umamitsunami

There are some really nice pieces in the Comme des Garcons for H&M collection.

http://www.hm.com/us/#/cdg/

Friends are getting in line at 9am Thursday in San Francisco to check it out. I wish I could but a) I have a busy week at work and b) I hate other people and c) I especially hate other people shopping. Oh well! It’s not as if I really *need* more clothes anyway. Instead I should really try to clean out my closet.

how does one do it? in glassmaking the glass is heated and then slowly cooled to remove the stresses caused by heating and shaping. when the process is over one is left with a flawless glass vessel, clear and unclouded and able to better withstand changes in temperature. it become more durable; serenely impervious.

i thought i was on my way to doing that, too. it’s a good model to follow, isn’t it? but the other night revealed to me that my heart is far from becoming the solid glass vessel i want it to me, capable of holding all the love without breaking.

yes, the other night my heart shattered (again) and now i’m in the tedious process of putting it back together.

P.S. dear friend, how could I forget the way the ocean changes with the turn of the earth? In summer it is a calm deep royal blue, shimmering under a rich azure sky. In June and July, when the fog rolls in, the sky is veiled by moisture in the morning and by afternoon, a rich turquoise emerges. As we turn from October to November a steel cast silvers the waters of the bay, and out on the sea, white foam and higher waves fleck the blue. The sky is a pale crystal blue, more trasnparent and more clear that in the summer, and the white moon lingers in the mornings as if she’s forgotten to set.

Friends from the midwest or east coast mock Californians like me who speak of “fall” and “winter” when the sun still shines and children play on the sidewalk in shorts. I understand, and I don’t resent it; after all, you grew up dazzled by the spectacle of the changes of the seasons. As summer fades, the leaves burn ablaze with fire and gold, and then vanish almost overnight at the onset of winter, leaving dry detritus on the streets for boots to crunch on. And then comes the sudden blanket of pure cold white, mixed with icy water pouring from thunderous clouds. You wouldn’t think of stepping outside in your winter without a practical, durable coat, preferably zip-up (if you’re from Chicago) so that the cruel wind can’t sweep its way in past buttons or toggles right into your bones. And when spring comes, fresh green leaves reach out tenderly towards a pale sun and flowers burst forth like firecrackers, overwhelming you with their colors and scents after the sensory deprivation of winter. You are almost dizzy with the abundance of new pleasures. And when the air grows hot and heavy and redolent of not only pleasant scents, but also the stink of the city, you throw off your cocoons of wool and down and you cavort around town in a mere slip of a dress or in thin shirts and tin pants, to expose as much skin to the sunshine as possible.

I’ve seen glimpses of these transformations, and yes, they are breathtaking. The morning that I awoke in Montreal to a light dusting of snow was pure magic, to me; in Kyoto when the parks are carpeted in the gaudiest colors nature has to offer, I was stunned by their beauty. Summertime in New York City feels like a never-ending carnival of pleasures.

But to my perception, anyway, these extremes are flashy, almost garish; sensually exciting, but almost too much, like a rich chocolate cake one can’t help gorging on, or a musky deep perfume that pervades a little too strongly in the air.

Here in northern California, one must be more sensitive; one is attuned to the subtleties of the seasons. Like a connoisseur of anything fine and rare, one feels the passing of time in the angle of the light, in the shift in the breeze, in the quality of the air, in the gentle muted wash of colors on the hills… green in the winter, fading to brown and then bright gold as the grass dries.

My favorite moment is when we are poised at the threshold of autumn. It takes longer than on the east coast, in my experience; autumn is shy to approach and comes slowly by degrees. We are in that moment now. Summer, as you may know, comes late to the bay area — we are right now in that liminal, ambiguous space between the high summer of late september and the onset of october’s coolness. like a girl who can’t decide what to wear, the weather changes daily, almost hourly; warm enough by day to sit outdoors in the shade and drink a tall refreshing sparkling beverage, but in the evenings cool enough to cozy into a sweater and fall asleep under a heavier blanket. But the change is unmistakeably there to us, who know how to look for it, even when the temperature feels similar to august’s warmest days. It is most pronounced in the angle of the light, particularly after the equinox when we are hurtling towards the winter solstice, and the daylight hours seem to melt away with increasing rapidity. The sun’s arc shifts to a deeper angle, and noontime passes more quickly into the afternoon, with its indirect light and deeper shadows.

