Small Fry

Small Fry

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I tore through Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ memoir Small Fry in a few days. It’s honest and it’s titillating, since Lisa’s father is Steve Jobs, and his paternal behavior is quite strange, to put it mildly.

Steve has little to do with Lisa and her mother (who he never married) in the beginning, and only acknowledges paternity under duress. Eventually, he has a relationship with Lisa, albeit an unusual one. They skate together, have dinner together and in high school Lisa even lives with Steve and his wife and son. But it’s a relationship fraught with uncertainty and even meanness. Steve won’t admit he named his Lisa computer after his daughter. He belittles Lisa and refuses to pay for her last year of college. Lisa has the final word, though, in the way of all memorable memoirists.

What I liked best about Lisa’s writing was when she described the California of her youth, the sights and smells of the land she came alive to: “Here the soil was black and wet and fragrant; beneath rocks I discovered small red bugs, pink- and ash-colored worms, thin centipedes, and slate-colored woodlice that curled into armored spheres when I bothered them. The air smelled of eucalyptus and sunshine-warmed dirt, moisture, cut grass.”

It reminds me of George Eliot’s line: “We would never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.”

Too Much and Too Little

Too Much and Too Little

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Charlotte Airport, 9 p.m.

Modern travel has much to recommend it. More people can be whisked to more places than ever before. But as anyone who has flown recently knows, modern travel can also be a headache.

Yesterday I spent 12 hours getting home from Little Rock. I could almost have driven in that time. Thunderstorms were the culprit. They grounded planes, which then caused a cascade of delays that rippled through the East Coast and beyond.

That much couldn’t be helped. But as I walked through the Charlotte Airport I couldn’t help but see deeper problems. There were plenty of places to spend money, but no comfortable seats. The place was so cold that my fingers were numb by the time I boarded the plane. And while the airline wheeled out a cart of snacks and drinks, there weren’t enough attendants to help the stranded travelers get where they were going.

There was, in short, both too much … and too little.

National Airport, 3 a.m.

Smelling the Roses

Smelling the Roses

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It’s been a short trip to the Natural State. I leave later today. Amidst the work I absolutely have to do, I find time to visit with people I don’t usually see. It’s what makes it rich, and it makes me think how shallow life can be when efficiency rules.

Dozens of times each year I vow to be less efficient, to smell the roses, to take life easier. And dozens of times I break that vow.

But I’m an optimist, so I think … maybe this time it will be different. It probably won’t be. I know that. But I can always try.

Highs and Lows

Highs and Lows

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A few weeks ago, the Arkansas River, which now flows placidly less than a quarter-mile from my hotel, rose and raged and overflowed its banks.

I was trying to imagine the flooding last night as I strolled along the river walk. There was a large hose, some matted greenery, but nothing else to give away the inundation that was. Instead, there was sultry air, graceful bridges, crepe myrtle in full bloom. 
It made me think about the changeability of the natural world, its highs and lows, of what Emily Dickinson described when she said:  “Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem.”
Up in the Air

Up in the Air

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Sooner or later, usually sooner, the modern-day traveler runs into a delay,  cancellation or other snafu. This time is was my turn. The flight that was supposed to get me to Arkansas Sunday night with time to check in, have a good night’s sleep and then slide easily in the work week ….  was cancelled.

Instead, I went back home Sunday night, left my bag checked at the airport and made my way to the local office yesterday morning … in a monsoon. Inches of rain an hour, wind blowing it sideways, puddles so deep they covered my shoes.

Even a quick dash across the street from the “tunnel” to the door of my building left me drenched to the skin … and of course I was wearing the clothes, shoes and socks I’d be traveling in until almost midnight last night.

No matter. The clothes dried, the new flights (both of them, to Chicago and to Little Rock) took off on time ,and my suitcase was waking for me, having apparently spent Monday in Little Rock.

Well, at least one of us did!

West of the Mississippi

West of the Mississippi

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I’ll spend most of this week in Arkansas, a place that was briefly my home decades ago and is the official headquarters of my employer. It’s a work trip through and through, but it’s also a change of scene, and will put me somewhere I enjoy being … west of the Mississippi.

Crossing the Big Muddy has always been a milestone in the long drives west. The river doesn’t evenly bisect the continent, but the spirit of the country changes on the west side of the river. It loosens its shoulders, drawls a little more. It’s friendlier, too.

I’m hoping this touch of the west will rub off on me a little while I’m there. Will slow me down and loosen my shoulders, too.

Blossoms in the Dark

Blossoms in the Dark

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In honor of the photo I received too late yesterday to include in my Friday post … a salute to Thursday’s fireworks display, one of the longest and most spectacular of recent memory.

Reports from those who went downtown to see the pyrotechnics were that the smoke obscured most of the show.

But from our perch in Arlington’s Cherrydale neighborhood we had a wonderful window on the exploding lights and colors … on the blossoms in the dark.

(Photo: Claire Cassidy) 

Home with Humidity

Home with Humidity

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These days the air is so moist it seems to hold itself up, a scaffolding of water droplets. The slow walks I take with Copper give us both time to take in the humidity, he to pull and tug his way through it, me to wander through it as if in a dream.

Humidity is no fun when you have to mow in it, or hoe in it. Or for that matter, when there’s no respite from it. But when you’re strolling through it leisurely it can be good company.

“Home is where the humidity is,” read the T-shirt of a friend I saw last night.

To which I say, you’re darn right it’s home. Humidity: bring it on.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

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On this Independence Day I imagine the sweep of this wide nation: its mountains and prairies, its red rock canyons and natural bridges, its cities and towns, filled this day with crisp flags flying.

I think of the cool stone walls along Pisgah Pike outside Lexington and the lilacs that hung heavy along Martins Pond Road in Groton. There were orchards there, too, and I would wander through them with Suzanne in a baby carrier on my back. She was just coming alive to the world.

I think of stepping out of Pennsylvania Station onto Seventh Avenue in Manhattan or standing on the brow of Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas or snacking on wild blueberries outside Bar Harbor, Maine. And as I imagine all of this, I hear the cicadas singing and the crows cawing in my own backyard.

What holds these images in my mind, what makes them dear, are the people I love who have been with me on this journey. But beyond them is the beauty of a land loved and cared for — and the more than 327 million people who live in it.

It is a nation founded on liberty, a nation we celebrate today.

Happy Fourth!

Ah, Nuts!

Ah, Nuts!

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Today I finished off the last few pistachios from a giant bag that’s been hanging around for weeks. I enjoyed every last morsel, and found myself thinking about the first time I ate one — and crunched into the whole thing, shell and all.

Pistachios were the expensive nut I could never afford with my allowance, you see. When someone bought them for me as a treat, I couldn’t believe my good luck. But having only admired them and never tried them … I didn’t know the shells weren’t edible.

The early confusion hasn’t stopped me from loving them, though. And they are instructive, an early lesson in how things aren’t always what they appear to be.