Buddhist in Nebraska

Family History

2009-07-17T12:22:00.002-05:00

“Oh, we found great-grandpa Sanford,” Mom told me as I scooped up her cat and plopped down on the couch in her living room.

“Was he lost?” I asked. I scratched Lucy’s ears and she chewed on my knuckles.

“Oh, yes, for a long time. We knew he’d come down from Canada and we thought his name was Pierre. Turns out it was Predaux. We didn’t have a lot of information about him because his wife, Catherine, divorced him after Delbert was born and married G.W. Johnson, who basically raised Delbert,” she told me quite cheerfully, happy with herself for having solved the puzzle.

“And Delbert was grandpa Choln’s father, right?” Grandpa Choln being Dad’s father.

“Right. Well, Grandma Elaine said she’d gotten a letter from a lady in Canada trying to trace Predaux after he moved to Cherry County, but nothing had ever come of it. After Elaine died I found a return address among her papers for a lady in Ottawa so I sent her a letter to see if she was the one looking for the Sanfords. She sent me this back,” Mom handed me the neatly typed three page letter. Lucy bit me one last time and jumped down.

Therein was a tale fit for any modern soap opera. Predaux Sanford had married a lady in Ontario and had four children with her. However, after she entered the asylum for the last time, he left his family in Canada and resettled in Cherry County Nebraska under the Homestead Act. Some time later, he married Catherine (without the benefit of a divorce from his first wife, who was still living) and they had Delbert. Catherine left him for being an abusive drunk when Delbert was little. She did get a proper divorce and then married a very nice man, G.W. Johnson. This was all kept very hush, hush, although it is obvious now that Delbert was aware of Predaux’s other family, as they sold his property upon his death and split the proceeds and accounts (rather generous for the time) between the five children. Delbert’s share was still enough to he and his bride, Zoe, to buy a ranch of their own just south of Valentine along the Niobrara River.

I looked up at my mom. “So Great-Grandpa Delbert was a bastard?” I asked with a grin.

She shrugged. “I suppose, since Predaux never properly divorced his first wife, he couldn’t properly marry Catherine, but it didn’t really work that way back then. Anyway, Marian Hofman,” the author of the letter, “and her husband, also Roger, are going to be in Lincoln in June and we’re going to meet them.”

“How are they related to us?”

“Well, Marian would be your father’s half-second cousin.”

“Hoffman? So is she related through Grandma Elaine’s bramble bush of a family, too?” Everyone is, it sometime seems.

“No, it Hofman with one f, not like Grandma’s Hoffmans. Although with that family, you never know.”

Spring rolled into summer and June came around. Mom and Dad drove down to meet Marian and Roger in Lincoln. We all had dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant two blocks from my house. Marian and her husband are both retired and they were traveling across North America. Roger had driven from Ottawa to Calgary, where Marian had flown out to join him. Then on to Seattle and across the Rocky Mountains, finally to Nebraska and on from here through Iowa and back up to Ottawa by way of the Great Lakes.

They were lovely people. Both Mom and Marian had brought fat file folders full of photographs and family trees. They were like peas in a pod. Marian’s father and Grandpa Choln, both grandsons of Predaux Sanford, had an interesting resemblance and both had been gadget men, loving radio and electronics and cameras. They sounded very much alike. It turned out that Predaux was himself descended from Simon Girty, who fought in the Revolutionary War.

“Well, he and his brother were stolen and raised by Indians when they were little. They Simon worked as an Indian scout and liaison with the British Army. When the revolution broke out, he was on the side of the rebels, but he didn’t like how the American’s were treating the Native tribes. There were some massacres and such. So he decided the Indians would be better off under the British and joined the Torries. Well, after the revolution, he couldn’t stay, so his family emigrated to Canada. He really wasn’t on either the American or British side. He was on the Native’s side,” Marian explained.

Marian even had information on G.W. Johnson and Catherine. One a trip a few years before, they had stopped in Valentine and a nice lady had taken them down into the basement of the courthouse to browse through the old records, which were just moldering away down there, stacked willy-nilly. She had not found much information on Zoe, Delbert’s wife and Choln’s mother. She couldn’t locate her in the Nebraska census records from any period before her marriage to Del.

“Oh, well, she was out in California before that,” Mom told her. “Elaine once told me she was a secretary to Zane Gray. But then, you know how these family legends are.”

Mom told our family stories of the Pocahontas, John Rolfe, and the Mayflower. There were other connections as well. Marian and Roger were somehow related to the Anesleys, a family that had settled in Nebraska from Canada a few generations ago. The Anesleys were known to my Mom’s family, the Oatmans, as their ranches had been in the same area near Ainsworth, Nebraska. And, of course, the Oatmans and their ancestors had also fought in the Revolutionary War, some tracing back to well before that, having come to America in the Seventeenth Century.

I related the story of visiting my friend Eman, who is from Sudan. She had some other Sudanese ladies over to her home and they chattered on about other people from Sudan recently come to the United States. “Where is your family from?” they asked me.

“Well,” I said, ticking off the list on my fingers, “England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark, at least two Native American tribes, and some of them came by way of Canada. So we're related to everyone.” Although, to be truthful, we are woefully lacking an Eastern European, Mediteranean, African, Asian, or South American ancestry, or at least any we have traced.

They had simply stared at me. “How does that happen?” Eman’s sister asked.

“Well, I guess when you’ve been in this country as long as we have, everyone just sort of mixes together.”

Marian had laughed at the story and Roger, a quiet man with a kind face, had smiled. “Isn’t that the true,” she agreed.

Marian and Roger said their goodbyes after posing for pictures with their new “cousins” from Nebraska. Now we have family to go and visit in Ottawa sometime. Both couples talked about how they would love to vacation in New England in the fall in the next few years, so who knows what will come of it. We didn’t find Great-Grandpa Sanford. After all, he was never really lost. He’s been buried in the Valentine cemetery all this time. We did find an entirely new family who are just as fun and quirky as us. I suspect, if we dig back far enough, everyone is family.

Now, if we could only act like it.

MASH and Dharma

2009-07-16T15:19:00.003-05:00

This week on Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett talked to Diane Winston, a professor at USC who teaches about religion and the media. They spoke specifically about television shows and touched on Lost, House, Battlestar Galactica, The Wire, and others. They also chatted briefly about what television shows they watched growing up, things like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie. It made me think of M*A*S*H.

I am a story-junkie, no doubt about it. I love television, movies, and novels. My tastes are very broad. I love the niche and offbeat and the big blockbusters. I am pickier in my novels, preferring science fiction and fantasy, but every now and then I'll dive into something else. I love good plots. I love fiction. I rarely read biographies or true stories and I couldn't care less if a movie was "based on real life events."

I have often wondered if this is some kind of failing in a Buddhist. After all, we're all about present moment, ultimate reality, right here, right now, waking up from samsara, etc. And here I am happily dreaming along either making up my own stories or immersing myself in someone else's. But then I remember how I got here, and I listen to people like professor Winston talk about exploring ethical questions, normative value setting, and the shared experience of being human.

I got here by watching shows like MASH. It was my mother's favorite show and even when I was grounded and without television privileges, MASH was always the exception. My mother liked it too much to forbid it. Now that I think about it, I wonder why she was ever surprised I was such a cheeky little brat growing up with the likes of Hawkeye Pierce as a roll model? In a way, I guess that's a hint at the power of stories, of fiction. Mom never expected me to take after Hawkeye because she knew he wasn't real. But sociologists have studied the impact of shows like Will and Grace on normalizing certain character types within society and proven they do have an impact. Television can create society as much as reflect it, in this way.

MASH is one of the longest syndicated televisions shows ever made, with eleven seasons to draw on. It was on for an hour every evening for as long as I can recall living with my parents. It was set in a war. A comedy, one of the best comedies, set in a war, and as funny as it was, they never let the audience forget that war is ugly and brutal. Yes, I laughed, but I also watch it with this strange fascination and wondered - why, why, why?! Why were they fighting this war? Why did even people like Hawkeye, who hated it so much, stay? He could have gone AWOL, run away to Canada, not easily or without penalties, but it could have been done. Yet in one episode, when he'd fought so hard for some R&R in Tokyo, as the choppers came flying in, he set down his suitcase, took off his hat, and went to scrub up. My questions were always his questions. Why couldn't anyone else see the awful truth of it? Why couldn't they end it?

