I realize that learning is infinite. I accept this fully. I generally even really appreciate this and advocate for embracing this as one of life’s greatest gifts.

But Holy Hell! Can a kid get a break once in a while? I am so tired of learning *%$*%)@!*^ lessons lately.

My brain is F-U-L-L.

I have no idea if the lessons have been here to learn all along and I have been too obtuse to notice, or if there is in fact, something major going on. But Oh. My. God. It is full on. I often watch my friend Adele’s amazing young son with awe as he is taking in all the world has to teach him. And he, my little B.F.F., has much to learn. He knows this and is okay with it most of the time. But there are those moments, like the moments I had today, when you can see the emotion welling up in him because it is all just too much to take in and comprehend and yes, freaking LEARN, sometimes. Of course, unlike me, he is five. He is supposed to be immersed in life lessons. Where is the justice here?

Sometimes I wish it could just be easy. For my L.B.F.F. and for me.

In the course of a few short hours today I had so much to take in. I think I managed. But it was exhausting. Flexibility, patience, chillaxing. Sometimes those are the only things you need.

And yoga, of course. Thank whoever I need to thank for that.

So yeah, in keeping with the Days of Gratitude leading up to Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the lessons, but still, man, I could use a break for just minute.

How about tomorrow?

I spend a great deal of time talking about my family. Among friends, old and new, in countries near and far: My family resonates resonance. In my classrooms they become models, examples, heroes, metaphors, motifs, sages, symbols; paragons of all the things that combine to make up the complex conglomerate of a family such as mine.

But they do not become these things through my words. They are these things through the way they live their lives.

I am thankful for my family.

And sometimes it is especially important to thank the ones who are the hardest to reach.

The word for today is ruminate:

–verb (used without object)
1. to chew the cud, as a ruminant
2. to meditate or muse; ponder

–verb (used with object)
3. to chew again or over and over
4. to meditate on; ponder

from rumen (gen. ruminis) “gullet”

Lately, I find that the visceral pleasure in cogitating on something rather than reacting has been extremely satisfying. For instance: I receive an email that I have been waiting for. I am glad to have this email. The information it contains is interesting, if not exactly what I was looking for, and ultimately puts to rest the wait for the email. I am inclined to reply. But I do not. Instead, I ruminate over the email and the implications of the email and the potential outcomes of replying, not replying. The email needs no reply, though this does not always stop me from doing so. Right now I feel perfectly satisfied to have the email in my inbox and return to it when I want to remind myself that it is there. No need to “just say hey” back.

Or consider this example: I am on a boat (yeah, really, on a boat.) I am listening to people converse and speculate over the details of something of which I am fairly sure I have more accurate information. Should I share/correct/engage? I don’t know what I should do, but I don’t do anything. I sit and ruminate. There is no reason for me to get involved, particularly because they are not really interested in accurate information, as it tends to be quite boring. I turn my iPod up.

I return to the email. I am glad it is there. Why it feels so satisfying I have no idea, but you know, whatever.

Without advocating for passivity or excessive contemplation or worse, the creation of non-reality, I think that the pleasure derived from bouncing a concept around in your head for the simple interest of it is quite cool. It is like savoring something delectable on your tongue rather than wolfing it down. Wolfing definitely has its place, but this is certainly pleasant.

A non-reactive reaction.

[photo from here.]

Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th. I use this word to introduce word roots when I am teaching vocabulary [for rather obvious reasons] but it always brings up very interesting conversations. Like: “How can someone be afraid of a day?” (Grade 7) “What does that kind of a fear look like?” (Grade 10) “What kind of loser is afraid of something like that?” (Grade 12, peer response: ‘People who don’t want to go to school/work on Friday.’)

Friday the 13th has an interesting history, tied of course directly to fear of specific things – women, witches, the inexplicable (wait, was I just being redundant?) and is equally interesting to investigate, though I do not mean in the Paranormal Activity way, just as a precautionary measure to see how absolutely dangerous fear can be, especially if you are female or a cat.

Today I am thankful for living in the relative absence of fear and the gift of good sleep. I have always been a good sleeper and some say this is a sign of a clear conscious. on the other hand, there is narcolepsy, so you can’t just assume. But either way, I am glad I have a bed to sleep in, time to sleep, and little I need to hide myself under the covers from, save for cats who want food at 5 a.m.

Today, I am very thankful
For the realization that
The grass
Is so rarely greener,
Elsewhere.

