trying to go to bed at 10 after spending several weeks going to bed at 1 is the equivalent of normal people trying to fall asleep at 7 or 8 in the evening. well-intentioned but, I'm finding, impossible. my normal method for trying to overcome insomnia, particularly when I'm restless because of nerves, is to lie very still and count, slowly, to 300. I usually begin to nod off in the 90s and my counting gets all wonky and then, poof, I'm sleeping. the rule is, if I get to 300, I'm allowed to get up and do stuff for awhile because it's clear I'm not going to fall immediately to sleep. I remember the night I devised this: it was late august 2005, the night before I began working as the receptionist for a staffing agency. I was nervous and I didn't want to get up early the next morning, and I lay in bed forever and ever, fidgeting, unable to sleep. I thought, I'm never going to sleep if I can't stay still.
tonight I got to come home at a normal hour for the first time in nearly a week. I left the office at a quarter to five and I've been home ever since. after so many long days at work, the empty space is almost crippling. you get into this groove, even if it's exhausting, and popping out of it even for a day or two is a challenge. sometimes I work as much as I do just because it's easier to keep the momentum going. once I begin to slow down, it's hard to gear up again. tonight I watched the last episodes of the first season of game of thrones, and when I was finished I sort of scratched my head. washed some dishes, ate an egg sandwich. now what? there are a billion errands, but my car keeps stalling out and besides, don't I want to be home for half a second?
my edges are really frayed right now from so many weeks of long hard days. I'm lonely today, a rare emotion in an ordinarily solitary soul. my loneliness isn't about wanting company so much as it is about wanting a particular kind of company. I don't even want to talk; I just want to sit in companionable silence. want a little love, want to be understood. there isn't anything to appease it. I found myself earlier heaped in a ball on my bed, staring at the flower print on my duvet, saying dully to myself, "no one is going to save you from this feeling but you." if this doesn't sound like your idea of a fun night off, you're not alone.
the exterminator came for the ants today. afterwards my landlord sent me an email which contained a thinly veiled accusation that the ants were actually my own fault, which my logical brain recognizes as patently absurd (I am a very tidy person by nature, and besides, the ants have been here since my very first morning), but in my semi-frazzled emotional state I took the accusation to heart, and it upset me a lot. my landlord is kind of an uptight person, and I think she's been suspicious of me since our very first meeting, when, because scott was ungraciously kicking me out of his condo, I told her that I would rent the apartment sight unseen. it was in a neighborhood I liked, at a price I could afford, and I had nowhere else to go.
when I was a small child, my mother, my grandmother, and I lived in a rowhome in irvington, a suburb just outside baltimore city. we lived on the top floor, in what I remember to be essentially just a long hallway; my mother's bedroom at the top of the steps, and then the kitchen (where I have a vivid memory of standing on a chair in an apron, helping my mother at the stove). then my bedroom, with its yellow curtains, and then my grandmother's room at the end of the hall, its windows facing the street. at night, my grandmother would get into bed and then I would be expected to walk down the hall and kiss her goodnight. I was very young, 4 or 5. she would always put pond's cold cream on her face before she went to bed, and I would have to go and kiss her on her lotioned cheek. my memory of this was already quite vivid when last week, I bought myself a container of cold cream, because I've been experimenting with different ways of washing my face. in the bath one night I opened the container, and -- what a miracle our olfactory system is, and time such an illusion; there I was once again in that bedroom, the wooden headboard up against the wall, the light from the streetlamp shining through the window, my grandmother in bed before me. those are the streetlamps I still picture when I remember my mother reading to me from robert louis stephenson's a child's garden of verses, her favorite of the verses being the one called "the lamplighter."
a writing teacher in college, having encountered my grandmother in a story I wrote once about the way she ate asparagus at dinner (horrifyingly), encouraged me to write about her at greater length. we lived with my her until I was 12. although everyone in the family called her 'grams,' I always called her 'ma,' which, to my constant frustration, she always pretended was really 'mom.' I only ever used 'ma' when I spoke to her, never when I spoke about her. she died in 2007, and it just struck me for the very first time that my usage of 'ma' is dead forever alongside her. good god, life. doesn't everyone die at last, and too soon.
it's 11:11 now. there are so many things to wish for. sleep chief among them.
March 27, 2012
March 18, 2012
I don't even know how to tell you my feelings about galileo. today, I got to the office at 11, in order to snap photos for the blog during the morning's scene shift rehearsal. we haven't even gotten to tech and I already know most of the score by heart. at 2, there was a run of the piece; I was on-hand to take notes for our conductor, anne.
anne is a hard personality to describe. very kind, very pleasant but also all business. she knows exactly what she wants in the music and manages to ask for it without being demanding -- like the nicest tyrant you've ever met. she's petite and blonde and type A without it being the slightest bit annoying. she smiles a lot. she gives praise where it's due, and is never mean or scary in rehearsal. I loved her utterly during our production of orphée, and by now, having worked so hard with her on this piece, I feel certain I would run in front of a bus for her.
before rehearsal she turned to me and told me what she wanted in my note-taking. "just give me scene, measure number, the word, and the character who sings it," she instructed. we begin, and the notes fly one after the other. note-taking requires a different kind of concentration on the music. as she dictates them to me, conducting all the while, I begin to understand what she's listening for, and can sometimes begin pre-emptively writing the note before she's had a chance to tell it to me. "Cardinal 1: make sure to hold that note all the way to beat 4." "Galileo: don't forget to enunciate the final consonant on 'waited' so it doesn't sound like 'wait.'"
when we finish the show, I have teared up again. leading up to the start of rehearsals, we found the ending to be utterly cheesy and awful, but now that it's staged, it's incredibly moving. anne turns to me and says, "would you mind separating the notes out by singer and giving the list to each of them? and a copy for me, plus a list of whatever I said we needed to rehearse tomorrow?" I nod, and then she pays me the highest possible compliment: "I wish I could take you with me to all my opera productions!" she says. "you have the greatest and most variable set of skills."
the thing about galileo that makes it so special to me is that everything has come together to create an environment where I am inspired to be my absolute best self. pieces like this, so rarely performed, are exciting to me, for reasons I think I've already talked about. the endless weeks of editing the score -- they were mind-numbing and exhausting, but they were also important. the changes we make to the parts and to the score will matter. we'll produce the first commercial recording of this piece, and if we do it right, more people will want to perform it. right now, I'm an expert on this opera -- one of the few in the whole world. I almost know it by heart. I know the score better than I've known any score in years.
