Whew. Flu knocked me flat on my back, but I am happy to say I've returned to the land of the alert and alive. Kind of. I actually wrote pages this morning, so that's a good sign.
For you:
A photo taken a few days ago. These are the elements that make me want to shoot, that quiet light, the fleeting moment.
Now, I'm off to catch an early showing of the The Other Boleyn Girl. Have a happy leap day!
In college, I had a deep and abiding crush on my friend Jan. I'd just limped to Pueblo after a disastrous series of reckless adventures. I was twenty two and gawky and a little bruised by life. Jan was few years older, and everything about her was quirky and cool and interesting. She was tall and wore her hair short when everyone else wore theirs long. Her lipstick was bright (as I came of age in the "long and silky" era, I didn't even know how to wear lipstick!) and she drove a Karmann Ghia. Her apartment was on the second floor of an old building in downtown Pueblo, with long windows and wallpaper with cabbage roses and a huge, sunny kitchen where she had pinned postcards and quotes in odd spot. By the sink: "I have too many fantasies to be a housewife."
She was also a mothering sort, and took me under her wing. She cooked for me and invited me to sit in that beautiful kitchen and lay down all the sad stories I was carrying around. She had come from some grimy city just over the river from St.Louis, and had made her escape to Colorado, but now the horizon was calling her and she thought she would go to San Francisco. It sounded like a dream, so I didn't think a lot about it.
When the spring semester finished, however, it turned out that she was serious. She was leaving. She packed her belongings into that little yellow Karmann Ghia and headed out for the glamor of San Francisco. It was the early 80s, before the Great Darkness there, and as she drove away, looking like one of her own vintage postcards, a scarf flying around her neck, I envied her the adventure.
But I got her apartment. And her fern.
Which sits now by my front door. Lately, it astonishes me that it's so old. It's older than my children! It outlasted my marriage! Ian once gave it a radical haircut when he was two or three, right down to the dirt, but it came right back and grew more hair to thrive at nine addresses. And often, when I water it, I think of Jan and her bright lipstick and her kindness to a lost young woman. I'm pretty sure she knows what she gave, but if not, I'm sending a thank you out in the ether.
Do you have a memento (living or not) that reminds you of someone you lost touch with?
A peaceful Sunday around here. I headed out for a long walk (aiming for eight, but missed the marker to turn around and ended up with nine), and it was interesting to note I was almost the only walker out. Lots of runners, lots of cyclists in their neon spandex (and kudos to every cyclist with a bell--thank you so much).
Walking is a quiet thing. Meditative. No dogs today, since I exhausted them a few days ago, and I needed to get a very long walk in to check out my new shoes. My walking partner has fallen in love and has been a bit scarce. I brought my Ipod and listened to music in one ear, nature (and bike bells) in the other. Admired the river, running beneath snow and melting ice. Hoped to see a fox, or perhaps a coyote, and instead saw a whole flock of blue jays, who wheeled around preening for me.
Both of my sons called. One wanted to talk politics, with all due passion, and I enjoyed it. The other one called to laugh about something on television. I cooked a beautiful lasagna for supper, with all organic everything, which CR will eat over the next couple of months on his long run days.
And then tonight, that beautiful a mountain-shaped cloud, edged with the setting sun, rounding out a pretty much perfect day.
What makes a day perfect for you?
I've been trying to figure out all week how to set up a little icon for this, but programing is not my strong point, so let me just make my announcement:
I'm walking in the Avon Breast Cancer Walk this year. It is 39 miles--26 on Saturday, and 13 on Sunday. I wouldn't be nervous about the first half, since I've walked that far in the past, but the second day is a teeny bit daunting.
Still. Walking is what I can do, and I've wanted to participate for several years. This year, I made the leap and sent in my registration. Every walker must make a commitment to raise a substantial sum, and that's why I'm announcing it here. I hope some of you will be game to donate, and maybe together we can raise a really juicy sum, in the name of our friends and siblings and relatives, and most especially, our daughters, granddaughters and all the others in the future who WON'T get this disease if we can figure out a way to get rid of it forever.
Once a week or so, I'll post a note about my progress and the sum we've raised together. I will be offering some prizes (yet to be decided). Perhaps you work in an office or have a book group and can take up a one-time collection and I can send a set of autographed books to you to distribute.
I also know that it isn't always possible to donate anything, so cheerleading will be much appreciated, too.
There are walks in many cities around the country. For more information, go to Avon Walk.
To make a donation to my walk click here
Questions?
PS If anyone can help me figure out how to make an icon with a link to the donation site, I would be very grateful.
This morning on my walk, in heavy coat and shredding gloves and a hat that always gets too hot, what I thought about was how much I love walking. It's so simple. So clean. So unassuming. You don't need special equipment. Almost anyone can do it, and over and over and over again, they show that it is one of the single best things you can do for your health. Walk a half hour a day, eat an apple, and love somebody a lot, and you've got it covered.
I also bought some very beautiful apples today. Ambrosias. Very crisp and sweet and pretty to look at it.
What simple things do you love?
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, I found a podcast of his I have Dream Speech and listened to it again.
If you have not actually listened to this speech, in his own voice, you really owe it to yourself to listen to it, all the way through. Sixteen minutes of some of the most beautiful words that have ever been written in pursuit of justice.
The first time I read it was in a creative writing class in college. My professor wanted us to study it for the poetry, and she arranged us in a circle and we began to read it, a paragraph at a time. I could not stop weeping, and I never can listen to it without thinking of what power there is in words. In his voice. In WORDS, man, WORDS.
Seriously, in honor of the day, go listen to it here.
Who recommended Mad Men? I've finally had a chance to check it out, and have since downloaded every episode available from Itunes and am trying to watch every single episode in a single binge. It's weirdly like walking into one of my mother's magazines from long ago.
Fantastic work, such an intriguing milieu. Thank you.
