Showing posts with label the world outside. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the world outside. Show all posts

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Childhood Fears

I have never outgrown my childhood fears. I am not afraid to admit this. (On the other hand, that was never  a childhood fear, either.) I suppose I should clarify this at the outset and say that this does not apply to all my childhood fears. I have conquered some, as anyone must do as they advance into adulthood where polite society frowns upon you taking Mr Cuddles with you everywhere. Openly, anyway. Even if the world would be a much better place if we all carried a teddy bear or stuffed tiger with us in our bags and briefcases and purses. Just a thought.

(No, none of my stuffed animals were ever called "Mr Cuddles." I swear. And no, I do not have a stuffed animal in my bag. Really I don't. ... There is one in the chair in the corner, here, but it's my daughter's. Really, it is.)

That aside, there are some fears from my childhood that, despite my best efforts, simply will not go away. I know they are irrational. I know they are silly. I know that, even if they aren't and are actually 100% justified, in real life if the monster jumps out at me I am likely toast.

So I still walk a little faster in strange dark places, or out in the woods, even though my rational mind knows there's really no difference between daylight and darkness in the upstairs attic. (There used to be bats, though, but that's a different thing.) On the other hand, I draw on my non-rational mind as a writer, and my imagination often goes to dark places, so a little creep into my rational waking world is to be expected. The only real difference between my childhood and now is that back then I was 100% sure there were things out there, and now it's down to about 50/50.

Okay, maybe 70/30.

Some things, however, I think are completely justified, and don't make me feel silly. Such as the pool that has long since given up any pretense to being a clean, clear, safe place to swim and has devolved into a black, foul-smelling, flotsam and jetsam-filled bog. Even if it's just a kiddie pool, no deeper than my ankles, these are frightening things. You have no idea what's lurking under the water, not to mention what might be in the water. There is also that sense of urban neglect and decay that triggers more reasonable, if no less irrational fears.

I bring this up because while I adore the monsters, and the sorts of horror things that rely on them, I find the horror of the everyday things just as frightening, if not more so. Haunted houses still remain scary precisely because we all know of at least one house that, even if it is not, looks like it should be haunted. Places that, like the pool, also trigger more grounded fears that are harder to dispel with the simple flick of a light switch.

Which may perhaps be an unconscious reason to hold onto childhood fears: these are the kind of fears I can vanquish easily. I can do little about my fear of not having enough money, or of being out of work, or half a dozen other adult fears I am forced to confront on what seems an almost weekly, if not daily basis. Holding onto the things that frightened me when I was small also gives me some hope that I have held onto some of the better aspects of my childhood, too. So that while I have nightmares, I still have dreams.

And persistent dreams are a fair trade for having to walk a little faster down the darkened steps.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Muse Also Moos

(Try not to think about this week's entry too much in conjunction with the last one. Cows in scuba gear is a subject best left for a Far Side cartoon. Though, having said that, I am picturing a Gary Larson-esque cow in a swim cap.)

I was reminded the other day that I live in the country. This is not something I generally forget, especially as the local grocery store closed and the next nearest place for a half gallon of good ice cream is ten minutes away by car. Yet there are times when it is less prevalent in the forefront of my mind, made easier by my home being in a small community where I do actually have neighbors that I can see out of my own windows. Well, their homes, anyway, lest someone think I am spying on my neighbors. Which if you'd seen my neighbors you'd understand is a scary concept. Real life is not Hollywood, and my neighbors have never, ever been the kind of people I'd want to even catch a glimpse of running around in their underwear.

Nonetheless, it was brought home to me when as I was making the commute into work, there were cows alongside the road. They were on their side of the fence, thankfully, but they were as close to the road as they can get. Now, within a ten minute radius of my house (and each other) there are cows, sheep, alpacas, and buffalo. It's quite an eclectic mix of grazing livestock. Certainly not the kind of assortment you'd expect to find in an urban environment.

As I drove past the cows, I mused to myself about the bucolic environs, and how conducive it is to easing stress and such. In short, the usual cliches. Which was going to be what this post was about. Only I realized that not only did I not want to do that, but that it wasn't accurate. While I like being out in the country, with the flowers (to which I am not allergic, or my reactions would be very different) and the green and the cows and yes, even the sheep and the alpacas and the buffalo, I have been equally inspired in any number of places in the city. There is an overpass in downtown Chicago, towards the waterfront, for example, where as a pedestrian once I stopped and watched the traffic humming back and forth in the evening gloaming. Not to mention the half dozen other places in Chicago, or Boston, or even Pittsburgh, where I have done much the same.

