Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

Shades of Red and Blue

Virginia is equipped state-wide with a warning light system at most major intersections. Essentially, when a fire or EMS vehicle is nearing the intersection, a flood light begins pulsing to warn traffic that the emergency vehicle is approaching, and the light turns red in the direction opposite of that of the approaching first responder. Karen and I were driving somewhere a few days ago…I can’t remember where…and I saw the pulsing floodlight. Quite handy, because it causes you to begin scanning forward and backward to see whether or not you need to move to the right and stop to permit the passage of the lights and sirens.

Over the weekend, it happened again…Karen didn’t hear the siren, and asked why I was stopping and moving to the side of the street. During a recent road trip, we had just pulled back onto the highway from getting a snack, and I had to move over and stop to permit a police cruiser to shoot past me. In fact, the afternoon that I write this, I was cut off in traffic by a suddenly illuminating police cruiser executing a traffic stop on an SUV.

It seems that, wherever Karen and I have lived since we’ve been married, it’s always close to a major source of lights and sirens. Major fire precincts have been within earshot of both of the apartments in which we’ve lived together, and most recently we’re just off of a major artery of traffic, as well. Thus, emergency vehicles of all sorts go blowing by on a regular basis, their lights briefly visible from our sun room window.

I’m not sure if I should read something into this fact, or not. It seems to me I would be over-spiritualizing to do so. A little over a year ago, the building across the street in our apartment complex was evacuated due to a kitchen fire. The parking lots were instantly filled with ladder trucks, rescue trucks, fire engines, ambulances, and a battalion chief. They descended in a matter of minutes. I was comforted by this, that they could respond that quickly should the need arise. It’s certainly not the only time I’ve seen fire vehicles in our parking lot; apparently the building next door has a tenant that experiences frequent medical crises, because an ambulance frequently arrives late at night, red and white strobes piercing through our bedroom window.

It causes me to wonder at times. Have Karen and I just coincidentally lived in apartments nearby emergency responders? Does this sort of stuff gravitate toward me? Does my guilty fascination with police reality television make me hyper-aware of a normal amount of activity? Or is there really that much trouble occurring around us, that many lives in trouble, that many conflicts? Do that many people have to cry for help so frequently?

The tiny apartment that I lived in during grad school…what would be my last “bachelor pad”…was situated in a quiet neighborhood which saw almost no trouble. One night, though, soon after I moved in, about five police cruisers sailed by at blinding speed, lights flaring and sirens wailing. A few months later, a police cruiser was quietly parked on the corner as I filled out a complaint because someone had vandalized my car. I’ve had to stop and call for help after witnessing numerous accidents while driving here or there in my life. Perhaps it really does follow me. Or perhaps I just notice it a great deal.

We all really cry out for help that much, don’t we? And we all feel more comfortable with the thought that there are those who are willing to come to our aid when we do. The allure of super-hero mythologies is that we all want a hero, and we all desire to be one at some point.

All of us. Every one.

Second Photo Attribution: khawkins04

In Absentia

As a writer, I understand the need for a good cliffhanger ending as much as the next guy…especially when writing a serial that requires an ongoing story arc. The beauty of these ongoing story arcs is the room that they give to develop characters, and myriads of plots and subplots that can run their course and segue easily into new twists and turns. This is an advantage inherent to all serial story lines, television programming and comic books alike. With television programming, the cliffhanger ending becomes a bit more important at the end of the season. The viewer has to be on the edge of their seat, crying out with the cruelty of being left without resolution to what they have just seen, and knowing that they will be thinking about the potential outcomes of the situation constantly over the next few months until they finally discover what happens next.

The writers for Bones attempted this at the end of last season, and failed miserably. The writers of Haven have very recently succeeded for me (in moments of quiet, my thoughts frequently drift back to the two main characters, weapons drawn, staring down Audrey’s doppelganger, and I wonder, “now what?”).

