Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
23 August 2010

NOTES
I know what follows is long, wandering, and minimally edited.
But I’ve been lazy, trying to stay outside in the summer and not inside in front of a computer screen. But my mind runs on, and what follows is like a conversation with my friend, Willy, when we go walking, but he’s been away tending to failing parents in North Carolina, so I’m talking to you instead.

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Notice what you notice.
It’s not what you look at that matters - it’s what you see.
And how you think about that . . .
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EARLY MORNING: As I begin writing this the right arm of my black fleece jacket is draped with what looks at first glance like a fine lace doily about the size of my hand. It is in fact most of a very small spider’s delicate web - a souvenir of a dawn excursion out into the yard to cut flowers.

August is the buggy stretch of summer. And battalions of spiders large and small are out in force constructing webs to take advantage of the explosion in the insect population. I’m in synch with the spiders. August means sweet corn is now in season and plentiful, and I take my string bag to the outdoor market with the same enthusiasm spiders have for catching bugs.

Though I try to be careful, it’s almost impossible to move around in the garden in the early morning without blundering into a web or two and acquiring an eight-legged passenger on your person.
Somewhere . . . on your person . . .

Actually, I’m not much afraid of spiders. I respect and admire and envy their ability. Wrecking their work troubles me. The tiny creature whose web I wear must now be hustling to replace what I carried away - or else it will miss lunch and dinner. But she can do it - in about thirty minutes.

I remain forever amazed that these creatures, especially the tiny ones, can make such complex structures using only juice they draw from their butts.
As many as six different kinds of silk, each for a different purpose.

There are more than 40,000 known species and maybe twice that either not yet identified or coming into existence as evolution moves on. Experts once estimated there were as many as 5 million spiders at work in 2.5 acres of English meadow. How many in my yard? Thousands and thousands and thousands. And an uncountable number inside my house, as well. I did check the yard and found 22 distinctly different spiders and their webs. And my housekeeper puts yellow sticky pads in the corners of the basement. We looked at a pad this morning through a magnifying lens. There were seventeen different spiders of several sizes stuck to its deadly surface.
I read that you are never more than six feet from a spider.

I could go on. I have a collection of books about spiders and can tell you a great deal more about them than most people want to know. But I know arachnophobia is a serious matter, and if what I’ve been writing gives you the creeping willies, take heart - it’s almost over. I just want to add one more thought that might appeal to arachnophobics - a fix for the spider problem.

Put me in charge of the Arachnid Development Division of Evolution for a week. I would install the same stuff in spiders that lightning bugs and fire flies have - an enzyme called luciferase - so that each spider would have a tiny blinking light in its stern. The butt light would warn people, attract edible insects, and preserve webs.
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THIS QUESTION was posed on a recent radio program: “Suppose you could have one Super Hero power. Just one. Given a choice of being able to fly or being able to make yourself invisible, which would you choose? And what would you do with the power?”
Think about it. It’s a more complicated decision than it seems at first.

Neither one for me. Spider Man is my Super Hero. I wish I had his capabilities. It’s never been clear to me where his silk comes from or what happens to it after he’s used it. I would want to know about these things before I would accept the power. Would I have to clean up my own webs? What recycling container should they go in on garbage collection days?
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BY THE WAY, if you could not access the 1-800 number mentioned in my last posting - the one about calling American Express - what you get is connection to America’s largest phone sex network, with full menu.
And no, American Express Card reward points do not apply.
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MY SATURDAY MORNING adventure to walk on the beach at low tide was thwarted by the Hemp Festival, annually held at Myrtle Edwards Park along Seattle’s waterfront. It’s estimated that more than 150,000 people will convene this weekend to consider marijuana, listen to music and speakers, and contribute to the cause of legalization. And perhaps have a toke or two. .

I did not attend, though, out of curiosity, I did walk through the event a couple of years ago. But I’ve got enough causes on my plate, and don’t do well in crowds, even mellow ones. Still, I’d rather be in the company of 150,000 pot smokers than 150,000 drunks.

I admired the answer given by our President when he was asked if he had ever smoked marijuana. Yes. Did he inhale? Yes, that was the idea, he said.

Have I? Yes. And inhaled, too. It was a great success in coping with pain during the month when I had a nasty case of shingles. But that’s about it.
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MANY PEOPLE HAVE a bucket list - things they want to do before they kick the bucket - die. When I ask about their list a surprising number of people have “Run a marathon” on it. Considering the physical condition of some of the list-makers, it’s not likely they will cross that item off their list.
But then, one must have hopes and dreams and aspirations.

So this morning I decided to add “Run a Marathon” to my list.

Considerations:

1. Is time an issue?  No, not really. I walk an average of 3 miles an hour, and do that at least 10 times a month for an hour. That’s thirty miles right there.
So every month I accumulate more than the equivalent of a marathon.
A marathon is within my frame of reference and capability.
But that’s not running, you say - it’s walking.

