Beach Story

As promised, a story of many adventures:

K and Xt and I went to the beach yesterday. It was a beautiful morning, there were sand sculptures to behold. As we left K's apartment, we wondered if maybe it would rain later but left anyway. It turned out "later" was "while we were still on the way to the T-station." I had brought an umbrella and Xt had a raincoat and K was prancing along with his shirt rolled up in his pocket (it was exceedingly hot out and humid) and we made it to the train damp but intact. Being the hardy and obstinate people we are, we never considered not going to the beach. As we got off the train we were overwhelmed by crowds of beach-goers returning home. Our arrival was also heralded by some claps of thunder and ominous flashes of lightning. Determined not to have traveled so far in vain, we made our way to the beach, jumping through puddles and failing to stay dry (note to self: sharing umbrella with a tall person makes for a lot of rain on the short person). Everyone was huddled under the pavilions and the beach area was deserted except for the sculptures (which were only just starting to melt a little in the persistent rain). So we stashed our stuff that needed to stay dry (mostly, my extra set of clothes and phones) and set off. It was great fun. The sculptures were fabulous, there was the added pride of being "those people" that everyone was watching from their dry shelters and thinking we were crazy. We were totally soaked when we walked back to the train, forded the river that was where the street had once been (fortunately, no oxen died and no axles broke) and ate peaches and sandwiches while trying to wring out our clothes while we were wearing them. The trip home was pretty miserable, but the hot shower upon arrival made it all worth it. We watched some BBC ocean nature shows and later made summer rolls for dinner. A lovely evening. Thus went yesterday.

Unrelated but Important Note: "The Secret Life of Words" may well be the best film I have ever seen. It will not be enjoyed by those who like to have a concrete story line and dislike overly depressing things, but I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys interesting characters and human relationships. I watched it Saturday night and I plan to watch it again on Wednesday with K. It is that good.

A Good Weekend

It started off with a quiet Friday evening and me watching a good movie. "Protagonist" is a documentary of four disparate but parallel life stories told through the structured framework of formal Greek tragedy. Great stories, great puppets, I recommend it. Saturday, I cleaned the house. Not quite like a fiend, but there are no longer grapefruit-sized balls of cat fur hiding in every corner. Also, the kitchen has returned to its comfortable and user-friendly status. Went to a Baroque oboe recital that was unbelievable. My friend G is finishing up his DMA requirements and this was his last recital before he moves to Indiana. He is a real character and plays with so much elegance and elàn (out comes the crossword puzzle vocabulary!). A bunch of us went out to a bar afterwards and K came and met me there after he was done bowling in pajamas with a bunch of the Kwifflebee/Oberlin people. This morning, I fooled around on K's guitar (totally cheated by tuning the g to an f# to mimic gamba tuning), managed to sing and play La Folia, figured out some Marais and then wrote a fun progression which I scribbled down in tab for future use. Meanwhile, K had cooked us delicious scrambled eggs with vegetables and cheese, it was sooooo yummy. Then I tagged along to the foursquare game in which I eventually participated and really enjoyed. Playing with people who are fun and not very competitive is great. This was followed by lunch and much browsing in an amazing loose tea store. On my way home, it started raining and I actually had an umbrella with me, so I ambled along listening to the downpour and staying dry from the knees up. I arrived home to the bread I had made yesterday and subsequently forgotten about and even played some gamba!

Happenings

I have returned to the world of the internet! Both much and little have transpired since my last post. For efficiency I return to the convenient list format.

-Watched some movies. Nell: very good; Where Angels Fear to Tread: not as good

-Recorded a song for my gamba bluegrass album. Recording quality is low, audience approval (audience of one, K) is high. Refinement in recording technique and equipment would be helpful, ability to listen to my own voice without cringing would also be a plus.

-Went to NYC for one night to see an art opening. Survived Lucky Star bus-ride, ate good food, walked for hours, saw wonderful art, fun people, did crossword puzzles. Saw father who returned me to Boston and had dinner with me and K. K liked father, no word yet from father on useful insights into psychology of K, verdict pending.

