First of all, against the idea of free will (that I still champion):
What about those times when you're driving, and you dissociate, and you get home without really realizing you've gone anywhere? I mean, who made the decision to turn the car? In a way it was you, but in a way it really wasn't you...
Today at my job I was doing a gel eletrophoresis and the post-doc I work with spent five minutes explaining to me why I should put the first samples in the wells closest to the positive electrode (ethidium bromide runs to the negative electrode, so if you put the samples in the bottom well all of it runs off of the top half of the gel so then you can't really use the top wells and you waste half the gel). With this is mind, when she went off to her computer again, I picked up my micropipetter and thought, okay, that makes sense, use the top wells, and then promply proceded to very carefully put in two ladders and two samples in the bottom wells before I realized my mistake. What happened there? Where was the error in my thought that allowed me to so blatantly think one thing and do another and not even realize it right away?
On another note, I read that the incident in which the paralyzed man could walk again after the brown recluse spider bite was a miscorrelation and that really the man was just doing better and having to go to the hospital for the spider bite made the doctors realize he was doing better. Because I know brown recluses have necrotic venom that doesn't really act on the nervous system, that really does make more sense than this miraculous story that I initially believed. However, I still want to have hope because if it were possible to isolate some kind of neurotoxin that could cure paralysis, that would be a miracle. And my neuroscience lab teacher told me that as brown recluse spider venom acts on the immune system, it is possible that it could somehow affect inflammation, and inflammation can be the cause of paralysis. So I still want to believe.
I should get more sleep because the other day I was with my boyfriend, and I showed him how to say "I love you" in sign language, ane then he asked how to say "very much." So I tried to see if I could spell it and I signed, "V-E-R-R-Y M-U-C-H" and he said, "R-R? Really?" and I said, "Yes, V-E-R-R-Y M-U-C-H" while signing and again he said, "R-R?" and then I realized I'm an idiot but I told him he goes to Harvard, he's the one that has to know how to spell. I have no such obligation. All I have to know how to do is integrate.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE RAT BRAIN: There is this thing called Cre-recombinase (I think it was an enzyme but don't quote me) that when injected into the brain can cause cells to express receptors for diptheria toxin. So scientists genetically combined (or something; sorry, details are sketchy as I fell asleep during the discussion at this lab meeting) this Cre thing with Creb, something that is actively involved in the LTP etc. in memory formation. So then you get cells that have diptheria toxin receptors (cells in mice normally don't have that receptor) that are more involved in memory formation.
So what you do is you inject this into mice or rats I guess, and then you fear condition them with a shock foot-plate or something. Then the next day you inject diptheria toxin into some of the mice and nothing into othes (or whatever appropriate control is necessary), and you do context or tone extinction or whatever it is you paired with the shock. So when scientists did this, they found that the control rats showed freezing and all of the other fear behaviors in the same context because their conditioning created the fear memory in them. But they found that the rats that were given the toxin didn't show any sign of a fear memory at all. And the reason is that the toxin selectively killed the cells that were involved in the memory formation during fear conditioning.
Obviously there are a lot of problems with this, but I still find it kind of frightening that we already know how to lesion out memories. It's super awesomely cool, but I'm not sure I agree with it. Actually, sometimes I'm not even sure I agree with the research I'm doing. my lab is trying to find ways of eliminating memories that lead to PTSD. But I think that eliminating those memories isn't the answer; we are who we are because of our memories. However, any research that shows how to decrease the negative effects of PTSD is good.
At amnesty intnerational the other day we were talking about North Korea and I raelly got this feeling like I dont' care much about my life, I really want to dedicate it to others. So I'd really like to do Peace Corps or Doctors without Borders, but for Doctors without Borders you need some international volunteer experience to be considered. I have a friend that has managed to get all these opportunities (she's in a health development class so she's going to Nicaragua on Monday for spring break to help with technology development, and she's going to Africa for a month over the summer to help implement the project her Engineers Without Borders group has created, and she's not even an engineer, she's a bio major), but I can never seem to find them. However, I really have a strong desire to donate my life to the betterment of others.
