Category: little fluffy clouds

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Spooky trees

scream

I’ve never had a problem with trees. Quite the reverse – they’ve always featured prominently and positively in my life. Symbols of strength and refuge, protection and patience, enduring and recovering from the terrible wounds inflicted on them by people and circumstance, beings of great beauty, exciting climbing frames and providers of delicious fruits and nuts.

I’ve found it difficult to locate a seriously malevolent trope among tree mythology and folklore. See, for instance, the wonderful Forests and tree symbolism in folklore which is part of a series of papers on Perceptions of forests. Of the myths the most widely prevalent through time and geography is the all-embracing world tree:

The World Tree is a motif present in several religions and mythologies, particularly Indo-European religions. The world tree is represented as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the earth, and, through its roots, the underground. It may also be strongly connected to the motif of the tree of life.

The tree of life?

The tree of life is a mystical concept, a metaphor for common descent, and a motif in various world theologies and philosophies. In mystical traditions of world religions, sacred texts are read for metaphorical content concerning the relationship between states of mind and the external experience of reality. As such, the tree is a manifestation/causal symbol – the Tree of Life representing the coveted state of eternal aliveness or fulfillment, not immortality of the body or soul. In such a state, physical death (which cannot be overcome) is nevertheless a choice, and direct experience of the perfect goodness/divine reality/god is not only possible, but everpresent.

The same centrality is obvious in folktales:

Some are cautionary tales about the perils of cutting down forests. In others, humans become transformed into trees. Trees appear in dreams. They sing and talk. They offer consolation and convey special powers. In many of the tales, a tree serves as teacher or guardian of the truth. Characters who sit under a tree or climb up into a tree are suddenly inspired to set out on a journey or receive a decisive insight. Enchanted beings, both helpful and forbidding, emerge from forest places. The world itself is shown to emerge from a tree. And, on a lighter note, noodleheads and fools are snapped to their senses through an encounter with a tree.

My particular favourite is Why Death is Like the Banana Tree.

Possibly the best-known actively malevolent individual tree is the fictional Old Man Willow created by JRR Tolkein in The Lord of the Rings:

Old Man Willow cast a spell on the hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin), causing them to feel sleepy. Merry and Pippin go to lean against the trunk of the willow and fall asleep, while Frodo sits on a root to dangle his feet in the water, before he also falls asleep. The willow then traps Merry and Pippin in cracks of its trunk and tips Frodo into the stream, but the latter is saved by Sam, who, suspicious, manages to remain awake. After Frodo and Sam talk about possibly burning the tree so that it is frightened enough to release the others, Merry yells from inside to put the fire out at the risk of the tree squeezing them to death. They are saved by the timely arrival of Tom Bombadil who ‘sings’ to the ancient tree to release Merry and Pippin. The tree then ejects the two hobbits.

He is said to be a Huorn, a race of tree-like creatures similar to Ents:

They are vengeful, but their methods of exacting revenge are unspecified; people do not leave the forest if the Huorns do not let them. Huorns can create darkness to conceal their movements and are capable of moving quickly. They still have voices and can speak to the Ents, but unlike Ents, they do not seem able to speak intelligibly to other races.

eye

But Tolkein himself was distressed by any assumption that he was portraying trees in a negative light, as shown by this excerpt from one of his letters:

With reference to the Daily Telegraph of June 29th, page 18,1 feel that it is unfair to use my name as an adjective qualifying ‘gloom’, especially in a context dealing with trees. In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies. Lothlórien is beautiful because there the trees were loved; elsewhere forests are represented as awakening to consciousness of themselves. The Old Forest was hostile to two legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries. Fangorn Forest was old and beautiful, but at the time of the story tense with hostility because it was threatened by a machine-loving enemy. Mirkwood had fallen under the domination of a Power that hated all living things but was restored to beauty and became Greenwood the Great before the end of the story.

It would be unfair to compare the Forestry Commission with Sauron because as you observe it is capable of repentance; but nothing it has done that is stupid compares with the destruction, torture and murder of trees perpetrated by private individuals and minor official bodies. The savage sound of the electric saw is never silent wherever trees are still found growing.

The spookiness of trees appears to derive less from their individual nature and more from when they are found in numbers – forests. Tolkein named one of his fictional forests, Mirkwood, after the forest of Norse mythology, Myrkviðr. The trope of an enchanted forest is widespread:

Such forests are described in the oldest folklore from regions where forests are common, and occur throughout the centuries to modern works of fantasy. They represent places unknown to the characters, and situations of liminality and transformation.

