On the Prowl for Owls

When I was a kid I wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Leonardo, in fact. I wanted to be witty and athletic and be able to fight bad guys with swords. I also sometimes wanted to be Spiderman, to climb walls and shoot webs and stop evildoers.

Turtles and spiders are unlikely heroes; when I tell school kids that turtles crawl into mud and hibernate in a controlled state of hypothermia, they don’t really know what to think. Turtles aren’t particularly captivating. And spiders… well… I’d like to tell them arachnid hibernation, but they are too busy screaming and running. I try to convince them that spiders are awesome, but I rarely succeed.

But there are some animals that truly seem like superheroes, complete with super powers precisely honed to defy reality. They are mystical creatures from the other side of the wardrobe. Kindergarteners (and I!) dream about having their powers.

I wish I could fly!
I wish I had super-incredible vision!
I wish I were invisible!

I am starstruck by a celebrity that I rarely see. She lives in a world of shadow and starlight, a world that demands cunning, and perhaps madness. The true owner of the night does not yip or growl, and has no need for running or pouncing. She spends 90% of her time in silence, waiting listening. When she spots her prey, she makes not a sound in the whole transaction, and none but the mouse ever know she exists. She is the ultimate bandit.

But who is she?
Who, hoo-hoo?



In the forest, many animals take advantage of darkness for protection. Mice venture from their snow tunnels in search of grass, protected by shadow. Snowshoe hares cross great distances at night, hopping through a landscape of snow and stars. But the owl uses that same darkness for her own means. We might never see this feathery shadow, but we might see signs of her presence, like wing marks in the snow after they have snatched up a mouse, or owl pellets they have spit up under their favorite roosts where they sit to digest. We might look for them peering back at us from the trees, but we won’t hear them if they fly by…

Special fringed feathers on her wings disrupt airflow, making her completely silent in flight. Her ears are specially placed- one higher than the other- so that she can locate prey precisely just by hearing it. Her huge eyes have special retinas to see in the dark. They are so specialized, they are not even eyeballs, but rather elongated tubes, which channel images and essentially work as a telescope. Since the eyes are such a unique shape, they can’t turn or roll, so the owl has to move its whole head to look around.

Right now, she’s out there somewhere, silent as a ghost, unmoving as a gargoyle.
But this season, the owls of the Eagle Valley can be more than just figments of your imagination or ghosts of the night. With a warm jacket and a bit of planning, you can actually encounter these dark angels. This valley is home to several owl species, including the small Western Screech-Owl, the round-faced Boreal, and the cunning giant known as the Great Horned Owl. January is the time when Great Horned owls are establishing territory and finding a mate, so they will be vocal and active this month. If you go out at night into the woods, into farm fields, or even in your neighborhood, you can hear them hooting, or even call one in.

So go out to where you think owls might be, and just listen. Maybe you could read Jane Yolen’s “Owl Moon” to your kids, and go out under a full moon. Breathe softly. Listen to the wind in the pines and the sound of snow grains on the willows. Wait longer than you think you should. Then, call out into the night like the shadowy ghost you are seeking, “Hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo.”

Once you hear an owl, cup your hands behind your ears and rotate your hands. You’ll be surprised at how well this helps you locate where the sound is coming from. Or do what an owl does, and move around silently, listening to the sound and triangulating it’s location by listening from a few different places.

Of course, like in anything worth doing, there is no guarantee of encountering an owl. But if you open your ears to the sky, let the starlight fill your eyes, and feel the beauty of the night, there is a 100% guarantee of “success.”

Gore Range Natural Science School offers an owl program once a month as part of our Nature at Night series at the Nature Discovery Center on Vail Mountain. We seek to evoke a sense of wonder and inspire environmental stewardship through natural science education. See more at gorerange.org.
The Breeding Bird Atlas is a volunteer-driven effort to catalog local birds. If you would like to volunteer, or for more information, visit http://www.cobreedingbirdatlasii.org/.

How many hearts

She has my heart. She stole it. I gave it away. Will she ever give it back?

She's hiding it in a Harlem flat. She's climbing with it in Spain. She's hauling it in her ski patrol jacket. Lo tiene en Buenos Aires, na chapada diamantina, and in Minturn. She has it when she's riding that bike, or when she's teaching that dance class, or when she makes those turns in borrowed gear.

