Category: Inspiration

Silver Linings: IRS, the Nutcracker and YouTube

It isn’t every day that calling the IRS to complain about tax-evading politicians turns out to be entertaining. I had a few minutes to spare, and my new method for letting things go that make me incensed is to take some action. Even a small fruitless action helps me to move on.

What had me incensed was the news of Tom Daschle’s little tax hiccup causing him to withdraw his cabinet nomination for Health and Human Services. Is he too good to lose? Opinions abound, but many of us would rather take a draconian view and get rid of him. Our goodwill towards people in high positions is threadbare these days. Let some political forest fires rage and they might leave fresh ground for new growth.

I had just witnessed Barack Obama’s inauguration in person. Two days later I see news of my city’s mayor facing questions about his teen sex scandal. Opposing factions are calling for him to stay or resign. Is it my civic duty to consider his governing abilities before casting my verdict? I used to think so but who has the energy anymore? My fear is that events like this are becoming quotidian. How does remain interested and involved in the face of looming cynicism—our own and theirs?

Having just written a check for a $90 underpayment on last year’s taxes (that’s $90, not $900, $9000, or $90,000), I couldn’t help but wonder how the IRS could miss $128,000 of Daschle’s unpaid taxes. Sure, his taxes are more complicated than mine are. But that’s not my problem.

So I called the IRS expecting not to get through or to be taken seriously. I was transferred to the Procedures and Rules department. I pictured the cubicled workers snickering at the whack job who called to ask why the IRS wasn’t doing their job. I hope I wasn’t the only one calling.

I waited on hold for long enough to hear Mozart’s Symphony No. in G minor, then his Eine Kleine Nactmusik, and finally Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker. It was all quite lovely. I can thank my sister’s long-ago ex-husband, who was a violin teacher, for why I know the titles of these pieces.

I couldn’t help but laugh listening to Tchaikovsky. Anyone who has seen the movie Top Secret is familar with the famous ballet scene in which the Nutcracker’s Waltz of the Flowers is performed. Nearly every scene is a parody, and here the male ballet dancers have enormous codpieces on which the female dancers eventually leap to and fro. There are so many ridiculous lines and scenes in this movie. And this, coming from someone who doesn’t like slapstick.

Just recently, my brother and I were inspired, while inside a Catholic cathedral, to recite the scene in which a prisoner is given last rites by a priest before being executed. He reads from a bible every Latin phrase having nothing to do with last rites—veni vidi vici, e pluribus unum, ipso facto, pro bono and so on. We never fail to collapse in laughter and see which of us can remember the most lines. Perhaps Mr. Daschle had a little lapsus memoriae.

An IRS woman finally answered the phone and I was yanked out of my YouTube reverie. She assured me that “Mr. Dashle would have received notices from the IRS.” And that she “was also a taxpayer who pays her taxes and thinks the system should be fixed.” Oddly, it made me feel a little better. I say a little. This is either reassuring or disturbing to know that you can owe that much money to the IRS and not be thrown in jail.

At least the time I spent on hold and in YouTube meant no dollars earned and, thus, fewer taxes to pay.

Ode to a Carrot

I have a growing collection of odd-shaped foods usually found at the wonderful Portland Farmers Market. Some Saturdays I can be found cooking at the Taste the Place tent, letting market shoppers try various seasonal foods. Otherwise, I’m found wandering in a daze trying to remember just what it is I need to buy. I’m often so overtaken by the abundance of gorgeous produce that I will have made several loops and still have nothing in my bag. A display of purple cauliflower sitting next to orange pumpkins leaves me speechless. Despite my obsession with artichokes, I’m almost paralyzed at the mountain of greenish purple thistles not knowing if I should eat them or paint a picture. Or I consider buying an array of peppers, each one representing a color of the rainbow, all except for blue…thank god.

The “carrot guy” as he is unofficially known, has the most splendid pile of just-dug beets, potatoes and carrots in more colors than you knew existed. Aside from the dual-colored purple and orange ones, these two carrots were my most inspired purchase. (I never claimed to be a poet.)

Grey Areas: The Great Northwest Hunkering Down

If there were a day not to go outside, this would be it. It’s the kind of that gives those in the Northwest an excuse to hibernate. But go outside I did, out of necessity.

The first task was a leap larger than my small stature really allows for, across the newly created river where there once was a curb. Within days the remaining leaves, spanning a good four or five feet from curb towards the middle of the street, will look and feel like brownie mix.

Sudden and random sweeping gusts on an otherwise mild day sneak up and render umbrellas comedic and useless. Sorry to the person I laughed at who was thrown up against the side of a building and whose umbrella looked like Marilyn Monroe’s upturned white dress. You see, the same thing happened to me just yesterday. Later a friend complimented me on my hair asking what I’d done to it. “Hair by God,” I replied.

Many say control is illusory. And so, I’ve given over to seasonality not just in the form of squash over tomatoes but in allowing the ending of election season to mark time. It is perhaps the gross amount of time I allowed election goings-on to sieze me that its ending doesn’t so much leave a void but reminds me that I have dining room chairs to be re-caned. I won’t say how long they’ve been sitting in there untended to and half finished. This is one ill for which Sarah Palin cannot be blamed.

Intermission.

Act 2: next day.

A phone and computer melt down required venturing out into the monsoon once again for various technical aids, causing this post to halt mid-writing. Lo and behold, it’s sunny today and will be for days, so they claim. But we know not to be fooled by the occasional sunny day in November. We’re not suckers.

This time of year brings a necessary turning inside to revisit those bits of oneself that temporarily disappeared amidst the urgency of summer sunshine. It’s like the seasonal equivalent of the thoughtful nerd compared to the partying jock. A retreat inward also means more time spent alone, and if not careful, procrastination might continue. So now you’ve lost both human connection and you’ve squandered time.

On my own list are: finishing those chairs, painting a canvas floor cloth for the kitchen, continuing on my mission to declutter so I’m left with only beautiful or useful things, reading or giving away the growing stack of books I was somehow inspired to buy, and cooking at least one recipe out of the 2000-recipe Italian cookbook someone gave me. This is the short list.

Charged by my now-functioning technological life, I disentangled and unplugged an albatross of an old computer and scanner that, I would like to think, signals an ushering in of wide open space. Not only that of the visible desktop (the analog kind) but the mental space as well. Every time I eliminate a dust-collecting object from my life, it is an opportunity to fill it with something dissimilar, something formless, something that’s been lacking, something soul feeding.

Who am I kidding really? In no time, this freed-up space will contain piles of books and design magazines. Already my Obama action figure and his friend the cell-phone-talking Buddah have migrated there, along with a few other things.

No matter. With new seasons come new opportunities, opportunities I plan to seize. Bring on the rain.

Conjuring Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell just told me I should keep writing.

Well, not exactly.

In desperation a couple weeks ago, I realized that I was in need of wisdom. Could someone, anyone, of sound mind please explain, among other things, how we arrived at this place in political history, how Palin be could be happening to us, what all this says about us as a people? For a moment, I had the misguided idea that one could impose logic on the illogical.

Who better than Malcolm Gladwell to unravel a mystery, I decided? I pictured his characteristic thesis that, on the surface, would have an obvious answer. But as the mystery unfolded, unexpected answers would emerge. I did what any desperate person would do. I stalked him.

Well, not exactly. But I did go to the New Yorker website, where Gladwell is a regular contributor, in the hopes of finding that he’d expounded on this very subject. I imagined I might breathe a sigh of relief to know that, even if people shout racist epithets in public, Gladwell would have taken the edge off by presenting an idea that I could live with. The idea, mind you, not the racist epithets.

What I found was that he hadn’t written a column since May of this year. Then I want to his own website and looked at his blog, only to find that he hadn’t written a post since March of this year. A writer like Gladwell? I became worried.

So I emailed him. My email must have sounded like he should keep his finger on the pulse of my fears about society, and that he’d shirked his duty. A few days later, my heart skipped a beat when I checked email and found his name in the inbox.

For a nerd, this is a bit like not wanting to wash your cheek for a week because your crush just kissed it. I’ll admit that the reply was not, indeed, written by Gladwell himself, but by an assistant. Still, I like to believe that when she said Gladwell thanked me for my “kind email” and that he “really appreciates you taking the time to inquire about him,” that she was telling the truth. She told me that he has a new book coming out in mid November.

Ah. Makes sense. I could live with that.

Imagine my surprise then, when I logged on to the New Yorker today, and lo and behold, there was a new column from Gladwell, the first in four months. Better yet, the column, titled “Late Bloomers,” questions the notion that genius is equated with precocity. He builds a case for exhibiting genius late in life based on repeated effort, and not so much from luck being born a prodigy. Thank goodness for that.

Gladwell says at one point, “…sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.”

Given my nascent attempt at writing at the ripe age of 42, I decided I’d conjured Malcolm Gladwell at just the right time. I’ll pretend he was sending a secret message my way and that he just didn’t have time to email me personally.

Comfort and Aid: “Enemy” in the Heartland

My mother called shortly before the third and final presidential debate the other night. She had a lilt in her voice that told me she hadn’t likely been watching the Dow plummet again on CNN.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“I just got back from tutoring.” She said, almost breathless.

“Palling around with terrorists again, huh Mom?” It took her a moment and then she laughed at the absurdity.

My mother, her sister and several other people have just about adopted an Iraqi family in Peoria, Illinois. That an Iraqi family has a safe haven in this small city in the heartland makes me feel like all is not so bad with the world.

This small army of do-gooders, with perhaps collective American guilt, have heaped on this family much assistance. A house to live in, help finding the father a job, donated clothing and household items and tutoring for the four children. When you see the insanity going on around the world, what we’ve done to Iraq, the current election negativity, it’s easy to feel helpless and ask yourself “what’s the point of it all?” I wouldn’t be surprised if helping this family does as much for the family as it does for my mother and her friends.

Recently, my mother told me about a shopping excursion to buy Noor, the 17-year old daughter, long skirts as part of her hajib. This was no easy task apparently. It must be hard to keep the faith what with changing hemlines. They didn’t have much luck that day. But later, my mother was on a solo shopping trip, remembered Noor’s size and hit the jackpot. I don’t doubt it. My mother taught us the art of dressing well on a budget. I’m glad she can transfer those skills to another set of kids, in addition to instruction on dangling participles and puzzling through math equations.

While my mother was there tutoring the other night, the Iraqi mother brought out a spread of wonderful food. Despite a dining room table, a cloth was spread on the floor and they all sat down to eat. The family insisted that my mother and her friend Norma stay. Plates of fried fish, couscous, lots of fresh vegetables graced the floor. This family of six, with uncertainty about their living situation and the father’s job, eats very well, my mother said. It didn’t surprise me. Many cultures have an enviable connection to food that we don’t have here in the U.S.

I think about this natural exchange of kindness and generosity in the heartland, of seemingly disparate lives coming together, mutually benefiting. And yet, two states over in the heartland of Ohio, there was another kind of coming together. Attendees at a Palin rally spoke of fearing that “blacks would take over America,” that “Obama hated whites,” that “a Negra was running for President,” that “Obama was related to a terrorist.”

As good a thing it is to exercise your duty and right to vote, election season is a mixed blessing. It is during this time that ugliness rears its head and you see a side of people you could have lived without knowing.

Despite our need for a change in attitude and direction in this country, no one can take away one’s spirit or desire to have an impact on their immediate world. Even if a breath of fresh air enters the White House, there’s been a collective tuning out our leaders, including the promising ones. Perhaps this leaves us with more freedom to do things we have real power to do.