Pictures Never Seen Before

At the local Gallery Hop last Friday night, I covered a lot of ground, enjoying both the art on the walls and the street life. The Gallery Hop is an event in which a group of artistic venues sets out their punch bowls, crudites, and fancy cookies and welcomes visitors for a special viewing of their exhibits. The event has become a downtown tradition, and you never know who (or what) you might see.

Most of the galleries are well-known and long-established regulars in the local arts scene: those at the local universities, the public library, the Downtown Arts Center, the Living Arts and Science Center. It's especially exciting when there turns out to be a quirky artists' collective behind a nondescript door you've passed thousands of times or when a place you always associated with one purpose suddenly reveals a secret identity: a historic church with a modest corridor that doubles as a gallery for a former basketball star (now a talented folk artist) working with wood, or a restaurant that unexpectedly serves a pop-up exhibit. Finding art in unexpected places always enhances the sense of adventure.

Does looking with intention transform your vision? Would I have noticed how beautifully the tall old-fashioned window in ArtsPlace frames the steeple of the church across the way if I had been casually passing through? It stopped me in my tracks, but would I have seen it if I'd been there on business, with my mind on something else? This question reminds me of the time I went to see Orson Welles' Touch of Evil downtown on a humid summer night. I walked to my car afterwards thinking how noirish and mysterious everything looked, as if the movie's frame of reference had widened to include our familiar rain-soaked streets. I doubt if I'd have had the same thought if I'd just been running to the store for a gallon of milk. The film gave me a new lens for viewing and helped me see what I didn't see before.

Another time I noticed this in a big way was my first visit to The Getty Center in Los Angeles. The building itself is a work of art, and you could wander around quite happily just taking in the hidden courtyards, the changing light on the walls, the views across the garden, and the shadows created by a staircase. I had been doing just that when I suddenly found myself outside, on a patio that looked east and north. The museum has a commanding hilltop view of a wide swath of West Los Angeles, but from that perspective the most arresting element in the landscape is the freeway, with its sinuous, ever-moving lines of traffic, gliding like living things through a dramatic gap in the mountains, rushing onwards with something between a hiss and a roar far below you.

I'm sure framing the landscape as living art was a conscious intention of the architect, and I have to say he succeeded. The view is breathtaking. I gazed down at the scene for quite a while, mesmerized by the scope and grandeur. Years later, when I was in Los Angeles on a regular basis, frequently traveling to and from school on that very highway, I could never pass The Getty Center without remembering that first view. What always struck me was how my role had shifted from onlooker to participant. Instead of just observing the scene, I was now in it, part of that river of purposeful, fast-moving, ever-changing traffic.

Driving on the 405 requires skill and attention. Without that first revealing look from the side of a mountain high above, would I ever have realized the wonder and beauty of what, at ground-level, can be a frustrating, exhausting, and very mundane experience? Maybe not. For that I have to thank the visionary who looked at the scene with an artist's eye and framed it so that the rest of us could see it. Art doesn't imitate life; it provides an opening into it.

Sky by Maxfield Parrish

The shorter days are nothing to get excited about, but still . . . these September evenings are beautiful. I think the last of the fireflies are gone, and the sound of the crickets is fading day by day. It's sad to see the summer go, but the feeling of change in the air is invigorating. The cool air in the evenings is pleasant, and there's always some drama playing out in the sky.

The other night, it was the nearly full moon, rising ghostlike in the still bright sky of early evening, while the fiery sun went down in the opposite direction. The moon kept getting caught in wisps of clouds as it rose, which only accentuated its beauty. I didn't see the harvest moon last night, and when I went out for my walk this evening I was too early for it. I caught a glimpse of the moon a while ago from my window, and it's already high overhead, framed by the branches of a tree. If I stepped outside, I could see Orion, too.

I've noticed a flock of geese flying about restlessly, as if they're unsure whether to go south or not. When I saw them tonight, they were not flying south but seemed to be heading for the Arboretum on some unknown errand. They can seem a little ungainly on the ground, but in the air, they're very graceful. No doubt they'll be on their way soon to what I hope is a warm wintering spot.

The sunsets have been lovely, especially with the evening star shining so clearly in the quiet part of the sky above the glowing color. More than once this week, I've looked at the western sky at sunset and thought that it looked like a painting by Maxfield Parrish. You know, all those towering, billowing clouds and saturated hues of orange and purple. There is something mythic about these dramatic skies ushering autumn in. You almost expect to see goddesses descending.

A low-flying cloud is gray and cold if you pass through it, and we know the surface of the moon is a silent, cold place (when the sunlight doesn't hit it). A goose waddles while walking, and even Venus would appear very different if we were closer to her. Yet throw all of these onto the backdrop of the sky, like a canvas, and they take on grace and mystery. The perspective is everything.

Baker's Alchemy

I used to be a so-so baker, but I've gotten better. Not having to rush really makes a difference, as does changing your techniques a little. I used to be intimidated at the thought of making bread, and my results were edible but not admirable. The texture would be uneven, or some of the dough wasn't quite cooked through. Biscuits were another challenge: mine never rose like I wanted them to. Brownies and cakes were OK, and so were my pies, but the crusts were never really flaky and always a little disappointing considering the effort they took.

I guess I've just gotten the hang of it (except for pie crusts, which I have yet to master). Baking really is a ritual, in the true sense of the word, because it's transformative and in a way "magical." I still get the same thrill I got as a little girl with my Easy-Bake oven, which allowed you to turn out miniature versions of cakes, pies, and biscuits cooked under a light bulb. I'll never forget how proud I was of my first endeavor, a small apple pie that I insisted on bringing to the dinner table for dessert, even though it was only big enough for a single serving. The feeling of creating something that turned out well was gratifying, and I repeat it every time I pull out a pan of biscuits or a batch of gingerbread cookies.

When you have time to enjoy it, working with dough is very soulful. When you spend a lot of time working with your mind, working with your hands is very relaxing. Assembling and measuring the ingredients is the preliminary to the really fun part: kneading and shaping the dough. I always thought kneading the bread was probably the secret to having it turn out well -- and it was the part I had the most trouble with. Recipes only take you so far, and I learned that you have to become fearless in the face of the unknown. Followed the measurements exactly, but your dough is too sticky? The hell with it. Just add more flour and keep kneading until it becomes manageable. It seems like a problem, but it isn't.

And how about those biscuits of mine, which used to be so paltry? I'm using the same recipe, but now I double it, and the biscuits turn out much better. I also use a different kind of flour, which makes them rise more creditably, and if I add more salt than the recipe specifies, it improves the flavor. They may not taste exactly like my grandmother's, but they remind me of hers, and that's moving in the right direction.

It's gratifying to work with the dough and feel it taking shape in your hands, but my very favorite part is getting the dough (or the batter) into the pan. I love cutting out biscuits, which I do with a floured glass. I'm happiest when they're all of a uniform size, but I admit that rarely happens. I usually have one mongo biscuit that results from taking the last bits and pieces of dough and rolling them together into one; it may be twice the size of the others and a little misshapen, but it tastes the same as the rest. I also like rolling up bread dough, sealing the ends, and tucking them under before I slide the loaf into the pan. Looking at a pan of dough ready to go into the oven always makes me feel like I've been making good use of my time.

There's also the unparalleled moment of unmolding a cake or a loaf from a pan. I was taking a Morning Glory cake out of Bundt pan the other day, admiring the way it came out so beautifully shaped, when it suddenly took me back to another childhood memory: that of making mud pies. I used to love to take the tea cups from my little tea sets, fill them with dirt, and unmold them onto saucers. I'd take a moment to admire the perfect shape of my dirt puddings before picking them up and throwing them at the side of the house. That was always the grand finale. Of course, I've outgrown throwing things since I've started working with edible materials.

Yes, it's a little bit of alchemy and maybe a little bit of your own soul that goes into baking. You transform a few piles of dry stuff and a little bit of Crisco or butter into something delicious that didn't exist before. Your kitchen smells great, you've preoccupied yourself for half an hour or so with working to make something turn out well, and afterwards you get to eat. There's really nothing bad you can say about a round of baking, as long as you don't eat everything up in one sitting after you're done.

Losing Paradise, Gaining the World

Depth psychologists talk about the story of Adam and Eve and the expulsion from paradise as an allegory for the birth of consciousness. There's more than one point in a person's life when she experiences a breakthrough like this, and I would say the transition out of childhood is one of them. I was thinking about this after reading Anton DiSclafani's The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls.

The novel tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who has lived a free and happy life with her parents and twin brother on an isolated Florida homestead until a family tragedy abruptly changes everything. At the beginning of the story, Thea is being taken by her father to a camp for girls in the North Carolina mountains and is desperately hoping for a reprieve. She feels she's being exiled and that things will never be the same now that she's leaving home. She's right. It's obvious that something major has created this turn of affairs, but the narrator doesn't reveal it until much later.

Thea describes her home, her family, and her early life in loving detail as the story unfolds. With a wealthy family and a beautiful home, there's not much to trouble her, even with the Great Depression in the background. She rides her pony, roams the family's land with her brother and cousin, and grows up with a sense of security about herself and her world. Ironically, amid all the wild flora and fauna of central Florida, the most dangerous snake in the garden turns out to be: adolescence. A growing physical attraction to her cousin is the catalyst in a series of events that brings Thea's childhood crashing down.

