Today I had the privilege of waking up with the world, eating the world, drinking the world, thinking the world, listening to the world's music, riding hi-speed with the world on an empty train (rode the B train instead of the D train this morning, and just by getting there a little bit earlier, I was privileged to ride in an empty car, where I could walk back and forth, and spin and jump to wake up).  Then I had the privilege of talking with the world in the form of a classroom with students.  I had the privileges of speaking and listening.  Attendance in the noon class was scarce because of Monday trends, some people going back to their countries as planned, and so on.  That gave me the privilege of teaching a man from Bangladesh one on one.  Bangladesh is a special country in my memory, because when I began my journey by taking a plane to India from New York City, the girl sitting next to me was from Bangladesh (and thought NYC was boring because all that people did was shop).  Then the Bangladeshi had to leave, but by then a prospective masters student from Guinea showed up, so he told me about his country and I told him about going to college in this country.  Then a woman from the Dominican Republic showed up, and we had a real class again (kind of).  Afterward I had the privilege of a sunny walk through Harlem, a nutritious meal, a comfortable nap, thousands of photographs to spur memories and imagination, music to soothe the soul, and the written word to make it whole.

Your Alive

What you see is important.

I don't mean what you look at.

What you "see" is important.

Therefore, you should always make sure you have access to an excellent sight to behold shining behind and supporting everything else on your screen.

I used to have the 2007 Bonnaroo Arch as my visual support screen.  It is green and blue and yellow and shining with magical funky possibilities.

I changed it today, because I like changing the scenery.

I watched a slideshow of images from the story I have lived so far.  I feel very fortunate.  I feel excited.  All of those images made me wonder what it was all about.

Today I searched through a folder I have for this sort of situation, and one word immediately caught my eye: "alive."

I instantly made the photograph my background.

 

I found this treasure in Hamamatsu, Japan.  I had been living in the country for a year and traveling freely for one week when I decided to explore this city famous for its musical history.  I didn't have much time, but I wanted to see something interesting, so I got on a bus that was supposed to go to some sort of castle landmark in the city.  Instead I was clearly going to the outer edges of the city, so I got off the bus somewhere and looked around for another bus.  That's when I saw the thin crescent moon smile in the sky, accompanying Venus shining above.  I looked to my right and saw words.  I decided a photograph was appropriate.  Then I got on another bus, returned to the train station, and went back to Tokyo.  This was all about two years ago, a few days before I returned to US.

I look at this picture now, but what do I see?

1st, I see "YOUR ALIVE."  I'm pretty sure most people see that too.  But "your" is in the possessive form.  That means that the sign is talking about your life.  It's your life.  Do what you will with the gift.

Of course, I like to be creative with the gift, so I'm going to imagine that there's an apostrophe behind the 'u' and and 'e' added to the end, so it will mean, "YOU'RE ALIVE," (YOU ARE ALIVE) which, of course, is the gift.

After changing the image to "your alive" I began cooking.  As I walked out of my room, I turned back and noticed that the "y" was covered by a few icons on my desktop, so it appeared to say, "OUR ALIVE."  We share life.  An even better gift.  It's less lonely that way.  And much more fun.  Anything you do with the gift grows the gift.  Living your gift and giving your life by sharing your time with others in the effort to produce joy and smiles is the greatest gift you can give the universe in exchange for its presents of presence.

When I returned with food, I clicked on a picture I had opened earlier, and it covered up the middle of the background.  Then it read, "YOU LIVE."  That's technically true for everyone reading this, but let's work with the font's at our disposal and see how we can make that a little more inspirational.

We are going to change it to, "YOU LIVE."  Better, right?

Of course, sometimes I only see the word, "ALIVE."  That makes me think of the Pearl Jam song, "Alive."  They're from the Seattle, Washington area.  I was actually camping a few hours away from there, in North Cascades National Park.  I had tried to climb Pyramid Peak on a whim because I found out I could while I was already visiting a lake, but I didn't have nearly enough food (a banana) or water (less than half a liter) to climb a 7,000 foot mountain with extensive undergrowth and unmarked hard-to-see paths all through the heavy forest on the steepest mountainside I'd ever walked.  It was all beautiful, but I went too far with too little, and had to turn back.  By the end I was delirious, swearing off of mountains and cursing the friends who ever got me into them in the first place.  At one point I really thought I wasn't going to make it back.  I had walked (and even run) for several hours without water.  I eventually dunked my mouth in the first flowing stream I saw, even though they said you weren't supposed to because the natural bacteria found in it could be harmful.  I didn't care.  I survived.  My car was another twenty minutes away.  The first song that came on when I turned on my iPod was "Alive," by Pearl Jam.  I came back three days later, brought about 60 more pounds of gear (and water) with me, and hiked to the top, where I camped for one night and then hiked back down.  So, I'm alive!

