Second Trip

Six days after my Beltáin visit, I more or less took the same walk. While May 1st had been sunny, it was only in the upper 50s (F), and while I was by no means the only person out enjoying the weather, the crowds were a little slim. May 6th it was substantially warmer, which meant many more people were out. Here's another shot I took of Midtown; I think it gives a much better sense of the crowds, the traffic, even the noise perhaps. I swear to god I didn't notice the guy in the light blue shirt with the nice shoulders until after I had uploaded this image to my computer, but he's a nice bit of scenery too, isn't he.
One of the aspects of Spring that surprises and delights me every year is how quickly things change. I'll admit I was bit sad to realize the violets were already their way out, but there was something new happening, something I don't remember ever noticing before. See those seed pods in the photo to the left? They were the cause of it all. The type of tree they come from lines the main drive in Central Park starting at the south entrance. As I walked in, there seemed to be a silvery rain falling everywhere. I tried to get photos of it, but was never successful. The image below comes the closest; if you look at the dark green of the bushes, you might notice some white flecks. That was the best I could do. It does nothing to give you a sense of how full the air was of them, how beautiful the shimmer was as they fell, conjuring up rain, snow, and something completely magical. I don't know what kind of tree they come from. My tree and plant expert people? Are any of these shots clear and close enough to tell you what the tree is? (See image of seeds still on the tree, below)

The shimmery rainfall was only part of their charm. They were on the ground in such numbers (seriously I don't remember seeing ANY evidence of them a week earlier) that they piled up in drifts; when the wind blew them, they'd skitter across the tarmac making a sound like rain on a rooftop. Several times they made little dirt devils too. The image above is the closest I came to capturing one of those. Considering how central these things were to my experience that day, they certainly don't lend themselves well to photography. Or at least they don't to my level of ability. Video might come closer, but I bet it would still flatten the whole experience.

I'd say at least a third of the violets from the previous week were gone. Thanks to friend Greg I now knew how to get my camera to do close-ups. In the image at left, look at the blossoms just up and to the right of center; they come closest to being the right color, though they're still a bit too blue. Other than using the macrofocus, I didn't do anything differently, so I don't know why these get closer. Is it as simple as them being in sunlight rather than shade? The photo that best captured the color is also a close-up, but is very blurry. I still can only get so close if I want the camera to focus. Intimacy issues, apparently. But are they mine or the camera's?

This one also gets closer to the right shade, but is still not quite right.

Leaving the violets, on my way to the lilacs, I was once again stopped by the lemony, intoxicating scent I mentioned last time, though now I couldn't see any blossoms causing it. In my search though, I found this single blossom. No idea what it is either (it definitely was not providing the scent), but I loved how tiny it was. That's why I put my hand in the photo, to give you a sense of scale. Apparently my focusing abilities deteriorate once again when using the camera one handed. I ask my nature experts, any idea what this is? I'd say it was not planted deliberately by humans, it definitely has the look of being a volunteer.

Below is a picture I took of the lilacs, just because I forgot last time. My camera has no difficulty with this shade of purple; this color matches my memory quite well. Yes, I think sunlight might be the big difference. That reminds me of another realization I had re: violets. One of the reasons I'm fond of them is that they're shade lovers, like me.

For a third time, I ask anyone who knows to tell me what this flowering vine ( upper right) is. I see it on the sides of buildings in Manhattan occasionally. It gives off a strong, heavy scent that I don't find appealing, but I bet it works a treat at getting the plant propagated. Here again the camera captured the color accurately, I would day. Maybe it just handles the blue scale better. Is it wisteria? I suppose I could go look that up. It's something like that, I think. I knew the name of it once. This is the sort of flower I would expect to love, musky scent notwithstanding. Extravagant blossoms in the purple range, exuberant growth, yet I'm largely unmoved by them. Weird. Nothing against them, mind you, they just don't excite me the way lavender, lilacs and violets do. Or crocuses for that matter, though I think part of my appreciation for them is rooted in the knowledge that when they show up, violets are not far away.

Two more times before I left the park I smelled that wonderful, mysterious, citrusy scent. I still have not identified what it is. I'm bad at describing scents, not sure lemony or citrusy is the way to go, but I'll stick with that for now. I briefly wondered if it was simply a whiff of lilac coming from a distance, but I don't think so now. Just not the same scent. I'll have to go back again soon, since presumably whatever it is won't be around much longer. Perhaps that's my final question; does anyone know of something in season right now that has a light, bright scent, not too sweet, not too cloying?

Regaining Perspective.

Friday evening was one of those occasions when I felt like Manhattan was telling me, in no uncertain terms, that there was. no. room. for. me.

I was expecting the commute home to be tricky. The school I work at most often, the Pratt Institute, is deep in Brooklyn. I live at the north end of Manhattan, in Harlem. What this means is a) the commute can take anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes on average, one way and b) I will be going with rush hour traffic for most of the ride. These are the constant irritations to the trip, and I think I handle them pretty well.

But then Friday, you see, there was some moisture in the air. I don't mean there was actual RAIN, mind you, though it had been predicted. Okay, to be fair I think there had been some in the early afternoon. At 5pm, when I was getting on the train in Brooklyn, however, it had been dry for a while. As I think I've written before, any kind of precipitation, indeed even the suggestion of precipitation makes the trains and a substantial portion of the population go spare. Fridays often have their own special craziness, for reasons I've not quite figured out. There just always seem to be more people on the trains on Fridays. This one was no exception.

So we all see where I'm going with this, right? I managed to make it to 59th ST (just past the mid-point of my journey) in reasonably good time, and what's more, I had been able to sit most of the way. Score! For those of you who don't know, 59th St Station is a major transfer point. When I went to the platform for my train home, it was packed to the rafters with people, to a degree that told me a train had not been along in some time. This actually happens a lot during rush hours, particularly the evening rush, in my experience. Something goes wrong with the train, that delays it even a few minutes, which means that the crowds on the the subsequent stations have time to get bigger than normal. When the train shows up, the vast majority of people will force their ways onto the already packed train, and in doing so delay it even more. Often the conductor will tell us that another train is RIGHT BEHIND THIS ONE, but for some reason only a few people believe this, or think it's worth waiting for. As you may have guessed from my snide tone and sarcastic caps, I am one of those few people. If I'm not in any hurry to get where I am going (and usually at the end of the day, I'm not), I routinely let as many as three trains pass me by before getting on. Usually the first one will be, as I said, jam-packed and lethargic, crawling from station to station, collecting more and more surly people, so even once you've made it on, you know that the trip is only going to get slower and more uncomfortable. The next train (and often it is right behind the first one, though sometimes the conductors lie, which is probably why most riders don't believe them) will still be pretty packed, the riders still pretty surly, and the ride still slow because it, of course, has to wait for the first one to clear the station. Usually by the third train, there will be seats. It will still be a slow ride, since now you're behind two slow trains, but sitting down changes everything. You can get off your feet, read, write, basically treat the time as your own in at least a few small ways.

I was fully prepared to adopt the 'minimum three train' policy on Friday. I left for work Friday morning knowing that I would probably have to adopt this policy. When I got to 59th St that night, however, I knew immediately that this was not going to be a three-train wait. Nope, I was prepared to wait for at least five, and the gaps between them would be extra long because there were that many more people getting on.

40 minutes later, after train number seven came and left bursting at the seams, Mr. Crankypants was firmly in charge, and now I would not be riding the train UNTIL I could sit down. By train number nine, I was able to, in part because I didn't mind sitting near the only slightly whiffy homeless guy who had built himself an enormous nest at one end of the train with trash bags.

Door to door, my commute took two hours, twenty minutes.

