The Rapture Of A Northern Maritime

There were no berries this year, on Ingmarso. We traded them in, apparently, for sun. Day after day of sun. No rain means few berries, and the ones that do grow are small and dry. Even the moss on the rocks was crisp.

I arrived Monday morning, and was at the mainland harbor by midday. Clouds briefly overhead.

We took a boat to my stepfamily's house Some time, not too long after we arrived, the sun began to set. I watched from the steps.

Eventually some darkness. Even in the long days of Swedish summer it gets dark eventually.

My youngest sister and her family arrived later that night. But we woke up early in the morning and went to swim in the fresh water pond behind the house.

A dry forest crunches underfoot.

Ponds, however, are ponds. My nephew fell in. The rest of us got out covered in pond vegetation. Commonly known as slime. It was a wild time. Other bacchanalia included frog-catching and fishing with worms off the dock.

The next day we took a boat out into the Baltic. One can say many things about this part of the world. None of them complex.

Granite rocks slope directly into brackish water. The sky is wide, the sea brightly lit. There are houses, here and there. Boats, here and there. More boats than houses. More trees than boats. More sky than anything. Well, except perhaps sea.

The Stockholm Archipelago is either a place simply defined, or a place of worship for the erstwhile soul. Imagine Gregorian chants, only blue, and windy. Some people like the tropics best. Others prefer the blasted purity of a Northern maritime.

The thing is, it's just so beautiful. We walked to the harbor, where there were boats, as is common in harbors.

The next day we went to Sandhamn. On what can only be called a yacht. We flew the Swedish flag, of course.

We passed the Royal Yacht Harbor, where royals keep their, well, yachts.

We passed houses. A small one.

A red one.

We went to sleep. We got up. We took the smaller boats to a smaller island. Where children played and made the rocks into worlds. I remember what that was like, when I was small.

The sky was pretty blue.

You can survive the sea, maybe. You can survive the sky, maybe, But the next sight, and there will be one more and then another, will roll your eyes back into your head. I said several times that if this kept up I might faint. I should perhaps have worn a life preserver on the boat, to float, overcome, when I careened overboard.

With so little on the horizon, one's middle opens a space in recognition. You swoon but you remain. All the voices and startles left over from running an ordinary life take their leave. Consciousness stays. Which means you meditate without trying. Or maybe the landscape itself recites, " Sky, land, water, sky, land, water," until you reach a clear mind.

One gains perspective, floating, head visible, on a large dark blue green barely salt sea.

It is a time when empty means beautiful. Not lonely. Not void. Not sorrow. It convinces you that man's natural state is rising joy and elation.

On the last day, my stepbrother-in-law and one of my sisters and I took a hike a little off the beaten track. I found room for water-lilies. There's more room for beauty than I would have guessed.

As though every breath is some kind of drug.


Images: By me, except the red house and Swedish flag, by my brother-in-law.
Note: My apologies for the breathlessness here but there's really nothing else that I could say. We will return to regular immediately.

How To Have A Good Mood Day, Or, Saturday Morning at 9:48am

On any given day, there is almost nothing I have to do. I'm not working. The nest is empty. You'd think, as I did when I was busy with work or children or both, that this life is paradise. Uh, no. I'm not complaining, mind you. But it turns out happiness isn't just about not getting bossed around. Not just about removing external demands on your time. Because you are always subject to the demands of your self. And the self can be a pretty persnickety master.

Some days I am giddy and happy, almost all day long. Some days I am nagged by little jabs of distress, or an underlying feeling of dread. A very first world problem, as they say, but when that's where you live, that's what you face. Time without demands has focused me on how to put myself into a good mood as much as possible. I'm not kidding. I've been experimenting. Seems that if I have the privilege of not working, it's my responsibility to enjoy my freedom as much as possible. Which requires a good mood.

If the attempt below hints at hubris, please excuse me in advance. High WASPs believe in prophylactic apologies. I do not mean to imply that I am wise, or evolved, or even a spokesperson for the project of happiness. Just had some time to spare.

Here's what I have found.

1. Get a good night's sleep or you are man down from the git go. Drink little alcohol - or none, eat a very light dinner, shut down the computer at least an hour before bed, make sure you have a good book for those final moments awake under the covers, let in cool night air or engineer some, drink just enough and not too much water. There is nothing more predictive of a good mood day than a good night's sleep.

2. Spend some time noticing and enjoying the weather. That's easy in a California summer. It's hard to feel gray under so much blue sky. But almost every kind of weather has something good about it. The noon light on a gray day, the sound of rain hitting windows, evenings when high humidity locations cool off a little bit. Dinner at 8pm, as the temperature finally falls to 80 degrees. Or, if none of that is possible, internal weather. A fire in the fireplace. Do not discount your really strong air conditioner.

