The zany and lingering penumbra of repatriation

1645 hrs., Richmond VA, USA, 19 August 2012

"Danse Russe"

by William Carlos Williams (annotated with sycophantic, overwrought editor’s suggestions, for fun)

If when my wife is sleeping (GREAT IMAGE OF SLEEPING WIFE OH I LOVE IT…but are you sure you want this marriage to be heterosexual?)

and the baby and Kathleen (Bill- Is Kathleen the nanny? Perhaps include fantastic science fiction themed adultery scene? The saucy stuff is totally selling right now, stuff that makes “Story of the Eye” look G-rated!)

are sleeping  (More sleep. Good!)

and the sun is a flame-white disc  (Would you consider “the glowing rubber ball of Frisbee golf?” I spoke with the legal department and they are experimenting with product placements in poetry now)

in silken mists (I really wish you did this when we could have capitalized on the whole “Lord of the Rings” films and franchise…Hyperlink to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”?)

above shining trees,— (let’s put the Sierra Club plug I called you about here, more revenue and with a conscience! Great PR for the publishing house! Maybe make the line something about “trees going paperless.” So meta, right?)

if I in my north room (Style problem Bill- Is this a manor? I thought you were from New Jersey?)

dance naked, grotesquely ( So universal! Hyperlink to Bauhaus “Bela Lugosi's Dead”?)

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head (see product placement note- We could totally pitch “The Terrible Towel” here- I know you like the Giants though)

and singing softly to myself:

“I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!” (Hyperlink to Hank Williams “Lonesome Highway”?)

If I admire my arms, my face, (Ah yes, the old permissive Humani nihil a me alienum puto…perhaps add a pimple or a dose of jock itch for balance here)

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks (and in walks “Kathleen,” and we both burst out laughing, what with the buttock admiration?)

against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household? (Nobody! You are brilliant Bill!)

-William Carlos Williams (Thinking we should drop the Carlos, too ethnically confusing, maybe change your pen name to Da Willizzys? A little hipper, younger? Market research shows “Da” in front of everything is selling better! (Pronounced “Will-lizzies”) Oh, and maybe make Kathleen a VAMPIRE?)

I know that this is yet something else fleeting, a momentary glimpse of some euphoric place that is circumstantial and not based on any kind of in excelsis spiritual state- still, real it is and feels and the world is still fecund, thoughts are new in old, old places, some of which would have been fine to be dead to me forever, some forgotten loves: Interstate 95 during the typical disaster of Saturday in August in Northern Virginia, a ballpark, the most standard iteration of Sierra Nevada. It is like there is fallout, from an event that no one else may have seen but one that makes me different. I have the same heart and the same patterns, but do I...not always. The patterns are new, there is something bolder and less reticent to be seen. Like everything this condition is temporary, but it feels strangely vital and significant and like I need to seize it without giving a damn how I am perceived, or who understands me or doesn't. Execute a danse russe in front of your mirror, naked- on acid- listening to Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass- and the same could happen to you!

These days, this happy genius* of a household can stand naked (I am a nude enthusiast) by his couch, his traditional spot for folding clothes still warm from the dryer, and watch the street, seeing people not see him and feel superior, indoors, civilized, naked, and alive. Zany annotation cannot destroy the sentiment here, even if you may object to this poem’s carnal celebration and seizure of pleasure in the self and human form, and its 'tonomy,' -au or -an. The Latin phrase there, taken from Terence and then recycled by Marx, “Nothing human is alien to me,” what a convenient intellectual defense for recklessness and abandon, perversity and depravity. Still, dismissing the abject possibilities on offer, this feeling- of gleeful solitude in nakedness and the joy of existence which has an ability to take hold of anybody, physically, and can be rapturous when there is concert between the physical body and the health and ingratiating presence of the mind, accompanying the body, fortifying the experience and enriching moments of folding clothes even, or dances in front of the mirror if you like. Whoever Kathleen is need not be contended with, unless she breaks in there is no chance and there is no baby, but is there anything illicit in some form of the personal expression of solitude, without sight from anyone but God, without congress of flawed bodies or that complicated emotional calculus? Peeling sweaty clothes off of your back right into the washing machine, these words come to mind even if the household is empty and symbolic only, in its ordinary solitude, houses and even the President of the United States have to stand naked, as Dylan (Bob) reminds. I bet WCW had to sneak off in the middle of the night to frolic nude, if he even did, relishing that solitude, “I am lonely, lonely / I was born to be lonely, / I am best so!” 

