Beltane Sumi-e Moon
Sister Mary reports high levels of security in Singapore. She’s eating lunch at a mall near the St. Regis Hotel where at least one of the principles will stay.
I hope Trump succeeds. And, if he does, I’d vote for him for the Nobel Peace Prize. If I could. With a Korean daughter-in-law and a son in the Air Force who spent a year deployed in Korea this is personal. Not to mention Mary has spent most of her adult life in Southeast Asia, Mark much of his. Peace in Korea would make the world a safer place and improve the lives of many Koreans.
Joseph bought me a chunk of barbed wire taken from the Korea DMZ, the line that separates the two Koreas, established at the end of hostilities when the armistice took hold. We didn’t make it up there though I hope to on a return trip to Korea.
On the ground in South Korea a vital and energetic economy has created a vibrant country with feet both in the world of Samsung and the past. Riding on buses or trains through the country side, ancient tombs dot the hillsides. We visited this palace/fort in a city near Seoul. The procession of women in hanbuk at the international airport in Incheon, with the Bottega Veneta and a moving walkway in the foreground brings the two worlds together.
So did Joseph and SeoAh’s wedding. Like all instances of American foreign policy we’re not effecting exotic people in strange lands, but real people with daily lives that focus, like ours, on family, work, hopes, dreams. Every culture deserves a chance to live its way of coping with these matters without the threat of extinction.
In spite of my antipathy toward Trump, look at the embarrassment of the G7, this is not about him, but about the future of a people who have become important not only to my current life, but to the life that will follow after I’m dead.
One thing it took moving to the mountains to learn: I’m allergic to lodgepole pine pollen. I could have done without revealing this part of myself. It’s a couple of weeks of fine yellow grime on table tops, windows, cars, window sills, all for sex and we’re forced to participate. Well, my body fights back. Ah, choo!
In climate change news the 416 fire outside Durango has claimed part of the itinerary for the Tom, Mark, Paul and me trip. We were going to ride on the Durango/Silverton Narrow Gauge railroad. Nope. Closed through the time we’ll be there due to fire risk. We may hit Four Corners and Mesa Verde and the hot springs instead. The area is full of interesting bits.
Went to a talk at Beth Evergreen last night on linguistics. Elizabeth Moore, an administrative assistant on our staff, is a very smart woman. She majored in linguistics and offered a crash course. A lot I didn’t know. She gave a quick overview of a very complicated discipline, explaining its fundamental disciplines like phonology, pragmatics, syntactics, morphology and its more esoteric branches like neurolinguistics and cognitive linguistics, graphetics and philology.
So. Couldn’t get the mower started. Last year’s fuel still in there. Don’t know how I missed that, but I did. Gonna have to siphon it out, didn’t feel like it yesterday. I did run the snowblower out of fuel last week, so that won’t be a problem come winter. I also got all the chairs and the table moved, the swinging chair and the yellow lounger, too. An outside space for eating, hanging out. Not happy with it yet. Also picked up a lot of loose wood, not all of it, but a good chunk. By the time I got to the chainsaw I was tired. And I don’t do the chainsaw when I’m tired. Too damned risky.
In writing the short story Jail Break yesterday, I found myself tapping memories of my day at the Plaza del Toros in Mexico City. Hadn’t expected that, but it is a good example of how much travel can offer to writing. That trip was in 1994, I think. Still clear and present.
A big Beth Evergreen week. Tomorrow is an adult ed session on linguistics. On Wednesday afternoon Tara, Alan Rubin and I meet with Rabbi Jamie to discuss the curriculum for the 6th/7th grade religious school. Tara (director of religious ed) started her note to us with, “You brave men.” Oh, my. Turns out the curriculum focuses on bar/bat mitzvah preparation. I’m honored that they trust me. This rite of passage is important, though not universally observed. Wednesday night is the MVP, mussar vaad practice group, Thursday has mussar and qabbalah.
OK. Been down in the theological weeds for a couple of days here. One of the reasons I love Beth Evergreen. Regular chances to go deep, swim in the ocean of this fast, temporary experience. Life. Bits and pieces of a new way of looking at faith continue to float up from the sea vents of the soul, still nurturing life after all these billions of years.
Starting a hunt for a new vehicle. One of us might be gone, say on a red flag day like today, when a fire rushes through leaving the home front without a vehicle to carry the dogs and our small emergency file box. We’ve done well, very well, with only one vehicle, renting when needed, but we’re in a more vulnerable situation here. Buy one, keep the old one. Not cheap though. Probably a Toyota SUV. Something hybrid. Another Rav4 or a Highlander, maybe.
Some of the more complete scrolls may have been the equivalent of library reserve. They could also have been retired scrolls which, like Buddha statues in Southeast Asia, are never destroyed. This visit left me wanting to know more, to return to the show before it leaves during the week for a quieter and lengthier visit.