X (2010)

You know,

here at this crossroads,

I want to go where

the fire is.

I want to go

where you didn’t take

me, to the sirens

falling over the river,

to the river burning.

Joys of A Broken Ankle

Today my ankle cast comes off. It's been six weeks, and while I don't feel like "it's gone fast," as everyone else seems to think, I am really grateful for this time. A broken ankle brings strange joys. My dear friend Whitney chronicled her broken foot joys months ago, and we have some overlap. Unlike Whitney, I'm making my list at the end, now that all my joys have accrued. She made her list in the beginning to cheer herself up, and then watched as they all came true. My list is not in any particular order. They're all equally joyful.

1) I sleep more. Anyone who knows me well knows that in the name of anxiousness, and getting things done, I habitually sleep-deprive myself. But with a broken ankle, I really have no reason not to get 8 hours, and in the first week or so, when my body was still a bit traumatized from the fall I took (climbing rocks), I was getting 10. New (and very attainable) life goal: prioritizing sleep. It makes me happier, more patient, and more creative.

2) Vivid, sometimes prophetic dreams. 'Nuff said.

3) Friends stopping by unannounced, often with food.

4) Taking up quilting.

5) Taking up the ukelele (thanks to Josh, who brought me a ukelele).

6) Re-taking up embroidery as an art form.

7) Reading lots.

8) My crutches double as arms. I can turn on the radio at the bookstore, (although someone else has to put CD's in for me), and I can warningly poke troublesome people who get too close.

9) A broken ankle keeps me present.

10) My yoga practice has actually become stronger. Because the poses I can do are fairly limited, I've gotten very creative. Also I laugh a lot when I'm doing my one legged yoga routine. Friends have confirmed that I look as silly as I feel.

11) Piggyback rides.

12) I discovered how much I love Sudoku puzzles.

13) In the name of bone health, I kicked my coffee habit. I don't miss it right now.

14) All the foods I'm supposed to be eating are my favorites: green leafies (especially brassicas), apples, raisins, oats, sweet potatoes, pineapples (which I don't usually eat, but am indulging in). Also peanut butter. I discovered late in the game that this was on the bone health list, but don't worry, I'm taking advantage.

15) We started turning over our garden last weekend, and while everyone else digs, I just sun myself on the giant wooden spool and look up things like "how to prune rue" in the garden book.

16) I have as much writing time as I could possibly wish for. I haven't felt this way since I was in school. Come to think of it, I may have more writing time than I did in school.

17) People who care about me, who wouldn't otherwise let themselves be conned into playing my favorite nerdy word game, come over to play with me once or twice a week minimum. You know who you are, you have made me very happy, and thank you.

18) People I don't even know terribly well have very sincerely told me not to hesitate to call them, and I haven't, and now I have new friends.

19) I'm learning more about healing herbs. I made a particularly timely purchase at Talking Leaves right before my injury. It's a really beautiful, and very comprehensive herb book. I started by reading about herbs for a broken bone (arnica for bruising and trauma, comfrey as a bone knitter, nettle and tumeric to reduce inflammation)--but I kept reading.

20) I'll be a smarter climber when I get back to it. My injury stemmed from a moment in which I did not listen to myself. Important lesson that I've learned before, in life. A broken bone really drives that lesson home. Listen to yourself. Especially when climbing rocks unharnessed.

21) I turned to meditation when I first broke my ankle because there was a surgeon telling me he thought it would be a good idea to put a metal plate and a few metal screws into my bone. I was a little freaked out. After the scare passed (and thankfully, no, I didn't need the surgery), I continued my meditation practice. Partly because it made some of my tightening muscles feel looser, but it also just made me feel good. Straight up, old fashioned, good old good.

22) I've worn velour tracksuit pants to the grocery store multiple times. Also to work. Yes, people, I own velour tracksuit pants.

23) People tell me how tough I am for breaking my while ankle rock climbing. And I don't think it makes me tough. I think it makes me a little stupid. But still, I don't mind if people think I'm tough.

24) Gratitude. I live with more gratitude, and with more gratitude, I find, generally, more joy. I notice other people with handicaps more, and see a lot of cases more permanent than mine. I'm grateful my mind is strong, I'm grateful for the little cat that we adopted one cold night in March, who is now keeping me company, I'm grateful for all the people this past month and a half who have made having a broken ankle easy for me, and helped me without me asking. The gratitude list could go on for a while, so I'll stop. I'm grateful to be grateful.

25) Learning how to dance on one leg. Both impressive and comical.

26) Writing letters.

27) No multi-tasking! I hate it, I'm bad at it. And now I can't do it.

28) Reiki. The thing everyone says about reiki is that you have to believe in it. But I went in as half a skeptic, and it blew my mind. Thank you Michelle.

29) I know more about what is going on the lives of the people I care about, because they visit me and I listen and listen and listen. And that's really a gift. Because I have all this time to relax, and I can share that energy.

30) More time to work on songs.

There is more, but I have just enough time to get a couple hours of writing and some uke playing in before my appointment to get this fiberglass deadweight sawed off my leg. Supposedly it will be really gross in there--some atrophied muscle, some mildew, and a Liliputian or two. I'll check back in.

newspaper

when I call from my window

to the low street,

rippling with wet snow

and necessity

a zing

he stops in the dark, tosses the plastic

package

the story has arrived, the boy who brought it to

my door is here, open

I don’t move if I can help it

not to pull my nose or touch my hair

I want this visit, unwarranted, uncounted

the place they can’t put their finger

under the cold blanket of night

But I see reporters

in flaccid

florescent offices

nothing like Rosalind Russell. Although

the thing she called production for use

is the same.

