Silhouettes

Silhouettes

On Subject

I often wonder if I could keep to one subject would my blog be better or better attended? It seems blogs that focus on one subject build an audience of interested followers, while amorphous blogs like mine pick up and drop off readers like a daladala—a Tanzanian form of public transportation—never stopping for passengers in the same place twice.


Not being able to stay on subject makes my husband weary. "Keep to one subject," he pleads. I promise I'll try, knowing it drives him crazy, but I secretly worry I won't be able to do it.


I thought of this the other day when I woke up. I looked out the window and saw a brilliant red alder tree in the morning light. 

I got so excited I began to photograph everything in sight that was red, thinking I could do this—I could do red.

Then I remembered Louise's bright red sunglasses and how they appeared as she stood on the Ernie Maxwell trail last weekend in Idyllwild.  

We'd gone up to Idyllwild for an overnight to check out the hiking trails, of which there are many. We had great hikes, good food, saw a lot of red-headed (red-bellied?) woodpeckers and came back to L.A. refreshed. I was going to write about it, but then I began to wonder, why had I never written about my road trip with my brother David? 

David had come out from St. Louis in September, the first time we'd seen each other in two years. We traveled up to wine country for a few days, tasted wine off Highway 46W, had a picnic and an ocean hike, but we also had some childish quarrels and a depressing talk about exiting this mortal plane like our father.

Last week, I'd been thinking of David when I came across an old photo album lying open in my office. There were pictures of our father, looking ridiculously young, stationed at Ashford General Hospital in West Virginia during the second war.

My father as a young Quartermaster 

(check out the sign)

After completing training, our father was sent to India, as punishment, according to him, for complaining about a superior officer. While there, he contracted malaria and spent most of his time recovering in an Indian hospital. He hated everything about India— the poverty, the filth, the poor beggars asking for handouts. He was bitter of his time in service; it didn't help that his younger brother rose to minor fame, as a Lieutenant leading a troop of Africa-Americans across North Africa.

I sat down in my office and looked at the photos he'd brought back from overseas.... and my god! What treasures. Did he take these? If so he was some kind of photographic genius. More likely, they were a set he'd picked up somewhere in a tourist shop. Alas, it's too late to ask; here are a few:

Karachi

The caption reads: 

"While Sid was stationed in India he took in some of the sights."

My brother is a photographer, my son and husband are photographers and I've studied photography. Could my father have been one too? And could the malaria he contracted in India have been responsible for his erratic behavior during his life and the cause of his downward spiral at the end? All questions to ponder about his life and death....

But, boy, have I gotten off subject! 


At least I tried.

My brother David

Fall with Friends

Pumpkin patch along CA Highway 1

That's a lot of pumpkins, but we're not in Kansas anymore, we're outside of Santa Cruz, where they grow them big and plentiful. My friend Sally had her eye on this Cinderella and came away with a wheelbarrow of produce under $20. 

Sally is my oldest friend from Louisville, where our parents were friends before we were born, in another world of friendly sidewalks and running home from playing hard when you heard your name being called. We spent Passovers and Thanksgivings together for most of our childhood, and then traveled on "The Road Trip" across country in the seventies, from Louisville to Redwood City, after I dropped out of college and she'd graduated in three-years. She stayed on in California; I returned fifteen years later. Here's Sally today, as bright and buoyant as her name:

Sally in her garden

I was visiting for the weekend, and on Sunday, Sally and her husband Beem took me to "three-mile," a secluded beach along CA Highway 1 outside of Santa Cruz; Beem's been surfing there on a regular basis for 15 years, just him and the friendly sea lions, seals, mama and baby sea otters, and other stray mammals (surfers).

 Heading to three-mile through brussel sprout fields

Three-mile beach

Living in L.A. makes one (or I should say, me...) forget that there's an ocean in California, one that's easily accessible if you take the time to see it: the beauty on this day was unsurpassable, the sensual, warm air, blue sky, mediterranean-like sea. The sea lions were chillin' while Beem took on some gentle waves, and Sally and I hung on the beach.

