I tried to go to a weekly writing group for a while, but I never caught on to the performance aspect of it: everybody writes in each other's presence for 20 or 30 minutes, then reads aloud and... then things are said.
Here's something I wrote then. It's loosely based on reality.
----
Jimmy had a shopping cart. He kept it in the empty yard beside his house, and no one ever took it. Mostly he carried aluminum cans in it, sometimes glass bottles if they were pretty blue, then he’d take them to his sister-in-law over on Pine Street.
Every morning he’d shake the fog from his eyes and eat a bit of bread and peanut butter, then head over to Pine Street for some coffee with his brother, pushing his cart. Roger had a nice house and a clean old car; he was a deacon at the church. But Jimmy just somehow couldn’t do those same things Roger did, have a job, get married. He knew he wasn’t smart, he just didn’t know why. Things were harder for him. And recently his insides were hurting a whole lot. Roger’d taken him to the doctor once, but the medicine cost so much.
This old cart was getting pretty stiff and squeaky. Roger let him put some grease on it any time he wanted, but something gets so old, grease doesn’t help. But Jimmy never had to be anywhere fast, so he just walked slower. When he had a load of cans, they rattled around anyway, so it didn’t matter about the squeaks.
People all around the neighborhood would put their cans in a bag for him, tied onto their front gate or looped over a picket of a fence. Mike Wilton’s boys just threw their coke cans out in the yard. They just didn’t know it was getting harder for Jimmy to reach down and get them.
It wasn’t a big neighborhood, but it took Jimmy a couple days to get through the whole thing. In the summer, he also went down to the playground where kids hung out at night. Usually they just left 40 ounces, but sometimes he found a pile of cans. When his cart was full, Roger would haul him over to South-Central where they paid 42 cents a pound for aluminum.
One morning, early fall, Jimmy hurt worse that usual and he didn’t feel like eating breakfast. He left his cart in the yard and walked over to Roger's house. It took him longer than usual. He didn’t walk so much without the shopping cart anymore and he wasn’t so steady on his feet, first thing in the morning like this.
The dark criss-crossing of moss between bricks in the sidewalk looked like letters on a big sign, Jimmy thought. He didn’t usually see the sidewalk straight on like this. What would the sign say? Jimmy, you old man. Jimmy, what will they say about you when you’re gone?
He saw a Dr. Pepper can up ahead, but he figured he could leave it be until later, when he was feeling better. Or maybe someone else would get it, those other guys who came into the neighborhood with their big bags, picking up cans.
Just beyond the can, the sidewalk hit a new patch. The moss left off its scrawl. But Jimmy was still thinking about letters, and he was thinking that he wanted to write something. He thought he’d ask Roger to write down a few things for him, about how he appreciated people saving their cans for him. About how he still thought about his mother and the day she put her hand on the top of his head and told him he was God’s child. About his idea for a new shopping cart chassis that made it easier to get over curbs. Yes, he should get Roger to write that down.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
With a capital S
It's spring and the edges of buildings look crisper, the colors cleaner. 78 degrees. I feel a tickle of pride when the guy on WCLM says "...right here in the capital city." Yes, it is a capital city.
The birds are proud, too. I didn't realize I missed them in the mornings until they began singing again. On S- St., A woodpecker surprised me with enormous sound, but when I watched and watched to catch it in the act of hammering--can it be true that a small bird and an old tree makes such a resounding racket?--it just hopped around the branches looking for insects.
Driving east, toward the sun, I saw a man toss his spit in a silken ribbon on the street. I spent four hours at the coffee shop banging through the April calendar and my car didn't get ticketed. As the sun went down, I played soccer in borrowed shoes. They were wrapped with duct tape around the ball of the foot and a teammate said I looked "bad-ass." Didn't help much, but we had fun.
This is the first day in months that I've felt so at peace with my life... though peace isn't really the word I want. I don't feel pacific. Actually, I feel aroused by life; that's what it is. But to say more would require reflection on the months past.