3. Create a to-do list that matches your capabilities. A couple of short-term things, tasks with deadlines, or stuff easily done that creates more mental health that it takes away. For me that's removing visual clutter, folding laundry, clearing up a counter. But also make daily progress on what you really care about. Your heart-felt priorities. For some people, that's helping others. Contributing to the world. For some, it's moving towards a personal goal. Again, I'm not talking about how to be a good person here, who can say what that means? I'm just presenting my research on how to have a good mood day.

4. Develop a routine that allows you to accomplish a lot on your to do list without having to think about when or how. Structure your habits so they support your tasks and goals. I find I exercise better if I schedule in classes to attend. I go to yoga at 1pm, while the walk I meant to take at 8:30am is mysteriously postponed until it's too late. And why it's too late is one of those metabolic mysteries that must simply be obeyed. I write when I have finished my first cup of tea. That way I don't have to think about it. The effort of planning and deciding takes a toll on cheer. Why do you think people take cruises? Apply a cruise ship mentality to your day. A Lindblad cruise, more than Carnival, but a cruise nevertheless.

5. Move around. Music is good. I love Pandora radio. Note that I am not saying you have to "work out." Just moving around as much as possible is enough to start up a good mood. Formal exercise is a long term effort for health and vanity, but it doesn't make me any happier than dancing while I clean the house, or weeding in the back yard for an hour or two.

6. Get outside. Scientists think they can prove that nature makes us happy. Glorious redwood forests and wildflower meadows may lift our hearts but we can even find a little nature in some plants on a balcony. If you stop reading and consider, my guess is that you know exactly where your nearest nature is. We tend to know these things.

7. Find a vista, if you can. A beach, a hillside, the 15th floor, doesn't matter. Studies show that people feel better with an uninterrupted view where someone or something has their back.* I can see the sky out my living room window, as I sit on my sofa. I look up a lot.

8. Use food like medicine. Not as an addiction, but as preventive, curative, medicine. Lean protein will help you to feel full. Definitely a good mood moment. Lots of vegetables and fruits are good for digestion. Another good mood moment. Chocolate, in moderation. And comfort food from your personal history - with the caveat that in this day and age, given what we know, it's going to be very difficult to sustain a good mood if you have eaten in a way that doesn't support your health and appearance. Sometimes our histories subvert our happiness, and that's a larger project. Worth undertaking.

9. Talk to one person you love, only to connect, only to enjoy their being and remember why you love them. Talking to people about whether they have finished the estimate, or where they put their sunglasses, or how they need to get to the table now or dinner will be cold and disgusting, isn't a moment of connection. When we let the presence of someone we love fill our hearts, to my way of thinking, that is the goodest of all good moods.

10. Some days you may wake up and know that you are going to suffer. There is nothing wrong with one day spent lying on your sofa with magazines, DVDs, Hulu, a good trashy novel. A mental health day, if you will. Indulging in recreation has few repercussions.

11. On the days when all this fails, go easy on yourself. You eat too much chocolate, tomorrow is another day. Don't fall into a spiral of eating more just because you ate some. Same with alcohol. You left all those papers on the desk, unsorted? No matter. We are humans. We wrap buildings, we aim for peace, we cry at commercials. We get confused. There is value, on occasion, in acceptance.

12. Finally, don't borrow trouble, as our grandmothers might have said, then. Stay in the moment, as the Buddhists might say, now. And do. Any time you have a minute that belongs to you, notice. And if it feels you have no time that belongs to you, make some. Because even I, with no boss, no job, no children at home, no deadlines, can feel as though I have no time that is my own. So it must be something we set up, that feeling. And must be something we can break down.

If I try to pinpoint the things from this list that I have found to have the most impact, I'd say sleep, movement, and accomplishing any absolute deadline tasks. Then, don't borrow trouble, because at bottom most of us are natively glad to be alive. We can set our bodies up to feel cheerful, and quiet our minds to give that feeling some space.

This is all rather touchy feely. Let's pretend we're not talking emotions. Our human frailty. The short sweetness of life. Let's pretend it's just research. Dry, rational, objective. Thank you. Much appreciated. Otherwise I'd have to put my tongue back into my cheek. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful weekend.

* I read about this vista study a long time ago, before the Internet. I've never forgotten it, but can't find it now. Apparently random natural patterns are also good for us, like leaves in the wind, light on the water.
**I know that for some, body chemistry means that native happiness is elusive. Depression is a different kettle of fish, one which I don't know much about.

Why Do They Call Paris "The City Of Light?"

Why do they call Paris the "City of Light?" All cities have light. And dark, for that matter.

Another look at the neon signs and people on a 5eme Arondissement street at midnight.

I have a theory. I believe that we may shut down our perceiving faculties in the face of too much beauty. Paris is unrelentingly beautiful. It's only when the light changes that we actually see, provoked by surprise. The city reveals itself, particularly.

