10 Years Ago: Where the Hell Am I, Louisiana: The Map App

 

Speaking of maps, Judgmental Maps is always binge-worthy. 

And these:

• 2013.05: Another Geography Lesson: Americans' Map of the World
• 2013:05: Geography Lesson

 

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Where the Hell Am I, Louisiana: The Map App

Part 1: 

A few years ago, I listened to a family member, let's call her Kiki, explain why she had not yet used the Onstar program in her new car. .... "Because it could take me into a dangerous area and I could end up DEAD!"

At the time, I thought two things:

1. Paper maps could do the same thing; and 
2. Hoo boy. 

But I kept my mouth shut.

It wasn't too long after that when Kiki was prevailed upon to try out her Onstar and she loved it!


Part 2:

So here it is March 2015, and I've got a smart phone now. On a fine weekend afternoon, I was fixing to drive from my new digs (oh, I haven't told you where I'm living now, have I?) to the village of Henderson which hugs a levee along the Atchafalaya River. I looked at about three route options on my map application, and selected one.

It was a pleasant day and my map app took me on a wind-y road, which was just fine with me. Then it wanted me to go over a bridge that wasn't there anymore, so I did a few circular maneuvers, asked a gentleman on the side of the road for some guidance, and he directed me to a way around that gone bridge, and then I was taken deeper and deeper into what reminded me of an old Stephen King story of the woman whose mission was to find the fastest way from Point A to Point B in Maine and her quest took her into a parellel universe where time got bend-y.

Until finally my map app carried me to what seemed to be an end of the road, on the other side of a wood-plank bridge with a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign posted, with my map app voice instructing me to go up the levee. Say what??

Near Henderson, Louisiana. March, 2015.

And it was at this moment that I thought of Kiki's dire predictions of murder and mayhem should she surrender herself to her Onstar.

Looking to my left, across the other bank of the bridge, I saw a group of men doing something along the river.

Having now read all of the Dave Robicheaux books (and having read Winter's Bone and watched the movie, based in the hinterlands of my own Missouri ), what might they be doing?  Running drugs for a South American cartel? Dispensing with a troublesome comrade? Or just fishing? Where's the ice chest to tell me all is as it should be?

Winter's Bone trailer:

"Talkin' just causes witnesses."

I crossed the wood-plank bridge with some trepidation and then asked one of the men, "I'm trying to get to Henderson from here ... but I'm confused about what I'm supposed to do now." One of the men said, "Well, you can turn on around here and go back the way you came ..... [insert my mental nervous swallow here] ... or you can go right and it'll take you 10 to 15 minutes to get there."

Because I am genetically programmed to not backtrack, I took a few moments to decide if "turn right" really meant "turn right" or did it mean "go up onto the levee and turn right?" Did the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign refer to the flat road to my right or the levee road up and to the right on the levee?

I chose the flatlander road on the right. When I say road, by the way, I'm talking gravel road.

This met with approval from my map app until a few miles down the road when it really, really wanted me to climb up onto the levee. Finally, I acquiesced and for some more miles drove on the gravel road up top, noticing that the flatland road kept on going on right beside me, down below. Eventually, I overcame the objections of my map app and got back down onto flat land.

All ended well, of course, but I took a different route home.  

I did see this pretty community of beehives on the way to Henderson:

Near Henderson, Louisiana. March, 2015.

Reminded me of Caucasus Georgia, on a visit to an agrarian technical school in Kachreti. 


[Update: A 2023 Al Jazeera cautionary story: Google Sued After Man Drove Off Collapsed Bridge Following Map Directions.]

Word of the Year: Meditation: Into Action

 

 

Lake Martin, Louisiana. September 2014. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

From the library, I borrowed Jon Kabat-Zinn's book, Mindfulness for Beginners (audio version). I was staying with friend Kate, and it was cold and dreary outside. November in Missouri.  I was also committed to getting in 10k steps each day, as clocked in my Fitbit. 

Kate has a small attached garage. So I walked 'round and 'round and 'round the inside perimeter of her garage, a thousand steps at a time, while listening to Mindfulness for Beginners. No other library patron waited to borrow the audiobook, so for awhile I simply renewed it. Twice, maybe three times. Because once I finished it, I started over from the beginning. It was that good. Listening to the book was the meditation.

As part of my commitment to meditation this year, I have now bought and downloaded my very own copy of the audiobook. 

Into action. Remembering my goals: Serenity in the moment. To lay peaceably, like a lilypad, on the surface of a still lagoon.

10 Years Ago: Relocation: Living With Uncertainty

 

Uncertainty. 

 

A state of being that is so insidious that interrogators use it as a tool of torture. 