At the camp, Thea experiences her loss of security and happiness deeply and mourns for what's been lost while coming to realize that she can never put things back together the way they were. What seemed immutable -- her parents, her freedom, even her beloved twin brother -- have been revealed as anything but. The gates of childhood innocence have been shut behind her, and Thea has to get by in a new environment, immersed for the first time in a world of strangers.

This novel is really about growing up, the shift in consciousness that is the gift of adolescence (although it doesn't necessarily feel like a gift). It's painful to realize that all things change and that even a paradisaical home must eventually be left behind. Thea comes to see her parents in a newer, more critical light, makes decisions good and bad, and eventually embraces her independence. Refusing to define herself in terms of the guilt that partly belongs to others, she develops an affection for her new life and the people in it and learns to stand outside the judgment of her family.

Thea isn't always likable, but she's courageous and independent. The process of growing up that many people experience more gradually falls on her suddenly, but she adapts. Another theme that this story shares in common with the biblical Fall is the issue of sexual awakening and the burden of guilt that's shifted onto the female. Thea refuses to accept this burden. One of the novel's grace notes is the depiction of Thea's sexual awakening as natural and beautiful in its own way.

While depicting the enormity of the loss Thea feels at having to leave the past behind, the novel also reveals the upside. While the rest of her family seems diminished and almost paralyzed by what's happened, Thea learns by leaving home that there is a wider world beyond and that somewhere out there is a place for her.

I left Florida (at a much younger age than Thea) when my family moved, and I have experienced a sense of loss for that earlier period something like what she feels. I, too, missed the light and the heat and had to adjust to changes that were cultural and familial as well as climatic. Myths are always moving through our lives, taking on the shape of varying circumstances while retaining something constant underneath. Everyone has their own version of this story.

Hestia Meets Zen: The Housecleaning Blues

Housecleaning is one of those things that goes better with music. I used to have a habit of cleaning on Sunday mornings, and I always picked something lively that would add some pep to the proceedings. It was almost fun, too, floating a mop easily over the floors, with a dance step here and there. I still clean to music, and it's even more necessary these days because I have more furniture now, which makes cleaning harder.

We're not talking about a lot more furniture, but it's amazing how it's made dusting and mopping disproportionately difficult. The pieces I've accumulated were sensible: a desk and chair to assist with the dissertation process, a book carousel to organize all the additional books and keep them close by, an end table with a bin for magazines, a floor lamp to shed some additional light. Besides those, I also have a few things that didn't used to be there tucked away in odd places: a boot box in a corner, a shoe organizer under the bed.

I remember when it used to take only half an hour to dust and mop all the rooms. A while back, I was wondering why it now takes so much longer, when it dawned on me that I have more things to dust around. My living room, which seemed so spacious when I first moved in (almost like a small ballroom when empty) now has much less open space, and most of the furniture that needs dusting has books or other objects on it that have to be moved and replaced. Mopping is like running an obstacle course. It's harder to get to the corners; I have to mop around desk and chair legs, move things out and put them back, and in general be more painstaking.

I think of those Sunday morning cleaning sprees with regret. I like my furniture but can see how it's complicated something that used to be easy. When I bought my desk, I remember being surprised at how much space it took up in the living room; it seemed much smaller on the showroom floor. (The delivery man told me this is a common phenomenon.) Still, the solidity of it seemed suitable to the task, and I have to say it has served its purpose as an organizing platform for writing. It's just that I liked my living room better when it had more open space.

I remember joking with friends about buying my first couch. I took it as a sign that I was solidly in the adult middle class and hoped it wouldn't lead to buying a mess of other material goods. One friend said he had a goal of not accumulating more than he could fit into the back of a pickup truck, which I thought was a worthy aim. I wasn't too far off the mark with my own belongings, which I was then able to fit into a 10 x 10 storage unit. It would take something a little bigger than that now, although I realize what I own isn't much compared to what many other people have.

I enjoy looking at modern architecture and interior design in magazines like Dwell, where the aesthetic emphasizes making the most intelligent use of space, especially when it's limited. I like the way designers approach it not as a problem but as a spur to creativity, as if they're constructing a haiku with space instead of words. I was fascinated by a story about a tiny Paris apartment, that, though multi-level, had less square footage than mine. The occupants (who, as I remember, worked in a restaurant) did not have enough room in their minuscule kitchen to entertain, and the bedroom barely contained a bed, but what space there was had been cleverly utilized to the max. A New York apartment, while not nearly as small, was still tight; it nevertheless managed to squeeze a tiny library into a bedroom and a full kitchen partly under the stairs.

Most of these modern dwellings are uncluttered and sometimes even spare in their furnishings. I like looking at shining hardwood floors, tidy kitchens, and streamlined bathrooms, and it makes me realize that having a lot of things is not what makes a home appealing. My preference falls somewhere in between the spare and the full; pictures, books, and objects collected over time reveal personality and make a place yours, but there is a point where they spill over and start weighing you down.

My friend with the pickup truck rule described the living room I had in another apartment as being very Zen-like. At that time, I felt I had very little and thought of it as a nice way of saying that I still had the living room of a college student. He wouldn't describe my current living room in those terms, which is good in one way. It looks more like the kind of place I imagined for myself than what I had then. But I also realize that in some ways simpler is better. I was right the first time about not wanting to get saddled with too much stuff.

If I do someday have a home like the ones I enjoy dreaming over in magazines, experience has given me a handy rule for furnishing it: the "does it make dusting harder" principle. If I can experience the ease of dancing and singing, ballroom-style, while gliding the dust mop across open floors, I'll know I've done well.

Coffeehouse Archetypes

Can architecture and design express an archetype? I'm sure the answer is yes. It's fairly obvious how this works with monumental public buildings like the U.S. Capitol or the New York Public Library, but what about something less ambitious, like a neighborhood coffeehouse?

A coffeehouse I sometimes go to had a redesign this year, so I've had a chance to think about the before and after and the way they come across differently. Before the renovation, the interior was a large L-shaped room with the front counter on the short end of the L and seating all around the walls. Even though students with books and laptops accounted for a lot of the customers, the noise level was high and sometimes rambunctious.

I was told that the renovation would move the counter back and create more room at the front of the store. It did. But somehow, the effect now is of less space than before (to me, at least). Previously, the decor consisted of medium-toned furniture and a few bright wall prints. Now darker tones prevail, and the space is almost separated into rooms by the placement of large pieces of furniture and screens that act as dividers. It's a very boxy arrangement for a cafe.

A barista told me that the design is meant to facilitate studying. I can see how that would work, since the segmented spaces almost have the feel of library carrels and study nooks. What I've noticed, however, is that I tend to feel sequestered if I sit behind one of the screened areas or in the back. For me, one of the pleasures of going to a coffeehouse is the sense of community and being with other people, which the new design tends to dampen a little.

I'm surprised it affects me this way, since I've often wished for a little more quiet than the ear-splitting cacophony I've sometimes encountered there. Maybe the noise level has gone down -- I can't say for sure. But in some respects, being sectioned off with a few other people tends to magnify conversations, fidgeting, and other distractions in your immediate vicinity. Overall, the feeling is a bit blocky, although I'm told a lot of customers like it.

One of the main purposes of a coffeehouse is to foster community and provide a gathering place. Libraries do the same thing, and sometimes bookstores do, too. Many bookstores now try to emulate libraries, with cushy seating and soft lights, and some libraries incorporate cafes, so that they've all come to resemble one another more closely. This may be the first coffeehouse I've seen that has attempted to create a less commercial and more studious vibe. It's a bold design, but I miss the spacious, all-encompassing gathering place it used to be.

I once did some research on library architecture and identified one of its archetypal building blocks as the monk's cell, typified by the many paintings you see of Saint Jerome poring over books in a confined, not to mention cozy, room. A scholar's life is monastic and solitary, and a library usually provides a lot of private space for study. A public gathering place, such as a town square, tends to be open, providing no barrier to conversation and free movement. The archetype there is one of unity. The renovated coffeehouse reveals an attempt to combine both of these purposes.

Maybe I'm zeroing in on this because I've been doing research in the area of individualism and community in society. I don't think one precludes the other, but I can't remember ever being in a room where I felt pulled in opposite directions to the same degree. I think the design was intended to have something for everyone, but I liked it better when the community sense was uppermost. It's now more mazelike and seems to require more maneuvering than I'm usually interested in doing with an iced coffee in hand.

It'll be interesting to see if my feelings about the space change over time, and how the rest of the community embraces the new design.

Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke It

Several years ago, I visited the Menil Collection in Houston, where I first saw René Magritte's L'empire des lumières (The Dominion of Light). I was very taken by it. I was one year into my Myth Studies program and had a new interpretive lens for making sense of the emotional impact of stories, images, and art. So when I looked at this painting, I immediately recognized the mysterious interplay of opposites that makes it such an arresting image.

Magritte had a way of fearlessly combining the impossible, or the incongruous. In this painting, it's broad day in the top half of the frame and night in the bottom half. What I thought of first on seeing it was the parallel to the conscious and the unconscious, an obvious Jungian interpretation. 

