January in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh is a generally polite town, select Steelers fanatics aside, perhaps.

People often give way on the sidewalk. Men and women frequently open doors to buildings for other pedestrians and are often polite about giving way to others when climbing aboard public transportation.

Pedestrians tend to be helpful about giving out-of-towners help navigating our labyrinthine grid of streets and alleys. (Not that the out-of-towners always understand our tendency to give directions by landmarks that only locals know.)

In lines, mostly, there are not cuts.

You really can go out on the streets and expect to be acknowledged.

I like that and I like that, in public greetings, so many of us seem to have the same perspective (in that I'm sure we are not unique).

Two nodding acquaintances paused to chat today while I was out on an errand. It was a gloomy, gray, slushy afternoon. Our common wish in our short conversations was for sunshine and warmth. We laughed, acknowledging the heaviness of January weather, shrugged and went on our ways.

Of course these days weather is big broadcast and cable bucks. What the hell? It's winter. It's cold. Can we move on?

The better acknowledgment would be that it is part of the warp and weft of our lives and if we can share and help each other through it, that's a good thing.

Meantime, dreaming of warmer days, the picture is of the swimming pool at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood. I visited it this past summer with my friend Kim Narisetti and her daughters.

It's a lovely place.

Strong people

On Saturday, I watched a woman in crutches, the very severe kind that wrap themselves around the user's arms, negotiate her way painfully around the small indoor mall where I sat under large skylights enjoying a light breakfast with my husband.

A man, her husband (?) followed this woman, reading from a book he held upright and keeping a good pace with her. Her hips swung exaggeratedly back and forth, moving her legs step by step. The couple moved in rhythm, determined in their own way.

Around them, women with small children chatted; white-haired senior citizens moved slowly and people sat in lounge chairs, engrossed in their cell phone screens or in the Sunday paper.

After a half hour, we went into the mall's movie theater and watched "The King's Speech."

George VI had a great many problems to manage, stuttering being not the least among them. What a time to have lived in! The end of the world seemed so near!

In the film, after his father has died, Bertie tells Lionel Logue that, on his deathbed, his father said Bertie (despite his impediment) was the strongest of all his sons.

After the movie, I thought about the woman in crutches, about Bertie the stutterer.

At least on Sunday, it seemed to me that the strongest among us are those who have the heaviest burdens to bear.

On a daily basis, why shouldn't that be more obvious?

A la rentree!

January and February are the hardest months of the year.

The holidays are over and the fuzzy glow of wonder over snow for Christmas has surrendered quickly to the inescapable irritation at having to: shovel snow and more snow, salt sidewalks, slide, slip, spend 30 minutes preparing to go outside, spend days in grey gloom and listen to radio, broadcast and cable news reports of impending dire weather. And aren't those piles of dirty snow, covered with ice, salt and road rubble lovely?

We need some post-holiday holidays.

Not Valentine's Day and not St. Patrick's Day. We need holidays that celebrate some time away from daily cares, that mark enjoying ourselves and our families, that recognize that everyone just needs a break when our world is so grim. No organized events, no sports, no airport lines or traffic jams, no artificial romance or gaiety. Just time to sit back and go skating or spend a day or two with a good book and some tea or meet friends for wine and cheese. And not have to feel you are squeezing pleasure and chores into the weekend.

The French have a mid-summer greeting for each other, "A la rentree," which roughly translated, means see you after August, when most French take vacation. "La rentree" is the return to the quotidian routine of work, school and family life.

I love the idea of an August-long break, but I love the idea of a mid-winter breather even better. I don't know what we would call it, but here's to the American "rentree."

The sooner the better. (Corporations and individuals: Feel free to implement. No need to thank me.)

January sky

Unsurprisingly, the days have been so cold since Christmas.

So why, since in the grand scheme of things winter is cold and snowy, do we have newspapers and television urging us to panic at the first sighting of a snowflake? Wouldn't it be nice if they just told us to have a nice day?

This Sunday morning was lovely; a slight drifting of snow under a pale grey sky brushed through the air. Twist and I walked through the park at around 11 a.m. and the sun broke through as we strolled; the snow on the ground seemed almost blue in the brightness, but so very lovely.

My friend Sharon and I caught up to "Black Swan" today, after weeks of dueling date suggestions. As I've had time to think about it, except for the fabulous scene in which Nina becomes the black swan at the end, too dreary of a film. I did love Nina's shrugs, grey sweaters and especially her pink coat. My coarse taste may be showing here, but I have to say I was totally spoiled by the Jim Carrey skit/riff on the movie a couple of weeks ago on Saturday Night Live. The movie felt like too much of Natalie Portman looking frightened and breathing in nervous gasps, with no explanation of why she was such a mess.

I remember my first pair of toe shoes when I was a ballet student. I wish I had kept them, it was such a huge step to go up from slippers to "en pointe." I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to be a dancer. At this stage of my life, I'm glad I didn't go in that direction. Still, some nights I walk past the Point Park dance studio along Boulevard of the Allies on my way to the light rail and see the students practicing. So pretty and so graceful. And so young.

We went for coffee after. On our way from the theater to the Caribou coffee shop at South Side works, we saw this courtyard fountain, iced over and running in the early dusk.

So opposite of what should be in January. And so pretty in a young year.

Play dates

C & I had homeowner business to attend to on Saturday, and we took it very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we slept on it till noon.

However, having fully contemplated through morning drowsing what we were about to do, once up, we grabbed the weekend with a vengeance.

New refrigerator to buy? Check.

Really nice dinner at Eleven in The Strip? Check and check!

Cramming in to a small bar performance space in Lawrenceville to hear a co-worker's band? Check!

Oh, and the band? A bunch of dads (i.e. old guys) but awesome in their joy at rocking on a Saturday night.

I thought about play on Sunday, dumping off newspapers and catalogs at the local Abitibi drop boxes by the library. There was a group of kids in the parking lot, 3 or 4 tween boys, a couple tween girls, flipping a Frisbee among themselves, laughing and yelling.

The girls were so cute, headbands and ponytails; one wore shorts, socks and tennies, the other leggings and tennies. So cold outside, but they were oblivious, the skin they hadn't covered bright red.

A long time ago, in France when I was a little girl, I remember watching boys bicycling to school in the coldest of temps, wearing shorts. Their skins was the same bright red. And they seemed oblivious, too.

For older people, play is hard work. But when you watch kids at it, you recognize how worthwhile it is.

Best line from the band audience on Saturday? The 60-something bald bass player went to the bar to get water for the 50-something drummer with the cramping finger and here is what I heard:

"That is, like, the coolest old dude ever, man!"

Play on!