Mary Undoer of Knots

 My hike was vigorous and rewarding to the point of making me remember entire aspects of my being that I had suppressed. Awakening neglected aspects of physical movement was like turning on the lights in darkened wings of a building that had been shuttered for years. 

As such I was on quite a high as I trudged back up hill to the hotel, past the clumps of parked cars of day visitors and then finally into Summerhaven. It was noon. I'd been gone three hours and had improvised approximately five miles.

"I need to do this again on a regular basis," was the thought that occurred to me. I don't think I'd had as good a hike since our last trip to Estes Park in 2022, when I did my usual roaming in Rocky Mountain National Park. 

My return left me plenty of time to relax and get cleaned and freshened up for the Divine Liturgy at four.  Jessica had been watching Wimbledon during my entire absence, as she is big fan of tennis. I spent the afternoon on the balcony, where it feels like a treehouse, reading about Samuel Johnson's childhood and his formative single year at Oxford. He was a very angry youth, I learned, resentful most of all because of his poverty. 

At a quarter to four, I left and went down the outdoor stairs and followed the path to the ground level at the street, then walked down about a hundred yards on the new sidewalk there to Upper Goat Hill Road where one sees the sign for the shrine, which they put up last year. From there I trudged up panting a bit until I reached the place where it levels off. I saw the cars parked on the side of the street where usually there are none. I had told Father Martin about having come to this spot outside the metal gate to pray the rosary, looking out over the houses and green hills on the opposite ridge. From that spot, one looks down into the compound, which consists on the left of the small chapel which is an octagonal structure (a very Byzantine design), a wooden beehive like the forest churches of Russia and Scandinavia. Atop it was an Orthodox cross. with the diagonal beam. Like all residences on the hill, it was on cement pylons to cope with the stope. The beehive structure was rimmed by a wooden walkway, and it was connected to the rest of the compound by a pair of narrow wooden footbridges.

Across the footbridge in the main part of the compound was what looked to be a small two-story residence in the same style. To the right, and further up the slope, looked to be some kind of large picnic shelter or ourdoor ceremonial structure. This was as close as I had seen it in years past. 

Now for the first time, the gate was unlocked and open.

On the Arizona Trail

 I woke up on Saturday morning, our second full day at the lodge, with a sense of excitement at the days plans. Not only had I resolved to attend the Divine Liturgy at Mary Undoer of Knots, and practically promised to do so,  but I had glorious plans to go hiking.

Each time coming up to Summerhaven, I had made it a point to walk down the main road through the rest of the village for about a mile until it dead ends at a national forest fee entrance where there are picnic grounds and several trailheads. The picnic grounds are usually full of people on day trips from Tucson, and there is little parking (parking is the great premium in Summerhaven---the lodge room comes with free but not guaranteed parking).

But the most hiking I had done was hardly any at all, in all my visit. Just walking down the hill to the fee entrance and coming back up had satisfied my curiosity so far, perhaps additionally following the trail down the creek briefly before turning around.

This year I wanted it to be different. I seriously needed a good hike. I felt disconnected from my body in a disturbing way. Last summer I had felt like I was rotting inside in the heat, especially when stricken by the vertigo and balance issues. I had done one serious hike recently, in the McDowells, and had tortured myself by overextending myself to the point of endangering my life (given how many people die each year). Now I was up in the pines, in a cooler environment. I yearned to get outside and feel my legs moving.

I left after breakfast, walking out of the hotel with my REI light day back, and with a flask of water. The amount of water one uses depends a lot on the temperature and heat. The day looked to be cool, with dark grey clouds covering the sky. Good hiking weather.

I started heading down the hill on the main road, but instead of going all the way down to the fee entrance as I  had in previous years, I forked off onto a side road up the mountain that supposedly led to another trailhead, according to a sign. I wanted to explore it.  It took about twenty minutes to wind my way up through the residential area to get to the trailhead. As I always do I scrutinized the map at the entrance euntil I had a sense of the entire route, and then took a picture of map with my phone.

It was a glorious hike. The route was narrow and rocky winding up further until it leveled out in an area that was still recovering from a fire years ago. As such it felt like being above the tree line in the Rockies. In fact, the whole experience brought back to me the feeling of an alpine hike, the kind I had not in years. It made me realize how deficient is the desert for satisfying my soul that way. It's not just about the heat and the sun. It's about something deeper, and I could sense I was experiencing something my soul had starved for.

It felt almost awkward, humiliating to come to this realization. What a benighted life I had been living. I felt years younger all at once, as if my life had been interrupted and was now resuming.

It was also a magnificent test for my new barefoot hiking shoes. I had ordered them almost two months ago but had not worn them until a few days ago. Instantly I discovered that they were a key to recovering core strength I had lost last year. They gave me back an ability to feel the ground with my feet in a way that radiating up my legs and body.  The gloom I had felt for a year, at least over that, disappeared when I was on the trail. I could tell my core was still not as strong as it was, but I knew it was just a matter of time and effort to recover further. 

