The Wheels Within Wheels

Today, it occurred to me how much my predecessors traveled — how many oceans were crossed, how many continents traversed, how many languages are in my blood.

Here is a map of the journeys (white lines) I know my ancestors have made. It makes me want to complete the circumnavigation. Of course, I am sure that somewhere in my distant genetic past, someone (or someones) has completed it already, many times over.

I take international travel as a given. Nobody stays in one place for long. No family is bound to the soil anymore. But each embarkation destroys more history, creates a palimpsest. I mourn this and yet I hunger more for the unexplored than the known. What is that impulse? When does it fade? Or does it?

Map from the Perry-Castañeda Collection at UT.

Here is a list of my favorite tunes.

• “You Oughta Be Here With Me” from the Big River soundtrack [mp4]
• “Two of Us” by the Beatles, although I listen to the cover by Aimee Mann & Michael Penn more than the orig, Truth B. Told
• “Be Thou My Vision”, a hymn originally written in Old Irish by St. Dallan Forgaill in the 6th century. The one we sing in English is a translation by Eleanor Hull from 1912. Pedro the Lion!
• “The Littlest Birds” by the Be Good Tanyas, because it reminds me of wandering around Encinitas & Solana Beach & Del Mar in polka dot dresses, ukuleles in tow, with my BFFies.

And I’ve been listening to “Airplanes” by Local Natives (great music video) a TON lately. Probably more than is healthy, as it is a sad sort of song. But who says sad isn’t healthy? Not I.

I was recently asked to specify my first New Year’s Resolution, which was to “Be more romantic.” I find romantic a difficult word to define; happily, a few lexicographers have done the job for me. Their entries are quite poetic in themselves, I think.

Oxford English Dictionary

romantic, adj.
b. Mus. Characterized by the subordination of form to theme, and by imagination and passion.
3. Of projects, etc.: Fantastic, extravagant, quixotic; going beyond what is customary or practical.
4. a. Having a bent or tendency towards romance; readily influenced by the imagination.

romance, n.
3. A fictitious narrative in prose of which the scene and incidents are very remote from those of ordinary life …
6. An extravagant fiction, invention, or story; a wild or wanton exaggeration; a picturesque falsehood.

Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory

Romance. … In the 13th c. a romance was almost any sort of adventure story, be it of chivalry or of love. Gradually more and more romances were written in prose. … It is usually concerned with characters (and thus with events) who live in a courtly world somewhat remote from the everyday. This suggests elements of fantasy, improbability, extravagance, and naïvety.

I suppose, then, that I want the improbability and wildness without the falsehoods and naivete. While acknowledging the practical and what is real, I want to be prone to flights of fancy and whimsical extravagances.

Apparently we locked Neighbor Cat inside our apartment this morning. We found this upon our return. A pox upon you, Neighbor Cat!

And sometimes nature makes art out of our arts, and we wake up to find that our sidewalks have become negative prints of what had been upon them. Here, rainstorms leave behind shadows like aftermath of autumnal atomic bombs. Fallen but not yet forgotten.

PROVIDENCE [Fr. : Providentia, Lat.] Foresight; timely care; forecast: the act of providing. Sidney. The care of God over created beings; divine superintendence. Raleigh. Prudence; frugality; reasonable and moderate care of expense. Dryden. —Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1775 [here]

WINDOW [from ON. vindauga, f. vindr WIND + auga EYE] 1.a. An opening in a wall or side of a building, ship, or carriage, to admit light or air, or both, and to afford a view of what is outside or inside. —Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 [here]