Today I...

Took these photographs.

 Serious.

Confused.

 

Awkward.

I guess I did laundry too.  And I took a nap, and had lunch with mom, and these two guys.  It was a great Sunday.

©Mandible|Photography

Life in a Moment: B

Today, my whole body aches. He decided we should walk through the woods, totally oblivious that I had (quite stupidly) decided to wear heals (although they were not drastic or outrageous, they were still impractical). When he finally did realize it, he laughed and said “oh yeah, you'll have to walk over some logs... good luck!” He never was exactly sympathetic to impracticality or stupidity.

We walked down to the lake, and he climbed with expert agility over the red jutting rocks, looking down here and there at the water. “Hmm” he said, peering into the depths just off shore. 

“What's up?” I asked, as he stared down into the dark water under the overcast sky.

“Well, nothing I guess. The last time I was here we sat down there on dry rock,” he said, pointing to a crevice in which about three feet of water sat, feeding back into the mammoth lake that stretched in front of us. “But then again, I guess that's really not 'nothing'. We can blame it on the rain, or we can blame it on global warming, but whatever is causing it, it's still happening.” 

I snapped a shot quickly while he stared out across the small bay where we were wandering, watching the lake. “What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“The water is so calm. The air is so cold, but it's not really that cold. It's overcast. It smells like fall – woodsmoke, frost on the air, rotting leaves, fresh water. It's certainly not what we would call a 'beautiful' day but we're making the most of it, and that counts more than anything.” He turned to me and gave me his lopsided, mischievous grin. “And I will make you make the most of it, especially in those stupid things,” he said, pointing at my shoes.

“Oh really?” I asked.

“Yes, really. We're going to walk.” 

And we did. This avid practicer jiu-jitsu and better health pushed me to walk four miles around Burlington in heels – and my feet may regret it, but I do not.

At one point while we wandered I asked him, “What do you think about having your photo taken from someone else?”

Without hesitation, and without looking back, he said simply; “It's interesting to see yourself from someone else's perspective.”

Buying Time

I've recently begun looking at PhD programs in New England for cultural anthropology, realizing with some despair that I'll need more study and school if I want to pursue a doctorate in anthropology.  I will admit that it is quite disheartening to realize - even after four years of school - that I will need even more to continue on into a field of interest.

For example, I've always been interested in cultural anthropology of the Near East - Sumerian, Assyrian, and Persian cultures have always fascinated me (I even did a study of Sumerian mythology two terms ago).  Most programs require a "mastery of language" in the field one wishes to study in.  In this case, I would have to learn Hebrew and other ancient Semitic languages, in addition to Farsi (which is the closest living linguistic relative to Persian).  How, then, am I supposed to learn these language when I have no more than a brief knowledge of them?  I participated in a play in high school in which I learned a Hebrew song.  I don't know how to read Hebrew except that it reads from right to left (like Farsi and many other middle and near eastern languages), and I certainly couldn't translate it.  Where, then, do I begin?

It seems I must begin from, well, the beginning.  I think I fare reasonably well in learning languages, a trait I probably inherited from my father and his mother, but it seems such a daunting task to learn a language so incredibly different from the romantic Indo-European languages I've already learned.  Even while studying Sumerian mythology, and reading the phonetic spellings of the cuneographic text that immortalizes the language (and its myths), I was able to, at least to some degree, begin to understand certain pieces of it.  Ki, for example, means earth - and rib.  The creation myth (which was eventually "borrowed" by Judaism and Christianity) describes the goddess, Ki, created from the rib of her husband.  There was some wit to this myth in the Sumerian culture, as her name served three purposes; not only to vouch for her creation (from the rib "Ki" of her husband) but her name represented the earth (and she represented fertility), and in essence, her equality of her husband.  In Judaio-Christian myth, the words lost their meaning overall and so she became unequal.  The play on words was lost, thus the meaning was lost.  

It's not that I think I'm incapable of learning that which I would need in order to succeed in (one of) the fields I've always dreamed of excelling in, but there are three major problems that occur in the capitalist higher education system we are exploited by today.  The first is that they operate as a business, which I will admit they must to some degree- but I cannot afford $40,000 a year, nor can I afford to quit my job and pursue this full time.  Secondly, I cannot afford extra credit hours at another nearby college in an anthropology undergraduate program as I have, unfortunately, tapped out my resources.  Thirdly, I simply cannot devote the time to such an endeavor unless, of course, I quit my job - which is not an option for many reasons, one among them that I really do enjoy it. 