If he sees me here?

behind the glass and the glare,

forever borrowing a moment

fuck the clock, I am unrepentant

yet nobody's been paid

for this work

Come on, boy of stories,

bringer of messages

envoy of industry, harbinger of ink,

fool, herald, witness, carrier

his bike slides forward

we are trying to read minds

but something slips

off the tracks

If it was murder

it didn’t look like one

when I put my body in front of your body

and said

I know this man.

From South Buffalo, looking west (2010)

My city, to the west

In smoke in ash in haze

Paper box specialist, Samson

Crumpling beside

my going bike gears.

Wild mustard greens and trees working up.

We buckle

We ease down,

the earth below us, does not.

 

The Boarding House restaurant

all boarded up—but maybe not

A lot that is not dead in this town

appears to be.

I was asked to write about my journey.

There was nothing to do everyday, but pedal. My quads got bigger and bigger. There was nothing left to think about, I exhausted every subject. I sang about everything--to myself, to the weeds and trees that lined the canal, to the mosquitoes and flies, which couldn't stay on my skin in the wind. I ate food I never eat. I ate sugary pastries for breakfast and diner omelettes with hash browns for dinner. I had coffee with my dinner and still slept like a baby. Nothing happened, everything happened, which is the way of the road, which is why writing about travel is so difficult to do well, to do honestly. It is why good travel writers are also good liars--because to tell the truth about journeys in retrospect, it is important to embellish and eliminate--and also the reason why many people find it impossible to write at all. I've been asked to write about my trip. I don't know what to tell you. I know what, and not how. I know neither what nor how, but I know why, which is always enough.

The smell of manure suddenly (outside Lockport), and I am nostalgic. Fields of rolled hay, orchards. It is not me--there is a breeze in the shade that whispers, "Don't stop, don't stop." It has never mattered where I am going, or how long it takes. It matters that I'm going, following a path. Watch--the bees know their business. Do they ask how many flowers in how many minutes? I don't think so. It is not that time is not important, just not quite as important as everyone thinks.

I find mystery in small towns, knowing there is no mystery there. I know that for the teenagers sitting on the canal, life is bland, marked only by crushes, stolen cigarettes, and the hope of growing up faster. Jazz clubs and restaurants sit along the canal in a line. Laughter, music, clinking of glasses. I want to be sweatless, in a sundress, sparkling on the water, clinking glasses. I am riding towards nothing, I am riding towards my next meal, I'm riding out unanswered questions, I'm riding to friends.

Peaches, oh summer, don't end. Blueberries, summer, don't end. Raw sweet corn from a roadside stand. Morning, don't end. As with walking, everything is closer when cycling. My mortality is closer to me. I pass roadkill--this solicits a prayer. The first few times, I put the body in the weeds to disintegrate, lay it to rest. On the roads, in the hills and valleys of the Finger Lakes, I cannot stop every time, or I'll be roadkill.

The weather turns warm, wet, dark, hazy--like pussy. New York state is beautiful, struggling, smells like dead fish and ragweed. Smells like milk thistle burning, like clean, cold water, and lakeweed, like sweat and sunscreen and chemical greens, everything rotting in re-burgeoning wetlands, everything going under and everything coming up. New York state is belligerent, inappropriate, impatient, Italian, stuck and drunk, overheated, understimulated, anxious and bored, and finally, very kind to travelers.

I ride parallel to I90, which looks silly from my curvy, sensuous country road. I see billboards from the back, and their shape is foreign in expansive corn. Hills! Exhilarating doesn't come close to covering it. I stop at an intersection to check my map, and a policeman stops his car to warn me of rain. It rains. Something is baking on the horizon, and after the storm, wind carries it to me. Delicious hunger, delicious hills. I am riding towards friends. When I get very tired, I think, What am I doing? I should be at home writing children's books! I will do that too, later.

Until electricity came, the canal was lit by 31 hour kerosene lamps. Most canal jobs have been lost, but there are still some maintenance jobs. Canal-watchers walk up to 7 miles a day, up and down, looking for leaks. What is going on now? What is the industry of New York? A very mild amount of tourism. But mostly, prisons and landfills. In and out of prisons, nothing comes or goes, except sounds. Birds, voices, trucks: hum and whir, rattle. I am doing a thing of ultimate privilege and freedom. To set out on a bicycle everyday, with nothing to do but move forward. I ride by fences as tall as the trees that surround me, with barbed wire on top instead of leaves. When I camp alone, a grove of towering pines protects me from rowdy voices nearby, children's voices, adult's voices, and from the wind.

Everyday I am on the road, I come closer and closer to my own mortality. I develop a relationship with everything. I get slammed by thunderstorms, heat, and mosquitoes. I eat a lot ice cream. I make new friends--not life friends, but friends of the moment. Cyclists everywhere see my panniers, and ask me how far I am going, and if I need anything (water, granola, a place to spend the night). One night, after a roller-coaster of a day, I end up wearing my rainjacket as pajama bottoms because everything else is wet. Whenever I get myself into situations, I like to think about Mark Twain. At the thought of him, my discomfort becomes amusing, and that is how I know I'm okay. I sleep, I dream, I ride, I dream. And then I arrive.

When I see the skyline of Albany, I tear up a little. I don't know why--I've never loved Albany, it's just something about the finality of my arrival. I have reached my goal and I'm a little sad. I'm also exhausted and incredible. I'm relieved, but without my lovely, simple purpose, I feel empty and lonely. Riding a bike all day makes it easy to be in the moment. I eat a bunch of salty, crunchy things at my dear, old friend's house, and then go home to my parents' house and eat more + wine. Then I sleep, I dream, I ride.