Any thought I had of going out again that evening was snorted at derisively. I also realized there was an insistent little voice in my head saying I now deserved a treat, perhaps several treats, as consolation for my miserable ride home. Said little voice seemed of the opinion that such treats should include a large order of General Tso's chicken from the local Chinese take-out (if you're not familiar with this dish, it is basically a whole lot of deep-fat fried chicken nuggets swimming in a rich, sweet, oily sauce; I'll usually get it with brown rice. You know, to make it healthy), a truck load of cookies, and I'm talking 18 wheeler, AND a vat of a nice Shiraz. Not a truck of wine, that would be tacky.

When did I become the person who cheers himself up by hardening his arteries and destroying his liver? I swear to god I never thought that way before living in NYC. I've always loved food, mind you, in all its varied and glorious forms, but I don't think I went about medicating myself with it. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I really don't think I did.

Having identified this course of action as perhaps not in my best interests, I decided I would buy a box of Entemann's chocolate-chip cookies and some chicken quarters which I would cook (gasp!) WITH THE SKINS ON. I decided against the wine; I really don't think using alcohol as a means of breaking me out of a cranky mood is a habit I want to get into. I want to enjoy my booze when I have it. Besides the liquor store was too far away.

This compromise with my little voice then led me to think "when did I become the guy who obsesses about chicken skin?" Sure, one reaches a certain age and has to recognize that cholesterol is a concern, that excess pounds gained are harder to lose, that heart attacks do run in the family, that being a grown-up means recognizing consequences... but I mean come on.

Well, navel-gazing aside, I followed through on this plan, and had a great time. I had hoped to have my roommate's assistance with at least the cookies, but he was out, thus leaving me to do some serious damage to them on my own.

And it did help. I was much more cheerful an hour later, as I shoveled cookies into my mouth and contemplated having the whole apartment to myself for another week. What also cheered me up was looking at photos I took last Sunday, during a walk with my sweet Melissa. Her new place is right across the street from Inwood Park, which is all that remains of the old growth forest that once covered this whole island. Just the idea of that thrills me. Then when one walks in it, it's very easy to forget the city is all around.

This is my sweet girl just after we've entered the forest. Already all buildings are out of sight, and most street noise is gone.

(Don't you just want to squeeze her? She gets that a lot.)

This was a carving in the rock we both liked. Despite the sharpness of the edges and the uniformity of the shape, we're both certain this was formed naturally. There is no sign of tools, and besides, why would anyone bother?

Here's a closer look. In Ireland this would be some sort of sacred well, with an ancient name and a thousand year history of magical healing.

I don't know what these flowers in the foreground are, but I can't wait to find out. That's the Hudson in the background. I'm also rather fond of that larger tree. I seem to be turning into my mother. Like her, I now feel compelled to hug trees on a fairly regular basis. One of the odd benefits of living in a big city is, when I was doing this in Central Park a few weeks ago, I knew I didn't have to worry about ever seeing again any of the people who looked at me oddly as they went by. Lately I'm particularly fond of oak trees for some reason. Mom's morning walk includes visiting, and hugging, a catalpa and an ancient pin oak.

At one point, Melissa and I found a clearing in the trees where we got incredible views of the river. The picture on the left is looking north, the one on the right looks south.















These two shots are taken in almost the same location; I've just stepped forward about two paces. Suddenly you can see the city. Again, the left one is north, the right one is south. In the latter, you're looking at George Washington Bridge. My place is just about twenty blocks further south.
This is a picture Melissa took of me, while I was taking one of the pictures above. She took this with her camera phone. That's a damn good phone. Or Melissa really knows how to work it. I'm getting a better average number of focused images with my digital baby, I just don't know how I'm doing it. Generally taking two or three shots seems to be useful; the latter ones are almost always better. My camera's ways remain a mystery to me, and contrary to his original assertion, Tommy is no help. Still, I'm having fun. You just may not want to enlarge any of my photos, if blurry images make your eyes go all wonky, like they do mine.


So once again, it's trees to the rescue in my world. I could ask myself if this is something that needs closer examination, but for now I'm just grateful to have so many places nearby that help me regain my sanity, and such good company to do it with.

Living, Loving Links

It’s time to give away some aloe plants again. These all came from one I got from my mom. All of hers came from her mom. I don’t know if it goes back farther than that, but for at least three generations this plant and its scions have been entwined with my family. I can remember seeing it on the family farm, Emro. I know for a fact that my brother, sister, and both aunts also have off-spring; I’m sure others, both family and friends, do as well. Its extreme fecundity has very specific characteristics; individual plants do get bigger with age, but most of their energy seems to be devoted to putting out new plants, and getting them to grow to a certain size. Not all aloes do this, I learned some years ago. I rescued another one when a roommate in Alphabet City threw it in the trash, and I immediately noticed different characteristics. It too put out little plants like the Emro aloe, but most of its energy seemed devoted to enlarging the original plant. It got bigger, each frond lengthening and widening, new fronds springing up. Had I not known the truth, I would have sworn it and the Emro plant were two different species.

Eventually I no longer had space for the big guy, so gave him to my friend Megan, where, newly christened Big Al, he has continued to grow. I helped her repot him a couple of years ago, since that is now definitely a two-person job. He dominates Megan’s living room, sitting by the TV, still grows bigger, and frankly seems to have developed an attitude. Look for Big Al on Myspace.

But back to the Emro aloes. These are not the only plants that are descendents of plants from my maternal grandmother; the boston ferns that hang in the kitchen and bathroom are too. One showers me with negative ions (the good, mood-lifting ones) when I’m at the dining table, the other does the same when I shower. At one point Tommy hid his Frodo action figure (you heard me) in the one in the shower; I was lathering up one day to realize I had a tiny little peeping Tom. "Where's Frodo?" has become a new sport.

Then there is the angel-wing begonia; it too comes from an Emro plant, and has relatives living with several of mine. Actually, since they’re all cuttings, that means they’re technically all part of the same plant, which is even cooler, don't you think? This is the plant that seemed to be at death’s door back in September. I’m cautiously optimistic these days; it’s putting out more leaves and they look healthy. I doubt it will ever regain its former glory (it was five feet tall at one point), but at least it no longer looks like a sad skeleton.

Then there are the plants who were here in the apartment when I moved in, left by the previous tenant. There was a spider plant hanging in the kitchen where the boston fern is now. Ginger told me she’d had it since college, and had brought it with her everywhere she’d lived since (no, I don't know why she left it here). Hanging in the kitchen window, it felt like it was at the center of the apartment. I began thinking of it almost as the spirit of the place. It's funny to realize it had lived here longer than me. I started calling her Grandmother Spider, in recognition of her age and prolific outgrowth. It seemed to fit. She was even more prolific than the Emro aloes; runners and plantlets spilled over the pot, cascading down the window -which faces north, by the way, on a narrow courtyard, and is not someplace I would have expected a spider plant to thrive. For a while I had two of her sons (don’t ask me why I thought they were male, but I did) hanging in the two windows of the living room (facing east, also on the courtyard). They were both smaller, springing up with a youthful vigor and a deeper green. Brian, when he lived here, found these two plants disconcerting. When they began putting out runners and baby plants, he could never quite shake the feeling that if he sat in front of the TV too long, they would end up sinking roots into his flesh.

It wasn’t long, with all three hanging plants merrily reproducing, before we were neck-deep in plantlets. Brian was sure they were going to smother us in our sleep one night, and even I began feeling a tad overwhelmed. I was able to give several away, but many more were left wanting homes; scores of them sat in water, growing roots that became increasingly entangled with one another. Eventually through a combination of give away and culling (Grandma was allowed to continue reproducing, but both the boys lost that privilege), I was able to whittle things back, finally ending up only with Grandmother Spider. She was starting to look a bit peaked by this point though, and I realized she was potbound. The repotting didn’t seem to go well, perhaps because I had to break up the ball into separate plants. She never really regained her old vigor, and just faded away. I wonder if plants can die of old age? She had to have been at least twenty, possibly thirty years old. I was sad, but frankly also a bit relieved. With her gone, I felt like yet one more significant influence of the previous tenant had been allowed to fade naturally, and I was now, almost eight years after taking over the lease, able to invite a new spirit plant into the center of my home. So that is where the second Boston fern went. At present there are no spider plants living in this apartment at all, and I’m feeling like that’s okay. If I ever feel the need for one though, I know Grandma has offspring throughout the city, in the homes of many friends. I can even say hi to one of the sons anytime I want, since he sits in a first floor window not far from my building. He is allowed to reproduce again, and seems to like the southern exposure.

