All I Can Say

#105: Escape

Did I mention that I was headed to Florida — a place I don't even like all that much? I am, by way of Connecticut. We won't actually be in Florida until Tuesday, but we are bombing this popsicle stand (haven't used that cliche in many, many years) today, before the impending Nor'easter arrives with its snow and rain (if we're lucky) and misery. [Those poor, poor Boston marathoners.] I am determined, a la Four Agreements, not take the weather personally. It is not punishing me; it's just doing its thing. And so I will do mine, which is to escape.

But if I return to white on the ground, I'll, I'll...

...deal with that if it happens.

Have a good week, internets.

#104: The snow that takes the snow

I found these photos from last summer in my archives, and they just made me want to weep. I am always desperate at this point in April, and this year it’s worse than usual. I swear, the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro are receding faster than the snows of my back yard. And we are supposed to receive another dumping today of 4-6”, and still more on Sunday. My usual attitude when I hear these reports is one of firm denial, because the weather is so hyped around here, and the media typically overstates what’s expected to happen. People love to get all in a tizzy about a storm, but I just put my head down and try to ignore it. However, a week ago we got walloped — it was every bit as severe as predicted, and worse probably, with tree limbs splitting everywhere under the weight of a foot of wet snow. So I just know they are going to nail this prediction, too.

Why do we care so much about the weather? Once we progress into another season, I can never remember what kind of summer we had, or if it was a lousy spring or a rainy fall. I have a hard time remembering last week. But I am just withering right now from the lack of warmth and light, and from the snow that has stayed long past its welcome. It is in my way.

And making matters worse, I have been suffering from a nasty sinus cold all week. Can’t sleep at night. All sniffly-sneezy during the day. I should have known better than to write in a recent post that I rarely get sick. The minute you say something like that you are basically giving your immune system the day off. It seems that the gift of good health is never to be mentioned out loud. Won't do that again.

Now true, in a couple of days I will be sitting pretty in Florida, but that isn't helping me cope with current conditions outside my window. The light is flat and it’s absolutely raw. And yet, I look at the pictures above, and I know that all that potential is latent there in the soil, under the blanket of snow, and it will have its day, too.

One of my favorite characters in fiction is Quebec Bill Bonhomme, a man of “indefatigable optimism” from the novel Disappearances by Howard Frank Mosher. The setting is Kingdom County, Vermont, as far north as you can get this side of the Canadian border. The narrator and main character is Quebec Bill’s son, and he describes his father this way:

“It made no difference to him if it was the middle of May and snowing hard with six inches of new snow in the dooryard. He would squint up through the driving flakes and say to me, ‘Wild Bill, this is the snow that takes the snow. This is the poor man’s fertilizer.’ And then he would predict the earliest spring on record.”

I just love him.

A foot of snow in April just leaves me speechless

April 5, 2007

April 6, 2007

April 7, 2007

April 8, 2007

April 9, 2007

April 10, 2007

April 11, 2007

April 12, 2007

April 13, 2007 (right back where we started)

#96: The tall and small of coffee

It has finally happened: Starbucks has come to my town. I am happy about this mostly because there will be less waiting "over to Dunkin’ Donuts" as they say in Maine. To be sure, this morning I noticed much lighter traffic than usual. I also noticed that they were writing how the coffee had been ordered on the side of the cup, like they do at Starbucks. And that just seemed sad.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy a cup of Starbucks now and then, but it’s disconcerting to me how ever-present they are (186 locations in Manhattan, compared with 28 Dunkin’ Donuts). Elbowing out the small and local competition, Starbucks has become the superpower of coffee. That distinction comes with a certain amount of antipathy, a phenomenon familiar to America itself. [Last summer my very good friend L, a Canadian who travels extensively for work and pleasure, told me about a fabulous and pristine resort area she visited on the Baltic coast. She said this region has become the fashionable new destination for Europeans since Americans have now taken over the Riviera. I laughed and asked her if Americans were truly persona non grata the world over. “Haven’t you heard?” she sighed.]

