aerialists

There are Native American beliefs that hold that certain birds should be called upon when a shaman asks the gods for aid on behalf of mortals. This has something to do with the fact that the pewee, hawk, flycatcher and martin do not miss their prey. I like to think it is also, at least for the martins, because they are fantastic fliers. The “heavens” are their playground and they love to let the featherless below know that.

An unchoreographed dance plays out over your head here at the farm. Swallows and martins circle and dart. Mom and dad love watching them show off. Between the birds, the green, the cats and the breeze, there is constant movement and entertainment. So this morning the birds are swooping low. Dad says it feels like rain, but it doesn’t look like it. I think the aerialists are telling me something. Coming down so I can send a wish to the gods. Look after these people, look after this place.

Until I return and after.

a Southern Spring morning

After long absence from a Spring day in the deep South, I’m contemplating memory vs. experience. In Atlanta, Spring arrives with some displeasure. Obviously it is a gorgeous display of dogwood and the re-greening of a well treed city; but it comes with pollen and sinus infections and Elmer Fudd-like mating rituals. How to show off a pedicure and sandals while also blowing your nose with blood shot eyes? These are arts that escaped me, but I did love the bloom time and the long pause before the brutal heat and gritty sweat of Summer.

But here at the cat’s farm, Spring’s best performance by far is in the pecan trees. Pecan trees, for those of you who don’t know, have a great spread, much like the live oak, but with thinner limbs and lighter-toned leaves. (Pecan trees also don’t litter all year long.) And in the Spring, the color is almost lime. Protoverus is a made up word that may embody the green that they are. A first truth. (Primavera is too easy on the ears and already around.) The visual impact of an entire groove is stunning.

Back to memory vs. experience. Naturally, I always looked forward to these few weeks of intense green. And yet, 2005 being the last Southern Spring I witnessed, I’d forgotten how much this simple repetitive hue embodied the season for me. And now I’m here again in the midst of it, for the wrong reasons (or maybe the right ones) and I have to just say, thank you.

Dad is doing fine now. My biggest wish is this will be my family’s re-awakening of what makes us happy and what we have to do to obtain that.

And while I’m wishing, my rock (even a very distant rock) and my dear friend Michelle is getting a year older today. Happy birthday love and thank you for all of the wisdom your youth has afforded you. We all greatly benefit from your mind and heart. No matter how rough the water, you hold fast. Thanks for everything.

Away

Hey world, my dad has had a small stroke.

I’m going home and will be away for awhile.

Take care and they tell me not to worry, so I’ll tell you the same.

peeling paint

I am a rat.

That may come as a shock to you that know me as a human, but really, loath though I am to say it, I’m a rat. Where rats chew, I peel. Have since I was a kid. I remember the yellow (so 70s) painted bookcase in my Marietta room. It was clearly painted with an oil or acrylic base top coat, because one sleepless night I noticed a little tear in the corner and my 4 year old self realized I could keep pulling more off; needless to say, my parents were not thrilled about the carpet/paint fleck combination. I peel paint, I peel skin, I peel anything that allows me to. Unsurfacing is a pleasure (and not really a gerund appropriate word).

Not only am I a rat, I’m also kin to chlorophyll. Though normally lacking in a green hue, I do somehow convert energy from the sun to activate myself. Combined with strong coffee, this has become a very annoying trait in me from time to time. It’s slightly obnoxious to me, but really bad for those around me. Amphetamines surely have limits that my current state would not recognize.

All of this is just to say, that I wish I could peel paint off of walls tonight. Or focus enough to write. But the spring and the green and the coffee and the twitch of AWARE may make it difficult. Then again, there are some aspects I need to scrape clean. Could be fun. Aren’t you glad you are all at a safe distance?

for mom

(This is a journal entry that perhaps should not be posted. Unfortunately for everyone, I’m in an honest mood.)

Do you remember the scarf you gave me last December? Monique, from France, brought it to you. Your aging daughter, me, can’t help but now wonder how much dad flirted with her. She was beautiful, I think. But then, maybe just more unique than most.

Surely you wore the scarf. Part of me can still see you in it. That devilish grin that had to hide your soul. I know now what that means. I didn’t then. You’re not that now. Not frightened. Most of your wars have gotten quiet. And you wear yourself with ease. I guess solitude and silence does that, or would you say experience?

I loved that scarf. The romantic bold black edge. The word “Paris.” But especially the intricate and twiggy scroll climbing along and fencing in the elegant scarlet paisley center. I lived in that pattern. Gray criss-crossing gray.  All the little elements coming together to barely appear next to all of that color.

So, while sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting on a plane I wasn’t certain I wanted to catch, when you took off that scarf — 30 years after its entrance in my life, 30 years of me being something other than a dreamer — I couldn’t help but ask, is that enough to save me? Will these same eyes be able to peer at the design and wonder about being an adult, about life, love? Will I want to experience it again?

Anyway, thanks for the scarf. I wore it today like I knew what I was doing.

Reality

I work at a bookstore whose bread and butter is the endless drivel of books romanticizing life in Tuscany. Tuscany, you know, the place where the sun always shines and you can have funny and embarrassing adventures in miscommunicating with the locals. Old farmhouses that need lots of work and more in the garden, but in the end it’s worth it all. Because if you are a man writing these books, your family will eventually come to you and the sun will set magnificently on all of your accomplishments and foibles. And if you are a woman writing them, well, naturally some hot man will be ensnared by your charms and fall for you in spite of you ability to communicate or cook.Maybe I’m trivializing the market, but the wall of “Italian Interest” titles on display make me doubt it.There are exceptions. But I am not interested in that now.So, my goal, if not here elsewhere, is to never glorify this place. Just so you get a clearer picture; I’ll summarize a bit of my day: ATAF l’autobus with stinky homeless and noisy, ill-mannered children (what happened to discipline people); pretentious Florentines that look down on customer service (clearly if I’m helping, I’m beneath them), impossible relationships with people you don’t whether they will opt to leave or not (wow, it was fascinating to meet you, when do you leave); lecherous foreigners that think they can seduce you with a “Ciao” while stewing in cologne; tourists who stand around thinking the next picture they take will land on a travel magazine (there are postcards next to you that look better); friendly African peddlers who just want me to buy their costly fazzoletti, or lighter, or wash cloths; being underpaid; normally being undervalued; and last, but not least, a society that loves dogs but does not know what a pooper scooper is (PICK UP YOUR DOG POO! IT’S UNCIVILIZED NOT TO). And just in case you didn’t know this, it rains — often and it’s more cold than warm.Yes, there is beauty. There is love. There is still a world I need to discover and appreciate (the food is to die for). But that is true of all places. The goal is to enhance beauty while navigating reality.Now, I’m off to teach 3 classes thanks to the over-inflated cost of housing. Happy birthday pops.

minor complaints to change

Yes, I had to change the name back to Along the Arno. A few of you said it was creating problems with your finding me. And Shelby, I would change the font, but for now will let it remain.  And for those of you skilled at these things, please let me know how to one day change my header to something more personal.Sorry for the confusion!