Christmas morning

I woke up early. Not like when I was little and got up at the crack of dawn and had to wait (per parental rules) until 7 a.m. to wake everyone for present-opening. I didn't mean to wake up early, but someone texted me, and my phone chimed, and I did.

The temperature on the thermostat in my bedroom was 60; I shivered as I rolled out of my warm covers. I came into the kitchen, poured a bowl of cereal, looked out the window. The sky is perfectly clear. A plane is streaking one thin white line across it, from right to left in a straight, horizontal projection from my vantage point. Above it, the sky is blue; below, a warm yellow-orange emanates from behind the dark roof of a neighbor's house. When I stand up, I can see the east bay hills, blue in the backlighting of the rising sun. The crisp wavering edge of their ridge reminds me of real mountains seen from a great distance, like in the Southwest. This is not what I think of when I picture Christmas morning.

I picture dry brown leaves spread all over a still-green lawn; we haven't felt like raking over the holidays. I picture the lawn because I can't see much of the sky from our front windows (where I sit impatiently by the tree, rearranging gifts by recipient and sometimes shaking them), Atlanta having such a long growing season that trees rise high behind all the houses, their branches filling the view. Mostly I picture the living room, with its plush white carpet that I sit on, leaning my back against the piano seat and watching the tree as though it is doing something. I have already plugged in the lights; it was the first task of the morning. When Mom gets up, she will think starting the coffee comes first. Dad will make sure all signs of the Santa for whom I left cookies are gone, and both will stay in the kitchen while I read the letter Santa left me in thanks. I will not realize this letter is in Mom's handwriting for years. I will love it for years.

When my brother finally gets up and everyone comes together by the tree, we will open all the gifts in an orderly fashion, me directing a present to each person in sequence, then issuing another round, until I sit amidst a sea of wrapping paper and bows and four tidy piles of treasures. A cat or two might look on quietly. Eventually, the dog will be allowed in the room, and she will make a royal mess of any remaining paper.

Later, the best part of the day will come. Once the sun goes down, I will turn out all the lamps in the living room and plug back in the tree. It will cast red, green, and blue fir-branch shadows onto the pale lavendar walls. It will sparkle with color. I will sit on the sofa, legs curled under me, and watch quietly for what seems to Mom a very long time for doing nothing. When I have taken it in long enough, I will sit beside the tree and play Christmas songs on the piano. I read the music with only the colorful light of the tree to illuminate it, and no one is in the room with me but I'm sure they are listening (and perhaps wishing I would get a new repertoire). To little me, this was the best part of Christmas. The making of music, the admiration of beauty, the joyful lights in the dark.

Test run: sharing some photos. (These are from Balboa Park in San Diego.)

This is a test to see whether I can put photos in my posts.

Public Service Announcement

Recently some friends and I were talking about dating. I don't remember what led into it, but I announced that I tend to go for younger guys these days. I am sure that I also declared that men over 30 or 32 have too much baggage. I know, I know. This is an unfair generalization. I do always keep my mind open; but experience has me thinking that way. So you can imagine my horror when one of the guys in the conversation, who is solidly in his mid-20s and thus in a place of knowing, responded to my comments with something along the lines of, "But the problem is that guys in their 20s don't like kids, and women over 30 are ready to have 'em." Two very loud responses immediately competed to be heard in my head. The first, I will admit, was, Shit. Is it that obvious?! Because truth be told, I would love to have babies. But the other response was the stronger—Shit. Do men really think this way? Because if so, all us single 30-somethings are screwed!!

I thought a lot about this after my last breakup, when I was told (by someone my same age) that I was more mature than he was, that I was farther along in life than he was; that he could see this going to marriage and that that terrified him because he wasn't ready. What I found incredibly odd about that was that he seemed to imply that I was. I had never said anything along those lines. Maybe, in my own being, I am in a place from which I could steadily and happily take the next steps in life. I know I will be a kickass mom, and I think I will be great in a lifelong relationship; maybe I emit something that says that. But just because I, on my own, am prepared for those things doesn't mean I'm expecting to get to them anytime soon.

For starters, I'd have to find someone I want to marry, which is no small feat! (Though the last guy was thinking that way, I actually wasn't.) And being 30 means I was born in the 1970s, not the 1950s; a lot of things have to take place before I give birth. Let's do the math to illuminate the point: By the time I find a guy I like, start dating him, get into a relationship with him, and decide I want to marry him, it's likely that two or three years have passed since we met. Maybe another year passes before we actually get married. Once we do, I can't imagine having kids for at least a year or two (and that would be longer if age weren't a factor in pregnancy). Which means it's at least five years from the starting point before I even want to pop any out! At which point, you'll take note, the men in their mid-20s are 30+ and perhaps more ready to have babies. (Meaning my younger-man fetish still has a chance!)

