Elinor Nauen

Everyone knows Roald Dahl for his children's books, of course, but for some reason I picked up his autobiographical Boy, which is a children's book for grownups, I guess you could say. It's written simply & charmingly but doesn't pull punches about the brutality of his experiences at English schools. 

My mother despised him for how he treated his wife, Patricia Neal, after she had had a stroke. She could be right, I don't know much about him & I don't remember reading his books as a child. He wouldn't have been to my taste, I was a horribly refined & serious kid.

The cleaning continues & I have gotten down to this brick wall in my back room. Feeling handy, I bought nails & hung these two works. One is by Jim Dine, the other I'm not sure, I think my friend's mother, who painted all her works when she was practically blind. It's not signed, however, so I can't be sure. Little by little, the place gets nicer & roomier. Want some books?

I've been looking at photos by Walker Evans, Paul Strand, et al, & am inspired to look closely at some things I see every day. It's also good as I am approaching Vision Zero (which I have seen twice lately as slogans for Toronto & the NYC police, & I can't believe it's a Good Thing, not if yer blind as a bat, minus the echolocation. Like me).

If I didn't already have several dictionaries (& 2 sets of encyclopedias) + on my way to pick up my laundry + trying to curb my book-acquiring hobby, I wouldn't have left this wonderful volume on 5th Street. 

Did you ever see a man with a kippah in a general holiday ad before? Nothing else reads "Jewish" ~ the wrapping paper & pajamas are neutral. Maybe it represents a mixed marriage, with "Make Merry" almost nondenominational but over on the less-noticeably-Jewish side of the photo. I mean, it's for a New York store, that is, a national chain with a location in New York, so it makes sense to include a close-to-unnoticeable tinge of Jewishness. I bet a lot of thinking went into getting the tone exactly right, as compared to Christmas ads, which are full-on Christian, like the holiday lights in Dyker Heights or the Christmas parade in Murphy, NC. 

Every once in a while someone sends me a photo of myself that I don't remember having seen before. Oh! That's me! I look 25 but I'm 40. I know that because I know that baby & she's a beautiful young woman now & in fact is the one who sent me that picture. I don't look like that anymore but I don't know when that happened. It's perplexing to be yourself & no longer yourself. 

The words "yes" and "no" get used in comparison to each other so often that it feels like they carry equal weight in conversation. In reality, they are not just opposite in meaning, but of entirely different magnitudes in commitment. When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.

~ Productivity expert James Clear 

My end-of-year last-ditch attempt to get it together :-) 

The Brooklyn neighborhood of Dyker Heights has been home to a Christmas lights extravaganza since 1986. I went a few times in the 90s with my friend Bonnie, who somehow always knew about things like that. She loved folk customs of every stripe. I wish she were around to see what a big deal it's become. If we thought it was over the top back then, it's 100x more so now. It's still a neighborhood event, which I like. We talked to some of the homeowners, who were a little exasperated by the traffic & trash, but also really loved that people appreciated their efforts. I'm only sorry I didn't ask them their electric bill for the season!

Bought the best persimmons I've found in 5 years, in Chinatown. Why do good ones show up so infrequently? Why are there more good poems than good persimmons? 

How could one ever get tired of the churning energy that produces a mural like this? I love New York, which I know I say constantly but I feel it constantly. It's the love of the drowning person for the island of dry sand, for air itself. I will never forget that feeling of having found my place, & my determination to live here always, & the gratitude & amazement that I, a hick from the sticks, get to live here. Love at first sight that has never wavered. 

I took very few pictures this time, partly because the fall colors were finished so it wasn't so striking, partly because it's so routine (though special!) to be here that I don't need to document its wonders. This is pretty much the only photo of the house that I took, because I'm still getting used to coming down from the chalet (my little cabin) from this direction. A less familiar view. Home now, on a very early flight yesterday. Intensely & gratefully missing Spartanburg & my generous, funny, brilliant friends & hosts. 

