Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, January 12
through
Saturday, January 18, 2020
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It’s Saturday, January 18, 2020.
Welcome to the 652nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The piazza, looking roughly north-east to the Duomo (on the right) and the arch that marks the entrance to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (on the left)
milans piazza del duomo
© Steffen Schmitz (Carschten) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
Milan (Lombardy, Italy) –
Milan Cathedral – view from the southwest over the Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) with the triumphal arch of the historic shopping mall Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
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2.0 Commentary
Children aren’t supposed to know more than their parents.
Certainly not in any political idiom I subscribe to.
So why did I ask my son for his thoughts on my trip?
And why did I change my plans based on what he said?
And having changed my plans, why did I run them by him again?
And acknowledge that he had another game-changing idea: audio guides?
Audio guides.
The possibilities are endless.
Especially using the titles to help with planning the trip in the first instant: the sites included are certainly worth my consideration.
Can’t wait to start work.
Which brings us back to topic: If we knew kids would end up knowing more than us, would we still educate them?
I’m going to give that some thought.
Will seek out other opinions.
Some smart people.
Who are some smart people I know willing to help me?
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America's obesity statistics.
Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car.
~ Stephen Colbert
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Ann H:
Oh no not vertigo. Have been suffering since October. Finally got some meds but have only taken one as the make me so tired - don't know which is worse. Think there are some exercises you can do to help - Haven't gotten that far in the treatment.
xo
Ann Heimlicher
Boston Spot-Lite, Inc.
"The Concierge Specialists"
50 Commonwealth Avenue #501
Boston, MA 02116
617-247-0001
visit our website at www.bostonspotlite.com
Web Meister responds: Thank you, my dear, for sharing. Best of luck going forward. Keep us in the loop.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Piazza del Duomo ("Cathedral Square") is the main piazza (city square) of Milan, Italy.
It is named after, and dominated by, the Milan Cathedral (the Duomo).
The piazza marks the center of the city, both in a geographic sense and because of its importance from an artistic, cultural, and social point of view.
Rectangular in shape, with an overall area of 17,000 m2 (about 183,000 sq ft), the piazza includes some of the most important buildings of Milan (and Italy in general), as well some of the most prestigious commercial activities, and it is by far the foremost tourist attraction of the city.
While the piazza was originally created in the 14th century and has been gradually developing ever since (along with the Duomo, that took about six centuries to complete), its overall plan, in its current form, is largely due to architect Giuseppe Mengoni, and dates back to the second half of the 19th century.
The monumental buildings that mark its sides, with the main exception of the Duomo itself and the Royal Palace, were introduced by Mengoni's design; the most notable of Mengoni's addition to the piazza is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II arcade.
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It’s Friday, January 17, 2020.
Welcome to the 651st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Venice in autumn, with the Rialto Bridge in the background
Canal Grande and Rialto Bridge, Venice - part of UNESCO World Heritage Site Ref. Number 394.
Martin Falbisoner - Own work
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2.0 Commentary
Four thoughts to share today.
The first is a quick update on the car.
Now three weeks without, haven’t missed it a bit.
But I have saved near $1000.
I thought by now I’d report on my use of a zip car or Lyft,
but no.
Haven’t used either.
The second is that my June trip is looking more and more like a fifteen-day trip to five Northern Italian cities (Genoa, Turin, Milan, Venice, Bologna) bookended by flying Boston to Paris for a week-long visit and Florence to Boston after a ten-day visit to Tuscany and the big city.
The third is that the winter is marching by (not fast enough for some of us) without a disastrous storm or a long-stretch of icy weather on the horizon.
Wouldn’t it be great if the month passed us without such torture?
And lastly, I’ve been able to keep the doctor-applied bandages in place around my knee, sufficiently constricting it as a reminder to avoid bending the knee. The stitches will remain in place until next Friday, a ten-day total. Meanwhile, the knee heals apace, now walking with a slight instead of a pronounced limp.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
"People say New Yorkers can't get along.
Not true.
I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab.
One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine."
~ David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Colleen G:
Hi Dom,
Well, procrastinating is a good motivator for catching up on your blog--haha:) I am glad I did.
