Tuesdays, redeemed

There's a Spades-sized hole in my heart.

Thanks for semi-filling it, Gypsy Queen.

February morning musings.

Public transit in Baltimore is haphazard.  Buses, metro, circulator, MARC train and the light rail – and all are disjointed, running through different parts of the city without a central connection point.  Resultantly, every morning when I leave for work I’m overcome by a compulsion to drive in (and cough up ten bucks) to avoid the conveyance-induced confusion.

When this happens, mostly, I’m forgetting that the light rail is awesome.

Reason- first- It’s a called a light rail, which immediately leads you to picture this:

Reason – deux -  The light rail brings together a true hodgepodge of individuals and always lends itself to interesting situations.  There’s difference between interesting bus interactions (mostly the same woman, alternating between sleep and prayer-yelling, which entails asking Jesus to remind her children that she can rain down punishment if they don’t stop in their hell-bound efforts to kick every detached, placid commuter in the shin) and interesting light rail interactions.

The best way to capture interactions is through conversations I overhear.

Exhibit a.
I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged women about the Baltimore City Official (police officer, I assume) who checks the light rail tickets.

Light rail ticket- checks occur on a random basis.  However, when checks occur in the morning I’ve noticed that it’s generally the same, middle-aged woman reviewing tickets.  Of this officer, the woman I sat behind said:

“That woman is just so nice.  She’s always kind.  Once I didn’t have my ticket, and she just took a moment to help me hop off at the stop and get another.  Most officers push folks around and hassle you.  She don’t.  She’s just so nice, everyone respects her.”

“She is. She’s the sweetest.”

And on and on they went.  My words will be lacking here – but this conversation really encapsulated
something I’d already been taking in about this officer.

The light rail contingent is a conglomerate of humanity and many try to skirt the system by taking a risk, failing to purchase a ticket on the off-chance no one checks.  And then once someone does come by to check, the story starts flowing.

Many of the individuals of the light rail are rugged. Or withdrawn. Or mumblers.  Or entitled.
Still, this woman is mild-mannered and authoritative; gentle and firm; considerate and unyielding.  Most of all – she genuinely respects every person she interacts with, and really sees them.

I want to be that kind of person.

Exhibit be:
This morning.  The woman I sat behind (in my head, I’ve named her Bess) noticed a friend at one of the stops and starting gently tapping the window, as she told another rider she was chatting with – “I know her! I know her!  Heyyyy Teresa, heyyyy!”

(This could sound annoying – but it was actually really sweet and endearing.  Picture, Buddy the Elf when he talks about Santa.)

And then, when I was getting off, in conversation with her friend, her overheard words gently reminded me

“Everything belongs to God.  Everything does.  … The whole earth is His with everything in it.”

Indeed.

clockspeak

The hands of my clock turned elastic while I imprinted these feelings in memory.
You must remember this.


It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive.

Memory.

-Abraham Verghese in Cutting for Stone, p.465

two-selfed?

We have an experiencing self and a remembering self, and the remembering self is more powerful.

-David Brooks, p379 from The Social Animal

All Things Round

What is forever?  It cannot be in time, because time can be measured, and forever cannot.  Time is inextricably tied up with place.  

- Madeline L'Engle

Time also, as I know it, seems inextricably tied up with memory.

Not sure how that relates to forever - but I've been thinking quite a lot about time and memory...mulling over this quote and a few others.

The distillation of this thought-process continues.Will probably involve more blabbery (<made it up, now it's real) on here soon.

Protestation-edition #1: My entire education feels like a fluke

DG: Are you double spacing after periods?

EM: yes
EM: why?

...

DG: You're only supposed to do one space.

EM: you're supposed to double-space!
DG: Some English teachers have been telling students that because you were supposed to because of the way typewriters worked, but that fact didn't carry over to computers.
DG: If it makes you feel better, I always double space, the first one in this paper just looked bigger and it made me think of that.
EM: !
EM: this is a total revelation to me
EM: you just turned the world upside down
DG: And actually, a lot of websites when you double space on them, they automatically compress it to one.
EM: I was about to be snarky and all like nuh-uh
DG: lol :)
EM: but, I googled it and you're RIGHT
DG: I figured you would be.
EM: (headbang)
...
EM: the thing is, we learned to type on computers!
EM: so why the hell did they ever teach us to double-space?
DG From teachers that learned on typewriters.
EM: worthless
DG: If you're like me, then you're going to be bothered by this revelation for a few weeks.  It was really annoying.
EM: I AM

{proof}

TGIF

It's (functionally) the weekend, which is cause for celebration.

One of my favorite parts of my job is when I get to travel.  Two weeks ago I went to Chicago, and I lingered in the city over the weekend (post-work).  I have awesome friends who just moved to the Second City, and so we caught up over beers (at a UK bar!) and then ventured out together to this really cool event that included a documentary screening, spoken word poetry and a break-dancing competition.

Amazing.

Friend and I concluded that it looks cool when tall people break dance, and thus we think Charlie should learn.

He's definitely got potential.

Happy dance-party-weekend!

Last night.

When faced with more grad school essay writing prompts, I had the strength and perseverance to run away via convincing Charlie to build a fort with me.

And I'm pretty sure I can also add to the yesterday-accomplishments list:

Fstrained a finger muscle while attempting to floss my teeth.

{fortface}

WIN.

Subconscious channeling

{before I know it, I'll be shopping for a pair of horned-rims}

I have become such an avid Brooks fan that I have begun to channel him without knowing.

Brooks:

We also live in a highly individualistic culture. When we’re shopping for a vacation we’re primarily thinking about Where. The travel companies offer brochures showing private beaches and phenomenal sights. But when you come back from vacation, you primarily treasure the memories of Who — the people you met from faraway places, and the lives you came in contact with.

{more where that came from}

from my 3 for '11 entry:

Although the initial pull was always to explore new places or rediscover old ones, the Who? always ends up trumping the Where? 

Great minds, I s'ppose.  {ha!}