the sweet slowness of it all

Mountain and Hay Bales by Karen Dawson

Slow blogging is speaking like it matters, like the pixels that give your words form are precious and rare. It is a willingness to let current events pass without comment. It is deliberate in its pace, breaking its unhurried stride for nothing....  -Todd Sieling



this thing, this thing right here, has turned into an exceedingly slow creature, a slow blog that's like a slow jog, ambling along the countryside at a leisurely pace, a pace that allows it to enjoy the scenery and hear itself think without panting or huffing or puffing—or maybe, to be honest, with just a minimal amount of panting/huffing/puffing—without getting too sweaty, wearing out its knees, developing shin splints.

it can take its sweet time. please throw away the clocks! it may remain silent, if it wishes, for days, weeks or months. yesterday's aha moment remains suspended, on the verge of something, like all moments that hover on the quivering edge waiting to be written down, to be bestowed or, if not bestowed, that are left to fall away, unspoken for yet another day.

goldilocks

with nowhere else to go, nowhere better to be, took up residence on the cove after the summer people left to become winter people and exchanged one big house on the sea nestled in pines for another big house on the sea nestled in palms.

she snuck across the frost-hardened, moonlit lawn and began her extended stay as an icy wind off the water knocked the thermometer down so low it could barely lift itself above freezing. her name, inaccurate. no longer golden haired but a life-beaten gray—where-oh-where had the years gone?—she wintered over, invisible in plain sight, constructing a just-right nest of comforters in the smallest bed in the smallest room of the house.

ms. locks made it her policy to eat only one non-perishable or frozen food item per day from the well-stocked pantry and freezer. but first, with a gusto she hadn't felt since last year, she took two weeks to consume—with great ceremony, shoveling in a handful here, a handful there—with vigorous displays of open-mouthed chomping—and, it might be added, an inspired, spit-flying smacking of lips—one satisfying bag of doritos and three of potato chips and two of oreo cookies; then, as always, she proceeded to melt skewered marshmallows over the vulcan hart range, sandwiching them appreciatively between graham crackers and chocolate bars.

but soon her time was up. before summer came, she vanished again, leaving hardly a trace of herself. the single person aware of her phantom presence was a child—the young granddaughter of the owners. upon arrival, and after experiencing a few nonplussed moments, the little girl administered her annual correction: she grabbed her teddy bear, who, for yet another winter, had been subjected to sleeping against the wrong pillow! in the wrong bed! in the wrong room! tucked him in her own bed, and whispered the tender question. she and her stuffed companion heard the words and were braced by them turning over and over again in silent, swirling echoes against the four walls—do you still love me best, me best, me best....?

in the calm before

maybe '13 is gonna be like '69, '78, '97—it's gonna blow out there! that's how the real old timers talk when a blizzard's coming. the new old timers on the news concur. they're reading the maps, the models and the almanacs, the tea leaves and the crystal balls. once they stop peering, straining their eyes, they offer up a prediction. they tell us to stay home. don't move.

in '78 i broke the law. i didn't stay home, didn't hunker down. classes canceled, i drove my vw to maine after the governor of massachusetts declared a driving ban. the worst was over but the snow kept coming. when i stopped at forbidden intersections and inched forward past towering man-made mountains of white powder on my way to the interstate, i imagined the scream of police sirens, but there was no one out there to catch me. not a soul.

put away the devices of our own devising. cameras, cell phones, laptops won't help us now. wind remakes shorelines, alters the course of rivers, wipes fishing ports off the charts. while the waters rise, networks succumb, bullets fly, people wash laundry, children grow. life separates, split by commas, into one thing after another.

in the calm before, we say we wish this day would never end. please don't let it end. the way the light bends through the smudged window and the snow sticks in the tall pines and the dog turns circles in her bed before she settles, and you, you drink a cup of coffee that's already getting cold.

the way that it is heartbreaking. we want to gather it up and press it, amber-like: small pieces suspended, preserved for a million years, an adornment, a crucible of illumination, tawny blare slashing through it, slashing through us. we edge around corners becoming the apparatus of our own survival, don't you see?

there once was a wall

bayham abbey, united kingdom. june, 2011.

a long, long time ago the roof tumbled down, as did most of the walls—not all at once, of course, but gradually—after the place was dismantled, abandoned, and left to decay. but because it was set in such an idyllic spot, people cleaned up the debris and—with great foresight—left the ruin in its natural state to be enjoyed by those who might find their way to the abbey one day in the future.

wild rabbits were among the first to arrive. they made themselves at home—witness the many rabbit holes!—and multiplied in what became a well-tended park surrounding the abbey.

they were the only other visible life forms besides myself, my husband—who i no longer actually saw, as he had disappeared into the ruins—and the young man minding the gift shop and collecting the entrance fee. at first i didn't notice them—the wild rabbits blended in perfectly with the browns and grays of tree trunks and rocks and woody bush stalks and ordinary dirt that were fixed at rabbit level around where the abbey stood. i picked out one of the descendants of the original rabbits and as i watched it, it watched me, its head in constant motion bobbing in the grass, its eyes simultaneously on me and the sweet green vegetation comprising its late afternoon snack. this went on for some time—we were both equally patient.

