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.
In truth, sunny days get me down. I love the rain. The sound, feel, light of a rain filled sky. I love to stay inside. I love to stay in my sweats. I love endless cups of coffee and baby carrots. I read for a living; why would I like sun? I don’t like the beach (except on overcast days), I don’t sail, ride, make sun salutations. I’m strictly an indoor girl. Favorite activity: going to the mall, hunting for bargains, getting Mike and Ike’s from the candy dispenser and going to a movie. Not even a good movie. I will see almost anything. I love trailers, too. The more the merrier. I pretend I’m both Siskell and Ebert and give both my thumbs a chance to praise or pass on a trailer.
Inside or outside?
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Betsy Lerner 
inside
Inside by a window with a view.
Outside, with an inside nearby, or inside with a good view
I could sequester myself in my sweats (not just any but my baggiest, tornest sweats), Good and Plenty at the grab, pewter clouds out the window, iphone tuned off (not that I ever really do silence the damn thing, I’m not that disciplined, but please please don’t bother me)… and I am at my most content. Jasmine tea and a book in hand. But I now live in Florida, fuck the sun, it’s such an invasion.
I would be lying if I didn’t also say that I love the sky, all skies, and the rain, and walking in the rain, and dancing in the rain. I like to walk and bike and hike, outside that is, should occasion arise. But let there be lesser light.
Both. Too much of either makes me cranky.
Inside with a little sunshine through the closed curtains. Muted happiness for me thank you. All my memories of love have to do with the changing of hot to cold season. The smell is unbeatable. As someone I recently worked with said, thank god, it’s stew season. Inside, for sure. Hot food, TV, blankets. For sure. The sticky candy pulls on my teeth. I don’t like that.
Outside. It hurts my soul to think about how threatened the natural world is these days, to realize how much could be easily lost based on the whims of a climate change denier, hater and liar. I wish I had visions while out in woods, but I haven’t been so blessed. I’ll take the thoughts that come to me gracefully, unexpectedly, after witnessing an early morning purple cloud underbelly sky, a simple stroke of natural color as bold as a poem, reciting the words that popped in so I don’t lose them, sometimes just a sentence or a phrase, sometimes whole passages, until they are jolted away when three deer stampede nearby and I get lost in watching them hop away like overgrown rabbits in the brush.
Both. I love a cotton candy sky, those early mornings and early evenings when the pinks, oranges and blue compete. I will stand mesmerized until they’re gone. Count me in for sitting on my porch, working in the yard, yes, even sweating.
The flip side. . . rainy days.. the darker the sky gets the better. It’s like I can go into hiding, not worry about anyone coming to the door, hunker down, shut the world out, believe I can write 10 000 words.
I love the sun and the vistas, the gentle slope sweeping down from the hills and across the valley and rising up again to the mountains, the clouds building over the peaks. But I’m in Chicago now, where the views are different and thank god I live a half-block from the lake because if I didn’t I would have lost my mind in the first six months I lived here.
I sat in a canvas chair in a lakeside park just down the street for a little while Sunday afternoon and I read, and I looked out over the lake at the gulls and the sailboats. It was a sunny day. The lake, with its waves and undulations, has a way of telling me I don’t matter, really, which is a good thing for anyone with artistic proclivities to be reminded of, as we tend to somewhat overvalue ourselves.
But I can stay indoors for days, working and reading and writing. This is good come winter, where for four months in this … this place … this fog-footed city of strife and inadequacy and desperate poverty and desperate wealth, it is too cold to go outside if you don’t have to.
Except for days where the weather conditions are better suited for the Arctic, I would prefer to be outside. There are particular days – when the humidity is low, the sky is cloudless blue and the wind blows politely from the North – that Life is felt most raw and honest. For me, it is a happy ache, a rejuvenating touch, a moment to pause. Once inside, however, I enter a world of endless tasks and lists of tasks. During those times, I am most grateful for windows.
Outside, until Daniel.
Hi Betsy – you should see my sun salutation! I do it on the dock on Fire Island at sunset – and everyone applauds! (I like to think they’re applauding me, but no, they’re applauding the sunset.) But won’t be there till next year. Till then, hibernating indoors at the ol’ computer. XO
Outside. Last night, celebrating the Sox trip to the world series!
INTP here. If I have my peanut M&Ms and my camera, I’m GTG anywhere.
Hii great reading your post