On Settling

The New Year prompts us to take stock, however arbitrarily. Sometimes, but not more than I can help it, I think about my career. When I was little I assumed, against all evidence, that one day I would be beautiful, just as my mother and grandmother were. Never mind that I didn't have my grandmother's symmetry of feature or the elegant, modern lines that nabbed my mother a series of high-profile 70s boyfriends. I just assumed it would happen, like it was my due. I might be ugly, I would think as a teenager, but by golly, one day I'll be a beauty. And then one day I realized that I would never be beautiful, and that I was in fact on the plain side of average. The acceptance of this fact was somehow liberating, and I've long since come to a similar realization about my professional life.

When you're young and precocious and doted upon, you assume the world will inevitably understand this, too, and you'll play some major role in the proceedings. But then adulthood strikes and, quite apart from any question of talent, one needs to be realistic about one's capabilities. I can turn a phrase and write quickly, but I've come to understand, probably since college, that I won't ever be really successful in the professional sense: I am not good enough, for starters, but I also don't have the drive to overcome that. And, worst, I'm content to be that way. I realized as soon as I took my current job that, while I could do a workmanlike job, I'd never really distinguish myself: I was too soft, and too mindful of my own psychological self-preservation to really commit to it or become a strong voice, and that was a compromise I was willing to make. I'm not really proud of it, but there you are.

I think having such trouble with depression through my 20s has changed me a lot, of course it has. I'm probably less fun, I'm certainly less funny. I could have been a better blogger, for sure, had I not collapsed in on myself in the way I did, and not incidentally opted out of professional life for a few crucial years. I mean, I used to have big ideas! I had dreams, so silly as to be kept closely-guarded: I wanted to be the "Lucky Girl" one month, and I wanted, one day, to tell a story on "This American Life."

Maybe I can, some time, do something I am proud of. If I could write one line as funny as Barbara Pym's, I'd be happy. And I'd be unsatisfied if I were not working, and working hard. But I think the real happiness in my life is probably destined to come from other things, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'd hate for my father to read this; he comes from the school of Wasted Potential Is The Greatest Tragedy. But what's "wasted," anyway? Is this all very dreary? I know it's solipsistic. I'm sorry about that, but it's something I've been wanting to get down for a little while now. And I'm happy as I do so, too.

Snow again! Was awoken by the scrape of a neighbor's shovel and the simultaneous rattle of someone going through the bottles on the curb. Went through the recycling bag in my head though and he can't have found much. There's just enough snow to dust things and the streets are clear. When Slim woke at 6 for work I saw at once from the watery light through the slats of the shutters that it must have snowed. He didn't know what I meant and I realized it's because he grew up in L.A. and wasn't alert for the signs of a snow-day.

Friday but I'm not excited, are you? Probably because I have a lot of work to do, although Sunday we may take a day-trip to Philadelphia to catch an exhibit. The truth is, what I want most to see is the recreation of Marianne Moore's apartment, but I want to do that alone. (And, of course the stone babies and things at the Mutter Museum, but with friends as doing that sort of thing alone becomes peculiar very very quickly.) I have a heightened interest in Philly since learning that it was the birth-place of the sticky bun. I don't love them, but I'm interested in the endemic. I've also read about something called a "dewey bun" which I'm hoping I can find at the market there. Or do the Amish not sell on Sundays?

On Tuesday, I started the Christian Education course I mentioned a few weeks ago, in hopes of broadening my knowledge of stuff. It was a bitter cold night and I almost talked myself out of it, but finally argued (again, to myself) that something interesting might happen if I left the apartment, whereas for certain nothing would if I stayed in. So, I bundled up and set forth and made my way to the third floor of the midtown parish building, which route afforded a good view of libraries and parlors and other neo-Gothic spaces. The room where the class is held was itself quite aggressively Gothic - it reminded me of college, what with the paneling and the mullioned ceiling. Above the line of paneling were hung a series of portraits of clergymen in vestments of varying degrees of opulence and naturally the room was lit with heavy, iron many-bulbed fixtures. For all this, though, it wasn't very impressive or attractive because the flourescent lighting was very harsh and because we were seated in concentric circles of the sort of tweedy padded blond wood chair that I associate with college dorm rooms. The lector, who proved to be the Church theologian, was a thin, ascetic-looking person with a neat beard over his minister's collar and a clipped, precise voice such as one hears in old movies sometimes. He handed us all forms to fill out, asking us to give our names and reasons for attending, which I was loath to do as it would reveal me to be a dilettante who wasn't interested in Baptism or Reception, and I'd hoped to slip under the radar.

