Week in Seven Words #577

This covers the week of 2/7/21 - 2/13/21.

dork

The role she's been asked to audition for is an improbable one: the effortlessly gorgeous, socially awkward female nerd who's such a dork but never really says or does anything unattractive, she's just, you know, a dork with glasses and fashionable heels.

icy

The pond is clinking with ice, the shores crusty with slush and mud.

knotty

I meet him for the first time beside a tree with a heart-shaped knot.

lacework

Low branches turned to lacework by the snow.

mafia

The head and torso of the snowman are propped up on a bench, like a grim warning from the snowman mafia. ("Double-cross us, and you too will be disassembled before you melt.")

timeworn

It's cute how the author thinks that pairing a character in his 60s with a woman in her 20s is edgy.

unhelpful

"My problems," she says, "are about not asking for help when I need it, and getting the kind of help that holds me back."

Week in Seven Words #518

This covers the week of 12/22/19 - 12/28/19.

again
Her dollhouse, I discover, has musical features. So that I won't forget about these features, she replays them repeatedly.

alleviating
In the car, I'm a little nauseous from lack of sleep and a breakfast of a single square of chocolate, which seems to hop around like a checker piece in my stomach. What helps is a walk through the parking lot in the mostly fresh air.

halted
I'm struck most by a sculpture inspired by Abraham and Isaac, the near sacrifice of the son by the father. The father figure looks tense and determined but nonetheless reluctant, holding back at the sight of his adult son kneeling with throat bared. The son is prepared, appears not to resist at all, but his fists are clenched.

potbelly
One museum guard allows me to keep my small backpack on me, as long as I wear it in front, like an artificial potbelly. Another guard tries to get me to return to the coat check with it, but I clutch my potbelly protectively and defend it from removal.

seasonal
Scuffed-up stairs and tired-looking stoops are showered with tinsel and potted shrubs.

spotted
A deer among fallen branches by an empty swimming pool.

wintry
An elegant bridge and brittle ice, bare trees and dark, cold water.

Week in Seven Words #516

This covers the week of 12/8/19 - 12/14/19.

aromatic
The holiday market is a dense, sweet-smelling mass of pine and cider. Clustered booths of ornaments, jewelry, scarves, and glossy desserts are overrun by curious and restless shoppers.

doubting
She questions my safety to a ridiculous extent. Sometimes I wonder how much of what she voices is concern versus a vague impulse to undermine my sense of competence.

frosty
It's so cold outside, our fingers are burning with it, as if ice is being rubbed all over them. The metal seats pour more cold into our butts and backs. We huddle into ourselves and share a small bag of lime ranch potato chips.

hospitably
The bookstore where I donate a bunch of DVDs has a friendly, barn-like feeling. You're expecting authors to roost in the rafters, dropping pages of their latest drafts.

slammed
The subway doors slam against my arms, punishing me for my unwillingness to wait for the next train.

spiritless
The second bookstore looks like the backdrop to an upscale magazine photoshoot. It's stylish, with lots of dark wood and gleaming hardcover books, but it feels inert and uninviting. You could easily imagine a few models in overpriced clothing posing next to the pristine cookbooks. An area devoted to books on wine is close to the children's section. There are no kids around.

withdrawn
He's tired, so his thoughts spiral inwards. His eyes glance off the rows of trumpeting angels, the massive tree in the background, and the crowds holding up their phones to capture the scene.

Week in Seven Words #313

cyberspace
Catching up on housework while the Internet and phones aren't working. Keep glancing at the router to check if service is back. Resume dish-washing.

fleecy
We're side-by-side on the couch, our legs pressed together beneath a staticky blanket.

mauve
Fairy lights, purple skies, an evening chill.

muffling
We speak through scarves, our voices smothered.

soul
After services in the synagogue, a boy and his father take turns being rabbi and cantor. When it's the boy's turn to be the rabbi, his father asks for a speech or some wise words about the week's Torah portion. "L'Chaim, L'Chaim, L'Chaim!" the boy says.

waterfowl
The quivering gray-brown rocks on the reservoir are ducks.

zippy
Kids run up and down the synagogue aisles. The space for prayers is also one for play.