And how to describe that new scent in the air? It has a bite to it, as the wind shifts direction — it smells faintly of burned wood from the late summer fires, it smells cool and fresh and arid, lacking that green wet fertile smell of spring and summer. It smells of dried leaves, not new grass; smells of the ocean, not ripe fruit.

My fellow Californians can sense these, and accordingly there is a change in mood, a shift in feeling. Scarves emerge — light cotton scarves, scarves that don’t necessarily add much to warmth but which are in homage to the autumn, as if encouraging her to come forward. Boots, too, appear, but on bare legs of carefree girls who match them with light floral dresses or jeans and tshirts. The colors alter in tone for increased sobriety; browns, deep teals, burnt sienna, forest green; gone are the trembling tones of pink and cream and powder blue.

These may seem paltry gifts for nature to offer in light of her showiness elsewhere in the world; but I suppose we have evolved to appreciate them all the same, or even more so because they are less obvious.

i wonder sometimes if there isn’t something wrong with me. something that makes me different from other people and makes it challenging for me to have a stable, secure life.

i haven’t stayed at a job longer than a year since i was…22? the minute i feel like i actually know what i’m doing, i long to do something else. although chasing after challenges has been deeply fulfilling, i also think i might have missed out on what it feels like to really feel competent at something, to really feel like, “yes, i am an expert.” because as accomplished as i may be, i don’t know that i feel “expert” at anything.

similarly in relationships, i am often seduced by the new and the strange, the chase and the challenge, the excitement of fresh love and mutual discoveries. once that phase is over (18 months or so) and we begin to settle into the business of building a life and maintaining love, then my interest flags and and i begin to slowly drift away. i don’t want to do this, you understand; i often maintain a deep affection for the person i am seeing, even love. but without that flush of excitement it’s all too easy to notice an attractive stranger and wonder what might be…

and i d think that i am missing out on what happens next; what happens at the next level, the next stage when we reach a new level of understanding and shared experiences — i imagine that is deeply rewarding and fulfilling. i just haven’t truly experienced it.

i wonder sometimes if i am doomed then to be alone for the rest of my life. and then i wonder if that is a bad thing.

perhaps my new challenge is to find ways to create challenges for myself within existing structures. so i stay at a job or at a company, but i work on evolving the role; i stay in a relationship, but work on chasing after new goals within it rather than new people.

is that how it’s done?

i’ve noticed that some other people stay in relationships or at jobs out of fear, and for some reason or another, that has never motivated me. but i want to stay, out of love, out of joy, out of feeling that i am contributing positively to my life and others’.

there’s someone i’m trying to forget.

well, the situation is not as simple as that (is it ever?).

there is someone who means so much to me that i would lose myself in him, if i allowed myself; but i can’t allow that, so my solution right now is to forget him. not to forget his existence — that would make my life such a poorer place, such a barren desert; but to forget the intensity of the feelings that i have and have had for him, so i that i can invite him back into my life as a friend, as a benign presence, as someone who brings light and joy into the world (which he does).

the trick is to remember all that, and forget the pain.

forget the pain of not being able to kiss him, weep for him, embrace him; forget the torture of seeing him without touching him, loving him without having him.

this is not a new story. everyone has felt this. and if you haven’t (yet) then you haven’t experienced one of the most complexly, exquisitely distressing suite of emotions known to the human condition. and i think you will experience it one day, if you are capable of love.

in any case: here am i, going about my life, reasonably happily; i am staying away from contact, i am avoiding reminders.

and then… i have a dream.

the dream is purely innocent. we ‘re riding in a car in a foreign country, Austria, perhaps, or Switzerland; and all around us is the muffled sound of gently falling snow. It is twilight, and the darkness deepens around us. We don’t speak… we merely sit, entirely content, in the back seat of the car, barely touching, with the hum of the engine lulling us to peace.

and when i wake up, my mind and body are as fiercely full of him as ever.

and yet, what can i do? nothing. i can try to contact him but it’s a lost cause, and i don’t have the right.

but that dream. it reawakened feelings that i thought were a little more distant than they actually were.

and that’s the thing about memory — it can all come rushing back, when you least expect it.

it tricks you, that way.