The dangers of forests even today are not to be underestimated. Only three years ago was India’s notorious bandit Veerappan killed after a more than two decade of activity in a large area of forest.

The unknown, uncharted, possibly gloomy or dark and potentially threatening can of course give rise to all sorts of fears and lead to thoroughgoing panic:

Legend has it that one of Pan’s favorite diversions was to torment ancient Greek travelers traversing the byways of that once-forested land. Pan would lie in wait, concealed in the bushes, awaiting his unwitting victims. When a traveler passed by his hiding place, Pan would gently rustle the bushes, engendering a sense of apprehension in the person walking by. The traveler would pick up his pace, and Pan would then scurry through the forest to intercept his quarry at the next dark turn of the path. There, he would rustle some more vegetation, and the traveler would make even greater haste as Pan’s amusement grew. By this time, the traveler would begin to breath heavily, and his heart would begin to pound, and the sounds of his own quickening footsteps would be magnified in the stillness of the forest to resemble those of a pursuing wild animal. One more rustle of the bushes from Pan and the traveler would be hurtling as fast as he could run along the dark and narrow forest path. It took no more provocation from Pan to keep the human interloper in Pan’s forest kingdom from fleeing as quickly as possible. Never would the unsuspecting traveler re-enter the forest without experiencing a wave of apprehension. Thus did the term panic originate.

One of my favourite representations of such a panicked state is Mole‘s foray into the Wild Wood in The Wind in the Willows. How familiar all the adjuncts of arboreal terror are – the rustling of leaves; cracking of branches underfoot; sighing, soughing, squeaking and wailing of wind in branches; the looming, moving shapes that appear full of eyes and faces, limbs and weapons.

face

It would seem that spooky trees are, mostly, what we have made them.

[This is my submission for the forthcoming Festival of the Trees which will be a special Halloween edition at Windywillow. Submission instructions can be found here. The current edition is up at trees, if you please.]

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Clouds and the silver of their lining

foggy park

The day started foggy, a chill in the air. I love the way that the fog mediates the colours of autumn with its cool silvery filter graduating the warmth of orange and yellow from distance to foreground. Secondborn liked the way, he said, the fog made the trees huddle together.

Recent times have been substantially fogged by financial worries. To say that I am not good with money is a monumental understatement. Only someone with the economic sense of an underdeveloped sea cucumber could hang around for three months after losing their job attempting to bring up two children on their own without any maintenance or other financial support.

Eventually, however, back in July, even the limited intellect of the sea cucumber grasped the concept that the savings would one day, very soon, run out. That was three months ago. Today, after the culmination of a series of mind-blowing encounters with the British benefits system ranging from the ridiculous (why was all my paperwork returned to me recorded delivery at the end of August without a word of explanation and without having been sent on for processing? why, once the paperwork finally made it to the right place was my case mysteriously marked “closed” without any action having been taken on it?) to the sublime (the woman at the office rectifying the first mistake who worked through her lunch-hour and then, when we’d finished, told me to stand up because I needed a hug, which she proceeded to administer; the four people in two different departments at the processing centre rectifying the second mistake sympathetically, swiftly and efficiently) I and my children have finally been officially certified as members of the deserving poor.*

It’s only with the gaining of this extremely dubious status I realise quite how stressful the interim period has been. Without knowing when or indeed if any more money was going to come in we’ve been living as frugal an existence as I can manage. Most difficult has been trying to acclimatise the children, accustomed to years of double-income financially incontinent affluence, to more straitened circumstances.

But the silver lining of the financial fog has been the extraordinary pleasure that the simplest things have the power to convey. A glass of wine at a friend’s house? the taste is so alive, so present. A half-bar of favourite chocolate found at the back of a cupboard? never has the complexity of flavours been so good. The company, support and generosity of friends? Almost heart-breakingly lovely. Just as the near leaves in the fog are brighter for the presence of the cloud-dulled not so far away. Such an observation is, of course, a truism, but one difficult to grasp in theory and easily realised in lived experience.

Uncertainty is difficult to live with. Now at least there is a degree of stability and a financial framework, whatever its dimensions, within which to structure our lives.

