Hmm, so if you're interested in the Alaska story in terms of flow or chronology, you should read the last two blog posts in reverse order.
First read "Lost Cats in Noe Valley" and then read "Losing Time Means Losing My Mind"
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Losing Time Means Losing My Mind
Another excerpt in working on my Alaska story. I am not sure what form this story is going to take- only that I know I want to write about my experience in Alaska and I'm just posting these as I go. I will tighten it up hopefully sometime later. I think it will help to just get my words out there. Releasing the pieces, as unpolished as they are, helps take the pressure off the delusionary quest for (personal) perfection....better just to write and move on and keep writing and keep moving on.
On my arrival in Nak Nek Alaska:
I got off the plane and looked around. I like small airports, one baggage claim, one airstrip. I feel like my arrival matters, I will not be lost in the mayhem. I collect my bag easily, but there is no indication for where I should go. There is a huge yellow school bus with a man holding a sign, “Trident Cannery” and almost everyone from my plane starts filing onto that bus. I want to go with them. Safety in numbers. Before climbing up the steps of the bus, the man I sat next to on the plane turns back and gives me a sad smile and a thumbs up. Suddenly I feel my only friend is leaving me. The school bus pulls away.
The parking lot, if you could call it that, is clearing out. A woman jumps out of an SUV with a big shaggy golden retreiver and asks if I’m LuLing. Yes…just like that? I'm the only one to pick up? I don’t know what to think, so I think nothing.
We drive. The dog calms me as I reach over the back seat to pet it. I let it lick me generously. I let it lick away my salt and my fear. There are endless fields of wildflowers. We make easy small talk about the weather up here, the population (300), what kind of wildlife roams (bears, moose, caribou, foxes, wolves), and after about twenty minutes, we’ve pulled up to a compond with some rusty boat hulls in a gravelly parking lot and shanty-looking clapboard buildings dotting a sprawling uneven acreage.
(Note to self: It hurts to go over this in my head. Do I need to recall the details? Can I just talk about the stuff I want to talk about? Do I have to tell the story with any kind of narrative cohesion? I only want to recall some, not all, of the memories. But will it make the story patchy?)
My dorm is called Waldorf Hysteria. I think it’s funny for the first day and by the third, I resent anyone making light of the shit we suffer through.
The only thing that can preserve my sanity, that can run its fingers over the fissures beginning to crack across the surface of my body and mind, is time. Time is the panacea, the caulking. Time means sleep, getting to eat, dialing the phone to the one voice out there who can soothe me. But time is always one step ahead, taunting me, as I chase its slithering tail. I cover my ears, and blot out its laughter.
We work sixteen hours a day, every day of the week. That leaves eight remaining hours that should, arguably, belong to me. But there is a line for the shower. There is a line to do laundry. There is a line to get food. There is a line at the payphone. I swat mosquitoes, exhausted and aimless, waiting. I wait to turn on the hot faucet and wash the sick stench of fish off my skin. I wait to dump my clothes in the washer. I wait til the Polish girl is done yelling at me because I have removed her clothes from the washer and some have fallen on the floor. I wait with my plastic tray to lift a lifeless heap of cafeteria grub.
For those of us desperate for time, waiting is the tax we pay. With pain, I watch my minutes pass. The first second of a new minute is a seed. The subsequent seconds build around the seed, packing around it, morphing and coalescing into a ball. After sixty seconds, a new seed forms, and the seconds pack around it, and each minute becomes a round hard unit, like a marble. As I stand waiting, hungry, tired, sweaty, itchy, longing, dirty, I watch as a big hand reaches into the last stash of my equanimity and pockets my marbles. I am losing them, and I feel my undoing.
On my arrival in Nak Nek Alaska:
I got off the plane and looked around. I like small airports, one baggage claim, one airstrip. I feel like my arrival matters, I will not be lost in the mayhem. I collect my bag easily, but there is no indication for where I should go. There is a huge yellow school bus with a man holding a sign, “Trident Cannery” and almost everyone from my plane starts filing onto that bus. I want to go with them. Safety in numbers. Before climbing up the steps of the bus, the man I sat next to on the plane turns back and gives me a sad smile and a thumbs up. Suddenly I feel my only friend is leaving me. The school bus pulls away.