So, while your mishap on the escalator poem is cringe-worthy I found myself chuckling to myself a lot while reading it. Perhaps it's the state of delirium I'm in writing a single, long grant application for The Room to Write too many days in a row while attempting to maintain life alongside--or what, I don't know, but I had to share (also assisting to procrastinate going back to writing said grant:).
A poem!
First of all--whether it was intended as a poem or not, I love it as a poem. It works.
My first chuckle came after the cringe of your injury, when a homeless man could possibly have any app at all, which would imply he had a phone that was app-able. Wow--the priorities of our world are so screwed up that non-existent revenue is better spent on a phone with apps than on dinner with apps. Ok. Darkly hilarious.
Then I couldn't help but say silently in my mind while I was writing--the same thing I say to my kids or any kid when they fall and get hurt and I need to console them and take their mind off their injury, "Well, that injury proves you are out in the world and living--having fun. Would you rather stay at home and stay safe or get out there an live and risk getting injured?"
It only works for a few moments before attention shifts back to the bleeding and the pain/fear. But, at least then they know that they won't be getting a whole lot of sympathy from me. I'm like an ER nurse in that regard:)
Then--LOVE that you were going to eat dinner and make love to your gin and tonic before you'd schlepp to the clinic. Go you! Love that. Smiled. Chuckled.
Well, then my favorite number is nine, so that was a good number of stitches to get. Great number to be associate with your badge of living.
And that's it. That's all I got.
But, good for you for getting bloody every now and then.
Here's to a good skinned knee!
Hope it heals well and it's another scar to add to a lifetime of stories (now I'm picturing Jaws, when they're showing off scars:)
Rest up!
Cheers,
Colleen:)
Web Meister responds: Whenever I see Colleen’s name on the address bar I smile. Even without reading it. Quite the personality, that gal. But, yeah, ask any athlete: no one ever feels ‘well’ until weeks after the season ends and they’ve had weeks and weeks to recover.
Life according to Colleen: a constant stream of pain keeps the funeral director away.
And this tidbit from Marc O:
I thought I’d share this with you, in honor of your “Existential Auto trip.”
And for the title for a short story I’d written last year (2019): “A Whole Other Life; An Existential Odyssey”
Web Meister responds: I enjoyed the link, my friend. Thank you.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region.
It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges.
The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile).
In 2018, 260,897 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice (centro storico).
Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.
The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC.
The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice for a millennium and more, from 697 to 1797.
It was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as an important center of commerce—especially silk, grain, and spice, and of art from the 13th century to the end of the 17th.
The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century.
This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.
After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence.
Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork.[ Venice is known for several important artistic movements—especially during the Renaissance period—has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.
Although the city is facing some challenges (including an excessive number of tourists and problems caused by pollution, tide peaks and cruise ships sailing close to the buildings), Venice remains a very popular tourist destination, a major cultural center, and has been ranked many times the most beautiful city in the world.
It has been described by the Times Online as one of Europe's most romantic cities and by The New York Times as "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man".
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It’s Thursday, January 16, 2020.
Welcome to the 650th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Bologna
Clockwise from top: panorama of Bologna and the surrounding hills, San Petronio Basilica, University of Bologna, Fountain of Neptune, Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, Unipol Tower and the Two Towers
For more information, see 11.0 Thumbnails in this section.
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2.0 Commentary
Feeling weird this morning.
Out of sorts.
Not myself.
Finished my coffee watching “Wanted,” an Australian series featuring two women on the run.
Enjoying it.
A malaise has seeped in and I’m finding it difficult to get engaged.
Coupled with vertigo.
A low-grade dizziness, perhaps a 2 on a 10-scale.
After an hour of work, counting breakfast, shaving, and dressing as work,
I lie down.
Vertigo worsens but then subsides and I rest for a bit.
Get up and for the next ninety minutes do busy work: prep dinner (Leftover roasted chicken w store-bought fried rice, leftover vegetables, a bit of my Asian oil (Sesame oil with scallions, ginger, and garlic) and some Chinese rice vinegar; answer emails; initiate emails; put things away; text cousin Lauren; look up some chuckles for the blog.
Busy work.
And mindless.
Suits who I am at this moment.
Recording my video?
Lifting weights?
Too much creativity; too much exertion.
Not happening.
But the early part of my day is completed and some things got done.
Bravo.
Last night: dinner with my daughter Kat and my cousin Lauren.
Tonight, Lauren and I.
