Sadness
helplessly loving my daughter, from too far away. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
I can have the shittiest day, the worst run of things happen to me, the direst disasters befall me, and while I will stumble and bemoan my fate and all that, NONE of it is as bad as when something happens to my kid. Period. And it doesn’t matter how old said kid may be — I have a feeling that if something bad befalls my kid when she’s, oh, 70 years old (and I am 93), it’ll still be the worst thing ever, much worse than if it happened to me.
A string of bad things came into my daughter’s life today, bam bam, two in a row, and I feel kind of inconsolable. I feel every one of the 1,744 miles between us. She is suddenly the little 4-year-old girl in my heart, the one who’d crawl into my lap, the one who would cry into my shoulder, the one whose trouble I could solve, and I wish I could solve the things that came to her today. She’s strong, and kind, and she loves her family, and she always tries her very best. Always.
She’s the one who has made special little treats every day this month and put them in her husband’s lunch, for a 2-week stretch of Valentine’s Day love. Sweet little things, treats that took time and heart. Just because. She is the one who makes sure our family traditions are carried on, because they mean so much to her. She is the one who always makes me laugh with her dry and wry sense of humor. She is the one who wants to be our family’s solid, strong anchor. She is also the one who came to NYC last year (a year ago, yesterday) and brought her brother back into our lives. She is the one who is obstinate, and stubborn. She is amazing, my first child, and I never wanted any bad thing to happen to her, ever. Of course she’s a human in this world and so bad things have happened to her from the beginning, and I’ve hated the guts of every single bad thing.
So in my impotence, I share this terribly alone feeling with you, other parents, who certainly know what I mean.
happy birthday to my dad.
Today my father would’ve turned 75 years old; he died when he was 45, so old[er] age and him don’t go easily together in my mind. I was 23 when he died, so he was almost twice my age, which seemed old to me, then.
I didn’t know him, really; plenty of people don’t know their parents as human beings, as people other than ‘parent.’ I didn’t grow up with him; I didn’t live with him after I was 10, we didn’t see each other at all after I was 14, and I had just met him again when I was 23. I had a few months to get to know him then, but knowing him was not possible, no matter how much I may have wanted it, because he was drunk every waking moment.
When he was a tiny little tow-headed boy, he loved to play behind the couch, quietly, with his little cars. His mother told me that story once; he kept to himself and was quiet as a mouse because his father was a rampaging, furious, out-of-his-mind alcoholic who beat the shit out of him and everyone else in the house. Just as my father would grow up to do, and to be. He was sickly as a child, with what they then called Bright’s Disease – inflammation of his kidneys. The bad thing about this was that it meant he couldn’t eat beans, which were the staple of their diet because they were so terribly poor. When he was a teenager, he and his friends would run through the corn fields, imagining themselves robbing the Sinton, Texas banks on horseback. He longed to escape.
the man on the far right is my step-grandfather, who was a sweet man. my dad on the far left, his mother holding me
And he did escape, but it was from the frying pan and into the fire; he married my mother, who was still a high school student (though not for long…she dropped out and ran off with him). And presto, 9 months later, I was part of the scene. They were too young and too troubled, and too ill-prepared for the real life they found, and the rest of his life was terrible – magnified, I imagine, by how terrible he made the lives of his kids.
the newlyweds, plus me. they'd been married a year -- they both look kind of stunned and dazed. She's 18.
He fancied himself a Tragic Figure – initial caps, important –and he was. He was not much more than the next tragic embodiment of rage in a long line of such men, and he couldn’t escape the generations behind him. But he loved books, and reading, and he was smart. He worked as a draftsman at an architectural firm, where he was valued, even when he was too reliably drunk to keep his job. He had a child’s style of romantic notions; he loved his dogs so much, and bought an old Chevy pickup truck just to drive them around, because he thought they loved riding in the back of an old beat-up truck.
that's me, draped in his hands. he was just barely 22
Although I suffered greatly at his hands, I loved him so much, and thought he was beautiful and elegant, and I was his. He called me Scout after we watched To Kill a Mockingbird (and he probably considered himself as Atticus, which is a mighty funny stretch); he also called me Pete and Dawn Ann. Ours was a nicknaming family, obviously. I don’t remember what I called him when I was a child – daddy, probably – but usually I referred to him as Frank….though not to his face. So now I stumble when I think of him, not knowing what to call him in my thoughts.
he was 25, she was 21 -- that's me on his lap. don't they look older than they were?
I’m not writing to talk about his death, but since he is dead, his life is complete now, start to finish, so it’s part of the story. He didn’t live long, only 45 years, and he didn’t fulfill what he might’ve, and he didn’t leave any kind of positive legacy behind (well, my life does continue, and it has great value). He kind of fulfilled the circumstances of his birth, to a young mean woman who hated him and hated that he’d been born, to a young mean man who hated him as much as he hated himself, to a life of poverty and cotton gins and liquor and misery. His birthday is usually a haunted day for me, but this year it’s not; this year, I just think of who he was, what his life was like, and I wonder who he’d be if he were alive. When I try to think about that part, I get stuck because I have to imagine a very different person than he was. My poor dad.
near the end of his life -- probably 2 months before he killed himself. he's in the dark blue shirt.
No one was ever glad he was born, and it’s kind of complicated to be grateful that he was born, but I am. I’m sorry his life was so sad and hard, and I’m sorry he made mine so sad and hard, but I’m so glad to be here, and I couldn’t be, without him. So on my dad’s birthday, I wish a happy birthday. I wish a happier birthday than he ever had. And I reaffirm my joy and gratitude at being in this world, filled with everything.
I should’ve titled this post The Unbearable Whiteness of Ballet
Last night I met my friend Temma for dinner (Indian food, so delicious) before we saw The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. [and thank you again, Temma, for inviting me!] Let me start by describing what the performance meant to me, before I get to my primary point. When I was a little girl in the sticks of Texas, I used to watch the nutcracker on television each Christmas — Baryshnikov, as I recall. Remember how they used to put “culture” on tv, back in the old days? Anyway, I’d watch the ballet on tv and it couldn’t have been more remote from me and my life. I imagined it taking place in some other universe, not the one in which I lived, or the one to which I could even aspire. It was Fancy. Cultured, sophisticated, rich with meaning and tradition and beauty. Not my life. Not even remotely like my life. So getting to go — and to Lincoln Center, no less — was the realization of that little girl’s dream she couldn’t even dream to dream.
We were surprised there weren’t more children in attendance; Temma was looking forward to seeing little girls with ribbons in their hair, and I don’t think we saw a single girl like that. Our seats were on the 4th ring, right in the center, so we had an outstanding view of the stage and the orchestra. As a long-time flutist and piccolo player, I’ve played that music and could hear every piccolo solo, every note from the flute section. This production is the George Balanchine version of The Nutcracker, and it’s extremely traditional. The children who danced were quite good, and Temma and I kept wondering what it must be like to be the main little girl, what a thing for her. (But then, where do you go from there, when you’ve done that at age ~9, on the stage at Lincoln Center)?
The main thing that surprised me, though, was the supreme whiteness of everything. The dancers were all white — whiter than me, even — as was the audience. There may have been people of color somewhere in the audience, it’s not like I could see every single person, but if there were, there weren’t many. But what struck me and eventually made me kind of sick was that there were only really, really white people on stage. I find it hard to imagine that in all of New York there isn’t a single brown person worthy to dance in this performance.
all white, all the time
Coming immediately on the heels of the brilliant and hot performance by The Forces of Nature Dance Theater, I realize the contrast made this experience stronger than it might have been, otherwise, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
So it was a mixed bag, for me: deep pleasure at spending that time with my dear friend, deep pleasure over the dinner, deep pleasure for getting to do this thing I’d been too poor a child to dream about — all those, great things — and deep disgust over the pure whiteness of it. Temma and I are going to see more dance performances in the future, but I’ll be more interested in modern dance and a greater mix of people, as will she.
This afternoon: Krapp’s Last Tape, with John Hurt! Another fantastic day for me. Happy Sunday, y’all.
despite this, I’d rather be who I am now, than to go back in time….
