Put Your Records On

You heard Corrine. Go ahead and let your hair down.

The Muse

So, I've been haunted for years by this need to form concrete ideas about the nature of creativity. I've put far too much thought into pinning down the one discipline and style that calls the loudest or, at least, that I can follow the longest. An email from my old neighbor and good friend Ted brought this question to light once again.
First let me tell you a bit about Ted. We lived next door to each other for more than ten years. (And between the two of us, we should have the lion’s share of stock in that Chinese restaurant a stone’s throw away from our old apartment building because we lived on Phad Thai for at least a year. I digress.) He’s a delightful, intelligent and talented man who gave up writing for chess. He’s a great chess player and has taught me a few moves, though I can’t say I’ve ever beat him. He’s also taught me much about art, music and beauty. If you have people in your life who have done that for you, count yourself blessed.

So, Ted has all these creative juices that have been building up inside him and perhaps creating dangerous levels of serotonin in his brain. Mind you, chess is a very creative pastime, and I can understand where one gets to in life that he turns his back on the Muse. But the Muse isn’t going away.
For me, it is perhaps a stunt in my developmental growth that keeps me creating; the need to work on something and in the end, look at it and say, “I made this.” We humans have been doing this for thousands of years and I don’t see an end in sight.
If you look up the Cave of Hands in Venezuela, over 7,000 years ago the tribesmen painted silhouettes of their hands onto the cave walls. There are other scenes of hunting and of women making a refreshing raspberry sorbet, but for the most part the imagery says, “I was here.” The images may also have some ritual use, and isn’t that what artists today are participating in every time they begin?
My own muse has the same navigational troubles that I have and can’t make up her mind about which direction to lead me in, and the message is perhaps more intricate than I’ve made it out. Not only do I want to say, “I was here,” but that I’m here for such a short time and during my visit I've seen magical things that brought tears to my eyes and I want to use my clumsy tools and share these things with others, and hear them say, ‘Yes, yes I see it too.”
So Ted, your muse is still waiting. And I too will get back to the canvas as soon as I get this 6 pound purring beast off my lap.

When Life Hands You Lemons

I intend to get back into the studio soon, but this little lemon painting will have to do for now.

Confession

I’m a girly-girl. Okay, a reluctant girly-girl. Actually, there are probably ten or twenty other labels that I would prefer before that even. I even find the term 'girly-girl' somewhat vexing, as if I'm a child wearing ruffles and bows, which I am not. I would rather spend an hour at Lowe’s than the mall, yet I’ve been known to get up at 3am because there’s a sale on Vera Wang shoes. I say I’m a reluctant girly-girl because the concept is so loaded with preconceptions. Think of Paris Hilton; all glamour, no brains. Fashion is the considered the intellectual equivalent of donuts; delicious but completely lacking in nutritious value. If you care about fashion, then you must be an airhead, right? And it’s certainly not the realm of Feminists. Or is it? Is dressing like a man really a feminist gesture?

For years I battled this lust, exclusively preferring intellectual pursuits until I decided to come out of the closet, so to speak.

Months ago, I saw a PBS special called The Secret World of Haute Couture. It changed my life. Not because I was impressed by the unimaginable wealth of women who sit in the front row at fashion shows in Paris and habitually buy haute couture, but I was impressed by the reverence these women had for designers like Karl Lagerfeld for his genius and artistry. Isn’t this the same reverence late Victorians had for Monet? And if you care about esthetics, then inevitably you have to turn an eye to the art you wear on a daily basis. The shapes, colors and textures begin to tell a story about who you are. Not only are we following the basic rules of decency in covering ourselves, as well as protecting the skin from the harmful effects of UV rays, our clothes are a form of self-expression. The clothes you wear, sometimes in spite of yourself, send a message to the world. If you choose a pair of pink sweat pants with the word “Juicy” on your butt to go to the store, your message is one of woeful ignorance. But far more important than the impression you make on others is the impression you make on yourself. There is a kind of art and ritual involved in putting on fancy shoes and a spritz of fine perfume; and if you don’t believe me, ask a little girl playing dress-up.

If you think, as I once did, that you can somehow remain outside of the fashion conversation, I have to disagree. Clothing is a socioeconomic and heavily politicized industry. Universities have devoted entire quarters to this topic. If you live in the Western World and wear clothes, then you are a part of the conversation. Since you are, why not be deliberate about what you say in this conversation?

My childhood aside when my mother made clothes for us, I have had one garment made expressly for me and that was my wedding dress. Based on a design by Reva Mivasagar called ‘Belle Epoque,’ the dress perfectly epitomized the Edwardian era. Finished with a cloche hat covered in silk tulle and embroidered, satin Mary Janes with kitten heels, I felt like a princess for one day. A remarkable garment indeed, as Colonel Peacock on Are You Being Served? once ironically observed.

But I work for a living and every day can’t be your wedding day. I’ve discovered that in corporate America, I need people to take me seriously and believe me capable. Cargo pants or the latest frock from Forever 21 cannot communicate that point. As a creative member of the team, my range is broader than in, say, Accounting, but the lines become blurred when you consider the fading of Casual Friday and this new trend towards more formal business attire in response to the downturn in the economy. (It’s often been said that the length of skirts on the runway are a good gauge of the economy.)

