Friday, February 25, 2005
A Whale of Wallowing. As transplanted Californian, end of February is historically the nadir of my existence here in New England. It is not the cold that pushes my outlook south. There are Sorrels and silk long johns to ameliorate the teeth-chattering temperatures. No the cold seems an almost irrelevant blip to the lack of color and light. At our old house in my town X, there was a little nursery that offered a brief reprieve to the flat, dull light of winter. "Here for your color, Anna?" "Yes thank you Jess," and for ten or fifteen minutes the humus-filled air and vibrant hues soaked down inside to nourish the fading memories of my springs and summers. But the glass house is off my beaten track now -- replaced instead by a subway and city of February sullenness.
The Current Commute. Sidled everyday next to pasty extra pounds spilling onto my lap, I ride to Boston. The guy on my left reaches into his jacket pocket every few minutes to push the button on his walkman that will forward his ears to the next song of his rap line-up. I know it is rap because I can hear each expletive as well as if I had the headphones on myself. I don't really mind rap. It's his jabbing elbow that gets to me. On my right is a woman who seems to have some kind of attention deficit disorder. She is getting extremely agitated that the train has been standing delayed for twenty minutes and begins to look at her watch every few seconds as if by doing so she might stop the unrelenting ticks forward. Her purse, I notice out of the corner of my eye, is filled with papers and receipts of all sorts and she begins to take each one out one at a time, open the paper up, look at it, sigh, fold it back up and put it back into her bag. The Boston-accented train operator feels compelled to repeat herself over and over again that the, "powa' is down at Gov-a-ment Centa' and we are experiencing significant delays."
Immersion in Light. Breathing deeply so as not to have a postal moment, I put away the cross word puzzle I have 95% finished and open up my book called (appropriately) And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran -- an extraordinary autobiographical tale of a blind man who was actively involved in the French Resistance during World War II. The man brims with inner light and passion. On this morning of commuter hell, I get through three quarters of the book and am put to shame by my Jammerei (Austrian dialect for whining) over a few dull days in February. Which doesn't stop me from bitching as a walk up the arctic wind tunnel to the State House. But nobody's perfect.
The Current Commute. Sidled everyday next to pasty extra pounds spilling onto my lap, I ride to Boston. The guy on my left reaches into his jacket pocket every few minutes to push the button on his walkman that will forward his ears to the next song of his rap line-up. I know it is rap because I can hear each expletive as well as if I had the headphones on myself. I don't really mind rap. It's his jabbing elbow that gets to me. On my right is a woman who seems to have some kind of attention deficit disorder. She is getting extremely agitated that the train has been standing delayed for twenty minutes and begins to look at her watch every few seconds as if by doing so she might stop the unrelenting ticks forward. Her purse, I notice out of the corner of my eye, is filled with papers and receipts of all sorts and she begins to take each one out one at a time, open the paper up, look at it, sigh, fold it back up and put it back into her bag. The Boston-accented train operator feels compelled to repeat herself over and over again that the, "powa' is down at Gov-a-ment Centa' and we are experiencing significant delays."
Immersion in Light. Breathing deeply so as not to have a postal moment, I put away the cross word puzzle I have 95% finished and open up my book called (appropriately) And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran -- an extraordinary autobiographical tale of a blind man who was actively involved in the French Resistance during World War II. The man brims with inner light and passion. On this morning of commuter hell, I get through three quarters of the book and am put to shame by my Jammerei (Austrian dialect for whining) over a few dull days in February. Which doesn't stop me from bitching as a walk up the arctic wind tunnel to the State House. But nobody's perfect.
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