Theodora Goss's Blog, page 36

Taking Stock

I thought I would post a few more pictures of Bok Tower Gardens in Florida, but mostly in this blog post I want to take stock. I actually took stock once. When I was a teenager, I worked for one summer at the jewelry counter of a discount store. I pierced people’s ears and replaced watch batteries. It was my only experience working in retail. After that summer, I worked in summer camps. So in a way, I was always preparing to be a teacher. That summer, one weekend, we took inventory, which is the same as taking stock: you catalog what you have on hand, in stock.

This is more metaphysical, of course.

I haven’t been posting, and I think that’s because of my impulse, now that the semester is over, to retreat into myself. I’ve been through one of the most difficult years of my life. (Since I teach, I always think of years in terms of academic years, September to September.) It was the year in which I finished my PhD, the year in which various personal crises happened. At the end of it, I’m tired both physically and in a deeply existential way. What I want, more than anything else, is to get on a bus or into a plane and go, which may be why I’m traveling so much this summer.

I should say that in the midst of all this, some wonderful things happened to me as well: I finished my PhD! I actually made it through the year . . . And I do believe, firmly, that what does not kill you makes you stronger. In many ways, I’m a stronger person than I was two years ago, when I began to work on finishing the PhD in a focused way. I’m a stronger person for having made it through the personal crises as well. But they’ve taken their toll.

What do I have in inventory? I have a PhD in English literature, years of experience teaching undergraduates, and a writing career that has started slowly because I’ve had to put so many projects on hold, but that I now have the time to focus on. I have determination, a knowledge of craft, and some wisdom (I think). Something to actually say.

So I think the stock is pretty good, actually. I have plenty in inventory. What matters now is what I do with it.

The plan is to recover, to find myself again after this incredibly difficult year. That’s something I haven’t done yet, but I think I’m on the way there. I’ve started working on the novel, and writing always helps. When you’re a writer, the cure for whatever ails you is always writing. (Someone quote me on Goodreads. That’s the secret, in good times and bad: keep writing.) To figure out, or remember, who I am as a teacher, a writer, even simply as a person. To act out of that knowledge, rather than out of stress or anxiety.

I’m going to try to get back to posting more often. That’s good for me too. But in the meantime, here you go: more pictures.

I love secret gardens, and the old estate near the tower has a number of them. Look at these magical doorways.

There was one wooden building were you could go and watch the wildlife through the window. The diversity was amazing. (Yes, that’s the back of my head.)

And finally, here is the tower again. Gorgeous, isn’t it?

Photos by Jesse Walker

Where I’ve Been

I know, I know. It’s been a while since I’ve written.

That’s because I’ve been in Florida. Last Monday I took the bus back to Boston from New York, and last Tuesday I took a plane down from Boston to Orlando, where I’m working on some projects with Walker1812 Photography. But I have gotten a chance to see a bit of Orlando. On Sunday I visited the Bok Tower Gardens.

The gardens were created back in the 1920s by Edward Bok, a writer and editor. (Evidently, writers and editors could do quite well in those days. I don’t know any writers or editors nowadays who are likely to found public gardens.) He asked Frederick Law Olmstead Jr. to design the park, and built a tower in the middle of it with a carillon. The bells ring every hour, and while we were there we heard a carillon concert.  (That included Erik Satie. It was quite an experience, hearing Gnossienne 1 on a carillon.)

So in the space of two weeks I saw two Olmstead gardens: Central Park by the father, Bok Tower by the son.

Luckily, I was seeing the gardens with a photographer, so I can show you some pictures.

This is what the gardens look like.  They are beautiful: old, very much Florida, with hanging moss in the trees. And ponds with giant Koi in them which we fed.  In the middle of the gardens is the tower itself, which I would have loved to see from the inside.  (But only special visitors get to do that.)  It is thoroughly Aesthetic in design.  Here you can see it in the reflecting pool (the one with the Koi).

Above you can see its golden door, and the grave of Edward Bok just in front of that door.  In the gardens I found a Japanese lantern that had been given to Bok by a man who had worked for him, and saved seven years to buy it.

