Monthly Archives: May 2008

Dream: Rocky Mountain high

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I was on a journey and, as part of it, got off the train in Littleton so I could say I had set foot in Colorado. It was a surreal place, where the sand-colored high-rises were covered with flat, featureless windows like the set of a 1920s expressionist science fiction movie. It was ugly, terrifying, and compelling.

I wanted to get away from the station, but the ground was unstable. In the half-light of pre-dawn, people would take a tentative step forward into invisible holes in the grass. Most navigated these safely, but I was afraid. Others left across a divide in the earth that widened to the east of the station and that was higher on the far side than on the station side. With my purse and shoulder bag, I was afraid to cross it. I began to wonder if I had had a suitcase on the train that had departed. I had to go to the bathroom, but I felt like I might be trapped forever.

The word “navish” or something like it occurred to me as though it were important. For a long time I resisted looking it up; when I did, I discovered that means “military landscaper.” Perhaps I blamed the rent in the earth that frightened me so on a “navish.”

Dream: At university with Todd Rundgren

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True to a recurring theme, I was at university. Someone asked me why, so I told her that I worked for a quarter and studied for a quarter, although I did not undertake a full load. She asked me rhetorically if I had graduated, and I said I had. Although I did not know her, I recognized her as a former classmate and wondered why there were other classmates there years later.

In my room I found my former roommate and one of her friends. They struck a deal with me in which they could have the room to themselves for study in the morning while I planned to be at the bookstore and at classes that I couldn’t remember or find.

The room was long, as though two people might share each end of it, with a fireplace for each person. I wanted to get a fire started but didn’t know how to put one out. Water seemed inadequate, and I had a vision of it fueling the flames. I noticed then that my desk in front of the fireplace appeared to be on fire, but it didn’t feel hot, and there was no fire when I opened the drawer. I wondered about putting it out, too, this fire that I couldn’t see or feel.

When I looked out the window, to my horror I saw a little blond boy crash through the trapdoor of a fireplace in the room above. Even then this struck me as odd because the second-floor room would have had to extend beyond mine for me to see the fireplace and trapdoor. Perhaps it was a balcony. To my relief, the boy appeared to be fine.

Some girls tried to connect me with a paraplegic or obese Todd Rundgren (I was never sure which he was). They wanted to watch, and I was ambivalent about both him as a partner and about performing in public, so to speak.

At times I would be very hot; at others, I would be appalled by it all. I described the Todd Rundgren of the dream as 6’1″ and weighing a little over 200 pounds, realizing that that didn’t sound obese. He wore dark glasses. We were left alone, and I was confused by all the changes and contradictions.

Memorial Day

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When anyone says, “Happy Memorial Day,” I cringe inwardly. Like many other holidays in the United States, Memorial Day has become a day off from work, an opportunity to eat, drink, and be merry. Because it occurs in late May, when those of us in northerly latitudes are starting to feel comfortable that there will be no more snow and freezing winds, Memorial Day has become synonymous with the unofficial start of summer, with Labor Day marking its close (summer solstice and autumnal equinox notwithstanding).

Some people, like elders and the residents of small towns in which a single cemetery may house all the dead and where a parade features people you know. remember that Memorial Day commemorates the dead. Service organizations place American flags on the graves of veterans like my father, aunt, and uncle. Widows and widowers update their spouses on life in the past year. Unfortunate parents think of what their baby might have grown to be. Sons and daughters lay flowers reverently on stones or plant shrubs nearby to bring life to the dead. If you have lived long enough, you may pay tribute not only to parents, spouse, siblings, and comrades, but perhaps even a child or two.

Memorial Day does not have to be a sad occasion, and a picnic with all the fixings may be just the thing to put the winter blahs to rest. Before you head out to the backyard, park, pool, or beach, give Memorial Day its due and think about someone you loved and why you you loved them. Then never forget.

Poked

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Today I was sitting at a table in the garden at The Flamingo, intent on writing, when something poked me hard in the back. I yelled, “Oh!” and jumped a foot. My heart stopped.

