No Time...To Meet (Part 3 of 5)

It is always with mixed emotions that I deal with a canceled meeting. And yet while disappointment is often my initial response, I have to constantly remind myself of how lucky I am that this summer is happening the way that it is – and more importantly as well as it is.

I keep telling people that the money funding this summer is only responsible for about 4% of the success of the summer. The other 96% can be credited to the wonderful, wonderful people that let me sleep in their beds, dirty their living rooms, or just take large amounts of valuable time out of their days to talk with them – with the understanding that they will get nothing in return.

I’ve really been overwhelmed with the kindness of the people, who are making this summer happen for me, and as I was telling my brother the other week, I often wonder how I can ever repay their generosity and hospitality – to which he responded:

“You can’t.”

…which is absolutely true. Completely impossible. I have as good a chance of repaying the kindness I’ve experienced in the first month of this summer as I do getting over my peanut allergy (which, for those of you not as close to the allergy, is the only food allergy that one doesn’t grow out of). I will learn to write left-handed, will stop biting my fingernails, and will begin to warm to the idea of knee high black dress socks worn with brown loafers and khaki shorts before I even begin to crack the piggy bank of good karma that everyone whom I have encountered this summer has collectively saved up. It is a hopeless endeavor, and I just get stressed thinking about it. I suppose that I can only pray that when I am in the position of being a host or an interview subject (should anyone ever want to talk to me) I will be half as gracious and incredible as everyone has been. I am truly so thankful.

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With all that said though, I will say that my feelings of warmth and gracious admiration do shudder just a bit when I emerge from the subway, loaded down with my recording equipment – my inconveniently long microphone tucked under a sore, sweaty armpit and the left side of my neck red-ly imprinted with the strap of my carrying case – only to discover a missed call and message that must have happened while I was underground (and thus without service) which tells me that the interview subject would like to postpone their meeting until the next week.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m truly grateful for just having a chance to meet with people – especially during the work day – but when I let my emotions become victim to the demons of spontaneity, I hear a barely audible whistling sigh of negativity escape my lips. In the heat of the moment and of the summer, all feelings of gratitude and positivism slink away back down the steps into the subway and take the train back to the apartment that I’m staying in, while I am left at the top of the stairs with a load of recording equipment and no place to go. A slow, dry whistle begins to buzz out of my lips.

You may think that the prospect of a free afternoon in a city is an exciting thing, and I suppose for many it is; however, I, being a creature of habit and planning, have a bit more trouble with simply being turned loose in a city. Last summer, during a quick stay in Chicago, my friend Taylor and I decided on a spontaneous jaunt through the city – with the goal of finding Wrigley Field. Starting up Michigan Avenue, we had felt so great about our fun-natured sense of adventure. Of course when Michigan Avenue ran into Michigan the state, our enthusiasm for the odyssey wavered a bit. When we did finally find Wrigley Field (about three and a half hours later), the game they had been playing that afternoon ended on cue with our arrival, and almost immediately we became two tiny specks of sand traveling against a giant tidal wave of furious, drunk, and dehydrated Cubs fans.

The rest of our day would be spent trudging back to our hotel (another three hours or so) and collapsing on our beds for about four seconds before we realized that we were going to be late for a concert – the primary purpose of our trip.

We had walked in a seven hour circle for the better part of our one day trip to Chicago.

Actually, looking back on it now, I can actually say that – yes – that was fun. Taylor and I complained about it for the rest of the day and much of the following year, but there was something in at least having gotten lost together that made the experience not only bearable but treasured. (I cannot tell you how much more bearable foot cramps and exhaustion are when they are shared with others.)

But as I emerged from the deep tunnel at Dupont Circle and discovered that my appointment for that particular day had canceled, I did feel a small bit of dread at the prospects for my unplanned day alone in Washington D.C. I didn’t really intend on sight-seeing, shopping was out of the question, and the thought of exploring a big city with expensive recording equipment on my shoulder just seemed unwise. And really besides going back to the apartment to read, I was left with only one option – one that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t sought out earlier.