Back to this puzzle... we could also separate things a little, while still connecting them, just in a new way.  For example, we could move the dash from in front of the "A" to behind the "A" so that it reads "A-LIVE."  This itself could be read several ways.  It could be a checklist where we are putting the act of "live" as the first thing on our to-do list.  Makes sense.

Then again, it could also be grading a life, and reminding us to strive for the "A."  Bring your "A LIVE," know what I'm sayin'?

Oh!  This one's even better!  We can see, "YO! U R ALIVE!"  (YO!  YOU ARE ALIVE!)  A wake-up call from the universe, and if you were already wide awake, yet another pep talk from the cosmic coach.  Hey, you!  You're ALIVE!  Yeah, I know, ALIVE!  Pretty amazing, right?

Of course, the whole "alive" theme reminds me how lucky I was to still be alive during the journey, then, now and always.  The fact that I was receiving this message after a year in a country that was in a very scary crisis immediately before I came made it resonate with far more depth and wonder than I could have foreseen when I made the decision to go the year before.  I was overjoyed that the journey came on the heels of two other risky endeavors around the world and my home country and had led me to this discovery.  And, of course, there was an even riskier exciting journey already planned for as soon as I returned home.  That's the one that took me to the pyramid peak.

If I cover the IVE with a photo, it reads "YO!  U R AL!" which could mean that guy in the Paul Simon song about asking people to call you that name.  "He looks around, around, he sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, he says, 'Hey!  Hallelujah!  If you be my body guard, I will be your long last pal..."

Yes.

Let's do one more...

Let's isolate everything, so that all that is left is "I."

Hmm... I kind of miss the other letters.  I love sharing my "alive" with others.  Especially when that "alive" becomes "A LOVE"

The letters are still there anyway, they're just not visible at the moment, because we are focusing on I.  Even so, if we focus on I in the correct way, the other letters will be visible within I, and they will shine with a new radiance.

What is I?

I is 1

I is all I am.

I is Aye.  Aye is yes.

I is Eye.  Eye see.

I see.

I see you are ALIVE!

I wish you joy so that you THRIVE

Bare, Your Soul

Everyone experiences the world through their own windows.  We each represent the whole.  We learn something different than everyone else.  We keep the parts that only we can truly understand because of their unique relationship to our journey, and then share by doing our best to express the inner truth that builds inside, layers upon layers as they are flowed through our respective connective rides.  There is so much to love that it is almost as if it is everyone's duty to love a variety of the world's offerings.  Enjoy what the world brings.  Go with whatever makes your soul sing.
__________________________________________

Text Book Reading : "Make an Impact"

We finished the week learning about changing the world.  The vocabulary words ranged from words that described motivated people who change the world to those who don't want to change anything.  One such word was "escapist."  The root is obviously "escape," but what is an escapist escaping from?  The answer, supposedly, is reality.  But what isn't part of reality?  What makes reality so real, as opposed to whatever else you would call things you experience or perceive while participating in reality?

I write about these things here because there's no way I could get that deep during a class taught to mostly immigrants who are trying to learn the language.  I explained to the class that escapist activities are anything you do that take you away from your reality.  But what is one's reality?  Isn't everything you experience technically your reality, even if it's vicarious?  I guess we need to be more specific and say that escapism involves spending your time doing something that is not representative of the rest of your immediate reality that can be affected by your actions, and the majority of escapist activities involve no action on one's part.  For example, watching sports, movies or any form of televised entertainment doesn't involve the viewer doing anything to affect the outcome of the experience.  You can enjoy, dislike or scream in anger/ecstasy during those various experiences, but all because of something that had no real relationship to you.  It doesn't even know you're here.  Beyond that, there are escapist activities that can involve your participation, such as video games, role playing games with other people, and even travel, which is about as literally escapist as you can get.

The group basically agreed that everyone participates in escapism to some extent, and that sometimes it is even healthy and completely desirable.  Anything beyond perceiving your direct surroundings and circumstances would technically be escapist.  And so what if it is?  Escapism can relieve tension, energize you, or give your mind enough of a break from the real issues you have to deal with so that you can be rested and return with better focus and determination.  Although meditation supposedly involves going into inner realms of one's mind and spirit which sometimes feel realer than everything else, the truth is that it is inherently ignorant of immediate surroundings and involvement with the "outside world."  But it's been shown to be very healthy, therapeutic and perhaps even spiritually cleansing to go inside yourself and meditate as a means of connecting with the larger world.  And I think that's whole idea: connecting with the source of the larger world, which includes your source.

There is obviously the negative side of escapism... as with anything else.  This occurs when your escapist activity removes you from reality to such an extent that you're not interested in the real world outside, or that you forget how to participate and enjoy the rest the world has to offer, which, at the top of the list, would probably be human interaction, and at the least, quiet contented contemplation of the wondrous world around you, at least at some point in your experience.

