What's in a Weekend?

O for a Muse of fire.

I started a new book this week -- this time, it's a novel. It's a story I've tried to write before, without success, but this time, having already written another book, I may be able to bring it in for a landing. I now know that doing something daunting one time can be enough to break up your mental reservations about what you are and aren't capable of for good. Actually, that's one of the themes of the book.

It's not exactly true to say this is my first novel, because I did finish one during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) about seven years ago. That was my first novel, and if it wasn't stellar (or even remotely publishable), it was a fun exercise in creativity. With only a month to work in, your fingers really have to blaze to meet the deadline, and the speed is freeing in and of itself. There's no time to edit, ponder, or second-guess. Whatever comes into your head is what ends up on paper. It's a great way to show yourself that you can produce a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, but it's very unforgiving as far as allowing you an "out" if you start down an unproductive plot line.

I'm intrigued by limitations. Haiku are my favorite kind of poems to write because I like having to get it just so in a few simple words. My new novel has a built-in limitation in that it tells the story of a single weekend. No tortured, extended Proustian remembrances here -- my challenge will be to try to relate how one weekend can change your life, even if it does so in a different way than you imagined it would. That's another of its themes, the disconcerting experience of looking for one thing but finding something else that may in the long run be more valuable.

Patience, ambiguity, the seizing of the moment, the fallibility of the heart, truth, illusion . . . all of these play a part in my story. Actually, it may be more of a fable, something you can read in less time than it takes the described events to unfold. I'll play with it and see where it goes. Unlike some other stories I've started in the past, I already know the ending of this one. I've sometimes thought that not knowing where a story is going can be one of the most exciting inducements to write it, so that you can find out what happens. I think there are times when that's true. This time, though, having the plot sketched out lets me concentrate on how to tell the story, which to me, in this case, is a much more interesting prospect.

Ian McEwan's novel Saturday, which tells the tale of a series of game-changing events occurring in the course of a single day, comes to mind as a literary example of how much life a single day can hold. As I recall, it revealed how a number of seemingly inconsequential events led to completely unforeseen and devastating consequences. A bit of an existential nightmare, that one, but very well told. Mine will be more light-hearted than that and deals with intentionality instead of chance. Rather than leave you shuddering, I hope to leave you smiling.

So far, I've enjoyed the writing. As always, the process of putting things into just the right words is exciting, frustrating, painstaking, difficult, and liberating. I may be at it for a while, but this time there's no rush.

After the Valentines

I like Valentine's Day, but in my opinion, it's more fun when you're a kid. Remember those days when you made Valentines out of paper, glue, and cut-outs for everybody in your class? I do, and in all honesty, it beats any Valentine's Day I've had since then by a wide margin. There was something so innocent about giving and receiving those cheerful red and white handmade cards -- everybody was your Valentine! This was before the boys and girls started to dislike each other as they did from fifth grade until puberty.

In that forgotten time, the battle of the sexes extended mainly to the boys chasing the girls around at recess with giant insects in their hands (in South Florida, where I lived then, big bugs were easy to come by). Nobody seemed to mind it too much, and relations remained civil afterwards. Everybody called each other by his or her first name; that unpleasant habit of last-name address didn't start until later. So what went wrong?

There is something very poignant about the days of hormonal awakening, puppy love, and first crushes, but dang it if things don't start getting complicated then. I don't know how young men see it; I can only speak from my perspective. A host of previously nonexistent problems swim into view in those years, including self-consciousness, insecurity, unrequited love, and acne. How much better it seemed for all to play together freely without being divided by gender lines or competition. And how much better, too, to define yourself in your own terms, to be sufficient unto yourself, rather than mooning over a boy who barely knew you were alive. Or, once you did land a boyfriend, to be worried about keeping him.

I've noticed how much I enjoy stories that feature young heroines in that magical, mythical time in which they remain free and answerable to themselves, battling dragons, solving mysteries, going on fantastical journeys, or just being who they are. I've written a story like that myself. I wish there was a way for girls to hold onto that freedom; it still seems to me that it's easier for boys to retain their independence without defining themselves primarily as someone else's partner, parent, or helpmate.

I'm all in favor of marriage under the right circumstances, but I would never want to give up my ability to enjoy my own company and my own thoughts. I'm good at cooperating but not at being told what to do. And I've seen firsthand how many people still seem to regard an unattached woman as an anomaly, a problem to be solved. That's changing, and it can't change soon enough. An unmarried man with any graces at all is considered a catch; an unmarried woman, even an accomplished one, is often considered wanting.

