Tenebrous

A rainy, windy, rumbly evening in the Adirondacks, when it is just me and Hedgehog in the little cabin by the lake, could set a girl's imagination on a rather dark path...

It is my very favorite sort of evening, we have no expectation of activity beyond supper, hot chocolate, a book, the knitting project in my lap...but as the sun goes down on the drear, and the last light, though dim, fades, and the windows rattle and the curtains stir, the hundred-year-old pines press closer around the house, the dark forest behind and the darker lake before us seem to swallow up the little house in their insistent primeval wildness, and I...

am, I will admit, just a bit...

spooked.

The feeling is deliciously shivery and cozy all at the same time, until the hour grows later, and longer, and I am the last one awake, and I begin to feel that I am somehow the night watch, and...

I am not sure that I want to be the night watch, after all...

I do not want to watch for anything...

and I do not want to listen for anything...
not for the movement in the trees, the slight hitch of latch...

or even my own quiet intake of breath.

Victorian Dream

Last night I dreamed very vividly that I was visiting a blogging friend's house--let's not say who it was, I'll retain some dignity--and I caught a cold. This friend had a servant (yes, a servant, do any of you have servants?) prepare a posset for me to drink in bed, propped up against some very large white feather pillows in a very grand room. The greater part of the dream consisted of this friend telling me in detail the ingredients of the drink: cream (hm), 1 tablespoon of the very best whiskey in the house, spices, then filled the rest of the way up with the poorer whiskey and heated nearly to boiling. I have no idea whether this is a proper posset, let's just say it is the recipe for a proper dream posset. It was served in a thick white mug, and I could actually feel the steam on my face. The posset was delicious (I could taste it in the dream) and salubrious. So salubrious that I woke this morning feeling physically bolstered. Can I attribute it to the imaginary drink? Perhaps.

Why did I dream this? A number of months ago, readers offered cold remedies for my consideration. That has been hanging about in my subconscious. And it may have had something to do with the fact that I've been reading a combination of Henry James and Mary Burchell, and have been writing a great deal as well, and so am thinking in terms of descriptions of things, and then too I've been thinking romantic, Victorian thoughts during my waking hours. Perhaps in one of these books a servant, on behalf of a solicitous hero, even brought a posset to a girl with a cold, I can't remember.

I ask you, have you ever dreamed of this strange inchoate interwebs shadow-world? Has it ever been made corporeal during your sleeping hours, have the half-faced people ever come, fully realized, to life? It's never happened to me before last night, and I'm not sure whether I like it entirely.

Adirondack Light

outside my kitchen door, 6/24/09, 8 p.m.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

--W.B. Yeats

My Husband

My husband, as a young soldier in the 101st Airborne. That's him, back row far left, squinting into the sun. He really was just a boy!

He's my hero. He's brave and loyal and has done many things that I have only read about. He's also the smartest person I've ever met, and a true intellectual. He's tough when he must be and also kind when you least expect it--in fact, he has a sweetness and generosity of spirit that inspires me every day. All of this makes him absolutely impossible to pigeonhole. You just can't categorize the fellow, now matter how much you might think you can, knowing just one set of facts about his life. Most of all, I love how he consistently astonishes the people who try to stereotype him. He is a living reproach to anyone who thinks that people can be packaged up into neat little boxes; in this age of division and thoughtless ideology I meet more and more people who believe in easy labels. My husband's entire complex existence proves them wrong.

Suitor

Our house in Brooklyn is nearly 150 years old; once long ago it was right by the docks, now the docks are cut off by the expressway...but sometimes I swear that I can still smell the salt smell coming in on a breeze, especially on a summer night when my imagination is hard at work.

I like to climb the narrow spiral staircase to our crooked little roof deck, and lean on the wooden rail that looks out over the rooftops to the East River. Sometimes on nights like these, I think that Brooklyn is my suitor, a rough and beautiful boy pressing close next to me, whispering so quietly that I can't even hear the words, offering me the water and the windows all lit up with people's lives.

Leah in the Mediterranean Sea

Megan posted here about her favorite picture of herself and, well, go visit her because it's a beautiful post and you should read it for yourself.

I'm taking up her challenge and posting my favorite picture of myself, taken years ago when I was a rabbinical student living in Jerusalem. Here I am standing in the Mediterranean. The sea was so lovely that day, and I felt lucky to be there in the midst of that loveliness. I remember everything about that moment, the smell of the water, the warmth of it, the sun on my arms. I was so happy and felt so connected to nature, to God, to the world.

It also reveals a funny thing about me, which is that although I am a water baby and must swim every chance I get, in ocean, lake, pond, or pool, I cannot stand bathing suits! I've never liked them, that clammy clinging feel is so claustrophobic. Hence the rather prudish-looking outfit pictured above. If I had my druthers I'd always be kitted out in those crazy Victorian striped things, or a calico dress like Laura wears to the swimming hole in "On the Banks of Plum Creek." Or to the other extreme and perhaps best, nothing at all...which is, I believe, how we are really meant to swim; if you've ever done it, you know...and if you never have, you must...(I know I digress)

So then, too, this photo shows me embracing my quirks without apology. When I look at this, time telescopes obligingly so that I am back there, my toes in the sand, the water rushing about my ankles...

Burning the Candle

I'm working on a book. Good lord, who isn't? but what the hell, I like my own writing so I figure I'm just keeping myself entertained, if nothing else.

This book was brewing for awhile, and I've mentioned it before; I wrote a hundred pages or so, and then put it aside. But in the last couple of weeks, it's come to life again, seemingly of its own accord. The problem is, it wakes up at night. Late, late at night. After everyone goes to bed but me, the characters need attention.

