An override

The big issue in town lately is our $6 million budget shortfall. That includes $3 million from the schools, and this ain't New York City. Three million is a very big number here. In 1982 Massachusetts very foolishly voted in Proposition 2 1/2, following the lead of California's Proposition 13. It's the one that says taxes can't go up by more than 2.5 percent every year unless a municipality votes for an override. And an override is hard to get.

Of course I'm for an override, and I would be even if Lily weren't headed to public school here next fall. It will mean an average increase of about $164 per house per year. Qualifying senior citizens who can't pay are given dispensation. As my mother says, we do enough for seniors, it's about time we do something for the kids. And this hits the schools directly, severely, profoundly. The group organizing in favor is Vote Yes Northampton and has more information on its website.

I suppose Northampton isn't unique in that there's some conflict between so-called old Northampton and new. Old calls the town "Hamp." New calls it "NoHo." So I of course make a point of saying "Northampton." I try never to abbreviate it. It is a small town here, even though it's referred to as "the city" -- it's the county seat -- and the population is a healthy 34,000 or so.

I find the new versus old Northampton arguments interesting, and try not to take them personally. Of course I don't think that makes me any less of a citizen of this town, or that the opinions of old-timers matter more. I don't see that all the newcomers are rich and the old-timers poor, either. I see using someone's tenure here as a weapon to use when you disagree with them; there's no way I can change when I moved here.

New York City doesn't really have this issue, of course, since everyone is from some place else. More than 50 percent of the population was born in another country. Read that again. Not just born in another state. Born in another country. The folks I know who grew up there, especially in Brooklyn, are a bit astonished at what's happened to their city, and not entirely happy about it. But they are far outnumbered.

I did run into this issue once in Brooklyn, about the future of the community garden on our block. It hadn't been used much, and like many community gardens in the city, had become the fiefdom of one person. She held the only key and she made pronouncements about what could be grown where. It wasn't being used much. This garden was huge, three lots, and it extended all the way across the block to the next street. Two of the lots were owned by the city, but one was owned by the Fifth Avenue Committee, a fantastic local community development corporation where I later worked parttime for several years. Habitat for Humanity had offered to buy it from FAC for the cost of the taxes. The decision to sell did not have to be put up to the block, but FAC is a great, fair organization, and felt it was only right.

Here's the thing: Many people lived on that block because of FAC's help, yet many of those people were aghast that Habitat wanted to take away the garden that they weren't even using. In the early '80s FAC joined with the city's department of housing and public development to put 16 abandoned houses up for sale for $1. FAC had run the lottery and helped the new owners fix up their properties. Yet here were many of those families against doing the same thing for other needy people.

At one point in one of many loud discussions, the woman with the key said my opinion didn't matter because I hadn't lived on the block long enough. I just said simply, I've been here for three years, when does my opinion matter? She didn't respond. But I never did hear that argument again.

In the end, the block voted to allow FAC to sell the lot to Habitat, which then tried to develop it and found that the ground water was too close to the surface and to shore up the foundation would be phenomonally expensive (a big reason why there were so many empty lots in the city). Nothing was built, and a couple of years later the city sold the garden, along with about 30 others, to the Trust for Public Land. TPL invested about $50,000 in that garden alone, including putting up new fencing, building a retaining wall, and cleaning out a foot of the Habitat lot, which was a lot of construction material and cruddy dirt, and replacing it with good soil. Today that space is a great community garden.

For more about Hamp versus Noho, here's an op ed by my former Wondertime colleague, Rachel Simpson, that ran in the local paper on March 31.

City Override a Civic Responsibility

Daily Hampshire Gazette, March 31, 2009

I was watching the Northampton City Council meeting recently when a Baystate resident spoke about her opposition to a Proposition 2 1/2 override to help close Northampton's budget gap.

She called for an end to isolating "the differences between old Northampton and new Northampton, and to not just expect that those who are hurting financially to keep on hurting."

I'm pretty sure she was saying that "old Northampton" could not afford, and was not interested, in an override. I think she needs to do some more research.

I'm "old Northampton," as I understand the term. I remember downtown when it had a McCallum's store, before Thornes was even a concept. I remember when Woolworth's had a lunch counter, and Newberry's was open, and when students could smoke under the mini gym at the high school (not that I did that). I say I am from Hamp, not Noho. I own a home right across Route 9 from the street where I grew up. I married a townie, and my daughter was born at Cooley Dick (that's what we townies call the hospital).

My husband and I both recently lost our jobs, and frankly, are worried. Still, I wholeheartedly support an override. To do otherwise would be irresponsible and selfish.

And I am so tired of people presuming to speak for me - people who say they don't want to be divisive, and then talk at length about old and new Northampton, painting one group as victims and the other as some sort of annoying interlopers. That is about as divisive as it gets.

Please don't think you know what I want, or what I can or can't afford, when you haven't bothered to ask me.

When did being from Hamp start to mean that you don't want good things for Hamp, or that you shouldn't have to pay for them? It wasn't that way when I was growing up here. (Don't get me wrong - I do understand how annoying it can be when new people come in and tell me how much better it was where they lived before. Sure, some newcomers are arrogant, but some of us Hamp people are pretty arrogant too.)

I was very fortunate to grow up here, and I want others to have the same good fortune People paid taxes so that I would benefit from city services (before Proposition 2 1/2 was even passed), and I am obligated to do the same - whatever it takes. Even if I don't have a job right now. My hometown is facing what amounts to one of the biggest budget crises in its history, with a $6 million-plus shortfall expected. Now is not the time to be setting factions against each other. It's time for the community to act like a community - for disparate groups to come together and work in Northampton's best interests.

Passage of an override, in whatever form it takes, helps all of us. If it closes - or at least narrows - the school budget gap, other city departments may have to take less of a hit. You can't have a functional city where one department's success depends on other departments' failures.

I'd like to see the formation of a coalition dedicated to a united community. If the pro-override Northampton Education Action Team is that coalition, which I hear it may be, I'm joining it. I'm going to do whatever I can to ensure the passage of an override. It would be wrong not to.

Rachel Simpson, a writer and editor, attended the former Vernon Street School, the former Florence Grammar School, and the former Hawley Junior High School, and is a 1981 graduate of Northampton High.

The anxious parents

And so here we are, at loose ends, both of us thinking about Lily all day, wondering how she's doing, worrying that she's hungry or lonely, and trying to enjoy this odd thing, time with each other without a kid around.

Tonight is Date Night -- we go to dinner at the Blue Heron, a very popular high-class restaurant in Sunderland that lots of people swear by, and we have Happy-Go-Lucky at home. I get the kid at 3 tomorrow and then we're off to Long Island and Brooklyn for the weekend. The fun never stops.

Nature's Classroom

So Lily is away for three whole days and I miss her. It's odd, almost 6pm, and I don't have to be anywhere any time. She's gone to Nature's Classroom, a 5th or 6th grade tradition here in western Massachusetts and Connecticut. She'll be back Friday afternoon.

