Eeyore Finds His Tail (in a most unexpected place)

If you ever find yourself wondering: where does confidence live? then let me tell you about the power of trying on dresses you can't afford. This does not, I'll grant you, sound very much like the sort of thing to restore cheer. After all, it can be just as crazy-making to realize that you can't even buy the things in a place that are on sale. But yesterday, after I'd spent the better part of the morning lashing out at everybody who tried to talk to me and then more or less the entire afternoon sulking, I put together a formula: two full meals + an hour spent in Anthropologie trying on everything I want regardless of how expensive it is, twirling in front of the big mirrors in the dressing room despite the fact that someone might be watching + the purchase of an absurdly colorful new coat + time spent wandering the aisles of a bookshop = restored faith.

It isn't always as easy as all that. But it should be. And sometimes, with the help of people who care, it is.

One dress, a silk patterned with reddish flowers and a lovely brown ribbon round the waist, caught my particular fancy. Even the woman sitting on the couch waiting for her daughter to emerge from a fitting room said it suited me. I didn't buy it (in a classic case of relative-poverty-of-youth, I couldn't afford both it and my new coat, but I'm about to embark on an expensive trans-atlantic adventure with my shiny new macbook) but I did feel infinitely better about myself in it.

Then I twirled around in a garishly red little dress, admiring it and its slouchy pockets. "It's lovely, but I don't think we live far enough into the country for that to work," Xander finally told me. "I mean if we lived somewhere where you could go running around barefoot. But we don't, we live on Hurst Street." I pictured myself flouncing around East Oxford with no shoes, or perhaps in green wellington boots up to my knees, and was inclined to agree with him. I am unfailingly charmed by "the country" (as evidenced by today, when I chose not to go in to town but to stay wrapped up in cashmere sweaters and wool blankets typing and watching the wilderness outside try to decide if it is going to be wet and cold, or merely damp and cold) but do not, at present, live in it.

And this has been at the crux of my fashion struggle for some years now: balancing one’s lifestyle with one’s fancies. I fancy the red country dress, but as Xander wisely pointed out, it does not fit my present lifestyle. I am too inclined to acquiesce to desires, and to ignore entirely the circumstances under which I get dressed every morning. My fervent hope is that as I get older (and wiser, so they say) I shall also learn better to balance these things, and so look less foolish when I step out the door. In the meantime I have my “eeyore has fond his tail” coat—blue, with bright flowers stitched on and shell-like buttons—to remind me not to get so insufferably teenagy whenever I feel the cloud of a bad mood settling over me.

If You Give Me a Blanket, I Will Sleep Here All Night (Thoughts of Houses)

Since I’ve been in California (the first time I’ve been back since March of this year, when I spent a few early-spring days soaking up as much thin warmth as I could before returning to Boston) I’ve adopted a new ritual, one which I seem to have absolutely no control over. It is almost as if some sort of timepiece has crawled its way into my consciousness, embedded in thoughts and dreams—for the instant the digital clock on the oven hits 9 PM, my body drapes itself wearily upon the couch, my eyes hover half-open for a moment before shutting fast, and my breath becomes sleepy.

Last night I caught the household milling around me, wisps of conversation floating into half-attentive ears: “she’s asleep,” “what are we going to do about her?” “do you think she wants a blanket?” No, I thought, I do not want a blanket. If you give me a blanket, I will sleep here all night, and wake up with the buttons of my jeans pressed into my skin and my arm numb from all my weight crushing against it. I think what came out of my mouth, however, and in the form of a feeble mumble, was, “mmmm num num.”

In the morning, we awake drenched in hot sunlight. The two comforters my mother has kindly placed on the guest bed seem excessive and I throw them off dramatically, leaving my skin to soak up bright yellow lines of sunshine. It is rarely any later than 8:30, and we find we cannot find sleep again, so we get up. We have breakfast. We marvel at the morning.

It’s something to do with the light, of course. But also to do with the stillness outside. When nature itself seems to be sleeping, curled in on itself, the hills lying flat, black silhouettes on a navy sky, no artificial light but a small stream from the house spilling onto the silver line of driveway, it takes all my will to convince my body that it, despite all of the world’s cues, should stay bright and awake.

Part of me feels this is the right way to be: attuned to the rhythms of something greater than oneself; lying and rising to moonlight and sunlight. Another part of me craves the proximity of a city. I think of Oxford, where I’ll soon be, and how refreshing it is to be within walking distance of one’s friends, to have the glow of streetlights to guide you home late at night. I find I cannot reconcile these duel desires except to console myself that each belongs to me, in some way (or I belong to each, perhaps more accurately); that each draws me and repels me with equal force, and that no-one except myself would ever demand that I make a permanent choice about lifestyle when I am still so young. And so I free myself.

This afternoon, inspired by bright skies and dramatic clouds, we drove down Santa Rosa road for tea with the Cadwells. Their house from the outside blends into the countryside: a simple, one-story cottage, with a tiled roof and vines climbing up its sides. Inside it looks like something concocted in a Bohemian reverie: dark wood with cracks and character, bright teal walls in the kitchen, peach colored ones in the office, and yellow ones in the lounge, tablecloths with flowers and patterns that only someone high could come up with, but anyone can appreciate. There are papers strewn about and wildly imaginative artwork displayed above a creaky piano that has been out of tune since I first met the Cadwells, about twelve years ago. We sat at the dining table and drank tea from delicate cups with saucers and ate lots of things with sugar (mini macaroons, honey-filled biscuits, English Christmas pudding that Xander carried all the way from Britain), alongside English Stilton cheese with persimmons and walnuts.

Meanwhile, Clara’s baby, nine months old and dressed in a striped jumpsuit, crawled his way around the table and bounced happily from open arms to open arms, deigning to crack a smile only on rare occasions but mostly looking slightly disgusted with the gluttony of the adults. Once he tried to feed Olive a slice of persimmon; she took it willingly in her teeth before he suddenly yanked it back, as if he had decided at the last moment that in fact she would not do, this silly aunt of his: not worthy of persimmon slices, not worthy of his efforts. Olive, collapsed in giggles, ruffled his hair and he snuggled deeper into her lap. Outside, the light was trying to turn to dusk but only half its heart was in it: the brightness lingered, settling over the horizon, shooting down over the fields below.

We decided to make an attempt at wine-tasting further down the road. We arrived just as they were closing up the tasting room at Sanford, but very kindly, we were served anyway, and I learned to properly swish the wine round my glass (something I’d only partially mastered before), and that, according to Xander, you get the strongest taste by making silly sucking noises through your teeth (the air does something to the wine, allegedly). We watched the sun simper down towards the horizon, hesitating, shooting glorious rays our way, coyly hiding behind bare tree branches, teasing, taunting, until a fuzzy grey darkness finally covered us.
On the way back we looked at real estate ads in local papers: this one’s just $24 million, and look! A bargain at $15 million.

Earlier I had been caught up in thoughts of how I wanted a house like the Cadwells’—shabby but warm, with the smell of a wood fire in winter and the french windows opened wide in summer. Now all I thought was: how do people in the modern world afford to make a home of their own? Whilst I ponder that, I shall work out how to cover my $100+ electricity bill—the product of the first month of a Boston winter, and quite a change from my September bill, which was only $12 (I am reminded yet again to be thankful that I no longer live there). The bar graph on the bill looks like an error, but it isn’t—it’s just a map of the jump between seasons.

Now we are home, and it is 7:30, and one suspects that as the clock strikes 9 I will again become hopelessly sleepy.

