Morning Run -- Here Comes the Sun (And I Say It's Alright?)

This morning's run was rushed, with anxiety and worry in hot pursuit, feet slapping the still-cool concrete.  I had to hurry, because I couldn't be late for an early-morning meeting with an important person to talk about a possible career shift.  That's nervous-making stuff for a measure-your-life-out-in-coffee-spoons person like me.  Then I came across these desert blooms, almost set ablaze by the rising sun.  Sun, sun, sun.  Here it comes.  In the valley of heatstroke, that's not necessarily a good thing.  But the beauty of the scene gave me a boost.  That, and I found another lucky penny.  Must be a sign.  Both lucky pennies came along in my suit jacket to my meeting.  Sure didn't hurt.



Wednesday's Word -- Hobgoblin

Hobgoblin Hall, William Wordsworth's House

I love this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."  Reminds me a bit of the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I must say that I have always taken some pride in my ability to be consistent -- even when the consistency lacks wisdom.  One foot in front of the other.  Or, keep swimming, keep swimming, keep swimming.

I'd love to talk about the meaning of the word "consistency," but the word I especially love here is "hobgoblin."  What exactly is a "hobgoblin" in the first place, and what does Emerson mean by linking it to "little minds"?

Hobgoblins are fascinating little creatures of folklore and myth.  They are said to be friendly, mischievous, troublemakers who love to play practical jokes.  I'm not sure if there are female hobgoblins, but according to tales I have heard, they are usually small, hairy elf-like men.  Strikes me as creepy, but they are typically found living in human homes, and (here's a redeeming quality), they do odd jobs around the house (like dusting and ironing) while the humans sleep.  Maybe after reading this, you are thinking of the house elves in the Harry Potter books.  It does appear that those creatures are at least loosely based on the lore of hobgoblins.  You can also find quite a few other references throughout literature and popular culture (e.g., I have memories of scary hobgoblins from my brothers' Dungeons and Dragons days back in the early 1980s).   In case you're interested, my favorite hobgoblin tale is The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue.

So what is Emerson saying?  Being foolishly consistent makes you a hobgoblin?  Hobgoblins are foolishly consistent?  Little minds are inhabited (or stolen) by hobgoblins?  (My little mind could use some dusting and ironing, so . . . .)  Based on my quick research, this quote is usually interpreted to mean that "little minds" (those unwilling to see reason) are afraid of change; they'd rather cling to foolish consistency.  To reach this interpretation, the word "hobgoblin" is read to mean a source of fear of trouble.

I agree with the sentiment.  Little minds would rather keep doing things the way they've always been done, even if there might be a better way.  But as I ponder on it, I don't think Emerson was using the word "hobgoblin" to mean scary, hairy elf.  Perhaps more of a trickster elf (like the famous hobgoblin Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream).  The full quote, which comes from Emerson's essay Self Reliance is:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."  

If hobgoblin means something scary, then wouldn't Emerson have said (something like) change is the hobgoblin of little minds?  Instead, he said that little minds adore these hobgoblins (i.e., foolish consistency).  Yes, I think the genius of the quote is that little minds do adore their foolish consistency -- comfortable sameness that plays tricks on your ability to reason.         

Stamp River, Vancouver Island (October 2005)

And finally, here's a little metaphor for you to chew on.  Many years ago, I spent some time on Vancouver Island and took a short hike one day to see salmon swimming upstream at Stamp Falls.  The rangers there had constructed an interesting little contraption called a fish ladder.  This "ladder" doesn't have rungs but is a series of ascending pools that allow the fish to rest in little pools in between jumps.  This ladder makes the process of leaping up a waterfall a whole lot more manageable.  Watching the salmon leap was a thing of beauty.  But the most fascinating thing to me was how many of the fish refused to use the ladder.  Many of them instead insisted of making the journey the hard way, as the salmon for generations before had done.  Made me think about which of the fish were the foolish ones.  I suppose they were all headed towards spawning and death, in any event! But isn't that ultimately true for us all?

