To Autumn

In honor of my favorite season and this week’s lovely cool snap, enjoy this classic ode from John Keats:

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Read more »

Natal Days

My grandfather, accomplished raconteur and all-around gentleman that he was, used to refer to birthdays with the quaint term “natal day” when writing birthday letters and the like. Daddy has picked it up, usually wishing me a happy natal day on one of the cards he sends (one’s always funny, one’s always “a serious card” in honor and mockery of a long-ago Hallmark TV commercial).

Well, today is, in fact, my Natal Day. Since I am no longer a child, I don’t expect it to be an orgy of wow. It’ll probably be a regular day, full of work and taxi-driving for Frick and Frack and the usual Wednesday night activities at church. And perhaps a present or two from Mr. Man.

Considering I have a lovely (though messy) home, a wonderful (though forgetful at times) husband, two beautiful (though frustrating) children, and a rewarding (though exhausting) job, I really have nothing more to wish for, do I? Except perhaps a massage and some really good chocolate. Mr. Man, are you listening?

Read more »

Journal Ho

I am a bad writer.

I don't mean bad writer in the sense of my writing is bad (at least, I hope that's not the case), but that I am bad. I do bad things. I do not have an appropriately writerly persona.

Take journaling, for instance. I have lots of journals. Lovely journals. Journals with just the right kind of paper, the creamy velvety kind that calls to you in a sultry voice, "Get your fountain pen and touch me, darling, the sensation will be eeeeeeeeeeexquisite."

And what do I do? The equivalent of the one-night stand. I curl up with the journal, make passionate love to it for the span of say, about, ten days, then abandon it. Harshly. As in, don't write, don't call, purge the number from the cell phone, have we met?

It's a shame. I have generous writer friends who are far more faithful than I who are constantly introducing me to yet another journal ("It's cute! I think you two would make a great couple!"). So I smile, accept the gift, and then proceed to toy with its affections. I use purple ink, so my journal will think it is unique and special ("It's not black!"). I use a fountain pen, so it will imagine itself in an upper echelon from other journals of its type ("Anyone can fish a ballpoint out of the sofa--my writer uses a fine writing instrument!"). Sometimes, I even sketch in it, the writer equivalent of kinky sex. (*shudders with abandon*) If I'm feeling particularly cruel, I'll toy with its affections by launching into an ambitious creativity exploration, like Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way or The Right to Write, and start Morning Pages ("She tells me everything! We have such a bond!") and creativity exercises (“I'm essential to developing her craft!"). Those are the cruelest breakups of all, because one morning I'll get up and find that getting DH and the kids dressed and in the car far supersedes myménage-a-deux with the Journal of the Week, and Morning Pages bite the dust. Or the creativity exercises just stop at, say, number eleven out of a series of twelve. Yes, I toy with my journals and toss them aside until I start eyeing another with the enthusiasm of a writer on the make in a seedy literature bar ("Hey, handsome, may I ply you with ink?").

And all for naught. I am doomed to repeat the cycle, furled pages in my wake. I am a journal flirt. I want nothing more from my journal than cheap entertainment. A hookup. A scribble call, if you will.

And yet, I want to be better. I want to settle down. I want to develop a long-lasting, passionate relationship with a journal, something that will say to the world that I Am A Real Writer--I Keep A Journal, Of Course! Alas, I fear that will never happen. I know me. I am too attracted by a fresh set of pages to remain devoted to just one volume.

Don't even get me started on "write every day." It'll take something along the line of the Anthony Trollope Dedicated Writer Development Bootcamp to cultivate that habit. (You did know that he wrote five thousand words every day, in longhand, before he went to his "real" job at the post office, didn't you?)

Bad writer. No office supplies.

Originally published at mimidish.blogspot.com on February 15, 2005

Read more »

The Bed List

It’s election season, and whenever politics gets stupid and creepy (okay, stupider and creepier than usual), that’s the time to tune in more regularly to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

One thing about getting older (coming soon!) is the realization that hot means nothing unless you have a brain to go with. Luckily, Mr. Stewart racks up the points in both areas. Early-grey semi-distinguished-looking sparkly-eyed? Check. Smart enough to make you snort your Dr Pepper up your nose laughing at what he just said? Check. He has a crack team of writers and researchers working for him, but you have to admit that all that info is just so much more noise until that deadly eyebrow lift and blank “You have got to be kidding me” look skewer the day’s ridiculousness.

So, dinner a deux with plenty to laugh about (or cry, given the state of American politics), then dessert. And you know what I’m talkin’ about when I say dessert.

