Against the Wind

Up too early yet again. Announced departure time is 6 am, in an hour; my bags are packed and by the door. The only things missing are the dog food and the lens cap for my camera. I can rustle around and find those after the natives start moving about a bit.
Lovely Thanksgiving here, Annie even suggested we should make Norman an annual destination. The kids truly enjoy playing with the cousins, and I was able to get to Tulsa twice to see Mother. Next trip I make this way I’ll come alone and stay with Mother. She so wants company…
Dana’s steering us to the Ansel Adams exhibit at Gilcrease Museum was a hit. It’s been practically unadvertised, but it’s an amazing collection of photographs. I could look at it and see several things that he did with lighting and angles of light to push his photos way out of ordinary photography. On the whole, my reaction is still one of personal inadequacy. I wish I understood that and could combat it.
So on a photographic note, I’ll try and recycle one of my photos. This was taken in Norman, but in another season.

Near Robert and Ann’s subdivision of Sutton Estates, there is Sutton Park, with a lake and walking paths. I went out Friday with my camera and tried to capture the austere Oklahoma autumn beauty. I have a couple of close ups of vegetation, hedgeapples on the ground, but nothing that just sings the way the scene should….were I AA, anyway.

Like Ansel, I don’t take a lot of portraits. But in his exhibition, my eye was drawn to the photos of people. And I notice that a lot of the photos I’ve worked on and shared of my collection, there is a disproportionate number of photos of people.
Ok, just one gratuitous link… I’ve been following the follow up reporting on the slaughter in India. The writing by a reporter, D’Sousa, was gripping. I’ll assume if you’re a bit interested, you’ve seen that. Powerline posts some follow up commentary that seems appropriate.

I wondered earlier today how a mere ten terrorists could bring a city of 19 million to a standstill. Here in the U.S., I don’t think it would happen. I think we have armed security guards who know how to use their weapons, supplemented by an unknown number of private citizens who are armed and capable of returning fire. The Indian experience shows it is vitally important that this continue to be the case. This is a matter of culture as much as, or more than, a matter of laws.

I hear stirring. Thirty minute to departure. Time to move.

I slept straight through the night last night, a wonderful treat.  This morning I’m listening to a few household noises.  Tomorrow morning we hope to be off by now, so much packing of the car to be done this evening. 

The day will take us to Tulsa and back.  Gilcrease Museum has a huge show of Ansel Adams photos brother Dana says is a must see.  I will visit Mother as well, though I’m not sure of the logistics… she will be overwhelmed with as many visitors as we have.  Tania suggested I should get her out of the manor and go for a ride.  That seems a tall order with a car full of folks needing to park somewhere.  Maybe if brother Dana will host the hoard I can manage that. 

Have you had any experience with crowds and herd mentality?  What on earth happened in WalMart in New York yesterday?  That is craziness.  What values make it more important to get into a WalMart store to get ahold of some bit of stuff than to pay attention to a person hurt and dying? 

I’ve been on a vacation from the news, but that headline seeps through, as well as continuing reports from the city that used to be known as Bombay. 

The feel good news is that nephew Kelly, age 8 and my grandson Quentin, also age 8, continue to play as fast friends.  They’ve had several times to play together over their young lives, and we hear them whooping it up outside….Tara, Q’s mother will say, “listen to that!” as there is some particularly loud whooping going on.  Kelly has really been good about letting Quentin play with his posse.  Ann and Robert’s house seems to be one of those “kid magnet” places.  The kids gather here and run in and out…upstairs and down, and seem to thrive as flowers in warm sun.  What a delight!

Time to get Tootie to the door and start thinking breakfast thoughts.