But back to coffee. Me, I can’t drink coffee until after I’ve had my tea. Maybe this is a vestige of my Canadian heritage, which is in turn a vestige of Canada’s British heritage, but I am really more of a tea drinker. I steep a cavernous mug of Red Rose (Only in Canada, eh? Pity!) for myself first thing every morning, and again around 3:00 in the afternoon. So refreshing, and warming to the core. Later on, I will grab a cup of coffee as a reward after working out, or as I sit down to do some work. One cup a day easily meets my coffee requirements.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, I get a medium half regular/half decaf (JH refuses to place this "unreasonable" order for me) with milk. I used to order it with cream, but I’ve weaned myself off of that artery-clogging goo, although it does make the coffee so much richer and creamier. Many people find Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to be flavorless, and when you start drinking espresso-based coffee drinks, it’s easy to see why. But very strong, Starbucks-style coffee is bitter to my tastebuds — it’s like drinking liquid ash — and no matter how much room is left for milk, I can never quite get it to mellow to my liking. If I do go to Starbucks, I will order a tall latte with light foam. For the longest time I resisted their baroque lingo and loved to march up to the counter and ask the “barista” for a medium coffee. But I’ve gotten over that. Tall, grande, venti. Yeah, whatever. I’ll play along.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, my medium coffee costs $1.70. This has been steadily rising (right in line with the rate of inflation, of course) year by year, but it’s still a deal compared with almost $3.00 for a tall (which we all know means small) from Starbucks. My other coffee option is my neighborhood Town Landing Market, where you pour your own cup out of those old Bunn coffee makers, put in your choice of additives (coffee creamer – yes, flavor shots – no), and it’s a steal at $1.05. Here the coffee is only okay, but still better than if I made it at home. For reasons I have never been able to establish, my coffee is just not potable. I’m much better at tea.

#94: On writing

When it’s going well, writing is like a meditation for me. I am wholly involved in the scene, event or person that I am rendering. It’s as though I can reach right through my present reality and touch the invented or remembered one, that’s how clear it becomes for me. And then it’s just a matter of choosing the precise combinations of words — like finding the right pieces to complete a puzzle. Writing, when it’s like this, is almost effortless.

#90: Laws of the universe

I am typing this with my shoulder and head squeezed together clamping the phone to my ear. And in my little ear sappy instrumental music is playing — the kind of music that is supposed to be uplifting, the kind that far too many movies end on these days. I can hardly stand it. I’m on hold with US Airways, where my call will be answered in approximately 20 minutes, probably by someone in New Delhi who I won’t be able to understand, anyway. I’ve noticed that a lot of call center jobs have moved to that part of the world and, in theory, I don’t have any problem with companies making the decision to tap into this low-cost work force. But, at the risk of sounding discriminatory, if I can’t understand a word the customer service representative is saying to me, then what’s the point?

I’m getting a cramp in my neck…

Tomorrow morning I am supposed to fly to Chicago to spend a couple of days with some girlfriends, but a March blizzard that is sweeping across the northeast seems to have other ideas for me this weekend. I am trying not to get too worked up about it. I think that maybe if I don’t pack my suitcase until the very last minute tomorrow, then everything will probably go as scheduled. Whereas if I plan out the entire weekend’s wardrobe tonight and pack everything up and go to bed organized and ready, all will surely go awry. Because those are the laws of the universe, folks.

Still hearing that pitiful music…

The other thing that is probably going to happen is that school will be canceled here, because we are supposed to get 1-3 inches overnight, and that’s all it takes to shut the schools down, it might surprise you to know. Here’s my prediction: I will go off to the airport early in the morning, JH will be forced to stay home from work since there will be no school. Later I will return home with my sad sack o’ unopened luggage, having spend half my day in an information vacuum before being finally and unequivocally thwarted.

Why the hell don’t I have speaker functionality?

