The tissue holding these moments together, feather-thin as it is, expands and pulls taut as a hesitant breeze carries the fleetest scent of fall for us to breathe in. Moods collide, launch forth into open air, crash empty to the unforgiving ground. Days drip one into the next, weeks gel together, and still we stand here bare and afraid. What is it going to take for us to be satisfied? When we will we stop our restless twitching? This is life, by god, and it is only here to be lived. There is nothing to figure out; all the mysteries we concoct are simply ghosts dancing on the head of a pin, taunting us even as they fade away. The windows we keep in our minds looking out onto future lives are glazed with thick smears of colorless idealism; the pictures of us that we see projected there are shiny distortions, marionettes we yank into desperate action after so many failed attempts to live wholly here and now. We convince ourselves that our daily lives constitute a dead existence, held fast by debt and fear of impoverished old age. But in truth we squander our time here, fretting and wishing instead of living. And it seems like such a simple thing, to merely live, to stay in a moment for its duration, filling ourselves with its wonder. Yet so many of us fail in this one endeavor we all can claim as our purpose. We only have a finite amount of these moments and each passing day drains thousands more of them into the black hole of mortality. The least we can do is spend our allowance before it disappears.
spend it as you get it
Posted by sean on August 20, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/08/20/spend-it-as-you-get-it/
time…again
My coworker cracks me up because she is so strictly punctual. I always knew it but now that she’s moved into the office next door, I am reminded of it constantly. I know she comes in at the same time every morning (even though it’s well before I arrive…I just know it). I see her leave at 4:30 on the dot every evening. And if she doesn’t get to start her lunch right at noon, look out! We used to have a meeting on Tuesday from 11-12. One day when the meeting was running over, she got caught by a previous crazy manager for looking at the clock. While she was certainly embarrassed, she was no less indignant afterward that her lunchtime had been postponed.
I bring this up because I have been thinking about time again. Long-time readers of this blog in its many incarnations (all one, possibly two, of you) will perhaps recall that I have railed against time often in the past. It bothers me what human society has done with time: assigning monetary value to it, breaking it down into chargeable chunks, using it to create arbitrary deadlines and artificial windows of opportunity.
Anyone who has paid a bit of attention to time knows that it has a curious elastic quality to it. How fast it seems to go by depends heavily on what you are doing within it. Sometimes it depends on what substances you have consumed. The part of the day can affect this elasticity, too; a morning will seem endless, an evening brief. Often this has to do with the amount of available light. And certainly age also plays a factor. As we get older, years seem to slither by at an alarming rate.
So, what to do about time. I know I am most content when unencumbered by my awareness of time’s passing. Smash the alarm clocks! Abolish workday schedules! Don’t think about how much time something takes and judge it based on that alone. Shortcuts spring from a flawed thinking. There is no way to “save time.” It’s a delusion. Why are we trying to do things faster, anyway? It implies that what is happening right now is somehow not good enough, not “worth our time” and so we must get past it faster, faster, on to the “better” things that are more worth our time. But in the end, we just shortchange ourselves, because we have arbitrarily assigned “worth” when in fact every moment of life is valuable and should not be rushed through.
We are living in a frightening period of history. An entire generation is growing up with the expectation that instant gratification is the norm. People’s thresholds for waiting have diminished to a granular level. Impatience is ingrained within us. We are in a rush to get everywhere in our stupid cars. We get food in less than a minute, from a microwave or from a drive-thru window. Information is available 24 hours a day from the internet, from palm-sized devices we carry around with us everywhere, even into the bathroom. News travels faster than ever before. When we have to wait, we get indignant. Why should we have to wait? It’s not fair.
The whole situation has gotten so bad that there is now an entire slow movement. I don’t know much about it, but I think it started with Slow Food and snowballed from there. Clearly others are concerned about the speed at which society travels these days. I suppose making a conscious decision to try to slow down is a good thing. But I am more interested in how we got to where we are and why. Are we really more impatient today than we used to be? Is it technology’s fault? What is driving this desire and expectation for everything to be instantly available? Why do people drive so fast? What the hell is wrong with us?
