Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Poop Is the True Memory

Talking at lunch today about childhood memories and how different they can be for us compared to our parents. Sometimes, it's because how we feel about a memory becomes stronger than the memory itself, which is either a saving grace or just an untethering. 

My parents were always really good about having the family experience "culture," and when we first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, they took us all to see our first Chinese New Year's parade. They remember our seats curbside for the closest view possible, and the dancing lions, and the drums, and the regional costumes, and the Chinese food afterward. We remember that it was the Year of the Ox, and that very fellow, live in the parade, pooped right in front of us. 


Monday, March 30, 2009

Ode to Jaywalking

I really miss jaywalking. I changed jobs at the beginning of the year and am just getting used to commuting to another city, rather than taking a long 2-mile walk through my own. Industrialized suburbia, where work is now, is made for cars, and for parking lots, and for grass growing only through a fault in something or someone else. I knew all this, but I didn't realize how important jaywalking was to the way I start my day. Something about the strategic hunt for that golden hypotenuse on a city road was an absorbing puzzle and let me believe that I already had a leg up on outsmarting the day. Now I run for a train that always defeats me, to end up in a place where cars never stop for breath.