Even in Kyoto

There are far worse climates to be homeless in, which is why there are so very many homeless people in California.

When my brother was in grad school here, their financial support was so paltry that one summer when he needed to travel a bunch to do fieldwork, he put the rest of his belongings in his allocated office space in his advisor's lab and couch-surfed so he could save money on rent. He said it was pretty terrible and I definitely believe him.



In prior times at the BAP, there were apparently occasions where grad students would become rowing/paddling club members and would then sleep in the attic space above the locker rooms. The club does have running water and showers, after all.

Before heading to the university campus this morning, I went over to the club to do a strength training routine in the small weight room, and I noticed that there's now a small, closed cupboard door up over the old attic entry. I don't think anyone has actually attempted to live at the club in well over a decade at this point.

And it looks like many of the homeless encampments at the BAP have been cleared out, too. I dunno where the people have gone but I do know the current mayor has made work on homelessness one of his priorities.

One of the other changes at the BAP is it looks like there have been some major tree-planting endeavors. Good for the long run. I'm amused by the propaganda signs that are on the supports for the trees:



Until coming back, I'd forgotten about the Begonia Man; before the trees were planted, there was one person who made it his vocation to propagate begonias along this back access road. I'd see him pretty frequently when biking over to the club.

The begonias are still there, but I haven't seen Begonia Man. Yet.

On campus, there are still plenty of nooks and crannies where a stranger can sit and rest and think for a day.

I ate my breakfast at a table at the Free Speech Cafe.



But the best lurking place is one I learned from my brother.



At other academic institutions, graduate students are usually corralled into shared office spaces. So the spaces are somewhat busy, but still allow for the comforts of being in an office. At this university, however, most of the desks are directly inside of laboratory spaces. There are usually tape lines indicating that it's okay to have a water bottle for drinking water at the desk, but you're still sitting in a laboratory. My brother's desk had his back to the main lab door, so he set up a small mirror so he would be less likely to be surprised by someone coming in while sitting there. A lot of people got to know him as "the guy with the mirror." But when he needed to concentrate, he'd head for the Science Library. There's a three-story back portion to the library, and the uppermost floor tends to be least-used.

The only time it didn't ever work for me as a place to think and write was one day when someone wearing way too much perfume sat one kiosk over.

So here's hoping it will be a good space for me once again.

So last weekend, scrottie and I took the train up to Seattle. Our visit had two three main goals ("fear, surprise, and a ruthless efficiency!...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope!"):

-Go skiing
-Visit annikusrex and enjoy some primo baby-viewing
-Haul the rest of my belongings and a couple of sytharin's things back to California

Oh, also visiting my parents. I keep getting confused about the proper terminology for this, but during our visit my dad was at the low point following his second 5-FU infusion during this set of chemotherapy treatments for his now-chronic liver cancer. Even though he was tired, he managed to share a story with us about a childhood experience with the Madison River ice gorge, and even managed to finish his Saturday chore routine (albeit on Sunday). A short but sweet chance to check in with him and my mom.

Anyway, skiing was successful, to judge by S's grin here:


And also I did not die and I might even consider going downhill skiing again sometime in the future.

Baby-viewing was also successful, and especially satisfying given that F just now fits into the chicken hat that had arrived when I visited last October, 2 days before he got ejected from the womb.

(of course, my smart-o-phone photography still leaves much to be desired. sigh)

Stuff-hauling was mostly* successful. I only had around 6-7 boxes of things left at my parents' house, which isn't a huge amount, and yet on our last visit it was clear that my parents would appreciate the extra free space and peace of mind. My mom has been one of the ringleaders for clearing out stuff from both my great-grandma's house and my grandpa's house and barn, so she's no stranger to dealing with other people's stuff. But to me that also suggests that she's extra appreciative when other people take the initiative to tackle stuff management.

Some items went straight to the Goodwill pile, after a brief farewell:

I don't know if anyone really wants ratty old stuffed animals or the velvety shawl, but at least Goodwill knows what to do with them?

Including three t-shirts kept for purely sentimental reasons:

Size XXL from my Freshman year of high school, yeesh


A favorite shirt from my trip to El Salvador in high school


Shirt for the main political party leading the resistance to the Salvadoran government during the Salvadoran Civil War - Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front

I dispatched some old, bad art from college as well. This painting was the least-worst item:


...And then we loaded the rest into the back of a rental car and drove it back to California.

So, now what? I think that, for the next phase of things, Project-Land will have two fronts. One front will involve continuing to go through those six or so boxes and deciding what to keep and what to move along. I suspect that, for instance, I will get rid of the Girl Scout manuals, because I didn't quite like Girl Scouts anyway and mostly kept the manuals as evidence for why. I also discovered that the worst object out of the lot, a neon light shaped like an abstract rowing shell, has burned out, and so now I'm free to dispose of it according to local disposal guidelines. Hallelujah and whew. I am still scratching my head over what I will do with the fine china from my grandma that was rarely/never used. We will potentially take it out for an Extreme Picnic.

