Ferry to Island

Walking this afternoon in downtown Seattle, I have to say that I wished I worked downtown. Seattle streets are clean and bright and safe. It is such a safe town. At night, whole tracts of downtown close down. Friends who visit complain that they can't find a place to eat at night. This is half true. The restaurants are to be found if you know where to look.

On the ferry to Bainbridge Island, the air is warm inside. When someone comes in from the observation deck in front, a cool ribbon of air wafts in. At times like these, a house by the sea, by the ocean or on the beach seem so attractive. The air and the water feel benign, protected, calm.

This is the fifth month into the job search and I’m holding steady like this ship is holding steady on its route----the difference is that the ship’s destination is sure and known. My destination is open.

In this open landscape, I notice things I have not noticed before---like small details and people. Across from my bench, a young man reads from a book to his girlfriend. Their belongings are on my bench, on theirs, on the floor, in plastic bags. His young voice is un-tested by age or experience and she is languidly lying on the bench with her head in his lap. She looks into his eyes as he reads. As I look at them, I think this: To be young, un-worried, and to have summer waiting on the horizon…I wish I were in their place.

Real

Poulsbo, Washington
8:00 PM


Mary, the owner of the Poulsbo Cafe, calls this section of town bohemia. When asked to delineate the boundaries, she happily motions to the area that covers her coffee shop. Obama stickers are pasted on the shop's napkin dispensers. The shop is cozy.

It has the square footage that a Starbucks in New York would envy. The three men and three women in the shop tonight are intimately bound in one threaded conversation: Politics, Doonesbury, bacon fat, and Wicca lore. I recognized the library assistant from the local library among them who nodded a "hi" to me.

What made me drop by for a cup of coffee is the view. The panorama of the Puget Sound can be seen from the front of the shop. At 8:00 p.m., I can see houses on other side of the waters; their lights reflect shards of light upon the waters. The view is cinematograghic. The water is placid in the bay. The marina is nearby and the boardwalk looks like it floats upon the water.

If this were the Hamptons, the real estate would be triple in value.

Turner vs. Tortured

Manhattan, NY — At the Metropolitan Art Museum this Sunday, there were millions of paintings from J.M.W Turner to be seen. I exaggerate on the number of paintings but here was a prolific and accomplished artist of his time. Tuner did not seem like a suffering artist who labored without recognition. Seeing Turner’s work made me think of the idea of a suffering artist in today’s time.

I must say that I am guilty. I generally think that art doesn’t pay unless one has reached the stratospheric heights of a few who through sponsorship, awards, or the limelight of notoriety are able to translate these three things into public and commercial success. In this world, the Damien Hirsts or Jeff Koons reside. My personal opinion of their art doesn’t matter but they command hefty prices for their work.

Excepting these few who hold the spotlight, where do other artists live? My presumption is that they suffer a little for recognition. My question is this: is art as an ability not as valued as other abilities? Somehow the question of commerce must be addressed. Someone must buy one’s labor or the fruits of one’s labor. So the questions that follow immediately are where is the appetite for art, who prices art, who buys it, and who gets to decide what it is.

I think of my painter friend J. whom these are not just questions. He lives in Portland, Oregon and he is also a talented teacher of fine art. He paints and carves out time to paint among the thing he does during the week to make money—he works at a gallery and consults with buyers on their purchases. He sells art. He would much rather be paid for his paintings or for teaching at universities which he has done. He wants recognition.

I would have to be an art critic to dissect the art world and the culture in which art exists. In Turner’s day, there were royal academies to which artists can gain membership. In this way, recognition is conferred. I don’t know what my friend J. must do to thrive as an artist today. His work reminds me of Nicolas Poussin and allegories of virtues and vice. I admire his singular passion to create something of beauty regardless if someone pays.

Saturday Sports

Manhattan, NY — If my feet could talk and say where I’ve been this weekend, then mine would say that they’ve taken a journey of a thousand miles and earned air mileage points to prove it. And they would tell of things picked up along the way. Let me explain.

