The Season of Hope

Just one of many great photographs by local Portland photographer, Mark Ford.

(For other great photos, go to MarkForddesign.com)

And Dream of Big Sur

It's been a difficult week...

It's been a difficult week, having to grapple with the terrible news from last Friday. I can't get it out of my thoughts. It bothers me. Things were sort of looking up since November at least - and then....I don't want to lump this together with all those other tragedies that happened in the year 2012. Why does the year have to end this way? Children dying because of a severely disturbed, unfeeling, angry, vengeful young maniac...Twenty children and six heroic teachers - that's hard to take. Hard to process. A huge pit in the stomach. The weather is slightly warmer this year, but otherwise dismal. Political gridlock and other disappointments continue...Some very relentless ideologues of the gun-toting variety (how they acquired public forums to speak in is beyond me) are hitting all the wrong notes on the topic of preventing more gun violence in America. Not to mention mental illness. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate these days...It's supposed to be a merry season and all, but the world seems a little unhinged. To help cope with all this absurdity - with the help of some basic logic and good will,  I've been looking at: The Trial by Franz Kafka....The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle... A Fanatic Heart by Edna O'Brien...American Prometheus - A biography of Robert Oppenheimer...We'll get through this...There's a lot of good people out there in Newtown and elsewhere...We have to find a way to connect...Literature can help...

Angels...

Edna O'Brien on Leaving Ireland

"I had got away. That was my victory. The real quarrel with Ireland began to burgeon in me then; I thought of how it had warped me, and those around me, and their parents before them, all stooped by a variety of fears--fear of church, fear of gombeenism [small-time hucksters], fear of phantoms, fear of ridicule, fear of hunger, fear of annihilation, and fear of their own deeply ingrained aggression that can only strike a blow at each other, not having the innate authority to strike at those who are higher. Pity arose too, pity for a land so often denuded, pity for a people reluctant to admit that there is anything wrong. That is why we leave. Because we beg to differ. Because we dread the psychological choke. But leaving is only conditional. The person you are is anathema to the person you would like to be." - Edna O'Brien.  

 Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/author/edna+o'brien?page=1#2q3oJd7UGdg4YtdM.99 

Edna O'Brien - author of The Country Girls, The Lonely Girls, A Fanatic Heart, 

Tales for the Telling, Wild Decembers, A Pagan Place, Time and Tide, Mother Ireland, 

The Light of Evening, The House of Splendid Isolation, and Country Girl: A Memoir.

Winter Road

Small Talk

Small talk is like a warm fire.

You see a crowd gathering around the glowing embers.

Red, yellow orange - you can't resist because you also are cold, vulnerable, alone in winter.

And what fire isn't warm - you ask yourself.

But this is a soothing, hypnotic fire in a plush public lobby.

With a nearby comfortable couch and a braided rug from that store that sends you catalogs.

The fire is blaring and crackling.

And there you are without an invitation.

The others are joining in already.

There is much to discuss: houses, movies, chairs, ceramics...

And perhaps you hesitate because it is all so natural...

Like yoga class without a mat or so you've heard...

Like the bingo party where everyone checks the same numbers on their squares all at once...

And perhaps even like children gathering around a teacher who is handing out prizes...

You also are not immune to this metaphorical bee-hive which is perhaps not at all like a hive so much as it is the cafeteria line at Ikea where people wait to place fresh fruit and Swedish meatballs on a tray...

And perhaps they will make room as well for your big feet and broad shoulders.

And will by subtle adjustments welcome you with muted acceptance...

And perhaps they are even now beginning to roast marshmallows or chestnuts,

Which you avoid impulsively out of fear - on principle that is - because your secret snobbery leads you to regard them as predictable and ineffectual...

(How will such combustibles move the dominant paradigm forward after all?)

This is indeed a ripe feast for listening - almost like unraveling a secret spy code...

Just be careful not to mention zebras, violins, Madagascar or the Chinese economy!

Just be sure to reference weather, football, traffic and grisly local news...

Do not boast of  any esoteric knowledge of insects,  Rothko or sub-atomic particles.

(On second thought, secret knowledge of planetary motions is okay - as long as it relates to love, career and friendship...)

Just be sure to smile and make persistent eye contact.

Do not attempt to crack a joke until you notice someone who laughs at anything.

And now you may draw near and nod politely as you nestle closer to the flames...

With your floppy hat and coat and shaggy torn pants much like those of the other pilgrims,

Hiding the fact that your plaid shirt is pine green interspersed with slight, subtle violet diamonds and brilliant vermillion hexagons... a fact ignored and overlooked by these other non-mathematicians.

So you decide to play it safe and utter a pleasant bromide...

Something about the fire perhaps or your favorite beer...

But instead you say: "I have a theory about  this ghastly dance of the straight-jacketed, manacled reducto absurdum of the langorous surrender to the non-threatening semantic machine - my fellows - my brethren!"