Purple Sparrow

And… Dance by the Light of the Moon

It turns out that some traditions were meant to be kept. This year has been a really tough one, and I really meant to make it through the winter holidays by being strong and as cheerful as possible, for my son’s sake. But the universe, it seems, insisted on celebration and we are blessed with the generosity and love of special friends.

Last night, Christmas Eve…

Heiligabend when I was growing up in Germany was marked by lighting the Adventskranz, and teatime with Baumkuchen, Stollen, and my mom’s collection of delicious cookies. Here, in the morning that preceded Christmas Eve, I met the director of my son’s daycare school. She had generously offered Langston her son’s train set which he has outgrown. When we arrived, I was overwhelmed – my son’s two loving teachers had left bags and bags of treasures for Christmas Day. “They wanted Langston to have Santa,” The director explained. Food, lots of food, and toys, books, and clothes. I cried all the way home, moved by the generosity of people who, only five months ago, had been complete strangers to us.

Christmas Day, Langston was busy at his easel, a gift from another friend. He organized his crayons, and frequently stopped to studiously sketch or dot the paper. All day long we played with his toys, we read the newest books in his collection, and we stopped to laugh and laugh. At teatime, the candles were lit on the table, reminding me that even as we add new traditions to our experience, some old traditions persevere such as the peace of sitting with family, in still and loving appreciation of our mutual company and the sweet things in life.

As the evening wound down, with Langston bowing in giggles as we read Blue Hat, Green Hat , I watched one of my favorite movies for the holidays: It’s A Wonderful Life. They just don’t make them like that anymore. So rich, so full of perfect acting and sincerity. As I walk through our home, softly lit by twinkle lights, corners of the living room filled with unexpected gifts, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. My frizzy hair hangs in its usual braids, but my face is restful and smiling. I very recently lost a dear friend, but if he were here, I know he’d agree: everything is going to be okay.

Giving Thanks

It seems to me that in the past year, I have been blessed with many gifts. I was thinking about this a few weeks ago when I zipped my son into his two jackets, a gift from my mom (Abuelita.) The yellow fleece hung down nice and long under his fireman raincoat, and I thought about how grateful I was that my son would be warm, playing outside at recess on the first chilly days of late fall.

My son also recently decided to begin giving kisses. We were reading a book by Todd Parr, and there's this page that reads, "All mommies love to kiss and hug you!" Of course, when I read this page to Langston, I always pause to give him a big smooch on his cheek and a hug.

But a little while ago, Langston was sitting cross-legged on the floor across from me while we read the book, and when I turned to the page, he stood up in a hurry, wide-eyed, and just charged in to kiss my cheek. It was the funniest little thing - he just planted his face on my cheek, and then dived in for a hug.

This evening, after a day of tooling around a little corner of Maine, my father gave me more to be thankful for as,on our way out of the supermarket, he casually proposed, "Why don't we go find a place that sells lamps."

I am thankful we are warm.
I am thankful we have food.
I am thankful we live in this beautiful, beautiful part of the country.
I am thankful for all of my family, especially my parents.
I am thankful for my son's smiles, his funny talk, his way of getting excited about a good book.
I am thankful for my colleagues' generous gifts of laughter and hand-me-downs.
I am thankful for the warm new glow of light in the living room.

Pretty Things

For the past few weeks, I've been having these little, intensely beautiful encounters.

I was jogging on the river path, which I learned curves around into the water in a little strip of land. I was thoroughly enjoying the crisp air and the sensation of running on a thin meter of land with water on each side, when two great blue herons arose, slow wings driving their ascent. I stopped and laughed in surprise.

The next week, as we neared the car, there was this sunset. Big, thick ripples of crazy neon blue, fuschia, and orange. The colors draped the entire sky, not just the section near the horizon.

Then, a few days ago: a shooting star. Its arc was picture-perfect, almost imaginary, like in a movie.

And then there's my kid.

Strange Dreams

I had this incredibly vivid dream last night. In it, I was walking towards a large, cropped field with some grassy spaces. The first thing that I noticed was this pretty little plain house. It was blue, and somehow elevated, though the ground didn't appear to be hilly, and it wasn't floating. Two staircases flanked its simple exterior, rising like the marble ones you would see in a fancy house, but they were wooden, boardwalk-type staircases.

Something moved and I looked to the right to see a young Cole Porter (portrayed in my dream by Kevin Kline, as in the movie De-Lovely,) reclining in one of the grassy patches of the field. He was in a white full-length lawn-chair or something, holding a fishing pole which moored a kite aloft just above the house.

It's our house, I realized. Upon this discovery, I noticed I was wearing a long, flowing white summer dress. Cole Porter/Kevin Kline looked up and smiled, with that light smile he has, and I awoke.

