Now You Know

"People always ask me, 'Were you funny as a child?' Well, no, I was an accountant." (Ellen DeGenerous)

Yes to Adventure

In the movie, The Mummy, an English officer has lost his way in the desert. More metaphorically than literally. Since his heroic days in the war, he has found his solace in sherry and in rambling rembrances of what happened long before. He longs for adventure, the wind in his face and death at his heels, but when offered it, hesitates. Easier to talk than act. He says yes. His last moments on earth are spent piloting a small plane which spirals to the sand in a sand storm. When the hero of the story, played by Brendan Fraser, finds the pilot in the wreck, he is dead but his face is blissful. All my adult life, I've thought, "This is my last large piece of work, the last ride in my recovery from many things." I wonder now if I'm wrong. Before he says, yes to adventure, the old English officer sits on his air strip with a servant holding an umbrella over his head--bored. Maybe I would be too if my life settled down.

White China

Yesterday, I discovered that the teller cashing my check was a song writer. The check was for an essay of mine, and the title was on it, and he noticed. Two seconds later, he shyly confessed he wrote pop songs. Earlier, I had used a word I like, and, later, he elegantly handed the word back to me like a baguette on white china. We smiled at each other, one writer to another.

The Luminous Ordinary

We are putting things away, Helen and I. She moves to the left so I move to the right. Hand her a dish. Wash a bowl. Another bowl. She turns on the dishwasher. I toss a paper bag into recycling. There was a time when I didn't think, how wonderful, how miraculous to put things away. But that was before I knew how quickly life could change. Now, sometimes, like tonight, I am acutely aware of the luminousness of the ordinary. To live in a beautiful house. To just have had a lovely dinner with lovely people, and now to be quietly and happily putting things away.

Just This

Sometimes the universe graces me with the smallest things: a clean pair of underwear when I thought I was out.

Back

Writing here is like coming back, after many months, to a restaurant I once loved. The waiter still knows my name and gestures me to my favorite table with an ocean view. Brings me bread. A candle flickers. "I'll have the chowder," I say when he returns. I inquire about his family. His youngest son has discovered that if he hops up and down long enough, his pants will fall down. We laugh. He leaves. Outside, the sun is falling too and the waves are iridescent. I imagine mermaids. Or sirens. But no one is going to sing my ship to the shoals tonight.

Princess Leia Was Braless

When Carrie Fisher modeled her now famous white gown for George Lucas for the first Star Wars film, he told her she could not wear a bra "because there's no underwear in space." How did he know?