Nothing but the Start

My Spanish teacher deserves a lot of credit. More for her patience than for my language ability, true – but also for her skills in reading upside down. Every time we get together she relays the sentences and exercises, takes part in our little theater readings, from the other side of the table.

Reading upside down can boost brain activity, break monotony (no comment on what it’s like to teach me Spanish), make it easier to share newspapers, not to mention spy on other people. It also comes in handy when riding the metro.

On a grey, early morning (yes, these do happen in Madrid and – actually – they tend to make people happy because the sun is always freaking shining here in this part of the world) there were a bunch of tired folks riding the metro. It was too early for them to be in good spirits. No one seemed all too pleased to be alive.

Ana – let’s call her Ana because that’s her actual name – was in this bleak metro car.

She turned her book upside down and kept reading. With an eye on the page and an eye on the people around her, she noticed the other passengers glancing at one another, little elbow nudges, discrete head tilts in her direction. Slowly but surely, with each stop, the air in the car began to change. Some people even gave way to giggles and full smiles. She looked up, glanced a bit around, smiled herself, before going back to reading without giving away the fact that she realized her book was upside down.

As people got off the metro, they went into their day in a better mood. Lighter. Happier. Smiling. So did Ana, knowing she had helped make it happen.

Lists.  Everybody loves them.  (Okay, mass generalization right there.  I am bound to get an email now from someone who does not enjoy lists.)  So, sure, lists can be confining.  But they can also be immensely helpful in two ways:

• Being Productive.  Lists help you focus.  And focus helps you get things done.  Particularly at the office on a beautiful sunny day when you’d rather be outside enjoying the Madrileño sunshine or on a rainy day when you’d rather be under the covers at home.  Such lists also make it so you don’t have to think too hard (aka stress reduction.)  You’ve already done the work of figuring out what needs to be accomplished and in what order.  All that’s left is to take a look at the prioritized items and do them.

• Brainstorming.  Look at another person’s list and take advantage of their experience.  Someone else has put in the time and come up with a top ten of blues recordings (Amazon is filled with this sort of thing) or the top ten novels about the civil war.  These lists give you an idea as to where to start – a place to begin and then branch out to develop your own opinion.

Why am I going on about lists?  Oh yes, because this list of Spain’s most beautiful villages and towns, (not cities) brought me to Mogrovejo:

Mogrovejo is this teeny tiny little pueblo in Cantabria, Spain, high up in the Peaks of Europe.  Built mostly between the 16th and 18th centuries, the village is quiet and sleepy and seemingly unaware of its status as one of the most beautiful in Spain.  The villagers, the sheep, the cows, the cattle dogs…they all just go about their business surrounded by some of the most breathtaking mountains and valleys I have ever seen.

It’s well worth a side trip if you are within a hundred (or two) miles.

One of the “fun” things about living in a country where I don’t (yet) know the language is I often purchase things that do not make sense.

For example, the other day I was at a lovely café, which I frequent on occasion when by some miracle I am early for Spanish class.  Instead of only ordering my usual café con leche, I went out on a ledge and  ordered tostada con tomate as well.  But it wasn’t that simple because the waitress then gave me a choice using vocabulary that is not on my top ten list.  Given the choice of two words, I chose “rebanada”— and stuck with it even though the waitress looked at me dubiously and asked again.  Si, rebanada, I said.  Of course I know what I’m talking about.

So, instead of toasted ciabatta, which is awesome…I got one slice of bread.

Today, I went to the drug store (which is not a pharmacy but more of a perfumeria where they sell  brand name cosmetics) to buy fabric softener.  Yup, I can buy Estee Lauder night crème and a bathroom plunger in the same place.

I thought I could go without fabric softener considering the laundry takes two full hours for a cycle of cotton – plus, Spain hasn’t allowed me to live as green as I am accustomed so I figured ditching the fabric softener was one small step.  (Fabric softener and sheets are not that good for la madre tierra.)

Needless to say, after wearing cardboard for three weeks, I have caved until further notice.  But, just try buying fabric softener in a store where you don’t recognize any of the brands and even the detergent looks alien. No fear though, because while my language skills have not improved as much as I would like, my charade skills are in tip top shape and I got help from the store clerk.

Which brings me to my second domestic shopping trip of the day to the grocery store – a place that needs its own post at another time.  It had been a really cold day and I had been outside of the city visiting a monastery and Franco’s tomb (you know, the usual) and I really wanted  to make hot chocolate at home.  The supermarket shelves only had Nescafe and I thought I’d have to go home empty handed.  But, then I saw the Nesquick bunny with a steaming cup of chocolate.  Trust me, I investigated the package at length to make sure there was no cold chocolate milk shown – only hot.  All good.  Hot chocolate mix.  yAy.  This is what I bought:

But, with all that investigation, how did I not notice the heavy eye lids on the Nesquick bunny?  How did I not see that he is wearing PAJAMAS and IN BED?  Not to mention the word “Noche” splashed across the front with a half moon in the middle.

Sometimes Spain is weird.  I mean, sleep inducing hot chocolate?  Of course I would buy that.

Fall is right around the corner and I’m already wearing cotton scarves and getting ready to put on some boots (the fashionable kind not the snow kind). We are on the cusp of the season that makes New England what it is: crisp air, good sleeping weather, hearty produce at the farm stands, apples!  People have a bounce and a smile.  Finally, the weight of summer’s humidity (especially this summer) has dissipated, and the season of endless weekend activities is closing in on itself.  Going away for the weekend and making time for barbecues and the beach is such a chore!

I am always relieved when summer arrives and all of the college students leave town – it’s when I get my city back from the masses.  But the students are a big part of Cambridge and Somerville (and yes, Boston but that is so across the river), so by the time first semester rolls around, we need a good dose of a certain type of energy that only slack-jawed innocents can bring. Of course, they can annoy me like none other.  They don’t seem to know how to walk in a straight line and using the sidewalk in Harvard Square is completely beyond their abilities.  Their fashion sense is an eyesore.  And their mere presence draws out more people asking for spare change and hecklers who will throw a comment at anyone in a skirt.

Conversations amongst students are either frivolous or way too earnest, and always over the line of loud. Just sit in any bar for an hour and you will get the gist.  As the years go by, though, I get older (imagine!); and I look upon these saplings with amusement more than anything else.  We are all like this at some point in our lives.  They are the center of the universe – every book, album, and philosophical theory is right there waiting to be discovered.  Every store, park bench, and barstool is right there waiting to be occupied.  And of course!  They deserve this.  I can only imagine what I was like at that same point in my life.  I feel benevolent and forgiving towards the Boston newcomers this year.

So far, that is.  It is quite possible that the autumn air has drugged me.  Please don’t let me come down.

Geese queued on the Charles River.

I don’t go to many plays.  I’ve mentioned my wish that this weren’t so, along with my concern that it is a dying art form, particularly in my fair city.  That was a tad sensationalist.  So, it was with great anticipation that I went to see Company One’s Boston theater premier of Haruki Murakami’s short story collection After the Quake – as adapted by Frank Galati.

Prior to this week, I’d only ever read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle – a strange, strange book that mixes mystery, relationships, WWII, mysticism … you name it.  It meanders around a storyline (or a dozen storylines) and you lose your place and then can’t seem to forget it.

So, a play adaptation of Murakami – with his constant interweaving of reality and its counterparts – sounded interesting.  BCA Plaza Theatre is a nice little place in the South End with about 140 seats.  (Right next door you can get really delicious fries and drinks at the Beehive.)  The play mixed two stories from the After the Quake collection: “Honey Pie” and “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo.”  One a little more grounded in reality than the other, so I thought they were a good combination.

Murakami wrote this collection of short stories after the earthquake that hit Kobe, Japan in 1995.  The “Kobe Earthquake” was at a 6.9 magnitude and killed approximately 5,500 and injured 36,896 people.  In writing the stories, Murakami set some guidelines: All had to be related to the earthquake but none could take place in Kobe or during the actual event.  They also had to be written in the third person.  Now, this last bit clears up something about the play.  Yes, there was a narrator for both stories, but every once in a while the characters themselves would deliver a self- descriptive monologue in the third person.  It felt odd, but it was Galati sticking within Murakami’s guidelines.

