Sunday Afternoon/Evening RANT!

     A trip to Rite-Aid has usually meant not finding spaces because people going to places other than the area of the lot (an eatery  is really the only other place) park there for hours beyond any normal shopping or dining period. I have always had mixed feelings about the many limitations on parking, but I have never parked in a lot intending solely to go elsewhere shopping.

     A slight disclaimer here. I have gone to the lot's shops as well as nearby areas, and this only on critical occasion (at least to me). I have tried fairly assiduously to follow the rules. Those of us who do so are always punished, it seems, in worldly terms, by consequences which we did not ourselves reap.

     Today, I drove in to find a man,  a booth, and a charge. Although validation was possible, for a half hour's browsing, it was two buck's and up. No longer the free and easy access. I was annoyed. The valet assumed that it was because I was impatient at having to wait for a ticket. Nope, that wasn't it.

     I was annoyed that this inconvenience was caused by those who fail to abide by the standards of civility. After I parked my car, I explained my reasons for being less than charming to him. We were sympatico. My to be validated ticket and I went into the drug store.
   
There were no wagons and the things I was intending to purchase needed more than a basket.  A young man found what appears to have been the only remaining shopping cart in the environs. I was content again.

   I needed a flash drive. Nothing was in the open as there is fear of theft. That's ok. I understand.  All I need to do is to ask and I shall receive one 4 gigabyte flash drive from behind the counter. Another lovely employee retrieved it, but I was not allowed to keep it to continue in my shopping.  Why? Because of that very same danger of theft. I guess those gates at exit doors are no longer enough.

      
      I was annoyed, thrice, or was it for the fourth time!? Not simply because I, who has never stolen anything from a store so it seemed personal, but because the fact that this is necessary is about some person or persons who STEAL thus, once more, punishing the rest of us who do not. Instead of dealing with these folks in any meaningful fashion, society tries to block them by blocking all of us from our simple daily activities. You say, "what's the big deal?"  By itself, maybe nothing, but one after another of these solutions that do not bear upon the moral centers of the people who cause them to be necessary, in fact compound the problem. Rather than deal with the miscreants, we limit our freedoms. Oh, rather, they are limited for us. And the uncivil or the criminal simply seek ways to evade the obstacles. The rest of us are deterred while they mock and destroy the fabric of our country and our very souls. 


On the other hand, maybe it is a good thing for me to shop less. . . .

Bye Bye Mockingbirds

That's what I think they are. Or were. Therein lies the ambiguity of life. I do not know whether the little critters that teetered on their nests the other day responding in little chirps to their mother encouraging them to fly, actually made it safely to the sky.

I noticed when I woke up yesterday that the noise at my window was gone. When I went out I saw that both baby birds were grounded in the back yard. One had barely been missed being squished by the tires of my neighbor's Saab. As he left, I saw the little creature, standing stock still, more so as I approached. Then he hightailed it to the garbage can area, near some bushes. Mother (or father as they both contribute to the scene) was above on a wire watching me suspiciously. I then went in search of the second sibling and found him or her nearer to my jasmine plants. He hopped off to the front of my parked car's tire. I took a picture.

There were flying lessons from one of the parent birds. Fascinating to watch as she or he would stand by baby (who screeched in panic or need for comfort, or both) extend wings in modeling and then take off for the wire, over and over.

 Mother mockingbird, father mockingbird and I all worried about the danger of crows simply swooping down and ending very very short lives. I wanted to do something to get them out of harm's way, but I knew that any touching by me would doom them, after terrifying them. It was like these nature shows. You watch, but you cannot interfere. Or is that the "prime directive" from Star Trek? Both. I went my way for a few hours. I prayed frankly that God not allow them to come to harm. But if He did, I begged that He not permit me to see it. I would have liked better to watch them take off, and for that primarily I prayed and hoped.
When I got back, only one bird was still around, the one by the trash cans. It was also the only "whooping" I heard. Mother or father was again down and up demonstrating the joy of flying. Somebody wasn't getting it.

As it got dark, I had to give up watching.

This morning, on my way out, I scanned and walked the perimeter of my yard. No more baby birds.

