Inept

Early this afternoon I went for a pre-Thanksgiving walk in my neighborhood wearing red sneakers, black athletic pants, a black fleece pullover, sunglasses and a set of headphones that conspicuously covered my ears. The sun was out and it was in the upper 50's and I wandered over to Cheesman Park a few blocks away. Others were out enjoying the day - families with their dogs, couples and other solo park visitors. I walked up a slight incline to the pavilion, an area that has a cluster of tall columns covered by a roof, to get a view of the mountains. Spotting a bench, I sat down and watched my surroundings.

A man wearing a bright red outfit, including a red cap, drove back and forth in a pale yellow convertible along the road that bifurcates the park. It appeared that he was calling attention to himself but I was unsure what kind. A bit downslope from me, a 60-something man in a plaid flannel shirt, beige baseball cap, and tan chinos sat on the edge of the fountain and spoke on his cell phone. Two women, wearing bright pink shirts and carrying bundles of twigs, perhaps for a late afternoon fire, approached and sat on another bench. Up close they appeared to be mother and daughter. After a few minutes they, too, moved on.

Then the man in the flannel shirt came over and excused himself. I still had my headphones on yet he did not take that as a sign that I did not wish to be disturbed.

"Do you know if this is a gay park?" he asked.

I truly did not know the answer and I also did not know if he was a gay basher, simply a curious out of towner, or looking for action.

"I don't know," I said, looking at him more carefully. There was nothing slick about him. His eyeglasses looked as if they were from the previous decade, his clothing was clean but well-worn. His appearance was as bland and ordinary as they come, his rough and wrinkled skin offering little color contrast to his beige cap.

"Well, I asked two young women and they said they were bisexual and so I thought that maybe this is a gay park," he continued, as if by telling me this information I'd be willing to provide him some corroboration.

"I have no idea," I replied. Then I wondered if the red-clad man in the convertible had been, in fact, cruising for fun in broad daylight.

The man in the flannel then sat down on my bench, leaving about a person's width between us. I did not feel threatened by him so I stayed put, enjoying my view of the mountains. For several minutes we sat in silence and I wondered if was planning to leave or not. There were other benches around and if he had simply wanted to sit somewhere he could have chosen his own private spot. After an awkward interval he stood up.

"Sorry to bother you," he said, "I just thought that maybe this was a place where gay men came looking for sex."

"Why are you asking me?" I retorted, allowing my annoyance to show, adding, "Clearly I'm not a man."

He muttered something about bisexuals and wandered off.

Interruption

This afternoon an attractive 50-something year old man washed my feet and put my socks back on and laced up my shoes. Sadly, this was not a lover or even a pedicurist, but a technician at a podiatrist's office. Since I've been able to put on my socks and tie my shoes myself for at least a few decades, I felt rather foolish having him do the honors. There I was, my legs stretched out in front of me as I sat on the podiatry chair, jacked up to a height of about five feet off the ground. He said it was standard practice and, from what I observed in the waiting room, many patients are probably not capable of tying their shoes.

When I first arrived for my appointment, to check out some persistent pain in my left foot, I was one of the few fully ambulatory people around. Mostly older folk maneuvered in their wheelchairs and walkers, negotiating the path between the door and the reception desk. One man, his thinning hair slicked back with grease and his belly as round as that of the Buddha, was missing a foot. The receptionist handed me a stack of papers to fill out; on the top was written "Diabetic Foot Wound Center" and I asked her if, indeed, I was in the right place.

"Yes," she said. "Don't worry about that language. We take care of everything below the knee."

Below the knee. It was not an expression I'd heard before and, while it's true that my foot is below my knee, it can also affect areas above my knee, such as my hip and spine. But ours is specialized medical world and there was not much I could do about that. As I made my way through the forms, a woman in a motorized wheelchair returned to the waiting area from a consultation room; she wore specially made shoes, her head was held in place by a brace and her arms were covered with black fabric, obscuring her hands or where her hands might have been. Suddenly, my foot problem - and everything else on my mind - seemed quite trivial.

The podiatrist's analysis confirmed my suspicion of a pronated left foot; it has always tended to turn in but now the difference between my left and right feet had become quite stark and the imbalance was painful. My hiking habit will be interrupted for a few weeks while I wait for my orthotics to be made. In a saner system, my health insurance would cover the cost of these inserts, as they'll keep me active and probably prevent me from developing knee trouble later, which would be more costly to fix but would likely be covered. Such is the world we live in.