The second front for Project-Land is the acquisition and creation of new objects. At the moment, I have slightly too many ideas and ambitions, but really that's my default mode. I need to read and learn more about quilting options other than hand-quilting. I'm also getting ready to start knitting something again (a hat, specifically). And there are a half-dozen things I want to make/sew. It has been helpful to look back on all of the older objects, while thinking about future ones, for the sake of deciding to put time and care into planning for the future items.


*Unsuccessful part: sytharin had asked us to bring down two of her sculptures, plus her scythe. I remembered the scythe, but didn't remember the sculptures until we had already driven all the way to Portland. Sigh.

Today I finished work in time to get home before bedtime, something for which both I and my cat are grateful. She was unhappy when I came home late and went straight to bed last night, and who can blame her - she deserves attention. She got her revenge in the usual manner - meowing periodically in the middle of the night to wake me up.

I am especially grateful because it means I have a bit of time to write about something that has been bothering me over the last couple of days. The day after I had a long conversation with S, he e-mailed me, and then I e-mailed back, and then, after that, silence, for the past week and a half. When we broke up, he said he would probably withdraw for "some time," and accordingly un-"friended" me here and on other social media platforms. I observed a blog post that I wasn't sure I was supposed to see, and let him know in a very brief message (not sure what the right etiquette is for that situation), but again, silence. That's not the specific bother, but is tied to it.

It's hard to listen to that silence, especially after becoming accustomed to frequent contact, especially coping with the ambiguity of the situation. I had gotten to feel like there wasn't much "relating" going on in what was left of our relationship (felt like a litany of complaints directed at me), and like I was no longer sure whether we were really good for each other, which to me was a sign that it was time to put on the brakes. [I try to not be a Flounce Majeure sort of person, but at times it feels necessary to take a step back from things, the overall goal being one to restore a sense of self-balance so as to be able to think and act from the heart].

Over the last couple of days, tied to coping with the silence, the recurring thought and bother has been about a letter and an e-mail I sent, that were both incredibly hard to write, best summarized by the e-mail subject line, "Things about myself I need to work on." I wrote both things focused around myself because I was starting to feel like outside labels were imposing themselves on my actions, BUT I also wanted to acknowledge that I am aware that I am a far from perfect human being, I do things that are hurtful to others, and need to work on recognizing that, and especially recognizing that I need to work on being patient and listening.

So it is hard to let that silence extend out, a good week and a half now.

But let me touch on the more general subject of this post, on non-reciprocity in relationships, before returning to the specific bother. One of the items I found in one of the boxes of mementos was a copy of a typewritten letter I'd sent to my Writing professor at Tufts, concerning a conflict I was having with her over some of the final assignments for our Peer Writing Tutor class. The details of the conflict aren't critical, but the outcome is. Instead of acknowledging and addressing my concerns, she basically said to me, "Well, _I_ am the professor and you are the student, end of story." So I finished that course still deeply unhappy with how things were handled, and I've had to carry conflicting feelings with me ever since then. There's really no chance for resolution, because it all happened about 15 years ago, and besides, she passed away from cancer.

What do we do, about these things? Many would argue that reciprocity an intimate part of forming friendships - I think tied to the concept of social exchange theory, but this could be inaccurate. That's part of why, when going on bike rides here in town with strangers right after S and I broke up, I didn't run around going, "Hi, my name is Rebecca, and I just broke up with my boyfriend!!" I could have done so, but that assumes an often unwelcome level of intimacy and familiarity with strangers. Instead, they ask where I have moved from, and to reciprocate I ask about where they are from (general answer: Nebraska, heh). So when things go non-reciprocal, my sense of what's right and proper gets violated, and I get rocked back on my heels. I think humans are also equipped with extremely good bullshit detectors on this front, such that I readily register the difference between a thoughtful response and something parroted back at me.

But non-reciprocity is as much a part of life as reciprocity. After struggling with waiting, I've had to remind myself that it's still patience that I need to work on, and that I can't tell someone else to write their own homework assignment of "Things I need to work on" to reciprocate my own list. Wow, that would be a good way to get exactly the WRONG thing. So that's the answer to my bother, after several days of thinking.

Multiple times over the past couple of years, S suggested that he and I "take a break," although he never explained what he meant by that or how it differed from living two timezones apart and communicating only sporadically. He also suggested that I go and date some other Mister Perfect and said he doesn't need to hear about it, at which point I go, to me, being in a relationship with someone, whether it's a friendship or otherwise, means I should be able to share things about my life with that person, and not have to sneak around or hide anything!! For one thing, I'm not interested in dating other people (good Lord, especially not right now, and especially not in Lincoln), and for another thing, I absolutely reject the notion that I should have to separate out parts of my life in that fashion. [And why does Miss Perfect get left out all the time?? It's always Mister Perfect that causes the paranoia.]

And so here I am, sitting home alone with my cat in my lap, purring, as I have been spending most evenings lately. As I think even further, I think, inasmuch as S declares that he wishes I find Mister Perfect, you know, altogether, I will continue to hope that he finds meaning and satisfaction in his life's pursuits, whether those pursuits involve finding a deep and satisfying relationship with another person, or otherwise. I cannot know whether that will be the case, but I hope that it is true for all of you as well.

Lastly, I would return to the same notion as I put as the title for my previous post, because sometimes it deserves repeating: when I write things about other people, in actuality I am mostly just saying things about myself.

It seems to be allergies that are waking me up so early in the mornings, again.

When I woke up this morning, I started thinking about the pair of half-matched ceramic coffee mugs that I made that have been the go-to mugs for breakfast when S is in town. I've maintained a private sort of ritual, where I don't drink out of those mugs when he's out of town. I've mostly drank from another porcelain mug that's chipped and cracked, stamped with ants, but when our relationship broke apart I couldn't drink out of that one, either. Instead I switched back to a mug made by my ceramics instructor, from an unusual clay body and painted with her signature china-painting methods. She gave it to me as a graduation and going-away gift, so it is comforting to drink from it and think back to that supportive community of friends in Tempe.

The half-matched mugs are a trick I learned - even if two handmade ceramic pieces aren't precisely the same, you can turn them into a set if you glaze them similarly or identically. When I threw one of the two mugs on the potter's wheel, I must have accidentally bumped it or touched it, denting part of it. Porcelain clay is challenging like that, in that it is a tremendously unforgiving medium. Instead of completely scrapping the mug, I reshaped it to build the dent into its character (annikusrex will have observed a similar trick in a mug with a crab illustrated on it). Despite their differences, the mugs are a set, made from the same clay body and glazed with the same glaze.

One of the other things my group of ceramics friends and I would occasionally discuss was what to do with all of our misshapen, unuseable pieces - an inevitable part of a creative process where one must practice extensively to learn the medium. My younger sister sytharin said that, for instance, there's a ceramics graveyard at Western Washington University, where students would leave their unwanted art pieces at the end of the semester. I guess eventually it would be someone's job to go through the graveyard and haul things off to a dumpster somewhere.

Those discussions made me think back to a fundraiser party I attended a while back, for the Bike Saviours bike co-op in Tempe. As with many big parties, it was a generally awkward experience for me. I cordoned myself off behind a table of baked goods for sale, because I am most comfortable if I have a job to do at a big event like that. That meant I didn't go downstairs to listen to the incredibly loud music, or go outside to watch people batter into each other on tallbikes.

At the end of the party, I helped clean up, and discovered that one of the activities someone had come up with as a fundraiser item was a "china-chucking" alley. Since I hadn't participated earlier, my friend A encouraged me to try it out. They had a bunch of miscellaneous plates and bowls and cups from a thrift store, so I picked up a saucer and flung it down at the concrete floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. [I actually brought home one of the unbroken saucers, and used it as a plant saucer for a long time.]

Remembering this experience led me to suggest a ceramics-chucking party for all of our unloved pieces.

Thinking about those two mugs, whether to break them, though, also reminds me of the tradition during Jewish weddings of breaking a glass. Wikipedia gives several reasons for the tradition, but the one I remember being mentioned at weddings is as a symbol of life's fragility (seems not to far from the idea of tempering thoughts of joy).

The inverse of the overly-intense negative emotional spirals is complete and utter withdrawal and silence, or the parroting of emotions instead of a genuine response. What can a person even do in the face of such things, except try to wait, and in some capacity, pray.

My last living grandfather is in his final days. He's surrounded by loved ones, giving vigilant attention, which, as an uncle has noted, is exactly what he would want. I'm ever more grateful that I was able to visit him twice while home over Thanksgiving. The living memories are so, so important.

As I process my emotional response to this, I'm remembering a phrase shared by a native American woman who felt called to work on explaining to us non-natives some distinctions in our respective worldviews. She said, "The earth is our ancestors. We are walking on the ashes of our ancestors."

