I Think of You

Hi darling. A hard, pounding rain broke out a couple of hours ago. I wanted to capture it for you. I love a good summer rain. You can't tell from this picture, except for maybe gauzy spots, but it was an abundant, bursting, sensuous monsoon pour. Cats wanted in. I took the picture from the sheltered porch. It's of the kitchen garden, which mostly D tends though I water it. Vegetables grow in the four square raised beds, there's a rose border in front, and within the rabbit fencing a raspberry bush that I got at a discount grocer a couple of years ago for $1.99 is thriving, along with straggly and more expensive blueberry bushes to the right. The raspberry bush produces and in the past I've picked berries from it, two or three for the bowl, one for me. For this suburban/urban transplant, it feels like an amazing achievement to grow my own especially considering how expensive they are even in season. In the past the blueberry bushes - varietals that ripen at staggered times over a long season - have produced too. But mostly the birds get them first because while D & I talk a lot about netting this against birds and that against deer, somehow it doesn't get done.

It was cold, damp sweater weather much of the day. But now the sun has broken out and it's instantly summery again. I've peeled off my sweater and opened the windows.

What did I do today? Went for a walk at the conservation area. It's buggy there. Ran into a regular, the older gentleman with his floppy dog. He remarked on the bugs. I concurred. "But I hate the odor of bug spray," I said. He said that he puts it on just where he perspires, indicating his neck and wrists. "It's no Miss Dior," I said. We continued on our separate ways.

Spent time in the kitchen (Season 3 DVD of Big Love on in the background), baked chocolate chip cookies, made blue-cheese yogurt dressing, washed and spun lettuce, pulled out chickens to defrost, loaded the dishwasher and ran it. Upstairs I ironed a few more curtains.

Now I hear a noisy small plane, reminding me of when I lived in Brooklyn and helicopters constantly crossed overhead. Once I saw one from the terrace that I knew must contain the Pope! We lived by a LaGuardia flight path too, so jets were always sailing past, stately slow and silent, fronts up at a slight tilt.

One day I sat on the terrace, feet up. I closed my eyes for a while and when I opened them again and looked up at the sky at that very moment a large water bird, a heron or egret, flew overhead. How serendipitous - that precise moment. I don't believe I've ever seen another one in Brooklyn, not right in the old neighborhood anyway.

I was so glad to get your lantern flicker this morning, I felt immeasurably lightened.

Dinner is cheese tortellini with homemade basil pesto (one of my favorite things), leftover chicken, and salad. I should go to the supermarket tomorrow - I'm running out of basics. Let's see: Worcestershire, OJ, walnuts, butter, feta, camembert... A jaunt out to Old Chatham for cheese might be in order.

A John Gorka song is on now. I think of you, all night long... summer sky... climbing roses... watched the sea... memory... you're on my mind the whole night through... all the way in a lonesome city all the time you're gone I think of you. And when I hear the soft wind blowing like an angel's voice from a far off shore..... I think of you as the night goes by you're on my mind the whole night through... all the time you're gone... I think of you all the time you're gone... I think of you, I think of you....

I Think of You

I feel a sense of well-being this morning. The sun is shining, we didn't have a frost last night, the petunias are back hanging on the porch, the zinnias in the border survived the night, birds are singing. Yesterday at the conservation area I saw a bluebird flitting through the trees. What a magnificent tiny creature, bright azure feathers. I felt lucky to see it. I'm contemplating going for a walk but don't feel like tearing myself away from the music. So maybe I'll cook something. I stopped by a farmstand yesterday and bought a large bag of spinach. I'm paging through my Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I have phyllo dough in the freezer. I think I'll make spinach pie. I bought a bag of organic lemons yesterday, so am inspired to make lemon cake. And I'd like to get around to the French lentils that I never do anything with. It's supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow. So I think I'll make a pot of lentil vegetable soup to keep things cozy.

I think about an article I recently read, about a former mistress and muse of Norman Mailer who has written a memoir.

Ms. Mallory, then 41, met Mr. Mailer at Elaine’s on the Upper East Side. It’s hard to say who went after whom. She was the first to invite him to coffee. He was the first to invite her to his hotel room (ostensibly to look over a manuscript she had written, which included an account of her one-night stand with Warren Beatty). After a round of edits, he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Take off your panties,” he said soon after, according to the book. “I want to experience your soul.”

I've never read Norman Mailer, but that has got to be one of his greatest lines ever. Sigh.

Carole Mallory can turn a phrase herself. "In the beginning we spoke with our bodies. In the end we spoke with our minds."
Don't I know, only too well.

Am also (via Maud Newton this morning) becoming quite fascinated with Picasso's "long-time muse and mistress, Dora Maar, who was a photographer, poet and painter in her own right, as well as the inspiration for many Picasso masterpieces, most notably The Weeping Woman...."

Very many kisses for you this morning, dearest. I hope your day goes well.

Whole Wide World

Hello dearest. Up in the aerie. The day could not be more beautiful. I am trying to recover myself. I had a very nice morning, attending the Town Meeting after all, but when I returned home KZE was all staticky, the computer was slow (it took the better part of an hour to unload email & basic website hits). Those two connections alone are my lifelines. Then D came home for lunch and he & I had a horrible fight. He has a way of tearing down all my scenery, everything that keeps me going, and I really can't take it. You know, even if I am taking artistic or whatever license in pursuing whatever I'm pursuing - well, it means a lot to me. It destroys me, literally, when he just blows it to smithereens on a whim. It's very hard on me. I don't know what to do. I don't have the wherewithal anymore in any other direction.

What's going on between D and me now is not what went on the first 20 years. Though I wonder about that too, now.

