From My Isolation Outpost to Yours

Greetings from Lori’s Isolation Outpost, otherwise known as my home office. My disembodied voice is coming to you through the wonders of a website called WordPress. It’s an apt name for a space that allows me to figuratively “press” you (as opposed to shaking your hand or otherwise coming within six feet of you).

Isolation Outpost is actually my spare bedroom. It has an old oaken table, a sewing table, a dresser, a keyboard, a guitar, and a fake oriental rug where I do a few exercises each morning. (OK, maybe not every morning.) This is where I do office-y things like writing and editing photos. It’s also where I do non-office-y things like online shopping, checking my Facebook page for likes, watching YouTube videos, and researching important topics like how to copy and send mp3 files via email. No home office deduction for me, not after the IRS sees this post, anyway.

I guess since this site’s called WordPress, it would be appropriate to have a Word of the Day. Well, in that case, my word for the day today is PALPITATION. My heart’s been going ker-thump and ker-thumpity thump on and off for about a week now — in fact it’s doing it as I type this sentence. Palpitations can be brought on by any number of conditions, but in my case, I’m pretty sure it’s stress.

You wouldn’t know it to see me. In fact, you wouldn’t even know it to BE me. I look, act, and FEEL very calm most of the time. But I have a feeling this pandemic is getting to me in insidious ways. It may be my new normal. But I’m going to fight it. I’ll reduce my coffee intake, I’ll meditate, I’ll go for a walk, and I’ll watch more comedy. Yes. That’s my plan, anyway.

And I’ll keep taking photos. Here’s a juvenile vermilion flycatcher. He looks pretty chill.

Adult vermilion flycatchers are brilliant red. (I once wrote a song inspired by one.) Young males like the one shown above look like they’ve been partially dipped in a bucket of orange paint. This one’s spreading his tail feathers to sun himself. Maybe I’ll do that today — sun myself, that is. A walkabout in the Arizona sunshine would do my heart good. And maybe it’ll inspire another song!

Here’s a roadrunner I saw a few days ago, also sunning its tail feathers.

He or she (hard to tell the difference) seemed very content to stand still and preen itself while I took its picture, although it did warn me to stay at least six feet away.

Whatever you do today, I hope it’s relaxing and good for your heart … and soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRAIN TRACKER, Season Three, the thrilling conclusion

Note: This is the final episode of TRAIN TRACKER, my version of a travelogue by train. To make any sense of it whatsoever, you’ll probably want to go back and read all the previous thrilling episodes, namely, TRAIN TRACKER: Season One, TRAIN TRACKER: Season Two, TRAIN TRACKER: Season Two, continued, TRAIN TRACKER, Season Two: Episode 3, and TRAIN TRACKER, Season Three: Stranger Things on a Train.

And now, for the final, thrilling conclusion of TRAIN TRACKER!

Season Three, Episode 2: I Want My Wi-Fi!

I’d just left Chicago on a train bound for Tucson when I discovered, to my horror, that my train was not equipped with Wi-Fi. I took the following selfie as proof of my misery:

I wanted my Wi-Fi! I wanted it as badly as Mark Knopfler wanted his MTV. But did I write a chart-topping song about it, like he did? No. I was too bummed out to be able to think of anything that rhymed with Wi-Fi.

Of course, now that I’m home, it’s clear to me that “sci-fi” rhymes with Wi-Fi. So, with apologies to Queen, here’s the first verse of my new song, “Cross Country Rhapsody.”

Is this the real life?

Is this just sci-fi?

Caught in a train car

Ain’t got no wi-fi.

I’ll let you know if I win a Grammy.

Meanwhile, I can tell you right now how I managed to get through the 66-hour train ride home without any high-speed internet access:

I read a book. Namely, Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel, Less. It’s a comedy about a gay man named Arthur Less who’s on a trip around the world. Entertaining and enjoyable.

If you’re going to bring a book on the train, I recommend the type with actual pages. You never know – an attractive stranger might notice it and start up a conversation with you. Or, you could use it as a fan in the event of A/C failure. If it’s thick enough, you might try wedging it behind your back for lumbar support. I actually did try that.

I watched part of a movie. Before my trip, I’d rented three movies on iTunes, but somehow I’d only downloaded one of them. (Silly me — I thought renting and downloading were the same thing.) When I tried to play the movie I’d downloaded, I discovered that my iPhone headphones (the only ones I’d packed) didn’t fit my new laptop.

So when we stopped in Chicago, I bought a $10 pair of headphones. Problem solved — or so I thought. One problem, though: the right earbud was dead. Undeterred, I tried watching the movie anyway, in mono, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I needed subtitles to understand the British accents that were buzzing through my one and only cheap earbud. After fifteen minutes, I gave up.

OK, I thought, I’ll just watch one of the other two movies I’d rented. But this was not to be, since, as you already know, and as I was finally realizing, there was no Wi-Fi on that train!

