There are two kinds of people—those who focus on the forest, and those who see the trees. I am a tree person. I always have been. It’s not that I don’t value the forest or appreciate its importance. Quite the contrary. I’ve spent a good part of my life trying, as best I can, to be more of a forest person. And though over the years I’ve become better at viewing the whole, it is not something that comes naturally to me. I suppose it never will. But oh, I see the trees, with such ease…
I’ve always felt that my tendency to drift to the minutiae in life was a shameful flaw, something that required correction like blurry vision or crooked teeth. The old saying, ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees’ implies that those who attend to details miss the critical global picture. While there may be some truth to that, the reverse is also true. Those who focus solely on the larger perspective miss the important little stuff—the ordinary snippets that make up life.
My fascination with detail goes way back. As a school kid, I felt great satisfaction when, after countless mistakes, I finally solved an algebra problem. I remember my obsession with a particularly tedious high school art project where I copied the pointillism technique of painter Georges Seurat, dabbing hundreds of tiny dots with the tip of my brush to create a picture. And while I can’t say I enjoyed memorizing dates and useless facts, it is something that came fairly easily to me.
Even now, in my professional life, I have to gear up for work that requires a broader mindset. For the most part I manage this forest-related work quite well. But the things I most enjoy require steadfast attention to detail—proofreading, editing, developing work plans, coordinating events, writing proposals and project reports—dull, thankless tasks to many people, but not to me.
In my personal life, I enjoy organizing things, making lists, tidying up chaos. Attention to detail has its positive side, as I have a complete photographic record of my family life—first feedings and steps, birthdays, school concerts, snowstorms, Halloween, Christmas, family vacations to places like Puerto Rico, Wellfleet and Acadia, Nova Scotia, San Francisco, and the Grand Canyon.
The inner workings of my meticulous mind are preserved in my journals—one for jotting amusing quotes from my kids, another for copying favorite passages from books, one for my attempts at poetry, still another (kept in my purse) to capture ideas that come to me throughout the course of the day. I am at the peak of bliss in these moments. What could possibly be better to a tree person than to mull over details, pore over phrases, wonder over words? To spend endless hours writing, revising, editing, getting everything ‘just so.’ To conjure up, not just an adequate word, but a preeminent one—the one that was meant to be written, the one that perfectly, wholly expresses.
But of course a person’s focus in life isn’t really as simple as forest vs. trees. There are many intriguing shades in between, and shifts at different points along the way. The extremes are merely tendencies, the way we might view a situation, tackle a problem, notice (or ignore) something that crosses our path. As for me—I tend toward the trees, I bend into branches, I lean into leaves. I suppose I always will.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Best Time to Be a Mom is Now
The other day my 16-year-old son and I were driving down our street when I spotted a young boy scooting along in his Little Tykes car. The sight of my now-driving son alongside the toddler-driver no doubt struck me. “Oh look, how cute,” I cooed. The boy looked up at us, brown eyes peering from under shaggy bangs.
My son looked over and smiled. “Do you ever wish I were that small again?” he asked. I said that while I remember with fondness the days when he and his sister were little, I like where I am now, where they are now. “No, I wouldn’t want to return to those days. Too much work,” I said. My son didn’t get it. “You mean you wouldn’t ever want to go back?” he asked, incredulous. I told him I’d go back for a day—that’s it. I wouldn’t want to relive my life.
For me, the best time as a mother has always been “now.” It was now when my children were newborn, curled up soft and sweet and warm in my arms. It was now when they first smiled and talked and took their first steps. It was now when they boarded the bus for school, and when they went away to overnight camp. It was now when I read to them at night, and when they learned to read by themselves.
It was now when they wrote a story, painted a picture, kicked a ball, sang a song. It was now when they had playmates and when they developed deep, lasting friendships. It was now even through the bad times—the tempers and tantrums and worries and stress—those challenging moments that made everything seem better by comparison.
