Velvet Verbosity

Velvet Verbosity Has Moved

2007-10-18T23:35:00.000-04:00

Due to an error in the Blogger upgrade several months ago, I couldn't log into this blog anymore to update or even to leave a forwarding address. Suddenly, as if by magic, I can log in again and I've debated about what to do. Should I delete this blog and move any good stuff over to the new one? I would lose all comments (not like there are hundreds, but still, there's a few good ones). OR, should I transfer stuff from the new blog over to this one? Again, I would lose comments, though not as many because I lost readership when I couldn't leave a message as to where I had gone and why I wasn't blogging. I like the format of the new blog better, so I think I'll be inclined to keep it until I'm ready to get my very own piece of virtual real estate.

While I think about what to do, if you've stumbled here, you can find my new blog at www.velvetverbosity2.blogspot.com. Come and visit!

Hunger Pains

2007-01-01T14:21:00.000-05:00

The room was white peeling plaster
and yellowed wallpaper
that slumped and separated
from the walls
in great bubbles.
We sat
five of us to a sagging bed
passing around bottles of cheap beer.
A lightbub shone white and hot
over our bobbing heads --
Teenage angst,
lust and anger burned inside our skulls
making its way out our mouths
and down
to our loins
filling our narrow eyes with electricity
that traveled invisible across unseen wires
plugging straight
into our impoverished swollen hearts.

We were starved for love then --
like the little brown children
on the television with their staring eyes and flies
on their faces;
their distended bellies pushing out
as they stood in the dust.

We gorged ourselves on love affairs
thrown at our feet
like bags of rice, but we could not
absorb what was good in it.
It ran through us like dirty water
and we could only keep feeding --
howling at night in our beds
at the hunger pains burning.

Cutting the Cord

2007-01-01T13:21:00.000-05:00

This first morning of 2007 I was met with not one single new email. I thought it strange and made sure my account was working properly. After several different types of tests, I have determined that Smith had me on an automatic shut off schedule. I no longer have a Smith College email address. Woe is me.

It's not even the hassle of setting up a new email, or sending out one gigantic bulk email to everyone with a new address that has me upset. It's the change. It is the passing of something entirely symbolic of a time in my life that is now over.

Those who know me might mistakenly think that I am a woman who embraces, and perhaps even covets change. A quick inventory of my life would reveal many moves, many risks taken, many new paths courageously forged and a seeming willingness to leap over the edge again and again.

It is partly true. I have never been afflicted with that condition known as "fear of change". At least not on the level that it prevents me from making new plans, or uprooting my life and everything I know in order to pursue a goal. But the whole truth is that once I am done riding the wave of change, and find myself washed up on a new shore, I lay there shivering and moaning for days. I have to grieve what is past, and I feel the need to grieve fully over every path ended.

And so, this morning when the realization hit me that I had actually been finally and completely severed from Smith as a current student, I felt the grief rise up from my belly and wrap itself loosely around my throat. I expect three days of brooding, brow-furrowing type behavior from myself before I can get both feet fully onto the next path. I wonder if I was moody and pensive in those first days after the exodus from the womb?

(Oil painting "Letting Go" by Rebecca Gottesman, can be found here)

Streetlight Montreal

2006-12-01T01:21:00.000-05:00

The Goods

2006-11-13T01:17:00.000-05:00

Just what have I been up to?

* Buying a car. This was a painful yet exhilerating process. After some false leads, and dashed hopes, I have found her. A creamy Subaru Outback. She is a sleek and sexy beast; capable, comfortable, powerful and delightful. If this car were a person, she would be a lean, robust woman, adept at everything she put her hand to, sensuous, mysterious, powerful, precise and quietly intelligent. What name should I give her?

* Searching for artwork for the program cover of the Christmas Vespers concert at Smith College. I spent a delicious afternoon in the Mortimer Rare Book Room, paging through the hefty volume of a German history of the world published in 1493 (the title escapes me now, and I kick myself for not writing it down) filled with woodblock prints of kings, queens, and saints being murdered. I'm not entirely sure why I was directed to this book when I described what I was looking for (Victorian angels perhaps), but surely the blank expressions on both murderers' and victims faces' was not it. No matter, it was a pleasure just to lay my hands on a piece of work that spends it's time locked away behind protective glass.

* Thinking. Of course this is not unusual, for me, or anyone else. It is the intensity of it that has kept me from the keyboard.

No words

2006-11-11T00:03:00.000-05:00

I know, where the hell have I been?

Observations I Can't Remember

2006-11-05T22:46:00.000-05:00

I've seen and encountered many interesting things and people over the last couple of weeks, and now that I am finally here in front of my computer, I can't recall any of them.

Currently reading: Paradise Lost, Possession (for the 56th time), and Prioritizing Web Usability.

Found this photographer.

Where Did She Come From?

2006-10-27T00:01:00.000-04:00

I gave birth, almost fourteen years ago, to an unbelievable life force. Loud, forceful, funny, outgoing, athletic, brave-as-all-hell, thoughtful, organized, and stunningly beautiful. Everything I'm not. How does that happen?

Today, she and I were driving around looking for a parking spot, and in one of the few parking lots, there was a car just sitting, idling. The first time we drove by, we looked in and took note that the occupants of the car were a young, good-looking couple. As I drove past the car several minutes later, for the second time, I wondered aloud what they were doing just sitting there. It was annoying me for no particular reason. I thought maybe they knew something I didn't, like that in two minutes half the stuffed parking lot would clear out, and they were just patiently waiting for some prime downtown parkage.

After I grumbled to myself, "what the heck are they doing?", my daughter promptly replied, "They're being hot...just give them a minute".

Out of the mouths of babes...

A Good Laugh Does the Body Good

2006-10-23T22:50:00.000-04:00

This from "A Girl Named Zippy", a wonderfully funny and touching memoir about growing up in Mooreland, Indiana. I've laughed right out loud at least 10 times reading this, causing my daughter to sigh over her homework, and then demand that I tell her what is soooo funny.

"I didn't believe in God, had not ever, as far as I could remember, believed in God, and yet I was reluctant to formulate the thought too clearly, not to mention speak it aloud, for fear that poor God would hear it and get His feelings hurt.

I believed that the baby Jesus had gotten born, and that was all lovely. Christmas was my favorite time of the year, in part because of the excellent speech, "Fear not: I bring you good tidings of great joy..." and because of the song "The Little Drummer Boy." Anything that involved such persistent percussion was undoubtedly both religious and true.

After he ceased to be a baby, Jesus held little interest for me, until he reached the age where he sat for the portrait that hung above the swinging doors in the vestibule of the Mooreland Friends Church. In the painting, which glowed from a fluorescent light bulb hung beneath it, the Big Jesus looks pensive and honey-eyed. His shoulder-length, light-brown hair is as clean and shiny as corn silk, and he has a beautiful tan. He is way better looking than either Glen Campbell or Engelbert Humperdinck.

I wanted him to be my boyfriend. My feelings about Jesus didn't alarm me at all, because it appeared that everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people. I didn't buy the bit about his terrible death and resurrection for a minute. I knew, beyond and room for doubt, that nothing in this world is both alive and dead. And this was the thing I most wanted to say in church: if you want him to be alive, you've got to stop hanging him on that cross. But it appeared that the cross was what the people of Mooreland valued above all else--more than his life, more than the sweet way he carried lambs on his shoulders in the pictures on the fans furnished by Main & Frame Funeral Homes--the cross, and the way he got sucked up into heaven to be with the Father who killed him. It was such and objectionable story that I decided to skip it. I decided that Jesus was alive, just as people claimed, and that he lived in the trees around my house. He had picked me out personally, and was following me around, watching my every move. Sometimes I lay out in the backyard with my blue tape recorder, just holding the microphone up to t the sky. I figured if Jesus was ever going to break his long silence, it would be on a warm, breezy day in Mooreland, with his best girl waiting patiently in the grass. The tapes I made were very peculiar and very boring. The only voice heard is that of my dad, telling me he's waiting inside with the Campho-Phenique and the Chig-a-Rid. No one ever tried to discourage me; it is written in our very bones, as a people, that true religion requires sacrifice."