It occurred to me that this is what it is to be an artist. My medium is words, of course, so I call myself a writer not an artist, but that is what writers and poets are, just as surely as anyone who works with paints and brushes or a camera and a lens. And as such, our muses tend to take on a myriad of forms. We have the gift of looking at the world in such a way that many things inspire us. Some more so than others, to be sure, but we retain some of that childlike sense of wonder at the world that allows us to appreciate not only the joy of chasing fireflies, but the firefly-like blinking of road construction signs along a road. (Provided we aren't stuck in traffic because of them.)

And so, while we tend to speak of a single muse, this is perhaps misleading. Possibly even incorrect. We have multiple muses, who inspire us in a multitude of ways, providing that we are willing to listen to them when we do.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reread my Far Side collection.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Whatever Happend to Mayor McCheese?

I was in McDonald's the other day (and lest ye judge me, I was there with my daughter as a reward for her being very good during a day of necessary shopping) when I noticed something. It wasn't the expanding waistlines that make for a nice physical model of the expansion of the universe and/or demonstration of how the bigger the object the bigger the gravity it has. It wasn't the secretly addictive power of the Shamrock shake. Nor was it the woman who looked entirely too much like she would have been at home on the cast of Jersey Shore. Which no, I don't watch, but I'm not completely ignorant. This woman belonged to the tribe of Snooki, and it was far, far scarier to observe in real life.

This isn't about any of that. No, this is about something far, far more sinister. This is about missing people. Missing, important people, and how despite their conspicuous absence no one acts like they are missing, and no one's mounted an investigation or anything else. It's almost a conspiracy of silence, and its victim is Mayor McCheese.

I don't remember the last time I saw him, or some of the other McDonald's anthropomorphic menu items that have also slipped away along the wayside. (Talking chicken McNuggets, anyone?) For that matter, I don't remember the last time I saw any of the McD's crew, other than their eternal leader, in any television commercial. I could be rational here, and point to the changes overall in advertising, particularly children's advertising, that has become necessary as the Saturday morning bloc of cartoons broke up and the target demographic scattered across the cable channels, many to networks that run limited - if any - commercials during their programming for the younger set. Or how changing ideas on proper diet and exercise have also taken their toll, and a visible symbol of greasy caloric consumption probably sends the wrong kind of message.

I could, but that would be less fun. And absent an official announcement from the Powers That Be, I'm going to go with the more nefarious explanation.

Mind you, not all of the mascots have vanished. Grimace, Birdie, even the Hamburglar can still be seen painted on the walls of the various Playplaces, or they turn up on the in-house items. They may not get their moment on the television screen anymore, but they are still around. Contractually bound to silence, or perhaps threatened with the same fate as the Mayor should they attempt to break ranks.

Maybe this, then, is the story of the lone dissident, the one who would not go quietly. A mayor of a land whose silence would not be bought (obviously not a Chicago mayor), who refused to be intimidated when others came to shush him, and who paid the ultimate price for it, being buried unceremoniously in an unmarked grave in some landfill, forever preserved in a giant version of those styrofoam containers McD's used to package all their products in. Maybe Mayor McCheese paid the ultimate price for his integrity by being tossed, piece by piece, to a flock of ravenous seagulls or park pigeons.

If so, I'm willing to bet his fate was meant to serve as an example to the rest of them: cooperate, tow the corporate line, OR ELSE. Hence the Fry Guys went quietly, and Hamburglar hasn't stolen a thing in years. Grimace keeps his politically incorrect overweight self well out of the spotlight, and Birdie has been encouraged to fly south and stay there, except for the occasional public appearance or photo op.

And the orchestrator of all this? The person behind this scheme, so callously disposing of once beloved icons behind the scenes? Well, ask yourself? Who has the spotlight all to himself now?

Oh sure, it can't be him, you say. To which I reply: he is a clown, after all. And we all know, when clowns go bad, they go really, really bad.

So, I say we should observe a moment of silence for Mayor McCheese, to take a brief pause and remember a man/food item of integrity, who paid the ultimate price for his principles.