1 Minute Old

Eveningless

Summer night

The day just runs into

The wind

And do you care

Where you were

When it rained

No

Because in summer,

Everything is an element—

Not just the weather,

But your skin,

Your lover’s skin,

Your lover.

You can’t get caught in the rain,

You can only be in it.

 

Run, run it

Clap hands

Big sounds

What are you

going to do now?

Dauphin Island

The rigs hum at night, mechanical giraffes
Ghost crabs scatter at the sound of our feet,
their eyes on tender stalks
Wary.
I would give 50 years of my life to be there again
The way it used to be
Imperfect and sediment-heavy
Already there was phenol in the water and
Mercury in the blood of the pelicans.
The marshes keep their secrets
They smell of old love affairs
Sulfur.
A blue heron waits
His back curved what an old man disappointed with life
And the live oaks stand witness
They scare us at night as we pass them on bicycles
Their moss hangs down whispering  You don’t know what I have seen.
I want you still god help me
Or if not you then a more vivid memory
I want to taste your salt air again your warm water
Forgive us, mother, for the mistakes that we are bound to make and the
million ways in which we have wounded you
I will find forgiveness when I die
Walking out past the children with the clam guns
(a crabber looks on)
Into the breaking waves
The oyster beds kiss my tender feet/

by Eleni Petrou, May 2010. Bob the house.

The Rules of Picnics

Lydia and I have been planning a picnic. Lydia is one of my littler friends in life and recently she learned how to ride her bike without training wheels. She said that riding fast is the closest she has ever come to flying. This is true for me also. She also had some very wise things to say about fear--about her fear of falling. It's not the end of the world if I fall off my bike, but I think it is. But if I don't take risks I'll never get to go faster or ride in the road. I have to remind myself of this almost every time I go rock climbing. If I don't risk falling, I will never get to the top. 

Last Friday we rode our bikes, looping around and around her block. It was getting close to bedtime, but we decided that next-time we would have to go somewhere. And that it would probably be a good idea to pack a picnic. Lydia said, "We should talk about a few things." I didn't know picnics had rules, but once she outlined them for me, it made a lot of sense.

The rules of picnics:

1) You cannot drive to a picnic. It is only real if you ride your bike or walk.

2) You cannot have a picnic on a table, or with chairs.

3) There must be surprises.

4) You have to bring something to share.

5) You have to bring a surprise.

6) No training wheels.

Which waterfront are you talking about?

On Sunday, Sara Gordon and I went on a hike, walking along the river from Mass Ave to LaSalle Park, and on to the Marina, where we spent some time with the fish. Then we wandered through some weird condo communities--although that is probably not the right word for what they are--singing Woody Guthrie, and into downtown where we walked through a fence, cut under the overpass, and headed north and west, to home.

There's been a lot of fuss about the waterfront lately. Some people want this thing, some people want the other thing. Bass Pro wants in and that's its own kettle of fish. The word revitalization gets thrown around a lot (gets thrown around on Grant St. too). I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement. There are a few gravely spots that could be greener, and I'd never say no to a few more trees--but revitalization? Revitalization? Come on! There were easily five hundred people at the waterfront around 6 pm on Sunday. Easily 500, but probably more. Laughing, shouting, playing, running, walking, playing tag, grilling. Doing people-at-the-waterfront activities. It's a river. We live on a drained swamp. Of course people are going to go there.

We do need to protect what is already ours from Bass Pro and from any further condo-ization. We need to hold what is rightfully ours away from any of the greedies upstairs. But we do not need to revitalize. We already are. And this argument reaches right into the core of urban planning itself. Do we need to protect what is ours from that corrupt mascot, money? Yes. Beyond that, nothing needs to be done. People will put what they need where they need it, and they invest where they are. Academics, posturers, politicians: take a walk (not a drive) around the west side. There are countless churches, temples, and other sanctuaries...in houses. The west side says, "Everything can go in a house!" Nobody is going to build their church or garden across town. They are going to get together and put it where they live. I have walked on rainy nights, and heard, from the yellow glow of houses, voices rising up in languages I don't know, and tambourines, and guitars, and instruments I don't know--voices that laugh and sing and sway the night, and people like me stop in the street to listen. They're thanking god--in whatever version of that story--and I'm thanking them. A little help is good, but usually there is too much meddling.

It's an odd process--the one by which a simple thing is made complicated. The river is the calmest, loveliest place of the city. It is my medicine. I go to the river to remember what I am doing, and to forget (I make sure to go there at least once a week). But the waterfront is already segregated. Along the path Sara and I took, it was like this: quiet, private (hidden boat docks), then public (kids jumping into the water), then private again (gated 'communities' without gates), mostly quiet--a murmur of AC units and ceiling fans. Then noisy: there was a condo party going on. At the Marina it is public and private. How? Shanghai Reds versus picnic tables.

When I was trekking through Belfast this past March, I kept finding myself walking along a mesh fence. At points it was as tall as a short building. It is an old fence that remains, but it is  anything but symbolic for the people who still live, and cry, and somehow manage to sing and play behind it. There were playgrounds behind it, on the other side of where I was walking, and the shouts of the children were not ordinary shouts; they were cries of war. As they should be: what does it do to anyone's mind--child or adult--to live behind a fence? For any human or animal to be put in a cage creates daily pain, and that stuff gets inside bodies. The message is: You cannot go where I am; stay. The trauma of that lives in our muscles, in our cells. Take Belfast, take Palestine, take domestic abuse. There is claustrophobia first, then terrorism--terrorism directed outward or inward. In Belfast, I was amazed at how difficult it was to find an entrance/exit to the fence. I walked along it for at least a half an hour, but maybe longer, before I found a place to slip through--and that was all it was--not a gate, just a place to slip through.