I'm not going to pick apart my dream and reflect upon its deeper meaning, or derive significance from Cole Porter's lifestyle and the losses portrayed in the film. I just thought it was this really sweet, pretty dream, with the farmhouse, and the kite, and the two of us in white.

The Middle of Vacation

Every weekend, it feels as though we are caught up in the middle of some extended vacation. On Saturday, the day started with honey-buckwheat pancakes with sliced bananas, coffee for me, and the Velvet Underground on the radio. Socks, shoes, and red hats, and we were off to discover some new place.

I wound up driving through N.F. I was looking for this "rail trail" which some biker at the cycle shop had given me vague directions to. We passed the country store and happened instead upon the quiet driveway for a path which runs along the E. River. The path leads right into E., and my first stop was this little art shop with pretty little paintings of marine life and stars. Then, across the street to the Mediterranean place. I wanted to buy some tabbouleh. The owner offered samples of these pumpkin-spinach balls. I bit into one: it tasted spicier and softer than a falafel, but had the same fried exterior. I offered half to Langston, who nibbled enthusiastically, so I bought some of those, too.

More walking by the river, then back home for lunch. Right after lunch, an almost three-hour nap followed by tea with graham crackers. We read a few books leisurely in the late afternoon, and then bundled up for another walk, this time just through the drive behind my apartment complex to the mailbox.







Today, Sunday, another beautiful sky brought the day, so we went down to the river around nine a.m. On the way, we passed a small turn-off for a forest - I'll go back and investigate that later today. This time, I wanted to find the path on the other side of the river. It's even prettier there, though you kind of have to cut through a group of condominium buildings. The path is grassy, with soft gravel, and there are these two street lanterns that appear, like something from Narnia.





I walked briskly, and felt my cheeks redden. On the way back through town to the side of the river where the car was, I traded smiles with other happy pedestrians.

The Dumpster Walk

Every other evening or so, I walk outside my building to take the trash down to dumpsters which border the woods behind my apartment complex. The minute I open the door, my head feels clear, and the fresh air lightens my spirit. Tonight, with no moon in sight, the celestial canopy was vast and deep.

New England Fall Days

This weekend, we headed out to visit an apple picking farm and happened upon Applecrest Farm's Harvest Festival. On the way there, the windows of the car were rolled halfway down, letting cool fall air in as we curved past fences and farms. The festival was in full swing as we arrived. A high school boy waved us down the parking lot, where Langston and I tripped through thick grass to the festival entrance. It smelled incredible - roasting corn, hot apple cider, pies, and smoky coal grills.

A bluegrass band was playing in a bandstand, and hundreds of people were milling about among pumpkins every color. There was a huge line for apple cider donuts. (I regret now not lining up to sample one - next time.) There was a large market where I returned the next day to buy half a peck of honey crisp apples and some apricot jam for an apple tart. In a separate little barn, a creamery sold many, many different kinds of ice cream. We had apple pie ice cream, both Saturday and Sunday. At first, my son was skeptical, despite my reassurance, "It's just like yogurt!" Later, amid bales of hay and pumpkins, he conceded to a few tentative bites. The next day, wearing his red knit cap, no such caution was necessary. We sat on a chilly bench outside the creamery and happily shared a kiddie-sized cup of apple pie ice cream. Passersby commented on his hat and his smile.

Saturday, we wandered through the pumpkin patch and past the petting zoo. "We live here," I told Langston, smiling at his open-mouthed laugh. My son was less interested in the assorted farm animals than he was in the huge pumpkins and their gorgeous, twisting roots. He measured their girth with his palms and studied their lines. After walking up and down rows of pumpkins, it was time to go home.

Arrivals

We are fully settled here. There have been moments such as now, when my son settles gently into sleep, when I've lately been thinking of the night before my son was born. I called the doctor at 3 a.m., who let me know I could either come in right away or wait until 7:30 a.m. if I wanted to. Unlike in the movies, with its portrayal of water-breaking announcements followed by dramatic painful contractions, his arrival was a subtle and easy one.

I opted for the morning arrival at the hospital, as it seemed that it would be slow going. So I took a nice long shower, braided my hair, and wrote up some detailed substitute lesson plans for the next day, which was to be a Friday. As the sun began to rise I went down to my car and drove to the parking lot two blocks away from the hospital where I was to give birth. At the parking lot, I removed myself, then my two duffel bags from the car, and hoisted the latter over my shoulder. I must have been a sight, in my long black coat, like some gravid matronly sandman, with bags of sleep dust over her shoulder. A nice young doctor asked me if I needed help. "I'm fine!" I chirped, as we were just across the street from my destination.