This is a big deal because ever since we moved she hasn't wanted to do sleepovers, and this is for two nights. In retrospect I think she was turning away from sleepovers even before we moved. But once we landed here she just did not want to be away from home, not one bit. She has had friends sleep over. But she hasn't wanted to sleep at their homes, or do one of the biweekly sleepovers (one night every two weeks) at summer camp.

She started being nervous about this last fall. I got nervous too, and then in the winter, as the time drew closer, I emailed her teachers and talked to some friends. Everyone said it was an incredible experience and she would really love it. So we've been proceeding as though she was going to go. For awhile I was worried we would get to school the morning of, which was this morning, and she'd say no, I'm not going. I was fully prepared to insist that she go.

But between her teachers, who have been great in talking about all the ins and outs of the trip, all the activities, and what happens if the boys play tricks, like mess up the girls' cabin (they have to clean it up, with the girls overseeing it -- "oh, you missed a spot!"). I talked to other parents, some of whom told me their kids were nervous too, which I relayed to Lily.

We packed on the weekend and she had lots of ideas about what to take and not take. Last night I got her McDonald's, which I never do and then we went home and finished packing. She practiced her flute and took a shower and washed her hair (those shower curtains with the map of the world are great for learning geography, fyi), and in the morning she topped off her bag with two stuffed animals. I made the requested pizza quesadilla for breakfast.

Then I drove her to school, and the nicest thing happened: A parent came up to me and said that their daughter knew Lily was nervous and she was going to look out for her. She wasn't planning on bringing a stuffed animal, but because Lily was, she brought one in solidarity. As I was leaving I saw Lily showing her stuffed animals around the class.

Spring is springing!

There's nothing like a long, snowy winter to make me appreciate spring. Our daylilies along the street are poking their heads up, and there's even a few white croci. I raked for a couple of hours last week, and Dave did some more this weekend. Dave brought in some forsythia branches with buds yesterday and stuck them in a vase, which'll brighten the living room when they bloom.

Yesterday morning was quite productive. Dave turned the hose back on and Lily and I scrubbed screens and put most of them into their windows. It's great to be able to open windows again! Following Dave's example of last week, when he had spent an hour vacuuming the Prizm, I did the same yesterday with the Subaru. We keep our cars pretty clean, and the only one who eats in them is Lily, when we pick her up after school and she's ravenous. But every time we got into the car this winter we brought along a sack of sand and crud on our boots. It took awhile but it sure is more pleasant to ride in.

Aside from the usual housecleaning, we have more screens to take out and scrub down. We need to do a thorough spring cleaning of the inside of the house, including windows, and beating carpets and washing blankets and sunning comforters. We are always tweaking various rooms, especially Lily's: She has a new desk and file cabinet in the office off the kitchen (where all three of us sit now) so we're going to freecyle the desk in her bedroom, which she has outgrown. We might put a futon or something in that spot where she can read and friends can sleep over. We also have to look again at her playroom in the basement, which is cold in the winter, and doesn't quite work as is. She's also outgrowing most of her toys, although she's not ready to give up her Playmobile, Pollys, or Barbies (the Playmobile stuff hadn't had much use for a couple of years, but then I inherited a Playmobile hospital, and the stuff has a second life).

Still need to figure out how to hang things on the fireplace, such as my Amish baby quilt. I miss seeing that. I want to put up some family photos in the den. I want to sell the secretary in the family room upstairs; we just don't use it and we need the space. We have big house improvement projects that we need to prioritize and budget for: insulation; a new roof; getting the mold out of my studio (or out of the storage room it sits on); figuring out why the living room fireplace has a backdraft; installing a wood stove into that space.* And smaller ones: finish the two basement windows that were replaced 18 months ago. Paint the upstairs bathroom. Figure out how to get lots more hot water into the Japanese soaking tub.

And that's just the inside. We don't have money for anything outside, but we had a landscaper take a look and he suggested we start an oak barrel garden in the backyard this spring. We don't get a lot of sun, as anyone who's been here knows, despite the chopped-down hemlocks and Dave's tree-thining. We probably have a few more hemlocks to take down in back, but the oaks are so huge--and we're not taking them down; they're gorgeous--we'll never have much sun. But we should have enough for some tomatoes, basil, zukes, cukes, stuff like that. I'd like that.

The important thing is that spring is here, although you wouldn't know it based on the 40+ temperatures today, along with a cold rain. It's full-on mud season, but even that is better than having the front yard two feet deep in snow. Our yard is a wreck because of the piles of hemlock branches that need to be chipped up and the stumps ground out.

Other signs of spring is the smoke from the sugar houses, and the full parking lots on weekend mornings. The bears are also awake. I haven't seen them yet but I hear my neighbor has. I am told that the usual bear we see around here is a tagged female, and as it's spring, and black bears breed every two years, and she had cubs the year we moved in (two years ago in June, can you believe it?), I assume the next time we see her she won't be alone.

On a different note, the Wondertime office is now officially gone. My stuff was all gone in a week, but as of March 31 everyone had to be officially cleared out, and our id's and passes and corporate credit cards returned. Of course the day after I turned in my credit card I got another one in the mail from Disney. But even that is gone, now. I've deposited my final checks and severance and I registered for unemployment last week. I am working on my resume but there aren't many openings around here for someone with my skills. Still, I have to look.

I do miss Wondertime, but it's not an ache. I told my boss that my heart was broken when I was laid off from Life 11 years ago, and it's not that I didn't fall in love with Wondertime, but I think I always kept part of my heart in reserve. Once your heart is broken like that, it's hard to trust again. And a magazine--print media in general--is not a good place to lose your heart to any more. It's something to say that I am living during the end of nearly 600 years of the printed word.

What I miss in particular is the work. I did some volunteer freelance editing for a friend here recently, and was reminded again how much I truly love editing. This was a very well-written short book, but I was able to make what I thought were some good suggestions about word choice, along with standard copy editing. I am doing my own writing now, beyond the blog, and have an essay that I hope to submit for publication soon. If it's accepted I'll take about it more in this space.

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* When we were househunting, I was the one who wanted a fireplace, despite my friend Nick's warnings that fireplaces suck 75 percent of the fire's heat out the chimney. I have learned from experience that it also sucks most of the heat out of the entire room. After two winters of that, along with a couple of power outages that meant no heat (pellet stoves need electricity to generate the auger and the fan that blows the heat from the burning pellets), I am ready to embrace wood heat. The new stoves are much more efficient than stoves even from a decade ago, and they must meet stringent emission standards and ". . . produce about 90 percent less particulate matter - smoke - than older stoves. After a fire is ignited, you should see no visible smoke from the chimney, so neighbors won't complain and the foul smell, and thick smoke won't blanket your yard either." Plus they all have glass windows now, so you can watch the fire inside.

So I hope next fall we are using a wood stove for heat as well as beauty.

On swearing

So as anyone who's ever talked to me for five minutes knows, I swear. A lot. I swear a lot, in everyday, casual conversation. Probably an f-bomb in every couple of sentences.

That is, I used to swear a lot. For the last three months I've been making a concerted effort not to swear. It was kind of an experiment, a spiritual experiment, and I am here to say I think it's working. I've pretty much stopped swearing in casual conversation, no f-bombs, no s- words, not even the little ones, the h- and d- words. I can't say I never swear, but I am so much more conscious of it when I do, and I try very hard not to cuss at all.

