Week in Seven Words #314

absolution
They love talking about actions having consequences, until it comes to something they've done. Then, good intentions are all that matter.

absorbers
She writes a tribute to her friends, the three closest, who cluster around her when shockwaves spread through her life.

coagulation
The greatest gift her parents gave her, she writes, is a love of cheese. Cheese platters and wine are what hold her family together at home and abroad.

guesswork
We play charades. I act out a kangaroo. "Karate bunny!" she shouts. I try again.

moth
The boy runs straight at the headlights. He cries when his parents snatch him away.

rebounds
The basketball flies around like Flubber in the cluttered room.

unused
Dark windows and deserted streets tell me stories I don't know how to interpret. Some neighborhoods wither like unwatered vines, and it isn't always clear why.

Week in Seven Words #118

affirmative
One piece of advice I'm slowly taking to heart is to say "yes" more often. Meaning that when I think of an idea and the good possibilities it might lead to, I shouldn't immediately start enacting the Script of Self-Doubt ("but wait"/"I can't"/"because, well..."/"it's too much"/"I couldn't really"/"I've never"/"what if...?"). Yes. Yes. Yes!

flashbulb
Lightning at my window in the middle of the night.

footing
A few seats ahead of me on the train are a pair of feet. First they wiggle in the air, then they settle next to the window. The toenails are turquoise.

hindrance
Many employers don't just want you to send them a resume and cover letter - they also insist that you fill out an online job application form. The problem is, the application forms usually ask for the same information that you'd find on a resume, plus they're clunky, inflexible, and cause your browser to quit unexpectedly. What's the point of them? Another hoop to jump through? A way of discouraging applicants who give in to their frustration and quit?

presque vu
The Hummous Kitchen is packed early in the evening, and in the crowd there's an old man with a distinct face, the kind of face you don't forget. Sure enough it isn't his face we've forgotten, but his name. Was he on T.V.? Maybe on Seinfeld or something? Where have we seen this guy? We get a tip-of-the tongue feeling that stays with us throughout the meal. Afterwards a search on Wikipedia through a list of Jewish American actors born in certain decades produces a match - it's Fyvush Finkel. Now I can claim to have spotted two celebrities in New York City. Finkel at the Hummous Kitchen and, a few years back, Lauren Bacall walking her dog near Central Park West.

quotidian
Stitching together the daily routines that had fallen apart the week before.

slate
Solemn and undisturbed - the city in the gray early morning.

Urban trees

It's no secret that I love trees. My little blogger photo is a tree, and I've posted photos of them before. Now I have an excuse to post more. This past day was Tu B'Shevat, a Jewish holiday also called the "New Year of Trees." One custom to commemorate the day is to plant trees; another is to sample fruits and grains from the Seven Species.

So here are a few tree photos set in cities, where trees are needed keenly for the life and character they bring to any kind of neighborhood.

Week in Seven Words #69

circumstances
The same sentence can mean a number of different things depending on the context in which it's uttered, the way it's uttered, who utters it, and who's listening. And from a very young age we grapple with all these sources of information - the words themselves, the words in a web of context. Day-to-day, without thinking about it, we perform these mental feats.

inattention
When the brain is a pool float, bobbing gently on light blue chlorinated waters.

knotted
At the wedding, two guests tie a bunch of cloth napkins into a makeshift rope and start twirling it round and round as a jumprope for the bride. She holds onto the skirt of her gown and jumps, smiling and laughing. Just as she starts to get tired her mother-in-law and then one of her sisters-in-law bounce in, and they hold out for a little while to cheers and shouts of encouragement.

motoring
The drive, late on a Sunday afternoon, is a surprising treat. Quiet suburban neighborhoods with deep green lawns give way to gas stations and highways.

proprietary
To help them prepare for their upcoming visit I send them information about what sites to visit, which neighborhoods to walk through (and which to avoid), and how they can best get around. I'm happy about their visit and also have a proprietary feeling towards the city where I live. I don't always think of this city as home, but in moments like these I feel it's mine.

smores
At the dessert reception a table with marshmallows, melting chocolate, and graham crackers. Guests in formal attire lick their fingers.

zest
Orange creamsicles at the end of a long hot day.

C'est magnifique

Le Flâneur (music by The XX) from Luke Shepard on Vimeo.