What I think makes the scene so striking is the lamplight in the midst of the darkness, which focuses your attention on the shadowy region. The bright sky above seems empty in comparison with the layers of light and shade in front of the building, and the sense of depth is emphasized even more by the reflection of the lights, trees, and building (but not the blue sky) in the softly rippling water below the trees. Even within the darkness, there is a lower level of unconsciousness in the mysterious pool, of which we only see the surface. 

There are many opposites in the painting: sky and water, nature and civilization, day and night, above and below. They blend into one another in subtle ways, although the painting seems at first to present two starkly separate realms. The trees reach up from dark roots into the bright blue sky, and the light from the lamp and the window echo the daylight above. The painting almost seems to map consciousness, from the everyday, somewhat vacuous persona to the ego to the personal unconscious to the deeper collective unconscious underneath it all.

I wasn't really planning to write about this painting, and the way it came about was this: I was thinking this afternoon about synchronicity and pure coincidence and the difference between them. That brought up an association with the famous statement that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," attributed to Freud (which he probably didn't say, but that's a different story). That got me to thinking about Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, with its iconic pipe and inscription, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." ("This is not a pipe.") That led me to thoughts of L'empire des lumières, probably for the mere reason that it's also by Magritte and happens to be my favorite.

Back to the question that started all this, about the difference between synchronicity and coincidence: I think they're both real, but I'm not sure I can define what separates them. I would say that synchronicity seems meaningful, whereas coincidence doesn't, but who's to say what meaningful is? Some might argue that there really aren't any coincidences. I'm not sure I'd agree. It's a large metaphysical question, and I don't have the resources (or the chocolate) to puzzle it out at this time. Was it synchronicity that led me to this painting? Or just a rambling series of thoughts?

I don't know, but I do know that Magritte painted a series of Dominion of Light variants, so for some reason the image seems to have captured him. Another interesting fact: Jackson Browne's 1974 album Late for the Sky has a cover image inspired by Dominion of Light, and when you look at it you can easily see the influence. I just discovered that. Apparently, the photo was shot in South Pasadena. Huh, somebody was just talking about Pasadena yesterday. Do you think that means anything????

I would say no. I just watched a video of Mr. Browne singing "Late for the Sky," a song I don't believe I had heard before. I don't know what it has to do with metaphysics, or Freud, or cigars, but I'm glad I came across it. It was lovely.

Out on Monk's Road

A few days ago, I drove west on the Bluegrass Parkway to visit the Abbey at Gethsemani. There was a time when I made this trip more often, and I've been overdue for a visit. The abbey is a Trappist monastery in a bucolic setting down a narrow country road in Nelson County. Thomas Merton lived there, and today it's home to quite a number of monks. They're contemplative, which to my understanding means they emphasize prayer and work and an atmosphere of silence.

The Gethsemani monks are known for their fruitcakes and cheese and bourbon candy. I sampled the candy once at Christmas time, and believe me, it will either clear your sinuses or put hair on your chest or both. They're generous with the bourbon is all I'm saying.

They picked a great spot for a contemplative abbey; by day, they're surrounded by lush fields and soft green hills with little to interrupt the quiet but birds and crickets, and by night they're tucked under a bright canopy of stars. I know, because I used to take my binoculars and go there star-gazing. It was the one place I could think of where it was dark enough to see the night sky and safe enough to be doing it. I used to gaze at the moon by the hour from their parking lot and try to identify constellations and nebulae; the only interference was a rather bright light on a nearby barn.

The first time I visited the abbey, I think I was expecting something more medieval. I was doing the Artist's Way and went there on an artist's date. A monastery might not be the first place you'd think of for an artist's date, but as I interpreted it, I was seeking out new experiences and exploring realms outside my everyday sphere. Certainly, the abbey qualified for that. It was a place I'd long been curious about and floated in my imagination as some kind of mysterious, otherworldly Avalon, resounding with chant and shadowy silences.

When I got there, late in the afternoon of a Saturday in November, I stopped at the visitor's center and spoke to the monk on duty, who had a very round face and glasses but didn't seem particularly medieval. He told me I could visit the church, so I went in and looked around. I might have taken his invitation too liberally, as I went all the way down the nave and around the little nooks at the other end, which may actually have been off limits. When I came back to the seating area behind the little gate, I was just in time to see the shocked face of another visitor, evidently a regular, who crossed herself agitatedly and knelt down to pray with the stiff manner of someone who had just witnessed the breaking of at least eight and possibly more of the Ten Commandments.

I stayed in the growing dusk of that autumn day for vespers, sitting with the other visitors who gradually filled the seats as bells tolled and white-and-black-robed monks came strolling in from various directions to fill the benches on either side of the nave in front of us. To be honest, I think I was a little disappointed with the plainness of the church, which seemed rather starkly white with its unadorned dark wood beams and spartan interior. When the monks began to chant, it was in English, not in Latin, and even the melodies seemed more modern than I was expecting. I was still a little wounded by the silent rebuke I'd received from the pious woman and wondered why I so frequently felt in the wrong when it came to Catholicism, the church I was raised in.

In between chants, there were readings, and as it happened, one of the readings was on fornication, which was mentioned several times. Each time it came up, a few more visitors, all young and mostly in pairs, got up and left in a hurry. The Abbey at Gethsemani is fairly famous, and I'm sure it draws people from all over the world, many of whom are not churchgoers at all. I surmised that these young pilgrims, probably admirers of Merton's who knew of his work with the Buddhists, stopped in to see the place associated with him and got more than they bargained for in the form of an epistle on sins of the flesh. I sat there unmoved. I might have had trespassing issues, but otherwise my conscience was in the clear.

I'm not sure why I went back after the first anticlimactic visit, unless it was because had I noticed the light. After the first time, I usually went directly up to the second-floor balcony, which allows you to look down the length of the nave from on high. You can't even see the monks unless you sit close enough to the front, but what you can see is . . . light -- the way it streams in through the parti-colored windows, like the answer to a prayer or the sound of the word "om." It's very peaceful in the balcony, with that warm light streaming in, and the simplicity of the church turns out to be the perfect backdrop  for watching the light. When I think of the abbey now, that's what I see.

One time, I was sitting up there, lost in thought, when I heard a door opening behind me. I looked around and saw one of the monks crossing the balcony from the monastic area on his way down to the church. He was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a spring in his step, and he smiled at me without saying anything, though his expression spoke volumes. That's another thing that has stayed with me, the joy in his smile.

On my recent visit, as I sat light-gazing, I thought to myself that I should keep my mind open and see what inspiration or epiphany might come to me on one of those sunbeams. I'd been sitting there for a while, thinking about little else but how funny life is, when suddenly I realized that I needed to change a password on one of my accounts at home. Not exactly the kind of thing I was expecting, but when I'm sitting in an attitude of meditation in a house of prayer, and an unexpected thought comes to me, I pay attention.

On the way out, I stopped to look at the walled garden, a simple but inviting place drowsing in the early summer evening. I peeked into the visitor's chapel, where someone had posted a note about praying the rosary. I waved at a pleasant-looking couple I saw in the parking lot. On the way back to town, I passed a young man walking on the side of the road who looked at me with a sort of light in his eyes, a la "Woodstock." I don't know what any of that means, but when I got home, I did change my password.

A Walk in Chicago

I was in Chicago for a few days last week. As often happens in an unfamiliar place, I was tired and a bit overwhelmed the first day. Downtown Chicago is an extremely energetic environment, and it took me a day to get in synch with it.

A lunchtime walk to the Newberry Library on the second day allowed me to get my feet under me. My natural love of walking kicked in, I enjoyed finding my way to the Library (and seeing the inside of it), and the skyscrapers and busy streets that had seemed daunting the night before started to seem exciting and intriguing instead. There was a lot to see.

My last night in town we had a conference dinner, which ended early. I started walking back toward my hotel, but it seemed too early to just go to my room and brush my teeth. I decided instead to walk toward Navy Pier. I was enjoying the views of the skyscrapers lit up against the dusk and the Friday night exuberance in the air. I knew if I kept walking I would come to the waterfront, so I tried to maintain a straight course while staying on well-populated streets.

I eventually came to Lakeshore Drive and was faced with an underpass I hesitated to use. While hesitating, I saw groups of people crossing it from the other side, so I made my way down to it from the street level and ventured forth. Navy Pier, on the other side, was awash with people as I strolled past. I wondered if I should try to get to Millennium Park or if I was going to get caught in the rain.

I asked two women emerging from the park near Navy Pier how close I was to Millennium Park. I walked along with them for a while as we discussed the best way to get there. As it turned out, it was a little late for Millennium Park by then, and I had conveniently but unintentionally (because of the lake shore) walked in a sort of circle so that I was not far from my hotel. By that time my feet were tired, and I had satisfied my impulse for a walk, so I called it a night.

Every place has its own presiding genius, its local gods. I don't know Chicago well enough to say what its gods are. I was downtown, and that's different from other parts of the city I've seen before. I saw glittering towers, groups of revelers out on the town, and beautiful window displays of artfully arranged housewares and home decor. I saw a man playing a saxophone in front of the AT&T store. I saw a homeless family huddled in a doorway. I saw many tourists in a crowded Navy Pier arcade, a glimpse of the lake at nightfall, a young man taking a break in the cavelike service area of a large hotel, a doctor leaning against the reception desk inside Northwestern Hospital, and a pair of young men posing proudly for a picture in front of an underpass mural.