Week in Seven Words #269

abeyance
Winter is still on the gardens. The paths are empty, the domes and crenellated walls deserted. Everywhere there's a cold, fuzzy silence.

claimed
Geese have claimed the soccer fields, the gazebo by the river. Branches have fallen across the path that feeds into the deep woods. By a gap in the fence, a hole has opened up in the earth and filled with gray water.

confined
Restless people pace inside the mansion, their fingers tracing walnut furniture. Before each window they stop to study the river. They wish they could leap out of their skin and race to the water. Maybe one day. They turn from each window and take up pacing.

crammed
PowerPoint slides frustrate him. They're too small for what he needs to say. His words and numbers run on, in ever tinier fonts, as he fills the available space.

edible
Homes with cream trimming, cherry-colored shutters.

gutted
Even when she talks about a triumph, her voice wavers with pain. She can't believe in her own success. She's convinced that she succeeded only by chance.

percolating
The coffee pours warmth into chilled wet feet and fingers nipped with cold.

Ides of March Hike: Tarrytown to Van Cortlandt Park

This past Sunday, I went on a group hike from Tarrytown, NY to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The hike more or less followed a segment of the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail.

It wound up being 18.5 miles (the hike leader had initially estimated 16).

It also should have been scheduled a month from now. The trail was in terrible condition - a sludgy mix of snow, ice, and mud that the hike leader hadn't anticipated (at least not to that extent). And I wore boots that were only casually waterproof; they'd keep your feet dry on a walk home from work in the snow, but not on a messy trail for miles, so my feet got soaked early on.

Had I wanted to (and it was very tempting!), I could have dropped off at a few points before the end. We passed through towns with Metro North train stations that can take you back to NYC. But every time I got to one of those towns, I thought, "I've come this far… so…" And admittedly, had I known the hike would be 2.5 miles longer with the same kind of nasty trail conditions to almost the very end, I maybe would have bailed out at the last drop-off (which was around mile 11). Ignorance can help courage along.

Manhattan in Afternoon Winter Light

Week in Seven Words #206 & 207

206

controlled
Sometimes the only way to avoid falling is to lower yourself to your knees, by choice, before finding firmer ground to stand on.

dictates
She does her best to convince me to go against my conscience, and she almost succeeds. But at the end, I do what I'll be able to live with.

gendered
Their rooms: a pink glow, a blue cove.

leached
Weary greeters, looking washed out under the fluorescent lights.

prickle
He's uncomfortable with being sensitive, so he hides it with a snotty attitude. She's also sensitive, but she cries when she needs to.

starved
At the head of every line is an elderly person who turns shopping into a social opportunity. Maybe it's the only time that day they'll talk to someone. They'll hold up the line if they need to, by dwelling on the finer points of their receipts and exploring the depths of pockets and bags to stall for time.

thermic
Wearing a winter coat indoors while I work.

207

bone-weary
The voice on the other end of the line is hoarse and quiet.

chalky
Her lips twist as she returns the chocolates. Beneath the foil, she found a stale crumble.

darken
Another light has winked out.

mess
Messy, dirty snow and painful cold.

storytellers
What happens to children whose personal voice has been pounded out of them? How do they regain the ability to tell stories about their lives with some sense of self-assurance?

tracks
They're brisk and efficient. Their mind is always on what they'll be doing next, and what they should be doing according to a magazine, a website, their friends and family and co-workers. They operate on a schedule that's daunting. There are few moments to stop and think; every pause prompts the appearance of a smartphone. And this is why, as friendly as we may be towards each other, we stop short of actual friendship. Sometimes I think it's like the express train vs. the local, occasionally making it to the station at the same time, but on different tracks. But that's an imperfect analogy.

wolfish
In the guise of helping others, they express an intense selfishness.