I thought of this as we passed through Buffalo's hidden monastery of wealth. There was no fence or physical barrier keeping us from entering or exiting, yet we were walking straight into a secret. A tar path led us straight from LaSalle Park into an enclave of suburbia in downtown Buffalo. But there were signs that read Private. A cop car drove by us, slowly. That's a loaded image in Buffalo. A cop car. Who sees one, and doesn't get a tick inside? Who even lives here, we asked each other? Are these summer-in-the-city condos? Who are these strange people, and what is inside their bodies? (The answer is a sort of ultimate kind of fear). And then, although their wall, their fence, their keep the outside-outside partition was semi-fluid and self-imposed, I felt so sorry for them. How horrible for anyone to be so stuck. And how sad it must be to live on the edge of a beautiful river, and be afraid to share it.

These were my Sunday reflections in a nutshell. I'll say this: if you always pass through your city in a car, you don't see it. Not all the way. It's not all your fault. It's actually impossible because you are going so fast, and you are inside walls, and you have other important things to concentrate on (like not hitting that jerk)! A bike ride is good, and sometimes a walk is even better, but either way, go visit your city. Take a vacation day and gift yourself a cultural education.

While "Rude boy" blared above, from an air conditioned apartment in the sky, this is what Sara and I sang, as we walked away:

"As I was walkin'--I saw a sign there
And that sign said, 'No tresspassin'
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
Now that side was made for you and me!"

The Capitalist and Me (2010)

For Anais Nin and Mary Sarsfield

I slept with a capitalist,

but only physically.

And it was good.

It was the best I ever had.

I let a capitalist in,

but only physically,

and afterward

I went out into the street

with not an ounce of

shame or

hate--
I went out his door with--

!
Yes

Tell you what
my name is

Scherezade

Call me

Esther if you must

change my name.

Don't you know
What it means

?Anyway

What I took 
What I gave What I took from him
is bigger 

BIGGER than you=

We are discussing

What Ilya conquered in bed

What Geryon conquered in death
What Mother Teresa created in her life time

Period
Baby

Full moon
Yes
We cannot fail to mention
Molly Bloom,
of course
there is more to it than
Yes--
Molly didn't stop loving
when you spilled over the edge
of the page.

Hey brother

Cut me some slack and
call me Jezebel
if you want.

But oh I feel good.

Oh I'm the best I ever

had

Yes.

What we are given

We live in a culture in which, above all else, confrontation and unpleasantness are to be avoided, things are to be smooth as Knob Creek, but this comes at a price. Twice in the past two weeks, I've been called a "bitch" (among other, nastier words) by strangers, and it was because things were not as smooth as Knob Creek, and I said so. I simply don't accept the mantra of all encompassing pleasantness. We don't always have to take what we're given. If we're not hungry, for example, we don't have to take food.  And we definitely do not have to take other people's shit. 

When Bush was sitting in the oval throne room, we were, generally, collectively, paralyzed with fear--the much discussed, media-imposed fear. There's a lot to unpack about that. Firstly, what 'media imposed' means. Who, or what, thing or organism is the media? How does it exist and who sustains it--corporations and the government, or me and the people I know? Is it a monster or an anthill? And is 'it' really responsible for our fear? How does such an broad, undefinable entity impose anything on us at all?  How is it that during Bush's presidency we became conscious of the media's role in our inability to live fully, and were still affected by it? And how is it that we seem to have forgotten the role it plays now?

My questions barely scratch the surface of what went on. Those eight years were rife with trauma: two wars begun illegally (are not all wars outside the law?), an economic draft, minds and bodies irreparably damaged, funds taken from children, who, as we all know, were all left behind, in order to stock the arsenal. And, so that those children, uneducated, might later stock the arsenal too. There are all the gaping wounds behind the Patriot Act: house arrests, wire-taps, and the wrongfully accused. There was Hurricane Katrina, the drama of which turned out to be more about racism and lack of humanity than it was about the hurricane. There was the invention of the "partial birth abortion." Behind all of these appellations, of course, are cavernous worlds of stories. And tied up in those stories is a lot of pain, which we all carried around (and still do), and I think, guilt as well.  In 2004, Bush was re-elected, and many Americans cried. In 2004, Victor Yanukovych was elected, and many Ukranians took to the streets.

And now Obama is in office. We are a happier, more lighthearted country, but let me ask you why. Is it because our education system is being repaired? Is it because we are no longer at war? Is it because we have more civil liberties or because  women in need have greater access to the healthcare they need?  Or, is it because instead of using words like "terrorists," and phrases like "with us or against us," Obama uses words like "hope," "unity," and  "perserverence"? He gives us ego boosts, and tells us regularly how strong and good we are. He emanates pleasantness, and so, he has our compliance. We like him, and that is why he is trouble.

Are we really better off now? Has Obama really undone the damage of the Bush administration? It may not be possible to undo, but has he stopped the madness? Are we not still at war? If you've had enough of my questions, here are some facts: the 2010 federal budget includes 663.7 billion for the Department of Defense (a 4% increase since Bush's last budget), and another 42.7 billion dollars for the Department of Homeland Security (also an increase since Bush), while the lowly little Department of Education receives a lowly little 46.7 billion dollars.  The Department of Energy, by the way, receives 26.3 billion, a small dive from 2009's projected 33.9.  (The figures here do not include $$ from the Recovery Act--and by the way, why does the Department of Defense need recovery money--for bombs?) 

The numbers tell us something that might hurt a little: Obama's numbers are more conservative than Bush's. Ouch, ouch, and ouch.  We may be sleeping better now, but at whose expense? The answer is ours. The answer is that Obama is not the answer. I repeat, Obama is not the answer. You are.

In the shadows of our presidents, we oscillate between fear and exuberance, self-loathing and nationalism. Try, paisans, to have pride, but not nationalism. To be energetic and critical all at once. Most of all, be joyful. Do not believe in what you are told, but in what you discover, in what you find in your day, in your heart, in the dirt, between your brow, and then--this is a hard one--cut loose and trust yourself. It is so important to cut loose of fear, but it is also important to have independence from ego-boosts and good-vibe crutches. We are not hungry, but we are reaching for the cookie jar. We do not need him, but we wait, on the edge of our seats, to hear Obama's next words--they are boosts of hope, but they are empty calories. 

I'm lucky to have friends who do a lot of good. Some of them are community organizers. And the question has been going around: was Obama really a community organizer, and did he change when he went into politics, or was his people's man identity a media construction? Well, I asked FactCheck.org, and here was their timely response: 

Q. Was Obama really a community organizer?

A. Yes, that was his job title when he was hired out of college.

I felt nothing when I read this. It confirms nothing. He was a community organizer and he changed, or he was playing hookey with a resume builder. The fact is, it doesn't matter. Why waste time brooding over lost love?

Problems don't go away because you look at them. Don't take what you take because it is what you are given. Take what you need, what you deserve. Trust yourself. Self-affirm. Act. And if you don't know where to start, start with a garden.

The same city as me (2008)

Knowing you live in the same city as me is like knowing the pantry's stocked, or that the river's there, if I want it, even if I can't see it, even if I'm just sitting at my desk.

Your name pinches me.

And god is an atom.

Nightwind (2010)

for Eleni

My window is open to you

nightwind

Oh

if you should enter to find me

zipped up 

and preparing

for the full sleep granted only to travelers--

Alone, between worlds, I am one even in my own city.

My lullabye is my own love

vast for you

warmer than even you 

night wind.

lover.

How do I move oceans, 

how do I leave continents 

for my other half, 

while my sister is without me?

But it is

this:

My love is my only lullabye

and with this much of it

how can I be lonely?

how can I be cold?

A Sweater Is (2005)

A bicycle that you love and love and love and love until it is stolen or lost or if you are lucky, used until it wears down to dead-beat brakes and shone tires. When the paint is peeled and the spokes are rusted—that is when it has been loved too thin to keep you warm, and you will throw it in a chest of other old bicycles in the attic, to forget, but not trash, on account of sentimentality.

Jane Greatall

I went to see Jane Goodall on Wednesday night. She was speaking in the gym at Canisius College and the queue went right down Main Street, then wrapped around West Delavan. The line was moving...well, barely at all. Despite this, everyone was calm and patient and without complaint. It reminded me of when the Dalai Lama came to UB and for the 3 days he was in town, although there were actually more people on campus, it felt like less because nobody was pushing one another to get through doors. And forget fame--that is what the presence of a very special kind of person does. I saw old people and young people; everyone felt like-minded and simpatico. Even Erik Starchild was there. The two Canisius women in front of me had gym bags and were eating donuts. What I really wanted at the moment was a juicy hamburger. It was nearly 8 pm, I'd worked hard all day and hadn't had dinner, but I didn't mind. I reflected on this as I sat down. I was one of the last 20 people admitted and yet because of the way they seated us, I had an incredible seat, very near to Jane's profile. I was reminded of a bit of Barthelme, who wrote: 

...and that it is good to leave a few crumbs on the table for the rest of your brethren, not to sweep it all into the little beaded purse of your soul but to allow others, too, part of the gratification, and if you share in this way you will find the clouds smiling on you, and the postman bringing you letters, and the bicycles available when you want to rent them, and many other signs, however... (Barthelme, City Life, Farrar, Strous, 1970).

I dropped out of my rat-race job in order to spend all of my time meaningfully, and of my own design. Wednesday was my first night of freedom and I felt, sitting on those bleachers, waiting for Jane--we were encouraged by an introductory slideshow to think of her as "Jane"--that I'd been brought letters--she hadn't said a word yet. When she did begin, she told us how humbled she was that we had all come to see her, ("I know some of you saw me peering at you as we drove up, and you recognized me"). To thank us for coming, she said hello  in chimpanzee. We laughed, we clapped, our hearts were warm. I should age half as well! I thought.

By way of introduction, she said, "Nobody can do anything alone," and thanked her mother. It was her mother, she said, who was the reason for everything, for her success. Jane's story is incredible. From the age of tiny, she wanted to go to Africa to study animals. But to go to Africa at all, which is now an attainable dream for a hard working lady scholar, was laughable. There were no study abroad programs then, and she was the wrong sex. Plus, her family was dirt poor. There were very few scholarships given, and they were only given to those who excelled at languages. Although she knew everything there was to know about the animal kingdom, Jane did not excel at languages. Her mother advised her to learn to become a secretary, and get a job in Africa. Jane did, and then proceeded to pay a visit to her future mentor, the paleontologist, Louis Leakey. She wowed him with her animal knowledge, and soon after, began to work for him. And just as the six months of funding he had was about to run out, Jane came upon a chimp in the forest, who was dipping a stick into a mound of insects and putting it to his mouth. Then he began stripping the bark off the stick: toolmaking. Louis Leakey got more money. Thus Jane became a research scientist before she had had an ounce of secondary education. It wasn't until much later that she got her PhD.

For my friends who couldn't make it, I want to share Jane's message, which I found so inspiring I turned down a Salman Rushdie ticket later in the week (I didn't think I would be able to process everything). The following is a sample, and less eloquent synopsis, of what Jane said, as I remember it:

We're not separated from the animal kingdom, we're part of it. Between their constant evolution, and our own continual revolution into our animal nature, the line between 'us' and 'them' gets blurrier all the time. Chimps are our relations enough to us to give us blood transfusions, but we don't need to look that far to see that we are part of the animal kingdom. Anyone with a dog knows that animals have personalities, intellect, and feelings. So what is it that makes us different from the others? The main difference between us and chimps is this explosive intellect: language. It is our ability to talk about things that are not present: we can talk about the past, and plan for the future. Above all, we can discuss the issues and questions in our lives. And so, how is it, with the unbelievable and magnificent tool of language, how is it that we are destroying our home?

How? We've lost wisdom. The wisdom of religious ancients and elders, who asked, when it was time to make decisions, "How will this effect the community in the future?" and not "How will this effect me now?" or even "How will this effect my job? my country? in three months?"

(Verbatim): Do you think there's a disconnect between this clever brain and the human heart? Everybody cares about their children and grandchildren, but they act as if they don't. There's a disconnect. But we cannot live through a single day without making a difference. The question is not if you do, but what impact you're going to make. What do you eat and how do you eat it? What do you wear? How do you get from A to B? When you arrive, how do you talk to people? These are the choices that add up. 

Jane then talked about what brought her to leave research and teaching (which she loved) and become an activist surrounding environmental and social problems in Tanzania. You can read about her work here and here.

Of her hope and faith that we humans will manage to come around, and fix these massive environmental and social problems, she said, "Maybe I'm naive and simplistic, but it works for me." She also discussed how closely linked these two issues are: "Poverty," she said, "is one of the great destructors of the environment". Jane gave three talking points on hope, and I realized that my dad has been saying exactly these things for years, and I've always disagreed with him. 

Reasons to hope:

1. The human brain. We are innovative; we have a way of problem solving. We are not always good at it, but we manage, particularly when our backs are at the wall. 

2. The unbelievable resilience of nature. This has been a big one for my dad. The lesson hit home today when I was gardening at Eaton St, and was astounded to discover how nice and juicy Megan's soil is, with plenty of earthworms. Last year it was very crummy, but it's bounded back from only one year of planting. Sunflowers and mustard greens are actually capable of removing heavy toxins from the soil. Nature wants to help us help. 

3. Youth taking charge. Sounds cliche, but it's not when you hear a 76 woman who lived through the second world war utter the phrase "a critical mass of youth." She started a youth empowerment program called Roots and Shoots, which is worth reading about. 

But I don't want to talk about Jane Goodall in the vacuum of an evening of inspiring speech. It's not enough to be inspired; or, rather, inspiration comes as much from one's own hard work as it does from outside sources. I think my dad and JG are potentially right, but I also know that you don't make problems go away by looking at them. I know too many people--good people, smart people--who know what is happening to our world, but continue to complain and sit on their hands. And sitting on one's hands is not a passive act; it is a destructive one.

Living sustainably has been made very difficult for us to do. I buy in too--one would have to be a superhero not to--but I can also account for every hour of my day. When Jane asked us What do you eat and how do you eat it? What do you wear? How do you get from A to B? I knew that for the most part, I liked the answers I was able to give. I work hard to give them. I'm not a saint and I like my urban life. I don't think we have to give up urban life; we just have to change what it looks like. What it looks like. What it looks like.

The planet is going to go on with or without us, but if we are going to go on with it, because we love life, we need to make sacrifices. The green capitalist marketing campaign would have us all believe it's a simple matter of switching to the brand with the green label.  I promise you, it will not be that easy. We're going to have to get used to chopping wood for the winter, and we're all going to have to learn to grow a little food. We're going to have rely on our muscles, and on each other to get around.  Did you know that you can make toothpaste, shampoo, and laundry detergent (among other things you usually buy) at home, thus avoiding unnecessary packaging and a lot of nasty chemicals? All of these things take time, and are, by conventional perceptions, inconvenient as well, which means you will have less time for T.V., Nintendo Wii, and your soul sucking job. But if you can feed yourself, and warm yourself, you will find yourself naturally gravitating towards books, and there won't be a place in your life for a soul sucking job. And if you start doing any of these things for yourself, you will be astonished to find just how much you are capable of. All of us already have power. It's a question of whether we're brave enough to take it. 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's a chimp (named Jojo), a mouse, or a lot, but you have to ask yourself, what crumbs have I left on the table for the rest of my brethren?

Seagull and Sparrow

My best friend, Eleni, and I got through the cold winters of our undergraduate studies by fantasizing about the things we would be doing if all of our time wasn't consumed by studying and writing papers. One of the things we talked about was making a zine called Seagull and Sparrow. Seagull and Sparrow because birds are travelers who have a different natural vantage point than humans (a good place to make observations from), and because both seagulls and sparrows are underrated and overlooked. 

Seagulls in cities (and even on beaches) are the rats of the sky. They fly over parking lots and eat junk food. Once I saw one chasing another, and it appeared to be a life or death question for the seagull with the donut in its beak. Plus, any animal that's not afraid of humans has to be fierce and/or intelligent (I don't have room to expound here, but you have the internet--look into the history of the relationships of whales and humans and bears and humans). 

Sparrows are underrated because they're little and plainlooking and fat, but they stick out the winter. It's no easy feat, as we all know. Almost any human with the means flies south in the winter. And sparrows are the ones whose voices you always hear. If you ask someone what a sparrow song sounds like, they will say they don't know. But sparrows are always singing in the background. They are everywhere: fat and tough, simple and brown, and so Eleni and I feel like they are in our corner. One seagull. One sparrow. Fierce. Intelligent. Will eat anything for survival. Little, but with compacted strength. Always singing. Not afraid of humans. That's us! 

Buffalo Flavor

I forgot how ugly Buffalo is. Or, I didn't notice before, because it was my home. Towards the end of my time in Europe, I was looking forward to what I thought of as Buffalo's 'neutral look.' Not good or bad, just blank and grey. I was looking forward to this because being in Europe can be a little exhausting on the eyes. It is too attractive. Being an American in Europe for an extended period of time is like staring at someone with a perfectly symmetrical face: the beauty is overwhelming, and then boring. I needed something off center to focus my lens. A crooked nose, or a strip mall, a hairy mole, or a street in trash and dirty snow. 

Buffalo greeted me with rain and wind, and that weird smell that it is: wet diesel and fried food and smoke. The flat road seems to get flatter. You are hoping it's going to be one of those nights when the scent of Cheerios is blowing all over the city (Buffalo is home to a very aromatic General Mills factory), but it's not. There's just that heavy air that pulls you in. I started to feel a little nauseous. I was quiet, but feeling cranky inside, when I remembered about the food thing. How the eggs don't really taste like eggs. And I know some people who would disagree with me. About the food thing.

Buffalonians get notoriously defensive on behalf of their city, and with good reason: people are always telling them just how much "it sucks." I'm not here to say Buffalo is what it's not, and there are a lot of aspects of the culture I just can't get into. But there are some beautiful things happening in this city too. 

And on the other side of that link are people who will not be in the paper, and projects that will not be advertised. We have so many unsung heroes. It's not that other cities don't have a lot of grassroots energy, but the bleakness of the landscape in Buffalo makes our projects pop. I swear, you've never met people like these people.

Dear America

I. Eric Margan in the sugar shack, Cambridge, NY.
II. Country scene.
III. Irish the horse.

Is the U.S.A. cool or what? We have Esperanza Spalding, and hip hop, and true stories of people who come to their death by chocolate chip cookies (it's as terrible than a death by cigarettes or booze), and words like "snarky" and phrases like "peace out." I'm rediscovering things I didn't know I missed: This American Life, my love/hate relationship with New Yorker fiction, the gray, bare look of March in upstate New York-- the ugliest, calmest time of year here. And, I'm diving into the things I missed quite consciously: bluegrass, peanut butter, hot sauce, and wearing dresses.

And to my friends of the great and varied countries of the EU:
Rest assured, I got a hero's welcome. I stepped off the jumbo jet and everybody in the airport immediately sat down to a hamburger eating contest and the winner, an eleven year old boy wider than he was tall, took off all his clothes and wrapped himself in an American flag (which, despite it's size, didn't quite cover his protruding stomach). We all shook hands and congratulated each other that evolution doesn't exist. And then we drove very fast in our SUV's...in circles...around the mall.

Just kidding. From JFK, I took the A train to the Amtrak train to Hudson, NY where I was greeted by my parents. In my very extensive experience on Amtraks, I have come to the conclusion that only two kinds of people travel by Amtrak: incredibly pleasant ones and horribly cantankerous ones. I lucked out and sat next to one of the former. My new friend, Steve, is a NYU Biology Professor and we spoke for two hours about traveling and riding bikes and genetics and stone masonry and the beauty of the brains of small children. And then I spent a slow week with my parents, eating vegetables and playing word games and learning how to make maple syrup out of sap. All I can say is that there are no hippies like New England hippies. Oh. And that no one does lawn decorations like Americans ("Hello!? Was that a seven foot blow-up leprechaun? Really?")

I happened on an old friend of my parent's, running, and he said, "You've been home for a week?! Are you sick of it yet!?" And I said, "No! I feel fantastic! I think I go away so that everything is new again!" (People from small towns in upstate New York state speak with exclamation points at the end of every sentence when it is cold out or when we are busy or when we are excited--we were both experiencing all three when we met--just imagine!) And so it is. I don't feel like my trip has ended. I'm meeting America through the eyes of a pseudo-foreigner. I was away long enough to forget some important things about my country. I feel like someone from somewhere else who has read a lot about America, and so it appears as a dream I had once, hidden somewhere in the recess of memory, that I can only remember the feeling of. Appropriately, this is exactly how I felt when I arrived in Ireland for the first time.

Somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of Americans hold passports. And I don't know how many of these passports are used only for going to Canada (no offense, Canada--I love you) or for partying in Mexico (no offense, Tijuana--I pray for you at night). In our defense, Americans have to fight a few hefty battles to get out of the country. First there is the cost. Photos and fees and postage all told, it can cost upwards of $300 just to get a passport. That's money that a lot of Americans just don't have. And it can be time consuming.  (Here's a sort of interesting little commentary on the subject: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/10/20/debunking-passport-myth/). But as great as the financial burden is the geographical and psychological isolation. From the place where I live, I can easily go to Canada, which is, yes, another country, even if a lot of people don't see it as one. Still, the culture that lies just across the border does not vary greatly from my own. To get anywhere else in the world, I have to fly for at least 7 hours. But it's not just the time. In two directions there is an ocean of land, and in the other direction is an ocean (the other direction, obviously, is Canada). There's a conceptual distance that's much bigger and lasts much longer than the flight. It's not nothing to overcome. I don't want to make excuses for the insular view of the world that some of my countrymen have. I just want the world to develop a little sense of empathy for North American isolation, which can be pretty lonely.