Letters of E. B. White (a reminder to self to check book out from library)
Library: A few weeks ago I took 1 and a friend to a branch library, one I had not visited for several years. Even though this branch is more convenient to our daily paths than the main library, I avoid it because the children's librarian there brings out the absolute stark raving misanthrope in me.
She calls me "ma'am" and I want to grab her upper arm, dig in my fingertips in the fleshy underpart and hiss inarticulately. (This is a woman who lives in my neighboorhood, not 3 blocks from my house.) There are other reasons, but this is the one I had forgotten: within 10 minutes of my entering, she approaches me with a book and tape case I returned three years ago and asks me if I've found the cassette yet. A little yellow sticky note with my name is affixed to the cover, still. Possibly she hears the repressed fury in my voice--I try to sound reasonable as I explain again that the cassette was in the case when I returned it, admittedly to the wrong branch, three years ago--and she backs away quickly. (The backing away part is not unusual; she's the kind of person who keeps talking, smarmily, as she backs away from one, so as to always have the last word. The quickly part was unusual.)
I wait a few seconds. After all, I don't want to appear petulant. Then I slam my magazine shut and gather up the girls and leave. Quickly.
The birds are proud, too. I didn't realize I missed them in the mornings until they began singing again. On S- St., A woodpecker surprised me with enormous sound, but when I watched and watched to catch it in the act of hammering--can it be true that a small bird and an old tree makes such a resounding racket?--it just hopped around the branches looking for insects.
Driving east, toward the sun, I saw a man toss his spit in a silken ribbon on the street. I spent four hours at the coffee shop banging through the April calendar and my car didn't get ticketed. As the sun went down, I played soccer in borrowed shoes. They were wrapped with duct tape around the ball of the foot and a teammate said I looked "bad-ass." Didn't help much, but we had fun.
This is the first day in months that I've felt so at peace with my life... though peace isn't really the word I want. I don't feel pacific. Actually, I feel aroused by life; that's what it is. But to say more would require reflection on the months past.
Letters of E. B. White (a reminder to self to check book out from library)
Library: A few weeks ago I took 1 and a friend to a branch library, one I had not visited for several years. Even though this branch is more convenient to our daily paths than the main library, I avoid it because the children's librarian there brings out the absolute stark raving misanthrope in me.
She calls me "ma'am" and I want to grab her upper arm, dig in my fingertips in the fleshy underpart and hiss inarticulately. (This is a woman who lives in my neighboorhood, not 3 blocks from my house.) There are other reasons, but this is the one I had forgotten: within 10 minutes of my entering, she approaches me with a book and tape case I returned three years ago and asks me if I've found the cassette yet. A little yellow sticky note with my name is affixed to the cover, still. Possibly she hears the repressed fury in my voice--I try to sound reasonable as I explain again that the cassette was in the case when I returned it, admittedly to the wrong branch, three years ago--and she backs away quickly. (The backing away part is not unusual; she's the kind of person who keeps talking, smarmily, as she backs away from one, so as to always have the last word. The quickly part was unusual.)
I wait a few seconds. After all, I don't want to appear petulant. Then I slam my magazine shut and gather up the girls and leave. Quickly.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Doormat
I tired of tripping over a little rug in our hallway--it was supposed to cover up a gap between carpet and threshhold, but it never stayed put--so I threw it into the front yard yesterday.
Today it rained. I looked out the living room window at the smoky blue rug with pale green and yellow flowers on top of our yellowed grass and it seemed to belong there. It's slightly more attractive than the grass, at least.
Brave little rug! Awkward, sodden and cold. Misunderstood by passersby. Pioneering rug, unafraid to cover new ground.
Tomorrow I'll have to give up and move it, I guess. I forget exactly why I threw it out the door; of course I wasn't really angry at the rug.
Usually when I'm most furious I manage my external reactions more carefully, I think, than when I'm merely at a peak of frustration. Fury is too pure to be expressed by a simple action. But when I recover from it--scarcely remembering what it felt like--I have to wonder if I am weak or demented for having felt it, or for having felt it but done nothing about it.
Both my children watched me throw the rug out the door. I wasn't yelling. Remarkably, even after 10 years of being my child, 1 doesn't display these stupid tantrums, yet. 2 does, experimentally.
My mother would sometimes leave me and my brother in the kitchen, saying, "I have to go outside and scream." Then she would step out to the back porch and scream. I don't remember feeling either chastised or frightened by this, though I'm sure I did the first time it happened.
In what play does a character--at whom the audiece is supposed to laugh--manage her frustrations by breaking china, piece after piece, tidily between the layers of a cloth handkerchief? I forget.
Today it rained. I looked out the living room window at the smoky blue rug with pale green and yellow flowers on top of our yellowed grass and it seemed to belong there. It's slightly more attractive than the grass, at least.
Brave little rug! Awkward, sodden and cold. Misunderstood by passersby. Pioneering rug, unafraid to cover new ground.
Tomorrow I'll have to give up and move it, I guess. I forget exactly why I threw it out the door; of course I wasn't really angry at the rug.
Usually when I'm most furious I manage my external reactions more carefully, I think, than when I'm merely at a peak of frustration. Fury is too pure to be expressed by a simple action. But when I recover from it--scarcely remembering what it felt like--I have to wonder if I am weak or demented for having felt it, or for having felt it but done nothing about it.
Both my children watched me throw the rug out the door. I wasn't yelling. Remarkably, even after 10 years of being my child, 1 doesn't display these stupid tantrums, yet. 2 does, experimentally.
My mother would sometimes leave me and my brother in the kitchen, saying, "I have to go outside and scream." Then she would step out to the back porch and scream. I don't remember feeling either chastised or frightened by this, though I'm sure I did the first time it happened.
In what play does a character--at whom the audiece is supposed to laugh--manage her frustrations by breaking china, piece after piece, tidily between the layers of a cloth handkerchief? I forget.
A spoonful of sugar keeps the little ones awake
It is 10:35 p.m. and 2's little voice drifts down the stairs, singing. I have to creep closer to the steps to make out the song: "Supercali, supercali, frajalisty ... expe-aladoshis... if you say it loud enough you'll always sound preto... toshis..."
She did have a nap too late in the afternoon, but still, this is crazy. Crazy but delishis.
She did have a nap too late in the afternoon, but still, this is crazy. Crazy but delishis.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The Note
Driving the bleak arteries of west mid-town, I hear an installment of "Musicians in Their Own Words" on Morning Edition. Cynthia Phelps, principal violist with the New York Philharmonic, speaks about the role of the viola section in shaping the sound, pace and texture of the orchestra.
Phelps calls herself a mediator. The spot ends with her saying, "I try and create a balanced middle ground. It really resonates with the way I am as an individual."
It's deeply pleasing to hear someone else say this, the same thing I feel about my role as an editor. I had never bothered to imagine that a musician might see herself this way.
Earlier in the piece, Phelps describes the opening of the second movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, in which the celli get the melody but the violas control the pacing and mood. She plays a lick of the cello part, then a recording of the actual piece begins.
This is music that too few people know, a rich swath of velvet melody, really much more singable than the first movement. (This is, I guess, the flashback, the tune you're humming just before Fate knocks on your door.)
So, yes, the celli are perfect, and now I'm listening for the the violas, watching the highway's yellow lines. Concrete walls and exit ramps, the overcast sky--this all is the empty theater for the music. After the opening duet, the full orchestra comes in and still--this is the Philharmonic, of course--the music is just as tender as before. At the last note of the phrase, where the music swells and holds, then drops as lightly as an eyelid, I am done in. I get teary and choked up.
To be honest, this probably has as much to do with my own sense of failure as a musician as it does with the actual music. Still, it's beautiful, and I need beauty. And it's powerful; all music is, the most powerful thing I know.
Phelps unabashedly acknowledges that one of the reasons she likes being a non-melody-getting viola player is that she has control at the base of the music. This control is not a dictatorship, though, because the power of music is a collective power. I think I could write more about this, but I'm not going to now. This post was just supposed to be about that one note.
