poetry and prose

we will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of themany. we will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life forpeople (other people), for dogs, for rivers. all the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. and they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that heart, in those days,was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

--mary oliver, "of the empire"

i'm not a poem kind of girl. i like prose; i like the sentiments that cannot be expressed in concise bites or easy words. i, myself, am verbose. but mary oliver is onto something with this one, and reminds me of why the brevity of verse is so good and necessary. fearing death, i am learning, is one of the dumbest uses of our time. it is going to happen, because we are the lucky ones--we, who get to live and move and have our being, who can breathe and swim and eat and move and love, we are alive, and we will die, and not all too long from now. but in our battle to hold onto it all, our hearts grow smaller and harder and contract with envy and cruelty. mine does, i know. and i let my feelings get the best of me, cling to scarcity over abundance.
it is hard. but it is oh, so good. life outside of the empire, that is.

feels like winter in san francisco!

a chilly 48 degrees walking down sacramento street today, made me do a double-take. what happened to global warming?

i'm a little bit afraid the space heater in my cubicle is going to burn the building down.

lucky

some people call it blessed. i always feel this awkward pause welling up in my throat (brain? vocal chords?) before i use any adjective meaning 'fortunate.' take a minute, assess my surroundings: am i around christians? non-christians? if i say 'blessed' right now, how does it sound? completely trite? is there any way to say 'blessed' that sounds genuine? on the other hand, if i say that i'm 'lucky,' do you think that i am taking God out of the equation?

when i'm around people who throw 'blessed' around like they were name dropping at the vanity fair oscar party, i will never use that word. you were not blessed to find that parking spot, i think. you got lucky. five seconds earlier and you would have walked your sorry ass three blocks to the grocery store, and your bags would have broken from the weight of your 2 percent milk. it wasn't a blessing that you got a hotel room at the last minute in venice, even if you did pray with your whole family about it. you got lucky and your timing was right. because it seems to me that if you didn't get that parking spot, or if you hadn't have gotten that room, you wouldn't have been blessed. God wouldn't have been looking out for you. and i just don't think that's the case. some people talk about blessing like it's a wink that God gives them across the room, over the heads of everyone else who hasn't prayed hard enough or worked at it diligently enough.

but the parking spot, the hotel room . . . i can't believe, either, that God doesn't teach us in these mundane ways, or that he isn't orchestrating some crazy shit up in heaven so that when i am at the end of my rope, i get that parking spot and remember his goodness even in the smallest of details. so am i lucky? or blessed?

california

movies have been made about it. books have been devoted to it. songs, essays, badly-written fourth-grade state reports, well-written fourth-grade state reports, poems . . . hollywood, death valley, yosemite, salinas, the sierra nevadas. san francisco, los angeles, yreka, eureka, sacramento, palo alto, mckittrick, strawberry, temecula, marin, mono lake, mt. shasta. all day i've had the rufus wainwright lyrics on repeat in my head. and it makes me happy, makes me glad to live where i do and nowhere else.

I dont know this sea of neon
Thousand surfers, whiffs of freon

Aint it a shame
That all the world cant enjoy your mad traditions
Aint it a shame that all the world
Dont got keys to their own ignitions
Life is the longest death in california

California
Youre such a wonder that I think Ill stay in bed
So much to plunder that I think Ill sleep instead
Youre such a wonder that I think Ill stay in bed
So much to plunder that I think Ill sleep instead

'and God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.' -gen.1:31

expectations

it is not even funny how many times each day i think about this word. mostly thanks to a seed planted in my brain by my friend michele and, as usual, she's onto something.

life is all about expectations.