The day began with sprints, squats, lunges and jumps at the “boot camp” class at the YMCA in the village. This was an endurance-interval-weight training class. My instructor L mixes the training up every Saturday such that when I feel any kind of mastery in one area, I’m always (un)pleasantly apprised of yet newer heights of endurance to which I must aspire. The lesson: Benchmark yourself. And breathe through the hard parts.

The afternoon involved lunch at Tribeca’s Whole Foods Store and tennis lessons from friends at the neighborhood courts nearby. These friends compete regularly in tennis leagues so my instructions were au courant. Amazingly, lessons from my super-fit gym teacher (what was her name?) in PE class in high school had imprinted themselves. She said, I recall, to anticipate the tennis ball and position accordingly when it comes down the court. Tennis instructor D added 2 things: Look at the ball squarely when it comes and drive it back where it comes from. Where your eyes are, he said, your hands will follow.

I traded a dinner for a shower in my rush to attend the next event. At 8 PM in Chelsea, free line dance lessons were available for the price of admission at the Big Apple Ranch. The dance hall is open to gays and lesbians. J taught us how to do the two step and how to do a “simple” version of line dancing. (Simple it was not!) By happenstance, I ran into a friend from Washington State I hadn’t seen for 10 years. My friend A broke up with a girlfriend recently and was working through the recovery. She asked if there were anybody I wanted to dance with. I pointed and said I danced with him already. It turned out he and I were both better at following than leading. My friend A said “Well, it’s never too late to lead.” Ka-Ching! This turned out to be one of the day’s most instructive lessons.

Let the games and lessons begin.


photo by tranuf. licensed by creative commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tranuf/

Hudson

Hyde Park, NY — Hudson is a fitting name for a river. It connotes strength like the name of the actor. Rock Hudson or Hudson River, both suggest solidity.

On the bank of the Hudson last Sunday on the grounds of Vanderbilt Mansion, traffic coursed on the river. I wondered sitting on the river’s bank with my friend Susan how much of the river landscape has changed since the pioneers first saw it or since Frederick William Vanderbilt first sited the area in 1800s. On the upper grounds, views of the river are partially obscured by trees— grand trees that perhaps weren’t as tall as when Mr. Vanderbilt first saw them. Still, the entire landscape serves then and now as a fitting background for Mr. Vanderbilt’s ‘modest’ mansion of 54 rooms.

His estate in Hyde Park is now a national park. Here on the bank, river life opened up. In a half hour, I counted 30 or so motorboats, a ferry-sized boat replete with passengers, a sailboat, a jet ski, and slow moving logs suggestive of the Loch Ness monster.

I sat on a rocky promontory and saw wispy dragonflies and heard what must be cicadas (do cicadas make sounds in the day?) This rock jutted like a finger into the river and pointed north. To my right, an inlet formed and here stilled water became marsh. To my left, the river ebbed and lapped against the rocks to make perfect little whirlpools. This river is no stream, no brook, and it is not as wide as the English Channel. It is grand and approachable. I imagined eight Olympic-sized swimming pools lined up length-wise could stretch across the river. And across the river was Holy Cross Monastery, where I once went on a weekend retreat. The view of the river induces a calm.

The beauty of Hudson River lies in its duality: strength and accessibility. It’s deep enough to support a freighter. It’s accessible enough that an Olympic swimmer could cross it. Human settlements on the river seem civilized and not overly dense. One could sit on one bank and imagine what the neighbor on the other bank could be doing. It is a river that humans have left to some extent to be itself—free.


Photo by reivax under Creative Commons License
http://flickr.com/photos/reivax

Deer Bay

Washington State - The car we were riding in took multiple turns in the Washington state peninsula until we pulled up and made camp on Deer Bay, off a river in Clallam County. We were 14 or so—disparate, conscientious interns at the public defender’s office spending a summer interviewing witnesses to crimes to assist Seattle’s public defenders. For our free labor, this trip was a reward the office provided. Marianne, our super competent case supervisor, came along to take care of us—and to herd us around like young cattle. We were, in fact, young.

