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Overheard

Overhearing a conversation on a Friday morning in October while more than a little tired.

How are you?

Oh, you know.

Yeah.

You know. To be real, today I am a little bit tired.

I know it.

Truth be told, today I noticed that I am almost always extremely tired. Like, more than I have ever been, is that possible? Don’t answer, of course it isn’t. I mean, you remember what it was like, way back. When–– I know I was more tired then, I must have been. And yet. I can’t help it, I just —

Endorphins, maybe?

What?

They say that it’s something about the endorphins that make new mothers forget the pain.

Of childbirth, you mean? But I’m not talking about––

No. I mean, sure, that was the reference when I read it who knows how long ago but think about it. You could apply this to other things.

Don’t tell me a puppy because I don’t even want to––

No, but being a teen, maybe. I mean really, it was awful but that’s not the first thing you think.

True.

And some of those all-nighters when we were nineteen, twenty? Some because we had to but then we would go do another one just because, when the whole world was constantly falling apart, not to mention all the bombs, remember? They were like every other day in the news then, it was just what we lived with. But looking back, what do you remember?

I remember dancing and singing the lyrics at the top of my voice, even when I didn’t know them.

That’s it!

Especially when I didn’t know them.

Exactly!

Haven’t done that in a while.

Well, there you go, then.

Maybe that’s why––

You’re so tired?

No, I know why I’m so tired. I could give you a list, but you’ve got your own. But I mean––

Why it feels like this?

Yes, like more than ever before.

Because ––?

Because I don’t have the scream-dancing at the same time. I’m just––

Trying to survive?

Yes, like this. Coffee, I feel like I live for this––I know it’s more than these sips, obviously, but when I can’t remember what that is exactly––not by name, anyway, that’s when I really don’t want to talk and I definitely don’t want to have to put down the cup. I just want to be in this space where I’m still at the edge of a dream, and no one is poking at it, letting the air out.

How’s that working out?

Well. There are many rough edges.

How many?

Too many to count right now. I’ve still got half a cup. Can you just––.

Would you like one of these?

What is this?

A bunny. I found them at–––

No, see, that’s what I mean. Why are people collecting these bunnies and handing them out?

They are soft.

I don’t even––

Feel!

News from the Health Well

Once again, my favorite online message board offers a cornucopia of transformative options.

While I regularly turn to Craigslist on mornings when I’m looking for some element of local flavor and character drama with my news, I realized this morning that my tendency to gravitate immediately to “lost and found” and “missed connections” has me potentially missing some fruitful connections in a section intriguingly named “health/well.” Since one of my recent horoscopes came with strong advice to broaden my horizons, today’s news comes from the health well.

When it comes to health, you may feel less than optimal because you are not aware that some services are available. But as life coach Miguel points out, “Knowledge is key!”

With this in mind, you may want to consider these options: Plumbing plus MORE! Tarot card readings! Plus, a narcissistic recovery coach on call, prepared to cater to some very specific needs––personalized, of course, and on-demand. It’s all about you!

Feeling out of alignment with your highest self? Try Reiki. Wanting to test your alignment in general? This aerial circus personal training group may be just what you need. Now there’s a fitness session you can’t get at your run-of-the-mill gym down the street!

You may not know this, but there is someone less than thirty minutes away willing to come juice for you. Right in your own home! Unfortunately, the link wasn’t working, so I am unable to verify if such an offer is a euphemism for some not-yet-imagined service, which might be the key.

Stressed? Try a free hypnotherapy session! You can control unwanted behaviors. You can even rent this salon space and start making money. Now!

If you are thinking of being a life coach, you may want to get some headshots in order. Apparently, the ideal way to market yourself (so far, I’ve seen only male coaches in the health well) is with a neatly trimmed beard, smoky eyes, and with your collared shirt open three buttons at the top to reveal a deep V of confidence. However, if you are a woman considering the service of a coach, I suggest patience. There is currently a market surplus in this industry, and no shortage of men willing to give out this sort of thing for free to any woman not currently in the middle of a sentence. In fact, such offers are so abundant you can probably keep talking and still receive a bounty of unsolicited (and 100% free!) advice.

