Boston

Writing Boston

At first there is no reason
to describe
a vacation in Boston,
no reason to recite lists of dishes
served at dusk
and carefully recorded in your notebook:
strip steak
artichoke hearts
tangerine flan.

No reason to relate a meal devoured
across from your brother
in a strange but familiar town
you lived in for just two years
(he says it like that, just…)

You try to forge stories from meals and memories,
and you drag him to that theater
with your name carved in the seat
and the magician’s dirty yellow robe
under plexiglass in the lobby.

But no amount of sitting
on the public garden bench
by the white gazebo
can transport you back
to those two years,
place the subway card in the reader,
conjure the smell of beer and newspaper
for the cuff of your sweater.

On the plane ride home, though,
storyless as a shopping list,
you think about tangerine flan
and waking up
on your brother’s busted air mattress
to children in blue hoodies
suspended on jungle gym bars.

Then suddenly you reach up
to push the tiny round button
with the light bulb in the center,
flounder for a pen
because you’ve remembered
the little blonde girl
with a crooked smile
who stood at the fence with a stick,
peeling back the layers
of leaf and stem
like so many words.

#5 in a series on Young Adult literature

"Then I must have slipped into a sort of sleep for a few minutes before I was standing on a starting-block, then swimming around in the sea and between me and the shore was this gigantic surf, not the rolling kind which you could, with luck, ride to safety, but the evil dumping kind, which makes a point of hurling its victims head-first into the sand, breaking every bone before washing your body ashore, and now I have to choose between the surf and a school of sharks, I am Tinman again, crumpled silver tossed ashore, but look what else the surf throws up on to the moonlit sand, Miss Macrae in full costume as a witch from Macbeth, with blacked-out teeth, more skull than face, Andy in school uniform, but covered with blood and his handsome face set in a smiling death mask, terrifying in its smoothness and perfection, and a female body, broken and twisted by the force of the sea, which I recognize as myself..."

-- from Tessa Duder's In Lane Three, Alex Archer, pg. 235-236

#4 in a series on Young Adult literature

"Right," Brother Leon answered, making the check against the name. Looking up, he called, "Renault."
The pause. The damn pause.
"No!"
The Goober felt as if his eyes were the lens for a television camera in one of those documentaries. He swung around in Jerry's direction and saw his friend's face, white, mouth half-open, his arms dangling at his sides. And then he swiveled to look at Brother Leon and saw the shock on the teacher's face, his mouth forming an oval of astonishment. It seemed almost as if Jerry and the teacher were reflections in a mirror.
Finally Brother Leon looked down.
"Renault," he said again, his voice like a whip.
"No. I'm not going to sell the chocolates."
Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.

-- from Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War (1974), pg. 89

Oh, is that ha-ckey?! *

So, I'm off to Boston tomorrow for a week of revisiting Emerson College haunts and hanging with my twin bro, whom I know is just chomping at the bit for me to unpack my gigantic suitcase in his living room. The green boots are ready to go! I wish N. could join me (tax season, etc. is preventing it and by etc. I mean his illness called March Madness -- ha!) but I'm looking forward to ordering lots of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and the donuts to complete, watching people doing something v. strange called "reading" on the T, sneaking into the Emerson library to fondle the New Yorker (nerd alert) and celebrating my Irish roots (not really) in Southie on St. Patty's Day. I also want to know if my initials are still carved in the movie seat in that old theater in Beverly by the beach and if the grocery store where I worked for a day (frightened by memorizing numbers associated with produce) is still in business. It will also be wicked cold so I plan on saying that alot. Look for photos and stories to come!

*Paige, that one was for you.

#3 in a series on Young Adult literature

I thought this was particularly relevant today...

"And he could see, though his eyes were closed. He could see a bright, whirling torrent of crystals in the air around him, and he could see them gather on the backs of his hands, like cold fur.
His breath was visible.
Beyond, through the swirl of what he now, somehow, perceived was the thing the old man had spoken of -- snow -- he could look out and down a great distance. He was up high someplace. The ground was thick with the furry snow, but he sat slightly above it on a hard, flat object...
Comprehending all of those things as he sped downward, he was free to enjoy the breathless glee that overwhelmed him: the speed, the clear cold air, the total silence, the feeling of balance and excitement and peace."

-- Lois Lowry, The Giver

that darn comment

At church Sunday, a friend of mine commented, "Hey the other day I was watching That Darn Cat! with my daughter, and Hayley Mills kept reminding me of you. I'm not sure why, but I think it was the facial expressions." I have to say that this really made my day. I have loved Mills' movies since I was a little girl. Though I'm not quite sure that I bear any resemblance to her, I now have a renewed interest in watching The Parent Trap, That Darn Cat!, Pollyanna and my absolute favorite, a lesser-known 1964 Disney film called The Moonspinners, a murder mystery set on the island of Crete. I've posted a little montage of Hayley moments below. Any thoughts?

Antarctica, here I come...

So, we're moving! Monday! And here I am, Sunday night, blogging instead of packing. In my opinion, the least amount of time spent packing, the better. This, admittedly, does not always work out well for me. When it comes to travel, whether across town or across the globe, I tend to do one of two things: overpack or underpack. My theory has always been that opening a box or a suitcase should be a surprise! (Quick sidenote: When I was little, I used to spend a LOT of time going through the L.L. Bean catalog, hypothesizing what would happen if a person was only given 5 or 6 things -- say flannel-lined jeans, a down parka and 3 dog beds -- and sent to Antarctica. This memory may not seem related, but I assure you, it is.) So when a person has to pack everything in his/her entire house into boxes, and label those boxes, I get a little overwhelmed. But instead of Antarctica, we are moving to a great house 2.7 miles from our current one.

You know how lists make me feel better. So here are 10 things I would rather do than pack (also called The Packing Procrastinator's Checklist):

1. Watch Emeril fondle a lamb shank.
2. Drive to Austin. Revel in sunshine, Amy's ice cream and great friends.
3. Ogle at the Oscars.
4. Practice the Boston accent.
5. Sing/dance with drapes like Julie Andrews in "Sound of Music."
6. Mourn absence of girl scout cookies.
7. Staring contest with pet.
8. Watch lunar eclipse.
9. Organize email inbox. (1,919 and counting!)
10. Plan a trip to Antarctica.