In yoga class last Friday, our teacher asked us to think of a word we'd like to use as a mantra or guiding principle over the course of 2008. The word that popped into my mind, and stuck there like an annoying burr no matter how I tried to dislodge it, was honor.
Honor. No problem to think about that one, hmmm? Honor yourself, others, the world. Yes, yes, very good
idea. But as with all spiritual concepts, there is ever so much more to it when you start giving it real thought. And of course, I'm now tripping on ideas of honor at the click of every hour.
Reading a regular column called A Million Ways to Save the World in the new Oprah magazine, a line struck me like a thunderclap: Forget self-esteem...focus on self-respect, says Diana de Vegh, a psychotherapist.
Not self-esteem, self-respect. It made me hear my father's voice in my head, exhorting me to be responsible, to think about the consequences of my actions (and, thankfully, he never allowed me to slide--if consequences were not forthcoming from external sources, he imposed them from within the family structure).
Not self-esteem, self-respect. One implies unconditional love, which is fine in its place. The other encourages esteem born of action and responsibility to self, others, the community and world. Honor?
I have been thinking far too often of one of the incidents from last week, about a person I am fond of who took a dramatic and destructive turn. The consequences are terrible for her, and she was first in my prayers and sorrows, but as the days pass, I keep catching glimpses of the ripples that radiate outward from her, and how many different people are affected in small and large ways. She most of all, of course, but we all choose our paths, one way or another, and so did she. Those around her did not choose but will be forced to deal with the fall-out. Her actions have consequences.
I'm sure many of you have heard about the plagiarism discussion surrounding a historical romance writer, who was outed on an irreverent romance review website. (I am not going to contribute to the fire by adding links or names--that is not the point here.) There are dishonorable actions all around on this one--the plagiarism is wrong, and should rightfully have been reported. But with power comes responsibility, and the glee of the exposers is in poor taste. The body of journalism law and ethics has developed for a reason, out of trial and error. Plagiarism is a crime that must be reported whenever it is discovered. That is responsible. Continuing to hoot and holler over the crime after reporting makes it feel about as appealing as a couple of sixth graders kicking a dead deer on the side of the road.
Also, Madeline L'Engle says, "If you don't do your work, it might not ever get done." My minister (whom I seem to be quoting a lot here recently) says over and over, "Do what is yours to be done."
Simple, clear, straightforward, and like a powerful sword, the idea carries both redemption and crusade. If you do your work, it then goes into the world to heal or inspire or quiet or amuse or breathe life or excite or express. If you do it, things heal, get better. If you don't, the work goes unfinished, the holes remain, the ache stays aching.
It's almost impossible to imagine a world in which everyone is doing that, focusing on what is theirs to do. I can certainly see times in my life when simply focusing on my own stuff would have made a difference. I'm sure you can see incidents in your own, can't you? To earn self-respect, I must be responsible to the press of the work that is mine to do, and the consequences are toward healing. My acquaintance turned her back on what was hers to do, and the result is crushing. The reporters of the plagiarism were responsible and did what was theirs to do, but then allowed power to lead them into destructive action, and thereby possibly wound the work that is still theirs to do. They turned honorable action to dishonorable action. Sensationalism is never honorable. (Notice how sensationalism enters into the presidential race, for example.)
Hmm. I think this is going to be very interesting, exploring honor, as part of what is mine to do this year.
What is yours to honor this year? What does honor mean to you?
Jacqueline Mitchard posted today about her Saint Bernard puppy, who is quite, quite adorable. (Seriously, go look at the photo.) What is it about writers and their animals? I am ashamed to say that I sometimes forget to carry photos of my children, but there is always a photo of Jack on my cell phone.
Jack, who is too afraid to go to doggie day care and shivers over lightening.
Jack who has never listened to a word anyone has to say except me. Sometimes.
Jack who bit the lawn boy (who had been warned not to come into the yard without asking me and did it anyway, thinking it would be okay).
Jack who shattered the living room window last New Year's Eve when fireworks started going off and he had to find us NOW.
Jack who had to have knee surgery last month because he took a flying leap from the deck and demolished the joint.
Jack who sits beside my chair squeaking the toy of the day, which is cute for the first five minutes.
Miles brought me photos of Jack as a baby tonight, and looking at them, CR teased me about the release of the list of most trainable dogs. My old dog, April, was a border collie husky who really could practically speak English. A rancher with hands as withered as tree trunks once offered me a hundred dollars cash for her on the spot. Border Collies are the #1 most trainable dogs.
Chows are dead last. I'm pretty sure it doesn't help a lot to have a chow mix.
But I didn't know all that when he arrived at my door, barely five weeks old, a rescue from the interstate, where he'd been dumped. Even if I had, how could I ever have turned this baby away?
And he has stayed this cute. I mean, sometimes, you get a really smart dog. And sometimes, you get one that just loves you to pieces. Since Jack showed up five weeks to the day after I split with my ex-husband, I'm pretty sure there was Divine Order in place. Jack came to love me, and you know, he's really good at that.
A good debate friend of my eldest has been on Jeopardy this week. (Dan Pawson, if you've been watching the show.) It's been a blast to watch, especially as he has become a 5-time champion, which is a really, really big deal. I mean, really. How many people can DO that??? Tonight is show #6. We're all watching with great attention, cheering him on. (And really, he has the kindest smile.)
Read more about him at his wife's blog (to make it even more thrilling, she's about to have a baby at any second--what a story to tell your child!). Also, some of you might remember her from posts here, and from a link or two I've posted in the past.
Just thought you might like to tune in for the great excitement. Ian was here for the first two nights, so CR and I had the pleasure of sharing it with him, and now we're hooked. Go, Dan! :)
Waiting tonight for the ball to drop in Colorado, I'm availing myself of a pair of I-tunes gift cards that came my way on Christmas (have I mentioned that I am IN LOVE with my video Nano?). Interesting to be choosing things from the past on the eve of the new year.
