Space

As a drama teacher this summer, I taught – and learned – how everything around us affects the character of the space we occupy.  A basic theater game involves mirroring a partner’s hands, working in tandem to agree without words on how to shape the space.  Is it thick? Heavy?  Slippery?  Only after mastering this can an actor move on to shaping the space around them in a way that communicates emotions.  If two people are having a fight, how can we tell that just by looking at them?  They use their bodies to change the shape around them, giving it hard edges, electricity, and violence.  The study of acting includes not just how you twist your face or deliver your words, but your awareness of the entire space around you.

Designers of sets, cars, clothes, and most anything else keep these ideas in mind.  Angular is masculine, tough, and ominous.  Curvy is feminine, kind, and comforting.  That’s why the inside of an SUV is as inviting as your mother’s lap, and women’s suits in the 80s conveyed a bulky strength that women didn’t have before.

Since we arrived in New York in early September, hurricane season filling the space with humidity you could slice, I’ve been very aware of how the space has been carved by us, and how we shape it as well.  All these angular buildings and endless flat stretches of pavement – how strange it is to be an animal in this sort of space!  In most cities you have a sense of the features of the land.  Not just a hill or two, but more trees, grass that’s been there for a while, a guess at how water comes in and goes out on its own.  It’s hard to imagine that this town has ever been natural, hard to even guess what it might have looked like as an untouched island, with a soft shoreline and marshes.  When the space is hard around us, it is no longer part of who we are, receptive to our movements and our soft bodies.  The square buildings cut the space into hard-edged blocks that move as we move around them, cutting into us sometimes.  I think this is why we feel either exhausted by being here or energized, as we rally ourselves against the unnatural.

In addition to a constant awareness of the quality of space in New York one can’t help but notice the lack of it.  Parking is difficult, sidewalks are crowded, subways are packed, the job market is competitive, and you can’t get a reservation in a restaurant.  I am delighted to come home and close myself in a room, feeling my own space at last, even if it’s just a rental.  And parking depressed me so much on my first try, as I searched for half an hour, always just missing an opening, endlessly hunting for my spot in the world, or at least on the block.  But oh the thrill of finding your very own space, safe and sound and just right, even if it’s out in the public where everyone can see.

New Project

Well hi. Nice to see you remember me, old blog. Thought you might not recognize my password there, that you'd vanished into my memory, taking with you our good times and my best intentions. I'm sneaking up on you in the middle of the night, hoping that my post-performance energy might carry over to this most personal performance, the act of writing, for an audience of one, the toughest crowd I'll ever play to.

I am a writer who does not write. Recently, I practiced being a singer who does not sing. These are ways of being I cannot stand for very long. However vain, however ignoble, I have devoted myself to music, and that is what I simply have to do. Even if my talents have their limits (but doesn't everybody's?), or even if what I have to offer only appeals to a few. We all have our lights to shine. If this isn't mine, what is?

But then there's writing. Why on earth pursue another non-paying artistic passion? In my case, it's a way to confront fears. Fear of failure every time I try to write something new, or making a story as perfect as it's going to be. Fear of failing right this very minute to bring a sentence to a fullfilling close. Sitting down to write, without quite knowing what will happen, is a glimpse into the work of a sculptor, revealing the figure within a stone. It's another way to perform. Earning smiles of excitement in a writing class or feeling the energy of a page bring something new out of me is as exhilirating as anything I'll do in public. And if I don't write, I only confirm that my fears were right all along, that I'm better off failing before I even try. But surely, anything is better than making your fears your reality.

So here's a new idea. In the year or so since I last dropped a post on this blog I've built up my courage to create fiction, I've published one and written several satisfying personal essays, and even became something of a regular contributor to a music magazine. But I'm a dabbler. I hereby make a new plan: I will publish one post a week about my yearlong stay in New York. I am happily returning to my home city for my new husband's new job, which is giving me the chance to try some new career moves, take a new perspective on what I can offer the world, and generally think and act about what I want to be when I grow up. I will write charming accounts of life in our cozy neighborhood. I will share the stresses and joys of big city life.

