[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 8(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
Or the real as just fantasy. Solipsism and all that.
I never really could remember what else I meant to write here. That’s a disadvantage to “blogging in one’s head.”
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 8(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
Proprioception – our awareness of our own body, its position and extent and activity. It seems the main idea of vipassana is that through a very intensive proprioception, combined with a strong “equanimity” to the sensations involved, we can allow old karmic “sankharas” to “float to the surface” and “evaporate.” I find the metaphor lovely, but the whole thing is physiologically implausible.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 7(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
The title is a reference to philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept, as developed in the Mille Plateaux.
I never really could remember what else I meant to write here. That’s a disadvantage to “blogging in one’s head.”
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 7(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
I really saw this. There is a pond fed by an artesian spring at the retreat center. There appear to be two muskrats living in it. During the day, sometimes migrating geese stop and feed and rest -the water is unfrozen because of the flow into it from the spring, so it must make a pretty good oasis during the cold days of winter. I can’t figure out if the muskrats are guided by territoriality, hunger, or a sense of play, but one of them or the other will literally sneak up on a floating goose and begin to chase it through the water, until the goose becomes so rattled that it takes off and flies to the bank of the pond for a short time. I saw both muskrats doing this, over and over, and it made me laugh out loud. A violation of the code of silence. …
The world is funny and interesting, even if these neo-orthodox buddhists take themselves too seriously. Misery? What misery?
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 6(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
The buddhist term for the mind that wanders and makes problems for someone dedicated to trying to meditate is the “monkey mind.” I have a monkey mind, but what I’ve decided, this morning, is that I LIKE my monkey mind. It’s very interesting to watch, as I sit here trying to focus on the sensations in my body.
As my mind has cleared itself of the more immediate worries (will my truck start after 11 days in cold? will I get a job in Korea when I go back? will I ever learn Korean well?), I begin to daydream. I have been observing what sorts of things I tend to daydream about, and as I watch closely, I find some things that surprise me a little bit. Here is a catalog of my most common daydreams, in the order in which they most commonly occur:
Most common are my architectural fantasies. This is something I’ve always been aware of — I have wanted to become an architect since I was about 7 years old, but it never worked out. I constantly daydream about buildings. Rearranging existing ones, replacing existing ones with “better” ones, completely new ones. All kinds: commercial structures, houses, apartments and towers and office parks and cathedrals and new vipassana meditation halls. Elaborate, baroque-looking structures and designs, spare and utilitarian designs, revolutionary and avant garde designs and classical designs.
Related to this, I often have what I refer to as “homestead” fantasies. These are where I imagine creating some kind of home for myself. A farm, a remote mountain location, a warehouse loft in a city, etc. I imagine barns and libraries and workshops, tiny single-room cabins and giant palaces. But a key factor is that they’re things I build at least to some extent “by myself.” I suppose this is actually quite understandable, given my background. My mother and her brother, my uncle, both live in self-designed homes, in Australia and Alaska respectively. The house I grew up in, in Arcata, was an evolving space that didn’t retain the same floor plan in the 17 years I spent there, as rooms were added, rearranged, “re-architected” (as a software guy might term it).
Unrelated, and more surprising, is the amount of time I spend daydreaming about food. What’s interesting, is that I’m not thinking about EATING it, but rather, making it. Cooking exotic or unusual or interesting dishes. Fantasizing about becoming a chef or running some hole-in-the-wall restaurant. This is so prevalent that I wonder if maybe I should consider a career in cooking. Maybe next career? Who knows. At the least, I should listen to this inner daydreamer and dedicate more energies to being creative in the kitchen, perhaps.
Not unexpectedly, I’m constantly working through settings, descriptive passages, characterizations and plots of novels-in-progress. I don’t really get much actual writing done on these novels, but I certainly spend a lot of time writing them. I also do some mental “writing” on my perennial thesis (on Cervantes’ Persiles), and on some putative autobiography or memoir of my experiences and travels.
I like to work through visual arts in my mind’s eye, too. This is related to the architecture daydreams, and the two will often blur into one another. I imagine decorated surfaces, sculptures, and classically executed drawings and oil paintings (although the style is most often abstract or occasionally surrealist).
