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2008 | 2007
December 30, 2007:
Our holiday guests have left, and the friends who went somewhere haven't yet returned. It feels like someone dropped a grenade of silence. Did all that celebration really happen? The cookies and candies are gone, if they ever existed, and the freezer is as full of chile sauce as though it were never emptied. Last night I dreamed I was a ghost who could fly above the atmosphere; maybe last week I dreamed it was Christmas.
But other people claim to have had a similar dream. Maybe we all dreamed it was 2007, too. Glancing back over the year, I don't quite know what to make of it. Some turbulence, some smooth sailing, some gloom, some sun. And now it's about to end forever. Or, depending on your point of view, it's about to begin all over again. Are years beads on a string, or turns of a wheel? And would somebody slap me into sanity, quick? I'm in danger of dissolving into the surreal dimension tonight.
December 23, 2007:
Who went and made it Christmas already? The holidays weren't supposed to happen until I'd finished the short stories currently in the hopper. Ha. Only one of the four can be called done in any relevant sense, and another doesn't even have a full first draft yet. I smell a new year's resolution to complete this year's work.
But the festivities will brook no argument. Yesterday was the winter solstice, today's a full moon, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve itself, when we'll light farolitos and throw the kitchen's throttle wide open to cook up the evening feast: tamales, enchiladas, rice, beans, cornbread, chile sauces (red and green), and apple crisp, just to make sure everyone hurts after supper.
Luckily Mom is here to help. She has a knack of washing dishes as fast as I dirty them, which I suspect she perfected while raising seven children. And it will be a white Christmas with moonlight making diamonds on the snow. Did you know that when meteors fall on a winter night they look like it's snowing stars? Happy everything, campers, and here's to all your new year's resolutions.
December 16, 2007:
A great big thank-you goes out to the nations of the world this week for shaming the United States into agreeing to discuss climate change. But all that hoopla in Bali means that it will be two more years before there's a so-called roadmap for reducing emissions. Top-down change has got to happen, yes, but sometimes it seems too slow to stave off the cooking.
So what do you do? Drive less, fly less, eat local and organic food, yeah yeah yeah. But the most interesting suggestion I've heard yet is the notion of permaculture, aka edible forest gardens, aka agroforestry. Basically, you plant trees and other perennials that can feed you. Permaculture folks envision the suburbs transformed from houses surrounded by inedible lawns to houses surrounded by fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, herbs, and small vegetable patches, all of which are laid out to mimic the architecture of forests. As a result, you get to forage for treats in your own front yard. Same could go for city lots, balconies, rooftops, and even windowsills.
Lord, I love this idea. It mitigates the habitat destruction that conventional agriculture causes, and it rebuilds soil instead of depleting it. Trees inhale carbon dioxide while providing emissions-free AC, and the only emissions required to transport your forest food are what you cause when you walk out the door. Most of all, I love the shift in outlook it implies. We've been afraid of the woods long enough, and it's past time to let the trees come close again. I'm thinking of starting with cherries and hazelnuts.
December 9, 2007:
Saw The Golden Compass today and had a hard time returning to this world. The movie's gadgets and animals were marvelous, and the story's agenda was a refreshing alternative to the typical Hollywood drivel. Especially regarding daemons. In the movie, the human soul takes the form of an animal daemon, a creature which lives outside each person and is the opposite gender. So your daemon is your wildness, it's your totem animal, it's your mirror self, and it's alive.
Coincidentally, I stumbled across this passage today in a book called Original Self, by Thomas Moore: "W. B. Yeats saw that the daimon, the inner presence that is full of power and the ultimate source of our real creativity, is an antithetical self, an opposite." And also this: "...the self is deeper than consciousness and rises sometimes like a beast from a mysterious land beneath ordinary life."
Daemons, daemons, everywhere! Philip Pullman, who wrote The Golden Compass in its original book form, is agnostic and his story is overtly anti-religious. Thomas Moore is a former Catholic monk who writes about the soul. Two quite different men, but somehow they teamed up for this conspiracy of daemonology.
December 2, 2007:
We survived the first bike trip into town and back! The ride in was mostly uphill but that was ok, because the ride home would be downhill, right? Not exactly. To avoid traffic we took a high-elevation detour that required even more climbing. So my legs are jelly now, and I learned that bagels and coffee don't mix with biking around mountain foothills, but we made it. Next time I'm bringing a thermos of nice gentle tea.
In non-biking news, the lovely e-zine Reflection's Edge has a story of mine in the December issue. The story is weird, so don't say you weren't warned, but the zine is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy speculative fiction.
And finally, I've decided to tiptoe into the 21st century and enable comments on this site. Crazy, I know. My friend John once suggested that controversial material might provoke online discussion, so here's the next news item: there is now a worm farm in my kitchen. I bought a plastic bin and 1000 red worms who have promised to chew and poo kitchen scraps into compost for the greenhouse. So, worm farms. What do you think? Too disgusting to talk about? Should they be legal but regulated? Should we shelter the kiddies from these grim realities? Comment at will, campers!
