The landscape I know

Sometimes I cannot remember where I am. I cannot remember if I'm in Oregon or New York. For example, I just read that Jonathan Safran Foer lives in Brooklyn and I thought Of course and I pictured Brooklyn as a grayish spot on a map, a hub of brownish buildings cobbled up over sidewalks lined with black garbage bags and London Plane trees, all far east across the continent. And then I thought, No, it's just across the East River. And just a few days ago I thought of London Plane trees and how their hardy leaves make good ghosts and that we should go pick up some to paint for Halloween and then stopped because I don't know if London Plane trees grow in Portland. I think they don't. Because I was in Portland then. (Where we have two enormous healthy elm trees that make as good company as the Hudson River, but that is another story.)

The story today began with a trip up the Hudson to Cold Spring, NY, where we bought pottery and dress-up clothes. We had duck with fennel and guinea hen with apple ragu for lunch. The leaves along the Taconic were orange and yellow, and sometimes blew across the road. The sky in the afternoon turned dark blue-gray and splattered us with some heavy drops, but not too many. There were barn sales and tag sales and traffic. And I said it was odd, the way I love the Northeast landscape. The old rocks and huge deciduous trees, the soft hills and majestic light. It makes sense to me. Woods with little underbrush and white three-story farmhouses. Its odd because I still feel like I'm a foreigner here; all the memories of these places were made by my adult mind in the last 15 years. And even though I've repeatedly visited places like Rhinebeck or Saugerties or Cape Cod I know I don't exactly belong. That is not to say that I do not drive like a New Yorker, or expect people to be direct and knowledgeable like New Yorkers, but that in my heart of hearts I am not a New Yorker.

And it is the opposite in Oregon. I feel that the landscape is my own, not because it makes sense to me or is beautiful, but because I just know it. Because as we drive the geography reveals itself like the shape of my own arm. I know where to turn for Canby without knowing that I knew where to turn for Canby. I can guess that the trees in the orchard we are passing are hazelnut, but I wouldn't have known three minutes ago how to describe a Hazelnut tree. Not the way I could describe a Linden, Honey Locust, or Copper Beech. New York is my adult mind. Portland holds my child's mind, a mind that holds far more than I knew.

Years ago my Dad came to visit me in New York, and then we drove out near Akron, Ohio, where he was born and raised. And as we rode down wide, flat lanes lined by brick houses so far back from the road that the lawns seemed oddly large, he would tell me things like, This is where Aunt Anna lived or This is where we sold flowers on Saturday or This is the road to the old coal mine. And while the landscape seemed hot and yellow-green and sort of all-the-same to me, it spoke of different things to him. I wonder if he has felt like Oregon is a foreign country all this time.

To my adult self the hills around Portland are dark and spiky and a little unfriendly. They seem too new and the deciduous trees too small (and too few). There isn't any schist lying around sparkling, not enough rock in general. I despair of split-level or ranch homes or slanty-wood-fronted buildings. I despair of people who never disagree with you, of people who drive slow. People who drive as if they are apologizing for their carbon footprint with timidity, No, no, you go ahead. At least the bicyclists are worth their salt and seem to think the point of transportation is getting there.

And yet, despite all this, Portland is where I belong. The land is connected to places and people that are my own. The roads lead to Dad's house or Mom's house, to the old nursery, or by skate church, or near my high-school, or my university, or Saint Nicholas. Hippo Hardware hasn't changed, nor all the strip clubs, or the coffee shops. I pass the place where I fell out of Dad's truck and Heidi yelled Amber's dead! and I felt myself all over and thought I don't think I am. I live a few blocks from the dry cleaner where I worked two afternoons a week in high school. I don't feel even remotely foreign there.

I think of the children's book by Allan Say, many times read to my children, Grandfather's Journey. When the grandfather was in Japan he longed for California, and when he was in California he longed for Japan--and when the grandson grew up and moved from Japan to California he felt much the same way. (Allan Say, coincidentally, lives in Portland, Oregon.) And I too, long for a different landscape: for golden magnificence of New York when I am in Portland, and for the damp clean of Portland when I am in New York.

this arrival

It will be a month, tomorrow. A month since we arrived in Portland, Oregon at the end of a long drive across the country. A truly lovely—spectacular even— nineteen-day cross-country road trip. And now we've been nearly a month in our new home.