I did not see them take off. I did not see them kidnapped or eaten (Happily, as in my current evolving emotional state over my own life's issues this might have meant a great deal of wailing). I do not know if they made it. I am inclined to think they did as things seemed to be progressing and I did not see any parent bird lurking about as if in search for a wayward little one. I am compelled to go on faith that they are in the sky and the trees around me.

Changes

I think perhaps there is a parallel of sorts between the little scene being enacted outside my bedroom window of which I recently wrote--the baby birds being hatched and developing--and the things happening in my life. It does appear that what will happen with me will develop at a much slower pace. The bird babies, mockingbirds I think, from all the noise and the long mother and father's tails, have gone in just a week or two from fuzzy down blobs to about to fly members of the species.

The shrieks for mother to bring worms have become clucks and chirps. Today, they are not merely standing on the edge of the nest but on several of the bushes' thin limbs. She comes back to them to show them how to take off, and I think, occasionally she still brings them food. But she is trying to get them to leave the literal nest. It is hard to take a picture of them. I cannot approach them from the outside for fear mother will abandon or they will be unduly frightened. They seem to be used to me from inside, with the dirty window between us. Which is why the picture here is not as distinct as I would like. But you can see them, on the precipice of their lives.




Their life spans are so much shorter than ours. A sliver of it, in fact. Everything must be compressed into hours, and days, and weeks, where for us there are years, at least statistically. There are many precipices. Many opportunities, if only we do not become afraid, and refuse to leave whatever nest we have had built for us, or built for ourselves. Of course, really, we cannot refuse to leave. Just as these little creatures will be compelled by nature to leave the relative safety (relative for crows are everywhere!) of their three week home, we are compelled by nature or family or circumstance to leave our safe places. A home where we lived. A career that we thought axiomatic. A relationship on which we depended.

These baby birds have reinforced for me that I must go forward in whatever life has to lay before me.
These last days I have visited with friends. I have met a lovely 2 year old who played a little game of hide and seek and toasted with me. I tried (unsuccessfully) the delicacy of chicken feet at her parents' favorite dim sum place. I met up with an old college friend (who was the first to introduce me to Los Angeles when he lived here then in 1977 and I was not yet a native, or a driver) on Saturday and we enjoyed the fullness of a Venice Beach day, sun, sand, water and food. I saw Dolly Parton at the Hollywood Bowl and found out that she is quite a talented artist indeed (I guess I just had to see it for myself). I purchased "Final Draft" a program for scriptwriters, to return to that pursuit in my spare time.

I am afraid to leave this present nest as I was afraid to leave the one in the Bronx all those years ago. But as one of my favorite people used to say to me when I balked and worried, "I know of no other way". 

The baby birds are still calling and clucking for mother. They may not realize it, but they are about to be launched into the world.

Days in the Life of. . . .

I finally figured it out. And it is only because life, my life, has taken a turn, and I ran into a little book that may not have said anything I hadn't heard before, but somehow the way it was said, just hit my neurons the right way.  The turn is that I am out of a job in which I toiled for a quarter of a century. So long a time, that despite my own agitations and amorphous ideas about doing something else, I never really saw myself leaving it. I was wrested from it before I was ready. And it has been more traumatic than I anticipated.

The book is by Regina Brett, called "God Never Blinks, 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours".  I was reading Lesson 17, essentially about living now, not in the past or in the future.

Given the events in my life in the last two weeks, well, actually, not yet two weeks till tomorrow, more than a little detour by my reckoning, the immediate past was weighed down by hurt (mine) and the future by fear about anything you can name.

As long as I swing between these two, I will be paralyzed and unwilling to do what my friend Mr. Anonymous of the deluxe Barbara Judith Apartments recommended to me in a posting on some page, "Explore, Explore, Explore."

Did I  not say, time after time that I wanted to be FREE to do the things which appealed to a softer, creative side without reference to past or future?  I did. Did I mean it only when the opportunity had not presented itself, when it seemed, in fact, that the opportunity would never present itself?  I owe Ms. Brett my thanks that her book somehow makes me answer this question honestly. I may not have meant it then, and truth be told, I probably did not, but in this now of writing, I do mean it.