Most surprising and unexpected are the romantic fantasies. I mean… it’s not unexpected that I have romantic fantasies. These are nearly universal, to anyone, I think. Certainly, I’ve always had them. What’s different from in previous times in my life is the weird way that these daydreams are “domestic”: never before have I had frequent fantasies of the “settle down and have kids” variety. I find myself imagining having children. This is disorienting and alarming, because it’s so out of character, at least to compare to past selves. It’s also a bit depressing… because it’s only now, when I’m really “too old” to start a family, that I suddenly find myself yearning for one. Perhaps I’m enjoying teaching so much, because it serves as a kind of surrogate for these have-a-family fantasies?
So, my monkey mind is conjuring both familiar and unexpected daydreams. But what I’ve decided, over these last several days, is that regardless, it’s very interesting to watch. I really actually enjoy it. I don’t WANT to turn it off. I don’t feel any need to turn it off. Let it roam and hop and jump around, and I’ll watch it happily for hours on end. It’s not like anxiety or depression at all. It’s fascinating.
Monkeys rock! I {heart} my monkey mind.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 6(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
My internal monologue, which is so hard to shut up, patters on and on, as I try to focus on awareness of my breathing, on the respiration on my upper lip, on the sensations on my body. I often think “textually.” Because I type so much, so often. So sometimes (and not just during this meditation adventure, but always, in general) my monologue takes the form of text-on-screen or text-on-paper. I see the writing, as opposed to hearing my own voice, I guess.
As I tried to quiet my internal monologue, I had this weird visual of trying to shut up the text-on-mind’s-screen, and began to visualize dot-dot-dot: . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And then, much to my amusement, the monkey in my brain (one of an infinite number of monkeys, perhaps) began to hit other keys: a long series of D’s, and then random characters. Very strange, very amusing. I almost began laughing out loud. And certainly, I wasn’t doing very well with the meditation task.
Later.
There is a cute cat that appears stranded or stray. It’s living in a barn just off the pathway between the mediation hall and the dormitory building. It’s been so cold these days… I worry about this cat. He (she?) comes out and purrs loudly, looking for attention. If you crouch down, it will try to climb into your lap. Seeking warmth or shelter. According to the code of silence, we’re not supposed to talk or interact with people, except the instructors… but I’m not sure about cats. I’m choosing to interact with the cat, when I see it. Petting it, and muttering hellos.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 5(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
I remember back on day 2 (or was it day 1?), I had this weird thought, during Mr Goenka’s discourse: “Wait! What misery?”
He was going on and on about misery. We are all suffering. We’re suffering, even if we don’t know we’re suffering. And then, of course… vipassana is the presumed “cure.”
But, my thought is… is there really that much misery? Isn’t there a lot of beauty, too? A lot of love?And kindness? Some people are miserable, true. Sometimes. I was pretty consistently miserable, for many, many years. For most of my life, even. But I seem to be getting over that. Emerging from it. And the way to get over it doesn’t seem to lie in obsessing over how miserable I am. At least, that doesn’t work, for me.
So even if he’s proposing a “cure,” it seems very counter-productive, downright negative, to spend so much time going on and on about how miserable we all are. There’s no happiness, there. Perhaps, with enough meditation, there may come about a kind of equanimity… but who wants equanimity to universal suffering? How about, instead, some just plain happiness? A better deal, surely…
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 5(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
One shouldn’t underestimate the sheer difficulty of simply sitting. I think to be a successful meditator, you need to think seriously and intelligently about what I have decided to term the Technology of Sitting. What position? What cushions? What other apparatus and support? Etc.
Because, let’s get right down to it: I spend a huge proportion of my time meditating thinking about nothing except the pain in my ass. Or legs. Or back. Or foot. Or wherever. About how I should have moved such and such cushion to such and such location, how that would be so much more comfortable. Maybe.
This school of meditation doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on position or posture. They do require stillness, however. Strong determination. And stillness requires a modicum of, if not comfort, at least a kind of ease with one’s position and posture.
Therefore… I think a successful introduction to vipassana meditation might best include more overt and open discussion of posture and sitting. A la yoga, or tai chi, or something, maybe. Some kind of analysis and training on the Technology of Sitting.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 4(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
“Adhitthana” means “strong determination.”
