Why this page is blank

I haven't written here in a long time. Even doing this now makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Writing is precious, esteemed, difficult. And no matter what, no one should see my first drafts.

You can't have that attitude and blog. Moreover, lately I've been less and less interested in reading my own thoughts, and blogging is nothing if not an unblinking navel gaze. I've been trying write, you see, really write. Not just record my day or my observations in pretty sentences but create something new. But right now I'm in the neither-nor phase: I have neither succeeded in creating something every day nor have I quit before I started. Blogging is a good thing to do in this stage. It does qualify as writing, I suppose, but it is not something that is creative. I've bagged this blog for a while because I'm more interested in looking inward, spending time with ideas that could become stories and people, but that need more time offline. I'm doing more of that writing, I am, but I don't want to share it with anyone at all for quite a while.

Am I being too precious? Is what I'm doing right now worth holding it close, finessing draft after draft so that I couldn't throw something up on the old blog? Maybe I will from time to time, or just photos and comments, or things I've cooked up in the past that are ready enough for the light of day. But now, the work has to happen for my eyes only. As a new fiction writer, I'm living in an unfinished house with people I feel I ought to know better, people with indistinct features and muddled lives, muttering to me that the roof leaks and the heat doesn't work and how are we all supposed to get on here if I'm never going to do anything about it?

Insanity or genius? Only one way to find out. Check in every so often to see how I'm doing.

Mews

When your dad says "please, write again," when your husband no longer has your blog bookmarked, when your browser - yes, even your dear, loyal browser - has forgotten your URL, it's time to throw a little post up on the old bloggy-poo.

It's not like I haven't been writing. It's just been an inward time, not a worldwide time. My last real bit of writing here was back on April 13, two days before a relatively minor life-changing bump in the road came my way, making me turn inward. I think I've come out the other side of it though, with a better sense of what my life could look like, and a clue or two about how to get there. And meanwhile, there has been art and joy. Music-making. Merry-making. I've taken a step I've felt meant to take since childhood awakenings, though at the same time I feel more childlike than ever, at the beginning of a young, new journey.

Though in some ways my April 15 sadness has only been replaced by a new sadness. (That seems to be my m.o., I need at least one major gripe at any given time.) Time will tell if the self-inflicted sacrifice my bridegroom and I are making will result in better careers, but for now, and more acutely than before, it only means loneliness.

Because the catch is that although I enjoy my new roommate-free space and after months of distraction I feel energized to take on a new chapter in my working life, I'm so over self-development. I feel I've figured myself out by now, and I don't need this much space to keep navel gazing. I want to figure out my new, one and only roommate. I want to figure out our routine, and our ups and downs. In the back of my head I also wonder if I'm developing a mental block to cohabiting, that when the option to live together is no longer an option, I'll be so accustomed to my own space and pace, that I will flip.

È follia. I just need something new to worry about.

If nothing else I am learning to write. In fact, instead of using this space for self-exploration, maybe I'll practice the kinds of personal essays David Sedaris has mastered to such acclaim, the kind that are deeply personal, yet flout the boundary between fact and fiction....

But really, I've gotten paid to write a few times, and I'm seeing how I could do more with this. I'm not looking to sell a novel anytime soon, and for a long time I will be happy to keep my fiction to myself, but I can see grantwriting go somewhere, and music journalism, and maybe even other kinds of journalism. And why not see what works? Four days a week I only have myself to amuse, and I've got lots of time for it.....

idealist.org - Writing Associate, Public Interest GRFX

Dead blog? Failed writer? Never!! What do you make of this, or how about this? I've gravitated happily to offline writing, I'm doing more of it, and I'm considering focusing my efforts on pursuing profit-making writing, if such a thing exists. Blogging is fun, but so is finding my voice without the "pressures" of instant publication. I will post some more here, but probably less frequently than before.

But I couldn't resist this little bit I found while searching for jobs:

idealist.org - Writing Associate, Public Interest GRFX: "You’ll tell that story across a variety of online and print projects, including e-mail alerts, newsletters, fundraising appeals, posters, brochures and Web sties."

Yup, they sure do need an editor.

;-)

Save This Quilt!

