Practice [meditation] is an ongoing investigation of reality, a microscopic examination of the very process of perception. Its intention is to pick apart the screen of lies and delusions through which we normally view the world, and thus to reveal the face of ultimate reality.
~Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
“For [Europeans] work was not an obsession or even, it seemed, a concern. And the notion that a person should subordinate himself to a corporation, especially an American corporation, was, to them, laughable.”
“If you are a self-possessed man with a healthy sense of detachment from your bank account and someone writes you a check for tens of millions of dollars, you probably behave as if you have won a sweepstakes, kicking your feet in the air and laughing yourself to sleep at night at the miracle of your good fortune. But if your sense of self-worth is morbidly wrapped up in your financial success, you probably believe you deserve everything you get. You take it as a reflection of something grand inside you.”
“There was a deep behavioral connection between bond trading and takeovers as well: Both were driven by a new pushy financial entrepreneurship that smelled fishy to many who had made their living on Wall Street in the past. There are those who would have you think that a great deal of thought and wisdom is invested in each takeover. Not so. Wall Street’s takeover salesmen are not so different from Wall Street’s bond salesmen. They spend far more time plotting strategy than they do wondering whether they should do the deals. They basically assume that anything that enables them to get rich must also be good for the world. The embodiment of the takeover market is a high-strung, hyper-ambitious twenty-six-year-old, employed by a large American investment bank, smiling and dialing for companies.
And the process by which a take-over occurs is frighteningly simple in view of its effects on community, workers, shareholders, and management. A paper manufacturer in Oregon appears cheap to the twenty-six-year-old playing with his computer late one night in New York or London. He writes his calculations on a telex, which he send to any party remotely interested in paper, in Oregon , or in buying cheap companies. Like the organizer of a debutante party, the twenty-six-year-old keeps a file on his desk of who is keen on whom. But he isn’t particularly discriminating in issuing invitations. Anyone can buy because anyone can borrow using junk bonds. The papermaker in Oregon is now a target.”
“My father’s generation grew up with certain beliefs. One of those beliefs is that the amount of money one earns is a rough guide to one’s contribution to the welfare and prosperity of society…It took watching his son being paid 225 grand at the age of twenty-seven, after two years on the job, to shake his faith in money. He has only recently recovered from the shock.”
—Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker, 1989
Recommended to us on yoga hike by Miguel
We got a lot of good stuff that day
Steel-welded Sculpture, The Sun God, by J. McKeon
This is part iii of my perfect deformity. It stands alone, but part i and part ii are informative as well.
PHPV (Persistent Hyperplastic Primary Vitreous) is a rare, congenital eye disease that begins around the third month in utero. I have it in my left eye (right to you) and have written about it before. In short, the primary vitreous and hyaloid artery of the developing eye do not become clear and recede (they’re persistent), but instead grow even more (hyperplastic), scar, and form a stalk. Sometimes this is in the front of the eye. Sometimes the back. Mine runs from the cornea in the front all the way back to the retina. This, my ophthalmologist calls “classic,” “amazing,” “beautiful,” and “textbook” when describing it to her residents, whom she will pull off lunch break to view because it’s so rare to see such a case. Also rare because the cataracts and calcium deposits that can develop on the cornea often make it impossible to see into the eye. Not so for me. Mine fog up only the right side of my eye, so you can see straight in.
It is oddly comforting to have my deformity so appreciated. And since I’m a huge advocate of real world education, I’m happy to let the apprenticing doctors take a look, painful as it may be.
When I was little, as in the photo above, the deposits gave the eye more of a blue cast, so I appeared to have one brown eye and one blue (no, not like your cat). Now the coloration isn’t as extreme, but the eye is smaller (microphthalmia) and doesn’t track with the right. Other side effects are the retina peeling off a bit and elevated eye pressure (glaucoma). I have both, though both are pretty stable.
Photo: Far right, adult eye with PHPV doesn’t track with normal eye.
I have yet to meet someone with PHPV. There’s a facebook group called “People with Persistent Hyperplastic Vitreous Unite” but it should be called “Parents of Babies & Toddlers with PHPV Support and Discuss.” I’ve chatted online with someone upstate (we’re FB friends now), and a few people here who have read my other posts, but I have never met another person with this disease. And before the internet (most of my life), the only information I got was from my ophthalmologist. There’s only so much one can absorb in a visit.
That’s why I write this. There’s very little info out there, and nothing about what it’s like to have PHPV.
Even so, I’ve known I see differently since I was young. My pediatric ophthalmologist (he was mean. Parents of Small Children with PHPV, please do not send your child to a mean eye doctor. Traumatown) gave me a slew of tests. One was a fly coming off a board, and I was meant to say if it was 3-D or not. It was the 70s, and this was the “Titmus Fly Stereotest.” Oh, I found a picture. What a horror.
I knew there was a correct answer to the question and I was pretty sure it was not what I saw. So instead of answering as such, I guessed. I don’t remember if I guessed right. I remember the doctor, the scariness, the stress, the tests, and trying to guess what I was supposed to see and say. I was perhaps four or five, and my dad was there in the dark doctor’s office, so I knew it was serious business.
I do not have stereopsis, or, what most people take for granted as three-dimensional vision. Stereopsis requires that both eyes track together, so that the brain can use the perfect disparity between the right and left eyes to judge depth. A few inches apart, they see a slightly different image and the visual cortex uses that difference to create the third dimension. It is a trick of the mind. The cells in the visual cortex of the brain that do this develop quite early, and they rely on sight from two properly aligned eyes.
What does this mean to a kid? I sucked at ball games, because judging the distance of a ball moving through the blue sky is pretty much the pinnacle of three-dimensional sight. I loved photography since before I can remember, and got my first camera for Christmas at age ten. I first thought I was trying to freeze and memorize images, just in case I went blind. Later I realized that using one eye to make two-dimensional images is my reality, so of course it comes naturally. Though I do wonder how others see photographs. While your two-dimension vision is no different than mine, it differs from your regular, three-dimensional vision. Mine does not. All the tricks my brain uses to judge depth are pretty much there in a photograph. So perhaps I’m good at relaying the third-dimension in only two. I can’t know.
I also realized in high school that I could play tennis, as long as there were no lobs, because my brain used the lines on the court to judge where the ball was. I liked that. I did not like 3-D movies, because they didn’t work. I saw a lot of lines. I didn’t and don’t like many movies because the brightness hurts my eyes, which are ultra-sensitive to light. Especially in a pitch black room.
These things I had figured out on my own. In the last few years, I’ve noticed even more. Partly due to technology, and perhaps partly due to yoga and meditation, and simply being more aware of my experience. This is getting a bit long, so I’ll save more on how I actually see for the next post.
other posts on phpv:
my perfect deformity
my perfect deformity, part ii
Chatting with a friend last night, I realized how much I’ve accomplished this year. While there was some time wasted in ways I should have known better, all in all, I got a lot done. Even better, I’ve seen how strong, supportive and beautiful my friends are. My students were as amazing and inspiring as ever, and I’m floored by the majority’s willingness to stand up for what’s right, and stand up for each other. Talking to Bij last week about which neighbor would sell you out if the Germans came knocking, we agreed one should never be surprised. Yet this fall, I’ve been impressed by people’s willingness to come together and protect each other.
While there are a few bad eggs only out for their own interests (1%), they’re easy to spot, and easy to avoid. The miserable little man who claims everyone else is an idiot, whose idea of conversation is talking at people who can’t escape, the disingenuous woman with painted-on smile and seething eyes, scratching madly at everyone, terrified her incompetence will be caught out—they deserve our sympathy, if not our time. There are so many amazing, loving people out there, it’s quite easy not to dwell on these creatures. Don’t.