On a last note, I went to a lecture by Chomsky and this economics guy and a former mayor in Venezeula last night. And the mayor had some interesting things to say about socialism implementation in Venezuela and how grass roots socialism can mesh with the authoritarian regime of Chavez. However, the economist guy spent an hour talking about how we have to get rid of classes and wage differences etc etc etc, and while I agree with all of that, I find talks about it kind of stupid. Because he told us that we shoudln't settle for goals that were anything less than goals about throwing over the government and building a socialist USA, but really, does that seem realistic in this day and age? And also the only method of implementation that he provided was strikes. And sure strikes are good for the labor force, but they're not going to cause a socialist revolution and a classless society. I think we should work on more important things right now. If it's classless society or bust, lots of impoverished people are going to die before the time in the incredibly distant future when the US even becomes a tiny bit near such a revolution. I think it's important to deal with the way things are now, and to fix what is practical and feasible to fix. That is why I liked listening to Yunis talk but didn't like to hear that guy who wrote that book about escaping poverty... I can't remember his name... anyway his ideas are about changing single villages in Africa and such until Africa is miraculously fixed, and I just don't see that happening. We have what we have. Socialist revolution, as much as I agree with it, is not imminent. And sometimes stubborn idealism just leads to a lot of suffering that could be alleviated with compromise (like the Pope still disagreeing with condoms in Africa where everyone is getting AIDS... sometimes a little compromise could save a lot of lives).
As for Chomsky, his remarks were interesting but nothing spectacular. I liked his talk last year about the media and international relations a bit better, but I don't think he does a lot of work on grassroots socialism in Venezuela. Funnily he was wearing the same sweater as the last time I saw him, I think.
I sent him an email last year, you know, with an essay I wrote about why his thoery of media made communism impossible. I didn't expect him to write back, and of course he didn't really like my essay since I think he's a fan of communism and doesn't want to hear that his own theory disproves it. And I'm sure he knows more about his own theory than I do, so really I defer. He invited me to come talk to him about it, but seriously, go talk to Chomsky alone? The man's a philosophy and political genius, and I just have the humble beginnings of philosophical knowledge and the even more humble beginnings of political intuition. I would be destroyed in a discussion. Also, I have lacked the discipline to actually finish a book by him. It would be insulting of me to go talk to him now. But still, it's nice knowing that he read it, and maybe he won't forget the stupid college student that threatened his thoeries about media. Whenever I see him speak, though, I always wonder if he remembers my email.
Anyway, on a very last note, I finished the book I started writing last year. It's 130,000 words, which is apparently between "Kite Runner" and "Moby Dick" in length, but closer thank goodness to "Kite Runner." I hope it is not boring. A friend of mine is going to read it over spring break. I'm a little scared. I'm entering it in a contest at my school though, and hopefully I"ll get a little money for it. I'm banking on the fact that nobody else at my insane school has time to write novels so the entries into the novel-writing division of the contest will be sparse. I've managed to win awards before, and really it's a nice way to earn money. Someday I'll try to get it published, but not today. I don't have time or money for an agent.
Last, last note- on Sri Lanka- I know the government claims the Tamil Tigers are defeated, but I don't really think the violence will stop. The government needs to be a little more accoutable about the nature of the rebellion or really it's just going to keep rising up again in the form of suicide bombers etc.
Okay I really am done now. Sorry this post was anything but contiguous.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
did I ever mention...
There is this disease people can get where they have metal deposits in their otolith organs, which are these labyrinth-like structures in the ears that are involved in balance. People that have this disease get nauseous in strong magnetic fields. Do you know how amazing that is? They have discovered that putting these people in MRI machines makes them throw up.
That's so cool! It's like a sixth sense. You can detect magnetic fields! You're a human metal detector!
That's so cool! It's like a sixth sense. You can detect magnetic fields! You're a human metal detector!
Monday, March 9, 2009
a secret of sorts
So here's something about me that's troubling on a good day: I really have no idea at all what I think about homosexuality. On one hand my best friend is bisexual, and I know it's not something she decided or something she can fix. So I definitely believe that I guess. But I don't know if marriage etc is wrong or not. It makes sense to me (see my much earlier post) on a secular note that marriage should be allowed, but on a religious note I have no idea. And my religion has more vehemently opposed gay marriage legally I think than most.
I'm just not sure what to think. I mean, do I think it's wrong, even though it's natural? I have no idea. I am told that I should. It's very frowned upon my church at this moment to not go along with the church's stance about proposition 8 and just homosexuality in general. But I don't feel like I have a strong enough testimony either way to really make a stand. And that is actually significantly problematic given my religion's views of take the whole thing or leave it.
But looking my best friend in the face, looking several of my other friends that are gay in the face, and telling them I think it's wrong is a very thorny issue for me. Because I know them, and I know it's just the way they feel. I don't believe they can really help it at all. And what kind of a God would make it necessary to constantly, every day, to the point of misery, defy what you feel? Not the God I believe in, I think.
I don't know. I'm thoroughly confused.
I would say something philosophically interesting but I am way behind in my reading. :-(
I'm just not sure what to think. I mean, do I think it's wrong, even though it's natural? I have no idea. I am told that I should. It's very frowned upon my church at this moment to not go along with the church's stance about proposition 8 and just homosexuality in general. But I don't feel like I have a strong enough testimony either way to really make a stand. And that is actually significantly problematic given my religion's views of take the whole thing or leave it.