I don’t often feel old. I hear people say that — I feel so old, boy I’m getting old – but it’s not something I feel. I feel young, actually, and think I will probably always feel younger than my years, unless I get very sick or disabled. But two things happened in the last 24 hours that gave me that stomach-dropping jolt of feeling old.
On Amazon, I was going through one of those little exercises where you improve your recommendations by indicating things you like and dislike. Books, that one was easy. Like this one, hate that one, own this one, don’t show me more like the other one. Movies, piece of cake. More of this type, never that type. But then I hit the music selection and didn’t know a single artist who came up, no matter how many times I clicked the “refresh! get me out of here!” button. I’d never heard of them, and couldn’t even guess what kind of music they made.
I felt old.
How long has it been since I was excited about a new musician? I am riding the Adele wave, but bands? No idea. How do I find new music these days, anyway? I work alone, my social network comprises very smart women more or less (less, actually) my age, and we don’t talk about music. We talk about books or our lives. My kids and I always have too much else to talk about, to get around to music, although occasionally one will recommend something new.
I guess I’m out of that loop, now.
And then this piece in today’s NYTimes, about how face to face conversation is so….yesterday. Granted, I have an awful lot of electronic communication, but I cherish the face to face conversations I have with people I care about. (Just don’t call me on the telephone, I really hate that device.) But really? Younger people don’t like face to face conversation? I guess I’m old.
This wonderful article about Rita Hayworth didn’t make me feel old; in fact, it filled me with the exuberance of feeling that young feeling, so I prefer to close with my recommendation that you read it, and watch the video embedded near the bottom. Remember this feeling, y’all (even if you weren’t leaping over Fred Astaire)?
the joy of living, right?
you’re part of the mud that gets to sit up, Lori! Don’t forget that.
First, don’t forget the giveaway in progress — see this post for details, and leave a comment there.
I’m not quite sure why, but I’m feeling off, kind of disconnected, more blah than blue but hanging out in that neighborhood. Maybe one reason is that I won’t get to be with my daughters and their families for Christmas in Austin, a crying-worthy fact that aches me. I suspect that’s the bulk of the reason for my mood, since even writing that sentence made me well up with tears. But I’m usually pretty good at scrambling around and setting things up in a way to be happy with not getting what I want……so I plan to have video chats with them on Christmas, and we’re planning to all be together for Christmas 2013, come what may. That helps.
I’ve been trying to plug into things I have to feel grateful for, to help me feel better. And you know, sometimes that’s just very hard to do. It isn’t that I can’t see them and count them — I do, and can. It’s more that they’re bled of color, or something. The warmth that comes from them doesn’t reach my skin. This feeling is one reason I wanted to do the giveaway, actually; I know the wonderful feeling that comes from giving, so I’m trying to do it in all parts of my life, which of course includes y’all.
As I made my french press coffee this morning, I did each step mindfully, trying to be present for the sound of grinding the beans, the scratchy sound of the kettle coming to a boil, the heavy feeling of stirring the wet grounds, the thick smell as I pressed the plunger, the rich taste in my mouth. I breathe, feel it fill my lungs, I pay attention. I listen to the sounds — the compressor in the refrigerator, the kids running down the sidewalk, the click of my fingers on the keyboard. I’m here.
This morning I woke up without the mean headache that tormented me all day yesterday — grateful! Yeah, that one made me wake up with a smile, but it didn’t reconnect me to anything beyond itself. Today is a busy day, going all over town up and down, east and west, ending with my book club meeting tonight, on the east side…..and it’s a gorgeous sunny day, not the rainy day that had been forecasted. Grateful! It rained yesterday [hence the headache] but today, my get-around day, it’s glorious. Oh so grateful.
But as I’ve been writing this, a thought started creeping in: wait a minute. This is a day of my life. This, right now, this is one of a numbered days of my life. I get to have this day (weird, the sun literally came through a cloud just then 
). I am lucky beyond measure to have this day.
As Steve Martin says, no one can be sad when they hear a banjo play. And if one banjo is good, 5 banjos are EVEN BETTER!
Enjoy this day of your life, it’s a very precious thing! (edit: ha! a friend of mine just wrote a great post for Huffington on this general topic.)
i miss katie. i really, really miss katie. why can’t i be in two places at once??
The insane boiler heat is back — thanks, co-op board — so I have my cool weather/hounds of hell heat headache once again. I woke up at 2am covered in sweat, and it had nothing to do with hot flashes and everything to do with the hissing radiators. Of course we have all our windows wide open, trying to modulate the temperature.
I’m not ready to get back to my regularly-scheduled life, so I take a minute here to stall it a bit more:
- I put this on facebook so I would remember it — apologies, then, if you read it there. When I was in the Austin airport, the TSA agent was very chatty. I guess Texan trumps TSA, because she wasn’t grim and stern like they usually are. My turn came, and I stepped up to her little table and handed her my boarding pass and ID, expecting to be waved through after she scribbled on the boarding pass. Instead, she said “What’s your specialty?” Well! My immediate thoughts were I’m really good at being happy ….. I knit …. I make excellent bread …. and I just had no idea how to answer her, nor did I know why in the world she was asking me such a bizarre question. I thought maybe it was some kind of new TSA identity check, a person ought to be able to answer that immediately and if they can’t, maybe they’re not who they say they are. Then I ran through possible occupation answers I might give, but I never know how to answer that either: writer, editor, teacher, ah! Psychologist, I said. She smiled and said “It says Dr. on your boarding pass so I was just curious.” (p.s. if you’re on facebook, friend me! I’m ldh.ny)
- My cabbie last night was unusual. First, he was friendly and chatty, which is partly unusual. After he put my suitcase in the trunk and got settled in his seat, I gave him my destination. He said “Columbia.” “Yeah, near Columbia,” I answered. That’s good, I thought, since cabbies often misunderstand my address. Then he asked me if I’m a professor. I do teach undergraduate students, so the easiest answer was yes — and he just beamed. “How did I know!” he said through his big grin. He asked what subject I teach, and when I said psychology he said “Ah! I’m a very lucky person, I can ask you questions! You have a PhD?” When I said yes, I do, he said “I’m right again!” Then he talked a little bit about how arrogant Lindsay Lohan is, what’s wrong with her. He was so charming, seeing himself as such a lucky person, knowing so many things about me. It was a sweet ending to a sad travel day.
- One awful thing about missing my Katie is that now I know the fine texture of her day, I can so easily imagine what she’s doing at any given time. It’s only 8:30 in Austin, as I write, so she’s sleeping, but she’ll be up soon, and she’ll make Trey’s lunch. My chest aches with the missing her.
- My birthday is coming right up, this Sunday. I’ll be 53, which is startling because I think I’ve been saying that I’m 53 for the last several months. I always do this. The coolest thing is that Sunday is the day we change the clocks — spring forward, fall back — which means my birthday is 25 hours long this year. WHEE! And it’s stunningly beautiful weather, and it will be through the weekend:
look at that!
- I bought three gorgeous skeins of yarn at Hill Country Weavers (remarkable restraint, don’t you agree??), which I’ll photograph later. I also made a lot of progress on my Oz Delight sweater, which I’ll also photograph. Knitting post to come, then.
With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame. ~George Eliot
Remember this scene? It’s Forrest Gump, obviously, with Jenny. Jenny has returned to her childhood home, which was a miserable, abusive place. She stands there, looking at it, and then she picks up rocks and starts hurling them at the falling-down house. Forrest says “sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks.”
Saturday Katie and I went to Taylor, to visit my father’s grave. I haven’t been there since January 2000, and those visits 11 years ago were particularly terrible and devastating. He died 30 years ago next March, which is unbelievable to me. I was 23 years old, and 5 months pregnant with Katie when he died, so a whole new generation of life has come into the world, grown up, married, and is ready to bring another new generation of life into the world since he died.