When the fog lifted in the late morning the sun was low, golden and crisp with that watery clarity autumn light sometimes has. The leaves gleamed. But I saw them more clearly for having also seen them through the fog.

* Well, I was told over the phone this afternoon that the aforementioned certificate (and a cheque) would be put in the post the same day. So I don’t actually have it yet. But I live in hope.

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Linky lovelyness

For a long time I didn’t notice that my RSS feed for the excellent online arts journal qarrtsiluni was out of date. Now I’ve fixed it and am consuming its goodness in large gulps.

One of the contributors to the current theme, Making Sense, is the poet George Szirtes who has a massive and impressive web presence. I remember interviewing him when he won the TS Eliot award as part of my one-person campaign to infiltrate more (any) items about poetry into the “news”. He was a delight to talk to. It’s fantastic to see such a respected and renowned poet exploring all the possibilities the internet has to offer.

And if you want to join him at qarrtsiluni there is a week or so left before submissions to the current theme close.

Something else I’ve been remiss about is the Festival of the Trees. The current edition – number 16 already! – is up and about at trees, if you please under the title “Fade to Color (Seasons Change)“. Next month’s is going to be a special Halloween edition at Windywillow, so send in accounts of any Sleepy Hollow-like arboreal encounters (or digitally-recorded evidence thereof) following these instructions.

Finally small is, of course, beautiful. So I’ve made a mobile version of the blog called frizzyLogicette which can be found on all small mobile devices if you point their tiny perfect browsery-type things to http://winksite.com/rraw/frizzylogic.

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The single dimension of infinity

In Israel and in the Reform world, today is also Simchat Torah, the day of “rejoicing in the Torah,” when we read the very end of the Torah and then immediately cycle back around to the very beginning. Our central narrative is a kind of mobius strip, a continual spiral, which shifts in meaning each year as we change and grow.

Although the path is usually described as having eight steps, in essence there are only three, with each of those three broken down in groupings of three, three, and two sub-step. The three basic steps are ethical conduct, meditation, and transforming insight into the way things are. Rather than forming a stairway that leads to heaven, these three steps and their eight sub-steps are more like a Mobius Strip that endlessly leaves, travels, and arrives in the here and now. One can start anywhere on the path, or choose to follow any step at any time, or several or all of them all at once, and always arrive at the same place. The Noble Eightfold Path, as the path to the end of suffering is usually called, truly describes more of a place than a path, with the place being the present, a boundary-less orb without coordinates in which all things happen everywhere all the time.

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Laura Marling

“I’m sorry you have to listen in the gutter next to two sex shops”.

The most significant thing about Laura Marling is not her age. It is remarkable, astonishing even, but it’s not the most important or even noteworthy thing about her.

5

Hers is an extraordinary talent – voice, lyrics, music, presence. No wannabe celeb, aspirant popstar-babe. Rather a determined woman with an overwhelming desire to communicate through word and music.

6

Last night, though, her age got in the way.

It wasn’t clear why no one was being allowed into the Soho Review Bar even after the support acts were supposed to have been on stage. A long line of people, held behind a roped-off area, snaked along the alley alongside the building and round the corner into the larger road. The gig had sold out in advance and many had queued for returns. Members of her band stood on the cobbles chatting and smoking.

Suddenly a diminutive figure appeared from inside the venue. Bleached blond hair shining under the many-coloured lights of Soho’s sex trade. Wrapped in a black duffle coat, frayed gold canvas pumps on her feet, no makeup.

“They won’t let me play because I’m not over 18” she announced, after asking if anyone had come to see Laura Marling. So she and her three band members lined up against the metal-shuttered window of a shop and played their set, right there in the narrow space between high walls.

2

It was an extraordinary event and performance. The fire and passion of the woman were clear, her determination (and, I thought, bravery) obvious too. “We’ll just keep going til we’re moved on” she said. Fortunately nobody came to interrupt the six songs (Hg counted them). The drummer, presumably usually behind a full kit, knelt on the stones in front of one small drum which he caressed with his brushes. Another band member carried an accordion which he didn’t, in the end, ever play, presumably because its sound in the space would have drowned out all else.

We had, for twenty minutes or so, an utterly unplugged, bare-bones bravura performance. Even the unsteady, heavily tattooed bottle-toting passers-by waited until she was between songs to stagger past, voicing their appreciation as they went. It was a thrilling, unique and highly memorable occasion.

