dana zed

Two sides of the Coin

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Normally, I’m all for meditation. All over it in fact, every morning.

There are “mindfulness” programs in schools, especially inner city ones where all the kids are on the free lunch program and 70% of the kids when asked will answer yes to the question, ” Do you know anyone whose been shot and killed?”
Ditto, for this program in jails. This program is very helpful and successfull. Simply put, it brings in the pause ( the old “count to ten”) before you hit someone on the playground. It’s very helpful. In schools like the ones I teach at, this program is maybe less necessary.

After school art class had been over for a while and I was cleaning up. David was hanging out while I did this. I thought he was waiting for his parent to pick him up. He is lithe and lively and bounced around in his tiny six year old body talking to me as I gathered my tools and such.
Almost done, I checked my list and saw that David was supposed to go to the schools’ after care program so I mention perhaps he should get on down there.

His bouncy body slumps into a giant C as he plunks down in a chair.
“Oh no.”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like after care? Why not?”
“UGH! They make us Meditate.”
(Feigning indignation I say) “What!? Meditate!? You mean you don’t get to run around with a ball or something? What do they make you do, listen to a bell?” (Knowing they do this)
“Meditation is, well, (groan) it’s hard to explain.”

Chinese New Year Parade etc

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Hundreds of thousands people hit the streets to watch the lunar new year parade. It doesn’t seem like that many when you are there. Every year we go over the Bay on BART (the subway) and arrive before 4 to stake out our place somewhere on the route. We are not the first ones there by far.

Why we do this every year is for the magic. All of these people are there committed to being happy. The people in the parade who are not preforming are waving and we are waving back. We are all smiling. It’s not like you are waving to a real person, you are waving to whatever they are representing. We have all agreed to that. This became most alive for me as I waved to a young guy in his twenties dressed up like a fire-cracker. I was waving to a live fire cracker, all red and gold.

The thousands of children in the schools marching ARE what they are representing. The awesome beauty and innocence of the littlest ones is breathtaking. Especially when you are inches away, which we were, being first row in the bleachers.

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 These are my kids and their friends. The three on the right: my daughter, Joan and Mies decide to go get a hot drink as it is freezing, especially on the metal seats sitting still. It used to be that all of the shops in Chinatown were Chinese owned but that was decades ago. They wander into one of the Arab stores with ugly glass and sentimental life sized bronze sculptures. Joan, who is editor of the high school newspaper which is nationally known and awarded (for over 100 years!) and the daughter of Harvard graduates decides to change the film in her film camera in this store. Suddenly a large man swoops in and looms over her. He has seen her put something in her pocket and accuses her of shoplifting. She pulls the empty film canister out of her pocket and is released. She tells me how awkward it was and how she felt guilty until proven innocent. I thought about how the US makes arabs feel that way all the time so I guess an arab in a store making a blond white girl feel that way is just par for the course.

Despite the non-chinese owned tourist shops, you can still be born, live your entire life and die in Chinatown and never speak english. The three finally find a restaurant. It is the only one they can find open. They are the only white people in there. Everyone else is Chinese and many of them are getting free food for having been in the parade. The waiter does not speak english. He does not understand what they mean by a hot drink. It is not on the menu so they can not point to it. They do not order tea because they want hot chocolate. They settle on steamed milk. When it comes it is cold. After they pay their bill, the two glasses still sit  on the table where the waiter has placed them. White and cold.

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Stuff to get done

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Why is there always so much of it?

I can look at life two ways: vertically and horizontally.
The vertical axis involves me and the absolute. The part of all this that is timeless and does not end and extends past the body.
The horizontal axis is all the lateral relationships of people, places and things with which I am involved.
Clearly all the business to accomplish is lateral and not going to extend past this life.
So why am I practically killing myself trying to get it all done?

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The Moat

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Without the moat, hundreds can die unnecessarily. That little bit of water tells those smart ants that the honey is inaccessible. If I forget the moat or leave the honey out unprotected on a cold rainy night, I wake up to a kitchen full of enormously industrious ants going to and from. They communicating about it all., as well. I think it’s amazing how when two of them meet from opposite directions, they stop to check in with each other. What do they say?
Weeks before my teacher died he said if he and an ant were the only two beings left living on earth, how glad they would be to see each other and how he would try his hardest to make friends with the ant. How can you make friends with an ant?! Well, by not killing him for starters.
After thinking about befriending an ant, I can no longer massacre them so when my carelessness leaves me with a kitchen counter full of busy ants, I remove the honey. It is mind blogging how fast those very smart ants clear out.