I navigated by prior knowledge of the map, attention to the presence of others, the advice of guides, and my own intentions. I'm glad I followed my hunch that it was too early to go to bed. During the day, Chicago is busy, directed, and purposeful. It gave me a fuller sense of things to experience a more festive but still multi-faceted city as it wound down into evening.

Keeping It Real

To Kill a Mockingbird is downtown this week as part of the Summer Movie Classics series, and I thought of going this afternoon but didn't make it in time. It made me think about how I should have included Atticus Finch in my "Handsome Is as Handsome Does" post a few weeks ago. He's another of my literary heroes.

I got a paperback copy of the novel when I was 12 through one of those book clubs you join at school. Reading it wasn't so much like reading a novel as inhabiting a world, and it was a world that looked a lot like the one I was in. Rarely, if ever, have I read anything that seemed so true to life. I never lived in a small Alabama town, but Maycomb was enough like the small Kentucky town I was in to seem as if it all could have been taking place just down the street.

The noble and the ignoble side by side . . . character after character seemed to jump off the page with a three-dimensional reality. I kept thinking, "I know these people." Miss Stephanie Crawford, for one, was a ringer for one of my relatives. Scout, Jem, and Dill could have been my brother and me running around with a neighborhood friend. The prejudice, the small-mindedness, the nobility, the courage, the terrors of growing up . . . there wasn't a false note in it anywhere. By the end of it, I almost felt that I had once dressed up as a ham for a pageant and been rescued by Boo Radley.

When I first saw the movie on TV years ago, I was a bit thrown off by several things, including the actress who portrayed Scout. Actually, she did a good job but didn't look quite the way I had pictured the character. In my mind, Scout had pigtails and a sturdier, more tomboyish appearance than the gamine-faced actress in the film. And even though the movie, as I remember it, was faithful to the book in both spirit and many of its details, it must have been difficult to bring such a fully-realized world to the screen without missing something in the translation.

One thing that couldn't have gone any better was the casting of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. If ever anyone was born to play that character, it was Mr. Peck. Calm, compassionate, intelligent and well-reasoned, full of integrity . . . who wouldn't want Atticus for a father? When I think of the story, I don't think first of all the ugliness of human nature it exposes. I think of Atticus, facing down the mad dog, sitting outside the jail overnight to protect Tom Robinson, or ruffling Scout's hair after quietly explaining some important fact of life to her. I came away from the book with a belief that despite everything, decency, goodness, and wisdom create a structure that can withstand some mighty powerful storms.

Mythically, Atticus resembles Zeus at his most benign. He stands for justice and fairness and the importance of respecting principles and laws. Not the loudest or most flamboyant attorney you'd ever meet, but forceful in a different way. The kind of absent-minded father that kids might find faintly ridiculous until they were old enough to understand what was really ticking underneath the mild manner and modest exterior.

I'm not aware that Harper Lee wrote any other novels besides To Kill a Mockingbird, but I guess if you were only going to write one, this would be it. The story and the characters are timeless, and the writing is flawless. Although it has some of the tragedy of a Greek drama, it does not have quite the same fatalism. In spite of everything, Atticus will be there in the morning when Jem wakes up, and that seems to make all the difference.

Scenting the Past

Yesterday I read an article about the perfume industry in Provence. It was a very poetic account of the art and science of creating fragrance and included a description of an expert who could tell what type of perfume would suit a person just by talking to someone who knew her well. The author of the article wrote of the sense of smell and its role in setting memories, and that got me thinking about Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, and how the senses interact with experience to form lasting impressions.

Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is famous for its description of the taste of the cookie that awakened childhood memories for the narrator. There are tastes that would do the same for me, though I rarely come across things I remember eating and drinking when I was young. I was once in an old-fashioned store in Northern California that stocked the type of candy-coated chocolate balls in cellophane sleeves that I hadn't eaten in almost 40 years. I can still taste them. Finding them that day was, in a small way, like recovering a bit of the past. Other tastes that I vividly remember, like my mother's pancakes and meatloaf, both of which were hers alone, are lost to me now for good.

As for smells, my memory is full of them. One scent I recall from early childhood is the smell of Spic 'n Span, which my mother used to clean the floors. It's tied to images of my mother doing housework, with the TV on in the background. I also remember the combined scents of starch, a hot iron, and cotton enveloping me as I played on the floor, ironing board towering above me. I can still picture the living room in our duplex, with the sun coming in though a kitchen window and Search for Tomorrow's high-pitched organ music filling the air, images all tied up with those particular scents.

I continue to enjoy the smell of freshly-mown grass, which I associate with my father. I used to like following along behind him as he created paths in the yard with the lawn mower. The wetter the grass and the more humid the day, the more closely the scent matches my memory, because we lived in Florida then, and the smell of the grass there was heady and thick.

From my school days, I recall the smell of the supply room at the end of the hall where we got our paper, ink cartridges, erasers, and notebooks. It was the sweet, woody smell of pencils and paper -- the soft, pulpy kind with blue lines, on which we learned to write -- that dominated the little room, accented by the more delicate odor of ink and the rubbery essence of erasers. There's never been another room like it.

The coconut aroma of Coppertone is one of the fragments of my memories of family trips to the beach. I've become used to more medicinal sunscreens with lighter, cleaner scents, but a whiff of old-fashioned coconut lotion takes me right back to Fort Myers Beach. In addition, there was a place at the beach where you could get hot dogs, slightly leathery and sweet with ketchup, that didn't taste like the hot dogs anywhere else. The salty scent of those hot dogs filled the air near the shaded shack where you bought them and remains for me the essence of a perfect day at the beach.

There's also the inimitable smell of the downtown movie theaters during a matinee, composed of popcorn, spilled soft drinks, and a salty-sweet darkness. Connected with this is the taste of Milk Duds, our go-to movie-time candy, and a memory of dark red curtains.

What else? Well, there's the straightforward detergent smell of Prell shampoo, which reigned supreme in our bathroom, the mild smell of Vel soap (which I've rarely encountered elsewhere), my father's Old Spice, and the scent of the clothes hamper, musky, woody, and plastic, with top notes of Pinesol. I recall the smell of batter, both the batters my mother mixed from Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker in a white plastic basin, and the ones that baked under the light bulb in my Easy-Bake Oven and were entirely different.

I've been surprised to find that some of the products I remember are still around, like Prell shampoo and Spic 'n Span. I'm not sure if they're made the way they used to be, though. I think I found a box of Spic 'n Span some years ago, tried it, and didn't think it smelled the same. Of course, on a different floor, in a different home, at a different time, it's not surprising it didn't match my memories. It was working with the chemistry of a completely different environment.

The things we remember are not just discrete items but are woven into the fabric of a place and time. They interact with the items and the people around them to create something distinctive. In some cases, they're memorable enough that you'd recognize them anywhere, like a virtuoso solo performance. In other cases, they're like the individual instruments in an orchestra, bits and pieces of something bigger that seem diminished when separated. Sense memories are like a perfume: they're made of many essences, not just one.

We the People

It's the Fourth of July and raining like the dickens. I don't know how all the city-sponsored festivities fared today, but most of them must have been rained out. The weather, to me at least, seems to match the mood of the country. Our spirits are a bit dampened by all the news about spying, IRS scandals, budget woes, etc.

It's disheartening to hear a constant litany of accusations, counter-accusations, and denials. The government tells us it has done us a world of good by invading our privacy but hasn't told us exactly how. People are continuing to lose their jobs. Things have become rather Orwellian, and you wonder which of our elected leaders are truly there to serve the country. That's what government's for, right? To serve the people?

The United States has certain guiding myths that we hold dear, although we've often failed to live up to them. I say "myths" in the sense of the foundational stories we tell about ourselves, the ones that tell us who we are. The portraits of the Founding Fathers reflect the seriousness with which the young country viewed its odyssey from wilderness to emerging nation, a land of freedom and opportunity based on principles of equality. There's a mythic grandeur in those faces and in the scenes of courage and struggle they participated in.

Despite the many ways in which these men failed to extend their ideals -- to women, slaves, and Native Americans -- the principles themselves were sound. The fact that they were applied so imperfectly is disappointing but not surprising. Over 235 years later, we still haven't got it right.

America is growing more diverse and is projected to attain a "majority-minority" status by 2043, meaning no single group will represent a majority of the population. It's uncertain whether this will also mean a re-distribution of opportunities and resources or whether those with advantages will try to hang on to them. The future isn't clear.

All the competing subcultures and groups that make up the United States represent the possibility of friction but also an opportunity to benefit from multiple points of view. There's no longer a predominant religious or cultural background, and as the country continues to grow, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves will also change. One thing that doesn't have to change is the story of freedom and equality we told ourselves at the beginning, an idea that I think most of us still like.

I'm hoping the feeling I sometimes have that we're getting farther away from our story is just an illusion, that in reality we're moving closer to it all the time. Maybe it was such a big story that we just had to grow into it, and are still growing into it now.

Handsome Is As Handsome Does

I'm hard to please when it comes to literary characters. Specifically, I'm thinking now of romantic heroes. I seem to have gotten on a track of reading novels with romantic plot lines this summer, so several leading men are jostling against one another in my mind's eye. I was reading a book last week about a woman who had a summer affair with a man she met in Europe. The book was insightful about many things, but the main character, a relatively young woman, related the story as if all good things in life were behind her, all because the guy she tooled around with wouldn't leave his loveless marriage for her.

