This Past Week ...

I wrote another new poem, hallelujah. The (horrible) working title is "The Language of the Sea."

 

I started reading Sheila Kaye-Smith's memoir All the Books of My Life. Delightful, fascinating,   informative, often funny. I haven't yet read any of her fiction, but Joanna Godden  and Susan Spray  sit on my TBR shelf.

 

I received two books: The Indiscreet Letter  by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, one of those turn-of-the-twentieth-century, quaint, forgotten, and very brief novelettes penned by a forgotten lady writer who contributed stories to ladies' magazines. And The Wilder Life  by Wendy McClure, published last year and recommended by my sister. It's the true account of the author's journey following the route Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family took in the "Little House" books.

 

I also received a CD of English madrigals sung by The King's Singers, and a DVD of the indie film The Anniversary Party  starring Alan Cumming, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Jane Adams, Gwenyth Paltrow, Parker Posey, and Jennifer Beals.

 

I listened to this wonderful interview with David Hyde Pierce on the American Theatre Wing website. It's an older interview (2006), but worth listening to if you are a DHP fan—and even if you're not. In fact, the whole site is worth browsing.

 

I watched the premiere of Dancing with the Stars All-Stars Season on Monday, and, of course, the first elimination on Tuesday. All I can say is, the right person went home Tuesday night. And I'm rooting for both Gilles and Kirstie, even though Emmett will probably win.

 

I regretted putting too much Newman's Organic Marinara Sauce on my pasta, and

 

I wondered why on earth I don't make my own sauce.

 



From My Big Orange Book

     Some years ago—actually, it must have been over a decade ago—I purchased from my neighborhood Barnes and Noble in Houston a huge blank book. Sizing in at 8.5 x 11 x 1 and weighing in at about three or four pounds, it is patently impractical as a schlep-around journal. Open, it would take up half the table in a cafe.

     Why did I buy it? It was on sale for five bucks. Reason enough for me. And as I heaved its burnt orange cloth bound poundage onto the checkout counter, I thought, "I'll find a use for it someday."

     It sat on my shelf for several weeks, then it came to me: I would copy in it any poem or part of a poem, any quotation or prose passage or song lyric, that spoke to me in a meaningful and lasting way. I had already copied many of these things into my journals over the years, but now I would have a single volume in which to gather, peruse, and reference them. Huzzah!

     I hasten to say that I did not own a computer at that time—but even if I did, I probably would still have copied the texts by hand into the book. That's just the kind of person I am. Here's what I wrote on the flyleaf:

Herein I have copied down poems, passages, phrases, etc. that have touched me or merely caught my fancy. Much handier to have them all in one single volume, don't you think? I have to say, however, that I probably will not copy one of my favorite poems of all time—"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"—because it's just too bloody long!

 

P. S.  I knew I'd find a use for this damn book.

     So I decided that, from time to time, I would post an entry or two from my Big Orange Book, beginning today. The entries on the first page are two short poems by Emily Dickinson. Are we surprised?

Ample make this bed -
Make this Bed with Awe -
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.

Be it's Mattress straight -
Be it's Pillow round -
Let no Sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground -

* * *

Heart! We will forget him!
You and I - tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave -
I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me
That I may straight begin!
Haste! Lest while you're lagging
I remember him!


     I also wrote, on the page facing these poems:

There seems to be quite a lot of Emily Dickinson in this volume. Not surprising - she is my favorite. I just want to make clear that all errors in spelling & punctuation are hers - taken from the R. W. Franklin edition. I, for some silly reason, didn't want you to think I had bad spelling & patchy knowledge of punctuation!

     Obviously, I mean for the Big Orange Book to be left, along with my journals and poetry, to my family after my passing. I do plan for the future, you know. 

 

Music Monday: The Fascination of Jane Morgan

 Among the shelves and racks in our music room, there is an old vinyl record album (I guess all vinyl albums are old) that I am especially fond of and have listened to again and again since childhood. It's called Fascination and features the brandy-smooth voice of Jane Morgan and the nostalgically mellow accompaniment of The Troubadors. It was issued in 1957, recorded in the then-new stereophonic sound that promised "to present a recording in such a way that the original performance might actually be taking place in the presence of the listener," as it says on the back of the album's jacket. The jacket blurb further states:

This album recalls a very special evening. It might have been spent in the elegant luxury of a sophisticated night-club, or perhaps in the intimate warmth of one of those quiet, out-of-the-way cafes. In the far corner of the room, two violins begin to play. The melody is "Fascination." They move towards you, joined by other instruments. From one of the tables, Jane Morgan sings. She walks over to the group and, together, they move across the room.

Her songs are of love, mellow and tender, yet with an undercurrent of promise and excitement. She shares them with each listener, almost speaking his thoughts and putting into words and music what he would wish to say.

In this album, Jane Morgan and The Troubadors come into your home, and, by means of stereophonic recording, they become real people, moving before you, creating the scene in its entirety—the hushed audience, the subdued lighting and the warm glow of the music.

 

Wow. Quite a promotion for a mood-setting album. Which this album indeed was and is. Played on our old buffet-sized console stereo with its deeply layered, naturalistic sound, it was pure escapism for me. I could, for a brief hour, feel as if I were in a dimly lit café with my beloved, our hands joined atop a checkered table cloth. I've never experienced that kind of aural atmosphere after the invention of the shelf system and compact disc.

 

I now own several reissues of Morgan's recordings on CD, but none of them approach the authentic magic of Fascination  and her other albums in stereophonic sound. Besides the titular tune, this album includes "An Affair to Remember," "Stars in My Eyes," "It's Not for Me to Say," "Intermezzo" (instrumental), "Around the World," "My Heart Reminds Me," "River Seine," "Midnight in Athens" (instrumental), "Speak Low," "Two Different Worlds," and "Yours Is My Heart Alone."

 

 

If you own a turntable and are lucky enough to find a copy of the original 1957 Kapp album, snap it up. It's a real treasure.

 



Jane Morgan and The Troubadors, "Fascination."
 

 

 

The Ersatz Organist

     I never wanted to play the organ. From the dawn of my musical life, I knew my keyboard instrument of choice was the piano. I loved the seemingly endless spectrum of tone and color one can draw from a fine piano, simply by virtue of one's physical and psychological makeup—combined with the speed, the amount of pressure, and how much of one's fingertips one uses to depress the keys. When I listened to great pianists, I was awed and fascinated at their ability to turn the piano into an aural kaleidoscope, to evoke the sound of rain, thunder, birds, the human voice, and everything in between. When as a child I looked at an organ, with all its stops and pistons, bells and whistles, I thought, "Well, you just push different buttons to get different sounds. That doesn't seem very fun or challenging." Aside from hymns, I didn't even like to listen to the organ. Organ recitals left me completely unmoved and unimpressed.

     Even now, I remain unmoved. I can sometimes be impressed by a fine organist's skill, but I am never moved, nor would I willingly choose to attend an organ recital. The piano, on the other hand—rather, in the hands of a master—can, and very often does, move me to tears. It can also make me laugh—when I am so overwhelmed by the music and the pianist's gift, so much joy wells up in my soul, I can't help laughing. Glee. Sheer glee.

     When I entered the monastery, I knew I would have to curtail severely my piano playing, noise of any kind, musical or otherwise, not being conducive to the silence that is so crucial to monastic life. I also knew that I would eventually be asked to learn to play the organ. It surprises me that so many people think pianists can automatically play the organ and vice-versa. The only thing the two instruments have in common is the keyboard; otherwise, they are radically different and require different techniques. By the same token, an oboe and a clarinet are both wind instruments, but they are radically different and require different techniques—not to mention the fact that one has a double reed and the other has a single. The only thing they have in common, really, is that they are both blown into.

     Sisters in that monastery who learned the organ before I entered, took lessons from a local teacher. But when it came time for me to learn, that teacher's health had declined and she no longer taught. Since there was no other organ teacher in Lufkin, I perforce taught myself. At that time, a sister from an active congregation was visiting us for a week, to help hone our liturgy and improve our singing. She kindly got me started on the organ, giving me the Gleason manual as a guide. I remembered my high school choir director, who was also a church organist, had always told me that hymns are some of the most difficult things to play on the organ; so almost immediately on learning basic pedal technique and finger legato, I sightread and worked on as many hymns as I could.

     For some time, I found it especially difficult to stop my left pinkie finger from wanting to play bass notes! And of course, there was the problem most common among pianists learning the organ: training the left hand to be completely independent from the feet. At first, the left hand wants not only to play bass notes, it wants to move parallel with the bass line  instead of sticking to wherever the tenor line goes. The remedy is to practice, ad nauseum, the feet and left hand by themselves.

     I won't go into the challenges of finger legato or the finer points of pedal technique; it all gets too complicated. I will say, though, that I had to practice using at all times the quietest registration possible. The monastery owns two organs, almost identical to each other; one is in the chapel, the other in the chapter hall. The latter is used for practice. However, the chapter hall is in the same building as the professed sisters' cells. Given that when they're not working or in chapel, nuns are encouraged to spend as much time as they can praying and reading in their cells, those practicing on the organ can never practice with "real" registrations, for fear of disturbing their sisters. So the organists never really know what a piece sounds like until they play it on the chapel organ, in the actual situation for which they practiced! When I was asked to play the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria (and later, the Schubert) for a special Mass, I had no idea what my chosen registration actually sounded like beforehand. Scary—and very frustrating.

     Now I am the volunteer organist (and, at the moment, the volunteer cantor) at a small chapel in a retirement village. The congregation consists of retired sisters belonging to a certain active order, and lay residents. I'm happy to put the skills learned during my novitiate to such a worthy use, and grateful to be given the opportunity to serve the Church in even a small way. But I consider myself a pianist by nature and an ersatz organist who still doesn't like the sound of an organ, except in the liturgy.

To Music, from an Old Lover

My dear,

I sometimes thought I’d die without you—you who shook my soul and filled the wasteland of my womb with fertile singing. Yet I left you fully conscious of the risk of slow and agonizing death, or of an ever-bleeding wound where ancient ecstasies had hymned and sighed. I knew I could expect the wrenching of my heart whenever I perceive you suffering beneath the unrefined or disrespectful treatment you so often have to bear. I suffer with you, as a faithful lover should, regretting the predicament in which I placed myself and you. Perhaps, though, I presume too much—you have survived for centuries without me; and although I feel as if I’ve loved you since you first began to use your charms to soothe the savage breast of man, you owe me nothing. Rather, it is I who owe my very life to you. Although I chose to leave you, you could never part from me. You are the organ of my thought, the beat that pulses through my veins, the breath that feeds my being until death—and I remain, at heart,

                                                                                     Forever yours

I had originally written this poem, four years ago, in strict iambic tetrameter, which on paper made it look long and narrow, with very short lines, not at all like a letter. I decided to reconfigure it, preserving the iambs, but converting it into a prose poem so that it looks and feels more like a real letter. 

© Leticia Austria 2012

Autumn in My Heart

     It's ironic, and a bit sad, that autumn is my favorite season and I live in a part of the country where it is almost unrecognizable. Except for the slightly cooler temperatures and the odd flame-leafed tree, autumn here is more a state of mind than a season. By the time Halloween comes and images of leering jack-o-lanterns confront me at every turn, reminding me that it is indeed autumn, autumn is already a third gone.

     I like to call it "autumn" rather than "fall" simply because it sounds more poetic, and it is a poetic season. I also like the way the word looks, with the twin "u"s and the side-by-side "m" and "n" that almost make your lips hum just by seeing them; there's a savory, comforting roundness to the letters themselves. The adjective, too—"autumnal"—is a wonderful word to say and see. The stressed second syllable sounds like dry leaves tumbling down the street in a brisk wind, and the "t" amid all those rounded letters is balanced by the noble Doric column of the "l." (Well, it's a Doric column when it appears in a serif font.)

     Why is autumn my favorite season, when I live where it is almost non-existent? That's precisely why. It is a quirk of human nature that the thing most lacking and yearned for is the thing that's most appealing and cherished. "The grass is greener ..." and all that; or, in this case, "the leaves are redder ...." But there is another, more concrete reason: it was in autumn that my life took a definite turn for the better, though I didn't realize it then. Looking back, I see my life clearly divided by that one autumn; everything before it is indistinct, and everything after it sharply focused.

Ricordo

Each year the light of autumn weaves new lace;
Each year the shade of autumn slows the pace;
Each autumn I recall another place,
     Another year.

A time when music sang with sweeter grace,
When music lay in autumn's cool embrace;
The autumn when I first beheld your face,
     And time stood still.

[© Leticia Austria. First published in Dreamcatcher.]

Autumn read: Persuasion. Austen's last novel and my favorite of hers. Anne Elliott is also my favorite Austen heroine. The story of a long-lost but still-alive love restored to a woman who, in that era, was considered to be on the verge of spinsterhood (at the ripe age of twenty-eight), has a strong autumnal slant. Austen's writing, too, is more mellow and reflective here than in her other novels.

Autumn watch: Besides the exquisite 1995 BBC film adaptation of Persuasion, I would choose a comedy like Something's Gotta Give or It's Complicated—both about late middle-age romance.

Autumn listen: Schumann's great song cycle Dichterliebe, or the late Beethoven piano sonatas. Also, Chopin nocturnes and sonatas.

Autumn artist: American Impressionist Edward Cucuel (1879-1954)

"Two Girls in White beside a Lake in Autumn"



"Herbstlandschaft"

 

"Golden Autumn"

 

And my favorite:

"Beside a Lake in Autumn"

    

In Celebration of the Coming of Autumn

source

 

At Summer's End

 

At summer's end I'll harvest all the fruit,

clusters of hope made ripe by rain and sun

on wizened, gnarled vines sinewy of root.

 

I'll crush it with the weight of life begun

in youth-blind earnestness, burnished by dust

of shattered goals and victories hard-won;

 

and when the broken flesh, fermented must,

is freed of all its pomace, I will fine

it till it's pure, then wait with steady trust.

 

Matured by nature's hand, sweetened with time

in weathered oaken barrels, the fruit born

of callow dreams will yield a mellow wine.

 

I'll sip the wine with wisdom lately learned,

in autumn leisure, fought for, sorely earned.

 

 

© Leticia Austria 2009

First published in The Storyteller

Lately I've Been ...

Okay, I still can't think of a topic for a bonafide post. So I swiped this meme from this blog, who swiped it from here and there, who in turn swiped it from its creator at this blog, and if anyone wants to swipe it from me, swipe away.
Anyway, it goes like this: "Lately I've been ... "

 

... writing

absolutely nothing. Which is why I'm doing this meme. And Lord knows I sure haven't been writing any poems.

 

... reading

A Nineteenth-Century Childhood  by Mary MacCarthy (the one that belonged to the Bloomsbury Group, not the Mary MacCarthy that writes books about embroidery, and not the Mary McCarthy --different spelling, note -- that wrote The Group—which isn't about the Bloomsbury Group, anyway. Are we confused yet?).

 

... listening

to Fifty Poems by Emily Dickinson  read by Meryl Streep, Glenda Jackson, Stephanie Beecham, and, unfortunately, Sharon Stone.
Music-wise, I received yesterday Stephen Hough's new one, his French Album, and have been wallowing in its aural luxury ever since. This is pianism at its most subtle and sensitive, with a tweak of cheekiness towards the end of the disc. Highly recommend.

 

... watching

you mean, besides Frasier ? Uh ....
Just kidding. I've also been watching the first season of The Courtship of Eddie's Father and wanting to squeeze little Brandon Cruz because he's such a wee cutie-patootie. I don't do current TV series for some reason. Lots of Food Network and HGTV.

 

... looking

at a lot of paintings. By a lot of painters. Sorry I can't be more specific.

 

... feeling

extremely middle-aged.

 

... anticipating

the next seasons of Dancing with the Stars, The Next Iron Chef,  and Downton Abbey.  I lead a very exciting life.

 

... wishing

I could see David Hyde Pierce in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.  For that matter, I've been wishing I could see David Hyde Pierce in anything, anywhere. Also, that I could see Stephen Hough in concert or recital.

 

... loving

watching Chopped! with my mother, Blue Bunny's Bordeaux Cherry Chocolate ice cream (wow, that's a lot of alliteration), and Christopher Morley essays. Pretty much in that order.

