Tab Calhoun

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:44:00 +0000

I've been waking up early lately to gather mulberry leaves.

I'm raising silkworms, and all they eat and eat and eat are mulberry leaves. I need to keep them in fresh supply. I could pick enough leaves to last a few days and keep the leaves in the fridge, I suppose, but I like getting up as early as a farmer to feed my livestock.

I make a circuit to four nearby mulberry trees in the morning like a monkey chasing a weasel.

The first tree is just up the street from my apartment, but my favorite tree on my route is the second one. It's on a neglected park path behind a locked gate, but I can reach the leaves from the sidewalk. It's the only white mulberry tree of the four trees I visit every morning, and I think the silkworms prefer the leaves from the white mulberry tree more than the leaves from the dark mulberry tree. They seem giddy when I give them the "white" leaves. I know each batch of caterpillars since their conception and birth, and I think I notice their moods.

Today as I pulled leaves from the preferred white mulberry tree, a man approached me and asked what sort of berries I was picking.

"This is a mulberry tree," I said, "but I'm not picking the berries. You can eat the fruit - here, try one - but I'm picking the leaves."

I explained I am raising silkworms and I need to feed them fresh leaves.

He stood with the mulberry in his hand, not eating it, and said, "Really? I'm wearing a silk shirt. This is silk," he said and pinched his shirt and moved his chest to display the shirt as if it were a speciman rather than clothing on his body.

"It's silk," he repeated. He smiled.

I wanted to touch his shirt. It seemed like the thing to do, a natural response, an awknowledgement of the material's strength and softness, a greeting to the fabric I was in the process of cultivating. Living with the caterpillars, watching them grown, spin, emerge transformed from the cocoon, mate, die, be born has made me feel close to silk and I wanted to feel the silk in his shirt like I feel the silk of the caterpillar's cocoons.

It was an awkward moment to be sure, with me standing there wanting to touch a stanger's shirt but not daring, and with him standing there holding a mulberry that he wanted to eat but not daring to trust a stranger's word about it.

I pulled a mulberry off the tree and popped it into my mouth and said, "It's a nice shirt."

"Wonder how many silkworms it took to make this shirt," he said.

"Or how many leaves," I said.

I put the leaves into my baggie and walked to the other two trees on my morning circuit.

Photos from top to bottom:
Mulberries and leaves (not white), photo taken last summer.
Some of my silkworms, photo taken last month.
Three cocoons, photo taken tonight.
Me in my favorite summer skirt, writing this blog post at the the bookstore, tonight.

Music: Typed this blog post while listening to Bach, my all-time favorite music forever and ever, no question about it.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Somebody used to leave a bunch of open cans of cat food in front of this bright blue building, and I would see fat cats and scrawny cats eating when I walked by. But today when I walked by, I didn't see any cans or cats.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:22:00 +0000

I like the color of these pots and plants I saw on a stoop while walking on the Upper West Side last weekend.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:28:00 +0000

I like to say that wool felt is a forgiving material and other people who work with wool felt, nod their heads and know what I mean. You don't have to be perfect when working with wool felt. The material feels good, it looks good, it's strong, flexible, and forgiving.

I think the world, at least my world at the moment, needs a bit more forgiveness. You can learn a lot from felt.

My current project is a hand-stitched carrier for my color pencils that I use when sketching outdoors. I know, I know - this is home-ec super nerdy.

As a guide to the images I'm sewing, I'm using drawings I've made. I meant to use yellow felt to match this particular drawing, but I spaced out when cutting the petals and used orange instead. Once I realized my mistake, I continued with it. I like the bright orange against the mellow purple. You can click on the photo to see it larger, if desired.

The other day I was at a large picnic with people I know well and with people I met for the first time. The picnic lasted the entire afternoon. After playing croquet with the guys and a round of Old Maid with a bunch of little kids, I got a glass of Pinot Grigio from the bar (it was a civilized picnic and I wore a summer hat) and then I pulled out my project.

And holding the project in my lap at the picnic had the magical effect I've noticed with handicrafts. Handicrafts bring out stories.

Several people today asked to see my project, and I don't think they wanted to see what I was working on as much as they wanted to tell a story about their own project, or to talk about their mom or grandma or themselves as children.

One woman I just met that day and whose name I have forgotten had me laughing and laughing at her story about bamboo, an international flight, and the controversy between American and European style of knitting.

