madame bovary's masquerade ball

Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Thanks, Shauna Reid)


So, I’m still participating in Reverb 10, a writing project in which authors reflect on the past year, and consider how to mindfully enter 2011.

And this prompt has left me sadly mindful of this fact: I attended NO rockin’ party in 2010, and I can’t think of one I attended in 2009, either.

It did not take a writing prompt for me to come to this conclusion. This past October, as the kids were deciding on costumes, I thought, “Why doesn’t anyone around here throw grown-up Halloween parties? Why don’t I?” Hell, most of my memorable Halloweens took place after I turned 18. It’s a holiday I still associate with merry Bacchanalian revelry (if only in my memory), and yet, for the past six or so years, it has really been all about the kids. About the candy. About Star Wars and Disney princesses.

On November 1, I opened up Facebook and was greeted with a photo of pointy-boob-era Madonna, decked out in gold and holding a drink. She was striking a pose amidst three or four other Madonnas (a sampling from the Immaculate Collection): Material Girl, Holiday, Papa Don’t Preach, and Truth or Dare. When I enlarged the picture, I saw that Pointy Boob was my sister, Kaytie. I hit “slideshow,” and watched the Madonnas get into the groove. Damn, I thought. And started making plans for the fabulous costume party I’m going to throw next year.

Not that I don’t get out and tear it up. My beer drinking buddies, with whom I occasionally run, can be pretty raucous when we get together for our monthly “meetings” at the Half Moon café, or at our ruthless holiday Yankee Swaps, where we battle for the most powerful headlamp, the tastiest homebrew, or the coolest running log (I know, pretty wild, right?).

But I can’t say that any party has really “rocked my socks off” since my brother’s wedding in 2006.

So, here is the party I will throw next October (hope you can make it):

You are cordially invited to Madame Bovary’s Masquerade Ball! Please come dressed as your favorite sexy, scandalous, or salacious literary figure (no Jane Austens, please). See what happens when Anais Nin seduces Heathcliff, or Lady Chatterly hooks up with Humbert Humbert. Come for the Prologue, stay for the Denouement!

Music provided by Shakespear’s Sister.

Open bar will include Uncle Fezziwig’s Ale.

Parlor games will include Hunt the Slipper, Charades, and Squeak, Piggy, Squeak.

Mark your calendars, everyone, because this wild woman is gearing up for one Titillating Toussaint! See you there.

pieces

(*Note: this post is part of a writing project by Reverb 10. Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. Use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead.)

Prompt: Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

I have a scar on my right hand: a tiny grayish tattoo, courtesy of a troubled six-year-old who bit me in a fit of rage while I was on duty as a Psychiatric Treatment Counselor in Anchorage, Alaska.

My “wedding dress” was a pair of white shorts and a white polyester hiking shirt. I walked down the aisle on Flattop Mountain.

I trained as a doula and had the privilege of attending two amazing women as they labored and gave birth, aided by nothing but the strength of their will.

I used to regularly wake up outside, in a sleeping bag, with icicles in my hair.

I am adamant about throwing "green" birthday parties. (This has sometimes backfired, as guests, baffled by the basket of cloth napkins, will resort to using tissues.)

At any given moment, I might bust out a tune from “West Side Story,” “Cabaret,” “Hedwig,” “Annie,” “The Sound of Music,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” or “A Chorus Line,” to name a few. (If I’m alone in my car, it might be Pearl Jam’s “Rearview Mirror.” If I’m baking cookies with my sister, it might be a stunning acapella rendition of “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls.)

Six a.m. often finds me on a trail, exchanging barbs and gossip with three or four other runners, all of sporting headlamps.

My college career spanned four states and, ahem, “several” years.

As a kid, I ached to play ice hockey, like my brothers. Playing on the pond with Dylan allows me to retroactively live the dream.

I find that exercise--strenuous or otherwise--is best concluded with hearty food and good beer.

I have an uncanny ability to find running and hiking partners who share this philosophy.

One of my favorite decompression activities is stacking wood ( I usually do this wearing Dad’s old flannel jacket).

