many distractions, I pay a lot of attention to where I’m going. You just can’t trust Texas grass. It harbors all sorts of surprises. Self preservation has taught a habit of watching the ground to avoid fire ant mounds. But today I have to look up more often. Inchworms the color of a kiwi’s insides drift through the air on silk strands. A few times I have to dive quickly. The tiny critters drift deceptively slow until they’re right upon you. The trick is to avoid diving into a fire ant nest when you’re busy avoiding airborne inchworms.

In the shade it’s a lovely temperature for cold drinks and deep thoughts – not the kind you need to tell anyone, just the sort you keep for yourself. I think if you’re lucky, the bedrock of your personality is laid down on an afternoon like this: sunlight, breeze, the whirring of grasshoppers, slow liquid layers of thought that settle around your hippocampus, sealing in time. As the seconds evaporate, the warmth remains. It settles in through your eyes, your skin, and fills you out like a second skeleton.  

This is the sort of day where boredom has no meaning, because each second matters.

From an apartment balcony comes the sound of someone sneezing. I make a wide circle around the building. 

The non-human world is utterly oblivious to the panic, the anxiety, the talk of the economy and political games of chicken. The non-human world has exactly one thought: it’s spring. What with ice ages and meteors and volcanoes, you can’t take spring for granted. You never know when you’ll see another one. 

It’s worth it to see this one. 

Now I admit, I don’t lack fear. I’m afraid of wasps, terrified of hornets, and obsessively horrified by scorpions. I have bad luck with fire ants and remarkable luck tripping into armadillo holes. It’s a shame I live in Texas. But it’s a constant source of wonder I live anywhere, at any time. It’s worth paying attention to the moments around me, because no one else has seen them through my eyes and I may never see them again. 

I try to pay attention to living, because it’s a limited commodity. My life, yours – one day they’re going to irretrievably change, or end, or evolve beyond anything other humans will recognize. 

First Draft

Are you looking for “normal”? This is what it looks like: constant change. Continents, species, cells, sunrises: none of them are ever stable. None ever reach a point where they finish changing. Life doesn’t bear exceptionalism. If you’re in the game, you’re in; there are no free passes on death or chance. 

But humans get this weird ability to choose wisdom with every turn. With each new experience, each new disaster, they can choose to pick up empathy: the ability to see another life from the outside-inside. 

Are you looking for normal today? Look out your window. Sit on your doorstep. If you’re able, take a walk around the block, away from others. Walk towards your thoughts; look for change, growth, decay, the sounds of continents and the silent seconds of a sunrise. It’s true that one day, maybe today, you’ll change, or end, or evolve. Each of these things are normal. Each of these moments are your life. 

And if I ever do perfect the recipe for normal, I’m happy to offer you a great deal per gram, cash only.

My Lord Has Many Faces

I speak from this space
Where my Lord has many faces. 
I speak from this space
Where silence is divine, 
The quiet of a garden before dawn. 

The trees and gardeners
Bear joy,
Though the tomb is solid rock. 
The depth of stillness 
Is a space between two: 
Space to breath in one’s soul,
Anima and animus as one. 

A tree may grow between, 
But my Lord has many faces;
From my Lord flows the silence I speak.

Is It Orwellian Or Just British Food?

Here’s a secret: I love to Google unprepossessing foods. I do it frequently enough that it counts as a bona fide hobby. Recent search box stars include Celery, Grits, Cauliflower, and Beans on Toast; you would be correct to speculate that I find this hobby most engaging right before mealtimes.

There is a dark side to my little obsession. Such relentless pursuit of knowledge comes at a price. For example: today I learned there is such a thing as a Crisp Sandwich. This is not a sandwich on crisp bread, or even a sandwich with a crispy fried filling; this is a British affair, which follows the linguistic algebra of “crisp = chip.” That’s right, comrades. This is a Chip Sandwich we’re talking about. Some bright spark decided to put potato chips between two slices of bread and call it delicious. I’m still trying to decide if “bright spark” means “person with a brilliant response to desperate times” or “person with a disastrous disregard for taste, self respect, and the health of nations.” 

This new intelligence does not exactly upend the traditional reputation of the sceptered isle’s food. British Cuisine is widely held to be an oxymoron. However, I am not unfair. Rather than unthinkingly accept the consensus of the international community and the evidence of my own eyes1, let us consider a staunch voice for the Opposition in the form of George Orwell’s 1945 essay, “In Defence of British Cooking.” 

Mr. Orwell begins by noting:

“…there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries.”

Perhaps with good reason? But the arguments are convincing enough: he name-checks kippers and Yorkshire pudding before going on to mention “Christmas pudding, treacle tart and apple dumplings.” The next two paragraphs concern themselves with the joys of the English way with potatoes and sauces, respectively. I feel a twinge of regret; I have been hasty in my bias. I shall concede Britain its Crisp Sandwiches, an anomaly in the midst of this generous still life of puddings, potatoes and cranberry sauce2. 

Ah, the eighth paragraph, Lucky Number Eight. Orwell continues:

“Outside these islands I have never seen a haggis, except one that came out of a tin…” 

My dear sir, the beautiful thing about haggis in a tin3 is that it needs never to emerge from that tin. Please put it back immediately. Cover it with a kilt in a show of decency, and step away as if in mourning for good taste. Furthermore – aren’t haggises (haggi?) Scottish? 

Clearly, by 1945 Mr. Orwell was losing both his sense of taste and his observational prowess. Or perhaps this essay was an intentional illustration of the seductive power of doublethink.