Apparently the real answer is that Paris was the first place to adopt street lighting. Well. So they say.

Sunday morning I was intent on showing my friend the Sainte Chapelle. We walked over a bridge. The sun came out.

We walked up into the 2eme etage.

And out, past sandwich carts, and Notre Dame. Some clouds passed by.

Back in Belgium, I think my suitcase was a little sad. The light is a little more routine, in Belgium. Good thing they have red trains.

Images: me

In Which We Discover That Laundry Is The Meaning Of Life, Or, Saturday Morning at 10:30am.

Seems like that moment in the year when the Ferris wheel scrapes bottom. That small instant when we wonder, "Are we going up again?' Skies particularly gray. Air particularly still. Or windy. Either way. This is the time all that holiday festivity is supposed to prepare us for.

Except we're just creatures, and the passage of time and seasons is strong. Given that I'm innately, almost stupidly cheerful, this doesn't make me too sad. Reflective, yes. A little yearny. Bear with me, if I can ask your forbearance. When the cyclical process of being human pauses in the down notch, go there. Reflect. Or read other people who are doing the same thing. Because, in the way of animal species, much of what is meaningful we share.

Some young women are getting married. Mouse at Souris Mariage. Hannah, at i doux. Congratulations, girlikins. I have always loved weddings. Late summer afternoon, sweet white flowers hither and thither, strains of music over the stucco walls of a courtyard, clink of silverware on plates, high heels in gravel. The grandmother, standing by her chair, caught looking away, large South American topaz earrings visible.

Some people are having babies. Our Little Haus. A Suburban Housewife in Training. I Pick Pretty. Except right now she's I Pick Feeling Fat And Like This May Never End. That Wife. Make Mine A Mojito is staying off the baby train. If she got on, I guess she'd be Make Mine A Vanilla Whey Protein Smoothie No Wait I Hate Vanilla It Makes Me Barf. La Belette Rouge is, after some time, thinking about adopting. Congratulations.

Maxminimus's friend had a baby. So he who loves Weejuns (in the way of Like Water for Chocolate), wrote about his own fatherhood. Evidently fathers love their daughters. So far beyond reason that reason is teeing up at the 15th hole while fathers are blitzing the quarterback then getting up one more time covered in mud.

Some people are rearing children. Cate Subrosa. Who is moving her baby away from pacifiers. Entertaining Mom, who wouldn't really leave her kids at school over night, but jokes about it on Twitter. That's a good strategy for the bottom, look around and mock the barren, nasty, gravel-filled desert with no gas station in sight. Mock it good.

Penelope Trunk. Perhaps one of the most brilliant and peculiar bloggers out there. I've been reading her since before there were blogs. She made waffles for her boys and then cursed at them when she couldn't get everyone out the door in time for school. Felt bad. I don't know a mother who hasn't been there. We all told her that. But mutuality doesn't always make it OK. She doesn't want to swear at her kids, even though it's better than hitting them. When we hit bottom, even while swimming upwards barely holding our breath, we look down and vow to do better next time. Take a short, clear-eyed look at the sea floor.

And, then, now, some people are dying. Entertaining Mom's sister-in-law is dying of ovarian cancer. I am so sorry. Some have died. Miss Whistle's father-in-law died last week.

It's very difficult to say much of anything about death. It's both incomprehensible and irrefutable. All I can do is look out the window at wet yellow leaves on the gray slate patio and shake my head. Or leave Miss Whistle a comment and say, "I'm sorry for your loss. I'm thinking of you." Solitary musing doesn't get us very close to meaning. The social contract does.

I had a reader email me the other day. Her elderly neighbor had lost his wife after 45 years of marriage. She wanted to write him a note. Her usual monogrammed stationery was on order, not yet arrived. All she had was cards with one initial, gold, and lined envelopes, gold. She wondered if that paper would make her note of condolence too much About Me. I agreed. Send a plain folded note. Cream. White. Ivory. "I am so sorry for your loss." Bring food.

I should get those leaves off the patio. My Christmas tree is recycled, the ornaments down. I should organize them into the right boxes. The sheets from my son's bed are clean, in a heap on the daybed. He's back at school. I should fold laundry. One can sit on the sofa, rueful at the passage of time. But not for long. If there were an answer, surely, someone would know it. I am fully aware of concurrent futility and joy. This is most likely why yoga focuses so entirely on breathing.

4 Ways NOT To Shop At Big Box Stores

Big box stores make me whimper.

I think I know why. We've all got our ways to understand the world. My professor father taught me to read very early, and I must have decided reading was such an efficient system that it ought to work on everything. I was little. Little ones think like that.

Look.
Scan.
Understand.

I go by shapes and words. Big box stores aren't friendly environments. This weekend I made an extended foray through Fry's (a local, 100% full concentration computer geek store), Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Crate and Barrel. Just saying those names makes me reel and stumble.

