8.31.2010

2640





I am still melancholy about leaving that little house.

broke down


[broken down 15 miles outside of Alamogordo, NM]

8.22.2010

the way that blue sky fades

We leave today for New Mexico a trip that will take us to Raton, Santa Fe, White Sands, and Vermejo.
I will always love New Mexico.

Heading To Santa Fe -- Samantha Crain:

8.19.2010

McCarthyism

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One of the first interviews Cormac McCarthy ever gave, to the NY Times in 1992.
Read the whole thing through, but this is one of my favorite paragraphs:


Since 1976 he has lived mainly in El Paso, which sprawls along the concrete-lined Rio Grande, across the border from Juarez, Mexico. A gregarious recluse, McCarthy has lots of friends who know that he likes to be left alone. A few years ago The El Paso Herald-Post held a dinner in his honor. He politely warned them that he wouldn't attend, and didn't. The plaque now hangs in the office of his lawyer.

8.10.2010

matters of the heart

I've been cramming at night to get my giant paper cut done for ArtPrize which happens just over one month from now (yikes.) Tonight I have been spending some time on the TED website to keep my mind sharp (and awake). I listened to the talk below about love and cheating and thought it was necessary for your ongoing research on love and marriage.

p.s. my camera has been found and will soon be on it's way back to me. until then, you might be getting some more TED videos.



8.09.2010

you were my feather


The band Sam + I found ourselves watching and liking last night is called O'Holloran.
When you get to their MySpace listen to 'Oh to See a Picture.' That's the one I was telling you about.

8.07.2010

note from ny

I wrote this on the way home from visiting my Grandma in Geneseo, NY, and just never posted it.

________________

I'm writing this from the little Rochester airport, having just spent the last few days with Grammy Bow and Aunt Joyce in Geneseo, NY. Maybe it's age or maybe it's having lost people I love, but I am acutely aware of how limited my time is with the people I love, especially those people are 88 years old. I try to actively appreciate my time with GBow, mindfully absorbing her stories, mannerisms, nuggets of wisdom. That town is so infused with my family's history that it seems impossible to take a step in any direction without finding yourself face to face with an anecdote.

I've had a lot of time to think the last few days, mostly while sipping iced tea on the screen porch, the air thick with humidity, the insects and birds sounding distinctly more Eastern than the ones I'm used to. Of all the stories she tells -- and she tells many -- my grandmother talks about my grandfather the most. These stories usually are about the early days, when they were courting, or just married, or when my dad and aunt were small. If we are at the house when she's telling these stories she brings out a creased envelope containing her favorite photographs of him and sets them out where she can see them while she talks. She talks about the first time she saw him, about what he was wearing and the exact words he said. She talks about the floor plan of the first tiny apartment they shared. She talks about my grandfather's hidden sentimentality. When pushed, she'll talk about other things, too. I asked her how he proposed and she said it happened one evening as he was driving her home from a date, and that he said it out of the blue. She said he was shaking he was so nervous, but that his face was stone. That sounds like him. She said yes. I asked what happened next, and she laughed and said, "What do you think happened next?" I'm not sure what that means exactly, but there was a light in her eye when she said it.

When I think about my grandparents' relationship, especially in the last few years of his life, I don't remember any tenderness or affection. Maybe this was just because I wasn't privy to a sweetness that existed only behind closed doors. Or maybe things did get complicated and bitter at the end. In any case, I've wondered if maybe her losing him freed her to remember him the way she wanted to. It gave her ownership of their shared memories, allowed her to rewrite the past any way she liked.

Whatever the case, it's a hell of a love story. I hope I'm lucky enough to live a love story so great it sustains me when I am very old.

[Letchworth State Park, NY]

[Grandma Bow + Auntie Joyce, Letchworth State Park, NY]


[The Riviera, Main Street, Geneseo, NY]


[Main Street, Geneseo, NY]

[The Big Tree Inn, owned + operated by my grandmother and her family during WWII, Geneseo, NY]

[The Bar at the Big Tree Inn, Geneseo, NY]

[Graveyard near Geneseo, NY, where my grandmother's parents are buried as well as Bows who were buried as long ago as the 1700's]


[my grandfather, my grandmother's enduring love interest]