Writer's Souris Solitude

I awoke thinking about living in Souris this morning, up in P.E.I., alone. I wonder if Lou would let me rent his house there in the winter? On second thought, spring or early summer might work just as well and it would be less harsh. I could go out to the Madeleines for a break on the overnight ferry, and speak French there, spend hours at that piano bar. What's the place called? Hell, what's the town called, let alone the bar there? The one were Sally, Sophie and I spent so many hours at lunch and dinner. The one I visited another time with Mike, JP, Cat, Bill, Linda and Dr. Arthur Broadus, my roommate aboard that wonderful trip on board "Moonracer." There it is: "Cafe de la Grave." Is that right? I think it is. "De la Grave"? Why did it not alert me, horrifiy me, mortify me, so to speak? Death's Cafe!? It is what it is or was? Really? So I wonder whether I could hang out up there for a few months and write, write, write? It was just a dream. I do not appear to be in eminent danger of being hired to work by anyone. I have a gut feeling that I am going to carve my own route out of all this confusion and rejection.

Blackstone

The Blackstone Valley with its river and power from it to run mills is my ancestral home. The river flows into the upper reaches of Narragansett Bay in Providence, Rhode Island. If there were no city buildings, I would see it out the window here in my rented apartment, only a few hundred yards below Benefit Street on College Hill. The river used to be covered up by the city, but it has been unveiled in the urban renewal projects of the past two decades. Gondolas now ply once polluted waterways, and on special nights workers ignite large pots, restaurants extend tables on the sidewalks where there once were enbankments and musicians create harmonies of what they now call nights of "river fire."

Were it possible to travel upriver, eventually I would wend my way north and west into Massachusetts, up to Whitinsville, like some anadronous fish, presumably returning to spawn and die there, depositing my life's work, my total assets, my milt. Not being a salmon, having already spawned, so to speak and not died yet, and never having explored the backwater of the once important river, I need only pursue the metaphor. After a life of travelling aimlessly both near and far afield, this locus from whence my father's forebears have all descended has a strange attraction, a subliminal allure. I feel drawn to learn more about the place, its history and to learn my place in an age of manifest transition and suburban wandering. There is no need for me to remain rootless, or to feel as if I am a Yankee version of gypsy or sephardim. Some would call me, derisively a "swamp yankee" while others, probably more accurately, would label me a "WASP" or a "blueblood" or New England's "Brahmin," or the sum of all of these. I came from this place and I can return at will. I can go home again because this is the exploration of an idea and a feeling, not any kind of visitation. This is a journey of self-discovery. I am headed back towards a mythic place. It is no Byzantium or a place for old men* [reference Keats' Sailing to Byzantium, cq]; it is a north and western wilderness, a frontier place where I may set my spirit free. It is hard to create literal vistas from a river valley, so I will need to travel within to imagine them. I have a time, a place and now a purpose. The Blackstone River and its valley, my Panama Canal, my personal version of photographer Red Hallen's obsession to document its making. A man a plan a canal Panama!

Deep Freeze

Talk about change! New England is in the deep freeze, only a month away from those days when the temperature exceeded 50 and barely went down below freezing. It is dramatic. Over three feet of snow so far this year, and many days where the temperature has been at and below zero. And about six weeks from now, we'll have the longer days, little to no snow on the ground and if we look closely, we will begin to see buds on shrubs and trees, tiny shoots from daffodils and crocuses, but this is far from today. Who knows what six weeks will bring; the history of our lifetime may fit into a broad template, but its details are endlessly bizarre and unpredictable. Looking out across the rooftops, they are all white, and trails of steam vent everywhere, blown rapidly into invisibility. On the airwaves, the discussions center on the elections in Iraq, on America's exportation of democracy to a resistant world, on the Super Bowl between the Patriots and the Eagles, the weakened U.S. dollar in international markets, terrorism generally and with Al Queda, the Oscar nominations. A tossed salad of serious and often lightweight fluff. Whatever gets us through, I guess. We live in trivial, self-preoccupied times. And what right have we to be dictating our economic and political system to others? How are we different from the communists of the 1950s and 1960s, the domino theory of George Kennan, the "we will bury your grandchildren" of the USSR's Nikita Kruschev? Oh, America is benign, beneficent, welll-intentioned. But wait, I am an American, and I certainly do not trust my own government, so why should someone else in another part of the world with another way of living, a different religion and another form of government?