Gone

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There is something dying in the cemetery. Not something that died a long time ago, but something that is dying now. Every time I drive down the hill from my house I see the monstrously tall orange metal crane taking out living beings that have been there so long a time.
I called, like many others and was told “We are taking them out because they are not indigenous. They are not good for native life in California”. At what point does something become indigenous i wondered. There was no use arguing with him. My phone call had been passed from the Hispanic woman who answered it, to another woman and finally to this slick gentleman who claimed they were not harming the habitat. “What about all the wild turkeys on the road now, the deer looking lost, the young ones, jumping here and there?” There was no use arguing with him. He told me there was no owl in the tree, like people say. The cemetery is privately owned. It is our neighborhood but it is his Cemetery.
Then I realized what his cemetery wants. It wants to keep us out. No more walking there with our dogs, no more random aimless teenagers killing time. No more people walking quietly after they pass through the hole in the chain link fence. We walked practically hidden on crumbling cracked cement pathways covered with fallen Eucalyptus leaves amid the fallen over cement tombstone.
“This is the unendowed part of the cemetery”, he says, like i don’t know that. The Hearst Family mausoleum designed by Julia Morgan is on the other side of the hill.
My sister, my father, my mother and some of my friends are buried in the ground. I have never visited any of the graves after the funeral. I have never for a moment thought they were there. They are not there. The stone is. The grass is. The birds are. The trees were.

Update ~ Explanation

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This blog paused at the end of October because . . .

I wrote a 56,000 word novel the month of November.

256,000 people worldwide attempted this. 81,000 won (meaning they succeeded in writing a novel in a month)

NaNoWriMo.org  is the organization that heralds this cause. I highly recommend them and doing it.

In December I prepared for my interactive exhibiton at The de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. (pictured above)

I was artist in Residence the entire month of January. I created digitally drawn portraits of museum guests in a Magic Glass environment which was entirely designed and fabricated by myself, except for the wood-work on the 8 moving mirror walls which was fabricated by Kai Lundgren-Williams.

Myself and my interns also taught museum guests how to digitally draw self portraits. These are the portraits you see in the photo. My portraits are on the opposite wall and projected on the glass screens.

On the left, me explaining my work at museum party (with live music by Peter Whitehead)

On the right, portrait of museum guest.

 

Now, in mid February  “the kid is back, back on track”  (Brett Dennen)

And   THE BLOG

BetweenStops

continues . . .

 

 

In Another’s shoes

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I notice a tourist couple, with their map, disagreeing sort of, but not quite enough to be decisive. Then one makes a move away down the street toward the tunnel and the other begins to hasten after.
The tunnel is dingy and dark while (on their map) one street over is the more exciting and unusual. Who would willingly walk through that tunnel? is what I’m thinking. In all the years I’ve lived here… is what I’m thinking.

So I try to help. I say, “Do you need help?” thinking I will now tell them how to walk through the grand gate guarded by dragons, one block over (on their map).

They ignore me. They do not understand english and are speaking a language I don’t understand but am guessing is eastern european by the way they look.

At first I am irritated and mumble to myself, “They don’t think they need help but they do.”

Then I see that they need to walk through the tunnel and I need to return to my own business.

Waking Up

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After watching the digital clock for a while, she decides on getting up at four in the morning rather than lying in the darkness any longer. It’s the darkness in her mind keeping her up anyway. Better to turn on the lights.

She almost falls asleep on the train going to her morning class and almost asleep again coming home. So when she gets home, she lies down and goes to sleep.

She wakes up in the dark. This is rain dark, not night dark. Wondering why hunger follows afternoon naps, she opens the frig to find it mostly empty.

After the cashier has rung up the grocery cart with two hundred dollars worth of selected items, she realizes her wallet is on the kitchen table at home. She explains. She goes home. She comes back.

The cashier is kind, and he says, “No worries, You are not alone”, meaning this happens all the time.

Confused at the payment keypad between “CLEAR” and “ACCEPT”, she decides on “ACCEPT” because it’s green and likes that he has told her she is not alone.

Outside, near the entrance to the grocery store, someone has permanently written in once wet cement “The Dali Lama” under an also permanent sentence.

The sentence says, “Find hope in the darkness and focus on the light”.

Tonglen Practice

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3/4 million (750,000) people can soon die of starvation in Somalia. There is a drought in Africa which has left the people without food.

there is food being given but

the pirate type controlling the country won’t let aid in

the big boats can’t get to the ports
even if they could, on shore
it is beyond food
some now need care before they can eat.
These Somalian people.
What now to do with the awareness of them and it’s effect on me
?
The tonglen buddhist practice is the only real thing
that helps.

Breathing in and breathing out with
attention
toward another with well-wishing

helps.