Here are some of the things I've chosen:
Beggar's Banquet, Rollling Stones. Seriously--could you possibly call yourself a rocker without this CD in your collection? Timeless, eternally perfect, especially (of course) Sympathy for the Devil. This particular music has been on my mind because I've connected with an old friend and we loved Mick & the gang. We saw them in concert in Boulder....oh a long time ago. A massive highlight of my young life.
Downloading that led to (for no reason I can name)...
Lives in the Balance, Jackson Browne. One of my favorite albums of all time. I especially love the title song, partly for the words and the message, but also for the music and the Latin influence. When I was a young mother, I'd play this song in my kitchen while I did the dishes and never could hear Lawless Avenue or Lives in the Balance without stopping to dance and sing. I've heard this particular CD was his passion but it fared poorly in the market. Speaking strictly for me, I'm very glad he made it anyway. And now I've purchased it again.
Thinking about dancing in my kitchen made me remember John Mellencamp's Pink Houses and another concert. Uh-huh is a fantastic piece of work, and some of the videos were masterpieces. Mellencamp gets the working class, and he is a master of telling detail.
Now it's nearly
midnight here and I'm going to watch the fireworks from the top of Pikes Peak, carried there by the AdAMan club, which I think I'd like to someday join on their trek. Glad it isn't tonight, though. It is very, very cold. (And, considering it's probably 40 below up there, that's a silly comment. But how cool would it be to be on top of Pikes Peak at midnight on New Year's Eve? I wonder if they spend the night up there?)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! May 2008 be your best year thus far.
PS The fireworks are fantastic. The snowy peak is illuminated against the darkness, making it seem like something stolen and magical.
On Saturday afternoon as we returned from a little bit of shopping (too intense out there for CR and I), we saw a fox again. He was trotting through the neighborhood in broad daylight, looking fat and sassy and perfectly comfortable.
Last night, driving home from a meal out, another one in a different neighborhood.
So that's three foxes, a coyote, and two major dog incidents in about ten days. Too many for coincidence, and a rather emphatic wave from the Spirits, so I'm paying attention. Fox medicine, particularly, but also dogs and coyotes.
Interesting to notice: what I feel when I think of each of these animals is a sense of wonder and wild love.
I tried a long time ago to write this story into a picture book as a gift
for the boy who stars in it. It seems it has emerged instead as an essay.
It's long for a blog, but I think some of you will enjoy it
anyway.
Ian and the Blue Gill
Three women, ranging in age from senior to ancient, are settled in
half
circle at the end of the dock. The chairs have been dragged down to
the
pond from the main house, metal lawn chairs with woven seats in white
and
green, and there are only those three, so Ian and I sit on the wooden
slats
of the dock. A little while ago, there were some bigger boys, young
teenagers in baggy shorts and skinny chests, daring each other to swim in
the murky water, but they're gone now, leaving this little
circle.
The old women wear cotton skirts and sensible shoes and
soft cotton
hats to protect their good complexions. Gnarled fingers fix
bait, and
fishing lines trail lazily in the water of the small pond. The
air is thick
and still, so hot I find it hard to breathe, and my son's pale
cheeks are
flushed. We are Colorado natives, and this is the countryside of
the border
between Missouri and Illinois and I'd rather be almost anywhere
else besides
this farmland with three old woman fishing.
I
hate fishing. I hate humidity. I hate the heat. I had been
excited about
the family gathering with my husband's family, but the reality
is daunting.
It's hard to understand some of their deep south accents, and
I don't
understand references to times and people I don't know. And maybe
they're
not patronizing me, the much-younger, blond wife of an older
African-American man, but all the usual in-law negotiations of time and
fitting in make it feel like they might be. I'm shy, which makes it worse.
I'm not even thirty and bookish and wilting in this heat they all take for
granted and I don't even know where I fit in the world I came from, much
less this one.
But here we are. My younger boy, never
still, running like a
banshee with his wild hair and wilder grin around the
orchard with his
cousins, and he is a Williams, through and through, the
spitting image of
his grandmother, sitting here on the dock in the dappled
shade of
midafternoon. Ian and I share a more pensive nature, and we have
escaped to
the dock so Ian can fish with his grandmother, Lurelean, who is
one of the
kindest humans I have ever known and will influence my life more
than I can
even begin to imagine that day, on the dock.
Even
then, in all my bristling insecurity, I know for sure that my
mother-in-law
loves me, and my boys. She sees through to the truth of
things-this
marriage, for all the differences in age and culture, is a
genuine love
match, and she is overjoyed that her son, who wandered and
wandered, is
settled at last, a kind father, a good husband.
It gives me
comfort to sit with Lurelean on the dock. Still, I'm
feeling slightly ill in
the oppressive, inescapable heat. I can't return to
the house because,
sitting with the old woman is one small white boy with an
earnest expression
and his own fishing line, baited for him by his
grandmother, who is sitting
with one of her sisters, and their mother,
Grandma Mag, past ninety, and
wearing glasses so thick her eyes look
cartoony. Grandma Mag, it must be
said, has no patience left in her for
small children-she's raised or helped
raise too many of them, and she's not
interested in caretaking any more.
Fishing is her passion, and she holds no
truck with conversation. Ian
promises to be quiet, and she grudgingly lets
him stay.
Honestly, I have no idea where he got the idea that he wanted to
fish in the
first place. I can't even imagine that he's ever heard anyone
talking about
it. We live in the city and none of my family have ever
fished. We rarely
go to the mountains or even to the reservoir, where he
might have seen
others fishing.
But there he sits with the old women, his
fishing line in the
water. He's five. Surprisingly pretty, with a plump
mouth and vivid,
changeable eyes and tumbles of blond hair which tends to be
too long because
I'm forgetful and don't get it cut as often as I should.
