The Triumph of Icarus

            Lately I’ve been thinking about the fall of Icarus. The myth is usually taken as a lesson about the danger of flying too high, as the sun will melt the wax holding your wings together, and down you go. Moderation is best.

            But there are other ways to see the story. First, Pieter Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus:

(You can see the legs of Icarus just below the stern of the ship.)

            

    Auden’s take on the painting:

Musee des Beaux Arts 

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. 

Our suffering, even our death, takes place, for the most part, unnoticed: “how everything turns away.”

            And from William Carlos Williams:

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned 
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

The landscape is “concerned / with itself.” Not us.

            But then there is this, from Jack Gilbert:

Failing and Flying

 

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

 

            I sent this poem to a recently divorced friend. He said it didn’t help. But it’s not about marriage and divorce – like the other two poems, it’s about how we see our endings. Everything will “turn away,” and the world, natural and human, is “concerned / with itself.”

 

            None of this, however, diminishes the triumph. The challenge is to identify and appreciate our triumphs.

            I am posting this now as we are planning to sell our loft in Atlanta, as much as we love it, and move back to Michigan and the Bark House. I’ll get into the reasons in a later post – still doing a lot of processing. But our decision to go on this adventure, and the creative energy we put into it, is our triumph. 

“That’s Not Fair!”

            This expression struck me when some teenaged character in a movie was complaining about being grounded by her parents. In this case, and many like it, “fair” refers to some sort of basic moral feeling with which we evaluate the outcome of decisions. We, supposedly, have an inner sense of what is “fair” and what is not. Someone accused of a crime should get “a fair trial,” and my non-attorney understanding is that the legal system has a long list of rules and procedures to try to make sure that the outcome is “fair.” At the very least, the judge should be fair – as in, unbiased. These established rules apply “fairness” to the world of specific incidents and decisions. The phrase “moral compass” is sometimes used to describe how we determine what is fair. I think of it as a matter of conscience, but applied to the larger world. You may know someone who has a vacuum where a conscience should be.

 

            There is a problem in judging fairness by using established rules when the established rules might themselves be suspect. Think of the Jim Crow laws, or of Manifest Destiny. Calling them “unfair” is a vast understatement. In looking over American history, including recent history, it is sometimes difficult to see “fairness,” though I admire our struggles to achieve it.

 

            If judgment about an action’s “fairness” can be rendered by something as high-flown as a moral compass, then why does “fair” also mean “mediocre”? As in, “That glass of wine was fair,” by which is meant “only fair – not excellent.” And in baseball, if the batted ball is in “fair” territory, that means it is in play, and the teams can compete to take the next step toward winning, using their own skills, strategy, etc., supposedly leading to a fair outcome.

 

            But what about a fair complexion or fair hair? What makes them “fair”? Difficulties with words often drive me to etymology, and the dictionary tells me the word derives from the Middle English “fager,” akin to the Old High German “fagar,” which means “beautiful.”

 

            Yes! Setting aside thoughts about blondes, I find something very satisfying about seeing beauty at the heart of the word. Yes, a world that is fair to people is beautiful, as is a person who has a functioning moral compass. And a ball hit into fair territory allows the intricate beauty of baseball to present itself.

 

 

 

 

            

 

            

Workout Room

            We have a gym, a.k.a. “Workout Room,” in our building. I know this is true because I have been to it four times since we moved in 10 weeks ago. Fortunately, the Workout Room is several flights of stairs below our condo, which is quite a feat since we live on the first floor. This is fortunate because I don’t feel the need to do all that much working out because I know I have all those stairs to climb to get home.

 

            Our Workout Room features 24 different machines, most of them made of heavy black metal. When I look at them, I see “potential injury,” mainly because I heard a young guy behind me grunting and groaning as he repeatedly did something with weights (I didn’t dare look at him) that were obviously too heavy for him. I’ve made the excuse that I don’t know how to use the machines, but Genne´ has offered to show me how to use them, and to suggest a workout that would be good for a guy my age. So far, I have not been able to work this into my schedule.

