Late-Night Request

It was almost 10 last night when the editor's email arrived. I found it on my last check of the day. Could I read over my essay, which he had recently accepted and edited, and send him fixes as soon as possible?

Receiving a work-related email so late in the evening reminded me of the old days, when I'd get similar requests that didn't feel as warm and fuzzy as last night's did. Last night I felt plugged in and stimulated rather than tired and overworked. 

And no wonder. This time, the words in question are ones I've written for myself, not for others. I write them to share, as I do the words in this blog, but they are not words for hire. 

The difference gives me pause, and makes me grateful. 

Bewilderment

A late post today since I was preoccupied earlier with errands and a birthday. It's my middle daughter, Claire's, special day. When I began this blog, she had just started college. Now she's a working mother preparing to have her second child. 

While I try to make gratitude the chief emotion of each day, other feelings creep in. Today it's bewilderment, an all-too-common response. 

How can Claire be a young mother already? How can any of my daughters be grown women with families and jobs and adult responsibilities? 

Time passes. It's the oldest story of all — and the hardest to believe. 

Rabbit Holes

The rabbits I wrote about last summer are nowhere to be seen now. The resident hawk has no doubt taken care of them. But there are plenty of rabbit holes around here — and I've been going down them to my heart's content. 

On Monday, for instance, I spent the better part of an hour learning about the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi and his suite Ancient Airs and Dances. 

Other days I've plunged into the history of long-shot Kentucky Derby winners  or the geopolitics of the Iron Curtain. 

What do these topics have in common? Absolutely nothing ... except that, for a few moments in the morning, I had time to learn about them. 

Plant Food

The first hummingbirds of the season arrived in late April, right on cue.  They cased the joint, supped on the nectar we'd left hanging from the deck, then vanished. We hoped these were scouts who had flown south to share the news with others. 

Since those early sightings, though, hummingbirds have been scarce this summer. Only the ants seem to be enjoying the feeders.  

But in the last few days, I've been spying the little critters. They've been feeding not at the feeders but on the zinnias. Turns out those bright happy flowers aren't just pretty to look at. They're nutritious, too. 

Ancient Airs

How is is that a piece I've heard for years suddenly amazes me? Have I just grown into it? Have I never truly listened to it before?

Respighi's "Ancient Airs and Dances" has reached up and grabbed me by the lapels. It's seducing me with its melodies, calming me with its chords. It's leaving me wanting more. 

There are three suites, I learn. Respighi, a musicologist, based the pieces on Renaissance lute songs. But what is old becomes new in the hands of this brilliant orchestrator. The sprightly opening of the first, the second with its expansive denouement, and the third, described as the most melancholic. Yes, I hear those minor keys. But I also hear grandeur and joy. The recording I find orders them 1, 3 and 2, a suitable reordering, I think.  

I read more. Respighi died in 1936 at age 56. His wife, Elsa, a former pupil 14 years younger, outlived him by 60 years. A friend said their marriage "functioned on an almost transcendent level of human and spiritual harmony." Elsa made sure that her husband's legacy was secure. She died in 1996  at age 102. 

Quiet

As a walker in the suburbs, I thrive on the noises I hear along my route. On the beach, which I leave today, these may be the squawks of a gull or the pounding of the surf.  

But this week I've also spent much time in a pool, and I'm reminded what a silent world that can be, what a different form of exercise, floating or treading water, or doing the crawl or breaststroke, head submerged, ears closed to the sounds of the day. 

It's a meditative space, the world of water. And above all, it is quiet. 

Chariots of Fire

It's pretty corny, but I did it anyway, played "Chariots of Fire" on my i-pod as I made my way down the beach yesterday. I was looking for an inspiring piece, one that would pump up the pace a bit, and that one did the trick. 

There was the familiar opening salvo, the electronic pulses, the melody itself. In my mind's eye I saw the 1924 Olympic athletes splashing through the surf, recalled their stories, their motivations for running, each of them different, each of them their own. 