He's so earnest,
sitting there, waiting for a fish. The women comment on
his stillness, both
surprised and proud, but I could tell them his
tenaciousness is already
legendary. His hands, which will one day be long
and graceful and very
beautiful, are still a little plump. He focuses. The
old women murmur to
one another now and then. They've caught some blue
gills, which are kept
alive in a cooler.
I sit near the
back of the dock, drinking a soda, trying to stay
out of the sun, though it
doesn't really matter. In Colorado, just stepping
into the shade will drop
the temperature twenty degrees. Not so here, and I
have discovered it
doesn't even get cool at night. First thing in the
morning, it's still
humid and still and thick. Honestly, I'm miserable.
Trying to be brave and
cheerful in such wretched weather-that doesn't seem
to be bothering anybody
else, even though we will later hear it was 106
degrees with humidity in the
90s-and all I really want to do is dive into
the water where my tears will
be hidden. And yet, even that is not a
possibility. I've seen snapping
turtles in the water, the evil triangular
head of a snake glide by, silent
and threatening.
Suddenly, the thick dull silence is punctured by
splashes.
Exclamations. Ian has hooked a fish! His grandmother leaps to her
feet to
help him reel it in, and there it is, thrashing and splashing
against the
line, a slippery, glistening blue gill. It shines in the sun,
and they land
it together, and put it in its own cooler of water. It stares
wildly up at
us, and Ian squats down to admire it, beaming at the praise of
the old
women. Even the ancient one warms the slightest
bit.
And that's that. He declines the offer of another baited
hook. He
isn't interested in fishing anymore, though he sits quietly and
happily with
his grandmother. His dad comes down to the dock and Ian shows
off his
catch, and everyone fusses once again.
As the day
wanes, the children are cranky, and it's time to drive
back to St. Louis.
Ian is anxious about his fish. "How will we get him
home?" he asks. "What
will we feed him?"
One of the men now on the dock laughs
heartily. "Son, you'll eat
him, not the other way around."
"What?" His eyes fill with tears. "I don't want to eat him!"
Everyone chuckles this away at first, thinking he's just encountering
the
reality of eating what you've killed. They think he'll change his mind
once
he takes a bit of that sweet flesh.
But his grandmother is looking
at him in her careful way. She puts
her hand on his back. "What do you want
to do with him, baby?"
Ian says, "I want to take him home."
It dawns on me, finally, where he got the idea of fishing.
Every
year at the local State Fair, there is a display by the Fish and
Wildlife
Organization, a giant freshwater aquarium, filled with big river
trout
swimming in splendor for all to see. Ian loves it, the coppery,
flashing
fish, their long feathery tails.
There in the
cooler is a shimmery blue fish with ruffling fins.
"You wanted a pet," I
say. "You thought you would get to keep him?"
Ian, blinking hard, nods.
Arranged around us are the old women, who love to
catch fish and
eat them. And men who've fed their families on the fish they
caught, the
animals they killed. They are not happy with boys who cry, and
for good
reason. In their old world, it served them to make men tough and
stoic.
But there is Lurelean, who gently shakes her head at the
old man.
"He's as tender-hearted as his daddy," she says, and that daddy
steps up.
"We can't take him home, son," he says. "But we can let him go."
Someone protests. "That's a good supper there!"
"Leave the boy alone," Lurelean says, enfolding her
gnarled hand
around the boy's. His daddy carries the cooler, and together,
the three of
them tip the fish into the water, where it dives into the
depths and swims
away, traumatized but free to live another
day.
Finally, we are driving back to St. Louis in the
twilight. The
children are exhausted, and I sit in the back seat with them,
one on either
side. Lurelea sat in the front seat with her own boy, who
used to take two
buses on a Saturday afternoon to go to shop for her hearing
aid battery. A
boy maybe a bit too sensitive for his environment who grew
up and became a
man who could help a boy tip a living fish back in the
water. They're
talking quietly, peacefully, and I am enfolded in the
tenderness and
coolness.
We're passing little towns and
bushes and wide fields of grass.
Where, suddenly I see stars. In the grass.
"Stop the car!" I cry "What is
that?
My husband pulls over. "What is it?"
"Are those fireflies?"
Lurelean
laughs gently. "Isn't that a wonder. Child, you've never
seen
fireflies?
The boys and I stare open mouthed, shaking our heads.
They don't
live in Colorado. In astonished wonder, we stand at the edge of
the road,
watching light dance in the twilight, humidity enveloping us like
arms, the
quiet of evening like acceptance, the sparks of belonging dancing
in the
grass.
Look at him!
CR and I were hiking in the fresh new snow this morning and saw this coyote walking through the trees. He wasn't particularly worried about us, though a bit disgruntled that we might have cost him a squirrel for lunch. He posed very regally for this shot.
(Click on any picture to get a bigger view.)
I'm still fizzing a little from it. The hike, the coyote, the astonishing pleasure of the crisp, cold air, fresh powder, and views like this one:
And this one, a little later as the sun started to come out. An old quarry on the ranch now made into a popular hiking area:
Finally, this one, just because the colors are so eye-splitting.
Will have to mull over what the universe has to say, since Fox, Coyote, and Dog have all been right in my face the past couple of weeks. Loyalty, cleverness, adaptability? Hmmm.
Two days ago, I left the house for an errand, and trotting down the street was this fox. He was chasing birds, trying to flush them out of a tree, and I was glad to know my cats were inside.
He was very beautiful and not at all afraid of me. We just looked at each other and I had plenty of time to admire the stripes beside his eyes and the fluffiness of his tail before he took off.
Not sure where he came from. There is an extensive network of parks through the houses, and we are not far from open land, but it was still a surprise. I'm used to seeing deer and even some coyotes, but never a fox before this one.
Do you see wildlife in your neighborhood?
