perspective

Two days ago I starved all day so that a doctor could probe a camera down my throat and into my stomach. I think I was a good sport, but a lot of it was miserable, aside from two things:

1. The stuff they use to put me under "conscious sedation" was splendid. There was no break in between one thought pre- and the next thought post- procedure. Just total relaxation and a peaceful nap kind of feeling. One of these days, someone should start using drugs for recreational use.
2. I got pictures of my very healthy looking stomach. Everything looks fine and I get a prescription for some stomach acid overproduction. But more importantly, I get to keep the pictures of the wrinkled but uniform looking lining of my insides.

It was the pictures that I wanted the most -- the drugs were an added benefit. They're amazing in lots of ways, but after a few glances I realized that they pale in comparison to what I'm surrounded by everyday. Last week the teachers I hosted got to play with our scanning electron microscope, taking images like these:

Microbes nestled in between cells on a juniper.

The structure of teflon tape.

Sugar crystals

And just a few days later, colleagues and friends were taking pictures from a well planned launch of a giant balloon and payload into near space. This is taken from 98,000 feet, where you can literally peer into the darkness of space, as well as get some first hand evidence that the thing we stand upon is round.

The Earth (including the Green River) and space from 98,000 feet.

I suspect all I need sometimes is a little perspective. Recently it's been harder for me to step back and appreciate this -- or maybe it's been harder to have the time to make that step. So, I'm fortunate to get to work (and play) in a place that gives me such an incredible range of perspective.

advice to the writer

A dear old friend has recently been introspectively lamenting the writing process, and I've been wanting to give advice. As a blogger -- strike that -- as a writer of some fame, she elicits lots of support and response from readers, and so when she wonders aloud what to write about next and where to take the writing process, suggestions abound. So much, though, doesn't acknowledge that sometimes we get tired: moving across the country and starting a new job, for example, isn't just a new opportunity, but a complete rearrangement of the psyche. I advocate that people can and should take breaks, or at least acknowledge that sometimes we just need a sabbatical, even a small one. (Everyone and every profession should have sabbatical time programed in, but that's another editorial.)

Then again, I didn't want to actually stop reading what my friend had to write, so I, like the other readers, wanted to encourage more writing. Others suggested the author recounting some past events; some prompted her to start in the present; and still others imagined some other new exercises and topics. So much easier it is to suggest what to write about than to actually do it yourself. Some of us make an entire profession out of this act.

As I've been wondering myself, wanting to help and hoping to reveal some new truth in three paragraphs or less, I had gotten only to this point. The question is not just "what to write about," but a deeper question of "who am I?" and "where do I find meaning?" and "how do I connect to the rest of consciousness of this universe?" Who am I to think that I have even a beginning prompt, not to mention any real advice? And then this morning, in my daily email notification with a poem each day, came this advice (originally for "young poets," but I suspect it's good advice for any writer of any age):

Advice to Young Poets
by Martin Espada

Never pretend
to be a unicorn
by sticking a plunger on your head

Better advice you will not find, here nor elsewhere.

a day at the track

There are lots of things I could have been doing yesterday that would have had redeeming and useful qualities. There's my family, free of obligations on a Saturday; there's a stack of reviews yet to complete and send out; there are readings and preparations and lawn mowing and . . . well, clearly, so many things, all of which would have had more redeeming qualities than driving across state lines and spending the day at the horse track.

Strangely, I hadn't been to the track since I was a minor, when a high school friend's family were horse people, training and breeding horses (as opposed to being half horse, half human -- not that kind of "horse people"). I remember it being fun to watch the races, but the elements of alcohol and gambling were clearly things we missed out on. This time, the day trip seemed like a good opportunity to think about things of little importance, cheer for magnificent creatures with names like "Princess of Zoom," and drink beer. The pace of such a day, especially after teaching a weeklong workshop, seemed exactly like the thing to do.

The track is a fascinating place. This one was neither fancy nor filthy. Families gathered around blankets and hot dogs. Children raced on stick horses in between the more official competitions. My $2 bets were received without judgement. My combination of t-shirt, shorts, and cap seemed only slightly out of place in a mix of people where many fancied cowboy hats and jeans. Variety abounded, including not only me and the cowboys, but the families and the woman with a tattoo of a dolphin that arched across the topography of her left breast.