Friday night, Kat and I.
The weekend? To be determined.
Then Monday night continues the teaching dinners.
This Monday is filled but there are still three openings available for Monday, the 27th.
For those who are not aware of the dinners, here is the post:
COOKING IN REAL LIFE
January 27 2020
If you
Like food but work full time and
Live independently and/or
Have no one at home to prepare your meals and
Must budget time and money,
Dom’s “Cooking in Real Life,” classes are tailored for you.
The event is located in downtown Boston, starts at 5.30pm, and runs four hours.
As illustration of easily prepared dinners we will prepare together a four-course meal, typically:
Antipasto
Pasta
Meat
Cheese with Fruit
Water and wine will be served.
For safety sake, wine will be limited to three glasses per participant.
Vegan alternatives will be discussed and enough food available for vegans to enjoy.
Discussion is ongoing, including during the dinner preparation as well as at the dinner table.
The cost per person is $125.00, food and wine included.
Class size is limited to the size of our table.
Reserve a place by emailing Dom at domcapossela@hotmail.com
with “Sign me up” in the subject line.
We will respond shortly thereafter, certainly within the next twenty-four hours.
Some topics we will cover are:
Where do we start?
Where do we shop?
Food market sales.
Analyzing meals by considering their cost and ease of preparation: Broiling often most expensive but easiest
Integrating lunch prep with dinner prep, saving time and money and controlling your diet.
Excellent reboots of leftovers: 1. Peppers and onion fry; 2. Curry Sauce; 3. Wrap; 4. Hash
5. Fried rice or pasta salad
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
"You've got to be careful smoking weed. It causes memory loss. And also, it causes memory loss."
~ David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
These from two of the many well-wishers.
First Tucker J:
Jeez Dom!
What a story. Sorry that it happened but it was a really lovely read. You write so well. All the feelings of pain, annoyance, urgency, and delight (and the gin) are so well formed.
That's it. Just wanted to remark on that section of your page. It was a pleasure to read. Hope the knee is getting better.
-Tucker
And this from Ann H:
OMG that is awful - SLOW DOWN and heal quickly.
I hate Boylston too - that horrible ear piercing noise.
Web Meister responds: Thanks to all of you.
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9.0 Poetry
This from Kali Lamparelli:
Side note: I'm fine-just a poem
I am your Cinderella
You leave your blood spatter all over the ground.
Tears flood my face; I am on my knees scrubbing
the garage floor just to avoid your wrath.
My life is a crime scene and I am the prey.
I am careful to do everything right so I don’t
collect another particle of your hate. I watch your
face crinkle at me, your eyes are lasers severing
my body parts.
My skin goes cold and I scratch my scalp off.
I pay people to make me feel better. They’ll
never know the coffee they made kept me alive.
They’ll never know the hair they dyed kept me here.
They will never know the smile they smiled at me
was my life raft.
I’ll say sure a thousand times as the tears fall down my face.
I’ll want you to ask me are you okay? and I’m glad that
you never do and never will. The scars on my body are maps of
your contempt for me. Did I do a good job? Did I get it right?
II’ll always wonder, why did you have children
if everything they were ever going to do was wrong?
Every day we’ll play pretend; I’ll help.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Bologna is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy.
It is the seventh most populous city in Italy, at the heart of a metropolitan area of about one million people.
Of Etruscan origin, the city has been a major urban center for centuries, first under the Etruscans, then under the Romans (Bononia), then again in the Middle Ages, as a free municipality and signoria, when it was among the largest European cities by population.
Famous for its towers, churches and lengthy porticoes,
Bologna has a well-preserved historical center, thanks to a careful restoration and conservation policy which began at the end of the 1970s.
Home to the oldest university in the world, the University of Bologna, established in AD 1088, the city has a large student population that gives it a cosmopolitan character.
In 2000 it was declared European capital of culture and in 2006, a UNESCO "City of Music" and became part of the Creative Cities Network.
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It’s Wednesday, January 15, 2020.
Welcome to the 649th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Medieval treatment of wound with lance grittings
unknown, source says from Holland
Wound treatment. The wound of a young prince is treated with grits (small metal cuttings) from his own lance - likely in the belief to avoid infection.
A wound is a type of injury which happens relatively quickly in which skin is torn, cut, or punctured (an open wound), or where blunt force trauma causes a contusion (a closed wound).