If you want to see a movie that captures the freedom I'm talking about, see Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild. The young heroine, six-year-old Hushpuppy, resides with her father in a mythical landscape seemingly outside of space and time, although they live in southern Louisiana. Hushpuppy goes to school, but she, and all of the people around her, live a wild, dreamlike existence anchored in a natural world unconcerned with convention. They live and die by their own choices, and although their lives might not suit everyone, they're rich in imagination, self-determination, and joy.

While watching the film, one is hard-pressed to imagine Hushpuppy growing up to become ordinary. You want her to remain extraordinary, because that's what she is. I think we all start out that way, and for a while, before the pressures to conform set in, we're allowed to be like that. How wonderful it would be, in spite of hormones, careers, the need to grow up and pay taxes, home ownership, and parenthood, not to put a time limit on that independence of spirit . . . for anyone.

Look, Hortensia: A Jogger!

Yesterday, like the day before, was sunny and warm: a day that cried out for strolling in the park and soaking up sun. I put on my walking shoes and headed to the Arboretum, where dozens of like-minded people and dogs were already taking the air. No sympathetic magic was necessary yesterday; the people I saw running in shorts and Ts were dressed more appropriately than I was in my turtleneck and down jacket. The sun smiled down, and the air was nearly balmy.

On such a day, I sometimes enjoy just sitting in the sun, idly watching the clouds float by. That's what I was doing yesterday when Apollo showed up. At least, that's who I think it was. I was ensconced on a bench in the middle of the park, meditating on sunshine, when I heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. We see a lot of medical helicopters coming and going around here because of hospitals, but they normally have little reason to visit the Arboretum. This one flew overhead lazily and landed in the field across the street. Thinking some visiting dignitary might emerge, I watched to see what would happen. Either no one stepped out or I missed it, and after a couple of minutes the helicopter took off again.

I mention Apollo because he's the god of science and reason and, by association, aeronautics in general. You really sense his presence when you're around airplanes or walking through an airport, with the superstructure of a soaring atrium above your head. I guess when he's in a certain mood, he might take to a chopper. That seemed to be the case yesterday. It was a plain, dark helicopter that you couldn't see into, perfect for a god traveling incognito, except that it kind of stuck out in the bucolic suburban setting. Every neck was craned skyward as the helicopter proceeded to slowly circle a small area of the Arboretum, coming back at least three times to cruise slowly over the trees.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't seem like Apollo, after all, to fly so close to the ground, directly over a park with so many people gathered below. A new kind of scavenger hunt, maybe? There are no wild mustangs in the Arboretum, so it couldn't have been a roundup. Maybe it's now legal, with the right permit, to hunt chipmunks from the air. Or maybe rich people now pay to fly over the famous LFUCG-UK Arboretum as they do the Grand Canyon, marveling at the staring locals below.

Feeling it was not really safe to sit below a rocking, nearly stationary helicopter, I got up to walk around some more. The helicopter finally flew away, leaving the blue sky and sunshine intact. Thinking it over on the way home, I decided it might be worth calling the police to see if anyone else had reported the incident or knew anything about it. I was told by the dispatcher that she had "just come on duty half an hour ago" and "didn't know what was going on" but that if that many people had been there "someone must have reported it by now." But when I asked if I could add my name to the report, she said there was no report. Then she said I should have reported it while it was happening. Hmmm. I thought someone was keeping tabs on public airspace other than random citizens, but I guess I overestimated official interest in oddly behaving aircraft.

Not feeling quite reassured by this conversation, I hunted around online for the number of the nearest FAA office. I called them today and received a call back from a gentleman who seemed pretty interested in the presence and behavior of a helicopter flying so low in a crowded area. He couldn't give me any conclusive answers but asked a lot of questions, took my report, and said any further sightings should be called in, too.

So there you have it. Be on the lookout for any random helicopters, especially if they seem to be flying low enough to knock you off a bench. If it were the end of a play, I guess we might suspect a deus ex machina, except no one descended, and nothing was solved, as far as I know. I still like my theory about the Grand Arboretum Tour but can't understand why it's necessary to get quite that close for views of scrubby grass, mothers with strollers, and middle-aged writers. Haven't these people ever heard of binoculars?

So Much Chocolate, So Little Time

I was reading a travel magazine in Starbucks yesterday afternoon when suddenly the memory of the late, lamented European Travel and Life popped into my head. I subscribed to it for the last few years of its publication, and it was a magical experience every time I found it in the mailbox. It had glossy pages, beautiful photographs, and great writing, and it even smelled good (due, I think, to perfume samples in the ads). I had gone to Europe with friends in 1989, and reading the magazine was a way of extending the experience.

On our trip, we did nine countries in three weeks, starting and ending in London. We stayed in small hotels and boarding houses listed in Frommer's Guide to Europe on $30 a Day and largely relied on the guidebook's recommendations for places to eat. Traveling light as we did, we were able to see and do a lot for a modest amount of money. We did not stay in the glamorous spots European Travel and Life depicted so lavishly, but we saw a lot of great art, relished street life and people watching, took in the sights, and sampled chocolates all the way from Germany to Geneva.

I kept a travel journal, stealing moments on ferry crossings, train trips, and the waiting rooms of bus stations to scribble down impressions, but even without looking at it I can call up images and remember tastes and smells. Sometimes it's the little things, small scenes glimpsed along the way, that stay with you, for whatever mysterious reason.

From a bus window, on the way to Dover, I saw a West Indian woman walking down a crowded East London street in the late afternoon. Her colorful clothing and dignified posture made her stand out in the gray light and drab surroundings like a rare flower. I remember the blue sweater my friend was wearing during a tedious ferry crossing to Oostende that night and how mysteriously several hundred passengers seemed to melt into thin air in the station at the other end.

I remember how cold the light was in Belgium that morning, how foreign (and daunting) Amsterdam and all its brick houses seemed when we arrived, and how very steep the stairs were in our hotel, not far from Anne Frank's house. A man walked by on the street that afternoon as we came out of a cafe whose face--intense, bearded, and thin--could have belonged to Van Gogh. A sandwich of simple bread and cheese on the train to Berlin was a revelation, as was the ease with which many Europeans spoke graceful English, even when they downplayed their ability.

A hammer and chisel for extracting your own piece of the Berlin Wall cost seven marks to rent, and the faces of the guards were extremely stern at the crossing between the former East Germany and the West. I recall my first sighting of someone wearing lederhosen and an alpine hat (in Munich) and the taste of hot chestnuts purchased from a street vendor (in Salzburg). I recall watching the sun go down behind snow-covered mountains as the mists rose over the lake and Salzburg lay at our feet like a fairy-tale village.

I remember how deep the snow lay around the town of Fussen as we walked up to Neuschwanstein with plastic bags on our shoes in lieu of boots; there were swans in the river as we walked through the town. We headed down into Italy, hoping for warmth, and stayed in a pension that had formerly been a monastery, with a shower in the middle of the room. We climbed Giotto's Tower to goggle at the Tuscan countryside, straight out of the background of a thousand Renaissance paintings. I tasted my first espresso in a small cafe and was impressed by the effortless style of the Florentines we encountered on the streets.

I remember peering out the window of our train compartment as we crossed the Alps, glimpsing some high and distant peaks in the dawn light. I remember how the grayness in Geneva made the mountains invisible, but the city itself was clean and prosperous. I recall little of the French countryside that sped by on the fast train to Paris (being distracted by an assortment of Swiss chocolates probably explains the lapse), but I can easily call up Paris's wide and elegant avenues. I loved Montmartre and the small, bustling place where we had dinner on a narrow street. Sacre Coeur was eerie by night, but the steps that led back down into the city were magical under the streetlamps.

I remember how unfamiliar Tavistock Square and Bloomsbury seemed to me once we were back in London, though I had spent half a summer there only six years previously. It was as if I had never been there. I recall the taste of naan in the Indian restaurant where we had dinner with a new friend, and her stories of traveling alone in Greece, shared over dinner, that made her seem so adventurous.

The next time I go to Europe, I hope I'll have as much fun as the last time. I've done a lot of traveling around the United States in the intervening years and had forgotten, until something glimpsed in Afar triggered the memories, just how exciting 1989 was, with all of the planning and dreaming that went into that European adventure. With a few versatile wardrobe items, light baggage, a Eurail pass, and an open mind, you can really get around. There's no place I have been that I wouldn't go back to, and there are so many unexplored destinations to anticipate. And at the end of it, you can always come home again.