Today, we have been told that we should be “sitting with strong determination,” which means sitting still: not changing position, not changing posture, not opening up hands.
Why is this? I understand it. It’s discipline. But it’s very difficult. The first time I try it, I struggle so much with the pain and ache in my legs and back, that I’m not really doing any kind of meditation of any kind. Just sitting, with strong determination.
The second time goes better. I spend some time on anapana – observing the respiration on my upper lip. Observing.
Observing.
Pain in my legs, but not unbearable. Cross-legged, sitting.
There’s a kind of exhilaration when the hour finishes. I feel accomplishment. Not sure that’s the objective. But by the end of the hour of sitting perfectly still, I also feel these weird spots of “non-sensation” in parts of my body: mostly in the hands and arms. It’s not numbness, but there’s nothing to feel, so it’s like a hole in the self-body-map. All it takes is slight flexing of the muscles in the hand, and it feels perfectly normal. So strange.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 4(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
It’s all about the discipline.
Michel Foucault is one of the most notable philosophers of the 20th century, and I would say his most influential work on me personally was his Archeology of Knowledge (which, incidentally, I read the first time in Spanish translation as Arqueologia del saber). Nevertheless, perhaps one of his most widely-known works is Discipline and Punish, and within my imagination, Foucault’s name is synonymous, perhaps unfairly and certainly inaccurately, with certain notions of the weird give-and-take of our relationship, as individuals and more broadly as a civilization, with discipline, both external and internalized.
So I have coined the term “Foucault’s Fun Farm” for this entirely voluntary retreat that is so focused on concepts of discipline. The disciplinary aspects include everything from the hours we keep to the food we eat, to the way we interact (or refuse to interact) with one another, to the way we sit and think (or not think). The fact of the matter is that I like it.
The same way that my favorite part of my military experience was the training — when discipline was maximal (and things seemed profoundly ethical and fair), and meaning was almost non-existent. The same way that I can sometimes be nostalgic for a long stay at a hospital, where everything is structured and predictable.
Because one of the things I most lack in my life, is self-discipline. Or…well… I feel that I lack it. I’m better than I once was, really. But I came here, ultimately, as much for the discipline as for the meditation, per se. Certainly, I didn’t come for the Buddhist dogma. That last is just a sort of adjunct, an annoyance… a gnat.
Beware dogmatic gnats. They’ll bite you.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 3(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
This is pretty self-explanatory. I tried to make peace with the itching sensations. Not very easy to do.
I never really could remember what else I meant to write here. That’s a disadvantage to “blogging in one’s head.”
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 3(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
The main teacher of the Vipassana movement, whom we watch speaking in videos each evening, has a strong Hindi accent. When he talks about our practice of “anapana” (meditation on feeling our respiration on and around our noses and upper lips), he uses the phrase “touch of respiration” – but his accent renders this “touch of desperation” to my ears. And that’s a bit how I’m feeling.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 2(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
I felt rather disgusted this evening with Mr Goenka’s discourse. He makes all these claims to be presenting something that’s scientific and non-sectarian. He states repeatedly and unequivocally that this is not dogma, but simple truth.
But, in fact, what he’s presenting isn’t just dogma… it’s pretty darn orthodox Theravada Buddhist dogma, at that. I wouldn’t hesitate to describe the belief system underlying his vipassana practice as a sort of neo-orthodox fundamentalist Theravedism… for those of you who care about such things.
The fact of it being orthodox Buddhism doesn’t bother me in the least. I knew (and know) that vipassana is a Buddhist meditative practice. But, as many of you know, hypocrisy does bother me. A lot. And when someone like Mr Goenka tries to sell orthodox Buddhism as something non-sectarian and non-dogmatic, that pisses me off. So, today, I feel pissed off.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 2(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
At 4:40 PM, I find my Buddha-nature in my left nostril. But it’s a false alarm.
Really, all that’s happening is that I’m calming down. My mind is still wandering a lot. And we’re watching our respiration. I noticed that earlier today, when my mind wandered, it was mostly agitated, worrying, negative thoughts. But this afternoon, I found that my mind would wander to positive things – daydreams, happy things. And at the same time, I’m watching my breathing. In the morning, it was mostly in the right nostril. This afternoon, it has switched to the left nostril. So there must be something happy in my left nostril, QED.