Whoopin it up!

2006-10-19T20:58:00.000-04:00

Today, I crossed the field where the local Smithie girls play Ultimate Frisbee, noticing my feet getting kind of damp from the wet grass. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, my world abrubtly converged with a stranger's.

She (the stranger) was riding along on her bicycle in all her short-haired, salvation army attired, messenger bag shouldered glory when, suddenly, some unnamed joy seized upon her so that just before we would enter each other's visual fields, she belted forth a loud whoop...a hearty "WooHoooooooo!", that she let arc out of her young, proud mouth.

For the briefest of moments, we were face to face, her head turned to greet me as I stepped out from behind the fence, and our eyes met and lit up, and our faces beamed acknowledging smiles at what had just been shared. Then she was gone, my bicycle messenger of joy.

(Image from www.vanillabicycles.com because this post is about the convergence of strangers, and bicycles and joy, and in my humble opinion Vanilla Bicycles are all about joy in the form of bicycles, and I suppose I could fit strangers in there too if I thought about it.)

Secret Sorrow

2006-10-19T02:42:00.000-04:00

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to know the secret source of your sorrow."

He says it plainly enough, but I feel my tongue clamp to the roof of my mouth. I smile, look away, pretend to be thinking.

He gently takes me off the hook with a light response, "Of course, we all have sorrow, stemming supposedly from our separation from the Divine."

We laugh at this and I rest my head on his chest. At least for tonight I won't have to risk anything.

ABC

2006-10-18T19:10:00.000-04:00

When did America forget how to spell? I am amazed at the number of semi-professional websites out there with spelling errors in almost every sentence. Last night, after browsing a designer's website and feeling pretty inspired and somewhat intimidated, I went to his "ideas" page. Three paragraphs chock full of spelling errors. Some that could be dismissed as typos, but others were just downright embarrassing! I felt compelled to contact him and beg him to fix the errors that, for me, detracted so strongly from any idea of professionalism I might have at first respected him for. His artistic work was pure genius!

My own children seem to think spelling is for nerds and old people (like myself apparently). In the age of internet communication, who needs correct spelling? That's their philosophy, and sadly it echos through an entire generation.

Just take a little browse through some random blogs, or personal websites...you'll be horrified, I'm sure.

I've been quoted...

2006-10-17T02:10:00.000-04:00

Checking out my statcounter stats, I noticed several people had visited from blog.thisnext.com. I couldn't figure out what the link was. Then I found it here http://blog.thisnext.com/blog/sweet-tea-tree.html. I was quoted.

Cool. Does this mean I've arrived?

Busy

2006-10-10T00:03:00.000-04:00

I'm still here. Just swept along in a current of activity and work. Photographed the reception for a family wedding over the weekend. Here are a few shots (taken with just my little Canon Powershot).

100 Words Challenge

2006-10-04T00:40:00.000-04:00

For tomorrow, or tonight, or heck, why not right now? Post here or on yer own blog, exactly 100 words on "Fragility". I'll be back with mine.

To inspire you:

"...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings." - Sogyal Rinpoche

100 Words on Grace

2006-10-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

“Your button is broken,” you whisper.

Your fingers, full of grace, reach toward me, lingering at the top button of my cardigan. My breath snares in my chest. This is not the first time you've touched me… why does this always happen? When will the air stop crackling around your dark head? When will time cease to fracture when you stand close? When will the time come when my touch doesn’t elicit a gasp from your throat? When will I be immune to you…and you to me? I close my eyes, and a whisper burns bright in my skull…”Never.”

(Image: "Boise Wet Leaf". Michael Wood)

The Bear

2006-10-03T21:52:00.000-04:00

Photo Album

2006-10-03T06:55:00.000-04:00

It is 1976 and my white hair falls well below my shoulders, skimming the floor and picking up dust when I lean under the bed to pull out the photo album. I run the pads of my fingertips over the front of the album, across the face of the foal pictured there. At 6, I'm a natural at wistful longing.

Inside are three pages of photos spanning a decade or so. In one, he leans coolly against a car, not smiling, but soberly penetrating the lens of the camera. This picture I took from a box of photos belonging to my mother and I imagined it was taken during their "dating" pre-baby years. In another, he is younger still, dressed in a military uniform. I retrieved this one from the same box and I know this was taken before my mother. She knew him after he was in the navy. That much I knew...that much and little else.

I stare for long moments, look into his eyes and try to figure out who he was, where he could be now, and why he didn't love me enough to stick around and see me through childhood. I hated and longed for him simultaneously, the hate playing a much smaller part because it was dangerous to be too angry. What if there was a good reason? What if something had happened to him? No, it wasn't ok to hate him. At 6, I knew that too.

I fantasized about him knocking on my door and scooping me up with a big smile, clamping me with strong arms and assuring me he never ever would have stayed away so long if he hadn't been lost at sea, his pockets full of the letters he couldn't send. I strain over the photos in the album, some fading, trying to piece together who this man was, my father, trying to remember his voice, his smell, his laugh. I remember nothing of those things, though I paint my own picture of him in my mind, glued together from the photos on the page.

(image: http://www.garderisettes.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=57)

Favorite Quote

2006-10-03T00:11:00.000-04:00

From The Pillowbook:

"We two remake our world by naming it together, knowing what words mean for us and for the others for whom current coin is cold speech - but we say, the tree, the pool, and see the fire in air, the sun, our sun, anybody's sun, the world's sun, but here, now, particularly our sun..."

Future

2006-10-02T23:58:00.000-04:00

What is the "future"?

From Wikipedia.org: "In a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the timeline that has yet to occur, i.e. the place in space-time where lie all events that still have not occurred. In this sense the future is opposed to the past (the set of moments and events that have already occurred) and the present (the set of events that are occurring now)."

The future is unknown, unwritten. A plane of infinite possibilities recommended by the now. Each event builds upon the first to write the future. We can't know it, and any discussion of it is no more than fanciful theory. Five minutes from now I could die in a freak accident or from an undetected bloodclot wedged into my brain, or I could discover a disease that will irrevocably alter my path. Or, we could kiss, and what future would that write?

(Image: "The Unfolding", Oil on Canvas by Rassouli.
http://www.rassouli.com/occult.htm)

Sunny Face

2006-09-28T00:07:00.000-04:00

Karme Choling, 2006

"Free Hug Campaign"

2006-09-26T01:07:00.000-04:00

I'm a sucker for joy-spreading-activities, such as this one.

Rust(ic) Barns and Why They're Red

2006-09-25T23:34:00.000-04:00

Driving through Connecticut with my Dad and brother this weekend, someone in the car asked, "why do you think barns are mostly red?".

Now, given that the three of us are genetically predisposed to strong opinions (presented as fact) and liking to hear ourselves talk about theory on just about any topic, the silence that followed was highly unusual. I was sufficiently moved enough to google this question as soon as the next free moment arrived.

I found some interesting theories and myths about the origins of the red barn craze. The most interesting (i.e. coherent and short) and perhaps plausible (i.e. it doesn't cause my skeptic alarm to sound) explanation was found here, and copied for you here:

Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil -- a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime. The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly. (Today, linseed oil is sold in most home-improvement stores as a wood sealant.) Now, where does the red come from?

In historically accurate terms, "barn red" is not the bright, fire-engine red that we often see today, but more of a burnt-orange red. As to how the oil mixture became traditionally red, there are two predominant theories:

Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.
Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.

Regardless of how the farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. They were a sharp contrast to the traditional white farmhouse.

As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy. Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up.