Everything I’ve lived through, everything I’ve experienced as a mother to my children over the years has prepared me for now. And this current stage, having grown or almost-grown children, is about as good as it gets. I love seeing my children in the midst of life—experimenting, challenging, learning, growing. I love watching and wondering what’s next for them—friends they’ll meet, careers they’ll choose, places they’ll visit, families they’ll have. I love how my children and I can talk about anything, how we can be serious and funny, quiet and loud. I love all of that.
Yes, for me, the best time as a mother has always been now. I think I’ll say the same thing next year, and the year after that, and all the years that follow. At least I hope I will.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com May, 2007)
My son looked over and smiled. “Do you ever wish I were that small again?” he asked. I said that while I remember with fondness the days when he and his sister were little, I like where I am now, where they are now. “No, I wouldn’t want to return to those days. Too much work,” I said. My son didn’t get it. “You mean you wouldn’t ever want to go back?” he asked, incredulous. I told him I’d go back for a day—that’s it. I wouldn’t want to relive my life.
For me, the best time as a mother has always been “now.” It was now when my children were newborn, curled up soft and sweet and warm in my arms. It was now when they first smiled and talked and took their first steps. It was now when they boarded the bus for school, and when they went away to overnight camp. It was now when I read to them at night, and when they learned to read by themselves.
It was now when they wrote a story, painted a picture, kicked a ball, sang a song. It was now when they had playmates and when they developed deep, lasting friendships. It was now even through the bad times—the tempers and tantrums and worries and stress—those challenging moments that made everything seem better by comparison.
Everything I’ve lived through, everything I’ve experienced as a mother to my children over the years has prepared me for now. And this current stage, having grown or almost-grown children, is about as good as it gets. I love seeing my children in the midst of life—experimenting, challenging, learning, growing. I love watching and wondering what’s next for them—friends they’ll meet, careers they’ll choose, places they’ll visit, families they’ll have. I love how my children and I can talk about anything, how we can be serious and funny, quiet and loud. I love all of that.
Yes, for me, the best time as a mother has always been now. I think I’ll say the same thing next year, and the year after that, and all the years that follow. At least I hope I will.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com May, 2007)
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Downside of Distance
One of the most shameful moments in my childhood occurred on an otherwise beautiful spring day. Though much is lost to time and memory, there are some things about which I am certain. I know it was spring because cherry blossoms lined both sides of the street, one brilliantly blooming tree after the other. I know it was afternoon because I was walking home from school with my friends. And I know my silence contributed to a young girl’s pain.
A group of boys walking ahead of me spotted a girl across the street, a classmate who was often picked on. They yelled cruel taunts, then laughed and yelled some more. The girl turned briefly toward the boys and shouted something back. She was far enough away that I couldn’t clearly see her face. But her slumped shoulders and quivering, cracked voice left no doubt that she was crying. I continued to walk and look and listen and breathe in the scent of the blossoms, and then turned the corner up the street to my house.
I’m not sure what brought this sad childhood memory back to me after all these years. Perhaps it is because I’ve been thinking how distance makes people do and say things they wouldn’t otherwise do or say.
Distance made it possible for radio talk show host Don Imus—hidden behind his headphones—to spew sexist, racist comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. He would have never dared to say such things directly. His face-to-face meeting of apology, though of questionable sincerity, was no doubt far different in tone from his disgraceful on-air behavior.
Distance makes drivers do things they’d never consider if they were not in their cars, safely removed from the target of their rage. Can you imagine someone cursing and yelling at a person for moving too slowly on the sidewalk? It just wouldn’t happen. But people feel free to rant and rave, speeding along anonymously down the highway.
The distance of modern communication enables people to say things better left unsaid. When I was a kid I was told if you can’t say something nice about someone then don’t say anything at all. That rule still applies, but these days we need to add another one— “don’t e-mail, instant message, blog or text message anything you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.”