Monday's Metaphor -- Gutter Glory

The winds are blowing in the heat of summer, and I'm grieving over golden grove un-leaving.  {Well, actually the palo verde trees formerly ablaze in golden splendor are reverting to green sticks.}

This sight left me thinking on the one hand about how fleeting the truly glorious moments in life can feel, but also how there is beauty to be found everywhere -- even in the gutter moments of our lives.

That and that, and also that there is a time and season for all things.      

Monday's Metaphor -- The Hunt

"I Don't Like the Sound of This" ,
Michéle Brummer Everett

I have a metaphor wall at home.  (Are you surprised?  I didn't think so.)  On this wall hang various paintings, prints, and drawings that have some metaphorical meaning for me.  Sometimes I will stand, staring at this wall to brace myself against the circumstances of the day. 

Here is one item from my metaphor wall.  It depicts a hunter holding a leaf in hand, with a bear on his back.  The print is captioned:  "I Don't Like the Sound of This."  Here's the artist's description:  "A mighty hunter and his favourite bear friend come across a suspicious leaf in the forest. Whatever he's saying, our trusty bear is NOT buying it!"

Now here's the beautiful thing about art.  It can mean whatever I want it to mean.  For me, I look at this print and am reminded that the thing I'm hunting for may already be on my back.  Or some days, I take it to mean that transition (the new leaf) can be a scary/suspicious thing, even to a bear and a mighty hunter.  Both metaphors apply in my life.  Yours too?

Foreign Soil

I recently read Unaccustomed Earth, a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri.  Maybe you have read Interpreter of Maladies (her Pulitzer Prize collection of short stories) or her novel The Namesake?  (I have read both, but I would especially recommend Interpreter of Maladies.)  Lahiri tends to play with variations on the same theme in many of her stories, but there is something about the way she writes that makes me feel like I'm eating the words and don't want to leave a single morsel behind.  And her use of metaphor is something to behold.

Over the past several weeks, I have been thinking in particular about a metaphor Lahiri uses in the title story of Unaccustomed Earth.  The title comes from a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Custom House":  "My children will have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."  Lahiri's stories examine the lives, relationships and emotions of displaced Bengalis raising families in the United States.  These are the children of immigrants striking their roots into new, strange ground.  

In the title story, 38-year-old Ruma is striking her roots into unaccustomed earth in many ways.  She has just lost her mother to an unexpected death.  She has just been transplanted from Brooklyn to Seattle, relocating for her American husband's job.  She has no connections or friendships, and her husband is always traveling for work.  She has just left her own job as a lawyer to take on a stay-at-home role, with one child to care for and another on the way.  (As the narrator describes it:  "Growing up, her mother's example -- moving to a foreign place for the sake of marriage, caring exclusively for children and a household -- had served as a warning, a path to avoid.  Yet this was Ruma's life now.")         

When her widowed father (who since his wife's death spends his time traveling abroad on packaged tours) comes to visit Ruma and her young son in Seattle, Ruma deliberates with some self-torture to decide whether to ask him to come live with her (as she feels is culturally expected of her), only to find that he prefers to strike his roots into foreign soil and has no interest in planting himself in her home.  During his visit, he devotes himself (unbidded) to planting an extensive flower garden in Ruma's backyard.  He involves her little son Akash in the process, who plants his own garden patch of toys and all manner of odds and ends.  When Ruma's father leaves, eager to be on his way, there is no way to know whether the life he has planted in her yard will thrive and grow, or wither untended.  (Certainly Akash's garden is doomed.)  Nor is there any way to know whether Ruma herself will blossom and grow in this unaccustomed earth that is her life.  But isn't that the reality for each of us?

    

I am no foreigner, at least in a literal sense, but this is a theme that resonates with me (and one I have written about at least a bit on this blog).  As far back as I can remember, I have always felt planted into unaccustomed earth.  I have never really entered ANY room and felt a true sense of sameness or acceptance.  (For one thing, the longer I have traveled along this path in the legal profession, the fewer fellow travelers I find who bear any meaningful resemblance to me.  But it's much more than that.) In truth, it is unlikely that anyone would guess this about me.  And this is the aspect of the metaphor that captivates me.  How many of us are trying to grow in foreign soil of some sort unbeknownst to the other flowers, fruits and vegetables in the garden?  