Taking Care

We decorated the tree last night.  The process was eminently enlightening.  We discovered that certain ornaments are creepy (a wooden cat with a string you pull to make his legs splay open, for example); certain ones are too partisan (an elephant was relegated to the box, whilst a donkey was allowed to swing free on the branches.  my mother has steadfastly refused to display the special edition white house ornaments we get each year from a lobbyist my father knows.  "not while he's in office," she says).  Xander is partial, I've discovered, to old-fashioned looking ornaments: simple, wood, Christmas-y.  I seem to be partial to animals and flamboyantly colored, almost garish representations of things like musical instruments that have very little to do with Christmas, really.  I spent a good deal of the evening worrying that he would find our tree--a rainbow assortment of bicycles and baubles, and creatures and angels, with its colored lights and ramshackle stand--too camp, too California, having strayed too far from the Christmas ideal.  He, I think, spent most of the evening worrying that my family now thinks he's very bizarre (he is, but not a one of us is in any position to judge).

The result of his careful arranging, and our wrestling with the tree to get it into the stand, is actually  very pleasing--the result, I suspect, of our both having been in charge of Christmas in our respective houses for so long.  The tree is just the right balance of tradition and unabashed flamboyance--California meets Charles Dickens, or something.  The ultimate Christmas compromise, and it works very well, as it turns out.

I am now sitting watching how the tree handles the daylight: have you ever seen a fully dressed Christmas tree in California sunlight?  It looks utterly out of place, no matter the season.  But I may as well not be in California at the moment, for I am on the couch, and Xander is talking to relatives in Oxford whose voices I can hear, and the house phone has just rung, and someone from another part of the state is on the line.  We are inundated with communication, and wildly, absurdly global, it seems.  The world shrinks and then expands at our whims: we are in the remotest spot, where cell phones do not work and radio crackles gently, but we have technology at our command, and can close ourselves off to the outside, or open up to it, at the tap of a key.

And then there's our Christmas tree, with its motley array of ornaments, a product of compulsiveness and--perhaps a better word here--care.  Yesterday we had a lovely lunch at Chef's Touch in Solvang (a respite from the faux-danish-ness); panini-pressed sandwiches followed by a persimmon pudding.  We overheard the chef discussing the pudding: his Grandmother's recipe, he said, and, when we inquired after it, also "what sealed the deal with my wife".  We had to have some--not only to see what such a powerful pudding in the flesh, but also because, you have to admit, "persimmon pudding" sounds wonderfully poetic--almost erotic, the sort of food I imagine Greek gods and goddesses licked from each other's fingers whist draped in swathes of golden fabric and ivory robes.  

The pudding was indescribably delicious (the gods would not have been disappointed, I assure you), but what was equally delicious was the care the chef seemed to be putting into his work.  I don't just mean putting into his food, either, though clearly there was that: I mean also the way he interacted with his customers (just the two of us and a middle-aged man with a beer and a sandwich), the way he prided himself on the persimmon pudding, the way he cheerfully gave us our portion "compliments of the chef" and invited us to the open house later ("we've got to dress the tree," we said.  "oh, screw the tree!" he cried.  "no, we're not going to do that," Xander said back.  "it would be very prickly."); the way I felt, after having eaten, sated both in spirit and body, as if I was part of something, a good something, and it was completing me, and I was completing it.

So when we came home and decorated our little tree, each of us bringing the expertise of years and the prejudice of place, and reached a tidy balance (example: we've never had white lights on a tree before, but this year, they hang alongside the colorful ones), you could call us compulsive, or downright weird (and you'd be right, on a superficial level).  Still, I'm inclined to think it's necessary care: what is the point of doing something, especially something symbolic, or something important, or something that earns you a living, or something that holds weight and meaning, if you don't take care?

Moving Weather

I am sitting and watching the rain (yes the rain, and not, mark you, the SNOW, or the ICE, or some unimaginably horrific combination of the two).  The deck is shiny with water and there are cactuses lining the wall, and the hills in the distance (shrouded in fog) meet at a point in the middle, where, if it weren't quite so misty out, you could see a sliver of the Pacific Ocean.

It is warm, and pleasant, and when I go outside, it does not hurt to breathe with cold.  In case you were wondering, it should not hurt to breathe when you go outside.  

We had the most fabulously bizarre last few days in Boston.  First of all, IT SHOULD NOT TAKE THREE HOURS TO GET A CAB IN A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY.  Second of all, IT SHOULD NOT TAKE THREE HOURS TO GET A CAB IN A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY.  And third of all, IT SHOULD NOT TAKE...etc.

You see, all we needed was three cabs: one to take us to the post office, so that I could mail a variety of boxes to California and the UK; one to take us to the Salvation Army, where I could drop off everything that didn't make the cut; and one to take us to a kind friend's apartment, so we could have somewhere to store our luggage after moving out of the apartment.  

It should have been simple, but actually, what ended up happening was this: we called a cab at 11:45 AM. It came at 3 PM, said cab arrived, and we took it to the Post Office, where we spent an hour with the world's most surly and unhelpful agent ("the return addresses goes HERE.  have you ever gotten a letter in the mail?").  I then went to take my last university exam EVER (it involved labeling articles of clothing from 20th century American fashion: for instance, a picture of underpants: "jockey shorts"; a very silly looking haircut: "mullet"; etc.).  While I was test-taking, X called for a cab to go to the Salvation Army.  I arrived home at about 5, and it still hadn't come.  Well, fine.  Roundabout 7:30, it still hadn't showed up.  ????!?!?!?!?!?!?!  Not fine.

We waded through snow and ice at 4 AM because none of the cab companies were even picking up their phones anymore ("oh, it's miranda?  quick, don't answer!").  

"I don't know how you're meant to function here, unless you have a car," X astutely observed.

"I don't either," I agreed--then added something to the effect of, "but I also don't know how you're meant to function here with a car, given the lack of parking."  Then I stepped in snow up to my knee and my suitcase slipped on some ice and I worked myself up into a royal huff that has only recently subsided, with the aid of a shower, some food, and about twelve hours of heavy sleep.  

However, we are here, and it is wonderful, and I am done done with school--well, with university, at least.  Assuming I labelled all the underwear and hairstyles correctly on that exam.........

Boston seems to have chosen my last few days there to play the role of cruelest city--which is a shame, because I know it has a soft underbelly, a kind face, which it shows at admittedly rare moments in winter, but which it generally allows one to see at least a hint of.  I left it and felt nothing but grateful to be out; and having spent four years there, I'm sure there are things I will miss, but all in all, I have the sense that I am glad I lived there for awhile (whilst young and limber--all that slipping and sliding and falling on one's back would take a toll on an older body), and equally glad that it is not to be a place of permanent residence for me.  I kept telling X, "we'll come back in May, and I'll show you around then," and telling myself, "you'll remember why you liked this city then."  It was moving weather: horrible, mean-spirited, testing body and soul, asking you with each droplet of snow, each patch of dark ice: "what are you willing to do for the sake of a deadline?"

It is a strange thing, to be done with one phase and not yet on to the next.  I can't say I'm not enjoying it either--and am looking forward, with extreme pleasure and excitement, to my imminent move to Britain.  Until then, I suspect we shall go for lots of walks on the ranch, drink lots and lots of tea and coffee, and probably do our best to read through all the books on my shelf before New Years.  Wish us luck.

addendum

my knee now hurts from the run.

A Simple Truth That Never Quite Sinks In...

I am done with my thesis! Yes--all done. 100 pages done.