Sleepless Nights

From in the wee hours of the night, not once, but many of them, often, sleepless in Providence: “...Must be the 26th. Awake for an hour or more, tossing, turning. I cannot shut the brain down, give it a rest. I cannot sleep. Thoughts roil, unstoppable, an stream, a tumult of unanswerable questions. It’s supposed to snow; where is it and when will it arrive? I cannot find a job. No one returns my inquiries, even when I’ve looked at things normally so far beneath consideration for my experience, they should grab me on the spot. Instead, I fear, they probably ask themselves: what's wrong with this guy? He's "overqualified," "there must be something wrong with him" and so on. I have no home; just half of one, wife and dogs in New York, Dad and daughter in a rented apartment three hours' drive away. I am worried, so qualified, yet unemployed and from my midnight perspective, not employable? Why is it so hard? I must be weird. I wonder where my hat is? The cap with the Princeton “P” and its crossed oars that I left at the bar a week ago, drunk and oblivious to my own well-being. What a disgrace; fortunately, something I do by accident about once in a decade. I am not an alcoholic, this much I know is true! That is the easy question: I wonder who I am, where I am and what I’ll be when I grow up? I am on the verge of losing my bearings, my sense of where I am headed, even where I've been at times. Maybe this is extreme; it is, nonetheless, sobering, a frightening experience. Neither a patient nor an inmate, like the brother that I do not keep, I know the difference is a thin one, the merest of fine margins and something that I do not care or dare measure.

Apres le Snowstorm

You know what? I wrote this whole piece about the Blizzard of 2005, including its non-desrructive beauty, the sheer fun of it in Providence, of how RISD art students created amidst the storm, about how the poor Brown students missed the whole thing, out on break between semesters, and about how my daughter and I walked for hours on College Hill at midnight and down nearly empty, gaslighted streets in which one might easily imagine horses and carriages, and in the next days we skiied up and down the streets. But somehow the entire post vanished with the click of a mouse button, forever lost, if not forgotten by me. And so it goes. Let's just see what happens to this attempt! Good: all's not lost, for this remains.

There is a joy in skiing down carless, tree lined streets when most people are asleep in their beds. It is as though, leaving our 18th century apartment behind, we have walked into another century. I thought of Dickens and London, though, as Texan senator wannabe president Lloyd Bentsen might have said, substituting London for Jack Kennedy "I know London; London was a friend of mine, and you, Providence, are no London." The incongruous sight of someone skiing down a street is only heightened by the time of night, and place. Were we not amidst the "Blizzard of 2005"? Ought not all mammals and humans be safe and warm at home? Did our ancestors have skiis at all? Not back then. The anacronism is in itself an amusement. And having fun, for some, is simply not this easy.

Hope Club

I always feel at home in places like the Hope Clubwith their dark varnished wood, wide, creaky staircases with their heavy banisters, thick oriental rugs, the newspapers fanned out on a table, oil paintings on the walls, sculpture here and there, sometimes flowers, and always, always coats and ties. Stuffy places for old farts and wannabes, like me or maybe not. I think this was my favorite thing about the New York Yacht Club, along with the spectacular model room and the library, not to mention the second facility in Newport called Harbor Court. Ah well. Better luck next lifetime, I guess. Ivy Club was all of this as well, if smaller and boatless, it has the cachet of Princeton behind it, after all, and F. Scott Fitzgerald's reference to its embers as "breathlessly aristocratic." And very stuffy and farty as well. Women were only invited in as members under the duress of massive legal expenses and the certitude of losing a sexual discrimination case. In the old days, neither had women members; today both of them do, and for the better in my opinion. Quite often there is the lingering scent of cigar smoke in the air. Oh, and the food is never very good, though it has become much, much better. they had to, in order to survive. The Hope Club's food was pretty indifferent last night, however, though I ate every bite on my plate. The long and short of it is that one never should go to one of these places for the food.

The people at the Hope Club last night were familiar, too. People from Little Compton and Providence. All kinds of connections, criscorssings. So it is the company and the occasion, of course. The speaker, my landlord's guest, turned out to have been at Princeton the same years I was there, leaving in 1975. Alan Tonelson certainly is accomplished. He painted an extremely gloomy picture for America in terms of its economic trends. This nation is in a colossal economic decline. The almighty dollar is slipping hugely. Foreigns countries, particularly China, are buying control of the US through loans to satiate the American appetite for credit. And Americans apparently save 0.1% of their income versus the Chinese, for example, who save some 40% of theirs! A new reason for this economist to be labelled a "dismal scientist" but he might also be cast as a man yelling out a warning in the middle of the desert, a purveyor of the truth.

Yikes! Apply for a Job?

It is 2005. I have applied for two fundraising jobs, one at RISD and another at Brown. The RISD position is approximately appropriate. It will depend upon who interviews me and who I would work with, but it might prove a good fit. The Brown position is well beneath what I would normally apply for, but what is normal? It might be a way for me to get into the workforce and into the department. Over the years I have noticed there has been considerable transition in the development office at Brown, so it might not be such a bad idea to try entering in a less visible place at first, be the short guy in the foxhole, and just look around. I have been out of the job force for so long that my references are more or less all gone. It is not going to be easy, finding something that is right. It is going to make a huge difference, when all is said and done. I feel like I am not only a "Mr. Mom" but like a homemaker, who after being outside the job force, is finally trying to enter the work force, insecure, prepared to hear age discrimination and insensitive comments about being "overqualified" and "not quite right for us at this time." Forward, Sir Charles. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

The Walk to School

Every parent knows the feeling of rejection by their own child. After all, we are supposedly bringing a person into the world to be an independent soul and after those early years together, and it is a testament to our success when our children assert their will and separate from us. But it hurts, this process, and speaking personally, at least in this case, it is a nasty business.

