small change

To Bee or Not to Bee

For months now I have tried to find someone who would like to coax away the colony of bees humming away in my walls. No make that, within my walls lately, as more and more of them find their way into the house, where they go into a frenzy. Dutifully, I have been removing them as gently as I could, shooing them outside, either with paper in hand, or, when they kept hurling themselves at the upper edges of the window, with a glass in which I would trap them. But I don’t always catch them alive. There is is always the carnage by the windows, the bodies of the ones who had no one to help them get back to the business of tending to the bottle brush flowers of the hedge so close to our walls and windows.

After almost 2 years of this, it finally happened: I got stung yesterday. Seems that I stepped on a dazed bee, which then, as bees in danger will do, released its stinger. The pain had me sprinting across the kitchen, straight to the fridge, where I got some ice. It seems that with the ice cube, I rubbed away the whole stinging apparatus, which contains the belly of the bee as well, pulsing and releasing its venom, apparently long after it has been torn away from the bee.

So now I feel an urgency to do something about these bees, even if it turns out that I’ll have to take some drastic measures. Since not one of the “natural” solution people for whom I left endless messages have called me back, looks like a job for an exterminator.

I see the bees congregating (that’s not the right word, I am sure), by the heating vent up on the roof, which is probably their entry point. Today, I took some time with my ears to the walls, and after some searching, there it was, the unmistakable hive buzz. I am not afraid of bugs of any sort, but that sound, after that sting yesterday, put me in a combative mood. These were not Rilke's bees gathering the honey of the invisible. Nope, these were the bees, visibly undermining the walls of my house, threatening to make them invisible....

The gloves are off, which may not be the smartest figure of speech, given my adversary here, and I am determined to evict the whole swarm of them. Who knows how deep the honeycombs go into the walls, and who knows how much it will cost to remove this huge “illegal” second multi-unit, sweet as it may be, but bee-gone it has to be, if peace be. Especially since I also found out that one of my neighbors is deadly allergic to bee stings….

I wish I could have watched some pastoral scene in which a bee whisperer comes and lures them away to a pollen paradise. I wish I could coexist with them in such close quarters. But these wishes are now just bees in my head, a noisy buzz that is losing its sting.

Spout

Our new faucet is sleek, stylish, and imposing. Since it has been put into its place, I suspect it has also acquired an attitude that is far from sleek or stylish, but still definitely imposing. Not that I can blame it. After all, it was doomed for the flow of high aspirations from the moment of it was cast in its mold in a European country all the way of its arrival to our house in a package worthy of housing gourmet European chocolates.

 

Instead it found itself a faux swan among true ducklings, the ragtag assembly of “home improvements” at the hands of people like us, who are inept at the art of gliding, gracefully or otherwise, on the glassy surfaces of interior decorating. And so our long-necked diva has had to steel itself a little harder to staring into the abyss of a small black sink -- unless it can charm us eventually, into upgrading, for its sake, to a sink worthy of Narcissus himself:

Still, a benefit of this mismatch of faucet and sink is that we get free showers (partial though they may be) every time we  turn on the faucet, which thinks the sink is just way too beneath it to bother going with the flow.

Consequences 7

This is the seventh post in an ongoing online game of Consequences Each successive entry begins with the closing lines of its predecessor. Entries are 250 words long, and are linked thematically. The series started with Hydragenic and was followed by Patteran Pages, Porous Borders, The Middlewesterner,  Feathers of Hope, Blaugustine, and Small Change. The series will continue in a day or two at Via Negativa.

EX-HALE

“ Portez-moi  à une nunnery! “ 

Bells pealed in the distance. The road was shrouded in dust. He was drenched in sweat. His right shoulder was numb with pain. He had been carrying her in his arms, it seems like forever. Around him, dust devils rose on wings coaxed by the relentless wind.  She wailed. In French. Half French, what with that nunnery business coming up at intervals like a tasteless refrain. He did not speak French, but that was never a problem before. Mostly because she never spoke French either to him before.

“ Portez-moi  à une nunnery! “ 

Maybe it wasn’t bells that pealed, he thought. Maybe it’s laughter. Merriment from a feast in full swing. A wedding, somewhere ahead or behind on this road that spliced through the nebulous dust only enough for him to see her as she was, settled in his arms.  He took a step, then another, soldiering on. For the both of them now. Since she no longer had her feet on the ground, he was to be her legs. And she, what was she to them now?

