Seriously Speaking

Seriously Speaking

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I’ve just finished George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading and Life. It’s a slightly misleading subtitle because Saunders is the one giving the master class. It’s his interpretations of Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy. The interpretations are only there because the stories are, of course, but Saunders has a way of parsing and illuminating these classics that makes you want to read them—and do your own best work, too. 

One piece of advice I found especially helpful (even as a nonfiction writer) is when Saunders describes how he came to find his “voice.” I use quotation marks here because Saunders points out that we have many voices. What we need to do is find the voice that is most energetic, even if it’s not the spare, Hemingwayesque one we originally thought was ours. 

When Saunders first found his “voice” (I will persist with the quotation marks), the story that resulted was the best he’d ever written, he said, but it was no Chekhov or Tolstoy. He felt he had let the short story form down. “It was as if I’d sent the hunting dog that was my talent out across a meadow to fetch a magnificent pheasant and it had brought back, let’s say, the lower half of a Barbie doll.”

In a world in which writing is taken oh-so-seriously, Saunders is seriously refreshing. 

Springing Ahead?

Springing Ahead?

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Today is our first full day of astronomical spring, though the chilly morning temps make it feel more like winter. We in the mid-Atlantic have been spoiled this year, with snowdrops blooming in January and daffodils in February. It’s been a non-winter. 

Now that we have late light, too, I feel a bit like Punxsutawney Phil, dragged out of his burrow only to dip back in because the sun’s too bright. These late-light evenings, as much as they thrill, can seem like too much too soon. 

There’s a part of me that still craves the lamplit afternoon, the cozy cocooning feel you have in winter, a pot of soup bubbling on the stove, no outside chores calling my name to add to the inside chores that are always with me. 

In other words, winter gives me a pass of sorts. And now … that pass is over. 

Nine Years

Nine Years

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I’d gotten so used to its timekeeping that when it finally stopped I thought at first that it was my watch that was off. But no, it was Dad’s. Almost nine years to the day that he left this world (which is today), his watch stopped ticking. 

I felt bereft, as I knew I would. That watch says Dad to me now. I have so few things that were his. I can still remember how it looked on his wrist, peeking out from beneath one of the long-sleeved knit shirts he liked to wear. 

Of course, the watch will keep its prominent position on my dressing table. But its beating heart is gone. 

I tell myself I had it nine years — just like we had Dad for ninety — but it’s never enough, is it? 

The Color Rose

The Color Rose

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It’s a day of rejoicing and the beating of wings. The swallows return to the mission of San Juan Capistrano, and the church celebrates Laetare Sunday, the midpoint of Lent, with its foretaste of joy.

At a morning retreat yesterday, I spoke with a woman who I often see on Sunday but have never met. She walks with some difficulty but always seems cheerful. Emboldened by the conviviality of the day, I reached out and commented on the lovely heathery rose color of her wool suit.

“I’m celebrating Laetare Sunday a day early,” she said, laughing. Something about her deliberate choice of this color, about her caring that much, is what I’ll remember most about the event.

I went to the retreat expecting wisdom from on high, from the prepared remarks of speakers. Instead, it was an ordinary interaction that made the day.

To Be in Ireland

To Be in Ireland

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Truth to tell, I don’t think St. Patty’s is the day I’d want to be in Ireland, if I was given a choice of going any day of the year. But it’s on this day especially that my thoughts turn to the “auld sod.” 

A place where the faces look familiar and the landscape is magical. 

Where hearths are warm,  pubs are lively, 

And breakfasts to die for …

Come to think of it, maybe I would go to Ireland today.

Hold Onto Your Hood

Hold Onto Your Hood

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The wind that made beach combing and cycling harder than they needed to be last week in Chincoteague seems to have followed us home. For the last couple of days there have been gusts up to 40 or 45 miles per hour. 

I decided to take a walk anyway, because I was driving past the W&OD and thought I’d give it a whirl. A whirlwind was more like it. 

The breeze blustered, it careened, it nearly knocked me off my feet. And while my hat was fairly secure, my hood was anything but, especially when I was walking into the wind. It blew it right off my head. At times it took both hands on the hood to keep it from flying back.