While I can't claim any speed records I did feel the thrill of that music. And since I was running — well, mostly walking — on a beach then, too, well ... you get the idea. It was fun, it was exhilarating, it was a movie-lovers beach walk.


(A still from the beach-running scene in the film "Chariots of Fire," courtesy Wikipedia.) 

The Sandbar

A sandbar is a curious thing — part land, part water, and, in the afternoon light, almost mirage-like in the way it shimmers near the horizon. 

Beachcombers use it to search  for shells. Gulls land on it to look for food. Sunbathers lie flat on the soft sand, refreshed by its coolness. 

I waded through still water to reach it, too, because it looked like a new way to experience the beach. I ignored the minnows and the seaweed, both of which remind me why I'm more of a pool swimmer.  

But it was worth it. Out there I felt even more a part of the wind and the waves and the sea. 

The Return

A visit to the beach is a return to the cadence of waves hitting the shore, the predictable antics of shore birds, a big sky filled with clouds.

It's a return to days defined not by the clock but by tides and light.

It's a return to motion within stillness .... and stillness within motion. 

The Deep

The sounds of a party filled the place: laughter, conversation, the clink of glasses. But step away from the main room and it was another world. 

Sharks patrol their waters with ruthless intensity. Rainbow fish flit to and fro, a blue starfish pulsing in their tank. Porcupine fish bristle. And stingrays glide through the water like so many fluttering handkerchiefs. 

At the entrance, schools of sea creatures swim to the left of us, to the right of us, and above us, too. It was a dramatic entry into another world, a world of the deep.

Accidental Tourist

A novel that I still remember years after reading it is Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist. The protagonist writes travel books for people who find themselves in a place they didn't expect to be. Yesterday, I found myself in a similar position: stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the night. 

I was not alone. Hundreds of stranded passengers lined up at the American Airlines kiosk, frantically searched for hotel rooms, a task made more difficult by the fact that Garth Brooks was performing and there were basically no rooms in town. 

Luckily, I snagged the last room available in a marginal motel in an outer burb,  found a taxi willing to take me there, and slept on a queen mattress rather than the airport floor. 

Which meant that today I was an accidental tourist in Matthews, North Carolina.  

Different Shores

Yesterday, a trip to Virginia Beach for a wedding. On the way, a bridge and tunnel, with views across the Chesapeake Bay all the way to the Atlantic. 

It looked gray and cold, this ocean, although it was the same one I saw only a few weeks ago from the other side. 

There, I could look down on it from above, could see the shades of turquoise, navy and cerulean.  I could walk a trail up and down cliffs that hugged the coves.  I could see the flowering cactus up close. Here, I could sense the vast expanse, waves lapping all the way to the Old World.

The same sea, different shores. 

Heavy Metal

As the world economy continues to slump, the dollar and euro have nearly reached parity. Although this may be good news for American travelers in Europe, it's hardly a happy situation. It does make me think about the euro, though, and how I felt about it when I was over there. 

The smallest paper currency is, of course, the €5 note, which means that denominations smaller than that, including €1, are coins. 

I felt the weighty difference when I was traveling. Does it cause one to spend more or less? The former, I think, since one might be tempted to treat the €1 as a quarter.  But it is more honest. The dollar buys so little these days it may as well be a coin.

So it gave me pause, these differences in currency. Think how much heavier our pockets and purses would be if we were to adapt a similar model. But would it make more sense in the long run? I think so. 

After the Deluge

The forecast had been warning us of severe thunderstorms. But they didn't have to. The weight of the air and the persistence of the breeze foretold a system building, gathering strength, ready to unleash its full force.

Though there has been rain this season there haven't been many thunderstorms, the kind of skies-darkening, wind-whistling tempests that for some of us are part of summer. Yesterday's storm made up for it. Trees bent from the wind, branches fell, hail did, too. It didn't last long but it was dramatic.

