Late bloomers

I just read (in the New Yorker, natch) about Kay Ryan, the U.S. Poet Laureate (the 16th one, ever). Her poetry  wasn't "discovered" until she was 54. Nine years later, in 2008, she became poet laureate. Reading about her gave me a great idea that there is still hope for me. I could be a late bloomer, and my genius might still be discovered!

Producing great art, making your mark late in life, is sort of a reverse Mozart situation. He died at age 35, so indeed the world had only a small dose of him. We lost a lot of geniuses at an early age. Van Gogh was 36, Keats was only 25, Schubert was 31, Byron was 36. But then there are those who didn''t reach full flower until later. Raymond Chandler published his first short story at age 45; Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't write her Little House on the Prairie books until she was in her 60s; Daniel Defoe came up with Robinson Crusoe at age 61. Maybe the work, the genius of the late bloomers balances out the lost art of those who died young.

The important thing, no doubt, is to believe in yourself. Kay Ryan had to self-publish her first book of poetry, and apparently no one paid any attention. But she kept writing. Ditto Emily Dickinson. She wasn't even discovered until she was dead! So there's still hope for me. Now if I could only figure out what I should start doing that I might become famous for.

The Happiness Scale: Childcare or Doing Dishes?

A recent New Yorker contained a review of two new books on happiness research. We learn along the way that happiness research is an actual field of scientific study, more or less launched by a seminal paper published in 1978. Who knew?

These juicy tidbits, tossed our way so effortlessly by New Yorker staff writers, are precisely why I read the magazine cover to cover. And precisely why I suffer so every December 31 when I collect the year's unread issues from the bedside, the bathrooms, the coffee table, and the handbags and force myself to throw them out, an act showing considerable strength of character, in my view. I have to fight against the Grandma Myrtie gene.

Grandma Myrtie read the Lansing State Journal every day, and at some point--she must have been in her eighties--she could never quite finish the day's paper. But she refused to discard them because she still wanted to read them. Was still sure she would read them. By the time she was 90, the newspapers were stacked waist-high against walls and heaped on every chair and couch. My house would be thus littered with New Yorkers if I followed my genetic impulse.

Back to the happiness research (yes, we're still on that topic, and I'll soon get to the point). Not eight lines after the field-of-happiness-research tidbit came this wow statement--offered only parenthetically, mind you: "Studies have shown that women find caring for their children less pleasurable than napping or jogging and only slightly more satisfying than doing the dishes."

Ah, scientific support for what I have believed for years.

Recently a friend with a toddler posted on Facebook: "Eat breakfast, have playdate, walk to park, eat lunch, take nap, visit grocery store, push trike, eat dinner take bath, read story, hit sack. Repeat."  I commented: "That's what I now refer to as Parent Prison. You're in the hard labor part--on the chain gang." I knew my friend would recall our recent coffee date (sans toddler) when I had pointed out that a young woman, juggling coffee and a squirming child at a nearby table, was in Parent Prison.

But after my clever post, other of her Facebook friends weighed in with positive comments on motherhood and toddlers. I felt, once again, that I am the only one who thinks putting Cheerios in a Ziploc bag and scheduling my life around naptime is akin to hard time on the rock pile. OK, maybe not that bad, but go with the hyperbole.

I considered posting a follow-up explanation on Facebook, explaining that I do think having a kid is thrilling and worth it all and something I would not trade for anything.

Thank you, New Yorker. I am vindicated. I was in the mainstream all along when I was a lot happier taking a nap than playing Candyland.

A Van Gogh painting from China

Sometime in the last year I realized we had two poppy pictures in the dining room: a poster from the 1992 Matisse exhibit that Dianne, Joie, and I went to on one of our jaunts (New York City, oh, yeah), and a still life in an antique frame that Tom brought with him when we got married (he doesn’t’ know where it came from . . .). 

What with poppies being my favorite flower (recently passing the iris), I thought it would be great to have a whole wall of poppy pictures. I hadn’t started this project, though, when I came across an item in one of the 2,348 Christmas catalogs delivered last year. It was a tapestry of a Van Gogh painting, Vase with Red Poppies. I had never seen that Van Gogh painting (the original is in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut) before.