Inexplicable, Implausible II

Several months ago I wrote about the mysterious disappearance of some clothing, a t-shirt and a sports bra, that happened to be of the same brand. The sports bra turned up soon after that - I think it had gotten tangled in my sheets while I had sorted the laundry and revealed itself when I was going to sleep that night. But the t-shirt remained missing and I had given up hope of ever seeing it again. A few days ago I was working on an essay for a workshop I'm taking and one of the items that popped into my writing was the process of putting on pantyhose. Since I rarely engage in this activity, I wanted to refresh my memory as to how the nylon feels. I went into my closet, found my shoebox filled with pantyhose and opened it up. Inside, nestled alongside my stocking collection, was the missing t-shirt. I am completely baffled and clueless as to why I put it there in the first place, but I'm delighted to have it back.

Inhale, Invasion

After a long day, I returned home at 9:15 to be confronted by the acrid aroma of polyurethane in the hallway of my apartment building. Opening the door to my second floor unit, I inhaled and detected another offensive odor, that of exhaust. Exhaust? I could not identify the source but it was unmistakably different from the smell downstairs. I microwaved some dinner and quickly ate it, but I was beginning to feel lightheaded from whatever molecules were invading my airspace. I opened the windows, turned on the ceiling fans and then headed out for a walk, hoping that I'd be able to air the place out before bedtime.

As I was leaving, I met some of the other tenants who were complaining about the smell. Had they contacted the landlord? No.

I strolled to Whole Foods, purchased a poppyseed hamentashen to cheer me up, and when asked by the pony-tailed checkout clerk how my evening was going, I told him, "Not so well. My building has fumes in it and I'm here while I'm airing out my apartment. If it doesn't work, I might have to spend the night in a hotel. By the way, do you know of any hotels nearby?"

He suggested I look off of I-25, heading north, for a Hampden Inn.

When I returned to my apartment the situation had not abated and I left a message for the landlord, letting him know that I did not feel safe sleeping there and that I'd like him to pay the cost of a hotel. Within minutes he had called back and, after discussing the situation, said he'd reimburse me up to $60. Fine, I said, even though that would probably not cover a room at a hotel I'd feel safe staying at. I did not feel like haggling over the amount, I simply had to get out of there. Already, I had a headache. I grabbed my purse (containing the hamentashen), laptop and toothbrush - what else does a gal really need for an unexpected adventure? - and started driving north. While I was on the highway the landlord called again, asking me if I had found a hotel. Not yet, I said, but I told him that I was in my car, in search of lodging. He said he was on his way over to the building install some exhaust fans to help clear the air. He also seemed very apologetic and sympathetic - in his words, he said that I must have an allergy to polyurethane. No, I've been blessed with a sensitive nose that alerts me to anything that might harm me.

As I pulled off the highway I told him I had spotted a "La Quinta Inn" and would check for a room there. He said that was OK and agreed to pay whatever the rate was. It turns out to be more than $60.

Inimitable

Yesterday evening, as the temperatures plummeted to the 20s in advance of last night's snowfall, I dashed over to a movie theater to see Julie and Julia. I'm a big fan of cooking and eating and of Meryl Streep and I hoped I was in for a treat. Ms. Streep's acting was, as usual, la creme de la creme. Even though I had never seen Julia Child's cooking show on television and was unfamiliar with her trademark voice and gestures, Ms. Streep's artful interpretation and performance made up for that gap in my experience.

As I watched the film, I found myself savoring certain aspects more than others. Ironically, many of the cooking scenes held less of my interest than those where Julia Child confronts the male dominated French culinary establishment and finds herself in the process. After her first humiliating class in which she was the only woman and the slowest to chop an onion, she decides to improve her skills at home. We see a sack of onions and a colossal and growing pile of the chopped white vegetable on Mrs. Child's kitchen table as she single-mindedly practices this fundamental skill, over and over again, onion after onion, oblivious to the tears running down her face. That made more of an impression than many of the scenes of modern day Julie Powell, the blogger, as she's shown preparing the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking and writing about it.

Some of the more satisfying scenes involved Julia Child corresponding with her sister and potential publishers, featuring the physical acts of writing, typing, folding, licking and sealing. What the film left me hungry for was an earlier and slower paced era when people still composed letters by hand, when the sending and receiving of mail was accompanied by anticipation and excitement, and when life was richer for these rituals.

And I wonder if the reason many of the cooking sequences failed to sizzle is that I recently decided to become a pescetarian, eliminating poultry and red meat from my diet. Chicken, beef and duck are also stars in this movie, forming an important but unacknowledged supporting cast, yet despite all the food styling that must have taken place I was not terribly tempted by the sight of a perfectly roasted bird emerging from the oven or by the much-touted boeuf bourguignon that made multiple appearances. Perhaps if I had seen the move before modifying my diet I would have been inspired both to drool over these dishes and to run out and purchase a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Instead, my plans are to slowly, probably not methodically and most likely not publicly, make my way through The Greens Cookbook and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, both by Deborah Madison. It's not that I plan to deprive myself of flavor or fat. For this morning's breakfast, in homage to Julia, I fried an egg in plenty of butter.