The parking lot, if you could call it that, is clearing out. A woman jumps out of an SUV with a big shaggy golden retreiver and asks if I’m LuLing. Yes…just like that? I'm the only one to pick up? I don’t know what to think, so I think nothing.
We drive. The dog calms me as I reach over the back seat to pet it. I let it lick me generously. I let it lick away my salt and my fear. There are endless fields of wildflowers. We make easy small talk about the weather up here, the population (300), what kind of wildlife roams (bears, moose, caribou, foxes, wolves), and after about twenty minutes, we’ve pulled up to a compond with some rusty boat hulls in a gravelly parking lot and shanty-looking clapboard buildings dotting a sprawling uneven acreage.
(Note to self: It hurts to go over this in my head. Do I need to recall the details? Can I just talk about the stuff I want to talk about? Do I have to tell the story with any kind of narrative cohesion? I only want to recall some, not all, of the memories. But will it make the story patchy?)
My dorm is called Waldorf Hysteria. I think it’s funny for the first day and by the third, I resent anyone making light of the shit we suffer through.
The only thing that can preserve my sanity, that can run its fingers over the fissures beginning to crack across the surface of my body and mind, is time. Time is the panacea, the caulking. Time means sleep, getting to eat, dialing the phone to the one voice out there who can soothe me. But time is always one step ahead, taunting me, as I chase its slithering tail. I cover my ears, and blot out its laughter.
We work sixteen hours a day, every day of the week. That leaves eight remaining hours that should, arguably, belong to me. But there is a line for the shower. There is a line to do laundry. There is a line to get food. There is a line at the payphone. I swat mosquitoes, exhausted and aimless, waiting. I wait to turn on the hot faucet and wash the sick stench of fish off my skin. I wait to dump my clothes in the washer. I wait til the Polish girl is done yelling at me because I have removed her clothes from the washer and some have fallen on the floor. I wait with my plastic tray to lift a lifeless heap of cafeteria grub.
For those of us desperate for time, waiting is the tax we pay. With pain, I watch my minutes pass. The first second of a new minute is a seed. The subsequent seconds build around the seed, packing around it, morphing and coalescing into a ball. After sixty seconds, a new seed forms, and the seconds pack around it, and each minute becomes a round hard unit, like a marble. As I stand waiting, hungry, tired, sweaty, itchy, longing, dirty, I watch as a big hand reaches into the last stash of my equanimity and pockets my marbles. I am losing them, and I feel my undoing.
Lost cats in Noe Valley and a Trip Back to Alaska
I'm house-sitting my cousins' apartment in Noe Valley. It's sunny, the wind is blowing, like an animated conversation between the trees and the hills. Back and forth, the swishing sounds and gestures of agreement (swaying this way) and disagreement (swaying that way). Everything is moving outside. It feels alive.
Inside I am working on my Alaska story. I will include its beginnings at the end of this post.
I almost had a heart attack this afternoon when I couldn't find the cat. I walked around the house, here kitty kitty....Micah....Micah where are youuuu? Micah, come out...I want to give you a treat... treat treat treat.....Micah...
Nothing. No sign of her. Went upstairs and looked all around the bed and the cushions on the floor, trying to suss out her secret sleeping places...Micah..I looked for her perched atop the bookcase or some other sneaky high landing...Micah come here girl.....
nothing.
I swallowed my panic. It was not going to help. First, I had to comb the house. I looked in the bathroom, in the shower, behind the curtains, under the sink. I looked in the spare bedrooms, even though the doors were firmly shut. My eye gravitated uneasily to the wide open window. My stomach rolled and I felt sick. I walked over to the window and looked down, holding my breath. I did not see any blood, any fur, any signs of distress- no limp and lifeless cat two stories below on the concrete. I kept pacing the house, kept looking back at the window, pacing the house, calling out her name, looking at the wide open window, cursing myself for leaving it open, and thinking, how the hell am I going to explain this? I lost your cat. I fell asleep for 15 minutes and when I woke up your cat was gone. Poof. Honestly, just like that....
Just then, out of nowhere, Micah strolls up beside me. Purring. When cats purr it's like there's a little engine inside their bodies, the whole thing whirring, the thin rib frame of it containing this warm emitting buzz and purr...and she looks at me quizically like, "Oh me? Were you looking for me?"
I can breathe again, and pour myself some juice.
And get back to work.
