It's all real life

G and I finagled a quick getaway this weekend--a road trip to Sydney for about 48 hours where went to the opera, visited the temple, ate some good food and generally celebrated the fact that we've been married for 24 years. 

We caught The Magic Flute at the Opera House, with costumes and sets designed by Julie Taymor of Lion King fame (here's a little taste; it was fabulous). I love that G doesn't take himself seriously (exhibit a: this photo); he's enthusiastic, game for adventure and fun to travel alongside (and the very embodiment of our family's travel motto of flexipositivity).

One of our favorite things to do when we're visiting a city is to just walk and walk and talk and explore with some nice long stretches of people watching. We got a lot of that in this weekend with the perfect weather and surroundings for it. We ended up on this hilltop near the Old Observatory and watched the sun go down.

Oh, and Modern Family is filming an episode there this week and we even crossed paths with Claire/Julie Bowen. This was kind of hilariously appropriate because somewhere along the line Maddy's Aussie friends decided G is Phil and I'm Claire (I'm going to assume it's because we're American and maybe because of our coloring?! Otherwise, whatever. Do I have to be Claire?). 

G scored us a terrific hotel set-up, right across from the Opera House and at the feet of the Harbour bridge.

I think it's fascinating that what appears at a distance ^ to be just a solid white surface (I always thought it was made of stucco or cement!) is actually lots of little tiles laid in an intricate pattern to create the structure that is the Opera House. The cracks and patterns make it even more interesting, I think, and highlight the degree of work and planning and commitment for this undertaking.  Here the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts.

Kind of like a marriage, yes?

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Right before we left to drive back home, Maddy texted that she wasn't feeling so well. By the time we arrived, she was suffering from a stomach gomboo. Today she's home sick, fighting the nausea with sprite and saltines.

And so life goes. I'm tempted to say "back to real life!" but it's all real life--the weekend getaways and the sick duty. One (very short) minute you're on a rooftop pool overlooking Sydney Harbour, the next minute you're holding your daughter's hair back while she throws up. It's all part of the whole marriage thing we signed up for back in 1990.

So, instead I'll say: back to regularly scheduled programming! And laundry.

Alt cinema picks just for you!

When I'm feeling the itch to escape the burbs and need access to some insta-culture, I often choose to drive into town to a fabulous little theater that specializes in independent films (River Oaks Theatre for any locals). It's a bit of a drive, but, as a bonus, the shopping center also boasts one of the BEST macaron bakeries in town -- so there's THAT.

Here's two films I can whole heartedly recommend:

Several months ago (as in five) I saw Fill the Void, a film about an Orthodox Hassidic family from Tel Aviv. The narrative focuses primarily on the women, particularly an 18 year old girl who is considering marriage within an extremely conservative and duty-bound culture. The story is interesting, but the insight into Hassidic culture is spectacular. The clothes, the food, the rules -- all of it made for an anxious and beautiful look at duty to family, personal choice, and the downright uncertainty of life. Several weeks after seeing the film I was in New York and ended up staying in Brooklyn, quite near an Hassidic neighborhood. I tried my best not to stare, but I have to admit I'm fascinated. NPR has a great review of the film (with some information on the director, Rama Burshtein) here. Available on iTunes or Amazon. [Note: This movie would be good for teens, although I suspect girls would like it more than boys.]

Just last weekend I drug my sister back downtown to see Philomena (see the trailer here).  When we arrived it was actually sold out (imagine them not holding a ticket for me!), but we persevered and waited until the later show. Guys, it was completely worth the wait. Judi Dench plays an older Irish woman whose son was put up for adoption in the early 1950s. She actually gave birth in a small convent that took in unwed mothers, charging them four years of hard labor in return for room and board. In addition, the convent adopted the babies out (for a sum) to families in America. It's all about shame, choice, forgiveness, religion, and  . . . well . . . of course the resiliency of the human spirit. Judi Dench is incredible. I'd really like to take Rebecca back to see the film, to give her a taste of what life was like for women in 1950. Be aware that there is some explicit language, although it's not used gratuitously (meaning the objects of the profanity dearly deserved the eptithets). There are also some sexual references (Philomena is very forthright about sexuality), so this would definitely be more for an older teen. And this one is still in theaters, so go forth boldly, with popcorn and junior mints!