This guy actually asked her, at the end of their affair, if she expected him to ruin his life for her. Ding-ding-ding! Fire! Disaster! Help! Shouldn't that have told her what she needed to know? Would you believe that someone who'd say such a thing was the best thing that ever happened to you? She didn't seem to see it the same way I did, though, and at story's end was in deep mourning over the one who got away. I don't get it.

She did say he was good-looking, easy-going, companionable, and funny, but isn't that beside the point? To me, nothing kills the credibility of a hero like unreliability.

Well, Mary, you might say, what heroes do you find credible? Of course, you probably think I'm going to put Rochester from Jane Eyre at the top of my list because I was once an English major and he's in my dissertation. Actually, though, I have a problem with his lack of truthfulness about the madwoman in the attic. He should have told Jane the truth. That would have been a different book, but after all, a preexisting wife is not a small thing.

Some of Jane Austen's men stand up pretty well, although some are a bit milquetoast, even if you otherwise like them (Edward Ferrars, I'm talking to you). I blame some of this on the mores of the world Austen was depicting. You really don't expect a sturdy character like Aragorn son of Arathorn to wander into the genteel precints of Emma or Pride and Prejudice, even though it's fun to imagine it. I think Emma's Mr. Knightley comes off well, since he always gives Emma good advice and remains steadfast in his concern for her welfare. He's intelligent, kind, and consistent, though of course he can afford to be. He doesn't have someone breathing down his neck about making an unsuitable match.

I've already mentioned Tolkien's Aragorn, a rough-and-ready character who cleans up well, is brave and honorable, and doesn't scare easily. He turns out to be a king, but I don't know that I don't like him better as Strider, the wandering Ranger who doesn't look like anyone special, but is. One of my other favorite heroes is Mary Stewart's Simon Lester, who appears in the novel My Brother Michael. The heroine runs into some truly hard-nosed villains in this story of murky dealings in and around Delphi some years after World War II, and Simon, a Classics teacher investigating his brother's wartime death, is a true rock.

I read this book as a teenager and barely registered Simon, who is not a flashy character, but when I re-read it several years ago, he seemed to leap out of the page with his courage, resourcefulness, and good sense, like a quieter version of MacGyver. I guess you need a few decades before you can appreciate a staunch, trustworthy character over the moody, tortured types that make such an impression on a teenager, but there you have it.

It all goes back to something my grandmother used to say when I was growing up: "Handsome is as handsome does." It used to irritate me, because I thought she was saying you couldn't trust good-looking men, which seemed like a sweeping statement (and not one I wanted to hear). Now that I understand what she meant, I've been known to say it myself.

I'm reading yet another book about a divorcée who is swept off her feet by a good-looking, sophisticated man and was ready to throw the book across the room last night when he showed up in a well-tailored jacket and crisp shirt that set off his tan but seemed too insecure to weather his date's nervousness. I'm deferring judgment for the moment, though, because the heroine is just as annoying, and I haven't gotten to the end of the story yet. I'm trying to be open-minded here and not a snob. Even a wealthy, good-looking man may have redeeming qualities, and I'll be the first to admit it.

A Path, a Compass, a Map

I guess it isn't surprising how often I end up writing about walking, since I do a lot of walking. It's even sort of a professional interest, because of labyrinths. But I read a book this week that doesn't seem to be about either labyrinths or walking, in the everyday sense of walking. I meant to read Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail last year, when it came out, but I got sidetracked. It's probably just as well, since it means more to me now than it would have a year ago.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and the events of an actual life a thousand times more compelling than the best-crafted novel ever written. Such is Wild, a memoir of a woman's solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, undertaken in sort of a desperate, intuitive belief that something good would come out of it. As Miss Strayed tells it, she was in a Midwestern outdoor store buying a shovel when she picked up a guidebook for walkers of the PCT. She glanced at the book, then put it back, but something about the cover image of mountains and sky spoke to her mysteriously, and while driving to her home in Minneapolis, she was captured by the idea of hiking the trail herself.

It was a somewhat unexpected decision for someone who had never gone backpacking. But at the age of 26, battered by the loss of her mother to cancer, the breakup of her family, a marriage that had come unglued, an unexpected pregnancy, and a mounting sense of turmoil and emptiness, Strayed undertook the journey in a bid to find answers or least have a chance to think things through. As frequently happens, the reality was very different than what she had imagined.

As a novice hiker, Strayed had little idea of how to properly pack and ended up carrying a load that felt like "a Volkswagen Beetle" on her back. Men she met on the trail had trouble even picking up her pack, much less understanding how she managed to walk with it. Her hiking boots blistered her feet and rubbed them raw, a problem that persisted throughout the trip. She had little money, and despite the carefully chosen protein bars and dehydrated food, was always hungry. She learned to use a compass along the way, crossed rockslides and ice fields, edged around rattlesnakes, encountered bears, mastered the intricacies of a wayward water purifier, slept alone in a tent, worried about mountain lions, and occasionally sang to herself.

She had imagined walking along in soothing solitude, breathing in deeply and letting the beauty of the passing scenery heal the broken places. What actually happened was that pushing through the difficulties -- the skin lacerations, the pain, the hunger and thirst, the fears, the dangers, and the mistakes -- healed her. She discovered that she could stand on her own two feet by continuing to put one in front of the other, and the beauty of the wilderness, experienced at unexpected moments in bursts of clarity, was that much sweeter for being attained so dearly.

There are many ways to interpret the story. In one way, it's a tale about learning to mother (and father) oneself. It's also a hero's journey, one that ends with the book itself, the author's "boon" to the rest of us. While it might not be apparent, the PCT, though linear on a map, is experienced as a maze in which choices must often be made. No two hikers ever experience the trail the same way. As Miss Strayed herself seems to invoke Dante early on when she speaks of feeling lost in the woods of her life, I have to tell you that I thought of The Divine Comedy often while reading this story. Like Dante the pilgrim, Miss Strayed found that, paradoxically, the only way out of the woods was the long way, the via dolorosa, through the Inferno.

The author is candid about her struggles and shortcomings and the naivete with which she began her journey. It's borne in upon the reader that it was sheer determination (and luck) that saw her through. There was every possibility for things to end in disaster. Still, events demonstrate that her intuition to undertake a difficult task to find her measure was a good one. I'm tempted to report that, like Ginger Rogers, Miss Strayed did everything a man could do, except backwards and in heels, but that's not really true, except that it is, sort of. Unlike Dante, she didn't have a Virgil constantly beside her in the tough bits, unless you count the guidebooks she carried. She found mentors along the way, but it was up to her to separate the wheat from the chaff and decide for herself what kind of trip it would be.

I doubt that I would ever hike the PCT on my own, but I recognize the impulse that led the author to do it, and I admire it. There are some things you just have to figure out for yourself. I started the book with tears at the descriptions of Miss Strayed's early sorrows and losses and ended it with tears of a different kind, and that's never a bad way to end a story.

Portrait of a Summer Night

Walking tonight in the Arboretum, I was thinking about summers past. It was a lovely June evening, and the hilltop views of the big orange sun going down were almost panoramic: I felt I was on top of a mountain and could see for miles. There was a grandeur about the sunset, with dramatic rays of sunlight streaming out from behind gorgeous clouds in a clean blue sky. But I was thinking back to my childhood, when the archetypal summer night was contained within the modest yard of my grandparents' frame house in a small Kentucky town.

I wonder if most people don't have a similar image that conjures up everything a summer night consists of. For me, it goes like this: a backyard of green grass, tilted slightly uphill, big enough for croquet wickets near the top and a gathering of lawn chairs under a big maple at the bottom. Under the tree was where the grownups sat. The kids didn't sit anywhere for long, but there were several options: a picnic table, a swing-set, and a glider on the back porch. If you sat on the glider, you'd share it with my grandfather, who favored it, and who always had his tobacco can and cane nearby.

The house itself smelled like pipe tobacco, the soap my grandmother used in her bathroom, biscuits, and fried chicken. It had a smell all its own, somehow old-fashioned and Southern, and it will never be duplicated. I remember also the damp, musty smell of the basement with its gravel floor and rough-hewn posts, usually visited when Mason jars were needed for fireflies. It was full of Daddy-long-legs, was lit by a bare bulb, and was somewhat of a novelty in my eyes. In Florida, where I lived with my parents and siblings, I hadn't seen many houses with basements.

There was always something to eat at the house, since family gatherings inevitably involved food: my grandmother's fried chicken, salty and tender, especially the little piece with the wishbone that I liked; her rib-sticking biscuits (I later imagined Tolkien's lembas as being a bit like those savory morsels of shortening, flour, and salt); potato salad; corn on the cob, baked beans with onions, ambrosia salad, green beans with ham; cucumbers in vinegar; cornbread (salty, not sweet); sliced cantaloupe; watermelon; and brownies. Sometimes, we'd make ice cream, and the kids would all take turns with the crank. That ice cream was both sweet and salty, due to the rock salt we used.