But looking my best friend in the face, looking several of my other friends that are gay in the face, and telling them I think it's wrong is a very thorny issue for me. Because I know them, and I know it's just the way they feel. I don't believe they can really help it at all. And what kind of a God would make it necessary to constantly, every day, to the point of misery, defy what you feel? Not the God I believe in, I think.
I don't know. I'm thoroughly confused.
I would say something philosophically interesting but I am way behind in my reading. :-(
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
random things
"Of all the priceless objects we leave behind, this is what we rescue. These artifacts. Memory cues. Useless souvenirs. Nothin you could auction. The scars left from happiness." -(Chuck Palahniuk, "Diary")
I just think that quote is really true. Even when it hurts us more, we cling to the useless residues of happiness, and ultimately happiness leads far more insidious scars than sadness ever did.
On Sri Lanka- I'm very confused about what is right and what is wrong. On one hand, it sounds like the government is keeping out international aid and allowing citizens in north Sri Lanka to get murdered or displaced from getting caught in the conflict. Also, the skew towards Tamil people makes it seem like bordering on genocide. On the other hand I have a friend that is Singhalese and to her the confrontation is a lot less black and white. So I don't really know what to think.
Anyway, somethin funny:
So brief background- "grandmother cells" are supposedly neurons in I think V1 (a higher order visual cognition area) that respond only to your grandmother or some other really specific "receptor field." Today in my systems nueroscience lab recitation, our teacher was trying to refresh people's memory of grandmother cells. Someone had referred to them as "Jennifer Aniston cells" (equally accurate name), so he asked, "Okay, say we have these Jennifer Anniston cells in our cortex. What do you think is the only thing they respond to?"
And a girl behind me, one of my friend's old roommates, said, dead seriously, "Brad Pitt."
I think she was embarrassed when she learned her mistake, but it really was hilarious. It definitely brightened my otherwise extremely long (and no over yet!) day.
I just think that quote is really true. Even when it hurts us more, we cling to the useless residues of happiness, and ultimately happiness leads far more insidious scars than sadness ever did.
On Sri Lanka- I'm very confused about what is right and what is wrong. On one hand, it sounds like the government is keeping out international aid and allowing citizens in north Sri Lanka to get murdered or displaced from getting caught in the conflict. Also, the skew towards Tamil people makes it seem like bordering on genocide. On the other hand I have a friend that is Singhalese and to her the confrontation is a lot less black and white. So I don't really know what to think.
Anyway, somethin funny:
So brief background- "grandmother cells" are supposedly neurons in I think V1 (a higher order visual cognition area) that respond only to your grandmother or some other really specific "receptor field." Today in my systems nueroscience lab recitation, our teacher was trying to refresh people's memory of grandmother cells. Someone had referred to them as "Jennifer Aniston cells" (equally accurate name), so he asked, "Okay, say we have these Jennifer Anniston cells in our cortex. What do you think is the only thing they respond to?"
And a girl behind me, one of my friend's old roommates, said, dead seriously, "Brad Pitt."
I think she was embarrassed when she learned her mistake, but it really was hilarious. It definitely brightened my otherwise extremely long (and no over yet!) day.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
I know the heart of life is good
Today a remarkable thing happened: my philosophy professor and I agreed on an issue! My old philosophy teacher from last semester pretended to be unbiased by just arguing from every position, but it was fairly obvious that in reality he was not so much a dualist etc. Today I am fairly certain that the views my professor (new professor) expressed were actually his own.
As usual, I was set against the class in my opinion. We were debating selfishness and whether every action we make is egoistic because it's made out of some selfish motive. The example given was that saving a drowning pig from a stream makes us feel better because if we just kept walking it would bother us all day. Most of the kids in the class were either arguing the Randian point of view or just being really idiotic and nitpicking at a hypothetical situation our teacher brought up (if you could take a pill and psychologically you would feel exactly as if you'd saved the pig, or you could save the pig, would you really not be biased at all?). My teacher was defending my opinion, which is that no matter if there are selfish reasons for actions; they aren't the only reason.
He brought up the point I've been thinking about since reading Peter Singer, which is that we feel more morally obligated to save a drowning child right in front of us rather than to do something we know will save one far away. The kids in the class said this is because saving a child right here gives us self-gratification and a sense of pride. I, however, think the difference is empathy. We can feel empathy with those right in front of us; it's more difficult with people farther away. But empathy is a really good thing.
Examples I thought about:
1. Me not killing mosquitos.
I absolutely hate mosquitos. And I don't think that I'll be punished in hell or something for killing them. I used to kill them. I haven't recently because I've gained a new appreciation, almost scientific, of the miracle of life. With this perspective, I don't want to take life away from an organism because it deserves the miracle of its own existence. I know this is a weird example, but all egoistic action would point towards me killing the mosquitoes. However, I don't, and I can honestly say I don't get anything out of it, even self-gratification because I don't think it's a moral necessity. To me, it really is entirely because I'm empathetic. I know what it means to be alive, and I want all other creatures to have that.