Overall, I loved the shoes, at least when I was on a smooth trail. The shoes are not ideal for trails with lots of rock, however. For one thing, if one steps on a jagged rock edge, one can feel it directly on one's feet. Likewise it is quite possible to stub one's big toe on a rock with these things, as I discovered at one point. Were to look for the idea hiking shoe, I would adapt these ones with a slightly thicker part in the middle of the sole, and maybe a thickened part for the big toe. Meditating on this as I hiked, I thought of the hardcore ultralight trekkers, mostly young of course, who hike the Continental Divide trail and such in shoes that are basically sandals. This is to save weight on one's feet, so one does not use up strength and calories lifting the weight of a hiking boot over and over.  For myself, I need more covering--perhaps a little bit more than the shoes provided.

It was a pleasure to sink into such thoughts. I followed the trail over several ridges into the official wilderness area and then took the fork that led down a gorge to exactly the fee entrance I was familiar with. The last section coming down the gorge is officially part of the Arizona Trail, which crosses the entire state south to north. It felt gratifying to hike a bit of it.

Then I walked back up the main road, as I normally would do, until I was back in Summerhaven at the hotel. It felt glorious--a great thing to do as part of the Fourth of July. But it made me realize that I have to do this on a more regular basis, this kind of hiking. The desert doesn't work for me, for various reasons. What to do?

Additional Notes: 

1. These are the shoes I was wearing---the Hike Caspians (link). I think I ordered size 11.  Besides the issues above, which can be remedied perhaps by ordering a different shoe, I noticed the toe box felt constrained on my right foot, where years ago I developed a mild bunion from wearing hiking shoes that squeezed my toes. I am forever in a quest to find shoes with ample room for my toes. The only trial shoes I found that would even come close were Salomons, which I worn for years, although they are still not wide enough in the toe box for me.

The Hike Caspians here sadly suffered a little bit from that. All that design and you are still squeezing my toes, just a slight curling of the middle toes on my right foot but enough for me to notice and be bothered by. This is despite the fact that everyone now says "we have wide toe boxes." Why is it impossible for anyone to actually believe and execute this? 

2. At one point, back between the ridges in the wilderness area, I managed to lose the trail. Somehow I thought I was supposed to scramble up a rock incline. When I got to the top, I saw what could possibly be the trail and began following it, but skeptical I made made the wrong choice. Not wanting to scramble back down the incline, I saw on a fallen burn log and rested while I admired the view of the wilderness and the top of nearby Mt. Lemmon (the actual mountain, that is), topped by an astronomical observatory from the University of Arizona. 

My patience was rewarded when several groups of hikers came along on the trail in the direction from where I'd come, talking loudly. They did not see me but I listened as they passed, and sure enough they did not follow me up the rock incline but proceeded along the trail below me. I noted where they passed and saw I could recover the trail easily without reversing course. 

Every good hike somehow has a moment where you think maybe you screwed up in a way that has put yourself in danger, even in a mild way. A hint of that feeling is like salt on a meal. It is useful to remind oneself of one's essential fragility, and that the elements and nature can be unforgivable, if one does not have proper respect for them.

3. At another point, I detoured off the trail, accidentally following a blind spur that came to a dead end at an overlook after a hundred feet. There I found, amidst the grassy brush, a small spring in the form of a tiny pond only two feet in diameter, and the marshy outflow going down the hill. There is something so beautiful about discovering something like that spontaneously.

4. If I were going to scold myself over anything it would be lack of preparedness for rain. I had a wool cover, but nothing impervious to rain. By the time I was ascending, dark clouds were rolling in. Realizing my stupidity, I began mentally preparing for the miserable experience of being caught in the middle of a downpour. Fortunately it never came. What really surprised me was that as I was coming down the gorge, with this mental preparation in mind, I saw folks casually hiking up the gorge from the trailhead at the fee entrance, dressed in the skimpiest of clothes. I may be stupid enough not to have packed rain gear but I'm not that stupid.

Meeting Father Martin

 Besides the rain clouds and the rain on the first night, one of the delightful twists of this first (second year in a row on the Fourth) was that I finally able to make a visit to the shrine of Mary Undoer of Knots, which is a tiny Byzantine Catholic compound hidden in the trees on the hillside opposite the hotel. The broadasting of the bells is a pleasant sound through the pines when one is at the lodge.

It has almost never been open, except by special appointment. This year was different. While waiting for the parade to start, I spotted, from our balcony, a man taking a seat in a folding chair on the opposite side of the main road. He had a long white beard and was wearing black robes. Instantly I knew he must be associated with the shrine, so I scurried down out of the hotel and crossed the street, approaching him as he was talking ato another man sitting beside him, who was wearing a military service cap.