I say all this with a big BUT, and this is about scale. I’m a reluctant girly-girl, but I’m so much more. But: substance matters. But: how well you do your job matters. But: how kind you are to strangers and whether you recycle matters. But: how patient and nurturing you are towards your children matters. But: how meaningful your life is with a loving spouse, an aging cat and young plants matters because at the end of your life, they’re not going to talk about how great you looked in that Armani suit or who gets those Vera Wang shoes.

But who wants to live every day as if tomorrow is their funeral?

Reward

I wish your monitor was scratch-n-sniff.

For Leann II

I
I recognized you immediately,
One of Rosetti’s models deep in reflection,
Or was it the lady in a Byzantine tapestry,
Skirt trailing in the grass?
Or were you the reason Troy fell,
Honest eyes full of difficulties and wonder?
On the edge of a summer park,
I am not sure which clue I followed.

II
When you imagine green, think of Monet’s
Blazing water lilies, foliage in a thunderstorm,
Or the peach orchard of your dreams.
Mastering belief, you walk through
The orchard differently today.
The morning air is sweetest
After a light rain.

III
This imperfect reflection,
A flawless blend of harmony and dissonance,
Face to face, the season’s birds come and go,
As we follow this concentric conversation of
Life’s monuments and tragedies.
You are the kind gathering
I still turn to again and again,
Learning; magnificence.

Tribute to New Songs (for Carol)

I wrote this poem about ten years ago for my sister Carol. Time hasn't diminished it's meaning for me.

For the girl you once were, the music
That got lost in the wilderness of your mind.
Returning again and again to the lost images
Of your own youth, you learned everything
The hard way. Your singing voice
Longed to stretch out
Under this night-painted sky, but
How could such a sleep be sustained
Where time knew nothing but time
In the distilled center of anticipation?

And now it’s the children, offspring
Of some unlearned delight
Of planting heart-seeds
(how you heard that first cry so deeply),
Their hearts full of beginning, worlds
Unfolding in their eyes,
Faces intent on blossoming a flower
Far beyond infancy, drinking from your lips
The one phrase that even your smile
Could no longer contain: everything is possible.
Small fingers poised to grasp this strange fruit
That you tasted and expected to find
Almost too sweet.

It was no single incident.
Couldn’t you put your finger on it?
Their laughter open to the air, every song
Was completed within them. Listen;
It awoke the trumpets in your blood.
Hidden behind petals of sleep,
The forgotten murmuring garden
Where statues play shadow-tag,
And the rain sounds like applause.

Pines of Home

I wote this poem for my sister Diane, who was living far away from our childhood home at the time. I recently received a postcard from my friend Leann. On it was a picture of this poem secured with twine around a pine tree, nobly weathering the frost and snow. Leann has vision.

“… a darkness shining in brightness
Which brightness could not comprehend.”
James Joyce, Ulysses


The night ate their shadowsAs fingertip feathers
Of girlhood birds
Startle them out of their firefly dreams.
The pines of home always
Manage to creep inside my ribs,
And you must listen hard
To all the things they don’t say,
While they stand firm,
Sometimes huddled close,
Arms loosely springing out
Like hopes, as they declare
Their deep, wild smell of green embers
To the young moon.
The pines of home
Used to tug at my hair
In turbulent girlhood games
As the mist moved through me
Like a dream within a dream
When sleep doesn’t come easy.

The war on dirt

In every home décor magazine, there is an ad of a woman lounging on a sofa with the sun filtering in from the billowy curtains behind her. She is pretty, but never beautiful; she may have a mohair throw over her shoulders. She is reading a book or a magazine with the serene expression of a woman who knows her house is clean. I have never been that woman. I dream of being that woman.

We were taught as children that ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness,’ making a clean home a moral imperative. It doesn’t help if you live in an 85 year-old house. Or if you cook. Or eat. Or have a cat that uses a litter box. Or have skin and hair. Mind you, I have an arsenal of cleaning supplies, tools, and machines; enough to fight the entire civil war on dirt. When I hear that bed bugs have made a comeback because we have ceased to use the harsh cleaning agents that kill germs and bugs but are not easy on the environment, a shiver runs up my spine. Here is where my vacuum comes in. I vacuum my bed. I vacuum the curtains. I vacuum the cat. (By some freak of nature, my cat has decided in his fading years that the carpet-sucking machine is his friend. Perhaps it is because of his failing hearing, or perhaps he has decided that to be closer to me, he must make friends with it. Either way, whenever I fire up the vacuum, there he is, tapping me with his paw for a good going-over.)

Before I make myself out to be a suburban mom from 1950, I might add that my home is not magazine-perfect. But we are a nation obsessed with the fight on dirt, and I am one of its soldiers. And like all dedicated soldiers, I am always looking for the secret weapon that will end the war forever. But there’s no end to this war; there will always be a dust insurgency in the living room, or a germ skirmish in the kitchen. I imagine that when I am able to bring my home to that glittering state epitomized by the ad with the woman lounging on her sofa, for one day my life will be in perfect balance. And I will lounge on my sofa with a book, and a mohair throw over my shoulders.