Week in Seven Words #458

dreamlike
Deep in the park, the air is deliciously cool and fresh in the early evening. A thick yellow light has unrolled like a carpet between walls of shadow. Some of the trees glow. Others have given themselves to a pool of dim, gray water.

multicultural
A young boy speaks rapidly in Chinese, except for the English words "Day of the Dead," a Mexican holiday.

satiety
We discover a small, airy cafe that serves meltingly sweet pancakes and a farmer's breakfast with eggs and potatoes. I don't eat anything else for the rest of the day.

serendipity
I've drifted off course unintentionally, but feel as if I'm being guided to see beautiful things. I've taken a longer route, and it's full of serendipitous pleasures.

spectators
At some point it dawns on us that we're part of a large crowd all waiting to watch a bunch of pumpkins get towed across the water.

sufficient
It's a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, the food is passable, and as long as I can claim one of the few stools by the window, it's a good place to read quietly for half an hour before an appointment.

swamped
The large muddy puddles on the narrow path cause traffic jams in the dark. People with strollers and bulky cameras grind past each other to avoid the ankle-deep muck.

Please Give (2010): What do these characters really want to give? What can they give?

Title: Please Give
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Language: English
Rating: R

In Please Give, the characters struggle with emptiness or guilt, and often latch onto superficial relief for their problems; they may be bored with themselves and looking for quick fixes to make them feel important and needed. For instance, let's look at Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), a middle-aged couple who own a furniture store where they sell mid-20th century pieces. The way they acquire their goods is by showing up at the homes of people who've recently passed away and buying the furniture at a bargain price; they then resell at thousands of dollars in profit, because their customers think that ugly 1950s end tables are trendy. Recently, they've also purchased the apartment of their cantankerous next-door neighbor, Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert); she's over 90, and they're waiting for her to die so that they can break down the walls between the apartments and renovate.

A long walk on a beautiful day

Sunday afternoon in Union Square (NYC) people were asked to write or draw what makes them happy on a post-it note, to add to a growing collection.



Many things make me happy but the one I put down was a "long walk on a beautiful day," which is what I got to enjoy Sunday afternoon (in case you're wondering, the lady in the photo isn't me - for one thing I've got dark hair, and it rarely stays in a neat ponytail).

I could have also put down "upside-down elephants." Those make me happy.



So do pretty flowers by the sidewalk.





And eerie or mysterious window displays.





I was also treated to a display of raw nature. It's not that I like watching pigeons getting eaten, but I've never seen a hawk feast on a pigeon before.



In Tompkins Square Park there was a hawk up in a tree relishing pigeon innards, as about thirty people stood around taking photos of it (that's what drew me to the scene to begin with - that, and the way the hawk would occasionally lift its head and cry out, maybe to warn us off, as if we'd be interested in taking the pigeon from it. The cry of a hawk is startling, especially when you hear it right off of Avenue A).



I'm pretty sure it was a hawk. There were some people present who seemed to be experts on birds and called it a hawk. But if any of you know for a fact that this can't be a hawk but must be some other predatory bird, leave a comment.

What else caught my eye on yesterday's walk...

Not only upside-down elephants but pink elephants. And yawning lions.



It really was a beautiful walk.

Week in Seven Words #100

chocolatier
Tempting chocolate truffles in a golden box.

coordination
Group photo: fitting thirteen people on and in front of a sofa, then programming the camera's self-timer. The first couple of times nothing happens, and we sit there smiling at the camera as it stares back at us with its glossy black eye. On the third try the person adjusting the camera gets it to work but doesn't arrive back at the sofa on time, so the photo shows her from behind as she tries to dive back in next to her husband. Finally it works. After a moment's hush we cheer, and the sudden noise makes the baby startle and burst into tears.

glee
He's beaming as he rocks back and forth on the large green plastic rocking horse; it's a hand-me-down from older siblings who now sit beside him clapping and singing "Yankee Doodle Went to Town" to make him go more quickly.