and I have such unflappable respect for anne that I am willing to do backflips in order to please her; I feel about her the same way she apparently feels about me, that I wish I could have her as my conductor always. I don't want her to ever catch me not knowing what I'm doing, so I make sure to always know. in orchestra rehearsal yesterday, I had to pull out the master list of patches I programmed into the synthesizer (because yes, I taught myself how to program the synthesizer, and stayed at the office on midnight thursday to finish it); when she saw it, anne gasped and said, "oh jess, this is outrageous, this is so much work." in the car tonight, as I drove her back to her hotel, she admitted to me that she's terrified of synthesizers, having had a number of bad experiences with them, including an entire rehearsal in london that was lost to having a poorly programmed instrument. there are so few conductors I have worked with who manage to be both excellent at their jobs and also so utterly friendly. how can I not do my best work for such a person?
and then there is the music itself, which I was not sure I'd like but which I love completely, which I cannot stop listening to or singing in my head, which makes me choke up every time I hear certain passages. it continues to be a surprise to me that music that seems to just motor along of its own accord can, in fact, contain moments of such devastating beauty. the libretto, which at first we found a little sophomoric, also floors me again and again. and the singers are singing the absolute shit out of it; every voice is beautiful. the direction is exquisite; the show, still a fledgling, is intense and dramatic, touching and beautiful, and imbued throughout with a profound and very earnest sense of wonder and joyfulness. a celebration of the process of scientific discovery, learning for learning's sake.
how bittersweet it is already to be here, though, because I am painfully aware that I cannot be my best self forever; this pace is unsustainable. I am tired beyond all imagination, and often it feels like it's only my passion -- for the piece and the cast and the conductor and my coworkers -- that's keeping me going. I had six cups of coffee today. it means that maybe you can't always live up to your absolute best. and of course, being at this level in rehearsal has meant accepting piles of laundry heaped in the bedroom, and dishes in the sink; it's meant giving up time with my horse. even things like responding to personal emails have fallen by the wayside. what does it mean, then, that you so often have to settle for 80%? I don't know. it makes me a little sad. except I'm too excited, and possibly delirious, to allow myself to be sad.
I haven't even started running titles yet! there is so far to go. please, let's not end it.
the world was made so perfectly; we only need to look. and when we look, we learn all of god's perfection, his deep perfection. our looking is like love, like praise: praise for this world, this lovely world our god has made.
- from scene 8: lamps
anne is a hard personality to describe. very kind, very pleasant but also all business. she knows exactly what she wants in the music and manages to ask for it without being demanding -- like the nicest tyrant you've ever met. she's petite and blonde and type A without it being the slightest bit annoying. she smiles a lot. she gives praise where it's due, and is never mean or scary in rehearsal. I loved her utterly during our production of orphée, and by now, having worked so hard with her on this piece, I feel certain I would run in front of a bus for her.
before rehearsal she turned to me and told me what she wanted in my note-taking. "just give me scene, measure number, the word, and the character who sings it," she instructed. we begin, and the notes fly one after the other. note-taking requires a different kind of concentration on the music. as she dictates them to me, conducting all the while, I begin to understand what she's listening for, and can sometimes begin pre-emptively writing the note before she's had a chance to tell it to me. "Cardinal 1: make sure to hold that note all the way to beat 4." "Galileo: don't forget to enunciate the final consonant on 'waited' so it doesn't sound like 'wait.'"
when we finish the show, I have teared up again. leading up to the start of rehearsals, we found the ending to be utterly cheesy and awful, but now that it's staged, it's incredibly moving. anne turns to me and says, "would you mind separating the notes out by singer and giving the list to each of them? and a copy for me, plus a list of whatever I said we needed to rehearse tomorrow?" I nod, and then she pays me the highest possible compliment: "I wish I could take you with me to all my opera productions!" she says. "you have the greatest and most variable set of skills."
the thing about galileo that makes it so special to me is that everything has come together to create an environment where I am inspired to be my absolute best self. pieces like this, so rarely performed, are exciting to me, for reasons I think I've already talked about. the endless weeks of editing the score -- they were mind-numbing and exhausting, but they were also important. the changes we make to the parts and to the score will matter. we'll produce the first commercial recording of this piece, and if we do it right, more people will want to perform it. right now, I'm an expert on this opera -- one of the few in the whole world. I almost know it by heart. I know the score better than I've known any score in years.
and I have such unflappable respect for anne that I am willing to do backflips in order to please her; I feel about her the same way she apparently feels about me, that I wish I could have her as my conductor always. I don't want her to ever catch me not knowing what I'm doing, so I make sure to always know. in orchestra rehearsal yesterday, I had to pull out the master list of patches I programmed into the synthesizer (because yes, I taught myself how to program the synthesizer, and stayed at the office on midnight thursday to finish it); when she saw it, anne gasped and said, "oh jess, this is outrageous, this is so much work." in the car tonight, as I drove her back to her hotel, she admitted to me that she's terrified of synthesizers, having had a number of bad experiences with them, including an entire rehearsal in london that was lost to having a poorly programmed instrument. there are so few conductors I have worked with who manage to be both excellent at their jobs and also so utterly friendly. how can I not do my best work for such a person?
and then there is the music itself, which I was not sure I'd like but which I love completely, which I cannot stop listening to or singing in my head, which makes me choke up every time I hear certain passages. it continues to be a surprise to me that music that seems to just motor along of its own accord can, in fact, contain moments of such devastating beauty. the libretto, which at first we found a little sophomoric, also floors me again and again. and the singers are singing the absolute shit out of it; every voice is beautiful. the direction is exquisite; the show, still a fledgling, is intense and dramatic, touching and beautiful, and imbued throughout with a profound and very earnest sense of wonder and joyfulness. a celebration of the process of scientific discovery, learning for learning's sake.
how bittersweet it is already to be here, though, because I am painfully aware that I cannot be my best self forever; this pace is unsustainable. I am tired beyond all imagination, and often it feels like it's only my passion -- for the piece and the cast and the conductor and my coworkers -- that's keeping me going. I had six cups of coffee today. it means that maybe you can't always live up to your absolute best. and of course, being at this level in rehearsal has meant accepting piles of laundry heaped in the bedroom, and dishes in the sink; it's meant giving up time with my horse. even things like responding to personal emails have fallen by the wayside. what does it mean, then, that you so often have to settle for 80%? I don't know. it makes me a little sad. except I'm too excited, and possibly delirious, to allow myself to be sad.