If I hadn't been so flabbergasted by the out-of-the-blue breakup, I might have asked that last boyfriend why on earth he thought I was looking to marry him. We never talked on that level, and we weren't even at a place of saying I love you. But he had told me enough about his previous relationships for me to guess that he had seen a pattern in the way women think, and he was applying what he had known to be the case in other situations to the one with me. And here's where we get to my PSA. All you charming single men, no matter your age, please remember: we don't all operate the same way. There may be women who have reached 30 unmarried and are upset by it; but the ones I know who are single at this age are still single because they can handle it. They may get frustrated with it sometimes, but they can handle it. Most of them have all kinds of interesting things going on in their lives, making them perhaps even more independent (and intriguing) than you can imagine. So please, don't fall into any of those generalizations I lightly started this post out with. Keep your mind open. I can promise you: we're worth it. (Like wine, we get richer with age.)

Where the wild things are

Last night I had an interesting discussion with a friend who was disconcerted by my recent post about Into the Wild. He was distressed that I said I could live without people. I'll point out that I said I could do so for a time. I certainly am not looking to become a hermit! I do enjoy entire weekends to myself sometimes, and I can imagine spending at least a couple of months alone. (A friend of mine did this a few years ago—driving to Alaska and back for a summer—and he did just fine with it.) But I would have all kinds of requirements for my lengthy-time-alone to make it enjoyable; for starters, I'd have to be in a beautiful natural setting. And I'd have to have some books around, and a computer or notebook so I could do some writing, and ideally I'd have some film and my camera (because I like to create visual poetry too). And let's just be clear on one other front: I'd need to have four walls and a door with me in my wilderness. I'm not proposing living in any magic bus like Chris did. I like to take a shower every day. I like to cook my food on a full-fledged stove, after I've taken it out of the fridge and chopped it up with a real knife (i.e. not a machete). I don't have anything against camping, but it's not something I'm looking to do with my life. Plus, have you ever spent a night alone outside? It can be terrifying!

Which brings me back to my last thought about that film. I was struck throughout the movie by the lack of fear Chris showed about being in the wilderness. I wondered if he really didn't have any (I've never been a cavalier young guy, after all, so what do I know?), or if Penn, perhaps being more of a city person, didn't think to include it. If you've never been in the woods at night (or watched Lost), you might not think of it. But I've spent a night alone away from anything, and I sure did not enjoy it once the sun went down.

This was in Maine. The month was March; dark fell by 6 pm. Thankfully I had a flashlight and a book (if my memory is accurate, it was Camus' The Stranger, in French). I squirmed deep into my sleeping bag, propped the book open and the light against it, and tried to ignore the rustling sounds in the woods around me. Within an hour, my eyes hurt from reading with so little light, so I closed the book and attempted sleep.

As my eyes shut, my ears opened.

I lay as still as I could and tried to block out the sounds. I thought if I envisioned everything around me, it would calm me down, so I re-built the landscape. A tree stood about four feet from me. Others were scattered around it at similar distances. The hill began to slope to my left maybe 30 feet from me, and before me, the land stretched 50 or 100 yards before dropping off into water. I tried not to think about what lay behind me, for it was only woods, dense and dark.

I could see everything in my immediate vacinity. Except the thing making so much noise. I knew it was something hungry, something going after my food. I had strung the bag as high as I could, but a bear could reach it, I knew. I listened to it knocking the branches around, and I felt a paralyzing fear in my body. I don't think I could have moved if the bear had tried to sit on me (or worse).

But somehow, it all stopped. Whether I fell asleep or the creature left, I'm not sure, but in the morning, I awoke all in one piece. My food was gone—the twine had been gnawed through, the bagels and nuts swallowed, except for a few tidbits that spotted the ground. Yet there was no sign of a large animal. The leaves all lay in place; the thundering attacker I had pictured was most likely a raccoon with sharp teeth and quick hands. I laughed at myself, thinking how incredibly sound amplifies in the dark. I laughed at myself, but I still looked in every direction, up trees and over the hillside, before starting the walk back home.

Into the Wild: a movie review and then some

Friday night I saw the film Into the Wild, based on the Jon Krakauer biography of Christopher McCandless and adapted for the screen by Sean Penn, who also directed it. I’d had a wearing week, for all kinds of reasons, and I badly needed to escape into that blessed world of the movie theater, where the big screen and loud speakers envelop you in other realities. And though the film ended sadly, I left elated, having found it to be elegant and accurate and enlightening in multiple ways. Some of my companions disagreed heartily, finding the main character selfish or unbelievable. But I found him extremely true to life in certain ways, and I think Penn did an impressive job of creating a film that fills your senses with Chris’s situation rather than just flashing images of it before your face.

An early scene reveals an aerial view of a snowfield; a pickup truck trundles down the side of the frame, emitting that crunching sound I associate with boots on frozen snow. Eventually the truck stops, and a boy gets out; as he trudges over the snow and toward a wooded beyond, the camera broadens our view a bit, revealing the jagged tops of distant mountains and only a sliver of sky above them. This type of tight-in cinematography immediately, if quietly, sets a tone for the film—a tone of enormity and enclosure all at once. The wild is massive and beautiful. And looming.