Want something more physical? Jon, a personal trainer, introduces himself as a “32-year-old human male.” One has to appreciate the transparency of his advertising, which includes species specification. It seems to matter to Jon not to mislead his clients by leading them to believe that he is an enthusiastic Labrador who has unlocked the fountain of youth via exercise, as some characters will do. For emphasis, he includes a photograph of himself standing on what appears to be a stage in workout attire. Jon is very tan.

But perhaps, as I am, you are having some trouble prioritizing areas of need. Fear not! There’s a one-stop-service provider that advertises energy, mood, focus, weight loss, AND mental health, all in one place! Now that is good news.

***

I suppose we all have our quirky obsessions, and this one of mine has become glaringly obvious to me since starting these posts. More craigslist-inspired posts can be found below:

Horoscope Buffet

Some days, just one isn’t enough.

What’s wrong?

I don’t think my coffee is working. Did you switch to half-caf again?

No way. How about some astrological guidance? Let’s see. . . Here’s Cancer.

Mmhm.

Begin an honest discussion.

What else?

That’s it.

Well. I’m going to need a little more than that today. Read the others.

You mean the other signs?

Yah. Start from the beginning. I’ll sip, you read. We’ll see what takes.

Okay. Let’s see. . . Ram says once your priorities are straight, it’s smooth sailing. New information is coming to reveal a higher purpose.

Then, according to the bull, an ounce of prevention now will save you lots of headaches later.

The twins suggest adding beauty to your surroundings. The lion suggests exercise.

What else?

Who’s this one, Virgo?

The nurturer.

Well, she’s saying you’re about to have a change of heart.

Hope so. Keep going.

The goddess of justice wants you to do more research and this scorpion forecasts a gift on the way.

Vacation?

No, it says it may actually look like extra work, at first.

Hmmm. Next?

The centaur is of a mind that a good walk can help you process your shifting emotions. . .

And?

Wants to remind you to ask for guidance.

Exactly. Keep it coming.

The sea goat insists on expanding horizons. Plus, standing your ground. But they don’t specify the order of operations on this one, so it’s not exactly––

What else?

The water bearer says it’s time to relax your expectations.

Of?

Um, others. And there’s one more. This from the fish. They say, whatever you’re doing, it isn’t working. So––

What? I thought these were supposed to be encouraging!

They are. They say try something else.

Earthling to Moon, on News of its Departure

Imagining some awkward breakup conversations inspired by the moon’s inevitable departure from Earth’s gravitational pull.

At first, I didn’t believe it. My gravitational gauge is oversensitive sometimes. I always think things are closer than they are. For this reason, I avoid parallel parking when possible. (“You’ve got like, three feet! Seriously!” a helpful person will try to explain. “No, no, never mind!” I’ll say, preferring to walk a few more blocks as needed to avoid what looks like a near collision.)

Needless to say, the idea that you’ve been drifting away this whole time comes as a bit of a shock.

You say it’s “just gravity” but isn’t that sort of like one of those noncommittal statements that really mean a whole other thing (“It’s not you, really, It’s me,” or “I just have a lot going on”)? Isn’t gravity what we had going on? I mean if that’s getting weaker, what are you really saying?

I know there’s something you’re not saying. Was it all the photographs? I know, I know. It’s a lot, but you were always changing––color, size, shape; we couldn’t get enough.

Was it how were always projecting our own insecurities, variabilities and hopes onto you? I know it’s a lot: our moods, our energy levels, certain personality traits.

Wait a minute, now that I think of it, what did you mean when you did that thing at the festival? Well, I know it wasn’t You-you, but c’mon. I mean, that thing with the balloon at the parade? That huge one that looked just like you, with craters and everything? How it broke free and started rolling in the street, remember that?

I bet you do. People ran after it, but it never came back to the parade. They called it “a mishap” but you planned that, didn’t you? ––As, what, like a hint? Like a sign of things to come? Is this your idea of communicating?