while the rabbit grazed, i leaned against a wall and enjoyed my reverie in the sunshine.

sanctuary—i sensed it under the dome of the sky. the remains of the walls that once surrounded a house of worship now surrounded me. within the pewless wreck, little hints of glory and joy. i shaded my eyes against the sun and scanned upwards. i imagined a choir loft filled with chanting trees—evensong in leafsong—as hymns of summer wind strained through outstretched branches. i read words of praise in a book, the book of crustose, lichen etched over blocks of stone. once, inside of what had been whole walls, a long-vanished altar had proudly claimed a spot on this earth. years later, opportunistic roots dug into ancient slabs of rock—rocks with a determined faith that, even in decay, held fast. once an altar stood where animals now deposited their own offerings.

the rabbit stopped nibbling choice shoots of grass. suddenly, it turned and fled.

as i walked under archways and lingered in the outlined shells of former workrooms, i saw the shadows of hooded monks laboring, baking their daily bread, brewing the daily beer. i wasn't inclined to compare the shambles i observed with exalted spaces boasting fine stained glass, paintings, and statuary, hundreds of flickering candles illuminating precious gold and silver, cold inlaid marble floors, perfectly white altar cloths and heavy chalices filled with blood-red wine.

i had no need for the established trappings of respectability—no. i was satisfied being a congregant in a broken place, a place that had been humbled and brought down. it was here, that spirit of peace—that unchangeable old thing—and remained with me in the land of crumbling rocks and snakelike roots and countless creatures. it held me the way nothing else could.


~ when i got home from italy over the weekend i was glad to find the house exactly where i'd left it—that beast, hurricane sandy, hadn't blown it down while i was away (although, sadly, on the jersey shore houses were blown to smithereens). except for a lot of sticks and oak leaves littering the yard, there was no evidence a monster storm had streaked through here. the power didn't even go out in our neighborhood like it usually does. (jim, our electrician, joked a bit after he finished installing a generator for us. he said the generator was probably the best insurance against power outages.) with travel on my mind, i wrote this piece about a previous jaunt before i left on this most recent one.

the behavior of fire

All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.  —P. D. James


I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.  —Philip Roth, Deception



before mr. and mrs. H moved from the heartland of nebraska to the waspy suburbs north of boston in order for mr. H to take up his new position as an assistant professor of english at a small college on the outskirts of the city, they both liked the idea of making their new home on a pond. they envisioned a smallish garden overlooking the water, and stone walls and a bricked patio surrounded by english daisies, columbine, peonies, lavender, yarrow, day lilies, and delphiniums, some of which they would bring with them from their nebraska garden. (it should be duly noted that some of those, in turn, had originally been smuggled into the country as small cuttings from mrs. H's mother's garden in yorkshire.)

the land they bought in '55 was—relatively speaking—cheap (land on the edge of town— undeveloped, mosquito infested, deep woods/dirt roads kind of land—which had once been part of a large estate) allowing them to afford to build a larger house than originally anticipated. mr. and mrs. H would raise four daughters, ranging in age from two to twelve in the summer of '68, with another baby on the way—that one would turn out to be the longed-for male, the legacy keeper of male surnames (in those days, unlike today, who would have given a baby his mothers's surname alone?), thus bringing an abrupt halt to the production of more babies—and the extra space was, to say the least, put to good use during the years they lived on the pond.

but as is always the case, both then and now, time creeps and things change and in that summer of '68 mr. and mrs. H decided to move back to the midwest for somewhat murky reasons having to do with a death in the family and an inheritance. so they sold the cottage and loaded a few roots and shoots from the daisies, day lilies and delphiniums, etc., along with their noisy brood, into the back of one old station wagon and one newer sedan, and headed west again.

next in the chain of events, mr. and mrs. N (mr. N was also a professor at the same college where mr. H had taught) bought the property at a reduced price due to the house, which hardly resembled a cottage at all, having fallen into disrepair—the gardens, thankfully, remained in perfect condition. they had been meticulously maintained and were a green perfection. mr. and mrs. N (who had a six-year-old daughter) proceeded to expand the garden, ripping out the brick and replacing it with stone. mrs. H's plants were dug up and rearranged like pieces of furniture to suit the new owners.

property values such as they are, eternally dependent on location (which translates into the best schools,  well-maintained properties, the appeal of the town to a certain socio-economic strata and the added bonus of the presence of several hundred feet of water frontage), the smallish seeming—at least compared to the neighbors' newly-built mcmansions—refurbished house, and its highly desirable acreage, were on their way to becoming worth a bundle.

some years later the elderly mr. N headed into an assisted living condo (mrs. N had long since passed) and the house went on the market again. the property was quickly snapped up by a slick 21st century tycoon who took a look around, decided the place needed to be lifted to grander heights—the grandest in the neighborhood, he decided with satisfaction—and immediately instructed his assistant to call the local fire department.

