Jarkko Pylväs: Adventti Kynttilät

Paljon kiitoksia, Jarkko.

Back from Winter Walk, it's early yet, only about 8:30. I walked the walk - strolling very pleasurably first up Warren Street, then down, stopping into a few shops and galleries that usually I don't have quite the temerity to go into but this evening they were all packed, and several had little performing groups - a jazz quartet or quintet in one (that I glimpsed through a shop window), a pair of comely belly dancers in another, a small group of choristers on a street corner, a cabaret singer showcased in a shopfront miked to the street, crooning Joni Mitchell's River. I'm always amazed how many people turn out for Winter Walk. Hudson seems like the sleepiest small city on a typical day - and tonight it was just packed with happy pedestrians milling up & down the street, doing some holiday shopping at the really terrific one-of-a-kind shops, antiques and boutiques. Then I went for a glass of wine at the loveliest little hole-in-the-wall wine bar that I've been to only once before - last year's winter walk. I ordered a glass of house red, stood with it for a few moments, then sat at the bar when a stool became vacated, chatted a bit with a guy next to me (but no vibes, for the usual reason), ended up observing the lovely bar waitress carefully pour all the pours (god wine is expensive - by the glass, in a bar) and I'm afraid, for not narcissistic reasons, ended up making eye contact with myself in the enormous silvered mirror behind the bar upon which was crayoned the menu of wines offered by the pour. But I have to say - I don't look bad, if I say so myself. Considering, I mean - considering my age, my body type. But I look all right, maybe better than all right.  During winter walk, and in some of the places I stopped into (I was by myself) I noticed a few good looking guys - and also noticed a few good looking guys noticing me - eye contact. So - hope!

Silliest post ever, I know, I'm just feeling - I don't know, betwixt & between. I could only stay for one drink at the wine bar since I had to drive home. No sight of gingerbread boy. But it was very early. If he was even around, I didn't see him on the street. It's okay. Last year's winter walk was, for me, a one-off, an extraordinary experience that - I suppose I'm glad didn't get repeated in quite the same over-the-top hallucinatory way. Can't there be some middle ground though? Mr. iPhone's gone missing, but someone else is possibly back, but what does that ever mean for me really?

Well, I'm glad you, my beloved darlings, know of my poetic blog full of love and longing - I wish you could also see that I look quite nice too (outfit tonight: black cashmere twin set, formfitting dark jeans).

The guy I was seated next to at the bar saw full well precisely what I look like right now, this year of our Lord 2010 - but has no idea - had no interest, it just never got to the 'so what do you do' stage - that I write. I fantasize - yearn - for that all to come together in a way that makes sense - that unlocks something - that the guy is like - likes the way I look, the way I write, and the look in his eyes says it all - oh - it's you

My darlings, how are you? Missing you all very much, as you know. I received another "nice wallpaper" page hit from somewhere else in India, different browser, different operating system - and now, given my cast of mind these years, am inclined to take them personally, as an invitation, or at least as fond memory. Also this morning a page hit I instantly cherished - and again can't be certain, but in response, I'd like to include this little bit, from a post from a while back he may have missed, in case it's him. And if it's you - well then, here you go, you seem like a lot of fun, and thanks.

Watched another video, of another writer, that was reminiscent of (or was) a miniature dramatic monologue. He described his book and explained how in writing it he had allowed himself to follow his intuition, seeing where the gilded birds might take him, trusting in the connections that might form. All the while he spoke, in flowing associative prose, his hands in parallel expression would come together; fly apart; poise in midair, fingers elongated; take flight, his corporeal hands like birds themselves, legible of spirit, that in a certain light might leave eloquent fluttering shadows on a wall.

