from Sandy Needham

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Essay: Chocolate and Cigarettes

Chocolate and Cigarettes

I’m sitting on my veranda taking tiny stitches. Some are smaller than others because back when I cut out these squares of Japanese indigo cloth, I made some squares crooked and must shore up random tiny seam allowances with tighter stitches. I still had no dining room table then, so I spread the various indigo fabrics out on a bed sheet on the uneven stone floor. The fabric moved; the sheet moved; some of my 10-1/4” squares are barely 10” in some places.

I am sewing this quilt by hand on my front porch after moving to a beach in the northeast of Brazil. My Brazilian husband and I chose this tranquil habitat because he can work from anywhere as long as he has internet access, I was ready to take a breather after decades of working, and we needed to live more cheaply in order to repay our children’s college loans. I can picture my portable sewing machine sitting there in the storage unit in New York. I thought I’d try renting a machine here in Natal – a city in the state of Rio Grande do Norte – but there are none available for rent. The kind woman at the Oficina de Costura who hemmed my dress offered to let me use her heavy industrial sewing machine in the mornings over there. It occurred to me that hand stitching one hundred squares together in the breeze on my veranda sounded just right. I have no deadline. We don’t need a quilt – it is hot here. Whenever I want nothing more than to inch my way across these indigo fields, I sit out in front and practice the heart of craft: patience and presence.

I think of my father often while I stitch. He would have understood this effort of stitching for stitching’s sake. Besides, he’s the one who brought back from Japan in 1945 the most beautiful posessions we owned: a huge rice paper umbrella, which my sisters and I grabbed whenever a summer rain started up back in Tulsa so we could enact “Singin’ in the Rain” on the driveway; two of the most beautiful kimonos imaginable – one, a child’s with blocks of cream, persimmon, marigold, and blue violet, and the other an adult haori jacket with red spider web-like fretwork on a cream background, which eventually hung on my living room wall in New York; a wood and bone abacus that became a little warped, but never lost its mathematical mystery; and a portion of embroidered silk ribbon with the carriage wheel motif in bright jade on a field of fuchsia, which my mother framed and hung on the wall. I am convinced I saw this hanging by my crib as soon as I could see; my affinity for the Japanese aesthetic goes way back. There was also a quilt of kimono silk with a heavy black and spicy orange plaid edge which haunted me almost as much as the jade and fuchsia ribbon. My father bought these with Navy rations of chocolate and cigarettes in Tokyo Bay after the Japanese surrender.

My father died in 1990. All four daughters and our families later came to help Mother clear out the house by keeping the old things that called out to us. There happily was no contention that all remaining Japanese prizes that I had not already ‘borrowed’ went home with me. Mother sold the house to a man who bought up houses for renovation. She became friends with him in her inimitable way. After some months, this man brought her a box that he discovered in our attic crawl space that I never knew existed. It contained the letters my mother and father exchanged during the war. My mother wrote every day and my father wrote every other day. She had accompanied him to San Diego, awaiting his orders from the Navy to ship out. He sailed away while my mother watched his ship disappear over the horizon from the shallow waves by the shore. She told me this story sitting in shallow waves together on the São Paulo coast soon after he died, when she accompanied my family on a visit to my husband’s relatives in Brazil. I knew that my father became the Payroll Officer on the U.S.S. Cleveland, a light cruiser that made its way to the Philippines and on to Tokyo Bay by the end. After two months of reading the copies my sister sent of all the letters from the box, I knew much more about his wartime experiences. My mother’s letters were full of the routine she shared with my aunt, tending my two oldest sisters and twin cousins – all four years old and under – and selling Realsilk hosiery door-to-door. My uncle was in the army in Europe. My father’s letters reported the miserable and monotonous life on the ship, eased by playing bridge with the officers and watching the nightly Hollywood or propaganda films. He included reviews of these. Part of his job was censuring letters, so he found a glimpse into the musings of fellow sailors fascinating. He had to keep strict ledgers of expenditures and take shifts to stand watch. The ship was involved in some action and my father was terrified on occasion, but actually sustained only a scratch from cleaning his gun. He wisely sought the services of a military psychologist upon return for more insidious damage. Perhaps we can attribute the lovely poetry he later wrote and the oneness with creation he diligently sought to the sensitivity that endured. The letter most significant to me recounts his disembarkation in Tokyo Bay on September 26, 1945. On this day he unknowingly anticipated my birth exactly four years later. The Japanese people themselves, bartering their treasures for Navy rations, presented initial confusion: all he had heard for months was that one must hate them, but then he saw the absurdity of feeling anything but common humanity as he selected the precious artifacts of my childhood. Not understanding that the narrow widths of woven silk were intended for kimono but marveling at their beauty, he bought several lengths.

In the tradition of her pioneer heritage, my grandmother made the quilt I still treasure from this cloth. She artfully composed the narrow lengths of silk into diagonal stripes, backed them with batting and red wool, and stitched fancy stitches along the diagonal edges with bright embroidery thread. My mother and her twin brother’s real mother died the day they were born in 1914 on the Oklahoma City homestead claimed by my great-grandfather in the 1889 land rush. Their father married the quilt maker when the twins were two years old. This Oklahoma/Japanese quilt also ended up in my New York home on a wall. I think of it particularly as I fudge seam allowances and piece some squares together on my indigo quilt, as those diagonal lengths of silk ran out at opposite corners and had to be pieced by my grandmother to approximate a rectangle. The Japanese would approve of this imperfection, their requisite tradition of craft. I am able to accomplish this imperfection in my craft by way of uneven cutting and heavier wind some days on the veranda.

I was given a beautiful book in the 1970’s about the Living National Treasures of Japan. The first honoree in the book is a little old woman who was the country’s master indigo dyer. I remember there being many steps between gathering the plant and ending with permanently blue hands. The romance of it all was absorbed into my Japanophile repertoire. Later in the ‘80’s my husband was sent on assignment to Japan by his computer software employer…well, I encouraged him to volunteer for the year-long post. We rented out our little house on a New Jersey lake as a weekend retreat for a Manhattan couple. We actually owned only one piece of furniture worth concern – an exquisite dresser by the Japanese-American woodworker, George Nakashima – but our luck was providential enough to leave it in the hands of a tenant who was a woodworker by avocation and a Nakashima devotee.

We landed in Tokyo with our three-year-old daughter and our eight-month-old son. While my daughter attended preschool, I could sometimes leave my son in a nursery during those morning hours and make shopping treks to stores with used kimono and bolts of kimono textiles. Among my keepsakes was yardage of hand dyed indigo batik prints.

I found two more bolts of Japanese indigo in the Hudson River village where we lived before moving to Brazil. There was a store owned by an American Japanophile who had thoroughly internalized the Japanese aesthetic. The store was always serene, as the quieting design and the gently running water in small stone fountains had an effect on the customers. The deep yet vibrant blue of the indigo cloth has this effect on me, as well. The color is alive with the essence of the plant and the human intention in the dye. Sometimes the sky over the ocean in Natal turns this inky blue in the evening when it appears to be illuminated from behind.

I had a 27-year career as a textile designer for the home cotton print industry, which hardly exists anymore in the United States. My specialty was coloring the designs in various combinations on painted colorplates and going to giant printing plants to supervise color matching. There is no color formula that produces anything near the range of hand-dyed indigo blues. One just can’t get a color that rich and alive. The limits of this mechanized process drove me to my passion for folk craft hand prints with their vegetable dye colors and human imperfections. Sometimes I have to scrape tiny bits of batik wax left behind on the off-white designs as I sew my indigo cloth. This did not roll off a machine.

I will continue to stitch. I have found some cotton in Natal for a border the red-orange color of persimmon. Japanese laborers brought this fruit to Brazil in the early twentieth century, which is why it is called “kahkee” in both countries (caqui in Brazil, kaki in Japan). It is a color evocative of Asia, especially in combination with indigo. I will back the quilt, knot the two sides together at intervals, and attach this delicious border.

What I imagine as I sew is a child holding this quilt someday. It will be faded, though the blues will remain unmatchable; it will be frayed, especially where the seams are too small. But I do dream of a child who will cherish the old thing, imbued as it will be with Japanese tradition, South American ocean breeze, and an old woman’s stories.

On a recent trip, a contingent of Japanese senior citizens disembarked right behind me after our plane landed in São Paulo. They had come to participate in the city’s commemoration of 100 years of Japanese immigrants in Brazil. The group was all wearing yellow hats like a swarm of school children in Tokyo! I was telling the little old man with a perpetual grin who was beside me in the immigration line about how I came to acquire my love of Japanese art by way of my father’s bartering in Tokyo Bay in 1945. The man’s face lit up as he exclaimed: “Oh! That was our first chocolate! We always think of chocolate as American.” The world is surely round.