November 25, 2007:
Remember all that grouchy, penny-pinching stuff I said last week about buying bicycles? I take it all back. Every word. I was entirely wrong to question any money spent at a bike shop, as I'm sure you campers already knew. Well, now I know it too. I love my bike! Her name is Snowflake and she's a beauty, just like Spencer's Old Blue. They also happen to be shameless flirts, with their reflectors winking suggestively every time you venture near the kitchen. (Haven't yet prepared proper stables in the garage. Might not ever. They're too good-looking to closet away where it's cold and lonely and dark.)
But what I want to know is, why doesn't anyone talk about how much fun biking is? It's a workout, people say, or good for the environment, blah blah blah. Who cares? It's a hoot and a half! You fly along with the wind in your helmet and the silence of no engine roaring—up onto the sidewalk, back down to the street, zoom zoom zoom, more fully in the world you're moving through than you ever could be in a car. Makes me want to go for a spin right now. But then, most things do.
So ignore everything I said before. I spoke in haste, in ignorance and miserliness, and I'm very sorry. In the future I will try to reserve the sour attitude for things that deserve it, although nothing comes to mind at the moment. Makes me wonder why doctors don't prescribe biking for mood-enhancement.
November 18, 2007:
I'm ready at last to take the plunge, to make the ultimate commitment, to hand over cold hard cash in exchange for a bicycle. Because wouldn't it be fun to bike to the library, getting some exercise and giving the combustion engine a rest? Yes! Except it turns out that you can't just say, "I'd like to buy a bike, please." No. You must answer a battery of arcane questions first. Road bike, mountain bike, or something in between? What bicycle brand defines you as a person? What color? What size? How many gears? What kind of suspension? And you don't go to a store to buy a bike; you go to a store to order a bike, which may or may not arrive within 2-4 business months. But while you're there, you fill your shopping cart with all the accessories which have become compulsory: helmet, gloves, rack, saddle bags, rearview mirror, and so on into infinity.
The bike I learned to ride on I found in a pile of junk in the barn when I was seven. It was constructed entirely of rust, had one gear, and would have laughed at the suggestion of suspension, not to mention helmets. Somewhere over the last three decades I got a lot more high-maintenance than I was then, and a bit weirder about what money can and can't buy. Whatever bike finds its way into my life will be much more comfortable than old Rusty was, I'm sure, and safer and sleeker and all that good stuff. But there's no denying that the seven-year-old had her act together in ways that the thirty-seven-year-old could take a few cues from.
November 11, 2007:
Well, we survived the drive from New York to New Mexico in spite of how I spilled coffee on the stereo ten minutes into the journey. Fizzle-pop-pop and there we were: no audio with thirty hours to go, and the coffee wasted. Spencer was awfully sportsmanlike about the disaster, but I'm afraid I lost touch with my Buddha nature for a few miles.
But it turned out to be the low point of the trip. Road travel is a pain, I do not quibble with that, but there's something about it that makes me keep agreeing to buckle in behind the wheel. You know what I mean. It's the feeling that the highway exists in its own pocket of space-time, where cars don't actually rest on the pavement but float an inch above ground as they hurtle forward. It's how you pass a sign for "Hope Road" but read the words as "IHOP Road" and instantly you must have pancakes. And sometimes, when you're way out there in the belly of Oklahoma, it's how stereos self-heal and start playing Magical Mystery Tour at full volume.
So here we are, back in the desert. It feels like we were never gone. Lake? What lake? There are only mesas and mountains. Well, those, and a huge list of chores such as evicting the colony of crickets that moved into the bathtub drain. See, we did go somewhere, for a long time. Oh, I forgot to mention that it snowed before we left! The camera assures me that it looked like this. And shortly before that, like this, and like this.
November 4, 2007:
Did you remember to move the clocks back, campers? I did, for once, and had a few smug hours of feeling like a morning person. But then, kablam! Sunset hit like an uppercut. How did it get so dark so fast? Maybe by tricking me into using precious daylight hours to drive back from the ghost story conference. The conference was in Saratoga Springs, a remote racing town crammed with horse statues, fantastic restaurants, and charming locals willing to take an out-of-towner under their collective wing. Thank you, Carol, Joan & Bob!
But the conference. There were some wonderful panels—especially concerning Horrible Ladies and Native American Spirits, boo!—and I have a delectable list of new authors to read. There was plenty of entertainment value in observing the writerly egos present, unafraid to hear themselves speak and skilled at keeping the wordcount high. Think of a thousand hens arguing over who lays the best eggs. But there were also four readings nearly every hour, for three whole days. Glorious gluttony! That ought to tide me over for a few weeks at least, even out among the mesas.
Among the mesas? Yes, it's true. The autumn's lake adventure draws to a close, and next week's update will come at you from the high country. The journey west begins Thursday, in plenty of time to be home for the winter holidays. In case you haven't already heard, the season begins on November 16 this year, opening day of What Would Jesus Buy?, "the movie Santa doesn't want you to see!"
October 28, 2007:
And here it is, almost Halloween. My crystal ball predicts a bonfire on the big night, foil dinners, and maybe a ghost story or two. Then, to continue the season of Día de los Muertos, the next day I will drive to a ghost story conference! I can hardly believe it myself, but hundreds of grown-ups really are going to get together to spend three days discussing spooky stories. The panels will include topics such as "The Tradition of Horrible Ladies," "Scary Stuff Beyond New Jersey," and "There's an Archetype in My Soup." The crystal ball sees the audience, me included, nodding pensively and taking careful notes on this very serious business.
