Route 153

Dream in Red and White August 27, 2008

At breakfast this morning, I remembered snippets of a dream, which I related to Tim immediately.

From my house, I walk outside. There is a bit of ivylike ground coverage (the dream has provided this—it doesn’t exist in the current reality). Over by that ground coverage, I see many cardinals, all male, all bright red. There must be thirty of them. Some are flapping and hovering low to the ground, just above the ivy; others are already on the ground. They are all having at something. I get closer, and I see that it is a white cat.

The white cat is quite dead. It’s possible, I think, that these cardinals haven’t killed it but are simply scavengers. But I know I’m kidding myself.

And I worry about how I’m going to break the news to my neighbor.

Getting Over Vacation: Helpful Distractions August 21, 2008

• A jump into the cold, cold river with friends
• A full moon rising over the mountains as one eats and drinks with those friends
• Gin and tonic
• Breakfasts of strawberry/banana/peanut butter/soy shake topped with fresh blueberries
• Leftover (from vacation) organic blue corn chips and nonorganic salted almonds that simply must be polished off
• The gym
• Immediate purchase of Uncle Cleans Up (sequel to Uncle, read on vacation)
• Little bags of chocolate chip cookies discovered at the office
• A crisp Portuguese vinho verde
• My own Little Britain marathon
• A massage
• A request to run for justice of the peace
• My blog friends and their ever-fascinating lives and writings

Despair August 19, 2008

I am wearing an almost-black rubber wristband that says DESPAIR. I am wearing it for a week.

A couple of Christmases ago, Sewa Yoleme sent me this wristband as part of a satirical trio that also included the very-black NIHILISM and the very-light-gray APATHY. I wore APATHY once, but then I realized that I had cared enough to put it on, which muddled me rather.

Now that I have left my beloved Northbrook for what is likely the last time, I am wearing DESPAIR for a week. That’s the plan.

In keeping with our ongoing denial, we signed up for two weeks again next year, one in June and one in August, on the off chance that the place doesn’t sell and the owner opens it as a B&B. But it feels like a long shot. And, as I’ve said to others and possibly written somewhere, the uncertainty is beginning to feel like a long breakup. Is this the last time? Is this? Is it more painful to just stop, or is it OK to squeeze as much out of it as you possibly can if you’re really in love?

That spot on earth—and I mean that very spot—has felt like some sort of emotional home to me from the second I first set foot on it more than twenty years ago. It’s partly mine. But not mine in a way that has any legal standing. Maybe I should start thinking of it as the place where my grandfather Trespassers W used to live. The place he used to live that I can’t physically visit.

This is getting whinier than I’d planned. Random thoughts:

• Nothing can replace Northbrook.
• I really believe I’m going to see my Northbrook buddies again. We seem to have bonded.
• Something else will come along that I will love. Something different.
• Now I’ll have time to do things I haven’t done because I wouldn’t not go to Northbrook.

I cried a lot when I left. But I cry a lot every time I leave there. Maybe I can trick myself into thinking that this time’s no different—that nothing can keep us apart.

What I Read on My Summer Vacation August 18, 2008

Uncle, by J. P. Martin (Thanks, Mrs. S! I loved it. In pursuing sequels, I’ve found that only Uncle and Uncle Cleans Up are available in recent reprint. Alas, I will have to await the reprint of the others, as I can’t afford those rare-book prices.)
A chilling short story by a fellow blogger (you know who you are)
Take the Cannoli, by Sarah Vowell
Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones
Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris

The Plant August 5, 2008

I am not a full-time nurturer. I am not someone who adds living things to my household that demand a lot of attention: children, pets, plants.

I am someone who lives in Vermont with neither garden nor dog. An anomaly.

But a few years ago, for Christmas, Marguerite—the mother of Sewa Yoleme—sent me a plant.

A sago palm. Beautiful little thing: four leaves sprouting out of the top of a shaggy little trunk. Fits on a plant stand. Looks fabulous with my décor, such as it is, and brings a little of the tropics into my home—specifically, into the corner of my bedroom.

It is still alive.

Let me repeat: I have a plant. I have had it for several years. It is still alive.

No, really.

Last year it sprouted a new leaf. The leaves are the type made up of a bunch of their own leaves—you know, like ferns. (Bear with me. This is not a language I speak.) This leaf didn’t look like the original four. It was bigger, and the texture was different. Tim at one point turned the plant away from the sun, and the leaf contorted, twisted back on itself. It stayed that way, like that face your mother told you not to make.

Right after I got back from Portland last month, the plant sprouted three new leaves. These mothers are huge. One sticks straight up, twenty-six inches so far, which, given the height of the plant stand, puts the top of its head almost dead even to mine.

This new growth is kind of creepy. There’s something almost Little Shop of Horrors about it. Perhaps I feel that way because we share sleeping quarters. (Goodnight, Audrey III. Have you been the one waking me in the wee hours?)

Apparently sago palms and pets don’t mix. Wikipedia reports that the plant is toxic to humans and animals, but pets seem to find it yummy. At least half of them who snack on a sago die. You have been warned.

Am I going to actually have to replant this thing? It’s in such a pretty, bonsai-sized planter. They look so good together.

Time will tell. I don’t want to piss it off.

Per requests. Twisty leaf coming straight at you.

Bobby Militello Doesn’t Know I Love Him August 2, 2008

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. He doesn’t know that he’s the potential target of well-aimed undergarments. He doesn’t know that when he plays his alto sax, it’s only him and me, and I can’t take my eyes off his hands. The man is all fingers and tongue and lung capacity. He doesn’t know that I know this.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. And he will never know, because I am too shy to tell him. Before last night’s concert, he walked on stage alone to retrieve that sax and flute. I was mere feet from him. I could have said something. I kept very quiet.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. And if I told him, what would he say? “Uh . . . thanks?” I’m sure other people tell him this all the time. I am not other people. I don’t need him to love me back. I am happy in unrequited awe, which I have perfected in my love for birds and their songs and their fierceness.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him, that I love him possibly even more than I love his impossibly astonishing quartetmates.* He doesn’t know that we were in the room together the night I turned fifteen, back when he was with Ferguson, back when I was falling in love with jazz and maybe some guy older than Bobby Militello.

No doubt Bobby Militello knows that everybody loves him. But Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. I’ll keep him guessing, sit back, and listen to him improvise.

*Dave, Michael, Randy.