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NauenThen

What now

November 18, 2016
Steve's antique stove. His whole house is made of reclaimed brick. ... Thought I'd throw in one last SC photo & have something to hang this link on.
I guess it is better to prepare for the worst than hope for the best.

Following this writer's advice I'm going to do exactly this (& if you do also, will you send me what you write?):

Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship  Read More 
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Activism & thinking

November 17, 2016
So much smart stuff has been said over the last week—encouraging, staunch, consoling. Here are some of the articles & thought pieces I've read & will read again.

* NYC activists & doers talk strategy.

* Step-by-step help in standing up for what's right.

* I too am a coastal elite from a rural state, & I agree that  Read More 
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Meat & 3

November 16, 2016
They have another poster: Corn to be wild.
One of my favorite things about the South are the many "meat & 3" restaurants. At Wade's in Spartanburg I get the plate of 4 veggies. The choices may include mac'n'cheese, potatos, turnip greens, black-eye peas, sweet potato with marshmallow, apple cobbler, creamed corn & a lot of others. Your order also includes iced tea (ask for "1/2 and 1/2"—half sweet, half unsweetened), wonderful yeast rolls & cornbread—all for $7.50. Of course if you get the pecan or peanut butter pie, it's an additional $2.35.  Read More 
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Flood along the Pacolet

November 15, 2016
Tags: Pacolet River, Spartanburg
The height of this sculpture is approximately the highest point of the great 1903 flood on the Pacolet River in Spartanburg. Steve's grandparents were mill workers who lived within a few feet of the river. His family stories were about one grandpa convincing a woman who was being swept past on a log to let go of it so he could pull her to safety, and people banging on the other's door to warn him of how fast the water was rising, when he'd said naw can't happen. I don't know anyone who is as much from where he lives as Steve. Read More 
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OK, a break for a little pleasure

November 14, 2016
South Carolina.
My favorite fruit is persimmons & here I am picking delicious ones right off the tree! not photoshopped! Not some other orange thing! Real live persimmons!
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Pray for our country

November 13, 2016
The Nantahala George, near the Chattahoochee Forest of North Carolina.
Too much to say & not enough.
Do we take the high road or fight? Can we do both?
Do we have to understand "them" when they don't care to understand "us"?
Fury, horror, fear, disgust.

However, I believe—I know—I am not surrounded by haters. When I  Read More 
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Veterans

November 11, 2016
Tags: The House
Bill. I managed not to get a photo of all of us.
Spending Veterans Day with 3 of my favorite vets:
Steve Willis
Gene Forrister
Bill McFarland

Three of the Air Force guys I originally met at or just after the last big anti–Vietnam War protest in D.C. in 1971. We have been fundamentally connected ever since. Bill had moved dozens of times in the last 35 years & only resurfaced a couple of months ago, so seeing him was incredibly wonderful. We are still & always The House.

I'm the only one who still has a  Read More 
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Smoke in the sky

November 10, 2016
The sun, hard to see in the photo, was blood red.
This is from our drive from Spartanburg, SC, up to Murphy, NC. They are having an "exceptional" drought, which is worse than "extreme." Several thousand acres are barely contained. We saw a run of fire right along the road. Hard to breathe, stinging eyes. Steve marveled at seeing rhododendron & other plants blooming months past their natural season. Everything is messed up. Read More 
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The day after

November 9, 2016
Sleepless & sick & now it's too late.

Also, I have a plane to catch.
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Last post from D.C.

November 6, 2016
I love historical markers. Something interesting happened here & everywhere. More of this, please. I want to know where Whitman wrote "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" & where Dylan got the idea for "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" & where Vermeer saw the light, & on & on. Let us remember where we came from & what it took, every day.  Read More 
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Countdown

November 4, 2016
OK, I am totally stressed by the election.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I wish I had written this:
Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him.
Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him.
Hillary  Read More 
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Behinder & behinder

November 3, 2016
What's that line, the faster I run, the behinder I get?

OK! Back to work!
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I heart Minnesota

November 2, 2016
Saw this display at a combo laundromat–spray-on tanning salon.
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What is past is prologue

November 1, 2016
"The Future," in front of the National Archives Building in D.C.
I'm fascinated to learn that the pope gave the go-ahead to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I because she was taking England back down the Protestant road. We think of her day (or I do) as a Golden Age, but it wasn't of course. The quote is from Shakespeare's "Tempest."

Somehow everything seems to be about the upcoming election.  Read More 
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Washington protestor

October 31, 2016
This was right in front of the White House. It didn't seem to belong to anyone who was on the site, & no one but me paused to read it. The only other protest we saw had to do with fast food workers.
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Lincoln tower

October 30, 2016
Tags: Lincoln, Ford's Theater
A quick 2-day trip to D.C. to meet up with my sister. We packed in a lot, including Ford's Theater, a small & intensely interesting homage to Lincoln. I was particularly taken with this tower constructed entirely of books about Lincoln. Except not books: empty tin boxes wrapped with copies of the covers of these thousands of books. Even now, 150 years after his death, more books are written about Lincoln than just about anyone. As we go into the last week of this dismal election, I will think about those difficult & scary times.  Read More 
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Polar bear, Svalbard

October 27, 2016
Tags: polar bears, Arctic
Starving polar bear
I love the Arctic (not that I've been there) (yet) so this article & photo really break my heart. This poor guy. Is there any explanation other than global warming & loss of habitat?