She's had it now for so many years, and I wonder if she even knows she still has it.

I just met her last night, and already she holds a cord.

I don't even know her name, but the way she looked at me in the starlight made me throw it all away.

From time to time, place to place, I scratch my head and wonder if I even still exist. Because if you break something in half enough times, it just disappears. She took a piece and hid it up in her red hair, behind her black eyes, in blond curls, in those caramel hands. How can I ask for it back? I think I might need it back someday. Get back JoJo.

"How many hearts do you have?" my friend asked.

"Infinite," I lied.

Riparian

On the last residential, I questioned what the word “riparian” meant.

Did it have to do with streams and rivers?

Or maybe is the bank of a lake considered riparian?

Or even the sea shore?

Where can we apply this word?

“Riparian” comes from the latin ripa which mean stream bank. Interestingly, French still has a verb Riper, which means to slip, to slip away, to go away, to take off. Now THAT’s cool.

Ooo ooo… there is also a potential connection to the Greek ereipein, meaning to tear down. (thought: weathering/erosion?)

Looking at these linguistic connections, we see that they have a common theme of movement. River, go away, tear down. So this makes me associate the word more with moving water.

But Merriam-Webster gives us “relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater” (even a tidewater??)

And wiki tells us that a wetland is a type of riparian area. An area is termed a wetland if the water is standing for longer than a season, causing saturation of the riparian bank in what is termed “hydric soil.”

That’s my thought for the night. Conclusive? Maybe not. Fascinating? Of course. Ok, I’m gonna riper.

The Samaipata Backlash

A friend of mine says that when the going gets tough, the tough drink hot cocoa. There are places on this earth where the going is tough. There are houses built on slews, and cinderblocks and tin roofing, and streams for landfills and drinking water source. There are dead-end jobs and places that feel like prisons. There are prisons too. And there is greed and oppression and marginalization and censorship and under all of these forces there are people living and feeling the pain of all this.

And also there is "Middle Earth," where life is not a daily struggle against dragons, but where the sunshine still burns the skin. This is a world where there are holes in some socks. Dishes don't match. A dinner party involves sitting on the floor. Friends give each other discounts from their respective places of employment. The library trumps the bookstore. "Going to a show" means watching your friend play original songs in a bar that has bins of free pretzels.

And then, there is the Vail Athletic Club.

To be continued...

Empire State of Mind

We're in the perfect setting.
We are in the perfect moment.
Are you very, very ready?

If you agree that this is the perfect moment, then follow me. This is my kingdom, my empire. A glass castle-shiny and white-and quiet like I want it to be. People don't cheer when I pass, they don't notice. I don't need them to. I'm in a hurry, plunging unavoidably in a single direction. Everyone else is on their way, heading somewhere, anywhere, pulled by the forces that pull all of us. I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and strain myself against the ground, against the air and the sky. I have to be strong.

If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.
It's up to me...

My aspirations are held in my chest, wrapped warmly in my head, but it's up to me to make it happen. I have to choose every turn, avoid every obstacle, and trust myself completely. This is what dreams are made of: letting the in-crowd go bad wherever they are, letting go of each breath and letting it float into the air, letting worries be as irrelevant as they really are. When the going gets tough, worry doesn't help at all, only determination can see me through.

And so I fly down through my glass castle, an empire made of shining crystal snow, releasing into the air when cliffs drop out from under me, and absorbing back into the ground as if gravity pulled me there. I'm not without fear, in fact it helps drive me.

And elation.

Cus I'm in New York!
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do!
Now you're in New York!
These streets will make me feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you!
Hear it for New York!

Shirts off, Ice in

compendiums building momentum and mai-tais in the fridge,
if you wanna party, end of week, oops it's empty bottles.
and by slow I mean bon-fuego, and by now I mean luego,
but slow down and stretch a hammie and switch to sunshine yoga.
pull-up to handlebars and ice in pickle jars,
and I'm flipping the light switch while GaGa's under limbo.
It's a pants party and no you don't need sweaters,
there's not a thing to rival the bunkhouse swing.
a dozen friends baking dozens in a room
the coldest winter on record but warm inside the glass
point the boom at the circle and the pow to the mountians
you've got it, i've got it, we've got it, got it
It's love and it's power so let it shine and radiate.