I had to go to the zoo.

Which from Dupont Circle in a dress shirt and dress shoes is no small feat. It’s not impressive by any stretch, but it is certainly exhausting and will also doom any prospects of keeping your shirt dry.

So after a long, scenic hike, I arrived at the National Zoo – a sprawling, well-maintained public park that seems to just happen to have wild animals in it. Already exhausted from the walk, I moved straight to the indoor exhibits, which even beyond their more pleasant climate were much more enjoyable due to the fascinating animals which they housed.

And while I saw many things at the zoo (including two pandas and an octopus feeding), the unquestioned highlight of my trip to the Zoo was getting a chance to see the Tamarins – tiny, unbelievably expressive primates with disproportionately sized furry manes and a sense of curiosity that rivals most felines.

It was with the Tamarins that I spent the majority of my time at the zoo. They are remarkable creatures, and their sense of awe at the wonders of the world is enviously infectious. In the life of a Tamarin, there always seems to be something absolutely fascinating going on – from the way that the light shines through the top of their cage to the fact that a leaf is a bit greener than the day before – and it is a pure joy to watch these creatures discover – with such ecstasy - the smallest details of our world. I wish you could see the way that their tiny faces contort with an almost violently furious curiosity. It's just great.

Later that afternoon, after a swing through the big cat section and later the great ape house (where I felt a rather personal connection was made with one of the orangutans), I retired to an umbrella with a cup of applesauce from the concession stand to allow the midday sun to cool a bit before I walked back to Dupont Circle. It was there that I watched a family of 6 (including the grandmother) eat hamburgers wrapped in aluminum foil, while a man in a NASCAR hat with a maroon t-shirt a few tables over practiced taking pictures with a camera he must have bought earlier that day. In the concession area, there was a large group of pigeons, which to everyone except the man were by all accounts quite ordinary; however, the number of pictures that this man took of the pigeons made me begin to wonder if I was in the midst of some near-extinct North American Gray-Bodied Pigeon. I may have been, but I wonder a bit about the camera.

It was here that I met the most troubling question of my trip so far.

As I sat scooping up the last dredges of my applesauce, I couldn’t help but start to wish that I was a bit more like a Tamarin. Indeed, I found myself beginning to envy the ways that they so passionately and excitedly engaged with the ordinary, while finding the deepest joys and furies within it. I jealously despised the Tamarin for its courageous curiosity that compelled it to jump from its small concrete villa in the side of its cage to go vigorously inspect the rotting strawberry – mystical talisman - at the bottom of its cage.

I began to compare the Tamarin and the pigeon-loving man. Both seemed overwhelmed with the miracle of life, and yet as I – a quasi-documentarian this summer – continued to think on it, I began to realize (with a certain horror) that I, too, was the pigeon-loving man – observing everything with awe, only at a safe distance.

Oh, to be more like a Tamarin!

I know this whole thing sounds ridiculous, but let me briefly introduce my question before I illustrate it better in my next post, which is coming in the next day or so.

My question is this: How am I supposed to experience and appreciate this summer and, even more importantly, this life? I often feel such a draw just to remain home, invest my time and energy there, grow deep roots, and achieve a kind of understanding of a small, known world. But in that very same heart-pump and in the middle of that same caught breath, I feel a tug to the road, to the unknown, to the mystery and the adventure that lies somewhere out there, and yet I fear that when given the actual opportunity to walk the road, I will only walk it with great hesitation and observance of those before me. My problem is that I do not know how to experience a moment or even a long series of moments. Again, I feel that there is NO TIME to experience them. I’m not quick enough, and by the time I’m ready for them, the moments are gone.

So, given, say, two weeks in a city, how does one go about experiencing it?

To me, it's troubling, but it's not hopeless. Next post by Wednesday.