Beth Kephart's Blog, page 325

Scenes from The Pond at Bryant Park, New York City

I travel to New York City just enough each year for the city to be directionally familiar and situationally unexpected. So that I was not expecting, on our wind-whipped day, to find Christmas shops in Bryant Square behind the public library, nor an imported rink with a snow-top finish where these skater congregated. I'd have put on a pair of skates had I been alone, for it was early in the New York day and there was room for one more glider. But I took photographs instead—spectating in thi...

West Side Story

Oh my goodness, was it cold in New York City—the confetti Eve aftermath kicked up with the Times Square Wind wind, mixed in with the slightest suggestion of new snow (that could not fall, could only whip, for the wind came in that hard).

But none of that mattered. "West Side Story" means something to me, and so it meant a whole lot to me to be able to see this musical today, a matinee, third row orchestra seats, thanks to my brother. It's a riveting story. The dance is alive. The songs can ...

Returning to Seville

(on the page)

For many years I've been at work on a novel that takes place in Seville. Last April, finding myself one draft away from sharing the book with editors, I put it aside, again, to focus on other things.

But it's now the new year, and the book beckons—perhaps a dozen small scenes to work in. Printing it out, settling in, is like returning to an old and trusted friend.

Here, below, are the opening lines. But before I get too nested in Seville, I'm headed to the Big Apple today to see...

My Mother's Brownies

My father gave me my mother's recipe book when she passed away. It wasn't her only recipe book—not by a long shot—but it was the three-ring vinyl notebook she'd assembled: cut-outs from magazines, handwritten instructions to self, note cards with which she helped my brother memorize multiplication tables in between the stirring and testing and waiting. Water has since washed away much of the ink, as have oil splots and tracks of dark chocolate, and so it's only by experimenting that I can ...

And now a few words on Robert Frank, The Single Image, and Looking In

Throughout my twenties and into my thirties I read biography, history, autobiography, and (late in the game) memoir. I read nonfiction, in other words—not poetry, not short stories, not novels—a habit gained throughout my years at Penn, where I had sidestepped writing and English courses in favor of my major, the history and sociology of science.

As many memoirs, novels, and poetry collections as I now read, I still love a solid history book, a critical study, a biography. There's all this a...

Opening? Closing?: New Year's Eve Reflections

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions; I've never been. I chase each day with the desire to get it right. I mourn each night over failures. It's about all I can handle.

I do, however, have this aspiration: To see in every door that seems to close a door that in fact opens. Many, many times this past year I allowed myself to dwell on endings, when in fact a new beginning was stirring elsewhere. An unforeseen virtual party for a book I feared no one would notice, for example. A new p...

Dance Lesson: A Poem

And I felt then the easing away of the dance,
the not knowing a lien against,
you giving in to my giving up,
and the battle for the samba lost.

We will dance the fox trot like old people, then,
you said,
your feet suddenly sunk into a clobber pose
and your lips pulled in over your teeth.
Remorse was the mood:
yours, mine,
the victims we make of ourselves.

The Music Room by William Fiennes: Some Thoughts

Almost 7 PM, and the skies, awaiting a near-full moon, are dark. Within this pervading stillness, I read the final pages of William Fiennes's memoir, The Music Room.

Do you know this story? Have you heard about the castle in which Fiennes grew up, and how it shaped him? Have you heard about his brother, Richard, who suffered from severe epilepsy, lived for Leeds United soccer games, exalted the wing work of herons, and erupted, often, into the smithereening hands of fury before he retreated...

Why I Buy Books (and always will)

Every now and then (as you know), I step back from the somewhat obscure titles with which I surround myself and read what the world is reading. This past month I read (and you know this as well) Lit, The Help, Nothing to be Frightened of, Half Broke Horses, The Piano Teacher, and The Music Room (in addition to a series of visual art books). I loved Lit (Mary Karr), and Nothing to be Frightened of (Julian Barnes). I have great respect for the suffused hush and intelligence of The Music...

Appreciations

When I write of the chimes that float down toward my mother's grave, I am writing of the music that emanates from this church, Washington's Cathedral at Valley Forge National Park. On Christmas Eve, after spending time by her grave, my son and I entered the stone church and sat. We were the only ones there, the sun enriching the stained glass.

I close this year with that quality of reverence that a place like this cathedral stirs within me. I have been moved beyond measure by the goodness o...