You Never Know What You Need Until It No Longer Blooms In Your Backyard

If my husband hadn't had to chop this down last fall, this is what would be blooming in my back yard right now.

Unfortunately this nasty grape-vine thing has taken over the yard and the only way to get rid of it was to cut everything it was clinging to and wrapping itself around down to the ground. Forsythia is pretty hardy - I think it will come back, but I miss this bit of yellow spring which usually shows up this time of year.

And although it hasn't been much of a winter - very little snow, very little cold - I'm still looking forward to that release spring brings. I'm needing the surge of energy I get when the air turns warm and the daffodils are up.


Right now I'm in my little messy office with noise canceling earphones listening to The Decemberists and trying not to be annoyed by the family of squirrels who've taken residence in our attic. They are the most persistent squirrels the pest control guy has, apparently, ever come in contact with. He's been here 3 times to block the hole and create an "out" door (a door that lets them out but not back in). Each time the squirrels have managed to either rip out the door, or have chewed a new hole right next to the old one. On Thursday the pest guy came again, blocked the new hole and strengthened the door. All the rest of the day I heard them frantically skittering across the roof and over the gutters trying to figure out a way in. It was like a Hitchcock movie except squirrels, not birds. Kinda freaked me out. This morning they got back in, and now I'm trying not to hear them rustling through the insulation and cracking walnuts against the wall. I hope that when it's finally, thoroughly, warm they will leave and allow us to fix all the soft soffits and repair the bit of siding they ate through. I seriously need spring and forsythia and daffodils and wild animals outside where they belong.

For the first time in five years I had a full spring break. Since I started adjuncting, I have taught at at least two different schools (once three! - that was too much) But now that I'm only at one school I was able to take a full week off to think, and write and do a little grading catching up. It was amazing. I actually sent several stories out - got one picked up! - wrote and edited stories that have been sitting around since last summer. For one week the only stress I felt was the usual stress within my family - as opposed to that anxiety compounded by the anxiety I feel for students and my work with them. I didn't realize I needed this. I'm one of those people who do what I'm supposed to do - and if you ask me to do more, why then I'll do that too. My husband is always saying that my future time has no value to me and so I give it away for free. I think a lot of women do this. I have to fight my tendency to mother everyone - take care of everyone other than my self.

When I was a kid, my dad always said we should do the unpleasant tasks first, before moving on to something we want to do. This is a disastrous philosophy for people like me. Unpleasant (or less pleasant) tasks are never ending. They are like the tide, they ebb, but come back full force and without ceasing. I'm trying to learn that it isn't a zero sum game - that it's not that I can't do fun things until the unfun have been completed - rather, I have to make sure I alternate what I want to do with those things I have to do. I always want to write - therefore I don't write because it's what I want to do. Ridiculous.

So, this past week I put writing, thinking, reading first. I read short stories I hadn't read in years - Sonny's Blues by Baldwin, Everything Rises Must Converge by O'Connor - and flipped through The Leaves of Grass - which I return to whenever I'm feeling out of control. (Bless you Whitman.) Someone gave me this collection of poems by Han-Shan translated by Gary Snyder written in calligraphy and illustrated with simple line drawings reminiscent of Japanese ink paintings. I stink at memorizing, but this one four line poem, not quite a haiku has been rolling around my brain all week and I'm going to just set it down and leave it here for you. :

Spring-water in the green creek is clear
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white
Silent knowledge - the spirit is enlightened of itself
Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness*

K


*Cold Mountain Poems: Twenty four Poems by Han-Shan, Translated by Gary Snyder. Counterpoint Press, Berkeley 2012

Three Lives, NYC

Recently, I dashed up to NYC with my daughter and coerced her into a brief visit to my favorite bookstore. 

Three Lives does everything right.  It's small - so small that you almost always bump butts with some stranger who is, like you are, nose deep into a book and looking for a place to sit, or lean and read.  It's jam-packed with books - really well selected books - Art, novels, poetry, biography, history. It's low tech. If you want a book you ask the bookseller sitting behind the high counter. I'm assuming there's a big computer behind that counter - but I'm short, so it's hard to tell. And it's really, really friendly. Every chance I have, I go to that bookstore because I know I will discover something I want to read, or a writer I have never heard of, or, that a writer I love has a new book.

I know I should read the New York Review of Books, or the NYTimes Book Review, or the many blogs out there where new books are announced - but I don't have time. For instance, today, should grade papers, update the syllabi, and make a stab at vacuuming. That's what I have to do - what I want to do is write a bit, add to this and my other blog, give the dogs a good long walk. Read a good book. It's only 8:30am and already I feel guilty. And reading book reviews, like browsing Amazon, is not nearly as exciting as walking into a bookstore, poking around, picking books up, putting them down, reading half a chapter and tucking it under your arm or leaving it at the registrar to go hunt some more.

I came home with Someone by Alice McDermot, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (everyone has told me to read this) and How Music Works by David Byrne. Ok, I came home with more books than that - but these are the ones I'm reading right now. I'm not going to check email, I'm not going to grade papers and I'm certainly not going to vacuum. Nope. I'm happily sitting here, by my new fake fireplace, with the dog asleep on the couch listening to the gentle hiss of the gas (it's real fire, gas powered, fake logs, looks as cheesy as it sounds. I care not, it turns on and off with a clicker). This is my favorite kind of day: sitting and reading, writing, occasional napping. Listening to the Decemberists. Later, I guess I'll go to the grocery store - but I'm gonna take a detour through Bryn Mawr, because, as fate has it, there's a bookstore there calling my name.

By the way - if you want to read an excellent selection of short stories - purchase yourself Museum of the Americas by my fabulous friend Gary Lee Miller!!

UPDATE: Had a friend ask how Three Lives rates next to the Strand - also a great NYC Bookstore and institution. I have always preferred Three Lives over the Strand simply because Three Lives is cozy and edited. It is in no way overwhelming. The Strand has got EVERYTHING -  I love browsing the sidewalk carts - and there is a wonderful outpost right on the corner of 57th and 5th at the bottom of Central Park which reminds me of the booksellers along the Seine in Paris. If you are looking for something that's been out of print a while - go to the Strand. If you are looking for discounted books - the Strand is also your place. I love the Strand for it's sheer volume - but Three Lives is my place.