“ Portez-moi  à une nunnery! “

That pealing in the distance. Maybe neither bells nor merriment. Derision. His arms were leaden with her weight,  even as her voice rose lightly. He ached for the lightness that had possessed her, and which asked so much of his legs now. To get somewhere, he thought, he would have to disarm. All at once, wholly and decisively, he shook with laughter.

Now

I had no camera with me. But even if I had, what it would have captured could never be what I saw. Eight white pelicans in a circle, like synchronized swimmers, diving into shallow waters. Their rear ends sticking up like capsized boats, their wings, half submerged. They kept diving, greedily, and yet, this greed did not detract from the grace of their synchronized movements.

Some of us in the group watched the pelicans, while the others took turns helping in the kitchen. We gathered at this lovely spot, a house by a lagoon, to take a cooking lesson. We were to learn how to make some of the dishes that made our recent yoga retreat also such a culinary treat.

We roasted peppers, we chopped tomatoes, we whipped up sauces, all in a whirl. We were in a rush, so grace was not on our mind. The resident dog, a beagle, kept an eye on us, but after a while, she retreated to her bed in the corner, pulling a blanket over herself. Apparently she is quite adept at this maneuver.

By the time we sat down to eat at the table on the deck, the pelicans have stopped their feeding dance and were floating in random patterns on the shifting tides echoing through the lagoon. If they watched us, I doubt that they bothered themselves about the way we bobbed our heads over our plates. There was nothing synchronized about any of our movements or voices in conversations.

Above us, the clouds that have been hanging around for the better part of the week, relented and began to drift eastward, leaving a brilliant light in their wake. That’s when it came to me: here is a moment like no other in a world like no other. Some would call it grace. Others beauty. Or gratitude. All I could think of was here is now. But of course, the moment I thought that, it passed.

"just one book"

British poet Anne Berkeley, whom I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago in London, has published a terrific collection of poems, "The Men from Praga.” The publisher of her collection, Salt Publishing, like all independent publishers these days, is struggling to keep going. They put to the word out, asking for anyone to buy “just one book,” whether from them or “from Amazon, your local shop or megastore, online or offline” they don’t care -- as long as you buy just one book.

You might as well start with Anne Berkeley’s book, but don’t stop there…. The list of books is long, with plenty of drama and fiction, and even criticism and essays to please the omni-genrist.

For a taste of Anne Berkeley's work, here is one of my favorite poems from her book:

Nav Rad*

The Vulcan beat out such a din
there's heavy irony
in the imagery
of anvil and sickle.
Heaven 'd
weep at what my father knew:
co-ordinates
of targets,
the precise skill
of Blue Steel
to raze so many by so few--
returning with his burden
red-eyed, limping, deafened
by a damaged ossicle.

* After an email exchange with Anne Berkeley it became clear to me that perhaps an American reader, especially one far removed from the days of the Cold War, might not have a frame of reference for some of the terms that give this poem its twists and turns and music, so here is a brief glossary:

• Nav Rad  is a Navigator Radar (who plots bombs)
• Vulcan was a British nuclear bomber
• Blue Steel was a British H-bomb
• The eleventh line references a speech by Churchill praising the RAF.V-bomber aircrew frequently suffered hearing damage on account of prolonged exposure to extreme noise

Poetry in Bits

Read, Write Poem on its site featured a random quote by Sam Hamill: “Poetry exists as a body attempting communication.” Seems to me that the opposite of this also can be pleaded: poetry exists as communication attempting a body.

In fact, at least in my wordy world, poetry does not attempt. Tempt, maybe, as it should, but even when it doesn't whatever it does, it is communication. It seeks not it itself, or its image petrified in the body of an other, but seeks the Other ... Forget the fancy talk:  the poetry Sam Hamill’s quote invokes for me is the life insurance salesman “attempting” to communicate the benefits of annuities. The poetry I am thinking of would like to ply you with beer and stories in the pub, and, if things go well and you both feel like it, heck, you might get all tempted and attempt to communicate via a romp in the hay.

But then, in the best manner of synchronicity, porous borders has just posted a provocative piece about “poet, poems, and videotape” that sheds a brighter and wider light on why tradition and poetry don’t really belong next to each other in a sentence, unless they have something to say to each other, something that makes a difference.

Friday Night Drive in the Suburbs

Sometimes, when you take an aimless drive from one quaint suburb on the manicured shores along the bay to another, when you reach the farthest point, you could find a man sitting on a bench. From your car, the bench could look to you like the vestige  of a lost continent, sunk between the million-dollar-plus condos that rise like waves on the shore and the yachts buoyed by winds in distance in the bay.

