Art, Life.

{Art is really appreciation of life, and appreciation of art is appreciation for the appreciation of life.}

All of my daydreams are sleeping

There is something about biological anthropology that has crushed my spirit a little. There is no doubt about it. I am sure its a cliche that science and spirituality are strange bedfellows, but I dont only mean God here. I mean all of the things on the continuium of spirituality that are in between the idea of a monotheistic God and some vague lovely unexplainable thing that makes you feel good.

I know I inflict it upon myself, no scientist inducted me into the club and shooed away all of my daydreams. But I guess what I am trying to say is that I used to embrace not knowing more. And sometimes what grows out of not knowing is wonder. Dont get me wrong, I dont know everything now, I dont even know the information I am supposed to at my stage of graduate school. And maybe that is why I cant embrace innocence as a source of inspiration, because I am feeling a little stupid so my guard is up and my metaphorical heart is down. But really I just want to blow on one of those orbs of dandelion seeds and make an honest wish.

And because there is not much difference between a prayer and a poem anyway. Here is one I have always loved:

{To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.}
—William Blake

Its Still the Same Old Story

I am back to thinking about variation. There are so many instances to think about variation in the field I am in. People are always comparing a human to a chimp, or a fossil to a living animal, or groups of living humans across the cultures. And it always seems like the conclusions are around about similar. There is a lot of variation and making sweeping generalities about groups of animals or humans should be made with extreme caution. There is always difference if you look hard enough, right down to the individual.

Also, there is a matter of relativity to consider: You are soooo different from your ugly sister I know, she likes to party and you are happy sitting at home reading Anna Karenina- but how different are both of you in comparison to a chimpanzee, not very I am sorry to say.

But today I got to thinking about similarity, not difference. And there are certainly instances where similariy is the case in anthropology too. For a rough example, we share the exact same gene with all primates because it is to beneficial to our survival, or all languages share certain fundamental properties. Also, there are cases called convergent evolution where a similar trait emerges in separete populations; for instance humans capacity to digest lactose emerged in Africa and in Europe separately but both in response to milk drinking. So, amazing things happen that either preserve or lead to similarity and sometimes unexpectedly.

But what about all those cliches like {people never change} and {history repeats itself} or {its always the same old story}. What about all those times in life, like in the lifetime of an individual, where sameness is really the key? What about the absolutes. There is something comforting about them certainly. Like these lyrics to {As Time Goes By}, from Casablanca, what would the anthropologists say about this I wonder, because I would hate to think that this is a sweeping generality. And I guess what I am asking is, what can we expect to always be true?

{Well, it's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by
Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.}

return

Are there memories that you have of being completely humiliated as a child? Like peeing in your pants in school, humiliated? Like, the lunch you take out of your saggy brown bag is somehow the focus of a joke, then you dont want to eat it and you bat it around like a hockey puck, or a dead mouse, pretending you dont care that your dear sweet Mom took the time to make it and that you are still indeed hungry?

And when you think about those times, dont you just take a deep breath of complicated adult air and feel relieved that that intensity and style of problem probably wont happen again? Sure you have your own issues now, but you wont ever be that insecure or naive again.

Well last week it happened to me. I metaphorically peed in my pants in front of the whole class and you know what...I dont even want to blog about it. I just want to sing the song of adulthood, maybe have a glass of wine, hopefully a laugh someday and move the hell on.

Quote of the Day

{When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.} ~Chinese Proverb

Hot and Heavy

About 2 years ago I was in the laundromat across the stinky street from our apartment. This place is pretty close to hell, not to belittle all of the people who have legitimately suffered in this world, but suffice it to say that I hate it. They have no air conditioning and when I am by the dryers I am nervous something is going to go up in flames its so hot. There are little pieces of lint flying in the air, there is no room to move around, and people are ruthless with their clothes, they will remove your stuff in an instant if you are not there guarding it. The heat back there seems to amp up the tension too.

Also, they hate me there.

So 2 years ago, I tried to open the washer when my clothes were done. I pulled and I pulled on the rusty old crusty door, and then it broke. A little piece of metal went tumbling on to the tile floor and the woman who works there started telling me off in Spanish. Since then I have avoided the place. But its the closest one to our house, so I drop off my laundry instead. I just dont want to think about it, or look them in the eye.

Today I took the day off and decided to do a few loads, I was feeling domestic, productive and well adjusted. So I get in there, the woman who hates me is in there in full effect. I get some definite dirty looks, and then she starts speaking to her colleague about me in Spanish. I gingerly maneuver my way around the place, smiling awkwardly at everyone I look at, trying not to make a stir, trying to act repentant and reformed, knowing they have their eyes on me.

One of my washers was almost done, but there were no available dryers in sight, which reminded my why the logistics of laundry just really get to me, the whole production just sucks the goddamn life out of me. Then one of my washers finished, so I get the clothes out and someone offers me a dryer that already has money on it, I was so surprised and felt like well maybe this isnt so bad after all. Then I try to take my cart down this little ramp they have and there is a small boy of about 3 or 4 occupying it and rolling a little can of vienna franks down the ramp and enjoying himself immensely. I smile and say excuse me and feel almost charmed by the place.

Then my other load is done in the washer. I try to open the door and I pull and I pull and then I hear the man who works there say to me in broken english that I have to wait for the light to go off on the washer before I open the door. I didnt break anything this time, but I just feel so fucking defeated and stupid. I know they know I am the idiot who broke the door two years ago, then I had to go and confirm my identity by doing the same exact thing again after two years.

And as I sit here and write this I still have to go back and get my clothes out of the dryer...but after that...never, *ever* again.

The Palimpsest Oven

“And each time it heated up, it smelled of a thousand meals”, my brother said to describe his oven, which had not been cleaned in almost forever. He then went on to describe the lengths that he had gone to to clean it, resorting to a humble straight edged blade as the most effective tool. This got me thinking, and not about cleaning my oven, but about this concept of layers over time.

I learned this word Palimpsest, which describes a manuscript that is written on and then scraped away and then written on again. These manuscripts were often made of parchment and were used as far back as the sixth century. There is residue over time of the thousand words that it once said. I have never seen one of these in person, although I imagine them rich, muddled, and interesting.

I love this idea of layers, of re-use of the same surface, of accumulation, of transformation, of stories told.

This week I went to have a blood test and as they were taking my blood I wondered what story my blood would tell. It made me uneasy that my blood knows stories about me that I will never know. But then I felt comfort in this idea of it retaining information that it has gathered over time and I thought again of the oven, maybe he should not have cleaned it. Maybe the smells it emitted could have solved a mystery or something.