Just as I started to write, M sent me a link to a Friedman column. Though I think Friedman’s a wanker (“Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a motherfucking Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a ‘Green Revolution’?”—Matt Taibii), I did like this line:
“The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over,” says Dov Seidman, the CEO of LRN and author of the book How. “The old system of ‘command and control’ – using carrots and sticks – to exert power over people is fast being replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’ – to generate power through people.” Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will, adds Seidman. “Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your citizens or customers or employees.”
Oh, I guess it’s all a Dov Seidman quote. That’s why. Yes, connect and collaborate. Finally, it’s happening.
Something else I’ve always known but truly learned this year: Avoid people who put you down, want to keep you down, take you for granted, treat you poorly, or are generally negative or selfish. Even if they are funny. Even if you’re crazy attached. You know, deeply, that it will affect you. It rubs off and the end result is never pretty. Stand up for yourself, your friends, and your beliefs. Value yourself, your talents, your work, your community, and others will, too. It’s cliche and we hear it often, but live it. You’ll be in good company.
All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be.
It is impossible to intervene.
— Russell Brand on Amy Winehouse
Creativity is the supreme freedom. It is a freedom that requires discipline and rules, yet it is boundless for the person who taps into it. Your job is to trigger that boundlessness at the same time that you share the rules of your discipline.
~Anna Deavere Smith
…
“Anyway. Every summer feels like a big round tent. I inhabit it and simmer inside. Fourth of July is the central axis. My favorite holiday because it’s a nothing day. People don’t alter their lives to celebrate it: they celebrate it with and through whatever life they’ve got going. They satisfice. The ways we “make do” say everything about the real life we’re living.” —OvO
The title and photo (taken on a ferry in St. Augustine, FL while visiting LD in May) don’t quite match Owl’s quote here. You have to read her post to get it all. It comes together there. Exxon. And the real life we’re living. I, for the moment, have nothing to say. Nothing I can say.
“I don’t know. I just think blogs need to be about more than just the person having a personal stroke online. There ought to be a purpose, or something.” —JT
Thus spake JT, a friend with whom I spend a lot of time writing and talking. You met him a few posts back when I shared his thoughts on the modern man.
We were talking about another blog, not mine.
Well, what is my blog about? What’s my purpose? It started as a way to share my travel stories, but I don’t travel as frequently now. So it’s a place to share my stories from home. In short, it’s a place to have a personal stroke. Online. Something to keep me writing.
If only because writing makes me feel good.
JT insists my online presence is artistic and discreet, but hey, I get it. I’m sure there are personality tests now based on the level of one’s online presence. Most of my friends, or generally speaking, my closest friends, fall into the barely-if-at-all sector (though they feel free to laugh at my cell phone, age 4, which I will use until it breaks, even if I can barely write a text on it). Georgie, Patty, LisaDe, Bij, Oushi-Za, Haircut, Becki, Karen, Sherry, etc, are not on facebook. I actually use google buzz because they will see it—those who use email and haven’t permanently tuned off the chat feature.
Then there’s the next layer, those who use facebook, but seldom. I asked a friend I’d quoted to look at my status and it took six emails to explain to him where to find it. I respect that.
And so, though it may appear otherwise, I do filter quite a lot out of what I post online. I find discretion the wisest tool in navigating our brilliant new world. And this is not to say I don’t have close friends who use the assbook et al. with great frequency, have online personas as large as their own, and find my concerns about privacy silly. Trust that I love them, too.
I explain this for two reasons. First, because I do at times question the wisdom of my online presence. Second, because many of my stories of late (as yet unwritten) fall slightly beyond my online comfort zone. But they are hilarious and informative, so I believe I need to do it. Discreetly, mind you.
©2011 lizadonnelly.com
I loved Hannah’s post, not least because it reminded me of my own reflections when I worked abroad. Just in case you didn’t have time to read to the end, I’m posting my favorite part (probably the part she’s most reticent about writing). I think it’s important because while of course our perspectives on what we see when witnessing events are colored, there is much to be learned from someone’s point of view. Journalists are privileged in certain ways, and are trained to see things from specific perspectives. I find it fascinating to read and hear accounts from non-journalists, totally unfiltered through the media’s lenses. This is why I love the internet—and the following excerpt from Hannah’s account:
As for the politics: I’m a medievalist and I don’t normally take a stand on these things. But here’s my two cents. I was not frightened by the protesters. Hilary Clinton’s initial statements did not go over well (the primary problem here being that she didn’t say anything else for 24 hours, probably because the State of the Union was the same day as the first wave of protests, and in those 24 hours the situation changed radically). And people quickly discovered the tear gas canisters and bullets used by the police were produced in the US. Nevertheless, the protesters whom I encountered treated me with nothing but kindness. The people I talked to were motivated by anger at political and economic corruption: police brutality, rigged elections, suppression of free speech, massive economic inequality, ubiquitous bribery, lack of jobs for even the best-educated young people, etc. And of the people I talked to the most, people around my own age, none had ever been politically active before. They belonged to no party and didn’t have any particular allegiance except unhappiness with the current state of affairs. The way Mubarak has handled the situation has only reinforced people’s anger, and has made me angry at him when I was previously politically apathetic. The most insulting thing was that he did not respond to the protests in any way for a whole week. No grudging “I hear that you’re not content”, no token concessions, just violence and clouds of tear gas. Only when violence failed did he deign to make any sort of public statement. His cuts to services, especially cell phone service, crippled business and put lives in danger that were not endangered by the protests alone. Entirely removing the police from the streets and allowing the looting to spread was even worse. His token concessions, when they finally came, were ridiculous. Rumor had been circulating since Saturday that the Minister of Internal Affairs had been arrested and imprisoned. Finding out on Monday that he was simply going to be removed from the cabinet was not terribly impressive. Violence and the internet blackout may eventually succeed in persuading people to go home temporarily, but some pretty severe damage has been done and I don’t think Mubarak can stay in power in the long run.
Hannah is my yoga student. Here’s her take on the happenings in Egypt. She emphasizes that the chief characteristics of this experience was lack of information and lots of rumors. It’s her personal perspective.
I should begin by describing where I was living and what I was doing before the protests started. I was staying in a neighborhood called Dokki on the west side of the Nile. This neighborhood is fairly well-off, with expats and some of the smaller embassies (Kuwait, the Netherlands, South Korea, etc), but not predominantly an expat community. I was staying with two roommates, Elisa (a Canadian grad student) and Abdu (an Egyptian working for the central bank). Our apartment was on the the third floor of an ordinary apartment building on a small side street. It has two balconies, which made it possible to see what was going on outside without going down into the street. Normally we use the balconies to dry our laundry. It’s about a block away from Midan Gala’a, Gala’a Square, which is at one end of a bridge crossing the Nile and is overlooked by the Sheraton Hotel. The bridge from Midan Gala’a leads to Zamalek, one of the islands in the Nile, and a second bridge connects the other side of Zamalek to Midan Tahrir, the center of downtown Cairo and also the center of the protests. The US embassy and the American Research Center in Egypt (which was sponsoring my studies) are very close to Midan Tahrir, about a block away.
At the time the protests started I had been in Egypt for about a month finding an apartment, settling in, making contacts, and exploring the various libraries and archives. I was within a day or two of starting to go regularly to the archives every day and work with manuscripts.