On the grounds is an old estate, the Pinewood Estate, which was owned by a wealthy industrialist and is now a museum.  It has its own gardens, which included a secret grotto with a fountain and small pool.

Celeste Walker and I looked for ways into magical countries, but did not find any. Perhaps next time.

Going to places like Bok Tower Gardens always makes me think about stories I could write. Not about Bok Tower specifically, but about an old estate next to a large garden with a tower like that. It would be fun, wouldn’t it? I can already imagine the curious girl who might move into that estate with her grandmother, and what she might find there . . .

Photos by Jesse Walker

A New York Day

Yesterday was a perfect New York day. In the morning, I took the 3 train down to 51st street, where I met my father and his wife, who are not only family but two of my favorite people. We had brunch at Rockefeller Center: yes, right in front of that big gold statue. And then we walked up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we saw a new permanent exhibit called Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.

It was gorgeous. If you’re in New York, you should absolutely go see it: for a writer, in particular, it’s a treasure-trove of history, ideas, images. What I remember best are the carpets, plush and richly colored, with dark reds and indigoes; the ceremonial daggers, deadly and intricately carved; the astrolabe that was a thing of beauty; the delicate nephrite bowls. And the sense of history, of armies sweeping across the land, taking important cities like Baghdad, founding new dynasties and artistic movements. Of how the ancient world was stitched together by trade routs.

After the lovely dream of that exhibit, we wandered through late nineteenth-century European Art, through rooms of Cezannes and Monets and Van Goghs. Which were as rich, although in a completely different way, and I thought of the different ways the human spirit had expressed itself, and how important they all were. And how I wanted to contribute to that history.

Then we met up with my sister Johanna, another one of my favorite people, and went to the Café Sabarsky, which is located in the Neue Galerie. I had a slice of marzipan chocolate cake and quite a lot of orange tea.

And then we walked across Central Park, back to the West Side. All the azaleas were in bloom, and people were wandering everywhere, sitting by the pond where children were playing with sailboats, standing on bridges across the lake. Walking their dogs, confirming what I have often thought about New York: that no matter how the people look, the dogs are always impeccably groomed. I thought of Frederick Law Olmstead and the art he had created, the series of scenes we could see as we walked along the twisting paths.

And then it was time to say goodbye, which was sad, but I’ll be seeing them again soon. I took the subway back uptown, and on the way I stopped at a wonderful Middle Eastern restaurant I had discovered the night before. I bought a thick stew with tomatoes, other vegetables, and goat cheeses in it, with pita, and a dessert I can’t quite describe that had yogurt and almonds and honey. Two deserts in one day: a bit much, I know. But I’d walked all over the city, and anyway it was delicious.

There is no particular point to this post, except that it was a wonderful day, and that I hope to have many such wonderful days this summer. When I got back to the apartment, I booked my flight from Debrecen to London and back, so my summer itinerary is now complete. I think I’ll be having many more days like that, days of exploring and learning and seeing beautiful things, in the near future.

Ordinary Things

Several days ago, I was on the telephone with a friend of mine. We were talking about his daughter, who had caught some sort of cold. She had been coughing for several days. He needed to get cough medicine. We discussed cough medicine. At some point I said something like, this is a scintillating topic, isn’t it?

But later in that conversation I said, you know why we talk about such ordinary things, sometimes? Because our lives aren’t ordinary.

I am writing this sitting on a bus to New York City. I think I’m somewhere in Connecticut? I was up late last night packing, because I’d had a lot to do yesterday: it was, for me, the last day of the semester. This morning I got on a bus at 9:00, slept for a while on the bus, and then started working. Thank goodness for Wifi.

I’m going to New York this weekend to see my father and his wife, who are in New York because he was presenting research at a conference in North Carolina and decided to visit New York as well to see two of his daughters – my sister Johanna and me. The last time I saw him was for Johanna’s graduation from a design program at Columbia, and he was headed to Cairo the next day for another conference. This summer I will be visiting them in Debrecen, partly so I can drop off their granddaughter before I go to London. I’m going to London to see friends, but mostly to research the Mad Scientist’s Daughter novel.