Friday afternoon, the sun was not a silver disk or a flying saucer or any kind of intergalactic image, but full on almost overhead, a Friday afternoon and the familiar promise of free time and the kind of cultivation of thoughts that the weekdays can’t always offer; the weekend is when germination can take hold unfettered. After cycling a familiar route, up towards Ashland, but not all of the way since I am nursing the same geriatric pelvis, and a wobbly ramshackle machination results over my left foot’s cadence, most evident when climbing and when the thighs start to sing, this scene unfolded, wonderful blessing in what has been given to me, and what I am a steward of, in its most simplistic, mundane terms. Feeling the body respond again to physical activity after too much lethargy and Iberian ham feels exhilarating, and with nude laundromat activity inside afterward as a reward, not even some mad genius but just average and extremely comfortable, in the lap of luxury that is so routine and commonplace here; I am struck that our daily American comfort is just perpetual. I have not been in Africa or somewhere undeveloped either. This is a new life here now in this same place, seeing the older experiences afresh through strange, slow and sometimes surreal adjustment. 

As this verbal universe and space is going to continue to have new, familiar life I must first just say that I am forging on without a theme or a set purpose, but that I have discovered that writing is vital to me and that I should have been doing this for a long time, whether or not anyone reads it. As usual the personal becomes (or can become) a bit wince-inducing, when either the corporal, the sexual, and/or the Biblical wants to assert itself but I am alive and I will use the Pablo Neruda quote, and another humanist cop out, even though I would not classify myself as a humanist per se**: “I confess that I have lived.” (Happy Humanist Cop Out Day, aka everyday). So now that the particulars have been established allow me to sing the days of work and routine that people complain about all of the time, even when it affords us such comfort and such splendor that we don’t even realize it. I’m talking to you, probably.

*Genius credentials still awaiting arrival, for now consider me a genius in the Wile E. Coyote sense of the word:

**Per quod as well, as humans are fallible and occasionally flatulent or otherwise odoriferous creatures

This weekend I experienced a wealth of social activity, despite time made for poetic allusion during the wash cycle. After my return to the sport of cycling, which had emotional impact as I remembered the day seeing the riders come down the circuit of the Avenue des Élysées in Paris, seeing the elites of the sport in the world who have lived in the saddle since they could walk, and feeling on some astral level that as a humans with the same interests and passions, there is a kinship, even if they could smoke me with one leg. I was wearing my jersey that I bought in Paris as well, near the Louvre Museum of all places, where they were mainly selling yellow jerseys (this may be redundant) and I found a different, simple French cycling federation jersey (and talked the lady’s price down significantly). I told her that no real cyclist just slaps on a yellow jersey for a casual ride in the neighborhood- people tend not to sport gold medals either. It is sort of like wearing Patton’s helmet when you’re a private in the infantry. It just isn’t done. So, there I was, non yellow-jerseyed and feeling like I had the legendary mystical wings of the maillot jaune anyway. The day included some very basic unrated climbs, as I am just trying to get back in the saddle, pun completely intended. I did 20 miles, which for my condition and the trick knee, I consider an accomplishment. This week’s two yoga classes were also both a bit brutal 90 minute affairs in which I left drenched, humbled, and satisfied. To quote George Costanza, upon recovering from impotence at the taste of a mango, “I’m back, baby!” I felt so grateful for youth (although fleeting, yeah yeah yeah, Old Time or somebody is still a flyin’ / This same flower or convenient beautiful plant metaphor that smiles today / Tomorrow may be dying) and the body’s resilience, and how fast I am blessed to be, and feeling in shape again. If anyone out there wants to get on the fitness wagon, or off the wagon, whichever the good one is, I will add that it was not always that way, even as I am lucky to have the metabolism of a hummingbird, I still must work (like everyone) at maintaining muscle memory (like aging Evander Holyfield against Lennox Lewis in 1999) and cardiovascular fortitude, which can wane very fast. The attrition of time is not to be underestimated, which works both ways. For example, during the upward curve of gaining fitness, persistence will be rewarded, and the body will respond and results will appear, sometime. The common Sisyphean analogy applies because so many people abandon their goals, and their consistency suffers, and they have to get back on the horse again and start fresh. My experience is that once you have established a certain core level of fitness, it degenerates much slower- although it still degenerates as mortality still applies- than when you are just establishing your body’s fitness patterns. In the beginning the body is aghast and confused, wondering what is going on that you are working so hard, rebelling against the notion of an accelerated heart rate. Later, the body will chide you for your inactivity, craving exercise and rewarding you with better sleep and a sharper mind because of it. In addition to that, your tastes will reflect the needs of your body, which means that you will crave healthier food.