The first day of protests was scheduled for a holiday, Police Day, which commemorates the deaths of policemen who opposed British control of Egypt. A rather clever choice, since one of the main grievances of the protesters is police corruption and brutality. Everyone knew that there was going to be a protest, but no one knew how big it would be. I stayed home that day, since it was a holiday and everything was closed, and didn’t expect much. As we all know, the protests turned out to be huge. I saw a large group of protesters pass the head of my street on their way across the bridges to Tahrir, and this is about when I began obsessively checking the news and not doing any more work. At first things seemed to be going well and the atmosphere was more excited and festive than anything else. Abdu, my Egyptian roommate, went out to join them. He returned about 1am, very upset and with blood on his jeans: the police had started to use tear gas, batons, and rubber bullets on the protesters in Tahrir around midnight, when it was too dark to take good pictures. He said he saw women fainting from the tear gas, men under arrest being beaten violently on the way to the police vans (hence the blood on his pants), and everyone was fleeing.
Wednesday and Thursday were work days and so the protests were necessarily not as big, but everyone knew that there would be another round on Friday after noon prayers. A routine quickly began to emerge: the mornings were completely quiet and this was a safe time to run errands, walk around and view the results of the previous day’s protests, etc. Protests would resume in the middle of the afternoon and continue late into the night, with Tahrir Square as the center. On Wednesday I stayed home glued to the news on my computer. On Thursday I went downtown to the research center for a meeting. I was unable to take the subway like I usually prefer because the trains were no longer allowed to stop at Tahrir (to prevent protesters from bypassing police on the streets), but I had no trouble taking a taxi. On Thursday night Abdu went to see his parents in Mansoura, and to protest in his home town with his friends there.
Friday morning was very quiet. Elisa and I went out for a walk across the bridges to Tahrir and back. We saw fewer police than expected, although we did notice police trucks tucked into odd corners and side streets. In Tahrir we saw a number of the plainclothes policemen, who look and behave exactly like a street gang but are official (and a bit older than your stereotypical gang member). It made me nervous to walk past them. Cell phone and internet service were cut while we were out walking around. I’m not sure why they waited so long: the Friday protests were already organized at that point and the subsequent lack of communication was just unsafe. In any case, Elisa decided to go out with a friend and witness the protests. I’ll post some of her photos. I decided to watch from the apartment balcony at home, and this turned out to be a good view. After Friday prayers there was a lull of about an hour, and then I heard chanting of slogans from Midan Gala’a. Within five minutes I started to get whiffs of tear gas and the police just didn’t stop firing, the thumps of the tear gas canisters were almost continuous and the entire neighborhood filled with it. Protesters were falling back from the square into our street to get away from the gas and wash their faces at the mosque’s washing station, or to buy water or carbonated drinks (it works!) from the kiosk to wash their faces, and then headed back to the square. I took some pictures but eventually decided to retreat when the tear gas was getting too strong. Being inside didn’t make much difference though, even with the doors and windows shut. It was pretty unpleasant. I saw some protesters come to the kiosk with bleeding head wounds: they looked pretty bad, but they were still able to walk. However, within half an hour the air was clearing, the protesters were chanting loudly again, and I decided to go out and have a look around. Some protesters were pushing across the bridge towards Zamalek and Tahrir, but I didn’t want to have the police retake the bridge behind me and leave me cut off from home. Our own Midan Gala’a was full of protesters chatting, eating, drinking, chanting, taking photos, and waving signs, so I decided to look around there for a while. Some police were still there, sitting quietly and looking discouraged, and I could see smoke on the other side of the river (I found out later it was the NDP/ruling party building). When Elisa came back we decided to try and get some news at the Pyramisa Hotel. As it turned out, they had internet access too (we have no idea how) and so we were able to send out a few emails. We headed back after dark and the mood was already starting to change: the daytime protesters included all sorts of people, including plenty of women and children, but at night it was mostly young men who, we discovered the next day, torched a number of abandoned police vehicles. Late at night two men knocked on our door collecting food for the protesters in Tahrir, so we gave them what we had on hand.
On Saturday morning we followed a similar routine: errands and exploration during the morning quiet period, then retreat to the house and decide what to do for the afternoon. While we were out doing errands we discovered that we were able to make cell phone calls again. We checked in with our friends, shared our land line number (in case cell phones were cut again), and tried to fix our broken TV, although in the end we were only able to get the government channel. It was infuriating: we were desperate for news, but they showed none of the protests and almost none of the damage, except the looting of the Egyptian museum. The police were gone from the streets and the army were out but only in certain strategic areas. They instituted a curfew but behaved in a friendly way towards the protesters. In the afternoon we began to hear rumors about more widespread looting (by the desperately poor? by police? by malicious opportunists? by escaped or released prisoners?) and this was the first time I felt genuinely unsafe. I visited a friend in the Dokki neighborhood who had a working television in order to get some more reliable information and returned after curfew but before dark. All the shops were closed, barred, and their windows covered with plastic sheets. Elisa tried going to the Pyramisa Hotel to get on the internet but it was no longer possible. As she came back I heard gunshots (which may just have been noisemakers) from just around the corner: it turned out this was our neighborhood watch assembling for the evening and warning off any potential looters in the area. This watch was a group of men from our block: doormen, guards from the parking garage, and volunteers who lived in the buildings on our block. They added up to a group of 20 or 30, armed with knives, sticks, and other improvised weapons. They used tree trunks and repurposed police barricades to close off both ends of our street, and they stayed out all night to keep watch. We offered them water and snacks but they didn’t seem to need anything. As it got dark we shut our windows and their heavy wooden shutters, turned off most of the lights, made a curry, and watched a movie, with many interruptions for phone calls or to investigate strange noises from the street. There were a number of rumors going around about political developments, the looting, possible cuts in water or electricity, etc. and it was hard to know what to believe. We hadn’t believed that they would cut all cell phone service, but it happened; suddenly cutting all water supplies didn’t seem so unlikely. It was a tense night. It was also the first night we discussed the possibility that we might have to leave at some point.
On Sunday we spent the morning lull stocking up on food, water, and phone credit. We also acquired a new roommate: an American masters student named Meredith who had been the previous occupant of my room decided to get out of the downtown area and join us. She had been living on Falaky Street, where I lived for the first few days I was in Cairo. Falaky St. is a few blocks behind Tahrir Square and she was in the middle of the maelstrom. Arrested protesters were dragged down Falaky towards the Interior Ministry building. After a while, they started stripping and beating them in the street instead of waiting to reach the ministry. Then the street became a battleground between protesters and police: massive amounts of tear gas, gunshots, and sound bombs all night. Eventually the army arrived to separate the two sides, but she seized the opportunity of the Sunday morning lull to get out. She was, however, able to verify that police were involved in the looting. She saw a group of police officers in uniform stealing food from a kiosk on Falaky. Evidently Mubarak didn’t see fit to make sure that they were getting enough to eat and they were not getting support and donations from bystanders in the same way as the protesters. The curfew was set for 4pm in the afternoon. Just before 4pm, our street was buzzed several times by a pair of fighter jets. It was an odd experience: it was clearly supposed to be frightening, and everyone ran out onto their balconies to look, but at the same time the jets weren’t doing anything, just passing over. Not at all the most threatening thing we’d experienced in the last day. In fact, it reminded me more than anything of an air show, but serious, whatever that might mean. In the evening we cooked dinner again and watched the rest of our movie together, but this was also when rumors began to circulate about a possible evacuation. I was registered with the embassy and in contact with the research center staff, but it was impossible to get in touch with anyone at the embassy to find out what we supposed to do. Meredith’s sister discovered a State Department website saying that we had to register by email for evacuation, kickstarting a wave of phone calls to find someone at home with internet and time to submit the emails for us. I thought I might leave but didn’t expect to for several days. I did decide to start prioritizing my things and packing the most important ones, just in case. This night was quieter than the last, almost eerily quiet, but the neighborhood watch was out again and we were able to sleep better.
