musings

73 Questions

I’m so grateful that Brettne pointed me to the Vogue video of Anna Wintour answering the 73 question challenge.  She’s hilarious, and, as Brettne said to me, I totally covet her office.  I was also fascinated by how the specific questions come together to provide a compelling portrait of a person.  I’ve often written about this, about how small details can tell us a lot.  In this case each question reveals a singular facet of a person and the 73 come together into a revealing kaleisdoscope.  I thought it would be fun to answer them.  I’d love it if you wanted to too!  (I’m going to change New York to Boston for my purposes).

1. How long have you been in the area?

I was born here, but we moved around a lot, and I came back for good when I graduated from college in 1996.

2. What’s your favorite season in Boston?

Spring

3. What’s your favorite activity in Boston?

Running along the Charles at sunrise

4. Would you ever leave Boston?

I don’t think so

5. What are three words to describe living in Boston?

Seasonal, bookish, manageable

6. What’s your favorite movie?

Hard to say – not a huge movie person.  But first reactions are: Stealing Home, all the Harry Potter movies, Old School.

7. Favorite movie in past five years?

Truthfully I have barely been to the movies in the past 5 years.  Maybe Where the Wild Things Are.  Though that may have been more than 5 years ago!

8. Favorite Hitchcock film?

I haven’t ever seen one!

9. Favorite TV show that’s currently on?

House of Cards

10. What’s a book you plan on reading?

Frankenstein

11. A book you read in school that positively shaped you?

To the Lighthouse

12. A book you read in school that you never think of?

Vanity Fair

13. On a scale of one to ten how excited are you about life right now?

Nine

14. iPhone or Android?

iPhone

15. Twitter or Instagram?

Close call, but Twitter

16. Vine or Snapchat?

Neither

17. Who should EVERYONE be following right now?

On Instagram, my friend @averdiroach, whose shots of where she lives take my breath away with their beauty.  On Twitter, Book Quotes (@ao_BookQuotes) and Mary Oliver Poetry (@MaOlPoetry) for beautiful snippets of prose and poetry.

18. What’s the coolest thing in this room?

The view out of the window

19. What’s your favorite Boston restaurant?

Probably the bar at the Harvest

20. What’s your favorite food?

French fries, chocolate chip cookies, a perfectly ripe peach, brie with fig jam

21. Least favorite food?

Any shellfish

22. What do you love on your pizza?

White pizza with arugula

23. Favorite drink?

Coffee in the morning

24. Favorite dessert?

Gooey chocolate chip cookies

25. Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

Dark

26. Weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Brain, maybe – as a baby I was looked after by a French woman who fed us very authentic foods

27. What’s the hardest part about being a mom?

Not doing anything well enough

28. What’s your favorite band?

Literally, this stumps me.  Pathetic.  Cool about music, I’m not.

29. Favorite solo artist?

James Taylor

30. Favorite lyrics?

Waiting for my Real Life to Begin by Colin Hay

31. If your life were a song, what would the title be?

Be Here Now

32. If you could sing a duet with anyone, who would it be?

James Taylor

33. If you could master one instrument, what would it be?

Guitar

34. If you had a tattoo, where would it be?

On the inside of my wrist

35. To be or not to be?

To be

36. What’s Oprah like in person?

I wish I knew

37. What number of question was this?

37

38. Dogs or cats?

Dogs

39. Kittens or puppies?

Puppies

40. Dolphins or koalas?

Koalas

41. Bird-watching or whale-watching?

Bird-watching

42. What’s your spirit animal?

A bird

43. Best gift you’ve ever received?

My engagement ring, from my husband

44. Last gift you gave a friend?

A book

45. A person you want to have coffee with?

Mary Oliver

46. A historical figure you’d love to have coffee with?

Joan of Arc

47. How do you like your coffee?

With milk and sugar

48. Can I play a note on this piano?

Sure

49. What’s your favorite curse word?

Shit

50. What’s your favorite board game?

Sorry

51. What’s your favorite country to visit?

Africa

52. What’s the last country you visited?

Ecuador

53. What country do you wish to visit?

Chile – Patagonia

54. What do you see in this image right here?

?