the last week or so, i've come home after work and been surprised to realize that i am feeling sad. not crying or depressed, but definitely what you might call down. uninspired. and that gets me thinking. what are my expectations for my new job? what have i been hoping for, and are those hopes realistic? (disclaimer here about hopes not having to be realistic and dreaming big, etc. etc.) why do i expect my job to provide me with so many things that i know, on some level, i cannot get from a job alone-deep personal fulfillment, rich friendships, constant intellectual stimulation? what would happen if i just let my job be a job? i bet everything else would be a bonus. i bet i would be able to take things much less personally, and that i would be excited when i had a great interaction with a colleague instead of going home disappointed that my day wasn't full of them. i bet i could do great data entry and free up time for my supervisors and still think creatively about publicity.

life is seriously all about expectations.

and not only at work, of course. if i don't expect my friends to be perfect, i will not be disappointed (mostly) when they are not. i will be free to respond with grace and love, rather than the insecurity and fear that is bred by unsynchronized expectations. if i don't expect my job to give me what God wants to give me, then i will be free to enjoy my career in meaningful ways and gratefully accept anything about it that goes well. if i don't expect perfection and mind-reading from my boyfriend, i will be free to empathize with him and be with him where we are, instead of worrying about where one or both of us ought to be.

if i expect God to keep his word on all that he promises me, i will be free to live the richest, loveliest, sometimes scary adventure that will send me running whenever i fall back on my own understanding.

it's all about expectations.

m&m parade

when we were very little, my parents used to throw us m&m parades. they were very specific occasions, celebrating a specific achievement, with rewards and a walk around our house and a delightful little tune that went along with it all. and today, with my wilting 'i voted' sticker half-attached to my sweater and watching cnn videos semi-covertly at work and hitting refresh every five minutes on the color-coded map of america and talking politics with colleagues . . . today, i kind of feel like the whole country is involved in a huge m&m parade.
and while it's easier for me to say because i am aligned with the man who will be president, i hope that our country can pause a moment and put aside partisanship and celebrate the stiiiiinking incredible thing it is that we have elected an african-american as our leader, breaking barriers and shuttering fears centuries old.

that, and that most especially right now, is worth and m&m parade. amen.

guess who won't be in the showcase showdown?

this is where i work. a fairly normal-looking office building in the heart of san francisco's financial district, housing a variety of offices and businesses.
with our twenty-something floors and several elevator banks, our floors divided into separate-entry suites and key codes or entry pads, you can imagine that interaction between those of us who share this building is, at best, limited. most remain silent during brief elevator rides, and eye contact in the lobby is a rarity as everyone brushes by everyone else.



this is drew carey. yesterday, for the first time in my brief new career, he brought us all together.



since the link may not be so clear, i'll explain, shortly after which i'm sure you will be nodding your head in agreement and sympathy.

a gentleman was understandably disappointed that he did not make it on to 'the price is right.' sources have not confirmed whether he was hoping to appear under bob barker's tenure or with the inimitable mr. carey - either way, however, this guy was upset. so upset, in fact, that he took to the streets to express his anger.

and by the streets, i mean a law firm at a building across from mine.

and by his anger, i mean a bomb.

we got back from lunch to find yellow police tape clumsily strewn around the building and across the block. since i work on the side of the building facing the law firm being threatened, i was discouraged from returning to my office my the police. discouraged, but not prohibited. and on the wrong side, like 30 feet would make all the difference in my safety in the event of a bomb explosion. perhaps that is the case - but not so much a chance i'm willing to take.

so for thirty minutes, people from all across the building - i literally have no idea what any of them do, except that there is one company called pb&j, or something like that - came together to take cover in the glassed-in lobby, speculate about the identity of this disgruntled would-be game show participant, and spread rumors like we were in tenth grade.

once we got the all-clear, we dispersed to our respective places of work and returned to our nominally civil and professional interactions. i don't know what happened to the sleighted bomber, but i do know that, bizarre as the circumstances were, it was actually nice to talk with the people i otherwise walk past every day. i don't wish for any further activity of this kind in the near future, but it did strike me how a display of somewhat deranged frustration could bind together a group of people who share so much without ever acknowledging it, myself included.

plus, holy shit! i mean, seriously? the price is right?! seriously?!?!