It's that time of year again. About this time each year, the Pen Show comes to town, and I'm compelled to visit. Carrie Bradshaw has shoes. I have pens and paper. If one were to go through my house with a fine-toothed comb and remove all writing implements ...I'd probably have room for everything else and could retire my storage facility debt. But, like books, you can never have too many writing utensils or things to write on or in. At least in my estimation.
The idiocy of this is that most of my writing is done on my laptop. Hardly ever do I sit in my garret with pen in hand, consigning my deepest thoughts and insights to a leather-bound journal. Not that I don't HAVE that leather-bound journal (or its handmade paper-bound, or spiral-bound, or on-sale-at-Borders, or isn't-that-cute, or I-really-like-that-paper equivalents) or any number of fountain, roller-ball, ball-point, miniature, silver, resin, celluloid, or retractable pens to use. Open a drawer or purse or cabinet and they are there, ready and waiting.
BUT...the lure of the pen is there. I will no doubt make my way to Tysons Corner this weekend, park blocks away from the Sheraton Premiere, pay my admission and wander in awe past the thousand-dollar collector's pens, the works of art that one could barely imagine using. I will check out the latest and greatest in pen technology, ooh and ahh over the pretty colors and slim (or chunky) profiles. I will pick pens up and enjoy the weight and the feel of them--and imagine the deathless prose and poetry inside them, just waiting for my hand, my brain to release it.
Pens are souvenirs of my romance with words. They are a remembered first kiss, the pressed flower from a prom corsage, a fond recollection of a favorite dress. Long ago, I fell in love with the mystery and the texture and the magic of pen and paper, and I am still lost. I've embraced technology, but there is a corner of my heart that cherishes that first love and refuses to abandon it. The tactile pleasure of a special paper, the smooth luxuriant flow of ink, the sensory recognition of thought made tangible: these are the melody of my love song. And pens provide the words.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Jake the Flake strikes again
We were going away for the weekend and made the serious error of not checking on Jake's whereabouts before we left. Since it was only a brief trip, we'd just put out plenty of food, water and kitty litter and counted on Jake's resourcefulness. Wrong.
When we arrived home Sunday afternoon, there was no Jake-in-the-window, watching for squirrels. When we opened the door, there was no Jake rolling over on command, just to show us how much he missed us. In fact, there was no Jake at all--which was pretty alarming. Then we heard the faint meow of Jake-trapped-somewhere--a sound I'd heard before that had signified the total destruction of my leather jacket that had the misfortune of being trapped WITH Jake in the hall closet.
This time it was the bedroom closet-- fortunately the closet that holds all the things on hangers we don't use much, along with spare sheets and towels and blankets. Needless to say, it was a wreck. All hanging clothes had been separated from their hangers. All shelved items had been de-shelved. All hangers were bent and broken. And Jake was perched on the shelf, hoarsely meowing for all he was worth. Two days without food, drink, or kitty litter fortunately had had little effect on him, or at least, so it appeared.
On the other hand, we had the unwelcome task of removing all items from the closet, disentangling them from fallen hangers and shredded shoeboxes, and always, always, being on the lookout for anything that had been used as a litter substitute. Fortunately, this was not too difficult. The old blanket that had landed on top of the fallen clothing had borne the brunt of Jake's 'accidents', sparing JC's tux and my silk jacket (among other things) from everything but a heavy layer of cat hair and a lot of wrinkles. To be on the safe side, everything washable got washed; everything dry-cleanable went to the drycleaners. The closet was wiped clean and Febreze-d to a fare-thee-well. We're back to normal.
I'd like to say that Jake learned his lesson and now avoids closets like the plague. Not so. Within hours of our return, he had once again strolled into the same closet and had the door shut upon him by mistake. Mea culpa.
Now on the checklist for departures: say 'goodbye' to Jake--face-to-face!
Monday, August 4, 2008
The play's the thing...
Just got back from our marathon play weekend in West Virginia. I have often said (in other venues) that the main thing one has to pack for the Contemporary American Theater Festival is a full complement of anti-depressants. Seldom does one spend an entire weekend with successively more depressing accounts of American dysfunctional families. Four plays, four mood-crushing exercises in futility. The chief reasons we go are the friends we go with, the dinners we share, the milkshakes at Betty's (OMG!)...and the feeling that we are getting a sneak peek at what's ahead in American theater.
