Winter Ice

Andrew skates onto the ice at a small rink in a shopping center in suburban Denver. Still the most graceful athlete of my three sons, he scoops up his daughters’ hands, Raina, fourteen, on his left, wearing her pipe cleaner jeans, her mother’s narrow brown wool sweater pulled down over her hips, her fisherman’s cap tilted at a jaunty angle, Lilly, eight, on his right, dressed in her brightly patterned leggings, her pink short sleeved shirt, her jacket unzipped and slipping from her shoulders, blond hair lifting on invisible currents. Two days shy of the winter solstice with afternoon on the wane, the sun shines more brightly here than where I live on the coast of Maine. Andrew and the girls glide past, Raina glancing back over her shoulder, “Hi Grammy.”

I was twelve when my mother bought me my first pair of figure skates, skates that weren’t hand me downs, skates that were finally white with those little ridges at the front of each blade, bought them a size larger than my shoe size, so that I’d have room to grow. I stuffed the toes with balled up newspaper, then skated onto the pond at Taylor Park, in Millburn, New Jersey, and years later, onto a pond in my suburban Boston neighborhood, wearing those same skates the toes packed, again with balled up paper, teaching Richard, Andrew and Douglas to skate, and standing here, at the railing of this rink in Colorado, the depths of memory swirling in time’s vortex, I am no longer that young mother, no longer the twelve year old, no longer the grandmother glowing in her granddaughters' light, I am a child watching from the edge of a pond in Morristown, New Jersey as my mother, head bent, wearing a knitted tam, sits on a bench, lacing her white figure skates, then taking my hand. My skates are double runners, and I can’t wait to graduate to skates that match my mother’s, but until the year I am twelve, I will wear brown skates that come to me from neighbors or cousins.

The skating ponds of my mother’s childhood, of my childhood, my sons’ childhoods have for these granddaughters given way to rinks, large indoor rinks, smaller rinks at ski areas, this rink surrounded by shops, walkways, trees and shrubs. Content, today, to be the observer, I don’t rent skates; I shop with my daughter in law, then later, walk with Raina, the two of us meandering in and out of shops, a bed and bath shop, a crafts shop that sells woolen hats knitted into monster faces, a flower shop where inside thick glass an etching of a tree glows.

As we leave the shop, lights come on, red stars, white Christmas balls suspended in the deepening dark. At the rink Lilly has found a friend, and as the two girls chase one another across the ice, I’m reminded of a chase long ago when my husband, my three sons, and I were vacationing in Davos, Switzerland, taking a day off from skiing to skate. Douglas was in the first grade, playing tag with a boy he met, neither speaking the other’s language, but understanding each other just the same as they followed, touched, laughed, as Lilly and her new friend laughed now, the blades of their skates splintering time, spraying memory like crystals into the cold December night.

So Just What is a Writers' Colony?

For years now I have made my pilgrimage to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the VCCA, an artists’ colony at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural Virginia. Before I leave, friends wish me well. “Happy Writing,” they say; or, “So you’re off to writers’ camp;” maybe, “Have fun at your workshop;” and the most bold, the most direct, “I don’t understand why you have to go there.”

So just what is a writers’ colony?

The VCCA sits on a hill top surround by fields where cows graze. Out the back gate are country roads, narrow and unlined where the few cars that pass drive fast. There are small houses, where if you turn right, you’ll find mostly African-Americans; turn left and you’ll find white folks. Dogs roam freely. The are woods. On my walk, today I passed a field where, under the bright Virginia sky, goats grazed. Sun shone down. There was a breeze, and birds thought fall had turned to spring. I passed no stores, no strip malls, no baseball fields or tennis courts.

Back on the grounds of the VCCA, I sit in my studio, the corn crib, a free standing building that looks like Hansel’s and Gretel’s cottage, and yes, it was a corn crib with its slanting walls and slanting roof. I sit at desk, my computer in front of me. There is a bookcase, an upholstered chair, a single bed, box spring and mattress on a metal frame. I don’t sleep in that bed. I sleep in a residence hall about a football field or so, down a driveway and across a wide lawn. The bed in the studio is for what Virginia Woolf called her well. When it went dry, she waited until it filled again. So I lie on my studio bed, my well fillling my mind drifting, aimlessly, it seems, but not airmlessly, for my sub-conscious brain is hard at work. Here, the phone does not ring. I don’t collect mail, and the real world is far away.

Around me in studios I cannot see other artists work as I do, writers, painters and composers, all of us toiling long hours in our solitary spaces, coming together for meals, although some choose to eat alone, sharing our work at readings and open studios, although, some choose not to share. They’re not shy. They’re simply not ready.