And then I'll take mine with extra pickles, please.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Bus Stop to Nowhere

There is a bus stop to nowhere. It sits outside a nursing home somewhere, and from time to time someone from inside wanders out to it. But no bus ever shows up, and no one ever goes anywhere (other than back into the home). In all other respects, it looks like a regular bus stop, and no doubt the people who wander out to it expect to go somewhere. They may not have any particular destination in mind, and even if they do it doesn't seem to bother them that the bus itself never shows.

As much as this might sound like the concept for a short story (or the initial set-up for some sort of bizarre anthology series, much the way Rod Serling would intro the Twilight Zone) it is completely non-fiction. The bus stop was the rather ingenious solution one nursing home came up with to keep their residents from wandering off. Before they put up their faux bus stop at the end of their sidewalk, when those residents afflicted with wanderlust would manage to slip out the doors, they would walk down the street to the actual bus stop, where they would congregate until someone from the home showed up to collect them. One or two of them might have even wound up on the bus.

Someone noticed that this was where the residents were winding up, and got the idea to put up the fake bus stop out in front of the nursing home. It seemed a much more simple and humane solution (and cost-efficient) than putting ankle bracelets on all the residents likely to wander. Surprisingly enough, it seems to work. They no longer have residents wandering down the street to a functional bust stop. They all congregate out front, where the staff can easily collect them. It seems to be enough for the residents that they manage to get that far.

It's a simple, elegant solution, and the reason why it works has to do with a number of psychological things that are not within my purview. What struck me about it, though, was that it was the sort of idea that we, as writers, are supposed to have. We're supposed to be good at looking at something - doesn't have to be a problem - and positing an unusual "what if" approach. Sometimes the answers will work, sometimes they won't. But it's the process of sitting around and playing with each idea, at least for a little bit, and giving it a chance to work that is just as important.

Somone could have, and probably did, laughed at the idea of a non-functioning bus stop as a preventative measure. And perhaps if there had been more funds for alarms and other traditional security measures, it would never have been built. But someone had the ability to look at the scenario and give it just the right sort of spin in their head to come up with an unusual, and ultimately effective, solution. And then they put it into practice, to see what would come of it. The most they would have been out was the funds and time for a bench and a sign.

The most we are out, as writers, when our ideas fall flat is the words on the page and the time it took to put them down. Like most writers, I have written my fair share of things that ultimately turned out not to work. But I've also had more that did, more times when I sat down and thought "what if" and approached something in a new (or new to me) way that might have seemed a bit unconventional at first. This is how, even though we are all told there are only five basic stories - at least I think it's supposed to be five - we are also told we can put our own spin on those five plots and make them work.

Yet I don't ever regard those words that didn't work as a waste (possibly an idea for another entry) even when they don't go anywhere. That, of course, is perhaps the irony of this comparison.

Unlike the bus stop to nowhere, when our ideas work they take us places.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

The Joy of Browsing

I miss the CD store.

Which is not to say that they're all gone, though to the best of my knowledge a lot of the major chains have either folded or closed up a lot of shops since the 1990's. There are still places where you can go to buy CD's, should you be so inclined. I am not including the big box stores here, or even the more specialized retailers like Borders or Barnes and Nobles. I mean the CD store that, aside from a small smattering of posters and other music paraphernalia, only sold music. I know that there are fewer of them, where once they were almost as prolific as Starbuck's.

Perhaps not quite so numerous, but close.

I don't even listen to most of my CD's anymore, honestly. Most of the time I'm on my laptop, and so that's where most of my music is. Not all of it, by any means, as storage limitations mean that the large items like operas or the complete Beethoven's symphonies have been left on CD. The vast majority of what I listen to on a frequent basis is, however, stored digitally, and I confess most of those are the music of known quantities. Musicians where I was already familiar with they're work, and wasn't taking a chance.

Not that some of it doesn't work like that. There are any number of places where I can find new music, and for a not unreasonable sum even purchase it and take it home. (Or download it, if the artist is giving it away for free. Which some of the more esoteric ones I listen to do.) Yet browsing through a blog or an online music store doesn't have quite the same feel to it. Maybe it's not having the CD in hand, or being able to - sometimes - turn to the store clerk and ask about the music in question. Maybe it's the lack of those sections where they say "if you like this, you might also like this."

