Party
September 8, 2009
A teenage boy was helping his father clean up after a party. Grumpy that “the menfolk” were doing a chore usually designated for “the womenfolk” he sulked, slammed dishes, slung soapsuds across the sinks.
Gently, his father asked him, “So, did you have a good time?”
“Yeah.” Sulk, slam, sling.
“Then why are you upset?”
Sling, sulk, slam. “Dunno.”
Fearing for the safety of the good china, the father put his hand on the shoulder of the lad and said, “Let’s take five minutes.”
Through the ruins of streamers and the debris of salsa platters, they sat down on the couch.
“Son, what is a party?”
“A celebration?”
“Yes, but it is also a state-of-mind.”
Fearing his father was about to pine for his college days, the son said, “That sounds like something from a movie.”
“It probably is. Okay… let’s say that there are three kinds of parties. We’ll call them first, second and third.”
With a sinking feeling, the not-yet-man-not-still-boy felt a session of father-son bonding about to happen. The idea of slinging soap suds began to grow in appeal. But, his old man was rarin’ to wax philosophic.
“The first party is ‘we’ as in you, your mother, your sisters and me. The second party is ‘you’ as in the people we invite. The third party is ‘them’ or the one’s whom we did not invite. We throw a party for you so we can celebrate not having to be with them.”
“Who’s them?”
“The kids at school who just don’t get you. The bosses you have that don’t get their jobs or yours. People who want to harass instead of enlighten, those sorts of people.”
“So we throw a party to forget about them?”
“Kind of. A party is a sacred space in time in which we come together to prove to ourselves and to others that we can experience joy, and take pleasure in the company of our friends no matter what they think or do.”
“Sacred space?”
“Yes, celebrations can honor the living, the dead, the Gods, anyone that we cherish near or far. It is our duty, Son, to show hospitality. So your mom and I spend our money to buy all of this food and wine for us for you for them. In return, our family and friends will do the same thing… at a wedding, or a shower. So, it is important that we treat this experience as life-affirming and holy.”
“Which includes cleaning up afterwards?”
“Indeed, all tools of ritual must be cleaned and put away. Even one as unlikely as a casserole dish or a champagne flute.”
“So, we can finish cleaning up now?”
“No you can. Mom had too many Brandy Alexanders with my sister and my mother. I should go check on her. Remember, be careful with the china. Good night, son.”
Invisible Neighborhoods: Graete
September 5, 2009
Everyone, it seems, wants to move to the neighborhood of Graete: they call it charming, they call it chic. The high rents and lack of public transportation add to its appeal, apparently.
But denizens of the City, not the newcomers from the ‘burbs who suddenly feel the call of urban living think there is something inelegant about the place.
Perhaps its the flat tires on the new cars. Perhaps it is the sunflowers with missing petals. Perahps it is the proliferation of dented cans of marinated artichoke hearts in the grocery stores frequented by gourmets. Its as if the idea of the wheel never made it passed the local zoning board.
Everyone has been to Graete. Everyon has a friend or two who live (or have lived) there. Its thoroughfares and convenient parking are known to all. So why do we all keep coming back?
The smiles of the inhabitants never extend to the ends of their mouths or their eyes. Old friends always look delighted to see us, or did we arrive just in time to keep them from crying?
Graete is the neighborhood of violated expectations. Its other name is Regret. The only truly happy people in the whole neighborhood are the self-help authors who arrive at the Border’s to sign copies of their latest best-sellers. They get to go home to a different neighborhood.
We stay.
Jediism
September 3, 2009
A young man, strangely dressed, entered the café where the writers congregate to drink coffee, nibble on pastries, and get on with the serious business of not writing.
The only table left was inconveniently located between the bathrooms and an old woman. So, he sat down, whipped out his brand new laptop, fired it up and commenced creating an act of literature. He stared at the blank screen, waiting for the words to pour forth into his text editor.
Several minutes passed, and all he could think about was how often the habitués of this café had to pee. Then he realized that almost all of them took the time to nod, if not chat with the old woman. Most referred to her as “grandmother.”