2. One-sided Sex
This is a little thorny because there are some obvious selfish reasons for this, but I argue that there are plenty of non-selfish reasons. I'm taking about when one person does something for another person (ie oral sex or something) that provides really nothing for the person that does it (at least for women I don't think it does much), even if that person knows that nothing will be given in return. Still, even if you expect nothing back, when you love someone you want them to feel something amazing like that. So even though you gain nothing from it really (I know that it could be argued that you do, but really, largely it's a unselfish act), you do it because you empathize, and you want someone you love to have that.
3. Children and furry little animals
Children don't really have the developed since of moral consequence and guilt when it comes to things like little bunnies becuase they haven't really experienced any moral consequence for liking or disliking little bunnies. So the argument about the pig doesn't really work, since a child wouldn't really feel a sense of personal obligation. Still, though, children don't like little furry animals to die and will try to prevent it, even though they dont' really gain anything from it, and they're not hurt from not doing it. I argue this is due to empathy. Children don't have the most developed ideas about animal emotions either, so they ascribe their own emotional complexity to animals. Thus decisions to help animals are based on this empathy, not on selfishness of any kind.
4. Reciprocity
If you're driving along and you see a pig drowning, you get the same satisfaction from asking the driver to get out and save the pig as you get from saving the pig yourself, I think, for the most part. So really it doesn't matter who does it, you just want something's life to be saved. This supports the idea that it's an empathetic rather than self-gratifying tendancy.
Just some ideas.
As usual, I was set against the class in my opinion. We were debating selfishness and whether every action we make is egoistic because it's made out of some selfish motive. The example given was that saving a drowning pig from a stream makes us feel better because if we just kept walking it would bother us all day. Most of the kids in the class were either arguing the Randian point of view or just being really idiotic and nitpicking at a hypothetical situation our teacher brought up (if you could take a pill and psychologically you would feel exactly as if you'd saved the pig, or you could save the pig, would you really not be biased at all?). My teacher was defending my opinion, which is that no matter if there are selfish reasons for actions; they aren't the only reason.
He brought up the point I've been thinking about since reading Peter Singer, which is that we feel more morally obligated to save a drowning child right in front of us rather than to do something we know will save one far away. The kids in the class said this is because saving a child right here gives us self-gratification and a sense of pride. I, however, think the difference is empathy. We can feel empathy with those right in front of us; it's more difficult with people farther away. But empathy is a really good thing.
Examples I thought about:
1. Me not killing mosquitos.
I absolutely hate mosquitos. And I don't think that I'll be punished in hell or something for killing them. I used to kill them. I haven't recently because I've gained a new appreciation, almost scientific, of the miracle of life. With this perspective, I don't want to take life away from an organism because it deserves the miracle of its own existence. I know this is a weird example, but all egoistic action would point towards me killing the mosquitoes. However, I don't, and I can honestly say I don't get anything out of it, even self-gratification because I don't think it's a moral necessity. To me, it really is entirely because I'm empathetic. I know what it means to be alive, and I want all other creatures to have that.
2. One-sided Sex
This is a little thorny because there are some obvious selfish reasons for this, but I argue that there are plenty of non-selfish reasons. I'm taking about when one person does something for another person (ie oral sex or something) that provides really nothing for the person that does it (at least for women I don't think it does much), even if that person knows that nothing will be given in return. Still, even if you expect nothing back, when you love someone you want them to feel something amazing like that. So even though you gain nothing from it really (I know that it could be argued that you do, but really, largely it's a unselfish act), you do it because you empathize, and you want someone you love to have that.
3. Children and furry little animals
Children don't really have the developed since of moral consequence and guilt when it comes to things like little bunnies becuase they haven't really experienced any moral consequence for liking or disliking little bunnies. So the argument about the pig doesn't really work, since a child wouldn't really feel a sense of personal obligation. Still, though, children don't like little furry animals to die and will try to prevent it, even though they dont' really gain anything from it, and they're not hurt from not doing it. I argue this is due to empathy. Children don't have the most developed ideas about animal emotions either, so they ascribe their own emotional complexity to animals. Thus decisions to help animals are based on this empathy, not on selfishness of any kind.
4. Reciprocity
If you're driving along and you see a pig drowning, you get the same satisfaction from asking the driver to get out and save the pig as you get from saving the pig yourself, I think, for the most part. So really it doesn't matter who does it, you just want something's life to be saved. This supports the idea that it's an empathetic rather than self-gratifying tendancy.