 

Some related posts: 

2023.07: 2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, Resentment

2023.03: 2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Forgetting Everything's All Right

2021.07: Word of the Year: Joy 7: Birdsong

2013.07: The Little Girl Who Rides the Train

2020.11: The Day After They Called the Election: A Subdued Jubilation

2020.05: Relocation: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 20: Where Am I Going?

2019.10: Tucson, AZ: A Bully's Ripple Effect

2016.11: Toronto: Airport: Livestock Management 

 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Relocation: Living With Uncertainty

Returning to South Louisiana for Year Two just two weeks before Mardi Gras may not have been the best idea. Based on my relocation experiences in the past - the speed at which I found wonderful permanent shelter, to be specific - it seemed rational to expect I'd be ensconsed somewhere cozy by the holiday.

But:

• The prices for temporary lodging right before a major holiday in these parts go way over my budget. 
•  I've learned that the demand for rental property in the Lafayette catchment area exceeds supply, especially at my price range. 
• Rental property is generally high around here, so there are significant compromises on condition, size, view, and ambiance

Based on the above realities, anxiety and discomfort have kicked in. There is a desire to stop this discomfort that has no time-certain end. This tempts me to retreat into what's comfortable, like staying in Lafayette in Year Two simply because it's a known entity, or snagging any place that is minimally acceptable solely to end the home hunt.

However, when I pause for a few minutes and take a breath, really, I've got to appreciate that I have exceptional freedom.

• For example, I don't even have to stay in South Louisiana! I could go anywhere! 
• The Mardi Gras holiday is only a few days - once I get past that economic hurdle, then prices settle down again and I have way more breathing space to find the right home. And if need be, I can visit another region during Mardi Gras.  A sunny beach, maybe.
• I could buy instead of rent, taking me into an entirely new adventure. 
• I can open myself up to a much broader range of South Louisiana location possibilities. 

Here's what a couple of folks say about living with uncertainty:

The Tiny Buddha: 7 Ways to Deal with Uncertainty

Psych Central: 5 Tips for Living with Uncertainty


Om.

 

 

 

Word of the Year 2025: Meditation

 

 

Dwan Light Sanctuary. Near Las Vegas, New Mexico. October 2007. Credit: Mzuriana.

In July 2023, I wrote: 

I do not have a daily practice of meditation, although I do have two books that - when I read them - create a meditative experience for me: Wherever You Go, There You Are (Jon Kabatt-Zinn) and Fear: Essential Wisdom For Getting Through the Storm (Thich Nhat Hanh). 

 

In fall 2024, I still didn't have a daily practice of meditation, and I set out to change that. 

So why did I want to? 

Because it goes back to my sturdy little boat, my "higher power:" 

In Vietnam, there are many people, called boat people, who leave the country in small boats. Often the boats are caught in rough seas or storms, the people may panic, and the boats can sink. But if even one person aboard can remain calm, lucid, knowing what to do and what not to do, he or she can help the boat survive.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

It is so terribly hard to quiet my mind. My brain wants to churn, churn, churn - to create and then regurgitate, create and regurgitate. I listen to podcasts at night to distract a busy brain that otherwise keeps me wakeful, as it churns through what happened that day, yesterday, or last week or last month or last year or a decade ago, ever striving to rewrite conversations, rewrite entire life story arcs for different outcomes, to turn on my own internal misinformation generator. 

And we live in such dystopian times; how do I claim moments of calm, lucidity, and confidence in taking the next right step? 

It matters not that my physical location on a given day might be geographically rootless; what matters is that my inner location be constant, rooted with serenity and with confidence that my little boat, which I share with others, is a sturdy one. 

 

10 Years Ago: Relocation 2015

 

 

This still makes me chuckle.

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Relocation 2015

So here I am in Missouri for my usual interregnum between annual migrations.

You may have noticed that I haven't yet announced where I'll be living in 2015.

I can announce that my original plan was to move to Oaxaca (city), Mexico. That was my plan all the way up to, maybe, September, and then I surprised the hell out of myself and decided instead to

 

Word of the Year 2025

 

 

Shirt on a fence. Mobile, Alabama. August 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

Below is what I wrote last year at this time about the word of the year thing. I'm still on the fence about it, but here I am again, nevertheless.

Some years back, I instituted a Word of the Year thing. 

Not sure I will continue. 

Maybe I'm just over it. Maybe it feels is too contrived. Maybe it was just a way to add content in a lazy-ass way, albeit with sincerity.