One little silverish lining though. Tomorrow is the talent show at N’s school and she is singing a solo. I was (possibly still am) going to have to miss her performance, which was/is distressing me. But no school = no talent show. They will have to reschedule it, and maybe it will be rescheduled to a day when I don’t have plans to be in Chicago. Which is pretty much every other possible weekend this year. These again are irrefutable laws of the universe.

The hell with this. I am hanging up. I am going to pack my bags, and head out to the airport tomorrow as though I hadn’t heard about so much as a snowflake falling. I am going to be an optimist for once. See my tulips?

Only an optimist would take pictures of tulips. I just hope I'm not here tomorrow to show you my darker side.

#88: Loose threads

If you’re here, it’s because you are a loyal reader, and for that I love you. I’ve neglected you. Writing for me is like picking at threads. Some that you pull at turn out to be tiny tidbits of fleeting interest that don’t ultimately go anywhere. Others unravel into something more significant, more true, and it's those threads I am always trying to get my hands on in my writing here. Lately, though, it’s been sluggish. I've been sluggish. I am feeling generally unclear in my thinking. And irritable. At the moment, I find the most mundane things — like a line at the bank, or dull scissors — irritating beyond reason.

I have to say that this feels seasonal (and possibly hormonal). It’s the time of year when I’m at the end of my rope, when winter has finally sapped the best of me. My body shuts down by 7:30 each night, which really cuts into my time to write, read, or engage meaningfully with my family. It seems impossible, but it’s true: I feel the constant pressure of being short on time.

Last week was school vacation, and we spent it skiing with some excellent friends at Saddleback Mountain, in Rangeley, Maine. We fell in love with this sleepy resort because it’s a throwback to earlier times. N and G learned how to ride the T-bar (there are two at Saddleback). I hadn’t seen one in 20 years because most ski resorts have replaced all their lift equipment with high-speed quads that zoom you (together with hundreds of other skiers and snowboarders) up the mountainside. But T-bars are a lovely way to get up.

All is quiet, peaceful and protected as you steadily ascend the mountain, your skis gliding through the tracks in the snow. Every now and then the T-bar’s mechanism jing-jangles musically as it passes through the rollers of the support columns, an utterly pleasing sound.

Alpine skiing may be nordic skiing's yahoo cousin, but it's actually a fairly nature-oriented sport. It gets you outside and up into the mountains at a time of year when what you instinctively want to be doing is sitting still and keeping warm inside. It pulls you out of your thermo-neutral environment into the fresh air and sunshine — sometimes into biting winds, snow showers and frigid temperatures. But you dress for this. With helmets, goggles and balaclavas covering every possible inch of skin, skiers are ready for anything, if totally unrecognizable these days.

When I was growing up my father would drop a carload of kids off at the local “mountain” at 9:00 in the morning and return for us around 5:00 — every winter weekend, Saturday and Sunday. We wore down coats, mittens and snow pants without the benefit of Gortex, ski hats on our heads (maybe) and that was it. A lot of kids (the toughies) would ski in tight jeans, jean jackets with a hoodie underneath, and flawlessly feathered hair (both girls and boys) frozen stiff by cold and/or hairspray. These were the same kids who smoked cigarettes in the lift lines, drank out of flasks on the chair lifts, but spent most of their time hanging out in the ski lodge, posing, scoping and hooking up.

Then, a couple years later, the trend was skin tight stretch pants with colorful racing stripes down the leg, and short little jackets that didn’t interfere with the curves of the lower body. Skiing has fortunately gotten over itself, as far as fashion goes. It’s all about safety, comfort and warmth now — at least in Rangeley, Maine. Although I was confronted with more long-johned butts than I care to recall of snowboarders whose pants were poised to slither to their knees at any moment.

So after a week among good friends out in the fresh, frigid air, and now with school back on, and a weekend in Chicago with my high school friends coming up, you’d think I would be in a better mood. I have no reason for my malaise, but it’s hovering over me all the same.