I introduced myself (I can be quite social when I want to be) and asked if he was with the shrine. He said yes. His name was Father Martin. His companion introduced himself as "Gene, Husband of Katharine" although there was no woman present. I would later meet Katharine, and learn that the two of them are local residents who provide the secular organization of the shrine. Father Martin comes up part time. I told Father Martin how I'd been wanting to visit the shrine but was unable. He said that there was a chance the next afternoon for the Saturday afternoon Divine Liturgy. I believe this was the first time they had had the Liturgy there during any of my previous visits. It felt like the shrine was coming up in the world. I told Father Martin I would see him there, on the next day. I also conveyed to him that I was not Catholic. I had been to (western) Catholic masses, and to an Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy (most recently in Modesto last. year), but had never been to the Byzantine Catholic version of the Divine Liturgy. 

It's essentially the same liturgy as the one used by the Eastern Orthodox, deriving from one created by St. John Crysostom. The difference is the Byzantine Catholics are, in fact, fully ni communion with the Pope and part of the Catholic Church, but are allowed to contine to use the Eastern Rite. So they are sort of a hybrid missle ground between East and West. All this I knew. What was strange was to find such a parish in, of all places, the community of Summerhaven. To my knoweldge there were no other religious congregations on the mountain. You had to make the long drive down to Tuscon for any of that, juust like you do to fill up your gas tank and buy groceries beyond the general store essentials. Everyone worshipped down in the valley---except the Byzantine Catholics. All Catholics by the way are allowed to go the Byzantine version, and the next day I would meet some of them, as well as other tourists and looky lous like me.

Escape from the Internet

 Back from our three-night trip to Mt. Lemmon, specifically the Mt. Lemmon Lodge in Summerhaven. Driving up the mountain this year brought the trip of thunderstorms that had descended on the Tucson area on Thursday afternoon. It was a new experience to drive up the mountain with darkened rain cloods. We got rain overnight---a downpour that woke me from my sleep.

The next day, Friday, was the Fourth of July and the main activity was watching the parade at noon. Our room on the third floor of the lodge was pretty much the idea place to see it, if you were not down on the road. I took videos of the parade with iphone, both from the balcony and the road, which I played on my podcast that evening, sharing them with my viewers, because I had not much else prepared.

I had to do my podcast from down on the lodge patio balcony, with people at tables nearby. The wifi in our room on the third floor was terrible. I could barely get any connectivity on my phone using my data plan, and the wi-fi was hopeless. It was actually nice to have a break from connectivity.  I managed to read the entire intro to Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings, which I had brought at the last minute as leisure reading, taking it off Stack U of my newly designed alphabetized stacking system for my book in the ga

Samuel Johnson

 His literary career seems to divide naturally into three stages. Up to 1749 [age 40], he is the desperately poor, bitter, Grub Street journalist. The great works of this stage are London and The Life of Savage. From 1749 to 1762, he wins and consolidates his position as moralist and lexicographer; the monuments of this stage are The Vanity of Human Wishes, the three series of essays (Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler), the Dictionary, and Rasselas. The second stage is concluded by his reception of a pension. This radically altered both his way of life and his way of writing; it made him into the figure we know from Boswell, the ‘Great Cham of Literature’ (in Smollett’s phrase), and the greatest recorded talker of the language. The works of this stage - more relaxed, sprawling, colloquial —are the edition of Shakespeare, the Journey to the Western Islands, and The Lives of Poets. Through all three stages, but very sparsely in the first and in much the greatest mass in the third, is a stream of letters, prayers and journals, which ought to be regarded as no less part of his work than those writings which he printed.

From Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings, Penguin Classics, Preface by Patrick Crutwell

from Google:

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, Grub Street was “originally the name of a street in Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called grubstreet.” The term was a metaphor for the commercial production of printed matter

wikipedia:

Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting as a dam, impeding the flow of the River Walbrook and its tributaries.

Ah, The River Walbrook. I studied this. I love the ancient rivers of London. The Walbrook was a stream that ran through what became "The City of London" (which itself was the old Roman garrison that was fortified with walls). London began as a Roman occupational fort to dominate the local Celtic presence. The Walbrook emptied directly into the Thames. The Walbrook was used as a fresh water supply. By the Industrial Revolution it became an open sewer and was bricked over. If I returned to London and needed something to do, I would retrace its ancient route.

I wrote about the Walbrook during my London history posts in 2016.  (link)

https://theticketcollector.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-thames-freezes-over-london-late.html

Zang on the Fourth of July

Hat to Mr. Silverstein, for inspiring this post.

Scottsdale, about to leave for Mount Lemmon Lodge in Summerhaven, Arizona

First you drive south on the Interstate (technically East on I-10) to Tucson and pick your way through the north part of the city on local roads for a half hour until you get to the edge of the city at the base of the Catalina Mountains. There is a single road that continues past there and it begins slowly winding up into the mountains past the ample saguaro groves that poke out from the rocky terrain. One goes up and up winding slowly with vistas of the city at pull outs. Then the saguaros trickle off, as it is too high in altitude for them. Climbing further, one sees down the cliffs to the ravines and rock formations. One is usually passing bicyclists in groups either climbing or descending. 

