Summer Saturday and Sunday

Saturday morning runs are the absolute best. Once I turn off the side street, the neighborhood seems to come alive again. Children are playing at the nearby park or riding their bikes, and couples are walking their dogs with a coffee in hand. As I zip by the houses, a sudden, strong smell of pancakes and fried bacon lingers for a few moments. It always catches me off guard (in a good way), and I like that I don't know what house it comes from. That alone makes it worth it, especially since I never get these smells on any other day of the week.

Then Sunday comes around. And it really, really reminds me of this poem by Louis MacNeice.

Sunday Morning

Down the road someone is practising scales, 
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails, 
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car 
For this is Sunday morning, Fate's great bazaar; 
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now, 

And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow, 
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast 
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past, 
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time 
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme. 

But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire 
Open its eight bells out, skulls' mouths which will not tire 
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures 
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.

Seriously, these Saturday and Sunday mornings won't last forever. If the following Monday isn't already dreadful enough, then surely the passage of time to our deaths is! 

I love the line: "Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,". Sure, we can do these great things to achieve something down the road, but what I think is more important is to enjoy the present and live in the moment. I could run intensely to train for a marathon, but I'm gonna continue to enjoy my morning runs.

Then comes the line: "A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme." Just like a sonnet, the Sunday morning feels perfect and whole and like it could last forever, away from our life... Cue the song "Perfect Day" from Legally Blonde. Saturday and Sundays really do feel like this song sometimes. I've talked about the freshness of Saturday mornings with coffee in my In-N-Out mug writing in this blog. 

But then..

"how there is no music or movement which secures / Escape from the weekday time."

Oh god. No amount of morning runs, coffee, sleeping in, pancake breakfasts, reading in the sun, sitting in the grass at the park, or ANY other pleasant activity in which we live in the moment can save us from the 

"weekday time". That is, Monday and its depressing routine. Or wait. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and ALL of the shit we do during those days. Work, school, chores, meetings, and other mandatory things that are ultimately aging us and leading us until the day we die.

Then the final line: "Which deadens and endure". 

Time is slowly killing us, but will last forever and do the same to the next generation of lives way after we've died.

While this poem may sound grim, it's not entirely saying bad things. Basically, we can enjoy the Saturday and Sunday mornings. Living in the moment and enjoying life's pleasantries is good for our soul. The "Perfect Day" does exist, but it is not forever.... Cue the poem by Robert Frost: "Nothing Gold Can Stay". Just kidding. 

But really. We should actually live in the moment while we can. 

Grab a coffee, grab a book, and let's escape reality for a bit in the sun. Monday's a whole 24 hours away.

Unable to Sleep

I am writing this because, for whatever reason, I am unable to fall asleep. I blame it on the temperature in my room. It's the best worst time of year again, so that means drowsily sunny afternoons and stuffy nights. Isn't it so irritating when you have the ceiling fan on to the max and the windows wide open, but the room still remains hot because there isn't even the slightest draft outside to pull the cold air in? Believe me, it's cool outside, but sometimes the air just doesn't want to settle inside the room. More annoyingly, some nights it will, and it's one of the greatest feelings in the world as you're lying awake in bed. Then, the very next day, the temperature will be lower during the peak heat hours but hotter at night because there's no breeze. I was thinking idly about running a large tower fan pointed straight at my pillow all night, but it's way too noisy and wastes electricity.

Obviously, I have little to complain about right now. The temperature during the day has actually been quite mild for summer, which only leads me to believe that August will be hellish. I fuckin' hate August. Every year, without fail, it seems to have the absolute worst weather of the year, and for most people it's when the looming return of school begins to creep up. I know people complain about the winter months (especially January), but I love these months for the early darkness, and I never have sleepless nights in the winter. 

Writing this has not made me any more sleepy or ready to crash, so now I'm going to sit here uncomfortably in this chair until I prefer to lay in my bed, and then hopefully that satisfaction of not sitting straight up will put me to sleep. 

Welcome to Monkey Land

Last week I visited the brilliant San Diego Zoo, one of the many iconic landmarks of SD and California as a whole. As I walked through the pathways in the Lost Woods approaching Panda Ridge, I couldn't stop thinking about the poem on the AP Literature exam titled "London" by Manmohan Ghose. In all of its glory, I remembered some of the lines by heart from reading it religiously during the test.

Here it is:

London

Farewell, sweetest country; out of my heart, you roses,

Wayside roses, nodding, the slow traveller to keep.

Too long have I drowsed alone in the meadows deep,

Too long alone endured the silence Nature espouses.

Oh, the rush, the rapture of life! throngs, lights, houses,

This is London. I wake as a sentinel from sleep.

Stunned with the fresh thunder, the harsh delightful noises,

I move entranced on the thronging pavement. How sweet,

To eyes sated with green, the dusty brick-walled street!

And the lone spirit, of self so weary, how it rejoices

To be lost in others, bathed in the tones of human voices,

And feel hurried along the happy tread of feet.

And a sense of vast sympathy my heart almost crazes,

The warmth of kindred hearts in thousands beating with mine.

Each fresh face, each figure, my spirit drinks like wine,

Thousands endlessly passing. Violets, daisies,

What is your charm to the passionate charm of faces,

This ravishing reality, this earthliness divine?

O murmur of men more sweet than all the wood's caresses,

How sweet only to be an unknown leaf that sings

In the forest of life! Cease, Nature, thy whisperings.

Can I talk with leaves, or fall in love with breezes?

Beautiful boughs, your shade not a human pang appeases.

This is London. I lie, and twine in the roots of things.

Now I think I know why I couldn't stop thinking about it. 

I left the group I was with almost immediately after we arrived at the zoo, excited by my solitude and readiness to explore. Ghose mentions "Farewell, sweetest country;", similar to how I was escaping the quiet, lonely suburbs to be reinvigorated in the great city. Before you highlight any contradictions, I don't consider a zoo (no matter how great its replication is) to be synonymous with countryside or nature. 

In the first stanza of the poem, Ghose lyrically bashes the countryside with repetition, listing things he's done that he's disliked ("To long have I drowsed alone... / To long alone endured the silence"). Ironically, the stanza disapproves of the peacefulness of countryside—where many retreat to to escape the busy and stressful city-life. For the rural dweller, however, the grass appears greener in the city.

I especially like the line "Oh, the rush, the rapture of life! throngs, lights, houses..." because, like Ghose, I enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by crowds of people and "raptures of life" that I don't know at all. The feeling of being swallowed by individuals and families walking through the paths of the African Rocks is not something you can easily attain. Just like the occasional child atop a father’s shoulders for a better view...how cute: “Get on my shoulder so you can see.” Ghose personifies the pavement: "I move entranced on the thronging pavement" (referring to the pavement of London streets), as if it gains life, a surge of energy from the "happy tread of feet" of those walking upon it! Indeed, every aspect of the zoo seems to come alive at the flood of people moving through. 

Can this poem get any better? Of course it can. I kept walking alone, making my way up to the polar bears, until I remembered the line: "And the lone spirit, of self so weary, how it rejoices / To be lost in others, bathed in the tones of human voices". Right! I was doing exactly that, admiring the animals alone as I listened in and "bathed" in the family conversations and remarks. Oh, and even in silence, for there was nothing quite like leaning against the railing of the enclosure next to everyone as we stood quietly watching the elephants eat. Somehow, it felt good to be lost in the others voices as I wandered silently from animal to animal.

Walking from place to place, I get to see a new set of faces each step I take: "The warmth of kindred hearts in thousands beating with mine. / Each fresh face, each figure, my spirit drinks like wine, / Thousands endlessly passing."  just love the way Ghose describes the feeling of seeing a new face, because it really does reinvigorate your spirit to know that thousands of others are doing the same.

So I encourage you! Go to a new place with crowds and take it in, enjoy the sites, listen to the "murmur of men more sweet than all the wood's caresses", and light the fire in your life again. The place feels better when enjoyed by many.

After all.....

This is San Diego. I lie, and twine in the roots of things.