Ann’s  ‘fridge is restuffed with the remains of the dinner we ate.   The wreath is boxed and ready to hang later today.   Mother did get her pieces of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, though she is not particularly thankful.  As her physical infirmities mount, and she’s swamped trying to manage this condition and that, she admits that many days she’d rather not wake up in the morning.  Odd, but I still do not know whether that’s a rational assessment, or if she’s playing for some sympathy.  I’m willing to sympathize, but I’m not willing to tell her that it’s ok with me if she won’t get up and walk and participate in improving her health to the extent that she is able.

I’m up in the night with acid reflux.  My continuing poor relationship with food has exacted its price in sleeplessness.  That’s not precisely correct; I think if I lay down, I can sleep.  And I’d sleep until the pain in my esophagus woke me up again.  Better if I stay vertical for a bit and maybe let gravity work for me instead of against me.

In the dark of a long autumn night, my mind goes back over old hurts, the biggest one, the marriage that failed, and has colored so much of my life since.  Driving back from Tulsa to Norman yesterday evening, the kids and I discussed a bit of our dysfunctional family history.  My brother Dana and I had a good chat earlier about the relationships in our generation of the family.  So many threads of hurt run through families.  Last night my daughter  used the word “martyr” to describe how I’d dealt with my marriage going belly up,  and my steadfast refusal to let the my pain and failure become the defining issue in their relationship with their father. 

That word martyr has such negative connotations, that my first impulse was that I’d been criticized yet again.  In families taking the role of martyr is usually a fundamentally dishonest position, not usually considered in any sort of positive light.  I guess I’ll have to ask whether there was any of that connotation to her comment.  As there were tears flowing when the comment was made, I didn’t think clearly or quickly enough to try and sort that out.  It dawns on me in the dark of night that perhaps she was just appreciating the amount of pain I’d taken on and refused to make my children participate or in anyway become pawns in a battle that they had no part of.   Could her use of that word go back to the positive role of martyrs in the early church, people who were so sure of what they knew to be right that they refused to renounce their faith, and at the ultimate price? 

I had long wanted to make the case that some of the issues that she was still very angry about, problems in our relationship were mostly the result of her clinging to misinterpretations.  When the tears flowed,  maybe she was beginning to readjust her thinking?  If that is the case, I truly am blessed, and need to offer continual Thanksgiving.  Maybe, just maybe, some healing will come out of this trip.  Or do I delude myself?  Maybe she was saying something about me playing games, and acting the martyr? 

It’s 5 ayem, the household will not be moving for a couple of hours.  Maybe it’s a good time to sleep now.  Perchance to dream? 

Happy Thanksgiving.

I’ve enjoyed learning to like traveling alone.   Here’s what I’ve been missing.  There’s the melt down before the first onramp.  “Mother it’s fundamentally dishonest of you to not mention you’re bringing the Tootie.”  Point taken.  I did figure it was easier to apologize than to get permission on that one.  I’m thankful for my little dog, and my adult whiner.

As the trip was winding down, I got to sit in the back seat with the little guys.  Who is to explain what toy will grab a kid’s attention.  Cameron had a birthday and got plenty of toys of all sorts.  What is the favorite toy?  A barrel of monkeys.  So sitting in the back, “you talk him.”  (You make up the dialog for a little action figure fun with these monkeys.)  The little plush Snoopy from a kids meal at Wendy’s fit nicely in his barrell.  “I need the wid!”  Finding the lid in the dark, while sitting doing a sardine can imitation in a car is beyond me.  Tara, however can reach back and find the “wid” on the floor.  Is it a Mother’s gift?  I’m thankful for the grandboys, and for their Mother, who really does do a great job of raising them. 

The nearly unalloyed joys of the road were the food Tara gathered and packed, and the picnic in Vicksburg by the Cairo Museum where the remains of an Ironclad warship is put back together, in recognizable shape.  Someday I’ll travel to Vicksburg just to see the sights.  Yogurt parfaits for breakfast, and great sandwiches for lunch, so we made it to Norman, with no homocides about 10:30 at night.  A very long day.  The girls inform me we’re heading out at 4 am to make some tracks while the boys are still sleeping. 

