Caffeine and No Sleep

Joan went on vacation with her mom today. I was up later than usual last night, having drunk copious amounts of iced tea, and was up at 4:00 a.m. to take her to the airport. After leaving the airport with her unfinished coffee and not enough goodbye time, I had that jittery, fragile feeling I used to get when I did acid. Er, I mean, like I hear some people experience when they do certain drugs. This is what came out. I thought it was the beginning of a poem but the more I look at it the more I think it is complete.

Caffeine and No Sleep

Caffeine and no sleep,
That mescaline-like fragility,
The erotic sense of blood flow,
And a heart that never fails;
Ceaseless and ready,
I could love you forever--
If only you were here.

Chris Kmotorka, 28 Mar. 2009

Restoration

First, no, this is not "autobiographical." It came from a moment of wondering what a full recovery really means--often it is based solely on the physical and not necessarily on the emotional. Who knows how these thoughts flesh themselves out. I don't.

Restoration

I had the love knocked out of me.

A flash of light and ringing ears,

And memories drained and flushed

As though they never were.

This accident has left me hollow,

Drained, it seems, not filled

By the inability to love.

My limbs, though whole, they seem encased

In braces of indifference.

I touch without feeling.

I see without emotion.

And nothingness is all that touches me.

Your fingertips caress my cheek.

Your lips press lightly into mine.

But my heart no longer tumbles,

If once it ever did.

Like phantom limbs that never were,

Gone numb,

I feel I must be missing

What surely once was there. But

A full recovery, they say these words,

And so it seems that it must be,

I have always been this way.

Chris Kmotorka, 23 Mar. 2009

Bedouin

Bedouin

Bedouin, like shadow, drift
On sands shifting, timeless
Scimitars of existence,
History a crescent, curvilinear
Turns back upon itself
Nomads passing in and out
Of time itself.
Trader, merchant, herder,
Recognizing no border beyond
The soul of a man who
Lives without, but thrives.

The World shifts its axis
Around an island of sand.
Crisscrossing deserts
By way of oases
That mark the travels
Of generations, of species,
Of the origins of life.
This is the source of survival:
Welcome the stranger as brother--
One day you will travel,
And the need will be yours.

Chris Kmotorka, 28 Mar. 2009

The Future

There's no reason to believe my grandchildren won't see the end of this century. And if I and science hold out, I just might see the middle of it. I think of the changes I have seen and the social changes that happened around me, whether I was all that aware of them at the time or not. For instance, I was a young kid in Detroit during the days of the equal rights movement and I have vague memories of the race riots happening only a few miles from my home. I remember the National Guard driving down my street, though I had no idea why--I just thought it was cool that "the army guys" were driving in front of my house. I didn't know why my mom wouldn't let us out on the street to watch, though.

In 1973, the year we moved from Detroit to Traverse City, the American Indian Movement was under siege at Wounded Knee. I was ten years old and had absolutely no concept of what was going on. I thought it was cowboys and Indians. I suppose it was that same old story, but back then I was ignorant enough not to realize whose side I should have been on.

In April of 1970, just a few days past my seventh birthday, we celebrated the very first Earth Day. It was an age of environmental awareness and, despite all of the bad things that would follow Richard Milhous Nixon to his grave, despite that he really was, in some ways, a crook, he was also a pretty damned good environmental President. A lot of our clean air and water can be directly attributed to the acts of Dick Nixon.

And it's the environment that spurred this post. I started it on my other blog and somehow it got off on television and playing outside and all of that, but the original intent was to ruminate a bit on the future of the world from an environmental position. You see, science clearly tells us that fifty years from now we will be living in a world very much different than the one we occupy today. Oh, sure, it will be the same size and shape, as long as a huge meteor doesn't strike us somewhere along the way. The continents will generally be where they are now, though they will be just a bit smaller as sea levels rise and much of our current coastline sinks below the waves. Global climate change is occurring and there's little hope of stopping it, or abating it in any significant way.

