"I thought the Earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars...."
-Mary Oliver
The hush hush of technological advance admits the absence of human presence in the office. A dollhouse of paperwork dresses the table, in the shadows the First Aid creeps a witnessing message in the hope that the air stagnates further through the afternoon. Artificial light and air heat up the walls of this unchanging home; dusted mission statements yawn an echo against deaf ears. Moving shadows sleep in their own movements; glass fixtures capture time, but not its passage.
Behind the hum of computers an old clock ticks backwards until the end of the work day. Life comes only once the Exit Sign reaches its glow, and the hallways can dance a stifled freedom into the streets outside.
The darkened room colors nothing of my mood. Black boots stooped over aging fabric, shedding curtains lingering over a sunset's edge. The stuff of life. In mind all fuzz and frenzy over cups of coffee, simple pleasures of exceeding magnitude stopping time, for a moment, to savor an eternity of breath.
Beyond the glass wooden dendrites pierce the evening sky; memories fade into the night beyond themselves. The roofs of lonely houses lean forward as if to gather the last ruins of winter onto their edges. What is left in the distance? The subtle weaving of engines begging for rest. A screech of metal on nearby railroad. Footprints caked over children's laughter in the dawn of an industrial birth, now lost amidst the hurried whistle beneath the station, closing on a destination even as the motors warm up in their slots.
And a soul, alone, struggling to embrace the deeper silence, in fear of empty noise.
Intent on nothing else but writing, I am letting my words slip off my fingertips in the hope that something good will come out.
The air is cool and I wish this peaceful silence could endure forever. Yet I lag back and forth between enjoying and disliking, slightly, my stay in Medford. The incessant quiet does not aid my depression and or ward off constant temptation to fall too deeply into myself. But the crow of the birds on my windowsill, the hum from the nearby train tracks and the early morning dew are all things that I treasure about this neighborhood. In Cambridge there was never a sun, never a star, just a spreading gray during the daytime and a long black at night. In Medford I can count the stars, watch the Moon in her glory, and bathe in the sunlight by the altar. When it rains, the trees sigh into my lungs, and the potted plants on our porch stretch out their veiny arms towards the sky.
Here's what our team captain, David Parker, had to say about our team performance this weekend:
Good Morning Living Root! Happy Monday! Here's a quick recap of our weekend events for those of you who couldn't attend the races in Montreal. We broke down several barriers and set some new records including LRDB's fastest time: 2:17.06 !! And, as some of you already know, we brought home the gold in Intermediate Division G 500 meter final with a winning time of 2:18.15. The 500 meter final was a really hard fought race, and everyone gave everything they had to win. Our start was really solid and the timing was robotic. I was hoping we'd break out of the pack, but the other 5 boats in our heat just stayed right with us. Our drummer, Nila, just kept updating everyone by screaming "Head to head! Head to head!" The power dropped once about midway down the course, but we picked it back up once I screamed at everyone (sorry, I had to). We slammed away at the finish and everyone poured it on thick. The boat was flying along like mad. As we crossed the line there was no way to tell who won. It was too close to call. The final times were:
To win such a tight race requires a great deal of mental focus. We accomplished much and we've continued to make progress. In 2006, we came home empty handed. In 2007 we placed 2nd in Rookie Division C, and now in 2008 we leaped over the rest of the Rookie divisions and won Intermediate Division G. On top of all this, we pulled our fastest time to date during the second time trial: 2:17.06. We just keep getting better and better. I am extremely proud of our performance, and I'm really glad we beat Bananaship. I would like to thank everyone for all the work they put into making the trip fun and successful. Thanks goes out to David Liu who set up our dinner at Mars Venus. Lily and Margo did a superb job as our PICOLS (Persons In Charge Of Lunch and Sustenance) for we had an excellent spread of munchable foods. Everyone helped haul gear around and set up our campsite. Brian Caldwell taught us a new card game. A big thanks goes out to all the people who drove to and from Montreal. I would also like to recognize several people who volunteered to paddle or drum for other teams: Whitney, Nila, Dave Mollo, Richard, Karla, Melissa, Margo, and Po. Not only did these paddlers get some experience with different paddling styles, they continued our tradition of good sportsmanship. Check out some photos on the website: http://livingroot.org/PhotoGallery/thumbnails.php?album=153
Montreal 2008 was an amazing experience. It was the first international sports event I'd ever participated in and was framed by my first road trip into Canada. It was the first trip I made into territory where the lay of the land was spelled out in French instead of Spanish, and where I had to rely on some of my more knowledgeable friends for translation. It was also the first event I attended that was entirely centered around the sport of dragon boating, and was held not only at a man-made island, but also in an Olympic basin built specifically for the Montreal Games of 1976.
