Diamonds

One can not work with people for many many years without learning to read faces.
Authors read so much into the face. Eyes smolder, light up, crags of sun exposure make the old farmer wise, trusted, presumed innocent of heinous crimes. Babies have all the innocence, can look like and old soul.
Here, in the shadow of Gotham, the faces are telling me stories.
In the liquor store K and I browsed today was a woman who tans too much and has a heavy face despite the small, thin frame of her body. It screams years of sampling her products to lustily.
In the faces of the young here is an innocence but a cynicism. There is a way they hold their heads, move their bodies that makes them never quite face forward, directly at you, but angled as if to either avoid confrontation or to precipit a fast get away from unknown danger. They walk offensively, a pushing of the energy ahead of them that says, I belong here, I am moving forward, do not way lay me, do not think of messing with me.
Adults appear pinched. Jowls and frown lines appear so starkly against faces that I have seen else where that are ready to smile, laugh, admit the sheer joy of living. But here it is as if there is a crushing pressure that pushes the face in to a scowl, a frown, a look of compression.
K has mentioned, and I think I have written it here, that Long Island is where people from The City fled to escape The City.
Imagine Gotham, NEW YORK, NEW YORK; over 8.2 million people (according to Wiki) in about 322 square miles. That population pressure, the sheer pressure of so many people living, breeding, stealing, dying pushes down, not up on a soul. Your pressure valve is east, to the Atlantic. These people look pushed down, compressed, pushing others out of the way so that they might have the space they crave, the elbow room they are denied in The Big Apple.
So I am at the store and see young people looking pinched, pushed down, older than they should be. The teen agers move like mercury rolling out from under the finger pushing down on it.
Down ward pressure is not a good thing for most objects of an organic nature. Pressure on an artery can kill, pressure on a water hose stops life giving fluid from keeping things alive. Crushed stone, ridges in asphalt on roads and cement, changes to a very solid state of matter.
But, but... pressure creates diamonds.
Diamonds on your bling are polished, the crusty outer surface rubbed away and ground away by more pressure, friction.
Although no where near as scarce as the diamond cartels want you to believe, diamonds are uncommon in this polished form.
So, I have to think that I am seeing the diamonds just un-earthed, crusty, dirty, not in the accepted polished beauty we are trained to see, but the hardest substance on earth in its raw form.
I have to look at the brighter side and believe that those pressured scowls and offense, brusque presentations are the outer coating that hide jewels.
Maybe I have just lived where the rain washed off the crust and people shined just a bit more readily, unearthed and free of the pressure. Maybe I am where the pressure is still exerted to finish the product.
I will keep looking at the faces, look for the polished facets. Or maybe I will look at the surface and have faith that below is the beauty inside, hidden under a cover of patina, a disguise to keep that brilliance hidden from most strangers, but not from the people that need, crave and must have that brilliance in their lives.
Shine. Stand in the rain, get rinsed clean and shine.

C

Food

This will be something I come back to again and again, I think.
K and I have gone to several different grocery stores now. One had incredible produce. You name it, it is probably there. Quince, prickly pear fruits, large aloe leaves, bunches of basil leaves that are just huge. The deli meats... oh he deli meats.
We have a friend who is on a year long vacation with her husband. They were just in NY for a wedding and even they had to comment on the food.
The predominant brand is Boar's Head. They make ham, chicken, roast beef, liverwurst, bologna and on and on and on.
We have found a wonderful pizza place where you just go in and ask for a coke and a slice. A slice of this pizza is huge, think about two slices of a large pizza. There is plain cheese, pepperoni, sausage, a seafood variety. I ordered a pop in a deli and the girl serving us looked at me like I was speaking polish.
Out here it is a soda, or just a coke.
You fold the slice in half, the crust snaps in half and the oil spills out the front or back of the triangle. It is the best pizza. I worked in pizza for years, I know a good pizza. This is good.
Bread tastes different out here too. People say it is the water they use. I do not know, but it is saltier, has a different texture, the crust.
Bon apetite, mes amis!
It is time for lunch.

C

OK, my bad.

I made an awful generalization.
K and I were at a blockbuster of a video store, and the guy at the counter was so great.
We bought two used DVDs, Hot Fuzz and something else. I asked if he could open them so I could inspect the disc for scratches. Not only did he open it and find it was a bad disc. He went and got three more copies and checked them all, giving me the best, least scratched of the group. He was oh so polite.
So maybe that first sampling was not a good representation. I need more samples for a better analysis.
Maybe the poor waitress, the overworked DMV person that said only "How are you today." while helping me get my license, maybe they were just tired from burnout, a hard night out, bad home life, being stuck in a job they hate and they just suffer from "quiet desperation".
It just reminds me of one of my favorite sayings: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
I would quote it, but I do not know who said it originally.

K and I now have temporary driver licenses.
They took my WA license away. And it had such a nice picture. Another step toward assimilation. Resistance IS futile.

OK. Go get em, kiddies.

C

Milage guesses:

So far:
J has guessed 4014
Papa Bear has guessed 4730
A has guessed 4900

I will keep the game open for another week.
I know more than 3 people read this.

Thanks.
C

The answer, my friend...

If I remember correctly, there is a Native American word for the sound the wind makes through the leaves in the trees, through the pines.
Sweyolakan.
That is the sound I hear now, outside an open window.
The screen keeps out the bugs but lets in the sound of the crickets, the woosh and swish of sweyolakan. It is a sound I have heard all of my life. In my back yard growing up, there were about 18 pine trees and there were maples up the street. Wind would howl through them in the spring and fall, the change of season. It would be the lullaby to send me to sleep some nights.
The sound is still the same, 3000 miles away.
The change of seasons.

Being from the great PNW, I am used to a bit more civility, politeness.
Please, do not mis understand me. It not a lack of civility, more a brusqueness. You sit down in a mis level restaurant and you are greeted with "How ya doin?" asked in a way that states it is just rhetorical as hell.
There is a lack of eye contact, a lack of lingering at the table when dropping off the check, walking by to ask how things are and you answer the back of the waitress as she is moving away, no break in her stride.
I have history in food service, I understand busy and no time to linger so you can get the 6 top served before that other section's 8 top. But it was not that busy and our waitress had only one other table with 5 wait staff total just hanging out gossiping.
It is not just restaurants but at grocery stores, the DMV, gas stations.
I have no idea where this brusqueness comes from. It is a mystery I will look at in spare moments, listening to sweyolakan and crickets.

Listen to the wind, once in a while, just stand and listen.

C

Autumn?

So it is Autumn. Leaves change and fall, there is a cold bite in the air that makes you grab that favorite old sweat shirt, the one with the grease stain from the dropped nachos, a spot of pain here and there, and sally forth into the world. You embrace the slick wet leaves on the ground and take the sliding in stride.
Wait...
The temperature today is to be 76, tomorrow 76...
Every one tells me this is not what it is like here. But you know what? I'll take it.
There is a nip in the air sometimes. But K was in shorts yesterday. Boy do people look at you strange when you where shorts when the local populous is in sweaters, denim jackets and zippered hoodies.

The leaves are changing slowly. Reds and yellows and golds that just do not come in that 64 crayon Crayola box.

Pumpkins are all over, the local roadside farms stalls and the nurseries have haunted houses and corn stalk bunches to show off the local produce.
Ever have a courtland apple? How about honey crisp?
I made home made from scratch chicken soup for us the other night. There is a squash waiting to be made into soup as well.
It is fall, a time of change.
That is where K and I are, admidst a time of change.
We faxed back a signed contract to our Realtor last night. We have been told that the deal could close very fast.


Enjoy your Autumn. Prepare for a winter, a time of slumber before a new period of growth.

Be well.

C

No Gusses yet? C'mon, our friends, how many miles were on the mini van when we turned it in?

This Just In....

Right after posting the all is lost memo, C checked his cell phone and found a missed message.
Our Realtor called.
Just after his "man" had put the appliances back on the new linoleum in the kitchen, another Realtor gave a full price offer.
We will look over the paper work tonight.
More to come...
Thanks for your prayers and thoughts!

C