(resurrection by an old friend)

The first time I saw the words Dumbarton Oaks, they were printed in typewriter font on a yellowing card pulled from the heavy wooden tray of a card catalog. They stopped me in my tracks, as I was used to the entries under Location: being Tozzer or Widener or any of the many other campus libraries. Dumbarton Oaks I had never heard of, so I headed to the information desk to ask how to get to it. The librarian smiled kindly and explained that I would need to take a plane—to Washington, DC. She could surely order the book for me, but it might take a few weeks to come in. Thinking about the deadline for my paper, I knew I had to decline the offer; but over the next few years, as I researched more papers for anthropology classes and continued to encounter that elegant name, I decided that one day I should find this displaced library, because I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why a university with more books than exist in most countries would relegate some to housing so far away.

The winter after I graduated, I spent a week in Washington visiting friends and relatives. As all would be working during the week, I started compiling a list of the five museums among DC’s plethora of them that I would most like to see. Not sure what all the options were, I sat my uncle down to discuss. He knowingly suggested I head out to Georgetown, to a beautiful old museum, as he described it, full of archaeological artifacts that would dazzle me. I readily agreed and asked him for the name of the place. Dumbarton Oaks, of course.

That week, six inches of snow fell on Washington, shutting the city down for two days. As soon as I could, I hopped on the three buses my uncle had suggested I take, spending no less than an hour and a half getting a few miles across town, shivering as I waited 20 minutes at one bus stop, grumbling as I found I had to wait at another, running to the nearest bagel shop the minute I de-boarded the last one and buying the biggest hot chocolate they sold.

With warm drink in hand, I trudged through the snow the few blocks to R Street, turned down it, and stared in awe. Off a busy, trafficked road stood regal mansions of red and white brick, with the barren arms of trees and shrubbery hugging in all around them. I walked slowly, studying each one, thinking how different they were from the row houses and brownstones in other parts of town.

Shortly I encountered a tall gate, and by it, a placard that welcomed me to the museum. Inside, the place was silent; the marble halls were free of visitors. Yet life filled their walls and cases. Byzantine masterpieces of sculpture, carving, metal and stone work, and painting surrounded me. I knew I should stop and look at each one, but the museum hours were short each day, and these were not the marvels I had come to see.

To enter the Pre-Columbian collection, you leave stern marble floors and walls for an airy and open experience that made me wonder, at the time, if Frank Lloyd Wright had designed it. (Later I would not be surprised to find out that the wing’s creator was Philip Johnson, of Glass House fame.) Cylindrical rooms of floor-to-ceiling glass led one from the next, with small walkways connecting the eight of them. In the center of each sat a large, stout pot; within it grew an elegantly poised orchid. Outside the rooms, nature stretched forth. The cold-weary boughs of a tree hung low by one window, that delicate coating of snow giving them the look of sagging. The drifts piled up around each room, and the tangerine sky of winter late afternoon cast a warm glow across the crystalline grounds beyond.

Within that breathtaking setting rested an array of artifacts from the entirety of the Pre-Columbian world. Andean gold, shimmering from the faces of gods and the wings of birds, sparkled against the white backdrop. Central American jade, carved by the Maya and the Olmec, looked menacing on the face of a jaguar or the tip of a bloodletter; beautiful on a pendant; delicate on a small sculpture. Items of stone and shell, weavings, all the usual types of media from this region were represented, and the pieces themselves were of superior craftsmanship.

This place, for a student of Mesoamerican archaeology, was better than any kid’s candy shop. I had a magical day walking through the snow, flowers, and branches to see gorgeous handiwork after gorgeous handiwork.

About two years after that visit, my mom moved to DC. She’d been living in Atlanta for 30 years and was ready for a change, and so was I. I had fallen for the District, as locals always refer to it, that winter week I’d spent there, so I was thrilled to start visiting Washington regularly and continue my exploration of it.

The first time I visited in spring, my mom announced there was somewhere we just had to go. It will be perfect right about now, she assured me, not telling me what “it” was. We got in the car, turned onto Wisconsin Ave., and soon I was smiling, having realized where we were. “Turning on R Street?” I asked her, and she was appalled, wondering how I could have known.

But surprises still awaited me, for my mom did not lead me to the side gate through which I had previously entered the museum. Instead, we walked to the main gate, where a guard instructed us to buy a ticket and enjoy our stroll. And as it turns out, in addition to being a museum and a library, Dumbarton Oaks is also a massive mansion, and its grounds are beautifully landscaped and open for visitors every afternoon.

