Philadelphia Story

Once I knew a boy from Nashville who fell in love with a girl from Philadelphia. It was the end of summer and he was going to be driving from Tennessee way out west for school, far away from his family and far away from the girl he knew he loved. He called the girl and said, "I'm driving to Utah. You're on the way. Can I stop by?" The girl said yes. That's how you know you're in love. When Philadelphia is on the way to Utah. From Nashville. Eventually, the boy and the girl ended up in the same place. And, they lived happily ever after.

early birds and bagel bites

We went for bagels early this morning. The early bird bagel crowd is a curious breed: all beanies and babies and cups of coffee. Men in scrubs and men with scruff. The lone ones sit in quiet corners contemplating world issues and government scandals, and sip java from Styrofoam cups. The mothers huddle with their brood and are anything but quiet. They spend most of their time chasing and herding their wee ones who scatter off to introduce themselves to the shy folks in the corners. A slow smile curls up on some of their mouths, while others seem indifferent. Their eyes peer over their papers for a moment before they return to their morning ritual of reading and sipping.

We lingered at our table while Elizabeth nibbled at her banana. We chatted about everything but world issues and politics. Content sans coffee and sans paper, the conversation was as filling as my toasted sesame bagel with a strawberry schmear.

the big pink couch

Sometimes I think it's strange that I help people change things for a living when I have such a hard time with it. Change, I mean. Out with the old and in with the new. Like when my parents got rid of this hideous pink couch in the basement. I felt like my childhood went away between its cushions. In my opinion even then, "pink" and "couch" should never go together. I remember being embarrassed at the sight of it. It arrived well broken in -- we got it from a family who had outgrown it, or maybe they realized that a couch the color of pepto bismol wasn't exactly high style. Its arms were flat from people sitting on them, and the center sagged. It became a bed for my sister when, after three months in the our new house, she decided she didn't want to share a room. My cousin fell asleep on it when he took breaks from his pre-med studies. My little brother and his toddler buddies would geronimo off the couch's flat arm platforms when no one was looking, or when Rachel was babysitting, because she saw no harm in letting three year-olds tumble into pink-covered foam. It just made for comfier cushions.

We were allowed to eat anything on it, because any spill disappeared. It smelled like popcorn from movie nights and syrup from french toast breakfasts after sleep overs. Pieces of construction paper wedged themselves underneath where we sat, remnants of birthday cards for grandparents or school election posters. In summer when we'd hear the ice cream truck, we'd dive head first into the couch's middle, with high hopes we'd come up with enough spare change for a frozen treat.

I can't remember exactly when we hauled it way, or how, or to where, just that we did and that I miss it. In conversations among life-long friends and cousins who crashed on it during their college days, it will go down as the world's most comfortable couch. Somehow the popcorn kernels, pizza stains and the smell of stinky socks didn't bother anyone. Perhaps there are worse combinations than the words "pink" and "couch." And perhaps before I utter "Out with the old and in with the new," I'll suggest a deep sea dive between the cushions on their couch. Who knows what memories are sandwiched between them.

poetry in motion

At the dinner table last night I proudly recited a limerick from memory. Dad left for a moment and came back with the beloved blue-covered "Sound and Sense," all tattered and torn with notes in the margins. He fired back.

I'm sitting at my drafting desk staring at the illustration which accompanies Longfellow's "There was a little girl." Pint-sized poetry in motion, she's kicking off her shoe in frustration, determined not to finish her supper. I'm feeling quite like that little girl (frustrated), only I haven't the energy to lift a foot. So like that girl, minus the motion. But, if I could, I'd send a shoe sailing. I'm most certain a nap would do the trick. For both of us.

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed.
But when she was bad she was horrid.

|Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|

on the radio

While we remodeled our house we lived with my Grandma and Grandpa, across the street from our friend Emily. Emily was in junior high. She had a brother Jon, who was in high school. He wore khaki shorts and rugby shirts and watched MacGyver. His room was a never ending expanse of The Unknown: trophies and yearbooks high atop a shelf, a stereo with speakers bigger than our heads and, a water bed. Jon was the epitome of high school cool, and we knew it.

Emily, being related to Jon, was pretty cool, too. She taught us about the local radio station Q99 and told us that when you're in junior high you don't call your friend and ask if you can "play." Instead, you say, "Can you do something." Or "Do you want to hang out." My sister and I would listen to Emily's tales of junior high, wide-eyed and innocent, in shock that there were kids who would skip class to go smoke in the gully behind the school.