Finally one reaches the trees. All of a sudden one is in the pines. It feels like coming home each time. There are national forest picnic grounds and trail heads where cars are gathered, their occupants presumably on the nearby trail. One continues climbing and finally at eight thousand feet, six thousand above the valley floor (and at the altitude of Estes Park), one finds signs of civilization. There is a turnoff that goes to the top of the mountain proper, but following the road takes you into the community of Summerhaven, where the most prominent landmark one enters is the fire station, a reminder of devastating fire of twenty years ago that almost burned down the entire community, and from which the not-yet-regrown patches on the mountain are still visible. There is a restaurant, and a few gift shops. One continues past a small group of nice cottages for rent, somewhat amusingly called the Mount Lemmon Hotel, and then at last one reaches the Mount Lemmon Lodge, rebuilt only a few years ago after the historic century-old original burned down in the aforementioned fire. The new one looms above the road. Across the street is the general store which is the heart of the community at this point, and which is also worth a visit. Further down, if one were to continue past the lodge, there is a pizza/cookie restaurant with outdoor seating, and going further one could leave the thick part of the community and eventually dead end at a trailhead that leads into the gulch.

When I first came to Tucson while swinging through Arizona in 1989, my uncle told me about Mt. Lemmon and how by going up it, it is as if one goes north a thousand miles to the Canadian border, in terms of ecosystem and climate. It is probably the best known example of what they call a "sky island" (there are evidently such things in the Sahara too). I was intrigued, and years later, in February 2013, when I came through here on my own while vagabonding in the Bimmer, and visited my uncle again, I made sure to go to the top where I snowshoed at the ski resort there---the furthest south I've ever snowshoed. 

I haven't been up in winter since then. I told Jessica about it, and after our first visit, she eagerly makes reservations as much as possible, including for the Fourth of July two years running, as soon as they open up. Last year we had the corner room on the 3rd floor which allowed the best viewing of the 4th of July parade.

A front came through last night here in Scottsdale. I thought it would be a dust storm and I cleared off the patio and brought the rice paper screen and my library books inside, as I keep them out on the table there. Dust storms can be a menace here, and can be hazardous to health. Instead we got rain and it smelled fresh this morning as I drank my coffee.

It might rain while we are up at Mt. Lemmon. Evidently they got a bunch last night. The streams really flow and it feels like heaven when they do, but even if they don't it will be lovely. I will sit on the balcony outdoors and look across at the mountain, seeing the houses hidden among the trees on the steep hill, and the onion dome of the Byzantine Catholic chapel of the small compound of Our Lady Undoer of Knots, the bells of which are rung on a daytime schedule. I will fantasize as ever about what it would be like to live up here. I'd probably never want to go down to the valley floor. But of course there are dental visits.

Sunspot Peak Next Month

 The idea that somehow shifts the earth's magnetic field strength may be contributing to the kind of experiences I was mentioning in the last post seems at once both silly and yet intriguing. There is a subculture of people online who discuss this rather obsessively, with the basic thesis that every so often and periodic intervals on the scale of thousands of years, the earth's magnetic field undergoes a rather disruptive change, part of that being a temporary decrease in the field strength. 

This barely scratches the surface of the topic, as I learned while exploring it several years back. Since then the idea has gone from niche-fringe to being less niche but still fringe.

One should note that the magnetic field of the earth is what keeps us (that is all life on earth) safe from solar activity. Next month is projected to be the peak of the eleven-year cycle of sunspots. Maybe I'll blame everything on that for the time being.

Disorientation

The last few days I have only an acceleration of a sensation of being adrift in time, in some liminal place, in an unfamiliar world. The world does not seem to make sense, I want to say. But what does such a statement mean. Did the world ever "make sense"? I can't claim that it ever did, yet somehow it has always made sense enough to navigate with a rational expectation of outcomes based on one's choices and behaviors. Lately I feel less of that. But what do I know. I'm barely following the news lately, not because I'm repulsed by events, but because it only adds to my disorientation.

If it was just me, I'd just assume I was going mad, but I know that many other people are feeling the same way. There is a sense of dread floating around, not just about the present moment, but about people's lives, especially among the young. This last part to me is the real kicker---that so many young people have expressed a feeling of hopelessness about their lives. As a young person, I never felt hopeless about my life, even in the midst of severe emotional pain. I always felt like the future would be better somehow, and that my problems were transitory. The world would go on, and I would find my place in it. I never felt anything like the way these young folk talk about their lives. Every aspect of life that marks the transition to adulthood feels broken---education, courtship, marriage, careers, housing. 

Something is clearly way off. Everyone feels it in some way, I think. It feels as if so many things that used to tie us to the old world, which for all its faults felt relatively stable and predictable in the big picture, have been taken away that none of us can mentally absorb what is taking place and where we are going.

