Death Valley · 27 December 2008
Things are going wrong in academia: not the right year to do your coming-out. The anonymous rumor mills online are full of despair and rage, people who can’t insure their kids, can’t imagine themselves as anything else, but do envision pistols in their temples. Ain’t no “positive thinking” superstitions among scientists, that’s for sure.
Hello, pain.
Last Monday and Tuesday, my triceps ached from the 108 I tossed in before Sunday practice. Guess my chaturangas are true, but it brought some Monday woe to the prospect of a week of thirds.
I did a self-punishment check: “beating yourself up with vinyasas,” eh?
Nah. Though practice was painful, so to speak.
Funny how little—an extra 80 minutes on the mat Sunday morning—it takes to create resistance in the machine for several days. Amazing to do this all the other weeks without any such drag. Interesting to see the limits of practice so graphically—in a way that did not come up at the summer solstice at all.
Years ago I saw BKSI speak at Josiah Royce Hall, the building I gaze on all day from the office I’ll give up in June. Someone in the audience asked about pain, and he held forth for a good ten minutes about how yoga has to be painful. He was incoherent—if the audience took a lesson from those ramblings, it was whatever they wanted to hear.
I have nothing better on this subject though. MW tells me pain is a healing force, but of course he is the same one who forbids self-flagellation via vinyasa. He means real pain. And the Sutras say future pain can be avoided, though that doesn’t sit at all well with every eastern teaching about how suffering arises from efforts to avoid pain—which is in truth inevitable.
I dunno. What I’m experiencing is trivial. Or: I am no longer skilled at holding pain in place long enough to learn from it. Anxiety is here; sadness for friends too. But come on.
I tried to walk right in to it this Christmas, rescheduling the holiday in New Orleans for Death Valley instead. The Editor and I thought we would make it an Existential Christmas, embracing the void at the LOWEST POINT IN NORTH AMERICA. My idea of a good joke.
I expected desolation; no life anywhere; blinding light flattening all contrast; cracked earth; punishing, leathery winds. Some kind of object lesson in pain.
And got: more stars than I knew existed, kangaroo rats, salt flats churning like a slow-motion ice floe, sand dunes whose spines you walk like in some (terribly picturesque) refugee drama, too many Ennio Morricone moments to track, and hiking trails straight through scenes from Star Wars. Also: borax dust storms, snow in the high places, blazing blue peaks cradling you down in the basin, glinting iron ore and lime in the hills, a Red Cathedral hidden beneath Zabriskie point like some undiscovered Petra, a giant orange cinder cone so snuffed out that little French children can climb down inside.
Laughed at death, got the Christmas Dinner (with a stunning pumpkin soup with maple crème fraiche) at Furnace Creek, inspected the giant leftover machines of men who had a go at living here a century ago, cut out on to the oasis golf course as the sprinklers came on and watched Venus come up over the valley.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: having a body
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hi (0v0)
happy holidays. i like your visual descriptions for the “lowest point of America” – the physical and the imaginary.
in your field, in mine and in others, there are cycles in which people have to ask, where does this education fit in? when opportunities are limited. we’re all going to be doing a lot of navel gazing.
hugs
Arturo
Posted by: Arturo · Dec 28, 05:18 AM · #
Well the cosmos does abhor a void, after all :)
Spot on, re: job market. I’m getting silence this year, but again, that void is countered by the visiting position in Indy as well as by other developments.
I imagine, sometimes, either getting a teaching certificate for HS level, or else writing kiddie lit. There are ways out.
Posted by: patrick · Dec 28, 05:24 AM · #
God, the earth is beautiful.
Attachment to suffering’s an interesting thing.
Posted by: karen · Dec 28, 06:21 AM · #
The feeling around here is anger, too. Most of the people I know are people who have lived within their means, not partaking in the crazy excesses of the last few years, and yet they now face unemployment. A house to live in, health coverage and a job aren’t crazy things to wish and yet most of my friends these days are lacking at least one of the three (the UK and Spain have socialized health care for which we are all very grateful right now).
Posted by: V · Dec 28, 08:12 AM · #
“Existential Christmas”- hilarious. You know I’m into themes. LUV the photos- they’re gorgeous. I’m envious of your Christmas celebration, but eventually my man and I will find a way to sever the chains holding us to a family holiday and find our own Death Valley Christmas.
Hang in there- academics, purse making… we will all have our day again. I know it. In the meantime, Patrick, I look forward to reading your children’s book.
Posted by: Liz · Dec 28, 11:17 AM · #
Hello! Just dropped in to Borders at the Santa Monica promenade to pick up a magazine. They’re closing, clearing out the inventory and taking bids on the light fixtures. Meanwhile, the Fred Segal boutique-labyrinth is deserted. The boardwalk is full of fancy Italians, Spaniards, and Francophones. What a funny, godless (and cheap) place for their holiday.
Patrick, I gave my little niece Marion Bataille’s pop up book. Recommended for mini surrealists.
Oh Zee, you are ill. I do not read your messages. You have to hire a Jungian analyst. You are becoming stupider and more boring every moment. You are running out of time. Go.
Posted by: (0v0) · Dec 28, 04:33 PM · #
Oh Owl, what a beautiful post. I’d like to squeeze you but good.
Tiens bon, ma chère.
Posted by: joy · Dec 29, 05:29 AM · #
Hi Owl… I’m just going to say: pumpkin soup with maple creme fraiche, YUM :)
Posted by: susananda · Dec 30, 01:16 PM · #
Happy New Year, Owl. And good luck coming out on the job market! I’m sure you’re blowing everyone away in job talks with your brilliance.
Posted by: Fatou · Dec 31, 09:03 AM · #
Dear Owl:
Happy New Year! Best of luck this coming year. Let 2009 be filled with love and happiness for you!
Posted by: Alfia · Dec 31, 05:10 PM · #
Happy new year and thanks for the villainies.
God bless the NHS and the BBC.
How’s this for a bit of hangover curdling chat on a fine and frosty morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml
Posted by: meniscusmerangue · Jan 1, 09:57 AM · #
Hello and thanks sincerely, everyone. Warmest wishes in the new year. I am listening to the BBC consolations now. High resonance! They had me from Spinoza.
Thanks all and welcome al ano novo-novena, o anonovo.
It is time to re-set the joint. Let us go in together!!! *
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 1, 04:34 PM · #