The Importance of the Background and the Everlasting Image

The cherry blossoms came early this year. We had a 70 degree couple of days, and the two trees across from my apartment were in instant bloom. Huge, full of pink and white blossoms. It usually happens like that with me. I'll be so busy and preoccupied with life that all of a sudden I'll take a look outside and see an explosion of color against a bright blue sky.

It's so picturesque.

Cherry blossoms from down on the Mall from a couple years back.

I only drove by the Tidal Basin on Wednesday on my way to work, and most of the trees were still sealed up, cozy in their buds, awaiting a warm day to start to come out. I don't know if they're in bloom yet, I haven't been back down there to check. The colors of the trees on that Wednesday did make me do a double take. It was such a burgundy maroon color. Such a dark red, but not the winter brown of a foliageless tree. The hue of red suggested a pensiveness for the entire collection of branches. Like they were spring-loaded, waiting for the far flung radiation from our purveyor of life to energize the atmosphere above the right threshold. Those springs were still so, so patient, their thermocouples still obeying the cold, still holding their connections. 

All of this was conveyed via that comforting, all embracing deep red-purple of the branches swaying in the gentle breeze as stop-and-go traffic shuttled me to work that day.

 

 

The sunset in question is to the right of the photo, but the light on Mount Saint Helens was so much more interesting to look at.

I like the grandeur, the dazzling, the spectacle. It is fun to look at. Engaging, exciting, entertaining. There have been many times I've climbed to a mountaintop, shuffled up the dunes, or simply relaxed by the sawgrass to enjoy a beautiful sunset. The colors, the vistas, and awe of it all always pleases my senses. But I also always ensure to turn around and to examine the 360 degree observation. Like taking a photo sphere, but in real life.

 I usually find myself lost in gradients that sit in the background. The seamless transitions of photons interacting with the cones of your eyes. There are rarely bands back there, no defined edges, no lines. Yet somehow the color does change. No matter at what point you look there is no boundary, but nonetheless, move your eyes to another patch of sky, and there will be a different color there.

But it's the more subdued nature of the background that I like as well. The less flashy, quieter and more reserved of nature. The stuff that doesn't make the pictures.

The view backwards from the sunset at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.

I've always been a fan of appreciating the background. It's unsung, hidden, almost a collection of its own away from the main attraction. There are multitudes of stories back there, just waiting to be heard, to be seen, to be experienced. Back there is a refuge for those who don't like the spotlight, for those who need a safe place to be. An accepting place to be. A place that has no expectations of what you should be, only that you... are. 

The main act is pretty, it is flashy, but it also are the ideals to which others expect beauty. You go to see a sunset, you kindle disappointment when it's cloudy. You drive on the Parkway only for the vistas to be covered in mist and for the drive to be cold and soggy. You try to get the perfect picture of the cherry blossoms on their branches, only to discover they've all been blown off the trees.

A misty day at Clingman's Dome in Tennessee

I like to see the aura of muted colors that give the clouds their unique light as the sun disappears under the horizon. The enchantment of the forest as you can see the water hang in the air, like a curtain protecting the forest and embracing you along with it. The blossoms that coat the ground like snow and provide such a sweet fragrance to accompany the beautiful vibrant leaves you stroll under. There is beauty in the remnants, as much as there is excitement in the actual occasion itself. An image that lasts onward even though the time is done, but somehow carries forward into the future.

Making it Through Alive

I volunteered today at Peirce Mill. It's hard to remember that I've been volunteering down there since 2017 or so. It's hard to believe that in two years I will have been in our nation's capitol for a decade. I don't like the passage of time. It terrifies me.

But at the same time there are everyday moments where I'm sitting and thinking to myself: I think things will turn out alright. Like when petting the cats, or just enjoying a quiet time sitting out in the brisk 55 degree day waiting for visitors to walk up to me. When it seems like all the ills of the world melt away, and I forget that I am a being who, like all things in this world that I hold close and dearly, will eventually perish.