My first "successful" bet came in the first race, when my horse was disqualified. That meant that the $2 I'd invested would be returned to me, on pace for a break-even day. But then most other of my subsequent wagers to place and show garnered nothing for multiple races, and when they did pay out, I realized that the return was so small that it was almost embarrassing to cash out $3.20 and then reinvest only the $2 minimum. So, by the 6th race I'd decided that my $2 bets should be going to causes that, since they were likely to lose, should lose in grand fashion. Not completely wild, improbably guesses, but predictions of combination, such as the trifecta. I remember the "trifecta" from my high school track days, the remarkable boldness of suggesting that you could know the top three horses, in order. A physicist by trade, I could analyze data from previous races and improve my odds, I thought. And for the privilege of engaging in such a pursuit I'd gladly pay $2.

When this paid $299 in the 7th race, and my other wager on a quinella added a few more dollars I wasn't really sure what to think. In fact, it wasn't until the nice woman at the counter was counting out hundred dollar bills that I realized what a great thing gambling is. What to do with $300 that you are paid just for sitting around, drinking beer, and pretending like you know all about the sport of horse racing? Later I'd think of multiple things, like shoes and CDs and more beer. But at the time I thought (honestly) that this would pay a big chunk of my deductible on the medical procedure scheduled for Monday. There I was, Mr. Excitement, middle-aged physics teacher now able to afford to pay for a doctor to put a camera down his throat and into his stomach.

My second improbable trifecta of the day, on the last race, only paid $46 for my two dollars. But it was more exciting this time. First, I knew a bit more about what was occurring as it happened; second, the three horses (8, 2, 1) were clearly crossing the finish line in that order as I cheered them on; third, I had already earmarked my earlier winnings for medical procedures. This money could go to my kids college funds. Or dinner that night, where it paid for the special catch of the day and a sandwich, salad bar included.

non-sequitur goodness

This afternoon I'm too tired to keep my head up off my desk, but fortunately I can type this way -- forehead on a box of pencils while arms outstretched pound at the chicklet keyed keyboard and (presumably) find themselves on the screen. Accurately?

I was about to finish a few other things, but should just go home to recharge. Today they measured charges and counted electrons. They also plotted some graphs and thought about second derivatives and first derivatives and all the relationships derived and what they meant. So no wonder we're all tired.

Yesterday had similar accomplishments, but the notable things about yesterday were the events that took place in between class events:

• In the morning I installed and ran Windows on a Mac, the two operating systems side-by-side with one another. It was creepy and it felt wrong, but it worked. It even served a purpose.
• At lunch got us tickets for Brandi Carlile. I would have easily paid twice what I did for the tickets. This is not only because I love her (Karyn understands), but because she loves me, as is clearly demonstrated on this autographed copy of a CD she gave me. Okay, I bought the CD and she was gracious enough to sign it. But I swear, she looked up at me, smiled, and then placed the heart on the cover. With a Sharpie.
• After the day's workshop/class/death-march, I checked email to learn that my summer program has a donation from a foundation for next summer. This is great news because I haven't even had a chance to worry about anything besides this summer. Stress avoided (except for the part about now really being obligated to continue to offer the program, but that's a fate I've accepted and embrace).
• And then I checked my voicemail. "You have [strange pause in electronic recording] one [another pause] new message," she (very small lady who lives in my phone) tells me. She went on to tell me it was "90 [pause] seconds" and then prompted me to listen to the message. Oh holy Christ, I think when bracing myself for a 90 second message. Generally speaking, 20 seconds is a really good message length, unless it's from a good friend with a voice I don't remember I've missed. But 90 seconds is usually from a student or administrator who should have only used 20 seconds, and I was bracing myself because I wasn't in the mood. Much to my delight and surprise, however, it was the Poet Laureate of Oregon, calling me up out of the blue to tell me that my messages had gotten through to him, and as he chuckled heartily he explained that he doesn't use email and the online form to contact his office doesn't make it to him. My personal visit to the Oregon Humanities Council had now paid off: he was genuinely happy to be invited to and participate in the conference. Calling him back I found that he was not only happy to play with us, but he was exactly the person and poet that we were hoping for. This sudden news came after months of trying to track him down.