Memories of the Night

A friend of mine once sent me a children's story called "A Walk in the City." After seeing
people,
and fast,
and tall,
and up, up, up,
and it all,
our characters go home, to hike in the mountians.

This morning, scraping ice from the windshield of the silver bullet, i giggle with memories of the night. Colored lights on the dancefloor, rythmic movement and freedom from reality. Time is gone, along with the responsibilities that it demands. Only timing remains, and body and energy.

And in the morning, the alarm sounds, and it takes a few minutes to brown the french toast, and the car takes a few moments to warm up for the trip to work.

tick, tick, tick.
sun on shining white.
giggle.
memories of the night.

Memories of the Morning

A friend of mine once asked me about my favorite food memory. She wrote the note on the inside of what she called a "coffee snuggler." I consider coffee itself a snuggler.

I remember the morning that the Laughing Goat coffeeshop opened, a flower on each table and sunlight pouring in, the memory of love sitting across the table.

I remember black coffee out of a sock in Lençois, Bahia, the memory of a tile floor and Elis Regina on the musicbox, and infatuation sitting across the thatch floormat.

I remember early-morning campfires in a subalpine hunting camp, black coffee from an old steel pot, with my dad standing across the fire, stomping our feet to fight the sub-freezing mountain air.

Memories are like dreams of the future, as the loose reality in their perfection. Aspirations for what life could be like. Hot coffee and love.

The Thought Train

Today a friend asked me to "join the thought train," which is a project to write down a thought every day in the month of December. "31 days. 31 thoughts until a whole new year," she said.

My, this sounds familiar. I made a goal to write 365 thoughts, and I fell a titch short. But my friend feels the same need: to somehow make concrete this ephemeral existence. We live, and we think and we struggle and we love, but then the moment passes and it´s simply gone and over. It seems like we were robbed, that nothing comes from it. We don´t have anything to show for this life!

So I´ll jump on the train. I´ll put digital ink to pixels, and thus put "rubber to the road" on this information superhighway.

This morning I tightened the straps on my tele boots and dropped into the dips and falls of Beaver Creek ski resort, letting my tips fly into new, soft snow, and letting my fingers drag on the snow in the inside of my arc. I left the ground, flying off a knoll, and came back to earth in a gliding turn, as trees and snow and mountains flew away behind me.

I hooted in joy from the bottom, shared high-fives with my friends/coworkers, and loaded on the chairlift to do it again.

I am lucky to live in a beautiful place. I am thankful for the wonderful people that I live and work with. I miss friends that are far away, and I am thankful that my parents are now quite close. I am thankful for a strong body, keen eyesight, and soft snow.

Winter- and life in the cold- a wonderful world.

The Dead of Winter: A World Alive with Wonder

My friends remind me that I’m a human being, homo sapiens… but sometimes, watching my breath turn to crystals in the cold blue air, I feel as wild and free as any animal. I squint into the eyes of a squirrel, an eagle, or an elk, and I am caught in the center of the universe. The snow dampens all sound, holding space and freezing time.

Calm under the winter moon, I wonder if my brother is looking up at that same bright face in the sky. Here in a snowy infinity, I think about my place in the universe. If I’m really a human being, what is my role here in the Rocky Mountains? Last year I tried my luck in New York City, but I missed getting snow packed in my shoelaces, and I missed the robin’s encouraging song: “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.” I’m lucky to be back in Colorado, teaching for Gore Range Natural Science School, sharing with local kids the splendor of this mountain landscape.

More than anywhere else, the mountains inspire questions in my mind. How do flowers survive the winter? Why do squirrels chatter at me from the trees? Did wolves imagine retrieving balls before we invented tennis?

Even in the “dead” of winter, there is life all around. Under the snow, bears sleep soundly, their hearts beating just 8 times per minute. Do they dream? I assume they do, since they have 3 or 4 months to kill. I wonder if they dream of commonplace, quotidian things like grass and berries, or if their dreams transcend reality, like mine often do. Since I have dreamt of being a bear, is there a bear somewhere that has dreamt of being me? Down below the snow, in the surface of the ground, pocket gophers are busy digging their labyrinthine homes, living off stored seeds and grasses. Do they have their eyes open down there?