I tend to go through these swings whenever I am having a great time: In those instant moments with others, I detach myself from the constant entropy that is straining to separate my molecules, and instead I am engrossed in the joy of the laughter, the company, and the assembly of whatever collective I find myself in. I am completely oblivious to the four dimensional pressures constantly issued upon my body and my soul. Only afterwards, once the moment has passed and I am back by myself, do I collapse in my own brain and try to not shutter at the fact that all of this will end. It's a yo-yo effect that I don't like to experience, but one that is necessary if I want to try and make it through this thing alive.

I've also found times of peace when I am with myself. A while back I found myself stuck with a bunch of very fine medically sterilized needles inserted not even a couple millimeters into my skin. (Yes, this is something I willingly subject myself to on a biweekly basis, and it seems to actually help, although I can by no means explain nearly the beginning of how it works.) Anyways, sitting in the chair, I started thinking masks we wear to perform for the infinite types of situations and people we find ourselves around through our lives. Then a heady kind of thought came to me: What if, at the end of the day (or year, or season of life, or hell, life in general) we come home to ourselves and store the masks we've been wearing, only to find:  

There is no true mask that lies underneath. 

What if we have no true, authentic self? 

I get this feeling sometimes when I get a chance to stop having fun, or stop fretting about the ultimate frivolity of all experience. I'll be sitting in the recliner, or laying in bed, and just not put another mask on when I'm with myself. I become this nebulous white noise of a mind, mostly empty, but still conjuring little flitters of feelings every now and then: 

• A concern about something I need to do here
• A twinge of nostalgia about times lost to me there
• My lower back being grumpy and not shutting up about it
• Concern about me not wanting to do stuff I like to do, and being worried it's a new season of depression with the debut episode
  

It's not a complete emptiness of my experience, but a quieting down of the constant stimulus that fills my reality. And once I can shush the sparks of neurons firing away up there in that grey matter, I try to remind myself that: Yes, it is okay to be white noise for a bit. It's okay to just hangout, and, I don't know, just be a rock.

It's comforting. It's not a state I want to be in forever, but it reassures me that changing back from the white-noise-state to another obligation of life is guaranteed, and will happen, and that while it seems daunting to shift back over, I'll want to eventually.

The familiarity of the life that I've settled into is scary. It's not scary because it's something new, but because it's something I'm enjoying more and more by the day. I never thought I would root this much, and my teenage self is still inside my brain screaming for me to stop. I promised myself I would never come to this, let alone actually... Like it. But every day it seems to worm its way farther into my consciousness: 

"You are doing great." 

"You live in a place you like." 

"You have friends you love and adore."

"You are secure."

And the kicker (for me) being that most of these things are made wholesomely true through the collective that has gathered around me and that I've chipped in to help build. I have forged relationships with others that are unlike most out there in the world. Our collective is constantly working to secure our foundations against atomic separation, and to keep those molecules linked together because: We have built something that works for us. And by god, while none of us make it out of here alive, we can make it through alive.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, There is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.


This Rumi poem came to my mind (as cliché as it is) recently when thinking about binaries. The machine I'm writing this on right now uses binaries for operations, but so much of our world falls outside of the realm of two options. One could argue that even the transistors within this machine are also not a simple "OR" gate. The stream of energy that moves between the two end points can be broken down into a Zeno's paradox of motion when an outside electrical force is applied. The distances become ever smaller, but is there ever an absolute resolution when you have an infinite number line?


It is comfortable to believe there are fixed states- but what we know of the universe so far shows us that unchanging possibilities only clarify once we look. That's just my cursory understanding of it at least. I don't think the fields can be used to create straight up magic acts of healing or miracles, but I do believe in the proliferation of entanglement. I like to believe that the bonds we build between elements means something, and can affect the world, even if it is in miniscule, almost undetectable ways. Actions and intentions do matter, whether those be entwinements be electrical paths via our neurons (or possibly even smaller structures), or the more complex acts of vulnerability and experiences we forge with others.


Another good metaphor for this experience could be rainbows, and their indelible bands of colors that have no defined borders. A spectrum of light our retinas can detect when light passes through water droplets, seemingly starting and stopping with whatever range our cone cells within our eyes can handle. We know there are more bands though, well beyond what we can see, and it expands forever into the expanse from the warmth of life-giving combustion 23 minutes away. Connections between atoms that permeate into the infinite, radiating forever.