Today it’s turkey on the run.  Eat and run to Tulsa.  Mother is too frail to make the trip to Norman.  I’m blessed that I’m able to go go go!  And thankful.  Mostly.

The gators are definitely coming back. Now that it’s getting cold, they’re less and less active, but we did have some serious gators around this summer. A lot of people who live near water had to deal with nuisance gator problems. And the same fellow, McCrae, a taxidermist, who showed Tara about how he captured gators, and tried to save injured animals when she was a scout many years ago, he’s still the parish nuisance gator guy. He and his wife were on our prayer list one Sunday. So was the boy who had his arm bitten off by a gator while he was playing near a levee. He was lucky to get out alive. That was this summer.

The health of the local gator population is a decent metaphor for my growing strength. I’m finding I am some days quite “awake,” alive to the world’s possibilities and grateful for the chance to enjoy the treats of sight and smell that I’m offered. But it’s never long but the gators are back swimming. I easily get discouraged, and fall into my habitual torpor. All that nasty baggage is still swimming about 90% submerged, and then when I think I’m doing fine with the semester, I’ll have a “gotcha” moment when I get terribly discouraged and upset.

The math courses I teach have way too much content in them…a great explanation for math education is that it is 30 miles wide and 1/2 inch deep. So as I left Pearl River High last Friday, I really felt that I’d failed in a lot of ways. By Sunday I had new ideas for how to approach the last week of the college algebra class, but the high scool is closed this week, so I tried to put into effect a bit of my epiphany at Nunez. I didn’t feel like it was any great success, but at least it was an effort. Maybe I can hone it before next Tuesday.

The courses that I’ve “coordinated” at Slidell High and been paid for were bothersome to me as well. I don’t think I’ve really earned my pay there. So I told my ex colleague, now my boss, that I didn’t think I’d delivered value for the school’s dollar. He’s happy nonetheless, because the high school teacher there is competent, but she doesn’t have the paper credentials. I know there’s a reason for those paper credentials, but it’s really not so that I can get paid to be a “teacher of record,” and do little more than shuffle a few papers about. But it seems I’ll be doing the same nebulous job next semester, and I will if we can get it a bit better defined what I’m supposed to do.

One of the biggest gators in my life is to be faced when I take my trip to Oklahome starting in the morning. How much of the left over flotsam and jetsam of growing up years are we allowed to blame on our parents? Or siblings? Bottom line is, the only way to get past it is to just get past it. I’m a grown up now. My kids are grown ups. It’s time to “man up” and be responsible for the things I can do something about, and let the other stuff go.

Last year we played the Thankful game. I made a parlor type game out of it. Everyone wrote down something they were thankful for, and we read them out and tried to decide who was Thankful for what. Barry was not sure he understood this game. No rules, no winners. Marianne was thankful for being such a beauty that everyone was awed by her presence. I was thankful that sometimes there are no rules! I don’t remember the other, though I do recall some were quite conventional. It’s sort of obligatory to say you’re glad for your health. But when you’re 30 or so, you really take that for granted. I’m thankful that an angel or two has passed this way this past year. I hope to see more.

Proverbs 6:25-29 Warning against adultery, continued….

Do not lust after her beauty in your heart,
Nor let her allure you with her eyelids.
For by means of a harlot
A man is reduced to a crust of bread;
And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.
Can a man take fire to his bosom,
And his clothes not be burned?
Can one walk on hot coals,
And his feet not be seared?
So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;
Whoever touches her shall not be innocent.

I’m in love. It’s an unnatural love. A difficult relationship that gives me great pain. I fold my love in my hands. I caress my love gently as I pass. I day dream, thinking of all the wonderful combinations we can make.

It all started with a picture in a magazine. I don’t usually like reproduction prints. The colors are too subdued, the old combination almost stale. Why make a quilt that looks old before you begin? But the photos of these fabrics looked bright and happy, and they were new and interesting colors to me.

