A professor pointed out today out that living in upstate NY would be much better for your health, insofar as pollution is concerned, than living in the city. He then added somewhat mockingly, “But would you be willing to give up all this culture?”

My response:

All this culture? Here in NYC? Is it worth it? What about the culture of the trees and insects? Flowers and birds? They speak a language and share their music. Does not the Spring, season the air with honey? And the Fall, tender our hearts to the joy of wool sweaters?

Ai! I say it does. All of it is a world and a culture. A turn around the bend into a meadow is a neighborhood miles away. Step into a brook, dare open your eyes in a clear lake. There is Venice. Come migration time and Mardi Gras is no stranger, with the colors of birds and butterflies surely finer than any lay of beads.

It’s there in the sunlight, the rainbows, the dew drops, the grass. It’s there in the dance of dragonflies, the smells change by the hour and the place. What better finery is there than seashells and summer flowers? What sweeter nectar than an apple, ready to drop off the branch, timely plucked and savored?

None. Is not culture how we dance? How we clothe ourselves? How we talk, and teach, and live amongst each other? It’s all there, wherever we are. It can shape us if we let it, and it has, all of it. All of the music, and dance, words, and arts has been shaped first by letting our senses receive what is already there. To think that any aspect of culture came before someone saw it first in the forest, the desert, or the ocean means that one is not paying close enough attention to who we are.

In the meantime, I think I’d also like to have a little bit less particulate matter from diesel engines entering my envelope and adding to my body burden (toxicology lingo). Keep the philharmonic, I’ll take birdsong.

I’d just gotten back and got turned around on the way to my hostel.  It had been four wonderful and uplifting days on the beaches of Monte Rey with Hazon and the Jewish Sustainable Food Conference, my head was still ringing with the song and revelry.  With my pack on my back and my mind a little dazed, I walked a few blocks in the wrong direction and found myself in the Union Square of San Francisco.  There was a small, temporary ice rink erected in the middle and a kind gentleman took my picture for me; I had a wide grin and was content with the start of my journey.  I headed off, planning to check-in and go exploring.  It was my turn however for a wake up call.

My eye caught a glimpse of a gathering and somewhat of a raucous in the South-West corner of the Square.  You see this was December, 27th.  Unbeknownst to me, this was the day selected to be the anniversary of the beginning of the War in Gaza.  The chosen San Fran demonstration ground was Union Square.  Arrayed were hundreds of supporters of an Israeli withdrawal from the contested region.  Cries were ringing, signs and flags were waved, loud-speakers were blasting.  There were numerous organizations, the amount and composition was hard to identify, but certainly of note to me were the Jewish groups standing together with other Palestinian supporters.

My mind and heart was crushed.  Here I had just spent days with the most supportive, positive, and progressive group of Jews that I have ever met and now I was harshly reminded of some of the realities of what the Jewish culture, my culture, is mixed up with.  While I can comfortably say that Israel is not Judaism, it most certainly, and somewhat tragically, reflects on the Jewish people world wide.  Jews that have never been to Israel feel close to it.  There is a bond scripturally, culturally, and unfortunately, politically.  At the moment I did the only thing I could do, I called my Palestinian friend in NYC, who thankfully picked up, and told him what I saw.  I needed that grounding.  I needed to express to someone I knew what had just taken place in my being, if only for the sake of my sanity.

At the Food Conference, Peace issues and Palestine did not come up as readily as one might think.  This is somewhat understandable, but not entirely.  The gathering was focused on environmentalism, food and Judaism, as well as issues of food justice, scripture, and community development.  War and current politics were not thoroughly integrated into the agenda, in my opinion because it is such a major issue that the sessions could have easily become overwhelmed by debate and the purpose of the conference made forfeit.  Because of this however, I was not prepared for what I was currently facing.  My heart was too glad to have made a connection with the culture of my birth to consider the other side of the coin.  Well, and in retrospect perhaps it was fortunate, the realities were thrust upon me.

A speech soon began.  The event was apparently organized by Boycott Israeli Goods, a Bay area campaign to end the apparent Israeli Apartheid.  The crowd I was in quieted down enough for me to hear the speaker proclaim a need for boycotts of Israel, for me to talk with a Jewish-Palestinian supporter to gather information, and to get a hint of the real kicker, the realization that was ultimately to bring me to tears: there was more going on across the street.