Walk into Fry's. This is what it looks like. At least this was what it looked like once I could finally open my eyes. The problem compounded by relative ignorance of technical terminology.


When I am asked, "Have you found what you are looking for," how can I know? I am still trying to differentiate rectangles from triangles. All I know is that I am in the land of irregular shapes. I can only tell the sales person, "I am looking for cable, which is tubular, and everything here seems to have been unnaturally made into squares." The only words I can see mean very little. I know USB. Universal Serial Bus. Otherwise, gibberish. If they hung large graphic representations of the cables within, like those abstractions of people crossing the street, I would maybe be OK. Maybe.

The sign below is made for people like me. Lost in a useless scan for meaning, we catch sight of this sign, and our last flash of neural activity says "Yes! Yes, I can ASK someone! Words are available! Nouns I can make sense of!" We will ignore the fact that the friendly sign appears to be pointing only to another sign.


The retail equivalent of Papua New Guinea. Goodness.

Next, Best Buy. OK. The boxes' shapes correspond a little bit to what they contain. The words are bigger. I can walk on in hope. Maybe I've made it to Poland.


Then Bed Bath and Beyond. Aha. Scotland. My language will be spoken. Fewer boxes. These shapes I know. Those are things you find in kitchens. See? I'm doing better. The Book of Bed Bath and Beyond I can read.


Crate and Barrel. The traveler finds comfort. They are taking even more things OUT of the boxes. Thank you! Not only can I read, I can take notes. I can perform exigesis. The shopping equivalent of Chicago. And yes, please, I would like a shiny new ice cream scoop. Whether I eat much ice cream or not.


Were I to have wandered a little further into the Stanford Shopping Center, say, to Neiman Marcus, or Wilkes Bashford, I would have come home. No boxes at all. No need for words. I can recognize articles of clothing at first glance, especially when displayed so lovingly on mannequins. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Clearly I lack skills required for 2010. And dwindling fortunes.

Helpful hints? Anyone? How do you shop in large retail outlets? Are there strategies? I can't shop Frette forever.

10 Things That Make Me Happy, Or, Saturday Morning at 10:10am. In 2010.

I have been tagged, for 10 things that make me happy, by One Fabulous Mom. She of the tummy tuck that worked, a writing career, and the newly-launched 40 Things To Do Before You Turn 40 blog. Thank you One Fabulous...

Let us consider happiness.

Not contentment. Happiness. As it turns out, I'm a natively contented person, for better or for worse. Just genetics, not praiseworthy. I don't do depression, tending on my difficult days towards anxiety. Nor rage, tending in those moments of annoyance towards snaps of irritation.

So happy, to me, is the feeling that rises unbidden in your heart. That which begins a smile. Unasked. Surprising.

Definition achieved, here is my list. For today. Tomorrow will almost certainly be different.

1. Hot water.
Hot showers, hot baths, hot dishwater on my hands. Don't know why, but it releases a noticeable burst of endorphins. Those pesky little hormones have a lot to do with the elusive bird of happiness.

2. Completion.
The satisfying stroke of a pen through an item on the to do list. Click of the customer service agent hanging up, her final words, "Yes, it's all taken care of," ringing happily in my ears.

3. Resonance.
Sitting next to someone I love, realizing in that moment we resonate. That were we to vibrate, cellos. Or trumpets, on occasion.

4. Diamonds.
Sparkle. The more the better. 1 large one, 2 medium ones, 50 small ones. Pins, necklaces, earrings, rings. I'd like nothing more than to spend the day at a diamond broker, sitting in the corner, watching. Maybe touching once or twice. Oh who am I kidding? I'd want to plunge my hand into a large bowl of them and run diamonds through my fingers. Do you think they have large bowls like this in the diamond district anywhere? That they'd be willing to let a slightly cracked middle-aged Californian indulge her fantasies?

5. Clear surfaces.
That moment when no laundry is left on the table, no dishes on the counter, no smudges on the mirror.

6. Sky.
Blue, gray, white, roiled by clouds, caught between high buildings, long and low over a freeway. Lighted. Except when I'm in an airplane. Then I pretend there's no such thing.

7. Certain foods.
Clouds of steam off the plate. The first bite, heat. Next bite, rough garlic. Third bite, ginger. Final trace of something vegetal. Or Sichuan numbing spice. Om nom nom nom.

8. Your comments.
Makes me happy to read the stories people tell of what they wore or thought or did. Questions. Questions make me really happy.

9. Waiting with anticipation in the lobby of a spa.
Who invented spas? I need to find them and thank them. Is there anything better, in the immediate sense, than knowing that someone is going to smooth lotions on you any minute now? It will smell good. It will feel good. And for the next few hours, you are on leave from any to do list.

