Litany of Lucky

Guess what I feel luckiest about?

So lately, given the economy and all manner of things going on in the universe, I have felt an onslaught of complete negativity.

It has not been fun.

I think that, by nature, I am not a negative person. I am pretty 'glass-half-full'. But I am susceptible to the negativity that people feel free to express and vent about.

Understandably, there is fear regarding job security and finances, a person would have to be living a totally isolated existence not to see how tenuous many of our personal, professional and financial situations are. But fearing what may happen in the future only distracts us from the pleasures and the wonders of our life in the moment.

I saw a segment on the news about 'bright siding'. I.e. people who do things in order to bring some cheer and joy to their day.

I am all for it.

I want a shield from the miasma that seems to be floating everywhere.

My job may end tomorrow. The economy may get worse. These things are possibilities. But in the moment, this moment, I am a very lucky and blessed person with many joyful things in my life to celebrate and honor.

With that in mind, I have a new mode of thinking that I am going to try to embrace. I call it 'The Litany of Lucky.'

What is it?

In a moment, when I might be feeling needlessly or irrationally negative or unhappy, I need to take a moment to observe where I am, what I have, and how lucky I am to be where I am in my life.

Right now?

• I am lucky to live in an age where I can communicate so easily with the people I love
• I am lucky to have the education and facility of mind to express myself
• I am lucky to have some lovely gold bangles that my husband bought for me in India
• I am lucky that I have the kind of husband who is sweet enough to think to buy me such lovely bangles

And it goes on and on. You get the idea. Anything can be something that is a blessing.

Maybe it seems silly, like I'm blowing sunshine up my - you know - but I really do think that I'm lucky and I want to embrace all the joys of my life as I live them and not become a victim of the relentless unhappiness in the world.

I know that there are things wrong in the world, but I think that I honor those things more by observing how lucky I am in what is right in my life, than by pretending that any issues I have at the moment stack up at all in the face of other people's very real and very substantial problems.

I am lucky.

Happy All Day Today

It was like having a kite. What's opposite of hangover?

Then It Was All Okay Again. Better Than Okay.

I wanted to call this entry "The Heartbreak of Macarons" but really, the weekend was too good for that. We made a batch of macarons that would have been heartbreaking, had it not been so funny. "Self-filling", Kathleen called them, because the tops puffed up like lumpy four-leaf clovers, and then some of the batter oozed out in a puddle around the lump, looking like ganache gone terribly wrong. We made stacks of them and Lisa photographed them for a joke, but they didn't taste nearly as bad as they looked. Her canele, on the other hand - gorgeous, and delicious. Not a thing wrong with them. For the second batch of macarons, we stuck with vanilla and maybe the egg whites were a little overbeaten, but they were still surprisingly good, and each of us left Lisa's carefully cradling the two macarons that were our share of the tiny batch. I had one for breakfast this morning, maybe the other with hot tea for dessert tonight.

I didn't mean to stay out til one both nights this weekend, but I was having too much fun not too. I was in love all weekend, satisfied with all the people I was with, then today so happy on my own for a few hours. There was nothing bad except having forgotten my camera at work, and so much good, so many things to laugh about, so much good food to eat, all the right kinds of love and attention and happiness.

That Was The Start

I had a bad day last week. Terrible. Horrible. Actually, it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Do the boys have that book yet? If not, pipe up and it's in the mail. Very helpful book.  

Where was I? Ah, right. The Bad Day. It was not the kind of bad day that blends into a string of bad days, an ongoing mush of gloom. It was the kind of bad day that stands out and makes you realize that the other days around it, were not so bad. But it still sucked.

So I came home, and did something, um, out of character. I made myself dinner. It felt so good to do that. Then I did the dishes. Right away! Also out of character. I never do the dishes right away. Most of the time I think- why would you do that? You just ate! Enjoy! But this time, it was nice. 

After that, things got a lot better. Thursday night, I went with Kate to a reception for the Jane Hirshfield reading, and met Jane and Earl and saw Casandra and ran into Ted & Kris (!) who made both me and Kate laugh since we were talking about how you and I used to babysit their girls, and they revealed that Clare is now older than Kate. Yeah. Ha. It was so good to see them. 

There's been so much more of that good stuff since then. Kate's Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night, Jessica's little blog entry on me, lots of good time with Super Exclusive friends, even a stranger stopping me in the coffee shop to tell me I looked cute. Sometimes it seems like the world is paying you back for every good thing you've ever done. 

No more printed PI?

I visited the Seattle P.I.'s website, for a nostalgic glimpse at the past... and came away thinking that not much happened in Seattle in the 80's!

The 70's and 90's were way more happening.

Nature or Nurture?

It's like you were there!

We had an awesome birthday party for the boys over the weekend - which is a big part of my absentee-ism here lately.

Planning a shindig for 60+ people in your apartment requires a little brain power!