It is far too easy to send off an angry e-mail from the safety of a computer screen. It happens so quickly, takes little thought. I would have forever damaged friendships had I had access to a computer growing up. I remember times when, after fighting with a friend, I’d scribble a letter in a fit of anger. But by the time I’d poured out my feelings, folded the note, stuffed and licked the envelope and made my way to the corner mailbox, I no longer felt the need to send it.
I got a break from distance this past week, spending some slow quiet time walking around the block with my husband, taking in the beauty of these early spring days. Though there are no cherry blossoms on our street, the forsythia bush is starting to bloom and the tulips are beginning to poke through the beds. Up close, I notice things—a cardinal resting on a branch, a man raking his yard, a little dog running down the street. I see the smiles on my neighbors’ faces, I stop to say hello. Up close is different than distance. Up close I can see and hear and feel so many things.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com May, 2007)
A group of boys walking ahead of me spotted a girl across the street, a classmate who was often picked on. They yelled cruel taunts, then laughed and yelled some more. The girl turned briefly toward the boys and shouted something back. She was far enough away that I couldn’t clearly see her face. But her slumped shoulders and quivering, cracked voice left no doubt that she was crying. I continued to walk and look and listen and breathe in the scent of the blossoms, and then turned the corner up the street to my house.
I’m not sure what brought this sad childhood memory back to me after all these years. Perhaps it is because I’ve been thinking how distance makes people do and say things they wouldn’t otherwise do or say.
Distance made it possible for radio talk show host Don Imus—hidden behind his headphones—to spew sexist, racist comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. He would have never dared to say such things directly. His face-to-face meeting of apology, though of questionable sincerity, was no doubt far different in tone from his disgraceful on-air behavior.
Distance makes drivers do things they’d never consider if they were not in their cars, safely removed from the target of their rage. Can you imagine someone cursing and yelling at a person for moving too slowly on the sidewalk? It just wouldn’t happen. But people feel free to rant and rave, speeding along anonymously down the highway.
The distance of modern communication enables people to say things better left unsaid. When I was a kid I was told if you can’t say something nice about someone then don’t say anything at all. That rule still applies, but these days we need to add another one— “don’t e-mail, instant message, blog or text message anything you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.”
It is far too easy to send off an angry e-mail from the safety of a computer screen. It happens so quickly, takes little thought. I would have forever damaged friendships had I had access to a computer growing up. I remember times when, after fighting with a friend, I’d scribble a letter in a fit of anger. But by the time I’d poured out my feelings, folded the note, stuffed and licked the envelope and made my way to the corner mailbox, I no longer felt the need to send it.
I got a break from distance this past week, spending some slow quiet time walking around the block with my husband, taking in the beauty of these early spring days. Though there are no cherry blossoms on our street, the forsythia bush is starting to bloom and the tulips are beginning to poke through the beds. Up close, I notice things—a cardinal resting on a branch, a man raking his yard, a little dog running down the street. I see the smiles on my neighbors’ faces, I stop to say hello. Up close is different than distance. Up close I can see and hear and feel so many things.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com May, 2007)
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Running For My Life
This spring marks a major milestone in my life. It has been 10 years since I joined the ranks of runners, those nutty souls who brave wind and rain and cold, pounding the pavement just to break a sweat (and keep sane.)
I was late coming to this madness, well into midlife before the running bug got hold of me. It wasn’t as if I’d never been active. As a child I took swim lessons and diving, modern dance and ballet. Mostly I did the kind of non-structured activity—i.e. play—more popular back in the old days. I rode my red Schwinn around our cul-de-sac, and played kick-the-can, hide and seek and four square with the neighborhood kids from dawn till dusk.
Though active, I was never a real athlete. While I made my eighth-grade basketball team, I spent all but a few minutes of the entire season sitting on the bench. When I think about it, my stint as a bench warmer was the beginning of my more-or-less sedentary lifestyle that carried into adulthood.
