Tea and Ophthalmology (Some Notes)

Across from me at Panera Bread, a table of four women contentedly knits, occasionally chatting, occasionally clicking needles in contemplative silence. I think that—all of that—is what I need more of in my life. Not knitting specifically, the craft of my mother, grandmother, and sisters (but hey, maybe knitting specifically!). I mean the shared interest, the community, the understanding. The conversation, the regularity (I just heard one of the women tell a stranger that they, or other slightly different groupings, meet three days a week), the crafting of objects with care and support. Friendship? I have friends, but I don’t have this right now.

A few months ago, I signed up for an introductory silversmithing class, but I was sick when the day came around and had to cancel (and eat the tuition). I had no idea what I was going to make. I have no particular vision of a design, but I do like—and wear—rings and bracelets and earrings and tie bars. Ornamentation. I admire it on other men. I always notice the glint. I had to trust that I’d be guided, if not inspired, toward the shape of something.

I always treat myself to Panera after seeing my ophthalmologist, out in the far suburbs. I have a big cup of tea and one of my bad-vegan snacks, meaning I go to great lengths to see if they have peanut butter for the bagels rather than cream cheese (they do), add fruit salad—and then order a very non-vegan scone, which I excuse because I have serious eye issues, poor me, and anyway the scone reminds me of D. and the time we spend together, often eating non-vegan scones at this or that tearoom (though I make pretty good vegan ones). I feel both comforted and guilty.

Once or twice a year, I get together with my friend C., as I did last weekend, to talk about books and exchange recommendations, among other things, including just catching up  (we were in a gay writing group years ago). The funny thing is we don’t usually agree on, or even haven’t read, the same things. He reads a lot of what I’d call semi-cheesy gay fiction. In my own reading, I almost always have to have at least the acknowledgment that gay people exist, but I tend toward the more literary, I suppose. Even so, lately I’ve been reading more historical nonfiction. Not even personal essays or memoirs, which is what I supposedly write and definitely teach. But C. respects my opinion and enjoys my company, as I do his. We laugh. We don’t see each other enough. (My eye doctor helps me with seeing but not with that.)

In another universe, we might knit.

December 1 (Two Haiku)

December one rain

barely mist on entering

the holiday room

*

Thank you for the gift

this dark candlelit cradle

in which to knead bread

A Man, a Ship

Oh, it turns out today is the 11th anniversary of my blog (I thought it was the 5th). Some relationship, with my months-long absences! The blog's guiding principle from the start, which I've had to remind myself of more than once, has been to "put sentences together." I've done so in other ways over the years, but I'm trying to recommit to this formerly fashionable genre. So many muscles in my life have gone slack. This is one.

My previous post was rudimentary thoughts that have been preoccupying me. I don't know yet how they might ultimately connect, particularly the piece about the doctor who delivered me, which in my mind, if not on the page yet, is key. I don't quite know why I'm as obsessed with him as I am. In fact, "obsessed" is not the right word, so I used "haunted" in the post. Actually, neither hits the mark; the truth is somewhere between the two. The ship is important as well. I need to do more thinking and writing and research. Regarding the last of those, I've owned the book above for three years and have yet to open it up. (Isn't that interesting?) I will now.

Getting my thoughts down helped me see there might be something. I had no idea Bobby Vee would drop by! I certainly had no conscious awareness, until I reread it, of the echo between his name and Dr. V., the doctor's real initial. Although I'd first researched him a year or more ago, I discovered only this week, when I revived my Googling, that he'd been on the same ship my family had. 

Wanting to know, as my mother neared the end of her life, about the guy who delivered me was mystifying—well, it is still, but when the SS United States (another obsession of mine in the last few years) edged into his story, it felt like a gift.

For now, the sentences, the surprises, are enough to keep me thinking.

It's Going to Take Some Time

King with Gerry Goffin and Paul Simon (right). 
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.

I just finished Carole King’s new book, A Natural Woman. Yes, one of my “things” is biographies and memoirs about ’60s and ’70s singer/songwriters. This is among the best—it’s simply and cleanly written, with a friendly sense of humor and no pretension (except for a slight uptick in name-dropping toward the end, which is excusable because in her life she has so successfully resisted the empty trappings of stardom). It’s the story of a real journey, punctuated by both vulnerability (an abusive marriage) and conviction (motherhood, living much of her adult life close to the land, political activism).

And creativity—jeez. Her first big songwriting hit, the Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow," came out when she was 18. And she’d already been writing songs for years (often forgotten: she didn’t write the words, even on most of Tapestry, until later in her career). She composed “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” in about a day when a producer asked her and her then-husband, lyricist Gerry Goffin, if they could come up with a song for Aretha Franklin with something like the title “Natural Woman” (this at a time, the late ’60s, when their songwriting star seemed to be on the descent). Her description of how humbling and thrilling it felt to hear Aretha sing it for the first time is a reminder that at some point cultural givens didn’t exist. And then they did—and will forever.

I enjoyed this book so much despite the fact that, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’ve never listened to Tapestry, one of the bestselling albums of all time, in its entirety.

One of the things that most struck me was that King became a star despite her ongoing resistance (for instance, going five years in the 1980s without recording when she was living in rural Idaho), but she became one nevertheless—on her own terms. That’s the element that’s in too short supply today.

In a chapter about her 2005 tour, she writes: “Why have I spent so much of my life pushing away from this thing I do that people seem to enjoy, and that I, too, enjoy, so much? Was it because I wanted to experience other things, other lifestyles, other adventures, other career paths? Are those such bad things to want? . . .

“It’s always been important to me to encourage the best in people, and music has been my principal instrument in doing that. And yet I kept pushing music away because I thought it was keeping me from having a normal life.
 

“At this moment I understand that for me, music is normal life.”

This realization (at least as written) comes when she’s 63 years old.

I go through a lot of handwringing about my own relationship to creativity (including what it’s taken me a long time to realize is my principal instrument—teaching). I’m a writer who spends most of his life not writing. Is that normal for me? Or am I just waiting for the next chapter?