“The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow…”
Sitting beside my brother in the backseat of the station wagon, we are feeling all sorts of Thanksgiving anticipation – and filled with gleeful excitement at having Gram join us for a few days. When you’re a kid, those few days feel like a blessed eternity.
For a number of formative years, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ would be broadcast around this pre-holiday time – a comfort and enthralling thrill at once.
“Over the river and through the woods, oh how the wind does blow…”
How precarious our journeys of childhood were – and how lucky we were to not have any real realization of this. Blithely and blissfully unaware of the dangers along the way to grandmother’s house, and the imagined fears of flying monkeys on the television, we felt only the giddy happiness of the season – the promise of Christmas around the corner.
Revisiting these winding roads recently, the beauty felt muted, the strains of comfort felt distant, and the trees looked barren. We fill in so much of what we want to remember that the actual scenes of childhood are always emptier when we try to revisit them. The mind plays with memory to help us heal, sometimes. The song repeats itself – over the river and over again – and it’s so short it bears the repetition until it becomes meaningless, until even the melody is lost and doesn’t matter anymore.
When I went away for my first semester of college I made a deliberate effort not to look back in any real or proverbial way. Part of me understood that if I was going to survive on my own at Brandeis, and more broadly in Boston one day, I would have to make a complete, and in some ways irrevocable, break from my hometown of Amsterdam, New York. That meant from family as well, even if I didn’t see that then and would have entirely refuted the notion. My greatest fear in leaving home was the very scary and debilitating specter of homesickness, which I had felt once before, and knew it might mean disaster again, at least when it came to starting over again and building my own life in my own way. Fortunately, once I set my mind to something I will absolutely accomplish it without fail, and almost always without compromise. When I arrived at Brandeis, I made the goal of starting a new life for myself, and getting mired in homesickness, or being held back by any beliefs instilled in me by others, would not be options.
Knowing myself, and heading off any emotional susceptibility to sentiment, I adamantly refused to return home until Thanksgiving break. Everyone else in my high school circle of friends had been back – for homecoming, or Columbus Day, or no reason at all – I was the only one who stayed at school for three months straight – and it worked. My pangs of homesickness were bearable, few and far between, and after a few weeks not an issue at all.
At least, that’s what I’ve led myself to believe all this time, and, yes, that’s still largely the main reason behind my delayed return home. Recently however, I’ve come to realize that unlike all my friends, and most people who go away to college for the first time, part of me must not have wanted to return home. There is something profoundly disturbing in that realization, something heartbreaking and soul-making too.
Two years after that, I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving at all – but that’s another story for another day of thanks…
Knowing the precise importance of the proper accessory, Mr. Oud understands that these things must be done delicately. He also deeply believes in the great Coco Chanel’s reported words of wisdom that one should take off the last thing they put on before leaving the house. It has prevented many a moment of unnecessary over-accessorizing, while giving him a reputation for streamlined elegance and understated sophistication.
People often give witty comment on how quickly and easily one can lose a reputation – but Mr. Oud has not found this to be the general case; rather, it has often seemed to him that once a reputation is made and established, it’s relatively difficult to erode or change it. And so he is extremely grateful for the image he’s earned as a sartorial aficionado – especially as he hasn’t put much effort into his wardrobe of late.
Image is fleeting and ephemeral – as is Mr. Oud, who has long ago left this discussion. Only the flimsiest scent trails of his namesake linger in the air…
While today opened with a mini-recap of my Virginia adventures, here is the proper weekly blog recap that encapsulates all of the entries from the previous week (for anyone brave/foolish enough to revisit such an atrocious collection of scenes in a time of new moons and Mercury in retrograde). As we enter the week in which we prepare to give thanks, here is our typical Monday look-back at the week that came before…
These three have been friends for over thirty years, and they’ve been there for me, and each other, at every step of life along that journey. Spending any amount of time together is good for the soul, and in our 50th year on earth, I think we appreciate this a little more. As it usually does, Sunday morning came much too soon, the way time with your favorite people always passes too quickly.