Another woman said her grandmother tried to teach her embroidery but she was never intersested as a girl and now regrets the time she didn't spend at her grandmother's side.

A man said his mother worked in a sweatshop as a young girl in her native country but he didn't know about it until after she died.

I wouldn't have heard any of these stories, that I gather together to piece together into a story of my own, without holding a few scraps of felt in my hands while sipping white wine at a picnic today along the Hudson River.

Photo: My current felt project.

Blogging to the music of Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Since posting last, I've been here, I've been there.

I've been testing this and trying that.

I hit a cement wall, felt knocked down and bruised.

Had a few laughs, more than a few. Garnered some insight, had an epiphany or two, watched the river, got caught in the rain, had a few more laughs (again and again). Rejoiced at a friend's recovery from injury, cried over another friend's departure. Read some good books and wrote a few lines of my own. Jumped over the cement wall the next time I saw it to avoid feeling knocked down and bruised. I skinned my knee in the jump, but hey, that's okay.

And now, and now, and now shall we pick up and carry on here?

photo: I See a Map in the Cement Wall

blogging to Max Roach, which is absolutely the best music for my day today.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Mon, 11 May 2009 05:09:00 +0000

Subway escalators, in working condition.

Whenever I ride these escalators, I want to photograph them. This scene intrigues me.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:54:00 +0000

A few months ago a friend, more of an acquaintance really, called me on the phone and asked me if I knew how to sew.

"Yes," I might have said, "I can sew, a little."

Or I might have said, "No, not really. I don't sew."

It didn't matter what I said because my friend didn't care. She said, "Good, you're working on my next show," and then she hung up.

That's how I discovered my love for working in live theatre. I started by sewing sequins on costumes and then the show took over my life and I found myself running lines, critiquing rehearsals, working backstage, greeting the audience, making cues, not eating for days but who cares because the show must go on, people, the show must go on!

The show is over now. I got that little editing gig I wanted. I was asked to work on my friend's next show. I picked up my drawing pad after setting it down last fall. I ate dinner tonight, and I missed doing that. I bought a little word processer and I bring it with me wherever I go.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Some colors that captured my attention recently.

The color of SoHo

I think of Piet Mondrian at the gym

A shared path: study of brown with old blue jeans

I see orchids everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:24:00 +0000

Photo: View from the back seat window

I remember driving past this place when I was a kid on road trips with my parents. The air around the smoke stacks smelled like rotten eggs on those summer trips, but speeding past the place on a frigid winter day a few weeks ago with the windows rolled up, I didn't smell anything.

I don't know what the factory makes or does, but it looks a lot bigger than I remember it. Usually things you remember from childhood are smaller when you encounter them as an adult, but not this place.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:00:00 +0000

"Is that your white car?” the gas station/mini mart clerk said to me.

“What?” I said. I was on a road trip and at the gas station to fill up the tank, get coffee, stretch my legs, that sort of thing.

“That white car, pump 4. Is it yours? The Florida plates?”

“Yeah,” I said. After sitting in the car day after day, my conversational skills had deteriorated, but I was slowly remembering that talking involved saying words out loud. “Yeah. Yep. That’s my car.”

“You’re pumping ethanol, you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know that. I don’t care. I mean, I don’t know. That’s fine, right? It’s not my car. I’m not driving. It seems to be working. I guess it is anyway. My friend is pumping the gas and driving. I’m just grabbing some coffee.” I walked to the coffee machine to fill up.

“You’re not from Florida,” he told me when I returned to the counter to pay for my cup and tank full of fuel.

“I know,” I said, and then, "I mean, yes that’s right. I’m not from Florida. That's a rental car. I’m from New York.”

“Oh,” he said, and then he nodded. “A Yankee.”

It occurred to me then that I didn’t know where I was, whether ethanol was a good thing or not, what day it was, where to take the conversation or how to end it, but the clerk was in complete control.

The clerk stood tall at his post, looked me in the eyes, inhaled deep, and smiled. On the exhale he said with perfect projection,“I’m Edward G., I’m a D.J. – that’s my real job, at night – and you’re pumping ethanol gas in a rental car from Florida on a fine Friday in Dayton, Ohio”

“Thank you,” I said, pulling my posture up and adding a smile to match his own.

Then he said, “Remember - you were in Dayton and you met Edward G.”

When I got to the car, I put my coffee in the cup holder, found Dayton on the map, and said, “Let’s go west now.”

Photos taken from the rental car in some state west of Ohio, not sure where.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:00:00 +0000

I'm hitting the road for awhile. I'll be back before the first day of spring, and I'll be wearing anything but snow boots.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:19:00 +0000

Coney Island in Winter.

I rode the subway all the way to Coney Island on a snowy day a few weeks ago. I like the place in the summer, but I think I like it in winter better.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:29:00 +0000

The other day someone said to me, "You live in a fantasy world. You live with your head in the clouds.”

"No, I don't," I said.

Is that how it went? Did I get that right?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The other day someone said to me, "You live in a fantasy world. You live with your head in the clouds.”

"That's not true," I said.

I opened the door of his high-rise apartment, and the door that day opened to the sky, not the hallway. I stepped out and thud! I dropped to the ground, ten stories below, in a heap, and I heard him close the door above me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The other day someone said to me, "You live in a fantasy world. You live with your head in the clouds."

"Yes, I do,” I said.

I opened the door of his sky-high apartment and I stepped out. I found my footing up there in the air without thinking too much about it. I reached the ground in a few leaps and then I walked home thinking how much I liked the sound of my shoes on the sidewalk.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The other night, I ran through the woods, through the bare trees of the winter. It felt good to stretch my legs, to reach with them to leap over brambles and dodge the rocks and run up hills with ease. I never knew such strength before. I felt the strength in my chest as my front legs reached forward and my back legs pushed off the ground. It felt so good to run, to feel the air on my sleek fur and on my face, to see the world fly past me.

I never was an animal before in a dream. I have dreamt about animals, but never that I was one myself. I liked my power as a deer. Or maybe I was a caribou or elk or reindeer because I felt the antlers on my head. Gazelle maybe?

It doesn't matter what I was other than a running, leaping animal with antlers. The answer doesn't have to be real to make sense, not when you live with your head in the clouds.

When he found me, or when I found him – the man with the yellow and red hat – we ran together. I was impressed and delighted that he with his two legs could keep up with me running through the woods. I adored his strength.

When I turned to look at his face, I saw in his eyes that he liked mine, my big brown eyes. If I were a woman I would have smiled at him, but I was a deer or caribou or elk or reindeer, and what I wanted was for him to nuzzle my face, my neck, my back.

But he lunged for my neck instead and at first I didn’t understand. I’m so much stronger and faster than he is, I thought, why would he attempt such a thing? I ran away and he ran after me. When he caught me, he grabbed my antlers and twisted my head as if he were turning a steering wheel. My neck followed the twist of my head and then my body followed until I was on the ground. He didn’t need his strength to bring me down but instead used my own strength against me.

Why are you twisting me? Why are you stopping me? Why are you dragging me to where I can’t run? I am a deer or a caribou or a reindeer. I’m not sure what I am, but I am not you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The other day someone said to me, "You live in a fantasy world. You live with your head in the clouds."

His words were a sharp knife that diced me keenly, cleanly, meanly. I didn’t say anything and I stood still as his words twisted inside me until I disappeared like a dream does in the morning.

photo: This was Lenape Land

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:40:00 +0000

The French bistro wasn’t Alice’s first choice today. She wanted to go to Dunkin Donuts but there was a line of people out the door.

“Who would stand in line for Dunkin Donuts coffee?” she said at the door of the shop. But once she thought about it, she figured every place in the neighborhood would be crowded in the late morning of the last Saturday before Christmas.

“Oh well. The colors inside that place are so garish anyway,” she told herself. “It’s a most unpleasant place to be, even if the coffee is good.”

Down the street from Dunkin Donuts was the fancy French bistro and she went there to get a coffee to fuel her for the afternoon event. A friend of a friend of someone she sort of knew invited her to a private viewing of a new foreign film. After the film there would be a chance to talk to the director. For an afternoon of mingling, Alice needed caffeine to perk up her personality.

The bistro was crowded and loud. Alice stomped the snow from her feet and put her coat over the back of an empty chair by the windows. It snowed the night before and the puddles at the street corners were deep. Alice wore her lined rubber boots, favorite old Levis, black tank top that she pretended was a cute camisole, red suede jacket, and a hot-pink scarf that clashed with the red jacket.