In any case, it was really fun and I think that the boys had a great time - even if they didn't really understand that it was all about them.

They got a ridiculous number of gifts and lots of other kids and babies were there to wish them well... but the best thing about the day was how their individual reactions to the hats and cakes and whatnot really demonstrated how different they are.

They may be identical twins... but they are definitely not the same person.

Cake! Yummy cake!

Thomas - totally willing to ham it up in the hat and eat his cake with some gusto, but with his hands. Max - refuses the hat (in tears) and face plants the cake.

Max refuses the hat. Mean Mommy laughs about it...

We also had their 12 month well-baby visits and they are developing well. Max is 20 lbs. 6 oz. (14+ pounds up from his birthweight) and Thomas is 21 lbs. 12 oz. (15+ pounds up from his birthweight).

Aside from some boogy noses, all in all, I would say we are all doing pretty well.

This Isn't the Half of It

It was an astonishing weekend, food-wise. We ate at this place Friday night, and there were so many courses that I literally can't remember them all. If the first course hadn't been the most amazing oysters I've ever had, then I would have left with the impression that each course was better than the last. There were so many of my favorite ingredients, lamb, duck, sorrel, pickled things, chocolate... it went on and on, and on, even after the end, when we wandered back to our friends' photo studio, since one of the owners came over after a while, with a couple bottles of rum for tasting. 

 

The rest of the weekend was pretty amazing too, Saturday morning, Lisa, Kathleen and I met up at Honore for macarons and cannele and cafe bom-bon. I could talk to those two ladies all day, but eventually we went our separate ways, me to the yarn store and then Susan's house where I actually COOKED something!! But more on that later. Maybe. 

Sunday was just as delicious, since Kate gathered up a few of us for Thanksgiving on the Ides of March, then served us the juiciest turkey ever, perfectly crisp skin, corn stuffing, and Lindsey made delicious greens. Afterwards I took us all out for ice cream at Molly Moon's. Highly recommended!

Metaphors We Live By - Five Senses

Metaphors We Live By is a book Jane Hirshfield mentioned at her reading tonight. She was talking about the senses, and how everything we know is through our senses, and all the metaphor that comes about as a result. It was a perfect little thing, just the kind of serendipity I like, because I had been thinking about what to do for my Five Senses Friday post. Mostly you and I live in a pretty isolated outpost of the internet, Ali, but sometimes I get sucked into the world of a blog I like - Abbey's is one example.

:: Sound ::

Jane Hirshfield last night at Seattle Arts & Lectures

her soft, precise voice, lingering over what is both difficult and sweet

:: Smell ::

powdery citrus in my car, left over from the bath fizz I brought as a present for Kate

:: Sight ::

sunshine all week long

the bright bright moon

words on page

this book

this book

this one

:: Touch ::

elbow-length cashmere gloves

the feel of a scarf on my neck, in the cold

:: Taste ::

my everyday latte

the last macaron of the week

Happy Birthday! (all week long!)

Max and Thomas, only hours old.

Check the boys out here.... they got a special birthday shout-out!

It is unbelievable that the boys are a year old now.

I feel like it was yesterday that I was waddling around with my 60-pound belly and giving people dirty looks on the subway for not offering up their seats.

They’ve gone from being these little mewling creatures to standing, walking, babbling characters. I look at pictures of them with us and I can’t figure out how they got so tall or so old! In my minds eye, they are still wee little babies, but then I see images where I can glimpse the boys they will eventually become.

They have big hands and feet like puppies.

Thomas is our ham, our cookie monster, our giggling clown. He’s quick to smile for the camera, quick to laugh and giggle hysterically. And he’s learned how to pick his nose and twiddle his dingle. Both of which are equally amusing at this point. He’s the first to race over if he sees you coming. He’s also usually the first to burn out at the end of the day, falling asleep in his high chair. After he’s eaten everything in sight, of course. He’s figured out how to put the blocks back in their boxes already.

Max is our sweet-faced baby. A little slower to smile, he sort of seems to consider things for longer than Thomas does. He just wants to sit in your lap and get loves and hugs. He wants to kiss you on the nose… though sometimes it turns into a bite. He loves to look out the window and he sleeps on his tummy with his rump up in the air. When he wakes up in the morning he loves to honk the horn on the car next to his bed. Despite his seeming shyness, and the fact that he is still smaller than Thomas, he manages to steal the toys and give as good as he gets when it comes to brotherly rough-housing.

It has been a great year and a hard year. The boys are easily the best thing that I’ve ever done and seeing the look on their face when they see me – MAMAMAMAMA – is really nothing less than awesome. There were certainly times when I never thought I would get a full night’s sleep again. When I was SO TIRED of pumping. When the thought of looking at my post-baby belly made me a bit irritable.

