On the train again, forward-facing this time, clad in flip-flops and Capri’s, though shadowed by a former self, blazers with mother-of-pearl buttons, sneakers to navigate the city—this one knew block-by-block shortcuts, charging through revolving doors and marble lobbies—long before security guards monitored every skyscraper, she could turn a ten-minute walk into five.
She accompanied me across the inlaid floors of a rehabbed rail station—pounding down cement steps, folding her arms in the hot subway while waiting to switch lines—then appeared again in the woman who stood with one hooked finger circling the railing, swaying as she read her library book, oblivious to the train’s bucks and squeals.
Above ground a few minutes later, she peered through the door of a pub (still in business!) grinning at the reminder of a late night spent mocking a fake accent—he claimed New Zealand—she maintained New Jersey and toasted victory at last call when he confessed: “Philadelphia.”
Exiting the memory, I slowed the pace, peering up to immaculate brownstones—at the flowering impatience, the trailing vinca tumbling from wrought iron window boxes—dogwoods and pink hydrangeas crowding tiny garden squares enclosed in ornate fences. Up ahead, she looked back at me—keep up, hurry, hurry, but I didn't.
Instead I climbed the stairs, buzzed at the entrance and watched her fade away—striding down the street with all the other young professionals, fingers fondling I-phones and Blackberries, ear buds planted, cutting across traffic—her glazed eyes seeing nothing but the destination—the place at the end of the journey.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Gladys and the Call of the Wild, Part 1
“Working at home,” (this month I use the term “working” loosely) offers the benefit of spontaneity. So when a friend pulled into my driveway yesterday seeking the location of a house down the road where she needed to sign up to attend a future estate sale, I hopped in her car to show her, planning on walking back. I had an agenda for my return stroll.
My husband often calls me Gladys Kravitz, after the nosy neighbor in the old TV show Bewitched, and though I prefer the word curious, he’s right. This time however, it’s for good cause. For the past two weeks, a raucous cry from some unknown bird has woken me at dawn and continued bleating all day. We’ve never heard a sound like it, a blend between a laughing hyena, a creature out of an African jungle, and someone trying to start a stalled lawn mower. I suspected it could be a type of woodpecker because I’m not kidding, the first time I heard it, I thought of the old Woody the Woodpecker cartoon and his maniacal laugh, but we’ve heard no drumming on wood. We could tell the bird has nested somewhere in our neighbor’s yard…a property situated so that his house blocks our view. The owner is rarely home.
On my trip back from delivering my friend, I planned to walk up the long driveway next door and find the source of the sound. My friend had another idea. “There’s an antique store in town selling a book of bird calls. We can go there, listen to some woodpeckers and see if you can identify it.” I was game. I’m not a birdwatcher at all…never knew such a thing as a book of bird sounds existed, but this mystery is so vocal that I’m determined to uncover its source.
One mahogany dropped-leaf table, a World War I megaphone (my friend’s purchases, not mine) and a bemused shop owner later, I was convinced we had a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker next door. Then I came home, listened to more bird calls on YouTube and decided, no, it’s much louder than a Sapsucker; a Pileated Woodpecker, maybe, but still, the voice wasn’t quite right.
Gladys knows no boundaries. This morning my husband and I conducted a proper investigation, tiptoeing (AKA: trespassing) up the curved driveway of the empty house as we tracked the call of the bird, until we stood directly under the portico leading to the entrance to the home. Gazing toward an open third floor window, it became apparent that our absentee neighbor, a business man who travels extensively, has some kind of exotic bird living on his top floor. Huh?
So of course, Gladys hopped on to YouTube again in search of exotic bird calls, which ruled out Cockatoo, Cockatiel, Macaw and Toucan. Then I ran out of the tropical bird names I knew and threw up my hands, determined to put the mystery behind me for the day--until my husband announced that the noises emanating from that window are coming at exact intervals. Every 1 minute and 20 seconds, the same broadcast floats into our windows from his. Hmmm, a very regular bird? Or a recording? This does not bode well for Gladys, whose compulsion to see all and know all has her chewing her lip and pacing the floor.