I spent t
he weekend at the most mundane of tasks. Drank wine with my friends on Friday night and hiked a little while on Saturday afternoon and swept long fronds of glittery red dog hair off my sofa. Sunday was
breakfast out with CR and I took my notebook to the new Starbucks to write by hand looking at my home mountain, then shopped for groceries and put them all neatly away, taking comfort in a blue glass bowl of lemons and the crisper full of watercress and lettuces, and a basket of tiny red tomatoes. I went to a movie (Martian Child--I do so love John Cusak) and remembered that it's more interesting to write about men who are smart than perfectly good-looking.
It's good to travel. It's equally good to come home and take up the threads of ordinary life again.
On this first snowy day of the year in Colorado Springs, I managed to get to church for the first time in nearly two months. The year's theme is Wisdom, and today's topic was the wisdom of your intellectual ancestors. Rev. Lawrence used Isaac Asimov as one of his most influential intellectual ancestors and told us why. He encouraged all of us to think about our own. I'm passing that along to you.
And thinking aloud about my own, thinking of the influences on my world view, but also those who have influenced me as a writer. Obviously, Ray Bradbury. Shakespeare. James Daphne Du Maurier, Victoria Holt, Anya Seton, all those who collected fairy tales and legends and folk songs, which form such a thick web of my ideas about living and books. In college, I fell in love with James Baldwin and studied everything he wrote.
But also the bible, which my grandmother read with such dedication. And Edgar Cayce, who told his amazing story in a dozen paperback books on her shelves. I very much believe that the world we see is only a tiny tip of what really IS, and that's reflected in all of the writings and thinkings of the above "ancestors."
I'm sure more will bubble up over the week. Certainly, I've more recently been inspired and coached along by the writings and teachings and ideas of Julia Cameron. Also, Vita Sackville West, and Annie Lammott (quite disparate people, those two. Amusing to imagine them sitting down together, Annie with her wild hair, Vita with her cigarettes and crisp blouses--but who knows, maybe they would have found much to talk about).
Who are some of yours?
Huh--not much good to man or beast around here. I kept meaning to have a day off and hadn't done it--there has been so much to do to catch up and get the garden ready for the freezes that are on the way. I built a little greenhouse for my passion flower, and was quite proud of it. And painted a little spot that needed it. And have taken the dogs for lots of walks, so they know they're really loved.
But, not enough rest. So last night, my back went out. That's what the body will do if you ignore it long enough--make you rest, whether you want to or not.
I can read. I can blog. I can play on the Internet. The photo above is a shot of a shed at Sissinghurst. I could have stood there shooting for a couple of days, but CR was with me and being quite patient (he is so good about these things--he left me to go up the writing tower by myself and insisted I take my time), those reds are so insanely intense! 
So, uploaded photos to Flickr for friends and family viewing. The one to the right is some amazing flower with a single red leaf that had fallen on it. (Who can tell me what that flower is? It looked like a giant crocus.)
I've been listening to more music (I had an email from the wife of one of the Persuasions, by the way. Can I say I was just tickled to pieces???), mainly Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and a Patty Griffin song, maybe called Gonna Let Him Fly, which means the book is bubbling nicely there on the back of the stove. Always intriguing to notice what the girls want to hear. It's always something I'll be sick to death of by the end of the book.
This is a shot of some thyme in the herb garden. My mother really must see Sissinghurst one of these days, if only for this particular section of the garden. I am also quite fond of the moat, which is one of the only filled moats I've seen. There were squirrels in the oaks over it this time, tossing acorns down with little plops.
A few mornings while in Hawkhurst visiting CR's mum, I walked alo
ng one of the public footpaths nearby.
I'd love to get a good map and go traipsing across the country sometime--the few paths I've seen are staggeringly beautiful. But then, England is a staggeringly beautiful place. One morning, it was softly misty and softly sunny and I had the path to myself except for a dog and his master.
More on the two conferences later. I have information and photos for anyone who'd like to explore the idea of attending either Matera or the Magazine Conference next year.
Thinking tonight of enthusiasms. The woman at Paris Breakfasts is back in Paris, shooting deliriously colorful photos of the shop windows and foods she will paint on some future day. I love her photos even more than her watercolors (which I keep telling myself I'm going to buy, someday). I'm attending a conference for magazine writers, because I'm interested in the subject and it is being held in Boulder, so I could attend without much effort, and it's been amazing. I love being a beginner, listening with this entirely different part of my brain. I love the learning and the possibilities presented and the stories (always stories, stories), but most of all, I love being in the midst of people who are so passionate. The photo editor of National Geographic is here, leggy and slim and smart, a woman who has dodged bullets and given birth to daughters and loves photojournalism so much it's like sparks come from her when she speaks of it. She made me want to write about her. Two young women next to me were in thrall, nearly speechless with the idea that it would ever be possible to shoot photos for the venerable National Geographic, and on the other side, a woman spoke of beginning her first novel, and a newspaper reporter yearned to leave the paper and write full-time. A writer of story lines for computer games (how cool is that job??) wants to write articles about history. I felt quiet and lucky.
It's also always good to be in a college town, where hope and expectation are basic molecules in the daily air, right alongside oxygen. There is happiness in hope, in believing in the next thing, whatever it might be. A friend of mine said that people only need two things to be happy--something to look forward to and a dream to believe in. Here in this hotel this weekend, the air feels quite thick with those two things.
So, what little gratitudes can you come up with? And what little (or big) thing are you looking foward to?
Wandering around the internet last night, I visited one of my favorite cooking sites, Pinch My Salt (the American in Sicily who takes such fantastically gorgeous photos of food (and a volcano erupting). She had a post about biscuits, which linked to another post about the best biscuits ever, and the truth is, I've been longing for biscuits lately. Not sure why. I do love them--is there anything as tender as a biscuit fresh out of the oven?--and I've been thinking about the boxes of my grandmother's recipes a lot lately. I haven't had a good one in awhile.