The other plant I inherited with the apartment is a golden pothos. When I first moved in, two or three short cuttings of this plant were sitting in a big, heavy blue vase. I have no idea how long they had been there. They were in the office, which at the time was mostly Kurt’s domain, so I assumed they were his. (Like the plants, I inherited Kurt as a roommate, and it also worked out splendidly.) After a few years though, I began to feel badly for the cuttings, so I appropriated, potted, and moved them to the living room (which, at the time, was exclusively my domain). I don’t remember when exactly I stopped pruning it back, and tying it to a string along the wall, but I think it happened no more than five, maybe six years ago. I’d keep wrapping it around the room, if there weren’t a heating pipe in the way now that would singe it. I’m doubling it back, and giving cuttings to anyone who asks for one, as long as he or she is standing right in front of me, hand out ready to take it that instant. I can't handle the guilt of homeless plants any longer.

This scattering of green throughout my space has helped save my sanity, I have no doubt. Their calming green and reminders of older, more important rhythms is often a good wake-up call for me. I also like the feeling of connection they give me: to my grandmother, the family farm, my mom, aunts, siblings and friends across the country, even former residents -known and not- of apartment #20. I imagine a greensong linking the plants with their counterparts regardless of distance, shrinking the space between me and my loved ones, and strengthening our bonds.

Tending the Soil, Trusting the Season

Fragments I don't see relating, but want to put together anyway:



Sometime today there will be a procession through my mostly Dominican neighborhood, honoring Good Friday. There will be a priest on a megaphone, calling out lines in a musical chant, the congregants responding likewise. Actual songs will be interspersed through all this. To my no doubt unsophisticated ear, I always hear an echo of the Muslim call to prayer in all this, especially the priest's amplified chanting, but also in some of the hymns. I imagine the rituals of prayer coming down through the ages, starting in Moorish Spain, changing from Arabic to Spanish, Muslim to Christian, emigrating to the Caribbean, and ending up outside my doorstep in New York City, still retaining a bit of all those flavors. I may be completely off about the influences... but even so, I like the feeling it gives me that at the heart of true blessing, reverance and thanksgiving, we are more alike than not. At least that's how I see it today.



To answer a question from new friend Butch, the mask accompanying the post below is not the River Liffy, but the Green Man. This link is by no means the only place you can find information on him, he's an old fellow with lots of meanings. Put loosely, I understand him as the male energy of life, specifically a Celtic manifestation, a sort of Father Nature, and with particular ties to Pan, Dionysus, Herne the Hunter, and all the other male gods of Springtime. As such maybe he'd be a better accompaniment to today's post, but he seemed like the right image for my St. Paddy's Day post. Yeats, Ó Searcaigh, and I all connect with Pagan impulses in our own ways, I would say, and the idea of 'going back to sources' explored in both poems made me think of this guy. My sister and brother-in-law gave him to me a few years ago, and he hangs on my wall, across from my bed (one of the few guardian masks I didn't make myself), smiling down on me each morning as I wake up in my gritty urban fifth-floor walk-up.

I don't think St. Patrick would have minded.



By a funny coincidence though, I do have a small River Liffy mask, a gift from my mother a few years ago. Liffy hangs on the edge of the wall dividing the living room from the hallway. She's one of the first things I see when I walk through my front door, shrouded behind my exuberant golden pothos, twining itself around three of the walls. My sense of who she is to me is much more unformed (okay, just so Java's heart will go pitter-pat, I'll say 'inchoate'. Happy Easter, Dear). I'm always glad to see her though. And I do love Dublin. If you enlarge the lower photo, you'll also see that behind her hangs a beautifully calligraphed print of the Yeats poem that I copied out in the previous post, so while I didn't post her with the poem, she is close to it in my world. I don't know what all the lovely coincidences in Butch's question mean, if anything, but I liked them.



Years ago I heard a fantastic joke on TV, from Art Buchwald (yes, that takes you to Wikipedia, it was the most concise biography I could find; feel free to do your own search). I won't do justice to Buchwald's telling of it (it really loses something if you don't hear it told in his New York accent), but here it is.



A man decides that he wants to win the lottery, so he begins praying to God for this, every day. Years go by with the man making this prayer daily, all to know avail. After ten years of this increasingly frantic supplication one day he loses all patience and screams, "God, I've been a good man all these years, why won't you let me win the lottery?"



Suddenly, a voice booms from the heavens.



"Do me a favor! Buy a ticket!"



I fear I have spent a lot of my life being that man. One of the lessons I seem to have to relearn repeatedly is how to find the balance between taking action, and -for lack of a better description- going with the flow. The wellspring of joy and creativity in my life, particularly as it relates to performing, has felt very blocked for years now, and I haven't done much recently to address that (unless we include periodically moping about it on my blog). Spring is one of my favorite times of year, in part because of its reminder that life is reborn, growth occurs, rejuvenation does happen, it just happens according to its own time-table, not mine.



And yet... this doesn't mean I can just sit back. I still need to plant the seeds. For long stretches of time that may be all I do. I'm learning to trust fallow periods more as I age, trusting that just because I can't see it or measure it doesn't mean important growth is going on underground. But that doesn't let me off the hook for doing some work.



Sometimes the soil is sour, depleted or just unsuitable. Sometimes there hasn't been enough water. Sometimes the shoots come up, and it's my job to protect them from late frost and snow, careless feet, or hungry rabbits. Nature will take care of itself just fine without my help, but if I am hoping for specific results, flowers or vegetables say, rather than happy rodents or a rocky front yard, then I have to do some work. Yes, a balance is to be sought. Respect for the forces involved must be maintained. But I mustn't fall into the comfortable laziness (probably really a form of fear), of passivity.



Then there's the other side. Various people in my life are dealing with difficult issues right now, and various caretakers are watching them deal with those issues, trying to help, but often struggling with the recognition, and accompanying guilt, that there is nothing they can do. I feel badly for both people in the equation; both experience a feeling of helplessness, of being at the mercy of forces they can't control, even when they believe they should be able to. While I am reminding myself that I must do the things I can, THEN trust in other forces, many many of my loved ones might want to remind themselves that some things are beyond our power, and even when we do all the 'right' stuff, sometimes things still go wrong. Then we find what to do next. Feeling guilty for failing to protect a loved one is a burden many people subject themselves to understandably, but needlessly.

("Easy for you to say," mutters the chorus... I know, I know. I do it too, sometimes.)

So I hope each of you, in your own way, finds this season a time of rejuvenation, healing or just plain old joyous growth, in whatever way is best for you. Some of us may need to get our asses out there to plant seeds and pull weeds... but some of us may just need to trust that we've done all we can. Do you know which one you are? Are you sure?

Frolic in the Meadow

So, it seems I'm not as good with this digital camera as I may have thought. If I'm trying to capture scenery on a day with brilliant light and diamond-sharp shadows, apparently I can manage not to fuck things up too much. If I'm trying to photograph people, or pets, however, I turn into a drooling moron. The camera insists on flashing, regardless of light or setting, and I don't know how to turn that off (if it's even possible; it must be, right?). It often doesn't really understand what I want to be focusing on, so when faced with this problem it focuses at random on an object of its own choosing. We're working on our communication, though I'll admit I don't always behave like a grown-up and will sometimes remove its batteries in a fit of pique. That doesn't seem to accomplish much, but it makes me feel better. Yes, I'm just that petty. I hate being defeated by inanimate objects.