Sometimes, Jon would let us listen to his stereo. For those few moments, we seemed endlessly fly. When Emily came to play at Grandma and Grandpa's, we would steal the radio from the family room and plug it into the socket behind the sofa in front of the big window in the living room. One person was in charge of calling Q99 to request a song, usually Emily, because she had experience with that sort of thing. Indian-style on the wood floor, we'd perch on our elbows on our knees and wait. We'd turn the volume down low low low and stick our ears close to the speakers. I remember worrying Grandpa would find our little secret radio refuge, but it went undiscovered. I felt grown-up, a little mischievous and totally cool.

happy weekend

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a collection a day

365 days of collections. found here.

piece of the puzzle

Dad is transcribing some of grandpa's history, specifically the years he spent doing church work in Germany. He's using recordings from interviews taken more than twenty five years ago. Since grandpa passed away a few weeks after my first birthday, I haven't any memories of him and I don't remember the sound of his voice. I've assembled a puzzle over my lifetime, made up of stories and pictures, a portrait of a man I never knew. His voice was different than I imagined. I don't know what I was expecting. Perhaps it's because I know him as such a spiritual giant. I expected a voice that matched that personality trait. It was gentle. Soft, like the faded photographs I've seen of him with my grandmother. They look like they have been steeped in tea, edges yellow with time. Grandpa is handsome in his topcoat and fedora, grandma next to him in a fur stole and gloves. They were the essence of 1960's class.

Germany stories are well-known, a vocal family history told by dad upon request at bedtime. He's spoken of many trips through Checkpoint Charlie as a seven year-old, waist-high, curious American boy. Church records were often kept in the children's suitcases. Audible and silent prayers were uttered that the soldier's eyes would pass over them. Sometimes the guards would take grandpa one way and grandma and the children another. A few times it was a while before they were reunited and could continue on to their destination together. To hear such tales in grandpa's voice, soft and gentle, as though he's sitting right beside me is like the finding the last piece of a puzzle 27 years in the making.

with thoughts of spring

Saturday brought snow. And not just some, but lots. While I'm rather fond of that fluffy white stuff, it was all too overwhelming at the time. And even though dad cleared the normal path along the grass between our house and the R's and lined it with the pink flamingos, winter still seemed eternal. You see, I've been hibernating in this shell of mine all season, trying to mask my turtleness with every imaginable fashion find. With the arrival of March I was ready to don my inner (in this turtle shell case, I guess it's outter) Donatello. Saturday's falling flakes brought another feeble attempt to keep warm while not appearing too Yurtle Turtley. It was all rather sad, really. Then the table for work didn't arrive, the color of the fabric was all wrong and I had to make phone calls to important people and say things I didn't want to say.

Then today. Today was rather glorious on many accounts. First, tulips. Green poking through white, reaching up towards the sun. A sure sign of warmer days. I smiled at the sight of them. After a four o'clock to-heck-with-it moment, I ended the day early and headed up to see grandma. I found her in the front room in her chair. "It's spring outside, Grandma!" I announced, drawing the drapes on the giant window that frames the mountain. We took in the view and drank in the sunshine and blue sky and then took a walking tour of the house to look at "treasures" from far away places. All of a sudden I didn't care about late tables and turtle shells. Who has time for complaining with fifty degree weather and tulips poking through the snow and a grandmother who will be 100 years old in less than 30 days? Who has time to worry about the color of the fabric when there are big open windows and mountain vistas and around the world weather forecasts delivered via telephone? As I drove down the hill towards the valley, I thought of warmer places and warmer things, and snow melting quickly under the feet of those silly flamingos. And suddenly my soul loosened with the thought of spring.

morning scribbles

Somewhere in a small bathroom in the basement of a house built long after the west was won, steam rises from an empty shower. The door goes from crystal clear to foggy in a matter of moments as small beads of water collect on the opposite side of the glass.

Extra sleepy feet hit the soaked floor and steady themselves. She adjusts the temperature and begins her routine of daily doodles on the shower door. This morning, she scribbles out lyrics from the chorus of a country song. Drops of water roll south, spontaneous punctuation to the tune of the morning's cowboy twang in her head. Fog filters up from the bottom of the shower. One by one the words drip into one and then disappear into the mist.