As I was saying, I am trying to recover myself. And, as I said, the day & the light just now have been beautiful. Just thinking of you has a calming effect on me, also, the steady stream of songs on KZE. I find most of the songs very reassuring, seriously.

Right, the congressional town meeting. I don't have a lot to say about it except that I'm glad I attended, I was very impressed with Rep. Murphy, and also, for the most part, with the comments & queries of the people who formed a line to express their views and concerns to him. I had been a little fearful of a turnout of the Crazed of a Persuasion Not My Own. A few were in attendance, and though I thought a couple of them might have been plants I found their remarks nevertheless to be heartfelt. But honestly, beyond ideology - ignorance is a dangerous thing. For example, understanding the threats to our democracy as being "socialist" as opposed to - well, what are the words? I hesitate at labels that just obfuscate. Corporate totalitarianism? I found it interesting that in the whole town meeting I'm not sure that the word "corporate" or "corporation" came up even once. But that's the real enemy. We need to find a way to talk about it - well, we are - health insurance reform, for starters. But there is a genuine misunderstanding of well-meaning people on that score. (A Vietnam vet who isn't disillusioned? whose daughter in law is from a formerly Communist country - "and could be a model" - oh, aargh.)

Did some Topekaing today and learned via twitter that your talk on 3/28 with your colleagues in Nome was not to be missed. No wonder I feel as though I'm going nuts. Oh, it's okay. I still have those positively narrative Maspeth hits from 8 March to keep me going.

I love you, you.

green day in the whole wide world

"The solitary life, which Emily had led of late, and the melancholy subjects, on which she had suffered her thoughts to dwell, had rendered her at times sensible to the 'thick-coming fancies' of a mind greatly enervated.--Ann Radcliffe, Mysteries of Udolpho

Storms gathered in my head, but in the afternoon my mood began to lift. I was heartened by the notion that, in a Sahara of page hits, in Antwerp someone had expressed a turning away from coriander while back in the States, at an airport perhaps, was a thought of cilantro soup. Return, embrace, mashup. Kisses, my dearest love.

I tried to keep things simple today, just keep moving. I skimmed swathes of Udolpho. I relate to Emily, and feel myself to be in the midst of a quality 21st century gothic of sorts. So trying on the nerves. But what is my alternative? Trying to keep one foot in front of the other in other respects, no matter my mad mind. I took a vigorous walk at the conservation area. All sorts of impure - no, perfectly pure! - delicious reveries and impulses there on this spectacular day. Back home, I did a bit of gardening, clipping off last year's brown sedum stalks and heads. New growth is emerging. I cooked up a big pot of chili and organized rice to go with it. I had all the ingredients to make oatmeal-raisin cookies -- so I did. I would have made dough for a plum tart but realized I had run out of flour. I am constantly running out of if not one thing, then another these days. I used to make it an absolute point never to run out of anything - to plan, to anticipate, to keep basics at least, in seamless supply. Things have broken down here, understandably enough...

On the porch now at an exquisite hour, sun on my face, I close my eyes, and my heart is full of love for you.










Penelope in the doorway. Add to image: warm sun, birds squawking, chimes clanging, KZE streaming, breeze blowing, sips of iced cherry wine, thoughts of you, and very many kisses.

The Original of - who now?

Private thoughts, dearest, not for posting. The John Gorka song I heard him sing on a video at the library this afternoon - about how "I" don't want you to see me when I'm like this, and that "I" am very changed from the boy you once knew. Those words spoke to me. [Ed: at home now, cannot for life of me figure out which song - sorry.] I honestly wonder if at least some of his songs (many of these artists' these days) are about you and me. Multiply by i and we're in this strange reality - a hybrid of fact & fiction. At the Dollar Store today I could have sworn that the chorus was singing Jola, Jola, Jola - not I love ya, I love ya, I love ya. But there it is.
***

Okay - the song on right now - Cigarette Abana - I'm hearing Jola's in that too. Unless it's Yo Yo Mas? I snacked on a banana today. Plus two minutes ago I posted about how I used to smoke too much. Just sayin'. It all gets piled on!
***

I think of an older gentleman of my extremely slight acquaintance who, the second time I ever met him, looked like he had a new lease on life. All he wanted to do is dance. A happy man, now. Not that I had ever known him at all. But his joy and energy and certainty about just what he wanted to do - go dancing - was striking - and charming & amusing. (This was a few years ago, the evening after a funeral that afternoon.) He understood that time is precious & he was still alive & he meant to extract every pleasure he could from every drop. I think you are in that place, too - that's my sense of it.
***

I picked a Michael Chabon book off the 800s shelf at the library. The word Maps was in the title. [Ed.: Maps and Legends.] There was no blurb. I opened the book at random and my eyes fell on the word "Nabokov" and I shut the book. Then I was curious so I opened it again. Chabon is talking about - really, just mentions (from what I glimpsed)- Nabokov's fractal writing, all the leaping connections all over the place. The leaps & connections taken together - grand unification.
***

I read on Maud Newton I believe, that Nabokov may have envisioned The Original of Laura as a kind of performance piece - perhaps co-written with others. I copied out the words on the image of one of his index cards - but so far nothing has inspired me to make a leap. Maybe I don't have enough to go on - that's what we were doing on the Barefoot Contessa board with those crazy spontaneous parodies - but the shared root was Ina - it was easy to take off from that.
***

Oh my darling, it is so mild out, my fleece is just lightly draped on my shoulders, and the sun is warm on my face - the air is still, there's birdsong, a large squawking waterbird has just flown overhead, my citrus tea is hot and delicious, I feel calm & rested, the traffic is flowing, Rafe is perched on the roof of the outbuilding, Penelope is taking baby steps outside, my pen casts a sharp shadow on the page, and I am filled with love for you.