The additional hard part for me is letting go of the need to assess success and failure in my past and the grasping of success and avoidance of failure, as we humans measure it, in the future. I just had an e-mail from a colleague that reminds me of how hard  indeed that is going to be for me as to my most immediate past. I want to say, "No no, you cannot go on without me! It will never work!" But of course, they can, and they may "succeed" most wondrously without me.

So what have I figured out? Well, this much, and who knows if it will change again. Another wild shift in what, if anything, is this blog about.

I think it is about turning a rather well worn page after many years and about the journey, day to day, in the now. A journey of each day.

And, if it is ok, sharing that day in these entries.

National Geographic in the Window

Less than a week ago, there were three blue eggs in a perfectly placed nest in the bouganvilla outside my window.  Mother bird, alas I have no idea what kind, but she has a long tail and she makes this really loud screeching noise when she encounters other creatures, like crows, spent sporadic time carefully positioning herself on top of the eggs.  Sometimes I'd see only the long tail pointed upwards.  Other times she was facing me as I passed by the window to turn on a light, or adjust something or another in the room, and regarding me suspiciously. As well she should we humans.  The last time a bird made a nest in that locale, the gardeners hacked at the bush and who knows where the nest ended up. This time, I advised the relevant people of the nest and requested that the bush not be cut pending babies and bird adulthood. 
At the end of last week, suddenly there was a lot of rustling in the nest, and I began to see two yellow beaks popping up every time mom, and I think dad, too, came by with regurgitated food.

That thrusting up of the neck for food seems to be reflexive to any sound they hear which SEEMS to be materfamilias or paterfamilias. And it remiinds me of a synchornized swimming routine, perfectly timed indeed.
Unlike other new comers to the bird family, they do not seem to make that "eke eke" noise I usually hear in the spring. That is good because the sound has to bring the predators. I hate that time, when crows are attacking nests all over the neighborhood.  But right now, these quiet ones seem to be unmolested. Actually, this progeny appear to be late in the season which caused me to worry a bit about their survival.  But so far, they seem to be thriving. In between frequent feeds (I think ultimately "eat like a bird" may mean eat a lot, just in short spurts), they settle into the nest and are hard to see as their color is camoflaged by it. But occasionally, I will seek one push the other with its puny looking but powerful talons.
I love to watch them breath, this incredibly tiny new life, quick and insistent. They want to be here to stay.

I want that too. Just as I complete this entry a take out lunch has been delivered.  It is so delightful.

An Item on the "Bucket List"

A few years ago, I had a list taped to the inside of a linen cupboard. My "Things To Do Before I Die" dreams. Many small. Some big. Like going kayaking, which I did for the first, and so far only time, in Kailea in Oahu in 2008. That was bigger than it sounds as it was not still water, but wave adjacent. When I told the young, buff instructor (I was probably the oldest of the group, everyone else being no more than 30 and me in my early 50s) standing by kayak as waves came in I wasn't sure about doing it, he said, at first, "You can do it!"  I added, "So, you think it's safe?"  "Well, it IS the ocean!"  I did it. I may have been a bit slower than the rest, but I made the whole circle from shore, to bird sanctuary island the size of a postage stamp, to the other shore with magnificant houses (I am thinking that is the area Mr. Obama stays in when he is on vacation) and back. I was lobster red (another story), but I did it. Then there was the time I decided I wanted to ride a Segway. That was on the list.  I went down to the Santa Monica store, paid my 50 or more dollars for an hour, got brief instructions on how to maneuver (except for turning right and left, which is on your handlebar, you use your body to go foward and back, and to stop) and off I went, on a bit more of a tour of the area than the bike path with our "instructor". It was surprisingly exhilarating, including the fact that as you go downhill, the machinery stays straight, along with your body guiding it. 