I wish I could say that at the moment I finished, there was fanfare and champagne, but actually what I did was go for a run in the cold and come home and do some more work. Then I woke up this morning and slipped on some ice on the way to work and fell flat on my back (sounded like a sack of bricks...), took three wavering steps, slipped again, made it to the end of the road, fell again, got all the way to the train station and into Cambridge, then slid my way to the office building.

Moral? Writing a 100 page thesis on the use of narrative structure to convey political messages doesn't make you any more graceful. Like the time I turned four and thought I would just wake up and be able to draw a heart (this was a huge ambition of mine as a kid), and found out that actually, just because you're older, doesn't mean you don't still have to learn.

Turns out that's still true.

Where Do Days Go?

About eight years ago my parents took me to England. It was my first time out of the country, and even if I had been in charge of our destination (to be honest, I might have been, I can't remember) I couldn't have imagined a more perfect place to go. I had just graduated from eighth grade (I say "graduated" as if it signified something more than the simple slipping by of time, but the way some of my colleagues dressed, in pastel taffeta gowns, long as prom dresses, with bows and ribbons and flowers, it might as well have. My best friend and I each wore simple knee-length summer frocks and looked terribly understated; unfortunately mine had an open back, and I didn't wear a bra--something I didn't think would be a problem when I got dressed and shrugged a nice black cardigan on to cut the chill from the morning fog, but something which, by day's end, I was terribly uncomfortable about, as evidenced by the photographs of my classmates and I on the school deck, everyone holding flowers, arms round each other, except me, with my arms crossed firmly across my chest).

I had a passport, with a very unfortunate photograph (a rite of passage, that first "deer in the headlights" identification photo). We had bought new luggage. It was a two-week trip and in my mind that seemed to be a forever-long trip. I was thrilled to my very core; sleepless with excitement. I read guidebooks until my thumbs were raw and the ink had bled from the pages, and then I simply dove into my Agatha Christies and my Exxon-Mobil Masterpiece Theater programs (does anyone else think the marriage of an oil company with some of Western culture's greatest stories is a very odd one?).

London was dizzy (I say that about every city I visit; perhaps I am not someone who can settle down in a city, and the phrase says more about my own character than about the character of the place). My parents had not been in England for 15 years, when they had toured Wales by bike or something appropriately young-couple-ish. They had loved Wales, so we went back, at the end of our own trip, after London (Churchill's War Rooms and the clutter of Oxford Street, Notting Hill and the flea market where I could have spent all my money, if I'd been allowed, walking through Hyde Park with my father and taking a rowboat out on the pond), Bath (the best hotel room I have ever stayed in, and one of the best travel meals: fresh baked bread, cheese, fruit, Schweppe's Bitter Lemon, and chocolate eaten half-naked under a fluffy down blanket at dusk), a charming town called Dunster where my mother managed to lock my father and I into our hotel room (accidentally, I hasten to add) while she jaunted around the village, exploring antique shops and tearooms blithely whilst Dad and I wondered if we would have to jump out of the window to escape, and Cornwall, where I ate pasties of all different ilks (a curry-flavored one proved particularly delicious) and marveled at how a landscape that, in its strictest geographic sense, I was familiar with (a coastline was where I had grown up, after all), could seem so wild and different from anything else I had ever known.

We drove through the Cheddar Gorge; we rode an old steam train to a crumbling abbey and had some fellow-tourists photograph us standing beside the stone skeleton. We went to the British Museum where I saw the Rosetta Stone and then got grumpy because I was hungry; we went for many and long walks with food in our backpacks and no particular destination, and laughed a lot--once so hard I fell over, and a pair of stone-faced sleek-haired Euro backpackers narrowed their eyes (I would say wrinkled their noses, but I don't think skin that tight can wrinkle) at the crazy laughing family. I doubt they could tell where we were from--no discernable words, after all, were coming from our gaping mouths, just gasps and giggles--but I'm sure they figured we'd been let out of a madhouse in whatever country had once housed us. We ate carryout Indian food in inns and hotels all across the United Kingdom; I was always afraid this was against the rules, and that the proprietors, who were always very kindly when we showed up on their doorsteps, would find out, kick us out, and then warn all the other kindly innkeepers not to let us inside, but this never happened, and we had many a great meal sprawled out on the floor. There were always leftovers that my mom thought we could have for lunch the next day, but about an hour after dinner she would reach a hand into the bag and start munching, and that was that.

We also ate a lot of chocolate. I'm not sure why, exactly, except that it seemed like the perfect snack: smooth, cool, rich, full of calories and energy for long walks. I don't think I've ever eaten as much chocolate as I did the first time I was in England.

Despite all this, there was one constant refrain to our trip (well, two, but the other one was my nickname, "pile girl", chosen because as we drove around the country, I sat in the backseat with an enormous pile of luggage, food, and souvenirs--funny but not especially profound): "fifteen years ago--" one of my parents, or both, in tandem, would say, and then work themselves into a state of extreme nostalgia. The sun burned brighter, the sky was bluer, the grass was greener, fifteen years ago. Things were the-people-were-nicer-the-world-was-smaller-the-air-was-clearer-the-water-was-cleaner-the-streets-were-emptier-the-locals-were-more-local better, fifteen years ago. I don't think my parents actually consciously thought this--and I don't think they had any complaints about our own English journey--but they said those three words so often it became a running joke, and I would roll my eyes at the word "fifteen", and they would laugh, but finish the sentence, and then we would look around, as if trying to determine what had changed.

I hadn't even been born fifteen years ago; the England I knew was one from books, one that had died before the 1950s had even begun, and I couldn't reasonably feel nostalgia for something I had known only in my 13-year-old-imagination. But I did. "Oh yeah?" I wanted to snap, when Mom or Dad let loose a sigh and murmured, "you know, 15 years ago this was definitely not a Gap", "well 50 years ago it wasn't even a building!"

It's not that they objected to the changed version of a country they had only known years previous; it was that when time changes a place, slowly, steadily, and inevitably, with the same dogged persistence of a marathon runner beating out 26.5-miles-of-strides, and you see that place anew, you also see yourself anew. You see yourself having undergone the metamorphosis of time, swept by the years, chiseled by the wind, altered by the everyday. You see yourself having changed too; in ways perhaps you couldn't have imagined. Who would have thought that charming cottage would become a bustling Starbucks? Well, who would have thought my parents would have a teenage daughter the next time they saw it?

And for me, who had known the places I was visiting only from guidebooks, and storybooks, and pure guesses, the changes were not indicative of anything in myself. It was not the roaring 1920s anymore, and I secretly mourned the loss of ladies in shiny flapper dresses and men in fedora hats, but this was something that had nothing to do with me. I could only rail silently in my own head that I had subscribed for so long to a dream of someplace where time had entered a book and then stood still; but this, I realize now, is part of the process of growing up. Other kids had dreams too, and imaginations that played outside the realm of the possible, and they, too, in silent, secret ways, allowed these dreams to flow from being hopes to being escapes. I found solace in knowing that I could read; and that I could create worlds with my own pen and notebook (a green spiral-bound one, on that trip, which shows me to be an extraordinarily prolific 13-year-old).