The sleeplessness was easily the hardest part though now, for the most part, the boys sleep through the night. And sometimes I miss the nights of cuddling or nursing a boy at 1 am.

Now we wake up in the morning to the sounds of them happily babbling to each other. If nothing else, they are the best alarm clock ever.

Happy first birthday to my two little men!

Max and Thomas, one YEAR old!

It Was All a Dream

I had never filled up the memory in my camera before, never needed to edit as I went. If it had been just one night, I might not have needed to, but two nights, two days, required it. I culled photos in the middle of the party the second night, saved some memory for the vineyards the next day and was rewarded with gorgeous teary photos of green Napa in the pouring rain. Even so, I cam home with over 400 photos and still can't decide which hundred I love most, still wouldn't delete many of the final lot. That's what happens when you have a whole set you like - what makes them lovely is the way they look together - the juxtapositions forgive the lack of focus, poor light, the way someone is mid-chew, someone else is moving or blinking.

I went into the weekend thinking there should be pranks, mischief, art projects! But in the end, everything was too spectacular to need anything additional, it would have been gilding the lily. It all WAS gilding the lily - the rare bottles of wine, the lines of caviar, the pizzeria out back, the long winding driveway through the estate, the larger-than-life portrait of someone's mother, painted by Diego Rivera, the two Milton Avery pieces, the long banquet table, danced on, of course, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Prince on repeat, the way everyone's clothing had bones on it, skeletons, as though each person had made his or herself an element in a vanitas painting.

For my part, I put off the recording of it here, thinking every day that there should be something on the blog, some record beyond the photos that were lying dormant in my computer. I should tell you about the white blouse Amy wore under her leather bustier, with the high boots and the white tights adorned with leg bones all up the back, or Renee's necklace, long and elaborate, made up of charms she had collected over the years. Or I should talk about the food, the piles of cheese, the radishes with butter and salt, the plates of sashimi and baskets of tiny tangerines fresh from the orchard. And the champagne, the champagne, the champagne.

But sometimes some things are all too much to record. I knew when I went that I needed to get away, that the skeletons were emblematic, as they are in tarot, of change, and of some things passing out of my life, and something else coming in. The whole thing was too big to see at once, like the gorge you come across near Taos, invisible until you are right on it, standing at the edge trying to see the whole thing, heart stopped, with a view you could not possibly have anticipated.

What Was Not Boring Today

Some people come with gifts, like, um, hair-braiding skills, or a really good sense of direction, or the ability to make pies. Some people bring gifts, like mix CDs, or good books, or actual pieces of pie. Kate both has gifts and brings gifts. Pie-making and pies. Mail! Which is a precious gift - postcards, little thank you notes. I love mail. She also has a talent for having her photo taken, by moi, as evidenced by the photo above. I don't know how to explain why that photo is one of my favorite photos ever, but it is. I love it. I come back to it, have it as one of the rotating desktops on my computer, and am happy when it comes up.

Kate also has a talent for getting me in the kitchen, which is, of course, a weird thing. Since I don't cook at all. Though I'm considering starting. Considering. Last week Kate and I went to U bookstore (which is a whole other blog post, how much I love that place!) for a reading by this extremely charming blogger, who wrote one of those books that I like, which sort-of defies categories, it's got recipes and little vignettes, you know? Someone's life in food.

Mostly Kate gets me into the kitchen by cooking for me, and I'm thinking about that, about the people who feed me, like Kate, and Dad (mmm pork chops!) and Mom and various lovely ladies associated with my writing group. Katherine and her excellent chicken soup, dinners at Peggy's, even Tami, who claims not to cook, has fed me sweet things made by her own hand. Rice Krispy Treats totally count! Not to mention Pam, and her roast chicken and ceviche and thai shrimp and more. I'm just thinking, I'd like more of that home cooking thing, even if it means I have to do it myself.

Dear Babies

A year already? Hard to believe. Thank you for all the happiness you've brought to your mom and dad, and to your grandparents and aunt and blog fans. Thanks for all the cute photos and smiles and cuddles, and funny stories. You are two little cheery balls of chub, and we love you tons. 

Happy birthday!

XOXO

Auntie H

When did this happen?

Remember last year when I was THIS BIG???

I can't believe that the boys will be one year old tomorrow.

Subterranean Mojo

Susan and I hated the Sex & the City movie. HAAAAAAATED it!! We went to a matinee, and even though the reviews had been bad, we thought, hey, high production values, crazy outfits, NYC, how bad could it be? Pretty bad, it turns out. So don't even get me started on the idea that they are going to make a sequel.

