pondering the meaning of ivory
Today is the first day of creativity boot camp, and the assignment is ivory. One of my primary — and most difficult — tasks will be to be kind to myself and just follow what happens without being mean and critical. That’s hard for most people, I think, and if you have a cruel and hateful inner voice, as I do, it’s just shy of impossible. But I am going to try – to step out and be daring, and just follow myself without offering explanation and apology.
high school graduation, 1977
Ivory is pale skin, skin that is lit from the inside, skin that is soft and beautiful. I have ivory skin; I always have.
me and my camera
Ivory skin is one ideal, peaches and cream, pale and beautiful. There are other ideals, too – tan and bronze and cafe au lait and olive and honey. But those beautiful colors do not make ivory their opposite, ugly – ivory is another beautiful way of being in this world.
Ivory is cream.
Ivory is precious.
I am ivory.
My hands are ivory. My hands are MY hands, they resemble the hands of my father, and my grandmother, but these are my hands.
my hands
Throughout my life, other people have commented on my skin – my lovely complexion – and I insisted on belittling it. I can’t tan, I’m pale and ugly, your skin is honey but mine is putty. But I was wrong, every time. I am beautiful ivory.
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
living in an apartment in NYC does NOT mean you’re too poor to buy a house!
TRANSLATION
If you live outside the greater NYC area, the words probably have a different meaning – they did for me, anyway, before I moved here. People live in apartments because they can’t afford to buy a house. There’s a kind of implied social class aspect to it. A co-op is some collection of resources: an electric co-op, for rural electricity; a financial co-op; a grocery cooperative, etc.
But here, people live in apartments that they rent, or that they buy. A co-op is a legal structure in which residents of a building own shares in the building – it’s kind of like owning your apartment. But it does involve ownership, even if it’s not exactly like buying a house. I live in an apartment in a co-op building that’s pre-war (i.e. built before WWII, but ours was built in 1900). Our building was built before there was a subway. I live on the Upper West Side, which has a particular flavor like all the neighborhoods in NY do – the UWS is the literary, arty neighborhood. Upper East – richie riches, ladies who lunch.
So it sounds pretty fancy! But this is NY, where real estate and space are at a premium, even in these difficult financial times. Except for the upper-est echelons, apartments are small. Space is minimal. Older buildings – the cool ones, like mine – are old! (obvious, but true) This morning, I looked out our bathroom window and thought there had been a dusting of snow, for a minute, until I realized it’s just the general layer of soot and grime that coats everything here. That’s the view from my bathroom, just below. It’s hard to see, but the railing and the steps have a layer of white-ish crap on them, and it’s not paint, and it’s not snow.
The image on the bottom is the view from my kitchen. I’m always struck by how it looks like a prison yard. Our building is shaped like a U, with the bottom facing the street and a kind of courtyard between the two ‘arms.’ It’s not a fancy courtyard that people use, it’s just a space for getting between the buildings. But that door, at the bottom left; the barbed wire; the general gloominess; it always screams prison yard to me.
But our building is absolutely wonderful, and so is our neighborhood, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere other than Manhattan (though I might consider Hanoi, Paris, or Cusco…). We’re very lucky.
100 posts + a giveaway
This morning I happened upon Anne’s 100th post (congrats, Anne!). In celebration, she is offering a giveaway — so hop over and leave a comment. Reading her post caused me to look at my dashboard and what do you know: I was at 99, so my next post would be my 100th post! Coincidence. So in the same spirit, I thought I’d do a little giveaway. I’ll give two skeins of Berroco Jasper, in a beautiful brown color that variegates to an orange-brown:
Berroco Jasper - 2 skeins just for you!
To enter the giveaway, just leave me a comment. On Wednesday, June 9, I’ll do a random drawing at 7am, and send the skeins to the winner. When you leave a comment, the form asks for your email address, which does not show. Be sure to enter it, so I can contact you.
Of course I’d love it if you looked around the blog and subscribed, but that’s not required. Feel free to forward the post to friends, for the giveaway. If you tweet it or repost on your blog, let me know and you’ll get an extra entry.
It’s a good place to pause for a minute and say that I am glad you read, and leave comments. Have a wonderful Sunday!
Cooking with the anal-retentive chef was always a clean experience.
Do you remember this? I always loved the character. I tried to post it on Luscious, but it’s a wordpress.com account so this doesn’t work. I’ll just share it here:
So funny! It was so sad when and how he died. My day will be full of thinking about my daughter Marnie, because I’m trying to finish her wedding dress, and work on her shawl. But that doesn’t mean I’m not also thinking about my other daughter Katie, my other daughter Anna, and my darling son Will. Hi y’all.
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