- Sandra Needham, 2008

Monday, November 24, 2008

Brazil Dispatch 21

November 24, 2008


My three sisters arrived on November 2nd! Janet (Denver), Dorothy (Durango, CO), and Donna (Lawrenceville, NJ) weathered the 23-hour door-to-door trip from New York. We managed to gab almost incessantly for 6 days, changing the backdrop from front porch, to guest bedroom, to ocean boat ride, to a day at Ponta Negra beach, to too many artisan shops and a couple of fancy restaurants. We had last been together in 2004 in Tulsa for my Mother’s and Uncle Lawrence’s 90th birthdays, but that was with all husbands, cousins, children and grandchildren attending. We were not able to cover make-up and death so thoroughly under those impediments. Newton was the designated brother-in-law to witness this boisterous/emotional/silly phenomenon, though he fortunately had to work much of the time, plus COOK FOR US! The truth is, he had loads of laughs, too, none of the least of which was Donna demonstrating the "sprinkler" dance to "Love Shack."






My American friend Mary from the next town, who does not have a television, came over to watch election night with us all. Elation mounted, culminating in Obama’s acceptance speech at 3:00am here. We all know where our “where were you?” memories of that historic night will take us. The Obama fever is high down here, and it is very moving to see how even our caretaker and the produce workers at the bodega and our





adorable waiter at the beach – none of whom are black, but indigenous/European brown – seem to share so personally in this victory.

You are surely asking the burning question, “Did Sandy finish her 100-square quilt before her sisters arrived, after nearly two years of hand-stitching?” Yes. The next blog posting, Chocolate and Cigarettes, is the essay that came to me as I stitched the quilt.

Newton and I run into people we know more and more often here, which makes us feel almost like real locals. We met two women who were exchange students in the ‘80’s –one to Muskogee, OK and the other to Duluth, MN. Their English is excellent and they can tell me all about being “Natalenses” (the name for Natal natives). My Portuguese is still atrocious with no good excuse after two years, other than that I have been concentrating on reading and writing and, I admit, speaking English! I am too fond of good conversation to limit myself to understanding only the first half of all the Portuguese sentences flying by in a group conversation of accelerating speed! And speaking of English, I cannot think of a more magnificent book than E.B. White’s collection of essays from ”Harpers” and “The New Yorker,” 1938 – 1944, One Man’s Meat. He was on his own retreat from Manhattan to a sheep farm in Maine during the (first) Depression and WWII…hauntingly timely and lovely. Most of the films we see are in English with Portuguese subtitles, though I am a big fan of Brazilian movies. These require a few whispers from Newton in the dark theater or waiting to watch at home where more thorough explanations of missed dialogue can occur. I recommend “Out of Tune” (Desafinato) – about a group of young Bossa Nova musicians in the ‘60’s visiting Manhattan from Rio. Also, “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” “My Name Ain’t Johnny” and “Cousin Basilio.”

A music festival at the local federal university included some fantastic folk dance groups, performing highly glorified versions of the popular Forró. I was struck once again by the biological imperative implicit in folk dancing. First, you show me men who can dance with abandon, and – be still, my heart! Then add the beauty of youth, the graceful girls, the flirty atmosphere, satin costumes and movement SO natural and exuberant that one senses that none of the dancers has to think for a second, just let go. I am convinced that any culture without widespread folk dancing is just a little bit sadder than it needs to be.

I saw a new butterfly the other day. It was brown and white-spotted on the outer side of its wings, with a bright solid orange on the inside wings. As it fluttered, I decided that that is where the Japanese got the idea for the bright silk lining that peeks out of a kimono sleeve!

How nice that we can all officially say ‘thanks’ this week for our tremendous good fortune. HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all!

Love,
Sandy

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Brazil Dispatch 20

October 5, 2008


Most of you were on my dispatch list in July 2007 to receive “Brazil Dispatch 12,” where I excerpted the stories from your lives you had e-mailed me in Brazil during the year. Well, I had such fun compiling those quotes, that I just had to follow up this year. The following excerps are fewer in number and longer in length, but they capture some pretty good moments with which you lit up my life in Brazil:

From our friend, Adam Jacobs, describing a weekday out with his wife during his year’s sabbatical:


Jill and I went to the Celery Farm nature preserve this morning in Allendale, New Jersey. We brought our sons’ binoculars. At the preserve, there are lots of bird watchers, an odd flock themselves, who spend countless hours examining and enjoying the minutiae of bird species, behavior and comings/goings. There were enough surprises to make it a thrilling and wondrous walk. Among birds which we saw were:

1. Cedar waxwings (one of my favorites) with its yellow stripe at the end of its tail, a bright red spot on its wing and a soft tawny hue that blends beautifully. They are a family bird, with flocks around 10 that stick together.

2. 3 types of Herons, Great Blue Heron with its long neck and huge bulk, a pair of Black Headed Night Heron, and Green Heron hiding in the reeds.

3. A family of wood ducks, with the mom and 12 tiny day-or-two-old ducklings behind in a bunch so tight that they look like a larger animal. This helps deter the 40-pound snapping turtles from lunching too freely on the babies. A photographer had a huge-lensed camera pointed at a birdhouse for wood ducks. Inside was a mother, presumably with her hatch. He was waiting for the magic moment when the babies are large enough to fall/jump/plunge out of the box and into the world/pond. Mother picks a safe moment, and apparently Dad comes by for the big moment. The photographer had been there 2 days and was despairing that he might not catch it. I was hoping to catch sight of the brilliantly colorful Dad, but no luck.

4. Warblers were around, with their showy yellow bodies striped with red.

5. Baltimore Orioles, bright orange and black streaked.

6. Lots of swallows, bright blue, streaking around at high speed keeping the mosquito population at bay for us, who double as tasty treats in the evening hours.

7. And just to round out the color chart, brilliant red and also common Cardinals.



From one of our longtime friends in Manhattan, Guadalupe Warren, writing from her cytology lab at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on a Friday afternoon after seeing photos of my ‘office’ – a hammock on the veranda, and of Newton on Zumbi beach:


This is really too much!!
Here I am working in this room with not even ONE window!
I see your office, Sandy, and I say okay that is a nice corner. Then, I see Newton at the beach with these incredible palm trees and amazing ocean and sky.... like if, before the picture was taken, he went there and painted the trees at the beach..... at that point I said loudly oh...no...this is really too much!.
So, at 20 to 5pm I am leaving work. This is it. I called Joe to make sure he sees the picture and he leaves too.
What a beautiful life...!

From my nephew, Brad Tarpley, of Durango, Colorado training on mountain bikes with his 12-year-old son:


Nick and I have been training some for the upcoming Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, a 50 mile road ride through the mountains from Durango to Silverton. It is an annual Memorial Day event, now in its 37th year, and has grown in popularity to the point where they now have a 2,500-rider cap on entries which fills up by March. When we first started talking about riding this event together I had visions of "showing him the ropes." The truth of the matter, though, is that it has turned out to be a bit of a challenge for ME to keep up with HIM sometimes, especially on the steeper climbs where his very lean physique is more suitable for the job than my better-insulated one. I have been working out some on-the-sly in an effort to make sure that I'm not the one that slows us down, or worse, forces the Tarpley team to abandon before making the finish line!
The toughest element of the ride for Nick won't be the climbing, which is formidable with two major passes over 10,000 feet elevation, but the 5-hour distance. So we have been gradually increasing our training ride distances, and last week we rode our longest yet at 30 miles, including one long tough climb and about ten miles of open terrain into a fair headwind. Two riders can trade off, first being in front and breaking the wind (ha ha), then switching and taking a rest in the luxury of the other's draft. The relative smoothness of the switching back and forth along with how close the second rider can tuck in behind the first without actually touching and possibly crashing largely determine how fast you go and how much energy you use up. THEN we hit the big climb at which point Nick stood up and easily started powering right up, much to my chagrin. We were able to talk some back and forth while all this was going on (OK, Nick was able to talk some), and it was cool because he was noticing things that I think are cool, too...things that you don't notice so much in a car, like the clouds and the rock formations and that 35MPH on a bike is incredibly exciting, and one rides through cold pockets sometimes, and the direction of the wind changes, and everything SMELLS so good because it rained a couple of days ago, and the first of the wildflowers are starting to show on the sunnier hillsides that face South...anyway, the combination of enjoying these details AND enjoying Nick enjoying them was really something. I had the thought while we were riding that I would gladly trade any bullshit or discomfort I've experienced in life so far (I admit not really that much) for the shot at this moment with Nick on our bikes.

