Not the Usual Frolic — Summer Hours

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. 

-W. Somerset Maugham

But I did. As I do every day, even if it's a day in which I cannot take a seat at my desk. And every day that passes, every day of these last two weeks plus some, as such reminds me of how little I've accomplished—at least in terms of scribbling out anything cogent. But school, you see, ended. Summer began. Maine awaited. Celebrations befell. The beach beckoned. Flower and herb pots called (although I've not returned the message). My niece, the Magpie, stayed with us for several days. She loves to flit about and take one thing from another to build something of her own. Anything really. She's a wonder. Then, there was the search for a new car which quite literally gobbled time. True, it ate up every last morsel. And drooled some. (How in the world could I have expected less?) Mourning the loss of the ten-year-old car: entirely unexpected.

I've gone and done something ridiculous. Three rows. For the kids. Ridiculous. Less efficient. She's a beast. An ebony zaftig. A sphinx I can't seem to crack. But she gets six to the beach quite comfortably. And what a beach. Not the beach to which absolutely everyone-and-their-in-laws-in-the-burbs clusters. Oh no. I never liked that beach. Not even as a teen. Back then it had a crowded boardwalk, loud radios, gum-snapping dolls, the scent of baby oil, and lots of gold chains. (But the bus got me there and so I went.) I doubt it's changed much. Maybe it has. Regardless. It's still crowded. At the beach, I don't want to run into people I know. Unless I've planned it. Otherwise, I want Maugham in my lap and a lifeguard who watches the kids. 

He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. ~William Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage.

I stored chicken stock in an old glass milk bottle. Lulu thought it was lemonade and drank it. Seriously, Mom? Did you have to put it in a milk bottle?! It was not the sort of thirst quenching drink she'd anticipated. Should I have labeled it? I thought that it so closely approximated a urine specimen that she'd surely steer clear. Besides, who would drink something from a milk bottle that did not even remotely resemble milk?

At the graduation party for her granddaughter, the valedictorian, Aunt Sue (Mother's sister) came bearing gifts for her three nieces. A box of Grandmother's books with copyrights dated from the 1920s (W. Somerset Maugham's Short Stories) through 1979 (Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance). Backwoods Betty grabbed The Case of the Cautious Coquette, from Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason series. I took Roman MacDougald's The Whistling Legs, and Carter Dickson's The Cavalier's Cup. As well as the Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham. (Grandma, it seems, liked mysteries. Aunt Sue, it seems, was surprised by this.) Mary glanced at the box and quickly turned and walked away before any of us could put a hardcover in her hand. I don't blame her. The dusty novels are not allergen-free. Mother, curious as to the box's contents, pulled out a few titles but ultimately slipped them back in, refraining as well.

For a while, when I was a girl, Grandmother lived on a dairy farm. My goal for quite some time during those years was to finagle, each summer weekend, an overnight stay at her place on the farm. Once there, I stole eggs out from under the hens in the chicken coop, chased cats up trees, jumped from the third floor to the second in the hayloft, milked cows, hugged goats and played with the Wright girls at their homestead across the street from the barn. Sometimes, I got to ride Missy the pony. Back then, I welcomed the respite from the noise of the city and the opportunity to run wild while Grandmother baked a strawberry-rhubarb pie. I do not remember ever seeing on the bookshelves of Grandmother's apartment any of the amusing old titles that Aunt Sue had packed in a box. Come to think of it, I do not remember ever drinking milk there, but I do recall whipping cream with a hand blender to the thickest peak in the state. And pouring it over pie.

From the bottom of the stairs Max calls up to me. It's late and he should be getting to bed. Instead he's asking: Oh hey Mom, do you know what this stuff is that's in a dairy bottle?

What stuff, Max? I shout down to him, chuckling to myself, as I try to finish this piece.

It looks like pee. Do you know what it is? It's in that milk bottle? What is it?

Now, I cannot stop laughing. It's funny what one should decide to ask. Or what one thinks oughtn't (or needn't) be asked. I reveal the secret, and decide to close up shop and return to Maugham. I can no longer concentrate. So much for cogency.