I made meager attempts at establishing an exercise routine. In college, I joined a group of friends on weekend runs around the reservoir near Boston College. That lasted a few weeks. Senior year, my roommates and I took a jazz dance class. After some initial self-consciousness—it was hard dancing in front of a wall-sized mirror wearing a body-hugging leotard—I actually enjoyed it. Jazz dance, though, was not something I continued on my own, so after the class ended I reverted to my slothful ways.
In the early ‘80s I wore my Flashdance outfit, complete with white Reeboks and leg warmers, for my twice-a-week aerobics class. I jumped and kicked and sweated and twirled to the tunes of Wham. I felt the Jane Fonda burn. That routine lasted a few months.
Years later after the birth of my second child, I finally reached a day of reckoning. I knew I had to do something to get in shape. I began by walking—not the arm-pumping, power crazed sort—but the old-fashioned kind, one foot in front of the other. I’d finally found a routine I could stick with, and for years I was fairly consistent, walking several times a week. One day out of the blue, I persuaded myself to run to a tree in the distance. I walked for a few minutes and then ran to the next tree. By the third day of my walk-run routine, I was running three miles without stopping.
Once I had some running success, I actually enjoyed it. I felt energized, fit. Unlike all my previous attempts at exercise, running didn’t feel like a chore. It had become a part of my life. A few months later, I ran my first 5K race, and ran several 10Ks after that. Four years later I trained with a group of runners for the Boston Marathon raising money for a community mental health center.
Since I was sidelined with a knee injury six weeks before the race, the longest training run I was able to complete was 16 miles. When I stood at the starting line on Marathon Monday I hoped to run a few miles while taking in the excitement and cheers of the crowd. Somehow I managed to finish—a mind over matter thing, I suppose.
Though I’ll probably never run another marathon, I haven’t ruled out some shorter distance races in the future. Mostly I just feel lucky to have found a physical activity that I love. On cold or wet or oppressively humid days, I sometimes have to talk myself into getting out the door. I usually manage to do it, especially when I know my running partner is waiting for me. I run for all kinds of reasons—my health and my heart and my head. Mostly, I run for my life. Sometimes I regret all I missed out on in my younger, sedentary days. But being a late bloomer has its advantages. Spared from years of pounding the pavement, I may just have another thirty years of running left in me.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com April, 2007)
I was late coming to this madness, well into midlife before the running bug got hold of me. It wasn’t as if I’d never been active. As a child I took swim lessons and diving, modern dance and ballet. Mostly I did the kind of non-structured activity—i.e. play—more popular back in the old days. I rode my red Schwinn around our cul-de-sac, and played kick-the-can, hide and seek and four square with the neighborhood kids from dawn till dusk.
Though active, I was never a real athlete. While I made my eighth-grade basketball team, I spent all but a few minutes of the entire season sitting on the bench. When I think about it, my stint as a bench warmer was the beginning of my more-or-less sedentary lifestyle that carried into adulthood.
I made meager attempts at establishing an exercise routine. In college, I joined a group of friends on weekend runs around the reservoir near Boston College. That lasted a few weeks. Senior year, my roommates and I took a jazz dance class. After some initial self-consciousness—it was hard dancing in front of a wall-sized mirror wearing a body-hugging leotard—I actually enjoyed it. Jazz dance, though, was not something I continued on my own, so after the class ended I reverted to my slothful ways.
In the early ‘80s I wore my Flashdance outfit, complete with white Reeboks and leg warmers, for my twice-a-week aerobics class. I jumped and kicked and sweated and twirled to the tunes of Wham. I felt the Jane Fonda burn. That routine lasted a few months.
Years later after the birth of my second child, I finally reached a day of reckoning. I knew I had to do something to get in shape. I began by walking—not the arm-pumping, power crazed sort—but the old-fashioned kind, one foot in front of the other. I’d finally found a routine I could stick with, and for years I was fairly consistent, walking several times a week. One day out of the blue, I persuaded myself to run to a tree in the distance. I walked for a few minutes and then ran to the next tree. By the third day of my walk-run routine, I was running three miles without stopping.
