Sunday Sunnyside Up

Yesterday at church, in a wonderful twist of fate slash a gigantic blessing from above, I got to sit next to my high school English teacher. In a congregation full of visiting family and friends, I chose to sit by Suzan. Anyone who knows her would have done exactly the same. She has this uncanny ability to see directly into you, past all the bull, and into your soul. You can't help but spill your guts when you're talking to her, and if you don't offer it up, she'll get it out of you no matter where you are -- at the grocery store, in line at the post office, in between the lines of the opening hymn. We started singing all good intentions and in tune, but ended up talking instead. About life. About the future.

She started out slow, asking what's new in my life and before I knew it the little thread she tugged at was pile of yarn on the floor beneath the pew. It may sound like the worst thing that to ever encounter (and if you haven't finished an English paper because you and your best friend were up late talking on the phone, it most definitely is). However, when you pack up your bags after a session with Suzan, you've got oodles of inspiration and a new Life Plan. You've got a mound of confidence three times the size of the pile of yarn she unraveled when you weren't looking, a reservoir of compliments, and enough oil in your lamp to climb the highest of mountains on the darkest of nights.

So yesterday when I told her my first math class in like forever and a day times infinity was looming large and I felt like I was going to fall and get stuck in the "U" of a parabola for eternity, she cupped my cheeks in her hands, told me I was wonderful beyond measure, and gave me the phone number of my high school math teacher.

This morning, the morn of the eve of my first math class in eleven years (which, if you do the math equals forever), I called my former math teacher. In total paranoia, I told Rose about my predicament. I guess I've been out of her classroom long enough that her contagious chuckle and New Yorker sarcasm came out the end of the phone and bit me on the ear. "This is going to be hard for you." Um. Yeah. Duh. I wanted to say it, but then I remembered how she used to deal with those kind of students. (Once she made a sign for boy who's sarcastic remarks were as endless as the number pi. She was so sick of telling him to shut up, she wrote it on a sign. I'm pretty sure she stuck it on a stick and laminated it, too. I wish I could say it worked. So does she.) Instead of complaining (or staying scared forever and a day) I'm going to take her advice, which is to take math one day at a time, one problem at a time, one number at a time. I promise not to moan incessantly. I told Rose she can keep her laminator high on its shelf.

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.

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.

Observation 1

She would ask me to write what I saw. To show her; not tell her. The colors in the sky. The way sunlight hit the crab apple tree. "Observations," she'd call them. The sky is blue, I thought. Blue with white clouds. I'd sit and wonder how on earth I was supposed to pontificate upon that for fifteen minutes; how many different ways I could say blue and white. Then I'd stare out the window pretending to create a composition in my mind to later transfer to the page. My mind would drift to which pair of soccer shorts were clean enough to wear (blue? white?) to practice that afternoon or what K and I were going to do that weekend. Or I'd look at the way my A's slanted on the page and how my T's and H's were almost the same height. I'd sluggishly scrawl a few lines of this or that before we moved on to grammar, then art. The next day I'd be back at the kitchen table with four more "Observations" to write, alone, without her to guide me, to prod me along. Sitting idly by, I let the world happen all around me as I stared at the way I had written Observation across the top of the paper, pious at the placement of the dot dead-center above my "I" or the roundness of my "O."

Little did I know that those afternoons spent gazing out at the light as it sifted through the leaves in the backyard would shape the way I felt about the world. The way I felt about recording events in my life. That her instructions to exactly and absorbedly (with dreamy attention) stare out the window for fifteen minutes at a time would change the way I processed every flicker of golden light around me. That years later I'd read what others have written about light and shadow and know exactly what they were seeing because I've used similar words to describe similar things.

Two nights ago, I opened up my journal for the first time in over two months. The desire to write had vanished back in June with 80 degree afternoons and nights when the cooler could be left off. I've been wary to fill its lines. Worried my words wouldn't be sufficient. Unsure of my ability to correctly capture what has been going through my mind. The same has been true with blogging. I'm never sure who reads what I've written. I have learned this is much more for me than anyone else, but suddenly I became afraid of what everyone around me thought. This feeling of inability to record recent happenings created a critic -- one inside my head and perhaps one outside of it -- one who was always measuring, comparing. Throwing anxious doubts my way. I lost sight of my true self, the one who was trying to free what I really thought from what I thought I ought to think. All creativity had been killed. Drafts sat in my post box, all unfinished. Unpublished. I left all unsaid. Unrecorded. Idle.