55. Can you write down your favorite word that starts and ends with the same vowel?

alluvia

56. What’s your favorite color?

Orange

57. Least favorite color?

Don’t have one

58. What color dress did you wear to your prom?

Black

59. Diamonds or pearls?

Diamonds

60. Cheap shampoo or expensive?

Cheap

61. Blow-dry or air-dry?

Blow-dry

62. Heels or flats?

Sneakers

63. Can you give an impersonation of someone?

Not well

64. Can you do the same impersonation with a British accent?

No

65. My friend outside this window would love to ask you a question?

Sure

66. [Holding two different colored dresses] Which should I give my girlfriend?

The one on the right

67. Pilates or yoga?

Yoga

68. Jogging or swimming?

Jogging

69. Best way to decompress?

Read in bed

70. If you had one superpower, what would it be?

Time travel

71. Can you describe an experience you felt most nervous?

Speaking in front of a group (giving a toast or reading at my grandfather’s funeral)

72. What’s the weirdest word in the English language?

I don’t know why, but “ooze” and “unctuous” come to mind – clearly I have onomotaepia on the brain.

73. Last question: Is this the strangest interview you’ve ever had?

No

Time folds like an accordion

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On Friday, Grace ran her first cross-country meet.  She was nervous, I was not there, and she did well.  She did really well. I met her after the meet and we went straight to the airport to pick up her dearest friend from camp, J.  J is the daughter of my old and dearest friend, Jess, who I met at the same camp, when we were 12.  Grace and J were born 12 weeks apart to the day.  Their firm friendship, independent from ours though inextricably woven through it, makes me happier than I can articulate.

While waiting to pick Grace up, I tweeted that I was collecting my daughter from her first cross-country race.  Lacy tweeted back, “This makes me teary. The colt legs, the pony tail. Late light on the towpath. Go, Graciegirl, go!” That message sent me immediately and viscerally back into the fall light with my friend, a fellow redhead, walking along the towpath, the autumn light on our head.  Then and now collapsed together and I cried, alone in the car.

Grace arrived, I met her coaches, and we headed to the airport.  As we walked in, Grace took off running, her cross-country jersey billowing behind her, her ponytail bouncing.  She’s nearly as tall as I am now, long and lean, all planes and sharp angles, full of energy and a blooming, hopeful tentativeness that is both familiar and, somehow, sad.  I took the picture above and stood, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me, as I watched her go.  Always, they are running away.  My own cross-country days, in the woods of New Hampshire, among trees whose leaves flamed and then dropped to the ground, felt animate around me, both yesterday and a lifetime ago.  It’s her turn now.  And rather than making me sad, it feels right.  I am grateful to be here to cheer her on.  I can’t wait to go to her first actual meet and to watch her take off, as my mother did so many years ago.

And the seasons, they go round and round …

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We got to the gate early.  As I watched Grace wait for her friend I found that my eyes were brimming with tears.  When my dearest friend’s daughter walked off the airplane towards my own willowy tween, I remembered holding her as a newborn, her tiny self curled on top of my belly which was swollen with Grace.  Over and over again, memory confuses and confounds me with its power: how can that moment be so far gone, never to come again, when it also feels sturdy, still here?

I trailed the two of them back to the car, Grace still in her cross-country uniform, J carrying her own bag, their lanky bodies almost exact mirrors of each other, and thought that they are now the age that Jess and I were when we met for the first time.  I also remembered the day I first discovered I was pregnant with Grace, February 15, 2002, when the first phone call I made was to Jess.  I will never forget that conversation, my whispered, fearful question, and her warm, loving answer.  And from that day forward there were these two girls, whose lives I hope will be joined forever by what they shared even before they were born.  I imagine them when they are our age, hopefully still as beloved as they are now, and it makes me glad, relieved, breathless with wonder.

It is so much, all of it: my youth, then, her youth, now, running, the leaves turning, friendship, history, all that has happened before and is still here.  Time folds like an accordion, then kisses now and spreads apart again, and the past surfaces through the present from time to time, enriching it and reminding me of where I came from.  And always there is my startlingly tall daughter, running away, faster than I could ever imagine, her mahogany ponytail bouncing as the sun goes down.

Sometimes this life is so beautiful it is almost unbearable.

I wrote this post last weekend, but this morning it occurs to me that it nicely straddles September’s and October’s Here Year themes, time and friendship. 

This is 40: the thick, hot heart of life’s grand pageant

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The last night of my 30s, at the summer camp I went to for many years and which both Grace and Whit now attend and love.