What is my evidence for all this? See that picture above? Out of all the photos I took of Jess, Marc, the dogs (none of whom have blogs yet), the house, the train-ride, that photo there is the best one I got out of my visit to East Meadow. I mean, you can actually see who it is I'm photographing. The others, all of them, don't know what the hell happened there. Yes, I know you can look at the little screen after taking a shot, see if it came out, then try again if necessary, bite me okay? Yeah, I didn't do that. Like, ever. I blame Marc really. He made this amazing blackberry (yes blackberry) cosmo that is without a doubt the most delicious mixed drink I've ever had. Not too sweet, beautiful color, it went down like water, so I really can't be held responsible.

So, lacking the extensive photo journal I was hoping to share with you, I'll just have to tell you about my lovely day. Oh, that above is Mandy. She is of the devil, apparently. In my own defense, Jess says that effect always happens with her eyes, so again, it's not my fault. She was coming over to smooch me, by the way, not chew off my face, as it might appear. I get those looks confused a lot.

After a relaxing train-ride out (I love trains), Jess was there to pick me up at the station. The conversation started up without any awkwardness, as between familiar friends, as I guess we were by that point. At the house I was greeted by the dogs first. Bernice and Mandy were effusive and affectionate from the start, competing a bit with one another for my attention. Dodger was courtly and gracious, but made clear he was reserving judgement pending further evidence. I can respect that.

Finally I got to meet Marc as well. Both gentlemen were every bit as charming, funny and welcoming as their blogs, comments and emails had led me to expect. What I hadn't gotten to experience directly was the loving banter between them, which started up immediately. They seemed as amazed, amused and delighted with each other as if they had just met, and it was lovely to bask in.

First order of business, I requested a tour of the house. Marc had before pictures to give me a sense of how extensive their renovations had been. Jess grew up in this house, so the renovations helped to shape the house more to their tastes and needs, while also perhaps banishing a ghost or two. The home they've created is both elegant and cozy, taking advantage of some wonderful original features (black walnut trim!), and antiques from their families, combining them with beautiful new marble or granite in the kitchen and bathrooms, wonderful light fixtures, and a variety of rich, soothing colors. Throughout there were several large beautiful photographs hanging and only later did I learn that Jess had taken them. The house throughout sang of the two of them, and of their relationship. After turning to smaller bedrooms into one large one, they decided to make it the new master bedroom. Jess felt he was never going to be able to see the original as anything but his parents' room. Talk about a recipe for chastity. I would have made the same choice. Periodically one of them would point to what I thought was a small, tastefully arrayed collection, and say "sorry about the mess."

They are never, ever coming to my house.

So much of the furniture or collections (there were actual ones too) came with family stories, so one sensed the history of these two men in a way that I have rarely found with Americans. I got to hear about some of their relatives -Jess's mom and grandmother, Marc's mom- triggered perhaps by a collection of silver pieces, a surprisingly valuable couch (that narrowly missed being left on the curb) or a great old cabinet.

Jess and Marc then began preparations for dinner in the kitchen, while I sat in the living room, peeking through the large window there, sipping my cosmo, and petting any dog who stopped by to say hi. Dodger seemed to be warming up a bit. All five of them had been in Vermont over the weekend with friends, so Iwas informed the dogs were a bit more sedate than usual, due to being tired. I was comforted to hear this, since I was starting to wonder if I should be offended by the fact that Mandy had not yet lived up to her nickname -Moose- by trying to climb into my lap.

Just so you know, if you say to these gentlemen "please don't go to any trouble" what they hear is "please order gulf shrimp from a company in Texas that provides next day delivery." Jess tried to make it seem like that was all Marc's doing, but I didn't detect any evidence he had tried to stop him.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Jess made a delicious scampi, while Marc sauteed asparagus, and buttered garlic bread, periodically checking on the state of his cheesecake. He then topped up my drink, discreetly provided me with a tarp the size of a circus tent to deal with my drooling, and the six of us sat down to eat in the sunroom. The meal was every bit as wonderful as you're thinking it was, topped only by the company and the conversation. I learned more about Jess's parents, and regretted that I would never get to meet them. The love they shared for over forty years had clearly shaped Jess, his siblings, and the home in ways too many to count; one felt it radiating out of the walls, surrounding us with a warm, gentle glow.

Once the humans had eaten our fill, Bernice and Mandy intensified their campaign for scraps, and were rewarded with some pieces of garlic bread. Dodger has to be invited to partake, such a gentleman he is, but he didn't require too much coaxing.

Jess and I continued talking while Marc disappeared for quite a while in the kitchen, until I began to feel like we had abandoned him. "Don't worry," Jess assured me, "he would much rather we stay out here for the moment." Far be it from me to disturb an artist in process.

Eventually we retired to the living room with our cheesecake with strawberries (heaven!) and our coffee. This is the one room in the house where the dogs are not allowed. Bernice and Mandy accept this without complaint (or at least they did that night). Dodger, on the other hand, utilizes the debate of legal minutiae so popular with dogs and teenagers. He'd lie just outside the door, only his snout crossing the border into the living room, testing to see if the judges felt this honored the spirit of the law. That having gone well, he tried the reverse, placing his entire body in the living room, except for his snout, which also helped his case, since he was facing out of the room. When this began to look like he'd push too far, he also stretched both forepaws to the safe side of the border. Eventually Jess told him to leave, and he did, with no evident disgruntlement.

Perusing some of the Adonises (Adonisae?) hot guys in Jess's high school yearbook -he was the editor, so had a certain amount of say in who got multiple shots- led to a discussion of opportunities missed because we were too young, timid and closeted. This led somehow into a discussion of whether there is life after death. Trust me, in the context that jump made sense. Actually you probably can come up with your own links without much trouble, can't you. I learned about the trip they took with Marc's mom to Europe, getting her out of the country for the first time in her seventies, for what was clearly a wonderful time for all three of them. Jess says they have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy for her sake, but occasionally she forgets, and calls him 'son'.

A phone call from a friend led us to the TV room (Oh, I neglected to mention the Bose surround sound system throughout the house!) so said friend could get Jess's expert opinion on some guns being evaluated on the Antiques Road Show. Marc suddenly thought it had been cruel to keep me in the living room, no dogs allowed, when I had come out in part to see them, but he needn't have worried. The company in both rooms had been a delight, I didn't feel deprived in the slightest. This did however give Dodger a chance to deliver his final judgement, which he did by playfully wrassling with me, biting ever so gently. Jess informed me this meant I was in.

We were all looking at early starts the next day, so I elected to get on the 9:30 train back to Penn Station. The three of us drove to the station, which meant I got to save my hugs until the very last moment with both of them. As they drove off I appreciated the fact that three rough looking guys were standing next to three fabulous young gay boys (one of them in a sequin-covered vest, a fedora, and just a touch of eye-liner) without any evident animosity. Even the 'burbs of New York tend to have a live and let live attitude most of the time.

The train arrived right on time, and after I had been riding for a bit, I thought to turn my phone back on. There was a text message and a voice message from Jess. The voice message said "Marc wanted to know if you'd made your train all right--OW. I just got hit. Okay I was worried you might have missed your train, it's the Jewish mother in me..." I called back immediately to reassure Mama, and thanked them again for a lovely day.

I was home before eleven, which gave me time to make a full report to Nicky, and to learn that my photos were for shit. I guess that just means I'm going to have to go back for another visit, after I've beaten the camera into submission-I mean learned all its fine nuances and needs. It's rough, but for you, my readers, I'm willing to make that sacrifice. No need to thank me. Its just the kind of guy I am. I'm a giver.

Thanks again, Guys, it was wonderful. It's my turn to host next, which I'll find some way to do without letting you see the state of squalor I generally live in.