The sad part about it was that there really was something to Sex & the City, the tv show. It wasn't the stupid columns that Carrie wrote, her observations on love, or the parade of semi-cute actors who played her love interests over the years. I was kind-of over Samantha and the whole idea that there was something revolutionary in her free-wheeling sexuality, and the whole Miranda career juggling was a little cardboard cut-out for me. But I remember towards the end of the show, either the show itself, or some review I read of it, probably both, talked about how it was really a love story between the four women, and that was truly the part of it that I liked. I liked their little brunches together, and the way they cracked each other up, and sometimes they made up too easily after a spat or trouble, but still, I liked the way the four of them were always together, and the way we were with them, deep in the intimacy of their friendships.

When people see me again after a long time apart, they don't usually think to ask me how my girlfriends are. That's understandable, but too bad in a way, because few things influence my state of mind and happiness more than my girlfriends. Susan has a level of commitment to me and our friendship that no boyfriend has ever had, a willingness to hash it out and muddle through and fight if necessary and just always be there. Kristin is like this for me too, though Susan will always have seniority over every one. She's like the Senior Fellow of Friendship. I love her like a sister, and that's a lot.

So if you asked me now how I am, and you thought to ask also about my girlfriends, I'd have to tell you it's been a hard winter. I know you know this about my winter already, but a few of us have been having a rough time simultaneously, and wow, do I feel that. I haven't been the friend I'd like to be, though I'm trying. Kristin is back in the states, and that's been good, and ANTM is back on soon, so Susan and I (I hope) will get back to that silly habit we have, Tivo, good snacks, yelling at the TV and laughing at Tyra. That should be just about enough to get us through these last weeks of winter.

The End

This morning, I came across this phrase that I love - ben trovato. It means "well found" in Italian, and might be used as praise for a story. One of the things that keeps me writing is the idea that stories are not made, but found. Takes the pressure off, and makes the act of writing a sort of vehicle for faith, I think. Have I said this before?

Today was the last day of the photo project with Jason. I loved his final photo, ben trovato, don't you think? So much to look at here, the mailboxes, the idea of a message sent to a person, picking up your mail, receiving something... a letter or, more strangely, a balloon. I liked the juxtaposition of this balloon and the mail, like the balloon was a package that was delivered too late, or a package that was never picked up. Messages sent, but not received.

On Friday, we wrapped a co-workers entire desk in wedding-themed gift wrap. He had quietly taken two weeks off to get married in Hawaii, one of those guys who just isn't going to make a big deal about it, but of course we couldn't let him get away with that. I sort-of credit the photo project here though, it has added something prankish to my mood, has me looking around to see what else can be done, what other things need to be looked at differently, what projects I can take on. And of course, I'm taking recommendations.

What Jason's Been Up To

Were you wondering? He's totally worth wondering about. I squeaked with delight when I opened this first photo, super happy that he had taken a photo head-on, facing the challenge squarely, so to speak. A little moment of humorous courage. I especially liked that it made me imagine night-time in a dark apartment, Jason seeking the one spot of light that would give us a full shot of his mug. Maybe that isn't what really happened, but I don't care, it was what I pictured. All of these shots give us Jason as a character actor, I think, and I like that.

Like this one. Do I even need to say anything? I love it. The background, the whimsy, all of it.

When I opened this one, a little part of me wanted to weep. I don't know what Jason meant or was thinking when he took this one, but to me there is something so tender and melancholy about it. What is it about eyelids? Eyelids are so vulnerable. And that one stray piece of hair on his forehead. So good. I love that I don't know what his intention was here, or even if he had an intention. I don't know what the photo looked like to him, but I love that it transmitted so much emotion to me, rightly or wrongly. Not that there wasn't something tongue-in-cheek about it, there was that too, which is part of what made the sweetness of it so funny and sad at the same time.

Can't wait to see what I get tomorrow!

So... so what?

Day two of the self-portrait exchange. I'm getting a little obsessed with this. I went out last night and meant to take my photo while I was out, would have been good too, the beet soup I had for dinner was so pretty and red, but I got too caught up in my conversation with Grant and forgot. So when  I got home, I took two photos and thought I was done, but once I uploaded them, I realized I wasn't satisfied.

Jason says a little difficulty in a creative endeavor is always a good thing, and this project is proving him right. I tend to think that it's impossible for me to take a photo in my apartment at night, since it's not the most well-lit space, and, of course, it's cluttered with treasures. But the more I just sit there and look around, the more ideas I have. Now I've got this process of upload, check photos, delete some, drag some to the desktop,  take some more, upload again, delete again, lather, rinse, repeat. Last night I took over a hundred photos, with four different themes, but in the end I think (I think) I liked the one above best. Can you see the globe light reflected in my eye? 

One thing I'm really enjoying is including pieces from my art collection. All the framed paintings and drawings that sit stacked on my kitchen table, leaning against the wall, now look like tempting props. I guess there's a good reason I haven't hung everything after all, isn't there? Here's another funny thing about this - I'm liking the detail of the photos, the detail of my face. Freckles and wrinkles and stray flakes of mascara. I kind of like looking myself in the eye. What's that about?

Out-take!