in due course, fire trucks rolled down the lane and the firemen gathered around their chief to listen to a reiteration of the safety laboratory's goals. the goals were as follows:

1. gain knowledge from a realistic demonstration of fire behavior

2. develop an in-depth understanding of search and rescue procedures

3. provide instruction in command and control principles

4. highlight the finer points of fire training

while the flames licked and spread and swallowed the house down like some kind of wild, ravenous animal, the firemen sweated and toiled and persevered in the hellish heat; they sensed the demo fire was greatly enhancing their knowledge of how a blaze works. the day would prove to be a great success.

at the end of the training session the firemen boarded their firetrucks to head back to the station. one fireman could be seen tenderly carrying the small clumps of english daisies and lavender he had rescued from the edge of the inferno. other men in bulldozers started their engines. they were eager to get on with the job of burying the sodden ash into the dust from whence it came, and, more importantly, to make it home in time for dinner.

confection

i look for them as if they are lost, or as if they have simply vanished, or have been misplaced like a set of keys or a pair of gloves or eyeglasses. i know i just saw them. they were right here and suddenly i have forgotten where i put them. weren't they on the table a minute ago?

(i tell myself relax. i raise my arms above my head and imagine them being pulled skyward. deep breaths.)

i continue my search, try to figure it out. i need to find them, suss them out. i close my eyes and struggle to visualize their form; i encourage them to take shape in the dark space under my eyelids. here they come. finally. i observe them round and ready as they float like shiny bubbles blown from the red plastic circle of a child's toy wand and rise up toward a heavenly blue where there's a woman's face hiding in a puff of cotton candy cloud.

i reach out my hand and grab them before they get away from me.

if i'm lucky, and the day is going well, they may fall into place easily, as if i'm following a drawing of simple assembly instructions—bolts and washers A, B, C, D fit here, tighten with allen wrench E—where they'll end up constructed like measured and cut wooden boards perfectly bolted together to create a solid structure—secure, sturdy, sound, whole.

they often have a distinctive flavor like fine food, small pieces i can nibble and turn over and over in my mouth, saturating them with my saliva to find out if they're satisfying. i slowly lick their residue on my lips and allow myself to marvel at the sweet confection they leave behind.

or they can be frighteningly bland with an awful aftertaste of disconcerting insouciance or—new sheet of paper, please—i may be engulfed with a sense of helplessness when i taste the bitter dregs of their sadness or injustice, when they force me to feel the lonely sting of tears. but i know they are good for me, they need me to spell them out, to shine a light on this existence. so i resist the urge to throw down my pen and crumple up the paper because i know, in the end, they always leave me feeling so alive.

others may come along that annoy me. i become vexed by the obnoxious bits that distract me and try to get my attention like nagging poppy seeds that get stuck between my teeth—trivial, time-wasting, resisting my efforts to remove them.

flip the page.

eventually i glance at the clock and realize i need to finish. i will make another quick revision and be done for today. the good ones i've searched for long and hard will stay, the others will be tossed. after all, they are only words, and words are so easily discarded by pressing DELETE.

i would rather be in bed

~ today, maybe because i'm lazy or maybe because i'm busy or maybe because it's national poetry month, i'm re-posting this scribble of mine from last summer.


i would rather be in bed, in my hand we, the drowned,
flipping the pages of this mighty fine yarn about muscular danish
sailors and their lust for the murderous sea
but then i change my mind as i often do and find

i would rather be eating lunch with pear snapdragon
that silly girl who i love but who is too busy
to eat a crumb of this nice buttery tart,
warm and filled with lane's prince albert apples,
apples so fresh they practically sing about their past life
as round, juicy ornaments decorating a queen's garden.

i reckon i would rather be on a maine beach
hot sand sifting through my naked toes,
or washing my hands with finn's fruity soaps,
pink lather dripping down my arms and onto the floor.

i would rather be walking in the shade on tremont street
sharing a joke with buddha in boston or touching the fallen rose petals
in a graveyard along the thames where dusty springfield sleeps.
maybe i would rather snip lavender blossoms in chawton
and press them, dry and flat, onto a bookmark for you, my friend.

i would rather win than lose a midnight battle with scaly prehistoric reptiles
and small cats hidden in a wardrobe, a dream that leaves me sweaty enough
to turn on the air conditioner until they turn off the electricity due to high demand.
we plunge into darkness and heat, a three-year black-out.
when at last we're reconnected—for now anyway, until we really run out of juice—
nbc reports the heat wave is stuck in missouri.

wouldn't i rather plug the long, black skinny cord of the cd player into the wall
to hook up to my friendly neighborhood power grid for entertainment?

my act intensified, juggling cd's in a three-ring circus, my life, vexed,
trying to choose between chopin and lady gaga, or the fleet foxes
and joni mitchell, spinning, spinning, and making money under a well-lit bigtop.

