Museless

I woke up in a panic again this morning. I fear I will never find my muse again.

Muse is such a nice way of expressing the depressing truth of writers block without spelling it out. Say muse and it is immediately understood by anyone who has ever faced a blank page with a total lack of inspiration. Or in my case, the words still appear but they just lie there bored to tears.

It has been almost a year since I have been able to write anything I felt was worthwhile.

I could say writing was a phase that is now over. After all, I am getting more forgetful, maybe I just can’t concentrate anymore.

I have at least 27 aborted essays. A few I thought were successful until I reread them. And quite a number of ideas petered out after no more than a few paragraphs.

My muse is hiding under a rock somewhere or more likely has found a nicer apartment.

I liked some of the ideas, like the beginning of an essay about Harvey the giant rabbit who befriended Jimmy Stewart in a 1940s classic. I thought it might be nice to have a pooka to hang out with. We could just give up on reality and have a good time. But I don't drink as much as Harvey and Jimmy any more and that idea seemed to need alcoholic inspiration to keep it going.

I’ve thought about returning to the subject of college football, which is still overrun by big ten’s and 12s and even some bunch called the gang of eight … or was it nine? But I quickly figured out it was sort of a case of ‘been there, done that’. Besides, Jim dealt so well with that first round of football bashing, I didn't want to risk endangering our Football Saturday Truce.

I wanted to do an ode to the Great British Baking show, but somehow after watching an episode, I am inspired more by the oven than the keyboard. Did make a nice Bakewell tart, a Victorian sandwich cake and a dozen fairy cakes my grandsons rather approved of.

I tried to write about Little Women - about how I preferred Amy to Jo. How I was annoyed with Jo for being so militantly above girl things like makeup and nice clothes and was portrayed as a better person because of it. I thought you could believe in women’s rights in a really flattering dress and the right shade of lipstick. That’s why I insisted on naming our daughter Amy, who is, I might say, a true feminist with a little mascara.

Then there was the one about trying to take photos of birds. That lasted as long as that one sentence. Birds have tendency to be far away and disappear before I can get close enough for a good shot.

Oh yeah, I got going on an essay about the superiority of cannoli in Sicily and another about my travels, trying to keep up with my husband and his 85 year old sister who is in better shape than either of us.

So it hasn't been for a lack of inspiration. It’s just that my muse doesn't stick around long enough for my essay to work out. Kind of like those birds who don't seem to want to be in my photos.

  

Madcap Detective

Things are proceeding nicely in my plans to become a madcap old English Lady. I have plenty of time. I won’t be old for a long time.

It seems like murder is an essential element in genteel English society, especially for old ladies.

I have found really helpful tutorials on Acorn TV, which specializes in British Television shows.

I have watched all of the Miss Marple adaptations and have moved on to the Poirot and Tommy and Tuppance series.

So if I decide I want the life of a detective, what kind should or could I become?

They represent three different style of British detecting. You would never confuse them with the French Maigret or the Italian Montalbano.

Poirot is a Belgian expat living in London who never lets anyone forget he is most definitely not French. Apparently Belgium adores him for this. He is a true genius at detection with tons and tons of little gray cells. He is totally full of himself and possibly the most fastidious dresser in TV or fiction including Beau Brummell. He is also a bona fide obsessive compulsive. As far as emulating him I can readily see I tend to mislay things and don't have nearly enough gray cells.  Besides I don’t want to work quite that hard at my wardrobe.

Then we have Miss Marple who is also a genius but rather self-effacing about it. I could do the self-effacing part rather well but not the genius. She pulls off a really English thing of being kindly and cynical at the same time.  She is also a schmoozer – not an English term but I think it describes her and definitely not me. There is also the fact that her clothes are just awful! Frumpy describes her wardrobe choices. Where does she get the strange little hats and the ancient shawls? The sensible shoes might work but all that knitting would be beyond me.

Now Tommy and Tuppance are just the ticket role model wise. They are smart dressers, love to have fun and don't seem particularly intelligent. Time after time they just bumble their way into solving murders while making bad jokes and wearing lovely clothes.

I could do that.

Perspective

It’s one of things I am embarrassed to admit, but when I first moved to New York in 1966, I regularly took the bus from 108^th St. to 116^th St.

My excuse was that I had two babies under the age of two and was a full time graduate student and totally exhausted.

