Glaring again

The sunglasses that I've been using since May 2004 finally broke today. This is noteworthy for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that they do not, in fact, belong to me. It is somewhat deflating to consider that my personal record for keeping a pair of sunglasses was achieved with someone else's. Someone named Jim. At least, I remember calling him Jim, whether that was his name or not.

The manner in which the sunglasses came to be in my possession for such a long and fruitful period of time is perhaps not the most riveting tale, but one of interest all the same. It begins not with the broken pair of sunglasses, but with another pair which I bought in Ludlow, Vermont that February. Joel, a close personal friend, international marketing director of Fish window cleaning, and sunglass aficionado convinced me of the superiority of polarized glasses. Waxing poetic, he persuaded me of the sensibility of buying one pair of good sunglasses rather than repeatedly buying cheapies at the gas station. We were in Vermont to go skiing, and what with the depleted ozone layer, global warming, the sun's malicious UV rays careening every which way off the snow, the higher incidence of eye cancer in blue eyed people of no colour, it seemed like it was either polarized now or a white cane and seeing eye dog later.

I'm no fool, so when May came along and it was time to go backpacking in the Grand Canyon, I made sure to wear my polarized sunglasses when I left for the airport with Nat, one of my chums from medical school. In Phoenix, another member of our party, the aforementioned Jim, picked us up at the airport and drove us to the South Rim where we had a room in a hotel at which the rest of our party was staying. Although we didn't arrive before 2am, I couldn't even think about going to sleep without lone wolfing out to the precipice for a glimpse of the canyon filled up with moonshadows. After howling like a lunatic at the full moon, I didn't get to bed until almost 4am. No regrets whatsoever.

The other people in our party, however, having completed a day of inactivity on the rim, wanted to start the descent at 6am. Clearly absurd. They, however, were oldsters of various ages over 55, which is admirable, undertaking such a trip in and of itself, but Nat, Jim, and I didn't share their concerns about the heat, etc. Fine. We'll catch you up presently, I muttered as I rolled over. Sometime around 9am, I had hoisted my pack and was posing for a photograph at the trailhead, squinting into the light.

Fool that I was! Somehow I had forgotten my polarized sunglasses. The plane? The airport? The hotel? The car! Well, Jim tells me as the shadows are receding under the cliffs, I almost didn't bring this extra pair of polarized sunglasses, but it's a good thing I did!

Jim, if you weren't old, male, and a rabid, dogmatic leftist , I could kiss you, I say as I accept.

As it turns out, the others in our party had underestimated their strength and overestimated their needs, so Nat and I, young bucks that we are, served as sherpas for much of the trip. The last day, Jim had to hoof it out of the canyon extra early as he had to be back in Tucson the following morning. In all that sweat and exhaustion, the borrowed sunglasses had been overlooked and I never got the chance to rummage in his car for my polarized sunglasses from Vermont.

Tit for tat, I told myself whenever I thought about mailing the sunglasses to Jim. He can use the ones (I think) I left in his car. Saying this to myself, those sunglasses were the only things standing between me and squinty-eyed cancer in places as far away as Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas. They spent an entire summer with me at L'Abri in Minnesota, and a ski season in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. They even went with me to New Orleans and Covington, Louisiana to pay my respects at Walker Percy's grave--twice! Now I don't know how I'll keep from sailing into other boats and bridge pillars in Annapolis...

I had actually been hoping to use the sunglasses to leverage my way into a crew position this summer on Jim's sailboat in Nantucket, but I guess now would be as good a time as any to mail them back and see if he won't do the same with mine...

I beg your pardon?

Who sits around imagining the scenario where the ex-girlfriend calls you up and wants you to know she's sorry? I mean the ex-girlfriend who cut your heart out and fed it to the hyenas, laughing while she did it, then reproaches you for not chuckling along, for being a poor sport. I'm talking about months after pulling the plug, stating in no uncertain terms that she neither loves you, nor wants to talk to you again. Who thinks through that scene, imagining how it would be?

Well, yesterday, she called.

I like to think of myself as being, at least in some sense, like the Father of the prodigal son when someone comes to me admitting wrong-doing and asking for forgiveness. I know that the road back from the distant land is no easy one to walk. I know it so well because I too am a sinner. A sinner, yes, but one who has had his own black-hearted sins forgiven and really wants to go and do likewise. I don't mean "is willing" to go and do likewise, but really, really, really wants to. Yet in my best attempts, I find falsity in myself. I find myself guilty of no less than one of two errors.
The first one is the one wherein I just forgive, no problem, no big deal, let it go at that. But letting it go is another thing. One thinks one has let go, and perhaps one has, but then the petition to be forgiven throws it back up in one's face: the humiliation, the injury, the grief, the wound feels like it was fresh again! But, you've hurt me once, I remember, I won't let on like it's a big deal, won't give you the satisfaction of knowing it even matters. I hide the pain, the humiliation, the weakness, all that I am ashamed to never find in any other heart besides my own. In short, I hold my chin up, chest out and put on a good face: you're forgiven.