We bid our farewells with long hugs and short goodbyes, as nothing else needed to be said. As we trundled out of the long gravel driveway that led to and from Anu and Cormac’s River House, Suzie and I settled into the lifelong camaraderie that would allow what would turn into the next eleven hours of driving to pass with relative enjoyment. In a field close to our right, another brush with natural wonder was in store for us on our way out, as a pair of bald eagles sat on the ground. The one nearest the road, and the closest I’ve ever come to one of these majestic creatures outside of captivity, was the embodiment of regal magnificence. You never realize how gigantic and immense these raptors are until you get close to them, and then you feel dwarfed and humbled by the experience. Wonder and might and grace… and maybe this world will be all right and maybe it won’t.
Such ruminations were fair fodder when you have a traveling companion like Suzie – and it still holds true that she’s one of the very few people who could withstand an eleven-hour car trip with me. And vice versa. As the day faded, too early as this time of the year insists, we found ourselves pulling over for a quick dinner of a Popeye’s Fried Chicken Sandwich. Suzie had suggested a stop at H-Mart, and I was eager to see what whether all the fuss over it was merited – and happily it was – a warmly lit stock-up moment of opportunity gave us renewed sustenance for a second wind at the almost-end of a long ride.
At least, I thought it was the near-end, but we still had about three more hours to go. Suzie gamely found us a Starbucks for a fast cafe culture moment – and my very first PM of the holiday season (that’s Peppermint Mocha to all you sick fucks who think PM stands for something much worse). We took the coffee on the road (decaf, of course) and on the final leg of our journey home listened to the entire ‘Like A Prayer’ album which had helped me through that tricky high school autumn when Suzie was away at Denmark and I was about to hold my own at our family’s holiday gatherings without her for the first time. The songs rekindled memories of when I would write to Suzie and record tapes of silliness and loneliness and just about every messy-ness other than happiness.
“You were the only person I could talk to at the time,” I told her, immediately returning to those lonely nights I whispered secrets and nonsense into a tape recorder before adding Madonna’s ‘Promise To Try’ to the mix. As our drive entered its eleventh hour, a sweeter and more fitting finale to a weekend of friendship could not have been conjured or crafted by the greatest of storytellers.
Behind us the moon danced with the pine and oak trees, flirting with the river as it wound its way back to the sea. Even with the fire and the moon, the darkness here was gorgeously deep, but friendship held its own illumination, carrying its own torches as the night did its damnedest to envelop us in its beautiful blackness.
It will never not amaze me that the world tells us all to go to sleep when we should, and then turns off its light without question or complaint.
The best sort of guest houses and gatherings are those where it is just as easy to be alone as it is to be surrounded by loved ones. This is the ideal sort of stomping ground for an extroverted introvert who swings wildly between the worlds of wanting company and wanting solitude at a moment’s whim or whirl. While Anu, Kristen, George and the kids worked on dinner preparations, and Suzie and Cormac squeezed the last bit of light from the sky for their suddenly-dangerous shucking efforts, I found my way down to the dock just as the sun was setting.
This was the moment of calm and beauty I’d envisioned when contemplating the nine-hour car ride. My mind quieted from its oyster excitement and I settled gratefully into the silence. The light moved magically now, every minute revealing some wondrous shift of shade and shadow. Any silly concerns had dissipated earlier, and I felt my head happily clear of its clutter.
In calm and beauty, that which truly matters rises to the surface, like the little splashes of fish stealing their dinner from the space between water and air. As I sat on the edge of the dock, dangling my legs over the water like some version of the kid I never quite allowed myself to be, I thought of the people I loved, and some of those I’d lost. I realized then that all of our adult friends who were gathered there at the River House no longer had our fathers. A sad little club we all must join at some point. The beauty of our time with our fathers – however long or short – would always make up for the sadness of having to bid them goodbye.
I felt tears surprisingly swell in my eyes, but they weren’t tears of sadness or loss. They were tears of gratitude – to sit amid such beauty, to be with such dear friends, to feel so alive, to have such memories.
I didn’t want to let the light go, even as I understood that the sun waits for no man.
This old house is falling down around my ears I’m drowning in the fountain of my tears When all my will is gone, you hold me sway I need you at the dimming of the day
You pull me like the moon pulls on the tide You know just where I keep my better side
What days have come to keep us far apart A broken promise or a broken heart Now all the bonny birds have wheeled away I need you at the dimming of the day
When they see that you genuinely don’t care, and they realize that they’re not going to get a rise out of you, people tend to either up the ante and go for the jugular, implode in their own zeal for a reaction of some sort, or confusedly retreat in awkward motions of apology or pretend. Whatever the result, I’m already beyond the bitterness or bother, and it still seems to flummox those who have found great sport with agitating me to the point of retaliation.
