Little Bit of Fence

I don’t know enough about ornithology to tell you much about these birds. Their individual identity is lost and it’s hard to say if they are relations, lovers, acquaintances or friends. Together, but apart; apart, but together.

In this moment, they share a little bit of fence and a whole lot of sky.

And what a sky!

Broad and mysterious and endless with possibility.

The picture is filled with secrets and here is one. The picture is taken at a zoo and the fence is an enclosure.

Sophia Loren

People are under the universal impression that Italians are beautiful. I was expecting it when I took my recent trip to Italy, looking forward to it. But I’m not so sure. Maybe I was overwhelmed by a country whose art and countryside are simply breathtaking, I wasn’t impressed by the Italians themselves.

Sophia Loren probably contributes to the mythology. There is no question, she keeps a man’s attention. She defines sultry, drawing you in with mystery and keeping you with the suggestion she knows about the things you want her to know about. Something about her makes your eye rove all over, it never falls anywhere for too long, desperate to see the next bit.

But if you look at her too long, any one of those bits by itself doesn’t hold on its own. I guess it might it you were into big. Big eyes, big hair, big teeth, big boobs, HUGE mouth. Maybe that’s why so many people loved her on the big screen.

The other thing she embodies, as do so many other Italian women, is a sense of being overly made up. Lots of eye makeup, lots of hairspray, perfectly and fashionably dressed in every photo. Even the turn of her hips, the angle of her face, the cast of her eyes seems contrived. Its what I like to call framing. She’s certainly very good at it, but in photos, when you can spend a good long time looking, it falls apart. Not unnatural, exactly, but not totally natural either.

I thought about Italian woman at the time that they were like an incredibly beautiful woman in the moment they wake up on their 40th birthday. Slightly tired, but fresh for the day. In need of some practiced art to make things seem slightly different than they really are. I think that pretty well sums up Sophia Loren for me.

St. Pat's

This contains some language that can't go out in my normal newsletter...

heh.

I count myself one quarter Irish on my Dad’s Dad’s side. I’ve never seen conclusive evidence to support this, but that is his claim and he sure is happy when you call him on St. Patrick’s Day and that’s good enough for me.

Growing up, my parents often had party on the weekend of March 17. On at least two occasions this event took the form of a foosball tournament/ beer tasting affair much beloved by their friends. No Irish beer or food was served, but everyone wore green and the rosy cheeked revelry lasted to the wee hours. My German mother absolutely loves it and in recent years they always choose March as their month to host their card party. I am always invited, but we usually find an excuse not to go.

I didn’t eat a traditional Irish meal until I was married. My Puerto Rican mother in law also loves the holiday and pulls out all the stops. Irish beer, Irish whiskey, corned beef and cabbage and a reel in the background. Immigrants seem to love celebrations of culture, even it its not their own.

So, both by genetics and experience, I’ve always looked for some family fun on this hallmark holiday. We now make our own boiled meal and both my boys love it. Of course I have a mix of both traditional and modern music for the occasion and, whenever possible, we invite an uninitiated friend over to join the party.

The A list was universally unavailable. Do you have an A list? Those people you don’t really need to plan for or worry about and who will, inevitably make you feel satisfied and loved at the end of the night?

The B list requires a bit more effort, but still plenty good when you have a theme that includes strong drink. However, something seemed to go awry with even these friends. Remembering the immigrant’s love for this holiday, I invited a local Norwegian, who enthusiastically accepted. The next day, he sheepishly called back. He had overstepped his bounds with a spouse who has a weak GI. The spouse of another invitee, a blood relative, was overheard to say in the background of the phone call, “you couldn’t pay me enough.”

That’s why they’re on the B list, frankly.

The C list is a bit too difficult for an intimate, casual family event and the D list can kiss my shillelagh.

Something may still come together. I don’t care. I still have my meal and my music and my family. I’ll amuse my children with brogue and maybe even indulge in a jig. Later, I might stop by the home of a Scotch neighbor for a final pint or a neat glass of Jameson. With any luck, I’ll dream in poetry of the land of magic and green hills. The Irish believe in ghosts, did you know?

Chapped Hands

I have stood with my back against the insulated exterior of an ice house at night

and felt its warmth.

Heard the muted voices of friends within,

The dry cold of dark on my face

and the grand expanse of night sky above and forever.

Every breath becomes part of consciousness
as you trace its icy progress toward your lungs
and observe its ghostly remnants as it escapes and enshrouds.

I have opened the door, welcome

and walked into a convivial air

of warmth and shared purpose.

Stood confidently on a wafer of pressed wood

and known the satisfaction of every need at arm's reach.