Liminality

Is "Outside Over There" an example of a liminal space? I'm referring here not to the Sendak book Outside Over There, but to the place that is mentioned in the book, that Ida falls into. That's a question worth pondering. 

The concept of liminal spaces emerged in video games where glitches or modifications to the imaginary world of the game allow one to pass through boundaries that one would not otherwise be able to cross, and one might get stuck in a half-baked place with just walls with no features, that auto-generate endlessly as one explores them, without any way back to the normal world of the game. 

The lore of the internet contemplates these spaces as being reflective of a real experience on the spiritual plane, one we just happened to discover by video games (or artists and poets before them). 

Of particular importance is the idea that any creature that one encounters in the liminal space is probably not your friend. This is typical in video games, and also in the dream I racounted. One traverses a liminal space in dread of encountering another being, I suppose. One finds comfort only the faces of familiar people, and even then one must be sure of their identity, which can be counterfeited.

Facets of this we see in Sendak's work. Ida is alone. She encounters other beings but they are non-human and less than benign. Her resolution is to find, and rescue, her lost baby sister, at which point they can both return from the liminal space, apparently by following a river, which is very interesting, because rivers are a good way to find one's way out of the woods when lost (not always foolproof becuase they might disappear into a cave or an impassible gorge). 

The Best Word for Sharing

 Our---that was was the word of the day from Mr. Oliver's The Dictionary Story as I was about to head out the door for work this morning. The short definition indicated it was the best word to refer to sharing.

It felt both appropriate and highly comforting to have my eyes land on this. The night had given me troubled dreams before I awoke at 3 am, of being in what has come to be called liminal spaces. If you don't know what that means, it's a meme that has arisen in social media derived from gaming (video games that is).

There's a wikipedia article about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminal_space_(aesthetic). Underlining here is mine:

In Internet aesthetics, liminal spaces are empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal. Liminal spaces are commonly places of transition, pertaining to the concept of liminality.

Research from the Journal of Environmental Psychology has indicated that liminal spaces may appear eerie or strange because they fall into an uncanny valley of architecture and physical places. An article from Pulse: The Journal of Science and Culture has attributed this eeriness to familiar places lacking their usually observed context. A pillar of liminal spaces is the absence of living things, particularly other people, with the implication that the viewer is alone; this lack of presence is characteristic of spaces that are "liminal in a temporal way, that occupy a space between use and disuse, past and present, transitioning from one identity to another."

The aesthetic gained popularity in 2019 after a post on 4chan depicting a liminal space called the Backrooms went viral. Since then, liminal space images have been posted across the internet, including on Reddit, Twitter, and TikTok.

My liminal space in dreams is usually a concrete stairwell, perhaps leading to parking garage. Last night it was a large industrial facility with concrete hallways and many doors. It feels similar the Backrooms, described in the passage above. Something else was there, something perhaps malevolent, and I was fearful of it, but it my dreams I sought to yell at it, unseen around the corners of hallways,  as one would confront a bear in the woods.

The vividness of the dream left my somewhat dazed, perhaps. It took me longer than normal to wake up. I sat on the porch for almost forty minutes before I bothered to make coffee. Even driving into campus just now, my mind felt slow.

Our---the cooperative experience of an activity with another person. The feeling it engenders is the opposite of the liminal space, which is experienced as a frightening solitary experience. Even before I knew about this concept, I understood it through dreams, where I would be with other people, or another person, and they would disappear and I would be alone, wondering how to reconnect to other people, or find someone who I lost. Something about that feels fundamental to my experience of life.

The idea that there is an our to the experience of America, as I mentioned, is something that now feels elusive, as I mentioned in a previous. Perhaps some interesting thoughts will emerge today, as the day wears on, and the fog of the liminal spaces clears from my mind.

Explain

Right before I left for work today, I went out the patio to tidy up. On the little round table are stacked all my books, under the shade of the rice paper screen. I rearranged the stack so it looked more stable. At the last minute, I noticed my copy of the The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers. I flipped over the front cover, thinking to myself, "what's the word of today?" and amidst the dictionary entries inside the front cover my eyes land on explain. I read the definition, which I did not commit to memory so I can type it here, but here is space for it later when I get home:

[placeholder definition of explain in The Dictionary Story]. 

Or if you own a copy, just fill it in there on your own.

The Big and the Small

 Monday morning. Another work week ahead. I'm about to drive into Tempe and park in my usual spot. Every day that passes lately I feel something akin to a great grinding of gears of the machine of civilization and history, as if everything is in the midst of a giant shift, a tectonic evolution of all of society, not just in America, but around the world. I have two modes lately---one where I focus on this, and one where I ignore it. I try to live mostly in the latter because it would drive me mad to constantly focusing on the former. I can't keep them both in my head at once.

Even the politics of the moment, and the events of the drama of war and conflict, seem like small details that pass. Why focus on them? Something huge and bigger is underway. Some people see it and talk about it. I feel mostly like a helpless actor moving along with the crowd. Aren't all of us that way? No sense in having anxiety about it. There is no stopping it. If I can keep my wits about me, then I will be of help to others.

Living as a Character in the Story of America

 For much of my life, I saw my own life in terms of being cast as a character in the story of America. America was idea that was a story, a narrative, one that had been going for centuries, and to be born into it when I was, in the mid 1960s, was to enter that story and be a part of it---the building, the struggle, the evolution of something ongoing and continuous, that everyone knew existed, and everyone found some sort of place within it.

It hit me a couple days ago that I no longer feel like that. I no longer feel as if my life is part of the story of America. What does my life mean in terms of that story? I don't know what America means now, so how I can play a part of it? 

It used to be so clear, that no matter what happened, the story of America would go on. Certainly the government of the United States will go on for the time being. It is part of fallen era that we see America in terms of its government, which is just a superficial structure on a nation. What is the "American nation" now? What is the "American people"? Is it anyone who happens to be here? But what is that in terms of continuity. Does the past get a vote?

The Great Disorienting

 It's been hard to write about anything here lately. Somehow I lost the bead of thought I had going, I suppose. But it is more than that. I feel profoundly disoriented in a way. Maybe it's the heat partly, but the days come and go with a strange sameness that feels anything but normal.

The news. It's the news. Of course it's the news. But it isn't the news. Not like we would say in the old days. Oh, did you read the news today? Can you believe it? My mind is abuzz with it all! I lie awake at night thinking of it!

That was how news used to work, the normal times before. But it doesn't feel that way to me anymore. For one thing we know much of the news is a pageant meant to tell us a story. It has always been that way, perhaps, but in the old days the story was mostly coherent and made sense to us at each passing stage.

Now we are aware of the depth of the pageant, and that changes our perspective in a fundamental way. It's as if I don't know the ground rules of reality in the world anymore. I feel as if I am in a world that is unfamiliar to me, trying to make sense of it without outdate rules, as are we all. This means this. That means that. 

So I go about my daily life, walking through a familiar, comfortable sameness while feeling utterly unable to frame my life within a larger story, because I don't know what that larger story is anymore. My greatest solace is knowing that I am not the only one feeling this. To know that others are feeling this kind of this makes me feel in league with them, in our giant disorientation.

Will the world settle back down into anything resembling what we used to call normal times? That is truly hard to tell, and I am the last person to make a guess. Most of my guesses about the future are very wrong.

Taking Out the Trash on a Day of Rest

 Today was one of those days when I felt the oppression of living in the summer heat here in Arizona. It was Sunday, and I was restless. But there was no way to go for a walk of any length. In the afternoon I went outside, breaking my Sunday day of rest to take out the trash early. They would have collected it via the trash service at our day four hours later. I justified breaking the day of rest to do a physical chore on the grounds that someone else would have to do it later. 

It was a heavy bag. As I walked down the outdoor hallway to the stairs, I felt the stirring of the air. It had that feeling of a furnace blast. Later I would learn that the temperature had peaked at 114. So we had the "eleven handle" on the temperature at last, a little later than usual this time of year.

That explains how, while using the fan this morning while reading on the porch, the electric fan had felt like it was blowing a bar-b-cue grill fire in my face. 

I took the bag down to the dumpsters which are in a small concrete pen the walls of which are as high as the dumpsters. There are two dumpsters, one for recycling and one for normal trash. Without thinking, I slung the heavy trash bag into the dumpster for recycling, and only realized my mistake a few seconds later. I'm more used to using that one, heaving the box of empty San Pelegrino bottles we get from Costco. Mineral water is very tasty in the summer, but I try to drink normal tap water with ice as much as possible.

In this case, my muscle reflex took over to sling the trash bag into the recycling. I looked at it in the dumpster. There was already a bunch of crap in there. I am not above climbing into the dumpster to retrieve something I have thrown in their by mistake, or immediately regretted it. But I past the point where I could do that without a step ladder of some kind. I would have to do that in the blazing sun of 114 degrees. Nope. I will have to let the trash bag stay in the recycling. Rationally I know that recycling is mostly bullshit anyway, and other people do this all the time, people being people.Nevertheless there is a desire in me to play by the rules as much as possible, whenever I can, so that if I need the grace to bend them or break them, I will be aided by cosmic fate when I do so, having not squandered it on idiocy.

Moral of the story is to have waited for the trash butler in the evening. That is their job. It is I who have the rule about the day of rest and should have obeyed it. But the truth is that I just couldn't stand the heavy trash container anymore and wanted it out of the house, but I was impatient to wait until evening. Maybe I wanted an excuse to go out in the heat and stretch my legs. That's why it takes self discipline for rules like no physical chores on the day that celebrates "the Eighth Day of Creation."