I realize this is fallacious argument. Also, having happy distracted thoughts instead of negative distracted thoughts still isn’t matching the objective, I don’t think. The idea is to detach from both kinds of distracting thoughts.
All the same, it put me in a very cheerful, joyful, almost elated mood, having all these happy distracted thoughts.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 1(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
The focus of this first day is to watch our own respiration. Not control it – simply observe it. Feel the air moving in… out… in… out. Is it deep breath? Shallow breath? Is it through the left nostril, or right, or both? Contrary to our uninformed intuition, we almost always are breathing more through one nostril than the other. I never thought about this before.
So, the question becomes: which nostril? Today… mostly the left.
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 1(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
How can I expect to learn a path to enlightenment from such grumpy-seeming people? All the managers and assistants seem way too serious. And the main instructor (slash “founder” of the modern vipassana movement I guess), Mr Goenka… he seems like a very sad man, and almost never smiles in his video presentations. The male manager at this retreat is grim and shifty-eyed. The only person who consistently seems happy is Leslie, the head supporting instructor who leads the group sessions (mostly via running the sound-system that plays Mr Goenka’s guidances, and then providing additional instructions and/or answering questions).
It leads me to ponder: maybe, all-in-all, it’s not the sort of enlightenment I’m interested in?
[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 0” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
I am going to a “meditation camp” by an organization called Vipassana. “Vipassana” is the name of the meditation they practice, something popularized by a teacher named S.N. Goenka, ethnically Indian but born and raised in Burma. I would classify it as a sort of neo-orthodox theravada buddhist trandition, though Goenka and his followers like to claim it is “non-sectarian” – more about this claim later.
I am not allowed to use computer or writing materials, but each day I will compose one or more titles to blog entries, that I can remember and use to cue memories later on, and then write down after the retreat is over.
The camp is in Pecatonica, Illinois, about 20 minutes west of Rockford. The site is very beautiful. I signed in, put my cellphone, etc. in storage, attended an orientation and introduction, and got settled in the dormitory.
Here is our daily schedule:
4:00-4:30 AM. First gong. Wake up, shower, etc.
4:30-6:30 AM. Meditation.
6:30-8:00 AM. Breakfast. Personal time. (I already know, this will be “nap time” US Army style.)
8:00-9:00 AM. Group meditation.
9:00-11:00 AM. Instruction and meditation.
11:00-12:00. Lunch.
12:00-1:00 PM. One-on-one interviews with the teacher.
1:00-2:30 PM. Meditation.
2:30-3:30 PM. Group meditation.
3:30-5:00 PM. Instruction and meditation.
5:00-6:00 PM. Tea. (There will be fruit but no meal — students are encouraged to fast after mid-day.)
6:00-7:00 PM. Group meditation.
7:00-8:15 PM. Discourses by the main teacher (via videotape).
8:15-9:00 PM. Instruction and meditation.
9:00-9:30 PM. Questions and answers with teachers, or personal time.
9:30 PM. Lights out.
I stayed with my friends Bob, Sarah and Henry last night. They got about a foot of snow over the last 24 hours. Here are some pictures I took of the snow, this morning.
My truck:
Henry and the snowman:
My snow dog that I made:
I will be completely "offline" for the next 11 days. I'm going on a meditation retreat.
No, I haven't become a buddhist. Or anything like that. And, actually, I've felt somewhat embarrassed telling some of the people who know me that I'm doing this, but in fact it's something I've wanted to do, and have been planning, on and off, for not just years, but decades. I guess I feel embarrassed because it doesn't really match the cynical, anti-spiritual persona I present of myself. Well, anyway…
I will be off the internet, off cellphones, not even taking reading material, for this next week and a half. If I come out a weird cultist, I'm counting on everyone to do some kind of "intervention" quickly. But as my friend Bob said, earlier today, I came out still myself from the Army, and lots of other crazy things… no reason why this should affect me any differently, right?
"I will always retain my inner core of pure cynicism," I retorted. But it's been shading toward a weird, optimistic sort of cynicism for some years now, I would add. The positive-thinking cynic?