I feel as though I’m living an extraordinary life. I know, some people are race car drivers. Some climb Mount Everest. Some cure rare diseases. But I get to travel, to create art. To meet and interact with some extraordinary people. And I feel incredibly privileged to be doing these things. But it can also be a tiring life, and so I find that I hold on to ordinary things. My favorite things are quite ordinary.

A hot bath, for example.

Or a bed with comfortable pillows.

Or a castle.

Just kidding about the castle. (But if anyone wants to give me a castle, I’ll take it, of course. I’ll just make sure that it has a good bathtub and hot, hot water. And a bed piled high with pillows.)

I’ll be in New York in about an hour. Once there, I’ll find myself a good cup of coffee, which is another one of those ordinary things. I love living an extraordinary life, but there’s a comfort in the ordinary that nothing else can give. In Christmas trees, and a cat curled in an armchair, and your favorite book. Even in cough medicine. (After all, where would we be without cough medicine?)

And my friend? About an hour ago, he sent me a text: “This is the largest funeral I have ever been to. Over 500 people. Standing room only and all in Haitian French.”

So I think he gets it.

Beautiful Women

“The definition of beauty is easy; it’s what leads you to desperation.” Paul Valery

I think we need two words for beauty, as the Greeks have two words for love: eros and agape. Eros is romantic love; agape is spiritual love. I want to divide beauty into two categories as well, because it seems to me as though there are two kinds. In On the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke describes beauty as what pleases and attracts us, as something small, gentle, comfortable. Of course, he defines women as beautiful, as opposed to the more sublime men (and the Alps, men are like the Alps). Or so I remember, from taking a class on aesthetic theory years ago. And it seems to me that we still talk about beauty that way: scientists have shown that we are more attracted to symmetrical faces, for example. To faces that tend toward an average.

But surely that’s only one sense of the beautiful? Nothing about that average, symmetrical face would lead us to desperation. The small, gentle, and comfortable does not launch a thousand ships or burn the topless towers of Ilium. So there has to be something else. I think there is, I think there’s something more to beauty, something that is dangerous, like a dark river winding through a forest. The women I think are beautiful have something about them that is dark in that way, as though there were something underneath the surface. I’ve chosen three women that I think are beautiful in the second sense I mean. They may not be the women you think are beautiful, but that may be because when you think of beauty, you are being a Burkean.

The first of them is Tilda Swinton, here in Orlando.

The second of them is Cate Blanchett, here in Elizabeth.

The third of them is Helena Bonham Carter, here in one of the Harry Potter movies.

I’ve chosen photographs of them that are relatively feminine, with long hair. They look gentler in these photographs than they do on the red carpet, for example, and they can each also look uncanny or grotesque, or masculine, depending on the movie and makeup. They have versatile faces. But even when make up as relatively conventionally beautiful women, there is something unusual in their faces, a particular angularity, a strange proportion. (Poe said something about that, about true beauty having a strangeness in the proportion, in “Ligeia.”)

I suppose for me, that is the sort of beauty Valery was talking about. It has a sort of despair at its heart. It speaks of death. And yet at the same time, it transcends both, because you know that having once existed, it will never cease to exist. Didn’t some poet say that?

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

That’s Keats, of course. A funny thing happened as I was copying that stanza, which is only the first of the poem. A pop-up ad appeared for a movie starring Kate Winslet. Who is another one of those beautiful women, here in Titanic.

I just remembered why I was thinking about this today. On the newsstand, I saw the edition of People Magazine that lists the most beautiful people in the world. And I thought, but I don’t agree. Those are not who I would pick as the most beautiful people. They are attractive, yes, but they lack that darkness, that danger. The thing that leads you to desperation. The thing Poe and Valery were talking about.

May Day

Today is May Day, and I should be dancing in flowers. As we should all.