The other error is the one that follows when I tell myself: intimacy demands an honest emotional response, not a benumbed, stoic one. I must let my guard down and really come clean with my own weakness, my own lack of love. I have to let the other person know that it isn't easy and it did matter deeply, oh God knows how it hurt!

I don't know how God does it. I really don't. I sometimes tell myself that at least he's the Father, he gets to discipline us without impugning his own gracious forgiveness. "Yes, my child, I forgive you. The moral guilt I take from you, but these consequences are nonetheless yours and here is where your sanctification will happen, right there in that mess you've made." That kind of gracious justice seems like it would be satisfying to be able to extend myself to all parties, make the humble pie go down a bit smoother.

But am I God? What about when brother forgives sister? That's a tall order. I don't know how it is supposed to go. I honestly don't. I know that forgiveness has happened in my life before. In spite of everything, I know I've forgiven people for certain things. In fact, I don't hold anything against anybody when I'm sitting in the peace of my own inner sanctum. Then somebody goes and cuts me again, or prods an old, ginger scar and where is my graciousness then?

What does it mean to forgive? What does it mean to seek forgiveness? How do we know when we're forgiven or when we have forgiven. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." It seems absurd to pray this when I really am at a loss as to how it goes, how it works, how to do it in the clutch situations. But I pray it because I was taught to pray it by the forgiveness master himself, the one who could pull it off even when he was being nailed up naked to a timber. I want to pray it. I want it to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I really do.

La troisième Blog: Thieves, Panhandlers, & Peacemakers

As far as Wednesday goes... I probably wrote the ending too quickly. There was more. It rained cats and dogs and the bicycle that I sporadically ride was stolen. I don't say MY bike was stolen, which helps take the edge off the grief. In the grand scheme of things, however, it seems better to have a bike to ride than not. Apparently, the thief followed a similar line of reasoning.

Now I'm really through with Wednesday.

Friday is a whole different story... A story involving a trip into Washington, D.C. for happy hour... A happy hour of international students from a friend's, Puzio's, class at the International Language Institute combined with sign language interpreters from Puzio's sister's corps at Gallaudet University... An animated bunch, given to trailing off verbally as they communicate, which can make participation for an outsider cumbersome. It was either fake it in ASL (american sign language -I know the sign for turtle) or struggle with foreigners who were studying English in Puzio's class. I did some of both.

Odilon is a Korean student who is going to Antigua today. I don't know whether he was given this name or chose it for himself, but he explained to me that Odilon was the 4th Abbot of the monastery at Cluny in France: The emperors and popes made some fighting. Odilon he made some peace. In about 1 year, Odilon will be ordained in the Roman Catholic church as a priest in the order SVD, which is latin for something whose Koreanized pronunciation is unintelligible. I asked him to tell me the story of how he decided upon the priesthood, which I will try to quote from memory:

When I was young, I wanted to be powerful. I did everything to become powerful. In the university, I was president (of the student body) and I did some things for festival, good things. I worked very hard to do these things for making festival, for party and after, every student thanked me. They told me it was good and they were happy, but when festival was over and I walked in empty gymnasium, I did not feel satisfied. I worked very hard and it was successful, but I did not feel satisfaction. I thought, maybe I become president of company, maybe mayor or governor, maybe even Korean president, but maybe I do not feel satisfied. So I wanted to live religious life to do some meaningful things. To do some things, to help some people. Now I feel satisfied.(smile)

That's more or less the story he told me. When I asked him about being powerful, he began to tell me the paradoxes of life, that you become poor to be rich and weak to become powerful. He told me that now he is poor, but because he is poor, he is free of money. He doesn't think about it or worry about it and when he's free from money, he's rich. He said similar things about becoming powerful and about loneliness, singleness.

From there, I wound up walking through Georgetown, going to a number of different bars with my oldest friend, Neuner, who introduced me to his friends by shouting, "I met this guy in 1989!" His friends may in fact be an indifferent lot, but really, what do you say to that? Besides, we were in these sweaty, crowded bars being jostled by groups of people dancing and photographing themselves; posing en masse for the shots, then crowding around the digital camera's display for a glimpse of the images of themselves having fun.

Georgetown on a Friday night is something to see. Weaving through the crowded sidewalks, one passes men seated on milk crates holding out cups, asking for change. As we passed one guy, I overheard him say, You don't know me. I'm in the witness protection program. I had to become black and my life is ruined! At one point, we passed two such men fighting over a milk crate. One grabbed it out of the other's hand as he started to cross the street and threatened to swing it at him. People stopped to watch. As they yelled at each other and things escalated, yuppie-looking students and young men around me began yelling things like, Are you gonna let him take your milk crate like that! or That's my milk crate, bitch! or the more straightforward, Kick his ass! One punched or shoved the other and then they squared off to fight. The spectators were giddy with delight, squealing to the latecomers, They're fighting over a fucking milk-crate! Then a police officer lazily sauntered over and the sight of him immediately cooled the panhandlers' drama. Looking at all the disappointed students and professionals, people probably running the country, I couldn't help but think of what Odilon had told me about his name's sake. Blessed are the peacemakers indeed.