I visited my "friends-from-Korea" Joe and Christine this evening, in Bloomington, Indiana, after driving across from Philadelphia and staying in a motel last night south of Pittsburgh.
Joe said something funny: "I keep following your blog, waiting for you to stop moving, but you keep moving." I've been traveling a lot, definitely. North America seems like a pretty good continent.
More later.
Visité con me amiga Asima hoy, en Filadelfia. Siendo puertorriqueña, ella es suele usar la palabra “chévere,” que es un argot caribeño para decir “cool.” En este foto se ven unas máscaras “vejigantes” que me intriguían…
Ésta es la casa donde vivía durante mi primer año en la Universidad de Pennsylvania, en la 43rd con Baltimore.
I stopped and had dinner with my friend Basil last night, in Morgantown, where he’s enrolled in a graduate program in TESOL. It was weird seeing someone from my “life in Korea” while driving around the US, but he’s a very cool guy and in some ways he was my best friend during my time in Korea.
Today, I stopped in Quakertown. It was snowing hard, and eastern Pennsylvania is very beautiful. But there are personal ghosts of a difficult past, resident in the names of highways and towns, in the vistas of rivers and in the office parks alongside freeways. I’m trying to make peace with some of these ghosts, and the ghost of ghosts is Michelle’s ghost. I went to the house where she took her own life, in June of 2000. I wasn’t there — we were already separated, although divorce wasn’t something we were talking about seriously, at that point. But we’d been talking on the phone about once a week, all that spring and early summer. So I knew “where she was at” and I knew things weren’t going well. When I got the call from her mom that she had died, I had already bought the airplane ticket to Philadelphia — I had intuited something terrible was happening, perhaps.
I flew out, and it was chaotic, nightmarish. I spent long hours in that house in Quakertown, where I’d never actually lived, since she and Jeffrey had moved in there after I’d gone to Los Angeles to stay with my father. All my “stuff” was there, along with hers. I had to sort it all out, without offending the debt-lawyers who wanted to liquidate assets.
So, today I visited that house in Quakertown. I sometimes have had a strong feeling that Michelle’s ghost is following me around in the world. But other times, I’ve thought that if she has a ghost, it’s more likely tied down at that house. Stranded.
I parked my truck and got out and walked around. I talked to Michelle’s ghost, telling her that I wanted to come visit, to tell her how Jeffrey was doing, what I’d been doing. I opened the passenger door to my truck, and I invited her to join me in my travels. I don’t know that she came along. I don’t know that she was there. I’m not really a believer in ghosts, but I do believe in powerful psychological symbolisms. I guess.
Here is a picture of the house in Quakertown.
My extremely disorganized, whirlwind tour to the East is well underway. I'm basically driving to Philly for the weekend, with side trips to New Jersey, West Virginia and Indiana squeezed in where they best fit the itinerary. It snowed continuously all across Wisconsin, driving down last night, but Chicago was clear at midnight and beautiful. And now I'm in Ohio, near Oberlin, which makes me remember my year in politics, 1984, when I worked for the Mondale campaign and ended up at some conference/rally in Oberlin during one hectic long weekend. That was a long time ago, eh?
I woke from a vivid, angry dream. Was it from all that exertion, yesterday, moving my stuff? Is it because I’m stressing over the fact that I haven’t heard back from Curt about the job? Not sure…
I dreamed that I was starting my teaching at some new hagwon. In the dream, it’s Curt’s, but it doesn’t look like Curt’s (which I’ve visited and know very well what it looks like). The place is VERY disorganized, and resembles a theme-park more than an Ilsan hagwon. On my first day, they hand me only a class schedule, not even any books. I’m late to my first class, because I don’t hear any bell. And all the classes after that are in a row, with no breaks, and I can’t find them. I walk into random classrooms, and ask, “is this…?” to find out if it’s the correct class.
The kids are recalcitrant, and then they begin to lie. They answer “No” when it should be “yes” to my question. And then, I lose the piece of paper with the schedule I’d been given. I go back to the staff office, and no one there is willing to admit they work there. No one will give me a new schedule. There’s some guy cleaning the floors, but when I start to talk to him, he runs away.