Speaking of spooky things, a few of my poems crept into the current issue of Rogue Poetry Review, where their imagery is described as "well, sinister." I had no idea they were Halloween-y, but I suppose there's something of the season there. Maybe instead of candy this year I could give the trick-or-treaters little scrolls of freaky poetry, tied with black string. And then watch the fully justified eggs of retribution rain down on my car. Splat.
October 21, 2007:
Notice anything different around here? Anything... avian? Any sort of ebony bird beguiling your sad fancy into smiling? Why, that's right! We have a raven to welcome to the page! And most welcome he is. Guess who drew him: that's right again—Sal! She printed business cards to match, too. I do not deserve this kind of professional supervision.
But the advent of the bird here on the site seems especially timely, since this week has been all about birds. We kayaked in the company of crows, red-winged blackbirds, and a blue heron. Mallards and geese lounge in the cove, whippoorwills sing into the open windows at night, and the other day a huge bird rose up out of the lake right in front of the cottage. Spencer and I were drinking tea in a morning stupor and watching the water exactly at the spot where the bird surfaced. At first I thought it was a two-foot carp breaching in the pursuit of breakfast. But the creature kept rising and rising, and its five-foot wingspan unfurled and it became a raptor rising, circling the cove, shaking its feathers dry mid-air. Tea nearly rose from the mugs as well.
At the time I could only think of it as a lake phoenix, although Google claims it's more likely to have been an osprey. Somehow it's become both in my mind, and has also become tangled up with Sal's beautiful raven and all the other bird presences in this corner of the world at this hinge of the seasons. But tangled is ok. In fact, if any other lake phoenixes want to rise from the water and tangle things up some more, that would be no problem. I'm ready with binoculars.
October 14, 2007:
Here's a bit of coolness: near Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, England, someone once carved a labyrinth into stone. This week Sal drew that same design and let me carve it into a blank rubber stamp which we used to make some nifty little bookmarks. Such fun! I still have a stack of them and would be happy to drop one in the mail for any of you campers. Send me your address if you'd like a free scrap of labyrinth propaganda.
Meanwhile, other coolness has been at work outdoors. The lake looked like this the other morning, just before the sun made it over the hill. What was JoJo doing up before dawn, you ask? Obviously you've been paying attention. Alas, I was saying good-bye to Sal. The mist was some consolation, though, wafting off the water beneath those crazy pink clouds. It's easy to imagine similar conditions in the old country, perhaps in the environs of Tintagel itself.
October 7, 2007:
You campers are probably expecting another update from the lake this week. But I'm not at the lake at all, I'm in Manhattan, surprise! Well, the surprise is mostly on me. I didn't think we'd be able to swing a city visit any time soon, but Sister Sal arrived at the cottage a couple days ago and provided us with a) a dogsitter and b) keys to her apartment in the metropolis. Thank you, Sal!
The whole weekend has been similarly whirlwind and high-impact. Yesterday I met some friends from high school for lunch, and I don't want to name names or anything (Sara, Meaghan & Patrice!), but they've become such fun and interesting women and I felt so lucky to be in their company again. It wasn't like old times at all; it was way better than old times. After lunch we trooped over to a booksigning by another friend of ours (Kate) who is celebrating the launch of her first novel, hooray! Then last night a subset of the local family gathered around a gigantic bonfire until long past bedtime for hilarious stories of family-related hijinks. This morning it was off to the airport, with trees on the cusp of autumn blushing behind a coquettish mist as we drove through the Bristol Hills. And now shazam, the city and all its gastronomical delights: Brooklyn Blackout Chocolate Cake, Ruby Red Curry Bowl, Green Tea Pad Thai. Toothsome reminders of how flavor can manifest in an otherwise unassuming couple of days.
September 30, 2007:
September 30, already? Thirty days hath September, and I only hath an hour left in mine. It sure was a doozy of a month. Road trips, the lake, living in a place other than my official address, and the beginnings of autumnal splendor. Transitions enough for even the most restless among us.
And today was a fine finish to a fine month. Beth and Claire visited for a tea party and some hiking, and they brought one of Beth's famous blueberry pies. Mmm, pie. There is no more delicious way to eat your antioxidants, except maybe for Beth's famous raspberry jam. Beth has a way with berries.
Meanwhile, October creeps closer and closer. No road trips this month, although the splendor should advance apace, with leaves coloring up and then crunching underfoot. October is autumn's proper month, and I guess I'm ready. Although I don't mean to rush things—we still have 38 lovely minutes of September left.
September 23, 2007:
It was a gorgeous autumn equinox, except that the clear blue day dawned to the sound of shotgun blasts over the lake. Many weapons were in use by several different yahoos (assuming a maximum of two guns per yahoo), and none of them was nearly far enough away.
My immediate action, after yelping and clutching Spencer, was to call sister Sue. She looked up local hunting information and discovered that we are in the middle of frog season. Frog season? Yes, frog season and there is no limit to the number of frogs that may be "taken." Weapons allowed include spears, clubs, hooks, hands, guns and bows, and frog hunters must limit their activities to the hours between sunrise and sunset. This gives the frogs a few hours of rest and recreation, and also protects other species such as you and me from lunatics who want to stalk amphibians in the dark (Homo yahooius). Surely I'm not alone in thinking of the movie Predator... Arnold plays a frog with an attitude, and this guy is the properly licensed hunter.
