Notes from a small island*

So I wasn't kidding about yoga retreats—I really did go on one. In silence, for five days, on Marrowstone Island, in northern Washington.

Everyone asks about the silence first. Isn't it hard? For me, strangely, no. Not that I'm the quiet type, as you can attest. But I've lived alone and traveled alone and spent lots of time with myself, and there's no need to talk out loud then. I can hear easily enough.

But you know what is hard? Getting up at 5:30 a.m. every day to meditate. Meditating: also hard. Incredibly hard, in the same way that the last mile of a race is hard or drinking wheatgrass is hard—you can't wait for it to be over, but you know how good it is for you. According to our teachers, Jo and Jenny, everyone is always a beginner. All we can do is get better at beginning.


I wasn't one of those kids who loved camp. It's 10 a.m., they'd say. Time to swim! Thanks, but I don't really feel like swimming right now. I just got here. How about if I go read instead. You can imagine how that went over. Weeks of summer camp attended by me in the past 31.5 years: one. Five days, really.

I do love routine, though. When I travel, it's what I miss, and I'll go out of my way to create one—if you stop by the same coffee shop every day, no matter where you are, they'll know you by the third day. Familiarity isn't that hard to establish; connections aren't that hard to build. But I think it's only my own routines that I like, at least after the third day.


Still, if you asked (after asking about the silence and was it hard), did I like the retreat? I'd say yes. It stretched my brain and my hip and my concentration and made me want to sleep two days for each time I woke up before dawn.

But it's a gift to give yourself the time to do very little except reflect. Hike. Sit. Climb the stairs. Sit. Listen to the crazy wind storm, watch the rocking chair at golden hour, breathe air that doesn't know how to be urban, count the number of trees that look like dinosaurs and the open shells that look aerodynamic. Let someone else set the schedule, so you don't have to think at all about where to be.



* With apologies to Mr. Bryson.

On speed

I finally started running again. Very slowly, mind you, and not very far. But it's been about a year since the injury (less than that since the accurate diagnosis), and it felt like time.

The trick is making myself stop; the opposite of the tricks I used to play to make myself keep going, back when I was trying to transform from a sprinter into someone with actual stamina. Insidiously, it worked.

The reverse is much harder, since every part of me except a tiny stretch of my abdomen wants to go go go go go. And it never hurts while I'm running, only afterward. So there's a point during the workout—usually right when I hit my stride in mile two—when I have to second-guess my brain for the sake of my body. Still working on the balance.

When I haven't been running, I've been flying. First to England, as you know, for what turned out to be a lovely visit with family I hadn't seen for years. After the sadness of Grandma Rosa's funeral, we all felt grateful to spend the afternoon together in a comfy room, catching up and toasting and watching my criminally adorable new niece, Rosie, devour almost an entire salmon in her high chair.

And in a meteorological phenomenon still under investigation by the MI5, the sun shone almost every minute we were there. In Yorkshire. In March. If you're not half or three-quarters or 100% English, that won't excite you at all. But trust me—crazy times. Here, see for yourself.

The trip home was much less delightful than everything before it, unless your idea of delight involves a lot of turbulence, flavorless peanut noodles, and nine hours in the Atlanta airport. Nuff said.

Five days after touching down from that trip, I headed back to SFO for the second half of GrandmaFest 2010: Savta's 90th birthday in Maryland. Songs were sung, walks taken, brunches brunched, photos snapped, red slippers worn, and cellos played. The sun continued its freakish extended appearance, although the cherry blossoms weren't as cooperative.

Then I flew back across the country and collapsed in a grimy, jet-lagged heap on the floor. I'm still here. Please send coffee and yoga retreats.

Uphill all the way

This is for my Grandma Rosa, who died a few hours ago.


She was 95 years old, unmistakably English, stubborn, sweet, pocket-size. She told stories about the past that got more elaborate each time, but the unchanging factor was that she always starred in them.