I haven't even started running titles yet! there is so far to go. please, let's not end it.
the world was made so perfectly; we only need to look. and when we look, we learn all of god's perfection, his deep perfection. our looking is like love, like praise: praise for this world, this lovely world our god has made.
- from scene 8: lamps
March 14, 2012
there is nothing these days for me but galileo, eating, sleeping, breathing. on friday night, I stayed up until 1 AM reading biographies of the astronomer. on saturday, the first of my final two weekend days in a row for the next six weeks, I stayed at the office from 10 until 6, at first watching rehearsal and then, that afternoon, having been tasked with translating the liturgical latin in one of the opera's final scenes, I came back from the library with eight books, which I stacked one on top of the other as I combed through several dictionaries. how fast could I remember noun declensions? I took half a latin course in college before dropping out.
if this sounds like complaint, rest assured: it is not. I leapt at the opportunity; if I could have taught myself latin in an afternoon, I would have gladly done it.
on sunday, strong winds and rain kept me from my original intention, which was to spend the day at the coast. instead, I sat wrapped in blankets in my living room and read all 124 letters that galileo's daughter wrote to him from her life in the convent at san matteo.
on monday, I rented the synthesizer. then I drank about a hundred gimlets with one of my coworkers and fell asleep at 9:30.
yesterday I nursed a terrible hangover, attended half the day's rehearsal, and processed all 60 orchestra contracts for next season.
today, I spent half the day teaching myself how to program the synthesizer, and the other half watching the first 'stumble-through' downstairs, where the cast ran the whole show for the first time. I cried at the end. then I went next door and finally unlocked the secret to making the footswitch work on the keyboard. our percussionist showed up with the chimes, and taught our principal accompanist, who's doubling on celeste and percussion for this show, how to play the maracas.
we're all doing things we never thought we'd do.
I have temporarily given up everything else in my life for this opera, gladly. I haven't had dinner yet. I'm still sitting at my desk, drafting questionnaires for the cast to run on the opera blog, writing article after article about the opera's ten powerful scenes. in rehearsal, the cast rolls balls down an exquisitely beautiful inclined plane; science experiments are recreated in silhouette, including the astronomer's telescope. the costumes are breathtaking, unbelievable. this pace is breakneck, and I can't keep it up forever. but who needs to run, or sleep, or eat?
if this sounds like complaint, rest assured: it is not. I leapt at the opportunity; if I could have taught myself latin in an afternoon, I would have gladly done it.
on sunday, strong winds and rain kept me from my original intention, which was to spend the day at the coast. instead, I sat wrapped in blankets in my living room and read all 124 letters that galileo's daughter wrote to him from her life in the convent at san matteo.
on monday, I rented the synthesizer. then I drank about a hundred gimlets with one of my coworkers and fell asleep at 9:30.
yesterday I nursed a terrible hangover, attended half the day's rehearsal, and processed all 60 orchestra contracts for next season.
today, I spent half the day teaching myself how to program the synthesizer, and the other half watching the first 'stumble-through' downstairs, where the cast ran the whole show for the first time. I cried at the end. then I went next door and finally unlocked the secret to making the footswitch work on the keyboard. our percussionist showed up with the chimes, and taught our principal accompanist, who's doubling on celeste and percussion for this show, how to play the maracas.
we're all doing things we never thought we'd do.
I have temporarily given up everything else in my life for this opera, gladly. I haven't had dinner yet. I'm still sitting at my desk, drafting questionnaires for the cast to run on the opera blog, writing article after article about the opera's ten powerful scenes. in rehearsal, the cast rolls balls down an exquisitely beautiful inclined plane; science experiments are recreated in silhouette, including the astronomer's telescope. the costumes are breathtaking, unbelievable. this pace is breakneck, and I can't keep it up forever. but who needs to run, or sleep, or eat?
March 10, 2012
'the summer day,' mary oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
March 2, 2012
books 2012
1. george r.r. martin: a clash of kings
2. george r.r. martin: a storm of swords
3. stieg larsson: the girl who played with fire
4. john & mary gribbin: galileo in 90 minutes
5. suor maria celeste & dava sobel: letters to father: suor maria celeste to galileo, 1623-1633
6. george r.r. martin: a feast for crows
7. stieg larsson: the girl who kicked the hornet's nest
8. tea obreht: the tiger's wife
9. lauren groff: delicate edible birds
10. piper kerman: orange is the new black: my year in a women's prison
11. rebecca skloot: the immortal life of henrietta lacks
12. abraham verghese: cutting for stone
13. ali smith: there but for the
14. karen spears zacharias: the silence of mockingbirds
15. rudyard kipling: the jungle book
16. marilynne robinson: gilead
17. george r.r. martin: a song of ice and fire: a dance with dragons
18. c.s. lewis: till we have faces: a myth retold
19. cheryl strayed: tiny beautiful things: advice on love and life from dear sugar
20. madeleine l'engle: a wrinkle in time
21. madeleine l'engle: a wind in the door
22. madeleine l'engle: a swiftly tilting planet
23. madeleine l'engle: many waters
24. ursula le guin: lavinia
25. margaret atwood: oryx and crake
26. rebecca stead: when you reach me
27. cheryl strayed: torch
28. leanne shapton: swimming studies
29. cheryl strayed: wild: from lost to found on the pacific crest trail
2. george r.r. martin: a storm of swords
3. stieg larsson: the girl who played with fire
4. john & mary gribbin: galileo in 90 minutes
5. suor maria celeste & dava sobel: letters to father: suor maria celeste to galileo, 1623-1633
6. george r.r. martin: a feast for crows
7. stieg larsson: the girl who kicked the hornet's nest
8. tea obreht: the tiger's wife
9. lauren groff: delicate edible birds
10. piper kerman: orange is the new black: my year in a women's prison
11. rebecca skloot: the immortal life of henrietta lacks
12. abraham verghese: cutting for stone
13. ali smith: there but for the
14. karen spears zacharias: the silence of mockingbirds
15. rudyard kipling: the jungle book
16. marilynne robinson: gilead
17. george r.r. martin: a song of ice and fire: a dance with dragons
18. c.s. lewis: till we have faces: a myth retold
19. cheryl strayed: tiny beautiful things: advice on love and life from dear sugar
20. madeleine l'engle: a wrinkle in time
21. madeleine l'engle: a wind in the door
22. madeleine l'engle: a swiftly tilting planet
23. madeleine l'engle: many waters
24. ursula le guin: lavinia
25. margaret atwood: oryx and crake
26. rebecca stead: when you reach me
27. cheryl strayed: torch
28. leanne shapton: swimming studies
29. cheryl strayed: wild: from lost to found on the pacific crest trail
February 28, 2012
a day in the life
awake seven minutes before the alarm; I lay spread-eagled across the bed, my face shoved into a pillow, not wanting to sacrifice an extra second under the covers. I am up for an 8:15 PT appointment; the lunch I pack -- a generous handful of almonds and two blood oranges -- is governed by the extreme lack of food in the house. there's oatmeal, which I eat with the remainder of the nuts in the can -- a metal can that somehow the ants, the goddamned ants, have infiltrated.