I have driven the Trans-Canada and Alaska Highways twice: once with the man I thought I wanted to marry (who, soon afterward, left me for a remote Alaskan village), and once with the man I married (who seems to want to stick around).

All I want for Christmas is a new mountain bike.

I stay up way, way too late. In my post-dinner, post-bedtime story, post-lunch making exhaustion, I occasionally find that the words and images just won’t come.

Which reminds me: I am quite often overly self-critical.

And lastly, I know when it’s time to sign off and enjoy a glass of wine with my husband.

in the land of nod

This blog post is one of a series of responses to writing prompts provided by the authors at Reverb 10, a daily writing project that asks writers to reflect on the year. Get on the bus! Just click here.

Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Writing prompt courtesy of Cali Harris.)

Since about the late 90’s, I have been prone to spiritual wanderlust. I was raised Catholic, and until about age fourteen or fifteen, Catholicism had a reasonably important place in my life: I said ten minutes of prayers before getting into bed every night, because I was afraid that, if I neglected to pay heed to God, Jesus, Mary, and even Joseph, my soul was fair game for Satan. This pretty much summarizes my pre-adolescent piety: I prayed, I went to confession, I made communion and confirmation, because I was terrified of the consequences of not fulfilling these sacraments. I could practically feel the flames at the foot of my bed, just waiting for me to give voice to my latent doubt.

A college obsession with existentialist philosophy cultivated the seeds of skepticism that had begun to sprout in my late teenage years. In retrospect, I probably found atheism intriguing because it absolved me of any kind of responsibility. I am a recovering commitment-phobe, and so a religion that required me to attend church every week OR ELSE was one that would surely lead to my spiritual demise.

From what I have been told, one’s experience with a religion like Catholicism depends so much on one’s particular church, and on the minister’s ability to deliver a homily that is engaging and relevant beyond the walls of the sanctuary. We had no such minister at St. Mary’s. The upshot was that, when I left home, I also left the church. After ten years of CCD, I knew little more about the disciples, the life of Jesus, or the Bible than my friends who had not attended Religious Education classes. It was only in graduate school, when I took a course on Milton’s Paradise Lost and was required to read three or four exciting theological texts, that I began to understand what I had missed, at least in terms of the stories behind the faith. Progressive Catholics like my friend Lori have introduced me to a vibrant, intelligent, and rich Catholicism I never knew existed (I can’t help but think how much more I could have taken from The Red Tent had I been exposed to the verses behind the fiction). And though Catholicism is not likely to ever become my (re)chosen faith, I have a much deeper understanding of why it continues to appeal to so many.

For most of my adult life, I have been without a religion. I have found holiness and metaphysical beauty in nature, in certain people, in special moments. And for a long time, I believed that this was enough. But when Dad died two and a half years ago, and I tried to explain death to Dylan, I found that I could not do this without referring to God, or heaven. And Dylan was understandably perplexed. Later, he asked Bryan, “Is Nod going to take you and Daddy, too?”

“Nod?” Bryan asked.

“Yeah, Nod. He took Grampy. Is he going to take you?”

It struck me that I could not expect Dylan to grasp this concept, inasmuch as any of us can grasp it, when he (God) only appeared in our lives as some ominous force who randomly plucks people from our lives. Those prayers I said as a child—those rote recitations—did provide comfort, even as they nurtured my fear of eternal damnation. I needed something for my children that was devoid of dogma, but that would provide them with a sense of spirituality—and preferably a spiritual community. And this was something I also needed for myself. I have been, for a long time, a solo practitioner of a quasi-faith that blends Buddhism, Protestantism, and some loose translation of Native American spirituality. And Catholic guilt. I haven’t lost my fear of Satan, though I might call him by a different name (or names).

The autumn after Dad died, I did some “church research,” and I found a spiritual house that looked promising: the Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven. I had been interested in Unitarianism for years—since the time of that Milton class I mentioned. My professor—an extraordinarily spiritual and engaging man by the name of Andrew Barnaby—was a Unitarian, and had found, it seemed to me, a sensible way to reconcile the differences (and similarities) between major world religions. He told me not to “shun Catholicism,” but to think of it as a “fulfilling mythology.”