Memory drive fail

While it has brought me a lot of joy, going back to grad school as an "older student" in my thirties (and, as it drags on, now my forties too) has definitely forced me to face my growing weaknesses. For example. When I was a younger student, I had a pretty darn good memory. In fact, I let my little-engine-that-could memory pull me out of numerous academic fixes, cramming as much information as my poor short-term memory could tolerate, only to eject it clean and empty moments after the exam. I had the audacity to think this meant I was smart. Nope; it turns out it was just the new equipment I was working with.

Now I look at those young students and their fancy next-to-new brains with the same knowing look that I give cute bouncy teenagers on the beach, with their smooth firm figures that they seem to think they earned. My amused, slightly knowing look says "your day will come, too, sweetheart. Enjoy it while you can." 

I have this sense that every time I put something new in my brain, something else falls out. Other things I decide not to park in there at all...thank goodness for calendars and computers and other gizmos that store information for me! I always cross my fingers that what I'm putting in there-in my brain--ranks more important that what it's replacing but who knows? I leave things behind, I forget appointments, I seem flakier. (Greg makes me feel better when he reads one of his thriller-genre books and, halfway through, says "I think I've read this before." And then continues reading because he can't remember how it ends anyway. Like a whole new book! And don't even get me started on the time G and I left our car running in the parking lot for an hour while we were shopping in Costco. Sheesh.) 

The "what's-his-name" work-around descriptions and word gaps (hilariously, one of the words I can never think of is "articulate," ha!) will only increase as I get older, I'm sure. Thankfully Billy Collins has covered that exact topic and, fangirl that I am of his poetry, I couldn't resist passing it along:

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

~ Billy Collins

So...had any memory fails lately?

Creative timing

When I was about 10 or 12, my mom took a drawing class with a local artist. It was based on the classic approach in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I remember being awed by the sudden magic of her ability to capture life in her sketch book.  I particularly remember sketches of her hands and one of my brother Chris that was so true to his two-year-old self (do you still have that one, Mom?). I was pretty enchanted by this new, artist version of my mom and by the idea that you could just capture the world on the surface of a paper. 

Lately my hands have ached to DO SOMETHING, create things. I love writing but it's so internal and thinky. I find myself wanting to create something outside of my head, with my hands, bypassing words. I remembered my mom's Edwards text and went looking for it one day last week before I picked up Sam from school. (Plus a Scandinavian embroidery book for good measure because the accruing of the STUFF of a project is the part where I tend to excel.)

Sam has an after-school math class on Fridays so I took the book, pencils, and a sketchbook with me while I waited the 90 minutes in the car. Scanning through a couple of the chapters, I had a bit of an epiphany reading what she had to say about seeing differently so, as she suggests, I gave my first self-portrait a try, using the visor mirror for reference, aware that to passersby I looked like a mirror-gazing narcissist. Here's to being vulnerable and sharing--

This is totally out of my comfort zone and I'll be the first to say I've got a long long way to go--the prickly art critic/doubter on my shoulder has pointed out this is just me-ish and maybe an anime version at that with the wide-eyed zombie stare--but the magic of making lines suddenly take life?  Wow, what a rush. I'm hooked and Betty has officially rocked my world. (If you've ever played Draw Something with me, you know this is a big leap!)  Ahoy! I'm drawing! I draw! I'm a draw-er! Is this a breakthrough, that I'm a draw-er? I draw now! (Hurry, name that movie before clicking the link.)

In mentioning this to several friends I've been amazed how many people remembered their moms/dads/grandparents taking up drawing at around this same stage with the same book. Maybe it's a life timing thing. If I think about it, my grandfather started building the family cabin by hand in around this time in his life, as well as learning woodcarving, iron work, and stained glass. My aunt started watercolor painting, another one took up oil painting. It's like it's hardwired in our human development to branch out creatively at this stage. (Hello, Erikson's generativity/stagnation stage. Nice to see you again.) Or maybe it's just a time in life when we finally have a tiny sliver of extra time available to devote to new interests?