With scant reminders of the everyday world.
Where balance is often achieved by throwing the full force of your mass
Wildly in another direction

I have perched with lithe wand of fiberglass cradled on my fingertips

and waited.

Attached by a line to a world that begins

In a circle that is definite and known

then fades through a cylinder in a sparkling flash

to rest in mysterious ether, alive.

Time stops in the hypnotic fluctuation
Between the warm patterns of the past, the close detail of present
And the vagary of the future.

I have felt the distant tug that stirs primal memory

and paused, exhilarated, anxious,

before giving my tug in return

Heard a hungry chorus of encouragement

and for a moment,

held life and death in my chapped hands.

Cubs Hat

He put on his Cubs hat.

He loved that Cubs hat.

He bought it on a whim while on layover on his way to Uzbekistan. He wasn’t a Cubs fan, but he liked the nostalgia in the voices of people who told stories about them. And, he liked the way Greg Maddux looked in the hat in the sports page. Neat, competent, happy.

He didn’t understand at the time that certain expectations came with wearing such a storied cap. St. Louis fans would bark derision at him when he passed. Complete strangers would ask him the score to a game that he didn’t even know was in progress.

Worse, it took him some time to realize these events were associated with the hat and he was unnerved by the intensity of emotion contained in these encounters.

He was still befuddled to have his personality assumed by his clothing, but at least now he knew the source and it wasn't enough to stop him from making the hat a part of his daily wardrobe.

Marty wore it so often that when he pictured himself, the hat was part of the picture. It fit so comfortably, it was an almost seamless part of his head.

And how better can you describe love?

A Zebra's View

The zebra gazed alertly toward the open plain out of one of its eyes, while the other rested lazily on a giraffe drinking clumsily from the watering hole.

“You’re neither as lithe nor as chic as you think you are. Your knees are knobby and you drink too much and you’re just as ignorant as you look.” thought the zebra.

He was highly self aware. He knew he had a bit of a paunch, that his hair was bristly and that he sometimes looked and acted a bit like an ass. But of course, all zebras did. He aspired to nothing more and nothing less. He judged his neighbors critically, but un-aggressively. The hyena was obnoxious, the wildebeest a boor, the gazelle was vapid, and the lion was arrogant.

The only animal for whom the zebra carried any animosity was the elephant. It was jealousy, he knew. Lumbering and large and possessed of quiet, but lethal self-confidence. The elephant had a host of ways it could destroy you and each seemed the more dangerous. He could trample, clumsy but efficient; he could gore you unexpectedly from right or left with those beautiful, hard, sharp tusks. And the memory! He seemed never to forget. His ears and nose and teeth were cartoonishly large, but somehow he pulled it off to look noble and imposing and beautiful.

Though the sky was clear and bright, there was a sudden, air-shattering crack of thunder. The animals of the plain started and ran three paces in random directions, tense and alert, straining to discover where the danger came from.

But not the elephant.

The elephant, without cry or moan, shuddered and fell elegantly to its side, crashing and bouncing once, never to move again.

It may have been the fall that killed him, thought the zebra, for what else could it have been?

Eating grass and living in a herd does very little to hone a sense of irony. And so, the zebra, along with the other species, returned warily to their meals without appreciating the otherworldly drama that had just unfolded. The instinctive rule of the plain was that if you were not the immediate prey, then you were safe, at least for the day. He took only the slightest notice of the small, ungainly animal that approached the dead elephant slowly. “Ridiculously thin hide”, thought the zebra, flicking flies with his tail and wandering slowly away to take a drink.

On Vacation in Banff

The day I took this was declared a rest day, which mostly meant that we didn't drive anywhere. I took advantage of the family sleeping late to try for a hike that would exhaust me. I chose Mt Rundle, which was right across the valley from our hotel. The guide book listed the trail as 14 km with a 1700 foot elevation gain. So much for rest. I left at 6:30, got coffee and was on the official trail by 7. It took me 2 and a half hours to get to the summit, but I was rewarded by the sun just beginning to come over the mountain in front of me and have it warm my back on the return trip.

I had walked in silence on the way up, but as I was tired and hurrying on the way down, I went with a low volume iPod accompaniment. I met several hikers coming the other direction, each asking what to expect ahead, each thinking they were the early birds on the trail. About ¾ down, I saw a couple ahead of me taking it slow and enjoying the vistas. I was only about 5 yards from them, just around a quick turn in the trail when they first noticed me. The woman in the lead jumped and made three quick, loud claps.

My backcountry friends know what that means.

I was next to her in two more strides and clearly saw in her eyes the fear of a person who believed she was about to die.

Distracted by the scenery, she had mistaken a lumbering, dirty, stinking, humming American for a marauding grizzly bear.

I guess that's funny.