But it’s also the end of the semester, so all I’m dancing in is papers. And today was wet with one of those chill, soaking rains that we get in spring, in Boston. There was no dancing.

What does one do on a May Day like that? What I’m going to do is give you some things that seem, to me, very May. First, a girl standing among blossoms, dressed the way I wish I could have been dressed today (in a romantic summer dress, rather than a jacket and scarf).

Second, almond blossoms by Vincent Van Gogh, who understood trees in a way I don’t think anyone else has or will.

Third, clocks, because summer is coming when there will be more time, but at the same time, it is passing – time is passing as it always does, and the question we have to ask ourselves is, are we spending it well? (I hope to spend it well.)

And finally, one of my favorite poems by A.E. Housman, who understood both spring and time. He is one of the greats, like Van Gogh.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

That’s all I have for you tonight, because I have to go back to dancing among papers. But those pictures, that poem, symbolize the life I want to create: beautiful, magical. I can’t wait for summer.

Creative Disappointment

I was so disappointed last weekend: I was sick, sick, sick, and couldn’t go to New York to meet with my writing group, the Injustice League. We were workshopping a new novel by Delia Sherman that I can tell you is going to be absolutely wonderful. So on Friday night, instead of sitting on a bus to New York, I was in bed, coughing and aching.

But I couldn’t sleep.

So what did I do? I did what I always do when I’m sick or tired or even simply bored. I created something. In this case, I created a tumblr account. A student of mine had asked me if I had a tumblr account, and I had said no, and she said I should create one – which wasn’t why I created one, but the suggestion stuck in my head. So that’s what I did on Friday night.

Would you like to see it? Here it is: Living a Magical Life. It already has twenty-four followers, which I think is pretty good for two days! I thought of it as a place to put all the beautiful things I want to gather together, to not lose. The pictures, poems, quotations. In case you’re interested, I’ll show you a few of the sorts of things I mean. Here you go, beautiful things:

“Every day we have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.” Paolo Coelho

In the end, I wasn’t as disappointed as I could have been, because I was able to skype into the workshop. There is nothing quite like talking about a novel that is in the process of being written, when it’s not quite firm yet – sort of like dough that has not yet taken its final form or been put into the oven. It made me want to work on my own novel. I’m going back to it as soon as the semester is over, although it looks as though I’ll have trips to New York and Florida as soon as the teaching is done. But I can write on buses and planes. I look forward to getting back to it . . .

Because even when I’m sick, sick, sick, I create beautiful things. It’s just what I do.

The Magical House

I have absolutely no energy to write a blog post tonight, so instead I’m going to play a game of Let’s Pretend.

Let’s Pretend that we live in a magical house. The house looks something like this:

Why are we living in this magical house?

1. Our wealthy but mysterious uncle left it to us.

2. It was rented to us very cheaply because there’s supposed to be a ghost.

3. We were hired as caretakers by a lawyer with a strange, lopsided walk named Mr. Pan.

When we walked into the front hall, we were awed, but to be honest, it gets creepy at night. Making our way down those long corridors in the darkness. We are trying to get to the kitchen, because we want to make ourselves a cup of tea, and we’re pretty sure there are some cookies left.

On the other hand, we are enchanted with our bedroom, which has a feather bed and  stars on the ceiling. If only we didn’t keep having that strange dream.

You know the one I mean. With the bed that is also a boat. Do you think it means something? Dreams usually mean something. Does this one mean that we are stranded? Or that we are about to set out on a journey? We’re just not sure.

I think there’s only one thing to be done. First, we’re going to have some breakfast. (Hot buttered toast with orange marmalade, the tea that we never made last night because we were too nervous at the thought of walking along those dark corridors.)

And then we’re going to go out into the garden. It’s early summer, and still cool although the sun is starting to warm the stones. Our ankles are wet with dew.

But we know that if we’re going to find an answer, it’s going to be in the woods. Haven’t the woods been there even longer than the house? And haven’t they been calling to us the entire time?

What will we find in the woods?