Oh what else? I am feeling the shortest days of the year, the adumbrated (must look that word up - is that the one I mean?) days on either end, and my midafternoon torpor, just this desire - that I give in to - to lie down in bed and fall into a long groggy sleep. And yet I'm not minding this onset of winter so much. This year there's heat - hot water burbling through the pipes that is - I'm not economizing crazily to the point where I'm bundled in outdoor wear while up in the aerie. No, indeed I feel quite normal and civilized and on even keel - dressed in layers, still, but luxurious thin ones, a thin camisole topped with ivory cashmere tee, a purple longsleeved cotton tee (sleeves too long, must annoyingly fold them up in the morning), and a cozy black, formfitting acrylic sweater. And despite there being this hoary [is that the word I mean? must look it up] glace of frost icing the landscape this morning, there's still green around, and the pansies that sit on the porch table by day that I bring in at night are still in bloom.

Neighbor's chickens are rooting around the base of the bird feeders. It makes me laugh, but there's a cost, I'm sure, to ground feeders such as mourning doves, the cardinals, titmice...

My love, if I could only kiss you just now I really would be happy and calm and I feel certain that magically my aches would disappear, because they are so much of mind, aren't they?

Are you all right?

Reading Muriel Spark, she's very amusing - such as the lithe young woman buttering herself with margarine so that she can slip herself out a narrow casement window onto a sunny roof (London, post-Blitz, but I picture brownstone Brooklyn), something one of her housemates - one-and-a-half inches thinner at the hips, doesn't need to waste precious rations on.

I wonder what Felicity thought of Muriel Spark? I don't remember the subject ever coming up between us - yet Muriel seems to have been of her speed, possibly -

or possibly not, there was a lot she didn't see, or didn't want to see, such as the time in midsummer I was wrapped in a scratchy wool blanket the time she & wry S (her husband) marched upstairs, chaperone-like, to make sure all was comme il faut. Which it wasn't, I was quite obviously in an extremely compromised position, it simply wasn't credible that I had suddenly (as they marched unannounced up the attic steps) developed a terrible fever that required the kind ministrations of their already practiced humoring son.

How does anyone manage writing a novel? All I can manage is snippets of self, my life in progress, unreeled in real time...

Oh darling, darlings, thank you for the buttressing effects of sonically crashing backdrops of Van Morrison and the Stones all day long, that only serve to encourage me...

XOXO

launching without proofing - may tweak in the morning -

Me, yesterday: "I feel full to bursting with wanting to express something this morning, but what?"

***
Today, 1:09 p.m. my time, someone in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (4:09 a.m. Saturday) lands on my blog, having entered the following google search engine phrase, which I include here verbatim:

My Soul is oozing out of my body like a gush of Fire With my face absolutely content, my arms wide open, I am bursting - For I am embracing something. And I start spinning, the spark gets more fierce Giving rise to a fire within and around. The faster i move, the more i glow. This goes on till a drop of rain falls on me and I stop moving - I begin to enjoy. Now, I start fancying the rain - for it simply provides pleasure I start getting more and more outward, less fierce, more real. I am convinced that this is the best yet But then i realize it's getting gloomy - I sense a storm It quickly turns from pleasure to pain - F*** rain! All that is left is a spark, trust, hope which After feeling the heat, the love - Never Die! It shall wait for these apparent pleasurable rains to dry For the Godly winds shall help the spark ablaze.

***
From email message to my Finnish friend, earlier today

Dear J, Thank you so much sharing your exquisite watercolor images with me. I am enjoying them greatly, and they very much gave inspiration to my blog post yesterday evening. I love each image whole, and am also finding the details, greatly magnified as they spontaneously enlarge on my computer screen, breathtaking in texture and the overlaid play of sheer colors and light. I'm reminded (perhaps) of an online NY Times "slide show" I glanced at at the library yesterday, photographic images of the brain from a recently published book. Actually, I like your images much better, for the palpable sense of hand, and of the beautiful mind that created them...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/science/30brain.html?_r=1&ref=books
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/11/29/science/20101130-brain.html

***
Feeling such a sense of frustration at the moment that I don't have an adequate image to post, only partly because I haven't requested or otherwise received my friend's permission to post his images. He sent them to me in a huge zip file, which keeps stalling out my computer - it's okay though - it's worth it. The beauty of the enormous file is that small details of his images are blown up without distortion, at perfect resolution, as though seen under an electron microscope. The detail revealed is absolutely extraordinary, revelatory - mystic, in the way the Brisbane google search engine phrase is mystic (is it a poem by a mystic poet? does anyone know? or is there a current Emily or Walt in Australia?). A glimpse of one of those watercolor details - any random one of which is a beautiful composition in itself - is what I wish very much I had the capability to post. Ah, perhaps another time. So sorry to frustrate, my dear readers. Perhaps this post can be considered a placeholder. Je reviens - I hope.