Luckily, a hood is usually attached to a coat whereas a hat is not. Which makes the phrase “hold onto your hood” … somewhat nonsensical. 

(“Who has seen the wind?” The ripples in this sand dune prove it was there.)

Guest Post

Guest Post

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Careful readers of this blog will know that with one exception I write every post every weekday of every year. This has nothing to do with my willingness to welcome new voices and everything to do with why I started A Walker in the Suburbs: to limber up my own voice, cramped as it’s been by years of scribing for hire. 

Luckily, not everyone has this proclivity. Many sane bloggers do seek guests posts, and I’m shamelessly plugging one of them here. 

Reflecting the Sacred was started by a longtime friend, avid reader and deep thinker, Gwen Zanin. I’m honored that she asked me to contribute a guest post to her blog. Wishing this new blog many years of posts and pleasures. 

For Ratsy

For Ratsy

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Her name was Janice but we knew her as Ratsy, a childhood nickname that stuck. The childhood is not mine but Mom’s. She and Ratsy met as little girls at a convent boarding school in Kentucky and had the sort of adventures you read about in books. They made up games, imagined ghost nuns in the hallway, and almost hopped a freight to California until a law-abiding friend learned of the plot and tattled on them. 

It wasn’t all fun and games, though. Mom and Ratsy missed their parents and homes. But they found much comfort in each other, and they remained close friends — more like sisters, really — to the end of their lives. The end came only two weeks ago for Ratsy, just a month shy of age 96. 

How to describe Ratsy? Pure elegance, sophistication and cool. She and her husband, Monty, worked in Hollywood and knew movie stars like Bing Crosby. Ratsy sent us lovely gifts, a dress and pinafore set I still remember. She made Mom laugh. And she hosted seven of us (four kids, two parents and an aunt) when we drove across the country to California in an old “woodie” station wagon. 

The Ratsy I came to know as an adult was even more impressive. I realized then what she had overcome, living most of her life with the use of only one arm. It was a disability you never noticed — until she was driving you down an LA freeway, with a cigarette in one hand (a habit she later kicked) and wait, how was she steering? Never mind, we survived. 

Ratsy outlived her husband, sister, nephews and many others, but she leaves behind dear friends and family who grieve her passing. With her death, the world lost a true original … and my family lost a little more of the world that Mom knew and loved.

Quiet Victory

Quiet Victory

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I had a couple other potential posts lined up for today, but I will interrupt my “regularly scheduled” (as if there’s anything scheduled about this blog!) programming for just the tiniest of rants about the Oscars. 

As usual, I stayed up till the end, enjoying what I thought was an unusually touching crop of acceptance speeches. As expected, “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” swept the awards.  

This is where the rant comes in. I actually watched this film, wanting to see what all the fuss was about, and I can appreciate its manic energy and the sweetness of its message. But this multiverse martial arts film left me completely cold — and bored. I figure it’s generational — my film-loving millennial enjoyed it very much — but I hope it’s not indicative of a new trend in film, ones that I can barely stand to watch.

Luckily, I had slipped off to an actual theater yesterday to see “The Quiet Girl,” an Irish movie up for Best Foreign film. It didn’t win — the magisterial German remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front” deservedly nabbed that one — but I walked out of the theater with my heart stirred and my soul enlarged. As long as a few movies still do what movies used to do, I’ll be content. 

(Above: the empty — I mean completely empty throughout the entire film — theater where I watched the old-school movie “The Fabelmans.”)

 

Beach Bling

Beach Bling

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Water, wind, sand and sky.  From these basic elements flow the beauty of a beach. It doesn’t need anything else. But like a little black dress set off to perfection with a single strand of pearls, even simplicity can be enhanced with a little bling.

I’ve seen beach art before, but never so much of it. On a hike this week we came across scores of tree trunks decorated with whelks, conches, cockle shells — and a few feathers for good measure.

The shell trees made us smile. They invited us to contribute, which we did. They sum up the beach attitude: relax, create, enjoy.