Eyelids of Morning
I am feeling tired this morning. My CPAP tells me I slept 6 hours and 39 minutes last night, which excludes the half hour I was awake at 3am, taking some Tylenol for my aching shoulder and reading a few emails. At that time of day there are usually only junk spam emails and one important email with Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American, her daily recap of how the events of the day fit into the broader context of history. I always read her daily email with great care because I find her perspective fascinating and important to my daily mental digestion. I am sitting in the living room with my lap desk, feeling like I need to get my day off to a slow start. I don’t normally wake up tired, but yesterday was a long day. It consisted of positioning a belay rope on my boulder stack that will become my kids’ climbing wall, hand watering some of the property and then awaiting the lunchtime arrival of our dear friends Gary and Oswaldo. I always enjoy a visit from G&O, who came down to attend Kim’s opening night choral concert being performed last night at a cultural center in the southern part of San Diego.
I am scheduled to attend both performances of the ensemble both in support of my beloved Kim’s favorite activity, singing, and to chaperone first friends and family like I did last night and then again tonight a group of six neighbors with whom we have become friendly. Both nights involve driving for thirty miles down to the area in the south-central part of San Diego, an area with which we are largely unfamiliar, gathering for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant that Kim found for this purpose, and then driving to the cultural center venue for the show. That doesn’t sound too complicated, but let’s put it this way, it might not be without traffic, but San Diego is a busy town on a Friday afternoon (and I’m hoping a bit less so on a Saturday afternoon). Yesterday, I got in the car at 3:15pm with G&O and drove to pick up brother-in-law Jeff and Lisa by 3:45pm. We then drove to the restaurant in moderately heavy pre-rush hour traffic. Parking was not impossible, but also not immediately convenient. Thanks to a friendly Chase Bank branch, I found a customer spot and decided to use the ATM as an excuse for parking there. After dinner (scheduled for 4:45), it was another 20 minutes to the very inconveniently located venue, but at least there was ample nearby parking there. The show started at 7pm and we were there early by about 45 minutes, so we sat and relaxed in the afternoon shade until the doors opened.
The show itself was a 10th Anniversary gala with an array of Broadway medleys being performed by a choral group of about 50 with a half dozen musicians giving the accompaniment. There was an intermission for 30 minutes, so the two-hour show ended a bit after 9:30. After the usual congratulatory meet and greet in the lobby, we got on the road by 10pm and got home before 11pm. To recap, that had me driving and wrangling a group of people through unknown territory and moderately heavy traffic for a total of almost eight hours. That alone was a full day that did a fine job of tiring me out. It should all be easier tonight since there is theoretically no rush hour to contend with, but I doubt we will be completely traffic-free. The terrain and the restaurant will all be more familiar, as will the run of show, so I am better prepared for the evening, but it will still run about seven hours in total duration and be exhausting in a slightly different way since I will feel like I have less leeway given our less familiar stance with these neighbors. My family and close friends know me well enough to make allowances for whatever assholic behavior might get prompted in me, but I have less wiggle room with these folks.
That would normally be the end of it for me and I could relax on Sunday, but apparently there is a cast party we will be attending in lieu of our normal Sunday afternoon movie (this week featuring the last of the Jurassic Park series). So, instead I will end my weekend forced march with a gathering of some 100 people I don’t know and with whom I can share some old favorite stories, but without trying to seem like a total retired NYC banker asshole that I’m sure I am. It’s no wonder that I’m feeling a bit weary this Saturday morning.
I have decided to undertake just one project task today and otherwise relax and perhaps wallow in the hot tub for a time in the afternoon shade, striking that interesting balance with wanting the water to cool me off from today’s high 80s heat and yet not so cool that it is jarring to enter (sounds like an 87-90 water temperature is what is called for). That task involves getting on top of my rock-climbing boulder stack to position an adjustment rope such that it keeps the carabiner rings over the center of the boulder and not falling off to the side of the boulder. If I am successful, the belay rope tackle will be perfectly set for use once I get the holds and start positioning them on the rock face. In other words, since I don’t expect to get the holds soon enough to set up the wall this week, I will be ready and set for finishing the climbing wall after we return from the East Coast later in the summer. We’ll see soon how that all works as I venture forth again on the eight-foot ladder up onto this 50-ton boulder that sits solidly (precariously?) at the top of the stack of boulders on the south side of the house.
While I am doing this and since its too soon to finalize my Fall course syllabi and I’m awaiting a green light on a new expert witness gig, I am reading a book sent to me by my friend Chris. It is a strange and somewhat wondrous book called Eyelids of Morning. On the cover is a picture of a native African man holding the upper jaw of what must be a thirty-foot crocodile. The picture makes it obvious that the man could be swallowed in one gulp by this beast of a crocodile. The subtitle of the book is The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men. It is book written by a British author in the early 1970’s that chronicles a study that he did of the crocodile population on Lake Rudolf in Kenya. While this book is considered one of the bibles of natural history, it is about so much more than crocodiles. It is a profound book about the inherent aspect of life and nature that are shared by both animals (in this case mostly the prehistoric animal known as the Nile Crocodile) and native man. It is important to distinguish the man in this equation as native man because he is without the benefit of most of what we would consider modern technology. This is about the attributes or base colors of man in his natural state as compared to the cold-blooded crocodiles in his their natural state. It is a fascinating book that is more natural philosophy than pure animal husbandry.
The title of the book fascinates me and reminds me of why I spend so much time trying to grasp meaningful titles to stories, sometimes feeling that the title is the most important element of the story itself. Eyelids are the common physical element that serve to perhaps keep man and animal sane in an otherwise crazy world. Think of a horse with blinders. If a horse tends towards being skittish, one puts blinders on him to keep him from seeing and thereby getting frightened by some extraneous factor. Men use that same trick of closing their eyes, either physically or metaphorically to stay sane with the craziness of the world.
I haven’t finished the book yet, but I suspect I will discover that man and crocodiles are not so different at their core and that both are simple machines of survival. This morning, my eyelids are weary from a busy day behind me and another busy day ahead of me. The good news is that the cause is celebratory and about the higher plane of self-actualization, singing for Kim and listening and “friending” for me. I feel reinvigorated by the thought that I have the luxury to go beyond pure survival and get to live a more enlightened existence than either man or the crocs on Lake Rudolf…even if I do it my own Crocs.