Why She Wrote

From a piece called “Why I Write” by Joan Didion. I read this the other day and I keep thinking about it. I am all butter and Greyhound buses too.

I am not in the least an intellectual, which is not to say that when I hear the word "intellectual" I reach for my gun, but only to say that I do not think in abstracts. During the years when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley, I tried, with a kind of hopeless late-adolescent energy, to buy some temporary visa into the world of ideas, to forge for myself a mind that could deal with abstract.

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral. I would try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor. I would try to read linguistic theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the bevatron up the hill. When I say that I was wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron you might immediately suspect, if you deal in ideas at all, that I was registering the bevatron as a political symbol, thinking in shorthand about the military-industrial complex and its role in the university community, but you would be wrong. I was only wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron, and how they looked. A physical fact.

I had trouble graduating from Berkeley, not because of this inability to deal with ideas—I was majoring in English, and I could locate the house-and-garden imagery in "The Portrait of a Lady" as well as the next person, "imagery" being by definition the kind of specific that got my attention—but simply because I had neglected to take a course in Milton. For reasons which now sound baroque I needed a degree by the end of that summer, and the English department finally agreed, if I would come down from Sacramento every Friday and talk about the cosmology of "Paradise Lost," to certify me proficient in Milton. I did this. Some Fridays I took the Greyhound bus, other Fridays I caught the Southern Pacific’s City of San Francisco on the last leg of its transcontinental trip. I can no longer tell you whether Milton put the sun or the earth at the center of his universe in "Paradise Lost," the central question of at least one century and a topic about which I wrote 10,000 words that summer, but I can still recall the exact rancidity of the butter in the City of San Francisco’s dining car, and the way the tinted windows on the Greyhound bus cast the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits into a grayed and obscurely sinister light. In short my attention was always on the periphery, on what I could see and taste and touch, on the butter, and the Greyhound bus. During those years I was traveling on what I knew to be a very shaky passport, forged papers: I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. I knew I couldn’t think. All I knew then was what I couldn’t do. All I knew was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.

Something

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of George Harrison’s death. In memoriam I watched Martin Scorsese’s documentary about George called “Living in the Material World” and I highly recommend it. There was some spectacular and intimate footage of the Beatles and then of just George. I am sometimes decidedly John-loving, because I admired his raw talent and bombast... but after watching this, its really George who seemed like such a beautiful, loving, poetic man.

Musicians always seem to be the truest artists; mixing emotion and technique into something that is undeniably widely appreciated by so many people. I will never get over the fact that the Beatles caused such an absolute sensation. Its amazing how popularity spreads and what cultural elements catch fire sometimes. I imagine if the Beatles had been popular when I was young, I would have been one of those screaming, fainting girls in the audience. I love this lips poster above (via Cup of Jo).

For a clip from the documentary, click here.

and Something (acoustic).

My Martha

Everything was painted with gold paint; pinecones, leaves, fruits, wreaths, nuts. There were gingerbread mansions with shining sugar window panes, forced flowering branches, wire edged ribbons and a towering impossible croquembouche. Ingredients that were not available within miles of my home. And recipes for things I didn’t even know could be homemade. Well-styled Christmas trees galore, without a tattered sentimental ornament in sight. And cookie morphology that was completely new to me. It was a cornucopia of the unknown.

This was back when Martha’s ideas were out of many peoples league. Fresh hen eggs, copper cooking pots that would not fit in most kitchens, boxwood lined New England walkways twinkling with white lights. It was a level of over-the-top home-maker perfection that disgusted many ordinary people. But not me. I was in 8th grade and I was downright dazzled. I took Martha Stewart’s Christmas book to bed with me night after night. The photography was glorious and it made me want to make everything.

I carried my brother’s black and serious-looking glue gun up to our attic and turned the space into a freezing cold workshop with one very dedicated and irrational elf. I bought styrofoam spheres, collected tiny pinecones from our hemlock tree, shamelessly stole from dishes of mixed nuts. And I gilded and glued until my fingers burned a million times over. I hung flowers to dry from every rafter. The silica gel eluded me. I only knew it from the small forbidden desiccant packets in new shoe boxes. Where could I get cups of it? This was supposed to be used to dry flowers without having to hang them so they kept their shape. All my hydrangeas and lilacs would dry hanging on the rafters and when you flipped them over they were no longer an orb, but more of a frozen upward wilt.

I tried to make the croquembouche, which is essentially a tower of creme puffs all held together by the magic of spun sugar. To do this, you were supposed to quickly drip molten sugar between two broom handles and when it hardened, swaddle the pastry in this airy nest. piece. of. cake. I made a complete mess trying this and the tower ended up as a pile, but it tasted gooey and sweet. My gingerbread mansion was more of a modest starter gingerbread home, I never did get enough poppy seeds for the poppy seed roll (although I wondered about asking the guys at the bagel shop). I did, however make very successful popcorn balls and homemade marshmallows and I twisted branches into several wreaths. So, in pursuit of glittering excellence I gave out many half-baked sentimental kid-versions of Martha’s crafts and cookies for Christmas that year. Once my penny wrapping business (called Pennies from Heaven) went under I had to keep busy somehow and this was the dawn of a new crafty industriousness.

Which brings me to my adult point. Last week my husband took me to see the Martha Stewart Show for my Birthday. And I found myself feeling ashamed that I like all of these things. I couldn’t tell my serious professional colleagues that I like Martha Stewart or that sometimes I walk the asiles of Michael’s crafts just to relax. A liberated woman does not bake barrels of cookies or take pleasure in arranging flowers. Or does she? Martha brought the average quotidien life a new kind of order and quality and beauty. Now she has lines of dishware, craft materials and tools. She is no different than an industrial designer or a chef or a horticulturist, its just that she is all of these things. And some people don’t like that. But I do.

