Crying for the Cranes

This extraordinary thing happened to me when I got married--I got infinitely more emotional. Well, to be fair, I got more emotional about things regarding marriage. It's the reason that the movie Date Night made me cry, as well as laugh. And the reason that I am apparently very concerned about Niles Crane's open-heart surgery on last night's re-run of Frasier. I have no emotional attachment to the Crane family. I barely watched the show the first time around (though I could probably sing you that quirky theme song about tossed salads and scrambled eggs. But that's just because it's catchy). However, when we stumbled upon a re-run that had Niles on a hospital bed and Daphne in tears in a waiting room, I found myself crying as well. I'm not sure what, if any conclusions to draw about this...I just find it so interesting. And it's probably another reason that I shouldn't have children: I'd be an emotional wreck! I could never watch anything...

You can't send a letter to a bird

From The Piano Has Been Drinking to You Can Never Hold Back Spring, Tom Waits is a master wordsmith. He has incredible versatility and the ability to completely immerse the listener in the world he creates. In an industry that gives precedence to a 3 and 1/2 minute dance beat and feels the need to release a "remix" of Like a G6, it is encouraging to have a diamond in the rough like Tom Waits.
He is more like the diamond and the rough... His haggard, vagabond appearance; his bohemian stage presence; his vocals that land somewhere between Louis Armstrong, John Wayne, and a dusty pipe organ--this man is a marvel. A true artist in every sense of the word. Watching videos of him perform Chocolate Jesus, I couldn't tell if he was in a concert hall or under an overpass. And the beauty of Tom Waits is that he seems ideally suited for both. He's kicking up sawdust. He's warbling into a megaphone. He's jauntily tipping his cap. And I imagine he'd be doing this even if no one was watching.

I recently learned that his poignancy extends beyond his hand-crafted story-songs and onto the printed page. Waits is releasing a limited edition book of poetry on Feb. 22 entitled Seeds on Hard Ground. It is available for pre-order on his website. And the U.S. store is already sold out. There are only going to be 1,000 copies of this book worldwide and all proceeds go to benefit homeless services in Northern California.

If you miss your chance or don't have the funds for a limited edition (like myself), all is not lost. An abridged version of the poem Seeds on Hard Ground will appear in another book entitled Hard Ground where it will be paired with photographs by Michael O'Brien. O'Brien's photographs of the homeless were said to have inspired the poem by Waits.

With my love of language, my appreciation of photography, and my compassion for, as Waits puts it in his poem "those left exposed," I am eager to see how the words and images of Hard Ground work together for good.

Here's a sneak peak of a few pages of Seeds on Hard Ground that Waits posted on his Flickr site:



A few of my favorite moments:
. . .

When I was born
My folks wept at my beauty
I was the package that all
Their good luck came in
I was bright and shining, magnetic
And flaming
Am I just something that got eaten
By the gods
And I only just the bag
That it came in
My parents were good people
Shirley and Raymond
They prayed for a child
Just like me
They prayed for a child
Just like me
. . .

Home is a place
To get a letter
If they can find you
I have heard
Because you can't
Send a letter
To a bird
You can't send a letter
To a bird
. . .

God, may we all
Amidst the storm
Safe by a fire
Bright and warm
Send to those
Left exposed
Good will and a
Much wider brim
The keep the pelting rain
From hammering them
. . .

See I remind them all
That there is a bottom
A bottom
I remind them all
That there is a bottom, Lord
Oh yes, there is a bottom indeed
Yes there is a bottom
And it looks just like me
. . .

I am homeless
But I am moving
I am homeless
But I am moving
Maybe I'll take the hound down
Maybe I'll take the hound
Where the grass is green
And the barn is red
Where the wind makes
The trees look like hula girls
Maybe I'll take the hound down
Maybe I'll take the hound
. . .

I'm the bursting bubble
My crown is my hat
When it comes to trouble
I'm the king of all that
. . .