There were only four rooms in the small square house besides the bathroom. The kitchen, which opened onto the back porch, was the heart of the enterprise, the repository of all the food, and the place where as many as ten people were sometimes crowded around the table if it was raining. (Typically, everybody picked a spot outside, picnic-style, paper plates full and balanced precariously.) There were African violets in the kitchen window, countertops full of food-containing Tupperware, and (always) a plate of biscuits on top of the stove.

There were also two bedrooms and a living room. When we visited our grandparents from Florida, my brother and sister and I would sleep on fold-out cots in the living room. Otherwise, that room was mainly known as the way out to the front porch.

I remember the front porch as being the domain of kids; there was another glider there, the perfect spot for drinking sweet iced tea and rocking slowly. There was a maple tree in the front yard that we liked to climb, and there would sometimes be as many as six or seven cousins perched on various branches. When we weren't doing that, we'd watch people from the neighborhood, either on foot or in cars, go up and down the street. It wasn't a busy street, and there was just enough activity to be interesting. Three doors down was a tiny plaza with a laundromat, where my mother would do our vacation laundry and we'd buy Ale-8-Ones (a local soft drink with a gingery bite) out of the machine.

What did we do on those long summer nights? Nothing special, but that's what was so great about them. To me, the choices seemed infinite: first of all, you would eat. Afterwards, you could sit on the glider, listening to it squeak as you rocked back and forth, climb the tree, play croquet, goof around on the swing-set, make ice cream, listen to the grownups talk, catch fireflies, watch Amos (our Grandpa's big collie) chase his tail, view home movies on a screen in the back yard, play with sparklers (if it was near the Fourth of July), have another biscuit, and look forward to the next day's outing to Natural Bridge or Boonesborough State Park.

I realize now that things were not as perfect as they seemed, but I'm glad I didn't know, because I have those warm, carefree nights, somehow both aimless and full, to go back to in my mind. They're still my yardstick for what a summer night is supposed to be. I remember the feeling of being surrounded by people, of belonging, and of never being bored. I remember the green-yellow light of the fireflies, blinking on and off in the yard, and how they became a living nightlight, small Mason jar beacons to drift off to sleep by in the living room. The next morning we'd let them go, and they'd all disappear in the bright light of day, a bit dazed by their experience, if you ask me. It didn't matter: they'd be back, all out again in force when twilight fell, at the end of another full and infinitely long summer day.

Orpheus Told Mnemosyne: Stories of Memory and Loss

I picked out two novels from the new book shelf at the library this past week with similar themes. The first one, The Last Summer (by Judith Kinghorn), is an English romance set before, during, and after the first World War. This territory has been notably trod by Downton Abbey, Atonement, and other works of fiction and offers ripe ground for meditation on love, endurance, privation, courage, the horrors of war, and the loss of innocence, among other subjects.

The second book, The Obituary Writer (by Ann Hood), tells two stories, one of a love affair interrupted by the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the other of a suburban housewife and mother who experiences an unexpected awakening after the disappearance of a neighborhood boy in 1961. In this book, the two stories are linked not only by themes of memory and loss but also by a character who appears in both.

Having recently seen the film The Great Gatsby (another period drama dealing with some of the same concerns), I think I was curious to see how other writers might treat the vast theme of love and disaster. With Gatsby's tragedy fresh in my mind, I'm pretty sure I was hoping for a happier ending. Did I get one? Well, yes and no.

The Last Summer tells a coming of age story as a loss of paradise, and this sense of looking back and longing for what once was permeates the novel. Clarissa has grown up in an idyllic country home with very little to trouble her until, on the eve of World War I, she falls in love with the housekeeper's son. The novel unfolds over a period of some years as Clarissa and Tom pledge their devotion, are separated by war and the disapproval of Clarissa's mother, come back together for brief intervals, and drift apart.

In tandem with the loss of her young man is the loss of Clarissa's home, which is sold due to the family's change of fortunes during the war. Deyning is pictured as an Edenic place of gardens, roses, and expansive lawns, and although, as a reverse snob, I shouldn't have had much sympathy for Clarissa's fall from grace (she's still well off), the image of that paradise lost resonated so mythically that I felt it, too. It was less clear to me why it took Clarissa and Tom so long to get back together when they were obviously so unhappy apart, but that's the way the story developed.

The novel dwells a great deal on privations that can't be undone, but after many troubles, the two lovers reunite, and even Deyning is not as lost as it appeared to be. The story seems linear until the end, when the author circles back to the world that was lost, and we're told that "Moments can and do come back to us." I was more struck by that line than any other in the book, as it implied a sort of mythic eternal return that, while a bit out of line with the plot up to that point, was a relief after all the hardship preceding it.

The Obituary Writer takes a different approach to loss. Vivien Lowe, unable to discover the fate of her lover after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake, has left San Francisco but never accepted her loss. She's a sort of female Orpheus, always looking back, and hope kept alive acts for her as a kind of barrier to living in the present (although I was unable to see that she was missing anything, quite frankly). When she does move on, it's not in a way that's satisfying for her, and decades later she's a cautionary tale for her daughter-in-law, who is paralyzed in a stifling marriage.

Vivien's suffering is understandable because the fate of her lover was never clear. To me, it seems reasonable that she would continue to look for him and try to learn his fate. Her thirteen years of searching are presented as if they are a lifetime wasted. And yet her friend Lotte, who follows a sensible path of marriage and motherhood and constantly urges Vivien to move on, sees her own life fall apart in an instant. In such an unpredictable world, who's to say which path is better?

So, one novel has a happy ending that seems a little contrived, and another has a somber message about loss. In The Obituary Writer, the only hope for happiness lies with Claire, the daughter-in-law, whose future at the end is still unknown. But what about Vivien? Should she, when young, have tried to swallow her grief and gone back to San Francisco to pick up her life? Would finding out the truth sooner have mattered? That was the only solution I could see. Should Clarissa and Tom, in The Last Summer, have stopped dithering a little sooner? Maybe so, though it still wouldn't have made up for the loss of their friends and loved ones.

I keep going back to Jay Gatsby, whose intransigence started this whole train of thought, I now realize. I keep envisioning a happier ending for him in my version of "dreaming the myth onwards." (Oddly enough, I find that this quote comes from Jung's The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, which I spent several hours reading this very afternoon.)

So to Gatsby I say, with all the conviction I can muster, forget about that green light. It's a siren, a phantasm, that will lure you to the rocks. You've been to college (even if it was only one semester, it was still Oxford), so you should know the light is only a metaphor for Daisy, a lovely girl but an altogether flighty one. Just because she's a famous literary character doesn't mean she has street cred.

Take your fortune and reinvest in something safer. Move away from godforsaken West Egg and all those snobs and their old money. Why not try . . . California? Go west, young man. This could work. Who needs a castle, anyway?

Don't Panic! It's That Fake Synchronicity Again

I cannot explain everything that happens around me, but I can vouch for an uptick in strange occurences and odd synchronicities going back several years now. As a Jungian, I shouldn't be bothered by this, since synchronicity is the stock-in-trade of Jung's philosophy -- except that I don't believe most of it is genuine.

I wrote recently about the car accident I was in back in April. The next week, my cousin sent an email saying that my brother, who lives in another state, had been hit by an SUV driven by someone who was upset with him (my brother isn't saying anything, and neither is anyone else in the family). We haven't been able to verify what happened, which in itself is odd. Did it happen, or didn't it? You wouldn't think establishing the simple truth would be so difficult, but it is.

I've long been accustomed to noticing people hanging about who seem out of place. The first time it happened, I was in an upscale sandwich shop having lunch and reading the life of Buddha for a class. I was so engrossed in the book that I didn't look up for a long time, and when I did, there was a rather thuggish young man sitting directly across from  me, engaged in . . . not much of anything, except sitting there looking thuggish. The thought instantly came into my head that there was something unwholesome in his manner and that he just looked wrong. I left a few minutes later, and he didn't bother me, but the incident stuck in my mind. Many odd things were happening at my workplace then, and this item seemed bracketed with them somehow.

He was only the first of many others . . . the man who stared so persistently as I had lunch at yet another sandwich shop and then followed me outside, talking animatedly on his cell phone and staring; the weird guy with the ferret face who tried to engage me in a conversation about pie as I was leaving Gumbo Ya Ya; the slickly handsome but vaguely demonic stranger who arrived at the elevator in the parking garage of my hotel at the same time I did; the oddly abrasive chick who crashed the Jane Austen Book Club and then skulked around the entrance as I was leaving the store; the low-rent Michael Fassbender look-alike who showed up at Starbucks the day after I watched Jane Eyre on video.

That's just life in the city, you say -- you're bound to meet with all kinds of characters. Well, maybe. If it happened once in a while, I'd agree with you, but all the time?

Speaking of look-alikes, I've also noticed, more than once, people who looked remarkably like other people I know. One of the most striking incidents occurred a couple of years ago as I was waiting for a train with two friends in San Francisco. I had been to a performance by Dave Alvin at Slim's a night or two before. When the next train pulled up, a man who looked incredibly similar to Dave, down to his height and facial hair and cowboy hat, got off right in front of us. It was not Dave, but it's hard to believe anyone could look (and dress) that much like him without doing it on purpose (unless it was Dave Alvin night in San Francisco and no one told me). Why would someone do such a thing, you inquire? Don't ask me. It was freaking weird, though.