In the years since he’s been gone, I’ve done a lot of emotional work dealing with him. He was not a good man, and certainly not a good father. To a removed degree I have compassion for him; he was born in absolute poverty and ignorance to people who truly didn’t want him, and he married a girl who hated him, who’d run away from her own bad home and dropped out of high school. And nine months later, he also had a child, me; neither of them was ready for that. He medicated all his misery with vodka, and lots of it. Oceans of vodka. He never did figure out how to deal with his own pain and rage, right up through the moment of his death, which was a very violent suicide.
When we buried him, there was icy snow on the ground, which made the grim and miserable day even more so. The cemetery in Taylor is desolate even by graveyard standards, flat and windswept with just a few stunted trees for the wind to whistle through. There were 8 of us standing around the grave, pulling our thin coats around us and clutching our stomachs. There was no preacher because of the way he died, and I was the only one of his three children present.
about as lonely as lonely can be
My plan had been to visit the grave, and I imagined I’d feel a kind of peace and triumph — ha, I’m still here, man. Instead, my feet started kicking his small headstone, over and over, and I couldn’t stop. I stood on his headstone, ground dirt into it. Kicked it some more. Kicked it, and cried, and did not feel peace or triumph.
Time passed, Katie and I left and ate some wonderful barbecue, we got a giant limeade from Sonic, we watched a dumb movie, we enjoyed each other’s company. And that was my triumph — my daughter’s loving comfort.
i talked myself into feeling better by writing this post!
I have to start with something good — my flagging spirit needs it. The body of my Wintry Mix sweater is complete, as is one sleeve! With one sleeve, assembly, and the large cowl-ish collar to do, I won’t finish before we leave Thursday night. Which brings me to the craptastic news:
Typhoon Nesat, heading straight for Hanoi
Sigh. Yep. We’re arriving in Hanoi Saturday morning, though we’re betting we’ll get stuck in Hong Kong at least one day because the currently-projected 75mph winds will cancel/delay the little trip to Hanoi. I just don’t want our trip to Sapa to get goofed up…..
Such a first-world luxury problem. I will stop complaining now.
so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good night / I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.
I’ve become a grown-up-lady-knitter. I know, right? Me? Sure, I swatch now, I do knitting math(s), those are grown-up knitting things, big deal. But you remember how I mentioned that due to my 15-pound weight loss, my beloved dark & stormy hangs on me now? I’ve been thinking hard about Noreen’s great suggestion just to wear it as is, as a big old comfy sweater, which would also make my weight loss visible (“gosh, have you lost weight?”) Well, I think I’m going to frog the entire sweater.
sigh.
I’m trying to be all mindful about it: yes, I got all the pleasure out of knitting it. Yes, I enjoyed wearing it last year, very much. Yes, it was a beautiful birthday present to myself. Yes yes yes. Wah! Wah wah wah! Y’all.
Here’s the deal. My waist is my best physical attribute. It’s small relative to the rest, see?
me on the left, with my dear oldest friend in the middle and my son on the right.
So while I have it, while I’m young, I want to highlight it (and hide other bits!). My huge dark & stormy does the opposite — it hides me.
I’ve never frogged a giant sweater before, so I don’t know: do I need to soak the yarn (post-frogging) and let it dry, to get all the knitted-already-ness out of it? Or can I just go ahead and use it? It’s madelinetosh vintage, which is superwash.
I think I’ll give it a big kiss and a hug, pour a glass of wine, lay the sweater out and set up my ball-winder, and just frog it directly into cakes (unless the answer is that I need to soak it).
This is a good thing. This is a good thing. It’s reclaiming gorgeous yarn to refashion into something that will be flattering. This is a good thing. This is a good thing.
wistful: Having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing; showing pensive sadness; a sadly pensive longing; full of yearning or longing; sad and thoughtful; longingly; sadly remembering something nice
I guess the general consensus is that people want to be happy. All people just want to be happy. We can get off on a side-rail and talk about what that means, happy, but let’s just say that we’re talking about the feeling of being happy. The happy feeling. It’s pretty great, I love the happy feeling. I can zoom straight away from happiness into bliss, without too much trouble. Certain songs make that happen before I know it — a Spice Girls song (shut up), Light and Day by Polyphonic Spree — and sometimes I’m just caught off guard by it, by a feeling of pure happiness.
My writing group meets once a month, and each month one of us is responsible for bringing three writing prompts, individual words, usually. A couple months ago, one of the words was joy and man did I take off on that. It’s so easy for me to feel joy, blah blah blah. I was shocked when the others wrote that they’re terrified of joy, that they don’t feel it, that it’s not in their repertoire. So happy, joy, bliss, all are really nice (for me anyway), I get them. But I’m not sure I’d say happy is my favorite feeling, as great as it is.
I think my favorite feeling is wistful, with a slight tinge of melancholy. It’s a deep feeling, with a lot of layers, and I like that about it. It makes me look backward, and it holds me fast in the moment. I like that about it, too. It focuses on happiness, on pleasure, but with a bit of darker edge, about the loss of it. There’s a huge soundtrack for it; I seeded an iTunes genius playlist with I Think It’s Going to Rain Today, by Randy Newman, and MAN! Wistful playlist deluxe! It’s chock-full of John Prine, Rickie Lee Jones, Annie Lennox, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, kd lang, and Tom Waits.
It’s so perfect, the music fits this mood exactly. Do you like wistful? I sure do. Even though I’m feeling wistful, I have a lot of great travel ahead of me. A trip to see Marnie and Tom, then a trip to Vietnam and Borneo, then a trip to see Katie and Trey, all before my birthday. Those trips are exciting and I look forward to them, but for now I’m going to nestle into wistful and enjoy that lovely feeling for a while.
the world is rich with horrible people who take pleasure in destruction, but that’s not the whole story. thank god.
Sometimes the world makes it easier to see one face than the other; sometimes the terrible things mount up in such a way that it’s easy to feel your heart sink and think it’s all gone to hell, what is the world coming to. And of course sometimes it’s easy to notice all the wonder, too.
A horrible man in Oslo destroys so much; sad little Amy Winehouse destroys herself; viciously sadistic family members destroy their own out of spite; children starve to death in this food-laden world; people are dying in this heat; a horrible man in Texas kills children at a birthday party; our country is in economic peril, and at a frightening brink; what is this world doing.
o how i miss him
Mister Rogers, beloved dear Mister Rogers, once told a story on his show that has stuck with me since I saw it, back in 1982. When he was a little boy, there was a devastating fire in his community and he was watching it unfold, full of fear and upset. His brilliant mother came over to him and said softly, “Look for the helpers, Freddie.” That shifted everything for him, because in that scene of loss and devastation there were also people doing all they could, risking their own lives, to save the lives and property of others. The scene had both, at the same time, and it mattered how he looked at it.
It’s hard to ignore the destruction, and it can’t be wished away by just looking at what’s good in the world of course, but it does matter and count that there are good people in the world, trying to help those whose lives were destroyed, trying to feed and cool people, trying to elevate the world rather than destroy it.
As the evil witch said, “What a world, what a world.”
A half truth is a whole lie. ~Yiddish Proverb
Adrienne Rich said, “Lying is done with words and also with silence.” I almost think the lies that are in silence are worse, because you’re left being unable to trust what’s said and what’s not said. At least when someone lies with words, you’re left only unable to trust their words.
This is one of those funny human things — everyone lies, all the time. Ordinarily they’re little unimportant lies, like saying you have another appointment to get out of something with someone else. Social grease, those lies. So we all lie, and not uncommonly, but when we are lied to, oh the outrage! How could he!
There’s an AA saying that’s something like ‘the louder the no, the louder the yes.’ I’ve probably botched that; I hear these things second-hand and don’t always get the full explanation. But anyway, the point is obviously that when someone is being Quite! Certain! about something, the opposite is likely true. And not just in a “methinks he doth protest too much” kind of way, but in subtler ways, too. When I was first dating, I was pretty loud and certain: Oh no! I’m never getting married again, that’s for sure! Why would I. I’m not having more kids, mine are grown, that’s it for me, never getting married. Ever. Never. For sure. For real. Don’t ask. I’m done. And slightly less than a year later, I was married.
But the less-subtle over-protests are red flags: no! I did not do that, and I’m outraged that you would suggest I did! mmm, yeah. I’ll bet you did.
So I was lied to within the last 24 hours and it sucks and it feels pretty awful and I’m trying to regain my own equilibrium. I’m trying to keep in mind the thing about everyone lies (me too), and all the rest. But it’s just a wrenching thing, isn’t it, learning you’ve been lied to. Especially in silence. hmm.
art can transform even the most horrible experience
I’ve written about this short story before, last May — Haruki Murakami’s wonderful and terrifying The Seventh Man. In the wake of the tsunami in Japan, I’ve been remembering the story, and realizing how much the story helped me imagine and understand the experience. Plagiarizing myself:
Have you ever read something that just haunts you? Everyone has, probably, in one form or another. But this story truly haunts me, it hovers around the edges, it has even shown up in a dream. The Seventh Man, by Haruki Murakami, was read by John Shea at Symphony Space. I’ve attended the Selected Shorts readings at Symphony Space, and they’re almost always wonderful. I haven’t read this story, and even if I did, I heard it read first, and that reading may partially account for the haunting nature of it — but I suspect it’s deeply embedded in the story itself. John Shea’s reading of it is just magnificent – dramatic, loud, whispering, terrified, exhausted. It’s a relatively long listen – 40 minutes (I think….time just stops when I listen to it, which I’ve done 10 or 11 times).
I’ve typed and erased several attempts to introduce you to the story, to make you want to listen, but whatever I write just misses the boat enough to make me afraid you won’t. It’s really an incredible story. At Symphony Space, it was part of a program called “Deepening Insight” so it’s about the main character’s insight into the most terrible and affecting thing that ever happened to him. If you like to think about metaphor and meaning and transformation and life, please please please give it a try.
I won’t continue to tease; if you want to listen, here you go, and if you want to read it, click here. [note: don't be put off when you start listening - the program featured 2 stories, and this clip begins with a snippet of the 2nd story, followed by the introduction of John Shea, who will then start reading. Be patient, the story starts around a minute and a half.] If you want to keep listening, the 2nd story is included in the audio, too, after the Murakami.
Terrifying.
crazy weekend in this world.
Dinner with Will and weekly phone call with Marnie. Knitting (with increasingly slow progress because the rows are getting longer of course). Movie-watching. Walking. Sleeping. Earthquakes and tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns. TV watching. Reading. Sleeping. Losing an hour.
progress on LaReine -- my "I need something red" shawl. I came back to my knitting spot with a cup of tea, and the shadows were so pretty I didn't want to lose them with extra lighting.
How to summarize a weekend like that? I hope there was something brilliant in your weekend.
the power of just a few words. that’s hard for me to achieve, i can’t stop talking shut up lori. read the damn poem.
Shooting Script
Adrienne Rich
me on my dad's lap 1962
Whatever it was, the image that stopped you, the one on which you
came to grief, projecting it over & over on empty walls.
Now to give up the temptations of the projector; to see instead the
web of cracks filtering across the plaster.
To read there the map of the future, the roads radiating from the
initial split, the filaments thrown out from that impasse.
To reread the instructions on your palm; to find there how the
lifeline, broken, keeps its direction.
To read the etched rays of the bullet-hole left years ago in the
glass; to know in every distortion of the light what fracture is.
To put the prism in your pocket, the thin glass lens, the map
of the inner city, the little book with gridded pages.
To pull yourself up by your own roots; to eat the last meal in
your old neighborhood.
*****
Isn’t that amazing? And who doesn’t need to eat a last meal in the old neighborhood and then leave it — in some form or another. I could pick any phrase out of this poem and find myself, as you might find yourself. There’s nothing as wonderful as good poetry (and very little as bad as bad poetry!).
Have a wonderful Saturday, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Me, I’m currently en route to the Delaware Water Gap. Stories and pictures to come.
I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. (AChristie)
Moody. The dreadful and misleading-sounding labile. All over the place (which sounds like it could be at least partially good, doesn’t it?). A new therapist often gently asks, “has anyone ever suggested that you might be bipolar?” [I am not, for the record.]
But I do feel things. I have a “high emotional bandwidth” as someone once said to me (I’m not sure if he was being nice about it). I feel injustices deeply, I feel joy and exultation in all my cells, I feel sorrow, I feel anger and fury, I just feel it all. In the late 1970s I had a huge crush on Neil Diamond, especially his live version of I Am, I Said, that opens with him speaking these words: I need, I want, I care, I weep, I ache, I am….I said. I am. OH that got to me. Me too, Neil, me too.
And I love this aspect of being me, that’s why the Agatha Christie quote resonates as it does. That doesn’t mean it always feels good, of course, it just means that I’m OK with that.
Part of the whole deal is that sometimes there is silence. Not in that good “ah, silence is so peaceful” way, but more in that empty way. I’ve been in the midst of silence, which is pretty obvious since I haven’t posted in several days. Tomorrow will be a joyous day – it’s Marnie’s birthday! – and Saturday is one of those awful kinds of anniversaries that are best moved through and past. Today I’m focusing my thoughts on where I was in 1985, getting ready for Marnie to arrive. That was a pretty happy place and time, and I had no idea the joy that was waiting for me.
Anyway. I’m here, just sitting in the quiet corner. I’ll be back.
and p.s. – the Turkey blog is set up! whee!!
Beauty itself soon fades, and when a woman has beauty and nothing else, well, it’s like putting all the goods in the shop window, isn’t it? And the moment she loses her good looks–poor creature! what is she? Just a mere bit of faded finery to be thrown aside. ~henry arthur jones
This always makes me cry, and breaks my heart:
Theoretically, conceptually, as long as I’m in the dark and do not have my glasses on, I think I’m ok-looking. I think I ought to be ok-looking, I look kind of normal. I guess I look like any 52-year old woman who gave birth to 3 kids and had major abdominal surgery, cut from hip bone to hip bone. But then again, I have no idea what that looks like, because you sure don’t see that image anywhere.
These things infuriate me to the point of blurred vision and high blood pressure-induced headaches:
- thin mannequins at Lane Bryant, and huge photos in the store of skinny models
- wrinkle cream commercials that feature 25-year olds (or younger)
When I used to teach social psych, I always showed the video “Killing Us Softly” and the results were the same, semester after semester. When it was over, the men in the class were unmoved, and the women sat in silence, with big eyes and hands over their mouths. Women in print ads are usually just shown in pieces and parts – legs, mouths, stomachs, hands, feet, not whole – or they’re shown in submissive or victimized positions. I don’t need to go off on gender stuff here, media stuff, we all know it, and you’re the choir I don’t need to preach to. But it hurts me that knowing it doesn’t stop its power. It hurts me.
not to worry but i’ll be quiet for a bit
Another book that meant a lot to me was Little Women. My bitchy grandmother (the other bitchy grandmother) gave me a hardback copy when I was in 2nd grade, I think, and I still have it. It’s falling apart and the pages are brown. I remember crying every time I read it, when Beth died. (no!!) My daughter Marnie’s name came from a misunderstanding of the mother’s name in Little Women (it’s Marmee in the book, but my father-in-law’s mother wanted to use it for her grandmother name and she got it wrong, so she was always called Marnie, but it was a mistake).
ANYWAY. Remember how the little women are always reading (or being exhorted to read, by their mother) Pilgrim’s Progress? I’ve never read it, but somehow I know of the Slough of Despond and sisters, I’m in it. I’m in it up to my waist. Just personal stuff going on, not for public blog consumption, and no one’s dying or anything so in the scheme of things it’s surmountable, but the Slough is sucking me down.
I’ll probably be quiet for a few days — sure I’ll be back.
***
p.s. #1 If, like me, you never said Slough of Despond out loud because you didn’t know how to pronounce it, it’s slough like through — slew.
p.s.#2 And many thanks to Jess for commenting on my political post to let me know that the Republicans have decided to remove the word “forcible” from their definition of rape. Yay, thank heavens for that small favor. Kristen Schaal said on The Daily Show Wednesday night, “You’d be surprised how many drugged, underaged or mentally handicapped young women have been gaming the system. Sorry, ladies the free abortion ride is over.” Guess she’ll get to eat her sadly funny words.
memory is SO concentrated, isn’t it.
It’s snowing for the fourth time this year — amazing. This time, it’s those huge fat fluffy flakes, which are my favorites. The previous snows have been the fine diamond dust kind that sting your face, but these float down like bits of lace, or feathers, or clouds. Butterflies. Whatever, it’s really beautiful (though I’ll bet the sanitation workers outside my window who are picking up the mountains of trash find it less beautiful than I do), but it does kind of look like fake movie snow.
I just went to pull a stats book off my shelf and had to move this object off the top of that stack of books:
kinda creepy - it always scared me
This is a very heavy ceramic doorstop that always held the bedroom door open at my grandparents’ house, in Graham, Texas. No one had air conditioning, except for the occasional swamp cooler. We just relied on cross breezes, which could be quite rare, and lots of iced tea. Still, there would be windy days, as there are on the open plains, and heavy doorstops kept the doors held back so they didn’t slam shut.
That one always creeped me out — the face looked scary, mean, sly. Too much make-up, fake cat. And who does their eyebrows like that, c’mon. But I’ve kept it all these years, moved it with me 70+ times, even when I took nothing with me but what I could hold in my hands. It reminds me so much of my grandparents, Mom and Big Daddy. When I look at it, I feel their house in my bones, the particular smells come back, the memory of Big Daddy’s fake vinyl lazy-boy reclined in front of the ancient tv where he sat to watch wrestling, the smell of that green liniment I rubbed on his feet. The smell of pinto beans and cornbread cooking in the kitchen, where we sat on red vinyl chairs around an old metal table. The old quilt I slept on, on the floor, with the soft flannel back that was powder blue with orange rockets, and tied with orange cotton string. Big Daddy’s smell, that was a combination of Red Man chewing tobacco and Four Roses hair oil. Mom’s smell that was a combination of Avon carnation sachet and Dr. Pepper.
I’m a kind of orphan, with only a very small handful of things from my past — this doorstop, a small wooden boat my dad made when he was a boy, a falling-apart copy of Little Women, and a few pictures of my young childhood that I rescued from a dumpster. Each one of these things carries a lot of weight, because they carry all the memories. And you know how memories are; they’re there but you don’t really know it, or think about them except in a category way (summers at Big Daddy’s) until you open that door and see all the detail that’s tucked away inside that category. The sensory details, the stories — like Big Daddy taking me to the rodeo on summer nights, to get us both out of the house and away from my mean old grandmother who was strung out; like Big Daddy waking me up at 4am every morning to ride into town with him — the feelings that aren’t really attached to any one moment.
I guess some day I’ll give that creepy cat to one of my kids, even though it has absolutely no meaning to them. It’s really just in my way, it’s not like I have any space to spare, but it’s far too big to throw away, if you know what I mean.
Marcia Brady + Willie Nelson + ELO = I need a break.
Last night I picked up Eve’s Rib, since I was on my “finish a sweater, whoo!” high. I hate that bitch. That’s really all there is to say. It’s the most ridiculously-written pattern. I frogged everything I did last night and put it back in Time Out. I didn’t sleep well last night and woke up feeling out of sorts and icky, and decided that what I needed was a quick-to-knit project. A bit of success to keep me on the knit wagon that I’d so recently fallen off of.
So I looked through my queue and my stash for inspiration, and decided to knit the Very Braidy Cowl. As it was surely intended to do, it made me think of…Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. I watched her a lot, when I was a kid. My parents were divorced, back when that was just beginning to think about maybe coming soon losing stigma. Our culture — at least mine, in Texas — wasn’t ready to go there yet, so being the divorced kid was kind of shameful. I didn’t know anyone else whose parents were divorced, and wouldn’t for quite a long time. So I watched The Brady Bunch. I don’t remember particularly identifying with or liking Marcia Brady (I had a very intense thing for David Cassidy so the Partridge Family had a different vibe for me), but she’s pretty iconic, isn’t she. My cowl, therefore, is named Oh Marcia.
ah....
And winter is getting me down, man. I’m from a place where winter is more of a concept than a reality, so this thing that just goes on and on and on is hard to take. Usually I skip along with it, but I’ll kind of get slammed here and there and feel like I can’t take it another day. That’ll last for a few days, then I’m back to being ok with it (unless it drags on through the end of April, and then that’s just ridiculous). So, I prowled my stash for something guaranteed to lift my spirits, something that would remind me of blue skies while I’m knitting and wearing Marcia (I guess I’ll call it that, for short). Luckily I have two skeins of this amazing Sweet Georgia worsted that I bought in Brooklyn, while shopping with Sherlock. The color name is summer skin.
So then THAT made me think of two songs that I love, Blue Skies (performed here by Willie Nelson of course) and Mr Blue Sky (ELO of course!). What a post. Marcia Brady, winter, Willie Nelson, and ELO. I tried to weave those pieces into something that made sense, but there’s only so much I could do. Off to knit….
Bali Ha’i may call you … “Come away…Come away.” I wish my knitting would call me. 
The post title comes from my daughters; Katie did a series of posts in December and we were so thrilled to get such regular posts from her. In January, the series was over and unfortunately so were the regular opportunities to hear from our Katie-girl. So Marnie suggested a few series options, one of which (since Katie is a new and enthusiastic knitter) was called “Knitta, please!” Katie actually wrote a post with that title, and showed her Habitat hat, by Jared Flood (her project page on rav, but she’s well into the cables now…..new picture please, Katie!)
So I loved that title, knitta please, but had no thoughts of co-opting it until it seemed such a perfect fit with what’s on my mind. So with gratitude (and apologies) to both daughters, I’m saying Knittas, please. Insight requested.
I don’t know what’s happened to me. I have fallen off the knit wagon and cannot seem to climb on again. It’s not the oft-reported loss of “mojo” one hears about so regularly, it’s something else. It’s not a sudden dislike of the endeavor. It’s not disinterest in what I am working on. I know what all it’s not, but I don’t know what it is.
Some of it may be due to the shift in my work life. Up until last July, I worked Monday through Friday, very clear division between at-work and not-at-work. When I was at work, I was daydreaming about knitting, and when I was not at work, I was knitting. Not-at-work meant whee! I can knit! I have this couple of days and I’m going to knit knit knit! OR, I’m home for the day, I’m going to [finally] spend the evening knitting! The time not-at-work felt like a reward, like the time that was FINALLY mine to spend however I wanted before I had to go back to work so I’d better get. on. the. stick!
Now, I wake up whenever I wake up, I drink some coffee, maybe have some toast, poke around on the internet, brush my teeth, and settle into working (notice that “get out of my pajamas” was not on that list ). I sit on the couch, my corner of the couch where I used to knit all the time, with my laptop on my lap. I’ll sit there for long hours at a stretch, focused and working hard. At some vague point — either when my mind won’t do it any more, or when dinner is ready, or when I have an appointment — I’ll kind of stop working. After dinner, after the cleaning up, I don’t seem to be picking up my knitting, and on the weekends, I sometimes work (sometimes a lot), but I don’t seem to be spending every spare moment knitting.
i miss you!
I’m at the last cuff on my Dark & Stormy, I want to finish that tonight, weave in ends and do a little finishing task and get it blocking tomorrow. I don’t have buttons, and the weather is so dismal I don’t feel like wandering around the button district so I don’t know what I’ll do on that front (ha, front, get it?). I absolutely love this sweater and cannot wait to wear it. It fits very well, it’s comfortable, the color is amazing (especially in dismal old winter), and it’s my birthday sweater. What’s not to love?! And I’m very close to finishing Eve’s Rib, if you remember that one from so long ago; I could easily have two new gorgeous sweaters like *that.*
I know it’s not a race — ravelry and blogs can make it very clear how much/how fast/how whatever everyone else is knitting. I know, who cares! In the time I’ve had Dark & Stormy on the needles, other people have started and finished two sweaters. OK, maybe they knit faster, maybe they have more time available to knit, and also see the “I know, who cares!” line above. But the thing that gnaws at me is the knitting ennui** I’m experiencing, the knitting malaise**. And there are two reasons I’m so troubled by it:
- I want it back! and
- This is, after all, a knitting blog and I worry that you’ll get fed up with the very clear lack of knitting that’s going on around here. It’s just that I like you, and really like having you around.
So if you have any advice for me on this situation, I’d really love to hear it. Has it ever happened to you?
** ennui, how often does one get to use that word?
que sera sera — but who knows what that is.
Cases in point:
- one of my dearest friends in the world, age 41, in perfect health and with no known family history, had a major stroke just over a year ago and of course everything everything changed in that moment. now she can’t work, she wanted a child and now that’s not possible, she lost her verbal fluency (although it feels much worse to her than it seems to those of us who still love to listen to her, even if it is more halting), etc. she was (is) brilliant, and while she still is brilliant, her fluency problems make it so much harder for her to express herself. so all at once, in one unexpected moment, everything changed.
- another of my dearest friends in the world, newly married, crazy in love with his wife, happy life filled with plans — his mother-in-law, dear to him and his wife, learned she has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). it was like an atom bomb in their lives, worst for the mother-in-law of course, but big-time life-changing for my friends. they’re selling their home and moving in with her to care for her. all at once, in one unexpected moment, everything changed.
- i just learned that right before thanksgiving, an acquaintance’s wife was ok, then something was wrong, then it was diagnosed as kidney cancer, then she had surgery. in a 3-week period of time.
and of course we all know these things can happen (though they usually happen in other people’s lives), but we don’t even think about them unless we have to. we go about our daily business making all our happy plans, imagining the long string of tomorrows and next months and this summers and next falls. but of course what else can we do? it’s all there is to do – make plans, expect them to be possible at least, and shoot for tomorrow.
but they do serve to remind us — at least a day or two after they happen to other people — that life is fragile, and that we really should appreciate it and that today’s the day, man.
last night i had dinner with my friend who had the stroke. we were talking about the ways we can feel so sorry for ourselves, and how irritating it is when people say “but look at all the ways it could be worse.” (seriously, don’t ever say that to someone who’s dealing with something horrible.) (if you aren’t sure what to say, just say that, that you don’t know what to say but you are so sorry they’re having to deal with it. and also, don’t say you know how they feel unless you’ve had that same experience. and also, don’t say that you couldn’t deal with it if it happened to you — oh yes you could, just like they are trying to.) ANYWAY. we both realized that with enough time, we are able to think about all the ways it could be worse and find some measure of comfort in it — but not in the way you’d think. “it could be worse” stops the spiral of sorrow for yourself, but it does not make it better. it just stops it from getting worse. for a while, anyway.
so my long-winded point: today’s the day. don’t forget that.
people leave their selves behind in the books they love, i really believe that.
I love my Kindle. I didn’t think I would — even though I’m an early adopter of new technology, central to my identity is that I love books. And I mean that fully: the content of books, the bookness of books, the full-on sensory experience of books, the whole enchilada. (mmm…. enchiladas….) Marnie and I used to love to go to Barnes & Noble and walk the floors just touching books. And now she makes books, she’s a book artist. SO cool.
But anyway, it turns out that I do love my Kindle. I read a lot more, which I partly attribute to the ease of reading on a very crowded subway, the ability to take hundreds of books on a trip, etc. I underline passages, place notes in margins, fold down pages, all the things I’d do with a much-loved book. But my Kindle books can never do this:
my dad's copy of this book, his favorite
his annotations, in his hand
this says so much about my dad
“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.” His favorite passage from that book, based on the way he annotated it. That really defines my dad, though he probably didn’t realize the centrality of it in his life, in the way that we can all be blind to our own stuff.
Monday was his birthday; he’d have been 72, which is unimaginable. He died in 1982, on his mother’s birthday, at the age of 44. I was 23, and 5 months pregnant with Katie. The story is too complicated and ugly to talk about here, but his birthday is usually painful and difficult for me, and I halfway suspect it’s behind my 3-day migrainey headache.
In his will, he left me $1 — that’s like leaving a penny tip. You do that so people can’t claim to have been accidentally forgotten and sue the estate. Not that he had an ‘estate’ anyway. So I got my $1 check, and I grabbed this book, and a little wooden ship he built as a very little boy. That’s what I have of my dad (besides his height, his hands, and his long upper lip).
It’s getting increasingly hard to read this copy of Sirens of Titan, since it’s crumbling and the pages have separated from the binding. I have a nice clean copy in my Kindle, and read it now and then because I love the story, and he loved the story and felt such understanding from it. I resonate much less to his favorite line than he did, but every time I read it, it feels like he’s standing next to me. Every year, though, I pull out this copy from behind the front row of books on that shelf, and page through it, looking at his notes.
But you know what I mean, right? Other people’s notes in books tell you a lot about them. My own notes in my own books tell me a lot about myself, especially those books I read over and over and over. I try to use a different colored pen to annotate a book each time through, so I can see the shifts. Ah — the blue one, that’s the time I read it when I was really struggling, I remember that darkness. My Kindle copies can’t carry those reminders in the same way.
PROMISE: knitting content to return soon!
“We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder.” Who said that? Do you know? I DO.
sophia and jayne
I do – haven’t we all seen it before? For no particular reason, it reminds of that bit from Seinfeld (doesn’t everything…) where Jerry and George are talking about bad things that happened to them in the high school locker room. Wedgies, I think. Then it goes:
“Seinfeld: The Library (#3.5)” (1991)
Elaine: Boys are sick.
Jerry: Well what do girls do?
Elaine: Nothing. We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder.
So so true. Girls tease or shun. That look, I know it, and it makes me want to hug poor Jayne and hand her a lacy handknit wrap.
In 96 hours I’ll be sitting on the plane at LaGuardia, waiting to fly off to Austin to see Katie! Whee!
i wouldn’t be bragging about that if i were you.
This was posted on the facebook page for the little town of Graham, TX, where I was born. There was no other information posted with it, so I don’t know the date, but geez Louise. My stomach clenched when I saw it.
Yeah. See what I mean? Graham’s terrible history is much more focused on slaughtering the resident Native Americans; in fact, I don’t remember seeing any black people in Graham. Then again, maybe that’s due to meetings like the one advertised above.
“Realm of Texas.” I don’t know if that’s a Klan thing, or a Texas thing. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s a Texas thing; we do like to think of ourselves in a grandiose way.
If you’ve never heard of the Austin Lounge Lizards, I highly recommend that you listen to this song – it’s so hilarious.
I’m finishing the Mondo Cable Cardigan. When I left it, the body was finished and I was 3/4 finished with one sleeve. Since yesterday, I finished that sleeve and started and finished the other. (I know!!) The collar will take me a bit of time, but it’s only 128 rows of 26 stitches, so I should finish it today, easily. Then I’ll soak and block it and run out for buttons and giant snaps.
Continue Reading–1 words totally
I’m finishing the Mondo Cable Cardigan. When I left it, the body was finished and I was 3/4 finished with one sleeve. Since yesterday, I finished that sleeve and started and finished the other. (I know!!) The collar will take me a bit of time, but it’s only 128 rows of 26 stitches, so I should finish it today, easily. Then I’ll soak and block it and run out for buttons and giant snaps.
I get it, you sweater knitters who churn them out. When you finish, you have a substantial piece of clothing. Not a little scarf, not a wee hat, not toasty socks. A substantial piece of clothing. That you made, all those thousands of little stitches. I get it.
“My Love” by Paul McCartney is playing in my ear right now, which always makes me think of my daughter Katie, who loves that song so much. Hi honey.
I’ve got the menopausal lady sleep pattern, which means not-sleeping pattern. I fall asleep easily and then start skipping stones around 2, usually. Awake…… maybe a bit of sleepAwake…..maybe a bit of slAwake…..maybe a bit ofAwake. Finally I just get up. What the hell.
Random and scattered thoughts. Thursday around 5:15 I was sitting in a friend’s office and said, “Look! If we were in Texas I’d say there’s gonna be a tornado, it’s that tornado bottle green sky.” We both laughed (haha, tornadoes in Manhattan haha), and I hoped to get home without getting caught in torrential rains. Turns out? Two tornadoes hit the area. Someone died. Lots of trees died too. Always trust a Texan when she tells you it’s a tornado sky.