Thus comes the ever irritating questions - what are my priorities, and how exactly do I line them up correctly?  How can I afford to pursue this dream without destroying myself and my life in the process?  Oh to live a life free of worry is sometimes my only wish.  I even told my brother tonight that I would love to pursue a life in photography and writing - but how do I even do that?  I have been raised to work and earn my living, to live without crushing debt and to live without drawing on the resources of others.  I have been raised by one very conservative man (my father was a state trooper and is now full time military) and one very creative woman (painter, hairdresser, and local business owner)- both on two completely opposite sides of a spectrum, one which I feel sometimes is tearing me apart.  I feel sometimes as if I live a life devoid of some inherent happiness that I am supposed to possess; as if my life is valued by the number of other peoples' expectations that I have fulfilled.  Finding a way to complete my own life is a question of free will. Free will, it seems, is sometimes in short supply for those weak of heart, like me.  

It seems that, for now, my dreams are put on hold.  Paying a mortgage is more important than preying on the dreams of my past- and yet there they are, just over my shoulder, begging me to pull them back in front of me and take charge.  A constant struggle of wills, my conservative self, my free will, and my creative self, all pulling in separate directions.

Fretting on Nothing

her sweater blossoms
into a thousand loose threads,
like the thoughts of a Catholic priest
during Ramadan.

and while God eludes us
who are unsure of His existence,
we find solace in understanding
the fragrant noise of snow on open ground.

like the fire of weakness
we blaze a trail through fields of wheat
and feel the heels of our feet
toughen over tiny pebbles.

the faded gold of autumn leaves

fades as the cold blankets the north,
our hands tired of fighting - 

so we hibernate, while the rain and snow
march east.

Into the Dark : A Reflection of Blind Philosophy

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Ben Gibbard

There is a heavy, foreboding sadness that sits heavy on my heart when I read the books of people who have thrown themselves into the darkness that erodes the life of the earth, facing the actions of other human beings that we desperately try to blind ourselves to, the horrors and devastation that beget more human life in the depths of violence and despair, it eats at me, the urge to try and find a way to help too; and it irks me, the excuses people make to ignore it. It may be said that it is fair to demoralize the movements of humanitarian authors through life by pointing out their grammatical mistakes, their haphazard stories written in scattered lines, brought into existence as the memories of these stories come to mind. These memories often interrupt each other in the process of being born into words on mortal paper, pushing others out of the way, struggling for breath in an overwhelming current of emotion, fear and demoralizing repression. Fairness is objective in reading and telling a story, and to demolish the morality of a story simply for its surreal representation is an action immoral and thus hypocritical. We all do it; we are human, and we are argumentative by nature. There is nothing left to argue once we have argued against the compassionate action of another, whose moral actions we cannot live up to. We find our faults in the triumphs of others, but are wont to blame ourselves, so we take the easy road and blame them for being narcissistic, unrealistic, and ignorant: of “martyring themselves”.

In A Thousand Sisters by Lisa Shannon, she is asked by a “thoughtful, politically aware friend” why she would “'help women there [in the Congo], where it's a total mess? Why not help other needy women someplace where it is stable?'” (Shannon, 45). I've had this question posed to me before in the midst of heated debate about some aspect of violence and injustice in the world, posed in some form or another. How is it right to only focus on the injustice in the stable parts of the world, and not the injustice that occurs in the “unstable” areas of the world? Is a third-world country no longer worth the notice of a first world country? Are our first-world problems more important than that of a third-world country? Is the rape and violence against women in the Congo less important than the rape and violence against women in America? When presented with these types of morally hypocritical questions, I never have an answer to hand to the one posing them, only more questions, which only leads to more debate and heated assertions of their right to an opinion, or their right to believe that the problems around them should come first. There are so many problems in so many places that one person can never see them all at once, and often they become overwhelmed by the sheer voracious capacity of problems in the world. “One thing at a time” as my mother always said.