At first it was all highlights. Having a back yard, sprinklers, grass. Having a dishwasher, a kitchen that could hold more than one person, two sets of stairs, oodles of empty space: a basement, a garage. Two walk-in closets. Antique stores and a farmers market a few blocks away.

But in no time I was bone-tired. Charles headed back to New York, I had two children, long days, and no nanny. The dryer was leaving long slim burns on all our sheets and clothes. We had no wi-fi, no table at which to eat, no blinds on the windows, no routine, lots of boxes to be unpacked and lists of things to buy, and a lawn that needed to be watered and mown. I suddenly needed to sleep. I got cranky, the five-year-old got cranky; I was impatient, the five-year-old began throwing tantrums. My mom and sister appeared in shifts with paint brushes and plants and watering cans and platters of food. They took care of the kids. I learned how to sort and put out the garbage. I had phone conversations with internet people. I interviewed sitters. I watered. I despaired of finding a sitter. I bought things. I returned things. I went to IKEA four times. I made piles by the door of things to be returned (the pile is still growing). This is now.

My father and sister came over for dinner this evening, we ate pizza at our new dining room table. The kids played in their rooms. When our guests left and the kids and Charles went to sleep, and I found myself doing laundry in the basement. Ironing dresses, hemming the cuffs on my son's new taekwondo pants. Maybe I can do this, with lots help of course.

i am ready for that and weary of this

Tomorrow the movers come. Today Genevieve walked around our mostly-packed apartment and complained, "everything keeps disappearing." Disappearing into brown cardboard boxes that my mother has diligently continued to fill, despite the fact that I don't really want everything packed up. I dislike the transition, not knowing where the fingernail clippers are—or my phone or favorite sweater. I linger about the apartment, soaking in the space I love so much. Dismantling it perhaps a bit too slowly. Each day I've been taking photos from my bedroom window of the locust trees blooming above the Hudson, the Palisades peeking through the foliage. I will miss the trees and the river, the sunsets, and shadowy sunrises, the hawks and gulls. I will miss this little space full of light and peace, even as I won't miss the garbage-laden sidewalks, rushing pedestrians and honking cars, the tiresome culture of competition. 

I am looking forward to getting into our car on Saturday and driving west. Of course, our drive across the country is living in transition as well, but the decisions have mostly been made. Where to go, what to wear, where to sleep. There are many friends to see, and sights to show the children: the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, the vast flatness of Kansas, the mountains in Colorado, the Grand Canyon, the Redwoods. And then the drive up 101 to Oregon. I am ready for that, and am I weary of this.

So I am excited (if not still a bit anxious) the movers are coming tomorrow morning. I am looking forward to the responsibility for all these possessions weighing on someone else's shoulders for awhile. And then just be the four of us, a suitcase, and a car.

this loss speaks no disaster

photo by Mark Guy

O N E   A R T
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

•     •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •      •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •      •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •     •      

Maybe the best indicator of maturity is the ability to lose. To walk away, to give up: demands, cities, dreams, rivers, people. I first felt the sting of real loss in my late twenties, a true friend gone—or, more precisely, divorced. It was both disorienting and freeing. I remember clearly the huge weight of it sliding off of me, and there in that open space the pain of missing someone I knew well. After that I could imagine losing other things with more ease. Trying on loss like a hat: this one or that?

But perhaps maturity is the ability to know what is worth keeping. Loss may feel less disastrous over time, but acknowledging the things which cannot be lost may be central to maintaining identity. Nearly three years ago I walked back and forth along a wooded stretch on our street, talking on the phone and crying. Not understanding why I was crying, but knowing that my best friend was in some inexplicable danger and that I could not follow her where she was going. I was surprised that I felt the pain so keenly: my body welled with anger, fear and loss. But I also felt confident we could ride it out; that our friendship would prove resilient, that she was resilient. And I was right.