Hello Freecycle Folks! Here's the worst of the damage on my Guatemalan patchwork, but it is otherwise in good shape....

more on Easter

I guess I do like Easter. Maybe it's the sort of thing you discover as an adult, when your Easter hay days are long gone, or maybe it's because I haven't been able to see my family on Easter for the past four years. So between the church gig and the rehearsals, I cobbled together what I had and had myself a merry little Easter.....

Easter dinner in 20 minutes! I mashed exactly one new potato, seared some lamb steaks with rosemary and garlic and braised them in wine, and wilted spinach in the same pan. I don't quite know where lamb steaks come from off the animal, but they are tender and tasty, if a bit gristly. And it all cooked up in a flash!

And for dessert.... I finally finished off the last of the cake flour with the chocolate cake recipe from the back of the box, but the real treat of the afternoon was the lovely presence of my pal Paula. A good bit of cake is still in my freezer, but Paula, sadly, will be heading back to England soon.

You know you like Easter when.... It occurred to me only when I was dying these eggs (and my thumbs and my sweater) vivid colors that it might not be too healthy to eat these artificial colors. But don't they just make you think of the holy spirit?

And when Paula left I was alone but for the companionship of Sunny the Bunny.

But things soon turned ugly...

My Baptism

Today is a red-letter day in my life, the day I was finally baptized, baptized in the name of our Lord the father, the son, and the holy spirit (although I did not state that I believe in that part just yet because I don't know what it is.) And on Easter Vigil no less!

This morning I woke up believing it to be just another ordinary day. I had agreed to sing the service tonight at the Wellesley Congregational Church, right there on the Wellesley Common near the Ann Taylor. My only motivation was 30 pieces of silver - and maybe a corn muffin between tomorrow's services - but I left with so much more.

Tonight, between the baptism of children and the shoutings of Alleluia! a pair of tweens came around to all the congregants with bowls of water and short evergreen branches and flicked us all with the sacramental mist. There was no room for a good, unbaptized Quaker girl to run, so I endured what so many of my brethren have before me. The music director suggested we put away our music and glasses. As I was reaching for my face, a drop of water hit one single spot on my skin: the back of my curse finger on my left hand. Alleluia! Is it now my blessed finger? Will it be the one part of me that glimpses heaven, while the rest of me bobbles in purgatory?

The festivities due to such an occasion proceeded apace. There was an interpretive dance with a song from the "contemporary" service. An adult dancer in a black dress and barefoot, a blue scarf tied around her waist as she moved about the flowers and the communion table, now facing us, now lifting her arms heavenward, now turning away, teasing like a dance of the seven veils. Her trunk and arms were held with such cruciform rigidity that she nearly toppled over twice.

But wait, judge not, right? I'm new to the chosen, you see. Bread was offered to the saved, pitas or gluten free. And wine, although they serve grape juice now. Could I partake? Were my sins washed away with the twitch of that awful tree? I did not risk God's fury to find out. The evening concluded (delightfully) with a piece for chorus and baritone solo, with instructions to sing caldamente.....

Permeability

I am going to marry the former roommate of a colleague of a friend of a friend. The connection is bizarre to begin with, but it reflects the unique kind of links that can happen in a small city. With fewer variables, fewer 'actors,' and smaller geography, all sorts of connections are possible, and people are more open to them. Would that friend of a friend (who I had barely known) come to my birthday party in an unfamiliar part of town with the roommate of her collegaue (who she had just met) in a bigger city known for odd characters and occasional violence?


That's not the only story. I have a longtime collaboration with a musician I met through the kindness of another stranger, who passed his name on to me after I introduced myself. I contact others I barely know to arrange gigs, and they often come on board with enthusiasm and professionalism. I was hired to fundraise for an organization through a person that had somehow found my business card, but had never met me. While the ice is thick here in social matters, at least in professional contacts, it hardly exists.


The smallness of the city and the physical setups of some institutions also fosters connections in serendipitous and productive ways. With few inhabitants and relatively lull street traffic, you are certain to make eye contact with people on the street, and to encounter people more than once. Coming out of a door of a music school downtown, I locked eyes with a trombonist I knew from undergrad days, and a joyful reunion followed. Attending an afternoon writing class, I sat directly in front of another friend from college, and we've since stayed in touch. Smallness can also bite you in the ass, with its sharp little fangs. You meet people you'd rather not see again, like your rival or that guy you had a couple of awkward dates with. Not that I've had that experience. Twice.


