The pig in me

If the woman is already naked when we begin our conversation, I never really know what to say. “So. How’s it going?” just doesn’t seem right. So it wasn’t that I really wanted to go there, it just seemed like a regionally appropriate suggestion.

The Thanksgiving holiday had been a great one, with most of my family and a wonderful cluster of friends in Portland, Oregon. Now it was Saturday night, many of us still in town, and we’d discussed meeting up. Where?

I have little interest in going to strip clubs anywhere on Earth...except Portland. Every year or two I find myself in one and find it a cross between a dive bar at its best and the ballet. Zero skeeziness, instead a blend of art, athleticism, and a respectful sincerity that approaches benevolence in our culture of sexual repression. To me (Portland) strip clubs aren’t sexual, they’re just honest.

Plus, I’d heard this particular landmark was “Woman (and family) owned and operated...very solid record of management protecting dancers and taking care of them when things happen in their lives” and I was curious to see it. Mostly I just wanted to have a beer with friends, and hey, this would be more interesting than just another friggin “dive bar” that manages to be pretentious as fudge-all anyway.

“Wait, it’s a strip club?” answered a beloved friend. “Hard pass. They’re squicky. Let’s go to a dive bar instead.” Yes there’s an eye-roll emoji, but I wasn’t even tempted to send it. The people were the point, not the venue. But so began one of those vague conversations with 30 minutes of radio silence between messages.

“Okay, I’ll meet you anywhere you want to go, just send me the address.”

“I dunno, let me look for one...”

“Want to Lyft across the entire city to hang out for maybe a few minutes, then turn around and go back?”

So that was good for an hour and a half of me wandering around downtown Portland in the cold, waiting for my friends to get their shit together. They never did, and I ended up walking home alone in the rain. I was tempted to feel aggrieved, embarrassed, and sorry for myself.

Then I realized that was just my pig.

You know that inner voice? The one that whispers that it’s all your fault, all about you, you should be ashamed, and nobody likes you anyway? The therapeutic philosophy that’s done me a world of good over the past few years calls it “pig.” As in the 1960s word for the avatar of oppressive culture, the abusive jerk cop. God I love hippies.

We all have that inner pig. In some it whispers that we have to earn our place on this planet since we’re inherently bad, in others it says we must be crazy, and at its worst it drives a damaged child to such depths of self-loathing and narcissism that they become president and crash the whole country.

In me, it said that my friends just didn’t want to hang out with me, and that I was some kind of pervert for suggesting we hang out in a bar where women take their clothes off. And oh, that I was a loser living a losing life. No way it was just that they were busy and tired, no, it had to be about me, and I had to be bad.

Luckily the leaves reminded me that was ridiculous.

Shining brilliant yellow and audacious red in the streetlamp glow, the autumn leaves giggled their quivering joy at what a beautiful night I was having. Dinner with my folks, already a win. Then walking around this interesting city, winter’s reflections in darkened windows, and conversations with the homeless who always feel like meeting my alternative lives.

“No, I don’t smoke, sorry. No, thanks, I don’t want to buy that umbrella. Nope, no bag of coke for me. Yes, I believe you it’s an incredibly good deal but I still don’t want the umbrella, have a good night my friend. Good luck.”

Portland is my kind of town

Now I was headed home to the incomprehensible blessing of a warm loving home, kissed on the cheeks by just the right amount of rain to make the air interesting and the streets shine like a dance floor. It wasn’t a horrible night at all. I’m not unwanted. And they were beautiful hours. I got home, typed this up, and now it’s time for a cup of tea with my folks. Then perhaps I’ll take a nice hot shower before getting in warm blankets with a good book.

Life is good. Go to sleep, pig.

I wasn't prepared for this

You love your friends and what matters to them matters to you, so of course you say yes when they invite you to come see their newborn baby. Of course. Over to the hospital you go. I am privileged to not be so familiar with these places but I recognize the elevator, the doors that open at the push of a button, the hallways that project medical ability, biological stability, hope’s reliability. Then into the room. Into her room.

And there she is. In her artificial womb of plexiglass and portals, wires and cables to monitors and screens, heartbeat over respiration over oxygen saturation and there is no normal but this one as you listen to the beep of alarm and watch it come back down to green before you breathe again.

