Letters 1993-1994

February 12, 1993

Dear Jack,

Don’t feel neglected! My Kareer Keeps Kalling me away, Khaotically. If you watched TV last night, you know why. QBank just launched the Ford card, and we took to the air waves with an onslaught of commercials. The card enables people to earn up to $700 a year off the price of a Ford, based on their level of purchases. It’s designed to compete with the new GM card, and we launched the product in four months flat. Amazing. Today we all got little Lucite desk clocks, featuring a picture of the Ford plastic—a “hey-we-did-it” freebie.

You mentioned Graywolf Press’s windfall. Last year, Graywolf refused to look at my manuscript due to their “incredible overload.” It’s an excellent literary publisher; Tess Gallagher is their big star.

. . . . John and I saw Anna Christie last Friday night. What great performances by Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson! It is not O’Neill’s finest work but it plays well. A young woman comes east to ask her long-lost seafarer father for a place to stay while she recovers from a recent illness. Actually, the girl is coming out of a life of reluctant prostitution. She keeps her history a secret, reestablishes a relationship with her pop, and falls in love with a wild Irish castaway who washes up onto her father’s barge. Neeson issues from the mists like a half-naked, half-crazed merman! It’s quite a moment! In time, her secret comes out and causes heartache and havoc. Sounds deadly serious, but the play is full of high spirits and merriment, and was directed, and acted, like one of those exuberant Irish plays by O’Casey or Synge. We loved it.

I haven’t gotten to too many books these weeks, but I did read BLACK DOGS by Ian MacEwan, whom I met once at Simon and Schuster. I found it brilliant, totally contemporary and yet as substantive as a 19th Century Russian novella.

My “hobby” lately has been fussing with photographs, editing and organizing the many snaps we’ve taken over the years. I’ve got the travel album pretty well set, and will now turn to the family archive. I’m a pretty good photographer, even though I’m just an amateur using a basic SLR camera with no fancy lenses or filters. Maybe when my stock comes in, I’ll invest in new equipment.

Today it snows! This morning, those four blocks to the subway station were pretty intense! Even with an umbrella, my makeup was just about sandblasted off. I was glad that John and I walked there together; that way, we knew at least one of us would be able to survive, if necessary, by eating the other.

It is Friday, 5 PM. I will pop this into the mailbox downstairs and try to make the last pickup.

March 2, 1993

Dear Jack,

Yes, I like Tess Gallagaher’s poetry. Tess’s late husband was the great story-smith Raymond Carver—did you know? They were one of those famous literary couples and their turf was the Pacific Northwest. . . .

Your meditation about your parents, and about growing up, was enlightening. Now you’re cooking with gas! There is a world of difference between stating that “my mother’s love was unconditional” to acknowledging “I interpreted her love as unconditional.”

. . . . You know, I am not unacquainted with life’s little denials, especially in the context of marriage. I used to peck away at the wormwood, but no more. It only caused strife, unredeemable strife. And, as you implied, you must allow a spouse some mystery. I see no purpose in idealizing one’s parents or sugarcoating the memories of childhood, though. We are born clay, and the forces around us mold us and warp us. Most of us can find a way to honor our parents’ memory while still being honest about how their human shortcomings hurt us. My father was a sonuvabitch in many ways—why mince words about a man who tore around the house in alcoholic rages, who screamed for respect though he respected no one, who could be maudlin, sadistic, self-pitying, hyper-tidy, and stubborn? And yet I love him, I revere and honor him, I’m glad I knew him, and by some mysterious and gracious alchemy, I feel that, in the end, his legacy to me was one of sweetness and productivity and good craft. His wide hands: so precise. His concentrating eyes: so piercing-clear...

Amazing grace!

I read another Anne Tyler book, BREATHING LESSONS. This one is not uplifting in the manner of SAINT MAYBE; it’s downright existential. The main character is a meddling woman so sanguine she would make your mother seem like the Prophet of Doom. As a character, she is annoying but fascinating, or fascinatingly annoying, if you will. She nurtures improbable hopes which you, as reader, know will never come to pass and yet you find yourself hoping along with her (which is part of Tyler’s achievement as novelist). This woman is on a collision course with life; she even keeps busting up the car. If there is an obstacle she doesn’t want to hit, boom, into it she sails, as if on automatic pilot. Defective automatic pilot. . . . .

. . . . Wasn’t Friday a terrible day for our city? At the office, we stayed glued to the radio, listening for the latest on the bombing at the World Trade Center. I have walked around the lower-level corridors there many, many times. Often, I temped in that area. Also, my shrink had her office across the street from the Towers, in Battery Park City, so I’d dutifully take the subway there and trudge around the underground mall and through the Vista Hotel lobby to get to her couch. I’ve been remembering all that, and imagining what the blast must have been like. Such an abominable act! Working as I do, in a solitary tower owned by a big multi-national corporation...well, these things fill me with dread.

March 31, 1993

Dear Jack,

You found a buyer so quickly. What a joy and relief that must be! Please keep me posted—so I won’t post a post to the wrong post.

John and I have decided on Ireland for our price-be-damned vacation. We’re taking an escorted tour for 11 days starting June 26th. They take you everywhere, feed you daily, and save you from the trauma of stick shift, wrong-side-of-the-road driving. We can’t wait! That first summer, 1973, was such a happy time for me; I hope to recapture a bit of it.

Ireland is all green slope and rugged shingle. Probably it hasn’t changed much in twenty years, at least in the countryside. I remember tiny farms, adorable burrows, soulful ruins, charming towns, friendly pubs. Dublin, I’ve read, has become more modern, with a new rapid transit system, called DART, and now offers more sophisticated dining.

. . . . I didn’t realize that you have also struggled with weight issues (though come to think of it, I have noticed a certain phobia on your part regarding your belt size.) To my eyes, you’ve always been a very tall, extremely slender gentleman. But you are uneasy in your body; that much I could always see. We should revere our bodies, but we don’t. Both Kim Chernin and Naomi Wolf have written excellent books about body image. They point out that eating has replaced sex as Western culture’s repository of sin. Poor Jack, I think you are plagued by both these things!

Did you get the New York Times on Monday? Not only was my boss quoted on page one, his was the quote of the day! He is strutting around, feeling like Winston Churchill, I think. He was also on CNN.

April 19, 1993

Dear Jack,

Sounds like the house is as good as sold, even if the closing is two months down the road. Exciting! But so what if your buyer will be shelling out $1,500 a month. John and I shell out perilously close to that ourselves, for 2 1/2 tiny rooms.

You can’t say we’re skipping spring this year! It has been gorgeous, cool and fresh. The forsythia, the daffodils and the cherry blossoms are out in Central Park; pretty soon Lilac Walk, just north of Sheep Meadow, will be in splendor.

Yesterday we went to the Met to see The Dream Makers, an exhibit on the first 100 years of photography. It is amazing, how quickly that medium took off. One day they were bringing forth blurry images with primitive light boxes, the next day they were taking stunning, stirring landscapes and portraits. We bought a framed poster featuring a famous photograph of Auguste Rodin contemplating The Thinker, with his Victor Hugo looming in the background. To me, the image suggests God Himself inspiring Rodin in his art. It lifts my heart to own this poster.

I get into the Met for free with my QBank ID. Next week we’re going back to see the Greek show.

Two months till you close on the house and two months till I go to Ireland. Seems like the far future! I’ve got my traveling wardrobe in place, including a new pair of green Reeboks, and all the reservations set in stone.

I wrote a quasi-religious poem, “The Heaven Bound,” and sent it to the Century. Here is how it starts:

They should glide among us
with a whoosh of petticoats,
clouds at their ankles,
eyeballs lambent as candled eggs.
But they are ordinary,
their talk plain talk, their song plain song.
Tolerance is what their eyes radiate;
it is not a blinding light.

I wrote the poem to honor some people I’ve met over the years who merit the term “holy.” Holy people have one quality in common, I find: tolerance. When you are in the presence of a tolerant person, you feel that everything about yourself is abundantly blessed and good, that everything human is noble and worthy, every secret thing. But tolerance is a hard thing for most of us!

Without Halos is out, with my poem “Women Dancing With Women.” I am excited because a famous poet and feminist critic, Alicia Ostriker, is featured in the same issue. In vain, I sent another packet off to The Paris Review. And that’s my only po news.

Do I still love Hopkins, my sensuous Jesuit? You betcha! I have never found him heavy-going or obscure, I melted into his language at the age of 19 and now it flows in my veins. A while back, I summarized a bio of Hopkins for you in a letter. It might be worth ferreting out, if you still have it. If you know my poems, you know I am forever echoing Hopkins.

May 18, 1993

Dear Jack,

I’m in the mood for a new typeface. This one’s called “Universe.”

“Universe” is also a marketing term, meaning any large group of people who are the possible consumers of a given product. Here at Mondo Mammon, we often speak of the credit card universe which, it seems, is ever-expanding, just like the real universe. We speak of universe management, of the changing universe. It’s a term I’ve never quite gotten used to.