At the end of the last song I found myself standing next to Laura Marling’s mother, who had been pointed out to us (God knows that I love her). “Congratulations” I found myself saying in that utterly absurd fashion that one does on such occasions to complete strangers. Possibly because I’m easily old enough to be Laura Marling’s mother myself. She was, needless to say, proud of her daughter. But couldn’t understand why she’d been prevented from playing. “She’s done gigs all over the country. They know she’s 17. She’s never been stopped from playing before.”

Ultimately, selfishly, I’m glad it happened. Because I was part of something special, something that I’m sure won’t happen again and I was there at the beginning of a career which I believe is going to go a long way and produce some very beautiful music.

(Hg filmed the first song on his mobile, but after that gave up the distraction preferring to give his full attention to the music. His review is here. Thank you so much for suggesting we go! I took pictures, trapped behind a lens too long for the confined space.)

UPDATE: There’s more about Laura Marling here, with her new haircut and there’s a review of her iTunes session here.

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Prejudice with buttons on

I found myself, about a month ago now, at the checkout in the enormous Asda in Dumbarton. Lying on the belt moving slowly but inexorably towards the chirpy checkout girl was:
* a bar of cadbury’s fruit and nut chocolate the size of a billiard table;
* a cut-price dvd of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightly;
* a packet of hair-dye;
* a packet of tampons (assorted sizes).

My companion, A, ran his eye over the selection and remarked that, given the evidence of the pms cliché purchases before him, I was remarkably well-tempered.

I only got round to watching the film a few days ago and it stinks. It’s just *terrible*. Keira Knightly is utterly utterly wrong for Elizabeth Bennet. She appears to be aspiring to a look which is the bastard child of heroin chic and Kate Moss, whilst attempting to audition for a low-budget vampire flick advertising a particularly low-quality brand of over-applied and much smudged black eyeliner. Acting is a concept which is entirely alien to her. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Feeling besmirched by this experience I had to undertake the only possible cleansing ritual. I closed the curtains, put on the gas fire, snuggled under my favourite blanket on the sofa and watched the BBC P&P from beginning to end in one glorious life-enhancing five-hour session. Unfortunately the bar of F&N had not survived the depredations of the children but apart from the lack of chocolate all was perfect.

I’ve seen P&P so many times now I could practically recite all the parts. This time I concentrated on the costumes, and formed an overwhelming desire to possess a form-fitting, empire-line-necked, long-sleeved, bust-skimming warm outer garment such as is worn to delicious effect by the splendid heavingly-bosomed Jennifer Ehle as Eliza. See, for example, the brown garment in the second and third pictures on this page. The neckline is higher than other similar garments (ideally it would be more like that of the dress on this page) but otherwise you get the general idea.

I confided this perhaps rather unusual longing to F over coffee the following morning. I knew she’d understand. It transpired that among all her other accomplishments (I knew she designed and made hats and shoes) she also studied costume design, pattern-making etc etc and had, on several occasions, made copies of historical garments for herself. The most awe-inspiring of which must be the copy of the coat worn by the French nobleman as he escaped the terror and the guillotine.

One thing led to another and we wound up discussing haberdashery in general and John Lewis’ in particular. And how I’d had a very long-standing credit of £19 on my store card. And how I could go and treat myself to a bit of ribbon and a button or two without actually, you know, spending anything.

This is why I am now knitting furiously. Because of course there was a pattern book on the table of the knitting section in John Lewis. It was, of course, open at the page displaying a cropped empire-line-necked fitted top. With a ribbon round the waist. And lots of buttons. (Bottom left here, if you’re interested). The inevitable happened, even though they didn’t stock the recommended yarn (Castello) or even have any information about it. I substituted Noro Kochoran and am hoping tension and yardage are comparable. Shade #47, a beautiful mix of pinks and greens and mustards. And pink ribbon and buttons.

new project

See how gorgeous that Noro yarn is? entirely edible.

scrummy yarn

But the furious knitting isn’t of the cardigan in question. No, such is the scale of my WIP (work in progress) backlog and concomitant shame about it, I am rattling through a couple of things before allowing myself to start on the empire-lined goodness. First up is this scarf, now finished.

scarf

The yarn, a single ball of (I eventually discovered after having lost the label) Colinette Giotto, was purchased on an impulse when I visited Tall Girl a few months back. It’s knitted up into a beautiful scarf – amethyst, aquamarine, eau de nil and petrol blues – and I had to track down the yarn for the people who, seeing it in progress, wanted to make their own.