The teams attending were from all over Canada and the Eastern coasts of the United States -- some of them corporate teams, some of them local teams, and some of them national contenders. We were at the bottom of the list when we started -- a very young team (only three years old) in the Rookie Division that had gone home empty-handed two years before. This year we left gold medal winners -- the first time in our history-- not in our previous division, but now amongst more experienced teams, within the Intermediate Grouping. The back of our medals read Intermediate, Open Mixed 500 meter Final 2008, G Division, 1st Place.
I rode from Boston through New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont with three other teammates on Friday morning. We got to Montreal in the early evening after stopping in Burlington, VT to take in the sights of Lake Champlain and the local neighborhoods. Our hotel, St. Andre, was half a block away from Montreal's famous St. Catherine's Street and its amazing collection of eclectic cafes, bars and stores. The people were friendly and warm to all us lost tourists and welcomed our stay in their beautiful country with open arms. We ate at the Mars Venus, a popular restaurant-bar, on Saturday evening, after our first day of racing. The video above is one that I took during our second time trial, when I sat out as an alternate. The next morning, we got up at 4:25am and raced our last 500 meters at 7:54 am. Forty minutes later, we found out that we'd placed first.
I saw some amazing things happen while at the event. Three of the top teams in the Premiere Division perked up to make a 100 m dash in front of the thousands of other dragon boaters and fans at the sight. It was a race talked up for at least a half hour before by the local announcers and the shoreline was bursting with people trying to get a better view. 70 m into the race, one boat lost their steerer, veered into the lane to their right and crashed into another team. The steer-less boat angled to one side and tipped everyone into the water, causing an immediate response from the on-site medics and lifeguards. After a small cheer was given to the winning team, an even louder applause came for the hapless dragon boaters that were taken to shore. That same spirit of community support was felt throughout the weekend as resting teams cheered for the people in the basin, and neighboring groups, rivals, friends, supported one another in providing extra paddlers, drummers, steerers, etc, whenever there was a need for them. Stories were told about trips to international dragon boat races in Taiwan, the new groups of teams that were recruiting members, and about victories and challenges. We left Montreal exhausted but grateful for each other's presence, in and out of the boat.
Now I just have to pray for the rain to stop. I should be making rice or starting to carb load; however, I am so tired. I packed last night and have little energy to do anything besides sleep right now.
Here are some images from last year's race. This year we want to come back with some hardware...
I haven't posted anything in a while because there is just too much to say. I feel like I talk only about myself on the blog and often wonder if I am helping anyone at all by feeling so sorry for myself. I have a lot going on inside -- a lot of thinking, figuring out what the next step is, etc. I am still Lucy at the corner with a .05 glass of lemonade, wondering what I'll be when I grow up. It's sad, really. I feel like I have also become a reluctant 'believer'...as much as I don't want to believe in the existence of a God, the idea of a benevolent Deity still resonates with me. It is much easier to walk away from your studies, your education, your connection to a previous form of spirituality, when you stop believing in God. But what about when you haven't? The unfortunate re-emergence of a past Presence gets you all tied up in problems again and wondering if anything makes sense anymore. Funny that somehow the death of my deepest self -- the part that was connected to God and led me into my studies at Weston -- has never been grieved or discussed at length in my therapy. I have jumped the hole many, many times and my therapist has been wise enough not to force me into it. But someday I'm gonna have to make my way into that void and see where everything really went.