Just some ideas.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
growing up: 2
I live in the town where we all grew up white as wonder bread, playing in the mud in the summers and tracking it all over Ma's clean floor. We'd never heard of a murder, and the only TV int he house had a cracked screen, and Dad just left it in the basement.
Wouldn't believe what bad you miss in a town like that. People had their problems, sure, but in the end there wasn't much some good old homemade peach cobbler couldn't cover up. Now that stuff made an ironing board out of your ribs.
The first time I fell in love, we just sat by the river near Cooley Canyon and watched the stars. I still haven't seen anything that beautiful before or since. There's nothing like pure love that's never been touched by hurt.
You wouldn't believe it, but I was the prom queen. Momma did my hair up all pretty and I went with that boy- greesed hair, white smile- in his Cadillac. I hadn't even kissed him yet. There was something too magical about every moment.
The air in my home town really did smell like dryer sheets, and when it rained it felt like Genesis all over again. On the eighth day, God created Htuoy. That's my home town. There's a peeling wooden sign out by the flickering high way that says "Htuoy's population 10,000." I never did figure out who that last person was that made 9,999 into 10,000, and although my Aunt May had two new babies when I was young, they never did change that sign.
Things tasted sweeter in my home town. There was chocolate like you've never dreamed, and that was about the only black-white division we knew. Outside my town, this kind of war waged along that line, but in Htuoy there was nothing balck but mud and chocolate, and really that was just dark brown.
I never did know where babies came from in Htuoy. They seemed to appear at night in closed rooms so I never got to see. It just always seemed like something beautiful to hear that little cry of a baby that hadn't been before.
I had the best of friends. We argued sometimes over earrings and paper dolls, but I always knew they loved me. We used to walk along Ega Avenue towards that bridge at the end of town, but we never did cross. And that wasn't just because Mama said not to. There was something gray about the grass across the water. It just seemed like we'd be losing some kind of color if we walked across.
Sometimes strangers in torn bandannas and overalls like Papa Joe's came leering across that bridge from the grayness, and they never were quite as bright as the rest of us. I didn't understand why they fell and swayed because I didn't know what drink was then, or what could drive a man to do it.
The strangers always stayed a week or two and then drifted off across the bridge. They never qutie fit in in Htuoy. They were too sad or something. I felt bad for them because Dad said they didn't fit in across the bridge either, and where's a man to fit if there's no room on earth?
Sure, I cried in Htuoy. I cried over a bit of pepper in my chocolate milk, a little trickle of blood swinging down from a little pink knee. I cried wthen the birds hit the glass in the general store and flapped a minute on the porch before dying. I cried when I lost my pinafore, and I cried at the end of Little Women. But I never cried like those men from abroad, never stumbled with sea legs on land. truth be told, they scared me a lot. They scared us all. We couldn't see the ocean they swan in, and in a way none of us could ever explain, we were afraid that we might drown in it too.
In Htuoy even the mayor settled arguments with hopscotch, and no one was too busy for a game of tag. That's another thing about Htuoy- we were never too busy to do what we loved. There was always time to be with each other.
There were a few people in Htuoy that had lived there forever, but we never talked to them. They lived in these stringy gray shacks by the river and they hung their wash on the clotheslines in silence whereas our mothers always gossiped. They always seemed like they had something to say, but they could never bring themselves to say it. We loved them because we saw ourselves within them, but we stayed away from the shacks ont he shore.
Really, though, there's ntohing left this side of the sun like my home town. And it's hard to say that I still stumble aweway from the cars and the pain and the noise of this city life back there sometimes, and I walk across the bridge only when I'm drunk like a Russian sailor. Now I understand the drink. Soemtimes it takes that much to let go, even if you're just letting go of the fog and the gray.
I only stay a few weeks, long enough to realize I don't belong there anymore. I sleep in the gray shacks by the river, and there I don't have to talk because I know I'm understood. We were the same, really. They had lived there all their lives, but they'd never really been citizens; I had left there long ago, and now there wasn't much left for me.
When I leave town though on Friday nights, I see the little girls playing hopscotch next to the bridge, and I wonder what made me go and will it make them go and why do we always think there's something better?
There's no going back. There's no going back to Htuoy. But all of us gray folks, whether we admit it or not, miss it with all of our hearts.
Wouldn't believe what bad you miss in a town like that. People had their problems, sure, but in the end there wasn't much some good old homemade peach cobbler couldn't cover up. Now that stuff made an ironing board out of your ribs.
The first time I fell in love, we just sat by the river near Cooley Canyon and watched the stars. I still haven't seen anything that beautiful before or since. There's nothing like pure love that's never been touched by hurt.
