small things

Lately I have been blown away by the smallness of almost everything. Me, for example. I'm a tiny, jelly-like crumb on the surface of a rocky thing. My movements are noticed by few, never mind my words, thoughts, actions. In the history of the world, my life lasts almost no time at all. Each of my days, good or bad, is even less. Never mind my good or bad moments. I'm less than one six billionth of the population of this planet. I'm also terribly fragile, living in a delicate balance of the narrow acceptable conditions for human life.

"Dost thou think thyself a puny form, when within thee the universe is folded?"

I love that quote.

To me, lately, there's sort of a fresh feeling to thinking that things are both insignificant and important at the same time. Some actions will go unnoticed, some will really matter, to me, or somebody. Countless things we can say or not say, do or not do, give or not give are small in size, cost and/or time. Yet, many of these make a big difference to individuals. I could sit here for hours listing and explaining examples. I'll just leave this one story, though, about how something small that turned my morning around earlier this week.

* * *

This morning I almost missed my bus. I was walking casually to the bus stop, under the impression that I had plenty of minutes to get there, when I saw the thing roar past, maybe 15 yards in front of me. I started to run, dropped something, picked it up, started to run again. When I got to the corner I saw that it was stopped down the block, and I kept running. I was frustrated. I was already going to be five minutes late, and this meant I was going to be 20 minutes late, at least. I didn't like this for a number of reasons. I even went so far as to swear, something I hardly ever do, especially out loud.

As I was pounding futilely down the sidewalk after the oblivious bus, a lady slowed down beside me in her shiny black SUV and offered to give me a ride a few blocks up to catch the bus. I know the rules about getting in cars with strangers, but I looked at her and her shiny vehicle, got in, and thanked her profusely. I was probably in the car with her for less than a minute. A couple of blocks down Broadway, the bus had to stop at a light. I ran out and got on it. In one quick, thoughtful stroke, she saved me at least 20 minutes, a lot of frustration, and at least a little discomfort at work.

* * *

I could go into the significance of the fact that this woman offered to do this for me, and that I accepted. In this example there are a lot of things that would have gotten in the way, starting with trust and potential danger for both of us, never mind her thinking of doing something for me, a total stranger on the side of the road, in the first place. But I'm not going to because I don't want to yammer on and on. I've just really been thinking on smallness of myself and of many good (and bad) deeds. And how they're also big. It's been making me feel small, a little sad, a little happy, and fairly peaceful.

And I also wanted to post the story about catching the bus, just because I was so glad about it.

"...For man can receive no greater gift than this, that he rejoice another's heart. I beg of God that ye will be bringers of joy, even as are the angels in Heaven."
-'Abdu'l-Bahá

And, good night. [good night...] [..goodnight... . . . ] [ good. . . .

the fantastic concert

Last Tuesday, on my husband's birthday, we went to see They Might Be Giants. We brought the kids to the neighbor's house and, after the gDiaper tutorial and other points of communication with her, hopped on the 5 for the short ride up to First Ave.

Once we picked up our will call tickets, which amounted to having our hands stamped with a picture of feet and being waved in, we wove around to the back of the crowd, which was up behind the sound people and in front of the bar (one of the bars? I don't know, it was the only time I'd been there, and I didn't really get a chance to explore). Luckily, we were behind a bunch of short people and had a pretty good view.

We arrived just as the opening act was wrapping up. They sounded good to me, but we didn't hear much. Josh watched the original War of the Worlds while we stood there, and people on stage shifted things to and fro, getting ready for the main act. I mostly looked around, bounced excitedly on my toes, and waited.

Eventually the band came on (right around 8, just as my friend Scott, whose advice was critical to our attendance at this show, predicted) and played the song about the elements. I thought to myself, "Wow, they started with one of their educational/strange ones!" Then they played the song about President Polk and I realized that they have mostly strange songs, and many kids' songs, which is part of why I enjoy them so much. After that they did the one about the birdhouse and the lighthouse, and I almost cried. What can I say, music does things to me.

It was such a great concert. It was all built around an album they put out in 1990, Flood. Which is a long time ago. As they were about to come on, Josh pointed out to me that the Johns (both of the main band members are named John) are practically old enough to be our dads, and we're 30 now! There were fans in the audience of all ages - long gray beards, 30-somethings, youngish teens, college-aged folk and little children accompanied by their parents were all about. At the very front there were at least two girls/women with artificially straight and neon-colored hair who jumped up and down whenever the beat allowed it, just as I was jumping on the inside. As the show continued and my legs got more and more tired of standing, more a people joined the neon-haired people in their jumping.