But say that in a few years, I return to Dunster (I can't even remember where it is anymore, but I presume it isn't so far from Oxford that a trip would be impossible), and I look up at the Yarnmarket Hotel, at the window that my Dad and I peered anxiously from fifteen years ago, and find that it's not the Yarnmarket Hotel anymore--it's something else, it's been knocked down, it was the Yarnmarket, and then it was rubble, and now it's a shiny new fill-in-the-blank, and that window isn't even a window any longer. And I try to retrace our steps, take the walk to the Castle and along the footpaths, and discover that the footpaths have been paved, and that the hike we took is now an impossible hike, for the giant highway overpass that cuts the land up. I'm not saying this is what will happen: I'm saying what if. And suppose I see that among all those things I deem to be terrible, I also see something new, and exciting--something, like the internet, that connects people in oft-beautiful ways; and I see kids playing football in the new stadium that used to be just-a-muddy-field-but-at-least-it-was-untouched, and they're yelling and running and happy.

Well??

Well I guess I forfeit my right to judge the place on how it has changed until I realize that what I would be looking at, in that hypothetical situation, would not be Dunster, but myself: and all the things that could have happened to me, in the time it took the Yarnmarket hotel to be destroyed, and all the people I could have met since the footpaths were made of grass, and all the years that I have put on since I was a 13-year-old-girl sloshing through a muddy field.

(whew...bit of a long one there...about the photos: top, Dad and I, on that first trip, reading a newspaper in Cornwall somewhere; just above, Cowley Rd. construction--click to enlarge and read the very polite message on the sign.)

Supposedly Common Things that I've Never Actually Done

(just for fun--and because it makes the world seem like such an unexplored place--given my name there might just be a Shakespeare allusion here to a certain oft-quoted line)

• Been bowling (no, really, I haven't);
• Been skiing (or snowboarding, incredulous kids);
• Been stood up for a date (I'd greatly appreciate it, however, if no-one tries to use this as justification later, i.e. "you said you'd never been stood up, I was just letting you have the experience!");
  
• Actually been on a date, proper, that I understood to be such at the time (sample conversation several weeks after date--me: "so-and-so took me out the other night for dinner. he paid!" friend: "so you guys are like...dating!" me: "Oh no no..." *ruminative pause* "oh...ooooooohhhhhh. I seeeeee....");
• Played spin-the-bottle;
• Been sick from drinking too much (really, truly);
• Failed a class (closest I've come: Physical Education in 4th grade for the fabulously embarrassing reason that I refused to run properly, and would only gallop like a horse--see the "honesty" quote in the righthand sidebar to understand why I would divulge something like that--and Advanced Placement Calculus in 12th grade--no further explanation needed, though I will add I passed with flying colors, eventually);
• Held a single job for longer than four months (a staggering statistic, really...unless you count education as a job, in which case I've been a full-time employee for something like...seventeen years);
• Been to a high school football (the American variety) game (or any other kind, for that matter, but that's less surprising);
• Seen (insert favorite "everybody's got to see this!" film here)...examples include: any of the Godfather films, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Citizen Kane, Forrest Gump, Jaws (yes, really), Chicago, Singin' in the Rain...it's a random sampling. What, you wonder, was I then doing with all my free time? I can only tell you, in response, that I may not have seen Ben Hur, Rocky, or Grease, but I had read every single mystery novel that Agatha Christie ever wrote by the time I was midway through high school....(my God, I am weird. In many ways, the quintessential bookish nerd. I now point again to the quote in the right sidebar, but this time it is mostly for my own comfort--though also am making strides in my filmic education...two weekends ago I watched 16 Candles for the first time!);
• As a child, watched any Nickolodean television show with any semblance of regularity (awkward if you're an American of my generation--how many conversations have I had to sit out on whilst my peers excitedly hone in on a character or plotline from years past, gather round the memories, and shout and murmur and giggle for hours on end? I couldn't even begin to count);
• Slow danced with a boy (or anybody else);
• Been fired from a job;
• Had braces;
• Worn foundation or liquid makeup (I wouldn't know how, and it kind of intimidates me);
• Successfully sewed a button back onto anything

I know there are many more that will come floating into my consciousness at odd hours. This is certainly not to diminish what I have done; or to suggest that I will never do the things listed above. It is, however, an exercise in seeing how we can be identified as much by what we are as what we aren't; in piecing together something that shows mythology to be, sometimes, untrue; and, mostly, in making a public spectacle of myself by collecting a ramshackle array of embarrassing truths. Bless.

First Snow/Relative Poverty of Youth (Again)/Childhood Days

Last night was the first real paint-the-ground-white snow.  I always forget how the sky turns lavender on these nights.  The little flakes settle on my tongue when I step outside, clusters dance in the wash of streetlamps, everything gets hushed, even the sirens, even the dogs barking, even the noisy neighbors upstairs who seem to know precisely the moment I begin to fall asleep and start slamming drawers shut.  But not on the night of first snow.

Ensconced in my warm little apartment, heater on, swathed in blankets and a cashmere sweater, I played with my new toy: a shiny, wonderful MacBook that I just can't get enough of.  Somewhere along the line--I think perhaps when I looked at my desk and realized I had two relatively expensive laptops just sitting there, nonchalantly--it occurred to me to marvel at my own situation: a few months ago I was scraping change to buy bus fares; now I have computers galore cluttering up my workspace.  And because I'm young, and about to graduate, I still have plenty of financial woes (getting a job eased some of them up, I'll grant you)...waiting until payday to make big purchases, then spending two weeks buying the cheapest groceries I can so I don't run out before the next check comes in.  The relative poverty of youth: a generous, loving family gives me a gift that the truly poor could never afford, and then I flounder over whether or not I can reasonably afford a night out.

This morning the snow turned slightly slushy, then icy, and I started to slip before I'd even gotten down my street.  I always appear to be the only one who has trouble walking on ice, though surely I can't be.  I end up looking like a royal fool, skating down sidewalks or ambling penguin-like with my arms outstretched so as not to fall, whilst girls in stilettos sprint past hoping to make the Olympic track team and men so old I think they must have fought in the civil war bound spryly down flights of stairs.  I went slip-sliding my way to the T-stop, balancing a cup of tea and a scone in one hand.  Made it relatively without incident to work (except for when the T driver slammed on his brakes and I splashed the woman next to me with tea--in the kind of irrational frustration I feel when I'm up too early and going somewhere I'd rather not be going, I cried, "I'm sorry, god, I just...don't have anywhere to hold on to, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do!" and then felt a little guilty when all she did was laugh nervously and edge away from me...I probably had steam coming out of my ears or something); but naturally managed to fall flat on my bum on the way back from work.  Luckily I found it mostly funny (see!  I told myself, while civil-war-aged-men in heels jogged past without incident); though the right side of my body was nice and wet for the rest of my commute.

To cheer myself up (and because I had no food in the house) I went to the market, which I always enjoy.  I bought foods, without thinking of it, that recall my childhood: macaroni and cheese, applesauce, tangerines, ice cream, grapes, broccoli.  Perhaps it's some bit of my consciousness rebelling against my adult-ish (emphasis on ish) lifestyle; or my wounded pride's way of coping.  Maybe, though, it's what happens after the first snow.

Reaching People/Distributing Daylight

“What is your objective?”

The G Center sparkles. It is not so much like walking into an office building as like walking through the center of an enormous, high-caret diamond: from the ceiling, shining beams of sunlight,refracted off spinning chandeliers, glittering in ponds of water, rainbows on the wall. I’ve never walked through a diamond but if you could do something like that—make yourself lighter-than-air, dissolve into a million particles and flow through a precious stone, emerge unscathed on the other side—surely this is what it would look like.