I wasn’t alive when we were supposedly much closer than we are now, but I love the idea: once we needed only a ladder and a willingness to leap, and there we were, scooping cheese from your surface and hurling it back. Thank you, Calvino. I love to imagine the small earthlings, like jellyfish and children floating into you until they are caught by someone on a boat.

Apparently, the same forces drawing you away are slowing our days. We can barely feel this, of course. When does anyone ever feel when this happens, in real time? Once it was four hours from sunrise to night-time, and what were we doing then?

Just wait, someone tried to say. They called it our honeymoon phase. We laughed. But, I wonder now, how will we explain the totality of what we felt here, when you were close enough to block the whole sun?

Inspired by Marina Koren’s Atlantic article The Moon is Leaving Us. Also, the thought of moon distances shifting inevitably calls to mind Italo Calvino’s wondrous story, “The Distance of the Moon.”

Dancing with Poets, Among Reindeer

On Shel Silverstein’s birthday, I happen to reading news of the petroglyphs, and also of the magic mushroom people hunting whales.

Yesterday’s post on the potential revival of ice age creatures unearthed from the tundra’s melting permafrost is what made me aware of The Siberian Times, which seemed like an excellent addition to my small collection of regularly visited sites. It was here that I learned of the mushroom people, which happened to be very shortly after I learned it was Shel Silverstein’s birthday, and found myself reminiscing about laughing with my daughter over pages in Where the Sidewalk Ends and other volumes, his brilliant sense of delight in wonder and dark humor, the electric hilarity of morbid details delivered in singsong (“I’m being eaten by a Boa Constrictor/ And I don’t like it one bit… Oh gee, it’s up to my knee. . . Oh heck, it’s up to my neck . . .”). So, when I read the article about the mushroom people, it is only natural that I heard it as follows:

The reindeer are crossing the river, and dogs are out chasing a bear.

We drew them above the cold sea, with the wind and the salt in our hair.

Who were these artists, these dreamers up there––

so far away from any known where?

Bearded men rubbing away at their their faces,

with bald-faced ones wishing they’d sooner found traces

of places where no beards were looking,

and no one was daring to tread.

We dance in these paintings, large mushrooms on heads.

The music is gone now, and we are all dead.

We had stems for our legs, and mushrooms for hair,

but as for our music, they heard it nowhere.

And that was our joke, how nobody knew

anything of us or what we could do.

When you cross over, the music invites you to dance,

with winds on the tundra, in leaves of those plants.

And no one is there, recording a show;

few stories on record, and little to know.

This is bad for museums, but what was it to them?

For the living, the point is to dance to the end.

On the Night Train, with P.D.

A “Real Talk With Dead Folks” installment featuring French painter Paul Delvaux, who would have been ninety-eight today.

Today is one of those days for Real Talk with Dead Folks, an occasional Breadcrumbs feature. I knew it this morning when I learned it was the birthday of French painter Paul Delvaux, and I spent my coffee silence with his work.

Joyeux anniversaire, Paul Delvaux. You would have been ninety-eight today.

You are known for your nude women, your long shadows, your anxious isolation.

I like your Break of Day, the topless figures gathered in what is either a palace courtyard or its ruins. At first I think they are women, then I see what appear initially to be the finned tails of mermaids.

But that is mossy bark, not scales, and those are roots, not tails. And then I look closer: the faces, the pose of their hands, their stiff necks. These are not women, exactly, but statues of flesh and trunk.

I consider the roots, how tight they look, not quite spread and not quite rooted, and so close to one another. It seems impossible for them to make it very long like that, in such arid land. Behind them, a clothed woman is running, the desert floor behind her.

Mountains congregate in the distance, under sky.

Elsewhere, Gestapo were making arrests, Stalin was enforcing his Great Purge––mere preludes to the next world war. Your skeletons were often more animated than your fleshy counterparts.

The home of your childhood was burned during the war years. What became of your beloved trains? Desire and horror met on your platforms. You studied music in the museum room, while skeletons in a glass cabinet appeared to watch.

You knew the anxious city, haunted with skeletons. You called it the climate of silent streets, with shadows of people who can’t be seen.