Interpretations, Intention

Yesterday was Erev Yom Kippur and I had planned to attend Kol Nidrei services at 7pm a Reconstructionist synagogue in Denver. I went for a walk in the late afternoon and returned home to eat a bit, drink a lot, shower and change into my all-white wardrobe for this most solemn of Jewish holidays. I even removed the bright red polish from my toe nails to be more in keeping with the spirit Yom Kippur. It is a day that we rehearse our deaths by wearing white, as if wrapping ourselves in a shroud, and refraining from eating, drinking, bathing, having sex and wearing leather. And it’s a day that even many lapsed Jews show up in synagogue for at least part of the time, not wishing to miss Kol Nidrei, which has some of the most poignant and moving liturgy of the entire Jewish calendar.

By 6:20pm I had accomplished my pre-holiday preparations and was ready to leave but could not find my car keys. The key and the remote are attached to a ring that has a large metal charm on it; this ensemble jangles and makes a sound if dropped. I’ve temporarily misplaced my keys before so, rather than panicking, I started to systematically look for them in all the usual places.

First I dumped out my purse. Nope.

Then I looked on my kitchen table – often I leave the keys there. Nothing. And they had not fallen to the ground, either. Perhaps I had put them in one of my backpacks accidentally? A quick check indicated that no, I had not.

Then I looked in the bathroom – perhaps I had brought the key ring in there after returning from my yoga class earlier in the day? I searched the top of my sink, the bathtub and the wall cabinet. Nada.

Maybe, when I had uncharacteristically made my bed that afternoon, the keys had gotten trapped between the blanket and the sheets? I checked my bed for lumps and did not find any. Nor were there any keys in my laundry basket, where I had tossed a towel and yoga clothes a few hours before.

What about my desk? There are always lots of things on my desk. Normally I don’t put the car keys there, but I figured I’d look anyway. I scoured the top of my desk and opened the drawers. No keys.

Quickly, I looked in my refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. At this point no place seemed too unlikely for the keys.

By this time it was 6:40pm and I was starting to feel a bit of panic.

I remembered that I had wrapped up and taken out the trash when I went for my walk. Had I accidentally tossed my keys in the trash?

Back outside I went to the dumpster. Unfortunately my bag of garbage was no longer sitting conveniently near the top and I could not grab it while standing on the ground. Wearing my Yom Kippur whites, I hoisted my left leg onto the dumpster’s handle so I could reach down and reclaim my bag. This was the closest I’ve ever come to dumpster diving. Garbage in hand, I jumped back to the ground.

Now I was in the bathroom again, picking through my personal compost. Corn husks and cobs, cantaloupe rind and a rotten zucchini had been sitting in a plastic bag for a few days, marinating with assorted liquids and other trash, creating a pungent perfume. I thought how this activity was, oddly enough, perfect for Yom Kippur, a day when we take an inventory of our inner world, vowing to discard or heal our psychological garbage while focusing on finding the keys to a good life.

My stinky and sticky search did not yield the keys to my Subaru. I returned the garbage to the dumpster and, this time, brought a flash light. Perhaps I had dropped the keys on the ground? Left them in my car?

There were no keys. For a second, I wondered if someone had picked them up and, at a moment unbeknownst to me, would be taking my car with them.

It was now after 7pm and I realized that I would be missing Kol Nidrei.

My Jewish self was frustrated and disappointed and burst into tears. My more Buddhist self recognized I had some choices: I could use this situation as an opportunity to blame and judge myself for having lost the keys, exacerbating my suffering, or I could have compassion for myself and try to salvage something from this experience, perhaps opening to something that would not have been available had I made it to services on time.

I lit two candles in the hopes of fostering some inner stillness and creating a sacred space; perhaps I could consider this a private Kol Nidrei with the Almighty? My intention was in the right place. I wondered if my keys' disappearance was some sort of a Yom Kippur wake-up call, to slow down even more and pay closer attention to my emotions, my living space, and my state of mind than I was already. If so, I thanked God for the fact that this call was a lot gentler than the message my sister-in-law received last year. While driving in the Bay Area just before Yom Tov, smoke began coming out of her car, unbeknownst to her. Another driver motioned for her to pull over and get out. Luckily she heeded this good Samaritan; moments after she left her vehicle, it burst into flames.