I don’t mean to pin too many humanoid tails on the donkey, but I teach kindergarteners, and sometimes kids ask the most interesting questions.

We often see Steller's Jays and Grosbeaks swooping through the evergreens. Their varied plumages- of blue mohawks, yellow masks, or red hoods- remind me of superhero costumes, but kids wonder where they spend the night. Do they roost near a friend, exchanging "Good night’s" before dozing off?

Bald eagles have their mate to sleep next to, but do they have “his” and “hers” sides of the branch? They preen their white and black feathers to a perfect shine, apparently conscious of aesthetic beauty. So do they turn that sense of beauty outward? Do they see the perfection of ice on the river, or the blue sky glittering into the infinite? Do they contemplate the beauty of snowflakes, slow dancing through the air?

I crouch silently under pine boughs, watching elk glide though the forest, as smoothly as fish swimming through water. I tell a group of first graders that the elk herd is led by a single matriarch, who talks to the herd in barks and squeals. I have seen matriarchs in action, standing alert at the edge of a clearing, leading the herd into new pastures and potential danger. Does she let that power go to her head? Is she bossy? Does she let the kids play in the snow?

In the springtime, there is a robin that loves the tree behind my house. Where is she now? Gone away? I miss her so much, does she miss me? Wherever she is, does she long for time to go faster, so that she can come back to her beloved tree, to sing her encouraging song, “cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up”? Here, in December, sometimes I need that encouragement. Wherever my robin is, maybe in Zacatecas, I wonder if she longs for my daily “hello birdie,” whispered through my bedroom window.


Rodney Beall is a Graduate Fellow in Natural Science Education at the Gore Range Natural Science School where he teaches school children and talks to animals. (www.gorerange.org)

A 20-Something Stage

Last month I turned 25. It is a number I have always considered very angular, square, the king of the "odd" number kingdom. (I consider 24, on the contrary, king of the circular, even-number kingdom, much to my brother's disdain.) So, I've reached my mid-twenties, and I suppose I should feel a quarter life crisis, or a certain momentous change in my place in the world. I mean, my biological clock is TICKING!

I love talking to my friend Kelly, because she always, without fail, says, "This has been a really intense week for me. I've gone through a lot of change and personal growth." I laugh at her every time, because it seems ludicrous that every week should be momentous and full of change. But as I reflect on 25 and consider my options for internal crisis, I realize that my life has been quite like Kelly's. Like beads on a chain, or waves pulsing in a river, the adventures of these years have helped me to grow and change constantly, (a constant bumping, chattering, haltering, crashing...) from the boy I hardly remember being, into a young man that I feel quite comfortable being.

Today at work, (whoa, I have a REAL job? I MUST be 25!) we took a personality test and I was informed that this is me:



Boy oh boy, this guy with multiple faces, who seems to be dropping all of his things?? This is me? I don't know if this guy is 25. Or if this guy could have a REAL job. "Acquisitive"? "Scattered"?