Solstice Walk

On the solstice this year, I decided to take my old walk.   I wanted to visit some important personal sites, and do so in the order I always did as a kid. After reading Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines I wondered if this served a similar purpose in my life, but I think the concept of dinnesanchas comes much closer.  The term comes from Irish, and means something like 'the naming of place'; the idea as I understand it is that when a place has been inhabited for a long time by people with an unbroken narrative tradition, every rock, hummock, hill, stream, or creek has a name and a story.  Describing my little walk with this grand term is pompous, hanging far too much weight on it, but there is still something in the concept that resonates with me.  

I break with tradition almost immediately by starting from my sister's and brother-in-law's place, rather than my parents' home, but I realized that the distance between them never really had much of import for me.  The special places and the stories start later.  

First stop is the kicking post.  This was a gift to the college from the class of 1940, and is a simply a small menhir about my height, sitting right next to the main entrance to the campus.  I had always thought it was meant to be a way for Quaker students to vent their unseemly anger, but this time I actually read the sign posted on it, and realize that you are supposed to make a wish and kick it for good luck.  I'm somewhat surprised the class of 1940 would have been willing to offer such a superstitious, verging on pagan, monument, but I make a wish and kick the post, being something of a pagan myself.  Besides, I never turn down a chance to make a wish.      

The next stop is actually a recent addition, since my adulthood.  Boy for a trip down memory lane, I've already screwed it up.  If this were my Songlines, I'd be subject to the death penalty by now.  Okay, this stop is an enormous catalpa tree, with a trunk so wide that with our arms out-stretched my mom, dad, and I can only just barely touch fingers.  This is the tree friend my mom visits -and hugs-  each morning with the dog.  She has done so for at least twenty years, I believe.  Something about its presence calls to her, and feels welcoming.  An enormous pin oak has recently entered her life as well, but I think this catalpa is the only tree she visits every day.
Today I notice that one of its huge limbs has a bee hive in it.  It almost looks like the bulge in the branch has been created by the hive, since their entrance is right in the center of it.  It's worrisome that the bees are out and about, since it is December 23rd, but since it is almost 60 degrees F, I assume they knew what they're doing.  

I then walk along the west edge of the campus, which has a tall fence separating it from the cemetery next door.  The fence didn't completely separate the two places when I was a kid and college student; lots of students used to go study in the beautiful surroundings.  There was a gentle hazing tradition, maybe still is, where upper- class students would tell first-years to go find the Glass Tomb.  There really is one, once you figure out the joke.  

The cemetery never played heavily in my childhood fantasies though, so I don't mind the new fence (Mom does).  On this side, I'm walking through a windbreak of evergreens that are so tall and dense you can almost stay dry in a rain storm here.  An owl had a nest here for many years, but I can't tell if she's still here.  I stop to visit the tiny grave of Morton Bisp.  For reasons unknown to me, this little tombstone for a child who died before his sixth birthday (in 1953), is separated from the cemetery, one lone stone that didn't make it onto the other side of the fence.  I assume he was buried on college property on purpose.  

Now I'm at the top of the sledding hill, the place we always came as kids.  If you could see this shallow little valley with its two modest peaks, you'd realize just how midwestern my upbringing was.  I remember the rides down being quite satisfying, right up until I was thirteen or so, but when I look at it now, I laugh.  I know it's still used that way by faculty kids.  The family dog before I was born, the first Fang, loved riding on sleds.  We tried to get Lilly, the dog I grew up with, to try it but it never appealed to her; she liked running along side barking better.  This was also a good rolling hill in the Summer, and you could get some pretty good speed up for that.  Once after seeing me do it, Lilly gave it a try, but her legs kept getting in the way.  She learned that she liked the feeling however, so from then on her walks usually included rolling blissfully in very clean grass.  Dew-covered grass was her favorite, so we think she may have been bathing.  She always kept herself very clean.   

At the top of the other hill there is a bronze statue honoring Mary Dyer, a Quaker hanged on Boston Common for preaching in defiance of the Puritan authorities.  She's seated, looking at her hands.  As a kid, I would climb up to sit in her lap, but that no longer seems appropriate, since her hands would now be cupping my ass. Behind her is Stout Meetinghouse, where I went to Sunday meeting from birth through college.  I find the building quite beautiful (though that isn't supposed to matter to Quakers), with its white-washed walls, long dark wooden benches and windows looking out on grass and trees in three directions.  I check the holly bush on the east side.  I don't remember the actual superstition, but I have a vague recollection of it being beneficial to bring holly into the home on the Winter Solstice, so I've brought clippers and a plastic bag for the purpose.  This bush has no berries though, so I check out the one behind Stout to the south.  Much better in the berry department, but I'll have to come back; my walk is only just begun, and I'd rather not have to carry a bag of spikes for the next half hour.  

I sit down on Dan Kinsey's Bench, a granite monument to a former teacher and coach.  I still feel the lack of the old honey locust tree behind it, gone now for ten years.  It always kept this bench cool in the Summer, and I would spend hours lying here, looking up through the leaves.  

I had an epiphany once, sitting on this bench.  As a kid I was as dismissive of my hometown and its boring terrain as anyone; I only saw beauty in mountains, lakes, the ocean, at least some dramatic hills.  This flat land had nothing to recommend it, as far as I was concerned.  Then when I was fourteen, my family spent three months living in London, and traveling all around the UK and Ireland.  I wasn't all that fond of London (it made me feel claustrophobic), but I drank in the scenery of the Lake District, and the west coast of Ireland.  It felt like I got into a new habit of seeing, and when I got home this habit stayed with me.  I sat down on this bench soon after we got back, looked over the playing fields, the far side of the bowl that held the football field, the horse pasture and farmland off in the distance, the big, clear blue sky... and suddenly it was breath-taking to me.  It was as if I was seeing this view for the first time.  I still crave mountains, lakes, rivers, oceans, big hills, but since that day I feel an expansive sense of well-being whenever I'm in a Midwestern landscape.  Here in New York, I have to make sure I go someplace with a wide vista at least once a week, to regain a sense of calm.  

Moving on, I walk across the two playing fields (where Fang runs her joyous figure-eights), heading towards the old stables where I took horse-riding lessons as a teenager.  This was another of the perks of being a faculty brat.  This is my archetypal image of a horse stable.  It's low, painted red, with Dutch doors at the entrance.  Inside there is a row of stalls and two boxes for horses that needed more space or sequestering.  An open area once stored hay, and housed a dynasty of barn cats that helped keep the rat population down.  At the other end is the tack room.  I have vivid memories of being in there, cleaning my saddle and bridle along with my teacher and classmates, all of us glad to be huddled in the one warm room in the place.  In my memory it's alway snowy, rainy or dark when I'm here, which doesn't make any sense, since we took classes on Saturday mornings in the Fall and Spring... but the memory is still cozy, friendly, and for some reason makes me think of John Steinbeck.  

Having been replaced at a new location, these stables are no longer in use,  and are looking pretty decrepit, so I'm just as happy not to see inside.  Besides, I've arrived at the entrance to the real magic of this walk.  

The stables sit on the edge of a deep gorge that contains a small creek.  These are MY woods.  A set of beams carved out steps down into the magical place.  Walking here today, I'm struck for the first time by how perfect it was to have this path be so tucked away and hidden, flanked by the stables on one side, and the tree fence of the grave-yard on the other.  It couldn't look more like a secret entrance.  It makes perfect sense I turned this place into Narnia, Middle-Earth, Mowgli's jungle, and the hunting grounds of the Fianna.  