I try to be early to PT but instead I'm on time, which means the ten minutes I have on the bike cut into my appointment. which actually doesn't matter, except that I've had two back-to-back nightmares about being late to my session; in the dream, chris points to the foam roller and tells me to use it, since I'm late and he doesn't have time to work on me. I read ten pages of my book while I'm pedaling and wonder idly, are my legs getting fatter? chris wipes down the table and calls me over. it's been two weeks. I am still not running. 'how's it going?' he asks, in the way he does, and I shrug. I haven't done my exercises as diligently, having lost motivation because I'm not able to see the progress without running. fighting discouragement requires more energy than I have some days. he has me do calf raises on each leg, first the injured one and then the ... slightly less injured one. chris says, "I expect everyone to be able to do ten; my runners should be able to do twenty, and the olympians, thirty." I do twenty on both legs but the effort makes the injured one ache. "now hop up and down. can you go for a minute?" and I can't. I make it thirty seconds, barely, and the pain is back. "on your back," he commands, and pats the table. he works my left psoas, which has been killing me again from so much chair time at the office, and he reprimands me for not doing my quad stretches. he works my left quad so hard that twelve hours later, it's still red and sore; I won't be able to touch it for days. but underneath, the muscle finally stops feeling like a wad of high-tensile rope. I flip over so he can scrutinize my injured calf. like an expert, he puts his thumb directly into the hurt spot, rotten like an apple. it takes forever to release, and when he works his way lower down my leg the pain is so excruciating, I have to focus on a spot on the floor and clutch the edges of the table, afraid I will scream. as he works, chris talks to a guy nearby who's doing his exercises. "this might take me a little longer than usual, are you in a hurry?" and then, "watch your shoulder posture, dave." as painful as it is on the table, most mornings I feel sorry to have to leave this place.
when he's through, we talk a little. "no running until you can hop up and down for at least two minutes without pain. if it hurts when you're walking, don't even think about running." I nod. "that leg is a problem," he says, simply. "if insurance weren't an issue, I'd see you at least twice a week." at ninety dollars a session, it's the most expensive massage I could get, but also the best. but I can't afford twice a week; I've already hit my yearly FSA limit -- $700.
I leave and find a text from my sister. "flight itinerary for may in your email!" she says. may = portland half marathon. I write back. "I may be cheering you on from the sidelines."
I get a big coffee on my way in to the office.
at the office, it's more of the same. galileo kicks the crap out of me. it's just me and the score and one of the handful of parts left to check. measure after measure, note after note until my whole face feels tired from the effort. I write the opera blog. I tweak tomorrow night's recital program. I eat candy. although I haven't observed lent since I was probably nine years old, this year I swore off baked goods. I just needed a reason not to eat so much goddamned cake.
I curse whoever was let loose with an electric eraser on the clarinet part, and perform low-grade music librarian magic.
I stay at the office until 3, and then drive to the copy shop to run the program. then home, where I proofread the penultimate string book, sitting at my coffee table, listening with one ear to the end of terminator, which is on TV for the third time this week. I eat a salad, make a pot of coffee. I finish the viola part at 7:30 and type out my letter for the day.
I drive to the grocery store, singing adele on repeat. when I walk in the door I realize I've left my wallet at home. I drive home. I drive back to the store. I throw what essentially amounts to $60 in produce in my cart.
at home, I put the food away, make a sandwich, and get back in the car. it's 10 PM. I head back to the office, because there's a pile of music to copy and bind, and if I wait until the morning it will stymie my whole day. late night in the office means I can wear comfy pants, a messy ponytail, and my headphones. I dance to adele at the copy machine. I am exhausted. my desk is a mess. I'm hungry, despite the sandwich.
there's still so much to do. I can't even think about it. this is my umpteenth late night in the office in the last few weeks.
with one enormous exception, the parts are done.
the enormous exception is the keyboard part. the keyboard for galileo is single-handedly ruining my life.
it's 12:04 AM. I'm still at the office. I'm so tired I can't see straight. when all of this is done, the reward is to spend a day at the museum, among the bright, enormous rothkos.
I try to be early to PT but instead I'm on time, which means the ten minutes I have on the bike cut into my appointment. which actually doesn't matter, except that I've had two back-to-back nightmares about being late to my session; in the dream, chris points to the foam roller and tells me to use it, since I'm late and he doesn't have time to work on me. I read ten pages of my book while I'm pedaling and wonder idly, are my legs getting fatter? chris wipes down the table and calls me over. it's been two weeks. I am still not running. 'how's it going?' he asks, in the way he does, and I shrug. I haven't done my exercises as diligently, having lost motivation because I'm not able to see the progress without running. fighting discouragement requires more energy than I have some days. he has me do calf raises on each leg, first the injured one and then the ... slightly less injured one. chris says, "I expect everyone to be able to do ten; my runners should be able to do twenty, and the olympians, thirty." I do twenty on both legs but the effort makes the injured one ache. "now hop up and down. can you go for a minute?" and I can't. I make it thirty seconds, barely, and the pain is back. "on your back," he commands, and pats the table. he works my left psoas, which has been killing me again from so much chair time at the office, and he reprimands me for not doing my quad stretches. he works my left quad so hard that twelve hours later, it's still red and sore; I won't be able to touch it for days. but underneath, the muscle finally stops feeling like a wad of high-tensile rope. I flip over so he can scrutinize my injured calf. like an expert, he puts his thumb directly into the hurt spot, rotten like an apple. it takes forever to release, and when he works his way lower down my leg the pain is so excruciating, I have to focus on a spot on the floor and clutch the edges of the table, afraid I will scream. as he works, chris talks to a guy nearby who's doing his exercises. "this might take me a little longer than usual, are you in a hurry?" and then, "watch your shoulder posture, dave." as painful as it is on the table, most mornings I feel sorry to have to leave this place.