The two musicians on stage throughout the 90 minutes were fantastic.  A violin and a bass clarinet.  Five actors total (including a little girl), switched characters as the play jumped between stories, including the role of narrator.  The set was spare and seemed to catch an appropriate Murakami mood.  The actors were decent, but I was distracted by some of the delivery.

Not the most amazing thing I’ve experienced, but I’m glad I went.  Theater helps you look at a storyline from a different view.  For example, when reading “Honey Pie” I did not pay much attention to the story of the bears and consider what that story within meant to the overall story.  But the play got me thinking…

“I’ll have grounds/ More relative than this – the play’s the thing/ Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”

I would recommend this play for lovers of the novelist – or rather, I’d recommend reading the short stories and then going to the play, because it is impossible not to appreciate Murakami.

Yoga is a funny thing.  It actually makes people nicer.  It brings awareness to one’s self and in turn makes you more aware of and more compassionate to those around you.

Watching people place their mats down before class is always interesting.  The studio is going to get completely full so the mats will end up close to one another no matter what, and the goal is to stagger them so you can spread your arms wide without hitting thy neighbor.  But newbies don’t have the experience to know this yet – and often shy away from being too close to another person during practice.  They become territorial about their space and might pretend to be asleep or deep in a warm-up pose when someone looks to fit in next to them.  The tactic rarely works, but hey, they are new.

Yoga has a lot to do with being humble.  And the funny thing about being humble is that it comes and goes.  We are proud creatures.  And yoga is another way to practice the line between humility and confidence.  Difficult but possible.

Yesterday, I got to the studio a little bit early so I had my pick of spots to lay my mat.  I watched people file in and make room for others and I watched people guard their space.  The guy to the left of me did not stagger his mat even though he had plenty of room to do so.

While surveying the scene, I realized that there was a part of me that was in judgment.   It was a basics class and so I practice more than many of the people there.  I knew where to place my mat and knew where others should place there’s.  Of course, sometimes it’s best to just let things play out.  The newbies in the class would, over time, come to realize that they are better off with staggered mats.

Suddenly, I am cognizant that I’m up against something new.  Yoga is not about being “the best.”  And if we start striving for that label, we lose something in the effort.  Sure, it would be great to be able to do the most perfect Ardha Chandrasana, but that’s not what it’s about.  Waiting for class to start, I realized that by striving to be perfect, my humility was walking out the door.

And so, I spent yesterday’s class focused on being humble.  If I couldn’t go deep into a particular pose, that was fine.  I backed out a little bit.  I accepted that my practice is constantly evolving just like everyone else’s in the room.  That we have this in common.

This is another thing that I love about yoga.  It shows me things about myself that I can bring out of the studio and into my daily life.  It allows me to practice compassion and humility towards myself and others and helps me be mindful of both outside the studio.

And then, as a more tangible reminder to remain humble – and to ensure I was not getting too proud of my new awareness – the man in front of me came out of a back bend version of Tri Pada Adho Mukha Svanasana and nailed me with his foot right on the top of the head.  BAM.  I saw a stars.  I was seriously stunned.

Apparently, the yoga gods needed to make sure I understood the day’s lesson.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu was at the Kennedy School this week to discuss global warming and various solutions.

Chu won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for his research in cooling and trapping atoms with laser light.  I can’t pretend to imagine what this entails, but it is with relief that he seems to have the common sense needed to serve as our 12^th Energy Secretary.  He said to the overflowing audience last Thursday: “it’s going to become more and more obvious that the climate is changing and that humans are the cause of it.” I still don’t understand why some people won’t admit to climate change.  Apparently, neither does Chu, because he went on, “We have a policy in the Energy Department that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.”