I walked in the lobby, checked in, asked for a towel to sit on, and waited to be admitted. I was humming with anticipation, excited to meet my little son.

That walk from my car to the hospital was short and uneventful - no huffing and puffing, and the two pillows and assorted clothes and books I'd brought were no big thing to tote. But for some reason, whenever I drive through these woods, as we both gaze out at trees revealing splashes of fiery red, I think of that walk I first took with my boy on his way and I burn with intense love for the things I have done.

We walk everywhere together now - he doesn't care for riding in the stroller, so he hops out of the car with his fingertips on my palms when we arrive somewhere, and we stride, hand in hand, towards doors and home. "Go, go, go?" my son asks.

"Here we go," I reply; happy, brave, and free.

Check, please!

This morning, after a few bite-fuls of waffle, my son let out a sigh of contentment, and said (it sounded like,) "Check!"

Letting It Sink In

I'm still just so in awe of the beauty of it here. The small-town everything. One Saturday morning, we went to the post office in the next village, and it was empty and this nice fella came out to sell me my one stamp that I needed. He noticed my Netflix envelope I was going to take outside. "Here, I can take care of that for you." he offered. It's like that everywhere here.

There's a general store I pass on one route to school that always has a sign out front advertising lobster rolls. There's this patch of landscape that I pass on the other route, rolling misty hills, green and layered, that always makes me think of reading "The Secret Garden" when I was little and I say to myself, "The Moor." (Type it into Google Images. That's what it looks like. The landscape, not the images of Othello.)


Further on, there's this boat ramp. One of these days I want to drive down it, to take a picture of the water I cross every day. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow, as we head out to errands and the good playground.

Night's Passing

At night on La Salle, it was always light. Strong street lamps cast slanting shadows of iron scrolls on my bedroom wall. When it rained, I could pull the thin cotton curtain back and watch the tree branches get wet in the shower.

I remember one night last spring, when for the first time ever, all the street lights on my part of the street were out. It was dark, and I was so relieved. I remember standing poised on the windowsill of the living room, ready to go to bed, but waiting for the street to blink on in a second. It didn't, and I tiptoed over to my bed and crawled into a deeper sleep.

There's something unsettling when you wake up in a hotel room, and those curtains, heavy, sometimes with a plastic liner block out every bit of the night's passing. If you wake up in the middle of the night, it's hard to find where you are. I've never particularly liked that sensation, the disorienting rake your mind must pull through places you might be.

When we arrived here, there were no curtains on the windows, so, like it or not, we rose with the sun. Since my father's help installing dark curtains on each window, I now have a little more time each morning to slumber. Yet as I'm drifting off to sleep in my room, I draw back one of the curtains in my room just a hand span's width to let in a little of the near-opaque night. It's so much darker here, but not in an ominous way. The rhythmic chorus of birds and crickets is louder, and when I wake up, I find a small crowd of trees at the window.

From an E-mail at Night

I've been slowly trying to settle into this teeny tiny - and, for one more day, empty - apartment with Langston. The change in landscape is stunning, though I must admit I'm having a bit of culture shock. I really had no idea how much I'd become familiar with in Chicago in terms of geography and resources. Here, I scribble out directions and grip them to the wheel of the car as I try to focus on not missing a turn, all the while being distracted constantly by the road's metamorphosis into a little strip of land traversing some sparkling expanse of water. *

It's so different, and yet there are plenty of familiar things (Dunkin Donuts drive through windows, where I always scrape my hubcaps, trying to be as close to the window as possible so they don't have to reach out too far to give me my coffee.) My apartment is small, the hallways as musty as I thought they might be. It's a pretty much low-income apartment complex, which to me means lots of pick-up trucks and dudes who smoke cigarettes on their balconies. Not to worry, though, my daydreams have now turned to saving up to buy a little house someday in the next few years.

P.S. There are stars here, and crickets! When you pull out of N., there's a cemetery and a golf course. The other morning, I drove out to the supermarket and there was this thick, beautiful mist covering them both everywhere.

*On water: I'm really surprised by my reaction to how water just appears everywhere. Every drive seems to traverse roads on bridges. One second, you're cruising along a little local highway, and then, in an instant, you're on a strip of land. Water, swampy or clear shimmers on each side. I know we're right by the ocean, but my memories of the ocean are that you drive there, and it's all beach and surf and sand and sunburn. Here, it's like the ocean is sneaking in (or out) prettily, like a courtesan heading down the service elevator. It's all , "Oh, you were looking for the shopping center? Well, you found me instead. And aren't I just beautiful? Whoops! You missed your turn..."