I haven’t written ’cause I haven’t known where you are. Your last post suggests you are back from Santa Fe, having bought a “nice house.” Do tell me about it. I want a good sense of your personal universe! Are you moving all your furniture or starting from scratch?

. . . . I’m happy to hear you found something worthy in my poem “The Heaven Bound.” Tolerance is my favorite virtue these days, perhaps because I can’t seem to find much of it in my own heart. Oh, I’m not the type to condemn people for what are generally considered “transgressions.” But my secret misanthropies are all over the place lately! I feel out of kilter, out of kinship, and my interactions are lacking in joy. Often, I feel used or put-upon. This isn’t the life I wanted; that’s the main thing. If I could put this loathing, this longing, in a poem, at least I would find some grace in this graceless state.

You are much more tolerant, it is true. You always seem to appreciate people as they are. You’ve always been too hard on yourself, though!

Inspired by our recent missives, I bought a new edition of Hopkins, my old one being all crumbly and yellowed. I’m enjoying some poems I hadn’t read for a long time: “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire,” for example, and “Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves,” the sonnet with the longest lines ever, I bet. Ah, the “womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night”! Hopkins really is quite quotable. Every time someone important dies, I find myself incanting “Man! How fast his firedint, his mark on mind is gone!” When leaving the apartment, I am wont to declare, “I am off, off forth on swing, as a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow bend.” I am weird that way.

. . . . Am I babbling? Probably. Truth is, I feel like Sylvia Plath on downers these days. But you are embarking on a whole new adventure! Should I follow your example? Sell, buy, move, change!

June 8, 1993

Dear Jack,

I have a sense that I owe you a letter in the worst way. I toted your last two around for a week, hoping to reread and respond, but that week has turned into weeks and though your letters wound up in a different handbag, I finally have a moment so let me drop you a line at last.

I’ve been enjoying your letters. You have so much going on! It was good of you to donate the Korean heirlooms to a museum rather than auction ’em off at Sotheby’s or something.

. . . . I’ve been reading a lot of poetry, much of it odious, and also just finished T. Coraghessan Boyle’s THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE.I enjoyed its satire.

I am in a better mood than the last time I wrote but still feeling wistful. Also guilty. Having recently yelled at a customer service rep, I feel the way you did when you screamed at the New School lady. Why do we lose our cool this way, when we know it’s hurtful and wrong? Flawed, flawed, the lot of us! At least I am looking forward to my vacation, though it seems like an unreal prospect somehow. Will I really be gazing at those green, green hills in a mere three weeks? Will I be out of the U.S. of A.? I won’t believe it till I’m back home writing to you about it, I suppose!

June 23, 1993

Dear Jack,

I’m going nuts, trying to clean things up at work and get organized for our trip on Saturday, but I do want to drop you one last note to your Ridgewood address. Please let me have your Santa Fe address as soon as possible.

My clothes are ironed, my toiletries are packed—I’m ready to fly Erinward on Saturday night. I’m nervous! Instead of beautiful sights, all I can picture today are bad head colds and terrible jet lag (both of which plagued me in ‘73). I’ll never be the sort of person who “travels well,” for I grew up in a household where nobody went anywhere. I recall my mother, speaking longingly of going to an ice cream parlor called Jahn’s, speaking in a way I knew meant we’d never get there, it was too special, too exotic, too far away—yet it was in the Bronx, just like us, just a 40-minute bus ride away! Some of that fearfulness rubbed off on me, and gets worse as I get older. It is unlikely I will ever engage in adventure travel, but I will travel in my own fashion, and try to see as much of the world as time and money permit.

My hopes for this trip? That it goes well, with no major mishaps. That it gives me and John a chance to revitalize and reconnect, with each other, with our roots. That I recuperate thoroughly from the office blues—for I am going batty around here! That we come back with tender memories, and a stack of great photos to keep them fresh.

And you, dear friend—I hope your move is a great glide, hassle-free and joyful as a move can be! It is well to uproot oneself every now and then. I haven’t tested the theory, but it seems right. I suppose this is your last big move, which must give it a melancholy tenor—and yet, who knows, you could still go Hawaiian!

July 16, 1993

Dear Jack,

We’ve both been through a minor sea change in the last few weeks, you especially. First, a new grandson, then a new home in a new state! How did it all go?

Since my Ireland trip, I’ve been lost in a time warp, and still can’t quite believe I was there, in that cool, beautiful, unspoiled country, surrounded by the gentle green hills they call drumlins, and now am back here, in this broiling metropolis. I shan’t bore you with a long travel log, but let me share highlights.

Animal: Sheep! They’re everywhere, strolling in their stone-wall-enclosed pastures, cluttering the road, posing on boulders.

  
Left:  Kylemore Abbey    Right:  A quiet moment with the Irish Times

Edifice: For charm: thatched cottages. For grandeur: Kylemore Abbey, an ornate structure built on a hill and reflected in a lake, now a finishing school for young girls. The day we were there, a clammy Irish mist gave the abbey a mysterious, atavistic air.

Natural Wonder: The Cliffs of Moher—immense, tiered precipices abutting the wild Atlantic.

Activities: A horse-drawn jaunting car ride we took on a sparkling morning in Kerry. A hike up a mountain trail in Glenveagh National Park in Donegal—waterfalls, hills, blue sky, lake, castle view and the “cleanest air in Europe.” A medieval feast at Knappogue, a 15th Century castle. A visit to Newgrange, a womb-like tomb which predates the pyramids by 500 years.

Hotel: The Clare Inn, a modern hotel on a hill in the country. That’s where we took a pleasant 20-minute amble over to Dromoland Castle (where the rich people stay).

  Tipple: Jameson’s Irish, a flavorful whiskey one can enjoy neat.

Food: Pretty terrible, except for the ubiquitous home-made brown bread, and the fine fresh salmon and trout. (You would love fishing in Ireland!)

City: Galway, in western Ireland, a happenin’ place, with a happy, noisy river, cobblestone streets, charming storefronts.

Unexpected Pleasure: The town of Bundoran. We’d read that it was a tacky seaside resort with slot machines and candy floss (their word for cotton candy). Well, there are a few arcades, but also a brisk seaside cliff walk we took at sunset.

The Irish People: As friendly and open as you’ve heard. Even teenagers would wave to our bus and engage us in conversation.

Fellow Travelers: The sublime: we struck up a friendship with an English couple from Kent, she about 55, he about 65. They sat near us on the bus and we dined with them several times. He is a retired architect; she has a sideline in flower arranging for weddings and the like. She was very pretty, always dressed impeccably even after the rest of us became rumpled after endless packing and repacking. When we parted, I shed tears. . . . The ridiculous: a Monsignor and two nuns were on our bus (along with some 16 people form their NJ congregation). The nuns were from an order called “Philippini,” founded in Italy. One of those nuns was rather loud. We dubbed her “Sister Mary Obstreperous of the Shrillippini.”

Untoward Event: After a little bus breakdown, our driver/guide chartered a bus to take us to our next destination (where a new tour bus would be waiting). This put a lot of pressure on our guide—a delightful 60ish man whom we loved. It was not his day. Somewhere on the road, the cargo door of the charter opened when he hit a bump and two suitcases were lost—including the Monsignor’s! The garda (Ireland’s unarmed police force) found the bags and returned them.

 
Injured at the Cliffs of Moher!

Mishaps: On the first day of travel, I tripped on a stair on the bus and banged my left knee badly. On Thursday, I took a fall at the Cliffs of Moher and ravaged my right knee—a deep bleeding cut, a big scrape (there they say “graze”) and a good, 4-inch circle of bruise. On the final Monday, down I went again, retraumatizing both knees! No, I was not gargling with Jameson’s! I felt as if someone had made a voodoo doll of me and was sticking pins in its knees! Ah, well, I took it all like a trouper (though that third fall, my personal Via Dolorosa, was depressing). And I was never immobilized. Some people go on “pub crawls” in Ireland. I went on “chemist crawls,” in search of bandages and antiseptic. After the Moher slip-up, a kind Galway pharmacist named Susan took me to the back room, cleaned me up, applied a prescription powder (bending the rules), and bandaged me nicely. Then she charged me next to nothing. This would not happen at Duane Reade!

     
Left:  St. Stephen’ Green Dublin   Center:  At the Gap of Dunloe    Right: New friend found in Sligo

So, basically, John and I had a wonderful time, our photos are grand, and our memories keen. I did come home with the dreaded Irish head cold, but at least it did not strike till the very end of the trip.

Sometimes traveling is like writing; the experience can be mixed but one loves “having traveled.”

. . . . This is my fifth day back at work. The horror!