All summer, the elevator in our building has been out of service because the coop board decided to update it. All summer, it was supposed to be worked on. Here, at the last hour, the elevator team has decided they’d better get on it, and since the deadline is just passed (of course), they’d better work all hours of the day and night, 7 days a week. There’s a big table saw set up by the mailboxes; the hallway is all tile and marble, hard surfaces, and our door is just feet away. So the whine of the saw, the loud voices of repair men shouting up and down the elevator shaft, not much fun.
Off to make a pot of mint tea. One thing I figured out yesterday is to really use knitting as a true meditation. I do a breathing meditation — breathe in deeply to the count of 4, hold it for 2, breathe out slowly to the count of 6. I sync that count with knitting and man oh man does it work. Try it the next time you’re stressed and frazzled. Think it’s that time for me, too.
the movie Conspiracy is excellent, but i can’t watch those things any longer. i’m too old.
When I taught social psychology, I was always most eager to make students think carefully about the dark side of social influence. The Milgram studies, undertaken in the aftermath of The Third Reich, which showed that people would — despite their obvious misery and discomfort — administer a probably fatal shock to someone in another room, because they were told to (note: there wasn’t an actual person in the other room). My students said “oh, that was the 1950s, it wouldn’t happen now.” The Zimbardo prison study, which was shut down much sooner than anticipated because the students randomly assigned as prison guards became sadistic, and those randomly assigned as prisoners became profoundly withdrawn, depressed. My students said,”oh, that was the 1970s, it wouldn’t happen now.” “Not me, I wouldn’t have gone along.” “Not me, I wouldn’t have become sadistic.” “Not me.”
In a way, this gets at the essence of social psychology; especially in our western culture, we like to believe that we ourselves, our minds, our choices, are responsible for what we do and believe. Me, I decide. We become uncomfortable when told that the situation is leading us to behave in a particular way; we resist believing that something outside us influences us without our ‘knowledge’.
I think it’s extremely important to recognize that it’s not just those people back then, those people in that country, those people in that culture, those people. Them. We are them. (Of course people are also capable of rising above the situation, of acting from a thoughtful place; I’m not making an “always” claim here.)
Because this is important to me, I have been drawn to thinking about the horrors of the Holocaust. I tend to read about it if I hear of a good analysis, or fictional work. I tend to watch the movies – fiction or nonfiction. I was so moved by Everything Is Illuminated, the book and the movie.
So I watched a movie last night that was recommended by Tammy, a ravelry friend and regular commenter on my blog — Conspiracy, which is about the meeting outside Berlin in which the “final solution” was laid out and set in motion. Tammy mentioned it because Colin Firth is in the movie, and I’d just written about another of his movies, A Single Man. I looked up Conspiracy and saw that Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, and Stanley Tucci were in it – I love all three of them! It wasn’t available for instant streaming, so I moved it to the top of my regular queue, and I watched it last night.
The actors were wonderful, without exception. I wondered how they dealt with the roles they were playing – Tucci especially, who did a truly incredible job playing Eichmann. I felt a cold shiver all through my body and in my stomach when he came on the screen. Eichmann. The cinematography was beautiful, the direction subtle, the performances very strong. I have to see more movies with Colin Firth, and soon!
But I find that as I get older, it’s harder and harder to bear these things. It’s harder and harder for me to listen or watch as a people are described and treated as ‘vermin.’ As inhuman. Not human. Less than human. I never found it easy to bear, but I could bear it because I wanted to think, understand, remember. Now I’m not so sure I can bear it. I cried throughout the movie. I was so nauseous I thought I’d be sick. Often I couldn’t even look at the screen. Almost the entire movie was set around a long table, with the parties to the meeting simply talking – no actions were performed, nothing actually implemented, just talking. And I couldn’t watch.
It’s a very powerful movie, I highly recommend it. I didn’t know anything about that meeting, I didn’t know this part of history at all. When I was a little younger, I could’ve watched it more easily.
Now, I need a lot of knitting and contemplation to get myself back in order. Hello, Peasy.
.
dancing in the dark.
My sweet older daughter Katie got married in June 2008 (easiest anniversary ever to remember: 06/07/08). Hers was a much more traditional wedding than Marnie’s, complete with puffy white dress, groomsmen in tuxedos, rosebud corsages, and all that happy jazz. She hired a professional photographer, who caught this very enigmatic shot that I rediscovered yesterday while wandering through her online photo album:
me dancing with my son
Several things to note, before turning attention to the odd glance:
1- That’s my daughter Katie, dancing with her husband Trey, in the right side of the photo
2 – That’s Marnie visible in the back, in the green maid-of-honor dress
3 – Yes, that’s right, I’m wearing the same dress at Katie’s wedding as I wore at Marnie’s. First, both girls crazily decided to have OUTDOOR weddings in the HOT SUMMER, so something extremely cool was called for. And second, I bought it specifically to wear to Katie’s wedding, and when Marnie’s came up I decided to call it my “dress I wear to my daughters’ weddings.” I’ll have to keep it safely aside to wear in the future when my youngest girl gets married, which will probably be several years, since she’s a sophomore in college.
It’s a very long story with my beloved son – lots of very long stories with him, to be more accurate – so I know everything that lives behind that glance, behind my close hold on him. I store the photo here so I don’t forget about it again.
.
o how i love annie lennox. i really do.
I had a long conversation with Katie, my older daughter, this morning, which was essentially a conversation about what gives a life meaning and value. Like me, her desire is for close-to-home things – meaningful work, a family, being a mom. Like her, I am often intimidated by people whose lives are more dramatic, or whose work is more “exciting,” or whose lives are more something than ours.
And then, while I was uploading my new sock photo to ravelry, my iTunes randomly played a song from Annie Lennox‘s album Songs of Mass Destruction. (If you click the album cover to the left, it’ll take you to the Amazon page where you can buy the music; I very highly recommend it!) I became fixated on the first song released from the album, Dark Road. Sony took down the video, so I can’t show it here. Bastards. It’s a beautiful video, and the song is heartbreakingly beautiful, as many of her songs are.
55? isn't she gorgeous?!
I’ve been in fan love with Annie since I first heard Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) back in 1983, I think. As a matter of fact, that song always makes me think of Katie; she was a tiny toddler at the time and she was crazy for the song. It could be playing at the other end of the house and she’d squeal, come running, and then stand there, bopping and grinning to the beat. Adorable. Annie’s music has been the soundtrack for much of my adult life; the Diva and Medusa albums truly are the soundtrack to the end of my first marriage, and my devastating divorce. The Peace album is the soundtrack of a year of my life in graduate school, when everything — everything — came together and I was absolutely happy in myself. The Bare album is the soundtrack to one of the biggest changes of my adult life.
So anyway, I’m sitting at my desk, doing my little small life thing, documenting a little sock I knit, for heaven’s sake, and the next song from the album came on – Sing. Sing my sister sing, let your voice be heard, what won’t kill you will make you strong, sing my sister sing. It could be trite, but it isn’t. Annie sings it with urgency – sing, my sisters. Sing. The song is the focus of her Sing campaign to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child.
So there she is (just a couple of years older than me, by the way) making beautiful music and trying desperately to help save lives in Africa, and to help women, and here I am taking too many pictures of a sock.
Of course in light of this morning’s conversation with Katie it struck me. I could say the cliched thing, something trite about “all lives have meaning” blah blah blah (note, it’s not trite because it’s not true! it is true that all lives have meaning. But it’s trite because it’s a too-simple answer to a deeper concern). I don’t know how to resolve it. I feel it, I understand it.
Maybe it’s something like understanding that age 51 I’m probably not going to be an astronaut and should cross that one off my list.
Anyway – here’s Sing, if you haven’t heard it:
too bad I had to frog my wonderful socks.
Yesterday I got a lot of knitting done. I worked on my great-looking sock and got into the heel flap. I adore the pattern; it’s so thick and squishy, so 3-dimensional in a cool way, architectural, even. The socks must be warm, warm, warm.