Two Dollars Short at the Chuckbox

 The AI lab in the engineering building where I work most days on the ASU campus was dead today. For the first couple hours, I was the only person in there. Finally someone else, a graduate student, came in around 10. I stayed for another hour before deciding to head home.

I decided on a whim to check out a place I'd found in Tempe while exploring near campus the week box. It was an eatery of some kind, called the Chuckbox, and it looked to be an ancient relic of early times set amidst the more modern 21st century architecture of Tempe, just across University Boulevard from campus. I recognized immediately it must be a landmark familiar to generations of ASU students. Given that so little of old Tempe survives--even things that would have been there in the 1990s---I resolved to visit it, and today seemed like the perfect day. Even though it was exactly in the opposite direction to where I park, I thought it would be no big deal to walk up and have an early lunch on my way home.

Campus was empty as I walked through it going north instead of south as usual. Among the few people I saw were two students on the lawn in front of Old Main, in gym workout clothes practicing a cheerleading routine. The muscular young man was throwing a blond girl with a pony tail into the air and catching her. It was picture perfect, so classically collegiate, although they looked to be broiling in the sun. 

The Chuckbox was only a couple hundred yards from there, across the street from the the campus First United Methodist Church on the north side of University. I came upon the back door, out on the parking lot, which had neon signs like a beer joint, including the Cardinal mascot of the local NFL franchise. It looked like a real dive. I went around to the front and it looked exactly the back. Very weathered and classic look. I pulled open the door, and to my surprise found it very crowded. Almost all the tables were taken. There a modest line to order. One placed one's order with a young man at the start of a cafeteria style line along the back. I listened as the two girls in front of me ordered, so I could do so without being too awkward.

The ancient flattop grill was right next to where one ordered. One could see the classic mishapen patties frying there. It reminded me of a similar place in Austin near the UT campus, where students had ordered hamburgers for generations. I felt at home. I ordered the "Big One" and the suggestion of the young man I got cheese and said cheddar just to speed things along. He took the top of a hamburger bun and stuck two cellophane frill toothpicks into it of different colors which I discerned indicated the type and number of patties, as well as the type of cheese. There were already several such buns in progress. 

I took out my credit card, but the guy ignored me. Then I saw that the young women who had ordered before me were standing by the grill, a little on the far side of it. I saw the sign saying "wait here for your order".  So I did. It took only a few moments for the one of the guys tending the grill (there were three of them) to flip the patties onto a bun in a disposable container and place them in reach by the grill, announcing the type of burger. The young women picked up their to-go orders and headed down towards the place where you picked up the sides one ordered. I had ordered onion rings, because I have always loved onion rings since I was a kid, and this place felt comfortable that way, as it would have existed even when I was a boy.

Shortly my burger was place on a plate on a tray, as I had chosen to dine-in. Then I went down and saw my onion rings in a metal slot under heat lamps. Thankfully the order was smaller than I feared it might be---just the right size for one person for lunch and not a huge basket. I also picked up a coke from the fountain.

Then I walked up to the guy at the register, and only then do I notice the sign which says in big white letters "CASH ONLY" and explained that it helped speed up the process. It hit me that I 'd seen the cash only sign several times, even on my way in, and it hadn't registered on me!

Uh, oh, I thought. I hope I have enough. The total came to seventeen dollars and seventy-five cents. I put down my tray and dug into my wallet. I saw my folded cash in my wallet. I explained my situation to the guy at the counter, saying I had totally spaced on noticing the sign and that I hoped I had enough. He said there was a cash machine by the door.

I took it out my cash and counted it quickly. Two fives and six ones. I was almost two dollars short.  I told him that, and that I would be willing to go to the cash machine and get the rest, but he just waved it off in a nonchalant way and told me make up for it next time. I offered to put the drink back, but he waved it off. I handed him what I had---sixteen bucks and left with my tray to find a seat. I was both relieved and humiliated. It seemed unlikely I would enjoy the meal. 

As I ate my burger, which was as tasty as I hoped, and sitting among the people at the other tables, I reflected how for me, in such situations, it always seems to work out that I have just enough to cover the unexpected shortfall. Somehow I get granted that grace, over and over in my life. This was a strange exception, but I tried to think it was for a reason. If only I hadn't taken that fountain drink at the end! At least I would have a reason to come back, to make up the money I'd shorted them. 

Then it hit me that I had seen a one dollar bill loose lately, one that I had received but had left out of my wallet, and that had even gone through the wash. I had it in my backpack at one point. So I dug into my backpack but no such luck. Then I just tried my left front pocket, and I felt cash in there. I pulled out two one dollar bills, as if it were a magic trick.

Without wasting a second, I sprung up and hurried back to the register. I handed the guy the two one dollar bills in triumph. Now I could enjoy my meal.  The onion rings were great too. Just the right crunchiness.

 I took these shots before entering. Notice the prominent red and white sign in the second video. 

Here's one of the grill I snuck while waiting for my order.

Snack selection at the Cloud Innovation Lab

 

Cliff bars for the taking. 

