Movement

I’ve been extremely interested lately in the idea of wanderers. There is an itinerant impulse in some of us that makes it hard to sit in one place for more than a few minutes, to settle down in one home or one city. An impulse that is weary of a settling of the mind that can accompany a physically sedentary existence.

At the same time, I used to get extremely stressed when traveling anywhere: did I forget anything, and why am I going on this trip in the first place when I have so much to do at home? These are the kind of thoughts that have pushed people I’ve known to become relative homebodies.

To me, nevertheless, there’s value in the motion between places. Something in the gentle rocking of a bus, or a boat; the visions of clouds or homes or people flying across my horizon.

Its instructive how breaking our routine in the place we live in can feel almost like traveling abroad. Or if we look at pictures of our past in albums, or our future in our mind’s eye, we feel as though we are traversing some ineffable distance. They are all forms of movement, and in that movement we can grow remarkably in our senses and our self-awareness.

Falk on Gaza War

Originally appeared on Le Monde Diplomatique

Israel’s war crimes

By Robert Falk

Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes?

The Deep Freeze

I awoke last week, wheezing and shivering to my bones. The furnace in my house had stopped working, and it took over a day to fix. At the time I felt and overwhelming sense of aggravation, but looking back on the experience several days out, I realize the fortunate options I had: I could simply get ready and go to my heated office building downtown; I know my neighbors well enough to have been able to sleep next door; and I could prolong dinners at restaurants and enjoy a convivial atmosphere. Many people this winter do not have these luxuries, and I have a heightened awareness right now of the way in which extreme weather highlights disparities.

by Vilhelm Sjostrom

I sit transfixed as reports have been flooding in about the fallout of ice storms from Texas to Maine. Certain communities could be without electricity for four to six weeks. Shelters are bursting with people seeking refuge, and many cities and towns are working at a breakneck pace to maintain the integrity of their electric grids and provide warm spaces for their residents.

Often, privilege is defined primarily as the ability to choose. The ability to choose the temperature of our environment is not only a fairly unnoticed feature of many of our lives today, but an even bigger issue is a learned ability to walk by dozens of people freezing on the streets without even noticing them.

A broken furnace is really only a temporary discomfort in my life, relative to what others go through in this season. I may feel very cold on my three-minute walk from the Metro to work, but on balance I understand it as a fleeting sensation. I would like to think that I am as grateful as I should be for the warm greeting I get as I step inside, but probably not.

There are three tangible steps worth looking into to help the issue of those in danger because of the weather.

1. Donating to the American Red Cross disaster relief fund (http://is.gd/hXq5) is one way to directly aid those suffering this winter.

2. Volunteer Match is a great site at which you can look for opportunities to contribute your time at a homeless/cold weather shelter.

3. Look up a Shelter Hotline in your area. These numbers can be used to get homeless individuals taken to a cold-weather shelter.