Me and DC: One Year and Still Going Strong!

DC and I have been together for one year now and while he certainly isn't perfect, he is worth keeping around.  He can be selfish and self-absorbed sometimes and he sometimes he forgets that the rest of the world exists.  But he does care and everything he does, misguided as it can be, is for the common good.  He is a little older than I am, but it gives him character and a stately presence.  Oh DC, it so difficult to say how long a relationship will ever last, but for as long as we are together I promise to love you (though I may flirt with others)!

Hubris: Pride comes just before the fall, the broken bone and the broken ego

When I was a senior in college I broke my ankle, while walking home, stone-cold sober, from a science fair where my roommate won $500, so engrossed were we in tales of her nerdy brilliance and shrieks of joy that I did not pay any attention to the pile of tiny, trecherous rocks in my path.  The street where I broke my leg is just below greek row in the sleepy college town of Pullman, WA and everyone assumed that I had been having a grand old time, drunk and silly and clumsy when I had my little accident.  I did not often seek to correct this assumption because that year I got to thinking I was pretty hot stuff.  I looked good, I felt good,  I was studying something I loved, had many wonderful close friends and these friends and I were practically fighting off interested men (it is a fairly liberal use of the word man apply it to college seniors, but I am going to do it anyway) with sticks.  I think that it is this feeling of power, of control, of beauty and of confidence, a growing supercilious and arrogant nature that caused me to break my leg.  Something inside me knew that I needed to be humbled.  And like Achilles and Caesar, there was pride and then there was a fall.  

It seems I have not learned my lesson.  But where is the rule written that you must apply a lesson once you have learned it.  I have found in life that people are excellent at forgetting, especially the unpleasant things.  And again I fell prey to my own hubris earlier this year.  As anyone who has read my blog knows, I have lived overseas and travelled more than most.  And in this time abroad, I have never had anything stolen except for two bars of Ghiradelli chocolate (a loss to be sure, but not a fatal one) and I have never lost anything of major value ( a sweat shirt, a knife, a hat).  And in a long, rambling conversation about travel and life on the other continents with my friend Ruth, I went on an on about how it was important to be smart when you are a woman traveling abroad alone.  I admitted that there was of course an element of being lucky to staying safe and keeping all of my possessions while on the road, but mostly it was my finely honed senses and strategies which clearly so many have not mastered.  In the next week after this conversation I lost a beautiful and expensive shall from my mother, locked myself out of my apartment twice, lost my access card at my office and had my ipod pick pocketed in the metro.  Though there was no physical fall this time around, I felt truly defeated and all the bravado I had felt, the audaciousness, the self-posession and poise were gone.   I had not, as I had thought, conquered the world.  I couldn't even conquer America and I hadn't figured out things that others could not master, I had been lucky.  

The opposite of hubirs is most certainly humility.  I have gotten a healthy does of that this week as well.  I bought a new dress this week, a black, v-neck, spaghetti strap dress, that fits perfectly and hits just below the knee, the perfect, dress up, dress down, a perfectly timed one-two punch of class and sex appeal.  I look good in this dress.  I have also had a very successful work week and had lots of fun with my friends and been loving the city.  I was almost beginning to feel like the city itself loved me back.  This time again the fall is not literal, but dating (one of the ultimate exercises in optimism) has provided many tiny checks on my ego.  I hope that I am beyond the physical falling onto, into or over things, though I doubt it.  The constant rising and falling of hopes in one thing, but when you add the dress, and the ferocious feeling of fabulousness that accompanies it, it is far to fall when someone is not interested.  But I will do what I have always done, hobble back up to the top of the hill, where I can see everything and hope that maybe I have gotten one or two things right, that maybe I am brazen and maybe someone will like that about me.  

