We are a one-car family. Any time work calls me to destinations within a drivable distance, I just walk over to Congress Street and down towards Deering Oaks Park, past the imposing main post office to the Enterprise rental car office.
I was doing this yesterday in preparation for my annual trek to the NY Sheep & Wool Festival at Rhinebeck. This year's car rental was a little more tricky because I needed a vehicle big enough to accommodate a rowing machine.
No, I'm not such an exercise fanatic that I have to bring my equipment with me -- I was bringing it to give to my friend Jennifer Heverly, the eyes and hands behind Spirit-Trail Fiberworks.
What you need to know about Jennifer is that she is very good at multitasking. Not only does she provide a solid anchor of parenting to her two teenage kids (i.e. she resists the urge to throttle them on a daily basis), but she also does the books for her husband's landscape business while expertly running a very successful hand-dyed yarn business nearly single-handedly.
Jen's secret gift is that she can run on a treadmill while reading a book and spinning yarn. I'm serious. She runs on the treadmill, reads a book, and spins yarn (on an electric miniSpinner).
All at the same time.
Now you may understand why I was immediately intrigued when she expressed an interest in my once-loved and now-languishing Concept 2 rowing machine. I needed to see just how many other things she'd be able to accomplish while rowing across her imaginary ocean.
I was walking down the hill toward the car rental place when I spotted a young woman up ahead. She was crouched low to the ground, holding something in her hand. The knees to her jeans were torn. This particular street isn't that super, so I immediately wondered if I was witnessing some new kind of drug-taking posture. Was the body language furtive enough? Was she hiding something? Do people crouch in order to shoot up? Then I realized she was just holding an iPhone and framing a picture of the small patch of dirt surrounding a spindly sidewalk tree.
She glanced at me, quickly stood up, gave a nod -- was it annoyance or embarrassment? -- and walked away.
I was intrigued by the thought of her applying her filters and hitting the "share" button, causing ripples of smiles and likes and comments from a whole virtual community I couldn't see. All I saw was a person, a stranger, who made brief eye contact before disappearing. Was she friendlier online? Who did they perceive her to be? And who do people perceive me to be online? Am I that person? Am I being genuine?
Further down the hill, I spotted another woman. She was cruising toward me in a zippy motorized wheelchair. She was smiling, basking in the sun, clearly enjoying the ease of the still-iceless, snowless sidewalks of October Maine. From a distance, our eyes locked in a smile that became words of greeting as we got closer. She was present, and I was present, and I no longer felt quite so confused or alone or doubtful of myself.
At the car rental place, two well-dressed couples with heavy southern drawls were just returning their car and discussing their return to the cruise ship they had taken into town. "Kennebunkport was so naaaaas," said one woman to the other.
My customer service guy asked if a Jeep something-or-other would be big enough for me. "I don't know," I replied, "it needs to hold a rowing machine..." He knew I was on a business trip to New York, and this threw him for a loop. Spotting his confusion, I said, "No, I'm not in the rowing-machine business, I'm going to sheep and wool festival. The machine is a gift for a friend." He nodded, and we completed our inspection of the car.
And the rowing machine, it did fit.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Friday, July 3, 2015
What Might Have Been
Every year or two, we like to come back to San Francisco, walk our old streets, visit our old haunts, and dwell on that eternally unproductive question, "What if we'd stayed?"
For the last week we've been on one such Road Not Taken Tour disguised as a vacation, this time staying in a house (thanks, AirBnB!) just a few blocks from where we used to live.
It's a sweet little place with plenty of room for us both. It's quiet, with a charming kitchen, huge back deck, a YARD, and a nice big office down below. Pretty much what we would've tried to get, many years ago, had we decided to stay in San Francisco and forget the whole Maine idea. I wanted to be in a place that would let us pretend, if just for a week, that we'd never left.
We've spent the last week sitting out on the deck and talking about how we'd do the garden differently. We've gotten produce at our old market. We've had friends over for dinner. We've redecorated (in our minds) the living room. We've even eavesdropped on the neighbors and decided which ones we'd like, which ones…not so much.