Check out Paris in 2000 images at National Geographic Traveler for an interview with Luke Shepard about this project.

A photographer strolling through a city can be thought of as le flâneur: an observer, someone perceptive, thoughtful, attuned to broader patterns and smaller exquisite details, mapping out the city on foot.

Week in Seven Words #48

easing
No ball drop at Times Square this year or silly but traditional TV lead-up. A quiet evening instead spent with some of the people I love.

hotfoot
We dash down sidewalks that are slick with slush, dodge around cars, taxis and buses, leap over fathomless oily puddles, and weave between pedestrians who seem purposefully and obnoxiously slow.

maxillary
While getting an impacted wisdom tooth extracted I hear: things that scrape; things that whir; the oral surgeon explaining the scraping and whirring; faint 80s pop music; dry sucking sounds from the thin white tube that sucks dryly; the surgical nurse's New Year's plans; my own garbled voice; the domestic troubles of someone I don't know; the swish of boots as I move my feet slowly in pendulum motion.

narrators
It's fun watching movies or cartoons with them that they've already seen, because I like hearing them tell me what's going to happen or why I should find something funny.

oppidan
The commuter train emerges from the tunnel into an urban landscape, scarred and snowed in. Steel tracks and warehouses glitter like badges in the sunlight; narrow streets curve uphill, their trees bare and crooked.

pappy
Mashed potatoes, mashed yams, mashed carrots, mashed bananas - there's something both mildly embarrassing and reassuring in eating an infant's diet while convalescing.

piecing
We work on puzzles together, and it's satisfying to see the pictures take shape - a rain forest full of reptiles, a teeming ocean, a meadow layered with birds and another with insects. He likes to put the pieces in himself, and I like watching his young mind work. Sometimes he works decisively and logically, knowing where the pieces ought to go. Other times he'll try to smush a corner piece into the center of the puzzle. Even then he's learning and confirming certain facts for himself - that some things just don't fit together, no matter how hard you try.

Week in Seven Words #32

birth
For close to an hour I sit with my eyes closed; they feel heavy, but sleep won't come. The airplane cabin is dark, most passengers sleeping, and on a restless impulse I pry up the shade on the nearest window and look outside. We're flying into a sunrise. Alongside the plane the skies are dark, but up ahead there's a thick melting band of beautiful orange. Piled above it are successive stripes of yellow-white, then blues darkening to black; at the foot of the sunrise the cloudscape is gray-blue, like the surface of an alien planet. This is the world I live in, and it's a blessing to see it this way.

collaboration
Each scientist seems like a neuron. The neuron has its own activities, its own rate and intensity of firing, but at the same time its actions are inseparable from what other neurons are doing; connections have formed and will form between neighboring neurons or neurons that are at a remove from each other, and while the activity of a single neuron might be relatively simple, when they fire together, or in response to one another, the patterns of activity give rise to complex knowledge and understanding, a broader and more detailed picture of a given phenomenon or entity in the world.

excursions
There's time to explore, both at the beginning of the day and in the evening; there's time to squint at cathedral gargoyles, sip tea in a crowded room with flowers and wide windows, stroll through a garden in dusk when the midges are out and the skies are overcast, climb the narrow steps to a fun museum where a king is cross-examined, walk alongside a shadowed river, and stand at the site of a massacre, yet another eruption of hate and blood lust.

guests
We're with gracious hosts. They give us a place at their table, delicious food, conversation on all sorts of topics, singing and simcha; they offer us reflections on life, the holidays, human nature and purpose and ask us to share our own thoughts. It's a warm room we're in, with light wood floors, shelves with lots of books, and the table (or tables) where everyone gathers. It's the sort of room that can somehow fit forty people almost as easily as it fits seven.

luminance
Sunset as seen from a bench in Hyde Park. It seems like we're sitting within a glass marble streaked with peach, gold, blue, and feathery gray.

perambulation
In the early morning we walk on the walls of a city. On each side there are houses with chimney pots, slopes of green gold grass, brick and stone smattered with ivy, cobbled roads feeding into asphalt streets, dark furrowed trees heavy with leaves, and at our feet snails have emerged after the night's rain.

wordless
There are many different kinds of shofar notes on Rosh Hashanah. Sometimes the notes are precise, efficient and somewhat mechanical; the shofar-blower rises, performs his duties skillfully, and then returns to his seat. Other times the shofar seems to strain against the fabric of the air, against the boundaries of sound itself; there's so much feeling and effort, so much longing and appeal. The shofar blasts and rasps and lets out a wild fierce pleading blare of sound. Other times only a gasp emerges; the shofar-blower pauses, takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes in concentration and makes another attempt. During one round of shofar-blowing a two year old child is laughing wildly; the two sounds together are beautiful - the long yearning note of the shofar, straining with every wordless hope and resolution and plea, and the child pealing happily alongside it.