-Had a "sick day" with K (who is actually sick) on Thursday. Soup was made, books were read, crosswords were solved, tea was drunk, much laziness ensued. A good day, all around.

-Today, I recovered from over-extended social muscles. Sat around, did crosswords, read, listened to music, stared off into space, snacked, failed to accomplish anything useful. A quiet day that I will finish off with a movie (of course).

Random thought of the day: letters are awesome, real letters, on paper, with handwriting. I think I will write more of them. Not because I want to receive return posts (although it's always exciting to get a letter!) but because you can have a burst of thought about someone, put it in the mail and forget about it so that it's a surprise when he or she gets back to you about it!

Also awesome: gigantic thunderstorms! Today's was amazing. I even lit candles on the off-chance that the power would go out (can't seem to find J's lighter and so I lit them off the stove which wouldn't have worked in a blackout!). Sadly, no such luck, but I did watch the pouring rain travel in the wind like little bits of fog swirling around the street. The kitties started at the thunder and ran around the house in terror while I luxuriated in the intensity of the whole thing from the vantage point of the couch!

Some sort of credo

I just watched "Jesus Camp." Yes, yes, I knew exactly what I was getting into. I knew it would be upsetting, confusion and anger-inducing. And yes, I watched it anyway. Much of it is what you'd expect. Much of it reminded me of the several Evangelicals I've met throughout my life. I was prepared for the intensity of belief, the anti-rationalist viewpoints, the genuineness of feeling. What I wasn't prepared for was the emotional manipulation of young children. It's one thing to teach children what you believe, what you want them to believe, but it's totally different to tell them they are inherently bad people and that everything they want is wrong. All those shots of the kids weeping during sermons just about broke my heart. I'd be interested to see where those kids end up in 20 years. Some will probably be preaching or having babies to preach to, but maybe some will find other ways to live. It's a veritable children's crusade with as many psyches damaged as lives lost in the first one.

At one point in the film, a child declares that America is sick and only Jesus can cure it. I say, we are all sick! Always, every single one of us. We all make do, we all find things with which to console ourselves. But leave me my options! Maybe Jesus will cure you, but I require Bach, and perhaps Marais too. My sickness requires fresh vegetables, and good books to read. We all have the same malady but every individual requires a different treatment!

Half of me wants to run away to Europe and never look back and the other half insists that America is not "God's nation," it's my nation. Maybe I'm too much my mother's daughter (she wrote a whole book about sense of place) but I'm attached to this land, to the fruit trees, the lakes, the crazy weather, the winding highways, even sometimes the stubborn insistence on excess. I'm not sure I'm cut out to spend my life fighting the Evangelicals (nor do I think that stooping to their mercurial metaphors is a good idea) but I can be evangelical about what I believe. It may not be written in a inconsistently-translated tome in dire need of some editing nor is it necessarily articulatible (especially without neologizing!) but I'll try. At this moment, I believe in beauty, in happiness, in the large and the minute, in individuality, in love, in the logical and the inane, in laughter and tears, in change and whimsy and in loyalty, and perhaps most importantly, in contradiction, in the gray area in between everything. I believe in "I don't know."

This instant, I believe in eating more baby carrots.

End of sermon.

Monday Morning

I have emerged from the dark and gloomy cave that was last week! All concerts went well, especially J's, she was amazing.

I watched the movie "Out of Africa" last night. It's from the mid-80s but is set in first-world-war-era Kenya and based on the real writings of a Danish Baroness who lived there for a while. Aside from such minor annoyances as Meryl Streep's fake Danish accent and a slightly overwritten score, it's a very moving film. During their long courtship, Streep and Robert Redford's characters face angry lions and unreadable Masai and other classically "African" things but also recite poetry to each other and tell made up stories. In one touching scene, he washes her hair on a river bank while editing out the "boring parts" of a poem. Besides the beautiful photography and story, what really spoke to me was this wonderful juxtaposition of "culture" and a love of the wild in the same people. At one point, they play a record of Mozart for a group of curious baboons. Unlike the classic "in the wild" movies where the uptight and cultured colonialists are lampooned in contrast to the "street-smart" hero, these protagonists have it all. It was so refreshing.