Huh, tinted with blood eh? Well, that's kind of, er, disturbing. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a quaint country barn in a field somewhere and feel that sweet nostalgic wave again. (Shudder)

She Runs

2006-09-21T23:30:00.000-04:00

I see her every morning, and sometimes in the afternoon. She runs up and down my road every day, but she doesn't look like a runner. She doesn't have proper running shoes, or clothing. She looks pained but isn't sweating. She doesn't move like a runner, she holds her arms the wrong way.

It is safe to say that she is probably new at this sport of running, but it isn't only that. She is overcoming something. Running, for her, is not just an avenue for a firmer body and better stamina. No, she is running for other reasons, and I can see them written all over her.

She runs to escape a past, to get ahead of the present, and in the hopes of arriving in a new future. She runs to break the barriers between the universe she lives in now, and the parallel universe that could be her life. She runs to build...her muscle, her confidence, her dreams, her will. She runs to escape the last remnants of darkness that cling inside her. She runs against the grain, against everything she has ever been shown, ever been taught, ever been allowed. She runs for freedom. She runs to save her soul.

(Image: Sean Gabriel Ellul http://www.sellul.com/dmaster12.html)

Word Challenge

2006-09-19T21:38:00.000-04:00

I do love words. Put together in coherent fashion they constitute language, and language facilitates thought, communication and progress.

My favorite words for today:
*vanquish
*lathe
*order
*intent
*crimson
*wash

The list is simple, as is my request. If you are reading this, comment using one or all of the words, OR write a post on your own blog using the words, and kindly direct me to it. Don't make my next favorite word list include "bozo". cheerio!

Dogs of Germany

2006-09-18T22:32:00.000-04:00

Lazy Alpine Pup

Cafe Greyhounds

Beauty

This lovely beast wanted to join our tour group

Munich Airport

Ballerina

2006-09-18T02:41:00.000-04:00

1999

The New Look and Bugs Under the Rug

2006-09-18T02:32:00.000-04:00

I got tired of looking at that subdued green, so I changed my blog template today. However, blogger.com is apparently not yet clever enough to recognize that a light font used on a dark background, will not show up should someone change their background to white. Now I have to either live with the subdued green forever, start a whole new blog, or manually change the font color on all the posts.

sigh.

A little each day, I'll change the font color on the posts manually so they are visible.

However, I can't seem to get rid of some of the font funkiness going on. Some posts now have two different fonts when they are not meant too.

I repeat...le sigh.

Computer Miksang

2006-09-18T02:11:00.000-04:00

At my Desk, 2006

Back in the Saddle...or should I say Toe Clips?

2006-09-17T22:35:00.000-04:00

I'm not feeling particularly poetic or political today, so instead:

Yesterday I strapped my bike on the back of my car and headed into the back roads of Northampton for a free bicycle clinic sponsored by my friends, the Pedal People. Every Saturday they provide the space, the tools, and guidance for you to repair your own bike. This fact makes me do a little happy dance!

In the basement are crates and plastic tubs full of spare parts that have been pulled off discarded bikes and out of dumpsters. They are all organized for easy locating and free unless you feel compelled to make a donation that will most likely be refused. Patch kits are $2.00 a piece. Every tool you could possibly need and more, all clean, all organized, and all a blessing. The picture below is of the work bench, just a small part of the tool collection and many were outside in the hands of novice bike repair-ers at the time this photo was taken.

Myself, I needed a new back tire and tube, both of which were already in my trunk, just waiting to be put on. Below is the blown out tire after I took it off the frame. The sidewalls were completely ruined from my son riding it home with a flat. (Derned teenagers!)
I found two holes in the tube that I'll patch up next week so that I have a spare tube on -hand. I marked the holes with a pen so that next week I can get straight to work on the patches.Ah, new tire (below). Ready for the road and trails! Took me a while to get it back into the frame, until Ruthy kindly pointed out I had a spring in backwards. Doh!
Sitting all winter in a damp basement left some rust on the chain, so I needed to lube up.

Ready for the ride home!

On This Day

2006-09-11T22:28:00.000-04:00

Today, my daughter's teacher asked the class if they remembered what they were doing on 9/11. I've been thinking about that since she told me casually while we were picking up groceries for tonight's dinner.

That year we were living in Vermont at a residential Buddhist meditation center. Back then, the community was still set up to have "open days" when the retreat center closed down and everyone was off for the day. We would work for two weeks including weekends, and then have 2-4 open days. The first thing most of us would do on an open day was to go into town to visit the bookshop, the restaurants, or see a movie.

I walked up the long driveway that morning, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Summer was lingering in Northern Vermont and the sun was shining. When I reached the main house, a couple of people were on the porch enjoying some morning conversation. A car was parked in front and the engine was running. Someone was in the passenger seat listening to the radio. I figured it was Vermont Public Radio because I could hear news. We didn't have televisions and didn't subscribe to any newspapers at the retreat center, so we got our news every couple of weeks from radio.

I walked up to the passenger window to say hello to one of my co-workers and community members. She shushed me as I leaned in, then she turned up the radio. It was around 9:00 in the morning. A reporter had interrupted a music show to announce that a plane had just flown into one of the twin towers. Having gotten used to being somewhat removed from the media, I didn't hang around long to hear the report repeated in a half-dozen different ways. At that time, it sounded like a tragic accident and while I felt sadness I didn't want to perpetuate it.

I walked up the steps to the large front porch and joined the others already there. I told them what I had just heard on the car radio and for a minute or two this was the topic of conversation, fueled by general curiousity and compassion toward the passengers on the plane. It had not yet occurred to us to think about the people in the building. It had not yet occurred to us that this was anything more than an accident. Abruptly, D came out the front door onto the porch and without looking at us, announced that the second tower had been hit by a plane and another had gone down near the Pentagon. Her skin was sickly white and she was looking through us.

"My son...he works in one of those buildings.", was the last thing she said before disappearing back into the house.

The three of us sat there staring at the space where D had been just seconds before. We didn't know what to think, where to begin, what to do. We were stunned, confused, suddenly afraid. We had gathered that the plane crashes were no accident, but rather some sort of attack on the U.S. In low voices we wondered aloud to each other if we were at war on American soil. We couldn't even conceive of what that would mean.

Dazed we got up one by one and held the door for each other to go into the main house. We found people gathered around a radio in the dining room. Upstairs someone was retrieving a television from a storage closet and later we would gather together in a small room and weep as we watched the news footage. All of us were particularly raw having lived in a small community, many of us for more than a year, and working daily on developing and cultivating compassion. To add to our vulnerability, we had all voluntarily removed ourselves from the bombardment of media. (A year later when I would leave the retreat center, I would find normal television painfully overwhelming...the noise, the rapidity of movement and screen changes, and certainly the violence.)

The director called us to the main shrine room, and there we gathered in the only sane way we could. We did the only thing we knew how. On September 11, 2001, I and forty or so other Buddhist lay practitioners sat in meditaiton together in a renovated farmhouse on 500 acres of Vermont woodland. We cut through pain, confusion, and fear. We sat there for hours without talking, without working ourselves into a frenzy...the kind of frenzy of fear that the Bush administration would prey on to wage their war against Iraq...without perpetuating and prolonging fear and we let the sadness sit fully. At that moment, it was the best any of us could do.

It may seem passive, or in some ways slightly ridiculous that we thought the best thing to do was to just simply "sit". But what were the alternatives for us in that moment? We could relive the horror, over and over, by watching the news and let fear and worry overtake us. Essentially, become ripe for poor decision making. We could talk incessantly about what should be done and spread fear and hatred amongst ourselves causing the harm done by the terrorists to extend far beyond the lives taken.

We chose instead, since we could do nothing directly in that moment, to at least cease the spread of confusion, hatred and fear. I now feel immensely thankful for where I was that morning.

Death

2006-09-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

Vienna

How I Was Found

2006-09-08T00:37:00.000-04:00

Google search: "how to live with teenagers". That's how someone found my blog today. For the rest of you, my few and faithful readers, I assure you I will be back soon. I have several deadlines I'm trying to keep at the moment.