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What about you? Have you started a new creative endeavor or are you itching to learn something new? Where do you channel your creative leanings? 

[Edited to add: This will be a lighter posting week while we all run around doing Thanksgivingy things. We'll see you here on MWF. Have a great week!]

Glamming it up

Once in a while I find myself in need of a fancy dress for a night on the town. Usually it's related to something for G's work--a black-tie charity thing or the holiday party, basically Mom prom--and I greet it with mixed feelings. On one hand, it means a great night ahead with G (who will be consistently and easily handsome in a tux). On the other hand, it means some anxious wardrobe quandaries in the meantime. (Shh, I know. Talk about first-world problems.) 

Here's the deal: I'm in my early(ish) forties. I'm no young ingenue or prom girl and, for me, covered shoulders and some length (at about the knee or longer) are non-negotiable. But here's the other thing: I'm not a (grand)mother-of-the-bride or the aging Dowager Countess/grand dame either. And, sadly, those seem to be the two main categories in the world of formal dress shopping. 

Maybe you're in the same boat now and then? Let's crowdsource this, ladies! I'll show you mine if you show me yours. These first two are dresses I've worn in the last couple of years:

Both were from Nordstrom (which ships quickly to Australia, by the way) and I was happy with both dresses--the one on the left was a bit more flattering and the other one was more comfortable. 

These next dresses are currently in stock at Nordstrom. Apparently I like dark dresses:

I also really like the idea of separates, like a ball gown skirt paired with something dressy or modern on top, like these:

Interesting belt detail--I kind of like it! Michael Kors Fall 2013

Oscar de la Renta blouse and skirt, no photo source found

Great skirt; I'd choose a different top...

In my dreams, I wear something vivid or flamboyant or a bit over-the-top. Maybe I'll work up the courage for something like these someday (Lauren did bring me home a formal sari from India, after all):

Issa London formal kaftan

In the right materials and for the right event, this could be fantastic

Photo source unknown (anyone know?)

Elie Saab, Spring 2013

I'd always rather be just a bit underdressed than overdressed. These little black dresses have the advantage of being classy and versatile (and generally cheaper) and could be dressed way up or way down, depending on the occasion:

Photo via Say Yes to Hoboken, dress by French Connection

Broderie Dress by Boden

Olivia Palermo in Christian Dior

Okay, admittedly not every invitation requires a new dress. I'm a big fan of rewearing a black dress or great long skirt over and over again by using different accessories and looks. I'd be thrilled with any of these:

Curtailed bolera via BHLDN

Source unknown. Sadly.

Evalina blouse, Anthropology

Sequins!

Finally, if you have more time, these are some great options for ordering something special:

• Eshakti allows you to customize a dress: length, neckline, color, sleeves--everything. 
• Rent the Runway allows you to rent high-end designer dresses at a fraction of their price. There are some really great dresses there and I like that they have photos of real people wearing their dresses to real events.
• Sarah's post on ordering customized prom dresses from an overseas company may help with ordering formal wear, too, for those of us who are at the post-prom stage of our lives. 

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Okay, friends. Now it's your turn. If you find a dress or trend you like or have any ideas or resources, will you put a link in the comments? 

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful?

Yesterday, when I SHOULD have been working, I accidentally found myself reading a novel. That happens from time to time, and I'm considering seeking professional counseling over the matter. I was reading Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, which I picked up the other night at Barnes & Noble. Guys, I should have waited. I have Amazon Prime, which means I could save myself five bucks by ordering rather than buying it on the spot. But I also have a problem with delayed gratification, so I bought it on the spot.  I wanted it mostly because the protagonist (does anyone still use the word protagonist?) lives in the little town of Crosby, Maine. You see, I have a slight Maine fantasy going on in my head -- a fantasy placed there in my adolescence by one Hawkeye Pierce. (MASH, anyone?) Also, Olive Kitteridge is a Pulitzer Prize winner (2009), so I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

