my shoeless adventure

On April 8, people around the world who ordinarily wear shoes go shoeless to raise awareness of the millions of people who never have the luxury of wearing shoes. This year I decided to participate while going about my day as usual, and record my thoughts throughout the adventure.

6:00AM: Evelyn awoke crying, soaked in pee. I grumpily rolled out of bed barefoot, searched for my slippers, remembered it was April 8, turned up the heater instead.

7:00AM: Cold feet on tile floor in bathroom. Ants on the floor ... now ants on my feet.

8:15AM: It is 43 degrees outside as I walk under the house to our laundry room to start a load. Tree droppings litter the wooden boardwalk (I should have swept, damn it) ... they hurt my soft, uncallused feet (the spiky oak leaves are the worst). When I reach the laundry room I wince as I walk across sharp ice-cold gravel to reach the washing machine.

9:00AM: Ahhh ... hot water in the shower feels SO good on my cold feet. Reminds me of days of yore when I would sink into a hot bath after playing outside barefoot in the grass. It feels like burning. Good burning.

10:30AM: Leaving the house. Have to remind myself at least seven times that I don't need shoes.

10:35AM: Slowly walking down the steps to the car (there are 85 of them). The mossy steps at the bottom feel nice and soft, and I'm not as scared of falling as I usually am because I can feel the ground much better. Get to the car and remember that it's all muddy along the driver's side. Doh.

10:40AM: Drive with muddy barefeet to the library. I have to park far away because for some reason the Fairfax public library is a very popular place to be on Thursday mornings. The parking lot cement is very ouchy. Before she outpaces me, an old woman says, "My, you must have very callused feet!" "Actually, I really don't," I reply. She looks puzzled.

10:45AM: Oooh, soft carpeting inside the library.

10:55AM: Ouch. Rough cement all the way back to the car. Perhaps made worse by carrying a 16-pound squirmy baby and four books.

11:15AM: Find the closest parking spot available at the farmer's market. Walk around farmer's market carrying baby and ever-growing load of vegetables. Samosa guy persuades me to buy samosas and cilantro salsa that I don't really need. I discover that the east end of the farmer's market pavement is much rougher than the west end.

12:45PM: Arrive at outdoor mall to meet mom and the grandparents for lunch. Walk into A.G. Ferrari's, order a sandwich; no one notices I am barefoot (or if they do, they don't say anything).

1:30PM: Walk around REI with the family. For the first time am content with walking as slowly as my 87-year-old grandparents. Go into bathroom and am momentarily disgusted that I am barefoot in a public restroom. Make a mental note to scrub my feet really well tonight. Wonder if people think I'm in the midst of trying on shoes.

2:15PM: Ambling out across the now blazing hot, ouchy parking lot to the car. My feet feel burnt and bruised. Really over this barefoot thing.

2:45PM: Up the mossy stairs to my house loaded like a pack mule with vegetables, baby, and books. This time it is decidedly less romantic.

2:50PM: Home. Smooth hardwood floor and rug. Aaaahhhhh.

4:00PM: Decide I am not leaving the house again today. Scrub the heck out of my feet.

4:45PM: The sun is getting lower, and my house is cooling off. I am looking forward to my slippers at midnight. This has been an interesting experiment, and I have learned that though I like being barefoot sometimes, shoes are very convenient for traversing terrain (DUH!). Even though most people probably think that this was a silly thing to do, I enjoyed it. It's such a great perspective shift to go without something that you see as essential to your life for a short time. It was hard, and painful at times. I thought all day about the people in our world who go shoeless. And tomorrow I am REALLY going to be loving my socks and sneakers :)

birth

you are there
in that space beyond consciousness
on the cusp of life
and you do not know fear

so why do I
realizing with sudden urgency
the importance of now
the brevity of each passing day
recoil from the cliff's edge
my heart throbbing violently against its cage

what is this paralyzing ache
that seeps into my bones
when I stare into the worn and weary canvas of my grandfather's face
or when I am seized by the music of my youth
and I cannot breathe

you are there
in that space beyond consciousness
on the cusp of life
and you do not know fear

one day
many years from now
you will return to that space
just as we all circle back
to that from which we came

what choice do we have
but to journey home?

my mind is officially blown ...

the Void

A quote from Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels:

"Hold together, Jack, pass through everything, and everything is one dream, one appearance, one flash, one sad eye, one crystal lucid mystery, one word -- Hold still, man, regain your love of life and go down from this mountain and simply be -- be-- be the infinite fertilities of the one mind of infinity, make no comments, complaints, criticisms, appraisals, avowals, sayings, shooting stars of thoughts, just flow, flow, be you all, be you what it is, it is only what it always is -- Hope is a word like a snow-drift -- This is the Great Knowing, this is the Awakening, this is the Voidness -- So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry -- Prunes, prune, eat your prunes -- And you have been forever, and will be forever, and all the worrisome smashings of your foot on innocent cupboard doors it was only the Void pretending to be a man pretending not to know the Void --"

Parallax

our need to measure
determine
define
is satisfied by these instruments we use
but is just as easily accomplished through awareness
of where we stand
in space
in time
in the context of the whole

I, too, measure my life by parallax
staring, unblinking, at the dawn star
which seems to fade as the blue blanket that surrounds it lightens
the star itself has not changed

just as when, finding myself
moved to shed the weight of something I held dear
my being has not changed

I am simply seeing
more of myself.

AIG isn't really the problem ...

So yes, I too was very upset when news of the AIG bonuses came out in the news. It is utterly ridicilous that a group of already-wealthy people who SUCK at what they do and then take taxpayers' money should receive any more than the basest salaries. What the heck is the difference between a performance bonus and a "retention bonus"? And what about all of the workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own??? Why isn't someone MAKING them give it back? Ever heard of garnishing wages? That's what happens to normal poor people when they don't pay back what they should (taxes, child support, etc.).

But come on people, get real! Here we are, living in a country that might as well have a dollar sign stamped on our national flag, and we are suddenly outraged at white collar crime. H-e-l-l-o. These kinds of shenanigans happen all of the time. The danger in this sudden, media-frenzied outrage is that the majority of people will assume this is a one-time mistake, ignoring the gross inequities that make this sort of thing possible. And that once we punish AIG, we can all go back to blissfully believing in "the free market" again. Because really, even if they hadn't gotten that bailout money, do you really think they would have foregone their bonuses? Really?

a note to supervisors

During my short working life, I've managed to encounter my fair share of poor ... managers. (I've also been a manager, so perhaps the people I've bossed around will have some complaints of their own.) Regardless, I believe that managing is an incredibly underrated skill, and that most people who become managers never bother to learn the interpersonal skills needed for the job. Thus, without further ado, I present a brief list of managing "don'ts", inspired by personal experience as one being constantly -- poorly -- managed (written from the employee perspective).

1. Don't say "we" will do something when you mean "you" will do it.
2. Don't pretend to care what I think if you really don't.
3. Don't make up rules that cannot be justified or explained and expect me to respect your authoritay.
4. Don't give me your opinion constantly and act like I agree with you ... cause I probably don't.
5. Don't yell at me about something trivial, then when you realize what a dolt you are come back and play nice.
6. Don't act like something doesn't matter one day and scream about it the next.
7. Don't get flustered and defensive when I ask questions.
8. Don't be surprised or upset when employees discuss and compare pay and benefits.
9. Don't treat me like your daughter ... cause I'm not.
10. Don't expect me to be loyal to the point where I put my job above everything else in my life.