You wouldn't believe it, but I was the prom queen. Momma did my hair up all pretty and I went with that boy- greesed hair, white smile- in his Cadillac. I hadn't even kissed him yet. There was something too magical about every moment.
The air in my home town really did smell like dryer sheets, and when it rained it felt like Genesis all over again. On the eighth day, God created Htuoy. That's my home town. There's a peeling wooden sign out by the flickering high way that says "Htuoy's population 10,000." I never did figure out who that last person was that made 9,999 into 10,000, and although my Aunt May had two new babies when I was young, they never did change that sign.
Things tasted sweeter in my home town. There was chocolate like you've never dreamed, and that was about the only black-white division we knew. Outside my town, this kind of war waged along that line, but in Htuoy there was nothing balck but mud and chocolate, and really that was just dark brown.
I never did know where babies came from in Htuoy. They seemed to appear at night in closed rooms so I never got to see. It just always seemed like something beautiful to hear that little cry of a baby that hadn't been before.
I had the best of friends. We argued sometimes over earrings and paper dolls, but I always knew they loved me. We used to walk along Ega Avenue towards that bridge at the end of town, but we never did cross. And that wasn't just because Mama said not to. There was something gray about the grass across the water. It just seemed like we'd be losing some kind of color if we walked across.
Sometimes strangers in torn bandannas and overalls like Papa Joe's came leering across that bridge from the grayness, and they never were quite as bright as the rest of us. I didn't understand why they fell and swayed because I didn't know what drink was then, or what could drive a man to do it.
The strangers always stayed a week or two and then drifted off across the bridge. They never qutie fit in in Htuoy. They were too sad or something. I felt bad for them because Dad said they didn't fit in across the bridge either, and where's a man to fit if there's no room on earth?
Sure, I cried in Htuoy. I cried over a bit of pepper in my chocolate milk, a little trickle of blood swinging down from a little pink knee. I cried wthen the birds hit the glass in the general store and flapped a minute on the porch before dying. I cried when I lost my pinafore, and I cried at the end of Little Women. But I never cried like those men from abroad, never stumbled with sea legs on land. truth be told, they scared me a lot. They scared us all. We couldn't see the ocean they swan in, and in a way none of us could ever explain, we were afraid that we might drown in it too.
In Htuoy even the mayor settled arguments with hopscotch, and no one was too busy for a game of tag. That's another thing about Htuoy- we were never too busy to do what we loved. There was always time to be with each other.
There were a few people in Htuoy that had lived there forever, but we never talked to them. They lived in these stringy gray shacks by the river and they hung their wash on the clotheslines in silence whereas our mothers always gossiped. They always seemed like they had something to say, but they could never bring themselves to say it. We loved them because we saw ourselves within them, but we stayed away from the shacks ont he shore.
Really, though, there's ntohing left this side of the sun like my home town. And it's hard to say that I still stumble aweway from the cars and the pain and the noise of this city life back there sometimes, and I walk across the bridge only when I'm drunk like a Russian sailor. Now I understand the drink. Soemtimes it takes that much to let go, even if you're just letting go of the fog and the gray.
I only stay a few weeks, long enough to realize I don't belong there anymore. I sleep in the gray shacks by the river, and there I don't have to talk because I know I'm understood. We were the same, really. They had lived there all their lives, but they'd never really been citizens; I had left there long ago, and now there wasn't much left for me.
When I leave town though on Friday nights, I see the little girls playing hopscotch next to the bridge, and I wonder what made me go and will it make them go and why do we always think there's something better?
There's no going back. There's no going back to Htuoy. But all of us gray folks, whether we admit it or not, miss it with all of our hearts.
growing up: 1
Once I was waiting at a train station on a fall day, and the leaves were on that blade between red and brown, beautiful and rotten. I could see my breath as it floated away, these little cumulous clouds of my respiration that were the one clean thing at that dirty train stop.
I was pretty bored and pretty hungry, so I sat with my hat against my stomach to trick it into feeling full, and I watched this mother with her two beautiful daughters standing a ways away from me. They were standing in this cloud of cigar smoke from a fat bloke next to them. I felt like someone should tell him not to smoke on the platform but he had ruddy, thick cheeks and a belly like the skin of a drum, so it wasn’t going to be me. It just seemed wrong I guess to see those slithering tendrils of smoke slipping their way around the oldest little girl, who was standing closest to him. She seemed even farther away through that screen of black air.
They were such a pretty little family, too. The mother used this old-looking white veil over her face and these sad, sweet almond eyes that looked like they’d spent a whole life waiting for a train that never came. She was wearing a faded white dress with yellow water stains on the edges, but the way she stood you’d think she was wearing a purple robe. My, I’ve never seen such pride at the sheer fact of existence.