I’m climbing ladders and going down seemingly hidden passages to find classrooms, only to find they’re empty, or already with another teacher. One teacher asks me, “why are you teaching here?” There’s a group of kids sitting in what looks like a sidewalk cafe, but they’re clearly supposed to be in class. I begin to yell at them, and they just laugh. I go back to the office to try to find out what class they are — are they mine? By the time I get back to the sidewalk cafe, they’re all gone.
Very strange dream. Shows a lot of anxiety over the teaching thing, huh?
I woke to find snow on the ground, outside. After yesterday’s efforts, I’m majorly unmotivated. Snow is beautiful, but inconvenient to run errands in.
Here’s the truck, in Mark & Amy’s driveway, covered with a dusting of fresh snow:
I win! I win!
Well… not really. But I was productive.
I downgraded my storage unit to a smaller size, today. And moved all my stuff into the smaller unit. I counted 117 round trips, walking between the two units, about 100 yards apart, carrying all my stuff. And that’s not counting the trips my friends Mark and Amy and Martin and Charlie made when they came to help toward the end of the day.
But I got everything moved, on schedule, and everything fit. I have 50 boxes of books, 20 boxes of old notes and files, 30 boxes of who-knows-what-kind-of-junk, a refrigerator, a couch, bookshelves, tables, many plastic bins of clothing, etc. A lot of stuff.
Now I feel very tired. I think tomorrow I will start driving East.
Here is a picture of about 50 boxes of books, arrayed in spaced piles 4 high, in preparation for the journey on a 2-wheeled dolly over to the new, smaller storage unit:
Speaking of silence… when written in all caps, if you invert the name “ZION”, you get “NOIZ”. Cool. Huh huh.
So regular life is an upside-down canyon of red rock?
I know there are some ways that I am quite strange. One thing that happens, when I’m traveling alone, is that I will go off on long walks for no good reason, or as an alternative to some much more convenient means of transportation. So this morning, I walked from my hotel on the Las Vegas Strip to the airport, even though a taxi would have probably been less than 8 dollars.
Las Vegas doesn’t really interest me much. It’s not that I don’t like kitch — I love it. And it’s pure americana, in some respects. But it’s very hard for me to find stuff to DO in Las Vegas: I don’t gamble, I despise dining out alone, and going to shows or movies alone can be kind of depressing too. I guess all of this could be summarized by stating that Las Vegas might be a fun town, WITH someone, but it’s stunningly dull for someone who’s alone.
I went on a long walk along the strip last night, looking at lights and signs and people-watching. And I slept a lot, in my pyramid-shaped hotel that I got for an incredibly low rate (because they expect you to spend your money gambling and watching the shows, of course). And I got up this morning and strapped on my luggages and walked to the airport.
Here is a last look at Zion, taken yesterday upon departure:
“입을 다스리는 글” is a title to a proverb (or prayer) that was on a piece of cloth that I gave as a gift to my friends Juli and Keith in Oregon.
I have been feeling somewhat embarrassed because I had not conveyed to them very accurately the true meaning of the saying. Here is an updated and hopefully correct translation for all the world to see (and thanks to my friend Jinhee for her help translating). My friends Juli and Keith may not want to have it on their wall given the new meaning, or they may decide they like it. I spent some time thinking deeply about it today, and decided I like it, after all.
입을 다스리는 글
말해야 할 때 말하고 말해서는 안될 때 말하지 말라 말해야 할 때 참묵해도 안되고 말해서는 안될 말해서도 안되고 입아, 입아 그렇게만 하여라
A note on controlling one’s tongue.
One should speak when necessary, and not speak when one should not. One shouldn’t stay silent when one should be speaking, and one should not speak what one should not say. O tongue, my tongue, I pray you do just that.
I think silence is very important. That’s my vaguely quaker upbringing, shining through, perhaps.
We went hiking this morning up into a “slot canyon” in the eastern part of Zion National Park this morning. There were six of us, walking and tromping and scrambling and climbing and tossing rocks into pools to make fording them possible, and talking. Lots of talking. Finally, we were relaxing on the face of rock above the canyon, and Jay wanted to have a prayer. And I butted in and said, how about a Quaker-meeting minute-of-silence. This was approved, and at last, we were seated, gazing at the sky and rock and trees, and it was silent for about 5 or so minutes. It was very beautiful.