I love coming to the South, seeing my friends, the beautiful landscape, fried okra, sweet tea, & much more. But then I see a concrete 10 commandments in front of a motel, & I feel like I'm in a foreign land & that the real me is invisible or nonexistent. It's a good feeling once in a while (if uncomfortable), a reminder that everywhere isn't the East Village of NYC & getting out isn't a bad thing, & you can travel abroad without leaving the country. 

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants either fools or slaves.
~ Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715-1771)

French philosopher, freemason & littératur

Oh for heaven's sake, stop banning books! Let people read! 

Wayne continues his quilting ways. This picture is of the quilt I sleep under & a runner he made of Chanukkah fabrics. I could have draped the runner over the giant quilting machine that shares my cabin but it's not nearly as pretty as the work Wayne makes on it. He's retiring in a few months. Even more quilts? I used to joke about Wayne making phone calls: Hi, you probably don't remember me but in third grade you gave me one of your cookies so, here, I made you a quilt. We have one at home & I treasure it. 

I learn something every time I come to Spartanburg. Love the Dixie Nightingales & to think that Ira Tucker sang with them from the time he was 13 for 70 years. The only job he ever had. I forgot to take pictures of the yummy grilled carrots at the Kennedy, or my meal at Wade's, or Steve & his lifelong friend (met in 1959) who lives in England & who I was meeting for the first time, or the calm lake in front of Steve's house, or the new dogs, or the garden. Probably because it's so normal to be here that I don't think to whip out my camera. I'm simply here. 

Everytime I hear a little sound in my office, I think it's a rodent. Once it was & now it always seems to be. It's been the wind, my sneakers squeaking against each other, my breathing, my neighbor... I put down a glue trap & put away snacks.

Note: Leaving early tomorrow for a week in South & North Carolina, my annual trip to see friends & go up into the mountains. I may be inconsistent with the blog till I get back. We'll see. Happy start of December! 

It's snow I want but it was a joy to come upon this bush in the East River park. I suppose it's a signal of terrible climate change but it came as a surprise pleasure. The way I could be traveling so much because of worrying about a bleak future (the economy! my knees!) or because I finally get to again & it's what I enjoy. Or both.

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage. 

~ William Lloyd Garrison

Not entirely true. I'm thinking of something I just read, that only one Norwegian policeman protested the rounding up of the Jews 80 years ago (November 26, 1942). He was shot. Hundreds of Norway's <2,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz, where most of them perished. If 2 or 3 or a handful (or 50) of the police had refused the Nazi orders, would they all have been shot? Or maybe the police were considered to be great & good, & the blue silence protected their actions, & Garrison is exactly correct.

Nothing makes me (re-)fall in love with New York more than a long walk, which I've done the last couple of days (it's raining now, so probably not this afternoon). The first thing I ever did in NYC was walk on Galway Kinnell's Avenue C: "The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World." I'd never seen the like: fruits & vegetables right out on the sidewalk in bins. Which wasn't anything my Midwestern/New England eyes had ever seen. People hanging out, who for a long time I thought must work nights, like I thought all those young girls were babysitting their little brothers & sisters. 

Our Nesselrode pie (made by Petee's) was light yet substantial, with chestnut mousse, gobbets of whipped cream & a few cherries (said to be rum-soaked but I didn't taste any alcohol). It was popular in the 1940s to 60s in New York but I had never had it or known anyone who had. I don't exactly know why I even knew the name. Read the interesting history here. 

There was a full Thanksgiving dinner of food, laughter & warmth leading up to the pie. 

This year we're going across the hall to Wanda, my wonderful new neighbor. I'm bringing a Nesselrode pie, made of chestnut custard, rum-soaked cherries, & cream. I'm grateful for so much but I'll keep my list internal in case I omit someone or something. I've learned a lot this year, & for that I'm even more thankful than for all the support & pleasures. 