Sleep well, Brisbane - Finland too.

Good evening, my dearest. I hope wherever you are you're nice & warm, it's cold outside. Up in the aerie, and I did alright in Chatham this morning, better than I expected. The Spark novels were in the frozen-in-time fiction stacks, and the biography was on the new non-fiction shelf, not that it sported so many volumes, so it felt like kismet to come back with it. Am redressing a gap in my literary education, reading Spark now. I've actually tried her before, and somehow - pardon the pun - she didn't "spark" with me. But I don't know, I think it will be different now.

Speaking of sparks, Happy Advent. My friend in Finland emailed me images of the most beautiful watercolors he did of candle flames - and the jpegs are entitled "Advent Candle." So glad he reminded me 'tis the season. I always enjoyed the idea of Advent, especially of those little pop-up paper calendars from when I was a girl. Somehow the idea was a lot more interesting than any execution of it that I ever witnessed, but the potential for something incredibly delightful and beautiful is certainly there, isn't it, an enticing kiss or sweet or magic adventure or dream or flame or feather or star or charm behind each tiny, tiny portal tucked within the magical whole, each one not to be opened until just the right date. I had a tendency, as a girl, to peek ahead... now I don't think I would. How could I? I can't tell the future, not anymore, if I ever could. Except that Saturday night is Winter Walk, and I remember last year's and the fine though almost hallucinatory time I had, and someone in Madras, India googled a post from last December in which I'd alluded to it. Winifred would like to go, but would like to go by herself, except that she needs the car (so that she can get back home), which she mentioned to D, who now too has expressed an interest in going. So it is with Winifred. I don't know what will happen. It's not as though the person in Madras actually asked me out. That was fun though, last year, wasn't it? I especially loved (p.m.). Really, all of it - the whole walk in the freezing sleet (but not so bad) and the glorious silver fireworks over the river, and gingerbread boy who didn't wish to be eaten, and the police car with the neon bright revolving flashers, and all the little children who wanted to hug gingerbread boy, and the music at one bar that was just packed with people several of whom looked like archangels, and the cozy, elegant (p.m.) wine bar with delightful company and conversation, and lovely L ordering a port and getting sticker shock. I thought of that when I saw yet another inane headline in the Times, about port being a welcome guest at holiday parties - yes, if the host has a hedge fund! And what of that complete silliness over Steve Martin? I can hardly get over it. The people at the Y, and audience attendees, sound like a bunch of asses, truly. Oh, but I am digressing, aren't I. I'm just glad I don't exactly have to feel sorry for Steve Martin. Or do I? Perhaps PEN will take up his cause. Inanity, though, just complete inanity, in this overly consumerist culture. Imagine the Y offering full refunds. You know what? Let's just give back the whole First Amendment already, shall we? Let's just put everything on Entertainment Tonight (whose originator, I glanced at headline obits, just died). Let's just not have any discourse at all, shall we. Let's just go for breadth and popularity F'book style all the time, depth and delving and exploration and not giving in to what the mainstream expects be damned. Let's just be breathless with brushes with celebrity all the time, and not become interested in a person's ideas...

Was that a rant? Yeah, probably, but it's okay. I'm not feeling angry at all, more exasperated.

I was imagining before I just got started what it would be like to simply touch your hand, to lift my palm against yours, and touch your fingertips with mine, the exquisite sensation of touching you, and meaning it.

As children we used to dare ourselves by, at candlelit dinners on special occasions, running our fingers fast through the flickering flames. We were assured we wouldn't get burned, indeed we weren't, but it was a daring leap into the risky unknown to will myself to run my finger through the heat (stay in the orange, not the hot blue, someone counseled), astonished that the flame though having shook and wavered in my passage, still burned, and my finger was intact, not even warm.