when he's through, we talk a little. "no running until you can hop up and down for at least two minutes without pain. if it hurts when you're walking, don't even think about running." I nod. "that leg is a problem," he says, simply. "if insurance weren't an issue, I'd see you at least twice a week." at ninety dollars a session, it's the most expensive massage I could get, but also the best. but I can't afford twice a week; I've already hit my yearly FSA limit -- $700.
I leave and find a text from my sister. "flight itinerary for may in your email!" she says. may = portland half marathon. I write back. "I may be cheering you on from the sidelines."
I get a big coffee on my way in to the office.
at the office, it's more of the same. galileo kicks the crap out of me. it's just me and the score and one of the handful of parts left to check. measure after measure, note after note until my whole face feels tired from the effort. I write the opera blog. I tweak tomorrow night's recital program. I eat candy. although I haven't observed lent since I was probably nine years old, this year I swore off baked goods. I just needed a reason not to eat so much goddamned cake.
I curse whoever was let loose with an electric eraser on the clarinet part, and perform low-grade music librarian magic.
I stay at the office until 3, and then drive to the copy shop to run the program. then home, where I proofread the penultimate string book, sitting at my coffee table, listening with one ear to the end of terminator, which is on TV for the third time this week. I eat a salad, make a pot of coffee. I finish the viola part at 7:30 and type out my letter for the day.
I drive to the grocery store, singing adele on repeat. when I walk in the door I realize I've left my wallet at home. I drive home. I drive back to the store. I throw what essentially amounts to $60 in produce in my cart.
at home, I put the food away, make a sandwich, and get back in the car. it's 10 PM. I head back to the office, because there's a pile of music to copy and bind, and if I wait until the morning it will stymie my whole day. late night in the office means I can wear comfy pants, a messy ponytail, and my headphones. I dance to adele at the copy machine. I am exhausted. my desk is a mess. I'm hungry, despite the sandwich.
there's still so much to do. I can't even think about it. this is my umpteenth late night in the office in the last few weeks.
with one enormous exception, the parts are done.
the enormous exception is the keyboard part. the keyboard for galileo is single-handedly ruining my life.
it's 12:04 AM. I'm still at the office. I'm so tired I can't see straight. when all of this is done, the reward is to spend a day at the museum, among the bright, enormous rothkos.
February 20, 2012
a long weekend: sleeping until 10, brunch, john cage, horse hair, rain, blankets, movies, coffee, legos, strippers, a hangover, a glass of wine, a game of thrones, candy, letters, envelopes, bad TV, a walk, a dusty old typewriter, a conversation with an old friend, a long-overdue trip to the bank / mall / food store / library, a half-zipped riding boot, clean breeches, mud, dirt, seeds, weeds.
at the garden paul, in the plot next to mine, constructs a cold frame. I am surprised to see anyone there. my brussels sprouts have totally sprouted; the buds have opened into tiny mini cabbages. all the work to grow them and I let them go all winter. I walk over and call, "I guess it's about that time!" and paul says, "it is not! it is too damn early! why is it so warm outside?" and he has the truth of it, actually, but just the same, the peas have to go in soon.
when I write my letters in the morning, I experience a moment of panic at night. and then relief, such relief.
my hair is just about long enough for a single ponytail, for the first time in more than three years. and I still don't know: grow or cut. I just don't know.
on my computer there's a file that contains a list of every person I've ever kissed. romantically, I mean. I wrote them down about five years ago, when it occurred to me that someday I might not be able to remember. I keep it current. there's no real use for this kind of information but forgetting is maybe the thing I fear most in life.
the number of people on the list surprises me. whether it's because it's small or big, I honestly don't know.
.
I always stay up too late.
at the garden paul, in the plot next to mine, constructs a cold frame. I am surprised to see anyone there. my brussels sprouts have totally sprouted; the buds have opened into tiny mini cabbages. all the work to grow them and I let them go all winter. I walk over and call, "I guess it's about that time!" and paul says, "it is not! it is too damn early! why is it so warm outside?" and he has the truth of it, actually, but just the same, the peas have to go in soon.
when I write my letters in the morning, I experience a moment of panic at night. and then relief, such relief.
my hair is just about long enough for a single ponytail, for the first time in more than three years. and I still don't know: grow or cut. I just don't know.
on my computer there's a file that contains a list of every person I've ever kissed. romantically, I mean. I wrote them down about five years ago, when it occurred to me that someday I might not be able to remember. I keep it current. there's no real use for this kind of information but forgetting is maybe the thing I fear most in life.
the number of people on the list surprises me. whether it's because it's small or big, I honestly don't know.
.
I always stay up too late.
February 18, 2012
mostly noise
"The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is, why do I think it's not beautiful? And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." -- John Cage
Last night, my good friend Rob, the opera's associate music director/chorusmaster/principal coach/assistant conductor (yes, all of those things), performed in a concert of John Cage music, in celebration of the composer's 100th birthday. I went because he is dear to me and I wanted to support him; otherwise, I was not that into the idea of a whole night of weirdly plonky, random music. Or so I thought.
The performance was equal parts concert and art installation; performances occurred simultaneously throughout the building for the duration of the three-hour event. The building itself was lovely, an old warehouse space: white walls, old wood floors, mostly darkened save for some wall lighting and the glow of stand lights. The space, unheated, was chilly; colder in the adjoining garage, where Rob sang. At the entrance, twelve record players were set up and playing, surrounded by piles of extra records; the piece, 33 1/3, is designed to be controlled by the audience, who can change the records or manipulate the machines at will -- or just let them play. They all blare simultaneously, and the music selection is irrelevant.