She dressed her little girls like queens too, especially the older one. The younger (she must have been around four) still wore the rumpled clothes of a child, but the older (ten or so) looked like an image growing every day to superimpose the mother. So they were all beautiful, the mother with those almond eyes and the girls with their white-blond hair and pouty lips, all wrapped up in this shifting veil of smoke from that crazy, ruddy bloke next to them.
I’m not sure why I was watching just them, but I don’t remember much more of the station. In a way, for me, once I got the little gnaw of hunger in me to go away, they were all that was there. It let me forget the cold and the slow sadness of the end of the fall and the woman at home that I knew would never be waiting for me the way those almond eyes waited. Trains stations make it easy to forget yourself, you know? You kind of surrender to your smallness, and you see the world in an inevitable way that you can never see it when you’re all bundled up in yourself.
The two little girls were playing with a doll. It was just an ugly, cheap thing made of pink plastic and glass eyes, but when the older girl dropped it for an instant on the dirty ground, the younger girl started sobbing and would not be consoled until the mother had rocked her in her frail arms for at least five minutes. The vague memories I have of other people from that moment are all twisted, angry faces. A lot of people (walking straight like a rod was shoved through them) gave the mother those disgusted, embarrassed glances that people always give the mother of a crying child. I felt apart and separate and special because I knew what had happened, and the tragedy of that hard, pink hand touching the concrete felt as intimate to me as it must have felt to the little girl. Whereas I know plenty of times in my life I’ve been one of the glaring passerby, this time I judged them for judging.
It was shocking to see how engrossed those girls were in their fantasy game. The mother sat on her huge trunk and fiddled with the brass handle, but those girls were somewhere far away, mothers to a real child, not an ugly doll. It made me try to remember when I was a child, how real all fo the fake things seemed, and how fake all of the real things were. In a way I figured that those girls were doing what I was doing as I watched them: exchanging their own menial lives for a more meaningful one, trying to stay forever in that world instead of their own. It was beautiful, this little heart of throbbing life in the death of summer.
I’m not sure how long passed. An hour, maybe. There was some problem at the next stop down, so the train was really late that day. It was long enough that I, fifty-two years old and gray, had enough time to forget who I was and where I was going. When the whistle of the train finally came, it seemed as if I was a small boy again and my brother was waking me from some pleasant dream to make me go to school. The train was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to the beauty of that small family. I didn’t know them at all; I’d never seen them before in my life. But I watched them for a few hours, and they made me remember something that every autumn in my life had forced me to forget.
When the train stopped, the mother finally stood up and grasped her trunk, and I heard her talking to her daughters.
“I have to go to work in the city for a while,” she said, seriously as if she were speaking to adults. “It is the only way for us to get money. Stay here on the platform and wait. Your uncle will come on the next train and pick you up and take you to his house.”
Their little faces looked so forlorn, so different from the way they were before. The mother turned to the older child.
“Be strong, okay, Louisa? You take care of Mary. You are the mother now.”
I was going to get on that train, but I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to my life, and it seemed wrong to leave those little girls alone. So after the mother had kissed their blond heads and wet cheeks and gotten on the train, and after the train had plodded away, I sat on the bench with my hat on my stomach, half-starved, watching the little girls.
I waited until the sun had set and the next train appeared around the bend on the horizon. At one point the younger girl wanted to play with the doll, but the older girl refused to join her. She only sat on her little suitcase and played with the brass handle. The air gold cold, and the cigar smoke from the ruddy man was replaced by the constant condensation of their exhalation whirling around them like a white wraith. Right before the train finally arrived, the younger girl dropped the doll again, and when she sobbed it was the older girl that stretched her arms around her, set back on her heels, and rocked her until the child stopped crying, and this time there were no disgusted glares from passerby. The older girl smoothed the younger girl’s darkening hair, whispered comfort in her tiny ear with a quivering voice. They were one form in the darkness, a caregiver and a baby, one barely big enough to hold the other, and when the young girl finally quieted, I could hear two voices crying.
The uncle came on the train, heaved up the little suitcase, and took them away. I had to wait for the next train home, and it did not come until the middle of the night. No matter, though. The winter came. M y girl wasn’t waiting for me. The trivialities of my life marched on. But I never forgot those two little girls and that day at the station when I finally saw it die, that thing that once died in all of us, that thing that once died in me, and that thing that must have once died in you.
I was pretty bored and pretty hungry, so I sat with my hat against my stomach to trick it into feeling full, and I watched this mother with her two beautiful daughters standing a ways away from me. They were standing in this cloud of cigar smoke from a fat bloke next to them. I felt like someone should tell him not to smoke on the platform but he had ruddy, thick cheeks and a belly like the skin of a drum, so it wasn’t going to be me. It just seemed wrong I guess to see those slithering tendrils of smoke slipping their way around the oldest little girl, who was standing closest to him. She seemed even farther away through that screen of black air.