Mirrors, moon, candles, books: these were your favored elements. Around the nudes and the flute players, your skeletons danced. Always in your paintings, this sense of waiting: of separation, this terrifying emptiness; this ongoing cycle of arrivals and departures.

It’s the little girl in the dress I am wondering about, the one with her back to the viewer. She is watching the trains by moonlight. What else does she see?

Always in your paintings, there she is: the beautiful but inaccessible muse. You painted her anyway, unable to keep from looking.

It is for this that I bow to you. The way you saw death everywhere, and still looked for something else. The way you seemed to know your salvation to be just out of reach, while you reached anyway–– seeming to accept, by your actions, some unspoken contract. We all sign it to live here, but most are afraid to read the fine print. It’s enough sometimes, to live for the unseen, the untouched. I like to think that this is what makes your skeletons move the way they do.

More about Paul Delvaux’s work:

Metropolitan Museum of Art

More Real Talk with Dead Folks

Real Talk With Galileo

Curious Sends Memo to Dead Artist of Living Work

Here’s to W.G., absurdist O.G.

Lens on the Littles

How do you discover something new? By looking where no one else is looking, with a new and better lens.

Huh.

What?

It’s Antonie Phillips van Leeuwenhoek’s birthday today.

Wait. Does this mean you’re inviting people over? I’m not up for it tonight. I have––

It’s not like I know him, know him. Besides, he died in 1723. It’s just, you know.

I don’t. Who is this guy?

He’s the father of microbiology. Dutch guy. He lived in the same town as Vermeer. Funny, he didn’t even think of himself as a scientist. He was a draper. He wanted to get a better look at the thread, so he worked on making better magnifying lenses.

Is he that guy in Vermeer’s Astronomer?

Some say, even though the resemblance is questionable. What’s funny is he didn’t tell anybody about the lenses. Competition was fierce. But then he had a look at pond water, and he saw all these moving creatures.

Wonder of wonders.

That’s exactly what he said! So, he tells his friend, who is a scientist, and eventually word gets out and he captures the attention of The Royal Society of London.

He published his findings?

Eventually, in letters. He had to be talked into this. He was like, I’m not a scientist, I’m a businessman! They’ll laugh at me! I don’t even know the terminology! But his friend assured him that biologists used mostly made-up words, especially where discoveries were concerned.

Studying biology is like learning a new language.

Okay, he said. I’ll call these little guys animalcules!

That’s the spirit, his friend said. The term is out of fashion now, but it encompassed lots of little creatures: unicellular algae, small protozoa, tiny invertebrates.

All in the pondwater?

At first. Later he turned his lenses on other findings. He found bacteria living in the human mouth and he the guts of animals. Spermatozoa, too, and the banded pattern of muscle fibers.

Well, that’s something.

Isn’t it?! That’s the point! Where everyone else saw nothing, he saw something. His followers called him the first with the power to see.

Well, here’s to you, APL. I’m still not cooking, but I’ll raise a glass.

Something small, maybe?

Hah! Better get your microscope. With the right lens, it’ll be a feast.

Arts of the Mind

Magic: the art of reframing what appears to be happening.

For the past two months, the pace of things and the hectic, noisy nature of a given day has been, to put it mildly, strenuous. Or, to put it more forcefully, profoundly difficult. It’s what has me longing for silence, considering life underwater, and imagining journeys to cat island. This and staring at walls and their respective shelves, which is what I was doing this morning while I sipped coffee through bleary eyes, trying to prepare for the day. It was because of this stare that I noticed a gem of a strange book that I had bought along with some other magic books year ago. I had a minor character who was into magic, and although I was able to develop much of what I needed without needing to get bogged down in research, I keep the books on my shelf and turn to them from time to time. Doing so never fails to enlighten me in some unexpected way––which is, after all, what one wants when dealing with anything magical. The book I noticed this morning is 13 Steps to Mentalism, by the English mentalist Tony Corinda (1930-2010), who is widely considered to be an expert in the field.