The first true performance of the evening -- but that's not the right way to say it, really, since 33 1/3 is a performance too... the first staged performance? the first live performance? I don't even know -- was Credo in Us, one of Cage's early works, which calls for four musicians playing prepared piano, tin cans, hand buzzers, tom toms, and a radio and phonograph. The piece is rhythmic and driving, and frankly, really cool; the radio and phonograph both play whatever the performers choose, though Cage suggested perhaps Dvorak, Sibelius, Shostakovich, or Beethoven. Last night the performance included snippets of Turandot. I watched the page turner for the piece and thought, "Now there is a job I would not want; by comparison, Mussorgsky is a breeze."
In the adjoining garage space, chairs were set up in a loose elongated oval ("It's whale-shaped!" Rob said), facing each other. Litany for the Whale is antiphonal, sung by two baritones, plainchant. The singers sing the sounds of W-H-A-L-E. The space was very live; when the singing began I was surprised for a moment, mistakenly thinking it was amplified. Call and response, over and over. So very different from the rhythmic Credo, so quiet. I sat and watched the other people listening, watched them settle into understanding what the piece was doing; heard the creaking of chairs; watched the tenor of the room change. In the row facing me, most of the people had their eyes closed. One man had pushed his glasses up onto his forehead. A hipster had a bemused smile on his face. A petite woman with long, unruly curls sat tensely, as if maybe she thought she should have gone upstairs to see another work instead. The whalesong went on for twenty five minutes. I can still hear it in my mind.
I thought Cage to be sort of a joke, which is maybe how you perceive him when you learn about him as a 19-year-old in a music history course you are obligated to take in order to receive your degree. I feel sorry for that now. Sometimes it seems my whole life is about learning to open my eyes. You know, it's funny: I am that crazy person in the theater who gets a nervous twitch whenever there is any ambient noise in performance. I hate when people rustle their programs too much, or wear crinkly coats, or have jangly bracelets, or if there is too much coughing or whispering. It's not necessarily that I think the music is sacrosanct; it's more that I hate being pulled out of the experience of listening, and I suppose my ability to hone in on the music is maybe kind of weak if it can be derailed by the sound of a raincoat, but whatever. Simultaneously, I love outdoor concerts -- particularly classical music concerts -- because there is no real sanctity to the sound at all, by virtue of the environment itself. They are not austere. People come and go, they talk, they eat sandwiches and lay on blankets, there are trucks going by. It's just music. I like that. I thought a lot last night about the sacredness or lack thereof in performance, whether there is some music that you should hold sacred and some you shouldn't; whether we take it all too seriously. Not that Cage didn't take it seriously -- indeed, he took it very seriously. But if he had been in that NY Phil performance of Mahler a few weeks ago, he probably would have delighted at that errant, riot-inducing cell phone ring. The thing about attending a performance of Cage's music is that you pretty much can't get it wrong. You can't clap at the wrong time or make too much noise, or too little; you don't have to worry about sirens going by or whether the space is too live. In one absolutely lovely moment, we were standing watching the performance of Fourteen, for various instruments and piano, with the piano strings being bowed using a piece of fishing line. The instrumentalists each have aleatoric passages to play, with the only directive being to play them quietly and to almost never drown out the sound of the piano. As the musicians played, from far behind us, on the other end of the space, Carlos Kalmar, the Oregon Symphony's music director, was performing Lecture on Nothing, which is just that -- a lecture. He had been reading out loud at the desk for over an hour, and finally, not long after Fourteen started, he fell to silence. There was applause from those people still seated nearby. Some of us standing on the opposite end of the room clapped as well. The music on our end continued. Four or five minutes later, Carlos began talking again; the silence had been scripted into the lecture. I grinned. Above the haunting sound of the bowed piano, Carlos's voice, his accent a hard-to-imitate combination of Argentinian and Austrian, floated; the lecture talked about making a corporation called 'Happiness, Inc.,' how everyone who joined would be president; how all you needed to do to join was to smash 100 records; how in Texas there was a woman who told him there was no music there, because in Texas they had recordings, and how recordings were the death of music. All of this overhead, in his accent, mixing with the music. Next to me my friend Bob said, "At any moment I feel like he may launch into Green Eggs and Ham." It was so wonderful.
There was Postcard from Heaven, a piece for 1-20 harps. In this case, I think I counted fourteen, though it might have been fifteen, but at any rate FOURTEEN HARPS. All in a circle, all in one room, all of them simultaneously playing a series of ragas, first quietly and then louder, punctuated by the sounds of hard objects against the sound pegs, by rapid swipes and plucks, and then eventually dwindling to the sound of all the harpists rubbing the sheet music itself onto the strings. The sound of fourteen harps, rather than being lovely, instead brought to mind the picture of a maniacal doll coming, perhaps, to eat you with bared teeth at any moment.
While downstairs there was a second performance of Credo (several of the works were performed multiple times, including Litany for the Whale), upstairs two musicians were performing Inlets, a piece for four conch shells and the sound of fire. There were two microphones, two speakers, a table with four shells, and a basin of water. The musicians filled the shells and tipped them slowly into the basin. Drip drip drip. Inlets was inspired by the weather of the Pacific Northwest, from Cage's time in Seattle. Drip drip drip. It was surprisingly lovely.
And lastly, 4'33". At the start of the night I sat in the space and wrote my letter for the day, and in it I said, "I can't decide whether to stay for 4'33". On the one hand, when do you ever get to experience a performance of it? On the other hand, do I really need to hang around for 2 1/2 hours to watch four and a half minutes of staged silence?" Of course, transformed by the rest of the evening, I was eager to stay. A string quartet and a pianist set up; the first violin had a timer on her phone. The room grew quiet, almost reverent. On cue, the musicians opened their scores. I wondered if anyone in the audience would deliberately make noise in an effort to insert themselves into the piece (a thing I considered, to be frank), but no one did; we all stood very transfixed, listening to the sounds in the next room of people's footsteps, the clinking of an occasional dish, the murmur of speech; the sounds which, of course, are the piece itself. At the appointed time, the musicians turned to the second movement. I was filled with a wild, giddy delight. Around me, everyone was watching the musicians. When they finally closed their music, it came as a surprise; it was impossible to believe four and a half minutes had passed. The violinist held up her timer to show us. We all sort of shook ourselves off, the way you do after you've just been crying during a movie, and disbanded. I came over to the executive director, who subs in our violin section sometimes, and I hugged her twice. "I don't think I have ever attended a better performance," I said, and that is the truth. I cannot even believe it.