Once again, Mt. Rainier factors into this story. My grandfather has been moved, at his request, back to his home of over a half-century. He's in the living room, where Mt. Rainier is present to greet him. He has gone out to visit the mountain just about every year of his life. It has been a rich, fulfilling life. In the way of Western civilization, none of the family members have been especially interested in and committed to the project of inheriting the land he's lived on and cared for and cultivated. So, in the way of Western civilization, the lot will be sold once he passes on. Given on to a new set of memories, without much attention to the history and legacy of the space. I suspect the sad, old apple tree will go, too. Maybe the blueberry bushes will be spared, and the pears. The house's septic system is in poor shape, so the house will probably go, too. The barn, with its distinct creosote barn-smell, long disused, slumbers. In many ways, it's the barn that's the center of that piece of land.

And with the house and barn and land gone, our memories will be loosened to roam free, like ghosts. They will be called back on Mud Mountain because it is so big and sloppy that not even westerners could turn it into a thing to be bought and sold.

I think, too, about the phrase uttered by the native woman when I read about this decision. Just as Texas is leaching its earth, so is Arizona. We Westerners still aren't any good at thinking in cycles (birth-life-death-rebirth), or thinking beyond our individual life spans of profits and incomes and wealth and power and force and violence.

What do you do when you have to cope with difficult emotions?

( not short )

I came across the quotation in my previous post while reading Conversations With God and decided to post it for two reasons. First, I found its perspective useful for my life and coming to terms with deaths of those I know--particularly my cousin Zack's death, which continues to occupy my thoughts.

Secondly, I decided to post it here because it's true--we live in a culture where it is often hard to speak openly and freely about death. But it's important to do so. I was struck by rainswolf's first experiences with her grandmother's recent death and thought that others might benefit from a discussion of some sort or another, or from the idea that we need to have such discussions.

Here's what I need to talk about some more. At the gathering after the search for Zack was called off, his mother, my Aunt C, spoke of something that Zack had told her many times: "I'm not afraid to die, Mom."

He wasn't.

I think it was during my junior year of college when Zack's struggles to understand his life started getting most difficult for others. He was always an odd person and up to this or that crazy scheme (let's not count how many times he got into trouble), but I spend much more time thinking about that particular year. He was a freshman at MIT and threw himself head-on into his studies, pulling all-nighters and working working working without spending time to take care of the rest of himself (his physical or emotional or spiritual selves). Eventually, one of his friends grew really concerned about his behavior and he ended up being hospitalized for a while. I was the relative who lived closest to him in the Boston area, but not the one who was in closest touch, so I ended up finding out after some resolution of the crisis began to occur. But I vividly remember the trip to visit him in the hospital, trying to understand what he was trying to tell us about fate and feeling ready to die, trying to talk about how I saw and experienced what he was trying to describe about his understanding of the universe. C said that was the visit when he finally started to talk and begin to work his way out of the precarious state he was in. It was a difficult conversation and a difficult visit. I also think that on another level Zack had always dreamed of being an astronaut, and that period in the hospital was a time when he was beginning to understand that he needed to think more deeply about his dreams. I'm not sure, really. I don't know if I can fully convey the extent to which Zack was a Dreamer.

This period was incredibly difficult for C, and it was hard to see her struggle for both herself and her son, something that she has consistently done in the way that only a mother can. She is such an aware, giving person, and I know that I was so wrapped up in my own life that it wasn't always easy for me to be present to her or to Zack. But we do what we can.

I don't want to end this here, but this is all I can write right now. I've always had an easier time writing out my thoughts than talking about them, I guess. But I've had a hard time figuring out how to tell/understand Zack's story. It takes great courage to talk about death.

To follow up on my most recent coffeeshop expedition--I've been wanting to find a good database for finding independent coffeeshops. My father's list is a great start for Seattle, made more entertaining/enlightening by the inclusion of his objective, five-point rating scale.

But I think it would be grander to develop a national database so that one can hunt down independent coffeeshops in all of the cities that one visits. My initial Google search for "independent coffeeshop database" was disappointing--it turned up a half-formed, rambling site. A further look, however, revealed Delocator.net, a site that will allow one to enter one's zip code to find local coffeeshops as well as note all of the competing Starbucks (for a sense of perspective on the ratio of local:mass-produced coffeeshops). The site appears to work reasonably well, although it relies on contributions from the public, which results in duplicates when readers don't bother to look through the places already listed. It also includes brief comments about all of the coffeeshops.

Here are some sample results:

Tempe near my house:
6 independent coffeeshops listed within 5 miles (+1 listed that has gone out of business, and 1 duplicate)
16 Starbucks in the same area

Somerville near Tufts:
41 cafes listed (too overwhelming to check for duplicates)
15 Starbucks in the same area

Seattle near my parents' house:
91 cafes listed
126 Starbuckses

Quite interesting, and in the case of my present locale, depressing. And that's why I can't follow in my father's footsteps (or would that be bike-tracks?) around here.