~ i found the pink roses and fallen rose petals (june, 2011) in the graveyard where dusty springfield sleeps in henley-on-thames in the uk, a neighborhood oh-so-close to some of my favorite bloggers. 

after a long day

after a long day that i just don't want to talk about, my ghost comes home with me and we settle into our evening routine. she sits on the couch flipping through the new yorker and i make dinner. (my ghost is not that interested in food; i, on the other hand, am starving.)

when dinner is over i take a shower. my ghost refuses to go with me. oftentimes she is frightened and confused by contact with hot water, so i don't make a fuss and let her keep reading.

i finish blow-drying my hair and i notice she is still sitting on the couch, pretending to read. when she's distracted and unable to focus like this i can tell ghostie's a bit down. it's hard for her, you know, being a mere shadow of me, mostly unseen, unheard, unnoticed—to her mind, nonexistent. i try to cheer her up by telling her she's important to me; she's a part of me, for crying out loud.

at ten-thirty i yawn; it's time for bed. i turn down the thermostat (this pleases my ghost—she likes it cold, but i'm just trying to save money on my oil bill) and climb into bed. tonight i'm too tired to read. i scoot under the covers and pull the soft, puffy comforter up to my eyes and try to get warm. with the lights off, my ghost begins to relax; she drifts along the drafty rooms from window to chilly window, anticipating the darkness beyond them, imagining what her life would be like if she didn't have this constant need to slip past walls and through dimensions and across time, if she could only be content sticking closer to home.

by three-thirty the ghost of myself finally returns, exhausted from her travels through the sullen, wintry land, but calmed by her slide into those beckoning regions where weather doesn't exist. while i sleep she remains close—silent, hovering, watchful—and is absorbed into the black air. she arches her back and stretches her tight leg muscles, cat-like. she feels recharged, invigorated, ready for sleep.

ultimately, as we all do, ghost begins that fade into dreams—down, down, away. from the ether comes her clearly enunciated but barely audible whisper—good night. my tired ghost has one wish: that i would stop snoring long enough so she could get a little rest before the new day begins.


~ snoring is something i frequently think about because i hear a lot of it at night in various tones, patterns and frequencies emanating from the one husband and two dogs sleeping nearby.

girl in a sunhat

yoo-hoo. see that girl in the sunhat over there—the one standing beside the red mustang convertible with her arms around a handsome, dark-haired boy? the one whose dad "grounds" her on a regular basis for pushing the limits of her curfew, for being routinely late?

on a saturday night it's way past midnight—more like one in the morning—and the girl's coach has already turned back into a pumpkin, she has lost her shoe, and she can't seem to find her way home. but don't worry, she's fine. she's a good girl, a "straight A"student—she just can't resist night. it's always one more beer, one more laugh, one more kiss, one more song on the car radio.

during the week the boxy, wall-mounted phone in the kitchen rings and rings, always for her, always guys with the same question: wanna go out dancing this saturday night? her parents are tempted to install another line, but they are frugal folks so they resist. they resign themselves to a life where the phone calls are never for them.

look—there she is every summer weekend hanging out with her crowd, gossiping, smoking cigarettes. her lashes are mascaraed dark and thick, her eyebrows plucked, her lids carefully colored in those 70's blues and greens, as she walks along the beach in a bikini. the girl looks so good, so brown, all slicked and shiny in baby oil with no SPF's on the label—who knew about SPF's?—that number was out of sight, out of mind. to speed up tanning their faces, she and her girlfriends wrap double LP record album covers in aluminum foil, lie down on their colorful beach towels, and open the albums like books under their chins for extra sun reflection.

oh, girl in a sunhat, maybe you should drop that album and put your sunhat back on. and, come to think of it, maybe you should start looking for that missing shoe.

~ the idea for this fictional piece came to mind the other day when i needed some aluminum foil to cover a dish that i was about to bake in the oven. i remembered wrapping double record album covers in foil (three dog night in vinyl!) exactly like this when i was a teenager, and then lying out in the sun with them. (maybe we used our old LP covers for this purpose because cassette tapes were rapidly replacing vinyl.) i shudder to think of it today; and, in case you're wondering, i NEVER, EVER came home too late from a date (haha—my father would have something to say about that!).

but first papillotes

she had seemed to be recovering, sandwiched between hospital sheets and topped with wires and tubes through which drugs and nourishment licked into her veins. but now the doctors consult in hushed tones, standing above her bloated body and shaking their heads as if she wasn't there.

people arrive. she doesn't understand why so many of them are gathering in this place—some dabbing their eyes with kleenex, others kissing her cheek—until gradually it occurs to her that they are here on a solemn mission. she realizes how very old she is, and that these people—whoever they are—have come out of kindness. soon it will be time for them to cover her up, turn off the lights, draw the curtains, roll her away.

but first she is exploring the world with colleagues and friends, life in full swing. she has written many books about her travels—and about food, always the food. interspersed throughout the chapters discussing faraway people and places are her thoughts about the foreign dishes she discovers and tastes year after year in these different lands. her taste buds are extremely discriminating: boar's head, caviar, brain masala, moussaka, elk, pates, terrines, turbots, papillotes, paupiettes, and wine—oh the wine—she sings the praises of all the local gastronomia.