Blue Morpho

Looking out of the town of Ouro Preto, with it~s double-towered yellow churches on each hill top, an enormous monolith stands on the horizon, el Pico do Itacolomi.
As soon as I got to town, and as I was drinking beers on the cobblestone streets and dancing to samba music in a low-cieling bar, I was thinking about it.
I have been in New York City for eight months, and although I~ve loved it~s driving atmosphere, and I~ve bustled with the relentless hustle, I miss mountians, ache for them, would pine for them like Penelope weaving if only they would come back to my life.
Sometimes, on the Q-train over the Manhattan bridge, I would squint at Lower Manhattan,and imagine it was a mountian to climb.
On a rainy day in February, with Miss Ava Rose Heller, I forgot all about the city for five hours, in the Museum of Natural History. The highlight of the day was the Butterfly exhibit, where we walked through a room full like a living snowstorm of brilliant butterflies. Some where bright red, others yellow, some tiny and some large. One, the Hurcules Moth, doesn~t have a mouth in it~s adult phase, so it slowly dies, living to reproduce in its due time. Ava was overcome with a longing that is more and more common in our modern world: the feeling of being detached from natural cycles of life and death. "I wish we had such a simple cycle," she sighed.
And although I went to bed past 4am, under a crescent moon and the southern cross, I woke up at 7 energized to climb. Itacolomi waited for me like it waited for tapir hunters 20,000 years ago, and for gold prospectors in our time.
The trail left the highway near the hospital, and carved upward in what began as a dirt road an quickly became a washed-out bed of rocks that I assume was at one time a mining road. The sun was strong by 11:00, and I was quickly sweating pools into my eyes.
I often think of James Redfield´s book The Celestine Profecy when I~m walking, because he said that if we truly look at the things around us, we will see tue beauty glow in things, and this glow can act as a guide. have trusted such a glow on many occasions, and I~ve often been happily surprised.
A jet-black songbird with a crested head looked at me from a branch, and when he flew, his tail flashed snow white. Another bird, hidden, sqeeled with such sustained agony that I felt the need to befriend it.
And as I realized that my 2 liter bottle of water was going to disappear quickly under this humid sun, I felt a cool breeze brush up my leg, as if coming from the earth itself. There, almost unnoticed, was a tiny trail down into the brush, and I did not hesitate in diving down it. Shadow covered me, and I looked up to see wide purple flowers that somehow seemed forlorn. The ferns and broad leaves got thicker as I continued up the small opening, and then I could hear the hushed trickle of water. I ducked my head under a tree that was weighted down with hanging red flowers, like sleeping bats, and when I looked up, a heart-shaped grotto breathed cool air into my face.
The water was flowing steadily down a 10-inch waterfall into a pool the size of a hot tub, and about as deep. I closed my eyes and smelled deeply. I could smell mud and plants and flowers and wind. I imagined I could smell the animals that must have drank from this pool, and the people who, perhaps for thousands of years, had come here to swim.
And when I opened my eyes, I could not believe the sight, and I stumbed backward, unsure if I was still firmly on earth.
Butterflies.
So many butterflies turned and fluttered in the air above the grotto, turning and falling like a brilliant snowstorm. Alive, thoughtful.
This one was bright yellow, with squares bordered with black. This one was tiny and blue green. That one absolutely white, with rounded wings and the flight of a child folding paper. This one was a neon sign, advertising with yellow and red bars.
And then, time stopped. The king entered the room.
In a pace meant for elephants, he opened his eyes to me. Speaking like a master, he said not a word. Clocks quit. Breath held time. And the Blue Morpho stepped into the grotto, to open and close his wings, slowly, without hurry, without fear. That blue is the Celeste that comes before prophecy. It existed just before the big bang, and it will put us to sleep on the last day. That blue could calm the seas if they had eyes.
And I was naked and in the water, with the cool stream around me, and like trickling down through fern and flower, and the butterflies just flew and watched, and came and went. After I dried off, I thanked the earth for cold days in New York, and for hot days in Brazil. I thanked the water for cleaning me, and I thanked the butterflies for playing host. Then I shouldered my backpack and headed out of the thicket, looking for a bird to befriend.

The Way the Neighborhood Used to Be

I spent the end of the summer sweating.
I sweated sleeping, even when I slept alone.
Showers were comically redundant.
Dark shirts were multi-colored, and white shirts were opaque.

Skateboarding, pizza, bodega beer, rooftops.
and every conversation led to one of two subjects:
Athletic prowess
and the way the neighborhood used to be.

We're 24, at the top of our game...
You'd beat me in high-jump, dashes
I'd win at everything else cuz I'm stubborn.
Summer feels so good.

El barrio used to be so different.
Only Rosa's restaurant is left from those days
somehow it got so cool, so expensive
Used to be artists, fuck Duane Reade and Starbucks

High-five homie.

Now I live in Crown Heights, eight months later.
I didn't sweat this winter, except with fever.
I drank less beer, but did get an open container ticket.
I skated in slush and snow, cuz I'm stubborn and want to win.

The rooms in my apartment are huge, cuz this used to be all Jewish.
But ten years ago it was all black, and dangerous.
"We could never go to Franklin Street, back in the 90's."
"Whoa, you live at Eastern Parkway and Franklin? That's such a dope neighborhood!"

