doppler effect

–Noun. Physics. Change in the apparent frequency of a wave as observer and source move toward or away from each other.

***

If there is an invisible part of you (your other heart, not the physical one composed of bits of matter: bosons and leptons and strange quarks), that unscientific yet very real heart still may be broken in a thousand little pieces but held together somehow (like a shattered windshield) as you rush towards what is now inevitable, can the compression of the movement before you hold those pieces together? Is that how you are able to put on your brave face?


And then, only upon receding from the situation, as the distance grows between you and what you bear witness to, that the little shards start to fall and the broken structure fails? And then you can cry behind your large dark sunglasses?

Can any wave be subject to the doppler effect? Even a wave of emotion?

As much as I love the physics of the universe (with my base, miniscule grasp of the science), there is no theorem to cope with grief, regret, loss.

***

Approaching and receding from a personal event horizon.

I took photos from my seat on the train, coming and going from the visit to Little Helen. I brought a book but could not concentrate on it, although it's a book I'm enjoying very much: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. And after obsessively checking my email on my iPhone, I had run the battery down to almost nothing, putting an end to that activity.

So all I could do was take photos out the windows.

Trains take us around the underbellies and backsides of things, to places that we normally cannot see and have no access to.


Having the camera on continuous shooting mode, hearing the click click click click in rapid procession, ticking off the world going by in bite-sized pieces, that made things feel more manageable. Just hearing the sound of the shutter was good.

You probably cannot tell from this photo, but the plane is Air France. I felt a pang of solidarity and goodwill seeing that takeoff from my train's seat, thinking Good for you, you got back on the horse, Air France. Safe travels and go go go!

Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us!

Where the wrecks go

{The Boy: Do you want to talk about it?}
{Me: No. (cries)}

Can you read the sign? I didn't realize what it said until just now.
There is Help.
1.800.Suicide
So people don't jump in front of moving trains.

So those are things you see while riding the train.

***

Yesterday Little Helen turned 91.
June 24, 1918 is her birthday.

The hospice nurse came. And these lovely people from the assisted living center brought a piece of birthday cake she cannot eat but we put it in the freezer anyway in the hope that she can have a taste sometime in future. They sang. I am convinced that people from the Philippines are the nicest people in the world. My mom and I looked around the room, the defensive thing you do with your eyes so that you don't cry in front of others when you're supposed to be looking happy.

Little Helen is home now, for a little while.
I guess, in truth, all of us are home, for a little while.

I write these things down because I don't know how to say them out loud. And then when I do, I feel like I understand an infinitesimally tiny amount more than I did a moment ago. Only it's never enough. And then the understanding is gone again, so fleeting, just like the tracery of a quark's trails.