I am not sure what happened to my actual list. I need to re-do it, and among the things I want to put on (aside from travelling to various locales) and had on it, was taking acting or voiceover lessons. And, courtesy of my enforced freedom, I decided to go for that one. It is not only that people have told me that I have a good voice, although they have, and that I read cold well, although I do, but I feel that my voice is a true gift, and I like to exercise it, and stretch it.  What better way than to learn a craft with it.  And would it not be nice if I could use it professionally, just a little bit? Yes, it would.  It's not like anything I try HAS to be some kind of professional job, because, well, been there, done that, and nothing lasts anyway, no matter how invested you are, and how long you do it, but if it happened--gravy on the old mashed potatoes don't you know. . . .

So off I go to voice over class very soon!  I am a hyphenate. Lawyer-Voice Over Specialist and Public Speaker.

I have said I'd like to go parasailing and also take a helicopter ride (both slightly iffy given my fear of heights), but for now, I'm starting small.  I'll keep you posted!

Reset and Go!

I had a good, long run at my career as an ethics prosecutor and manager. I was one of several veterans--and veterans we were at 21 to 25 years--to be severed from that at which we were, and are, very skilled. Still, I understood the dangers of being a long term manager (just about 10 years for me) in the midst of cyclical organizational renewal. I had survived before. This time I did not. We did not.
That's not to say I wasn't hurt. Naturally, I was. I am after all human.  And in the world in which I toiled I was ambitious enough to seek promotion and responsibility. To have that world removed from me, well, that cannot but help smack at the old ego. Happily, I have discovered that I, that we, were well regarded by many of our colleagues for our leadership and development of others. That has helped.  A lot.

It has only been a week. I probably have gone through the seven stages of grief in succession, and in overlap. And, my nature being what it is, I don't like to let grass grow under my feet. I have had an extended work life of meaning. I want whatever I do in the future to continue in that vein. So, I redid my resume. I see that my skills are very much transferable to other areas of the law, and otherwise..I am hoping that those seeing the resume, my various profiles, and, well, yes, this blog, will agree with me.

I am looking for something a bit less confrontational something more mediative and, meditative, if you will. And creative, if possible. I think I will know it when I see it. I will have that moment of physical and emotional breathing out.  A vocational "aha moment".

In the meantime, I am learning something very new to me. Living in the moment. This means indulging some hobbies that I suppose could turn into something more, but don't have to, like painting, and writing. And taking trips. I have people who have been clamoring for me to leave the five mile radius of my apartment. They are all over the country, even all over the world! And it means, yes, some extended time for spiritual discernment. It is very important to understand that I am not indispensable to the world, and live in a contented humility that seeks, as my friend Nancy always reminds me, "what is above". That is going to take, I think, the rest of my life.  So be it.

Today was a good day though. I was directed, but not obsessive. I was kind to myself, and others. I grew a little.

Bicycle Bias

It is not that I don't like bicycles, although from the title you might think so.
I like them very much in fact.
I have fond childhood memories of finally getting the hang of it. My dad had tried to teach me on our urban block in the Bronx,   I was bound by my training wheels. But one summer I was with my cousins in Monticello, NY. I was the only kid, and older than some of the others, who could not ride on two wheels. They were going to leave me behind, but they had one short, chainless bike I could use. My feet reaching the ground, I could push and gather speed, but also use them to brake. Dangerous, yes. But up there, "in the country" we Bronx kids used to call it, I was uncharacteristically fearless. And I was a two wheeler rider after a couple of runs down Hemlock Lane. Really, that was its name! All hemlock trees creating a shady  canopy on  hot summer days.
Those are my "I love bicycles" bona fides. But now, the bias. I know the cities encourage bikes on the road.  And every time I and my car approach one, on the narrow sliver of road or shoulder, I cringe. I cringe for fear that the man with the ear buds and back pack willl neither see nor hear me coming. I move left (carefully so as not to skim a car on that side), and breath relief after passing. And I am anxious at the idea of a soon to be another one.

To me these bikes on the regular road, with all sorts of panoply and cries of a green world, are like the red light cameras, accidents we would not have had inevitable tragedies. Cars and bikes don't belong on the road together, and tell me, really, do you think it is the cars that will give way. Will you ride downtown on your 10 speed, 7-10 miles in your business suit? Come on folks!

Stop with the idea of co-existence and save lives. Bikes are for beaches and country roads and designated paths. Not in the heart of Los Angeles. It is not a contest that anyone can win.