Once I had some running success, I actually enjoyed it. I felt energized, fit. Unlike all my previous attempts at exercise, running didn’t feel like a chore. It had become a part of my life. A few months later, I ran my first 5K race, and ran several 10Ks after that. Four years later I trained with a group of runners for the Boston Marathon raising money for a community mental health center.
Since I was sidelined with a knee injury six weeks before the race, the longest training run I was able to complete was 16 miles. When I stood at the starting line on Marathon Monday I hoped to run a few miles while taking in the excitement and cheers of the crowd. Somehow I managed to finish—a mind over matter thing, I suppose.
Though I’ll probably never run another marathon, I haven’t ruled out some shorter distance races in the future. Mostly I just feel lucky to have found a physical activity that I love. On cold or wet or oppressively humid days, I sometimes have to talk myself into getting out the door. I usually manage to do it, especially when I know my running partner is waiting for me. I run for all kinds of reasons—my health and my heart and my head. Mostly, I run for my life. Sometimes I regret all I missed out on in my younger, sedentary days. But being a late bloomer has its advantages. Spared from years of pounding the pavement, I may just have another thirty years of running left in me.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com April, 2007)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Adjusting to Life's Changes
Years ago while visiting Tucson I decided to go for a run in a park near my hotel. After less than a mile, I could barely catch my breath. Though hot, it wasn’t oppressive. What made the run so grueling was the air—it was as dry as the desert that surrounded me. Other runners were making their way around the loop, no problem. Clearly they were used to the dryness, their lungs easily filling with air.
Later as I sat outside with some of the local residents, I noticed that they were dressed in long pants, sweaters buttoned at their necks. I, on the other hand, felt warm in my short-sleeved blouse and skirt. Long sleeves were the usual attire for this “cooler” time of year, they said. It didn’t matter that it was 80 degrees. It was March, and for them, it was winter.
We make many adjustments throughout our lives. Sometimes it is a physical one, like getting used to a new climate or recovering from an injury. Other times it is an emotional one. I was thinking about this whole idea of adjustments as I look forward to my daughter’s visit home from college over spring break. She and I are getting quite good at leaving and reconnecting, this being our fifth such time since she left for college. Yes, we are now experts.
That was not the case last fall. Then it was all so new—exciting, but uncertain. There were many things she didn’t know. Would she get along with her roommate, make new friends? Would she like her classes? Would she miss her old friends, her family? Would she be bored in a small school in the middle of nowhere? Would she be happy? And I asked all the same questions for her, as well as another—would I be okay when she was gone?
Both of us have made adjustments along the way. Though my daughter had little in common with her quiet, painfully shy roommate, they got along well enough to live together. She liked most of her classes and, through perseverance, was able to get into a creative writing course second semester. She stayed in touch with her high school friends, even going with a group of them to visit a friend at college in Montreal. She drifted from some friends she made in the fall, and found a core group of close friends. She missed her family, but called to check in, say hello.
I, too, had to deal with changes. I had to adjust to my daughter just not being around, not hearing her voice, her laughter. I had to get used to a new way of life. Someone recently asked me how I was adjusting to my daughter being away at college. My answer was different from the one I would have given last fall. Then I could only think of that day we dropped her off, how she stood in her dorm room surrounded by boxes and blankets and bags. And we drove away wondering if everything was going to be all right. My answer was different from the response I would have given a few months later. Then I would have said I was coping, I was managing, I was “getting along.”
No, this time my answer was strong, unwavering. Though I miss her, I have entered a new state—peaceful, settled. I have reached a level of unmitigated acceptance. I am really, truly, okay. If I were in Tucson, I’d be running around that loop, no problem. I’d be pulling my sleeves down over my wrists, buttoning my collar. I’d be breathing in the fine dry air and taking in the last bit of coolness before spring.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com April, 2007)
Later as I sat outside with some of the local residents, I noticed that they were dressed in long pants, sweaters buttoned at their necks. I, on the other hand, felt warm in my short-sleeved blouse and skirt. Long sleeves were the usual attire for this “cooler” time of year, they said. It didn’t matter that it was 80 degrees. It was March, and for them, it was winter.