I hope to get to Maine at the end of September—seems I’m always going, doesn’t it, but it’s been two years. Three nor’easters have battered my beloved Marginal Way in the interim, so I hope it’s intact. My mother, equally weathered, I also need to see. So I’ll focus my mind on early fall days in New England, and get through this summer somehow. Who can complain, when so many have been flooded clear out of their homes and farms? I feel for those people on the mighty Mississip’.

July 28, 1993

Dear Jack,

I trust you got my well-stuffed letter of July 16th, which clearly you hadn’t when you wrote me on the 20th. Probably we’ll cross in the mail—again.

Your house sounds perfect! I hope you’ll send me some pictures of the house, the view. You two will become gardening fiends, I am sure. No wonder the place cost so much, being so well-appointed and conveniently situated.

I remain conveniently situated, and that’s about all. Also conveniently situated is a certain baby pigeon whose progenitors built a nest in the nook between the air conditioner and the window sill. Jack, this presents a dilemma. The darn things are dirty and noisy, and their leavings can contaminate one’s air conditioner. I hear the tweets of the baby bird being fed—and can see the rear feathers of the mother as she pokes her head under the equipment—and I am flooded by mixed emotions. A second egg I swept off the sill without compunction and, cruel as it seems, I considered doing the same thing to the poor fledgling. I coaxed it out from its nest but I couldn’t hurt the thing. Then I decided I would maneuver the bird into a shopping bag and bring it downstairs. But I couldn’t manage it, not with the air conditioner in the way and the crafty little critter refusing to come out again, even when not so gently prodded. Is there a bird removal service in this town, I wonder? I do not want pigeons nesting under my air conditioner!

Pigeons are also called “rock doves,” and properly belong in the chinks and the niches of cliffs. Tall buildings suit them fine, though—so here they be, gurgling by our bedrooms and pooping on our pates.

What creatures will be vexing you in Santa Fe, I wonder? Mosquitoes? Gila monsters? Scorpions? Rock doves, probably.

I have just read a galvanizing little book called ORDINARY TIME by Nancy Mairs, whose previous books have gotten good notices. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. She lives in Tucson, is a radical Catholic convert, and has multiple sclerosis, an experience central to her previous book IN THE BONE HOUSE, which I have not yet read. ORDINARY TIME is the story of her personal odyssey into Catholicism and feminism, and a passing along of wisdom gained through illness and giving and just plain living. You might find the book engaging, even useful, for, like you, she writes about God, about God-With-Us and in us, about the kingdom of God really being “at hand,” i.e., right here. Here is a woman with a crippling disease and a sick husband who nevertheless does a lot of good in the world. And here am I, able-bodied and unencumbered, and not doing much. But stay tuned.

August 9, 1993

Dear Jack,

Up until now, NYC has experienced the most beautiful summer in my memory. Even when the mercury soared, the sky was bluebird blue, with cotton-ball clouds. In the last week, a more ponderous sky is above us, but it’s still not the usual khaki smog of August. We are on drought alert, alas, though it seems some showers are on their way.

I have turned into a Woman Who Reads Too Much. In one week, I went through LEAVING TOWN ALIVE, John Frohnmeyer’s lament about his years running the National Endowment for the Arts ... THERE’S A BOY IN HERE, a poignant account of a family’s experience with autism ... A WORLD WAITING TO BE BORN, Scott Peck’s latest ... and now WHOREDOM IN KIMMAGE, a book about modern Ireland by a wonderful new writer named Rosemary Mahoney. Each of these books is quite fine and I am enriched, having read them.

. . . . Now me, I am a person who wages intermittent, internecine warfare with my own writing. Truth is, unlike you it seems, I’m actually embarrassed to see my stuff in print, and made uncomfortable by my byline. Rejections bug me, but acceptances please me only mildly. I’m a success when I’m writing well, a shlump when I’m not. That’s all I know and all I need to know. If I’ve heard you correctly, you avidly want to publish, to see your words in print, to see your name on a book jacket—but, you know, it’s a mistake to make that your primary motivator. As I wrote to you once a long time ago, I only write when I have a burning desire to say something. A poem’s subject haunts me and hounds me till I’ve given it expression.

. . . . Advice, pah!, who takes it? I certainly did not take your advice to exterminate the young pigeon. By the time I got your letter it was too late, for I had already named it Fedders, and I could not harm of feather of Fedders. Guess what? Two mornings ago, Fedders took his first flight, from window sill to fire escape and back. Then he did it again. Then he flew away, far away, leaving an empty nest. We are free of him; it’s almost sad!

It seems like a long time since Ireland, yet I’m still having flashbacks. For all the loveliness of the land, it’s the people I remember most. Sister Mary Obstreperous asking me if I could get her a credit card (!) ... a mild, white-haired lady who sang on the bus and who had grown up in a thatched cottage ... the way the couples among us would vie for what was usually one table for two at our pre-paid dinners ... the young man at the hotel bar who didn’t know the price of a sherry and who couldn’t work the high-tech “till” ... the other young man whose contortions to close windows in the lobby led John to say, “You look like Indiana Jones,” and who replied, in a thick and merry brogue, “Yah, in the Temple of Doom” (that “dooooooooom” seemed to have thirty O’s in it!). I wanted to stay longer, to live there for a while, and it saddens me to know such a thing isn’t likely. This Rosemary Mahoney lived there for a year, and her book is both colorful and scrupulously honest about the Irish people—so many of whom remain superstitious, alcoholic, narrow-minded, fearful, repressed and pessimistic. We struggle here on issues such as abortion and “family values”; there, it’s a nightmare.

August 23, 1993

Dear Jack,

. . . . Yes, wasn’t Howard’s End a wonderful picture? Around the same time, we watched Enchanted April, another quiet, evocative film and one which reminded me, in theme at least, of two other wonderful movies, A Brief Vacation and Babette’s Feast. In each of these films, either one person or a group of people take a break from the chatter and hassle of their usual busy lives. In pleasure, in leisure, they “give comfort root room,”* and are filled with transforming love—caritas, eros, the whole shebang!

Do you still get The New Yorker? The last edition had a three-parter by Janet Malcolm on the subject of Sylvia Plath. She summarizes and critiques the various Plath bios that have come out over the years. I’ve read most of them—I’m a Plath scholar, actually—but I think Janet’s piece would give a Plath newcomer like yourself a good overall picture of this fascinating poet who has been such an inspiration to those of us who followed. The magazine includes a number of her poems; it’s refreshing to see The New Yorker printing some interesting poetry for a change! I used to view Plath as a kind of daring older sister; now I regard her as a difficult younger sister, wildly talented and just plain wild. For you, she’d probably seem like an intense, out-of-control daughter, spiraling to a downfall you’d be helpless to prevent. Hers must be the saddest life in modern literature. She was only 30 when she gassed herself, you know.

We saw Phantom of the Opera on Friday night. The chandelier has the best part. Why don’t they let it take a bow? There might be a germ of something significant in the story somewhere—over the course of the play, I began thinking of the Phantom as an archetype of the Artist—but it all gets lost in flatulent stage business. I thought the music was only so-so and the lyrics deadly-dull. Still, it was generous of R to give us those tickets.

September 7, 1993

Dear Jack,

Lord, so many questions you ask, and on “work” yet, the locus of my disability! All I know is, if I thought of my poetry as “work,” I’d never write it. Of course, strictly speaking, writing poetry is work—but unlike the dreary kinds (office work, housework, even editing), it calls on the totality of me, every sense and every synapse. It’s art! It’s play! It’s the way I express myself, even a means of getting to know myself in a core way. And yet, mysteriously, when I’m doing it right, it’s much larger than my stupid little self.

So why not ask yourself some different questions? Can you soothe that deep-seated “guilt about the daily stint” and have some fun? Can you dig into yourself the way you’ve dug into the southwest earth, and with the same anticipation, not knowing what you’ll find, only that it might be precious? Can you celebrate this amazing opportunity you have now, as a prosperous retired person, who really can write for love and not money? (Surely that is the answer to why then write?—for love.)

You seem to wring your hands a lot about your writing, you know? Always have.

. . . . So you found yourself haunted by the Sylvia Plath story too, hmmmm? When I get a chance, I’ll send you copies of her more accessible stuff. A lot of those New Yorker poems were on the flaky side. Under all the dense language, that poem “Medusa” simply describes Sylvia’s fury at her mother after a transatlantic phone call. It’s hard to know just what Sylvia is talking about sometimes; still, the intensity of her language, the vividness of her imagery, can be thrilling. There is a 7-part poem she wrote called “Poem for a Birthday.” I know that somewhere in there is the story of her first suicide attempt and ensuing hospitalization—but after multiple readings, I still find the poem impenetrable. But I keep reading it for its weird and luscious images.

We plan to drive to Maine on Friday, September 24th, my birthday. It is my birthday wish to walk the Marginal Way and then have a dinner of fresh scallops, baked potato, cake! Then, Sunday, we’ll go 2 1/2 hours north to see my mother in her Searsport boarding home. There is not a whole lot to look forward to there, but it must be done. Maybe we’ll work in a day trip to Stonington or Bar Harbor, and then come home via L. L. Bean.