My niece Sophie was visiting for the weekend, and she slept through most of this—guns, sunrise, me and Spencer discussing the invasion force about to storm the cottage. She didn't even believe that it had really happened. Maybe it's better that way. Her equinox can be a day of balance even if some of us, such as the frogs, are still traumatized.
September 16, 2007:
In the northeast, at the end of summer, it's all about the green. Stuff just grows here, and the forest is a leaf lasagna—moss, grass, ferns, saplings, and finally the canopy itself, swishing and swaying up around where the sky begins.
But I don't think the green will linger much longer. This week the first flock of Canada geese arrived with a flurry of splash and honk. The nights have developed a nonnegotiable chill, and early signs of autumn color are peering out from stage-right. Summer is beginning to wrap up this year's show. I didn't bring nearly enough sweaters.
September 9, 2007:
This week I did nearly nothing except carry some books out to the edge of the lake, only to leave them in my lap unopened while the water looked like this, or like this, or like this. I carried on doing nothing while the pages of the books rippled in the moist air, my hair reverted to its native frizz, and all three of the resident wuv-puppies started mildewing.
The smell reached a crisis today due to a twenty-four hour rain that refused to let dog coats dry after yesterday's swim. We were reduced to baking to combat the odor. No one particularly wanted the cookies that are cooling on the counter, but breathing is much more pleasant now. We'll see how long the aromatherapy from one batch of cookies can last.
September 2, 2007:
Hello, campers! We left New Mexico two days ago and arrived at the lake tonight, in time for a campfire with Sal and Sophie. I'm still swaying under the influence of thirty hours on the road but it feels great to be here. Not least because of the most wonderful office in the world, which my beloved Sophie put together for me. She is as thoughtful as she is clever.
And now she is asleep on the sofa, with assorted dogs sleeping around her. There's a half-moon splashing light across the water, and I am the last cottage dweller still up. I feel like bits of my psyche streamed out in the wake of the car and are still floating over the Mississippi River. Maybe sometime in the night they'll catch up with current events, such as the local time zone.
August 26, 2007:
Each of you campers probably has a very busy week ahead, but I'm going to pretend you don't. I am going to imagine you reclining in the shade in a lounge chair. Beside you is a little table that contains your favorite iced beverage and a pile of books you love. You doze off as the afternoon deepens, and you wake up in time for a cool summer supper that someone else has prepared and promised to clean up.
Meanwhile, I am caught in a frenzy of action items. This Friday Spencer and I will drive east for the fall, and we all know what a roadtrip means: arrangements. Arrangements with the library, the post office, the auto shop. Arrangements with laundry machines, with the folks who renew drivers' licenses, with other folks who rent hotel rooms. The list won't end until the driving begins. 30 hours of driving, in fact. All of which is why you are stuck a lounger in my mind. I promise to do the same for you in your time of need.
August 19, 2007:
Friday I drove to Albuquerque to drop my niece Sophie off at the airport, and to pick up a repaired computer. What a crappy trade. The computer doesn’t make chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night, or watch shooting stars until 2:30 AM, or tromp around mesas, canyons, and museums. I want Sophie back!
On the bright side, we will see her again soon due to the fact that we’re getting ready to drive east for the fall. We’ll spend a couple months on Canandaigua Lake, where at least there are kayaks to console us when Sophie isn’t around. Plus fresh cider. And deciduous trees to turn colors in October.
In other news, check out what Bad Sally has been up to. Turn your audio up and click on the picture for a glimpse into the secret life of this character, who is the lovechild of Marlene Dietrich and my Gramma Keith.
August 12, 2007:
I regret to announce that this week witnessed the final demise of my dearly departed hard disk. It developed a cold on Monday and collapsed on Tuesday, never to revive. The remains are now in the hands of professionals who claim to have power over electronic life and death, up to and including disk transplants. Zombie computer, here we come.
But the real news this week is that my niece Sophie is visiting! I get her all to myself for five whole days, without any competition from those other bad aunts. Tonight's plan is to watch the Perseids meteor shower for as long as we can stay awake. After that I'm not sure, but it will involve hikes, movies, museums, and chile. Let's see the other aunts beat that. Ha.
August 5, 2007:
So there's this crazy guy in Manhattan (I know, I know: "You don't say!") who is conducting a year-long experiment trying to achieve zero net ecological impact. His theory is that if city folks can't green up we're all screwed, since we are so urbanized as a species. And when I say he's "trying," I mean that in the deepest sense of the word. He turned off his power—no fridge, no washing machines. He walks or bikes everywhere—no cars, planes or elevators. He eats locally grown, unpackaged food—that's right, no take-out in white cardboard boxes!
I love this sort of lunacy, the willingness to unravel the status quo, the refusal to believe that the way we've been conducting ourselves is the only imaginable way. Too bad we don't call it sanity. Speaking of which, check out this genius movie review for a truly refreshing breath of mental wellness.