“I’ll have medium coffee, milk no sugar,” Alice said at the take-out counter.

“I’m sorry, what do you want?” said the man working the counter. He had an accent, but it wasn’t a French one, Alice noticed. It was a Spanish accent, but not Spanish from Spain, she didn’t think. She looked at him and his hair and guessed he was from Uruguay.

“People from Uruguay have really nice hair, have you ever noticed that?” Alice says sometimes when the topic of hair comes up in conversation. “There is something about the water or the air or the genetics in Uruguay. As a population, they have really nice hair.”

“I want a coffee, just a coffee with milk,” Alice said to the man behind the counter. "Cafe con leche. Solamente leche. And coffee, of course, not just milk. And no sugar."

“How many sugars?” said the clerk.

“No sugar. And, can you add a shot of espresso in the coffee, like they do at Dunkin Donuts? You know what I mean? A turbo shot?”

“What?”

“It’s really loud in here,” said Alice.

“Yes, it’s loud. It’s very crowded. We are very busy today.”

“It’s the music. Rolling Stones? In this place? I don’t think that’s good music to play in here. You can’t even hear my order - that's bad. It's stressing me out,” Alice said.

“They are a very popular group,” said the man.

“I know. I love the Stones. You know…Mick and Keith. And Ronnie. And Charlie. But the music doesn’t fit this place. And, you should play foreign music here.”

“The Stones are foreign. They are from England,” said the clerk.

“At the Godiva shop across the street they are playing a remix of Louis Armstrong songs. The atmosphere is good, really good, over there.” Alice pointed out the window to the store across the street.

“Louie Armstrong is American,” said the man.

“I think they really liked him in Paris. I’m pretty sure about that,” said Alice. “And New Orleans is French, really, or part French. He's from New Orleans you know. It all works together. Louis Armstrong would be perfect in this place today.”

“How many sugars do you want?” said the clerk.

The foreign film was long and sad. From the opening scene to the final credits, Alice cried turbo-charged sobs fueled by the over-sweetened French coffee.

At the reception Alice asked the director where he got the idea for the story. She always asked that question of any artist. “Where did the idea come from for this specific piece?” she asks, and “What music do you listen to when you work? You do listen to music while you work, right?”

The director dodged her first question but answered her second question with, “Pablo Cruise.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Pablo Cruise, huh?”

Later at the gathering an agent told Alice where the story for the movie came from. The original story and how it got to the director’s desk was more interesting than the film itself, Alice thought, and not so dreadfully sad. She took a few notes on the topic, sipped a little free wine, said thanks to her friends for inviting her, and headed home to write all about it.

Photo: Cafe con leche with dropped poinsetta leaf : oh baby it's cold outside.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 04:13:00 +0000

Christmas music on subway platform under Rockefeller Center

Trees for sale along Broadway

Winter sunset in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx

Friday's snow

Seasonal scenes from the past week

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:48:00 +0000

“You got my note!” the Boy Spirit shouted into the night when he saw the white light fly toward him.

“Yes,” the Girl Spirit answered, and when she got closer, she said, “I followed your words and that’s how I found you.”

They clasped each others’ hands as if they choreographed and rehearsed their first meeting, and they swung each other around and around above the sparkly snow in the moonlight.

“This is fun!” she said. She twirled out of the Boy Spirit’s reach and soared high overhead. He followed and chased her up and down, reached out to grab her but let her slip away so he could chase her again and hear her laugh.

“It’s cold out here,” she said when they slowed down.

“It’s winter, My Little One, have you forgotten?” The Boy Spirit unwrapped the red scarf from around his neck and held it out to her.

“What’s this?” she asked, backing away. “Someone made this for you?”

“Yes, someone made it for me. It’s soft and warm. Please, wear it.”

The Girl Spirit took the scarf from her new-found friend and held it by one thread while it drifted down, unraveling as it fell. The scarf turned into bits of red yarn in the white snow below.

When spring came, a male robin plucked the red pieces from the slushy snow and presented them to the lady bird he hoped would be his.

“Do you like what I brought you?” he said with the thread against his bright orange chest. The female bird lowered her head to say, “Yes.”