It doesn't matter how long Sally and I've been apart, we pick up where we last left off. And isn't that the case with old friends? You don't miss a beat. You fall into that same effortless rhythm—being with someone who's known you as a child, seen you through all your blunders and dead-end runs, witnessed the unspeakable of your family history, and yet, seen you emerge, chrysalis like, on the other end. There's nothing like an old friend.

***

Then there are friends who know little about your childhood but like you anyway. 

On this trip I drove halfway up the coast, to Monterey, with Carla and Julie, friends for....does 10-15 years count for newer, old friends? We stopped on the way to eat at Artisan, a sustainable, local, eatery in Paso Robles.

 Julie and Carla tasting a flight of wines at Artisan.

My husband avoids places with one name. I should have known. At Artisan the atmosphere was cold, the service poor and the servings stingy, but what really pissed us off was they didn't include a biscotti with the espresso. What the heck?? Isn't that de-rigueur at a one-word restaurant? That evening, when we got to Carmel we ate at the incredible Casanova (highly recommend, even though it goes against Tom's theory) and were pleased to see that extra bit of pleasure with our coffee.

The next day I said good-bye and headed north, while my friends remained to have another day along the California coast.

Looking out over Monterey Bay towards Santa Cruz.

A light among us

A Light Among Us

I don't know this young boy's name, but he was at Rabbi Singer's services on Saturday; he's holding the Havdalah candle to conclude Yom Kippur, the day of repentance. 

For me, this picture captures what Rabbi Singer was trying to impart to us earlier in the day. He talked about the honesty of youth, how young people see clearly without pretensions; they speak the truth and Truth transforms. That's what I see in this beautiful boy.

In the afternoon, the rabbi held a discussion group; we got on the subject of war and peace—and in extension, fear; how we can't tackle peace without first tackling the war within us. Each person must start inwardly to find peace; only from that position of inward clarity, Rabbi Singer insisted, can we begin to take on a wider agenda. 

That's why young people are so important to this movement, he feels; it's what he found in Israel (i.e. in the tent cities in Tel Aviv); it's what's happening in NYC on Wall Street and in Los Angeles around City Hall. Young people occupying streets and parks aren't angry or confrontational. They're discussing the problems we as Americans face; they're telling it like it is. They're speaking the truth.

I long for peace of course, but when I can't sleep, when I yell at the guy honking behind me, or treat my students with condescension, I'm aswirl with mixed-up emotions. Lately I've been having strange dreams—I'm carrying a little baby, but have no place to lay it down; I witness a killing and the dead man splits in two; a black figure twirls and twirls like the tigers in Little Black Sambo, or a black widow spider, but I can't stop the twirling. I'm anything but peaceful.

I walked this morning in Heidelberg Park after a restless night; I found myself afraid to go through the densest part of the canyon, where the path winds through brush so thick only coyotes can walk. I have never felt afraid before walking down there; why was I suddenly afraid? I started thinking about my fear—what could possibly attack me?—it was irrational, without merit. I made myself walk on, taking the path through the thickest trees, looking around, keeping my eyes open.

I noticed how peaceful everything was: butterflies hovering, squirrels chasing, birds hopping on the ground. I thought about Rabbi Singer's message, how fear drives us to protect ourselves, to build walls, to see blindly; it's what drives us to war. 

When I climbed out of the park, I looked down into the canyon where I had just emerged; all was quiet on the western front. I felt the warmth of the sun, I saw the distance mountains, I heard a tree full of chirping birds; I walked home.

***

Happy Birthday, Mekko, I can't believe you're 24!

Pointing the way

I bought a new pair of hiking boots for my trip to Yosemite, but the process wasn't exactly smooth sailing. I took back four pairs before settling on a fifth, which I bought in desperation—we were leaving the next day. On the trip, those boots caused me so much pain that at one point I had to walk barefoot: my toes felt like they were being stung by mud wasps. By the third day of hiking, with new socks, I finally broke them in. Still I'll need to buy another pair if I'm ever to go hiking again.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with shoes. I'm a Pisces after all. But come to think of it, what does that have to do with anything?—fish don't have feet.

Once, I made a dance, my first choreographic effort, where I carried a suitcase full of old shoes and laid them out toe-to-heel on stage; I proceeded to dance along the lines of shoes, as shown in the first frame here (until I come to an explosion of emulsifier used in the printing of this contact sheet): 

I also yelled into my shoe (last frame). 

Those shoes seemed significant at the time, i.e., following them would point the way—to a new boyfriend or career, or to my destiny. In retrospect, they didn't point to anything, only to the fact that I had a bunch of old shoes. But at least one person was enthralled with my performance. A strange man with a thick Italian accent called to tell me the "Toronto Italian Businessmen's Association" wanted to present me with an award for best new performer; I thought about it, worried that it was the Mafia calling—who else gave out cash awards to dancers?—and graciously declined. (I often wonder what would have happened if I'd accepted, would I have become rich and famous?...but that's another story.)

When I moved to NYC I bought a pair of expensive ($75, a fortune at the time) pink and purple 6-inch heels because I thought they'd make me attractive to a guy I was dating named Jefferson. I should have known with a name like Jefferson to run the other way, although in those shoes I could hardly walk, least of all run. This is how I remember them:

I never wore those awful shoes, not once. And Jefferson, well, the less said the better....

There were the shoes that made me cry on the cobblestones of Rome; the plastic boots I wore during Toronto winters; the El Naturista shoes (all organic) that nearly killed me. 

It seems whenever I buy shoes, I take them back within the week. In the store they're fine, but once home they're too small, too big, don't support my arches, hurt my feet. I sometimes think that if an FBI agent were following me, he'd pin me for a mule carrying drugs, the way I transfer shoes in such predictable patterns.

My favorite shoes ever were the ones I wore when I was four or five. My mother bought me a pair of red oxfords. I loved those shoes! They were the most beautiful things I'd ever known. I was so proud, trying hard to keep them shiny clean, but soon forgot and scuffed the leather off into dirty strips. I ran those shoes into the ground, and then like all good shoes, they were retired. Here's a facsimile of those beloved shoes:

Maybe there's hope I'll find a good pair of shoes like those early ones.

Yosemite the Magnificent!

Remembering the Cone Heads of 9/11

It's impossible to get through this week without hearing the cries and screams of the office workers who saw the Towers crashing, those on the ground who witnessed their fall, their breathless running to get away, the confusion, the chaos, the news commentary which was so pitifully meager—but then again, what words could have described what they were seeing? Every time I hear that clip on the radio of the towers falling, my stomach clenches, remembering that morning. 

Tom had gotten up early for work; around 6:15 he was shaking me awake; I called L to turn on the TV and then hung up to watch what was unfolding. As the morning progressed, we listened to news reports that couldn't describe what was happening because there are no words for the unthinkable. I called my friends in NYC but couldn't get through. I woke up my children, unsure if I should take them to school. Time had thickened with the unknown and the shock. 

I drove my son to school without incident but on the way back as I merged onto Eagle Rock Blvd., I saw six men in a foreign car, crammed together, shoulder to shoulder. What caught my attention was that all six men had pointy heads like the Conehead family on Saturday Night Live. I stepped on the gas to see if I could get closer to clarify: six, slightly stooped men wearing hats perhaps, pressed against the roof of their car. But no matter how fast I drove I couldn't keep up with them. They couldn't be cone heads, I reasoned, but I knew instinctively they weren't wearing hats.

Later, I went swimming at the Aquatic Center, keeping my head under water as long as I could to block out the images of planes crashing into towers. The sky was bright blue, nothing was in it. Children were swimming, making loud noises and acting like children do. I swam and swam but I kept hearing the roar of an airplane engine, even under water; I checked above me to see if a plane was near, but there was nothing, nothing in the clear blue sky that day. 

I think for many of us on that Tuesday, and for many days, weeks and months after, we kept looking up.