The man himself, maybe you tell yourself, is Robinson Crusoe, for surely there is something of the shipwreck about the way he looks, even through your dusty windshield, even at the distance from which you glimpse him. Then, should you park your car and walk to where land and water meet, you are likely to see that the man is clutching a rumpled paper bag.  At this point, you will know, without a doubt, that what is in the paper bag is cheap liquor. As you turn away, because turn away you will, you might notice the other parked car in the tiny lot meant to discourage disruptions in traffic of any kind.

What you’ll see, when you pay attention, is the odd couple waving towards the sea in an idling expensive foreign car. Maybe you will find yourself struck by the deep brown skin patina of the driver, or maybe it’s only her youth that will impress you. Neither her skin color nor her age happens to be a characteristic in plenty supply in the population that lives along these shores. Of course, you are now curious about the driver’s companion, who is as ghostly white as the driver is richly dark. And, without a doubt, you will know that the ghostliness is the mark of years and illness and that no amount of money or nothing in this world -- or of this world -- can exorcise it. 

Well, then, you think, it is time to move on. Not that you have somewhere to be. No. But here you feel like an intruder.  You take one more look at the boats, their hoisted sails blinking in the light amplified by water and fog.

And you move on, that you do, as you drive through the winding road, back toward more familiar sights. Along the way you decide to stop at the grocery store before it closes for the night. It’s a local grocery store, but one that caters to complicated appetites. You know that if you want to, you can have something of the world beyond this place, at least in small bites of the fare that comes from far and wide and which crowds the shelves of the store.

By the time you park your car and enter the store, it is dusk. It is Friday night, so the store is nearly empty. You push your cart aimlessly, because there is really nothing you need, but you want something. Then, as you turn into one aisle, you come face to face with a woman in a wheelchair. The woman is huge, her flesh billows over the sides of her chair. Her chin is covered with rough patches of hair. She won’t look you in the eyes. You don’t blame her, because you figure she knows already, only too well, what she’ll see in the eyes of whomever she looks at.

The two of you keep crossing paths through the aisles, as if on purpose. Which is odd, because by now it is clear to you that the woman is roaming as aimlessly thought the store as you are. But the woman still won’t look at you. You look away and she floats by in her wheelchair, touching items on the shelves.

The last you see of the woman is her wheelchair gliding through the exit door. You wonder why she didn’t buy anything. The fact that she left empty-handed rattles you more than when you first glimpsed her. Because, admit it, no matter how sensitive you think you are to such things, seeing this woman, the enormity of her being, of her self, immobilized in a chair that ferried her so silently did unsettle you.

But let’s face it: you were unsettled already the moment you got into your car and drove off. Sure, the countryside promised to soothe you, to ground you, to place you. And it did put you in your place. In a way. In the end, no matter how far from home yo got, you were in your own neighborhood after all that traveling. The man with the paper bag, remember him? You turned and walked away as soon as he got up from the bench and started to walk toward you. Weren’t you curious in the least bit if he was going to offer you a drink, share some stories? The young black driver and the old white woman waving at the boats that might have well been bobbing on the seas of another planet, so out of reach they were for both, though not for lack of vigor or money, but in the wrong distribution for each one of them, well, they looked at you too, but you looked away, the same way the enormous woman did in the store where she preferred to stroke the merchandise instead of looking at you and seeing the hunger that no money, no armada on golden seas, no grocery store filled to the brim with foods from every corner and curve of the world can satisfy.

So there you are, Friday night, let loose in the suburbs. Maybe you think you don’t belong here. But then, surely you will realize that is where you live. You can stop driving now: you have reached your destination.

it's bird, it's a plane, it's a...

Years ago I used to walk all over my neighborhood almost every day. I got to know the gardens of my neighbors pretty well, seasons in and seasons out. Since I have been practicing yoga seriously, I stopped roaming the neighborhood. I forgot all about those gardens too (including mine, but that is another story). The other day, though, on a whim, I took a long walk through the old streets. Not much has changed in most of the old gardens, thanks to the army of hired gardeners who clip and streets, bushes and lawns, to keep them picture-perfect, that is, looking the same year in and year out.