I went to a shop hop through southeastern Louisiana, looking for fabrics from the Virginia Quilt Museum’s Aunt Josie’s Log Cabin. No joy. Not a scrap anywhere. Not to be detered, I thought I’d find something from the line in one or two of the many fabric vendors at the Houston quilt festival. Again, no luck. So what’s a quilter with a passion to do? I ordered my fabrics from a couple of vendors online.

Printer’s inks and pigments in dyes are not the same. I know colors shift as you work from medium to medium. It’s a graphic artist’s constant battle. But I was unprepared for the look of the fabrics that came in the mail. Muddy colors, a pumpkin color, a faded green, not the orange and the green and blues that I saw on the magazine. Seven yards of fabric, and not what I was hoping for at all.

Before the fabrics arrived, I finished a medallion that would serve as the center of a round robin, a group sewing project. But I wanted to remake it in the fabrics from Aunt Josie’s Log Cabin. Now, doubts swirled through my thoughts. What to do with these dingy fabrics? Why did spend my budget on that?

During a reverie as I headed to school one day, I suddenly realized my mind was running again to those faded colors. Hope rekindled. I’ve made the medalion I saw in my mind. It’s not the bright colors I saw in my mind’s eye: it’s subtle. It holds your attention like a lover whose attractions are unfolded slowly.

This morning I had some clear ideas about an essay that needed writing, but I’ve lived a good deal today, and what seemed important this morning is not so important tonight.

“Thought is the work of the intellect, reverie is its self-indulgence. To substitute day-dreaming for thought is to confuse a poison with a source of nourishment.” - Victor Hugo

That was the thought of the day a few days back, and it’s been niggling at me. I’m so guilty of delicious reveries. Any thoughts on that thought? Reveries?

One place my reveries go is the state of the economy, and trying to pick a reasonable path into the future. My future isn’t long, but I still need to maintain some sort of solvency in the next few years. So I’m just as concerned as the next guy who has seen his 401K’s disappear. But I think I’ve found the solution. Dr Boli sorts it all out for us!

If you want a more serious suggestion, Do play this video of Mark and Liz exploring their passion. You don’t need to watch the whole video, but play the music as a background for reading “Dancing the Budget.” I guess ball room dancing has found a revival what with dancing with the stars. Anyway, this is my cousin and his wife, and they’ve shared their newfound passion online. Their kids dancing in the middle section are priceless.

Meanwhile, if you’re feeling a recession coming on, well, you’re just in the wrong place. Real estate and storefronts are hot items still in Washington DC.

You can watch the leaks of political appointees, but it’s hard to imagine anything like the way the leak of the Secretary of Commerce hit the stock market Friday. I was lucky enough to be watching and riding that wave, though I had no idea what caused the surge through the market. WSJ explains.

Powerline has a quick explanation of the red hot issues in closing Gitmo. Politically it’s expedient. But there are some land mines. Fun to watch.

I believe it was Trotsky who once said something like, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” That pretty well sums up the position in which Obama and his supporters find themselves.

I almost grabbed my camera to photograph the little guys at my window feeder today. I’ve had the devil of a time with focusing. I suspect the camera is focusing automatically on the reflective film on the window, and I know I can’t see well enough through the view finder to focus myself, but I’ve made some adjustments and might get the photos better now. Here’s a poorly focused juvenile cardinal. They’ve flown on south, I suspect, though a few winter over here. They’ll be back come spring most likely.

Off to Tulsa early next week for Thanksgiving. I’ve rented a full sized car for the road trip. Still have one more class to teach next week. Marianne is trying to write papers. But we’ll be off as soon as we can get going. Hope to keep blogging through the travel time. The sewing machine keeps running as well.