It is tucked away in Cambridge, the part of Cambridge that looks perpetually under construction. It is a city at its roughest, rawest—the guts of buildings gaping, exposed; spindly beams reaching up, naked and rusted; cranes sweeping across the skyline, bulldozers parked in muddy lots, men in yellow helmets. Industrial looking office boxes—grey 1970s designs, murky, heavy, and dark—line wide boulevards. People know Cambridge as the home of Harvard and MIT, overlooking the dark blue Charles, charming old brownstones on narrow tree-lined streets, intellect fairly seeping into cobblestones, but here, on the fringes of a college town, architecture has come wearily, setting out to look dry and anonymous. It is a tired piece of town, this. On a sparkling winter morning, crisp, sunny—things feel wrong. This Cambridge belongs to the gloomy day.

I’d never even seen the G building before. It’s not on the two-minute walk from my office building to the train station. I’m a wanderer, typically, but become shockingly businesslike when I’m in heels and a suit (because, I suppose, I’m so fundamentally uncomfortable like that). So when we went in today, the whole thing was a revelation: “oh, this is where it is?” and then a series of “oohs” and “aaahs” while I walked through a series of warm spots of sun; I got dizzy if I looked up, because of all the spinning chandeliers; dizzy if I looked down, for all those spots.

The building is among the most environmentally responsible office buildings in the United States. What this means is that all of the ultra-modern, super-shiny features have a purpose beyond to dazzle: the chandeliers actually help reflect light throughout the building; the glass exterior and huge central atrium reduce the need for artificial lighting; and so on. A pamphlet on the building explains that “daylight is distributed within G Center through a natural-light-enhancement system”.

We go up to the cafeteria, on the top floor, looking out at the urban sprawl as it crawls its way towards the woodlands and hills beyond. I eat a baked potato and we talk about communication: “Who is your audience?” asks a G employee, who we’ve come to for advice on a project. “What are your objectives?” Between sips of green tea or chocolate milk, we try to explain, but what we keep coming up short on, we realize, is story.

“How do we show this?” we wonder. “Whose face can we put on this idea, or that one?” It’s such a crucial way of reaching people—and in this case, it is merely an issue of framing. We can tell our story in dry terms, or in narrative ones, and it will mean the same thing—except no one will listen to the dry terms, and everyone will listen to the narrative ones.

“Distributing daylight”: each prismatic tile refracts, has a job, a purpose, a hand in the distribution of something so ceaseless, so regular, that we cease often to think of it as a resource. And yet there it is, and this building—a building! a building can be just as full of story as a human being—carefully distributes it. Doesn’t use it; distributes it. The cynic in me wants to say it is merely an issue of semantics: some clever wordsmith decided to say that it would be better if the natural light-enhancement system was thought of as allocating or sharing something rather than of vacuuming it up.

But there is something else.  The G Center houses daylight: its energy costs are lower (significantly lower) than those of a comparable, conventional, office building; similarly, waterless and efficient plumbing reduces water usage; 90% of construction waste was recycled.

And I know there are always many sides to one story: but the fact that it is a story at all is remarkable. Here we are sitting in this cafeteria talking about stories, and where we can find them.  We’re making one all the while.

Image of Natural History Museum, Oxford

paradoxes (& things)

Earlier today, in class, I had a minor philosophical crisis relating to paradoxes.  I had written, you see, a line which ended with the two words: "more whole."  Something like, "having homes in many places makes me more whole," although it was more nicely put than that (I believe I may even have been rather proud of the line).  I was sort of basking in the afterglow of having written it, and he, a colleague, said, "you can't really be more whole."  I said, "it's a paradox, it doesn't have to make sense--" and he said, "that's a really bad response."  (Something also to do with the fact that it took be about an hour to think it up).  

Which of course it is, except that I know paradoxes are composed of ideas that are seemingly contradictory.  Mathematically, yes, you can't be more whole.  I know this--I hadn't considered it when I wrote the line in question, but I do know it, it's instinctive, it's basic.  Yet isn't there a sense in which you can have a feeling of wholeness, a sense of it, and then discover that in fact what you thought to be wholeness was merely an illusion, that you have more depth yet to fill, and whatever made you discover this has, in some strange way, therefore made you more whole?  

And perhaps you aren't even completely whole then, but you are more whole, because you are closer to whole.  Whole, perhaps, is an unattainable, in its truest sense.  What I meant, when I wrote that I felt "more whole", was not that I felt I had reached that unattainable.  What I think I meant was that I felt fuller, richer inside.  It was a simple idea, and I had to go and complicate it with tricky words and paradoxes.

More paradoxes?  The stretching of time: you wait, for what seems an unbearable interlude; it has been a long journey, the longest journey--and then one day you wake up and it is almost over--oh happy thought!  And in tandem with that happy thought you wonder: how did it go so fast?  When all the while, during the waiting, you had been thinking my god, this time crawls by so slowly!

Alas there will be no great celebration in two weeks, though perhaps there should be--no celebration except great relief.  I will graduate quietly: without gown, or cap, or kilt, or party dress.  No ceremony, no eggs, flour, champagne (ah how I'd love to be doused with champagne in cold Boston winter--what a sight on the streets!  but very probably I'd be shortly thereafter arrested, and that would not make a very fine start to my post-university life).  I realize this is the nature of the system: save $12,000, miss the damn party.  Worth it, hands down.  But there is a small part of me that is afraid to be let out into the world without a $12,000 party: otherwise, on what event can I look back upon to say: this was the culmination of my undergraduate studies?

I am mostly un-sentimental about leaving here.  I did have a moment, over the weekend, walking home from the Back Bay (I spent the night on a very gracious friend's couch, after we'd had too much wine and pizza and I'd missed the T) on a Sunday morning.  It was gloriously sunny out, not too cold (I might have thought that because of my enormous coat, however) but crisp; and I reached the edge of the public garden and began to walk through it, and all the leaves were still on the ground in great yellow-and-red heaps, fluttering with a wind coming off of the river.  And I stood in a patch of sun-and-shade, and thought: oh!  I've lived here for four years, and been in this park more times than I can remember, and it's beautiful, and perhaps I ought not be so stiff about leaving it.  

Then I thought: no, I'm not stiff about leaving it.  Just excited about everything stretching ahead.

Anyway, if education really is what they say it is (accruing knowledge, not pieces of paper), then I have my fair share of it ahead of me.  One piece of paper down (well, very nearly, anyway); perhaps more to go (reminds me: must submit my applications to masters programs by January!); but plenty of learning still to do.  $12,000 parties have nothing to do with this.

Unrelated note: MUST finish my thesis (if I don't, this entire post is more or less invalid, given that I don't think I get my degree without a finished thesis).  The more I work on it the more it strays from the realm of the political, into the realm of the almost-philosophical.  In short (and in reference to an earlier post): I find I want to write less about sustainable energy than about sustainable living.

Slogging...

Have been trawling the web all day for health/politics reporters at work, so I am absolutely swimming in the shit of US politics (well, slogging through, more like--wading with rubber boots and a grimace painted on my lips). It's a country-wide, all-bets-are-off, money-fueled circus, and the elephants and the donkeys of 2008 sure do produce (and inspire) a lot of shit.

As my father very wisely said: "You could not make this stuff up -- it would seem too absurd." It falls more in the realm of science fiction than public affairs and political analysis. Who stole the politicians' brains?

“Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse. He tells America how it’s going to be--" so says Mike Huckabee, who seems to be under the impression that Mr. Norris's presence at the US border will solve all our immigration woes. (yikes) Norris has officially endorsed Huckabee; it's hard to say which of them is crazier, at this point.