Week in Seven Words #55

anterograde
He was a man with anterograde amnesia - he could encode no new episodic memories. He had some past memories to anchor him a little, give him a sense of identity. Otherwise he was adrift. He inhabited narrow parcels of time, probably no more than half a minute long (and often less), whatever his short term memory could hold. He did not remember people he had just met, or what he had just been saying or doing, or what others said and did to him. Every morning when he woke up he felt as if he was awakening after a long sleep, years-long. He would lean over to a diary at his bedside and write that he was finally awake. Then he would discover a previous entry documenting the same thing (that he had finally woken up!) and with a feeling of uneasy dismissal he would cross out that previous entry, thinking it impossible that he could have written such a thing. Most of his life felt like that - the recent seconds slipping, and then a sensation of waking up fresh to the world, not remembering why he was sitting on the couch (his couch?) or why there was a dinner plate in front of him.

floe
Less than two weeks ago the field was caked from end to end in snow and ice, brilliant in the sunshine, with a couple of benches bobbing around like rowboats on an arctic sea. This week the snow has crept away, uncovering dry brown grass. Boys and girls in sweatshirts, tee-shirts, and shorts rush out to play frisbee. Nearby some guys play volleyball barefoot on a sandy court; their big golden dog dashes around their bare legs.

halting
The words come with difficulty, over the phone or face-to-face, but once I find them and say them some relief comes to me; things haven't turned out badly or as awkwardly as I feared. I can even laugh.

observer
Several times this week I watch myself from a somewhat detached vantage point within my mind, like a master observing the workings of an automaton that she ostensibly controls. There I am speaking to one group of people, then to another, and there I am walking, one foot before the other, and listening patiently, and being in turn observed by others. And in response to a lot of what I see I think, "why"?

penmanship
Bad hand-writing makes for a sort of malleable identity. What's meant to be a 'G' looks like an 'S'; a lowercase i is more like a lowercase o. One person no longer exists on the roster, and several have wriggled out of order, out to explore new alphabetical territory.

venture
Diagrams on a board; illustrations dotted out on yellow notepad paper. We map out another attempt at overcoming a difficult problem.

zephyr
For the first time in months I sit outside on a bench and read. I don't get much reading done; the breeze tempts me to distraction.

Week in Seven Words #53

buffer
Conversation becomes a refuge from stress and a stream of relentless demands.

gelid
The sidewalk is frozen over, though I don't know this until I skate forward several inches. Keeping a bewildered balance, I reach out for the railing that fronts the houses on the street. I hold on and skate along, my good winter boots dancing beneath me. From across the street a man in a yellow coat stands perfectly still and watches.

rating
Children are used to receiving gold stars and scoldings and many other kinds of feedback, and when they get the opportunity to reward or scold others they're usually happy to do so. One child has a carefully calibrated rating system: "That one was good. That one was all right. This one is medium. This other one is medium ok. That one is medium good. That one was badly done, a bad job."

shelter
At the school, there's the smell of wood, carpet, and dust, warm armchairs and coats thawing. The narrow hallways are lined with old class photos and sloppy cheerful kindergarten artwork. Upstairs is the library with the window seats and rocking chairs, the sturdy illustrated books propped up on shelves.

snickering
At a lecture a man and woman sit in the back, snickering and smirking and raising exaggerated eyebrows at each other when the speaker makes a significant point. Why don't they ask a question instead, openly challenge the speaker rather than conduct themselves with a sort of weaselly contempt?

tapping
I leave him by the elevator, where he's tapping at the button, tapping tapping... why isn't it coming? He says nothing, just hits the button over and over, as if he's not sure he communicated his intentions clearly the first time.

trundle
The bus trundles down slippery streets, past old cramped houses that shiver under the snow. Inside the bus is warm, and it rocks the passengers back and forth.

Week in Seven Words #51

alphabetical
At his birthday dinner his daughter slips letters under our plates. At some point in the evening we will each come up with a different blessing and well-wish for him that starts with the letter that we got.

beckon
The elevator doors open revealing two rows of empty chairs, facing forward. I imagine stepping in, sitting on one, and being whisked away to a floor that doesn't exist.

expedition
The delight of finding that all the library books on the list are there, exactly where they should be on each shelf. On the way to the checkout counter I cradle them against me as if they are newly born and in need of a home.

gradient
The pleasant shock of a warm room after a long walk in the windy cold.

illusion
On a Thursday evening, looming deadlines seem distant.

refection
The edge of the spoon skims across the stew; pieces of fish, potato and carrot brush against each other. The spoon sinks deeper, tilts, fills with chunky creamy stew. The lunch hour lasts longer if you linger over each spoonful.

zoological
In my mailbox I find a glittering gold bag containing an insectile windup toy and a small blue dog.