From my Mother’s life-long best friend, Jean Richter, (and source of my middle name), also 93, living in a retirement community in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her and husband Cebert’s anniversary was on Valentine’s Day, although he had passed away since their last anniversary:


This was Cebert's and my wedding anniversary---would'a been 71st!
So today at the dining hall, all decorated with hearts and such, we had as a 'fun' thing, the Elvis Impersonator to go around singing to us. I couldn't help but get a bit teary-eyed when he sang ‘I can't help falling in love with you'.....'our' song.
About that time, unexpected by the Events scheduler, a bus drove up filled with beautiful young high school students, bringing sacks of candy, and each of the 60 or more, determined to give each of us a hug! Bedlam reigned, what with Elvis singing, and precious young people milling about ! But we loved every minute, of course.
Yesterday, two nieces came from Oklahoma City, and we went out to lunch at Keo's together. Now, this is a place set in what used-to-be a town's old bank building in what used to be a town. Some enterprising woman, who makes the World's Best Pies, opened a cafe, and even though it is 25 miles away, people have to make reservations to eat there. It was fun.

From my dear friend, Lucia Gratch, of Nyack, NY, the kindergarten teacher at my beloved Blue Rock School, after the death of her father:


I am in Michigan to visit my mom, and have been working really hard and non-stop until today (garbage day), to clear out 47 years of accumulation in the basement. A truck came and hauled off 3 loads; my sister in her husband's truck, 2 more (just of paper - my dad kept ever periodical and if I think I worked hard this week, it has given me a little insight into how hard he worked every day of his life until he could not); and then a huge pile for the garbage pickup - we scheduled an extra large load pick up. It has been very cathartic (as I have similar problems with collecting, with less space and only 10% the length of time). And also, to see what my father actually did - as he was totally involved in his professional life, would come home and work more, but shared very little of himself. He was accomplished and brilliant, which I see more and more, but reading his innumerable letters, lectures, talks, etc., I am having a good visit with him. He has been so much more present since he died in many ways, and then, I look in the mirror and there he is. My mom is now starting in on a box of letters she saved from after high school, and having a laugh, which is wonderful to see. I am sure seeing so much of the accumulation of a lifetime go to the dump is very difficult. It had really gotten unwieldy, plus had suffered from years of flooding, cat shit, and generation after generation of mice - multitudes of mice - who so enjoyed the bags and boxes of fabric, paper and assorted good nesting materials. Yuck. I hope that you are well, and please hug Newton for me and ask him to hug you for me too. Do you remember the very sweet book: "A Kiss for Little Bear" in which a kiss for Little Bear's grandma is passed through the whole animal community on its way to reach his grandma?


From my sister, Donna Wilder, who is the assistant to the principal at a 4th-6th grade elementary school in Lawrenceville, NJ:


One weird thing (school story) to pass along is this: It was during the week of Martin Luther King's birthday, and the students in one sixth grade class had to write an essay using "I have a dream" about something good they would like to see happen in the world. This boy wrote "I have a dream that animals and people will not have sex with each other." Yipes!! The Dean of Students talked to him about it, and he told her that he heard about it in church. The Dean called his mom, and the mom said yes, that was true. Now what kind of church would be talking about that! His teacher said, "Martin Luther King would have been so proud."

From my very close, funny, funny friend, Carolyn McMonegal, of Manhattan:


Lousy Fourth of July weather…grey, rainy, and storms predicted with intermittent bits of sun (??)…Sooo glad I don’t have a houseful of guests and kids to contend with and entertain…I remember long weekends in the country years ago with restless guests…OY! All I did was bring out the booze right after breakfast...it worked beautifully.

From Manu Khatchadourian, a friend of ours since college with Newton, who is Armenian (he grew up in Lebanon, lives on Long island now), about taking his family to Armenia for the first time:


In summary: It was a very emotional trip for us - It is a country with sharp contrasts: "haves" and "have-nots," old and new, expansive valleys and rugged mountainous terrain. At times you felt you were in Switzerland (Alps), and often at the barren mountains of the Caucasus. Seeing Ararat at a distance (unfortunately in Turkey - you know the story) assured us that we were (in our historic) home ...What is striking are the 4th + century churches which adorn the mountains - incomprehensible how they built these churches on top of the mountains with expansive views of the valleys. Armenians were certainly committed to Christianity - this was evident in every location which we visited. All in all, an amazing vacation ... knowing that there are crazy people like us who speak the same language as a nation was comforting ...Having said that, there is no place like home: Manhasset, NY! (smile)




From my niece, Marianna Cunha, of São Paulo, Brazil. I had taken a Ukrainian egg batik coloring kit to a beach resort for all the teen-aged cousins and boyfriends to color Easter eggs in 2006:


Do you remember those eggs we painted two years ago, in Bertioga? With Fernando, Leandro and everybody else?! Remember? Last week, they almost completed two years. Almost! If it weren´t for me... I hit the jar with the eggs inside and it fell on the ground... hehehe (what a disgusting smell!!! specially after two years).






From our dear friend Nancy Taylor, of Manhattan, after the death of her husband, Dick. (She then took a trip):


I truly don't know that I am blazing through anything. But, then, I'm just figuring out who I am in this new phase of my existence. It's very bizarre to have to answer self-queries I never imagined existed. I'm too busy or not busy enough. Seeing too many people (to the detriment of other loved activities) or not seeing enough people (bending to my natural inclination and love of solitude), doing too many "to-do" list things and not enough big stuff, or going with too many big thoughts and not getting vital little daily things done.
Or, some days everything is just fine and I sail through life.
Whew.
More when I've come up with all the answers. That should be very soon, huh?

Same Nancy Taylor, just back from her trip:
Just back from Papua New Guinea. Three fascinating weeks. Other than a small earthquake, a medium police riot, a blown plane tire on a small airport runway and being shot at directly by armed robbers, it was a tremendous trip. I wasn't, but Dick would have been thrilled staring directly into the barrel of a shotgun which was shot off into the front window of the rickety van we were in, as the driver threw it into reverse and managed to outrun the gang. I didn't, but Dick would have loved that....and emerging unscathed. As I dove behind the front seat, my thoughts were "I'm being shot at and I'll be darned if I go to Ethiopia with Betty." As she dove behind the second seat, she says her thoughts were "If I were 50 lbs lighter, I could get further down away from the shots." Not too philosophical in the moment of truth, I must admit. Aside from that, it was the most exotic, grueling and wonderful trip I've ever taken. We visited a tribe which had not seen a white person in 5 years. Many Stone Age peoples. Our antidote to being shot at was a day cuddling koalas and baby kangaroos in Brisbane.


From my high school friend, Bob Garrett, of Lawrence, Kansas, after reading my ‘Tulsa Dispatch:



Thanks for the reminders of Tulsa. It has undeniable charms, tornadoes aside. I have heard good things about that theatre where you saw "Oklahoma." I saw an hilarious episode of "Third Rock" in which the main characters (Jane Curtin and John Lithgow) were stranded in a storm in a diner at the end of a rotten day. John Lithgow’s character was desperate to placate Jane Curtin and remembered her love of Broadway tunes and began to sing "Oklahoma" to the backs of the men sitting at the counter. When he reached "We know we belong to the land" a plaid-shirted John Raitt turned around and took over. The entire diner joined the swelling finale. It was a hoot. (John Raitt, Bonnie’s father, played ‘Curly,’ the lead, on Broadway.)

From my sister, Janet Kohler, of Denver, about her river boat trip with husband Rex in the Netherlands:
Yesterday was the reason for our trip. We call it our flower day! We started out VERY early, 6:30am, for the Aalsmeer flower market. It is the largest wholesale market specializing in flowers in the world. Here are bidders as they auction flowers of all kinds. It was amazing. After the flower market we were bused to the Keukenhof Flower Park. The tulip growers of Holland have used this park to showcase their flowers for years. It was truly a spectacular sight…tulips of all colors, daffodils of many shades of yellow, other spring flowers of every color of the rainbow! We also got to go past the flower fields…these are full of spring flowers, but these are not for cutting; they are harvested for their bulbs.