I work in the Longwood Medical Area, likely one of the few places in the world where medical researchers can collaborate and learn from each other across numerous institutions and disciplines. The hospitals and institutes found in Longwood are often affiliated with Harvard in some way, which extends its long arms to muscle up its medical school. But before that, I'm not sure how so many hospitals founded by different groups grew up in just a few square miles of each other.

And although New York stories team with strangers merrily interacting with each other, they are interesting only in that they seem so incongruous in a city where you most likely will never see your neaighbors and shop clerks rarely look you in the eye. Within my first few hours of living in Boston I had a harmless conversation on a park bench with someone new. Last fall, while shopping for wedding books, the clerk in Borders volunteered that his sister had gone nuts during her wedding planning, affecting their relationship years later. He advised me not to do the same, and a man in the next aisle concurred. A few weeks ago, I walked past an unusual sidewalk sale, where I stopped for a moment and bought a plastic purple necklace and a little toucan doll that lights up its beak when you pull a handle. I chatted with the proprietress. After 20 years in Boston, she said, she was moving out for a change. Maybe San Fran, maybe Europe, maybe Central America. Boston had been a good place for her, she went on, but she felt a need for a new chapter.


Maybe that summarizes what this place is most of all. For those of us coming in from elsewhere, it is where we can safely find our way and meet our people, and leverage these experiences for the next step. But in any case, Boston inspires a peculiar breed of pride found in few other places, apparent both in the locals in the occasional outsider....

Housecleaning

It's spring, so I am cleaning out my draft folder. Below are pictures I snapped when I last visited my friend Andie Andrews, a work colleague from New York I lost touch with up here. The first shot is of a mystical-looking a store window in Brooklyn, then Andie with her new baby, Linden, then a shot of Linden's giant baby foot.

Insideness

The high walls of Harvard Yard. The land embrace of Boston Harbor. No street signs on main roads. It’s difficult to get inside here, whether you are simply trying to make your way in a new part of town or looking to Boston as your top pick for your education. Outsiders are viewed with suspicion, and those on the inside see no reason for getting out.

From the city’s Puritan founding in 1630, inhabitants have tried at all costs to keep their City on a Hill free from unwanted elements of society, which over the years has included merriment, alcohol, taxation without representation, Quakers, and black people outside of their designated parts of town. The spurn of outsiders is still evident today: the wary pity that greets me when I tell a local that I come from New York; the vast employers in education and health care that fill their jobs largely from their own ranks; the numerous well-educated young men who do not even own a passport; the local accent that announces locals’ roots, the absence of which identifies a newcomer.

By and large, this is not a city you come to. How many people the world over dream of someday moving to New York or LA or Paris or even Lagos? The same cannot be said for Boston. Yes, students come here to study at the dozens of colleges and universities in town. But they usually return home. Boston must have a transient population comparable to a seasonal farming town: in addition to students, visiting academics, scientists, doctors, and the occasional artistic type come and go after a few years tops. Friendships can grow during a six year PhD program, for example, but before you know it your new friends are off to their new jobs far away, but maybe you didn’t let yourself get all that close to begin with.

And perhaps that’s a motto for all Massachusetts or even New England citizens: Don’t get too close. It’s cold and I’m bundled in my warmest winter woolies. To get close would be to surrender my armor, to make myself vulnerable. The weather and the odd challenges to physically navigating the city are all part of the barricades surrounding people here. We embrace them for lack of alternatives, and turn inward to our home lives and solitude. The inward-looking tendency is practically institutionalized: in a city of world-class hospitals and universities, you come to examine the inner workings of the mind or the body, but not to interact with your environment.

This feature is especially manifest in the difficulty one encounters when trying to explore much further than one’s own neighborhood. In New York, a Queens girl can have dinner on the Upper West Side and still get home in time for Grey’s. In Boston, a trip of less than a mile can take over an hour, on intermittent bus routes and slow trains. Car travel is just as tiresome. Try parking- anywhere at anytime. Or the frustrating habit of many municipalities of not posting road signs. People throughout the region give directions by landmarks that are not visible where you actually are. As in, “Turn onto Weston Road toward the direction of Wellesley.” Would that be a right or a left?