invitation
Settled on a cluster of rocks by the lake, an elderly woman scatters crumbs around her and calmly greets the wheeling gulls.

perpetuity
A display at the train station shows an old-fashioned village where lights glow from little homes, happy figurines have snowball fights or glide among the evergreens on sleds, and a train travels round and round it all on a looping track. The display draws people who smile and pause to lean over it. They tip themselves for a moment into the village where everything is repeating, moving without going anywhere; no progress and no end, and for a few seconds, peace.

unplanned
There are joys planned out for them: food brought from the outside and musicians who do their best to sing beloved old songs. There are also moments of spontaneous joy that feel more real and lasting even though they're over quickly - as the party winds down they bat a balloon around; it glances off their fingers and stays airborne for a few happy minutes.

unseasonal
It's winter but feels like autumn. Turtle Pond looks like a sheet soaked in deep blue ink, and beyond it the Great Lawn is green and gold. The shadows of trees stretch out on the grass as if they're taking a leisurely nap.

Extracts: As long as you're alive

"But you're alive and as long as you're alive everything's really all right, in spite of everything else. No matter what happens, as along as you're alive everything's all right."
- from Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle

Week in Seven Words #92

chutzpah
A library has no business being closed.

detours
Side streets beckon to us as we walk. Their houses and trees are pressed close, their sidewalks are rumpled and scratchy with fallen leaves. They're dotted with pumpkins, and their windows peek out from shutters and flower boxes.

jolted
Revelations on a Friday afternoon. I have just enough time to send out some emails and make a couple of calls before I abstain from technology for the next twenty-five hours. Monday will be here soon enough. Meanwhile I need to retreat into my Friday night and wait. Patiently.

multifunctional
In the park the fountain is drained. The water has given way to scattered leaves and children barreling around in the basin on tricycles.

proliferation
'What-ifs' and 'if-onlys' can breed and multiply and take hold of your soul if you let them.

solace
What comforts me: singing aloud, which brings a kind of catharsis. Meaningful reading, which shores up my sense of purpose. Another person's laughter, which spreads joy.

wince
It hurts me to see you hurt, she says, grimacing at my bandaged wrist.

The sunny side of the week...

It's Friday! All week I've been looking forward to Friday.

I've got some cooking to do before the Sabbath starts, and I can barely see the surface of my desk, but for the next hour or so I'm going to just sit. Sitting is grand. It's cold outside, it's warm in here, my feet are up, the TV is murmuring something unimportant. And when I do some of the housework later, I know who I'll be listening to:



"Life can be so sweet... on the sunny side of the street!"

I hope you've found yourself dancing down a sunny street or two this holiday season.

Warm wishes to you all.

"Autumn in New York..."

"... why does it feel so inviting?"













"Dreamers with empty hands
may sigh for exotic lands;
It's autumn in New York -
it's good to live it again."

(Billie Holiday singing "Autumn in New York" brings a smile to my heart.)

Week in Seven Words #43

demonstration
Hold a small piece of paper perpendicular to your lower lip. Blow across the surface of the paper. Watch it lift up instead of droop. Now you've got an insight into how airplanes fly. (The young boy is intrigued by his grandfather's on-the-spot science experiment. He runs off to get paper for everyone. Now we're all scientists, blowing on our pieces of paper, feeling a spark of wonder.)

familial
He puts down the book and joins us in watching and laughing at the movie. Study and work don't seem possible after the meal. We're in a semi-circle, three generations, taking a break from whatever usually calls us to other places.

flitting
In the bookstore I pause at the same tables three, four, five times in the course of browsing; I touch the books, flip through them, glance at their summaries and covers, and wait for that feeling that tells me that this one or that one will be a good gift.

iridescent
The bubbles are enormous. They erupt from large sticks and soapy ropes and glide through the air in rainbow amoebic shapes. When they explode clear pieces of their skin collapse to the ground.

