Seeking Refuge

Trying to. I woke up this morning with that thought in my head: we are seeking refuge.

Who better to describe what this is than Keanu Reeves?

(hard to shake the Bill and Ted image of this guy, but

he really does a good job explaining)

I don't know what I am doing, so I am pretty sure I am doing it wrong. I don't feel sheltered and peaceful. The key is, of course, that even as you seek refuge in the sangha, you are still being mindful of the fact that this is mostly an interior process, and true refuge has little to do with outside forces.

Yeah, but I'm not Buddha, so I am pretty far away from achieving that understanding truly. I am good on the practice of getting away from attachment to material objects (not perfect, but working on it), and I totally get that life is suffering. The hard part is in actually dealing with the suffering. And I am doing a poor job. The last few days have been extraordinarily difficult. I can't begin to explain, which seems odd that I am writing this down but I have to get it out of my head and somewhere else because I am having violent, awful dreams and that isn't helping.

My father died seven years ago, and that was one kind of awful because he had cancer, he's my dad, and watching him suffer was difficult. I had the honor and privilege of spending his last day with him (we watched The Last Samurai, one of his favorite movies, but I muted the fighting scenes) and being with him when he died. I still miss him, but since it was a gradual process it was different. Painful immediately when he took his last breath.

Dane was alone when he died. I was a thousand miles away. He was 43. He left behind a daughter who adores him. Suddenly, we are without him. There is no refuge from this fact, no place we can go to get solace and comfort. Sicily and I are the only ones who really understand this feeling, and we are not doing a great job of helping each other. I am not doing a great job helping her or myself. Some days are better than others, but the reality is that there really is no refuge from this.

There is a stupid song whose name escapes me, but one of the quotes is, "If you're going through hell, keep on moving." I feel like we haven't even reached the part where we are going through hell. Every day is a new layer of awful, and eventually we will get to the point where we are in hell.

This is today's revelation. I am not a pretty sight.

I Have Met the Enemy, and It Is Me. I Am Her. Whatever.

I think we have hit a wall.

As mentioned in a previous post, we will win no Best Tourists Ever Awards. Too Lazy.

We might end up in a Lonely Planet guide, but more often on someone's front porch or backyard swingset with a  beer or a muffin or a coffee or whatever.

Well, all of this (non)activity has hit me square between the eyes here in DC.

Maybe it was the 800-mile walk yesterday.

Or the two museums punctuated by a one-hour sit eating ice cream on a bench.

Whatevs.

Guess what? When you are on the road for long enough, the person you aren't really interested in being catches up to you. And that's where I am.

I figured out that I am not really trying to escape the reality of Dane's death; he has been in my dreams, voiceless, for the past three nights, and every morning when I wake up I am well aware that he is not here.

I am trying to leave parts of myself behind. Refashioning myself back to Me after no longer being We. Getting rid of the annoying parts that crop up in a relationship because they are necessary or habit or whatever. The parts that are no longer necessary when the relationship is terminal (pun intended).

Well, turns out that's a pretty hard thing to do.

So here we are at a wall. With a teenager who is fully a teenager (although I am grateful for the excellent human she is, she is still a teenager), no desire to go home but no desire to stay on the road but no desire to go home, formless, aimless. No energy to get up, sleeping poorly. No desire to do much but with an overwhelming feeling of wasted time, accompanied by the overwhelming feeling that it is all of it pretty pointless anyway.

I am trying to be gentle with myself, enjoy my nieces and nephew, be grateful. I take it out too much on The Child. With so much swirling it's hard to make the important thing the important thing when the important thing is amorphous and shifting.

I have met the enemy. I am sick to death of war.

MLK's 50th Anniversary and a Life-Changing Milkshake

In the midst of Miley's moronic performance and Syria's chemical warfare against her own people, the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech was yesterday.

To celebrate, we shared a life-changing milkshake and an 800-mile walk. And a chat with a  new friend.

First, our friend's store:

I can't recommend this store enough, not just because it's a friend's store but also because it is filled with some cool stuff, not just random crap from China but lovingly found and restored object and one-of-a-kind pieces in addition to carefully selected funky home furnishings. There is one in Charm City, too. The store in DC has pieces of petrified wood that are 10-15 million years old, a selection of beautiful old typewriters, and an $11,000 table handmade from a hunk of maple. Among other things.