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2.0 Commentary
Monday afternoon at the Blue Bottle, finishing posting the blog, thinking of the train home.
Pull out my T app and ask it: 6 minutes.
Just time to speed up my closing and head out at a fast clip.
No time to put on my rain jacket; tuck it under my arm.
Crossing the mall to the escalator, step on.
Oops! The jacket slips the tuck and falls behind me.
I twist to retrieve it and my sneaker slides out from under me.
I fall, knee first, slamming against the teeth of one the stairs behind me,
the escalator still moving.
Oow! But I have my jacket.
Knee hurts.
Homeless man at foot of the escalator waving to me that once I get to him he’ll help.
He doesn’t have the train app.
What?
My knee is wet.
Must have scraped it a bit.
No time.
Three minutes.
Don’t want to wait ten minutes for the next train: hurry.
Thank the homeless man and keep walking, the right leg of my jeans now soaked.
Not just a scrape.
The train.
I keep moving, a glitch at the turnstyle, darn, there you go, and I’m through.
Safe.
Train two minutes away.
Trailing blood.
Look at foot: sock and sneaker soaked.
Can’t tend it here at the station.
I board, finding a seat in the front of the car, able to hide leg from public.
Hand on knee to staunch the bleeding, squeezing tightly, nothing more to do now.
Rest my head and close my eyes.
Note the stations: Copley, Arlington, straight runs.
Fine.
Entering Boylston.
Hate Boylston.
Vicious curve; loud noise; seems always to meet a delay.
Park and then Government Center where I must walk downstairs to Blue Line.
Bleeding seems to have stopped.
Five minutes to train.
Finally disembark at Aquarium and limp the four minutes to apartment.
At concierge desk resist impulse to ask someone to stay in apartment with me while I shower.
Painful: taking off jeans that prefer to stick; prefer to meld into the wound; part of it now.
I slowly separate them.
In shower, slowly wash blood from leg.
Flap of skin holding on.
Call the clinic, only a seven minute walk for me.
They can take me right away but no.
I make appointment two hours hence.
I want to eat and have a good, a very good drink before.
Dinner is a pair of wraps featuring the duck leftover from several days ago: just add sprouts, store-bought pico de gallo, and scallions.
My beloved Old Raj gin with a mountain of ice, some very large cubes, some average size, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and a touch of tonic.
Damn that’s good: the temperature of melting ice, the juniper, the alcohol whispering, “Here I am. Solace. Pleasure.”
I take the comfort.
I relish the comfort.
I eat slowly, watching an episode of the American Experience: Joe McCarthy; making parallels to today’s political scene.
I sip.
Oops! What happened to those two hours?
I only have fifteen minutes to dress and get out.
On the way, the bleeding resumes, and another pair of jeans gets bloodied,
Sitting in the medical office, well-cared for.
Vitals taken.
Eight tiny painless pinpricks around the gouge to numb my knee, painless, yes, but not as much fun as the gin, also painless, also numbing, then three sub-cutaneous stitches followed by nine stitches to hold the blessed flap in place, blessed since, with it in place, the knee is made whole.
Tightly bandaged. Professional.
Going to try like heck to keep that bandage in place for as long as possible.
Replicating it impossible.
Have to get my blood-sopped jeans back on.
I do.
Later, at home, the trauma taking the wind from me, I decide the best thing I can do with my evening is to gain time for tomorrow by doing a couple of tomorrow’s time-consuming errands: on Newbury Street, buy a pair of jeans from Nordstrom’s rack (I bought two;) and, on Cambridge Street, four boxes of Watermelon Agave popsicles from Whole Foods.
Nordstrom’s to Whole Foods a lovely twenty-five minute limp at 9.00pm in Boston.
That night, last night, I slept seven hours.
In my adult life, a record sleep.
This Tuesday morning, recounting the events, I feel clean and whole, despite a noticeable limp.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“USA Today has come out with a new survey:
Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population.
David Letterman
__________________
5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This smile from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
"Frustrating. Grappling with technology one hasn’t mastered." You say?
I have a theory (as yet unproven, but the evidence supporting it is mounting) that one never masters the technology.
As soon as you think you have, they introduce the next version.
It's called job security for those who design this stuff.😁
Sally
Web Meister responds: You might just be right, my dear.