There was a time when fighting back would have given me just as much satisfaction as it gave them – my own thirst for being right a perfect match for their thirst for forcing my hand. The unhealthiest sort of symbiosis set in perpetual motion. Staying in that merry-go-round would have gotten me more than dizzy, and almost ended up grinding me to a halt. Mixing metaphors like the jumbled mess of a mind during Mercury in retrograde is the province of mad genius. Surely I’m onto something here, even if I can’t quite make total sense of it. I feel an ease in this new view, a freedom, and a sense of renewed purpose. It pours out of me creatively, and instead of directing energy and effort to those who seem hellbent in fucking with me, I can put it into more productive endeavors, such as a new project, and these daily blog entries – a mini-project, sometimes, unto themselves.
These brave azaleas, tricked by the twists of weather this month, as seems to be a new trend, have decided to bloom now rather than wait for spring – which means less flowers then, but a little more cheer now. I’m not sure which is the better decision anymore. I used to believe in delaying the gratification, but with all that’s happened in the past five years I’m leaning toward getting our joy as soon as we can get it and making the most of it then. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone.
That’s a serious sea change in how I view the world, one which has been a few years in the making and shifting. It started with COVID and has been re-enforced and impelled by all that’s happened since. And it’s a good thing, I think. Planning only gets you so far – you have to be wiling to go with the flow and adapt and change as things unfurl differently from what you may have imagined. This is a good life lesson, and I feel it in the blooming of these beautiful azaleas – yes, their petals are crinkled with cold, and true, they may be frozen into wilted oblivion, but for a gray day in November, they made things beautiful, they gave us a peek of spring, they did their best even if I would have done things differently – and who’s to say they’re wrong?
The first time Andy met my parents he was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Get Wicked Tonight‘ – and we’ve had many wonderfully wicked date nights since then – including this past Monday’s advance screening of ‘Wicked: For Good’. One of our favorites was the night we saw the original cast of ‘Wicked’ very early on in its run – it had opened around Halloween, and we had tickets for a night in November 2003. It was as magical as you might imagine, and since then the show has held a special place in our hearts.
For those wondering whether the sequel to the first ‘Wicked’ movie measures up, rest assured it does, especially for fans. While Andy thought the first third took a while to get going (after an exhilarating opening sequence, and I don’t entirely disagree) the bulk of it rises to the promise of the first round, with a darker and more potent emotional bite as the witches leave the innocence and safety of school behind and make their way in an adult world.
I won’t go into specifics – as this should be seen without being prepped or shaded – but I can say that this powerfully concludes a story that was always centered around friendship, and the possibility that being good – truly good – might be its own sort of magic.
A new moon and Mercury in retrograde have the heavenly bodies wreaking a wreck of havoc for certain signs, and unfortunately Virgo is one of them. I’ve felt that this week, and have been doing my damnedest to lay low, remain calm, and carry on with the least bit of provocation possible. That’s not always easy for me, especially in the face of wild injustice in so many ways, but I’ve evolved new methods of dealing with such issues.
While my not-so-distant past antics tended toward the fiery, especially when facts aligned to unfairly malign me, I no longer go through the trouble of screaming and yelling and throwing fits to make my points. When you have truth on your side, it’s not necessary to be so bombastic, and yelling into voids is entirely pointless. I’m not sure why I ever decided to huff and puff so much in the first place. Let everyone else live in their own mess and deal with their own entanglements; they will or they won’t work it out in their own way.
That makes for a much calmer living, a much quieter atmosphere, and a more peaceful existence. It also allows me to be better company as I don’t allow myself to get riled up or bothered by all the nonsense. A delightful way of dealing with the holidays to come, and a new lease on life – perhaps courtesy of a new moon and a new way of letting go.
A new rule for myself at this ripe old age: do not put anything down if you will need it within the next hour. You will forget where you put it ten seconds after you turn your back.
Repeat: do not put that down if you are going to need it in the next hour. You will not find it again.