From Katie Morgan of Brooklyn, daughter of my longtime Tulsa friend and high school teacher, Lynn Morgan, working at her fourth Olympics for NBC, in Beijing:


I actually have an even better title this time….FETCHER. I know…it sounds like I might be fetching Starbucks coffee for Dick Ebersol and company, but that’s not the case. I’m actually an Associate Producer in the Central Tape room responsible for “Fetching all the best footage from the Games and routing it back to the States where our NBC department will be able to create Promos for each show…Primetime, MSNBC, USA Oxygen, etc.
So everyone knows that Michael Phelps came to the NBC compound to do a four hour interview. One with Costas which involved all 8 races and another with Brian Williams from Nightly News. Now, the day before his arrival, Dick Ebersol sent word to me that I had to collect every race, every NBC feature and every medal ceremony and put it on a DVD for his viewing pleasure. Okay, for all of you who don’t really know what that means, here’s the deal: Every 2nd day of the Olympics, all our external drives are cleared to allow more space for future events. This means that all of Phelps footage from Race 1 to Race 6 had been deleted. So, besides having to find these tapes where the media lives, which could be anywhere in the NBC compound, I had to re-digitize them into the system, lay them on the timeline, edit, place a few transitions and build a slate at the front. A very easy thing, but the sequence came out to be 4 hours long and I had 12 hours to put this together, not to mention that Dick Ebersol personally asked me to do this so Phelps could walk away with his eight moments of glory after he was done with his interviews. If I failed, I would no doubt be fired immediately. Needless to say the pressure was on.
Here’s how it played out. Phelps was expected at 1pm, but arrived at 2pm and did the meet and greet crap. I had to break the 4 hour sequence into two DVD’s. The first one was finished at 2:30pm. At this point I’m sweating like a crazy woman and frantically talking with the assistant in Dick’s room telling her to stall Phelps because I needed him to stay for at least two hours and some change. He was obviously exhausted so she told him to lie down in Ebersol’s office where he proceeded to fall asleep for an hour, making Costas and the entire Primetime set wait for him. I was thrilled with the news because it bought me more time. It was agony watching each interview come to an end, while knowing the 2nd DVD was still processing. After he talked with Brian Williams, there was 15 minutes left for the dub. Thankfully he was taking pics with several of the NBC crew, which gave me just enough time to sprint through the compound with his DVD set. This was ‘Chariots of Fire’ and I was running for my life. As soon as I dropped it off, I heard Michael came into Dick’s office a couple of minutes later, collected the DVD’s and was off on his merry way. I presume that means I still have a job in Vancouver for 2010. The funny thing is this…Phelps will never know the panic we went through to get that made nor will he ever watch it.

Keep your stories coming. They allow me to live in so many places at once!

Love,
Sandy

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Brazil Dispatch 19

August 13, 2008
Back home in Natal, Newton and I caught the remaining mania of Festa Junina, celebrated during the month of June all over Brazil. Its country bumpkin theme seems to suit it in a bigger way to the northeast. The Festa honors Saints Anthony, John (no one can tell me if this is John the Baptist or John of gospel fame), and Peter, while incorporating pagan influences, as well. The supermarket has live musicians throughout June, dressed in the typical rustic costumes and playing the charming, traditional version of forró. This is on a ukulele-type instrument (cavaquinho), an accordion, and a wonderful single triangle which tinkles out a relentless, lively rhythm that makes one bounce a bit in the grocery aisles. Children show up in straw hats and ruffled gingham dresses. On designated nights people make fires along the road. Students dance the quadrilha – a dance that enacts a legend about a country wedding. Our caretaker Marcos’ daughter Taynara and partner are pictured at the local school quadrilha.

Our masseuse invited us to a big Junina party at a nearby former granja – chicken farm – owned by her daughter’s anthropology professor, a French woman. Besides costumed children and loads of people roaming the beautiful grounds and house, there were musicians playing the ‘music of the coconut,’ which we like so much. I thought the traditional folk dancing was just marvelous.

In July we attended a Sunday afternoon of “Feijão & Rock” at another former granja. This event had four different rock groups covering Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and Jimmy Hendrix respectively, all good. There was feijoada, the national dish of Brazil, comprised of black beans (the ‘feijão’) and pork. I enjoyed seeing my Brazilian boomer counterparts, aging but jaunty in their Pink Floyd and Hendrix T-shirts. There was a big crowd, plenty of space and an amazing sound system that was not too loud to distort everything for a change!

We got back to the groove of our weekly rhythms and weekends on the beach. A couple of guys were kicking a soccer ball into the waves, which sent the ball right back for more like a pitching machine. Each of us on two different occasions got to chase the styrofoam lid of our little cooler as it flew down the beach in the wind and, humiliatingly, evaded repeated attempts to capture it by changing direction on cue. This was in front of an audience. The highlight at our beach restaurant is watching parents shower their babies in the high-pressure outdoor shower. Some babes are howling; some are happy; some, oblivious. They all have bodies made of chubby curves and poochy baby butts.

On a cloudy Sunday we replaced our time at the beach with a hike in the Park of the Dunes. Too tedious lecturing by the guide rendered the adventure more of a “stand” than a “hike.” Happening upon these Sunday afternoon centipedes (shown in the photo below) while in the forested portion of the dunes did bring Cole Porter to mind..."Let's do it, let's fall in love!"





















One night at dinner in the dining room a sudden series of shots rang out and we thought, “We’re dead.” It sounded like it was right outside the windows, but as we jumped up to avoid the windows, we realized the blasts were coming from our front porch. We turned out the lights and stole up the stairs like Nick and Nora in the dark, terrified in a numb, shocked way. Once we crawled out to peek from the balcony, we realized that these were fireworks set off at the street corner, celebrating a soccer victory by the local team. Too bad about the hour-and-a-half my heart was thumping afterwards!

Soon after returning from our travels, we fired the maid. She was stealing food. We were reluctant to give up her excellent cooking, but the feeling of someone being sneaky, the mounting grocery bills, and the dropping dollar made it all seem like a good idea. We had inherited her with the house for 6 days a week, but we figured we actually needed someone far less than that. In the ensuing two weeks of our hunt for a part-timer, I discovered why Cornelia had never rinsed the soap out of our clothes: the outdoor sink completely soaks you with spray if you try rinsing something. After soaking our towels in a bucket of soapy water, I put on my bathing suit and rinsed them in the outdoor shower. Problem was that a soaking wet towel weighs a ton and I am not a weight-lifter. Wringing them out just about did me in! We decided to get someone for two days/week and buy a washing machine. We found a lovely woman who works for my new American friend from the next town, Mary, one day a week. Her name is Lucia (lu-see-ah) and she cooks just fine and cleans much better in two days than Cornelia did in six. I love doing laundry in my new little toy-like washer. The somewhat romantic-yet-Zen activity of hanging everything out on the line to dry is my favorite part. I was becoming a political and internet news junky and enjoying it less and less, so the extra tidying up, dish washing and intermittent sweeping I do is not only a welcomed change of habit, it has actually made our home feel much more like ours now.

An activity I am increasingly drawn to is listening to music while not doing anything else. One of the best recent experiences was a two-hour documentary from Newark, NJ public radio's WBGO jazz station: 50 Years of the Beat: Bossa Nova. The link is: http://www.wbgo.org/events/2008/bossa_nova.php and you just click on ‘hour one’ and ‘hour two’ to hear this truly amazing program. My other favorite is National Public Radio’s podcast of Tom Wait’s recent Atlanta performance from his “Glitter and Doom” tour. It is stunning. (Better to be a fan who lovingly tolerates his ever more gravelly voice). The link is: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92916923 .

Newt traveled to Japan and Taiwan for 11 days. I had much better luck staying here alone without a robbery kicking it off this time! I had plenty of crafts to work on, films to watch and books to read. I revisited Virginia Woolf via Mrs. Dalloway. There is no wonder we still read her, she is so thoroughly modern and brilliant. Newton stopped over in NY for one day on the way home, celebrated Elise’s 24th birthday with both kids, and brought me To the Lighthouse, Proust’s Swann’s Way, and more of my newfound passion: Alice Munro short stories. I have also been loving the poetry of Wistawa Szymborska and Philip Schultz.