On Monday morning the research center and Meredith’s sister had discovered that the State Department, realizing that no one in Egypt had internet access, had changed their system. We should proceed to the airport around 11am if we wanted to be evacuated. Rumors were spreading about conditions at the airport: chaos, no food or water, days-long waits for flights, etc. Meredith was determined to go anyway and I decided to go with her. So I scrambled to finish my packing. We had been told one bag per person, so I brought one bag and a carry-on and left my other two bags in my apartment. We also brought enough food and water and toilet paper for three or four days. Then we headed downtown with Elisa to retrieve Meredith’s suitcase from Falaky. It was the morning lull: the army was keeping an eye on people coming and going from Tahrir but didn’t restrict anyone’s movement. We talked to some of the protesters and had a look around: they were mostly men, but the mood seemed good. They were making signs, reading the newspaper, smoking and chatting. Having picked up Meredith’s suitcase, she and I caught a taxi for the airport. Our taxi driver was very friendly: we talked about the protests, about our families, and he took a round-about route that helped us avoid the traffic jams and get to the airport in good time. The stories of chaos turned out to apply to the commercial terminal. Government evacuation was happening in a different terminal, which was crowded but not chaotic. They were slowly but steadily sending people out to either Athens, Cyprus, or Istanbul. We had no choice of destination and did not know how much it would cost, but we were told that it would be the equivalent of a commercial flight and that there would be people to assist us with connecting flights and/or hotels at the other end. We ended up waiting from about 11:30am until perhaps 8pm before we found out that we were on a flight to Istanbul. The flight didn’t actually depart until maybe 10pm, but we were met as promised on the other side and they were actually very helpful in terms of getting us oriented quickly. I booked a ticket to London to stay with Toby, my boyfriend. Meredith decided to stay in Istanbul for a few days and then perhaps fly somewhere else to stay with friends. We decided to share a hotel room, where we eagerly got online to let everyone know we were safe, and then crashed around 2:30am. I had a dream about myself and my two roommates trying to persuade a Bedouin group (which one of us was studying for her dissertation) to come and protect our neighborhood from looters. So you can tell what was most worrying about the whole experience.
From here the story is less exciting. On Tuesday I flew to London on Turkish Airlines, which was surprisingly cheap and had surprisingly good food. Istanbul seemed very nice and I wish I could have stayed there, but being in London with Toby was definitely the best choice. On Wednesday I found out that Elisa had also left Cairo and come to the UK.
I feel guilty about leaving so many people behind, and I miss the excitement of the protests themselves. At the same time, leaving was definitely the right decision. It was impossible to get any kind of work done there (which is after all my goal for this year) and the looting worried me. In fact I had no idea how stressed I was until later. In Cairo things were changing so fast, hour by hour, that there was no time to think, only to stay on alert and react to the next twist. The lack of news and the proliferation of rumor were intensely frustrating and made it very difficult to make decisions about what to do. I do want to go back as soon as possible, my research there is barely begun, but I’m waiting for violence in the streets to stop and free movement in the streets to resume. Once that happens, I’ll feel comfortable going back.
The Egyptian people with whom I interacted were kind, friendly, and managed to maintain a sense of humor. Tourists (and foreign residents) in Cairo get used to people calling out “Welcome to Egypt!” as a way to get your attention and try to sell you something. It gets pretty annoying pretty fast. But Elisa said that when she was out photographing the protests on Friday and got caught up in group of protesters being tear-gased on a bridge, one of the men next to her turned to her and said “Welcome to Egypt!” with a big grin. Harassment of women on the street has also been a chronic problem in Egypt, and one which I complain about frequently. But every woman to whom I spoke about this agreed: there was no harassment during the protests. People were more focused on common goals and more inclined to help each other than to bother each other. That more than anything else impressed me. People were happy to talk about what was going on, share news, warn us about where to go or not to go, etc. Speaking Arabic, even just a little, was also a definite advantage. It would have been much scarier if I couldn’t communicate with anyone.
As for the politics: I’m a medievalist and I don’t normally take a stand on these things. But here’s my two cents. I was not frightened by the protesters. Hilary Clinton’s initial statements did not go over well (the primary problem here being that she didn’t say anything else for 24 hours, probably because the State of the Union was the same day as the first wave of protests, and in those 24 hours the situation changed radically). And people quickly discovered the tear gas canisters and bullets used by the police were produced in the US. Nevertheless, the protesters whom I encountered treated me with nothing but kindness. The people I talked to were motivated by anger at political and economic corruption: police brutality, rigged elections, suppression of free speech, massive economic inequality, ubiquitous bribery, lack of jobs for even the best-educated young people, etc. And of the people I talked to the most, people around my own age, none had ever been politically active before. They belonged to no party and didn’t have any particular allegiance except unhappiness with the current state of affairs. The way Mubarak has handled the situation has only reinforced people’s anger, and has made me angry at him when I was previously politically apathetic. The most insulting thing was that he did not respond to the protests in any way for a whole week. No grudging “I hear that you’re not content”, no token concessions, just violence and clouds of tear gas. Only when violence failed did he deign to make any sort of public statement. His cuts to services, especially cell phone service, crippled business and put lives in danger that were not endangered by the protests alone. Entirely removing the police from the streets and allowing the looting to spread was even worse. His token concessions, when they finally came, were ridiculous. Rumor had been circulating since Saturday that the Minister of Internal Affairs had been arrested and imprisoned. Finding out on Monday that he was simply going to be removed from the cabinet was not terribly impressive. Violence and the internet blackout may eventually succeed in persuading people to go home temporarily, but some pretty severe damage has been done and I don’t think Mubarak can stay in power in the long run.
I had some sympathy for the police in the beginning. The plainclothes ones and internal security ones are simply thugs, but the average policeman is a young man from a poor family who has managed to get a decent job and most of these were looking pretty miserable after a full day of confronting protesters with little food or water. I wouldn’t want to get caught between them and the protesters, but I wasn’t afraid of them attacking me personally. The looting rumors have changed my mind somewhat, although it’s hard to know what actually happened.
The army is harder to read. I’m glad that they’re not firing on protesters and for a while it seemed like that would be enough to drive Mubarak out. Now that they’re allowing the “pro-Mubarak supporters” (who seem to be those same thuggish plainclothes policemen) to wreak havoc, who knows what will happen.
And that’s where I’d like to stop. What an honestly elected Egyptian government would look like, I don’t know. But the people of Egypt should have the chance to try it.
I’m not much for social connectivity on the web. Well, it’s quality, not quantity that I enjoy, in social media as with most everything else. I have made some great connections over the years (in fact, I’m sitting at home, which used to be Anya’s. She moved to Michigan. I met her years ago (six?) through an anthro listserv). Last week, a flickr contact, cityNnature, posted this photo (left) of her Farsi studies. Beautiful! Check out her images. She makes Detroit look gorgeous.
This week, another flickr contact, insideowl, posted her Sanskrit studies (below). They don’t know each other, or their photo posts, though they both live in Michigan (I’ve never been to MI. No, wait, once as a child I think we went to Dearborn. I vaguely remember the old cars). Well, I think Ideowl still lives in MI. She seems to be all ashtanga in Mysore, India for awhile now. (Yes, that’s jealousy you detect.)
I just did a little search for a pic by cityNnature, and she has a shot of herself doing yoga. Of course. Of course she does yoga. We three do not know each other and most likely never will. But we have enough in common that we bump into each other on the web and connect. This, as well as finding and maintaining old friendships, is what I love most about the social nonsense of the web. The serendipity.
Our web lives seem so beautiful and easy. cityNnature’s home looks to die for and it seems she has time for nothing but making beautiful photos and studying Farsi, the language of poetry. Insideowl is in one amazing locale after the next, waxing poetic and beauty. I ran into someone the other day who thought I was abroad, because of the images I’ve been posting on flickr (from 11 years back). But we present this way because we have to. It’s not meant to be an escape from the quotidien, but an honor of the beauty in it. What’s the wisdom of venting the struggles, the ugliness, and the pain? Well, yes, plenty, but it’s hidden in poetry to protect others, ourselves, and situations. To protect our quotidian—which might not even deserve or need our protection.
