Filed under: Imagination, Monday, Photography, Time change, Urban Landscapes
Parking Garage
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
.One.
Leaving the house, sitting in my car, just turned on. NPR talking about the upcoming elections. Sometime before 8 AM. But not much. Sun shining. The car clock is now an hour and ten minutes ahead because of the time change. The Honda is parked under the trees against the curb. I put it into reverse and back up a few feet so that I can pull out better. I shift into first gear, let up off the brakes, and the car goes backwards. Again I shift into first gear. Again the car flies backwards. I see an elderly lady with white hair and a small dog walking out from behind the car and think, “Where did she come from?” I think of going back into my boyfriend’s house and getting him to jiggle the stickshift and proclaim what’s wrong. I remember he’s still wearing nothing but blue boxers. The lady walks past me, not looking at me, and I return to the problem at hand, glancing down and realizing that all this time I’ve been putting the car back in reverse. My thermos of tea rests between the parking brake and the passenger seat cushion. It scares me a little that it took my brain this long to kick into gear and I’m a little nervous when I finally ease into first and onto the road. NPR is now listing all the businesses that have contributed during the last pledge drive. The light turns from green to red twenty feet before I arrive at it.
.Two.
Leaving the layered parking garage whose levels ribbon around each other like a genome. It was after 7 PM. The few stars you can see in Austin had already come out to decorate the urban skyline. I took the elevator to the fourth floor. It made me claustrophobic because it smelled of bleach. But I wanted to avoid the stairs and their after-scent of urine because of how the sound of your feet echoes too loudly after dark. Madmen must lurk in the stairwells. Apparently spending their time pissing down the steps because that smell has to come from somewhere, right? Fishing for the keys in my satchel, I peer down to a lower level and see an ordinary man squatting by the passenger door of a shimmery blue car. “What’s he doing?” I think. He’s just still, just looking, not exerting pressure on his limbs. I’m going to have to drive past him. Immediately I am certain that he’s casing the car and is going to steal it. And by God, I’m going to have to drive past this potential criminal. What’s he going to do if he sees a possible witness? What if he sees me now? What if I can’t find my keys in time? The experience of night in a mostly empty parking garage brings out paranoia in a girl. So if this man — dressed in a casual white collared shirt and ironed slacks — was going to steal the car, was it cowardly to call the 911 after I was back on the street, or simply reasonable? And damn, my cell phone had been beeping all afternoon because it needed to be re-charged. Nervous I slung my items into the passenger seat and started the car. As NPR came on, talking about the upcoming elections, I saw the man stand up. He stretched. He walked around to the driver’s side. He pulled out his keys. He unlocked the passenger door. As I drove past, I could hear his car starting. “Must’ve been his,” I thought and craned my neck to look at the passenger side of the car. Perfect. New. Not a scratch. I drove down the ribbon and out into the night. I look at my car clock, have a slight heart attack at the time, and then reflect that I still need to set it an hour back. “Tomorrow,” I think, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
.Three.
A friend — tall and kind and modest– comes over for dinner and a movie bearing dried figs, oriental tofu and brussel sprouts. I prepare quinoa while he chops an onion. Later, as he washes dishes and I putter around putting the dvd back in the Netflix envelope, I yawn and look at the clock in my kitchen. It hangs, ticking between an empty rice bag from Pakistan and a sheet of newspaper that was forgotten outside, pounded against concrete during a thunderstorm and now looks like artwork. It’s 10:30 PM. “Oh, wow,” I think, “I haven’t changed that clock yet. Cool. But how is it only 9:30?”
“By the way,” says my friend, “I changed the time on your clock for you. When you were busy with the quinoa. You didn’t see me doing it.”
Fresh Vegetables
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
Lunch #1: Wednesday
I went to lunch with two married men who I happened to sit next to at a conference. Out of politeness they included me in their meal plans. Like everyone else there, one was a cop and the other worked in security in the private sector. The cop had bounced his leg up and down through the entire lecture. His hair was cut short; he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt; his eyes were stone. The private sector man was full of smiles and played along with me, speaking enthusiastically about a Northeasterner’s experience of ‘fall’ in Texas.
The policeman was cordial to me but once he discovered that I worked for a criminal defense firm, I imagined the air turned chillier (and for some unknown reason the air conditioning was already going full blast). I considered putting on my coat. Put simply, I work to get the people back out on the streets that he’s worked to get into jail. We both know this but it remains unspoken. Our realities are polar opposites. Our worldviews come from different planets. And so I didn’t know how to talk to him. I have an irrational fear of tension and he seemed hard-headed. He spoke about how he couldn’t help but fall asleep when 9 PM rolled around. I said I liked to go to bed early but my friends had later hours than me which often affected this. “You better get different friends,” he told me.