I come by my terrible mouth honestly. When I was a kid in the '60s my family allowed us to swear. One incident stands out as an example of this. I was eight, riding in the front seat of the car with my mother, and my sisters were in the back. They had just picked me up at my piano lesson. Innocently, I asked my mother what sexual intercourse was. All of a sudden I heard Bondi in the back say, "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" "Will you stop swearing," I said impatiently. And then listened while my mother explained what sexual intercourse was. Oh! Fuck! So that's why Bondi was swearing! And, ewww! I knew what "fuck" was, and I had no desire to hear my mother explain it in the car, with the added embarrassment of having subjected my older sisters to this horror, as well.

But what stands out for me today is that my sister, who must have been nearly 14, could happily say the f-word in front of my mother and no one thought it odd. My mother blames it on my father. English was his third language, and the words simply didn't have as much power for him. Besides, the '60s were an adventurous time and they were both trying hard to throw off the shackles of their old-fashioned upbringings. What's so bad about those words, anyway?

Well, really, what is? Except that I grew up using them whenever I wanted, and I wanted a lot. As a teenager I knew enough, most of the time, not to swear in front of adults, but in my twenties I had to learn that using those words on the phone to a customer service person when I was irate, wasn't nice, even if I wasn't using the words to describe her, specifically.

As I got older I kind of wore my swearing as a badge, as in, "It's what I do, it's who I am." It became automatic and I just stopped hearing it. Every now and then I would catch myself and think, huh! I just said the s-word in front of my in-laws! But they never said anything. My niece and nephew would discuss it after I visited them. "Yup, Aunt Sasha swears a lot," my sister Cate would tell them, and maybe she still does. I used to pay a quarter per swear to Lily when I was caught, and my niece would catch me too, at times. But having other people police me didn't work; I would brush them off and ignore my fine. Eventually we all kind of forgot about it. It was just too common.

Then, for various reasons, my meditation sits last winter got longer and longer. For several months I meditated for a half an hour every day. Part of it was the calming atmosphere of living in the country, as I had hoped. My friend Dee commented on how nice it was that I wasn't swearing when we met for dinner last winter in Manhattan. I was very proud.

But for more various reasons my meditation periods lessened, and probably not coincidentally, my swearing picked up. Then a couple of months ago, right after the New Year, I was speaking with a friend about some of my habits that I want to let go of. She suggested that every day I ask for help from the universe not to swear. So I tried that.

At first it didn't work so well. I would get confused about what a swear was: just the f- and s- words? What about "ass"? Or "Jesus Christ", which I use a lot. But then one day I heard a story on the radio about a teenager in California who started a website called nocussing.com. He was asking people not to swear at all, not even the h- and d- words. I realized that what I was missing was a definition of swearing. I have learned that if I want to ask for something from the universe, it's more helpful if I'm specific. So now I ask for help "not to swear, not even the little ones." That about covers it for me.

Today it's still new enough that I still laugh to myself when I say something like "nerts!" I'm a little embarrassed about it, and still talk to my friends about it. A friend who's also trying not to swear says two things I'm going to borrow, "holy cats?" when she's amazed (she says it with that questioning inflection at the end, and her high school students crack up every time), and "Oh, Betty!" when she messes up, rather than some variation of, "you stupid jerk!" I think I'm going to say, "Oh, Gloria!"

I note with pride my successes. A couple of months ago boiling oil splattered on my wrist and forearm, and I did not swear. Not one word. Dave caught it, and he was impressed. And there are setbacks. Last week, alas, I tripped over a box of socket wrenches in the basement and fell hard all the way to the floor, smashing into a bench on my way down. I don't know what I said exactly, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "Nerts!" I have a purple bruise on my left thigh that's bigger than two of my hands -- counting fingers! -- side by side, and looks like the map of Africa. But the success here was that I didn't swear over and over and over for a few minutes.

Who knows, maybe this is temporary too, and I'll start up again some time. I sure hope not. Today, word by word, I am relearning this lifelong habit. It's extraordinary what you can accomplish with a little help.

Next up: Stop biting my fingernails!

Environmental risktaking

I was talking to my friend Blair last night about people who make foolish mistakes and die in the Grand Canyon, and why they do. Her theory, which I like a lot, is that we are so mobile these days that we can go zipping around from environment to environment and have not a clue how to be in them. But we think we do, perhaps because we see them on TV or whatever.

A big theme of this blog is how I lived in New York City and felt totally comfortable and now I live in a small town on the edge of the country -- the bears have been spotted! they're coming out of hibernation! -- and often don't have a clue how to live here. So I've learned to drive the speed limit, say, and bring a map when I go hiking or snowshoeing, not matter how short or local a trip. And other things. I'm no longer surprised that everyone knows everyone else here.

But I don't have a clue how to be in the desert. "Drink lots of water" doesn't mean the same thing in New England as it does in Phoenix. Eighty or 90 or 100 degrees outside is different there because it's so dry and your sweat just evaporates. I could easily overexert myself because of that. Not only do I not know how to be at the Grand Canyon, I can't quite believe that I don't, maybe I don't want to believe it or accept it. So I can see how people might take stupid chances, like going around the railing to get a better picture. I don't, in part because I am such a rule-follower, and also because I can see enough of the place to realize it really is much bigger than I am. It does scare me. It takes my breath away.

[There's a great essay here (scroll down) that talks about how the first Europeans to get to the Grand Canyon couldn't see it because it was too far out of their realm of experience. It's a political essay by an illustrious socialist, but I don't want to get into that discussion here, although this essay is well-worth reading. But this opening is pertinent to what I'm talking about here:

The first European to look into the depths of the great gorge was the conquistador Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540. He was horrified by the sight and quickly retreated from the South Rim. More than three centuries passed before Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers led the second major expedition to the rim. Like Garcia Lopez, he recorded an "awe that was almost painful to behold." Ives's expedition included a well-known German artist, but his sketch of the Canyon was wildly distorted, almost hysterical.

Neither the conquistadors nor the Army engineers, in other words, could make sense of what they saw; they were simply overwhelmed by unexpected revelation. In a fundamental sense, they were blind because they lacked the concepts necessary to organize a coherent vision of an utterly new landscape.

Accurate portrayal of the Canyon only arrived a generation later when the Colorado River became the obsession of the one-armed Civil War hero John Wesley Powell and his celebrated teams of geologists and artists. They were like Victorian astronauts reconnoitering another planet. It took years of brilliant fieldwork to construct a conceptual framework for taking in the canyon. With "deep time" added as the critical dimension, it was finally possible for raw perception to be transformed into consistent vision."

From "Can Obama See the Grand Canyon?" by Mike Davis]

Blair says she sees people swimming off Long Island in seas that are way too rough for her, and realizes that they just don't know what they're doing because, presumably, they haven't grown up around the ocean. And yet she fesses up to tubing down a river in the Adirondacks where one of their party got caught in a submerged log and almost drowned. Her cousin said later, "oh yeah, underwater logs are the big concern on rivers." Who knew? If you were at a beach and the sea suddenly receded a half mile would you know that a tsunami was coming? You might now, if you remembered that famous photo. (This isn't quite the one I was thinking of, but it's close.)