Road Trip Journal - We're Home

Day 3

We arrived home, finally, finally. Our longest drive yet (over eight hours.) Much drama. A locksmith was summoned. Songs were sung. Stairs climbed. Things, or objects, rather, are missing, but I am here with a full heart and my very own traveling hero.

My baby breathes snuffily in his own bedroom now and I'm too wired, my head full of overlapping lists. Each room is painted a different color. I like that.

I should eat something and rest, my mom told me when I called her, rattling off lists. I'll get right to that now.

Road Trip Journal, Day Two

A much shorter drive today - only four and a half hours! We sailed through Pennsylvania, with a lovely view of Lake Erie to the left of the car. Barn swallows swooped and hawks glided around the car. I enjoyed their company, and was amused to imagine I was at the front of a ship, hands on the wheel, bouncing through waves, a pod of dolphins flanking the prow, leaping in concert to accompany our passage.

I had the nicest surprise experience at a McDonald's in the beginning part of New York. I drove through and asked carefully at the drive-through if they could make me one of their little wraps vegetarian-style. The loudspeaker voice cheerfully concurred, and as I pulled up to pay, this apple-cheeked girl told me that a bunch of people who worked there were vegetarians and didn't eat most of the food. "So," I began, confused, "Why?" She laughed and told me there really weren't a lot of places to get a job around there.

Then she went on to recommend that I ask for a Big Mac's fixin's with two big slices of tomato instead of meat sometime. "It's so delicious!" she assured me. The wrap was okay, a bunch of melty Swiss, sauteed mushrooms, and a flour tortilla. I usually prefer corn, the flour ones are too chewy, but in pinch, I dug the experience of getting the little snack, and the girl's story made up for the big glob of mayonnaise hanging out at one end of the wrap.

Finally, after lunch, my son slept and the INano (Is it pre-programmed with some incredibly intelligent formula which predicts musical needs in advance? Because all signs point to yes.) played these songs in this order, a stunningly perfect accompaniment to both his peaceful slumber and my contentment in steering through the pretty green, soft hills of New York State:

Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
Lullaby - Greg Brown
Time Has Told Me - Nick Drake
Bring It On Home - Sam Cooke

______________________________________

Best: Playing Bubbles and Hide-and-Go-Seek in the motel room
Worst: Previous hotel guest anointed the motel room with copious amounts of (I'm hoping?) dog urine. Peee-Ew.

Also, Words

trumpet
portent

Road Trip Journal, Day One

Today's drive began in farm country and ended in farm country. Once we got past Chicago, it was smooth and easy driving. My INano favored me with an extraordinarily perfect shuffle for the first part of the trip, as we pulled through Chicago's skyline, Iris Dement was crooning "Our Town," a song I first heard performed by Kate Rusby. I don't normally care for the warbly quality of Iris Dement's voice, but it worked. Now, we've stopped in Cleveland for the night. Grocery stores in the area seem sparse, but hopefully I can stock up on any little necessities in Rochester.

We passed a field which seemed to house an army of chocolate-colored cows. "Look, look!" I pointed, but my son was more interested in dumping water on his lap. The coolest part was the sky - it was completely still and flat, like one of those mattes in a Hollywood movie, where the cowboys or Hitchcock characters are riding around and the clouds remain motionless. The whole way it was like that, and with the open road rolling by, it was really like being in one of those "American" movies the Amélie character noticed where people drive without glancing at the road. I, of course, glanced at the road constantly. Whenever I was finished with exchanging excited grins with my kid.

When I was a little girl, my mom and I had this bedtime routine where we would both share our "worst" and "best" thing that had happened each day. Here are mine:

Worst: Nary a drive-through or good grocery store in the area near the Cleveland Airport
Best: Being well-rested and refreshed at the start of the day. I barely felt sleepy all day at the wheel.

Moving Eve

This will be my last night in my cozy La Salle home-in-the-trees. Boxes are stacked in huge columns around me as I write this, and my khakis are covered with grime from climbing in and out of the attic. It's quiet, crowded, and marvelously dusty. I'm looking forward to my pre-dinner shower (if I've earned one, I may still be climbing around then.)

I've dumped all the birdseed on the windowsill, mainly because I don't want any creepy-crawlies growing inside the container en route to our new home. So periodically, as I navigate past the labyrinth of towering box stacks in the bedroom, I'm startled by the fussy court of sparrows twitching around the curly iron railing.

Tomorrow morning, the movers come for everything. They've already sectioned off the spaces in front of the trees with little signs. Once the car is packed up, I want to take a picture in front of it, posing in anticipation of the open road. One of those 'Here we are, before our great journey' photographs. Many years from now, when my son and I pack up the car that will take him off to yet another part of his special, wonderful life,we'll take another photograph. My hair will be frizzier and gray, and he will, I'm certain, still have his fantastic, broad grin.