It's easy to dismiss entertainment media as valueless, meaningless, and I'm sure some of it is, but I never saw it that way. For me it was always the way of exploring questions nobody bothered to cover in junior high school classes. As a seventh-grader, I read Dennis McKiernan's books, full of Elves and Dwarves and Halflings. He explored questions of God and evil and creation. As a teenager I loved Star Trek The Next Generation, the loyalty and fidelity of the crew, and Star Wars with its themes of sacrifice and redemption. As an adult I love Doctor Who. I suppose The Doctor is very much like Hawkeye Pierce, a cheeky pacifist who never the less runs into the danger and tries to save everyone. I love the unapologetic ridiculousness of Doctor Who, the fast past, the shouted demand (not request!) for the suspension of disbelief ala Monty Python. Suspending disbelief is to suspend belief and when we can do that, we can start to ask the hard questions.

And I think of the Odyssey, Beowulf, the Bible, Canterbury Tales, the Jataka Tales. These weren't ever just for children. Human beings love stories. We learn from them. But it's true, we also escape in them. Entertainment media can be just that, if we let it. We need to seek the Middle Path in this as in all things. Stories have a power that sermons and dharma talks lack, however profound, - the power to be both eternal and subversive. We tell stories because they are entertaining, and we pass them on, one to another. If we take an ethical view of story-telling, if we look to find something true within the fiction (and what is the dharma but "truth?") stories can be very powerful tools.

I'm hooked on stories of suffering and sacrifice. I love the unlikely hero. I love the fighter, the one who simply won't give up, won't turn away, even when they could. I am fascinated by ideas of free will and choice and the willing acceptance of pain and sorrow. And I love a good line, a catchy witticism, the tongue in cheek jest, the innuendo. I clap when things turn out different from what they seem. I can't stand to see anyone embarrassed, and I even close my eyes and cover my ears, in sympathy with the imaginary person on the talking picture box. I love the characters, the deeper, the better, and decry the use of red-shirts, the throw away death, the disposable extras. I like it best when characters grow, morph and change and learn. I don't care about the odds, or the accuracy, or how many times they save the world. I've been watching science fiction long enough that I've seen all the plots: time loops, body switching, invisible person, supernatural possession, the ticking bomb, the test of faith, and the great battle. As long as they're done with heart and the characters have depth, I don't actually care.

It doesn't matter how many times the story has been told, because each time it is a new person telling it and a new person listening. This is true even for the same people. I watch MASH entirely differently now as an adult than I did as a child. I get the dirty jokes I missed and see the darker places I never really noticed. If I had never watched MASH as a child, I don't know that I ever would have found my way to the dharma, or if it would have resonated the way it does.

Maybe television rots my brain, but it also speaks to my soul, and how's that for the willing suspension of disbelief!

The Net

2009-07-15T11:23:00.003-05:00

Today on Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor quoted Iris Murdoch, who wrote (as one of her characters) in her book Under the Net "All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself, and this is unutterably particular. Indeed it is something we can never get close enough to, however hard we may try, as it were, to crawl under the net." Keillor then adds, "'the net' referring to language itself."

This is the shedding of conceptual thoughts, so tied up as they are in language, and the direct perception of reality.

Stupid Questions

2009-07-14T16:56:00.001-05:00

There are stupid questions. Your second grade teacher might have told you otherwise, but she was lying. Don’t hold it against her, for she had the best of intentions and the lie served a definite purpose. She might also have believed it when she said it, but it’s still wrong. Having spent the better part of three decades locked firmly within the grip of the educational system, I can say unequivocally that there are stupid questions.

They fall into two categories. First, those to which one already knows the answer but prefers to pretend otherwise. And Second, those for which one doesn’t actually care about the answer. This is also neglecting the fact that in addition to stupid questions there are also wrong questions, those asked because one either doesn’t want to ask or doesn’t know the correct question. Wrong questions can still be useful if they lead to the right question.

The college hosts internship interviews every spring. The suit-and-tie crowd always ask “Why do you want to work here?” And I always bite my tongue and spew something pleasant, usually just regurgitating their own self-promoting language from the company website. I can usually find one or two projects in particular to praise. The old “I’ve heard good things from other interns” or “your firm has a good reputation” always go over well. Most of the time I even mean it. Every firm has its redeeming qualities or they wouldn’t still be in business and I’d never apply for one which I’d heard awful things about or disliked their work intensely.

What I really want to say is: “I don’t know that I do want to work here. I’ve never worked for an architecture firm before and I’ve never so much as seen the inside of your offices. That’s like asking a twelve year old whether they prefer white or red wine after reading the labels on the bottle. Give me the job and ask me again at the end of the summer. I’ll give you a detailed dissertation as to why or why not I want to work for your firm.”

It’s both a stupid question, because they’re just looking for some bland sort of praise anyone can throw back at them, and a wrong question because it has little bearing on how good an intern someone will be. Providing they don’t absolutely hate the firm in question, of course, and I don’t know anyone in my college quite that self-sacrificing. Architects, like artists, being a somewhat finicky and temperamental lot (we hide it better) generally find themselves unhappy at work due to either unforeseen circumstance or the utter boredom that comes from being too low on the totem pole.

Today a university administrator asked us, for the umpteenth time, “You all plan to stay in Nebraska after you graduate, right?” I almost laughed at him. It’s not that I’m in any terrible hurry to leave (or perhaps I am) or that I dislike Nebraska. Quite the opposite, I like Nebraska very much, but Nebraska is just Nebraska and as such a very small part of a very large world. I’m an architecture student. Travel is vitally important to my profession. There are just so many wonderful buildings out there I’ve yet to see! The students I was with are journalists. I’m sure travel is every bit as appealing to them as to me.

I could say without a hint of regret “No, I’m applying to go to Japan next year,” which neatly smoothed over the hesitant monosyllables of my colleagues. The questioner could assume to their heart’s delight that it was merely a one-off, a study abroad from which I intended to return “home.” All the legislators and educators talk about the brain drain and keeping graduates in Nebraska. Why? Why don’t you try luring out of state graduates

here? Make it a one for one swap. This is a mobile, and quickly globalizing, generation. We like to travel and live in new, interesting places. They say diversity is important, but its only lip service, because what they really want is Nebraska for Nebraskans. I’ve met several international students who said they came to Nebraska because they’d never heard of it before and it was about as far away as they could think to go. Capitalize on that. Don’t let social fear and cultural ego lead to unreasonable expectations for today’s students.

By the time I graduate, I’ll have spend three decades firmly anchored in Nebraska. Isn’t that enough? I’d like to be nomadic for a while after I graduate, spend a year in one country, two in another, a few more elsewhere. Who knows, maybe I’ll return for my final three decades. The Sandhills can be awfully peaceful.

In the meantime, maybe people will stop asking questions they don’t really want the answers too.

DN Column - Weddings

2009-07-13T08:39:00.001-05:00

More a story than an opinion.

Myriad marriages share one goal

Enjoy!

Sickness, Pain, & Cartoon Dharma

2009-07-11T22:51:00.002-05:00

It was a Saturday morning like any other, though uncommonly cool for July, and I rode down to the farmer’s market. I stopped on the way for coffee and a cinnamon roll. Sitting on the terrace, I watched the families arriving and walking down into the bricked streets of the Haymarket. I read a book chronicling the lives of real American cowgirls, research for something I myself was writing. I noticed the ache in my back while reading about a ‘locoed’ heifer, then I noticed that, in fact, everything between my sternum and pelvis ached and cramped.

I pushed aside the delightful cinnamon roll with regret and fished through my bag, but all I had with me besides the book was a deck of playing cards, a few pencils, and some loose change. By this time, I had begun to sweat and felt the first creeping twists of nausea. My small bottle of assorted pills must be elsewhere. I sat quietly and attempted to judge my state, which only seemed to be growing worse by the moment. I mentally cursed the tide of sickness, more for its inexplicable arrival than anything else.

With reluctance I left my not even half finished roll and coffee and carefully slung myself back onto my bicycle. But where to go? Home was much too far. I angled instead for the rising brick block of Architecture Hall, just visible from the terrace. I had to ride a block down to pass beneath the viaduct ending the interstate in the heart of Downtown, then back up.

I put my bicycle in first gear, peddled slowly and steadily and tried to breath as my body began to shake, while cold sweat pooled on my skin, and the nausea crept up my throat like a living thing trying to escaped. I passed the small office in the Stadium Parking Garage which serves as a staging point for the University Police. I thought if I needed to pull over and puke, that would be an ironically appropriate place to do it, though it seemed unoccupied and as deserted as the rest of the campus. Of course, in my condition I felt more likely to fall over than pull over, but I pushed myself on.

I made it to the bicycle rack at Arch Hall and did manage to dismount of my own design, but knelt there in the mulch, bowed over face down. The wood chips dug into the tops of my feet folded beneath me and I lowered my head, letting my cap fall away, as I pressed my forehead into the bar of the bicycle rack. The cool metal felt good. When I felt reasonably sure I wouldn’t puke, though not certain by any means, I rose and wove my way unsteadily towards the doors. Fishing in my back pocket for my wallet, I passed it before the black box, which opened the doors with an obedient beep and pop.

Stairs, I wondered to myself, why does this building has so many damned stairs? In the bathroom, I dropped my bag, still empty grocery sack, hat, jacket, and helmet, scattered on the tile. Oh, it hurt, my head, back, stomach. I shook and fevered and sweated and chilled. I tried to move my mind elsewhere, searching for a mantra, though I had never been much of one for such practices. I wracked my mind to remember one, just one, but it skipped like a record or a stone thrown across dark water. Finally I settled on Om Mani Padme Hum, the simplest of phrases. It seemed like it had taken hours to puzzle it out, though it had been but minutes. I don’t believe there are power in such mantras, but I believe there can be vast relief from suffering when physical pain is not dwelled upon too deeply. I could curse my pain and wallow in it, or accept it and concentrate on something else.

After a short time I emerged, my belongs gripped unsteadily in one hand. Stairs, I thought, why so many stairs? I climbed to the second level and lowered myself onto the only slightly tilted surface of the Barcelona chairs on the second floor balcony. The building is dotted with famous chairs designed by famous architects. They are, each and every one, uncomfortable, but it felt wonderful just to be horizontal and still. I drew my light jacket around my now cold body and rested my head on the bag with my book.

I closed my eyes and listened to the building breathe. I tried not to linger on the sick feelings that still plagued me and instead contemplated the building, something I had done many times before and will likely do many times hence. One can judge the health of a building by the way it breathes. That is, how well the air systems work, how well they were designed and have been maintained. When once listens, it is easy to pick out the sounds of the building from the sounds of people.

Walking in, upon cursory inspection, one might believe the building empty, but upon listening, I found it was not. One can single out the sounds of air and water moving throughout the systems, wind as it pushes against the walls, the creak of materials expanding and contracting due to humidity, and the groan as the building settles into its foundations. Architecture Hall, being an old building is more silent than most, having settled into its stately bearing long ago. I could just make out the very fainted sounds of an occasional footstep and music from somewhere within the old College of Law, which Architecture took over and joined with the old hall almost thirty years ago now. The two old buildings sit side by side, and I rested between on the second floor balcony of The Link, an open atrium which captures and reflects the sounds of both.

I lay with the unnatural stillness of the ill or the dead, my limbs very loose and heavy. After a time, I pushed at the bag beneath my head, rearranging the deck of cards I had finally felt digging into my jaw, but otherwise I was motionless. I entertained myself with these thoughts while the sickness ebbed leaving me feeling only drained but for a splitting headache. Though the sound of the metal door opening in the link was loud, I did not startle and it took some time to rearrange my thoughts enough to connect the sounds I heard with the presence of someone either entering or leaving.

I finally pushed myself up and called out, then gathered more strength and called again. Bret stopped on the stair behind me and took his ear buds out.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, an amused frown on his narrow face. It was not unknown for students to sleep in the chairs or even spend the entire night passed out in some part of the building after having one too many at some Downtown bar. But I had never been one of those.

“Being sick,” I admitted, as I fished for the strap of the bag and tried to decide if standing was really such a good idea.

“Have you been here since last night?”

“No, I was going to the farmer’s market and I just felt sick, but home was too far.” Apparently standing was acceptable. Though I still felt shaky and tired, and the headache continued to pound, I was not longer feverish or nauseous.

Bret chuckled in sympathy. “Doesn’t look like you got your shopping done,” he said, noting my still empty sack.

“No. Did you drive here?” He nodded. “Can you take me home?”

“Sure.” Bret is such an asshole, but he’s a good asshole and there when you need him without complaint. I was passing fond of him and more so in that moment. He reminds me of my father’s side of the family, especially the uncles. “Can you make it to the parking garage?” He asked as we walked slowly out of Arch Hall.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna throw up any more. I’m just tired and my head hurts. For a while there, I wasn’t sure I’d make it here, I was so dizzy and sick.”

“Did you have too much fun last night?” he asked.

“No. I wish I had. Then at least I would feel like I’d earned it.”

“Well, builds character, they say,” he commented, clearly a fellow fan of Calvin and Hobbes.

“Yeah, suffering allows you to feel compassion for others who suffer,” I agreed.

“Or feel superior to them,” Bret commented, just to be contrary, but I suppose in a sad way he’s right.

We do get caught up in the stories of our own suffering, don’t we? We like to scoff at others and think that we’ve had it worse so they shouldn’t complain, which always struck me as entirely unreasonable despite that fact that I know I’ve done it myself from time to time. Those of us who live in Architecture Hall (not just visit it like students of other colleges visit their halls but live in their dorms) tend to do it more than most, making us, by and large, an insufferable lot.

We paused to lock up my bike, which I hadn’t bothered with earlier.

“Wonder what people thought seeing you weave around on that bike,” he commented.

“Well, no one was here, but I suppose I probably was weaving,” I agreed, trudging slowly along. He shortened his brisk, long stride for me without commenting on my snail’s pace. Bret must be at least half a foot taller than I and thinner than even my scarecrow-like brother if that’s possible.

We chatted idly on that slow walk, which I felt was for the best and he didn’t seem to mind. I told him where I lived as we pulled out of the garage. I examined the scene out the window as we passed the hulking gray mass of Memorial Stadium and then around the recreation fields and parking garages on the north edge of campus. Cook Pavilion, one of the two indoor practice fields build for the football team, had the doors rolled open and I could see a geometric formation of people within.

“Oh, cheerleaders,” I commented, keeping up the meaningless flow of words.

“Cheerleaders? Okay, that’s it, you’ll have to find your own way from here,” Bret told me. “I’m going in.”

“You’re gonna have a hard time explaining to the cops why you drove your car into Cook Pavilion.”

“Yeah, let alone how I got convinced two cheerleaders to get in the trunk.”

“The trunk?”

“Well, cheerleaders aren’t exactly good for talking to, are they? They’re good for other things.”

I smiled. It was sexist and crude and entirely stereotypical, but I smiled anyway. “Sorry to ruin your Saturday,” I said instead.

“Yeah, well, I was just going in to do some work for Gordon, but now I can go home and have the breakfast I missed by rolling out of bed at the crack of ten.”

“Is it that late? Is your clock wrong or are you lying to me?” I asked, staring at the clock on his dash which now read four minutes to ten, which meant it was four minutes to eleven by his reckoning.

He chuckled again, “Lost a little time, did we?”

“I guess,” I murmured. I don't know how long I had listened to the building breathe, amusing myself with the fanciful notion that buildings breathe at all.

Bret dropped me at home with a rueful smile and I thanked him again and wished him a good breakfast before forcing myself up the two flights of stairs. I don’t really remember unlocking the doors. I do remember glancing at the clock, which read exactly eleven, as I took of my pants and fell back into bed. My head pounded as the blood flow changed in response to the horizontal position. I pushed myself up again with a groan and went to the bathroom to find some naproxen. My cat regarded me curiously and entirely unsympathetically as I lay in bed once more. I was sweating again, the fever having roused itself a bit after my exertions, and I could feel my heart beating entirely too fast. After a time, I dozed off.