Suspension

2006-08-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

Montreal

Found

2006-08-31T22:02:00.000-04:00

I offer you this link http://furyouhin.blogspot.com/ even though it comes at the risk that I will lose all (7) of my regular readers.

Is there a publisher in the house?

M&M Birthday

2006-08-31T20:05:00.000-04:00

Six days from now is my birthday.

I’ll be 36.

While this is not generally one of the “big” years (you know, the ones where people feel compelled to razz you about your age, send you "funny" cards, and ask loudly how oooold you're turning this year..), I feel celebratory. I feel some kind of joyous vibe boiling up in my blood! I think it has less to do with my it being my birthday, and more to do with the fact that this year on my birthday, I won’t have just started classes and I won’t be “student” po’. Yet, I think it’s more than just that. Whatever the reason, celebrate I will! I’ve invited everyone over for margaritas and Monopoly.

If I’m going to be factual here, I should say that the “Monopoly” game is really a fundraising knockoff called, “The Best of Northampton”. And if you’re from Northampton, it makes the game really quite fun in a cute, “aw, that’s where I get ice-cream every Friday” kind of way. Given to me by someone at Smith and I don’t think she even realized I could technically count it as an early birthday present. (I wonder what the margin of days is on either side of a birthday where you can count a present as an early or late birthday gift...)

Clearly I’m rambling...this is what happens when I’m uninspired but feel compelled to write something.

(Painting: "Mariachi Margarita" by Steven Simon. Found at
http://www.hawaiian-art.net

I'd Like to Dedicate this to all My Blog Peeps

2006-08-27T15:47:00.000-04:00

"I Started a Blog That Nobody Read"

Nazi Work Camp

2006-08-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

Germany, 2006

Star Glass

2006-08-24T19:47:00.000-04:00

Karme Choling
Barnet, VT

13

2006-08-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

Her world is now vivid and sharp-edged. Her world is 13. Her world is self-important, self-indulgent, fulsome and large...yet so small to any onlooker.

I know that world, I remember it. The aching needs that must be filled while the source eludes. The terrible clamor of peer-pressure knocking at every turn. The feverish race to be in. To not keep up is to be "out" and that is no place anyone wants to be at 13. To be "out" is social death. At 13, it might as well be real death. 13 hasn't comprehended what that means anyway.

The body, oh the terrifically annoying body that is never the right size or shape...too big, too small, too round, too narrow, too tall, too short, too curvy, too flat.

13 is the world of "everyone else". Everyone else has the goods, and 13 doesn't understand it's all an illusion. If just once, they would all drop the illusion at precisely the same moment, unveil all the massive insecurity, it might cause a wave of cosmic energy so powerful that the earth would shift on its axis.

Time Flies...

2006-08-18T01:48:00.000-04:00

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Be patient, this video has some blank play in the beginning. And the text didn't translate well in Quicktime. At the end, it reads, "Time flies, and we fly with it"

Viewing the Crown Jewels

2006-08-17T21:44:00.000-04:00

Vienna 2006

Two Trains Passing in Vienna

2006-08-17T21:39:00.000-04:00

Vienna 2006

Over and Under

2006-08-17T21:21:00.000-04:00

At the traffic light I see them. He is capable, fit, loose in his body, and confident. He crosses the busy street with ease, knowing without effort how much give and take is needed to navigate the traffic. His shirt lifts as the cars pass. He doesn't hesitate, he moves like liquid between the cars.

The other He waits on the curb, smiling nervously, fists shoved into pockets as he waits for an opening that on this street, may never come. His eyes alternate between his confident companion walking away, not turning back, and the cars speeding by bumper to bumper. He flips his hair in an effort to look confident, to appear cool with it.

For the first time, my heart does not weep for the underdog. I simply see...see that one will move through his life with ease and this will burn him in ways he has yet to come to understand...and the other will agonize over each decision, each word he speaks, and this will probably bring him more security than he can now imagine.

Music You Should Listen To Today

2006-08-14T01:29:00.000-04:00

The sun has been shining for days now...the nights are cool and quiet, and the smell of Autumn is just around the next corner. Perfect days for folk, swing, jazz, and joyful oddities. Here are my recommendations for today:

"Shine" by Monsterbuck...Tugs my heartstrings every time. Since this is a friend of mine, I heard it for the first time around a campfire.

"Send Me a Man" by Alberta Hunter ...a wonderful accompaniment to sun and wind in your hair while cruising down country roads.

"Mountain Trip to Japan" by The Trachtenburg Family SlideShow Players...who I saw at the Iron Horse in NoHo. Up close and personal like. I think the mother is the most talented. I mean, got to keep that slide projector in working order you know!

"Neighborhood" by Space...oh c'mon, you know you want to sing along, even though it is a little, er...dark.

Love Tree

2006-08-12T00:18:00.000-04:00

"Love Tree"
Vermont 2005

Brave New World

2006-08-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

Commonsense.com has parenting tips for children and the internet. They cover "Communicating" (email, blogs, instant messaging), "Social Networking" (myspace, facebook, xango), "Downloading, and a few other topics.

I was particularly interested in what they had to say regarding blogs and social networking. They recommend that teens be careful what they post because potential employers or colleges could be looking at their profile and make decisions based on what they find there....

(pause)

I haven't quite processed how I feel about this. Not from a parenting point of view, but as an individual and citizen. I understand that the internet is a public domain. But so is a bar, a grocery store, a restaurant, a park, etc. I wouldn't expect that a potential employer would send out a spy to scrutinize my behavior in public. Just because it is easy to do an internet search on someone doesn't necessarily make it ok. As human beings, we ought to be afforded some privacy even in a public domain. In other words, people's past times outside of the work arena ought to be left alone.

Most of us have a professional persona, and our social persona. They can be very different, or not different at all, but the latter is rare. Would it be ok for a potential employer to call around to all the local bars to find out if you ever stop in for a drink? Would it be acceptable for them to snoop into all your friendships and relationships and then make judgements on your character? Would any of us feel comfortable knowing that letting our hair down after hours could result in termination or not getting the job?

Of course, there are always exceptions. If an employer found out that you not only stop in for a drink every once in a while, but that you tend to stay until closing every night, unless you are thrown out on the street first because of your obnoxious drunken behavior. Or that all your friends happen to be convicts or ex-convicts.

Still...what if these things were so, yet at work you were nothing but professional and on top of your game? Unless you're a public official, should it matter? Should it?

"The Journey"

2006-08-09T00:05:00.000-04:00

Words hold powerful meaning in my life, not just in what they say but when and how they say it. This poem, by Mary Oliver, for instance. I heard Garrison Keeler read it on Writer's Almanac one morning, and at that precise moment it mirrored my life so cleanly that I felt like it was written for me...and that somehow Garrison had divined this knowledge and was broadcasting the words to sink into the marrow of my bones.

Enjoy...

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations--
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own, that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

(Picture Credit: "Woman Spirit - The Questfilled Journey" Painting by Susan M. Spohn. www.spiritsculptures.net)

An Explanation

2006-08-08T23:59:00.001-04:00

You've probably all given up on me by now. Or, like me, summer has wrapped itself around you and pulled you into its joy and swiftness. When the days grow shorter and the evenings cool, I will return to weave some stories.

2006-07-03T02:45:00.000-04:00

Pascal's House, Montreal

I'm Gonna Miss This Place

2006-06-17T20:43:00.000-04:00

Tonight is my last night in my Smith apartment.

I'm going to miss it.

The french doors, the hardwood floors, the windows (oh the windows), the nifty oldstyle ironing board that comes out of a small closet in the kitchen, the front porch where many fond memories were forged, the little market across the street where I shop every day and they know my name, the very short walk to downtown (i.e. cafes, food, and wine), the view up Bedford Terrace and the beautiful Smith buildings, the built-in pantry, the closet space, my enormous dining room, friends being right upstairs (good for a cup of sugar, a stick of butter, company, laughter, and sharing wine and chocolate)...

yeah, I'm going to miss this place.