Summer Hours: Here and there, like the Magpie. Friday Night Frolics optional. Time off with the kids, mandatory.

(By the way, is anyone reading Joe Blair? I like this guy, and he keeps a blog, too. See his latest post here. )

  Rusted Root - Send Me on My Way by wayne21

Goofy Stuff

And winning ladies' hearts.

A mid-seventies post card from Richie (whom I don't remember):

(Postcard text below—grammatical corrections mine.)

Hi, How's baseball? I thought maybe you would like to try golf, because your baseball isn't too hot.
Say Hi too Izzy for me.
See you both when I get back.

Richie

Hi Beth

Apparently, guys liked sending me postcards from Florida.

I'll be asking Backwoods Betty (my sister, "Beth") about Richie. I wonder if she'll remember who he is. I mean, how could I forget a guy who wrote such sweet love letters?

And who the heck is Izzy?

Where the years go...

Falling Meters

My iPhone doesn't do the snow-capped White Mountains justice, especially Mount Washington's peak—the highest in the northeast—at which Lu gazes from the summit of Mt. Rosebrook at Bretton Woods. Even with its upper black diamond and double black diamond runs, designed by Olympian Bode Miller, Bretton Woods seems a gentle mountain, with the sort of terrain that can be easily negotiated by experienced skiers. And I'm thankful for what it offers: a peaceful coast on which to contemplate the beauty of the surrounding mountain range, its glacial cirques and ravines.

Bretton's forgiving terrain is a balm after skiing Cannon Mountain's (where Miller traversed the slopes with his junior ski team) cold and severely pitched trails. Wind gusts at Cannon's summit reached thirty miles per hour muddling visibility in the afternoon. Its long runs became icy turns and twists that were not easily negotiated. But Cannon's steep, lower Front Five, where thighs burned hot on Avalanche, and Paulie's Extension above that, and Zoomer, and the glades—the exhilarating skip through the trees—all of which plunge down to Echo Lake, were, alone, worth the price of the ticket and the freeze that settled into the outer extremities of my body.

And then there was the snow. The glorious snow.

Falling softly and silently.

We are back home now, where the ground is shorn and sepia-steeped, and where I've had the chance to leaf through everything under the Sun, including the Moon, in this year's Old Farmer's Almanac. What I found in the Almanac is that today, this 27th day of February, is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's birthday, a birth date that is shared with sister Backwoods Betty. And I wonder now if what Betty remembers most of Longfellow mirrors my recollection: Father's animated reading of Longfellow's graceful and melodically metered epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha, especially the first few lines of its final canto:

By the shore of Gitche Gumee / By the shining Big-Sea-Water / At the doorway of his wigwam / In the pleasant Summer morning / Hiawatha stood and waited...

This past week, before snaking down the sleeted helix of the mountain, I stood and waited, heard the rhythm of the white mountains and the meters of falling snow, the sound of the crystal drifts across the north woods, the soft crunch of fresh flurries that had gathered beneath my boots.

And Longfellow, from Snow-Flakes, spoke then, too:

Out of the bosom of the Air,

        Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

        Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

                      Silent, and soft, and slow

                      Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

        Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

        In the white countenance confession,

                      The troubled sky reveals

                      The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

        Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

        Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

                      Now whispered and revealed

                      To wood and field.

And then more: A deep breath. The deepest. 

It was all right to go home.

Friday Night Frolic — Un Française Folâtrer

Yes, a very French Frolic.

It's Mother's birthday today, so I'm going to keep this brief as the family is having a celebratory gathering this evening—an event for which Max and Lu are beyond ready now that semester exams have come to a close. (Good God, I'm glad that's over.)

Some of you may remember that last year, on this very day, I wrote a little love letter—here on SS—to Mother, to whom I referred as my Anti-Tiger Mom. Then I rolled up a hard copy and tied it with ribbon, as several Blogger friends suggested, and gave it to her as a present. She loved it. She's always loved anything her children would give her, excepting, perhaps, a hard time. But, even in the midst of hard times during those early years of parenthood her temperament was unwaveringly serene.

Above is a picture of the saintly birthday girl with five sixths of her brood. Young Thomas is missing, having not yet been a twinkle (if he was, in fact, ever a twinkle) at the time this picture was taken. Mary (who was maybe a twinkle) is in Mother's lap. Backwoods Betty and Tony are grin-smirking behind Mother, and Chris and I (sporting one of my father's custom bowl haircuts), well, ugh, we don't look particularly happy, do we? That may have been because we were involuntarily participating in an event for which we had to remain still.

Mother, it seems, is the only one who looks truly happy. (Don't let Betty and Tony fool you, they'd done something naughty just before the camera clicked, I'm sure.) This is also Mother's temperament.

An abridged story: yesterday, Mother brought the kids home from early dismissal at school and stayed to lunch with us. Lulu, as she likes to do, ate just about everything in sight and then hunted for more, topping the feast off with ice cream. Soon thereafter, buckled at the belly and groaning, Lu asked if we'd EVER get a cat. (Why this could possibly have been on her mind at that moment, I've no idea.) And I, who did not inherit Mother's facile temperament, immediately replied, No, we're NEVER getting a cat.

Why NOT? Lu moaned.

Because, I snarled, you'd EAT it!

Well, Mother twitched with delight and stirred memories. You see, she told us, only weeks after she and Dad (and the four that had twinkled) moved into their city colonial, neighbors Charlie and Doris implicated Mother in the case of their missing cat. Several days after the neighbors' cat failed to duteously return home (look, I'm a bit rushed, you don't mind if I split infinitives here, right?), Doris eyed Mother with this inquiry: Well, Charlie mentioned that the French do like CHAT, now don't they?

It should be noted that, at the time, the city's population consisted of nearly eighty percent French Canadians/Franco-Americans. Mother graciously informed Doris that chat was not considered to be a French gastronomique, unless perhaps, one was starving, which would be très malheureux, indeed. This put a quick end to Doris's inquisition. 

I think that Doris might have once heard that the French eat calf. All the same, perhaps we should continue to wait on the cat. Then again, Lu is only half French.

The French, you know, really are quite happy people. We'll be Frolicking with many of them tonight.

Joyeux Anniversaire, Maman.

* * *

While Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Aznavour, Jaques Brel, and to some degree, Josephine Baker, who was not French, but embraced France as her home, may be known worldwide as the most famous of French singers, there are beguiling voices of less known vocalists, such as the smooth, silky and emotive voice of chanteuse Lucienne Boyer, who deserve as much attention as the well known greats. In her native France, however, Boyer was known as a grande vedette, or superstar.

Like Mother, Boyer (according to Astrotheme) tended toward playful and witty, and seemed to be—to paraphrase—like a cat, always landing on her feet. 

You don't think Boyer....

climbed trees? 

Thank goodness she never got lost.

You can listen to many of her recordings, and find out more about Boyer here. 

A santé!

Remembering September 11, 2001

The other morning I woke with this Sharpie-marked, carpe diem napkin-note draped across my chest:

I am having pie for breakfast! Thank u! -- Lulu

I smiled and thought, That rascal, that petite gamine, taking full advantage of her late-rising family! 

It is a  rare moment that the girl should wake and get downstairs before her mother. And that banana cream pie from the night before... how does a twelve-year-old resist? How does a twelve-year-old not seize the day?

We are holding one another a little tighter today. We are staring at the endless blue sky and listening to requiems and sad, so very sad, stories. My brother-in-law, Tim, took his ten-year-old daughter, M,  to the Hatch-Shell at the Boston esplanade today to volunteer at the memorial gathering and tribute for those lost ten years ago on this same blue-skied September morning. M got to hold a dove before a whole slew of them were released.

As night thickens I realize that I haven't accomplished much today. It's been, I must confess, an entirely unproductive day. I've tried to write. I've tried to do something, anything that might make me feel like I'm seizing the day, that would pull me from the tube or the laptop or my own deepened depression. But I've felt woozy with the pain of those grief-stricken moments from all those years ago. I know people who lost loved ones. We all lost loved ones.

My husband was headed to Washington on September 11, 2001. He had left early morning to catch his flight out of Providence. At work, where I had watched the events unfold on a centrally located television I ran to my office and tried to phone my husband after the second plane hit the South Tower. The lines were taxed and I was unable to get through. I sat in my chair in my office, stared out the window and cried, cried, cried. Back then, my husband traveled so often that I didn't ordinarily have his itinerary—I knew I'd hear from him when he reached his destination. That morning, I didn't know where he was. I didn't know that he had a connecting flight through Pittsburgh. I was panic-stricken for more than three hours. It was early afternoon when he first got through to me on his cell phone. The Pittsburgh flight, scheduled to depart for Washington soon after 9:00am, had been grounded and he'd been trying to secure a rental car in the mass confusion and frenzy. It would be two days before he was able to get himself home.

The morning of September 11, 2001. I cannot fathom the grief. I know the dread of not knowing. Not knowing if a loved one would return. The skies seemed brim with terrorists that day. Who was on what plane? Where were they headed? Where were they coming from? But a loved one not returning? The amount of utter grief. I cannot imagine. 

Tim sends me little updates from his Blackberry:

10:12am Boston. M is checking in choir members while I label seats for TJX families. Families of folks that could have easily been Betty [Backwoods Betty] or her Ad friends.

3:58pm. Boston. The bird of peace makes me wonder how hard it is for all of us to see that hate is senseless. Even as a response to violence, we still need to preach peace.

Today, especially, we mourn the loved ones who never returned to their families, we pay tribute to them and to those who willingly continue to risk their lives to aid and protect us. We count our blessings. We remember.

Listen to the stories. Tell the stories. Make peace with the world.

And seize the day, dammit. Eat pie for breakfast. Before it's all gone.

Friday Night Frolic — Falling Waters: A Meditation

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.                                              ~John Muir

I know why Backwoods Betty left the city. Though this, I did not always know. Nor was I certain it was a good idea—Betty being a cityfied professional for nearly three decades, held captive by the city's assiduous urban hum, it's vibrant sheen, culture and diversity—I was worried, couldn't imagine how she'd negotiate the solitude of the mountains and northern boreal forests, the frigid and often dangerous winters, the slowed pace. As a second home, sure, but on a permanent basis?

But North of Franconia Notch is hardly an isolated, unfriendly or stagnant plateau. It is a series of verdant mezzanines, palisades of evergreens and brush, pillars of granite and peppery stones that line its natural corridors and wrap around its lush and coniferous woodlands. There, in the thick of this mountainous weald, it is to breathe crisp air and listen.

It is to be spoken to by a voice rooted deep in earth's core, an oracle.

It is to be in the company of good friends. Like the croaking bullfrogs at dusk.

Sunday morning we hiked Falling Waters. Here, along this rugged, root covered, stone lined trail, worn by the tread of many a trekking shoe, insulated from flurry and fuss, from what can sometimes feel like the madness of the world, we heard water falling: drips of clear liquid dropping from one green leaf to another, like Mother Nature's tears running down a stairway of foliage. Then, a trickle of water from behind slate and golden rocks, around fallen birch limbs, and quietly through the brook.

It is a conversation, accompanied by a lullaby.

Without television, radio or internet for the entire weekend, on Sunday we were still unaware of the events that had unfolded in Oslo, and Utoya. We climbed, quite blissfully, higher up the steep and sometimes muddy trail, and witnessed a different kind of unfolding: cool water plunging down granite steps. Pulling ourselves skyward, past sharp twists in the terrain, through shallow pools of water and up stone risers set by the AMC, the waterway widened and gushed from enormous slabs of stone into cascades of trilling aqua.

It is a melody.

We rested at the top of one of the largest falls, and absorbed the deep pigment of nature, whistling birds, barreling water, buzzing insects, pine and dirt and rock, the organic lyrics of the mossy forest.

It is a symphony.

Not knowing anything but the rich sounds of tall pines, clods of mud under foot, wild geese, bullfrogs, or fanning falls can be bliss. (It was Walt Whitman who said:  You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.)

But the north country is not about not knowing. The north country is about paying attention to knowing. It is a meditation on knowing the true identity of the world, and all its creatures, of self and of what brings oneself joy and peace.

It is a meditation on quality of life.