Truth be told, promise not to tell? I generally think babies are kinda ugly. Amphibian creatures barely sapiens, born from a woman they promise but I’m tempted to look around for the spaceship retreating.

But this? This tiny person, swimming through the unfamiliar space of her newborn body, premature and perfect, this little girl is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I scorn the scorn that whispers at the cliche because bugger me but it’s true.

And I don’t know what to say. She’s magnificent.

I’ve felt this way before, witnessing the small ones of kith and kin. Stood abashed before the splendor of creation. And I well remember the transcendent majesty of looking at my lady love’s son and feeling the gods’ gift of realizing “Yes, yes, for this I would die to protect.” And he wasn’t even mine.

And suddenly, on a normal Saturday night I’m feeling it again, the awe, the sheer dumbfounded reverence for what it is to bring a child into this world. Tomorrow I’ll rage at the idiocy that brings violence to remove them, as everyone is a child in someone’s heart, but for now I exist in little besides awe.

I am accustomed to seeing the Divine in Nature, the pulse of the universe in ocean waves, sand dune shifts, and sunlight through the leaves, but here I am in a concrete cave made by men and everywhere I look I see godliness. In the purpose of the space, the quiet skill and sleepless devotion of the staff, the faceless researchers who devise the tests and cures, and above all else: her, and the indomitability of her will to continue. What is god if not this newest person? Why would it be anywhere else?

Outside it’s a normal night. Cars each going to their own someplace, sports fans ribbing at each others laundry, friends talking too loudly on the lamplit street with words about nothing that manifest their love anyway. And it is a normal night. Another in the endless line of nights where somewhere nearby a miracle is breathing. And the awe overtakes me. I was ready to meet their child, but I was not prepared for this.

Friends

Tall and dark, their food was spiced differently and they spoke of a place called Yugoslavia that sounded exotic and sad. But it was all just texture for the aunt, uncle, and two cousins I grew up with. And it didn’t matter at all that instead of a genetic link of ancestry, we shared a history of morning drives towards afternoon picnics before evening dinners and piling into the streetlit car worn out and over-ready for bed. I referred to them as my “parallel family.”

Castle Rock with friends

We’d been family since before I was born. Back when our moms were college roommates. So I showed up for university with eyes wide for the first glimpse of the people who would someday be uncles and aunts to my own kids. No pressure. But impossible expectation is a supplementary explanation for why I am not in touch with anyone from my college years.

Within weeks of school starting, I was in a relationship that devoured most of my hours. Waking and sleeping. I basically lived in her apartment. (Is 15 years too late to send an apologetic fruit basket?) They were seven good years, but when they were over, they were gone with the girlfriend.

That was always my way. My romantic relationship had absolute primacy. Where I spent my time. If my She was unavailable, then I’d call up a friend. Familiar story, tragic mistake, but comfortable in the meantime.

So as I entered this phase of my life (single for the first time since...elementary school?) I resolved to do it differently. I just didn’t know what that would look like.

My turn

It looks like Mondays on rock climbing walls with East Bay friends. Tuesday Lebanese burrito in Dolores Park with my brother and his crew. Wednesday climbing with an amplified set of San Franciscans, before Thursday with my old roommate and his fiance. Friday’s Happy Hour will be well named for the company of friends from middle school, and Saturday we’ll socialize in the farmer’s market sunshine.

And the weekends? Driving to Point Reyes for green hillsides and ocean vistas before watching the sun set into my beloved Pacific Ocean, whose eternal beauty complements mortal friendships, whatever their scale.

Or drive down to Castle Rock to rappel down a granite slab then climb back up, sticking fingers in arachnid crevices and unknowable mammalian dens.

Or up to Tahoe, maybe snowshoeing, or a social maelstrom of mullet wigs, karaoke, and the conviction that no matter how weird the conversation gets, that’s cool.

Tahoe. Made sense at the time.

None of this is a shocking revelation. That friends are good. But that doesn’t lessen their importance. In our Social Media Age, murky medium of social isolation, I want to shout my gratitude for real human contact out into this inhuman ether, knowing it will reach the eyes of friends I’ve never met (yet?), and maybe even stir an additional gathering of friends or two.