Next, our life-changing milkshake:

(not our picture. TOTES accurate, though)

If you are anywhere near a Good Stuff Eatery, stop reading and go get a Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake. Yes, they toast the marshmallows. Yes, you need a spoon, but they don't have one (use the straw, which really should have been wider but the frustration and reward is part of it, like milkshake S&M). Yes, you will want a large but won't really need one, so get a small or share a large. I can also personally recommend the Sunnyside burger (served with cheese, bacon and a sunny-side up fried egg, HELLO) and a side of fries. Good LORD it was delicious. I almost bought a t-shirt, and those of you who know me know I am not a commemorative t-shirt buyer. LIFE-CHANGING milkshake.

Next, our seat at the party:

Can you see us? No? That's because we were not even within earshot. It has been a long time since I have been to a function in Washington, Bill Clinton's inauguration to be precise, and apparently you can't just waltz up to the Lincoln Memorial when the President is speaking and get a decent place to sit. Or stand. Or hear. So we took a picture of us and walked on. And found a guy who was selling t-shirts who opened his car and blasted CNN radio so we could hear Bernice King speak. I felt more  a part of the speech on Constitution Avenue then standing with my back to the Washington Monument. The t-shirt guy offered his umbrella to a couple sitting next to us, which was a small but significant display of how awesome people can be.

So here we are, right before we left to walk the 400 miles back to our car:

 

 

Sicily is still smiling, which belies how much her freaking feet hurt. In reality, our walk from the car to the speech and back was approximately seven miles. This was a very, very long walk. We consoled ourselves will a large Icee, a large buttered popcorn and the movie Jobs, which was just meh for me but which Sicily liked. I am going to make her read the book, which we just so happen to have on the Nook.

This newsy little post on what we did yesterday doesn't quite cover how the whole day was. It is always pretty amazing to be in DC when an event like this is happening. Regardless of your politics, it is a privilege and an honor to be able to walk in and around the buildings of your government, to be able to listen to your leaders and to join a mass of humanity who may or may not agree with you but who come together to participate in the democracy of the land. It's not perfect. It's not even close. I am not a nationalist, and I criticize the hell out of our government and our system. We could be so much better. But. There is something about the potential of this nation's people that is stirring, and although Obama's speech yesterday was just okay, the ideas behind it, the distance we have come together and the road we still must travel, resonated with me. Being in DC is inspiring (if a little tiring), and I am glad we got a chance to be here on this day, even if we couldn't be in the middle of the action.

Tourist Failures

As tourists, Sicily and I are better couch potatoes.

Translation: we are not the type to wake up at the crack and rush around all day, seeing everything we can see. We aren't wired that way. Whenever we think about what we want to do on any given day, too much is overwhelming, and we just get tired and make another cup of coffee. We have spent hours on the porches of friends, planning our day, only to realize that the planning and the swinging and the snack-having actually became the day and now it's time to decide on dinner and that might take awhile, so how about a cocktail?

Sicily is following in my travel-type footsteps: I like to learn a place and live like a local. Yes, I love the touristy stuff sometimes (like the double-decker bus in Philly that was more fun than expected), but I am just as content to get a Mr. Softee ice cream from a food truck on the Mall and watch people go by (we may have done that yesterday. For an hour. It was hot, okay?). I want to do what I would do if I lived in a place; I don't need to see all of the "high points"; generally those places are packed cheek-to-jowl with camera-toting, baby-hefting, sweaty, impatient people. I don't like to join those ranks. I like to find the hidden gems and sit with the locals.

(Thinking from the sculpture garden at the National gallery)

 

 

Which is not to say we didn't do stuff. Yesterday we went to the American History Museum (and saw Julia Child's kitchen, which was wicked cool. I want her stove very, very badly) and the Natural History Museum, but we also wandered around the National Mall, aimlessly, and then we went to the Silver Diner (not what I remember; this iteration of it featured local produce, organic meats and nitrate-free bacon. DELICIOUS.)

 

Today we get another chance to earn a little tourist cred; President Obama is marking the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech with a speech of his own on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, and La and I will be there. Thankfully, it doesn't start until 3:05, so we have plenty of time to rise, shine and mosey our way over there.

 

For now, though, this is my morning view, and it's just grand:

 



Memory is a Tricky Thing

Memory is a tricky thing.

I am starting to realize that I don't have much of one.