And that's what worries me. What will the world be like for my grandchildren? Millions of people will be displaced around the globe, mostly in regions that are already stricken by poverty and a lack of food. Fresh water will be a concern not just in those places, but right here as well. Many people--people we should be listening to, by the way--tell us that fifty years from now our concerns will not be for petroleum, they will be for clean, fresh drinking water. You can, however inconvenient it may seem, live just fine without petroleum. Try living without fresh water. It doesn't work. Water will be the most valuable commodity, followed closely by food. It is for these two things that the wars of the future will be fought.

We live in a world of nearly 6.8 billion people. The United States has a mere 300 million of those people and we use 25% of the world's resources. By 2050--a year I could conceivably see as a babbling, senile, all but useless 87 year old man--the world population is expected to be over 9 billion people. Some say as high as 10 billion. We are already living, well, most of the world beyond our borders, anyway, in a world where resources are stretched thinly and are nearing the breaking point. If you start eliminating coastal regions due to flooding and storm damage brought about by climate change, you're looking at a lot of hungry, thirsty, displaced people who are going to be looking for better digs. We is the better digs, folks.

Scientists have been telling us these things for several decades now--it's not just some crazy idea that Al Gore thought up. Al Gore just happens to be one of those rare people who was in a position to get accurate, factual information about what's coming down the pike and he got scared enough to use his influence to try and do something about it. But a lot of people who like their current lifestyle and don't feel like changing anything so some kids in the future can maybe be happy once in a while have done everything in their power to vilify him and try to make the rest of us think he is nuts and all the global warming science is a myth. Well, it's not.

We are in the midst of the next great extinction. We have been for at least a century. They come around every couple hundred million years or so. Anywhere from 75%-90% of species generally die off during these events. That's what happened to the dinosaurs. There are estimates that as many as three species go extinct every hour. Every. hour. Plants, animals, etc. It's an estimate, yes. And probably not easily confirmed since a lot of the species are rainforest species that might not have even been cataloged yet! There were over a thousand species of mammal on the IUCN Redlist in 2008. Their report "has confirmed an extinction crisis, with almost one in four [mammals] at risk of disappearing forever." It is much more than likely that I have seen animals that my grandchildren will never see. By 2050 we'll be living in a much different world; even if we change every single bad habit we have as a species, some of these events are already in place and inevitable. It's quite possible that American wildlife will be little more than white-tailed deer, coyotes, possums, rats, sparrows and black birds, vermin, and not a whole lot more. Diversity is dwindling and not just in the suburbs.

Somewhere in the middle of this I have to have hope. I have to hope that something will happen and we'll get ourselves on track before it's too late and maybe, just maybe, we'll preserve some semblance of a decent world to live in. I want happiness for my grandkids. I want them to be able to go out for a hike and see animals. Different animals. And not just in zoos. I want them to be able to see more plants and insects than they can readily identify. I want there to be some mystery to their world. Something exotic in a pleasing way. I want them to live a life where they can have a varied and healthful diet and clean water to drink and I want them to be able to have these things not at the expense of people around the world. There's a way for all of us to live sustainably. We just need to find it. To, first, look for it and strive for it. The future is now, as they say, and it's high time we all start looking for ways to break out of our paradigm and start shifting things around because our sense of importance is completely upside down.

Square Foot Gardening

Last year I built a small (4' x 4') Square Foot Garden. It worked well, with the exception of being trashed a number of times by one of my dogs who has an uncontrollable addiction to chasing lizards. Unfortunately, the lizards like going in and behind the garden and so Pepper went crazy and chased them into and around the garden, destroying a lot of plants in the process. My beans never made it. I replanted tomatoes three times. Several chiles didn't survive.

By mid-summer I had a mish-mash fence and cover system that finally managed to keep Pepper out of the garden. Unfortunately, it was also really ugly. It was more eyesore than garden. So this year I decided to build a much nicer fence system around the garden.