July 29, 2007:
Last night was the first ever Los Alamos Poetry Slam! Well, technically we didn't have quite enough people for an "official" slam with judges and everything, but we made a lot of noise and heard some fantastic poetry. I can't speak for everyone, but it certainly seemed like a marvelous time was had by all. Or by most, at the very least.
Many thanks to Tyson for organizing the event (including free coffee!) and for his awesome poems. Rumor has it he's working on another slam for August. I can hardly wait. You should come if you're around! Where else can you whoop and scream on behalf of poetry in general, and your friendly neighborhood poets in particular?
July 22, 2007:
Last Monday I attended a lecture on cosmology at the high school auditorium, which was introduced by the guy (a particle physicist) who teaches Indian cooking classes at the kitchen store. Wednesday we bumped into another rattlesnake on the street while walking the dogs. And last night I met two new physicists, one who works in quantum cryptography and one in quantum computing. The weird bit is, none of these events seemed weird.
Maybe it's all perfectly normal, but I suspect I've been spoiled by strangeness. I mean, how often do literary geeks in other towns get to sit around a picnic supper and discuss the quantum states of strontium? Or eavesdrop as people pick apart the ideas of prominent cosmologists? And having to speed-dial the snake removal guy—well, I confess it made me feel like Indiana Jones, if he were to buy a cell phone and go questing in wild hinterlands populated by tribes of scientists.
July 15, 2007:
This week I was thrilled to hear about Galaxy Zoo, a project which allows any moron with Internet access to classify photos of galaxies. Apparently we have more snapshots of deep space than the real scientists can keep up with, so they're trying to get some help sorting through the data.
What luck to be alive at a time like this! I signed up immediately, took the tutorial and passed the quiz, all, "Oo, look at the pretty spiral, clockwise spin obviously, and aren't I the smartest Junior Astronomer ever." Then the site sent me in.
But the photos are NOT pretty, nor are they identifiable. They're unfocused blobs of gigantic pixels! Every classification I've entered has been pure guesswork, much like what you might expect of a blind goat with ADD. The Zoo's website claims they wanted to harness the power of my brain. I guess they got their wish, but I don't think I'll be seeing that Junior Astronomer merit badge anytime soon.
July 8, 2007:
I'm back home again after a week in the northwest, and it was passing strange to wake up in New Mexico. Mesas rise from the valley here the way islands rise from the ocean off the coast of Washington. And in that part of the world you get from place to place on boats. My mesa holds very still in comparison.
And the palettes are so different. Washington was all green trees and sapphire ocean, unless clouds silvered the sea and veiled distant islands in chalky blue. But sunset today in the desert drenched the sky with red and turned the valley an electric orange.
Or maybe it's the fever that makes things seem weird. I picked up a mild flu somewhere on the road, which now allows us to examine the results of typing at temperatures above 98.6 Fahrenheit. What goes first? Grammar? Coherence? And do we get instead any interesting hallucinations? Not yet (that I know of) but if any manifestations present themselves, you, my campers, will be the first to hear about it.
July 1, 2007:
Hello from Friday Harbor! This is the kind of waterfront town where Pandora made a special stop to let cuteness out of the box. Streets slope down to the shore, brightly painted shops are required by law to festoon themselves with petunias and pansies, and there are three—yes, one-two-three bookstores within a one-block radius from our digs.
Today we visited a beach that had a front-row view of a local pod of orcas, plus gigantic, lilac-colored starfish clinging to the waterline and praying for the tide to come back in. The ocean is so still here, sheltered by the Olympic Peninsula and a fistful of islands. This must be where water comes to rest from its wave labors elsewhere around the globe.
June 24, 2007:
I am inordinately excited about having deleted the Bookshelf page from this site and substituted for it a link to my Goodreads shelf. Goodreads does everything the old Bookshelf did and, as they say, so much more. I'll post book reviews there from now on, crosslinked with the reviews of many other readers rather than on a lonely, standalone page.
In other news, next week's update will be coming at you from a tiny island off the coast of Washington state. Yes, it's time for a summer trip! We're going to a family reunion in a water-bound town with the enchanted name of Friday Harbor, a port in the storm where the work week is always over. We'll travel via car, plane, bus and ferry before reaching base camp. And when I say "base camp," of course I mean "base condo," with wireless internet and real beds and all sorts of outlandish luxury. But it sounds more like a Hemingway adventure to say base camp, don't you think?
June 17, 2007:
Summer has set in with all its intensity. Well, most of its intensity. Ok, some of its intensity. In all honesty, we've been dealing with shamelessly gorgeous weather—warm sun and cool rain taking turns on the stage of the sky. "After you, old thing," says the sun in the afternoon. To which the rain replies, "Why, thank you. I must say, that was an awfully nice performance earlier." "Kind of you to say so." "Not at all, not at all. Credit where credit is due."
And so the weather goes about its business, all charming and polite but apparently oblivious to the miraculous dimension of its own existence, the fact that it's there rather than not. Like most things that go about the business of existing, come to think of it. But who am I to say? Maybe rocks pause to marvel at their rockness, maybe ideas take a moment now and then to appreciate their ideality. And maybe I'm giddy with summer. But who could blame me? The solstice is this Thursday!