The beauty of human connections is that they mimic these natural connections. The range of relation holds no endpoints and no finalities as long as consent is granted from the parties, and the electrons can be shared or even exchanged between the individuals. Bonds can be formed in many ways: in passing exchange, in linked chains, or complex folded proteins that twist upon themselves. It takes knowledge and creation to figure out exactly how those attachments work. Sometimes you need to write the communication manual yourself, but often there are existing foundations that will lend you a hand. And sometimes the manual need not be specific, as long as there is agreement amongst all that: Yeah, things are undefined, but we think that's the best way to go about it right now.


And all things change. Those very particles that only settle once observed all have the probabilities to end up somewhere else- on another path, on another destination. Consensus about their connections is not set upon the firmament, to be unchanging forever. It is malleable. The instructions can show you how to unwind those strands; how to rearrange them; or how to let them go. We create our own guides.






But thinking about it too much can draw oneself away from that field. It is okay to accept that your connections are complex, lie in the middle of that meadow, and let your ideas, language, and phrases not make sense.

Good Friday & The Like

On April 14th I attended the Good Friday service at All Souls, Unitarian in Washington DC. It was a tenebrae service, based upon a tradition of worshiping in the shadow of the cross, in the darkness of the crucifixion. I did not know what to expect, but what I experienced was very powerful, and awe-inspiring. The combination of the church's organ and soloist with the story of death, betrayal, and fear affected me. My main focus was not of Judas's kiss, nor Peter's denial.

I focused on Jesus' fear of death.

How he threw himself down in prayer in the garden, asking if his betrayal and death be passed on. How his disciples fell asleep and could not stay with him in his time of thought and need. Jesus was alone with his thoughts of impending death, praying three times, checking in on his disciples between each prayer, and seeing their weakness. I cannot even begin to fathom his spirit's condition at that moment. But I do see a glimmer of my own fear of death and passing on.

It comforts me to see someone as highly regarded and holy as Jesus Christ have a fear of death. So often through the Midwestern narrative of Christianity, Jesus is portrayed as the all and ever loving idol who teaches the unrelentingly loving message of God. There is nothing wrong with him in the least. He holds no anger (except that one time in the Temple), he loves all people unconditionally and without pause, and he teaches lessons that I would eventually use myself.

But during the time in the garden we see Jesus scared and fearful. He is not stoic about his responsibility. He asks if his duty can pass. He agonized over his future death for three hours, at least. This scene allows me to relate to Jesus. While I do not know if my death is imminent, it is comforting to see a holy man fear his death. Many a-time I've stared at the ceiling in the dark after a long day and wondered why I must die as well. What does that mean for me, and the future of eternity after I'm gone? This usually happens after I've had a good day. I wonder why I have to leave this wonderful earth and all of it's beautiful inhabitants.


And then there is the actual moments leading up to, and involving the death of Jesus. Depending on what/how you read the story you will hear different things, but two things stand out to me:

The moment before death where Jesus calls out: "E′li, E′li, la′ma sa‧bach‧tha′ni?", which is translated from Aramaic to: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" This moment means a lot to me. It is a show of desperation from Jesus, and really sends shivers down my back every time I read it or think about it. In his final moments Jesus calls aloud his abandonment in his time if need, and his leaving of his earthly body. Even while he accepted his responsibility in the garden, he still showed his desperation before his death. It just makes me hesitate for a moment, and I hope I can come to terms with my mortality before my passing, and that I will not be fearful.


The second item that brings me hope though is something that sticks with Jesus' all-encompassing love. It is earlier on when he says "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This phrase connects directly in support of the idea of radical love. Radical love is the method of social change I subscribe to. Radical love is believing that every single human being is good, and that only through an appeal of love and forgiveness can we bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice. The idea/phrase is most associated with The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. and his efforts for justice in the civil rights movement of the 1960's. But there was a reason Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist Reverend first, and a Doctor second.

But back to Jesus. This moment of radical love shows the emphasis Jesus places on loving everyone, even if they are the ones to crucify him. To me, the fact that through all of his agony, and through all of his trials, he still holds radical love for his executioners, and that they should be forgiven because they have been misled and they hold only a veil of anger and hatred over their ultimately Good souls.