I watched the film, "Lars and the Real Girl" around the time some real questions about kindness were seeping into my head. I feel indignant when people beg from me while I’m sitting on my front porch. Luckily, this does not happen often. The fact that it was recently the uncle of Marcos’ daughters (Marcos ex-wife’s brother, whom I had never seen before) asking me for a beer made me doubly frustrated. I told him I did not like people asking me for things while I am in my home, but that since he was the girls’ uncle, I would give him one this once. Good fences make good neighbors in my estimation. I try to be kind to Marcos’ daughters when they are around without encouraging them to hang out inside our house or to expect something from me every time I see them, because I like to give them friendly recognition and things that inspire imaginative play, not anything that will further rot their teeth, for instance. When Lucia needed to bring her 7-year-old-son for the day for the second Monday in a row while she worked, I immediately wondered if I had been too kind to him the first time and made his stay too enjoyable by giving him materials to construct with, a Pluto DVD to watch, and teaching him a card game. But if he is going to show up here for the day very often, I will feel some obligation about his not getting too bored, and I do not wish to feel that obligation. Neither do I want him to experience a drawing back by me; he’s a sweet child. I’m sure Brazilians do not understand the concept of boundaries the way I do. Today a guy showed up outside our kitchen door begging, mentioning that it would be wrong to steal, which felt like a threat. This is a place where people have their hands out. I assure you, the questions about kindness remain, without answers. Is kindness that feels meaninglessly obligated, kindness? Is kindness something sublime? In this lovely, absurd film about Lars, everyone in the little community seems to know exactly what amount of kindness is needed. It is very moving.

I am sorry for the length here. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Love,
Sandy

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Tulsa '08 Dispatch

July 15, 2008

The rental car agency in Tulsa handed over the most adorable Cruiser convertible, which we loved driving with the top down when the weather permitted. Newton and I were both able to stay in Mother’s suite at the Methodist Manor, thanks to a roll-away bed for Newt. Wind, rain and tornado warning-wise, the weather was a little rough (God’s punishment for Senator James Inhoff?). Our second night around midnight we were shepherded into Mother’s bathroom, protected from exterior walls and windows, to wait out a tornado watch with sirens. We were up, but what a job the attendant had stirring the elderly inmates from their sleep and ‘convincing’ them to camp out in their bathrooms – sooner rather than later. With Mother sitting on the (closed) toilet, Newton on a low stool from the living room, and me on the shower bench, we followed the storm and watched "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Newt’s laptop. Mother was in complete awe that we could do that on a laptop...in the bathroom! Couldn’t have been more fun. About 45 minutes later we were free to roam the entire two rooms.

We took Newton to see block after block of gorgeous old mansions on the incomparably beautiful south side of town. I grew up on a block very nearby where the houses are already normal-sized, so I went to grade school with some of the mansion dwellers. I spent many an after-school afternoon playing in the ravines and creeks of those estates. That thin margin sent me the other direction for junior high and high school. I just remember all of it being innocent and fun, whichever side of the tracks I was on.

We also showed Newton the lovely Philbrook Museum of Art, formerly the home of the Phillips 66 oil man. Besides the amazing Italian villa, exhibits and gardens, it has a very good café and one of the best museum shops I’ve ever seen.

Newton flew on to a trade show in California. Mother and I drove and drove across the river and into the country with the top down on the loveliest evening of the year to an outdoor summer production of ‘Oklahoma.’ They sang and danced well, and even used live horses. The fireflies were so large I almost suspected they were part of the stagecraft! It is hard to be objective about those Rogers and Hammerstein songs I have known since birth, but my grown-up musical ear decided on ‘People Will Say We’re in Love’ as the stand-out.

When Mother and I exited a Chinese restaurant on a Sunday night in elegant Utica Square, it was SUCH an extraordinary evening and so still – not a breath of wind - that we drove with the top down in slow motion. Utica Square is a shopping center (with streets, not a mall) with strictly chic stores (unlike during the days of my youth), all closed and lit at this hour. A carillon of bells was playing ‘I Love You Just the Way You Are,’ lending a mystique to the otherwise silent and illuminated air. I immediately thought of my old Methodist Sunday school teacher from high school days. She was a gorgeous blond actress, Peggy Dow, who made a few films in the ‘50’s ('Harvey') and appeared on the cover of Life magazine, then married a little oil guy named Helmerich, moved to Tulsa and had five sons. My best friend Lenna and I never missed Sunday school that year because she was so beautiful and dramatic. We were in awe. She even organized a Bible study group at her formidable mansion which we both faithfully attended for the glamour. Her husband’s company became the owners of Utica Square. Just as there is a Helmerich section of the Tulsa zoo, a Helmerich wing at Philbrook Museum of Art, a bench my sister sat on once in Australia and discovered – yep - the Helmerichs had donated it…I knew the carillon of bells at Utica Square had been their idea!

We continued to drive in slow motion the back way home past even bigger mansions, looking magnificent lit up at night beyond their wrought-iron gates and huge lawns. These are not new McMansions, but early 20th century beauties. Once we returned to the Methodist Manor, we walked along the path by the creek (well, it’s concrete) to digest. We could hear frogs and trills (?), the rhythmic humming of the bugs, but there was not a leaf moving. As we approached the door, the wind suddenly whipped the scene into motion and wrapped around us. The downpour hit as we stepped inside.

The Tulsa visit included dinner with my old friends Vivan and Mike (they live down the street from the house I grew up in; I have to hide my eyes when driving by my house to preserve my perfect memories…a guy bought it from Mother and changed it completely), and with my nephew Mark’s model family; and visits with my father’s cousin, Mary Alice and daughter Mary Kaye, and Lynne Morgan, my high school gym teacher (recovering from surgery). Of course, the Methodist Manor is a trip unto itself. The mint ice cream may be suspiciously green and the white ‘gravy’ on the mashed potatoes suspiciously shiny, but my mother, the definite stand-out of the Assisted Living section, is thriving there and doing better than ever. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather tool around town with in a convertible, or hunker down with in the bathroom, for that matter!

I connected through Houston to Newark to São Paulo, then home to Natal. A contingent of older Japanese people were disembarking the plane right behind me in São Paulo. They were there to participate in the city’s commemoration of 100 years of Japanese immigrants in Brazil. The group was all wearing yellow hats like a swarm of school children in Tokyo! I was telling the sweet little old man beside me about my love of Japanese art and how I came to acquire it: my father’s WWII letters describe how he traded his Navy issue cigarettes and chocolate in Tokyo Bay after the surrender for my favorite treasures growing up: kimono cloth, obi ribbon, ceramics, a bamboo pipe, etc., most of which ended up in my possession. The man’s excited response gave one more dimension to my treasures: “Oh, that was our first chocolate!! We always think of chocolate as American!”

I can get back to writing about Brazil now.

Love,
Sandy

Thursday, July 10, 2008

New Jersey / New York Dispatch

July 10, 2008

We had some very good luck on this trip winning low prices for hotels and rental cars on priceline.com. We actually got a very nice hotel on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge for less than the regular price of the truly seedy one next door! Trouble was, it was too nice! There was no mini-fridge for goat cheese and salami because they want guests to eat in their lovely, expensive restaurants; it was so near the bridge that one could not catch a bus to cross it; the expensive hotel van only dropped guests off in midtown, not right across the bridge where our daughter lives. I got dressed and went down to the lobby to find a pay phone to call Elise 10 minutes away, for fear the long distance call from the room would be outrageous and subject to the 18% tax. Alas, the credit card pay phone call cost $18 for five minutes! The windows didn’t open, of course…I had the strangest sensation of being imprisoned in this nice hotel while Newton had an all-day meeting with his partners. Truth is, the pricey lunch was good, even if I was the only person in the restaurant. Newton and I later went to use the hot tub, but it was tepid. Damn.

My timing turned out perfect this year to see my beloved Blue Rock School’s big outdoor spring play. On this perfect evening the entire school enacted the Chinese tale of “Monkey.” I can still feel the blessing of the group hug I received upon arrival from a gaggle of costumed merchants, carp, crabs and jelly fish. It is also hard to shake the impression of 20 kindergarten monkeys descending from the woods into the stage action! The word gets overused where Blue Rock School is concerned for lack of a synonym, but the event was, indeed, magic. I also got to spend a day at the school, taking the 5th grade for lunch duty, checking in with my admissions replacement about the state of 2008-2009, gabbing with my former co-office manager, seeing kids off for the day, going for coffee with the director of the school, who is also the director of all plays and the drama teacher (she used to work with Peter Brook), then to dinner with some of my staff buddies.

Elise, Newton and I had a Chipotle-to-go picnic up at Elise’s “private park,” the gated, manicured Conservancy Garden at the upper east corner of Central Park. This was a well-kept secret, at least to us, all the years we were in Manhattan.