And here is what I'm trying to do with my Alaska story beginnings. Please excuse it, it's very rough. * * * * *
As I reached the designated gate at the Anchorage airport, it hit me- like the shattering thin glass of an exploding lightbulb- that I had given almost no thought at all to the reality of this little adventure that was in store.
The gate area was small, dingy, and gave a bad first impression. While the rest of the airport was rather new, slick, and allowed sweeping views of nearby mountains, the gate area looked like a community rec center that lost its funding years ago, but continued to leave its doors open for vagrants to wander in off the streets, and find respite from the cold. There was free coffee. A man who looked like he was battling a meth addiction was downing packets of splenda (also free). I counted the open sores on his face. A number of people looked like they had definitely done time. It’s a different crowd when most people prefer to be lying down and sprawling out on the unvacuumed carpet instead of sitting in the seats.
The only neatly dressed person was a girl in her late teens. Pouty lips painted a light glossy pink, hair smoothed into a ponytail, skirt short but not sluttily so. She had a stern aloofness that felt distinctly Eastern European. It took several seconds to realize that among the ex-cons sat a mail order bride, about to meet her Alaskan bushman for the first time. She made a regal effort to look only straight ahead, nonchalant. She crossed her legs at her ankles. With her air of forced superiority, I thought she seemed to be doing a good job steeling herself for what was to come. Perhaps I should figure out how to steel myself for what was to come?
I felt a wave of commiseration. A soft glow of realization began spreading through my mind- Maybe there was still time to turn back. Despite already dreading what I was about to get into, and having no idea of the nature of my work contract, I turned to the age-old comfort of relativity: a stint of factory work was surely child’s play compared to marriage. With her small hands tugging on the hem of her skirt, and my inability to think through my actions, who between us was the child anyway?
I took a deep breath and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee. I sat down. I felt pretentious reading my book. I watched the second-hand do its slow sweeping rounds, brushing back time from the face of the clock.
We boarded a tiny plane where we could choose our own seat, I sat next to a man covered in tattoos- sometimes I see auras and his relaxed me. It turns out he was petrified of flying, and I had to talk him through the turbulence as we suddenly saw nothing but the thick pillow-stuffed clouds tearing apart in the grey sky around us. When he gave me his phone number in Seattle, where he was going back to after several months of working on the crabbing ships, I pushed the scrap of paper down into the seat pocket in front of me when he wasn’t looking. Later, I felt guilty, and realized now was not the time to accumulate bad karma.
Inside I am working on my Alaska story. I will include its beginnings at the end of this post.
I almost had a heart attack this afternoon when I couldn't find the cat. I walked around the house, here kitty kitty....Micah....Micah where are youuuu? Micah, come out...I want to give you a treat... treat treat treat.....Micah...
Nothing. No sign of her. Went upstairs and looked all around the bed and the cushions on the floor, trying to suss out her secret sleeping places...Micah..I looked for her perched atop the bookcase or some other sneaky high landing...Micah come here girl.....
nothing.
I swallowed my panic. It was not going to help. First, I had to comb the house. I looked in the bathroom, in the shower, behind the curtains, under the sink. I looked in the spare bedrooms, even though the doors were firmly shut. My eye gravitated uneasily to the wide open window. My stomach rolled and I felt sick. I walked over to the window and looked down, holding my breath. I did not see any blood, any fur, any signs of distress- no limp and lifeless cat two stories below on the concrete. I kept pacing the house, kept looking back at the window, pacing the house, calling out her name, looking at the wide open window, cursing myself for leaving it open, and thinking, how the hell am I going to explain this? I lost your cat. I fell asleep for 15 minutes and when I woke up your cat was gone. Poof. Honestly, just like that....
Just then, out of nowhere, Micah strolls up beside me. Purring. When cats purr it's like there's a little engine inside their bodies, the whole thing whirring, the thin rib frame of it containing this warm emitting buzz and purr...and she looks at me quizically like, "Oh me? Were you looking for me?"
I can breathe again, and pour myself some juice.
And get back to work.
And here is what I'm trying to do with my Alaska story beginnings. Please excuse it, it's very rough. * * * * *
As I reached the designated gate at the Anchorage airport, it hit me- like the shattering thin glass of an exploding lightbulb- that I had given almost no thought at all to the reality of this little adventure that was in store.