I watched an intelligent stand-up comedy special. I had a link on my phone to Aziz Ansari’s new show, Right Now. I was able to watch it on my phone because I “had data.” (I don’t really know what that means. All I know is, it worked!) Aziz Ansari has had some bad P.R. lately, but he addresses it honestly right at the beginning of his special, and he comes across as genuine, sensitive, and “woke.” It’s really good, and funny, too.

I tried Zen train walking. About a week before my train excursion, I happened to come across a strange little book, Zen Driving. It’s all about how to drive a car in a more calm, aware manner, using Zen ways of thinking (or not thinking). I decided to try applying the techniques I read about in Zen Driving while making my way down the aisle of a moving train car. I tried gliding, I tried focusing straight ahead, I even tried bounding down the aisle. I think maybe it helped, because I never fell in anyone’s lap, not even once.

I watched the scenery go by. This could be done from my seat, which had a pretty large window, or from the observation car, which was practically all windows and also had tables where people could eat, play cards, etc. I saw the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium in St. Louis, the “burrito lady” in El Paso, rainbows, sunsets, forests, flooded fields, farms, cattle, goats, sheep, vultures, pronghorns, cattle egrets, and more.

I listened to classical music on YouTube. I’m trying to expand my musical horizons by working my way through the book, Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill. It contains one-page descriptions of 365 pieces of music, one for each day of the year. I listened to James Ehnes performing Paganini’s Caprice Op. 24, and I was absolutely astounded at how good it was. Check it out!

I interacted. I met interesting people from all walks of life, usually in the dining car:

One woman from Chicago told me where to find the best pizza, corn bread, jerk chicken, and soul food in that town.

Three women (including the one above, her stepmom, and a lady across the aisle who wanted to join our discussion) talked with me about politics. We all supported the same candidates!

A grandmother who was born and raised in Texas shared her love of books, her koi pond, her grandsons, and her dogs. As I got up to leave, she added, “I hope you have a blessed trip. My name’s ___, and I’m on Facebook.”

A man explained to me the reason for his trip: he was returning home after having achieved his goal of riding on the “Big Boy” – the world’s largest steam locomotive.

I translated a few sentences for a woman who spoke only Spanish and needed some help. Another Spanish-speaking woman helped me out in turn. I had asked her in English “which way to the dining car.” (I told you I have no sense of direction.) But when I realized she spoke only Spanish, I switched to that language and she understood, even though I’d made mistakes. People just love it when you try to speak their language.

As in real life, it wasn’t all pleasant. Four teens almost got kicked off the train for getting into a heated argument among themselves; a tipsy woman lifted her shirt and showed off her gall bladder scar. An older woman trying to walk through the observation car suddenly lost her balance and crashed violently into a seat when the train lurched suddenly. (She wasn’t hurt, but I really think trains need to be made safer for people of all ages and for those with disabilities, as well.)

Friends have asked if I’ll take this trip again. I probably will. It was nice to sit back and enjoy the ride, knowing that I had three full days ahead of me without any obligations, without having to be anywhere or do anything else.

In a way, I think it was as close to a Zen experience as I could have asked for while crossing the continent. And you know what? I’m actually glad that I didn’t have my Wi-Fi!

 

Oh Bee Hive!

For the past several months, I’ve been taking a yoga class. Today’s class was especially relaxing. We always start and end with shavasana, which involves lying down on a yoga mat. It doesn’t get any gentler than that.

In between the two shavasanas, we do some mild stretching, yawning, twisting, rocking, and balancing … nothing difficult. I go there for the relaxation factor. It’s literally the most relaxing part of my whole week, including the parts of my week while I’m asleep.

Today we did something at the end of class, during shavasana, that was so enjoyable for me that I wanted to share it with you. It was a guided observation that went something like this:

“Imagine yourself holding a mortar in your left hand, and a pestle in your right hand.

Now imagine everything that makes you sick or causes you pain dropping into your mortar, pebble by pebble.

Now take your right hand and grind your pebbles into a fine dust.

Now blow the dust away. Let it disappear.

Now imagine that every cell in your body is being filled up with a beautiful golden light.

Let the light warm you and envelop you. Enjoy your beautiful golden light.

(After a minute or two of enjoying the sensations created by our imaginations, we continued.)

Now release the light into the atmosphere. Just let it gently fade away.”

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I’ve experienced relaxation exercises before, but never like this. This one was special for me. I think it was because it began with the image of something very tangible: a mortar and pestle that I could hold in my hands. The directions were very specific. Mortar in left hand, pestle in right. Grind, grind, grind. Blow. Pouff! Gone.

And then, cells. Lots of them. And warm golden light. All very physical, very real to me. I imagined myself as a beehive.

 

I really liked this exercise. Grinding the pebbles into dust made me feel strong. Blowing them away gave me a sense of relief. Then each cell in my body filling up with warm, golden honey made me feel like I glowed. I think my head was even buzzing.

I didn’t want to release the light, but I knew I couldn’t lie there in shavasana forever, so I came back to reality. But even after I had done so, some of the energy of the golden light remained. I felt calm and energized at the same time.

I thought it was a very effective imagery exercise, and I just wanted to share it with you.