A lot of it is simply not being able to find those rare gems you might otherwise overlook. One of my favorite blues CD's, for example, came from this little store in downtown Chicago, found while I was getting lunch and killing time until my train arrived. It was a small store, less than the size of the 7 Eleven across the street from it, but it had a steady stream of college students browsing the aisles. It aimed at mostly jazz and blues music, and while I know there are plenty of blogs out there devoted to that stuff, there is an inherent problem with those.

Mainly, they rely on someone's opinions. If a person is posting about music on their blog, it's a reflection of their tastes. And while, for a professional reviewer, that might mean a broader sampling, it still imposes certain limitations. Limitations you were less likely to find in a music store. Even simple things like crossing genre lines, and browsing jazz and blues over here, then new age over there, are made a bit more cumbersome online. Maybe not more difficult, as there is built-in convenience from shopping from home and all that, but you have to hunt in more locations rather than just going to the one spot.

Mostly, I miss being able to walk in and hear something over the speakers which you might never have listened to. Sometimes it was crap, sometimes not, and just sometimes it was something which, after asking the clerk what it was, you'd walk out of the store with. You don't get that online.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Smells of Spring

They say April showers bring May flowers. Around here, the seasons and the months aren't quite so clear cut, and this year it seems to be going backwards. We had April flowers first, and now we have May showers. Still, Spring has sprung, and aside from the usual harbringers of the season, I can tell it's here because of the way it smells.

All seasons have certain smells associated with them, of course, but I have found that Fall and Spring tend to be the two where the aroma of the season is most easily detected out of doors. The kinds of things you can have waft into your nostrils just walking around town. Winter is more indoor smells, such as fireplaces and the smells of the holidays. Summer is more localized, as for me at least nothing says Summer like the smell of the beach or the pool. In small town where I make my home, those smells aren't likely to be just wafting my way unless I hop in the car and do some driving.

Spring smells are sidewalk smells, and not really those of most flowers. There are exceptions, as some blooms are either close enough to the sidewalk or in a big enough bush that you catch them when the breeze is right, but for the most part you have to get your nose down into the flowers if you're going to smell them. (I was taken off guard by one such flower the other day, but that's another entry.)

Grass is different. Even when it isn't being mowed for the first time, the smell of it changes when it starts to grow, especially after it rains. That may sound crazy, but having lived most of my life in a place where we cycle through all four seasons, the Spring grass smells differently, even from that of a Summer lawn. It's slightly more earthy, in part I think because you also get the smell of the ground coming out from the Winter freeze. There's also the added smell from people putting down mulch and other fertilizer around their plants, which adds to it rather pleasantly, I think.

There's also something in the way the air itself smells just after a Spring shower. Rain has a scent. Yes, it's more accurate to say that the weather patterns that come before and after a rain storm alter our ability to detect certain smells... but this is one of those times where even though I'm a science geek, I'm going to take poetry over science and just say it has a scent all it's own. A thunderstorm in summer smells different, starting with the heavier ozone, and one in Fall carries different odors, too. Spring showers have a unique smell.

(Probably why shampoo manufacturers turn to that season when they market things. I have seen shampoo and body soap scents labeled "Spring Shower" but never one that said "Autumn Shower." Might also be the visual of showering in the cold as opposed to the warmer temperatures that supposedly go with Spring.)

It may also be that I am more apt to notice the smells of the outdoors in the Spring, especially when all Winter I've been most indoors. Even when I venture outdoors in the Winter, my nose is usually covered, and snow doesn't have a smell to it that I've ever noticed. Not clean snow, anyway. So Spring represents the first time the windows have been opened in months, the first time breathing outside air on a regular basis, even when inside the house. I think that circulation has as much to do with the association as anything tangible in the air. (All smells are based on particulates. It's really best if you don't think too hard about that.)

Whatever the reasons, Spring is firmly here, and aside from the dandelions and the little daisies, I intend to enjoy all the olfactory options the season has to offer.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Snow Angels

There are some things you should just never outgrow. Enjoying yourself in the snow is one of them. Mind you, I am aware that as I get older the onset of winter isn't quite filled with all the joy it used to carry when I was a child. For starters, I have to drive in it now. I also have to contend with heating bills, shoveling the walk and the driveway, and other related chores that go a long way towards making me more likely to swear at those first flakes than to rush out and catch them on my tongue.