What a strange day, I thought, good and bad, suffering and pain, ego and compassion, breathing buildings and cartoon dharma – yes, a strange day.

The Boiling Soup Method - Or How I Design Architecture

2009-07-09T16:15:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I sat in the cold, cramped department conference room during architecture theory class and half listened to my professor while skimming one of the assigned readings I had failed to read before class. In the middle of that, when my attention is suspended over the chasm of boredom between the two continents of attentive listening and attentive reading, when the pot boils. I have a lot of pots and I leave them simmering on the back burners of my mind. I occasionally toss in new spices, extra vegetables, stir the contents, sniff the steam, but ultimately but them back on low heat. I’ve found that turning up the flame usually doesn’t help the contents cook any faster.

This particular pot is labeled Windhorse/Architecture. I have been intentionally neglecting it for some time. The architectural phase of my thesis for Windhorse Retreat Center in Wisconsin won’t officially begin until Fall semester and I don’t want to get wedded to one idea too early. But the pot boils when it boils, when all the necessary ingredients have been added, whether I’ve been paying attention or not. Each ingredient is a thought, idea, knowledge, data, picture, experience, sight, sought, or phrase someone spoke when I was only half paying attention. They mingle together in unknown and subconscious ways until, POP, just like that, they boil.

A design blossoms fully formed in my mind, geometric shapes and arrangements and relationships, tectonic manifestations in solid materials and spaces, traffic flow and compass directions, movement of light and wind, and changing of seasons. I see it all in three dimensions and the train goes barreling away willy-nilly, unfurling a banner of potential solutions behind it. And even though I’m envisioning formally (as in ‘forms, shapes,’ not ‘proper, strict’), in terms of cubes and cylinders and serpentine shapes that defy geometric description, each one responds to a specific series of non-formal criteria. “Oh, this set of forms would describe the entry experience!” or “This relationship between spaces would be ideal for service deliveries,” or “This shape would allow light from above and create a stack effect to help passively regulate ventilation,” and “This is how it would sit on and integrate with the site.”

While I’m sketching it out, mentally, I can’t possibly explain all of the ways in which this design satisfies all of the (sometimes contradictory) requirements of the design program, which went into the pot as the basic broth months ago. But it’s all in there; it hasn’t boiled off. I get the shapes, then I get the relationships, then I get the tectonics, then the aesthetics, then the temporality, then the process, the theories, the metaphors, the poetry, but I also get them all at the same time. It’s not a condition where I get the shapes, then have to revise them when the relationships don’t work, then have to revise the shapes and relationships when the tectonics don’t work, so on and so forth. Everything comes as part of a cohesive whole.

This is how the Shambhala Dining Hall came into being. It boiled during mid-morning meditation of the Shambhala Level III training program. I waited a long time after that before I wrote anything down, put anything on paper, because I wasn’t sure the design would hold up. I didn’t trust my experience because I hadn’t had it before. I thought something else might occur to me. After I wrote it down and showed it to my professors and classmates, I held my breath and waited for it to be ripped into tiny, little, itty, bitty pieces. Because that had been my only experience up until that point. But in the end, there were only a few minor critiques and changes. The design proved to be robust, fundamentally workable. At final review, it essentially represented those first few sketches. Even the most critical of professors were hardly able to deny it did exactly what I said it should do, or that what I said it should do was fundamentally correct. They looked and said “Okay, that’s works. I get it,” and they left scratching their heads because that was an experience they had seldom had before.

What I find is not unknown to me. Like any good soup, we can identify the individual tastes, spices, and ingredients that create it. I saw that bit in the latest magazine, found this idea in a book, pulled that from the mandala principle, saw that on the building site, heard about that in a dharma talk, discussed this with my friend, dreamed that the other night, have always admired this in another’s work, etc. It just amazes me how the mind functions without our being conscious of how it is working at all.

I have no idea how this pot will turn out. I may have to throw it out and start a new batch. That’s always a possibility. This one could still be ripped into tiny, little, itty, bitty pieces. Only time can determine if it is fundamentally workable or not. Either way, there is no reason to get attached, although I know I’ll struggle with it anyway. If it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Until then, I’d best keep it a secret. No point in giving them a target too early. Professors tend to get annoyed when you can’t show your design process. They tend to want dozens upon dozens of sketches and models and a hundred completely different solutions, just to show that you’ve actively and attentively studied everything. For myself, if I look at something and find it doesn’t work, I don’t feel the need to waste a scrap of paper on it. Most people don’t live their lives so fully inside their own minds. That’s probably a good thing, but problematic when attempting to lend legitimacy to one’s efforts when no physical evidence of such exists.

Professors don’t tend to appreciate the boiling soup method of design.

Wanting to Not Want

2009-07-08T10:40:00.003-05:00

I enjoy my podcasts. I download and watch or listen to a couple every day. A new favorite is Zencast out of the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. So far, all the talks have been given by Gil Fronsdal, whom I enjoy. Yesterday I listened to a talk about the three paths of practice: development, letting go, and no path. It was very interesting and helpful. One thing Gil said struck me in particular, that (paraphrasing) nirvana, the absence of suffering, is the world as it is right now when we cease to want it to be otherwise.

This strikes me as very profound and yet somehow very naïve or perhaps even selfish. Indeed, I can wrap my mind around the idea, that if I can simply let go of all the habitual wants and desires that drive me, I can find peace in this very moment, this very place. But what about everyone else? What about those trapped in the midst of war, famine, and disease? The stories that Buddhist monks and nun have brought over the mountains from Tibet provide examples of how, even under the most horrific of circumstances, a measure of peace can still be found. They show us how one can have compassion even for one's torturers. This provides a glimmer of hope that even those caught within wars and turmoil can cease suffering. But how am I supposed to help them?

I must want to help them, right? So how can I extinguish my own wants and desires, thus ending my own suffering? This is the bodhisattva paradox. A friend once tried to explain that the world is perfect just as it is. I told him “Don’t you go trying to broaden my mind. You’ll ruin my career prospects.” What use is there for architects in a world that is already perfect? What drives action when desire is extinguished? The Buddha sat in meditation to achieve enlightenment, but after that he got up and did other stuff. He taught and travelled and ate and slept and probably sat some more. Did the Buddha want? I think he probably did.

Gil Fronsdal added that it is not necessarily wanting that is the problem, but our attachment to it. This I have learned as a perpetual planner. I always have a plan – what I am going to do today, tomorrow, next week, next year. I plan where I’ll go to school, what jobs I’ll apply for, what columns I will write, what countries I’ll visit. I plan how I’m going to rearrange my living room, build my new house, my parents’ house, a new college of architecture, a new retreat center, a new city, or three. What I have learned from a lifetime of compulsive planning is that it’s only a problem when I actually care about the outcome. When I plan to do my laundry today and instead find myself cleaning up after my cat who took it into her head to knock all the plants over trying to get at a bird just outside the window, I have a choice. I can clean up the mess and bitch at my cat and whine about not getting to do my laundry, or I can just clean up the mess. And usually laugh at my cat because she’s such a funny little creature.

But that’s a simple thing. What about the big things? What about wanting all beings to be free from suffering? How do I let go of my attachment to that outcome? Somewhere in the world there is a woman being beaten and raped right now, probably several, and some of them are probably much closer to where I am sitting than I’d like to think. I want that to not happen, to never happen. How do I let go of attachment to that outcome? I can work with advocacy groups to end violence against women, volunteer in shelters, even teach the dharma, teach love, peace, and compassion to both the current and potential perpetrators and victims of such crimes. Yes, I suppose I can do that. But it seems like letting go of my attachment to the desire that such things never happen in somehow a betrayal. Perhaps it is or is not, but that is what it feels like.

I think sometimes it is this paradox which freezes us into inaction. I’m not just talking about Buddhists or in regards to the dharma. I think the “But what can I do?” syndrome is a great source of apathy within our society. We want so much, for good or ill, that we become petrified by indecision. We look at this complex world and we are frightened. What can I do about health care? What can I do about climate change? What can I do about violence? These are such huge, complex, systematized problems that we can’t even wrap our minds around them, so we sit on our couches in front of our televisions and do nothing. Or in front of our computers listening to our podcasts.

A friend recently asked if I’d ever thought about the Peace Corps. I have only briefly considered it, but always turned away from the idea because I’m too much of a control freak, too much of a planner. I’d want to know where they were sending me, to have a say. And also because I’m scared. I’m afraid of being in a third world country. I’m afraid of being confronted with any amount of real suffering. What if I can’t hack it? What if I just spend every day crying my eyes out? That’s not very useful. But I’m coming around to the idea that I shouldn’t let my fear dictate such things. Do I want to help more than I want to feel comfortable and safe? Which am I attached to more? If I’m going to talk the talk, I should walk the walk, eh?

You see, architecture is a safe profession, a safe way to save the world. Yes, building energy use and climate change are important and yes, design does have an enormous impact on daily life, it can promote peace or anxiety equally. But people don’t die if I decide not to show up for work that day. And when I do show up for work, no one is starving or dying of disease or horrible violent wounds right in front of my eyes. I’m not saying that is what all that the Peace Corps or similar organizations are, but fears are seldom rational things.

And I’m thinking, I am less and less attached to this idea that I need to be in charge, that I need to plan every aspect of my life, including just exactly how I’m going to help other people. The Peace Corps is starting to sound like a much better idea. A new plan is forming in my head (it’s inevitable, really). I will apply for the Fulbright and, if I am accepted, spend a year in Japan. I should know sometime next spring or early summer. When I find out, either way, I can apply for the Peace Corps, which takes nine to twelve months to arrange I hear. You tell them when you’re available to ship out. I can either work here in the states during that time, or I’ll be in Japan carrying out my Fulbright project. The Peace Corps is twenty-seven months overseas, they defer student loans, and provide some resettlement money when you get back. And when I get back, I think that would be a long enough break from school that I would be ready to start the Buddhist chaplaincy program at U of the West in California.

Or not.

LOL Monks

2009-07-07T13:24:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of my new friend Sean over at Somethingbuddhisty's Blog.

Odd Jobs

2009-07-07T10:25:00.003-05:00

Architecture jobs are rather thin on the ground lately. They were thin last year. This year, four of our graduating class (what would have been "my" graduating class had I not added the second degree) found work. Some decided to continue there education, others are stuck in the same dead-end jobs they worked during college, while others are unemployed. Architecture, being tied to construction, is very susceptible to economic highs and lows. Building booms and busts are well know. I was very lucky to get that internship with Rocky Mountain Institute last summer. I can cross my fingers and hope they have something up my alley when the time comes to go searching again. I can also start looking at alternatives.

I am very, very, very interested in the Master of Divinity in Buddhist Chaplaincy at University of the West in California. However, I think I want to get back to work for a while. I've been in college far too long. And a PhD in Architecture, while interesting, sounds too masochistic even for me. Besides, I already have enough student loans to bankrupt three people. I don't even look at the total on the bottom of the statements anymore. I just file them away.

Option Number One remains, of course, the Fulbright Scholarship to Japan which I am submitting for in the fall. But those chances are getting slimmer, just by the numbers. Two years ago, they accepted half of their applicants. Last year, they only accepted a third. I spoke with the adviser about the difference between a research based proposal and a creative proposal. There was some promise there, but I can't count on anyone else seeing it the way I do. The Fulbright would be one of the very few things for which I would jump up and down and squeal upon getting. And I imagine that afterward the economy will have recovered some and I will have a most awesome resume.

However, that still leaves so many possibilities, but also so few. It would be interesting to write for an architecture magazine. But what are the qualifications they would look for and where would I need to live? (Architect is everywhere, after all.) Likewise it would be interesting to work for a newspaper as an architectural journalist, but again, qualifications, and last I checked only a very few large cities bother with such. Plus newspapers are worse off than architecture. I am interested in becoming a client advocate, a go between for a company and an architecture firm, but I think I need some experience working in a firm before that. The idea of teaching architecture history and theory at the high school level is intriguing, except for the fact that I don't like teenagers. (I didn't like teenagers when I was a teenager.) I would love to work for a Buddhist center somewhere as part of a capitol improvements project, but first I need to find one, and then I need to find one that will pay me enough to cover the aforementioned student loans. *Sigh*

There are all of these possibilities, but they are all so tenuous I can't figure out which limb to climb out on.

DN Column - Dating

2009-07-06T11:35:00.002-05:00

Almost told my folks not to read this one, but even parents have to grow up sometime. I'm a little old to be sent to a nunnery.

Dating not key to happiness

Enjoy!

Architects Say the Darndest Things

2009-07-06T10:50:00.002-05:00

"Life never stops. The torment of men will be eternal, unless the function of creating and acting and changing, living intensely through each day, be considered an eternal joy."

-Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White, p. 50-51, 1947

"We're Screwed"

2009-07-02T11:07:00.006-05:00

I really shouldn’t talk to Bret. We see things so eye to eye, so we tend to reinforce each other’s delusions. Plus, we both have twisted and irreverent senses of humor so we tend to descend into harsh cultural criticism. No matter how we keep it mocking and light, we’re both aware that when we say “Yeah, we’re screwed,” we really do mean it. Cynicism wins out.

But it’s nice. It’s good to have that kind of positive reinforcement, to find someone out there who thinks the same things I do, things we wouldn’t even admit to most people. I recognize what I get out of these conversations though – an ego boost, a little high. We get on a roll and we can just keep going, mutually reinforcing each other.

Today we discussed architecture on campus and its dismal bastardized status. We decided we should start a company together which hires out as consultants to tell clients exactly what kind of bullshit their fancy architecture firm is trying to put over on them so as to prevent debacles like these in the future.

“You mean I just get to criticize people and I don’t actually have to do architecture?” Bret asked. “Well, hell, I can do that all day!”

We talked about politics and agreed there is no real, fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats. We shook our heads over the ridiculous obstructionism caused by partisan politics in states like California and New York which can’t get their budgets passed. Say what you will about Nebraska, and how conservative it is, at least our state government works. On a fundamental level, it works, and compared to other states it is small. I am always amazed when I visit other states just how much government they have.

We both admitted to a secret and completely age-ist wish to ban people over a certain age from voting because all they are doing is setting us up for a horrible future which they aren’t going to be around for. Our generation is going to have it the worst, because we can see the storm coming and we’re frantically screaming to change course, but all the people in the back of the boat aren’t listening. And we’ll remember just how good the “good old days” were. It isn’t the same for our grandparents, who grew up in the Depression, made it through the war, and raised their children in a time of ever-expanding affluence.

“We were poor,” Grandma Del told me, “but we didn’t know we were poor. We didn’t know the difference.”

That will be the next generation, the one born into a world in which the myth of social security has already failed, the climate has shifted, deserts have expanded, oil has run out, resource wars have become common places, and every major coastal city has an intricate (and expensive) system of dikes and levies. But us, we’ll know the difference, and we’ll know just how we got there.

The optimist in me still holds out hope that it won’t be all that bad; that surely we’re smart enough to figure it out before then, but the realist just shrugs and agrees “We’re screwed.”

Our parents, those millions of Baby Boomers, tell us we’re spoiled and ungrateful. They’re right. We are spoiled and if we aren’t appropriately grateful, maybe it’s because we know what cost it’s going to have down the road, economically, environmentally, and socially, and we know we’re going to have to pay it, not them. And it’s so easy for us to see (higher CO2 = higher temperatures) that we become frustrated and intolerant, which only exacerbates the problem. We need to find a new, more productive approach, a better way to speak to one another.

“These people,” Bret complained “they just think that growth is the answer. Rising population equals rising consumption and that we’ll always come up with new ways to produce more stuff. But they don’t understand that resources are limited and we’re gonna hit a wall. We’re all stuck on this same ball of mud floating in space and that’s all we’ve got: one ball of mud.”

So we shake out heads at the shitty hand life has dealt us and get our bitching and moaning out of the way so we can go back into the world and try, yet again, to do something worthwhile with our lives. And I feel like an overinflated balloon which has finally had a little bit of the air let out. At least someone out there can see some of the things I see (and hope I’m seeing wrong), but that just reinforces the “we’re screwed” belief.

Yeah, I really shouldn’t talk to Bret.