We make many adjustments throughout our lives. Sometimes it is a physical one, like getting used to a new climate or recovering from an injury. Other times it is an emotional one. I was thinking about this whole idea of adjustments as I look forward to my daughter’s visit home from college over spring break. She and I are getting quite good at leaving and reconnecting, this being our fifth such time since she left for college. Yes, we are now experts.
That was not the case last fall. Then it was all so new—exciting, but uncertain. There were many things she didn’t know. Would she get along with her roommate, make new friends? Would she like her classes? Would she miss her old friends, her family? Would she be bored in a small school in the middle of nowhere? Would she be happy? And I asked all the same questions for her, as well as another—would I be okay when she was gone?
Both of us have made adjustments along the way. Though my daughter had little in common with her quiet, painfully shy roommate, they got along well enough to live together. She liked most of her classes and, through perseverance, was able to get into a creative writing course second semester. She stayed in touch with her high school friends, even going with a group of them to visit a friend at college in Montreal. She drifted from some friends she made in the fall, and found a core group of close friends. She missed her family, but called to check in, say hello.
I, too, had to deal with changes. I had to adjust to my daughter just not being around, not hearing her voice, her laughter. I had to get used to a new way of life. Someone recently asked me how I was adjusting to my daughter being away at college. My answer was different from the one I would have given last fall. Then I could only think of that day we dropped her off, how she stood in her dorm room surrounded by boxes and blankets and bags. And we drove away wondering if everything was going to be all right. My answer was different from the response I would have given a few months later. Then I would have said I was coping, I was managing, I was “getting along.”
No, this time my answer was strong, unwavering. Though I miss her, I have entered a new state—peaceful, settled. I have reached a level of unmitigated acceptance. I am really, truly, okay. If I were in Tucson, I’d be running around that loop, no problem. I’d be pulling my sleeves down over my wrists, buttoning my collar. I’d be breathing in the fine dry air and taking in the last bit of coolness before spring.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com April, 2007)
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Green With Lawn Envy
There was a time long ago when we had a front lawn. It was back in the days when our kids were little, and little feet traipsed across the yard in mini-steps chasing a ball or a butterfly or a shadow. We’d set up the sprinkler on designated odd or even days, dragging it every twenty minutes to a different part of the yard. On alternate days we’d hold the hose, thumb over the end, creating a fine mist, helping our grass stay green.
The backyard was always a different story. With towering oaks and pines and the flowering magnolia tree, the grass out back never had a chance. And taking far too long to rake ankle-deep leaves each fall undoubtedly contributed to the sparseness. Our backyard has always been a haven for lawn-killing activities—Whiffle ball, soccer, football, even golf, with my son digging holes in strategic places, creating his own private par-3 course. I never minded so much that we didn’t have a beautiful backyard. After all, it was in the back, hidden away from leering, judging eyes.
I’m not exactly sure when, but at some point my son decided the front yard was a better venue for football. Every season—even in winter—it was the designated place for neighborhood weekend games. Over time, bit by bit, the lawn began to disappear, and a mixture of dirt and crab grass sprung up in its place. My husband and I debated what to do about it. Putting down harmful pesticides was out of the question. But even an environmentally friendly fix-it-up-job would require blocking off the yard to allow time for the grass seed to take. We decided even that was too much. Somehow it just didn’t seem right to make the Gillette stadium of the neighborhood “off limits.”