That said, there are certain things that go with the season that help me maintain some of the childhood fascination. There is of course Christmas, but as that is now long past and winter's not yet over - no matter what the groundhog says, it's always six more weeks at least – I have to look for joy elsewhere.

One of those is something I rediscovered only last year. Now, I've made at least one snow man every year for the past four years, ever since my little one was old enough to walk out into the snow. And while I've yet to achieve a Calvin and Hobbes level of sophistication and perfection in my snowmen, there's still something to be said for being able to stand back and admire your handiwork. If I don't put my back out trying to lift the middle section into place.

Snow angels, on the other hand, weren't something I hadn't attempted for probably decades. You reach a certain age and suddenly flopping around on your back in the snow doesn't seem like the cool and awesome idea it was when you were six. Probably right around the time wearing a hat in the winter seems to much of a trade-off between being cool and being warm.

For some reason though, maybe having to do with the transcendent levels of joy it seemed to bring my little one and her cousins, I gave it a go last year. After making sure the snow was properly white (we were on a farm, after all) I flopped back, waved my arms and legs, and stared up into the falling snow.

There was no choir of angels, no revelations from above, and I got snow on my glasses.... yet... there was something quietly Zen about the whole experience. I'm not saying it ranks up there with rock gardens and tea ceremonies, but it was calming and rather peaceful. (Until my daughter launched herself onto my midsection.)

I think it has as much to do with the perspective you get as it does the quieting effects of all that snow and garb. Having a hat pulled down over your ears drowns things out, and for a brief moment you're left with nothing but you're contemplation of the open sky - and a couple of trees - way up above you. On a clear day it almost feels like you could fall into it.

Like all such moments it's fleeting, and eventually you have to get up. I suppose I could just lie back in the snow and not make a snow angel at all, yet like the tea ceremony there is something inherent in the process that makes it an important part of the experience, not just the end results. So I'll flail my arms and legs, and try and get up without making a mess of the pattern, and then stand back and contemplate my snow angel.

Then hold onto that memory until the time comes to do it again.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Where's My Flashback?

They say during certain moments your life flashes before your eyes. There are presumably moments when you know or think you're going to die. It's a cliche at this point, one used and abused and occasionally handled with a deft touch and a hint of humor. (The current Burger King commercial with the chicken sandwich is not such an example. The one line that commented that, even in those last moments, "A.I. still felt too long" was such an example. Only wish I could remember where that came from.)

It's also completely untrue, at least in my own personal experience. Mostly what happens at those moments when things go completely sideways (literally, but I'll get to that) is that the adrenalin in your body shuts down everything but your focus on the moment and trying to get through it. Your brain, I suspect, does not want to be diverted from it's task of trying to save your ass just to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Afterwards you might have cause to reflect on your life and the choices that you've made, perhaps in that moment when you're waiting for the ambulance, or if you're more fortunate just counting your blessings that you've come through the whole thing intact. But during? Nope, not so far, not for me anyway.

I had cause to put this to the test the other day when I lost control of my car. This makes two winters in a row, and I suspect it's due as much to my being out of practice driving in the snow and ice as it does to local conditions. I am not looking for the hat trick next year, so I'll have to see what all can be done about that, but this time around was far less scary than the first time. This time it was just my little coupe, and even though it was on a bridge over an icy creek, the bridge was solid concrete and I never once considered the car was going over the edge. As it turned out I was supremely lucky, the air bags didn't go off, and the damage to my car, while not cheap, is relatively minor.

At no point did I flash back to that fourth grade play where I had to dress up like a leprechaun. That got played on local access over and over and over again, and earned me an unfortunate nickname from one of my friend's parents which I have as yet to live down. You'd think that would have made a sufficient impression to flash by at least once.

All I was thinking was first, trying to steer my way out of it, and then second, when it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, going with the flow. I might have been praying, but if so it wasn't conscious. There is a second trope of hyper-awareness during events like this, and that one I will confirm. I remember every second of it vividly.

As I do for the accident last year, which in terms of just how badly it frightened me beat this week's accident hands down. Last year was in an SUV that I was unused to driving, and I ended up off the road with snow coming up and over the hood. That one scared me, and remains the longest ten seconds of my life. I doubt it was actually ten seconds, it was honestly more like a couple of seconds between the time I felt the back end go and when we plowed sideways into the snowbank on the far side of the road. But it'll always be ten seconds because that's the most my brain is willing to reduce it to. I suspect if it was up to my subjective experiences, the whole ordeal took minutes.