Week in Seven Words #18

diminution
I no longer admire her. I acknowledge her achievements, I respect her work and intelligence, but in certain ways - through carelessness, unthinking conformity, and a disregard for conscientious inquiry - she has diminished herself. Probably not to most people who know her - she's the same to them; but to me she's different now, a knowledge I hold to myself quietly and tiredly.

fireflies
When I walk home in the dark, fireflies tap at my elbows.

schlepp
Tote bags, grocery bags, a cart, multiple trips to the grocery store, then to the community house where I'm throwing this meal (I don't know how many people will show up, only that it will be more than the number who said they're coming) - and it feels good later on to just sit and watch everyone chatting and eating; getting a few quiet 'thank you's and some help cleaning up doesn't hurt either.

soothing
Vanilla yogurt on thin wafers - a cold sweet treat for a hot afternoon.

transported
My feet insist on walking. Across one river, beside another, down streets with cobblestones and giant flower pots, bright window shutters, fan-shaped windows, fountains, flower baskets hanging over painted doors, memorials, wreaths, sun and shadow, horses clopping, beds of crisp green grass. Different neighborhoods disclose secrets to me, down side streets that are still and golden.

untangle
There's a point where I can't stay at my desk anymore; the doubt has pressed in deep, and my thoughts have tangled up in absurdities. I head out, go to a quieter place where the traffic noise is muffled and the smell of grass and clover is intense. A few minutes after I leave, one of the problems resolves and the tension in me eases.

whirl
The fun of washing dishes past midnight, when I'm sleepy and a little swimmy with drink. The water whooshes into and over the pots, plashing and singing, racing in a bright stream.

Week in Seven Words #7

buttery
A low-slung yellow moon. Daffodils in early evening light. The scent of hot buttered pretzels from the shop I walk past nearly every day.

haphazard
I had some sort of plan for the afternoon, but it gently derailed - I forget an address that I'm supposed to remember, confuse one building with another, sit in the cool shade beside two old men eating ice cream, spot a friend playing frisbee, listen to him then argue with another friend about love and sex and the meaning of it all (while the ice-cream eating men look on in amusement), hear an interesting talk signed by a deaf man (and spoken by an interpreter), and watch the sunset while sampling two flavors of lollipops.

impromptu
A last minute suggestion leads to a one-day trip. It's full of work, study, and difficult concepts to follow and grasp, but there's also that hour in the early afternoon spent taking a walk with someone I barely know (but get to know better), out in the sunny streets with the unpredictable architecture, and a small square (not green yet, but starting to show signs of green) where an outdoor band plays brassy music for an appreciative audience of passers-by.

nourishment
She goes out of her way to meet up with me; she brings me a homemade chicken sandwich and slices of orange. It's the first real meal I've had that day, and my headache starts to recede.

parallel
When he asks me if I'm paying attention to the conversation or just watching the birds battle it out over a scrap of food in the shrubs, I can honestly tell him that I'm doing both.

raisins
I find myself in possession of several boxes of raisins. And I do like raisins. They go on my oatmeal, in my yogurt, among chopped up fruits or salad greens, and embedded in my rice pudding.

unknot
On the other end of the phone he's scratching his head just like I'm scratching mine. And just by sitting and talking out the problem slowly and being befuddled together, we start to untangle some of it; we begin to pull apart the strands of this quandary.

