"It's not pretty" Blog #8

Thursday, March 28^th, 2013 3:38 p.m… Cold…Cloudy… Drizzly… 41 degrees of uninspired, unchanging and cheerless weather.

I didn’t find Punxsutawney Phil last week, but that’s ok. It seems that little rodent has been indisposed. While millions of people were blanketed in snow last week, it seems that I am not alone in shaking my fists with rage at that conniving, lying groundhog who so casually convinced us that we would see an early spring.  An Ohio lawyer, Butler County Prosecutor, Mike Gmoser, has decided that he won’t sit idly by and watch this fur-covered liar get away with it. He has decided to indict Phil for “misrepresenting an early spring”. What I proposed as a joke last week of “strangling that little varmint” has now been put into action as Mr. Gmoser intends to pursue and punish Phil by lethal injection. Yet another strange confluence between man and nature illuminating the lack of connection we have with it and the resulting

mental instability.

This is revolting; not surprising, but altogether disheartening. Just as dead canaries are indicators for miners not to further excavate their caves this is a baleful harbinger that we have indeed lost our way and our minds.  With all of the global, national, environmental, and social issues of the day, this prosecutor has taken arrogance, embarrassment and absurdity to new heights. This is the kind of story that can really disillusion a person. I suppose that he doesn’t have better things to do. In lieu of arraigning a helpless groundhog for shameless notoriety, perhaps he could be of better use to society exercising his political influence to regulate guns so that they might remain in more responsible hands limiting the amount of atrocities perpetrated by the madmen and sociopaths he should be busy prosecuting instead; just a thought.  There is an old saying that prosecutors can indict a cheeseburger if they want to. This moron intends to prove it, instead, replacing the cheeseburger with a groundhog.

Today, Flagstaff Hill is all shades of brown: a russet no -color sepia; even the grass appears oxidized with rust. On the surface, it seems fallow and lifeless. There is a spirit and soul missing today. It is mine; no doubt. I project onto her what I bring, seeing on the outside what has materialized internally.  I just can’t help it today. Some days you just don’t have the endurance to see beauty. It brings to mind a poem, by Charles Bukowski, called “I Met a Genius”. In it, he is on a bus rolling down the majestic California coast with its prodigious cliffs cascading into the beautiful expanse of emerald sea. He is sitting next to a young boy who is looking out the window. The epiphany happens; the profound moment of clarity happens for the both of them. The boy turns and looks at him and says, “it’s not pretty.”

There isn’t always beauty in what we are supposed to think is beautiful. Perhaps beauty must contain a semblance of ugliness for it to transcend the merely mundane and become truly beautiful. Whatever it is, I realize what I am looking at today is not pretty. My mind is far away; I can’t stop thinking about our upcoming project along with other end of the semester activities and papers all due at the same time. It is that extremely stressful part of the semester that sneaks up quickly on everyone. There never seems to be enough time, so I am never completely present. Instead, I worry about what I am going to do;  when I am going to do it; how to structure my day, dividing it into partitions of what times will be devoted to which project and the type of work needed in order for all of it to get done.  Phew! Just saying that is convoluted and tiring. I pant and worry and struggle to search for the energy to conjure up the creativity and brain power to find the words to fit my ideas and structure them into something of coherence. It seems entirely possible to suffocate under the weight of ideas constantly forming and disintegrating and coming back together, reconfigured, wanting what you had before only to realize that it is gone. I must trust, have faith and stay with the new; it will be reworked anyway. One thing at a time.

 All this swirling has made me dizzy. I put my head in my hands as I sit awkwardly on a hard bench that doesn’t assuage my mental agitation. I take my own advice and do one thing. I look straight down within the frame composed by my two hands holding the sides of my face that are perched by elbows resting on my knees. In between my two boots, firmly planted on the wet ground, I meet a stranger: a small terrestrial creature; it is miraculous I was able to notice it. It is beautiful in its living. Its copper-colored, dark olive brown camouflage fits in perfectly with the surroundings. I only notice it because of its bluish-white and moderate size umbilicus on the underbelly of its cone shaped shell and slow paced, lugubrious movement.  Looking down, I saw nothing but forest debris consisting of perforated broken sticks and mud, but this is another universe. This intrepid little wanderer has come out from under a log or possibly the ground to explore. Some snails are “burrowing” snails and only come out during or after a rain. Either way, his exposed vulnerability is admirable. He moves so slowly yet with purpose. Am I projecting meaning onto this creature? Undoubtedly; but nature is communicating. The snail’s dogged determination to do what it is supposed to, and nothing else, without question, propels a burst of determination into my own sense of purpose  I don’t have to feel inundated or suffocated by other people’s ignorance or my own tasks at hand. It doesn’t serve or provide for me or my work in any way. It is what is in front of me that is my small purpose for today. Even if I must crawl like the snail, I will move with purpose to accomplish that which I am supposed to do. I lift my head and look up. Maybe Schenley Park isn’t pretty today, but once again, nature has provided its wisdom and inspiration, given me clarity and shaken me back into coherence.

.