Anyway, that's what's up today.

I totally owe you a post about the weekend I had. Mercy, what a weekend. But since I can't do it justice now, we'll start with something else. 

Jason and I have a project this week. Photo exchange, one self-portrait every day, taken after 7PM PST. I realized recently that I need a new muse, and when I thought about who might be both handy and willing, well, the list came up short. I did take some gorgeous photos of Kristin last weekend, but she, like me, is disturbed by the intimacy inherent in having someone who knows you take your photo. Does anyone else get that? I totally struggle with it. I bet Kristin and I are not the only ones.

So, I'm still looking for the muse (watch out Kate, I have some good photos of you, and photos taken in the past that ended up pleasing me = high likelihood I will shoot you again) but you know who is really handy and around every day in my life? Oh yeah, me. So when Jason and I came up with our rules for the photo a day, and one of them was "photo must include something living", our subjects ended up being ourselves. 

We also agreed to email them to each other the next morning, and to take them after 7PM. We discussed whether we should have a limit on the number of photos we could take in order to get the self-portrait, and I'm glad we didn't agree to one, because it took me about 50 to get the one above, which I'm only okay with, not ecstatic about. One of the hardest things about the challenge is my self-imposed rule about flash (hate it), combined with my lack of technical knowledge about photography. Ha ha. I did TRY a few flash photos to see if I could stand them, but guess what? I couldn't. I also resisted the temptation to use the photo below, which I love. Maybe on the 5th day I could have, but on the first day, it just seemed too evasive, you know? 

Art Babies

It's a bird! It's a plane!

The boys had a day alone with their daddy a couple of weeks ago.

Instead of sticking close to home, so that he could follow the carefully prescribed sleeping and feeding schedule that I make myself a slave to, he took them to the Whitney with some friends.

They had a super fun time. Our friend is friends with someone who works in fundraising at the museum, so they all got to go in before the galleries opened.

Which led to this shot...

Thomas says... let's go check out some art Max!

I am sure that the floor was non too clean, but still, I love this picture!

Are they broken yet?

What? I'm not doing anything?

Not a whole heck of a lot going on here.

I had a dentists appointment today and am REALLY hoping that the boys got Eugene's teeth - straight and impenetrable. Unlike mine - which look all good on the outside, but are actually the fromage suisse..

I had to have two fillings replaced. Not so painful - the drugs are good - but the smell of your teeth being ground down, not to mention the taste in the back of your throat... Nope, I do not wish that on my little boogers.

In the interest of their tooth preservation I 'brush' their teeth (8 each!) every night with little fingertip toothbrushes. It's a pretty funny game. I try to brush and they giggle until they decide to see how hard they can bite my finger.

Then they giggle some more.

It's school application season here in New York. Or rather, school acceptance season. So I have been receiving daily 'advice' on how to prepare the boys for school testing.

*sigh* THEY AREN'T EVEN A YEAR OLD YET!!!!!

All of these funny things are happening to get me in touch with how big they are... How OLD they are... If eleven and a half month old babies can be considered old. Basically, everything conspires to tell me that now is the time when I could start messing them up.

For life.

Okay, maybe not quite yet.

Maybe I Just Needed Some Vitamins

One of my mentors and I were talking yesterday about the best advice he'd ever received. "Contemplate form," his mentor had told him. Contemplate form.

His response, he said, had been "Oh gee, thanks," and I can understand that. What does that even mean? But then he explained that his mentor was reminding him to seek things that are a good in themselves, like a statue, or a painting, serving no other purpose than to be beautiful, good, pleasing. Certainly there are other meanings or experiences to have of art, but when it comes to restoring the soul, art in service of the Beautiful is the best.

It was serendipitous that he happened to mention that this piece of advice led him to the National Gallery in DC. The National Gallery is one of my favorite places in the world for seeking the Beautiful, and as he described an afternoon he spent contemplating a favorite sculpture, I thought about my time there in front of the Rothkos, how satisfied sitting on the little bench in front of them made me feel. All filled up, like I was doing something that fed me completely. One of the things I love about Rothko's paintings is that, to me, they are pure experience. They don't represent anything other than themselves, they don't take me anywhere other than into the colors and shapes themselves, as a place to be, to rest. They resist any other way of relating to them.

Today, it was easy to be happy, for the first time in a long time. Driving home from my board meeting, I had a lot of thoughts about that. One of them was this - Kristin used to have a Pinto. She used to have a Pinto and when she wasn't driving the Pinto, she was sometimes riding her bike around Santa Fe, in a big flowy skirt with no shoes on. That's how I remember it, anyway. And the other thing I was remembering about that, was the feeling of witnessing her being that person, adventurous, independent, and beautiful. It's a pleasure to think about the time when she was new in my world, when we were just getting to know each other, not even consciously realizing that we were determining what role we would play in each other's lives for years to come.