Darling, cupping my palm behind the flame now and gently blowing it out - that way paraffin doesn't scatter on the cloth.

Touching your fingertips, my darling, in the stillness after the noise, in the revealing darkness.

leftovers, reading, cabin fever, and Don't Mind Me

Brilliant morning after all of yesterday's rain. Sunny and cold, the weather utterly transformed, temperature dropped twenty degrees or more. I feel full to bursting with wanting to express something this morning, but what? I don't know. So it's a feeling of frustration, relieved a couple of times by bursting into tears à la Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. I'm between books now, too, what to read next, I wonder?

Maud Newton was in my dream last night, climbing into an old Cadillac. I was in another car, tapped on the window, and said, hi I recognize you. She smiled but mostly ignored me and drove away. The dream, however, prompted me to google Muriel Spark this morning, and start The Girls of Slender Means before googlebooks cut me off at page 7 just as I was getting into it. So I think I will go to a library today, and rummage new books and old books and try to find something utterly compelling to read. I'll reserve the Spark.

No chili or cornbread for me but greens, of sorts: knocked off the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers for breakfast, turkey and stuffing, with orange juice and a mesclun salad.

I need another big book. It's like being without a lover, yet again. 

Off for a walk soon, that will help set me straight.

Come to think of it I dreamt about John Gorka the other night too.  I take it to heart when he sings "doesn't matter what you say, I just like the way you sound." I love the way he sounds, anything, anything at all that he might like to sing, and you darling, and Jerome, and Christopher, and Iain...

Kisses dearest, and later, with more.

Fierce loud wind, driving rain, gray skies, wind chimes clang outside, rain drums the tin roof of the solarium. I went for a walk at the park but cut it short with the wind and rain unpleasantly lashing. I felt as though I was in a remote place at the end of the world, the sort of bleak lone landscape that P.D. James excels at describing, where I've never been but that in my mind's eye I hardly picture in color, just shades of buff and peat and moss and dun.

Drove to the library and returned, reluctantly, the McGilchrist. I really enjoyed that tome, actually read the whole thing, quite rare for me these days to stick with an entire book. I miss having it by my side, it was like being with a companion, his prose is so even, conversant, warm, flowing. It's a book I'd like to own, Christmas is coming up, perhaps I will ask for it. That and two new aprons, nice ones, and a new set of pot holders. That and (in my imagination) something sexy, perfume, kisses, more kisses - and there you have it: me in a nutshell.
Listening to the wind roar and gazing at the lovely fresh tiger lilies, along with another flower, in my birch vase. I love having flowers around the house, my way of getting through winter with spirits intact, no matter how bleak and gray out.

McGilchrist writes, lamentingly, that we don't write about or express enough the senses of smell, touch, and taste in particular, and also that as a psychiatrist he's resigned himself to the fact that when patients he's interviewing say that they like music, and he asks if they play an instrument or sing, they inevitably respond, no they enjoying listening to it.

My hair got wet in the rain and now it's dried by itself in thick soft waves - I myself am enjoying playing with it. Missing you, darling, very much, but it's been good for me, surprisingly. My hair smells nice, I wish you could inhale it and run your fingers through it and kiss me, and I'd like to taste your kisses, just now would be good, and touch silken you all over as I've imagined today --

KZE is all staticky due to the storm so I sat at the piano and played a couple of Bach inventions, plus Just the Way You Look Tonight, all very badly...

Darling, wherever you are I hope you are safe, happy & warm, and in a position to indulge your senses, sensuously I mean, beyond apprehending the thwack of your umbrella as it springs open and you step outside into a cold driving rain, thrusting your chin into the raised collar of your coat, smelling the ozone and wood smoke and car exhaust and noticing the rain streaming off the umbrella and putting your briefcase under one arm as you click the car keys so that your car unlocks as though a footman had opened the door, and you get in and close the door with a reassuring, airlocked thwack and you sit in the car in the silent darkness for a moment, by yourself, rain streaming down the windshield, and you think ... my God, after a good drink, and delicious bite to eat, I could really get into devouring her kisses.

XOXO