Of course I don’t have answers for these questions. But I think about them constantly. I wonder why I feel so alienated. I know others do, as well. It makes me wonder if anyone would have an answer to the question of why they are in such a rush. Maybe they’ve just stopped thinking, and if they started again they would realize the absurdity of their actions. Perhaps we have all just become dulled to the point that we don’t know what we’re doing or why anymore. Maybe we have just each become a mere collection of tics: foot on the gas, fingers on the keypads, logging in and clicking around, spitting out to each other the words we’ve just heard and read and watched…never stopping to think for ourselves.
Posted by sean on August 6, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/08/06/time-again/
R.I.P. Fiznit, July 1996 – July 31, 2011
Yesterday evening Em El and I made the decision to release Fiznit from the bonds of her cancer. On Friday she had received chemotherapy, but did not seem to be responding to the treatment. Two and a half weeks earlier she had undergone surgery to remove one of her front legs and her spleen, both of which were riddled with cancer. She had been recovering well until early last week when she stopped eating and began getting sick to her stomach. A blood test revealed that mast cells had returned in force. The chemo she received on Friday was her last option for a solid recovery. Unfortunately the cancer was too strong, and with the sensitive guidance of Fiznit’s internist, we chose to relieve her suffering for good.
We like to think that Fiznit is now reunited with her beloved brother Scratchy, her constant companion from birth until age 11, when he died suddenly of a heart attack. I like to picture them ecstatically rolling around together in a sunny celestial catnip patch of the richest shade of green.
It’s poignant how when you live with an animal for so long, their passing represents more than just the departure of a dear friend and family member. Both Scratchy and Fiznit were with me for much of my adult life up to this point. Now that Fiznit is gone, I feel like an entire era has ended. We often think of the closure of time periods in our lives as marked by events like graduations, leaving jobs, moving to new places, and sadly, the ending of relationships. But often our companion animals are a constant in our lives over the course of the opening and closing of many such time periods. Sometimes they are one of the few or even the only constant. They provide us with comfort, stability, and a warm familiarity that may otherwise be lacking.
I personally have experienced much pain and joy throughout the lives of both Fiznit and Scratchy. They were always there to remind me of the good times, though, and help keep me from dwelling on the bad. I can’t help feeling now, beyond just grief at Fiznit’s death, a deeper ache at the severing of this living tie to my past. She was with me through so much, and her departure leaves a hole of such depth that it may not ever completely close.
Fiznit was a special cat, very much an individualist. Although she lived for a long time in the shadow of her larger-than-life brother, after he died she stepped forward and really came into her own. She became much more outgoing and seemed to relish her life as the only cat (and pet) in the household. Although we talked about trying to find a companion for her, we felt that ultimately Fiznit wanted things to stay as they were. After all, no cat could ever replace Scratchy and she probably knew that.
Fiznit won over all the staff at the excellent referral clinic where she spent much of her final week. Her fighting spirit and persistent sass even when she was feeling down heartened those who were caring for her. We all know how horrible cancer can be, though, and in the end we felt we had no choice but to step in and help her surrender what had become a losing battle. Although we will continue grieving for some time to come, we also feel relief that her suffering has now ended. Rest in peace, little Fizz. You will always be loved.
Posted by sean on August 1, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/08/01/r-i-p-fiznit-july-1996-july-31-2011/
lightness
Beneath the crust lies a kernel. A kernel formed of decisions made and those deferred. Crack it open and free the seed inside to float away. Follow it. Down a deer trail. Under a rock. Into the reeds. Up in the air, over the ridge. Pay attention. Ignore the ghostly hands pulling at your collar, suggestive in manner, dragging you, enticing you toward a warm spot to curl up and stop. It’s always the decisions. Counseling for or against. Talking, hashing it out, pacing in deranged circles. Stop the pacing. Wrangle your thoughts and subdue them. Step back. Breathe. There is a lightness in us that we can reach. Tap it like a sugar maple and let it flow, sweet and pure. Drink it in and never stop. What will matter in the end is how we spent our days; these moments won’t return.
Posted by sean on June 7, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/06/07/lightness/
Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks!
I received an early phone call this morning alerting me to the presence of rare ducks at a local city park. I hopped on the bike not long after and pedaled on down there to get my lifer Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, not just one but five! I even heard them whistle, which was pretty damn cool. Crappy documentation photos digiscoped with the point-and-shoot through my bins can be found here. I ended up hanging around there for a few hours due to the rolling roster of birders that came through, some of whom I knew and others whom I was putting faces to names for the first time. Unfortunately I also ended up with the worst sunburn I’ve had in a while. But it was worth it!
