Renewal

This is, I think, my favourite time of year; the short period when the buds on the trees are just beginning to unfurl into leaves, and everywhere I look I see shades of light green infusing the landscape.  This picture (taken last night on the mud flats) hardly does justice.  (Aside:  just to the left of this shot, there were two kids having sex in a field!  I wondered if they knew about the fertility rites that took place at this time of year long ago in northern Europe.  This being New Paltz, probably they did.  I should have thanked them for ensuring good crops in the coming year.)

Incense and Peppermint Chamomile

Last Monday, I taught two moderate classes at Jai Ma. And on Friday, I taught a demo Level I class across the river in Lagrange. The incense was so thick in the Lagrange studio, I smelled like I'd fallen into a vat of nag champa after Friday's class. Apart from that, I really liked the studio. It's in a strip mall! What a perfect place for a yoga studio!

The more I teach, the more comfortable I feel doing it; but I'm still having difficulty sleeping the night before.

I'm going to be teaching a class on pranayam, yogic breathing, on 13 May. Partly I'm doing this because I never seem to have as much time as I'd like during normal classes to teach and practice pranayam. Partly I'm doing this because I want more experience teaching, and I'm not getting it by subbing alone, and I don't feel ready to commit to a regular weekly class. At least not a regular weekly asana class. So... we'll see how this goes. Maybe if there's interest, I'll start teaching a pranayam class on a regular basis. Stranger things have happened.

I spent Saturday morning spreading manure on my third of the garden plot that I'm sharing with T and B. Does it say something about my feelings about my day job that I chose to spend my off time shovelling horse shit? My original plan was just to plant cheese pumpkins (which are way, way, way superior to sugar pumpkins for pie making), but I think I might plant pole beans as well. It'd be nice to have enough to freeze and enjoy throughout next winter, rather than just getting the meagre allotment of beans from my CSA share. I remembered on Saturday that I have a bag of chamomile seeds from a few years back, so I'll probably scatter those around too.

Pet peeves

Three linguistic pet peeves:

Using quotation marks to provide emphasis. Why do people do this? Quotes are for verbatim transcriptions of speech or writing, or to uniquely identify a specific phrase or word (as demonstrated in the following item). If you feel you must show emphasis in your writing, use underlining, boldface, or italics. Or, if you aspire to even higher echelons of writing quality, find a way to show emphasis through word choice and arrangement.

Prefixing the last item in a list with the word "even." This should only be done if there is some sort of poignancy or amazement value that you wish to underscore in the last list item. If the last list item doesn't stand out any more than any of the other list items do, don't prefix it with "even."

Passive voice. There are some work related tasks which require me to write passively. I hate it. It goes against everything I've ever been taught about writing.

I don't know why this bee is in my bonnet today. I know that my own writing isn't perfect. For example, I tend to start sentences with conjunctions (in my defence, though, I see this done in the New York Times almost every day). And I sometimes end sentences with prepositions (as my sister pointed out to me yesterday).

funny story

So, at the museum of nature in Ottawa, we were looking at the arctic exhibit - a display of a polar bear and her cub, and a seal poking its head through the ice. Most everyone else at the museum was speaking French. I kept wondering why I was hearing all these little kids around me swearing, and then I remembered that the French word for seal is "phoque."

Emotional landscapes

I'm back from my weekend trip to Ottawa. Had a pretty good time - walked around Parliament Hill, through the Byward Market, went to the nature museum, finally saw Passchendaele. Ate way too many jelly beans. And I discovered that Canadians take Good Friday way, way, way seriously; NOTHING was open on Friday. I mean, Wal-Mart was closed. Wal-Mart! Yes, that Wal-Mart!

On the drive north, T and I talked about emotional landscapes; how the mental maps that we make of a place do not necessarily correspond to the dry, two dimensional images that we find on Google Earth; memories and perceptions colour the map and warp distances and sizes. This evolved into a discussion of the slippery slope of assigning our own perceptions to places as if they reflected inherent values. We were driving through an area of northern New York with very little in the way of industry or economic opportunity of any sort. The first few times I drove through it (many years ago), I thought about how depressed the area was and how depressing it must be to live there. Eventually, though, I began asking myself how I knew that. I was jumping to an unwarranted conclusion; I simply don't know the experience of the people who live there. I've never met them. I've never asked.