Chris Matthews on Swaziland

This clip is from the Chris Matthew's show Hardball.  Chris was a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland in the 70s.  What I love about this clip, besides the interesting facts and beautiful shots of regions in southern Africa, is the warmth and care you can hear in Matthew's voice as he speaks about the country that he served.  Logically it would follow, or one would hope, that the people that he served would speak this way of him this way.  But what I hear from him, between the lines is all the things his country of service did for him, things that have stuck with him decades later as he continues to visit, educate people in the US and teach his family about his experiences.  It is difficult to describe this feeling without being overly sentimental but there is a deep and abiding fondness for a place that gives you so much knowledge and perspective.  

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From the Essay "Experience" by Emmerson

"We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended and there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight..."

I would like to state for the record, as these posts have times and dates, that I am between my evening activities right now.  I just had a wonderful dinner at Poste and am waiting for a good friend to arrive and stay the weekend.  The weather is perfect, which always makes me want to read the deep thoughts of other.  Thank you Emmerson.  

"Always roaring with a hungry heart much have I seen and known..."-Ulysses by Tennyson

This quote strikes me today, as I reread for the millionth time one of my favorite poems.  There is such a sense of adventure and weight and import and ceremony and knowing in the lines of this poem.  And this poem, this line about the hungry heart seeing and knowing rings true for me this week because I have spent so much time with my friends from Peace Corps.  It is truly a privilege to know them all, to watch how they slowly and quietly conquer the world with intelligence, humor, grace, wit and understanding or the desire to understand which is even more important.  It is that desire to understand, to meet others on their terms, if only for the curiosity of knowing what they might be that I think makes a good volunteer and creates compassion.  I am not really going anywhere with this except to say how lovely and interesting they all are because of how interested they are in life.  

I know from my conversations with them and the way I feel myself that we struggle with life here and I think it is because everyday our experience is contrasted against something else which we have seen and known and must think about.  But the reward for this is all the things we get to know about because we seek.  

George's Very Curious Quote Wall

"And sometimes, between the thick brushstrokes of what we plan to see, we glimpse the thing itself: the water sliding under its description."  -Tony Hoagland, Ingratitude for Talk 

The Spinning Sensation

I like to be spun around in circles.  As incredibly, phenomenally simplistic as that may sound it is very true.  Of course I prefer that the spinning be done by a tall and very handsome man who thinks the sun rises out of my golden, flowing locks, but in general anyone will do.  I realized my love for spinning and being spun while serving in the Peace Corps in Ukraine.  Before I digress into tales of lands far away and things done long ago, I will state that it is a crying, screaming, sobbing shame that American men of my generation do not dance.  Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but besides the uncomfortable, cheesy, parent forced, florescent lit cotillion I attended for a few evenings in the 7^th grade or the drunken spasms of rhythm that passed for dancing in high school and college, I have never seen much dancing from people my own age in this country.

It is so unfortunate that we do not dance in this country, or should I clarify that we do not dance as partners reacting to the music, because we are missing out on a great social opportunity.  We are missing a fun reason to go out on a Saturday night; we are missing a cultural dating ritual; (and, I think the argument that may be most compelling) we are missing a chance to be close to a person that we desire to be close to.  While many of my dance partners over the years have not been people that I desired, moving to the music in time with someone else, feeling the rhythm in your own body and forgetting about everything else in the room around you are truly joyous and freeing feelings. 

In Ukraine, dancing is still part of the dating ritual.  Young people go to discos (yes I said “disco,” Eastern Europe is still very far behind in many respects).  The men ask the women to dance, lead them out on to the floor for everyone in town to see and do a variation on the waltz to saccharine Russian pop songs.  This waltz is not much more than a simple box step with a few turns, spins and the occasional dip.  One of the things that made my time in Ukraine so formative was the fact that, between the language and culture barrier, I never knew what was coming next.  Dancing the waltz with a tall and very handsome man with blonde hair of his own and captivating ice blue eyes is the easiest and most glorious metaphor for my experience that I could ever write.  I may have stepped on his white, woven shoes many times and taken many steps out of rhythm with both he and the music but when he spun me around again and again and again and again and again and again and again, as long as I pulled my in my core, shored it up against the structure of myself, he could never knock me over. 