Blog Day 2

So far so good. In order to run long-distance in Annapolis in July, it is imperative to begin early. The earlier the better. Waking up this morning at 7:45 was a failure of sorts. I think that I was dreaming about Lobachevski's wife and I would be hard pressed to say what, if anything, she was wearing. The recovery process began as soon as my feet hit the floor. Muttering a cordial "good morning" to the guy whose bed is also in my room, I donned the stench that enveloped my running shorts and for 7 miles struggled with limited success to stay ahead of the odour, all the while performing the mental preparations necessary to wash them in the sink when I got back. Which I did.

The rest of the day was more or less taken with reading Nicomachus and then Lobachevski's bizarro geometry, punctuated by a three-hour tour of the college library, a tour which entailed meeting with each of three people in permanent full-time positions at the library. This included my only known enemy, the director, whose work includes collections acquisition, as well as budget, personnel, and facilities management. The other two were the technical/preservations/catalog person and the reference librarian. I liked the last one the most because it has the broadest scope of work, researching some obscure and interesting questions.

In other news, I have come to learn that one of the people in my segment is both an apostate and a relativist. While I am hesitant to dismiss outright their respective merits, I don't think that I could embrace either one of them with a straight face. In the "Number" preceptorial, when we were discussing the conceptions of number according to Nicomachus, Euclid, and this guy, he kept talking about my 3, not their 3. I sense trouble for the future of personalized concepts of number. Let's hope that I'll be able to keep a straight face during the in-class discussions. I'd hate to come across as a smart-ass, but...

I reckon there's more that could be said about Wednesday, but that's about all I can tolerate writing about this particular one.

Enemy number one

Saturday was not a windy day in Annapolis. The little wind that there was took me about a mile from the dock, then left to go take part in the combustion of fossil fuel in the motors of the powerboaters whose wakes threatened to capsize me. Watching the sail flutter lazily, I got to wondering if anyone would be waiting on the library steps for me to open at one o'clock and how late I could arrive without one of them reporting to the college authorities.

The week before, the wind was amazing. I had the boat up on two wheels and the only challenge was not to come into the dock too fast. Easy Japaneezy. I made it to work by quarter to. That afternoon, the undergrad who also works at the library circulation desk had been telling me about his problem with the electric company, a delinquent payment, a roommate on the run from responsibility, etc. As if all that were not complicated enough, the post office would be closed Monday in observance of our Independence from the crummy Brits. Billy, the undergrad, needed to get the bill to the fugitive roommate before they cut his power. No problem. We can scan the bill, make a PDF file, send it by e-mail. Simple. To the scanner! "But," Billy asks, "can we use that scanner?" It's a scanner. It's not like using somebody's toothbrush. I have the key to open the library door, so I try it in the door to the vacant office where the scanner beckons.

Well, as it turns out, to the lady who runs the library, the scanner is not only endowed with certain magical powers which do not include imageing electric bills, but it is also something much more personal than a toothbrush. We've been caught in the act of searching for the scanner's power switch and she dismisses us from the room. Not us. Billy. I get a ten minute lecture dumbed down to a 4-year old's level concerning the scanner's use, my place in library, the privacy and permission I need to respect and request, respectively. Ok. Ok. I'm sorry. I didn't realize. It won't happen again. Ok. Un-hunh. Ok. I apologize. Ok. I understand. Ok. Alright. OK. Enough!

Needless to say, I don't want anyone reporting that the library wasn't open at one o'clock on the very next Saturday. Fortunately, I manage to find the patches of wind (puffs) and avoid the patches of... non-wind (lulls) and beat a slow tack back to the dock. I putter in by blowing on the sail myself, unrig the boat, stow everything and bolt for the library, arriving at 1:06. Two patrons waiting on the steps. Apologies. Explanations. Assurances. Goodwill abounds. The library is open and all is well.

Then, this guy comes to the desk with his kid. Explains that he's an alumnus. Wants to know if there's a faculty directory so he can get in touch with a tutor emeritus (professors here are called tutors). I look around behind the desk and find the 2004/2005 Faculty/Staff Directory, hand it to him and then return to the comics page of the Washington Post. As luck would have it, he leaves the directory sitting on the counter and not ten minutes later, the woman who runs the library walks in the door and asks me about it.

Now, you'd think I would have learned something from the previous week's reprimand, namely, avoid crossing this woman at all costs. But I had no idea that here, the directory is not only OF faculty/staff, but is only FOR faculty/staff as well. It contains all of their home phone numbers and addresses.

You can't imagine the thrashing this woman gave me in her office. When I walked in the door, she told me to feel free to take a seat. I understood this to mean that I could feel equally free to not take a seat and I replied, "No thank you, I'd rather stand." Her response was forced through clenched teeth and a frozen smile, "Please. Sit."

It's not good to have enemies, but it is good to know who they are. I also took some comfort from a former library employee and fellow student who came into the library that afternoon, after she had gone home. When I asked him why he had quit, he didn't say a word, but pointed forcefully at her office door. I gave him the knowing look, the one that says, "Aahhh. I understand." And he simply told me, "Don't worry. It's not you. It has nothing to do with you."

True, perhaps. But I certainly felt involved when she verbally stomped me.

I'm not even going to chance going sailing this Saturday