9 November 1968
Ciao, S—
(I fancy saying that. Relish it really…)
Anyway, you asked me once how I met my wife. I remember that night and the things to which we admitted. But I couldn’t then talk about her. But I owe you this one. So, in answer to your question, I met Katherine in Belfast…
That was right after I’d finished university in the States and decided to go back home to continue my studies. I was up North at Queen’s, and I found a nice place within walking distance. The elderly proprietress had never rented to a man before, and I think she finally did to me under false pretences. I gave my name as Dr. Brannan—in anticipation of the fact—and she must have thought that meant 'medic.' She probably hoped I would be able to treat the whole house if any Orangies tried to bomb us out.
The day I moved in, I hadn’t slept any the night before. I’d been at the library with my head between the pages of some Elizabethan author, and all I could think to do was collapse onto my bed once I’d gotten a few things moved into the flat out of storage. My flat was in the basement, dark and damp, but it was good enough. But that bed would not do. It must have belonged to the woman’s eldest son about the time he was in grammar school. It was short and narrow, and it had to go. Some boys from the college helped me carry a new double bed through the streets of Belfast all the way to my flat. (We put the old bed out in the coal shed.) When we showed up with that bed up on our shoulders, the old lady could not have looked more scandalised. ‘What use does a single man have for a double bed?’ It was mostly an accusation. She probably imagined loads of evil snogging was going to happen in her basement. She would have been right. That’s where I met Katherine afterall.
She lived in the upstairs flat and took care of the proprietress’s books. I didn’t know that for a while, though. I’d seen her coming and going from the house nearly every day at seven, wearing an orange beanie. I could count on seeing her walking back up to the house just before eight on those mornings, usually with an armful of chrysanthemums and a piece of fruit, and sometimes an old library book. Between seven and eight, I would imagine her walking the streets of Belfast, picking up an apple from the market, smelling every flower the peddlers had for sale before picking the brightest mums. I was envious of those mornings, of the streets and the sky. They had her.
I was late to my eight o’clock seminar nearly every day, but it was worth it just to catch a glimpse of that orange cap. One morning I didn’t see her at all. It was a wet day, but that had never stopped her from going out before. I was concerned, but there was little I could do, so I gathered my things and prepared for class. On my way out, I heard Katherine speaking to the old woman behind the door of the flat one flight up. I froze, for how long I don’t know, but I stayed just outside my own door until the door above opened. I pretended that I had just arrived back at my flat. Katherine saw me, and we made some sort of polite greeting. I commented on the dreary weather and somehow managed to convince her to take tea with me. You know as well as I know that I am not a charming man, and I think she only agreed because she had it in her nature to be a compassionate person. And I was just the poor, bookish bachelor sequestered to the dank basement.
There was something about the way she smiled. Katherine had an illegible smile, indelible. I remember she was wearing periwinkle trousers and a cream-coloured blouse. She smelled just like ripe tangerines. I don’t remember what we talked about—or if we even said anything at all—but I knew. She had misty, amber-coloured eyes to match her chamomile tea. I never made it to class that day.
I miss those days, especially at this time of the year when the air is wet and cold like it was the day I met my wife. I miss her. And you. And Ireland. I’m getting away from myself now. This was probably more than you were expecting when you asked how I met Katherine. But I just remembered that I had never answered your question. I hope that helps explain a bit.
Dia duit,
J
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
26
Dear Andy,
Don't tell the other girls, but I have the best big brother ever. Happy birthday! I love you.
-Becca
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Carpet Squares, Red Balloons, and Other Things That Don't Really Go Together
The Red Balloon never made much sense to me, even then, sitting on a carpet square in Mrs. Seeger’s second grade classroom, behind Ben Daugherty and his pointy elf ear, lifting our chubby first two fingers up in the air as high as we could to quiet our peers. The tile floor would be a mosaic of carpet squares in baby blues and camels and the lone hunter green square that everyone fought over. When the carpet squares came out, that’s when the fun began: room switch.