The new enclosure is three feet tall, framed from 2' x 2's, and sheathed in kennel fencing. I have screwed the three surrounding "walls" to the garden frame so it should be fairly sturdy once I have attached the front gate, which will be hinged and have a latch on one side. Unfortunately, as I was putting it all together tonight--in the dark while wearing a headlamp with weak batteries--I learned something about hinges: Apparently, all packages of small hinges come in packs of two with the exception of the size I happened to buy. Sigh. I had a smaller size in my hand when I second-guessed and grabbed the next size larger. Looks like that's the size where they start packaging them as singles. Now I have to run back to ACE or Home Depot to get a second hinge before I can finish the garden enclosure.

I will post a photo when it's done.

The Utility of a Bicycle

I love riding bicycles. While never a fast cyclist (racing was never, ever an option), I enjoy the sport of it, the idea that it could make me very fit if I had any discipline. But I also love the utility of the bicycle. The fact that you can hop on a bike fitted with a few bags and go camping, or shopping, run errands, any number of things, appeals to me greatly.

I very much want to go on multi-day tours. So far I've been a bit foiled on that field. I've done some over-nighters, bike camping, but the one chance I had at a multi-day was a bit of a disaster--the first day was extremely windy and I had a mechanical problem that meant I did almost sixty miles with a closed brake against the wind and uphill the whole way. Sounds like a story you'd tell your kids: When I was a kid we had to ride our bikes with the brakes on against the wind and uphill the whole way!

Today I rode my bike to go grocery shopping, which is not an unusual occurance, but I don't do the majority of my grocery shopping by bicycle. I took a quieter, lower-trafficked route than the straight shot direct route down Tangerine. It almost doubled the length of the trip, but it was worth it. It was a beautiful day. There was a breeze, but just enough to know it's there, not enough to have an effect on your riding one way or the other. It was sunny. It wasn't hot, nor was it cold. It was just an excellent day to be out.

There's something about riding down a back road (even if it is only one road away from one of the busiest streets in the area). To be rolling free down a quiet road on a beautiful day with no traffic is a rare treat. Riding home with nothing in front of me but the mountains at the end of the road, it was easy to imagine just riding on for a few more hours, today's schedule be damned. Going to the grocery store put me about twenty-percent of the way toward a good day's worth of touring distance and days like this are ideal for touring.

One thing is for sure, though. While panniers may be great for camping and touring, they aren't so great for grocery shopping. I had two fairly full bags of groceries loaded on either side of the bike. The load wasn't bad, just the act of loading. Panniers are more or less designed for the storage and removal of single items--a tent, a sleeping bag, food, clothing, whatever. Loading them in this matter is no big deal. However, take all of the stuff you want in the pannier and try to stuff it in as one big loose and lumpy bundle and it's no longer so easy. A trailer would be ideal, however.

I've wanted a utility trailer for some time. It would really open up a new level of opportunity for "errand by bicycle" travel. Almost any utility trailer you see for bicycles is designed to carry up to 100 pounds and to track easily behind the bicycle. I have one picked out. It's the Burley Nomad. I picked it for a variety of reasons. I could use it for touring or for errands with equal facility. Mainly, I picked it because Burley is a good and trusted name with a reputation for making quality "lifetime" products. They make highly recommended bicycle trailers for children, too. After a lifetime of purchasing low-end gear because that's what I could afford (only to have it work poorly and disintegrate from use), I just want a good piece of equipment I can count on. I have that in my bicycle, I'd like to have it in my trailer, too.

Now, who wants to plan a bike tour?

Tucson Festival of Books

We had a good time today at the Tucson Festival of Books. Julian had an interesting, if not exactly fun, time meeting several characters from children's books. On hand were two of the Berenstain Bears, Pat the Bunny, Maisy, Skippyjon Jones, and another couple of unknowns.