Because whether we share genes or not, met in college or on the wall, with smiles or fonts, our lives are made richer by our Parallel Family.

Shoes. OMG, shoes

Snowshoeing in Tahoe really did this pair in

No one had ever complimented me on my shoes. Why would they? They’re just, y’know, shoes. But that last pair I had, people loved those ones. Friends, colleagues, and at least one shopkeeper all dug my footwear. I appreciated it, but it was weird for people to have opinions about my possessions.

But I kinda loved them. As I usually do, by the end. Not for their style or materials, not the eyelets and sole stitching of their physical form, but for the time we trod together, the moments and their memories that we walked through. My shoes usually last about half a year. That is, an off-season and a tour season. By the end of the latter, they’re generally pretty ripe with Roman kilometers and their sweat, Parisian avenues and their petite piles of l’puppy poopoo, then perhaps a retirement on the pedals of my bicycle, hospice on the easy floors of my apartment.

These shoes were made for walking,

and not one time did they crash,

but after all these sweaty miles

they're going in the trash.

I walked from one part of my life
into another in this pair.

When the time comes to set them aside, it usually takes me awhile. “These have pretty much had it” I’ll think over the course of a week or four. “Time to get a new pair.” Then somehow I’m still wearing them.

I’m not a very good customer. Not skilled at consumerism, nor devout in my materialism. I feel satisfaction at wearing something out instead of throwing away a still serviceable item. I don’t get a rush when I buy something new, no pleasure when it’s time to purchase. Connection to things only comes at the end, for me. When I set them on the garbage can in Amsterdam, seeing it as a museum pedestal when I walk away to catch the airport tram. And I wanted to salute when I put this last pair, worn well beyond the norm, into the bin.

No, it’s not that I love shoes. They’re just useful for protecting my feet. But when their job is done, they remind me to say thank you for the miles. To give gratitude for every pace of living.

I wonder where the next pair will take me

I want your life

“I wish I had your life.” I get that a lot. “Must be tough!” they say with a smile. And I can’t disagree. I have it incredibly good. Incomprehensibly good. Sometimes I can feel the weight of the billions of lives lived and living that would give anything for a fraction of the ease, privilege, and pleasure my life has. I don’t know how to give adequate thanks.

I can’t complain.

Today was another good day. Of friends, interest, safety and ease. And rain, musical on the windowpanes, while out in it it’s something harder, gusting to feel like stabs, only softening to water to run down inside your clothes.

A friend and I walked around San Francisco tonight, from Market Street up to Grace Cathedral, down for a meandering burble about Chinatown before finding ourselves in Long Beach and going with it, until we stood on Coit Tower’s promontory with the storm blown in off the Pacific. Back through the Financial District to drip on Bart trains, he went south, I came east.

Then a bike ride through streets like faucets open to any nook of me that was merely soggy not soaked, changing that.

For a moment, the unadulterated wind behind me, I was sailing with the vapor snakes that gave form to every vagary of wind. Grey writhing things that slid on the wet black pavement and made me feel like an windborn seaborn waterborne god.

The road curved out of that harmony, wind rocking my frame and tugging my handlebars, sticks invisible in the undertree rubble kicking my wheel out at sudden angles, tire lost in a mush of sodden leaves that my mind registered would make braking impossible under the bobbing red stoplights.

But I made it home, equally soaked and in love with the world. Moved a snail off my doorstep. And felt something unexpected and familiar.

Because I have it good. Really good. I love my life, my freedom, the fact that today I bought two plane tickets touching three continents. I don’t want to give this up. But standing in the stoop under a single yellow bulb

I realized that if I’d done things differently. Lived a little bit otherhow. There would be someone here when I got home. Someone to laugh at my soaked state, help me inside, take care of my clothes and set an old towel under my bicycle while I climb in the shower.

Instead I’ll do it for myself. And it’s fine. Really is. But here in these quiet moments after midnight, when it feels like everyone else is in bed with their paired each-others, I find myself looking over and “I wish I had your life.”

My pigeon-approved way of lifeI've

I've spent years NOT taking photos of pigeons
but in Venice, all things are beautiful

Sunlight on the feather caught my eye. Sliding through sunlight down from the eave above. The exuberant swirl as the grey and black piece of flight made manifest danced its way down to mere earth. My steps slowed a little to watch it. I didn’t stop, places to go things to do, but I acknowledged its beauty for a moment.