I was fine with my front yard, I’d really come to accept it, until this spring when I looked up and down my street and saw lawn after lawn of luscious green. Though all my neighbors’ lawns are nice, one in particular stands out. The grass is carpet-thick, and is so bright you need sunglasses to shield your eyes when gazing upon it—even on rainy days. When I’m feeling particularly spiteful, I say things to soothe myself. “It’s only perfect because they use Chem-Lawn.” Or, “they probably have no life—they’re slaves to their lawn.” I scowl when I walk by, hissing at its haughty, proud perfection. “It’s so fake,” I say to myself. “Like a movie star who gets a face lift, tummy tuck and Botox injections. Who would possibly want to do that?” And then I walk away, glancing nonchalantly over my shoulder at the brilliant, gleaming green.
A few weeks ago, my husband took at stab at fixing our mess of a lawn. He raked up the crab grass and put down kid-friendly fertilizer and grass seed. But even with all the rain, nothing took. Zilch. It wouldn’t be so bad if our poor excuse for a lawn blended in with the neighborhood, but with the lawns around ours so thick and lush, ours sticks out like a sore thumb. It is nothing but dirt and tufts of different textures and colors—like a bad hair-coloring job.
Though disheartened, I try to focus on the positive. Having no lawn has its advantages. There’s hardly any mowing to speak of, and no need to haul out the sprinkler on hot summer days. There’s no need to obsess about the weather, no losing sleep over a drought or worrying about the stretch of rain that makes mowing impossible. When I think about it, there’s really only one drawback to our skimpy lawn—it looks really, really bad.
I suppose I’ll just have to wait for the fall, when our dirt patches and crab grass tufts will be mercifully hidden under brown and yellow and orange oak leaves. And I’ll pray for a hearty winter—the treacherous snowy kind we’ve had in year’s past—so our lawn will be covered in a blanket of white, blending in with all the others.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com April, 2006)
The backyard was always a different story. With towering oaks and pines and the flowering magnolia tree, the grass out back never had a chance. And taking far too long to rake ankle-deep leaves each fall undoubtedly contributed to the sparseness. Our backyard has always been a haven for lawn-killing activities—Whiffle ball, soccer, football, even golf, with my son digging holes in strategic places, creating his own private par-3 course. I never minded so much that we didn’t have a beautiful backyard. After all, it was in the back, hidden away from leering, judging eyes.
I’m not exactly sure when, but at some point my son decided the front yard was a better venue for football. Every season—even in winter—it was the designated place for neighborhood weekend games. Over time, bit by bit, the lawn began to disappear, and a mixture of dirt and crab grass sprung up in its place. My husband and I debated what to do about it. Putting down harmful pesticides was out of the question. But even an environmentally friendly fix-it-up-job would require blocking off the yard to allow time for the grass seed to take. We decided even that was too much. Somehow it just didn’t seem right to make the Gillette stadium of the neighborhood “off limits.”
I was fine with my front yard, I’d really come to accept it, until this spring when I looked up and down my street and saw lawn after lawn of luscious green. Though all my neighbors’ lawns are nice, one in particular stands out. The grass is carpet-thick, and is so bright you need sunglasses to shield your eyes when gazing upon it—even on rainy days. When I’m feeling particularly spiteful, I say things to soothe myself. “It’s only perfect because they use Chem-Lawn.” Or, “they probably have no life—they’re slaves to their lawn.” I scowl when I walk by, hissing at its haughty, proud perfection. “It’s so fake,” I say to myself. “Like a movie star who gets a face lift, tummy tuck and Botox injections. Who would possibly want to do that?” And then I walk away, glancing nonchalantly over my shoulder at the brilliant, gleaming green.
A few weeks ago, my husband took at stab at fixing our mess of a lawn. He raked up the crab grass and put down kid-friendly fertilizer and grass seed. But even with all the rain, nothing took. Zilch. It wouldn’t be so bad if our poor excuse for a lawn blended in with the neighborhood, but with the lawns around ours so thick and lush, ours sticks out like a sore thumb. It is nothing but dirt and tufts of different textures and colors—like a bad hair-coloring job.