Together they wove the wool into a home, into a perfect circle, where they thought their springtime beginnings would never end. He belted out a happy thrush song from the treetop, and she laid beautiful blue eggs in the nest of discarded red wool.

The chicks grew up barely noticing their bright red surroundings, but looked instead out into the world and turned their heads to the brown ground where they listened for worms. Soon the male bird, and his lady love too, felt lukewarm toward their home and each flew away to where the southern sun warmed the desire in them to nest again above the muddy snows of the northern spring.

As the Girl Spirit watched the red yarn spill into the night, she said, “When you come to me, come only as yourself, be bare of everything else.” She flew a circle around him, and said, “And I will do the same for you.” She slipped off the golden bracelet around her wrist and dropped it.

On a warm sunny day many months later, when the dirt smelled like wetness and life, a young man found the tiny golden circle in the earth, strung it on a delicate chain, and gave it to the young lady he hoped would be his.

“Do you like what I brought you?” he asked.

She lowered her head to say “yes” and to allow him to place the necklace with the dangling ring around her. He liked how the ring looked against her soft skin, at rest between her breasts. “She’s mine,” he thought whenever he saw it.

But it grew heavy on her day after day until she could hardly breathe with it pressing against her lungs. Finally the young woman reached behind her neck to unclasp the lock and let the chain slip from her hands to her dresser top.

“We’re free!” said the Boy and Girl Spirits on the cold winter night, and they beckoned each other to fly higher and then lower, to dance this way and then that. But still the Girl Spirit was cold in the night air, and the Boy Spirit put his arm around her waist and twirled with her down, around and around and around, until together they drilled a tiny hole in the snow with room for just the two of them and their whispers.

“How wonderful,” she said, and when he kissed her just then, a flame ignited on the snowy floor between them.

“We made that fire,” he said.

“Come, let’s dance in it,” she said, and she glided into the warm waves of air above the flames where he joined her. They swirled and floated in the smoky stream of heat and he felt her curves fit against his until neither knew where one of them began nor where the other one ended.

When they rested in the snow, he poured warm words into her ears to fill the empty places he knew were inside her, and she pressed her warm body against him where she knew he was cold.

The dawn told them when it was time to go. The Girl Spirit sat on a sunbeam that pulled her to the east, and the Boy Spirit surfed on sunlight that pushed him to the west.

“Let’s do it again!” she cried.

“I’ll write to you soon!” he yelled.

But sounds are too heavy and slow to be carried on lightwaves. What they spoke to each other that night settled in the little snowy place they made, and the words remain all that there is between them.

photo: The Fire Inside Me

I blogged tonight to the music from the middle-east. I don't know the name of the artists, too bad, but it was nice music, very nice. I drank a cup of coffee, too, and tapped a message on the cell phone when I needed a change of scenery in my mind.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:34:00 +0000

I've been searching for the right words and I can't find them. I don't think the words exist in our language for my feeling, and now I wonder and worry that without the right words, the feeling doesn't exist.

Someone told me this weekend that there are something like 50 Gaelic words for love - love for your brother, love for a friend who is like a brother, love for your student, love for your teacher, love for your child, parent, lover, spouse. I need one of those words in English.

If we don't have the words in our language, does that mean we don't have the these kinds of love in our lives? The idea - the feeling - must be there first and then the word will follow. But we don't have the word.

It works the other way around, too, I know. You can learn a new idea when you learn a new word. But I still don't have the right word.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I was lucky to have him bend his silver-haired head over my writing, to advise, revise, with wise words of his own. I gave him my words over the internet, over the phone line, over coffee and red wine. He gave his words to me to read, ordered gin on rocks, said the story King Lear was the best of all stories, wouldn't read my writing past the first line if it wasn't any good, told me "you do too have a voice," laughed at my jokes, and gave me hope. These are the things I know about him and have the words to describe.

And I know what I lost when he got so injured it's likely we will never exchange words again. I keep that thought to myself and I hold the feeling tight before some other words - like acceptance and life moves on - take over and shove the lost-love feeling away. I want the right word of what I lost so I can keep what I had.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

People say that you must have conflict in a story to make the story good. Without conflict, the story doesn't exist. But I say desire must be there first and conflict will follow.

And if I were to edit this post, I would delete everything and keep only desire must be there first. And then I'd change it to desire must be. And finally I'd cut it everything down to Desire with a captial D.