yarn detail

Now that’s finished I’m on to b r o o k l y n t w e e d ‘s Red Light Special hat (which is so popular it even has its own tag on flickr). I first saw the hat on R’s head on Holy Island in March this year and he pointed me to the pattern, and the superb blog on which it resides.

hat overview

I’m using up 4ply from my stash for this one so at least I don’t have yarn-expense-guilt, but I did buy two sets of circular needles for it so it’s not entirely cost-free. The green bit is the lining which will be folded under and knitted in at the appropriate point in proceedings, the outer part of the hat is turquoise with orange and pink fair isle.

hat detail

It will be very useful when finished if I continue to hold out against turning the central heating on. I’m wearing a hat indoors at the moment.

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Ears and eyes

To Portobello market with snap-buddy Nehavish. She came from India bearing gifts – the most beautiful pair of earrings. Not only are they exactly the right colour, being “my” colour, namely turquoise, they also have little dangly jingly bits. The dangly jingly bits make little bell-like tinkling noises whenever I move my head.

This apparently makes me like an Indian cow. Which is apparently a complement. It also makes me like a London cat. Does this makes me a cow with claws?

While Neha paid attention to my ears I looked into her eyes.

spooky

venetian

With the occasional ear making it into the frame.

cat's eyes

The Portobello set is here.

Still haven’t unmounted the lens. Although it was an unnecessary indulgence (particularly in the current circumstances) I’m so glad I bought it. I think taking pictures is high on the list of things that keep me sane.

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Resistance is futile

I am of course only putting this here so I can find it again and show it to the boys, both highly dedicated Dr Who fans. Yes. Really. Nothing to do with the track in question being one of the first singles for which pocket-money coinage left the grasp of my hot hands.And where did I find it? At Mind Hacks where each day Vaughan (just look at that scan) demonstrates more and more clearly his status as what the Inky Circus girls would term a man “whose babies we want to bear” – smarts and laughs, what’s not to love?

I’ve always thought of the above as one of the best blog categories ever. I would adopt it myself if it weren’t through with that sort of thing.

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Tale of New York

Where to begin? what to choose? Love, laughter, light. Yet now I’m exhausted, sucked dry. It’s been a full-on, often difficult, tiring, emotionally draining six weeks and I’m so glad summer’s over.

So the tale of New York is the tale of looking.

It begins in London with A who said that, being hard up, I should of course go nowhere near B&H. And what might B&H be I inquired. The biggest, best and cheapest camera shop in the USA was pretty much the answer.

No no. Definitely I absolutely should not go anywhere near B&H. Ummm. Where is it exactly, just so I can avoid it?

I was talking energetically about B&H at supper a couple of days later in Manhattan. About how I really really shouldn’t, wasn’t going to go there. (Lobster salad at I Tre Merli down on Broadway. Yummmmmy. After the fancy exhibition opening on 5th Avenue. And the Wall Street banker who leapt into my cab on the way there – “you don’t mind if I share” he announced – and discussed Measure for Measure and sub-prime mortgage lending in an animated fashion.)

The next day the previous night’s diners were part of a greater assemblage in Brooklyn. And C, clearly sensing that my resolve over not going anywhere near B&H needed strengthening, brought along the paper catalogue. Because their host was a professional photographer and had several lying around. And leafing through the catalogue and seeing what was available, and at what price, and dividing by two to get sterling because of the current insane exchange rate was clearly going to ensure that I gave the place a really wide berth.

It was whilst I was indulging in a private spot of aversion therapy, slowly stroking a page in the Olympus section while moaning and whimpering, rather discretely I thought, that J appeared. A stupendous professional photographer. And also intimately familiar with B&H. We discussed, at length, which lens I wasn’t going to get. Which was this one.

The next day the phone rang. I forget whose phone, but somebody’s. It was J. “What time are you meeting me at B&H?”

Thus it was that I found myself that hot and humid afternoon in the extraordinary combination of paradise and militarily-efficient factory-farmed consumption that is the B&H super-store on 9th avenue between 33rd and 34th streets.