Extracts: At least the winter doesn't get to be like this where I live

He dwelt upon the unseen and the unknown till the burden of eternity appeared to be crushing him. Everything in the Northland had that crushing effect- the absence of life and motion; the darkness; the infinite peace of the brooding land; the ghastly silence, which made the echo of each heart-beat a sacrilege; the solemn forest which seemed to guard an awful, inexpressible something, which neither word nor thought could compass... The magnitude of all things appalled him. Everything partook of the superlative save himself - the perfect cessation of wind and motion, the immensity of the snow-covered wilderness, the height of the sky and the depth of the silence. - from "In a Far Country" by Jack London

There's also a scene from the story where the two main characters, stuck in a cabin together for the winter (and you know that's going to end well), get a first brief taste of sunlight, a noontime that looks like dawn, after weeks of complete northern darkness.

Their eyes were fixed upon the north. Unseen, behind their backs, behind the towering mountains of the south, the sun swept toward the zenith of another sky than theirs. Sole spectators of the mighty canvas, they watched the false dawn slowly grow. A faint flame began to glow and smoulder. It deepened in intensity, ringing the changes of reddish-yellow, purple, and saffron... a miracle, the sun rising in the north! Suddenly, without warning and without fading, the canvas was swept clean. There was no color in the sky. The light had gone out of the day.

Profiles of Snowpeople

On the last day of 2009 I took a long walk through New York City and came across several snowpeople: Bob, Estella, Harry, Charmaine, Phil, and Sandra.

Bob lives life on the edge. He loves fun, thrills, and mugging for photos that he shares with his 1,079 Facebook friends. Across the water is his favorite girl, Lady Liberty; if he had to choose he would pick her over Lady Luck, most days.















Estella is an abstracted artist and armchair philosopher. Sometimes she's not sure that she exists; she might have had arms at one point, or eyes, or maybe she only imagined that she did. She will sublimate one day, she's fairly sure, and wonders if as a gaseous vapor she will still be Estella or become something else entirely.












Harry woke up with a hangover today, and the light still hurts his eyes. Why get drunk the night before New Year's Eve? Harry doesn't remember the last time he celebrated anything with real happiness.









Charmaine has a taste for the exotic. She's dreamt of traveling to tropical lands and sipping pinacoladas to the sound of surf and steel drums. She knows that this is an impossible dream for a snowperson, but she does her best to live it anyway and liven up her cold life here with a touch of the sultry and exotic.













Phil is pretty sure the world is going to end soon. The stroke of midnight sounds about right. He can feel the ground giving out from under him every hour.












Sandra hates being made out of snow. She figures that if she wants to stick around for many more seasons she'll need to graft herself onto something that lasts, like a tree. But nature can't accommodate a tree-snowperson hybrid, not for long.

Of fire alarms in the middle of the night

My apartment building has a building-wide fire alarm system. Management routinely tests this fire alarm system. Said system repeatedly malfunctions, going off with no provocation at all. It sounds like a shrieking chorus of colossal crickets. Crickets that crop up at all hours of the day (or night), including 1:00 a.m., when you're sleeping and it's snowing outside and really all you want is to remain curled up in bed, but that alarm is relentless, and you need to escape.

So it's good to think of the positives. I appreciate that there isn't an actual emergency. I appreciate my bed more, and my blankets. I like how it's a bonding experience for the people in my building - standing outside on a snowy street, in pajamas and enormous coats. How there's beauty in the nighttime with snow falling, a kind of secret quietness to it (because really snow is something that tends to surprise you the next morning, as if it appeared suddenly and not after a night's quiet work).

So glad to be back in bed now though.

(Trying not to think of the safety implications of a fire alarm system that sounds repeated false alarms.)