Close Encounters of Three Kinds

The gold Buddha shares my necklace with a brass tag from the Tate Modern in London. It's by the sculptor Louise Bourgeois and it says, "Art is a guaranty of sanity." The friend who sent it knows it would be a powerful amulet for me. I was wearing it tonight:

...when I had coffee with a doctor friend who relieves pain, grows tomatoes, saves old trees, loves music, makes electric eye contact, steps lightly on the earth, detests pretension, gives hugs that don't withhold.

...when I ate dinner with my artist friend who doesn't confuse his soul with his ego, is too generous, shares my grasshopper sensibility, volunteers for hospice, can't say no to friends, has an unerring eye, gives himself too little credit, doesn't realize his own worth.

...when a very very rich man passed our table without a glance. Either he didn't recognize me or didn't want to recognize me. He was with a beautiful young woman, and he was silverhaired and power bluesuited and surrounded by a safe green zone of bullet-proof investments. It was like seeing God walk by and I couldn't imagine what we had talked about during that one awkward blind-date lunch we shared. What do you say to God when he is talking about taking a golf trip around the world's most famous courses and you haven't even been to Paris? And you have a tattoo that suddenly seems trashy and your clothes don't fit right and you wish you had never left Kentucky.

But as he walked out the door, I remembered that "Art is a guaranty of sanity." And money isn't. And I would hate golfing around the world when Paris is waiting.

Carry-on Baggage

When I was very very young, my mother used to put me on a train to visit my grandparents in the country, a hundred miles away from our town. She pinned a tag to my shirt with my name and destination written on it and asked the conductor to keep an eye on me. I can't remember feeling afraid or unsafe or worried about psycho child molesters or getting lost or not being met at the station. Traveling as an adult is much more fraught. My carry-on baggage includes fear of taking off, fear of mid-air collisions, fear of landing, fear of super bugs and bed bugs. Put a tag on my fear of failure because it slows me down. Tag my self-doubt because it weighs on me more than the extra books and shoes I'm always dragging on trips. Tag my envy of the bright young book editor I met today who was wearing 3-inch high heels, an Audrey-Hepburnish black coat and cheap-chic accessories that on me would have just looked cheap. Add to that mix some setbacks that came bam bam bam, all at once, and the emotional baggage on my flight from New York tonight should have been over the weight limit. But instead of obsessing on what had gone wrong, I realized that I felt more free than I had in months, because my fear of failure has kept me from being free to fail. I'd always given a nod to that self-help concept, but I suddenly "got it" in a visceral way. If I can let go of the rigid, yet small, expectations I've had for myself lately, maybe some more exciting alternatives might appear. Or maybe not--but I need to hold onto the certainty I'm feeling right now that the unpredictability will be worth the risk.

Things to Cut Out of My Life

people I never hear from unless they want something

meetings that last longer than 15 minutes

Breyer's Vanilla & Guiseppe's Pizza

staying in motion to cover up loneliness

spending money to cover up loneliness

plastic grocery bags and water bottles

worrying about the impression I make--it's too late now

the impulse to own a juicer, an espresso machine or a panini grill

obsessive fear of products made in China--let 'em live, let 'em work

MSNBC

Bank of America, where nobody knows your name

Spiritual Switzerland

I took this photo from the window of a plane flying over the mountains of Switzerland on the way to Prague in depths of winter. My first trip to Europe. Looking down, I imagined cows bells, gods on skis, cheese fondue out the wazoo. Even now it brings on a shiver of dread induced by too many tv airings of The Sound of Music. I'm embarrassed to admit that I find it hard to throw out old fleece jackets and ragged Irish sweaters because there is some nascent Anne Frank fear that there might be a war or a depression or a disapora (and I'm not even Jewish!) and I might need warm clothes to flee into the Blue Ridge Mountains where my family and friends will hide and resist some nameless threat. What the hell is that about? Tonight I'm nowhere near HeidiLand or NaziLand, but I have that deep down soul cold that I get every few years. I took a long hot shower (sorry, Mother Earth), put on warm pajamas and socks, changed the sheets, piled on the blankets. Winter. I hate it, but I also think it's necessary to harden my roots, to pare away my native frivolity. Because I have a tropical carelessness in my character that calls for the slap in the face of a winter night every now and then. I need knife-sharp winter constellations instead of a big melony moon to remind me how lucky I am to have a pile of blankets, sheets straight from the dryer, on-demand hot water. And of course that stack of old sweaters to reassure my Puritan, self-punishing soul.

Luscious moon, come hither.