And in this corner, we have headlines like: "Paul '08 Bid Endorsed by Brothel Owner: Presidential candidate Ron Paul receives endorsement from Nevada brothel owner." Apparently the kids who run around stumping for Paul have a name: Paultards. The New Yorker had a little blurb about a group of them at Columbia University. I'm paraphrasing, but one of them said something that basically amounted to: "I just can't understand why you wouldn't vote for someone who actually wants to lower your taxes!"

In other American news, a four-year-old-boy has been suspended from class for sexually assaulting his teacher. Apparently he buried his head in her chest whilst giving her a hug.

???!?!?!

*sigh*

Photographic Interlude

I continue to be absolutely fascinated by this photograph. Took it last year up in Santa Cruz. There's something delightful about the image...though I find myself wondering if they're ducks or penguins? Or something else?

Thanks

I was on the phone with my mother this morning (well, I say morning. it was actually afternoon), and there was no water at the ranch. Nothing, she said, coming from the taps. This creates all sorts of problems. No showers. No flushing. No hand-washing. Those things you take utterly for granted. "I'm making tea," she said, sounding wistful. "How?" I wondered. "Oh--we have some bottled water." I started to fret that they'd use it all up at once.

So we were chatting about the woes of water shortage ("we walked from one end of the parcel to the other looking for the problem!"), when all quite suddenly, I heard a cry go up: "oooh! water's coming! water's coming!" If hundred dollar bills started falling from trees, and rivers started running diamonds, I don't think you'd hear half the excitement that was put into those words.

"Restoring a lost breathing for the love of the job"

When I first came to Oxford, it was the clearest, bluest, most beautiful early-summer day you can imagine. I walked from Jericho to the center of town, meandered my way up and down the High, turned at St. Aldates, and found myself, quite by accident, at Christ Church meadow, where everyone had come out to read under cover of glorious sunlight.

Not because it was beautiful (though it was), or because I had some idea, before I'd even come, that I should like it here (for I did), but because despite all the worries I had, and have, and always will have (they are many), I took a big sigh in that moment, let my shoulders relax (they had been stiff with adventurer’s apprehensions), and said "I like it here, and I am utterly, and completely, content"; because of all this did I decide that this would be A Major Place in My Life.

A few days prior I had sat cross-legged on my bed, clawing at my own skin, singing a terrified refrain: what am I doing? what am I doing? To escape the throes of banality, I was heading off literally into the unknown: not the carefree Eurotrip of student lore, but a three-month vacation with a vague starting point, an even vaguer ending point, and a whole lot of soul searching to be done in between. Because as a child I had been convinced that I would live, someday, in England—indeed, the logistics of this never once crossed my mind; nor did any flicker of doubt that it would actually happen—I chose Oxford as my jumping-off point. I thought: if I study abroad (even for just six weeks), it shall give me an excuse to be there; which is something, if you’re me, that’s always necessary.

So I came into London on a dreary morning; too proud to take a taxi, I dragged myself half across town searching for my hotel. I was following a printed-out map with no street names (this is not an attempt to be overly symbolic--I really was; but since it's the truth, I'll also accept it as a very nice metaphor). It started to rain, but I went on, without an umbrella, in ballet flats and soggy jeans, because I had something to prove. I did find the hotel, a good hour later. I think it was about fifteen feet away from where I'd started out. I was wet and weary. "Can I check in?" I said. "Normally, yes," the concierge assured me. "But today, we're having problems with some of our rooms. We will have to put you in a hotel across the street. Come back in the evening."

It wasn't even noon yet, so I left my bags and plunged into London. I needed food. I needed a beer, to quiet my nerves, which were starting to cause my whole body to shake. I had been to London only once before, with my parents, eight years previous. I had loved England--really, truly loved it. I felt almost relieved to be back, except that what I wanted more than anything was a shower and a nap, two things I couldn't, at the moment, have. So I decided to walk to the British Museum—I think I wanted to ground myself in things that had been on this earth for infinitely longer than I myself had been.

I found my way to Marble Arch, then went down Oxford Street, where I discovered the horror that is Primark (and an H & M on every corner, I kid you not). All the way down Oxford St. to Bloomsbury. There's a Starbucks across the street from the British Museum, did you know? I went inside the museum, and fought through hordes to see the Rosetta Stone; I went downstairs to the Muslim Art section, which was deserted and full of beautiful blue-green bowls. I started to become dizzy with the force of everything, so I came out, and walked all the way back to my hotel. I bought myself dinner at a little convenience shop down the street: cheese, crackers, chocolate, juice, and a small bottle of wine that I chose for its name alone: Oxford Landing.

They gave me a beautiful suite around the corner from Paddington Station, with the most comfortable hotel bed I can ever remember having. But they could have given me a pillow made of rocks and a cot made of nettles, and I would have slept. I didn't even eat all my crackers before I was asleep.

And the next day I went to Paddington Station and I asked the ticket agent for a ticket on the next train to Oxford, and my whole body quivered with the thrill of saying those words. “I need a ticket for the next train to Oxford,” I said. And the ticket agent said, “Alright,” and gave me my ticket, for a small fee, and then there I was, on a train, going very fast, it seemed, through city and country.

At Oxford, I came tumbling off the train, followed by a veritable menagerie of luggage (can you have such a thing?--my bags were so unruly, I think that you can) and stood blinking in the sunshine, without any idea where to go. I asked a cab driver to take me to my destination. “Weee-eell," he mused. "I could do that. But it isn’t very far, you know.”

He gave me directions; I said to myself, “hell, you’re young, you’re sprightly, you can handle a walk,” so I walked.

The further I walked, the more I started to think: “I’m going to like it here.” I went across the little bridge; I found George Street and went up it to Cornmarket; realized I’d gone too far and turned back around. London had been all grandeur; tall buildings, imposing structures, clusters of the ultra-hip or ultra-modern slouching down broad avenues. But this, I thought—this was someplace I could breathe.

Within a few weeks of my arrival, the weather turned from fair to foul, as if it wanted to test my allegiance. I donned scarves and leggings and opened up my big red umbrella and let the heavens, which had been so kind to me before, pour rain on me all the way from Jericho to the King’s Arms, where I would sit in the smoky haze and warm myself with cider. But the ground itself could have frozen mid-June, and I wouldn’t have cared. Whatever it was I went looking for that May (I still don't know) I found, I think, on my first day there.

NOTE: The title of this post comes, appropriately enough, from Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night.

"Everything falls away from us--the light, the dark, the warm afternoons--and all we can do is cry out in affirmation of our joy." *

I straddle longitudes and latitudes—

What is the point, I wonder, at which you can say you truly know a place?

I was born in turn-of-the-20th-century-California, where kids rode horses and climbed trees, where roosters woke families in darkest dawn, where rains washed the road away each winter and we set up school in a Victorian mansion. Then I crossed the country in one sweeping motion; 21st-century-Boston, all WiFi cafés and gleaming ultramodern skyscrapers. If you looked at the ground, you’d realize that people had been walking on the same bricks for four hundred years; or close to. But I didn’t know what old meant until I crossed the ocean, another sweeping motion, and walked down the High Street in Medieval Oxford.

“If you keep moving east,” my mother jokes, “eventually, you’ll end up right back where you started.” Isn’t that what Eliot says? "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

I start to feel a bit like that about university. Did I not know precisely what I wanted, from the moment I set foot in these hallowed halls (metaphorical hallowed halls, in my case, for the Emerson campus is as un-ceremonial as can be, as unlike a campus as the food court in a shopping mall)? I was going to be a writer, and spend my four years here filling my head with books--until a few weeks in, when I decided to explore, and my exploration led me somewhere entirely new, and exciting, and now here I am, and all I want is what I wanted in the first place, except that, as Eliot says, I have an utterly new sense of it.