I didn’t want a tapestry, so I searched online for a print and ended up ordering a handpainted reproduction from China! To be more precise, from the Shenzhen Yayuan Art  Gallery, Dafen Oil Painting Village, Buji Town, Longgang District, Shenzhen, China. 

And yes, I did wonder if using Pay Pal on a Chinese website was a good idea. 

But I was totally reassured the next day when I got a personal email from one Mr. Yu Lin. This was the email subject line: Re: 收到付款的系统通知

I am not making this up. How cool is that? The email was in English, ending with “Wish you have good days.” Yu Lin and I were pretty tight after that.

The painting arrived on a rolled-up canvas. One of our friends who knew it had been handpainted in China commented, “So this is the one painted by the child down in the mine?” 

There is a footnote to the whole “poppies in the dining room” story, though. When I was reporting all of this to Dianne on the phone, she said, “But those aren’t poppies in the Matisse poster—they’re anemones.”  Oh, no, I argued. They are poppies. 

As I spoke, though, it dawned on me that I had never seen pink and white and purple poppies. Matisse—such a colorist. So while we talked I wandered over to the Matisse poster and read the caption. In very fine print under the picture it reads Anemones in an Earthenware Vase. Whoops. That Dianne. She knows these things.

The Mysteries of Life: Things That Have Gone Missing

You know that parlor game where you name the person, living or dead, whom you would most like to have dinner with? Well, this is not about that.

This is about another fantasy. My fantasy is that some day I will learn the answers to all my questions about the mysteries of life. The great unsolved conundrums. All I have to do is ask. No, not who built the statues on Easter Island. Not the crop circles. Not even the Loch Ness monster or the communication of humbpack whales in their songs.

I want to know what happened to the missing piece from the unicorn puzzle. Also the ibuprofen pill I dropped in the downstairs bathroom last August. Missing socks are of course a major life mystery.

I don’t have to know about that brown glove that slipped out of my pocket in Alexandria, or my cell phone that got left in the movie theater on 72nd Street in New York City. Those are things that I lost. I’m talking about things that just disappear.

In my fantasy, the Lord of Things That Have Gone Missing will answer all my questions. What happened to my teddy bear that was on my cot in our tent at Camp Anna Behrens? And that roll of film from the 1983 vacation in Port Huron, after I mailed it in to the processing place? Where are Tom’s two favorite mugs that vanished into thin air last year?

Lost mail is a whole subcategory for the interrogation. The 6” x 8” envelope I sent to Rachel on December 12 is tucked behind some postal machine this very moment, or in the kitchen of one of her neighbors where it was delivered by mistake. Or maybe it’s in a landfill, crushed against a weekly circular from Shoprite because someone doesn’t recycle. I want to know.

These were real things in the real world, and they are some place on this earth. (Or, in the case of teddy, they were some place on this earth.) The Lord of TTHGM knows. Where were they all the time I was looking? Where are they now?

Until then, I’m doing my part (faith without works is dead, James 2:20). I keep the solo socks in a special little corner of the sock drawer. I never stop searching for the mugs. I go to the post office and grill them about the mail.

But I dream of that great day of reckoning, when all will be revealed.

Mantras and Motherhood

Yesterday I read on Rachel's Facebook page: "I've officially become my mother. I've adopted her habits, her mannerisms, the way she talks, and several of her mantras."

Wow! I was thrilled. I called her and told her I was putting my little finger to my mouth right then. My own Mini-Me! 

But I didn't even know I had mantras! She pointed out that my "let's make a spreadsheet" mantra is one that she has down. Good one. Every party I host has a spreadsheet. Christmas cards have a spreadsheet There are spreadsheets for birthdays and anniversaries, house projects, Daddy's funeral arrangements, medications. I mean, I can't imagine how people live without spreadsheets.

What other mantras do I have, I wondered. It would be fun to make a list. But first I should look it up. "Mantra: A mystical formula or incantation. Also, watchword." "Watchword: A motto that embodies a principle or guide to action of an individual or group; a guiding principle."