Though disheartened, I try to focus on the positive. Having no lawn has its advantages. There’s hardly any mowing to speak of, and no need to haul out the sprinkler on hot summer days. There’s no need to obsess about the weather, no losing sleep over a drought or worrying about the stretch of rain that makes mowing impossible. When I think about it, there’s really only one drawback to our skimpy lawn—it looks really, really bad.
I suppose I’ll just have to wait for the fall, when our dirt patches and crab grass tufts will be mercifully hidden under brown and yellow and orange oak leaves. And I’ll pray for a hearty winter—the treacherous snowy kind we’ve had in year’s past—so our lawn will be covered in a blanket of white, blending in with all the others.
(This column was originally published on townonline.com April, 2006)
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
First Lines that will Last and Last
First lines in stories are like first impressions. Good ones intrigue. They pull us in, make us eager to get to know the story, to learn what happens next. Here are some of my favorite first lines from great classic and contemporary stories I’ve read over the years. Some are simple, others elaborate. All of them are unforgettable. Except for the first one—my hands-down favorite first line of all time—they are in no particular order.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.”—Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find.
“ ‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”—E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
“Maggie and Ira Moran had to go to a funeral in Deer Lick, Pennsylvania.”—Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons.
“In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him.”—F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned.
“I am an invisible man.” —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal.”—Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron.
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
“This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night.”—Raymond Carver, Cathedral.
“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.”—John Irving, A Prayer For Owen Meany.
“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”—Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind.
“It was a pleasure to burn.”—Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
“On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut Public Library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable.”—Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True.
“I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.”—Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome.
“First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.”—Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
“124 was spiteful.” —Toni Morrison, Beloved
“ ‘Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ ” said Mrs. Ramsay.—Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse.
“It was late and every one had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light.”—Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.
“Theodore is in the ground.”—Caleb Carr, The Alienist.
“I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground.
“In the next room Pavel Romanovich was roaring with laughter, as he related how his wife had left him.”—Vladimir Nabokov, A Slice of Life.
“Everything within takes place after Jack died and before my mom and I drowned in a burning ferry in the cool tannin-tinted Guaviare River, in East-Central Colombia, with forty-two locals we hadn’t yet met.”—Dave Eggers, We Shall Know Our Velocity.
“This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children’s eyes.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Offshore Pirate.
“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.” —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
“Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” —George Eliot, Middlemarch
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“The telephone rang, and Richard Maple, who had stayed home from work this Friday because of a cold, answered it: ‘Hello?’”—John Updike, Your Lover Just Called.
“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”—Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady.
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”—Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.” —Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.”—Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find.
“ ‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”—E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
“Maggie and Ira Moran had to go to a funeral in Deer Lick, Pennsylvania.”—Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons.
“In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him.”—F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned.
“I am an invisible man.” —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal.”—Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron.
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
“This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night.”—Raymond Carver, Cathedral.
“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.”—John Irving, A Prayer For Owen Meany.
“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”—Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind.
“It was a pleasure to burn.”—Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
“On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut Public Library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable.”—Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True.
“I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.”—Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome.
“First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey.”—Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
“124 was spiteful.” —Toni Morrison, Beloved
“ ‘Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ ” said Mrs. Ramsay.—Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse.
“It was late and every one had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light.”—Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.
“Theodore is in the ground.”—Caleb Carr, The Alienist.
“I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground.
“In the next room Pavel Romanovich was roaring with laughter, as he related how his wife had left him.”—Vladimir Nabokov, A Slice of Life.
“Everything within takes place after Jack died and before my mom and I drowned in a burning ferry in the cool tannin-tinted Guaviare River, in East-Central Colombia, with forty-two locals we hadn’t yet met.”—Dave Eggers, We Shall Know Our Velocity.
“This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children’s eyes.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Offshore Pirate.
“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.” —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
“Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” —George Eliot, Middlemarch
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“The telephone rang, and Richard Maple, who had stayed home from work this Friday because of a cold, answered it: ‘Hello?’”—John Updike, Your Lover Just Called.
“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”—Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady.
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”—Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.” —Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
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