I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago.  On the actual day I woke up early at my parents’ house on the Massachusetts shore and drove with Matt an hour to the camp where I spent 9 happy, sunny years as a child and teenager.  We picked up Grace and Whit, who had been away for 3.5 weeks.  And we drove home.  I get carsick, so this was perhaps more time than I would have optimally spent in the car, but who cares.  When we got home we unloaded their trunks and I commenced what would eventually be 5 loads of laundry.  I actually love doing laundry (the smell, the creating-order-out-of-chaos thing), and though this was maybe a bit more than I would have chosen to do, I didn’t mind.  Grace, Whit and I visited one of our favorite places, the tower in Mount Auburn Cemetery and the fairy stream.  Then we had a simple family dinner at our dining room table and I listened to the children regale us with stories from camp.

As is often the case, my birthday wound up to be a perfect reflection of where I am right now.

So 40 was all about my real life.

A couple of weeks before my birthday, I shared a photograph of what I was reading on Instagram.  The pile included magazines, Reviving Ophelia, and Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?  A friend commented that those two books revealed that I was in the “panini years” (a great expression – pressed between the generations).

And oh yes, I am.  These are the in between years, the thick, hot heart of life’s grand pageant, busy and rich and exhausting, overflowing with demands, responsibilities, and love.

Life is very far from perfect – there are work stresses and health questions and far too many logistics to coordinate – but it is wonderful.  I was ambivalent about turning 40, I’ll be honest.  Some of that had to do with vain and not vain health reasons, but most of it was about my deep discomfort and unease with time’s relentless forward motion.  Reminders of time passing do not make me happy.  But here I am, on the other side, and I am so glad to be here.  Life has never been more dense with feeling, more full of magic.

40 is a time of contradiction and complexity.  It realizing in a deep way that these really are the days of miracle and wonder.  It is knowing this season is finite.  40 is solemn about what is coming and grateful for what is, while for the work and stress I normally just use CBD hemp flower products to feel better.

40 is toggling between John Denver and Katy Perry on the car stereo, knowing the words to both Cat Stevens and Taylor Swift songs, having strong memories associated with both CSNY and One Direction.

40 is overseeing homework and driving to sports practices and games.  It is recognizing the wisdom in the comment someone made years ago that some of the best conversations with adolescent children happen in the car.

40 has answered many – most? – of the big questions that haunted my young adulthood. 40 is about embracing the reality that those answers have built.

40 is being glad that my children still want still good night hugs and the sweet dream head rub before bed. And on the off chance they ask to sleep in my bed when Matt is traveling, it’s always saying yes.  Because this may be the last time they ask that.

40 is more emails about sad, scary illness news or chemo than emails with baby announcements.

40 is being absolutely fine that hockey practice is every single Friday night.  Which means no Friday night adult plans, ever.  40 is spending (a lot) more time with the parents of the kids my children play sports with any other adults.  And 40 is loving that.

40 is female friendship, and knowing how essential the few women who are truly walking through life by my side are.  It is taking time to nourish those friendships, to ask questions, to listen, to remember birthdays, and doctor’s appointments, and important dates.

40 is knowing that the ferris wheel of life is ticking ever forward, and that this is probably the tippy-top.  It is watching the decline of some in the generation ahead of us and the blooming of those in the generation behind us.  It is taking a breath and looking around at this spectacular view, and loving it, and knowing that it is changing even as I admire it.

40 is seeing my mother’s hands when I look at my own, and realizing that my daughter is much, much closer to being a college freshman than I am, and accepting that what I see in the mirror – a middle-aged woman – is who I am.

40 is recognizing that more years lie behind us as a family all living together than lie ahead, and existing every day in the shadow of the goodbyes and departures that loom.  40 is thinking parenting just keeps getting better, but also knowing that one day – sooner than I would like – this season will come to an abrupt end.

40 is having missed the window to start wearing red lipstick.  I always felt like it was too sophisticated and I would learn how to pull that off “later.”  Oops.  And now it’s too late.  40 is often trying on dresses to find them too short.  40 is still wearing a bikini, but not for long.

40 is learning to dance with the limp, as Anne Lamott says.  I have had a hip that’s bothering me all summer and abdominal pain (yes I am seeing a doctor and no, we have no answers yet) that shifts between absent and excruciating.  But I’m still running, and I’m still living my life.  I refuse to let this pain, and these questions, keep me from doing so.

40 is realizing that a birthday of chores and errands and a candlelit family dinner is exactly what I wanted.  It is understanding in a new, visceral way, that all I want is more of this.

The not-deciding deciding

I’ve been thinking lately about the not-deciding that we do that is really deciding.  Do you know what I mean?  Those decisions that we put off, thinking we’ll know for sure sometime, and yet, somehow, we never do?  Eventually, over time, the not-deciding becomes, of course, a decision.

The obvious example is the have-another-child decision.  I wrote here about our decision not to have a third child, and it was, ultimately, something we decided.  But that was preceded by many years of “well, we’ll know if it’s time,” and }oh, not now, maybe someday,” and “yeah, we’ll discuss it later …” hemming and hawing.  And, over time, the delaying and not-deciding builds up, like so many imperceptible snowflakes, each tiny and dissolvable, into an immovable snow bank.  The decision is made and sometimes we’re not even aware of having made it.

The other way this has manifested in my personal life is in the not-deciding deciding to stay in our house.  For years we went back and forth on whether to move to a suburb and if so which one.  Many of our dearest friends live near each other.  I looked at several houses in that neighborhood.  I love that neighborhood.  But just, somehow, we didn’t.  We stayed put.  And now leaving feels inconceivable.  I’m not sure what the not-now-maybe-someday turned into not-ever.  But eventually, without my noticing, it did.

On some subconscious level we must be aware of the putting-off that amounts to a decision, right?  It feels easier to delay a formal decision even though we know, as we do that, that we are tacitly making one.  I am curious about this process, and when it is that our subconscious awareness of our bias seeps into our active mind, and when we realize that we have already decided something, even if we continue putting it off.

Have you made any any not-deciding decisions?  Were you aware of it as you did it?

Commencement

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closing ceremonies of Grace’s Beginner year, 2008

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closing ceremonies of Whit’s Beginner year, 2010

I’m not sure if it’s because I live in a college town, or if it’s a relic of my many years in educational institutions myself, but there’s something essential in my soul that still beats on academic time.  I feel the end of something as profoundly at the end of the school year as I do at New Year’s.  This time of year, when people swarm my neighborhood in academic robes and caps and when I keep reading graduation speeches, I feel the grip of some inchoate sorrow that feels as incongruous as the world is bursting into riotous bloom around me as it is undeniable, unavoidable.

The truth is, right now, I feel sad.  Today is the end of something.  As I wrote last year, “no matter how many times I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, I still feel the loss.”  Today our children celebrate their closing ceremonies, Grace and Whit moving from fifth and third grade respectively.  There’s excitement – the summer lies ahead, with beaches and camps and later bedtimes and lots and lots of joy – but there’s an undeniable sorrow, too.  At least for me.  Something that will never be again is over.  I will never again sit in my car at the corner and watch my third and fifth grader walk through the school gates, big backpacks bobbing on their backs.  All year long, watching them go gives me a lump in my throat and a swell in my chest, but that feeling escalates as we near the end of the year.

I drive through Harvard Square and notice that they’ve begun erecting the tents for graduation, and this always reminds me of the sharp ache I used to feel when they started putting up fences and tents for reunions at Princeton.  The fences marked off each major reunion’s location, but they also delineated the end of another year.  Still, to this day, I remember the tears that used to spring to my eyes.  And the same tears came, unbidden, as I watched Harvard transforming itself to celebrate another commencement.  Today we do the same at Grace and Whit’s school.

I feel out of step with the celebration in the air today and this time of year, the overwhelming, enthusiastic rush towards summer I sense all around me.  Hold back!  Wait!  I say silently, wanting another day to dwell in this, here, now.  I’m always keenly aware of life’s accumulating farewells, but I think this time of year is when I feel them most acutely.  Kunitz’s feast of losses seep into my waking and my sleeping.  Today, I’ll blink back tears as I watch my 3rd and 5th grade days come to an end, as I marvel at this glittering life, turning so quickly I can barely keep up.

And so we go on, round and round and round in the circle game.  Captive on a carousel of time.  Another end and beginning twined together.  Life itself is a series of commencements, isn’t it?  Every day, we commence.

I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss. – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf
I’m caught from the freefall of farewell by a new beginning, though, I still feel the loss.  – See more at: https://adesignsovast.com/2013/05/commencement/#sthash.qEhpjhfz.dpuf