2. How far can I run without stopping? At least one full city block for certain. I did that this morning, just to have a reference.
On measuring, I found I had run about 110 yards - 330 feet.
How fast? I’m not sure. I don’t care. Just say slowly. It wasn’t a race and I was in no hurry - but still, if you had seen me you would have said I was definitely running, not walking. 
On reflection, I figure I could reasonably run four blocks at one go.
And that’s a quarter mile.
Over four days I could run a mile, four blocks at a time.
(63,360 inches is a more impressive number).
In 108 days I could cover the marathon distance - by Christmas, let’s say.
(That’s 1,710,720 inches.)
And establish a new personal record for my age and condition. Woo-ha!

3. Where would I run? Certainly not the real route in Greece from Marathon to Athens. I’ve driven that in a car. Not much to see except ratty suburban stores and a trashy roadside. Besides, I wouldn’t want to live nearby for 108 days. It’s not certain that Pheidippedes really ran that route or distance, so why be obsessive about it?

But then, do I really want to run the same blocks in my own neighborhood over and over? Moreover, when I checked out where I would be if I ran 417 blocks from my house in any direction, the prospect wasn’t very attractive.
I wouldn’t be anywhere I would want to be. So what to do?

4. Call in The Imagination. Think of 27 or so miles anywhere in the world I would like to run. Get a map. Mark it off as I imagine I ran there. Where, then? Across Paris? Into the Ngorogoro Crater in Kenya? Across England along the site of Hadrian’s Wall? Along part of the road to Compostela in Spain? Along the site of Christo’s running Fence in northern California? Along one of the ancient Roman Roads in Italy? The Wine Route through Alsace in the Fall? All those have appeal.
Can’t decide. This will take further thought.

(The problem does bring to mind the old joke about the old guy who went to see his doctor and was told to walk five miles a day for his health. The old guy’s son went to see the doctor ten days later to ask when his father was supposed to stop. “Why?” asked the doctor. “Well, my father has been gone 10 days and he just called from Lodi. That’s 150 miles away.")

5. Then there’s the problem of dressing for a marathon run. That, too, will take some thought. Somehow I don’t see me in a baseball cap, wife-beater undershirt, boxer shorts, and zippo running shoes, with a belt of water bottles around my waist and a number on my chest. My wife says I could wear my white rabbit suit - how many people have run a marathon dressed as a bunny? True. There are only two of us in the Friends of the White Rabbit and the suit could use some airing out since we haven’t gone on an affirmative public raid for awhile.

Am I really going to go through with this marathon, you ask?
Maybe. It’s a Possible. And, after all, I did make a start this morning.

I like the thought of taking a fairy tale approach - give myself a year and a day to accomplish the task. I’d like being able to say I did a marathon and when asked my time be able to say, “A year and a day . . . in a rabbit suit.”

I’m operating on the same principle I’ve used to organize the Queen Anne Hill Polo Club. I already have a polo shirt. And a genuine polo ball I bought in Argentina. And I know how to ride a horse. Add imagination to that, and who knows what might happen? It’s a Possible.
So far there’s only one of us on the team. Me. The Captain.

Large adventures all have a beginning in the first small step taken.
Or the first block taken at a run. (3,960 inches.)
The seeds of change are always small.
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THE HEMP FEST and its purpose stuck in my mental workshop.

Will pot ever be legalized and controlled? Maybe. Another Possible.
Will it make for a better world? Maybe. Ah, well . . .
Is it a good thing to keep the conversation alive. Yes.
Seeds of change . . .

This is another one of those social conflicts that keep an essential aspect of democracy in play. Achieving a balance between the rights of the individual and the structure of the society is the proper business of a democracy. And, taking the long view, we have ever so slowly managed to make progress in these vexing areas of deep disagreement.

The American cultural and constitutional conflict over marijuana has historic parallels in contention over slavery, women’s suffrage, prohibition, civil rights, homosexuality, abortion, censorship, marriage, and contraception.

We push on, in our clumsy, optimistic, combative way, under the banner of “Sooner or later we’ll think of something . . .”
And when we do, the Law of Unintended Consequences always kicks in.
One guy started the marathon thing.
He just didn’t know it at the time.
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MY MARATHON PROJECT and the polo team endeavor are just light-hearted metaphors pointing at larger goals for myself that I don’t write about or talk about. Despite having some success in my life, I aspire to further accomplishments that sometimes seem as far out of the question as a polo team - for myself and for my world. But that’s a story for another time . . .

I ran across a quotation from the American playwright, Eugene O’Neill,
that repeats the idea that one’s reaching should always exceed one’s grasp:

“The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers. Those who pursue the mere attainable should be sentenced to get it - and keep it. Let them rest on their laurels and enthrone them in Morris chairs in which laurels and hero may wither together.
Only through the unattainable do we achieve a hope worth both living and dying for - and so attain ourselves.”
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Notice what you notice.
It’s not what you look at that matters - it’s what you see.
And how you think about that . . .