I live with "dope" young professionals
Outside my window I hear the roots of rap music, constant banter.
I ran in the park, and scared a hawk from its roost.
I ran past joggers and designer dogs,
I ran past unnecessary signs "Peligro Hielo Fino."
I ran past the place where last week, 17 year old Sharif Abdallah got in a fight,
and the other kid got his dad, who came and killed Sharif.
Sharif used to walk past my window.
"Whoa, you live at Eastern Parkway and Franklin?"

I was happy to jog and get a good sweat.
Then I went to work: lattes and ice cream.
It's a nice neighborhood; a parade of strollers and proud parents.
It's the library and museum and park and ice cream.
We could talk about how it has changed, too.

Midwest Sensibilities

Under a steetlamp light at 12:31am in Brooklyn, New York. My legs are unevenly tired; I ride regular and don~t feel comfortable switch, so my right foot does all the pushing, pounding pavement.

On a black iron fence around a baby-blue playground, an eagle soars one-winged through starry stripes, big enough to make Rush Limbaugh cry. It was painted (or repainted) in place, by fourth graders or half-asleep Parks employees, so the black fence received quite a lot of red, white, and blue.

Coming from the show, heading home, the hipsters fade around South 1st, and by Division Street it´s all Hasidim in mink hats and sadness, cages on the balconies. After Myrtle, pizza and rap and curbside quarrels reappear, but there are still quite a few Honda Odesseys.

The band tonight was incredible, with horns and back-up singers and anthemic hooks, but the crowd stood quite erect, attentive but not head-bobbing. Listening for something new. We´ve heard so much. We all have thousands of songs. Easy searches bring us new music daily. We´ve all been to big concerts, and seen the world´s most talented musicians on 84-inch HD Blueray. We´re not easily impressed.

And so we pick. A room filled with "my generation," who read and listen and talk and eat, and feel quite comfortable leaving a plate of food if they don´t like it.

"Let´s try out that recipe you were talking about," she said to me, with love in her eyes. "And if it doesn´t work, we´ll just order something in!"

The comment says so much about the city. It celebrates it. You can have anything and everything, now, and if you don´t like it throw it out and try something else.

My mom would just puff up, full of Minnesota, and spit! "Eat what you´ve been served; don´t be picky!"

Picky. This word comes into my head so much here in New York. And where I come from, this was one of the worst, ugliest words. Being picky at my mother´s table was being disrespectful, and although we joked about the common phrase, "remember the starving children in Ethiopia," we did remember them, and we ate what we were served and that was that. Chuck roast is just as good as Filet Mignon. They are just for different occasions.

But here in New York, it is different. As soon as the music stops, someone is critiquing the symbol-heavy drumming. The actors are still bowing, and already she is questioning the director´s choice to include the rape scene, the n-word, or the comic interlude. The curry was too spicy, there is a better place in Soho. This show was overly balletic, and didn´t allow the dancers to improvise. Too little sauce, crust too doughy.

"Eat what you´ve been served! Don´t be picky!"
"If it doesn´t work, we´ll just order something in!"

Stranger Than Fiction

Did you see the movie?

Did you love Maggie Gyllenhaal in a full-sleeve tattoo as much as Will Ferrell and I did?

She worked in a bakery, and the dweeby Ferrell was able to go everyday and buy a bread and see her, and cultivate his love for her crumb by crumb. She plays the part perfectly: engaging yet aloof, caring yet too busy to really care, a little tough (huge tat) and wistful. With her kerchief and half-smile, she makes anybody just feel like, "I KNOW her, man." Cuz we've all had that coffeeshop girl crush, whether she's the hipster behind the counter or the cutie on the laptop alone at the two-top.

The coffeeshop is an interesting place, because it is luring, but it's not quite intimate. Borges would show that a coffeeshop is a hall of mirrors. It's not exactly what it seems to be. It feels like your living room, but really it's not. It feels like "your place" but really you're just there buying the product. That person behind the counter says hello every day, smiles, gives you something delicious. You have a little ten-second relationship every day. But they're not
really your friend. You don't know anything about them. You can make hundreds of assumptions about who they are, and you do, but only because of the mirrors. It's a trick of the eye.

A coffeeshop is a reflection of the world. And Maggie Gyllenhaal isn't really a baker or a barista, because she's and actor, and movies are another reflection of the world. Its about mirrors. Borges said that basically all literature comes down to four central metaphors. Infinity and zero, knowledge and ignorance, language, and mirrors.