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all that's gone or is going wrong (less easy to feel jubilation at the beauty of the world). What to do, what to do?  Read More 
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The holidays are finally over

October 26, 2016
I think I can start acting like an American in the world again, after all those days whooping it up with the pagan rituals of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah, all crammed into 3 weeks.
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Sunday breakfast

October 23, 2016
Johnny gets it for us at B&H. Occasionally he sends me, but he doesn't mind going. He always gets an egg & cheese sandwich, I get either an omelette or challah French toast. I sometimes order blintzes or pierogis but I always switch back to French toast when Mike lifts an eyebrow.

Johnny was still asleep at noon today when I left. I got a ranchero burrito at the Mexicans.

I have a headache Read More 
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Errands

October 21, 2016
It's so satisfying to go to the 99¢ store, the one on Ludlow with the nice lady who lets me be short a little on change, & stock up:
= toilet paper (four 4-packs, Panda)
= kleenex (1 extra-large box)
= 1 light bulb (not as bright as I'd hoped)
= 5 notebooks, 3 purple, 2 blue, my new favorites: spiral bound, plastic covers, tabs
= shampoo
= dish soap
= poems (short, but for 99¢ each, a really good deal)  Read More 
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Greetings from Minsk

October 20, 2016
Greetings from Minsk!

You tell me you are going to Fez.
Now, if you say you are going to Fez,
This means you are not going.
But I happen to know you are going to Fez.
Why are you lying to me who are my friend?

—Moroccan proverb

I read this joke at a rest area in Ohio in 1976:
Two men are on a train platform. One says, Where are you headed. The other says, to Minsk. The first men says, You lie! You are going to Minsk.
My boyfriend at the time roared. No one else ever thought it was funny.  Read More 
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Memory

October 19, 2016
Tags: Memory, Enroute Messenger Service, economics, University of North Carolina
This letter dates from 1977 or 78, as best I can figure, as Enroute was my first job in NYC, so I must have started there in early 1977. I think I worked for them about a year.
Memory is a strange quality. I remember having worked at UNC in the graduate economics department. I no longer remember what I did (let alone where I sat, who else worked there, where we had lunch, what time I got off, what year it was...). What could I possibly have done, given that I knew nothing about economics? There is nothing in this letter*—presumably unsent? definitely unsent, as it's not folded, & I was never in the habit of keeping copies of my sent correspondence, unless an occasional first draft to a special someone—that rings the faintest bell. I would not have thought I had written the folks at Enroute. It's like seeing yourself in a photo, sitting on Harry Truman's lap, & you are 7 years old, old enough to remember, but you don't, not even something important. Not that this job was memorable, but I wish I had a single bit of it left in my head.

*Dear Dear Enrouties --  Read More 
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Hoboken! Baseball!

October 16, 2016
Tags: Danny Shot, Hoboken, Quincy Troupe, Mikhail Horowitz
How fun to do a reading at the Hoboken Historical Museum, organized by the Museum's poet-in-residence Danny Shot, with Quincy Troupe, Mikhail Horowitz, the official poet of the Mets Frank Messina, & local historian Nick Acocella, who sweetly called every Hoboken native ballplayer his favorite. (It would be nice to be able to live where you are from & also have New York City right there. I had to choose between South Dakota & the big city.) Also a short play by Ellen Margolis with a Little League/world peace theme. Ed Charles was on the DL unfortunately.

I took the ferry cross the Hudson. You catch it at 39th Street & 12th Avenue, & it takes about 10 minutes. $8.25 for seniors. So fast I got queasy & thought we were going to turn over. I couldn't think of the word "slip" ("which ... gate?" I asked) & as I so often do, wondered why it's so hard to remember I live in a seaport.  Read More 
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Grateful I am

October 14, 2016
And grateful for this loving being.
* For Tom & Bessie, & our laughing, friendly lunch at the terrific Moroccan restaurant Mogador. We are adults together, we who were teenagers in separation—even when we took the same classes. Possibly the case for most teens, not counting the one you tell everything to.
* For a sunny day. "And if the weather pleases me, I'm happy every day."
* That I have  Read More 
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Sleepy

October 13, 2016
One of those weeks where the hours & days pass with no notion of where they want. All my endless attempts to keep track only highlight how much I don't seem to be here. I suppose a day off, which Yom Kippur most emphatically was, throws one off for a bit.
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Where'd the week go?

October 11, 2016
And now it's almost Kol Nidre.

An easy fast & a meaningful Yom Kippur to anyone to whom this pertains.

Not that all of us can't use some ruthless self-examination, no?
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Debating

October 10, 2016
It's interesting how much buried trauma has boiled up in recent days.

It's hard to be passionate about tax codes and trade agreements, but everyone has a firm opinion about sexual assault & lockerroom talk.

Consciousness raising to the max!

(short on time, will amplify this when I get a moment. any thoughts?)
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Friends in Brooklyn

October 9, 2016
He's under that gray rock, in front of the sawhorse.
A wonderful afternoon of apple crisp, imaginative kids, a talky & thinky game called HuggerMugger, intense catching up with two of the people I love & admire most in this world, & a visit to the grave of Dante-Tito, my late & still beloved beyond breathing cat.
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Buster

October 7, 2016
Instead of taking a picture of both of them, I woke up Johnny to show him that Buster & he were sleeping exactly the same way—curled on their sides, with one hand (paw) over their faces. My two well-loved menfolk.
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Timely & topical

October 6, 2016
This is one of the many short essays I've been writing.

Southern Paradox

“You are kept apart that you may separately be fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetrates a monetary system that beggars both.” This was  Read More 
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