Time: a creeping, leaping thing

*She walks in beauty...or it may be that she runs so, or jogs.

Walking out in the world some time ago I smiled at the sun, warm on my face. As I paused she ran by, lean, lithe, her blonde ponytail swaying with her strides. Perfume, perspiration, and the slap-slap of jogging shoes against the unforgiving pavement.

She rounded a corner and was gone.

Not very long later I rounded the same corner and moved further through the city. A little distance away from me she stood. An older her, a young man by her side, between them a golden retriever. The light changed and the three crossed the street, the retriever straining against the leash wrapped around her outstretched arm. I heard her young man laugh as he walked by her side, his hand in her free one.

They were quickly lost to my view.

Later in my walk, after turns both right and left, I saw in the distance the blonde young woman, a mother now, pulling a golden-haired boy in a little red wagon, a litheness still present in her gait, a curve to her belly hinting future joys.

The golden retriever was now leashed to her young man. They kept pace behind her, the years lying heavy on the dog.

I stood and watched. Her ponytail was gone, her hair a more sensible style. Her young man...his hair already fading...still smiled easily in response to something she said.

I lowered myself to a nearby park bench, not eager to hurry them through further stages. There would be time enough for college-age children, for grandchildren, for a time alone after her young man was gone.

I closed my eyes, letting the early summer sun warm my face, smiling at life.

* My thanks to Lord Byron for the phrase.

In life's business...time to pause

This next week's going to be busy. It just is. 'Tis the season, I suppose.

No present buying frenzy, at least we're spared that. We don't lug presents onto the plane to Kansas City. Just not the way we roll. And our friends there, they seem to regard our company as gift enough. We certainly regard their friendship, company and really excellent cooking as heartfelt gifts in our lives.

Work will be busy. End of year stuff, the usual. All the things that needed to be done over the last while need finishing. And, oh by the way, could you get these one, or two, other things done? You know, really important for end-of-quarter, end-of-year, roll-up kinda "stuff".

It pays the bills, so I can hardly say "No" too loudly, or at least too often.

There's also writing to be done, to be finished, to be submitted. Even I like to end the year by clearing out the backlog - or getting done the things I really should have done already.

Time to take a pause. To breathe. To remember this time last year, and all that has gone on through the year, to now.

We are here. We are well. We got to see those we love this year, scattered afar though we may be.

Time to take a beat. Nothing will be lost by it. If the wheels haven't come off by now...taking a beat will not change that.

And breathe, Kevin.

The things you hear...

As the train rolled towards San Jose on Thursday, it rolled to a stop. I and others were already standing by the door ready to disembark. It was too early (I wake up slow) to wonder why we were no longer moving. I was prepared to wait till we finally reached the platform, till someone said what was going (or not going) on, till all would be revealed.

"Ladies and gentlemen," came the announcement, "we are holding here at a signal while trains cross in front of us. Federal law prohibits us from running through a red signal and crashing into another train." Hooray for Federal Law, not to mention common sense.

Sure enough a second train pulls level with us two tracks over and a third, heading north, slips neatly between us. Would that all of life ran so well on rails.

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Two weekends ago we were at a wedding in Kansas City. The bride's mother, Jane, is a very great friend (as is her husband, the bride's father). Jane introduced me to her two sisters. "He tweets in haiku," she said.

I smiled and made my usual excuse that I don't live so exciting a life that I could tweet with any regularity, so I had given myself the challenge of tweeting only (by and large) in haiku.

"And you feel the need to tweet, do you?" asked one of the sisters. There really isn't a good answer to that.

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This evening we were at our "occasion" restaurant for dinner. Excellent food, our usual table by the fire, friendly and knowledgable servers. At the table just over the divider from ours sat a character for my NaNoWriMo novel this year. This woman could talk. She had a dinner companion who served as a sounding board, an occasional monologue spur (she might have regarded it as conversation), a jumping-off point.

"Oh, your calamari didn't come with tartare sauce. Please? We need some tartare sauce here." And then, "Did you want tartare sauce?"

"I know you don't like to do gifts and such but, I just had to get her this from you. It's just like that little Coach purse I have. You know it, don't you?"

And, for me the most perfect...

"How can I not know that name? Is this a trick question?"

I am sure I shouldn't have been listening, but it was all too good to pass up.

Finally - Happy Birthday Dick.

Rhythms and life stages - and crashing cymbals

Friday started hectic - as the haiku of the day suggested:

Friday dawns hectic
Already feeling behind
Breathe - in, out; repeat

It remained busy as the day progressed, and took a spectacularly good turn as the work day ended and the evening began. Off to the San Francisco Symphony were we, with a great Italian meal to be had before it. The music program was one of contrasts - two highly percussive pieces (by Mexican composer Revueltas and French composer Varèse) with a bassoon and string orchestra work by Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos sandwiched between.

That latter work was one of great beauty. The orchestra returned after the intermission for a performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Even today, that work is running round my head. The conductor and Musical Director is Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT). We are very fortunate to have a musician of his caliber leading the Symphony. Just glorious.