To enter the grounds you walk a sand-colored, pebble path. It divides in half a rolling lawn of thick grass that begs for bare feet and dresses and long days of reading books. As you approach the mansion, the lavender and deep-purple flowers of a wisteria vine drip in delicate clumps from its walls. The lacey-fine leaves of a Japanese maple wave at you; the pollen-laden branches of an oak tree bend down to welcome you, new leaves budding forth at their tips. You take a path to the right, and suddenly you stand amidst violets and daffodils, blue bells and narcissus, all kinds of perky yellows and blues. Around the corner, you enter a rose garden; beyond that, a stone-pebbled mosaic patio encircled by tulips, standing erect and open, in vigorous reds, oranges, yellows, purples, and pinks. If you turn left, you might overlook the swimming pool; turn right, and you’ll find a giant copper beech overhanging an algae-coated tile pool that might represent a turtle shell if you stand at one end and look down at it just right. The rustling of bamboo leaves positioned to catch the breeze will catch your attention, and then you’ll stumble through the deep grass of a hillside strewn with daffodils until you reach a long row of lilacs, and inhale them, and inhale them, and inhale them. Wander further and you are in a sea of cherry blossoms; further still and the entire hill is lit with the fiery flowers of forsythia. You can’t, of course, see every one of these flowers in bloom on a given visit; they are arranged very carefully, so that every time you come in springtime, you see a different multitude of flora reaching their peak.

As I sat, once again, on a bench on these grounds last Friday afternoon, I was weary; I had to lie in the grass. While on vacation in DC, I had developed a violent illness, probably a reaction to ingesting raw milk, and for three days I had tossed and shaken with high fevers, felt tumult in my insides, been confined to the house. Once I started antibiotics, I began to revive; I was very weak from lack of sleep or nutrients, but my fever was gone, and my thoughts felt burdened by slightly less of a fog. I had already missed one return flight to San Francisco; I planned to take another one the next day if I could hold up. But I could not bear to leave Washington without seeing my fairytale friend, Dumbarton Oaks. It was the only time I left the house in four days, but it was worth it. I moved slowly through the grounds and sat down often, but what a place to nurse you back to health. We walked down a hillside of blossoming apple trees and the aroma was like a lozenge or a hot compress for my whole being, for my physical body but even more for my spirit.

Highlight of my week #3

It takes only the first three chords of the song to put a grin on my face. I am in DC, which is not quite the South, but it's a lot closer to it than anywhere else I've been in a long time. I am eating barbecue—real southern barbecue, with the pig from which the pork was pulled lying scorched on a table outside. The beans are spiced and the slaw drenched in vinegar, not mayo, and I am already remembering my roots when these electric chords echo through the church and remind me of a life I led long ago. "Sweet Home Alabama" could well be the modern-day anthem of the South, and hearing it spill out of the strumming fingers of two ten-year-old girls, with a third banging out the drum beat, seems as good as life gets until the two on bass and guitar begin to sing the song. Though their voices don't compare to Ronnie Van Sant's, the fact that they have spent their free time learning this song, that they are now plugged in to amps on a stage in front of a crowd of locally-grown-food nuts on a muggy spring afternoon, that they are enjoying this—all these things make me shake my head a bit with the music and with the wonderment of it. If ever I have a daughter, I think, I hope she is just like this.

Highlight of my week #2

Lightning fills the dark sky. The branches towering above the car rustle and shake; the wind rises; rain begins to pelt the windshield. Eventually, we decide it won't subside, so we run for it. I lose a shoe in the downpour; I am drenched by the time I retrieve it and make it to the door. I am drenched but not cold. I have on no sweater, no jacket; I am back in the land of normal weather, and the wet pavement is warm beneath my bare feet.


If you had asked me at age thirteen to name my favorite smell in the world, I would have had trouble resolving a tie. On the one hand, there is freshly cut grass, a smell so ubiquitous in summertime in my favorite place on earth (my grandparents' small town on the coast of Rhode Island) that the aroma brings the smell of the ocean right with it, and that combination settles in me a sense of contentment. But then there is the smell of rain on hot pavement; the smell of the steam that rises as I walk my dog after school in the rain. I place one foot on the stone curb and then the next precisely in front of it, pretending I am on a balancing wire, as my dog runs through whichever yards she feels like exploring next. We trek around the neighborhood for as short or long as we want because this is youth; we have nowhere we need to be. We trek around in the rain because it's 85 degrees out, so the moisture, though sizzling at my feet, is soothing to me; it is natural; it is regular; and it is delicious. We walk in the rain and we frolic until we or the rain sees fit to stop. This is freedom.