OK, that works. Here we go:

1. Always make a list.

2. Always look up the definition of words you're not absolutely sure of.

3. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

4. There's no point in owning a car that's not red.

5. What the world needs now is love. (I adopted that during the Vietnam war, which coincided with the first release, by Jackie DeShannon, of the song by Hal David/Burt Bachrach.)

6. Use beautiful postage stamps, not the boring ones showing the flag or the liberty bell. 

That's enough for now. What are some of your mantras?

A new year, a new puzzle

Last week when Sherry visited for four days we put together a wonderful jigsaw puzzle that Joie gave me for Christmas: a U.S. map picturing and naming all the state birds. The puzzle was extremely challenging--1,000 pieces, plus the puzzle perimeter is not straight but follows the U.S. border. This was a perfect present for me, as learning state birds, trees, and whatnot is one of my little side projects.

I actually own (gift from Rachel) a book of states with little flaps that lift up (like some advent calendars I've seen), under which the capital, state bird, and state flower are listed. I also own (gift from Rachel) a set of "state knowledge cards" containing quite a bit of state info, including their native peoples. And yes, the reason Rachel has given me these gifts is because I try to memorize state capitals, birds, flowers, and trees. For a while I kept the flashcards in my purse so I could pull them out on the Metro. I know what you're saying. You're saying that's just crazy to memorize state birds, when I could be memorizing the periodic table of elements, like you do. You think you're so smart. Let's hear you name the state bird of Louisiana. How about it? huh? huh? I didn't think so. Well, I happen to know it is the eastern brown pelican. And what state has the western meadowlark as its official bird? Take a guess. Wrong! The western meadowlark is the state bird of six states! I agree, one would think the states could have been a little more creative in picking a bird of their very own. But let's not forget this task is left up to legislators. The cardinal has in fact been adopted as the official state bird by seven states. OK, that's enough state bird info for today. Unless you really want me to tell you which states. . . . OK. Not.

Here's a more cosmic thought. Every new year is a 365-piece puzzle that we piece together. Unlike a jigsaw puzzle, there is no picture of what it will look like when we are done. I'm working on making 2010 beautiful.

Counting Down

Last day of the year: I'm going to throw out all of the unread 2009 New Yorkers at midnight, so today I am reading like mad. For 2009 I had resolved to stay on top of "the New Yorker problem," and I did better than ever before, but. . . .

My 2010 New Yorker resolution: try harder.

The state capitol project: A few years ago I decided to collect state capitols. Actually, I'm taking pictures of the capitols, but the photo is just the token--the evidence--that I was there. When I mentioned to brother-in-law Jim that I was excited about driving through Frankfort, Kentucky, because I could take a picture for my collection is said "You can't just get them off the Internet?" What a joker.

As it turns out, this week I collected TWO capitols: Kentucky and West Virginia.

Left: Kentucky capitol in Frankfort.

Below: Interior of Kentucky capitol















As luck would have it, the rotunda of the Kentucky capitol was closed for renovation, so I missed seeing that. The other parts were grand, though. Kentucky was granted statehood in 1792. The capitol was built from 1904 to 1910.

Interestingly, in Kentucky we had to go through a metal detector, but in West Virginia I just walked right in. Just a note about the Capitol Project Rules: It's not necessary that I go inside. That's just a bonus, and sometimes I do, sometimes not. It counts just to get the picture.

The West Virginia capitol has an impressive and beautiful gold dome, but the interior staircases and rotunda are not as elaborate as those of Kentucky's. A statue of Lincoln outside the WV building noted that he signed the proclamation making it a state in 1863. The capitol building wasn't built until 1924-32.


Left: West Virginia state capitol in Charleston



Below: The West Virginia Senate chamber

















I love my little capitol project. I think I have pictures of about six or eight. Before I had the photo project I saw a lot of capitols. Denver, Santa Fe, and Phoenix come to mind, but I'm sure there were more.

This summer I plan to go to Juneau. Snap!

On a totally unfair note, this summer I purposely made a side trip to Indianapolis and took pics of all 4 sides of the capitol. Inside, too. I was using my cell phone. I never downloaded those shots to my computer, and a couple months later I put the phone through a laundry cycle. It was not happy, and those photos are lost forever. So, back to Indianapolis.