Read more »

Deva Diva

Ladies, can we just admit that our longest, most frustrating relationship in the world isn’t with a man, but with our hair? If you’re a curly like me who grew up in the stick-straight Marsha Brady ’70s, you know what I’m talking about. So it was with relief and joy that I discovered the Bible for hair like mine, Lorraine Massey’s amazing Curly Girl.

Ms. Massey, who underwent curly trauma growing up in England, hit on two things that will forever change your relationship with your curls: throwing out the shampoo bottle (conditioner and friction, baby!) and a specialized haircut. Since stylists who cut this way--cutting it dry, paying attention to each individual curl instead of giant swaths and layers of hair--are rare, I was delighted to find an angel to go along with the Bible. Her name is Janelle.

Janelle is a traveling stylist since she does so many updos for weddings. She showed up at my house yesterday, all legs and gorgeous blonde hair (you know, the kind of woman you hate on sight just out of principle), but was so nice and engaging you just couldn’t help adoring her. It took her an hour and a half between the first clip and snip and the big reveal, but I was one happy camper when she was done. Lift at the roots! Curls with movement and dimension instead of bulk and droop! Bliss!

Never underestimate the power of a great haircut.

Cross Girl (Proud Maisie) by Frederick Sandys

Read more »

Perspective

It’s so tempting to spend time dwelling--well, carping really--on all of your issues. Why your life is screwed up. Why things never seem to go right. Why there’s never enough time to get all those tasks around the house finished so you have time to do what you want. As we used to say in college, BBATTB. (Bitch, bitch, all the time bitch)

Thankfully, we also have opportunities for a little perspective. Mine came today in the form of a phone call from a lost student. This is a girl who had it all--slim, gorgeous hair, smart, witty, the works--and also had nothing--screwed up family life, custody issues, parent on drugs, too much responsibility at an early age. Mr. Man and I both adored her, so we were wrecked when, at the end of her senior year, she just disappeared. No graduation day, no celebrations, no fanfare. Just gone.

Out of curiosity, I hunted her up on Facebook. It took a while for us to connect, but when she did, I found out what hardship really looks like. Take all of those issues above and add a mystery illness that turns out to be Guillian-Barré Syndrome. What began as tingling and numbness in her feet ended with her in the hospital for three months, intubated because she lacked the muscle tone to breathe on her own. This lovely girl, tall and beautiful enough to model, has to use a walker to get across the room and is a veritable shut-in. She’s one of the lucky ones who will regain most of her mobility, but it’ll take months of physical therapy appointments--painful, frustrating appointments three times a week--before she can walk at a pace that would, frankly, annoy most of us with too much to do and a tendency toward irritability (my hand’s up with yours there, honey).

And yet somehow, I could hear her smiling. She sees her blessings for what they are. And although she gets upset about what happened and wishes things were different, she’s taking her small victories where she can. It’ll be a long journey back to something resembling normal, but I have no doubt she’ll get there.

After that, my messy house and my family’s inability to pick up their dirty socks just seemed like a petty thing to be worried about. It’s all in your perspective, darlings.

Artwork by the amazing M. C. Escher.

Read more »

Cirque du Maman

It’s quiet in my house this Saturday morning, but I know that won’t last. Frick is at a friend’s, Frack has a friend over, Mr. Man has completed his crack o’dawn coffee meeting and is now about to go bike riding with a friend, and mimi has squirrels.

Every mother on the planet knows about the squirrels--the ones who camp out in your brain, jumping about and chatteringchatteringchattering about everything you need to do or haven’t done or have in process or are trying to stick into a dank corner and let rot. Since school started, the squirrel chorus has just gotten louder. Now it includes forms to sign and papers to grade and kids who need sleep and lunches that “need made” (as my Western PA-raised MIL would say). Every. Freaking. Day.

It’s a wonder mothers get anything done--more of a wonder that tasks do, indeed, get done, and that no one goes to school starving or naked. Although mimi will admit to taping a couple of fives to the microwave in lieu of a lovingly-packed lunch this week, because the ham vs. peanut butter decision was just too much of a stretch at 6:20 am.

I look at the other moms in the grocery store sometimes, the ones who are slim and self-possessed, who wear lovely clothes and enviable shoes, and wonder how they manage to hold it all together so neatly while the leaves of my squirrel nest get disarrayed and reorganized as more and more relatives join the party. Or appear to, at least. In my darker moments, I have to remind myself to lean closer when my cart passes one of theirs, and listen. My tree isn’t the only one with squirrels.

Read more »