Americans, if you can afford to travel, don't go to resorts! And world: visit. I met a few Europeans who had no interest in traveling to the U.S. because they felt they already knew what it is through movies and music, (and the world mostly gets our artistic poop). Alternately, people only want to see New York, Las Vegas, and LA. I don't want to give the impression that New York is not wonderful, and if I was a different sort of person, I would live there in a heartbeat. But there is another America. The America that hides, like men worth dating, under rocks and leaves. It's the draft that sneaks around plastick-ed windows in Buffalo and the gardens that grow in places where there are smokestacks not far off. It's the 60 year old guy you meet on the street in San Francisco who is homeless, broke, and hungry, but doesn't know it because he is still reliving this amazing acid trip he took when he was 17. There's El Capitan, and the redwoods, which I still don't believe, which I still dream about. There is the vast, bizarre, beautiful and warped world of Utah. If you're American or not, go eat red-hot peanuts and wander around the strange playground of the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama. I dare you to go and not feel something. New Orleans--dear lord, there is New Orleans--everyone's vacation should start, or end, there. I imagine that Alaska makes the A list too, although I've never been there.

Mark Twain wisely said,"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness," but he didn't mean just any kind of travel. He meant the kind in which you are awake, and he meant the kind in which you take yourself outside your comfort zones.  There is no reason to stop traveling just because I am home. In fact, it is more important to think like a traveler at home, where it is easy to get lazy and intellectually soft.  A traveler must be easygoing and adaptable, but quick to react. From the west side of Buffalo, where I live, to the east, where I work, I pass through a few worlds. 

Sometimes America really does feel united (when we elected our 44th, or on the days when I walk clear across Buffalo and meet more different kinds of people than countries I've been to in my life). Other times it feels like each person is a different country. I think both perceptions of our country, (which, because it has made itself everywhere, also belongs to everyone), and of my city, are true. 

And the quote above--like most of the things Mark Twain said--is not just a quote, but can be applied as a life philosophy. Excuse me if I get a little over-excited. I really love Mark Twain. I need to go re-read Pudd'nhead Wilson. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. That is what I need to do!

Taking stock

I left New York on October 10th, 2009 with the following:

two pairs of jeans,
two sweaters,
four tank tops,
two t shirts,
two long sleeve shirts,
one rain jacket that makes me feel like a superhero,

one city jacket,

one bathing suit,
one pair of waterproof hiking boots,
one pair of street sneakers,
7 pairs of underwear and 2 bras,
one bag of toiletries,
one tent,
one sleeping bag,
one pocket knife,
one compass,

one flashlight,
one yoga/camping mat,
one blank notebook,
two books, and,
two dictionaries (French and Italian).

I returned to New York on March 2, 2010 with the following:
one pair of jeans,
one sweater,
two t shirts,
one tank top,
two long sleeve shirts,
one rain jacket that makes me feel like a superhero,
one bathing suit,
one pair of not-so-waterproof hiking boots,
one pair of Italian leather boots,
one pair of rock climbing shoes,
9 pairs of underwear and four bras, (I may have crushed on Italian lingerie even more than I crushed on Italians),

one pair of Italian stockings,

one (Greek) cotton sundress, 
one bag of toiletries,
one tent,
one sleeping bag,
one pocket knife,
one compass,
one camping/yoga mat,
four notebooks, full, and,
four books.

The weight of my pack was between 12 and 15 kilos during the trip, depending on how much food and how many books I was carrying. I traveled through four countries (Ireland, France, Italy, and Greece), and five if you count Sicily (which I do), and six if you count Northern Ireland (it's technically the UK, but in my heart, Ireland is one green beautiful island, united by Guinness and literary genius).

A History in Books

In the interest of carrying less, and moving more quickly, it was common for me to leave clothes or a towel, or disinfectent spray, or what have you, behind. Clothes were easy to leave, and if I met someone who needed my flashlight more than me, that was easy to leave too. The books I read, however, were difficult to part with (with the exception of McEwan's very whitey book, Saturday, which I found unengaging and insular). I was so attached to my notes in one book (Elizabeth Bowen) that I mailed it home. Another book I carried for 4 months without reading. I found Primo Levi in Torino, which was where he was from, and I read If Not Now, When? nearly three times in a row.  It changed my relationship to the world, while Italy was busy changing me, or perhaps more accurately, reminding me of who I am. My books traveled with me for thousands of kilometers. My journey can be told in a lot of different ways: chronologically, by languages, through the pictures I took, or the people I met, or by differences in food culture. I can also narrate the whole of the journey through the books I read, and how they influenced me along the way. 

Example :

You say "The Last September," and I recall a flood of human heads in the streets of Dublin, a moment of tearful  idolatry at Paul Leon's breakfast table in the James Joyce center, St. Stephen's Green with swans and a bower of falling leaves.  Becoming lost inside a snowy Monet at the Hugh Lane Gallery. The time I spent in the National Library: the most beautiful, round reading room I've ever been in (in such a place I will meet my true love). Greens, blues, greens, blues: I felt strangely like liquid in Dublin. Fireworks at night in Phoenix Park. Fireworks all day like gunshots. Spitting in the Liffey for good luck. The smell of the Guinness factory, which can be best described in facial expressions. Walking and walking and walking and being really truly honest to goodness lost, and the conversations that this (the loss of myself) brought to me, brought me to. In Dublin I was lucky because when I was lost, I always seemed to be in the right place.

 

Here's the list, just for fun. If you ever see me on the street and want to hear a story about Europe, just mention one of the following titles, and you'll have a hard time shutting me up. They are more or less in the order I read them in, although some were re-read and one (Ciaran Carson) I don't think I'll ever finish. I can't guarantee I am not forgetting something.

The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen
Saturday, Ian McEwan
For All We Know, Ciaran Carson
If Not Now, When?, Primo Levi
No one belongs here more than you, Miranda July
Power Politics, Arundhati Roy
The Curious Incident of the dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Places In Between, Rory Stewart
White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Life of Pi, Yann Matel
The Double, Fyodor Dostoyevsky