the sound of the river

As we pulled past the gate, I reached for my bag and grabbed my book. I tried to read on the way home; I needed to, even. But, I couldn't resist looking out the window as country gave way to city. Two bliss-filled days of sun and moon and mountain air. Campfires, cousins, and late night laughter. Sunshine streaming through quaking aspen. Pastures of sagebrush and a raging, winding river.

Our sleeping bags in front of the fireplace, last night cousin K and I talked of The Big City and the smaller one below us and where in life we've landed. The other conversations dimmed in the background. Accompanied by a snoring brother just above, our words became softer and more separated, and sleep summoned. One after the other we drifted off as glowing embers drew the last bits of shadow from the room. The only sound left was the rushing of the river.

Tonight, down in the valley, I rocked in the hammock while the sun sank below the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. My book folded across my lap, I let it remain, not wanting to renounce the day. A breeze blew through the branches above me and the faint smell of campfire danced past my nose and on into the back yard. I closed my eyes, and off in the distance, I heard the sound of the river.

{illustration by B. Posselli}

happy (long) weekend

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post-its go public

This project is quite possibly my most favorite thing at the moment.
Too good not to pass along.


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found via a cup of jo

26

Happy birthday to my upstairs confidant. My love conundrum comrade. My sundae partner. An endlessly talented girl who listens, laughs, and encourages. Who cooks the most amazing apple pies I've ever sunk my teeth into (not to mention her chocolate donut cookies). She'll sit by my side and tell me to just buy the dang plane ticket and then understands the next morning when my suitcase isn't packed. She'll take walks in the rain. She stays up late playing computers with me. She takes us to visit Robs in CA and shares Robs with us when she comes to SLC. She talks about Mer and Der like they're real people. She likes starfish. She's had some pretty amazing opportunities offered to her, but decided to stay here where we need her most. She loves JAM. She drives a car named "Blue Crush" and will take matters into her own hands when tracking down that Blockbuster hit, starring Kate Bosworth. She's got a pretty awesome family to boot. Once, her Dad gave a pre-date interview for me, asking all the right questions about occupation, hobbies, and talents. He weighed the pros and cons ahead of time, so I didn't have to. She likes pizza from The Pie just as much as I do and understands all things Jim Halpert and Seth. Basically, she's as kindred as they come and I love her dearly.
Happy 26th, Kas!

of eggs and islands

I had a "Suzan Sandwich" for lunch today: one scrambled egg and one sliced tomato between two pieces of toast. When nothing else sounds good, it always fits the bill. With one bite I'm transported to another time and another place where Suzan, Libby, Stuart and I are off on summer adventures in the VW van.

You know that question: If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring one person, who would it be? I've never quite been able to answer it. Partially because I like to think that my life is full of endlessly fantastic people and I couldn't bare to choose, and partially because part of me wants my answer to be The man of my dreams. However, he hasn't exactly shown up on the scene yet. Today, as I munched on my sandwich, I decided I'd take Suzan. Some of you may be wondering why I'd want to take my AP English teacher to a deserted island. Why I'd want to spend my desert days discussing Homer or "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." But, as I weighed the pros and cons, I couldn't think of anyone better.

First of all, those who know her can attest she always knows what to do. The world as you know it can be ending, and, come hell or high water, she's got a solution. That solution may be for you to just hesh up and stop complaining, but when it comes down to it, when all the complaining has ceased: problem solved. In our desert island scenario, she and I would spend days and days (and months and months, depending on how long this plays out) discussing art and fine literature. Maybe there was a one book rule, too, and since I've never been able to come up with the answer to that query either, she's the perfect person to have along since she's read and taught it all. Perhaps I'd come out of it understanding "The Heart of Darkness" better, although a plot of sinking ships and vengeful natives on tiny islands might not be the best substance for such a situation.

The two of us would send fascinating and entertaining (not to mention grammatically correct) messages in bottles to delight any and all finders. She'd have me write an observation a day, so I'd come to love our little deserted desert home. She could tell me what it's like to live in Russia amongst artists and vagrants and could explain (by showing, not telling) in such detail the best of France's cheeses, leaving us feeling full, even just for a moment.