That movie always depressed me—why did we watch it so often?? It left me feeling empty, scolded, and tired. Could this have just been the effect of sitting on a hard floor with only an 18” x 27” carpet square for nearly forty minutes in the midst of other mouth-breathing second graders? Or did the silent French film really have some profound effect on my tiny psyche? Or…not so tiny psyche after all…? For me there was something evil about it, something sacrificial maybe. That’s what I couldn’t get past, every time I watched it. Was I too sensitive? Or was I just too…old…for a second grader?
(Little boys can’t be lifted off the ground by balloons; I don’t care how many there are.)
Oh the joy of writing! I remember how easy it was for me and how fulfilled I felt after finishing a story (though I started countless more than I ever finished). My first story was an explanation as to why mice have long tails. My take? An elephant stepped on the mouse’s stubby tail just as he was trying to run away from the elephant, and his tail suffered the stretch. It was a fantastically neat and simple explanation, one I remember being proud of, most likely because it was so practical. Always a perfectionist, even first-grade Rebecca kept things nice and tidy without too much imaginative distraction.
I was so proud to see my story (with illustrations!) tacked up on the cork board tract outside Room 2 along with my classmates’. I eyed it with pride—my own cover drawing of the fleeing mouse waving at me, “Hello! Hello!”—either during bathroom breaks or on walks down to the office—but only when I was on mail duty, the most coveted job on the list. I loved school, still do I guess (or maybe just the idea of it). I loved how the last breezes of the summer would rush through the open doors and how the assignments and construction paper artwork on the cork board runners would flap like autumn leaves. I loved the look and smell of a brand new box of crayons and just how bright my white tennis shoes would be for the whole first week.
Kristen Miller lived up the street from us, and she and Andy were in the same grade. She gave me her clear jelly sandals, the ones with the little fruits appliquéd on the instep. They hurt like hell, even on my summer feet, but I was so proud of them. She showed me how to take out a lightening bug’s glowing bulb and stick it to my finger where it would continue to pulse. Even as a kid, I was slightly disturbed by such destruction of property. Kristen had a cousin named Tyler who was a year younger than I. She wanted us to be friends. I pictured a tire swing every time I heard his name.
I was a flower child growing up, whether I knew it or not. I remember spending summer afternoons with my dad, playing with the tadpoles in the puddle at the edge of the rocks. He showed me how to cup my two chubby fists around enough water for one to swim in my hands. Or I would dig up dandelions with my mom in the backyard, being careful to get all the roots out.
How strange it was to live a precocious childhood, to have been serious and shy, knowing that someday I'd make friends my own age.
(If I had a bunch of balloons, I would fly away too.)
That movie always depressed me—why did we watch it so often?? It left me feeling empty, scolded, and tired. Could this have just been the effect of sitting on a hard floor with only an 18” x 27” carpet square for nearly forty minutes in the midst of other mouth-breathing second graders? Or did the silent French film really have some profound effect on my tiny psyche? Or…not so tiny psyche after all…? For me there was something evil about it, something sacrificial maybe. That’s what I couldn’t get past, every time I watched it. Was I too sensitive? Or was I just too…old…for a second grader?
(Little boys can’t be lifted off the ground by balloons; I don’t care how many there are.)
Oh the joy of writing! I remember how easy it was for me and how fulfilled I felt after finishing a story (though I started countless more than I ever finished). My first story was an explanation as to why mice have long tails. My take? An elephant stepped on the mouse’s stubby tail just as he was trying to run away from the elephant, and his tail suffered the stretch. It was a fantastically neat and simple explanation, one I remember being proud of, most likely because it was so practical. Always a perfectionist, even first-grade Rebecca kept things nice and tidy without too much imaginative distraction.
I was so proud to see my story (with illustrations!) tacked up on the cork board tract outside Room 2 along with my classmates’. I eyed it with pride—my own cover drawing of the fleeing mouse waving at me, “Hello! Hello!”—either during bathroom breaks or on walks down to the office—but only when I was on mail duty, the most coveted job on the list. I loved school, still do I guess (or maybe just the idea of it). I loved how the last breezes of the summer would rush through the open doors and how the assignments and construction paper artwork on the cork board runners would flap like autumn leaves. I loved the look and smell of a brand new box of crayons and just how bright my white tennis shoes would be for the whole first week.
