manners 2.0

It’s the dinner hour. That means juggling cooking and emails and snail mail and newspapers.

The phone rings. The Caller ID indicates a local number with “Unknown” as the designation for the name to go with the number.

I pick up the phone and there is that long telltale dead silence of all automated calls. I am about to hang up, when the electronic voice, very pleasant, comes on with an almost apologetic hello as the opening note, only to go on to this: This is a courtesy call from the Marin Independent Journal….

A courtesy call?  From a machine? Oh my, it is a brave new world, after all!

foundlinks

Jewelry for the molecularly conscious. [via Mind Hacks]

Another kind of of molecular consciousness: BKS Iyengar, over 70 at the time this video was shot,  practices backbends.

The BIRN: The Berklee College of Music’s Internet radio network Hear music and news from famous alumni to yet-to-be famous alumni….

after school

Only months ago, around this time of the day, which is neither noon nor is it quite afternoon, the door would open suddenly and then slam shut just as suddenly. On a gray day like today, all sorts of lights would go on, quick, but heavy steps, taking the stairs two at a time up to the second floor, and then, form somewhere around the corner, the music would start. Thump-di-di-dum, di-di-dum, thump … the beat would resonate in the walls, ever so lightly. The fridge door would open and then slam shut. There would be some rustling of paper and a couple of drawers would slide open. The faucet would join the jamming, or maybe not. The TV would click on and there would be a cacophony of voices, music, sound effects – the usual song and dance of the rapid channel-change artist at work. I would rise from the computer, leave the office, stumble over shoes tossed this way and that, maybe trip over a backpack or two, and head into the blare of lights and sounds in the kitchen.

All that is finished now, I suppose. There is nothing but quiet now. No reason to get up from the computer or go into the kitchen. Even the finches on the deck tread lightly as they search for the wind-scattered seeds.

unplugged

This is a bench at the end of a continent. From here the view is one of waves breaking at the shore below and, in the distance through the gauze of fog that thickens and dissolves throughout the day, it is of whatever one’s imagination is ready to conjure.

I spent this weekend at a yoga retreat held at Commonweal. This was my second time there, having done another retreat last year with some of the same people. This time around the yoga, though seemingly lighter, was deeper.

I am exhausted as well as completely replenished from this weekend. Because of this, I have nothing to write here. But if you want to see a few pictures from the area, head over to see this album.

turning leaves

Early October in Boston? Nope, the maple in my front yard back home in California, where the light is like honey — and where I am suddenly seeing leaves of more colors than in Boston (at least the parts of Boston where I hung out).

Exhausted from my days of walking all over Boston these last few days, and from the flight back home, I am still treading lightly on my small cloud of happiness, having seen the younger son looking ever so much more like himself and so at home in that wonderful city (that was also his father’s college town!).

dreams of others

I tend to have the strangest dreams in hotel rooms … as if the psyches of previous travelers linger in beds past checkout times and in spite of the best efforts of the cleaning staff.

§

I have been in Boston for parents weekend for three days now, and am leaving tomorrow morning. I have seen my son for all of 5 minutes so far. I was about to let self-pity darken the amber glow of the sun that made Boston such a gift to behold during this unusual warm spell in October, when I became aware of a woman’s shrill voice. She was sitting on the steps of the main building of the school, where the parade of parents came and went. She was oblivious to us all, pleading and screaming into her cell phone. The weary voice of a young man, replying to the barrage of her questions about why he couldn’t be there for her, could also be heard by us all, as she held the phone away from her ear, some distance, like an amplified mike.

She went on with the list of pain she felt was inflicted on her by willful negligence on the son’s part. Her eyes grew redder, as did her face, the longer she talked.

In flash, my self-pity turned to sorrow for this woman, a mother freshly fired and on the dole. There by the grace of… well, you know the rest of the saying.

I thought about waiting to talk to her, to let her know that she’s not alone … that I have seen quite a few parents on Newbury Street from whom their children quickly walked away, as if at any moment they might run the risk of being caught carrying contraband. But the woman just went on and on. I don’t think that whatever I had to say to her, given the state she was in, she would have heard. Clearly, she wasn’t where her body was, in plain sight of us all.

Instead, I helped a young blind woman cross the street. She was grateful for the help and we chatted for a while. She told me what it takes for her to cross the street and how she knows when the lights change, by listening to traffic. Ear training, I thought — since I just came a class on ear training for musicians that was given for the parents.

The sun was bright for me once again, as I headed back to the hotel, where I am now, planning to spend the rest of the day exploring the shops of Newbury Street. In my other life, I never get a chance to peruse such sanctuaries for consumption. Why not take full advantage of it?

I say this with humility, realizing that sight is a gift, not to be taken lightly — that is, as something obvious in light or in light of….

i heart boston

Not much time for blogging these days as I am in Boston for parents weekend at Berklee College of Music, where my youngest son is having the time of his life. He is “too busy” to see his mom much at this visit, but his mom is quite happy to have been given the opportunity to spend all her free time meandering around — on foot — in Boston.

Boston has to be the only city in the country, maybe in the world, where pedestrians take full possession of crosswalks, bringing cars to a halt. A pedestrian city, indeed!

The throngs of young people everywhere is a magic potion in itself, making their energy somewhat infectious. there is plenty more I want to say about that, but since I seem immune to that energy, I must go get my rest so that I can take in more of the parents weekend events and this fabulous city tomorrow!

What … nothing about the game just down the street from where I am staying? Baseball, sorry to say, is wasted on me.

say that again?

Apparently, some teachers go to great lengths to make sure that no child is left behind, even if this means that their own judgment  may end up lagging behind common sense as a result:

[T]he head of a [San Francisco] Bay Area elementary school [] recently asked that the students in his “English Language Immersion” class be allowed to take their English fluency test in Spanish.
~ “Politically correct education?” opinion piece by Alan Miller, Marin Independent Journal, Monday, October 1, 2007