Catholic Guilt Inspires Action

So, when I was walking to the Blue Line stop at Cicero on my way back to CTC from Michele Clark High School, I see a person lying on the sidewalk, face-down.  At first, I took said person to be a drunk construction worker.  He was wearing jeans and boots and had messy longish hair.  Some sirens cut through the air and this person sat up suddenly, so I knew that he wasn't dead.  There were other people walking about and no one else stopped but me.

Then I see that this person is a woman, and she is obviously high as a kite and is nodding out while trying to pick up some change that she dropped on the sidewalk.

I yell, "Hey!  You're sleeping!  You can't sleep!"

Meanwhile the traffic on Cicero Avenue is barreling along, the cars getting onto 290 are whizzing by.

She kept nodding out.  But eventually, she stood up.  I picked up her change and handed it to her.  All the fingers on her hands were swollen like sausages.  I don't know how she was able to hold the change in her hand, yet she did.  She could not walk in a straight line.  She kept wobbling and veering and almost walked into the street.  I held her back a couple of times.  Finally I saw that it was clear to cross.

"Do you want to cross?" I asked very loudly.

She followed me across the street.  Once across the street, I was worried that she wouldn't get far enough away from the corner to avoid falling into traffic.  She got as far as the light pole and the concrete barrier for the overpass above 290.  "Sit down."  I kept ordering.  I figured she could sit on the concrete edge of the overpass.  She did not listen to my pale orders.  Instead she nodded out until she was folded in half with her head down and leaning against the light pole.

I walked several yards away and called 911.  Told the lady on the phone that this woman appeared high and was going to get herself run over by a car.  I also mentioned that her fingers looked like she might have had frostbite.  "Do I need to stay here?"  I asked the 911 dispatcher.  "No, we'll send someone."

I walked up the block to the train and went through the turnstile.  From the platform I could see the firetruck, then the ambulance, then the cop car come by.  I think they put her in the ambulance so at least I can rest assured that she won't get run over by a car (at least not today).

Later, I tell Ange the story and muse over her fingers...how I assumed frostbite, but I don't know maybe something else could cause that.  Ange, ever the doctor exclaims, "could be leprosy."

"Leprosy!?!  People have leprosy in the United States?"  I freak out in my ignorance. "I touched her!"  I exclaim.

Ange consoles me, "You probably won't get leprosy."

Hmmmmmm.  Great.  Just great.

Still, felt horrible watching that woman and how out-of-it she was and how dangerous her life is and how she didn't even seem aware of her sausage fingers.  Ugh.  I hope she is ok.

Marching on...

February felt full of flights of fancy.  Fretful fearsome foolishness.
Now onwards with March.
Mucho meditation is needed.
Must master moodiness and misguided machinations.

Happy Hearts

I've been crocheting little hearts lately.  Not something I ever would have thought I'd do...using tiny crochet thread and a wee hook made of steel.  Deadly on the eyes.

I saw the pattern on A Foothill Home Companion and since Valentine's Day was coming up, I thought, why not?

They became little gifts for people.  I like making little things that I think will make someone smile.  Valentine's Day is a weird Hallmark Holiday. I've never been too into it.  I like chocolate, though.  Any holiday involving chocolate has to be good.  But, this one, can incur sour grape-like feelings if you're single  (which I am currently) and you are tired of all the coupledom around you.  However, I'm not feeling that right now.  I'm liking reading all the crafty blogposts with Valentine crafts.  I'm liking all the hearts. I'm liking all the red.  I think after the snow and the bitter cold in Chicago, I want red.  I want the illusion of heat, the suggestion of fire, the illusion of happiness.  I'm ok with illusion. Sometimes, the illusion is just what is needed to get you through February and March in Chicagoland.

So, anyway, I made crocheted hearts.  Chains and stitches.  Winding the hook, pulling it through, weaving the ends.  It was meditative.  It required a bit of tedious work (dislike weaving in ends).  But once completed, they were recognizable as hearts.

So, here's my heart.  I'm giving it to you.

Snow Walk

More snow today.  The big fat fluffy kind that sticks to everything.  I had to be out in it, even though the streets are treacherous, especially for someone who can't see over the small mountains of snow accumulated at intersections, crosswalks, and corners.

A little tour of the neighborhood.  The sky was completely gray, almost white.  The boughs of the trees are inky black and frosted in white icing.

There is something about a large snowfall like this that changes people.  I wasn't the only one walking about with a camera.  The appearance of everything changes so drastically.  And then there's the physical difficulties that the snow creates.  Huge puddles of slush at the crosswalks.  Or crosswalks that have been buried in mounds of snow.  Uneven, unstable paths of packed snow from many feet.  People just have to be more patient.  You wait for the person in front of you to negotiate the narrow pathway.  You can't push ahead, because there is no room to do so.  You have to walk around snow piles to get to an area that's not inundated in slushy snow water in order to cross the street.   Nothing is simple or clear cut.  I think that provokes some childlike qualities in the city.  For instance, the childlike need to lay claim to...oh let's say...shoveled out parking spots.

"Dat's my spot!"
"Na-uhhhh."
"Uh-huhhh"
"My spot, see.  I'm saving it with this here chair."

