Dear Head,
Yes, I am talking to you Head. My head.
I just wanted to keep in touch, let you know that the cognitive, imaginative, cerebral me is keeping tabs on the physical me.
I'd like to thank you, Head, for your continuing skill at balancing all your improbable brain weight on my spindly little stalk of a neck. I consider it a true miracle that heads can continue this daily balancing act, so thank you for not falling off.
I'd also like to thank you for your continuing work at keeping things on a nice equilibrium up there. The headaches have been few. I notice the teeth are doing well also. And you've kept the wrinkles to a minimum, which I do appreciate.
I do have a few things to discuss.
First, I notice you've been clenching your jaw in your sleep. This results in me waking up with all sorts of neck tension and I've been told by 2 dentists that I am slowly grinding my tooth enamel away. If you don't mind, please stop your nocturnal jaw and tooth machinations. Thanks.
Second, I notice that you've started some redecorating up in the hair. To be precise, I notice you've started adding a few not-brown hairs. I have already received some gentle mockery about this. In spite of the teasing however, I do not plan on altering your redecorating plans in the foreseeable future. If you do plan to continue adding these white/silver hairs, please do so in a pleasing design, perhaps to create a dramatic streak of white in one section.
I'm planning on taking a short trip down to the feet next week. They've been kind of letting themselves go lately and I'd like to encourage them to invest in some nail care and moisturizer. You know how feet can be.
Oh, and if you visit the knees, please remind them that cold weather is on its way. You know how they hate the cold. Personally, I think it is their own fault for sitting criss-cross all those years and just letting the bursitis set in. Alas, the knees never were ones for thinking ahead.
Have a good week.
Best wishes
Christina
PS--I noticed lately that the eyes are not seeing things as sharply as they could. You might want to take them to the eye doctor soon. Just a friendly reminder.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Once Upon a Library
Buildings have lives.
Did you know?
They may not be alive in the scientific sense, but I do believe that buildings can possess a life, gleaned from the generations of people who use them.
In Japan I always felt a kind of breathless wonder when I stood in front of or inside the temples and shrines that often predated my country of birth by hundreds and hundreds of years. I imagined the people who had once stood where I was, looking at what I was seeing.
The short, mortal lives of humans prevent us from truly touching the lives of those who came far before us, but what humans leave behind--buildings and structures of where we worked and lived--might be the next best thing.
After Japan, nearly all the buildings dubbed "historic" here in the United States are almost laughably young. And after living in Kyoto where we were able to eat soba in a 1000 year old restaurant, a building erected in 1850 doesn't seem all that old.
However, it is not all about the age of the building of course, but about what happened inside that building.
For example.
My friend Sue, like us transplanted to Illinois from Japan and, like me, besotted with books, took me recently on a quest to visit several libraries in small, nearby towns.
Around lunchtime we stopped in Aurora, Il, where she brought me to the front doors of a closed library building. The dignified black marble sign outside clearly said "Aurora Public Library", but its doors were locked, and the tall windows were covered in dust.
It turns out that the Aurora Public Library had outgrown its home, and had been moved 3 blocks away into a gleaming new state-of-the-art building.
And, what's more, it was going to sell off all of the furniture inside the former building that was deemed too old to be moved to the shiny, new building.
So this morning I got up early and drove back to Aurora by myself. This fall morning was as if it were programmed into perfection--clear blue sky, slight chill to the air, bright sunshine. As I drove up and parked the car, the old library building seemed almost pensive. It rested, quiet and heavy, on its bit of land overlooking the Fox River.
A smiling librarian opened the doors promptly at 9am, her fingers deftly twisting the keys in the lock with a familiarity that bespoke her years working in this building. I and a handful of fellow early birds wandered through the doors.
Now, I know not everyone loves books and libraries as I do. But I think most people--even those not enamored of books--would've sensed the wrongness of the empty space.
No books.
No paintings on the walls.
No murmurs of patrons or chatter of children drifting up from the Children's Area. No sound of footsteps on the marble stairs.
The quiet was too quiet even for a library.