When I was 16 I was in a car accident. I remember waking up in the passenger seat (I was driving and ended up over there); I remember the spider web of broken glass, the shaky voice of the EMT who was swabbing blood off my face, my mom yelling at me in the ER. I remember the doctor telling me that a head injury could affect my short-term memory.

Turns out, my memory was already pretty crappy and oddly selective. I don't remember pretty major things, but I remember some of the most inconsequential things very clearly. This is distressing to me.

A couple weeks ago I went through all of the letters I wrote to Dane when we first met and he was out on the boat in the middle of the Bering Sea. They were long and newsy, and Dane saved every one of them (I did not save all of his, which makes me feel even more like an asshole). Two things jump out: A) Dane was important to me pretty quickly, and B) I don't remember anything that was going on in my life at that time. I don't remember concerts or poetry readings I went to (some of them stand out in the letters - Exene Cervenka, TC Boyle). I don't remember the details of my friends' lives at that time. I don't remember things people did for me, things I did for them.

I would list more of what I don't remember, but I don't even know what I missed.

When I ask people what they remember,  they remember it all, clearly. I can recall the time when they are telling me, but to summon up the memory on my own is impossible.

I feel like I have been sleepwalking through my life. Even now when I try to figure out where to look to keep something in my mind I feel like I am missing details.  

This feels bad. Like way down deep bad, like I am careless or a bad person or selfish or self-involved or all of those things that I desperately do not want to be. Sicily says I can try and fix it from now, but now it feels like I am so desperate to make sure I don't forget that I am trying too hard, and it makes it worse. Everything is blurry, like Vaseline smeared on a lens, and I cannot keep anything in my head for five minutes. I have to write down and take notes and keep scraps of paper close at hand to remember the smallest of things; the "handy memo" function on my phone is getting close to capacity.

This feels like a major character flaw to me. How can I not remember? What have I forgotten? How quickly will I forget Dane? What has already slipped through my grasp?

Last Day in Charm City

We have spent it in conversation. And at the Waverly Farmer's Market. And eating fresh caprese salad on the front porch, swinging, watching the world go by.

I have no brilliance for today, nothing monumental, just gratitude for friendship and sunshine and simple living.

Off to DC for a week tomorrow...We the Pizza, Boneyard Studios, national monuments and museums, and family. Should be fabulous...

 

Home Is...

Today we are taking a school day break; La has to finish up some French and work on a new blogging adventure (she is taking a year-long class with Wandering Educators on travel blogging), plus she has some PSAT action to study for (reminder: research where she is supposed to take the damn test. I am avoiding that, not because I think she won't do well but because I just don't want to do it. Testing is dumb.).

I probably have lots to do, too. I just don't want to.

So I am wandering around Kerry and Mark's house, reading, eating peaches that are about to turn, contemplating lunch; in short, I am doing exactly what I would do if I were in Georgia, avoiding work, only I would feel way more guilty there because there is so much more to avoid.

Later today we are picking up a friend of Mark and Kerry's at the airport; he is returning from six months in Kuwait, assembling various government intelligence reports from assorted war zones. I will make sure and chastise him for all of his grievous intelligence failures, Republicans, but only after we give him a big hug, a warm welcome, and a huge crabcake (which he insists on paying for. Seems unfair, but hey. A crabcake is delicious no matter who is buying.).

Last night was the O's game, and because we were there they won (I have never attended a loss at Camden Yards, and I have also attended multiple O's games in Seattle and Atlanta, and the O's have never lost when I am there. Yes, Orioles, I am for hire and will travel with the team. I'm just sayin'. You can draft La and me pretty cheaply.) Davis smacked number 46, and he hit one when we were there for the Father's Day game, too (that one needed a flight attendant, it traveled so far).

Tomorrow is the water taxi to Fort McHenry (we're taking the free one; we're not stupid), then some touristy shopping. A friend asked me if we were still enjoying our favorite part of the country, and that made me think for a second. Is it really my favorite part of the country? I don't think of it like that; I just think of it as home. It feels like home; it feels like we could plant roots here. I love Seattle and New Mexico. Oregon is lovely, and Colorado was majestic. New York City is amazing. Seattle felt like home on the west coast, but Baltimore is warm and inviting, poverty, vacant homes, tourists and all.

Still thinking. Still searching. We'll see what happens.