When i came out of shock, I wondered what or who had poked me. The only people who know me are the staff, who usually call me by name rather than assaulting my person.

I turned around slowly.

The unsmiling culprit was a boy between 18 and 24 months old. He lives here with his mother.

He didn’t seem that happy or triumphant, so I decided to ignore him. I turned my back on him and went back to writing.

A few moments later, carefully timed so that I should have returned to complacency, the finger jabbed me again.

I turned around.

He still wasn’t smiling. He was, however, drooling.

I have that effect on males.

Book review: Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France

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Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France by Peter Mayle. New York: Random House, Inc., 2000. 240 pages.

For an unexplained reason, Peter Mayle and his unnamed wife (presumably the “Jennie” of the dedication) left paradise in Provence for Long Island. In Encore Provence, he returns to the south of France, where the food, wine, and slow pace of life again absorb his attention.

Even less structured than Toujours Provence, Encore Provence covers familiar territory from new angles. “The Unsolved Murder of the Handsome Butcher” and “Recipe for a Village” address both the insularity and charms of village life (“Recipe” much less successfully), while “How to Be a Nose,” “Discovering Oil,” and “Friday Morning in Carpentras” provide insights into the perfume, olive oil, and truffle industries, respectively. In one of the best chapters, “Restaurant Critic Makes Astonishing Discovery,” Mayle effectively and humorously discredits Ruth Reichl’s flippant dismissal of Provence. How could a serious critic, after only a month’s visit, write, “I had been dreaming of a Provence that never existed”? To help the reader find ripe tomatoes — which Reichl could not manage to do — and other products of Provence, Mayle provides the names and places for markets, vineyards, restaurants, bakeries, and producers of goods like olive oil and honey. It becomes clear that Reichl could not find Provence because she actively avoided it; perhaps she thought that deflating the expectations that Mayle helped to create was a better story than simply reinforcing them.

Several chapters, like “Curious Reasons for Liking Provence” and “Eight Ways to Spend a Summer’s Afternoon,” reveal one of the problems with Encore Provence — the lack of significant new material. More filler than substance, they are more like random personal essays than integral parts of a cohesive work, as though Mayle could not think of a better way to frame his random observations. These chapters are forced, splintered, and almost unnecessary.

Surprisingly, there is less of a sense of place. In the previous Provence books, Mayle’s stone house, with its location abutting public forest, its isolation from traffic, its drawn-out renovations, its pool that attracts thirsty sangliers, and its quirky neighbors like Faustin and Massot, gives the reader a strong sense of a place with personality. The house is at the heart of A Year in Provence. In Encore Provence, it is not clear that Mayle and his wife return to the same house or what their neighbors are like. Even the dogs are mostly absent. Without structure and intimacy, Encore Provence is nothing more than a series of disconnected travelogue stories. Perhaps weary of intrusions into his privacy, or perhaps unclear about the reasons for the first book’s success, Mayle distances himself from his reader.

There may not be much left for Mayle to say about Provence. He writes that, due to building restrictions, not much has changed. Yet he notes that “the garage and the geese are gone, and the farmhouse has sprouted wings and annexes . . . the vines have been groomed” and “the refugees’ urge for rapid [gardening] results has spawned an industry: instant gardens, shipped in and set up with astonishing speed.” These are only a couple of small changes, to be sure, but in time there will be more, and Provence will alter slowly and subtly. Mayle should know that that is the nature of change in the countryside and that, with enough demand, pressure, and money, change can accelerate, transforming a village into a resort town or farmland into suburbia.

Even if you cannot visit Provence, much of the lifestyle that Mayle describes — with food and drink of varying type and quality — is still available in many places outside France. The slow pace, the fatalistic viewpoint, the elderly gossips and moralists, the close-knit relationships, the helpfulness, and the beauty and quirks of the countryside are found in many regions. If you are as observant and open as Mayle, you may be able to find your version of Provence closer to home.