But even that doesn’t quite convincingly absolve me. Anyone who knows just how close that is can see it was really odd. I wasted 15 cents on bus fare for one thing.

What really does explain my laziness is the fact that I grew up in the Midwest, in a brand new housing development in the 1950s.

Walking in such a neighborhood was an uncomfortable excursion into the unknown. First of all, there weren’t always sidewalks. The streets curved and swooped and swerved and played back on themselves. Frequently they would become what were called courts, aka dead ends.

Add to this the fact that all the houses in a given development looked pretty much alike. There wasn't a whole lot to look at: different colored shutters and front doors and two or three shades of brick were all that distinguished one house from another. Otherwise they all blended into each other.

And – this is a big one, maybe the biggest – there were almost no trees. My neighborhood had been farmland and divested of trees a long time ago. A few survived here and there, just like the isolated farmhouses, which had been preserved as artifacts of how pretty houses used to be. New trees were planted, but these fragile little things were few and far between and looked like they were fighting for survival.

I used to whine and complain about being sent on an errand to the nearest shopping center. The walk was either freezing cold in the winter with no wind breaks of any type, or scorchingly hot in the Midwestern summer with few trees and of course little shade. I would stupidly run from tiny tree to tiny tree to feel a moment of shade. Breezes? None in the summer, gales from the artic in the winter.

Not long ago, I walked that same walk from my old home to that shopping center and found it comparatively short and pleasant. Those baby trees were now grown up and doing their job. The houses had developed personality and seemed much more interesting.

The distance is about a half mile, the same as the distance from 108^th to 116th St.

It’s just a matter of perspective.

My Village Life

 I just love the English country life.

In fact, I want to live my life just like those Brits I see on PBS. You know, the ones who live in small picturesque villages shown to best advantage in Midsomer Murders or Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple Mysteries.

They all live in thatched roof cottages or in their manors to which they were born. They all do their shopping on the High Street. There is no trace of a supermarket to be seen. You see the high and the low meeting in shops or singing in the choir or going to bell ringing practice. They organize jumble sales and have fetes on the Village Green where they sell dilapidated castoffs to each other in the name of charity.

They hang out in incredibly charming pubs with very low ceilings where they drink dark beer served at room temperature. There is also a lot of sherry consumed, which I could do without, but the Vicar serves it in his book-lined study while listening to someone who prays for forgiveness for wanting to kill a neighbor.

Most of them show no visible signs of earning a living. They are artists or botanists or writers. They spend their time working in their gorgeous gardens and know the Latin names of every plant.

Or they are retired with plenty of time to spend snooping around and spying on each other.

Some even have telescopes hidden behind chintz curtains.

If anything goes wrong - for instance, a body is discovered in the library – they ask for a stiff drink and beautiful cut glass decanters emerge from mahogany chests full of whiskey or gin.

They do seem to kill each other at rather alarming frequency and ingenuity. It’s an integral part of their charm.

They always seem to be eating or drinking something - pints of bitter and a ploughman’s lunch at pubs, or fairy cakes and cream teas in quaint little teashops. An occasional drop of poison keeps them on their toes.

Little old ladies are quite important in theses villages.  They knit, garden like mad and know absolutely everything about everyone. There was one old lady, I can’t remember the show, who I have taken as a role model for my future when I get old. She rides about her village on a tricycle with a cute little basket on the handlebars. She keeps her shopping and a little dog in it.

She looks so happy and self-sufficient. Never mind that she gets murdered in the first 15 minutes. 

All I need is one of those three wheelers and old ladyhood will be a breeze. My corner of New York will be just like an English village. Haven’t I always heard that NYC neighborhoods are like small self-contained towns?  Of course I will have to ignore the 15 story buildings like mine, but I can pedal around the neighborhood on my tricycle, say hello to anyone who looks amenable as I do my errands and look for anything suspicious all in one fell swoop.

I couldn’t have a dog because the stores here wouldn’t let the poor thing in no matter how cute it would be. And I’d need a huge chain to lock the trike up in front of each store I enter, but I can just picture myself in a straw hat in the summer and ancient tweeds in the winter.  Maybe I’ll buy a pair of Wellingtons.

I’ll discuss the weather with Byron, our doorman, who should have a little gray hair himself by the time I get old. I’ll hop on my trike and take off for the post office or library. I'll stop off at the housewares shop and pick up a large vicious looking carving knife just to keep in the little old English lady spirit.