One of my yoga teachers talks about the Sanskrit concept of shri; life-affirming. A daisy sprouting through a crack in the pavement. Butterflies on a battlefield. We tend to find happiness, beauty, joy in the least likely places.

Rolling the hard six

So... after a few months of renewed communication via email, I met with my father yesterday morning for a bike ride. We rode the rail trail out to the bridge in Rosendale; spent about two hours together. It was the first time since 2002 that I'd spent any time with him. I asked him about his job and about his siblings, and he told me a little about his health as well (his prostate cancer responded very well to treatment, and he's free of cardiovascular disease - a concern, because it runs in his family). The only question he asked me during our time together, on the other hand, was how my company keeps track of me while I'm telecommuting; i. e., how they know I'm actually working. It really felt like a continuation of the last conversation we had in 2002; him talking about himself and his beliefs and interests, and me listening. For a while yesterday evening, I considered the possibility that perhaps he was just trying to avoid any sensitive topics (and maybe this was true); but he really didn't ask me anything at all. It wasn't surprising, but it was disappointing.

I gave him my sister's email address, as she asked me to, and he seemed happy for (and surprised by) that. Perhaps she will be willing to come with me if I meet with him again.

I don't know if I'm being too harsh on him or missing something or jumping to unwarranted conclusions. It wouldn't be the first time I misread a situation. But I don't think I'm wrong here to let my memories of the past colour my experience of the present. He doesn't seem much different from who I remember, and, well, I guess that's what I have to accept if I want to continue having contact with him.

New Paltz moment

At the counter of the Muddy Cup this afternoon, patiently waiting for my chamomile. Struck by a sudden odour, I look behind me. Dreadlock guy. In chain mail. With a dog. Dog is not wearing chain mail. I sit down with my tea; he asks for a big cup of water. Margaret must be in a good mood, she gives it to him without any guff. I figure it's for his dog. Minute or two later, I'm gazing out the window. He's outside, looking at his reflection in the glass, moving a piece of plastic rhythmically over his face. I look closer. It's a disposable razor. He got the water so he could shave himself.

Still not sure what to make of this.

BSG - thoughts on the final episode

I wasn't fond of Baltar's soliloquy about god; it's not that I disagreed, per se, I just didn't think it was necessary to make it all explicit. Anyone who's watched the show should have already been able to see what the show's creators were trying to say, that god is inherently unknowable and it is ridiculous to get into a dick swinging match about whether your beliefs or someone else's beliefs are uniquely correct. So I thought it was overkill to come right out and say it. On the other hand, someone pointed out to me that this scene could be viewed as Baltar's redemption for his original sin. I'm still mulling that over. I thought his redemption came later in the show, on earth, when he told Caprica 6 that he knew a little about farming (from his father) and then started crying. But maybe that's just because I have my own kettle full of father issues.

I have mixed feelings about the fleet's decision to abandon all of their advanced technology and start from scratch on the new earth they found. On one hand, the series has been building towards that decision and arguing for it from the start; there was always a theme about the dangers of technology, that it is folly to think that our clever devices will save us. I have a great deal of sympathy with that point of view. On the other hand, could such a tremendous decision really be made without any sort of discussion and argument? Did no one object? The way that decision was made and played out just didn't seem realistic to me. Maybe a more interesting question, though, is whether I agreed with the decision. To which I say, well... sort of. There is definitely a strong anti-technological bent to my thinking. But if push came to shove, I really doubt I would be willing to walk away from all the tech and gadgetry. Most of it, yes. 99%, probably. But not all. Creative use of tools is part of what makes us human. So in that sense, I found the show's conclusion unrealistic and unfulfilling.

This is sort of a dull blog entry... sorry. I thought I'd have more to say.