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It’s Tuesday, January 14, 2020.
Welcome to the 648th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
We are pleased to announce a new class available to all.
The details:
COOKING IN REAL LIFE
If you:
Like food but work full time and
Live independently and/or
Have no one at home to prepare your meals and
Must budget time and money,
Dom’s “Cooking in Real Life,” classes are tailored for you.
The event is four hours.
During that time we will prepare together a four-course meal, typically:
Antipasto
Pasta
Meat
Cheese with Fruit
Water and wine will be served.
For safety sake, wine will be limited to three glasses per participant.
Vegan alternatives will be discussed and enough food available for vegans to enjoy.
Discussion is ongoing, including during the dinner preparation as well as at the dinner table.
The cost per person is $125.00, food and wine included.
Class size is limited to the size of our table.
Reserve a place by emailing Dom at domcapossela@hotmail.com
with “Sign me up” in the subject line.
We will respond shortly thereafter, certainly within the next twenty-four hours.
Some topics we will cover are:
Where do we start?
Where do we shop?
Food market sales.
Analyzing meals by considering their cost and ease of preparation.
Integrating lunch prep with dinner prep, saving time and money while controlling your diet.
Fixes to easily transform ‘not as good as the first day’ leftovers into a shiny new meal.
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1.0 Lead Picture
Milan is considered a leading alpha global city, with strengths in the field of the art, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research and tourism.
Clockwise from top: Porta Nuova, Sforza Castle, La Scala, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milano Centrale railway station, Arch of Peace and Milan Cathedral.
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2.0 Commentary
Frustrating.
Grappling with technology one hasn’t mastered.
Thank goodness my friend Justin (on vacation in Florida) was responsive.
He nailed every issue and delivered the solutions with charm and joy despite the interruption I pose.
Thank you, my friend.
Bottom Line: My latest installment in the "Hello, my friends," video series is delayed another day.
Oh, well!
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“Now all of us can talk to the NSA—just by dialing any number.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
The content of several emails encouraged me to look beyond Paris.
Web Meister responds:
They were timely: me just realizing I needed few days (a week?) to spend time in the parts of Paris I’ve never been to and would like to see.
Of course I’m looking forward to cooking there so I need time to think about possibilities.
But instead of looking to the south of France, I may first look east into Turin, Milan, Genoa, Bologna.
Will investigate a week or so in Paris and the rest of the time in northern Italy, ending in Florence.
I am assuming travel by TGV.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Milan is considered a leading alpha global city, with strengths in the field of the art, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research and tourism.
Its business district hosts Italy's stock exchange (Italian: Borsa Italiana), and the headquarters of national and international banks and companies.
In terms of GDP, it has the third-largest economy among EU cities after London and Paris, and is the wealthiest among EU non-capital cities.
Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and one of the "Four Motors for Europe".
The city has been recognized as one of the world's four fashion capitals thanks to several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair, which are currently among the world's biggest in terms of revenue, visitors and growth.
It hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015.
The city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students.
Milan is the destination of 8 million overseas visitors every year, attracted by its museums and art galleries that include some of the most important collections in the world, including major works by Leonardo da Vinci.
The city is served by many luxury hotels and is the fifth-most starred in the world by Michelin Guide.
The city is home to two of Europe's most successful football teams, A.C. Milan and F.C. Internazionale, and one of Europe's main basketball teams, Olimpia Milano.
Milan will host the 2026 Winter Olympics together with Cortina d'Ampezzo.
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It’s Monday, January 13, 2020.
Welcome to the 647th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Sight of a French TGV Duplex coming from Nice and Cannes and passing over the viaduc de la Rague bridge, between Mandelieu-la-Napoule and Théoule-sur-Mer, in Alpes-Maritimes.
Florian Pépellin - Own work
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2.0 Commentary
More thoughts about Paris.
My son had suggested that I spend some of the time taking the TGV trains to cities in France beside Paris.
To examine that idea, I drew up a calendar and compared it against Paris neighborhoods and sites that I would like to visit.
Having been fairly recently, it quickly became apparent that ten days to two weeks might do just as well as thirty days.
So have broadened my planning to include a train stop.
