Berries

We picked black raspberries on a morning walk this weekend. The berries were wet and sweet and full of tiny seeds; the thorns along the canes are sharp, but not particularly aggressive. They are plentiful on the edges of the woods: enough sun, but not too much. The dark, ripe fruit released with a gentle pull and sometimes fell off with just a touch. The berries are considerate enough to grow at heights that I don’t often need to stoop or squat to reach them (though squatting is a good way to spot those I might have missed), but not quite considerate enough to grow right next to the mowed paths.

We worked our way around and through the understory, trying to avoid burrs and being careful not to step on the raspberry canes themselves or too many other plants. I found myself standing on one leg a few times, looking for an opening on the way to the next group of ripe berries, like an elegant and majestic crane slowly making it’s way through tall grasses. (Well, maybe more like an ungainly and awkward industrial crane just…standing there, wondering what to do.) In any case, it was a good reminder that simply standing on one foot is a nice movement, too: improvised tree poses among the trees.

Warm, humid and drizzling; it was the kind of warm summer rain that soaks you completely a little at a time without ever giving you a chill. Listening to the light rain and searching for ripe fruit, I noticed that I wasn’t noticing much else. I heard the occasional runner or dog-walker on the paths, but never really looked up. Other animals browsing in areas like this would be pausing frequently to glance around to see who else might be approaching. We’re a bit more focused and goal-oriented, I guess. But at the same time I can’t help but think that that kind of focus when one is out-of-doors is somehow inappropriate; arrogant, even. Or maybe it’s just a little rude to be so absorbed in my own activity that I don’t bother to look up into the canopy to appreciate the cardinal that’s singing.

Spring Force

Spring moves quickly. Saturday morning we stood in a friend’s yard talking about lawns and trees and plants, shivering just a bit in the breezy shade of tall pines. Later the temperature rose to 82F and Sunday it was 81F; a sudden heat wave after a cool April. It felt hot, even though wasn’t hot by our summer standards; you could feel the coming heat of summer from the sun like a memory.

We haven’t had much rain, either. The air has been dry and has slowed down the sprouting plants and parched the soil with stiff, steady breezes and gusting winds. You can feel the dryness in your eyes after spending a day like that outside. Sometimes even drinking water doesn’t quite quench your thirst; it merely postpones it a bit as the sun and the wind take back their share from breath and sweat.

Today it will rain and cool off a bit. I can already smell the rain, even though it hasn’t started yet. The trees and plants know it, too, because they have been waiting; they can sense the speed with which summer is approaching. It’s in the air.

Walking and Talking Revisited

The standard for video conference technique is advancing quickly. I say technique and not technology, because teleprompters and high-quality cameras already existed, but weren’t in most people’s homes. The built-in camera and microphone that typically shipped with our pre-pandemic laptops were good enough for the occasional video chat but not for the multiple daily sessions that fill up some people’s work week. Picture quality, eye contact, audio quality and lighting are all important considerations for a lot more of us now in order to have productive discussions that don’t make us feel like either drinking or going back to bed by 11am. As a result, I suspect that more advanced video conference features and accessories will become much more widely available as time goes on.

With all of this attention on how we look to and at each other over video, it’s curious to consider how we talk to each other when we’re together physically (distanced appropriately, of course); even when we’re seated at the same conference table. I don’t think I’ve ever been at a meeting and felt like the other person just couldn’t or wouldn’t break eye contact for at least a few seconds to look for something in a document or take a couple notes. I mean, there’s usually a whole room to look around at, so it’s not like we have to lock eyes for an hour straight: it’s a conversation, not a staring contest. We just need to be able to naturally look each other in the eye some of the time.

Which brings me back to walking and talking. If you’re walking with someone at a normal pace and holding a conversation, you’re not spending the entire time looking deeply into each other’s eyes. (If you do, I guarantee you will step in some kind of poop. It’s that simple.) Instead, as you walk you’re looking at the bike path/sidewalk/road, watching the traffic, looking at the birds and occasionally glancing at the other person. But there are two very interesting things about this situation: 1) you can look at the other person at almost any time—even if they aren’t looking at you, and 2) that feels completely normal. It feels normal because despite the fact that you’re not peering into the other person’s soul-windows, you are having a shared physical experience. You don’t have to be perfectly in step—it’s not marching band practice—but you’re going roughly the same direction and are presumably close enough to each other to be aware of the same important things: moving bicycles and cars, other pedestrians, ladders, piano movers, wet concrete and dog poop.

Consider another scenario: having a phone conversation with someone while you’re walking or driving(!). You can’t see the other person at all and they can’t see you. Not only that, but they can’t see where you are or anything around you. Your partner in conversation is oblivious to what you’re experiencing, and the pace, tone and timing of their speech reflects that. At times it can feel like the other person’s speech is dubbed into the wrong movie. It’s not that they’re inconsiderate or self-centered; it’s that they’re completely blind to your current situation. They don’t sense the moments when you simply should not or cannot pay attention to them—moments that most people would recognize if they were present.

It’s another uncanny valley that we find ourselves in: if we’re going to sit still and talk, then it seems like we either need to do it over the phone or we need the ability to look each other straight in the eye without any weird web cam offset. If we’re going to move through our environment while we talk, it helps enormously to be in the same space. The look of our eyes—both where they are looking and how they look to the other person—as well as a shared sense of movement in the environment help us to exchange our thoughts and words.

Tickled

It’s hard to tickle yourself; you can’t, really. You can’t introduce enough unpredictability into your own movements to be surprised in the way that feels ticklish. You know exactly what you’re going to do before you even do it, and that ruins the feeling.