So I drink an entire pot of coffee and go at it. I haven't been getting to sleep before 4 a.m. I'm up at 7:30. I feel certain that's not enough sleep. Seriously, I'm a girl who needs 9 hours.

But I find that I'm almost enjoying the strange, dreamy feeling that I have during the day. Perhaps it's just that I'm not quite sleep-deprived enough yet. But I like the middle of the night too, the privacy. And sometimes I think of all the people I run into here, from other countries and time zones all around the world, up and about in their daylight hours while I sit writing in the dead dark of the Brooklyn night. I like that thought.

Back In

I've been due for a crush on someone other than Severus for a long time now. Robert Pattinson didn't really take. Thankfully, into the breach steps Jack White. Crushes on imaginary people, I have found, are the glue that holds my marriage together. I would say that I am as true to Sarge as anyone has ever been since the dawn of marriage, with nary a flagging faith, never an episode of indiscretion of any sort, and I would also say that he is my best and only love on this earth. However, I seem to be genetically programmed to have crushes. They're not on anyone real, but goodness are they potent.

In life, I have cast my lot in with a consummate man, a strong sort who is never ever dull, but who is always there right next to me.

In fantasy, I seem to prefer these louche sorts, pale and ironic, Byronic, perhaps in possession of a slightly weakened moral center.

Golly, will you just look at that pasty dodgy balladeer with the unfortunate white socks? I'll bet he's a biter.

I Love/I Hate

First of all, I love memes. I can't help it. This one came from Megan. Sort of like the equivalent of summer beach reading. Not too taxing, but fun.

Things I Love/Things I Hate:

1. Most Loved Food: Pizza. Boring, I know. But I love pizza and could eat it for every meal for a year.
Most Hated Food: Cooked green pepper.  Ugh.

2. Most Loved Person: Two-way tie between Hedgie and Sarge.  And I've just got to throw my sister and mom in the mix there too.

Most Hated Person: I can't say it here.  So I'll go for my second-most-hated person, Hitler.  Yes, Hitler is only my second-most-hated.

3. Most Loved Job: Teaching college.  Sometimes I really miss it.  

Most Hated Job: Door-to-door for Greenpeace.  Honestly, I wasn't even sure what they did.  I couldn't defend the organization against the hollerers.  And frankly, I wasn't keen on interrupting people's dinner anyway.  I sucked at it, and quit after three terrifying days.  Funnily enough, I'm still not sympathetic to the Greenpeace-ers when they ring my doorbell.  Oh and a well-kept secret of Greenpeace is that a large portion of your donation goes directly to pay the door-to-door nudges.  

4. Most Loved City: New York City

Most Hated City: New York City

5. Most Loved Band: A tie between The Pogues and The Who

Most Hated Band: Rage Against the Machine.  

6. Most Loved Website: 

The Onion

Most Hated Website: Any website that prominently features any celebrity.

7. Most Loved t.v. Program: M.A.S.H.

Most Hated t.v. Program: Rachel Maddow.

8. Most Loved Movie: "Velvet Goldmine"

Most Hated Movie: "Religulous" and I've never even seen it!

9. Most Loved Artist: Courbet

Most Hated Artist: Monet.  It's just too pretty.  His art is like the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction."  It's become a cliche and I can't even see it clearly any more.

10. Most Loved Book: "These Happy Golden Years" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Most Hated Book: "In the Belly of the Beast" by Jack Henry Abbott.  For many reasons, not the least of which is that it's crappily written.

11. Most Loved Shop: The Lion Brand Yarn Studio in NYC

Most Hated Shop: Salvation Army, Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn (don't get me wrong, I love Salvy, but this particular branch is where the cockroaches crawl off to die).

12. Most Loved Organization: The U.S. Army

Most Hated Organization: NAMBLA.

13. Most Loved Historical Event: When we elected the first woman president.  Oh wait, shit, that hasn't happened yet.  

Most Hated Historical Event: I'm with Megan on this one: The Holocaust.

14. Most Loved Sport: I don't follow any sports cause I'm a lame-ass girl, but I love the sound of football and baseball on the t.v. or radio when Sarge watches it or listens to it.  I think that sound is cheerful.

Most Hated Sport: ditto above.  

15. Most Loved Piece of  Tech: My ipod

Most Hated Piece of Tech: My cell phone

16. Most Loved Annual Event: The Passover Seder.

Most Hated Annual Event: The "Christmas costs less at Walmart" version of Christmas.

17. Most Loved Daily Task: tucking Hedgehog into bed and giving her goodnight kisses.

Most Hated Daily Task: Shlepping groceries up four flights of stairs.

18. Most Loved Comedian: Jerry Stiller

Most Hated Comedian: Janeane Garofolo.  Smug.

Your turn.  If you're bored or have insomnia and need something to do!

Easy Rider

Some might say I'm a glutton for punishment...some might say I'm an adventuress. Let's just split the difference and call me both.

My sis, Hedgehog, and I are going "abroad" in a few weeks on a road trip. It will culminate in Texas to visit some of the inlawish relatives, but the majority of the trip will be a drive through the deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and on the way back, Tennessee and Kentucky), stopping willy nilly, hither and yon, wherever the mood takes us within reason.

We'll stop at Stuckey's (do they still exist?), and see the giant peach and maybe Graceland and Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne--Sarge was a Screaming Eagle, so I have an especial fondness. Plus, the Fort houses the 101st museum, with all the Hitler swag they grabbed from his Eagle's Nest (a sterling calling card bowl, among other oddities). I've been there once, but I'd love to show Hedgehog where her dad was for part of his army stint...

We have other desired stopping points, major and minor, but I am welcoming all suggestions for good places to check out between Brooklyn and Texas--if you've been somewhere cool, if you've heard of something odd or fun to look at or eat, let me know.