The ability to spin, be spun, and never fall, along with the skill to follow the music and the person leading me is a lesson I love to repeat and take with me wherever I go.  It is not that I have become a particularly good dancer but that I can follow a lead.  I could say I am a good follower, but that statement doesn’t please me.  What I have become is responsive, a good reactor to the actions of others and the conditions around me.  While I don’t waltz much anymore, one place where I can spin and be free is salsa dancing.  I think perhaps we, in certain parts of America, are saved from a life with no dancing, rhythm or closeness by Salsa which has dug its spiked heel deep into many parts of the United States.  I have come to really like salsa dancing because of the significant amount of spinning that occurs during this activity and the wonderful friend who introduced me to it. 

I may save my adventures in salsa for another time.  I assure you there will be more dancing and more spinning as several of my friends have recently taken an interest in dancing and we have discovered the free Salsa lessons at Lima here in DC.  And the thing is that I know I will continue to come back for more.  The movement of salsa seems to have wormed its way into me and after I leave a salsa club my legs still move back and forth and turn, my hips still swivel, like a sailor who can still feel the movement of the sea when he steps on land.  And as for the spinning, well I don’t think I will ever want to stop testing and thrilling myself, moving and being moved in that way.  

On the Cultural Significance of Colorful Explosions

I am not a person who has generally been a huge fan of symbols, ceremony or anything that is done for show.  And I do not tend to make a big fuss about anything.  I feel that things that have value and meaning hold those qualities intrinsically, and no amount of pomp and circumstance can make them worth any more than they are.                While I often still feel this way about my own life and American traditions, on my travels through out the world I have become fascinated with ceremony and religion and the physical things that hold value for people because I try to think about why a person or group of people do what they do and why we love old things and continue to carry on traditions. 

One of my most favorite examples of cultural tradition (probably because I learned to make them) is the Ukrainian “rushnik,”  which a white cloth embroidered with usually black and red designs and words like “love” or “fate” or “freedom.”  “rushnik” means simply towel, but these towels have, even in modern times, heavy symbolism for the people of Ukraine.  The white of the towel represents life, the red represents love and the black represents death.  The “rushnik” holds value as a cultural symbol which helps define what is Ukrainian and it also holds personal meaning for people over time based on who in the family made if for then and what holidays it was used for and for how many years.  That meaning of the “rushnik” deepens over time the way that the properties in the soil where grapes grow affect the way that wine tastes and the way the flavor becomes richer and more complex.   

I often wonder and worry about this type of tradition in the United States.  Diversity is one of our country’s greatest assets, but it also means that those bonding experiences and symbols can be lacking, and consequently we are not tied strongly to our neighbors and our communities.  I think this is especially true because we all ride around in cars by ourselves, listening only to music we like and news stations that we know will confirm the opinions we already hold.  I was especially thinking about symbols, togetherness and community yesterday on the Fourth of July.  My cynical side will tell me that this holiday, like so many others is just an excuse to have a party.  And not putting a whole lot of stock in symbols and things done for show, I thought I didn’t want to go see or didn’t care to see the fireworks being shot out over the National Mall here in DC last night.  Were it not for a friend dragging off the comfortable porch I was sitting on, beer in hand, surrounded by people I like very much, I would not have gone to see the fireworks and that would have been a mistake. 

We didn’t make it all the way to the Mall, but to a near by grassy spot with lots of families and groups blasting music, grilling and having a grand old time.  But as it got dark and the fire works began, some small, possibly illegal displays and of course the big show over the Mall, the music was turned off and people quieted down to watch the sky explode with red, white and blue.  What is important and special about fireworks, I have decided, is that is something that well all experience together.  Whether we actually shoot these fireworks to honor our history and independence, our brave citizens in uniform, our place in the world now or just to watch pretty lights explode in the air, here in DC and across the country every person tilted their head back in awe.   And for this moment I am willing to give more credit to symbols and big displays of patriotic affection, because of their, if temporary, ability to bring people in this large, loud, gorgeous, complicated, sometimes fractured country together.