Good news. Last year we came home not wishing to slit our wrists, but we figured that might be a one-year fluke. This year, the trend is confirmed. While not exactly cheery, this year's offerings provided a little more balanced view. Dysfunction is still the malady du jour, but the overall attitude is lighter. The endings are still not happy, but one doesn't exit the theater calculating the closest route to oblivion. Entertaining, thought-provoking, sobering, well-acted...these are the words for this year's crop of new plays as presented in Shepherdstown.
I'd like to think we're emerging from the dark night of Sam Shepard's soul that has seemed to dominate all new plays and playwrights. I'm not a Pollyanna exactly, and I'd hate to emerge from every theater performance humming the equivalent of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning"...but I do occasionally enjoy seeing a play where blood and wreckage and betrayal are not prominent plot features. There's room for sunshine in my theater pantheon. I don't expect Shepherdstown to fill that void necessarily, but they are making progress in that direction.
Meanwhile, there ARE the milkshakes at Betty's.
Good news. Last year we came home not wishing to slit our wrists, but we figured that might be a one-year fluke. This year, the trend is confirmed. While not exactly cheery, this year's offerings provided a little more balanced view. Dysfunction is still the malady du jour, but the overall attitude is lighter. The endings are still not happy, but one doesn't exit the theater calculating the closest route to oblivion. Entertaining, thought-provoking, sobering, well-acted...these are the words for this year's crop of new plays as presented in Shepherdstown.
I'd like to think we're emerging from the dark night of Sam Shepard's soul that has seemed to dominate all new plays and playwrights. I'm not a Pollyanna exactly, and I'd hate to emerge from every theater performance humming the equivalent of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning"...but I do occasionally enjoy seeing a play where blood and wreckage and betrayal are not prominent plot features. There's room for sunshine in my theater pantheon. I don't expect Shepherdstown to fill that void necessarily, but they are making progress in that direction.
Meanwhile, there ARE the milkshakes at Betty's.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
New Socks
I have a tendency (okay, a compulsion) to browse when I'm anywhere that has shops, and the more unusual, the better. Today I was at Tyson's Corner--an unlikely place for an epiphany, and as I browsed through the shops, I realized that I was wallowing in, if not the slough of despond, at least the slough of ennui.
I've discovered that I'm prone to that sort of thing. I had been getting less and less enthusiastic about cooking over the past year and was of late seizing any excuse not to, no matter how tenuous the pretext. On our return from our visit to Tucson, however--where my job had been to prepare meals every day for a week --I found that I'd experienced a renaissance of interest--purely from doing that. All at once, it wasn't a chore anymore. I started looking for new recipes, shopping for ingredients, figuring out how things fit together...It was fun again.
The same thing applies to writing. It's really easy to fall off the wagon and not write one day. Unfortunately, that 'one day' starts multiplying, until the writing becomes a distant chore that you don't enjoy anymore. My brain bogs down in an empty hole; I'm not thinking anything new and it shows in my work.
Now you may be wondering where all this circumlocution is leading, and how it connects to Tyson's Corner. My epiphany was that I found a book in my browsing. It was a children's book, called "New Socks", and it's a writing manual. Not really, but it is as much of a writing how-to as any other book in Barnes & Noble's labyrinthine stacks. It relates the experience and excitement of a little chick (maybe a duck--it was yellow and had a beak) who has a new pair of socks. Hardly "War and Peace"-- or even Strunk & White.
However, as I paged through the book (I DO like children's books, particularly if I can put an adult spin on them) I started thinking again of Billy Collins and his Looney Tunes inspiration. If we're going to write, we need to foster that same kind of excitement, that same kind of wide-eyed "Wow!" with which children (and chicks) view their world. We've got to let our worldview be upended and enhanced by things as simple as a pair of new socks, or as complex as a presidential election. Sitting in front of my laptop doesn't make me a writer--at least not a writer with anything to say. Getting out in the world and tasting it, seeing new things and embracing them, thinking about something in a new way and writing about it: that's what gives me a reason--and a responsibility--to put my work out there for others to see.
All I needed was a pair of new socks. Read the book.
I've discovered that I'm prone to that sort of thing. I had been getting less and less enthusiastic about cooking over the past year and was of late seizing any excuse not to, no matter how tenuous the pretext. On our return from our visit to Tucson, however--where my job had been to prepare meals every day for a week --I found that I'd experienced a renaissance of interest--purely from doing that. All at once, it wasn't a chore anymore. I started looking for new recipes, shopping for ingredients, figuring out how things fit together...It was fun again.
The same thing applies to writing. It's really easy to fall off the wagon and not write one day. Unfortunately, that 'one day' starts multiplying, until the writing becomes a distant chore that you don't enjoy anymore. My brain bogs down in an empty hole; I'm not thinking anything new and it shows in my work.