Am hoping to, this afternoon, to finally record my next in the series of "Hello, my friends," videos.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“New York… when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This scholarly piece from our regular contributor, Sally C:
Hi, Dom,
I wrote this essay a few months ago and submitted it to the critique group. It occurred to me that you might like to read it. The message reflects much of your positive attitude toward life.
Enjoy!
Sally
JOY IN THE TASK
Sally M. Chetwynd
In her gentle and often amusing memoir, "The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd," Mary Rose O'Reilley reflects on cultivation of a calm spirit and acceptance of work for its own sake. Too often we thrash at a task, all the sooner to get it over with. This preoccupation distracts us from seeing the joy inherent in our work.
She says, “A busy cycle of internal healing [deep, stage-four peace] operates while we're unconscious [sleeping]. I'm convinced that the spirit, too, needs deep rest to reduce its habitual overdrive - rest that, in the mercy of creation, used to be woven into the daily fabric of chores. Vigils in the lambing barn, stacks of dishes to wash, a garden to weed - I smile to myself when I hear my children and young co-workers rail against this repetitive work. It takes half a life to realize that these unsung, secret, rhythmic occupations are creation's gift to our species."
O’Reilley also notes how Christian monks became depressed and lethargic after Vatican II mandated that Gregorian chant was unnecessary. The decline of their spirits without chant showed that this ritual serves as meditation, calming the soul to focus on the task at hand, simultaneously a prayer and a praise. Scottish women sang waulking songs when they spun wool; sailors sang hauling chanties when they raised anchors. Like Gregorian chant, the shared song brought pleasure and unity to the work.
It’s attitude. It’s a matter of a deliberate, mindful shift in how we view the task. And rather than considering it a task, which implies a burden, it is better regarded an opportunity, a stepping stone toward a goal, or yes, a gift.
Consider the accord of a farmer with his livestock. Milk the goat, trim the horse’s hoofs for shoeing, bed the chicken coop with clean straw, install a storm door in the bee hive before winter. It’s one-on-one. This mundane activity goes on, every day. But such intimate interactions build trust between the keeper and the kept, engendering well-being.
This applies to crops as well. The farmer tends his fields and orchards. Sow the seed, prune the apple tree, dress the field, graft the grapevine. Experience tells the farmer that careful stewardship yields a plentiful harvest and therefore generates patience (trust, related to faith) to wait for outcome of planting - weeks (lettuce), months (corn), or years (apples). This can be considered a symbiotic relationship. Yes, these occupations benefit the farmer, but they also promote the plants’ health and that of the soil.
Many activities - maybe most - we do because we must. With which attitude will we derive more joy in their doing, a positive one or a negative one?
Sometimes it’s a matter of acceptance of what is, without taking adversity personally, a vestige of a survival culture of older generations. On a recent weekend, Nelson, the man whose boat yard my family patronizes, took my mother and me in his little skiff out to our summer place on an off-shore island in mid-coast Maine. We unloaded our gear onto the beach and pushed his boat off for him to head back. Then his engine wouldn’t start. Rather than bemoan his plight, he took up his oars and calmly set about to row the three miles over open ocean to the harbor. Wiry and tough, the hands-on owner of a busy marina, he did what he had to.
Mother and I were uneasy with this prospect. When we climbed from the shore to the settlement, I went to a house where a number of neighbors were gathered, to ask someone to give Nelson a tow. Andrew immediately headed off. He caught up with Nelson at Indian Point, already half a mile along. Nelson was struggling against a brisk wind that was driving his high-sided boat onto the ledges. Andrew towed him to the mainland. With his signature, almost child-like wonderment, Nelson appreciated the assistance.
Nelson is representative of a generation that does what needs doing when it needs doing. It didn’t occur to him to ask for help. It’s probable that he would have made it back, because he always had, but still … he’s ninety years old!
In her book, “The Peninsula,” Louise Dickinson Rich notes the same unflappable grit in the hardy citizens of Corea, a tiny fishing village in Gouldsboro township away Down East. Independent and interdependent folks like this once peopled the tips of those rocky peninsulas that stretch far into the sea. Their remoteness from U.S. Route One and lack of tourist trappings insured geographical isolation until the late 1960s, which preserved their culture and economy.