"When the moon is full, the seas rise up to reach it, sending wild waves of enthusiastic welcome. Oyters spread their shells wide, stretching to swallow it whole in the same way that they one day may slide down someone's slippery throat. Wolves howl at it, ears pricked, eyes glued adoringly on the object of their attention. Heads thrown back in ecstasy, they sit up very straight like any good dog and sing to it songs of atavistic refrain." (The Moon Watcher's Companion)

That paragraph is so sensual, so immediate, so physical that it makes me sick I didn't write it. I am a moon worshipper. I love to drive to the beach when there's a full moon and watch the lighted path it throws on the water, dreaming that it must lead toward some other, better world. When I look at the full moon, I can believe in all kinds of things in and out of nature. I don't see a dead planet littered with space-man trash, a pockmarked planet that could have an abandoned Walmart over the next dune. I only see poetry, magic and mystery. Lucky me, to be born too early to have it all sanitized and scientized and temporarily colonized by flags and footprints.

"The Bronx is up and the Battery's down..."

"...New York, New York, it's a hell of a town." And it always intimidated the hell out of me. I could never make sense of it, I felt unmoored and un-me. I could never locate where I was in the city in terms of East side or West side or neighborhoods. I bought map after map and still felt like I was in a deranged upside-down world. It was alarming, because along with feeling like the biggest hick in the world, I was helpless. Last year, I got on the subway to go to an appointment, and I went up and down, up and down, never getting anywhere I recognized. I got on and off what seemed like a dozen times, at each exit puzzling over the subway map as if it were written in Chinese. I got so hysterical that I called my daughter long distance and wailed, "Where am I?! Google me! Find me!" Not my finest moment. A visit last June was easy because I was in a book expo all day and taking a cab at night back to the hotel. I skimmed New York without absorbing any of it and breathed a sigh of relief when I got home. Last week I went back on a day's notice, a spur of the moment trip with a friend. I didn't have time to fret myself into a frenzy beforehand. I was only going to be there two days and I had no appointments, no responsibilities, no agenda. The second day I was on my own, and before I left the hotel I started to feel the same old gray anxiety press in on me...where am I, what will I do if I get lost, where am I going, how will I get back, what if I can't get a cab? Any other time, I would have stayed in my room or found a Starbucks and sat and read a book. But instead, I sat down and stared at the map and stared some more and suddenly all the streets fell into place as if I'd successfully worked a Rubik's cube. I got it! I don't know any other way to describe it. New York hadn't been resisting me; I'd been resisting New York. There are so many times in my life when that"s how I operate. Fear of the unknown panics me, and my first instinct is to give up and run away instead of standing still and working it out. I forget that I can be smart, brave and resourceful, but this trip reminded me. Next month, I'm going back and, I swear, this time I'll master the damn subway.

Ganesha is my Co-Pilot

In the Hindu pantheon, Ganesha is the Remover of Obstacles and patron of arts and sciences and one of the five primary deities of Smartism, a Hindu denomination. This air freshener for my car was a gift from a goddess of goodness, so I trust that its slogan, "Smells like Enlightenment," will inspire me to look for silver linings, leap over buildings in a single bound, see through false fronts to the solid truth behind. If I could wish for one thing this year it would be a spiritual guru. Someone who would tutor me in all things ethereal, a sherpa of the spirit who would lead me toward the light. It's easy to find a personal trainer, a life coach, a shrink or a yoga teacher. But I think you have to stumble upon the guru who will change your life. I'm not giving up the search, though, and maybe Ganesha dangling from my rear view mirror will be my low-tech GPS...Guru Positioning System. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

"Rowing in Eden"

I'm not sure what the canonically correct reading of Emily Dickinson's poem "Wild Nights" is lately, but I do know that I have always misremembered the line "Rowing in Eden" as "Rowing to Eden". I wonder if it's because I find it so hard to believe, know, feel that we are always in Eden, not rowing toward it? I wish I were more aware of my heaven on earth: time spent with my dear friend Claire who lives so far away in London; red wine on a winter night; playing Candyland with my granddaughter Lark who is the girl I wish I'd been and might grow into the woman I wish I were; gossiping with my soul mate Jeff; walking with Nancy; laughing with Abby; cashmere gloves; having dinner and dish with Caitilin and Kevin; holding a long distance three-way phone conversation with Diane and Bill in D.C. and never feeling like a third wheel; coffee with Andrew; weddings and funerals and being a godmother; a surprise phone message from Peter who pops up from San Francisco just when I'm thinking of him; roistering with my bookclub (remember when we skinny-dipped in Eden?); receiving a thoughtful gift in the mail from someone I want to know better. Eating with friends, laughing with friends, finding an unexpected friend...I think this is the year to be in Eden instead of looking for it on the horizon.