I think there is an analogy here with food, because it seems like it usually tastes better when someone else makes it for you than if you make it yourself. It could be that in the process of making even just a PB&J, you become a little desensitized to the smell of it, or the effort somehow dilutes the flavors. It could be that making the food yourself somehow partially satisfies your hunger.

And it could also be that making food for someone is simply a gift; a nice, little surprise. And who wouldn’t be tickled by that?

Reading Out Loud

If you read your own writing out loud, you might hear words and phrases that don’t belong. You can then rewrite it to sound more natural—more like you. The funny thing is that it’s not the version of you that usually does the talking. It’s still you, but clearer for having first discussed it with yourself.

If you repeat this process over and over, you might catch yourself saying very interesting things; things that you never could have said unless you had first heard them from another version of you, reading your writing out loud.

No Words

We had been chatting, mostly about work, during most of the walk that night until we came to a large clearing. We turned off our lights and stood in the dark for a few moments, listening to the snow laying on the fields, the trees standing in the distance, the clouds above.

We listened to see if we could hear anything, which is different from listening to understand what someone is saying. Peace and quiet are words that feel much different when you hear them directly.

Unclear

I heard the owls tonight on my walk; low and quiet, but persistent. Impossible to see them in the trees, of course. I continued onto the dark trail that goes through the woods. It hadn’t been cleared, but the snow was packed down along a path—difficult to see, since it was just as white as the rest of the snow. I felt my way along the length of it, gently weaving within the bumpy, shallow rut. And I saw the silhouettes of 3 or maybe 4 animals far off in one of the snow-covered fields. (Deer? Must have been.) I paused for a couple of minutes to see if they might come closer, but they kept their distance and I finally realized further waiting was pointless.

It’s frustrating to not be able to see things clearly. Holding still is helpful to both see and hear small details, but the walk was the point. I needed to feel the exertion and the cold night air after too many hours of sitting still and trying to see a clear way through a complex set of technical issues at work. I didn’t have a solution when I got back, but I did have the feeling that any movement along a narrow path would be helpful.

Snowscape

Our walk last night was in a proper snowstorm: tiny, hard flakes lightly driven into our faces by a steady breeze. We’d already gotten well over an inch when we left and it kept up the whole time we were out.

There’s so much light in the winter when it snows. According to the almanac there was a full moon, but it was hidden by the clouds that poured snow out into the night. The city lights reflected off the low clouds, the falling snow and the bright white blanket spreading out and growing thicker by the hour. Only the trunks of the trees and a few dim shadows provided darkness—everything else glowed softly from endless ricochets of light between clouds and snow.

Sounds were attenuated as much as the as the light was enhanced. The occasional car passing by was muted and muffled. No echoes responded to our voices if we spoke. We accidentally startled some ducks as we walked by a pond, but even the relatively loud quacks and flapping of wings were quickly hushed by the snow.

It was the kind of quiet that might make you look around a little bit more to see what, ordinarily, you would be alerted to by sound. To avoid being surprised like drowsy ducks. Sound informs us what is all around—360 degrees of auditory early warning. But it was still; the kind of quiet that settles the mind.

Deepening snow seems to absorb as much effort as noise: walking became more deliberate, more like trudging as we passed through areas where drifting had begun. Our outgoing tracks were nearly filled in when we returned—the once crisp outlines as softened and diminished as the sounds of our footfalls.

I was surprised that I didn’t even hear the snowplow pass outside the bedroom window early this morning. Drowsy ducks, indeed.

The Classic Hammer Problem

It suggests that you don’t actually have any other tools; just a hammer. Maybe even only one kind of hammer.

That’s always been an oversimplification—a useful one, to be sure—but we’re way past that now. We’ve got every kind of hammer and screwdriver and saw and pliers you can imagine; both metaphorical and literal.

I think the more difficult and realistic scenario is that we find ourselves faced with a problem and the hammer is already in our hand, tempting us with an immediate, if inappropriate, solution.

P.S. This is the blessing and the curse of having a multi-tool in your pocket at all times: it’s extremely convenient and it’s good enough at solving most common problems that it discourages going to the effort of fetching the right tool when the occasion demands it.

Look Around

Squirrels, birds, chipmunks: they all look around a lot. They move—quickly—then stop and look around. For many animals, this is life and death stuff because the cat, coyote and hawk are also looking around. They do it a little differently because they’re predators. They look differently in both senses of the word. Their movements are more fluid, and steady and they are, let’s say, carefully shopping instead of trying to get through a haunted house.

When we look around these days it’s often on-line or maybe in the fridge. We don’t examine our surroundings like either a chipmunk or a bear. We behave as if we literally inhabit a separate world.

This is OK until it isn’t. I was preoccupied with a thought one day as I stepped out from between two cars into the street. Another car was coming down my side of the street, but I didn’t realize it until I felt the turbulent air on my left arm as it passed by.

There are other reasons to be observant and watchful these days, unfortunately, but it’s a habit that can be developed without too much fuss. I would make an analogy with driving: you simply glance up from your phone every so often and… NO!!! Please put your phone down while you’re driving! As I was saying, just like when you’re driving, you cultivate a relaxed awareness of all the traffic around you: just noticing the cars, the people, the bicycles and how they’re moving. Just looking around like you have a casual interest in everything that’s going on.

One more example: if you’ve ever seen two farmers talking you may have noticed that they stand facing roughly 90 degrees to each other. There are a couple of reasons for this. They can keep an eye on the fields, the weather and the roads. A tremendous amount of Midwestern conversation is driven solely by the current and forecasted weather conditions, and it’s considered polite to wave when you see a neighbor on their way into town. (The continuous examination of the landscape during conversation might also be to avoid making prolonged eye contact and the subsequent awkwardness.) But the farmers might also be displaying a behavior from our heritage: scanning the savannah for weather, neighbors and danger.