One of the examples of the many possible escapist activities we discussed at length in class was the emotional viewing of sporting activities.  The key word is "emotional."  Viewing anything can be fun, instructive, entertaining and shared with others.  But with sports, you have absolutely 100% no control over the outcome.  It is not the result of anything you have done or chosen to do or believe in your life.  You can't do anything about it, and what's more, unlike politics or the weather or something happening to someone you love, it won't actually affect your life at all beyond the mental power you've already handed over.  I say this as someone who spent much of his youth and teenage years worrying about games involving my favorite teams, yelling at the TV, standing in certain places and refusing to move when my team did well, and even screaming at players on my favored team because they weren't playing well enough.  When they won, I was usually happy for a little while.  When they lost, I felt like somehow I had lost, because I was rooting for them, and I was very mad.  The few times a championship was earned, it felt great when it happened, and for the rest of the night, and maybe the next day at school, but then I noticed that nobody else liked my team except a few other people.  It seemed more divisive than inclusive, which is probably when I realized that I was not as interested in choosing sides in competitive sports as I used to be.  I still loved playing them, more than ever actually, and watching them as entertainment filled with amazing inspiring activity, intensity, and often welcomed suspense over the outcome.  But nothing that could truly shake your appreciation of the rest of the world as it was at the time.  Besides, soon, nobody was talking about your team winning it anymore.  They were already speculating about next year.

The first team I loved and followed the entire season resulting in a championship was Duke basketball.  It wasn't even the professional level, but something about the 64 team tournament, all of the upsets defying the numbered projections, predictions and statistics, the true heart of it all, the team efforts outshining the isolation ego displays so frequent once they get paid in the NBA, and the downright excellent excitement created by game after game that had the potential to and often did end with some last second buzzer-beating beautiful basket.  The truth was I LOVED basketball, playing it every chance I got, even when it was winter and I had to wear gloves in the driveway and dribble on icy earth.  And I loved the NCAA tournament, or March Madness as they called it.  And I really loved it when my favorite chosen team, the Duke Blue Devils, won the 2001 NCAA tournament.  I loved it even more because I had followed their every move since the preseason.  In fact, I'd followed every team since the preseason (and there are many teams), so I felt like I knew the whole game everyone was playing.  In fact, I won the tournament pool by picking the most correct victories, and got to watch my team triumph.  Afterward I stopped caring so much.  I still followed intensely my senior year, and was mad when Duke lost in the third round to Indiana, but was in reality much more angry about my recent break-up with my girlfriend.  Duke losing was just another bitter blow when I was down.  There were a few times in college when they got pretty far and played UConn, a team I have hated even before I liked Duke, but besides that I didn't pay much attention.  In fact, I renounced being a Duke fan in 2007 because I'd read a Tom Wolfe book about a college closely modeled after Duke, and the basketball program depicted was not something I wanted to support.  I picked them to lose in the first round for the first time since I was 11, and they did.  I pretty much stopped paying attention after that.  I think I secretly rooted for them in the tournament in the next two years, but didn't really watch many of the games.  I was thinking about a lot of other things then.

A few years later I was in Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam, waiting for another bus to Laos to come the next day because nobody had woken me up for my bus earlier that morning, despite my request for a wake-up call.  So I wandered around and came back to the hotel to use the internet, and it turned out that there was one minute left in the championship game, Duke was playing an underdog named Butler, and it was tied.  Basically Butler barely missed an amazing half-court shot at the buzzer, which would have won the game.  When the shot was in the air I thought, "I can't really truly root against this team I used to love, and it would be pretty awesome if my favorite team in my favorite sport won the championship during my journey... but I can't root against the underdog either.  And if the shot goes in...wow!"  Of course, it didn't go in, and I enjoyed a Duke win.  Then I went to Laos and pretty much stopped thinking about it.  Although I think I wrote a web log with basketball metaphors a few weeks later, now that I think about it...

This sports obsession was an example of escapism without any positive consequences.  I invested lots of emotional energy, heart health, well-being and irrefutable time hoping and praying and wishing and sitting on my butt while other people worked really hard to play a fun yet incredibly challenging and pressurized game, with opportunities ranging from supreme jubilation to utter embarrassment.

Meanwhile, traveling wasn't really escapism at all.  I may not have been at a steady job, but I didn't have a steady job path in my life yet anyway.  I'd been working, but always in something different, while consistently reading and usually writing.  But I considered myself in more of a learning phase back then anyway.  Once I felt like I had read, written and worked at uninspiring jobs enough, I began exploring the world with my fresh eyes, intrigued and endlessly curious about how other people lived their journeys and which prizes were possibilities.  Their wondrous talents, passions, creations and loves filled me with energy and humility.  I wanted to see, be and free the best I could.  I never thought of it as going away or shifting my focus from anything necessary to adult responsibility.  Money had been paid and would be paid again to other people for my experiences, and I would do things and exert myself and think and be creative to find solutions, and my job was to understand as best I could but only so that I could transform that understanding into enhanced enjoyment of the world for as much of the world as possible, starting with my own mind.  If I didn't shine, how could I expect others to respond in kind?  To paraphrase Yossarian, I wasn't "running away from my responsibilities," I was running "to them."