The master boat-builder Alejandro (“Ale”) exhibits this philosophical nature in Daniel Gumbiner’s novel, “The Boatbuilder,” set in northern California. When Berg, the opioid-addicted main character, first comes on as Ale’s apprentice, he gets impatient at Ale’s instructions to sharpen the blade of a plane. The angle of the honed blade must be exact, so it will shave the wood, not gouge it. Every day for weeks, Berg hones and hones, never quite meeting Ale’s standard, never quite engaging his mind or heart. Then one day, it is correct, and Berg grasps a sense of patience it takes to truly learn one’s tools and one’s materials in order to learn one’s craft. That’s when he begins to apprehend how the creation – a wooden boat - growing under his hands endues him with its spirit, as his hands and heart build the spirit into it. Only then can Berg accept Ale’s gentle teaching to understand the transformation of a living tree into a living boat.
Early on, Ale asks Berg if he’s a punctual person. Berg affirms it, and Ale points out that Berg’s punctuality reveals his nature – he spends his mental energy anticipating the next thing on the docket, instead of investing himself in the task at hand, in the joy of the moment.
The work ethic, so often manifest with joy (whether or not realized), is intricately woven into our psyche. A strong work ethic necessitates the submission of one’s self-importance. The work ethic defined earlier generations. I’ve known many old men who learned their trades in their early teens, worked for decades, and died within a year of retirement. Set out to pasture, they had nothing to do; they knew nothing else. Their spirits withered because they no longer had the purpose that had sustained them for fifty, sixty, seventy years. Worse, younger generations were not encouraged to seek them out as mentors, so they could not even share their wisdom, to pass on what we call “tribal knowledge” today. Many occupations in which they found joy no longer exist, now obsolete in the wake of technology. Our throw-away society threw away these people.
Wendell Berry’s “The Art of the Commonplace” is a collection of meaty essays that shows the progression of our society’s headlong flight from ourselves, first by removing ourselves from the land (foolishly thinking we have no need for it), then the breakdown of the family structure, leading circuitously but ultimately (and presciently) to bankruptcy of the soul and the current denial of biology. Part of this includes denigration of menial work, resulting in a decline of the work ethic. He maintains that work need not equate to drudgery. He endorses a return to the land to reestablish the family structure, where elders lead by example to teach to the young the satisfying value of work.
Berry tells a marvelous little story about taking his granddaughter, age five, out in a horse-drawn cart one winter day to clear brush from a field on his farmland. They tend to the task, the little girl helping as guided, then head home in the growing dusk. On the way, she says nothing, and he becomes dismayed at her silence. He thinks perhaps she’s angry because she’s tired, cold, and bored silly. But then she pipes up with, "Grampa, didn't we do good work today?"
Berry reminds me of a tough job taken on by the civil engineering company where I worked some years ago. The developer was building a road designed to culminate in a cul-de-sac, to serve three new houses set on islands of upland in a wetland. The road had been completed designed, in plan and profile, but no one realized until the road was built that a previous engineer had never finished the profile of the cul-de-sac. There stood the developer, my company’s civil engineer, the town engineer, and the contractor, contemplating the torn-up mess of gravel and mud.
The engineers then asked the contractor if he could grade the cul-de-sac to spec, given the area’s limitations. If he could, then the engineers would survey the final construction for compliance and submit that as an as-built. As soon as it was agreed, the contractor turned to his son, a sturdy 13-year-old boy working for his father for the summer. The boy sat atop an industrial tractor, waiting for instructions. “Go do it, boy,” the contractor said, and the boy began. His precise operation of the tractor evinced confidence. He knew his tractor and he knew his job. At his father’s elbow, he was learning both a trade and pride in doing it well. He knew joy.
It isn’t hard to find joy even in the lowliest task. Some years ago, I worked part-time for my husband’s boss, whose firm cleans offices. My assignment had two large bathrooms with multiple stalls. My habit was to apply a swirl of bowl cleaner under the rim of each toilet first, giving the detergent time to coat the bowl. In a few minutes, I’d come back with the brush. One time, a perfectly symmetrical pattern formed in one of the toilet bowls, a starburst of dark-blue cleaner against the white of the bowl. I stood there gawking at the delicate elegance, reluctant to ruin it with the brush.
Yes, I know I’m weird. But that doesn’t negate the fact that beauty can be found anywhere, including a toilet bowl, if one’s mind and heart is open to it.