There is also an incredible description of heaven that takes you down the rabbit hole on page 8-9 that I won't write out here to save some length and some intrigue. :)

a little pick-me-up(beat)

It is cold. Bone-chilling cold. And right about now is when I feel there is no end in sight. Actually, that weight normally presses down on me in February, but it's a bit early this year. Our bills are high (screw you, People's Gas) and our spirits are low. We've turned down the furnace and piled on the blankets and will only watch comedies in attempt to brighten our mood. Or musicals. Because when we dance along it warms us up.

When I get like this I try to force myself to do a little bright-side thinking. Tonight the universe lent a helping hand in the form of a drunken, accordian-playing, broken English speaking, Polish man that staggered into the coffee shop where I work. He began telling us his name was John (I think?) and playing polka and asking if the one other customer in there was my husband or boyfriend. I was trying to communicate with Accordian John but all I could comprehend were a few stray syllables steeped heavily in alcohol.

The smell of coffee and vodka fumes swirled around him, but this was overshadowed by the deafening sound of that accordian. I had forgotten how loud they are! Well, I don't know if I had ever really known how loud they were since I have not had very many close encounters with accordian players... At any rate, the volume of the instrument surprised me and all I could do was laugh about the whole thing. I wanted to immediately call my mother who always seems to wind up in similar situations--maybe it comes with the territory of owning/ working at a small business?

While I was enjoying the story-worthy aspects of this event, I was also not going to survive much more of the super-sonic accordian. I wasn't sure if our one customer was up for it either (or all the potential customers that walked right past the door when they heard the ruckus). I finally said, "No polka, thank you" and poor Accordian John looked up at me with his sad, drunk accordian eyes and squeezed out a few last meloncholy notes. "Sorry," I said. And he sort of shrugged, mentioned again that he had been in Chicago twenty years and got up to leave.

I tried to get him to take his coffee to go (because it really smelled like he could use a cup) but he just said goodnight and staggered out onto the sidewalk. My night was made. I'm glad there was at least one customer to witness the whole thing. And that he seemed to be as excited about it as I was.

Thank you, Accordian John, for helping to keep my winter blahs at bay.

Buechner's Gift of Christmas Imagery

Some good friends gave me a book by Frederick Buechner entitled "Beyond Words." It is a sort of dictionary on themes, occasions, people... I was searching my bookshelf for something to read during my holiday travels and I decided to read the entry for "Christmas."

It has been a few months since I have cracked the cover on this particular book. And every time I do, I find that it is an excellent decision. Every thing I have read in this book is brilliant and insightful and at least 75% of the time the things I read in this book change my life.

Last night was one such incident. Buechner's words on Christmas were like none I had ever heard. A relief from the constant loop of carols on all the radio stations, relief from the bumper-to-bumper traffic in the Target parking lot, even relief from the pious rituals that I had been a part of since childhood. Here is an excerpt:

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event is indeed--as a matter of cold, hard fact--all its cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.

The Word became flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God...who for us and for our salvation," as the Nicene Creed puts it, "came down from heaven."

"Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed." This image literally made me exclaim aloud, "Whoa!" in my living room. This is something I can wrap my mind around. In fact, this image is something that my mind will not let go of. Heaven and incarnation and angels by the manger are more difficult to grasp, but "a skull you could crush one-handed" is vivid and real to me.

It makes me think of Annie Dillard's essay "Living Like Weasels." She locks eyes with a weasel in the woods and writes this of the encounter: "It emptied our lungs. It felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into the black hole of eyes. If you and I looked at each other that way, our skulls would split and drop to our shoulders. But we don't. We keep our skulls."

Apparently brain and skull imagery is very tangible for me and stays with me. I read Dillard's essay for the first time in high school and it hasn't left me since. I feel that the same will be true of Buechner's take on the Christmas story.

Handy Dandy

Yesterday I really was going to work. Honest. I had this time set aside and I was going to buckle down and get to writing my painfully boring educationally informative articles for Remilon. But I couldn't stop looking around my apartment at all the things that needed to be done. So, I decided to take matters into my own handy hands and here's what happened:

1. I installed a new doorknob on our inner door so that it will latch and keep out the frigid entryway air.
2. I hung our smoke detector. Sounds easy, right? But look at the size of the instructions for the smoke detector compared to the size of the instructions for the doorknob installation! Good grief. I absolutely did not read them. I wrote my own: Insert battery, push test button, nail onto wall.