Atticus

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2010/07/where-is-atticus-50-years-later.html

If I Had a Hammer

Back when I used to enjoy running daily, I was always particularly irked by drivers who would lurch into intersections when pedestrians had the clear right of way. There are a few variations of this thoughtless practice. One is the driver whose car blocks the pedestrian crosswalk so that people are forced to inch around their car's nose into oncoming traffic. Another is the car (often cab or BMW driver) who is determined to run over pedestrians while turning to the right through a crosswalk.

In those days, running with headphones made it especially challenging to dodge inconsiderate drivers. So, self-righteous creature that I am, I thought of ways I might exact revenge. One was to hurl one of those little clear crazy bouncy balls at their windshield. Harmless, I thought, but...Boi-oi-oing! Not good enough. My second thought was to run with a little rubber hammer tucked into the sleeve of my sweatshirt. A car lurches at me in the intersection and I stop, eyeballing the driver, supervillain stance, brandishing the hammer set to pound the car's hood. It would be delightfully comical, I imagined, to decorate the hammer in a very Las Vegas show-girly way: pink feathers, sequins, and fringe tassles.*

I never actually executed any of these instructive methods. Until today. I awoke from a groggy nap with an intense desire for an ice cream cone. Minutes later, I was strolling towards Bughouse Square with a double scoop of Cherries Jubilee on a sugar cone. A BMW sat almost in the intersection of Clark and Oak, completely blocking the crosswalk. I gingerly pushed the stroller in front of the car's hood, made eye contact with the driver and turned my sugar cone upside down, and lowered until it was poised to be planted on his hood. Then I blew a raspberry at him (my son has taught me well) righted the ice cream cone and took an evil lick. Sucker.

That ice cream cone was especially yummy.




*The idea for decorating a hammer, of course, came from an episode of The Gilmore Girls. Inspired.

On Designing a Family Crest

I'm not really. But I always pictured my family crest, given my love for Avery labels and lists as having the Latin translation of a motto which can be derived from many exchanges in my parents' home when I was growing up.

Welvers Child: Where is the...(insert object here)?
Mama or Papa: ¡En su lugar!

The idea of everything belonging in its proper place is a reassuring one, when you're giddily counting down thirty days to a move and trying to organize, purge, and plan how to manage a one-bedroom apartment, which much like Mary Poppins' carpetbag, contains more than its size suggests is possible. Oh, huge attic, how I love and despise your seductive storage possibilities.

So my question about the family crest is out there, Latin Lovers. And I don't mean Ricardo Montalban clones. Lovers of the Latin language, I should say. How do you say "everything in its place" in Latin? I'm picturing the four quadrants of a family crest, one with a stack of clear plastic containers, one with a box of Avery labels, one with a bookshelf containing a neatly organized library, and in the last, a bed piled high with comfy blankets and pillows. Everything in its place. Sigh.

I was going to write...

I was going to write about how strong and capable and intelligent I feel. Somehow, that seems too intimate and confessional. And yet - there's this image on a card that a friend gave me which hangs on a bulletin board near my desk. In it, an African woman is gazing at the camera, a still smile, her look direct and solid. The baby's eyes are huge, wide as if it were falling, but he is nestled in her patterned sling, close to chest and neck.

The mother's gaze is striking - it encapsulates how I feel, poised for change and challenge. I sense a fierce pride. I remember talking to the giver of the card, over a year and more ago, saying, to myself more than her, "There's a fierce pride that comes with being a single mom." That fierce pride gives out so many other varieties of strength. No adversity, economic or social, wears away the fine, fast threads of this web, and every time I feel challenged, by fatigue, or by medical or financial worries, I lean back and my son and I are cradled in this sling together - the fierce pride and strength sling.

Fellow humans, far away and not too far away from my own home are beset by real suffering, genuine material and psychic loss. Degrees of pain and suffering are relative, I know, and different people address obstacles with varying resources for recovery.

I think that there's a certain amount of self-pity that's tolerable, after which, when on the receiving end of an incessant drone of pathetic melancholy and whining, the listener just becomes detached. If the speaker doesn't care about you, the listener, in any measurable way, then there seems to be little left to salvage in the exchange of thoughts and feelings.

People who say "I'm fine," when they're visibly upset, or others who communicate one thing but expect a particular script of response are bound to end up miserable. Any words of condolence, comfort, or empathy offered have little effect when the victim of self-loathing is determined to steep in despair. I say, let them have at it. If contentment is something that they're capable of embracing, they'll find it eventually, though most likely in a source of questionable substance.