Her mind had been on the way out for years. I hadn't visited her since the worst of it, and I don't know if she recognized who the Chanukah and birthday cards were coming from. I hope she did. I always included a recent photo with my brother's and my names on the back, hoping it would strike the match.

When I was in middle school, Grandma Rosa came to grandparents' day in her favorite black-and-white zebra-print shirt with a matching purse she'd made herself by weaving the extra fabric from the shirt through the chain handle. She was a huge hit. My friends and their parents and grandparents talked about her for years afterward.

Sometime—I don't remember how long ago—before she moved from her Sheffield apartment into a nursing home closer to my uncle and his family in Leeds, we took a long walk on the moors together. She wore a little wooly hat and kept reciting these lines by Christina Rossetti as we moved slowly, Grandma pace, along the path:

Does the road go uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.

Last night, she went into the hospital with pneumonia. The same thing happened last year; she made it through. This time, she didn't. She lived a long time and died quietly in her sleep.

I'm not sure what else to say except that I haven't seen my Grandma Rosa in five years, and tomorrow afternoon I'm getting on a plane to England to go say goodbye. Only part of my heart thinks it's too late.

Under the wire

What a neglectful blogger I've become. I could say it's because of my day job plus Canteen plus freelance work, but I've been juggling that same combination for years without slacking on the blog front. Must be something in the new decade's water.

Or maybe it's because I've been on the road: hiking in Jack London State Park, playing craps with a gay softball team in Vegas. What? Yes. I'm terrible at craps, by the way. But the penny slots and I get along famously.

Last year was international, this year is domestic. Next up: Savta's 90th birthday in D.C., then a weeklong yoga and meditation retreat in Port Townsend, then a double header of weddings in Cincinatti and Chicago. Then a long nap.

Speaking of Canteen, Issue Five is here! It glows in the dark. We'll throw a party for it one of these days. And we're having a photography contest—you and your shutterbug friends should all enter.

I'm thinking of trying to run again. Everybody's favorite abdominal injury has been resting for more than eight months now, and it's feeling the urge to move. We'll see how much leeway I can give it.

Two great friends are leaving town next weekend to travel for a while. Malaysia, Thailand, and China, for starters. I'll miss them something fierce, and I'm jealous of the adventure. But sometimes it's a gift to stay put. Especially when it's raining, and somehow almost February.

Decembrist

At BCB headquarters, the past 12 months were more about pictures than words. We can discuss what each type of expression is worth another time. For now, a photo from—and in memory of—each slice of 2009.

My only selection parameter was that I couldn't repeat any of the images I've posted on here before. Harder than I expected, but more interesting than just choosing my favorites.

Happy new year to you.

january
entrance | de young museum, san francisco

february
snowshoe | lake tahoe, california

march
olive oil | south hadley, massachusetts

april
three knots | spirit rock, marin

may
pemberton clan | monte rio, california

in honor of jack pemberton, 1919–2009

june
off-center | guerrero street, san francisco

july
votives | avi & jenny's wedding, doe bay

august
fence flower | santa monica, california
in honor of miriam commisso

september
no parking | colón, argentina

october

fiddle dog | northampton, massachusetts

november

paint cans | jan & phil's home, galiano island

december
treasures | pebble beach, galiano island

Lingua mia

Words and phrases I use way too often, in no particular order:

1. It is what it is.
2. Definitely.
3. What can you do?
4. Horrendous.
5. Delicious.
6. No worries.
7. OK, great.
8. Sweet.
9. Right on.
10. Totally.
11. Pretty this / kind of that.
12. Absurd(ly).
13. It's all good.
14. Nice!
15. Hybrids I invent by adding random suffixes: friendiversary, New Englandish, etc.

I think this means I'm not exactly stealth about being Jewish, addicted to Bay Area slang from the late '90s, and a serious dork.

Argentina, captured

At long last . . . 170 moments have been scanned and dusted and posted and captioned, and now they're all yours: Argentina on Flickr.