but first there are the crazy all-nighters—and a diet rich in high calorie, college food-service fare, chinese take-out and beer—culminating four years later in a much deserved top-of-the-class graduation from a fine university.

but first she impatiently slams the refrigerator door after grabbing her brown bag lunch containing a veggie and cheese sandwich on whole wheat, carrot sticks, and one cookie. she turns and reopens the fridge and peers inside, hopeful for something else to add to her bag. she finds there's nothing but leftover carrot soup, salad, and rice, none of which seems appealing. the school bus will be here in a minute. she leaves the leftovers behind, kisses her mother good-bye, and runs out the door.

but first she sees a vision, an array of lovely colors—bits and slices of red, orange, yellow and many, many shades of green. the colors are so beautiful that she can't peel her eyes away. she stares and stares at them for a long time. how about one of these? someone says and she is coaxed to pick up a finger-sized portion of asparagus, clementine, or strawberry off her highchair tray.

but first she is surrounded and wondrously enfolded by hilly mounds—the curves are so soft! one at a time she sucks them forcefully and at length to produce sweet, warm spurts in her mouth, which she quickly swallows.

but first it is time for her father to drive her mother to the hospital, three weeks early but she's ready, yes she's ready.

into the teeth of the sea

i look back to where my mother set up our beach chairs. the hot sand is covered with a sea of colorful striped beach umbrellas. our own red, yellow and green umbrella is out there somewhere, but i can't find it. they all look the same to me. (one day—could it have been this day?—i got lost on the beach amidst all those confusing stripes, but my mother found me before i wandered too far away from our place on the sand.)

i squeeze my mother's hand. i am so little. one of my earliest memories is this day at the beach. we are walking toward the water, toward the waves. don't let go of my hand. don't let go of my hand. i am thinking those words. do i say them to her?

it seems as if we have been walking for a long time. i am tired. i notice the curvy lines the mollusk-filled, lettered olive shells create, leaving wet sand messages just like i do with a stick. i am sweaty and i want to cool off in the ocean. suddenly i see the waves. they are huge and frothy, white and noisy. my mother senses i am nervous so she encourages me by leaning down, looking into my eyes, and smiling.

"the waves are fun, you'll see. i'll lift you over them and you'll be flying along the water like a dolphin. you'll be at home in the sea like a starfish or a seahorse. and i promise i won't ever let you go," she says.

i am afraid the first time i meet the monster's foaming mouth, the waves like teeth noisily chomping at me—i wonder how hungry is the sea?—ready to snatch me up and swallow me down as i foolishly wade straight into them. a big one, a real soaker, gets me, throws its big mouth over my head trying to devour me, but my mother never lets go.

that was long ago and this is today. today i have no fear of the sea, i have only a deep, unquenchable longing for its beauty, its seductive power, its vast wildness. as much as the sea changes, turning by degrees from calm to roaring, rolling, churning, it also remains the same, an endless, comforting, back and forth—a sea time shuffle across the shore. i like that.

when i am on the island i open the sliding doors to welcome the sound and the smell of the sea into the house. the waves no longer look scary, but instead have turned into broad, toothy grins smiling up at me. the sea rushes in and does not attempt to eat me up, but greets me kindly and fills me to overflowing with peace.

the small still life of snowflakes and pears

fat wet snowflakes dawdle down from the planet's heavenly rooftop as if taking their time, stalling, delaying their inevitable earthly fate—contact with the ground—where each flake will one day melt, evaporate, disappear.

it is both true and false that every snowflake is unique—true for the large complex crystals composed of a multitude of molecules stacked and connected in all directions—snap, click like so many invisible lego bricks—and occasionally false for the small, simple snowflakes which may, on occasion, boast an identical twin.

as for the totality of snowflakes which have fallen to earth over eons of time—what an unfathomable, unknowable number!—amazingly, no two large ones could ever—ever—have been identical—the number of molecule combinations borders on the infinite, making duplication almost an impossibility.

and as for a display of pears in a bowl near a sunny window in winter, the discussion comes down to this: these piled up fruit lean in like eager, big-bellied, pear-shaped women bearing irresistible secrets and about-to-fall-off-the-tip-of-the-tongue gossip; hear them? they seem to be saying do tell.

the dots, lines and bumps that light up the patterns on their lush flesh, the rise and fall of shadows within the warm clefts of their skin—one-of-a-kind.

do you see? snowflakes all over again.

repose

you fondle each jewel before you pick up the pen containing archival ink. you sigh. you once were the reigning queen of movieland but today you sit on a velvet settee in front of an antique writing table and slowly flex your arm and fingers preparing to make another label. a maid could easily do this for you but you resist the idea.

the truth is you like writing the little tags. your handwriting is exquisite and you're glad that the schoolgirl years of laboriously copying the palmer method of penmanship—the flourishes, embellishments, ornamental details—have finally come in handy.

one diamond tiara. tiffany, 1973.

one diamond choker. bulgari, 1959.

one sapphire ring. cartier, 1967.

one strand of opera pearls. cartier, 1985.

and on and on, labels for all the pieces of jewelry you have acquired over the years.