Contentment - that's the perfect word, isn't it, when you're looking at an image of mother and child, close together, one holding or resting with the other. As part of our Mother's Day extravaganza, and in the absence of any kind of art curriculum for kindergarteners, I brought three images to my students and asked for their impressions, likes, preferences, and so forth.

There was a Mary Cassatt, a Klimt, and a Renoir. It was so lovely to see which student was drawn to each, and to hear the reasoning behind their preferences - some responses were emotional, some more aesthetically-minded. Last week, as we were walking through the school's "Chicago Fair," one of my students shouted out "Ms. Welvers! Ms. Welvers!" A large framed print I had never noticed before hung in the hallway two flights above our classroom: it was the same Mary Cassatt painting of the mother bathing her child. They're both looking down, but do you see their hands? Child's hand, on the mother's knee, confident that it is there for support, mother's hands holding the child's foot, her hip, expertly completing a familiar, loving routine.

My son honors me when he reaches for my hand to bridge a path, walking between one chair and the window. Walk past the window and you'll see - mother and child looking down, our hands and our ways of resting just so.

Train Travel

I want to say that my son is as enraptured with train travel as I am, but the truth is, he's never been on a train. I, on the other hand, have had some of my most remarkable experiences on trains. As someone who loves to move, I hold it to be one of the more perfect ways to glide past trees, buildings, and space.

In high school, we lived about forty-five minutes away from my school, so I had to take a train and a (was it a trolley? A mostly above-ground subway?) something else to school. So many angst-y hours were spent, forehead pressed against the glass, moody folk tunes piping in my ears from a Walkman. (That's right. A Walkman.) Some of my early memories included attempts to ignore the advances of lecherous drunk old men.

I like train platforms. There's a stunning quality to train stations - I couldn't detail the many aspects of my love for them here, but - Union Station, so many of the big train stations in France...they're just gorgeous enough if you stand still in the middle of them to make you understand why they are the subjects or settings of works of art. *

And then there's the El. When we move this summer, I think it is one of the Chicago things that I'll miss acutely. This evening, walking home, several trains rattled ecstatically above our heads, and my son's face immediately bore a broad grin, feet kicking wildly. It reminded me of an evening when I was babysitting, giddily thinking this:

I can see the lit windows of the train slide through the houses and trees past the living room's front window. I love the sound - like a long wind, or an ocean crashing. The Brown and Red lines provide the best views: the backs of apartment buildings, decks littered with flowerpots and furniture. The brick building that reads SCHULHOF on the side. Construction workers moving about with their measured, muscled grace, thick and steady. The sensation of gliding above street life. Miscellaneous faces whizzing by on the raised platforms.

Closer to the Loop, the tracks arc and bend back and the train rocks like a careening roller coaster. If you're in the end, you can look out the window and see the fantastic patterns of the tracks, peeling away in the car's wake. Arching around one of these bends, just past Armitage or Sedgwick, the skyline reveals itself in its massive glass and steel presence, a single squat beast, smug dragon of modernity and architecture.

Sunsets are different, when filtered through the sensation of riding the El at twilight. To watch buildings shift from brick to rust to inky black, is a special thing. Years ago, I once rode the brown line from Chicago to Wilson and I got out there and walked all the way back home. That was a fine day, full of hope and sunshine and the excitement and possibility of new love.

*There's this delicious descriptive passage that opens in a train station in some Calvino book, but I won't put it here, for fear I'd get carried away and type out whole book. Love, love, love that man.

Werner Herzog Reads Where's Waldo

A Word I Like Today

ballast

Desperately Seeking Skeeter Defeater*

Last summer, through almost October, I had a constant struggle with the presence of mosquitoes in my apartment. Usually one mosquito at a time would make itself known, I'd kill it a day or two later, followed by a handful of insomnia, listening-for-mosquito filled nights, followed by a new mosquito visitor.

This year, I've decided to plan ahead. The internet will be my friend. After all, isn't it already trying to sell me a million things every day? Here's what I want: first, I want a mosquito net for my bed, but not one of those drapey army deals that hangs loosely around the edge of your cot. I want a queen-size mosquito net tent that sproings up like an actual tent (for you non-camping lovers, that means that two plastic rods cross under the netting, fit in sleeves which hold the cover in place, making a perfect dome.) In one of my internet strolls, I came across one of these on a Chinese website and, not having had the foresight to make a note of the address, lost the reference. I was unable to find the mosquito tent again. It's out there somewhere though. Some genius invented this thing and I will find it, as I covet and even sometimes acquire the works of geniuses.