And once again, my traditional Thanksgiving poem:

Thanksgiving Almost Found Poem

Many years we go to my grandmother's in Virginia. 
My mother, father, aunts and at least two of my brothers are there. 
My son has a football game that morning. 
My daughter is home, but needs to get back to school this weekend. 
My wife doesn't want to ride for nine hours and turn right back. 
Sometimes I have gone alone, but not often. 
A couple of neighbors were vying for our company.
One of those my daughter's boyfriend's family, 
Which we did last year and had fun.
But this year it will be another family,
One we have visited on two or three other Thanksgivings. 
I have a turkey freezing in the garage.

Nothing to do with it.

Even though she'd been sick a long time, it is sad that Bernadette has died. The last time I saw her, Annabel & I drove up to her place in upstate New York. We sang our version of her "Essay" to the tune of "Streets of Laredo," her moving closer & closer in delight. I recently translated a poem of hers ("Carlton Fisk Is My Ideal") into Norwegian. Her wonderful Midwinter Day.

An image of love allows what I can't say,
Sun's lost in the window and love is below
Love is the same and does not keep that name
I keep that name and I am not the same

My friend Diana had an extra ticket to see Mike Birbiglia's one-man show at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. Soon I'll stop pointing out great it is to be back in the whirl but not quite yet. I'd never heard of this comedian/storyteller but I'll try to watch his previous shows on a streaming service. It was simple & profound ~ life, death, & swimming. Funny, gaspingly poignant. Not a moment or a phrase to pull out from a seamless whole. Totally satisfying. And it was at 5 o'clock, so I even got home at a reasonable hour. 

For poetry there exists neither large countries nor small. Its domain is in the heart of all men.

 ~ Giorgos Seferis

Orange you glad I stopped talking about politics?

If only it were headed our way. I'm sure a lot of people up there would be happy to trade. They got five & a half feet! I'm sooooooo ready for winter, even though we didn't really have fall - it went from a week or 2 of 70° days in November to the 30s without passing through crisp cool days. 

My dad's poem:

Snow. Snow. Snow.

Ho. Ho. Ho. 

Absolute fun to do an in-person reading last night. To look up & make eye contact. To get a response in real time, not silence through a screen. To hear people laugh! That was my first in-person reading in at least 3 years & I loved it. Also, I read with two fantastic poets, Evelyn Reilly & Brenda Hillman. Someone said it was like one reading by 3 poets ~ we felt in synch. I tried out a bunch of new works & was happy with them. It was bracing to be outdoors, giving my new Irish sweater a good run; it kept me cozy. So totally glad the world is opening back up! 

Maggie wondered if my insomnia was related to Covid. Voila, it's a common aftereffect & should go away. That might have been all I needed to hear, as i slept soundly last night (though yawning again now, mid-afternoon). O Covid, what a trickster you are.

I've never had insomnia before & I have no idea why this unlovely gift has arrived, unordered & unwanted. Help! I thought once the midterms were over, I'd sleep like a baby but nope. I can't be lucid about it because my head's in a whirl. 

I love the Authors Guild & how easy they make it to have a website, but they have this crazy new system that makes using photographs unwieldy & time-consuming, which is why I haven't been including so many images of late. Many "improvements" are far from that. Planned obsolescence was a term from way back when but it applies now to technology as much as appliances. I admit I sometimes do grow to prefer what I resisted ~ for example, I was the last in my gang to get an answering machine but then it was wondrous not to have to sit at home waiting for a phone call. I hope to embrace this AG update, & others, but a big part of me wants everything to stop. 

"We Are Going to Pick Potatoes: Norway and the Holocaust, the Untold Story, by Irene Levin Berman, reminds us that there are Jews everywhere & that Hitler wanted to kill them all. There were around 2,000 Jews in Norway when WWII (Den andre verdenskrig) began, of whom around 700 died in Dachau. The author, a toddler at the time, escaped with her family to neutral Sweden. I'm glad she has told this story but it's devastating to read.