Later I went out with friends and all of the basketball games were on TV.  Just before my friend and I left my apartment to meet them, we saw online that Duke had been upset in the first round, a 3 seed losing to a 14 seed.  That happens, but it's still a big deal.  I was wearing a blue shirt, but the Blue Devils lost, so I figured I should change.  I wasn't upset, and since Greg was from Maryland he tried to taunt a little, but he didn't care either.  We didn't even go to either of those schools.  I had visited the campus once, but that was it.

We discussed the topic later in the evening, because one of my friends loves Syracuse.  He is from the town, and almost everyone he knows loves them, so it's really a social thing.  I've seen him ecstatic when they won, and not really care when they lose.  It seems like a perfect attitude to me.  When I was younger I reacted in both extremes, and like anything I experienced, I'm happy they happened and I learned from them.

I rode the train home around 1 am, and when I got on there was a guy with a sports cap on.  It had a yellow B on the head of a purple bird.  It was for the Baltimore Ravens.  I wrote about them last year, and how sports outcomes can be poetic, and how rooting for someone or some team to win is an innate enjoyable human past time regardless of our inability to affect the outcome.  One of the most fun ways I have found to participate in reality is to let the world be what it will be, and I will improve upon the foundation it has laid down for me with the poetry I see.  Whenever I see Ravens paraphernalia, I remember to be ravenous, hungry, determined and creative in pursuit of my dreams, and that poetry pervades more than it seems.  That the world is a work of art.  That we are all lucky to be here, and despite the poetry that seems to push and pull and direct the themes, we can still walk on the balance beams of our dreams.

I had to ride a new train and go a different route home because they were working on the 1 train.  Instead of riding within a block of my apartment, I had a ten minute 1 am walk through Harlem ahead of me.  When I switched at 34th, a guy in a Toronto Blue Jays hat sat diagonal from me.  That same piece of writing about the Ravens ended with the Blue Jays triumphantly winning the World Series, proof enough for me that all I could see was divine poetry.  You are welcome to read the piece.  It's called "Play Ball!"

When I got home the moon was smiling high in the sky, and I looked at the results of the games again.  It turns out the Blue Devils lost to Mercer, the underdogs who actually turned out to be excellent.

Their mascot: Bears

Hey Bear!

Taco

A large group of us got together at a vegan restaurant earlier this evening.  We were welcoming a friend of ours who is visiting from Ithaca to look at a law school in the city.  We are trying to convince him to live in the city.  He is a vegan, so, naturally, we figured a vegan restaurant would go the best with our wooing strategy.  None of the rest of us are vegan, but it was a great meal anyway.  One of our friends told a story about a vegetarian friend who had some difficulties finding proper food in southeast Asia, and that got my mind reminiscing about all of the food I had on the road.

The best meal I ever ate on the road was at a street restaurant in Mexico City.  It was nothing fancy, but it was close to my hostel and served the best tacos I've ever had the divine pleasure of knowing.

I'd spent a full day at the pyramids an hour's bus ride from the city, and all I'd had to eat were several bags of Japanese peanuts, because that's all they appeared to sell at the concession stand outside.  When I returned in the evening I was understandably ravenous, so I ordered two enormous beef tacos with cheese and beans and limes and the works, and it was probably the happiest ten minutes of my life at that point.

To be clear, certain expressions of New York City pizza are still at the top of the list, but I don't consider anything in NYC to be food from the road, so the Mexico City beef tacos remain atop the pyramid.

Spring Begins

Today I woke up and thought, “Wow!  It’s spring today!  We made it!”  I leaped out of bed, something I have done immediately after hearing my alarm for several mornings in a row now.  I spent the first few moments looking through my window in the world by viewing the basic lines of communication available to most everyone, at least in this society.  I then went into that beautiful chamber with the running water that flows freely from somewhere that requires no effort from me other than to turn the knob, pull the curtain, and stand where I have figured out that the water hits my skin with the correct temperature and pressure.  I have been in places where this is not the case, or is not available, so I try to remember it whenever I can.  Then I grabbed a towel that someone else designed and manufactured, dried this body, and went to the kitchen to grab a pan, fill it with water once again magically transported through a conduit of pipes I've never seen.  Then I heated it on a stove connected to gas which I trust is in fine working order and will not explode like that building on the other side of Harlem last week.  Then I went to my room to put on clothes that other people designed and put together for everybody who has the money, which is most people, including me.  I returned to the kitchen for the hot water, poured it into a mug given to me by a cousin, and then placed a bag of toasted Japanese green tea to steep for a few minutes.  Then I put some peanut butter on wheat bread and went to my room.  I ate, drank milk and sipped tea while re-reading my web log from about seven hours earlier, editing any sentences that could have been written better.  I did so by using a machine that is very easy to come by these days, and connects you to a network of human information and imagination so vast and readily accessible that it still boggles my mind how normal it seems to me and just about everybody.  Where do we go from here?  That's the fun of it, I suppose.