It was rather the flipside of reading the news these days, where a truly abhorrent man defiantly drowning himself in rage and petty ego to try and cover his sadness is leading a coterie of foolish greed, down off the upslope of history. Pronouncements we haven’t heard since Stalin, combined with the deliberate destruction of hope and protection, and I’ll tell ya, it’s enough to get a fella down.

But you just look at those, acknowledge them, participate when possible, care, but keep going.

So here was an afternoon of sunny sidewalk, and a descending path of a beautiful feather, give it the same treatment of slow acknowledgement and recognition, but keep going.

And the universe endorsed my response. Or at least the pigeon did.

The first gigantic gob of fecal surplus landed right in front of me, where I would have been had I not slowed to admire the falling feather. Then the second splash of posterior production, avian anal abundance, landed right behind me, where I would have caught it had I lingered a little too long.

I was framed in falling pigeon poo, pristine and untouched as I made my way forward into the friendly future. Perhaps the political offal we’re seeing will fall to either side as well, fertilizer for something better.

And if not? Well. At least I didn’t get shat on, on a lovely Saturday afternoon.

Fox News is teaching me

Three weeks and two days (feels like three years and two nervous breakdowns) since Trump was sworn (I think we were all swearing that day) in as president, and I still flinch to hear “President Trump today…”

Jan 30, sure his ill-conceived, probably
illegal Muslim ban is hurting thousands of
people and making America LESS safe, but
Fox assures us everyone loves Trump.

I’m partially flinching to cover my vital organs against the day’s newest cruelty, but I also still cannot believe we elected such a vile TV character as our president. From fictional “reality” TV to fictional alternative facts. Still can’t believe it. It all caught me by surprise, and twenty-three long days into the misadministration it hasn’t worn off.

Not here in my liberal bubble of reasonable job availability, supportive peers, and all around plausible hope for the future. (Exorbitant property values notwithstanding.) It is clear that if I am to protect myself from further nauseous astonishment, and do my part to reintegrate a country divided by wealthy owners of corporate media and manipulative politicians ensconced in comfy outrage, I need to puncture that bubble.

But how? Actually go to a “Red State” and meet people? I’d friggin love to! But life is a busy thing.

So for now my phone will start the process. Some mornings I reach for it and one of the wizardlicious swipes and pokes brings me four trending news headlines. Some irresponsible editorialism sneaks in there, but for the most part I get three good news stories...and a Fox News.

Feb 8 Even Trump's nominee acknowledges
his actions are demoralizing, but let's talk
about Tracy Morgan's sex life!

It’s been fascinating.

The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and even poor beleaguered CNN report on what’s happening in America today (the algorithm rarely pierces our self-absorptive US borders) while that fourth line, oh tricky little fella, will so often eel itself with greasy dexterity into some sort of rage politics, celebrity scandal, Trump fanfare, or their favorite: bashing on Obama and/or Clinton.

They still beat on Hillary! Fascinating! That’s like running ads against Nancy Kerrigan. The lady’s career is over! She lost! But no, she’s still a beloved punching bag and distraction flare. Keeping people righteously outraged and problematically uninformed.

I’ll be honest. I’m almost rooting for the most inflammatory and irrelevant distraction stories possible. Almost. Except for the fact that it’s destroying the very fabric of human decency which underlays a successful society, much less government.

Feb 13, this morning's news: criminal
National Security Adviser, historically
low approval ratings, but this singer says
Trump is A-Okay! FOMO patriotism!

So day by day my apple info-bots are teaching me about America, one Faux News headline at a time. It’s a tiny dose, I should up my intake, but some days it’s all the bitter pill I can swallow.

(more examples on the vagabondurges.com version here)

Gratitude, sadness, and mom

Good morning Mom! How’s it going? Have you had a meditation time already? I’m going to do one at 11:00 if you want to do yours at the same time. I’m going to aim for 10 minutes, but 5 would be okay too.

It is the first day. This Tuesday. A Tuesday. The only one that exists, while we wait for it to vanish. But it’s the Tuesday after last Friday, that day of operation and inauguration, when every lung seemed to be holding what breath it could, waiting to see if the unthinkable would continue to happen.