A person I know from a long time ago posted something on that notoriously annoying social networking site today that I really liked. It said:

Every day this month until Thanksgiving, think of one thing that you are thankful for…

Of course, there were some other requisite instructions I am going to ignore because that is how I am, but as an exercise, this is a good one. So, to start with, thank you Lance.

Today I am thankful for the return of my slightly distracted mojo courtesy of these two Tweets from the LA Times Books and the brilliant Lizz Winstead. [I mean if Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejan can write, come on...]

I went to see my yoga teacher’s master/teacher this weekend. I could not go to the practice that he held last night because of work, but I am glad I got to hear him talk and to see him. I am kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I really wanted to just see what he was like in relation to how I look at his student who is trying so hard everyday to teach me new things. I was a little nervous. But I went.

And it was totally cool.

I like the energy that people who are completely in possession of who they are can project. It is a unique thing to behold, and I know very few people who are really that way. I know plenty who think they are, but few who really are, and you can tell the difference immediately. I live in a place filled to the brim with individuals who claim to be uber-enlightened. You know, they have all the right music, incense, books – yeah, they bought the t-shirt. Funny enough, they tend to be some of the most judgmental and narrow minded people I have encountered. Like judgmental AND patronizing all at the same time. It is an UNjoy to behold. The guruji I saw on Sunday had it going on for real. He was totally different than the people I usually see professing their enlightenment. He was just really happy, and that is sort of what I hope enlightenment is really all about. And then he mentioned Osho, which is also cool because I have been digging Osho ever since I realized he could be all deep AND talk about the “F-word.”

Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.

Put that on your list of “Things that make you go, ‘Hmmmmmmm….’”

The thing is, I am seriously considering going to India. Yes, India. Yes, to do yoga. No I am not totally crazy. I don’t think. And since I began to consider this, traveling so far to study with someone, it seemed prudent to meet the “man behind the curtain” first. Frankly, the fact that this guy is my teacher’s guru would really have been enough, but still, I have always been the type of person who likes to get to know the people in whose hands I purposefully put myself. Okay, actually that is not entirely true, but in this case my curiosity and my interest led me to being mildly pragmatic.

And why would I consider something like this? Something that I know will be really hard, probably pretty uncomfortable, and not even mildly abundant in the types of things I typically choose to indulge in? I am not sure I have an answer to that question. Am I just wanting to be Elizabeth Gilbert version 2.0? Well, dividing a year into Italy, India and Bali doesn’t sound half bad, does it? But… Liz Gilbert I am not. I love Italy – and everything I encountered in it. I found Bali delightful – enough so that I am returning in two months. But India… now there is the enigma. I am not in search of some deeper meaning, or conversely some higher truth. [At this my amigo Fun Bobby expressed great relief, following his thinly veiled concern, when I casually mentioned I was considering checking out an ashram.] I’ve no divorce to get over, nor any sense of absence to examine.

No.

India comes at me for different reasons to numerous to expound or expiate here, though you can be sure one of them is a very bendy individual who calls Guledgudda home.

In some ways I imagine that if I am afforded the opportunity to do this it will end up being one of those things that you can consider in the future-past-tense, like “It will be a kick ass thing to have done.” In some ways I think it will be heartbreaking and in others inspiring. Will I take photos? Of course. Will I do ten hours of yoga a day? I hope. Will I write about it? I am not sure. I have a friend who, after every book we read, says: “I could’ve written that,” as an assessment of a book’s lack of significance. She said it of Gilbert’s book first. “I could’ve told that story, what is the big deal?” Well, maybe everything doesn’t need to be a big deal to everyone. And from the small deals sometimes the coolest things emerge.

There is a story there. It is about a boy who was chosen by his master to do important things and appreciates that there is always running water in Hong Kong. Can anybody write it? I don’t think just anyone could. But there may be someone who should.

I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me.

The phases of life are pretty interesting. We are really into one thing, then another then another. Could be maturation. Could be capriciousness or dilettantism. Lately I am less concerned with micromanaging these phases, but I get a little bothered when they impede my ability to do things I like. For instance, I have had the hardest time writing these past few days. My brain is full and my eyes are open. But – nothing seems to be happening. I mean, lots of things are happening, just absent of words.

I feel like I have lost my mojo.

I better take a look around, see which way the wind blows….