The walk to work was pleasant, sunny and warm, as the first day of spring should be.  I removed my headphones to hear the songs of the chirping birds in the trees, a rarity in New York City.

Class was fun today.  I'm really enjoying these new classes.  Although I enjoyed my level 4 classes, it is so much more enjoyable to be able to communicate more skills and information to the advanced students.  Today we discussed the types of music we like to listen to and what that says about our personalities.  Somehow I ended up explaining the history of American music, from slavery to jazz and blues to rock and roll, funk and hip-hop.

During the break I went downstairs and outdoors to the deli three stores down.  It is run by a friendly Chinese couple who knows my face well by now.  Before I got out the door I heard someone call my name.  It was a student from Ghana who took my first two classes.  He drives a taxi, loves to read out loud even though he sounds like a strange version of auto-correct on a cell phone, and once gave me an interesting perspective by reporting that his neighborhood in the Bronx is filled with people from his country, so he has a close community where he says hello to people he knows on the street on a regular basis.  I have people I can call to meet, but certainly no community in my neighborhood.  Then again, there is one friend nearby, which is a lot for me these past few years.  I think this student is one of the few people I know who I've seen on the street since I've moved to NY, and that was only because we were both in the school anyway.  That being said, it's a great feeling to know most of the students by now, and even if they're not in the class anymore, they still see me in the hall, say hello and shake my hand.  It's not a way to make a great living, but now that I feel more relaxed, experienced and in control of the creative direction of the class, it's definitely becoming a great way to make a living on the way to making a greater living.  Or something like that.  The universe knows.

The next class somehow involved me explaining how presidents make decisions, student loans and all sorts of other things.  Afterward I went home to many chores that must be done continually, but I am content to do them because I feel rewarded to have a place to be where I can be me.  I am lucky to have clothes that needed to be washed, and a car that needed to be moved, and a room that needed to be swept, and shelves that needed to be cleaned, and food that needed to be cooked and eaten, and products that were wrapped in things that became garbage that needed to be taken out, and weights that needed to be lifted, and replacement food that needed to be bought, and hairs on my face just outside the beard zone that needed to be shaved, and hairs on my face inside the beard zone that needed to be trimmed, and pictures of places (I had been to lucky to go) that needed to be reinforced on the wall, and other pictures that needed to be put up in the first place, and a web log that needed to be filled with new words.

Luckily, someone designed and put together an iPod a long time ago.  Even luckier, many excellent people earned the right to call themselves musicians and artists through learning and refining the craft of channeling the music of the spheres, and this music is now easily available on this small iPod device for our personal enjoyment.  It definitely makes doing chores more fun.

I am still in 1968 on my classic rock playlist, and it is truly a very good year.  I'm not stuck in the 60's though, or hip-hop, or modern rock.  I don't believe in adhering to systems absolutely, even if I create them.  So I rebel against my own lists whenever I want to and listen to my favorite songs whenever I want to.  There's a seven song streak on my Top 25 that constantly brings me from the ambient world of Aphex Twin through the wonderful treasures of a Red Hot Chili Peppers instrumental, the San Francisco Orchestra opening for Metallica, Ludovico Einaudi on piano, Hiromi Uehara playing back-to-back songs on piano with a trio and solo respectively, J Dilla "going out and making a name for himself," Popa Wu of the Wu-Tang Clan giving advice on how far we've come along, and Hiromi Uehara once again dazzling whoever is listening with vivacious vibrations and windy sensations.

I am lucky that I have a story that needs to be told, and people who wish me to share it, and a mind-body-spirit that allows me to feel it, see it, smell it, taste it and hear it.

Thank you life for the eyes and the ears and the mind and the heart and the hands and the feet and the body and the art and this view of the street and the people I meet and the lands and the water and my mother and my father and all those things you make me bother to do for U and all of us who pull through and make do for love's sake: you.

As a sign in a city once told me: "KEEP MOVING!"

Musical Identities

I began the day with the modern rock playlist, which has me in the year 2006, right before graduation.  The song was "Meet Me in the City" by The Black Keys.  I remembered it well.  During my first week in New York, living in a cramped 3 bedroom railroad apartment on Ten Eyck Street in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, I created a MySpace page, supposedly to increase my connections at a time when I was transitioning to an environment with many more possible connections to people than I'd ever experienced before.  So I made that Black Keys song the music for my "space."  I only look at it about every two or three years, but this song reminds me of my attitude since I came to this place: I want to meet new people who share interests through joyous activity, conversation and contemplation, creating exciting lives.  At the same time I saw a DVD owned by my friend who had invited me to this tiny apartment (where I lived for five weeks before we all got evicted).  It was a documentary about Radiohead a few years into their massive breakthrough, and it was titled Meeting People is Easy.