Photo: Bathers Redux I. Photo taken by my friend of a sculpture by Johnson after a painting by Manet.

Drawing: Because You Desired It: A Chestnut (detail).

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:44:00 +0000

I received a special-delivery package last night and that's always fun.

It’s unusual to get a package in the evening and I wasn't expecting it, but I recognized the UPS man, my UPS man, while I sat in the comfy chair at the bookstore. He walked straight toward me. It's hard to miss the big man with black and gray dreads hanging down his back, a smile spread across his face, a box with my name on it in his arms, and, of course, the brown UPS uniform.

I wore my royal-blue velvet skirt last night with a maroon t-shirt. Royal blue isn’t my favorite color to wear, but in velvet that is so soft that people want to touch it and cut so it swings and clings in all the right ways, I have to wear the blue skirt this time of year. I had on my black tights and boots, and now that I think about it, maybe that’s how the UPS man recognized me. The boots are my uniform in the winter. Otherwise, I don’t know how he found me in the bookstore miles away from my apartment and his route.

“Wow,” I said. “You’re still working?” It was well past his quitting time; the business day was over and it was dark outside, very dark.

“Busy time of year,” he said. “I have a package for you.”

“How did you find me?”

“You’re my customer. I know you,” he said.

It’s true. He does know me after being my UPS man for about ten years now. Sometimes I see him in the truck as I walk on my block and he shouts, “You haven’t been getting any packages lately!” and I shout back, “I’m flat broke, man, I'm not ordering anything!” and he says, “I hear ya, I hear ya,” and then he moves on to the next building on his list and I keep walking. I wave to the driver of the street-sweeping machine, to the guy with the pit bull on the corner selling something I’m not buying if you know what I mean, to the old ladies sitting on the bench with their Yorkshire terriers and poodles, to the guitar player in the park, to the handsome man behind the counter at the wine shop. I live in the grown-up version of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

“You gotta sign for this,” the UPS man said. I signed and then traded the clipboard for the package.

“What’s that?” said the man in the comfy chair next to me as he picked up the book that slipped from his lap. The UPS guy and I must have woken him up. The man is always sleeping in that chair or in some other chair in the bookstore, and he changes appearances just like he changes chairs. Last night he was a man from Africa with a book about business trends on his lap. The other week he was a tall, skinny, old white guy with a sci-fi book, and another time he was a college student without any book at all as a prop for his nap.

“I don’t know what it is,” I said to the man as I pulled off the tape and opened the box.

I peeked inside I said, “Oh! It’s the second most wonderful thing in the world!”

I lifted out a ball, dark and cold on one side and warm and white on the other. I felt the dust covering the ball, and my velvet skirt was soon covered with gray specks.

“Look,” I said to the sleepy man next to me. “It isn’t made of cheese at all.”

A note attached to the ball, tied with an unraveled piece of rope – probably from the lasso used to capture the ball – said, “Please Return.”

I untied the note and slipped it into my pocketbook to keep. I held the ball in my hands and hugged it to my belly where it had already bonded a millennium or more, many more, before. The light from the white side of the ball glowed warm on my face.

I scribbled a note that said, “Thank You” and attached it to the ball with the rope. I carried my gift down the steps of the bookstore and outside into the cool winter air. I walked along the sidewalk until I reached the end of the street, and then I walked through the park to the river, the light in my hands making the path bright.

At the water’s edge, I tossed the moon over the river and watched it go up and up, dipping once to say good-bye, until it settled in its spot in the sky looking fuzzy behind the clouds, clouds from the west where my weather comes from.

This is the story of what happened to me last night, and everything about the encounter was perfect except to say that I sent the gift to myself.

photo: Moon over Manhattan with Subway Orbs

I blogged to the music of Lucinda Williams, turned down very low because I can't write while listening to lyrics, but I'll turn it up now with apologies to the neighbors.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:17:00 +0000

I need to clean up this mess, this bloody mess I made. It’s time to pull myself back together.

My heart has been sitting here next to me, outside of me, out of place, for too long. It’s getting dusty and dirty and cold here on the desk, and I see it’s losing its color and shape.

Yes, it is time to pick up the pieces of my life I threw down in front of me when I didn’t want to face the fact my friend had a tragedy, that my friend was in pain. I didn’t want to know in my heart that life –many lives - can change in less time than it takes to grab a door frame and fall. I've been down this path before, of sadness and shock, and I didn't want to go there again, not now. Please, not now.