Speaking of plumbing, in his book “Excellence,” author John W. Gardner (founder of Common Cause, not the novelist) refers to this humility when he writes, “We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
If the job didn’t need doing, why would we bother with it? A humble attitude can bring much joy, when we remember that we are not above the task. The harder the work, the greater the joy in conducting it. The greater its challenge, the more satisfaction we derive in meeting it. The satisfaction is as much in the effort as in the result. We don’t always meet the challenge, but therein lies a valuable “take-away,” too. Failure teaches us more than does success, so it behooves us to appreciate it.
In Gordon Bok’s folk song, “Old Fat Boat,” the protagonist declares contentment with his situation. Although he lives on a slow, old boat that’s “soft in the transom” (needing repair), has “a two-pound splinter” in his thumb, and has run out of tobacco and cheese, he’s snug in his cabin against the wind and rain outside, with a bit of homemade bread (old but nice), coffee, tea, tuna fish, beans, and toddy.
Well, mercy, mercy, I do declare,
If half the fun of going is getting there,
Mercy, Percy, you better start rowing,
'Cause the other half of getting there is going.
Look for the joy in the other half. It’s there.
Web Meister responds: Well done, my dear.
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11.0 Thumbnails
The TGV (French: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train") is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by the SNCF, the state-owned national rail operator.
The SNCF started working on a high-speed rail network in 1966 and later presented the project to President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing who approved it.
Originally designed as turbotrains to be powered by gas turbines, TGV prototypes evolved into electric trains with the 1973 oil crisis.
In 1976 the SNCF ordered 87 high-speed trains from GEC-Alsthom.
Following the inaugural service between Paris and Lyon in 1981 on the LGV Sud-Est (LGV for Ligne à Grande Vitesse; "high-speed line"), the network, centered on Paris, has expanded to connect major cities across France (Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Rennes, Montpellier) and in neighboring countries on a combination of high-speed and conventional lines.
The TGV network in France carries about 110 million passengers a year.
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It’s Sunday, January 12, 2020.
Welcome to the 646th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with a population of 2,140,526 residents in an area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles).
Does this need a caption?
For some quick facts, see 11.0 Thumbnails in this section.
See also 2.0 Commentary for its inclusion in a conversation.
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1.0 Lead Picture
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with a population of 2,140,526 residents in an area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles).
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2.0 Commentary
So the first podcast in its new digs is completed.
Quick advantages of doing it at home: eliminate any issues of transportation, like traffic, car performance, parking, commute time, cost of auto.
Eliminate a weekly appointment that constricts flexibility among other activities.
Access to cough medicine, hot tea, or other amenities that make the recording more comfortable.
The podcast was Chapter Fifteen of the book, also the fifteenth podcast.
My own performance as a storyteller leaves something to be desired but I think I improve with practice.
Later today, Saturday, I will execute the first video in the new digs.
Will report back.
So the trip to Paris becomes more real, with 100% support from the eight friends and family I spoke to yesterday.
One, a friend of many years, jumped at the chance of using my apartment for the time I’m gone. Her proposed stipend a significant help in reducing the cost of the trip.
I accepted her offer.
A couple of three thoughts from this group that I will pursue:
Using the TGV.
Being open to living in an arrondissement other than the first.
Investigate the options available at Air BnB.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Colleen G:
Hey Dom,
So, you mention liking the planning better than the trip.
Well, there may be some science behind that and strangely as it may seem I learned that through a show I've seen a couple of episodes of called The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
In particular, if you happen to watch it (it's through Disney plus streaming, but maybe there are other ways, I don't know) tune into what I think is the first episode (the sneaker episode).
It's really interesting and entertaining--if you like Jeff Goldblum, but maybe even if you don't--and there's a part when he goes into the human science behind anticipation.
I won't spoil it for you if you watch. Here's the trailer for the series:
https://youtu.be/P7aN9OkNl7U
Enjoy the weekend!
Cheers,
Colleen:)
Web Meister responds: Love the Jeff-meister. And delighted to know my joy has scientific underpinnings. As I love hearing that dark chocolate has health benefits.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
In Chapter Fourteen Dee confronted a pervert and he led her to a second, even worse perp. Chapter 15 deals with this second confrontation..
Here’s the link:
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
21.0 Good Morning
Paris?
I don’t have to buy a thing.
I already have the suitcases out.
But that’s it for now.
God bless!