I spooned salsa onto fresh-baked tortilla chips and nodded at times. I listened to both men talk about their frustrations when people get out of jail on technicalities. I tried to put in a quiet counter-point about how these aren’t technicalities, these are our rights. When my veggie enchilada arrived, I chowed it down staring at my plate. He just seemed hard. He just seemed set in his ways. He had integrity, but I wasn’t sure what that integrity allowed for. A man once told me, “Cops know how to hit you without causing bruises.” In the conference a story was told about a detective who began whaling on the suspect he was interrogating because the suspect had insulted his wife. The sentence, “It took three men to get him off the guy!” was responded to with laughter. I talked about the rain and how miserable it looked outside. We talked about the benefits of having a video in your patrol car. He talked about how he hates cops who lie, how he will tell it straight and own up to mistakes if he makes them. I told him how I appreciated that.
We rode back in his squad car. At the end of the conference, these men exchanged business cards and spoke about meeting up. “Nice meeting you,” they said to me and walked out the door. Unless I get pulled over for speeding, I will never see them again. And I wondered what they’d thought of me.
Lunch #2: Friday
I went to lunch with two men from the private sector who were sitting two tables behind me. We started speaking during a break — I was consuming my third coffee (mostly cream) — about the issue of attorneys being present during a police interview and he told me he’d worked for a public defender’s office. Immediately, I relaxed. “I don’t know attorneys who would allow this to happen,” I agreed. We and his co-worker drove to a chain Mexican restuarant down the street where we were waited on by the most obvious queen I’d seen outside the movies. With his hair pulled back into a bun and make-up on his eyes, he minced his Spanglish words into a high-pitched question mark full of kind attitude.
This time conversation was easier though the tortilla chips weren’t as fresh and I’ll admit I enjoyed these men’s interest in me. The tension this time lay not with our worldviews (although they were most likely markedly different, they allowed for eddies of understanding) but with my slight concern that the balance could get tipped.
By this I mean that a woman meeting with a man whom she would like to get to know though not on a romantic level, is always in the back of her mind trying to steer the conversation away from any potentially cloudy areas or always consciouslessly choosing the neutral interpretation of their words while feigning ignorance of the fact that the words could be read another way.
If you show too much enthusiasm in the details of my life (that I speak Spanish, that I go camping) it’s vastly different than commiserating with me over a rainy day. Don’t get me wrong either — these guys were incredibly nice and I really enjoyed their company and yes, their attention was also fun (especially after several days of trying to be inconspicuous and not let too much of my true feelings seep out). Who doesn’t feel pleased when being asked questions about themself? However, a sad but true fact: when your desperation is showing, people tend to take a few steps backwards. This is ingrained in us as human beings. It’s that balance that we strive to maintain without even knowing why. And I’ve been on both sides of the equation. I feel bad even writing this because they were genuinely nice, they were interesting and wanted to meet new people, but I felt a little guarded. I’m writing really about the minute dance steps that occur in my head during a conversation while I evaluate the person I’m speaking with — what kind of dance will this discussion require and I am I up to it?
We rode back in a rental car. At the end of the conference, we exchanged business cards and spoke about meeting up. “I’ll e-mail you,” one said to me before I walked out the door. “Yes, tell me if you both like Big Bend!” I said. And I do want to stay in touch with these men — but even as a friendship, it needs to go slowly because otherwise maintaining a balance will require too many complicated dance steps.
Lines
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
I know a man who puts items like orange juice cartons — although we all assure him they will NOT be recycled — into the blue plastic box carted onto the sidewalk every Thursday night for Friday morning pickup. “You never know,” he says, “They MIGHT recycle it…At least they SHOULD recycle it.” Every Friday afternoon the box is empty and ready for re-filling. And so the cycle begins again.
Procrastination
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
Yesterday I felt proud of myself because I went on a bike ride even though I didn’t want to. I’m convincing myself that I must do this every other day for at least 30 minutes and it’s amazing how hard this is to accomplish. The thing is, I truly enjoy getting on my hybrid and watching the world go by as I huff and puff up hills, past churches selling pumpkins and children waiting for rides home. Unfortunately whenever I try to place anything I do into the category of ‘routine,’ it’s as though I’ve made it unattainable. I might as well be seeking enlightenment. But of course, sitting down, crossing my legs and meditating towards that on any sort of basis would be a routine too. So that’s out.
I am envious of the serious swimmers who arrive at Barton Springs at 6:30 AM on the dot, of people who find time every day to study Arabic for half an hour, of those joggers that are out there even when it’s pouring and there’s a wind chill factor. They’re holding a secret, I just know it, but I’m a little nervous about asking what it is because then I might be expected to apply it to my life.