There were points in my youth when I hated the ranch--and if you'd seen it, and hadn't lived there, you'd have to wonder why. But I had a thousand reasons: I hated its distance, its ruggedness, the way everything was full of hills; I hated how dark it got at night, how early the morning light came shooting into my bedroom, how coyotes and cows kept me up at night with their incessant howling and mewling, how I had to harbor a vague worry, everywhere I went, of mountain lions; I hated how dry the hills got each summer, how muddy and wet everything was by the light of winter; I hated going out in the dank darkness of a cloudy evening to turn the generator on; crawling up the driveway laden with grocery bags and heavy bookbags; and more, and more. I was a petulant teenager, yes; but when you know someplace, really truly well, do you not also gain a right to rail at it sometimes?

I certainly don't hate it now (though neither to I flatter myself that I could live there again, not yet)--going there is a respite, a holiday from the ugliness of a city, a feast for the senses. Never before did I appreciate a simple walk through the hills so much; never before did I delight so well in donning muddy wellies and tromping through the mud; never before did I lie awake by moonlight and marvel at how rare the sound of a coyote seems, or awake bathed in hot sunlight to think how special it is for one's rhythms of sleep to be marked not by the sounds of college kids yelping their way through a party, but by the rise and fall of the moon.

I find myself spread across many places: and I wonder, am I divided and split, or am I, in fact, more whole because of it? --and I think, because I am in essence the optimist (though some of you may not always believe it) that it is most assuredly the latter.

I have dreams now of Oxford; which seems, in my memory, to be the place I have been happiest, though surely there have been, and will be, minor unhappinesses there. It is not easy to feel this way: am I, I wonder, abandoning my family, my childhood home, the country that birthed me? But I am not doing these things, for to do so would be to renounce where I come from, and though it may be harder to visit the ranch, to spend time with my parents, I embrace wholeheartedly my origins, and know them as such, and know also that distance alone cannot keep me from them.

I straddle longitudes and latitudes—and know that I am more whole for it.

* Pico Iyer, from Sun After Dark (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). Iyer, a travel writer (I might like to argue he is much more), was born in Oxford, raised in Santa Barbara, CA; then educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard. At the time of writing Sun After Dark he was living in suburban Japan. Straddling...

Things That I Do

Why is it that when I try to do something “good for myself” (AKA slightly selfish) I end up spending so much time feeling guilty about it that the benefits seem to shrivel up and disappear?

Am continuing to slog through coursework. This is a process that involves buying hot apple cider from the café down the street; doing the crossword; re-reading bits of books I haven’t looked at it in years; considering the contents of my cabinets, over and over again, and occasionally eating some of said contents; purging my closet of those items I do not wear on a fairly regular basis; “visiting” my friend while she does her laundry at the local Laundromat (since she obviously cannot be trusted alone in such a setting?—though to be fair, this is a ritual that has previously involved sitting on the stoop with warm mulled wine); trawling my iPhoto library for “artsy” pictures to put on display; reading other people’s blogs; occasionally glancing at my calendar and getting depressed about all the stuff I ought to be doing; thinking about going for a run but deciding it’s much to cold, and that I’ll do yoga later instead; watching the last few leaves fall from the tree outside my window; making lots of lists; drinking tea when there's a lull, or a pang of worry, or a chill; sitting in front of my heater; and general daydreaming.

Obviously.

Photo Series II

more from the archive...

photo series I

...some rather delightful photos dredged up from the depths of the (e-fucking-normous) library...


(yes, this really is what I do when times suggest that I strap up (or strap down?) and get some serious work done...)

Sustain Yourself/Maintain Yourself/Don't Restrain Yourself

Recently added to the ever-growing "books-I-am-currently-reading" list:

Zulieka Dobson. Max Beerbohm
In the Skin of a Lion. Michael Ondaatje

In other news/on other notes...

I'm starting to see the word "sustainability" everywhere. I see it, of course, in the work I'm doing for my thesis (it being the theme that's rather tenuously, and all by itself, holding my essays together)--but not necessarily in the ways I always expect. Initially this was going to be a project, you see, on "sustainable energy"--which meant, I thought, things like solar power, wind power, turning unused lights off, using public transportation to get places.

And in fact it does mean all this. But the thing is--the thing I didn't realize, initially--is that it means quite a whole lot more. I pictured the word a little like an umbrella (a rainbow-colored one, for some reason), and at the center, huddled round the handle, are industries like "energy", "power", "transportation", and moving out toward the edges of the umbrella are all the other realms that "sustainability” touches. But that may not be the most apt image, because actually, while sustainability means more than I thought, it is also something that can be on a much smaller scale than I thought possible.

Here's how: I noticed it when I started writing a piece about making lunch for some friends. Not the stuff of a John Grisham thriller (thank Christ). But frankly, I'm more likely to salivate over good food writing than good crime writing any day. And about halfway through the piece, I started to see that I wasn't writing about sustainability in any grand sense at all: I was writing about something very simple, very real, and very bloody basic.

I was writing about sustaining myself.

I was writing about sustaining myself with food (which is a fundamental human need); but in a way such that my footprint on the environment was as small as possible. What I found out is that eating in a conscious way (making a meal for friends with as many locally-produced goods as possible, as just one example) is more filling than eating any other way: it sustains not just the body, but the soul, the spirit, the bit-of-you-that-wants-to-be-good, the bit of you that craves company and friendship and story (anonymous strawberries from the bowels of Tesco versus the British-grown ones that the cheery grocer hands you, etc.). E.B. White has a wonderful description of this--"peas without pageantry", he calls those anonymous things.

So "sustainability", in the sense that I'm writing on it, is about energy sustainability, body sustainability, spirit sustainability. I was in a meeting at work today, however, and someone said the word in a totally different context. My ears perked up like a horse who hears his hay: there is, you see, the issue is of sustainability in the healthcare industry; i.e., on its current track, America cannot sustain her healthcare system. I was listening to a debate on the issue recently, and I'll tell you what: every single major candidate for president agrees. We’re on an unsustainable track.

I don't know what the answer here is, but I do know that sustainability is something that extends far beyond the realm of energy. Fundamentally, we humans need to sustain ourselves, and we're going to have to stop stretching so far, spreading ourselves so thin, and fold inward, relax heavy shoulders, breathe, think. And look for inspiration in everything. All of this is interrelated: sustainable energy (reduce fossil fuel use by buying locally grown produce); sustainable eating (enjoy meals made with foods that are fundamentally fresher, because they've had so few miles to travel); sustainable living (perhaps--enter into a generally healthier lifestyle by consuming fresher goods that have been grown without harmful chemicals; reduce pollution in the air by reducing harmful emissions; reduce the need for quite so much healthcare).

This doesn't solve everything--and it's hopelessly idealistic, can you tell I'm young?--but at least, for the sake of my thesis, it's pretty nicely packaged...

A Short History of Thongs & Shy Girls

I got my first thong in 9th grade. It was lime-green with tangerine piping, and a little pocket in front for, one can only presume, a condom. I did not, to be fair, actually BUY this obscene item—it was handed to me across a tableful of beaming high school girls at a nice little Italian restaurant.

Shall we backtrack? What happened was this: I joined the lacrosse team my freshman year of high school. It was what the cutest, smartest, COOLEST girls did during spring, and I had vague, half-formed designs of being like these girls. We wore little red plaid skirts and white polo shirts with the name of our school embroidered on back. It was a very STYLISH game.