Phelps calls herself a mediator. The spot ends with her saying, "I try and create a balanced middle ground. It really resonates with the way I am as an individual."
It's deeply pleasing to hear someone else say this, the same thing I feel about my role as an editor. I had never bothered to imagine that a musician might see herself this way.
Earlier in the piece, Phelps describes the opening of the second movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, in which the celli get the melody but the violas control the pacing and mood. She plays a lick of the cello part, then a recording of the actual piece begins.
This is music that too few people know, a rich swath of velvet melody, really much more singable than the first movement. (This is, I guess, the flashback, the tune you're humming just before Fate knocks on your door.)
So, yes, the celli are perfect, and now I'm listening for the the violas, watching the highway's yellow lines. Concrete walls and exit ramps, the overcast sky--this all is the empty theater for the music. After the opening duet, the full orchestra comes in and still--this is the Philharmonic, of course--the music is just as tender as before. At the last note of the phrase, where the music swells and holds, then drops as lightly as an eyelid, I am done in. I get teary and choked up.
To be honest, this probably has as much to do with my own sense of failure as a musician as it does with the actual music. Still, it's beautiful, and I need beauty. And it's powerful; all music is, the most powerful thing I know.
Phelps unabashedly acknowledges that one of the reasons she likes being a non-melody-getting viola player is that she has control at the base of the music. This control is not a dictatorship, though, because the power of music is a collective power. I think I could write more about this, but I'm not going to now. This post was just supposed to be about that one note.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Hot ... Now
On impulse, I stopped by the donut shop yesterday, shortly after 2 p.m., meaning to quickly get a donut and leave.
When I stepped through the doors, the burgeoning heat of afternoon sun through all the windows and heat still radiating from the now-quiet ovens slowed me down. I saw that everything was slow.
Behind the counter, a man mopped the same tiles over and over, in long flat oval pushes of a mop. The women in front of me in line carefully read the signs listing the price of donuts, and read them again. One of them asked a question about the price of donuts. The clerk listened, then thought about his answer.
When at last he brought the boxes of doughnuts to the woman, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners in a slow smile. The smell of doughnuts, like a boa, wound around my throat and I was breathless. The doughnuts on trays beneath the glass case became, almost imperceptibly, browner.
I paid for my purchase in exact change and laid the coins into the palm of the clerk in separate piles, dimes and quarters. His skin was warm and dry. I folded the top of my doughnut bag one more time and left.
When I stepped through the doors, the burgeoning heat of afternoon sun through all the windows and heat still radiating from the now-quiet ovens slowed me down. I saw that everything was slow.
Behind the counter, a man mopped the same tiles over and over, in long flat oval pushes of a mop. The women in front of me in line carefully read the signs listing the price of donuts, and read them again. One of them asked a question about the price of donuts. The clerk listened, then thought about his answer.
When at last he brought the boxes of doughnuts to the woman, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners in a slow smile. The smell of doughnuts, like a boa, wound around my throat and I was breathless. The doughnuts on trays beneath the glass case became, almost imperceptibly, browner.
I paid for my purchase in exact change and laid the coins into the palm of the clerk in separate piles, dimes and quarters. His skin was warm and dry. I folded the top of my doughnut bag one more time and left.
Little Thoughts on Music
Folk music Music that folks can sing or play from memory.
Folks The down-home people, the people in the cereal aisle, the people with a little hole in the elbow of their favorite sweater.
"Folk music" has come to have a musty smell. It supposedly lives only in church basements on Thursday nights when the banjo players and the singing family from the hills come to town to fiddle around. But I think that, for example, Bruce Springsteen is truly a folk musician.
Folks The down-home people, the people in the cereal aisle, the people with a little hole in the elbow of their favorite sweater.
"Folk music" has come to have a musty smell. It supposedly lives only in church basements on Thursday nights when the banjo players and the singing family from the hills come to town to fiddle around. But I think that, for example, Bruce Springsteen is truly a folk musician.
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