Halloween Weather

I woke to wind and the beautiful yellow leaves against the chill gray-white sky. Now the wind is keening at my office window, suggesting, "Lower the storm window,"* but in its own triple-throated language, and the sky is in a costume of blue. Rumor has it there's snow in the Chicagoland area. Earlier this week, raking in the sun, I hoped the Indian Summer would last for the trick-or-treat kids. Alas, no. It rained on the downtown treat fest Thursday, and tonight there's the usual Halloween freeze to expect, but I'll greet the brave ones at the door, the littlest ones, who come in the daylight. I've got my chocolate ready!

Scary things happen in threes: the car broke, the dishwasher broke, and the oven broke. The scary part is the expensiveness of replacement or repair. I don't at all mind 1) walking everywhere 2) washing dishes by hand 3) cooking on the stovetop (on the 2 1/2 working burners) and by crockpot. But, yes, we'll have to fix things. I miss roasting vegetables and baking cakes.

Likewise, here are three scary things up now at Escape Into Life: 1) a new book review of Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson 2) Cat-at-Strophe 3) In Cat Country (the cat poem features mentioned earlier here in the blog). The cat poems were chosen for October as the cat is often depicted as the witch's "familiar" (or attendant spirit in animal form) in connection with Halloween. And, yes, Kevin Nance, the photographer, says it's OK to post his photos here! These are all his. Thanks, Kevin!

And here is a poem with death in it, "After the Game," and also baseball, and also my brother, Jeff, who is here for a visit. The poem just came out--perfect timing (personal and World Series timing)--in Intentional Walk, an online literary magazine dedicated to sports. And I just dressed in Halloween colors, orange and black, to attend the area volleyball regionals last night. Congrats to NCHS, Regional champs, and lovely to see NCWHS girls play, too! My husband has coached so many area girls, we root for them all! (You can expect a volleyball poem to appear in Intentional Walk in a future issue!)

*Done!

Where I've Been

Where I've been: 1) raking in my yard 2) in cat country. In the recent gorgeous fall (Indian Summer) weather we've been having, I've been raking lots of yellow leaves to the curb, where a great leaf-sucking machine will suck them up for local composting. As the leaf truck hasn't actually arrived yet, I am soon to head back out to rake some more, as, you know, the leaves just keep falling until they're gone, the trees bare. For now, I share with you this lone yellow leaf on a green fence, called Loner, by Kevin Nance.

I hope it's OK to share it here, but I think so, as it is shared at Facebook, and you can find (and "Like") more of his work there, at Kevin Nance Photography and also at Escape Into Life at his own feature and in the current poetry feature, In Cat Country, with more poems with cats in them. Kevin Nance is a wonderful writer and journalist, too. "In Cat Country" is actually the title of one of the poems in the feature, by Julie Brooks Barbour, and it's got stray dogs in it, too, and black snakes, as well as feral cats. Plenty of surprises and a general eerie mood, set up by this stone lion, so check it out!

Cats and Birds

Emily Dickinson loved birds,* and her sister, Lavinia, loved cats. That's a comic mini-conflict inside The Belle of Amherst, a one-woman play by William Luce. I did it as a senior thesis project at Kenyon College many years ago (I'm finally the right age to play the role!), and now there's a revival of it Off-Broadway, starring Joely Richardson, reviewed by Scott Klavan at Escape Into Life. Julie Harris played the role originally.

You can see production shots at the review and also this fabulous Death tarot card, starring Emily Dickinson, by Susan Yount.

This week and next, you can read poems about cats at EIL, too! We had the Dog Days this summer, poems about dogs, and now, in October, it's equal time for cats,** with cat art by Nicola Slattery. I'm calling the first installment of this mini-anthology Cat-at-Strophe, a horrific pun. You see the Halloweenish theme here. This lovely Slattery piece is actually titled Hallowed Cat! Lavinia would be pleased.

*  And also bees and butterflies.
**Birds are pretty ongoing in poetry.

I Love Letters

I love letters. It’s been a while since I got any. These days the mailbox, like the inbox or the phone, gets mostly junk mail. I did just write a few letters, notes, really, short ones, to say thank you and get well. And I still write checks and mail my bills, using stamps. Today I am walking to the post office!