Similarly, we went hiking in the Columbia River Gorge last summer up to a stunning 100-foot waterfall -- it was on our New Year's card this year -- that emptied into a churning bowl that dropped down through a very narrow opening into rapids at the other end. We climbed down a steep hill to get to an outcropping -- Dave's cousin said later that she never goes down there, which utterly surprised me -- and I still have nightmare flashes about Lily standing on the outcropping taking our picture and taking a step back to get a better angle. Dave and I leaped up and traded places with her. But if she had been in a slightly different position, slightly further back on the rock, she would have gone over. And I would have gone after her and we both would have drowned.

I mean, we never would have let her get that close. But knowing what I know now, that someone very familiar with that environment would not have gone down there, or let her kid go down there, in the first place, gives me pause. I think I need to be more aware, more vigilant about my surroundings, especially when they are new or alien or foreign.

To that end, meditation helps a lot. Keeps me in the present. Accepting that I don't know everything, and that I don't have to, as does understanding that seeing a photograph or two is not the same as being there. Because I feel confident walking around Brooklyn does not mean I have expertise at the Grand Canyon, or a towering waterfall. And finally, I am not weak or inadequate or a wuss for following directions or obeying suggestions, rules, laws.

Vacation photos

Here's a link to some of our Phoenix photos, including the Grand Canyon. Until Dave puts captions on them, know that the kids are our friends we went to visit, and couple of the four adults and me in my blue shirt is my long-lost cousin Maureen and her two kids.

The Grand Canyon sure is grand

It really does defy language. There's no way to describe it. There are no words.

Here's what we did: We drove there on yesterday by way of breakfast at Denny's at 6:30 am, and then Montezuma's Castle, poorly-named ancient ruins between Phoenix and Flagstaff built by Sinaqua Indians. Dave and DeeAnn were comparing them to Mesa Verde, since they'd been there when they were kids (and could climb the ladders and walk around inside). They liked these too but they are smaller, and you can't see past the outer walls. We talked to a very friendly volunteer named Sam who knew a lot about these things. When I asked if he'd ever been up there himself, he said, "that's payday!" Dave said, "How do you do it?" And he said, "With a big grin!"

This trip had another reason for being: My first cousin Maureen, whom for various reasons I have never met, was meeting us at the hotel and we were going to check out the Big Ditch together. And so it was that we drove into Tusayan, where our hotel was, about 12:30, and as I walked into the hotel I saw a woman going in too, along with a young man and woman. It was Maureen and her son and daughter. The 11 of us (counting DeeAnn's family) went to lunch across the street and then we headed into the park.

I remember when I first went, in June 1980, when I was driving across country with a friend. We got there early one morning, 8am maybe, and we just drove up to Mather Point, parked, got out of the car, and walked to the edge. And I, who had been so cynical about this country and figured the Grand Canyon was just hype, was blown away. I couldn't believe how incredibly beautiful it was, and awesome, and majestic, and vast--endless. It was a spiritual moment, a moment when I found it possible to believe in God.

It wasn't as big a shock this time, but I still felt in awe, and inspired, and small. We walked around and went down the famous Bright Angel Trail for a couple hundred yards -- and it drops straight down, right next to the trail -- and ate ice cream (not me) and shopped a bit and took lots and lots of pictures. It seems all you do is dodge cameras, wait your turn to stand at a vista, and take pictures for other people. It seems like no matter how many pictures you take, even knowing how inadequate they will appear in retrospect, you want to take more.

Maureen and I gabbed and gabbed and told stories and got to know each other. She bought all the kids presents, and later gave some to me and Dave too, and I kicked myself because I hadn't thought to bring anything for her. They left early the next morning but as Dave said, it's never to late to gain a relative. She feels like family; she feels familiar; she looks a lot like my aunt Judy and many of her gestures seemed like Judy's too. What a gift! It's wonderful to have a new cousin.

I got caught up in one gift shop reading a book about people who've died in the Grand Canyon called "Over the Edge." Chapter headings cover people who fell off the rim, who died in the river, who committed suicide, who were murdered. It's actually funny in a Darwin Awards kinda way. Aside from the drunks who decide to go for a hike, or walk along the railing, there were lots of testotersone stories, guys showing off. A guy teased his young daughter by jumping on the railing, windmilling his arms and pretending to lose his balance, and then jumping off into the abyss. The daughter said, oh Dad! and walked on. Later they realized that he was trying to jump down to a five-foot ledge and he slipped and fell 300 feet.

There's lots of stories about people going past the railing to get a little closer to the Canyon, often for a photo, and losing their balance, or the rock crumbling beneath them. One guy climbed beyond the railing, turned around to take a picture of the lodge, and, putting the camera up to his face, stepped backward to get a better shot. The hiking stories are mostly about heat stroke and dehydration. Survivors say, I didn't realize it could get so hot, or, I didn't realize it could get so cold. Park rangers speak firmly, telling hikers to turn back because of the weather, or the trail they're attempting is too difficult, or they aren't prepared well enough, or they don't have enough water, and they continue anyway and then one or all of their group dies.

It's very sad, and it makes you wonder how people could be so stupid. But more than that, I secretly fear, could I be so stupid? Could I ever think, oh, it's okay if I go beyond that railing just for a minute, to have my photo taken. I worry, am I vigilant enough? Am I alert and aware and present? Or should I lighten up? Can I be too careful?

And as we talked about it -- poor Steve; I read anecdotes aloud to him from the book on the drive home, three hours, but hey, he bought me the book -- I came to the conclusion that the Grand Canyon is so vast and majestic that it's overwhelming and unreal. The cliffs along the North Rim are so colorful and so far away that they look like a painted backdrop from a movie.

The rangers say, This isn't a theme park. Disney didn't make it. It's rough and unforgiving. And most of us just don't have any idea how to be in the wilderness, never mind a surreal environment like the Grand Canyon. I feel far safer walking a Brooklyn street than strolling the South Rim. As the book points out, many people are unfamiliar with walking on a smooth, even, surface. Bumps and cracks and ridges and hills surprise us.

This manifests itself when I walk in my woods. I don't know whether to prepare or not. Should I tell someone where I'm going and when I'll be back? Pack a daypack with water and a snack, a map and compass? Part of me feels silly, like I should lighten up, get a life, have fun, don't take this hike thing so seriously. But another part of me, and this book is pushing me further in this direction, says, what, it's going to kill you to get a pack and stock it? It's going to kill you to let someone know where you'll be for a couple of hours?

Just do the right thing and admit this nature thing is bigger than you. Get down off that railing and stay on the path. A couple more feet closer to the actual Canyon won't make that photo that much better. Carrying a pack in my backyard won't make me look like a wuss.

What a glorious thing the Grand Canyon is! I don't know if I've ever seen such vastness in such detail, all spread out before me. I see deep into time and I don't even know what I'm looking at. I sense my utter insignificance in the world, never mind the universe. I feel alone, but I feel together in the presence of my family--including my new (but not unknown) dear cousin--my friends, my community, and my god, whatever that is.

Phoenix update

We're here visiting friends Steve and DeeAnn, who moved from Brooklyn the year before we did. Their daughter Emerald is oldest and probably best friend. They met when they were 10 months old and in the Puffin class at the Montessori Day School. They lived around the corner from us -- we could spit into their backyard from ours -- and we saw them every day and the kids slept over at least once a week. They broke my heart when they moved and I think that's part of why I was so eager to leave, after they did.

So! Other than United losing my baggage, it's been an uneventful trip. And we got it back late the next day. We've been to the Heard Museum, a museum of Indian art, we've hiked in the Phoenix Mountains, gone to the Phoenix Desert Botanic Garden, and had good Mexican and seafood. We were hiking near Piestewa Peak, and the landscape is just extraordinary. I can't believe how otherwordly it is, like an alien landscape. The saguaro catci -- those are the big tall guys with the arms sticking out -- dot the red-brown hillsides. It's hot and the air is dry, dry, dry. Tons of other kinds of cacti are all around. I put my hand on one as I was climbing up a steep part, a red barrel thing, but I didn't lean too hard and it didn't get me too badly. Apparently there's a cactus that shoots spines at you if you get too close. I tried to test it with Lily's waterbottle but was warned not to.

We saw lizards, and chipmunks that look like giant gerbils, and a slew of quail running along the ground, and some of us saw a bobcat. We climbed about a mile, maybe more, to the top of a ridge, with a view of the surrounding area, and ate lunch at the top in the breeze. Not bad for two 10 year olds, a seven year old, and a two year old (he did great, although he did get carried most of the way down).

We've also seen some really interesting art, at the Heard, and then at the botanic garden, which had an installation of glass art mixed in among the plants. I'm too tired to write about them, but check out those links if you're interested. We're off to the Grand Canyon for the night tomorrow and I am going to meet a long-lost first cousin. Two extraordinary events in one day!

This is what I'm doing now

I took a hot yoga class today. Not quite as hot as bikram, but still, 95 degress is quite hot. When Yogasana, an Iyengar place, opened on my corner in Brooklyn a few years ago (replacing Mario's Deli, R.I.P.), I ended up going twice a week for awhile. I took half-day workshops and classes and for a few months I was even doing yoga every day at home, which was very unlike me.

This yoga is different. I went to my first class about six weeks ago and did not like it one bit. In Brooklyn we'd spend a great deal of time going over and over and over poses very carefully; we'd often do a half dozen poses in the 90 minutes. We'd spend a lot of time focusing on an obscure body part, like where your spine meets the back of your skull. Everything we did for the session was about that, in some way. Once we spent a half hour rolling a tennis ball under our feet.

This studio is not like that. This feels like a comparable class level, but it moves very fast -- high push-up, low push-up, updog, downdog, boom, boom, boom. The heat is intense. My shirt was soaking wet almost immediately. I'd stop a lot to wipe my face with the towel I'd brought, and chug some water. I couldn't keep up the pace, and I gather the issue with hot yoga -- with any yoga, really -- is that you can get hurt if you get your ego in the way. If you look at the people around you and start getting competitive you can push yourself too hard, and in the heat that can be dangerous.

Apparently the heat is good for injuries, however, so I went back today because my body had felt amazing the last time; my shoulder, which I injured last summer, felt like new. My chiropractor said, turn your head off and listen to your body. You have to try at least once more.

So I went. And while I don't feel as amazing as I did in January, I signed up for a 10-class card because I realized something important: When you live some place a long time, as I did in Brooklyn, for nearly 2 decades, you develop resources and routines and people and ways of doing things. And part of moving, I can see now, was to shake all that up. Today I found myself saying, thinking, Iyengar was good in Brooklyn, really good. But this is what I'm doing now.

This is what I'm doing now. This is how I'm living now. I felt a new level of acceptance for my not-so-new way of life. This is the yoga I am doing now. I am not taking class with my beloved Erin down the street. But just because it's not Erin doesn't mean there aren't things to learn here, and I'll be darned if I shut myself off from them just because it's different from what I know and have come to rely on.

PS on getting lost in our woods

I find it fascinating to realize that I can be totally lost in the woods even though I know exactly where I am. I mean, I really knew more or less where I was, much more "more" than "less." If I'd had a map I think I could have found my way out pretty easily, even if I weren't on a trail. But I don't really know how to bushwhack, and I'm not quite sure how to go in a straight line in empty woods. I mean, of course I could have just gone back the way I'd come, assuming I remembered which turn-offs I'd taken. But I didn't want to do that at all. It would have meant a much longer walk, like going all the way around Prospect Park because I couldn't figure how to cut through the middle, and I was already tired. And I didn't really have the time.

I kept picturing the entire conservation land spread out on a map. In my mind, I could see the Mountain Road entrance in Florence, and the lake, and the dam, and the meadow where we saw moose poop last April. I could see the house with five garages that's just yards away on the other side of the Marian Street Trail. I even imagined I could figure out how to get over there if I just walked in that general direction. But I also had a sense that I could get lost, very, very lost, if I strayed from the trail, and wander around in circles. I lacked confidence that I actually knew what I was doing in this darn woods.

I don't have that sense when I'm in the city, where I really feel utterly at home (or at least I did when I lived there. Less so now, truth be told). Maybe I never allowed myself to get so far afield, or maybe it's all familiar, grided out in a logical manner, with buses and subways at regular intervals; even Brooklyn's odd layout makes sense.

Or maybe it's that I knew it so well, after living there so long, that it took a lot more real exploration to risk getting lost. I need to cogitate this one. It's hard to start anew in some ways, but it sure keeps you on your toes.

Snowshoeing on the back 40

Last weekend's storm that hit a week ago left a foot of powdery light snow, perfect for me to try out my new snowshoes. Other than getting a bit lost I had a great time.

I've had a hard time keeping my snowshoes strapped on, for some reason. Last winter I was using a pair of Dave's and they kept getting loose in the back and falling off, so I had to stop every 10 feet and strap them on again. This fall I got a pair of my own, upgrading to cloth straps, which seem to fasten easier. I also tighten them really tight, hooking them on a little lip on the back of my new Sorels, which we got this fall when a shoe store near my mother-in-law was going out of business (our family got like 10 pairs of shoes, sneakers, and boots for under $200! and my little clothes horse had a great time just trying on all the size 6 shoes and boots).

Last Tuesday, a beautiful day, a bit cold but sunny, with all the great new snow, I trekked into the back 40, the Fitzgerald Lake Conservation Land, behind our house. The place isn't huge, just 675+ acres, but it's the woods. And in case you forgot, I am a city girl.

When I first moved here a colleague told me of a local parent she knew who went for a little hike at Fitz Lake with her two little kids and ended up getting lost and spending the night out there. Ugh! They were rescued in the morning by a dogwalker. At the time I thought, how can that happen? But now I know. I really want to think otherwise, but days like Tuesday make me realize yet again that I am indeed a city girl and I don't really know my way around the country. And I gotta say, even my familiar woods look very different in the winter.