There are so many things I want to remember: the Johns' casual hilarity and the way the crowd ate it up; how the dark-haired John would play his guitar with his right hand (the one on the neck) way up in the air in front of him, sometimes jumping, and occasionally with one foot in the air too; how the audience cheered when the other John brought out the accordion for the first time; the dense, sparkly, exciting and somehow witty effect of the confetti cannon (which John told us was stocked with confetti left over from the McCain campaign, though, he said, "don't worry, there is nobody here who was for McCain"); how personable the Johns were with the audience, at one point thanking people in different parts of the room, mentioning the glass wall that used to be on the upper floor, perhaps for the nursing mothers, and on and on; the sock puppet, one of the "avatars of They", with a paper coffee cup for a hat...

It's so interesting to see people playing and singing the sounds that I'm completely accustomed to coming from of a recording. The performers always look so human, so much made of the same material as other humans, and the same size too, and I'm usually surprised and touched by that fact, though I also feel I shouldn't be. It inevitably makes me wonder if they have the same human struggles as the rest of us, which of course they do, with their own personal details. I was a little bit startled to hear them allude to the fact that performing the same music for years and years may get a little dull if they don't mix it up a bit. Even though it's obvious. It was all interesting, and entertaining as well.

Near the end of the show, dark-haired-John announced that they had 8,000 bumper stickers that he would be handing out. According to him, they are quite cheap when ordered in such quantities. My date didn't object to my pushing up to the stage, inchingly, with much of the rest of the crowd (though he waited out of the way of the masses), and in the end I was rewarded by being handed two bumper stickers by John himself. I was very happy, even though it got dark as I reached the stage, and red back-lighting prevented me from getting a look at the guy's face, which I'd been hoping would help me decide if he really did remind me of somebody or not.

I held on to those stickers the whole bus ride home. Josh offered to put them in his [roomy] pocket for me, but I didn't want him to, and eventually I realized why. These stickers were handed to me, in my hand, by a rock star! Even if he seemed relatively normal and maybe even geeky (not unlike some of the nice computer engineers I work with), it still was kind of thrilling in a weird way.

Anyway, I was easily able to put the stickers down when we stopped at our apartment briefly to get a drink of water before picking up the kids next door. I still have them, though, of course.*

What a fun show. Happy birthday Josh, I sure enjoyed it!**

*For the moment.
**Don't worry, Josh liked it too.

I changed the name of my blog, and explaining my lack of posting, in three chapterlets.

1.

I like this name better. It makes me feel like I can say whatever I want, and it's the address anyway, so it seems as nice and natural as something like a blog can be. I think the other name made me feel too...dark, or maybe I was intimidated that I needed to be deep, or something.

(Let the record show that the former name of this blog was "deeper (and maybe darker)".)

(Wow, I like that punctuation string there.)

So. Here we still are. Or "again are", maybe.

2.

I want to clarify that my reasons for posting do not include, "not thinking". On the contrary, I have been thinking quite a bit, and have had things I've actually wanted to post about. However, there is so much to do, I just haven't managed to type stuff up here.

But I will soon. I at least have to post about this concert that I went to on Tuesday. It was fantastic.

3.

Here's a short story about one thing that has kept me from my typing:

This is the second day of trying to potty train my 33-month-old. We put him in underwear and watch watch watch so that when he goes, we can sweep him off to the potty. I think it is working, but I don't know when he'll stop peeing/pooping in his underwear and on the floor, and it is wearying.

Normally I'd put that story on my other blog, except that this is the point of this story right now: it is making me feel very run down. It is actually making me feel glad to be going to work next week to escape from it a bit.

This afternoon I was getting discouraged, and left for maybe 20 minutes to get a latte, the kind with caffeine. And guess what? That stuff still makes me happy. While I was happy, he actually peed in the potty, more than just a few drips! But it wore off, and I am tired again, and he has peed on the floor at least twice since then.

See? I'm so run down I can't even remember properly.

Maybe the lesson is that I should drink more coffee. I wonder if the effect on the child would still exist if I just drank decaf. What if by my drinking coffee, my kid would magically be potty trained? I think that would be awesome.