Our pastor nominating committee came to the congregation with a call for a pastor. It’s been more time than anyone cares to think about that the church has been without a pastor. So having a pastor to call was indeed big news. But it’s a process remininscent of Yenta the Matchmaker’s job in Fiddler. The nominating committee has selected a woman who looks to be my age, has the math degree as well, and a degree from Princeton Theological Seminary three years later. It sounds like an unalloyed blessing to me, little short of a miracle. God willing she can take some fertile ground for sheparding and help the church grow in numbers, youth and faith. The church has so much going for it, but it’s gotten threadbare in the attempts to regroup after the storm without formal leadership. All we got was a pamphlet of minimal biographical information, but she looks like a great fit. I can do nothing but thank God, and be very hopeful.

Tania let go of five of the photos taken at her wedding. The photographer worked hard at staying in the background, not running a wedding as a photo opp. They are spectacular photos. I’ll share two today. From the time upstairs in the bridal suite of the Benacci House, a couple of photos from the excitement of bridal preparation. The squenchy expression on my face is from fighting with the tiny buttons on Tania’s dress. It felt like hundreds of little loops to fasten. The other is just the ladies finally about ready for the big party. What a Scarlet O’Hara moment in that upstairs bedroom! That was fun, though I’m not sure I knew I was having fun.

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It’s a little late for weekend reading, but this is another of the many articles I keep reading on the recurring theme of “What happened?” Michael Lewis, who wrote “Liar’s Poker”, on interviews with Steve Eisman and others. It’s a great read, though a bit longish.

I had been waiting for the end of Wall Street. The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management: Over and over again, the big Wall Street investment banks would be, in some narrow way, discredited. Yet they just kept on growing, along with the sums of money that they doled out to 26-year-olds to perform tasks of no obvious social utility. The rebellion by American youth against the money culture never happened. Why bother to overturn your parents’ world when you can buy it, slice it up into tranches, and sell off the pieces?

A good political cartoon is worth more than 1000 words. This one says a lot ot.

Ayers/educator?

And I’m out for the count. Busy day here, busy tomorrow as well. Got a semester to wrap up.

Running through the photos from the day out in the State Park in Arkansas, this is a daughter who didn’t get married. Barry is a fine young man… or so Marianne tells me! They seem to have some fun, he’s a bit of a steadying influence on Marianne. My vote is that he’s a keeper.

Linda put a comment in yesterday about some horrific school incident near her. I’ve got the KKK killing initiates who try to back out in my county. I guess there are only two things I’d want to say about such evil. Neither the kid of the strangulation incident nor the KKK bunch are going to just “sit down and play nice.” They choose their brand of evil. There are some very dark paths but no one is ever forced to go there.

The other thing striking about these stories are, “why do I want to know?” I’m truly much happier not hearing the local news with the screaming bleeders for headlines. Some folks are just like automobile accidents waiting to happen. They’re pretty easy to spot. Stand clear of them!

Gagdad today was on about guardian angels. I’d never given much thought to angels. But I was surprised when I realized how many angel figure Deb has displayed around her house. Deb sees no need of Christianity, and I’ve never really thought of angels as much more than some sort of a recycled bit of religious story from somewhere in the Middle East. But the thing Gagdad wrote today that struck me was

(From UF, Meditations on the Tarot)”The Angel depends on man in his creative activity. If the human being does not ask for it, if he turns away from him, the Angel has no motive for creative activity. He can then fall into a state of consciousness where all his creative geniality remains in potential and does not manifest. It is a state of vegetation or ‘twilight existence’ comparable to sleep from the human point of view. An Angel who has nothing to exist for is a tragedy in the spiritual world.”

Bob characterizes the relationship with God with two different arrows that I see no way to replicate with the text cruncher I’m using. But the down arrow and the up arrow are his symbols. The down arrow would include such concepts as we use the word “grace” for, as well as “Divine Providence” and perhaps the odd angel. The up arrow is more like our active seeking, prayers, meditations, and again the odd angel may move with messages. So angels? I guess I’ll stay open to them anyway.