Well, this Strelitzia reginae must have been only a little princess back then, because I surely don’t remember it having such big flowers poised for soaring. Then again, I don’t blame it for wanting to take flight: save for the patch of palm trees flanking the gates nearby which it stands, the landscape is, if not bland, your typical Northern Californian mix of oaks, elms, magnolias (pruned to a dwarf-like state), cypress hedges, privets, oleander, bottlebrush, lawns with patches of lavender, and so forth. What self-respecting bud wouldn’t want to break out and “leave” this safe sea of green behind?

the dumps

I am having an odd experience. Not strange, but one that is strangely absent in many discussions of parenthood.  At least in the discussions I had over the years. The closest descriptive term for the emotional aspect of my odd experience is grief. Yet no one died as such. On the contrary: the child who precipitated  this patch of dark rain in my soul has graduated, not just from college, but it seems, from his original (and perhaps habitual) attachment to home. He has stepped into a very bright, sunny clearing, the soil of which is alien to me. As it should be.

For some months now it was becoming obvious that this son will not to come home any time soon, at least not as the kid whose room I kept intact pretty much the way he left when we took that first heart-wrenching trip to Madison, Wisconsin, to drop him off at his dorm room. Not that he hasn’t been home since then. He has been home every chance he got, at least for the first three years of college. He had even spent an entire summer at home, working and adding to the chaos of electronics debris, papers galore, and other stuff in his room and closet. But I kept all of it, including the mad quilt on the walls of those almost-pornographic pictures of cars from the years of plenty not so long ago, like the gleaming silver silhouette of a Chrysler Sebring -- but I digress.

A week ago, around graduation time, when my son hesitated to commit himself to a date on which he would come home before starting work even farther from here, on the east coast, it became obvious to me that I had to break free of that room of his childhood as much as he already had.

So, for the last three days I have been hauling down boxes and boxes of dead electronics, dusty papers, broken toys, the odd adult magazine, homework from elementary school, stuffed animals, and all such stuff that has been at one time or another a very significant piece in this former child’s daily life. With each box I took down, though, I felt a rise in guilt, as if I had betrayed him in some way. Then, today, it dawned on me: the mother in me was horrified at what looked to her like a disposal of the things of a “departed” child. A child who had died.

The fact is that a “child” did die. To make room for the man.

Now it is my turn to let go. Not just of that “child,” but also of his mother. And this I do, I am realizing, with each box I take out of that room. By tomorrow, most of those things that make him persist in the different stages of a boyhood so ingrained in my experience as his mother, will be gone. Soon there will be a lot more space in the room, a patch of emptiness where, as I see it now, I can, at least, attempt to let go for the sake of both of us.

Counting on the Path

The last few days I found myself afloat in a curious confluence of lofty spiritual notions and a rehash of boring fundamentals of accounting and economic trends. It all started with the May 2009 issue of the Shambhala Sun, which ran a piece by John Tarrant with the catchy title “The Buddha and Suze Orman.” I suppose it was that teaser that had me shell out the nearly 7 bucks, which is the price of the magazine, and which is a considerable sum these days, when so much writing, even on such subjects can be had for "free" online.

Tarrant, in his piece, compares the elements of the noble truths of Buddhism and Orman’s insistence on her show that people take stock of their resources and face up to what they can and can’t afford based on numbers, and not on their wishful thinking about who they are. In this, according to Tarrant, Suze Orman is spreading the Buddha’s message that we must see through the dream in this life. You know, that dream which is at the root of all our suffering. Facing our financial limits with this in mind becomes aspiritual wakening of sorts, a kind of reckoning with our reality, and a way to end suffering.

Oddly enough, when I picked up a copy of this weekend’s The New York Times Magazine, there on the cover was Suze Orman, finger wagging in the blue air of the background. The image suggested a combination of moralism and bubble-headed entertainment, in sharp contrast to the leopard-print clad Orman opposite from the Buddha in The Shambhala Sun. The take on Suze as an emissary or gentle guide on the path to enlightenment, financial or otherwise was a lot less lofty in The New York Times Magazine piece than it was in Tarrant's essay.

By the time I got to the essay “The Death of Kings” by Nick Paumgarten in the May 18 issue of The New Yorker, the idea that financial ruin and spiritual awakening may well run on parallel tracks didn’t seem all that odd.  Not surprisingly, the “emissaries” in this essay who pointed to the bear market as the dispellers of illusions, did grab my attention. Chalk one up for the accountants then, at least for the ones for whom the ledgers are a kind of sacred text:

“Truth in accounting—the proper recognition of losses and liabilities, the acknowledgment of inconvenient facts—is a kind of virtue. Credit relies on a foundation of trust, which comes from honesty and fair dealing. The bull market, we’ve learned, did away with these things. Enthusiasm, in the presence of lucre, tends toward rapacity.” 

So, if you find the Upanishads too quaint for your taste, or the Bhagavad Gita holds no insights for you, juts whip out your checkbook and take a look at your account balance. It might just change your life -- and prove to be truly enlightening in the bargain.