Trying to Be Raymond Chandler

The wind was blowing, high and crying. The sound raised the hairs on my neck and gave a little punch to my heart. Old ladies in housecoats and slippers called out the back door for their cats to come home. Shutters banged, garbage cans rolled down the street and the trees made crazy jumping shadows in the moonlight. It was the kind of night to be wrapped in a blanket on the sofa in front of a fire. I stepped off the porch and headed into the wind.

Don't Rush Me

There's so much to look at and think about. If you slow down, you can feel all your muscles moving, you can place your feet correctly, you can feel part of the life that surrounds you. There's time to take a breath and whistle, feel a rhythm, hum a tune to yourself. There's time to see that the river is low for this time of year, that there's bittersweet hidden deep in the bushes. Time to let a conversation unwind, time to see that life is good. Start out earlier and leave some time for loafing.

Riposte

I'm getting Dictionary.com word a day and trying to actually use them.

riposte - a quick reply to a question or remark (especially a witty or critical one)

So, does anyone have any? Use the comment box below the post. Otherwise, I feel like I'm talking to myself.

Thank you.

Yevtushenko

"Poetry is life in a concentrated form."
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

The best thing about being in DC is the amount of wonderful things to do for free. Museums, monuments, music and at the end of September there was the National Book Festival on the National Mall. A light misty rain made the big, billowy tents look a brilliant white. I wandered for hours among books, authors and readers. Heard several authors speak: Doris Kearns Godwin, Michael Connelly (who doesn't speak as well as he writes) and Christopher Buckley, who was hugely entertaining.

But the very best reading was totally unexpected. I had seen Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 1972 at the University of Minnesota. I was taking a class in Russian literature and a friend and I took a bus to Minneapolis to hear him read his poetry. I had heard only one other person recite poetry and that was in a bar in Iowa City with beer bottles flying through the air. This reading was no less dramatic. Yevtushenko had written a poem in the 60s called Babi Yar about a field near Kiev where 33,000 Jews were slaughtered by the occupying German forces. He was living on the edge in a Communist country.

Yevtushenko is over six feet tall with striking, fierce features and as he spoke that night, he ranged around the stage like a tiger. His translator ranged with him and matched the intensity of his reading with the English words. Towards the end, two Ukranian dissidents jumped on the stage and attacked him. The police appeared and everyone was spirited away. It was awesome and perfect.

Now it's some 30 years later, he is in his 70s, still tall, still striking, maybe a little more spare and the hair is white. The intensity is still there but now it comes across as a deep happiness and love for the world. He read some poetry in heavily-accented English and some in Russian. His translator was a woman and he poured out his considerable charm on her and on us. The tent was overflowing and when he finished, he got a standing ovation. I fell in love with him all over again.

Cowboys

"I saw now that he was American. I saw it in the dipping knees and hanging wrists and slightly girlish hips."

— John Le Carre

I lived in Budapest for four years — from 1992 to 1996. Hungary had swept out communism but was still covered in its dust. World War II bullet holes still graced the walls of buildings and a general air of neglect had settled over the city. The sidewalks were crowded with a variety of citizens: tall, dark-eyed Hungarian men; tiny grandmothers shuffling along with headscarf and sweater and the inevitable shopping bag; men with red and whiskery faces zig-zagging their way to the nearest dark bar, gorgeous Hungarian women whose clothing was amazingly brief. But on those Magyar streets, I could always spot an American man. "Dipping knees and hanging wrists and slightly girlish hips" is one way of describing that easy, loose, loping walk that says cowboy, that says American, that says freedom to move unencumbered.

As a small girl, I watched "Rawhide" and I had a crush on the main character, Rory Calhoun. (When I was older, I had that same, sweet "you're my hero" feeling for Clint Eastwood without knowing why. I didn't think much about it until I read in a Rolling Stone interview that Clint Eastwood was Rory Calhoun.) I grew up watching "The Lone Ranger", "Zorro", Gene Autry and "Bonanza" and singing cowboy songs in grade school. I liked the whole idea of being solitary and self-sufficient but ready to party when you needed to. Of taking care of your horse first, defending those in need, loving strong women (see Miss Kitty and Maureen O'Hara), taking pride in a song, never stirring up trouble but ready to take it on if need be. And there were men around me who lived that way: they took care of things without a fuss, helped their neighbors as a matter of course, didn't say much so that you really listened when they did.

