Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Eclipsed

It was almost disconcerting tonight, the lunar ecplise in the middle of everything, so quick and so distant I almost lost it amid the city lights. And, yet, sitting on my front stoop for twenty minutes or so watching, and it was like another world. I could just barely make out the waning moon caught between the treetops and apartment blocks, but it took my breathaway.

I wished I were gazing at the sky from somewhere else, away from the city lights, away from the Safeway, away from the traffic. But at the same time, it sort of touched me, that something so simple could draw so very many people. That all across the country everyone was doing the very same thing.

The take home message of the week? It's so easy to be eclipsed by everything going on around me, far too easy to go unnoticed. The temptation to pull the hood up and poke the headphones in, to be the one on the bus who turns the other way while someone struggles on the sidewalk, it's the easy answer. To sit in my little book-cave and ignore the night sky. Complacency though, too, makes me internally uncomfortable. I both crave and fear the challenge of pushing myself.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Front Country Adventures and Hidden Messengers

I like to think I'm a firm believer in fated messengers in human form. What I mean by that is basically that we meet the people we are supposed to meet at the right times. That the people we encounter are supposed to enlighten us, though its up to us to figure out exactly what form that takes.

This is the story about how I happened to be in the wrong place at the right time in order to discover that there is some law/company regulation that requires portland city transit drivers to stop and deal with apparently health and safety emergencies if they see them....On my way home from work this afternoon (the shitty not happy fun outdoorsy kind) and I'm sitting in the front of the bus being the shitty wannabe hipster that this city turns me into and we come to a corner and I hear the driver go "oh shit thats not good" and lo and behold some dude is sort of crumpled face down at the busstop. And then the driver freaks out and is just muttering to himself about insurance or something and pacing on the sidewalk and calls his dispatch and gets back on the bus and continues to talk to himself and mutter about how he thinks maybe hes breathing (the dude, not the driver) and freak out and looks around helplessly. So he sits there and looks at us passengers, and being apathetic wannabe hipster freaky people we ignore him or sigh and wonder about the state of the city and bitch about those goddamned homelesspeople.

After a minute or two I get annoyed so I go outthere...look around, cant figure anything out...no blood, no blatantly obvious mechanism of injury no hazards. Takes awhile of me yelling at the dude and shaking and sternum noogy but he opens his eyes. another minute or so and dude says a word or too fairly incoherently. So not entirely unresponsive, but thats about as much as I'd give him. All the ABC's in order, airway breathing circulation, which as really as far as I'd thought when I got off the bus. Just instinct, I figured I could start CPR if I had to. Thats literally as far as I thought. Another 30 seconds or so and I figure he doesnt speak english. Then picture me trying to asses the guy in spanish. Which i speak (not). The guy doesnt even smell like booze, just has really really dialated pupils. So I keep the guy talking (or swearing at me in spanish as the case may be) and try to convince him not to move for another minute or so (in less than acomplished spanish), till the bus driver starts yelling at me about being off schedule and all my shit and my laptop is on the back of the bus and the driver says the paramedics are coming so I leave him and get back on the bus.

And now I feel like a tool. I should have stayed until the paramedics got there. I know I didnt have to do anything...being the front country and all... I but cant stop thinking about the guy. Just the way that he looked at me. I wish I knew how it ended up, I wish I'd stayed there to find out. I wish I was better under fire sometimes.

More than that, I wish I knew what this guy was sent to tell me. What I'm supposed to get out of the whole adventure. People hit you only when you open yourself to receive what ever they're trying to teach you. What was this guy supposed to teach me?

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Heart, My Lovely Hobo

"Searcher there is no road. We make the road by walking." - Antonio Machado

So much good flowing in and from so many different directions. I'm sort of overwhelmed.

No, I haven't fallen madly in love.
No, I haven't failed out of school.
No, I'm not depressed for the moment.
Yes, I do miss travelling.
Yes, I desparately miss outside.
No, I don't know what I'm doing with my life.
No, I'm not excessively concerned.

What I am doing is trying to make the road by walking it, one step at a time. Its pouring outside my window (and I mean pouring), and tonight I'm in sort of a damn-the-consequences mood. Thats kind of my motto for this last semester, do it anyway. Don't wait, don't hesitate, just throw that foot off the platform, and trust that theres ground somewhere beneath. Do it anyway, because if you're probably having this conversation in the first place you know the right choice.

I am not without flirtation and frustration and amelioration. I'm street luging down the dark sidestreet of life headfirst. The trick now is misplacing my anger and fear and resentment and trepidation; it's reteaching all of my internal boundaries of culture and upbringing and temperment, and stop expecting anything less.