But that 2 1/2 weeks off. I still have a lot of work to do here at the bloody office before I am released.

September 20, 1993

Dear Jack,

I won’t be getting my birthday wish, exactly, because we couldn’t get decent hotel reservations in Ogunquit for the 9/24 weekend. So I chose Sturbridge, Mass., instead. We’ll do some antiquing, bebop around Old Sturbridge Village, which is a delightful place, and have a nice dinner. Then onward and upward to Searsport and a new inn this time, The Carriage House. If all goes well, we’ll spend a day in Ogunquit on the way home.

I won’t miss the office! The atmosphere around here is very brittle. Some major players have quit over the last week, no doubt due to mismanagement here and a threatened move to Maryland. These are eschatalogical times; it’s the end of the world as we know it. I said that to someone the other day—”These are eschatalogical times”; you can imagine the blank look I received. I may be wrong, though. Response to the proposed move has been so negative that Management may deem it best to stay put.

I’m cranky these days, jaundiced, edgy, feeling stuck. Where do you get your self-directedness and zip, Jack? I know you experience desperation now and then, but it doesn’t seem to get in the way of your dreams. If there’s something to be done, you do it, if there’s a move to be made, you make it, if there’s a sermon to be given, fearlessly you get up in front of a mob and give it, you set goals and you meet them. This is accomplishment! What do I accomplish?

In my favor, I will say that (at times, at least) I am an accomplished poet, I possess a certain wisdom about the human condition, and I experience popular culture in a reflective, philosophical way. I am “open,” I let things touch me, I try to understand my life, my times, deeply. And that’s about all I can say in my favor!

I did just get a nice poetry acceptance, from The American Voice, a prestigious literary periodical which publishes out of Louisville. They pay $150 a poem, one of the highest rates going. Now hold onto your hat, ‘cause my poem was chosen for their summer 1994 issue on “feminist erotica.” “Resolution” is my steamiest poem, and it also has religious undertones. When it’s published, I’ll show it to you.

Santa Fe sounds just fabulous, Jack. So much to see and do, so much family-feeling and camaraderie and spectacle. I liked the way you described that burning effigy as a “satisfying sight.” And now you’re under snug new stucco. I have selected a housewarming gift from the Sundance catalog, Robert Redford’s merchandising line. The order taker said you should receive the package from UPS in 5-7 business days.

October 5, 1993

Dear Jack,

It was a really nice trip! Sturbridge seemed peppier than usual because of a hot rod convention. Everywhere you looked, there were quirky cars painted in psychedelic hues. Then, in Maine, I found my mother in good health and good spirits at the boarding home. Somehow I am able to deal with her “not quite” understanding who I am for a while. Eventually she gets it, but I doubt if she is any more pleased to see me than one of my aunts, say. John she doesn’t remember at all. Her mind got confused the same time her eyesight failed, some years ago.

Is it Alzheimer’s? On a recent TV program, a woman with Alzheimer’s could not figure out how many quarter-teaspoons make a teaspoon. So I said to my mother: “Do you mind if I ask a silly question? If you had a quarter teaspoon of salt, how many of those would you need to make a teaspoon of salt?” “Oh, well, that would be four,” she said. I gave her a big kiss on the forehead! I think that if she only had someone to talk to regularly, someone who knows her and has a shared history, her memory might improve. . . . .

A beach on the Marginal Way, Ogunquit, 1993

While in that area, John and I drove up Mount Battie in Camden—Edna St. Vincent Millay country—and took a walk on a shore trail in Camden State Park. Up and down the path snaked, with snaky tree roots and stones to keep the feet nimble, and a few steep detours off the path right down to the rocky coast and the sloshing ocean. Sights and sounds to take your breath away! The day grew warm and we had lunch on the deck at our favorite Camden eatery where we watched the Windjammers go in and out and listened to bell-buoys clanging. It’s one of my special places where I feel such gratitude and peace. The following day, a sparkler, we left Searsport, drove 2 hours south to Freeport for our shopping spree at L. L. Bean, and then another hour south to Ogunquit where my joy became complete. The crisp air, the autumn colors, the magical Marginal Way ... no place on earth nourishes my soul like coastal Maine.

Even the driving went smoothly, though I will never get used to the chaos one encounters on I95 below Connecticut. In the Bronx, some idiot bolted from the left lane of the three-lane highway, cut diagonally in front of us, and zoomed off the exit ramp with not a second to spare! How could I ever become a driver? I’d be screaming ‘Holy S----” every second of the day!

I suppose you notice that the Century published “The Heaven Bound” this week? They accepted it right before I left for my trip. They can be slow in responding, but they are the fastest printers in the Western World.

I’m so glad that you liked the chili-pepper cruets! I thought they were so pretty, “southwesty” in style but not tacky the way some of that stuff can be.

I came back to work yesterday, to the delightful discovery that my boss is away all week, partly for business, partly for Jewish holidays. There’s still plenty to do, but without one’s taskmaster, stress levels dip. Now I can try to fit in some writing and do some submitting this week, too.

. . . . I shall close. I need to listen to the messages on R’s “voice mail” and sort out a mile-high pile of mail. I have piles.

October 27, 1993

Dear Jack,

I’ve started MORNING LIGHT. Already I highlighted some of the paragraphs concerning personal writing; Jean Sulivan’s apologia for “why say I” is good news for personal poets such as Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, even me. We are always having to defend our subject matter against critical complaints about solipsism and narcissism. But, as Sulivan says, “The person who agrees to reveal his deepest self withdraws into the humility of anonymity.” I’ve always thought that. My goal, when I write about personal experience, isn’t to glorify myself but to get to something universal.

It’s not an easy thing, writing personal poetry. It’s risky, it takes courage. And I ask myself, “Why is it so hard to go public with this stuff, when, after all, your goal is to mine a universal lode?” But self-exposure is a basic taboo. Think of the taboo against nudity, particularly, you should excuse the expression, exposure of the genitalia. We all look alike down there, there are only two varieties of genitalia in the world and they aren’t unique in the way that faces are. Our so-called private parts are probably the most “universal” parts of our bodies, yet there is shame attached to them. Similarly, when you write about secret feelings—feelings everybody has—and then read the stuff in public, you feel like some kind of stripper. That is why Anne Sexton got drunk before going on stage, that is why even the celebrated Sharon Olds shakes a bit when she reads.

An apt image, stripping—for by putting forth our private selves we are inviting our listeners into their private selves, we are stripping down the masks and the barriers that divide us, and outwardly define us. Often, this kind of poetry is seen as overly emotional and raw. But we need more raw emotion in our writing, not less; most published poetry is cool, dispassionate, noncommittal. I hate it. Still, I would never argue that strong emotion is enough to make a poem; one looks for good craft, elevated language, tight construction. There’s room for the philosophical poem, the cerebral poem—I’m just tired of that type of poem being so heralded while personal poetry gets disparaged as “too raw, too emotional ... too female”!

We’ve all been crazy-busy at the office, finalizing 1994 fiscal plan. There are days when I go home at night in a terrible frame of mind over this job. Actually, one might say my job has been much enhanced recently, because the organization is involved in reassessment and renewal, and this means, in part, that staff positions like my own are more vital than ever. I’ve been involved in high-level meetings and planning sessions, and R has appointed me to a certain communications committee. Is the job more interesting? Of course it is, but it’s also more time-intensive, and has a heavier grip on my soul.

Never mind all that. John and I had a rollicking night out recently, at the Paul Simon concert at the Garden. Paul presented an anthology show, featuring songs from his Simon-and-Garfunkel days to his current African-Brazilian incarnation. He is a great songsmith! I feel akin to him artistically because he also writes in different moods and styles. I am showing my generation here, but, you know, Simon and Garfunkel’s records were what all the intelligent young people listened to in my day. Their music was poetic, earnest, melodious. And then, in the ‘70’s, Simon branched off and kept growing. Art Garfunkel sang at the concert, looking his usual woolly-haired self and sounding rather awful; perhaps he had a cold. Still, it was a great show, spectacularly lit in clear cellophane colors, magnificently performed by a whole slew of musicians, and featuring the great Phoebe Snow as a surprise soloist and back-up singer. By the end of the evening, we were all dancing in the aisles, still crazy after all these years!

Fall is all around me, “peak” colors having hit New York. Tell me, how does fall come to Santa Fe?

I didn’t want to show you “Resolution” before it was published, for the very reasons delineated above: i.e., the terror and taboo of self-exposure. But, again, this poem isn’t so much about me as about all human longing and lust. And since you asked, here it is. Consider this a modest woman’s erotica—she who only exposes herself to her husband, her mirror, and, once in a while, an angel.