As long as I live, biscuits will be associated with the childhood of my boys and their father, making biscuits
on Sunday mornings. He liked cooking, and rituals, and early in our marriage, he established the habit of cooking on Sundays. A full Southern breakfast in the morning, all according to his particular plan--country potatoes with the skins still on, first boiled, then grilled in a cast iron skillet with salt and pepper to a perfect combination of crisp and tender. Bacon, always, which he carefully cooked flat on an electric skillet (which, intriguingly, I ended up with in the big Division of Things). Sometimes patties of hot country sausage. Scrambled eggs. And buttermilk biscuits, of course, slathered with butter and my plum jam, made from scratch. Coffee, orange juice, milk if you wished, all of it piled up on the dining room table, steaming and fragrant. Other people had dinner parties. We had Sunday breakfast parties--that's when we added leaves to the table and stuffed guests with all the special tidbits.
He also cooked supper every Sunday--pork chops and mashed potatoes or the like in the winter, barbeque with his special sauce (the recipe for which you can find in No Place Like Home) in the summer, but breakfast was the marker of our family life.
It's the biscuits I sometimes yearn for. They're tangled in a thousand memories, and maybe it's that younger me I'm thinking about, a nostalgia for those days when I could protect my babies from the vagaries of life so much more easily, when the Best Dog In the World still walked the earth, when life seemed fairly simple and straightforward and Ram made biscuits on Sunday morning, listening to a special combination of blues and soul and rock and roll as he cut biscuits with a bottle from our wedding, a tradition he learned from his parents, and his own father, who cooked biscuits for his children. He said that cooking on Sunday morning was his church.
I don't actually have his recipe. Perhaps I should ask him for it. Pass it on to the boys, who will--because this is what children do--one day find themselves wanting to make Sunday breakfasts for their families. I hope they do, anyway.
Biscuits and southern cooking are somehow weaving themselves into the brewing new book. The best biscuits ever. I wonder what that particular recipe might be? What makes best? Is it Sunday morning light in early summer, slanting just so through that eastern window? The sound of The Persuasions singing "People Get Ready?" while bacon sizzles on the grill? The arranged faces of families and friends at a table drenched with light coming through lace curtains and two dogs pretending that they are not begging and two boys scarfing down biscuits--Ian with jam, Miles with honey?
This is what I know about R's biscuits: a pile of flour, baking powder (only half as much as you think you need when you deal with high altitudes), salt, a little sugar, butter cut into the mix (or use your hands to squish it all together if you're in a hurry) then buttermilk to make it all stick together, and roll it out on a counter and cut biscuits with something you like, that has some memories, and bake in a very hot oven for 8 or 10 minutes. Extra points if you're wearing cutoff jean shorts and sweat socks with little lines around the top and an apron somebody brought you from a trip.
Mmmm. What's your best family food memory? Do you know how to make that dish?
Melanie Scott, an Australian writer who finaled twice in the Golden Hearts this year, posted something terrific to our voice class yesterday and I asked her to post it to her blog.
One of the exercises we do is to picture your 80th birthday party and how you want it to be and what your 80 year old self would tell you to do. Which all the fabulously talented gals in my course have duly done and I was trying to come up with some comments but really, they all sounded fantastic, and all our 80 year old selves are brilliant and wise and I really want to get to go to some of those parties, so all I could come up with was this, which is my distillation of what everyone said and a reminder of what we have to do if we want to live to be grand old broads at 80. And with apologies to SARK, who's 'How to be' posters are fabulous and kind of inspired me.
Check it out--it's luscious. And if you want to have some fun, try the exercise:
In a timed writing (ten minutes, pen to the page, write fast, no editing) imagine you are at your 80th birthday party. What are you wearing? Who is there? What's going on in your life? Now, let your 80 year old self give the self you are now some advice. What will she say to you?
This is not just for writers, by the way. Readers can have fun with it, too. Our 80 year old self is the one who has a lot of answers for how to live our lives today. Have fun with it, and let me know if you did it.
I walked home from the YMCA this morning, listening through my left ear to my Ipod Shuffle (which is one of the great inventions of all time). The Jethro Tull CD Heavy Horses arrived in rotation, and I had not heard it for quite some time, so I switched from shuffle to playing in order so I could listen to it all.
There are albums you love because they mark a period of time, pin down memories, capture some special something you treasure. I can see myself lying in the middle of my living room floor in one of the first houses I lived in away from my parents, between two gigantic speakers, listening to Jimi Hendrix. He was long dead by then, but lived in perfect, unmarked beauty in a poster on my bedroom wall (weirdly, my younger son resembles him quite a lot, or maybe I just think so because he's my child and beautiful and I did so love Jimi for a time). In the right mood, I can still enjoy Are You Experienced, but it does have to be just the right mood.
There are others that just never wear out. Beggar's Banquet. I'm pretty sure I can listen to Let It Be a few hundred thousand more times before I tire of it. Simon and Garfunkel's For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her, the poetry set to a melody as delicate as cobwebs:
What a dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline
Of smoky burgundy...
Heavy Horses is one of my top ten CDs of all time. If I tell you that my eldest son is named Ian because of Ian Anderson, you'll know I mean I love this band. There are very, very few musicians who can create such a mood of joy, weaving that flute and elegant lyrics and guitar into something that feels celebratory and medieval and earthy, and it is never any better than it is in HH, an ode to the sweet beauties of pastoral life, the pleasures of the natural world and animals and simple living close to the earth. "Weathercock" is an ode to the simple beauties of pastoral life, the simplicity of faith in things beyond us, woven with the famous flute and medieval dance rhythms that can still--after 40 zillion listens--catch my throat:
Give us direction; the best of goodwill,
Put us in touch with fair winds.
Sing to us softly, hum evening's song.
Tell us what the blacksmith has done for you.