 

            No, I pretty much confine myself to two devices – one that simulates rowing, the other more or less like pedaling a bicycle, except you move your arms back and forth at the same time. (This is what I see as multi-tasking.) When on the rowing machine I get to watch a video of muscular young men and women rowing away, interrupted by an invitation “to open a free account,” an invitation I declined. Instead, I counted my strokes until I reached 100 and then dismounted, account free.

 

            The bicycle machine did not offer a video. Instead, I got to watch a machine keep track of how long I was pedaling and how far I hypothetically traveled. My goal was to go for five minutes, and I always succeeded – all three times. The trick, I think, is to slowly increase my stamina despite the ways my age decreases it. Maybe breaking even – not doing worse – is a worthwhile level of success.

 

            I’ve heard from a number of people that old people should lift weights, a.k.a. “weight training.” I suppose this is important because when you are old you (by “you” I mean “me”) don’t want to fall, but if you do, you want to have strong bones and muscles to protect you. Kim told me about a doctor who said that he would not do shoulder surgery on one of his elderly patients because “she had bones like graham crackers.” O.K, I’ll do it but I’m not going to grunt like that guy behind me.

 

            Our Workout Room has several collections of weights, some of which I recognize as dumbbells and barbells (not sure what the difference is). So, I walked over and picked up a couple of small ones with the number 15 on them and did a few what I remember as “curls,” each one followed by a thrust straight up. I did these until it became unpleasant – and then I did three more.

 

            A few weeks ago, we got a message from our management company saying that some of the mirrors in the Workout Center were going to be replaced. This made me wonder why the mirrors were there in the first place. It might be to check your form. Or, it may be to see if your muscles are bulging properly. Or if you are wearing the right outfit to work out. Or how old you appear to be. I chose not to look, just as I hope others choose not to look at me.

 

            It’s difficult for me to come to solid conclusions about the Workout Room because the most people I ever saw there at one time is four. Still, when we look at listings of places for sale in our complex, they always feature photographs of the Workout Room. I suppose the calculation is that people want to live in a place where neighbors can make themselves physically fit, but there is no pressure to be like them.

Y’all

            We’ve been y’alled. We hear it all the time, here in Georgia. I don’t think I ever heard the word (if that’s what it is) in Michigan.

 

            What does “y’all” mean? Well, first of all it does not mean “you all,” as if to be referring to an inclusion of an entire group of people. “Y’all should get a flu shot” does not mean “You all – every one of you – should get a flu shot.”

 

            And it’s, in our experience, a positive term – almost an affectionate one. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said in anger. This may be because of the friendliness we have found here in Georgia, but still, I like being “y’alled.” As I think about it – not hard to imagine it said in an unfriendly way: “Y’all better get your ass off my porch.” Still, for me, the “y’all” gives it a faint positive vibe . . ..

 

            Maybe the meaning is that the speaker is talking to all of me – not all of us. “Y’all come on in” invites my total self, conveying a kind of acceptance of my whole self that feels rather nice – maybe the way a child is supposed to feel when being loved by a parent.

 

            On the other hand, “y’all” might just be a way that a Southerner announces that he or she is a Southerner, and proud of it – willing to announce it with a particularly Southern word.

            My friend Rex commented: A tour guide in Texas explained to us that "y'all" is singular. The plural, he said, is, "All y'all." As in, "All y'all need to get out of that lake right now! It is ate up with gators!"

 

            I’m not sure if there is a racial factor at play here. My clearest memories are of white people saying it – especially Chase, my Atlanta realtor – but I just don’t know. I’ll have to listen for it. The Black people we’ve met here, mainly waiting on us in stores, have been universally friendly, but I just don’t recall hearing one of them saying “y’all.” I’m curious.

 

            Please be clear that the word “yawl” has a completely different meaning from “y’all.” From Wikipedia: “A yawl is a two-masted, fore and aft rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast positioned abaft the rudder stock, or in some instances, very close to the rudder stock. This is different from a ketch, where the mizzen mast is forward of the rudder stock. The sail area of the mizzen on a yawl is consequentially proportionately smaller than the same sail on a ketch.”