So I headed out my backdoor, taking the trail we made when we first moved in to get to the Laurel Park extension trail. When I hit that, the intersection of which we marked with a cairn so we don't overshoot it, I went up the hill past Fairy Rock and wound down and around to the bird blind. After that I wasn't ready to go home, so I kept on, heading toward the lake, but when I came to the Boggy Meadow Road turn-off I decided to take that toward the Moose Lodge entrance, but turn off before I got there to the parking area to take the loop trail back to the Marian Street trail. Boggy Meadow Road is mostly flat and broad enough for a car. Nice trail. But the loop didn't come and didn't come, and I figured I'd missed it and would have to walk the road back home from the Moose Lodge. But finally the turn-off came, and I took it.

Now this path is unofficial so there are no blazes on the trees, but skiiers like it and it was clearly well-used the day before. I was ready to be home, but had no idea how long this loop was. I figured it was a straight shot and what threw me were the cut-offs off the loop, each one a puzzle: Should I go left or right? I made educated guesses, each time thinking I had an idea which direction I was going, toward I-91 and my house, or back toward the lake. And I got more and more anxious.

Yes, the woods were lovely, dark and deep, but everything looked the same. It was all white and bare and no landmarks and nothing looked familier. No trail blazes. It was about 2:00 and the sun tended to stay behind me so I knew I was mostly going east, and I also knew I had several hours before dark. I kept thinking about that mother with her two little kids, and felt a lot more compassion this time. I was thirsty and kicked myself for not bringing the daypack, which also has a map of the place. I imagined being rescued. I imagined being home taking a shower and eating lunch, which I had neglected to do beforehand.

I did bring my cell, I take it everywhere, so eventually I called Dave and left him a message on his work voice mail just saying where I was and that I was a bit scared but going in the right direction, I thought. Finally, a skiier I'd passed on Boggy Meadow Road came breezing through, and he said I was almost at the Marian Street trail. And I was, although beginning snowshoe time is a bit slower than experienced skiier. There was another cut-off and I panicked a bit, but then just made a decision and went with it. I wasn't far from the trail and was home and showering within 15 minutes.

The lesson learned is, the woods are different from the city. What I am now learning is what it means to say that I am a city girl. All I need in the city is my metro pass and cell phone and I'm good. Maybe a little cash. I can eat anywhere in New York and I know it well enough to avoid the dicey areas, and for me, most areas aren't dicey. But here, I can't tell myself I'm just walking behind my house. I have to tell myself, I am going into the woods where I can get lost and there's no guarantee of passers-by to ask directions to the nearest subway--or rice and beans eatery.

So, note to self: Always bring the daypack when you are in the woods, in snow or not. Stock it with water, maps, a snack, a compass, and yes, the cell phone. Maybe extra socks. Eat lunch first, or else bring it. Keep in mind that when there's snow, there's no place to sit unless you don't mind getting wet, so you just have to keep moving. To that end, wear snowpants and gaiters. Thank goodness I had my long johns on. I was layered so I wasn't cold while I was moving, but when I got home my shirt was soaked through, and that's a no-no; if I had really been lost I would have gotten chilly the moment I stopped moving.

But it's a learning curve, right? I am learning to be more of an outdoors person, and I like it. The woods were lovely, quiet, serene, seemingly endless, even though I know they aren't. I was alone and while I didn't really appreciate my journey at the time, I have reached a new level where I think I can start to enjoy this more and more.

PS -- we're going to the lake with another family today, but it's been lovely and warm all week and the snow is melting, thank goodness! I am thrilled. I can't wait for spring!

The end of the beginning

I think I'm done with the office now. I now have a website that has many of my writing and editing clips, as well as samples of my newsletters. I have PDFs and color copies of many of my Wondertime stories and other clips. (I also have a scanner at home, if need be.) Today when I left I took the last of my files and clips and I think I don't have to return. Oh, I do have to give back my parking and building passes, of course, but I think we can keep those until the end of March.

Today the former WTers spent a couple of hours at the local bowling alley throwing some balls and eating pizza. It will surprise no one to hear I am a terrible bowler. It took me a few times to realize that the balls come in different weights and that the lighter ones are easier to throw. With my typical beginner's luck I got some strikes and spares, but mostly I bowled gutter balls, or knocked down one or two pins. I like seeing everyone but I have to admit it feels a bit different from LIFE, where I grew up. I worked there for eight years and here it was just two. Still, the Wondertimers are a fine bunch of folks.

Oh, I have several blue fleece vests with the Wondertime logo. I want to send some to my regular writers, but I am happy to give away the rest, and there's lots more at the office. Let me know if you happen to want one, for old time's sake.

unemployment disorientation

This is an odd time. It's been a month now since I lost my job. I have been all over the map, emotionally. Sometimes I am charged and excited about all the opportunities this open-ended time offers. Other times I'm overwhelmed, and want to curl up with a book. Blogging is a middle ground: It's somewhat justifiable -- at least I'm writing, accomplishing something -- and it's fun. But here's what I really think I should be doing:

--adding another solutions-oriented bullet to my resume
--making two new versions, theater and community development
--finishing making PDFs of my editing clips
--finishing my website -- and do I want to design my own, and not use the google version?
--making color copies of some of my clips
--writing some scenes I've been thinking about
--contacting everyone I know in the Valley with my new resume and telling them I'm on the market again
--mucking with my new computer --revising contacts, reorganizing my documents, learning inDesign, stuff like that.
And there's perpetual housework and grocery shopping and cooking dinner. Plus I'm only a few chapters into the book group book and we're meeting in two weeks.

My day is truncated by needing to get Lily at school. I look forward to her being at JFK next fall! I just had a great lunch with the parent of a current classmate, and I am coming to the conclusion that Bement is simply too old-fashioned for me and has different values. There's a lot there that I really like, but I believe in addressing difficult feelings and, with the help of trained adults, helping kids work them out. My goal is not for her to get into a private high school, and certainly not Deerfield Academy, Actually, at this point I would rather she not go there; from what I hear, the teachers and academics are great but the families who send their kids there are mostly about success defined by money and power. Why would anyone want their kid to go to boarding school, anyway? I want Lily to go to the Northampton High School. I am excited about that, in fact.

And see how easy it is for me to get distracted from my real purpose? It's so hard to stay in the moment with my life right now. Here are the good things about not working at Wondertime: Well, nothing about Wondertime, specifically. But the good parts about not working in general are:

--It's lovely to sit in a cafe typing on my new computer, with people laughing and talking nearby.

--I have more time for Lily. I pick her up every day and I am more present when we are home.

--I am going to the Y almost every morning these days. I am starting to run again, just 14-minute miles, and just for two to four minutes at a time; then I walk a minute or so. But I do this for a half hour and I feel better when I get off. I've been worried about hurting my hips and knees and ankles, but I'm following the advice of my chiropractor, who says to warm up and then stretch, and to stretch afterward. And I am seeing her regularly, and paying close attention to what hurts, and when, and what makes it feel better. I would love to be able to run a couple of miles several times a week. Maybe some day. Easy does it.