Because we are here, together, something happens. It is as if invisible seeds fill the air. We feel them them floating, and we plunge deeper into a story or a painting. Perhaps, we try something new, return for dinner estatic: a break through. If this sounds a little woo-woo or new age, think of yourself when you were a child, the way you built whole cities out of sticks or sat mesmerized by a rainbow inside a puddle after rain. This is the artists’ world, cities out of sticks, a rainbow in a puddle. Here, we have the space around the time to squat down, to look, to listen, to fill the well. Here is where art is born, then suckled. We are kindred spirits, kindred souls.

So yes, this place is all of the things you asked about, writers’ camp, workshop, and now you know why I'm here.

For Now

Last night, Dick, my husband and I lifted paintings from their hooks on living room walls and carried them into the dining room. He carried plants. I carried a small leather bound set of Shakespeare, twelve volumes, the leather flaking, the pages thin and trimmed with gold, then placed it carefully on a long Italian limestone serving counter in the dining room. These were my mother-in-law’s volumes. Shakespeare did not live in the house in which I grew up. He lived in my mother-in-law’s house, along with volumes of Dickens, the complete works of George Eliot, a leather bound volume of Keats', Poetical Works, a two volume set, Famous Actors of the Day, Famous Actresses of the Day, copyright L. C. Page and Company, 1899, Boston. In that two volume set, there are lovely photographs of those actors and actresses, Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Leslie Carter.

I lifted a lovely old wooden tea chest from a shelf, placed on the limestone counter. After his mother died, that was what my husband wanted, this wooden tea chest. The counter is long. It holds throw pillows from my couch, a stone carved walrus that Dick brought back from a trip to the Arctic, a hand built ceramic sculpture that Andrew, my son who is a potter, crafted, an old German beer stein that belonged to my great-great grandfather on my father’s side. There are three figures, two men one woman, all wearing what looks like Tyrolean dress, the men in short jackets, the woman in a ruffled white blouse, white apron. All three wear hats with feathers. There are my orchid plants, pillar candles, a metal sculpture of the discus thrower that belonged my maternal grandmother, a small carved ivory figure that used to sit inside a breakfront in my parents' living room.

This morning when I walked Lucy and Sam, my two standard poodles, I walked in drizzle, thinking I may have a reprieve. Perhaps, the carpenters won't come. Perhaps, I will go to my study. Perhaps, I will hear only the sound of the ocean outside the sliding glass door and inside, only the sound of Sam's breathing. Perhaps, I will drift to that place where I go when I write, a place where the rest of my life falls away. But, there are two black pickups in my driveway, and outside my living room windows, two carpenters have climbed ladders. They are hammering. I am sitting at the dining room table, drinking coffee, trying to write this piece. I’m edgy and distracted. They are prying with the backs of hammers. One tosses a board of gray siding to the ground. They are replacing a large picture window, two side windows. They need to repair flashing, seal the house against leaks. Inside, another carpenter covers the couch with plastic. He covers the rug, the coffee table. Outside, the sound of a drill. Now, voices in the living room. Two carpenters. One uses my phone. I overhear words. “Can’t finish until I have… “ I have lost the essential word. What does he need? Over the years I have learned not meddle. I will wait because I will have no choice. He hangs up. “Always somethin’”

Days later, after the carpenters leave, the painters will come. They will repair what the carpenters have torn apart. They will sand, then repaint around those replaced windows. They will prime and paint raw wood. They will patch the ceiling where water leaked. After the paint dries, Dick and I will carry those volumes, that old tea chest back to the places where—for now—they belong.

The History of Love

I am walking my son’s dog along Grand Street on the Lower East Side, looking for Leo Gursky’s building. For some reason I remember 509, but I’m not sure. It is Saturday morning. September 25. Shabbos. Sukkot. Hasidic men, wearing black suits, white shirts, wide brimmed hats walk purposefully along the sidewalk. There is a sukkah outside of Noah’s deli. Probably, they will gather there. It is sunny and warm, still summer. I hold my cell phone to my ear, leave a message on a friend’s answering machine. “I know this is crazy, but I’m on Grand Street and I’m looking for Leo Gursky’s building. I wrote down the number, but I left it at home. If it’s not too much trouble, can you find it for me?”

The thing is, Leo Gursky is not real. He’s an invention, a character in The History of Love, a novel by Nicole Krauss, but he lives forever in my imagination, as alive as my maternal grandparents who like Leo Gursky walked these same streets. My grandmother lived on Suffolk Street. She and my grandfather married on Sheriff Street. My grandparents came here during the great waves of immigration in the 1890's leaving a town that was sometimes, Polish, sometimes Russian. I never knew, but I've always wondered whether they lived through pogroms.

Leo Gursky came here sometime after the War, having survived the Nazi invasion of his native village that like my grandparents' village was sometimes Polish, sometimes Russian. He hid in the woods where he listened to shots that killed his mother, killed his brother, killed almost everyone in his village. He lived in forests where made himself invisible. Leo Gursky loved a girl who had left for America just weeks before the Nazis invaded. Now, an old man, waiting for death, he loves her still. I am struck by Leo Gurksy’s capacity for love. He's a funny, quirky man and I adore him.