With the adverse risks of climate change, we in the northeast can expect a few things:  A 67 percent increase in rain (this June was a taste), meaning downpours in Winter and Spring with droughts in summer… this does not sound like very good growing conditions for my vegetables.  In Boston specifically, the number of summer days going over the 100 F mark will increase from one a year to 24 days a year -that’s practically a full month.

And then there is outside the northeast, for example, the thawing of the tundra, which is particularly frightening.  Chu made the analogy of taking a bunch of food out of your freezer.  It lasts just fine frozen, but once you take it out of the freezer it goes bad within a matter of days.  Well, the tundra is melting, and as it thaws at a faster rate than it should it is going bad quickly, emitting more carbon monoxide than we can handle.  In fact, it is believed that the tundra holds about 2x as much carbon monoxide than is already in our air.

“We need an industrial revolution,” said Chu.  Yes, yes we do.  Stop using so much energy, for one.  Paint roofs white and roads and sidewalks any color other than black. Invest in wind technology and solar module technology.  Develop clean coal technologies if we must keep coal around at all.  American consumers: put your money towards home energy efficiency rather than a new granite counter-top.

Chu was introduced by Massachusetts Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Malden). I didn’t know much about Markey before this week, but he is your typical MA politician and therefore I love him.   Judge me as you will.  Markey has been a leader in environment and energy issues for many moons (he’s been a congressman for 33 years) and among other things, chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, established by Nancy Pelosi in 2007 to address America’s oil dependence and the threat of global warming.  He is co-author of the Markey-Waxman Bill (with California’s Henry Waxman), also known as the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.”

View from my “seat” of Steven Chu, Ed Markey, and Kennedy School Dean David Ellwood during the Q&A period.

I don’t mind when politicians are politicians, particularly when they are politicizing about something I can get behind.  Add this view to my love of hearing a good sound bite in action, and it’s with a warm giggle that I received Markey’s statement about the fact that he is hopeful that as Americans we can put our mind to the environmental issues at hand, we can progress and “turn to China and India and say that we are no longer teaching temperance from a bar stool.”  It’s true!

Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images

CAMBRIDGE, MA – JULY 30: A woman sits at an outdoor table at OM Restaurant just after a rainstorm July 30, 2009 in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Square is a large triangular area located in the heart of Cambridge and adjacent to Harvard University, and is frequented by tens of thousands of tourists a year, and home to thousands of students with MIT University just down the road. (McCollester/Getty)

The sunflowers are finally in bloom.  This is probably the most picturesque they are going to look – as the heads are just now starting to grow seeds and that means the birds will be diving in for dinner soon.

Of course nature is efficient, but still, this is a little amazing: The seeds within the head (actually considered fruit, but let’s call them seeds) grow in a spiral pattern.  They are angled at one another by geometry’s  “golden angle,” which allows the head to pack in the most number of seeds possible.  This pattern of interconnecting spirals has something to do with a mathematical equation discovered by some guy from Pisa (Leonardo Fibonacci).  Thirty-four spirals one way and 55 spirals in the other direction – the ratio increasing depending on the size of the sunflower head.  Here’s the pattern:

Two days of good weather in Truro is the best medicine in the world – even if nothing ails you.

I am not incredibly dependant on routine, but do have distinct preferences when it comes to beach time.  I choose Ballston Beach every time (ocean side, off of North Pamet Road) and to park at the woods path.  The path makes all the difference — dropping you off farther down the beach, away from the other beachgoers and in the company of surfers and Truro residents.  The closest person will be more than 30 feet away, guaranteed, and at the same distance in the water there may be a seal or two taking their daily swim down the shore.

I love this path as much as I love the beach.  Seven minutes on a narrow winding path, through pines and vegetation that have withstood the ocean weather for seasons.  It seems like a regular walk through the woods and then you catch a glimpse of the dunes to your left and hear the ocean crashing on the other side.  And just before you reach the clearing of dune grass (still without spotting the ocean) you begin to smell the beach roses and the blueberry bushes.  Continue walking.  And then, finally ready, the path leads you over the dunes to the ocean.

I make Holly carry everything.