I don’t mean to make heretical waves (I’m aware of the seeming heresy in that last statement about mythology!) ,or to dismiss anyone’s faith. And this is what I have come to love about USNH: more than any other faith I have tried to embrace, it has taught me tolerance and humility. It has taught me that spirituality, for me, lies not in the primary text, or even in the sermons (though the sermons at USNH are quite amazing), but in action—in social responsibility and awareness. In the lived version of whatever our faith may be. Though the Catholic part of me (I think there is a part of me, however small, that will always be Catholic) struggles with the somewhat abstract nature of the faith itself (try explaining this to a kid: well, Jewish people believe x, and Catholics believe y, and Muslims believe z, and so forth—and we just borrow from all of them, and maybe throw in a little Bruce Springsteen, too), I feel blessed to have found a place of worship that is in near-perfect harmony with my spiritual needs. I don’t know that I will ever label myself a Unitarian—or put myself squarely in any religious category—but I will call USNH my spiritual home.

love cakes and messy music

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Writing prompt courtesy of Gretchen Rubin.)

Apple cupcakes. Flour, sugar, butter, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and four shredded McIntosh apples, picked from Norton Brothers family orchard.

End-of-semester stress almost tempted me to purchase *gulp* a box of cake mix. I was even ambling up and down that aisle in the grocery store, pausing every few steps to consider (“delicious cupcakes in just minutes!”), and then re-consider, and then consider again. But I have been making these apple cupcakes for Lexi’s birthday every year for the last four years, and in the end I refused to deprive myself (and, of course, my daughter) of the heavenly aroma of late autumn that is the smell of fresh-baked apple cupcakes.

For someone who doesn’t often venture far beyond the Toll House classic when it comes to baking, this recipe—a Martha Stewart gem!—is somewhat labor intensive. Peeling and shredding the apples takes a bit more effort than adding eggs and oil to a mix. But it wasn’t so much the labor that made the end result so satisfying (though of course this was a contributing factor). The real satisfaction was in the niche: in having carved out an hour in which to create something for someone (in this case, a very special someone). It was the time spent in choosing the right cupcake: the right seasonal fruit; the right blend of spices; the right treat for the occasion. So often time constraints (and my inherent lack of organization) force me to be haphazard in my approach to completing a task. Mixing the apple into the batter was like a zen exercise. I think now understand why baking bread is, for my friend Kristen, something of a religious practice. She has talked about the catharsis that comes from kneading the dough: the motion of the fingers, the smell of the yeast, the pleasure in watching the bread take form afterward. I don’t plan to pack up my bread machine, but I did see her point as I mixed.

Once, after my friend Teresa had given birth to her second child, I sent her a batch of cookies. She responded gleefully that it was “like getting a package of love from [my] kitchen.” I am hardly Martha Stewart, or even Betty Crocker for that matter, but I did feel the love as I mixed the batter (by hand—because I bake cakes so infrequently that I don’t even own an electric mixer. Note to self: electric mixer before next December 2 rolls around).

And in case you were wondering: no, I don’t plan to become a Buddhist Baker, nor will I be writing blog posts about finding nirvana in scrubbing dishes. In fact, to segue into the second part of the writing prompt, if I could clear more time, I wouldn’t spend it in the kitchen. That would be like spending summer vacation in a classroom.

No, if I had the time, I would make music.

Once upon a time I could play keyboards. Not well, but I played. I had a few Beatles songs committed to memory. Some Bach for Beginners. A Bon Jovi song or two (hey, it was the eighties. And if you must know, I can still play “Home Sweet Home” by some 80’s hair band—maybe the one with Brett Michaels?).

Every evening, around 9:30, Bryan reaches over and grabs his guitar from its perch beside the sofa, and he makes music. Sometimes it’s the same Bob Dylan song for fifteen weeks (can you say “Tangled Up in Blue”?), but he plays that guitar every night, without fail. When we travel, the guitar travels too (in miniature form). There is always room: in the car, in the backpack (yes, the pack guitar, may it rest in peace, saw many mountain tops). In Bryan’s evening.

A couple of years ago, Bryan bought me a guitar—an electric guitar, because it’s allegedly easier to play (don’t have to stretch those little fingers so far, or strum so hard on the strings). I was half-excited, half dubious. I’ve always thought it would be cool to learn guitar (not only because female guitarists epitomize cool, but also because playing music with Bryan would be a much more exciting way to spend an evening than doing the crossword puzzle while he learns a new tune. And he has let me know on more than one occasion that he craves musical accompaniment).

I devoted a couple of weeks to learning the scale, and to playing an open F and a few chords I’ve since forgotten, but the truth was, I really wasn’t in a place to start learning an instrument from scratch. I was just starting to write fiction again, and there was also this crazy desire to read something (a novel? Some poetry?) for pleasure. At the risk of sounding like a 6-year-old, I just didn’t feel like learning anything when I finally had time to sit down at 9:30 or 10:00.

When I signed Dylan up for piano lessons a few weeks ago, I secretly hoped that his playing would rekindle my own desire to play, and to learn (and re-learn). And so far, this has been the case. The Yamaha has been relocated from its corner across from our bed (where it often served as a shelf for laundry) to a place of honor in the front room. Dylan and his sister play “duets” (yesterday morning I woke to Lexi playing random keys while Dylan sang “Hey Jude”), and I hack away at “Let it Be” (a song that will likely be my very own “Tangled Up in Blue”). It’s not pretty, but the kids don’t really know that.

So, if I can clear some time, you know where to find me. Just listen for the three chords. There are only three in that song, right?

This post is part of a daily writing project called Reverb 10.

letting go of longing

Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Writing prompt courtesy of Alice Bradley)

I don’t know that I have ever completely let go of anything. There are boxes of old letters, cards, stories, books, and clothes in the barn that serve as a testament to my sentimentalism. But I am happy to say that I am in recovery, and my rehabilitation involves not only getting rid of yellowed letters from boyfriends who never really meant that much to me, anyway; it also involves letting go in the spiritual sense. This year, I attempted to let go of longing.

I have spoken (and written) often of my desire to be elsewhere, to live elsewhere—more specifically, in Vermont, or New Hampshire, or in some state where the mountains are higher than 2,000 feet. When Bryan and I first got together, this was our plan: we would save some money, look for work, and relocate in some cool town out west, at the foot of say, Mount Hood, or Mount Rainier, or Mount Shasta. I would take Flattop Mountain in Anchorage, but that’s too radical for my Connecticut-born-and-bred hubby.

It didn’t work out that way. Obviously. And location, or relocation, has been the subject of more than a few heated discussions. I can’t be my fully realized self here, I would insist. Sense of place is everything to me. I’m withering. Yeah, I can be pretty dramatic when I get going. And it’s not purely for the sake of drama: I really believe that I was meant to be in the mountains, as corny as it sounds.

But how can I spend too much time brooding when I left the mountains to be here? I could argue that I’m here because Bryan is here. I left Vermont to be here. But there are many folks for whom sense of place is so strong that no person could ever detract from their dreams of being in Alaska, or Seattle, or wherever they happen to be. So really, I’m here because I chose to be here, and though I can’t deny that I would rather be somewhere else, longing is a dangerous and destructive activity.

Instead of longing, I’m hoping, planning, acting. I’m cleaning up the clutter and working on my resume. I’m encouraging Bryan (who swears he really does want to move) to do the same. I’m putting the word out, and friends are responding with job prospects. In short, I’m trying to get us in a position to move (our barn is filled to the brim with cars, car parts, furniture, boxes of memorabilia, and probably mice), rather than lamenting the fact that my friends are disappearing to Utah and New Hampshire and even Brooklyn (which is a very cool borough, though not a place I would choose to live).