(That's the view from our porch)

I want...I want

2006-06-16T20:36:00.000-04:00

I'm lusting for craftsmanship I can't afford. I don't care much for material things for the sake of having them...for the sake of show or keeping up with the Joneses.

But I do have expensive taste when it comes to craftsmanship. My mother used to say I could pick out the most expensive item in a store in seconds flat when I was a child. She was referring to clothes. It was true, I based my preference on what felt good, and that usually meant more expensive fabrics, careful craftsmanship around the seams and so on.

Today, there are two things I'm lusting after.

1. A Vanilla bicycle. These are hands-down the most beautifully crafted bicyles on the planet and I WANT one. Actually, I would like two but that's just greedy.

2. A Leica camera. Again, I want more than one. I want an R-series, the new SLR digital body, and the mini-digital reproduction made by Minox (recently absorbed into Leica).

So forget the roses, bring me crafted metal and smooth working gears. I'll love you forever.

(Image from www.vanillabicycles.com)

At the Window

2006-06-15T02:00:00.000-04:00

"At the Window"
Salzburg - 6/06

Bavaria Swans

2006-06-15T01:50:00.000-04:00

"Castle Swans"
Bavaria - 6/06

Salzburg Kitty

2006-06-15T01:29:00.000-04:00

"Salzy"
Salzburg - 6/06

2006-05-31T14:41:00.000-04:00

Hate the smell of chemicals in your home or on your skin? Worried about what you're flushing down the sink drain? Environmentally conscientious but still want things that work?

Myself, I've been called a "domestic bohemian" and a "pampered hippy". I think what people are getting at is that I try to do my best by the environment and my body, but I still like products that WORK!

Recently I've discovered some new products and rediscovered some old ones and I thought I would share my recommendations for anyone who cares.

For cleaning house:

1. Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap (you can choose any other scent but I particularly like this one). I rediscovered Dr. Bronner's while at someone's house who used it on their floors. I used to use it to kill white flies on herb plants and in a pinch for soap and shampoo. I don't recommend it for shampoo as it seems to leave my hair tangled and a bit dry. HOWEVER, I discovered that it does make an excellent floor cleaner, is great on the bathtub and sink, and even for dishes. When mixed with hot water it dissolves soap scum and dirt easily, and no gloves needed since it's all natural! It does also make a great soap if you run out of deoderant and keeps you odor free all day.

2. Sun and Earth dish soap and all purpose cleaner. Mmmmm, smells like orange, suds but rinses easily. And the benefit of putting money into a small conscientious company.

Body products:

1. Burt's Bees has some of the best natural make-up around. I prefer natural because it feels better on my skin, and isn't perfumed. Their lip tints are the best for every day casual wear when you don't want to wear full on lipstick.

2. Burt's Bees pore refining mask. This is the absolute best clay mask I've ever found that isn't high cost. This is what turned me on to Burt's Bees in the first place. Totally transforms the skin.

3. Just found the best best wax kit EVER! It's called Moom, also all-natural, not actually a wax but works the same. Comes with reusable cloth strips and the stuff is soooo easy to rinse off. Just warm water and it comes right off. For men and women, for face and body, I highly recommend it. HIGHLY.

4. Also just found an essential oil perfume that I actually like. Tunisian Opium...yummy.

5. Tea Tree Oil. You need to have this in your medicine cabinet. Especially if you spend time outdoors. I've used this for so many things for myself and children. Helps clear acne, natural antiseptic, kills skin fungus like athlete's foot, repels ticks and mosquitos (also removes ticks), put a few drops in steamy water and inhale to open airways and clear congestion ...I know there's tons more. Just about any skin or scalp condition you can think of except ones that need moisturizing.

That should hold you for a while. Got any recommendations for me?

2006-05-28T02:50:00.000-04:00

100 Words of Innocence - Knowing of Truths

2006-05-26T19:18:00.000-04:00

Before we meet, before the first kiss is gifted, before I smell the scent of your neck, before your hand brushes a bare bit of my skin, before the space between us is closed, there is innocence.

I know nothing of you before these moments…no more than a stranger can know, no more than the truths you try to tell me. These truths are not real truths, they are only reflections of truths. Real truths are in the knowing of skin and what our eyes say to each other during passion or anger or in the soft light of morning

(The image is a woodcarving by Jean-Claude Gaugy: http://www.weinstein.com/gaugy/Innocence.jpg)

Contrast

2006-05-26T03:37:00.000-04:00

Prayer Feet

2006-05-26T03:36:00.000-04:00

She

2006-05-25T18:08:00.000-04:00

Growing Down

2006-05-25T13:01:00.000-04:00

He grew down instead of up. Sometimes people do that. It's not that he didn't try, but he built his stairs like a house of cards, only without grace and patience. It couldn't bear the weight of his pain.

He found it easier, when the cards began to fall, to go down..gravity and velocity his companions. He tried to take me with him, grabbed my ankles as he fell, and God help me I almost went. But my resolve to live was stronger than his pain, stronger than the force of gravity.

I didn't bother struggling. I slicked my ankles with vaseline, watched him slip, and said good-bye.

(Image from: http://abyss.hubbe.net/jeremiah/gallery/gfx/covers/jtv/lg/ep/s2/205-falling-lg.jpg)

2006-05-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

He Shuffles His Feet

2006-05-25T08:54:00.000-04:00

Driving this morning, I see him walking. Old man with a fisherman's hat, walking slowly. Maybe it is because I am halfway to 70 that I wonder if I will love an old man someday. If I will find the stoop in his shoulders and the shuffle of his feet endearing. If I will kiss his thinned softened lips and still feel a little spark.

As it happens in imperceptable increments, will I notice him growing old with me? Or will we look at each other and see each other exactly as the day we met?

It Has Begun...

2006-05-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

This morning is the Ivy Day Parade...a Smith College tradition. "Junior ushers lead a parade through campus, carrying vines of ivy (laurel vines) to be planted by the departing seniors as a symbol of their lifelong connection to the college. " Then we seniors will line the street, and Smith Alumnae will march through us by class year, led by a marching band.

It is quite a sight to see the alumnae who range in ages from their 20's to 80+. All lively, and still very connected to their Alma Mater.

I do love Smith.

Wolf in the Laundromat

2006-05-17T01:13:00.000-04:00

He sits in his car, with the door open, his long legs hanging out of the car...his shaggy head bent over a newspaper. He looks up as I walk by with the first of four baskets. He smiles and my heart pinches, shrinking in on itself. He is a predator. I know this when he smiles.

You see, the predator cannot be distinguished by any physical quality. He can take the shape of any man. You can't see it in the cut of his clothes, the style of his car, his walk, or the way he styles his hair. There are no tell-tale outer markings. He can wear a business suite and languish comfortably in board room chairs. He can coach children's soccer. He can wear the collar of God. He can run on the night streets and howl. He can breathe comfortably in the smoke of bars. He can stretch in the sun-warmed flesh of an athlete. He can rest inside the mind of the intellectual. It is a complex and subtle play of movement in his smile or in his eyes that reveals the predator inside.

A change in the eyes, quick, like the flash of a lightning bug in the dark heavy air of a summer night. There and gone. You peer, trying to predict when it will flash again, wonder to yourself if you imagined it.

I watch him out of the corner of my eye as I walk past, waiting for it. There, again...a certain hunkering of posture, a feline liquid swivel in the neck. And then the smile. So close to revealing the animal within that my skin begins to hum like a tuning fork, in tune with the hint of growling down deep in the throat behind his smiling teeth.

The children run up ahead of me into the laundromat, settling themselves into the blue cushioned seats below the television set that hangs in the corner. They crane their necks to see the cartoons playing.