Stay tuned for future developments, which will be reported as they occur.
What do you imagine is going on next door?
My husband often calls me Gladys Kravitz, after the nosy neighbor in the old TV show Bewitched, and though I prefer the word curious, he’s right. This time however, it’s for good cause. For the past two weeks, a raucous cry from some unknown bird has woken me at dawn and continued bleating all day. We’ve never heard a sound like it, a blend between a laughing hyena, a creature out of an African jungle, and someone trying to start a stalled lawn mower. I suspected it could be a type of woodpecker because I’m not kidding, the first time I heard it, I thought of the old Woody the Woodpecker cartoon and his maniacal laugh, but we’ve heard no drumming on wood. We could tell the bird has nested somewhere in our neighbor’s yard…a property situated so that his house blocks our view. The owner is rarely home.
On my trip back from delivering my friend, I planned to walk up the long driveway next door and find the source of the sound. My friend had another idea. “There’s an antique store in town selling a book of bird calls. We can go there, listen to some woodpeckers and see if you can identify it.” I was game. I’m not a birdwatcher at all…never knew such a thing as a book of bird sounds existed, but this mystery is so vocal that I’m determined to uncover its source.
One mahogany dropped-leaf table, a World War I megaphone (my friend’s purchases, not mine) and a bemused shop owner later, I was convinced we had a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker next door. Then I came home, listened to more bird calls on YouTube and decided, no, it’s much louder than a Sapsucker; a Pileated Woodpecker, maybe, but still, the voice wasn’t quite right.
Gladys knows no boundaries. This morning my husband and I conducted a proper investigation, tiptoeing (AKA: trespassing) up the curved driveway of the empty house as we tracked the call of the bird, until we stood directly under the portico leading to the entrance to the home. Gazing toward an open third floor window, it became apparent that our absentee neighbor, a business man who travels extensively, has some kind of exotic bird living on his top floor. Huh?
So of course, Gladys hopped on to YouTube again in search of exotic bird calls, which ruled out Cockatoo, Cockatiel, Macaw and Toucan. Then I ran out of the tropical bird names I knew and threw up my hands, determined to put the mystery behind me for the day--until my husband announced that the noises emanating from that window are coming at exact intervals. Every 1 minute and 20 seconds, the same broadcast floats into our windows from his. Hmmm, a very regular bird? Or a recording? This does not bode well for Gladys, whose compulsion to see all and know all has her chewing her lip and pacing the floor.
Stay tuned for future developments, which will be reported as they occur.
What do you imagine is going on next door?
Monday, July 12, 2010
At Long Last
After a hot and tossing night, early this morning I slipped down a thick mudslide into a molasses sleep and dreamed I was taking an acting lesson.
In my dream, the cement walled classroom hosted a blue-and-white linoleum floor, with a plate glass window overlooking a sloping hill and a broad green lawn. Four or five students sat with me as the teacher challenged us to hold a microphone and describe an experience that shaped our lives. I listened as my peers spoke, until it was my turn.
The class of course, was imaginary. This story I told, true:
I walked onto my college campus in Vermont as a freshman desiring nothing more than to remove the stigmas of “shy,” “quiet,” and “reserved” that had labeled me through eighteen years in my home town. A transformation began via the young women with whom I lived in the second floor of the brick dorm on the quadrangle at the heart of our college—nestled on a valley floor with clear-aired views of the Green Mountains. One friend in particular, a native Vermonter, as opposed to we Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey transplants who decended on the school each year, engaged herself so totally in life that she taught me lessons that I employ to this day.
Through her genuine and honest greeting to everyone she encountered and the extra moments she paused to speak with each, she taught me that direct eye contact attached to a welcoming smile almost always sparks one in return; that speaking from your gut earns trust, that kindness is essential.
She was so present in every conversation, that she made whomever she was speaking with feel like they were the most important person in the world. She wasn't aware of this—it was as natural to her as breathing. So much so, that in the spring, when five young men asked her to the same semi-formal, as her friends we were not surprised. She however, quivered with open-mouthed amazement. When she won her event in the state-wide track meet though, we had no idea she was such an accomplished runner. She never boasted, stating that she ran because it was fun. Through these actions, she taught me to try my hardest but to take myself lightly, and that by living a life without artifice, it would be possible to exceed expectations.
Already an accomplished poet, she sculpted words like a knife through soft butter. One afternoon on a six-mile cross-country trail, she showed novice skier me how to look for the sunset through the backbones of trees; for the snow that dripped like melting ice cream down the tops of distant mountains, to listen for the quiet in the woods, to feel the cold hush and to inhale the whoosh of our narrow skis as they cut through an unmarked trail. Recording these pictures while trying to emulate her grace, I was aware to some degree, of the lessons I was absorbing although always in life, hindsight brings history into clearer focus.
As these things go; in our junior year there was…not a falling out…but a drifting away. We lived on separate campuses, our social lives expanded; when it was time to say goodbye for the summer before our senior year, we hugged briefly and promised to be in touch over the extra week I was staying in Vermont, but failed to do so.
That August, she flew to Colorado to see her boyfriend. One night they crossed a center line and hit a truck head-on. I received her last postcard in the mail two days after her death, wherein she imparted a final lesson—that grief blisters us inside like scalding suns.
I also learned that regrets can surface over a lifetime. You see, her untimely death robbed me of the chance to acknowlege to her how much she did for me—the way she opened me up—for the countless smiles I’ve received throughout life in return for my own; the way she demonstrated that words are soft and pliable and if you concentrate you can shape them to your will—and that if you pay close attention, every day will offer you solitary moments to breathe in and treasure.
In today's early morning dream, I told this story while standing in front of a microphone, and my classmates moved closer to listen to my words. Then I woke up, and ached with the long sadness of never being able to express my appreciation to that gentle person who soothed and formed parts of me with the same care in which she created her poems— and I stepped out of bed and decided to write this post—in hope that all these years later, Middle Passages may give flight to my thanks.
In my dream, the cement walled classroom hosted a blue-and-white linoleum floor, with a plate glass window overlooking a sloping hill and a broad green lawn. Four or five students sat with me as the teacher challenged us to hold a microphone and describe an experience that shaped our lives. I listened as my peers spoke, until it was my turn.
The class of course, was imaginary. This story I told, true:
I walked onto my college campus in Vermont as a freshman desiring nothing more than to remove the stigmas of “shy,” “quiet,” and “reserved” that had labeled me through eighteen years in my home town. A transformation began via the young women with whom I lived in the second floor of the brick dorm on the quadrangle at the heart of our college—nestled on a valley floor with clear-aired views of the Green Mountains. One friend in particular, a native Vermonter, as opposed to we Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey transplants who decended on the school each year, engaged herself so totally in life that she taught me lessons that I employ to this day.
Through her genuine and honest greeting to everyone she encountered and the extra moments she paused to speak with each, she taught me that direct eye contact attached to a welcoming smile almost always sparks one in return; that speaking from your gut earns trust, that kindness is essential.
She was so present in every conversation, that she made whomever she was speaking with feel like they were the most important person in the world. She wasn't aware of this—it was as natural to her as breathing. So much so, that in the spring, when five young men asked her to the same semi-formal, as her friends we were not surprised. She however, quivered with open-mouthed amazement. When she won her event in the state-wide track meet though, we had no idea she was such an accomplished runner. She never boasted, stating that she ran because it was fun. Through these actions, she taught me to try my hardest but to take myself lightly, and that by living a life without artifice, it would be possible to exceed expectations.
Already an accomplished poet, she sculpted words like a knife through soft butter. One afternoon on a six-mile cross-country trail, she showed novice skier me how to look for the sunset through the backbones of trees; for the snow that dripped like melting ice cream down the tops of distant mountains, to listen for the quiet in the woods, to feel the cold hush and to inhale the whoosh of our narrow skis as they cut through an unmarked trail. Recording these pictures while trying to emulate her grace, I was aware to some degree, of the lessons I was absorbing although always in life, hindsight brings history into clearer focus.
As these things go; in our junior year there was…not a falling out…but a drifting away. We lived on separate campuses, our social lives expanded; when it was time to say goodbye for the summer before our senior year, we hugged briefly and promised to be in touch over the extra week I was staying in Vermont, but failed to do so.
That August, she flew to Colorado to see her boyfriend. One night they crossed a center line and hit a truck head-on. I received her last postcard in the mail two days after her death, wherein she imparted a final lesson—that grief blisters us inside like scalding suns.
I also learned that regrets can surface over a lifetime. You see, her untimely death robbed me of the chance to acknowlege to her how much she did for me—the way she opened me up—for the countless smiles I’ve received throughout life in return for my own; the way she demonstrated that words are soft and pliable and if you concentrate you can shape them to your will—and that if you pay close attention, every day will offer you solitary moments to breathe in and treasure.
In today's early morning dream, I told this story while standing in front of a microphone, and my classmates moved closer to listen to my words. Then I woke up, and ached with the long sadness of never being able to express my appreciation to that gentle person who soothed and formed parts of me with the same care in which she created her poems— and I stepped out of bed and decided to write this post—in hope that all these years later, Middle Passages may give flight to my thanks.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Alone at the Beach
Sounds wrapped in clean cotton,
an old man turning off his hearing aid,
mouths like deep sea fishes,
swallowed on currents of whisper.
Splashing children, those treble mutterings--
little radios keeping
company to an empty house.
Bubble music from
an ice cream truck
and bleating gulls--
their clamor
dampened by the glass wall
you’ve fashioned around yourself,
the only noise that matters--
a vacuum of throb and push,
the warp and weft of blood
as it pulses through your inner ear.
an old man turning off his hearing aid,
mouths like deep sea fishes,
swallowed on currents of whisper.
Splashing children, those treble mutterings--
little radios keeping
company to an empty house.
Bubble music from
an ice cream truck
and bleating gulls--
their clamor
dampened by the glass wall
you’ve fashioned around yourself,
the only noise that matters--
a vacuum of throb and push,
the warp and weft of blood
as it pulses through your inner ear.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Hot Spell
We didn’t break a record for heat yesterday, but according to the Boston Globe, the city reached 100 degrees for the first time in eight years, only the 24th time in the last century that temperatures were recorded that high. At my non-air-conditioned house, fans blasted. The thermometer recorded 99 degrees in the shade outside the family room and it was over 90 in my kitchen before I high-tailed it out mid-afternoon. Driving across our sweltering town, I staked a newly acquired beach umbrella and planted myself in its shade as the tide rolled in over the smooth stones and seaweed rags decorating the sand.
In spite of the fact that I was up and writing at 7:00 yesterday and didn’t stop until 1:00, after so many years in which an employer called the shots, years in which my schedule wasn’t my own, I can’t get used to this freedom. I twisted and turned in my beach chair, cognizant of the fact that even though I spent the morning writing, it wasn’t paying work. Freelance jobs seem to have dried up in the summer heat and for the first time, I’m the only one in the house not earning a pay check. My husband commutes to RI each day, and the resident sixteen-year-old heads off to her cashier job at a pizza seafood joint located in the next town over, where the kitchen temps hit well over 100 degrees yesterday, and she is now being trained to cook.
I’m trying to overcome the notion that a sense of value must be stapled to a number with zeros following it, but after so many years of experience in that regard, I struggle. In light of the lack of paying work, I’ve given myself writing goals and am achieving them. This helps in bolstering the old confidence level, and offers a certain sense of accomplishment.
But, sorry to say, I have yet to get to the point where it makes me feel worthy of a day at the beach.
In spite of the fact that I was up and writing at 7:00 yesterday and didn’t stop until 1:00, after so many years in which an employer called the shots, years in which my schedule wasn’t my own, I can’t get used to this freedom. I twisted and turned in my beach chair, cognizant of the fact that even though I spent the morning writing, it wasn’t paying work. Freelance jobs seem to have dried up in the summer heat and for the first time, I’m the only one in the house not earning a pay check. My husband commutes to RI each day, and the resident sixteen-year-old heads off to her cashier job at a pizza seafood joint located in the next town over, where the kitchen temps hit well over 100 degrees yesterday, and she is now being trained to cook.
I’m trying to overcome the notion that a sense of value must be stapled to a number with zeros following it, but after so many years of experience in that regard, I struggle. In light of the lack of paying work, I’ve given myself writing goals and am achieving them. This helps in bolstering the old confidence level, and offers a certain sense of accomplishment.
But, sorry to say, I have yet to get to the point where it makes me feel worthy of a day at the beach.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Long Weekend Shorts
Dangling legs over the bow of the Vesper II, head tucked under the Genoa sail to watch the sun throw shards of broken glass across the churning sea.
A distant boat lifting wing-on-wing; full sails blooming on either side of the vessel as it runs before the wind across a path of light.
The skin-prickling chill of 61-degree spray as we motor through the rolling wake of a larger boat in our twelve foot dinghy on a blistering Sunday.
Two full glasses of dry red wine, cushioned by cloth place mats on a glass patio table, in front of a granite rock garden bloated with yawning day lilies.
A breath of wind stroking with restful fingers as it carries us through an outdoor supper without mosquitoes.
Holiday-morning-road quiet in front of our house; coffee in open-window air and the occasional pong of a nautical wind chime at the back of the yard as it sings a tale of the sea.
Left-over blueberry bread pudding floating in a swirl of almond cream sauce for breakfast.
A distant boat lifting wing-on-wing; full sails blooming on either side of the vessel as it runs before the wind across a path of light.
The skin-prickling chill of 61-degree spray as we motor through the rolling wake of a larger boat in our twelve foot dinghy on a blistering Sunday.
Two full glasses of dry red wine, cushioned by cloth place mats on a glass patio table, in front of a granite rock garden bloated with yawning day lilies.
A breath of wind stroking with restful fingers as it carries us through an outdoor supper without mosquitoes.
Holiday-morning-road quiet in front of our house; coffee in open-window air and the occasional pong of a nautical wind chime at the back of the yard as it sings a tale of the sea.
Left-over blueberry bread pudding floating in a swirl of almond cream sauce for breakfast.
Friday, July 2, 2010
A Good Start
How about the mornings that compel you to sit up and write? The hush at 6:30—soft air floating the leaves of the rangy scrub maple that straddles the stone wall at the property line—the congregation of birds muttering among themselves deep in the back woods.
An open window invites sound and the subdued swish of commuters navigating the two-lane highway a quarter-of-a-mile away travels. Orange light from an early sun glows on the trunks of thick pines, the top cigar leaves of the giant rhododendrons—below, the garden rests in green shade.
With crusted eyes, you vault from the bed to write about it, grabbing a pen, jotting some notes, stumbling to the computer—while the noise of a truck rumbling up the street rolls in like a wave, a hiss that grows to a crescendo, a thunder, before pummeling by, and you are grateful when the engine noise is swallowed by silence again, and for the puff-ball hydrangea blossoms that bow and rest in the sleep that still embraces the rear of the house.
An open window invites sound and the subdued swish of commuters navigating the two-lane highway a quarter-of-a-mile away travels. Orange light from an early sun glows on the trunks of thick pines, the top cigar leaves of the giant rhododendrons—below, the garden rests in green shade.
With crusted eyes, you vault from the bed to write about it, grabbing a pen, jotting some notes, stumbling to the computer—while the noise of a truck rumbling up the street rolls in like a wave, a hiss that grows to a crescendo, a thunder, before pummeling by, and you are grateful when the engine noise is swallowed by silence again, and for the puff-ball hydrangea blossoms that bow and rest in the sleep that still embraces the rear of the house.
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