We also sat in on a Q&A session with Elmore Leonard. It was interesting. He is a very entertaining guy. But he's 83 years old and he's obviously aging--he had to have several questions repeated for him and he had a few moments of forgetfulness. Admittedly, when you've written as much as he has for as long, well, keeping all the stories and titles straight is bound to be a difficult task.

He pulled no punches when it came to the movies made from his films. He had praise for Paul Newman in Hombre and Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown--his take on Leonard's Rum Punch. He said that Tarantino's film was the most true to the novel of any film treatment of his books. He actually likened several films made of his books as the worst movies ever, including both versions of The Big Bounce (with the edge going to the remake).

Another event that has been going on for the past month is the creation of a mandala sand painting created by a Tibetan monk named Losang Samten. It's a beautiful thing. He completed it yesterday after a month of working on it for as much as nine or more hours a day. When you look at it you can't even imagine how much work it must take, how much patience and concentration. The amazing thing is that tomorrow it will all be wiped away.

The dissolution ceremony is difficult for our Western minds to comprehend. It is a foreign concept to us--to put that much effort into creating something so beautiful only to destroy it seems insane. But that, I suppose, is part of the ritual--learning to let go of physical things and to recognize how temporary such things are. To accept that the value is in the work and the creativity, in the act of creation rather than the object created. It's a difficult thing to grasp. You can read more about the monk and the event here: Ritual Sand Painting.

Music, Taste, And How It All Works

I don't know. Don't have a clue. All I know is that I was recently blown away by a Canadian musician named Serena Ryder. Her song "A Little Bit of Red" first caught my ear and then I checked out the whole CD. I think it's wonderful. It's folky, it's raw, and it's lyrically fantastic. The hooks are solid, the arrangements varied enough to avoid that monotony you sometimes get with this type of artist. There's a lot of fine musicianship, to boot. I have been recommending it to everyone.

Today I slipped a copy to my daughter and her reaction was one of...well, she was thoroughly unimpressed. As she put it, it's nothing she hasn't heard before. She said she couldn't listen to the song I had been impressed by. She did note the occasional resemblance to Melissa Etheridge but claimed those moments too few and far between. Of course, I'd say if I wanted to listen to Melissa Etheridge I'd listen to Melissa Etheridge, but whatever.

I don't know what makes two people react differently to things. I don't know why I might like some music so much and someone else so close to me not really like it at all. I know that there are times when I listen to a piece of music and it just doesn't do anything for me. It might later, though. It all depends on where your head is at. Of course, who knows if you'll give something you didn't care for a chance when that time comes around. I don't know. I suspect if my daughter were to give the CD a few listens it would start to grow on her. Who knows?

I say, if you haven't heard Serena Ryder, give her a listen. You can stream several tunes at her MySpace page. I think you'll like her.

http://www.myspace.com/serenaryder

Classroom Activities in Creativity

Last night I divided my students up into groups after talking about specific details. I then sent them outside with the assignment of finding four specific details, three for the group and one to bring back to me. They had ten minutes. When they came back they gave me my details and then they had fifteen minutes to work a poem that included the details they picked up outside. I had to write my own poem with the detail each group gave me. It took about ten minutes but I'm actually kind of happy with it. It could use a title, but hey, other than that it's not bad for about ten minutes work with no idea what I was going to be working with, etc. Here are the details the class gave me and the resulting poem:

1) Striped Crosswalk 2) hardened black gum 3) iron horse 4)weird nosy people

I stumble on the striped crosswalk

And blame the hardened, blackened

Speedbump of gum and not the

Shadows and the grid, like a cow

Who can't cross a painted cattle guard.

People stare, weird, nosy people

Who should watch their own feet,

The obstacles that block their paths,

Instead of watching me. I flush and glow

In the darkness, my shame hidden by

Sodium light and low-hanging bangs.

I'll mount the iron horse that watches

Over the quad and all these souls

And race away to a place I know

Where I am iron, and I am steel,

And nothing will shame me

And nothing will stumble but the fear

That runs before me.