It did. President Trump. Jesus Christ, I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that. I fear I will. Trauma grown normal. And yes, the inauguration happened, followed by even more assault rifle spray of things to be upset about, from alternative facts to the ongoing competition for most unqualified cabinet pick (I have my “winner”).

But brutal circumstance gave me a different main memory for January 20, 2017, the day my mother had her heart surgery. She went in as scheduled, conscious sedation as discussed, and the surgeon did his thing as practiced thousands of times. It all went according to plan. Until it didn’t.

Bronze copy of Michelangelo's Pieta in the Grotto,
looking out over the Willamette River Valley.

The procedure failed. The problem was beyond their reach. I can’t imagine how it felt for my mother, when she came back to awareness and turned to ask the nurse “Did it work?”

How did it feel, when the nurse answered? “No. I’m sorry.”

I don’t want my mom to live forever. That would be a torture beyond reckoning. I just don’t want her to ever die. But here we are, confronted with the benevolent brutality that life ends. All of it. It’s a good thing in theory, but damn it sucks in practice.

But this is too dire. This personal talk of death. This national talk of dissolution. The future has its problems. Its ominous possibility. But today? Today the human spirit is strong. Love is strong. Stronger than doom. I love my mother. I still love my country. And on Saturday my mom brought smiles to everyone she met. And all across the nation the goodness in this country took to the streets to reject intolerance, to embrace support, to deny the divisiveness of a small-souled man who wants us to forget how much we love.

Unity in compassion and concern for each other. Such a beautiful sight. (NBC's photo)

My mom is wonderfully alive. Recovered from her surgery, she has many positive memories still to make. Some small changes can enhance that, and I’m not going to expect her to do them alone. Change doesn’t happen in isolation. Neither does democracy. So I’m going to join every day with a spirit of “What can I do today to foster the health and healing I want to see?”

It won’t solve every problem. No magician here, to polish the future to a paradise shine. But sure beats dwelling in gloom. Health, national or personal, doesn’t happen in an instant or in isolation. And in that interdependency, we are stronger.

I'm just gonna keep Thanksgivinging

So...how’d it go? Anybody get in screaming matches about TrumpCo? Mashed potatoes remashed against the glass of family portraits that were hung in a tidier time? I wonder how many people gave thanks for their orange messiah, hearing the voice of salvation in what sounds to me like the scream of a descending warhead.

But the fact remains that in most of the world the falling warheads are only metaphoric, and I’ll give thanks for that every day it’s true. And acknowledge the species-shame of the places where it’s not, watching for and thinking of ways to expand our decency to all. And it’s not an answer, but let’s take a moment, a swirl of tea steam and a scratch on the dog, to send empathy and love and peaceful intentions to Syria and all the other places our tax dollars and global structure are killing people.

Man it’s hard to say a complete thought and keep it positive. It’s like trying to sing with a cold coming on, starts up fine but keeps ending in a splattered ball of phlegm.

Speaking of lunch, we’re having it together today, a large portion of my family and I. Not all, siblings and an uncle are missed, candles for the ancestors, but I will happily see the ones I can. And stuffing is as good as I remember it.

Stuffing, that would be a rather cakey mush if we ate it more often, but in its alternation it retains its savory dignity. And dangit, guess who’s headed for another Trump Darkness metaphor? It was an accident, I swear! But maybe hope and progress shine brighter after we’ve looked in the face of quotidian despicability in the same way that stuffing is best after months of Something Else. Fine, it’s sloppy, but you see what I’m getting at.

Did I mention how much I love cranberry sauce? And peace? And hope and optimism? And the chance to meet the refugees, the kind people whose caricatures might otherwise seem scary? And the smiles of friends as we tie in to ropes, buy each other beers, or watch the puppy play? Friends are volunteering, driving to Standing Rock, donating to causes any soul must adore. Dogs laugh through smiles and birdsong is still a song. It’s all just so good. Even when it sucks.

And at the end of the day, when the faceless buzz of People seem so sinister, I can sit back and savor that I only actually know a couple assholes. That’s fantastic! So many good people, any and all of which deserve love and affection. Even the jackwad who climbs with his bluetooth in and only wants to insult Hillary. Even that buttnugget.