The steps have fallen out of use, so they're overgrown with brambles. The main path down now is the one that used to be only for the horses when we went on trail-rides.  For the sake of tradition though I force my way through the first bush, and realize the rest of the steps are still fairly clear.  At the foot of the steps, the path forks.  I take the right-hand path heading west.  I pass the old log where I could often find a six foot bull snake sunning itself on warm days.  I find it noteworthy that the log still seems to look the same, since it must have been decomposing for at least 30 years.  Looking at the trees on either side of me, I realize for the first time that they're mostly slender, and surrounded by undergrowth.  There are some grand old trees with massive trunks, but they are few and far between.  At an unconscious level, I think I always thought of this as the forest primeval, but recognize now that it must be less than 200 years old, perhaps much less.  I wonder how I'll be able to find out more about its history.  Europeans were settling and farming here in the early 1800s and would have farmed every inch of land they could clear.  This area was probably last choice, since it's so steep, rocky, and uneven, but it's unlikely it was left untouched.

When I was a kid, though, this was the great wilderness; the old memories take me over, and once again I am Finn MacCool, Cuchulain, Mowgli, Legolas and a Miami Indian Chief.  One of my great-grandfathers was American Indian, and as I kid I was absolutely fascinated by this.  We never learned what tribe or nation he belonged to, since one day he simply walked out on my great-grandmother; Dad says she was a bitch with oak cluster, which may have had something to do with it.  Like a lot of kids (and no few adults) I romanticized this man, desperately wishing at times that I could be ALL Indian -or at least look a little bit like one.  In my woods I would try to walk without being seen or heard by my animal quarry or any white men.   I occasionally found some arrowheads, which helped the fantasy.  I still have one of them sitting on my dresser.  I'm not sure we ever even knew this man's name, I'll have to ask Dad.  Maybe someday we'll learn something about him.  Dad's side of the family consists mostly of questions.  

The path forks again, and I take the upper one, which brings me out to a ledge overlooking the creek.  In front of me is a huge black pipe that stretches across the shallow water about twenty feet in the air.  This, and two other pipes in the woods, used to annoy me.  I'd be desperately trying to create the illusion of being far from civilization when boom, here'd be one of these damn reminders that I was still surrounded by it.  After I saw Planet of the Apes though, I'd pretend that these pipes were all that was left of an ancient culture that had destroyed itself, leaving the world to return to a state of wild beauty.  That helped.  It wasn't unusual to find grocery carts abandoned here, which was all the more mystifying since the closest store was a good half-hour's walk away, at least half the walk over grass and mud. I could never figure out why someone would work that hard to make something look so ugly, not yet being familiar with the concept of under-age drinking.   That's still the only explanation I'm able to come up with.  

The black pipe was also where I was more likely to run into other kids, not always friends, because crossing on it was a popular test of daring-do.  One kid broke his arm falling off it, but that's the only accident I can remember hearing about.  Some graffiti on the pipe lets me know it's still a fairly popular destination with someone.  Off to the southeast lies the white pipe, which is both wider and lower to the ground, so crossing it was less daunting.    

Standing on my ledge, I can survey pretty far.  I ignore the grave yard looming behind me, and look up and down Clear Creek.  When I was a kid, the name of this stream was distressingly ironic, since a local chemical company was dumping waste in it further upstream.  Along with giant pipes and grocery carts, I had to ignore dirty foam build-up and algae in the water.  That is one thing that has improved in recent years though, due partly to stricter enforcement but probably mostly from the company going out of business.  I still wouldn't drink this water, but I think it's doing less damage to the local fauna now.  A few years ago I saw a great blue heron here, winging its way silently when I startled it.  That was encouraging.  

I walk down the hill to the creek's edge, and head downstream.  The bed has changed a little since I was a kid, at least one ox-bow now being a straight channel, but over all it looks more or less the same to me.  In past winters I've been able to walk along the frozen creek itself, rejoicing in the musical burbling up from the air holes, but today is too warm for that.  What was a clear path when I was a kid is almost gone now.  At times I'm not sure if I'm following the old track or the previous bed of the creek.  I wonder why no one seems to wander down here any longer.  When my mom was a student at Earlham, she said no one ever came down here.  I was playing here unsupervised by the time I was six, if memory serves.  I'm at least a 30 minute walk from my parents' house, and out of sight of any other building or area where there are likely to be crowds.  As a kid this was one of the biggest draws of the place, but I wonder if people would see it as too dangerous now.  Or maybe fewer kids these days want to go bushwacking, preferring to stay glued to their computers and video games.  That just doesn't seem likely though.  Kids don't change that much; they still want to have secret hide-outs don't they?  Well, if they do, maybe they're finding them elsewhere.  

I come out at a fairly wide path.  This part of the woods is where the college biology department has been conducting a number of experiments.  When I was a kid, I could stand here and look across a fairly large space that had been planted with saplings.  Now I can only see about two feet in front of me, the saplings having become a tall forest.  Thirty some years, yup.  It's almost twenty since I graduated from college.  Yipe.  There are occasional pink ribbons tied to trees as markers for students, but I don't know what they signify.  The study is watching how forests form, seeing what changes and shows up as the place ages.  Though I can't remember when it happened, there was a point when the appearance of this robust forest took me by surprise.  Maybe I hadn't come this far into the woods for a few years, so the jump was more drastic.  That doesn't sit with my memories, but is the only logical explanation.  

Now I take the path that loops around and through this place.  I pass blackberry canes, now bare of leaves and fruit, glowing purply-white against the greys and browns of the rest of the woods.  Fang's immediate predecessor, Sybil, was fond of blackberries, and would even delicately pick them herself, though she found it much easier to beg them from Dad.  

In the spring the whole campus is blanketed with violets, one of my seasonal markers, and down here, just a few weeks after the purple ones come out, fields of white violets show up.  That has always been one of the reasons I found this place magical as a child.  Somehow those flowers felt like secrets, or evidence that unusual forces were at work.  

Up a short steep (for Indiana) incline, and I'm at another biology experiment, the big pond.  This went in my senior year of college, but it so captivated me that it got woven into my childhood fantasy seamlessly.  I've always loved water, have at times wished I were amphibious -when I wasn't wishing I was a wolf, a Miami Indian, or the half-Sidhe hero of Ulster.   This pond is particularly ripe for fantasy-making, since it was constructed with an island in it.  It sits at one end of the long thin pond, near a large gap in the trees that were created so birds like ducks and geese, which need a runway to take off, would be willing to land here.  Almost the minute the pond was finished, a pair of Canada Geese showed up, raised a brood, and took off again.  Each Spring I now wait for my family to tell me the geese have arrived, how many goslings they hatched, then what day they all disappeared.  We try not to think about how many of the goslings probably stayed behind, in the gullets of snapping turtles.   Turtles gotta eat too, I guess.  Today I startle a small creature of some kind as I come up.  I never get a really good look at it, but am pretty certain it's a muskrat.  This feels like an especially nice omen, since I've never seen one here before.  Where do these creatures come from?  

I swing around the pond, and come out between two more biology experiments; on one side is the meadow, on the other is the prairie.  It's astonishing how distinct they are from one another, separated only be a six-foot wide strip.  The prairie side gets burned every few years, so that probably helps.  In the summer this area is swarming with flocks of goldfinches, and butterflies. Tony the entomologist has taught Mary and me how to identify the sex of Monarchs, along with a lot of other fun information.  Who knew we'd all become so interested in bugs someday?  

At the edge of the meadow is the school observatory; Indiana is not a good place for serious star gazing, because it's hazy and rainy so much of the year, but when I took astronomy my first year, I got to see several planets in clear detail through this telescope.  Saturn was the most beautiful.  Across another set of playing fields is Brick City, a whole development of ugly single story red-brick buildings that are used as housing for visiting professors, grad students, and anyone else who chooses to live here.  Because of the observatory, all the streetlights nearest are shielded on this side, to cut down on the light pollution.  

Then I visit the smaller, older pond that went in sometime while I was in high school.  As with the larger one, fish, frogs and other animals simply showed up here almost as soon as the pond filled with water.  I believe their eggs were transported by bird guano, but there is still something magical about the apparent spontaneous generation of life that water causes.   

