View of St. Mary's Cathedral, known among Fools as "Our Lady of the Maytag," from Jefferson Park (found on flickr)
A making-breakfast conversation with Noa this morning, discussing the health benefits of ghee (she clarified — no pun intended — some of my misconceptions), somehow Back-To-The-Futured me smack-dab into 2005, the summer I turned 19 on the way to McLeod Ganj. (As opposed to the summer I turned 19 on the way to Buenos Aires…)
As a result, my walk to work at the First Unitarian Universalist was entirely double-visioned. The church, nestled in the brood of huge Christian hubs up on Cathedral Hill, became a Tibetan monastery, perched on the face of a Himalayan foothill. The southward view from Jefferson Park, a steeply sloped dogwalking destination between Turk and Eddy, flickered between a beautiful vista of San Francisco’s Mission District and the famous exile village of Dharamsala. Even the fragrance of city cherry blossoms, soft and cleansing in the warming minutes before 9am, somehow evoked the fresh air after a monsoon rain.
How clean the sidewalks are here, I realized. How wide and empty the streets! No crowds!
McLeod Ganj, not my photo: I didn't have a camera in India
That is, until we descended from the Hill back into the Tenderloin, sending off a dozen Wyoming University students on a daylong Faithful Fools street retreat. Then, my memory’s eye moved southward along the subcontinent, to the areas in Kerala where I spent most of my 10 weeks. The hustle, the stagnancy, the dirt and color. All these contrasts. Saints and thieves, or more often, a little of both playing out in one body. Drunken yogis. Warrior monks. Our many, many aspects. I wanted to greet all of them, welcome them, let them know how thankful I am for this messy, chaotic, uncomfortable, precious life.
Heather is a feral cat that the Fools took in some years back, and who lives with us — slinking among the stuffed animal menagerie — in the Fools’ Court. For years, I’m told, she wouldn’t even let herself be seen. Now, she’s slowly growing bolder: eating, roaming, and claw-feasting on stuffed armchairs in full view, when there’s only a few of us around. But she’s still supremely elusive — a fact only emphasized by her absurdly gorgeous and adorable looks.
Last week, over the course of a lazy, reading-and-tea -type afternoon, I intermittently tried to take her portrait. I think some part of me hoped it would bring us closer together. Let’s just say she had her own agenda.
The Dhamma teaches that the highest form of love, real love, is when we just give, without expecting anything in return. Easier said than done, to put it mildly — especially when it comes to intelligent pets, which are often marketed in our culture as maximally efficient Affection Reciprocators. When we love ‘our’ animals, we expect them to love us back.
But despite all my coaxing and sweet-talk, pledging catnip and cuddlefests, ultimately my desire for Heather to transform into a Happy HouseCat (avid purrer, visitor of laps) had less to do with improving her life, and more to do with improving mine. Seeing this dysfunction clearly, I (to borrow a phrase from my uncle CC) had to laugh. Sometimes we get way ahead of ourselves, you know?
Hey y’all! Hope you’ve been well. Guess I needed a break from blogging: with all the March 4th buildup, plus my first deadline for grad school, this month kinda sucker-punched me from the get-go, and I’ve spent the last week recovering. Though by “recovering” I guess I only mean redirecting the same volume of energy into different channels.
Marathon catering days to raise money for the Fools (bonus: we got to eat the wedding leftovers); quality time looking after an adorable but terribly nervous beagle mix named Buster (Horror No. 43: changes in atmospheric pressure); visiting with my pops and our family pooch, plus Ryan, at the world’s most picturesque dog park; plus every conceivable type of errand and meeting for Fools’ Court — from celebrating Sharon’s entry into a 12-month rehab program (run by nuns — which we take as an auspicious sign), to helping Ra Mu move the last of his earthly belongings out of storage; discussing domestic affairs as our household numbers swell from the standard two to sometimes 7 or 8.