But I also will write about where art figures into it all, here in the digital age. This past year, I have returned to regular reading, and I've been so happy getting to know fictional characters that I've nearly neglected the real one's in my own life. But what a joy. As I read I will share my favorite - and least favorite - moments as I come across them, and keep track of my progress through literary history. I might also throw in tantalizing bits about the second year of my marriage.

But first, time for bed. I'm not even in New York right now. Not even in Boston, the town I left. I'm in cold and sunny Maine, singing concerts and feeling like royalty. I'm not a superstar, I never will be. But I shared beautiful music with a few people tonight. I was happier for it, and I think they were too.

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!

Two Messiahs

For two years running, I've been asked to perform the alto arias from the Messiah at local holiday concerts. In both cases, I was a very last minute replacement for another singer, but that is where the similariites between the experiences end. Below are memories from each concert, in no particular order.

2007: Lexington Choral Society Messiah Sing
Lexington, Lexington, is that west?
Mass Ave is also Rte. 2A.
"No there's no rehearsal, we'll just talk about the tempos before we go on."
"I'm pleased to introduce our Messiah this evening, who saved this performance!"
A wave of ruddy bobbing heads: For unto us a child is bo-ho-ho-ho-ho
This one's for the altos in the balcony: and the glory of the lord is risen upon thee!
Is my parking spot legal?
Pink lipstick. Blonde hair. Soprano. Perfect.
The conductor is behind me.
Overheard from the bassoon section: "Last time I played was last year!"
Apple juice at intermission.
Families in Sunday best on a Wednesday night.
Scores for rent or you can bring your own.
He was despised. Then a long time to try not to make eye contact with the audience.
Holiday sweaters, white hair, yellow hair, old, cold, New England stock.
Hallelujah! What? Hallelujah! Oh. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For me? Please, no need to stand!
Snowboots over stockings.
Where did I park?
Smile. "Oh, you were one of the soloists, you were very good!"

2008: Iglesia Adventista del Septimo Dia Hispana de Boston Holiday Concert
Presenta la soloista, Amanda Keil.
Google maps is no good in Dorchester.
Gimme that old time religion on the video screen.
But who prefers speaking English here? And big tent revival music?
Um, when are we starting?
Um, where is the crowd?
Prayers in Spanish.
White men can't Latino.
Damp snow everywhere, yet oh my chords do shrink.
Big basin front and center for baptisms.
Plaque on a door: Oficina de las Conquistadores.
Puffy jackets and blank stares. Is anyone enjoying this, least of all me?
He was despised B section gets some heads banging.
Joy to the world? Al mundo paz. Silent night? Noche de paz.
Hallelujah chorus? Just look to the video screen: Alleluyah, alleluyah, alleluyah, alleluyah, etc.
Wait who's singing? Oh, there's la soloista and a chino, reading from the score.
Thank you and buenos nachos.
Our car is blocked in. El deacon is on it!
"Gracias!" "Um, no proble..."
Brown eyes and smiles, do I know these people?
Feliz Navidad!
"Amanda, Amanda! You were very good!"

GOTV Memories

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Therefore, it is right and moot for the people to transport themselves into the geographies where the other people live who will decide the dissolution of those political bands, and declare to them the reasons why they are behooved to make that change, and make sure they get to the voting booth.


And so, as self-respecting blue-state residents, we picked ourselves up and brought ourselves to a place where votes count more, and a swing in the wrong direction could mean unthinkable disaster. Even though New Hampshire was showing a 10-point lead for our guy, I chose it as "my" swing state to try to keep blue, if only because it was close by and we've been there a few times. I also made a bunch of calls this election season, mostly to our neighbors in NH, but also to Indiana and North Carolina. What can I say, it couldn't have hurt!


But the day before the election Michael and I piled into the car for our fourth trip up north this year, passing the White Mountains (where we got engaged!) to come to Berlin, in Coos County. The storefront campaign office was easy to find along the sad little downtown, past a humble J.C. Penney and across from the shuttered John Edwards campaign office. (You'd think the DNC would have cleaned that up!) The hq was in a recently-closed medical supply store, still complete with signs on the wall for "IVs Here" and "Folding Beds."