Both of the images remind me a bit of this photo I took years ago in one of my favorite places in the world, Lyabi Haus, the fountain in the middle of Bukhara. I’m not practicing scripts but am journaling the tour guide life (which later turned into posts). The boy in the background, at right, is Jafar, who Ulugbek tells me is now, 11 years later, the ladies’ man of Bukhara.
116th and Broadway, February 1993
I’m more than kind of stir crazy. Fourth day of being home sick. Well, First Day I was home not sick but avoiding crowds and simply enjoying home. That night sick arrived just before Santa. Now I’m talking to myself and wondering why big dogs are so cool and little dogs are so hideous (except Daschunds. They are so cute they would never bark. Being so attractive, they don’t need to cry for attention). For example, the neighbor’s little dog that barks at all hours. 11pm? 12am? 2am? 6:30am? Acceptable? They seem to think so. My God, it’s like India. I slept from 12a-6:30a because of that mongrel’s owners. Not so much sleep for a person recovering from massive cold about to have a birthday.
Thanks for the calls and emails and stuff. I appreciate the support. I used to sing made-up songs to myself, loudly, when I was little and sick for awhile. I am just not good at staying put and doing not so much, unless I’ve made a point of it. And hey, even if I did make a point of it (the xmas quiet time), the sick part just switches it up. This was not part of the bargain.
Just when she thought it was time to relocate to tropical island, it snows. Ooooooooooooh, snow.
Saturday: Xmas. West Side Market for the citrus and seltzer. No snow.
Sunday: Whole Foods for more seltzer and stuff, 4pm. Blizzard has started. Day after Christmas. My waterproof boots are at work, so I did what my mother did when I was little. She put bread bags over her socks to make her shoes water resistant—to her feet anyway. So I got out my sneaks and plastic shopping bags (yes, I ask for plastic. I use them for trash bags. What do you use? Do you, like, buy plastic bags for trash?), wrapped my feet up, stuffed the bags under my jeans, and headed out. Day after Christmas, but no one is out shopping. No one is out at all. The few who are seem kind of grumpy and look at me strangely. Then I realize it’s because I’m grinning from ear to ear. I don’t know why, other than I sure love snow. Do you know this smile? Unwitting and huge, your spirit feels light, and there you are, in the moment, enjoying life like mad even if your nose is running and you have plastic west side market bags tied around your ankles? (And it can’t be due to something epic or cliche, like sex or a sunset.) Snow has this effect on me.
In a smaller way, so does shopping in an empty Whole Foods, which is unheard of. Beautiful. I’m not sure where everyone was. It wasn’t really that that bad out and snow is gorgeous and fun. I filled my basket with smoked salmon (oooh, protein and smooth on the throat), green & blacks maya gold (addiction), some rice (they have Lundberg. Better quality than trader joe’s), and yogurt (ditto). Oh! They have my favorite yogurt: Redwood Hill Farms Goat Milk Yogurt. Hmm. At $7 it’s not my usual choice, handsome as the goat on the label may be. But, it’s my favorite week. And I’m a goat. (My ma’s a goat. LeBron’s a goat. You get it. Sea-goats.) Yes, I’ll take it.
I bought tissues, too. Unfortunately, recycled, which are not suitable for a cold (they’re good for kitchen clean-ups though). As a result my upper lip and under-nose are like leather.
While checking out (zero line—I picked the middle line with no one in it and was called before the people on each side of me, there before I was. Snow-lover’s luck), the woman asked me if it was still coming down. She didn’t look too pleased about it, so I put on a stern face for her and said, “Yes, I’m afraid so.” You have to do this for New Yorkers, myself included, to be polite. It’s not nice to revel in your love of thunderstorms or frigid wind-chill, or, yes, blizzards, when they make everyone else’s life hell.
And if you were (or are) stuck somewhere (God forbid on the A-train in the Rockaways all night), I do feel for you. I’m not gloating. I just love snow, that’s all. Since I was a small fry, it’s been true.
More about my little trek today, but thank heavens, I’m tired and off to bed.
Mom (center), Aunt Carol, and Santa. circa 1947. Adorable. The misery part comes next.
I had planned on a quiet, reflective Christmas this year, but not this quiet. Christmas Eve, out of nowhere, my throat swelled, my nose congested, and my energy plummeted. Usually my body allows a few days for all this to develop, but this something took me down right quick. And usually I ignore a cold, going on about my business, but it seems not an option. I’ve only been out once in the last 48hrs—to buy two grapefruits, three oranges, six lemons, and four bottles of seltzer. Merry Christmas.
Though it’s sad not to be close to family and friends on xmas, there are phones. And frankly, I know so many who dreaded their holiday plans that I felt lucky to do my own thing.
Until I got sick.
But oh well. It was still a nice day. Yes, the title is probably better suited to those who sat around while various family members insulted everything dear—or worse—but it made you click, didn’t it. I chatted it up with loved ones and went through photos and opened a present or two, saving the rest for my birthday, and heard, long-distance, how my pressies went over. I love to use the last week of the year—my favorite—to reflect and relax. A bit more challenging when my head feels like it’s about to combust.
Yes, I am drinking liquids.
I had wanted to get so much done at home this week. But I will revel in what I accomplished this year, most immediately, the photo archive. I finished! On Thursday, I tagged the 9,087th photo. All my digitized images are there. I’m not done with everything. There are still a few projects I want to edit (e.g. the NGOs in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), and I’ve only posted some selects to January 2000 on flickr. There are also undigitized photos and travels not represented: Greece, Turkey, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and so on, weren’t scanned for various reasons, only some of them tragic (missing negs).
Photo at upper right is of Santa in Jackson Heights, Queens.
I also saw my first Will Ferrell movie (Elf), then watched my boys, all festive in red, beat the Lakers. Definitely good for the immune system. :) Happy holidays.
In my ever-spiritual teachings garnered from the NYPL, this notecard just fell out a book I’ve borrowed. Very appropriate for the week just passed. & my new bookmark.
Thanks for some weekend wisdom, Mr. Diggs.
Have a good one.
This post gets no decoration. Plain text (on blogs) is seldom read, and because this bit is a blurb on a yoga moment, and people’s yoga moments tend to annoy me, it’s only right you not read it. I am posting it, though.
Yesterday morning, in Utthita Hasta Padangushthasana—perhaps my worst pose, because I suck in both standing balance and hamstring flexibility—the teach came over to lift my leg and support me, as he almost always does. When I lifted my leg, my standing leg wobbled. Ordinarily I’d stop and rebalance, but because I knew he was there, I kept lifting. I knew I’d recover balance because he was there.
“Oh. This is what it’s like,” I thought, “to be supported. To keep going even though you’re wobbly. To have the confidence you won’t fall flat, or have to be perfect before going up.”
One might argue, as I would because I’m like that, that I shouldn’t go up if I don’t have balance yet, or how will I find it on my own if he always helps? To that I reply: the body remembers and learns, and does so more gracefully without struggle.
It was a big moment, because it’s such an issue and theme in my life. The one I’ve been promising myself to write about, starting with that day back in Kazakhstan in 2004. I feel lucky to have had it yesterday, that little epiphany. The daily discipline of going there early and doing it every damn day, and coming to trust the teacher day after day, is part of what made it happen.
Last week a friend was talking about climbing a fence and stealing fruit off of trees when he was small. “We didn’t do it because we needed it. We just wanted to do it. It was fun. Nothing ever happened to us even if we got caught. You know, the poor kids didn’t do it though. They never did.”