When we get home, I will go downstairs to the family room and lie on my back on the sofa and read a book or lie on my belly on the gold shag rug that's been there since the 70s and watch tv. When the thunder comes, I will turn toward the large glass doors beside me and wait for the lightning that I have just missed to repeat itself. I will lie in the cool embrace of air conditioning and watch the three-story-tall woods out back sway with a strength that might be unnerving if you hadn't seen trees move like that a million times before. I will watch the sky darken to puke green or yellow; will watch leaves spin in the wind; will listen to the cracking boom of very nearby lightning and find it thrilling, for this is Earth at its liveliest; this is Earth breathing.

Highlight of my week.

In the midst of doing work, something causes me to look up. Two seats over, a grimy airplane window reveals the massive Sierras, crevices and tree cover enunciated by a sprinkling of snow.

Know thy self, part two.

A friend just sent me a personality test, and my immediate response to my results were: objection! Not so! I, of course, wanted to be everything—feeler and thinker, sensor and intuitor, extrovert and introvert. I did not think I wanted to be a judger, but the test said it was so, and when I read the descriptions, I decided it was right, even if I didn’t like the terminology used. (It turns out none of the terms mean quite what they sound like to me.)

Having already been thinking a lot about who, at my core, I am—that is, what truths I hold to be self-evident for my own existence—the personality test results did underscore something that I think is extremely true of me: when it comes to feeling versus thinking, evaluating situations based on ethics rather than logic, basing decisions on emotional value rather than intellect or “what makes most sense,” this test pegged me. I am a feeler through and through. I realize that this is why I was able to listen all week to a beautiful song about the blues and have it not lull me deeper into sadness but lift me right out of it. I am happy to have left many a cup of growing-cold tea around this world. I don’t view it as a loss when I offer emotion and it gets given back or set aside. I don’t view it as a loss when I give of myself to a person who cannot, due to logistics of timing or place, prior commitments or prior baggage, offer as much back. For while I know that I risk getting hurt when I unhesitatingly reach out to someone, despite all known obstacles, and pour that cup of tea, I am certain that doing this drains nothing from me. The teapot is not filled with something that depletes itself; rather, it contains a substance that grows more powerful as it trickles back down the spout and into the belly—and there begins to steep again.

Know thy self.

If I pour your cup,
that is friendship

If I add your milk,
that is manners

If I stop there,
claiming ignorance of taste,
that is tea

But if I measure the sugar
to satisfy your expectant tongue,
then that is love

But if I measure the sugar
to satisfy your expectant tongue,
then that is love,

sitting untouched,

and growing cold

(Cold Tea Blues / Cowboy Junkies)



As you might suspect, even I can get the blues. I tend to write with a lot of optimism, as I tend to live with a lot of optimism, but sometimes things just pile up on a person and make you weary.

This week, I can’t decide whether a little rejection mixed in with a lot of heavier emotional turmoil was one too many things or just the right timing. After all, it’s easier to accept the rejection and forget about it when you’re already down about something else. Now don’t go sending flowers; the something else was no tragedy; just a challenge to my worldview as I contemplated an un-thought-out, unintentionally evocative comment made by someone about someone else. The subject matter tied my brain in knots for days and distracted me from being able to focus on anything else.

In the midst of that, someone I had extended myself toward shut down the attempt to connect. It was a gentle shutdown; but it was clear. And while it’s by no means the first time, of course it hurt. But I know myself. I know just how much I have to offer, and just how much I have to give. I know, too, something that I think is most important: I know what I believe in. And one of the things I hold most dear is stepping forward, metaphorical arms wide open, mind open, and just giving things a try.

When you’ve done that, there is no room for regret, for you have overridden it. Out-thunk it. Given it the boot.

So I’m delighted to report that I didn’t hold onto it, this fleeting feeling of being back at square one. All you can do in life is make an effort, and if you’ve done that and gotten nowhere, then at least you know to move forward, and move on, and that way nowhere is really somewhere, and you’re not lost at all.

