The rain was our nemesis.

My best friend, the friend of my youth, is here visiting. Our big plan was a road trip to Hovenweep and Mesa Verde. I have wanted to see Hovenweep for a really long time. I know that it doesn't have the scope of Mesa Verde, let alone Chaco Canyon or other ancestral Puebloan sites. But still: I loved the idea of its remoteness and its non-national park status. I probably was cherishing a ridiculous notion of Hovenweep being kind of a secret.

Well, we drove south and east, and got all the way to Blanding, but Blanding proved to be our Waterloo (wait for it): there were flash flood warnings in the area. Rain was sheeting down, and as it did, I remembered what I had read about the roads in Hovenweep, and what I recalled was the basic message was a caution to potential visitors about possible dangers, flash flood-wise.

I am here to say that I shall return to Blanding, and thence I shall arise and go, and go to Innisfree, I mean Hovenweep. However, not on this trip.

We turned around, Blanding and its flash flood warnings having routed us from our intended destination (1) and drove straight to Monticello, and then Cortez, and then Mesa Verde (destination 2), where we slept at the Far View Lodge, after having eaten a lovely dinner, and then we arose this morning to see the following:

I have more to say about all this, including what the sky looked like, and how the little birds flitted their songs above the canyon, and the way the canyons felt, with the coolness of the water seep. But for now, let me say that I think we did all right. Even without Hovenweep.

What will I wear?

I will be taking several trips in the near future. I have a big blank in my mind about what I should wear.

the WoodBot is not an empty-headed fellow, but he
is, on the other hand, not helping me figure out my
traveling wardrobe. Fact, WoodBot.

First of all, I'm going to Minneapolis this week. Minneapolis is currently having a springtime, I presume. But I also presume that it is a more precipitation-ish springtime than Utah's springtime. I'm presenting at a conference, but also attending a conference. The real question is, having stopped wearing tights in Utah, will I wear them in Minnesota? Is this a bridge too far? And how big will my suitcase have to be to contain these quandaries?

Are you checking out those rainy clouds?

Moving on.

blah blah mug.

In two weeks and one day, I will be going to Ireland. First Dublin, then west and north to Sligo. Please, all you experienced Irelanders, don't tell me that this is a bad idea. I'm going to Sligo. Just tell me: what kind of coat should I bring?

the Sligo forecast.

This is kind of messing with my mind, you guys.

> today's [lightweight & recalcitrant] poem <

Storm.

There was some terrific rain this afternoon in Boston. It took its time rolling in, then got some excellent wind and sheets of wet pouring down.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Rainy day letter.

Dear rainy day,

The other morning--Tuesday--when I woke up and you, rainy day, were happening, I was taken aback. I had a plan for what I would wear that was now rendered, entirely, moot. And the new plan wasn't all that helpful--while I had a raincoat, I did not have a hat nor an umbrella. In fact, out of all the clothes and accessories and accoutrements I have for weather, I have never really accounted for the way that rain gets one's head wet. Which meant, rainy day, that I walked to class carrying books and sheafs of poems, not to mention my regular purse and so forth, getting soaked and more soaked. Plus, that morning I treated my alarm like it was just a suggestion, so I was late. Late, panicky, and soaked.

Let me pause to ask: where is my umbrella? My hypothetical umbrella, which I contemplate purchasing every year. There are endless stylish umbrelli, umbrelli aplenty. You'd think I'd have bought one about ten times--but no, I have no umbrella, and thus I find myself periodically in a soaked frame of mind, questioning my judgement and also the weather.

But truthfully, the weather-questioning happens only briefly. I love rainy weather. In fact, rainy is the weather I carry around inside.

Periodically, one of the women in my writing group gets after me a little because--and this is absolutely true--much of what I write is melancholy, too melancholy from her point of view, like a moody teenager's work, except about grown-up subjects, and maybe the subjects are a moody teenager's too. I can't disagree with her. Sometimes I point this out to myself. But to rain and to melancholy I always find myself returning.