While I think about whether to continue the pattern, below are past words of the year: 

2018: Courage

• January 2018: Courage 1: Malala
  
• February 2018: Courage 2: Audre Lorde

2019: Action

• January: Action
• February: Action: Legal Observers
• March: Action: Penpal
• July: Action: Escaping Despair
• August: Action: Lipstick and Salvation
• September: Action: A Refugee Shelter

 2020: Build

1. Build 1: After the Floods
2. Build 2: Fronterista
3. Build 3: "House"
4. Build 4: Chosens
5. Build 5: It Takes a Village
6. Build 6: Elevation
7. Build 7: Trail Building
8. Build 8: Money
9. Build 9: Health 
10. Build 10: Service and Activism
11. Build 11: Relationships
12. Build 12: Creative Life
13. Lagniappe 13: My Rootless Goals
    

2021: Joy

• November 2020: Reserving My Word for 2021: Joy
  
• Joy 1: Word of the Year: Joy
  
• Joy 2: Music
• Joy 3: Surprise Vista
  
• Joy 4: Happy, Joyous, and Free
  
• Joy 5: The Science of Joy, Interrupted
  
• Joy 6: Color
• Joy 7: Birdsong
• Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys
  
• Joy 9: A Tomato and Onion Sandwich
• Joy 10: Let in Light
  
• Joy 11: Scentsuality
• Joy 12: Remembrances

2022: Disciplines

• January: Introduction
• February: Showers
• June: Daily Walks
• July: A Work Schedule
• August: Gone Dark

 2023: Fear

• January: Looking Into the Abyss Without Falling In
• February: Fuck Everything And Run
• March: Forgetting Everything's All Right
• April: "Take More Risks"
• May: Feelings Expressed Allow Relief
• June: Face Everything And ... Rise
• July: Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, Resentment
• August: Face Everything And Recover
• September: Freedom and Imprisonment

2024: Migration

• February: Migration
• March: The Devil's Highway
• April: The Warmth of Other Suns

 

10 Years Ago: The Creative Life: Brain Space

 

 

Coffee, a book, a notebook, and phone. Lalileba, Ethiopia. January 2011. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

Ten years later, my struggle is no less.

I enjoy bursts of output, and then sink again into the pillowy softness of input from other people's creativity, to the exclusion of my own. 

Available time is not the problem. My available time is no less than it has ever been, but the acquisition of my very first smart phone back in Lafayette, Louisiana, and subsequent off-and-on-again subscriptions to streaming services, opened my door to that thief of time: screen stupor. 

I've come to believe that another variable is that somewhere along the way I forgot how much time it takes to write a piece and to process photos, something I did not begrudge, or even think about, in the past, but for some reason - unrealistically - I seemed to have come to believe was too much; that somehow I was too slow. Or something. 

So recently I've re-learned this: Writing takes time. The time it takes is intrinsic to the process.

Another recent development: I've subscribed to a couple of podcasts on how writers write, for inspiration. (Yeah, I know. Ironic.)

When out in public, I've also begun to mindfully practice the old art of just sitting in a place and looking around me instead of reaching for my phone. I used to be a good observer. I always liked the title of Peter Drucker's memoir: Adventures of a Bystander.

I have hope. 

P.S. After years of boycotting The Atlantic for its intellectual pretensions during the Christopher Hitchens era, while it simultaneously juggled Vanity Fair-like fluffery, I re-upped a few months ago.

 

Friday, January 2, 2015

The Creative Life: Brain Space

 

Mmmm, brains a-sizzlin'. Kutaisi, Caucasus Georgia. Credit: Mzuriana

Years ago, the Atlantic Monthly (before it devolved into the pseudo-intellectual organ it is now) ran a riveting article about how religious faith and ethics are two entirely different biological operations. An individual might have both in spades, or neither, or be rich in one and poor in the other.

I bring this up because the same idea is probably apt for the creative process. That is, a person's vision is separate from the discipline one needs to give light to the vision - to give birth to it.

There is a lot of raw creative material in my head or, in the case of photos, in my hard drive awaiting distillation. I'm not at all happy that 2014, especially the second half, saw so little creative output, notwithstanding tremendous amounts of input. 

It seems that my brain can focus on only so many things at once. My year in South Louisiana was filled with new things - both good and not-so-good - that sucked great swaths of brain energy. Learning to dance! Starting a new job! Car troubles! A wretched bout with backache. And more, some of which is none of your beeswax.

If I now know that I can only barely chew gum and walk at the same time, what does this mean to me and my creative life?

What it means is that if I want to push stuff out, then I have to set up the physical time and the brain space to produce. To effect the latter, I've got to divert my brain-energy flow to creative thinking from distracted thinking. Otherwise my creativity is just the snap and crackle without the pop.