It wasn't until today -- this afternoon -- when I pulled a book from the shelf, that the desire came back; that I cornered the critic and stared him in the face. Thanks to wise words from m. and Ueland's book, I've been able to harvest my thoughts and kick the critic out of the corner for good. Well, at least for now.

Tonight as I gazed out at the warm evening light that bathed marble columns in Memory Grove, I let go. I left the conversation. My thoughts drowned out the music and the voices. I was present. Now, a few hours later, I sit by the soft glow of the computer screen, fingers to keyboard, ideas flooding in. Suddenly I'm back at the kitchen table. She's there. My notebook is open in front of me; empty pages full of possibility and vistas of "Observations" ready to be recorded. My words won't be perfect. Some readers might not understand exactly what I'm feeling, but at least I'm writing. Ueland is right: (At times of) creative idleness...you are being slowly filled with warm imagination, with wonderful living thoughts...For what we write today slipped into our souls some other day when we were alone and doing nothing.

For anyone else suffering from blogger's block or for any of you who have contemplated starting a blog but haven't (I can think of a few of you in particular), follow m's encouragement: open up and let it out. you won't regret it. speak from the gut and be brave. and if you're nervous, then follow this advice:

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Happy writing!

silver spoons

I recently read an article about a woman who has spent the better part of her life trying to recreate a tuna sandwich she ate as a seven year old one summer while visiting the east coast. To her, this sandwich embodies childhood; The Good Life. Perfection between two slices of bread. The sandwich was just moist enough, the tuna not too fishy. There was a mayonaise ratio she's never been able to duplicate and the celery had been diced just right. Sure (she argues) it could have been the fact that she was very near starving by the time her parents decided to pull of the road to appease their little travelers. Or, it could have been the charming Swedish couple who made this American sandwich to perfection. But, to her, this was it. Ambrosia to her seven year-old palate. If only she could recreate that experience now. And, according to the article, she'll die trying.
* * *
It was late August, and Suzan and Mom let me tag along. I felt beyond lucky to be the trio to their usual duo. It had been three months since I'd sat under Suzan's tutlidge, and I felt a bit more comfortable going as a "friend." We arrived at Fresco on 15th, dipping our heads beneath the curling ivy to enter the enchanting eatery. Elbows perched a top a crisp white tablecloth, I follwed their lead, agreeing that indeed soup was the way to start. Suzan asked for three spoons and together, we slurped away. Thinking I was being polite, after four or five spoonfuls of the most delicious summer soup, I rested my spoon on the edge of the thick-rimmed soup bowl. "Just exactly what do you think you are doing?" She stopped mid-slurp and looked at me with her all-knowing teacher-eyes; the I-can-see-straight-through-to-your-soul stare. "Uh...I thought I'd..." She cut me off. Stern, yet kind, she told me to pick up my spoon and finish the soup. She brought both her hands forward to guesture and leaned her face close in near mine. "Oh, dearie. Listen. Food is an experience." While I continued scrape spoonfuls of soup out of the bowl and into my mouth, Suzan spoke of dinners in Paris while Randall was painting. Meals in Eastern Europe. Breads. Cheeses. Life-changing cheeses. She closed her eyes as if the very thought of them transported her to that time of her life as she and Randall wandered from country to country, savoring soups and chewing cheese. The patio lights graced the curves on her face as a smile forced her cheeks taut. She opened her eyes and joined us back at Fresco just as the votives began to scatter round shadows across the table.

We enjoyed a main course and then dessert, during which my fork never rested. Not only did the food taste better, but my memory of that evening is forever inscribed in my mind: the creeping ivy along the pergola; the lantern light; Mom's face as we spoke of college plans and portfolios; Suzan across the table infused in the atmosphere; in the moment.
* * *
As I read the article about the tuna sandwich, my mouth began to water (and I don't even like tuna!) I thought of dinner at Fresco and the best chocolate cake I've ever sunk my teeth into at Pesto, a restaurant in D.C. I thought of Ruby's in SoHo where I devoured the best burger I've eaten to date. I longed for the mint chocolate chip ice cream from Belmont, enjoyed alongside Thomas and Evan when I first visited Boston at age 10, and beignets with Anna from Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter - If I try hard enough, I could produce a confectioners sugar cough, the result of inhaling the to-die-for frost a top those fried fancies. So, for lack of a better post, I thought I'd list a few of my favorite restaurants from favorite cities I've visited, for any and all travelers. Looks like I'm staying put as of last Wednesday. There are worse things. And, until I can curb my urge for another escape, there's always Ruth's Diner, Fresco, and Trio here in the City of Salt to cater to my cravings.