Some relationships, of course, never quite find their feet. They take work, or adjustments, or are uncomfortable and just never quite fit right. Sometimes that's a good thing, and that work serves your soul in some way, makes you some better version of yourself. But there are other friendships in which I primarily feel blessed, where I find moment after moment of contentment, of realizing that there is really no other place I would rather be. Not that I don't still get distracted even in the presence of those friends, that's how I am of course, fragmented and human. But there are times when being with a certain person is so clearly a good in itself, serving no purpose or end other than the one in that moment, and it doesn't matter whether we are sitting in a garden or driving in the car, or going to a concert or just staying home. The experience of that moment is that the friendship itself is a place to be, a place where I find myself reminded that humans, like art, have their own way, independent of action or activity, of being a good in themselves, and of representing the upper-case-B Beautiful.

Antidotes

red things ::: Beast of Burden followed by Piece of My Heart ::: cooking ::: Chris Hadley ::: someone else cleaning my place ::: clothes for KH ::: not talking ::: spreadsheets ::: next weekend ::: Tami ::: white pajamas ::: a ponytail ::: green shoes ::: Elvis telling me he thinks of me as so cheerful ::: rhubarb pie ::: elbow-length cashmere gloves ::: Wren, Ella & Wyatt ::: hot water ::: Yiyun Li's story, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers ::: being picked up at the airport by someone you love ::: mail from the twins ::: the name Ryan ::: Katherine's chicken soup day two

Just Some Of The Things You're Gonna Think It's About, If You're Me

playing the radio loud in the car :: making things :: talking to strangers :: sitting on the couch listening to music :: taking pictures :: appreciating good food made by someone else :: giving things away :: outfits that don't suck :: taking the waiter's advice :: learning :: long drives :: being there in a pinch :: pranks :: jokes over text :: the kind of conversations that make you want to sit closer :: christmas lights :: giving advice :: listening to the truth about yourself :: sitting at the bar :: field trips :: showing up :: taking a walk with no destination :: going somewhere new :: trust ::

My contribution to economizing

A small selection of the things we threw out from the old apartment... not including books.

When we moved last year there were lots of boxes of books.

Enough that the movers felt they needed to comment on it. And especially for an apartment the size of our old apartment.

I justified it by saying that they were books that I would re-read. And, you know what? That is what I am doing now.

I don't make any claims that I read great literature - I will leave War and Peace to you, darling, - but it is interesting to re-read something that you liked ten or fifteen years ago and see how time and life have given you a different perspective on something you once loved.

You may love it again, but for different reasons.

You may wonder why you loved it in the first place. In fact, you may not be sure that you actually READ it in the first place.

Anyways, that's what I am doing for the family economy. Re-reading the books of my early twenties.

At least until I have time to go to the library.

Things I Love - part who knows what

171. My new old Polaroid

172. The fact that when I'm sick, friends come out of the woodwork to help me out

173. Driving Lake Washington Boulevard

174. New winter coats

175. Girls' getaways

176. Pranks

177. The idea of using a film camera

178. Getting to go to this place with Kristin

179. Katherine's chicken soup (believe me, I don't need to have tasted it to know I love it)

180. Moleskine's city books

181. My new couch

182. Having even just one sentence for a new story

183. The future

184. Giving Kate bath bombs

185. Reading the New Yorker on airplanes

186. When people love something I knitted for them

187. Earrings my mom gave me

188. Watching GG with Ali

189. The movie Stranger Than Fiction

I Couldn't Say

I've been trying to have something to say here, but it's not working all that well. Februarys might just be like this. I'm trying also to find a way out of it, more light, more warmth. The conservatory in Volunteer Park, a walk through Seward Park, hot beverages, warm clothes. But something about February makes me go blank, empty. On Friday I saw so many of my favorite people, and still, there I was, conversationally inept with the people I like to talk to most in the world.

Which is why Mike's dialogue class on Saturday sounded like an oasis to me. Afterwards he said he taught it by trying not to bore me, but of course he never even came close. In the beginning he asked us what we wanted to know about dialogue, and I wanted to say "How not to make it suck," and then "How to make it show up." I just needed to think about people talking to each other, see it, hear what that might sound like. He had us think about what drives peoples speech, what's behind it, and about the ways and reasons that we don't say what we mean, or talk sideways to each other.

But if you find yourself saying, "I don't want to talk about it," as I have been lately, then dialogue dries up, gets reduced to the functional. In class we did an exercise - half the group was given a slip that said something like "profess undying love" and the other half, a slip that said "leaving someone/don't love you anymore," and told to write that speech. No one knew what anyone else had been assigned, and afterwards, one random lover read their part, juxtaposed with another random leaver. People talking sideways to each other, and it worked.