To prove this, today I was craving bacon and I ate some. Quite healthy!

Leaving the metaphysical there for the practical, not a grotesque happy genius but Richard Simmons aficionado, sweating to the oldies, back here in the type A world that is insidious and contagious, but probably overall “good for you.” I do not know what other countries, including Spain, really do for fitness and maybe I was just blind to it there, but it seemed like people were fit but the idea of fitness, the Platonic form, was not nearly as praised in the culture, as it is here through glorification of athletes, advertising, and massive budgets and revenues for the sports and entertainment industries. Actually, that’s false. I’m sure it’s the same. Rafael Nadal was on Iberia’s in-flight magazine (boring to read) and Alberto Contador was inexplicably (or his cardboard cutout) in a mattress store in San Sebastian, even as he is currently banned from cycling for doping.

I was able to attend my first Major League Baseball game since about 1996, when I saw the Detroit Tigers and the Baltimore Orioles play at Camden Yards. Cecil Fielder hit a home run to left field and slowly ambled around the bases to the boos of the home team’s crowd. This was during Cal Ripken, Jr.’s campaign to break Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played. At that time the Orioles were decent, and managed by fellow VA Tech alumnus Johnny Oates, who is no longer living. There were three Ripkens in the organization: Billy, who probably felt ignored and played second base, and Cal, Sr., who was some sort of manager and usually was found at 3^rd base coach. They actually had a shot each season at dethroning the Red Sox or the Yankees in the American League East. The Toronto Blue Jays were also good at the time- a meaner and less vocally inclined bird (Think of the sound of the doo wop group the Orioles, then imagine a blue jay at a birdfeeder, where they always act like jackasses). My favorite MLB team is the “Birds” but I would be lying if I said I knew anything about baseball anymore. Still, I was reminiscing there in the ballpark thinking of how much I loved the Orioles in those days, and how I would stay up too late watching them on HTS, an extinct regional sports network that carried them. Once I was in Camden Yards and they were playing the Seattle Mariners, and Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a home run into right field (I can’t recall any Orioles home runs for some reason) that cleared the fence by so much that it hit the old railroad warehouse that the stadium’s designers were wise enough to leave in place. Yesterday evening in fact, I saw the National League East’s first place team, the Washington Nationals, play the New York Mets. There weren’t many hits in the game, maybe 9, and the final score was 2-0 as a result of somebody on the Mets hitting a home run with one guy on. I clearly followed it very closely. After so much time away from baseball, on top of two months away from the States, It was fascinating to see what “American culture” is like inside that oft-heralded symbol of our national inclusiveness and the spirit of ’76, the ballpark (Benjamin Franklin is said to have invented the dugout, based on a dream about his French mistress and a squirrel***). What follows are some obvious observations, perhaps. So what. For one, the volume of food is incredible, and everyone seemed to be eating (the game started at 7 so what choice do you really have). Everything was gigantic and of course the prices were absolutely criminal- beers ran $8-$9 depending on where you got them, one single hot dog was $5, anything resembling a meal would be $12-$18. More baffling was the fact that entire families, like the one in the row in front of me, where the father who was a large, slightly obese man whose elbow seemed to be magnetized to whatever drink was in my cup holder at any given time, would be eating. All of them would have something, which means that you’d have to spend $100 inside the ballpark just to feed everyone if you brought 3 children, or man or maid servants of your choosing. I bought one round of beers (2 beers) and a Polish sausage (they were out of Italian) and it was $25. Simply put, I noticed the sheer, famous and unbridled American excess. As I said all of the portions were monstrous, but on top of that, I just felt a sense of a general heavy consumption level- people going back for popcorn, ice cream, those Dipping Dots that are everywhere, you name it. Not to mention the sauce- which of course was flowing freely, $9 beers or not.  As the game ended, Third Eye Blind, of all bands, were invited to perform, and the concessionaires opened the beer sales again.  This meant there was all of a 30 minute gap where beer was not sold. (It is customary for ball parks to cease beer sales after the 7^th inning). I’ll admit it, as a creature of habit, feeling the inertia of the place, I too went back and paid $8 for another 12 oz. of Sierra Nevada. (At least the better beer was basically the same price as the Coors Light/Miller Lite varieties). I guess “when in Rome” would apply here, and I am in no way above gorging myself on processed meat products and overpriced beer. See what I mean by your body craving healthy food? Beer and sausages=healthiest combination ever.

