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Hammock Season

Hammock Season

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It’s the first post of the hammock season, which starts early this year. I rock sideways on the contraption, using it more as a rocking chair than a chaise lounge.

I perch above a bumper crop of wood poppies and within sight of several spectacular azaleas. To my right is a lilac bush that seems likely to produce more blooms than ever this year, more blooms than ever being a relative term, of course. I’m hoping to crack the double digits. 

The poplar above me is barely leafing. Ferns are unfurling. A breeze ruffles the foliage and rings the wind chimes. Yesterday, there were 26 people in this yard. Today, only me. It’s a mellow Easter Monday. Let’s hope I can stay awake long enough to do some homework. 

A Replacement?

A Replacement?

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In class this week we talked about good and evil, the decline of religion and the ascendancy of the “spiritual.” A question the professor threw out to us then that I’m only answering now is, what is religion’s greatest potential alternative? What’s replacing it?

There’s some irony in answering this question in a social science class because in many ways, the answer to these questions is … social science. 

Psychology and social psychology have not answered all the questions, but they have provided close-enough answers that the influence of religion has paled. They have answered the problem of evil with the medicalization of evil, a belief that much wrongdoing is due to illness rather than sin. Hard to compete with that. 

Always Evidence

Always Evidence

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I’m writing this post as a break from designing an economic system. It’s a class assignment, of course. I don’t design economic systems just for fun. 

But once I’ve gotten going on this project, it’s more enjoyable than I thought it would be, somewhat like the hours I’d spend drawing pictures of houses when I was a kid. They had towers and secret passageways and all sorts of bells and whistles. I didn’t worry about the cost or the plumbing. I gave my imagination full reign.

This assignment is not quite so free-form. We must explain what this system would produce and cite evidence to prove our case. But one thing I’ve learned in my brief time as a graduate student is that there’s always evidence … somewhere. I’ll go and look for some now. 

(A market in Myanmar, 2017, part of a more sustainable agricultural system.)

“Not So Different”

“Not So Different”

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As part of our readings for the course I’m taking this semester, we’re learning about animal behavior to enlighten our view of human behavior. The basic point is that we are more like bonobos and dolphins and many other animals than we might care to admit. 

Many species mourn their lost loved ones, from the chimp Flint grieving his mother Flo, as described by Jane Goodall, to reports of elephants crying from the loss of a parent or child. 

Animals have an innate sense of justice, proved by studies in which primates refuse to solve a puzzle to earn a grape because the same treat is not being offered to their cage-mate. Vampire bats will feed each other even if it means giving up 20 to 30 percent of their own calories. Yes, there is an element of reciprocity in this. They do it, in part, because it might ensure their survival on a bad hunting night. But not all of this behavior can be explained away as quid pro quo. 

A basic question Nathan Lents asks in his book Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals is why must we prove animals have these emotions — rather than prove they do not?

(Photo of bonobos courtesy Wikipedia) 

Proud to be … Bipedal

Proud to be … Bipedal

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In class last night we talked about our earliest ancestors, about Australopithecus, Homo Erectus and the whole gang, the distant relatives on our ever-so-shaggy family tree.

A key trait, of course, is bipedalism, walking on two legs. In Maps of Time, David Christian talks about the hazards of this posture, especially for women, who had to bear children with large heads that required turning as they passed through the birth canal. 

For this, they needed help. Thus did a physical trait engender cooperation, social behavior, the collective efforts of women helping women during childbirth. And later on, the collective efforts of raising young humans, who are far more helpless at birth than most mammals. 

We don’t walk on two legs because we’re human. We’re human, in part, because we walk on two legs.

(One of my favorite toddlers shows off her stride.)

A Tide of Books

A Tide of Books

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In a way, it’s tidal. Or at least it should be. A rhythm of inflow and outflow. During the semester, books trickle into my office, barely noticeable at first, then building in strength and volume as the assignments mount. At the end of the semester, they’re supposed to flow out.

As it stands now, books  have piled up on the floor and on my desktop. They’re teetering on top of the filing cabinet and bedside table, threatening to tumble every time I open a drawer. 

These are textbooks, volumes I collected for my research paper (due today but submitted a few days ago — whew!) and other volumes I’ve checked out of the Georgetown library because … well, they have just about everything the public library does not.

This year’s secret weapon in book removal: the textbook rental plan. Some of these treasures are due back in days or I’ll pay a penalty. Now, if only all the other books in my house were rentals, too.

Doing Homework

Doing Homework

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Now when I post late in the day I have a convenient excuse: I’m doing homework! Whether or not I am in that instance, it’s true in general because in general I am often doing homework, maybe more of it than I should.

I’m not sure whether I’m making too big a deal out of the assignments, can’t turn them around as quickly as I’d like or if it’s just difficult material — probably some combination of the three. And then there are the rabbit holes. Today I spent 30 minutes listening to a lecture on religion and violence, tangentially related to an assignment, primarily because it was interesting.

The endpoint of all this is that I have more empathy now for students, exam-takers and learners everywhere. 

Late August

Late August

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It’s warm and slightly muggy today but the cicadas are quiet, the children are, too. It’s the first day of school in Fairfax County.

It’s early this year. When our children were young, they never went back until the day after Labor Day, which meant that this last week of August was the one when we’d  buy school supplies, learn about teachers and schedules, take one last trip to the pool.

It’s a desultory time, summer’s last gasp. The zinnias are leggy, the mint has bolted, and brown leaves are sifting down from the dying oak. 

How can summer be ending? There must be some mistake!

The Spider Web

The Spider Web

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One of my final projects for class last semester required making an object. It could be a collage or a photograph or a batch of banana bread, but it had to be something tangible that represented a lesson we had learned or a question we had asked. I crocheted the spider web you see above. Here, in part, is how I explained my choice:

Delicate yet strong, filmy yet adhesive, the filaments of a spider web are both a prism and a killing field. They bend light, make rainbows, reveal themselves from some angles and not others. Humans find them beautiful; insects find them deadly.

In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino chose the spider web to portray one of his most memorable metropolises: Octavia, a city stretched across a void, made of “ropes and chains and catwalks.” Its inhabitants “know the net will only last so long.” The spider web seemed an apt metaphor for this class; it represents all the impermanent structures we build to make meaning, knowing, even as we construct them, that they are doomed to fall.

I talked about how the class readings were “knotty but precious,” and how the entire project was “deconstructionist” in nature since I frequently found myself ripping out stitches. I ended by mentioning that the word “crochet” comes from the French croche, to hook. I interpreted this “hook” not as a spear but as a net, a way to catch an idea, examine it, then let it go — not pin it down. I’d like to do more of that.

Out There

Out There

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I spent almost every minute Sunday outside: reading on the deck, bouncing on the trampoline, weeding in the yard, swinging on the hammock. 

It seemed the best way to honor the day, to be in it as much as possible. Because in this place, in this clime, spring is the season. 

Now I’m back at my desk, finishing up work for class tonight, trying to channel any intellectual energy I have to the difficult task at hand. Deconstructionism: there’s a reason why the prof saved it for last. 

But my heart is out there with the wood poppies and the lilacs, with the azaleas and the begonias, resplendent and dear.