10. Waking up in the morning.
Oh, hello! World! Thank you!

For the 11th, which is probably the 11th on an infinite list, let me add other people's writing. This morning it was ELS at Mon Avis, Mes Amis. I've mentioned her before, but let me do it again. This is only a small, small sample. Click for more.

"We went out one night onto the frozen lake, riding snowmobiles under the stars. We stopped in the middle and listened to the moaning of the ice, sitting huddled on reindeer skins, drinking hot berry juice and hoping to buggery that the damn lights would show. Did they hell. The Colonel took a spectacular tumble on the ice and snapped a thigh muscle, so we enjoyed a more earthly son et lumiere. There are now Samis in Bjorkliden who can swear like English squaddies."

Yeah. What she said. Have a wonderful weekend.

How To Survive A (Very Large) Family Christmas, Or, Saturday Morning at 10:10am

I hope everyone, celebrating or not, had a wonderful time yesterday. Let me now review time-honored principles of wonderfulness on Christmas, and other family gatherings.

1. Cook good food. In our case, roast chickens stuffed with lemons and rosemary, (or apples and onions), a rib-eye roast of grass-fed beef with Bearnaise sauce, sauteed kale with olive oil, chile peppers and vinegar, (or pancetta), roast potatoes, salad with home grown mandarins and avocados, and a spice cake with whipped cream, home grown Meyer lemon syrup, homemade caramel sauce, raspberries, and strawberries.

2. Sing songs. Here that meant Swedish Christmas carols alternating with Mariah Carey singalongs. My Mac on the linen-covered table under a crystal chandelier lit with candles. "All I Want For Christmas, Is You...Baby."

3. Drink just enough alcohol and not too much. This is cross-cultural and needs no explanation.

4. Spend some time in quiet together, after the chaos. We retired to the living room and sat, in companionable conversation, listening to YouTube video songs as requested by the group. Aretha Franklin at 14 singing gospel; Ray LaMontagne's, "Jolene."

5. Muster for good will to all. We were 16, from 5 different families, speaking 2 languages. With various histories of past happiness, past sadness, past arguments. Divorces, deaths, sorrows. But, precisely because we were so many people and were so aware of the possibility of misunderstandings (or worse, understandings of things shouldn't have been said), we focused on goodwill and kindness. It has not always been so.

(Oh, and it doesn't hurt when your mother, for no reason whatsoever, gives your daughter a necklace. From the family, although, "Not in the direct line." Originally for a little girl. 6 rose gold medallions the size of thumbnails, strung from a chain, spelling out a name in a diamond-covered, dangling, monogram. Teeny diamonds, but, still. I promise, I am very, very thankful for good fortune. Up in my little 3 bedroom house it's not so visible. Here at my mother's, well, it's a lot.)

6. Finally, luck. Luck beyond fortune. Sometimes you have good days and sometimes not. The same goes for families. This one was a good day for ours. I hope for yours as well. If this year was a miss, luckily, Christmas will be here again in 12 months for another try.

Saturday Morning at 6:29am

My mother is visiting. I picked her up at the airport yesterday. Difficulties.

My mother has resolutely refused to admit new technology into her life. She doesn't use a computer. She may still call refrigerators, "iceboxes." Most importantly, given air travel in the 21st century, no cellphone.

Imagine now that planes are severely delayed coming out of Santa Barbara. Two hours or more. Imagine flight changes. A daughter, due to pick her mother up at San Francisco Airport, checks the Internet and sees the delays. It's the 21st century, right? But can't reach her mother to confirm the schedule. No cellphone, right? The daughter plays it safe, assumes her mother is on an earlier plane, and sets off to begin circling the airport, waiting for her mother to emerge.

The mother thought she was being met inside. The daughter was sure the mother would come out. They were both wrong.

Now, the mother had, in fact, called her daughter's house, her other daughter's house, and her own house, leaving messages with new schedule information. Answering machines having made the list of sanctioned technology. She used the payphone at the Santa Barbara Airport. None of us were home. We were all out with our cellphone. The mother doesn't remember any cellphone numbers. Because cellphones, let us imagine, shouldn't exist.

But, because they do exist, nobody answers landlines at airports anymore. White courtesy phones, gone. (Why were they white?) Nobody, certainly not me, circling the airport for an hour or so, not knowing what flight my mother was on, nor whether she had arrived, can find even one person to talk to. A person who might look for a well-turned out 77-year old woman, standing alone, with her suitcase. A person who might find that woman, take her out to the curb, to wait. For the circling daughter.

I didn't mind circling. That's not the issue. I just hated the thought of my cheerful, elegant mother, waiting for an hour with no way to know, was I ever coming to get her?