His point was that they didn’t do it because they needed it, they did it because it was fun. But I heard something else, and replied, “Yeah, because if the poor kids were caught, that’d be the end.”
“Yeah, it’s true. We were just given over to our parents, but for them it’s another story.”
All this is what I mean by the psychology of having and not having, and the risk taking you can do when you feel the world is a safe place.
So much to convey I have nothing to say, really. I just don’t know how. Everything I’m doing at the moment feels very transitional and process oriented, or old hat. I’m lucky for the old hat, because it’s giving me the base to transition. Yes. I am still settling in, and yes, the move has been a ten-month process, if not longer. I find that I partly plan things (settling in) and partly go with what feels best next. On Sunday, I cleaned the cupboard under the sink quite thoroughly. I put a lamp inside so I could sweep it out properly. This kind of thing has to be done for me to settle. Some might come and go without ever noticing, but no. I have to take everything out and scrub.
Why does this matter? I find the psychology of the home fascinating. Settling in means I move the bed back and forth until it feels right. I unpack books, many boxed and unmissed for six months. I give them away. I go to the store, get a friend to take me to the store, and go to the store again. I rebuy a bookcase I sold on craigslist in March. I move the books around again. I get lectures from friends about installing blinds and keeping dirty laundry under the bed (the latter a chide about choosing such a small space. “So you are going to sleep over your dirty laundry? (This, from a non-feng shui/energy-feeling type guy, I might add.) What is this? You would pay $800 for this in south Brooklyn (read: российский Бруклин~rossiiskii Brooklyn).” “Yeah, and I’d spend three hours a day on the train. Is my time and sanity worth nothing?”
In my other spare time, when I am not in the mood to settle in, I archive. I’m on 2004, which like 2000, is a very full year because of travel. Tagging the photos can be both tedious and emotional. The other day I tagged August 8, 2004, which was one of the most amazing days of my life, one I’ve always wanted to write about, but again, never knew quite how. Tagging the 187 photos was kind of a drag, though. All all of it feels a bit removed and gone, though my epiphany that day involves a prominent theme in my life. I had dinner with a friend last night and she validated my feelings about it entirely. But for six years I’ve wondered how to explain it properly. Now that it’s pertinent, especially because I needed help with the move, that’s what I’ll tackle next. Happy weekend.
If you’ve seen any pics/news of the 1/2/3 train’s suspended service from 5:30-7:20am, you will imagine my commute to yoga. I left at 5:30a, was totally drenched even with umbrella, got on a train and froze in the a/c, then got stuck there. Service was suspended while we poor souls were all on it. And it’s not the rich folk commuting at 5:30am—though, interestingly, a lot of construction workers did have blackberries. They told us they were trying to “overcome the water obstacle” at 72nd Street. Fifteen minutes later the conductor announced that it could not be overcome, and we were going back to the last station. After waiting, of course, for the five trains that had piled in behind us to do so. Cold. A/C. Misery.
You might imagine another train was running, but we were told to take a bus. No way. There were hundreds of people on the street waiting for bus or cab. About 3 cabs out at that hour, and they were occupied. So, I walked the next 31 blocks to the studio. When I got there I realized I grabbed the wrong bag and had to practice in yesterday’s clothes, which were damp (from day-old sweat, not rain) and rank. But we bonded, sharing our horror commute stories, and sweated it out.
That said, let’s watch something that will make us happy. Good stuff.
It’s beyond embarrassing. I’m among the aged when it comes to agility with a mobile phone. It should be taken away from me. I’d delight in an excuse to let it go.
Maybe it’s because I dislike them so. They are disruptive and bizarre. On a computer, I love to play. I’m more than comfortable when I build a website, fiddle with plugins, or muck around in code. But put someone’s name in my cell phone? Disaster.
I’d like to blame this entire story on my cousin, who started it all the other night, when he joked, in my preparation for visiting my Aunt in Chicago a few days later, “The only gift you need is a dirty joke. She’s so naughty.” She’s 87.
This much I knew. Quite frankly, all the women in my paternal line are quite, well, perverted. Once I’d asked my mother if she thought I was like my dad, and she said, “No, I think you are like your Aunt (his sister).” Interesting.
Back to my cousin. “Yes,” I said, “Thanks for the confirmation on that. I’ve been trying to remember if it was her or Granma who instructed, ‘The only way to get over a man is to get under another one.’ (It was Granma.) But does she still like chocolates?”
“Yes, but you might have to hear that they make her go to the bathroom,” he replied.
Fair enough. She is 87.
“Take her lemon curd. She loves it.”
Great. I can do that. At some point the next day I’d make my way towards Fairway or Williams & Sonoma and find her some lemon curd. And I asked a few friends for some jokes, as the only good one I have is pro-lesbian and I’d have to test the waters with her to decide if it’d go over well. (It did.)
So, the day before I left, I got everything in order. I couldn’t get downtown, so I planned to check out all the nearby stores on Broadway for lemon curd after I taught my last class. I also had to pick up a bottle of wine because I was en route to a party. My path was marked: the party was 6 blocks south, 4 blocks east, with errand stops in air conditioned stores on the way. Though it was still sweltering in the city and I was dressed for the party, it was well planned and would be no problem. A nice stroll, even.
Until the voicemail. After I taught, I chatted it up with students for awhile, then went back to change. I then noticed the VM message on my mobile.
“Anastasia! I have a favor to ask! There was a mess-up and we had to run to downtown catering and didn’t have time to get the cake. Could you get it? It’s at Make My Cake on 116th and St Nicholas. They close at 8. Text if you can or can’t.”
It was 7:30. Of course I could get the cake, though I’d have to run, as I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get there. As I took off east across campus, I called and left a message, “Yes! Just got your message. I’m running to get the cake. Just let me know if someone else got it. This isn’t a text ’cause it takes me about 10 minutes to write one!”
Skipping down the steps of the park headed toward St Nicholas, I considered the lemon curd and wine and wondered if there was any way I could pick them up over there, as it’s a good twenty minute walk to and from Broadway. No calls or texts came in, so I kept going, wondering if I had the time and stamina to go back to Broadway for the goods. I knew I didn’t want to leave it for the morning before my flight because it’d be too rushed. Maybe I could find a cab. Hmmm. Then I ran into Jon, a friend from the neighborhood, crossing Frederick Douglass with a cane in one hand and cigarette in the other, and told him, among other things, to cut out the smoking. He ignored me and asked what kind of cake I was picking up.
“Dunno,” I answered, running off.
7:50p.m. Cake shop.
“Hi. I’m here for a cake. The name, I think is…. No? What does it say? Ah…I have the order number. I’m sorry, one second,” I said, and listened to my VM messages. “Okay. 7253. Red Velvet cake.”
There was some calling back and forth and some upstairs downstairs before a young guy came out, looked at me slightly disparagingly, and said, “Someone just picked that up.”
“Okay, thanks. Sorry for the trouble. I got a message, but it wasn’t clear if they’d sent someone else.”
“No problem.”
“Hey, is there anywhere around here I can get lemon curd?” I asked the first woman. Working in a cake shop, I figured if anyone would know, she would.
She looked at me with raised-browed amusement and said, “No, you’re going to have to go down to Fairway or farther for that. There’s an organic food store, but it closes at 8.”
“Okay, thanks.” I said, and figured I’d go back to Broadway and try my luck. I passed the still-open organic food store, but no lemon curd. And no cabs. So I walked the 20 minutes back to Broadway, figuring that with the surprise party in full swing now, they just didn’t notice my VM about the cake.
I texted to make sure someone had gotten the cake. “Someone got it!” I wrote.
A few minutes later, the phone chimed, announcing a new text. “Hon, I think you sent a text to the wrong person.”