3. The main event: I installed the handles on our cupboards that I have been going crazy without! We have been wedging our fingers on the sides of the drawers for months now to pry them open and I had just had enough. So, I did it!

Before:
During:
After:
Tada! I am super proud and so relieved to have them done. If you can't tell by my crazy drill-face. :)

The Bluest of Skies and the Grayest of Pigeons

This morning I walked to a new coffee shop to try to get some work done. And, as you can see, I ended up blogging instead. It's just that the sky was so perfectly blue and the pigeons so perfectly perched and gray that I had to write about it. I could tell it was one of those burst into song in a Disney movie sort of mornings--which is rare because I am SO not the morning person. But the sun was shining and the little brown sparrow-type birds were chirping and fluttering about and it was enough to make even me appreciative of rising early.

It's cold in Chicago, that's true. I nearly froze my fingers off trying to text during my morning stroll. And I had to grab onto people's fences a few times when I slipped on the icy sidewalks. (I think I'm going to carry rock salt in my purse and leave a trail of it on my normal walking routes...) But the sun is shining so it all seems much less brutal. It's nothing compared to months of gray and grueling Michigan winter misery. At least, not yet. Granted, we've only had winter weather for approximately one full week. But I'm hopeful. (Morning happiness? Winter optimism? Who is this girl?) It is warm and dry at the Knockbox Cafe and time for another dose of "isn't humanity beautiful?"

I was walking into the coffee shop and there was someone behind me so I held the door for him and then stood off to the side deciding what to get while he ordered. I soon learned that his name was Miguel and he had a deep and abiding love for grilled cheese sandwiches. He ordered about 6 things to go and kept saying things like "throw some of this in there. add some applesauce. how much are chips?" and then turned to me and said "what are you ordering?" I said I was looking at the zucchini walnut bread so he said "I'll buy her bread thing" to the barista. I was a little caught off guard and said "thanks so much!"

He said I was welcome and stuck out his hand for a shake. "I'm Miguel" he said "but you can call me Mickey." I introduced myself as well and he started talking about how there isn't enough kindness in the world and how he tries to be kind because otherwise "it's all just wickedness." He saw a man in a wheelchair asking for money and it made him sick that no one even looked at him. I wholeheartedly agreed and said "I know! I mean, even if you don't have anything to give him, how about a little acknowledgment that we're all human." Mickey replied "Yeah, you'd think human beings would be nicer to each other."

The barista brought out his sandwich, etc. and I said, "Mickey, it was nice to meet you. Thanks again." And chose the seat in the place that looked like it might have the most productive energy. Mickey walked out with a "take care" and I sat down, encouraged by our interaction and thankful for my breakfast.

It's just so gorgeous in here today! I think I'll be coming to this place more often. Ok, enough gushing. Off to work now... Pictures of my 2nd annual "first big snow" walk coming soon.

P.S., Grand Rapids, I Love You

I live in Chicago. And I love it. But I miss Grand Rapids so much. I miss all of my friends and the bright red autumn leaves and living within walking distance of Nantucket Bakery and The Sparrows coffee shop. I even miss the stupid drunk frat boys playing their guitars on the hoods of their cars at 3am. And the "resident" homeless man who shuffled around on the street outside of our apartment building. Summer is officially over only when he has changed from his cut-off jean shorts into his sweat pants. His name is Mark. He wants to fly south for the winter.

Grand Rapids will always hold some great memories for me. I recently was able to breeze through on my way from a wedding in Clare back to Chicago and I took about a million pictures and almost cried because I think autumn in Grand Rapids may be more beautiful than autumn anywhere else that I've ever been. And it's my favorite season. Here are a few photos from that trip to peruse before the snow starts to fall (ugh).