1. The answers we’re looking for.

2. Creatures we never imagined.

3. An adventure.

Or maybe all of the above. (You know it’s all of the above, right?)

If you’re wondering, these images are from one of my favorite blogs, The Hanging Garden. I don’t know if all writers are as visual as I am, but pictures always suggest stories to me – or perhaps what I mean is that I seek out pictures that suggest stories, and those become my favorites. So here is a little story for you, on a cold and soggy Thursday. Start in the magical house, and write the rest. And I may try to as well, although not until the semester is over . . .

Wild Geese

I’m very, very busy, so tonight I will give you a poem by Mary Oliver. Here it is:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

I’ve always liked this poem. I suppose because it’s about how to live in the world, which is a very Taoist way: you do not have to repent, you do not have to despair, you do not have to curse or beg from the Fates. You just have to live. You can talk about your despair, but meanwhile the world goes on: the trees grow new leaves in spring, the roses bloom again, the wild geese fly north. Life continues, and if you stop, if you listen, you can hear it. You can participate in it.

Of course I’m writing this on very little sleep, in the middle of the end of the semester when I’m so completely swamped with work that I can barely breathe. I’m not living a particularly Taoist life at the moment! And this weekend I’m supposed to be in New York for a meeting of my writing group (The Injustice League: Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Catherynne Valente, Lev Grossman, Kathleen Howard, and Claire Cooney). And I’m trying to plan for the trip this summer (Budapest and London). So perhaps I’m reading this poem and responding to it because it’s exactly not what I’m doing right now. I’m not listening. I haven’t stopped. (Wild geese? What wild geese?)

But to be honest, I’m excited. I’ll be traveling most of the summer, researching and working on the novel, and there’s so much happening, so many changes to come. I just have to remind myself to, when I can, stop and listen.  Even if the wild geese I listen to are winging their way over Hungary.

Into the Green

I have a new computer, which I’ve been getting used to. One way I get used to things like new computers is to decorate them, which in this case means that I’ve chosen a lovely desktop image. Here it is:

It’s inspired my blog post for today, which is yet another round of imaginary Etsy shopping. At this point in the semester, all I’m doing is continually meeting with students and grading papers, so to be honest, I have nothing left in my head to write about. There’s simply nothing there, no ideas, no source of inspiration. Imaginary shopping is the best I can do. So here we go. I call this round of shopping “Into the Green,” and it’s inspired by the image above and the fact that it’s spring, although at the moment a cold and soggy one.

The first item I’m going to imaginary buy is this green vase by Suzanne’s Pottery Farm. Isn’t it beautiful? I’ll put it on a dresser or low table.

Then, I think perhaps this print called “Looking Forward” by Shirae. I like how the little girl is looking into the distance, into what I think is probably the sunset. I like how she’s holding her doll, exactly the way little girls do hold their dolls, and how the mushrooms match her dress.

I’ve fallen in love with this – is it a scarf or a necklace? – from The Faerie Market. I just love the pretty pinkish-reddish flower. I honestly don’t know what I would do with something like this, but it’s romantic and imaginative. Perhaps I would have one of my characters wear it. It’s the sort of thing Thea would wear, for instance.

 

Rowan DeVoe Arts gives us this photographic print called “Ophelia Siren Child.” This is the sort of image I might have over my desk, actually. It’s dreamy and inspiring. I don’t think of her as dead but as a sort of dreaming siren who is also Ophelia, in a watery womb, waiting to be reborn.

And finally, this is for us to wear if we want to be as romantic as all of these items, the vase and scarf and prints: a green gypsy skirt from Fashion Dress 6. I wouldn’t wear it like this, not with a tank top and flip-flops, which makes it look too ordinary, but with a filmy white blouse and ballet flats. It’s a skirt that deserves better, and needs to be twirled around in.

The next two weeks are going to be crazy, as I’ve written. I’m going to try to keep updating here, but my posts will be like this one. They’ll be about dreams rather than reality, because that’s how I’m sustaining myself right now.