Now you may be wondering where all this circumlocution is leading, and how it connects to Tyson's Corner. My epiphany was that I found a book in my browsing. It was a children's book, called "New Socks", and it's a writing manual. Not really, but it is as much of a writing how-to as any other book in Barnes & Noble's labyrinthine stacks. It relates the experience and excitement of a little chick (maybe a duck--it was yellow and had a beak) who has a new pair of socks. Hardly "War and Peace"-- or even Strunk & White.
However, as I paged through the book (I DO like children's books, particularly if I can put an adult spin on them) I started thinking again of Billy Collins and his Looney Tunes inspiration. If we're going to write, we need to foster that same kind of excitement, that same kind of wide-eyed "Wow!" with which children (and chicks) view their world. We've got to let our worldview be upended and enhanced by things as simple as a pair of new socks, or as complex as a presidential election. Sitting in front of my laptop doesn't make me a writer--at least not a writer with anything to say. Getting out in the world and tasting it, seeing new things and embracing them, thinking about something in a new way and writing about it: that's what gives me a reason--and a responsibility--to put my work out there for others to see.
All I needed was a pair of new socks. Read the book.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Reading jag
When I was young and fancy-free (read "living at home with my mom doing the laundry and the cooking and cleaning) I used to read incessantly. We lived a mile from one of the best libraries in America: the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore--Branch 26--and I took full advantage of its proximity. I always had a stack of books at the ready, waiting for me to dip into them. I also had a deadline, as the borrowing period was about two weeks, as I recall. Ten books in two weeks translated to about a day and a half per book..pretty tough when I had to fit in things like school and stuff as well. But, somehow, there were very few books that didn't get read before I trucked them back to the library. (My mother would probably chime in that there were quite a few OTHER things that fell by the wayside, however.)
Anyway, it seems that the older I got (and the more complex life became) the more my reading declined, being relegated now to the never-never land between washing the dinner dishes and falling asleep. This period seems to be getting shorter every year, and I'm not sure if we're eating later or falling asleep earlier. In any event, the books are piling up, along with the newspapers and magazines and recipe clippings and email and other electronic subscriptions.
Now, with retirement either knocking at the door or amazingly, inside already, I find that I'm reading more, and moreover, reading differently. You have to understand that--all my life--I have been an indiscriminate reader. Books, newspapers, metro ads, cereal boxes, comic books, labels, those little tray liners at McDonalds...all were fair game. If it had words on it, I would read it. I read the way gluttons ate--because it was there, whether or not it had any nutritive value. I read for amusement, information, to pass the time, to hide from other people (I was a shy person, down to my very bones), to have something to talk about, to know something other people didn't...
Now, while some residue of that lack of discrimination remains (for example, reading on plane trips to avoid thinking about that strange thumping noise in the wing or the turbulence that has me wondering if my will is up to date) I read less often, but with greater attention. Is this poem in the New Yorker worth copying for my files? What should we not miss on our trip to Italy? What does a new grandmother need to know? And of course, the endless email-blog-google parade of addictive information, without which I might have a life away from my laptop...There is so much I have yet to learn that I go on great galloping reading jags when I do have the time, and plow through book after book until I can read no more...
So, in the midst of all this sturm und drang, I read a review of a book by and about an author--an author, mind you!--who had a minor stroke that robbed him of his ability to read. Now, I have thought, on occasion, what it might be like if I lost my sight, or hearing (maybe I already have, to some degree), mobility, and any number of things. But reading has always been a constant, a sine qua non of my existence. What would I do if suddenly words were just random squiggles, beyond comprehension? How could I function, understanding that there was meaning there, but just out of my reach? Can you write if you can't read? And if you (understandably) can't do either, how do you absorb, remember, make sense of the world and its information?
If I can draw any conclusion from this morass, it might be that my life as a reading junkie has served me well thus far, and further, that reading deprivation might well be one of the deeper circles of hell for someone like me. There are a lot worse things than having stacks of books and magazines in every corner. They are a tangible sign that my brain is alive and well and functioning; what more could I ask of my life?
Anyway, it seems that the older I got (and the more complex life became) the more my reading declined, being relegated now to the never-never land between washing the dinner dishes and falling asleep. This period seems to be getting shorter every year, and I'm not sure if we're eating later or falling asleep earlier. In any event, the books are piling up, along with the newspapers and magazines and recipe clippings and email and other electronic subscriptions.