All of this was on my mind as I entered work, where I was surrounded by people from around the world.  In fact, none of them are from the same country as I am, and none of them are native speakers of my language.  If they were, they wouldn't be in the class, and I wouldn't be teaching them my native language.

Many of the themes of the day were related to reality, identity, and how words can give us clues to deeper descriptions of our personality while paradoxically limiting our potential in the imaginations and expectations of others.

It began with a Peruvian girl asking if I was a "hippie," because I am "relaxed, unworried," and of course, the long hair.  Being the diligent instructor that I am, I gave a ten minute lesson on the origins of the words "hipster," "hippie," "punk," "counter-culture," and "Buddhist" (for some reason) that probably involved more information than some of them needed.  But the point of the discussion was reinforced throughout: when you attempt to express someone through the use of only one word, your lack of elaboration leaves the newly verbally represented person with a word.  This word now supposedly represents their being in the big scheme of things.  "You look like a _____."  Then that is all you are.  Then again, any given name for a type of person might actually lead in directions with distances between them so vast that they might as well be different terms by then.

I remembered the unit we were on was "Personality."  The reading was about The Chinese traditional idea about the five elements present in everything and everyone: water, fire, wood, earth and metal.  Everyone needs a balance of some sort, although some people have some in higher proportions than others.  I explained how in the Chinese zodiac you can be a different personality depending on which leg of the 12 year animal cycle within the larger 60 year cycle for elements.  For example, if you are born in the year of the dragon, the difference between being a water dragon or a wood dragon is twelve years.  Anyone born two years ago is a water dragon.  Anyone born ten years from now will be a wood dragon.  There won't be any new water dragons for 58 more years.  That's a long time to deprive the world of certain types of personalities.  On top of that, it seems strange that everyone born in the same year would have the exact same personality.  Imagine your entire high school graduating class, or college freshman class, and then think of assigning one universal personality to everyone you can think of.  That's what I think of the zodiac's attempts at specificity.

That being said, I enjoy the imagination.  Why not have different animals for different years?  In the Japanese kindergarten we had to celebrate the new year by turning the children into one long dragon with a head and a tail and about twenty Japanese 3-5 year old's as vertebrae.  Then we told them a story about all of the animals.  The reason we made them play a dragon chasing it's own tail was that it was the year of the dragon that year.  I learned that fact upon arriving back in Japan after Christmas vacation in America.  I had a New Year's card waiting for me in my room when I lugged my suitcase in.  It turned out to be from my older student Kazuko, wishing me a happy new year in the year of the dragon.  That was good timing, because I had already discovered a nearby shrine (maybe a 10-15 minute walk) near a small park, and I only had three months left to enjoy it before seeing through my latest plan for a journey: driving and camping around America via a move from New York to California.  I often went to this shrine to relax and pray for good fortune during my journey in my homeland.  I hoped that all of the hard work I was doing and joy I was doing my best to spread to other humans would lead to me not dying somewhere in the woods or on the highway.  This shrine had some strange name like moon dragon shrine, or maybe just moon shrine, but there were several wooden dragons elegantly carved around the bell, which I rang often when I imagined positive futures.  As for water, there was also a small pond with rabbit sculptures about.  Coincidentally, the year before was the year of the rabbit.  I went to that shrine several nights a week, after classes and after writing, usually to walk off dinner while listening to some music.  When I arrived, I usually removed the headphones for a while so I could hear the wind whispering through the few trees I could find those days.

I liked the idea of the "year of the dragon".  I learned that dragons are free-spirits.  And unlike western dragons that must be defeated, the eastern dragon is a symbol of good fortune and powerful life forces.  It comes out beating its chest announcing a good time as long as you will let it be itself and do its thing, which it promises will be amazing.  Even better, dragons are the only imaginary animal in the zodiac.

Even though I wasn't born in a dragon year, I chose the dragon as the official mascot of my 2012 journey experience across America, living as freely, wildly, creatively and bravely as possible.  I used all of that  as inspiration to finish the job, make the money and go on the adventure, where among the dozens of highlights, the top three were all on the water doing risky balancing acts in the pursuit of beauty.

According to them, a dragon personality fits the following description:

The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac.  Conformation is a Dragon's curse.  Rules and regulations are made for other people.  Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life.  Dragons must be free and uninhibited.  The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale - big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions.  However, this behavior is natural and isn't meant for show.  Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful.  Dragons usually make it to the top.  However, Dragon people be aware of their natures.  Too much enthusiasm can leave them tired and unfulfilled.  Even though they are willing to aid when necessary, their pride can often impede them from accepting the same kind of help from others.  Dragons' generous personalities give them the ability to attract friends, but they can be rather solitary people at heart.  A Dragon's self-sufficiency can mean that he or she has no need for close bonds with other people.

The Dragon's originality is the most impressive and outstanding of all his characteristics. The Dragon is quite imaginative and always able to see new paths where others may run into brick walls. Dragons are very adaptable and are fit for various occupations, especially if those occupations allow him to take the limelight. In any of these occupational situations, the Dragons will take a radical approach. Dragons work hard, but would rather give orders than receive them. They should avoid jobs that encompass too much routine, and should move toward jobs in which their self-reliance can be an asset.