One of my students is sort of an expert on French literature these days. Zola, Balzac, Flaubert. The whole thing  is rather impressive. She has been analyzing one particular scene in Madame Bovary for a while now, looking at how Flaubert uses the hotel room where Emma and Leon meet as a way to basically call Emma out on her affectations and pretensions. And pretty much insinuate that she is a stupid cow it appears.  We have had some laughs over the excerpt: “arrow-headed [curtain] rods,” “big balls [gleaming on the fender],” “big, pink” conch shells… And spent a good deal of time trying to come up with lots of synonyms for tawdry, cheap, and a general lack of sophistication, the premise being that the room in which Emma finds herself ensconced in the glory of romantic love is really just a cheap imitation of her ideals, and really rather poorly thrown together. I made my student laugh when I said I felt sorry for Emma because she reminded me of someone who goes to Vegas and says (in my best Britney drawl), “Oh my gaww! Lookit! It’s jus’ so beautiful! Lookit all how niiiiice it is!”

The room is described at once  as plain, frivolous, tranquil, passionate, delightful, intimate, faded, splendid. My student said thrown together. I said hodgepodge. She raised her eyebrow. I said, “It’s like a full-on Monet.” She said, “What?”

Emma Bovary has colored her expectations by her own illusions/delusions/desires (we are still debating whether or not Emma is stupid or delusional, or really, sort of typical in her fantasies – the debate seems to fall along an interesting age divide – she seems perfectly plausible to me as I compare her to a lot of people I know, not so to my seventeen year old counterpart who sees her an inept idiot.) Emma’s  perspective, based primarily on her adoration of what Geoffrey Wall calls sub-literary trash, seems so pathetically transparent when you look at it in the abstract. But she does not look at things in the abstract (due to inability or choice, I do not know) and so she colors entire chapters of her life with sweeping strokes of grandeur.

Emma sees connections, suggestions, and relationships between things that the audience, and certainly Flaubert, see as completely unrelated at best and in direct opposition to Emma’s reality at worst.

So, is this a lack of discernment or an astute ability to synthesize? This question has got me all perplexed.

Do I suffer from an inability to discern when, through the course of an hour lesson, I can call up images of Las Vegas, French literature, Alicia Silverstone in Clueless, impressionist art, Britney Spears, and the singular significance of a specifically placed comma? Or am I a master of synthesis? I can only hope that I am not contributing to the production of ’sub-literary trash’ (though I LOVE the label) but still I see such a need for abstract analogies sometimes that it makes me wonder. It is the age old quandary of the sum versus the total of the parts. I suppose one’s goal makes all the difference. For now, I think I am sticking with the hodgepodge effect. Realistically, I am not sure I could stop at this point.

Tai: Do you think she’s pretty?
Cher: No, she’s a full-on Monet.
Tai: What’s a monet?
Cher: It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess. Let’s ask a guy. Christian, what do you think of Amber?
Christian: Hagsville.
Cher: See?

Just like that, fall fell in Hong Kong yesterday. I have always liked the fall (in the seasonal sense as well as the biblical); I find the transition very rejuvenating. It seems like this is backwards because it’s the spring that is supposed to be all about rebirth and emergence (and resurrection for that matter, I suppose.) But for me, the fall has always heralded good things (beyond my birthday, of course.) Summer is my favorite time of the year in more general, sweeping terms, but fall offers something a little more devilish… cheeky… interesting… unexpected.

As a symbol of the fall, I like the equinox because balance is cool, and my birthday lands squarely on that perfectly balanced day. I like that you could go either way – day or night, good or bad, warm or cold, inside or outside, baseball or baseball. I like going back to school. New clothes, new school supplies and a whole truck load of new hopes and goals and aspirations. I like looking forward to being cozy and being hopeful about the ideal holiday season of Hollywood-esque perfection, which always remains elusive, through accident or intention:

Oh, and I like wearing sweaters. And scarves. And hats. I like the long light in the mornings and the afternoons and the brisk wind. I don’t even mind that it took a while longer (six weeks actually) than the first day of autumn for all these things to make their way to 22°20′ N, 114°11′ E.

In fact, I like all those things a little more because I live somewhere that is absent the drama of changing seasons, and fall only really means that the humidity has dropped below 40% and that you haven’t yet realized that your flat is without the requisite insulation to hold in the tepid jet stream produced by a heater not inclined to generate much in the way of thermal energy. No one here watches or even complains about the World Series, and since there is no Thanksgiving, once the sacrilege that is Halloween (only tolerated for the foreigners) has passed it is Christmas. You can already hear the music.

So a day like today, that is authentically autumnal is really fantastic – for its uniqueness alone. It is like the rare chance encounter. For a moment everything seems totally electric, possible and light. The moment passes, but you will be left wondering what it meant, if you will find it again, and if it might have been something that mattered most.

You never know.