No moral; no connections; no story arc. Just a bunch of completely non-sequitur events that were each unlikely and each good.

fishing for lessons

Some teaching days just don't go right. In the long run, the grand scheme, or the big picture, it doesn't matter so much, but it still justifies a deep sigh. The first time the power went off on campus this afternoon I knew it was a sign for things to come. Yet, I still sent the lucky 13 teachers off to the computer lab to engage in an online activity. Sure enough, the power went out again, leaving their partial results lost in the neverregions of the interweb. "Are you still in here?" I inquired of the pitch black of the computational lab. Meek voices and illuminated cell phones responded. I sent them home. It was the equivalent of punting on third down*, something you do just to keep morale from slipping further into a pit of despair.**

Conceding defeat, I reconciled a pile of receipts from June. As those who have to keep track of these things will testify, it's something I can easily put off for days. Weeks. Sometimes more. I took it as a sign from god herself that this meant I was supposed to finish this bit of work, and sure enough just about the time I needed to look something up on the computer, the electricity was restored. Perhaps She does exist.

This is all contrasted with how well and how easily things went last week. I was working with elementary school teachers, conducting a "field day" that was supposed to give them a sense for the ins-and-outs of science, how it's done, what makes it distinct from other pursuits, etc. I say, passively, that the field days "was supposed to give them" this sense, but I should be more accurate: I was supposed to design the field day to be this way. The field component itself was a hike in the mountains, and I assigned them the task of looking at and recording notes about the world from two perspectives: the scientist's and the poet's. What we see in the world is not only created by the direction of our gaze, but the nature of our lens. I wanted them to work on this and experience the contrast.

The challenge was to figure out how to give them an idea of where to start. These were elementary teachers, trained in how to diagnose reading issues, create mathematical manipulatives, and soak up vomit with some of that magic powder stuff. What they know how to do is artful and inspiring, but they haven't had a chance to think about how to be a poet nor a scientist. Yet, we had had some previous experience reading Samuel Scudder's 19th century account of observing a fish as a budding scientist. Scudder learned to see, scientifically, by doing it over and over again, practicing on a fish before he was allowed to pursue his studies in entomology. When the good professor Agassiz, Scudder's mentor, came back to check on the progress he

listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose names were still unknowns to me: the fringed gill-arches and movable operculum; the pores of the head, fleshy lips and lidless eyes; the lateral line, the spinous fins and forked tail; the compressed and arched body. When I finished, he waited as if expecting more, and then, with an air of disappointment, "You have not looked very carefully; why," he continued more earnestly, "you haven't even seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is a plainly before your eyes as the fish itself; look again, look again!" and he left me to my misery.

The moral of the essay eventually reveals itself as Scudder discovers that it was the plain, obvious symmetry of all the fish's organs and features that was perhaps the most amazing and important observation to be made. Yet he had all of these other observations to make in the interim, not simply looking at the fish but also feeling the fish, drawing the fish, and concentrating on it from memory. Even after all this, the "facts are stupid things," as Agassiz instructed, until they are brought together into something more coherent and meaningful.

The evening before my pursuit with these teachers, I was left with the problem of a poet's counter-example. Scratching my head, I took the unoriginal tack of opening up Billy Collins, starting with his most recent collection and simply diving into the pages somewhere in the middle. And where should my book open itself but to a poem entitled, The Fish. Collins has a distinctively different relationship with his fish:

As soon as the elderly waiter

placed before me the fish I had ordered,

it began to stare up at me

with its one flat, iridescent eye.

I feel sorry for you, it seemed to say,

eating alone in this awful restaurant

bathed in such unkindly light

and surrounded by these dreadful murals of Sicily.

And I feel sorry for you, too —

yanked from the sea and now lying dead

next to some boiled potatoes in Pittsburgh —

I said back to the fish as I raised my fork.

And thus my dinner in an unfamiliar city

with its rivers and lighted bridges

was graced not only with chilled wine

and lemon slices but with compassion and sorrow

even after the waiter removed my plate

with the head of the fish still staring

and the barrel vault of its delicate bones

terribly exposed, save for a shroud of parsley.

And so ended my preparation. It was one of those lessons that simply jumped out of the pond and onto my plate. Not only did I get to use this as an example and point for discussion last week, I now have a poetic companion to one of my favorite scientific essays, filleted and fully prepared as a course entree, complete with the parsley. Sometimes the power goes out and squashes even the most detailed plans. Sometimes, though, things work out better than we deserve. There's seldom an in-between.

_____

*As a kid I would go with my dad to Oregon State football games. I actually witnessed this strategy on more than one occasion, and it's stuck with me more than any other programmed play, an image that portrays "desperation" better than any collection of words.