When I finally got the calls from my sister and my mother's husband, both of whom came home to landlines at the same time to find my mother's voice messages, I left my car at the curb, grabbed my bag, ran inside, and raced frantically up and down through 6 baggage claims, hoping that the overly zealous airport security staff would turn a blind eye to my illegal parking. I found my small mother. She was well-dressed, as always. Her new traveling outfit, as she explained to me later. A dark knit tunic and pants. A cropped kimono style cashmere sweater in pistachio. Gold necklace and matching bracelet, modern, clean lines. Swedish gold earrings that look like models of buildings seen from the air. Comfortable shoes. Even Grandes Dames sometimes concede to their feet.

Her feet were fine. No hair out of place. But she was shaken.

I have vowed, silently and out loud, never to be the kind of person who mutters, in a cranky, querulous tone, "The world is going to hell in a hand-basket..." The grumbling woman. How then to avoid her? My mother has great style. Great attitude. She's more elegant on a bad day than most of us are at our best. Always cheerful. Continued contribution to society.

But she has chosen to avoid a new set of tools while the world's processes have evolved assuming those tools would be in place. It seemed like a small thing, originally. Why learn to use a computer? She didn't work in an office. Maybe *Not Grumbling* isn't quite enough.

Research has shown that learning is difficult as you age because short-term memory declines, along with patience and ability to tolerate frustration. That's where "hell in a hand-basket" comes from.

The world is going where we cannot. So we insult its voyage.

Aging is no different than living. It's tough to balance the desire to keep trying, to be brave and fly alone, against the need to learn new, boring, annoying stuff. Tough to know when to push on, in the self-help, be-all-you-can-be mode, and when to make peace, to accept limitations that won't yield even to optimism or style. Everything I say is true as I know it. I do not know if it matters.

Saturday Morning at 9:17am

The hostess of the humble bungalow left the following much appreciated comment to my post about the Minimalist Luxury Credo.

"#5 is puzzling me. I am still digesting. How does one "make someone feel bad" about not being able to have something?
We have choices and why would someone "choose to feel bad" ?"

My 5th point in that credo being,

"Never make anyone else feel bad for what they can't have. Because, if you pare away everything unnecessary, courtesy has to make the cut."

Other commenters felt this ought to be point #1.

I have thought about it ever since.

Why? I call this blog Privilege. Not without understanding the ramifications. (The - dash is only an artifact of my inability to customize title spacing and something I would gladly eliminate.) I believe that privilege requires me to live in gratitude and appreciation. As you might imagine, I don't succeed anywhere near as often as I would like. No one could say that virtuous intent is my most salient characteristic.

Still. Fancy little black dresses. A generous present giver who affords them. In the wearing of fancy goods, maybe I ought to consider the feelings of those who see me. Those with soft hearts, that is. I cannot be the keeper of all the hearts of strangers. I cannot watch out for the hearts of those I'm fighting, as in the way of the corporate world. I will not watch out for the hearts of those trying to make amends for their own distress through dominance.

But I can watch out for the hearts of my friends, and my family, and those I would like to bring into that circle.

The same, in some ways, is true for physical attributes. Despite complaints and shopping protests, despite a few years of an eating disorder in my 20's, my weight is not a real problem. Partly a result of privilege. My family ate well for generations. My mother spent her real intellect and considerable time cooking so that my father's heart would be protected from high triglycerides. We ate stir-fried broccoli and parchment steamed fish for comfort food. Now, despite my lost job, I can afford to shop at Whole Foods. Privilege.

Sure, there's choice. Sure, I worked hard over the years. Sure, I keep eating broccoli, live modestly in some ways, and save for the things I care about. But, I feel deep in my heart, it's privilege.

I understand that others might feel differently. Use different parameters. I'm not making a blanket statement. Let no one take this as a condemnation of other thought systems.

But me, for this week, I'm trying something out. Every day I will get up, and consider what I wear in light of, "How will this make people feel?" Rather than how will I feel. Rather than how will I look. I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, or self-improvement programs. Perhaps a first.

An experiment. And, in the way of experiments, who knows if there's anything to be learned?

Saturday Morning at 7:17am

It's November. Temperatures that count for cold here. Heat is on. I have a very loud forced air system, and the sound makes me think of winter storms and winds lashing and windows rattling in their frames. Even though the sky outside is blue and all the plants in my backyard still green.

Who says we don't have seasons in California?

In Which I Am On A Surfboard Trying To Stand Up

I've been tagged. By Stephanie of even*cleveland. What, she asks, is the 10th photo in my 1st folder? Of course, wild confusion ensued, given my recent change to the Mac environment and my resultant lack of any idea how this operating system deals with trivial things like, um, folders, and um, applications, and um, the relationship between the two. Nonetheless, here is the 10th photo from my ONLY folder consisting solely of photos.

That's me. That's Hawaii. And that's a surfboard I'm trying to stand up on. It's Christmas, 2006.

My children are somewhere else, that day, on that same bay. They are standing up.

I tag Academic, Hopeful.

The Summer Of Love?