priceless
"Look what I made you." (A soft slipper of felt in which to keep my glasses). "Look what I made." (A little felt coin-purse dangling from a red string, and on it a greeting for me in large block letters). "Read this one." (He leans on my shoulder and attends to stories of robot-like creatures who battle for the fate of Earth and its reserves of energy.) "How do you get it to open?" (Children's toys are so complicated.) "I'll give her pizza before her nap." (She pats at the doll's eyes and sticks a wedge of plastic pizza in the vicinity of its mouth.) "What day is my birthday?" (I tell him.) "But what day of the week will it be?" (I don't know.) "If you come I'll be so happy," he says.

rearranging
At the end of the game I wind up with two S's and two blanks, and I won't be able to call myself a respectable Scrabble player if I don't make a seven letter word. But 'morsels' won't fit, and neither will 'sellers'. The suspense mounts.

yum
Thanksgiving treats - mashed yams with cinnamon and pecans, cranberries glinting in a glass bowl, apple cider flowing from slender green bottles.

Week in Seven Words #42

accommodation
Different people I'm friends with can find it difficult to talk to each other; their approach to life, personality, interests, may not overlap much and so there isn't a lot of common ground for light dinner time discussion, especially if they don't know each other well. I like that they have to work a little harder to make conversation. Sometimes they regard each other speculatively or with bafflement, as if they're assessing species membership; other times they bond briefly over a love of sticky cinnamon kugel.

cataracts
The moon squints through a film of cloud.

delusion
What doesn't get done today will not get done tomorrow but might get done the day after tomorrow.

escapism
When I need a break from work one thing I do is look up bus and train schedules and imagine myself traveling from one town to another. I take my time coming home.

inverted
The roots of the trees swim in gold leaves.

preserving
A young boy, half-shy and half-pleased, gives a little speech in Yiddish. The people at the dinner sing in Yiddish too, and there are echoes of the shtetl in their voices. I've never been to Eastern Europe and did not grow up among Yiddish speakers, but my family's history runs through that part of the world, and there's a bittersweet pain when I think about the way of life systematically wiped out and the way the rich culture still manages to endure.

replete
To step outside and discover that it's just rained, and that after a walk through the cold clean air I'll sit down to a baked apple, golden and brown and smeared with cinnamon.

Some Spanish baroque guitar music

Beautiful music played with skill and deep contentment.

Week in Seven Words #10

bombinate
I've never found the sound of bees pleasant or cheerful. I wish they could stay silent as they descend on the daffodils or poke around window frames and doors. One bee I spot is especially bold. It hovers right over the center of a footpath. People duck to either side to avoid walking into it; one young man on a skateboard makes a last-minute swerve that nearly lands him in the mulch.

cloying
Petals, fallen from the trees and crushed underfoot, are slippery on the pavement. They release a smell of sticky sweetish rot.

confidence
I'm touched that he'd turn to me for advice on a personal matter. But even as I do my best to talk out the situation with him and discuss different options, I'm nagged by the feeling that my words aren't enough. I wish there were more time to consider the issue properly.

constriction
Music moves him deeply; it always has, and it still does. When I sing to him on the phone, it's as if I'm singing with him, because his intense yearning to sing is audible; sometimes I think I can hear his voice as it used to be, accompanying mine.

immerse
I'm content when I settle into the present moment - as when I walk in the warm sun and cold wind with a man who sees things quite well, even though his eyes don't show him anything. When I'm clustered with good friends on armchairs, and I focus only on their talk and laughter, and for the moment there are no worries.

possibilities
Her small circular Spiderman cushion doesn't remain a cushion for long. It transforms into many things - primarily a shield to go with her imaginary sword, but also a hat worn at a tilt on her head. It also changes into a bird's nest cradling a clutch of eggs, and at one point takes the shape of a shallow flower pot that she carries proudly at her elbow. When she's faced with a large crack in the sidewalk, the cushion becomes a handy bridge that saves her toes from plummeting.

punchy
The delight of studying something serious and complex when it's past two in the morning; we're making our points with arm-waving, loud proclamations, and giggle-yawns. Somehow everything sounds extraordinarily sensible and clear.