Summer’s Almost Over
This is not a very fun thing to read or write because I feel like I ran out of things to say. So after my reflection of Saturday is a poem (I think) from something else I have been working on. Thank you.
On Saturday I spent the day learning about a decision that was made of two parts. One part in January when an application was filled and filed and submitted. The second part was in April when I got a call followed by an email about how I got accepted into graduate school.
So, on Saturday I got dressed and walked to school. I sat in a room mostly full of fiction writers and a few poets, who when we had to do an icebreaker most declared themselves to be either comedians or jugglers–to my dismay no clowns. We were told over the course of our two year program we could not write about anything resembling our classmates, instructors, et al.
I was antsy to see who else was getting their MFA. There were the usual suspects meaning no motorcycle handsome young man who gets off on Henry Miller. Instead a lot of women, a few gay men, and an old British woman. It is funny how the form of school follows suit no matter what grade or age. There are people who willingly volunteer to read aloud to the class (they end up growing up to be high school English teachers with pink hair in case you were wondering). There are those who quickly raise hands to analyze writing (they still like the sounds of their own voices). It is all form and function and I started to befriend an older professor who was wearing a pair of Simple Shoes because men over the age of 60 are the demographic I excel in.
After we were oriented about our next two years and how alumni of this program seemed to all be published, sold numerous scripts, and appeared in The New Yorker I felt increasingly 24 and too young. What do I even have to say? One third of my sub-cohort lost a son, drove across the country six times, and lived at a Monastery in Big Sur. Whatever happened to me and what the hell am I going to write about? At the same time I cannot imagine being anywhere else and I only have one more week left of summer before my weeks become slightly more clogged.
Come next Tuesday I will grow closer to saying “I have to go to this reading”, or have my words live somewhere else. I hope my words say and tell something else other than a ‘teetering the edge of writer’s block journalistic Tuesday evening spiel’.
Hoping this to be True:
I have this vision of a sun drenched kitchen and a wooden fruit bowl–there is this one my dad made when he was in high school, that was when High Schools taught you how cars worked and how to carve wood and curfews weren’t negotiated, just broken because you never had a ride in the first place. Anyways, this bowl my Dad made I would love to have, but it would also be such a perfect salad bowl to plop in the middle of my kitchen table when I have people come over for dinner and we drink wine–one of those nights where someone grabs the bottle and starts to pour themselves a glass and it is only a sip so they pull the bottle away from their face and hold it ever so slightly up to the light and go, “We just killed another” and then it is my line “Oh! Grab another from the fridge, there is also lambrusco or bubbles if you want, and Steve brought a white” We would watch the sunset and then build a fire on the sand and dance to Herb Alpert and it would be a balmy night and everyone has linen clothes on, but that is besides the point.
My sun drenched kitchen! I think there will be quite a few of these in my lifetime. The first one is going to be in my first solo apartment–the apartment that is all mine. And then I will find a way to a studio in Beachwood or Laurel or Topanga Canyon(s) or maybe it will be in Laguna Beach or maybe Europe? Definitely Europe, but that is after I live in New York for a year or two. When I am in the decade called my 30s (the half closer to 40) maybe, I am somewhere else–my own home? And at this point I am clinically-chronically single, but I can buy myself really nice jewelry (like a Jenna Katz ring!) There are rooms for the nieces and nephews and I have them paint me a mural for my entryway.
It is a sunny happy life, maybe lonely at times but that is what the dinner parties with wine and wooden salad bowls are for! There are books to read and cakes to bake and linen to iron. And so much music to sway to, and the books I’ll need to write. Oh! I will send letters and buy limited edition stamps and have stationery and a bird feeder in the garden. And I will have Gardenheir clothes and clogs and actually garden in them. I forgot about the view! My kitchen will have western facing windows so I get the afternoon light and the Catalina Silhouette and my bedroom is eastern facing for the morning sun. My kitchen will have curtains instead of a cupboard under the sink for too long of a time just because. There will be really nice candles and skylights? Yes definitely skylights. I will have one of those antique vanities with a huge circle mirror. This is where I’ll give my niece her first lipgloss (an old Chanel or Dior?, I haven’t decided yet, I’ll let her choose).
Oh, but the sunny kitchen! Fitted with a gas stove and the most reliable oven. The right amount of counter space (maybe it is marble of some kind for when I roll out pastry dough?) In this kitchen I only make homemade salad dressings and when I need herbs I just go to the garden. My lazy dessert I serve at my dinner parties is freshly whipped cream and berries with mint (from my garden of course) and (the secret to the whipped cream is to put a little sour cream and just the right amount of salt)
Evenings in the kitchen end with decaf coffee or cognac (i have never had cognac) to cap the night and talk about frivolous things like love and loss and not remembering the last time we went to the movie theater and then we think of our very American friend that calls it the cinema and laugh about that.
(this is my consolation prize)