(And if you’re wise about things, you move on toward the next person, who’s already been in the picture because you know never to focus on just one. ☺)

Let's talk about my love life.

That’s right. I’m feeling guilty because all this being under the weather has kept me from writing decent blog posts; you’ve kindly suffered through my whimpering, but I’m feeling I owe you a really good post, something you can sit back and get a kick out of. And I know which of my posts do that the best for ya. I know you like it when I get into my past dating stories, get into the details, into the good stuff.

The tricky thing in writing about what’s current is that a lot of single guys read this, and I might be writing about some of you if I were to do that. That’s ok, in a sense—all my readers know I keep things anonymous. But I’m not looking to make any revelations to you here in public; if I want you to know more fully than I already think you do what I’m thinking about you, I’ll make that happen in the real world. Thus here, I have to find ways to write very generically when I address the present day; to keep things open-ended, so not just you but also you and you start wondering who it is I’m writing about. And if you’re all confused, then I don’t have a problem; I just don’t want anybody feeling like we’re in high school, and this is how I’m asking you out. (And if anyone were to be inclined, still, to think that, I’d refer you back to my last post about my current thoughts on dating, wherein lies some pretty good evidence of my ability to share my interest to your face.)

Actually, that post is a good place to start. I knew when I wrote it that I might not be telling the whole truth about my mindset. I had someone in mind at the time, and I had an inkling that maybe that sense of pride that had set in had nothing to do with in general and everything to do with him in specific. Sometimes, though you don’t want to see it, a part of you just knows a person is misleading you. They give you good signs, but not good enough. You’re an optimist, and a romantic, and a very trusting person, so you tend to read into things, you tend to be hopeful; but you’ve been through the early stages enough times by now to have a built-in alert that you know you have to start listening to when it’s been ringing a while. So in that case, my pride was kicking in full-force as a protection mechanism: as a means of reeling back in the girl in me who still gets excited when she meets someone she likes and sometimes forgets to filter all the facts along with the fervor.

Needless to say, shortly thereafter I found out this guy had never merited the attention I’d paid him. And that was ok. The really great thing about being three days away from turning 31 (and this is the first time I’ve found a silver lining in that, so I’m glad you got me talking on this topic) is that it means that somewhere in the past few years I reached a euphoric state of not sweating it when it comes to dating. When you’ve been through this stuff enough times, you realize that each small investment of energy and loss of effort has little impact on your inner compass. It doesn’t drain you. You give what you have to give, and if it’s returned to you, you keep moving. There are, no doubt, at least two other guys in play at any given time anyway. That’s how dating works at this age, and I love it. I have so many opportunities to meet new people, and I’ve shed most of those stupid requirements about height and weight and hair color, which are all completely illogical anyway; I’ve also broadened my concepts of what a man I love could do for a living, or as a hobby, or for humor; and I’ve refined my understanding of how to take life as it comes and make sure to come to it, too, rather than waiting around for anything.

As part of that, I get to know everyone who intrigues me. I tend to think it is, in fact, essential for keeping one’s sanity around dating to have more than one interest at a time. That is not to say that I want to be seeing a couple of guys at one time with any seriousness; but as long as I’m just formulating my own interests and not sure what any of them think, I think it’s good to keep my focus scattered. After all, not everyone you fall for feels the same way about you.

But what if they do? What if you find yourself becoming very fond of two people at the same time, and you think it’s plausible that they’d both be interested if they knew? I know some of you would say I have to ask them both out, then, and see where things truly stand. But you know what I’ve noticed, in a big way, since I got over my pride thing? I am loving going old-school with the method that has generally always been my downfall but I still believe is the best way to go—and that is good ole getting to know the person well before anything serious occurs. Given that my last boyfriend and I decided to be “together” on the fifth day we knew each other, which proved to be much too rushed, I can’t tell you how much I’ve been savoring having recurrent great conversations with some wonderful guys without anything being clearly a dating situation. Like I said, I get excited about people when I like them, and it’s a treat to nurse that enthusiasm. I know some of you get impatient wanting to know when something will develop with this guy or that guy, but the fun thing is that I don’t. I like where I’m at with each person. I won’t complain one bit if any of them reveal deeper interests; but for now, I am savoring the process of finding out each new thing, creating each new memory, smiling each big smile that these guys leave on my face.