Here rain defines winter -- a healthy winter. How does rain impact the next meal you make? The next word put or removed from a poem? By the way, what's the status of your rain gear? Aren't you glad you didn't repurpose those red wellies.
We had a wild ride back from a reading at the Unitarian Church, a short distance from the Gough Street building to her home on Leavenworth ( a street I had also lived on a long time ago). In the back where my friend was sitting were piles of books and papers ready for selling or trading or filing or throwing away. I always associate K. with papers, sorting them or correcting students' or revising and filing and cursing them for finding their way to her desk. It was a time of papers and pens and typewriters when we met, and I was in love with the feeling of papers and pens and inks and paints and surfaces covered with all kinds of materials. She too was a fan of collages, and often showed me art books and sheafs of papers from art stores, feeling them with admiration as one might feel a shirt of silk. She loved the feel of silk and fabrics as well, sporting lovely scarves and blouses, and shoes, sometimes new shoes, of which she wrote in one of her first books of poetry. Sensuous materials were an aphrodisiac, more than the feel of dollars or cents, she felt love for the elegance of tangibility. Once she gave me a small alabaster bowl of round white pebbles, delighted that I had treasured it so long when I showed it to her decades later. Giving small and large gifts was just a normal everyday gesture-- words of encouragement, laughter, invitations, phone calls, post cards with tiny writing as if to save a stamp--and most of a wryness, a smile in spite of hardships, that craziness tempered with restraint. We celebrated the book of a man whose name I have regretfully forgotten at her house that night. She cooked red beans and rice and we met many of the literati of her circle, as well as hearing A. telling stories on his deck overlooking the Bay, and I felt the hum of being in the middle of a grand experience, a truly authentic event with people I could respect and learn from and enjoy. I think my fiend and I walked miles home that night, reviewing our adventure as we strolled the streets from one end of Leavenworth to another. It was mild and foggy as usual, but the luminescence of the evening was almost palpable. I felt older and younger all at the same time, my history with K. at school, my intervening years in advertising, then teaching, now bringing us back into each other's lives for an occasion I still remember with such fondness, such gratitude.
Winter Takes Her
ReplyDeleteWe had a wild ride back from a reading at the Unitarian Church, a short distance from the Gough Street building to her home on Leavenworth ( a street I had also lived on a long time ago). In the back where my friend was sitting were piles of books and papers ready for selling or trading or filing or throwing away. I always associate K. with papers, sorting them or correcting students' or revising and filing and cursing them for finding their way to her desk. It was a time of papers and pens and typewriters when we met, and I was in love with the feeling of papers and pens and inks and paints and surfaces covered with all kinds of materials. She too was a fan of collages, and often showed me art books and sheafs of papers from art stores, feeling them with admiration as one might feel a shirt of silk. She loved the feel of silk and fabrics as well, sporting lovely scarves and blouses, and shoes, sometimes new shoes, of which she wrote in one of her first books of poetry. Sensuous materials were an aphrodisiac, more than the feel of dollars or cents, she felt love for the elegance of tangibility. Once she gave me a small alabaster bowl of round white pebbles, delighted that I had treasured it so long when I showed it to her decades later. Giving small and large gifts was just a normal everyday gesture-- words of encouragement, laughter, invitations, phone calls, post cards with tiny writing as if to save a stamp--and most of a wryness, a smile in spite of hardships, that craziness tempered with restraint.
We celebrated the book of a man whose name I have regretfully forgotten at her house that night. She cooked red beans and rice and we met many of the literati of her circle, as well as hearing A. telling stories on his deck overlooking the Bay, and I felt the hum of being in the middle of a grand experience, a truly authentic event with people I could respect and learn from and enjoy.
I think my fiend and I walked miles home that night, reviewing our adventure as we strolled the streets from one end of Leavenworth to another. It was mild and foggy as usual, but the luminescence of the evening was almost palpable. I felt older and younger all at the same time, my history with K. at school, my intervening years in advertising, then teaching, now bringing us back into each other's lives for an occasion I still remember with such fondness, such gratitude.