Elise and I had a grand day shopping in Harlem and returning to Sylvia’s for one of my favorite lunches: grilled catfish with a double side of collards. This is the restaurant where Fox’s Bill O’Reilly was so impressed that Black people had cloth napkins. We also had a great time strolling around Soho downtown. We met up with our dear friend Desiree for dinner at a spectacular place, Il Buco, where we had wine from Cinque Terre with a definite lemon presence – must be those gigantic lemons they grow on the terraced strips there - squisito!

Newton and I had dinner in New Jersey with friends from his old company. This firm was so progressive and employee-oriented that the friendships made during all that fun have lasted for 25 years, so far! Too bad the company was bought out by a dud corporation way back and lost its appeal, as well as Newton's division.

We had an elegant paella lunch with our oldest friends in New York, Joe and Guadalupe and David and Helen, with daughter Amelia. Elise took the photo of these friends she has had since birth! Do we look like people who spent years wandering around Manhattan till all hours? Don’t answer that.

Newton rallied his longtime soccer buddies in New Jersey twice for games and dinner at their old hang-out. He met his college friend, Manu, for lunch, and I had lunch and a political gabfest - sans serious disillusion, hinting of hope – with my enduring friend Carolyn.

I read a really great volume of short stories on this trip, Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg. I recommend it. It is, in fact, the only book I have ever re-read immediately after the first reading! She presents the oddities of modern life that reverberate in us, yet defy definition.

On to Tulsa!

Love,
Sandy

Friday, June 27, 2008

Lawrenceville, NJ Dispatch

June 27, 2008

My sister Donna is the hostess and the cook of the family. She is also the most fun-loving, extroverted and boisterous. This Donna cocktail delivers many rollicking hours of luscious fun for family and friends. Her husband, Larry, is the dignified co-conspirator, who calmly and ably keeps the machine – and the entrées – well-oiled.



Elise, Newton and I arrived in Lawrenceville, NJ for a couple of days of eats, drinks, catching up, laughs and cards. Our niece Sara and her fiancé Rob came for a cook-out with their two miniature greyhounds, Grady and Skillet, who found the idyllic May evening as intoxicating as we did (OK, we had help). Donna and Larry’s other daughter, Amy, was awaiting the birth of her second daughter in Maryland.*












After a celebratory champagne dinner out the last night in honor of Elise’s graduation, we continued the champagne at home while completing a Spades game in which the females uncharacteristically shut out the diehard guys. (Elise and Donna shared a hand.) Donna immediately supplied the appropriate chant, inspired by the fourth grade at the school where she works: “Girls Rule, Boys Drool!” Donna’s pleas for Larry, who was on his way upstairs to bed, to come back down for the ‘boys drool’ photo op went unheeded. Newton was left to stave off the brunt of our onslaught alone.










I believe all my relatives smile when you say "Donna's house" to them!
Love,
Sandy





*The second granddaughter, Paige, arrived soon after, here a curiosity to her sister Allison.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Maine Dispatch

June 24, 2008

Our first state for the day was New Jersey. We were staying next to the George Washington Bridge. New York was next, to pick up Elise, and then Connecticut and Rhode Island. We were on our way to the charming town of Kennebunkport, Maine (it's so much more than just the Bush family complex). Oh, just the heady feel of a family vacation with the four of us together again propelled us. We had each put one hour of our music favorites on iPod’s, so were toolin’ along and singin’ in Jake's car.

Newton noticed that even though the date was 5/2008, the car inspection sticker said 4/2008 in giant numbers on the windshield – visible, we imagined, from every police car. So Jake had missed the inspection expiration date by less than a month. This was his first year on his own with his own car. We would get an inspection once we hit Massachusetts. Newton noticed that it was also time to change the oil, so we’d do both. Once the oil was changed in a small southern Massachusetts town, the nice man said that he was unable to do the inspection because he could not get the registration to come up on the computer. Jake made some calls and found out that his registration was invalidated since January because of non-payment of insurance. Then he saw that the insurance card in the glove compartment reflected his roommate’s old address, which he had used upon arriving in Boston and buying a car. No forwarding address had been left for the post office, so once Jake paid the first half of his insurance, the subsequent bill did not reach him, and he did not think of it. This meant that he needed new insurance pronto, so we hightailed it to the nearest insurance office before closing time and he bought some. Now we just needed valid registration, valid plates and an inspection. It was 5:00pm. SO we drove through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and on to our hotel in Maine that evening, observing the speed limit like people possessed. The next morning Newton and Jake looked on the internet for the nearest Massachusetts town with a Department of Motor Vehicles and drove there, ever so gingerly. New Hampshire has only five miles of shoreline, so this Massachusetts town was just an hour away from Kennebunkport. Elise and I had a great morning in the hotel’s outdoor hot tub and indoor pool, and we were all four together again in time to drive legally to lunch. Lucky Jake had not been pulled over and thrown in jail or anything since January!

There is a lovely, quiet winding road along the shore into Kennebunkport. The colonial houses, shops and hotels have a very spare and ship-shape feel, like the boats in the interspersed marinas. The weather was pleasant, cool at night; some clouds, some rain and some sun. We almost missed dinner two nights in a row with our impossibly night-owl habits. The place pretty well closes up by 9:00pm. We spotted a lively bar in town called “Big Fish,” and found out to our heart’s delight that they were not just serving food, but gourmet macaroni and cheese, burgers and oysters! Jackpot!

Next day was hiking day. We started along the shore with rock scrambling. This strip starts across a small bay from the, ahem, Bush estate, and follows along for some time with varying degrees of challenge. Jake prefers scrambling, Elise prefers sun bathing. Then we drove to a local monastery with flat trails through woods beside a marina on the river. The day was sunny, and we had cheeses, olives and salami from the great Harlem Fairway grocery by Elise’s apartment and red wine from the small strip of New Hampshire shore…no tax. We started a Hearts game, as Jake is usually known to travel with a deck of cards. I say started, because it did go on into the next morning, disintegrating at check-out time with no victors. There was a fantastic ‘Mother’s Day’ lobster dinner by the sea in there, as well.

We caught a boat ride on a lobster boat with a tour of the coast and a successful attempt to catch a couple of lobsters. The very charming old man who hosted explained everything about how lobster trapping works in the state. Even though diehard vegetarian, Jake, remained at the back of the boat for this part, I was happy to report to him that the traps are designed with a small window for smaller lobsters to escape and a biodegradable lock on a door to allow all the lobsters out after two days, should the line to the trap break.

Now we headed back to Boston to get Jake and his car home. We all four stayed at his apartment that night with his three very friendly roommates, after seeing the new ‘Indiana Jones’ movie and eating sushi at Jake’s favorite restaurant. It was time for Jake to get back on the poker bandwagon and prepare for his trip to the big Las Vegas Texas Hold’em tournament in July. He drove us at an ungodly hour the next morning to catch a Greyhound from South Station to Port Authority in Manhattan. There we caught the airport shuttle bus to Newark Airport to pick up our rental car for the rest of the NY/NJ stay. Our next stop with Elise: my sister Donna’s in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

Love,
Sandy

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Graduation Dispatch

June 22, 2008

Elise finished college (Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan) with a flourish. The last day before graduation she had a final and a portfolio review by Graphic Design industry professionals. We got to see her – looking all professional – at the review. Her portfolio is amazing, as her five reviewers agreed. Here are some of her fellow graduates:















Jake had taken the red-eye into Newark that morning after participating in the spring revelries at UC San Diego, arriving within minutes of our flight from Sao Paulo. We were so happy to see our boy and use his car!

Elise’s senior project on consumerism was selected for the Senior Show. Besides writing the thesis, she photographed aisles and aisles of products and assembled them into this wonderful rectangular graphic. Then she made a map of the globe with cut-up credit cards and a flipbook of people shopping.













The graduation ceremony the next morning at Radio City Music Hall opened with the big Wurlitzer blasting out “Pomp and Circumstance.” We looked down from the balcony on the tops of mortar boards decorated with various designs, glitter, and even a room setting of miniature furniture (an Interior Design major, no doubt). There were too many graduates to call out individual names, so each major was called to rise as a group for the bestowal of degrees (Fashion Design, Textile Surface Design, Textile Restoration, Fine Art, Photography, Accessory Design, Art History, Package Design, Graphic Design, Toy Design, to name a few). This all took place against the backdrop of that exquisite Deco palace.









Elise had barely slept for days, but was radiant at our celebratory lunch at a nearby Greek restaurant. She was ready for a relaxing family trip to Maine the next day, after a semester of projects, finals, waitressing and her internship that became a job.