So without being able to comfortably explore the city, we stay home. And here—at last—I’ll say something nice about insideness. When you can cultivate friendships, that tends to happen in the comfort of home, or of dorm, for the younger set. As opposed to in cramped New York, Sunday suppers and summer cookouts are a reality here, where apartments tend to be spacious enough for small gatherings. But neighborliness is difficult to achieve. Perhaps because of the transient quality of many lives here, neighbors are not quick to befriend each other. With fewer people to connect to than in a larger city, you might think the connections would be deeper. But it can feel twice as lonely here, where there is no cosmopolitan buzz to keep you company.

So we head inside, warming our hands and thoughts over the flames of our deepest ambitions, with which we become achingly familiar as we dream through the winter months. If we are lucky—or local with long routes—we have a loved-one or two to keep us company. For affection can be found and cultivated here, despite the built-in isolation. The smallness and insideness also foster familiarity, and newcomers find ways to weaken the boundaries. A certain permeability exists here that leads to unique stories of connection that would be hard to imagine elsewhere....

Boston analysis

Although the winter sun has long since turned warm and the ice on the Charles has largely thawed, the rainy snow outside today testifies that it is still deep winter in Boston. The cold is one of the elements that gives Boston its character. It keeps you inside – probably affecting the city’s civic life – and where is the New Englander who does not speak with gleeful pride about braving the snowiest winters? On the other hand, it promotes a certain, selective coziness.

To indulge my stunted inner academic, I posit that the coldness of Boston accounts for its three, broadly summarizing characteristics:
1) Insideness,
2) Permeability,
3) Pride.

This week, as we dig our hands deeper into our pockets and bury our faces behind layers of wool, I will take a look at these three elements and discuss how I imagine they came to be, and how they define life in the "Athens on the Charles."

How to lose touch

I'm hell at it. I've come to look at friendship and connecting with people as just another element of our disposable culture. Friends are like shoes. You get them because they're appealing and then you try them out for a while. Some last for ages. Some just don't seem as nice as they did at first. Still others fall apart before you expect them to.

It's terrible, really, to be so cavalier about people. But in a mobile society, where upbringing is in one place, college another, early adult life somewhere else, followed by another move or two, it almost doesn't pay to get too emotionally attached. Your cast of characters will change when your situation changes. If you were able to find an acquintance or two to have for dinner or see a movie with, you'll find them again. And in between, you just have solitude.

I could be better about this. And surely, I've met some lovely people over the years whose friendship I still value, even if it's faded, and who I wish I had back in my life. But I suppose I want my people to be in touch with me more than I bother to be in touch with them. I also can think of numerous examples of people who seemed to want to be my friend, but who then were willing to move on from me.

My first and finest example is a girl named Shannon, who was my daily companion during my first summer of sleep away camp. She was from North (or was it South?) Carolina and made even rainy days bright with her fresh peach lilt. We walked to meals together and hung out in our bunks, even though she lived in a different room. I remember a 'lovers' quarrel once, which we resolved when I decided to stop being a grump. After camp she sent me a lovely letter about her family and life back home. It didn't occur to me to write back.

I've always been lazy. Why put off today what you can put off tomorrow? At the heart of things, I think I secretly enjoy the suffering I cause: both to myself and to others. I want nothing more than to be loved and approved of by everyone I've ever met in my life. And if I can't have that - and who can? - oh the poetry that comes from longing for it. So why not make more?

And nowadays, of course, staying in touch can be an entirely one-sided affair. I'm updating my blog, does that count as staying in touch with you? I'm on Facebook, I have a website, you can find various snippets about me (and my doppelgangers) all over the web. There's the content you need without dealing with pesky human contact. In many ways, it's simply more practical. At the time I knew Shannon, the only way I could ever know anything about her again would be to stay in touch by writing letters. Now, if I could only remember her last name, I could google her and surmise the same details she might write to tell me. I could write her an email and ask for those details, and I could write an email right now to nearly anyone I've ever known. But why? You can't stay in touch with everyone, and sometimes, it's not as worthwhile as you might think. Sometimes I feel people re-establish contact with someone as an excuse to brag about themselves. And if you are motivated to simply rebuild an old bond, you might end up awkwardly trying to revive an acquaintanceship - so where do you work now? and where do you live? - when you could be learning comparable information in the more exciting context of a new friendship that doesn't have any odd historical baggage.