A few observations after a week in San Francisco:
1. This no-mosquitoes thing is pretty nice. Ditto the black flies and horse flies and ticks carrying Lyme disease.
2. Public transportation. So, so very nice. For $35 you can get a 7-day pass that gets you on all the buses and trolleys and cable cars. There is no better, more inexpensive way to see a city than by riding its buses.
3. The drought is no joke. I've never seen it so dry here. The owners of our house are gone for weeks but left all the cushions on the patio furniture, explaining that they didn't see any rain in the forecast. Friends in Oakland can't remember the last time it rained.
4. I don't know if it's gotten louder or if I've just gotten accustomed to the quiet, but this city roars. I sit in the sunshine on the back deck, trees and birds and flowers galore, surrounded by the Noe Valley millionaires, yet in the background, always, is a roar as if I were sitting next to the ventilation system for a large hospital.
5. From our deck I can peer into at least 100 windows. I have to work to tune out neighboring conversations. There is no privacy. I realize how very lucky we are that, from our Maine porch, we look out across miles of fields, water, and woods, all the way to distant mountains, with nothing but the occasional blinking cell tower to remind us that other people are around. What a rarity.
6. The Pride Parade. For me, the most moving moment came after the sea of Apple employees, after the Kaiser employees and AirBnB employees and the endless smiling waving politicians, when a single car appeared carrying James Obergefell. A cheer filled the street, people screamed, "Thank you!" And I cried.
7. The food. Good lord, by the number of restaurants in this town you'd think nobody has a kitchen? Don't get me wrong, it's good. But...if an alien arrived on this planet and visited San Francisco it would think all humans did was eat.
8. Those sinister silver and white tour buses that clog the roads, windows tinted so that nobody can see what's inside. They remind me of the time my brother and I passed a bus parked at the Emeryville Marina late one night, many years ago. We glanced up just in time to see a small light inside the bus illuminating a stripper, performing for the passengers.
After a few days it dawned on me, ahhh, these aren't porn-seeking tourists from China. These are the infamous Google buses I've heard so many people complain about. They circle like sharks, back and forth, back and forth. Had those buses been around when I was commuting, I would've embraced them, I would've cheered their arrival, for I really, really disliked my daily commute to San Mateo.
But now, there's something about them I find disturbing. It's as if a whole segment of the population has checked out of collective society and created their own little guarded, gated, tinted, air-conditioned, wifi-enabled community. The whole city has become a gated community. Only there's no gate, just money. To keep up, I'd have to pack myself into such a bus every day, only to be spat out again at sunset. Just imagining it fills me with an oppressive sadness. I don't want that life. Nor is it plausible that I could even achieve it. Time has passed, and a new generation boards the buses.
Which brings me to:
9. We used to tell ourselves that if this Maine thing didn't work out, we could always move back to San Francisco. But our week pretending to be Noe Valley millionaires has really made it clear that the city has slipped beyond our grasp. Entirely, and irreversibly. That imaginary safety net is gone. I know I broke up with San Francisco, but I didn't actually want it to marry someone else. But it has, she's gorgeous, and they're really, really happy together.
I wonder what will happen to the artists and poets and writers, the hippies and dreamers who arrived with $20 in their pockets and made this city so magical? Even Armistead Maupin has confessed he couldn't move back here if he wanted to. And what about the bus drivers and paramedics and school teachers, where, exactly, will they live?
The problem is real. I can't tell you the number of people who've said some version of, "If we lose our apartment, I have no idea how we'll manage to stay here." Bright, creative people who add spark and charm and genuine value to this place, one by one, they're being picked off. I grieve for the city I loved, albeit the city I chose to leave. It's rapidly disappearing.
Which, at last, leads us to:
10. Maine may have its problems (good lord it does), but it's still accessible to everyone, the artists and poets alike, the dreamers and starter-uppers, and even one very lucky woman who somehow managed to carve a career out of reviewing yarn. Maine has turned out to be a mighty fine place to call home, and I'd move there again in a heartbeat.
But…
11. Once January arrives, you know I'll be planning another trip to California.
It's a sweet little place with plenty of room for us both. It's quiet, with a charming kitchen, huge back deck, a YARD, and a nice big office down below. Pretty much what we would've tried to get, many years ago, had we decided to stay in San Francisco and forget the whole Maine idea. I wanted to be in a place that would let us pretend, if just for a week, that we'd never left.
