Worlds Apart

There's a house for sale two doors down from my apartment building. It's a cute ranch that needs some work and the price has just been reduced from $125k to $119,500. Just for fun, I recently put my numbers into an online mortgage load calculator- my number came up at 74k- HA! There isn't a shack on a dirt road for sale at that price within 1,000 miles of me. But I digress... The house is empty, and I have peeked in the windows and sniffed around the back yard- it even has a sweet screened porch that looks onto a pretty, private back yard. I've fantasized about what I might do to make it a home I'd love to live in. This morning, I read this in The New York Times:

While real estate in much of the country languishes, property in Manhattan continues to escalate in price, and that includes parking spaces. Some buyers do not even own cars, but grab the spaces as investments, renting them out to cover their costs.

Spaces are in such demand that there are waiting lists of buyers. Eight people are hoping for the chance to buy one of five private parking spaces for $225,000 in the basement of 246 West 17th Street, a 34-unit condo development scheduled for completion next January. The developer, meanwhile, is seeking city approval to add four more spots.

Come on! 225k for a parking place?!?!?!!!

I'm all about the idea that people are usually far more alike than we are different. That folks are just folks, we all put our pants on one leg at a time, and we are all one in The Great Family of Man. Yadda yadda yadda. Then I imagine myself trying to make small talk with someone who travels in the circles of the $225,000 parking space, and I realize I have way more in common with those I see yelling at each other on The Jerry Springer Show, or working on a counterfeit social security number, or standing in the street with a cardboard sign than I do with the parking space magnates.

While I count myself among the blessed, I wonder how it is that some can have so much while others have so little. The peace-loving, nice lady, do-gooder in me thinks about minding my personal responsibilities to the poor, while the radical in me cries out for bloody justice and I wonder if any of those eight Manhattanites on the waiting list for a $225,000 parking spot would consider cabs and rental cars in exchange for shelter for a needy family or a debt-free college education for a working class kid. And if I traveled in the circles that would put me on that list, would I?

Heavy thoughts, articulated more intelligently by minds much greater than mine. Speaking of great minds, today is the birthday of the brilliant 20th century poet Pablo Neruda. The radical in me loves this poem of his:

THE HEAVENLY POETS
What have you done
you intellectualists?
you mystifiers?
you false existentialist sorcerers?
you surrealistic poppies shining on a tomb?
you pale grubs in the capitalist cheese?
What did you do
about the kingdom of anguish?
about this dark human being
kicked into submission?
about this head
submerged in manure?
about this essence
of harsh, trampled lives?
You didn't do anything but escape
you sold piles of debris
you looked for heavenly hairs
cowardly plants, broken fingernails
"pure beauty" "magic".
Your works were those of poor frightened folk
trying to keep your eyes from looking
trying to protect their delicate pupils
so you could make for your living
a plate of dirty scraps
which the masters flung to you.
Without seeing that the stones are in agony,
without defending, without conquering,
blinder than the wreaths
in the cemetery when the rain
falls on the motionless
rotten flowers on the tomb.

Chipper stuff, huh?

It's also the birthday of Thoreau, who died in 1862. My do-gooder nice lady likes this Thoreau quote:

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Today, I am more than grateful for not having to hang with the crowd making a grab for a $225,000 parking spot, nor ever having had to suffer in the kingdom of anguish. Now if I can just remember, every day, not to question my ability to elevate my life by conscious endeavor.