Kitima Thai Cuisine: Irvine, CA (We split six or seven entrees - there were a lot of us. They were all excellent.)
Cafe Du Monde, French Market Coffee Stand: New Orleans, LA (Get the beignets. They're world famous)
Brigham's Ice Cream: Belmont, MA (I will argue that their mint chocolate chip is the best in town)
Pesto: Washington, D.C. (Two words: chocolate cake. It will change your life.)
Ruby's: SoHo, NYC (Best. Burger. Ever.)
Mama Mexico: Uptown Manhattan, NYC (Live Mariachi Band. Guacamole and salsa made right at your table. Sizzlin' hot entrees. Guys in sombreros.)
Patsy's Pizzeria: Various locations in Manhattan, NYC (Gooood pizza).
Even Keel Cafe: Nantucket, MA (Eat on the patio. You won't regret it. In fact, you won't regret anything you do on Nantucket. It's one of my favorite places on earth!)
Jaguar: Coconut Grove Miami, FL (Mexican lasagna that's too pretty to eat. Eat it anyway. It's amazing as is the interior design).

Why Write?

Wow. This a-post-a-day thing is really keeping me on my toes; keeping me thinking. It's so very Anne Lamott. If only I could write like Anne! I find myself walking about, experiencing the day, noticing the light and the sound and the texture of it. Taking it in. Sifting it. Churning it. And turning it out again. Trying, in some way, in any way, to transfer it to the page. To make sense of it. To make it matter. Anne Lamott says it best:

"Why does writing matter again? ... Because of the spirit ... Because of the heart. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: the feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirit of the people who are together on that ship." (Lamott, "Bird by Bird," p. 237).

The past two weeks I've longed for Mrs. Lake more so than I have since she set me free seven years ago. I'm constantly worrying Would Suzan approve of such posts? Oh, I DO hope I'm "showing" and not "telling" this story. WWSD? Not that that question (What Would Suzan Do) applies solely to writing. Nay. It applies to Life. I'd do well to ask myself that question honestly and often in regards to any sort of thing. What a True North that dear woman is. As I've written before, there are no words to adequately express how much I love the woman who taught me to love words (and Lamott) in the first place. I dedicate this month of November, this National Blog Posting Month to you, Suzan. Bless your face, my gadfrey!

Life Lessons, via the Post

Sure, I could have used the drive-thru. Easy access. Drive through, drop it off, move on with life. But the gold Volvo couldn't be ignored. And, I just needed to see her. I squeezed my car in between two yellow lines and walked in.

* * *

As I look back, I'm amazed at the times she's magically appeared in my life. Like she knows. Lots of us say she does - that she just knows. It's the end of The End (I'm sure of it) and, on cue, it's a phone call to Mom that I just happened to answer; a run-in at Top Stop, or she's across the lawn at Jim's submitting her taxes. Everything that is thick and cloudy; all the haze and confusion of life, is at once unmistakably translucent. Evident. Undisguised. Solved. And with but a few words. Words. After all, she is the Queen of them.

Perhaps these short sentence-life's-lessons came about in the interest of time. Because anyone and everyone seemed to be calling to her. They needed help. And, even if they didn't know they needed help, they needed help, according to her calculations, and I wouldn't mess with her calculations. Once, she knew I had a crush on a boy even before I knew I had a crush on a boy. "Oh, don't think I haven't seen those glances across the room!" (in that great inflection of hers - so signature: when she's out of breath, but she keeps reading, managing an inhale and half a sentence all at once). A finger shake, and the evil-eye: She raises her eye-brows, squints at you and hunches over the podium. I gasped, feeling oh so wrongly accused. Then, realizing I wasn't so innocent, I gave her that look - the look she's watched curl across droves of faces - in a "but-how'd-you-do-it?!" fashion, leaving all to wonder where her eyes-into-the-soul- spectacles are stashed in that silvery hair).

* * *

Just as my envelopes slipped into the outgoing mail slot, she slipped out of line, the postman finishing her order and calling, "Next!" at the five-o'clock rush queue. She gave me her usual salutation and a big hug. I confessed that I'd side-stepped the drive-thru hoping for a happy accident. Silly me, in all her queen-like clairvoyance, she already knew. We had all of a few minutes of a conversation as she tucked her always-sandled feet into her Volvo. I got in my car, drove passed the row of blue mailboxes, and followed her down the hill. Refreshed. Replenished. Ready for It.

Seeing her is like seeing a best friend, a fortune teller, the most royal of subjects, just the cynic you need at five pm on a Monday, a wise philosopher on all things Life, your teacher, your mentor, your kindred spirit, your biggest fan...your very own Suzan, all to yourself at the post office, on a Monday.