So keeping one’s mouth shut can be nice. There are definitely times for that.
Here are some pictures from this morning.
[this is a “back-post” written 2009-11-30]
We drove up to Bryce canyon today. We saw lots of things, including many rocks and trees and a blizzard. Above, you see the clouds carrying a lot of snow, rolling in over a stunning landscape. Below, that’s me standing in the snow, a few hours later as we prepared to leave.
More later.
[this is a “back-post” written 2009-11-29]
[added pictures 2009-12-03:]
The most notable feature at Zion National Park is the canyon of the Virgin River. Above the core area of the park (where the lodges and building and RVs can be found), the canyon shrinks down to only a few meters wide but several hundred deep, as the river snakes through the red rock of the Utah desert. This river canyon can be hiked, but only by wading in the river bed itself in many locations. In the summer, a pair of hiking boots that you don’t mind getting soaked, along with shorts, is perfectly workable, as I’m sure the cold river water is refreshing. But at this time of year, that would lead quickly to hypothermia. What you can do is rent “dry pants” that have gaskets at the ankles and go up to your torso, and rent some amphibious hiking shoes and wet-suit-type-material insulating socks. That’s what we did.
We went up The Narrows: an all day hike.
I’m making a video, which I’ll post here later [Update, 2011 – I never made this video, did I?].
[this is a “back-post” written 2009-11-30]
I didn't really sleep, Wednesday night. I've ended up on a night owl schedule staying with my friends Mark and Amy, and I had to get up very early to catch my flight, so I did what I often do when I'm facing the possibility of only a few hours of sleep: I just stayed up. Mark did too, and then he drove me to the airport at 520 am.
I flew via O'Hare, because I saved a lot of money on my last-minute ticket, that way. I arrived at Las Vegas around 11:45 in the morning. My friend Jay and his accomanying group were running late due to traffic out of L.A., so I killed about an hour in the Las Vegas airport. They picked me up at about 1 pm.
I met Shah and Kong again, two of Jay's friends with whom I've traveled to Zion before. In fact, when I came to Zion in 2006, Shah and I were the only ones, as that was the year that Jay was sick. Also joining us this year were Cameron and Kameron. Really. I learned a bit later that their nicknames were Old School (Cameron) and New School (Kameron), because the later was 16 and the former was 40's. I guess New School has been a kind of adoptive son (maybe a big-brother mentoring thing) for Old School, over the last several years, through their church.
So we all piled in and drove the last 3 hours up to Zion, after getting lost in the hellhole known as North Las Vegas looking for a fast food joint to eat lunch.
We arrived in Zion, with a few short stops, at exactly 6 pm. We checked in to the motel and made our dinner reservation at the Zion Park Lodge at 7 pm, exactly on schedule. The food's pretty good, especially the chicken bean southwesternish soup, the cranberry stuff for the turkey, the chocolate cake.
There was lots of interesting converastion: one thing that intrigued me was when Cameron was talking about a "World Banquet" (I guess a sort of charity event held by his church) wherein the guests would draw a world locale (e.g. U.S.A., China, Gambia, etc.) and then they would be seated a table and could eat what was served for that locale. All sounds very clever and interesting, but here's the catch: obviously, a lot of locales, the average diet is both boring and insufficient. So imagine sitting down at the Bangladesh table and being served only a small bowl of rice; while those at the USA table get many, many courses of meat, carbs, and fruits and vegetables from all over the world. See?
So, We ate and talked, and then we went on a 3 mile night-hike, up to a place called Watchtower.
We didn't practice very good trail etiquette, as we left Old School down at the vehicle parking area and didn't realize he wasn't along until 20 minutes up the hill. So Shah went back down and fetched him up. But hiking in the dark, by the three-quarters moon, was awesome. I always feel like I'm living out Tolkien's Silmarilion's "first age" when hiking in moonlight (Tolkien's "first age" was the age between the creation of the moon and the creation of the sun, and the elves had whole civilizations rise and fall in the moonlight of Middle Earth).