When we were rescued, she'd help write up the harrowing tale of who we met and how we managed to live on exotic fruit, make paper from indigenous trees and sandals from bark, the kind she likes to wear year-round. We'd sell thousands of copies and make millions of dollars. But, in the end, she'd pull me back into reality like she always does and remind me that it's not about making millions of dollars, or being famous. It's about the distance you've come and the connections you've made. And the memories all along the way, the egg and tomato sandwich kind of memories. The kind that take you back to summer days spent long ago in a VW van, or on a far away desert island.

happy weekend

One way ticket to here, please!
I'd curl up with my latest read (thanks, Em) and
spend the whole weekend (or longer) right here,
dangling my toes off the dock.

thursday edition

I'm sitting at a partially-cleared kitchen table, but for a plate of fresh apples slices and half-full glasses of water. It's 15 minutes post-dinner and my 17 year-old brother is sprawled out on the family room floor, his hands behind his head. He's leisurely taking in the evening while I edit his seven page research paper on global warming. His shoes (which we've all managed to trip over our way to the table) are directly in the path of traffic leading to the deck doors, which he's left wide open. Just as I start in on the importance of knowing who your writing audience is, he asks me for the 150th time to call out the the door for the dog. (After nine years, she (the dog) has developed quite the selective hearing.)

Five minutes later, minutes more leisurely for some than others, my brother looks up at me. "Did you know Chewy's (the dog) theme song for life is that song by Michael Jackson, that goes...He starts singing the lyrics to "Bad." "Because she's a bad dog (she's not) and because she's both black and white." I lift the pencil from the page and stick it behind my ear. "Huh? And more importantly, that's not how it goes," I inform him. I sing the correct lyrics, as he ignores me and skips up the stairs, still singing the wrong words. (I hate it when people sing the wrong words.) I focus my attention back on the paper, circle a sentence where there's a dangling participle, and have a flashback to the day when Mrs. Lake used her red pen to write "d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y" around the entire page of my essay, her teacher tongue-in-cheek way of making sure I never forget that an "i" follows the "n." Not an "e." Worked like a charm. Haven't spelled it wrong since.

Rich bounds down the stairs, ipod in hand and buds in his ears. He's snapping his fingers and singing the lyrics, word for word, or so he says. I told him I needed proof; he needed to share his earphones so I could confirm that I was indeed right. I reach out my hand for an ear bud. Ignoring me, he heads for the cupboard and comes back with the karaoke microphone. "I know this isn't the most convenient way, but it will work," nodding reassuringly. He grabs the mic, sets one ear bud on the table, and leaves the other in his ear. He puts the mic up to the bud on the table and before I knew it it was like the King of Pop himself was moon walkin' right there in our family room. As for the lyrics, turns out we're both right. And to think I thought I had him.

I step down as the Bad Lyric Expert, and resign to the task at hand: global warming, leaving my leisurely brother break dancing. Siting the paper I tell him that I don't know what it means that congress wants to put caps on companies regarding global warming; that he needs to explain what caps are. "Why?" (This is his brilliant retort to any critique I suggest.) Because I'm only a partially informed audience, I tell him. I know that global warming is an issue, but I am not informed as to what is happening to stop the progression. "So I should say that caps are..." "Yes," I tell him, after he's given me a brief oral explanation. "Write that." A few pages later, I read him a sentence about the involvement of China's global warming efforts with the U.N. I tell him to write out the words United Nations, to which he replies, (are you ready?) "Why?" Then he says, in his signature I'm-17-and-trying-to-be-annoyingly-cute-and-sarcastic voice, "So do I have to explain China, too? Do I have to say 'China is a country with this really long wall...'" he trails off. (I was going to tell him he had to start with Pangaea, but...) The ear buds go back in his ears.

Out of my periphery, I see Rich shaking his hips, ever so slightly, elbows bent, hands in the air, fists bopping with the music. I know he won't stop until I acknowledge his Elvis-like swinging, so my head turns in his direction and I pretend I'm amused. "Go sharpen this, " I say, handing him my pencil. And, as he marches off to the study towards the pencil sharpener, I look out past the deck onto the lawn where the dog has settled on the green grass (which we should be grateful for because, you know...global warming and all.) I replay the events of my day, enjoying the brief moment to myself as the (correct) lyrics of "Bad" run in a loop through my head.

lunch break

Sometimes I have to take drastic measures. Like spending 8.00 USD on the British Edition of House and Garden, instead of buying lunch.

heaping

Who decides what makes art art? I spent a whole semester in a lecture series titled, "What is Art?" looking at hundreds upon hundreds of slides while debating this very thing. My two professors chided back and forth the whole class period. (Those two couldn't have been more opposite.) They perfected the art of talking in circles while we took copious notes on a whole lot of nothing. If I'm remembering my nothings correctly, I think we decided everything qualifies: toilets on walls, people in plexiglass, piles of ordinary things like this.