 

Wait a minute ... I'm channeling Niles Crane here ... remember when he said, "There's a wonderful new lecture series on the history of lecture series"? Well, maybe I should write a post about the occasional difficulty in writing posts! Oh, wait, I already did that.

 

So ... anybody got another meme or questionnaire I can swipe?

Another Questionnaire

Since I can't think of a subject to write a post about, I swiped this questionnaire from HGO's Facebook page.

My earliest memory is of President Kennedy's funeral.
At school, I daydreamed about boys and being a concert pianist.
My school report usually said "she skips class too often."
My first relationship was with Ethel Merman. I fell in love with her Annie Get Your Gun album, and Mom had to borrow it from the library again and again. I sang along on all the songs; I think I was around 4. I guess you could say she was my first voice teacher.
I don't like talking about politics.
My most treasured possession is—well, if we're talking about something material (as opposed to spiritual) I'd have to say my library.
My father/mother always told me (my mother): "God be with you."
In the movie of my life, I'd be played by ... I can't think of any neurotic Asian actresses.
I wish I had learned Italian sooner.
I wish I hadn't ... been so selfish all my life.
My guiltiest pleasure is Frasier.
The six famous people, living or dead, I'd like to invite to dinner are: Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Mozart, Bernard Shaw, David Hyde Pierce, and Stephen Hough
I'm very bad at finances.
It's not fashionable, but I love manual typewriters, fountain pens, and dip pens.
If I could live anywhere, I'd choose a quiet village in England, but a quick train ride from London.
My greatest fear is being alone at the end. I don't mean living alone; I mean not having family or friends nearby.
If only I could stop being ambitious and wanting the praise of others.
The hardest thing I've ever done was say goodbye to all my opera friends.
I relax by watching movies at home, reading, writing ... and prayer brings the greatest peace of all.
What I don't find amusing is people speaking or writing of others derogatorily because of their spiritual/moral beliefs or political views.
I'm always being asked "Where does the name 'Austria' come from?" I DON'T KNOW, OKAY???
My worst job was ... I have to rephrase the question, since the only jobs I've ever had were as a pianist/coach/singer/musician: The worst production I was ever assigned to was ... and there are so many to choose from! Probably Jackie O. Also, that show about Ruth (can't remember the name) in which there was a line about the "vulva." One of the younger chorus guys asked what a vulva was, and I said, "Well, it ain't a car."
I often wonder what heaven is like.
What would surprise people about me is that I'm not half as smart, nor as verbally articulate, as I pretend to be.

Sometimes the Tortoise, Sometimes the Hare

     'Tis a paradox. Or, as the King would say in The King and I, "Is a puzzlement!"

     When I lived my incredibly busy life in Houston, I really had precious little time to read. True, on paper a typical work day at the opera was six hours, but "on paper" didn't include practice time, study, score work, or listening, all of which came with the job. Factor in meals and sleep, and I really did have precious little time to read. Factor in, as well, that I am not the world's fastest reader; I like to savor as I go along, linger over particularly striking passages. Yet I managed to read, on average, a book a week during production periods; outside production, I averaged two a week.

     If my life in Houston was allegro, my life now is andante tranquillo. Other than doctor's appointments (both mine and my mother's), twice-monthly grocery shopping, once-monthly mother/daughters lunches, weekly family gatherings, visits to the library every three weeks, and daily chores, I'm pretty much free to read as much and as often as I like. Yet I only manage to read, on average, one or two books a month. Some months, not even that.

     I do find myself turning to things that lend themselves to "dipping"—every day, I dip into literary essays (lots of those lately), writings of the Church fathers, scripture commentary, correspondence, poetry. Or I'll pick up a play, always a fast but engaging read. When I do read a novel, biography, or other extended work, I take my sweet time, and don't care that two weeks go by and I'm barely halfway through. In fact, I consider it the mark of a good writer if the book can sustain my interest that long.

     Every once in while, however, if for no other reason than change of pace, I can and will race through a book. I recently raced through Henry Handel Richardson's Maurice Guest, for instance; no mean feat, as it's about 567 pages of very tiny font; never mind that when I got to the end I was so pissed off I wanted to hurl the book across the room.

     Almost every day in Houston, I fervently longed for a quieter life in which I could read (and write, for that matter) to my heart's content. Now I have it. But instead of devouring one book after another as I thought I would, I find the tempo of my reading has matched the tempo of my life—as it did also in Houston. I find, too, that I now remember more of what I read, whereas in Houston, a book went in one eye and out the other before I could make more than a nodding acquaintance with it. I can remember from that period of my life which books I loved and which I merely liked, but I couldn't describe the plot of any of them. Sad thing, that. Fortunately, I always kept a record in my journal of the books I read, so I'll just have to re-read all of them. I have the time now.

Saturday, and I'm No Longer at the Opera

     For some inexplicable reason, I woke up this morning thinking of Massenet's Manon. Specifically, the Saint-Sulpice scene. No music, I couldn't remember a note of that scene, still can't, just the dramatic situation. I then thought, "How does 'La Rêve' go?" It took a rather long moment, then that plaintive introduction by the strings came into my head and an imaginary tenor voice began, "En ferment les yeux ..."

     I was surprised and a little dismayed that the aria took that long to come back to me. It is one of the most famous arias in the French repertoire. How many gezillion times in my 25-year opera career did I play it in auditions? How many tenors have coached it with me? How many performances of Manon did I see or prompt?

     Then I realized it was nine years ago I did Manon at HGO, and no tenor in the Studio sang it after that production while I was still there. So it's probably been nine years since I last heard "La Rêve." Nine years, it suddenly struck me. That's a long time. In the opera world, nine years is forever.

     I realized, too, that I left that rarefied world eight years ago and the invisible line connecting it to my spirit is growing thinner and more fragile with each passing year. I still keep in touch with many of my former colleagues, singers, orchestra personnel, etc., thanks to social networks, and though I treasure those contacts and intend to preserve them for as long as possible, my mind and spirit are elsewhere, and that the music is no longer a major part of my consciousness is an inevitability I'm learning to accept. Like the letting go of piano repertoire, the letting go of opera repertoire has to be complete before I can let the music return, purified and free of the shackles of my former coach mentality. I still can't listen to opera without coaching in my head, which spoils the joy of listening to it. It may take a while longer before I can listen without criticizing every single phrase, every word. But struggling to remember the tune of a famous aria is a good sign. It means that Leticia the Coach is beginning to fade away, eventually to be replaced by Leticia the Plain Ol' Music Lover.

Jussi Björling (1951)



Transition

"Cape Cod Morning"
Edward Hopper

 

inside this heart

a memory grown old

among these thoughts

a story to be told

outside this house

a field unsown

 

beyond the field

a landscape never seen

beyond the trees

a deeper shade of green

and down the road

a life unknown

 

 

Copyright 2010 Leticia Austria

"Transition" first published in The Lyric

Paper and Scissors and Glue, Oh, My!

     School has started again (haven't you heard?) and I am put in mind of what I myself liked most about it as a child. Yes, I looked forward to seeing my friends again, and to meeting my new teacher. But what I liked most was getting new school supplies.

     I know I'm not the only person in the world that can spend an hour or more very happily in an office supply store. I examine every pen in the never-ending quest to find the perfect instrument for everyday casual scribbling and drafting poems (letters, journal writing, and more formal writing in general are usually done with my beloved fountain pens).  I haunt the paper aisle, pondering the merits of 100% cotton vs. those of a blend, and trying to decide between the classic elegance of white and the eye-soothing tranquillity of natural or ivory. Moving on to the notebooks and binders aisle, I fill my cart with folders and tablets, even though there is a plethora of both stashed in the shelves at home. I assure myself that they will all be used eventually. In the desk accessories and storage aisle, I gaze at the wide selection of containers that come in every conceivable size and shape, envisioning a home office that is more organized, compartmentalized, efficient ... then move on with perhaps only a pair of bookends added to my cart.

     I believe this fondness for office stores is rooted in the excitement of getting new supplies every year for school. Being one of several children made the excitement even greater, because our parents would always take us shopping all together, and we'd each bring home a paper sack full of treasure. Then every day for the next few days, I would relish taking each item out of my sack with childish glee, marvelling at its pristine state and wishing it could stay that pristine always.