Speaking of which, last Saturday we had the pleasure of attending the wedding of Dick's goddaughter in Kansas City, MO. Glorious again. The bride, Brie, was beautiful, as brides are. The groom, Josh, handsome as can only be the case on such days. But she has been beautiful, and he handsome, on any day I've ever seen them. Weddings are good for the heart, for the soul.

My very best wishes to both of them in this new stage of their lives together.

A long way from Clare to here...

Even longer from Dublin to here...in oh so many ways.

Going by the day rather than the date, I stepped off a plane in Oakland seventeen years ago today. In one hundred four degrees of heat - and an overcoat. Given I was arriving with pretty much all I had to my name, it was the easiest way to carry it.

"Easiest" - at least up until that point.

Much had happened to bring me to that place and that time. Yet more has happened since. While I might wish to change some aspects of my life up to that watershed arrival, I would not care to change anything that has transpired since.

A long way - and not only in time and space.

Then the ambulance wouldn't start...

Last Sunday didn't start well. No day that involves the house being awake before 4:00AM can claim to be starting well.

Hints, more than hints if we bypass the denial, of pneumonia symptoms. No, not starting well at all. So, some self-assembly required, and actioned, and off with ourselves to the emergency room.

A busy night it seemed. One doctor and two harried nurses/assistants. An x-ray taken, and blood (pin cushion anyone?) while various and sundry other indignities are visited upon the patient. All this - and draughty paper clothing being the only thing between self, the elements, and any remaining shreds of modesty.

Pneumonia was confirmed and, while not as bad as some years before, a hospital stay mandated. Poked, punctured, two (count 'em - two!) drips installed and we wait for the transfer.

I can no longer focus and spend the time looking around at the technology. This, to my eye at least, is a valuable use for computers - except, please shut off that infernal alarm.

The transfer crew arrive - weighed down with paperwork and even more technology. The transfer to the gurney is effected and to the waiting "rig". The crew take their seats, doors close with reassuring solid thuds.

And then the ambulance won't start...

Some days just don't begin well...

Jeanne d'Arc - The Maid of Campbell

There she stood. Aged five, or maybe six. Everything about her - one foot crossed over the other, toes pointed to the earth, hands resting on hips, head raised - bespoke outraged indignation at guardian/parent/adult-who-would-infringe-upon-her-freedom.

I did not see her face. It wasn't necessary. I haven't seen that expressive a back in a very long time.

She was Jeanne d'Arc. She was Екатерина II Великая, Empress of All the Russias. She was The Firestarter.

I have no idea what transpired to cause such affront - but I hope she never loses her passion.

Go to the land that I will show you.

"It was twenty years ago today..."

Well, not twenty. We'll have to wait another four years for that. And not today. Tomorrow really. But you get my drift. Or, maybe I really am drifting. It had to happen sometime. I suppose.

On the last Thursday in June, in 1993, I stepped off a plane at Oakland Airport. 104ºF that afternoon, if I recall correctly. Quite a change from Dublin. It was raining there. So much so, water was running down the street.

Much has changed since then.

And all of it for the better.

For the quote that titles this entry, see here.

The red S is - sexy

It's really not what is done but, far more, the attitude with which what's done is done.

So, one might not regard a Toyota Corolla as sexy - even if it does have a red S on the back. But then, such a car can take you down the coast, off to see friends and relatives, birding or into the mountains.

And such an attitude is sexy, red S or no. Because excitement is sexy, possibility is sexy, living itself is sexy.

On a note entirely unrelated to the above, except of a piece with it because of the attitude shown, I ran across the blog of a young woman who recently dedicated her life to others, those who are her neighbors, as a member of a religious congregation.

On her first mission, before anything else, she had to deal with the minutiae that we all have to - form filling, driver's license, applying for jobs and, because she was in a new place, getting her library card and a membership at the local video store.

Instead of mailing all of these things in, she decided to go in person, to interact with as many people as possible, to get to know these neighbors to whom she had dedicated her life.

She is a nun so I hesitate to ascribe the adjective sexy, yet connections, human contact, the reaching out to other - this is life, real life, real living.

And, as I mention above, living itself - is sexy.

I know males are necessary, but...

Maybe it was all the testosterone after the Super Bowl, I don't know. I only know this was Super Bowl Sunday because all the papers said so.

I was leaving the condo complex this evening, to park the car outside as our garages are still full of junk. Tuesday is when that issue gets resolved. Another car was pulling out of a parking space ahead of me so I stopped to wait. Nothing special about me doing that, it was Sunday evening, I'm not rushing anywhere.

A car pulls up behind me, and the driver leans on the horn - very seriously. It just caught me wrong so I got out and walked back to his car. A very red-faced man screaming

"Do you want me to kill you? Do you want me to {expletive deleted} kill you?"

This screamed from inside the car, with the windows all closed and, who knows, perhaps with the doors locked.

I shrugged and said "Not particularly. I just wanted to know what was wrong" and returned to my car.

This is the second time in my life I have been faced with this kind of excessive, violent threat. The first time, a car was driven directly at me. The driver in that case, I concluded, had just seen too much television. Of course nothing happened, although I may not be making sufficient allowance for stupidity.