In the end, we were left with a mess to clean up ... but much of it is already in the bin. 

Another One Bites the Dust

Yesterday, we had to have another tree taken down. This was a skinny oak, more skeleton than tree. Its removal leaves no real hole in the canopy. It left us slowly, which made it easier. 

While examining that tree, the neighborhood's chief tree guy, Carmen, spotted another oak near the house, one that has much more meaning for me, one that the girls' zip wire line used to run from, one that sits prominently in the middle of the yard.

"It's half-dead now," Carmen said, "Call me when the next half dies." 

I take each downed tree personally. For me, a dead tree is a lost friend. For Carmen, a dead tree is more business. I call him the Grim Reaper. 

(Yesterday's removal process at the top of the page, and a 2018 loss here.)

Portugal's Pastry

I've mentioned them before, the pasteis de nata, the national pastry of Portugal. After finishing the box of six purchased in the Lisbon airport, I began to dream of the dense, flaky pastry, the creamy custard filling. 

The dreams led to research, a recipe and a video tutorial. The process would take four hours with no guarantee of success. It involved multiple foldings of dough and applications of softened unsalted butter. I tried to imagine myself doing it and couldn't quite conjure the picture.

But surely in a major metropolitan area, there should be a bakery that sells pasteis de nata. So I began searching for such a place. I found one in a faraway corner of the city, then another right in Reston. I met friends there Friday to sample the wares. Not bad for a stateside rip-off. 

Then yesterday, a neighbor who visited Portugal recently herself dropped off a packet of six pastries. She found them, of all places, in a Lidl store, a discount grocer that apparently has a bakery! Who knew? 

I haven't yet tasted the delicacies, but they sure look like the real thing!

Transformations

Last night my neighbors celebrated a special birthday with a dinner dance, complete with D.J., dance floor and tent. The latter turned out to be necessary since we had torrential rain and flood warnings just hours ahead of the event. But by the time the guests were gathering, the rain had stopped and the hosts had laid out a white carpet over the grass that led up to the tent entrance ... and I felt like I was entering an alternative universe. 

It wasn't just how the tent transformed the yard with soft greens and fairy lights. It was that the event transformed neighbors from people who chat about how deer are eating their hostas into people with careers and travels and families out of state, in short, into fully rounded human beings. 

I have a theory about my neighborhood, where houses are tucked away on wooded lots and there's a scale and beauty lacking in many suburban enclaves. People don't move here for showy homes. They move here because they like the woods and fields. It's a value that translates into many other admirable qualities.  Last night reminded me of those. 

(The tent that transformed our backyard for Suzanne and Appolinaire's wedding.)

Land of Trucks

I'm the mother of three daughters, which means that I am, for the most part, a stranger in the land of trucks. But I'm becoming more familiar with them thanks to my almost two-year-old grandson, who has never met a truck he doesn't love. 

There are trash trucks and food trucks (a nice modern touch) and dump trucks and more. There are trucks that hold stacks of alphabet blocks, which I've never seen in real life but which provide the all-important educational spin.

Most of all, I've seen Isaiah backing up his trucks, parking them, talking to them and immersed in play with them. That's the part that makes me love them most. 

The Salad Green Blues

I don't usually read the food section of the newspaper because after decades of slinging hash I enjoy spending less time in the kitchen. But yesterday, I found myself pulled in by a piece that trashed, of all things, lettuce!

The author, Tamar Haspel, was not subtle: "Lettuce is a vehicle to bring refrigerated water from farm to table," she began, explaining that the crop is 96 percent water. Then she launched into a discussion of why eating salad was bad for the planet (it consumes too many resources in exchange for too few calories and nutrients) and bad for us (it provides a halo effect for all the less healthy stuff we mix in with it — croutons, fried chicken strips — and is more likely to make us sick, since it can be contaminated with food-borne pathogens and we eat it raw). It's not that we shouldn't eat salad, she concludes, but that we should realize it's a luxury to do so. 