"You have a lot of laundry there," he says as I pass with the third basket. This is what he says. But his smile says, "I see you. I see your small frame, and your tiny hands. I could take you in here, fold you in my strong arms, secure, and then tight. Devour you, take you inside to warm my empty belly. When your life slips away and you have moved from warm to cold, I will spit out your bones and slip into the night. I have time, child...I am patient."

I smile back, "Yes, two kids generate a lot of laundry."

Inside, I drop the basket on the counter, breathing in the humid perfumed air of the laundromat. I go back for the last basket.

"More?" he feigns surprise and lifts one eyebrow to emphasize it.

I nod and continue past him, careful not to walk too close...careful to keep my scent from his nostrils.

This time as I approach with my basket, he doesn't look up. He is bent over his paper. I come closer, closer still, and just at the moment he could look up to meet my eyes, he rustles the paper.

With fast feet I move past. My skin prickles and I imagine his hot breath chasing down the curve of my neck and spine. When I turn to look, he is still there, in his car, looking at me...smiling.

Inside I am safe in the company of flourescent lights and the mellow rhythm of the washers and dryers. I begin to sort the clothes into their piles of color and delicacy. Hot pinks and reds, denims and greens, stark whites for the hot bleach wash, and cashmere and silk for a gentle machine.

Suddenly his shoes are there in front of me. I stare at them while my hands continue their work. The shoes are brown, soft and worn. They are harmless. Those shoes can't tell you he is a predator.

My eyes move up to the denim swathed legs. His jeans are clean and unassuming. The faded blue kind that anyone can wear, and everyone does. Nothing there to indicate that underneath pulses the blood of a predator.

My eyes continue upward, to his chest and the earthy flannel shirt that rests atop muscle and flesh. It is buttoned nearly to the throat, above which is exposed the suntanned column of skin that leads to his chin.

There...it is there, in his smile. The wolf smile. I feel the flash in his eyes and look up to catch it, but it is gone.

"I hate having to come to the laundromat", he says. "It's such a process. Such an event, you know?"

But his smile says, "I like the smell of your fear. If I turn my head just so, close my eyes, I can imagine what you would be like. I am patient. Just stand there, let my idle chatter distract you as I step closer, until you feel the warmth, and it is too late. No need to get to know me, I am pure instinct. No need to get to know you, you are but trembling flesh."

"Mmmm", I hum in agreement. I work at ignoring him. He retreats to the vending machine, pondering the selection, inserts his money and retrieves a soda. I watch him as he walks over to the television, standing just behind the chairs where my children sit. I call to them to come help me, but they ignore me. I move from washer to washer, inserting the clothes, the soap, the quarters, pushing buttons.

A dryer buzzes. He turns to check if it belongs to him, and it does. He walks toward it and I realize I am in the middle of the space between him and the dryer. I hold my breath, bracing for the static of air, the pulse of energy that will bounce off my senses. I try not to look up, but I feel safer if I do, knowing that my gaze will hold in place the human mask that covers the fur and fangs.

The flesh around his eyes crinkles as he smiles at me. When he is past, I breathe. I grab a magazine from a stack and sit next to the children, not looking up. I listen to the sounds of his folding, the rustle of fabric rubbing on fabric, the soft puffs of warm air escaping their hiding places inside t-shirts and pant legs, the snap of towels as he whips them into straightness.

I hear the scrape and creak of the wicker basket he carries his clothes in as he lifts it from the counter, and then the soft padding of his brown shoes across the floor as he leaves. And if I turn my head just so, and close my eyes...underneath the sound of soft padding, I can hear toenails clicking on linoleum.

Six More Days

2006-05-15T22:08:00.000-04:00

Commencement (yes, Smith is backwards) is in six days. Sorry to keep counting down, but people, I've been here duking it out academically for four years! I'm allowed to tick the days off.

In the next three weeks I have to:
Plan a graduation party
Plan a move
Plan a trip to Austria and Bavaria.

Yes, that's right, this all happens between now and June 2. If my head didn't explode from the end of semester push, it surely will now!

Actually, I'm doing remarkably fine. I feel quite pleased, giddy, and the excitement continues to grow. I just need to stay healthy over the next few weeks and I'll be fine.

Hope the sun is shining wherever you are, because it sure as hell isn't here!

This Damn Bird

2006-05-15T01:16:00.000-04:00

I just want to preface this post with the fact that I love animals. You know I do.

However, there is a bird living somewhere on the side of our house. The side where all my apartment windows face. It repeats the same "chirrup tweet twitter tweet" at two second intervals...all day...all night. It never seems to move. Never seems to eat. Never seems to SHUT UP!

This bird is driving me to homicidal thoughts! Especially when trying to sleep. I dream of sling shots and letting loose my cat. I dream of rubber bands wrapped around a certain...little...BEAK!

At night I writhe in my bed going mad at this bird's insistent chirping. It drills into my head and nothing seems to drown it out. I put the pillow over my head but then I can't really breathe properly. I put the blanket over my head but it's not thick enough. I turn the fan on, but I still hear it!

Does anyone have a slingshot I can borrow? Just for a day?

(If you think I would ever actually cause harm to an animal...well, you should know me better than that.)

A Burial

2006-05-07T02:01:00.000-04:00

Outside, a slate November sky hangs low, its belly resting on the rooftops of our neighbors' houses. From this, I know to wear my blue parka, the one with the deep pockets and fake fur lining the hood.

I grab my red wagon and drag it, clattering, down the front steps. I don't like the noise it makes as I pull it behind me down the sidewalk. I like silence, but the noisy wagon is essential to my walks.

Secretly, I am pleased that the street is empty. No people, no cars. Everyone is at church except us...my parents are atheists. My parents are asleep in their big brass bed that is as high as the tip of my nose. I am also thankful for that. Alone is how I like to be in the world.

A few feet in front of me I see her, laying stiff on the cement. I close the gap and squat down to look more closely. A mother squirrel, of this I am sure. No blood...how did she die here? There is something coming out of her that looks like yellow eggs. I think these must be her babies.

Tears spill, not for her death, but because she will never know her babies and they will never know her. Because I knew the place where she fell meant that something had taken her life, something human...man-made. Because she should not be left to rot on this street made of oily asphalt.

Carefully, I pick up her rigid body and place her gently into the wagon. I walk more slowly now, trying to avoid the bumps in the sidewalk. I look back to make sure she is not jostling too much, and I cringe when I see her furred body slide from side to side.

I bury the mother and her babies in the brown dirt beneath the bowed branches of our weeping willow. This is where my own mother plants bulbs every year. I won't tell her...she would be mad.

Still my babies...

2006-05-07T01:56:00.000-04:00

He is 14...soon to be 15. As tall as me easily. When I kiss him goodnight, on the top of that head, beneath all that hair and boyish business I can still smell the baby - still smell the smell from the day he was born.

***************
"Mom? I can't fall asleep. Will you lay down with me for a while?"

I follow her into her room. The window is open and it is cool. I lay down beside her and I feel her fingers, child fingers, crossing my face in the dark, searching for my ear. She places one of her headphones in my ear and we are listening to Joni Mitchell together, breathing together in the dark with our toes wiggling in rhythm.

2006-05-01T02:47:00.000-04:00

Senior Ball 2006
"The Great Gatsby"

Fathers - 4/27/06

2006-04-29T03:46:00.000-04:00

Pediatrician waiting room, 3 p.m. - He is soft...soft face, soft brown eyes, soft long hair, soft body, soft shoes. His body whispers of warm waters, composting leaves and earth, endless gentle streams slowly smoothing the rocks.

His son is a small version of him and he dotes after his baby sister, she a pink cheeked child of delight and eager wonder. The father watches his son rock his sister on a rocking horse. The son looks to his father as he rocks her...once, twice, and again...smiling, seeking reassurance.