He opened the class with a prayer, which suprised me for some reason. Then he launched into a discussion of creation. It quickly became clear that this would not be a mere lecture, but rather a seminar, for quickly people began raising their hands and alternately pontificating or asking questions in the usual numbers. There were about 20 people in the room - a few the minister seemed to know, and I guessed they were regular parishoners just taking a refresher course. A few were very well-dressed single men. There were a few couples; I wondered if they were getting married and joining the church together. The man next to me had tiny hands and beautiful, intricate shoes with a high cordovan gloss. The lecture portions were interesting, and the minister referenced one of my favorite cookbooks, The Supper of the Lamb, which I found deeply reassuring. He also had neat, Anglican answers for things like literal interpretation of the Bible (A day is a rotation of the sun; God doesn't even invent the sun until day #4, therefore there's nothing for it but to take it symbolically) and miracles (a miracle's a unique refutation of scientific law; science by definition studies repeated phenomena; therefore the two have nothing to do with one another) and stated that those who sought to interpret such things literally were prey, sadly, to "unfortunate misunderstanding." You needn't fear that I'll recap every class, because I won't, but suffice it to say that there was a good deal more argument than I'd anticipated, and there were enough things referenced that I didn't feel a complete ass asking a question that involved Kirkegaard. There was, of course, a bore who raised her hand every ten seconds and droned on about nothing much, and I thought the minister was much too nice to her. There was another woman who fidgeted, picked at her nails audibly, chortled to herself and periodically rested her face on her breasts and went to sleep. Then when we left she swathed herself in a large fur. The minister stopped me and asked my name as I left, and then glanced down at my form, which I'd handed him and if I'm not mistaken looked quizzical. I told him I was very much looking forward to next week's class, which is absolutely true, since it's on that topic that I have the gravest questions.

Afterwards I sneaked around a bit and opened doors and poked into rooms and found the nursery and then, of course, I went to La Bonne Soupe and had the soupe menu, which comes with salad, a glass of house wine, and a small cup of chocolate mousse. I chose French Onion.

Small Pleasures

Today, the toilet got stopped up. This might distress most people, but I was secretly pleased because at-home plumbing is one of my particular interests, and as we know from my experience with bedbugs, I'm not nearly as revolted by things as I ought to be. Having grown up in a house with, to put it kindly, indifferent plumbing, we all became adept in the ways of jerry-rigging, rube goldbberg mechanisms, and the anatomy of a toilet. "I got this," I told Slim confidently. And, sure enough, an hour later, having gone to work with a coat hanger and a kettle of boiling water and a number of other things, I had the immense satisfaction of seeing the water rush from the bowl like souls fleeing devils' pitchforks in some Medieval judgment day fresco.

Hip hip hurrah!

Sadder But Wiser Girl

Happy New Year!

Slim and I have been spending some time in the car lately and as a result had a chance to listen to a book on tape. (A book on tape, I might add, that I bought my grandfather but that, like most presents, he quite openly didn't want and promptly returned to me. My gain!) It's The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, and it's superb. I imagine the book is too, but this is one of the best readers I've ever encountered. You know I'm a sucker for even faintly gothic tales of the British persuasion, but I'm rarely so completely satisfied. Anyway, it's a terrific story, beautifully told, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking to start the year with a really good read. Or listen, for that matter.

Resolutions: per usual, learning to drive. Also cleanliness and kindness and follow-through and a host of dull specifics. Enjoy every moment, of course, but not in a selfish, aging-boomer-finding-himself sort of way. Oh, and maybe get married while I'm at it. At the very least, get around to throwing an engagement party. Change my IDs so people don't read my email and send me creepy notes. Yes, that'd be good.

The girl at the wine store told me she's "involved with the S&M community." Kind of don't want to go back, but there's no other vinter's and besides, she gave me a really good steer on a "good-value red" to go with stew.

Perfect Day

I've been wanting to tell you for a little while now about the perfect New York day I enjoyed last week but first, an update: my mother just called to tell me that the glass snowman who for the past decade has topped our Christmas tree had committed suicide.