It's All Bullshit

2009-07-01T17:09:00.004-05:00

"Hey, Mohamed, why don't I ever hear you speak up in class? You're a PhD student. You should blow us all away," I asked today as we trudged up to the Attic (where they banish grad students to) after our architectural theory discussion let out.

"Well, I'm really busy with my dissertation, so I don't always do all the readings, so I don't know what to talk about," he told me in a soft accent as we passed Bruce's desk, the other PhD student who is older than most of the professor's here.

"Aw man, just BS it. Theory is just BS anyway," I told him.

Bruce laughed and chimed in with his deep voice, "With one sentence she just demolished the entire scholastic institution."

"Nah, I didn't demolish it. I just see the truth of it."

Don't get me wrong. I love theory, and philosophy, debate, history, research, and thought. I'm just not in love with theory. (And people have a long history of loving things which aren't necessarily good for them.) I see it for what it is - which is bullshit. It's all just words. I heard a quote once: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Well, talking about architecture is pretty much like dancing about architecture, and maybe less illuminating than that because at least dance has certain visual and spacial qualities to it, just as architecture does.

Bullshit isn't limited to architecture theory though. It permeates everything. Hell, ninety-nine percent of what we call "the dharma" is bullshit - not because it's bad for us or wrong somehow, but just because of the nature of it. The word "chair" is not a chair. The word "enlightenment" is not enlightenment and the word "buddha" is not a buddha and won't get you enlightened no matter how many times you say it. Sure, we need the words, but we can't go around confusing the words of wisdom for wisdom itself. We can't conflate the description of an experience or state of existence for that thing.

What I study in my architecture class isn't architecture. If I wanted to study architecture, I couldn't do it in class. I can read about it, research it, discuss it, theorized about it, criticize it, but if I actually want to study architecture, to experience it, I have to get out and visit it. I don't like to criticize buildings I've never been too, or praise them either. I do, of course. It's usually required at some point, but I don't take anything I say seriously, however worthwhile it may or may not prove to be. It's all bullshit, because until I've actually visited that building, explored every nook, cranny, and closet, watched people use it, seen how the light changes throughout the day and the building systems respond to the difference seasons, only then will I really know that building. And even then, anything I say about it is merely a shallow interpretation of that knowledge into the medium of language of something that is made of infinitely more than black chicken scratched on paper.

So, yeah, the dharma is bullshit. It's a bunch of monkeys swinging in the jungle debating the merits of the Sistine Chapel versus Chartres Cathedral. Maybe one day, they'll swing on over to Italy or France and check it out for themselves, but most of them seem pretty content to hang in the jungle (or the ivory tower). I know I like it here.

Of course, if living in the land of bullshit bothered me, I would have flunked out a long time ago.

Fatherhood

2009-06-28T19:26:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I fall a little bit in love with parenthood. It's not mothers or babies or families that give me that "awh" feeling deep inside the recesses of my heart that I'm barely brave enough to admit exist - it's fathers. It's the father in the park with the little boy, or one like this man writing about his little girl in the New York Times. It's my father, who I know beyond a shadow of any doubt would make a wonderful grandpa.

I'm ambivalent about motherhood. It is one of those cultural expectations which has never found it's way onto my lifetime To Do List, but remains firmly on the That Would Be Nice Under the Right Circumstances List. I have never, ever doubted that if and when I have children I will love them with all the ooey-gooey, passionate, sentimentality of any parent. Yet, I have always admitted that the possibility of children would rest strongly on whether or not my partner wanted one or two. In a way that seems odd, considering I have never been someone to change herself in life-altering ways for her significant other, and motherhood definitely constitutes a dramatic change. But when I see the fathers and children, I think to myself "I would like to give that to someone. I would like to share that with someone."

Snake and Snake Falls

2009-06-27T22:58:00.003-05:00

We went to visit my great-uncle Lavern and great-aunt Zelda this morning in there apartment at Cherry Hills Assisted Living. They sleep in their recliners, forgoing a bed entirely. Uncle Lavern has had several strokes and his speech is slurred, but his mind is still there.

"When we moved in here, she chucked the bed out on the curb," he complained to my Dad about his wife.

"You're lucky she didn't put you on the curb."

"She woulda done, but she's too little."

"Well, anybody here woulda helped her. You better be careful."

"You know what they call him here?" Zelda chimed in. "Ornery."

Lavern just laughed.

Sunset

2009-06-26T21:58:00.003-05:00

Sunset after the storm in Valentine, Nebraska.

Another Ode to Summer

2009-06-25T10:27:00.001-05:00

How many odes have been written to summer?

Too many, I’m certain.

The winter is the cranky old man down the street

who just won’t die.

Spring is a flirt, tentative and unsure.

Then next we know, the pools are full

of pale-skinned, loose-limbed, screaming, little monsters.

The cicadas’ screeching drone fills the air

The fireflies wink in the twilight

Every evening show (reruns anyway) is broken

by the desperate, repetitive warnings of the weather man.

The nights are cracked with thunder.

How many days have we hidden in air conditioned rooms

and written metaphors about the wall of heat

and the woolen blanket of humidity?

Too many, I’m certain.

We memorialize baseball games and bad hotdogs,

family reunions and drunk uncles,

camping trips and whatever bit who this time.

As if all the long year we have waited,

impatiently tapping our foot for green, wild summer.

And now that it is here we fling ourselves upon it

determined play as hard as we work.

At least, until we notice how damned hot it is,

and hide indoors instead.

How many of us have forgotten what summer is?

Forgotten how live without chilled beer,

hot showers in cold rooms,

movies on cable and televised sports?

Too many, I’m certain.

Summer isn’t here for our amusement.

And it doesn’t care for odes or sonnets.

Summer is doing its job, ripening the earth,

Making the dogs lazy, the squirrels fat, and the bunnies multiply,

So old man winter can take pot shots at them

with his well-oiled twenty-two.

"Come the Plague or Democrats"

2009-06-24T17:54:00.003-05:00

This morning Garison Kielor read:

"Here our fathers stopped their westward push,

Not, God knows, for love of scenery or soil,

But because an ox gave out, an axle broke,

Or a child took with cholera or chills.

Now, their sons cross the fields like roofwalkers,

Chucking dirtclods at the crows, while in the shade

The women mutter of lost limbs and hopes.

Like a periodic curse, a drought this month

Has once more settled on the western plains,

Thickening the creeks, working into wayside barns,

And famishing the stock. On kitchen radios

One hears again the pulpit-pounding talk

And familiar promises of punishment,

That we have ourselves to blame for this,

Who lusted, craved and coveted—

But if sin lingers in these washed-up towns,

It could be only pride or stubbornness:

Each spring another crop of debt is sown,

And, though agencies attach the land,

Outbuildings, crops and unborn young, still

The beak-nosed men walk head-up and proud,

Convinced, against all evidence, that what

They've planted, built or reared is theirs,

And that, come the plague or Democrats,

They will die as they have lived, that is

In their good time, just when and how they choose."

By Norman Williams, from The Unlovely Child, 1985.

Emphasis mine.

Visit With An Old Friend

2009-06-23T17:35:00.002-05:00

I hadn’t seen Paul in two years, maybe three. I think I saw him a time or two after Marilyn’s funeral, but I’m not sure. I was reading my blog from February 2007. I found Marilyn’s death. I had written: “Paul asked me if you were ready. He was worried that you sometimes seemed ambivalent about it. I told him I thought you were ready to go, but that you just weren’t ready for your children to lose their mother. I don’t know that anyone ever is, but that in the end, you were ready. I think this reassured him, though even I can’t say for sure that I was right.”

It struck me as funny, reading it again and remembering that time, that anyone should have asked me such a question. I was twenty-six. It strikes me as odd that anyone would ask me that now. I think the older I become the more ignorant I realize I am.

Oh, I know that our relative ages didn’t have a thing to do with Paul's question. I had seen more of Marilyn in those recent weeks than Paul had, but looking back, I sometimes wonder how up front with me Marilyn was. Was she strong for me like she was for her children? I remember once, after she had been diagnosed but before she had gone to hospice, I told her not to cry. We were standing in her kitchen talking and I was getting ready to go. She started to cry and I hugged her and said “Don’t cry. Oh, don’t cry.” She sucked it up, because Marilyn was nothing if not a hard ass.

That request had been for my benefit. My dog had just passed. It had been a rough week. I didn’t want to cry anymore and I knew that if she started I would be off, too. It had nothing to do with whether or not she wanted, or needed, to cry. I was entirely selfish in that. I tried to explain later, to tell her it was okay to cry and that I would be there for her when she needed me. She got a little teary and sad from time to time, but I never did see her cry.

I dug Paul’s email out of my inbox archives and shot him a note. He comes down to Lincoln from time to time as part of a new clinic Children’s Hospital has set up. Paul is a pediatric pulmonologist attached to the University Medical Center and also sees patients of Children’s Hospital, both in Omaha. He met me downtown for a drink. I smiled as we exchanged hugs.

We talked about life, what I’m doing, what he’s doing, where his kids are now. He was driving a pretty new white Volkswagen SUV instead of his beautiful forest green Jaguar. “Broke my heart,” he told me, “but since we got the place in Colorado, I needed something that could haul stuff and handle better. A Jag doesn’t exactly handle well in the snow, especially a supercharged one.” His daughter is married and his son graduated from a university in California and has come back to go to graduate school in Omaha. He said he thought I’d run off with some guy and was living in Utah or Colorado now, which made me laugh.

We talked about death. He got a call and I took a moment to find the ladies’ room. When I returned he was still detailing the pros and cons of treatment options. When he finished, I just looked at him and said “I’m glad you do your job and I don’t.” I would like to be stronger and more compassionate than I am. I would like to actually be able to save people’s lives. And I don’t know how much of that is just “not me” and how much is me simply telling myself it’s “not me” out of fear.

“She’s gonna die,” he said. “Eleven years old and she’s gonna die.” He looked so sad.

We continued to talk, covering religion, or lack thereof, and pets and motorcycles and travel and why they put out these horrible little snack mixes in bars and why in hell do we keep eating them. It was nice to see him again. I hope he’ll look me up again next time he’s in town. And next time, I won’t let him coax me into that second drink. A second is all well and good when you’re drinking beer (Paul claims he’s a “featherweight,” but he’s also British, so I think that’s an oxymoron), but I was drinking martinis. Two in two hours (instead of my normal four or six hours) left me quite sloshed, which is not a sensation I enjoy. However, he had his lovely new SUV with the seats already down, so he gave me, and my bicycle, a lift home before heading back to Omaha.

Earlier, we had spoken about Marilyn and her death and who has spoken with whom from the old fencing club lately, which is where we had all met. “That always was a ragtag assortment, wasn’t it? It always revolved around Ian and once he was gone, well it fell apart,” he observed, taking a drink of his beer.

“As maybe it should have. I miss it though.”

“Me too.”

DN Column - Poverty

2009-06-22T09:56:00.001-05:00

Crap! They've started putting out mugshots online. I hate my mug and it's bad enough when it's itty bitty in the paper, but now it's big and in color, not to mention several months out of day. Now I'll have to do something about it. O, Vanity, you sneaky devil!

‘New Poor’ need to buck up and face facts

Enjoy!

Box in the Closet

2009-06-19T16:49:00.005-05:00

I cleaned my closet today and found a box of old files. In these old files were three folders, one full of cards, pictures, photos, and drawings, and the other two full of old writing. I suppose ten to fifteen years isn’t that old, but I’m talking about high school here, which seems to be an entirely different life. I found photos of my dogs, Jordon my scruffy old man, and Bejamin that neurotic little spaz, and my Mom’s cat Spook. They were all taken in the house in Gretna from the time when my parent’s still lived there. I also found a few photos of myself fencing at the first Cornhusker State Games I attended. Then there was a stack of the little billfold portraits it was the thing to hand out to all your friends in high school just before graduation, with little personalized notes on the back. I didn’t have a lot of actual friends in high school, but by graduation day I at least had equal parts fear and respect from the student body.

“Well, I can never say class is boring with you in my class! You managed to spice up any class! It’s been fun getting to know you! Good luck with everything! –Nancy.”

“Don’t listen to what people say, you are unique and yourself and that’s all that matters. Never change. – Shawna”

“Well, we made it! We’re finally SENIORS!! It’s been great getting to know you. I admire your individuality. Never lose that quality. I wish you luck in all you do. You are a very smart girl, and I know you’re destined for greatness! Take care and keep smiling!! Your Friend, Melissa.”

“Hey smartie! I’m glad I can joke with you and you won’t take it seriously. You’re a pretty cool person. I really like your unique personality, hold on to it. I know you’ll do find in life. Just don’t forget me. –Stacie”

“It’s been great getting to know you! It is good to have someone who isn’t afraid to say what they think. I respect that! You will go far in life! I wish you the best of luck! –Ann”

“Way to go in Ac-Dec [Academic Decathlon] Sis! You are very smart and very unique! Be proud! More people should be as independent as you! Take care! Love, Katie.”

I sat and sorted through the writing. I think some of it must have been things my mother kept. Much had notes from my teachers on it. There were several cases of “Interesting!” and “Bizarre!” There were journal entries about things that were going on my life, dreams I had had, the beginnings of several novels, an eleventh grade paper about the planet Venus, criticism of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, lots of bad poetry, and a whole bunch of scenes, little excerpts of imagined things that were probably part of some kind of assigned writing exercise. I took creative writing twice, there being no other good classes in my high school. I had no idea I had saved this much.

of all the dreams I’ve dreamed thus far

they’ve been filled with visions of the stars

i dream thru alien skies to glide

yet only in my mind confide

that never will i do these things

I’ll never visit saturn’s rings

Yet i will continue to dream of space

where dreams exist of untold grace

--Stargazer’s Dream, date unknown

She wouldn’t let go, she wouldn’t. Her fingers ached from her perilous hold on the rock face. She could feel the skin being scrapped off as she slid just a little farther. Sweat dripped off her forehead and into her eyes. Janet fought panic, she couldn’t afford to panic now, not now, she told herself. She screamed again in desperation, even though she knew there was no one to hear her. She was going to die. She knew she was. Tears trickled down her cheeks, carving trails in the dirt on her cheeks. She didn’t want to die yet. Her feet scrabbled vainly beneath her, trying yet again to find some sort of toe hold. She felt herself slip a little farther and she screamed. The rock face slipped out from her fingers and she was left grasping air.

A gloved hand show out from the edge of the cliff to catch her fingers just as they let go. The scream lodged itself in her throat. Thomas looked down over the cliff at her, his mouth set in a grim like as he gripped her bleeding fingers with all his might. Janet swung her other hand up to latch onto his wrist. Thomas began slowly pulling her up over the cliff. Small rocks rained down on her. One struck her in the eye and she screamed again as she lost her grip on his hand, but Thomas didn’t let go. Slowly he moved back for the cliff edge, pulling her with him. When she could, Janet levered her leg up over the cliff edge and pushed herself up, right into Thomas’ arms. He caught her and she clung to him as she sobbed her relief.

--Creative Writing Activity #98, April 29, 1998

Sarcasm is a bandage

Once stung you rap yourself up in it

It cover the wound but doesn’t heal it

That must be done from within

It protects you from the outside world

For those unfortunate one the stings are sharp and close together

With no time for healing before another wound is rent

Until at last all one sees is the bandage

Hideous and ugly

Like a long dead Egyptian king

Like that dead king that person was too once alive to the outside world

Now she is separated by the bandage

Until the bandage become one with the flesh

Too painful to remove

A new one is applied at the tiniest prick

Or none at all

Until at last the person suffocates

To die by suffocation for those few who walk too far down that trail

Is Mercy incarnate

--Sarcasm, Journal, April 11, 1996

Black roses and white dresses

at my funeral shall be

No one weeping, no one wailing

no crying when they bury me

I want a marble headstone

With a message for all to see

A curious strange inscription

that tells all a bit of me

I wish for no one to grieve

for my spirit is now free

No dark and somber faces

at my funeral shall be

--At My Funeral Shall Be, date unknown [Note: these are not my current wishes, so if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, do me a favor and forgo the burial and tombstone and just scatter me somewhere pretty.]

misery is a blade of ice

stabbed through the heart of a man

when a friend dies, when a love flies

when a man finds himself alone

misery is pain in the core

when a woman is left alone

by those thought near, friends held dear

who stabbed her in the back

misery is befuddling fear

to a child huddled in the dark

who calls and cries, fearing night’s eyes

to parents who do not come

misery is all of these things

to a soul solitary

searching for the joy love brings

and always coming up empty

--Misery Is, date unknown

And perhaps, funniest of all, what appears to be a short journal I wrote shortly after loosing my virginity. I do not remember writing this at all and it took me a moment to even figure out what it was.

6.6.2001 - Now that I'm getting it, I realize I'm not getting it nearly enough.

6.7.2001 - Kinda gives a "To Do" list a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

6.8.2001 - It's kind of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Only it's not you you're rubbing and you have to keep track of your hands as well as your mouth all at the same time with trying to gauge how much he likes it. Practice makes perfect. Good think I don't mind.

6.11.2001 - It's like watching a man who's won the lottery and is dying at the same time and can't seem to decide which feeling is greater.

6.12.2001 - Truly unique: a room, one man, two of his lovers, full knowledge of each's activities with the other, no one trying to scratch another's eyes out. Truly unique.

6.13.2001 - What's 26 years here or there?

Who was that person?

Contemporaneous

2009-06-16T16:25:00.002-05:00

I saw a pretty girl

in a red mini skirt

and thought to myself

"I wish I had the balls

to wear a skirt that way."

I don't know how

I feel about that,

except to think

that ain't it now

a damned funny world?

The Train

2009-06-15T22:49:00.002-05:00

“Good morning.”

“Well, it’s morning.”

“I’m trying to be optimistic.”

“Never was an optimist. Always figured the light at the end of the tunnel was the train.”

“Least knowing that’s enough to keep you out of the tunnel.” Or for most people it would have been.

Something drives me out into the storm. Always has. Probably always will. I never get tired of it. I never get tired of writing about it. Tonight was no different. An hour after the sun went down, the storm crept in. I could hear it coming. Not the thunder, but the wind, and not so much the wind, but the trees. They whisper. And when the first flash of light slipped through my curtains, I slipped through the door and out into the night.

I was going to stand on the balcony and watch, as I’ve done before, but the storm was coming in from the southwest. So I walked down the stairs and around the corner of the building, then down the alley to the walk, then west along the walk to the street, and across the street and on until I stood on the south steps of the capitol, facing the wide, open boulevard of Fifteenth. It was raining. I could feel it on my cheek and see it in the beams of the spotlights shining up onto the stone tower, but I waited. The storm had not yet come.

I waited through the first spray of fat drops onto the limestone, like the temporary wash of a sprinkler. I waited until the spray became a torrent, running down my glasses and washing my vision, turning the world to Monet's night time dream. I tucked my glasses into my hand and ran for home, praying I’d make it before it decided to hail. That would be painful. I made it to the front door, then dashed around to the back, but didn’t go in. Lightning flashed, the kind that is right on top of you, lighting up your bones, washing the world in white. It doesn’t make the night into day. It makes the world into nothing, so bright it cannot be seen and all that fills your mind is the light and then the thunder that crashes after in the darkness before vision returns.

Have you ever stood in the storm? For no good reason let the rain wash down your face and soak your clothes, making your jeans and denim jacket cling to your skin, and soaking your underwear, filling up your shoes. And you wish only to be barefoot because anything is better than squelching shoes. And you watch the rain under the streetlights coming down in sheets and feel the wind from the east, pushing at your back, while the storm roles in from the west, rising before you. And the wind picks up and you start to get cold and for a moment you think you hear the train behind you and you turn to see, but only find more rain.

And you smile and think “Good morning.”

Telling Stories

2009-06-15T18:30:00.008-05:00

What I Would Say If I Could Say Anything (on my Fulbright application)

Every building is a story. This story goes beyond dates and names and styles. That is the story every building has, but beyond that every building is itself a story, one that does not end when the final roof tile is laid or the occupants move in. We like to say “if walls could talk,” all the while forgetting that walls can talk, they do talk, if only to those who have been trained to listen. Archeologists know this. It is why they spend such time painstakingly excavating the ruins of ancient cities and rebuilding the crumbling walls from the merest fragments of sculpture and carved images. But architects have forgotten.

We do try to tell the stories of buildings. We fill our shelves with books of history and criticism. We buy monographs and portfolios. We compile case studies and typologies, anthologies and reviews. These books talk about the building and the builders, how they succeeded and failed, how they are alike and different. Yet so very rarely do we find the story itself, simply because a story cannot be told that way. Stories are experiential and narrative, but, most importantly, they are fascinating.

It is this fascination which makes stories endure. Long after the Tower of Babylon crumbled into ruin the stories remained. Historians still seek the lost Atlantis and the mythical Camelot. Excerpts of the science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin are included in anthologies of urban planning and the 1927 silent film Metropolis is studied in architecture history courses. Long after the history books are considered outdated, we are still studying these stories. Nor do I refer solely to architects and archeologists, the story is the main medium of communication in popular culture and has been ever since the advent of language itself. Every movie, novel, play, opera, ballet, mural, newspaper article, comic book, and song tells a story. It is even there in the answer to the simple question “What did you do today?”

I want to tell a story, or many stories, specific stories of specific buildings. I want to tell the stories of the Buddhist temples of Japan. Why? Because they are fascinating to me and I believe they will be fascinating to others. Yes, I want to know who built them, why and how, but I also want to know the story the building has to tell about those people and all the people who have dwelled in them since. I want to know the stories of sunlight, stone, wood, the sound rain makes on the roofs, daily chores in the kitchen, and the paths squirrels take through the gardens. And I want to tell these stories to Western audiences to whom they have yet to be told.

I want to tell these stories in written words and photographs. I have travelled throughout North America, from east coast to west and across the plains and mountains in between. Everywhere I go, I search for the story and write it down as best I can, and I take photographs. It is in these stories and photographs that I later find inspiration in my work as an architect. I find something in these sources that I can find nowhere else. It is that essential human experience that is missing from dry site analyses or detailed space descriptions, nor can it be found in technical drawings or three-dimensional models.

In three photographs and an essay about rain, I found the design for the Shambhala Mountain Center Dining Hall. I created a place for people gather and watch for the flow of water, the movement of the seasons, a their own relationships with each other and the natural world.

Photographs: Shambhala Mountain Center, Shambhala Lodge and Rigden Lodge, March 2007

“Rain shows me things unseen. It makes me long for good friends and steaming mugs. It makes me dream of days to come and of days long gone. That is why they say rainy days are sad days. As we long for that which is not while trying to go about with that which is. Life does not stop for the rain. Businesses and schools do not close so the people can gather in the coffee shops and living rooms and share with each other their dreams and memories or catch up with old friends. People still hurry when all the time they feel the urge to slow, to wait, to watch the rain.” October 17, 2007, http://nebuddhist.blogspot.com

In a single sentence, written months before the project began, I found the vision of my thesis design for Windhorse Retreat Center in Wisconsin. “This is not Vajra land. This is Samadhi land. It holds its secrets close. Passing through, you might mistake it, think you know it, and never look into the smiling face of this land.” (May 11, 2008, http://nebuddhist.blogspot.com) I saw on that site a kinship between it and the moment of one-pointed concentration in meditation, samadhi, described in Buddhist literature. I now work to embody that in this final year of architectural design for my thesis project.

I do not want to tell these stories for myself. Stories only work when they are shared with others. I shared the stories of Shambhala Mountain Center, both written and photographic, with my graduate design studio and they created thirteen other dining halls, each of which told their own stories, of trees and stone, transitions and processes, adaptation and use. It is my hope that the stories I find in the Buddhist temples of Japan will be of use by both architects and laymen as they conduct their work and go about their daily lives. I believe these temples have something to teach us.

I will visit the temples and spend time in each, watching, listening, writing, and taking photographs. I will seek out their stories and learn what wisdom they have to impart. I will share these with others by creating a book suitable for publication, an exhibition which I will seek to display in museums and galleries (such as The Gallery at Architecture Hall, the Sheldon Art Museum, and the Lenz Center for Asian Art all at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and elsewhere), and by continuously keeping a blog during my travels. The main purpose is the creation of this art, written and visual, but the larger goal is to inspire others in their designs and to share these experiences the best way I know how – by telling the story.