June 10, 2007:
Lately I've been reading books about cosmology and books of ghost stories. You probably knew this already, but there's a revolution underway in astrophysics which is allowing scientists to understand the origins and nature of the universe more precisely than ever before. And it turns out that to talk about very large realms, you also talk about the very small—quarks and photons and quantum mechanical shenanigans like entanglement, teleportation, and tunneling. Wow.
And then there are the ghosts—the chill of haunted houses, thunderstorms and foggy nights, graveyards and bare tree branches. So although my body has been moving around the everyday realm of commensense Newtonian physics, the invisible world has been a place of mystery and amazement. Ghosts and the cosmos, together at last! I may never look at reality the same way again. At least I hope not.
June 3, 2007:
I hope you campers had a bewitching blue moon on Thursday. I was able to watch the rise in its entirety, lucky me, starting with the very first glimmer over the rim of the mountains. It was already deep dusk and an owl hooted as the moon crept up, higher and higher but still partially hidden.
Then, as soon as the whole disk appeared, a coyote about twenty feet from me set up a kai-ai, a piercing cry over the lower owl song. At first it shocked me like electro-convulsive therapy, but after my frazzled wits collected themselves the air felt bigger, expansive, like the night had stretched to hold all that cool, heavy moonlight plus the desert chorus.
It was one of those moments I can only describe at great risk of resorting to dorkiness. So I'll stop now, for all our sakes. Except to say that the moon I saw wasn't really blue, but this one is, if only for the purposes of imagination.
May 27, 2007:
What's single-spaced, 120 feet long, and beyond cool? The original manuscript of Jack Kerouac's novel, On the Road! We saw thirty feet of the scroll unrolled today at the Palace of the Governors. It was so real, so solid, so typed by human hands, stretching off into the distance like myth made manifest. It stunned me, and I had gone in with high expectations.
As if the scroll itself weren't enough, the exhibit ended in a room with two Underwood typewriters and a bunch of blank paper. That's right, we got to type! You had to really whack the keys, and they made this wonderful slapping sound against the carriage, punching wonky letters onto the page. So we hammered out some insta-haiku for a bulletin board which had been set up for that purpose, incredible though that may seem. How much fun can you have in a museum? Precisely this much!
The best part is that the scroll is on tour, much like Kerouac himself often was. I hope you get a chance to check it out when it swings through your neighborhood. I for one am already scheming ways to cross its path again.
May 20, 2007:
In the interest of researching spooky stories, I've been reading The Shining out loud to Spencer in the evenings, until well after midnight while rain drums the window. I never read Stephen King before, thinking I wouldn't be able to handle the horror. Rarely have I been so right.
Last night I barely slept, just skittered in and out of nightmares about ghosts rattling the toothbrushes. Today I was jumpy and on the hairy edge of screaming like a teen actress. Why not stop, you ask? I could quit anytime. It's not like I need to find out what happens. But what harm could one more chapter do? One chapter. That's all. Just one. Then I'll research something more soothing, like Civil War field hospitals.
May 13, 2007:
Poetry class is over again, which must mean that summer is about to unfurl for real. But it hasn't, not quite. I have a feeling of suspension, of drifting in a liminal zone. Class is behind us. Ahead, who knows? And above, a zillion stars. Seriously, a zillion. They seem so close tonight you could reach up on the warm air and stir them with both arms.
But class is over! Instead of facing that grim reality, I've been making lists of poets to read and then filling my Amazon cart with their books. Surely an outlay of hundreds of dollars would prove that poetry isn't gone forever, right? But don't worry; I'm not that close to the brink. I'll gaze upon the contents of the cart for a few more days, and then print it out to start interlibrary loaning all the goodies.
May 6, 2007:
Isn't spring supposed to be a gentle season? Here in the mountains it feels more like hand-to-hand combat between winter and summer. This morning it snowed hard, then afternoon was too hot for a jacket, and now we're back to a cold, bellowing wind. Only the lilacs seem unfazed. Although they do smell different in snow than in the sun, like sorbet versus incense.
Anyhoo, if you're looking for some aimless websurfing to distract you from the mood swings outside, the May issue of Flutter poetry journal has some cool poems, including two of mine. Alternatively, you could listen to some season-appropriate music courtesy of Mssrs. Heat Miser and Cold Miser.
April 29, 2007:
It's warm enough for night walks again! We just got back from a lovely stroll in the company of the dark. Well, not that dark. The moon is plump and the sky clear, so it might be more accurate to say "in the company of blue." And we were not the only creatures out and about. At one point two rabbits practically flew across our path, using us to block the coyote who was interested in eating them. Brainy bunnies, I'd say.
In unrelated news, if you'll be in Los Alamos next week, you are most cordially invited to a poetry reading on Thursday, May 10, at Mesa Public Library. Several local poets will read, including me. I even plan to iron a shirt for the event. So what if my delivery is garbled, my lines obscure? The collar, I hope, will contribute no embarrassment.
April 22, 2007:
What do you say, campers—let's move to Manhattan! I love Bloomberg's plan for a million new trees in the city by 2017. And the rest of his Earth Day proposals, too. It's official: Mayor Mike just topped the short list of America's Sexiest Politicians. That list is growing, however, since the primary requirement for inclusion is a willingness to act on behalf of the planet.