I, for all my inner yearnings, have not an iota of Artsy Cousin in my personal style. Oh, occasionally I think about it. I consider what it must be like to throw together a creative outfit, possessed of je ne sais quoi, dripping panache. But therein do not lie my talents. I'm better at the appropriate. The luxurious. And comfortable shoes.

(Audi? At Fashion For Nerds? Yeah, absolutely. She has Latvian socks. Jill has Global just about everything...)

The closest I ever came involved a cultural imperative. Otherwise known as the teen years. It was 1972ish. We were post-hippies. We had been too young to March on Washington, too young for any Summer of Love unless it was the Monkees we were loving. That didn't stop us from buying Mexican maxi-dresses. We had long hair. And worried about boys. What else is new?

I'm not sure I ever wore mine. I think it I put it on once. Maybe twice. But I do not believe that I ever left the house. My acts of bravery reserved for other areas. Making today the first time this dress has ever seen the light of, well, virtual day. I don't know if I kept it because I love the periwinkle blue color, or because I love the idea of myself with a wreath of flowers in my hair, muddy feet, arms outstretched. Never happened, of course.


Have a wonderful weekend. With flowers in all the appropriate spots. Appropriate, of course, broadly defined.

*This dress resembles Slynnro's header, no?

What Is The Point Of Style?

The Sartorialist, September 2009

There's that moment when you stop what you are doing, and think, "Wait. What's the point?" When you need a corner to come back to in the face of questions. This isn't always simple. I can't find satisfaction in situational answers. I want what my software friends call, "the root cause." I want the answer that doesn't pose more questions.

So what's the point of style? Here's my personal answer. I can't know what the point of style is unless I ask myself, what's the point of life? Really. I mean, that's the source. Life is the root cause. And, as I am not religious, I come up with only two answers.

Life is short. Life is unbearably sweet. But it ends. I can only assume that life itself is the point. And those feelings that cause us to keep living. Joy. Joy and all its minions. The point of life must be to bring joy to yourself. Or to others. Both would be good.

Of course, in the living, not so simple. Style is not something you say to yourself alone. You say it to others. Which means it's part of the social contract. Which means you may not want to wear that pink boa every day, despite the joy of blush and rose and magenta and the branching patterns of feathers. Obligation may be involved. Social codes, sometimes complex, may be speaking loudly in the background. But it is possible, if social contracts prevent your style from bringing you joy, well, it is possible that it's time to reconsider. Change isn't the end of the world.

I write about a certain kind of style. But I want to be clear. High WASP? What I say is true. But it matters only inasmuch as you are amused. Or you enjoy a certain kind of persona, a certain kind of commitment to a certain social contract. This kind of look. And only if it makes you happy. I'm telling a story. No strings.

Right then. Carry on.

Rapture. Finding Lunch On I5.

I5 is a long and ugly road. Takes you past tumbleweeds and dusty orchards and feedlots full of hot, sluggish cattle waiting to be processed. Processed is a euphemism. You will see signs saying things like "Congress Created Dust Bowls" attached to wire fencing running alongside. Not much resemblance to the California of our dreams. However, I5 also makes it possible to drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to parts of Los Angeles in under six hours. My youngest sister and her family live in Los Angeles. I live in the Bay Area. My sister had just moved houses, and she asked for a visit. Down we went. And, three days later, back we came.

Lunch on roadtrips is usually such a quandary. Do you steel yourself for yet another encounter with the corporate deep fryer? Or do you risk eating actual food made by actual humans when said actual humans might do a bad job? Usually we do fast food. Long tradition born of the horrors of small, bored children in a car. But this time we had my mother along. And it didn't seem fair to make her eat Mc-Anything.

On the way down we had seen a sign saying, "Indian Food, Veg, Non-Veg." I know that's a clue the food will be real. That's how they say it in India. That's how they say it in Bay Area Indian restaurants, of which there are a good number. I was curious. We stopped.


"Taste of India". It was in a rest area. Not even a town. Just a collection of gas stations and eating places in the sun. Did I mention it was 103 degrees? In we went. The Bollywood movie playing on the TV hanging from the ceiling gave me comfort. The young woman taking our order gave me comfort, as did the purple walls and foil decorations hanging from the ceiling. I had been ready for the food to be awful but it was not. It was wonderful. You could tell it was homemade from ingredients you can find in nature. Each dish we ordered tasted different from every other dish. No one was pulling out the can of Annie's Asian Food Sauces and dousing the chicken with generic yellow.

I had chicken tandoori tikka. And mango lassi. The chicken was good to bite and to taste. The red sauce was tangy, maybe from tamarind. Onions and bell peppers had roasted and caramelized. We also had paneer palaak, creamed spinach with chunks of hard cheese. Spicy. Delicious.