Berlin, (pronounced BURR-lin) a town of about 10,000 mostly aged white people, is the last large 'city' before the Canadian border. Miles away from the interstate off the winding state highway, it's a wonder that anyone ever thought to settle there. It looks like the set of a Michael Moore movie, and pretty much defines the word 'dump.' Houses for sale, crumbling roads, shuttered store fronts, closed paper mills: the works. If you were living here, wouldn't you want a change? Even if you wanted to work in McDonald's, you'd have to go to the next town over. Applications are available at http://www.mcnewhampshire.com/. The biggest employer in Berlin is the hospital, and the only growth industry has been prisons, which makes you wonder if such a high proportion of Americans are in jail in order to keep towns like this afloat.

Well, unbelievably, some people still hadn't made up their minds. But even though there was not a local minority in sight, race was never overtly mentioned. (Perhaps due to the successful busing program in the 70's, bringing black bears into the White Mountains.) It seemed more that some people were at the end of their ropes, and didn't think either candidate could find them a job or help them keep their homes.

I'm thinking of the portly family man who answered his door at 4 in the afternoon, and volunteered that the North Country "sucks," but couldn't express enthusiasm for either candidate. Or the man on his bicycle, who called to us from down the street: "Hey, you want to come talk to me!" And he told us he was out of work, had two kids in college, and was trying to sell his home because it was too expensive to live there. As it got darker, he slunk off to heat his home with firewood, as oil is also too expensive. He did not express support for Obama.

There were also quirks to observe, at least in exterior home deco, as charted below. A big impression was the amount and types of trash on the lawns of the shabbier houses: winter tires, old stoves, all imaginable types of packaging, unidentifiable industrial cast-offs. I noticed a couple of times a sort of outdoor glass curio closet, built into the home or freestanding, filled with tchotchkeys. Most households had a dog or two, and the campaign gave us little baggies of doggy biscuits to endear ourselves to their voting masters. Hunting is a big pastime in the woods, and you wonder how much they rely on it for food. In front of one well-to-do looking house was a pile of plastic duck floats. In front of a more humble structure, a couple of freshly-killed ducks.

My big impression was that people could tell instantly that we were not from "these parts," as they reminded us over and over again. Was it my haircut, which is not a mullet? My non-puffy winter coat? Or the fact that we weren't covered in paint splatters or dirt? There are lots of people in the service industries up here: there are still trees to cut down, and even dying towns need the occasional renovation. I have to admit, my outsider feeling surprised me. In the end, I was coming to their town to have an outcome on how they voted, and it made me self-conscious.

Although, living in a swing state, New Hampshire residents are used to being bombarded. One man on the phone said he'd been called so many times, he was thinking of changing his vote for the other side. One man's answering machine said: "My name is Walter Mainguy and I approve this message." After we knocked twice on someone's door, we scuttled away after he yelled "Beat it!"

But some people were receptive. Maybe it was the novelty of an outsider on their doorstep, and one of them a minority at that. I would give anything to know the results of one "voter contact," as it's called in the biz. An older man with terrible teeth stepped out of his neat home on a hill, extending his hand and closing the door behind him before he even knew which side we were for. He told us plainly that he had heard all the information from both sides, there was nothing we could say that would give him anything new, and he would only make his decision in the booth. His dilemma? He does not support abortion. I gave him the story I developed when I was calling voters, that that had been a dilemma for me too, but I had changed my mind because Republicans hadn't reduced the number of abortions in America, and Obama expressed support of reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. We wrapped up by chatting about pipes and tobacco, hoping he would have a personal connection to influence him as he was making his decision in the voting booth the next day.

But small moments of connection were washed away by the experience of standing next to Republican partisans outside a polling place on election day. It was gorgeously sunny and warm, which always helps turnout. Although we were told we were in a very Democratic area, there were no local dems to stand by the polls holding candidates' signs, the visibility element that is part of election day strategy. (But would someone really forget the name of the candidate unless they saw someone holding a sign by the polling place?) But the Republicans were there: a chirpy woman with short brown hair who seemed to know every single voter walking up, and a bearded, gnarled, opinionated older man who clutched a plastic McCain sign, sometimes draping it over his ample gut, sometimes over his pubis.