…..damn.

the air feels charged on days like this. it’s not unpleasant, at least, not right now that the sun is lower in the sky and the breeze from the ocean has picked up and is fanning my blinds. i’m home, and near the open door to my little deck, and there is nothing to complain about.

all the same, the air feels thick. heavy, somehow; as if the air molecules themselves got fatter and are hanging like drops of water in the air, about to rain.

but there’s no rain; california is in the second year of drought, and today there was a minor fire — it’s frightening, because it’s early in the season for fires (usually happens at the beginning of fall), but it’s just been so dry.

and i remembered that 17 years ago i stood in the street a block away from the house i grew up in and watched it burn while the firefighters stood by. there was nothing they could do. they’d run out of fire trucks. they were trying to contain the fire, but it was a losing battle. like trench warfare, they had to keep retreating, conceding victory to the walls of heat that consumed everything in their path.

it’s no wonder, i think, that i am a bit jumpy when it comes to fires. the fire today started in approximately the same location as that one nearly two decades ago.

but, there’s no point in moping over the past. i’m going to go sit on the porch now and enjoy what i can catch of the evening sun.

my rituals now are work-eat-sleep; in between i get drinks with friends or take in a film; i read books before i fall asleep. in short, i don’t have any rituals — anything i do that regularly and habitually, nothing that has a symbolic meaning beyond the necessities of survival and socialization.

i’ve been feelings its lack recently. i’m not sure that i have ever had any real rituals, but i’ve often admired them. my grandparents were buddhists and my grandfather prayed before every meal, lighting incense at the shrine, ringing the small, sober bell, and chanting “Namyo horen gekyo” in his gravelly voice. i once went with a french friend to her catholic church the morning after a sleepover. i was perhaps 10 years old. the priest, with all his robes and his chants, impressed me. i think i like the trappings of some formalized religions because it seems to me that in rituals like these some people can find comfort and meaning and a sense of their place in the order of things.

when i started to go to therapy last fall my therapist asked me what i was hoping to get out of it. it was a good question. i mean, it’s not like i was so crippled by depression that it prevented me from living my life with a fair amount of success. i wasn’t crying every day. i didn’t wrestle with demons. i was mostly, some would say even a highly, functional adult. but i was feeling lost, i told her. i feel as though i have lost my way; not sure if i ever *had* a way in the first place. how do you find something you’ve never had?

so, rituals. i like rituals because you can pretend you know, even when you don’t. you can bow your head and chant the words even when you are not sure you believe. and by pretending, sometimes, you come to explore those feelings of faith and devotion. like smiling even when you are unhappy — it will lighten your mood.

but i can’t see myself really taking something like the Eucharist and transubstantiation seriously. too magical. and i can’t really see myself chanting “Namyo horen gekyo” or lighting sage and sprinkling salt.

what i can do is yoga. since the weather has been so fine, i do it in the mornings, just when i wake up. i don’t really know wat i’m doing, exactly, and sometimes i just sit on the mat with my eyes closed and wonder, how does one meditate, anyway, exactly? but i feel somehow that it’s important to at least try, to pretend, at least, every day. so that there will be one thing every day that i do not for survival, or for others, but just purely for myself, and something that may eventually come to mean something more to me than sore arms and limber legs.

maybe. we’ll see.

Salvation Army: Special Forces, please rescue me!

the birds woke me up this morning at 5:30 am. it’s actually quite refreshing to be woken like this, at the break of dawn. the world seems asleep except for me and the chorus of birds chattering excitedly somewhere in the nearby trees. the sun is cresting over the hills in the east, and the air smells fresh. i like getting up early and feeling as if i am already active. i’ve started the laundry, i’ve washed dishes, made tea, and now i’m in front of my laptop wondering what it is that i’m writing about, exactly.

i had my first “blog” — that word didn’t exist yet — in 1996 or 7, on a geocities page. more than ten years ago. so i’ve been working in this format for a long time. but either i’ve changed or the environment has changed, and it no longer feels quite as natural too me as it did then. perhaps there are just too many eyes online now, where before, i could be assured that only fellow nerds and open-hearted geeks were reading and writing the way that i was.

in any case, i feel the urge to write again, to keep a regular record of thoughts and feelings, and invite others to read and think and feel; i’ve given up trying to explain to myself why i do it, or what drives me. call it narcissism if you like, and certainly i don’t think i’m not guilty of that, but that’s not all. writing pubicly is, i find, very good for discipline. knowing that words will be read keeps them cleaner, tighter; i try harder. the world is my editor.