It comes, it never wavers. The father's approval is a beam streaming from eye to eye, unfaltering.

State Street, 4:25 p.m. - He is happy, happy, happy. His grin is almost silly, so full of happiness and pride. "Giddy" or "delirious with joy" come to mind as I watch him. Mom and baby on a bike in front of him, he takes up the rear where they cannot see the sparkles of love lighting up his eyes, brighter than the late afternoon sun that blinds me as I drive.

Lacrosse game, 6:30 p.m. - He has come straight from work to sit on the cold metal of the bleachers. The wind flaps at the bottom corner of his navy business suit. When he smiles, he is a movie star with his bright tiny pearl teeth flashing beneath black sunglasses. He is perfectly trimmed and perfectly proud.

2006-04-28T01:52:00.000-04:00

Summer 2005
"Vermont Freedom"

12:30 AM - The Coffee

2006-04-28T01:48:00.000-04:00

12:30 and I'm fading but I've still got pages to write. I need coffee but since I only drink it on a blue moon I've got none to brew.

I get in the car hoping something is open. I am still every inch a Northeast Kingdom (where they roll up the dirt roads at 6pm) girl so I assume the world stops at sundown.

The coffee shop windows are lit up. Good. I will have coffee tonight. Inside there is actually a LINE! Other Smithies getting their caffeine on.

A compact Indian man sits, impeccably dressed for the hour, at a corner table reading. His girlfriend contrasts him with her hippy stylings but I know they are together by the way their necks arc to bring their heads together across the small square of table.

I wait almost 15 minutes for my coffee. 15 minutes is far too long when sleep deprived and not having had a decent meal in days. I start to crave all the tastes on the menu. I want it all...sweet, tart, bitter, hot and filling, fluffy indulgence.

I can't help myself. My turn and I order my coffee AND a smoothie. Mango...yum.

*Note on picture - I googled coffee images and this one came up on the first page. I recognized it right away as Michael Wood's, a contemplative photographer I studied with in Montreal. However, when I clicked the link, it was contained in an index on someone's MIT page. No credit as far as I can tell, but I am almost 100% sure this is Michael Wood's. I'll look it up tomorrow when I have more time.

2006-04-21T00:41:00.000-04:00

Smith College Boathouse 2004

2 X 2 = 1

2006-04-18T23:48:00.000-04:00

We are two mirrors - you and I...
reflecting endlessly
toward each other
shimmering surfaces of silver
smoothed and glassed
revealing only other
and not ourselves

yet through this act we do reveal -
for two souls so alike
bound in separate skins
when reflecting
-in fact-
reveal

You Know You Live with Teenagers When...

2006-04-18T20:44:00.000-04:00

...you step out of the shower, dripping wet, and grope for a towel from the stack you just neatly folded last night, and your hand comes up empty.
No, there isn't a single one hanging either. You can either (a) dry off with a hand towel, (b) pull your clothes on over your wet skin, or (c) run naked through the house, traumatizing the evil teenagers who used 10 towels in 24 hours.

...you buy ice cream at 9 a.m. At 10 p.m. when the house is finally quiet, you open the ice cream box (you've been so looking forward to this) and there is one half melted scoop left, sadly clinging to the bottom corner of the box.

...you've just finished lugging 20 bags of groceries into the house and spent an hour trying to find space for all the food and collapse onto the couch only to hear a voice from the kitchen, "there's NOTHING to eat in this house!"

...socks in your house seem to live everywhere but drawers and hampers. You suspect they might walk on their own, but you can't confirm this.

...spoons disappear. (Where DO they go?) So you have to eat your cereal with chopsticks, and that one last half-melted scoop of ice cream with a butter knife.

To Correct or Not

2006-04-13T23:30:00.000-04:00

As sometimes happens with strangers, or people I just meet, someone asked me yesterday what happened to my eye.

I was born with a lazy eye. Trouble is, it didn't look that way all the time. So when my mom kept taking me to doctors, they told her it would correct itself. It didn't. When I learned to walk my mom noticed I would bump into things on my left side, so she paraded me back to the doctors, where it was discovered my optic nerve was deteriorating...rapidly. They put me through all kinds of tests, CAT scans and the like, thinking it was a brain tumor or something else. No.

During visual development, if there is no input, or weaker input from one eye, the brain prunes what isn't being used. In my case, it was the optic nerve of my left eye. Now, I am almost entirely blind in my left eye, and it turns in.

This leads me to the real topic of this post. Since I was about 16, when an optician told me that I could have the muscles surgically corrected, I've been thinking about having that surgery. Back then it was risky. I could lose vision in my good eye if anything went wrong. This sufficiently scared my mom and myself from pursuing it. Over the years, with medical advancement, the surgery has become less risky. So now I'm considering it again.

I have a lot of feelings about this. Very strong emotions. For one thing, I have lived with this "flaw" my entire life. It has become part of me. Like a gap between front teeth, or a mole on the cheek or something. For better or worse, it is part of my physical identity. Do I really want to change it?

Second, it hasn't seemed to detract from my attractability. So, why bother? Besides, I'm afraid I'll look a little...vanilla.

Third, I am terrified of any kind of surgery. What if something went horribly wrong? I'm not thinking death, but what if they really messed things up? There have been cases where when they cut the muscles, one snaps back behind the eye and they can never retrieve it. Ugh. This makes me feel sick.

So why am I contemplating it then? For my future professional life. People tend to make snap judgements during interviews. I know I've had lost opportunities because of it.

Because I hate photographs of myself that freeze this flaw. Because the eyes are the first point of contact with anyone. Because I'm tired of always having to explain it. Because I want people to hear what I'm saying and not be thinking about that. Because some men have been attracted to me for solely this reason and that borders too much on a fetish for my liking.

Maybe the most important thing, something that has taken me a very long time to uncover and admit to myself, is that it gets in the way of intimacy. My intimacy. I think there is something about intimacy that requires gazing into each other's eyes. I can't hold a gaze. When I look at someone, I tend to look more at their mouth. Even when I'm watching a movie. This must come from years of conditional and unconscious training.

Then there is the practical issue. Insurance won't cover it so far as I can tell from researching. It is considered cosmetic. And the surgery is fairly expensive, as surgery is. Do I spend that much money? Do I have that much money? If I did, shouldn't I use it to travel, put it in a college fund for my kids?

My Vanity...

2006-04-13T18:31:00.001-04:00

Sometimes karma has its own way of sending us messages. The one part of my body I am truly vain about is my hands. They are not perfect...my veins are visible, one of my fingers is crooked from an injury...but they are slender and long and as a child they were often remarked upon.

My fingertips I enjoy most, maybe because of the sensual pleasures they afford me. I like to trail my fingertips lightly over things...skin, water, metal, rocks, curves in architecture, staircase banisters.

Here's where karma comes in. Last year I developed a condition known as "fingertip excema". As the name suggests, it only afflicts the fingertips. First the skin becomes hard, not visibly, but I can feel it. As though there are invisible callouses on my fingertips. Then the skin begins to crack and peel. This is, of course, extraordinarily painful. More than that, I lose all sensation in my fingertips and so am robbed of the pleasure I derive from the nerve endings there.

It comes and goes, and when it goes I am delighted. So maybe this is a lesson in fragility and appreciation.

2006-04-03T04:09:00.000-04:00

Montreal 2001

A Challenge for You...

2006-04-03T04:05:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about words that I adore. Words that stop my mind for a moment when I am reading, or thinking. I am sleepy, so here are but a few. My challenge to you...one of the following:

Choose one and use it in a sentence in the comments.
Write a story or poem in your own blog based on one or using them all (be sure to direct me there)...
or, of course, share your own list here.

Words that I adore...
Adore
Hypnagogic
Velocity
Befuddled
Hours
Felicitous
Voluminous
Vigor
Fasten
Crimson
Piquant
Circumstance
Incorrigible
Bone
Indeed
Menace
Sear
Immensity

I look forward to your creative contribution!