Unfortunately, it's hard to take pictures that capture the night-hike experience. But it was awesome.
And after that long, long day, I slept soundly.
[this is a "back-post" written 2009-11-30]
When I lived in L.A., my friend Jay had a custom of going up to Zion National Park for Thanksgiving, each year, and one hear he invited me along. It became a sort of tradition for me to go to Zion each Thanksgiving. We would drive up there Thanksgiving morning, have a big dinner at the park's lodge, and do lots of hiking over the next several days, driving back on the Sunday after.
So, living in Korea, I haven't been joining Jay for Thanksgiving, but since I was back in the US, I decided for old-times' sake to join him and his other friends this year. Originally, I was going to time my around-the-country road-trip so that I could hit southern Utah at Thanksgiving, but that schedule got all messed up, somehow. And I'm too burned out on driving to go rushing out there by car, now. So tomorrow morning I'm flying to Las Vegas (which is the closest major airport to Zion) and Jay will pick me up on his way through from L.A. up to Zion. I'll spend the long weekend there, and fly back to Minneapolis on Monday. I'm excited to be going.
I'm still debating on whether to take my computer. Even if I do, I think I'll declare a 4-day "internet holiday." So there will be a few days without blog postings or answers to emails. That will be a nice change, too.
I'll post some thoughts and comments and pictures when I get back to Minneapolis, next Monday.
It was a few days early, but I was feeling very thankful last night. I had dinner with Jeffrey, his parents Randy and Barb and their daughters (his half-sisters). What’s my relation to them? It’s complicated: Jeffrey is my stepson, by my marriage to Michelle. So Randy was Michelle’s first husband, before she and I got married, and Barb is his second wife. And although we’re as different as people can be, we have a certain family-like relationship, that came about in the wake of Michelle’s death.
I feel very thankful that after Michelle died, Randy and Barb stepped up so completely to provide a healthy and relatively stress-free home for Jeffrey, as that was a very hard time for him. Of course, when Michelle and I were together, she had very little positive to say about Randy and Barb, and their relationship as “exes,” with arguments over things like visitation for Jeffrey, etc., were fraught. This is typical of such relationships, of course. The fact that when Michelle died, everyone involved (barring, perhaps, Michelle’s parents) were able to set aside those earlier acrimonies and do what was “right” for Jeffrey has always struck me as a minor miracle of human interaction. And as such, I’m very thankful.
We met for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Maple Grove that the girls (Jeffrey’s sisters, Ashley and Tiffany) like. I best recall them as around 3 or 4 years old, but now they’re 10 and 11. After dinner, we made a little parade driving in the rain and fog back up to Albertville, where they live currently, and spent some time just hanging out. The girls, especially Tiffany, asked me, spontaneously, to write their names in Korean. This was the first time I’d interacted with American kids who seemed genuinely interested in Korean culture, and as an unrepentant language geek, I was pleased to try to sound out their names and write them in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul.
The girls were fascinated, and soon had me writing the names of everyone in the room, then their friends and teachers, on scraps of paper. Tiffany’s face lit up as she suddenly realized the phonetic principles behind the Hangeul writing system, and with no timidity, she began trying to “guess” how to write various names she could think of. I was stunned and amazed – you always hear Koreans (and rarely, Westerners) talking about the simplicity of the Korean writing system, but watching a midwestern 10 year old grasp all its essential principles in under 30 minutes in a casual exchange was amazing.
Finally, I taught them a few simple phrase, such as 고맙습니다 (go-map-seum-ni-da = thank you), and Tiffany did a perfect-looking Korean-style bow and uttered it repeatedly. The whole experience felt like a charming reversal of my normal role and job in Korea, but it was additionally pleasing because Americans normally are so uninterested in foreign languages and cultures, yet here was this unassuming midwestern kid, with whom I have a “relative-type” connection (how else to explain it?) showing true interest and excitement for Korean.
Well, anyway, that was my Tuesday evening out on the prairie in the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis.
Here’s a picture of the clan – Randy, Barb, Jeffrey, Ashley, Tiffany:
Here’s a picture of Tiffany, and you can see quite clearly she’s writing her teacher’s name, Miller, sounded out in Korean letters (밀러):