At the same time, I'm a creature who likes closure. If I'm not going to stay in touch with you, I want a good reason why, like a spectacular falling out. In truth, I've rarely ended a friendship on bad terms. They've usually died natural deaths because they were too weak to survive the change of geography, change of routines, or my lack of writing back in a timely way. Though my hat goes off to a few nice "break-ups."

A few years ago, someone re-established contact with me with such nostalgia and youthful fervor I even blogged about it. But his interest faded, his mind changed or something, and he decided he had to get out. After a summer of barely speaking to each other, I gave him a call, basically because I wanted to stay in touch for the sake of staying in touch, . We spoke for 90 seconds before he said that his phone was rapidly running out of juice, and that he couldn't even fix it by plugging it in while we talked. "Bye, Amanda," he said emphatically. Both of us knew never to call back again.

What does mystify me are the good friendships that fizzle, or never even get off the ground. The line is especially blurry with musicians, who I want to befriend for companionship's sake as much as for networking and name competition building. But what of those two singers I invited over who I genuinely want to befriend, who never returned the favor? Or the people I've invited to my wedding who I don't hear from - one old friend didn't even respond to give me her address, so I'm afraid she's off the list. Or that girl who I met randomly who has so much in common with me and was a regular companion for a couple of years, who vanished and won't return phone calls? Did I offend? Did they tire of me? I suppose I enjoy the imagining of those stories, the impossible search for closure. I may not have those friendships for countless reasons, but at least I can feed my imagination by writing their stories myself. I think people just don't have the interest ain investing in relationships that are likely to fade away for one reason or another.

But what I love most of all about losing touch is the romantic notion that the loving energy of a friendship never fully disappears, and may even be healthy and thriving in a parallel universe, or when we see each other again at the celestial get-together, or in our heart's most secret desires. Or in believing that we would always - always - welcome each other into our lives again.

O du Entrißne mir und meinem Kusse,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!
Erreichbar nur meinem Sehnsuchtgruße,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

Du von der Hand der Liebe diesem Herzen
Gegebne, Du von dieser Brust
Genommne mir! Mit diesem Tränengusse
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt.

Zum Trotz der Ferne, die sich feindlich trennend
Hat zwischen mich und dich gestellt;
Dem Neid der Schicksalmächte zum Verdrusse
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

Wie du mir je im schönsten Lenz der Liebe
Mit Gruß und Kuß entgegenkamst,
Mit meiner Seele glühendstem Ergusse,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

Ein Hauch der Liebe tilget Raum und Zeiten,
Ich bin bei dir, du bist bei mir,
Ich halte dich in dieses Arms Umschlusse,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

--Rueckert

Listen to the Schubert song here!

O you, who have been snatched from me and my kiss,
I greet you, I kiss you!
Reached only by my yearning greetings,
you I greet, you I kiss!

You, given by the hand of love to this heart,
you, who from my breast
have been taken! With these flooding tears
I greet you, I kiss you.

Defying the distance that fiendishly separates us
and lies between you and me -
to spite the envious powers of fate,
I greet you, I kiss you!

Just as you always did in the fairest spring-time of love,
coming to greet me with a kiss,
so now, with my soul a glowing flood,
I greet you, I kiss you!

A breath of love erases space and time;
I am with you, you are with me,
I hold you in these arms, embracing you;
I greet you, I kiss you!

Morning Ode

I sing the 47,
Its journeys and its struggles.
I praise the great levi'than,
From Magazine to Ruggles.

We mortals hail its glory,
Elusiveness and greatness,
We marvel at its stature,
Dwarfed only by its lateness.

Mornings you rise with the sun,
Boldly trudging through traffic.
You squeeze your way down Cambridge
Streets, in turns nearly sapphic.

Oft I've heard thy dulcet voice,
As I've lain in bed slumb'ring.
'Wait for me!' I've cried in vain,
As you've passed by me rumbling.