-- I have more time to see friends for coffees and lunches. Had one yesterday, and one today, and tomorrow I'm visiting my friend Helene in Brattleboro. Nice!

-- I started a writers' group with two other ex-pats from parts southerly, and we are all mothers as well as writers, and I really look forward to seeing them every week.

-- I have more time to meditate and do other spiritual things. And I am doing those things, because I've seen what I'm like if I don't. Yuck.

-- Freedom from the nine-to-five grind. It was wearing on me, and it hadn't even been two years since I was back in it. It is very stressful, that daily grind.

-- Developing new routines: meditate, the Y, the office to job hunt, a cafe to write, get Lily, home for dinner, etc.

Here's what I miss about Wondertime, and working in general:

-- The people. Hands down. The community, the feeling I got when I went into the office every day. Arguing over whether it's a comma or a semi-colon, and how wonderful it was to work with people who know how important the answer is.

-- The feeling of accomplishment at the end of a day, week, issue.

-- working with writers, from looking at pitches to asking for pitches to assignment letters to working with the actual manuscripts. One of my last stories was going to be a spread about tree forts and the writer had answered all my questions and we were working collaboratively on making this a small but useful and fun piece, not to mention attractive. It's a pity, and very hard to stop that creative process cold, in the middle.

-- The nine-to-five grind. Or in my case, the eight-to-four. I really, really, really, need structure, and I miss it more than I can say. I miss getting in the office, turning on my computer, getting tea, maybe eating breakfast if I hadn't already had it, seeing folks drift in, getting things accomplished.

--Lily's enjoyment of my office. When she came in she'd check out the free table in the basement, get herself a hot chocolate, play with the Playmobile hospital, then curl up with a book or some drawing paper. She liked it there.

-- Offering leftover toys and games to non-profits who really needed them for the kids they serviced.

--The money. Oh yeah, the money.

-- The security, such as it was. I had a job in these uncertain times,

--Being able to say I worked for Wondertime, a fabulous magazine that I was very proud of and that most people really liked. Having this as part of my identity, part of the structure to my life. I wasn't my job, but it was a big part of who I was.

Mary Oliver is a god.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do
determined to save
the only life you could save

by Mary Oliver
from Dream Work
Beacon Press 1992

Four weeks later

I'm sitting in a cafe again, Cup and Top in Florence. I'm sitting by the window looking out onto Main Street, aka route 9, and the sky is a stormy gray with patches of blue. The clouds are moving very fast. The iPod is playing my song mix again--Bonnie Raitt, Helen Reddy, Gordon Lightfoot, Karla Bonoff, plus about 900 more singers and groups. What a mix.

I went to my chiropractor this afternoon--I slipped on the ice the day after I lost my job and fell flat on my butt--and feel better. But otherwise I've done nothing but play with my new Macbook. Sure is good to be back on a Mac again, and even though I'm importing all my old files and music, there's something about having a new computer that feels like a clean slate, a chance to reorganize my life and prioritize myself.

The trick for me is trying to make sure my days are structured, and that I meditate and do some writing every day. All week I've been spending my days going to the Y, then to the office, then trying to get some writing done. Today was a blow-off, as I get sort through my music, pitching stuff I don't listen to and cleaning things up. I am eager to be listening to podcasts again, and maybe put some TV shows (can you say West Wing?) or movies up here.

And those days in the office have been productive. I've set up my new website--www.sashanyary .com, and the live link is to the right of this post--and scanned up all my writing clips and posted them to that site. It's still under construction, but I hope it'll be useful in the future. All I have to do now is make PDFs of my Wondertime editing clips and get them up there too.

It's odd being in the office. We're allowed to be there until the end of March, and some people are there all the time. Most people seem to have disappeared, though, but maybe they're just on a different schedule from me. I think this must be particularly hard for those folks who've worked here a long time. I was there just two years, and while I wasn't ready to leave, it hadn't become my life and my identity quite the way I know it can--at least, that's what I went through at LIFE. I couldn't believe I wasn't a LIFE magazine editor any more. But life went on, even though LIFE didn't, and I have had many new identities and ways to define myself since then.

It's also odd being out on the streets--I feel like I spend a ton of time in the car, driving to the Y, to the office, to get Lily in Old Deerfield. But's much better than two years ago. I know people now. I know the streets and the cafes, and I have a life here now. I asked Dave a couple of weeks ago if he wanted to move back to Brooklyn (outside of Lily's hearing) and he said no, he didn't. So we're here, and that feels good.

Looking forward to the warmer weather but I have to say transitions freak me out, and it's essential that I stay in the day, every day. Or even in the moment. In a few minutes I have to get Lily at her theater improv class. And we'll go home and see her dad and have dinner and hear how everyone's day went. Lily has had a ton of homework lately and it just got away from her these last couple of days. She had a test on ancient Egypt today that she wasn't really prepared for. She's barely practiced her flute this week. She has an essay due tomorrow, and something for science. I think there's a spelling test tomorrow too. Jeesh! She has a lot to do and it just can't all happen. Oh well.

It does leave me wondering what next year will be like. Will there be much less work? Will it be less challenging? Will she be bored? I think that'll be okay, if she is. She can take an art class, or get into a theater production, which she's dying to do. Maybe I'll get her to join the swim team. Maybe she'll meet some great kids who live nearby and she'll finally have some regular playdates.

Well, it's February. Sixth grade is a long time away. She's planning her summer now and in March we're going to visit DeeAnn and Steve and their kids, our closest friends from Brooklyn who moved to Phoenix the year before we moved here. We'll hit the Grand Canyon for a night, and I hope to see a long-lost cousin who lives in New Mexico, and my friends Rosemary and Harry from Oklahoma City. It's going to be great.

"The Producers" in Easthampton

So if it's February or March in the Happy Valley, it's not just sugaring season, it's high school musical time. This is when all those hardworking teenagers put on the shows they've been slaving over for the last three or four months. Last Saturday we were lucky enough to be able to get tickets to the went to the Easthampton High School's production of The Producers.

Now first of all, can I just say, how cool is that, that a local high school puts on The Producers? It's a risky piece in many ways, not to mention risque. The themes are sex and the Nazis and it pokes fun at just about every single group you can imagine, from gays to Jews to women to men to fat people to nerds to Germans to New Yorkers to theater people. Especially theater people.

And if you missed this production, all I can say is, poor you. It was fabulous. With the exception of one major character whose acting was hilarious but singing was often laughably flat, every actor was spot on. I wasn't thrilled with some of the changes, like making Roger DeVries a woman, Rhonda, but I understood why: There aren't many parts for women in this show.

Other changes were pretty understandable, like in Bialystock's I Used to Be the King song, the original shouts, "Who do you have to fuck to get a break in this town?!" and they changed it to "shtup." I get that. But they left in the line, after Ulla sings "When You Got It, Flaunt It" (god she was fabulous), when Bialy says, "Ulla, even though we're sitting down we've giving you a standing ovation" and then he and Bloom cross their legs. Got a big laugh.