A Zionist group was marching as well, and in force with their own signs and loudspeakers.  This was the Zionist Freedom Alliance, and they were there to share their point of view.  From across traffic the two groups yelled at each other, of course, neither side was listening.  I crossed to the other side, it felt like crossing a picket line.  I asked questions, I gathered fliers, I took some pictures.  The emotions were too great, they welled up and spilled out – from my eyes and my soul.

Why did I have to be part of something that was so beautiful… and yet so troubled?  I wanted to run.  I wanted to leave and forget it.  I realized that would be easy.  I stayed to take it in.  It was important for me to see this, to be reminded of what I am doing and what the conference I was at was really about.  Unless we are all sharing what we have, listening to each other, leaving the past behind, and opening to our shared future, we are lost.  

The truth of this stood bare before me.  There is so much pain, and death, and suffering surrounding this conflict.  One Zionist tried to tell me that Muslims do not belong in the US.  Palestinian supporters were relating and equating the Jewish people with the nation of Israel.  The San Francisco traffic in the mean time was little impeded by the cries across its path.  There is metaphor there – because the two sides were not listening to each other, nobody is else listening to them either.

There is more, but my point is made.  From the Middle of the Road, during a red light I tried to take some pictures before I left the scene.  There I watched, and I heard, the call-response reel beginning with the Palestinian side and followed up by the Zionist side: “Free, free Palestine… There’s no such thing as Palestine – Free, free Palestine… There’s no such thing as Palestine – Free, free Palestine… There’s no such thing as Palestine!”

I left in tears but with a sense of purpose.  It was my lot to see this.  I need to find the peace in myself so that I can help others to find it within themselves.  The words of many sages made utter sense to me at that moment.

There was still however some irony left in the night’s air though.  On my way to my hostel I spotted a theater showing the Christmas Carol.  A show had just started.  I walked in to look around.  After chatting with the cashier, she kindly offered to get me a pro bono seat in the back.  I ran to my hostel, threw my things down, and ran off to the show.  It was lovely, and the themes of forgiveness and redemption were ever so uplifting and appropriate for night’s experience.  As it turns out that was the last show for the season and downstairs I partook in the final afterparty.  There were free treats galore, a cute skit by the child understudies, and I had a chance to talk with the skillful actor that played Scrooge.  I shared with him the night’s events,  offering my appreciation for the role the show played in them.  He smiled, and thanked me for my tale.

I looked to the sky and laughed.  It is amazing what a day can bring.  There is another lesson in this I suppose: never begrudge a wrong turn, there are no wrong turns.

So it’s morning now. I began working on this website at around 11pm. It’s 7:40am right now. I’m not even that tired. I’m plastered. I’m spent in a way. There’s more of a tiredness in my being than there is in my eyes. A mini-Apple Pie from the market kept me running all night. That and annoyance and hesitation and fear and a mess of other stuff. As I get older it seems to all get a bit more entrenched in my being. Change has come for me. I’m realizing that I’ve always been human. I just don’t know what that means now. What does it mean to be a person?

Answer questions I’m told, don’t just ask them.  Well, being human means that death is coming.  Today perhaps.  I had a vision that I could die next week.  That’s while I was doing yoga earlier on.  I said to myself, “I’d go to the pyramids, touch them and lay in the sand.  Then I’d realize that laying in the sand is no place to die… and I’d go off to a nice green place to let it all go into the universe.”

Why am I so disappointed with myself?  Because I feel that what I’ve worked hard for, I don’t have, and what I haven’t worked hard for I should have.  Besides hard work, I didn’t not work hard when it was time to let it all flow.  I’m really mean to myself too and I’m in a paradoxical rut.

If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all.

I suppose… in some small ways… lately I have been waking up.  My priorities have been a little bit straighter.  I was sad that California didn’t just “fix” my problems.  Hmmmmm…. let it go for now kid.  Let it go and just listen.

Life really is like a Band-Aid.  How?  Look at what Band-Aids are:

They are cover-ups to let a fresh wound heal a bit before exposing the fresh skin to the barrage of the world.  Some have pictures of Winny the Pooh, others have Robots.  There are large square ones, and thin banded ones; some that come with a plain, cottony pad and others with a hypoallergenic, proactive, aerated, pressure sensitive compress.  Band-Aids have character, they have function, and they are a basic tool that people use everyday.