The full set list, or what I can remember of it:
33 1/3
Credo in Us
Litany for the Whale
Lecture on Nothing
Muoyce
Apartment House 1776
Music for Marcel Duchamp
Inlets
Fourteen
Postcard From Heaven
4'33"
Afterwards the three of us had beers at the strip club half a block down the street. Because that's how we roll.
Last night, my good friend Rob, the opera's associate music director/chorusmaster/principal coach/assistant conductor (yes, all of those things), performed in a concert of John Cage music, in celebration of the composer's 100th birthday. I went because he is dear to me and I wanted to support him; otherwise, I was not that into the idea of a whole night of weirdly plonky, random music. Or so I thought.
The performance was equal parts concert and art installation; performances occurred simultaneously throughout the building for the duration of the three-hour event. The building itself was lovely, an old warehouse space: white walls, old wood floors, mostly darkened save for some wall lighting and the glow of stand lights. The space, unheated, was chilly; colder in the adjoining garage, where Rob sang. At the entrance, twelve record players were set up and playing, surrounded by piles of extra records; the piece, 33 1/3, is designed to be controlled by the audience, who can change the records or manipulate the machines at will -- or just let them play. They all blare simultaneously, and the music selection is irrelevant.
The first true performance of the evening -- but that's not the right way to say it, really, since 33 1/3 is a performance too... the first staged performance? the first live performance? I don't even know -- was Credo in Us, one of Cage's early works, which calls for four musicians playing prepared piano, tin cans, hand buzzers, tom toms, and a radio and phonograph. The piece is rhythmic and driving, and frankly, really cool; the radio and phonograph both play whatever the performers choose, though Cage suggested perhaps Dvorak, Sibelius, Shostakovich, or Beethoven. Last night the performance included snippets of Turandot. I watched the page turner for the piece and thought, "Now there is a job I would not want; by comparison, Mussorgsky is a breeze."
In the adjoining garage space, chairs were set up in a loose elongated oval ("It's whale-shaped!" Rob said), facing each other. Litany for the Whale is antiphonal, sung by two baritones, plainchant. The singers sing the sounds of W-H-A-L-E. The space was very live; when the singing began I was surprised for a moment, mistakenly thinking it was amplified. Call and response, over and over. So very different from the rhythmic Credo, so quiet. I sat and watched the other people listening, watched them settle into understanding what the piece was doing; heard the creaking of chairs; watched the tenor of the room change. In the row facing me, most of the people had their eyes closed. One man had pushed his glasses up onto his forehead. A hipster had a bemused smile on his face. A petite woman with long, unruly curls sat tensely, as if maybe she thought she should have gone upstairs to see another work instead. The whalesong went on for twenty five minutes. I can still hear it in my mind.
I thought Cage to be sort of a joke, which is maybe how you perceive him when you learn about him as a 19-year-old in a music history course you are obligated to take in order to receive your degree. I feel sorry for that now. Sometimes it seems my whole life is about learning to open my eyes. You know, it's funny: I am that crazy person in the theater who gets a nervous twitch whenever there is any ambient noise in performance. I hate when people rustle their programs too much, or wear crinkly coats, or have jangly bracelets, or if there is too much coughing or whispering. It's not necessarily that I think the music is sacrosanct; it's more that I hate being pulled out of the experience of listening, and I suppose my ability to hone in on the music is maybe kind of weak if it can be derailed by the sound of a raincoat, but whatever. Simultaneously, I love outdoor concerts -- particularly classical music concerts -- because there is no real sanctity to the sound at all, by virtue of the environment itself. They are not austere. People come and go, they talk, they eat sandwiches and lay on blankets, there are trucks going by. It's just music. I like that. I thought a lot last night about the sacredness or lack thereof in performance, whether there is some music that you should hold sacred and some you shouldn't; whether we take it all too seriously. Not that Cage didn't take it seriously -- indeed, he took it very seriously. But if he had been in that NY Phil performance of Mahler a few weeks ago, he probably would have delighted at that errant, riot-inducing cell phone ring. The thing about attending a performance of Cage's music is that you pretty much can't get it wrong. You can't clap at the wrong time or make too much noise, or too little; you don't have to worry about sirens going by or whether the space is too live. In one absolutely lovely moment, we were standing watching the performance of Fourteen, for various instruments and piano, with the piano strings being bowed using a piece of fishing line. The instrumentalists each have aleatoric passages to play, with the only directive being to play them quietly and to almost never drown out the sound of the piano. As the musicians played, from far behind us, on the other end of the space, Carlos Kalmar, the Oregon Symphony's music director, was performing Lecture on Nothing, which is just that -- a lecture. He had been reading out loud at the desk for over an hour, and finally, not long after Fourteen started, he fell to silence. There was applause from those people still seated nearby. Some of us standing on the opposite end of the room clapped as well. The music on our end continued. Four or five minutes later, Carlos began talking again; the silence had been scripted into the lecture. I grinned. Above the haunting sound of the bowed piano, Carlos's voice, his accent a hard-to-imitate combination of Argentinian and Austrian, floated; the lecture talked about making a corporation called 'Happiness, Inc.,' how everyone who joined would be president; how all you needed to do to join was to smash 100 records; how in Texas there was a woman who told him there was no music there, because in Texas they had recordings, and how recordings were the death of music. All of this overhead, in his accent, mixing with the music. Next to me my friend Bob said, "At any moment I feel like he may launch into Green Eggs and Ham." It was so wonderful.
There was Postcard from Heaven, a piece for 1-20 harps. In this case, I think I counted fourteen, though it might have been fifteen, but at any rate FOURTEEN HARPS. All in a circle, all in one room, all of them simultaneously playing a series of ragas, first quietly and then louder, punctuated by the sounds of hard objects against the sound pegs, by rapid swipes and plucks, and then eventually dwindling to the sound of all the harpists rubbing the sheet music itself onto the strings. The sound of fourteen harps, rather than being lovely, instead brought to mind the picture of a maniacal doll coming, perhaps, to eat you with bared teeth at any moment.