In the last week, I was left hanging by the ending of Stargate: SGU. This is the only installment of the Stargate series that’s ever been worth a consideration as serious television, in my humble opinion. While I understand that fans of the other Stargate series have been mostly disappointed with SGU, I’ve been riveted by its dark explorations of interpersonal dynamics, ethics, and social governance. I’m aching to find out what will happen to Chloe, and I’m simultaneously disturbed and fascinated by Rush. And, I’ve been left hanging at a critical plot juncture for (wait for it) four months!

That’s right, four months. Much longer than the average break between seasons, and this wasn’t even the season finale. This is a mid-season break that occurs with programming on the SyFy network. This is because a shift from it’s regular programming occurred when, for some reason I can’t explain, SyFy apparently acquired WWE Smackdown. Apparently this occurred after a channel with programming known for great writing that inspired thinking stopped thinking itself about the English language, and began pandering for how much money it could shamelessly make.

And, of course, that same pandering for money has led to the cancellation of SGU, because Nielson ratings aren’t yet intelligent enough to track anything other than the dinosaur that is cable television.

Really? WWE Smackdown???

I’m just disturbed, because there’s precious little intelligent programming left on American screens to begin with. So, when a well-written and thought-provoking program (read: unpopular, because the average viewer has no desire to actually think) is put up against a wrestling program that requires nothing more of the viewer than drooling and shoving corn ships into his mouth, then well-written and thought-provoking loses.

And, we’re one step closer to the world envisioned in Idiocracy. Because that’s what happens when quality art is subjected to the whim of corporations interested only in their profits: Another amazing story dies an ignoble death.

Ironically, that’s exactly what we couldn’t afford to have happen.

The Amazing Shrinking Convenience

Karen and I had just boarded our flight last week, ahead of schedule on what would be a perfect travel day (everything on schedule, and a total of 8 hours from when we entered the airport to when we put our luggage on the floor in her parents’ home). As we were preparing to taxi out, just before the magical cut-off point when mobile phone use must be abandoned for the duration of your trek through the clouds, a woman across the aisle was ending a call by exclaiming how tiny an airport this was. She was using the tone of voice that indicates you’re embarrassed by how un-trendy the thing is that you’re being forced to endure.

Let me set the stage: Our city has a regional airport, not a large hub. We chose to fly into another regional airport at the other end of the trip. A bit more expensive, but worthwhile in what it saved in time. At the end our week-long Christmas excursion, we entered the other airport on Tuesday, and Karen remarked after how pleasant and talkative the security screeners were with her. We got to our gate early, and listened to the airline staff joke and laugh loudly with each other and the passengers waiting to board. At one point, as we were standing and preparing for our zone to board, one staff member came back up the tunnel from the aircraft laughing so abruptly and loudly that it startled me for a moment. Given the ludicrous level of tension in most airports, I expected some uniformed law enforcement officer to appear from nowhere and drag someone off in handcuffs. But, it was humor only that was at work, and the joking continued with the passengers as we boarded the flight, one ticket agent complaining with a huge grin about how her co-worker picked on her.

After rushing to catch some connecting flights, we arrived home that evening. The total time we spent walking from the terminal to the baggage claim was about three minutes. Everything was relaxed, leading Karen to remark on how much nicer traveling is when you leave from small airports instead of large ones. The security screeners were polite and thorough, but not tense, and not showing the assumption that everyone entering the airport was a criminal. They even joked a couple of times on one end of the trip. There was no pushing and shoving and fighting through lines to get to your terminal in time. We did not have to endure security theatre. Two passengers were talking across the seating area to each other, and no one really cared.

Perhaps everyone was being kind with each other because it was Christmas. In fact, I’m certain that played into things somehow. Beyond that, however, I think we witnessed what is true with any business or enterprise: the larger the business becomes, the more likely everyone is to be treated as a cog in the machine instead of as a human being. Personability is sacrificed in the name of efficiency and uniformity and all those other nasty things that rob us of basic human dignity. Beyond a certain size, the process becomes more important than the person.

