Category: For Real

Evening Recreation

After getting some webbing for my bike at REI, I slowly peddle through the upper-middle-classed people and prim rainbow-cloud shops. Something tells me to go for ice-cream, I peddle back and walk into Ben and Jerry’s; I crush at the cross-branded Lennon “Imagine” logos. I see a hippie tie-dyed-colored, framed print-out saying “If it’s not fun, why do it?” Absolutely, I think, taking a picture of it, and ponder my grandfather’s “If you aren’t having fun, get the hell out of there.”

They don’t have cake cones, so I settle for a waffle cone. They don’t have peach ice-cream, so I settle for Boston-creme. I walk out. Kids are doing karaoke. There isn’t a seat available. I saunter past the lit water fountain that 20 kids are soaking up, as deeply into their souls as as deeply as their clothes are soaked.

I sit down and a baby pit-bull puppy comes up for a pet. After a genuine moment, his owner, a young Asian woman, pulls him away from me and she shepherds his further advances towards me.

I enjoy the cone as I take in the pure delight of running into the water and innocently taking on a song in public. As I leave, a child sings Maria Carey’s Hero and it all hits home for me as I bike off.

Life On Mars

After getting hooked on Bowie’s “Is there life on Mars?” for a couple weeks, came across this in The Portable Jung

It is particularly fatal for such people [those who sequestered their youth] to look back. For them a prospect and a goal in the future are absolutely necessary. That is why all great religions hold out the promise of a life beyond, of a supra mundane goal which makes it possible for mortal man to live the second half of life with as much purpose and aim as the first. For the man of today the expansion of life and its culmination are plausible goals, but the idea of life after death seems to him questionable or beyond belief. Life’s cessation, that is, death, can only be accepted as a reasonable goal either when existence is so wretched that we are only too glad for it to end, or when we are convinced that the sun strives to its setting “to illuminate distant races” with the same logical consistency it showed in rising to the zenith. But to believe has become such a difficult art today that it is beyond the capacity of most people, particularly the educated part of humanity. They have become too accustomed to the thought that, with regard to immortality and such questions, there are innumerable contradictory opinions and no convincing proofs. And since “science” is the catchword that seems to carry the weight of absolute conviction in the contemporary world, we ask for “scientific” proofs. But educated people who can think know very well that proof of this kind is a philosophical impossibility. We simply cannot know anything what so ever about such things.

May I remark that for the same reasons we cannot know, either, whether something does happen to a person after death? No answer of any kind is permissible, either for or against. We simply have no definite scientific knowledge about it one way or the other, and are therefore in the same position as when we ask whether the planet Mars is inhabited or not. And the inhabitants of Mars, if there are any, are certainly not concerned whether we affirm or deny their existence. They many exist or they may not. And that is how it stand with so-called immortality — with which we may shelve the problem.

Skiing with Brian, Overheard

Went skiing with Brian. It was a pretty good time.

I tried some of the black diamond hills… umm, glad I made it down alive, but it wasn’t that bad.

We ended up finding a great hill “the sidewinder” pointed out by a veteran skier. Made a poem out of it.

We happened to go the evening that did there own winter Olympic’s opening ceremony. Just as we were deciding to call it a day we walked out and into the preparations for it. It would take place at sunset. We got to talk to the organizer and cameraman beforehand. The organizer alluded to the person who wanted to do it on a bit of a whimsy and build the 1 story torch device with his special knowledge of pyrotechnics. The cameraman was a laid back victim of circumstance of duty. Long lines of volunteer skiers holding torches from various hills took a long, peaceful time getting down their hills. Once they all got down, the main torch was lit.

Overheard:

“You suck the fun out of everything: Funsucker!!”

“Monica, overcome your fears!” (In a tone implying she should be excused from braving it) “I already did.”

Rock Creek Park, Raccoon Tree Overlook

Went to Rock Creek Park.  Took my bike on the metro. It was nice to see the snow on the rocks in the creek. Nice big creek. Good to see dogs off leash and having a good time scampering next to the river. Biked past the police station on Branch Road.

Took a walk next to the river. It was fun to see the animal tracks in the snow. Raccoon tracks? Maybe just squirrel tracks. Larger tracks. Maybe just dog tracks. Then the tracks went onto and across a nice big bark-less fallen tree: Raccoon tracks.

Got up the nerve to go onto the tree. I stepped on and proceeded slowly — shuffle, shuffle — half-inch by half-inch. It only felt right until I was dead in the middle. Looked onto the river coming down for a while. Turned, hmm, looks pretty good. Slowly turned and looked at the sun-laden river flowing away from me, various eddies swirling near and further down stream. Nice.

Then I knew the moment had passed and the journey was over.  Took forthright steps off the log.