While downstairs there was a second performance of Credo (several of the works were performed multiple times, including Litany for the Whale), upstairs two musicians were performing Inlets, a piece for four conch shells and the sound of fire. There were two microphones, two speakers, a table with four shells, and a basin of water. The musicians filled the shells and tipped them slowly into the basin. Drip drip drip. Inlets was inspired by the weather of the Pacific Northwest, from Cage's time in Seattle. Drip drip drip. It was surprisingly lovely.
And lastly, 4'33". At the start of the night I sat in the space and wrote my letter for the day, and in it I said, "I can't decide whether to stay for 4'33". On the one hand, when do you ever get to experience a performance of it? On the other hand, do I really need to hang around for 2 1/2 hours to watch four and a half minutes of staged silence?" Of course, transformed by the rest of the evening, I was eager to stay. A string quartet and a pianist set up; the first violin had a timer on her phone. The room grew quiet, almost reverent. On cue, the musicians opened their scores. I wondered if anyone in the audience would deliberately make noise in an effort to insert themselves into the piece (a thing I considered, to be frank), but no one did; we all stood very transfixed, listening to the sounds in the next room of people's footsteps, the clinking of an occasional dish, the murmur of speech; the sounds which, of course, are the piece itself. At the appointed time, the musicians turned to the second movement. I was filled with a wild, giddy delight. Around me, everyone was watching the musicians. When they finally closed their music, it came as a surprise; it was impossible to believe four and a half minutes had passed. The violinist held up her timer to show us. We all sort of shook ourselves off, the way you do after you've just been crying during a movie, and disbanded. I came over to the executive director, who subs in our violin section sometimes, and I hugged her twice. "I don't think I have ever attended a better performance," I said, and that is the truth. I cannot even believe it.
The full set list, or what I can remember of it:
33 1/3
Credo in Us
Litany for the Whale
Lecture on Nothing
Muoyce
Apartment House 1776
Music for Marcel Duchamp
Inlets
Fourteen
Postcard From Heaven
4'33"
Afterwards the three of us had beers at the strip club half a block down the street. Because that's how we roll.
February 14, 2012
from Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
New York
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
January 18, 2012
take two
I went for a walk last night in the snow. it was so lovely; the streets were quiet but for a few cars. other neighbors with similar intentions walked on nearby sidewalks.
the snow clung to my hair, my glasses, the tassels on either side of my hat. good, thick, wet snow, perfect for snowballs, perfect for snowmen. it blanketed the streets and muffled everything, coating the branches in white. I did laps around my neighborhood, looking at all the trees, at the bright, snowy, pink-lit sky. I caught snowflakes on my tongue.
at the bus stop on the corner, I built a tiny snowman, knee-high, to be a friend to the people waiting. I stripped branches off a nearby tree. he has a mutant left arm but I like him just the same.
then I circled the neighborhood, looking for just the right house: darkened windows, no outside lights, no one on the street nearby. when I found it, I built an even tinier snowman, just maybe eight inches tall, in the center of their driveway.
I came across my own footsteps on the block just past mine; for awhile I walked inside them, and then decided to keep myself company, walking next to them instead.
when I finally came in an hour later, I took down my hood and a huge mound of snow fell from the collar of my jacket. my hat and gloves were soaked. I hung all the wet clothes in the bathroom, like when I was a kid, and slipped back into my pajamas. it was nearly midnight. the house was dark except for the light above the stove. outside, a lone bus went by. it was the best thing, all of it.
this morning, the rain was back.
the snow clung to my hair, my glasses, the tassels on either side of my hat. good, thick, wet snow, perfect for snowballs, perfect for snowmen. it blanketed the streets and muffled everything, coating the branches in white. I did laps around my neighborhood, looking at all the trees, at the bright, snowy, pink-lit sky. I caught snowflakes on my tongue.
at the bus stop on the corner, I built a tiny snowman, knee-high, to be a friend to the people waiting. I stripped branches off a nearby tree. he has a mutant left arm but I like him just the same.
then I circled the neighborhood, looking for just the right house: darkened windows, no outside lights, no one on the street nearby. when I found it, I built an even tinier snowman, just maybe eight inches tall, in the center of their driveway.
I came across my own footsteps on the block just past mine; for awhile I walked inside them, and then decided to keep myself company, walking next to them instead.
when I finally came in an hour later, I took down my hood and a huge mound of snow fell from the collar of my jacket. my hat and gloves were soaked. I hung all the wet clothes in the bathroom, like when I was a kid, and slipped back into my pajamas. it was nearly midnight. the house was dark except for the light above the stove. outside, a lone bus went by. it was the best thing, all of it.
this morning, the rain was back.
January 17, 2012
snow-less day
five minutes before my alarm this morning, on its own pre-ordained schedule, the coffeepot in the kitchen began to brew. unaccustomed to the sound, I lay in bed wondering where it was coming from before I finally smelled the answer. showered and blow-dryed, I checked my phone to discover that the office was closed for snow. what snow? there was no snow, but nevertheless I did a very real happy dance in my bedroom before re-donning my pajamas -- a ridiculous pair of pink leggings, lately -- and curling up on the chaise with my kindle and a coffee.
an occasional flake went by.
from my fuzzy blanket nest, I read many more chapters of a clash of kings (but still appear to not have made a dent). I drank three cups of coffee. I wrote a letter. I got up and dutifully loaded the dishwasher, made a salad, hard boiled some eggs. I took out the trash. I made a cup of tea, fielded a phone call, picked at my nail polish. if it weren't for my horrific chest cold, I would have gone for a run.
all day it did not snow. I ran to pick up a headphone adapter for our conductor. I went to the office, where rehearsal was in progress despite the office being closed, and dropped off the adapter and a latte for our stage manager. I had a doctor's appointment. I put on a bunch of sweatshirts and fed the horses. it misted cold rain and I booked it out of there in a hurry, fearful that the damp would turn to ice.
now: it's snowing. I say that to you in a conspiratorial whisper. I stand giddy at the window and press my face to the glass. big fat flakes come down overhead. it has a certain way of making all the world seem magical, doesn't it? even after all those snowy years in syracuse, I still feel full of wonder.
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