with your insatiable thirst for jewels you are like a pirate sailing the seven seas in search of more booty. how many decades worth of treasure have you hidden away in chests and boxes, one or two pieces in each, each adorned with its own meticulously handwritten card?

you stop working on a 2010 label. a little smile sparkles on your lips. you are thinking about when you will be handed your last script—the script for life's final role—when you must lie still as dirt in peaceful repose in your casket and you are pleased when you imagine your collection of jewels and how they will also lie peacefully in theirs.

advanced photography in one lesson

she asked me to help her with part of a photography assignment she was working on at college. what do i have to do? i asked.

just be yourself, she answered, and started clicking away.

no, no, no! how can you take pictures with the house such a mess. let me clean up first.


i'm not taking pictures of the house. i'm taking pictures of you. besides, who cares.....


but it's all gonna be there in the background, all the clutter.


or something like that. i don't remember everything, but i remember enough. she said what she needed to do was to grab reality, to show what's honestly—painfully—real, to examine life the way it actually presents itself—my unwashed hair, the overflowing ashtrays, the piles of unfolded laundry, dishes and pans on the counter smothered with encrustations from last night's dinner, the stacks of books on the sofa, coffee table, floor—everywhere those all-important books!—read, unread or partially read, the must-read-before-i-die! books, books in yet-to-be-opened boxes from amazon, borrowed books highly recommended by friends—this was reality, according to her.

while she was busily catching the light, capturing the mood, seeing with her mind, allowing life to be be be exactly as it was in the moment, i was the subject she followed around and had to keep instructing to stop posing, act natural, just keep doing what you're doing.

i was the subject with a toothbrush in my mouth, an old sweater pulled over my head, the car keys jingling in my pocket, my backside out the door.

after the feast

after the feast, that day of thankfulness for life and loved ones, i looked back at thursday's hours and was reminded of short days and long nights, of endings and beginnings, of the cycle of seasons and the rapidity of decades.

was it really so long ago—important dates: 1621 for the religious observance, later in the 17th century for the yearly september feasts offering thanks for successful harvests, 1941 for the designation of the official thanksgiving holiday, the last thursday in november—or something like that...google it if you need more facts—when the pilgrims ate their thanksgiving feast of fish, deer, foul, squash, berries and nuts on long tables outdoors in a plimoth clearing, and invited about 90 wampanoag indian friends to be their guests (i've been told the wampanoags brought the venison)?

can you see them in a grassy field, english folks of both sexes adorned with fresh, white collars, the men wearing tall black hats, the women in black or white caps, and their native guests in buckskin, beads and feathers?

was it really so long ago when i was a little girl? back then it was mostly family around my parent's thanksgiving table, but occasionally friends would gather with us, too. this year at our house, in addition to family, we had a friend and business associate from china as our thanksgiving guest.

my mother was an excellent cook; the cooking would begin on tuesday and everything was made from scratch. what i remember most were her desserts—pies and cakes—and her mashed potatoes and gravy. i see her stirring and measuring and adjusting flavors, adding a pinch of this or that. when mum started to become ill, her memory fading, her fingers stiffening, i asked her to show me how she made her gravy so that we would always be able to have gravy the way memi (what my children call their grandmother) made it. she laughed and told me there was no recipe, or more precisely, there was no exact recipe, only the ever-so-slightly-changing variation of a recipe that came out of her head each thanksgiving.

she stood patiently beside me and recited her gravy process, and as we hovered over a saucepan together, mum stirring with a wooden spoon, me scribbling notes with a pen, we came up with a wonderful version (perhaps it's the one from thanksgiving 1973?) of her gravy. it was on the table last thursday.

this year before dinner was ready i suggested that maybe one day we should use picnic tables in the yard and eat outside like the pilgrims at that first thanksgiving feast. (had we done so this thanksgiving we would have been setting up our tables in a muffled winter wonderland surrounded by heavy snow which weighed the pine branches down, and hauling platters of food as we trudged through 8 inches of the white stuff which had surprised us the day before.) not one person enthusiastically embraced the idea; alas, no pilgrim types in this group.

every year we prepare for days and the food is gobbled up in a flash.

time burns down and disappears like the candle tapers on the table.

and speaking of burning down, the day ended with a bit of excitement. i opened the chimney flue and lit a fire in the living room fireplace after we finished our meal—well, that is, i thought i had opened the flue. (just let me add i have been lighting fires in the fireplace for 30 years and this is the first time i have had flue issues.) the fire was burning nicely but after 5 minutes the room began to smell like woodsmoke, we could see some smoke above in the loft, and our eyes started to sting. i could have sworn the flue was fully open, but obviously it was only partially open.

i reached into the fireplace with a poker and pulled the lever forward. the smokey wisps stopped sneaking out of the firebox and were sucked up the chimney. we had to vacate the room, open the windows, and sit in the family room. no damage occurred but it still smells a bit like a smokehouse—though not at all unpleasant—as if hams ought to be hanging and curing from the beams.

i promptly had some grey goose to calm my nerves.

i'm glad to report the rest of the evening passed without incident.