My first question, when opening this volume was, “What is mentalism, exactly?” I had placed it in the family of magic, but I realized that I couldn’t exactly define the term. I quickly learned that Mr. Corinda wasn’t a fan of offering explanations to outsiders, as the book came with no preface, no introductory overview, and a table of contents that a newcomer may find inscrutable. For example, the opening page dives right into techniques for using an apparatus known as the “Swami Gimmick Writer” without any explanation as to what one of these devices actually is, or why someone who practices mentalism would want to know how to use them––or, needless to say, what it is that a mentalist is actually supposed to doing.

Perhaps the point was to get me to develop my capacity for conjuring hidden meanings. With this challenge in mind, I was inspired to interpret that the device in question, which has some lead in a point like a pencil tip, attached in a subtle manner by a tiny device that fits on the tip of an index finger, is used––I think–– to make surreptitious markings on paper. This can be useful, I imagine, in the event that a participant has just revealed that the number they were thinking was six and you mean to show that the number you anticipated they would be thinking when you pretended to write one earlier was actually also––“Tah-dah! Six!”

So, with slight help from ability to use context clues, and much greater help from Wikipedia, I now understand that mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics.

And who couldn’t use more of this? So, in case you are wondering, I thought I would harvest a few pearls of wisdom regarding these various and related arts, because it is hard to imagine that such a wide range of skills would not be almost universally applicable to anyone in any field.

This proved harder than I thought, because in Corinda’s own words, “I am not a fan of teaching anything to anybody at any time, except if they are one of us.” Given that teaching is my stated profession, I was moved to appreciate the bald-faced, albeit somewhat pessimistic nature of his honesty. By around page 275 of the volume, in the Chapter “Mediumistic Stunts,” I found a few clues that I am choosing, by exercise of will, to deem immensely useful. Who couldn’t benefit from some mediumistic stunts? I read on eagerly, thinking as I considered the day ahead: Sign me up, Tony. Sign me up.

Here are some preliminary findings. First, the most important part is the dramatic delivery of speech. The element of surprise is always our friend, and some may be surprised to know what one can get away with in a setting like a séance. Note the importance of word choice. Instead of mind-reading, say Telepathy, or ESP. Rather than sight, refer to Clairvoyance. Instead of hearing, refer to your Clairaudience, and regarding matters of feeling, Clairsentience evokes the ineffable je ne sais quoi that any performer of mental–– um, Events (never, ever call these tricks) ––depends upon.

These people are not the audience, but The Gathering! Not Ladies and Gentlemen, but Sitters and Friends! Not tools or thingies, but Psychic Appliances with specific names: auragoggles, spirit trumpet, gazing crystal. Not Ghost, but Spirit; not Assistant, but Guide. The living are On the Earthplane, and the others are Beyond the Veil.

To vanish is to Dematerialize, and Apportation is when something is apparently brought into the room my supernatural means.

There’s more to be explained––much more, but after hunting so long for something I could understand, I am going to rest on my laurels here. On days like this, in times like this, when I’m acutely aware of the need for some magic or divine assistance with the details of the day, I am refreshed by the reminder that sometimes what is needed most is the opportunity to reframe a situation through language.

It is not overwhelming, but sensorily and spiritually fertile; not soul-crushing, but soul-strengthening as with an athlete’s weight routine; not desperate, but ready to transform.

Badger in the Window Well

There is a badger in the window well. He appears to be stuck. What do you do?

Look here. There’s a badger.

They’re nocturnal.

No, in the window well.

Is that an omen?

No, that’s the wolverine, but some of the details of the old stories got mixed up in translation.

What’s the badger, then?

He’s in the window well. Can you call––? I think he needs help.

Sure, but I mean, what does it mean?

That he followed something and got trapped, I guess.

No, I mean in the stories.

Hardworking, protective. They’re generous providers. The Lakota have a story.

Hello? Yeah, we have a badger in the window. He’s stuck. Can you–– okay. Hello?

Are they coming?

I think so. I think that guy was in the middle of something involving a large snake.

Well, hopefully not in the middle. Anyway, in the Lakota story, Badger hunts with arrows and he’s so successful that his lady is in the kitchen all day making the next feast for the den of chubby babies. Then one day a mangy, hungry bear shows up, eyeing the racks of meat drying in the yard.

And then what?