Winter Edges In

It is not yet winter. But I can feel its fingers wrapping around the city, preparing to overtake it. The air outside smells like a box of hats and scarves.

Every year when the weather turned cold my mother would pull the box of winter wear from the back of the closet and it always smelled the same. A mix of old dryer sheets and crumbled leaves, and the dust that settled from the wood stove. Unknowingly, this smell has become a tell-tale sign of winter for me. And maybe for everyone else in the city because I think they all pulled out their dusty coats on the same day and filled the air with the smell of the coming winter.

Most of the leaves have left the tree branches and been swallowed up by the street sweepers. (The street sweepers which are responsible for my first Chicago ticket because they failed to have the signs up in time for me to move my car! But this post is supposed to be calm and contemplative...so I'll save the ticket rant for another day.)

Snowflake decorations are up on the streetlights, candy canes in the neighbor's garden, Christmas music at the grocery store... And I'm trying to roll with the punches. I am generally an avid believer that Christmas does not exist until after Thanksgiving. But as I sit here sipping my eggnog latte (that I got for half price due to a holiday sale) I am starting to soften to the idea of Thanksgiving and Christmas going hand-in-hand. After all, it is "the holiday season." And yesterday I realized that we only have a month to get through the list of 30 Christmas movies--and yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie--so we are going to have to get started!

But I am still reluctant to pack away my pumpkins and autumn leaves. It feels like admitting defeat. Admitting that soon my beautiful crunchy leaves will be rotting under a frigid blanket of ice and snow. Maybe I'll just put Santa hats on the scarecrows and lobby for a holiday merger...

Love Affair with Humanity

Today, I realized that I am in love the human race. Or maybe today I admitted it to myself. Those of you who know me probably already know this about me. So, I suppose you can read the rest of this just to say "I told you so."

I like to pretend that I can't stand people and that they make me crazy and I don't want to have anything to do with their dysfunctional selves. But, the truth is, I need them. I need to remember that I'm not the only dysfunctional disaster. I need to remember that, though I may feel poor and disadvantaged, I have it relatively easy. I need to see the softness in an old man's eyes, or the ferocity in the face of a frustrated teenager. And I need to remember that we each have a little of all of that within ourselves.

For the past few weeks I have been working from home, writing for a website and I realized that I feel a little isolated. (It doesn't help that my apartment is half underground so it feels like I'm hunkering down in a bomb shelter.) I have been craving human interaction. The three dogs that live upstairs just don't quite cut it.

I need to look at faces that are not my own. Strange or familiar. Friendly or otherwise. Humanity is all at once heartwarming and infuriating. And it's hard for me to find it anything but beautiful. At least right now. I know I will have my moments and days when I am gloomy about the state of the world and getting down on this mess of humanity that I'm a part of. But for the record, humanity, I love you.

Brand new backdrop

I have been in Chicago for two full months now. It's high time I wrote something about it. Nothing too insightful today. Just a bit of love for Ukrainian Village, my wonderful neighbors, and the cat. Her name is Lucy. The cat and the neighbor. But only one of them circles my feet and rolls over so I can scratch her belly. Human-Lucy lives two doors down and cat-Lucy lives next to us with Mary/Maria. We have never been formally introduced and I think I hear her called something different every time. So I just say "Hello" and smile. There's also a Mary on the other side of us. Orientation was so confusing.

Our apartment is just about entirely put together and we have more space than we anticipated. I still feel like we're burrowing into a little mouse-nest but it is somehow cozier than it is cramped. And that's not just necessitated optimism talking. We have a working furnace now and the apartment seems to absorb all the things we need to find a place for. I just don't know if I'll ever find them again.

We rode our bike down to the lake shore a couple weeks ago and cruised around in the shadow of the Hancock building. I can see the Sears Tower while I'm getting groceries. Granted, it's four miles away...but, it's four miles away! I'm not sure if we'll ever get used to that. And I think that's ok. I'm counting on the excitement and charm of the new city to get me through the first winter.

Here are a few pictures of our neighborhood: