I did not post yesterday.

Yesterday, after arriving at Starbucks I discovered my laptop computer was hardly running, no life left in the battery.  Over night, a power discharge depleted the machine.  I was left without my usual writing aid.  I could have improvised with pen and paper.  I chose to read instead, and enjoy the extended conversation which opportunity afforded with the person seated next to me. 

Life can be described as improvisation from birth to the grave.  That is how we learned to speak our first language.  We appealed for the attention (the assistance) of adults around us because we needed help as we babbled gibberish for months, our minds working to make sense of the sounds spoken by adults around us.  The syllables arranged into distinct words, had syntax, a grammar which was crucial to the world-of-adult work.  The work was serous business for adults. Sometimes, they appeared to find joy as if they were playing.  Every child desires entre into that world and language is the key.  Or so it seems to me — as I observe our two year old granddaughter.

Therefore, with the assistance of others, trial and error, failing in order to fail again, to fail better, — little by little we learned our first language.  The mind and body wrestling with complex layers of meaning, then muscle memory came — and I/we spoke…!

So goes the pattern that was inscribed for the rest of our lives, the arc of our time spent on this earth.  We learned language with it’s rhythm, the logic, the denotation, as well as the emotional connotation which allows us to take our place in the “city of humanity” which we label “civilization” and thus fulfill our fate, to contribute to something which will never reach completion. 

Is this not the originating miracle, the new creation of “the world” which continues generation by generation with each child born?  To become human is to become a master at improvisation.  Each project, each endeavor from constructing a suspension bridge over a river, to baking a birthday cake is another improvisation, one more experiment, learning the lesson which failure affords.  We ought never to be afraid to fail, to let fear be an obstacle to trying.

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What would I have written yesterday? 

I wanted to speak about the circle of friends meeting at the Geneva Barnes & Noble on Wednesday evening.  We met to discuss poverty.  What do we mean by poverty?  Why is poverty a condition that still exists?  What is poverty’s role in our society?  What is my personal relation to poverty?

Ironically our presence at the bookstore in Geneva Commons, (transportation was not a problem,) adequately clothed, and none of the stories told described periods of enduring hunger, — was a palpable indication that none of us had first hand experience of the topic.  We were thrown back onto our imaginations.  What would it be like to be uber-wealthy, to have a net worth in the billions?  Or what would it be like to live in a state of poverty?  Could I imagine not being able to buy enough ramen to last through the week, or not having funds on hand to pay the rent in full for yet another month, or not having sufficient money to pay for a needed prescription?  Not forgotten was the poverty of necessary skills, — how to comport oneself in a socially acceptable manner, or how to compose a resume… 

Such is a thought experiment, a game “played” by those of us without a clue as to how poverty feels.  On the other hand it is memory of a way of life, an existential dead-end from which one never escapes without the kind assistance of others; the psychological wound left by persistent hunger, of which one does not wish to speak.

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We need a song to hold onto.  My memory fails to recall the lyrics of the tune I had in mind but… this one is probably better than what the one I can’t remember.

Enjoy!  What About Love by Heart and Nancy Wilson.

What About Love

By Heart

I’ve been lonely
I’ve been waiting for you
I’m pretending and that’s all I can do
The love I’m sending
Ain’t making it through to your heart
You’ve been hiding, never letting it show
Always trying to keep it under control
You got it down and you’re well
On the way to the top
But there’s something that you forgot

What about love
Don’t you want someone to care about you
What about love
Don’t let it slip away
What about love
I only want to share it with you
You might need it someday

I can’t tell you what you’re feeling inside
I can’t sell you what you don’t want to buy
Something’s missing and you got to
Look back on your life
You know something here just ain’t right

What about love
Don’t you want someone to care about you
What about love
Don’t let it slip away
What about love
I only want to share it with you
What about love
Don’t you want someone to care about you
What about love
Don’t let it slip away
What about love
I only want to share it with you