November 9, 1993

Dear Jack,

I guess I never did say anything about Natalie Goldberg’s book. Forgive me, I know I’m crabby on the subject but I’m skeptical about how-to writing books and, given my own experience, skeptical about workshops. Can you picture Dickinson in a writer’s workshop, Matisse in a painter’s workshop? Can you imagine Dostoevsky reading how-to books? Genius finds its own way. I don’t proclaim that I’m a genius, but really, after reading “Resolution” et al., do you think I need a book like WRITING DOWN THE BONES?

Poetry is the result of a wonderful stew. It means reaching into the self, way deep, yes, right down to the bone. It means thinking clearly, bell-clear!—making exciting intellectual connections. It means transforming the ensuing insights into charged language. You need access to the unconscious, openness to experience, a grounding in literary tradition, an innate jubilation about words, and a talent that combines exactitude, ingenuity, confidence, and nuts-and-bolts craft. The only book I want to read about writing is the book I could write about writing, I guess.

. . . . I am amused/bemused by your comments about your wife, who seems like my type of person. You would probably be shouting “Get a life” at me too, if you spent a weekend chez moi. Reading, crosswords, napping, window shopping, all manner of time-wasting—that’s me. Your wife sounds like a real go-getter compared to me! I could never love the thought of twelve for supper, for example; I would simply call a caterer.

What’s wrong with languidly relishing the moments of your life, anyway? Ever read the personal columns? A typical entry might be “Gorgeous DWF seeks hunk with whom to share skiing, rock climbing, scuba, rollerblading and raucous nights between red satin sheets.” Whereas, if I were to place an ad, it would be “Attractive poet seeks literate, articulate man more into being than doing. Vasectomy preferred.” I have this now, come to think of it.

Sorry to hear about the never-ending cold. Sometimes I think my father had the right idea. He’d hit the whiskey at the first sniffle and remain crocked till the siege was over.

I will end this letter, due to being so overextended. I guess I do “have a life”—a harried, administrative assistant’s life!

December 7, 1993

Dear Jack,

That was some trip! Sounds exhausting! Will your daughter bring the grandsons to Santa Fe any time soon?

. . . . Sorry mood! The office is not fun. My boss is disenchanted and continues to shirk the daily workload. This is stressful me—I’m the one who has to cover for him and explain his lack of follow-up, after all. I’m reduced to a common nag, as I try to get him to focus.

I want to see those movies too! One we did see is a charmer from Ireland called The Snapper, a tender comedy about how a daughter’s “illegitimate” pregnancy throws her family into chaos. I recommend it unreservedly. I’ve watched two movies lately which show women being taunted and ostracized over reproductive issues. In The Snapper, the girl is called a slut by the local yahoos. In the TV movie A Private Matter, the host of Romper Room (and the mother of four) loses her job and is publicly reviled for aborting a fetus deformed by Thalidomide, a true story from the early 1960’s. Our society has not improved much since THE SCARLET LETTER, it seems. . . . .

January 5, 1994

Dear Jack,

I am back at work after a week off. I’d hoped to spend my vacation enjoying the city but it was too cold to do much of anything. Iceberg cold, bone-killing cold, Siberia cold. A good week for staying in, working out to videos, having lunch at nearby bistros, and curling up in cozy throws in front of the TV.

My neighborhood is being dug up! Columbus Avenue is getting an infrastructure makeover. The racket is unrelenting and the project seems to be taking forever. My noise-sensitive soul is suffering mightily, though I do feel compassion for the workers gearing up at dawn and freezing their toes in this weather. We had a snow storm yesterday; accumulation in the city wasn’t too bad, but the winds were polar and it left the sidewalks slick with ice.

We’ve had another re-org at the office, one that affects me very much. I’d been expecting them to reassign R to another part of the organization. They will do that, eventually, but in the meantime they have divided his world into two and hired a new high-level executive from the Visa Association to serve as a second marketing director. He started yesterday. For a while, at least, I will be supporting both people.

Well, I wanted to write you a letter but I don’t have much news. It’s a new year, I have a new boss, a new hairdo, a new fountain pen (the Parker Sonnet), a new umbrella and a new pair of palazzo pants. Now all I need is a new attitude. Bonne annee!

March 8, 1994

Dear Jack,

. . . . I am on jury duty, which has turned out to be a marvelous tonic for the QBank blues. We are hearing a civil case, a case that has dragged on for 9 1/2 years (not atypical, I’m told). An elevator mechanic broke two metacarpals—bones in the hand—while using an allegedly unsafe and certainly ancient drill. The fractures, he claims, have had long-term effects. He is suing three parties: his employer, an elevator company; another elevator company which loaned the drill; and the New York City Housing Authority, the building’s owner, because an on-site mess apparently contributed to the accident.

So far we have heard much testimony, and also depositions, and we have studied the drill and a model of the human hand. It’s all very interesting and the case has introduced us to the secret mysteries, the gnosis, of elevator construction and installation. I will never ride one unmindfully again.

This case has caused me to study my soul for prejudices. When asked about the whole idea of “suing for damages,” I usually lament the litigiousness of our society. Shit happens, accidents happen, babies are born with defects—to me, it seems a wiser stance to accept the crosses life hands you than to be always fighting for a payoff. Nevertheless, when an employer’s or a doctor’s negligence actually causes a tragedy, there should be some recourse. The victim may be owed it, and the guilty party may need a wake-up call so as not to harm again.

Jury duty is quite an honor to perform, I think.

It’s also quite a lark, in some ways. The pacing of this trial has been leisurely. They dismissed us at 12:30 PM on Friday and so I spent the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum viewing the Lucian Freud exhibit. Have you been following the story of this grandson of Sigmund? A Londoner, he is one of our premier artists, a master portraitist with a special talent for the nude. “His are still-lifes of flesh,” someone sagaciously wrote, and Lucian himself has extolled oil paint as the perfect medium for portraying the truth about the flesh. “The truth about the flesh” is the province of some contemporary poets too, myself among them. I love the paintings of Lucian Freud.

I am trying to work in a little spiritual reading for Lent. Last night, till 1 AM, I read from Ste. Thérèse de Lisieux, the “Little Flower.” What a hodgepodge-soul young Therese possessed, yearning for great Christian exploits and martyrdom and then realizing, through grace, that she was called to the very smallest of “ways.” Certainly, her great gift was to realize that Christ loved the people around her through her, that each soul on this earth is an agency of that greater love. How I wish I could call on such a well of caritas at, say, QBank, where my soul tends to bubble up in rancor instead!

I’m picking up your Jean Sulivan again as well. I like his idea that the very slipperiness of Christ’s’ sayings—the fact that the versions we have, have been translated and retranslated and interpreted and reinterpreted—makes them more meaningful than if we had them pure and uncontested, because then “we would have been enlightened but also coerced” and “Obedience would take the place of freedom and love. Certitude always runs the risk of hardening then finally destroying what can only ripen slowly in us, ripen and die in order to shoot up again.” Now that’s the best argument against fundamentalism I’ve heard!

I have taken this day off to do a long-overdue load of wash, which is now done, and now I shall tear away from my Smith-Corona and do some vacuuming. I will need a little Thérèse to get through that! Menial tasks were her thing

March 18, 1994

Dear Jack,

My jury did get to deliberate. It was a lousy case in a lot of ways. The plaintiff’s attorney was just terrible. Picture a dead ringer for actor Richard Benjamin presenting an overwrought and under-prepared case. To the jury’s mind, many crucial points of fact were not covered. The lacunae in the presented case made our job very difficult.

Still, we hammered it out, finding for the plaintiff but on a very modest scale as these things go.

I experienced a personal epiphany on this jury. One juror was a suave, persuasive, rich, eloquent and powerful man named Marty. Such a man will always take a leadership role and monopolize the conversation. Heaven knows, at QBank I work among the Martys! But that type of overbearing behavior just doesn’t work in the jury room. I asked him to pipe down. He apologized and promised not to dominate the proceedings—but of course he could not stop himself. Taking a momentarily dominant role myself, I insisted he let others speak, I even pounded my hand on the table!

In spite of our “power struggle,” there was a real appreciation between Marty and me. At one point, he gave me a blessing, a benediction, a b’racha, a Eucharist: he told me I was powerful too, that I wielded a “velvet hammer.” O rapture! Ever since, I have been walking around in a glow, feeling a firmness, an inner strength, and housing in my heart a little image of that velvet hammer.

Now I am back at work with a new perspective on things. And I’ve recently read three excellent books: Ari Goldman’s THE SEARCH FOR GOD AT HARVARD, Pete Hamill’s A DRINKING LIFE, and Bruce Bawer’s A PLACE AT THE TABLE, a well-reasoned apologia for a principled homosexuality. Now I’m in the middle of HOW WE DIE by Sherwin Nuland, a fine work which combines medical info with philosophy.