When my boys were small, we had music quizzes. A song came on the radio and I would say, "Quick, who is this?" (Often they would not know and answer, "The Beatles." ) But they both knew that "The Mouse Police Never Sleeps" was Jethro Tull, because it is a delicious song for small boys, full of slithers and s-s-s-s and twitching tails, in musical language as well as words:
Muscled, black with steel-green eye
swishing through the rye grass
with thoughts of mouse-and-apple pie.
Tail balancing at half-mast.
...And the mouse police never sleeps
lying in the cherry tree.
Savage bed foot-warmer of purest feline ancestry.
Look out, little furry folk!
He's the all-night working cat.
Eats but one in every ten
leaves the others on the mat.
Perhaps my favorite is the poignant Moths, which stands alone as poetry, but is a hymn when set to music:
The leaded window opened
to move the dancing candle flame
And the first Moths of summer
suicidal came, suicidal came.
And a new breeze chattered
in its May-bud tenderness....
And:
Chasing shadows slipping
in a magic lantern slide ---
Creatures of the candle
on a night-light-ride.
Dipping and weaving --- flutter
through the golden needle's eye
in our haystack madness. Butterfly-stroking
on a Spring-tide high.
Life's too long (as the Lemming said)
as the candle burned and the Moths were wed.
And:
And the first moths of summer
suicidal came
to join in the worship
of the light that never dies
I have not heard a band that sounds anything like Jethro Tull, blending that lyrical flute and elegant lyrics and stunning sense of play, but I'm willing to be educated. If you know a band I should check out, let me know.
In the meantime, if you've not heard Heavy Horses, give it a try.
This morning's news was filled with the guilty plea of the NFL quarterback who has been accused of dog crimes. I'm not sure why these stories still shock me, but they do. This one is shocking on two levels: how can anyone living in America think it would be okay with the public to have dog fights? And even more disturbing who finds pleasure in such an activity? Ugh.
So, in an effort to put a more positive emotion into the world, let me tell you a good dog story.
It seems that Jack, my stunningly gorgeous, high-strung chow mix, gets a lot of attention in here. I do have another dog. In fact, I've had Sasha a VERY long time--she's 14 years old (and going strong), and as parents will, I suddenly felt guilty that I never talk about her. So, please meet Sasha. Aka Splinter (from the Ninja Turtles, remember him?). She's a mid-size terrier mix, as you can plainly see. When I first discovered her, sitting on a very hot sidewalk outside Safeway on my way to a critique group meeting, she looked like a German shepherd mix, and really reminded me of a dog we had when I was a child, so feeling tugged, I bent down and picked her up, just to give the wee little thing some love. She took a big breath, put her head on my shoulder and sighed against my neck. I was gone. 
Now, let me say I already had a great dog, the late great April O'Neal, not to mention two boys in grade school, thirty-nine jillion of their friends running through my house constantly, deadlines, a husband who would not be pleased, a salamander and a tank full of goldfish. I needed one more thing to take care of like I needed to lose a couple of fingers.
But that weekday morning, with that tiny puppy on my shoulder, with a man telling me he had cancer and had to get chemo and had to give away the puppies (yeah, yeah, yeah, buddy), all I knew was that this
dog was mine. She was born into the world to be my companion and I was taking her home, no matter what.
At times, that no matter what has been....er...somewhat trying. Like the time she ate a clutch of my ex-husband's photos, thus sealing a mutual hatred that never flagged. (Notice: the dog outlasted the husband.) Like the fact that she has never, no matter what I've tried, overcome a proclivity for knocking over the trash. Or stealing things off counters, and then perfuming the tri-state area with the resulting gas. Like the fact that she and the ex really did have a war that lasted nearly a decade. They lived to make each other miserable.
She lives for food. Broccoli will do. Cauliflower is just grand. Turkey, chicken, meat, milk spilled on the floor, drops of coffee on your fingers. She recently took one of my (brand new!) placemats from the table and ate one side of it. It must have smelled of something good. She's never learned to take a treat gently, either. She snaps it sharply, every muscle in her body quivering.
Oh, and she's a barker, too. Did I mention that? She barks at anyone who walks by the house. Barks when I open the front door, at the dog on the other side of the fence (her soul mate--her master is out there calling, exasperatedly, "Kelly! Kelly, come here!" and I'm calling, "Sasha. Sasha come here...!" as they bark wildly at each other, up and down the fence. But I have a magic weapon: "Sasha! Cauliflower.") When I take her for walks, she barks wildly for the first two minutes. I have never understood if she's just announcing to the neighborhood that she's coming or she's just chattering like a teenage girl, but after a couple of minutes, she settles down and just walks.
She's scruffy and adorable and devoted. She's never met anyone (save the ex) she didn't love, and old
ladies are her special favorites. They like her, too, like to pet her and feed her and tell her how sweet she is. She will, very delicately, kiss a nose with her tiny, thin, very undoglike tongue. She loves to be hugged.
And she has been my constant companion, devoted, protective of my children and the cats and me. She makes me laugh. Her simple, clear motives in life are a reminder not to take anything too seriously. Life is about seeing what's going one, having snacks, getting kisses, going for walks, having snacks, stealing the big dog bed, and having snacks. Oh, and greeting Christopher Robin when he comes home from work. She sits down, shivering in happy anticipation, and waits for him to bend down and kiss her. Which he does, every day.
Now that's a happy ending.
I've not really recovered from my weekend. Not really because of the bad run but because two days later was One of Those Days and I was already tired. The charming South American orienteer came back through and we had some fun, though we got stuck in a bomb scare at the airport. The sad story is this:
My beloved dog Jack is a protective creature. He doesn't allow strangers in the back yard. The young teen who mows my grass knows this and rings the doorbell so I can get Jack in the house before he mows. On Monday, he--for who knows what reasons--did not wait for me. I was away, fetching the fetching orienteer. His mother was taking his brother somewhere. He had something to get done that morning and wanted to knock out the job. I get all that. As the mother of sons, I can even follow the non-logical thinking of going into the back yard, thinking it would be okay.