If I term the carefully placed pile of worn-for-a-day clothes now taking over the top of what I think is a chest at the foot of my bed, it will make me feel a whole lot better about things. Slide show to follow.

City Babes

Cousin K is home from the Big City, something that seems intrinsic to my happiness. We made good memories there. In the Big City, that is. Like the time she joined Mom and me at The Waldorf towards the end of our trip my senior year. She arrived looking very New York-ish in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria*, a stylish carry-on in tow. We lounged about in the lobby, opened up ridiculously over-priced items like microscopic bags of cashews from our mini-bar and took full advantage of the concierge, who gave us directions to the finest dining including a place in Little Italy where we gorged ourselves on pasta and sparkling water with lime. (When in the Big City, go big or go home. Always add a citrus embellishment.)

This amazing once-in-a-lifetime deal slash gift of graduation grace from the travel gods my Mother found included free makeovers at Bloomingdales. So, atop fifth avenue, adjacent to Central Park, the three of us were doted on by Estee Lauder employees for over an hour. We were pampered pampered pampered and walked out looking like we could walk onto a Broadway stage. None of us had ever worn that much makeup in our lives, but it was well worth it. The serums! The creams! The under-eye-circle-reduction potions! It was all so heavenly. In a moment of haste, after hearing "Yoah goahjuss, Maatha! Just goahjuss!" a thousand times and being told the fountain of youth was contained in a tiny bottle, my mother bought me the most expensive beauty product I have owned to date. Something about smaller pores, wrinkle reduction and skin rejuvenation. All I know is that it made my skin feel, as a New Yorker would say, "Like buddah!" And, at age eighteen, this million dollar cream that came in a bottle the size of my pinky, was imperative to my beauty-future. I used it down to the last drop, scraping the bottom of the bottle with a q-tip towards the end. I practically gave that bottle a funeral upon it running dry, turning my head as I dropped the pretty bottle into the trash bin. I held back the tears as to not remove the lotion-potion from my face with waterworks.

Tonight, nearly ten years (yikes!) and a few wrinkles (gasp!) later, I was going through a bunch of free samples in my bathroom drawer, tossing this and that. A tiny bottle caught my eye. It was way too pretty to be of little importance and therefore tossed. It's a blue-green that shimmers in the reflection of the mirror. I opened it up, and with one whiff, I was back on the fifth floor of Bloomingdales, with the beauty experts in their white coats, saying "Yoah goahjuss!" Whether it makes me goahjuss, I have yet to say. This I know: it smells like heaven in a bottle just the right size for Stewart Little. I shall use it ever-so-sparingly. But mostly, I will unscrew the lid, inhale deeply and transport myself back to my first adventure in the Big City with Cousin K. There have been more adventures since our Fith Avenue Facial Fantasy come to fruition and there will be more in the future, but for now, I'm glad she's back on home turf, at least for a little while. Welcome home, dahling. Yoah just goahjuss!

*Lest you're ready to cue the theme song to Green Acres...
(New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue)
know this: My mother dearest found the most amazing deal. Staying at The Waldorf was cheaper than staying at the Marriott. I swear. It was, in a word (or three) an absolute dream!

old and new

Tonight I wore an old gold bracelet to dinner. It's old and new all at the same time. Tonight was its first night out in a long while. It's spent the past two decades in a pink box, deep in a dresser drawer. It belonged to my great-grandmother, for whom I am named. It has a medallion that dangles from its golden links, and is held together with a golden clasp. Upon it are our mutual initials. It was probably too fancy to wear to a casual Saturday night dinner, but I didn't care. The sight of it on my wrist made me happy and every time I reached for my glass of water it made the most pleasant twinkling noise.