And the yarn – I totally love the yarn. I love the shifts in color, and the particular colors themselves….that brilliant turquoise, a deep olive, dark reds, light purples, rich browns. And this variegated yarn works great with this pattern, because the color contrasts are so interesting.
BUT. Oh, how there is a but. As Pee-Wee Herman said to Simone, sitting in the dinosaur’s head, “everyone I know has a big but.”*** For some reason I wasn’t going to have nearly enough yarn! After only 3 pattern repeats, I was more than halfway finished with one ball of yarn. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and they always listed 2 balls of yarn for a pair of socks. And the pattern makes these 3D squishy socks….but mine were stiff like heavy cardboard. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and my needles were the same size as theirs. I must have been knitting very tightly. I know I was, actually, because I was fighting the needles.
Desperately I decided oh what the hell, I’ll just make the tops kind of short. Three pattern repeats, that’ll be ok, right? But what if I still run out of yarn, and end up needing to buy another ball or two? Then I’d have too-short socks for no good reason. I forged ahead, trusting – other people got one sock out of one ball of yarn, other people used these needles, it all worked out, other times and other projects I thought it’s not going to work but then it did so just keep going, trust the project.
Two-thirds of the way down the heel flap I finally threw in the towel. I pulled the sock off the needles and pulled it on my foot, just to see. Yeah, it was stiff and cardboardey. I had clung too tightly to the yarn and needles. Kind of like life, during hard times – clinging too tightly is not going to help. I love it when knitting reinforces a life lesson.
***here’s that clip from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, where he says that hilarious line to Simone:
Sam Stone came home to his wife and family after serving in the conflict overseas.
It’s not all parades and cemeteries, you know:
I didn’t get much knitting done today, or anything else other than work. Boo. But we did eat some mighty fine pizza.
rainy thoughts on a rainy day
It’s cold and rainy here today – after the spring tease of a couple of weeks ago, this breaks my heart, as it does every single year. It isn’t really the cold aspect of northern winters that wears you down, it’s the long aspect. Maybe it’s the gloomy weather, but the following things have captured my notice:
* A 19-year old male committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train in my part of town. It’s so sad, to be so filled with despair at only 19 years old. And do not judge New Yorkers whose quick response is to complain about the way that affects their commutes. When you don’t have a car and rely exclusively on public transportation to get you to and from work, or grocery shopping, or anything at all, you have a slightly different perspective. It’s very sad – it is – and now how am I going to get to work!
* I was reading a piece in the NYTimes magazine by the former editor of House & Garden, Dominique Browning, and she was talking about grieving the loss of her identity when Conde Nast closed the brand. She cited this line from Psalm 22:14, as the most eloquent description of pain, and I do agree: I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. The tone of that line brought the work of Robert and Shana Parkeharrison to mind, whose work used to be one of my son’s favorites:
* And I’ve been thinking lately about the way our society has moved away – ever closer to entirely away – from the authority of institutions to the authority of individuals. In the process, it seems like the output of individuals is of much higher quality than ever before. This is just a note to myself, still unpacking the concept.
* Finally, even though all my knitting time is being assigned to the secret wedding shawl (hi Marnie!), a girl does need something to knit in the subway to and from work. That’s a good 20 minutes each way! So I started a new pair of socks for me, this time. I’m making the really cool Kai-Mei socks from Cookie A’s Sock Innovation book, using madelinetosh sock yarn in the crow colorway. As it’s knitting up, it looks more like denim, like your favorite dark pair of blue jeans. I’ll take photos asap, tomorrow maybe. Anyway, here’s the yarn:
madelinetosh sock, colorway: crow
not my kai-mei socks, just posted here so you can see the interesting pattern
[courtesy of reeniebeanie - check her out!]
Stay warm, stay dry, stick around.
a mishmash of thoughts, plus a picture of monkey socks
A random mishmash o’ stuff today:
* It’s been a hell of a week – 12.5 hour workdays, which were nowhere near enough. By the end of each day, I was still too far behind, how does that work?
* I saw a friend I usually see once a week, and the evening I was on my way to see her, I thought ‘man, it feels so long since I saw her!’ It took me the whole trip to realize that I hadn’t seen her in 2 weeks, and that’s because last week I was on vacation. In Honduras. Last week feels like forever ago. And not real.
* Until this moment: for my vacation, I took the electric kettle, a huge coffee mug, a plastic cone for making one cup of coffee at a time, and a stack of filters (plus a bag of fresh-ground really good coffee). So every morning on vacation, my routine was to make a cup of coffee and drink it on the porch and knit. So this morning, I just made my coffee and poured a cup into that particular mug. The vacation feels real, I remember it. And I wish I were there.
Two sides of me:
* The not-so-nice side – I always get really mad on the subway when an adult with small(ish) children expects other adults to give up their seats so the kids can sit. What??! Kids have all the energy! They haven’t just worked a terrible job all day, they’re not stressed out, their backs don’t hurt! I’m sorry, if you’re 4 or 5 years old and there’s enough space for you to very safely stand and hold onto a pole, I am going to keep my seat. Bite me, adult giving me a dirty look.
* The nicer side – I have a friend who had a major stroke last year and who is currently in the darkest place of suicidal depression. She’s very brave but she doesn’t know that (or anything good) right now. So yesterday I wrote her an email that included this: “The bravery of us poor little frail people in this world, going forward as if we know what we’re doing, going forward as if it’s all somehow guaranteed (until something happens and we’re reminded that it’s not……but we go back to our old habits of thinking it’s all guaranteed). It makes me feel quite tender toward humanity whenever I think about this. Here we all are, with all our troubles, with the pain and trouble that we all bear in one form or another, with our small joys and our fragile hopes and plans. Here we all are, tiny little specks in an unimaginable infinite, on a tiny little planet whirling around a tiny little sun in just one little galaxy, here we all are, doing our best. GREAT. Now I’m starting to cry. I think we are all amazing, and that includes you. And I guess, then, that it must include me.” See? I can be kind towards people. Just don’t ask me to give up my seat to a 4-year old.
Finished the monkeys – will block them and get them in the mail to Katie first thing Monday morning:
one's a little smaller than the other - i'd bet the smaller one is more tightly-knit and therefore the one i knit here in Manhattan. looser = vacation.
blocking the monkeys to make them closer in size to each other; actual color is closer to the photo above this one, which came out weirdly golden.
I have a 3-month plan: I am putting all my ducks in a row, getting everything lined up to quit my job in 3 months. Period. I’ll teach, as much as I can; I’ll do writing and statistical consulting, as much as I can; I’ll try to do developmental work and rewriting on manuscripts for publishers, as much as I can; and I’ll make things and sell them, as much as I can. I’ll pare down my expenses, as much as I can. I cannot persist in this job that sucks the living life out of me. I’ll be 52 in November, and I say uncle. I want to have a life that’s not just bearable and happy on the weekend, you know?
This week, 3 people at work quit. Two of the editors in my group are going on interviews and will leave the second they get another job. Granted, I don’t know everyone on my floor, but everyone I do know is looking for another job. No exception. My boss even told me that she suspects our brand new assistant is already looking for another job. My company is based in the U.K., and there, it really is an enormous honor to work for this company. People stay with the company their entire lives – so very proud to work for this company. And I get it – it’s an amazing amazing and old company! It published the very first book. BUT (1) it doesn’t hold the same cachet here, (2) the Madison Ave experience is 100% different than the experience on that lovely lane in that beautiful town in the U.K., and (3) publishing is under such pressure now due to the economy and the transitional moment between books and online presentation of [free] content, we’re all turning into diamonds from the pressure.
Anyway. Lots to get done this weekend! No easy traveling knitting right now, as my knitting time is turned entirely to the wedding shawl. I’d hate to carry that in the subway – snowy white cobweb-weight wool, complicated Estonian lace patterns. My only other knitting alternative right now is the lettuce-green Ishbel, which is also a bit hard to do on the subway. So this weekend I’ll get back to the shawl, and I just have so much other stuff to do towards my eventual release to freedom. I feel myself getting lighter, just thinking about it.
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