intense light

[gurdonark]

"The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity"--WB Yeats



I began to watch the Dallas Cowboys football game today on television, and found it quite enjoyable for a quarter. When the prospect of lunch and a movie arose, I left it behind without remorse. I am no longer the sports fan I once was.

Today we went for brunch at the Allen Cafe, the small breakfast place with the inexpensive entrees in a converted burger shack. They were out of pork chops, and the waitperson, a bleach-blonded high schooler, seemed surprised when I did not want steak sauce for the small steak I ordered instead. The meal was quite good, and I wonder why there aren't more down to earth old-time cafes in this tired old world.

We decided to go see "Under the Tuscan Sun", with Diane Lane. The movie was completely enjoyable--what a nice contrast with "Unfaithful" (and what a great benefit to her to get two career-making roles in succession). Diane Lane has a way of seeming both entirely down to earth and utterly glamorous.

I'm intrigued, though, by the notion that one leaves San Francisco to "find" oneself in, say, Tuscany, or (as in another well-known book) Provence. I suspect that there are lots of places to find oneself, and that it is even possible in San Francisco.

My theory is that the myth is all about the light. In California, as in Tuscany, one has what they call "mediterranean light". It spawns art movements, encourages olive trees, discourages dogwood trees and generally filters everything. Our Texas light is entirely different--bright, yes, and harsh, yes, but not providing those contrasts. I used to like that line in Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light" in which he says "mama always told me not to look into the face of the sun--oh, but Mama!, that's where the fun is".

I think sometimes that it is so easy to be a refugee--seeking out some metaphoric Italy. I think sometimes how so many personal choices I used to see as "sins" or "wrongs" I now see as self-medicating escapes. It's so easy to lose one's way, and to imagine that the problem is mere geography.

For some, of course, geography makes a difference. I do believe in moving to where a job might be, or where opportunity is greater. But there is that metaphoric idea that if one could just leave one's own culture, one would be a different person. The problem is one of inner geography, I suppose--perhaps the change of locale makes for a nice change of internal landscape. One not only moves to Italy, but one moves to heal inside. But I posit that it is just as possible to heal, say, in Pflugersville, Texas, and it's a much shorter commute. Of course, in our local clay soil, maybe everything is just a bit more down to earth and a bit less revelatory. That would explain the success of fundamentalism here, among other things.

This weekend we see the sordid spectacle of the California gubernatorial election break down into the predictable humdrum of personal scandal and public unsuitability. Sometimes it seems that the only people with real convictions have the wrong convictions.

I played chess today at the Free Internet Chess Server with queenseye. That was a lot of fun! I have to remember, by the way, that I am much better when I play quietly, grab a pawn, and then play out an endgame than when I play more elaborate strategies. It's great that on-line chess there is free. I had always been an Internet Chess Club user before, and although its interface is arguably a bit nicer, the FICS interface is just fine. I will have to figure out which of my friends and acquaintances in chess are FICS users.

Tonight I drove to Allen Station Park and walked the short nature trail to the old railroad dam built in the 1870s when Allen was founded. Nobody was on the trail but me. I saw a cottontail rabbit, who stood stock-still, hoping I would pass. It rained cats and dogs last night, and it may rain again tonight. Autumn is starting to wind its way into my mind.

In the paper, the travel section says that nearby Mount Ida, Arkansas is having a quartz dig. I love that quartz comes in veins, which come near the surface in Arkansas. I've love to have a quartz vein in my backyard, but our local clay and shale soil is not that way inclined. I'd love to go dig quartz, but I think I'll wait until a non-festival weekend.
I can be inundated with festivity.

I love to see the light shine on a geode full of quartz crystal. I am sure there is some metaphor there about when the rock is broken open, there's lovely crystal inside. Maybe this is the solution--exposing things long hidden to the right light.

Comments

[blue-by-you.livejournal.com]

Quartz...here (well at the Ocean, not on the Sound) it washes up on the beach, all smooth and briliant like jewels. It takes time and searching to find it, though. Besides Sand Dollars and Starfish, it is my favorite beach treasure.