I think that is why I like All Souls and Unitarian Universalism (UU) so much. The UU faith has no dogma, nor canonical literature, but we do have our seven principles, and those come from a plethora of religious backgrounds and faith traditions. Those seven principles guide my life, and help me to carryout the best I can do in my everyday life. They include:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person
2. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a apart

To me Jesus' story is one of hope and offers a wonderful reflection of a mortal man who had everlasting love for people. It fits directly into the Unitarian Universalist narrative. I've always had a tinge of cynicism about Christianity, especially how it is used sometimes in modern contexts. Yet, there is a way that Jesus' love, messages, and teachings really get to me. I'm not exactly sure of a definitive higher power that gives intentionality to life. But because Jesus claims be the son of that God, I have hope that, if that power is out there, they are an ever-present love that emanates across life.

All Souls, Unitarian DC. Easter Sunday service. Packed to the gills with people, guy playing the organ, choir singing. It was a beautiful day, if not a little warm, and I enjoyed the service very much.

Friendship and Reliance on Others

Those of you who know me really well may know that while I may be happy much of the time, I struggle a lot with confidence and sometimes I can get into some pretty large swings of negativity and self-doubt. This entry is a short addendum to the main blog post I put up over on my main blog "Washington to Washington". Click on the title there, or you can check out the most recent blog post here: "Capital Bikeshare and Exercise in the District"

I tend to rely heavily on friends when I enter into these spirals, and I have one specific friend to thank to bring me out of the negativity after I received the diagnosis of pre-diabetic. I will not name her here because I'm not sure if she wants to be mentioned in this blog, but needless to say I have her to thank for getting me up and out to do some sort of activity.

I try to appreciate and keep up with my friends, but I've been doing a really bad job of it lately. I know I'm not on Facebook as much as I should be, and I'm not as responsive as I should be when friends contact me. I can't make excuses for myself, but I can try to acknowledge some of the great times and people I've been missing since I graduated and we all went our separate ways.

College is still a time I look back upon nostalgically. Yeah, the last days of college were over three years go, but I still remember many a nights playing Rock Band and Mario Kart on the Wii, and dragging Magic The Gathering games out for hours. But the smaller instances are starting to fade. Like many of the great times in Gladfelter, and the in jokes and experiences I had when I was a freshman and sophomore. That was almost over 7 years ago now. Four years in college seemed at the time to last forever. But then the day came when I had to say goodbye to the campus, and leave my room for one last time. That was a weird night. I relied on my roommate and one of my best friends for that.

I also remember the many times at Waffle House at 3 in the morning with a couple of guys. We'd go out after hours of game play, and we'd sit at the bar and eat our breakfast plates and drink our coffee.

One of my fondest memories was driving around with friends. Be it to get a game, see a new place, or simply go into town. I loved to be with so many people.

I would call myself an introvert, but introvert in it's true form of the word. I'm not one who is shy or ambivalent about going somewhere (although I would say I sort of am now being alone a majority of the time), but one who needs to recharge after being in a demanding social situation. It doesn't mean I dislike the social situations. I just need a break from them every now and then.

This blog is more of a rambling stream of consciousness style rather than anything too thoughtful and constructed. I did have a negative section here, but I decided to take it out because I really wasn't in the mood to share my low feelings. It's been a couple of days, and I've read over this a little more, and realize that life is good, and that while bad things have been happening, we have victories as well. And I really need to take more time to look and reflect more on those instead of living in the past.

Needless to say, thank you to all of my friends who I have relied on in the past and keep touch with me to this day. I know I may be more hidden and holed away now more than ever, but you all still play such a huge role in my life, and I couldn't imagine a world without you all.

Columbus, COTA & Race

I went on an adventure today.

Columbus has always been a looming city over my small town mentality. In all of my exploring of cities around the country, and around the world, I never really took time to get to know the city that has been closest to me for the longest. My mentality of discovery never seemed to apply to Columbus.