And then there's the classmate of mine (or her twin), who has popped up in the oddest of places. I might think I was imagining that, since the hair was always different, except for that time in New Mexico at the all-night gas station when the fellow with her looked like the boyfriend she'd introduced me to one time. Well, if it was her, why didn't she acknowledge you, you ask? Why did she speak to you like you were a stranger? I don't know. You might as well ask why her hair was that strange shade of pink.

Then there's my "haunted" apartment. I know it's not really haunted, but there are enough unexplained cracking and pinging noises, sometimes emanating from innocent objects, to make you wonder about poltergeists. The lights blink mysteriously, although they never used to. And strangest of all are the popping and trilling noises in my ears. I've had ringing in my ears for a long time, and I always put it down to congestion or something mechanical like that, but the chirps and trills I hear nowadays are different, like electronic pulses. It's like something out of James Bond, only less fun.

I've lost count of the number of times perfect strangers spoke to me almost as if they knew me. I used to wonder if some of them were trying to tell me something, but I no longer bother. If someone has something to tell me, they'd better just straight up say it.

In Tibetan Buddhism, there is the tradition of the bardo, a liminal state reached by a person who is in between two earthly lives. In this state, the person encounters all kinds of gods and demons, some of them benign in appearance and some of them hideous, but they are in fact all deceptive. Before death (and while dying), the person is given instructions on how to handle them and is reminded above all of their illusory nature. Some of the people I've encountered remind me of these bardo beings. I'm thinking also of Dante's Inferno, where things get progressively freakier the further Dante and Virgil descend. Before they know it, they've even reversed directions, so that instead of climbing down they're climbing up, emerging into the cave in Purgatory head first. It's all very matrixy, as life in general seems to be these days.

If anything like this has happened to you and you want my advice, the only thing I can say, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, is "Don't Panic!" It's just the bardo, and we assume it will pass. Rest assured there is a logical explanation, and accept no substitutes. I have no idea what's up with all the derring-do, just as I have no idea why the young women in the downtown grocer's seemed to think it was uproarious when the Hall and Oates song "Private Eyes" was playing (at an earsplitting volume) while I was in the store this morning. But store clerks are not the boss of me, just so you know.

I don't remember signing up for a spy caper, although that's what I feel like I'm in. A family member told me the other day that she's scared and doesn't feel safe either at home or in public. I say this so you know I'm not treating this as a joke, even though it sometimes feels like one. Bardo-spy caper-matrix-inferno-whatever -- all things must pass. I may not know the answers, but I know when someone's acting the fool.

Beyond the Green Light

Last week I went to see Baz Luhrmann's version of The Great Gatsby. Some of the criticisms I've heard of the movie are about things that didn't bother me. I didn't think the hip-hop music in the soundtrack was out of place considering the theme and emotional tone of the movie. Likewise, the over-the-top spectacles of Gatsby's parties: wasn't that what he did, throw lavish, out-sized affairs in an attempt to draw Daisy to him? (And wasn't the Jazz Age about excess, to begin with?)

What I noticed was the way I felt at the end of the movie -- kind of stirred up and let-down and empty. Some reviewers might say this was the fault of the movie, a result of its emphasis on style over substance, but I don't think so. I think that's what the movie is about, being let down.

It must be hard to play characters like Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. They are beloved characters, star-crossed lovers, and literary icons, but there is such a haze of romance around them that the tragedy at the bottom of their story is almost lost in a glow of champagne and pearls. I don't know if the story is as much about the failure of the American Dream as it is about a failure of vision on the part of Jay Gatsby.

To be inspired by love to great accomplishments is wonderful, but that is not what drives Gatsby. He has built a staggering fortune based on bootlegging and shady dealings in an attempt to become the important man he always wanted to be. This does not make him inferior to those who happen to have had money longer than he has, even if they (and he, secretly) think so. His motivations, though, seem hollow. It's himself and his humble origins that he's unhappy with, and no mansion of any size can change that.

Oh, but wasn't it Daisy who inspired him? Yes, but that's just the problem. Reviewers unhappy with Carey Mulligan's luminous but vacuous Daisy (and Mia Farrow's, before her) seem to think there is something finer about Daisy than the actresses are able to convey. There must be, or Gatsby wouldn't have fallen for her, right? I think Gatsby's idealism is wasted on Daisy: he has hitched his wagon to the wrong star. He perceives, correctly, that Daisy could never be happy with anyone outside her own social class. She didn't wait for him and married someone else. Maybe that should have been a sign? Yet he won't let go of his vision of her and in the end loses everything because of it.

Mr. Luhrmann's extravagant party scenes and glittering sets convey the emptiness of not only Gatsby's but also the Buchanans' wealth. One of the saddest scenes in the movie is the aftermath of the party in which Gatsby confides to Nick that he'll never be happy until Daisy leaves Tom for him. With servants picking up debris left by heedless guests in a house that seems not just empty but deserted, Nick tries to tell Gatsby that he can't relive the past, but Gatsby doesn't agree. If Gatsby were wise enough to give up his own illusions, he would be a better man. But then, of course, it would be a different story.

Mythically, the story is about Titans -- in this case, Titans of wealth who maneuver and brawl to establish precedence. It shows the dangers of hubris, although Gatsby is unfortunately the main one who seems to pay the price. You have to infer what might happen to the others. (I like to imagine Tom Buchanan losing his smugness in the stock market crash a few years later.)

I think this film captured the evanescent beauty of Gatsby's dreams quite well; there was something magical about Luhrmann's depiction of the bay and the green light on the other side. If Gatsby's imagination and yearnings had been directed toward a more worthy goal, who knows what he would have accomplished. But that would have to be a different movie.

Magic Flash Mobs in the Month of May

Last autumn I wrote a blog about the end of summer and the myth of Demeter and Persephone. I was thinking about the two of them today when I was out and about, on a day of just about perfect weather. Yesterday was beautiful but a little cool; today was just right. There was a bright blue sky, angelic white clouds, a warm (but not hot) sun, trees in full leaf, irises in bloom. To repeat an observation I made a few weeks ago, it was like stepping into an illustration in a children's picture book, one showing a perfect neighborhood with a smiling sun, children waving, and everyone from the mailman to the baker going cheerfully about their business.

So -- Persephone comes back in the spring. The melodramatic part of the myth concerns her leaving and Demeter mourning her loss in autumn. The story goes on to say, though, that a compromise is reached whereby Persephone is returned from the Underworld in the spring, to the general rejoicing of Demeter and everybody else. Persephone is spring personified, with violets entwined in her hair and daisies springing up where she walks. I think of the delicate beauty of April as characteristic of her youth. A day like today, when the promise of early spring has blossomed into something closer to summer, makes me think of her mother, Demeter, whose care greens the earth.

The nurturing and feminine aspects of May are reflected in several traditions. The name of the month probably comes from either Maia, a Greek nymph beloved of Zeus, or the Roman goddess Maiesta, who was associated with veneration and honor. In the Roman Catholic tradition, May is the month of Mary, the mother of God. Of course, May is also the month when we celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Here in Kentucky, we run the horses on the first Saturday in May. I'm not sure what they think about it, but for the people, it's an occasion marked by showy hats, spring finery, mint juleps, and elaborately planned parties.

The birthstone for May is the emerald, whose stunning green seems like the perfect color for such a lush and opulent month. The flower for May is the Lily of the Valley. That seems quite right too, because if I were to assign a fragrance to the month, it would be the old-fashioned but unforgettable (to me, anyway) Muguet des Bois, which contains an essence of this delicate but lingering floral. If you took everything bright and beautiful about the month -- from the luxuriant grass to the shy flowers in the woods -- and distilled it into a bottle, it would smell like this perfume.

I live in an area with a lot of large trees that create an avenue of green this time of year. I have a fantasy about a "Dancing in the Moonlight" sort of reverie that I would like to make into a film someday. This vision came to me out of nowhere not long after I moved here and involves an empty street in the middle of the night. To the tune of either "Dancing in the Moonlight," "Looking Out My Backdoor," or "Moonlight Sonata," a group of people in formal attire appear casually from under the trees, assembling in the middle of the street. They all waltz together. As the music picks up, they start to dance faster, and then you begin to notice the presence of fauns, nymphs, naiads, and other minor gods and goddesses in the crowd (it's an ecumenical group). After a few minutes of kicking up their heels in fine mythic fashion, they all disappear into the trees again, leaving a silent street.

I don't know what it is about the neighborhood that gave rise to this fantasy, but I think now that if I were to film it, it would have to be in May. I've pictured it in autumn to the tune of "Moondance," and I think that would work. But May is really the time for this type of extravaganza. If I ever do commit this to film, look carefully at the faces in the crowd. Demeter and Persephone will certainly be there, as well as Maia and Maiesta and Hermes and Artemis and whoever else is up for a frolic. There might be a few jockeys in the crowd, some emeralds, silk, and boas, fancy buttoned shoes, and some really fine hats.

When the sun comes up the next morning on another beautiful day, it will be as if nothing ever happened -- but that's the way it is with these midnight flash mobs in the merry month of May.