As Chris crosses his first river, a soundtrack begins; a familiar voice wavers into a song that is heartfelt, emotional, pained in a way that I associate with American Indian singing; it is not the jamming nor the acoustic rock for which Eddie Vedder is best known. Throughout the film, periodic bursts of Vedder’s singing quietly build toward a scene in which he almost wails a song as Chris peers over a vast landscape below him. Like the composition of each visual image, the timbre of each song works subtly to tell us that the character is not just adventuring, but questing.

The premise of the story is that 23-year-old Chris has been dreaming of getting to Alaska; he wants to survive there on his own, out in the elements. Leaving West Virginia, he begins to head westward, traveling for a total of two years without any money (he’s cutely given the bulk of it to charity and then burned the rest after getting drenched inside his car in a flash flood and deciding, perhaps, that it’s a sign he can survive anything). This feat alone is impressive, though he does supplement his barren savings by working odd jobs, underscoring that a world without money is a utopia, not a real place. Still, Chris wanders for two years by the end of the film, and during that time, we learn that his passion for getting “lost in the wild” has multiple layers.

First, the obvious: he wants new experiences. He wants to challenge himself. Where better to do so than out in the elements? It’s tried and true; many have turned to nature when looking for themselves. It offers challenges, and it offers solitude. It offers a peaceful quiet interrupted only by bird song or wind song, the rustling of leaves, the crackling of branches—by no voices other than one’s own. I understand turning to nature; I have always done it. I understand leaving society; I could do that. None of you will believe me because I seem so social, so people-oriented. But I can live without cities, even without human contact for a time; yet I could never give up the ocean, the mountains, the quiet places tucked in under tree branches, the quick-footed lizards of forests, the first flowers of spring. I could go on and on. I have shelves of books that do so. I have spent hours and days quietly seated by a seaside or on pine straw in the cool dark of some woods. These are private times—sometimes shared with others, but mostly enjoyed on my own. So I loved watching Chris yearn for these places; I knew what goodness he’d find.

But Chris also heads out to the wilds to get away from something. It’s not just the nature freak in me that enjoyed the movie; it’s also the kid inside, one who, like Chris, had parents who fought, who made life at home unpleasant sometimes. I know what drives one out of the house and into the wilderness; what drives even the most sociable to need a break from humanity. I think the film depicts flight from family fights with an accuracy that maybe only those who’ve been there can appreciate. Some may see his behavior as self-serving, but I see it as self-preservation. As knowing when you’ve got to do your own thing, make your own way, find out who you are entirely outside your upbringing and bring that self to life.

As part of that discovery, many of us come to the joyous realization that we can love whomever we want. We can make friends out of strangers, family out of a conversation gone right. To my delight, Chris wanders the country adopting parents. Whether they replace his true mother and father we will never know; but they certainly fill in some holes in his heart. They mean so much to him that the film takes a turn I would deem an authorial failure were it not based on what Chris truly wrote. While dying of starvation, he enters one last note in the margin between paragraphs in a favorite book. “Happines only real when shared.” My euphoria with the film broke in that moment; I wanted to shake Chris and remind him what he'd been learning, at least as I see it, which is that the minute you are able to smile and need no one else to know about it, to feel ecstacy or tranquility and enjoy it entirely by yourself—that's when you have found contentment. I wanted to shake him, but I reminded myself that he was dying, and that people are human, and humans are needy, and that craving the companionship of others is a beautiful thing as well, even if for myself it is imperative to know that my happiness does not depend on them. (I view the ability to share my joys with others as the greatest bonus of living; not a necessity but an invaluable, incredible plus.)

The end of the film is hard to watch; it’s tragic that in real life, a man died trying to follow his passion for life. But it is a reminder that how you live matters immensely. It is tragic that anyone dies so young; but I feel happier for the late Christopher McCandless than I do for many people who are still living, because I can see how much he got out of his life, and to me, that's what counts. I think I loved this movie most of all because of a message it underscores, which is one I hold dear. Don't just be part of the world around you; experience it. Don’t just live a little; live a lot.

(note to self)

let it go--the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise--let it go it
was sworn to
            go

let them go--the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers--you must let them go they
were born
         to go

let all go--the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things--let all go
dear
   so comes love

               -- e.e. cummings

(Many of you know I have an 1100-page book of e.e. cummings poetry that I read like it's the Bible, it includes so much wisdom creatively put. In the midst of an exhausting week, at the end of an exhausting year, I've been turning to it often lately, lacking the time to put things in my own words and so relying on his incredible choice of them.)

Today I felt a pang of missing winter.

Beautiful

is the
unmea
ning
of(sil

ently)fal

ling(e
ver
yw
here)s

Now

-- e.e. cummings