As it turned out, I was actually rubbish at playing it. I could run for longer than most anyone on the team, with a few notable exceptions (I remember getting looks that seemed to be a mix of admiration and disgust after a particularly grueling workout: “you don’t even look like you’ve been running!”—it was only because I’d been running track before), but I had no skill with the stick, or the hard, tiny yellow ball. The whole thing, frankly, baffled me a little. I understood soccer quite well: and very much enjoyed, I confess, running around a field kicking a ball I could actually SEE. But what was the point of lobbing something so small it might not even be there at all across a space, hoping against hope it would fall into the netted pocket of a team mate’s stick? I spent a lot of time (well, pretty much all my time) on the bench.

Another thing I should mention is how SHY I was. It causes me pain to remember how afraid I was of the other girls, of the coaches, of anybody with a mouth. They would say things to me and my whole body would go cold, my jaw would clamp shut, and all I could usually manage was a tightlipped smile, a nod, and a quick retreat. I was so desirous of acceptance that I couldn’t bear the risk of SAYING anything: what if I did, and they laughed? Generally nothing occurred to me to say back anyway: I would think so long and hard about the appropriate response that it wouldn’t be until I’d left the pitch, been driven home (45 minutes away), showered, and done half my homework before it occurred to me. “Oh!” I’d say into my soup listlessly, at dinner, far too late. “I’m doing well—how are YOU? Tough game today, huh?”

(It was that “how are you” part that always got me. I don’t think it was until about the time I turned 16 that I finally mastered the art of conversational reciprocation. A very small part of me is still a shy girl, but my God, not like THAT.)

I was harmless. I don’t think anybody DISLIKED me; what, anyway, could they object to? I’d given them no ammunition at all. I remember scrimmaging once; the coaches put me on the team with the most seniors, ostensibly so I could learn from them, but I remember saying to one of them, “well, it’s not as if I really count, anyway”, in that self-deprecating way I had whenever I DID open my mouth for a split-second. The girl, whose name and shape I can no longer recall, stands out in my mind for the sole reason that her response was so utterly kind (and so utterly reasonable): “How silly!” she said. “Of course you do!” And then she laughed WITH me, and smiled.

So at the team dinner, spring turning into a pleasant California summer, the hills already starting to dry out, the seniors, who were responsible for distributing gifts to the rest of the team, gave me the flashiest thong they could find: for being, they said, choking on their own cleverness, the most FLAMBOYANT player.

I thought it was a good joke; I laughed along with everyone else, and feigned revulsion at the sickening shades of neon, and acted utterly horrified to be handling such an indiscreet undergarment at a dinner table. I tucked it away in my bag; I had never owned a thong before, let alone something so LOUD. But I had toyed with the idea: I admired girls who could wear tight jeans without panty lines. Anyway, I bet everyone else at the table probably had a thong on.

So being shy got me my first thong free of charge—and what threatens to be a lifetime allegiance to a certain kind of undergarment. Not a bad deal, really.

(Apologies to those, by the way, for whom this may seem to be far more information than necessary. It’s just that I was doing my laundry this morning...)

Integrity?

Office jobs make me feel fat.

I am very much NOT fat, and I do know this. But there’s some piece of my psyche that says: sitting on your bum for 8 hours straight (ok, getting up to pee once or twice) simply cannot be healthy. Of course, the only real alternative to this (at least, that I’ve found) is hospitality work, and the constant movement and tray-carrying tends to exhaust me.

What, oh what, is the solution here??

In other news, I’ve been feeling especially anxious lately. Why? Lord knows.

The only reason I can tell that I’m anxious at all is the mild, constant nausea-feeling, occasional head-spinning, the exhaustion. Physical symptoms of something that’s so psychologically hidden, I don’t know where to find it! I’m quite excited about everything, and not especially worried, as far as I know, so wherefore this feeling comes from puzzles me. I suspect it’s to do with impending CHANGE, coupled with that last big academic push.

I gave some sort of presentation of my thesis (as it stands now, it’s hardly a complete project, of course) the other morning (rather classically, I was late to my own presentation). It seemed to go well, indicating that at the end of this all, they will not decide to withhold my diploma based at least on the outcome of my project.

Am struggling with the idea of credibility, however. Howard Gardner & George Lakoff BOTH say, essentially, that the integrity between your worldview and your actions is THE THING; that is, it’s paramount if you want to effect change, change minds, gain a following, gain an audience. I think I’m honest enough. That’s not so much the issue. The issue is that Lakoff, anyway, only thinks that the connection must SEEM to have integrity. (Which is obviously how politicians—Lakoff cites Reagan as a sparkling example of this kind of earnest connection—can manage to seem both two-faced and authentic over the course of a term)

Isn’t SEEMING TO HAVE INTEGRITY sort of silly, if you think hard enough about it?

A Pair of Atlases

(for someone I know…)

Trying to bear the weight of the universe—even your own private universe--on your shoulders is hard. Then again, if everyone in the world was responsible solely and entirely for themselves, well, things would be a lot less messy but—it’d be a very, very lonely place. Somewhere, but I don’t yet know where, there’s a secret, magic balance. It’s the perfect amount of involved; the perfect amount of responsible; the perfect amount of adult. It’s not-too-much-guilt. Every once in awhile, we get it wrong. We, the pair of atlases, generally tend to err on the overly-involved, overly-responsible, overly—well, if not adult (no one would call us that, I don’t think), then overly conscientious, side.

It’s very heavy—the guilt, I mean. Helping people is light and airy. That’s not what’s heavy. That’s not even what it’s all about (though it probably should be). There are lots of strings attached—helping oneself, for instance. Feeling justified, needed, or loved. Oh, it gets very complicated indeed. But being driven by our guilt will only make our shoulders sag, and our faces pale, and our muscles, inside and out, ache.

I haven’t yet figured out how to transform guilt into something good; but when I do (and I will, I will, I will!) I’ll tell you about it. And maybe it has something to do with the light-and-airy-helping-feeling, and maybe soon I’ll discover where that magic balance is hidden.

But until then, I say…well, at least we’re a pair, and so, not alone; and I don’t think there’s any rule anywhere that says one Atlas can’t share another’s burden.

Ruminations

Have a slight aching. Today is a day full of rain and wild wind; the weekend seems to be going too fast, yet the time, the time is going too slow; how can this be? I like to think of this time as my penance for being happy; yet I know I only think of it this way because I want things to have balance and for there to be some kind of perverse, but forgiving, justice in the world. Still it is comfort enough, on a cold day, to look outside at the brown leaves crumbling from the tree, to shiver and sink deeper into the duvet, to ponder not getting up at all, this day—and then to bring one’s mind back to the great happiness harbored in one’s heart. It thaws the body out, a bit.

It is always on days like this that you run out of milk. The day when the only thing you can do, if you’ve got any sense, is stay inside close to the heater and listen to jazz (cheery jazz—of the 1930s big band variety, primarily, though Brett Dennen does me well too, if I feel like having a voice in the house.) with cup after cup of tea.

Thesis presentation next week. I’ve completely neglected my thesis, to be honest. Now I feel the weight of it bearing down on my shoulders—I spent all summer using it as an excuse to do nothing else, but read and write and be merry in the evenings, but my accomplishments to date seem meager compared with what I still have left to do. I MUST get something done today. On that note, (a spark of inspiration??) I shall away to try to remember what it was I meant to explore in the first place, and then, with any luck, get things done.