Turning Over a New Leaf

My children and I had fun watching this barren tree in our backyard transform over the span of about a week.  Wonderful!  

Standing Sentinel

This is what I see on my morning runs.  Well, I actually see these white birds standing sentinel in the dark because I run in the wee hours, but this is a shot I took a bit later on a Saturday morning.  Don't they look like they're waiting for something to happen?  That's how I feel too, but with much less patience.

Choose Your Own Adventure

When I was a kid, I went through a stage during which I read every Choose Your Own Adventure Book I could get my hands on.  The first books in the series were published starting in 1979 when I was 7 years old, and they were perfect for my little inquiring mind.

Of course I cheated and would retrace back to the page with the decision point when I didn't like the outcome.  Sometimes I would make really bad choices on purpose just to see what would happen.  It was a book, and I could do that.   And pretty much anything could happen.  You could choose to visit friends in France where you might rent a hot air balloon and hop in.  Then you could choose what direction to fly, and when you met with trouble, you could choose to engage in peaceful negotiations or attack, swim for the shore or wait for rescue.  Depending on where your choices led, you might even end up drifting away into space, where the lack of oxygen leads to your demise.

Anyway, I've always been interested in choice and consequences.  In possibilities and change.  In hope and regret.

Along those lines, here are a handful of photographs of some of the beautiful doors I chanced upon while traveling in the Mediterranean this summer.  I like to think about what might be on the other side of each.

Tunis, Tunisia

Amalfi Coast, Italy

Cinque Terre, Italy

Tunis, Tunisia

Malta

Ask Not What Your Mother Can Do for You

Soft and Clean by Leslie Graff

I was never going to be that mother.  You know the type.  The kind that chides disobedient children with "Just wait until your father gets home."  I was going to be a force to be reckoned with in my own right -- never one to admit weakness by calling in the reinforcements.  Well, I'm ashamed to admit that I have resorted to the tactic in desperate moments.  

On Saturday, I had pretty much had it already by 10 a.m.  I was still in my pajamas, flitting from room to room in my efforts to clean the house while dealing with a million requests from children who were more hinderance than help.  "Mom, I'm bored!  What can I DO?!"  "Mom, I'm thirsty."  "Mom, I'm hungry."  "Mom, [brother/sister] is bothering me!"  "Mom, I need help to wipe."  "Mom, I don't know what to wear; come choose my clothes."  "MOM, help me NOW!"  So, I did it.  I called my husband downstairs (he was working in the office upstairs) and told him he had to talk to them.  What he said was actually quite good.

Let me first say, that it completely irks me that they will listen to him in rapt and respectful silence, when I seem to be received more like sound and fury signifying nothing.  But irritation aside, I was impressed. He told them they are treating me like Cinderella.  They pepper me with their demands and act as if I'm their servant.  Instead of "Mom, I need something to eat!" try asking "Mom, are you hungry?  Would you like me to get you something to eat?"  Instead of "Mom, I'm bored!" try "Mom, what can I do to help you?"

Folding clothes from the other room while eavesdropping on the speech, I couldn't help thinking of John F. Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural Address, where he offered the now-famous suggestion:  "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country."  My children did indeed need such a speech.  Maybe your children do too.  Now I will take the opportunity from time to time to remind them to ask not what their mother can do for them, but rather what they can do for their mother.

And the beautiful thing?  The speech WORKED.  At least for a little while . . . .    

Humpty Dumpty Is Growing Old

Well, call me Humpty Dumpty.  Actually I don't even have the excuse of sitting on a wall.  I just had a great fall -- twice actually in the past week.  My husband has taken to asking me whether I feel steady?  And do I think I might be about to fall again?

All joking aside, the whole falling thing has left me a bit shaken.  Am I actually getting old?  Whatever happened to the me that grabbed a good friend, a swimsuit and a credit card and took off minutes later on a spur-of-the-moment Tijuana trip, singing "I'm Not Growing Old" by The Origin at the top of her lungs?

Well, that me is no more.  Actually, she was gone quite some time ago.

About the falls.  The first one happened while I was standing on a stool in my closet -- reaching, strehhh-tching just a bit too far to the right to grab hold of a shoe box high on a shelf.  I had a great fall, and it took some effort to put myself back together again.  In the process of crashing down, I destroyed my husband's side of the closet organizing system (ripping down the shoe rack).  I was left dazed, with cuts and bruises.