But then, after many long
Waits in the street corner slush,
I treasure the thrills when you've
Screeched, stopped, and knelt with a hush.

Bringing me on board the most
Sacred of moving steeples,
Greeting me with the pungent
Stench of many squashed peoples.

A rock, a jerk, a tumble
And lo! Our destination.
Ye good drivers always drive
With the grace of a boatswain.

And yet you do me harm, I must confess.
Must you only bring me to the office?

And suddenly.....

there was one, and then another.

As if they had been there all along.

Poetic Material du Jour

To the Sparrow Nesting in my Back Porch Eaves

Two panes of frost to look through this morning.
A view of white winter light and last weeks snow,
And one warm brown spot,
Huddling in a nest of human trash.

You're sitting right in the spot where I meant to hang a suet block.

Maybe I'll build a sparrow trap instead.
Then I'll cut a circle from the river,
An icy final nest for you and
Your ugly family.
Or else I may warm my hands around your neck.

I want my suet to feed the song of the wren or the thrush,
Or the red head of the woodpecker or barn swallow.
You were never invited!
Where are your cousins with the white throats and gold crowns?

We hold each other's gaze through the frost.
Is your tail long enough to be a mourning dove?
Is your breast the grey buff of a Brewer's sparrow?
Are you the right one to eliminate or not?

I will wait till spring to remove your eggs from my porch.
Then I'll have better birds, or no birds at all.

Stop staring at me!
Do you blame me for missing
feeee odi odi zeeee zaaaa zooo and
Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody?

Home alone with Mark Bittman

So here we are again. Just the two of us, in this cramped, stifling, but spotless kitchen. We both know the routine. You, the master, I, the acolyte, pouring over your teachings and treatises, studying your every gesture, every syllable, every bite. My pillow: your big yellow book. My blanket: your big green book. My celestial home, my home page, my fount of all truths: your blog.

The steak browns. Not too soon with the soy sauce, you say, lest it steam. So true. I gasp with recognition, stunned to admit that once again you know how to guide me, to uplift my own nourishment. I feel your hand lightly on my wrist as we fluff the rice with a fork. Together. And the vegetable? I can sense you asking me. I wait. Inspiration will come. Not from me but through you, the vessel, the portal. Aha! I gasp yet again. I would never have thought of that on my own. Microwaved, simmered, or steamed broccoli it is!

It isn’t always good times, I understand that. I must learn, and it is a difficult path. Away! You say, with a sneering glance at my ancient spice cabinet. Out! You snarl, as you toss my boxed panko. Useless, comes your final mutter, and I dissolve in a puddle of tears, falling like so many dried parsley flakes.

I shall try again, better this time, I promise. Behold my freezer full of vegetable scraps and chicken bones, just waiting for a glorious weekend afternoon of stock making! Look, I no longer buy bread, but piles of yeast packets and flour, knowing that at some point you will teach me to bake my own! And I have used the occasion of my marriage to ask for a juicer and an ice cream maker, hoping to experience the “revelation” (page 8 of Big Yellow) of apple sorbet made with fresh-squeezed juice.

I consider with pleasure the beauties you have shown me. The Old-fashioned Baked Custard (p. 656) in that coy bain-marie. Those shape-shifting, pungent, enigmatic Crispy Pork Bits (p. 461). The wonders of fish sauce.

But oh, such treachery! Teacher, why have you forsaken me? Roast a chicken at 325°?? Make rice pudding with pre-cooked rice?? But how can it be, when Joy, and Julia, and Mother all counsel otherwise?

I eat in silent meditation, waiting for the answer, sensing your presence. There are many paths, I just know you would tell me, we all seek our own experience of Divine Carmelization. You too shall attain it in time. Patience, my child. And just trust the damn recipes.

Weekday Nights! Weekday Nights!
Were I with thee,
My Meals would be
A luxury!

Futile the herbs
To a chicken in port, --
Done with the noodles,
Done with the chard!

Kneading and Eating!
Ah! the ghee!
Might I but dine
To-night with Thee?

N.B. Really, this is satire! I don't intend to seek any contact with Mr. Bittman, and I respect his work. But judging by the comments posted on each and every Bittman NYT article, a lot of us seem to have developed our own personal relationship with him, whether he knows it or not!