Middle Ages

I have been captivated by the Middle Ages for months now. First, reading a battered paperback copy of Crichton's Timeline that my aunt passed along to me  in late summer of this year. Thankfully, the excellent eight-part mini series Pillars of the Earth came out at the same time that I was reading Timeline, so I was immersed in the early Middle Ages for about two months, reading the one story and then watching another.

When I went back to North Carolina's High Country for my birthday at the beginning of October, I needed another good book to read and I figured I would pick up the sequel to Pillars, another Ken Follet epic called World Without End. I've been thinking about why this time period interests me so. I am amazed at how hard life was back then. If a peasant mother died and the family was too poor to get a milking cow or a milking goat, the baby would die for lack of milk. You couldn't just feed a baby formula the way you would today. Even if the baby lived, chances were pretty high that it would succumb to some sort of illness, a pox, measles, anything. Peasants had little rights and I can't believe that there was a time where people were serfs, told what they could grow and if they could marry.

I can't imagine how there were enough hours in the day for women to cook food, let alone gather vegetables from a garden, or keep a home clean. There are many references in the book as to how important it was to have storage of good crops for off times, when the weather would be too dry or too wet. I can't believe that a farmer was so beholden to luck; luck of weather, of soil conditions, war or peacetime, insect swarms or blight. How can it be that a prosperous farmer could have a wet summer or too much winter damp and lose everything and remain penniless? Reading these novels, I think I've come to appreciate that for everyone back then, death was almost always at the doorstep. Life was precarious and full of power struggle. How easy life in the modernized Western world is now.

Maybe I'm drawn to this time period because of all the competing powers; the Church, townspeople, merchants, serfs, lords, kings, countries. In a world where even a king could be destroyed by a bishop, and a good farmer could lose everything after one blighted year, every moment of life was precious and miraculous.

What's The Dream

"What's The Dream..." I ask others, interested in what they want to do. The Page Program at a particular national television network where I work has been a wonderful place to ask this question, since all of us are in the same age range, want to do something creative/ enterainment based, and are young enough to still have dreams. When I look at them I wonder how they're hanging it together given that most of them have a rent and/ or car to pay for. I couldn't imagine the struggle. Now that I'm back with my immediate family, I can't really imagine "going home" for the holidays. On most days in Los Angeles, I like where I am.

What's My Dream? I don't know. That's something after hours, days, years of self-searching that I'm still trying to figure out. Pursue exactly what I want and deal with the probable financial consequences? Pursue something else and make money? Find a balance? Is there a balance? I'm not sure. But I'm trying to figure it out. A true libra 'til the end, I'm a scale, weighing options in both hands, sorting them, filing and balancing them all, trying to find where the right thing fits. That's why I'm so indecisive. With life there are so many paths, so many possibilities, they all need to be looked at, not just taken quickly. That's the way it is for me. I'm looking forward to the day that I can make a choice and not regret it; not play the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence game.

So. Pas Street Intersection is Witness to Pure Joy

A week ago I was sitting with Andrew at one of my favorite places in South Pasadena, on a beautiful sunny day with a chilled breeze. He'd just had major mouth surgery where two infected teeth were pulled out, so we were sitting outside basking in the fabulous weather and drinking down milkshakes. I look over and I witness a moment of pure joy.

On the street corner about 20 feet from us are two older people, at least in their 60s but fit looking. The grandfather looks down and sees his grandson nestled at his legs, arms outstretched with a yearning to be picked up. The kid is about five or six and his glee at wanting to be in his grand dad's arms is overtaking his body, making him smile and bounce on the arches of his feet like a buoy in an incoming ocean tide. He arches his back with excitement, reminding me of the way a cat arches it's back when it is pet at the base of it's tail, luxuriating in one of it's favorite places to be scratched. With such ease, the tall grandfather cuddles the boy into this arms and places him under his chin, against his broad chest as Grandma watches on. She gently grabs the little boy's hand and then embraces her partner and their grandson, with nothing but love brimming to the edges of their family hug.

So entranced with this moment of sheer joy and love, I tap Andrew. "Ohhh, you gotta look at this." He looks and smiles as I gush about how cute this all is. And the moment is frozen in time, as if every movement is in slow motion, the traffic whizzing by at this busy intersection fades to a sepia shade as I see nothing but this happy family and the bank building behind them. I'm glad I was here to witness it. The Fosselman's ice cream milkshakes weren't bad either.

Nightmares

I've been bombarded for nights now with unsavory and startling dreams. When I awake, my eyes are crusty with sleep as if I've been crying quietly and then overtaken by fatigue.

Nightmares focus on my lack of professional work and the hopelessness I feel in my job search. I strive, every day, hitting the beat, asking for waitressing or hostessing work at businesses I frequent. Filling out applications in customer service jobs---jobs that I don't even want but look to as a way to get employed and bring money to my struggling circumstances. Time and time again, I feel like God or Fate or Providence has been fucking with me; employment agencies see my resume and interview me for an open position, only for that position to be filled from within the company days later. Recruiters, calling me about job prospects, only to find that my asking rate is too high. How can my rate be too high, if by calculations, my rate at 40 hours a week wouldn't even allow me to live independently of my family?

I'm so sick and tired of people telling me I just gotta keep trying. I've been out of full time work for 18 months now. While I'm lucky to have a part time position, it's just that---a position that probably won't lead me anywhere, and it's part time; usually less than 20 hours a week.

I know beggars can't be choosers in this economy, and I'm lucky to have food on the table and a roof over my head. But I feel swindled of everything. My parents are paying off my college loan for a degree that's not getting me anywhere. For everyone who says that there are plenty of entry-level jobs available in the PR and marketing world, I ask, where? I'm not seeing any of them.