In comparison with my memories of Baltimore, the DC crowd was much better behaved, quieter, and not very vociferous at all. During the 9^th inning the scoreboard did its pep talk thing- overdid it, really- with automated sound bites culled from inspirational speeches in movies, and the crowd came to life. Once the inning started, it was quiet again, which wasn’t helped but the fact that the Nationals hitters all got behind in the count and popped out, struck out, or ground out respectively. The crowd knew the Nationals were comfortably in first place in the NL East, and the vibe for the younger set was almost like “bring on the concert/let’s go to Georgetown/Adams Morgan,” while the vibe for the older set was “let’s go home and sleep.” In Baltimore I remember seeing the usual example of the incensed man screaming obscenities at the umpire within earshot of children, like me at the time. Perhaps it was because I was in the outfield seats- there is a bar called the Red Porch in center field, and the people there looked like they didn’t even care if they saw a pitch- but it was a stoic, well-behaved crowd. DC is a place with a highly educated populace, where people seem to talk about where they went to school more often than other cities, and as a city it projects a certain gentility- on Capitol Hill everyone seems to dress like they're going to the Kentucky Derby this time of year, all pastels and seersucker. (I blend well with this, as my complexion is fair). It doesn’t have the competitive feeling of New York where everyone is constantly trying to be the smartest in the room, although it can have that vibe at times. I haven’t spent as much time in Baltimore, but I don’t see it being like that. I spent a rainy weekend there last spring and it was softer, quiet, humbled, with rust, visible and striking poverty, and decrepit and crumbling buildings. Every city has something crumbling, and I guess it is all crumbling, everywhere, in some way, although some cities have a talent for showing it more. You don’t need to brandish your C.V. as much, if at all. Baltimore is a lot scrappier, and known as a maniacal sports town still bitter over the loss of the Colts. 

I will close this epistle: two very different places, two ages of selfhood, two memories of the great American pastime, still alive and kicking even when you let your interest lay fallow for half your life. Again, when I look at the details of the character of life here and at the wealth of blessing, everywhere, in common places, there is something reassuring about being home, the happy baseball ignorant genius of my household.

***100% invented fact