And in letting go of longing, I’m discovering a tremendous amount of beauty right here in the Shire. I’m a mile from trails in almost every direction. I’m a short drive from the shore. In the fall, I can look out my window and see a myriad of reds, golds, and oranges. The mountains are smallish, but the trails are rocky and deliciously challenging on a mountain bike. Guess it ain’t so bad.

Brooding is boring. Longing is lame. I’m moving so I can move on.

This post is part of a daily writing project. For more information, click here.

fluttering and dancing in the breeze*

Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Writing prompt courtesy of Jeffrey Davis)

Will anyone be surprised if this post is about the trail?

I was talking with a friend recently who was extolling the benefits of a personal trainer. Her trainer, she told me, had taught her to maximize her time at the gym: by doing a combination of squats, push-ups, cardio, and the like, she could achieve the desired result—toned arms and legs—in the minimum amount of time. “You don’t really need to do that much cardio,” she assured me.

To be honest, I, too, can be somewhat obsessive about maintaining a certain level of fitness, and can occasionally be seen doing dips on the kitchen chair while my kids are playing in the next room, or on the floor doing crunches while watching “The Office.”

But running, for me, is not about the fulfillment of a fitness quota. It’s not about the minimum amount of cardio for the maximum benefit. It’s the call of the trail that beckons me from my slumber at 5:15 on a Tuesday morning. Negotiating the rocks and roots at Sleeping Giant in the pre-sunrise mist is exhilarating—a test of mental and physical agility.

This morning, Mount Sanford was aglow as we approached. My leap across the stream fell short, and I emerged with a soaked right foot. On the next ascent, a red-tailed hawk soared overhead. Last week, it was a Great Blue Heron, in almost the very same spot. Once, in Anchorage, it was a moose, who charged and then veered off again, leaving me in a trembling heap in the brush, dumbstruck by my slim escape .

You can set your program to “cross country skiing” on the elliptical; you can flip through a nature magazine on the treadmill in your living room, but you won’t see a red fox, or a snow-covered spruce, or a crunchy carpet of red and gold leaves, at your local gym.

And the pleasure increases tenfold when I see a rainbow or a fiery sunset through the eyes of my kids. Last spring, we met up with three other families at Gouveia Vineyards in Wallingford, and had a dinner picnic on their gorgeous lawn, adjacent to the expansive fields of grapes. For a few precious seconds, as the grown-ups finished dessert and sipped red wine, the kids—all eight of them—were rapt, standing or sitting in silence as the orange-red sun set over the hills. It was holy. After the spell had been broken, we jokingly imagined their conversation: “Hey, man, we don’t need toys, eh?” “No way, dude. This is it. Right here.”

A fantasy, yes. And yet, a summer evening at the vineyard, or a late afternoon at Brooksvale Park, brings Dylan and Lexi much more joy than the thrill of acing the slolem course on Wii ski. The wonder is in their laughter, and in the sound of their deep breathing after a long dirty day of play. And I cultivate this wonder—in my kids, and also in myself—when I come home on a Saturday morning with my legs caked in mud and my eyes and soul radiant from an hour in the woods. Yeah, this is it. Right here.

*William Wordsworth

This post is part of a daily writing project called Reverb 10. For more information, click here: www.reverb10.com

race to the clouds

Prompt: Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Writing prompt courtesy of Ali Edwards.)

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Eyes full of sweat, lungs burning, arms
Taut muscles flexed hands against stone
Alive in the struggle
Exuberant in that brief teetering
Moment on top of the world.

So presumptuous to think of Sisyphus now.
This punishment was decreed by no god
(Or was it?)
And yet I do think Sisyphus must have beheld,
Even as his body moaned,
Fields of phosphorescent snow in summer.
Must have smiled as his breath
Tasted frost and ice: a whisper
Hinting at his journey’s end.

Sisyphus happy in the absurd agony
Of groaning calves, wailing quads.
Suffering is the origin of consciousness.
We choose our boulder with open eyes.

This post is part of a daily writing project called Reverb 10. For more information, click here: www.reverb10.com