Marianne organized all details for the Seattle to Deer Bay trip. We camped only one night. The story told around the campfire that night was that a prison was located nearby in Clallam Bay. I thought it appropriate and fascinating to have a prison hiding out in that craggy peninsula. The titillation of the evening came in deciding who would be sharing tents with whom since not all came with equipment. Marianne asked for volunteers. I volunteered to share with Barbara. Barbara had a gravelly voice and she didn’t seem to me to have grown out of the awkwardness of youth. Somewhere in my own timeline, I was an awkward Barbara. There was no titallation in our tent. Barbara slept and did not snore thankfully.

The campfire was unspectacular, the food unmemorable. The diversion was Joe. Joe was an intern with plans for graduate school. He was bound for Syracuse University to study poetry. He had big, red hair, very poet-like. He was cool. He brought out his guitar around the fire and drummed up songs that sounded made on the fly—and sang them late into the night. (With Marianne in tow, we had no beer but only our wits to entertain us.) Marianne bellowed from her tent for us to quite down throughout the evening. She was kind and firm: “Quiet Down” eventually became “Shut Up, you guys!” All through the night, commotion and murmurs came from us cattle and from our tents. Marianne didn’t emerge from her hideaway but threats streamed from her tent into the air. Barbara, my tent-mate, slept right through the revelry.

Eventually, we quieted down and went to bed. We de-camped the following morning. We passed a sign to Clallam Bay. A visit to the prison would have capped off the trip I thought. But it didn't happened.

photo by Adkinn. Creative Commons License.
http://flickr.com/photos/adamkinney/2530703498/in/set-72157605295626094/

Chinatown: The Event

Off Canal Street, NY - Somewhere in Manhattan a young woman is cooking furiously a Vietnamese dish or other in her Manhattan-sized kitchen. She loves to cook and she is good at re-creating dishes from her youthful days at home. She loves to eat and share with friends her favorite things. On Sunday, a small group got a taste of T’s largesse.

A party of nine convened at T’s place for dinner after 6:00 PM. We brought wine, watermelon, water---in that order---and lugged those items up to her apartment and then marched those things up to the roof. T brought pillows, blanket, and a beach umbrella to set on the naked roof. The sun was beating down on us at the time as we baked with sangria in hand. The incongruity of our beach set-up on a rooftop of a building against such a dense, urban landscape as Chinatown was matchless. The wind would have taken our beach umbrella into the skies had we not weighed it down.

Alas, wetted with sangria and with our stomachs in knots in anticipation, T brought up stewed pork and eggs, greens sautéed in garlic, and winter melon soup at 7:00. The pork had been stewing for an afternoon in its own juices with choice fatty bits left intact. (The fat was as flavorful as the meat.) The greens came fresh from the neighborhood grocer’s. The winter melon was infused by a broth based on ground pork. I was unaware that watermelon follows well with a bite of stewed pork---sweet chasing salty. The scene was not a vegetarian’s dream. It, in fact, recalled dinner times at home for those who were fortunate to grow up in such traditions.

The sunset came without our noticing. The conversation turned to dating, relationships, and the end of relationships. The night crept up on us at 10:00. The dinner was flawless. The scene was made by the food, the open air, the company.

Call it an urban picnic. Better yet, call a friend who will cook for you.

Photo courtesy of Twannwinn

Sun, Breeze, House

Malaga, Costa del Sol — There is a house off a main avenue in Malaga, that port city in Costa del Sol, where you wake in the morning to the sounds of birds. The chirpings of birds is sweet as it comes from the inside courtyard and the protected verandah where you’re staying. You know it will be a nice day as you see the breeze gently moving the drapes through the windows. You know that when your feet touch the floor beneath your bed the tiles will feel nice and cool under your feet.

It is April. The sun is gentle. The breeze is balmy coming from the Mediterranean. Across the street, when you venture on the porch with your café you can see the beach—3 minutes away and so close you can spend the week here like I and take it for granted. You see youths making a show of their physical exercises and adults jogging along the windy street that borders the beach. The beach faces south towards Morocco.