Kristen Miller lived up the street from us, and she and Andy were in the same grade. She gave me her clear jelly sandals, the ones with the little fruits appliquéd on the instep. They hurt like hell, even on my summer feet, but I was so proud of them. She showed me how to take out a lightening bug’s glowing bulb and stick it to my finger where it would continue to pulse. Even as a kid, I was slightly disturbed by such destruction of property. Kristen had a cousin named Tyler who was a year younger than I. She wanted us to be friends. I pictured a tire swing every time I heard his name.
I was a flower child growing up, whether I knew it or not. I remember spending summer afternoons with my dad, playing with the tadpoles in the puddle at the edge of the rocks. He showed me how to cup my two chubby fists around enough water for one to swim in my hands. Or I would dig up dandelions with my mom in the backyard, being careful to get all the roots out.
How strange it was to live a precocious childhood, to have been serious and shy, knowing that someday I'd make friends my own age.
(If I had a bunch of balloons, I would fly away too.)
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Dante and Boccaccio Walk in to a Bar...
“Cin, cin!” Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio exchanged as they clink their raised glasses of beer. Dante looked down into his mug before he stated:
“You know, Boccaccio, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this country of ours’. It seems like things are always changing; sometimes I think we have a new foreign king just about every week! First we had the Normans, then the French. When will Italy be Italian?! In my opinion, we all need to get behind the Pope. He is the one who should have all the power. Besides, a country is only as good and prosperous as it is virtuous; if we all practiced religious virtuosity we wouldn’t have so many problems.”
“Easy for you to say, Dante. You were born into nobility and always had it easy. I, on the other hand, am the illegitimate son of a merchant! I have always been looked down upon. I studied in Napoli, but my life wasn’t easy. I got ahead in life on my wit and intellect. If you ask me, that’s what will keep Italy together, even while this Black Death wreaks complete havoc on our cities. And you know what I think? I think maybe the Church is part of the problem. There’s so much hypocrisy, what with all these wealthy friars who have supposedly given their lives to charity and chastity. Why do you think I set the Decameron in the Tuscan countryside? The cities are just outposts of religious hypocrisy,” Boccaccio stated. “I wanted my characters to get out where they could breathe clean air, literally and figuratively.”
“Boccaccio! What you speak of is heresy! How can you go against the Church? Maybe the problem is that we were writing almost 30 years apart, and times were different. But we must live our lives for God. Otherwise you will descend into Hell! Don’t you remember what I said about the time I visited Hell? ‘…the grim terrain shook violently; and the fright it gave me even now in recollection makes me sweat. Out of the tear-drenched land a wind arose which blasted forth into a reddish light, knocking my senses out of me completely, and I fell as one falls tired into sleep.’”
“As terrifying as Hell sounds, I think this pestilence is hell enough. I prefer to enjoy life now, while I know that I still have life. Besides, there are many reasons for a man to fall to the ground, as you did in Hell. Why, take Ser Ciapelletto from my own opera. ‘He was a great glutton and phenomenal drinker, so much so, in fact, that sometimes he suffered in a, well, less than polite way.’ He had a great many other vices, but in the end, his wit got the best of everyone, and he became a saint! He’s not so unlike some of the saints and friars I know of these days,” Boccaccio declared before gulping down the last of his beer.
“Giovanni Boccaccio! You are a lost cause! I’ve lost my taste for this drink now, not only because of the way you gluttonously slurped yours down but also for all the blasphemy you’re preaching,” said Dante with a huff.
“So, uh…I guess you won’t be finishing that…?” And with that, Boccaccio reached across the table for Dante’s beer and finished it in one swallow.
“You know, Boccaccio, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this country of ours’. It seems like things are always changing; sometimes I think we have a new foreign king just about every week! First we had the Normans, then the French. When will Italy be Italian?! In my opinion, we all need to get behind the Pope. He is the one who should have all the power. Besides, a country is only as good and prosperous as it is virtuous; if we all practiced religious virtuosity we wouldn’t have so many problems.”