Meeting J just inside the “in only” door I checked my bag through the hole in the wall and we made our way into a vast tardis-like space crammed full of people and objects of profound lustworthiness. It seemed to my no-doubt saucer-shaped and therefore distorted-lensed eyes that it was a vast circular space full of aisles of miscellaneous stuff but with the walls showcasing every conceivable make/brand/model of photographic equipment. And lined with a huge number of people sitting at regular intervals behind the desk-like counter.

I headed on some sort of wobbly auto-pilot to the man seated below an enormous Olympus banner. “Excuse me,” I quavered, “do you…” “Were you given a number?” he asked, not unkindly. The mechanics of maximum cash-extraction began to be revealed.

First you wait in a line appropriate for the category of gizmo you seek, policed by a solicitous member of staff who moves you forward with maximum swiftness. As a sales assistant becomes available (the people seated behind the hugely long counter running around the edge of the store) their numbered light flashes. The person at the head of the queue is directed towards the appropriate place. The queue was long enough to allow J to whisper “see those Nikon lenses there? the huge ones? just out on the shelf like that? thirty-five thousand dollars apiece at least” and for me to marvel at their implausible hugeness but sufficiently swift-moving to allow of no second thoughts.

Sales staff number 47 was a cheery young man whose brisk efficiency and breadth of knowledge bordered on the brusque but never quite made it that far. Yes, they had the lens in stock. A skylight filter to fit? of course. Memory cards? a myriad different varieties and sizes. Was I sure I really needed that speed of data writing (casting a practised eye over my meagre megapixels resting on the counter before him), wouldn’t I be better off with the slightly slower but much cheaper model? As he spoke a green crate appeared beside him propelled on a conveyor belt emerging seemingly through the wall and in it appeared to be… a lens, a filter and a memory card. “Take this to the payment desk” he said, printing off a piece of paper.

J’s turn next, and a series of very technical queries about a Leica tripod mount and various other bits and pieces. “I can tell you what I know, but I have to tell you that I’m not tripods, I’m digital SLRs. If you want the best advice you should really go to tripods where they can give you the fullest information” said our helpful attendant. “This is the best service I’ve ever had in this country” said J as we made our way over to tripod territory, an island near the middle of the store.

As J consulted deeply on issues such as double threads and ball heads and similar tripodenalia I watched a procession of green crates bumbling and clunking up and around the store on the rollers of the conveyor, sometimes at waist level safe behind the counters, sometimes out of reach overhead. Clicketyclacketytrundlerundle they went, an almost continuous stream of spoken-for hi-tech representing a concomitant inflow of a river of the green and folding.

Next stop on the human conveyor belt of this process was the payment area. Significantly more urgent than the sales floor, customers were herded between metal railings before a high bank of tills. “Next, NEXT!” shouted the twitchy queuemeister urging us on, on to part with our cash. Pay. Receive paper. “I promise to give the bearer their small (or implausibly huge, for that matter) object/s of desire”. Follow the narrow pathway to the collection point and the human stream meets the conveyor stream: green crates clatter to their final destination behind the counter to have their contents bagged, labelled and hung on hooks to await their newly de-cashed now-owners. The disgorging is nearly complete… quick, quick, on to retrieve your checked bag from the other end of the hole in the wall and *plop* – out the out door and a safe delivery onto the street.

Such an experience requires the prompt administration of strong coffee so J and I retired to the nearest café and I unboxed and mounted the new toy. And haven’t removed it since. The observant (or at least the observant with a fast internet connection) will have noticed a stream of recent macro pictures appearing about the place. I’m still practising. But of course it’s not my fault. Blame A and C and J.

So I’ve left out the painting of the pug with the pearl necklace and the sashay teach-in and the “local”-beer-buying and scrapple-cooking and the gentle light from the coloured glass candle-holders slanting before the Buddha; the Texan BBQ theme restaurant, the dog wearing padded bootees for its evening walk, the touch of hands, the smiles, the coffee (good and bad), the cowboy boots with the real snake head on the toe; I haven’t mentioned poetry and multi-story wedding cakes, the gentle guttural sound of an old language by candlelight, food cooked by friends, music, the lost book of pictures which gave such laughter; left out too are the lumps and bumps of the grass in Central Park, the slow deliberate folding of sleeping mats, Mexican food, Malaysian food, yellow rubber gloves, the flutter of hands in flight, the new development on the limerick form and the challenge of rhyming “Abuja”, silent cross-legged forms silhouetted against the early light. I’m sorry. You can’t have everything.