By now I was almost back to Broadway, hot, frizzy-haired, sweaty, and kind of annoyed. “‘Someone got it!’ was not clear enough?” I thought. I snapped the phone shut, then, frustrated, reopened it to write another, as it chimed in another text:
Joke 1: A woman goes to her doc and asks, “How many calories are in cum?” The doc replies, “Sweetheart, if you swallow, no one cares if ur fat.”
The auntie jokes were coming in. The moment felt incredibly absurd. I typed a reply to the previous message. “The cake? Someone….” As I raced toward Broadway, half-looking, half-typing, I realized that I was the person I deplored—the joker racing down the street fussing with a gadget. I was an ugly pedestrian. A bad citizen. Oh, the shame.
I finished the text anyway, turned into West Side Market, headed for the jams, and searched out the lemon curd. Lime curd. They had lime curd. Hell. Does she like lime curd? I searched for my cousin’s number in my phone. Hmmm. Why don’t I put names in my phone?
Well, I do. I’d put the party host’s in just the weekend before, on July 4th. I do resist though, as it takes time and I like numbers. My grandmother (and namesake. Paternal line) had the numbers, addresses, and birthdays of the entire Lithuanian-American club memorized, and could recall them even at age 95. I’m old-fashioned in some ways. I will argue that my memory is fantastic. It’s just that hunting up numbers in a call log does not carve them into memory them same way fingering that rotary dial did.
I asked a guy stocking soups if they might have lemon curd. He took me to a guy who’s worked there longer than a day, and he led me back to the lime curd. Then he took me past the cheese, sushi, and lobsters to the barbeque sauce section and scoured the shelves for lemon curd. I gave up and went on to Milano. Not even lime curd. Frustration mounting, I went to the wine store. That, at least, would be easy.
Back out in the heat, I had to decide. Walk 6 more blocks to try Garden of Eatin’ for lemon curd? Or settle for lime? My phone chimed with another joke. Wanting to be a good guest, niece, goddaughter, I walked south. I popped into Samad’s just in case, like my auntie, they had a strange fondness for lemon curd, and stocked it. They did not. I went on. At the Garden, my fifth stop, I made a beeline to someone who worked there. “Do you have lemon curd?” He looked uncertain for a split second, then he took me to the jams, reached up to a row of fancily labeled goods, and handed me lemon curd. Lemon curd! Thank God! Relief! My sweat and newly-formed blister were not in vain.
Three nasty jokes had come in by this time, and I read them while waiting in line. Of course I was behind three people at the registers who took eons. One issue with the price of something, another remembered he needed yogurt mid-checkout and went to get it, and the last simply complained about nothing, and stalled the rest of us in her need for attention. This meant the bus, which would have taken me the ten-minute walk back east to the party in two minutes, was just pulling away from the curb as I rounded the corner. I refuse to take a cab four blocks—even if they’re avenues—so I walked.
I arrived. About two hours behind my original plan. Am I becoming part of that mobile crowd who finds this acceptable? Oh, I so hope not.
“Welcome!!” Big hug. “Did you get my super-paranoid message about the cake? Don’t worry. We got it!”
“I know. I went to get it. Didn’t you get my message?”
“No,” she said, confused. She checked her phone. “Nothing.”
“So weird,” I said as I walked to wash the grime off my hands, wondering to whom I’d sent all those messages. As I washed, I remembered a brief thought that flashed through my mind when I half-listened to the greeting when I’d left the VM message. “Strange. Her name sounded so much like ‘Sarah’ the way she said it.” But I was so concerned about leaving the message and getting the cake that I really didn’t listen to notice that I had called Sarah. This is what happens when people are rushing around on phones. No one is really saying or listening to anything. I’d pressed “Purva” when I made the call. I claim not to, but I’d trusted my little machine. I was certain I’d called Purva.
I had, in fact, saved the wrong number in my phone coming home from July 4th festivities last week. But until I got to the party, and later when Sarah left a message saying, “What the hell is wrong with you? My birthday isn’t until next week” (Just kidding. She left a very patient and polite message, very unlike my recent message to a friend whose phone dials me ten times a day—and leaves long background-chatter-filled messages—because my name is at the start of her phonebook) did I seriously consider that it wasn’t the right number.
You hoped this was the end of the story, but no.
The next day, I got to the airport without issue. I’ve never flown Delta, and have therefore never flown out of LaGuardia’s art deco Marine Air Terminal, which is just gorgeous. It wasn’t crowded. There were no lines. I was incredibly charmed until I stood barefoot on the cold, dirty floor of the security checkpoint and the TSA gal called, “bag check.”
I was patient and pleasant because I had nothing problematic with me. I remembered to take out all my lotions and such because I wasn’t certainly wasn’t checking a bag for a few days in Chicago. I had no gels or liquids.
Oh. God.
I froze.
They wanted, and took, my auntie’s lemon curd.
“Are you kidding me?” I said to a nice-enough, middle-aged bald guy just doing his job. “It’s not a liquid. It’s not a gel. It’s solid. It is for my 87-year old aunt. Do you know how many stores I went to for this last night?”
The guy said, “Not allowed. Substances like jams, preserves, almond butter (he actually said “almond” and not “peanut” as if he knew my diet. Creepy, but good to know) in sizes over three ounces are not allowed. You can check it if you want.”
“I can check a 20oz jar of lemon curd?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I want you to know that we are not taking it from you, that you can check it, and that it is your choice to give it to us.”
I refrained from retorting that unlike jam, preserves, or almond butter, lemon curd is quite solid, and that it was his choice not to let me take it. I did say, “I went to five stores in the blistering heat to find this for my auntie last night. I find it incredible that I cannot take a jar of solid food product to my 87-year old auntie. Just incredible.”
This seemed to make him feel bad, which wasn’t my aim, but that “It is your choice to give it to us” nonsense is unacceptable. Shoes on, I gathered my things and huffed off. Gal #1 laughed. B – - – -.
I found a seat and flipped open my cell phone. I set off writing a red hot text, partly because I was annoyed, and partly because I knew he’d think it was hilarious. You would hope I’d learned my lesson the night before, but no. I sent the message off to the wrong person again, this time because the last four unsaved-but-in-the-log numbers of the needed phone number were markedly similar. (I’d actually made this specific mistake before, too.) The details of this faux pas are far too humiliating to relive here, so I’m just going to do you the favor of ducking out now.
I was able to find my Aunt another suitable gift, this one filed under her favorite subject: “Not for the puritanical.” She’s such good fun.
Last Monday morning at 5:43am, I had a few minutes spare before leaving for yoga. I didn’t intend to read the email that had arrived the night before. I’d planned to wait until I was fully awake, in the bright of day, and perfectly able to take in whatever came next. I would not chance any of the sorrows that so easily take over in the quiet hours of the day. But the sun was up, and I rashly decided I was being silly. Why not? So I read.
Previous caution aside, I didn’t fully expect what I read or the affect it would have on me. I teared. I looked at the time. I collected my stuff and myself and I left.
A friend of mine once said, after her father died, that you can’t schedule grief. You can’t plan it, you just have to take it when it comes. This has been my experience precisely. While anger is fairly accessible to me, sadness tends to hide itself, even when I know it should be there, and feel that it is, somewhere, there. Because it is difficult for me to reach, I try to respect it when it comes.
In the elevator down, the tears started rolling. I walked out of my building and up the street, feeling bittersweet memories and the sheer sadness of an ending, and crying harder. I’ve learned in the past that silent tears often go unnoticed, and New York is mostly asleep before six in the morning, so I didn’t care too much about my public display. When I was midway down the steps to the subway, an MTA guy headed up them looked at me with concern. I recognized him as a night-shift elevator operator, and remembered saying ‘Hi’ to him when I came home the night before, just after 10. He said something. I pulled out an earbud.
“What?”