In the introduction of A Thousand Sisters by Zainab Salbi, she writes that “we see that in every story of injustice there is a movement for the good, one in which there are always survivors who decide to dedicate their lives to ending it, as well as those who have not been victims but know of their moral responsibility to stand up and fight” (Shannon, Salbi, 12). Many people experience difficulty in understanding their own moral responsibility, and recognizing where to begin in addressing that responsibility. Our own lives can be overwhelming enough, and we use this as an excuse to ignore our ethical responsibility to the rest of the global community. Our sense of community, as my communications professor Robert Wuagneux once said, has deteriorated; We are so independently minded and dependent on virtual communities as proxies that we no longer recognize our instinctive need for communities around us. Where we once depended on the physical communities that we lived in, we now depend only on the virtual representation, and while technology is a tool that could certainly help us to expand our communities, we only draw inwards away from socialization and towards seclusion. Our virtual communities (social networks like Facebook) encourage a detached approach to communication, one which encourages us to “vocalize” opinions which we would otherwise inhibit. This can be positive, but often will turn negative – our immorality is only heightened by this lack of true socialization. Hurt feelings are easy to ignore, or even premeditate on. Consequences remain unaddressed or forgotten. Thus our general mindset evolves in everyday life to encompass this dispassionate existence.

This idea of impartial existence is outlined in the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. In a letter written by Chris McCandless to an elderly man who took him in for a short period, he writes “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind...” (Krakauer, 56). McCandless is speaking of giving up security in life to enjoy the unrestrained, raw joy that naturally waits for us here in life. His statement is, unfortunately, fundamentally flawed by cracks manifested with naivete, in that the argument can be used both ways. Although he is speaking in reference to the American middle class, his statement could be turned inside out to argue, for example, that the women of the Congo are inherently responsible for their lives. Or it could also be used to argue that the people of the Congo must enjoy life immensely, because each day is insecure, and the chaos around them prevents any kind of conformity. McCandless, while intuitive to the overlooked joys of life and the freedom we take for granted in western society, seems sadly ignorant to the weight of his statements and philosophies outside the American standard of living. Often unsaid, this same ignorance pervades the lives of many in all first world countries. Our beliefs, whether we like it or not, reflect the same flag of ignorance, which we have yet to pull down. It seems that McCandless withdrew from society in a flagrant effort to understand his self-worth, his knowledge, and his deeply personal evolving spirituality. Near the end of his life, he wrote, “happiness is only real if shared”. This journey made him realized that withdrawing from people, into himself, and into the wilderness, would never really make him truly happy. For him, happiness is only enjoyable if it is in concert with another person, with other human beings. I think this same rule applies to our global community; although we must all walk a solitary path to truly appreciate the need for community. Boiled down, I think this was the point McCandless was trying to make.

To argue is to provoke thought, which in turn assists in ushering in change. Sometimes, I believe, our thought processes run astray, we become self-harming narcissists only arguing to our own ends, not the ends of those we are supposedly arguing for. In “My Mother's Lover” by David Dobbs, he realizes after his mother's death that he had ignored the story of her illicit World War II ERS pilot lover because of the cultural taboos imbued in the bones of his mother, her life and, ultimately, his life as well. The story, in and of itself, means nothing outside of being a deeply personal journey for Doobs and his self discovery, awareness, and understanding. Sex and love and private passion are topics that are largely ignored, especially when they also incorporate infidelity and take place during an era when things like “things like this just didn't happen”. Such a story in a primarily right-wing Christian society is viewed with conspicuous side-glances and large doses of suspicion. We question the integrity of the soul that the person carries, as if loving someone other than the one they are married to is an act so heinous it cannot be redeemed, and we close our mouths and swallow our tongues to avoid discussion of it. Whether we speak of sex in terms of infidelity, or we speak of sex in terms of intrusion, violence, and rape, the conversation itself is looked down upon. Our values are skewed – original messages are buried and new meanings are dug up from between the letters. Human beings, but most especially those who are embedded in western culture, have developed an ironically strict ignorance of the world around them, and the processes of the world around them: an ignorance which serves to blind us to the hurtful nature of something which should be fun. “Don't ruin it for me”, is a common enough response to a conversation about rape.