First rain on June 1 since 1914

Miracle Rain

 The rains kept going all night. I was sure they would clear out, but the tropical storm that was generating all this kept churning, wherever it is in the ocean, and sending moisture up over us to fall on us. The first recorded rain in Phoenix on June 1 since 1914. That one hundred and eleven years since it rained on this date. And did it rain. By the evening, there were puddles--many of them.

In the middle of the night when I woke, as I often do, I heard the rain outside. It is a vertical rain, the water falling straight from the rooftops onto the pavement. There was little rain on the windows, as there was almost no wind. My rice paper screen stood all night long on the patio, and the books behind it were dry (I thought about this in the middle of the night and got up to check). 

As I write this here, the sky is getting light and yet the rain is still falling on the pavement, like the sound of a frying skillet, popping and crackling. It is delicious. It could end at any moment and never return, and this rain will become legendary. Such are the things I savor.

Requiem for a Saguaro

On the way down to the park, I was greeted by this horrible sight. This is the second fallen saguaro I have seen along this street in the last six month, the previous one being toppled in the median a little behind where this photo was taken. My initial thought why could't it be those wretched teddy bear chollas that visible down by the yellow pedestrian walk sign, right where you're supposed to cross (but will get possibly killed if you cross there). The chollas are a public menace were planted by some sadist right where one's hand might collide with them while walking on the sidewalk. Seriously, I would vaporize those if I could and hunt down the person who had the brilliant idea to put them where people and animals walk. But this is just my sadness talking about this fallen saguaro.

 

Cool Wind Bath with Droplets

As I write this is, it is raining. It is raining enough that I can hear the splashing of water dropping from the tiles roofs of the buildings of the complex, falling onto the asphalt pavement. 

The skies had been grey all day since first daylight. Overnight we had gotten a dusting of water, but it was the kind that dries on your car leaving a layer of filthy residue. After breakfast I heard thunder and hoped for real rain, but it seems elusive, teasing us all day with the possiblity.

The air felt muggy as well, which made for uncomfortable feeling of suspension. An hour ago, in mid afternoon, I decided to go out walking in the park. As I crossed the street I could see to the south many dark clouds, but from their position they would not come our way. I decided to inspect my former little hiding spot, the ironwood, where it rises beside the sandy bottom. Since the development of the park, the sandy bottom no longer becomes a stream when it rains so it is losing its character over time. The pink blossoms have fallen off the ironwood by now. I used to bring my three-legged stool and sit beside it, but now I would feel on display, visible from all sides, including the nearby area that is being used for the staging of the construction on the rest of the undeveloped desert. The pieces of my old habitat remain but it has lost its character as a retreat.

I then walked around the pond to the shelter. There was not a soul in the park beside me. I sat on one of the picnic tables looking out towards the south and the dark clouds. As I sat there I got lost in my thoughts until I felt a cool rush of wind coming into my face. The temperature droppped and it no longer felt muggy. As I waited, I began to feel raindrops on my face as well. It was glorious. The sprinkling was just enough to be comfortable. I sat on the table and took a wind bath, feeling the droplets and not minding getting wet.

But I didn't really get wet, and my skin and my clothes dried as quickly as the drops landed on them. It was like a bit of perfection to feel the wind and the droplets, and to be sitting there in an empty park. I probably stayed over forty five minutes, doing nothing else than enjoying the wind and the droplets and the dark clouds.Then I walked back to the street entrance of the park, feeling my back almost getting damp from the rain.

,,, according to FOX 10 Phoenix, Phoenix is experiencing rain on June 1st, 2025, which is the first time it has rained on this date since 1914. This rare event is due to moisture from Tropical Storm Alvin. The previous time Phoenix received measurable rainfall on June 1st was on June 1st, 1914, when 0.02 inches of rain were recorded. 

Have Multiple Textual Sources

 One key insight I've gotten from this notetaking project with quantum field theory is a confirmation of a hunch that using mulitiple textual sources is key.  I have at least half a dozen top-flight monographs on QFT that I've been collecting over the years in anticipating of trying this out. Yes it does work. One key trick was to go to the preface of each book and begin reading until one hits a basic description of the subject of the book, which might include a definition of the terms, including the subject itself, e.g. "what is quantum field theory, and why do we study it?"

Having multiple such sources, one can read all of them simultaneously, at these these key sections like the preface. Somehow doing this allows one's mind to more easily build a standalone understanding of the subject in one's one mind. With ChatGPT, you have another such source, which can connect all the sources together, by asking about certain passages in these books. That's what I've found, at least.

Even if they say virtually the same thing (which they don't), just having the subtle variations of syntax from one author's expression to another forces the mind to develop an understanding that accommodates both variations. One has space of interpretation, not fixed to a particular wording. This is necessary for an understanding, when you put things in your own words eventually. For now you have to rely on someone else's but having multiple sources is like having multiple legs of a table.