It reminds me of this quote {When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.} ~Chinese Proverb

Eating Sand

Sometimes when I am on the beach I end up eating sand. This is one of the reasons why I can never truly, fully enjoy the airy blue universal beacon of relaxation that is the beach. Sand makes its way into everything, even warm salami sandwiches. Anyway, I once expressed this sentiment to an acquaintance who snidely remarked that I must be a barrel of fun on vacation. That acquaintance was right. I am no fun on vacation.

In recent years, I have forgotten how to relax on trips. I am not sure I ever knew. I knew leisure as a younger person the same way a cat knows it. It doesn’t know anything else. Going away on vacation almost always causes me stress these days. I dislike being a tourist. The not knowing. The being had. The feeling like a rube. The pressure to “see things” and be “wowed” by them tempered by the desire to do disgusting amounts of nothing.

Tell me, what’s your vacation strategy? Do you plan every minute? Do you research a lot, or do you just head straight out chasing the horizon?

Synchronous Fireflies!

Male fireflies lighting in unison in Malaysia. Woah.

Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness

Something made me think of this old post I wrote in January 2009, so I am reposting it. Maybe every time I re-post it I will get a tiny bit closer to being over all of my educational-emo baggage. I do think this is one of the reasons why I like to teach, because I know so intimately what its like to hate school and I want to change that experience for others.


Since I am experimenting with being a scientist lately, I feel like I am on the verge of becoming square. Some people think that because I am getting my PhD that I must be a good student. But I am really not, and I never was. I burned my report card in our driveway once, I remember my heart sinking in fear and sadness when I saw the flame eat up my mediocrity. And I remember feeling even worse when the report card was a yellowy ashen pile, but I still felt like a loser. And another year I meticlously cut out all the C’s, it created a swiss-cheese effect. I missed school many times—especially in 4th grade—due to “sickness”, that was brought on by I-didnt-do-my-homework anxiety. And then of course there was the time I climbed the Japanese maple tree in our front yard to escape having to get on the school bus to kindergarden. I can still picture my mom and the bus driver standing at the base of the tree looking up at me and yelling. Incidentally, my escape was a total success. I didnt go to school that day and I got out of playing the deeply dreaded duck-duck-goose.

Highschool was just a mess, over-fucking-flowing with bad feelings about school. Kicked out of honors freshman year, never to live it down to this damn day. Harassing the nun who taught us French. Every time she turned her back to write on the board-we moved our desks up just a bit-every-time-she-turned-around until we were right up on her and she was freaking out. I never really cheated or did drugs or anything like that, but I acted like I was bad-ass and pissed off enough to do so. I think I drew on my sneakers once. I identified with Holden Caulfield, even though I probably never really finished reading the book.

And then of course there was Art School...

And now, by some strange fluke of adult-onset academic goodness, I am back in school. And I am feeling a bit like a Pollyanna, which I am not. I feel like I should get a tattoo or start smoking and wearing darker eyeliner and maybe become a self-loathing alcoholic. I think my voice should be raspier to reflect some kind of worldliness and experience in badness. I realized the other day that I still love the people who are super-smart, but who dont conform to what school has to give and who—because they have some kind of advanced crazy mind—are dark and brooding and screwed up. I still love people who are the most clever in a conversation but who got horrible grades. I like the tragedy of it and I love that song Little Miss Queen of Darkness because I imagine that they are talking about me, but I guess it will be Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness soon.

My Great-Aunt died today. Below is a story that I once wrote about her, so I am reposting it. The story, called Cross to Wear, is sad but she lived a good life. Her name was Marie and she was from Algeria. She came to live in the United States when she was 39. We called her “Tata Marie”.“Tata” was a term of endearment derived from the word aunt in French, which is “Tante”. When I first knew her, she lived with my other great Aunt, her sister Rosette, in an apartment above my Grandmother. Tata Marie and Tata Rosette shuffled around in well-worn pink or blue slippers and flowered house-coats. They paid special attention to their hair; its color and the configuration of curls. They only cooked the freshest fish, only ate two cookies in one sitting, erroneously referred to the store P.C. Richard as “Richardsons”, watched soap operas and had pristine, ornate couches, chairs and lamps around the apartment. They had Monet’s “Rouen Cathedral, The Portal, Grey Weather” hanging in the living room. Tata Marie’s personality could be prickly at times. And I remember her occasionally getting into riotous, cacophonous quarrels with my Grandmother, which were followed by days of uncompromising silence from both parties. Tata Marie and Tata Rosette were always old to me, even in pictures when they were young, they still looked old. Marie would often reminisce about her late husband, her white poodle named Mimich and the breathtaking landscape of Algiers. She would have turned 100 years old this coming February.

Cross to Wear

He wore the cross around his neck for 4 years in WWII. When he died, several years after the war, she wanted him to be buried with it. The funeral home did not allow anyone to be buried with jewelry on, so she took the gold cross that hung around her husband’s neck and she put it on. She wore it proudly and sorrowfully for over 40 years.

Gold and gleaming and on a delicate chain, it always hung outside her shirt. It reminded her of him. He was a milliner and an Italian. And according to my Great-Aunt he was equally courageous and charismatic. She believed that his cross shielded her from harm.

My Great-Aunt broke her hip the other day and was rushed to the hospital and then subsequently shuffled from room to room and stripped of her clothes. She speaks with a charming French accent but her personality can be virulent. She is 96. I went to see her the other day in the hospital and she is in some pain physically, but not as much pain as she seems to be emotionally. Tears welled up in her already watery old gray eyes. The hospital staff lost her cross. It is nowhere.

This made me awfully sad. Now there is a blemish on the great orb of old romanticism that encircles our blue earth.