I can effect routine but it only lasts for a few weeks or a few months. There was a period of time last year where I remembered to take vitamins, make protein smoothies for breakfast and write in my journal every morning while sipping on a cup of fresh brewed chai. Then one Tuesday I thought, “Nah…I can skip a day.” And before I knew it I’d skipped a week. And then I’d completely forgotten all about vitamins and my pen hadn’t hit the pages of my journal for months.
I’m the kid who can’t sit still in her chair for fifteen minutes, the kid who can’t do the exact same thing day-in and day-out or she will explode and all the sprogs and sprockets will come bouncing out. Yet I’m also the kid who fantasizes about a life in which I get up early every morning, exercise every afternoon, make a healthy dinner every night and find time daily to spend a solid hour writing. Hey, and while I’m at it, let’s throw in some violin practice. So this is why I am excited that I’m still flossing every night, why I’m happy that I have dinner (almost) every Wednesday with two girlfriends of mine and miss it when it doesn’t happen and why I’m thrilled that I went biking yesterday because my brain was thinking, “Nah…just skip a day…what will it matter?” The sun had set by the time I was heading home, the lights were flickering on my bicycle (white in front, red behind), cars were zooming past at unconscionable speeds, my shorts and t-shirt were drenched in sweat, I had a million things to get done before the evening was over, but dammit, I’d stuck to the routine.
Filed under: Camping, Hill Country, Photography, Running Away for the Weekend, Texas, Tourists
Pretty Butterfly
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
Having grown up in a quaint island inundated with hords of visitors from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the word ‘tourist’ provokes negative connotations in my head. God forbid anyone would ever think I was a tourist! They cause traffic jams because they don’t understand rotaries; they stand on Main Street and ask you how to find Main Street. While traveling through Europe, I’d be intensely pleased if someone stopped me and asked me for directions thinking I was a local.
This weekend I traveled through Hill Country with my boyfriend. We spent the night at Garner State Park which we were told as we registered was the most popular state park in Texas. We remembered everything but a bottle opener, a sponge and salt. We thought the wind shaking our tent was rain that night. We drank tea in the morning and stared off at the hills from our campsite while I read the New Yorker and he read “How to Shit in the Woods.” We stopped for grilled cheese sandwiches in the town of Utopia (after I made us pull off and take photos outside the town’s welcome sign — seriously, how often do you get to spend time in Utopia?). We went on a hike through Lost Maples watching the late afternoon sun set off the lime greens of the leaves; they had barely begun turning but it was reported that a few weeks ago, a tree in the parking lot began celebrating autumn with reddish hues. Sadly, we looked for it and it had changed its colors yet again, this time to a dead brown.
And it was somewhere as we drove through the landscapes listening to Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler, as I stared contentedly at yellow grasses rolling in the wind like an ocean and hills on all sides, that I realized that while it was ridiculously beautiful, I could never live around there. I’d be bored I think and feel constrained by small-town life. I would cease oohing and aahing over purple clouds over green trees, and slowing down when driving past grazing buffalo.
But as a tourist, everything was new and different and lovely; I breathed it all in and at night I couldn’t stop staring at all the stars in the sky, thousands more than you ever get to observe in Austin. When I lived in Nantucket, I could extol all the attractive virtues of my hometown, but I don’t think I had any capacity for appreciating it until after I left. And so, I thought, as we began our 3 hour and 40 minute drive home, that we all need to spend some time being a tourist because that’s when we best appreciate all the beauty surrounding us. It’s then that we allow our eyes to recognize the remarkable instead of relegating it to the mundane and walking right past without a second glance. So, okay fine: this weekend I was a tourist and damn happy to be one. And then I was only too pleased to return to Austin to things I knew, like my comfortable bed.
Glasses
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
At age six, I found a pair of thin plastic light green imitation glasses and wore them everywhere. They were as bendy as a Gumby toy, had no frames and it was evident that they were intended for dress-up. Still, I wore them religiously and remember feeling quite pleased with myself as I sat at the kitchen table and my mother taught me how to write in our homeschool lessons. (In April of that year, I entered first grade at our local elementary school, wanting, I guess, to be around my peers).
The concept of glasses represented everything that was studious to me. And since I was the kind of kid who in second grade thought it would be fun to sit at a desk and quietly fill out a workbook, I craved them. Since I grew up without a TV and parents who encouraged creative expression and playing in the backyard for hours on end with my brother, I think that I exoticized an old-fashioned image of rigid rules and repetitive homework. Clearly I couldn’t possibly have flourished or even understood that kind of environment, but that must have been why I found it intriguing.