I pondered the massiveness of the bookshelves, the heavy wooden study desks, the jumble of sturdy wooden chairs. Without books or people everything seemed unnaturally large and terribly lost.
Perhaps what I disliked most were the massive counters that stood at the entrance to every floor--tall, marble topped counters behind which librarians used to sit, answering questions, directing patrons, checking out books.
A brick and marble, Carnegie-funded beauty of a building that had originally opened in 1904. However it didn't take too long for the library to start outgrowing itself. Annexes were added as needed. Then in 1969 another renovation happened, resulting in a rather surprising face-lift:
My curiosity satisfied, I explored the library from the top floor to the basement. I knew that most of the furniture I passed would likely end up in a landfill, or, in the case of the metal shelves, torn apart for scrap.
Then I found my piece of this library. In the very corner of the basement, beneath a massive pile of what appeared to be lost-and-found items, I unearthed a single metal library cart made out of welded steel and resting on industrial-strength wheels. It was heavy and ponderous and not terribly lovely, but I knew I had to try to buy it--although considering how much new carts like this cost (upwards of $300 or more), I had a feeling it was temporarily forgotten rather than for sale.
I found a librarian who followed me back down to the basement to assess my find. Along the way she told me about how various rooms had been used, how the floor-to-ceiling metal shelves on the upper floors were not only functional, but actually structural to the building. She pointed out where her office used to be, in a sunshine-filled corner near the front entrance.
We cleared the book cart together and wheeled it to where another librarian was totaling visitor purchases by hand on a paper receipt pad.
"That? 20 bucks. How's that?" She winked at me.
I said "That's perfect. I'll take it."
After adding a Van Gogh framed reproduction oil painting ($5) and a stray chalkboard ($5), I wrote a check for a total of $30 and wheeled my cart out to my car.
The librarians I spoke to today kept saying how they hoped someone would buy the old building and keep it alive. The librarian who totaled my purchases shrugged her shoulders and said,
"This building has no fire suppression and a lot of structural challenges for anyone who wants to renovate it. Still, we hope someone will see what we see in it."
I plan to drive by the old library now and then. I, too hope to one day see the doors open and people inside bustling about.
Keeping it alive.
Did you know?
They may not be alive in the scientific sense, but I do believe that buildings can possess a life, gleaned from the generations of people who use them.
In Japan I always felt a kind of breathless wonder when I stood in front of or inside the temples and shrines that often predated my country of birth by hundreds and hundreds of years. I imagined the people who had once stood where I was, looking at what I was seeing.
The short, mortal lives of humans prevent us from truly touching the lives of those who came far before us, but what humans leave behind--buildings and structures of where we worked and lived--might be the next best thing.
After Japan, nearly all the buildings dubbed "historic" here in the United States are almost laughably young. And after living in Kyoto where we were able to eat soba in a 1000 year old restaurant, a building erected in 1850 doesn't seem all that old.
However, it is not all about the age of the building of course, but about what happened inside that building.
For example.
My friend Sue, like us transplanted to Illinois from Japan and, like me, besotted with books, took me recently on a quest to visit several libraries in small, nearby towns.
Around lunchtime we stopped in Aurora, Il, where she brought me to the front doors of a closed library building. The dignified black marble sign outside clearly said "Aurora Public Library", but its doors were locked, and the tall windows were covered in dust.
It turns out that the Aurora Public Library had outgrown its home, and had been moved 3 blocks away into a gleaming new state-of-the-art building.
So this morning I got up early and drove back to Aurora by myself. This fall morning was as if it were programmed into perfection--clear blue sky, slight chill to the air, bright sunshine. As I drove up and parked the car, the old library building seemed almost pensive. It rested, quiet and heavy, on its bit of land overlooking the Fox River.
A smiling librarian opened the doors promptly at 9am, her fingers deftly twisting the keys in the lock with a familiarity that bespoke her years working in this building. I and a handful of fellow early birds wandered through the doors.
Now, I know not everyone loves books and libraries as I do. But I think most people--even those not enamored of books--would've sensed the wrongness of the empty space.
No books.
No paintings on the walls.
No murmurs of patrons or chatter of children drifting up from the Children's Area. No sound of footsteps on the marble stairs.
The quiet was too quiet even for a library.
I pondered the massiveness of the bookshelves, the heavy wooden study desks, the jumble of sturdy wooden chairs. Without books or people everything seemed unnaturally large and terribly lost.
Perhaps what I disliked most were the massive counters that stood at the entrance to every floor--tall, marble topped counters behind which librarians used to sit, answering questions, directing patrons, checking out books.
I wondered about this library. Outside and inside it seemed fairly modern, while many of the buildings around it were quite old (for the U.S.) A little research on my part revealed this building had grown and changed over the years just as much as any living thing, for beneath its smooth, modern limestone exterior and elegant black windows, it hid what it once was--
A brick and marble, Carnegie-funded beauty of a building that had originally opened in 1904. However it didn't take too long for the library to start outgrowing itself. Annexes were added as needed. Then in 1969 another renovation happened, resulting in a rather surprising face-lift:
My curiosity satisfied, I explored the library from the top floor to the basement. I knew that most of the furniture I passed would likely end up in a landfill, or, in the case of the metal shelves, torn apart for scrap.
Then I found my piece of this library. In the very corner of the basement, beneath a massive pile of what appeared to be lost-and-found items, I unearthed a single metal library cart made out of welded steel and resting on industrial-strength wheels. It was heavy and ponderous and not terribly lovely, but I knew I had to try to buy it--although considering how much new carts like this cost (upwards of $300 or more), I had a feeling it was temporarily forgotten rather than for sale.
I found a librarian who followed me back down to the basement to assess my find. Along the way she told me about how various rooms had been used, how the floor-to-ceiling metal shelves on the upper floors were not only functional, but actually structural to the building. She pointed out where her office used to be, in a sunshine-filled corner near the front entrance.
We cleared the book cart together and wheeled it to where another librarian was totaling visitor purchases by hand on a paper receipt pad.
"That? 20 bucks. How's that?" She winked at me.
I said "That's perfect. I'll take it."
After adding a Van Gogh framed reproduction oil painting ($5) and a stray chalkboard ($5), I wrote a check for a total of $30 and wheeled my cart out to my car.
The librarians I spoke to today kept saying how they hoped someone would buy the old building and keep it alive. The librarian who totaled my purchases shrugged her shoulders and said,
"This building has no fire suppression and a lot of structural challenges for anyone who wants to renovate it. Still, we hope someone will see what we see in it."
I plan to drive by the old library now and then. I, too hope to one day see the doors open and people inside bustling about.
Keeping it alive.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
One Nation, Many Guns
Dear people,
Dear healthy and sick, exhausted and invigorated, old and young, confident and questioning,
Dear police officers and custodians, bakers and dishwashers,
Dear teachers and firefighters, nurses and doctors, bus drivers and construction workers,
Dear soldiers and engineers, office workers and inventors, writers and gardeners,
Dear dancers and artists, computer wizards and garbage collectors,
Dear rich people and poor people, homeless people and people struggling to stay in the supposed middle-class,
Dear parents and families, spouses and partners, college students, teens and children,
Dear people,
I want to talk about guns.
Guns were created for one purpose. They serve one function.
They are machines made for killing.
In the end,
when we have exhausted making our stubborn arguments and offering our skewed reasons for why guns are good,
in the very end
guns are made to create precise and violent holes in things-
holes that can injure and kill.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary* defines society like so:
society
noun so·ci·e·ty \sə-ˈsī-ə-tē\ plural so·ci·e·ties
Look at these words...
companionship
association
organized
relationships
enduring
enduring
ENDURING.
Do you want to be patriotic? I can be patriotic. Here is the Pledge of Allegiance**.
In 1892
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1923
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1954
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In every permutation of the Pledge of Allegiance three words stand out, spoken in every version with precision and focus--one nation, indivisible.
One nation
indivisible.
indivisible
INDIVISIBLE.
Are we indivisible?
Will we endure?
I'm not so sure.
Out of all the things that divide us, the presence and use of guns seems to be the real unsurmountable knife's edge.
Yet, ironically, in the face of all our divisions, guns are the great ignorant, mindless equalizer.
After all, to shoot a gun the only thing you need to be able to do is pull a trigger.
I would beg everyone to consider a society where you need not live in fear of being shot
at school
or on a university campus.
Where you can go to the movies
or your house of worship
without looking over your shoulder.
I have spent many years living overseas in such a society where
my fears never had to include the fear of dying suddenly by an unknown hand.
And I have returned to this country of my birth wondering how close will the next
school
or campus
or other random shooting location
strike in my life? In the lives of those I love?
We live in a country of promise and potential.
Ironically, it is a country where we have become more adept at
tearing each other apart
than building each other up.
We must take the first step towards reaching our potential.
We must make the presence of guns among us the exception rather than the rule.... a device of last resort for those trained and intelligent enough to be trusted, rather than a ubiquitous shoulder shrug of violence.
One nation, No guns.
Only then will we begin to become
enduring
and
indivisible.
Sincerely,
christina
*http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society
**http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
Dear healthy and sick, exhausted and invigorated, old and young, confident and questioning,
Dear police officers and custodians, bakers and dishwashers,
Dear teachers and firefighters, nurses and doctors, bus drivers and construction workers,
Dear soldiers and engineers, office workers and inventors, writers and gardeners,
Dear dancers and artists, computer wizards and garbage collectors,
Dear rich people and poor people, homeless people and people struggling to stay in the supposed middle-class,
Dear parents and families, spouses and partners, college students, teens and children,
Dear people,
I want to talk about guns.
Guns were created for one purpose. They serve one function.
They are machines made for killing.
In the end,
when we have exhausted making our stubborn arguments and offering our skewed reasons for why guns are good,
in the very end
guns are made to create precise and violent holes in things-
holes that can injure and kill.
Guns are the erasers of futures,
the easy way out vengeance providers,
the ultimate threat with which to reflect and perform
our weaknesses, our fears and our hatred
of everything and everyone in our society and our world that we choose to misunderstand.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary* defines society like so:
society
noun so·ci·e·ty \sə-ˈsī-ə-tē\ plural so·ci·e·ties
1
: companionship or association with one's fellows : friendly or intimate intercourse
2
: a voluntary association of individuals for common ends; especially : an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession
3
a : an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another
b : a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests
4
a : a part of a community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct : a social circle or a group of social circles having a clearly marked identity
Look at these words...
companionship
association
organized
relationships
enduring
enduring
ENDURING.
Do you want to be patriotic? I can be patriotic. Here is the Pledge of Allegiance**.
In 1892
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1923
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1954
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In every permutation of the Pledge of Allegiance three words stand out, spoken in every version with precision and focus--one nation, indivisible.
One nation
indivisible.
indivisible
INDIVISIBLE.
Are we indivisible?
Will we endure?
I'm not so sure.
Out of all the things that divide us, the presence and use of guns seems to be the real unsurmountable knife's edge.
Yet, ironically, in the face of all our divisions, guns are the great ignorant, mindless equalizer.
After all, to shoot a gun the only thing you need to be able to do is pull a trigger.
I would beg everyone to consider a society where you need not live in fear of being shot
at school
or on a university campus.
Where you can go to the movies
or your house of worship
without looking over your shoulder.
I have spent many years living overseas in such a society where
my fears never had to include the fear of dying suddenly by an unknown hand.
And I have returned to this country of my birth wondering how close will the next
school
or campus
or other random shooting location
strike in my life? In the lives of those I love?
We live in a country of promise and potential.
Ironically, it is a country where we have become more adept at
tearing each other apart
than building each other up.
We must take the first step towards reaching our potential.
We must make the presence of guns among us the exception rather than the rule.... a device of last resort for those trained and intelligent enough to be trusted, rather than a ubiquitous shoulder shrug of violence.
One nation, No guns.
Only then will we begin to become
enduring
and
indivisible.
Sincerely,
christina
*http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society
**http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
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