It wasn't. Jack is a good watchdog. He is very friendly when I tell him to be so, but if I'm not around, watch out. He bit the boy. Not badly. He came back and mowed the back lawn later (but only because his mother insisted, I'm pretty sure.) The boy's name is Jack. I don't think he'll want the job of feeding the cats when I happen to leave.
In other news, I saw a beautiful photo on another blog tonight:
It's a great visual, but it would be quite challenging to row with those yards and yards of fabric getting wet.
I also revised many pages today.
Last n
ight, I watched WATER, recommended in a discussion either here or in the discussion of Bollywood triggered by Liz Bevarly's music post on the now-defunct Squawk Radio. Set in 1938, it is the story of a little girl who is widowed at the age of seven, and sent away to an ashram to live for the rest of her life, as is the custom. Chuihya's head is shaved, she's dressed in white, and she is sent away from her family to the grim environs of the ashram, where she meets three women who all influence her fate. One is the beautiful young Kalyani (Lisa Ray) who falls in love with Narayan (John Abraham), and their star-crossed tale is woven into the struggle for faith, the desire for happiness, and the excruciating tale of women condemned to a life of nothing after a husband dies.
Which makes it sound as if it would be a grim movie indeed. It is not. Water is lyrical and earthy, and highly romantic. It is also a visual feast, filmed with extraordinary attention to light and composition without ever being self-conscious or haughty.
It also raises my on-going and pleasurable debate with myself over wanting to visit India. So beautiful and so challenging and so poor and so rich, spiritual and severe, romantic and sexist and sensual and ignorant and wise. It is a swelter of ideas and possibilities; frightens and perplexes and intrigues. I'm afraid I will go and hate it. Maybe just as afraid that I won't.
Beautiful film. Thanks to those who recommended it. On one site, it said the move is banned in India. Does anyone know if that is true?
Another Orange yesterday. The terrain was quite different--lots of meadows with thigh-high grasses. I've never wished for gaiters before, but they would have saved a lot of annoyance yesterday. My socks bristled with seeds by the end of the course.
I finished again. Very slow, again, but I'm still very happy. I was actually able to jog most of it, even in those uneven fields, and my knee is fine this morning. I feel like a million bucks, honestly.
Orienteering makes me think of my days as a Girl Scout. I was a fanatic for badges. The Sign of the Arrow and The Sign of the Star, plus all the little round ones. I'd get one for orienteering now. And well, I'd certainly get one for cooking this past winter. Growing dahlias.
I'm making fun of myself now because I know some of you must be scratching your heads thinking, "WHY would she DO this?" But every time I find a control, I feel like I won the lottery. I come home scratched and tanned and grimy and feel ten feet tall. My brain loves it, and my body loves it, and it matters not at all to me if I'm faster than someone else or the slowest one of all (which I was last week).
Happy Sunday!
I suppose I should create a category for Garden, since I do seem to post flower pictures so often. I just like growing flowers. And taking pictures of them. This morning is a very good example of why: I fell prey to some sharp brief virus the past few days and this morning woke up feeling like myself again. It's cool and softly breezy in Colorado Springs, so I sent CR off to work and puttered out to water the pots on my patio. The dogs and I wandered around, sticking fingers and noses into the soil. I deadheaded while they made sure no marauding aliens came over the fence. Then we went to the front yard and the first dahlia of the season was in wild blossom. So I took a thousand pictures of it, and other things, and now I'm sharing my favorite with you. Isn't it beautiful? I planted many, many dahlias this year. They all have buds. It's a dahlias and poppy year.
What's in your garden right now?
Yesterday, I walked to the YMCA for a yoga class. There is a park system that loops through the entirety of the subdivision, connecting play parks with grassy sidewalks in a network that is miles and miles and miles long (and people still jog on the street...not sure I get that). It was an excellent yoga class; it always seems to me that yoga nets about 10x what it should, and I was in a softly blissed state as I walked home. I happened to glimpse a blue jay flashing through the trees, and stopped to admire him, taking it as a nice little gift from the universe--"here, have a visit with your favorite bird", and saw there was a pair of them. And then I saw their baby who had been shoved out of the nest and was none too happy about it. Parent one nudged him along and the baby squawked, fluttered his wings and protested--"I can't, I can't!"--before lifting off maybe a foot and slamming into the fence.
I watched him for twenty minutes or so, following behind at a respectful distance, which wasn't all that
much, maybe four feet. I was prepared to chase away a predatory cat or raven, but wouldn't have interfered in any other way. He panted in the shade, then made another try, flapping his wings until he nearly captured the low hanging branch of a pine. And missed.
That's when I left him to the business of learning to fly. But what a lovely gift for the girls in the basement--all those fluttering feathers; those flashing sapphires and turquoises and grays; all that effort and metaphor, the reassurance that baby birds, small and defenseless and vulnerable as they are, do mostly manage to figure it out, launch themselves and grow up into big blue jays.
In the Girls in the Basement class, one of the students wrote a beautiful paragraph based in the Bull Durham, "I believe in long, slow, kisses that last three days." It was so delicious and empowering for all of us to read it that I turned it into an exercise, adding it to the week on Passion (which we are currently exploring). The original quote from Bull Durham:
Annie Savoy: I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball. --Ron Shelton, scriptwriter
Here's mine:
Stumbled over this scene yesterday in the hacienda-like lobby of the Fess Parker Resort. Of course one knows that the fabulous flowers are arranged by someone, but I've never been on scene when it was happening.
Arrival. I was surprised how many people were required to unload and arrange all the flowers.
It looks like a banquet. The older man was so efficient, his hands stripping away the leaves from a flower that looked like a pink artichoke.
I liked the blue tips on each flower, keeping water in. Who knew that was how flowers were shipped. I did notice these were California flowers, thus supporting the local economy.
Such an elegant scene.