We've spent the last week sitting out on the deck and talking about how we'd do the garden differently. We've gotten produce at our old market. We've had friends over for dinner. We've redecorated (in our minds) the living room. We've even eavesdropped on the neighbors and decided which ones we'd like, which ones…not so much.
A few observations after a week in San Francisco:
1. This no-mosquitoes thing is pretty nice. Ditto the black flies and horse flies and ticks carrying Lyme disease.
2. Public transportation. So, so very nice. For $35 you can get a 7-day pass that gets you on all the buses and trolleys and cable cars. There is no better, more inexpensive way to see a city than by riding its buses.
3. The drought is no joke. I've never seen it so dry here. The owners of our house are gone for weeks but left all the cushions on the patio furniture, explaining that they didn't see any rain in the forecast. Friends in Oakland can't remember the last time it rained.
4. I don't know if it's gotten louder or if I've just gotten accustomed to the quiet, but this city roars. I sit in the sunshine on the back deck, trees and birds and flowers galore, surrounded by the Noe Valley millionaires, yet in the background, always, is a roar as if I were sitting next to the ventilation system for a large hospital.
5. From our deck I can peer into at least 100 windows. I have to work to tune out neighboring conversations. There is no privacy. I realize how very lucky we are that, from our Maine porch, we look out across miles of fields, water, and woods, all the way to distant mountains, with nothing but the occasional blinking cell tower to remind us that other people are around. What a rarity.
6. The Pride Parade. For me, the most moving moment came after the sea of Apple employees, after the Kaiser employees and AirBnB employees and the endless smiling waving politicians, when a single car appeared carrying James Obergefell. A cheer filled the street, people screamed, "Thank you!" And I cried.
7. The food. Good lord, by the number of restaurants in this town you'd think nobody has a kitchen? Don't get me wrong, it's good. But...if an alien arrived on this planet and visited San Francisco it would think all humans did was eat.
8. Those sinister silver and white tour buses that clog the roads, windows tinted so that nobody can see what's inside. They remind me of the time my brother and I passed a bus parked at the Emeryville Marina late one night, many years ago. We glanced up just in time to see a small light inside the bus illuminating a stripper, performing for the passengers.
After a few days it dawned on me, ahhh, these aren't porn-seeking tourists from China. These are the infamous Google buses I've heard so many people complain about. They circle like sharks, back and forth, back and forth. Had those buses been around when I was commuting, I would've embraced them, I would've cheered their arrival, for I really, really disliked my daily commute to San Mateo.
But now, there's something about them I find disturbing. It's as if a whole segment of the population has checked out of collective society and created their own little guarded, gated, tinted, air-conditioned, wifi-enabled community. The whole city has become a gated community. Only there's no gate, just money. To keep up, I'd have to pack myself into such a bus every day, only to be spat out again at sunset. Just imagining it fills me with an oppressive sadness. I don't want that life. Nor is it plausible that I could even achieve it. Time has passed, and a new generation boards the buses.
Which brings me to:
9. We used to tell ourselves that if this Maine thing didn't work out, we could always move back to San Francisco. But our week pretending to be Noe Valley millionaires has really made it clear that the city has slipped beyond our grasp. Entirely, and irreversibly. That imaginary safety net is gone. I know I broke up with San Francisco, but I didn't actually want it to marry someone else. But it has, she's gorgeous, and they're really, really happy together.
I wonder what will happen to the artists and poets and writers, the hippies and dreamers who arrived with $20 in their pockets and made this city so magical? Even Armistead Maupin has confessed he couldn't move back here if he wanted to. And what about the bus drivers and paramedics and school teachers, where, exactly, will they live?
The problem is real. I can't tell you the number of people who've said some version of, "If we lose our apartment, I have no idea how we'll manage to stay here." Bright, creative people who add spark and charm and genuine value to this place, one by one, they're being picked off. I grieve for the city I loved, albeit the city I chose to leave. It's rapidly disappearing.