My nightmares take me to places where I'm still searching for apartments, trapped with two college friends who betrayed my friendship. I'm voiceless and powerless with these two, who make all the decisions and do nothing but scorn me. In these dreams, I'm constantly running up against scary what-ifs and deadlines and emptiness. Sometimes, I'm in a new city, bereft of the friendships that mean so much to me, and starting my life all over again, as I did in Portland. That story didn't end well and the fear of having another miserable 10 months, filled with crying and lonliness and depression, keep me from moving elsewhere, even though I've heard there are more entry level job opportunities in San Francisco.

And the thing I hate the most is, right now, I'm feeling that old wanderlust I inherited from my father. The kind that kept him moving from New Jersey, to Florida, to Texas and to California. The kind that keeps him wanting to leave LA as soon as he can.

Right now, I think about beautiful fall trees in the Northwest, while ours are still green in balmy weather, and how I'm sitting in an hour of traffic to go 18 miles, when I could be in Portland on the MAX or in San Francisco on the BART.

I told Amelia, I feel like a mess, and I don't fucking know what to do anymore. And that's where I am. I'm crying in my sleep and I'm waking only to worry and wait about job prospects the next day. I just don't know if or when this will all be over.

Chilean Miners

We all watched, tuned in, turned up, engaged in--- the news about the 33 Chilean miners that were rescued this last week after spending more than two full months in nothing but damp, pitch black conditions.

In any time, this would be great news; especially since not every mining accident ends so happily (note earlier this year several miners in Pennsylvania lost their lives just doing a daily job.)

But this story is REALLY heartening right now. Amidst such bad news, a sluggish global economy that just keeps limping along, the wealthy that caused this whole recession continue to get wealthier, the statistics that 1 out of every 7 Americans is living in poverty (note that this statistic does not gauge those living at-near poverty levels, nor does this statistic acknowledge that the federal poverty line is unrealistically set at an-already-too-low-to-live at standard), the news that a third world country could safely get 33 miners to the surface is fantastic.

If only we could all get over our biases and issues, our separations, cultures, religions, political affiliations and get together on something that is universally important; oh what kind of world would that be?

Climbing Hills

I enjoy climbing hills, literally. I'm a marathon walker; I can walk miles and miles and at a good clip, and given the choice between a long gentle walk or a steep hill to climb, I prefer to exert more energy and sweat over the hill.

I've never really had the desire to scale mountains and go on steep hiking expeditions, but recently, I'm enjoying the challenges that come along with slopes, canyons, rocky terrain and all sorts of soil underfoot.

Today I walked up Lida Street, just west and above the Rose Bowl; my ultimate destination: Art Center College of Design. I wanted to see the city from a different vantage point and visit the place where years ago, after attending a Saturday art class at the campus, I stood on a small lawn and watched a stag, his mate and their baby walk down a narrow, steep trail and up another one. His antlers and eyes were trained on us humans on the lawn, a mere thirty feet from him, and I could feel how anxious he was to be taking his family so close to people. The silent tension was so pervasive, I could do nothing but stand motionless as they stepped purposefully and quickly into the safety of the brush.

Walking from neighborhood street onto an ever higher ascent, the sidewalk hidden under a foot of pressed pine needles, I rounded the corner, and then another steeper curve, and then turned left into the driveway. Up ahead, on one of the bluffs before the black cantilevered college, I see what used to be a driveway and a trail head that leads out onto the edge of the cliff. Stepping onto the trail, I see it leads quite a ways down and at the end there's a makeshift tepee, pieced together carefully from old branches and tree trunks.

With every step I've been enjoying the labored breath, the sweat, the burning in my calf muscles and I've been pondering over my life, as I always do when I walk. I note rabbit droppings and deer prints in the dirt, holes in the sand where tarantulas may burrow. I go inside the tepee where there are two logs surrounding a miniature tepee model. As I crouch there I feel as though I'm in a sacred space, the sun beating down on me, I get the sense that there's some special energy in the structure. The space and time collide and had I been on a bike or more likely a car, I wouldn't have seen this special hut at all. At the top of the hill, I've lost sweat and calories and found a special air underneath the powerful sun. It all comes from climbing hills.

Lost Generation

After reading a Los Angeles Times article in an ongoing series about the unemployed in California, I felt depressed and also slightly relieved.

According to the LA Times, for people ages 18-24 the jobless rate in California is 18.01%, roughly double that of average unemployment rate for all job seekers in the country. Note that the unemployment rate only counts those who are receiving unemployment checks and actively seeking work; the rate skews more hopeful than realistic because it doesn't count those not receiving unemployment checks (as I was when I was laid off in Oregon more than a year and half ago; my company didn't have unemployment benefits and Oregon doesn't force employers to utilize the tax benefit) those who are underemployed, meaning they are capable of much more demanding, challenging, and/ or higher paid work, and those who are employed but only working part time and making ends meet with credit cards, mom and dad or roommates.

18.01% is a bad number for unemployment, but I also remind myself that during the Great Depression the numbers were worse. I still have a roof over my head and I'm not living in a shanty just yet. Like a monk, I try to humble myself, keeping in mind all the gifts and benefits I have in my life. Some aren't so lucky. Many are not as lucky as I. Still, I can't shake the feeling that I have a few more excruciating years to go before I start making any good money, before I can work in a capacity that makes me happy. I can't shake the feeling that I am part of a millions-strong Lost Generation; a generation that will make less money and have less stability than their parents and grand parents. I can't shake the feeling that I am part of a generation that has already been stripped of its voice and power, defenseless to Wall Street executives and the wealthy 1% that control everything, if only to create more war to make themselves more money.

This, I try not to think about. I just try to be humble and to feel blessed that I have a roof over my head and a cat curled up on my bed.