Now I'm on the paved road, looking at the old horse-pasture, and on the other side of the bowl, the back side of the college campus.  When I was a student here, whenever things seemed particularly overwhelming, I would take a walk out here and look at the school.  Somehow seeing it all from a distance like this helped me regain perspective most of the time.  Years later I found myself doing the same thing as I road the bus home to Jersey, and looked across the Hudson at Manhattan.  Seeing it all contained and distant like that, my blood-pressure would drop immediately.  

The former horse pasture now houses the ropes course and a huge community of voles.  My family calls it the heath, and Fang is fond of vole-hunting (and crunching) when we let her run here.  I cut diagonally through it and arrive at Firefly Lane.  This is the name my family gave this narrow corridor of greenspace that runs behind the backyards of College Avenue, alongside the heath.  It earned this name one summer when the firefly population was particularly huge, and all the trees here looked like they'd been festooned with Christmas lights.  After some attacks, safety required thinning out a lot of the trees to improve visibility, so the Christmas light effect has never been repeated, but the name stuck.  At either end it is blocked off by horizontal wooden beams, to dissuade anyone from driving a car through here.  In the early 80s, some students went joy-riding down this greenway, then back to their residence in Brick City.  I believe drinking may have been involved.  The next morning the head of security followed the black, muddy tracks to their door, and came in for a chat.  After a brief silence he started mildly "You boys lack discretion."  I know all this, having heard the story from the driver, now a good friend and a well-loved, tenured member of the faculty.  

Now I head up the bowl, returning to get my holly.  I make sure to leave some berries, while still getting enough for both Laceyland and Hazelthorne.  After this the walk is more or less complete,
the sites all visited.  I'm struck by how much things have actually changed since my childhood, and how little it bothers me.  Right after I graduated from college, I was more ruffled by such things.  On visits back I'd accompany Mom, Dad, and Sybil on the afternoon walk, and feel disgruntled at any change in the route.  It was like I was some cranky, hide-bound anthropologist telling the natives how they were supposed to observe their traditional rituals.  Now I'm much more pleased by the evidence of change in my school and my family; it shows that life goes on, and no one is getting frozen in place.  My sister is one of the senior faculty on campus now.  Dad is long since retired, and off saving the world in other settings.  Mom and Fange still take their two daily walks, visiting their tree friends and vole-hunting grounds.  Life keeps growing and changing.  It feels good.  I know this terrain is not to everyone's taste, and even if they like it, they don't see what I see.  My place is as much one of imagination as it is grass and trees.  I once showed Brian my walk and he was a very good sport about it, but he couldn't possibly have seen what I was seeing.  His secret havens, most of them in Cape Breton, are by objective standards spectacularly beautiful, so even if I wasn't seeing what he was, I still fell in love with the place.  This place is much more a cultivated taste, I know.  I know too though that this will always be home for me, in some primal, archetypal way.  

Peanuts and Prayer

I thought at first that writing yet another entry about Fang would be weird; I'm so pathetic I can only talk about dogs, and not even ones I own.

But I got over it.

When we gather for meals, we hold hands briefly at the start for a few minutes of grace (Quaker version). Early on in her arrival, Fang identified this as something she needed to be a part of, so when we do it, she comes to the circle, usually between my seat and Mom's and agitates until we each put a hand on her. Often we'll each take an ear. She'll sit quietly until we all say amen, then is back to her active campaign for attention and or scraps. I don't know what she thinks this ritual is for, but she seems clear on two aspects at least in her own world; 1) everyone is supposed to be touching, and 2) everyone is still and quiet for the duration.

Unless it's peanut butter day. Then all bets are off. Today was peanut butter day. Some time ago, when Mom and Dad had dinner guests, they tried a dog training trick by filling up a rubber dog toy, called a kong, (it looks like a red rubber ziggurat, I don't know how else to explain it; well, I do, but I'm not going to) with peanut butter which the dog then happily licked out, her focus laser-like, her attention unwavering, thus staying shut away from less dog-enamoured guests without moaning and complaining.

This procedure proved to be very effective, but they didn't know just how much she was going to fall in love with the taste. The next time they had peanut butter for lunch, Fang was singing, dancing about, generally being more importunate than she usually is. James was the one who figured it out. When he picked up the kong, she went into conniptions ("finally the stupid bi-peds are catching on!"), and a weekly ritual was born.

It starts as soon as she smells the peanut butter on the table. We all try to get her to bring the kong to the table, but she just runs back and forth between the two, showing us where it is, and where she'd like it to go, until Mom gives up and gets the damn thing. She has us very well trained, does Fang. Once it's filled she happily works away at it, holding it with her paws in such a way that it looks like she's trying to develop opposable thumbs. She almost always gets seconds, because then she WILL bring the kong to the table but usually not until she's tossed it about exuberantly a few times. For those unfamiliar with this toy, it's main point for being is the fact that when you throw it, it's hard to anticipate how it's going to bounce, so it's a great way to exercise dogs who like to fetch. Fang seems to find this feature entertaining, or she's aware of how hysterical we find it, especially Dad. Lots of joyful tossing of the head, juggling the kong in her mouth, throwing it randomly around the room, she often looks like she's performing. Dad calls it the floor show. When he came out of the hospital after a double by-pass, this was his first meal of non-hospital food, and it was just what he needed, meal and floor show.

Since she eventually does bring it to the table, and we're trying to get her to do that more regularly, she gets rewarded with seconds. This is one of the many little routines of family life I look forward to when I come to visit.

The weather is oddly warm today, and is going to hit 50 degrees tomorrow, so all the snow will be gone. Then I'll just have the greys and browns I love so much about Winter here. I love this land the way I love sparrows and chickadees. They're little birds, not particularly brightly colored, easily over-looked, but I love them. I love the flashier birds too, just as I adore mountains, lakes, forests and rivers, but this flat land, the distant horizons, the quiet browns, blacks and greys have charms all their own.

That's Fang, Christmas 2004, once again being encouraged in some bad behavior.  Everyone in my family is  pretty lax when it comes to dog discipline.  I like big dogs that are willing to wrassle.  One could take that sentence so many ways (yeah, tell me you didn't).  

It is looking like I will be flying out of Newark today after all, heading back to Indiana for two weeks with my family.  Two weeks of noisy talks and laughter over amazing food, often having just a little bit too much wine, accompanying Mom and Fang on their walks (Dad when he can) as we go by to visit my mom's tree friend (she hugs a catalpa every day, and I believe she's going to introduce me to a new tree this trip), watching Fang incarnate joy as she runs and runs, all long lines and ground-eating bounds, bowling with my baby brother (who is 39 years old, 6'1" to my 5'8", but I CAN STILL KICK HIS ASS), who loves Tweety-bird so much he has him on his bowling ball, watching bird TV (ie. the bird feeders outside the dining rooms) with cats Cleo (at the parents) and Eddie (at Mary's and Tony's), staying up too late and laughing till we weep with my sister, visiting  'my' woods, where maybe I'll see deer, and great blue herons, among other less startling fauna, touching base with some old friends, meeting my friend Rebecca's 
BABY GIRL, falling into a coma the first 36 hours I'm there because my body can't believe how quiet it is, seeing stars at night.... oh joy joy joy....  I may be able to check my email periodically, but I don't know if I'll be able to blog again before the 30th... I wanted to say thank you to my new blogging community.  Your humor, sympathy, insight and appreciation has leavened my odd little Autumn.  Special thanks for the joy that is Cooper for introducing me to so many of you,  and an early Christmas goose for him and fellow Elf Joe (have you heard his sonnet reading?  Now a sexy voice to go with the face), hope this season is a time of blessing and renewal in whatever way you're hoping and needing.  

Love,


Patrick
(Written in about 90 seconds with no proofreading so forgive me if I don't make any sense.)