Small talk was awkward. We were obviously outsiders, they were obviously locals. There was no way we would change their minds that day, yet we felt an eagerness to talk, to debate, and try to understand where they were coming from. The man ("If ya called me Grizzly Adams," I'd consider it an honor!) volunteered that he got his political information from Youtube, and carried an NRA talking point wallet card. Michael asked why he supported his side, and he had a few clear-cut issues: Obama was going to take away his guns and he thought his tax cut plans amounted to welfare, and he didn't want welfare. What can you say? He wasn't interested in hearing our point of view. He ogled my rear end when I walked to the car to get a snack, and as I returned, looked me in the eye and thanked me for coming out to vote today.

Meanwhile, chirpy chatted with everyone, making us feel that they all would vote for her side. "It's good to know people," she smirked. From my perspective now, I'm so glad she made the polling place so welcoming to the people who were evidently coming to vote democratic. Only the occasional school kid gave us the thumbs up.

Eventually, out walked a man from central casting: long greasy hair, weathered skin, NRA t-shirt. He brought with him a beautiful green parrot, which he showed to his Republican friends. "He likes to eat chili, jalapenos, cheese," he explained. Grizzly kept chatting with us, discovered that we were from NYC and Cambridge Mass (could it be any worse?), and called us "Flatlanders." I played it up, saying how much nicer this place would be if there were a nice Starbucks up there. Sarcasm didn't work with that crowd. When we finally left the polls, NRA man looked astonished when I shook his hand and complimented his bird. "It's been, um interesting talking to you," scoffed chirpy. They sassed as we walked away, grumbling something to the effect of don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. I whimpered. Oh how I wished I had turned my head and told them "Now don't be sore, LOSERS!"

The experience tinged my view of the other side. Since 2004, I wanted to speak to people just like this, find our common ground and air our differences and, ultimately, empower them to decide for themselves that it is the Democratic party that has their better interests. (That's free and fair, isn't it?) After 3 hours by the polls my feelings changed. I just wanted them to lose.

Back at HQ, phone-banking was going on non-stop. And smalltown politics has a smalltown feel. I phone-banked next to a state senate candidate, and stood next to her adult daughter at the polling place the next day. The daughter of another candidate relieved her post after a while.

We were surprised by the number of French or Acadian inflected names we saw on the canvassing roles: Sanschagrin, Couture, Mainguy, and my favorite, Napoleon Rheaume. Talking with one women on the phone, her lilt was heard when she discussed her favored senate candidate: Sununu (accent on the first syllable, slight umlaut on all). Sununu is a Lebanese name, interestingly, like Shaheen, the name of the candidate who won.

The downtown, where the paper mills sit by the dammed lake.

Many churches have closed or consolidated.


Cracked pavement, but oh the sunshine and the view!

Next to the Andrew Carnegie Library.

You see many front porches up there. Note the star and the satelites.

The ubiquitous star seen on many houses, along with some autumn kitsch.

I often noticed this type of closed-in porch along the side or back of the house. It was often the best way to reach people, as the door was closer to their driveways. We stepped through winter storage and trash, and porches reeking of cigarettes.

The competition.

Logging trucks with cargo.

And there he was, right in the Berlin HQ!

Phonebanking.

Look who's here!

Obamadog!

Mama Africa comes home

I'm still in euphoric disbelief from the results of our election, and even more encouraged because our guy is doing exactly everything that I'd like him to do. But today I heard the news that Miriam Makeba died, whose work I discovered while dancing for hours to the Pata Pata song in Quaker youth camp. Little did we know she was a political activist, using her voice to sing out against apartheid while she lived in exile from South Africa.

Sing and dance along to the Pata Pata song!

A wonderful life, and an even more amazing death. She collapsed right after a performance in Naples. Who wouldn't want to go like that?

Amandla!