Rudeness is part of it. Meanness is another portion and throw in my own vulnerability to feeling rejected, and you know that something has got to give. Sophie refuses to walk within yards of me if she can get away with it, like an old world Japanese wife, only disrespectful. Knowing that I am going to want to give her a kiss goodbye, she now bestows her kiss at the apartment door, at the beginning of the walk to school, instead of at the school, when we actually "part." The whole concept is warped and misses the point. As far as walking together goes, she varies her speed, fast slow fast in order not to walk together, so eventually, I just grab her arm and tell her too bad. I am sure this is wrong parenting, but I am so angry with the unpleasantness and the irregular pace that I have lost patience at this point, threatening to walk right into her classroom if she doesn't behave nicely. Another bad parenting technique: threatening. Let's face it, this is just not going well. Later on, in the spring, maybe she can do the walk by herself, or she can meet her friend Margo on the way? It is a funny way to say "I love you" and it doesn't feel like I am being appreciated. I think her last words, for the umpteenth time were "I hate you!" Under her breath, of course, so no one else can hear the nastiness. Everyone has said that an adolescent (she hates that word) daughter can be tough going. And here I am, just at the beginning!

The Bicycle Thief

What a stark, black and white reduction of humanity! Rome, circa World War II. Posters of the big bossom girl, Rita Hayworth, pasted on the walls of the city. The job requires a bicycle and no sooner does the out-of-work young father rescue his bicycle from the Roman equivalent of the pawn shop, than thieves conspire to steal it away from him while he works. The rest of the movie is about trying to find the thief and the way reality and justice fail to merge. In the end, the desperate father steals someone else's bicycle, gets himself caught, and mortifies his crying son. Only some sort of unelaborated upon compassion from the bicycle owner saves him from going to jail for theft. "Some fine example you set for your son," one of the men who catches him says. It is a bitter irony. Is this film about how not to parent your child? Is this about survival? Survival of the fittest? Is the movie about injustice? Is it cynical? Is it about how thin the separation between humans and animals may actually be? My guess is that Arthur Miller intended that every one of these questions be asked, if not answered. It may be that they are not answerable, but it is good to be aware of them from time to time. Of course in post war Europe, raw survival might well have been the best one could hope for anyway. Those years must have been more harsh and gritty than we could know, not having lived then.

New Providence

Here I am, well provided for in Providence. Providentia. Providential. Provider I am not, these days; rather, provided for this winter of our Providence, 2005. It is a new year, a time to change, a time to get into gear, to turn the providential wheels, but where? I know not. How? I know not. Just why: the answer is simple: because I have to, or risk being permanently out to pasture at an age when I ought to be putting in my time, sowing the seeds for a more secure future. And what, therefore, am I doing? This life of quiet desperation? Been there so long it looks like up. Just take the plunge, who cares off from what cliff or where? I leap, therefore I am. A leap of faith, of life, not death. Maybe it really is this simple, that is, get off of the riverbank and into the stream, and both time, and the river I go a fishing in will carry me to who knows where? It looks like Providence, to me.

A Dirty Grey Day

In stark contrast to 24 hours ago, we have enjoyed a solid day of rain with the temperature ranging from the high 30s down to freezing, where it is tonight. This is one weird winter so far. There is no ice on the ponds or lakes, and little or no snow on the ground. Hey, it is the second week in January, so by my reckoning, we have from six to eight weeks of winter left, with the likelihood of some snow and ice about 100% in the first six of them. By Mid-March most of the serious stuff is over, and spring will come (welcome!) and "the grass will riz."

Snow White

A new year, a new winter. It is white out and cold and, instead of the water, I view the tops of tall buildings, an urban skyline. "Filene's" stands out in the distance, as does the broken left hand of Roger Williams behind our apartment, held nearly at his side overlooking Federal Hill from his perch on College Hill. A new apartment in a new city with a new white coat. Lots of "news." The old went out in ugly fashion, with the tsunami destroying the lives of more than a hundred thousand people in a matter of minutes along the coastlines of a dozen countries. An ugly old year. The year that gave Americans more of Bush and a continuation of the insanities of Iraq and terrorism throughout this uncivilized world. White snow blankets the dirt. It whitewashes the foul streets and sidewalks of a city. It perfects the rooftops and erases a million blemishes. Snow White is a euphemism. Beneath the surface, things are just as skank and gritty as they are anywhere else. Skank Black, Snow White. Its all the same, an illusion.