My husband came in (we were both getting ready for work) and asked what in the world had just happened.  "I fell."  "I can see that," he said.  "The question is why and how?"  "I really don't know.  I just lost my balance, and there I went."  Now, I'm not the most coordinated person ever, but falling like this is not in my normal repertoire.  "Are you okay?"  "No, not really."  "Is there anything I can do?"  "Just leave me in my shameful state and let me moan and groan for a while."  Husband exits shaking his head.

The second fall occurred a couple of days later.  I was in the shower when I realized that I needed a new bar of soap.  No problem.  I stepped out, dripping all over the place and grabbed a bar from the nearby tub.  Trying to minimize the puddles, I leaped into the shower with a step, that turned into a slide and a near concussion.  Thankfully, I caught the brunt of the fall with my arms and my backside.  I have the bruises to show for it.  Added to the ones I had already created on my legs, I have quite the collection.

Again, my husband runs into the room.  This time even more incredulous than the first.  "Are you kidding me?  What just happened?"  "I don't know.  I just lost my balance, and there I went."  "Are you okay?!"  "Actually, no.  But I don't think I broke anything."  "Why do you keep falling?  What's wrong with you?"  "Just go, because that's not helping."  Husband exits, shaking his head.

The truth is, I'm not sure what's wrong with me.  Normal people don't fall like that.  Not even border-line-clutsy people.  All I can think is that I'm getting old.

And then a couple days later, I get the message that an elderly man in our neighborhood fell at his home, and had to be taken to the hospital.  Broken ribs and blood in his urine.  That would have been me if I were three or four decades older.  I used to wonder when I heard about an elderly person falling and breaking a hip.  Now I see that it could happen.  Very easily.

As for me -- middle-aged-I-am-in-fact-growing-old-after-all person that I am -- I'm grateful to be nursing bruises instead of breaks.  Maybe I should pull out that old Origins album again.    

I'M Free Too!

I often lie in bed at night with my daughters (who share a room), talking when they're supposed to be sleeping.  I take turns.  One night I rest in one daughter's bed, the next in the other's.  Their favorite night-time activity (and tactic for getting me to stay just a few minutes longer) is to ask me to tell them stories. Stories about when I was a kid.  Stories about my brothers and sisters.  And especially, stories about the funny things they themselves did "when they were little."  Some of the stories have an actual plot, but many consist of little clever things one or the other once said.  Lodged in my brain. 

For example, the ever-entertaining and sage comment from Olivia when she was almost 3:  "Mom, poop is good for you.  But not to eat."  Or the too-clever-to-punish justification from Hannah when she was 6, responding to my frustrated query as to why she was jamming candy into her mouth an hour before dinner:  "I'm cleaning it up, Mom!  I didn't know where else to put it." 

So in honor of the 4th of July, here's one of my favorites from one of my daughters (then 3) in response to my explanation that on the 4th of July we celebrate the fact that we are all free.  "I'M three [pronounced free] too, mommy!!!"  Love it.

And here are a few lines I'm chewing on from Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) from his Freedom XIV:

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
. . .
I quite like the thought that you should not/cannot wait for the things that "girdle your life" to release you before you consider yourself "free."  I think it's quite true that the chains that bind are often fastened by our own hands.  What I'm thinking about now, is what "fragments" of myself I can discard . . . . 

Have a great holiday weekend!

Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?

These beloved words from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" have been keeping me company today:

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I often referred (lovingly) to my late cat as "Prufrock."  He would meow and meow until I opened the sliding glass door to the back porch.  Then, with the wide world at his paws, he would tentatively stick his head out to sniff outside, with the rest of his body safely in the house.  He would do the hokey-pokey, putting one foot out, then pulling the foot back in.  Sometimes, he would eventually put his whole self out, except keep his tail in so I couldn't close the door.  If I waited long enough, sometimes he would finally step outside into the night air, and I would quickly close the door to keep the bugs out.  Within seconds, that silly cat would be standing against the door, whole furry body pressed with outstretched limbs and open, pink mouth against the glass -- begging to get back in.  

"Okay, Prufrock.  Come back in.  No peaches for you today," I would say.  

My Prufrock is gone, and I lost a kindred spirt.  I'm not losing my hair (and thus have no need to part it "behind").  I'm not even all that old yet (at least according to me).  I don't wear white flannel trousers, and I certainly don't have enough free time to walk on the beach.  I don't generally deliberate over my fruit choices.  

Oh, but I DO deliberate over life's equivalents.  And today, I'm particularly tortured.  I've made up my mind and changed it a dozen times.  

One way or another, I will either eat the peach or cast it aside by mid-week.  And then I will move on.  At least that's what I've decided for tonight.  


May 12 Post Script:  I decided not to eat the peach.  (If you're curious, the "peach" (and the "horse" too) was a job offer.)

Wednesday's Word -- Harbinger

Have you ever used the word harbinger in a conversation?  I've tried, but people look at me funny. Despite all efforts at recall, I don't remember how or when I first heard this word.  But I've loved it for a long time.  You pronounce it like this.  So what does it mean?  (I'm sure my brother Peter (who was the Balderdash master way back when) could come up with some cleverly concocted definitions.  Who knows, maybe that's how I first learned the word??)

A harbinger is one that announces or foreshadows the approach of someone or something; forerunner; herald.  It comes from the Middle English herbenger, which was a person sent ahead to arrange lodgings for a monarch or an army.  The word harbinger comes from the Indo-European root *koro, which means war.  

In the 16th Century, the word took on its current meaning of forerunner.  "Forerunner" means
predecessor; ancestor; forebear; precursor; omen, sign, or indication of something to follow; portent.

"Portent" means an indication or omen of something about to happen, especially something momentous; threatening or disquieting significance.

Well, here in Arizona a harbinger has arrived.  It always comes this time of year, arranging lodging for a most unwelcome guest.  It is an omen.  A portent.  An important portent.  Foretelling a coming war.

Behold the palo verde (green stick), streaming ribbons of yellow* blossoms in warning:  The Harbinger of Heat.  At least that's what I call it -- not in everyday conversation, granted, but in conversations with myself :)

[Something like tying a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree to symbolize a wait for the return of a loved one temporarily unable to come home.  I'll be waiting for the temperate weather to come home . . . .] 

Wednesday's Word -- Rescue

This past Sunday, all the talks given during our church meetings focused on the theme of "rescue."  In a religious sense, "rescue" might make you think of the Savior rescuing and delivering us from sin.  In a secular sense, "rescue" might make you think of a firefighter or some other brave person taking a risk to bring another person to safety.

The word "rescue" does encompass all of these things, but being the curious word nerd that I am, I decided to take a closer look at the origins of the word.

When you use the word "rescue," you probably use it to mean "to free from danger."  If you rescue someone, you save that person's life.  As in, the fighfighter rescued the family from the burning house, just in the nick of time.  

But the word actually comes from the Latin excutere, meaning "to shake."  So you put the "re-" at the beginning, and you literally have "to shake off again."  I suppose a rescue does involve shaking off or ridding someone of something that is confining that person.  Shaking off the burning house.  Shaking off the desert island that holds the person captive.  Shaking off death itself.  

But this new understanding of the word has left me thinking about habits, thoughts, tendencies, possessions, fears and other such things that take hold of a person, resulting in confinement and danger of a sort.  The kind of baggage that weighs a person down.  The kinds of weight that begs for a shake.  The kind of shake that leaves you lighter and with a clearer perspective on life.  

James Christensen's painting, The Burden of a Responsible Man, makes the point:

I can relate.  While there are certain burdens that must be carried, I have been making a concerted effort to rid myself of some responsibilities as of late -- taking on fewer "voluntary" tasks, letting certain unessential things slide.  I've also been selling things I don't need and giving other things away.  My goal is to get rid of at least one thing every day.  I'm amazed at how much it lightens my outlook.  Who knew?  It's a rescue (shake, shake, shake) -- of sorts.  Maybe you need to be re-shaken (rescued) too?  You'll either need to jump up and down vigorously, or withstand a hard impact from a fast moving object.  I'd suggest the former.