He looked away from his screen and saw that the old woman was busy writing letters using parchment, quills tipped eith copper nibs, and a tiny silver pot of ink. He leaned over and studied her patience with filling the nib, then scratching tight, but expansive, letterforms in a gossipy fashion that only the elderly can pull off.
“My dear, would you like me to read this out loud to you?” She asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just noticing how all of these people seem to know you. I was just curious as to who you are and what you were writing.”
She smiled. “I’m just an old woman. And I’m writing to another old woman in Bethesda, Maryland who belonged to the same coven I did back in college.”
“But everyone seems to know you.”
“Oh, they’re just being polite.”
Subconciously realizing that an interesting conversation was less mentally taxing than creating an act of literature, he turned away from his lap top and began to spill his guts…
“I wish people would take me so seriously.”
“People don’t?”
“No. You see, I am a Jedi.”
The old woman’s bushy eyebrows raised a fraction, but she said nothing.
“And, everyone here thinks I and my friends are a joke. Even when I go out dressed like this.”
“I thought you were in the SCA.”
“See!” Warming up now, he said, “My beliefs are just as important as anyone else’s. My fellow Jedi and I were even mentioned in the Washington Post! I cam here to write all about it.”
“Yes, my friend Martha, the one to whom I am writing, sent me that clipping. Fascinating.”
“We came in tenth on Facebook! So why do I get no respect?”
“Well, I expect, most of us just think of social networking sites are supposed to be for fun. I remember that article was pretty vague… I tell you, what, why not tell me what it is that you believe. Being able to explain yourself may be all the respect you need.”
So the young man told her about the Force. He described how it binds us, flows through us, keeps us all together. He extolled the virtues of the Jedi code. All the while, the old woman nodded, asked the occassional question, and kept her china blue eyes focused on him.
When he stopped for air, the old woman asked, “now, do you feel better?”
“Yes, thank you for listening to me.” It was then that the young man realized his lack of manners. “Here I’ve been doing all of this talking. What about you, grandmother, if I may call you that. What do you believe?”
Scoffing, she said, “No one is interested in an old woman pottering in her garden, with her simple rituals to her Lady and her Lord. I have no spaceships and no lightscimitars, er, lightsword-thingies…”
“Lightsabers.”
“Exactly. I’ll tell you what… may I?” She gestured with a liver-spotted hand at his laptop. He nodded his consent. She turned it around and began double-clicking and typing in a thrice.
Pointing at his internet browser window, she said, “Why not start here on the Wild Hunt. It’s an blog post on that article from the Post. You’ll find a lot of links about the problems we Pagans face, even here in the Pagan City, about not being counted on censuses. How the courts don’t take Pagan faiths seriously. All kinds of things… I’m sure you can identify with a lot of these issues. Especially when your spirituality is treated like an internet joke. Now, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m meeting with my publisher in half an hour. O, the cover art for my latest book is hideous. Simply hideous.”
She packed up her quills, her parchments, her ink bottle and began the leaving behavior. “You can follow me on Twitter.” She handed him a slip of paper with her contact information. “Good luck with your writing!”
The young man stared at a dozen tabs she had opened up on his browser. While everyone was calling out, “Travel well, grandmother!” “Bright blessings, grandmother!” He had still written nothing.
Invisible Neighborhoods: Prax and Dox, Dox and Prax
September 1, 2009
Rabbit came down from the moon and entered a neighborhood whose inhabitants could never decide upon its name: Dox or Prax.
You see, at first Rabbit was impressed. Some inhabitants were busy fasting and praying, observing rituals with great srcupuosity. Others studied sacred texts and learned them by heart. They followed each piece of advice from mystics and prophets.
Then Rabbit saw something disturbing. Those who called their neighborhood Dox were always trying to get everyone else to believe just as they did. Each Dox individual believed only she understood just what the mystics, the prophets, the sacred texts meant on how to live a life of faith and honor to the Gods.
Meanwhile, all of the denizens who called their neighborhood Prax ran around yelling, “No! No! No! You’re doing it all wrong!” They would then try to get everyone else to say the prayers, sing the songs and perform the rituals exactly the same way. Each Prax individual believed on he understood how to honor the Gods and live a life of faith by performing the rites a certain way.