My friend calls back, leaves a message. Number 504. Number 504 is a brick building wider than it is high, with store fronts, a Jewish bakery, a Jewish grocery, apartments above. It’s shabbos, the stores are closed.

On Sunday morning, I when I step into the bakery, I feel as if I’m stepping back into my childhood, holding my grandmother’s hand, looking into a glass case in a bakery near my great aunt’s apartment on the Upper West Side. My grandmother buys me kicheI, air cookies. Some are flat, others shaped like bow ties. I see them here. I ask the old woman behind the counter if she knows when this building was built. It has to be a pre war building to have been home to Leo Gursky. She looks at me as I’m from outer space. I am. I’m from Maine. She gives a little shrug, maybe sixty seventy years ago. That will do.

Walking later with my daughter in law, I ask her the same question. She studies the brick façade, the way bricks protrude in a design. She studies the shape. The wide cement trim. “It looks a little art deco,” she says. “And it’s only six stories. I’d say the twenties or thirties.”

Better yet.

I return alone, study the façade, trying to figure out which apartment was Leo’s, which was his friend Bruno’s. I imagine their footsteps on the stairs, imagine them knocking at each other’s doors. This is what good fiction does, creates not only a life, but a world, one that when we enter, enriches our lives.

Freedom from Torture-- Really?

Yesterday, as I was driving the quiet, winding roads of my neighborhood, not quite rural, not quite suburban, I turned on the car radio, turned to NPR, and found myself in the middle of a program in which a reporter was visiting a center for new immigrants. In New York? I’m not sure. These recent immigrants were learning, the reporter said, what it meant to be an American. First, a group of four year olds singing a song I knew I was supposed to recognize, but didn’t. Then, adults, a woman, reciting, carefully, in her Asian accent, some of our core American values. “… freedom from torture and degrading treatment,” she said.

“Ooooh, very good,” her instructor said.

In my mind’s eye, images from Abu Ghraib, a hooded prisoner, toes grazing the top of a rectangular box, arms outstretched as if crucified, a naked prisoner dragged by a leash, a pyramid of naked prisoners, American troops, holding rifles, taking pictures. A few bad apples, they told us. Believe that, and I’ll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. There is evidence. There is history. There is Nick Flynn’s The Ticking is the Bomb, his research on the technique that became known as “The Vietnam,” that hooded man, arms outstretched, a stress technique developed with the aid of the CIA.

Overhead the arching branches of maple and oak. In a backyard a paddock where two horses graze. Another glorious summer day. I'm on my way to teach at a conference, and I’m angry, angry with my government, angry with my neighbors, angry with myself, our apathy, our loss of our sense of decency, our detachment from our core values. “We do not torture,” our Presidents (note the plural) tell us. Clearly, we do.

Carter Notch

Water ripples. Here, there is a slight breeze. We’re in the middle of a heat spell, temperatures spiking into the nineties in New Hampshire and Maine. Lucy and Sam, my two standard poodles and I have hiked for nearly three hours. We’re hot. We’re tired. But I’d chosen this hike, carefully. We stand, now, at the edge of a mountain lake. Low growing pine trees ring the shore line. There are boulders, a small sandy beach. Sticking up out of the mist, Carter Dome towers above us. In the distance, cast in blue, the rest of Carter-Moriah range, draws itself against the sky.

I unclip the dogs packs, unclip their leashes. Unburdened, they wade and they drink, lapping, carefully. Because they are poodles or because the water is mountain cold? I unclip my own pack, leave it on a rock. I take off my wet shoes, my soaking socks. I’ve crossed the Wildcat River, three times, stepping on rocks, slipping, filling my shoes, soaking my socks. I strip down to my underwear, wade into the lake, submerge, emerge. Finally, I’m cool, so cool. On shore, knee deep in water, the dogs watch. This is one of those times, I want to read their thoughts, although, I’m told dogs don’t think. I’m the one who thinks, the one who anthropomorphizes, who sees in their faces both concern and amusement.

After snacks, Sam digs a hallow in the muddy sand, settles in next to my rock. Lucy finds scrub and settles down. We’re at the edge of a trail. A couple passes. I’m an old woman, happily sitting on a rock wearing her underwear. Now, I begin to feel a little self-conscious, so I pull on my shirt, a sleeves white, tank top, made of a fabric that dries, quickly. I leave my trousers on a branch. Sitting on this rock, knees raised, feet planted, I tell myself, I look like I’m wearing a tankini. I don’t own a tankini. I eat my lunch, a peanut butter and raisin sandwich on gluten free bread. I drink water. Trail food.

For nearly an hour, I sit in the quiet of this place as if I'm veiled, absorbing stillness, this rippling water, these ruffling leaves, the rising mist. There is no other place I need to be. I am here, no place but here, and there is very, very far away.

Carrying A Cloud

Words by Sandell Morse

Music by Kento Watanabe

Recorded at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida.