The other day was sitting on a rock outcropping with AR, gazing down on a river and across at leafless beech trees and listening to long lonely trains rolling to the city, a late osprey charging after them as if to hitch a ride, its cry wilder than anything we have to offer. The other day was also another acceptance and feeding chickadees from my hand. Even in this overly manufactured living space nature offers us redemption from our countless sins against it. I am grateful.
All posts in category city life
hot ugly times are a’comin’
Ah, summer in the city, my least favorite time of year here. Yesterday I got my first “Hey buddy, lemme borrow your bike!” [Does anyone actually fall for that?] Then this morning while watering the garden I received my first mosquito bite, courtesy of the invasive Asian Tiger Mosquito, the bane of my summer existence. Soon I will not be able to enter the yard without being swarmed and bitten to my near death. Trickling in on the email lines are the initial reports of random acts of violence committed by hordes of savage bored youth. Calm evenings on the deck are shattered by the incessant hovering and circling of the city’s police chopper. I try to block it all out and dream of living in a tree fort in the middle of an expansive tract of old growth forest. I fail regularly. But sometimes I succeed.
Posted by sean on May 25, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/25/hot-ugly-times-are-acomin/
aggravation
My bikes are all jacked up and I can’t seem to fix them. I ordered a part and the place has sent the wrong size twice now. TWICE.
The crime chopper keeps flying over my house. Daytime, nighttime, all the time.
The autumnal equinox began last night and tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 95. WTF?
The words quit spitting out, mind’s dry as an old corn husk.
I’m tired.
Posted by sean on September 24, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/24/aggravation/
institutionalized
Due to cat needing vet visits, I spent two days working from home, driving Em El down south for work and picking her up in the evening. I haven’t commuted by car in years, so it was quite a shock to my system. Blood pressure rises, teeth gritted, eyes glaze over as you follow the same route over and over. I’m used to seeing the stupid things drivers pull as I ride my bike, but it’s totally different when you’re driving. It actually bothers me more, probably because I’m already extremely agitated just from the mere fact of being behind the wheel. Anyway, it got me thinking about people who commute the same route for years on end. Every day, a vacant thousand-yard stare fixed on the traffic lights ahead. The rote of it all would kill me in a matter of months.
So after the storms pass, and the dishes are drying in the rack, I step out into the cool air. That old cottonwood out back sings its timeless song with nothing more than leaves in the wind and I am so thirsty to hear it. I want to go to sleep listening to nothing but that. It takes me back to, of all places, Lucy Park and the hidden trails I found that one day, winding alongside the chocolate brown river. After a deep and full night of cottonwood sleep I want to wake up to the high fluted serenades of the thrushes. I want to turn my head to the window and breathe in the meadow breeze as it fills the room. I am so hungry for what feeds me. So desperate in this urban confusion. I keep fitting one leghold trap after another onto these withered limbs.
I can’t stop hearing Bill Callahan sing, “My ideals have got me on the run…towards my connection with everyone. My ideals have got me on the run…it’s my connection to everyone.”
I don’t even know anymore what my ideals are, if I even ever had a clear idea. I’m so shifty and drifty, I’m barely able to pin myself down most days. And I’m certainly not running anymore. Treading murky water, perhaps. As for my connections, they are few and far between. Far in miles and farther yet in states of mind.
I don’t want to become institutionalized. I really don’t. I know that much. Maybe that’s an ideal? It’s something I’ll keep fighting against as long as I have the strength, even if it’s with my last few ounces.
Posted by sean on June 4, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/06/04/institutionalized/
darker ends to days
Well, I spent much of the week battling illness. It did enable me to catch up on my reading, while also keeping me away from work, which is always a good thing. I felt incredibly restless at times, in between catnaps and long stretches of reading, causing me to marvel again at how elastic a day can seem when there is no set agenda. Time off to myself leads to reflection, of course. I’ve neglected this blog, my attempts at musical expression, and inevitably a few other things (keeping in touch with people comes to mind). I could make excuses, but they’ve exhausted their validity by now. I have a house now and that is incredibly awesome. However, I’m deeper in the city and I miss my feathered friends at the window feeder. The overwhelming majority of feeder birds in my backyard now are House Sparrows and Mourning Doves, with only occasional chickadees and cardinals. The age-old seesaw continues to teeter and totter: city versus country, socialite versus hermit. My mind expands but I’m still really just going nowhere. In short, not a whole lot has changed. There’s a strange sort of comfort in that. Maybe it’s getting older and becoming more comfortable in my own skin. It’s like I feel less inclined to explain myself; my funny ways are just part of who I am. And I’m okay with that.
Posted by sean on November 6, 2009
https://sd-stewart.com/2009/11/06/darker-ends-to-days/
abandoned umbrellas
A common rainy day sight in the city is the abandoned umbrella. I find this practice of flagrantly abandoning umbrellas at their point of failure to be extraordinarily odd. Countless times have I seen these cast-offs downtown, their broken metal frames splayed obscenely on the sidewalk, or folded and perched forlornly on some faceless building’s window ledge. Their bright hopeful colors belie the tragic loss of function in their mechanisms. Certainly I sympathize with the frustration that suddenly vulnerable pedestrians feel when they are faced with the prospect of getting wet. I have been there myself. But a broken umbrella is a large piece of waste to simply toss aside in the street. Fast food wrappers I can sort of (painfully) understand. However, the step up to throwing an umbrella on the ground is one that my brain can’t seem to navigate. If I were to follow this logic, it seems like the sky would be the limit as to what is deemed “acceptable” as litter. However, I might just not be properly connecting the lines between umbrellas and what else I have found abandoned on the street. For example, during one recent 6-mile bike ride back from an early morning birding expedition, I counted no less than 5 pairs of women’s underwear lying in the road, quite evenly spaced between the park and my house. I felt like I was traveling along some sordid trail at the end of which I had no idea what I might find. I have also seen plenty of shoes, pairs or singles, littering the streets, as well as a surprisingly diverse collection of other clothing items. I always imagine the scenarios that might lead to a particular item ending up there. But maybe I’m over-thinking it and the answer is simple. Perhaps there is a certain fraction of the population for whom disposing of used and unneeded accessories in the street is a commonplace activity. I guess that after giving it some focused thought, it really wouldn’t surprise me.
Posted by sean on May 26, 2009
https://sd-stewart.com/2009/05/26/abandoned-umbrellas/
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