the group

by 10 pm the wedding reception at the club is raging. the booze is free-flowing and working its magic. a flock of slim, blonde wives and ex-wives cluster, chatter, compete. the talk is about tennis, clothes designers, and their mutual friend tina. sean's ex-trophy-wife, nicole, presides over the tina gossip. tina is a no-show at the wedding. voices lowered, for this is not common knowledge: tina's in brazil with felipe.


later, in the ladies room, the group of friends surrounds nicole, their breath warm as feathers. nicole's crying. she's drunk again and slurring felipe's name. the women warble soft, clucking syllables, comforting sounds released from deep inside their throats, in an effort to soothe her.

a month after the wedding reception, the group meets for lunch at the club. the waiter serves sauvignon blanc and takes their order—the usual, salads all around.

nicole looks like a total wreck, all crushed skin and twisted make-up. she's in bad shape.

they believe nicole is in love with felipe. they know she's hurting so they try to console her. finally one of them decides nicole needs a good slap of honesty and speaks the words the whole group is thinking, their minds working in tandem.


felipe's with tina now. you've got to move on, nicole. forget felipe. he's not worth it.

nicole turns in the direction of the speaker, stares at her, yet not at her. instead her eyes bore into a blank spot on the wall beyond. she closes her eyes. when she reopens them they are round and hard and dry. nicole looks directly at the group of women.

she finds her voice and in a cold, lifeless tone she says he's not the one—it's always been her.


~ hello my dears. i'll be away for several days, taking a break from computers and telephones and such—so deliciously unconnected!—and the blog will pause for a short intermission. in the meantime i'll snap a few more pictures and scribble some more stuff and nonsense, and maybe some stuff which is not nonsense—i'll be back in a flash.....promise.

did someone just mention a swiffer?

when one (namely me) sprouts up as a brand-new bride (eons ago) and then one (me again) blossoms—in a simultaneous profusion—into a housewife, a mother of two (eventually becoming the mother of three children plus a bunch of dogs) and a graduate student (with an often absentee, on-the-road-doing-business husband), one can suddenly be hit over the head by the depressing realization that the demands of a hectic schedule and the goal of a brilliantly run household, a veritable garden of perfection (what lunacy is this?), might somehow be shockingly unattainable (gasp).

but that was before my mother arrived with a swiffer.

oh glorious day, the day when she presented me with a mysterious box. i opened the box, peered inside and said "what in tarnation is this thingamajig, mum?" and she, being the mostwonderfulofallmotherswhohaveeverexisted, replied "it's a swiffer, daughter dear" and proceeded to put it together. she wrapped the nifty, dust snagging cloth firmly in place and gave me a demonstration of what modern day squeaky clean housekeeping is all about.

ever since that day many moons ago, i have always had my swiffer ready for action, pushing it lazily—and certainly not often enough!—along these old wooden floors to snatch up the ever multiplying and enlarging clumps of dog fur and dust which seem to roll into these rooms like persistent tumbleweeds from an abandoned prairie town out yonder.

Q & A

most days there seem to be more questions than answers. life's just like that. on occasion the opposite holds true. the answers appear before the questions have even been asked.

here is what i mean.

when henrietta and i finally get to the end of the trail, we spread a blanket on the pebbly beach beside the fjord and relax and eat our superb sandwiches and just-picked strawberries. we talk and then we are quiet again, staring over the rippling water and soaking up the sun—at times there is simply no need for words. but at one point she says to me "this is what it's all about" or something to that effect.

and another time....

i stand with my hands on my hips near the rocky outcropping and inhale the sweet, piney air on top of bradbury mountain, a grand misnaming because the mountain is actually a large, forested hill masquerading as a mountain. a fellow hiker, unknown to me, walks over beside me and looks in the direction i am looking, east toward casco bay. after a moment he remarks to me or the mountain or the sky or all of the above "boy, this is what it's all about."

i'm getting answers left and right to a deep question, a heavy, heavy question, one of the weightiest philosophical questions of all, and it has not even been posed: what's life all about? or, put another way, what's important to you in life? what makes you happy?


around this neck of the woods the answers which my family, friends and neighbors might supply for that question would be remarkably, unquestionably similar (i didn't conduct a poll, i didn't ask my hair stylist or acupuncturist or anyone specific. it is only that i just know what people would say, if they haven't in fact already told me anecdotally, which in a lot of cases they have.) the answers would go something like this, including stuff "my people" like to do:

"my people" would say #1 is being with the people i love, you know, my husband/wife, family and friends (and dogs!); also, staying in reasonably good health so i can be active; learning new things; participating in organizations to help with causes i believe in; and, when i can, doing the things i enjoy doing like traveling, hiking, reading, skiing, writing, boating, running, fishing, gardening, other hobbies.... or some very close variation on those themes.

not a single person i am close to now has ever indicated that the one thing he or she wants out of life is to be rich, although should they come into a lot of money they have a good idea how they are going to spend it. years ago i was acquainted with three people whose goal in life was to make a million dollars before they were thirty. two of them have attained that goal and the third has not. who is "happier"? are they happy today? i don't have a real answer to that, only small clues.

so..... here we are, having come full circle from a question to an answer back to a question again: (drum roll, please)—what is life all about? 


that nagging question is always looking for an answer.

fjords and mountaintops offer a silent reply.