"It was the strangest thing," she said. "It was like he leapt to his death. And I had been thinking lately that I didn't love him, that I wanted to replace him with a pineapple. And it's as if he felt that. And I needed to learn a lesson about taking things for granted."

I said we would not know the full meaning of the sacrifice, or whether it was senseless, until the replacement comes to life. But it's all very Hans Christian Anderson.

So: Sunday. I went to church. I am not, as anyone who's seen my last name might infer, a baptized Christian, but periodically I've gone to services with my mother, and I very much like the idea of living the year by a liturgical calendar. St. Thomas has beautiful music and the best WASPs. This January, I want to finally take the Christian education class - for those interested in the church, or in joining the church - to learn a bit more and also to hopefully tackle some of my real questions about the ideology, as I don't want to have such profound confusion about a big part of my future husband's life, and family.

I'll not say much about the service save that, on the way out, one guy said to the greeting minister, "Father, haven't seen you lately at the New York Health and Racquet Club!" It was a beautiful day, and waking down Fifth Avenue seemed to me the most wonderful thing in the world to be doing, the many tourists the most interesting and finest group of people I'd ever seen. I went down the street with a huge grin on my face, to 55th, and as my mother and I always did, went into La Bonne Soupe. I was alone, but it's a great place to eat alone, and indeed several of the small tables were occupied by dignified solo lunchers, including one elderly gent brandishing a large hardcover. I ordered a croque monsieur and a glass of house white, and opened my book, but I was too interested in the goings-on of the restaurant to do more than read one paragraph over and over. At length, the older couple at the next table engaged me - she, it turned out, was from Quebec and her gentleman friend a New Yorker originally from London - and by the meal's end we were fast friends who'd traded book and restauarnt and life advice and email addresses into the bargain.

When I left, the old gent with the hardcover was standing outside, and he beckoned me over, said I seemed full of life, and would I get a drink with him some time at the same restaurant. I said it depended on his intentions and my liveliness varied with the tides, but that I was always game for a new friend. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather!" he said, reassuringly, and, I suppose to further reassure me, he produced a business card which identified him as a Ph.D, and the hardcover which, it proved, was written by him and with which, one presumes, he travels. Needless to say, we're having a glass of wine at the same restaurant early in the new year.

As to the rest, well, I browsed hats at Bendels and saw the Robert Frank show at the Met. (In the words of Kerouac, "Robert Frank, you got eyes.") I made mac and cheese, with tomatoes and some leftover Christmas ham. And that night, Slim got back and my idyll was over, not that we don't have adventures of another kind.

The Good News

When I was 18 my grandmother gave me a book. It was called Daily Power Thoughts and, although she didn't normally go in for anything like self-help or any demonstration of faith more public than communion at the Episcopal church at the foot of the hill, she'd bought it for my uncle when he was beginning to go through problems as a teenager, and when he cast it aside, unread, she'd picked it up herself and dutifully filled out every list and questionnaire that the authors demanded. So what she gave me was, in fact, many of her private thoughts on faith and life, far more than I'd ever have learned otherwise from such a private woman. Although she was as kind and as good as anyone you'd ever meet, the book was filled with self-recrimination and her struggles to better accept her husband's bouts of temper or be better. There was one part of the book that asked her to list "Nourishing People" in her life. I was shocked and humbled to see my own name written there (along with Billy Graham's) and ashamed, because I knew I wasn't really worthy of such a compliment, and that in her goodness she was seeing only the best in me, too, not all the smallness and selfishness she could not even have comprehended.

I remembered that phrase, though, of "nourishing people" because it's so apt - there are people in one's life who do indeed provide a sort of moral fuel, a reaffirmation of what we can be and what's worth sticking around for. There is one such friend - I'll call her L. - who's very much on my mind because I just saw her, and learned she is engaged to someone as kind and as dear as she. To call her a person without meanness makes her sound like a Beth March, and that's to deny her tremendous sense of the absurd and incredible goofiness and perfectly mordant comments on whatever author's absurdly overblown at the moment. But it's also true: she has a capacity for kindness, for unconditional support, and for spreading joy that I doubt she's even aware of. In short, she deserves happiness, and she's found it, and it's wonderful, and indeed nourishing; congratulations, L. - I wish I could be more articulate but sometimes when really in earnest I have trouble best expressing myself. I know you'll forgive me.