Week in Seven Words #5

balcony
We wear coats over our pajamas and have a drink on a balcony at night. This is a good time for talking, for catching up. A slice of the city is laid out before us - a lot of windows, some dark and blank, others allowing peeks inside to late dinner parties or flickering TVs.

complacent
Hearing the young boy ask "why?" makes me a lot less complacent about my knowledge of the world, how it works, why things are the way they are. Suddenly I'm struggling to find answers (or even just adequate words) for questions I'd foolishly assumed settled.

expectation
Over the course of the week I hear several different people exclaim, "what a beautiful day". The days are still cold; the wind can still be cutting. Dirty snow remains on the curbside. But there also seems to be a different quality to the daylight - stronger sunshine maybe. Or perhaps it's only wishful thinking, people wanting spring weather now without a moment's further delay.

hamantaschen
The tri-corner pastry traditionally eaten on the holiday of Purim. I eat a few over the course of the holiday - one with a raspberry center and a hard shell that I soften in a glass of milk. Another is apricot, an especially sweet filling that looks like topaz. And the third is full of poppyseed paste.

lassitude
In the morning, when the fever breaks, I'm tired, damp, and deliciously inert. I have no inclination to move, and even though I know I'll need to get up in ten or fifteen minutes to start the day, I feel as if those minutes pass more slowly, stretching out like putty.

lyric
She sits on my lap with a book of illustrated nursery rhymes; we're in the soft blue chair in the corner, near the lamp and her drawers full of teacups and dolls. We go through the book a few times; sometimes she leads, sometimes I lead, taking turns choosing the songs. She names the prominent figures in each picture, points to them, describes their colorful expressions; she sounds the words and melody of each song carefully, as if the rhymes will fracture if she's not gentle with them. Her hands turn each page with slow clumsy reverence.

senator
On the train the man sitting in front of me is a U.S. senator. He conducts several long cell phone conversations on the intricacies of law, the impact of proposed policies, and the need to battle government corruption and wasteful spending. Ok, fine, I'll be serious. What he actually discusses is several ways of staying afloat - how to raise money, how to write an indignant press release about an organization that just endorsed his opponent, how to zero in on his opponent's weaknesses. That, and when his driver should be waiting for him when he disembarks from the train. On the plus side, at least he's travelling by train (and not even business class!) rather than jetting around like a lot of his colleagues.

One reading of 'Smell and Envy'

I thought of this poem after a conversation with a friend about the best type of place to live in, with the main contrast springing up between the city and the countryside.

Douglas Goetsch wrote Smell and Envy in the voice of a city poet scoffing at the nature poets, who think that because of where they live and what they're surrounded by, they have some sort of monopoly on the poetic.

so it blooms and withers only for you,
so all you have to do is name it: primrose
- and now you're writing poetry...

I like the suggestion here that there's a poetry just in the sound of words - like primrose - and there are many words from nature that lend themselves to this poetry. And that it's not just the poets of nature and countryside who can take those words and make poetry out of them. Though in the mind of a city poet the words take on a new form:

we dunk your roses in vats of blue

There's also a suggestion of laziness - that all a nature poet has to do is look out the window and there's the poem, right there, ready to be plucked from a tree. While a city poet has to wring a poem out of concrete.

And it's not only nature words that have poetry to them. There are urban words with poetry and music in them too, though maybe those words lend themselves only to a harsher kind of poetry (is there a word associated with city life that's comparable to, say, primrose? There might be, but it's likely more difficult to find).

As the poem continues there's also an implication of city poets being more knowledgeable about human nature (likely in a more cynical, wordly wise, "seen everything" sort of way). Not that a nature poet can't capture human character as well. Maybe it's that city poets get at the grittier parts of human nature and the greater varieties and idiosyncrasies (and downright insanity) of human personality - they can't help it; in a city everyone's crowded together. No one's flaws go unnoticed. You're nose to nose with a stranger in the subway and the wart on his chin is right at your eye level.

Maybe another contrast is that poems of nature capture the roots and foundations of human character, because we all once lived in nature; the truths of those poems seem to echo in your bones. With the city there's more a sense of displacement, distortion and dysfunctionality - maybe it's a poetry of feeling uncomfortable in your own skin. The Pleiades aren't the remote wonders of the starry night, when you're in the city:

When the moon is full
we hear it in the sirens. The Pleiades
you could probably buy downtown.

But nature can give you grittiness too, and the knots and intricacies of humanity. And maybe there are some lovely (possibly deeply resonant or maybe just uncomplicated) poems set amidst urban life; you know, the beauty of buildings, of city parks (oops, there's nature encroaching a little), and people standing out strikingly on a street corner.