Most of the violence in the world can be laid at the door of males. Gruesome, excessive, exaggerated violence. This is not to suggest that the female of the species is a wilting violet. I don't believe that for an instant. But the numbers really stack up on one side of the equation.

I, for I am male, have had my own fantasies of, what's the term, "ultra-violence" (thank you Stanley Kubrick), but in the realm of fantasy they remain. And it was a fantasy for the idiot behind the wheel of the car this evening. There was no way he was going to kill me. It would have taken him too long to achieve it and my car was still blocking his.

It was a road with too poor an end for him to really go down it.

But that is not the case in so many parts of the world. The road is well-trodden. In fact it is a wide and mighty highway, strewn with the bodies of, all too often, women and children.

This really has to end. Parthenogenesis is perhaps too radical a solution - though males would have little defense against the necessity of it, from the perspective of the species, should it ever come to pass on a wide scale.

I am in favor of far wider access to positions of power for women. Throughout society, throughout all societies. This is not likely to lead us to sit, join hands and sing. The world is too complex and difficult a place for that. But we would likely stop killing and maiming one another with the current levels of efficiency and enthusiasm.

Too simplistic? Probably. But there are real differences between the genders. The numbers tell us that. It's time to place a bet on the other side of the equation.

For myself, I can only try to add my reactions and attitude to the non-violent side of every situation in which I find myself.

This evening I drove out of the complex and pulled to the side of the road to allow the car behind me roar past. And roar it did.

He may not have followed through on his reaction to me. There is something about trying to kill someone with your bare hands that is - difficult. The real danger is that he had 2,000 lbs of vehicle available to him and he wasn't in complete control of himself. It's probable nobody died tonight at his hand or under his wheels. But it's not his fault they didn't.

Are you a citizen?

My instinctive answer to the above question is "Why, yes. I am a citizen."

Of course, the question really being asked is "Are you a US citizen?" and the answer I really am giving is "Why yes. I am a citizen - but not of this country."

Ah, communication. Don't you just love it?

Of course, when the affirmative answer is given the follow-up question, at least yesterday, is "Did you vote?" It all goes downhill from there.

Ask the question you want answered. I'll answer it, or not and tell you so, but only if you ask the question you want answered.

I know, someone didn't take his nicety meds today - but that's the way it is sometimes.

Reality often doesn't match the vision

"Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong,

Pouring their music through the branches bare,"

The above from The Planster's Vision by Sir John Betjeman

While listening to the BBC news on the radio recently I heard a story of a farmer in Annecy, France who is being taken to court - because of cow bells. Annecy is to the East in France, not particularly far from where I lived for two years. Bucolic, pastoral, with the beauty of Geneva, the French Alps, Mont Blanc and the Jura mountains all around.

It seems the cow bells are disturbing people who wish for the "quiet countryside". Similar people have file lawsuits in France calling for the silencing of cocks crowing in the early morn and church bells - hence the quote above.

People like that give "Townies" a bad name!

People, enamored of the beauty and peace of the countryside have chosen to leave the rat race, close up the loft, garret, pretty little bed-sit or what have you and plant themselves in the rich and fertile soil of la belle France.

It is truly a case of "no matter where you go, there you are".

Dick and I have commented over the years on how distant society has become from the rhythms of life- the rhythms to be found outside the city, or in an earlier time, or even in the monastic life.

Patterns, cycles, of sleep, work and prayer (particularly in the monastic life but not, by definition, absent from other life choices).

Maybe it's the cost one pays for the benefits of civilization.

It is my belief that the filers of such lawsuits, while living in the country, are trying to live in the idea of "countryside". It doesn't work.

I do not know of the failure or success of such lawsuits. I know the outcome I would choose but, as these people have discovered, such is not always granted to us.

My advice: stop and smell the roses. There well may be fertilizer to smell along with the roses - but that is, in a very real sense, life. Don't try to avoid it.

Hot, hot, hot as the hobs of...

Warm it's been these last days in the Bay Area. "Last Days" indeed.

Is the end of days upon us? Record temperatures in the Bay Area (over 100 several times during the week where I work). An earthquake in the North-East Bay last night. Ten miles underground. What is going on down there?

And I lost my iPhone.

"Last Days" indeed.

On Labor Day weekend we had dinner in the City with friends from Kansas City. K is back in the Bay Area in her final year of school. Her Dad came with her and the four of us went to eat at South - K's choice of location. Good, good food.

Easy to get to for us also. Right beside the CalTrain station in San Francisco and Dick and I love trains.

I had my phone with me. Showed some photographs during the meal.

Some hours later, just before going to bed, I noticed when I tried to plug my phone in for the night that - it wasn't there.

It wasn't there again the following morning.

CalTrain hasn't seen it. The restaurant hasn't either.

Irony is a fundamental principle of the Universe. So it was that Saturday, the day the iPhone went AWOL, is the day on which I sold Dick's 1st generation iPhone on eBay. Sold it and sent it off via UPS. Hours before mine went missing.

Naught for it but to buy a new iPhone. 3G, 16GB, White.

Just to be different - like all the other Apple Fan Boys.