Dragons like to spend money and are charitable themselves as well as with others.  They do not know the meaning of the word "accumulate," and making money does not intrigue them as it may others.  Many Dragons will take big chances with their finances, sometimes betting on their shirt and losing it right off of their backs.  Yet, they were born with the Midas Touch, and it very rare that a Dragon remains poor for long.  Dragons will always be straightforward in financial dealings and can always be trusted.

As for dragons who like being around water and wood:

Water has a calming effect on the Dragon’s fearless temperament.  Water allows the Dragon to re-direct its enthusiasm, and makes him more perceptive to others.  These Dragons are better equipped to take a step back to re-evaluate a situation because they understand the art of patience and do not desire the spotlight like other Dragons.  Therefore, they make smarter decisions and are able to see eye-to-eye with other people.  However, their actions can go wrong if they do not research or if they do not finish one project before starting another.

Wood has a modifying influence and brings creativity to this sign. Questioning and liberal, Wood Dragons enjoy talking about original ideas and are open to other points of view.  They are innovative, imaginative practical and appreciate art in each of its forms.  Generally less pretentious than other Dragons, Wood Dragons have an ability to get along with other people.  They have the essentials to build a prosperous and happy life for themselves.  Still, Wood Dragons are outspoken and at times a bit pushy to quell everyone, even in the most friendly quarrel. 

This morning I grabbed a book from my shelf as an impulse before walking out the door to the train.  I listened to Sly & the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music" after "Meet Me in the City," and then reached the subway where I pulled out the book by writing hero Tom Robbins.  While living in his adopted home, the Seattle area, he wrote Still Life With Woodpecker.  This, his third book, is about red-bearded outlaws who make the world possible through choice, romance, "raising the exhilaration content of the universe," and being "alive enough and in love enough to stand atop (the pyramids) and bark at the moon together."  It also said that there are traditional cultural stories about red-bearded demigods ordered and supervised the construction of the new world pyramids, such as those outside Mexico City: la Piramide del Sol and la Piramide de la Luna.  Apparently he researches very carefully.  It's a fun story, in any case.

Anyway, I read over my favorite quotes while listening to my favorite musical artist, walked into school, taught the first class about the various sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, geology, genetics), practiced grammar exercises and vocabulary exercises.  We concluded by beginning a unit about the "Psychology of Music."  One of the activities is about how what you listen to relates to your personality.  Once that ended I taught the second group about "Personality."  And that's how we got onto dragons in the first place.

We read the article about the five elements, and the consensus from the students seemed to be that each of them had a balance going and couldn't decide which element to represent their identity.  Nobody was comfortable expressing their identity with one word, and especially not a foreign word arbitrarily chosen by someone else.  Even when we narrowed it to specific adjectives, people said, "Maybe you are mostly peaceful, but sometimes you're the opposite."  So not only do people not like words to narrow them, they don't even like siding with an adjective over its opposite, in strict adherence to the accurate truth of existing: we go up and down and round and round.

After class I rode home on the train, walked home on the road, and imagined I was on a journey to my place.  That wasn't hard, because with all of my walking around the world while not necessarily knowing where I was going, I've become used to associating walking with an uncertain adventure.  Although now I can look forward to knowing that I will escape the street and eventually find the place to which only I have the key.  When I arrived at this special place, I took full advantage of having a bed and took a nap.  Then I made full use of the food at my disposal and ate lunch.  Once that was taken care of, I began writing.  After I had decided I had sat for long enough, I resumed placing pictures on the walls, so that instead of walls I see windows into the world.  Just like that computer program, Windows.  I know that Apple says creative people can only use their product, but I use the standard baseline for word processing and storing digital photographs, and I still think there's some creativity swimming in its circuits.  Beyond that, I let the camera and the words do the talking.

I had placed about fifty photos on the wall when "Meet Me in the City" came on the headphones again.  On June 22 it will be eight years since I first moved to New York City.  I haven't lived here the whole time, as evidenced by the adventures in the pictures.  I've only been back for five months.  The cool thing is that this photo exercise is making me feel like I just got home.

Meanwhile, I'm wearing two shirts: a blue-button down dress shirt currently open and a green t-shirt revealed underneath.  The t-shirt celebrates Lake Champlain's 100th anniversary of ferry transportation.  When I was young, I enjoyed (and feared) the rumors of a magical dragon named Champy that lived in the bottom of the lake and might eat you if you were in a boat, canoe or kayak.  Especially by yourself.  There have been dozens upon dozens of sightings since the rumor began, although every account seems to be completely different.

Champy may be a myth, but I'm here, and so is this dress shirt, which I wore many an evening at work as a banking paralegal in Rockefeller Center, art book publisher's assistant in Chelsea, data assistant/(I had enough free time to read books all day) up the Upper West Side and administrative assistant in radio sports marketing, once again in Rockefeller Center.  I also wore it during my first adventure, toward the completion, in the nation of in China, on two very memorable evenings.