The gate area was small, dingy, and gave a bad first impression. While the rest of the airport was rather new, slick, and allowed sweeping views of nearby mountains, the gate area looked like a community rec center that lost its funding years ago, but continued to leave its doors open for vagrants to wander in off the streets, and find respite from the cold. There was free coffee. A man who looked like he was battling a meth addiction was downing packets of splenda (also free). I counted the open sores on his face. A number of people looked like they had definitely done time. It’s a different crowd when most people prefer to be lying down and sprawling out on the unvacuumed carpet instead of sitting in the seats.
The only neatly dressed person was a girl in her late teens. Pouty lips painted a light glossy pink, hair smoothed into a ponytail, skirt short but not sluttily so. She had a stern aloofness that felt distinctly Eastern European. It took several seconds to realize that among the ex-cons sat a mail order bride, about to meet her Alaskan bushman for the first time. She made a regal effort to look only straight ahead, nonchalant. She crossed her legs at her ankles. With her air of forced superiority, I thought she seemed to be doing a good job steeling herself for what was to come. Perhaps I should figure out how to steel myself for what was to come?
I felt a wave of commiseration. A soft glow of realization began spreading through my mind- Maybe there was still time to turn back. Despite already dreading what I was about to get into, and having no idea of the nature of my work contract, I turned to the age-old comfort of relativity: a stint of factory work was surely child’s play compared to marriage. With her small hands tugging on the hem of her skirt, and my inability to think through my actions, who between us was the child anyway?
I took a deep breath and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee. I sat down. I felt pretentious reading my book. I watched the second-hand do its slow sweeping rounds, brushing back time from the face of the clock.
We boarded a tiny plane where we could choose our own seat, I sat next to a man covered in tattoos- sometimes I see auras and his relaxed me. It turns out he was petrified of flying, and I had to talk him through the turbulence as we suddenly saw nothing but the thick pillow-stuffed clouds tearing apart in the grey sky around us. When he gave me his phone number in Seattle, where he was going back to after several months of working on the crabbing ships, I pushed the scrap of paper down into the seat pocket in front of me when he wasn’t looking. Later, I felt guilty, and realized now was not the time to accumulate bad karma.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Writing Prompts: Sound, Texture, Taste, Color, Animal
So last night I went to my new writing class. I'm not sure if I will continue with the whole series, but the teacher was an excellent facilitator-- open, warm, nonjudgemental, quirky, spontaneous. I think seeing those qualities in your writing instructor enables you to do those things more readily yourself.
The class is meant to almost help you start over in your head- to lose all the preconceived notions about how to write, or what good writing is- to turn new soil and allow fresh ripe fruit of the imagination to become full and juicy in the greenhouse of your mind.
Her technique is rooted in the sensorial experience so we did a writing prompt that focused on Sound, Texture, Taste, Color and Animal. We used each of these as platforms to do a writing exercise describing ourselves. Aerobacize the mind, Leslie said.
I'll share my rapidly scribbled stream of consciousness jottings here:
I AM THE SOUND OF....
fire before it's made, the waiting as the wick leans its ear into the lick of heat
clouds forming
isolated droplets of the lightest, most gentle intermitten rain, hitting the waterskin drum surface of an enclosed pond, sometimes hitting a lily pad, sometimes not
I AM the sound of....
the furthest furthest imperceptible echo of an animal that has barely escaped its predator, the hooves and fearhorror lingering as dissipating palpables in a distantly reverberating terrain
I AM the sound of.....
a piano lid being slammed shut.
I AM THE TEXTURE OF....
tracing paper, the way fog obscures mountains in the distance
melted icecream disappearing down the drain, escaping, not something you'd want to lick up off the dirty sink surface yet are still sad to see go
I AM the texture of.....
a slightly bruised dark red cherry- one that you are on the fence about as you're scooping up cherries at the grocery store and decide, oh what the hell, and toss it into the plastic bag
a glacier cracking, revealing the electric blue slush of water below
I AM the texture of.....
melting wax that's almost too hot, pooling in your palm, except it's perfect to burn a little, like that.
I AM THE TASTE OF....
saffron rice, both cooked and uncooked
the taste of water is the pot with the rice, minus the water the pot, and the rice
I AM THE COLOR OF....
turquoise, but minus the kick, more seafoam, less committment, a little toothpaste, with a whole assortment of things dropped in: the sun, a volcano, broken pieces of firetruck, pieces of conch shelles, stained glass, cathedral buttresses, bricks from the Great Wall, angles of the Jewish star, a moonbeam as a strawstick, stirring the mix, blinding, breathtaking, and dull, when stirred long enough.
I AM THE ANIMAL....
part goldfish. little. unassuming. iconic. dumb. somehow with a unicorn brow, with gazelle spirit, gazelle timidity, tigress temper, dolphin in the eyes- empathy, playfulness, if you can get into the waters deep enough.
The class is meant to almost help you start over in your head- to lose all the preconceived notions about how to write, or what good writing is- to turn new soil and allow fresh ripe fruit of the imagination to become full and juicy in the greenhouse of your mind.
Her technique is rooted in the sensorial experience so we did a writing prompt that focused on Sound, Texture, Taste, Color and Animal. We used each of these as platforms to do a writing exercise describing ourselves. Aerobacize the mind, Leslie said.
I'll share my rapidly scribbled stream of consciousness jottings here:
I AM THE SOUND OF....
fire before it's made, the waiting as the wick leans its ear into the lick of heat
clouds forming
isolated droplets of the lightest, most gentle intermitten rain, hitting the waterskin drum surface of an enclosed pond, sometimes hitting a lily pad, sometimes not
I AM the sound of....
the furthest furthest imperceptible echo of an animal that has barely escaped its predator, the hooves and fearhorror lingering as dissipating palpables in a distantly reverberating terrain
I AM the sound of.....
a piano lid being slammed shut.
I AM THE TEXTURE OF....
tracing paper, the way fog obscures mountains in the distance
melted icecream disappearing down the drain, escaping, not something you'd want to lick up off the dirty sink surface yet are still sad to see go
I AM the texture of.....
a slightly bruised dark red cherry- one that you are on the fence about as you're scooping up cherries at the grocery store and decide, oh what the hell, and toss it into the plastic bag
a glacier cracking, revealing the electric blue slush of water below
I AM the texture of.....
melting wax that's almost too hot, pooling in your palm, except it's perfect to burn a little, like that.
I AM THE TASTE OF....
saffron rice, both cooked and uncooked
the taste of water is the pot with the rice, minus the water the pot, and the rice
I AM THE COLOR OF....
turquoise, but minus the kick, more seafoam, less committment, a little toothpaste, with a whole assortment of things dropped in: the sun, a volcano, broken pieces of firetruck, pieces of conch shelles, stained glass, cathedral buttresses, bricks from the Great Wall, angles of the Jewish star, a moonbeam as a strawstick, stirring the mix, blinding, breathtaking, and dull, when stirred long enough.
I AM THE ANIMAL....
part goldfish. little. unassuming. iconic. dumb. somehow with a unicorn brow, with gazelle spirit, gazelle timidity, tigress temper, dolphin in the eyes- empathy, playfulness, if you can get into the waters deep enough.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Fog Brain Gets Ready for Writing Class
Okay! Today is the right day for a new post. Why? I ran into the former-lawyer-rare-law-books-bookstore-owner at lunch this afternoon. Apparently we enjoy the same Atlas Cafe. He was both easy and difficult to recognize. He looks like he would be a famous actor, so I was sure if I had seen him in movies or in real life.
He had brought what looked like a miniature version of the NY Review of Books (have they gone small, like Rolling Stone did? And others?) and I was reading Francis Ford Coppola's literary journal Zoetrope: All-Story. Meaning, it's all stories. All short fictional stories. I was getting familiar with the latest issue as I am applying to be a reader for their editorial team. I love reading. I love thinking about what I am reading. So, I hope they will let me be a reader. They apparently get 10,000 submissions a year. I imagine a mountain of papers, piling up in the office, and the way you dig is with your eyes. What a journey.
Well, there is a lot to write about. I slept fitfully last night, terribly. In my sleep I remember saying to myself, "this is the worst night of sleep I've ever had." It definitely wasn't, I can already think of four other nights which were worse (freezing on Mt. Merapi in Java last year, the overnight train ride sitting on the hard seat for 17 hours where Booth slept UNDERneath our seats, with the spittle and the sunflower seeds and shoes and grime, so I could lay down on his seat--) and a couple others...but anyway. It was a bad night's sleep, and I tossed and turned, stopped and started, all punctuated by the confusing life story of my dream's protagonist, a man named Narcisco Rodriguez, a Latino baseball player turned fashion designer. I could not understand what he wanted or needed from me, but I was tugged along the whole ride, at the expense of my rest. I hope he is happy, wherever he is now.