As a person who builds many meals around salads (albeit forgoing iceberg lettuce, the most watery of salad greens), and who has sought them in vain in countries where food isn't as abundant, I have to say that her piece was an eye-opener. I won't be giving up my baby romaines and arugula anytime soon ... but I'll try to include even more beans, nuts and other nutritious add-ons when I eat them.

Seamless

There's a way I want to live now that is best described as seamless. Unlike the work-for-pay life, where my time was parceled into segments set by modern office practices (meetings, deadlines, more meetings), the seamless life goes something like this:

I write for a few hours, then break to play the piano or clean the bird's cage, followed by a walk and then more writing because a walk almost always gives me an idea or two. 

Which is not say there aren't plenty of errands to run, laundry to do and other details of daily life. The seamless life is part reality, part aspiration. 

The Deer Did It

Sometimes the deer do us a favor, although not often and not directly. Because the rapacious critters ate my impatiens while I was away, I wanted to put something in the large flower pots that flank the front door. Begonias have a reputation as deer-resistant, so I found a good deal on four plants.

The favor part of this is that the errand landed me in a part of town I don't usually visit. And that meant a walk on a sunny and unfamiliar path. I cruised along a road for part of the route, then circled a pond that was luminous with bird and insect life.

Dragonflies buzzed, frogs croaked, birds chirped as they landed on lily pads. A gazebo let me view the scene from a shady perch. Afterwards I took a series of tree trunk steppingstones through the wetland bordering the pond, then strolled through a cool glade. 

It was lovely midsummer moment, brought to me (sort of) by the deer. 

Thoughts on the Fourth

On one of my first trips abroad, the passengers in the airplane burst into applause when we landed back in the U.S. It wasn't a difficult landing or an especially long flight. But it was a less jaded age, and I, novice flyer, started clapping, too.

I had more mixed feelings re-entering the U.S. a week ago. While we were away there were more mass shootings, several disturbing Supreme Court rulings (one of which produced equally disturbing vandalism at my Catholic church last week), and explosive testimony about the actions of our former president. 

I love my country, but three weeks away from it was refreshing. I read no newspapers, watched no televised news. I took a break from our Weltschmerz, an Old World term that has become a surprisingly apt way to describe our not-so-new problems. 

Tyranny, inequality and intolerance have always been with us. Many came here in hopes of escaping them. But they are part of the human conditions, and they have followed us here. 

In my optimistic moments I still think the grand experiment that is the United States of America can weather these difficult, polarizing times. But it will take our efforts and our prayers and our sacrifice to do so. I hope we are up to the task. 

Happy Flower

Zinnias have long been on my list of must-grow flowers, but previous attempts to coax them from seed have come to naught. 

But this year, thanks to careful planting (not by me!) and well-timed rain, we are enjoying these bright, cheerful blossoms.

I'm not sure what they say in the official language of flowers, but to me, zinnias are the frank and friendly kid sister. They lack the creamy beauty of the rose, the showy splendor of the iris and the delicacy of the forget-me-nots. 

But they more than make up for those in their color, durability and their winning personality. Zinnias are the happy flower.

Walking the Line

The temptation, for me at any rate, is to say, this time last week, I was ... exploring a palace, clambering up the ramparts in a castle, nibbling a delectable almond pastry in a tiny cafe.

Not the healthiest approach to re-entry. So I tell myself that vacations can't go on forever, that I don't live in a quaint European village, and that, in short, I should get on with it.

On the other hand, I see no harm in letting my mind drift to the narrow lanes of Barrio Santa Cruz in Seville and the lull that comes over them before the restaurants open for dinner at 7:00 or 7:30.  Or the view I would wake up to in Sintra, turrets and towers tucked in among the green. 

There's a fine line between dissatisfaction and enlargement. And I'm trying to walk it right now.