**To be fair, the morning's activities went really well. We measured both the size of the Sun and the size of the molecule -- using rulers marked by centimeters, a little geometry and some inference. Most people have never done either of these things, and we managed both in the span of a few hours.

fatherhood

In retrospect it seemed more like something of a dream. All the women I'd ever really cared to impress -- my mother, my wife, my daughters -- watching and cheering and clapping. Had it actually been a dream it may have included a few others: the girlfriend from college who spent the day at the beach with me courtesy of a bright blue Ford Festiva, smiling just enough to make a good photo; my high school typing teacher, watching to make sure I kept my fingers on the home row; my creative writing teacher from college, standing there, arms folded, stoic and judging; and Dick Clark, because he shows up in these kinds of dreams ever since I was a five-year-old and he co-starred in a dream along with a brontosaurus. But this was real, so it was my family, and in a lot of ways that was much stranger as I stood ready, yet fully clothed, to conquer the slip 'n' slide.

It started simply enough, with mom giving the girls the orange sheet of vinyl to entertain themselves during the hot summer afternoons of their stay. Soon I became not just an observer and afternoon beer drinker, but a judge of olympic distinction, offering scores and advice to the sliders. The problem, though, was that most of these attempts were more slip than slide, feeble approaches and half-hearted skids on their knees. In sharp contrast were the pictures on the box showing kids splayed out on their frontsides, spraying water in all directions and sliding gracefully through the full 16-foot length of the vinyl sheet. Soon, I wasn't just giving 3's and 4's on the 10-point scale, but offering constructive feedback like "pathetic!" and "pitiful!" So I really felt the need to demonstrate both the spirit and technique of a full body slide.

And that's how I found myself, fully clothed, mother-wife-daughters watching, diving headlong onto the puddled sheet, splayed out and sliding the full 16 feet and spraying water in all directions. At this point in the story I'd be wondering to myself if this really happened just so, if the spray and splay of the dive were really what I remember and retell. But there was the clapping and cheering of all these women, like I said, as though it had been some strange dream. Then I pulled myself out of the last puddle and emerged, soaked to the bone.

Since the event, I've been wondering why. Why did I need to drench myself, not to mention risk humiliation and injury? There are lots of explanations, most of them tracing back to my middle-aged person trying to redeem his inadequacies of present and past. But I think there's more to it than this. Fatherhood is something I accepted long ago, unknowing of what it really entails. I've since figured out that it sometimes means teaching something or demonstrating something, but most of the time it's an effort to bring joy into the eyes of these other people -- those who ravage your home, eat your food, and consume all your resources -- and simultaneously see that joy through those very eyes. Without thinking about it, the risk my physical self* and personal pride were thrown aside, and in the end (I know because we have it on video) there are two girls jumping, clapping, and laughing as I went to find myself a place to dry off.

_____

*The risk was real, as for several days after my ribs and muscles ached. There's another lesson in there that I'm choosing to ignore for now.

adaptability

Consider the two adapter plugs shown below. One is that which protrudes from the taillight system of a State owned 1995 Ford Explorer; the other is a State employee's suggested "fix," an adapter whose other end plugs into a trailer that brings fun science activities to children across town.

Right. They don't match. But, as a State employee would later suggest to me, they're both round and the adapter "is brand new and it's made for a Ford," implying that there's no reason the solution could possibly fail. I politely volunteered that the two plugs were different, that I didn't think this would work. I got no response, the helpful equivalent of a lifeguard watching from her perch while the non-swimmer gurgles below the surface.

Back from a great vacation and a greatly needed break, I hadn't imagined that I'd be lying underneath the tail end of our substitute towing vehicle for the week, contemplating wiring arrangements and what-the-fuck? and haven't they used this for towing before? and if they did they would have run into this problem before? Being back from vacation, I hadn't imagined that I'd be in the doctor's office trying to understand why stomach pains keep coming back and that it's probably anxiety though we should drop a camera down there and see if there are other things to treat. But we adapt. And when the adapters don't fit, we find ourselves lying underneath the tail end of the State owned vehicle and we pull out a pocket knife, wire strippers, and electrical tape. A few years ago, I may have pounded my fist in the bumper in frustration, but today I serenely and decidedly and irreversibly cut, strip, and reconnected. (I'd never before contemplated the idea that seniority gets you more than just freedom academically, but also mechanically.)

And what do you know? It works. Vandalizing the State-owned vehicle and the State-owned adapter and connecting green to green, white to white, yellow to yellow, and black to black was surprisingly and satisfyingly straightforward, and the results are 100% what you'd want them to be: left turn, right turn, and brake lights all function completely. Sometimes things take more than a quick adaptation. Sometimes we just need to strip some wires and remove the very adapters that are supposed to be helping, because they're just getting in the way.