But the point is, a million trees. A million. In ten years! What a great idea. How many forestry jobs will be created in the metropolis? How many forestry majors thought their work would take them there? How will a million trees change the city's character, its mood and its temperament? I can't say for sure, of course, but I sure do like the thought of New York as a forest city.
April 15, 2007:
Last night Amy hosted a Girls' Night In, and naturally she had the excellent good sense to rent the movie Bride and Prejudice. A silly romance, made sillier by the Bollywood effect, right? Yes! But that doesn't mean it wasn't great! Or at least loads of fun.
I thought it was an fine adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but with the added dimension of cultural conflict beyond the book's class issues. And it never once took itself seriously. Jane Austen would have loved it, unlike that recent abomination with Keira Knightley, who does not understand Elizabeth Bennet at all. Or the fact that neither Elizabeth nor Mr. Darcy would be caught dead cavorting in their Victorian underwear outside the mansion. Please!
Anyway, I suspect it's going to be an Austen-intensive week. Erin loaned me the DVDs of a BBC adaptation of P&P, and I'm feeling the itch to dust off the novel itself. And I will watch with interest this Thursday to see what happens with the Rice Portrait, another of Austen's legacies which I think she would have found entertaining.
April 8, 2007:
Hello, campers! It's good to be typing at you again; I missed you these last few weeks. I hope you had a splendid Equinox-Easter-Passover. I did, thanks to a fabulous Easter brunch whipped up earlier today by Amy, complete with chipotle-cheddar eggs, pineapple-passionfruit salad, macadamia nut cake, and fresh Kona coffee. Mmm... Amy learned a few handy tricks in Hawaii, as you can see.
Meanwhile, I'm still lurching around trying to get some bearings on normal life after a tropical recalibration of perspectives. Especially at Volcanoes National Park. You hike around on an active volcano, for heaven's sake, which is at this moment adding new land to the earth's surface. Fresh rock, still sharp, still steaming. It's easy to realize that you're standing on a planet there, and that big forces are at work on the habitat.
Speaking of big forces, you'll be relieved to know that Hawaii 5-0 still gets plenty of airtime in its home state. I'm afraid I can't say the same for Magnum P.I., but Steve McGarrett is still squinting off into the distance and making Danno do all the paperwork.
March 18, 2007:
I leave this Tuesday for Hawaii, where even the airport smells like flowers. Sea-level oxygen, moisture in the air, greenery all over the place, and even an ocean. Just what a high-desert-dweller needs from time to time. (Tuesday, by the way, is also the vernal equinox—an excellent day to get outside and soak up some spring.)
But this means I won't be able to post news updates here for the next two weeks, and I confess I will miss you campers. What's a Sunday night without these little notes? I'm about to find out, I guess. Tune back in on April 8—I can hardly wait to babble at you about the tropics!
March 11, 2007:
This week I celebrate a holiday that hardly anyone else in the world knows about: my Quit-aversary! Three years ago tomorrow was my last day at my most recent job. I've been coasting since then, leaning heavily on the library and making little or no contribution to society.
Then again, there's a decent case to be made that my contribution at the job was even less, due to the amount of whining it generated. All that frustration couldn't have been pleasant for the friends and loved ones in my little corner of society, no matter how patiently they endured it.
So how do you celebrate three years of no paychecks? First, by sleeping in. Second, with green chile on the cheap, and as everyone knows that means lunch at Tia Sophia's. After that I'm out of plans. Just coast on the chile high and see where the day goes. Which is what this whole thing is all about, when you get right down to it.
March 4, 2007:
Did you see the photos of Saturn from Cassini? It's enough to stop you in your tracks. I had no idea that Saturn's night side glowed with reflected light from the rings. What must that look like from the ground?
Possibly even cooler than a lunar eclipse. Moonrise was gorgeous last night, even this far west of the total eclipse. Clear sky, snowy mountains, and a full moon with our very own shadow in the the upper right part of the disc. Just think—if we had really long arms we could have made lunar bunny shadows!
At around 4:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, the night side of Planet Earth was glowing in reflected light when an owl started hooting, right outside the house. I've never heard an owl that close, or that insistent. It kept the song up for almost an hour. Maybe it was excited about the eclipse. I couldn't help but think of Bless Me, Ultima, a wonderful book about moons and owls which all literate citizens of the solar system really ought to read.
February 25, 2007:
I can't help it, I keep reloading the news pages to see what's winning those rotten Academy Awards. It's not like I ever like the movies the Academy does. It is also not like Pan's Labyrinth was even nominated for Best Picture, as it obviously should have been. And yet I reload, just in case the Supreme Court steps in and declares a different winner than the votes do. A winner who wasn't even in the running.
But what kind of a world do we live in, I ask you, when crap like The Departed is seriously considered to be one of the best movies of the year? An insane world, that's what. An insane world that rewards insane art.
And now I see that some other damn thing won Best Foreign Language Film. But ah, here we go: Pan's Labyrinth won Best Makeup! Best Makeup? Did those jerks even see the movie? It's a dark day for cinema-magic junkies. At least Little Miss Sunshine is still in the running. Come on, Sunshine...
February 18, 2007:
Well, I signed up for class again. Introduction to Poetry, for the third time. I used to think poetry and I had already made each other's acquaintance and no further introductions were required. I was mistaken. It's all fresh and new, all over again.