I am reading like a fiend but not writing much. I find I am unable to slip into that serene place I need for real writing. I am in a funny groove, thinking hard, feeling hard, feeling very alive but not particularly creative. Sometimes I just look around at the ordinary stuff of my life and get bowled over. We got a new shower head recently; to soak myself under its efficient stream fills me with happiness! (The old one sputtered and coughed.) I love the small things, the little beauties. Isn’t it Sharon Olds who writes in praise of “small beauties,” finding them even in her daughter’s sunburn peelings? I can dig it.

One day recently, in the new Barnes and Noble “superstore” on Broadway and 82nd Street, just as John and I were boarding the down escalator, a small beauty happened. A little blonde girl stood before us, too frightened of the moving stairs to get on them. Her mother called to John to “please help,” as she herself went steadily descending away from her little daughter. No problem. John took the child’s hand and helped her on, and kept holding her hand till he got her safely off. I got all fahrklept, as that Mike Meyers character like to say—all choked up. John and I are seldom put in the position of nurturing children.

Well, enough of these moony musings. I am strong, I am invincible, I am The Velvet Hammer.

April 21, 1994

Dear Jack,

. . . . A great spring languor has seized my city and infiltrated my heart. White-blossoming Callery Pear trees are all over the place; a great spray of them encircles Grand Army Plaza, at 59th and Fifth, looking like a nosegay for a Titan. Tulips stand and march along the Park Avenue traffic islands, tulips with their brilliant colors and their shocking inner cache of pistils and stamens. I love them. I love spring more than I’ve loved it since those Easter dress-up days of my childhood. As one gets older, one appreciates the youth of things more, and spring is an all-youth. Last year’s and this year’s have been particularly giddy springs for New York City. Our urban landscapers have outdone themselves, with their riotous plantings.

I’ve been taking it all in on my morning walks across Central Park. John and I were there on Saturday as well, enjoying a crepuscular amble in The Ramble. Cops were everywhere! Did you hear about this? Some Canadian couple had reported the kidnapping of their infant in Central Park, and the NYPD Blues were out in droves searching for the child, and even scuba diving in the lakes. (Which is really heroic; I would dare tip a toe into one of those stagnant lakes!) Believe me, they turned this town upside down. Soon after, they learned that the couple had made the whole story up, having buried their baby the previous week in the Canadian woods. What a soap opera!

. . . . I envy your trip around Phoenix and Tucson. Someday I’ll get to the southwest. I’ve never seen Sedona, or the Grand Canyon; I am a deprived child. Whenever I get a chance to take some time off, I am usually so exhausted, so neurasthenic, that a trip to a new place sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Instead we go to Florida, seeking the healing caress of the sub-tropical sun and the intoxicating incense of the flora. Or to Maine for salt air and those rocky paths by the sea. I’d be ready for a new place after that—but after that, it’s back to work, of course.

Yes, how exciting that MLB is in Angie with Geena Davis! She may find even more casting opportunities, now that she is the right age for those character parts.

Well, I am not exactly full of news so I will stop rambling and bid you farewell. Tell me all about Santa Fe in springtime.

May 12, 1994

Dear Jack,

I’ve been watching Middlemarch on PBS too. It’s the best Masterpiece Theatre in a long time, don’t you agree?

John and I went on an excursion to the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx, last Saturday. We hadn’t visited the Garden for about 20 years. It’s an amazing place; you’d never know you were in the city. On Saturday, the lilacs and azaleas were at their peak, and the dogwood blossoms were still evident. We also enjoyed the rock garden, with its Latin-labeled plant life and an amusing sign that read “Plant Thieves Will Be Composted.” My favorite spot in the park is the “forest”—an actual expanse of virgin woods, just as the Native Americans inhabited it. Coursing through this forest is the Bronx River. Ah, the mighty Bronx!—scrawny and murky and smelling a bit sewery, but fast in parts and home to a few geese.

A great day. We chose that particular Saturday to get out of Manhattan because a big block fair was scheduled for Columbus Avenue. I am beginning to hate these block fairs. Nothing but din and crowds and junk food and crappy merchandise for sale. Still, as we walked down Columbus around 10 AM as things were being set up, we encountered a little zoo of farm animals, one of the fair’s more enchanting features. They were just being put into their pens—pigs, sheep, picture-perfect white ducks, bunnies, burros, horses and even a llama. At one point, a family of those ducks ducked under their pen and waddled to the curb for a sip of oily puddle! At that hour, it was shady and cool and uncrowded, so we stayed a while and lapped up the atmosphere. “Noisy as a barnyard”—now I understand that expression.

Now to your maxims. “Network, network, network.” I know you’re right about “networking” being a crucial thing for writers to do if they want to maximize their chances for success. I can’t bring myself to do it, though. When I was an editor at S&S, I was often the one being networked, for obvious reasons. I hate the duplicity of all that—and who wants to be cultivated for her usefulness rather than her charm? “Exploit, go for it, get, get get”—that’s an unbecoming philosophy. I’ve thought about this a lot. My work will rise by its own merit, or not at all.

“Get a piece of an editor.” Not sure what you mean. Get an editor to support your work? But surely that’s more networking. Whatever it means, keep in mind that editors seldom stay put and can’t always bring you along with them.

“Learn to love the art in yourself, not yourself in art.” Jeez, you must love this expression, it’s in your every letter lately. I believe this too, of course. But when you’re networking, you’re loving yourself in art, are you not?

“Grow a third ear.” Listen critically to your work. That’s primary. But if you need a flock of workshoppers telling you “what is best in your work and what is crap,” you are still a beginner.

All of which is not to diminish your Louisville experience. What a great organizer you must be! I suspect you’ll remember the workshop less for “lessons learned” than for the sheer enjoyment of being with like-minded people who care about the literary life.

Speaking of po biz, I’ve been immersing myself in ONE ART, the letters of Elizabeth Bishop, a book fatter than Middlemarch. I once vented to you in a letter about Elizabeth’s “high place in the canon” seeming undeserved to me. Still, I wanted to read the letters to get a sense of this modern poet’s life and times. I’ve been rereading her COLLECTED POEMS as well. I’m feeling kinder toward her talent than before—she had a particular gift for the descriptive poem—but still I think she’s minor.

Anyway, for some reason I’ve been in hog heaven, curling up on the couch every night with this huge book. I love reading the letters of literary people.

I am at work so I’d better close. Being able to carve out some time to write you is such a wonderful thing. I am usually very, very busy. My new boss . . . . is very hard-working and hands-on. He travels a great deal, and since I organize all that I am beginning to feel like a travel agent. His calendar is a protean thing, changing every minute it seems. I am a true bride of detail.

June 3, 1994

Dear Jack,

Today I am thinking of Meursault, the protagonist of Albert Camus’ THE STRANGER. Occasionally he writes in his journal, “Nothing. Existed.” I feel that sums up my own days lately! “Nothing. Did some ironing. Sleepwalked through the office. Strolled on Columbus. Bought toilet paper. Made the bed. Existed.” Still, if this is lassitude, it is of a happy sort. The days are diamond-bright and summer is icumen in.

Speaking of summer, we had to buy a new air conditioner. The super helped us set it up yesterday. Let’s hope the pigeons keep away from it.

June 6: Our new AC has that decade-in-the-window look already. On Saturday, a truck exploded into flames right downstairs and sent storm clouds of smoke our way. Our kind superintendent’s Lolo’s car was also destroyed in the blaze. The things that happen downstairs! Last Christmas, we witnessed a bad car accident—much noise, a flipped car and serious injury. And one Thanksgiving eve, late, a car crashed into the restaurant in our building and caught fire. I peered out the window in the middle of the night, and saw the flames reflected in windows across the street. My knees grew quite weak at the sight. Thank God we got rid of the Laundromat in our building; fires in that one store sent us all streaming into the street at dawn on two occasions. And one day last year I had to call the fire department because the entire building smelled of gas. Christine Lahti’s nanny (the actress had been subletting) had left the burners on. The biggest minus about apartment living is that you are at everyone else’s mercy. The second biggest is everybody’s else’s noise. We have a new tenant upstairs, a single man, known to John and me as The Mastodon.

. . . . June 8: As you can see, I am stealing time here and there to write you.

On Monday and Tuesday, along with other staff members, I am taking “ExCEED Training,” a customer service seminar offered by the bank. To prepare, I am supposed to “observe the kinds of service I receive from others, in the marketplace or at work, and make note of situations that exemplify excellent or bad customer service.” I am having fun, remembering all the times I’ve been left to steam in the wake of poor service. I am also recalling great service, such as the time a wonderful saleswoman at Bloomingdale’s helped me carry a heavy lamp out of the store (down six floors) and into a cab. And what about the service I give? I always try to be helpful when customers or potential vendors call me at QBank, and certainly I have set up my desk to have all the information they might need at my fingertips. I am always at a loss when an angry person call, however. They may be right—or wrong—but when they start screaming at me and insulting me or the company, I get flustered, and feel wounded, and don’t know how best to handle them. I know I’m not supposed to take such things personally—and, intellectually, I don’t. But when someone is screaming at you like a banshee, it’s hard not to react viscerally. As you can imagine, it is also a source of weirdness to me when someone assumes I am QBank when, of course, I am only masquerading as a banker.