Which, at last, leads us to:
10. Maine may have its problems (good lord it does), but it's still accessible to everyone, the artists and poets alike, the dreamers and starter-uppers, and even one very lucky woman who somehow managed to carve a career out of reviewing yarn. Maine has turned out to be a mighty fine place to call home, and I'd move there again in a heartbeat.
But…
11. Once January arrives, you know I'll be planning another trip to California.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Plodding, Obdurate Effort
I'm in the middle of Sally Mann's unexpectedly good autobiography, Hold Still. I say "unexpectedly" because, while I knew she was a stunningly gifted photographer, I had no idea she was also such a gifted writer.
Her story itself is gripping. But I'm also finding her observations about her art, and about her creative process, deeply reassuring. Especially this:
Art is seldom the result
of true genius; rather, it is the product of hard work and skills learned and
tenaciously practiced by regular people. In my case, I practice my skills despite repeated failures
and self-doubt so profound it can masquerade outwardly as conceit. It's not
heroic in any way. To the contrary, it's plodding, obdurate effort. I make bad
picture after bad picture week after week until the relief comes: the good new
picture that offers benediction.
She touches the profoundly unglamorous truth of it all: the plodding, obdurate effort of making art. For me, it's writing.
These days I feel like we're trained to focus on the end results, on the shiny cover, the hyperbole-laden press release, the accolades and lists. We're expected to maintain a beautiful lie across all social media outlets, a lie that suggests this life is easy, that these books were birthed fully formed with nary a moment's gestation. Because the truth is far less glamorous.
The tenacious practice of your skills, that plodding and obdurate effort, they really are at the very heart of what writing is. The showing up day after day to work against odds that would make any sane person walk away. I'm comforted to know someone of Mann's caliber agrees.
Clearly I am not sane, because I'm still here. How I crave those brief moments when I feel like I've actually created something beautiful, when I get a hit of what Mann calls, quite simply, "the relief." I've been doing a lot of plodding, obdurate effort lately--more than ever before--and I've also been catching a few exquisite hits of the relief. I still have a way to go, but those transcendent moments make it all worthwhile.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Seventeen Years
Seventeen years ago this week, we crossed the bridge into Maine and began our new life. That number seems surreal to me, both a blink of an eye and multiple lifetimes. I remember, in my 20s, zoning out when someone began a sentence with "17 years ago." That was, like, so irrelevant to now.
And yet if you're really, really lucky, if you manage to keep waking up every morning, your reward is that you, too, can be one of those people who begins their sentences with, "Seventeen years ago."
How exhilarating it felt to arrive in a place where we knew nobody. We had no strings in Portland, no ties, no history in this town at all. Our canvas was blank, we could paint on it whatever world we envisioned. I bought a state-of-the-art Dell desktop and set up shop in a sunny window overlooking our tiny courtyard. I took to the freelance lifestyle instantly.
Two years later that very same month, I got an idea to start an online knitting magazine all about yarn. I bought the domain "knittersreview.com" and started working on the logo and layout. It all came quickly and easily. After years of using my skills for things that didn't resonate, it felt exquisite to pair them with my passion.
Blink, and that was 15 years ago. From my work on Knitter's Review came books, years of traveling and teaching, several radio interviews, and even a gig on PBS. It's been a really rather beautiful gift, a grand adventure, none of which I could have possibly anticipated when we crossed the river and cheered the "Welcome to Maine" sign.
Fifteen is a good number. It's odd but round, well past one decade but without the creeping sediment of 20. It's that roadside stop, the one at the crest of the hill, with picnic tables and blooming rugosas and a clear view of the road you've traveled thus far--and the possible paths ahead. It's a beautiful roadside stop, and I'm enjoying the rest, the perspective, the introspection. I've packed a picnic and may stay a while.
Right after we arrived in Portland, we received a housewarming gift from my old colleagues in San Francisco--a clivia plant, which sported a cluster of orange flowers. This plant has kept me company all these years, accompanying me through… let's see… one, two, three, now four moves. It's a patient and friendly plant that deserves a lot more TLC than I've provided. Yet this week, 17 years later and right on schedule, it decided to gift us with another bloom.
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