Here we are thinking about the snow we might get on Wednesday, the snow I will most probably write about tomorrow, too. But today it is clear and bright and cold, and the moon, setting, was framed by the trees in our backyard.
A faraway moon this morning. Remote, withholding. Not round and jolly and close by.
A moon that is glad to be going.
Spring is trying, but it’s still winter here. Bare trees, brisk winds. I probably should wear gloves. But somehow I never remember, or I think I don’t need them. So on most of my walks now my hands are balled into fists and pulled up into the sleeves of my old jacket.
This is probably against most exercise maxims: relax, keep your arms loose, shake out. But for better or worse it seems to be my style these days. And I like the idea of gloves at the ready, long sleeves (and this jacket has them) with a soft lining. Some sweat shirts these days are made with thumb holes so my hands are always warm — though wearing them makes me feel like a poorly paid Dickensian clerk.
Still, there is something to be said for being as portable as possible. Do I have something up my sleeve? Absolutely!
Word came yesterday that the great pianist Van Cliburn died on Wednesday. Though his career did not fulfill its early promise, there was a time when his name was on everyone’s lips. He was the man who so wowed the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow in 1958 that judges were forced to ask Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev if they could give him the medal. “Is he the best? Then give him the prize,” Khruschev is supposed to have said.
Van Cliburn took not just the classical music world by storm. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine, given a New York City ticker tape parade. When I told my kids this last night, they said, “What’s a ticker tape parade?”
I heard Van Cliburn play when I was a child, a young piano student. Not yet in love with classical music, I stared up at the ceiling of the concert hall, counting the beams or the light fixtures or something. Bored by the Chopin or the Rachmaninoff or whatever dazzling piece he was playing. Bored by my own lack of understanding.
Could I have that concert back now, please?
The house is usually silent when I wake, walk downstairs, fire up the computer and write my post. So it’s important to be quiet.
Those squeaky stairs, for instance, how to avoid them? The girls had this down pat. Because it was to their advantage to ascend and descend without sound or detection, they memorized which steps were noisy and which were not. Even the two daughters who no longer live here, I bet they could tell you exactly which steps to avoid. And the one who’s still here, well, it goes without saying.
So why is it then that every morning I put my foot —not in — but on it? It’s not from lack of knowledge or sensitivity or caring. Perhaps a stubborn fondness for transparency?
Once again, then, I vow to count the stairs, to remember which ones squeak and which ones don’t, to move silently through the house.
(Not our stairs — I wish they were.)
The witch hazel has been poised like this for weeks. Half in autumn, half in spring. Some of the branches blooming, others not.
A true gardener might look at the tree and say, uh oh, it was nipped by frost — or it’s developed [add scary tree disease here] — or the big storm last June was hard on it, and that explains this holding back, this pause.
But I look at the witch hazel and see human nature. How easy it is to embrace the new, how difficult to forget the old.
I look at it and see indecision.
We’re getting rain today, at least an inch they say. I’ll be downtown, as sheets of water pelt the alley, blur the view of First Street, dampen my lunchtime walk.
But out here in the suburbs, the rain will be seeping into dry soil, moistening gardens already growing, including the pesky wild onions, which have been sprouting earlier than usual.
If we’re lucky, the drops will glisten on pine boughs, hang out there longer than seems possible or probable. Little jewels — they’re hard to photograph. I’ll keep trying.
Yesterday’s post was a warmup. One of the best reasons to like 7×7 is the “Up” film series. It begins in 1964, a documentary about 14 seven-year-olds in Britain. “Show me a child of seven,” the announcer intones, “and I’ll show you the man.” (Yes, “man” not “person.” This was 1964, after all.) Every seven years since then, the director Michael Apted has made a film.
Forty-nine years later, all of the 14 are alive and only one chose not to participate. A man who had dropped out of the series after “28” returned this time, in part to publicize his band. The “kids” have grown up, gone to university (or not), taken jobs, married, had children and grandchildren, moved, divorced, grieved over lost parents, prospered, gone on disability, wandered and arrived.
In honor of Oscar weekend, a mini-review: This is the best
of the series (apart from the first), I think, and that may have nothing to
do with film making and everything to do with the age, 56. Maybe it’s
just a happy accident, but most of these folks have a good attitude
about living and aging, about learning from their mistakes. What
else can you do but go on, they say. And there’s not just
resignation in their voices but happy expectation. Even Neil, who is homeless and suffering from some sort of mental illness or mood disorder earlier in the series, seems to have righted himself, is on the town council of
the little village where he lives and also a deacon
in his church.
What’s the best thing in life, he was asked.
Friends, he said. Talking with them, walking with them. What this
film doesn’t tell you (but an earlier one does) is
that other people in the series came to Neil’s aid
when he was homeless. Bruce took him in, gave him a home; others helped, too. There are so many lovely
stories-within-a-story in this series. And seeing the people age
is not depressing. Their expressions stay the same, their smiles,
too. And their attitudes improve.
I saw the film with a good friend, and as we left the theater a woman overheard us talking and joined our conversation. She was 56 too, she said, and the film affected her deeply. We talked like we’d known her forever, and then we parted. “I’m going home to change my life,” she said.
Seven times eight. “56 Up.” It was that kind of film.
It’s not nice to play favorites, but I’ll admit: I ‘ve always had a favorite multiplication table. Hands down, it’s seven.
Twos, fours, fives and tens — too easy. Three is melodic (“Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine…”) but lacking in substance. Six and eight are uninteresting. And nine has always given me trouble.
So that leaves seven. What is it about seven times seven that soothes and satisfies, that clicks? Maybe it’s the spiritual aspect, the way the number shows up in fairy tales and fables and the Bible. Seven years, seven leagues, seven sacraments.
Or maybe the symmetry, like the precise paths of a formal garden. Making order out of chaos. Seven is odd but beautiful. Prime and primal.
But all of this doesn’t explain a prejudice that developed in, what, third grade? For some reason I took to sevens and they took to me. And that’s the way it is.
I began this post to write about the movie “56 Up,” but I’ll save that for another day.
To read the newspapers you might think the main topic here in our nation’s capital is the sequester, but for me it’s the light.
The morning light that arrives ever earlier, putting me to shame (I should have gotten going earlier, I should be arriving at work in total darkness).
The morning light that sets the birds to trilling a special greeting at the Vienna Station. Their song sounds like something I remember from long ago.
The morning light that will later spill through my office window (much in need of cleaning), set the green plants to shining, and when the angle is right, make rainbows on the wall.