Lessons on Walking in Rain

A rainy spell has set in after several days of beautiful weather. I stayed in on Saturday, but yesterday I decided that even if it was raining, I wanted to get out of the apartment, so I put on my rain gear and walked to Starbucks, a distance of about two miles. I was wearing my stylish Red Riding Hood raincoat and had my polka dot umbrella, but this was one of those cold, steady rains with occasional gusts that eventually gets every inch of you wet. I had to stop and arrange my purse underneath my coat and try to keep my book tote underneath the umbrella.

I was only halfway there when I realized how soaked my sneakers were and realized I'd have to put up with wet feet once I arrived. Wet shoes or not, I thought, it was worth it to spend a couple of hours away from the apartment on this rainy weekend, so I pushed on. I wouldn't have given much thought to a trip to Starbucks if I'd had my car, but on the other hand, I wouldn't have been getting all this lovely walking in, right? I'm all for walking in all kinds of weather but admit I would have been happier with dry feet. Nonetheless, I did take time to notice a pretty dogwood tree in someone's yard and how green the grass was over by the campus library.

Once I got to Starbucks, I discovered that everyone else had had the same idea. There were no tables open, although there were a few extra chairs, so I took one of those and waited for someone to leave. After a while, someone did, so I spread out my things to dry off a little and settled down to read.

On the way home, the sky was beginning to clear a little, and I caught some gleams of light from the sun sinking in the west. I was glad to be out then, because the light was really beautiful, reflecting off all those wet surfaces with a sort of subdued dazzle, and everything seemed very clean and fresh with that just-washed feeling. And I knew it would feel great to get home, pull off my wet shoes, and get dinner ready.

Today started out partly cloudy, and by the time I realized I needed to go to the post office this afternoon, there were actual patches of blue sky on display, with big, puffy, summery-looking clouds playing hide and seek with the sun. In a burst of optimism, I set out without an umbrella, looking forward to a walk unencumbered by purse, coat, or any other paraphernalia. 

After I'd been walking for a few minutes, I noticed that the dark clouds I thought were heading in the other direction were actually starting to mass overhead. I have had pretty good luck with judging whether I'm going to get rained on or not in the past; I thought today I might get some sprinkles but just wanted to get my letter in the box before it got wet. I figured the rest didn't matter so much. I made it to the mailbox and had started back home when I felt the first drop on my hand. At first I thought it might have been a stray one, but a block later, walking out from under the trees, I could see a light rain descending in straight lines.

It felt strange to be walking in the rain without an umbrella. On the other hand, my sweater didn't seem to be getting that wet. My hair was still damp from my shower when I started out, so it couldn't be much worse off now. The rain slackened a little, but as I crossed the stadium parking lot and headed for home, it started coming down harder. My sunglasses, donned in that spirit of optimism at the beginning of the trip, were covered with rain, and my backup sneakers, called into duty because my other shoes were still drying out, were now starting to get soaked, too. I thought about making a run for it, wondered if it's really true that you get wetter when you run, and considered how feasible it would be to sprint while trying to see through rivulets of rain on my glasses.

Once on my street, I was basically at the drowned rat stage. I knew I would be out of my wet things in a couple of minutes and cozy enough once I put on my slippers and a dry sweater. There wasn't much to be gained by making a dash for it at that point -- but you know what? I decided to, anyway. I'd had the impulse to run a few minutes earlier, partly for the sheer exhilaration of running in the rain, and I'd quashed it. I sprinted the last half block just for the fun of it and to feel like a kid again, unencumbered by a purse or a shopping bag or any other detritus of adult life. And actually, it was kind of wonderful.

So here, take that, you rainy day. Maybe I left my umbrella behind for a reason, after all.

The Adventure of the Bubble Smoothie

Getting my car fixed has turned out to be much more of an adventure than I've ever had with this kind of thing before. The other driver's insurance company, Kentucky Farm Bureau, was willing to put me in a rental car but not to proceed with my car repair until their insured gave a statement (to my knowledge, he has yet to do so). I took the rental car, but that ended up being another sideshow since I forgot I needed to have a temporary parking tag for it. It ended up getting towed, and I had to spend $90 to get it back.

After that, I decided to forgo the rental car altogether and have been walking everywhere -- to the store, to Starbucks, to the library, and today, to my insurance company to get the settlement form notarized. Farm Bureau wanted to total my car, but the shop had a lower estimate, and since they had worked on my car before, I trusted their judgment and came to an agreement with the insurance company. I decided then to pay something down so the body shop could start on the repairs. After a bus ride downtown, I walked a mile to the shop under a gray sky that threatened rain but didn't deliver any.

It was a bit cumbersome having to take care of all that business on foot, but the upside was that on the way to the body shop, I walked along a stretch of beautiful historical houses that I had only seen before while driving. The walk gave me a chance to savor the architecture without having to keep my eyes on the road. The next part of it was a bit more wild and woolly, as I had to cross a wide viaduct with both traffic above and a train rumbling below. There was a sidewalk, so I was pretty safe, but the sensation reminded me of the time I was in Minneapolis and had to cross a bridge over a heavily traveled, multi-lane interstate to reach a park I wanted to visit. It was a bit like crossing a pit full of alligators all standing at the bottom shaking the support posts for all they're worth. They probably can't hurt you, but the vibration is rather unnerving.

The viaduct was curved, kind of like one of those wooden bridges in a Japanese garden (though not nearly as picturesque), and the body shop was just on the other side. I went in, took advantage of the candy jar in the reception area while waiting, wrote my check, and came back out to face the walk home. I crossed over the viaduct, which seemed less daunting on the way back, got a second look at the historic houses, and headed home, thinking of dinner.

I really was ready for home by then, but for some reason, as I was passing a row of shotgun houses I had passed countless times when I worked downtown (usually in a car), I noticed a sign in front of one advertising books/gifts/bubble drinks and smoothies. Something about the flair of the sign and the eclectic mix of offerings was too much for my curiosity. I had been meaning to see what was inside this place for quite a while. Why not now? I pushed open the door and found myself in a cozy shop lined with cases of used books and decorated with craft items of all kinds, complete with a couch and a small cafe in the back where you could buy bubble drinks.

I'm nothing if not flexible: I decided I was due a treat. There were so many intriguing flavors that it would have been hard to go wrong, but I decided on an almond smoothie with vanilla bubbles. If you've never had a bubble drink, it's hard to describe it, but imagine tapioca pearls at the bottom of the drink and a big straw that lets you sip them up from the bottom. I had my drink, which tasted like amaretto, sat on the couch with the palm tree cushions, admired a book-lined room, and regrouped a little.

It's always interesting to me how you can open a single door and find yourself in a place you've never been before, and the fact that this can happen on an ordinary street that you've traveled many thousands of times makes it even more delightful. Popping into the shop was a little like popping into Alice's rabbit hole just in time for the tea party. It also demonstrated that even a tedious day is not without its pleasant surprises. If my car had not been in the garage and I had not been on foot, I might never have discovered this little shop.

Cars are wonderful for covering a lot of distance, but by nature we're walkers, and I'm not sure we're always aware of how much we miss by zooming by things. It's like what Robert Pirsig said in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about everything looking like TV through the windows of a car. I'll be happy to get my car back, but there's something to be said for slowing down and taking a closer look at the familiar. You never know what you'll find there.

Wabi-Sabi World

According to T.S. Eliot, April is the cruelest month, but I don't believe it. If anything, I would describe it as beautiful, delicate, but slightly wimpy. When I was out walking the other day, there was something about the blue sky, the puffy clouds, and the birds everywhere that reminded me of a children's book illustration: it had a simple innocence almost too beautiful to be real.

April has the tulips and the redbuds and the beginning of the dogwoods but is prone to cool spells. Not all of the trees are fully leafed yet, so there's an unfinished quality to things. May brings in the azaleas, the lush green of summer, and the probability of heat. It's the culmination of spring and the introduction to summer, trailing fireflies, Derby parties, and Memorial Day cookouts in its wake. If early April marks the return of Persephone, May is her coming of age party.

On the other hand, May lacks the spectacular display of color that heralds the first part of spring. It's a bit more monochromatic, with green being the predominant note. The soft pinks, purples, blues, and yellows of April are only visible for an instant, it seems, before they melt away in the sun: you've got to enjoy them (quick!) while you can.

I am thinking of a favorite quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again." While it's natural to have favorite times of the year, a discerning eye finds something worthy in each passing moment. After all, it can't always be summer. Nature, time, and human beings are always in the process of becoming something they were not a moment ago.

Someone loaned me a book on wabi-sabi once, and I was struck by its message of beauty in imperfection. This philosophy holds that things are always either taking on form or dissolving it and that no part of the process is really superior to any other part. Wabi-sabi is an Eastern aesthetic, and I'm not sure that our culture embraces it to the same extent as the Japanese do. We tend to admire the new and the youthful, and that may be because our society itself is relatively young. It's an imbalance, but an understandable one.

I guess true equanimity would find equal amounts of loveliness in every month, every day, and every hour, and there are times when it's possible to know this. However, complete equanimity is itself an impossibility for most if not all of us. Like the seasons, we wax and wane, and I think it's probably best to accept the changing coloration of our moods and thoughts. We are constantly in flux. Who's to say that a flash of anger or a sorrowful mood is any less beautiful or right than a moment of incandescent happiness? We are products of nature and have our own winter storms, Indian summers, and cloudless afternoons. It's the contrast of shadow and light that lends depth to things.