In this case, we have two instances of mirrors. 1) the coffeeshop as a mirror of the world. 2) Movies as a mirror on reality. Now, if you remember the movie Stranger than Fiction, our analysis can go leagues deeper, because it was a Borges-like story of a man living his "non-fiction" life, while a narrator who was creating "fiction" was actually dictating everything he did and everything that was done to him. So now we play on language, because language has the ability to create worlds, to define reality, and to destroy it. The narrator, remember, was famous for always killing her main characters, therefore Ferrel was on a quest to find her and convince her not to kill him.

Back to the issue at hand: Maggie Gyllenhaal. I was just enamored by her in that movie. Perhaps her character was influential in encouraging me to get a job as a barista. And since I've been working at Blue Marble, I've seen it happen: I've watched girls crush on me over that counter. I'm there serving coffee or ice cream, and they don't know anything about me, but the assumptions made in that mirror are strong, and somehow build a shortcut to amor. So when Maggie Gyllenhaal came in for ice cream today, I felt like I was looking into mirrors in a hotel bathroom, where you can see hundreds or thousands of yourself expanding to infinity in either direction. She got frozen yogurt and blackberry, and I looked her in her green eyes, and she paused looking into mine, and I wondered if she was falling in love with me. I saw her as a tattooed baker, but I wasn't a heartsore accountant. And she was just a lady who lives in New York, and I was the one behind the counter. The arching corridors of repeating images gave an illusion of infinite space, even though it's just two mirrors in parallel.

Borges is wonderful. He wrote short stories, and also poems. He claims that "I never have been much of a writer, but I'd like to think that I was a formidable reader." He is being ridiculous, because he was a fantastic writer, but he also was arguably the most prolific reader to have ever lived. He read everything, and memorized much of it. He's like Chomsky; you are left feeling like, "is there anything this guy doesn't know?"

Setting Intentions, 2009

I sort of figure I'm the hero. I'm just sitting around right now, but pretty soon I'm gonna do the biggest thing that's ever been done. I'm gonna fight the good fight. I'm gonna inspire a nation, unite the world, make grown men sob, ignite a global ecological consciousness. Granted, today I just work in an ice cream shop, but I've got tomorrow off, so I'll probably do something incredible then. Now, I don't like New York City much, so I probably won't stick around here long enough to do anything great. But I'm learning Portuguese right now, so maybe I'll go down to Brazil soon. And when I take trips they are really profound. Really. I'm looking at outdoor educator jobs in Colorado, and that's not the BIG thing that I'm working on. I'm just going to do that for a while, while I'm working on the big hero thing. You'll see.

It's Your Birdo!

Today is Will's 25th birthday, so in honor of him, I'm going to make a short comment about the Sami people of northern Scandinavia, not that that has anything to do with Will...

I know that the Ute people used to pick wild strawberries in the valley where I was born, and I know that they soaked in the same hot springs in which I first made out with Katie L or saw the Corona Borealis. I also spent a few days with Jackson, a 300-pound Hopi guy at Dinosaur, and through his easy laugh and trunk of flatbread, I learned a titch about the reservation. Even though I know little about Native American people, I "know" why they are different, and I "know" that they are different.

Tonight my Norwegian roommate Ingrid told me about the Sami, who live in Northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and take the brunt of a serious dose of racism. Ingrid told George and I that they look very distinct, and that her boyfriend "looks quite like a Sami." But when she tried to show George and I pictures of what Sami people look like, we laughed, cuz these were "just white people."

"This person has classic Sami cheeks," she'd say. Or, "do you see how their eyes are?" But we just saw blond people in high-collared jackets with reindeer. "It's Mrs. Claus!" we'd say.

In the United States, we have learned to look for certain characteristics to single out the "people who are different." Most often it is skin color. It makes sense to the American-trained mind that a dark-skinned person would be the brunt of political or social prejudice. But here I was looking at pictures of blue-eyed europeans who, for some reason, "looked Sami."