I'm reading May Sarton's journal "House By the Sea" which one could say chronicles her own Tuscany and the healing that came with it. I suppose I would say the same about my little home here at Alki. Is it geography? In part it is. I think it is finally getting to the place you've always known was right for you, in a natural sense. For me, it is the ocean. I wasn't born at the ocean so I had to get there. Change isn't easy but I think times of great stress or loss are open to become times of change, or tom-foolery, or bravery. Or maybe I'm just talking about my own experience.

The thing that hit me while I was reading this, though, was that more than geography, for me it was people. I wanted to disappear. To start over. To know people from a distance rather than have them at my door. Here, I can be in a crowd and the crowd does not know me. I am faceless except to the few I let in. That's what I wanted most.

In any case, I understand the need for Tuscanys.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

That's cool about quartz washing up on the beach. I always liked the story about how the Mississippi River is full of alluvial diamonds--the source is unknown, but the diamonds roll downstream.

I think you make a nice set of points about how liberating relocation can be. I've known people who blossomed over changes that were stark, but also people who blossomed over changes that to me were not particularly sweeping, but to them meant everything.

I know exactly that anonymity to which you refer. It is nice to be a place where one is "on one's own" without the baggage. I grew up in a small town, and I loved the warmth, but to stay, and have people know me utterly and yet judge me by things that happened when I was a kid--not inviting.

So I can see how I would word the post less "this or that" next time :). Thanks for commenting!

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

"I think sometimes that it is so easy to be a refugee--seeking out some metaphoric Italy."

oh yes. yes, you are right. i have done that, after all, still do it. it's not about geography or culture, but that's the easiest way to attempt a short-cut to freedom, away from the dullness of self. this is very acute. it's giving me pictures in my mind of mediterranean light and olive trees and white tablecloths, but that's not the answer to my internal questions. thanks for writing this, really. i'll save and reread it, with more thought.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that using a physical shortcut to achieve an emotional shortcut might work, because I think people are all into metaphor. I do think, though, that the important thing is to realize that it's internal landscape where change happens. I know people who moved to get away, and found they had, to their dismay, brought themselves with them.

[chevrefeuilles.livejournal.com]

You write so beautifully, and create such leisurely, tranquil pictures. It is not often enough that I slow down to look at (read thoroughly) all of them; sometimes I have to skim. I admire how you live in a measured way, and have double appreciation for quiet and pleasant things---by experiencing them first and then recording those experiences...Does this make any sense?

Gah. I've been reading those Elaine St. James "Simplify Your Life" books and rethinking how I want to tackle the next few years.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I love those simplicity type books. I thought that "Your Money or Your Life" (Dominguez) was great, and that "think piece" book about simplicity as a philosophy was very good. I've always meant to read St. James' books, as kind of the "third item in a trilogy" of that type of work, but haven't yet. Sometimes I think that thrift is such an important thing, not only materially but also spiritually, and yet I practice it too rarely.

But the idea of work as part of an integrated life lived with meaning, of a home as less a material thing and more a launching pad for one's own way, and of breaking the "trapped by money" cycles is a good one. I think it's a matter of mean--I sometimes think of the simplicity movement activist I knew who was utterly admirable, but who also felt deeply her lack of income. I think that sometimes one has to find a compromise between the perfection the books promise and the realities of living. But the way of looking at things is priceless.

One place I do not practice thrift is post length. Sometimes I think I should write less lengthy posts, as "verbosity" seems to be my bane here. But I notice that when I do, people don't really connect with them as well. I personally enjoy reading my longer posts.
So I'm stuck with being myself, for a while, anyway.
My life does have a good flow to it, overall, although it does have its challenges and failings as do all lives.

I'm glad you read my posts, when it works for you, and I never worry that you skim when they're too long.
The good thing about LJ is that it is not a textbook, and there's no quiz afterward, so it's fine to miss a
post or two.

[thecatinside.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued by what I know of the simplicity movement - unfortunately, I don't know a lot. I have a book entitled Simple Abundance that contains daily meditations related to living a simple and satisfying life. I read it often.

I often seek out my own personal Tuscanys. But I also believe that it's the internal environment that matters most, and that's what I try to change.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes. I do not mean to criticize those who find value in travel. I mean instead to stress the internal search. I like the simplicity movement, but I like even better the sense of thrift and focus on what matters that predates and infuses that movement.