It is strange, being limited by strangers to the role you play. One day I found myself in the middle of a sort of double masquerade. I was sitting in for the receptionist (I do that twice a month, at lunch time), when a man came to the front desk to pick up something. I asked him if he was from a certain messenger service, and he got all bent out of shape. Practically sneering, he said “I am hardly a messenger. Messengers do not dress this way.” (He was in a suit.) My retort? “Well, I’m not a receptionist, I’m a poet.” And so it goes.

There’s only one thing on my Poet’s Wish List right now. I entered a sonnet contest sponsored by the celebrated journal The Formalist, to be judged by Richard Wilbur, the great living poet known for his beautiful, literate, jewel-like poetry. I have always idolized him; what an honor it would be if he chose my work. I submitted one of my best, most literary poems, “The Frozen Sea Within,” . . . . inspired by a statement by Franz Kafka that “Literature should act as an axe for the frozen sea inside us.” I always loved that statement, but I wanted to take issue with it. In my own life, I have found the most effective way of accessing the “frozen sea” (which I associate with so many things: our hard, armored defensiveness ... our denials ... our illusions ... the unconscious mind itself) is not heavy axe-wielding but a patient, observant waiting for the spring thaw, which melts the frozen sea. (Of course, these contests are always such long shots; getting past the first screeners is key.)

August 11, 1994

Dear Jack,

. . . . This week we finally got a break from the dog days when, on Saturday, a cold front blew in and it suddenly started to feel like late September. It’s warmed up a bit since then but it’s still quite lovely out there. I no longer arrive at work after my morning walk soaking in my own sweaty stew. I love walking! On that cool Saturday, I went to Eddie Bauer and bought a pair of leather hiking boots, which I hope to use in Maine when we go there for a week on October 1st.

Two weekends ago we took off for a 3-day weekend in Hope, New Jersey, near the Delaware Water Gap, where I managed to go hiking in less splendid foot gear. Oooh, it was steamy but also shady in the woods and I scampered around lightfootedly, being quite aerobically fit thanks to all the walking and step-aerobic routines I have been doing. We stayed at the Inn at Millrace Pond, a restored stone structure from Mennonite days. It has one of those beds that are so high off the floor, you feel as puny as a 3-year old, sitting there with your legs dangling. It was novel, experiencing summer days in the country. Crickets and locusts made a racket all night. Strolling in the midst of that clatter one night, I came upon a beautiful dream-like vista: horses, most of them white, standing near a barn on high ground, with fireflies all around them. I stood there, mesmerized.

Shopping in Chester on the final day, I saw something as hilarious (to me) as those horses were glorious. In an antique shop, I came upon a bird in a cage—the ugliest bird I have ever seen, a small, unhappy creature that looked like Phyllis Diller on a bad hair day—feathers awry and askew. On the cage was a hand-lettered sign:

Hi, my name is Romeo.
I’m a canary.
No, I’m not molting.
I have feather cysts.
No, it isn’t curable.
No, it doesn’t bother me.
Sorry if it bothers you!

I am working on a poem called “Romeo’s Soliloquy” in honor of the hapless creature. I expect the poem will be witty/serious, just as the bird could be thought of as jolie/laide.

Well, I think I’ll hurry this letter to a close so I can stick it in the 5 PM mail pickup downstairs. Thanks for reminding me about Kathleen Norris. I was intrigued by reviews of DAKOTA, and I am looking around for a copy.

September 30, 1994

Dear Jack,

. . . . Sharon Olds is very instructive on the subject of personal poetry. No matter how closely a poem may draw on a real-life situation, it must also be a deliberate construct, a kind of fiction, drawing not just on the poet’s life but on his or her deep ideas; otherwise, it’s mere self-expression. In “Resolution,” the idea was to muddy the boundary between the Christian God and the Pagan Eros. As it happens, that crowded, unbridled New Year’s Eve described in the first stanza is totally made up. The “man or ape” image attempts to call up the dark power of female lust, but one shouldn’t confuse it with what I really experience. It was brave of me to write that poem. It really was! But I have doubts about its value as art, I cringe to think that some readers may find it lewd, and I’m afraid that it may cook up some very bad theology. Does it?

You have read my mind concerning spiritual matters. I have been reading Thomas Merton on Christian mysticism, reading THE ASCENT TO TRUTH with great wonder and (I don’t know why or how) great comprehension. In response, a poem called “Contemplative Observances” sluiced out of me, a haunting poem so numinous and out of my ken it feels as if it were channeled. Merton is quite pointed about the dangers of “spiritual stuff,” but his discipline, derived from St. John-of-the-Cross, is designed to neutralize those dangers. The reasoning powers of the mind can protect us, he believes.

I am so intrigued by all this, I wish I could quit work and go study religion somewhere, but even if it were possible, where would I go? Do the so-called Divinity Schools even deal with such mysteries? I get the impression that they are more into action than contemplation. Anyway, I am going through one of my seas changes again. I am even thinking seriously about legally changing my name to Kate Benedict, “Benedict” suggesting one who speaks well or who even speaks blessings, ‘Kate” being a name I like and often use on vacations (as in “Hi, I’m Kate!). She’s a capable and unburdened person, this Kate, she’s successful, gracious and firm. I’d like to be her.

Well, I had a pretty decent birthday. My sister admins gave me flowers on Friday and on Saturday John and I took in dinner and a play, Philadelphia, Here I Come, by Brian Friel. It’s an Irish play about a young man torn apart by his decision to leave his home town and his widowed da to come to America. Two actors play the young man: one portrays the public self and one the private, the private self being the one who says the unsayable. The device worked beautifully. John really identified with the story, I think, for it features a very “closed” and silent father much like his own.

I have not had a vacation all year, and have watched aghast as my fall vacation has been delayed (due to John’s business responsibilities) from September 24th to October 1st and now to October 11th. But I’m taking two weeks! We’ll leave for New England the day after Columbus Day for a (probably) short rip. Then I’ll come back to NYC for museum jaunts and quiet time.

Jack sent CS a poem he wrote for a workshop on the subject of a Jonathan apple and asked for her opinion. In her letter of October 25th, she critiqued the poem, pointing out that the prose in his letter which described his response to the apple was far better than the resulting poem, which, she wrote, got “waylaid in sidelong ideas” about food and dieting.

October 25, 1994

Dear Jack,

. . . . You send me your beginning poetry at your peril! I am not a nurturing person, you see, not a mother, not a teacher. I’m an editor, or I was an editor, one who enjoyed working with the highly professional, established writer—or one who, when presented with a less-than professional manuscript, simply jumped in and rewrote it. Still, I will continue to read your poetry and critique it if you want, though please don’t send a tape. I dread listening to poetry, any poetry, which is why I seldom attend readings and probably why I quiver and quaver at the very thought of giving a reading!

I hate listening to poetry and I hate talking about poetry. I love reading poetry and writing poetry and writing about poetry. Why? Because, to me, poetry is something like contemplative prayer. Too much chatter, too much “out-loudedness” seems a cheapening, a desecration. I know of no one else who shares this view. In this era of touring poets and workshops and “poetry slams,” I am quite the square peg. But that is how it is for me. I didn’t choose silence and the private path any more than I chose right-handedness.

I’m glad you like the mouse pad! I myself have a mouse pad featuring Monet’s water lilies. High art in everyday life: why not?

. . . . Our New England trip was great! Bright sun every day, crisp air, foliage at its peak. In addition to our usual haunts, we visited Plymouth, Massachusetts, a place soaked in history. We love historical restorations and Plimouth Plantation is one of the most outstanding. Inside the jerrybuilt homes, you encounter actors who perfectly personify real figures from the Colony. They don’t just wear costumes a la Colonial Williamsburg, they actually act the part, speaking in 1627 dialogue and answering any question you might have about their journey on the Mayflower or what have you. A portion of the Plantation is given over to a Native American settlement, complete with tents for smoking game and young men walking around with hides fluttering most alluringly over naked butts.

I have “run away” form the spiritual reading for a while and am now tackling A HISTORY OF PRIVATE LIFE, the medieval edition, which I bought for a song at the Metropolitan Museum. Spiritual disciplines continue to tantalize me. I will do more study. Still, there is no way to blend worldliness with a life of contemplation, not that I can see. Kathleen Norris comes close; how I admire her choices!

[To her niece]
October 27, 1994

Hi!

It was kinda surprising, hearing you were back in Belfast, I assume the house in Swanville. Then again, life takes all kinds of twists and turns.

. . . . This has been a very hard-working year for me so far. Working in offices will never delight me, as I sense it does not delight you. Indulge me in some reminiscing; who knows, you may find something to relate to. My early working career was checkered. I changed jobs a lot and was never really happy in them. When I was an editorial assistant, I lamented the slavery of it all, the low wages, the politicking. When I finally achieved my goal of becoming an editor, ostensibly I did quite well but something inside of me kept rebelling. I resented giving the best of my creative energies to other people, my “authors.” Truthfully, I never got comfortable with heavy-duty decision-making or business lunches or contract negotiations or any other high-powered “boss” stuff, either. I admire take-charge people, those firm, effective souls—but never became such a person myself, alas.

Mercifully, a kind of inner peace descended on me in my mid-thirties. I accepted life’s unfairness, I suppose, and my own limitations, and decided I would simply get a job, stick with it, and not let it wring me out or distract me from my poetry. Probably I seem to you like a worldly woman, urbane, a New Yorker, but in my heart of hearts I am unworldly, a kind of monk, with a monk’s detachment from life’s hullabaloo. This is a valid stance, an option for you too, as you go forward, though of course you have other options as well. If it’s writing you live for, always put it first, let nothing interfere. I let too many things interfere, frankly, despite all my resolutions.

I can hardly believe it’s been six years since we’ve seen each other; at your age, that seems even more of an eternity. It was about this time of year. Oooh, it was cold, even in mid-fall! I remember going to that bonfire in town on Halloween, my face sizzling in the heat from the fire, my feet freezing on the cold, damp ground. One day I went out for a long fitness walk in Swanville. I lost track of time and distance somehow and came back to the house three hours later, totally frozen and exhausted, marathoned out! Isn’t that the time we took a walk in the woods wearing red things because it was hunting season? That was fun.

May wood chopping give you wisdom and strength, and may things not go bump in the icy night.

November 17, 1994,

Dear Jack,

And now you are off on another jaunt! Perhaps you ought to write a book about how to be happily retired, for you are certainly living an exemplary retirement. Which means, I suppose, that you are not “retired” from anything except the nine-to-five grind.

I love to observe older couples when I travel. John and I often take trips during what amounts to the “school year.” Only childless couples and retired couples are able to do that—and so we run into a lot of older people. I watch them carefully, as if preparing for my own future. I hope to be prosperous enough to travel when I’m older. I want to be vigorous and keen-eyed and well-attired and still with John. Tall orders, all of them. To paraphrase Jane Kenyon, I am aware that someday it “might be otherwise.”

 
Posing by a mural in New Hope, Pennsylvania 

Right now things are jolly enough. We just took a trip to Bucks County. So impetuous!—we just got up on Saturday and decided to rent a car and go somewhere. Have you been to New Hope? A charming town of ye old shoppes with a Main Street situated between the Delaware River and an old-timey canal down which you can float in a donkey-tugged barge. We had lunch by the hearth at a place called The Landing, and then just grooved. Antiquing, wine-tasting, leaf-crunching, photo snapping—a fine, autumnal day. I love the light this time of year, that late afternoon gray-and-yellow glow; I love the bracing gusts. It feels cozy, putting on snug fall sweaters and leather gloves. One feels young again, tramping around in the leaves.

As Yogi Berra once said, “It gets late early this time of year.”

 
Down the canal on a horse-drawn barge, New Hope

I must commend you for your reworking of the apple poem. You focused it and made it stronger. My heart sang a bit, noting your progress and my role in it. Perhaps there’s a teacher inside of me, after all! . . . .

Our neighborhood is mourning the loss of Raul Julia. He belonged to a local parish, having “come back” to the church after he played Archbishop Romero in that movie. Often he served as lector at mass. The pastor went to Puerto Rico, where they gave Julia a big state funeral. I appreciated him as an actor very much. Screw the Addams Family confections. He was great in “real” roles, and was certainly a pioneer for Hispanic actors. And he had bedroom eyes!

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, that wonderful weekend of good food and mellowing out and long walks in a Central Park gone golden brown. Christmas time throws me into despair these days, though. I am hoping to rekindle a little piety this year, being that Jesus is the reason for the season. That might help. I’ve already told John: No presents!!! Let’s not do it!!! I’m tired of putting us both through the agony. We’ll buy something jointly, perhaps, and try to go somewhere for a day or two, if the weather is fairly clement. The chilly fall I like, but the frigid winter? Fuhgettaboudit. I can already feel that January depression lurking over my soul like a huge vulture. How to fend him off?

December 8, 1994

Dear Jack,

I am back at the office today, after staying home sick for two days. Some kind of bronchitis, I think—all hacking, all barking, all coughing, tra la.

I am back at a desk I occupied some years ago, on the less chi-chi side of the executive floor. I got bumped from my posh desk when our new big-wig decided to build herself a suite. My desk happened to be in the middle of her new realm so out I was tossed. Mostly I miss the skyline views on the other side.

I’m so glad you are still enjoying the little cruets I sent you for a housewarming. I imagine they look quite striking filled with red and green liquids for Christmas. Speaking of Xmas decor, though my apartment is too small for a regulation Christmas tree, I do set out a little two-footer. This year I also found an extraordinary nativity set based on Celtic carvings—large figures, etched out of gray stone, with a folk-art air, nothing like those fussy Italian china things. The figures are both naive in execution and winningly austere, much like old carvings displayed at The Cloisters. I have placed everything—the tree, the crèche, and my beloved ceramic altar plate—on a bookshelf: my holy niche.

Have you read Pope John Paul II’s book? I have. He’s erudite, and he did not “dummy down” his ideas for the masses, an estimable choice. (In Catholic school, they never dummied things down for us either. We were expected to understand the holy mysteries and use the big words. We loved the big words.) I did not find myself quarreling with him. He’s a wise person, a lover of literature, a champion of the young, a believer in human love. I would surmise he likes women—which is why I don’t understand his opposition to inclusive language and all that. His position on women is very discouraging. The church sets vexing obstacles in the way of a woman’s spiritual quest.

Glad you’re home safe and sound. Your willingness to tackle 2,000 miles in the car in admirable. Is it wise, though? All that dubious road food with your digestive problems? Potential breakdowns? Drowsiness or inalertness at the wheel? My experience with men is that they do not like to face their limits—not their speed limits, not their capability limits, not their age limits. Such an aspect of mind once set our car reeling off the road on an otherwise perfect morning. Take care, okay? I’m a fatalist about these things, in case you haven’t noticed.

You suggested I send another poem. Maybe you’ll recall my summer encounter with the deformed canary. And so: “Romeo’s Soliloquy,” herewith! Taking an inchoate moment of inspiration and turning it into a poem always thrills me. I’m pleased with this one—happy that I chose to let the bird speak for itself, that the imagery is apt, the craft good, the pentameter buttoned up, that the poem is witty, literary, wise. Maybe not your cup of tea, though. You seem to like titillation in your poetry, and this will give only cerebral pleasures.

December 20, 1994

Dear Jack,

Thank you for the Ghost Ranch calendar. I love black-and-white photography. I also appreciated the wrapping paper; did you remember my affection for cardinals?

Not much news. Late December always seems like a downhill ride on a roller coaster. Even without a big gift-giving Christmas ahead, I’ve been rushing around stores in search of something for my mother, my boss, the children’s toy drive at the office.

My favorite bunch of cousins, the children of my father’s sister Lorraine, are all having babies and now Lorraine has eight grandkids. Photos of them arrived with Christmas cards. They are all blond, clone-like and cute, and run from about six months old to three. I just keep staring at the pictures. Lorraine must have done something right, for I don’t believe people want to build families unless their own family life has been nurturing. . . .

It all has me revising my childlessness. Family life was dispiriting for me as a child. I realize I could never face motherhood because I had no enthusiasm for traditional family life, no reserve of hope in my heart. How could I be the vessel of a young child’s hopes, when I had to hope myself? Perhaps I needed a little faith, eh? Of course, John’s family history is worse than mine; he was not equipped for parenthood either.

I bought Karen Armstrong’s book, A HISTORY OF GOD, but haven’t gotten to it yet. Instead, I read her earlier book about her seven-year experience in the convent starting in 1962. By the end of the seven hard years, she was fainting and throwing up, starving for both food and human kindness. A sad, stark story. One smiles at the end, though. One day she is a nun, the next day a lay college student thrown into swinging sixties England. A couple of Irish girls immediately take her under their wing, and help her style her hair and buy clothes. The dorm room fills with young women cheering her on and witnessing the spectacle of her transformation. One comes bounding in with a new sweater, announcing “I bought this for myself this morning, but I want to contribute it to this momentous occasion.” Karen, unveiled, finally finds sisterhood.

Here I am, relating stories about books and photographs, a sign that I am living vicariously these last days of 1994. There were a few poetry contests I wanted to enter, with end-of-year deadlines, but I misplaced the instructions and now am in a pickle. Ah, well, I have little enthusiasm for self-promotion now anyway. I did enter one contest and applied for a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, but these things never work out somehow. Pie in the sky.