It wasn't cheap. It wasn't fast. But I cannot tell you how much I love a random joy like this. Something unexpected. Unexpected and flirting with the absurd. Indian food and purple walls at a truck stop in inland California? Jolts you out of the let's-just-get-this-over-with part of travel. Fills you with happiness for people who set up a family restaurant and post a large sign by the side of something as big and industrial as I5. Reassures you that some level of risk is usually worth taking. Especially once you no longer have small, bored children in the car. Those with small, bored children are exempt.

If you drive over Labor Day, and find yourself on I5, the exit is Buttonwillow. Adding a sort of early 20th century English children's literature flavor to the entire experience.

Have a lovely weekend.

Rapture. Carnitas.

Some things are universal. Thank heavens. You know how it feels, when you are driving down the freeway, and thinking about the next couple of hours, you realize you are hungry, and then realize your favorite food is waiting for you at the next off-ramp?

Tacos. Carnitas. See that tomatillo salsa? The chopped red onions? The cilantro? Making my mouth water now even as I sit on my sofa with not a speck of pork in sight.


Best part is the side of pickled carrots. Hot. Vinegary.


Check is pretty nice too.


Gracias indeed. Rapture.

Just Because They Are Pretty

Here are some flowers. Just because they are pretty. No social analysis or class correlation. Although, now that I think about it, they do look a little bit like the flowers my mother organized for my youngest sister's wedding. Hmm. M. Foucault would probably say culture is inescapable. But for now, let's pretend I just find these pretty. Maybe some other people will too. And that's very nice.

Image: Flowerwild

Rapture Of Walking Without Music

Today I went for another walk in my neighborhood. I carried a new iPhone, since it's now my only telephone and I like to call Belgium when I walk. It occurred to me that my software-writing buddies had encouraged me to put all my iTunes music on my iPhone. I could, if I wanted, listen to music. So I gave it a try.

Disaster. I cannot walk and listen to songs at the same time. When I walk, I look. I look and think. Like reading a book, only I'm reading my surroundings line by line. When Elvis Costello started singing Alison I stopped dead on the suburban sidewalk and couldn't take another step. This was not productive. I turned off the music.

I am prone to sensory overload. To raptures. This might have been a clue early in life only I was probably too enraptured to notice.

Neighborhood Rapture

I went on a walk in my neighborhood yesterday morning. First I passed a boy and a girl playing in a front yard. I could hear them chattering in the language of Pretend. “Let’s say we went to the movies, OK?” Pretending to go to the movies as they skipped across their lawn. Then I passed a park. A Chinese grandmother swinging her granddaughter. An Indian grandfather swinging his grandson. California is diverse. I like that.

On the next street I passed a medium-sized girl playing basketball in her front yard. She lost control of her ball and it rolled into the street. I bounced it to her. It was pink. I passed another park. A little toddler with a head of ringlets and lovely toddler cheeks, playing with her nanny and wearing purple heart-shaped sunglasses, waved at me. Repeatedly. While smiling.

Then I passed a young couple kissing and giggling in their driveway. She had on a short black dress and espadrilles with black ties. I don’t know what he wore, I didn’t want to stare. Ahead of me was a woman walking too. About my age. She had a great figure. Good for her.

As I came around the final corner to loop back to my house, I saw that more neighborhood kids had come out. 5 or 6 of them were across the street in front of a yellow house. The big boys, say, 9, 10, 11, were shooting each other with Super Soakers. Then they mustered the younger kids who gathered, waiting, at the side gate to the house. Waiting obviously for someone to come out of the gate. And get ambushed by squirt guns at 9:30am on a Thursday morning.

Today I went for another walk. Twice people asked me for directions, contractors looking for my very own cul-de-sac, once a mother looking for daughter’s dorm room at Stanford University. I knew the answer both times, because I live here.

Life is just so fun.

Rapture. Toes.

Sometimes as I drive up 101 on the way to work I am seized by rapture. I find life to be a blinding light at which we can rarely bear to look.

Sometimes I think about whether I can afford a pedicure and if so whether I should have my toes painted blatant or demure pink.

Humanity. What to do about it?

The Knife of Covetousness

I would not want to return to the days of my grandparents. But unfortunately, I am not a simple soul content with the good earth. Even with a push mower. I covet things. I covet thing so much some times it makes my fingernails hurt. I get a longing in my gut. For things.

For High WASPs the passion of values is around aesthetics. Moral values are understated. Understood. The done thing. No need to discuss. It is the code and goes without saying. But taste? Taste? The determination of what is “good-looking”? What is “tacky”? In poor taste? For that we might shed blood.

When I see something beautiful I feel it like a knife in my teeth, steel against my tongue. For example. If I had to go back to the time of my grandparents this is what I would put on my 17th century refectory table. Linens or no linens. Everything else completely unornamented. Tall ivory candles. Oooooh. My precious.... (with a nod to Tolkien). The thingness of it is just so thingish. All that translucency. All those angles. All those fissures. Wait. Get me my lawn mower.

The Peak of Chic