So I awoke in a fog. I wanted to write my cover letter for this readership thing, but I couldn't think. It was as if the fog from the Bay had somehow rolled into my cranium, usurping, filling every groove or crease, or fogging up every synapse, or messing with whatever happens in the technoworks of the brain, fogging me up, fogging me down. I went to get a coffee, well, an iced and minty decaf from what, in my limited expertise, is the best coffee in San Francisco. Philz. For $4.00 i was taken to an entirely new psychic realm. The fog is dismantling. A whole new sensation is settling in.
In half an hour I have to leave for my writing class. It's a new class I have decided to explore, in efforts to bulk up my writing muscles. I am trying to get all the creative juices flowing- at this moment I intend to apply to MFA programs in creative writing. The most essential element of the application is the manuscript/writing sample, 20-30 pages. I really need to revamp what I've got, or start on some totally new projects. And I figure a class is a good way to get some inspiration and direction.
Ok just looked at google maps topographic and the address for the class is Hill St. This hill looks like no joke. Better jump on my bike, now.
He had brought what looked like a miniature version of the NY Review of Books (have they gone small, like Rolling Stone did? And others?) and I was reading Francis Ford Coppola's literary journal Zoetrope: All-Story. Meaning, it's all stories. All short fictional stories. I was getting familiar with the latest issue as I am applying to be a reader for their editorial team. I love reading. I love thinking about what I am reading. So, I hope they will let me be a reader. They apparently get 10,000 submissions a year. I imagine a mountain of papers, piling up in the office, and the way you dig is with your eyes. What a journey.
Well, there is a lot to write about. I slept fitfully last night, terribly. In my sleep I remember saying to myself, "this is the worst night of sleep I've ever had." It definitely wasn't, I can already think of four other nights which were worse (freezing on Mt. Merapi in Java last year, the overnight train ride sitting on the hard seat for 17 hours where Booth slept UNDERneath our seats, with the spittle and the sunflower seeds and shoes and grime, so I could lay down on his seat--) and a couple others...but anyway. It was a bad night's sleep, and I tossed and turned, stopped and started, all punctuated by the confusing life story of my dream's protagonist, a man named Narcisco Rodriguez, a Latino baseball player turned fashion designer. I could not understand what he wanted or needed from me, but I was tugged along the whole ride, at the expense of my rest. I hope he is happy, wherever he is now.
So I awoke in a fog. I wanted to write my cover letter for this readership thing, but I couldn't think. It was as if the fog from the Bay had somehow rolled into my cranium, usurping, filling every groove or crease, or fogging up every synapse, or messing with whatever happens in the technoworks of the brain, fogging me up, fogging me down. I went to get a coffee, well, an iced and minty decaf from what, in my limited expertise, is the best coffee in San Francisco. Philz. For $4.00 i was taken to an entirely new psychic realm. The fog is dismantling. A whole new sensation is settling in.
In half an hour I have to leave for my writing class. It's a new class I have decided to explore, in efforts to bulk up my writing muscles. I am trying to get all the creative juices flowing- at this moment I intend to apply to MFA programs in creative writing. The most essential element of the application is the manuscript/writing sample, 20-30 pages. I really need to revamp what I've got, or start on some totally new projects. And I figure a class is a good way to get some inspiration and direction.
Ok just looked at google maps topographic and the address for the class is Hill St. This hill looks like no joke. Better jump on my bike, now.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Saved by the Book
What does it mean when someone says, "It saved my life"? Just how close were they to the edge?
Today I wandered into a cavernous room, full of natural light, ceilings high and reaching up into that great height, stacks and stacks of antiquated books. Leather bound, like the volumes in a stately home's private library, or in one of those secret collections that only historians gain access to in the library. An older man with a full head of white hair, seated behind a typewriter, looked at me quizzically before answering his own question, "Are you looking for something in particular?"