I started to chant the Kol Nidrei to myself, but only remembered a few lines. Recreating the service on my own, I realized, did not make much sense. Since I was home, I decided to make the best of it. Slowly and mindfully, I started to sort my belongings and organize my apartment, hoping that in the process of creating tranquility the keys would emerge. And part of me knew from past experience misplacing things that they often turn up, or appear in my sight, once I’m no longer in hot pursuit. Indeed, one of the interpretations of the akeda, Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac, is that Abraham, as he prepared to slaughter his son was in a trance state. The angels call out, “Abraham! Abraham!” to stop him, saying his name twice to get his attention for Abraham was not truly present. When he came to, and looked up, there was the ram to be sacrificed. Some scholars argue that the animal had been there all along but Abraham - so intent on following through with God's request - had been unable to see it.

I asked that God please reveal my keys to me, much as Hashem had revealed the ram to Abraham and water to Hagar as she wandered in the desert.

One of my father’s favorite sayings came to mind, “You’ll find whatever you’ve lost in the last place you look.” I managed a half-smile. As I placed some stray clothes on hangers I was reminded of another frantic search, for my father’s glasses. He had been rushed to the hospital and either he or his companion had grabbed his old eyeglasses, a pair from the 1980s with large lenses that resembled bug eyes. During one of my visits he had asked me to bring him his newest pair, a contemporary design with wireless rims, which he had left in the bedroom. I went to his house and looked for them. They were neither on his bed, on or in his chest of drawers or near the nightstand. Nor were they on the floor. Stymied, I told him I could not find them. He said not to worry but I felt like a failure, unable to fulfill such a simple request. He died unexpectedly a few days after that. As my brother and I cleaned out his house the glasses materialized; they had been in my father’s bedroom closet, where it had simply not occurred to me to look.

Where had it not occurred to me look for my keys?

I did not try to answer this question directly but continued with my tidying - gathering receipts, stacking books and picking things off the floor. With no car keys in sight, I started to wonder how I'd get to services the next day. The synagogue was just over three miles away. Walking would take more than an hour, or I could hop on my bicycle for a faster trip. In either case, it would probably not be wise for me to fast completely and risk dehydrating. And then, without getting too worried, I gently pondered how long it would take me to order a new set of car keys, how much that would cost, and how I’d arrange my life in the meantime.

At around 10:20pm I decided to go to sleep. As I very slowly made my way around the bed to my night stand so I could turn on my reading lamp, I paused by the small cast iron radiator below my window. For some reason I looked down. Between the radiator and the wall I noticed a black object wedged in that tiny gap. Bending over, I reached below the radiator and pulled out my car keys. I have no idea how they got there. But God did answer my prayer.

Intriguing, Intelligence

Over the years I've come to believe that there is an enormous intelligence operating in the universe that creates synchronicity, meaningful encounters and seemingly spontaneous connections. It's as if we're linked by a vast membrane, and if a person gently tugs or pokes that membrane then other people will sense it and respond, most likely at an unconscious level. When I was younger these events would feel quite magical to me, proof that there was more to the world than met the eye, that the hyper-rational outlook championed by my parents was insufficient to explain how life might actual work. My excitement at having sensed or experienced this invisible side to life was often met with an unimpressed, "That was just a coincidence."

Someone, or maybe a few people, must have been tugging pretty hard on the membrane yesterday because I overcome by a powerful urge to look up people I had met in Washington, D.C. while in graduate school for international relations many years ago. Over time, and as my life path took a different course, I had lost touch with them and for long stretches had not thought about my classmates at all, not even the person I dated while I was a student. In fact, I had forgotten many of their names. But with Google, Facebook and Flickr, it's not hard to find people. I typed in my ex's name and found some links, leading to images of him delivering a lecture in Europe last spring. He looked the same but seemed to have grown into his role as scholar, having dropped the playboy persona of his dissertation days. Suddenly I was back in time, remembering very specific details of my graduate school experience, including how another friend had a somewhat awkward body position when sitting on the grass in Dupont Circle. I thought most of these impressions, sights and sounds had been wiped out by the passage of time and by my willful focus on the "now". Instead, the longer I lingered in my memories of that time the more names my brain started to recall, as if all I had ever needed to do was prime the pump. After looking up a few more people I decided to go to sleep, thinking I might contact one or two of them today.

This morning, like most mornings, I logged into Google Analytics to quickly check the previous day's traffic on my website. The Analytics tools also allow me to see how people arrive at my site, either directly, by a referring website or by a key word search. And it turned out that yesterday someone had arrived at my website after entering my name AND the name of my graduate school in a search engine. While I don't know who had looked me up, I was glad to see that I was not the only person out there to feel and respond to the tug on the membrane.