The Clock Ran Backwards

Saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the other night. A two hanky movie. Left me feeling reflective. Watching an elderly baby age backwards for three hours would do that to anyone. I have seldom seen a film where so many characters died. Where a couple can't find happiness together because one is aging while the other gets younger. Where a clock ran backwards. Where a young woman's break-up with her boyfriend is a causal factor in a car accident. An astonishing fable altogether. About aging and time. Since clocks can not run backwards, I resolve to make each moment count.

Only Better

"She's the kind of person you see in the movies, only better." (From a friend about a mutual friend)

Best Gift

My friend Susanne and I saw a concert film about Leonard Cohen today. When the credits rolled during one last amazing song, I got up and danced. Susanne was under a blanket on her couch. I said, "Dance with me." So she did. I, who rarely dance for a host of reasons, danced. Such a tough year. Fell two days ago into another black hole depression, this one briefer than the others. I'm anxious about finding work too much of the time. Even on a holiday. But when I was dancing, I felt saved for about five minutes, completely relaxed and unafraid. Not looking for larger lessons here. My best gift this season was dancing with my friend in the dark.

Comfort

"The mother of the world carries the pain of the world in her heart. Each of us is part of her heart and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain." (From a Sufi saying in Who Dies? Stephen Levine)

Missing Her

Have failed in my vow to stop watching Hallmark Christmas specials. My mother and I used to watch them together. I imagine she is sitting next to me with that lit-up interested look she used to get about romance on TV.

Stump

- You awake?
- What time is it? she said.
- Still night.
- Ahh.
- I love you. Were you ever in love? Apart from Ambrose?
- Yeah.
He was put off by her casual admission.
- I fell in love with a guy named Stump Jones when I was sixteen.
- Stump!
- There was a problem with the name.

(From In The Skin of a Lion by Michael Andaatje)

The Buzz of Living

My friend Dee and I wait in the freezing dark at 10:30 PM for a #66 Downtown. My bus, not hers. She is wearing a long blue winter coat she purchased in 1964 that is designed for photographers so has a lot of inside pockets. "Ideal coat for shoplifting," she says wryly. I have my mittens over my ears because my stocking cap doesn't quite cover them. We have just spent the evening at her art-jumble house talking about films and writing. She read an exquisite essay written by a friend about being an art student in her twenties in the 30's in Cincinati. A free spirit, even sexually. "I thought all women were repressed then," I said. "Many of us weren't," Dee said. "Hundreds of us." I look at her face alight with the buzz of living and think there isn't anything better than having a friend in her eighties, who admittedly "has only a shred of maternal energy left" in her, but is willing to spend some of that shred on me.

Spell Casting with Potato

My mother transformed her kitchen every Christmas into a haven for Norwegian pastry magic. She baked krumkaka, yulekaka ("kaka" in our language means cake) and my favorite, leftse. Leftse is a pastry made from potatoes, rolled out so thin you could read a newspaper through it and baked on a giant round electric griddle. A delicate process. Any tear in the dough means an instant do over. But if you re-roll the dough too many times, it ends up tough and dry. I did not appreciate how skilled my mom was at this aspect to the art until I tasted bad leftsa. Thick as cardboard. Like eating stacked communion wafers. For my mom, making leftse was a kind of meditation. Mashing the potatoes and making the dough. Rolling out the circle of dough, moving it quickly and expertly onto the griddle with long flat sticks. On the griddle, which is dusted with flour, the leftse bakes for a minute until brown freckles appear and then it is flipped. Burning the lefse while rolling out the next piece is another hazard and requires acute attention, being present in the moment. Once finished, baked and cooled, my mother buttered the lefse. Sprinkled on cinnamon sugar. Rolled the leftse into a cigar-sized log. Then cut the log into delicious bite-size pieces. The night of the leftsa making was one of my mother's loved rituals, a spell-casting with potato.

The Hoop

"In this culture, we look at life as though it were a straight line. The longer the line the longer we imagine we have lived, the wholer we suppose ourselves to be, and the less horrendous we imagine the end point [...]. But in the American Indian culture one, is not seen linearly but rather as a circle which becomes complete at about puberty with the rites of passage. From that time one is seen as a wholeness that continues to expand outward. But once "the hoop" has formed, any time one dies, one dies in wholeness. As the American Indian sage Crazy Horse commented, "Today is a good day to die for all the things of my life are present." (From Who Dies by Stephen Levine)

All Boats

"When women are free to make the most of their skills and ideas, they create a rising tide that lifts all boats." (From Women Empowered, Inspiring Change in the Emerging World, a book of photographs by Phil Borges)

Like a Tent

I remember after my dad died on a Sunday morning crossing the sidewalk in front of the hospital, and people were laughing and talking, coming back from their lunch breaks. Everything had a sense of unreality. Like I was underwater and behind glass looking at the other humans. Today, when I walked out of the animal hospital after watching the quiet and unremarkable and yet remarkable death of the pet of a friend, I had a similar feeling. W.H. Auden was right. "About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters: how well they understood its human position; how it takes place while someone else is eating or just opening a window [...] While the four of us there took turns holding a tiny oxygen mask up to the pug's gray muzzle, cars were passing on the busy street outside probably filled with Christmas shoppers. While the vet made the two quick injections, one to numb and one to stop the heart, we could hear doors opening and closing in the clinic, the receptionist answer the phone. For some things, the only word is "sacred." This little being was one of my relations. I ran on beaches with her, down streets. I held her on my chest in the shade once and sang to her for an hour when I had locked both of us out of her mother's house. She was my companion for days in the seven months I lived with Deborah after my parents were killed. Everyone in the room had a relationship with her. And when she died, we threw our arms around each other and over her body like a tent.

Great Work

“The things that come with celebrity, whether it’s a magazine cover or adulation or money, do not tell me who I am. It didn’t help when I had to cook dinner or scrub floors or take care of my children. It didn’t make any difference when I lost my husband and my brother and had to start my life again. The gods of celebrity don’t care. And no amount of fame or prosperity can replace the value of great work.” (Patti Smith, Dec. 4, 2008, New York Times)

Blessing

I was honored to witness today the death of Kimsu, a pug, and beloved companion to Deborah for twelve years. Kimsu, may the grass be green where you are, the skies blue, the sprinklers far enough away, and may you have the abundant eyes and lungs and bones of a puppy. Bless you.

Gutter Ball

I have to stop watching Hallmark Christmas specials. They are killing me. I just spent two hours with the actor Steve Gutenberg as Santa's son (and heir) in search of a girlfriend and the next Mrs. Claus. He, infinitely adorable and bilingual; she, a buxom blonde who, in real life, is a country western singer. She believed him. She was fine with it. Didn't think he was hallucinating. Do I even believe in Santa? No. In Steve Gutenberg as Santa? No. I am irresistibly drawn to escapist treacle this time of year. Inside, I am so sad. My heart is a gutter ball.