rebecca soble

Neither of these images is what I would call a great picture in terms of photographic aesthetics, but I love them anyway. For me, they capture the essence of their setting perfectly and evoke a lot of positive feelings in me.

I like the crow picture because it makes me think about the wonderful quiet and peace you can find so easily in the country. Not by visiting and taking scenic pictures, but by living there and experiencing the open space and seasons and wildlife. It also reminds me how much I love the beauty of the small things in the country — wildflowers by the roadside, weathering fences, a single bird soaring in the sky.

I took the picture below while walking through Times Square at night. It had to be a quick picture, because standing still in the middle of the sidewalk was just not acceptable. I’ve taken lots of pictures in New York but none captures the energy of the city as this one does. I love the challenge of the city streets and the confidence that comes from just making it through. I love the incredible variety of people, and the crazy things they do and say. I love how you can still experience the centuries of history crammed into this little island. I love how there’s always new ideas coming, mental firings stimulated just by walking the streets and watching what’s happening around you.

I adore the peaceful minimalism of the country, I revel in the high-energy overstimulation of the city. I have not yet found anything to love about the suburbs.

Yesterday at my local mom-n-pop grocery store, I bought eight lemons for fifty cents each and two limes for sixty-five cents each. At the checkout, the late-teen cashier rang up my purchase. I guess something was awry with her register’s multiplication function, because she ended up charging me fifty cents for all the lemons and sixty-five cents for both the limes, a total of $1.15. I waited a couple seconds to see if she would catch the error, but she was just waiting for me to pay the total she quoted to me. It was tempting.

“I don’t think you charged me enough.”
“Huh?”

“The lemons are fifty cents each, not fifty cents for all. The limes are sixty-five cents each. That should add up to more than $1.15, don’t you think? Wouldn’t 10 pieces of fruit usually cost more than a dollar?”
“Huh?”

I don’t think she ever really understood what I was saying. We did the math together out loud. “Fifty times eight is $4.00. Sixty-five times two is $1.30. For a total of $5.30.” And that’s what I paid her. I was amused to see that she had no problem figuring out how to void the previous total before entering the new one.

I don’t think the local high school is a bad school by any stretch. Is it that we have become so dependent on computers to do basic math functions for us that we stop even doing estimates on our own? It amazed me that she couldn’t see that the price she told me wasn’t anywhere near realistic.

I have to admit I was relieved that I didn’t have to calculate 7.25% sales tax in my head.

one spring rain and soon
tender green stubble covers
muddy tractor ruts

I have to accept that there will be times in life when things flow easy, like the creeks that rush with melt in springtime.  And then there will be times when everything is a tangle that must be worked through with effort.  Like now.  These days, these weeks, these months, everything is complicated,  requiring more steps or hours than they should (or than I would prefer).

I feel like time is rushing and I’m just barely keeping up.  There must be some mischievous sprites — some pudgy giggly things with pointy ears — intentionally throwing wrenches into my works and dreaming up new things for me to do.  Many are things that I choose to be doing, but there’s far too many things in the category of “annoying overhead”, including the recursive and never-ending activity of just trying to keep on top of of all the things in that overhead category.  I’m constantly revising my mental (and paper) lists, worrying about forgetting something, and forgetting things a lot more often than I’m accustomed to.  I feel like I never get enough rest.

I’m not willing to give up the “wants”, I’m not able to give up the “needs”, and it just doesn’t seem possible to shake off those dastardly “others”.  So my goal is to find a way to keep some inner peace in the middle of the maelstrom.    Laughing with friends helps.  Yoga helps.   Springtime will help.  And wringing the necks of those little sprites will help, as soon as I can figure out where they’re hiding.

Women in at least 12 states, including Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and California, have reported encountering pharmacists unwilling to fill their [birth control] prescriptions. “We’ve heard stories about them being turned away or referred to other pharmacies,” said Karen Pearl, national president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “And even more alarmingly, some women are being denied birth control and the pharmacist keeps their prescription. They are also being given moral lectures, religious lectures. Women are being told contraception is abortion, which it is not.” — Pharmacies Required to Fill Prescriptions for Birth Control, Washington Post, April 1st 2005.

My panic continues, turned red hot with fury. I forgot to mention in my last panic post about another insidious angle of the world closing in: the fact that the ultra-conservative Christian right is clearly becoming more powerful and starting to share their “message” through lobbying, legislation, and biased media tools.

I heard about this story on NPR’s All Things Considered this evening. True to form, they included interview segments with people on both sides of the issue. On the conservative side was the representative of an organization (I can’t remember which one, check the audio) that said they have been openly lobbying for legislation that permits pharmacists to not fill prescriptions based on the pharmacist’s own beliefs. On the other side, the interviewee (again check the audio for the name) said that not only have pharmacists refused to give birth control to unmarried women because they believe pre-marital sex is a sin, but that they also have refused to give birth control to married women, for some insane reason I can’t remember now. So pharmacists can now put a total kibosh on any sort of thoughtful family planning if they choose to, and there are people out there supporting their right to do this. INSANITY. Insidious insanity. Insidious scary red insanity.

I’m glad to see that the Governor of Illinois realizes how ludicrous this all is. He has issued an emergency ruling requiring that pharmacists fill all birth control prescriptions without delay, in his state. But I’m really concerned about those lobbyists and the continued shift of this country’s values to the ultra-conservative Fundamentalist Christian, to the degree that the rest of us will be forced to live by their moral code whether we agree with it or not. The First Amendment right to freedom of religion will just be a sham. Or freedom of anything for that matter. How different will it be from living in a Fundamentalist Islamic state? Like those ones that Bush wants to turn into democracies. Help! When can we have our overthowing invasion???

In related news, it’s heartening to see that former Republican Sen. John Danforth says the Republican Party has become the political arm of Christian Conservatives.