First Day

I went on my first interview today. Financial independence looms.

I'm flakey. I'm sorry. I know I change my mind all the time. Even now the branches of the opportunity tree that I just pruned are angry at me -- the "Yeah-buts". They're saying, "You're going to miss your family." Yes, its true. "You're going to be distracted from finishing your journey through philosophy." Yes, this is also true. "You're going to be a low-level pee-on." Probably also true. "You may not gain a deeper understanding of life or what you want from it." Possible. "You are leaving Asia, which you know is the area of the world you eventually want to be in." Do I know this? I'm not sure.

For most things I'm going to politely say, 'I don't know.' Which is better than making up the answer. And its better than saying you know when you really don't. But I'm hoping the 'i don't knows' and the 'yeah-buts' will be cleverly extinguished as time goes on.

And I'm also going to politely say, over and over in my head as the Yeah-buts try selfishly to reel me in, "I'm going to commit to this plan." I'm going to stop being a statistic in my generation of wanderers. I'm going to give committment a shot for the following:

Four things:
1) Exercise.
2) Reading philosophy.
3) Writing, professionally.
4) Financial independence.

These are the only four things I know to be 'good' for me. So I'm going to go with what I know.

"What saves a man is to take a step."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of "The Little Prince"

The courting days

Found a photo of Grandpa “in his courting days,” as it says on the back. He looks about 25 years old, he’s wearing only a dark colored bathing suit, a little longer than a speedo, and he’s sprawled out on a big flat rock with his hands tucked behind his neck. He’s smiling at the camera as if saying, ‘hey!’ – a candid and spontaneous snapshot of an unsuspecting subject. I imagine the next moment he's jumping up to grab the camera out of the photographer’s hands and kissing her square on the lips; the action perpetually in motion -- on repeat for eternity, but lost to the rest of us who have moved on.

Catching wasps

My grandfather's hands look like crispy fried chicken -- as if the skin and the muscles have slid over one another so long that they are no longer friendly neighbors, resolved to go their separate ways. The skin is nicely browned and seasoned from years of working in the sun; the nails are thick and yellowed like an elephant's. I remember watching him catch wasps on the back porch with his bare hands, unaware of the invention of pain. He's one of those Grandfathers that grew up on a farm, fought and survived World War II, built his own house and worked and worked and worked. In photographs I see of him when my Dad was small, he looks stern and has deep smile lines but no smile. His eyes have the intensity of one who is perpetually preoccupied.

At 87, he's lived to see many of his family and friends pass into earth. He perhaps expects the same of himself soon, yet daily does physical work that men my age would be unable to perform. He has none of the intensity of his younger years, unless you get him talking about politics or the National Rifle Association (his favorite hat is a navy blue baseball cap with a red stripe along the brim and embroidered white letters that say, 'Smith n' Wesson.' He forgets it sometimes so he's written his name in permanent black marker on the red stripe.) To his grand-daughter that grew up elsewhere, he's a sweet old man who loves his wife and knows a lot about engines and nature.

The other day when my Grandma and I were labelling old photos he came in from working outside with a sprightly gleam in his eye. We had been sorting pictures of their friends from when they were in their 20s -- around 1940? They're the kind of photos where everyone has creamy, perfect skin and wavy hair and are staring off into the distance at something beautiful. One of them was a lady friend of Grandpa's, Grandma was sure. So when he came into the room she asked him who the girl was, saying that she thought they had dated and that her name was Camille. He crouches down in that way he always does when talking to Grandma -- down on one knee like he's going to propose to her all over again -- mumbling gruffly, 'well, let's see...' and picks up the photo. A long silence that's trying hard to jog his memory ends with, 'that pretty girl went out on a date with ME?'

After a while he remembers -- they had gone on a date to an amusement park and rode a rollercoaster together (can you imagine...my Grandpa on a rollercoaster!!?). During the ride she smacked her head on the seat in front of her and had a swollen lip for the rest of the night. "So we couldn't kiss!" he says.

My Grandparents' 60th anniversary is coming up next year. Grandma still calls him 'her boyfriend.'

Revelations!!!

I have a plan.

Orangutan Online Dating

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4794279.stm

courtesy of Ruhi...

Grandpa Levy

This is Grandpa Levy.



He was my grandmother's great grandfather. That means he was my Great-great-great grandfather. I'm not sure about dates of birth or death but if we allow, say, twenty-five years between generations, we could estimate that he was born in 1850.



This is the note that we found with the photo:













It says: 'Grandpa Levy. Note fingers gone. Frozen off working pump handle on sinking schooner to keep afloat to get vessel into port.'

Notice the fingers.

Tintypes

I started helping my Grandmother on a little photography project she has been wanting to do for some time. It began as an innocent sorting and labeling of photos -- photos which happen to document more than a hundred years of family history. This photo here is of my Great Grandfather as a young boy. It was most likely taken in 1902.

My family has samples of some of the world's earliest photographs -- the tintype. Its a distant relation to the daguerrotype, the difference being that daguerrotypes are images in silver while tintypes are in...tin. They work by the same concept as modern photography -- light-sensitive material is exposed to light which imprints an image on the material. In modern photography, that material is film. In 1870, it was metal.

The collection we have has been sitting in a paper bag in a drawer for decades. It includes images of family members, friends, small children, portraits of lace-laiden ladies and dashing young men in their Sunday Best. The metallic background has preserved these serene and often melancholy faces for more than a hundred years. And here, still, they seem to stare back at me as if still alive, the light behind their eyes a living light and not just the reflection of fluorescent on tin.

Here for example, this is my Great-Aunt, posing with a friend sometime around 1900.

What I know of her is that her husband was a seafarer, she held stock in GE prior to and through the Great Depression (she herself, not her husband), and that she had one child, a daughter, who passed away in infancy and was never discussed even though her baby clothes were passed on to surviving cousins. And there it is, one life, summed up.

And this, this is Bill Starr, perhaps a good friend of my great-grandfather's older brother.

I've been obsessed with Bill Starr. I have no idea who he is, or why my family has so many pictures of him. He probably influenced the life of someone in my history, but how? And whom?

Finally, I have countless photos of young girls dressed in their most expensive clothes. They are the most melancholy lot. I have no leads on them. Who they are, or why I have their photo is a mystery. What did they become in adulthood? And did they make it that far?





And now to imagine that they lived and breathed one day long ago -- that they had families of their own, houses, thoughts, feelings, self-awareness...and could never have envisioned a world where a distant relative is so intrigued by their photo, had never seen a tintype, has a computer, writes something called a 'blog', doesn't wear a corset...