I see the problems of our world in incredibly naïve ways – as if we may all run in and solve those problems if “only we'd work together”. This is a seriously flawed sense of security, which reflects not only my upbringing, but my culture. Inevitably, we come to realize the grave, unbearable weight of reality. Light of inspiration and enlightenment fades. Our previous hopes and dreams whither, as if they are only leaves on a dying tree and not a spark that is kept alive by an instant of inspiration. This is the easy way out – this is the beggar's escape, the romantic's disillusioned ignorance. We live our lives drowning in darkness we could easily pull ourselves out of, because we'd rather keep the blindfold on than tear it off and face the world with our eyes open.

Works Cited

1. Dobbs, David. My Mother's Lover. Vol. 5. Atavist, 2011.
2. Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 2007. Print.
3. Shannon, Lisa. A Thousand Sisters: My Journey of Hope into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman. Berkeley, CA: Seal, 2010. Print.

A Study of Biography: Travelers and Their Stories

I go to an alternative higher education school - still federally accredited and academically sound.  I get asked every semester, regardless of how many times I explain my situation, which classes I am taking.  I don't take classes - I develop studies.  The program is much like creating a mini masters' thesis each semester.  This semester I decided to do a study in biography, specifically in travel biography and associated works.

The first book I read was The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann.  This book offers a biographical history of the late Colonel Percy Fawcett's explorations, specifically his last exploration, in which he was searching for the “city of Z”, or El Dorado. The author, David Grann, pulls from a variety of sources, including published letters and accounts from other explorations, private letters from Colonel Fawcett himself, his sons Brian and Jack, and his son Jack's friend Raleigh. Grann makes a point to follow Fawcett's path and concludes the book with an insightful ending into the history of a small tribe that was once much larger - as large as a small city, in fact.  

The second book I read was A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to be a Woman by Lisa J. Shannon.  This was a great book, clearly preaching a humanitarian itinerary but for good purpose.  While Shannon documents her travels through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she also documents numerous stories of various individuals, from women who had been viciously raped, parents who had lost their children, to children who were forced to be soldiers and carry out acts of violence as well as some of the men who daily conceived and carried out these acts.  Shannon also documents her fund raising efforts, in a collaboration she has called "Run for Congo Women", and her subsequent removal from a long-term romantic relationship because of her intimate involvement in her focus to help women of the Congo rise from the ashes of their victimization.  

I have involved myself with reading other books and articles which were incredible in their own way.  One book, written by a notable author from the Middle East, struck me as rushed and halphazard, as if she were writing the book only to satisfy some contract.  The emotional investment was there, but the organization and written skill I've seen in her work before was not.  

I also read a small article titled "My Mother's Lover" by David Dobbs, a writer who lives in Vermont and London.  The article outlined a simple fact of life that was, and still is, frequently ignored or admonished; infidelity.  Dobbs tells the elusive tale of his mother's affair with a World War II ERS pilot, and the consequences of their engagement as well as the insecurity and mystery surrounding the pilot's death.

I try to develop studies that cultivate my interests, to help them grow outside of the feeble flower pots I've always planted them in, to jump outside of my comfort zone and push myself forward.  My primary reason for doing a study in biography was that I have simply never been interested in non-fiction literature.   I read to escape, not to face the troubles of the world.  At the last moment, I decided to specify the study further (knowing that I would need to anyway) to focus on various aspects of travel.  Not necessarily tourism or explorations, but travel of all kinds.  I have my coworker Mark to thank for this, upon his initial recommendation of The Lost City of Z, a book which I was drawn into so quickly I hardly realized it was over.

For those of you who enjoy reading on a Kindle (or other e-readers), I know that the books and articles I've specifically outlined here are all available through Amazon for the Kindle as that is what I use myself.

Happy reading!

Counting Backwards

I held the light of one tiny moon,

between my two fingers, on my left hand

and with my right, I drew in blue crayon

a river on the wall.

We laughed about the intricacies 

of debate, the largest basket

the smallest hands.

And while we arrested ourselves,

locked in rooms lined with cedar

to better preserve us

I thought eventually the moths

would make their way in

and eat us alive. 

Our hopes were small,

only taking up enough space

to exist quietly.  

We whispered of love and fortune,

and redwood trees

while we sipped our coffee

under the falling leaves.