In weakness, weak, weak, weakness, I reached inside and pulled out my heart. I stopped the pain, the pang of change. I threw my heart on the table and stepped back to watch it beat outside me rather than feel it break inside.

As my heart beat, alone by the phone that brought the bad news, I hunched over my body empty inside, and my tears dropped salt in the open wound.

But a heart continues to break whether you hold it inside or heave it out into the world. The heart has a chance to mend and grow stronger only when it's in the right place. So, tonight I gather the scattered pieces of my life and I see how they, even in pain, become me.

Drawing: Hanging Bud, First Time (detail)
I blogged tonight to the music of Curlew.

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:00:00 +0000

“Look at that,” my dad said, and I looked.

I was outside by the campfire on a chilly night, mesmerized by the flames of the fire in the dark. When I looked up where my dad pointed, I saw white flames streaking, reaching across the black sky. The lights were living, throbbing, pulsing back and forth and in and out, ebbing and flowing high and low.

From where I sat, the flames on the ground seem to touch, dance, join the flames in the sky. I was in between them, and the fire from the sun and the fire from the earth went through me. I felt heat in my arteries, in my veins, in my nerves, in all my senses.

That night was the first time I had seen the northern lights. When I sat there on the solid ground under the liquid flames in the sky, my child's eyes saw for the first time the world larger than myself. I was tiny, I knew in an instant, I was nothing in this world of flickers and flames.

I also knew then, in my blood pumping in my body, that in a world where magic moved across the sky, everything is possible.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Years later I read a description about how the northern lights appear. I don’t remember much about the scientific explanation, but I remember the magic from that night as if I were still there. Time hasn’t passed at all.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In my memory today, I wander back to that night and travel to the top of the world in the winter where magic is visible in black and white. Under the dark sky lit by stars and northern lights in my mind, I stand between the snow on the earth and the ice on the sea, and I feel the fire in me begin to melt the world around me.

In my imagination, more real than real, I put my hand on the ice above the ocean and heat a hole for me to slip into, down into, deep into, the dark and silent world below. The waters of the sea are living, throbbing, pulsing back and forth and in and out, ebbing and flowing high and low. I feel it in my arteries, in my veins, in my nerves, in all my senses.

The tide is out, and the ice is a ceiling over me on the dry strand. Light flows through the hole and comforts me as I wander under the sea of ice, the ice of the sea. I hear the surge of the water in the distance, muffled, moving away and then traveling toward me again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have ideas and no way to speak of them? To feel but be unable to move?

I never thought these thoughts until the day not long ago a friend of mine stood on his feet and fell, the blood in his body unable to keep throbbing, pulsing back and forth, in and out, ebbing and flowing high and low. The scientific explanation says that a clot in his brain stopped him from moving, from speaking. But there is something that keeps him thinking and breathing and feeling and living and loving and striving and desiring to be in the world, this magical world where everything is possible.

photo: Brooklyn Bridge from D Train at Night

noreply@blogger.com (Tab Calhoun) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:51:00 +0000

On the subway the other night, I saw a man carrying an orchid plant. “That’s a pretty plant,” I said to him and he agreed.

“Where I come from, orchids grow wild. We have many, many beautiful flowers,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Where are you from?”

“Santo Domingo. You should go there since you like orchids so much.”

“I don’t really like them all that much,” I told him as I pulled a book out of my shoulder bag. “I mean, they’re pretty and everything, but it’s just that I’m reading this book about orchids and I have them on my mind.”

I showed the book to him – it’s called The Orchid Thief. I bought it at a used book store in the Village a couple of weeks ago. I also bought another book about plants and a couple of books about writing that I haven’t opened yet but I will one of these days.

After I showed him my book and he told me more about orchids and the Caribbean, it was my stop. I got off the train and went to a short-story reading on the Upper West Side. The stories were good, and hearing them made me want to blog. Again.

I’ve spent the last few days thinking about this new blog and thinking about writing and reading and readers. I’ve been thinking about audience quite a bit and how sometimes it’s easier to think of who someone in the audience might be and then write for that person. Keeping one person entertained for a little while seems easy, right? We’ll see.

photo: Empty Subway Car