The first involved a third eye meditation session high on a hill along the side of the deepest gorge in the world, Tiger Leaping Gorge in Lijiang province.  I also had on a hooded sweatshirt and an army combat jacket, giving me some strange straight edge worker/hippie wanderer/hardened soldier personality blend (which makes me... metal water wood?)  I waited for the full moon to rise behind Jade Dragon Peak.  One month later I waited for the full moon again, this time beside the giant Golden Buddha, riding atop four elephants (Ganesha, the patron saint of arts and letters invoked during writing sessions, representing the Indian starting line for this same journey?), facing with many eyes in every direction, and surrounded by thousands of candles.  It is raining, and I am huddling for warmth beneath the narrowly roofed entrance to a temple, eluding the flashlights of monks who walk around the statue/patrol the area once an hour.  I am wearing the army jacket, a hooded sweatshirt, and this same dress shirt yet again.  This sporadic poetic living ain't always fun and games: it's hard work too.

The rain subsides, the glowing light of the sun begins to reflect through the clouds, which part to reveal the moon, and not a moment too soon, because "Hey Jude" just happens to be the tune.

I am transported back from the mountain top into a small apartment in Manhattan.  It is raining.  I am thinking of how music says something about who we are.  If your tastes are diverse (and most are nowadays), then it would be hard to explain you with all of the different music represented.  Or maybe it would be completely accurate, with every emotion and feeling accounted for.  I think back to the train to work.  I was listening to Hiromi's "Rainmaker" when I arrived to teach the class this morning.  Maybe because it's spring.  Two years ago today I completed my employment as a kindergarten teacher in Japan, earning my final pay check to help me move through America.  Anyway, as we now know, the whole labels discussion began during the next group, and when class ended I joked that I was going to listen to my "hippie music."  I put on my headphones and remembered that Hiromi's distinct blend of jazz, classical and progressive rock influences were on full display.  That song always reminds me of that mountain, the moon, and the hedonistic meditation that transpired beside an opulent golden emblem of the absence of desire.  On the walk home I resumed the classic rock playlist, which has already advanced through 1967 to 1968, prime years in the soul of artistic expression through song.   As mentioned earlier, after a nap, food and writing, I worked on pictures while listening to Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" and then many songs from Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love.  This album, the follow-up to Are You Experienced?, appears to be strangely titled with the word "axis," evoking visions of WWII evil.  This supposed schism is remedied by the remembrance that when reversed to its original form, the supposedly hateful symbol is actually an ancient Indian symbol for peace, which I learned myself in Varanasi, a 5,000 year old city that contains more than its fare share of reverse love swastikas.  See things the other way and you may find paradise today.

After seven songs I change the "hippie" music to "hip-hop" music.  Last night I listened to a lot of rock and roll music, and I'd recently been through much of the jazz and classical lists.  This evening I finished 1996 and began 1997.  Once again, these are special years in the maturation of an art form.  We begin with the final solo album of the epic primary Wu-Tang releases, Ghostface's Iron Man.  Coincidentally, Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" was one of my favorite songs listed in my high school yearbook, and I've never seen the movie Iron Man.  I prefer not to think of the vengeful anti-hero from the dark song and instead look to one of my childhood heroes.  He is, technically, the most popular baseball player of all time: Cal Ripken, Jr.  He broke Lou Gehrig's seemingly unbreakable record for most consecutive baseball games played, with 2,632 shattering the previous mark of 2,130.  He also won the MVP award while playing for the Baltimore Orioles the year before I was born.  He leads all players in all-star balloting votes, which is why I said he is technically the most popular player ever.  Cal Ripken, Jr. is one of the main reasons I played short stop in junior high school.  He was a great fielder, hitter and reliable teammate.  He even holds the records for home runs by a short stop, with 345.  He reminds me to show up to play every day, even if I have water-wood dragon tendencies to try to express myself in many ways.

After a few hours of subjecting my brain to various flows, rhymes, word plays, rhythms and placing pictures, I switch from hip-hop back to modern rock.  The year is 2006.  Ever since I knew what education was, I looked forward to 2006 as the magical year when I would be released from the expected amount of basic education for a middle-class American.  When that year came, it brought new albums by not only The Black Keys, but also The Flaming Lips, Tool and Red Hot Chili Peppers.  The latter released their album the week before we graduated college, and a month before I first moved to New York City.  Eight years later, I am once again a new arrival in this big city of dreams.  But unlike before, I presently have a wondrous web of windows into the world.  They motivate me to channel the poetry into joyful expressions of the persistent diverse illusion that is reality.  Don't worry about illusions.  Enjoy some confusion.  Listen to the mind and music's fusion.

If I were music, I would do my best to transcend genres.  Wouldn't you?  It's fun to do.

Harlem Underground