 

Just thought I’d share that information with y’all.

Moving In

            For Kim, moving in means making decisions –  how to organize the kitchen with its limited storage, what furniture to bring down from Michigan and where to place it when it gets here, what furniture we need to buy, what colors to paint the walls, what artwork to place where, how well the various major appliances work, how to use bathroom space most efficiently, etc. For her, it’s a grand creative opportunity, one that uses her massive artistic and domestic skills. Think of doing a painting, but instead of moving paint around, you are arranging all the details that give your life quality.

 

            For me, it was, at first, quite a bit simpler. After a day or two I had what I needed: a bed, a coffee pot, and a wi-fi connection. Kim soon let me know that this did not complete the process. I also got all of our utilities set up on auto-pay. But still, I am getting a sense that all of my work does not happen on my computer.

 

            And it goes beyond our unit in our building. We are setting up all of our medical appointments – a dentist, a dermatologist, an oncologist, Kim’s monthly chemo-, our primary care doctor (who, we discovered, is a gerontologist!). Plus, someone to cut our hair, which happens to be downstairs from a nearby tattoo parlor. Thanks to Genne´, who lives one floor above us, we are learning how to get to the various grocery stores we need, where we can find a Home Depot, an Ace Hardware, a good bakery, a liquor store, and our doctors. 

 

            We are making progress. Last week we finally replaced our ailing toilets with two that work, and we got the “comfort height” models that make it possible for us to get off the seat when we are finished. We replaced the washer and dryer, appliances that probably were installed 50 years ago. We installed a reverse osmosis unit under the kitchen sink to protect us from questionable water.

 

            We’ve also learned that a big part of moving in has to do with moving into a city. Part of it is the traffic, which includes jammed roads and very aggressive drivers. And the sounds are different here. Instead of the wind in the trees and waves on the beach, we regularly hear sirens and speeding motorcycles just outside our windows, plus the nearby trains. And there is also an element of risk that we did not experience Up North. We have lots of security here in the Stacks, with fences and gates, passwords and “fobs” that unlock the doors into each building. But last week a few people climbed a fence and broke into 17 cars, smashing the windows and looking for, what, guns? cash? sunglasses? Fortunately, Kim’s Handicap Parking tag and our supply of Kleenex and Covid face-masks were not touched.

 

            Moving in also means that I have to change my routines. (I’m all in favor of change, as long as I don’t have to do anything different.) I can’t keep my keys in my bedroom drawer, for two reasons: 1) I don’t have a bedroom drawer, as we won’t move our bedroom furniture down until the house sells, and 2) if the keys are not always in my pocket I will lock myself out. Some routines I have not abandoned. I still have my leftover coffee before breakfast, so as not to waste it, and I have a booster around 11 and another around 3, both accompanied by a snack of some kind, often sweet. We also start the day with a morning hug.

 

            Moving in has made me uncomfortably dependent on technology. My car’s GPS, named Gertrude, has become essential with my questionable memory and Atlanta’s size and traffic. And so much of the medical world happens through the My Chart app on the computer. An app on my phone is required to open the gate to let in visitors (if we had any), and another app to keep me in touch with the Stacks Book Group and Writing Group. I will go into technology challenges in a future blog post.

 

            Some days, to be honest, we long for our simpler life in the Bark House on Torch Lake, though the maintenance requirements and isolation are very real. We continue to plan where our Craftsman furniture will go when the house sells, and we are thinking about buying a small second unit in the Stacks so Kim can have an art room, we both can have storage, and guests have some privacy. Or maybe a place out of town where we are more in touch with birds and butterflies. We sometimes wonder if the move to Atlanta was a mistake.

 

            On the positive side, we have this really cool loft in the Stacks – a small thrill every time we walk in the door, and a lingering thrill feeling part of its history. We are enjoying our neighbors – folks who are drawn to a place like this –  as we slowly meet them and try to remember their names. We also are blessed to have Genne´ living so close – for her company, and for her ongoing help driving us around and showing us some of Atlanta’s cool places (yesterday: Piedmont Park and The Flying Biscuit Café´). It’s also an easy walk from our new home to some outstanding restaurants. Atlanta has a lot to offer that at this point we only suspect. Those speeding cars have to be in a hurry to get to somewhere appealing. And we found an Uber pick-up spot near our front door.