You can bet there’s more coming soon –

Love,
Sandy

Monday, May 12, 2008

Brazil Dispatch 18

May 12, 2008

The rainy season has brought some of the brightest, clearest days of the year, now that alternating deluges have subsided in favor of the occasional cloudy day and shower. The humid heat and lack of breeze do sometimes make us gasp for breath much more than we did in January at the height of summer.

The ever-changing colors and cloud configurations of the ocean view still offer surprises. Walking back late afternoon from the falesias – cliffs of sand – at the end of our beach with my friend Ann Scott from Florida, I witnessed the most dramatic, surreal color and lighting to date: behind us was a patch of bright, clear sky, overhead a hovering, darkening blue-grey cover, and ahead of us a backdrop of solid, deep indigo blue. This was still during daylight. The red-orange falesias and off-white dunes were illuminated by the clear light behind us, so they stood out against this indigo backdrop like a stagecraft trick. The waves were breaking into a coke bottle green I had never seen, and the tide was high, so the mounting force driving towards our dwindling path of sand only added to the urgency of the exaggerated, touched-up post card visuals. I looked back as we climbed to the road and saw an ocean that was a black and white photograph – just as surreal as the super-colors ahead of us. Amazingly, we only caught the odd drop of rain upon entering our gate, and the expected indigo downpour never happened.

Newton finally got his custom surf board, then finally was able to try it out when a pain in his shoulder improved. He likes to take it out, sometimes even briefly before weekday lunches, and ride the Cotovelo Beach waves. These are ideal for practice, and he is doing well. I like to call him “Surfer Boy.”

Newton is reading Robert Graves’ I, Claudius. He devised a family tree for the Roman ruling family online so he could keep track of how Livia’s poisoned victims were related to her. I left the haunting, heightened world of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother reluctantly. I could follow the written accounts of his paintings with visuals at the excellent website, http://www.vggalery.com/, where I could also read some of Theo’s letters back. I read Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady in a large print edition I acquired inadvertently, which kept me in a startled state with those big letters. I have borrowed a short stack of questionable back-up books from a British neighbor named Stewart. He is a kindly old goat with a pretty, young Brazilian girlfriend who, he explained endearingly in a voice that could belong to an old woman in a BBC sitcom, is the same age as his daughter. He mostly reads British romance novels set in the north country, but I just finished a passable mystery paperback from the ‘90’s. I will soon have a new reading supply from Amazon to pick up at my Mother’s on our upcoming US trip.

We took the leap of faith and cut back our profusely flowering bushes, which were getting too stringy. After the disconcerting phase where the stumps mocked our recklessness, our bushes burst forth and reveled in the plant paradise of the rainy season. Not only do they get plenty of water and sun, but the rain washes away the sand/salt maresia that can damage the leaves. Faith is good.

The hummingbirds rarely rest around here, but I did spy on one who came to rest his wings while on a branch below the upstairs window. How tiny, pointy and sleek he was! A little blackbird couple, totally out of early Disney, flew around me in a heart-shaped double flight pattern while I was sitting under a coconut tree! Favorite recent sighting: an upward pointing crescent moon visible out the bedroom window from my bed. I realized, as clouds of varying densities drifted by and finally parted, that I was looking at the smile on the Cheshire Cat! This 'crescent moon as smile' or eventual 'half moon as boat' phenomenon happens near the equator only. (I always think of the Eugene Field poem and song, "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" in their sky boat!)



This local restaurant sign is an example of the marketing idiosyncrasies of the Northeast. The translation is, “You ate, you died.”




We went to the theater to see the “Clowns of Shakespeare” troupe perform Much Ado About Nothing (Muito Barulho sobre Quase Nada).The formidable keyboardist from our favorite band here, Mad Dogs, has a day job as an actor! He was hilarious along with the whole cast, all of whom could play several instruments, sing, dance, AND act!

We will take off for the US this weekend. Elise is graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology in graphic design on May 20th. The ceremony will take place at Radio City Music Hall. She is currently employed by the rock-n-roll promotion company where she interned this semester. Jake will join us from Boston and we will drive his car up to Maine for a short vacation together. After the chance to see family and friends around NY and NJ, Newton and I will visit my mother in Tulsa. Then Newton will fly to a trade show in California before we rendezvous back in Natal. I imagine I will not spare you from hearing all about it!

It looks like it’s time to remind all of you again that I need to hear about any tiny vignette or story from YOUR lives. Nothing is too mundane or trivial in my eyes. And, you’ll remember, you could end up quoted in a dispatch! No need to hesitate because of our traveling…I am ready to add to my collection immediately!

Love,
Sandy


Thursday, March 27, 2008

Brazil Dispatch 17

March 27, 2008
The thing I really like about my ‘sabbatical’ in Brazil is the chance to ignore the clock and usually the calendar. These are just two more of the versions of liberation here for a person who usually had too much to do in too little time. That made me anxious. I do keep track of the days in order to water my various house plants properly – a rhythm that lovingly imposes the grid of the week on my schedule. Marcos waters the dozens of outdoor plants regularly. Even though I lose a plant here and there, I am adjusting to the role of plant guardian – new for me – where I can see that my watering and care in cutting off brown edges caused by the sea-salt ‘maresia’ give the plants their crucial self esteem.

We had ringside seats for the recent lunar eclipse. As the earth’s shadow crept over in a textbook arc, I couldn’t help but recall my favorite test question ever. My Astronomy professor at Northwestern was the adorable and brilliant astronomer, J. Allen Hynek, of Sputnik tracking stations, Project Blue Book, and “close encounters of the third kind” fame. Not only did he entertain us regularly with UFO sighting submissions and hilarious anecdotes to illustrate some phenomenon of physics, but he put the following question on a final exam: What do you have when the sun goes between the earth and the moon? A)a solar eclipse B) a lunar eclipse C) a particularly hot day.

Newton has begun to mismatch subjects and verbs in English lately, I imagine from hearing my mix-and-rarely-match Portuguese verbs. He continues to be questioned about his nationality with an unrecognizable Portuguese accent and some hesitation with Portuguese vocabulary after 28 years in the US. As I corrected his English once again the other day he lamented, ‘I’m just a man without a language! I’ve got three countries, but no language.” I have little hope for mastering Portuguese, partly because I can usually manage to communicate, if incorrectly, and I finally have all the time I want to read and write in English. Besides, the verbs are famously discouraging. After waiting for my turn at the counter to buy cheese, a man appeared out of nowhere and the clerk started helping him. Summoning the best of the feminist, assertiveness training tradition, I spoke right up with an air of justified indignation, “Eu estou próxima,” wishing to say “I am next.” Unfortunately, this idea requires the use of the “to be” verb ‘ser,’ being in a more permanent state, not the “to be” verb ‘estar’ which is for more temporary states, like being next in line, one would think. What I said with my nostrils flared amounted to “I am next… to the counter,” for example, or “I am next to the ham.” The man walked away.

I realized I should describe the city of Natal a little better after my mother was surprised that we could get new eye glasses here. I know that our tiny town by the beach, Pium, sounds totally third world, which it is, and that the bureaucracy problems and lack of roadwork sound third world, which they are, but Natal is a modern city of 700,000 people. Besides the many European tourists who are usually around Ponta Negra beach, there is a reasonably sized population of tremendously wealthy natives. Not ot be confused with 'indigenous,' this population tends to be whiter. They are concentrated in a particular part of the city called Petrópolis, with shops that are prohibitively expensive and great restaurants we add to our other favorites around Ponta Negra. As is usual for the third world (and has been coming to a neighborhood near you in the USA ever since Reagan), the division of wealth is dramatic here. These wealthy natives do not impress me much – you’ll recall they are our one-month-a-year neighbors at Cotovelo Beach. Perhaps being so rich among so many poor, they keep to themselves and are outwardly quite snobby, even in fancy restaurants. I am sure they are decent folks if one gets to know them, but I have been told by people who have rented out beach homes that among the rich are people who feel so entitled that they trash the houses and don’t always pay. The simpler, browner working natives of Pium, for example, are noted for their integrity and good manners. Natal has good medical care, and most anything is available for a price. We had a very nice eye doctor for our glasses and a nice place to buy them in a huge mall. We just had to wait a while for the lenses, from the city of Recife – south of here - to get sent down to Rio for the anti-glare feature and make their way back. Oh, and when we tried calling about them, the store’s listed number was a fax line, so we couldn’t talk to anyone. What does typify Brazil is the juxtaposition of something like a beautiful high-rise apartment building and something run-down, or a chic store and a two-week wait!

