Here we are in the dog days of … September? I’ve always counted early September weather as the most reliably pleasant of the year (blue skies, low humidity, plenty of sunshine).
This year quite the opposite. It will be 94 today. The air conditioning, mostly off all summer, finally has a chance to flex its muscles. We had September weather in July; now we’re having July weather in September.
I’m glad for this sticky heat that makes me long for fall. Late summer in more ways than one.
Speaking of ink on paper, today we upload the files of the magazine I’ve been working on these last few months. I’ve been thinking about the way it used to be, other magazines I’ve worked on and how those files were delivered — on boards via Fed Ex or (when we were too late for that) via a package delivery system called “Delta Dash.” I used to send articles to magazines in hard copy, too.
It’s much easier now, of course — write the article in a Word file, attach it and send it off with the click of a mouse or the touch of a finger. Upload whole magazines that way, too.
But the other way — the “old-fashioned” way — had a certain drama. There was the last-minute rush to the post office or Fed Ex, often with a child or two in tow. There might be minutes left before the place closed down. I would scribble my editor’s name and address as quickly as possible, then stuff the manuscript in an envelope and send it off. This was always the day before the deadline, of course.
Now I push some keys and it’s gone. I don’t want to go back. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just remembering.
It’s harvest time. The brochures and pamphlets designed this summer are coming back from the printer, arriving at the office in heavy cardboard boxes. When I open them up, the world smells right again.
It’s the aroma of ink on paper, and it is, to an old print person like me, almost intoxicating.
Say what you will about seamless modern communication, about the touchscreen, the tablet, the tweet. The digital world is ours whether we like it or not. I understand that now. I have come to terms with it.
But give me the heft of a September Vogue, the welcome weight of a Victorian novel, the stacks of heavy, photo-rich college and university magazines that threaten to take over the bookcase in my office. Give me something I can see and hold and smell — and then I’ll really have something to read.
(Ink on paper run amuck)
I learned from the “Writer’s Almanac” that today is the birthday of Sarah Orne Jewett, born 1849 in South Berwick, Maine. A descendent of doctors and sea captains, Jewett wrote poetry and historical fiction but is best known for her short stories.
She is a rare writer for me, one I came to know through her home rather than her work. I had yet to read Jewett’s stories when I wrote an article on historic homes of New England that took me to her house in South Berwick.
I’ve never forgotten the upstairs writing room, what it was like to look out those thick glass windows, imagining the world Jewett knew, the New England shipbuilding culture that was vanishing as quickly as she could describe it.
It’s a funny thing, meeting a writer first in her house. It’s not unlike the acquaintances you form when traveling on a train or airplane, seat-mate confidences. There’s a quick and easy intimacy that flows from the place that then lingers when you read the words.
After that trip, I read what many consider Jewett’s masterpiece, the story collection Country of the Pointed Firs. And there it was again, the place I had seen, the lowered light of that northern clime, the herbs, the dark firs. From place to words and back to place again.
(Photos: The house now and then, courtesy Historic New England)
While not a fashion traditionalist in most ways (I’m writing this in a work skirt and tennis shoes), I do have a thing about wearing white after Labor Day.
It’s a dictum that originates from my earliest years, from the same place as skirt and sweater sets and little white gloves for dancing school. From a time when there were rules and penalties (a withering glance, an averted head) for breaking them.
Those have gone away, of course — the rules and the penalties — but wearing white after Labor Day … Well, that’s a tough one to break. So white skirt and pants are tucked away for next year. White blouses and shirts, they’re allowed, of course. I’m wearing one right now. A way to keep the flickering flame of summer burning brightly a few more weeks.
(In no hurry for this kind of white.)
I read these lines this morning and find in them some consolation for the days that are passing, that are spinning us so surely into fall.
For how better to face the next turn than to capture what is fleeting, to pin it down on the page?
I noticed this morning that yesterday was my 1,400th post. A nice, tidy number, with those fulsome zeroes so easy on the eye and the mental calculator. Plus for those of us religiously inclined, a multiple of seven. No wonder the number is pleasing to the eye.
Speaking of numbers (which I hardly ever do), this week I had another page-count panic. The magazine that I edit was coming up two pages long.
This time there was an easy fix. But with the previous issue the confusion was even greater. First I thought we were short, then long, then short again.
Which is why, after resolving this issue’s overage with the designers, I told them that for my next birthday they could give me a calculator. Or an abacus.
It was the hour before dusk on a day that felt more like summer than fall — prime walking time. I drove past fast-walkers, slow-joggers, stray commuters like me, just heading home. I thought about the community of walkers, one that’s often invisible to the amblers themselves but, ironically, quite obvious to the drivers.
The car-bound cover more ground. Their range lets them see the patterns in the strolls, the commonality of purpose. In one block is a lone faithful runner. In another, an old couple strolling slowly. They may not run into each other, but they are all there.
Since almost anyone who walks in the suburbs drives in the suburbs, we have many chances to see beyond our routes, to know that even if we feel alone, we are not. There are others hitting the pavement too. And in some strange sort of way, we are one.
This was one of those mornings on Metro. Not the worst, certainly not the worst. But a lurching, stop-start, running-late kind of morning.
Often when this happens the explanation is “we are experiencing residual delays due to an earlier incident.” So I’ve been swirling that phrase around in my mind this morning. Residual delays. Residual. Delays.
In this case residual means what is left after the larger part is gone, of course, but there is another definition of residual, one used in the entertainment industry — payments for past achievements.
What are the residuals of riding Metro? It’s greener and healthier — I drive less and walk more — those two come immediately to mind.
But aren’t there delayed residuals, too? Metro gives me time to write and read and think. A friend of mine, a poet, has completed a book’s worth of verse in her last few years on the Red Line. I write in my journal, rough out essay ideas, edit articles.
Though it often tries my spirit, there is no doubt that Metro nurtures my mind. Not shabby for a delayed residual.
It’s what I’m in today, this moment. Despite best intentions, the silent prayer before rising, the attempts at perspective. Some days, even gorgeous ones like today, even early in the week, are stretched before they begin.
I knew my day was headed for this when I couldn’t open my office door because of all the page proofs stuck beneath it. Knew it when I saw the lines I’d have to cut from several pages. (Strange and old school to be saying this in digital space, where lines don’t much matter — though characters do.)
Just barely time now to lift my head, make the list, complete each task as carefully and methodically as I can, then move on.