An unusual setting

Yesterday’s beautiful weather temped me to take my lunch to a magic spot about 5 minutes from school. With iPod in shirt pocket I made a triple check of class times and then headed out to a trail along Puget Sound. Once there I settled upon a vantage point overlooking the water and the Olympic mountains in the distance. The clarity of the air allowed for a spectacular view of the snowy peaks. Right below me construction continued on what I think will be a huge golf course. Just raising my gaze above this site I am privileged to witness birds soaring over the waves before landing in the tops of towering Evergreens. To cap off the lunch experience, I listened to the song "Into the West" from Return of the King. This evocative tune was appropriate as I thought of the contrast between the timelessness of the mountains and the changing landscape below me.

Difficult choice made easier with time

A memory that plays on the outskirts of my perception was formed on a warm summer night when I was nine or ten years old. I fondly recall the darkness, but do not remember stars. From the roof of my house I was preparing to watch fireworks launched from the tallest local hill. The hill was toward the West and off to the far East a thunderstorm was raging. It was far enough away that the thunder could not be heard, yet the lightning bolts could be seen and the clouds would light up spectacularly on the horizon. I was torn between the two options – watch the blazing and magnificent fireworks show, or gaze in awe at the awesome natural display. I think I finally compromised and watched a little of both. If I were given the option of reliving that night, I would take my new iPod (a gift from my parents for my birthday) and settle in to watch the majesty of the electrical storm. I have an idea for the music I would program for such a night…

Inspired (and a little afraid) of superposition

In Unison

Where once only toes were covered
Now an entire foot submerged

Waves unite and rise in
Celebration of the passing craft

Likewise swiftness is rewarded with a
Crack like thunder

Or a
Soft blue glow

The lightest free charge
Beats light

[as diversions provide opportunity]
In a race through water


In sympathy with the toe in my poem, I begin my participation in Poetry Thursday - somewhat fearful of the waves. Watching the NOVA episode Einstein's Big Idea provided a bit of the inspiration for the poem. Einstein's fascination with light resonates with me. I did not know that the use of c for the speed of light may be an association with the latin word celeritas (swiftness) - this may provoke an interesting teaching moment.

Mystery and brisket

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas I remember a strip mall bookstore that used to be part of an independent chain. I heard that they were bought out by Barnes & Noble, but in the early 90’s the store already had very much the same feel as a B&N. For some reason that place makes me think of night and lights and film noir. I am sure that I never bought a pulp novel there, nor is there any conscious reason why such an association exists. The memory is strange. Sometimes on an evening when the sun sets early, my thoughts tend toward a stylized thriller set in the 40’s or early 50’s. Maybe the loneliness of the place lends itself to such mental connections. If I continue far past this bookstore I may reach The Salt Lick barbeque restaurant in Driftwood, Texas. I probably visited there even fewer times than I visited that bookstore, yet I have a slight yearning to travel that road again.

The difference a year makes

At times the difference between “the young” and “the young +1” can be paper thin, while at other times it can be as large as the void between galaxies. At the moment it is certainly the latter as “the young” deal with the known (tackling problems already seen) and “the young +1” deal with the unknown (struggling with concepts that defy brains evolved in an apparently three-dimensional Universe). Questions for “the young” include: What does it mean to have a 1.5 volt battery? What does that tell me about the nature of electricity? Why is a 12 volt car battery more dangerous than the 3000 volts that I cause by shuffling my feet? Questions for “the young +1” include: What effect does speed have on time? Is it possible to visit a star 400 light-years away when the average human lifetime is below 80 years? What is the connection of gravity to time? The fact that time is not absolute and that a person’s relative motion places them within a different time stream is hard to grasp – perhaps even impossible for the mind to truly believe? The question that arises most from both groups: Will this be on the final?

Just over the next rise

Rootbeer youth,
hearts like shuffled cards
each popsicle summer
melting perfectly into the next
Kelly Richstein

As I prepare to go to work today I feel a little less stressed. I can legally play hooky because I don’t need to be there as early as usual. There is a sense of the year winding down – a typical reordering of nature’s rhythms for someone in education. I can hear the sounds of a neighbor’s sprinkler…chk…chk…chk…hisssssssss. This sound of summer will soon be accompanied by the smell of cut grass. The poem above can be found impressed into the concrete walk at Owens Beach in Tacoma. The words remind me of the times when the concept of adulthood was still mysterious and far-off. How strange to have the same feelings of uncertainty about life as I had as a child – I thought I would be more grown-up by now. Summer is a magical time for me – let it begin.

Time machine

There is a memory from my teen years that I wish I could expand and enrich. My parents’ home on the outskirts of a small town in Colorado was the setting for magnificent and awe-inspiring views of the night sky. Far from the light pollution of the city, I was always overwhelmed by the vast number of stars set against the deep, dark background of space. Although there were a handful of nights spent in the chill air looking through a telescope, or trudging up the hill beside the house to get a less obstructed view, such events were too few. For a brief period surrounding a unit on astronomy, there was a flurry of increased activity as my fellow classmates joined me for star-gazing. I imagine lying face-up on the roof of our garage and allowing myself to get lost among the stars. I think about the length of time it has taken the light from those stars to reach me and I am again overwhelmed by the majesty of it all.

Once a year...

A presentation that I hope will generate interest among 46 souls? Farther than the farthest journey ever made by a human being… engineered using the planets themselves to steer the course in a magnificent ballet. When did the exploration of our solar system become routine? or dull? Later in the morning comes a hurried discussion of the behavior of a perfect gas – “Tell me all there is to know in 10 minutes or less.” The afternoon is a lull in a usually hectic day as my thoughts drift to a small room in the woods where a rite of passage takes place – is this a test of knowledge and understanding, or another step that trods upon the grass and makes the wrong path all the more tempting to follow? Tomorrow's topic: parallel universes - (quite far from the beaten path)

And so it begins...

Amidst the wonders of the Universe, the singularity seems to stand out as a self-contradiction. What else in the cosmos manifests itself as chaos surrounding the simplest of structures - a point? There are mysteries all around us. Once the Theory of Everything is complete and we can wear a single unifying equation on our T-shirts, there will be scientific mysteries that remain. As human beings may we never lose the sense of awe that drives us to explore – create – explain.