Sort of flies in the face of the assumptions of our modern industrial age, doesn’t it?

Hopefully, in managing my time and my lifestyle in the new year, I’ll remember that bigger isn’t necessarily better…contrary to the popular Western mythos.

Here’s to 2011!

Photo Attribution: _rockinfree

Auditory Gifts

Christmas was blissfully free of large amounts of gift-giving this year, providing us with time to focus on the important activities of re-connecting with family that we frequently only see once or twice a year, and of just spending some relaxing down-time in front of classic Christmas movies while drinking hot chocolate and having fluid discussions about this and that (passionately avoiding the subject of politics wherever possible).

And, for the opportunity to do all of these things, I am thankful.

Nearly four years into the marriage, I’m just becoming well acclimated to Karen’s side of the family. I’ve had some hit-and-miss relationships with some members of the family on her side, for various reasons, and this Christmas I had some wonderful and stimulating conversations with some of them. I was very happy to have connected with them and to have experienced substantive interaction.

I couldn’t really decide why that had happened, however, until my father-in-law summarized it the best. He said that, often, we are far too interested in communicating ourselves to spend the time getting to know those to whom we are communicating. In my words, these individuals and I had always spent time talking at each other instead of to each other until this year.

For the first time in our marriage, I felt as though I truly took the time to listen to some of our family, and the result was that we found a great deal more common ground than I had ever anticipated. Part of this is that we have all progressed in our spiritual and life journeys since last we spoke, but a great deal of the reason is that we took the time to listen as well as speak for the first time.

Sure, we agree to disagree on some things. I’m very politically opposite most of Karen’s family, for example (hence the avoidance of that topic), but there’s so much more in common than not in common that I’ve discovered after taking the time to listen first and speak later.

Learning the obvious lesson from this made a wonderful Christmas gift.

Here’s to the upcoming adventures of 2011…and to hoping our flight is somewhat on time today.

Photo Copyright by Austin-Lee Barron. Used by permission.

Slow and Snow-Filled Contemplations

It’s not getting finished.

All of the pre-Christmas gift-shipping and card-sending, that is. Unexpected developments last week inhibited that. But, it’s okay. I didn’t even get all of the Christmas lights up in our apartment this year. But, that’s okay, too. I’m enjoying a relatively low-stress few days preceding this beautiful Christmas holiday, enjoying the last week of Advent, listening to Enya, and even finding myself thinking that the snow with the Christmas lights is…well, nice…in a nostalgic sort of way.

Now, for me to say that snow is nice might be indicative of me softening a bit in my (not-so) old age. Or, perhaps I’ve lived in the absence of significant snowfall for several years now, and am discovering what I thought least likely to be true: that I’m missing it. Or, perhaps I’m adapting mentally to an upcoming move that will be happening in a few months (couldn’t resist dropping that spoiler, but you’ll get no more from me until next year).

It’s okay that the material hustle and bustle won’t get finished. As much as I try to minimize it, it still seems to pervade this holy season in Western culture. I don’t want to fixate on what isn’t important right now, because there’s so much that is important as we enter Christmas. The atmosphere set by the lights and trees and music and…well, yes, even the snow…is making me slow down, and remember that, as Julian of Norwich said, “…all manner of thing shall be well.” Despite personal difficulties, and perpetual war, and economic and social injustices, and any number of dangers that might befall us as move forward in our journeys, there is a Providential optimism that I see so pervasively in the Christmas season. The optimism that is brought about by the inaugural wish of what we celebrate, which was “…on earth peace, good will toward men.” I have all faith that this will, in fact, come to pass. And so, with that faith, I am not stressful, but optimistic, even if guardedly so.

And, with that faith, I wish you all a most blessed Christmas.

Photo is copyrighted by my friend and fellow-blogger Austin Lee Barron, and used by permission. Check out her work on Flickr!