We are six weeks from our move to Portland, but in significant ways the loss of New York has already happened. Our dear friends moved away a week and a half ago, a grief for us all but particularly the children. I watch as my son processes the absence of his best friend. I remind myself to be patient through the breakdowns and fits of anger, this is his first time losing something important to him. He is also getting ready to lose the city he was born in, his beloved nanny, and all his friends. I, however, am ready to go; this loss speaks no disaster to me. I can imagine our life in Portland down to the smells and the color of the light. The Hudson River may be sublime, but now I see her as a stand-in for the Columbia. The tangley woods of New England, however quaint and storied, lack the deep, wet stillness of a Douglas Fir forest.

Leaving New York is not really a loss, but just the turning of a page. I grew into an adult in this state—I learned how to party, to grieve, to be independent, assertive and beautiful here; I learned how to negotiate, to shovel snow, to parent, and to parallel park here. There is not much chance I will really lose New York when we leave. I will miss her and I will not miss her. There is joy and there is sorrow, they mingle together—it is no disaster.

old dogs; new tricks

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I have found this line on my lips more than once in the last few months, spoken to a five-year-old who emphatically insists on his explanation of how things work. I don't know if he grasps what I am saying because the conversation usually takes a sudden turn to identity of Horatio and then Hamlet, and then a reminder that his stuffed tiger is named Horatio.

But the words keep coming to mind. And I suppose they rise to mind as much for me as for him. My Alexander Technique instructor lately has used the word plastique in our work, referring to the neuroplasticity of the brain, its ability to make new pathways in response to changes in behavior or environment. I don't want to think about neuroplasticity, however. I just want it to happen in some quiet way. So that one day I notice things have changed and I can say, Ah! My brain is still so malleable, and then, pleased, go about my day. (I can't imagine myself using the word plastique without sounding ridiculous.)

Which actually happened recently. I was sitting with a friend at lunch and was describing our plans to move to Portland and realized how smoothly things were going. Not with the trip itself, per se, but with us. Charles and I have hardly argued about anything, our ideas about homes and schools and jobs and neighborhoods not so much aligning as forming a conversation in which we know and accept our parts. Yes, I did wake up in the middle of the night worried we hadn't applied to enough schools—and feverishly applied to two more the next morning. And yes, Charles did think I was worrying too much, yet mostly kept a respectful distance. And yes, I did get snappish about some of the neighborhoods where Charles wanted to investigate homes. And I all but stopped listening to the discussions of mortgages, insurance, and property taxes—but not before grasping the outlines of the situation. I cannot be expected to understand all the financial maneuvers, but I have learned that I must continue to ask questions until I can translate the finance-speak into something I understand. Which is to say on the whole things have gone well. Which is to say I have changed—new paths can be learned. Nobody is claiming that it was easy or anything.

So what I'm telling myself is: yes. Old dogs, new tricks. On to the next challenge: my health. I hope to be more systematic and optimistic this time through. I bought a neon, hard-bound, pocket-sized journal with three words on the cover: find your happy. I know, sappy. But it will come in useful as I attempt to make some more changes.

a view of the kitchen

This photo was taken two weeks ago and nearly 3,000 miles from my closet-sized kitchen in New York. I pull out my phone to look at this other, cheery kitchen from time to time. And as of today, I own it.

Last week New York City was frigid, like the week before last week was frigid. Like nearly every week of winter this year. The heaps of snow along the Manhattan sidewalks are solid gray ice, littered with garbage and dog business. Walking my children to school I say over and over in the same exasperated tone, "Don't touch the snow! It's full of poop!" They climb on it anyway. On Saturday it warmed to 50ºF and the snow began to melt. It was a lovely day—the pigeons were as elated as the parka-less people on the sidewalks. And the previously rock-hard ice crushed nicely when my children jumped on the piles. Dog poop, however, does not melt along with the snow.

The week before last I walked down mossy sidewalks in my hometown with my husband. Dark fir trees and melancholy crow caws, drizzle from newsprint gray skies, coffee shops with ample tables. Damp everywhere, no poop anywhere. It was a busy week. By the time we boarded the plane back to New York, we'd applied for Ike to attend three of the eight schools we toured, put an offer on a home, had numerous business meetings, and even found a French-immersion summer camp for the kids. We are, it seems, moving to Portland, Oregon.