We finally put the street sign I made back up. I had left the background the natural wood so the sign would stand out when attached to a realtor’s white placard at the corner. Once that was ploughed down a day after affixing the street sign, I was stuck with a not very readable black-on-brown and an available fence post not all that close to the corner. Now every time Newt and I drive by, all we can think of is a cross trying to say, “Here lies Tereza Bezerra Salustino. R.I.P.” At least no one has torn it down yet!

My reading avocation has been very rich. I had Elise and Jake bring me some books I ordered off a list of reader’s favorites on National Public Radio ’s website. I just loved A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute –author of On the Beach. The PBS miniseries of this story back in the ‘80’s was one of my all-time favorites. Turns out that immediately after my going on and on to Newton about how romantic and wonderful the book is, he flew off to the US sitting next to a woman who wrote a book about women prisoners of war. She was on her way to a convention of an organization founded by the American woman featured in Ken Burns’ "The War" series who spent a chunk of her childhood at a Japanese prison camp in Manila. When a fellow passenger asked the author how she got interested in this subject, she replied that the book, A Town Like Alice had inspired her interest. Imagine the surprise of such a coincidence...the book was written in 1950.

I followed that with Evelyn Waugh’s WWII trilogy, Sword of Honour (Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, Unconditional Surrender). The straight-faced British humor is marvelous amidst the outrage of war waged by silly old men who have little regard for reality. Strangely enough, my next book – Denis Johnson’s wonderful mega-novel about Viet Nam, Tree of Smoke – had unexpected similarities, minus the humor. After such large doses of war I came to the conclusion that men need to be kept very busy competing in athletics, debate, cards, marbles - anything - so they stop messing up other people's countries and killing people.

Desperate for something life-affirming, I am now reading Vincent Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo. While his raw passion for nature, art and humanity are truly moving and heartbreaking, where the soldiers became too numb to function, Van Gogh’s sensitivity is too intense to function (beyond creating the most beautiful, breathing paintings in the world!). Think I’ll try some steamy pulp fiction next!

The rainy season is getting underway ahead of April here, but only at night, so far. More bugs are enjoying the indoors already, and the heat is now humid. Newton will have his final surfing lesson tomorrow, then must trade his new “hot dog” surfboard for a more prudent, longer board as he used for his lessons – if he plans to actually ride any waves. These 16-year-olds with the six-pack stomachs make it look too easy to weave around the waves on tiny pointy boards!

Hope you are seeing signs of spring each day -

Love,
Sandy

Monday, March 10, 2008

Brazil Dispatch 16

March 10, 2008

Carnaval came and went as a sort of nightmare. Newton traveled to the US on Wednesday before Carnaval, leaving me alone in our house for the first time. I was upstairs on Friday afternoon watching “Ratatouille” on DVD. The maid was traveling for Carnaval. The caretaker, Marcos, works at a nearby house in the afternoons. Someone was downstairs outside our office ripping wires out and carrying off our two laptops through the windows.

The night before Newton left he came downstairs and discovered a black cat leaping out the dining room windows. I guess that was the omen. So what I carefully did was leave all the windows – which swivel from the middle – only partially open so no cat could come in again. What I did not think about before going upstairs was that this was vacation time in Brazil when the neighborhood is full of people using their beach houses AND wandering robbers who try to drop in and grab what they can. I was accustomed to Newt working in that office every day. I heard the sound of the front gate. By the time I figured out how to push ’pause’ without my glasses on, there was no one to be seen, though the gate was uncharacteristically ajar. I went downstairs and soon noticed that the windows were no longer at my ‘no cat’ angle, but fully open. The sight of those loose microphone and speaker wires hanging out the window left me dazed.

I called Marcos. I also called the police and carefully described where our street is, since no one knows the names and we hadn’t yet re-installed the street sign I made. Marcos came right home and we studied foot prints outside the gate. I begged some guy in a hammock on the veranda of the neighboring house at the corner to get up and come to his wall to talk to me, thinking he may have seen someone. These neighbors who come from the city for one month out of the year are NOT friendly. Finally when he sent the maid and I told her I needed to speak to him about a robbery at my house, THIS was interesting enough to get him up. Then his relatives came out of the woodwork to see what had happened. They were helpful, calling the security service to come by (I did not have the alarm on, so did not call them myself), but never did any of them introduce themselves. The security man spoke English and was terrifically kind to me. Of course it came out that I was here alone, so he encouraged me to call him if I needed to. Newton was on a flight from NY to California at that time.

Marcos and I went to the police station to fill out a report. The police had never arrived here, but the policeman said he had gone to a different street. Then Marcos told them I was German! It is sometimes a shock to understand how ignorant some of these locals are. Luckily, he kept quiet after I corrected that misinformation. I filed a report and we got home just as the electricity went out in the whole neighborhood. There were ten minutes left of daylight.

Newt was probably driving from San Francisco Airport to Lake Tahoe for the annual company ski weekend at that moment. I didn’t know how to call internationally on the home phone because we always use the Skype phone on the two (missing) laptops, but not on Newton’s large computer, which was still here. After I frantically searched the phone book for international calling instructions (there were none), the house became pitch black. I felt my way to the bedroom upstairs where we had a flashlight. The computer also shut down. I realized I knew Newton’s US cell number, so when the lights came on again I tried to reach him on the large computer Skype phone, only without any mike for him to hear me. So I kept calling until he suspected he should call here on the home phone – and he did. By this time the power had gone off again, but the home phone worked! He received the bad news. The power came on and stayed on. I was still shocked and scared, but not in the dark.

By Saturday evening I felt the need to venture out. It was 5:00pm, my favorite time on the beach – short-lived as it is before dark. Sometimes the tide is too high to even walk down to the restaurant at the end; on this first day of Carnaval the tide was very low and a wide promenade of sand allowed small crowds of people to go every which way. Almost every house along the beachfront, and these are large houses, had people partying on the decorated verandas and streaming down the slope to the sand. One house had fancy tables and chairs out for a large party and a live Carnaval samba band of brass and percussion. I made my way to the end of the beach, passing a girl playing a pipe on the low cliff, two guys scoring the boundaries of a paddle ball court in the sand, and some children wearing casual costumes - just a feather boa, for instance, over a bathing suit. The restaurant had stacked away all their beach tables and chairs, leaving only the nicer sections above, which overlook the entire beach. I chose a corner table and tried to just be inconspicuous there alone. After a caipirinha and chocolate ice cream, I made my way back home in the dusky light. I approached the brass and percussion band, which had come down to the sand and was leading a growing parade towards me. A guy literally took me by the hand and pulled me into the parade going the opposite direction. He had taken on the job of beckoning participants all along and was having pretty good success. Everyone was doing a sort of walking samba to the trumpet, trombone and saxophone, snare and bass drums. The lighting made the scene feel like a black-and-white film. Before long the whole crowd followed the band in an about-face and I was doing an anonymous samba home! The musicians returned en route to the party-house as I continued in rhythm down the beach to our street.

Even though I thought I’d dread returning to an empty house if I went out, I was happy I got to start Carnaval off right. Then I was back to what became my default position in front of Newton’s large computer screen, windows shut against the trickster shadows of plants outside, the fan on full blast, watching movies Newt had explained how to download but not how to turn into DVD’s for the player upstairs. I was constantly gasping for air, but afraid to open a window. There was always music and activity in the surrounding houses. The security company had a man driving around this neighborhood all night every night. On Ash Wednesday it all came to a halt. By evening there was no one in any of the houses, the street was deserted, and no security car came around. I was plenty scared. By Thursday night I had to get out, so went to a restaurant where we know the sweet little night manager who lived in London and likes to speak English. He was extremely kind and attentive to me. We invited him to lunch this week.

You may ask why I did not contact any of our other acquaintances during this 10-day solitude. One, none of them, so far, have good friend-potential; two, everyone always has big Carnaval plans of their own on which I did not wish to impose; and three, I was feeling very down and disoriented with Newt away and my laptop missing. I was asking myself, "what the hell am I doing in Brazil?" Our move was a joint venture!

Yes, Newton did come home. He brought a new laptop. I feel normal by now, except for this new-fangled Office 2007! It is hot this summer with very little breeze at some moments, so the bugs and the truck motors sound lazier. Newt has a new surf board and is taking lessons, so the season is ripe with hope! Dozens of yellow butterflies swarming around our yard and over the road make us feel like we’re in the middle of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. We keep the windows open, other than locking them whenever we leave the office. The black cat seems to have found a new beat.

Love,
Sandy
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