A Room of One's Own

Whenever my mom leads writing workshops, she often has the participants do an exercise called A Room of One's Own.  (The title is from Virginia Woolf, though she has no other influence on the exercise as far as I know.)  The guidelines are simple; describe a room that would be yours alone, and perfectly suited to whatever need you wanted addressed.  If you're lucky enough to already have this room, describe it.  If not, describe the ideal in as much detail as you want.  Then to finish up, tell who would be the first person you invited in to the room.  (I don't know if Mom created this, or borrowed it from someone else, but I'm sure she gives credit where credit is due.)  Thinking about this question has actually been helping me clarify some other, deeper issues, funnily enough.  So, here is my thoughts on the subject as they stand today.  


My room is a free-standing structure actually, possibly a renovated barn or boat-house, and lies a short yet beautiful walk away from the cozy cottage I share with my hypothetical partner, family, dog, cat, and possibly horse.  Maybe also chickens.  But we're not talking about that, we're talking my room. One fantasy at a time, 'kay?  This is my work room, which is to say it's where I go to play, but I mean play in a very serious, artistic, concentrated way, plumbing emotional depths...oh, screw that.  I have a whole different room for "but this is TOO work" which doubles as my "you're wasting your life" room, so I don't need to do that here.  This is my play room.  


The mental preparation starts with the walk that takes me through a forest, alongside a small
creek,  noticing whatever has changed since the day before, because something always has. I enter through the door in the northwest corner. The single room is large, with very high ceilings (in case I want to hang a trapeze) and a nicely sprung floor made from some renewable source, like bamboo wood. Stored against the north wall are several matts for tumbling and more acrobatic work, but most of the time the floor is left free for dance.  There is a CD player, with small storage for music.  I can't tell you yet what the building is made of, though chances are it's also wood.  I like wood.  I also loved the cottages in the west of Ireland, which are usually cement block covered in stucco,  and they're quite cozy, so that would be all right, as long as the floor is nice to move on.


Close to the door, on the east wall, is a window that looks out onto the forest.  Next to it is a
full length mirror for mask-work, but when it's not in use, it's covered by a cloth.  I get distracted if there's somebody else is constantly moving out of the corner of my eye.  The south wall is all glass sliding doors, with a bank of windows above, tilted back at a slight angle.  The doors open out to a grassy open glen that in May is carpeted with violets.  Some deciduous trees stand close enough to the building to shade it in the summer, but when their leaves are gone, the light pours into the space.  Leafless, they also reveal the lake and the mountains on the other side.  There are a scattering of houses along the opposite shore, but no one's presence intrudes here.  


Three quarters of the room is left empty to allow for movement, but the final quarter, along the west wall there is a work table and chair for making masks, a built-in bookcase for supplies, and two comfy easy chairs on a soft rug, one chair for when I am writing or reading, the other for guests.  There is also a small sink, and a counter with the supplies to make tea or coffee. The window in this wall has a deep window seat,  and it shows the forest, a glimpse of the lake and mountains, and a small chuckling brook whose sound fills the space whenever it's not frozen.  In the winter, I see amazing sunsets through this window as well, and that's how I know it's time to go home for dinner.   The east window probably gets great sunrises too, but I'm rarely there to see it, since I'm enjoying it in the bedroom with the hypothetical boyfriend, or as we sit in our breakfast nook in the kitchen, drinking our coffee.


Right, other fantasy.  


I can't decide what color the walls are.  At first I thought they were just a warmish cream, to keep the space neutral, airy, and unimposing.  I've been living for nine years in a apartment with all white walls, however (quite common in NYC, for light issues), and I think I'd like some color in this room.  So the walls are possibly washed with a warm Tuscan yellow, or perhaps a shade of  amber or apricot.  With all the serenity and quiet beauty I have surrounding the space, I probably could handle a little bit of energy inside.  I think one of those colors would energize me.  


Describing this room shows me some things of interest.  First, it's obviously in a rural setting of great beauty, possibly Maine, the Pacific Northwest, Ireland, Scotland, or Cape Breton.  I would love to live in the country.  News Flash.  But there are other things to notice.  I seem to want to keep my options open for the kinds of work, which isn't always a virtue, I think.  Sometimes I wonder if my interests are too scattered, rather than varied.  I also note there are no books, or computer in the room.  I have trouble picturing a room without books, so that might change, but I would keep the computer elsewhere.  It's a necessity for the business side of the job more and more, and is obviously a great research tool, but those things require a different energy from me, so I'd like the computer to be in a different space.  One energy is not better or more creative than the other, they just have different vibrations.  Even after more than seven years of fairly regular keyboard use, I still find that when I write, I have to do it longhand in a notebook if I need to go deep or move quickly.  I've gotten slightly better at composing on the keyboard, but still not as well as when  I write by hand.  Editing and re-writing I can do on a keyboard, but that is also a different energy.  So, no computer in this room.  


The biggest thing I notice from this exercise is, I've created a room for generating my own work. Sure an actor would enjoy this space, and be able to use it well, but the focus really is on creating new work, especially physical theatre, mask pieces, and other non-naturalistic performances.  That is what I've done for the last fifteen years or so.  Recently though, I've wanted to shift my focus back to more mainstream forms; plays that are time-tested or at least promising, film and TV projects with decent budgets behind them, that sort of thing.  I had a whole host of reasons for making that decision, and I think it's still the direction I'm heading for now.  I'd like not to be the main or only force behind a project for a while, and I'd like to make more money, pure and simple.  But I've also realized something else with all this.  Somewhere along the line I equated self-generated work with solo work.  


There are understandable reasons for this.  I started doing it as a way to give myself work when nothing else was happening, and to have more autonomy and control over my career.  It also made it easy to rehearse ('hey, I've got a free hour'), change things, or even improvise in performance if necessary.  I'd been doing lots of experimental dance/circus/theatre shows created by someone else, and way too often I found myself working for months with assholes or flakes, for little or no money, and the work ended up being crap.  Or it turned out well, but everyone was so bitter and angry it didn't matter.  Or it turned out well and no one came to see it.  So having a little more say in my work was nice, and even if the work turned out badly, at least I'd spent the time working on something I cared about.


I've been missing the joy of working with ensembles though.  That is one of the main reason I became an actor, and I haven't done it since 2005, really.  It's simply easier to work with others if someone else, preferably a well-established arts organization, is producing and supporting you. One drawback to solo work is -stick with me here- you're by yourself a lot.  You're the one pushing to make it happen, you're the only one at rehearsal (unless you've talked a willing friend into directing you, or at least watching it once), you're the one seeking out venues, you're the only one who notices or cares if nothing happens.  It can be lonely, and New York is lonely enough as it is.  (There's also that sneaky little voice that says "you're working on your own to side-step the fact that no one wants to work with you because you SUCK."  I keep that voice locked in the "You're Wasting Your Life" room most of the time.)  


So, I'm mulling this over.  These aren't really new thoughts, most of them, but they've fallen
into a new pattern, and that's useful.  I keep reminding myself too that since this is a fantasy, I don't have to justify my using it.  Funny how my inner Puritan starts running the show any chance he gets.  


Oh, who would be the first person I invited into the space? Barring the hypothetical boyfriend, I guess I'd show it to my sister first.  She and I are psychic twins.  She would only be the first in a long line of friends and loved ones who would appreciate this space though, and some of them might end up collaborating with me on a something.  I'd resist the temptation to use this as a social or party space, but that would be easy with the cozy cottage up the road.  That is such a good space for a party, and the boyfriend puts on a mean spread.    


One fantasy at time, Patrick.   

So, I'm not turning this into a meme or an obligation, but if anyone is inspired by this exercise to describe his or her own room, I'd love to read it.  Will over at Designer Blog is way ahead of the game due to the fact that he designed an entire house which is nearing completion.  If you don't have a blog of your own, we can figure out a way to have you guest blog here, if you want.  I'd love to see what people come up with, I bet I'd learn a lot about you.  Annie laMott does a variation on this exercise, where instead of a room, you have an acre of land.  It's yours, you can do whatever you want with it.  If that is more inspiring, then do that one.