Before we left for our trip to Oregon I was full of nostalgia for all I love here: the old beauty hewn out of schist and granite, the view of the Hudson from my windows, the Metropolitan Museum, the North Woods of Central Park, spreading deciduous trees lining slate sidewalks, sunlight through tall windows, the Museum of Natural History, the languages spoken everywhere, Grand Central, Wave Hill, the Hassidic families in our neighborhood, my four quince trees in the magical cloister.

But coming back, all I saw was garbage. The cold trudge to school past overflowing trash cans and heaps of garbage bags. Sewers clogged with litter. Rats eating garbage in the subway. Garbage trucks trapped behind double-parked cars, honking. The hustle to get anywhere, the tiresome planning and coordinating of each trip, the throngs of unsmiling people pushing past. Competition for everything. Competition for a handful of pole on the A train, my face inches away from the black (always black) back of someone's parka. I am exhausted by this anxious city, the impossibility of parking, the lines, the urgency. Once the decision was made to move, I lost all my energy for it the rush and crush of it.

I have been in New York a long time: fifteen years. I am hardly the young woman who left Portland years ago. In fact I'd say that since I left the West Coast I have been four different Ambers. Four different faces of the same person, four different sets of priorities, preoccupations, dreams. Some things have remained the same of course. Like my best friend. Our friendship has been one constant in my life during these years (except that now we talk about our plans for retirement). And my faith has remained too, although grown in new and interesting directions. But in suddenly moving back home I am faced with that earlier Amber, that Amber four Ambers ago. We have a lot in common, but we are not really the same person.

However, she comes in handy. She told me I'd want to move to Sellwood, preferably on the bluff overlooking Oaks Bottom. But the new Amber insisted on looking at real estate all over the place. No, no, no: after a few days we were restricted our searching to Sellwood. Not too many light-sucking fir trees there. And charming, flat, walkable blocks with coffee shops and old Craftsman style homes. A yarn store, a children's boutique. The dry cleaners where I worked during high school still on the same corner, still with the same name. Our new home is, reassuringly, in Sellwood.

And while the move date is still a few months away, I am ready to be off. It's not as glamorous as some of the plans we've kicked around over the years. Most recently we'd been researching Geneva— French and English speaking, a beautiful family setting and good prospects for Charles. But for one reason or another we never really followed any of our plans through. Ultimately family took us back to Portland—Grandma, Papo, Grandpa, two aunties, three uncles, some cousins. Charles also has two cousins there, with their own families. And Hawaii is much closer, as is the rest of Charles' family. I am at peace with the decision. And can't wait to have a window over the sink and a working dishwasher!

of ducks and chickens, hoops and hoopla

" Y O U R   L U C K   I S   A B O U T   T O   C H A N G E "

 (a fortune cookie) 

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news

to get just before Christmas,

considering my reasonable health,

marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,

career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.

Not bad, considering what can go wrong:

the bony finger of Uncle Sam

might point out my husband,

my own national guard,

and set him in Afghanistan;

my boss could take a personal interest;

the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.

Still, as the old year tips into the new,

I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking

his legs in the air. I won't give in

to the dark, the sub-zero weather, the fog,

or even the neighbors' Nativity.

Their four-year-old has arranged

his whole legion of dinosaurs

so they, too, worship the child,

joining the cow and sheep. Or else,

ultimate mortals, they've come to eat

ox and camel, Mary and Joseph,

then savor the newborn babe.

–Susan Elizabeth Howe
  
˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜  ˜ 

When leaving on vacation there is one moment in particular that I look forward to, a moment takes place just after I've returned from our trip and settled back into our home. Being away bestows a brief window through which I can see my life from a broader perspective. Like returning to a pair of well-worn shoes, you see them anew—despite their scuffs you remember how much you adore them. I love that.

When we returned from our trip to California, unfortunately, I didn't get much of this. We got in so late at night that once we'd wrestled everyone and everything into and out of the taxi and then into our apartment, we washed our grimy faces and fell fast asleep. I floated around on the edges of our life for a few days. And then it hit me, I wasn't plunging back into our life because didn't want to face all the work associated with the little Waldorf school we'd started. There were all sorts of problems cropping up, both annoying and serious, and I had less than an ounce of energy for it. The school was not just absorbing all of my extra time, filling my days with urgency and anxiety, but also stealing all the moments when I usually allow my brain to rest—the rest from which my energy and creativity spring.

And then at the same time, my husband suddenly started talking about moving. Blink, blink. Since we moved to this neighborhood he's held a moratorium on the subject, saying the idea caused him too much stress. All my dreaming of yards with vegetable gardens and chicken coops was tucked away in some part of the brain. And, as is very typical of the two of us, while I was just opening the gates of my mind to let some of these bleary-eyed desires out of their cages, Charles was plunging forward with plans (albeit of the two-year-sort) for a move. Let just say that Charles is the guy on the horse out in front yelling "Charge!" and I am the lady perched on a stone wall, thinking about it all for a good while before I even begin to chose which ducks to put in a row.

So where does this leave on on this Wednesday? In a messy office, with an almost-two-year-old singing sleepless in her crib, with Christmas cards still unsent, a school to run, and a mind filled with what seems like too many possibilities. I can say this: if we are going to move from this neighborhood in a few years, the hassles associated with moving this school forward through the hoops and hoopla of the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene may be a good deal more than I can bear. Maybe I want to enjoy the remaining years living in Manhattan instead of hiding out in my office, answering emails and making phone calls.

Meanwhile, I'm just perched here on my stone wall, waiting for the right ducks, watching my husband wrestling the bull by its horns. Something like that.

{  p o e t r y   w e d n e s d a y  }

the view

Not only have I had two days without much nausea, but my most recent diptychs are framed and mounted for the open studio tomorrow, and--most significantly--we signed a lease today for a new apartment! We're going to be renting a three bedroom with river views up in Hudson Heights (the neighborhood I've been pining after).

This wasn't an entirely foreseen turn of events, but as I have slowly felt less awful I also felt slowly felt more and more like moving. And the sooner the better. I was dreading the winter cooped up in these 600 square feet with an antsy toddler and an oversized belly. Not to mention that my tolerance for the more ghetto elements of our present neighborhood has all but dissipated.

So, on Wednesday evening I spent a little time on craigslist checking out the HH apartment listings. I arranged to meet with two realtors on the following day two see a number of two-bedrooms and one elusive three-bedroom. The first apartments I saw were dimly-lit, with awkward floorplans, and no views to speak of. The elusive three-bedroom with river views had been promised by a realtor who was having difficulty getting apartment access. He promised to meet up with me as soon as he could get us into the apartment. I wandered over to Frank's Market and bought a nectarine, Greek yogurt, a can of lemonata, and string beans from the deli. Then I walked down to the wall overlooking the Hudson river and slowly ate the beans. A line of trees stretched along the cliff to the north of me, along the river. Behind them stood a number of old apartment complexes. As I sipped the lemonata I thought how lovely it would be to live in one of these apartments, gazing out at the Hudson through the trees. Ike was home with the babysitter sleeping, I wasn't in a rush to be anywhere,  and was miraculously without nausea. I felt cheerful for the first time in months, I didn't care if the realtor showed up or not. There was no one else on the street with me, and only one car passed the whole time I loitered there. As I was finishing the nectarine, the realtor called and said he'd found a way in, but I'd better come quick. Luckily the building was right around the corner from my little lunch spot. He escorted me up to the third floor (in an elevator) and opened the door to 3G. Immediately as I walked in I saw the trees: the two large windows in the living room looked out toward the river through the trees. And not only that, two of the three bedrooms also looked out to the river. The third bedroom was tiny and had a window facing south toward another building, but it was a real bedroom. The apartment wasn't pristine, and it was still inhabited by tenants, but it was old and grand and lovely. The kitchen had no window and was barely larger than our present postage stamp kitchen, but I didn't care. I wanted the views, the big bedrooms, the old walls with original details, the high ceilings, and the hardwood floors.

And today Charles met the realtor and signed a year's lease, beginning June 5th. Hurrah!

Now the work begins. I hope the nausea stays away!