He asked, again, with kind eyes, “Are you okay? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, oh yes,” I answered, and he nodded. We kept going. The tears came a little harder, marveling at the beauty of New Yorkers. Marveling that someone who’d spent the last eight graveyard hours in an underground MTA elevator still has the capacity to be genuinely concerned about a stranger passing by.
A few nights before, I talked to a guy at in a club who claimed that Londoners are much more open and kind then New Yorkers. He complained that New Yorkers are entirely self-absorbed and unhelpful.
“Really? You think so?” I answered, amazed. I understand this might be true as far as superficial concerns go, but never have I found a New Yorker to turn on someone in real pain or need. Yes, there is a certain amount of numbing oneself to others’ pain that goes on here, to get through the daily realities of so many in such a small space. But if someone is truly out or ill or in need, someone steps up. No, not everyone, but someone. You know when it’s your turn. That’s how we work.
Last year, just after Andrea moved back to Australia, I was headed downtown on the train during rush hour to meet a friend for dinner. It was packed, and I was standing by a pole between the end seat and the doors. A particular song came on my player and all of the sudden I burst into tears. I’d kept sunglasses on, so I didn’t think it was terribly noticeable. I was silent. My eyes closed in search of privacy, pretending that anyone I could not see could not see me. Because rush hour on the train is so in-your-face, and I respect the right of New Yorkers to have as much space as possible on our confined and difficult commutes (i.e. no one needs extra drama two inches away after a long day’s work), I tried to dam the tears. Just when I thought I’d stifled them, someone tugged on my arm.
“Sit, sit, please sit,” said the man sitting in front of me.
Oh no.
Stubborn, I refused. “No. No thank you.” I shook my head, as accepting meant I acknowledged he was there. That anyone was there. That I was making a scene. His kindness toppled the dam and I cried harder, gulping for air as I tried to regain composure. The train stopped. The man got up. He looked and sounded Middle Eastern. “Sit!” he cried, as he grabbed my arm and forced me down in his seat, seemingly anguished by my pain, and then bolted from the car. The blond woman next to me turned and asked if I was okay.
“Yes, yes,” I answered, humbled by their kindness and totally unable to stop the flow of tears. I refused to make eye contact with anyone else in the crowded car, and refused to acknowledge how many might be taking me in. Finally, by 14th Street, I pulled it together, wiped my face, and prepared to get off the train. It was done. By the time I reached the restaurant, no one suspected a thing.
A friend of mine recently said that NYC is a refugee camp. It takes in everyone who, for whatever reason, can’t or doesn’t want to be where he began (and if not him, it took in his mother or grandmother, and he knows what that means). Given the number of cultural strangers here, it’s a miracle that so little violence takes place, especially considering the behavior and antics of many space-rich middle Americans.
In our own way, we take care of each other. No, we aren’t bubbly or disingenuous. We also know how to stay out of each other’s way, which can be seen by outsiders as rudeness. But on this tiny island of millions, that, too, is an act of kindness.
Two weeks later I went to my next appointment, this time ten blocks south. Goodbye Dental Passion, hello Beautiful Smile. The office was quite nice. There was no wait—I even filled out my forms in the (stationary) dentist’s chair. The dentist came in and introduced herself, looked at my teeth, and took x-rays. The x-rays were painless. The good dentist put my iron vest on for the entire procedure. I bit down on a tiny little thing and it took no time at all.
She handed me a mirror and showed me 5 “brown spots” she wanted to coat. “They aren’t cavities, but there’s bacteria there and they could become cavities. It’s preventative.”
“Hmm,” I said. I explained that the dentist who gave me the cleaning a few weeks before said that I had three cavities, possibly more, and that I might need root canal.
She looked over at the laptop where my teeth were on display. “I don’t really see where you’d need root canal.” She said.
“No, I thought it was strange myself. So I’m not sure about these five enamel coatings. Do I really need them?”
She explained they were my teeth, and that I didn’t have to have them. I was confused, as she had such a different take on my mouth than the previous dentist. She was quite nice, so I asked her about my front teeth.
Well, the root is strong. If you wanted to fix them, you could go veneer or crown. Both cost about $1400 a tooth. We’d have to put submit to your insurance to see if they’d cover it, which takes about four weeks.
I told her I’d think about it all and get back to her. I could do $1400 a tooth, as that would take me to the $3000 per year coverage on my insurance. Or so I thought.
I went to the front desk and was presented a bill to sign. “The insurance will send you the check and you will sign it over to us.” I was told. “We aren’t part of that spectrum plan.”
“Huh?” I wondered as I looked down at the bill. $820? I didn’t even get my teeth cleaned. They’d charged me $100-something for the visit, and over $600 for the x-rays.
I’m not sure what to say.
Unacceptable.
So much for fixing the front teeth. Even if the insurance did cover it, I’ve spent over $1000 at the dentist just getting x-rays, a cleaning, and two opinions on the state of my teeth. Enamel coverings? I don’t think so.
I do wish I had the opinion of someone I trust. Maybe the worst one really should be covered. Maybe it’s kind of almost a cavity. I don’t know.
I realized between writing these posts that the real reason I haven’t been to the dentist in so long, and the real reason that I avoid doctors, is because I don’t trust them. It’s confusing and painful when our health is in the hands of people—encouraged by a system—who are out for a buck. “Don’t worry, your insurance will cover it.” No thank you.
The health care reform that passed yesterday can barely be called reform. But at least it’s a step. Something has to be done about this system. It’s unethical.
So, I went on a bit in the last two posts. I want to hit a few points that might have been lost in the story. One, I’ve noticed that most of the people in online forums talking about PHPV are parents of young children who are horrified by this condition. Of course, we all want our kids to be healthy. There aren’t that many people who actually have the disease chatting about it, and that’s because we are used to it. It really isn’t that big a deal. I see that docs are doing surgery on babies’ eyes now, and the only advice I can give a parent is to be really, really sure that it’s necessary, because often I don’t think it does any good, and honestly, other than some fear around having only one good eye, and having to wear glasses (which I don’t even think about, really), the worst part of the condition as a child was all of the doctor visits (before Woody, of course). My eyes are extremely sensitive to light, and having light blasted into them is very, very unpleasant. (This is why my prescription shades are on even in winter.) Not to mention the doctor talking to the parents in a grave, hushed tone. Scary.
As for my last last few check-ups, Dr. Amilia Schrier (I’ve seen it spelled Amelia, too) explained that if I saw bright or flashing lights, or worse, a very obvious darkness, as if a veil of gray has been pulled over my eyes, I should get to her immediately because the retina is starting to detach. So, if that should happen to you, make haste.
My other great doctor experience was with an orthopaedic guy I found over a year ago, believe it or not. (According to my doc friends, orthopaedic surgeons are the most egotistical and jock-like of all MDs). Dr. Dermksian, however, listens, is patient, explains everything without condescending, has never offered or prescribed me drugs (always a plus in my book), and is the most prompt doctor I’ve ever seen. And he takes my insurance. I’ve seen him on different occasions for a foot condition (sesamoiditis) and patellar tendonitis. When I asked him about wearing a knee brace, he told me it’s probably more helpful psychologically than anything. I appreciate that. Why my inflammation occurs in the tendons holding my sesamoid bones (the patella is a sesamoid bone, as well as the sesamoids in the feet), we’ve no idea.
Yes, sesamoid does come from sesame seed.
There’s also an amazing dermatologist in that building (1090 Amsterdam), Dr. Robin Buchholz M.D. I saw her years ago because of a weird spot on my leg I feared was skin cancer (it wasn’t). She was recommended by a friend, for good reason. She’s just lovely.
So there. The good stuff. None of the horror stories so easy to come by. Some doctors out there do care about our health, though the system does make that difficult for them.