Posted by sean on June 4, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/06/04/black-bellied-whistling-ducks/
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/
reverse weekend
This week I’m experimenting with the old “reverse weekend” concept. This is when you only work two days and take the rest of the days off, instead of vice versa. In my case, I’m currently finishing up a four-day weekend, gritting my teeth in anticipation of the next two days of work, before I sail off into a five-day weekend. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Mostly it just makes me realize that I’d be perfectly happy never going to work.
In other news, I came home from birding today to find a dead bird in my living room. WTF?? It was a Chimney Swift and it was lying right on the mat in front of the door. I have no idea how this bird got in the house, given that our fireplace is sealed shut with brick. Of course, it’s not unheard of for chimney swifts to pop down a chimney and end up in someone’s house. I mean, they LIVE in chimneys, or rather they build their nests there. Most everything else they do on the wing. But unless this one can pass through brick, I am mystified as to its presence in the house. Given that it’s highly unlikely that the bird came in the house on its own, I am forced to pin the blame on our neighbors’ cat, a known bird killer, and frequenter of our front porch. He has also been known to shove his paw through our mail slot, and so it would not be that great a leap to consider the theory that he shoved this bird through the mail slot. I mean, he does like us quite a bit, and spends at least as much time in our yard as in our neighbors’ yard. So perhaps he just wanted to give us a thank you gift. If it wasn’t so horrific it would be sweet. It’s times like this when you really wish your pets could talk. I am sure that Fiznit would have a lot to say about this dead bird. But she refused to comment.
Anyway, I have a local connection who traffics in dead birds, so I’m donating it to the Smithsonian.
Posted by sean on May 24, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/24/reverse-weekend/
a birdy morning
I came downstairs this morning to hear a Yellow Warbler singing from a tree across the alley. Over the next hour, I heard and saw the Yellow, one or two Blackpoll Warblers, and a couple of Cedar Waxwings! It was like a tiny migrant fall-out in the alley! Living in an urban rowhouse neighborhood, we don’t get too many birds in the yard. I do keep a yard list, though, listing each species I either see or hear while I’m in the house or yard. This morning’s birds were all new, bringing my list to 40 species! I think this is a decent yard list total for less than two years, and considering the environment around our house. I hadn’t found a new yard bird in a long time, so to get three in one hour was awesome! I’ve already tallied up most of the likely birds to show up here, so I’m now left hoping for random migrants or winter visitors. I was tempted to blow off work today and hang around to see what else showed up. A couple of times in the past week, I’ve seen and heard warblers in the trees along my bike route to work. Hopefully a few more will wander over to my street before the magic of migration fades into summer.
Posted by sean on May 19, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/19/a-birdy-morning/
the madness of migration
The general public does not realize the significance of the month of May in the life of a North American birder. It is a magical time when all birders would much rather be prowling their favorite haunts searching for spring migrants than toiling away at their desks, or doing anything else for that matter. Every year I say I’m going to take the entire month of May off the following year because unless you go birding every day there is a good chance you are missing something somewhere. And that is a terrible feeling. I have seen some good birds this spring, but I crave more and more and more. Too much time sitting at a desk, and too little time scanning the treetops. The other day I was riding to work and not a quarter mile from my house I heard warblers singing. I literally threw my bike down in the street, pulled my binoculars from my backpack, and began frantically glassing the trees. Warblers are the true jewels of migration. Sure, there are lots of other cool birds that arrive in the area during this time, but I doubt there is a single birder whose pulse does not quicken when she or he hears that familiar buzzing high above them.
Posted by sean on May 16, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/16/the-madness-of-migration/
lost gander
Last night. Goose travels through changing seasons, from falling leaves to falling snow. What does he seek? Brethren pass in and out of our lives. We still move on. Time passes; the seasons mark. Our days the only constant. The banjo plays high and lonesome and the spirit leaves the body. Tune out tipsy voices, the hush of rustling coats. The notes crawl inside you and sound out in the cavern of your heart, the echoes so loud you hear nothing else. You hear nothing else, only what the goose knows, without even knowing it. Restless and lost, with only the seasons to remind us of the coming end, our silhouettes stark against a bone white moon.
Read the full post »
Posted by sean on April 23, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/04/23/lost-gander/
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