He told me most every visitor is a wanderer, straying out of the layperson-friendly Bolirium Books just across the way. His bookshop is a specialty shop for antique law books-- and he proceeded to show me court documents from Salem in the early 1800's (Dartmouth would be buying those) and other ancient legal miscellany. This place is more like his office- when he acquires something, he already knows who he should sell it to. He is something of a matchmaker, between the book and the library, whether the library be public or private.
I was so happy to be free from my terrible job, my bizarre and manipulative boss, the toxic spill that had begun leaching into the groundwork of my mind. I have time to explore, finally, this neighborhood that I live in, inhabit, but don't feel I interact with, or contribute to. This bookshop and others housed in the nondescript building I always passed on 18th and Mission comprised a fascinating floor of printed matter. You had to be buzzed in. I felt like I had entered a secret club but no password was needed, just an interest in books.
So up there on the third floor I spoke with this kindly older man who had a zest for antique legal documents and books. It was great. I suppose in theory I could imagine these kind of people existed, but I had never met one, and so I felt that much more informed of the greater scope of my fellow humankind.
Anyway, when I asked if he had been a lawyer before he said he had, and when I asked how he was enjoying his encore career in owning this shop, he said it had saved his life. I wonder how he came to rescue himself, or how these books, and this venture, came to rescue him.
Today I wandered into a cavernous room, full of natural light, ceilings high and reaching up into that great height, stacks and stacks of antiquated books. Leather bound, like the volumes in a stately home's private library, or in one of those secret collections that only historians gain access to in the library. An older man with a full head of white hair, seated behind a typewriter, looked at me quizzically before answering his own question, "Are you looking for something in particular?"
He told me most every visitor is a wanderer, straying out of the layperson-friendly Bolirium Books just across the way. His bookshop is a specialty shop for antique law books-- and he proceeded to show me court documents from Salem in the early 1800's (Dartmouth would be buying those) and other ancient legal miscellany. This place is more like his office- when he acquires something, he already knows who he should sell it to. He is something of a matchmaker, between the book and the library, whether the library be public or private.
I was so happy to be free from my terrible job, my bizarre and manipulative boss, the toxic spill that had begun leaching into the groundwork of my mind. I have time to explore, finally, this neighborhood that I live in, inhabit, but don't feel I interact with, or contribute to. This bookshop and others housed in the nondescript building I always passed on 18th and Mission comprised a fascinating floor of printed matter. You had to be buzzed in. I felt like I had entered a secret club but no password was needed, just an interest in books.
So up there on the third floor I spoke with this kindly older man who had a zest for antique legal documents and books. It was great. I suppose in theory I could imagine these kind of people existed, but I had never met one, and so I felt that much more informed of the greater scope of my fellow humankind.
Anyway, when I asked if he had been a lawyer before he said he had, and when I asked how he was enjoying his encore career in owning this shop, he said it had saved his life. I wonder how he came to rescue himself, or how these books, and this venture, came to rescue him.
Monday, June 1, 2009
From my Airplane Window, 16A
I would say, "I can't believe I cried during that stupid movie, Bridal Wars!" But of course I can. Of course I did. In the movie Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play best friends who both share the same dream of having a June wedding at the Plaza Hotel. In my mind this is a very stupid dream and thus a stupid premise for a movie. They fight for the same date, their friendship torn asunder, everything gets ugly, they hate themselves, then they make up. As tear after tear rolled down my cheeks, I could feel the large man beside me wondering if he should say something, or look at me softly and sympathetically, or just continue reading his book and pretend he couldn't feel the penetrating weepiness coming from the window seat to his left. He continued to read his book.
We are thousands of miles high. Below us, major thoroughfares cut through black squares dotted with orange lights. The roads slice through space but there are no cars to be seen. A baseball field is a tiny clamshell of empty green. An illuminated ghost sprawl grid of a city. We are on the brink of a huge body of water. But where are we? I guess Lake Michigan, but I have no idea. It's the only lake I can think of, vaguely in the middle of the country. But it's so big it looks like a sea.
Outside my little skyhole window, deep orange glows, painting a thick band until it fades to the place where the sun's breath does not reach. Various blues mix in the expanse.
I'm listening to the airplane radio channel, in the mood I call my "Airplane Mood." Unmistakeable. It's the mood I always experience when flying. It's very nostalgic, biting the vaguest lip of hope. I think to myself, if I can muster my most, I know it will work out ok.