The Pulitzer Prize citation pages says that Oliver Kitteridge packs a "cumulative emotional wallop." And really? I'd whole-heartedly agree. The book is actually comprised of a series of short stories, all set around the same characters in idyllic Crosby, Maine. Most of the action, however, swirls around Olive, and as she approaches her 70s the narrator reflects on a long-ago played soccer game:

There was beauty to that autumn air, and the sweaty young bodies that had mud on their legs, strong young men who would throw themselves forward to have the ball smack against their foreheads; the cheering when a goal was scored, the goalie sinking to his knees. There were days--she could remember this--when Henry would hold her hand as they walked home, middled-aged people, in their prime. Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it. But she had that memory now, of something healthy and pure.

I was so struck by this. Am I in my prime? Is this the best it will ever be? I felt both suspiciously proud and slightly terrified. But even more importantly, I knew that these are the moments to be quietly joyful. Yesterday, when the four of us were in the dark car on the way home from Church, and we stopped at Sonic at 9:00 pm for drinks, and the radio played softly in the background while we laughed at Rebecca's joke, I thought to myself, Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful?

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See a list of Pulitzer Prize winners in fiction here. 

Like Calvin and Alice

Calvin Trillin's ode to his wife, About Alice, remains one of my favorite snapshots of a marriage.  Alice was a frequent feature in most of Trillin's writing and a muse and lodestar in his life. This slim, unabashed love letter of a book makes clear that he was smitten in a very real, long-lasting way. It's not a weepy, maudlin elegy but a funny and poignant tribute to the woman he clearly adored and still does.

He writes, "I once wrote that tales about writers' families tend to have a relation to real life that can be expressed in terms of standard network-television fare, on a spectrum that goes form sitcoms to Lifetime movies, and that mine were sitcoms. Now that I think of it, maybe they were more like the Saturday-morning cartoons. Alice played the role of the mom--the voice of reason, the sensible person who kept everything on an even keel despite the antics of her marginally goofy husband. Years ago, at a conference of English teachers where we were both speakers, the professor who did the introductions said something like 'Alice and Bud are like Burns and Allen, except she's George and he's Gracie.' Yes, of course the role she played in my stories was based on the role she played in our family--our daughters and I sometimes called her T.M. which stood for The Mother--but she didn't play it in the broad strokes of a sitcom mom...she was anything but stern. She had something close to a child's sense of wonderment. She was the only adult I ever knew who might respond to encountering a deer on a forest path by saying 'Wowsers!'

"There was one condolence letter that made me laugh. Naturally, a lot of them made me cry. Some of those, oddly enough, were from people who had never met Alice. They had become familiar with her as a character in books and magazine pieces I had written...about traveling or eating or family life. Virtually all those letters begin in the same way, with a phrase like 'Even though I never really knew Alice..." I was certain of what Alice's response would have been. 'They're right about that,' she would have said. 'They never knew me.' 

"...Still, in the weeks after she died I was touched by their letters. They might not have known her but they knew how I felt about her...I got a lot of letters like the one from a young woman in New York who wrote that she sometimes looked at her boyfriend and thought, 'But will he love me like Calvin loves Alice?" 

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- This made me wonder: Who are your lodestar couples--the ones you maybe aspire to be like, as Calvin and Alice were for the young letter writer? Are they real or fictional? Do you know them personally or from afar?

- Listen to Calvin Trillin's interview on About Alice 

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p.s.  On a personal note, I'm celebrating with a happy dance in the kitchen and an afternoon of novel reading just for fun because last night I sent in 70 pages of my dissertation to my advisor! (Technically, it's part of the dissertation proposal but will also be the substantial literature review of my dissertation itself.) Just had to shout that from the internet rooftops. I'm beginning to think maybe this really will happen, folks! Except on the days when I'm ready to throw in the towel, that is. It's a toss-up these days (just ask Sarah, who lets me vent about it on an almost daily basis).