I’ll visit the florist for some advice about my African violets and a fresh bottle of weed killer. He probably doesn't sell arsenic, so the weed killer will have to do. It could go nicely in a kitchen cabinet beside the lye and the drain cleaner.

Since we don't have a teashop nearby and Starbucks isn’t known for seating space, I’ll pedal over to the pastry shop across from St John the Divine. Too bad its Hungarian but awfully good so I'll just have to  pretend I am eating a scone.

Good luck that the cathedral is Episcopal and the garden is quite English. I wonder if anything interesting is buried there? There are even two peacocks wondering around.

Since I’ll be an old lady, I won’t even notice the absence of pubs in the area.

Occasionally, I’ll rush home to prepare tea for a few friends. I’ll take out all the knickknacks I can find and cover all the end tables with them to give the apartment the proper cottagey air.

I’ll serve the pastries I bought, but I will have to run back out for the right kind of bread for cucumber sandwiches. I’m sure there is a recipe in one of my cookbooks.

A tablecloth and napkins will be needed and I’ll put out flowered cups and saucers and clean up that old teapot in the back of the closet. The tea will taste a little odd so everyone will be a bit nervous. That would be fun.

I recently purchased a book about poisons on Amazon.com. I’ll leave it lying about in a conspicuous place.

If anyone goes in the kitchen they will certainly notice the big knife I just bought lying on the counter. A little ketchup on the floor will make a nice touch.

We will exchange newsy tidbits and gossip about our neighbors.

Since I refuse to play bridge, I may suggest we play poker or a game of Clue.  

We could solve a murder.

Or plan one.

Ah yes. Life could be quite British.

That Woman at the General Store

At first I was sort of appalled: “Look at that woman getting out of her car over there,” I said to myself.  “She has to be at least my age and she is walking right into the store in her bathing suit!”

And the real kicker?  “She looks perfectly at ease.”

I almost dropped my ice cream cone.

“God, imagine having that kind of nerve!”….

And then it came to me, not a lightning bolt, maybe a pinch in the shoe: Who was the person with the problem in this little summer scene in the parking lot of a Georgetown Island general store in Maine?

It just might have been me.

Yeah, I have succumbed big time to age embarrassment. Tank tops have disappeared from my wardrobe. My preference for black clothing has gotten out of control.

And I haven’t worn a bathing suit since my first social security check arrived.

Why am I so out of sorts with my body? That's easy, my body is showing the signs of its years.

And I am pissed.

But aside from exercise, diet and prayer – is it even right to pray for a decent body?  – There isn’t much I can do about gravity.

I’m not an optimist. I do not subscribe to positive thinking. In fact positive thinking makes me cranky and irritable.

So don't tell me how great I should feel about being alive etc. I am grateful but still put out about developing an appearance that is looks more and more alarmingly like my mother in her later years.

And I am actually outraged that it is happening to me.

A few weeks ago, I noticed an article in the New Yorker about the philosopher, Martha Nussbaum. I had never heard of her, but in the picture she looked as though she was no more a spring chicken than I. Skimming the article a sentence caught my eye: it went something like “Remember how 40 years ago the book Our Bodies Ourselves inspired us to get past body hatred and accept all the ugly parts we were ashamed of? But now that we are in our sixties we are disgusted again.”  

I was late for something so I put the magazine down. I thought how wonderful. She is going to discuss the problems we women have with accepting our aging bodies.

For several days I couldn't find the magazine. It had disappeared into the ether of my apartment. As I searched, I tried to imagine what Ms. Nussbaum would say. Would she mention that in some societies it is possible to be beautiful at any age? And that the French have an appreciation for the jolie laide – the ugly beautiful?

Would she show me how to live in the moment? Maybe I would even learn how to look at the positive not the negative. I would learn to do the best with what I’ve got, as some character in a bygone Disney movie directed.

Or just learn not to give a damn.

I finally found the magazine and rushed to the article only to find that there was no discussion of aging at all. The sentence about Our Bodies Ourselves was the end of it. I reread the entire article to make sure.

I was upset. Where was the outline, the plan for me to follow? The answers I was seeking weren’t going to be given to me.

What about all those thoughts and feelings I had while looking for the article? Were they a waste?

Finally it came to me that maybe I don't need Ms. Nussbaum to think it out for me.

Obviously the lady at the General Store didn't.

Besides my mom was always beautiful.