Maybe after some iron rich beets for dinner tonight, I'll feel better tomorrow…

#86: Writing about not being able to write

Writing is going nowhere today. My problem is my lack of mental and emotional clarity. My family, beloved and beautiful, is around, waiting out the Nor’easter that’s been pummeling us since early this morning. I did manage to duck out for an hour to work out before the roads got too bad, but otherwise I’ve been home all day with the kids, who’ve been in and out of the house with their friends. G needs me to help secure his coatsleeves over his mittens. N calls me to ask if she and her friend can have popcorn and hot chocolate. JH calls out intermittently from his office down the hall, and then comes in to talk strategy for having our lemon of a washing machine replaced.

Usually when I write I have been steeping in an idea for a day or so — I’m a slow producer — but I'm discovering that’s impossible for me to do with other people around. Writing is a truly solitary pursuit. So I wonder, do I have the right kind of life for this? I suppose as long as there are such things as “school” and “the office” I do.

Dinner is cooking in the oven: brisket, which I’ve never made before, but it certainly smells good (frozen crabcakes for N). And later there will be chocolate cake from scratch that my mother, who didn’t really do dessert, would bake on special occasions. It is Valentine's Day, after all.

It’s 4:00 in the afternoon, but it feels hours and hours later. I think we’ll eat early and end the day early, and hope that, tomorrow, routines will be restored.

#85: "Love gets better with time"

JH and I have a tradition on Valentine’s Day of seeking out the most hideous and excessively sentimental card we can find for each other. It’s a contest, and though I’m sure he would dispute this, I usually win.

I didn’t want to leave this ritual to the last minute, so today I stood in the Hallmark store poring over the thousands of cards arranged like shingles on the racks. My eyes are always riveted to the glimmer of raised gold lettering. Flocked cards are worth extra points. Tassles, feathers, faux leather or pearlescent finishes, even googly eyes, have all won me over in the past. But then when I get reading the messages, I quite literally start to feel nauseous after about five minutes, and I know I have to make my choice quickly and get the hell out of there. Hallmark’s overwhelming peach/cinnamon/cranberry candle scent doesn’t help with the nausea, either.

The card I chose today might not feature all of the bells and whistles we’ve seen in the past, but it makes up for that with scale: this year’s card is the size of your average menu.

You’re My Forever Valentine
“LOVE GETS BETTER WITH TIME”

I’m not sure what the thought was behind adding the quotation marks, but it gets even “better” inside:

Love that has deepened and lasted…
Is a love that is truly sublime.
For no love that is new
Is as strong or as true
As a love that’s been tested by time.
Love that has grown even richer
Through everything life has to give
Is love at its best
That survives every test
And gets better each day that you live.

It goes on and on and on…

Who writes this stuff? I once knew someone who worked for a major greeting card company as a writer, but I think his beat was humor. Maybe he was writing this kind of thing, though, and he found it as funny as JH and I do. In a stomach-curdling kind of way.

We started this card competition after we got married. That first year we were focused on buying a house and we had plenty of things to spend our money on without any help from FTD, Godiva or DeBeers. Then on our anniversary it just seemed like us to make it a tradition. It takes the pressure off of these two annual occasions that might otherwise compel us to go out to the mall and buy cliché gifts for each other. 

The fact is, we don’t do gifts all that well. Not in the usual sense, anyway. I always have a hard time coming up with something for JH that has the right spirit attached to it, or any spirit at all, for that matter. Things you buy in stores just don’t feel like authentic gifts. JH will come home once in a while with flowers for me out of the blue. He’ll offer to cook dinner, or he’ll close the door to our room in the morning behind him and let me sleep in. It’s these small, everyday acts — sincere and uncalculated — that exemplify what it means to give.

And when JH comes through the door at the end of the day and the house is warm and bright and dinner is aromatic and imminent, that’s a gift I’m giving him. Lately, when I write something about our life or our kids that captures a moment and preserves it for us, that also feels like a gift.

It’s not that we’re anti-materialism, because I tell you, we have plenty of trappings. I just don’t feel the love in buying the expected gift. I don’t want to give that kind of gift, and I don’t want to receive it, either. Unless of course it’s expensive jewelry. But, honestly, I’d be happy with someone just making the dinner.

My kind of place