Next: I want one of those magical contraptions advertised in gardening magazines that sends out an inaudible-to-the-human-ear noise that lures mosquitoes in to a zapping death. Here's the thing, though - these zappers are usually advertised as tools for mosquito-proofing your backyard. Is there some danger in keeping or using one indoors? Does it emit some kind of toxic chemical, sound, or mysterious science-fiction-y element? I think tonight, when I'm falling asleep, I'll make up names for the mystery element.






*The name of a mosquito net that wants to be my queen-sized mosquito tent when it grows up.

Also: A Phrase Which Pleases Me

just desserts

A Word I Like Today

potent

In the Honey Locust Trees

My apartment, a floor above street level, has these large, large windows situated in line with the branches of several honey locust trees. La Salle is a fairly busy street; both the Chicago Marathon and the occasional - monthly? - biker parades, often filled with naked riders, traverse past my windows. You forget they're scheduled to happen, and then suddenly there's this jubilant clamor, and people are barreling by and clustering on the sidewalks - so fun.

Whether the branches are bare, as they are now, or filled with explosive dappled orange leaves, the impression of sitting, living in trees is pervasive. I was thinking about that feeling the other day as my son and I , in one of our many mornings of birdwatching, were sitting perpendicular to the branches. A cardinal appeared, still and prettily scarlet. "See the bird?" I asked, and he turned and looked up, immediately, directly at the object of my question. He's become, in all his one year of living, quite the adept birdwatcher. I wonder, when we move, if his fuzzy baby-memories will be like the wisps I remember from Swiss Family Robinson of that house they had built in the trees. *

When I saw that Disney movie, I remember my favorite scene was when Mr. Robinson showed his wife the "butler ringing" tassel that hung above their bed. I vaguely recall that she even asked, "What's this for? Calling the butler?" or something like that, and they lie and he draws the roof away and there are the stars, right above their bed. In my vision of a someday-dream house, I always imagined having a ceiling that opened like that. In that dream house, of course, I also had a dashing partner like Mr. Robinson, but given that few men are as strong and capable as he, I'm happy right where I am, aloft in our rooms with windows framing the thick dark lace of honey locust trees.

* I also thought of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That scene where they're running, then swaying in trees - those images were in my dreams for weeks after my first viewing of the movie.

Note, the Sequel

Dear Universe,

Dude. That was so awesome how you delivered that INano, newer and truer (and free.)

Bring me a dishwasher, a garbage Dispose-All, and eliminate my debt, and I might actually promise to be a good girl.

Amanda

P.S. Nah.

A note on the big cosmic fridge

Dear Universe,

I lost my INano.

Please give it back or at least send me a new one.

Doubtfully,

Amanda

Lost in Smartlation

Now, my phone suggests words for me as I type text messages, as I'm sure all recent cell phones do. And lately, it's suggested a few goofy things while I'm typing. I'm often tempted to let the error stand. Because it's so much more nonsensical than the mundane message I had had in mind.

The other weekend while texting about a dishwasher, "fishwarper" was suggested. As in, you're probably writing your friend about your latest escapades as a professional fishwarper. One who warps fish. I, your phone, care not whether these fish are being warped for culinary, gaming or artistic purposes. All I know is that it is more likely that you are writing your friend about your job as fishwarper than you would be sending a note about using his or her dishwasher.

Now, I have resolved to let all suggestions stand. Who am I to get in the way of the big Almighty Electronic Brain.* So this evening, instead of sending my intended note: "Skate or die, dude." I sent this: "Plate or did, dude." Followed by my second note, sent upon realizing I had unintentionally kleptoed my neighbor's big plastic serving spoon. It should have read "I have your serving spoon." Instead: "I hate your serving spoon."

Phones are fun.

*Which I originally typed as bog Almoighty Electronic Brain. In light of my latest resolution, I should have let even that typo stand. Half commentary, half cockney. I think.

The backup wedding dress and dusty high school nostalgia

So a friend of mine is moving to Ireland. In his plans for the big overseas move, many buried memorabilia are sifting to the surface of a fairly tidy attic, and some of these collections are mine. This evening, over takeout pizza, I enjoyed finding these objects and the anecdotes that accompanied them.

1) The backup wedding dress. My actual wedding dress - many, many dollars more expensive than hospital bills I now chip away at - was weeks late in arriving to Chicago in time for last-minute alterations in pre-wedding days. Afraid it might not arrive at all, I neurotically tried on an off-the-rack dress at Jessica McClintock in the Michigan Avenue mall where I'd later work as a salesgirl of Williams-Sonoma shame. The back-up wedding dress was this simple strapless, A-line number. Only $180 dollars and no cost for alterations. I remember trying it on in our apartment (his) then and thinking as I spun in front of the mirror doing that 'I look good' looking over the shoulder thing, "I should have waited for this dress." In the end, the department store dress arrived, and the 'back-up dress' was worn to the airport.

