When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
Went to a museum today, saw some paintings that could have been old friends. Went to a play and fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke a young man shouted something about jumping into the Danube, and then the actors came out and bowed to to weak applause. The painting is impervious to my feeling; is that possible? And what about the double play, the white cotton nightgown with spaghetti string straps? A Japanese bowl perfectly decorated with blue pansies. Is it likely that painting coffins in rust and red, the painter dreamed his death by his own hand? Or the beautiful rear end of a woman in an orange towel making a bed, packing a suitcase. This is the story I tell myself. A grandmother in a yellow sari dotted with mirrors the size of quarters stands beside Christina’s World as her daughter snaps a picture on her iPad. The actor playing Wittgenstein is almost dashing. He is the last thing I see before I fall asleep.
4:40 a.m. Anyone up?
Filed under: Survey, The End of the World as We Know It | Tagged: Birthday, Hopper, Rothko, Wittgenstein, Wyeth |
Betsy Lerner 
Only me, Betsy.
I’m always up and this post makes perfect sense to em. Should I be worried on either or both accounts?
Great. Now I’ll be up all night analyzing my typo.
Always up for you Betsy.
Hello…I was and now I am again.
The grandmother in mirrored sari, pic-ed by iPad in front of Wyeth…
In Sturbridge, Revolutionary War reenactor in authentic costume on a cell phone, hand in hand with a child in homespun and Velcroed Keds – Redcoat from Hoboken, Colonial in Oakleys.
We will nap until the next war.
I just got offered a government job in New York, but now I’m not going to accept it because there are people like you there walking around in the middle of the night.
We were out looking for perseid meteors in a light polluted sky. My youngest finally saw a shooting star. She made a wish. The middle one told stories of fact and myth. But mostly we just watched and listened to the fire popping. Summer nights and stars never disappoint. I slept well for the first time in days.
What kind of people do you have for fans! I’m staying right here in Texas.
Up at 2:00 local time when upstairs vecino got in. Hardwood floors, rugless, hammer tap-tap of heels. Back to sleep into dreams of elevated trains plowing into groups of people who wanted to be hit by trains. Blood and body parts. I hid in the back of a shop and stripped dried mota blossoms from the hempen stalks and ground them up and counted out seeds.
Oh I’m up. The dog has a canker sore the size of a nickel on her anus and it’s my job to keep her from licking it and to dole out her tramadol. For the last 4 nights. Jumping into the Danube sounds downright divine.
Beau let me sleep in today, and then we were off for our strolls without so much as turning on anything electronic. The morning is stunning, with a freshening breeze from the east, and we met some neighbors on the bayou. We cruised up to the store for a paper, then down through quiet St. Andrews, then along the bay.
Lola is up and about now as Beau naps. I’m building a fire, making a sauce, and planning to be outside until Breaking Bad comes on.
Get some rest, Betsy, then savor.
The late day storms yesterday washed my part of the world clean, and everything looks refreshed on this sunny morning.
Based on the time stamp of your message, that’s about the time I need to get up to use the…, well, no matter, I’m up and thinking about how happy I was to see a new blog post from you. Not sure who anonymous is up above…not sure if that was meant as a joke or what, but that’s okay. We love you, and these words given on occasion. I’ve come to appreciate them even more now that I don’t know when you might “pop in.”
Here’s to a peaceful Sunday for all of us.
Yes…to everything you said.
Yes, Donaaeve, it was a joke for heaven’s sake. I am a coward that’s why I don’t use my name. It’s quite apparent the dame is cuckoo, though.
No, I’m sound asleep. Went to a party last night, 15th anniversary for some good friends. Great band, food and lots of people. A nice old farmhouse with a stream in the woods behind the house, slender cedars on the shore. Got home at 11pm (the party was still going strong). At 7 this morning I took a walk in the woods, a time of quiet introspection. Thought maybe I’d see a bear. I didn’t see the bear, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t see me.
For once, I wasn’t up at 4:40am. Or five. Or seven.
I woke at eight, made a pot of cinnamon-vanilla coffee, and drank it on the back porch before the family found me.
It was transcendent.
Thank God you are normally such an early riser, Sarah. You’re the sole reason I was able to get my lazy ass to morning conference sessions last month…
I didn’t even have to break out the ice cubes . . . 🙂
Yes, I was woken by a strange noise on the fire escape which turned out to be nothing. Early dawn in the city. By some blessed twist of fate it’s just me & my notebooks for five whole days.
Bliss.
Afterimage of my day in my dreams–hula swaying hips of old women knocking over plastic cups of sangria. Now Green dots on the rug from staring too long at your Rothko. Note to self–James Turrell’s retrospective is nearby–go and bathe in its changing light.
I finally fell asleep last night around 1a after a 36 hour marathon with the muse. Woke up a 10a, rode the trike to Fausto’s for cigarettes and a New York Times, then across the way for a cafĂ© con lechĂ© from Sandy’s 24 hour Cuban joint.
It’s hot as imagined hell, here in Key West.
Once home, I pulled *off* my tank top, pulled *up* my sarong [uniform] and tied it snug to my average-sized breasts [ample enough to hold up sarong without falling south]. My underneath-it-alls were appreciative.
Once I prepped the space in what I used to call the *front porch living room garden studio parlor office*, now named The Corner of Prospect and Refuge, I began to think of the hot summer days of my childhood.
This is what came of it:
http://goo.gl/ZfWwIE
I’ll be on the corner the rest of the afternoon doing rehabilitative memory application with the NYT crossword.
The con leché has just kicked in.
Fausto’s! That brings back some 35 years ago memories. I’m sure the Mallory Square dock is still the place to be at sunset, but tell me, is the World Famous 900 Club still in existence? That was a bar I spent too much time in and have the scars to prove it.
I liked your tale (“Hot Breasts”) about the myth of equality.
Was the play that bad? Or did your wild birthday celebration just really exhaust you?
The red book, definitely.
Once a poet, always a poet.
I wish you’d write these blog posts with proper line breaks and be done with it.
That book I’d buy.
So true. I would, too.
I’m not Anonymous. I’m Rebecca.
Oh yeah! You are seeming very trippy tonight. I’m in Corsica with a stash of falling stars and a grubby jug of Pastis. It’s alarming how well the body floats in salt water. Ciao cat
I was up. Should have checked the rubber-coated phone for your post. The screaming theater-goer may have chimed in from out here in Portland. Last night my daughter was at a Shakespeare in the Park, and a tree limb fell on the audience. Heads were cracked open. There was lots of head-wound blood. A woman knocked unconscious. My daughter emerged with a black eye. The show did not go on. Shakespeare in the bloody Park? Who knew?
Willie the Shake meets Hemingway? I mean, at least with the running of the bulls you know what you’re in for. Hope your daughter is doing well.
She is, thanks. But, yeah? Kind of Six-Feet-Underish.
Bemused, Befuddled and bedazzled … I have never met an alliteration that I don’t like even when they are non-sequiturs.
( ENCORE )
Bemused, Befuddled and bedazzled … I have never met an alliteration that I don’t like even when they are non-sequiturs.