Dox or Prax, Prax or Dox, there was always a lot of argument going on.
When they saw, Rabbit, they accosted him: “Ho, stranger! Do you best honor the Gods by what you believe or what you do?”
Rabbit was silent, thinking very hard. Finally, he spoke. “It is good to follow protocol and observe the rites in a traditional manner. It is also good to hold the Gods dear to your hearts and seek to imitate Them. At worst, it is prideful and wicked to put your conception of yourselves and the universe above all else and each proclaim that you and only you know the path to Divinity. At best, aren’t you all overdoing things a bit? I mean, really…”
At this point the citizens of Dox and of Prax threw rocks at Rabbit and called him a heretic.
Hopping away, Rabbit returned to the Moon. He spoke with the Queen of Heaven about what he had seen. She praised his wisdom and told him, “Life would be too easy if we spelled out everything for mankind. How would they ever grown and join us?”
Sighing, the Queen of Heaven pulled out her to-do list and scratched off the entry that read: Answer the prayers of Prax and of Dox.
Masquerade
August 30, 2009
A young matron went into a costumery on the High Street. Bells jingled on the door as she stepped in. An old man, deftly gluing beads onto a leopard mask, look up. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I need a costume for the Masquerade on the riverboat next week.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.” He got up from his workbench and began showing her his latest designs: emerald-crusted elephants, papier-mâché old men, gazelle goddess from another continent..
“Who do you want to be?”
She paused, fingering a fox mask cleverly contrived out our feathers.
“I want to be me. The real me.”
Frowning, the shopkeep asked her, “Are you sure you don’t want to be a tree nymph? I have these masks of elder, ash and oak.”
“No, I want a mask that shows the real me.”
“But what would that mask show? A young mother who is slightly embarrassed to be on a boat with other minor courtiers and mid-level bankers instead of at home with her children? A young lady who is bored with her life and half-heartedly imagines illicit love affairs under the stars but is too scared to do anything more than a mild flirt? A little girl who still hates mathematics and her teachers for making her do algebra? A teenager who envied her best friend in school for having larger breasts and thus more attention from the boys? A woman who undertips waiters in cafés, telling herself she needs the money for her two toddlers, who really uses the rest of her allowance from her husband to buy posh frocks? The old woman with wrinkles and age spots who looks like your mother, the old woman you see in the mirror every evening you apply your face creams? My, dear, how many masks do you wish to buy?”
Her hand, unconciously touching the string of freshwater pearls draped under her chin, slowly moved back to the feathery fox mask. “How much is this one?”
“Twenty.”
“I’ll take it.”
Everyone Needs the City
August 29, 2009
Not everyone wants to live in the City, but it is an essential component of our lives. Both the sage and the hermit need it.
The sage needs the City to teach his pupils. The hermit needs the City so he can eschew it and all that it entails.
The farmer and the trapper need it for its markets and its wares. The sailor needs its port. The merchant needs its roads.
The court needs its palace; the commoner needs its walls.
But all of these needs are not congruous: how can each make the City better?
Invisible Neighborhoods: Ubashti
August 24, 2009
From time to time, I will post descriptions of “Invisble Neighborhoods,” a sort of homage to Italo Calvino and his excellent novel Invisible Cities.
In the shade of the Third Pyramid, you will find the pleasant neighborhood of Ubashti. There you will find pleasantly sunny streets and plazas of well-groomed sand.
Here a tabby lounges on a balcony, there a smilinng milk seller deposits chilled bottles of cream.
Then, it will occur to you, how simple and trusting are the inhabitants of Ubashti: It is not that there are no locks, but there are no doors.
Windows remain open onto fire escapes. Gardens are bordered by balustrades. There are no loud noises of drums, no lovers quarelling, no dogs barking incessantly at paperboys. Ubashti is neat, is clean, is quiet.
The only untidy aspect to this neighborhood are the still squirming fish, who seem to have fallen out of the buckets the men brought up from the River. Or, there is the occassional bird who is injured and stirs up dust among the well-planned gardens of papyrus and catnip. Or, there can be heard and then seen a mouse, lame in a foreleg, scuttling along a back alley at half-speed.
