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May 26, 2007

Dog – Smog – Blog

Truth to tell, there was no smog, but I can't resist rhyming triplets.
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After a hot night with 3 fans blowing upon four shedding quadrupeds and me, the dogs and I went early down to the North Cove. No sooner had we settled on a stone bulwark than we were hailed by a petite woman with a young blue merle sheltie named Twyla. The lady, who came from Colombia, and I exchanged sheltie stories and then, inevitably, tales of 9/11. On that day she’d been alone in her apartment, a block or two from the towers, with a broken foot and her 90-year-old mother. After the attack, Battery Park was evacuated, of course, but the two women were stuck. For six long weeks, with no means of escape or communication with the outside world, they and their two shelties at the time (soon after 9/11, they contracted cancer and died) subsisted on the older woman’s supply of Ensure. When the dust settled, quite literally, they finally were rescued.
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I still hear such stories from time to time.
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The marina gradually was waking up, with bronzed sailing instructors readying a fleet of small boats arranged along the wharf like so many pointed-toe shoes. Yachts were being groomed like racehorses. Increasing numbers of people ambled about, with the inevitable container of Starbucks in hand.
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I sat near the marina wall, its two poetic snippets welded in open letters of steel in a single continuous line. Over the Whitman quote, a homeless woman, who was nursing a wounded foot just then, had hung out a copious amount of laundry to dry. Whitman’s words were all but hidden, but I could fill in the gaps: “City of the world (for all races are here. All the lands of the earth make contributions here). City of the sea! City of wharves and stores – city of tall facades of marble and iron! Proud and passionate city – mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!” On the other side of the breach, Frank O’Hara aptly proclaimed: “One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes – I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store, or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.”
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Just beyond the eloquent railing, a large walking tour in matching black t-shirts with white logos fixed its attention on a guide. He gestured to the Wintergarden, and explained how that great glass structure had collapsed along with the towers, but had been rebuilt. “And now,” he said, “we’ll go inside for a good view of Ground Zero.”

Posted by Jane on 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2007

A Tiny Observation

The New York subway system, Beethoven, and West Side Story have something in common. Beethoven was deaf and subways are deafening, but that isn't it. The subway runs on the West Side, where West Side Story takes place--but that's not it. West Side Story immortalizes the rivalry between two gangs; when Beethoven penned this concerto, Vienna was under siege by France. But war isn't it either.

What the subway, Beethoven, and West Side Story share is a little tune of three notes.

For, when almost any subway pulls out of almost any station, you hear three enigmatic tones ... which sound exactly like “There’s a Place [for Us]” by Leonard Bernstein. And exactly like -- what I believe was the inspiration for Bernstein's song -- five notes that come twenty seconds into the Adagio of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto (which came to be called the "Emperor," but not by Beethoven).

So every time I hear a train leave a station, I think of Ludwig and Leonard, two of the great "B" names in music. It goes without saying that those three notes sound on the L and B lines too.

Posted by Jane on 8:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 4, 2007

What the Flu Taught Me

Nobody wants to be sick, but I’ve just discovered that every once in a while, when it happens, succumbing to illness can prove invaluable. The busier you are, the more useful it is. For regrouping, most everyone would prefer to go on vacation, but I’ve found that illness can be a kind of vacation, if I’m willing to vacate my usual expectations and life demands. Like many people, I always have so much to do: commitments, preparations, projects, deadlines. Relief that one project is over is followed immediately by an anxiety to get the next and get to it. No time to be sick, naturally. But I got it. The flu. I would have worked my way right through the fever had I been able, but another plan was in store, and that was to go to bed and stay there, hog-tied. So in the middle of the most beautiful weather in seasons, when I would have loved to be out romping with the dogs and enjoying the tulips and wisteria -- instead, I lay in my tiny ship-captain’s room with its hull-like beams and cubbies in the wall. I stared at the golden light upon my fractional river view, watched a merry boat pass, and mentally protested. What a waste of time! What a headache! I tried to read. I tried to watch a movie. I found myself reading the Interpol warnings over and over. I tried to write and draw. They elicited crankiness. I tried to make yet more lists of everything in every category I had to take care of, and by when. But all I could do was close my eyes and be with this flu. I felt like a hobbled calf. And hog-tied. And blue. Everything hurt, even my eyes.

When I tired of my futile objections and Moebius-like conversations, I decided to replace them with simple observation. It wasn’t so hard to do, being roped down and held this way. It probably took all 30 years of my involvement with yoga to remember to stop thinking. I pretended at first that I wasn't me. I was a being breathing in a bed. I gave up my identification with everything I call myself and got past my thoughts. It was more of an adjustment than a decision, rather like squeezing, in a blink, through a gate. Where to? To an awareness of nothing, or something--a surrendering to an awareness of being aware. Physical discomfort didn’t bother me much. Matter didn't matter. The light all around made me smile. I was aware that I was aware of all of this--and without words. This felt new and nice, this awareness of being, with nothing extra. I could be in this state because, in a physical sense, I had no choice. In a spiritual sense, this was my choice. The flu had forcefully un-distracted me. Yoga lets you use anything handy as a tool.

I observed that the inner state is full, but never busy. It has no use for any of the things I chase after, like respect, relational reference points, accomplishments, disappointments, history. I felt a lovely, unconditional equipoise – no expectations, no hurry, here’s a sneeze and here’s a cough. I realized that even perfect health, without this awareness of being, is not so perfect. I was not hog-tied, or a hobbled calf. “I” was consciously drowsing in a perfect little dinghy of beingness, upon an unsounded sea.

Now I’ll have some NyQuil.

Posted by Jane on 9:25 PM | Comments (0)