I was a leaver, and couldn't find those words. I kept thinking about the scene in Closer (which has brilliant dialogue) where Clive Owen's character comes home from a business trip and is greeted by his wife who is about to leave him. She asks if she can draw him a bath, he asks why she is dressed if she just bathed. It's all sideways, or underneath, but you can feel everything that's coming as she pours water from the tea kettle into mugs.

I was also thinking about the Updike story, A&P, which I've talked about here before, and how that first-person narrator makes the story all dialogue in a way, but how the whole thing hinges on the manager saying "Girls, this isn't the beach." The first time I read that story, I was in high school, and my favorite english teacher loved it. I didn't get it really, what was so great about this pretty average-sounding guy watching these girls come into a grocery store in their bathing suits. I think sometimes dialogue that is so right is hard to appreciate, exactly because it's so right. It seems ordinary, though now it's clear to me that the voice in A&P is an extraordinary one for being captured on the page so perfectly. And now I see how gorgeous it is, the way it's just this musing until the whole thing kicks off with that line, like a swimmer pushing off the side of the pool.

In the end, I did come up with something because of the exercise. Not a speech, just a little scene. One that ends with two lines of dialogue.

"I'll know it when I see it."

"Like pornography."

Perfect for the break-up story I've been thinking about.

Umm? Geniuses?

And athletic



We are all doing pretty well - boogery noses aside. The boys are sleeping through the night regularly, cruising all over the couches and living room, babbling non-stop, playing peek-a-boo with abandon, and clapping like little maniacs.

And I think it is obvious who our little show-off is.

I am finally getting something resembling sleep. Yay! And I have been able to go snowboarding three days. Which is kind of the first time since the boys were born that I have gotten to do something recreational and just for ME!

It's not all that exciting, and yet it is.

Just This Sometimes

I had so much to say with that last post. Not as much now.

Everything We Did Together Was Fun

I always get good photographs when B and I take field trips. I write more with him around too, truth be told. It's often been that kind of friendship for me. On Saturday we went for a drive, found ourselves at a sandy overcast beach, me with two cameras and B dragging huge pieces of driftwood to make letters in the sand. I took photos through the viewfinder of my old Polaroid, trying to get a good shot by balancing the two different lens, the two different points of view.

When you take this kind of photo, you can get focus on either the person you are looking at, or the lens through which you are looking at them, but not both. While I was trying to get it right, B was going back and forth with his treasures, moving things, covering ground fast with those long legs of his. I would get focus for a moment, then he would move out of frame before there was even time to work the shutter. I should have realized I was trying too hard, but it is typical of me to think that a task is always about me doing it better, following his movements more closely, handling the camera more quickly, for example, applying more will or concentration. I have a problem with that, too willful. It is not always better to apply more force. Sometimes that only results in breaking things.

At Super Duper Exclusive Book Club on Friday night, we were talking about will and faith, in the context of long friendship, and marriage. The book we read for this time was Feast of Love, by Charles Baxter, and we talked also about Closer, and Reservation Road, which I haven't seen, and just generally the difficulty of it all. The beautiful part of the conversation though, was the thoughts everyone had about longevity, and the confession from the married women that part of longevity had to do with knowing, in the most frustrating times, the times when you just feel exhausted by the work of the relationship, that it is not all up to you. Sometimes this means the other person is the person who brings the energy to the relationship, the enthusiasm, the faith that everything is going to be okay. But there is a third thing too, a life that the relationship itself has, an energy, a will of its own that works on both people.

And this applies to long friendships too, and we talked about that, the ebbs and flows, the way the best friendships, the most important relationships, have that life of their own. Maybe you have times when it seems that boredom or anger or frustration is telling you the relationship has run its course, but then it surprises you, and whether you mean it to or not, the friendship has revived itself, set off a spark in you that leads to something better, to a set of beautiful photographs, or a piece of writing you wouldn't have had anyway or just some happier way of seeing each other.

That's not to say that everything is meant to last. Another problem I have, what to hold on to, what to let go. I hold on to too much, I know that about myself. I'm thinking about that, have been asking lately, what's the basis for a friendship, what makes you decide to stick around, what do you want to be loved for, and how do you want to love? I don't expect answers, really, not definitive ones at least. Those questions also have a life of their own, and change as I do, and depending on how things turn out. At the moment, I'm trying to listen beyond my own assumptions and old ideas about how all that should work.

There are a lot of things that keep you from seeing beyond the lens through which you are trying to look. Insecurity, fear, past grievances, drinking. There's a reason why they call them beer goggles, right? Intoxicated, you become all lens, seeing only your own way of seeing, you don't see the object of your sight, do you? But that's another story, and not one for this place, now.