Now, with retirement either knocking at the door or amazingly, inside already, I find that I'm reading more, and moreover, reading differently. You have to understand that--all my life--I have been an indiscriminate reader. Books, newspapers, metro ads, cereal boxes, comic books, labels, those little tray liners at McDonalds...all were fair game. If it had words on it, I would read it. I read the way gluttons ate--because it was there, whether or not it had any nutritive value. I read for amusement, information, to pass the time, to hide from other people (I was a shy person, down to my very bones), to have something to talk about, to know something other people didn't...
Now, while some residue of that lack of discrimination remains (for example, reading on plane trips to avoid thinking about that strange thumping noise in the wing or the turbulence that has me wondering if my will is up to date) I read less often, but with greater attention. Is this poem in the New Yorker worth copying for my files? What should we not miss on our trip to Italy? What does a new grandmother need to know? And of course, the endless email-blog-google parade of addictive information, without which I might have a life away from my laptop...There is so much I have yet to learn that I go on great galloping reading jags when I do have the time, and plow through book after book until I can read no more...
So, in the midst of all this sturm und drang, I read a review of a book by and about an author--an author, mind you!--who had a minor stroke that robbed him of his ability to read. Now, I have thought, on occasion, what it might be like if I lost my sight, or hearing (maybe I already have, to some degree), mobility, and any number of things. But reading has always been a constant, a sine qua non of my existence. What would I do if suddenly words were just random squiggles, beyond comprehension? How could I function, understanding that there was meaning there, but just out of my reach? Can you write if you can't read? And if you (understandably) can't do either, how do you absorb, remember, make sense of the world and its information?
If I can draw any conclusion from this morass, it might be that my life as a reading junkie has served me well thus far, and further, that reading deprivation might well be one of the deeper circles of hell for someone like me. There are a lot worse things than having stacks of books and magazines in every corner. They are a tangible sign that my brain is alive and well and functioning; what more could I ask of my life?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
New babies
Unfortunately I was unable to attend last Saturday's Alexandria Birthday celebration due to the arrival of our first grandchild. That event trumped just about everything else on our summer agenda. After a week or so of baby-holding and transfers, preparing meals and doing laundry, it is clear why caring for babies is for the young--or at least those more fit than I. Multi-tasking is the name of the game, and my admiration abounds for young mothers who manage to do so much so well.
Needless to say, Audrey is a beautiful baby--growing daily in wisdom, age and grace (3/4 of an inch in height as well!) I will not be a typical grandmother and extol her virtues ad infinitum, but rest assured that she has a plentitude of them, and will no doubt have a few poems from her grandmother to paper her nursery walls. Who knew how fascinating it would be to watch someone sleep? Or do almost anything...
Needless to say, Audrey is a beautiful baby--growing daily in wisdom, age and grace (3/4 of an inch in height as well!) I will not be a typical grandmother and extol her virtues ad infinitum, but rest assured that she has a plentitude of them, and will no doubt have a few poems from her grandmother to paper her nursery walls. Who knew how fascinating it would be to watch someone sleep? Or do almost anything...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Poetic Inspiration
This weekend I read one of the more true-to-life (at least true to MY life) commentaries on poetic inspiration I've ever read. In the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal, Billy Collins (former U.S. Poet Laureate and down-to-earth poet extraordinaire) attacked the question of inspiration and, after acknowledging the knee-jerk reaction answers given by most writers, attempted to provide a more truthful alternative: one that rang especially true for me. By all means, find the article and read it if you can--or email me for the copy I made of it.
The fact is that inspiration doesn't necessarily come in wispy packages of cloud, or in the works of great poets or art. For anyone seeking their muse, it might prove more useful to get out in the world and pay attention to what's going on there than to closet yourself in your low-rent garret and wait for inspiration to find you. Anything that serves to take you out of yourself, beyond the box of everyday living, everyday possibility, is a source of inspiration. Whether that vehicle is the Looney Tunes cartoons of Billy Collins' youth or a wild idea that hits you upside the head while you're driving to work...don't question the source. Just make the most of it. The real road to inspiration lies in paying attention.
The fact is that inspiration doesn't necessarily come in wispy packages of cloud, or in the works of great poets or art. For anyone seeking their muse, it might prove more useful to get out in the world and pay attention to what's going on there than to closet yourself in your low-rent garret and wait for inspiration to find you. Anything that serves to take you out of yourself, beyond the box of everyday living, everyday possibility, is a source of inspiration. Whether that vehicle is the Looney Tunes cartoons of Billy Collins' youth or a wild idea that hits you upside the head while you're driving to work...don't question the source. Just make the most of it. The real road to inspiration lies in paying attention.
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