I strained to see Morocco when I went to the beach but couldn’t. I stayed in the villa to eat and read and talk to friends. What a luxury to have a pool in this house when the beach is right there. I swam twice in the pool underneath the palm trees. The water is normally too cold for me but at 3 PM the temperature was perfect. The house belonged to parents of friends and they had it re-done so it blended with the environs of Malaga. It felt local because it was.

I ventured with friends into old Malaga to see the old fort that used to guard the port. In Malaga, you can rest and feel a little the pulse of Spain. Locals shopped at the department store El Corte Inglés where I looked for shoes. They shopped at the European superstore Carrefour where I eventually found shoes. There are charming but non-Spanish owned hyper-markets like HyperCor that pop up all over the city that I understand are driving local business under; To my eyes, these stores are what American 7-Elevens could be if they were made charming, classy and situated in nice locations.

The fortunate thing about Malaga in April is that it is not the biggest destination on everybody’s itinerary. Grenada is that. From Malaga, you can take car trips to wherever you like on the coast. I wish you and I were in Malaga now.


Photo by Zilla-Boo. Creative Commons License
http://flickr.com/photos/zilla-boo/2097290109/in/photostream/

East, South, West, North

Washington, DC - Every morning in Brooklyn, I breakfast in my small kitchen peering out the kitchen window. The window gives view to the rooftops of buildings. Around 7 a.m. or so, I can see the sun rising out of the clouds. I prefer standing looking east in this womb of a kitchen to sitting in a comfortable sofa in my living room with its grander view of the Verazzano bridge. I couldn’t explain why until this weekend.

I spent Saturday in DC in an exhibit on Native American cosmologies at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. The exhibit showcased the belief systems of the first peoples of the Americas, such as the Lakota (in South Dakota), the Qe'Q'Chi' Maya (Guatemala), and the Anishinaabe (Canada). The explanations of the world, the heavens, and all points in between by people in these cultures were vivid, practical, and symmetrical. The Qe'Q'Chi' Maya people ascribed these qualities and attributes to the 4 cardinal directions:

• East----blood, the source of happiness, the color red
• South--seeds, birth, the color yellow
• West---maize, death, the color black
• North--bones, growth, the color white

So now I know why I prefer to gaze out the eastern window. The sun rises on the east and many cultures have explained many kinds of beginnings to what comes from the East. Something compelled me to see this particular cosmology as well. I noticed that the colors associated with each direction by the Qe'Q'Chi' Maya were found in the four colors of corn. I noticed that they did not fear death—it was another change in the cycle of humankind. This was a practical philosophy. If I can draw any conclusion, it is this: the practical can become the philosophical and the profound can exist in the simple.

Link to exhibit.

Rain

Nankorola, Mali - When I last left Nankorola, it was a village of 1200 farmers and small entrepreneurs in the savannah region of Mali. I worked as a health educator and spent two years trying to find ways to convince villagers on the importance of prevention on combating malnutrition and malaria. Among the many things I witnessed living here was the primeval force of rain.

In this village of one road and one water pump, torrents of rain water ran through parts of the village when the wet season came. When it rained, it stormed. I could not cross the road without being soaked up to my knees. I lived in a small house with a tin roof. At night, the rain pounded the roof and made me feel like I was an animal living inside a drum. The sound of rain against tin was terrific and the wind would shriek like a banshee such that I feared the roof would fly off. I was prepared any of those nights to run to my neighbors' safer and traditional homes of adobe should that happen.

I experienced Nankorola viscerally even if I was not able to do farmwork with my neighbors. I saw agricultural farming at the subsistence level. I saw nature as both fearful force and source of life. It ruled harvests and futures.It nurtured and leveled lives.

When it rains in Brooklyn, the sense of drama is rare. Except there was the rain storm that brought roofs down of brownstones in this neighborhood. That made big news. Lives and possessions in the brownstones were in near ruin. For a majority of Brooklynites, thankfully, roads don't become impassable. Knees don't get wet. Clothes are not drenched in seconds. And one could still venture out.

I sometimes miss the rains of Mali. A tremendous absolution was felt when it was over. I rejoiced when my roof stayed intact. The dirt road soaked up the water. Crops grew. The oppressive heat abated. The wind became kinder and I could smell that new smell that comes only after it rains.