25 May 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Dream: Blood and madness

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I had had lunch in a multistory mall and was in the bathroom when I remembered that I had a job interview coming up afterward. I couldn’t find my bag, so I didn’t know where. I looked in the mirror and saw that my ruffled white silk blouse was spotted with numerous dilute bloodstains. I worried less about whether I was injured or where the blood had come from than about missing the interview.

Even if I could find my bag, which surely would have been stolen by now, I didn’t know where the interview was being held without the papers in the bag. I began to wonder about myself because normally I research the company and its Web site for any interview.

Finally, I gave up on the interview. I couldn’t even call to apologize. I also thought that perhaps it was not such a loss, that no job like it would be my dream job. I tried to remember what was in my bag and wondered whether I should be desperate to get it back.

I ran into my brother, who offered to help. The mall was a strange place, dark and full of odd corners and tiny spaces, more like a fun house than a shopping center. It was a disturbing place, and I thought again about the bloodstains, although I was sure, I thought, that it was my own blood.

I found a childhood friend of my brother, who also agreed to look for the bag. Then we came upon a clerestory overlooking a lower level, where a woman was modeling lingerie. I thought he might know her and was about to turn to him to ask when I heard the unmistakable sound of his engagement in a particular activity. I sensed that he was completely absorbed and unaware of me now. I wanted to escape this awful place, even without the bag, but did not know how. I was trapped with blood and madness.

Dream: Pudge and the dead people

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I was in one of the infinite, mystical houses that appear in my dreams. The front door had been opened carelessly, and I was afraid that Pudge had escaped. I might have reassured myself by searching the house and finding her, but it seemed too overwhelming a task. When I thought about looking for her outside, I would open the door and see a landscape blasted by hurricane-strength winds and rain that I couldn’t face. It broke my heart to think of my poor tortoiseshell baby out there. It would occur to me that perhaps she had escaped just then, each time I opened the door to look. It was an ironic cycle of indecision and fear.

I don’t know if this was in the same house, but I found a room in which various people, perhaps a large family, stood against a wall, each with his or her head cocked oddly sideways onto a frame projecting from the wall. It was a horrible sight. They appeared to have been murdered, with their bodies on display in this macabre way.

Then I saw one of them move slightly, and that was even more terrible and horrifying than had they remained still and clearly dead.

Backyard birdwatching

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I wanted to spend most of this past weekend outdoors, but the weather forecasters did an about-face Saturday afternoon with a prediction of rain. It never warmed up by the lake, but clouds covered the sky by late afternoon. In the evening the rains came.

After performing triage housework, I spent a little time in the Flamingo garden. The first time I went out I spotted a tiny grayish bird with a light breast, which made wish I knew my passerines better. I can’t swear to an eye ring, but it may have been a blue-gray gnatcatcher — it reminded me of a wren.

While I was out, a male northern cardinal landed on one of the black lawn chairs, which set off his red beautifully. While northern cardinals are common here and I hear males calling frequently, I rarely see the whole bird out in the open in all his glory.

What startled me most was a male American redstart in the shrubbery in front of me. Although I’ve seen redstarts among the trees on Wooded Isle, I didn’t expect to see one so close and so clearly on a bit of ground off 55th Street.

When I came out later, a male northern cardinal chased a female right in front of me. Ah, love. Then I spotted a gorgeous male common yellowthroat flitting around in the shrubs. When they came closer, I saw that the little figures bobbing for insects in the grass were female yellowthroats.

I must work harder to obtain a DSLR camera.

The glimpse of the mystery bird (blue-gray gnatcatcher?) and my observations of the redstart and the yellowthroats reminded me that even a micro-habitat as small as The Flamingo’s garden is still a habitat. Combined with Burnham Park across the street and Jackson Park with its Wooded Isle, it offers both migrants and residents a rich source of protein and a place to perch and rest. And a place for me to stay a little connected to the natural world, even when I don’t feel very well.

At about 10:30 Saturday night, a single, blinding flash of lightning was followed by a single, terrifying clap of thunder. Somehow it seemed the perfect end to the day — a reminder that nature has not yet been vanquished.