I Heard An Owl Outside My Window

I have a photo framed and hung upon my wall
Of the view from the end of my road:
Cactus and sand, the shadow of mesquite and scrub,
The desert lit by sunset as if by flame.

And thus I have the first tentative lines of a poem. Last night I heard an owl outside my window. It was likely sitting on the neighbor's roof line. There was a time, when that photo was taken, when we heard owls all of the time. Across the road the other way there was once a large open field (much as I am sure there was where my house sits) and in that field was a large, albeit dead, tree. That tree was special because every year a pair of large great-horned owls would come and nest in that tree.

In addition to the horned owls we would hear screech owls and other small "hoot" owls. They would often perch on the peak of our roof at night and wait for the movement of mice and snakes, large insects, and whatever else seemed appetizing. We would sometimes go outside and look up at them there. Their heads would turn on a swivel, but they never viewed us as much of a threat and so just sat there and kept their watch.

All of these fields are gone now, taken over by housing developments and a post office. If I were to stand where that photo was taken I would be standing on the pavement of the widened road, at risk of being run over by the ever-increasing number of cars that speed past. For the most part the owls are gone, or at least scarce. We haven't seen a horned owl in years now. The coyotes are fewer, though I hear them singing in the distance sometimes of a quiet night. Javelina are rarer, too--where we once had a dozen or more in our front yard on late winter nights, it's a rare thing to see them around at all.

I've always known I am not innocent. I am part of the sprawl, not part of its solution. We were among the new vanguard, moving into the subdivision when it was more empty lots than homes. But it still pains me to realize just how fast it all disappears and how soon people forget why they move places--they move to get away from the cities and what do they do? They build new cities all around them.

I miss the owls and coyotes and the javelina in my yard. I miss the cactus wrens and know the meaning of the coming of the grackles and sparrows and house finches.

I hope to get a poem out of this. I don't know if those first lines will remain or remain the same, but I'll give it a go and see what happens. If I finish it, I'll post it here.

No Longer A Virgin

Today I played bocce. Or should I say, today I bocced. I like that better.

As a child in Detroit I lived next door to a very, very Italian family, the Farraris. The Farraris were wonderful people. They had three daughters; the youngest, Louisa, was my age. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but there it is. I'm pretty sure the stereotype defining Italian-Americans was based on the Farraris. They were an extended family--Grandma Farrari was a little old lady who dressed in black, wore a babushka (or whatever the Italian version of the headscarf is called), and got up and went to church every morning for a 6:00 a.m. mass. Uncle Sammy was, well, I don't know. A retired Uncle? I have no idea. He was the old guy who lived with them, drove a burgundy Valiant, and was called Uncle Sammy. The Farraris made their own pasta. They made their own wine--they actually squashed the grapes in a small plastic pool in their garage. Three barrels worth each year. On Saturdays they went down to the open air market and came home with live chickens which were summarily dispatched and left to hang upside down in the back yard. And on Sundays, those glorious summer Sundays, they had dozens of people over--friends? family? Who knows? They all seemed to speak Italian, though! Their yard seemed full of people, and always among them were the men in sleeveless ribbed t-shirts and dress slacks, drinking the homemade red wine, and shouting and cheering about a fascinating game. Yes, the magic of those Sundays was bocce.

I was never invited to these gatherings. I was just a little kid next door. But I was fascinated by the game. I would find some place in our back yard where I could watch them play and listen to the hollow click of the balls, the quiet thump as they landed on the grass. The dried blood red and hunter's green balls seemed magical. I imagined their heft and knew they were valuable, exotic, and rare. It left quite an impression on me.

Which leads me to wonder why it took me forty more years before I actually played a game. But today I played a rousing game with friends, and, while I doubt it was life changing, it was definitely fun and I look forward to playing again. Thanks go out to my friends who helped a childhood dream come true! Today I bocced....