It is probably because I grew up here. I was raised in the time when the media only portrayed the city as the "bad place" where the "bad things" happen. Where people who were different from me would do bad things to me if I went anywhere near where they lived. There was always a "bad" part of town, and rarely was there a "good" part of town. The line was solid and bold. There was an "us versus them" attitude. Yet I left to go explore other cities that held the same connotation.

Once I made it out, I had the culture and the media dampened from my senses. No longer was the city a "bad" place, and the countryside a "good" place. The dichotomous perceptions fell apart and fractured. I wasn't hemmed in by my surrounding culture anymore, and I was free to explore and discover. Yet I started small.

I stayed within the small comfortable zone of our college campus for a while when I first started at Warren Wilson. The whole experience of going to college was such a huge impact for me that I couldn't start exploring quite yet. When I eventually made it to Asheville, my drive for uncovering "place" really began.

My first bus ride in was exhilarating, yet terrifying. I had never been on a public bus before! Show your ID to the driver, and that's it? Okay, well I take it I'll know when I get into the city. I don't know exactly where I'm going. Wait. The bus doesn't stop at every stop? How will he know when I want to get off? Well crap. I reached the end of the line, at the terminal, with no idea/clue of the city I was in.

Secretly I enjoyed every minute of it.

Asheville remained the largest city I routinely visited for four years. I thought it was everything a city should be. It had everything! A transit system, a vibrant downtown, lots of shops, festivals, and really great food. Then I moved to Vancouver, Washington.

The population difference still astounds me to this day. Asheville, the hub of it all for the Blue Ridge Mountains only clocks in around 87,000 people. Whereas Vancouver adds up to over 160,000. It is so much more, that you have to add a new place to the number. Yet it did not feel as vibrant as Asheville. Nowhere as unique, vibrant, or exciting. There are two areas of Vancouver worth talking about for any middle class white person: Uptown and Downtown. Asheville had Prichard Park, Lexington Avenue, West Asheville, the River Arts District, the Grove Arcade, along with several within-easy-driving-distance outlying communities like Black Mountain, Fletcher, Woodfin, and Weaverville.

Needless to say, Vancouver was not the city I was expecting it to be. The city was too residential, and not unique enough. While it was larger than Asheville, I felt trapped by it's size. In the interim I've explored all kinds of cities on short notice. I spent six weeks in Barcelona, and found refuge in Portland (across the river from Vancouver.)

Seattle, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, New York City, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Chicago, Omaha, Cleveland, Wheeling, Knoxville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Tampa, Spartanburg, Birmingham, Saint Louis, Dublin (Ireland), Charlotte, Virginia Beach, Charleston (West Virginia), Tarragona, Huntington. These are just some of the cities I've visited, passed through, and explored.

Yet here I was in Columbus. On a bus riding down Livingston Avenue, going for an adventure once again.

The landscape of east Columbus is quite striking. First you pick up the bus at a Park & Ride in Reynoldsburg, a nice suburban town with little pedestrian infrastructure but overall nice layouts. Crossing into Whitehall you then get the glimpse of what white flight can do to a neighborhood. Houses are boarded up, crumbling, and the bus violently shakes with the potholes in the ill-kept road. Businesses have bars over the windows to prevent break-ins, and are painted with that 70's shade of white that is not quite there. As if on queue though, this is where the bus picks up the most amount of it's riders.

Up to this point, I am the only white rider on the bus. It was apparent that I was the odd man out. But not many people seemed to mind, and while I was uncomfortable (for reasons I knew very well of, and talk about in other posts), I enjoyed feeling unsettled. It offered me a chance to reexamine myself, and to ask: Why do I feel this way?

While I can't speak for other routes or services, it is clear to me that on the East side of Columbus, COTA is mainly utilized by people of color. I did not see anyone remotely close to my skin color on the entire route. We passed right through the affluent (and white) Bexley, and didn't pick up a single person. Why don't white people ride the bus here? In Vancouver there were lots of white people who rode. Granted, they were lower on the income scale, but maybe it is because of demographics?

Actually, just researching this, I got a new clarity on demographics. Columbus' population is 28% black, where Vancouver's population is only ~3% black. Even enlarging the region to include Portland would explain the demographic gap: Portland's population is 6.8% black. That would explain why I was the only white guy on the bus.

