3: September 2003 Archives

I walked to work today, for the first time since March or April. The air was crisp and cool when I left the house, and though work is a couple of miles away from home, it was a lovely walk -- very grounding -- and it reminded me why I really like walking to work.

I made mental notes of the things I wanted to share about my walks to and from work, but I've forgotten most of them already. Here are the things I remember:

• I saw both the sunrise (oriens) and the sunset (occasus) today, though I effectively recorded neither. I got a couple of lovely dusk photos that I'll post sometime.
• Every sunrise that I see is special to me, if for no other reason than that I'm so seldom up and out of the house that early in the morning.
• As I rounded the corner past the miniature store (a store full of miniatures, not a store in miniature), I saw three birds lined up: a white pigeon, a grey and white pigeon, and a black grackle. I was going to take their picture and entitle it "greyscale," but they flew off too quickly.
• I far prefer exercising when I feel like there's a real-life benefit to it. Like getting to work.
• Any shortcut is a good shortcut, as long as Rachel isn't mown down by oncoming traffic.
• I break my walk into conceptual thirds, the divisions being made at major intersections. I have no idea where the boundaries for geographical thirds would actually lie.
• There's a garden on the way that I adore. The flowers are healthy and in bloom, as though it wasn't just summer and all the flowers in Texas didn't just fry. It's beautiful, with native plants and succulents all mixed in together, and the most wonderful spectrum of color. It's attached to a house with a real, traditional front porch, with an actual porch swing, and if the effort were made, one could easily fit two or more porch swings on that porch. There's a screened in side porch, as well.
• "we are our experience,
  our experience is what it is of;
  we are that."
  
• There was a little girl, no more than a toddler, playing in the yard of a day care. She called out to me, "Come here!" but I waved at her and kept walking. I have very strong opinions about adults hanging around day cares where they have no child enrolled and have not been specifically invited.
• It's this walk that reminds me of the color collage that I meant to put together in the springtime and never did. There are flowers of every possible hue on my path.
• The best thing about my path to work is the Taco Shack. Their potato and egg tacos are my achilles heel -- I can never resist them. And they sell Sweet Leaf sweet tea, which is liquid crack in a bottle. Really.
• When I got to work this morning, the elevators were broken, so I had to climb 107 stairs on top of the two miles I had just walked. My legs felt like jelly at the top.

I intended to write something profound and meaningful about this day, but I find myself just feeling thankful that the date is almost past. September 10th and September 12th are infinitely more innocuous than the date that falls in between them.

I'd like to recite some heartfelt platitude that would resonate with someone else on this day, but I find that all the heartfelt platitudes have been ruined for me over the past two years by those who would use them toward an end with which I cannot and will not agree.

What I will tell you is this: on this day of memory, I feel cheated. It is petty and selfish for me to feel this, but in the interest of full disclosure, this is how it is. For the twenty-four years that preceded that day, I lived with the steadfast belief that people are fundamentally good, and that no matter what difficult problems we faced as a country or as inhabitants of this planet, we would eventually be able to solve them -- perhaps not in my lifetime, but someday. By the time I went to bed that night, I could no longer hold onto my firm convictions that in the end, everything will turn out alright. Everything did not turn out alright that day.

I have lived an incredibly privileged life. I've been taught of hubris from a young age. The unsinkable ship sunk in 1914, we were told, and yet no one ever imagined that the indestructible towers could ever be destroyed. It is privilege which breeds hubris, for only we, the privileged, can afford such pride. The turmoil in other parts of the world was never more than a blip on the news or a headline on the page. I didn't ignore it out of hatred; I ignored it because I didn't understand that for other people on the planet, things don't automatically turn out alright in the end.

Today, I looked in the mirror, and for the first time, I noticed the tiny crease of laugh-lines forming at the sides of my mouth. I'm certain they weren't there two years ago. It's a tiny change, to be sure, but it is a permanent one. The changes I've seen in the world -- the changes I've seen in myself -- are less subtle, but just as long-lasting.