They were such a pretty little family, too. The mother used this old-looking white veil over her face and these sad, sweet almond eyes that looked like they’d spent a whole life waiting for a train that never came. She was wearing a faded white dress with yellow water stains on the edges, but the way she stood you’d think she was wearing a purple robe. My, I’ve never seen such pride at the sheer fact of existence.
She dressed her little girls like queens too, especially the older one. The younger (she must have been around four) still wore the rumpled clothes of a child, but the older (ten or so) looked like an image growing every day to superimpose the mother. So they were all beautiful, the mother with those almond eyes and the girls with their white-blond hair and pouty lips, all wrapped up in this shifting veil of smoke from that crazy, ruddy bloke next to them.
I’m not sure why I was watching just them, but I don’t remember much more of the station. In a way, for me, once I got the little gnaw of hunger in me to go away, they were all that was there. It let me forget the cold and the slow sadness of the end of the fall and the woman at home that I knew would never be waiting for me the way those almond eyes waited. Trains stations make it easy to forget yourself, you know? You kind of surrender to your smallness, and you see the world in an inevitable way that you can never see it when you’re all bundled up in yourself.
The two little girls were playing with a doll. It was just an ugly, cheap thing made of pink plastic and glass eyes, but when the older girl dropped it for an instant on the dirty ground, the younger girl started sobbing and would not be consoled until the mother had rocked her in her frail arms for at least five minutes. The vague memories I have of other people from that moment are all twisted, angry faces. A lot of people (walking straight like a rod was shoved through them) gave the mother those disgusted, embarrassed glances that people always give the mother of a crying child. I felt apart and separate and special because I knew what had happened, and the tragedy of that hard, pink hand touching the concrete felt as intimate to me as it must have felt to the little girl. Whereas I know plenty of times in my life I’ve been one of the glaring passerby, this time I judged them for judging.
It was shocking to see how engrossed those girls were in their fantasy game. The mother sat on her huge trunk and fiddled with the brass handle, but those girls were somewhere far away, mothers to a real child, not an ugly doll. It made me try to remember when I was a child, how real all fo the fake things seemed, and how fake all of the real things were. In a way I figured that those girls were doing what I was doing as I watched them: exchanging their own menial lives for a more meaningful one, trying to stay forever in that world instead of their own. It was beautiful, this little heart of throbbing life in the death of summer.
I’m not sure how long passed. An hour, maybe. There was some problem at the next stop down, so the train was really late that day. It was long enough that I, fifty-two years old and gray, had enough time to forget who I was and where I was going. When the whistle of the train finally came, it seemed as if I was a small boy again and my brother was waking me from some pleasant dream to make me go to school. The train was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to the beauty of that small family. I didn’t know them at all; I’d never seen them before in my life. But I watched them for a few hours, and they made me remember something that every autumn in my life had forced me to forget.
When the train stopped, the mother finally stood up and grasped her trunk, and I heard her talking to her daughters.
“I have to go to work in the city for a while,” she said, seriously as if she were speaking to adults. “It is the only way for us to get money. Stay here on the platform and wait. Your uncle will come on the next train and pick you up and take you to his house.”
Their little faces looked so forlorn, so different from the way they were before. The mother turned to the older child.
“Be strong, okay, Louisa? You take care of Mary. You are the mother now.”
I was going to get on that train, but I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to my life, and it seemed wrong to leave those little girls alone. So after the mother had kissed their blond heads and wet cheeks and gotten on the train, and after the train had plodded away, I sat on the bench with my hat on my stomach, half-starved, watching the little girls.
I waited until the sun had set and the next train appeared around the bend on the horizon. At one point the younger girl wanted to play with the doll, but the older girl refused to join her. She only sat on her little suitcase and played with the brass handle. The air gold cold, and the cigar smoke from the ruddy man was replaced by the constant condensation of their exhalation whirling around them like a white wraith. Right before the train finally arrived, the younger girl dropped the doll again, and when she sobbed it was the older girl that stretched her arms around her, set back on her heels, and rocked her until the child stopped crying, and this time there were no disgusted glares from passerby. The older girl smoothed the younger girl’s darkening hair, whispered comfort in her tiny ear with a quivering voice. They were one form in the darkness, a caregiver and a baby, one barely big enough to hold the other, and when the young girl finally quieted, I could hear two voices crying.
The uncle came on the train, heaved up the little suitcase, and took them away. I had to wait for the next train home, and it did not come until the middle of the night. No matter, though. The winter came. M y girl wasn’t waiting for me. The trivialities of my life marched on. But I never forgot those two little girls and that day at the station when I finally saw it die, that thing that once died in all of us, that thing that once died in me, and that thing that must have once died in you.
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