Or would it?

While the proportions may be a large influence, there was still an inconspicuous lack of white people on other routes I took around town. Why aren't white people riding the bus?

Let's get real folks. It's race. Remember that feeling I talked about at the beginning of this entry? Where the city was "bad" and the country was "good"? That was good ol' rural American racism talking. When we saw terrible things on the news, it always included people of color. The good stories always focused on white people. Where I was raised was the reason that, even though I have exposed myself to all kinds of people, I felt uncomfortable on the bus. It runs deep. And I'm working against that which my culture hammered into me when I was young.

And it doesn't reside solely in rural America. I would guess the exact same reason is why we did not stop in Bexley, and why I was so often the only white face on the buses throughout that day.

And I love the fact that I can go and observe and learn. Because it makes me a better person. I would recommend others do the same. Go take a bus ride around your town and simply look. Listen to the people on the bus, their stories, and their struggles. Go eat some food you've never tried before. Experience others.

Travels, Work & Updates

Over this past couple of days I drove my sister back down to Tulane University in New Orleans for her to resume her freshman year of college. I didn't quite know what to get from this kind of journey because I had a rental car, did a lot of night driving, and visited Mammoth Cave again for a second time.

Let's get the exciting trip stuff out of the way first:

At Mammoth Cave I took a more detailed cave tour than I did the first time i was there. The tour was the Dripstones & Domes tour, and led down 300 feet of vertical cave shafts and across a long cave passage to the Frozen Niagara formations, and back out the other side of the ridge. It was quiet a spectacle to behold.

Sadly I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy being in awe of everything around me. Also I've been developing this question of why I should take pictures when I should be experiencing what I am doing in full when I am doing it. (But that is for another post.)

As a compensation, have a picture of me driving the rental across one of the last rural ferries in the Eastern United States:

After visiting a creepy church built in 1842, we drove down to Birmingham, stayed the night in a hotel, and then the next day to New Orleans.

I moved my sister in, and then we went to a nice dinner and had some delicious ice cream among the mid 60 degree weather. I booked an Airbnb for the stay that night, and then in a small suburb south of Nashville called Spring Hill for the drive back North. While in New Orleans I did meet a really sweet cat outside my Airbnb whose name was Fergal, and was so docile and wanted attention. Sitting down on the porch, petting him, enjoying the damp, cool air, and hearing the bustle around me. I was truly happen then, and just wished I could keep that fleeting feeling.

The pretty Fergal baby. This was the only time I could get a good picture of him,
other times he just kept rubbing up against my arm.

All in all it was an uneventful drive back North; the same way I'd come with a little deviation to Jackson, Mississippi because I thought I'd be able to drive the Natchez Trace Parkway back to Nashville. I didn't end up driving it because it had gotten too dark by then.



So the search for work goes on. I am in a bind because i want to be in a place that values work and where the employees are dedicated, enthusiastic, and invested in what they are doing. The places with job openings are old, traditional, and/or status quo, and I usually don't have the experience to apply.

The places I want to work don't have open positions, or haven't responded to the one's I've applied to.

I'm worried there will never be a place I want to work. I'm worried that all of the places out there are dedicated volunteers working for little to no pay, or are miserable desk jobs that sustain a living. That there is no equal medium. But I try to not let that worry me too much. I just have to keep saying I will find something. (I mean it's only been a couple of months, so I really shouldn't be worrying too much yet.)



As for my personal life: I don't know what to really think. The holiday depression comes and goes, and I take solace in the fact that there are people out there who love me, and care about how I am. Now that I am in a hopefully short transition between two points in my life, I am reevaluating what decisions I've made, and how I can go forward from those decisions to try and make things better.

I also keep telling myself that it is my brain that plays these tricks on me, and that I need to keep up with the checks I have in place to make sure I can reign it back in to a manageable level and get my headspace back on track. I need to muster up the effort needed to overcome my apathy and get some shit done.


I feel as though there should be some nice ending to go here that is all inspiring and stuff, but I can't quite seem to get anything. I'm sure things will turn up. Just gotta give it time.