I love how it tentacles its way into the daily routine. You find yourself staring out the window to watch mountains hold still, scribbling illegible notes to yourself in the middle of the night, and collapsing onto the sofa after class (which makes Spencer yell, "Oh no... not Challenging Metaphors!!!"). Like they say in Fight Club, other things get the volume turned down, including the need for groceries.
Which is why I intend to celebrate President's Day by buying food. Lots of food. If I get ahead of the curve now, maybe we can coast on ramen and instant oatmeal until Spring Break. When in an undergraduate class, eat like an undergraduate. We'll see how long it takes until I run into town screaming—poetically—for a salad.
February 11, 2007:
Saw Pan's Labyrinth last night, and still haven't returned all the way. There's so much potency in this movie: the magic book, the faun, the forest, the disobedience, and most of all a drench of duende, as defined by Federico García Lorca.
Lorca said that duende is the power in poetry that dances near death, "burns the blood like powdered glass," and that "whoever beholds it is baptized with dark water." A perfect description of the movie. And extra appropriate coming from Lorca, who was executed by Franco's fascist goons in 1936 after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War; Labyrinth is set in Spain in 1944 during the violent repression of Franco's rule.
And I do mean violent. We're talking about a very real R rating here, for very graphic gore. This duende isn't easy to watch, but that might be why it reached so deep in amongst my spinal cord.
February 4, 2007:
Da Bears didn't exactly, entirely, precisely win the Superbowl. Doh. (If you see Jim, give him a pat on the shoulder; football fans do not require hugs and hankies in times like this.) But it was a fun game to watch. The downpour in Miami made the ball slippery enough that it kept squirting out of players' hands like a watermelon seed, and the camera lenses were so misty that it looked like a sporting even in heaven between teams of very athletic angels.
Now it's time to get back to the drudgery of real life. Spencer was gone last week on business, so I did nothing but read, write, and swill tea. I like to tell myself that he's the slob of the family, but the current state of the kitchen is a powerful argument against that notion. So this week: house cleaning. Gah. Maybe it's time to get an audio book in order to keep the daily word drip at accustomed levels while washing dishes and folding laundry.
January 28, 2007:
The forecast claims we have more snow swirling this way, and the house is well stocked with tea and victuals, which makes this a perfect week to cloister myself away with the trusty books and pens. Don't tell anyone, but I might get my cloak out. If only there were a square garden path to pace while contemplating the mysteries, and a bell to ring out the canonical hours.
Until the parties begin, that is. This Thursday is the full moon (wear black!), Friday is Groundhog Day (rent the movie! make a poppyseed cake!), and Sunday is the Superbowl (shout at the television! drop nachos between Jim's sofa cushions!). Gotta have fun, even if you harbor the secret identity of a medieval monk. Maybe especially then.
January 21, 2007:
Da Bears are on their way to the Superbowl, the mightiest display of large people crashing into each other that has a half-time show! I actually saw the first half of the game today, and couldn't help but think of the Iliad. How we play out the same stories again and again with different costumes. How physical glory tries to eclipse the less visible powers. And most of all, how my friend Jim's devotion to the team has been rewarded at last, and how his Superbowl party this year will have unprecedented levels of hoopla.
In other news, the results of the self-jinxing experiment are in: it didn't work, woohoo! That's right, it was another very good writing week. It makes me nervous, like maybe the fret police have found out and are about to beat the door in and make me resume my daily quota of paralysis. Did I just worry about not worrying enough? Wow. That might constitute taking the art to a new level.
January 14, 2007:
I shouldn't say this, but here goes, if only for the sake of science: I had a really great writing week! Poetry, fiction, even lyrics—everything just happened, seemingly on its own. There. Have I jinxed this week's work? The next seven days will tell. You, gentle campers, will be the first to hear the results of this experiment.
Meanwhile, if you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine already, there's no time to waste. Especially if you were ever dragged along on family roadtrips in unreliable automobiles across America's eternal interstates, and you had to ride in the way-back of the station wagon with the luggage and a loaf of tuna fish sandwiches, and you didn't mean to squish them all but they just sort of rolled under you, and it wasn't your fault, really it wasn't! Or maybe it was. Either way, life is short, and movies like this do not come along every day.
January 7, 2007:
The days are officially getting longer, but I can't bring myself to take down the holiday lights. I still plug them in every night. Rather than face the unpleasantness of putting them away for a whole year, I spent much of this week parked on the sofa with a pile of books.
And I had a realization while so parked: all my favorite authors are British. The Brontë sisters, Graham Joyce, Terry Pratchett, P.G. Wodehouse. Even my second tier is UK-dominated, with folks like Susanna Clarke and Neil Gaiman. See the pattern? These people write deliciously spooky and/or hilarious stories. So why are we Americans so boring and uptight? What's wrong with us?
Quite a bit, as I'm sure many of us would be pleased to point out. Underdeveloped literary glands and fashion sense, a pervading eagerness to take ourselves seriously, the inexplicable penchant for Christmas lights. England ain't perfect, I admit that, but thank God we have her! (Don't tell Ireland I said so.)
Copyright 2008, Joanna Gardner. All rights reserved.