And again, in that space, there was no life flashing before my eyes. Just a whole lot of adrenalin that took me nearly an hour to fully come down from. After which I went to church, which is where I had been headed in the first place. I missed most of it, but that didn't really matter.

Now, perhaps, neither one of these was serious enough to qualify for having my life flash before my eyes. I wasn't worried about dying this week on the bridge. A year ago... that's another story. I didn't have time to think about it during the actual event, which I suspect might be key to this. If I was skydiving and my chute failed, and I had a minute or two to ponder such things, then perhaps my brain would conjure up images from my life. Hopefully not that fourth grade play, though.

I suspect, however, that it is nothing more than a convenient literary device which does not apply to the real world. Like being blown back by the force of being shot, or sound in space. Things that make for good fiction, if not for real life.

All things being equal, however, I'd just as soon not put it to the test again.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Definitely not the Dream Castle

Barbie's gone homeless.

All right, it's not really Barbie, but rather one of those American Girl dolls that come equipped with a history lesson, a morality lesson, various trimmings and trappings, and a price tag that makes Barbie look like Raggedy Anne. And it's not even one of the main dolls, but a side character from one of the stories that comes with the main doll. But, from what I understand, you can purchase her (and thereby give her a home - though that's a cynical approach and might even be a bit of marketing irony lost on the company, as they don't seem noted for subtlety), and this has apparently caused a bit of an uproar.

Now, before I get to what I really want to discuss, I'm going to say that the uproar over this particular doll strikes me as somewhat silly and misguided. I'm the parent of a little girl, and frankly given all the hundreds if not thousands of images about femininity she is bombarded with on a weekly basis, there seem to me to be lots of other things to get upset about. Body image and unreasonable life expectations are only the start of it. (A Prince? Really? Marrying someone you've only just met is really going to fix your life? Sure, thanks for that lesson Disney.) But no one seems to get much up in arms over those topics.

Let one little doll be homeless, however, and suddenly it's some sort of moral crisis or something, as if we're now exposing our daughters to something we ought to have shielded them from.

Which, again speaking as a parent, is crap. If you ask me, the American public as a whole is far too shielded from the reality of life on the streets, let alone our children. Because as much as it may be a shock to some people, there are plenty of our children who are living on the streets. They, and there parents, have no where else to go. Yet we don't think about them when we think about the homeless.

Take a moment, just a moment, and do a mental exercise with me. If I say "homeless," what do you picture? If it's some bushy-bearded guy in rags - pushing a cart is extra - who mumbles to himself and/or smells of alcohol, chances are you're in good company. It's what a lot of people think. And to be fair, many of our homeless do suffer from mental and addiction issues. But it's not all of them, not by a long shot, and the difference between some of "them" and most of "us" isn't as far off as we might like to think.

In this one regard I will defend Dickens, whom, as I may have mentioned before, I generally loathe. But my lack of esteem for his word-craft aside, the man raised public awareness about the plight of children living on the streets and working in factories and being raised in dismal orphanages in ways very few others managed to do. (And it wasn't just Oliver Twist, either. Read enough Dickens and you will notice the recurring theme. Even in "A Christmas Carol." Pay attention to the little caroler who comes calling on Scrooge early in the opening act.)

We could use another Dickens in this day and age. That Will Smith movie wasn't a bad attempt, but I don't think it went far enough, and it wasn't the point of the story anyway. The sad reality is, especially in these economic times, homelessness is something that entire families have to deal with. Some, probably most, manage to ward it off through various means. I know that if it came down to it, I have family I can turn to. Even friends. But not everyone does. And anything that raises awareness of the issue, even if it wasn't the direct intent, is something that I think is worth talking about.

Not ranting about, mind you, in some misguided argument over the "appropriateness" of a doll, but actually discuss. In ways that might someday bring about a change in attitudes, or preferably still, a change in reality.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Reality, Not TV

I confess I don't watch much reality television. I watched one season of American Idol, and that was mainly because I was overseas at the time and my options for English language programming were slim. My main impression was that it reminded me far too much of the popularity contests I remembered from high school (also known as choosing the Homecoming Queen or King or whatever). It also seemed, like most reality television, to be an exercise in personal vanity more so then anything else. When "Survivor" goes "Lord of the Flies" - or at least Bart Simpson at Kamp Krusty - that will be the season I watch. Otherwise I tune out.