It is a libretto of life. And death. And renewal.

And it is a meditation on everything we don't know, may never know, may never understand.

We went up and down the trail unfettered by the knowledge of the chaos and killing in Norway. The whole weekend, unfettered. It's hard to believe. Some things we don't want to know. Some things we most certainly will never understand.

At the base of the trail, turning on the radio, it was a requiem.

Falling waters, slipping tears. Sounds that resonate.

I didn't want to leave.



Thomas Dybdahl is a Norwegian Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter. His music has all the serenity and lushness of a stream rippling through mountain gorges. His voice: undulating waves of light and sound. His lyrics: as colorful and emotional as the deep northern forest, flooded with the steamy warmth of southern everglades. The sound: rooted in pop, its branches having a multidirectional spread to folk, rock, country, jazz—it is as melodic, scenic and pristine as the glacial terrain and falling waters that seduce us, that speak to us.

His new album, Songs, was released this month in the U.S.



This week, Dybdahl has been touring the States, dedicating his shows to his Norwegian countrymen. Next week, he returns to Trondheim and the tears of Norway. There, he's sure to bring much comfort.


(In the background, Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss speaks of quality of life by asking, roughly, how it may be defined and how it may remain high or become heightened? He reminds us that quality of life has nothing to do with what one has, but how one feels about oneself, what brings one joy. Næss is well known for his work on the principles of deep ecology. )

I worry no longer. Betty knows exactly what she's doing, and she's doing it well. There, in the backwoods of New Hampshire, is much joy and peace. I wish it were the same the world wide.

"In every walk with nature one receives more than he seeks." 

~ John Muir

Friday Night Frolic — Heading for the Fir Lined Hills

The Juveniles Children in N.H. Fall 2009.

To New Hampshire I go, I go
Oh yes, it's so, it's so!
for my sister waits
for these special dates
in the hills of the Great White North.

With she I find my best friend,
this sisterly love we tend
strolling the wispy-haired summit
its rocky paths down we plummet
the grand hills of the Great White North

Bathing in its giggling brooks
with smooth stones underfoot
the wade shan't be brief
as we covet relief
of heat cloaking the Great White North

Spouses away the weekend
this, being when we pretend
to have no annoyance or burden
until we recall we've the juveniles children
in the hills of the Great White North

Still, we ladies have one another
the juveniles children not too much bother
behaved, they'll  allow us to gossip
lest they desire a backhand wallop
in the HILLS of the Great White North



Right now, I'm feeling as giddy as Jade and Alex. Ready to hit the road with my babes and clamber beyond Franconia Notch to where Backwoods Betty makes her beautiful hillside home. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, who helped usher in the current folk-rock revival, are fired up to make the journey with us.

There's been mountains of rumor as to whether or not their euphoric sound is drug induced. They—Alex and Jade, at least—appear so enraptured by life, in love with their music, it's almost impossible to believe it's a natural high, a rush at the peak. But Alex Ebert and his alter ego (Edward Sharpe: "a messianic porn star whose mission to save mankind is disrupted by a series of romantic entanglements with beautiful women") has cleaned up his act since leaving Ima Robot (see him here, with Ima in a very different, darker role), and now stands high on love and life. The anthems he composes are gleeful and brimming with hope.

New Hampshire-bound jingles and hymns that set our spirits free. (Maybe I'll even turn off the droid.)

Betty: I'm coming up!

Backwoods Betty's place -- a/k/a Maggie's Farm
(photo from Design New England)

"Friday Night Frolic" - Sex, Lies and Videotape

And Backwoods Betty, telling me about this (in a hushed tone, opens her sleek MacBook, pulls up the video; someone else told her, she says, at work, at that office in the Great White North, the back country, shh; I can barely contain myself; whoa sis, and you heard this where? forget the city, I need to move north; what has happened to me in the burbs? I'm not just rearranging the backyard stones, I'm living under them; how could I have missed her? she's been around since when? this neo-soul vanguard, mining smooth, indelible grooves; detonating deep, spongy vibrations; nothing standing between her and desire, she's drenched in it):




Don't you worry your little heart, child, I'll bet your beau comes back a better man. If he comes back.