It really reinforces for me the concept that Alejandro de la Fuente recently shared, and that Dennis van Gerven once stated, that there is no such thing as race. If the world would have been discovered by walking, instead of by boat, we never could have made racial distinctions, only acknowledged a gradient. There is no such thing as race, only the perception of race. That was painted clearly tonight by a Norwegian girl looking at a picture of a perfectly "white" person and saying, "Yeah, this person has the Sami look, and would definitely be discriminated against.

Whoa.

Dedication, Commitment

Ahh, yes, the blog I was going to write in EVERY DAY for a year...

The only proper way to tip-toe back into this thing after a month-long hiatus is to comment on the idea itself. Because if I am honest, I can see that I fell off as soon as I started. So what gives?

The idea was to write every day. To be in a routine, like the newspaper that I read every morning or the push-ups/sit-ups that I do every night before bed.

Yeah right. I've almost constantly dreamed of having a constant work-out routine, fantasized about the strength I could gain, about the way I could look, but motivation comes in spurts. I watch a Michael Bay movie and run to crank out pull-ups. I watch an hour of YouTube break dancing and then do pushups until I'm panting and sticky and get distracted by "Hot Girl Dancing on Cam!"

And reading the newspaper every day? Oh man. I was all over that thing during the election. Now I'm just taking a couple days off. What? It's February?

I'm not a total douchebag: I arrive nearly on-time for all my cafe shifts and tutoring sessions, I agree to monogamy in emotionally-committed relationships, and I generally try to respect people that I meet. I uphold the law when it makes sense, and I try to take good care of myself. But this concept of "driving unwaveringly toward a distant goal" alludes me.

I'm reading "Dreams From my Father," and it is incredibly reassuring to hear President Obama talk of feeling lost, angry, and directionless. And yet in the midst of all that turmoil, he felt something that I also feel: a drive to do good things, help others, and effect positive change. I think he knows me. And I think that my lack of routine discipline will not ruin me. If I continue to look for ways to involve myself positively, sporadic as my motivation and action may be, I'll continue driving forward, waveringly, stumblingly, but alright.

It's all dancing.

On a cloudy New York day, I am quite content on cafe wi-fi making plans for the next couple of months- corresponding via emails with the people who make up my life here:

Julia, a friend of a friend whose apartment I'll be subletting for February and March

Molly, who I am staying with in this interim, who works for a bicycle advocacy group and doesn't know how to drive

Sam and George, who I play basketball and work out with, and with whom I'm planning a ski trip up to Vermont

Rosely, my Portuguese teacher starting next week, a three month program offered through the UN

Jennie and Alexis, the owners of Blue Marble Ice Cream

Michael, my Project manager and adviser with Champion Learning

Ryan, a friend in Baltimore, who I'll be staying with during a Wilderness First Responder Recert course at the end of the month

and Ava, lovely Ava, with whom I have quite quickly fallen into some sort of love affair/mutual obsession/relationship. She is a modern dancer and NYU grad student, Manhattan native, and she's just so DARN sweet! In this crazy time in my life, I was feeling quite useless and hopeless, and then of a sudden I found this girl who believed that I could be happy in this city, and that SHE could be happy with ME, and that has made all the difference. Certainly, "dependence" upon another person for one's personal happiness is something to be tisk-tisked... but at this time and place, I am more than happy to accept this new love and allow it to give me happiness, motivation, and inspiration to build and try to be happy here. I am now functioning on a three-month timeline- I'll be here through march- after which I still don't have plans. But now that I am building some sort of plan, I have experienced this flurry of excitement in plan-making and engagement, illustrated by these mini-biographies. It's great. I feel alive.

We did a lot of talking about life and "path" and "career" and "should" over thanksgiving, and I am not casting any of that aside. Far from it. I am looking to those long term goals in proper time perspective, and in the meantime finding a way to do something meaningful in the shorter-term that can make me HAPPY. Because all of that talk with you guys and Nana and Pops made me heartbreakingly unhappy for like a month. It still does, thinking about it now. But with Ava, and as I put together plans for the short term, I am reminded of why life is beautiful, and why it's worth living. It's for the fun stuff: for the love and the skiing and the things to be learned. It's for dreaming about future trips, and places to go and languages to speak. It's about playing a hard game of rec center basketball and loosing by one and cursing about it in the locker room afterward. It's about warm tea, nice strong coffee, and letting gravity pull you in arcs as you shift from one edge to another. It's all dancing.