I was a bit apprehensive; for this show to succeed it really needs a strong Bialystock to carry it. And their guy was great. Right from the beginning. Strong voice, strong character, lots of energy. Bialystock is basically on stage for the entire show, almost, and he's in almost every number except about three, Bloom's, Ulla's, and Bloom and Ulla's. This actor was a pretty big guy but he moved smoothly and fast. He didn't drop a line in a song or spoken, that I could tell. Before the show I thought, okay, Bialy has to be good or else this show is going down. And he knocked me out in the first song.

The other remarkable actor was Ulla. Again, I was waiting for her line, "Now, Ulla belts." She's gotta belt. This kid belted. She was awesome.

More than most musicals I hold The Producers close to my heart. And when its unbelievable reviews came out, in April 2001, I remembered the lesson I learned from my father when I was 13, and got tickets. The lesson was that he opened up the paper one morning and saw that "A Moon For the Misbegotten" had opened and the reviews were astounding. This was the 1974 Colleen Dewhurst/Jason Robards production, and we went down to the theater that morning and stood in line. And it was, indeed, incredible. They filmed it later and you can get it on Netflix, I think.

In 2001 I didn't go into town to get Producers tickets, I picked up the phone, and I didn't do it immediately; I waited a couple of weeks. The next available was for mid-August, and I still regret getting the $75 seats under the balcony, and not springing for the $100 ones on the floor. We offered them to my father and step-mother, who to my surprise immediately said yes. Don't know why I was surprised, because it all makes sense now.

We went to our favorite Times Square restaurant, a Japanese place in a brownstone right off Broadway at about 43rd Street. It's not there any more, unfortunately. The owner was Japanese and had trained as a French pastry chef, so desserts were outstanding. The place was decorated like someone's living room, with books lining shelves and framed pictures on the walls. Her son played the cello and if we were lucky he'd be there the night we were eating, serenading the diners.

We loved the show, of course; I remember not getting some jokes that everyone else did, like during Bialystock's first song, when he says, "I used to be the king" and someone responds, "It's good to be the king." I didn't know this was a standard Mel Brooks joke in all his movies. But then I got the theater jokes like, during Roger deVries' song where he introduces his creative team, and everyone has been really gay, his partner, Carmen Ghia, Shabu, the house boy, and his stage and costume designers. Until he calls out for his lighting designer, who is a butch dyke with a deep voice and a bundle of cable over her shoulder. I went to theater design school with a butch dyke lighting designer, and I burst out laughing and it felt like everyone around me was looking at me.

We were lucky to see the entire original cast, not just Nathan Lane, who was increasingly absent as the run went on, and Matthew Broderick, but also Gary Beach and Roger Hart and Cady Huffman. Really great cast, some of the best working today, and most have won Tonys, either for this or other shows.

I know this will come as a surprise to people who know me but I am normally an obsessive person. I have been known to watch a movie over and over in a couple of weeks, or a TV show, or, in this case, a CD. I listened to it constantly the rest of the summer. This was a particularly hard summer--my father-in-law was dying of ALS, my family was very stressed, I was miserable for many reasons, and I didn't know how to cope with my feelings and I was making everyone else miserable around me.

And on top of all that, 9/11 happened, and I truly felt like I was going to break into little pieces. I had almost no resources, and I didn't recognize the ones I had. I was trying to keep it together but really felt like I was about to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. One outlet was the Producers CD, which I listened to over and over and over. Lily came to know it very well. I gravitated to the line in the song "Springtime for Hitler," where Hilter sings, "you know we'll be going to war." Also the line, "the thing you gotta know is, everything is show biz." Those two lines rang in my head over and over.

Eventually I stopped listening to the CD, and I found some resources and learned to cope with my feelings a bit better. But I still love that musical, it still resonates for me, and I was thrilled that this production could pull it off so well. Kudos!

You must read this

A wonderful piece by Maira Kalman about the inauguration.

I Lego N.Y. by Christoph Niemann.

Chance again

So today I was typing something terribly important and here comes Chance, leaps up on Dave's desk next to me, then leaps onto the meeting rail (is that the right word? the top part of the frame on the lower piece of glass) but it's really too thin even for her to stand on, and she's clawing desperately at the very top of the window, trying to get some bird or animal just out of reach. And then BAM she comes crashing down on the desk.

Need I add that the new window frame is all scratched up? And the glass in several windows, especially the glass doors onto the back deck off the kitchen, and the window closest to the bird feeder outside our bedroom, are covered with cat slobber. Yuck.

She's desperate for them birds. They're oblivious, of course, the stupid little things. We'll throw seed until it thaws and the paper starts to warn everyone to stop feeding the birds because they bears are waking up. We can start up again in the late fall. I can't wait to see what she does about the bears, once they start walking around. I am a bit concerned she'll claw her way up the screens, which will be ruined.

She still loves the water. She hears us start to brush our teeth or wash our faces and she comes bombing into the bathroom and leaps into the sink, staring up at us adoringly, pawing the sleek sides of the porcelain. It's really odd. I like to turn the water on a trickle and soak her a bit. She climbs out, then turns back and bats at the stream and sucks it up. There's hair all over the sink.

No cat baths lately, but she sure likes it when we're running the bath in the Japanese tub. And she likes to pace the edge of the upstairs tub in between the two shower curtains. She likes to crawl into every little nook and cranny she can find, pushing out books and bowls and whatever else is in her way, to get back into the dark spot.

Two other favorite things she does. I'm happy that she likes to sleep on the end of our bed, and I love that at around 8 or 9 pm, she starts looking for us to go to sleep. If we're watching TV she comes in there to snooze. Then when we go up to bed she climbs on the end of our bed and washes herself and curls up.

Unfortunately, this is also the time she, and all cats, apparently, is the most frisky, and we often have to dump her very impolitely on the floor to avoid being bit and scratched. She's torn between really wanting to hunt and really wanting to sleep. Eventually, sleep wins.

And then at about 5am she wakes up and stretches and makes her way up to me. She puts her head under the covers -- always on my left side; Dave hates her in bed and she seems to know that, she always comes to my left side and not in the middle of us--and curls up in there for another nap, purring and washing me. (I know I am supposed to pat her because she pats me and nudges my hand. Same thing she does when I come home at night and she wants some attention, and not just dinner.) About an hour later she wakes up and tries to wake me up to feed her. Grrr. Sometimes it works, however, and I do get up and feed her and then go meditate.

The second favorite thing is that she likes to talk to Lily when Lily is in the balcony looking into the living room. She says, Hi, Chance! and the cat just meows back with a very intense, almost anxious whiny tone. Not sure if she likes Lily up there or not.

That's all for now. More TK, as they say in the publishing trade. More To Kome.

Peter Sellers doing Laurence Olivier as Richard III doing A Hard Day's Night

You must watch this. This means you too, Mum:



This is Peter Sellers doing his version of Laurence Olivier doing Richard III's "Now is the winter of our discontent" speech through The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." The TV program was the "Music of Lennon and McCartney" from 1964.

And okay, here is the Olivier speech he's riffing on:



And this, Peter Sellers doing an Irish version of She Loves You: