sitar, or dijerydo

the puddle on the driveway next to the apartment has been growing, inch by inch, every day until finally it dawned on me that maybe, yes, there is a leak and, sure enough, when i squatted down and looked under the bricks where the hose comes out from under the building, a fine, needle-thin spray of water could be seen arching from the pipes.

since our landlord is, at best, absentee, the process is this: call the landlord, wait for him to never call back, call the plumber, pay for it yourself, deduct from rent check at the end of the month, and cross your fingers this is okay. so far, we're right on track, having completed steps one through three. i am currently listening to the plumber bang and jingle in the bathroom, where he not only laughed right out loud at the current arrangement of the pipes under the sink, which have been re-routed along a peculiar path that seems anti-thetical to drainage, but also advised us to "get rid of" the old, leaking faucets we have in there and replace them with new ones. and so, for the past two hours, i've been uneasily trying to settle into my reading and note-taking, but mostly i am distracted by this man, the fact that the water has been shut off, and that i've just finished my fourth cup of strong black coffee.

on memorial day, i got off my lazy ass and took the push broom from the garage and swept the mounds and mounds of tree-pollen from the back driveway/patio area. i swept up a final large pile that came to about the top of my knees, and shoved it into the little gated area where i sometimes toss the leaves of turnips or beets. suddenly, the back area was a fine place to be, again, and i built up some shelving out of old bricks and planks of wood in the garage, artfully arranged our flowers, herbs, and plants along them to make the sitting area look like a place where neo-hippies might hang out with a sitar or dijerydo. i noticed the infamous pomegranate tree has three new fruits coming in, and i listened to the mysterious warble of a red-headed bird that was hopping from limb to limb in the pecan trees that tower in our back yard. the weekend was so quiet -- HH and just about every one of my neighbors were out of town, so i felt like i had the whole block to myself as i walked to get some groceries and some beer, and then, after the sun set, i sat outside and scribbled notes to myself on the big ideas that have been governing my thoughts these days, watched the stray cats chase after frogs and saw bats flittering wildly over the rooftops.

i guess part of getting rid of that "unmoored" feeling is to remember that you might, in fact, have an anchor and that you might have to cast it down right where you are to -- what? not necessarily feel stable (i have problems with sea sickness), but at least get a sense of where you are, leaky pipes and all.

unmooring

when we were little, my grandfather would wake us up in the morning by pretending that the bed was a boat and that he was the captain, and that we were headed out from a dock that was the bedroom or whatever fold-out sofa bed we might have spent the night. "goodbye!," he'd yell to no one who was there, "goodbye, now!" we'd wake up, one by one, listening to the sound of the engine that he made low in his throat. pretty soon my sisters and my cousins and I would be yelling our farewells, too: "goodbye, mom!" "goodbye, uncle jack!" "goodbye, aunt ro-ro!" i would picture everyone gathered on the dock, the water dappling in the sunlight, the sides of the boat as we moved out to sea, unmoored, having departed for an imaginary world that, after several minutes, gave me great pause -- where, exactly, were we going?

it occurs to me that this is a memory of an act of imagination about departure that was performed upon awakening and, in a way, a reversal. you might, for example, expect your grandfather to take you on an imaginary journey for parts unknown as a way to bridge the space between waking and dreaming. for us, it was the opposite. and, from what i can remember, we never arrived anywhere, we just left and we had no real destination in site. at first, it was really easy to get wrapped up in the fervor of yelling and waving, trying to one up each other by remembering who we still hadn't said goodbye to -- distant cousins, neighbors, schoolteachers. but, eventually, you'd get to puzzling over what you were supposed to imagine was happening once we got out of sight, once we were at sea and there was, ironically, nothing to see, and then it was simply over. now that we were fully awake -- well? well, now what?

i'm thinking about departures and endings because, of course, the summer's coming, which means i'll be saying goodbye to the all-too familiar routine of exhaustion and, by hook or by crook, i'll enter a new way of inhabiting the world, just for a little while -- on my own terms, more or less, while i intellectually and emotionally recuperate from the drain of way too many students who exert an unbelievable amount of resistance. the goal is to read deeply, develop more Big Ideas, and write about them. keep on with the yoga. go for walks. listen to abstract music. communicate with smart people. maybe return to this blog, which feels distant from me, now, especially since i suspect that, yes, students are reading it and i am not sure if that matters at all or maybe just a little bit.

i'm also thinking about departures and endings because, of course, the above memory demonstrates the bizarre temporality of such moments -- the imaginary boat ride begins as an ending, as a departure, but it never formally ends in its own right. it just kind of fizzles out in a vague non-memory of non-completion. you might say it fails to end. it is a strong memory, this awakening to the beginning of an ending, but it leaves me feeling a bit adrift in the waters of my own in-between moment.