Now a little politics. The fix is underway or already in in Minnesota. In Chicago you expect elections to be more subject to the counters than the voters. Same in Louisiana. In whitebread Minnesota I would expect that the good government types would not allow this to go unanswered. Stealing elections is a particularly nasty business. The screaming about how Bush “stole” an election eight years ago has made a lot of unhinged Democrats think it’s quite alright to start putting machinery in place to steal elections. It does our democracy no good. Makes me think the Democrats don’t care how low they stoop. I truly like a divided government. I hate to think of two years of an unimpeded Democratic steam roller. If stealing a seat for Franken gives the Dems the magic 60 in the Senate, we will possibly emerge from this next two years in a form that looks very little like the government of the people, by the people and for the people. We all live in much too interesting times.

Quentin and I walked across the stone dam and hiked a bit of the trail around the lake. It’s not in great repair, but we went a little way, until he got nervous and I got tired. I’m old. I tire easily. Somehow the image of walking on a dam seems to describe a lot of our lives. We have all these lies stored up in our heads… but the truth tries to seep through. Mostly we walk on the dam, our conscious thoughts. Still the truth seeps through once in a while. Do we honor it, or try to stuff it back in the lake on the other side?

Proverbs 6:20 - 24

My son, keep your father’s command,
And do not forsake the law of your mother.
Bind them continually upon your heart;
Tie them around your neck.
When you roam, they will lead you;
When you sleep, they will keep you;
And when you awake, they will speak with you.
For the commandment is a lamp,
And the law a light;
Reproofs of instruction are the way of life,
To keep you from the evil woman,
From the flattering tongue of a seductress.

I suppose for some men all temptation comes in the form of a woman? Surely not so many. But to personify temptation as the “temptress” is surely an image speaks easily. I am struck by “the commandment is a lamp, and the law a light.” In the Hebrew tradition, the keeping the law was the path to maintaining a relationship with God, keeping the spiritual lights on. And being mindful in everyday tasks of dietary laws and temple practices and all the laws that came down to the Jewish people, keeping all those laws, would keep you mindful of God in your life.

It’s a different approach than that which is proposed by the Presbyterians. Sometimes I wonder if the Presbyterians remember that there is a relationship with God that needs constant nurturing, more than services once a week. I guess it’s in the background? Grace from God, and striving on my part, a relationship that works from both directions.

Politics, a transition

The righty blogs have decried Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) often. But Obama hasn’t taken the oath of office yet, and some who are determined to see him as the anti-Christ are already painting him a Hitler. Bush hasn’t retired yet. Obama is not yet president. Hold your fire folks already afflicted by ODS.

That said, I wish I didn’t hear the word “rule” applied to what he’s going to be doing quite so much. We don’t have a ruler. We have a president who governs. We are a free people and have a government with the consent of the people. We have a powerful presidency, but we don’t have a king!

The semester is winding down. I don’t have many more weeks of school. Then I can decide, if a job is offered for next semester if I want to continue doing the part time work. On the one hand, with the economy going pfffffft, I probably best keep my hand in, earning a bit. On the other, I really like my leisure. My original plan wasn’t to retire, but to draw retirement into a savings plan, and continue working for a few more years. Just change to something I wanted to do, something easy, like writing! Did you know that making your living by writing is about as likely as making your living at professional sports? It’s a different skill set of course, but the probabilities are about the same. You have to 1) really love it and 2) be exceptionally good at it. I fight resistance at every turn on writing. Writer’s group was cancelled yet again last week, and I didn’t mind a bit. But I’d miss it more if I wasn’t teaching every morning.

I’m off to teach another day. Solving quadratic equations by completing the square…. again. But for some interesting mathematical problems, check out Project Euler. I see how to answer the first one. I need some help with the second. Any ideas? I did realize that it’s every third element of the Fibonaci series is even, but I’ve not seen yet how to generate them so I can add them. I guess I can work on that as I drive today.