Look at life.  Life can hurt, and when life hurts we tend, at least initially, to cover it up.  Our face doesn’t show it, we try not to let our bodies show it, some people eat, some run, others cry, and there are those that drink or meditate or ignore.  None the less, the wound is there, it’s fresh, gaping, and real.  We put on our emotional Band-Aids and wait for time to do a little mending.  Sometimes though we still feel it.  We feel it when the wound under our Band-Aid rubs against the door frame on the way into our house, or when you see a picture of the one you lost, or the lover no more.

Then you’re reminded of how it all happened.  It flashes through your mind like a wave, a torrent over a dam in a storm.  The experience is real again.  You can feel yourself falling off of the bike and scraping your elbow, you can hear those scathing words again in your ears, in your mind, in your heart.  The ache is fresh again, but when you look at the wound, maybe it’s a little pink around the edges from mending, from a well functioning body, maybe it’s a little further away in your mind.  Maybe you learned something about doing it again the next time.

Then there’s taking the Band-Aid off.  You know it’s going to sting.  You know looking at the scab or scar underneath will be, well… interesting.  But getting to it, taking a look is going to cost you something.  You might even need to cover it up again with another, fresh Band-Aid, because you weren’t ready.  The wound needed more time.  If not, you’ll have a reminder of how you got the wound – a little something left over to tell you what happened.  Even though, over more time, that may fade, and you may forget what happened.  If you weren’t ready though, you’ll put on a Band-Aid of a different character; maybe this time the Robots or the meditation. You’re tired of Whinny the Pooh after-all, and no more booze.  And you’ll wait a little longer to take a look.

I have a nice Marmot wind breaker.  It has a hole in the right elbow where I fell off of my bike hopping up onto a curb for the first time.  Every time I see a curb I remember that moment.  My elbow is better now, I can’t even see the scar, and I still try to hop that curb.  I have some other hurts too.  Those are inside.  Those are fresh, and deep.  They will take more time.  I keep looking at them every once in a while though, to see where they are in the process.  Sometimes the aches come up without me asking them to.  A little rub against some object of memory to remind me.

You see.  Life is like a Band-Aid.  Thank goodness.  There’s something to fend the world off for a little while.  How else could we heal?  How else could we learn?  Too bad it has to hurt sometimes though.

By about 2am I stopped my frantic search to find a way via public transport to Muir Woods and accepted that Angel Island would be my destination for later in the day.  Sure, I wanted to go to see the Redwoods and hike through the Northern California forests, but the logistics just weren’t there, not without great financial and temporal expense.  Sure, there was an element of disappointment in my heart, but also a contentment.  I had tried and had found what seemed to be a fine alternative; besides, the menu for the day was rain and if it did, the closer to home the better.  So, to bed I went, for less than six hours.

I got up, grabbed some tea, oatmeal and cereal, then packed my bag with a self-prepared lunch of San Fran sourdough, collards, tomato, and goat cheese, a rain coat (which was for wearing, not for eating) and out I went.  I caught a bus to the Pier, picked up a ticket and took the day’s only ferry out to the largest island in SF Bay.  It was 10am and the fog was out in force.  The peaks of Sausalito and Marin could have been in the clouds a few thousand feet high the way they peeped above the mist.  It turned the ride into an experience of grandeur and I was glad for getting out early and drawing my Food Conference, overfull self out to the shore.  The boat passed Alcatraz on the way and I got a great view of about 200 degrees of the little Rock.

After only 20 minutes we landed.  Everything was closed on the Island as its currently in the off season, but we were greeted by aranger who passed out a map, said “be careful”, pointed out the trails, and waved us off.  I was glad for the timing.  There was nobody there save for a handful of people that came out with me on the ferry and I was set on going to the top of Mt. Livermore, a mild peek with supposed spectacular views of the bay.  The fog was well settled, and the ranger said the views might not be great but the Perimeter Trail, walking a loop around the Island, did not appeal to me.  As a fellow hiker said today, “It’s not a hike unless its uphill”.  I agree.

A trail is an experience.  It’s as complete as a good movie and weaves a tale along the way.  The story emerges as you go, there’s a climax, twists, and a full series of emotions that plays through one’s being.  That said, it’s a different journey for each traveler.  I was alone on the North Ridge path to the top on Mt. Livermore, a modest uphill of about 800 ft. over 2.5 miles.  On my back was a Jansport with water, book, and food.  In my heart was a desire to move.  Unfortunately, in my legs was a stagnation.  Uphills have a way of showing you the soft spots.  But at least there is a goal.  On the track or running around the park, there’s no destination.  It’s somehow better when there’s a set mark and a set time – especially one that you didn’t set yourself on which an ax is waiting to fall.  For example: Reach the peak, enjoy, go back down, get to the immigration station landmark on the other side of the island, get back to dock for the only boat back that day.  Miss it, and pray that a cheese sandwich and a thin raincoat will make it for the night.  Ready… go.