It was sometime in college that I first realized that if I sat too far back in the classroom, I couldn’t read (without some serious squinting) what the teacher was writing on the board. I’d tried my mother’s glasses on a few times and was amazed at how sharp signs suddenly became. Still, it wasn’t until a year after I graduated that I finally broke down and went into Lens-Crafters in Hyannis for a solution to nearsightedness. All of a sudden I could make out the different leaves on the trees across the street! I walked all the way back to the ferryboat that would carry me home to Nantucket with these glasses on, because it was so much fun to see how sharp and detailed the world at a distance had become.
And the ironic thing is, although I do think the glasses make me look studious (my six-year old self would be so thrilled), I can’t possibly read a book with them or have a conversation with people because my eyes would hurt like hell. Apparently, I’m stuck looking like an intellectual only while driving down the highway and listening to NPR or watching a movie at a theater.
Filed under: Clothing, Dreams, Fast Asleep with an Overactive Imagination, Photography, Small Things That Take on Epic Proportions
Bored 2
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
I discovered in a dream that the spiffy new shirt I was wearing had become too short at the wrists. If I let my arms hang limp, it was fine, but if I felt the need to move or stretch, the cuffs shot up towards my elbow. I was distraught. I had just bought the shirt. I’d washed it only once in a cold cycle. A friend tried to comfort me saying it wasn’t that noticeable. I didn’t believe her and wondered whether I could go through the day without bending my arms.
Driving home late at night through rain drenched Austin: it’s pouring. Your windshield wipers are functioning tonight and the car windows aren’t fogging up. Instead of worrying about crashing, you can watch fat drops building puddles in potholes when you pause at a stop sign.
And the most beautiful thing to drive through is the reflection of all the lights — the reds, yellows and greens of stoplights, the whites and oranges of Walk and Don’t Walk signs, the whites of streetlights and car lights — all reflecting on the wet jet black streets, reflecting like thick paint strokes, mixing with each other like watery paint dripping down a canvas, shining and lighting up the night.
You wait at a long stop light. No cars are even passing on the main thoroughfare, the street is desolate except for your vehicle. You’re happy that the next stop is your comfy bed, but until the light turns, you’re content to watch raindrops dance with smudgy green strokes on the boulevard.
Filed under: Birds on a Wire, Clouds, Moments of Grace, Photography, Urban Landscapes
Birds on a Wire
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
Majestic clouds and birds on a wire silhouetted against a blue sky always make life seem more meaningful. Majestic clouds are mauve on the bottom; they are fluffy; dappled setting sunlight highlights their undulations. I see birds perched on telephone wires or their flapping wings against a darkening sky. They arrest me momentarily as I stare up in awe and forget everything else for a second or two.
Then I’m back driving north on I-35, a little more relaxed, a little less bothered about sweating in work clothes in a car without air-conditioning, less sad thinking about the woman with a sick child and a husband in jail who cried in my office today, about the mother who began sobbing about the possiblity of her son doing prison time. I offer them tissues and say, “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.” I smile as rows of street lights position themselves in front of these majestic clouds. Even the highway becomes attractive when framed by them. I don’t even mind (at least until tomorrow) that it’s getting dark and it’s not yet 6:30 PM.
Little birds fly across the clouds in the sky and I remember reading Iris Murdoch back in college. She wrote about these moments — like watching a bird in flight — that help us momentarily to transcend our big fat egos. She says, “Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.” I can’t say that I can get past the “self” for a large period of time, but at least there are these moments, when I forget to think about ‘me’ for a moment or two. And then of course, I catch myself and realize that I’ve gotten lost in life outside me. And as I watch myself from an objective distance, the moment is lost. But it’s okay, the sky is still beautiful and I feel better.
Filed under: Dreams, Fast Asleep with an Overactive Imagination, Photography
Hinge
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl.
The quaint cobblestoned streets of my dream were populated with dangerous gang members. They clustered under the deep shadows of trees, you could still see the glowing whites of their eyes.
I ran through dark groupings of men avoiding their threatening hands to the door of my house, and locked it behind me. These thugs, with evil eyes and quiet malicious laughs began gathering on the porch, knocking on the door, swarming. The latch was merely symbolic, with a little push they could open the door wide enough to flick the latch off, letting it rattle.
I ran about the house shutting and locking windows and re-latching the door each time their fingers played with it. My father stood about calmly, not particularly worried as though impassively observing an incoming tsunami instead of running. Neither response really mattered, given that they could easily break the door down. There was no lock strong enough in the place to keep them out, and I could not go out to seek one because they were there, lurking and watching.
I stayed up all night, knowing that I couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t let my guard down for an instant, or I might find them crawling through the lace curtains that shimmered in the breeze. In the morning my father set about creating a blockade at the porch: bureas and tables and large bookcases. It was now impossible to walk up the stairs. “But they can climb up the sides of the porch!” I yelled. My father did not seem concerned. He smiled complacently. The bags under my eyes felt heavy and I could not see an end in sight.
