This Really Does Change Everything

I left it all to you, my dear (handful of) readers, and (all 5) of you (plus the 5 on Facebook - or are you the same people?) who voted in my Mac or PC poll .  And what you said, in a vote of 4-1 (or 7-3, maybe) was to suffer the slings and arrows of paying an outrageous fortune, so based solely on your advice, i ran back into the arms of Apple.  (This way, if this ends badly, I can blame all of you.  And I know who 3 of you are.)  I realize that i've given the ending a bit of a surprise twist, but i realized that i could get a vastly more powerful iMac for less than a PowerBook, and the fact is, i don't really even take my laptop anywhere, so why limit myself to such a tiny screen and confining keyboard?  And there she is, in her 27 inches of minimalist powerhouse glory.  I am so in love, even if we don't yet speak the same language (Is alt now control, or alt, or that weird infinity-meets-number-key command button? Where is my Windows Explorer button?)  It's okay - hand gestures seem to be enough to get by on for now.

There's glare on the screen from the windows behind my desk, so i'll have to take more shots at night (which is generally when i use it anyway).  But my, oh my, ohhhhh myyyyy is that screen and its resolution mind-altering.  I get sucked into the screen savers like hypnotized cartoon animals whose eyes become little swirls.  For example, and this doesn't even do it justice at all, but here is what editing a photo on this thing looks like:

To give you a sense of scale, that's a full-sized keyboard (Look, Ma!  No wires!)  Then there's the fact that I finally uploaded (downloaded?) all 750 photos from Barcelona (6 weeks later) and another 800 or so stills for a stop-motion movie I'm making on making danishes from scratch (to be posted soon, although be forewarned, it's going to fall into the film noir category).  These photos are huge digital files on my Canon EOS 30D, so they take for-flipping-ever to transfer.  Normally.  On the new Light of My Life, it took approximately 1.5 seconds per photo.  This used to be about a minute per photo, I swear.  My life is forever changed.  Plus, iMovie is really fun and pretty intuitive, since I've never done movie editing in my life and put together my little film (the first 3/4 of it) in about an 30 minutes.  I even did my first guitar lesson - the E major chord - on Garage Band (my fingers still hurt 3 days later, though, so I'm not sure about my future as a singer-songwriter).  So, you'll all be happy to know that the acquisition therapy seems to be working, and I promise to post some happier things.

Which reminds me of a story (as all things do).  One day, a BFF and then-roommate of mine and i came across an interesting discovery.  After crap-on-crap weeks (possibly months) for both of us that left us each wallowing in deep and wide pools of self-pity, my friend's mother offered - nay, demanded - that we borrow her Audi TT convertible and go for a drive on what was in my memory still one of the most gorgeous summer days DC has ever had.  So, we put on cute summer dresses and made a plan to drive up and down the GW Parkway and then get cocktails at the Georgetown waterfront.  About halfway into the drive/flight, with the engine purring as the trees, the curves of the road, and the Potomac whizzed by, and with the wind in our hair, sun on our shoulders, and music in our ears, I turned to my friend with a grin from ear to ear and said "You know, money actually can buy happiness.  How can you be unhappy in this car?"  (Rumor has it that this story has made it to someone who works for Audi and may show up in some marketing campaign, so if it does, this entry will be proof that they stole it from me.  It's okay, for a TT of my own, they can have it.)

Autumn Songs

When I was growing up, I always loved autumn. I loved the way the air suddenly felt cleansed of summer's humidity, how the skies were suddenly more blue, and how all the trees burst out in infernos of red and orange. Although my leo heart belongs first and foremost to summer, being an only child, autumn meant the end of lonely days when my friends were on family road trips to exotic sounding places like Saskatoon or The Badlands. Best of all, autumn meant going back to school, which always held the promise of new classes and adventures, maybe making new friends, and growing up, which, when you're not an adult, is Priority Number One. As a kid, I would have my first day of school outfit picked out a week ahead of time and would barely sleep out of excitement and nervousness the night before, a feeling that really only left me by year three of law school. I know, I know, you're thinking I was a geek and probably a teacher's pet, the latter half of which is true and the former not too far off the mark, I suppose. As my mother was also getting her degree through much of my childhood, fall meant a new semester for her, too, and I spent a lot of time on the University of Nebraska campus as the architecture department mascot. I loved the smell of art markers, the click of mechanical pencils, the rustle of drafting paper, the way classes were give and take instead of rote learning. I couldn't wait to go to college and took every opportunity to spend more time there, so I lived for Model United Nations, which was held there and run by college students; this in turn led to me dating college students, which upped my social status with my peers, if not my parents. I was ecstatic to finally be invited to real dinners that didn't take place at shopping mall food courts and to have intelligent conversations, both of which are hard to do, I suppose, if your only income is a $10 weekly allowance and your hormones are fogging your vocabulary skills. And once I finally got to college and later to grad school, it was and wasn't everything I thought it would be - growing up was a lot harder than I'd imagined - but I can say with certainty that those years were unequivocally the most intellectually enriching of my life, and I was pushed and pulled into shapes I didn't know I could make. Most of my closest friendships were forged in the fire of late nights philosophizing about the meaning of life over bottles of wine. My time at Bryn Mawr especially very much shaped me, even if the seeds planted while there didn't fully bloom until much later, and when I think of my alma mater, I always think of the view of Rhoads Beach from my senior dorm window, with the trees in their finest fall regalia, lit behind from the sun.

