field notes:

9.19.2003

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

--Stanley Horowitz

Yesterday, my friend and I agreed that we're looking forward to the change of season. The last few days there's a nip in the early morning air that's enticing. As much as I love the hot summer, I know that love depends on summer's passing and the promise of its return. My friend said that the year seems just the right length now--when we were younger it seemed too long, and when we're older they say it will seem too short.

I don't know if this really has to do with being just the right age, or if it comes from a relaxed mind. We'll see.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 6:51 AM link | comments []

9.18.2003

Impressions and images from my dreams resist being made into words, as if they're not meant for that end. So much is left behind from a remembered dream after the words have been put down. And the words never quite get at that something--that longing, that ache. There's an untapped well of meaning between dream and remembrance, and a frustration in the disconnection that occurs when I struggle to apply what's awake to what lives on in the still-sleeping chambers of my soul.

The final impressions from last night's dream: Broken glass, words lying amongst them, blood too, brother and I singing the songs we'd each written about leaving home, climbing down the ladder that dropped down from the house and it's french windows, going despite the fear of leaving our parents unprotected. As these images play in my mind there are strong desires and impulses at play as well. They are too deep for words, they require symphonies, dance companies, and the ocean to express.

I'm worried that all I can do is distill them into mere words, that their essence will dissolve, that they will be distilled from a potent, raging river into a benign glass of water, a tonic for wetting the throat.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 7:25 AM link | comments []

9.17.2003

Multi-tasking last night, as I watched the Giants game, ate dinner, and caught up on a few days' newspapers, I came across a Dear Abby exchange:
A 13-year-old girl writes that her Dad is deployed in the Middle East, and that her Mom sits in the window all day watching cars go by. She asks what she can do for her Mom, to cheer her up.

"Abby" responds in the most clinical, legalistic way possible that it's not her responsibility to cheer up her mother. She should confide in an adult; her mother needs help--a support group, a doctor, other adults.

I'm sorry, maybe Abby knows what she's doing. But when did we become people like this? So disconnected, so correct and quick with the "appropriate" answer. Throughout time, children have worried about their parents, and wives have worried themselves sick about their husbands off at war. Why shouldn't the daughter do something wonderful to cheer up her mother? Families love each other, support each other. At their best, that's what they do. Why should Mom's best hope lie with other adults, or some doctor?

Even now, I feel a need to disclaim my rant. In small print, I want to say: "If you should be feeling depressed, I recommend that you see a doctor, or find a web-based support group. I am only using this story as an example, an entryway into a topic that concerns me. If you are sitting in a window staring at cars, you should seeek help immediately. This website is not a substitute for professional help. Whatever you do, don't blame me."

It's ingrained in us, this disavowal of our human interconnectedness, of our intuition to reach out and help each other. We're no longer sure we have anything to give. And what of Mom, sitting in the window. Just what is the appropriate response to one's lover being in a war zone? Mom might be doing the one thing that it's most vital that she do right now. Sitting in the window, she might rise to activism against war, rethink her ideas about mortality, realize how much she loves her husband. Sitting in the window might be the best response possible.

Desmond Tutu said, "In Africa we have something called ubuntu, the essence of being human, when we recognize that our humanity is bound up in that of others. We say a person is a person through other persons. We are created for dependence, togetherness, and complementarity."

We are lacking ubuntu. The lack of it exists between the daughter in the doorway and the mother at the window, and it exists in the policies that place a father in a soldier's uniform on the streets of an Iraqi town staring across the great divide that a gun places between people who carry them and people who don't. It's not too late for us to learn ubuntu--we might just need more time sitting at the window.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:21 AM link | comments []

9.14.2003

Slept with all of the windows open last night, all that have screens, which is only three. And awoke this morning to a single gunshot, and to an avian cacophony: osprey's mournful cry, scrub jay's shrill note, and a chorus of old crows. On a walk soon afterwards, we heard more gunshots, and my poor dog fell apart. Her cool, happy dog demeanor crumbled; she became a fearful, drooling, heart-pounding mess who can't get home fast enough. She's sweet and loyal enough that I could make her stop, but I tried to just let her go. I felt so bad for deterring her at all, but worried about letting her get too far away from me. I didn't have to worry, she didn't want to be that far away from me either. I encouraged her to go through a barbed wire fence towards our house, one I don't try to get under too often. When she saw that I was going beyond that opening to the stairs, she not only waited for me, she came running back to meet me.

Poor thing. Ducks must be scared too. Those that are still alive. Duck hunters have done amazing work protecting migrating birds, giving ducks habitat, and all they ask in return are a few short months a year, a few ducks on the table. I can't complain about them. What was it Oscar Wilde said? "Nature is a damp place over which large numbers of ducks fly, all of them uncooked." How tempting that must be for a hungry gormand with a gun and a permit.

I slept on a new mattress last night. A McRoskey. They are hand-sewn mattresses made at a small San Francisco factory. Each comes with a twenty year warranty. I bought one yesterday from a woman moving to a firmer night's hold. I was looking for a more gentle perch for my dreams, so we struck up a deal. It seemed a most intimate transaction. I wanted to hug her after she handed me the deed, and I handed her the money. But I didn't. A shame, really. I slept beautifully and well until the birds and the hunters awoke me. I have a sore back this morning, but it will take some time before I know how the bed works for my particular physiological neuroses. I already know that it nurtures my dreams.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:52 AM link | comments []