~  happy october and happy monday, people!  ~

today's special

"c'mon. you can do it. give it a whirl," he said and laughed his loud, contagious, big-hearted laugh.

she stared into the plate. he was pushy—he was pushing her now—and sometimes he drove her crazy, but she loved him so much she felt as if she could, and would, do almost anything for him.

life had always seemed easy for her brother. he loved life and life loved him. he quickly latched on to an almost magical ability to make things work the way he wanted them to work. as he traveled around the globe on business, her brother learned early in his career how to win over customers; he charmed people with his good looks, his fine mind, and his razor-sharp wit. he did what he had to do to make deals. he didn't squirm when he saw what was put in front of him; he tackled it head on.

she had been born in illinois like her brother, but unlike her brother she rarely left home. she could add up a grand total of four states she had visited in her life, about a week in each: missouri, iowa, indiana and ohio. she had never been on an airplane. she had never left the country. in fact, she hadn't been out of illinois in years.

in illinois there were places where the land stretched out for miles in monotonous, flat-as-a-pancake acreage filled with nothing but a blur of corn. she was a meat and potatoes and corn kind of gal, as boring and unchanging as the fields around her home. she didn't like to try the new foods her girlfriends were always giving her recipes for, like wood fire grilled salmon with mango and lime salsa, or kiwis, couscous, kalamata olives, or reductions of anything. she liked her food plain, plain and simple—simple food from her good land.

but her brother was daring, and he was daring her to just do it; he was not about to let her give up on challenging herself to overcome small obstacles thrown into her comfort zone. it was not in his nature to give up. after all, he hadn't made millions of dollars by giving up. he was adventurous and fearless and curious about the world.

when he made his way through faraway lands he was always a bold eater, plowing into edgy dishes involving such gastronomic delights as chapulines a la mexicana  (grasshoppers), the larvae of tenebrio molitor (beetles), escargot, octopus, galleria mellonella (wax moth larvae), blow fish, roasted taratulas, and mexican caviar called escamoles (ant eggs).

one time after he returned from china he told his sister about an entree his host suggested he try called thrice screaming mice: the newborn mice scream the first time when they are picked up with chopsticks, the second time when they are dipped in sauce, and the third time when they are placed in the mouth.

she heaved a sigh. her hands shook a little as she firmly grasped the bright red monster ominously displaying its claws and antennae and beady black eyes for her. she thought if he can do it so can i, and proceeded to snap off the lobster's tail.

the bluest eyes

right smack in the middle of socializing at various barbecues, parties, and weddings there have been a few times recently where i have felt as if i want to close my eyes, slap my hands over my ears and press down really hard to block out the bla-bla-bla sound of what i'm hearing.

it's like i'm getting a migraine—i want to silence the world of obnoxious talk any way i can to help settle my head and to make the flow of annoying words stop.

but the strange thing is, i'm not getting a migraine; i'm not overwhelmed by headache pain. in fact i am remarkably headache free, although perhaps i feel a smidgen nauseous.

it's true that my ears seem to be ringing and my head feels full of something. i don't have a name for that something yet, but maybe by the time i get to the end of unburdening my soul (i.e. complaining, i.e. ranting), i will have come up with one.

i'm not by nature a complainer and i don't like to listen to complainers. but today i'm going against all that: i'm going to indulge in a little rant.

lately i seem to be having the misfortune of running into, and getting into "conversations" with—that is, if they can even be called conversations—a particular type of person. i don't mean to appear impatient, frazzled or peeved—yet, honestly, i'm all of those—but what i have been listening to makes me want to do more than block my ears. i want to do something out of character for someone as calm and peaceful and even-tempered as i am, like, maybe, s.c.r.e.a.m.

what i'm hearing that makes me want to act in a mildly disturbing manner is similar to what we all read in yearbooks and think nothing of, you know, superlatives—the best athlete, the most improved hockey player, the most likely to succeed, the funniest person, the person with the biggest smile, the most studious, the most musical, the most artistic. or conversational superlatives such as the best cook, the most beautiful baby, the greatest voice, the bluest eyes, the most talented son.....

"my grandson is the most well-behaved child i have ever met."

"that was the best book i have ever read."

"my daughter is the best mother, better than i ever was."

are some people just prone to speaking in annoying superlatives, and am i only now noticing this tendency, or is this a new phenomenon?

whatever the case may be, i have unfortunately bumped into these types of talkers recently; that is something else the superlative people have in common—they are the biggest talkers. not only are they big talkers, they also tend to talk exclusively about themselves and the people they know in addition to managing to heave a superlative into every other sentence. what's with that? braggers, the lot of them. why won't they just shut up already?

these are the most boring, most self-absorbed people in the world.

i am going mad with superlatives.

get me out of here fast.....

.....faster.....

.....fastest.

sorry.