“Easy for you to say, Dante. You were born into nobility and always had it easy. I, on the other hand, am the illegitimate son of a merchant! I have always been looked down upon. I studied in Napoli, but my life wasn’t easy. I got ahead in life on my wit and intellect. If you ask me, that’s what will keep Italy together, even while this Black Death wreaks complete havoc on our cities. And you know what I think? I think maybe the Church is part of the problem. There’s so much hypocrisy, what with all these wealthy friars who have supposedly given their lives to charity and chastity. Why do you think I set the Decameron in the Tuscan countryside? The cities are just outposts of religious hypocrisy,” Boccaccio stated. “I wanted my characters to get out where they could breathe clean air, literally and figuratively.”
“Boccaccio! What you speak of is heresy! How can you go against the Church? Maybe the problem is that we were writing almost 30 years apart, and times were different. But we must live our lives for God. Otherwise you will descend into Hell! Don’t you remember what I said about the time I visited Hell? ‘…the grim terrain shook violently; and the fright it gave me even now in recollection makes me sweat. Out of the tear-drenched land a wind arose which blasted forth into a reddish light, knocking my senses out of me completely, and I fell as one falls tired into sleep.’”
“As terrifying as Hell sounds, I think this pestilence is hell enough. I prefer to enjoy life now, while I know that I still have life. Besides, there are many reasons for a man to fall to the ground, as you did in Hell. Why, take Ser Ciapelletto from my own opera. ‘He was a great glutton and phenomenal drinker, so much so, in fact, that sometimes he suffered in a, well, less than polite way.’ He had a great many other vices, but in the end, his wit got the best of everyone, and he became a saint! He’s not so unlike some of the saints and friars I know of these days,” Boccaccio declared before gulping down the last of his beer.
“Giovanni Boccaccio! You are a lost cause! I’ve lost my taste for this drink now, not only because of the way you gluttonously slurped yours down but also for all the blasphemy you’re preaching,” said Dante with a huff.
“So, uh…I guess you won’t be finishing that…?” And with that, Boccaccio reached across the table for Dante’s beer and finished it in one swallow.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
A Lullaby
Paint me in blues, reds, and purples, like a Tom Waits song of disproportionate beauty and fear, illiterate and shivering, naked, stark, and resplendent.
Picture me in the sunset, escaping just beyond the horizon line, disappearing from your line of sight into memory.
Remember me standing on bare tiptoes, reaching for the last orange on the tree, arms outstretched like branches crying for the clouds.
See me everywhere and nowhere at all, blooming like late summer goldenrod between rows of weeping sunflowers, bowed down to the first days of the Fall.
Anticipate the rain and feel like spring, waiting for your mother's hand to pull the leaves down around your sleeping eyes.
Lend me your boat for crossing the river and forgive its incorrigible darkness as you push me away.
Go home and listen to the sounds the sun makes as it bulges its belly into the corners of your room, popping like toy fireworks on pavement.
Blame it on disposition, constitution, intuition--anything but chance. Because what is whim without desire? What takes the place of anything once it's gone?
Wake up where you fell asleep and take the love from your back pocket. Flip to the last page and onto it pen: A voice made for lullabies will never speak many words.
Picture me in the sunset, escaping just beyond the horizon line, disappearing from your line of sight into memory.
Remember me standing on bare tiptoes, reaching for the last orange on the tree, arms outstretched like branches crying for the clouds.
See me everywhere and nowhere at all, blooming like late summer goldenrod between rows of weeping sunflowers, bowed down to the first days of the Fall.
Anticipate the rain and feel like spring, waiting for your mother's hand to pull the leaves down around your sleeping eyes.
Lend me your boat for crossing the river and forgive its incorrigible darkness as you push me away.
Go home and listen to the sounds the sun makes as it bulges its belly into the corners of your room, popping like toy fireworks on pavement.
Blame it on disposition, constitution, intuition--anything but chance. Because what is whim without desire? What takes the place of anything once it's gone?
Wake up where you fell asleep and take the love from your back pocket. Flip to the last page and onto it pen: A voice made for lullabies will never speak many words.
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