Suddenly, the visitor to Ubashti realizes that this neighborhood is not for him. That any place on Earth, a city, a mountain, a verandah, a jungle do not need him: the man. He may be welcomed, but he is not integral to the survival of Place.
This is painfully apparent in Ubashti, a neighborhood designed solely for the comfort of cats.
Identity
August 23, 2009
The Other and the Self meet each other in the Collective Conciousness Bar & Grill. The Other looks at the Self and asks, “Who are you?”
The Self thinks, “Ahh, I must identify myself. Who am I?” It reaches into its satchel and pulls out a Dymo label maker and begins to print out the following categories: American, 39-year old, gay, white…
“Stop!” says the Other. “Visually I can see you are a white male who looks to be under forty. Contextually I can tell you are American from your accent, your Steelers t-shirt, your cargo shorts. I am cosmopolitan enough to have homosexual acquaintances so your more subtle cues I also pick up on. Who are you?”
“I’m a blogger.”
“I have a blog.”
The server comes by and takes an order for coffee. The Other and the Self both order coffee, black.
“We both like unadulterated coffee. Now we are getting somewhere.” Smiles the Other. “Who are you?”
At a loss, the Self considers the possibility of pouring out his heart to the Other but that would leave him vulnerable and leave the Other quite bored. So, the Self says, “Who are you?”
Piqued, the Other answers, “I know who I am. I wish to know who you are. Do we have any affinities in common? Do we share world views? Will we get along? Are you part of my tribe? Are you friend or foe? …Who are you?”
The Self scarmbles to come up with a better answer. “I paint.”
“I love Art. Who are you?”
“I just finished reading Paul Scott’s The Towers of Silence, a fascinating book about the last days of the British Raj.
“I prefered A Passage to India, it was less gossipy and Forrester had the idea first. Who are you?”
“I’m a Pagan.”
The Other wrinkles his brow. Thinking.
Got you, thinks the Self. Now we move from “Who are you” to “What are you?” Any move from the abstract to the concrete has to make this conversation easier.
“Ah,” says the Other, satisfied. “Wicca.”
“Uh, no, actually…”
“Those two labels are mutually interchangeable, at least to me. If they mean something different to you, I’m not sure I care enough to learn the difference.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The Other, clearing his throat, begins, “You misunderstand the meaning of this dialogue. You think I ask you “who are you” so you can proudly claim to belong to this group or that group and yet still be an individual. Right?”
The Self nods, slowly.
“That is self identity, and is all well and good for you. But it is not that important to me. You cannot tell me who you are, so instead you use categories of association hoping that I can use some sort of interpersonal taxonomy to decide you are an okay person. I am the Other, and I am just as obsessed with myself as you are. So, I seek to classify you according to social identity. I lump all New Agers, Wiccans, et cetera into one group in my mind and think they’re all daft.”
The server brings the coffee. The Self and the Other glare at each other.
Finally, the Self asks, “You were okay with me until the subject of religion came up?”
“Correct. Until them we were the same.”
“So, when you ask me, ‘Who are you?’ you really want to know ‘Are we the same?’”
“Precisely. Identity comes from the Latin identitas, meaning sameness. Think of the expression ‘identical twins’ and you’ll see where I’m going with this.”
“And you have no interest in my explaining to you the difference between a Druid, a Celtic Reconstructionist, and a Dianic Wiccan?”
Sipping noisily, “Oh, I might. It depends on which Other I am on which day. Today: not so much.”
“But they are important to me.”
“Yes, I’m sure they are. And if I were a different Other I might care. But you fail to realize that how I see you is more important in a social context than how you see yourself. It isn’t fair, I know. Remember, when you are someone else’s Other, how much time do you give them to label themselves before you have already gone and done it?”
With the barest of farewells for politeness’ sake the Other slides away leaving the Self with self-esteem issues and the bill.
He Who Opens the Ways
August 20, 2009
Janus Pater: As the God of Beginnings, it is only right to list him first.
