There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.—Edward Abbey
I have been away from California too long and need to go back. How do I know this? We have a wind chill of 16 degrees this morning and I’m not in the mood to put on pants. There’s only one reasonable solution to that problem: California. Southern California, to be exact. I have a fondness for the Santa Monica area, which is where today’s picture was taken.
California is a wonderful example of how we adapt to our environment. Notice the gentleman seated on the bench here. He’s wearing a sweatshirt. A few minutes later, a woman passed wearing a heavy coat, walking her tiny little mop of a dog that was wearing a sweater. It was 72 degrees that morning. Everyone was looking oddly at me because I was in my short shirt sleeves and enjoying what was, for me, considerable warmth. By the time my trip there had ended, though, my own body had begun to adapt. I was wearing long sleeves and not bothering to roll them up as I had when I arrived. If I had stayed another week, I might have been reaching for a jacket as well.
The human body is amazing in how it adapts to whatever climate surrounds it. When I went out to fetch the little ones off the school bus yesterday afternoon, the temperature had risen just to the freezing mark with a windchill of 25. After the cold of the morning, the afternoon warm up didn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable as it might have had we arrived at that temperature coming down from, say, a more moderate 45.
Our response to temperature is relative which is what allows us to tolerate living in places such as Indiana or Michigan or Minnesota. Once we become accustomed to the idea that the temperature at which water freezes really isn’t all that cold, we are better able to tolerate the seemingly endless winters we encounter. There are people across the Midwest who actually miss snow when we don’t have it. There are times when I’m one of those people.
California gets snow, too. The uniqueness of the variations in altitude there allow one to go from the desert warmth of Palm Springs, which is a lovely little city this time of year, to a mountain ski resort within less than a two-hour drive. One might think that such quick transitions from warm to cold might make one ill, but that hardly seems to be the case. Our bodies are amazingly flexible when called upon to do so.
Yet, no amount of adaptation allows me to actually enjoy mornings like this. Perhaps the fact that it is morning has something to do with the problem. I have less of an issue with the cold around noon. By evening, I hardly notice the frigidity.
Then, there’s that whole time change thing. Time is, of course, an artificial measure of human construct, but it still affects when we do things like sleeping and such. There is a three-hour difference between Indiana and California. I’m accustomed, and my body is well adapted, to getting up around 4:00 AM each morning and having coffee. Do the math. That means when I’m visiting California, I’m looking for a coffee shop that is open at 1:00 AM. I’m sure there’s one somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area, but none within walking distance of my breach-front hotel. When I ask the front desk clerk, he looks at me as though I’m crazy. I have to wait until 6:00 Pacific Time before the nearest coffee shop is open.
Okay, so there is a down side to being in California. Adapting to the time change is not as easy as adapting to the weather. Then, just about the time one has made the transition, it’s time to come home, which throws the body off its schedule once again. Maybe, just maybe, our bodies aren’t as good at this whole traveling thing as we might like to think. Sure, we’re adaptive, but the constant switching back and forth between time zones and climates becomes wearisome. There is a reason our primitive ancestors staked out one place and called it home.
Still, when I put on my coat and scarf in a few minutes (and pants), it will be California of which I’m thinking. I really need to visit out there again, soon.
Primal Scream Friday
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.—George Orwell
Go ahead, just let it all out
Just to be very clear, we’re not talking this morning about Primal Scream the movie, nor Primal Scream the Scottish band. I will reference the album of the same name by the late trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson, but central to my premise this cold, wet, weary Friday morning is the psychotherapy method developed by Dr. Arthur Janov. Dr. Janov’s theory is that, from the very moment we are born, we begin repressing traumatic events in our lives, sealing them away from memory. Who remembers the actual birth experience, for example? None of us, of course. Neither do we experience the trauma of thinking that our parents have left us when actually they’ve only gone into the other room. Janov’s practice is to help us deal with those traumas, which he is sure is responsible for all our depression and anxiety, by bringing back those painful memories and then quite literally screaming at them.
I’m guessing Dr. Janov has trouble keeping neighbors.
While I’m not going to vouch for the efficacy of Dr. Janov’s methods, I do think it is valuable for us to occasionally list the things that are upsetting us, write them down perhaps, and then give them, collectively, a giant middle finger. With social media having become so prevalent in most our lives, we are now inundated with more information than ever, and a lot of that information is something less than positive. Our response tends to fall in the direction of two extremes: we either bitch and gripe about everything, constantly, trolling comments and insulting people we don’t know; or attempting to ignore everything in the hopes it will all go away. Neither of those approaches are exactly healthy.
So, what we’re going to do this morning is list the five things from this week that have pissed me off the most and then turn on the title track from Maynard Ferguson’s 1976 album and scream at them, letting the music provide a counter-weight to our bellowing. One big primal scream. Once we are done, we set those issues aside and try to not mess with them again. Feel free to join me. Create your own list. Let’s move into the weekend emotionally free of the frustrations that beset us. Ready? Here we go:
There’s my list. How’s yours? Once we get these out of our system, the deal is that we don’t keep revisiting them over and over. We let them go in one long, loud, guttural primal scream that comes up from out gut and frightens all animals into hiding. To prevent alarming the neighbors, I strongly suggest clicking the link below and turning up the volume on your computer or mobile device as loud as possible before you begin your primal scream. That way, people will just think you’re trying to sing along to a song that has no words and leave you alone the rest of the day.
Now, go and enjoy your weekend.
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