I believe in the sacredness of the Chicago chair system.  I know there are many who do not agree.  But as long as I can remember, there was the chair.  I don't drive any more, but walking past a chair setting in the snow, makes me smile.  There's a twisted, desperate logic to it that I can appreciate.

Paths cut through two-feet high snow, remind me of building forts out of blankets and chairs.  I remember dismantling the bed and using the mattresses and the pillows and the chairs to create these fantastic tunnels.  Little cozy enclosed spaces...

Then wide open ones.  Reaching the lake, it all opens up until it feels closed, because you can barely tell the difference between the lake and the sky.  They are both a gray-green.  And the lake water has a layer of slushy ice.  Like a giant Lake Michigan flavored Slurpie.  And there are little trails in it, as if a duck pushed its way through the slushy ice.  The lake has soft little swirls of white ice like a green marble.

And don't forget the trees.  The weeping willows are orange.  Their leaves hang down like soft flames flickering against the frozen sky.  Their fringe frames the lighthouse.

The weeping willows don't look sad in the winter at all.  They look like a fantasy.  I picture fairy princesses regal in their gowns, traipsing about under the fringes, highly aware of their beauty.  The trees themselves, could care less.

Snow Days

I am thoroughly enjoying the snow days.  I am experiencing an unabashed joy at not having to go to work. CCC, CPS, and NEIU all closed for the past two days.  All the initials I am affiliated with, closed.  The CTA is working though and I hear that LSD is cleared.  Other abbreviations.

I spent about two and a half hours shoveling the alley even though I do not have a car.  But now, there is a path out of the parking lot and out of the alley and onto the street.  So, that's an accomplishment.

Ok, after all the back to back travelling I did in November and December, I am thoroughly content to be snowed in.  And I'm not even being that productive, and I feel absolutely no guilt about it.

I did walk to the lake.  It is fun to see how things are transformed.  The painted benches by the lakefront in my header pic are almost entirely covered in snow.

But it's so beautiful out.  The sun was shining today and the sky was blue.  The sun was glaring off the white snow.  Mother Nature tarting it up.  Not so subtle there.

In case you were thinking of jumping in.  Don't.

Icy Sestina

Even in the winter, there are waves.

The movement of water is difficult to stop.

Even when the lake is covered with large scales of ice--

seemingly static and unmoving, listening carefully, you can hear

the relentless movement of water, pushing, shoving,

thrusting forward, slamming up against the frozen waterline.

I’ve always loved it, when a man kisses me at my hairline.

He’s really brushing against the waves

of my burdens--shoving

aside my insecurities with his lips--stop

ing my incessant self-criticism mid-thought, forcing me to hear

the beat of my own heart.  The ice

underneath the surface is fragile. Ice

is like that.  There’s no telling what’s actually below the waterline.

--all the mixed messages; desire...to crush, to melt, to conquer, to be conquered ...you hear

it underneath the silence of ice; the constant conversation of waves

which, so far as I know, never stop--

always continue their jockeying and shoving...

Buddhists attempt to stop all the shoving.

Better to be still like ice.

Accept whatever state you are in.  Stop

the wheel of desire.  Step to the waterline

and drink.  Ride waves.

But most importantly,listen.  Because you might hear

the precise moment when the ice fissures and the heart opens.  I hear

great tectonic plates of ice shoving

through, creating a path, dragging the detritus, along with everything good, on waves

of love.  Remember that ice

is merely another form of water.  And the coastline

is where the water finally comes to a stop;

a rest.  This is where the pitch of the song is stopped

and the change can be heard.

The truth of things comes out at the coastal line--

the fact that I don’t want to shove

or jockey for position.  I’d like to lay, not like the iceberg, formidable and foreboding, but like the ice

that’s melting and in the process of becoming something softer, to eventually ride the waves

travelling to the edge of the waterline.  Getting rest at that stop

to ride the waves again and again. Listening to that music you can hear

underneath the shoving and desire.  And finally, for a while anyway, put the fear on ice.

© 2011 Germania Solórzano

The Love Poetry of Aikido

Two hours of aikido tonight and my mood has drastically changed for the better.  I've been moody.  Crying.  Sad and silly.  Tonight I was tossed about and maybe that knocked some sense into me.  Or got my endorphins going.

Watching Sato Sensei demonstrate, I started to feel myself turn all poetical.  I thought, tai sabaki is practicing the same pattern over and over again...like love...

You reach for someone, they deflect, they block, they turn you around, spin you on your axis then toss you.

You get up.  Go at it again.  Maybe believing that the more you fall, the more tenderized your heart will be.  Or perhaps because your body is dumb.  Or is it your heart, that learns so slow...?

Then, the tables turn.  Someone reaches for you.  You deflect them, you block, you turn them around, spin them on their axis then toss them away.

Over and over, until the technique changes.  Some fancy switch-o-change-o of hands behind your back. Some jazzy snazzy magic thing.  You do it over and over just because you like the feeling that you can.

Hmmm....

Then another change.  Not so easy.  Everything changes when there's a weapon in someone's hand.  Or does it?  The stakes seem to change.  Life is more serious.  Life is precious.  Take things slower now. Pay more attention.

How silly that a wooden sword or staff should seem so scary.  A heart is vastly more frightening, either way.