And then this blogosphere thing. A place that sometimes has absolutely terrible taste, but is a sort of e-mud with gold nuggets richly scattered throughout. And when I see your familiar title show up in a post, a ‘like’, a comment, it will be be just one more thing for which to be grateful.

I have nothing new to say about Black Friday, so I’ll just hold on to this Thanksgiving idea. Let’s try 365 days straight, shall we? Happy endless Thanksgiving, my friends!

Something unexpected and totally normal happened today

I was well into my lineup of questions and answers, ordinal numbers and time sequences in class today, blue marker and red marker, hoping my students were getting something out of my antics when something unexpected happened.

She’s maybe three years old. She has the brightest eyes and incredible laughing smile, and she’d lost one of her shoes somewhere. She plays for most of my English class, blocks and panda bears, while her mother learns at a truly incredible pace, moving rapidly from knowing few words when she got to America two months ago to now, when she helps me teach the other Arabic speakers.

But the little one eventually gets bored and wanders off. She loves opening and closing doors, usually with herself on the other side, and the entire office knows her name and laughter, and soon someone will bring her back, a smile on their face, and deposit her at the table where she’ll look around, find her mom, and exclaim with the purity of a child’s joy “Mama!”

She’d snuck out during my lineup, somewhere around “Who arrived third to class today?” and I was just writing “Who got here next to last?” when she popped out from behind my white board easel with a giggle. Someone had given her a multicolored abacus, and she proudly presented it to me, setting it up with a three year old’s precision then stepping back to make space for my admiration and looking up as if saying “Can you believe this incredible thing!?”

And it was. It was an incredible thing. Because there I was on a Friday afternoon in Oakland, every cell in my body feeling heavy with the ominous portents for my country’s future, but here was this little girl, a Syrian refugee who had been through hell without even the words to name the horrors, and she was giggling up at me and presenting an abacus for my enjoyment.

It was something unexpected, and yet absolutely commonplace. I am privileged to spend some afternoons with these people, these incredible, beautiful human souls, and though the ostensible reason is so I can give them more English words and usage, the reality is that they give me hope, gratitude, and a love for our species that can be hard to grasp in the screen-shaped world.

So yes, I’m terrified for our country, but absolutely, I am confident in the human spirit. I am confident that we will continue to move forward. And I’m confident that we as America will continue to make this the kind of place people like this wonderful little girl and her mother want to come to for safety and a better future.

Rocky Horror Acceptance Show

If I don’t clean all this uncooked rice out of my pockets before I do my laundry, will I have clean clothes and a snack when the washer’s done? And rice krispies when the dryer finishes?

Such are the questions one asks after the late night performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and what else should one do on Halloween in San Francisco? What, hand out candy? I think we’re one of those cities with more dogs than children, and from what I hear all the kids get crated off to the mall for trick-or-treating anyway. Kids spending time in a mall, now that’s scary.

For my part, I took my variously costumed self to the Clay Theater with some friends from our rock climbing group. I’m used to seeing them in harnesses and chalk, now I got to see pink wigs, 1920’s throwbacks, and a red crushed velvet pimp suit that stood out in the crowd. Heck, it woulda stood out at a parrot convention.

But in a crowd like that, standing out is every bit as encouraged as blending in. Everything goes, and you can spend the evening in the sort of easy camaraderie with strangers that comes when we all drop our fusty attitudes and remember that no one really cares. About any of the crap we think they care about. Because even if they do? Who cares?

They warn you that there’ll be swearing, sexuality, homosexuality, and people in lingerie, and if you’re going to be offended, get the f*** out now. The three people who pretend to storm out prove the rule, and everyone relaxes in the knowledge that it’s a group of people who came together with the same idea, the same ethos of acceptance, and it feels like freedom. Celebrate with handfuls of rice and the other traditional manifestations, and be raucous in public.

The late night bus back to Oakland formed the “After” version of the earlier BART train’s “Before.” At 7:00 all the costumes were clean, the makeup was precise, and the faces were alert. Sometime after November started, as the bus bumped over the bridge it looked more like a triage center for someone’s tangled imagination. And I sat there, between a dinosaur who lost his head somewhere and Slash with hair in hand, and felt right at home.

Can it be Halloween again soon, please?