It took me a little while to get my wind going, but it came, and I let it come naturally.  As I entered the trail I noticed a number of spiderwebs, glinting in the light ever so plainly from the fog condensed on the masterwork lattice.  Weave a tale, weave a web, play a game.  I remembered an awareness tool that I’d come upon a while back: Pick something, a color, a shape, a creature, a formation, anything.  Make an effort to notice that thing as you go.  It could even be a particular sound, leaves in the wind, a birdsong.  As long as it’s something you enjoy.  This is especially good on a trail to open you up to the now and paying attention to details.  I picked spiderwebs.  Good choice.

A web in the mist

They were brilliant!  There were so many, and the moist air made it ever so much easier.  There were fine abandoned standalones, clusters of tufts of silk, and lone strands grabbing a single leaf.  The highlight, though not exact but close enough, was near the top.  On a bush of sorts in a bit of a clearing were a score of caterpillars on various leaves, some together and others apart, covered by a sparse blanket of thread.  It was not a cocoon in the typical sense, the covering was too thin and was easily seen through.  The creatures were about an inch and a half, mostly black, with small red dots running along both sides of their mid-line.  I stopped and started for a time.  I did not disturb the scene more than one does by smelling a rose.

About fifteen minutes later I found myself at the top.  There was a family there already.  The father had carried his little boy in a… kiddy pack? and the mom and kids were there happily appreciating the view.  On my arrival the dad noted that they’d been there for 45 minutes and I’d have the place to myself for a while.  A nice guy, but he was rather proud of how easy the climb was, and how much he carried to get there.  He was so nice though and the kids so cute that it was comical.  It also meant that I need to get my hike on more often.  I took my time and enjoyed, it didn’t feel that slow, they must have run.

After chatting for a few, the dad took my picture over the scene and suggested, I meditate for a short time.  When he offered the advice, I asked, “How do you know I’m the type who meditates?”  He said, “well, we prayed for a while,” and walked off leaving me to a view that would rival a Peter Jackson shot in New Zealand.  The Bay was laid out before me in a full 360 panorama.  The Bay Bridge held its masts, piercing through the fog like the bulwarks of a sky kingdom.  Marin County was laid bare with its rolling hills in full view.  Needless to say, the ranger at the bottom was wrong, the fog burned off and the view was spectacular.  The hawks were at eye level.  The air was crisp and the wind cutting, but manageable enough for some standing meditation.  I was glad for it.

The Bay from Mt. Livermore

After a bite and a little writing, I made my way down.  I came rather close to a young buck that popped out of nowhere (or was he obviously there and I just wasn’t paying attention?), found a fork, and went toward the immigration station.  It was touching.  The Island say about 1 million souls go through it, 1/30 of the amount that passed through Elis Island.  There were many interesting feelings and micro experiences that passed through me at this point.  From the  examination of odd acorns, to the touch of ocean shore, to the aching knees and questions of why?, to appreciation and deep breaths, ideas of grandeur, climbs up walls, and the learning of a little history.  Did you know that the European immigrants and the Asian immigrants were separated and treated very differently.  I’ll leave the reader to guess at which groups and genders got the kindest treatment.  Not least of all in my head was the time.  I looked around the station, ate my sandwich, and got my pace on.

I got to the dock with enough time to sit for literally 2 minutes before the boat was ready to be boarded.  I passed out on the ride back which got filled up by people and bikes on a stopover in a neighboring county before dropping us off on the Pier in San Fran.

I was tired, got a frozen yogurt, and walked along the Wharf to an old, old, style penny arcade – of course the machines were refitted to accept quarters.  That was fun.  I then walked most of the way back to my hostel, jumping on a cable car part of the way and getting off on a Chinatown side street.  Slowly but surely I made it back.  A worthy journey it was.  Though I could have done without all that walking around the city after about 8-miles on the Island.  I’m still learning the ropes of when I’ve had enough, and when I should push a little more.

It’ll bust me up a bit along the way, but I’ll learn.  One step at a time, I’ll get better.  It helps when there’s a hot meal waiting for you back at home, and there was, homemade by a hostel chef.  Goodnight.  :)