 

            This is the adventure we signed up for!

 

 

Doll’s Head Trail

            This post is not about Valley of the Dolls. No, it's about Doll's Head Trail - a distinctive art experience in Constitution Lakes Park, just outside of Atlanta.

            Located on the site of an abandoned 19^th-century brick factory, the nature preserve was bought by Dekalb County in 2003, and they began constructing trails. The Doll’s Head Trail itself is the creation of a local carpenter, Joel Slaton, who envisioned an art project created from discarded doll parts and other trash scattered around the site. For some reason, the site had been used as a dumping ground for years, and flooding also, somehow, produced more art objects - one source said from homes that were flooded. Slaton turned it all into a found art experience, and he encouraged visitors to make their own contributions, but only objects found on the site – not brought in from outside. As the sign on the trailhead says, “Litter makes the angels cry.”

 

            Here are some samples of what Kim and I saw:

             

Do you have a favorite?

Some of you may find these creepy. Perhaps, but they also say something to me about mortality - what Time does to us, and how there is a kind of beauty in what happens. A creepy beauty, perhaps . . ..

 

 

Catch

    My brother Bob and I used to play catch, when we were maybe ten years old. The rules are simple: You get a baseball and your baseball glove, stand about 40 feet apart, and throw the ball back and forth. There is no keeping score, no winners or losers. Nobody tries to burn them in too hard for a brother to catch safely. The competitive stuff came later. 

     After the invitation to play, there was usually no conversation – at least, none that I can recall. The invitation was brief: One of us would ask, “Have a catch?” Later this got shortened to “Havva?” Then out we would go to the back yard. I don’t remember where we kept our ball and gloves.

    This was a guy relationship. Girls – and now women – usually knit together their relationship through conversation. You know, “How are you doing?” or “What’s new with you?” or “How was your trip?” or even “How’s your love life?” All are some version of “How are you feeling?” It is no surprise that most of these conversations require the women to talk about their feelings.

    I admit that these were adult women I heard talking. My sister always dragged the phone into her bedroom so nobody could overhear her girl talk, so I don’t know if young girls talk about their feelings. All of which makes me wonder how guys can best re-create the kind of “communication” Bob and I experienced when having a catch. Some ideas:

• Hunting. I don’t hunt, but I picture two guys sitting silently in their tree stands, maybe a quarter of a mile apart. This constitutes “hunting together.”

• Fishing works about the same way, except in some cases the guys find themselves in the same boat, which makes it tough.

• Jigsaw puzzles. This can be a co-ed activity, but it only works if the conversation is only about the puzzle itself.

• Watching sports on television. Yes, there can be an expression of feelings, but they are feelings about the game. There is a kind of bonding, but it’s an external bonding. Like having a catch. Or, maybe it’s deeper than that – hard to say because the guys don’t talk about it. Wearing a shirt or hat associated with the same team constitutes a similar non-verbal bonding.

 • Tennis. This can work because there is some kind of interaction, but being separated by a net allows you to avoid anything like conversation about your feelings. Throwing your racquet may count as an expression of feelings, though not about human relationships. The problem is that after the match is over, it’s natural to have a cold drink together, which might lead you to, you know, talk about your feelings.

 • Drinking. Two guys enjoying a drink together don’t need to talk. Or so I imagine. This is why guys like drinking at a bar – no need to interact with the person next to you, for you are probably just looking straight ahead at a mirror or some bottles.

• Music. One of the best times of my life was when I was part of a jazz combo. We didn’t talk much if at all, except through the music. We connected.

    I remember that a friend of mine, a woman, told me about a conversation with her doctor. She complained to him that her husband, a patient of the same doctor, seemed distant, unaware of the beautiful life they could be sharing, and non-communicative about what is going on emotionally within him. The doctor’s response: “So, you wish your husband were gay?” No wonder so many of us men are screwed up, and why relationships are so difficult.