At the last breath...

2006-03-27T17:49:00.000-05:00

In these long sad days,
I remember things...
important things.
How to breathe, how to sit,
how to move.
The shape of my skin
stretched across muscle and bone.
The hows and whens and whys
of being alone...
because that is how it will be
at the last breath.

2006-03-23T20:46:00.000-05:00

Our elementary school was starting a band program. Everyone on the bus was all abuzz after the day’s assembly where the instruments were paraded out and played before our wondering eyes and ears.

“I’m going to play the flute,” says one girl, bouncing in her seat.

“Me too!” parrot several girls.

“Well, I’m going to play the clarinet,” declares Dotty (Snotty Dotty as I call her in my head).

She turns to me, “What are you going to play?”

Thoughts of a shiny silver flute held delicately against my lips flit across my inner vision. I feel Snotty Dotty’s eyes boring into me.

I shrug. “Probly the trombone,” I say casually.

Snotty Dotty bristles, “What? You can’t play that! The trombone is for booyysssss.”

I shrug again.

*****

And that, dear readers, is how I came to play the trombone for six years. The first year I had to use my foot to reach all the positions...yeah, I was that tiny.

100 Words on Grace - Childhood

2006-03-19T12:47:00.000-05:00

There were acres and acres of land on Heather’s farm. We explored every inch of it that summer. We imagined ourselves as wild horses and ran with the real ones through the pastures and over the soft ground of the woods. Our long hair flew out behind us.

We ran with the lust of children while the sun pressed down on our heads. We ran for the pure joy of feeling our bodies working…bodies that were still new to us. There was nothing in the world but that moment …our awkward long limbs moving us with grace over the land.

2006-03-14T02:32:00.000-05:00

In Shannock the best sledding hill is my backyard. On snow days all the kids from the neighborhood gather there, dragging their bladed sleds and blue saucers. The "hill" is an enormous bowl in the ground...a crater. So we have contests to see who can make a run down the hill and make it the furthest up the other side. Cheating is not tolerated and warrants snow bombs upon the perpetrator.

We are tireless, pushing the trails further and further up the other side of the hill. We sweat inside our snowsuits and our noses turn red and run. We soak our mittens and ignore frozen toes until it becomes unbearable. Then we go inside, our lungs full of winter air and our cheeks windslapped red.

2006-03-14T00:14:00.000-05:00

Montreal, 2000

Things That are...Simple Pleasures

2006-03-13T07:21:00.000-05:00

Dear readers,

This is Post III in the "Things That are..." series. It is meant to be a call and response. I do hope that you will add your own items to the list in the comments.

"If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is not befitting the human mind." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Things that are...Simple Pleasures...

* Socks...of the cashmere, fuzzy, colorful or knee high variety...
* Hot tea with honey...
* Laughing...
* A favorite pair of jeans...
* Strangers smiling at one another...
* Hearing the first movement of water in the Spring...
* Cinnamon toast...
* Bare feet in cool grass...
* The delightful owners of my local market...
* Fresh warm strawberries straight off the vine after working in the sun...

Where do We Draw the Line?

2006-03-12T03:09:00.000-05:00

Just finished reading an essay by Margaret Atwood on pornography. Here is some of what she had to say:

"This leads us back to the key question: what's the harm? Nobody knows, but this society should find out fast, before the saturation point is reached. The Scandinavian studies that showed a connection between depictions of sexual violence and increased impulse toward it on the part of male viewers would be a starting point, but many more questions remain to be raised as well as answered. What, for instance, is the crucial difference between men who are users and men who are not? Is there a clear line between erotica and violent pornography, or are they on an escalating continuum? Is this a "men versus women" issue, with all the men secretly siding with the proporners and all women secretly siding against? (I think not; there are lots of men who don't think that running their true love through the Cuisinart is the best way they can think of to spend a Saturday night, and they're just as nauseated by films of someone else doing it as women are.) Is pornography merely an expression of the sexual confusion of this age or an active contributer to it?

Noboby wants to go back to the age of official repression...Neither do we want to end up in George Orwell's 1984, in which pornography is turned out by the State to keep the proles in a state of torpor, sex itself is considered dirty and the approved practise is only for reproduction. But Rome under the emperors isn't such a good model either."

It is important to note that she is discussing hardcore and violent pornography, NOT erotica.

Should there be regulations? Do you think it is harmful? How do we protect ourselves and maintain freedom?

Crashes...

2006-03-11T02:39:00.000-05:00

My first bike crash is at the hands of our neighborhood bully. I am 4 or 5 years old, riding my red tricycle down the uneven sidewalk, back and forth between my front drive and the tree that marks the end of our property. She is there, behind the tree, waiting for me. She steps out as I approach, hands on hips and announces I can go no further. I pay her no mind as I try to move past. She knocks me off my tricycle and I run home, blood running on my knees and elbows. I get patched up and run back outside for another go. She knocks me off again and again and each time I go to my mother for bandaids. After three rounds my mother says, "no more", and I feel the bully has won.
*********************
It is the summer of my 7th year and I have my first two-wheel bike. The grass is vivid, soft and damp under my tires. My father runs alongside holding the back of the seat, and suddenly I am flying down the grassy hill of our backyard. I look back to grin proudly at my father and he grins back...one proud moment before the crash. My father is running but I am laughing...exhilerated.
*********************
I am flying down the road, trees whipping past, a pack of my friends behind me on their bikes. We are so fast and I am leading them. Old Mr. Peabody is standing on the side of the road and his dog that yips all day and night sits on the other side, a white ball of fur and teeth. Mr. Peabody calls him just as I streak past. My front tire hits fur and bone and my face meets the pavement. Thankfully the four bloody teeth I spit out are baby teeth.
*********************
Our driveway is a gravel paved U. I am still naive to the pitfalls of bike riding and do not realize that gravel gives way under fast, cornering tires. As I speed into the turn of our drive, the front tire jerks to the left and I cannot hold it. I crash in a great display of scraping and flying dust. When I pull up my shirt to inspect the damage there is gravel embedded in the angry red gashes across my ribs.

Her Words...

2006-03-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

As I tuck her in, she says, "Mom, I love you so much. Please don't ever die." Her tone is matter of fact, no trace of worry, but she is quite serious.

Little Women

2006-03-07T23:01:00.000-05:00

Just starting to read Little Women. One of those classics I should have read and never did. When my daughter was younger, her favorite movie was Little Women with Katherine Hepburn. She loved Jo. Now she loves "13 Going on 30" with Jennifer Garner. How do these things happen?

Things That are...Lovely

2006-03-04T03:03:00.000-05:00

Dear lovely readers,

Post II in the series, "Things that are...". Please add to the list in the comments area. Myself? I've just had a lovely day.

"The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it." -Richard Bach

Things That are Lovely...

* Watching your children laugh...
* Answering the knock at the door and opening it to an unexpected visit from a dear friend...
* Sisters...
* The tiny fingers of a small child grasping yours...
* The scents in a chocolate shop...
* Reconnecting...

Countdown...80 Days Until Graduation!

2006-03-03T00:50:00.000-05:00

Four years at Smith...as an adult woman, a single mother...bringing with me my provincial upbringing, my children, and my dreams. It's been a long haul and graduation will be a quiet agonizing triumph.

Things That are...Elegant

2006-03-02T21:26:00.000-05:00

"Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Things that are Elegant...

* The hands of a lover...
* A string of pearls...
* Bare slender birch trees...
* The tall Dutch gardener carefully tending his plants...
* Fingertips...
* Fighting entropy...
* Water flowing down a gentle slope...
* Miss Ellie Rothman...
* Tea served in delicate china...

Please add your own list in the comments area...

Another New Blog

2006-03-02T21:02:00.000-05:00

This will be my third. I feel like I want to settle somewhere but each blogspot has its perks and quirks.