Fool work remains totally fascinating and utterly provocative. There is always some edge to work. Some surprise to catch you off-guard, and make you think. Some nuisance, some awakening. On International Women’s Day, a handful of us women find ourselves sitting in a circle, each attentive to her own reading. A few moments later, Kat is coaching Gina in writing a letter to her son, given up at birth 25 years ago and recently found (at least we’re pretty sure it’s the right one) on Facebook. Kat advises (1) that it’s important to give him the room to decide whether and how to respond, and (2) that the yellow legal pad paper looks too formal. I scamper to my room and grab the bag of assorted stationery gifted to me for Chanukah. Toothless, gracious, muscular from biking and sweet as can be, Gina selects a few Georgia O’Keeffe cards. Sade’s new album, one of her jams these days, thrums, ticks, oohs and aahs on the stereo. We all sip our tea. I am happy to be here, with these women.
Reports from our free yoga class indicate she's a natural yogi. You can tell just by the smile, though, no?
Any of y’all seen Bagdad Cafe? I watched it last night with some work friends and fell somewhat in love. Everything about the film is just a little bit off, a little bit oblique, with touches of camp. To me it felt like a good short story: untidy characters; rich, indelible, lyrical images; a haunting setting that implies more than it reveals. Plus we all laughed and laughed.
And this, the theme song of the soundtrack, will stay with me for a long time.
From lovely a gray morning with Cat at Rodeo Beach, where the sand is this beautiful bed of pebbles. Feels glorious to walk on, in the rain: the feet sink down just the right amount.
The No Cuts movement in California, opposing the violence inherent in shifting the burden of the financial crisis to the working class (including students at public schools), is gaining steam all over, it seems. The next local fight I’m excited to focus on, after the March 4th day of strikes and actions to defend public education, is the oppressively expensive public transit system in the Bay Area — especially as higher-ups falsely pit riders against operators, claiming that since bus drivers don’t want to give up their pensions, users have no choice but to swallow higher fares and fewer routes. Gross.
More on that later, but in the meantime, check out this cheeky analysis of the UC Berkeley administration’s reactions (and non-reactions) to recent University of California controversies, including the street-dance-party action above.
Dear UCMeP Faithful,
We here at the UC Movement for Efficient Privatization are morally outraged over recent events at the University of California.
We are talking about the band of terrorists disguised as students dancing to defend public education who, in the early morning hours of February 26, struck a vicious blow to everything UC Berkeley holds dear: its dumpsters and trash cans.
Within hours of this despicable event, Chancellor Bobby Birgeneau – writing from the same undisclosed location he has been bravely hiding in since December – sent an email to the entire campus community titled “Vandalism at Durant Hall.”
In this powerful missive, Birgeneau, “condemn[ed] in the strongest terms the overnight criminal vandalism in Durant Hall that spilled over onto Bancroft and Telegraph avenues.”
As increasingly belligerent acts of racism and homophobia shake UC Berkeley’s sister campuses, UCMeP would just like to commend the leaders of the UCB administration for their bold decision to not speak out against racism and homophobia this past Friday. We are proud that they have instead highlighted the real threat facing the UC: all those students, faculty, and employees vainly struggling to defend what’s left of public education.
That Chancellor Birgeneau has yet to publicly condemn the hanging of a noose in UCSD’s library or the vandalism of UC Davis’ LGBT center is more than appropriate. After all, why should the leader of UC Berkeley be concerned about goings-on at other campuses of the UC when he has burning trash cans on his own campus to contend with?
Friends, as Chancellor Birgeneau has recently demonstrated, racism, sexism, and hate speech are not the biggest enemies the University of California faces. The real foes are free speech, the right to dissent, and the tolerance of minority opinion.
We must battle these democratic evils with everything we’ve got.
It is toward dance parties and brief midnight occupations of construction sites that our moral outrage should be directed, not nooses and homophobia.
Kloncke 