dual personalities

“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools–friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty–and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do. and mostly, against all odds, they’re enough.”

–Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

I once complained to my mother, in the exquisitely petulant tones that only a 15 year old girl can produce, that there was nothing in the house (a house chock-full of books) to read. I probably went off in a huff. Not long after, my mother brought me a slim, purple volume. It was a poem in blank verse by Edwin Arlington Robinson called “Tristram” and she said that when she was about my age, she had particularly liked it. She didn’t say much more, but something about the way she gave me the book made me realize that it was special to her. I still have it and it is very special to me.

Well, Edwin Arlington Robinson is not fashionable among the literati (or my colleagues), but I must say that if you are in the mood for beautifully written Arthurian romance, you can’t beat him. And he sure captured my teenage heart. In honor of my mother’s birthday (she was the ultimate cool mom), I give you some passages from “Tristram” with a few appropriate pictures taken on a memorable trip Tintagel Castle in Cornwall in 2005 (?).

Partly to balk his rage, partly to curse
Unhindered an abject ineptitutde
That like a drug had held him and witheld him
In seizing once more from love’s imperial garden
The flower of all things there, now Tristram leaned
Alone upon a parapet…

…below the lights of Tintagel, where gay music
Had whipped him as a lash and driven him out
Into the misty night, which might have held
A prmonition and a probing chill
For one more tranquil and less exigent,
And not so much on fire…

the ruins of Tintagel

He gazed at nothing, save a moving blur
Where foamed eternally on Cornish rocks
The moan of Cornish water; and he asked,
With a malignant inward voice of envy,
How many scarred cold things that once had laughed
And loved and wept and sung, and had been men,
Might have been knocked and washed indifferently
On that hard shore, and eaten gradually
By competent quick fishes and large crabs…

And finally, poor Isolt of Brittany — the other Isolt — whose love goes unrequited:

Alone, with her white face and her gray eyes,
She watched them there till even her thoughts were white,
And there was nothing alive but white birds flying,
Flying, and always flying, and still flying,
And the white sunlight flashing on the sea.

Stephanie Meyer eat your heart out. I mean, really, wouldn’t you rather read “Tristram”?

Yesterday I drove #2 son to the airport in Burlington VT to send him off to London for the semester. Here’s the intrepid traveler after checking his luggage

Channeling Dean Winchester

Note that his carry-on included a large backpack, violin, and box of Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins (courtesy of girlfriend Nicole), of which he had already consumed a goodly portion. I don’t suppose any of them made it to England.

Burlington airport is a wonderful place. It’s small, navigable, and the people who work there seem delighted to have someone to serve. Really. In this day and age! Here is the jocular TSA guy greeting Chris as he goes through security.

I know he was ‘jocular’ because Chris told me so on the phone later and because I could see them all laughing. I gather that the other security people were just as willing to crack jokes. I bet it wasn’t like that at JFK.

After I bid him adieu and wiped away a tear or two (well, not quite), I drove to Barnes and Noble and bought the Lumineers CD to listen to on the long, lonely drive home. The music definitely helped keep my spirits up through the choppy ferry ride and the pouring rain. Thanks to my dual personality for introducing me to the Lumineers!

The winter ferry crossing sometimes makes one feel like Shackleton. Admittedly, it wasn’t quite like this yesterday — it was choppier and raining

Though I don’t have an empty nest, the house has that after-the-holidays, back-to-the-grind feeling now. Imagine my delight this morning when I booted up the computer to discover a nice email from the traveler, who has arrived safely in London:

The flight wasn’t too bad, though someone did throw up on me just a little bit. I feel ok and have the whole day off, and the only thing I have tomorrow is cocktails with with Cowser [the program head]. My hosts are lovely people, an older couple, two kids, one out in the real world, one at college. My room is large and comfy and I have excess shelf and drawer space, so I’ll just have to buy lots of stuff.

I’ll have to remind him that however large the furnishings, the suitcases stay the same size. Do you have any advice for him?