I had a big break in my work day today, and because the past few weeks have been full of long, long work days, I decided to leave campus for an hour or so. As I drove, the sky pillowy and pearly, I thought how lovely, how perfect, really. It's mid-April, the weather is cool, the weather is wet. The weather is not sunny, at least not commitedly so. It is the weather I want to be out in, or looking out upon. It is my best weather, and maybe that's why I do such a lame job of sheltering myself from it.

Rainy day, I am looking forward to a great, extended swath of you, with or without a hat.

Please don't let me down,

htms

couplet

Upcoming:

• getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow so I can teach my class, then 
• getting up at the crackier crack of dawn on Saturday, so I can fly away to a conference in Philadelphia.

Me: Let's go on a date on Friday. 

The historian: are you sure? you have to get up so early the next morning.

Me: What am I going to do? go to bed early or something?

Historian: [snickers] 

In between now and the crack and the date and the crackier, though, I have to

• make a snazzy conference handout, yo
• teach my class
• attend a meeting
• figure out what clothes I am going to wear, for the love of all that is holy!
• etcetera, soaked in stress and rolled in toasty flakes of anxiety.

And it's snowing. As in to snow: as in, when I was driving downtown to a meeting of this board I'm on, and I was listening to a truly hilarious story about this Quebecois chef who just wrote a book about maple syrup (sample recipe: squirrel sushi--no, the squirrel is not raw, but yes, the squirrel has, apparently, delicious meat because of all the acorns it eats, poor squirrel, and yes, there is maple syrup in the soy sauce. Now: say all of that in a Quebecois accent), and I got about halfway there and I was clearly driving into the snow. The kind of driving into the snow that makes you want to turn off the radio, slow down, notice you're not sure if you're driving in an actual lane anymore. 

Long story short, I got there and home safely, and when we just took the B for a walk, the snow was almost sheeting down, but a little gentler than that. Shaking my hair and clothes off, I created my own little storm.

The weather: an FAQ.

Q: What was it like when you walked the dog?
A: Blustery, a little rain acting like it wanted to turn icy, the wind tossing everything around.

Q: In comparison, what will it be like tomorrow?
A: Tonight it was not cold, but tomorrow it will be ten degrees colder.

Q: What are the signs?
A: In the paper, the capsule prediction had little snowflakes.

Q: Is such turbulence usual for this time of year?
A: The snow, if there is any, will be late, late, and won't stick around, I can't imagine that it will. But in the spring, we may expect anything at all.

Q: What hope?
A: Today at noon I sat with my friends outside in the sun. Hazy and bright. Absurd weather, but friendly. I saw a woman with bare legs. I took off my jacket.

Q: And now that you're indoors, how do you find the weather there?
A: I didn't sleep well last night, but I hope to dream up a little storm.

Change in the weather.

The wind felt like it was blowing from the north, with us walking into it and it blowing incipient rain or snow in our faces.

I wore something warm, but not warm enough.

In the west, the sky was red or orange or rose--something in that vein--at 10:30 p.m. What's that? we asked ourselves. Was it wind or traffic we heard, or was there a beating of rotors out there? was that light sweeping across the sky?

The dog gallivanted. He raced ahead, dove deep into the yards we passed, turned back on us to play.

The snow is supposed to arrive at midnight. At midnight, there is supposed to be snow.

The thick of it.

Hello, September 9, with your aggressive late night e-mails and pursuant troubles galore. Hello, days scheduled from dawn to dusk, already. Hello, the collision of this possible event with that fixed event, and hello, that sweaty feeling that I'm forgetting something. Hello! I hadn't exactly forgotten about you, the thick of it, but I certainly didn't remember how you sidled up, almost silently, and hung around my doorway like a doom.

*

Yet there is beautiful weather, although there are also gusty winds. Yet there are interesting classes to teach and a good crop of litmag students; still, more and more meetings. Yet there is Beatles Rock Band (aka the birthday pony) and leftover birthday cheesecake that I may or may not have eaten for breakfast. And many, many tomatoes, and weeks and weeks left of the farmer's market. And mostly not waking up in the middle of the night because of The Troubles incumbent upon me because of being a faculty leader (aka, FL, which means . . . anyone? anyone? F*** Lisa?). Mostly not, the thick of it, mostly just sleeping with the window still open.

