Velvet Verbosity

Just what have I been up to?

* Buying a car. This was a painful yet exhilerating process. After some false leads, and dashed hopes, I have found her. A creamy Subaru Outback. She is a sleek and sexy beast; capable, comfortable, powerful and delightful. If this car were a person, she would be a lean, robust woman, adept at everything she put her hand to, sensuous, mysterious, powerful, precise and quietly intelligent. What name should I give her?

* Searching for artwork for the program cover of the Christmas Vespers concert at Smith College. I spent a delicious afternoon in the Mortimer Rare Book Room, paging through the hefty volume of a German history of the world published in 1493 (the title escapes me now, and I kick myself for not writing it down) filled with woodblock prints of kings, queens, and saints being murdered. I’m not entirely sure why I was directed to this book when I described what I was looking for (Victorian angels perhaps), but surely the blank expressions on both murderers’ and victims faces’ was not it. No matter, it was a pleasure just to lay my hands on a piece of work that spends it’s time locked away behind protective glass.

* Thinking. Of course this is not unusual, for me, or anyone else. It is the intensity of it that has kept me from the keyboard.

I’m not feeling particularly poetic or political today, so instead:

Yesterday I strapped my bike on the back of my car and headed into the back roads of Northampton for a free bicycle clinic sponsored by my friends, the Pedal People. Every Saturday they provide the space, the tools, and guidance for you to repair your own bike. This fact makes me do a little happy dance!

In the basement are crates and plastic tubs full of spare parts that have been pulled off discarded bikes and out of dumpsters. They are all organized for easy locating and free unless you feel compelled to make a donation that will most likely be refused. Patch kits are $2.00 a piece. Every tool you could possibly need and more, all clean, all organized, and all a blessing. The picture below is of the work bench, just a small part of the tool collection and many were outside in the hands of novice bike repair-ers at the time this photo was taken.

Myself, I needed a new back tire and tube, both of which were already in my trunk, just waiting to be put on. Below is the blown out tire after I took it off the frame. The sidewalls were completely ruined from my son riding it home with a flat. (Derned teenagers!)
I found two holes in the tube that I’ll patch up next week so that I have a spare tube on -hand. I marked the holes with a pen so that next week I can get straight to work on the patches.Ah, new tire (below). Ready for the road and trails! Took me a while to get it back into the frame, until Ruthy kindly pointed out I had a spring in backwards. Doh!
Sitting all winter in a damp basement left some rust on the chain, so I needed to lube up.

Ready for the ride home!

Six days from now is my birthday.

I’ll be 36.

While this is not generally one of the “big” years (you know, the ones where people feel compelled to razz you about your age, send you “funny” cards, and ask loudly how oooold you’re turning this year..), I feel celebratory. I feel some kind of joyous vibe boiling up in my blood! I think it has less to do with my it being my birthday, and more to do with the fact that this year on my birthday, I won’t have just started classes and I won’t be “student” po’. Yet, I think it’s more than just that. Whatever the reason, celebrate I will! I’ve invited everyone over for margaritas and Monopoly.

If I’m going to be factual here, I should say that the “Monopoly” game is really a fundraising knockoff called, “The Best of Northampton”. And if you’re from Northampton, it makes the game really quite fun in a cute, “aw, that’s where I get ice-cream every Friday” kind of way. Given to me by someone at Smith and I don’t think she even realized I could technically count it as an early birthday present. (I wonder what the margin of days is on either side of a birthday where you can count a present as an early or late birthday gift…)

Clearly I’m rambling…this is what happens when I’m uninspired but feel compelled to write something.

(Painting: “Mariachi Margarita” by Steven Simon. Found at
http://www.hawaiian-art.net

12:30 and I’m fading but I’ve still got pages to write. I need coffee but since I only drink it on a blue moon I’ve got none to brew.

I get in the car hoping something is open. I am still every inch a Northeast Kingdom (where they roll up the dirt roads at 6pm) girl so I assume the world stops at sundown.

The coffee shop windows are lit up. Good. I will have coffee tonight. Inside there is actually a LINE! Other Smithies getting their caffeine on.

A compact Indian man sits, impeccably dressed for the hour, at a corner table reading. His girlfriend contrasts him with her hippy stylings but I know they are together by the way their necks arc to bring their heads together across the small square of table.

I wait almost 15 minutes for my coffee. 15 minutes is far too long when sleep deprived and not having had a decent meal in days. I start to crave all the tastes on the menu. I want it all…sweet, tart, bitter, hot and filling, fluffy indulgence.

I can’t help myself. My turn and I order my coffee AND a smoothie. Mango…yum.

*Note on picture - I googled coffee images and this one came up on the first page. I recognized it right away as Michael Wood’s, a contemplative photographer I studied with in Montreal. However, when I clicked the link, it was contained in an index on someone’s MIT page. No credit as far as I can tell, but I am almost 100% sure this is Michael Wood’s. I’ll look it up tomorrow when I have more time.

Our elementary school was starting a band program. Everyone on the bus was all abuzz after the day’s assembly where the instruments were paraded out and played before our wondering eyes and ears.

“I’m going to play the flute,” says one girl, bouncing in her seat.

“Me too!” parrot several girls.

“Well, I’m going to play the clarinet,” declares Dotty (Snotty Dotty as I call her in my head).

She turns to me, “What are you going to play?”

Thoughts of a shiny silver flute held delicately against my lips flit across my inner vision. I feel Snotty Dotty’s eyes boring into me.

I shrug. “Probly the trombone,” I say casually.

Snotty Dotty bristles, “What? You can’t play that! The trombone is for booyysssss.”

I shrug again.

*****

And that, dear readers, is how I came to play the trombone for six years. The first year I had to use my foot to reach all the positions…yeah, I was that tiny.

Four years at Smith…as an adult woman, a single mother…bringing with me my provincial upbringing, my children, and my dreams. It’s been a long haul and graduation will be a quiet agonizing triumph.