But I miss writing the long letter that sends love and news and personality to the recipient, that asks questions, hoping for an answer—by mail!—soon. I miss the little illustrations I used to add sometimes and the decorative marginal or closing flourishes. I miss getting such a letter back. Sigh…

I’ve just finished reading A Fire in the Mind, the biography of Joseph Campbell by Stephen and Robin Larsen that excerpts many letters as a way of delivering information and personality. Several are by Campbell, of course, to his wife and friends and family members. Others are about him, by these people and various students and colleagues and professional associates along the way. Biographers must already be having a harder time re-constructing a life, now that the age of letters is over.

Our EIL theatre reviewer, Scott Klavan, just got to see Carol Burnett and Brian Dennehy in a revival of Love Letters, by A. R. Gurney, a play that recreates a relationship through years of letters. Generally, the actors simply sit and read the letters, which makes it easier for actors to do star turns in limited engagements, as in the current Broadway production. Burnett just replaced Mia Farrow, and other actors coming up include Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Stacy Keach, Diana Rigg, Anjelica Huston, and Martin Sheen. Here is Scott’s review of the current production. (The art there and here is by Erika Kuhn, from a Moleskine journal project at Escape Into Life.)

And I yearn to direct and/or be in Dear Elizabeth, by Sarah Ruhl, a play based on the letters of the poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

Today is expected to be the warmest day of the week, and I already see the sun poking out between the morning trees. Reading the end of A Fire in the Mind yesterday, I got a short note from Nature, in a way. The last chapter has a lot of letter excerpts, several recounting where the writers were when they first sensed Campbell’s death. Yes, those intuitions or premonitions or visitations…that, when confirmed by the facts, make it possible to construct the myth or narrative of one’s own life, or see one’s life as such a thing.

I was reading this testimonial by Lynne Kaufman: “I find that beyond all the brilliance and scholarship, when that fades, still as a man, he was shining. He was radiant, the aliveness of the world came through him. The vividness, the vivacity of it, the immediacy and warmth of him. The way the universe was alive for him, he could transmit that.”

It had been gray all day. As I read, the sun pushed through, gently, beginning at “He was radiant…,” and faded away again during the next two sentences. I like it when stuff like that happens. It’s just the sun, doing what it does, shining, and being covered by clouds, and me, doing what I do, reading, and reading the world for its endless signs of life. “This is my letter to the World,” wrote Emily Dickinson, “That never wrote to Me—” Or, in my case, That never always wrote to me.

Whistling Mailman

Today I was awaiting some super-good news to befall a buddy in the way of a big performing arts award, and I couldn’t stand it, so I took my 2-mile walk to town to run a couple errands and do  some magical thinking and wishing and hoping and…(earworm?*) 

When I approached the bank (first errand), I heard but did not see the Whistling Mailman, but he put me in good cheer. At the library, it was 2-for-1 DVD day, so I got Infamous (the other Truman Capote film) and The Upside of Anger (Joan Allen!) for $1! At this point, I was pretty darn sure my pal would win his award!

Then I escaped death not once, but twice! For what to my wondering eyes and ears should appear, as I approached the parking garage, but the Whistling Mailman in his mail truck. He opened his window-door to say hello. I asked him how he was.

“I’m trying to stay out of the obits!”

“Me, too,” I said, confessing to the vague Internet Quiz Death paranoia.

He was sympathetic and almost whistled.

 “Don’t run over me with your truck,” I said, bravely walking in front of his government vehicle. He didn’t.

When I got to the corner, he was stopped at the crosswalk, looking down at the mail. His foot could slip off the brake, I thought, crossing with the light. It didn’t. He opened his window-door again, and we kept up the open-air conversation.

“Thanks for not killing me!” I called.

“What did it say? Death by government vehicle?” he called back.

I love our Whistling Mailman.

I won’t be whistling, though: “A whistling maid and a cackling hen / Always come to some bad end.” I’m glad I am able to cackle at my Internet Quiz Death, if still a bit haunted by it. After all, Jan Hooks and Elizabeth Peña just died. Sigh… Loved their work. At least I survived (spoiler alert!) past the age of the concierge from The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery!

But my wishful thinking did not make my pal get the award. Instead, he graciously congratulated another winner, and will move on to other things, and already has. “World tour!”

*Bacharachround Music: “Wishin’ and Hopin’” by Burt Bacharach (as sung by Dionne Warwick)(or as whistled by the Whistling Mailman)