The exception to this is the home makeover show. You know the one, it's on ABC, SEARS gets major publicity out of it, and all the guy designers seem ... well, like the stereotypical designers except they can also wield a hammer. I make no claims to regularly watch it by any means, but on those times when I have watched it, aside from giving me ideas what I would and would not do with my own home were money not an obstacle, it never fails to strike a chord.

Mostly this is not because of the donations of the corporate sponsors. I have no doubt SEARS is motivated by more cynical, market-driven concerns than any real desire for charity. (I may be wrong about that, but like I said, it's cynical.) Granted, they are donating, which they don't have to do, but it's the real volunteers, the ones making the biggest donations, that move me. These are the ordinary local people who show up to help, including the local building contractors.

(My cynicism about them is tempered by the knowledge that, being local, simply being on television isn't going to make a big difference in their bottom line. It may be free advertising, but let's face it, local homebuilders don't do a lot of advertising for the general public. Think about it. When was the last time you saw such an advertisement? I used to, but I grew up in that industry.)

The sheer outpouring of volunteers from the local community when these things happen is always staggering. Putting up a house in a week is no small feat anyway, but that they can do it - and do it with the numbers they do, is nothing short of remarkable. And it proves to me at least that no matter how jaded, how cynical, how simply misanthropic I am inclined to be about my fellow human beings on average, we are capable of extraordinary acts.

It doesn't have to be on television, either. Habitat for Humanity builds homes all over for people who couldn't otherwise afford them, all with volunteer labor. People volunteer their time in soup kitchens and shelters, and various other enterprises that, as winter sets in, become even more important to those in need. These volunteers remind that no matter how out of touch the average American might be with the reality of life on the streets (which is an issue for another blog), there are still many people in each and every community willing to give of their time and energy to help.

That's something to be cheerful about, even if there isn't much cause for cheer elsewhere at the moment. It's also something that everyone could be a part of. So I'm going to do something I don't normally do here and urge those few readers I have to consider finding a way to make a difference this holiday season. It doesn't take much, not really, and no matter what your circumstances I think we can all make time to help out somewhere, even if it's just through donations to the Salvation Army, the Food Pantry, or other organizations. I think that, if you do, you'll find you have something in common with all those people on television, week after week, community after community.

And it's not something you can get from just watching television.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Smells of the Season

The turn of the seasons here is accompanied by a variety of visual clues. Changing leaves, darker clouds (usually rain but every now and again snow instead), and of course shortening days and warmer clothes. Each season also comes with it's own set of smells, and these for me help me to get more into the season than almost anything else.

Spring and Summer, for example, are accompanied by the smell of mown grass. The other day it was warm enough for someone to be getting in one last mow. (Not me, though my lawn could probably use it, but I have decided now that we've had a frost not to worry about it.) Even though it was October, it brought Spring to the forefront of my mind. Cookouts are one of those Summer smells, as in the unique smell of the beach - which around here is normally a pleasant thing.

Winter's smells, by contrast, are almost all indoor smells. Snow, for example, doesn't have much of a smell. Unless you have dogs, and in that case you shouldn't be out and about in that snow anyway. White snow only. Pine might be an outdoor smell, but of course in Winter you usually get that indoors around the Christmas tree. Being out in an actual pine forest has the same smell, but being evergreens it doesn't matter much the season. Other smells include those of holiday foods, such as pumpkin spices.

For Fall, that smell is a combination of things, but none are more prominent, more welcome to my nose than that of wood smoke. Something about catching that first whiff on the breeze lets me know that fall has truly arrived. Couple that with the smell of apples, particularly apple cider, and even if I couldn't see the leaves change I'd know what season it is. Now, I realize this may be a regional thing, and that if you live in Southern California the smell of wood smoke might mean something far less pleasant, but up here (relatively speaking) that smell means the temperature is dropping and people are turning to their wood piles once again.

That, for me, is one of the biggest appeals of a fireplace, too. Yes, they're pretty and provide warmth, but it's that lingering smell, especially if you're burning more fragrant woods, that really sells the experience for me.