Autumn was in many respects the halcyon of my youth. And passing through the arbor of autumn leaves that surround me these days (a few shown above) reminds me of one of my favorite poems, one of the few I can (almost) recite from memory, because I read it at a French poetry reading contest held at the University - one of my first forays onto the campus not associated with my mother. I chose Verlaine's Chanson d'automne at the time because I loved the sound of it and the images it conveyed, both of which have stayed with me ever since:

Les sanglots longs

Des violons

     De l'automne

Blessent mon coeur

D'une langueur

     Monotone.

Tout suffocant

Et blême, quand

     Sonne l'heure,

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

     Et je pleure;

Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

     Qui m'emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

     Feuille morte.

There's a lot here that's lost in a literal translation, but you can find some versions here. The funny thing is that the poem is now a favorite for different, sadder reasons, namely that I am old enough now to understand what Verlaine was talking about. At 14, one has no old days to cry over, really. I think in some ways, the hardest part of being an adult is the monotony that can ensue once one chooses a career path and a hometown and is responsible for a mortgage and dealing with contractors. Whereas autumn used to mean new clothes and excitement, now it's just the leaves that change. I suppose this is different if one has school-aged children or if one is an academic by trade. But I find that where each period of my life used to be so clearly demarcated every year with the falling of the leaves, now the seasons and what I do from year to year is generally a big blur. I can tell you, for instance, where I was, when it was, and more or less what I did for every year I was in school; after that, it is hard to place any event in time. Sometimes I forget that the 1990s were now 20 years ago; half the time I can't remember how old I am. My grandparents tell me that this phenomenon only gets worse with age.

So now Chanson d'automne strikes a more haunting chord with me. Every fall reminds me of my dear friend Matthias, whom I met one Halloween and lost to leukemia three autumns later. He taught me everything I know about painting a house correctly, which he learned painting houses in Germany during summers spent visiting his father there, so when I say correctly, I really mean with a level of exacting precision bordering on obsession. He was an exceedingly patient teacher, which is why he succeeded in getting me to pay attention to the details (every single cotton-picking one of them) where so many others had failed. He would be mostly pleased with the work I've done on the addition to the house he helped me rip apart and put back together back in the beginning (although he'd have long ago fired the contractors), but he would be exasperated that I didn't dovetail the baseboard ends where they overlapped, and there are some spots on the ceiling that I should even out with a sanding sponge. He'd give me an A on the wiring and an F on the hookup to the rainbarrel on the roof, which is totally gerry-rigged and I should really paint the barrel brown so it blends in to the wall. I hear him chiding me in my head every time I try and do something half-assed, but I also hear him telling me to lighten the hell up over the whole thing and be patient that it will all get done eventually. He had a great sense of humor and adventure, and he really knew how to give adversity the finger. He made me jump swimming pool fences after midnight and go for motorcycle rides. In doing so, he taught me how to live in the moment and really appreciate the gifts life hands you. He also made a mean peach cobbler. He had zero tolerance for moping or self-pity, so I try to remember these things when I miss him, and how fall is also about Halloween (my favorite holiday), picking apples and pumpkins on farms out in the country, perfect hiking weather, and a great time to beachcomb shells at Assateague since the crowds and mosquitoes are finally gone. Fall will always be the most dramatic and beautiful, if also sentimental, season, whose soundtrack goes like this:

Sadly Symbolic

This is the tree that was given to me by the Alexandria Environmental Policy Commission and several City staff members as a thank you for helping develop the Eco-City Charter and Environmental Action Plan 2030. The Eco-City Alexandria effort has brought together people from every level of the community - from citizens of every age and income level wanting to learn more about the issues, to Virginia Tech professors, City Council members, and the dedicated members of the EPC - to put together a sort of environmental Magna Carta for our city, an effort that has already garnered major awards and is already making our city more sustainable. I don't know that my efforts truly deserve special attention, as I just happened to be the one holding the gavel during the meetings, so I jokingly think of that tree as my cat herding trophy. But the truth is that I poured my heart and soul and 2.5 years of my life into that effort (as did everyone else involved), and still believe that it will probably be the most positive thing I ever do. I am truly just happy that I got to be a part of the team. That tree actually means the world to me, both because it is the kindest and most unexpected gift I have ever received and because it came from a group of people i admire and respect immensely. As my friends and colleagues led me to this red oak with a red ribbon and gift card tied around it on the grounds of the school across from our house, I imagined it growing tall and providing shade for kids a hundred years after I am gone, and no thank you gift could be more fitting. Trees always represent life to me in all it's forms and cycles, even as they do now in fall, the most bittersweet season, when summer's last and most fiery sunset is burned into every leafy finger while the cold air whispers that winter is near. And they are the first harbinger of hope when their green buds poke out against the grey landscape to remind everyone that even the dead of winter has an end every spring. I'm probably happiest on summer days spent reading under shady canopies rustling in the breeze.

I walked by my tree seeking its solace today, a gloomy day for anyone who truly cares about the environment, but where gold and crimson leaves should be there are instead parched and barren branches. Every other tree managed to survive the drought but mine. It's really just too symbolic of the state of my heart right now, which feels like there is far too little compassion or love left in the world, and that trying to make the planet a kinder, gentler, happier place is essentially a sisyphean task. I mean honestly, what is so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

RIP my little tree. :(