Thanksgiving in the Champlain Valley

Tom behind a bush taking pictures

Invasive something-or-other obscuring the vista

Scenic field with scenic farmhouse and scenic mountains,

plus frozen muddy puddle

Imitation tense family portrait
 aka Madame Tussaud's Cozy Living-Room Diorama

Thanks to weather-report hysteria and the unpleasant image of slick mountainous roads, we've decided to depart early for Vermont and Thanksgiving. I'll be bringing along my cooler full of pie-baking materials, so if we get stuck in a ditch somewhere, we can survive on green tomato mincemeat, apples, dried cranberries, pecans, cognac, maple syrup, and several pounds of butter.

In the interstices of the holiday, I'll be reading Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade, because nothing encourages overeating like medieval bloodshed. Tom is reading Joan Didion essays, the poodle is not reading anything, and Paul is reading A Tale of Two Cities, but only because he has to. It's difficult for me to be encouraging because that book is not my favorite version of Dickens. Meanwhile, Ruckus will spend the week in the clink, sharpening shivs, etc.

Harmony weather = 12-degree gale. The wind has been brutal all weekend, and it's still blowing hard. On yesterday's outing to the apple orchard, Paul and I saw two brush fires, tree parts all over the road, crows flying backward, and linemen teetering next to loops of downed wires. We lost power for large chunks of Saturday and Sunday, so we had to make popcorn and play Scrabble next to the wood stove instead of vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom. Clutching our hoods, Paul and I went for a walk up a hill and almost had our eyeballs blown out and laughed hysterically and pretended we were backwards-flying crows and had a lot of fun.

Only in Maine would anyone believe that a 40-degree potato barn would be the ideal place to shoot a music video. To be honest, I have to say that the scene did have a certain quaintness to it: wooden crates, wisps of dusty sunshine, a deer winch . . . because there's nothing quainter than the iron hook assembly used for stringing up the large animal you've just shot. Also there was a good view of the handsome old galvanized tub used for holding the deer's cleaned-out guts, not to mention a picturesque old gat-toothed buck saw posed dangerously over a quaint door like the sword of Damocles.

The rest of the barn was filled with un-photogenic materials such as potato graders (which look like smaller versions of rock sorters at a gravel pit), broken plastic tubs, electrical cords, fenceposts, boxes and boxes and boxes of potatoes, a meaningless furnace, and dirt.

Anyway, we played the same song about twenty times and got our pictures taken. And then we went outside into the 20-degree howling wind and walked up and down a dirt driveway together and got our pictures taken. And then I went home and ate cheese and crackers and climbed under the couch blanket and watched English premier league football with my son and read a Margaret Atwood novel and fell into a coma, and this morning I am still cold.

Clearly there was a reason that ZZ Top grew those beards and played furry guitars. They had to avoid frostbite during the music video.

Can't talk because I have to go make a music video. Ugh. Maybe I'll bring myself to describe the experience tomorrow. Or maybe not. Have you figured out that this isn't my idea?

Fiftieth Anniversary

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of John Kennedy's death. However, the fiftieth anniversary of me won't take place till next year, which is to say: I am a member of the first generation of babies to have no relationship whatsoever to Kennedy's death, not even a "my mother was pushing me in my baby carriage when . . . " anecdote. On November 22, 1963, I wasn't conceived yet.

When I was growing up, I heard, of course, about Kennedy and his doings and his charms and his philandering and his murder, etc., etc. But I was far more interested in Jackie. By the time I remember her, she was no longer a black-and-white portrait of a widow, with a little hat and a tidy dress and Aqua Net hair and two bewildered children. Now she was a staple of colorful 1970s celebrity photos--long hair whipping in the seabreeze, giant sunglasses--and she was married to a toad-like Picasso-esque guy who was named, of all things, Aristotle.

How could those women in the photos be the same person? One was so neat and girdled. The other was flapping in the wind. And then there was the other question: Husband Number 1 was a perpetually young, coiffed, and handsome statesman, whereas Husband Number 2 was a perpetually chunky old bald guy in a bathing suit. What on earth was she thinking to marry a man who looked like that?

It all makes more sense now that I've reached the chunky old bald guy stage myself. But as a child, I think I would have preferred to witness endless Miss Havisham-like despair rather than a coming-to-terms-with-grief-by-taking-up-a-swinging-seventies-lifestyle-on-a-yacht. Girls can be very romantic but also cruel. They know they will never be old, and have little patience with people who make such a mistake.

Margaret Atwood's novel Cat's Eye considers that surprise: when suddenly we've traded places with those scornful girls and become the strange old bag on the street.

I am transitional; some days I look like a worn-out thirty-five, others like a sprightly fifty. So much depends on the light, and the way you squint. . . . 

Lately I've caught myself humming out loud, or walking along the street with my mouth slightly open, drooling a little. Only a little, but it may be the thin edge of the wedge, the crack in the wall that will open, later, onto what? What vistas of shining eccentricity, or madness?

You want to hear the truth? I hum out loud. Tom pointed it out to me the other day. "Do you know you do that?" he asked. Well, sometimes I notice . . . after I've been humming out loud for God knows how long. This is a problem in quiet places such as the grocery store and other people's poetry readings and the stalls of public bathrooms. But if I were humming out loud on a yacht next to a chunky guy in a bathing suit, the wind would be so noisy that no one would notice.

Today CavanKerry Press is featuring my essay about Gerard Manley Hopkins's "The Soldier," which in different form will appear in The Conversation. I previously published a bit of the essay on this blog, but the CKP version is much longer and more detailed.

In other news, it's 12 degrees outside. Last night, the sky was as clear as water, with the Milky Way rippling like sand in a stream. And then there was an enormous falling star.

Breaking news: J Journal: New Writing on Justice just nominated me for a Pushcart Prize! I am so happy! It's a long western Pennsylvania poem called "The Testimony of Various Witnesses." I read it at the Frost Place this summer; so if you were there, you might remember it. I am so happy!