2)Concert tickets - Though I'm not too impressed with the diversity or non-mainstreamed-ness of my concert-going choices, I am convinced that a) I was adorable when I went to see all of these bands, and b) my memories are fuzzy, poignant, and tinged with some kind of bittersweet teenage hormonal hangover:

a) Buddy Guy. Thursday, 9:00 p.m., Meehan Auditorium, Brown University April 21, 1994. I spent the entire concert milling in the first or second row, grinning up at Buddy Guy, enjoying his radiating bluesy charm and loving-life vibe. Towards the end, as he distributed guitar picks to audience members, he reached for my hand and firmly pressed the guitar pick in my hand with a big, shiny grin back.

b) Samstag, 12. Juni 1993, Cologne, Muengersdorfer Stadion. U2's ZOOropa tour. I don't remember much beyond Bono being all in black with those "The Fly" sunglasses and there was a landing strip stage piece that he postured on. I think that I thought he was a little arrogant back then. And I'm pretty sure that I took a horrifically expensive taxi home from where the train wouldn't go beyond to get me back to Korschenbroich.

c) Jethro Tull & Procol Harum, Donnerstag, 10. Juni 1993, Westfalenpark. So this was an outdoors concert. I remember being fairly inebriated during the daytime and all glowy-teenagery but no boys around to appreciate it. And I remember observing to myself how geezer-y those two bands' members seemed (the people - I never saw their members,) though one of them had a keyboardist I probably thought to myself at the time was do-able, not knowing, at the time, of course, at all what the doing of do-able was like. Oddly, my first thought upon finding this ticket and another U2 one was..."I've been in Dortmund?"

d) Van Morrison, Freitag, 2. Oktober 1992. This was a unique experience. None of my acquaintances could go with me, and I had somehow finnagled permission to go to Cologne. I am almost certain that I lied to my parents and said that I was going with friends. What ultimately happened was this: I took the train to Cologne, took a taxi to a warehouse in what seemed to seventeen-year-old me like the middle of nowhere, and the warehouse was filled with grown-ups, swaying or standing still. And Van Morrison's voice was vibrant and thick like syrup and I stood there like a kid who wakes during a party its parents are having. He played "Moondance" and I was giddy with that unschooled "I know that one" feeling. It was this little adventure.

e) U2 Zoo TV Tour Donnerstag, 4. Juni 1992. Westfalenhallen, Dortmund. Again: "I've been to Dortmund?" I remember this concert in that I saw almost none of it. I spent the whole concert kissing my then-boyfriend. Some random guy (Jon something-or-other) scribbled a note in my yearbook about that concert that read something like: "Incidentally, did either of you see that concert, or was it entirely peripheral?" Yeah, it was peripheral.

f) Santana, Freitag, 24. April 1992. Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful concert. Nothing but trite descriptions spring to mind. (As if the rest of this has been so, what - original, Amanda?)

g) Jethro Tull, Montag 21 Okt. 91. Grugahalle, Essen ("I've been to Essen?") My first non-alcoholic high. For some reason all I remember is "Thick as a Brick," sitting in riser-bleacher-type seats and thinking that the audience below ebbed in waves. In my mind, the concert is quiet and calm.

I'd been to several concerts before and many dozens after, but those tickets were together in a little stack with my Brown ID (I look like Wednesday Addams in that picture) and my Lufthansa miles card and thumbing through them made me just think..."Awww...high school me."

Two Moons in Winter

This morning upon awakening I peeked through my curtains and observed what seemed to be two moons, setting just above the building across the street from my bedroom. One shone brightly, more intensely than usual, I thought, like its wattage had been raised. That moon, the real one, had a huge splotch that looked like a bull arching its back in a leap. The fainter one, I realized groggily, was the first moon's reflection in my window, hanging a hand span away from its original.

After realizing there weren't really two moons orbiting Earth, I thought - wouldn't that be something, to have two moons. Every evening, I imagined, we'd all look up and think, what are the moons like tonight? And one would be over here, and the other one would be over there, or obscured by a cloud, and someone might say, oh, I can only see one of our moons.

I've been hooked on these Crocodile Creek placemats and things at Whole Foods. I just love the bright colors and the little factoids in the borders. The other evening, while giving my son his bath above the kitchen sink, I was reminded by a placemat that Jupiter has over 60 moons. Which probably led to my muddled train of thought this morning. Maybe my brain thought that Earth, lonely with its sole pet satellite, grew another...



Amanda Welvers