The photos I like best through the Polaroid lens are the ones where what is seen through the viewfinder, and beyond it, is in focus. Those were the hardest to get, and only started to work once I stopped trying so hard. It's obvious, really that it wasn't about me trying to track B with the lens, but about waiting until he came back in the frame. But I'm not that good at holding still, at being patient. It's something I keep reminding myself of, a topic that I am finding more and more ways to talk about and explore. Beyond that, all I can do, is wait, and hope that a kind of faith shows up, one that will quiet my need to always apply my will, or to think that I know how the picture is supposed to turn out.

Where Is This Love?

Have you seen the movie Closer? Kate, Lindsey and I watched it the other night. I warned Lindsey ahead of time - "It's dark," I said. "It will not make you feel good." But we both wanted to watch it, so Lindsey said "Let's do it!" and we forged ahead, with our popcorn, and hot buttered rum and Swiffer the cat on their big old couch.

Closer is a liar's movie. One of the characters is a photographer, which, I am starting to suspect, is always a dead giveaway that the whole thing is about writing, in some way or another. Then of course, there is the fact that one of the other characters is a writer. The other two? A stripper, and a dermatologist. At one point in the movie, there's a great scene where the dermatologist thunders at the writer - "Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist, wrapped in blood! Go fuck yourself! You writer! You liar!"

Kate and I both laughed at that bit - "You writer!" Beautiful.

The first time I saw Closer, I was in love. This made it so hard to sit through people torturing each other with their obsessions, cheating on each other, then extracting the details of the infidelity so that the torture is just that much more distinct. Unencumbered by love now, it all seemed so interesting to me, while Lindsey squirmed in her seat and said "This is so uncomfortable to watch!"

I just wanted to think about why we do what we do. What parts of it are worth doing, which parts we should find a way to let go. In Closer, a lot of those questions revolve around the truth, and what knowing the truth means, and where it has value, and where it destructs. At some point in our lives, haven't we all done this when someone hurt us - wanted to know the last little detail, thinking that it would tell us why? The image of the heart belongs to this movie so perfectly - the dermatologist not just being a dermatologist but a surgeon, someone who knows well that an intimate familiarity with the facts of that fist wrapped in blood will do nothing for your understanding of what we think of as the workings of the heart. Those things will not be dissected. In places, the film flashes forward in time, big jumps with the characters switching partners, without showing us what happened in the time between. Everything about the dialogue reminds us that we would not have known any more about the reasons had we seen the intervening scenes, because there is something deeply capricious about the characters making the choices.

In the advertising campaign, the tag lines for the movie was "Those who love at first sight are traitors at every glance." and "If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking." In a pivotal scene, the writer says to the stripper character "I fell in love with her, Alice," and she says back to him "Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it, and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one."

That's a line I've thought of from time to time since the first time I saw the movie, and was only one of the reasons that I found myself identifying with the stripper character. Kate and I ended the movie satisfied, maybe because we were able to find some comfort in the two characters who were not artists, and who were, ironically, the most willing to lie for love.

We Had a Lilac Tree Together

In writing circles, the subject of crying is a difficult one. That is, what do you when a character cries? How do you tell your reader that is happening? Tolstoy doesn't concern himself with subtlety in this, or if he does, it does not show in translation. Natasha sobs, Petya's eyes shine with tears, the little princess weeps. In something written in english, in 2009, those words would be a bit cloying, overwrought. Recently, we read something that left us in awe of the masterful way a narrator's tears were handled, where another character calls our attention to it by noticing.

Even when you are fighting it, you can see it in someone's face when they are watching you, and see you close to tears. Especially if that someone is sensitive, and loving, and doubly so if they are someone who has spent years loving you, no matter how long ago those years were. This has happened to me twice in the last two days. It isn't so much that I've been unhappy. Some tears are tears of vulnerability, a depth of emotion that expresses itself in blushes and in my case, unfinished sentences, overused indefinite articles.

But if I think my heart is my strongest muscle, it is only because I stay there. I believe in the transformative power of that discomfort, that even sadness can be a warming of the heart that makes it more malleable, more ripe for reconciliation. He thought I didn't want to see him. I thought the same. Then I saw him anyway, and was glad I had. I used to bring branches into the house in spring to bloom, and wear aprons, and buy cookbooks and dishes and glassware. And believe it or not, I cooked. Soups from memory and homemade pasta, irish soda bread and indian food. The hard parts were not all.

My Heart Is My Strongest Muscle

Six-word memoir by Shanna Katz. Four lady brunch by South Shore Middle School.

Long day.

9:30 AM - meeting

10:00 AM -meeting

12:30 PM - meeting

3:00 PM - meeting

4:00 PM - meeting

6:00 PM - meeting

7:00 PM - meeting

Latte, cornbread, sandwich with lox cucumber cream cheese, banana, salad, chocolate cookies from Edison's bakery, more salad, cocoa, tea. The Cold Ones, the beach at LaPush, unvested options, new target identification, integrity, intention, lost love, reconciliation, fulfillment, motivation, hope, Groucho's, Jafco, more tea, always. So much more.

Speak to me.