Bereft of Orwell’s guidance, old habits return. I open Wikipedia and search for British Cuisine. The article contains a list, by date of introduction to Britain, of various non-native foods which have nonetheless played a role in the island’s quintessential foodstuffs. The list begins with “bread 4 .” Presumably, since crisps had yet to be introduced, this was used for early Bread Sandwiches consisting of bread between … wait for it… more bread. The last item on the list? Sliced bread. At this point, British cuisine comes full circle, bread to bread and dust to dust. You see, sliced bread is the foundation of what I now can vouch is the most memorable of British culinary contributions: the Crisp Sandwich. 

1 With no censoring whatsoever, the Guardian article in question actually contains a full-color picture of a Crisp Sandwich. I can’t tell if these pains in my chest are from shock at such shamelessly graphic food obscenity, or the meta-caloric load of looking at a sandwich made of potato chips.

2 Pronounced in the manner of John Lennon at the end of Strawberry Fields Forever: “Croooown – berrrrrryyyyyyyy – sowwwce.”

3 But really – in a tin?! Where was he visiting “outside of these islands,” Hell?!?

4 The same list also includes “dog”. Just saying.

Lights of the Deep

This solitude, this solace, this depth of stillness sparse
And barren. 
No! an ocean: beneath waves
And breath of wind,
Sea breeze constant as time and current.

I wait. Stand, float and swim, climb (rise) and fall.

Around me, lights of the deep,
An echo back to distant star: 
An echo to warm Earth’s core. 
This blue of calm 
and thought of change: as tides shift,

So bring me to your shore.

Seek The Desert

Seek the desert –

The space where stars walk lightly,
And wheeling birds frame an infinite sky –
Water cradles in a rocky basin
And water tracks where dreams of water lie.

The space where hearts walk softly,
And dust-born flowers shape a lullaby –
Silence drips like water in a garden,
And blossoms forth the whispered God to life.

When Disaster Strikes – Who Are You?

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive: and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

Maya Angelou

Dear friends, 

One day you will meet a stranger. I don’t know when or where, though for many of us I believe now is as likely a time as any. That stranger will hold your life in their hands. Not only will they hold your life, they will hold the lives of those closest and dearest to you. 

That stranger’s identity is bound to one question: when disaster occurs – who are you?

Let me digress for a moment, though I have barely gotten started. 

I work in a grocery store. It is not a glamorous job. I have given up on making any “30 Under 30” lists. But I take that job very seriously, because it offers me countless fractions-of-a-second to shape others’ lives. 

For the past week, the store has been stripped of shelf-stable food and dry goods within hours of opening. It is not a sight for which our first-world economy has prepared us. 

I have helped many individuals over the past few days. Nonetheless, in all of these interactions I have talked with precisely two people. 

The first person does not look at me. Their eyes are on the shelves in front of them, looking at all the empty spots. They may have found half to a quarter of the items on their shopping list, but their attention is on the missing items; their attention is consumed in a feedback loop with their experience of the unknown. They may not hear me when I ask if I can help, and they are very likely more frustrated by, than appreciative of, the offer. Other shoppers avoid their eyes and give them a wide radius.

The second person looks at me just a bit longer than I have come to expect from a customer. They smile, and they mean it; they are completely present in this moment. They may only have half to a quarter of the items on their shopping list, but they say they will experiment with what they have. They are more focused on the shared experience of a community of humans facing the unknown. Whether or not they need help, they thank me and others as they move through the store. 

Most of us know ourselves well enough to get through a typical day. We know how it feels to live in our heads, our familiar routines and choices. 

But many of us have never had to face an exceptional day. These are the days which, by definition, we do not know how to get through. There is no template, no previous experience to rely on to guide our decisions or reactions. 

Exceptional days are not anomalies. They are a normal part of the experience of being a human. They are a slight twist on the familiar question we debate each day with the Universe: “What can I make out of this?”

Related: See Trickster’s Bouquet for thoughts on creativity as resilience.

Exceptional days occur infrequently, and because of this we may be unfamiliar with the version of ourselves who emerges in response. It is very likely that this person will be a stranger to our normal mode of thought – but that person holds our future. And fortunately we can give that stranger gifts towards our survival. Like caches of water in a desert, we can leave them compassion, humor, and courage. We can bequeath them the strength that comes from saying, disaster is part of the question of how to be human. 

You see, you get to pick your stranger from my two grocery store varieties. You may find yourself in the hands of someone who sees empty shelves and no help in sight. Or you may find yourself in the hands of someone who has come to understand that empty shelves hold room for quite a lot of kindness, empathy, and the clear-sighted intelligence which says, today is a good day for discovery. 

Today, pick your stranger. Pick the tools you want them to use in the midst of an exceptional day. On the day you face your stranger, you will know you are in good hands.

Best,

Marushka

Early March Mornings

Morning green, forest green
Air condition hum. 
The heat of summer sunrise –
Early March has come
In Texas. 

(Narrated to the sound of iced tea, iced showers, and soaring electrical bills)

Friday 13

What is Friday 13?
They all have different answers:
Filmmakers and actors,
And all the black cats.

It’s a reason to notice the day,
An excuse to look behind you:
See every shadow
And feel breath and skin.

It’s the luck of life crossing your path.

Fed-Up Writer To A Stubborn Piece of Work

Think and don’t think
My contrary child. 
My shadow, my sun, my rage 
and my thorn in the side. 

What do you want today? 

To feel, and float on feeling, 
Think with the edge of a knife.
To see stories and speak stars
Speak truth and spin attraction.

I see you sitting on the page, 
I see you sitting on my shoulder. 
I see you waiting to be born, 
And I see you slipping away. 

You didn’t like today. Will you like tomorrow?

All I want is for you to want me, 
To crave towards birth like I crave to be done with you. 

(A dramatic narration to the sound of crumpling paper and flying pencils.)