The bracelet joined the rest of my jewelry tonight in a silver box atop my dresser. Before I set it inside, I traced my finger along the letters on the medallion. I wondered about the beginnings of the bracelet. I wondered how many nights out on the town that bracelet had with great-grandmother Martha. How many times her hands clasped it tight around her wrist. If it was a gift from my great-grandfather on a special occasion. If she wore it on Saturdays.

As I slipped it on my wrist for the first time since I was a very little girl, its life began anew; the jingling noise like a heartbeat, revived after a long sleep inside a pink box. That bracelet is a circle of life around my wrist, the round medallion a symbol of the past and the present. The old and the new. A reminder that I am a link in a chain. Continually connected, able to trace my steps back to a German great-grandmother who shares my same name.

happy weekend

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sometimes in summer

Sometimes I picture her in that house. It is summer, and it is evening. He is there. They've left the curtains open. Not because they meant to. But, afternoon has given way to evening and in the abundance of laziness that is a summer Saturday, the windows, like the dishes in the sink remained, wide open and gaping. The evening inhales and exhales and warm air slowly streams in like a breath on their backs, an invisible reminder of summer's presence. Yellow lantern light filters through the curtains, casting shadows about the wood floor. He gets up to put a record on. Before taking her from the sofa, she doggy-ears a page in her book. He pulls her close. Rising up on her toes, she rests her head on his shoulder. There, in the yellow light of a summer lantern, they dance, barefoot. Back. Front. Left. Right. Their steps become slower and slower until they stop. The music fades into the moonlight.

work in progress

In a wee bit of a creativity rut? See here.

holding out for a hero

Confession: I haven't read the seventh Harry Potter book. Or the sixth. I got part way through number five and stopped. It's not that I don't want to finish, I just haven't gotten around to finishing. I haven't finished the fifth, which means I can't start the sixth, and so on. Harry has to win, right?

This one little confession makes me an outcast in my family. I'm the Quasimodo of the bunch, sent up to the bell tower, shamefully aware of the Harry hunch on my back. I spent the first few months after the last book came out with cotton in my ears (so to speak) trying to avoid hearing how it all ended up. I might have to refresh your memory, but the world was all abuzz about the happenings at Hogwarts. Girls and boys, the old and the young, would emerge from dark basement reading rooms and comfy couches, with tears in their eyes, desperately wanting to discuss the details. I would politely excuse myself as to avoid finding out the fate of my favorite fictitious wizarding friends.

Last summer my brother, an avid fan, gave me an ultimatum. He said I had until January 1, 2009 to finish the series, or he'd spill the Bertie Bott Beans. In the end, his plan was to tell me everything. The summer came and went. Book five came and went with me, on an airplane ride or two; to the beach; I packed it in my swim bag to read after laps at the pool. But always in the end, I found something I was more excited to read, and I pushed Harry Potter to the back of the proverbial bookshelf in my mind.

"The End" was used and abused as a threat. Rich would want something...something bad. Like a Frosty from Wendy's or something equally as life-sustaining and slash or important. "If you don't go now I'll tell you the end of Harry Potter!" he'd shout, like he was the captain of the Quiddich team. Feet up on the ottoman, remote in hand, he'd watch shows he likes to DVR while I ran out, fingers in my ears. Let's just say Rich ate a lot of Frosty's that summer. When D Day arrived, instead of Happy New Year, I got a very somber, "Martha, it is now time to tell you what happens at the end of Harry Potter" Auld Lang Syne a la mon frere. But, somehow I managed to squeeze a little more life out of the threat hanging over my hallowed head.

Tonight, over dishes, I heard it all. While Rich and Dad scrubbed, Sunday shirt elbows deep in suds, they spoke of spells and wizard weddings. Of horcruxes and deathly hallows. They told me that Harry dies but, after a discussion with the beloved Dumbledore, he lives again. For all I know, they could be making it up. I guess I'll have to read and find out. To my credit, I've gone almost a whole year (give or take) without knowing who dies at the end of the Seventh Harry Potter.

The folks over at the Wendy's drive-thru are really going to miss me.

happy weekend

Happy May Day!

Grandma and I enjoyed a trip to Hires on Wednesday afternoon. We made an outing of it, taking a self-guided exterior tour of the historic home show this weekend in our neighborhood. We stopped at the houses with the best tulips along the way.