Inauguration Day, Part II

January 20, 2009
Inauguration Day, part II

After watching and celebrating at Brenda’s, we walked back home. Charlie stayed out for a bit with me, Baxter went in. I spent about 45 minutes scraping ice off the back porch. The deep untouched snow in the backyard etched in places where footprints had cut through to the back gate.

I kind of wished I had a radio to bring out to listen to NPR while scraping ice off the deck (the thick kind that forms under the icicles). But then I thought, that’s not possible. This is what’s happening right now: the white snow, the sunshine, the icicles dripping, the ice scraping off, sometimes in sheets, mostly in scraggly bits. The vivid blue sky. A beautiful inauguration day. Here in my adopted home state of Maine. Letting the mind digest the intensity of what we’d been listening to, watching. Not overloading. Not incessantly repeating. Not communicating with people I cannot see or hear using an electronic device.
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Today would have been a good day for wikipedia. Yesterday too. I think about investing in a real encyclopedia set even though it would need to be updated in 5 minutes. Then I remember world book on the computer. Maybe this is in our future. But I still have missed spending days with the old encyclopedias. Remember the encyclopedia salesmen? Remember enjoying a good book?
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When the kids have questions we would have googled, I write them down to address later. There’s a mindfulness to that.
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Today I phoned people when I thought of them instead of facebooking, texting, emailing. I called my cousin Sue when I thought how our grandmother Helena would have LOVED today, and also her mother Katherine. She was totally touched that I called. Later I realized it’s because people don’t do this so often. I phoned my aunt and uncle, and of course mrk in Seattle, who sounds like he might have a new girlfriend because he didn’t really have time to talk (!).
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I seem to be recovering from my weather prediction addiction. Now I’m content with sun/no sun; general temperature range; precipitation or no; wind or no. I don’t need to obsessively call the weather line the way I would obsessively check the weather online.
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A possible name for what this journal is (even though it’s on the computer): Anablog. Or the Antiblog. As in, not a Blog.
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Walking to the Rosemont Market tonight between the piles of snow (there's so much now that it’s hard to find a place to put it). I’m becoming a more concentrated version of myself again. Walking along that evening road, amidst all that snow, not available to anyone by the digital networks except maybe Jeff.

Inauguration Day Part I

January 20, 2009
Inauguration Day Part I
My mother’s 70th birthday

Woke up, called my mother for her birthday. She sounded very well, healthy, happy. Enjoying her workouts on the treadmill and reports that she feels less creaky, has less aches and pains.

Then — getting everyone ready to go over to Brenda’s to watch the inauguration from 11:00 till 12:30. We listen to NPR prior. I love the radio. They talk, I listen while doing other things. They describe, I get the picture in my head. The voice can carry so much. The kids were very excited. We have talked much about the historical magnitude of electing this man: more amazing than putting a man on the moon. They came to the polls with both Jeff & me. They have shared in the excitement. They have felt some level of ownership in the fact this man was elected. They have both referred to him as “my president.”

Then over to Brenda’s. She ordered pizza; we festooned each other with little mementos (I had some Lisa Bess earrings; she gave the kiddos Barack Obama pencils). We watched for an hour and a half as many dignitaries, senators, judges, former presidents, new cabinet members, came through the capitol building and through the back door toward the mall (which was packed past the Washington monument) and took their seats.

Then — Obama walks out. A prince, as Garrison Keillor recently referred to him.

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While the overwhelming feeling for me has been pride in my country, and excitement, etc., I do find that I slip into some shame when I look at the Obamas. I look at President Obama and see a man who has held fast to probably just about every good opportunity that came his way. Someone who has created opportunity for himself. I realize how it is a sign of inherited privilege to abandon opportunity — something I've been guilty of at times.

Ol' Lappie

[view from Kettle Cove]






A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot where it's being boiled.
'Why are you doing this to me?'
The cook knocks him down with the ladle.
'Don't you try to jump out.
You think I'm torturing you.
I'm giving you flavor
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.'

— Rumi, "Chickpea to Cook," from The Essential Rumi tr. Coleman Barks

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

OK, the compulsory 5 minutes of notes.

Nice fireside chat with Lindsey today in our living room. Talked about kids, the Obamas, racism. All very good. Nice to be with her. I don’t know when the last time we had the opportunity to sit in a room for an hour together and talk. We’re going to do it again, in theory, in a couple weeks. Not next Tuesday. Next Tuesday the plan is to be at Brenda’s to watch the inauguration.
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It’s interesting how much I loathe this computer at times. It has done nothing to me but has unwittingly been a ball and chain at times due to the internet. Even picking up the plug to plug it into the wall (because the battery runs down quickly and I refuse to replace it right now) — the way it feels in my hand, rubbery, somewhat dirty, cumbersome with its heavy square midsection; the heat it radiates into my lap or onto whatever piece of furniture it happens to be sitting on — the fire of the sun of the dinosaurs (fossil fuel to electricity to spinning hard drive to warm computer). I’d much rather be warming in front of the fire only.

Of course…these notes would be much sparser, much less likely were it not for Ol’ Lappie.
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Letter from Mia today—I don’t know when it came in — it was on the counter in the stack of miscellaneous items that collect there. Dated 1/6. Nice 2 page letter hand -written — fun to see her handwriting again — tucked inside a photograph card showing a frog driving a car.
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Text message from a friend to which I returned with a phone call. Not sure I will continue to receive or respond in any way to text messages. I’m starting to punch the button on my phone again obsessively. Of course today Jeff headed to Arkansas for 3 days and he was texting me with progress updates and family business. That is different.