 

source

 



     I loved the over-sized pencils we used in under school (being born late in the year, I went to under school rather than kindergarten) and the crayons that had one flat side which prevented them rolling off the desks. I loved the special tablets we used whose lines were divided by dotted lines that served as guides for forming letters, first in print, then later in cursive. I loved learning how to write cursive, am eternally grateful we were taught it, and am deeply appalled that young people today not only are unable to write in cursive but unable even to read it, and therefore cannot decipher the diaries their grandparents wrote and left to them, or the letters their grandparents wrote to one another during the war.

     I loved the cigar boxes we were always obliged to have for keeping said pencils and other small objects together. There were the scissors with the rounded points, the jar of glue with its little brush affixed inside the lid, erasers and rubber bands. And there was my favorite item, the box of Crayola Crayons. I admit to being jealous of my classmates who had the big box of 120 crayons. For too many years I had only the box of 48 or 64, and when at last my mother consented to buy the long-coveted box of 120, my happiness was complete. I loved "cornflower blue," "midnight blue," "salmon pink," and "magenta," loved learning that "red orange" was just a reddish orange and "orange red" an orange-ish red.

     When I reached the fourth grade, I was thrilled that pens were on the supply list for the first time. We had a choice of cartridge pens or ball points, and although even at that young age I preferred the nib to the ball, my parents insisted on the ease and convenience of the latter. Along with the pens, we were also required to have ink erasers. I always had the half-and-half, one half pink for pencil, the other half white for ink. Of course, the ink erasers never worked very well, as ink in those days was much darker and thicker than it is now, and I would rub my paper almost right through trying to erase my mistakes.

     After a few days of school, both the pristine state of my school supplies and the heady blush of new ownership wore off. The inside of my cigar box soon bore lead scars from the pencils kept in it, my beloved Crayolas grew blunt and stunted, and I always lost the caps of my pens. But I would console myself with the knowledge that that school year would end and another begin, and with it would come once again the excitement of getting brand-new supplies.



Have I Been Kidnapped by Marty McFly?

     I really thought I had  been kidnapped by Marty McFly today. I thought he must have put me in his super-souped-up DeLorean and whisked me back to the early '60s. Anyway, however way I got there, I ended up at a bowling alley. From what I could make out in the grayish fluorescent light, the acoustical tile ceiling, which must have been white at one time, was now sepia-tinged from decades of cigarette smoke. Above the pits a line of ceiling fans spun at high speed, rocking dizzily from the momentum and threatening to catapult themselves at any moment onto the hapless bowlers. Behind me where I sat watching, a speaker blared at an eardrum-shattering volume "Runaround Sue," "Duke of Earl," "Tears on My Pillow," and the like.

     My earliest experiences in a bowling alley occurred during the summers between elementary school grades, when I went with my mother to the alley on post. She belonged to a summer league along with one of her best friends who was also my godmother; her daughter Lynn was about my age. Lynn and I passed the time at the alley eating french fries and hot dogs, hiding out in the ladies' lounge playing games, and doing handstands and cartwheels outside on the grass. I never learned to bowl for fear of injuring my piano fingers by getting them stuck in the ball's holes while trying to throw. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. Sometimes, though, my mother would let me be scorekeeper, which I rather liked to do. In those days, of course, they used overhead projectors and you wrote the numbers in by hand on a transparent sheet. At least I got to exercise my feeble math skills.

     At the alley where I was today, the absence of projected handwritten scores dispelled my initial suspicion that I had been spirited there by Marty McFly and his DeLorean time machine. When I saw the computerized score screens, I was assured of having remained in the 21st century. But you can't blame me for being temporarily confused -- you would have been, too, given "Runaround Sue" and the gray, almost surreal, light. Once I shook off my nostalgic daze, I thoroughly enjoyed watching my family laugh off gutter balls, stamp their feet in frustration at a missed spare, and give each other high fives after the all-too-rare strike. And when they finished, we walked out to the parking lot where I got into my brother's perfectly ordinary Subaru Outback.