on the hunt

I keep meaning to write about my first year participating in the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, but I am a dreadful reviewer.  Did I take notes? No. Did I record all of my thoughts as soon as I got home? Not even close. My review, therefore, goes like this: we walked (quickly, although there were moments of moseying) all over Chinatown and North Beach and the Financial District, solved puzzles, laughed a lot, and finished with only one question unanswered.

At least I took some video. And let me tell you: there is nothing quite so humbling as watching oneself on video.

Not exactly caveats, but it bears noting: Yes, my face really moves like that when I talk.  No, I wasn’t under the influence.  Yes, I wear that hat out in public.  No, I had no prior experience with handheld videocams.

Yes, I would do it all again next year.

nothing good

Nothing good comes from the random days, the days spent flailing about one or two different poems or stories, the days with strangleholds on reason. Four times in the last hour I have written then deleted one line. Nothing fits right in the head.

It is best, on the random days, to let pieces be pieces, at peace.

._.-.

Torgi the cat is curled up next to me. Bedtime is his favorite time because he curls up in between us and purrs. Overcome with somnolent joy, his purrs pitch higher until he is trilling in his drowse.

._.-.

Recipes recently attempted and succeeded, at least in the barest sense of the word: Southwestern frittata, steak with ginger-butter sauce, pork tacos with mango salsa, baked eggs in ham cups. Concepts tested and learned: broiling, sauteing, searing, braising. Injuries: one minor burn to the left palm, one minor cut to the right index finger. New tools: black plastic measuring cups and spoons, stainless steel pots and pans, waxing confidence.

._.-.

My first-ever multi-day overnight-stay gaming convention, KublaCon, was both a blur and an amber-trapped memory. Although I love games, I have never self-identified as a gamer, perhaps because I avoid self-identifying as most things on principle. Still, I was among my people all weekend, and it felt good to be so.

._.-.

Pastimes neglected: writing, knitting, photography, World of Warcraft, website tinkering. Pastimes nudged vaguely: reading, crossword-puzzle-solving, cooking, geocaching.

._.-.

Right now I am in a boundary-setting mode, creating structures for productivity, reassessing priorities, and discarding inefficient patterns. This mode is dull, and I look forward to the messy thumb-painting of the next one, whichever it may be. I hope it involves wild, mad creation. I am overdue.

stories not to tell

The best stories in my life right now are the ones I cannot tell.

Working at the library provides me with many things. A steady paycheck is one, and let’s hope I am not jinxing anything by stating that, as the city budget right now is highly contested territory.

Another thing the library provides me with is a plethora of life lessons. Sometimes these life lessons are neatly packaged within a patron interaction or two, and sometimes they are spread out over a series of days, weeks, or months.

I met someone last week who changed my life, and I can’t even tell you any of the specifics. To say I am frustrated by this boundary is an understatement, but I love my job more than I love writing here, so this is the decision I make.

What I can tell you is that I helped this patron who needed some unconventional help. As we parted, a rush of clarity came over me, sudden dizziness forcing me to sit down. This is what I was meant to do, not specifically within the context of a library, but in the general sense: I was meant to help people, directly, without levels of abstraction. My fascination with sifting and categorizing information led me to library science, but it might have been another field, had I differing interests, and no less fulfilling.

The second part of my epiphany was how dangerous this purpose has been for me, how much damage it can do and has already done. I associate helping people with who I am instead of what I do, and when I am not immediately being “useful” I lose my sense of self. This is evidenced by some of what I write here: I am less and less able to express myself in this format, hyper-focused as I am on bringing interesting or valuable content with every piece I write, as if this has ever been anything more than a digital diary.

Leaving work that evening, I skipped my usual route in order to take the main staircase. As I descended, I tried to visualize myself apart from the library, the building itself, focusing on where it stops and where I begin. My rumination was interrupted by a coworker calling my name, waving goodbye, and I was glad for the interruption because of the truth stepping out of the shadows.

I have lost myself, and I do not know where to look.

backpack

I went flying this morning, my first voyage in a long while. When I landed, I landed on forearms and knees, face nearly grazing the floor of the train.

I saw things there I will spend some time trying to un-see.

All apologies and crawling, I fumbled my way up and out. My eyes were full of tears, an autonomic response to the shock and sudden pain. When I blinked to clear my vision, my wet eyelashes streaked mascara over the lenses of my glasses.

Limping, foggy-eyed, confused: what happened? I tripped. Backpack.  On the floor, in front of feet.  I saw it as I fell. I tripped? I must have.

My daily tasks were shrouded in odd jolts of soreness. I told my coworker, who commiserated. When we reached the “it could have been worse” portion of the exchange, she brought up the face-eating tumor. The face-eating tumor — which I could only look up so far as to find its clinical name, fibrous dysplasia — was featured on a television program she and her husband once watched, heart- and gut-wrenched.  Now it is their humility touchstone.

And now it is mine, and now perhaps yours, and all because I did not see a backpack.

To live in this world

Years ago, during a period of grieving, I sent this excerpt from Mary Oliver’s poem “In Blackwater Woods” to my father:

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Another period of grieving is upon us. When I read Mary Oliver’s words, my heart is momentarily lighter.