Battlestar Galactica - penultimate episode

So, Adama has changed his mind, and he and his crew of volunteers (both human and cylon) are going to jump into the lion's den to try to save little kidnapped Hera after all. I like this. What an essentially human thing to do - risk the lives of many for the good of one. Courageous, irrational, hopeless, sacrificial. I know there's a bigger explanation given in the context of the show, but what I keep coming back to is many for one. This really highlights the difference between man and machine, which obviously has been a theme throughout the show. We can make decisions for emotional reasons rather than rational ones. We do this all the time. Actually, I have a theory that emotion is the driving force behind essentially all of our decisions; rationality and logic are thin veneers that we apply after the fact to keep ourselves from feeling vulnerable or foolish. The world becomes much softer and more plastic when one starts to look at it this way.

I am both looking forward to and dreading the final episode tomorrow night. There has been a lot of food for thought in this programme.

A Student of Weather - a review

I finished reading A Student of Weather by Elizabeth Hay last night. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I enjoyed her other novel, Late Nights on Air, but it was still quite good. Exceptional, in fact, for a first novel. It pleased me to no end that not only did a large portion of the book take place in Ottawa, it took place in a part of Ottawa that I know well - the square of the city bordered by Bank Street, Bronson Ave, the canal, and the Rideau River. This familiar landscape wasn't my chief source of pleasure in the book, but it was definitely a bonus.

The author's writing is strong and her story is compelling. Perhaps most importantly, the protagonist is a sympathetic character. Even at the points (there were several) when I groaned and said to myself, "She's not really going to do that, is she?" I could still understand and relate to her decisions. Love doesn't just make us crazy sometimes; sometimes it makes us wilfully ignorant or just plain stupid. We all know this, but it's hard to write such a flawed, human character without making her pathetic or one dimensional. Elizabeth Hay pulled it off well. Actually, now that I think about it, she did much the same with the protagonist in Late Nights on Air. H'mmm. I wouldn't have recognized that if I hadn't sat down to write this review. Oh, also - she's good at writing both male and female characters convincingly, which is an exceedingly rare talent and one I admire above almost any other fiction writing skill.

An excerpt from the ending that I'm particularly fond of:

She has worked her way into the heaven of her childhood. Ontario, and all it means. This is where it took so long to "make the land" - three generations to clear two hundred acres of trees and stumps and stones. This is where weary listeners fell for those mythical tales about the Canadian west - how you could plough a furrow a mile long without even striking a stone, how the feet of oxen were stained red by all the wild strawberries, how the light, dry, spicy air restored the feeblest person to health. This is the place they returned to, some of them, after drought and dust did them in.

That is the Ontario I know and love. It was the heaven of my childhood, too. Sometimes, in my depths of vulnerability and doubt, it still is.

WFMU

I finally pledged today, despite not being able to listen at home anymore (except online, which just doesn't appeal to me). Yay! Now I get to enjoy the unique fruits of smugness that come from donating to a listener sponsored radio station. Plus, I get a T shirt.

Happiness addenda

A few more things:

• Guilty pleasures, eg fashion blogs. The Cherry Blossom Girl. I'm not proud, but this does make me happy.


• The CBC.


• The simple pleasure and release of breathing through a vinyasa sequence.


• My girlfriend unexpectedly showing up with lunch.


• Nannerpus!


• 1990's Toronto music scene.

Happiness

The lousy mood I've often been in this winter has (shockingly) not been ameliorated by any of my navel gazing, hand wringing, woe is me posts, so I'm going to try something different, and list some things I'm happy about.

• Trees. In general, and also one very specifically.


• Radio drama. Afghanada (great), Canadia 2056 (okay), Monsoon House (meh)... even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.


• The hours between 8 and 10 pm, which usually find me lying on my couch, listening to the radio, falling asleep. Delicious.


• There are people who read this blog who I don't even know, and who have never commented. I don't know who they are, but Google Analytics tells me they are out there, and that's something that makes me oddly happy.


• The good people of New Paltz. I just took a walk to the library on my lunch break, and had four very different and interesting conversations with four very different and interesting people. This happens to me almost every time I step out my door. We have a great per capita of different and interesting people here.


• I have read some great books in the past year. Wall to Wall. Late Nights on Air. I Capture The Castle.


• Hiking, swimming, biking season will soon be here. Not to mention my CSA share.


• My old landlady still calls me and asks me what I'm cooking.


• My best friend in Ottawa knows I miss watching the Rick Mercer Report, and she thinks about me whenever she watches it. She even researched how to bypass the CBC's geoblocking for me.