Even though for years I have been flying these distances, back and forth, coast to coast, continent to continent, never getting any closer to the answers...only coming up with the latest batch of questions. Dusk fades to evening.
I turn on the overhead light. I am in the spotlight of this row, the limelight of my story. Isn't it funny? In the film or play of my life- I am the star, the hero...and the villain. The protagonist and antagonist. I rise. I fall.
I tunnel east.
I look outside. This is not the first time I've thought to myself, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." I live for this---- this moment of awe. This taking-my-breath-away. This feeling of awe, for some reason, though it does not answer any concrete questions like, "What will I be when I grow up?" "Should I even be dating at all?" "What city should I live in?" "Should I apply to graduate school?"-- is still an answer. Perhaps, the answer. When I wring my hands with a question like one of the above, often tormented by lack of direction in life and love, I channel a sunset like the one I see outside-- as I fly high above everything and perspective is restored-- and answer a concrete question with an abstract sunset, and somehow it still makes sense.
When should I quit my job? Sunset.
Should I fly home for july 4th? Sunset.
Can I really live so far away from my whole family? Sunset.
Should we break up? Sunset.
Sunset.
Anticipating my next barrage of anxious questioning....the sun continues blazing...pooling puddles of deep amber on the horizon. Colors bleed across a darkening sky. I feel the next insecurity rise and so I look out-- the sun responds, still setting. Its steadiness is is comforting, and its artfulness is exhilarating.
The burning river of red, the slow swallow of night. The daily giving up, the sun's surrender. I see the half moon settle brighter and brighter into its throne. Trading places. And hours later, trading places again. They share so well, day and night. Is it the same, life and death?
Or do the sun and moon simply fight this changing of the guard in a language we don't understand?
We are thousands of miles high. Below us, major thoroughfares cut through black squares dotted with orange lights. The roads slice through space but there are no cars to be seen. A baseball field is a tiny clamshell of empty green. An illuminated ghost sprawl grid of a city. We are on the brink of a huge body of water. But where are we? I guess Lake Michigan, but I have no idea. It's the only lake I can think of, vaguely in the middle of the country. But it's so big it looks like a sea.
Outside my little skyhole window, deep orange glows, painting a thick band until it fades to the place where the sun's breath does not reach. Various blues mix in the expanse.
I'm listening to the airplane radio channel, in the mood I call my "Airplane Mood." Unmistakeable. It's the mood I always experience when flying. It's very nostalgic, biting the vaguest lip of hope. I think to myself, if I can muster my most, I know it will work out ok.
Even though for years I have been flying these distances, back and forth, coast to coast, continent to continent, never getting any closer to the answers...only coming up with the latest batch of questions. Dusk fades to evening.
I turn on the overhead light. I am in the spotlight of this row, the limelight of my story. Isn't it funny? In the film or play of my life- I am the star, the hero...and the villain. The protagonist and antagonist. I rise. I fall.
I tunnel east.
I look outside. This is not the first time I've thought to myself, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." I live for this---- this moment of awe. This taking-my-breath-away. This feeling of awe, for some reason, though it does not answer any concrete questions like, "What will I be when I grow up?" "Should I even be dating at all?" "What city should I live in?" "Should I apply to graduate school?"-- is still an answer. Perhaps, the answer. When I wring my hands with a question like one of the above, often tormented by lack of direction in life and love, I channel a sunset like the one I see outside-- as I fly high above everything and perspective is restored-- and answer a concrete question with an abstract sunset, and somehow it still makes sense.
When should I quit my job? Sunset.
Should I fly home for july 4th? Sunset.
Can I really live so far away from my whole family? Sunset.
Should we break up? Sunset.
Sunset.
Anticipating my next barrage of anxious questioning....the sun continues blazing...pooling puddles of deep amber on the horizon. Colors bleed across a darkening sky. I feel the next insecurity rise and so I look out-- the sun responds, still setting. Its steadiness is is comforting, and its artfulness is exhilarating.
The burning river of red, the slow swallow of night. The daily giving up, the sun's surrender. I see the half moon settle brighter and brighter into its throne. Trading places. And hours later, trading places again. They share so well, day and night. Is it the same, life and death?
Or do the sun and moon simply fight this changing of the guard in a language we don't understand?
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