Since I didn't write much on here about the trip, I tried to turn the photo sets into a mini narrative. If you'd like to read it, I recommend viewing the pics one by one, instead of in slideshow mode. (NB: Details are much easier to see in the slideshow.)

For those who prefer bite-size distraction, here are 10 of my favorites. But keep in mind you're only experiencing a seventeenth of the fun.

Passersby looked on in mild horror as I crouched to shoot this in Palermo, BA.

This shot in Congreso sums up BA's aesthetic for me:
gritty and colorful, with touches of elegance.

BA has exceptional graffiti. This curtsying girl is in San Telmo.

The spicy window display at El Gato Negro café, BA

Courtyard bench at my charming, musty hotel in Colón

Mi amigo poquito de Colón

Parroquia Santos Justo y Pastor, Colón

Mailbox on a side street, Colón

Bricklayer, construction site, Colón

I fell in love with these shoes in Colón on a Tuesday, brought them
back to BA on a Thursday for a photo shoot on Amy's terrace.

Rosewood, Cementerio de la Recoleta, BA

Claro que sí

I hoped to have all my pictures posted before I started telling you Argentina stories, but it turns out scanning and Photoshopping 10 rolls takes kind of a long time. How about that?

So we'll go bit by bit, starting with New England (full set here). It's a little-known fact that all great tales of South America begin with hot cider—all great tales of anything, really. Here's yours:


You should bring it along to keep warm at the Paradise City Arts Festival, especially in the sculpture garden.



Watch out for the dog on a hog. He takes no prisoners.


The leaves were just starting to do their magic thing. In Vermont, for instance:


Wait, what's that you said? You want to see my ride?


Yeah, baby. There ain't no party like a Delaware PT Cruiser party. That trunk is plenty big enough to hold a few of these:


But I didn't think they'd survive the trip from Boston to Argentina.

After a big pile of hours and a minor adventure with the prepaid cab company, I reached Amy's place (sans pumpkins) in Buenos Aires. Her new kitchen is stocked with all the necessities.


She lives in Villa Crespo, near the city center. This is the view from her very pretty, very sunny terrace.


Someday, I'd like to have a terrace. Or even a window box. But in the meantime, all I have is about a million more photos for you. Coming soon!

Sobriquettish

The so-called BCB has spent way too much time stateside lately. Not that I'd trade in any of the past year's jaunts to Orcas Island, New York, Seattle, Spirit Rock, SoCal—but my alter ego can't be fed on domestic travel alone.

So tomorrow seems like a fine day for Argentina, doesn't it? But I stopped at the homestead en route, to say hi to my family and the color wheel of leaves and the chill that seeps into your bones. There's nowhere prettier than here right now.

Saturday: Boston. My cousin Shira showed me around Brighton, a quiet little neighborhood with the best twin bartenders a girl could ever shack up with. During dinner at Brown Sugar, the lights suddenly went out (not romantic dimming, but total blackness) and a green strobe light started up. Then a pulsing beat, then a Thai man singing a husky rock version of "Happy Birthday" to someone we couldn't see. For a full five or six minutes. Nobody reacted. Then the lights came on, and it was business as usual. Who's free next July 10? I'll see you there.

Sunday & Monday: Northampton. Blew a kiss to the old gray dog and picked up my sweet rental car, a metallic blue PT Cruiser immediately christened Skymall. (If you're looking for me, I'm the one in the pimp hearse. You can thumb wrestle Chuck D for shotgun.) Mom and I checked out the Paradise City Arts Festival, followed by a double-header of gorgeous, relentless biopics: Bright Star and Becoming Jane. They neatly reconfirmed my belief that the critical ingredients for British literary genius are shackled love and early mortal illness. (American genius = epic road trips and really good drugs.)

Tuesday: Vermont & South Hadley. Google Maps sent me on a complicated backroads route through Bennington with a turn every few minutes, mostly unsignposted but all pristine. Lunch with the Rabbis Boettiger and the samba dog. Back through the rain to Dad and Ann's, tested out my memory and took the Holyoke route off 91. Only got almost lost once. Rewarded with corn risotto and Scrabble.

Today has been lazy and logistical, tomorrow back on the bus and then the plane, a speed-demon layover in Miami and 10 more hours and hey! Good morning, South America. I don't believe I've had the pleasure before.

Fall cleaning

In late August, it was beginning to look a lot like cleanse season. I'm taking a few weeks off from the gym so my friend the abdominal tear can actually heal, instead of just pretending to, and a new month is always a nice, clean time to start a project.

At first, I thought I'd go the basic route: no caffeine, alcohol, dairy, gluten, or processed foods for two weeks. Not much fun, but not torturous. Then I remembered how great I felt after each 24-hour juice fast I've done annually for the last few years, usually combined with an overnight at some hot springs. How long could I keep that up? And how about a Master Cleanse, would that be head-clearing or demented? It's meant to last 10 days, but that sounded more like starvation than health. So I cut it in half. I figured I could handle anything for five days.

The Master Cleanse people recommend two days of easing in before officially starting the program: one day of raw foods, then one of fruit and vegetable juices. The raw day was fine. I ate a lot of salad and got a little grumpy at work. But the juice day was rough, especially when I wound up at Papalote watching a group of friends get their burrito on. And my energy level was so low that I started to feel kind of loopy.

When I woke up on day three, I realized the Master route wasn't for me. There was no way I could function normally on a diet of spicy lemonade. So I decided to alternate raw days and juice days for the rest of the cleanse. This was over Labor Day weekend—the magazine gave us an extra day off, so the timing was right. It's much easier to follow strict food guidelines when you can make meals at home. The shopping and prep become part of the exercise. I spent quality time at Rainbow Grocery.

I don't have any hilarious anecdotes about the rest of the experience, but I survived. The evenings on juice days were the hardest and hungriest, so I went to bed early and slept longer and much more deeply than usual. In the mornings, I felt fantastic and had plenty of energy.

I broke the cleanse at Harbin Hot Springs with a peach-ginger muffin. To say it was the best muffin in the history of muffins doesn't do it justice. Let me tell you a story.

Seven or so years ago, I went on a first (and only) date with a short, tan man who decided we should go surfing. Note to guys: That's an extreme first date, especially if you don't tell the girl beforehand—you just show up and say, "Hey, I thought we'd go surfing in Bolinas"—and most especially if the girl has never surfed before and isn't all that interested in it.

But it was a beautiful day and I'm a trouper, so off we went. Another tip: Wetsuits should never be part of a first date. It took me 20 minutes to put the damn thing on, and I fell over at least three times. Local children pointed and laughed. Truly.

Eventually, we made it into the water, where I proceeded to spend two freezing, uncomfortable hours failing to stand up on the board. Mostly, I paddled around shivering while tan guy happily caught wave after wave.

When I couldn't stand it anymore, I chucked the wetsuit and took an epic nap on the beach in the sun. Being warm and dry, instead of clinging to a slippery board while encased in rubber, was like showering for the first time after a month in a mud pit. I slept so well that I felt like an entirely different person afterward. I forgave the mocking children; I even forgave tan guy his trespasses, although I don't remember his name. It was the most glorious nap of my life.

The muffin that broke the cleanse was the muffin equivalent of that nap. Food just doesn't get any better, especially if your head and belly know exactly what they've been missing.

Summer photo roundup

It's suddenly almost September, which makes me feel like I took a wrong turn and tripped over a hole in the space-time continuum or the Flux Capacitor or whatever.

But the point is, I've been remiss in posting photos. Sorry about that. First, we have my favorite brother's beautiful wedding out on Orcas Island. Full set on Flickr, and here are some highlights:





Then I drove down to Santa Monica in my trusty green steed to visit Ms. Erin Jourdan, who was hosting a fundraiser for her housemate's lymphoma treatment. The sun shone the whole time, with nary a forest fire in sight. Full set here, highlights here:





If I ever break up with Gibson, it'll be for this guy. I call him Zipper.

In like the lion

On my walk to work this morning, I was thinking about how healthcare reform—assuming some version of it eventually passes—will have Ted Kennedy's fingerprints all over it, regardless of his untimely shuffle off our mortal coil (RIP, sir).

If Kennedy and his wicked Mass accent were still around to raise hell in Washington, and I really wish they were, then he'd have continued to make the passage of this legislation his top priority. And it would have happened, and—all due respect to President Obama—it would have been so much better than it'll likely turn out to be sans Kennedy's policy acumen and bipartisan savvy.

But maybe, just maybe, our crotchety governmental bodies will stop bickering over pennies and votes long enough to honor their colleague's legacy. Not with yet another heartfelt speech or wreath or A&E Biography interview, but with comprehensive reform that gives every living, breathing person in our absurdly wealthy and oft mismanaged country the right to stay that way without going into unconscionable debt.

One basic human right in exchange for 46 years of backbreaking public service. Seems like a decent deal, doesn't it? Let's cross the aisle and shake on it.

Flash of genius

They don't happen often, and only when I'm driving. Today's commute epiphany:

I'm going to make my first million with my new line of "Have Grammar?" bumper stickers. They don't seem to exist yet anywhere on the Interweb, which is kind of miracle, and it's clearly within the best interest of my very narrow demographic to capitalize on that miracle immediately.

You heard it here first! Well . . . I also posted the idea on Facebook just now. So it's, like, a simultaneous first. (It will not be Twittered because I f$%&ing hate Twitter.)

But either way, ™, baby.

[Update: You thought I was kidding. But behold! The BCB store over at CafePress is now open to satisfy all your grammaring needs. Don't be fooled by the crappy onscreen resolution—that typeface is clear as a bell.]

. . . and we're back.

Hey everyone, sorry for the brief hiatus. It's been a hectic month here at BCB HQ, what with dyeing my hair all the same color, turning 31, and heading to the islands (well, just one) for my big brother's wedding.

I'll tell travel stories and post oodles of Orcas pictures soon enough. While those are in the works, here are some other recent snapshots from an excellent July 4th picnic at Crissy Field—we actually saw fireworks! above the boats! no fog!—and a little self-portraitish rambling around the city.

Can I get a hey-yea?

Please admire this headline typo from today's Times home page before they fix it:

41 Yeas Later in Chicago, Tense Days Remembered

Almost as satisfying as finding mistakes in the New Yorker and CMS, but not quite.

No glove, no love

Welcome to my requisite Michael Jackson post. It can't be helped—I'm a child of the '80s.

Truth be told, I'm not having much of a reaction to the king's death. There's no doubt in my mind that he was nuts, and my only thoughts about him in the last 10 to 15 years were that he looked creepy and terrible, and that he shouldn't have custody of his own kids or anyone else's. I felt sorry for the guy. He became the poster child for the inevitable mental illness of overexposed, obscenely rich child stars in the midst of a constant identity crisis.

But he did have a heyday—a few of them, really—and he could be inarguably awesome. His death feels like one of those cultural moments we'll all recall for our grandkids: JFK, 9/11, MJ. I've never seen everybody on Facebook discuss the same topic simultaneously before.

My Jackson memories are probably a lot like yours: Thriller was one of the first tapes I ever owned (along with Air Supply and Like a Virgin). I had a Michael Jackson doll with midlength curls, a sparkly red jacket, and a sparkly silver glove. It got along famously with my Barbie after I shaved her head and ditched her high heels for some little black boots. She wound up pregnant, and it's a long story but I'm pretty sure Michael came through with child support.

I think the always wise Miss Mobtown summed it up best yesterday:

"RIP, MJ. Hope your life wasn't as awful as it seems like it would have been to the casual observer."