(no subject)

oursin has a post wondering about taking the travel to fairyland trope and turning it round to travel from fairyland to here. A commenter mentioned stories "that refuse the abstract and focus on mindfully participating in the present physical and natural world, " which spun my mind off in a number of directions, banging into a phrase the NYT used in an email announcement of playwright Edward Albee's death, "the roiling desperation beneath the facade of contemporary life."

What strikes me is a sensation in my mind that is hard to succinctly describe. Perhaps some of you remember learning spherical coordinates after solidly getting Cartesian coordinates? Here are two different ways of describing exactly the same thing, yet the one you choose can make certain relationships far more clear than the other. I remember the grind, the tearing and then the sudden insight learning this change in perspective.

Not unlike, perhaps, one's first trip to Faierie.

I am aware of the mental twist that occurs with changing frames: the frame change i find easy but hardest to articulate is the one of choice and agency when transitioning between justice and grace. (EG "It's your choice whether to be happy or not." "What, you're saying Jews in camps who weren't happy
failed to choose to be happy?"

Feeling inadequate to literary criticism and comparative lit this morning, i reflect on how both urban and rural places can be magically delightful or dreadful. How the millennia long transition from an agrarian-rural to urban species has tipped (2014: 54% of worlds population lived in cities). How stories of the rural to the urban and the urban to the rural entertain us.

That sensation of shifting frames tickles in my mind leaving me with the immortal words of Buckaroo Banzai says, "No matter where you go, there you are."

--== ∞ ==--

Speaking of going and being, i had a remarkable attack of what i call shyness yesterday. Remarkable enough to make me wonder if there's a more appropriate phobia label. Or not.

First visit with the new doctor. I'd come highly prepared with a printed list of concerns, medications, needs for various interventions and the status of others. Lovely doctor, pleasant chat, but by the time the appointment was closing i had an urgency to GET OUT. And i rushed out the door, back to the receptionist, the nurse calling after me "what about the immunizations?" As i impatiently waited for the receptionist to bill me, the grown up in my head started questioning the "Get out" -- "What about the recommendation for [this] and [that]?" "Gotta go." "What about -" "Gotta GO." I sat with this awareness of the inexplicable urgency to get home during the short drive to the house, and recognized it as very similar to my bolting from the social mingling at the end of Meeting for the past decade. When i told Christine about it when i got home, she asked, "Do you need to go back?" The answer to that was a grimace and a glare.

I've always called this my shyness, because i am not aware of general discussions about introversion touching on this sense of compulsion. (Revulsion, yes, compulsion, no.) On the other hand, all the shyness materials seem to assume some sort of lack of self confidence. I can easily imagine trying to justify the compulsion with excuses that imply a lack of self confidence, but that is not what's going on for me. It's almost like a timer goes of and my brain says, "DONE." And we are outta there.

Normally, this sense of DONE doesn't override other responsibilities or needs, so the remarkable thing about the bolt from the doctor's office was that i left things behind. (In particular, the immunizations...)

I wonder if working at home is lowering my tolerance.

--== ∞ ==--

Yesterday four wild turkeys in the yard around 3 pm, and a doe with two fawns around 5 pm. I actually took photos in the evening, albeit not very intentional ones.(Mainly using the 200mm end of the zoom for birds.)