I live in a city of people who talk way too much and say very little. It's hard to resist the idea that it's possible to know everything about everything, the apple of the Internet. I know the Code of the West is long-forgotten and that my longing for the idea of cowboys is really a longing for a respect for privacy and good manners. But there are still cowboys: men and women who have quiet morals, believe in goodness and kindness, take on trouble when they need to and don't talk about it.

"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."

— Will Rogers
(The Cowboy Philosopher)

an iowa memory

Crows fly up high above a field. Cawing and flapping and screeching and causing the mice below to scurry frantically into their holes. The children race down the rows of corn, their bare feet beating down on the cool lumps of soft, black earth. They breathe in the smell of earth and corn and the sun makes a kaleidescope of shifting yellows and greens all around them. They run down the straight black path and the leaves of corn reach out and leave little scratches on their arms that they won't feel until later. A mouse shoots across their feet and the girl shrieks in fear and happiness and they run on.

sorrow

Sorrow snakes through my heart like a river rarely seen from above but cutting deep nevertheless. It's not stagnant, I can feel it move. It leaves things behind as it goes: tin cans of rusted ruin and the old boot of my soul.



©nmichaels 2006

Jessica Lange (by an obsessed fan)

Every movie I've seen her in I've felt "that's me!" Not that I'm living that particular life but more that her character's essence is the same as mine. The one about the three sisters where she comes waltzing home with equal parts love and "I'm not going to take any shit from anyone." Or Blue Sky with Tommy Lee Jones where she is crazy and doesn't want to be married or just doesn't want to be tied down but is loyal down to her bones to someone who is truly kind to her.

That's why I feel betrayed (and there's no easier word - I did say obsessed fan) because she's gone and got that dang plastic surgery. And looks the worse for it.

As I age, I look around and keep an eye out for women who are older but still beautiful because they carry themselves well, they take care of themselves, they are curious and strong and love life. They are my beacons of light that say keep going, life is good. Some are friends, some are family, some are up on a screen in a dark theater.

Oh Jessica, why couldn't you believe in your own beauty? Your beautiful bones and heart? Why couldn't Sam Shepard convince you of it?

I have a cousin who is an actress and she wanted to get a nose job. We are more like sisters so I felt free to try and talk her out of it. She has a profile like my grandmother's: very proud and happy with herself. Her nose is part of that shout that says "Here I am world! I'm not like anyone else!"

She didn't get the nose job. I hope it was because she believes in her beauty. Beauty is an adding up of everything wonderful about a person: that smile that says Yes, I've had a really good time in bed or I follow my better angels as much as possible but sometimes I don't or I can think and I won't hide it.

sitting in a coffee shop one morning

The door to the coffee shop slammed open. We all looked up from laptops, books, children and dishes of pastries and stared at the slender young woman who stood there. She was dressed for a day at the office but her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing fast.

The barista put one hand on his hip, tilted his head and said in a loud voice, "Can I help you?"

Like an actress with her cue, she plunged into her scene. "I'm looking for the cheap classifieds" she said, emphasis on cheap.

"Well, we have The Washington Post over there. It's 50 cents." The barista pointed to the pile of papers in the corner.

"No," she said, still on stage. "I want that other little paper, the Penny Saver, or whatever it's called, with the cheap ads."

The barista considered her for a moment, an eyebrow raised. "We don't have that one. What exactly are you looking for?"

She took a deep breath and delivered her best line. "I'm looking for a cheap divorce lawyer."

As she looked at the barista and registered his stunned silence, a small smile on her lips turned the flush of anger into exhiliration. Then the silence in the rest of the room made her suddenly shy. Without meeting anyone's eye, she did a quick turn and took her exit.

We went back to our coffee and papers, feeling oddly satisfied.