What do you think? Badger says he doesn’t look so hot, offers bear a meal. Bear eats his fill, goes away happy, comes back the next day. The badgers welcome him. Lady of the house even sets a rug out each night for the bear, so he has his own place.

Awwww.

Yeah, but the bear is greedy. The whole time he’s eating at the badger family table, he’s eyeing the bags of arrows, the stores of dried meat, the home. One day he says to badger: You have what I want, and throws the whole family out, tossing them like feathers with his fat paw.

Then what?

They howl, they cry. Badger begs for mercy. For the children, he says, but Bear won’t hear it. The Badgers build a new shelter, but they have no arrows, no stores of dried meat. The babies are starving. Badger goes back to bear, begging. He gets tossed away. Bear laughs and mocks.

But on the way out, Badger finds a bit of buffalo blood in the grass. He takes it back to the shelter, offers a sacrifice, begging divine intercession. And who do you think shows up?

I can’t imagine.

A human brother with arrows and means. They head back to the old home, which the bear family has been ransacking and getting fat on, and the bear doesn’t even need an explanation for their arrival. He knows what this is. He had it coming. He sees the magic arrow. He shouts to his family, Let’s go! and they flee.

Did the human stay with them?

The avenger left the badger family then, to do other work. The badgers resumed their lives, and the bear never bothered them again.

So, what’s this then, the badger in the window?

Is help coming?

I think so.

Well. Just a reminder, then. I hope.

Of what?

To help who you can whenever you can. To resist the impulse, I guess.

The impulse to what?

To focus on whatever you think you need.

Okay, well they should be here soon, to help. I’m gonna make a sandwich.

What did you say?

I said–––

I’m going to wait right here, until they come.

This morning I came across the headline, “Wildlife Officials Rescue Badger Trapped in Colorado Window Well,” which inspired this post. And, in case anyone finds themselves wondering, as I was, about the exact nature of a window well, here is an explanation: “A window well is a U-shaped, ribbed metal or plastic product available in most home hardware stores. It’s designed to fit around basement windows, providing a space between the window and the surrounding earth to allow light into sub-grade structures” (squarone.ca).

Pilgrims

Considering a voyage to cat island.

What are you doing?

Studying up. I’ll be traveling soon.

To?

Cat Island.

Bahamas?

They have one, I think. But this is Japan, which has a few.

How’d that happen? Have you been reading Murakami again?

Burroughs, actually. But the island, it used to be a hub for the sardine trade. There was a rodent problem on the boats, so the fishermen started taking in strays. The cats were treated well by the villagers. After all, they were essential workers.

Are they still?

Well-treated, yes. They outnumber villagers ten to one. But the sardine trade dried up. People left, except for the old timers. Cats stayed. Someone thought it would be a good idea to spay and neuter them awhile back, but a significant group escaped the knife. They’re somewhat of a sensation now.

Ever read Timothy Morton, the philosopher?

Oh, right. Who loves how cats blur the false boundary between Nature and Us.

Did you know that next to birds, cats have the widest range of vocalizations of any domestic pet?

The meowing would be just for kittens, but it persists into adulthood among domesticated species, as a cry for something from a caretaker.

Loneliness can do it, too. And hunger. By the longer, throatier Meeeoooooow can mean concern, or existential annoyance.

Oh, C’mon.

Yes, I think that’s actually what it means.

Well. Then, purring is contentment, obviously.

Sure, but it can mean worry, too. Like how humans will whistle when nervous, as distraction.

Chirping is my favorite.

Mothers will do that to tell the kittens to pay attention and follow along.

What about those little chirrups at the window?

Means they are excited, sometimes about a bird.

Yowling?

That’s for longing. It can be for a mate, or they could miss their old home.

They’re nostalgic, then?

We are the cats inside, Burroughs wrote. Talk about a man who loved cats.

Who cannot walk alone, and for us there is only one place.

Where?

Notes: For a beautiful photo essay of Japan’s largest cat island, Aoshima, you can click here.

An excellent article about philosopher Timothy Morton can be found here.

The Burroughs quote is from his novella, The Cat Inside.