*

It just got so busy so fast.

*

And still, the thick of it, I will be able to keep riding my bike for a little while after dinner for a few more weeks. As long as dinner is early, and before the late night e-mails commence.

Santa Monica.

THAT was a pretty good day:

All the Mormons in Beijing.

Sundry updates:

1. I put my clothes away today. Again.

2. I just started a load of laundry. 90% of the items were gray.

3. We just ate the last of the cookies. They were seriously some of the best cookies I have ever made in my life.

4. I have a lot of responding to students drafts to do, which I am doing at this very moment. Or shortly, whichever comes first.

5. We are driving to L.A. in two days, and I literally cannot wait to blow this town.

6. What is the weather like in L.A.?

7. Running son is having a hard time finding the Mormons in Beijing. I am having a hard time helping him. Beijing is far, far away. And they speak a different language, and it's written in a different alphabet.

8. But he will figure it out.

9. Is it winter? is it spring? who can tell?

Meditations.

The historian went home today, so it has been nothing but me and my own brain, a situation that is ripe for contemplation.

1. working on poems uses a different part of my brain than working on movies.
2. I love to see the sky, and the sky here is wonderful--mercurial, moody, huge.
3. when there is a shortage of foods from the salty/crunchy food group--as there is, indeed, now such a shortage at my lodgings--it leads me, ineluctably, to the conclusion that we need more salty/crunchy foods close at hand. Soon if not immediately.
4. If I could be a kind of weather, I would be rainy.
5. leftover noodles? delicious.
6. no matter how well you think you know a place--a place you've been coming since your infancy--there is more to learn and more to see. More to know.
7. riding with the wind is excellent. Riding into the wind reminds me of things I would rather not consider about my physical condition and age.
8. with no one here but myself I can think more steadily about these poems.

But I already miss the historian.

Here are some things we saw yesterday:

I was of three minds.

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.  

1.  Today, I loved the way the morning light took its time.  I got up, I made my breakfast, I checked the internet in a desultory way, I articulated my plans to myself in long, slow, lazy, sentence fragments.  I noticed around ten that the light was still silvery.  I looked out to see it snowing.

2.  Bruiser did not rush into his let's take a walk dance.  He drowsed on the bed.  When it started to snow, I considered all the possibilities.  Snow means cold.  On the other hand, the snow was falling almost straight down, unhurried, airy.  Cold but not driving. Wet but not sodden.  Slippery, but only a little.  So we took our walk.  The world smells different when it's snowy.  Ask my dog.

3.  A snowy day is for projects, like soup, or making a little space in your study so you can actually work there, or hanging up all your clothes.  Working on your manuscript. Contemplating the weather.  Thinking about the dark part of the year and how it is so very lovely.

Gray.

Within recent memory, I declared to anyone who reads the sidematter on my blog that I would buy no more gray clothes forever (earlier in the sidematter: gray is the new black, in case you needed to track the twists and turns of the style advice from me). So it will no doubt surprise all readers to hear that I have, within the last several weeks, purchased

• gray flats
• a gray and white striped tee shirt
• a gray skirt
• another gray shirt
• another gray shirt
• gray espadrilles
  
• a sheer gray sweater, and
  
• a scarf that is striped black and white, which two colors, as any student in a seventh grade art class can tell you, when mixed together, turn into . . . gray.

I don't know what this says, except that gray--so pearly, so silvery, so moody, so very like weather, one thing and then another, so not black and not white but possessing the loveliest qualities of each--calls my name. It is, apparently, my neutral. I'm not even sure I understand why I decided no more gray in the first place. Why not gray? Why not an all gray, white, and black wardrobe? with only silver jewelry?

Because in addition to having a gray fetish, I am also a fool for colors, that's why--lately, navy blue and yellow. However, I feel the world has only recently caught up with my gray madness--lovely gray things everywhere I turn. If you run into me, the chances are very good that I will be dressed like a cloudy day. Like a cloudy day, about to rain. I sort of hope, however, that if you run into me, I am not shopping. Like style advice, my stance toward shopping sparkles and fades a little.