the inner ring

Reading through an article about Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” I came to this passage:

“We have done our part to expose Obama through our support of ‘Operation Chaos,’ effectively using the Clinton campaign as our foil, and Obama and the Democrat Party are the weaker for it,” he said. “Every objective has been met and surpassed.”

Maybe it was his use of the word “foil” but I immediately had a picture in my mind of Rush as Iago. Of course, the association entirely breaks down because I don’t think either Obama or Clinton would acknowledge Limbaugh as a best friend and advisor, but for a moment I had a good chuckle.

I always enjoy it when a particular confluence of events results in a few of my favorite things all appearing within the same vicinity of one another. That happened this evening while reading Michael Chabon’s most recent column in Details magazine (the sole reason for my paid subscription).

In the first paragraph of his column about why we should stop mocking the seventies, Michael Chabon (one of my favorite authors), mentions a particular episode of WNYC’s Radio Lab “devoted to contemplating the romance and the grim realities of space travel.” Radio Lab, thanks to the introduction by Mr. Anderson, has become one of my favorite NPR programs. Then, a page later, Chabon references a recent issue of The Believer, one of my favorite eclectic literary ‘zines.

This all resulted in a smile on my face, which continued when one of Chabon’s insights reminded me not to take myself so seriously:

Each of us serves, if we are conducting our lives in the usual fashion, as a constant source of embarrassment to his or her future self, and by the same formula all “eras” can be made to look ridiculous in retrospect.

So… I’ll approach tomorrow with the attitude that I’m simply providing my future 50-year-old self with some good material for humor or, at the very least, embarrassment.

I have always had a fascination with the concept of “home”. I am not sure if this fascination is because I am a self-described homebody who would rather spend a vacation close to home than traveling the globe (that is slowly beginning to change in my advancing years) or if the fascination is more base, the idea of home simply a part of being human. Even if it is a universal understanding, I am continuously fascinated by how home is described by other people. A friend of mine, even though she is in her late 20s and on her own, still considers “home” wherever her parents live. For others, home is where they grew up, regardless if they or their parents live there still. I’ve always half-jokingly taken the phrase “home is where your clothes are” and changed it to “home is where your books are” to be more applicable to my priorities.

The main reason I have given this so much thought recently is because of a song that won’t stop haunting me. It is one of those songs that is unbearably beautiful both lyrically and musically. The refrain goes: “In the cathedrals of New York and Rome / There is a feeling that you should just go home / And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is”. I believe what is especially haunting for me is two-fold. First, as a self-proclaimed homebody, I have never seen the cathedrals of New York and Rome. So many wonders of the world have been brought to me only by images, not by experience. And second, “home” may very well be something even more intangible than where my books are. Home may be wherever I’m at, with or without my books, and it may take a lifetime to truly learn that.

I remember in college how I felt, at some level, that I was never at home. When I was on my college campus in Chicago, I would talk about “home” as being Minneapolis, where I grew up and where my parents lived. When I was in Minneapolis, on school breaks, I would talk about “home” as being Chicago and my college campus. I think that was the beginning of a realization that my longing for a place to call home would always trump a physical location labeled as “home”. My parents have since moved on and I love visiting them in their saltbox house in Door County, but it isn’t my home. I love my apartment and enjoy returning to it everyday after work, but even in such a place that is very “me” and full of my stuff and a wonderful place to read, play, and relax, it doesn’t feel completely like home.

A different song by a group I especially liked in college, has a song that describes a God-shaped hole that is in all of us and can only truly be filled by God. Maybe “home” is just that for me—a hole within that only serves to remind me that I never will be entirely complete this side of heaven. I don’t know. Maybe my longing for a place to call home is just another lesson teaching me to be content with where I am at, but to also remain perpetually hopeful for more.

Jeremy: Halfway around the world, a lone man has accomplished an extraordinary athletic feat.
Dan: What?
Jeremy: I don’t know.

Sports Night, Season 1: Episode 21

CNN.com article, 9/24/07: “India claim thrilling Twenty20 win”

After reading that article, I very much understand what Jeremy is saying. Someday I hope to understand cricket.

I’ve been debating with myself about whether I should even write anything regarding the I35W bridge tragedy that occurred frighteningly close to home. It seems that from the moment calamity struck, there has been more than enough talk about it on radio, TV, and in the newspapers. But what I’ve also realized is how much of the normal day-to-day talk between friends and co-workers focuses on what could have been: my normal route home that takes me under the bridge around 6:00 each evening, but I stayed late at work that night; Kara, who crossed the bridge 15 minutes prior to its collapse; Matt, who crossed 5 minutes before; Aron, who miraculously ended up with only minor cuts and bruises despite finding himself upside down in his truck after the collapse. In every conversation I’ve had about the tragedy, the tone has been, “It could have been otherwise.”

Why is it that it always seems to take tragedy—personal or communal—to appreciate that which we normally take for granted? It’s the rare few that are able to appreciate the ordinary as miraculous.

Because at times like these, I feel that my own words are too weak, I look to others. These last couple of days have brought to mind two different collections of words, both of which I leave you with.

The first is a poem by that “haunted-sensitive woman”-poet, Jane Kenyon.

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

The second is part of the opening monologue from the movie, Love Actually.

General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. …. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.